Year 0, Month 0, Week 1, Day 6, Hour 3, Minute 12
I spent a long time making the fabricator. The process took longer than expected, but in the end I managed to put it all together. The next problem I had to tackle was power. The nuclear battery was incredibly long lasting, but could only produce so much energy at once. To solve this problem, I used my new fabricator to make a few simple solar panels to absorb solar energy.
Then, I used a bit of the leftover metal from my body to make some batteries. This way, I would have a bit of backup power should I need it. As I finished that, the drillbots returned with a large load of Iron, copper, and even some nickel and cobalt.
“Huh. The surrounding earth is richer in metals than I thought.”
Their delivery made, the drillbots disappeared back into the ground again, back on the search for more metal. I put all the raw metal off to the side, and started refining and purifying each piece one by one. Melting the metal and removing the impurities took a while, but by the end I had a sizable amount of iron and copper to work with.
“Oh wait, I still have those weird orange fruits don’t I?”
Before I forgot, I also refined the fruits to get some essential materials I would need in the future. The noise woke the girl up. Slowly pushing herself up, she noticed the makeshift mattress and pillow she was laying on. She stared strangely at me as I was finishing up refining the orange fruits. Once I was done, I turned back to the human. I walked over to her and pointed at her leg, signaling that I wanted to check up on it. She begrudgingly allowed me to untie the cloth around the wound. Pulling it away, I saw that the cauterization process had worked well. Standing up, I used the fabricator to make an iron bucket. I motioned for the human to stay here, to which she nodded, and I left to go fetch some water. I searched around the area, and found a small rivulet from which I filled my bucket. On the way back, I collected an armful of firewood from dead trees and brought them along. When I got back, I crushed the smaller pieces of wood into shards for kindling, then used the fabricator’s laser to start a small fire. I made sure to keep it near the entrance so the smoke could escape more easily. Putting the bucket above the fire, I waited until it started boiling, then took the strip of cloth and soaked it. Walking back to the human, I pointed at the wet cloth in my hand, then pointed at her leg. She seemed to get the message and nodded, so I used the cloth to clean the area. I tenderly wiped the leg down, careful to not reopen the wound. She hissed in pain, but let me continue my work. Once the wound was clean, I put the cloth next to the fire to dry, then offered the bucket of clean water to the human to drink. She took it and drank a large amount, sighing in satisfaction when she was done. She repeated the words she had said before, so I was nearly certain they meant thank you.
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“I should learn her name. It would be more convenient to communicate if I knew it.”
I pointed at her, trying to get my message across. She looked confused, and I realized that I would have to find another way to ask. Remembering that the language she spoke seemed similar to latin, I wrote “nomen” on the wall. That was the latin word for name back on Earth, and it seemed she recognized it. Her face lit up in understanding, and she said “Aurea,” several times.
“Aurea?”
‘[Aurea translates to joyful in old latin.]”
“Good to know.”
Unexpectedly, she pointed at me and asked “nomen?”.
“Eve, translate my name into old latin.”
Going back to the wall, I carved my name, “Evan” on the rough stone using the old latin alphabet. Aurea repeated the name several times under her breath.
“I should take this opportunity to try some words out.”
I went back to the fabricator and made a speaker, and quickly installed it where a throat would be on a human. Going back to the human, who was looking at me curiously, I said “ Thank you, Aurea.”
The human jumped in surprise at my mechanical and monotone voice. She babbled a bunch of words I didn’t understand, and when it was apparent I had no idea what she was saying, she simply said, “Thank you, Evan,” back.
“Well, I’m glad that I was correct.”
Noticing her yawn, I mimed her going back to sleep, and she nodded her head and laid back down. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.
“Now it's back to work.”
“Now that my Chassis had been cannibalized, it was essential that I created backup Enforcers in the event that the one I was currently inhabiting was destroyed. First, I created several more drillbots and sent them to collect aluminum and iron. With the resources I had on hand, I also made 10 scouting drones, as I wanted to keep an eye on the human village and the area surrounding this abandoned mine.
“Honestly, this mine seems like a good place to set up a base. Plenty of metal around, mostly hidden, and plenty of other natural resources like wood and stone nearby. Plus, it's close enough to the human village to observe them but not so close that they will wander in all the time.”
“[I concur with this assessment.]”