Lacia’s right hip had taken heavy damage when her left hip took a direct hit from Methode’s pseudo-phonon weapon.
Higgins-Methode had first struck with her palm, stretching the elasticity of Lacia’s skin—which was designed to feel as close to human as possible—to its limit. Without the buffer of her body’s flexibility to absorb any of the impact, Higgins-Methode had been able to unleash the full power of her device right into Lacia’s internal structure.
The phonon weapon was first slipped into the space between Lacia’s device lock and the artificial skin on her left hip, causing the device lock to explode outward. After deforming the battery in Lacia’s left hip with intense heat, the power of the weapon was refocused and unleashed again, aimed at the structural fault in the center of Lacia’s waist. The power of the phonons crushed the battery in Lacia’s right hip, then exploded out through her right side.
With the bones around her right side horribly distorted, Lacia could no longer stand upright. “Forgive me, I should have been able to accompany you all the way to Higgins,” Lacia said, leaning heavily on Arato’s shoulder. Her right leg dangled, useless.
Arato wasn’t doing too well himself; he had lost all feeling in his right hand, and was leaning against Lacia’s right side as he walked almost as much as she leaned on him. “You’re the only reason I’m still standing,” he said. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
Lacia had predicted the possibility of Arato being hurt in the fight against Methode; she had brought along a simple burn kit and some strong painkillers in one of her pseudo-devices. If not for that, Arato would still be feeling the full brunt of the horrible burns.
Just like Arato, the floor of the factory area had been blown clear, burned and cracked. After Lacia had stabbed her with her sword of light, Methode’s chest had exploded from within. Snowdrop was missing most of her left side from Lacia’s shot. The two Lacia-class units had been reduced to immobile scrap.
“Still, this is more damage than I expected to take,” Lacia said. “We still have to deal with the mass-produced Koukas before we arrive at Higgins.”
There were only six of Lacia’s floating shields left, including the one assigned to protect Arato. With its front half shorn away, Lacia’s main device could no longer form the barrels for its mass projectile mode. Above all that, Lacia couldn’t even walk on her own, much less fight.
“We should move. It’s dangerous for us to stay here,” Lacia said, her voice wavering. She was using one of the floating shields to carry her device; she no longer had the strength in her skeletal system to support its weight. Arato could tell that her internal injuries were far more serious than they appeared.
As they leaned against each other to stay upright, Arato thought Lacia’s face seemed particularly pained. The thought that he was still being manipulated by his own perception of her gave him hope that she hadn’t yet given up hope on the future they were fighting for.
As an hIE, her pain was different from humans. When he saw the struggle on her face, Arato figured she was wounded in another way, different from the damage to her body and far more serious. He just wished he could see her with his own feelings, rather than being analog hacked by the anguish on her face. Still, he believed there had to be a way for him to help.
It just seemed like everything was falling apart.
Arato looked down at his right arm, which was immobilized and completely wrapped in a layer of semi-transparent coating. He had torn off his own sleeve from the shoulder for treatment, and sprayed his arm, which had been covered in spots where the heat had burned right through his skin, in healing spray.
“The local anesthetic will last for six hours,” Lacia said. “Please avoid any strenuous physical activity, as the burn damage is accumulating and the water I injected is limited.” It seemed silly to have her worrying about him, when her own wounds were so catastrophic that describing them as being just ‘bad’ would be the understatement of the century.
With Lacia’s right hip blown outward, Arato could see the machinery inside of her. But, even with proof of her being a machine exposed for him to see, Arato strangely didn’t feel any sense of distance from her. Some of that came from the pressure he was feeling. Lacia was clearly in a bad state; he didn’t have time to worry about things like that. Beyond everything else, she was precious to him, and that’s all there was to it.
“I’ll take it easy,” he promised. Under the anesthesia, he couldn’t feel pain or heat from his right arm. He was grateful that it was less painful this time, compared to when he had been burned as a child.
Arato lifted Lacia and laid her on one of the pseudo-devices. She rolled onto her side, with her right hip up.
The remaining six pseudo-devices doubled as back-up batteries for her. With her drained as she was from the fight with Methode, they didn’t have the luxury of leaving all six devices functioning. There was a brief exchange of power between the almost-drained devices, leaving just two with the energy to keep floating.
Arato walked along beside her, as the pseudo-device she was lying on carried her along like a stretcher.
Descending from the factory floor, they entered a floor with a narrow hallway. It was apparently a place meant for humans to walk, with human-shaped doors along the hall. According to Lacia, that floor housed the controls rooms for the warehouse and factory floors above.
“Below here is the heart of Higgins’ facility,” Lacia explained. “It stores the main power generators and computer facilities.” In front of the elevator that would take them into that heart, Lacia stopped and looked up at Arato.
“I cannot guarantee the security of your transmission, but you can make a call from here,” she said. “I recommend you reach out to anyone you feel you need to speak to before we proceed.”
The elevator was coming, but had not yet arrived on their floor. In other words, Lacia was telling Arato the path ahead was even more dangerous than it had been up to that point.
She was always prepared for any eventuality. She was also completely exhausted. Seeing how tired she was, Arato wanted to be strong for her. He wanted to make her happy. She was a heartless machine, yes, but it was that very difference between them that made him want to do everything he could for her. She had said it herself; they were one. Two beings sharing a single heart. It felt good, thinking of himself as part of a pair. No matter how much everyone called him an idiot or easily manipulated, he would never regret the relationship he had with her.
Arato’s small terminal was still in her pocket. When he switched it on, he was surprised to see the symbol showing a stable connection, even though they were in the heart of an ultra high-performance AI’s facility.
He wanted to do what Lacia couldn’t, so he knew exactly who to call first.
〈Hello? Arato?〉 Yuka’s voice came through after just two rings.
“Yuka?” he said. “It’s me. Are you alright?”
Yuka made a fuss. Arato didn’t have time to explain everything to her satisfaction, so he cut right to the chase. “I want to do something for Lacia,” he said. “Could you go to my room and get Erika’s business card?”
It was a bit of a relief, hearing his sister’s voice. He was filled with an even stronger desire to return safely home with Lacia. From the other side, he could hear his sister running around before declaring that she had found it.
As Yuka read him the contact information for Erika, Arato realized that he could have just asked Lacia for it. He felt some hesitation asking a wounded person for help but, since she was an hIE, it probably wouldn’t have been any trouble at all.
Arato looked down at Lacia, still laying on her side with a pained expression on her face. When his call connected to Erika a video channel opened, instead of the usual voice call.
〈Good evening,〉 Erika greeted him. 〈Has something happened with Lacia? She appears to have lost control of the economy, and everything is quite a mess.〉