Unrecognizable

~Chapter Twelve~

Calmly and carefully, Mumbo walked over to the cell door. His eyes met the npc's, the latter of two's narrowing slightly. He slowly opened the door, but couldn't help stepping back quite a bit. "Wanna come out?"

"Alright," the npc said in an almost monotonous voice. He-- Mumbo figured he was a he at least-- seemed a fair bit more than uncomfortable leaving the confines of the cell. As he stepped out, the AI's arm shot out to prop himself up on the cell, and his steps were wobbly and unbalanced. Mumbo blinked. Could he not walk? Uh, oh. Before Mumbo could ask any questions, however, the npc continued. "So this is Hermitcraft."

Wait, how would the lookalike know that? Neither X nor Mumbo hadn't mentioned it at all in the time they explained-- which, in hindsight, would probably have been a good idea. But nevertheless, the two didn't mention it, and so there was no logical explanation for the npc to know it. Unless... 

"Mu- er, you-" Mumbo really had to figure out something to call him, "Where are we?"

The npc answered him immediately with no sign of hesitation. "In the secret room under your base."

Mumbo caught X watching intently in the corner of his eye while he asked a second question. "How do you know this?"

Mumbo had asked a question that he and X hadn't gone over, which, again, probably would've been a good idea, but it aided him now, so he wasn't complaining. There should've been no way that this AI had known that. If Mumbo's theory was correct, this creation of his was more complex than he had thought. And it appeared that Mumbo was right, as the other didn't respond for a full minute, before saying,

"I remember building it."

Mumbo saw X perk up in the corner of his vision. The moustached Hermit couldn't help but smile, though, internally he was practically jumping up and down in excitement. This AI he had created, he owned Mumbo's own memories. How, why, Mumbo had no idea. But he did. That explained why he knew all those things, why he seemed so calm just a minute or so after coming into very existence, why he had no good reason for knowing things other than he just did. Mumbo was chuffed to absolute bits with this. He couldn't wait to bring this out into the real world and show everyone. 

Maybe the npc and Grumbot could become friends, even! 

But then, when exactly could he bring the npc out into the real world? He certainly couldn't yet, no, no, no. The npc just wasn't ready for real human interaction yet-- outside of Mumbo and X, of course. He could barely speak on his own yet; the bot had been silent for a good two minutes now. No, Mumbo needed to keep this AI in for at least a while longer; maybe a week would be good. 

A week. That was a decent amount of time. How long had it been already? Surely it had been a fair amount of time-- the Hermit wondered if anyone had noticed his absence yet. He turned to Xisuma. "Hey, X," the Hermit began. The admin, who had been idling in the corner, messing with something on his communicator, glanced up.

"Yes?" He glanced between Mumbo and the npc. "You want me to leave or anything?" The admin's eyes locked with the npc's own, and Mumbo tilted his head. 

"Do you want to... talk with him?" Mumbo was getting the feeling that that was exactly what X had wanted to do. Momentarily forgetting what he actually was going to ask X, he moved to the other side of the-- granted, small-- room to allow his friend and his creation to chat.

A few minutes later, X came back to Mumbo. "You wanted to speak with me? Heh, I assume my speaking with your clone wasn't the only reason you called on me."

Clone. There it was again. Mumbo couldn't put his finger on it, but something felt off about calling the npc a clone. But, nevermind that, Mumbo had wanted to ask X something. "Yeah, actually. When you leave, would you mind telling everyone that I am, in fact, alive? I mean, it's been over a month now, been a-"