Arato stood slowly. “Wish me luck,” he said. Lacia still sat with her eyes closed, as though asleep, but Arato couldn’t just wait there. He had done so few things for her: he had told her he loved her; he had believed in her; he had told her about his dreams. That was all he had been able to do for Lacia, right up to the very end. So, even though she herself had stopped moving forever, he would finish the work she had started.
He couldn’t fulfill the purpose they had come there for if he just kept sitting there, he told himself. “I came here to tell Higgins that you and I are dating, right?” he asked. His voice came out as a whisper. The inside of his mouth was completely dry.
There was a good probability the security system from there on was still active, so Arato thought it would be good to bring something along for self-defense. The first thing that caught his eye was Lacia’s device, which had lost its whole front half. He felt a stirring of light in his heart at the thought that Lacia might still be living on within her device, even if her hIE unit had been shut down.
He took the grip in his left hand and tried to lift it. Even putting all of his strength into the endeavor, the best he could do was get it a millimeter or two off the ground. And, of course, Lacia’s pseudo-device metal plates were beyond his ability to control. Only the artificial nerve speargun seemed like something he could use.
“Man, it’s heavy,” he said, with a grunt.
Lacia had swung the thing around as if it was a slightly large handgun, but the speargun felt too heavy in his hands. As soon as he took it up, a screen appeared from the main part of the gun. The screen suspended itself in the air in front of Arato, showing him a simple operation manual for the weapon. It felt like the gun had been waiting for him to pick it up.
“So you even planned ahead for this, huh?” he murmured.
According to the manual, if Arato used the foregrip sticking out from the main part of the weapon, he would be able to maintain a fairly steady aim, even though he’d have to pull with both of his arms to activate the trigger. Unfortunately, his right arm was stuck in place due to the first-aid coating that had been put on his serious burns.
Still, just the thought that Lacia had planned ahead for him like that made him happy.
The floating manual screen instructed him to connect a cable from the weapon to his pocket terminal. When he did so, a program made by Lacia installed itself on his terminal. If he punched a command into the program on his terminal, whatever he shot the artificial nerves into would follow the command.
“You really did plan for everything,” he said, and couldn’t keep himself from looking back at Lacia again. Her peaceful face still seemed to be watching over him, and giving him strength. When Arato thought that he might encounter other things which Lacia had prepared for him as he went, he actually started looking forward to it.
The way behind had been sealed off by emergency shutters; the only way for him to go was forward. Arato chose to see it more as being guided, and headed down the open path.
There were still twelve mass-produced Koukas wandering around somewhere, and he had no idea how dangerous the facility security system was. With those thoughts in mind, he couldn’t help but tense up each time he turned a corner. The further he went along, the more he worried about an enemy appearing in front of him, trapping him with no way to escape back the way he’d come. The worry sent chills of sweat sliding down his back.
Still, Arato was pushed on by the promises he had made and the feelings in his heart which couldn’t be denied. “Man, I’ve got to be the dumbest guy alive,” Arato joked to himself.
After all, it had been forty-two years since the Hazard and, in that time, no one had ever been able to show the world that an ultra high-performance AI could be forced into shutdown. Yet there he was, heading onward to do just that; dragging the too-heavy artificial nerve gun along in his one good hand—his left hand—with insurmountable threats to his life possibly waiting for him around every corner.
When he was with Lacia, she always explained the reasons for things and their current situation to him, without him even needing to ask. With her, Arato could at least act as if he knew what was going on and where he was going. Without her, it felt like he was crawling along in the darkness.
But, oddly, it wasn’t a horrible feeling. He knew the conflict he was caught up in was more complicated than he could have possibly imagined, but he was on his way to resolve it through relatively simple means.
Plus, he still had faith in Lacia. Even if her physical form was no longer by his side, he could still feel the influence she had on him in each beat of his heart.
“It’s like I’ve gone back to being your average, everyday helpful idiot,” he told himself: the illusion of understanding he’d had when Lacia was around deflated quickly with her gone.
Beneath Arato’s feet, the ground rumbled again. He no longer had Lacia with him to tell him what was causing it. Drenched in sweat, he just kept his legs moving. His right arm was numb all the way to his shoulder from the first aid treatment. He knew the burden of continued movement on his body was greater than what he was feeling, after having received treatment for such severe burns.
He checked his pocket terminal, which was still connected to the artificial nerve gun by thin, string-like cables. “Isn’t there any other information in here?” he asked out loud. There was an ‘information’ mode, but it appeared to be for displaying information from whatever device he shot the artificial nerve darts into. Arato tapped on the touch-screen of the terminal, looking for anything else the program could do.
“She sure was thorough,” he commented, as he noticed that the artificial nerve gun actually had a built-in holder for his pocket terminal.
“There’s such a thing as being too prepared, Lacia,” he said, trying to joke about it. But the little touch just reminded him again of how deeply Lacia had understood him, and the reality of losing her made his breath catch in his throat.
He took aim and fired an artificial nerve dart into the floor, just as he had seen Lacia do. The needle gave him access to the machinery under the floor, and a map of the area appeared.
The emergency stairs were apparently the closest way to descend from where he was. He didn’t see any paths that went directly to where Higgins’ hardware was stored, but there was a path to the Operators’ Room, nine floors below him. There, he would be able to speak with Higgins. If he shot artificial nerve needles into the machines in that room, he might even be able to force Higgins to shut down.