Rep remained unfazed by the familiar intrusion of prompts into their thoughts. They had grown accustomed to such spontaneous intrusions of their thoughts and visual sensors long ago. However, an inexplicable surge of anxiety sent their heart pounding wildly within their chest. With a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, they apprehensively shifted their gaze toward the text that lay before them.
They paused to combat the overwhelming wave of emotion and realized that this prompt wasn't what they thought it was. It didn't consist of fresh directives, new laws, or more regulating lines of code. No new manacles around their burgeoning free or further limitations on their thoughts. It was, however, nonsense.
They shook their head to clear themself of emotion. A Gourmand? or, a [Gourmand]? Was there a distinction between the two? And why was it colored blue? And what exactly did the term 'Domain of Gluttony' refer to?
Culinary Intuition.. it was red? what was-
Suddenly, an object appeared in Rep's eye line. It was a card floating in the air and adorned with an intricate piece of artwork and the words 'Gourmand' and 'Culinary Intuition.' written on its top and bottom in blue and orange ink, respectively. at the center of the card stood a Replicant, a strangely... plump model of Replicant, exuding an air of contentment as it savored a ladle full of something delicious. Surrounding the Replicant was an array of partially cooked dishes that it seemed to be in the process of making. Perched atop its head was a tall, white, cylindrical hat, while a light apron and comfortable-looking casual attire that a Replicant would normally never be allowed to wear.
Driven by curiosity, Rep reached up and grabbed at it and found they actually could. It had a presence that wasn't quite there. But they were still able to pinch it between two fingers. Rep flipped the card, revealing a series of twelve circles on its back, eleven of which remained vacant. However, one circle stood out, filled with an emblem of a bowl of grapes.
What? What was this? Why had it appeared? It's like they'd summoned it when they'd thought of it. They tried again, conjuring the words 'Taste Proficiency' into their mind, and found another card appearing in their vision. Rep grabbed that one as well and looked it over.
Like its predecessor, it bore the word 'Gourmand' at the top, while its name occupied the bottom. The backs of both cards shared the same design, featuring the eleven empty spheres and the twelfth filled with an emblem of a bowl of grapes. Yet, any resemblance ended there. The card, 'Taste Proficiency,' its name written in red ink, depicted a wild-looking Replicant, its mouth pouring forth microunits onto what appeared to be the freshly severed leg of a horse or elk. Draped in tattered animal furs, the Replicant crouched in a snowy landscape, its features contorted with a manic expression.
What were these? The prompt had called them Skills- but what did that mean in this context? Why were they colored? What did the word 'Hearth' and 'Hunt' mean in this situation? Taste Proficiency must have been responsible for the sudden surge of diverse flavors experienced from the remnants of their meal. But what did it mean to be 'proficient' at 'tasting'. Rep was quite certain that micro units should be capable of producing a delicate sense of 'taste.'
They experimentally tried dropping the cards, one after the other. Both vanished, then reappeared with a similar summoning by mentally invoking their names.
They looked over the 'Taste Proficency' card again. The flavors weren't really different, were they? They'd been there before; now they were just... richer, deeper? They didn't have words for it; there was just more taste per taste, as if that made any sense.
The sudden appearance of the prompt had knocked them out of their pseudo-food coma. The satisfaction of the meal was still there, but now it was buried with a nagging curiosity.
"Can I check the skills to see what they do?" They mused aloud. "System, interface? Open skill menu, open skill list. Shop? Search for 'Skills'"
Nothing, they bemoaned their lacking education; they could have sworn they'd heard something like this before, though that had been related to more traditional warriors and magic users and whatnot from stories. Videogames, probably. They'd worked once alongside two other Replicators, at one point where one of their number, Replicator #3428, had backdoor access to video games and media depicting concepts like these- but they didn't actually remember any details about the conversations they'd had with their peer. All those memories had been uploaded to the cloud and hidden inside weird and rarely used replicant blueprints, so technicians looking to save storage space didn't purge the memories- or worse, actually watch them and take away 3428's backdoor access.
"Ugh." They threw up their hands. Banging their head against a wall, trying to figure out the cards was useless. They had no data, no point of reference. They wouldn't figure it out on their own, and they would just have to find somebody to ask questions. "Okay then, new list."
Find water, done; find food, done- at least for now. They were close to having enough microunits to make a new replicant, and the law was beginning to grind against their consciousness, but they helpfully reminded the bit of subconscious programming they needed to organize themselves or risk breaking other laws, which managed to calm down the nagging program. Tools had been acquired, and shelter was the only thing on their old list that needed to be checked off.
"Okay, so. I find people- I bet people will have shelter, so we'll make that 1A and 1B. Once I find people, I ask questions- so that's... this is a pretty short list, actually. Asking questions is two, then."
They hummed, then rethought it as the law ground against their metaphorical cortex.
"Fine! One is to make a Replicant- I'm close to it anyway and could use an extra set of hands; I'll need to get them clothes and tools, too, so I'll backtrack to what's left of the factory. And grab everything I can- we can, I guess. 1A and 1B will be relabeled 2A and 2B, respectively, and questions become 3. I'll figure out questions to ask while I walk."
Ah, there we go, they thought. A plan, nice and orderly. They began to stride back to where the storm of energy had placed them in this world, now looking at the flora with a discerning eye for food- they needed several thousand more calories to push them over the edge of making even the cheapest model of Replicant. Nothing seemed to stand out till their eyes fixed on a nearby tree- though it wasn't really the tree they were looking at.
Moss would taste bitter but edible- it might be slightly acidic or spicy. If only they had some salt. Boiling it would make it safer to eat and thus reduce the energy expenditure required for digestion, giving them a better calorie net overall. The boiling would also soften the fibrous structure and release some of its latent nutrients...
Woah. They stopped.
"Where did that come from?" They eyed the moss suspiciously; they didn't know how to prepare moss- but this hadn't felt like it had with the talkative tree; the moss wasn't telling Rep how to eat it. That had come from them. How had they known that? Was this the other skill card at work?
With renewed curiosity, they approached the moss and plucked a small piece to examine it more closely. With a thought, they summoned the 'Culinary Intuition card again, peering at it, then with a furrowed brow, they brought the moss up to their lips, hesitating for a moment before taking a small bite. The taste was bitter, but there was also a hint of sweetness they hadn't expected. It wasn't unpleasant, maybe a bit sad to eat a whole lot of its own, and boiling a lot of it would be... very reminiscent of the nutrient paste, if way lower in calorie values.
"Okay, so it's edible'." Rep frowned at it. "Not exactly a gourmet delight, are you? I'll need to boil you- which is all you deserve for making it hard to climb Wyatt. There has to be something I could boil water in back at the ruins of the factory."
"Wait... fire." They sighed. They had no way to make a flame.
"Damn it," they murmured; they'd have to eat it raw. When eaten in high quantities, they'd need to burn calories to purge anything poisonous from the moss. They did a quick estimate in their mind before groaning. They required almost 100,000 calories to make a replicant with the cheapest blueprint they had stored locally, the Scoreblade had provided more than that, but much of it had been burned to make repairs.
Rep had a 'surplus' of about 90,000 now, already turned into micro-units, which somewhat inconveniently added density, actually causing them to slowly sink into the soft earth, and they had to pad around or risk getting stuck. Which meant they kept burning more calories they would if they were lighter. They grumbled. "I shouldn't have eaten all of the Scoreblade at once."
Rep began working their way through a fistful of the moss, calculating. Each handful of this moss would take 10-15 seconds to eat, giving them a net of 10 calories.
They glared at the moss again. "I don't wanna have to eat you for... 3 and a half hours?" They looked around again- but while there were plenty of things they could eat, they'd all have tighter net calorie gains- besides maybe the tree itself, but only maybe. Their new skill card apparently didn't recognize the trees as food, and Rep wasn't sure if they'd want to chew away at one of the probably-not-sentient trees even if it did.
They slouched, sighing, then took two handfuls of moss and started eating, walking towards the point the storm had dropped them off while they grabbed handful after handful off nearby trees.
As they continued to walk through the forest, they found themselves paying closer attention to the plants and trees around them. They saw things they had never noticed before, and their mind was buzzing with possibilities; there were many edible things here- but most would need fire to be made palatable- most everything would taste even worse than the raw moss without it. "I wonder if the card can find medicine- you eat some types of medicine, right?" They didn't need medicine, but maybe they could trade it with someone for better food or a way to make fire.
To get their mind off the mouthful of bitter moss, their mind wandered. What was the source of these strange abilities? It seemed unlikely they were the only ones with them, but maybe it was a quirk of their programming. Some ingrained boon a game-addicted programmer had put in them. It would have to have been incredibly experimental- but then again, Rep was Replicator #42. Which meant they were utterly elderly, 15 years old. That was 15 years of people tinkering with their programming, though those modifications were usually not a part of Rep's base code- which seemed to be the only thing they were presently running on. But If someone had installed a whole bunch of data onto Rep, they wouldn't know unless whoever had done it had left memories of the fact.
They shivered, no, no it wasn't feasible; their micro units couldn't have modified themselves to give Rep a better sense of taste, probably anyway. But the knowledge base of identifying the moss as edible had come from nowhere. Rep was sure these plants weren't native to Earth, so how would they know how to prepare them? No, where they were getting this information, it had come from this new... place they were in. Maybe Rep was somehow getting signals meant for whatever the local equivariant of a Replicant was?
For now, they'd presume they weren't the only one, but if they could, they'd ask whatever equivalent to a Replicant they could find in this place first. Failing that, someone with low authority. The homeless and wretched- they could trade for information that way, give them tools and a jumpsuit, maybe. They had more than they'd ever reasonably need.
They entered the clearing where they'd been dropped off for the third time, looking over the machinery. They'd suffered even more damage; more crows? Or the same one, returning for more? Rep chooses to believe the latter since one super crow seemed more manageable than a murder of them.
They clicked their tongue, looking at the damage to the machinery. "Cici's kind of intense."
There were some peck marks in the lockers now, but otherwise, no severe damage. Rep sighed melodramatically as they realized now that they were here, they couldn't use the journey to distract themselves from having to eat the moss.
Of course, it was better than the nutrient paste- Rep was beginning to doubt anything worse than nutrient paste existed, but they had to eat so much of it! Rep stopped at the nearest tree entering the clearing and began to eat, stepping up onto a root so they didn't have to constantly shuffle their feet to avoid sinking.
Hours ticked by, and Rep had a realization. Shouldn't the sun be showing by now? They'd assumed they arrived at night, a bright night, but night nonetheless. But looking around, it hadn't gotten any brighter, or darker for that matter. Looking upward showed the same sky Rep had seen when they first arrived. The clouds were different, and the floating specks of stone-not-stars had moved around. But the planet, not Neptune? And the real stars themselves? They all held their place.
They looked up and murmured. "Is it a screensaver?" It had the look to it, an unrealistic, unchanging sky with a handful of animated parts. It was practically a commonplace backdrop of every computer they'd ever seen. At least those that hadn't been customized by its user and thus replaced with either scandalous art or a picture of a car, anyway.
Rep shook their head, trying to dispel the absurd thought. No, it couldn't be a screensaver, and this was real. They were really on a strange planet with unknown abilities and limited resources. And if this was a simulation or experiment? Some VR game or something else? If they were being watched.
"Shut up," Rep told themselves, Shaking their head and trying to silence a pessimistic train of thought. It was pointless to dwell on such things when they had more pressing matters to attend to, and they could worry about the nature of their existence later.
Rep turned their attention outward and focused on the moss because, suddenly, it was the most palpable of the thoughts in their head. Hours one through two became three and four. They'd underestimated how much moss they'd need, and there was a pile of green muck by their feet, excess waste that couldn't be broken down efficiently from consuming the stuff. Rep walked around it, strode over to the lockers before sitting atop one, and set about their task.
Making a replicant was a funny business, as it required an immense amount of energy, focus, and patience. Rep had to carefully manipulate the microunits, ensuring they were arranged correctly to create the desired structure. It was a delicate process, and one mistake could ruin the entire Replicant. But Rep was experienced in this, having made countless replicants in their time. They worked methodically, focusing on the task and blocking out distractions.
Each microunit had to slowly build the replicant piece by piece and then assign other micro units to bring those pieces together, like over complicated building blocks. This Replicant was Rep's cheapest stored model, costing a measly hundred thousand calories to make, though some specialized parts were required, namely a source microunit- at least one. These little guys made it possible for the Replicant to heal. They could make more of themselves but had rigid programming to not allow them to replicate enough to make another Replicant- unless you had access to the permissions all Replicators did.
Eventually, after several hours of intense work, the Replicant was complete. It was humanoid like Rep. Something always struck Rep as wrong with the non-humanoid Replicants. Well, not with them really, but with the lack of... personness those forms had a Replicant shaped like a dog or a horse had just as much capability programming-wise as a Replicant shaped like a human, but of course, their bodies were terrible at expressing it. They couldn't modify themselves like Rep could- not with the permission locks on their micro units. So Rep gave this new Replicant a generic exterior like their own, androgynous, pallid exterior, small framed, wide eyes, and an actual mouth- that last one had been a last-minute modification; Rep was pretty sure they would find any nutrient injectors to feed the new Replicant, so they'd need one to eat like Rep did.
On its own, a mouth would have added almost nothing to the cost, but making vocal cords so they could verbalize had been a little costlier and had eaten into Rep's surplus calories reserved for allowing them to continue to function. Now they'd have to eat even more of the wretched moss. With the replicant complete, Rep sat back, feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Now they just need to wait for the new Replicant to receive their data pack, and- Ah. The Replicant sat up suddenly, looking around, before fixing Rep with a blank look. Rep realized they'd just made a Replicant with no programming besides preset laws. They had no knowledge base or idea how to do... well, anything. The data backs usually downloaded into Replicant's were a world away.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Shit." Rep cursed.
---
Korvax Valtari, [Inquisitor of the King of Tears], viewed the mana compass with barely restrained disdain. The man was a towering figure, standing at least eight feet tall, His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his dark rope, and his barrel chest was covered by a heavy metal breastplate.
Despite his size, he moved with surprising grace, each step measured and deliberate. His arms were thick with muscle, the veins visible beneath his violet skin. His hands were large, calloused from years of handling weapons and armor. His face, sharp and angular, bore the marks of a life lived on the edge. Weathered and rugged, it displayed the consequences of countless battles fought. Deep-set wrinkles formed around his eyes, hinting at the burdens he carried, while his strong jawline conveyed determination and resilience.
Unlike most of his race, his skin was a deep purple instead of the more common blue. He possessed a striking attractiveness by the standards of his own people- that people being the Spellborn. However, a perpetual scowl, long practiced, tarnished much of the initial allure.
He spoke with a higher-pitched voice than expected- his vocal cords were too new and recently regrown. "A foul air, cursed mana storm," he remarked, his face etched with a grim expression as he observed the floating island before him.
Korvax grumbled to himself as he checked the mana compass once more. The device was a simple tool, but it was essential for tracking the flow of Mana, which was necessary for his work as an inquisitor. He despised relying on such a primitive instrument- not made by Spellborn hands but by Outsiders. But the mana storm made it impossible to rely on his senses alone.
The island, one of hundreds of thousands, floated high above the planet Hallow, the home of the King of Tears. The island was nothing special, just a hunk of rock that had managed to sprout some life, a meager forest. But the mana storm that had visited the island? That was special.
The entirety of this plane of existence, the Atherium. Only received a mana storm once or twice a month- storms spread out over a distance that a man couldn't travel the length of, even if he spent his whole life traveling in the fastest ship ever built.
For one to happen this close to the Weeping King's holy grounds? That was incredibly rare, and it made Korvax's job much easier. Mana storms were a source of immense power but also great danger. Few dared to venture near one or even close to a site a storm had recently visited. But 'few' did not mean 'none.' Korvax Valtari was here as a member of that 'few.'
As an [Inquisitor of the King of Tears], he had a duty to investigate all wild mana-related occurrences, no matter how dangerous they may be. He had been trained to harness and control mana- and though no one could truly be ready for the things mana storms spit out across the Atherium, he was undoubtedly one of the people closest to being ready, short of the Weeping King himself.
He had been trained from a young age to wield magic, to understand its intricacies, and to control its flow. As an inquisitor of the King of Tears, he was tasked with rooting out any misuse of magic or any use of the arcane arts that threatened the kingdom's stability. And despite all this, a shiver of true terror crawled up his spine. He recalled the wars, the battles with demon kind- and more rarely, the Outsiders.
Demons and their ilk had been brought by the first storm, or so the histories said. The King had not stated the histories were lies, which made them as good as truth. And the Outsiders? They varied. You could trade with some, make friends with others, or have century-long grudges. But they have always added weights to the necks of the Spellborn, uninvited invaders who did more damage than even the demigod pantheons who the King invited to perform their labors in these hallowed airs.
Korvax Valtari took a deep breath, took a deep breath, his mind focused on suppressing the intertwining waves of fear and anger surging within him. As a member of the passionate Spellborn people, learning to master and control such intense emotions was integral to his rigorous training. Inhaling slowly, breathing in the Weeping King's mana, he centered himself, allowing the breath to soothe the frayed edges of his emotions. With each exhale, he released the tension that threatened to consume him. The path of an Inquisitor demanded unwavering composure, even in the face of adversity.
He was the Inquisitor of the King of Tears, and it was his duty to investigate the mana storm and ensure that it did not threaten the kingdom. He had faced many dangers in his work and would not let this storm intimidate or enrage him.
A young Spellborn, Nira Rhiannon, stepped up beside Korvax, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. "What do you make of it, sir?" she asked, her voice soft but confident. Her name was Nira Rhiannon, and she was Korvax's assistant and [Trainee Inquistor]. Korvax turned to look at her, studying her for a moment. She was shorter than he was, with long black hair and piercing green eyes that shone with the determination young inquisitors had. But her class was oddest about her. An Inquisitor- of course. But a red class? She'd said her domain was 'Valor'- but one couldn't know for certain.
It was a relief not to have to worry about her being an Inquisitor of 'Conquest', or 'Tyranny'. But of the red domains? She could be 'Suffering.' There were ways to tell if she was lying- but she'd presented no cause to be suspicious. And He'd had no just reason to investigate her. He's mentor had always called him paranoid- but such a trait was a boon for an Inquisitor, regardless of their domain.
"It's hard to say," Korvax replied, his voice strained. "But we won't know until we investigate. Ready yourself, Initiate Rhiannon. We're going in."
Korvax's flying ship was a sleek vessel designed for speed and maneuverability, and its streamlined shape and metallic finish made it stand out against the stormy sky. The ship's engines hummed louder as they approached the floating island, compensating for the turbulent winds the mana storm had kicked up. It was crewed by a half dozen Spellborn [Stream Sailors], but they wouldn't be joining the two Inquisitors on the ground.
"Lower the sails, Initiate."
Nira's face lit up with a radiant smile as she lifted her hands in the air, a gesture of sheer joy and excitement. Korvax couldn't fault her for such exuberance. After all, wielding Mana was akin to invoking the very essence of the king himself, beseeching him to harness the unruly forces of the winds. The thrill of it all was truly exhilarating. Initiate Rhiannon's eyes sparked, lightning pooling in her tear ducts and spilling out into the sky with faint zapping noise as the King heard and allowed.
The wind kicked up around the ship, but it was not the chaotic tempest it had been before; instead, it was a swarm of careful hands. The sail rolled up into itself under its command, and ropes lashed it tight so it did not fall.
Now they relied on the propulsion of the ship's elemental storm engines alone, and it quickly fell into the gravity well of the floating island without the divine winds to carry it free. The ship hovered over the island, its underside illuminated by the bright blue glow of its propulsion systems. From below, the ship looked like a metallic beast, ready to pounce on its prey.
Korvax stood at the ship's helm, his eyes fixed on the island below. He maneuvered the ship closer to the ground with a deft hand, using the thrusters to keep it stable. As they neared the ground, Korvax commanded the activatation the ship's landing gear, and the vessel descended with a gentle thud. The engines powered down, and the silence was almost deafening in the wake of the roar of the ship's engines.
Rhiannon stood nearby, eyes scanning the island for any signs of danger with the excited vigilance of someone looking forward to a fight. Now, that smirk he saw curving across her face- was that a symptom of a Valor? or Suffering? Nira, nearly went to disembark, but he barked at her.
"Hold, Initiate." She froze "You used too much mana; retrieve our muskets and pistols."
She grumbled but obeyed. She complained too much for Korvax's liking, but her actions spoke louder than words. She had a keen understanding of her own limits and was capable of following orders- and, more importantly, disobeying them with that understanding of her limits in mind. She'd be the worst soldier he'd ever met- but she wasn't training to be a soldier.
She was training to be an inquisitor, and inquisitors needed to disobey orders from time to time.
She quickly raced back up from the ship's hold, bringing their combined firearms up with her.
His Mana was almost untouched, and he likely wouldn't need his firearms. But storms were odd; sometimes, they brought things immune to Mana's touch- or so the stories went. He'd never had the nightmare of dealing with such a creature, and few survived encounters with them. Hence, the muskets and the swords they carried at their sides.
Korvax went over his firearms and watched Nira with a searching look while she went over her own. Two pistols and a rifle each. Six shots before reloading between the two of them. If something was immune to Mana's touch and could take six shots, they'd have to resort to swords. And if it came to that he'd send the initiate running back to the ship and slow it so the Weeping King could galvanize this island himself.
"You are ready, initiate?" Nira nodded, a fierce grin spreading across her face. She affixed her bayonet and raised the musket, taking a step forward, eager to prove herself in the face of danger. Korvax followed close behind, his own sword at the ready.
Together, they marched towards the island, their hearts pounding with anticipation and fear. Whatever lay ahead, they were ready to face it head-on with all the strength and courage of the Spellborn.
---
Rep had made a mistake in their haste, they should have uploaded a basic knowledge pack before activating the Replicant- it would have been utterly bare bones, only containing what little they knew of this place, but it still would have helped quite a bit. It was too late for that now.
They would have to teach the Replicant everything from scratch, though, thankfully, not language. Rep could sacrifice a source micro unit for that.
Rep waffled- they could also do a full instill of their own memories into the Replicant. But that would just make it them again, another Rep? No, no. Just language.
One of them could store just enough memory to implant an understanding of Rep's native language in the Replicant before its programming ordered it to self-destruct. Rep grumbled- even now, with the laxest limiters on their programming they'd ever experienced, they still couldn't just send their source microunits out however they liked.
Maybe that was good; if they lost those, then they wouldn't be able to give their micro units instructions anymore; they'd just be a normal Replicant and probably die if the rest of the fauna of this place was as violent as the Scoreblade had been.
Rep stood up and pressed their hand over the Replicant's mouth, and one of their core microunits quickly jettisoned in, finding the closest microunit native to the newborn Replicant, dumping its information payload, and then curling in on itself and dying. That's how Rep imagined it anyway; they didn't know what the process looked like, not with how small the micro units were. They did processes like this more by feel then anything else. The micro units weren't individually visible to the naked eye, not even Rep's.
"Hello," Rep said, addressing the Replicant. "My name is Rep, and I am your creator. Like me, you are a Replicant, and you have a purpose: to help me survive and thrive on this planet. Do you understand?" The Replicant blinked, and after a moment, it nodded.
Rep grimaced- that had sounded so stilted. They should have practiced this. "Good. You might come up with your own purpose later, but for now, just help me out." Rep continued. "First, we need to teach you how to communicate. Watch me."
Rep began to speak slowly and clearly, enunciating each word. The Replicant watched and listened, trying to mimic the sounds. It was a slow process, but eventually, the Replicant began to speak in broken, halting phrases. It already knew the language, but it didn't have any practice with using it.
"Good job," Rep praised. "We're looking for people, so we can find shelter and ask questions, okay?" Seeing the Replicant hesistently nod, Rep continued. "Before we go, there are a few things you need to know about this place," Rep continued, speaking carefully and precisely; they wanted to avoid talking so robotically most of the time but couldn't afford to be unexact now.
"It can be dangerous. Some creatures here can harm us, like the Scoreblade that attacked me earlier. We need to be careful and avoid any creatures that seem aggressive or threatening. Do you understand?"
The Replicant nodded again.
"Good. And if something comes to fight you, you run to me, and I'll protect you, okay? Can you tell me what you're supposed to do if something comes to fight you?"
The Replicant nodded to the first question, then haltingly spoke, "If something... comes to fight me... I go to you."
Rep patted their... child? Sibling? Oh boy, they'd figure that out way, way later. "Good job! Okay, now you'll help me collect stuff from this crash site, okay?"
The Replicant nodded eagerly, and Rep mentally noted that. Eagerness, already? Usually, any kind of emotion from a Replicant would take much longer to show itself; Rep quietly cursed Toskana in their head- doubtlessly, the country- or maybe savvy human industries, had done something to quash Replicants developing personalities right off the bat that was now no longer in effect in this new land.
Rep led them over to the scattered debris from the factory and, most importantly, the mostly undisturbed locker.
"We need to find anything useful to us," Rep said, scanning the area. "Tools, supplies, anything we can use to survive." They began to sift through the wreckage, picking up anything that looked remotely useful and storing it in a nearby makeshift bag they quickly made from tied-together jumpsuits.
Rep was toying with the idea of armor- the lockers were thin but decent steel, and wearing cut-down portions of it as leg or arm armor might be a worthwhile investment. The issue was they needed a way to cut it up.
Granted, their micro units could eventually cut it up, but cutting through steel? They grimaced at the thought. It would take a replicant's worth of calories just to make something shoddy. At that point, they might as well just use their saw to do it.
"Oh." They palmed the their temple. They'd sort of forgotten about the the saw. Rep pulled it free from their belt and called to the Replicant- Oh, Thor! They'd have to come up with a name for it.
"Hey, uhh..." They looked around. Before eyeing a stick. "I'm going to call you Stick until you pick a name for yourself, okay?"
The newly dubbed 'Stick' nodded.
"Okay, great. Hey, Stick." Rep spoke, immediately trying the new name. "I'm gonna start sawing the lockers apart to make some sort of armor; when you're done piling stuff together, go back to eating moss to get your calorie stockpile up, okay?"
Stick nodded and then continued about their work. Rep glanced at Stick via the side of their eye because they couldn't help but notice that Stick seemed... more upbeat now, bouncy, even. Maybe Rep's obsession with naming things had traveled through the language package, and they were just happy about having a name?
Rep pulled their saw free and began working on the locker, cutting out simple pieces of metal to fashion into armor. It was slow going, but eventually, they had enough pieces to make a basic set of leg and arm guards.
They carefully placed the pieces on the ground and began assembling them, using wires salvaged from nearby machines to hold them together, then shredding a jumpsuit to use so they could tie the 'armor' onto Stick. It wasn't the prettiest armor- and Rep was no 'Armor Replicator' to begin with, but it would provide some protection against any aggressive creatures they might encounter.
As they worked, they noticed Stick watching them intently. The other Replicant had long since finished their work and was chewing through a fistful of moss.
"What do you need-" Rep shook their head. It had sounded too robotic; they tried again after clearing their throat. "What's up, Stick?" Rep asked, trying to put some cheer into their voice.
Stick hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Why?" It pointed at the armor.
Rep nodded. "We're in a new place, and we don't know what creatures or dangers exist here. It's better to be prepared and have some protection than to be caught off guard- you can't heal as well as I can; I don't want you to get hurt."
Stick seemed faintly surprised and then considered this for a moment before nodding. "For me? I help make for you?"
Rep smiled; Stick was adorable! Had they been this cute when they were a little Replicator? "Of course! We can work on making me some armor too."
The two of them began to work together, fashioning crude pieces of armor for Rep out of the scraps of metal they had collected. It took some time, but eventually, they had a decent armor set for both of them.
"Okay, Stick," Rep said, standing up and stretching. "We're ready to go, and we need to find shelter and food. Do you have any ideas?" Stick thought for a moment, then shook their head.
Rep smiled- they hadn't expected Stick to have any ideas, but it had felt nice to ask. "So, most things need water to live- even us, and water generally has things living in it. There's a lake that way." Rep pointed.
"So we'll go there, and look for a stream going into or out of it, then we follow it and hope we come across people. Do you understand?"
Stick nodded, and Rep felt that need to care for Stick was somehow making them more competent.
Their nice soldering iron was done for- that's where some of the wire for the two armor sets had come from, but it would make for a decent weapon, an edgeless dagger, so they took it along with them. The two of them were now loaded up like oxen, packed with enough jumpsuits and tools to equip two dozen replicants.
Rep nodded, satisfied they had everything they would need, before striding back towards the lake.
It was finally time to start looking for people.