The real reason was that the Rei units had some problems.
They tended to be cold and impersonal, emotionless and quiet. These weren't problems for the most part. A calm, logical, hard-working slavegirl was definitely something useful. The problem wasn't the appearance, which wasn't especially curvaceous or sexy but did manage a certain degree of attractiveness.
No, the Rei series had had problems from the onset, and the Eight meant that there had been seven groups before THAT which had all gone horribly wrong. NeuBerlin's Gehern Corporation ("Bringing you the future - today.") had seen seven production models of the Rei series fail.
Rei One had been vicious little brats with no socio-moral compass innate to them. You simply couldn't teach them a darn thing and they'd eventually all died within a few years of each other, usually killing each other or workers involved with the project.
Rei series Two had all discovered the details of their development, and they'd quietly ended their own existence by marching en masse into a sealed room and activating a self-destruct protocol on the cloning equipment.
Rei series Three had never developed anything approaching consciousness. They'd required life support from birth, and each had quietly expired as soon as that life support had been withdrawn.
Rei series Four, Five, Six - congenital heart problems, neurological dysfunctions, fatal cancers.
Rei series Eight had been the largest run at fifty, and the people involved had all but given up by this point. Except that the Eight series was working so far - years past the point that other Rei had operated. To be sure, they were not the most emotional of individuals. They seemed fairly depressed most of the time. If a Rei was not specifically told to do something, it wouldn't get done. They lacked initiative.
Some bright girl in the Biotech R&D department had come up with the contest involving another department's VirtuaBoy technology. With winners from a variety of cultures and in different situations, the Rei units could be exposed to wildly different environments.
In two cases after the contest, a Rei unit had begun to show signs of independent initiative. Of something other than uncaring depression.
Ranma Saotome was one of those owners.
It was determined after the fact that he was clueless in the extreme and could be quite aggravating. Arrogant in many manners, but he could apparently not stand to see someone so despondent and he didn't really care that she was a cloned mass produced slave.
The Rei unit had begun to show emotions. Mind you - the emotional responses so far were so small that a stranger might not be able to pick them up. Just that she had asked when she was being returned to her Master every day since she'd been brought back for training indicated a MAJOR turning point had been crossed somehow.
The Girl Friday was loaded by anxious technicians.
The skill package was part of a program of hypnotic sleepteaching that had been developed that downloaded the skills in a virtual reality environment. The skills were very basic in their mastery but there were a wide range of skills. Cooking, for example, was restricted to the basics of following a recipe and identifying common ingredients and units of measure. Finances, driving a common vehicle type, makeup and feminine hygiene, how to do a budget, and similar things useful on a day-to-day basis.
Of the fifty, forty-eight still lived. Forty-six were still going through the motions. Two were responding to their enviroment. These last two were of the most interest - and both would be followed with close scrutiny by Gehern.
In fact, they had an idea how to monitor that one even closer.
Rei did some simple exercises as she waited for her owner. Her Master. Ranma.
She was aware of many things around her and within her. She was aware of many things that even Those Who Watched were not aware of.
Such as the fact that most of the Rei units had some psychic talents.
She had no doubt that some of the grisly deaths she'd witnessed in the thoughts of They Who Watched had been because some of those previous series had shared such talents. Not all but some at least.
She was aware that most of the Eights would be dead within the next year. Few had any desire to keep going and they would sever themselves from their physical shell as long as their conditions continued as they were. They would merge with existing Rei Eights and thereby increase those psychic talents.
She was also aware that there would not be a series Nine. Data was going to be lost in a building fire that would occur later this year, with a mysterious loss of all backup data stored offsite in a series of accidents.
Rei was patient. She was effectively two years old if one consulted a calendar. Biologically she was fourteen. Intellectually, she wasn't sure what age to place herself at. Older than fourteen most likely.
She'd consigned herself to being one of the first to pass on, but her Master had other plans. He had tried being insulting at first but she'd seen past that - he had simply been trying to provoke an emotional response. She had looked closer, getting impressions completely at odds from the researchers who had filled most of her life.
She was also aware that she was acting differently now, as was Ranma. He wasn't aware of it, but she had touched his essence. He was unaware but he had changed too in that moment of contact - beginning to open up to her in a way that he wouldn't or couldn't do otherwise.
Rei kept herself from showing any signs of awareness. He was close now. He would be taking her from here within the hour. She simply kept going through the exercises she had been doing. Wax on. Wax off.
Rei remembered what Ranma and his father had discussed. After picking her up, they were supposedly:
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(Posted Sun, 07 Aug 2005 09:32)
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