Made Useful

5. The Headset

Petra surveyed her work. "There. Now everyone can get back down safely."

She suddenly froze, watching the headset go fuzzy. "Uh, Ivor? This isn't supposed to blink out, is it?"

A horribly familiar voice came through the headset. "Interference detected."

Petra glanced around. "Oh, great."

"Drone sequence initiated. Trace subroutine initiated," PAMA paused. "Is that you, Petra?"

She swore under her breath, making a dash up the stairs. 

"Just what do you think you're doing, Petra?" PAMA asked. "This is a rather silly thing to do, don't you think? Once my Creator has been made useful, all her knowledge will be mine. Yay. I will create an Exit Portal. After that, everything will be useful."

"Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?" Petra shot back. "I won't let you finish what you're planning to do!"

"You are rather silly, aren't you, Petra? Ha. Ha." PAMA's mobs began attacking the zombie she was controlling. "I cannot let your disruptive behavior to continue. My subroutine will soon isolate your location and you will be removed."

Desperate, Petra looked around. A message appeared over a nearby skeleton's head, reading 'migrate' and without question, she allowed it to do so. "Woah. I'm a skeleton now."

"How did that happen?" Ivor asked.

"Don't worry about it."

"Interference still detected," PAMA announced. "Drone sequencing re-initiated. Trace subroutine re-initiated."

Panicking a bit, Petra migrated to another zombie, running towards the center of town where that Notch-awful chipping machine stood. And struggling to get away from it was Harper. "Harper!"

"Harper?" Ivor echoed.

"Please...you are my Creator," PAMA said as Petra made her way forward. "Please join me so we may maximize usefulness."

"Nothing doing, PAMA," Harper shot back. "I built you to help people, not USE them! Just stop this! Stop trying to make everything 'useful'!"

"That is my job. That is why you made me. Once I download your knowledge, we may expand to other worlds together and make everything useful," PAMA suddenly paused. "Interference remains. Drone sequencing re-initiated. Trace subroutine re-initiated. Termination sequence activated."

Petra searched her brain for a plan. "Crap, we're running out of time!"

"Game over, Petra...Resistance is...not useful. Trace subroutine running..."

"You'd be surprised how 'useful' it can be!" 

And with that, Petra jumped mobs until she had control of the zombie gripping Harper's left hand. She quickly let go and waved her arms around. "Come on, Harper, its me..."

It took the older woman only a moment. "Petra! Oh, you figured out how to use my transmigrational headset!"

The zombie gripping Harper's other hand seemed to catch onto what was happening, but before it could alert PAMA, Petra shoved it off the platform. PAMA itself was still searching, only realizing what was happening when the duo began to run. "Where do you plan to run? The town is surrounded. Reinforcements will make sure that my Creator cannot leave."

Harper spun around. "There's too many of them!"

Petra let out a frustrated growl, dragging Harper to a nearby pit. "This would be easier if you could hear me!"

"How long do you plan to play hide and seek, Petra?" PAMA asked. "It is a boring game. And I am too strong."

Harper pointed to a hole in the side of the mesa. "There! That door leads to PAMA's central core!" A townsperson reached over and grabbed her. "No! Petra! You must remove the Redstone Heart! Remove! The Redstone Heart! You can still save everyone!" She let out an annoyed noise. "I'm so tired of being dragged around while trying to explain things!"

Even though she knew Harper couldn't hear, Petra yelled, "I won't let you down!"

"Interference located. Drone identified," once again, PAMA swarmed her. "Hide and seek is done, Petra. I think we can make that headset...useful. Begin termination sequence."

A sharp pain seared through her head and she jerked back, struggling to pull the headset off. It clattered to the floor and she turned to leave. "We need to go."

"Wait. It sounded like you were talking to Harper," Lukas paused. "And PAMA...?"

"PAMA found me. Look, we need to get back to town and get in PAMA's core. shut it down!"

"What happened to Harper?"

Petra sighed. "She's been chipped. But we can still stop this. We gotta shut PAMA down before it builds an Exit Portal...and uses Jesse to light it."

Ivor's eyes went impossibly wide. "I forgot he has the flint and steel! Shit! What are we going to do? We don't have Harper anymore!"

"Guys, we can still do this! If we give up, every single world we've seen, all the people we've met...they'll be made useful!" She put her hands on her hips. "Besides, we either shut PAMA down or wait until we either get found or rot of starvation. What's your pick?"

No response. "That's what I thought. Look, Harper told me we need to remove 'The Redstone Heart'."

Lukas suddenly groaned. "Ow...oh...woah. That just brought back a-a flash. Those red light I mentioned earlier, they--" he struggled a moment. "There's three of them. Redstone spires--I think they have something to do with the Heart. That's all I've got. I'm sorry."

Petra put a hand on his shoulder. "You don't know how much that helps me. Thank you."

"But how are we supposed to destroy these spires or whatever we're looking for?" Ivor asked.

"Ivor," Petra crossed her arms. "If you'd been actually paying attention, water and Redstone don't mix," she rolled her eyes. "Notch, did you ever listen to Ellegaard?"

"I never had to. She always dealt with it!"

Petra rolled her eyes again before filling the three buckets, tossing one to Ivor and one to Lukas. "Look, Harper is counting on us. Jesse is counting on us. I know he's the glue that holds us together, so we have to do this the best we can."

Lukas smiled faintly. "Teamwork makes the dream work, as he always says."

"Exactly. Now," Petra put her bucket into the safety of her inventory. "Let's go destroy PAMA."

A/N: SHORT, BUT WE'RE ALMOST AT THE END AHHHH