When Arato and the others arrived at an intersection, they saw an old lady trying to cross the four lane road. A girl in a yellow jersey came up next to the old woman and took her by the hand.
Arato’s body moved without hesitation. “I’m gonna go help,” he said. The stoplight looked like it was just about to change, and he doubted the girl and old lady were going to make it in time.
“That girl isn’t a human, you know,” Kengo said, in an uninterested tone. There was nothing about the girl’s appearance or actions to show that she was anything other than human, but Kengo was very knowledgeable about computers and machines.
“If you get in the way when an interface is doing its job,” he went on, “all you’re gonna do is put a load on their processor.”
‘Interface’ was the short slang for hIEs — humanoid Interface Elements. Basically robots with human forms, hIEs could do just about anything a human could. Thanks to this, there was no such thing as a labor shortage anymore, and the world had become quite convenient.
“Fine, but I’m still going to help,” Arato said, then headed over to the crosswalk.
When the girl android saw him approach, she smiled at him.
“Here, I’ll help.”
“Thank you.” The old woman, bent with age, thanked him with a smile that crinkled her whole face.
Humans can’t convey their feelings directly to one another, so we show our feelings through our actions. But by this point, there were things other than humans that could perform those same meaningful actions; this was the reality Arato and the others lived in. In the year 2105, androids had filled all the holes in society.
The others ragged on Arato when he walked back from the crosswalk.
“One of these days someone’s gonna really take advantage of you, you know.”
They were walking through the area around the Honjo Azumabashi Subway Station, which had grown into a proper downtown. The place was a hodgepodge of old buildings from before the Hazard, and newer buildings, whose building materials gave them a completely different texture.
“Hey, gotta be nice to girls, right?” said Arato, defending himself. “Why don’t you guys lend a hand next time?”
The area was full of hIEs, if you looked hard enough. They had been a welcome addition to the service industry, which had been short-staffed since the dawn of time, and they were especially common in restaurants.
Kengo was local, so he knew everything there was to know about the area. “Did you know that girl at the taiyaki stand is an hIE?” he asked. Across the intersection with Asakusa Street, a girl with pretty blonde curls was turning over the baking form at a takoyaki stand.
“There’s one working at that soba shop, too,” he pointed out. “And there’s some running the registers over at Sky Tree. Anytime an hIE sees someone old, they run over and help.”
“Hey, they’re working hard,” Arato said. As he passed by the takoyaki stand, he gave the girl a good look. She smiled and asked, “Would you like some takoyaki?” She wasn’t sweating.
Ryo’s eyes were cold when he looked at her, completely different from how he gazed at the girls in their class. “No, they aren’t. Arato, you’re the kind of guy who thinks if you cheer on a motor it’ll go faster, aren’t you?”
“I’m free to think whatever I want,” Arato said.
“You’re living in a fairy tale,” Ryo scoffed.
“I’d say fairy tale land has had a scientific revolution.”
“That’s what I call progress. Even unscientific plebs like you spend every day surrounded by science.”
Their friendly chat continued to fly off the rails.
Just then, Arato saw something out of the corner of his eye; something that should not have been there. Someone’s outdoor black cat was dragging something out of the alley, where a power-assist delivery bike was parked by the soba shop. Now and then, the cat would stop to bite at the thing, which was almost as big as the cat was, before going back to dragging it along laboriously.
The thing being dragged was nightmarishly out of place under the bright midday sun. It was a human arm.
“Oh shit. Ohhhh shit,” Arato said, feeling the blood drain instantly from his face.
It was a right arm with smooth, white skin. The cat ran away, and a chunk of skin that the cat had been nibbling on rolled away from the elbow.
Arato felt his legs give out.
Kengo, who was just passing by Arato, casually caught his arm to hold him up. “What, again?” he asked, then went and grabbed the arm, giving it a shake. A white tube was jutting out from the severed portion, and a blood-like liquid pattered onto the ground. “Somebody’s been going around busting up hIEs lately,” he said. “I’ve seen scrap from a few bodies here and there. What a waste.”
“‘What a waste’?” Arato echoed incredulously. “Don’t you feel sorry for them?” He couldn’t stop the hammering of his heart, or see the white arm as anything other than that of a young girl. There was no way he could be calm, staring at a severed human body part, even if it hadn’t come from a human.
“Hey,” Kengo replied, “when someone turns something that costs about the same as a car into scrap, I think it’s a waste.”
Arato reached out to touch the severed arm, but Ryo caught his shoulder to stop him.
“Don’t touch it. We don’t even know what those things are made of.”
“We can’t just throw the thing in the trash,” Arato said. The android girl who had helped the old lady cross the street was walking nearby. It was painful to think that the owner of the severed arm could be a kind girl, just like her.
“Don’t get the wrong idea about them, Arato,” Ryo said. His voice was blunt, as he looked down at the severed limb. “The hIEs only do stuff for us because that’s what they’re programmed to do. Some marketing guys figured out that they’d sell well if they looked like humans and acted all nice. It’s just brand propaganda.”
“That’s just a piece of a machine,” Kengo agreed. Though they were in the middle of a downtown area, with Kengo holding what looked like a severed human arm, few people spared them a second glance.
Arato’s friends weren’t particularly fond of hIEs. Among the people passing by, some just frowned, though some showed a little pity in their eyes. Still, if the ‘girl’ the arm belonged to had been human, everyone would be reacting much differently.
Even Arato’s sense of danger had cooled off after he realized the severed arm wasn’t the sign of a murder. Despite that, the thought of walking away from what looked like a piece of a human body weighed too heavily on Arato’s mind.
“Let’s take it to the police,” he said. “I’d feel bad if we just threw it away.”