In the Command Centre, Gosei and Tensou were listening as Noah relayed what had happened over his communicator. He didn't really know what was going on himself to be honest. While he was enthusiastic about all sciences, he had to admit that the real reason he was more interested in technology than biology was that it was, in many ways, simpler to ascertain what was going on, mainly because if he wanted to know how something worked, he could simply take it apart. It wasn't like he could very well ethically perform a vivisection to see how a cat or a human worked. However, it seemed that for now, Emma was not on board for the idea of allowing him to disassemble RICO.
"So, you're befriending one of Metal Alice's robots?" Tensou asked him.
"It...kind of looks that way." Noah told him. "Emma's already named him. We're calling him RICO for short."
"This is a dangerous practice Blue Ranger." Gosei warned him. "You have no way of telling what he is programmed to do."
"Yeah, I was hoping I could figure it out." Noah told him. "I'm going to perform a few tests..."
"We must be certain of the motivations behind his creation before we take any chances." Gosei told him. "Learn what you can from him, but until we have fully ascertained the level of threat he poses, you are forbidden to bring him here."
"As much as the Command Centre computers would be great right now, that's the last thing I was planning on doing." He assured Gosei. "I'll do what I can with what I have here."
As he ended the communication, turning his attention back into the school gym, he saw RICO holding Emma's wrist, stopping her from going. They knew that there were no gym classes scheduled for the afternoon, and that the soccer team would be using the pitches, so they had reasoned he could stay here without too much risk of being discovered while Noah ran his tests. He was about to intervene, but seeing the look on her face, he could tell that she didn't really consider this a threat.
"No, no RICO, I told you I have to go. I have classes to go to." Emma told him. "I need to go or I'll get into trouble."
"Then RICO go with Emma." RICO suggested. She looked to Noah, hoping he could explain in a way that would make him understand.
"He was probably built to follow orders, to be dependent on someone else to tell him what to do. Without Metal Alice around, he's looking for someone else to fulfil that role." Noah told her. "You were the first one to talk to him. I think maybe his processors have identified you for that."
"Wait...so Emma's like...his mom?" Cat asked, looking up from her sketch pad. Emma just looked to each of them in amazement.
"I'm his mom?" She asked, her voice indicating a level of panic. Noah just sniggered at the thought.
"Well, it's not the way I'd have put it, but...I guess if the glove fits." He teased her. Emma just held up her hand.
"Well, can you at least get him to let go?" She asked him. Noah just smiled.
"You're his mommy." He responded. "It's up to you to teach him that he needs to cut the apron strings."
"You're not going to let this go are you?" Emma asked him. He just shook his head.
"I think it's sweet." Cat stated. Emma just looked to RICO thoughtfully.
"RICO, I need to go, but I will come back OK?" She told him. "Cat and Noah are going to be here with you for the rest of the afternoon. You can trust them not to harm you, right guys?"
RICO looked to the two other people in the gym, before looking back to Emma. The fact he hadn't let go indicated he wasn't entirely convinced.
"They're friends, like me." She explained. "They won't do anything I wouldn't do, so if they ask you to do something, you can do it just like you would for me alright?"
RICO looked down to his hand, and finally let go of Emma's wrist. She looked to Noah and smiled.
"Well, I really need to go before I get a tardy slip." She told Noah. "Just...be careful with him alright?"
"I already promised didn't I?" Noah assured her as she left. He just shook his head in disbelief. "She can still play me like a fiddle."
"What are tools for?" RICO asked Noah as he set down his tool kit and his lap top. Noah just looked to them.
"Well, we still don't really know how you work." Noah told him. "We need to be sure everything's working the way it should."
"RICO broken?" RICO asked him. "You fix?"
"If something needs fixed, I'll see what I can do." Noah told him. RICO picked up a power drill and was about to start drilling into his arm, when Noah snatched it off him. "What are you doing?"
"RICO help friend." He stated. "RICO want to help friend see if RICO is broken."
"OK, that's good...but how about you just trust me with the tools?" Noah asked him. "Cat, can you keep him distracted somehow?"
"Kay Kay." She chimed in cheerfully as she came across. "RICO, you see all that wood and stuff over there? We're going to make it into a Thanksgiving float."
"RICO not understand." RICO told her honestly.
"It's kind of a vehicle, one that's really fancy that shows up at parades and special occasions that's decorated in a way to mark the occasion." She told him. "I'm just going to show you some of the designs I had in mind OK?"
As Noah started up his lap top, RICO turned his attention to the computer.
Metal Alice had returned to the underwater base, and hooked herself into the control console, enacting her self-repair mechanism. She had suffered barely any damage beyond the cosmetic, and she knew it would take only minutes to return to one hundred percent. The communications link burst into life behind her.
"Lord Vrak." She greeted him without turning to face him. "Your communication is 1.93 seconds later than I calculated."
"I have to say, I was watching the broadcasts for signs of your impressive new creation." He told her. "Though I have to admit, I don't know what was more impressive, when you screamed at it for standing around like a hand stand, or when he took that one hit and keeled over like worthless scrap."
"Your tone indicates sarcasm, it isn't warranted." She responded. "My plan is going exactly as I intended."
"Really?" Vrak asked her. "You intended to waste valuable time and resources creating a robot that doesn't even know when to attack?"
"See for yourself." Metal Alice told him, sending him some schematics. Vrak smiled wickedly as the pieces of the plan fall into place. "All going well, I will accomplish what none of your other creations ever could."
She then activated a hidden command, and pulled up an image. She drew away from the computer as she saw nothing but nonsensical drawings, one of them featuring turkeys and pies, covering a table that seemed to be resting on some kind of vehicle.
"What...what is this?" Metal Alice demanded. As the image moved, she could see they were inside the school gym. "This is merely a setback Lord Vrak."
"Well, I'll just leave you to follow events here." Vrak told her. "Meanwhile, I have to finish scavenging everything of worth from the ship. It won't be much longer until I hand in my notice for good."
"I will do so master." She replied as he signed off. She looked back to the viewing screen, seeing Cat explaining the drawings. "Presuming this inane prattling doesn't damage my processors in the meantime."
Back at the gym, Noah was continuing to run his tests. Without opening RICO up, he really couldn't tell much about him, but he found a few things that were obvious. It seemed that most of his systems seemed to work on a combination of electronics and hydraulics, but they were so much more advanced than anything he had seen. Most robots humans had created were slow, clunky, and unrefined. We had yet to create anything as refined as this. While robots that could walk had been created, they tended to be slow, and the slightest unfamiliar surface unbalanced them. They didn't have the processing power of a human brain to make the literally millions of calculations and corrections a human would take for granted in the simplest tasks, like walking on an uneven floor.
His hydraulics however seemed to have a response time that was more or less equivalent to human musculature. If he was given time to practice a task, he would theoretically be just as capable of performing it as a human would, possibly even more so. Noah shined a light into his visor to see if RICO responded, and noticed it tinting a little, kind of his version of his pupils dilating he presumed.
"OK RICO, I need to..." Noah's words tailed off as he came across a stumbling block. "Um..."
"What is it?" Cat asked Noah.
"I need to...see what his temperature is." Noah told her.
"So use a thermometer." She replied.
"The thing is, that'll only give his surface temperature." Noah explained. "He's made of metal; it'll be more or less room temperature. I need to know his core temperature."
"Oh." Cat stated, looking to RICO. "RICO, open up and say AHHHH!"
"Open up what?" RICO asked, looking at her, confused. It was then that CAT saw a problem.
"Cat, he doesn't have a mouth." Noah reminded her.
"Oh." Cat responded as she thought about it. "Well, when a doctor wants to take a temperature, sometimes they..."
She pulled closer and whispered in his ear. Noah just looked to her.
"He doesn't have one of those either!" He replied. "At least...I don't THINK he does, I haven't really looked."
"What does Noah want RICO to do?" RICO asked.
"Um...I was just wondering, is there any way I can get your core temperature?" He asked. RICO just sat still for a moment.
"Current internal core temperature 102 degrees Celsius." RICO informed him.
"Oh." Cat answered, looking to Noah. "Isn't that kind of high?"
"Not for an engine." Noah assured her. "What are the optimal and safe ranges?"
"Optimal running temperatures 90-110 Celsius." RICO told him. "Safe running 10-200 Celsius."
"I guess that all sounds pretty good then." Noah sighed as he started to pack away his gear. Emma and the others came back, classes having finally finished for the day.
"So, what did you find out?" Emma asked.
"Well, as near as I can tell, he has a pretty clean bill of health physically for a robot." Noah told her. "I just wish I could get inside his head for a look at his programming."
RICO reached for the power drill again, only for Noah to snatch it off him again.
"He also...takes things kind of literally." Noah stated.
"RICO, were you going to use that on your head?" Emma asked him.
"Noah said he wanted to see inside RICO's head." RICO stated bluntly. Emma just glared at him, before looking to RICO.
"He didn't really mean he wanted you to drill into your own head!" Emma tried to explain. "It's just an expression; he just...didn't explain what he meant very well."
"So, the question is, what do we do with him now?" Troy asked. "I doubt Gosei wants us to take him to the Command Centre."
"He made it pretty clear he doesn't until we know more about his programming." Noah stated. "I'll need to bring more stuff from my place tomorrow, but until then, we'll need somewhere for him to go."
"Well, we can always..."
"NO Emma!" Gia interrupted the Pink Ranger sharply.
"But Gia..."
"Look, I know you want to trust him and give him the benefit of the doubt and everything, but do you really think Eric and mom would let a robot live in the house?" She asked her. "Your dad freaked when he found that badger you found in the road!"
"That...was different. It's not like I could hide RICO in the laundry hamper." Emma told her. "Besides, Dad and Louise..."
"They've been really cool and understanding about the Ranger thing up until now, but I think this is just a little too much." Gia told her. Noah just sighed and looked to RICO.
"How much do you weigh?" He asked.
"RICO weighs 897.653 pounds." RICO replied. He just gestured to him.
"Well that settles it; we couldn't get him there anyway." Noah told her. "He'd blow out the suspension in your dad's car, and I think people might just notice him walking down the street."
"Why take him anywhere?" Jordan asked. "Metal Alice said he was a complete failure. The only reason she's not been back for him is probably because he's a throwaway prototype."
"RICO failure?" RICO asked.
"RICO, don't listen to him." Emma stated, looking to Jordan. "He doesn't have any friends, or anyone to look out for him, just us!"
"He doesn't have any friends?" Jordan shrieked, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or scream. "HE'S A ROBOT! He's a glorified waffle iron! He doesn't have feelings or anything like that! He's just a machine, and he's clearly so busted up and useless even Metal Alice doesn't want him!"
"He's responding to our orders." Gia stated.
"Well, he's responding to Emma's actually." Noah corrected her. "He seems to have latched onto her as kind of his new mommy."
"Will you stop calling me that?" Emma said grumpily.
"But, he answered you..."
"He's only responding to us because Emma told him to." Noah answered. Emma just looked to RICO.
"Alright RICO, you remember how I said you were to obey Noah and Cat just like they were me?" Emma asked him.
"RICO remember." RICO stated.
"Well, you can trust the rest of my friends." Emma continued. "You see everyone here? Gia, Jake, Noah, Cat and Troy? Well, I want you to obey all of them as if they were me alright? I promise they won't harm you."
"Wait, what about me?" Jordan asked her. Emma just looked at him sceptically.
"He's already tried to drill a hole in his own head because Noah accidentally suggested it to him." Emma reminded him. "Do you think I'm going to risk letting you tell him what to do when I know you want him destroyed?"
"Jordan want RICO destroyed?" RICO asked her. He looked to Jordan. "Why? What did RICO do to Jordan?"
"I think we should probably just finish this discussion another time." Troy suggested as he held Jordan back. "The basement. Principal Kwann gave us keys to the basement. No one goes down there!"
"Yeah, he can stay in the basement of a high school full of innocent kids! What could possibly go wrong there?" Jordan asked sarcastically. "I got my key ring confiscated because it had a one inch case knife on it, and you want to let a walking weapon of mass destruction stay here?"
"RICO won't harm anyone will you RICO?" Emma asked.
"Emma not want RICO to harm anyone, RICO will not harm anyone." RICO replied. Jordan just threw his hands up in the air.
"OK, I've had enough." He snapped. "When you finally want that...THING destroyed, call me. Until then, I'm going somewhere things make sense!"
"Why Jordan want to destroy RICO?" RICO asked Emma. Emma just sighed.
"He's just...he doesn't like robots too much." Emma explained. "A really bad robot did something really bad to him. Now...he doesn't like robots."
"RICO not understand." He said in response. Emma just handed him a key. "At the end of the hall, there's a red door that'll take you down into the basement. When you get there, go to the door with a sign on it saying pump room. This key will open it. You can go in there and wait until we come back."
"Emma will come back?" RICO asked her. She nodded.
"Of course I will." She told him. "I'll be back tomorrow before school, by seven o'clock, that way we can spend some time together."
"RICO believe Emma." RICO replied. "Can RICO learn things while Emma away? RICO not understand a lot of things."
"Uh...the library's just down the hall on the right." Noah told him. "But don't go in there before six PM. No one can see you. And you have to leave and go to the basement before seven AM."
"RICO will do so." He replied. Troy and the others just started to gather their things to leave.
"Come on guys, it's getting late." Gia grumbled. "I guess we'll start on the float tomorrow."
"I just wish we had more time to work on it." Cat lamented as she left.
As they left, RICO just looked to the pile of wood in the corner. He made his way over to it, picking up one of the packing pallets and inspecting it. He yanked two of the planks apart with his bare hands with ease, before pushing out the nails with his palm.