Vol 1 Chapter 1.04 (1/2)

Four Days Before

Sunday.

I am wearing a white dress with frills on it, checking my attire in front of the mirror.

I’m going on a date with Professor today. Well, just for a half-day date to a movie and lunch.

“Iris, we’re going soon~”

Came Professor’s voice from downstairs.

“Alright, I’m coming!”

I respond in a loud voice, putting on a large straw hat at the same time. The hat hides the antenna above my ears, so that there won't be curious kids shouting “Robot! It’s a robot!”

— Attire okay, hat alright, battery level full!

I hurry down the stairs after completing my last minute check.

Professor is standing at the front door, wearing her personal clothes.

— So stunning!

The blue s.h.i.+rt and green jeans are actually rather casual clothing, but since she’s quite tall, this shows off her exceptional figure. If there were a white horse beside her she would look just like a prince— but this a.n.a.logy seems a little strange.

A silver cigarette case gleams in front of her chest. Having Professor’s favorite oblong cigarette case hung on a chain, it seems just like a necklace. The 8-shaped circlet cigarettes are kept in the case.

“Professor, how do I look?”

I twirl in a circle like a ballerina. The dress and the straw hat flutter gently in the breeze.

Professor narrows her eyes, as if dazzled by the sun and says “Mnn, it suits you.”

It suits you…… It suits you…… It suits you…… It suits you……. Professor’s words reverberate repeatedly in my mental circuits.

Ahh, just hearing that could make me happy all day.

“Let’s go then.”

Professor walks over while lifting her long hair. I hold her hand while standing beside her.

As the door is opened, the blue sky that makes one want to burst into song seems to be blessing us.

There are a lot of people at the cinema beside the station.

I show my robot certificate at the ticket booth, then the employees start to size me up. My antenna above my ear is hidden, so they are suspicious of me because they can’t tell if I’m a human or a robot.

It seems that the elevator is offline today; we pa.s.s by quite a few technicians at the entrance of the cinema. More than half of them seem to be labor robots, probably the HRL004 model from their appearance. Whichever it is, they're an old model.

Labor robots have been around even longer than family robots have. As more of them are sold in the market, they are more often seen on the streets. Waiters at a restaurant, night time security guards, attendants at the entrance hall of a company, carpenters — their uses are quite diverse.

Old family robots are also often sold in the second hand market and reused as labor robots. Young female robots usually enter the labor robot market this way. Recently, the people who combine second hand parts of robots to create a new robot to sell are increasing, and the hidden dangers of this have been noted as a problem to society. It is, by the way, against the law for unqualified persons to a.s.semble a robot, similar to the fact that one can’t just a.s.semble a car and drive it on the road.

After entering the cinema, Professor and I choose a seat towards the back of the room. We place the fruit juice and popcorn on the small table between the seats. After five minutes, the movie starts playing.

“Hey, Professor.”

“What is it?”

“Why are we watching a horror movie today?”

Two young women watching a horror movie alone seems strange. The other people in the seats are all man-woman couples.

“a.n.a.lyzing the actions of the zombies could be used as a reference for the theory of movement control for robots.”

“Huh…… Theory of movement control……”

Professor is always pa.s.sionate about her research. I can’t help an admiring thought: “As expected of Professor,” while a hint of mirth suddenly appears on the corner of Professor’s mouth.

“Eh, why are you smiling?”

“Nothing, Iris is really a good and honest girl.”

“Eh?”

I don't know why Professor praised me, but it pleases me anyway.

“That’s right, Professor. According to my investigations, the movie ‘This is a Fateful Encounter’ is the most popular movie, a touching masterpiece…… It’s rare that we come here, so do you want to watch that?”

“I say, isn’t that a romantic movie?”

“That would be fine, romantic movies.”

“The stereotypical contents are lame.”

“The- then what about a monster movie? Like ‘Monster Showdown: Vanilla vs Chocola’?”

“There’d probably be a lot of kids there. That won't do. They’d make a lot of noise when the movie is playing.”

“What about ‘Third-rate Demon G.o.d Visa Darke’?”

“Isn’t that a series? I didn’t watch its predecessors, so how would I know of its contents?”

“Uuuu…… You know that I’m scared of watching horror movies, right?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I puff out my cheeks and start to have a tantrum. Professor bursts into laughter when she sees me.

All of a sudden, a bell rings and the movie starts.

The long-awaited zombies shamble unsteadily forward from the movie screen.

And so.

“Not bad.”

Professor gives her impression of the movie, satisfied. It seems that she finds the visual effects of the horror movie adequate.

As for me, I have become a pale-faced robot with periodic violent spasms.

“Iris, are you okay?”

“H- h-h- how could I be okay! Wh- wh- wh- what is that, that movie cuts like bzzzt~ and springs up like dong~!”

Instead of saying that this is a horror movie, it’s really more a violent, b.l.o.o.d.y movie.

Halfway through the movie, I try to hug Professor quite a few times in fear but was pushed away by the expressionless Professor with her right hand.

I try to fling away the squirting blood, flying brains and squirming intestines burnt into my mental circuits by violently shaking my head, but even if I do so, the data obviously remain unchanged.

“Since our coming here is such a rare event, why don’t we take a commemorative photo?”

“Eh~ Here?”

After calling to a worker nearby, Professor pa.s.ses her camera to him. It seems like she’s going to use the signboard of the horror movie ‘Nightmare~ Rotten Nightmare’ as a background to take our commemorative photo together.

“No, let’s take it some other place.”

“That won’t do. We watched a movie here today, so we must take it here.”

“We’ll be cursed if we take a photo here!”

“That isn’t a scientific reason.”

After grabbing my elbow tightly, Professor hugs my shoulders in front of the signboard.

Our bodies are tightly touching, and it would be a great moment if it were some other time. But right now, I just feel that the army of zombies from the signboard would jump out at any moment. Especially the zombies that had their lower bodies chopped off, their intestines poking out; I feel my whole body trembling just thinking of it.

“Okay, cheese!”

After shouting that, the worker presses the shutter.

Just like that, I am in a photo, my face deathly pale, squeezing out a smile; Professor, with a devilish smile on her face.

After eating lunch at a nearby restaurant, we take thirty minutes to buy the makings of dinner; then we return home.

On the way back home, Professor and I walk home hand in hand.

And now, Professor is reading the newspaper she bought from a newsstand. One of the contents is ‘Unit Composed of New Robot Model Utterly Annihilating Enemy’s Base.’

“Reading while walking is dangerous, Professor.”

“It’s okay. I’m holding Iris' hand anyway.”

“Really……”

“It’s because the special report in the ‘Oval Times’ is so interesting that I can't resist. Crane Cloudy is one of the top researchers of robots in the world.”

Though Professor is still on a date with me, she is fascinated by the newspaper. I’m so jealous of the paper.

While dragging Professor, who’s holding her paper in one hand, we arrive at Venus Plaza.

— There it is.

About fifty meters from the plaza, it’s the shop. Its walls have been broken down, the ground is sunken, and there is also yellow tape on the outside, forbidding people from entering. This is the robot crime scene I saw from the news on the television.

“Hey, Professor.”

“Hmm?”

Professor finally s.h.i.+fts her attention away from the newspaper, raising her head.

“About that……” I point at the shop with the collapsed wall. Professor nods, answering immediately “The place where the robot rampage happened?” It seems that Professor knows of this as well.

“Why did the robot go on a rampage?”

I express my doubts about the matter.

Professor deliberately lowers her voice, answering: “I have an obligation to keep this secret, so I can’t answer you.”

“Eh?” I ask, confused. “An obligation?”

Professor smiles faintly and shrugs while saying: “I was just making fun of you.”

“The robot was sent to our research centre for dissection. And our group is in charge of it.”

I blinked in surprise. I never would have thought that the robot in the news would have any connection to Professor. While thinking about it, the agency that is the most specialized in robotic matters is the ‘First Robotics Laboratory of Oval University’ where Professor works at, so it’s natural that things would turn out this way.

“Then did you learn anything?”

“Mnn, yeah……”

Professor touches her chin lightly with her index finger.

“Put simply, we think it was ‘short circuit of the motor system causing the safety circuits to go haywire.’ Even so, we aren’t that clear about some points, as the robot was excessively damaged.”

Robots have a central group of circuits called the three main systems. They are the logic circuits, the movement control circuits, and the safety circuits.

Compared with a human, the mental circuits would be the brain, the movement control circuits would be the spinal cord and nervous system. The orders given by the mental circuits would be transmitted to the whole body though the movement control circuits, causing the limbs to move.

The safety circuits would be like an emergency brake system that would prevent the two previous systems from going into disorder. All robots must have safety circuits installed; the manufacturers are required to do so by law, so this type of circuit is hidden in my body as well.

“Even so, I still have something that I’m worried about.”

Professor continues to say. Taking out a cirgarette from her cigarette case, she places it into her mouth. The cirgarette immediately gives out purple smoke.

“After recovering the data of the mental circuits, I noticed something odd. Robots seem to be able to have ‘illusions’.”

“Illusions……. Huh?”

Professor nods. A sweet sour smell drifts over from the circlet cigarette.

“It seems that he was chasing ‘someone’ that only he could see. If you explain it like this, you might be able to explain the actions of the robot in a logical way. The robot breaking the door is because ‘that person’ was at the other side of the wall, walking to the fountain is also because ‘that person’ went there.”

Robots having hallucinations. Can this happen?

“I received reports of the visual and color settings of robots going haywire before, but the case this time is quite unusual…… Additionally, the other members of our group did not notice this before I suggested the possibility. Really……”