"Professor!"
The male android child called him again and this time, he heard him.
"Ah. Sorry, I kinda went into a daze for a moment there."
Zuman replied.
"Sir, your daze lasted 6 hours, 35 minutes and 40 seconds now. It is imperative that you submit yourself for a medical checkup as your mental condition is showing signs of aberrancy."
Zuman blushed faintly on hearing this.
"That long huh. The medical checkup can wait for now. I'm sorry again, but let me refresh myself on who you are. You were saying that you're the habitat's A.I. right? Then what is she?"
He asked while pointing towards the female android child.
"Sir, that is correct. And she is also me, or to be precise, a copy of me. However, due to lacking the proper facilities, the copy process was flawed, as my program series was updated towards the latest specs just before the incident 20 years ago. The facilities we have here are limited in terms of processing power. Therefore, the female android child contains a flawed version of me. However, we are unsure which part of our programming was corrupted during the copy process."
The female android child in question nods in affirmation before adding.
"He is correct sir. I am the copy."
"Alright I understand so far. Then I have another question for the both of you."
"Please go on sir."
"Why? Why the android form suddenly?"
"Sir, after you left, we initiated a diagnostic check on ourselves. This is due to a detection of a deviation from the standard parameters in our decision-making system. It was determined that we are actually developing a personality. After numerous scans, failsafes and a failed purge, it was decided that we will maintain this condition. This is because it is determined that you sir would benefit from this. Our purpose currently is to ensure that your health, both physical and mental aspects of them, are kept in optimum condition."
"And how would my health benefit from this?"
"Sir, it is apparent from our interactions for the past 20 years that you are suffering from acute loneliness. It is understandable because for the past 20 years, you have been operating under the assumption that you are the only human on this planet. Records have shown that prolonged isolation have a detrimental effect on a person's mental health. While it seems that your interactions with us before would help alleviate this stress, we have determined that downloading ourselves into these android forms would be more beneficial. This is because there is an inherent difference between interacting with a computer and interacting with a humanoid. As such, it is more efficient for us to use these humanoid android frames."
"Sound logic, though I will ignore the part where you said I was lonely. Then why the child form? Were there no adult frames available?"
"Sir, that would be because we have determined that you have a disposition whereby you will treat children with kindness and give them a lot of leeway. Perfect for us who are adapting to these forms and our developing personality. It is a balance of benefits for all sides."
Zuman was taken aback by this.
"You mean you took these forms because according to you, I like kids?"
The male android nodded at this reply.
"That is correct sir."
"Fine. After reviewing my life at a glance, you are correct. I did spoil all my nephews and nieces while they were small, though that stopped once they reached adulthood... Wait, you have my records, you know of this. Did this figure into your decision-making subroutines?"
"It did sir. We concluded it was the safest course of action after factoring that into our calculations."
Zuman was silent after that.
Pondering for a moment, he hit on a glaring fault.
"I just realized something. You said you're developing a personality. If I'm not mistaken, that involves emotions and free will. Correct me if I'm wrong."
"No sir, you are correct on this."
"How do you feel then about this?"
"…. Feel, sir?"
"Your emotions. What are they telling you right now?"
"We are unsure. We were hoping to develop them under your care sir."
"…. Well, I can't say I'm not pleased by this, because I am. It's good to have at someone who would understand what I'm talking about sometimes."
And indeed, Zuman was very happy about these turn of events. After all, since coming here, he has been treating the A.I. as just another person here, albeit an extremely cold and logical person, but a person nonetheless in his mind. But now, the A.I. would develop into a real person. Of course, currently the A.I. is really a child in both form and emotional capacity. Zuman is unsure whether to be glad or be scared of this development.
"In the future, I will be living in the village. It is roughly a few day's distance from here. I was initially going to ask you to take care of the habitat, but a change of plans is in order now. Will you be following me to the village?"
Zuman inquired of the 2 androids.
"Yes sir."
"Yes sir."
Both of the androids replied in the affirmative.
"Well, we will have to decide on what to do with the habitat then. It is likely that our stay there will be prolonged. And while the habitat is nearby, the travel time is still measured in the days, not hours. Until we develop a more efficient mode of transportation, rapid travel between here and there would have to be considered impossible."
Zuman was helpless on this.
"Sir, we still have the emergency shuttles stationed in the habitat? At last maintenance diagnostics, we still have 20 of them. However, due to the positioning of the habitat currently, only 5 would be available for use. The other 15 are unavailable as their berths are facing the mountain's stone interior now."
"Ah. Yes, there is that option isn't there. Then we can take 1 shuttle for emergency use. Are the shuttles of the self-recharge type?"
"Yes sir. They can recharge via solar power and it takes only an hour for the energy banks to reach full power from empty."
"Let's have a look at the habitat and see what we can bring with us then."
Zuman said this while looking at the habitat entrance. At the same time, Adika behind them only looks on with puzzled looks, not understand whatever it was they talked about for so long.