by Yuu Kamiya
“The floor might collapse at any time, so I have to hurry and move her...”
The floor creaked from him moving just a little, making him break into a cold sweat.
He groped about the “coffin,” smearing his hands all over it trying to find a lock, but he couldn’t find any holes. It appeared that the coffin didn’t have a standard lock. On the other hand, there were lots of movable parts, like a puzzle...
“Like this... Is it here? No, this isn’t it. How about this? Grrr, don’t be such a pain—”
Click!
Something meshed together where his hands were, and a heavy spring popped out inside the coffin. Naoto heard the sound of gears turning as white steam jetted out from the crevice that had formed.
“Alright, it’s opennn!”
Naoto pushed open the lid, not waiting for it to slowly open by itself. He unfastened the belt that had locked the automaton in place. He then yanked out a bunch of cables attached to her—their purpose was unclear—in one go before dragging the automaton girl out from the coffin.
—She’s light. That was the first thing that came to his mind.
She weighed as much as one would expect of a real girl her size. For full-sized automaton, though, she was too light. It’d be possible for a sex doll automaton, but there was no way that one as high-quality as this was a simple toy.
Then again, what’s with the softness of her skin? What maker is this skin material from?
“Wait, this is no time to be thinking. If I don’t hurry...”
He quickly threw her arms back over his shoulders, straining to pull her out of the storage unit this time.
From the living room that had had a forceful makeover done to accommodate the new, open-air atrium, the silhouette of the Equatorial Spring that powered this planet could be seen against a sky full of stars.
For an apartment as good as an abandoned building, the impact of the container was probably equal to a meteorite crashing.
...If I keep twiddling my thumbs here, I think it’ll collapse for real...
As Naoto looked around restlessly, wondering what he should do, he happened to notice that there was a seal engraved onto the nape of the girl’s neck.
—“Y. [ R y u Z U]”
“...RyuZU? Is this your name?”
Of course, no response came, but there should be no mistake.
Naoto wondered what he should do with the “Ultimate Automaton,” revised as “RyuZU”—For the time being, he decided that he should collect the tools he would need.
Brushing aside the rubble, he headed to the workshop where, luckily, there didn’t seem to be any damage. When Naoto pushed the door open and entered, he saw that his stack of odds and ends had collapsed and were scattered all over the floor, along with his tools. Taking care not to step on them with his bare feet, he advanced to the workbench at the center of the room.
He looked down at the half-complete automaton for a moment...
Making up his mind before long, Naoto moved it to the hangar and laid RyuZU down on the workbench in its place. During that time as well, the building continued to creak while swaying as if to warn him.
Naoto touched RyuZU’s neck and focused on his hearing.
“...Her spring is moving, but nothing else is running. Is she broken?”
If that was the case, he had no choice but to fix her here. Not all the tools he needed could be brought outside, and furthermore, when it came to the miniscule gears used for automata, a single speck of dust could cause an error. This cleanroom was absolutely necessary for working on them.
Naoto tightened his stomach as he resolved himself.
I’ll finish repairing her and escape before the building collapses.
“—Alright!!” He slapped both his cheeks and fired himself up.
Naoto put on his work clothes and wrapped a hip pack that had been hanging on the wall around his waist before positioning the room’s surgical lamp over the workbench and turning it on.
Preparations complete.
Naoto lifted the girl into a sitting position, then pulled down the zipper on her back. He took off her dress as if peeling away the wrapping paper on a present, exposing her pale, dainty shoulders and delicate back.
As the apartment no different from an abandoned building continued to creak as it trembled, Naoto got to work. He turned RyuZU onto her back and felt around between her shoulder blades with his fingers. Underneath the soft skin, there seemed to be a lump of some sort. He pressed down on it lightly. The metal click of a pin being disconnected could be heard, and RyuZU’s back opened up in pieces like petals from a line in its center.
It’s like a flower blooming.
“...Wow.” Underneath her exposed skin was an operation mechanism made with finesse so transcendent that it was like the entire universe was crammed inside it.
Naoto gulped.
If the situation wasn’t what it was, he would have scrutinized her so hard that his gaze would have bored a hole in her, but—Naoto shook his head before he carefully inserted a tiny tool into RyuZU’s back.
—If someone—for example, a Meister—were to see this, they might have let out a scream.
Compared to RyuZU’s exceedingly sophisticated makeup, Naoto’s hands were simply too clumsy.
He worked while hesitating, racking his brains, and wavering in uncertainty—However, even so, he was able to hit the right place somehow—or at least, that’s what he thought, but he kept choosing the wrong tools again and again, so he had to keep starting all over. First and foremost, he didn’t have the blueprint to refer to, and furthermore, he wasn’t even using any measuring instruments.
An automaton, which reproduced the human body using only gears, was an aggregate of fine parts that numbered in the trillions. If one were to try to mend the operation of these microgears without the blueprint, just to locate the parts that were out of order would require expensive equipment.
Yet Naoto continued working by feel while simply straining his ears from time to time.
Despite all that, there was no mistake in his work. It was as if he could tell where the broken part was without even examining her...
“—Is this it?”
That’s right, of course Naoto could tell where the broken part was. If he listened carefully, he could hear it.
In the grand orchestral performance to which even a Viennese symphonic orchestra would raise a white flag, there was a sound like a kindergartener playing the melodica mixed in. A single smudge surrounded by otherwise perfect art. There was no way one could catch that sound and let it be.
Despite being perfectly designed and perfectly made, it’s only running defectively right now. To put it bluntly, yeah—I’m super-annoyed.
But the problem was...
“More importantly, what part was this again...?”
Naoto’s knowledge and technical skill couldn’t match his special talent at all.
He didn’t have even the slightest idea of what the part’s function was or why it was broken.
In the end, the only thing that Naoto could do was work by feel slowly and cautiously, like testing a keyhole with countless keys, straining his ears all the while.
If his hand accidentally slipped, he might end up cutting the pseudo-nerves, which were thinner than spider silk. The microgears might get bent. If the Main Cylinder were to be damaged, there’d be no salvaging the situation. If one began to count the risks, there would be no end. It was a tightrope walk.
...It took Naoto three full hours to complete his precarious repair work.
●
“——Phewww...!”
It had only been three hours.
However, it was a terrifying three hours that shaved entire chunks off his soul more so than his physical stamina.
Naoto had expended all of his willpower, and his breathing was heavily ragged as well.
“I, It should be fixed now... right?” Though he had confidence, he still felt anxious. His ears told him tha
t there was no mistake. Even so, it wasn’t like he was able to actually verify the structure.
Though it was too late now, feelings of regret welled up within him nonetheless. Had it really been okay for an amateur like him to have tampered with this supreme machine? If he screwed up somewhere, wouldn’t he have done something irreversible?
Such thoughts assaulted him with terror that made his entire body tremble, but—Naoto shook his head.
“...No, all that’s left is to rewind the spring and she should... restart.”
Naoto’s hands trembled as he extended them towards the girl’s nape—her silver hair hid the screw of her spring underneath it—and began to silently turn the screw.
However, the state of the apartment was really getting precarious. Not only was it shaking, but thin fragments were now peeling from and falling off the ceiling as it cracked.
“...Haah... haah...”
He turned the screw around and around, building up the elastic energy needed for startup. However—no matter how much he wound the spring, there was no response. Gut-wrenching regret strangled Naoto.
No, no way no way no way! Did I really screw up somewhere?
“—God damn it... you’ve gotta be kidding me!”
Crack—
He heard a doom-filled sound. However, he didn’t see it, and frankly, he didn’t want to learn where it had come from. Even so, Naoto’s ears assertively declared through his headphones...
That the building would collapse.
“Ah, crap...” He turned his gaze upwards.
The ceiling happened to collapse just then, pouring down onto Naoto—and RyuZU as well.
However, at that moment, his hands felt a faint reaction. In a flash—without any forewarning, RyuZU sprung up from the workbench.
All of a sudden, she was in full operation.
With movements unbelievably fluid for having just started up, the girl pulled Naoto into her embrace. While carrying Naoto in her arms, the actuators in her legs ran full-throttle, causing her Accelerator Gears to turn with raging force, and RyuZU broke through the glass window at the speed of an artillery shell
All that happened in the fraction of a second before the ceiling collapsed.
“O, cra—......”
They were falling down. Inertia seized their bodies.
The fall from the seventh floor of the apartment building should have been about twenty meters. ...However, the face of automaton girl who held Naoto in her arms displayed a smile with an air of refinement—and also, nonchalance.
Naoto was mesmerized by her profile.
The time that passed didn’t even amount to a few seconds but felt many tenfolds longer.
As they approached the ground, she adjusted their headlong position by swinging her legs grandly, turning the two of them upright.
She landed.
“——!!”
Boom. A heavy collision sounded. And yet, Naoto didn’t feel the shock of landing at all.
Just how advanced is the Shock Remover packed inside her? Did that break the mechanisms in her leg just now? Ahh, I hope the glass didn’t damage her artificial skin—
“......”
RyuZU loosened her hold without a word, allowing Naoto to quietly step onto the ground. However, unable to stand, he sank down on the spot.
Unable to think with his mind practically blank, Naoto looked up at the girl, dumbfounded.
“Ah—”
Her topaz eyes, which glittered blazingly and bewitchingly, looked down upon Naoto. She blinked repeatedly.
A breath leaked out from between her narrowly parted lips, stirring the air.
“Y—ou—” A voice muddied with noise spilled out as her vocal apparatus vibrated.
It was a malfunction. Was it because she hadn’t been turned on in a long time? The girl placed one hand on her throat and tuned her vocal apparatus while staring up at space.
She eventually lowered her hand gracefully and nodded, looking satisfied. After that, upon adjusting her posture and tidying up her disheveled clothes...
She stood there looking perfectly ready, as if she had been waiting in that perfect state for many hundreds of years already.
After leisurely turning her eyes to survey her surroundings, the girl looked down by her feet.
“Are you the one who kindly repaired me?” She had a high, clear voice, like that of a music box’s metal comb.
She was a delicate, lovely maiden with skin the color of liquid silver wrapped in a dress so black it seemed like it had been tailored from the darkness of the night. Her topaz eyes glittered with gold as they gazed fixedly upon Naoto, who remained at a complete loss for words.
“—My, for me to be forced to hibernate for 1,804,926 hours because of such a trivial failure, has human intelligence still yet to exceed the level of a flea, even now? Or are you, from whom I can’t detect any sense of intellect nor refinement, somehow the first graduate who ought to be commemorated?”
If Naoto strained his ears, he could faintly hear the inorganic pumping sound of her Main Cylinder. Yet, its rhythm overlapped somewhere with the beating heart that was ringing in his chest.
“...My goodness, the stupidity of humanity is the one thing that truly knows no bounds. If possible, I would prefer my master to be a lifeform superior to an insect, but...”
While spewing venom from her sharp tongue, the girl extended her hand towards Naoto with a graceful gesture. In contrast to her scathing words, her gaze was sweet, and her mouth was forming a gentle smile.
Naoto gently smiled back in response, extending his hand forward and sticking his thumb up.
The next instant—Naoto lost consciousness.
Chapter Two / 03 : 18 / Complication
It was 03:18:24 a.m.
Marie Bell Breguet woke up. Kicking off her blanket, she sprung up violently.
In the center of a small, dark room that was originally used for file storage, Marie concealed her breath and honed her senses.
...What was that just now?
She felt anxious for some reason. Even though she should have been sound asleep from the fatigue caused by all the travel, she had abruptly awoken.
Marie slowly got up, stepping onto the ground from her makeshift bed.
Silence—Her surroundings were dead quiet.
There were still a few hours until dawn. Her staff were also resting right now in preparation for the quagmire ahead. The only ones awake at the moment should have been the observation squad’s night-shift staff. Marie was tempted to wrap herself back up in her blanket as well...
However, she didn’t do so. She couldn’t afford to discard this mysterious feeling and leave it as it was.
Marie was not only a genius, but a Meister as well. Having worked out in the field almost daily since her youth, she had sensed countless irregularities and dangers throughout her career. Her ability and experience were warning her. That was the kind of feeling she, the great Marie Bell Breguet, was getting in this current situation.
Something had to be amiss.
“Is anyone here?!” Marie stood up as she shouted. She put on a coat and dragged her cumbersome body to the door, pushing it open.
She entered the dark hallway where, right next to the door, something started moving sluggishly. That something was a middle-aged man with a buzz cut who, despite having a giant body like a bear’s, exuded so little presence that it was unsettling.
Halter—the man who had been wrapped in a blanket on the floor—lifted his head up.
“.........What’s wrong, princess? Did you have a bad dream or something?”
“Want me to beat you to death?”
Marie glared at Halter with a threatening face. “Get up already, you fat oaf. Go bring me the measurement data starting around 120 seconds ago at once.”
“Alright. I’ll be back immediately. ......Ah—, and also—”
“What? Get going. On the double!” Marie’s expression was severe.
In an effort to
pacify her, Halter replied, “I got it already, so at least put on some underwear.”
“?” Not only did Marie’s movements and face freeze as she stared blankly, but also her breathing.
She looked down.
“——”
Nothing.
She wasn’t wearing anything down there. Actually, she was completely naked.
Here was a girl genius haughtily throwing out her chest with her hands on her waist while fully exposed.
“~~~~~~gh!”
Looking back up, she saw that Halter was already gone.
Marie had reflexively raised the palm of her hand up, but upon losing her target, she hastily rushed back inside her room as her face flushed bright red.
●
As Marie had demanded, Halter returned quickly.
Just as she finished picking up and putting the clothes that she had flung off back on, there was a knock on the door.
“—By all means, please come in,” Marie said stiffly. Halter entered with a heap of documents in his hand. Marie had been lying in wait to kick Halter’s shin as he entered, but gave up the idea when she saw the observation squad following him inside.
The likes of a brawny thug was one thing, but there was no way she could show herself being immodest in front of Meister Guild’s outstanding staff members.
Biting down to stifle her tongue click, she hurled a sharp glance at Halter.
—I wish you’d just die, you small-time punk.
It was unclear whether Halter noticed Marie’s glare as he leaned forward and lay the heap of papers on the desk in the room. The squad leader, Hannes, picked out a single document from the giant stack and presented it to Marie.
“Dr. Marie, about the results of the observation just now—”
“The gravity was fluctuating intermittently, right?” Marie beat him to the punch.
Having had his words taken from him, Hannes’s eyes widened. “My, I’m impressed. So you were aware.”
“Just a conjecture. I had a feeling that was probably the case.”
“Indeed, it’s just as you say, doctor. In the past hour, the reference value intermittently fluctuated between 0.92 to 1.04 three times.”
Halter interjected with half-baked politeness. “...A fluctuation of about 0.1g? No, the difference is actually even smaller. I’m surprised you noticed. It shouldn’t have been strong enough to wake someone up though, right?”