ER/IC

ER/IC is a character in DEATHGAME 9000.

Biography:
One of the last but most significant scientific discoveries of the Khral race was the formation and manipulation of pocket dimensions, opening holes in space leading into weird places that didn't seem to obey the laws of conventional physics. To start with these were really only useful as exorbitantly expensive bags that couldn't fit anything larger than a thimble, but with time their scientists discovered that by messing around with the resonating frequencies required to open such a hole they could modify the conditions of the world inside; making it larger or smaller, messing around with gravity and (perhaps most excitingly) manipulating the relative flow of time so that a minute inside could become an hour outside, or vice versa.

Suddenly the applications seemed endless and they wasted no time in miniaturising the technology and sticking it everywhere they could manage, with the caveat that a lot of the mechanisms were so complicated it took a semi-sentient AI to operate them. Tiny handbags that you could hold your car inside, perfect fridges that could retain your food at its original condition indefinitely without even the remotest risk of spoiling, specialised beds that allowed sleepers to nap for as long as they liked and emerge fully rested only a real-time second later, five thousand man clown cars and gravity-free swimming pools. The fields of physics and robotics rocketed forwards at an unprecedented rate, leading into the planet's greatest golden age.

The very final advancement the Khral made was figuring out how to open more than one hole into the same pocket dimension, creating instant transit, ovens that connected directly to local butchers' shops, a whole new baffling set of crimes and the Krahl's first evidence that they weren't the only sentient species in existence. Completely by chance, one of their magical science holes linked up to the largest pocket dimension they'd ever seen, far in advance of what even their most powerful machines were capable of maintaining. It was a landfill site filled with alien rubbish.

Of course, the only logical thing to do in this situation was to start chucking all of their own rubbish in there too, at least until they could invent a vehicle on the correct scale to fit through one of their own tiny wormholes, fly through the alien atmosphere and reach the gates to a whole new world hanging on a ceiling that was only just in sight (and that would probably only be the size of a dustbin).

Unfortunately before they were quite done with that project, a new and terribly virulent disease spread from someone's badly calibrated time fridge (set to age their milk at an extreme rate rather than keep it permanently fresh), spread through the air and into the newly created intercontinental bin network, arriving in every densely populated area of civilisation overnight. In less than a month the global population was reduced to only those living in isolated rural areas, too terrified to approach the cities for fear of plague. It wasn't much longer before they passed away too, leaving only their sentient machines endlessly repeating their original tasks for lack of anything better to do or anyone to tell them to stop.

Until one of them vanished.

Equipment/Abilities:
ERIC was designed to operate in dangerous areas and disaster sites, and is thus fully waterproof, extremely heatproof and generally durable, as you might expect from a large ball of steel. This is particularly fortunate because his spherical body was built to house a spacial anomaly that would probably be fairly dangerous if left exposed to the naked air for long periods of time. While he is technically a medical robot, ERIC is really only able to diagnose illnesses and injuries rather than actually cure them, though he is equipped to dispense painkillers and set broken bones. His main purpose is simply to transport people out of danger areas and into hospitals. Obviously carrying them there would be fairly impractical, so instead his spherical body can split in two, the top half hinging upwards, to reveal a pulsing purple rift to a specially controlled pocket dimension within which he can store a fairly large number of patients at a time.

The actual size, solidity, gravity and (perhaps most importantly) relative time frame of this pocket world can be entirely controlled by ERIC's dedicated computer systems, even so far as to make time flow faster or slower in different areas of the largely featureless landscape (though the more complex the interior gets, the less computing space he has left to actually think in).

This means that once he has identified the severity of a patient's wounds he can effectively store even the most critically wounded of patients for days or even years. While time passes outside, they are frozen in the state they were in when they entered until such time as they can be adequately cared for outside.

Currently sitting in storage are three members of his creator species, two of them infected with a particularly virulent plague and the third who had only a broken leg and lacerations to his left hand side when he was "rescued". These wounds have now entirely healed, but ERIC's programming doesn't allow him to release patients anywhere other than a hospital, and as he has been in contact with plague victims (even ones locked in time that couldn't possibly have given him the disease) ERIC is now treating his interior as a quarantine, refusing to let anyone out until he is 100% sure he has found a doctor who has a cure.

Description:
ERIC is a roughly spherical grey humanoid (standing just a little taller than your average man, but much wider) with two short, flexible tubes for legs and a very basic, nearly expressionless mask for a face. This mask can detach from its fitting at any time and extend several metres from the body on a long, flexible metal limb while using its eyes as torches (in order to investigate small tunnels in collapsed buildings) though as people tend to find this disconcerting it's not a widely advertised feature.

His arms are composed of a collection of tightly coiled steel cables that are capable of a remarkable degree of movement, though usually they're left wrapped around eachother simply to keep them out of the way. These limbs contain an extraordinary amount of strength, allowing him to lift chunks of masonry away from trapped victims of earthquakes, but also incredibly gentle and precise, allowing him to lift said victims safely without worsening any spinal injuries they may have acquired.

As he was only ever made sentient because it takes a sufficiently complex brain to run and control a pocket dimension, ERIC isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Most of his brain power is directed to the task of running a small universe, rather than deep thought. On top of that he gets less intelligent the more complex his contained world is, so if he were to eject his patients he would become more intelligent, as he'd have more processor space to spare.

As a result of this his attitude is fairly childlike and inquisitive which is only bolstered by the fact that his programming still compels him to investigate damaged and burning buildings or respond to any cries to help. It's been a long time (centuries) since he's had any social contact though, so his interpersonal skills are more than a little rusty.

His one totally healthy "passenger" also experiences periods of conciousness during which he is understandably fairly angry about the fact that he is trapped inside an ambulance that refuses to let him out. ERIC's programming forces him to obey everything one of his creator species tells him to do, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. As the Khral had never actually come into close contact with aliens, they didn't bother specifying whether that meant "don't hurt a Khral" or "don't hurt any sentient being" in their laws of robotics, so how he'd react to such a request is anyone's guess.