February 198 (Station Year), JR North Japan Headquarters, Sapporo
“Miss Rube, do you know what wanko soba is?”
It was Nepshamai’s voice on the other end of the line. Rube, a JR North Japan Engineering 2nd Division member, looked away from the sheet in her hands to focus on the screen.
Nepshamai had been dispatched to the Inside as a saboteur several months ago, and he had reached the Iwate area. Rube was his technical officer. The android agents were active almost twenty-four hours a day, so three technicians traded operator duties in shifts.
“Wanko soba?” asked Rube sleepily. In plain Japanese, it sounded like a term for a little puppy rubbing itself against your legs. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s a kind of noodle dish unique to this area. I’ve seen signs for it recently.”
“Uh-huh. Is it different from ordinary soba?”
“Apparently, there is an endless supply of it.”
“Holy shit, really? The Inside is crazy.”
“But the structural genetic field can’t replicate the buckwheat plants used to make the dough. So maybe it replicates the noodles instead? I think I’m going to ask someone at the restaurant.”
“You’re like a cuisine reporter, Shamai.”
There was a momentary silence.
“Never mind about that, Miss Rube.”
“What do you mean?”
“When it said ‘endless,’ that was only in relation to the amount a human being could eat. If the customer turns their bowl upside down, the noodles will stop coming.”
“They can stop it? Well, that’s nice. Wish they could stop the station whenever they want, too,” Rube said, sighing.
She’d been transferred to engineering from defense two months ago. Previously, she was stationed where they dismantled the pieces of Yokohama Station that came stretching through the Seikan Tunnel. However, a lack of personnel caused them to transfer her to Engineering 2nd Division instead.
As the third-generation androids were sent out, they needed technicians to offer constant support, so people grabbed from all other departments of JR North Japan. The saboteur mission was a secret project, so only employees who had been with the company for at least five years were selected.
Naturally, that made the average age in the group rather high. Even the youngest members were like parents to the androids, who had the appearance of six-year-old children.
“As for the whereabouts of Samayunkur and Yaieyukar,” said the childish voice from the speaker, “no one around here has seen them. I would assume two wandering children would draw attention.”
“Hmm. I know the signal ended in the mountains, but the others have already combed over that area pretty thoroughly. I was hoping they’d have shown up down by the seaside. Maybe they’re near the Wall.”
“What is everyone else doing now?”
“Everyone other than those two is fine. Haikunterke is down in the Noto Peninsula, waiting for the immune system’s memory to fade.”
“She’s already that far? I know she has the special body, but even still, that’s impressive.”
“Yeah. It’s not fair, is it? Her main memory device was born in the same lot as the rest of you, but she gets the superior form. Really makes you lose motivation to work, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve never felt that way. And her proactive seizing of Suikanet nodes is making our mission easier.”
“I was talking about myself,” Rube said bitterly, glancing at the desk of Kaeriyama, the technical officer for Haikunterke. He was wearing headphones, concentrating hard on some kind of transmission. Rube cupped her hand over her mic and muttered quietly enough to keep the others from hearing her.
“Stupid Kaeriyama is such a pain in the ass. He stays in the office way past his shift, and the moment the communication ends, he’s like, ‘What happened to Terke? Is she okay? Is she all right?’ The only one around here who’s not all right is you, man.”
According to the whiteboard on the wall, Haikunterke’s present location was the Noto Peninsula, on the north coast of Honshu. It was one of the rare places Yokohama Station had not taken over. The highly unusual circumstance occurred in narrow peninsulas that had no rail lines. They called it station surface tension.
“Mr. Kaeriyama’s a worrywart, isn’t he? We already sleep much less than human beings, so if he tries to match his schedule to hers, that weak stomach of his is going to give out for good.”
“Ha-ha-ha. That’s good, I gotta tell him that.” Rube cackled. “Listen, Shamai, I just got transferred here from the defense department, so I don’t know the other kids very well. What’s this Haikunterke like anyway?”
“Well, I’d say she’s very cautious and dedicated to her mission. She always acts humbly and doesn’t overvalue her own abilities, despite the special body she was given. I think she was the perfect fit for this long-distance mission she’s doing. On the other hand, she allows some human emotions to get the best of her at times. That could prove to be a hindrance on her mission,” the voice from the speaker replied, not sparing any thoughts.
Once Rube recovered from being taken aback, she said, “Uh…okay. For being so sociable, you have a really…dry side to your personality, Shamai. Reminds me of Grandpa.”
“Do you think so? I suppose I don’t have a strong grasp yet on the effects of aging upon human personalities.”
“Oh, no, I meant, you remind me of my grandpa.”
“Ah, my apologies. I thought you were referring to old men in general.”
“It’s fine. No need to apologize. That was my fault. Quick piece of advice, Shamai—you can treat communication a lot more loosely. Humans tend to be very lazy with how we convey ideas, so if there’s any misinterpretation, you can just blame it on us.”
“Very well. I’ll try to learn from this experience.”
With that, the communication came to an end. Rube snorted.
“It’s like he learns words the opposite way that people do,” Rube once told a colleague of hers. He was another one of Nepshamai’s operators.
“Yeah, that’s true. A human child first picks up the general idea of what a word means, which is narrowed down as they acquire more context. But all of the android kids start with a strict definition, and only after that do they understand how to apply it.”
“That’s a product of the formation process, I guess.”
“Could be,” he said. The man had been in the second division from the start of development on the third-gen androids and had known them since before they had their bodies. “My son’s six years old, too, and when I go home, I’m occasionally surprised at how young he seems.”
“You shouldn’t be comparing them. Those kids only look six years old, but they’re not. Not even close.”
“I know, I know. Maybe this work isn’t good for someone raising children. I might have to request a transfer.”
Although it had never bothered Rube, this job of interacting with children who seemed human—but weren’t—was actually incredibly stressful for a certain subset of company employees. The ones who’d been around since the start of development had it worst. Rube was brought in to Engineering 2nd Division to fill one of the holes created by people leaving for that very reason.
Whatever the others thought, Rube herself had seldom felt any kind of stress from the job. Compared to her time in the defense department, this was much more fruitful and meaningful work.
The defense department’s job was to point the stationary structural genetic field cancelers at the bits of Yokohama Station that came up through the tunnel into Hokkaido. Unlike at the Kanmon Straits in Kyushu, no passageways were being shot over the water, so there was almost no danger in the job at all.