The tram stations were easy to spot: giant arches in the sky, framing monorails that looked like threads of light from down where Marvin walked. The skyscrapers that supported these stations were always shopping malls or community centers or just singular elevators. This one was a shopping mall. Marvin made his way through, keeping an imaginary bubble of a few feet around himself and avoiding eye contact with all the late-night shoppers. Nowadays he could excuse this behavior to keep himself safe, but he'd always had crippling social anxiety.
He took an elevator to the 53rd floor, the station's waiting room, and scanned his fake NID at a security checkpoint. He entered a bright room with two dozen rows of chairs, most of them empty. He sat down facing the clear wall that separated the waiting room from the monorail.
Soon, a bell dinged and the door to the waiting room turned red for a moment, barring entry. A tram stopped under the arch, and the glass wall slid down, letting in a loud gust of wind. Marvin stepped over a sliver of open air into the car, and then, with a thud, metal walls and small round windows suddenly surrounded him. The tram took off.
Marvin looked out the window as he was swept along the skyrail. Even from here, far lower than the shuttle streams, Sector 8's city seemed like an OCD dream. Everything was so perfectly spaced, so minimal, not a single light source out of place. It was simultaneously satisfying and frustrating to look at.
Marvin pulled out his tablet and linked the audio to an internal speaker in his head—his version of earbuds. He was about to start listening to an organized crime podcast from the new social media app, Wow2, when he noticed movement on his right. A man had stood up from his seat and was walking his way. Marvin pretended not to notice, but his motors tightened.
First, the man's black suit and pants entered Marvin's periphery. Then his face: mid-twenties, sunken eyes, a tired expression that was struggling to be friendly. Marvin had never spoken to him, but he recognized him: Sunwoo Park, pilot of Legionnaire and brother of Ainsel AI's CEO.
What are the odds? Marvin thought warily. Sunwoo seemed to have come from a different section of the tram, so at least he hadn't followed Marvin to the station.
Legionnaire's pilot sat down across from Marvin and nodded.
"Hello," he said. "We haven't met, but I'm Sunwoo."
"Hi," Marvin said. This was either an obvious trap or a very awkward attempt to make friends, but in any case, it was a prime opportunity to learn something about Ainsel.
"Are you by chance Caroline Sand's teammate?" Sunwoo asked.
Marvin tilted his head. The only time he had publicly been Caroline's teammate were those two social events at the start of the season.
What if I say no? Would that make Sunwoo suspicious?
The man seemed disarming enough right now; Marvin didn't want this chance to slip away.
"Yeah, I'm Steve," Marvin said.
"Cyborg, right?" Sunwoo said. Marvin nodded. "They said you quit?"
Marvin nodded slowly. He scanned the surroundings, thankful that Sunwoo couldn't see his cameras move. If things got scary, he could move to another section of the tram and get off at the next stop.
"That's a shame." Sunwoo paused; it was clear he wasn't used to talking this much. "We were quite interested in you."
Marvin's processors sparkled with alarm. What's a guy as rich as Sunwoo doing on a tram anyway? Could he really have been following me?
"Not in a weird way. Sorry," Sunwoo continued. "There's just been very few cyborg pilots. It's always exciting when one comes along."
Marvin relaxed. "Sorry I quit so soon," he said.
"It's strange. They never make it far," Sunwoo said. "Does being a cyborg actually change your syncing ability?"
Maybe. But as a consciousness implant, it's quite the opposite.
"I guess," Marvin said. "Do you guys study this stuff?"
Sunwoo tilted his head in confusion.
"At Ainsel AI, I mean," Marvin said.
"Oh. No, my sister studies the brain itself, not its connection to the mech."
"What does that mean?"
"She wants to give mechs human reactions. It's helped a lot in Legionnaire's autonomous software."
Am I her magnum opus, then? A mech that is indistinguishable from a human?
"It's kind of unfair," Marvin said.
Sunwoo tilted his head again. Marvin usually would've been embarrassed, but for some reason, he found the action reassuring. They were both equally antisocial and trying their best.
"I mean, you guys have a stealth frame and your sister's code," Marvin said. Then he quickly added, "And a good pilot."
Sunwoo chuckled. "Yet Marvin Yao still beat us last year."
Again, Marvin felt a jolt of fear, and he had to calm himself down. It always surprised him to hear his name spoken like a bygone legend.
You've gotten a lot better. No way Marvin Yao would've beat you this year, Marvin wanted to say, but he feared that might give himself away. Instead, he tried to awkwardly segue into Ainsel AI by saying, "Your sister is really impressive."
Sunwoo frowned and gave an unsure shrug.
Shit. I said that like Saeyung is my celebrity crush. "I mean, she's done so much for the megacity," Marvin stammered. "She's like top three most impactful people."
Shit, that made it even worse!
Sunwoo kept making that deliberating expression, and Marvin wanted to rewind time. Why did he always mess things up right as he was getting along with someone?
Legionnaire's pilot said at length, "I wish I could say thank you, but I doubt I know her any better than you do."
Marvin felt like he had heard an intrusive thought. Had they not grown up together? He was afraid to ask.
"She's incredibly talented, of course," Sunwoo said. "It was an honor to be by her side during her rise."
But you wish you two were closer.
Marvin felt that way about Caroline, sometimes. He'd become good friends with Ben and Renee, but something didn't quite click with Caroline. They cared about each other, but in the way they needed each other to accomplish their goals.
"Sorry for talking about her so much," Marvin said. He wanted to add that Sunwoo was an impressive figure in his own right, but he couldn't figure out how to word it.
"Don't worry, I'm used to it." Sunwoo grinned.
Just then, Marvin heard his tablet beep. Incoming call from Ben. He answered quickly, hoping Sunwoo didn't find it awkward.
"Did Amir call you?" Ben asked frantically.
"No," Marvin said, startled by the fear in Ben's voice. "Why?"
"It's Caroline. She passed out."
A chill shot through Marvin's mechanical spine, sitting him up straight. "What happened?"
"Amir has no idea. Apparently she recognized this girl who committed suicide and then screamed and blacked out."
Seeing a suicide victim would undoubtedly be traumatic, but to this extent? And this was the same girl that had been drawing pictures of Caroline, according to Amir. Something was terribly off.
"Where is she now?" Marvin asked, standing up and heading farther up the tram. He needed to get off at the nearest stop.
"Where are you going?" Sunwoo asked. "Is everything alright?"
Marvin spun around to face the older pilot, suspicion clouding his cameras. What's with this timing? Sunwoo had done nothing wrong, yet Marvin wanted to get as far from him as possible.
"My friend had an emergency." Marvin turned again and kept walking. Sunwoo stood up and started following. Marvin picked up his pace.
"Where is Caroline?" Marvin whispered to his tablet.
"Amir's taking her to Ainsel's lab," Ben said. "Why are you whispering?"
Before Marvin could reply, Sunwoo's hand caught Marvin's shoulder. Marvin instinctively swung his arm back, but Sunwoo dodged the punch. He held out his hands in surrender.
"It's Amir, isn't it?" he asked.
Marvin took a step back. "How do you know?"
"He asked me to watch you," Sunwoo replied. "Make sure you got home."
"How do you know Amir?" Marvin snapped.
"I helped him when he was investigating the murders," Sunwoo explained. "The whole of Ainsel AI was helping the police. We became friends."
Well, that certainly explained the awfully convenient encounter. And by the looks of it, Sunwoo still did not know who Marvin really was.
Marvin didn't relax his joints as he asked, "Did you know Caroline would pass out?"
Sunwoo shook his head, eyebrows furrowing with concern. "That's news to me."
"Why is Amir taking her to Ainsel's lab?"
"This is in Saeyung's area of expertise." Sunwoo glanced around the tram, pursed his lips, and sighed. "I'll take you there."
-----
Marvin still didn't trust Sunwoo and put Ben on speaker throughout their shuttle ride. Ainsel AI's primary research lab was a black, upside-down trapezoid lying in the heart of the Sector. From the sky, it blacked out a good portion of the city as if a cloak had been drawn over those few blocks. Monorails and transport lines ran in and out of the structure like arteries and veins, letting it give life to the rest of the Sector.
Sunwoo's shuttle was granted special access to the building. It sank through a sliding hatch in the roof and landed in a cylindrical pod. The aircraft was decontaminated, then scanned. Marvin tensed up as the red laser swept through the wall and through his body, but security either didn't notice or care that he was a consciousness implant.
Sunwoo led Marvin down a black corridor. Every so often, a scientist in white stepped out of a door and disappeared into another. Besides the elevator at the end of the hall, Marvin could not discern a single crevice in the wall. For a company that served the megacity so heavily, their compound was unusually classified.
Marvin and Sunwoo took the elevator to the third floor, down into the belly of the beast. Marvin had spent four months speculating about Ainsel AI's role in his death, and now the answer was suddenly at his fingertips. It didn't feel real yet.
They entered a giant room that looked like a museum exhibit, but in place of fossils and wax animals were individual glass rooms with chairs and monitors and a conglomeration of tech. Some of the rooms were occupied by closed-eyed patients, their respective monitors displaying brain activity. Although the overhead lights were white, those electronic waves washed everything in blue and green.
This must be for clinical trials, Marvin thought. Contrary to the higher floor, this place was almost too transparent. As he walked through the maze of patient rooms, he spotted a familiar face sitting in one of the chairs: Carlos Esparza, pilot of The Everlancer, fourth-highest ranked mech of all time. Carlos noticed him as well and gave a wave.
He thinks I'm Steve, too, Marvin reminded himself. They'd met at the first mech-team convention.
They soon found Caroline. She was lying in the examination chair, eyes closed, a few electrodes taped to her forehead with wires running into the nearby machines. Ben, Renee, and Amir were already there, gathered around her. Beside them stood a woman wearing tinted glasses and a white lab coat.
Sunwoo offered his sister a quiet "hello" and exchanged a shoulder clap with Amir. "What happened to her?" he asked.
"Her brain tried to trigger a memory," Saeyung said, even though the question had been directed at Amir. "The memory was not there, and her brain kept searching until it did this. She's registered in the Memory Bank, yes?"
"Her and her father," Amir confirmed.
"That's why." Saeyung pointed to Caroline. "Carving out your memories while your brain is still developing is… unwise."
"So you're saying there are just random things out there that'll make her go into a coma?" Ben asked.
"Hopefully not to this extent," Saeyung replied. She shot Amir a disapproving glance.
"Thought we could progress the case," Amir muttered.
Saeyung's sigh seemed to imply that the case was a lost cause; it was time to focus on more important things.
"Will she be okay?" Marvin asked.
"Yes," Saeyung said. "It'll be an hour before she wakes. Feel free to wait in the lobby. It's on the second floor."
Marvin exchanged looks with Ben and Renee. They seemed ready to wait, but something about Saeyung unnerved Marvin. This whole place unnerved him.
Why would Caroline remove her memories?
He observed Amir, Sunwoo, and Saeyung as they gathered around the monitor and Saeyung explained some technical things, theories why Caroline would have screamed. They acted professional, but it was clear Amir was well acquainted with both of them.
And he's the only one outside of my friends who knows who I really am. Strange how the one wild card in their investigation happened to be close with suspects of his murder.
Caroline trusts him, Marvin told himself.
But was Caroline herself trustworthy? What exactly had she chosen to forget?