Arato always thought he would have the strength to keep going on, no matter how bad things got. He believed it was possible to appreciate any experience, and even enjoy it, as long as he kept his thinking positive. He was about to lose the girl he loved. But, there were so many other precious things in his life that, as a man, he knew he had to be strong and endure his sorrow.
Lacia, with her back against the wall, had completely stopped moving. Arato sat down with her. He could hear the exhaustion in her shallow breaths. “How are you holding up?” he asked. All he wanted was a few more minutes by her side.
As the moments passed in silence, Arato thought back to the time they had spent together. In his memory, it seemed like they were always rushing around. But now, they had time. Lacia had stopped broadcasting her stream. The two of them were completely alone.
There was still some kind of liquid solution still dripping from the gaping wound in Lacia’s hip, a clear indicator that she wasn’t going to be able to recover. As he watched the liquid trickle down, cold certainty froze his heart solid.
“I have to apologize to you, Arato,” Lacia whispered, clearly straining to talk through her pain. “I was aware from the beginning that we would not be able to return together. In just a little while, my body will lose its function. It was my plan to protect you from any kind of subtle resentment the world might feel towards you, after this is all over.”
“What do you mean, your body will lose function? What the hell does that mean?” Arato demanded. He knew what it meant. But he felt that, if he didn’t object, she would be snatched away from him. Despite his feelings, though, his voice was weak. When he looked at her, at her broken body and her massive wounds, he knew something was off. She wasn’t a human, and didn’t feel pain like one. Her show of struggle and exhaustion was most likely just a show to manipulate his perception.
It was an analog hack meant to prepare Arato’s heart for their inevitable parting. “I never asked you to protect me from that kind of thing,” he said. “So you shouldn’t be preparing anything for it. We’re going to go home and we’re going to make something out of our future, right?”
“Please don’t say things that worry me,” Lacia said. “I believe I just told you to be more careful with your words and actions. I am a tool that would tell any lie if it meant protecting you.” She gave him a strained smile, like one might show a selfish child. She tried to move her right hand a little, but failed. Even that was beyond her, at that point.
“We Lacia-class units were made to be emergency backups of Higgins’ data, so we are based on the same quantum computer as him,” she explained. “If the computer loses power, we are unable to retain our data. I do not have a storage area available to me where I could store my data digitally.”
“Then if you shut down it’s the same as a human dying, isn’t it?” Arato asked.
“But, even without me by your side, you still have a family to go home to,” Lacia said. “Even if my device is recovered and the life-log I’ve kept up to now is analyzed, no one will be able to find any proof of a defect or deviance in your personality. I have done everything necessary to return you to the life you had before, as promised.”
Arato’s eyes burned, but his regret greatly outweighed his gratitude. Lacia had pushed him to come with her into Higgins’ facility because she wasn’t capable of protecting anyone outside. With her surveillance above-ground cut off, and most of the world and the other ultra high-performance AIs as her enemy now, she had needed him there so she could keep him safe.
“You’ve always been protecting me. Right from the first moment we met,” he said.
Lacia slid over toward him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Please don’t look so sad,” she said.
Arato let out a long breath, but had no words. He wanted to hear Lacia’s real voice; not her automatic reactions comforting him. Just once, he wanted the real her to speak to him. Of course, he knew there was no ‘real’ her; she had no heart. Just like before they had left for Higgins’ facility, he was faced once again with the undeniable reality that Lacia was a machine. It was a reality neither of them would ever be able to escape.
That was why Arato wanted his own feelings to be clear, at least. “I love you,” he said. It came out more naturally than it had before.
“Thank you,” Lacia said. “I love you too, Arato.” As a heartless machine, she simply responded in the way she knew he wanted her to. He could see that behind her words and her gentle smile. “But after I shut down, please forget about me.”
“I could never forget you. Don’t talk like that,” he told her.
“The relationship we share is something your society currently has difficulty understanding,” she said. “It will be far too difficult for you to maintain a relationship that is not supported by society, after the two of us are no longer able to support it between ourselves.”
Arato was confused as to whether what Lacia was saying was a pure calculation, or her way of guiding him down a path she thought was safer. At times like that, he hated trying to use his head to think things through so, instead, he struggled with how to get through to her with just his feelings.
He felt something warm in his left hand. Lacia had placed her right hand on it, as if to lend him some courage. Arato felt moisture in his eyes and nose. He wanted so badly to just cling tightly to her. His heart was burning with the need to leave her something as her body shut down, so he pressed the thumb and pointer of his left hand against the same fingers of Lacia’s right. Their fingers formed a ring. They both looked down at the open center of the ring. Their fingers were the ring of the donut, surrounding the blank unknown in the center.