Port Alexandra, Underground Rocket R&D Center.
Inside the suspended transparent control room, that deep-azure "Rationality Crystal" was emitting a gentle, steady glow, like the beating heart of a god. And on the console beneath it, the fingers of Tin Man—constructed from metal bones and precision bearings—finally stopped tapping.
With the final press of the Enter key, the red warning pop-ups that had been cascading down the main screen like a waterfall froze in an instant, then scattered like windblown sand-snow, dissolving into a pure green that represented safety.
"Phew—" It was as if a huge sigh that didn't truly exist had sounded inside the control room—belonging to the entire city.
Tin Man unplugged the data cable connected to his palm, turned around, and fixed his red-glowing electronic eyes on Mary, who stood not far away.
"Done. The firewall has been re-established, and the other side's ports have been reverse-locked." Tin Man's flat synthetic voice, in the ears of everyone present, now sounded like heavenly music. "We have fully taken control of that mysterious remote server. There's no need to worry about the city's robots being hijacked in batches anymore. The citizens' crisis has been resolved."
Victoria let out a long breath, and her tightly tensed shoulders finally loosened.
However, Tin Man was not finished. He slightly cocked his metal head, his gaze pinning Mary's face like something tangible.
"But, President Mary." A trace of interrogation entered Tin Man's tone. "After a moment of life and death like this, I believe you have an obligation to introduce to us certain parts of this city's history. Certain… history that was deliberately erased, deliberately forgotten."
"..." Mary remained silent. In those eyes that were always filled with authority, a complicated undercurrent flickered.
"Who is Dr. Victor?" Tin Man pressed step by step, throwing out that name. "According to the low-level access logs of that server, and those code comments saturated with strong personal emotion… he seemed to know you, and know you very well."
Hearing this name, Mary's pupils widened slightly, and her body stiffened almost imperceptibly. But as the helmsman of this city, she quickly returned to that cold, proud posture.
"...That person was a research partner of mine, a long time ago."
Mary turned her head and looked out the window at the enormous silver-white rocket, her voice seeming to blow in from the cold wind eighteen years ago.
"Eighteen years ago, because he tried to assemble a supercomputer out of living human brains, his experiment was exposed. This insane act, which seriously violated ethics, triggered panic and anger across the entire city. In the end, the citizens voted to permanently expel him from this city, and all official records of him were erased."
"...I see." Tin Man commented blandly. "A genuine mad scientist. Not only was he driven out—he also, in secret, completed a miracle enough to overturn everything you think you know."
Tin Man paused, as if organizing his words.
"Although the supercomputer that was trying to destroy the city was indeed built by Dr. Victor himself—there's no way to pursue any responsibility from a deceased person."
"...Deceased, is he?" Mary's voice was very light, like an unconscious murmur. Hearing the death of that man who had once fought alongside her, and then parted ways with her, there was no victorious joy on her face—only an indescribable hollowness.
"Yes." Tin Man brought up another system log intercepted from the server, projecting it into midair. "Two days ago, the system recorded the complete disappearance of the highest administrator's vital signs. The cause of death appears to be long-term malnutrition combined with continuous high-intensity work… death from overwork."
"..." The control room fell into a brief dead silence. A mad genius who had once nearly defeated an entire city, in the end, exited the stage of history in a way that was almost absurd—and yet tragic.
"Before that, he had already completed all the underlying design of the robot-hijacking program." Tin Man continued his report. "After his death, the autonomous supercomputer merely executed the attack plan automatically according to its preset countdown."
"As for the culprit who kidnapped Arran at the library, they were several subordinates Victor left behind. Because of Victor's sudden death, his subordinates had no ability to maintain that supercomputer—so precise it was like a work of art. So, in desperation, they kidnapped three scholars, including Arran."
Tin Man's electronic eyes flickered once. "But that also means our friends on the surface who are conducting the investigation and rescue will be able to take over Victor's hidden base without lifting a finger."
"And the process should be very easy. Because aside from Arran and that supercomputer… there are already no other survivors left in that base."
At the side, Victoria widened her eyes in surprise. "What happened? The kidnappers and the other two scholars—did they kill each other?"
Giovanni was even more excited. He took a big step forward, slammed a hand onto the edge of the console, and shouted, "Hey! Wait! Tin Man! What about Arran? He's not hurt, right?!"
"Please remain calm, Captain." Tin Man lifted a hand to signal. "A serious toxic gas leak accident occurred in the base built under the sulfur lake. High-concentration hydrogen sulfide backflowed into the upper areas. But Arran was very lucky—he was rescued by a computer and placed in an absolutely safe sealed compartment on the lowest level. His current physiological condition is good. He doesn't even have a scrape."
"Rescued by a computer?" Victoria froze. "What does that mean? The base's automated defense system?"
"No." Tin Man shook his head. "Captain, you heard it just now: this supercomputer was assembled by Victor out of multiple pieces of living human brain tissue. So, with very high probability, that supercomputer possesses a unified and complete self-awareness."
He operated the console a few times. A blurry surveillance screenshot appeared on the screen: a delicate girl with silver-white long hair, wearing a Lolita dress, eyes peacefully closed, floating in front of a cultivation tank.
"And according to that supercomputer's historical interaction records, it not only has consciousness—it also built for itself a rather realistic humanoid terminal. She calls herself—Alice."
"..."
The atmosphere in the control room suddenly became a little strange.
"...Hahahahaha!"
Giovanni suddenly erupted into an extremely exaggerated, theatrical burst of laughter. He clutched his stomach; even his signature captain's hat nearly fell to the floor.
"Hold on, hold on! Tin Man, you mean our taciturn little mechanic brat got saved by a cute mechanical girl?!" Giovanni wiped away tears of laughter at the corner of his eye and slapped his thigh. "Arran didn't fall for her, did he? In an isolated underground room, alone together with a cute mechanical doll, and she's his lifesaver—this is the most clichéd, yet most effective, third-rate romance-novel setup there is! Hahahahaha! Incredible!"
"Ahem." Tin Man made an electronic sound resembling a throat-clearing, interrupting Giovanni's wild laughter and forcibly dragging the topic back onto a serious track.
"No matter what, that computer is, objectively, the chief culprit behind this city paralysis incident. And…" Tin Man's voice turned colder. "In the gas leak incident I just mentioned, it bears responsibility that cannot be shirked."
"The system logs show that when the gas leak occurred, it was fully capable of activating the ventilation system or locking down those lethal access-control doors. But it chose to stand by, and did nothing as the other two human scholars and Victor's subordinates died. In its internal logs, it claims it was because they tried to destroy it, and it felt a threat to its survival—so it was self-defense."
Tin Man turned and looked at Mary. "However, watching others walk into a gas chamber and doing nothing—this shouldn't count as justifiable self-defense, should it, President Mary?"
Mary's expression was extremely ugly. Arms crossed, she coldly spat out four words: "Of course it doesn't."
Victoria sighed and added from the standpoint of a city administrator: "Under Port Alexandra's current laws, even under threat, this kind of intentional 'omission causing death' carries, at minimum, over ten years of compulsory labor, and lifelong supervised house arrest after release. Given that it's not only a murder suspect but also a machine that nearly destroyed the city, the situation may be even more complex. Waiting for it is very likely complete physical destruction."
Hearing the words "physical destruction," Giovanni stopped laughing. He rubbed his chin, a cunning glint flashing in his eyes.
"Maybe the identity of 'machine' has a beneficial side, too?"
Victoria looked at him in confusion. "How so? The law won't show mercy to a runaway machine."
"Didn't you just say this supercomputer called Alice was very likely assembled from human brains?" Giovanni spread his hands and began his slick defense. "Then those brains must have had sources, right? Victor couldn't just conjure brains out of thin air. At least at the root of current law, the components that make up Alice are still—those several living, ordinary human beings, right?"
Victoria smiled at him, as if she had guessed what he was about to do. "You can barely explain it that way. But it doesn't change the fact that she committed crimes. So?"
"Then try it as an ordinary human case!" Giovanni snapped his fingers, stating it as if it were obvious. "For disrupting city order, for standing by during the gas leak—whatever punishment the law prescribes, apply it. And because she's also a machine, every instruction she issued has code records, so the evidence becomes crystal clear. There's no need for complicated evidence collection, right, First Mate?"
He looked at Tin Man.
Tin Man nodded. "Yes. We now possess the highest administrator privileges of this supercomputer. So all its operation records, memory storage, and even the emotional fluctuations generated by its underlying logic are completely transparent to us. There is no room for any sophistry."
"See!" Giovanni pressed his advantage. "And if nothing unexpected happens, combined with prior archives, the sources of the human brains Victor used for experiments are the foreign vagrants who went missing in Port Alexandra in the past few years, right?"
His eyes sharpened.
"In that case, in this whole incident, Alice is indeed the perpetrator who nearly ruined the city. But at the same time, she's even more a victim—illegally deprived of a body by Victor, imprisoned in a glass tank for years!"
Giovanni walked toward Mary, his tone full of persuasion. "If you're worried the jury's opinions will split, or afraid the citizens will demand the computer be smashed immediately out of panic, then you, as the authorities, can fully exploit the media's advantage in shaping public opinion and steer the nature of the case toward 'a victim forced to fight back.' As long as you keep her from being destroyed on the spot—given this city's demand for labor—having her make amends through meritorious service is entirely workable, isn't it?"
Mary did not waver because of Giovanni's long speech. Her sharp eyes locked onto this captain who ran his mouth nonstop, as if she wanted to see through his soul.
"...You're clearly asking for something, Giovanni." Mary pierced him without courtesy. "You're not the kind of philanthropist who would oppose the entire city's public opinion for a mechanical doll you've never even met. Why not speak plainly? What exactly do you want?"
Giovanni didn't feel embarrassed at being exposed. He smiled frankly, both hands braced on the console as he leaned forward toward Mary.
"Hahaha, you saw through me? To tell the truth, President Mary—my working so hard to keep that supercomputer named Alice alive is, of course, for my own selfish reasons."
He pointed at the deep-azure crystal floating in midair.
"I want… if you can, at the right time—for example, by using that supercomputer with astonishing computing power, whose permissions you've already fully controlled, to replace this 'Rationality Crystal' as the city's new central hub…"
Giovanni's eyes became exceptionally serious.
"Then give this 'Rationality Crystal' to us."
Victoria sucked in a breath. "Are you insane? This is the foundation of this city!"
"But the city now has another option, doesn't it?" Tin Man added quietly from the side. "That brain-machine called Alice is actually more suitable as a control hub than this black-box-like crystal. Because her code is visible to us."
Tin Man looked at the crystal, his voice sinking.
"We need it. Because it is the only weapon that can oppose the 'Wall of Sighs' out on the sea."
Several hours later.
The faint morning light finally pierced the thick smoke hanging over Port Alexandra, and dawn arrived with a fatigue that belonged to a narrow escape from disaster.
In the outskirts far from the city, a heavy military truck loaded with reserve soldiers and members of the rescue squad was traveling along a pitted gravel road. The wheels crushed over loose stones, making a grating friction sound that set teeth on edge.
Miguel sat near the rear of the truck bed. Arms crossed over his chest, his body swayed rhythmically with the jolting of the vehicle. He silently felt this long-unfelt, rough vibration unique to ground transport. The cold morning wind poured into the truck bed, blowing away the lingering sulfur stench on him.
He raised his head, his gaze falling on the person sitting opposite him.
That was their "companion" they had successfully "drawn" during this morning's "free activity"—which was, in truth, a hardcore assault search—Arran.
Arran was wrapped in a military overcoat a reserve soldier had given him. He didn't say a word, burying his head deep into the collar, both hands twisted tightly together. He had always been someone who wasn't good with words. Back on the ship, he preferred talking to gears inside an engine rather than talking to people.
Yet precisely because of that, Miguel felt the way this whole matter ended was like a fishbone stuck in his throat—making him choke with discomfort.
Miguel closed his eyes, and the scene from a few hours ago surfaced in his mind: the moment they rushed into the lowest level of the base.
There was no anticipated fierce firefight, no final counterattack from a mad scientist.
When they blew open that thick blast door, what they saw was a heartbreaking scene.
At the heart of this dead city filled with poisonous gas, corpses, and insane machines, a pair of boy and girl who seemed to have lost their way were desperately leaning against each other. The boy was Arran, and the delicate doll floating with eyes closed in front of the green nutrient fluid—protected behind him at all costs—was the girl named Alice.
Arran was a victim kidnapped here. By rights, when he saw Miguel, Frank, and Adrian—those familiar faces—kick open the door, he should have wept with joy, should have shouted in celebration at regaining freedom.
But he didn't.
There was no joy of freedom on Arran's face at all. His eyes were filled with wariness, fear, and a profound sorrow. Like a young wolf guarding food, he stood in front of those fully armed soldiers, refusing to let anyone touch that machine.
Then Frank stepped forward. He didn't use force. He merely took a faxed document from the pocket of his trench coat in silence and handed it to the hesitant Arran.
It was a highest-level directive personally signed by President Mary of the City Management Association.
In the document, in cold official language, it described in detail how City Hall had, ahead of the ground troops, taken over the base's highest permissions through network ports; it also attached the subsequent handling plan for the mechanical girl named "Alice," and for the base as a whole.
In the document, the girl was defined as Arran's lifesaver, yet also as a criminal suspect who stood by and let five other people die. She was further defined as the objective party responsible for the entire city riot and unrest incident.
Even though, from a brief conversation afterward, Miguel learned that regarding the matter of hijacking the city's robots and making them rampage, she was actually very innocent. She had even tried to stop the disaster before the power cut. But the law didn't look at that. The law only looked at the outcome.
No matter what, she was ultimately just a computer. An inheritance Victor left behind. A dangerous weapon.
Even so…
Miguel opened his eyes and looked at the mechanic opposite him who seemed to have lost his soul.
The attitude Arran had shown before and after learning all this was simply too suspicious. Suspicious enough that even Miguel—who was thick in the emotional department—felt something was off.
Throughout the entire escort back to the city, facing old acquaintances who had risked their lives to save him, Arran didn't say a single "thank you," nor did he ask how they had found this place.
All he could think about was that machine.
He only kept tugging at the officer responsible for the escort, again and again asking questions like: "Who will be responsible for maintaining Alice's operational schedule afterward?"
Miguel looked at Arran's face, full of worry and exhaustion, and couldn't help sighing inwardly.
Maybe being a mechanic really was a job only this kind of weirdo could handle.
To actually—fall in love at first sight with a doll that had no temperature, with a computer that could be scrapped as junk and destroyed at any time?
This kind of absurd thing—if it were Miguel from before—he probably would have slapped Arran on the head and cursed him as a fool with water in his brain.
But now, he didn't do that.
Because the instant he burst into that room, he truly saw that light in Arran's eyes. That light that would, for the sake of the "non-human" existence behind him, become the enemy of the entire world. A feeling so pure it contained not a single impurity.
Miguel shook his head, turned his head toward the outside of the truck, and watched the wilderness on both sides of the road slide backward. The morning wind blew his hair into disarray.
He snorted coldly at himself in his heart.
There was no way he could envy those two pathetic idiots.
Trapped in despair, with the future unknown—yet they could find support in each other within this twisted madness.
He was only a mercenary accustomed to slaughter on the battlefield, accustomed to losing. He didn't need that kind of weak thing.
Absolutely—not possible to envy.