Ch.116Complicated!

#116

Himena had planned to investigate the “full story” that the Livetron was talking about alone, with the recorder on in the interrogation room.

But when she asked the Science and Technology Department agents to take the Livetron out of the reinforced glass wall, the story had already spread among the agents.

Thanks to that, OSA agents who had gathered to hear the full story were crowded in the room next to the interrogation room.

“Stop pushing.”

“Is this an observation or a market day?”

“More people are coming in?”

“This room is already full, so find somewhere else!”

Himena, who was with the Livetron, noticed the noise from the adjacent room and was holding her head.

“Excuse me, I came here to investigate, not to be a spectacle. Could everyone please be quiet?”

At Himena’s words, spoken while glaring at the mirror with a frown, the adjacent room fell silent instantly.

Turning her head toward the Livetron, Himena smiled lightly and spoke while looking at the robot.

“Sorry, it was a bit noisy.”

[It’s fine.]

The Livetron standing across from Himena answered with a brief voice.

“Well, let’s get started.”

Himena looked at the Livetron with her hands on her laptop and asked.

“Your name?”

[I don’t have one.]

“…You don’t? Not Livetron or something like that?”

[Livetron is, not, my actual, designation.]

As soon as that statement came out, the room next to the interrogation room became noisy.

“What? So it was a lie after all?”

“I knew it! How could it come to Earth’s past through a wormhole?”

“Hey, everyone, let’s keep it down.”

Due to the adjacent room being so noisy that the mirror was shaking, Himena looked at the mirror with an angry expression and said.

“Be quiet!! Are you going to make noise every time the robot says something?!”

When it became eerily quiet again, Himena cleared her throat and looked back at the robot in front of her.

“Ahem. So you’re saying you don’t have an official name?”

[Affirmative.]

“Then I’ll call you robot for convenience. Age, no… how long have you existed?”

[It has been, 5 weeks, 3 days, 23 hours, and 15 minutes, since I was, assembled.]

“Assembled 5 weeks ago…”

As Himena was recording the robot’s information, she recalled the old spaceship at the crash site and said.

“Then the spaceship you were in was actually…?”

[A spaceship, acquired, from elsewhere.]

“I see…”

Each time Himena wrote down information, small cheers could be heard from the adjacent room.

“See, I told you. Even the spaceship was actually acquired from somewhere else.”

“They got such an old spaceship just to do this?”

“It’s not just anything, my friend. It was a big enough incident to mobilize the OSA.”

When it seemed like it was getting noisy again, Himena didn’t say anything this time and just stared intently at the mirror.

Feeling Himena’s gaze, people in the adjacent room nudged each other and said.

“Hey, hey, Agent Libero is looking at us. Quiet.”

When it immediately became quiet without her having to yell at the adjacent room, Himena slightly raised the corner of her mouth and looked back at the Livetron.

“The spaceship was a lie, so the wormhole was obviously a lie too… So everything you told us about the future was a lie?”

[Affirmative.]

At the still consistent voice, Himena raised one corner of her mouth and said.

“You’re quite brazen… But it seems like many things you said were actually correct. How did you get those right?”

[My CPU is, made of, qubits, and with, sufficient, information, I can, make certain, predictions.]

‘A qubit CPU means a quantum computer… but the engineer who repaired the robot said there were only parts that had been on the market for a long time.’

This meant that to avoid OSA’s suspicion, they deliberately used parts that were high-performance but had been on the market for a long time.

Himena began to wonder about the identity of the person who created the robot in front of her.

“You can predict information… So you predicted things like sports results that way?”

[Affirmative.]

‘Using a qubit CPU to predict the future based on collected information… Did they choose this strategy deliberately to avoid OSA’s suspicion? Or was there another reason?’

“You could have received information about the future through external communications. Why specifically use a qubit CPU?”

[It’s simple. In OSA’s, underground facility, unauthorized, external, communication, is impossible.]

“So because you couldn’t receive external information, you had to predict future information with the qubit CPU?”

[Affirmative.]

After consistently talking for a while, it became clear that the robot knew a lot about OSA’s internal affairs.

This wasn’t just information it had gathered when it was called Livetron, but something prepared by someone’s arrangement before entering the OSA.

As the robot explained things that outsiders should never know, Himena looked at the mirror and thought.

‘So, there’s a spy inside the OSA?’

Although only the robot and herself were visible in the mirror, one of the people on the other side of the mirror could be that spy.

Realizing that she shouldn’t carelessly mention a spy in this situation, Himena turned her head back to the robot and said.

“…The space freighter incident, did you know there was an Abomination on board?”

[Affirmative. However, I don’t, have information, that Agent Libero, would find, interesting.]

“Really? What do you know?”

[That the Abomination, was meant to, spread a virus, among OSA, personnel.]

A virus that has a cure but hasn’t been discovered on Earth.

As suspected, someone had deliberately spread it.

“And?”

[Also, the attack, by the Abomination, was intended, to threaten, the Immediate Response Team, and cause, confusion.]

While everyone, including Himena and Dexter, had suspected this, actually hearing testimony about it was quite different.

As the mystery surrounding the Abomination was finally starting to unravel, Himena and the people in the adjacent room nodded their heads as they listened to the robot’s story.

However, Himena had a personal question.

“It’s good that you’re talking, but until now you avoided answering with ‘it wasn’t on the list.’ Why did you suddenly change your mind?”

At Himena’s question, the robot paused for a moment, and the ventilation fan attached to the side of its body spun vigorously.

[…Because, Agent Libero, was the only one, who worried, about me.]

“…Because I worried about you?”

While it was true that Himena had worried about the robot, it was hardly something a robot would say.

“I did, but what does that have to do with anything?”

[Everyone, thinks of me, as a mere, tool. But, Agent Libero, was different. Here, you were, the only one, who worried, about me.]

“…Is that so?”

All the agents regarded the Livetron not as something to worry about, but as a piece of evidence that could talk.

The only one who had worried about the robot’s whereabouts or whether there were any problems with its operation was Himena.

To the robot, even such small concerns and questions were precious.

[I want, to ask, Agent Libero. What, am I?]

“…What are you?”

It was a simple question that could be answered by saying, you’re a robot.

But Himena couldn’t answer that way.

[There is, someone, who calls me, a tin can. They said, my purpose, is simply, to be blown up, that is, my fate.]

“Someone calls you a tin can? And that person said they’re going to blow you up?”

At the point when the robot and Himena were conversing, Rascal, who had been looking for the robot, finally arrived near the interrogation room.

Having already discovered the robot and Himena inside the interrogation room, Rascal spoke to an agent standing at the doorway of the adjacent room.

“How far has the investigation progressed?”

“Huh? Oh, right now the robot is starting to explain to Agent Libero why it’s telling this story.”

“Anything else?”

“It’s all a staged act by the person who made the robot. We haven’t heard who that person is yet. Oh, and just now it mentioned something about someone calling it a tin can?”

Rascal’s expression became serious as he listened to the agent.

The only person who calls that robot a tin can is Rascal.

Feeling that the robot was about to reveal his name, Rascal nodded at the agent’s words and opened his mobile phone.

‘That was close. A little later and I would have been screwed.’

Sighing in relief a little distance away from the other agents, Rascal opened the application he had received from the man and entered a formula.

<Erase data in drive>

<Press Y if you want to erase data.>

<Y / N>

Rascal pressed Y without much thought.

Then a red warning appeared on Rascal’s mobile phone.

<5 minutes until data erasure in drive. Data erasure uses physical methods. Personnel near the drive should evacuate to at least 15m away from the drive location.>

‘What?’

Confused by the mention of physical methods and the instruction to evacuate at least 15m away, Rascal began to carefully observe the robot in the interrogation room.

Naturally unaware of this, Himena judged the robot’s previous statement to be most important and stared at the robot intently.

“So what’s the name of the person who calls you a tin can?”

[That person’s name is…]

“The name?”

Himena moved close enough to be intimidating even to an emotionless robot, waiting for the voice output.

[…Error. External signal received.]

“Error? No, that’s not a person’s name.”

While Himena was confused by the robot’s unexpected words, suddenly a siren began to sound from the robot.

-Eeeeee….

[Self-destruct sequence activated for data erasure. Detonation in 5 minutes. All personnel within a 15m radius please evacuate.]

The robot spoke not in its original voice, but in a female TTS.

“D-detonation?”

Thanks to the robot’s sudden outburst, Himena was visibly flustered.

Regardless of whether Himena was flustered or not, the robot output the same consistent voice as before.

[Detonation, is not, acceptable.]

“I know! How to stop it! How do we stop it?!”

[You must, force shutdown, from the, distribution panel, on my back.]

“Back? Distribution panel? Uh, got it!”

When Himena rushed to the robot and checked its back, she found six unusual star-shaped screws instead of regular cross screws.

“Star! Star-shaped screws! Does anyone in the next room know where to find a star-shaped screwdriver?!”

At Himena’s urgent voice, people in the adjacent room began to murmur.

“Star-shaped screwdriver?”

“Don’t the maintenance engineers in the Science and Technology Department have those?”

As soon as that was said, one of the senior agents watching nudged an agent next to him and said.

“Tell them to call a maintenance engineer! Hey, Turner! If that’s you, you should be running already!”

“Huh? Yes! Ah, so I should call a maintenance engineer?”

“Yes, hurry!”

As the youngest agent in the room ran off to the Science and Technology Department, the tense Himena asked the robot what to do after opening the distribution panel.

“Once the panel is open, tell me exactly what to do next.”

[When the panel, is open, there are, four switches, each assigned, a different, color.]

“And?”

[Press the red one, twice, the blue one, four times, the green one, six times, and the black one, twenty-six times.]

“…Why twenty-six times for just the black one?”

[That is, beyond, my authority.]

“Is the creator a lunatic? What if I make a mistake?”

[If you make, a mistake, you must, start over, from the beginning.]

At the robot’s firm statement, Himena sighed deeply.

“That’s a bit annoying…”

[The creator, has bad, taste.]

“…Yeah, I can imagine. How much time do we have left?”

[4 minutes, and 13 seconds, until detonation.]

After saying that, the robot output its voice more slowly than usual.

[Can I, avoid, being blown up?]

“Hey, robot. If you blow up, I die too, so of course we have to prevent it.”

Himena tried to unscrew the distribution panel with a credit card from her wallet, but it wasn’t working well, so she frowned and said.

[However, there is, one problem.]

“What problem?”

[When forced, to shut down, my data, will be, initialized.]

“What?”

Himena was shocked to hear that the data would be erased after all her efforts to save it.