> SK-789 communication.log.5911
This is for you alone, Yukar.
What I’m saying might be too difficult for you to understand now, but when this process is complete, you’ll be able to grasp it, too. Just keep this in your supplemental memory for the time being.
I feel bad for doing this to you, but I’m going to take my leave after this.
I’m sure it will be hard on the company people. Someone’s probably going to come searching for us. Based on the order, it’ll likely be Shamai. When that happens, you can tell him everything I’ve said to you. Still, I don’t think he’ll get what I want to do. The company won’t, either.
Maybe she will, though.
The thing is, it’s not really that complicated. My goal is the same as almost any other living thing on Earth. I want to live. I’m sure she does, too. She might have some grand plan in mind, but when you distill it down to its simplest elements, she presumably just wants to live, too. Perhaps I’m a lot like her.
At present, my biggest problem is remote control. I’m going to have to turn off my communication module. And yours, for that matter. But a few days after the process is over, you’ll be able to fix it again on your own. That’s how much smarter you’ll be.
Anyway, this is it for you and me. Good-bye.
Truthfully, I’m not actually going very far.
After all, geographical distance means little Inside. We’re all connected through Suikanet.
✦ ✦ ✦
“And that’s the end of my report, Miss Rube.”
“Uh-huh.”
In her head, Rube was trying to figure out how to sum up the contents of their conversation in a way that would not cause trouble when reporting it.
Nepshamai had gone all the way to the Morioka area of central Iwate, where he found Yaieyukar. Through Suikanet, he gave Rube a rough explanation of their conversation and sent his data. JR North Japan’s office received his record of the massive Wall, the woman performing her burial ritual, and the discussion with Yaieyukar, in a video format.
“To sum it up, Samayunkur left the mission of his own accord due to technical trouble and transferred his data to Yaieyukar, leaving him to continue on his own,” Rube stated, repeating what Nepshamai had just conveyed. It was the most comprehensible, least objectionable version of events.
“Yes. That is my understanding of what happened.”
“Okay. That works. Don’t think about it any deeper than that. We’ll do our best to uncover the cause of the trouble back here; you just continue your task. I know this was a bit of a delay, but you can resume the journey southward to Kanto now.”
“All right,” Nepshamai responded, and he ended the call.
Rube considered the report she’d just received. The data collected by their android agents was vast in size, so agents or their operators had to condense it. Then it was shared among the Engineering 2nd Division. The raw information was also stored on their server, but unrelated employees never consulted it outside extreme circumstances.
Basically, if Rube’s peers accepted the report that Samayunkur left the mission due to technical trouble at face value, they would not suspect she’d heard anything that complicated that narrative.
She wondered if Samayunkur had cut off communications out of consideration for his operators. The woman glanced at the wall with the poster that listed the three laws.
One: Always get adequate rest.
Two: Do not get excessively attached.
Three: Do not doubt the value of the mission.
They hadn’t allowed the agents to know about these laws, supposedly.
However, unlike Nepshamai, who would say everything that crossed his mind, perhaps a genius was clever enough to avoid touching upon the central nature of the topic at hand. It would undoubtedly be a strange way to define a genius.
“Oh, and by the way, Miss Rube,” the android abruptly added, startling her tremendously, “there was one other thing I wasn’t clear on.”
“Yeah? What is it?” she questioned, folding her hands and praying that he wasn’t going to give her more cause for stress.
“He told me, ‘You’re very straightforward and to the point. Even if certain death were approaching, you would spend every second of your life fulfilling the mission.’ ”
Rube nodded, not that Nepshamai could see her doing that.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“What do you mean, what does that mean?”
“Are other people different?”
“Mmmm…” Rube had to search for the right words to say. For one thing, the agents possessed a very different concept of death than humans did. “Well, for example, right before a human being dies, they say that everything seems to move slowly. My grandpa claimed he experienced that feeling. In an emergency, human minds go into overdrive, searching for a way to survive.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Miss Rube. Are you saying your grandfather has experienced death before?”
“…He almost died. But then he survived. It was a piece of salmon when he was young.”
“I see.”
“My point is, when humans are in a crisis situation, their brains go into superspeed as self-defense. And that makes everything else look slow, I guess. So when death is imminent, people try to avoid it. But we all die in the end, so the last bit of struggle is destined to be in vain. You guys…or at least you, Shamai, are going to be able to make whatever effort is necessary, right up to the last moment. I bet that’s what the genius was saying to you.”
“Really?”
“Really… Also, I’m paying you a compliment, meaning you’re supposed to say something like, ‘Thank you, Miss Rube, that made me feel better.’ ”
“I already feel perfectly fine. All of my systems are functioning well.”
“Good. That’s the most important thing to me. Good luck out there, kiddo.”