“Miss Rube, can you hear me? You can’t, can you? I’ve learned something about them. I’m heading toward the location right now,” Nepshamai said to Suikanet through his communications module. They hadn’t established a real-time connection, so the message would take an hour to reach the Sapporo headquarters.
He surveyed the area. After Ao finished her funeral and returned Inside, there was no one left on the roof. Just in case, though, Nepshamai hid behind cover, pulled out his structural genetic field canceler, and began to shine it on himself, careful not to melt the floor around him.
The structural genetic field that surrounded Yokohama Station traveled through nearly all solid matter, especially metal. However, it dispersed after prolonged contact with water that contained many electrolytes. Therefore, Yokohama Station could not cross the ocean or contaminate the human body. A significant concern for JR North Japan was that their android agents’ bodies might be susceptible to the structural genetic field.
The stability of the field was proportional to the size of the object, so the possibility of it being stably maintained in a body about a meter in size was low. Still, there was no telling what might happen throughout an extended stay Inside. They said that some androids from the previous generation had disappeared for this very reason.
This was why the handheld structural genetic field canceler was developed in advance of the third-generation robots. The device itself was based on the plans given by Yukie, the chief scientist in the engineering department. However, others in the division actually tweaked its design to make it powerful enough to put a hole through the station’s walls. That alone made the latest line of robotic saboteurs substantially more effective than the last.
After a quick canceler shower, Nepshamai walked over to a spot that had exposed wires. Corpocker-3 androids could recharge very slowly simply by standing still and intercepting the Suikanet waves that Yokohama Station emitted at all times. When they needed speedy energy, however, they would search for a place where the power lines were close to the surface. JR North Japan had performed significant analysis of the structural genetic field’s power line generation patterns, and the habit of searching out these lines was driven into the agents’ main memory devices as a primary task. Much like wild animals searching for water, they had an instinctual ability to sniff out the location of electricity wires.
Even if some mechanical trouble cut off their communication ability, Samayunkur and Yaieyukar would still require power, assuming they were alive. Therefore, the most effective plan was to hunt for sources like this one. Nepshamai would walk across the roof to the position above the automated turnstile factory where the missing two had been sighted, use the canceler to slip Inside, and locate a recharging spot. It took no time at all to find his quarry.
A boy was sitting on top of exposed wires. He was just about Nepshamai’s size. Naturally, his face was a familiar one.
“Yaieyukar,” Nepshamai called out. It was not Samayunkur, the alleged smartest of all the saboteur agents, but his partner, Yaieyukar, who had also been dispatched to cover the Tohoku region in northern Honshu.
Samayunkur was evidently absent. The sleeping android slowly opened his eyes.
“Oh, it’s you, Shamai. Fuwahhh,” he said, and awkwardly extended his limbs. Apparently, it was an attempt to mimic the human act of yawning, but very unnaturally done. The effort was closer to a person whose limbs had all cramped at once. “I haven’t seen you since Hakodate. You were in charge of the Kanto region, right? So you finally got an assignment.”
“Is…that you, Yukar?” Nepshamai inquired.
The boy grinned. “You bet. Did you forget my face? That’s kind of messed up. It hasn’t been that long, Shamai.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re speaking exactly like Samayunkur. Plus, it’s Kur’s style not to hide his hair. You didn’t exchange bodies, did you?”
“Huh? Oh, right.” The boy pulled the hood of his outfit over his head with annoyance. The android hair was an artificial substance fashioned from plant fiber. Because it was not very similar to the organic stuff humans had, they were instructed to keep it concealed as much as possible while on assignment.
“I hate this thing, though. Bodies and clothes are supposed to be all the same to us, but there’s just something constricting about these clothes.”
“Are you alone? Meaning…well, it’s difficult to ask, but where is your body, Kur?”
“Oh, no, Shamai, no. We didn’t exchange bodies. I’m Yaieyukar, and Kur’s still Kur. Um, let’s see… How do I explain this? I’m not as smart as Kur, you know,” replied Yaieyukar, craning his neck. “Someone might pass by, so let’s find somewhere else to go. I’ve finished recharging anyway. How’s your power, Shamai?”
“I’ve got enough.”
“Then let’s go onto the roof.”
The two passed through the hole Nepshamai had created. The icy northern wind still blew across the empty ceiling of the station. Nepshamai placed a hand over his hood to hold it in place and leaned against the wall.
“I’ll be brief. At some point, I told Kur, ‘I’m too stupid, so I’d like part of your brain.’ And Kur said, ‘Sure,’ and this is what happened.”
The boy pointed to his head. Yaieyukar was one of the slowest of the twelve agents, it was true. That was why he’d been paired up with Samayunkur, the smartest—or so everyone thought.
“Did you copy his main memory device? You overwrote your own brain with his?”
“That’s right! There’s an automated turnstile factory near here, so we sneaked in and borrowed their machine. The copy was much higher fidelity than I expected it to be. Might be even more precise than the ones at headquarters back in Sapporo,” he explained, smiling with great satisfaction.
“Did you get the company’s permission for this, Kur?”
“I told you, I’m not Kur. We’ve done a few tests, and Kur’s still got better attachment and generalization. There’s no such thing as a perfect replica, I guess. We’re not just aggregations of digital data, after all.”
“Just answer the question,” Nepshamai repeated flatly.
“Why the need for permission? They told us to share data as needed. And they didn’t stipulate that was limited to the information we’ve learned Inside, did they?”
“Well, I’m sure they never anticipated that you could do such a thing, whether the tools for it existed in Yokohama Station or not. Even if it was you. Er, I mean, Samayunkur.”
The supplemental memory device was simple digital data, so copying it required only a single cable. But creating or recreating a main memory device could only be done at the massive facility in Sapporo, supposedly. Although maybe things were different between the perpetually undersupplied JR North Japan and the Inside, where materials were generated in infinite supply.