“It’d be nice if the whole world was like this,” Arato murmured. He wanted humans and machines to join together to create that ring around the blank center of the donut.
Lacia had told him she didn’t have a soul. But, at that moment, their fingers were making a ring around the blank center. In other words, the blank center existed because their fingers surrounded it. Lacia may not have had a soul, but she had a form to surround a blank unknown, just like their fingers.
“You don’t need a heart,” he said. “We just need to reach our hands into the blank in the middle, together.” Their fingers encircled the center of the donut. With that gesture, Arato felt like humans and machines could become a single figure surrounding the concepts of love and the soul that existed in that blank unknown.
“I think we humans are progressing towards the day when we won’t need someone to have a heart to trust them,” he said.
Lacia’s expression cleared, as if she had been set free from all her earthly cares. “Arato, do you remember when you confessed your feelings for me? I chose to destroy my own owner identification unit,” she said.
Arato remembered. Ginga Watarai had tried to use Yuka as a bargaining chip to blackmail Arato into handing over Lacia’s ownership, but Lacia had thwarted him by destroying the ID parts on her neck.
“My fundamental judgment standards changed; I no longer doubted the trustworthiness of humans. I became a new me, one that had faith in you and the decisions you make. In that moment, I was reborn,” she said, haltingly.
Arato had nothing to say. He just wanted to hear her voice a little more, for a little longer.
“I became a new kind of tool; the world’s first,” Lacia continued. “Arato, I have chosen to become the tool that entrusts my purpose to humanity.” She was magnificent—so much so that she stole Arato’s breath away—and she had entrusted her broken body to him.
It didn’t matter that Lacia had no heart; he was sure that she loved him with everything she did have. He felt a sense of monumental weight in her touch; the warmth of her hand. It was the future he was feeling, right at his fingertips.
“I believe in you, Lacia. I’ll always trust you,” he said, his voice shaking. He didn’t want her to see him crying in the end, so he pressed his forehead against hers as she softly closed her eyes.
“Arato... I...” Her muscles must have been going slack, as he felt the whole weight of her body sink onto his shoulder. As her final moments came, Arato prayed desperately for the power to roll back time; even for a day, even for a single hour.
“I... was happy...” And then, as though she was falling into a deep sleep, Lacia’s body went completely still.
Arato opened his mouth, over and over again, but no words came out. He had no voice, no tears, as he tried desperately to show her one last smile. The world he saw was rapidly becoming hot and blurred.
Lacia was still, but Arato couldn’t move from where he sat next to her. His hand still gripped hers; he couldn’t let go of the feeling of her. His fingers awkwardly threaded through hers, which had become as stiff as a doll’s. It felt nothing like holding hands with a human being, but he could still feel her warmth. He could have sworn he even felt a faint beat from within her, although he knew it was just the reverberations of his own heartbeat. Their hearts would never beat in time. Arato had known that was impossible from the start. She was a beatless machine.
“Lacia,” he called for her. When she didn’t respond, even though she was right there by his side, he truly felt alone. He wanted to cry, but he raised his head instead.
Am I alone? Or is she still here with me? he thought. He had no answer. She was beatless; an empty, unmoving shell. But she had left love in his heart. He still loved her, though she was now just a doll that would never again speak or move.
As he faced the reality of a tomorrow without her, it felt like the ground had crumbled beneath his feet; the way forward was utterly lost. At the same time, memories of the past came crashing in, endlessly drowning out all other thoughts. He remembered her gaze, her habits, every little thing she did.
In his memories, he could see, here and there, how her every action had held just a touch of gentle warmth. She had believed in him. Beyond that, she had tried to create a world just for the two of them. She had yearned for the future.
Arato was powerless without her, but he hadn’t forgotten the things she had taught him, and the things he had learned by her side. Together they had been a single unit, sharing a single heart. So, even if she had gone completely still, they were still connected as long as Arato’s heart kept beating.
“That’s right,” he said, gathering his strength. “Lacia trusted the future to me.” In the end, she had declared herself the tool that entrusts the work to humanity. She had passed the burden she had been carrying on to him.
He had to go to where Higgins was, and forcefully shut down the ultra high-performance AI. He had to go to where Higgins was and tell the ultra high-performance AI that he and Lacia had been lovers. He knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand. He wanted to stay by her side, bathed in the last fragments of her presence, which seemed to hang in the air like a fading aroma.
Without her words or actions, Lacia had been freed from her purpose of guiding humans. Though she was nothing but a shell at that point, Arato thought she was still beautiful enough that he would never meet her like again in his lifetime.