[written by a dragon and a salty boi]
Hector crossed his arms impatiently and grunted in obvious annoyance. "If you have something to say, then say it. We aren't enemies come out of the wilderness to pillage and murder, and I'm not sure what she was like before but Medeina has been perfectly well behaved since we recovered her." At that Hector cocked his head, remembering the vault and the incident with the chicken walker, "mostly well behaved." Dr. Chelsea suddenly looked very tired, but not altogether unwilling to give up on the issue.
"I just..." He began, "I have a hard time believing she doesn't have some kind of ulterior motive. She didn't back then, but things change. She can change. Her program structure is designed to change. Its an evolving system and the only limit to it's growth is how much hard drive space it's got. Mr. Lowe, please, I just need to know... You at least aren't going to upload her back into her old systems?"
Hector shook his head at that. The way he seemed so concerned was worrisome, but from what he'd seen he was at least still willing to give Medeina the benefit of the doubt. "No. Given our current objective entails assembling a proxy she can move around in, putting her in an old network that likely isn't fully-functional anymore would be rather the opposite of that." he pointed out.
However, the tone in his voice did betray that his remarks had given him pause momentarily. "If she does try that however...I'll be the first to put a stop to it, by any means necessary."
Medeina waggled wildly at the implications and insinuations being passed around, but said nothing. Were she an organic being, she would huff and pout at all of it. She couldn't lie and say the promise of possible data wasn't a dire temptation, but if the systems were really as damaged as implied, then it would be dangerous for her to do anything about it.
Chelsea was staring at her, realized she hadn't stopped waggling her limbs, and made herself stop. "Set me down Ms. Minx, please? I'll be waiting in the siege tower Mr. Lowe." To the knight and naturalist, the robot sounded a mix of agitated and unhappy. Minx shot the doctor a withering look, and followed after.
"I'm sorry if I can't put whole faith in your words Mr. Lowe, but I suppose it will have to do. I, um, I guess with that said... You wanted something here?"
Hector gave a little nod at Medeina's remarks, gesturing to suggest that Minx go ahead and let the machine wait by the tank for now. "It was Medeina's idea that we check here for parts needed. Graphene primarily, possibly solar cells for vehicle and the settlement's use. We're from a community named Walkerville, built off an old farm a few miles from here." he explained.
"The storm just about ruined a lot of equipment our main engineer, name of Catnip, had set up there. Between that and a growing settlement in the nearby refugee center..."
Chelsea scratched the side of his face and frowned deeply, a man unsure of what to do about what he saw as a serious problem. Then, with a sigh, he turned away. "I'll get my manifest..."
When he returned, which Hector hadn't been sure that he would, he had in hand a few pages of the kind of thin cheap paper used by government bureaucrats. "The storm stirred up and displaced a lot of creatures... Especially raptor shrimp, so I'd stay in your tank until you get to the core facility. Most of what you want will be in the core facility since that's where the holding cells were. Except solar cells, you could probably find those under a cover outside the Tenjin facility, since he was undergoing expansion." The sheets of paper contained a familiar manifest.
"How did you get this if the facilities are shut down?" Hector asked while looking over each item and noting other things that might be useful to collect.
"Medeina made sure I had a print out copy." Chelsea said with an unconscious sneer, "She made sure I had a lot of information..."
"This checks out, looks to match Medeina's suggestions. Pleasant surprise then." Hector remarked, giving a polite nod. "Thank you, hopefully this doesn't disturb the wildlife too much. You be careful as well, alright?"