Chapter 76: Do Androids Pray for Cybernetic Heaven? (6)

On the cold concrete floor, in front of the damp, moss-covered walls of a back alley, people were forced to their knees.

“Please… please spare me……”

“I was wrong…. I was wrong….”

Pleas and sobs mingled in the damp air. Someone muttered meaningless words, and someone else clasped their hands together, begging earnestly.

Yet another person simply trembled in despair, having resigned themselves to everything.

In front of them, a man casually held a cigarette.

The man looked around and asked.

“Is this the last of the 9th Street tin cans?”

The mercenaries surrounding the alley answered.

“Yes, it is.”

The man gave a small nod, then casually spoke to those kneeling.

“Alright, everyone, listen up.”

The man held up a photograph. It was the face of a young girl, about ten years old, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Anyone who’s seen this little tin can, raise your hand.”

“……”

“…….”

No one answered. The terrified people only glanced at each other.

“No one?”

The man clicked his tongue as if bored.

“A bust, huh. Then let them go.”

As he gestured to his subordinates, a momentary flush of life returned to the faces of the captured.

It was a fleeting moment where hope, or the possibility of survival, blossomed.

Click-clack-

The joy instantly turned into stark white terror. What was thrust before their eyes was not an escape route, but the black muzzles of guns.

The people began to plead desperately.

“W-Wait a minute!”

“I’ll do anything! I will! So just my life-“

But before their words could finish, sharp gunshots filled the back alley.

Tat-tat-tang-!

Along with the belatedly falling shell casings, bodies collapsed limply.

Sticky orange operational fluid pooled thickly beneath the sprawled corpses. The light faded from their pupils, their faces still stained with tears.

The man watched the scene and muttered indifferently.

“They’re always like this. It’s the end, so why bother pretending to cry. Leaves a bad taste.”

Then he spat the cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with his foot.

“Alright, let’s go. Time to work.”

Following his voice, the sound of indifferent footsteps disappeared out of the alley.

In the shadows left behind by the departed mercenaries, countless bodies with already dried-up operational fluid were piled up beyond the freshly fallen ones.

==========

A few days later, I was once again sitting opposite the director of the cathedral’s orphanage.

“Is Clarice doing well these days?”

At my question, she hesitated for a moment.

“Ah, Saintess. There’s something I need to tell you about that.”

What came from the director’s mouth was an unexpected story.

Clarice had recently started to be a bit of an outcast among her peers.

“What? Why?”

“Actually, she had been getting along well… but it seems a few of the children saw her when she fell a while ago. So….”

Children are more perceptive than adults think.

It meant the children had noticed that Clarice was somehow ‘different’ from them.

The director let out a worried sigh.

“If it were direct bullying, I could scold and educate them… but this kind of thing is very difficult for adults to intervene in.”

In children’s society, they almost instinctively push away what is ‘different’ from themselves. Such avoidance was inevitable. Forcing them to overcome that resistance would only make the situation worse.

Of course, I knew the solution. Adults could educate them. That being different is not being wrong, and that an alienated friend is just the same as everyone else. I could guide them with experiences to help them accept it naturally.

But… how could I convey a conviction to children that I myself did not possess?

“…….”

As I was once again lost in thought, the orphanage director changed the subject.

“Ah, right. We had a chapel class yesterday.”

As is often the case with welfare facilities established by religious organizations, they also provided simple religious education to the children here.

She took out a piece of paper from her drawer and handed it to me.

“This time, the theme was writing a letter. A letter about what you want to say to God. Clarice wrote one too, would you like to read it?”

I nodded my head without thinking.

The paper I received contained a letter written in crooked handwriting.

I quietly read its contents.

‘Dear Radiance. Hello, it’s me, Clarice. You hear my prayers every night, right?’

The letter began with a normal greeting.

‘Thank you so much for letting me stay here. The teachers are very kind to me, and my bed is warm. It feels like a real home now. The teachers taught me that all of this is God’s grace. Thank you.’

But gradually, the child’s worries began to seep into the words.

‘But Radiance, I have a question. Why am I a little different from my other friends?’

‘A few days ago, I fell while playing and scraped my knee. My friends cried because it hurt, but I didn’t feel any pain at all. I didn’t cry either. Instead of red blood, some strange oil-like thing came out.’

‘Maybe because they saw that, my friends seem to be avoiding me. Yesterday, a child called me a robot. They asked, ‘How can a robot believe in God?’ Strangely, those words hurt much more than falling. Isn’t that strange?’

‘But I didn’t get angry. The teacher said I have to do good deeds to go to heaven. So I just forgave them.’

‘If that’s not enough, I’ll do lots of good deeds. I’ll help my friends more and listen to the teachers better. Then I can really go to heaven too, right?’

‘If you say no… if you say that no matter how many good deeds an android does, they can’t go to heaven like a real person…’

‘Why are we able to pray?’

“……..”

It was just as I had finished reading the last sentence of the letter.

Bang!

The office door was thrown open violently with a loud noise.

A caregiver with a deathly pale face ran in and shouted.

“Saintess! We have a big problem!”

The director and I turned to her at the same time.

“What’s wrong….?”

“Clarice…! The child has disappeared from the classroom! We’ve looked all around the cathedral, but she’s nowhere to be seen….!”

My heart sank before I could even process my feelings about the letter.

I asked back with a trembling voice.

“What do you mean…. Don’t tell me, was she kidnapped?!”

“No. A child saw Clarice leaving the cathedral on her own.”

I muttered with a bewildered face.

“On her own…. she left this place….?”

---

A child is much more perceptive than an adult thinks.

This is especially true for a child who has no one to lean on, who has matured early, who lacks proper guardians.

Because being perceptive is necessary to receive even a little more praise, to avoid being abandoned, and to survive.

So Clarice had realized it long ago.

From the worried faces of the adults.

The serious voices.

From the glances they cast at the girl.

She began to feel a sense of familiarity.

Once again, people were in some kind of trouble because of her.

A child created to be loved.

But because of that love, those around the girl were often hurt.

Fragmented memories surfaced from between the clumsily erased memory data.

The sight of her grandfather, who used to comfort her with a gentle voice, being dragged away by sudden intruders.

The scene of the man and woman who were trying to escape with her from somewhere, being shot and falling.

All the adults who had cherished the girl until now had ended up like that.

“…….”

Actually, the girl liked the cathedral.

Though she had become a little distant from her peers, the teachers and priests still adored her.

The pretty older sister called the Saintess also seemed to be someone very important, yet always cared for her.

That’s why she was scared.

Scared that the good people here would end up like the other adults in her memory.

Therefore, that night, while the teacher was also asleep, the girl quietly slipped out of the cathedral.

For everyone’s sake, to be a good child.

She had tried to be brave, even though she was a little scared.

The cold night air seeped through her thin clothes, but the girl’s footsteps did not stop.

“Haah….”

In the girl’s mind, a faint word floated like a signpost.

Free City, Zion.

An unfamiliar yet familiar name.

Led by an unknown instinct that she might meet her missed family if she went there, Clarice moved her feet.

This suburb was once a lawless zone where a child walking alone at night would disappear before taking ten steps.

Although security had improved after the church was established, it was still a dangerous street for a child to walk alone.

So the girl’s misfortune was, in a way, inevitable.

The moment she was blankly looking up at the flashy neon signs, a rough hand shot out from a back alley and grabbed her arm.

The girl was dragged into the darkness without a chance to resist.

“Got her.”

With a low, rough voice, men with fierce appearances emerged like shadows and surrounded her.

One of them roughly grabbed the girl’s hair and began to meticulously compare it with a photo in his hand.

“……It’s her for sure.
This makes things easy.
We’re lucky.”

The man muttered with satisfaction and whispered lowly into the communication device on his wrist.

“Target secured.
Blonde, blue eyes.
Child-type android, around ten years old.
Appearance matches.”

An urgent voice came from the other side of the receiver.

[“The core code? Have you confirmed the core code?”]

“Connecting to the system now.

We’ll break through the firewall soon.

What should we do with it afterward?”

[“The code is what’s important.
Once you secure the code, dispose of the shell yourself.”]

“Understood.”

After the short communication ended, the man’s cold gaze turned to the child.

Until then, the girl was held helplessly, just trembling.

A voice like a slithering snake echoed eerily in Clarice’s ear.

“Shh, don’t be too scared, little tin can.
We’ll just take care of our business and let you go.
We’re not bad people, are we, uncles?”

It was a blatant lie, offered after letting her hear the entire conversation.

But there was nothing the girl could do now.

The hand gripping her hair, the shoulder brutally pressed down by force.

She was being handled so roughly that not even a slight struggle was permitted.

Presently, another mercenary connected a cable to the port on the back of the girl’s neck, then sat down nearby and began to operate a terminal.

“It will take about 15 minutes.”

“Good, good.”

The leader hummed a tune, but his eyes were scanning the surroundings with extreme coolness.

“Stay sharp.
Those crazy cultists might interfere again.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mercenaries took their positions in an orderly fashion at the man’s command.

A chilling aura flowed from their heavily armed equipment, sharp gazes, and trained movements.

“……”

Pressed in the middle of it all, a single clear tear rolled down the terrified girl’s cheek.

Actually… she knew it would come to this.

A child is much more perceptive than an adult thinks.

Clarice herself knew what kind of danger she was in.

But if she hadn’t left now, these scary people would have eventually come to the cathedral looking for her.

Then, many more people would have been hurt.

The kind priests, nuns, and teachers… everyone would have seen blood.

So it was a better choice, the girl thought.

She had been brave and protected everyone.

She had done a good thing.

‘So with this… can I also go to heaven?’

It was the moment the girl was about to offer her final prayer.

A mercenary, who was positioned outside the alley on guard, said something.

“Leader, there’s something over there-“

Kwang-

And he was sent flying into the air as if hit by a car.

“Wh-What!”

The mercenaries were flustered by the sudden turn of events.

In the gap where the gazes of several were drawn to the scene.

“…….”

Inside the alley, beyond the shadows, a cool golden eye shone.