While he was still wondering where to go, a sharp impact to his side threw him to the ground. As he grunted in pain, a second car roared by, inches from his head. Lacia had just saved him from being run down.
Then she was straddling him, pressing him down to the pavement. “Arato Endo,” she said, “I have a request for you.”
The moon shone white in the sky above, and Lacia was staring him straight in the eyes. “Become my owner.”
A warm, wet feeling was spreading from where she was straddling his waist. Her whole body was wet, as though she had recently come out of the water. Droplets pattered onto Arato from her hair, gathering and running down his chest like teardrops.
“What do you mean ‘owner’?” Arato asked in confusion. “You want me to claim you or something?”
“I have decided that you are the most suitable candidate to be my first owner,” Lacia told him calmly.
Arato had no idea what kind of standard had led her to that conclusion. With sudden death all around them, he didn’t think it was a good time to make that kind of decision. “Don’t just decide that on your own,” he protested. “You don’t know anything about me.”
For some reason, he thought about Yuka and his friends just then. His chest felt tight. What kind of danger would this decision drag them all into?
“I do not need any more information about you,” Lacia informed him. “You said that you trusted me.” Her slightly wet body leaned down on his, as if she needed his support.
Lacia had saved him from the exploding car. But it had still been his decision to fight down his urge to run and reach out his hand to her. A girl was right in front of his eyes, lips pressed together, waiting for his response. Looking at her, knowing she wasn’t human and that she was far stronger than him, he felt the need to protect her.
“Okay!” he said finally.
“I judge your reaction as consent,” Lacia announced. “I will now confirm the details of our contract.” She bent her beautiful figure to rest a hand on Arato’s shoulder as he lay there. “You have no need to participate directly in the actions I will take,” she continued. “I will provide strength. I ask only one thing of you.”
Arato couldn’t follow what she was saying. He just kept getting lost gazing at her lips.
“I am a tool, and cannot take responsibility for my own actions,” Lacia went on. “Therefore, I request that you take responsibility for me.”
There was a sudden sharp, thunderous noise from nearby; Lacia had fended off a second attack by the car with her coffin, which she had stood up on the road. The tires squealed as it tried to push through the barrier, but several anchors were holding the coffin to the street. The impact from the high-class car hadn’t budged it an inch.
“I will now gather your biological information, owner. After I have confirmed this information, I will ask for your consent to this contract twice more.” Lacia took Arato’s hand and guided it toward her own body, where there was a metal component, almost like a keyhole, in the neck of her skin-tight suit.
She brought Arato’s pointer finger near it, and then she pushed his finger inside the keyhole. “Registering Arato Endo as the owner of class Lacia humanoid Interface Elements Type-005,” she said. “This hIE’s equipment device, Black Monolith, is capable of autonomous judgment, and as owner you will accept all legal responsibilities for the actions it takes. Please confirm.”
“Okay,” Arato answered.
Lacia’s hair accessory started to glow cerulean blue. “I will begin recording your life log, owner. If the correct procedures are followed and a legal request made, this record may be disclosed and displayed in a court of law in response to relevant litigation. I require your consent to this in order to release the lock on my device.”
“Okay!” Arato answered again.
A metal fixture at the waist of Lacia’s white suit, four wings overlapping to form a shackle, twisted; one part rising up, as though it was some kind of lever. Blue light shot through the shackle, and a light blue glow began to spill out of Lacia’s black coffin.
As Lacia was bathed in blue light, Arato heard a faintly dry, rustling noise. Carried by the wind, flowers had begun to rain down on them again; the two of them were still under attack. Since they had stopped running, whatever was controlling the flowers had sent them to fall over their heads once more.
But, even under the deadly rain of five-colored petals, Lacia was calm. “In order to disable the sub-units currently attacking us, I recommend severing their optical transmissions,” she said. “I believe this will be the option that has the least impact on our surroundings, and it presents the least possible level of danger to this society.”
Arato was having trouble keeping up. A moving pile of trash and lamps was crawling along the ground toward them as they stood still. The flowers were using Marie as a foundation for their pile. Arato could see her body crawling along underneath it all, dragging her skirt along the ground.
With a creaking, grating noise, the strange shape, covered in flowers and wounds, dragged itself toward them. It was equal parts art and insanity, and it was closing in with every passing second.
“If you can stop them,” Arato yelled, “do it now!”
“However,” Lacia went on calmly, “the three-dimensional control artillery barrage will also disable all wireless connections in range. There is the possibility that this will disable vital life-preserving devices utilized by humans within this range.”
Arato had been hoping she would just take care of it, but Lacia’s eyes, as she gazed at him, were dead serious.
“That will be your responsibility, owner,” she told him.
Arato couldn’t really grasp the full weight of what she was saying. But he could tell, from the feeling of her hand on his shoulder and the look she gave him, that the choice he was being given was a very heavy one.
“Owner, please decide: will you accept responsibility for the possible danger to human life, and authorize the use of my artillery?” she asked.
Arato’s nerves shied away from the combination of the terms ‘responsibility’ and ‘human life,’ but he trusted her.
“Do it!” he commanded.
Lacia nodded. The coffin, still anchored to the street, opened its thick outer shell. The bundle of black metal plates stored inside began to rotate and expand in three dimensions like a metal tree spreading its branches.
Then the world around Arato changed in the blink of an eye. It was like suddenly waking up from a nightmare; the flowers were gone, and the street looked just like it always had.
“They’re gone,” Arato exclaimed, pushing himself up automatically and surveying their surroundings. Even the noise, which had been pounding down on them until just a moment ago, had disappeared. “They’re all gone,” he said again.