Luther and Blair stood watching a large wide screen while several technicians worked at computer stations in front of them. The display was filled with rows of squares that each showed a different Eternal Sphere character going about their normal virtual life. Some were sophisticated starship pilots. Some were hunters and manual laborers. Some were little more than cavemen. Numbered 000 to 055, they were all of the individuals Luther's team had extensively examined. Bright blue squares showed male test subjects, while the females were highlighted in pink.
Blair pressed something on her portable console. The screen zoomed in on first pink square on the upper left. It was a detailed digital silhouette of an archer running back and forth as she helped her blurry allies fight some sort of giant pixelated monster.
"And here's our Patient Zero: Reimi Saionji," Blair said to her brother.
Luther watched as a list of data secretly being generated by Reimi's body scrolled through the screen.
"Her vital signals match the original baselines," he observed. "And her memory subroutines have remained unaffected since our diagnostic. Good. But has your team made any progress learning anything about her? I need something for Marketing."
Blair shook her head.
"Nothing major, so far. All we've picked out are a few interesting genetic differences between her and some of the human specimens from the other Sphere eras. But we did manage to make this little breakthrough."
The pink and blue squares disappeared as the screen changed completely. A single chrome cylinder stood in the center of digital emptiness representing a software compiler. When the container opened, a single girl walked out with an icon labeled "RE-1M1" over her head. She was almost identical to Reimi and wielded the same large white compound bow. The only noticeable difference was the pleat of her armored blue skirt was labeled with the "SC" logo of the Sphere Corporation instead of the original "SRF." Her head was tilted forward, partially covering her eyes under her brown bangs. Her mouth curled into a friendly but somewhat mysterious smile.
"This is Maintenance Drone Ree One Em One," Blair said. "We usually pronounce it the same as 'Reimi' to keep things simple. Welch and I engineered her from the extensive physiological and material data you collected. Her base personality is the same as the original Reimi construct, but she's fully aware of her role in the system. She's ready and willing to accept commands from anyone with Administrative privileges. She's much more intelligent than our rudimentary maintenance programs."
RE-1M1 pointed her bow toward the camera in a demonstration pose.
"This one is identical to the original specimen in terms of physical abilities," Blair continued. "I tried to give her alternate versions something closer to Executioner attributes, but we ran into format issues every time we tried to patch the code. The results always ended up crashing at runtime."
"But what does she do?" Luther tucked his thumb and forefinger under his chin.
"Right now I have her installed as an add-on for the Philosopher program. I was worried Sophia was getting lonely when she wasn't in contact with us, so now she has a friend from her own universe who can always keep her company. They're very compatible together."
"And…?" Luther said impatiently. "Please don't tell me we went through all the effort of locating, securing, and reverse engineering 56 different Eternal Sphere instantiations, and all we got out of it was an emotional support app for our recycling bin."
Blair nodded in amusement. "I was expecting you would say something like that."
Blair typed a new command into the console, and countless more containers appeared like rising monoliths on both sides of the Reimi lookalike. When the devices opened, they released a set of identical Reimis all marked with the "SC" logo on their skirts.
"The program is ready for mass production," Blair proudly revealed. "There's only one Philosopher, but we can assemble an unlimited army of RE-1M1s. I can cook up copies of every other Eternal Sphere lifeform who's been brought in for inspection, as well."
Luther finally smiled.
"Good. Add her to the portfolio and continue your monitoring. This is just what I need for the presentation."