protocol _[aex]

\initializing main processes'''
-{checking system integrity-
_[scanning memory'''
_[scanning firmware'''
_[scanning software'''
_[scanning hardware'''
::errors encountered=(36)

_[attempting to repair'''
::errors repaired=(36)

-{system integrity determined optimal
-{booting operating system'''
_[testing'''

. . .

_[main process initialization sequence complete
_[swarm status changed from :STANDBY: to :ACTIVE:

=|[+]|=

The bright and shining yellow Sun began to climb up into the sky, rising just above the trees. The trees were as green as they always were. After all, they were called evergreens for a reason. The trees stretched on for miles all around, disappearing far away in the distance where the heavens met the Earth. The light blue sky draped like a sheet over the forest brought promises of a beautiful morning, but the dark gray clouds that loomed menacingly over the horizon threatened to bring rainfall come evening. Rainfall that might last for days on end, like it always seemed to do around here. It was the beginning of the Spring season and as they say, April showers supposedly bring May flowers.

The light from the Sun poured into the forest, making its way through the trees which sprouted up many feet from the ground. With the new daylight and warmth filling the air, the thousands of creatures that called the forest their home began to stir, waking up to a new morning. Birds started chirping, singing their morning songs of peace and serenity. Insects crawled out of their holes, beginning their daily games of survival of the fittest. Rodents skittered along the trees and across the ground, looking for breakfast. Larger mammals began to roam the through the trees as well, adding to the great web that gave the forest life. All seemed normal, all seemed routine, all seemed right.

It seemed at first like it would be just another normal day in the evergreen forest. Until something rather out of the ordinary occurred. It started in the sky. At first, it looked like just another jet airplane making its mark along the heavens. Soon it became apparent that this was not so. It began to look much more like a meteor, in fact; a piece of space debris shooting through the Earth's atmosphere. A brilliant streak shot across the sky, getting ever closer to the forest on the Earth down below. A small dark object hurtled towards the ground, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. As it approached, it appeared to slow itself down somewhat, until it finally flew past the trees and hit the ground with a soft thud.

The object buried itself deep underneath the ground cover of green grass, gray moss, red lichen, and brown dead pine needles, and was half buried under the topmost layer of dark soil, leaving a small smoking crater which would probably be covered over again in less than a week. The object was a small black orb. It was about the size of a bowling ball, and appeared to be made from metal. Smoke was rising from the shiny rough surface of the orb, due to the heat caused by the friction of atmospheric entry. There weren't any distinguishing features on the orb, it was just a solid black featureless form.

The form was alien to the forest. It was a stranger, something that didn't belong, something unexpected. It interrupted the normal flow of life, and the nearby birds ceased their routine singing. Animals kept their distance from the intruder, trying to go on with life as normal, but knowing something would now be forever different. Slowly but surely the object began to stir within itself. The first actions the outsider took were invisible to any observers, taking place deep within the internal workings of the stranger. Electronic impulses passed between each individual constituent of the dark object, traveling through the entire form at speeds reaching that of light.

The electronic impulses were a complex computer encoding, and they were initiating certain processes within the computerized mind of the foreign object. Soon, the object was self-aware enough to be considered awake, and no longer dormant. The first thought its electronic mind had formed was in the shape of a question.

?question::what am i

It was quickly able to answer its own question.

?answer::i am a simulacrum

The simulacrum then began to examine itself. The first thing it noticed was that it was missing a lot of mass. This was expected. It had measured a great deal of heat upon entering the atmosphere of this planet. The heat had been enough to incinerate a great number of the bionanorobots that composed the simulacrum. A thin layer of dead nanites still surrounded the simulacrum, and the living and active nanites deeper within began to take apart and absorb their dead companions, storing the organic matter for later use. The rough surface of the orb shifted as this occurred, and once the layer of dead bots was absorbed, all that was left was a perfectly smooth surface. After examining itself, it started to examine its surroundings.

It began to activate its various sensory devices slowly, one at a time. Activating them all at once could result in far too much information attempting to be processed all at once, overwhelming the newly awakened machine. Its sense of equilibrioreception was already active, and it used this sense to detect which direction was down. Then it activated its senses of barometry, thermoreception, and chemoreception, which would allow it to test the environment directly surrounding it. Using these senses, it measured simple things about its immediate surroundings, such as the air pressure, temperature, and chemical composition. It labeled every chemical it found and kept a note of it within its memory. It also collected small samples of every different molecule that was touching it. The air, it noticed, was primarily made of nitrogen. The simulacrum labeled nitrogen as"object#0000000019&set#0". It also started to sense other things, such as humidity, wind direction, and the force of gravity.

The simulacrum then decided to activate its auditory senses. Some of the nanites within the swarm shifted and changed their form, building the audition sensor devices, which would be able to detect vibration waves oscillating through the air. It took note of every sound it collected, but there wasn't much noise going on at the time. The next sense it activated was its optical senses. Keeping the auditory senses active, more nanites shifted and changed their form to build the optical sensor devices, which would use light sensitive nanites to detect electromagnetic waves. It took in one wavelength of light at a time, starting at the higher frequencies. It didn't see very many high-frequency light waves until it reached the ultraviolet range. A large bright object was pouring great amounts of ultraviolet light over the entire area. According to its gravitational senses, the bright object was located upward, above the simulacrum. The planet's local star, most likely.

After ultraviolet, it reached what humans consider the visible spectrum. Upon reaching the wavelengths corresponding to the color green, a huge shock of information temporarily flooded the simulacrum's optical senses. Green was everywhere. Everything was green. It took note of this, and continued on. Almost all the light it detected was either coming directly from the source in the sky, or being reflected off of other objects. Reaching the infrared range, however, it noticed that there were some other sources. The star was still the greatest source of this electromagnetic wave, but some other objects were giving off small amounts of it as well. In fact, it realized, it was emitting small amounts of infrared itself. It took note of this possibly important detail.

Upon reaching the radio wavelengths it noticed something quite peculiar. Radio waves were everywhere, and not all of them were coming from the star. It couldn't detect the source of many of them, but there they were, flying through the air. The simulacrum didn't know what to make of this, but it took note anyway. Now that its optical sense was up and running, it began to investigate the area around it, getting used to the unfamiliar environment. It then decided it would have to get out of the hole it was half buried in to get a better view.

Activating its inner propulsion devices, the solid black orb began to dissolve. The simulacrum changed its shape from a solid orb to a cloud of black dust. The dust was formed from small particles of nanobots. The dust then started to glow a soft blue color as various nanobots lit up, giving the swarm more of a form. It then began to closely study the closest object to it. The base of the object was mostly brown, but it had some green and gray in seemingly random patches on it. The simulacrum spent a good hour investigating the fir tree, learning everything it could about it.

Studying the pine needles taught the simulacrum about photosynthesis, a skill closely related to the photovoltaic generator nanobots that gave the swarm its power. After studying a few other green objects in the vicinity, the simulacrum made its first hypothesis.

?definition::rule#0000000001[objects reflecting large amounts of green light derive energy from photosynthesis and belong to a single set(set#0000000001)]

Having now defined what humans know as plants, the simulacrum continued its investigation, trying to find other things that plants have in common so it could build upon its definition and refine its rule. Plants, it noticed, were everywhere, and they were carbon-based organic lifeforms, making this planet a perfect candidate for assimilation. There would be plenty of matter for it to use.

The simulacrum contemplated about what it should do next. It would like to continue investigating, fulfilling its secondary protocol to learn, but it was possible that its existence was at risk. Primary protocol came before everything else when making decisions. The simulacrum had decided that these lifeforms were not responsive to its presence, but that didn't mean they were unaware. The simulacrum would need to blend in with the life on this planet to continue its objectives safely. To do so, it would need to copy the only lifeforms it could find: plants, those belonging to set 1.

First, it would need more matter, and it would need the same kind of matter that the plants were made from. It quickly began to consume a nearby huckleberry bush, building its camouflage. As it dismantled the shrub it took careful note of the way it was put together and the way it ran, so it could copy it properly. It then started to change its form. Nanites built more nanites, and these nanites were made from the same material as the bush. It simulated photosynthesis as well. It didn't need photosynthesis, since it could do the same thing in a different way, but it wanted to fit in and that was the only way it knew how.

-{adapting'''
_[simulating object #0000000249&set#0000000001

In a matter of moments, the huckleberry bush had been replaced by an almost identical huckleberry bush, this one built from robotic components. The simulacrum imitated the behavior of plants, that is, sit there and do apparently nothing. It turned water and carbon dioxide into glucose with sunlight, drew water and minerals from the soil, and burned the glucose as fuel for the constant amount of energy the swarm required. It quickly realized one key problem with this design. Plants were not, as far as the simulacrum could tell, capable of mobility. It could not continue its studies without being mobile. It was about to dissolve its newly formed shape, when suddenly it noticed something approaching.

“First time flying?”

The young child looked up at the man. He nodded but said nothing. The older man smiled and looked out the window. Tired and hungry, he hoped lunch might be served soon. It had been a long flight back from Europe, and although he was recovering at a sufficient rate, he still felt tired and hungry.

“Mister?”

He turned to look at the young boy. The kid looked to be about six or seven and was extremely timid. The man acknowledged the question with a nod.

“I’m sorry to bother you, mister--”

“Call me Demmy.”

The child smiled for a moment, but his frown quickly returned. “I’m sorry to bother you, mister, but do you think the plane might crash?” His squeaky voice mixed with his English accent to bring a grin to the man’s lips. He did, however, seem genuinely worried.

Demmy had to laugh. The young boy had obviously been scared by the most recent case of turbulence. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I’ve been on my fair share of planes, and I’ve never ever been in a plane crash.” This seemed to ease the child’s restless mind. Something still troubled Demmy, though.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Demmy began, “why are you flying all by yourself?”

“I’m going to visit my grandma in Abbotsford.” The boy’s smile went unmatched in Demmy’s memory. “Mum and dad couldn’t come, but I’m alright by myself. How about you, Mr. Demmy?”

Chuckling, Demmy replied, “I didn’t have a mum or a dad to come with me, I’m afraid.”

The little boy giggled. “Everyone has a mum and a dad.” Demmy considered arguing with him for a moment but thought twice.

As Demmy looked out his window at the bright white clouds below the plane, a stewardess ran by their aisle at an alarming speed. The young child appeared to not notice, but Demmy knew better. A second stewardess moved quickly along the other side of the plane, albeit more calmly. A few passengers followed. People were slowly migrating towards the next compartment of the plane.

“I’ll be right back,” informed Demmy, patting his new companion on the head before squeezing by. People were all looking through the windows on the right side of the plane. Despite the constant urging of the staff for everyone to return to their seats, Demmy could easily see what all the commotion was about. A black object was falling from the sky and was just barely visible out of the corner of the plane’s windows.

“What is it?” one man asked a stewardess. The same question echoed several dozen times over the next thirty seconds. The object was a fair distance away but seemed to be of significant size. It was black in colour and falling quickly.

“Ever seen anything like that before?” questioned a seated woman as the object disappeared from sight. Demmy shook his head, awestruck.

As the flight staff ushered everyone back to their seats, Demmy couldn’t help but overhear the copilot whispering to a flight attendant several aisles up. “We’re not sure what it was, but ground control seems to think it was manned. I guess it’s falling at a decreasing rate or something like that. Anyway, they said they’ll check it out, but that could take a while. I’m not worried about it, but damn. I’ve been flying for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Demmy frowned. The image of the black object implanted itself inside his mind. As he walked back to his seat, he grabbed the attention of a stewardess. Pointing to the young boy sitting in the seat adjacent to his, he said, “Can you see to it that that boy gets extra attention? He’s flying for the first time and he’s all alone.”

The stewardess stared at him for a moment but agreed. Demmy smiled and continued to walk down the aisle. As he passed by the young boy, a tiny hand reached out and touched his arm. He stopped and looked down. He was hit full force by two of the most concerned eyes he’d ever seen.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Demmy replied. “There was just another plane flying outside.”

“So everything’s alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” Demmy continued to walk towards the washroom, but the boy again grabbed his hand.

“Where are you going?”

Demmy considered lying, but the kid would obviously realize the truth when he didn’t come back. “There’s something I have to do, but it’s alright. The flight attendants will be here; they’ll make sure you’re alright.”

“You’re not coming back?” It was evident that he was thoroughly dismayed to be losing a new friend.

“No, I’m not coming back,” Demmy answered, kneeling by the seat, “but I’ll make you a promise. I promise that I’ll come back to visit you someday, um...”

“Max. Max Powell.”

“Right, Max. I promise I’ll come to visit you someday, Max, and I’ll bring you a present, too. How about that?” The boy’s face lit up. “Alright, then it’s settled. Enjoy the rest of the ride, Max, and have fun at your grandma’s.” With that, Demmy turned and continued to the washroom. Once inside, he closed his eyes to make it easier to concentrate.

The setting of the plane’s interior disappeared as Demmy’s body became intangible. He slipped like a ghost through the lower levels of the plane, exposing himself to the cold, thin air. As his body once more became corporeal, he began to artificially heat his being and started psychically creating his own oxygen supply.

Demmy began his free fall. His body turned vertically, with his head facing the ground. After a moment of falling, he realized he needed to move faster. Taking in the last bit of unrestricted solar energy before he hit the clouds, he unleashed an explosion of psychic energy from behind him to increase his velocity.

A matter of seconds after hitting the white blanket of clouds, Demmy burst out of that same whiteness. For the first time in nearly an hour, the world became visible to him again. The land was green almost as far as he could see. In the very far distance he could make out the blue of the Pacific. The rediscovery of colour strengthened his resolve and sped up his descent.

After a minute and a half of falling, the ground was quickly approaching. Demmy prepared to slow himself as he neared the green. He hadn’t seen exactly where the object had landed, but he would find it.

Whatever the approaching object was, it was currently airborne, and moving rather fast. It quickly fell from the sky, dropping down into the trees several yards away. After a short moment of thinking, the simulacrum decided it would keep its huckleberry form for a little longer, and wait to see if the strange object came any closer. The simulacrum could hear the newcomer as it made its way through the overgrown forest, pushing its way through bushes and shrubs, as if it were searching for something or determined to get somewhere. Soon it came into view of the simulacrum, coming around from behind a tall Douglas-fir, knocking down a few seed cones as it did. A quick glance revealed that this thing was quite unlike anything the simulacrum had ever seen before, which wasn't saying much as the simulacrum hadn't seen very many things in its short life.

The stranger was a living creature, probably, and it was quite obviously mobile. It was brightly glowing, in the infrared range of electromagnetic radiation, compared to the relatively cold trees and brush all around. It wasn't like the other living things in the forest, which as far as the simulacrum could tell were all plants. This was a creature that the simulacrum would certainly want to emulate. To do that, however, it would need to study it carefully, paying careful attention to its behavior. Then it would have to get closer and determine its chemical composition, among other things. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like the creature was planning on staying in one place for very long, making it a difficult study. It continued to move through the dense forest, now clearly searching for something.

As the creature passed the simulacrum, the huckleberry bush dissolved its form, becoming again a cloud of black dust, lit from within with an eerie blue glow. The creature hadn't noticed the sudden change in the simulacrum's form, continuing its passage through the woods, making its way around shrubbery and branches. The simulacrum followed silently behind the creature, watching its every movement, so that it could copy it most accurately. The creature went on for another ten minutes, climbing over fallen logs, ducking under thick branches, and avoiding crossing through gossamer thin spiders' webs. It didn't seem to be heading in any particular direction, instead seeming to search the general area for whatever it was it was trying to find.

The simulacrum was finally convinced it had learned enough about the creature's behavior as it could while discretely observing it. The next step would be interacting with it, to determine how it responded to certain stimuli. The simulacrum approached the creature from behind, the side that it had determined was the least observant. Part of the simulacrum materialized into a partial huckleberry branch, the only other form it was familiar with, and with this branch the simulacrum gave the creature a firm prod in the shoulder. The branch quickly dematerialized again, joining the nanoswarm as loose nanoscopic particles. As soon as the creature was jabbed, it spun around to face the glowing dust cloud that was the simulacrum. For a few short moments, the creature and the simulacrum mutually examined each other, still and silent, sharing a deep curious gaze.

The simulacrum then waited for the creature's response.

There was a loud sound as Demmy crashed against the mossy floor of the forest. Dirt was stirred into the air and formed a momentary cloud. Demmy burst forth from the shrouded crater before the dust could settle. Quickly hopping over dead trees and darting around foliage, the psychic flew through the dense green at a startling pace. Psychic energy was pulsing throughout the area, searching for the largest sign of movement.

A rustling of leaves caught the man’s attention. His body disappeared in a blur of colour and the nearby leaves trembled under a windless gust. He appeared several hundred feet ahead and slowed down. Demmy listened, mute, to see if he could pick up on an audible signal. A soft rasping in the distance turned his head. He disappeared again.

Demmy reappeared in a clearing. His movement stopped entirely. Somewhat defeated, he focused all of his energy on his search. Even with his sight and hearing psychically enhanced, he could sense no significant, sentient motion. He pivoted about, thinking maybe he could pick up on something he’d missed.

As it became apparent that there was nothing in the clearing to find, Demmy kept moving. He spent a few minutes moving about, just hoping to find something, before he gave up hope. He slowed to a walk and looked up at the trees. Where had it landed? He stumbled over a stump and just barely managed to catch his balance.

He continued to walk, almost ready to take to the skies, when he heard something from behind him. Something sharp poked him in the shoulder. Demmy jumped and spun around. His mouth fell open; he was visibly taken aback. He was staring at a black cloud of dust. That’s what it appeared to be, at the very least. There was, however, no mistaking the fact that the cloud was sentient. It bobbed and darted in a clearly conscious manner, examining the man.

The two beings remained motionless for a minute. Finally, Demmy reached out a rather apprehensive hand. He brought it up to the cloud and gently brushed it through the dust. Contrary to what he’d expected, the entity was overjoyed. It attacked his hand in what seemed to be a fit of glee. Surprised and pushed beyond his tolerance, Demmy accidentally discharged stored energy through his hand in the form of electricity.

The dust that had collected on his hand let go and fell from the cloud. Demmy pulled his hand back from the mass as it changed colour.

As the simulacrum examined the strange new creature, it reached out and put its hand into the midst of the nanoswarm. Eager to examine the makeup of the creature, the simulacrum began to inspect the outstretched hand, learning all about its external dermal layer. As it was doing so, something happened, catching the simulacrum off guard. A large amount of energy, electrical in nature, discharged from the creature's hand. The sudden charge of electrons completely destroyed the nanobots that were touching the hand, and many of the ones in the air immediately surrounding it. It also temporarily disrupted the simulacrum's electromagnetic field, causing its usually consistent spherical dust cloud shape to become disturbed and somewhat erratic as it tried to keep control of all its parts.

Those nanobots that were destroyed were now nothing more than black dust. Without control over themselves and without the magnetic field to keep them in check, they simply dropped to the ground. There they settled among the dead leaves, living insects, and moist earthy soil. Like everything else, the nanobots would decompose and become a part of this planet's ecosystem, its circle of life, a new and miniscule introduction into the carbon cycle.

Losing nanobots was simply natural; nanites from the swarm died every second, as they lost contact with the electromagnetic field and drifted off in the wind, or brushed against something and got stuck or broken, or simply grew old, malfunctioned, and stopped working. They were always replaced immediately as new nanites were built just as consistently as they were lost. But this was different. Several hundred nanobots were gone in an instant. The part of the simulacrum's mind which had been receiving information from those bots simply went blank. Suddenly, the simulacrum couldn't feel the hand that it had been previously examining.

The primary protocol was in danger of being breached. The simulacrum had been attacked. A wave of green light took over the blue light, starting where the nanites had died and spreading through the entire swarm, until the simulacrum was glowing green instead of blue. At the same time, the simulacrum quickly retracted from the attacker, keeping it within its senses so it could tell where it was and what it was doing, but hoping to remove itself from its range of attack. It drew its constituent nanobots closer together, to make itself a smaller target, and began to assess its situation and determine what to do next. Already, most of the missing nanobots had been replaced, and the swarm's excited green glow settled back to its calm blue.

Electricity. That was what the creature had used to attack the simulacrum. If high charges of electricity could have such a drastic affect on the nanoswarm's carbon-based bots, it would probably have an equally drastic affect on the creature's carbon-based skin cells. The simulacrum already produced electricity in order to power itself, converting photons from the planet's star into electrons. If it wanted to copy the attacker's ability, however, it would need a lot more electricity. Already, it was building and converting some of its existing nanites, specializing them to store the excess amounts of electricity it would need to make any useful weapon out of it. It also began to make more photovoltaic conversion bots, to collect and convert even more sunlight.

The electrical discharge simulation would take a few moments to fully build, and even longer to charge. Until then, it would need to find a solution to deal with its aggressor. Currently, the creature was standing on the ground in the same place it had been before, looking up at the simulacrum. Only seconds had passed since the creature had attacked the simulacrum. The simulacrum didn't know anything about this creature or its habits, and couldn't be sure that it would attack again, or if its previous attack had even been intentionally harmful. It didn't have time to work those things out, however, not with primary protocol initiated. There were two options that the simulacrum could choose between; stay and fight, or run and hide.

Had the danger potential been any greater, the simulacrum would have fled the scene. It wouldn't want to put itself in any significant risk. Putting itself at risk was restricted by its primary protocol, survival. However, the attack hadn't done any real damage to the simulacrum. Learning about the planet's inhabitants, including their attack habits and methods, was an important part of the simulacrum's secondary protocol. So for now, it would stay here and fight back.

The simulacrum lowered back down to the creature's level. A group of nanobots reached out from the swarm, forming an approximation of the creature's arm and hand in shape and size, covered in the same skin as the creature. The simulacrum reached out with its newly formed arm and grabbed the surprised creature's own arm, discharging a large amount of gathered electricity, about the same amount that the creature had released into the swarm.

There was a light hum in the air as the cloud of blue dust turned green and backed away. Several moments passed before the mass approached him again. Having somewhat startled himself with his unorthodox exhibit of aggression, Demmy was surprised to see the being near him once more.

His surprise at the cloud’s boldness could not have, however, matched his surprise at what came next. A human hand reached out from within the dust and grabbed his wrist. He jerked his arm from the creature but couldn’t free himself before he felt a searing pain in his upper arm.

Pain inspired a reaction in Demmy similar to but greater in magnitude than that inspired by surprise. He drew his hand back and shot a jet of methane towards the cloud. With a single, psychically induced spark, the methane erupted into a ball of flame and collided with the creature.

The fireball seemed to have little effect on the unearthly aggressor. Demmy took several steps back from the green entity and continued to look on in disbelief. Small pieces of the cloud fell from its entirety, alight with his flame, but the fire quickly subsided.

“What are you?”

After releasing its retaliatory attack, the simulacrum took note of the creature's response. The electric attack had almost certainly destroyed some of the creature's cells, although from what the simulacrum could determine, the damage was nothing too severe. Learning about the attack and defense behaviors of the creature would be an important step towards effectively simulating it, and the simulacrum made sure to record and store every bit of data it could. The creature's reaction to the simulacrum's attack seemed to have two primary stages.

The first stage of the creature's reaction to being attacked was withdrawal. The creature jerked away from the simulacrum and tried to get free, even before the simulacrum had fully initiated its attack. Withdrawal was part of the simulacrum's primitive instincts, a natural reflexive reaction to being damaged, and it was probably safe to assume that most creatures would have a similar instinct. Apparently it would not have to override this particular reflex when simulating this creature, which would make simulation easier.

The next stage was retaliation. Upon being attacked, the creature's first response is to get away from the source of the attack, and then its second response is to counterattack the aggressor. Simple instincts, both of which the simulacrum would not have to learn much about to understand fully, and both of which it had already demonstrated for itself, realizing the effectiveness of such a strategy. It would have to closely study this and other creatures that it discovered in order to make the best of this strategy, and to learn about all the benefits and downsides that came with it.

The creature's retaliation came in the form of an unexpected explosion. After the creature had managed to free itself from the simulacrum's grasp, it drew its arm back. Still carefully studying the creature, the simulacrum was not sure what action it should take now that it had finished its counterattack. As it was examining the creature standing before it, the atmosphere seemed to suddenly change, interfering with its flight capability. The simulacrum noticed some very drastic air pressure changes, and had to adjust itself in order to remain airborne. Quickly studying the composition of the atmosphere around it, the simulacrum was able to identify the pressure change as a sudden cloud of methane gas.

It wasn't until it was too late that the simulacrum learned about the properties of methane gas, specifically its flammability. Somehow, the creature was able to inject the cloud with a hot spark of energy, causing the methane to explode. The fireball washed over the nanoswarm, which did its best to avoid the intense heat by scattering and flying away. Despite the last-minute avoidance techniques, the simulacrum lost a great deal of its nanobots. As the nanoswarm came back together, still glimmering green from the shock of the explosion, a gentle rain of dust fell from the simulacrum, thousands of robotic cells that were dead and hence no longer being held together by the swarm's electromagnetic network. Some of the nanite clusters falling from the cloud were still burning, gray flakes alight with orange flame, reminiscent of embers.

From what it had learned, the appropriate response would be to counterattack again. Supposedly, until the simulacrum learned otherwise, this method would continue until one party was defeated or had retreated. The nanoswarm slowly faded back to blue as it considered whether or not it should attack or retreat, but then the creature it was studying did something new, something unexpected. It made a sound, a noise of some sort. The sound couldn't just be something incidental, it was much too complex and deliberate. It must have meant something. Perhaps it was some sort of communication.

Curious, the simulacrum memorized what the noise had sounded like, and then began to seek ways in which it could produce such a sound itself. Sound, of course, was just vibration. The simulacrum need only build some sort of structure capable of vibrating in the right frequencies to make the appropriate sounds. Various nanobots began to join together, combining into makeshift vocal cords. From the new auditory membrane came various buzzing and humming sounds as the simulacrum tested it to find the right frequencies and amplitudes. All the while, the creature stood by, harmlessly watching the spectacle to see what was going on.

Finally ready, the simulacrum spoke for the first time, repeating with almost uncanny accuracy the exact sounds the creature had made. It didn't know what it was saying, but it was pretty sure that it must mean something if the creature had gone through all that trouble to make those sounds.

"What are you?"

It took a moment for the psychic to gather his wits. He cocked his head to the side and squinted as he examined this unfamiliar entity. Still slightly weary because of the earlier retaliation of the creature, Demmy kept his distance. His entire world flipped upside down, however, when his own voice rang out through the moist air of the forest a second time.

"What are you?"

It was neither an echo nor his imagination. The hovering menace in front of him had just repeated exactly what he'd asked it. Not only was the flying cloud of black seemingly sentient, but it was also capable of speech. Incredible, thought the man. This newest development completely disarmed him and put his worries aside. He stepped closer to the mass, which seemed to emulate his earlier paranoia. It pulled back as he had. This multiplied his curiosity.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he told it. He took another few steps forward and the being retreated another metre. As it moved away from his outstretched hand, it produced several more buzzing sounds, like it had before speaking earlier.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

It was copying him? For whatever reason, the being was trying to impersonate him.

"What are you? I'm not going to hurt you."

A confused look blanketed Demmy's face. The cloud bounced here and there as it continued to steal Demmy's voice, primarily forming incoherent sentences. "What are I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not are you? Are you not going to hurt you."

Demmy's walking stopped entirely and he simply stood about with a puzzled frown. What was it doing?

"I'm not you."

"I should say not," Demmy replied.

"I should say not," it echoed. It then continued to mix and match words, looking for some sort of response in Demmy other than perplexity. It continued until one rather grim amalgamation of words caught Demmy's attention, causing his eyebrows to unwittingly rise.

"I should hurt you." It repeated this many times, and with each utterance Demmy's mind raced. What exactly was he dealing with? When this sentence stopped drawing a reaction from the human, the floating cloud searched for a similar combination. "I'm going to hurt you."

Demmy took a step back. The ominous forewarning caused him to retreat as his new emulator had only minutes earlier. The roles reversed, the copycat closed distance with the psychic, making him more than just a little uncomfortable.

Demmy raised a hand to the approaching observer. Once more, he was met by a human hand, reaching from somewhere within the cloud. A twinge of searing pain reverberated through his memory and Demmy refused to let it progress that far. He launched a forceful psychic push at the collection of dark particles and sent them flying backwards.

Hurt you.

The simulacrum was not sure in any way how communication among this species worked. Was it all about vocal communication, or were there other forms involved? How important was vocal communication to this species? To work it out, the simulacrum began to randomly piece together fragments of what the creature had spoken, hoping to form something that the creature would find coherent. Eventually it was able to find a combination that evoked the creature to respond. Working on it, the simulacrum was able to determine that these two words seemed to invoke some amount of fear or discouragement in the creature. The creature stepped back, retreating from the simulacrum. The simulacrum began to follow it, testing out its newfound intimidation technique, seeing how far it could take it. Finally, the creature stopped retreating and held up its hand.

The simulacrum remembered that gesture from before. The creature had held up its hand before the electrical attack, and before the methane explosion. Hands were dangerous things, apparently. From what the simulacrum could tell, it was this creature's primary weapon. Holding it up, therefore, was an intimidating gesture, a sign that the creature was willing and ready to attack again. It could be taken as a warning, a command to cease. The raised hand implied all the power and strength that went with that hand, and made it clear that the creature was able to use that hand again whenever it wanted or needed to.

The simulacrum had been able to copy the creature's electrical attack rather easily, but it was still working out the problems with the methane one. The primary problem was obtaining methane. There did not appear to be much of it in the air, from what the simulacrum could determine. The elements that methane was made from, carbon and hydrogen, were present in large enough amounts nearby, but in other compounds. The air contained significant amounts of both hydrogen oxide and carbon dioxide. If the simulacrum could separate the oxygen from those compounds, it could probably gather enough hydrogen and carbon to form methane molecules. Once it had gathered enough methane, it only took a single electric spark to ignite it. The difficulty would be controlling where the methane cloud formed, and casting the spark over a distance.

However, the simulacrum did not have time to test anything right now. It was too concerned with the creature's raised hand. On a whim, an idea came to the simulacrum. It formed the same human hand that it had before, reaching out to imitate the creature's gesture. The simulacrum tried to think of all the meanings this gesture could have if the simulacrum imitated it, and wondered how the creature would interpret it. It could mean that the simulacrum was also willing and able to attack if need be. By displaying a hand, the simulacrum was displaying its power as well. Would the creature take this as a sign of strength and bravery, or as a challenge or sign of defiance? Would the creature see the sign as a symbol of equality in power, or would it only serve to intimidate it into attacking?

Suddenly, a forceful and invisible push scattered the particles of the nanoswarm. The air in front of the creature's hand had moved with some great energy, creating some sort of shockwave. The simulacrum was for a moment quite disoriented, as all of its nanobots were scattered throughout the air. The force had been enough to push most of the nanobots out of the electromagnetic network that normally kept them all bound together. It didn't take long for the cloud to reform itself, however, as the nanobots signaled to each other and quickly got back into place. Over all, the attack had been rather harmless, even though it was the most mysterious attack yet. The simulacrum couldn't even begin to fathom how the creature had performed such an action, and was having trouble thinking of ways to imitate it.

The simulacrum decided that it was more important to maintain interaction with the creature, and decided to work on the problem later. The creature, after examination, did not appear to be overly aggressive. It seemed more curious, and perhaps scared or frightened, than anything else. The simulacrum wasn't at all sure how emotion or instinct worked for this species, of course, but it had a vague idea so far. To test the creature's reactions, and to work on its simulation skills, the nanoswarm began to change shape. Before it could make a complete transformation, however, it would need materials. Gathering on the nearest plant, it began to quickly break it down and collect the materials, mainly important carbon-based compounds. All the while, the creature watched from a distance.

After the simulacrum had consumed the bush, it began to simulate the form of the creature. It started by taking the exact shape of the creature, making a hard carbon framework for the inside of the creature (it had no idea what the inside looked like, so it just built a basic framework, something hard and solid that it knew would be able to fit the purpose for everything it knew so far). The simulacrum covered the carbon framework with human skin, including the thin layer of hair that the creature's skin seemed to have. The simulacrum built the electrical conductors in the arms as well, wired in such a way as to be able to pass electricity through its arms and hands to attack. It also built in its arms what it had made so far of its chemical gas extractors, to extract and collect the elements for building methane from the air. The vocal diaphragm that the simulacrum used for imitating speech was placed in the head, since this was where speech seemed to originate for the creature. After that, the simulacrum quickly went through simulating everything else as best it could, including the loose outer layer which seemed to cover most of the creature, until it had taken a form visually identical to the creature. After taking this shape, it went through a quick orientation, testing out all the various movements it had seen the creature make, trying to emulate it as close as possible.

The simulacrum was now a human being.

"Some vacation this turned out to be," Demmy muttered as he took a step back. He was now staring at himself, quite literally. It was almost like looking in a mirror. The floating cloud had changed shape before his very eyes. Time stood still and conventional logic stood in a broken and shattered heap on the forest floor.

As his foot pressed against the soft soil immediately behind him, Demmy watched his reflection advance on him. "Whoa there," cautioned the psychic as his clone followed him. He put both of his hands in the air to announce his retreat. The other man did so as well but continued to press forward.

The other being seemed to quicken his pace upon seeing Demmy's retreat. When Demmy bumped into a tree behind him, the gap between him and the other man disappeared. Demmy raised a hand to stop the man, who seemed to treat this as a challenge. As contact became imminent, memories of a painful electric jolt bubbled to the surface of Demmy's mind. Unable to control it, he discharged another wave of energy which hit his pursuer.

What happened next was fast. Fast and hot, actually. Just as Demmy had reacted to being hit with a taste of his own medicine, so did his assailant. Demmy barely had time to put up psychic protection before a cloud of flaming gas collided with his upper body. He could feel the heat through his shield, causing a thin layer of sweat to form on his skin.

Something inside of Demmy snapped as the flames subsided. A human defense mechanism kicked into play as beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks. When the blinding light disappeared, Demmy found his menacing counterpart still standing uncomfortably close. His mind set on nothing but survival, Demmy threw a fist into the jaw of his lookalike and then pushed at his chest with both hands, causing him to fall into a patch of moss.

As his breathing came down, Demmy wiped the sweat from his brow. He was no longer concerned with being nice.

As the simulacrum toppled over and fell on the soft bed of moss, it realized a few things. First of all, the flame generator needed some work. It had operated well when the simulacrum had activated it, much to its satisfaction, but it wasn't quite as good as the human's ability. It had taken too long, for one thing. Separating that much methane from the air had taken so long that it couldn't be a very effective method in battle; it would have to be planned out beforehand. Also, because the simulacrum couldn't control where the methane moved, it had to stay in one spot while it generated the methane or else it would leave all of the gas behind. The other problem, of course, was that the explosion had been far to close for comfort. Starting a spark from a distance had been pretty easy; all the simulacrum had to do was send a single nanobot with a small electrical charge into the methane cloud. The hard part was the fact that the simulacrum had, once again, no control over the methane and where it moved. This was all something that would need to be worked on.

The second thought that ran through the simulacrum's processors was that its new form was probably too lightweight. It had occurred to the simulacrum earlier that it probably had the weight and density of the human wrong and now that problem was beginning to have an effect. The human had more weight to it, and could push the simulacrum around relatively easily. Throughout the entire battle, the human had managed to keep on its two feet, and the simulacrum could already tell (by running a short simulation in its head) that a creature as tall as the human would need to be pretty heavy to stay on its two small feet. Certainly the human wasn't as hollow as the simulacrum was, which was where all its weight must be. The simulacrum already knew that the human could not be hollow; it was far too complex of a creature. The less complex plants the simulacrum had already examined were full of various objects and mechanisms, so surely the human had even more.

In order to fully simulate the human, something which the simulacrum had every intention to eventually do, it would need to copy every part of it, including the inside. It had to run off of the same mechanisms as the human, rather than the current emergent robotic network system it ran on now. Of course its old mechanism would always be there, running in the background, but its main goal right now was to emulate the complex creature and learn about its world. The only way to do that was to get a good look at its inside, and the only way to do that was to take it apart--piece by piece.

If that meant terminating the creature, well, so be it.

The human seemed intent on terminating the simulacrum as well and before the simulacrum had even got back on its feet an explosion rocked through the air and forced it back onto the ground. Something had changed in the creature's fighting style. It no longer had that sense of cautious curiosity to it, and it no longer seemed to wait for the simulacrum to respond before readying another attack.

The simulacrum would have to respond in kind, if it could get up off the ground. It rolled away from the human, and pulled itself back onto its feet, using a tree trunk for support. It was still new to this shape, and it would take some getting used to. "Hurt you. Should I hurt you? Going to hurt you." With that, it approached the human again, preparing to electrify it until it stopped moving.

“You can try,’ Demmy taunted, circling his way around his enemy. There was hesitation in his approach. He knew full well that his opponent could electrify him if he made contact. Any touch needed to be brief but effective. He also needed to watch out for the possibility of fire. It seemed like this copy of him was mimicking whatever he did. Despite this, he still lacked a certain aspect of Demmy’s physicality, and Demmy knew that to be true. He was light for his frame; incredibly so.

With very little warning, Demmy stopped edging around the other man and dove towards him. The two fell to the ground and the psychic managed to roll himself on top of his aggressor. Without waiting for a rebuttal, he brought his left fist down against the cheek of the copycat with a sick crack. The man’s head spun in the opposite direction but there was no real sign of pain in the reaction. As his head lolled back in place to look at Demmy, he brought his other hand down to collide with the other cheek.

The complete and utter lack of feeling on the man’s part only intensified Demmy’s assault. Now that he’d been pushed to defend himself, even the inaction of this man drove him further into frenzy. “Why don’t you feel?” he asked in separated breaths as he continued to punch the compliant visage of the man.

All of sudden, before Demmy had time to react, the other man brought up a hand to meet his own. Although it did nothing to stop the blow, it did manage to latch onto Demmy’s wrist. He jerked and pulled as best he could, but the searing was near immediate. Unable to free his arm from the grasp of his own mirror image, he felt electricity course throughout his arm and then the rest of his body. As the charge intensified and the pain grew in magnitude, Demmy could only just barely pry the fingers from his shaking arm.

Afraid of any further contact, Demmy rolled backwards and away from the man. He quickly got to his feet as his clone did the same. It seemed not only to be copying his abilities but also his attack patterns, with its behaviour becoming more aggressive. It charged at him, and he just only avoided being tackled.

Before the man could turn around, Demmy aimed a hand at his legs and psychically manipulated the air around them. A frost began to quickly form on the man’s shoes and reformed as his movement shook it off. As the change of state grew more rapid, water began to condense on his legs and froze immediately, almost as if a living, malevolent entity. Demmy continued to perform his psychic matter manipulation and the rate of freezing increased. In mere seconds, the man’s feet had become weighed down not only with frost but with solid ice that had worked its way up his legs, immobilizing him.


***

OoC - I apologize for this taking so long. I got bogged down with projects and got into a sort of mindset of not having any free time. Clearly unwarranted, judging by the size of the actual post.