An Interesting Proposal

Sleeping in the suit wasn't very comfortable, though it was quiet enough that it was restful. I didn't want my operations to stop and so I stayed where I was for the night as the machine continued pulling up resources. My dreams were filled with visions of potential advancements, most of which I took quick notes of when I woke in between the dreams. By the time the sun was rising I was already at work making the designs. It wasn't until I heard a growl that I realized I had been neglecting my stomach and had to finally stop the mining operation and head towards town for supplies, mine being completely depleted with my lack of foraging. Before heading out I checked the various systems, seeing how much I had stored of both materials and power. To my delight I had an overabundance of both, which meant that the system could run optimally and the weight increase in my suit would be negligible. I was sure with a few more iterations of technological improvements my ability to store things would be nearly limitless.

As I approached town I wondered if I needed to leave the suit behind, but my mind was quickly made up when the engineers came rushing out to the suit and ushering me forward so that everyone could see what was possible with the technology that was being developed. The townsfolk gazed at the approaching behemoth with awe and wonder, most of them keeping their distance but some found enough courage to come touch the suit while it was moving, though they all kept their distance from the feet as they came down. When I was close enough I stopped and climbed out, the suit going into standby and lowering itself to the ground, making it about a quarter of its standing size. While many of the villagers inspected the suit, which was safely locked down to prevent them from using it, I went to the market and did my best to barter for something to eat, though it was getting to be harder to do as the materials I had weren't worth nearly as much now that they were able to refine better things already and I wasn't willing to part with most of the ones I had risked my life to learn about in the first place. This made breakfast pretty meager and I realized I would have to start finding my own food from now on, though my mind was already coming up with ideas for that. As I munched on my breakfast and worked on getting a few more things to make it through the rest of the day I noticed the engineers starting to follow along, though at a distance. They seemed hesitant to ask me what they wanted and I pretended not to notice, trying to finish my business before they finally got the courage to ask.

When they did it all began in hushed tones with them coaxing me in to a remote building and the door being locked behind us. Despite the fact that, with the door closed, you couldn't hear anything outside they still continued with the quiet voices. They began by explaining how they were advancing and how their research was leading them towards a problem they were facing and that they believed I could help solve, and that was namely that they didn't have the time or resources to spend teaching others what they were learning and they needed to find a way to quickly pass that knowledge on. That was where I came in, they all knew of the technology I guarded very carefully and they desperately wanted to know if I could produce a copy of it, blank of course, that they could then study to see how it worked. I found it hard to answer them, I knew the design still resided somewhere in the memory of my device but I was very hesitant to build another one for fear that someone would use it and never figure out how to undo what it did. I thought about it for some time before they finally reminded me that they needed an answer, they assured me that all their research would be fully disclosed to me and hopefully that would mean I could benefit from it as well. It was another temptation to think about and I knew their help would be invaluable, the entire race of them seemed very capable of understanding things on a level that I wasn't sure I could keep up with, which was the other part that scared me. I told them I would need more time, which they understood, and I went back out and got in my armored suit, wasting little time to reach a great distance from the village. I tried my best to think the situation over, but my mind was going in many different directions and I found the only way to focus was to keep working. The sun sank in the distance and my work continued until it was rising once more.