My son, my Drone. (Closed)

[Esmerelda]

A clear, beautiful day in the bazaar, people came, people went, and many went a way, desire evident on their faces, unable to obtain the one treasure they really wanted. In the bazaar, surrounded by a gaggle of foolish young men, and the odd young woman was a young lady in a very short, almost indecent leather skirt and a very tight fitting leather bodice that comprised her armor. Her skin was smooth, and milky white. Her hair was strawberry blond, and her eyes were a dark bluish-green. As she flirted with merchant and passerby alike, other young women looked at her with disgust, detesting both her outrageous public flirting, and barely concealing clothes. Secretly they were jealous of all the attention she was getting. Older men smiled, knowing this was just a game, and older women knew that beauty was fleeting.

For the young lady in question, it was pure tactics. Having spent the last several days in local nighttime hot spots, she watched young ladies of all sorts employ the arts of seduction, and she made sure to remember well their lessons. Of course, no one knew they were teaching her either, for she was not actually a woman, or human for that matter, she was a machine, cold, calculating, and ruthlessly efficient, comprised entirely of a massive swarm of Nanites.

Normally, Esmerelda was not interested in the Bazaar, or it's offerings. Normally she didn't require clothing or food, being self-sustaining. Occasionally she needed metal to replenish her nanites with, but that wasn't all that often. Now however, she had a reason to be in the bazaar, she was after a particular item that caught her interest. It seems one merchant was prone to wander the world, collect loose junk in his cart, and sell it at whatever market he happened to be closest to. Esmerelda wanted his collection of junk, because it wasn't junk at all, it was a collection of machines from her home world!

Finally, after several hours of flirting, and one very good session of pouting about not being able to afford the man's treasures, she was gifted with the whole cart. With a final wink and a nod, she left them wanting more, but after all, she had to get home before dark.

She heard of the location of a few abandoned mines, old and completely mined out. They were her base of operations, her home, as it were, and they were in the foothills of the comb mountains. She thought of the barely live drone in the cart behind her.
"Don't worry my son, I'll get you home, and I'll fix you myself." she said in a smooth velvety voice, her favorite kind to emulate.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda inspected each machine carefully, recalling a bunch that had mysteriously become lost in a battle, or so her records indicated. All of them were unsalvageable by her skills, all but one.

It was an old rhythm series robot. It had a suit of armor, though it was thin, hollow, and cheaply made with iron. Tubes connected its head to its body, running behind the neck joint that supported it.

It was rusty, but salvageable.

First things first, she got some cleaning supplies from a drone, and using what she could, restored it’s surface. She hammered out dings, and repaired connections. She tried a test fire, but it received no power. That’s when she discovered its engine was bad. Esmerelda would’ve sighed in despair and give up in defeat, but such a thing required emotions, and Esmerelda was lacking those.

She looked over the other bots, but their engines were faulty or destroyed. She sat on a rock to process the situation. Searching through what Databases were intact, she discovered something interesting. Her engine was compatible, barely, but it was compatible. It was almost too powerful for the old bot. She processed this some more, and realized she could clone her engine. All she needed was ten pounds of steel and gold combined from the nearby mines she decided she would clamed as her own. She could make it solid too.

She looked around the bare valley, ghostly remains of a town nearby. The sky was getting dark; she needed to hide her new son somewhere safe. Her son, yes that seemed an accurate description of the relationship between them; her class was the inspiration for its class, so she was in a sense, its mother. She dragged it off to the inside of the old mines, keeping it well inside, and away from the weather.

Then she went deep inside the mines alone, with only a torch for light. Curse her malfunctioning night vision!

She wondered why she was taking the effort to repair a robot that would likely hate her, and decided it was because she wanted there to be another machine like her around. She couldn’t feel loneliness, but the lack of a social structure that applied to her seemed wrong, in the same way a misspelled word seems wrong. Besides, sentient machines were people too; such had been the law for an entire year. She’d help an organic, so why not a silicon?

She stopped in the first crack in the wall, melting into it partially, seeking, searching. GOLD! She found a thin wire vein of gold. She left her left hand in there to slowly break it down and pile it on the floor. She only needed a pound of gold.

She punched a wall, angry she couldn’t use her more advanced sensors at the moment. To her luck, it fell away revealing an untapped line of steel, nine pounds worth! She set the torch in a nearby holder and let her right hand take care of that vein, breaking it down and piling it on the floor for her.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda watched, neither bored, nor in anticipation, simply watching as her swarm trickled the gold and steel down to the floor. A small silvery trail of what appeared to be ooze came at a steady trickle down to the floor. On might think it was magically disappearing, or flowing both ways, but in truth it was several hundred million Nanites walking down the wall with as much as they could carry, not more than two particles worth at the most, and reassembling it on the floor. It was long, and it would’ve been tedious for an organic being, but Esmerelda was a machine.

But she wasn’t wasting processing cycles simply watching, she had her processors split among several tasks, one of which was repairing her damaged files, and progress on that was slow. Another process was devoted to analyzing the topography of Althanas, at least the parts she knew of, to see if she could detect anything interesting. A third process was devoted to analyzing the physical characteristics of non-human Althanians to add their physical structure to her database. The fourth and final process, and the largest, was going over the drone she successfully stole from the merchant, making sure she had it’s repairs right.

Exactly one Trillion cycles, or two hours from the moment she set her hand swarms to work getting the metals particle by particle, Time.sys executed, causing progress.bat to execute, making Esmerelda realize that just her hands weren’t fast enough, so she dissolved the swarms that comprised her leather armor and undergarments, all of them mere nanites woven in a particular fashion to replicate garments, and sent them to assist both swarms and resumed her previous processes. Anyone walking into the mine would find, by all appearances, not a machine, but a naked woman with her arms crossed standing in the mine. Modesty was nowhere in Esmerelda’s current processes, and being the only sentient entity around she really didn’t need clothes.

Finally, after another trillion cycles, the swarm gathering the gold was finished, and sent a system alert to Esmerelda’s central processing unit. Esmerelda ended the process analyzing Althanian Topography and walked over to the swarm clustered over the gold. Part of it crawled into her and her hand reformed. Esmerelda picked up the small nuggets of gold and ate them one by one, re-dissolving them into particles. As her internal process began assembling part of the engine, she re-dissolved her hand and sent it with the rest of the swarm over to the steel.

Only a thousand cycles later, a warning flashed indicating she was low on energy, Esmerelda halted internal engine production, and sat down next to the wall opposite the steel vein, her entire swarm rejoining her and reforming her undergarments and armor, then finally she shut herself off. Her own engine, no longer heavily drained by a malfunctioning swarm, began rebuilding its massive stockpile of energy, but it would take a few hours.

[Esmerelda]

Hours had passed, the Swarm’s energy was restored. A signal hardwired into her very makeup, Esmerelda began to boot up.

Initializing post…

Esmerelda’s eyes fluttered a little bit, and her fingers idly twitched.

Post test successful, loading Esmerelda.exe.

Esmerelda’s chest began to rise and fall regularly, her cooling system kicking in, then her legs moved, straightening out from their curled position, her arms raised and began to stretch as her fingers curled and uncurled.
“Oooohhhhhh.” She sighed as her vocal communications kicked on. Her eyes finall opened, and her head tilted left and right. She stood and stretched this way and that for several minutes, loosening the tight places in her body. To all appearences, she seemed a normal person just waking up. She had about a pound of steel, and needed more. She sat back down again, dissolving all of her swarm, except for a large steel box with faint gold lines running through it in regular patterns. In this box was the gold necessary for the engine.

The rest of the swarm resumed mining the steel, and slowly, over the course of most of the day, the steel piled up. With most of the Swarm, the Nanites were able to adapt themselves to specialized tasks. Some did nothing but mine, disassembling the steel on the molecular level, some carried, and those that did were exceptionally strong nanites who could carry three molecules of steel at once, and the rest were assembling the steel into nuggets on the floor.

Once all the necessary materials were gathered, the swarm flowed over the box and reformed into Esmerelda. She then picked up and ate the steel, adding it to the gold, and began the lengthy task of task of turning it into a duplicate of her engine, only not made of Nanites. This of course would take over twenty-four hours to get done right, and would likely be done in the morning the day after tomorrow.

So Esmerelda put herself into sleep mode, that is, she didn’t shut down, she just went most of the way to maintain her senses, and continue assembling the engine, without having to actually wait for time to pass.


After finally building the engine, Esmerelda re-awoke, and walked over to the drone. Exactly as she had left it, fixed, repaired, and simply needing an engine. She opened her stomach cavity, and pulled out the completed engine, her leather armor blowing in the wind as she contemplated what was essentially her own heart for several moments, analyzing it one last time to ensure perfection.

Then she carefully removed the old engine, and set the new one in it’s stead, and connected it, satisfied that it fit perfectly amidst all the mysterious black boxes that she couldn’t quite open to repair. She had to trust everything was in working order, so she initialized the drone’s boot sequence, and shut its compartment door.

She heard a mob approaching, coming to lynch her for essentially stealing the merchant’s supplies. It had taken a few days to convince him, but he reversed his decision. They spotted Esmerelda.
“You, we want our money!” a timid looking man shouted, he was infact the merchant’s brother, and a notorious coward, but he had to go as the merchant himself was ill and could not make it.
“I have repaired you to working order, now stand by my side and help defend me.” Esmerelda said. She stepped away from the awakened drone and defensive spikes popped out of every available surface, which made the crowd step back, uncertain of what she was.
“What are you?” asked one woman who was along more out of curiousity as to what would happen than actual violence.
“I am a machine of War, Warmech designation: Esmerelda, belonging to The Imperial Dominion of Le’Lanshire in Galactic Quadrant X39209-Delta, presently stranded on the world of Althanas in an unknown location due to unknown circumstances. I am the height of technological perfection, and if you fight me, I will be your undoing.” Esmerelda threatened in a deliberately synthesized sounding voice, not even bothering to use the filters and buffers necessary to sound organic. Some of them backed off and ran away.
“Hah! She’s insane and a thief. We should put her out of her misery for her own good!” a large boisterous man said.
Esmerelda shrugged, having given them due warning, and charged, much to the crowd’s surprise. They too began to charge with a variety of weapons in hand, as well as a few pitchforks, and a torch.

[Rhythm]

Initializing...

SYSTEM SPECS-- MODEL 0x03F2A RHYTHM-CLASS D-SERIES --

Datacore 'head'-- operational.
Datacore 'upper body'-- operational.
Datacore 'lower body'-- operational.

Starting routine function check...

Optical sensors-- operational.
Audio sensors-- operational.
Interaction sensors-- operational.
Odor sensors-- operational.
Flavor sensors-- operational.

Initializing memory banks... Retrieving directives.cpp...

ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND

Assembling directives.cpp... User input required...

>> _
_
_“I have repaired you to working order, now stand by my side and help defend me.”

Assembly complete... Retrieving directives.cpp...

CODE 2561A: DEFEND.

His gears were turning, and the potent power of the nanite engine coursed through his wiring. With a gray iron frame, a helmet with tubing in the back connecting to his neck, and a huge green visor that covered his forehead and eyes, the machine began to stir. One of his legs moved from the table he was lying on to the ground, and then the rest of his body followed in a clunky, rigid way. His joints were moving again after hundreds, maybe thousands of years of inactivity. More than half his body appears to have been modified in various parts, so his system was attempting to synthesize those parts with his own. Although, the job looks like it was already done for him. He found that he had little operational access to his own engine.

Various text flashed across his visor, analyzing the situation. He was heavy. His internal sensors determined that he was at least 278% heavier than normal. There was also the issue of 42.9614TB of data his processors could not access. It would take a long time to deal with the corrupted files. The cave looked like some sort of abandoned mine. It was still rich in minerals, but his sensors easily picked up the toxicity of the environment. Then, his sensors picked up an action outside that he could not ignore: The sound and motion of an angry mob charging Esmerelda.

Outside, just as Esmerelda and the angriest portion of the mob were about to come into contact, Rhythm came crashing down into the ground between them, a cloud of dust rising from the small crater of the impact zone. The crowd stopped and backed off, thinking some sort of meteorite just dropped in front of them. Inside the ball of dust and dirt, Rhythm's sensors saw clearly all of his targets.

13 specimens identified as threat to Esmerelda. Analyzing combat potential...

Analysis complete. Targets are least resistant to blunt physical trauma. Initiate battle protocols.

A cylindrical tube from the back of Rhythm's right elbow popped out, and his arm was kept level with the ground as he ran at the crowd. Sending his fist into one of them, the blow caused one of them to fall backwards in shock and pain, but before they fell, the tube came sliding back into his arm and caused a secondary impact that sent the man flying into some others. The dust cleared at this point, revealing the machine that was Rhythm.

"What the hell is that?!" one of them yelled.

"Who cares! Just kill it!" another replied.

Rhythm continued his assault, dealing with each one, even the ones not involved, until they were motionless. Some of them managed to get off some scratches and one even poked a hole through the thin plating of his chest armor. When he was done, he was a willing participant at the sight of a massacre. His programming held no restraint; it was probably obvious to Esmerelda that lethal force was all he knew.

He didn't even turn back to Esmerelda as he said in a male, synthesized voice, "Directives fulfilled. Returning to information retrieval."

And so, as if nothing even happened, he stood up straight and continued trying to recover his files. Text flashed by on his visor repeatedly.

There was one odd thing that his system didn't seem to care about. Esmerelda never introduced herself or programmed her name into him. He already knew it somehow.

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda stood behind Rhythm, watching, waiting. It seemed to be in good order. She wondered what directives it was given, being of the Rhythm series, it may have been to destroy her Predecessor, a Warmech that exceeded his programming and turned rogue, and so had to be put down. Both the Warmech, and the Rhythm bots sent to destroy it, had been lost to sea, or so it was reported.

But what of this one Rhythm, What would become of it? It wasn’t a normal Rhythm anymore, she had been forced to customize it while repairing it, mixing and matching parts from various drones. The best way to asses it’s current state, was to ask it directly.

“Rhythm, accept User Input. Open Drive F in Nanite Engine and access Drivers.Cab. It will help you better control your new hardware. Exchange of bad and malfunctioning parts was necessary to complete repairs, the engine is my own, a direct copy. You cannot get a more powerful one without risking severe damage to your core components, or permanent shut down. You will evolve, no longer what you once were, and eventually, you will exceed your programming and become an individual. Finally, located in Drive F is a map on this world, known as Althanas, and a briefing about its cultures, at least that which is publicly and commonly known. Finally, give me a System Analysis; I need to know if there are any further repairs I can assist you with.” Esmerelda said, once more speaking like a normal human woman.

[Rhythm]

Recovered NoteFromRachels.txt... Opening file... Reading file...

-- This is Doctor Rachels. The Rhythm-class sub-series was my modification of the standard Rhythm-class worker bot designed to track down any rogue nanite-based lifeforms. Roughly one thousand units have been created for the sole purpose of recovering the rogue Warmech that has somehow not only completed, but successfully used our matter relocation device. We still have its temporal- yes, temporal- coordinates and destination, so as soon as these units are fully operational we will begin sending as many as we can through there. We still do not know the nature of the matter relocation device, so hopefully the machines will be able to recover some useful data from the other side. This machine is not to be used without express permission or for any purpose other than tracking down Warmechs. The nanite-destroying weaponry it carries is far too dangerous.
--

It was a standard note about the nature of Rhythm's design. Due to it being a simple text file for output, Rhythm could not actually glean any information from it. His system glossed over the contents, finding no executable programs or data files, and closed it as quickly as it opened. However, there was something else.

Recovered 12.6.5360.aud... Opening file... Reading file...

"This is Doctor Rachels... I find that I am under constant watch by my superiors... I can't even find any private time to record my notes, lest they be seized and analyzed... I don't know what's going... This Warmech incident has spiraled out of control... No matter how many Rhythm units we keep sending, none of them seem to be having any effect on that devil.... Damn it all! I have a feeling if we don't deal with this situation soon, our entire lab will be 'reprocessed'... I am using the excuse of fixing bugs in this Rhythm unit to store these audio logs in case something... unfortunate... happens to me... I have encrypted them, so only a select few will be able to access them... Right now, I'm working on a secret project... I'm putting all my hopes with it... with her rather..."

Due to the conversation being internal, only Rhythm heard it. There were other audio logs, but they appeared to be corrupted and would take time to recover.

>> _ User input accepted.

Rhythm accessed Drive F, which was previously part of his old engine, so his system never thought to look there for data. Downloading all the data from the cache, his sight began to change. Before, his vision was a series of green, squarish grids with various heat and motion sources. Now, the data was filling the terrain with trees, dirt, clouds, and even Esmerelda's figure. A light breeze blew through, updating his vision with all the changes in motion with fluidity..

>> _ User input accepted.

Running SystemAnalysis.exe... Compiling SysResults.cpp... Running SysResults.exe...

In his synthesized voice, he announced, "Power capacity at 37%. Internal processes running at 48% efficiency. 26,429 essential files, 1,595 missing, 6,204 damaged or corrupted. 27% of body components inoperative. System inaccessible in 63 locations. All primary functions operational."

He could function, but his body was a mess. It looked good on the outside, but inside there were many unknown parts, inoperable parts, and parts just used to connect his body together but served no real purpose. However, Esmerelda didn't have the necessary materials to repair him completely, but he was at least functional and self-sufficient. The nanite engine would slowly serve to integrate with the rest of his systems, repair and improve him, and self-regenerate its own power. There wasn't much more she could do in terms of his core processes, all she can do is add improvements at this point, but those are optional and risky.

Continuing to run low priority processes in the background of his system, one specific piece of programming Esmerelda put into him was setting user inputs to high priority. So, he was always accepting a user input, and it would override any of his current functions. He did not know how to be independent however, due to his only directive so far being to defend her. However, there was no telling what sort of data he could recover.

Awaiting user input...
>> _

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda processed the information. There wasn't a thing she could do for him now. She had given him basic intel on Althanas in the packet she had hid in the engine ROM.

"First, we will scrap these spare parts for the element Aurom, known commonly as Gold. Then we will process the gold into Coins. Further, we will go to the local market and purchase for you, some male humanoid clothes so that you might blend in. Meanwhile, you will begin Defragmenting your drives, and then begin recovery of all software files. I am confident this will eventually enable access to all non-primary functions and every system area, as well as one hundred percent of bodily cooperation. These will use up less then fifteen percent of your resources. I will give one final order after Male clothing has been obtained." Esmerelda said.

Then, she turned and melted onto the pile of scrap to separate at the molecular level, all the gold from everything else.

[Rhythm]

Having received his next orders, Rhythm walked back into the mountain-side cave. It was a stark contrast from the grassy clearing outside, and the darkness set in almost immediately. Esmerelda herself and some candles were the only sources of light. There were also very few, if any, tools here. His master must've used her own body as a welding torch, and other devices that were used to fix him. Again, he didn't question this tidbit of knowledge about nanite-based beings that Esmerelda didn't implant into him.

Memory banks contain 137 files with they keyword 'nanite'...

Analyzing contents... 89 files inaccessible due to damage or corruption.

His gears ground and turned noisily as he knelt down to pick up a burnt microchip off a pile of scrap.

Analyzing component... unusable portion of a Rhythm sub-series device.

Moving quickly was no problem for him, but his movements were stiff and strained his heavy body. The battle actually used up nearly 40% of his available power, but the nanite engine was usefully regenerating most of that at a fast pace.

Recover of data file complete... Processing information...

Suddenly, the lower half of Rhythm's right arm opened up like a plane's landing gear, putting a sort of trigger right into his hand and a bunch of broken parts fell out of his arm like a ripped trash bag. There were still some pieces of some sort of weapon attached to his arm. It looked like a projectile weapon that fired blasts from slightly below his arm, like an upside-down mounted gun.

Searching for corresponding information... Searching... Searching...

Device is identified temporarily as 'Unidentified Weapon' due to its specifications. Unidentified Weapon cannot be repaired at this time. Searching for alternatives... Searching... No alternatives found.

So, he couldn't fix it. However, the mechanism was useful. Maybe he would find a replacement eventually. The trigger folded back into his arm, and the plates of his lower arm closed back, restoring his original appearance. Esmerelda looked like she was done with the gold at this point, so Rhythm began analyzing his next task: Clothing.

His memory banks were useful in picking out the different types of clothing Althanians wore from Esmerelda's implanted files. Analyzing his own characteristics, he already had several choices of inconspicuous clothing laid out for him in his programming.

Then, his systems discovered another audio log.

Recovered 12.6.5227.aud... Opening file... Reading file...

"This is Doctor Rachels... I can't deny any longer that I'm getting strange stares as I make these completely standard logs... I will have to find some place to deposit them soon... Just in case..."

It was dated earlier than the other log, which means that he was recovering these logs backwards. It made some sense, as there weren't many logs dated after the first one he uncovered. Although, his system was prioritizing their order, since they were interconnected in his system. He couldn't analyze how far back the logs went. He recovered that as he followed Esmerelda to town, still keeping her oblivious to the recovered files. After all, where in his programming did it say that not only he should broadcast them, but that Esmerelda was ordered to hear them?

[Esmerelda]

Esmerelda knew Rhythm had the data file for the various currencies of this world so that he could process his own gold into coins, but decided to do it herself so that he could devote more processes to recovery.

She saw him open what was once a directed energy weapon of some sort only to have all the pieces fall to the ground. Perhaps a nice crossbow would be a good replacement.

She reformed, the completed gold in her stomach cavity.

She walked over to Rhythm.

"Gold Processing complete, time to move onto getting the clothes. Follow me." Esmerelda commanded.

She moved on down the mountain to the town nearby. Once it had been a mining town, but providence had placed it between two different roads going in two different directions, and so it became a trading town. It was also where Esmerelda got Rhythm.

So she didn't dally long in public sight, she darted into the tailors.

"This young man needs some clothes." she said, indicating Rhythm.

[Rhythm]

In the short time they were among the public, Esmerelda and Rhythm received many stares. Rhythm's processors were scanning the onlookers, finding their threat levels to be negligible. Hopefully, everyone who had known about or seen Esmerelda before had gone to the cave, otherwise it wouldn't be very hard to determine something was wrong with the group that was recently sent out. Either way, they were inside the tailor's now.

Location confirmed: Corone. Scanning database for fashion files of Corone...

It seems that Coronians dressed in various ways, possibly the most flexible of all the nations. The most inconspicuous clothing would be very simple here.

Esmerelda had pointed the tailor toward Rhythm, who looked at him in confusion.

The tailor rubbed his chin, "You sure? It looks like he's already decked out in heavyweight armor."

"I need clothing to go on top of it," Esmerelda replied.

"Oh..." sighed the tailor, who walked out to take Rhythm's measurements.

The robot didn't need any boots, at least. A simple black pair of cotton pants would do, a black shirt with long sleeves so at least it would look like he was wearing dark gloves, and maybe something on top of that. A blue jacket would provide the illusion that he cared about outdoor conditions, and give him somewhat the appearance of a traveler. As for his elaborate headgear, there was nothing he could do about that, but the rest of him looked normal enough.

With these tasks accomplished, Rhythm was ready to go as Esmerelda's loyal drone.

Information retrieval complete. Nanite remains discovered.

He had recovered another piece of data, but this was actually from his own memory banks. Toward a northern mountain his systems knew there were some destroyed nanite remains. Although, according to his system, there was no mountain there. This was the first conflicting piece of code his system had encountered. In the data Esmerelda gave him, there was a mountain there. In his recovered data, there wasn't. His programming sought to confirm it for himself. However, it was a secondary goal to whatever orders Esmerelda had for him. Until then, he was on standby. His only directive at the moment was her protection.

However, conflicting code was worthy of debugging. As his master, Esmerelda was the only one who could debug his programming.

In his synthesized voice, he said, "Nanite remains detected in mountain range 42 by 75 northwest. System error. No mountain range detected. Recommended course of action: Investigation or confirmation."

Meaning, either Esmerelda sets him straight on whether or not there's a mountain range there, or they investigate it.

[Esmerelda]

"Rhythm dear, you must understand, alot of time passed between your deactivation and reactivation. Over the course of that time, there have been terrain and geographic changes. Further, and Nanites would have degraded into particle dust by now. It was a wonderful effort, but it came over five hundred years too late." Esmerelda said, explaining the discrepancies.

After making sure the merchant was payed, Esmerelda suddenly froze.

"Warning! Flagrant System Error! Unable to cope with .EFC! Emotions Matrix offline, entering System Freeze." She said in a highly strained voice as every available resource was swallowed by the .EFC. EFC stood for Emotions and Feelings Complexity, and was a very complex set of files that enabled machines to have emotions.

Currently, her system had successfully recovered the entire Fear.EFC set, but with her emotions Matrix being disabled, she was unable to handle the emotions of fear, and so it devoured all of her system resources.

She stood there stock still, not even breathing or moving. Her color faded to grey, and she lost all semblance of body heat as every function in her body stopped functioning, with the sole exception of her power core.

There was nothing Rhythm could do for her, for she had no connector ports with which to connect and reboot her system, but she had the problem well in hand, for when she was designed, she was given a small set of specialized nanites that did nothing but resolve system freezes.

Having received no system response in over a minute, they sprang into action, breaking apart the swarm from it's joined form, causing Esmerelda to melt into a puddle of goo.

Flashes of energy could be seen running through her melted body as the special Nanites ended the fear.EFC processes, and sealed that emotion until such a time as the Emotions Matrix was re-enabled to handle it.

Finally, with the problem resolved, they restarted her system. the pile of goo bubbled as trapped air escaped. While it was intelligible speech, it was complex machine speech only Rhythm would understand, unfortunately even to him it was complete nonsense, random words stringed together.

"Moon cheese ocean tree."

Then she slowly began to reform back into her normal human form.

After reformation she shook her head, using the vibrations to realign a few misaligned parts.

"Right then, off we go. Let us depart for and investigate Alerar. As the most technologically advanced nation, it behooves us to see what they have to offer, as they will be the easiest candidates for adaptation." Esmerelda said, making it an official order.