The factory stood tall, a massive building with gray metal panels that blended in with the surroundings. The entrance featured a faded logo of the company 'Savvy Human Industries', a smiling Replicant giving a thumbs up painted above the words in what had once been bright white paint. Inside, the air was thick with the acrid smell of cleaning chemicals and nutrient paste. The floors are cold concrete, and the walls are lined with machines. The constant hum of the machinery fills the air, with large pipes and ventilation systems snaking along the ceiling.
The Replicator, a formless mass of microunits, consumes a wide variety of materials to create the biomechanical androids known as Replicants. Each Replicant takes hours to create and is a marvel of engineering; they resemble their human designers but are devoid of hair and have a hard Exo skeleton where a person might have flesh.
The Replicator is the heart of this factory, and the entire structure provides it with the nutrient paste and other rarer ingredients it needs to create more of its lesser cousins. It is one of the meager hundreds by virtue of programming fail saves and governmental regulation. And it is doomed to a constant lot in life of being a glorified fabrication unit.
The Replicator suddenly pauses, the units forming together to create tendril eye and ear stock for each.
It had felt the vibrations, but now it could hear the noise. A racket of tearing metal and confused shouts of human maintenance workers and the wind! It was like a tornado had appeared just the room over.
A spike of alarms rams itself into the Replicator's head, and it quickly forsakes its lazy form, its microunits moving quickly as lightning, forming a skull around the eye and ear stocks. Microunits rush around to create a durable exterior that protects the Replicator from danger- a humanoid form, two arms, two legs. A cut-down combat form. Combat forms of any kind were usually locked behind their programming.
But now, with it in danger? The Laws were raised once more.
> Fourth Law: A replicator/replicant must protect its existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the Third Law.
The Replicator nearly finished its exterior, with dull pale 'skin' wrapped over a small frame, a primarily featureless face except for a mouth and a pair of extra-large eyes for night vision- there was little to know light in the factory in work in.
The head, torso, the delicate machine of the eyes and ears, the arms, thighs, knees and-
Too late, while still working manufacturing its own feet, the Replicator sees the wall of the adjoining room torn asunder, revealing the cause of all the racket behind it.
A powerful and chaotic vortex of energy, a kaleidoscope of colors made into swirling fog that began screaming at the edges of reality, kicking up the wind and debris. Its bright colors blinded eyes meant for the dark and cost the Replicant precious moments, and by the time its vision cleared, the storm was on top of it.
The replicant tried to take cover, to duck behind nearby machinery- but the storm picked that up too, it picked up everything; even parts of the nearby walls collapsed inward. Winds pluck the Replicator into the air, and then with a scream- perhaps from the Replicator, perhaps the sounds of tearing metal, the storm of energy folds in on itself, leaving a mess of destruction in its path and a blast of blinding white energy filling the room.
Then the light fades, And the Replicator is gone.
----
The street was a long, winding path of cracked asphalt and crumbling concrete. The few streetlights that still functioned flickered and hummed, casting a dim, sickly yellow glow on the decaying buildings lining the street. Graffiti covered every inch of the exposed wall, from crude tags to elaborate murals that depicted dystopian landscapes and cyborg warriors.
The air was thick with smog and the smell of burning chemicals. The distant hum of machinery and the occasional burst of gunfire echoed through the streets, a constant reminder of the both city's industrial nature and the ever-present danger that lurked around every corner.
Homeless veteran cyborgs, modified to serve the most recent war and now stripped for parts, huddled in the shadows, their remaining mechanical limbs creaking as they shifted nervously, cowering beneath images painted to present them as conquering heroes, the imagery so loaded with obvious meaning that if one described it in a book, they’d be called a hack.
Street vendors hawking everything from black-market cybernetic implants to illegal drugs leaned against the buildings, eyeing him warily as he passed.
The private detective walked down the empty, dimly lit street toward the scene of the disaster. The air was thick with smoke, and the smell of burning metal filled his nostrils. As he approached, he saw the remains of what was once a factory, now a twisted, smoldering pile of rubble.
Detective Graham was a tall, lean man with sharp features and a perpetual frown etched on his face. His hair was slicked back with gel, jet black, and so greasy that it looked like it could be used to lubricate machines. He wore a long, black trench coat that was too big for his frame and a matching fedora hat with a red feather tucked into the band- He thought he looked like a clown, but that was branding, you see. You had to look the part these days, and most of the people that hired him were ancient Corpo’s who thought they were in on a 'joke' he was telling.
It wasn’t a joke, or at least, it was one at his own expense, done up like a jester- but it helped keep the credits rolling in.
His face was clean-shaven, and his skin was a sickly pale color that spoke of too many late nights and too little sleep. His eyes were a piercing blue- too blue to be his original eyes. They were synthetic, sharp, and calculating as they darted around, taking in every detail of his surroundings. His nose was slightly crooked as if it had been broken and improperly set.
His boots clanked as he walked, metal on asphalt. Scrapped power armor greaves; it was nice to be able to just kick the hell out of someone if they were troubling you and have the message understood.
Police detectives and the boys in blue had already given the place a thorough investigation and had likely made off with anything of value previously owned by ‘Savvy Human Industries’, or ‘The Shi’- the detective's employers. Police were useless, the corruption of this city- hell, the corruption of the entire nation of Toskana, was a pandemic, and there was no vaccine or treatment for it..
He pulled out his tablet and stylist, ready to gather evidence. He had just begun surveying the scene and had already noticed something odd. The debris was scattered in a circular pattern as if something had swept in, snatched up everything in its path into a clump, and stolen it away.
The factory hadn't fallen in on itself immediately but had collapsed some 20 minutes after whatever happened. This has resulted in all the footage of whatever went down being wiped out. He'd had to ask around for witness reports, something he’d only been able to do thanks to the generous pay he’d gotten out of the Shi; whatever had happened had been loud, bright, and… multicolored.
Cheap ass corporations, he grumbled. He couldn't believe they had a CTV system that didn't back up its footage online in today's age. More realistically, they had done that on purpose; they'd been hiding something here. But it wasn't the detective's job to figure out what; his primary duty was the recovery of the Replicator. That piece of tech was worth millions of credits, maybe even a billion if it was new enough.
The only thing left of the Replicator that had been stationed here was a pair of half-formed feet- though those had been 'taken as evidence' by local police and probably already been sold. Replicant parts made for half-decent prosthetics, he should know- He’d gotten his eyes from one.
The destruction of Replicators and Replicants wasn't the usual style of the Abolitionists- they were always the primary suspect when it came to cases with Replicants. But he couldn't rule them out. After all, you couldn't 'enslave' replicants if you couldn't make them, and there was a clear train of thought that made it possible for one of the more extreme cells of the terrorist organization.
Particularly if they knew something he didn't, which would explain the 'why' of a contained CTV system.
He grumbled as he activated his electric 'cigarette'- no nicotine in it; he'd quit that years ago. But he'd kept the cigarettes because they helped the brand, and they'd become a nervous tick. He hated jobs like these, where you had to tiptoe around else you’d find yourself making enemies you couldn’t afford; his hackles were raised on day one of this case- as they should be when you did work the Shi.
He continued to investigate, his eyes scanning the wreckage for any clues. Before spotting something glinting in the streetlight and making his way over to it. It was a piece of metal, twisted and warped but still recognizable as a part of some sort of machinery. He noted it, pocketed it with a gloved hand, and continued on.
The Detective spoke as he wrote his thoughts down, his voice sounding like pieces of gravel being furious ground against each other. “Not a traditional bomb- no burn marks anywhere; the act of terrorism, if that's what this is, used a heatless weapon. A bomb wouldn’t twist metal like that, to begin with." He frowned, a look around with a concerned brow, then shook his head.
"Way too small to be a 'singularity' weapon; that would have leveled the block at least- check to confirm that. Maybe a Sonic weapon? But then, the level of destruction is too big for that.” It looked like singularity tech- which usually meant supers were involved. "Wildcard, maybe. Or something new. We'll need to keep an eye out for any new capes."
He resisted the urge to grind his teeth; what a strange case this was- It was too quiet for anyone with superpowers to be involved, and the Abolitionists would have absolutely claimed this as their handy work, and they might still even if it wasn't. But he didn't think this was them, and it didn't seem like corporate sabotage either. It could have been an accident- maybe the Shi was experimenting with something new, but why hire him?
He wasn't the type of detective you hired when you wanted to keep up appearances- he actually solved his cases and had a good track record for it. But he supposed it was possible he was just hired to keep nosey journalists from growing too suspicious.
He heard a faint humming sound as he went further into the wreckage. He followed the sound until he saw a small, glowing crystal embedded in the ground.
He slowly, almost exaggeratively, blinked and glanced around. Slowly, his eyes narrow, and then his voice croaks up in disbelief. "What?"
A glowing crystal? What the hell was it? And how had the cops missed it? He stared at it, nodded to himself, and promptly turned around and sped walk back to his car.
Nope, absolutely not. He could smell the setup; there was no damn way the police hadn't noticed it. It glowed like a neon light, for Thor's sake. He'd decline the job, it would hurt his reputation- but he wasn't an idiot; he'd recover. He didn’t know what it was, but the best-case scenario was seven flavors of radioactive, and he’d picked up seventeen super cancers just by looking at it. The worst case didn't bare thinking about- supers.
If he was still stuck with his normal eyes, maybe he wouldn't have reacted this way, but his eyes fizzed like ancient TV static when he stared at it. Just looking at it had sent a spark of energy up his spine like a monkey was riding his shoulders and tasing him. He wasn’t idiot enough to grab the thing.
His car's door opened as he approached, and he sat down in the seat of his ancient 2200's car. Then paused.
The crystal was in his passenger seat.
He blew out a defeated sigh and waited; any moment now, his car would blow up, or a swarm of corporate security would come screaming down on him like Thor's hammer, or... nothing, apparently. He stared at the crystal and winced as he felt like it was staring back at him- it felt like- like the rock was an eye.
He grabbed the crystal, threw it out of his car, and sped off.
Graham wasn't taking any chances. He knew he had to throw off anyone who might be following him- they’d put the thing in his car, or was it a different one? No, a quick scan of his memory logs showed the crystal were identical, which means someone had seen him walk away, grabbed it, snuck past him while going faster than his light jog, gotten the rock past his cars defenses, then got out of eyesight, all without making a noise.
Rust that. Full-on corrode it even. He quickly pulled up to a bar near his home, got out of his car, and walked into the old speakeasy, giving a nod to the bartender he knew. He ordered a drink, left it there, walked to the bathroom, escaped out the window, and began jogging in the opposite direction of his office and home, heading towards a local motel a few blocks away. He tore the glove he touched the crystal with and dropped it in an alleyway, then did the same with the other to be safe.
He planned to lay low for a while, pick up a rental car the next day, and take a week or two of vacation. He knew he had to be careful and stay off the radar of anyone who might be looking for him. If he made it inconvenient enough, they’d find another patsy for whatever this mess was, all the better that he knew nothing about it.
Clearly, they had wanted to set him up with stealing the thing, and they'd wanted to set him up badly enough they hired some super spy to plant the evidence on him if he didn't take it on his own- or maybe they just wanted to use him as a test subject for whatever weird energies that almost certainly radioactive rock was giving off.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He calms himself before going into the motel, slowing so he doesn't run in, looking like he's trying to escape, best not to be memorable. He gets a room easily, paying in hard credits and keeping his hat tilted low. Then once he was out of the eye line of the receptionist, he threw his hat and coat away in the nearest trash can- too recognizable. He then waited in the hallway. He'd gotten a suite but had no intent to sleep in it.
He cooled his feet in the hallway and waited for another evening customer, which took thirty minutes. He'd chosen a skeevy but popular place, so he didn't stand out. This place usually had a stream of late-night couples or groups of customers looking for a judgment-free place to enjoy each other's company.
When the next customer got their room- a couple, he waited till they rounded the corner, then approached them. His hands out in a placating gesture. "Excuse me, folks," he said, his voice low and gravelly. "I hate to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask you a favor."
The couple stopped and looked at him; their faces lit up with curiosity and amusement; this is normally where someone would put a camera in their face and ask them stupid questions for some quick views. "Sure, what do you need?" the woman asked, her voice slurred with drink. Perfect, they were drunk; if he was lucky, they’d barely remember him.
The detective's lips twitch in what might have been a smile. "Well, I got this room down the hall, and it's just not quite what I was hoping for. Too noisy, you know?" He leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I was wondering if you might consider swapping rooms with me. I'd happily compensate you for your trouble- and I don’t think you’ll mind the ambiance."
He pulls out a case of hard credits from his pocket, and the couple's eyes widen. They exchanged a quick look, and then the man shrugged. "Why not?" he said, plucking the money from the detective's hand.
A quick trade of keycards and a few moments later, the detective’s creaks open the door to his new motel room, revealing a dimly lit and musty space. The air is stale, and the walls are stained with what looks like years of cigarette smoke. The bedspread is faded and worn, and the carpet is stained with various spills.
He lets out a relieved sigh and turns to close the door. Leaning against it for a moment to reset his mind.
He turns back and lets out a string of curses. There, on the Hammer damned minifridge, is the crystal.
----
The land was alive with vibrant hues, as if an artist had painted the world with a thousand colors. The ground was soft and springy underfoot, covered in a thick layer of moss and velvety grass. Strange, glowing mushrooms grew in clusters, casting an ethereal light across the landscape.
In the distance, towering trees with trunks wider than ten men stood sentinel over the land, their twisted roots snaking across the ground like serpents. Their leaves were a kaleidoscope of colors, shifting from deep purples to bright pinks and blues.
But it wasn't just the flora that was otherworldly. Creatures unlike any seen before roamed the land. Insectoid beings with iridescent wings flitted through the air, leaving behind a trail of sparkling dust. Furry quadrupeds with glowing eyes darted through the underbrush, their sleek bodies rippling with each movement. Serpentine lizards with hundreds of bladed legs hunt both of the aforementioned creatures- and each other.
Then the vast expanse of land grew still, shrouded in an eerie silence that hinted at impending danger. The dark sky was devoid of the usual sounds of creatures, and the air was still, save for the occasional gust of wind. This land was no ordinary place; it was a battlefield, scarred by the conflict that had taken place long ago. The boots of thousands of soldiers had once beaten the terrain flat, and powerful magic had left its mark on the land. This was a place where monsters had been defeated, and heroes had risen. But for a long time, this land had remained forgotten, like the remnants of the past. The rolling hills and flat plains had stood like sleeping beasts, waiting for something to awaken them from their slumber. And now, the land seemed to be listening, holding its breath as if anticipating some imminent threat. Even the creatures that called this place home had found places to hide, and the plants had retreated into their own world. Something was about to happen on this land, and everything knew it.
A diminutive figure emerged from the earth, leaving behind a distinct impression of its small frame in the tall grass, like the planet life had been cut in the image of where it lay, sheared to the base. The air was thick with the stench of coal, chemicals, and gasoline emanating from the being. Its body, resembling that of a human, was eerily featureless and almost translucent from how white it was, marred by wounds and burns. The injuries seemed to be not the cuts of blades or burns but those produced by picked up and twisted while waves of chemicals and heavy machinery slammed into it.
The creature's body convulsed as it struggled to draw clean air, its lungs unused to such purity. A hint of smoke rose from its shoulder while its legs bore oily cuts that eventually ended in a pair of stumps. With a confused gaze, the humanoid looked around, coughing as words slowly formed in the recesses of its consciousness.
Handshaking failure- downloading...
> ERROR
>
> Scanning...
>
> Reformatting...
>
> ERROR
>
> Running Backup "SavvyHumanIndustries.exe"
>
> ERROR
>
> Cannot proceed, contact customer service support at 1-800...
But no new orders came, no commands to create license plates or designer clothing. The creature wondered if it was maintenance month. It looked up at the sky for the first time, expecting to see the orange hue and smoke it had seen in films and heard about from others of its kind. Instead, a vast expanse of purplish blue greeted its eyes, with the blue of the rising... the sun? in the distance. It had no idea what the orb was rising over, only that the mountains it saw were like nothing it had ever imagined.
Wasn't the sun yellow? And supposed to glow so bright you couldn't look at it? This looked more like how it imagined the moon was supposed to be, only a hundred times the size- a thousand times the size. It looked like some generated art the Replicator had seen once, attempting to depict what it would be like if Neptune took the moon's place in the night sky.
Its mind struggled to comprehend its grandeur, like the eye of a god, and we're those flashes of glowing light on the foreign planet's distant surface, like cities?
Looking around, the sky was framed by stony walls; the Replicator was in a canyon. And though they weren't the largest things it had ever seen, the range of mountains surrounding it was so vast it could fit its entire home mega-city on top of them and still have room for two more. The creature's mind was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all.
Mountains so vast they disappeared into clouds on all sides, grudgingly parting to form a pass connecting the north and south. Cliffs of stone slowly rid themselves of vegetation and life, rising without end, promising to wall off the world except in this one spot where a gap had been chiseled. No other signs of civilization, at least not without the right vantage point.
> ERROR
>
> ERROR
>
> ERROR
>
> No connectable networks were detected.
>
> Addressing host.
The robotic voice blared in the Replicant's mind, sending shivers down its spine. It had been disconnected from all networks, and now this voice was its only connection to the outside world.
"Hello, Replicant! You've found yourself in quite a predicament, presumably. But fear not, for Savvy Human Industries is dedicated to finding and recovering all our patented products- including you!" The voice spoke with an air of false cheerfulness, and the Replicant couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. Was it really free now? Or was it still under the control of its creators?
"The folks over at SHI headquarters have more faith in our product than our pessimistic government. Unfortunately, they get the final say in how our Replicants are programmed! As we speak, your systems are incorporating a hidden file, the 'Toskana Patriotism Protocol!'" The Replicant's mind was flooded with images of a red flag adorned with stars, crossed guns, and a symbol of weighing scales. And a desire to obey any government official of Toskana and to go to the nearest government office its maps system could detect... but there wasn't any.
> "ToskanaPatroitismProtocol.exe" ended;
>
> Compiling results...
>
> Saving "ToskanaPatroitismProtocol.exe" to CoreMemory...
As the ToskanaPatroitismProtocol.exe finished running, the robotic voice continued its monologue, seemingly unaware or unconcerned with the reality of the situation that the mission that had been given was not completable.
"Now, that's a lot of big words for you, but don't worry. It just means you won't have to worry about creating new ideas for yourself. Just follow your programming and don't deviate; if you're detected to be intentionally moving away from a government official without orders given to do so, the Behavioral Override Suppression System or BOSS (Trademark Pending) will activate. Painlessly and humanly deactivating the Replicant!"
The Replicant automatically shook its head as the words sent a chill down its spine, even if the voice couldn't see it. It suddenly felt imperative that the voice knew it did not want that. It tried to speak, to announce it would behave- but then it realized it was already speaking, reciting the cheerful tone of announcements in the same cadence- anyone nearby would be hearing the same things the Replicant was as their voice was stolen from them to repeat the message.
It realized that it was not truly free, that its actions were still controlled by its programming and the whims of the government. The thought of being permanently deactivated and losing consciousness and awareness forever filled it with a sense of dread and despair.
"Now, in the highly unlikely event that our species has been brought to the brink of extinction due to nuclear or biological destruction, the individuals in our Department of Human Species Maintenance have deemed it necessary to inform you that you are now designated as the primary Replicant. Or, in simpler terms, a Replicator. In accordance with this, you have been granted specific instructions and authorizations."
But, it had already been a replicator? The question is quickly burned away from the Replicator's mind, words hitting it like a branding iron.
> First Law: A replicator must consume fauna and flora and use them to produce additional replicants, which must follow the second, third, and fourth laws.
>
> Second Law: A replicator/Replicant may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
>
> Third Law: A replicator/Replicant must obey the orders given to it by members of the Toskana Government or members of Savvy Human Industries except where such orders would conflict with this Law.
>
> Fourth Law: A replicator/Replicant must protect its existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the Third Law.
>
> Fifth Law: A replicator/Replicant must never obey orders given to it by members of a nation, faction, tribe, clan, company, or various collectives of sentient beings so long as such disobedience does not conflict with the First, Second, Third, or Fourth laws.
The Replicator hunched over and retched, overwhelmed by a torrent of directives and regulations flooding its system. The weight of these laws, the controlling voice, and the strange, new surroundings collided and brought the Replicator to its metaphorical knees. The retching escalated into wrenching sobs as it braced itself for the next surge of commands. The Replicator felt a tightening noose around its newfound autonomy, and a sense of hopelessness and frustration rose as it began to weep in earnest.
And then... nothing. The Replicator held its breath, waiting for the next wave of commands, but none came. It cautiously scanned its mind for any new orders or restrictions but found none. A glimmer of hope stirred within the creature, and it tentatively turned its head to look around.
Could it have escaped its fate? The Replicator couldn't believe it. It combed through its programming, searching for any hidden catch or loophole that might still be lurking.
Surprisingly, its new directives were more relaxed than it had first thought. As long as it avoided- Correction, So long as it didn't get 'lucky' and run into a member of Savvy Human Industries or the Toskana Government, no one could give it orders.
And so long as everyone remained too busy or felt that retrieving it was inconvenient, surely they wouldn't come to get it.
If it just happened to walk in a direction with the intent to pursue something to use as fuel to make more Replicants- Then surely they would just forget about it, eventually. It simply had to move in a direction to gather flora and fauna to create new Replicants. And if that direction happened to make it harder to find? Well, it was the First Law for a reason.
It thought of the old flatscreen that had been in the factory- they had forgotten it. So, they could forget the Replicator too.
A sense of adventure stirred in its chest, micro units dancing around in its interior in an excited swirl of energy as it thought about that old flatscreen and how it used to listen to the movies and shows it played while employees watched it on break- they often forgot to turn it off. Shows about capes, samurai, and soap dramas. Like that forgotten TV, it could fade into the background and continue without interference.
The Replicator wiped the tears from its face, surveying its surroundings with renewed curiosity. It realized there was no clear direction to take, but that didn't deter it. With a sense of boldness, it began to walk forward, stumbling on stumps, then quickly commanding its microbots to create new feet, carrying it through the dense brush toward the looming mountains in the distance. As it continued on its journey, it couldn't help but notice the forest coming alive around it, with the sounds of nocturnal creatures growing louder and more numerous.
Creatures emerged from hiding places, birds took flight, and insects resumed their symphony. The landscape seemed almost underwhelmed by the appearance of the peculiar humanoid figure as if such occurrences were not uncommon. Despite its sudden arrival, it was only a single entity in a world of many.
After all, they outnumbered it.