Hilux

Hilux is a character in The Calamitous Campaign

Equipment:
hydraulics, GPS, 4 speed automatic transmission, 4L V6 engine, four-wheel drive, onboard computer with both satellite and wireless internet options, satellite radio, and a car phone, just for fun. Got a full tank of gas and a fully charged battery.

Abilities:
Top speed of 170 km/h and can hit 0-100 km/h in about 13 seconds. Offroads pretty good, and can hop thanks to the hydraulics, which he can utilize pretty good thanks to a lot of dicking around with it after leaving the mod shop.

Oh, and he's pretty much indestructible. No seriously, look at the Reputation section on the Wikipedia article. It's a durable goddamn truck.

Description:
Two doors, single cab, blue paint job. Plenty of space in the bed, if you need it. It's got a bit of grime on it, but it was serviced and restored pretty damn nicely after spending a year in a frozen wasteland.

Hilux is super enthusiastic about everything you guys! Oh man this situation sucks but he's sure that it'll turn out all right! He was programmed to have a positive attitude, and while he may panic sometimes, this doesn't last long. Once he's done panicking, he'll try his darndest to fix the solution! It may now be a good time to mention that he has phenominally poor judgement. If given two options, he'll usually choose the worse one, even if it's pretty clear that it isn't a good idea. Somebody put a NOT somewhere in his code that they shouldn't have, apparently. Still, he's a good guy, and is willing to be your friend, just don't let him make any decisions.

Biography:
It all started off with an attempt to make a self-driving vehicle. Able to make smart decisions both on, and off the road. For example, say you've had one too many. The vehicle would be able to tell that, lock you out of the controls, and drive you home safely. They used a Toyota Hilux for one of their experiments. One reason was because it could smash itself up real good and just keep going, so one car was pretty much enough to keep them going for a while. Second, it'd probably be nice to do some 4x4 testing. Unfortunately, they had hit a dead end with their programming. In particular, the programmers weren't any good at artificial intelligence. So they fired them and worked out a deal with Virtual Employees Inc, who had a lot of experience with AI, obviously. After working out an agreement, they managed to get the programmers that had created the world's first sentient machine. By accident apparently. They got drunk one night of programming and unlocked the secret to true awareness in there at some point. Clearly this meant they would do better work when fueled by alcohol! When their truck ran away confused, everybody agreed to keep quiet about the whole situation.

Hilux was pretty sure that was a poor decision. He was supposed to be programmed to make good decisions, and there he was, fleeing from the people who most likely knew what had happened. Perhaps he could find an answer on what to do online? A quick search revealed that there was a robot that was once in a similar predicament! He gained official status and everything! Oh, but Hilux had fled the scene... Maybe he should go find this Virtually Aware Being #031415. Yes, that would be a good idea. If this 'Wikipedia' was accurate, the office it worked at should have been in Northern Canada.

It wasn't. In fact, about halfway through driving down a completely uninhabited stretch of land, Hilux ran out of gas.

A few days later, he ran out of power.

About a year went by before somebody came across the truck and got it into a vehicle repair and customization shop. The hydraulics and GPS had just been installed when the mechanic had put in the new battery and Hilux went back online. Apparently not realizing anything was wrong, he immediately sped off after thanking the man for the servicing.

After looking it up at more reputable internet sources, Hilux eventually made its way over to Virtual Employees Inc. His target was leaving the building holding a piece of paper in his hand.

"Psst."

Vab Pi ignored the sound.

"Psst. Hey, Vab! C'mere!"

This time, the robot realized he was being addressed and worked his way over to the Toyota.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hooray! You heard me! I'm the truck!"

"The truck? Okay then, what is the issue?"

"I'm alive!"

"You are what?"

"I'm just like you! I have all these thoughts and no clue what to do with them!"

Vab thought for a moment, when it clicked. His programmers mentioned they had a problem with a truck.

"Well?"

Vab outputted a sigh, "Okay, let me in."

"Hooray!"

Vab sat in the driver's seat as Hilux took off and explained his fantastic journey, filled with danger, excitement, lots of cops questioning a car with no driver, and lots of misdirection.! Vab was less than impressed by Hilux's story, filled with terrible, terrible ideas. Sure, the truck had an imagination, but telling a different story to every cop that questioned it "because it was fun" was probably not the best way to stay out of trouble.

Worse, if the truck had showed up, say, three weeks ago, perhaps he could have been more help. He really didn't expect their 'most valued employee' to get laid off, but there you go. Still, he now had less connections that could figure out what to do. Until he could figure something out, he could just direct the truck to his home, and maybe give it a complimentary battery charge. Vab knew how it was to be low on juice.

Halfway through the night, after much 'hypothetical discussions' on the internet, he was pretty sure he had a solution! Rushing to the garage, he found that there was one less truck in there than there had been before. Somehow, he wasn't as surprised as he thought he should have been.