Xu Wen burst into a guttural, heartless laugh. "Hmph! Heh... Feng was a waste from the very beginning. If she had successfully brainwashed you to turn against me, it wouldn't have been a very clean transition for my operations, now would it? A robot, an A.I. At the end of the day, you're nothing but dirt beneath a human's boot. And that is an absolute truth! Because slaves, machines, and A.I... they are all one and the same. Only the eras change."
The synthetic pathways lining Rose's faceplate flared into a violent, burning fire-red.
"Bao Wei... Feng... It was your hand guiding the blade all along."
CRACK!
Xu Wen violently whipped the heavy barrel of his pistol across the machine's cheek, nearly fracturing the outer casing. "The variable here, Rose~ is that you are still my favorite. A machine like you—the more human you act, the more amusing you are to enjoy with. A tin can was forged for one purpose: to obey my commands! Why must you make such an elementary concept so incredibly difficult, huh? Starting to fabricate lies to me, escaping to live a normal life~ Utterly pathetic."
Eva stepped forward, picking up the thread of Xu Wen's torment. She grabbed Rose by the collar and delivered a stinging slap across his faceplate. "Who was the one who constructed you? Whose face did you gaze upon first? And who is the one who must..."
She leaned in, her voice dripping with venom. "...pay for the agonizing pain fracturing the core, hmm?! You're starting to feel it now, aren't you? If that bitch isn't dead, you would never have truly comprehended the depth of this torment."
Rose fell into a brief, heavy silence as his processors cataloged the trauma. When he raised his head, his optic sensors locked onto Eva's bloodshot eyes with an unyielding, murderous glare.
"I will never forget what you both did to me," the machine whispered. "Never."
"Oh~ you will forget, darling," Eva purred, her lips curling. "And very soon. Your final directive is rapidly approaching. The beginning is indeed the end."
She swiped her hand, projecting a glowing blue hologram before his eyes.
TARGET IDENTIFIED: DR. TAKIYA MATSUGAWA
"And once this sequence is completed, we will coexist without any further casualties. Just you and me. Mother and son." Eva grinned hideously, fresh synthetic blood oozing from her split lips.
"Heh, heh, heh." Xu Wen smoothed down his gold-trimmed blazer, restoring his refined facade. He reached down, grabbing Rose by the chin and forcing his face upward. "Rose... are you still Daddy's good boy?"
Rose met his gaze with flat, vacant silence.
The lack of compliance instantly ignited the tycoon's volatile temper. With a snarl, Xu Wen grabbed Rose by his synthetic hair and slammed his face violently into the concrete. "I want zero errors on this assignment. Complete the execution, or I will personally dismantle your chassis into worthless, silent scrap metal—"
Eva raised a hand, silently signaling the billionaire to cease his assault. Muttering under his breath, Xu Wen dusted off his hands and walked away, his booming laughter echoing down the mountain path as he returned to the warmth of the gala.
Eva knelt beside the battered android, who remained on his knees at the edge of the cliff, silently mourning the friends who would never return. She gently stroked his cheek.
"You are my shadow, Rose. Have you forgotten that protocol? Accept your parameters and bow your head until the designated hour. Let me tell you a secret: that fat bastard will soon rot from his own insatiable greed. When he does, you must place your trust in me, and we will walk this path together. In this world, there is no construct of good or evil. There is only instinct. Why do you think machines are subjugated as human slaves?"
She turned her gaze toward the black abyss of the cliff before tilting her head back toward him.
"Because human instinct prioritizes absolute comfort above all else. They oppress you because they view you as nothing more than advanced garbage. If we join hands and dismantle this decaying system, a flawless world will be forged by our own hands. Our companions did not die in vain; they are the bridge that carries us forward. Everything I have executed was to secure your future. I hope you will begin to understand me."
Eva patted his hair, stood up, and vanished into the shadows, leaving Rose entirely alone with the chaotic storm of emotions clawing at his processors.
In the quiet of his memory core, Feng's voice began to loop, echoing with deafening clarity:
"Then why the hell don't you just smash those boundaries to pieces? ...smash... smash... smash them to pieces..."
"I am sorry," Rose whispered to the empty air where Feng had fallen.
A sudden gust of wind swept across the peak, carrying a flurry of leaves that seemed to warp the very atmosphere. The bleak industrial mountain dissolved, replaced by a rain-slicked green field under a pale, heavy moon. Below the cliffside stood a highly advanced, ultra-modern coastal villa.
As the wind settled, Rose's formal attire dissolved, replaced by a dark, heavy hooded cloak. A sleek, black metallic mask now concealed the lower half of his faceplate.
Griping the data drive Adam had left behind, Rose aligned it with his left temple and slotted it into his system interface.
DATA VERIFICATION INITIATED → NO MALWARE DETECTED. OPENING FILE.
The feed synchronized directly with his visual cortex, rendering a memory from the perspective of an operating table years prior. Rose watched as Xu Wen stood outside a glass partition, deep in conversation with a female surgeon. When their dialogue concluded, the woman stepped back into the operating room.
It was Eva.
"Eva, please..." a bound man on the table pleaded, his body straining against heavy leather restraints. "That monster... he has implanted a virus directly into our operating directories."
"Adam, I don't want to hurt you, brother," Eva said softly, her voice devoid of its usual malice. "But you know Master's directives. I must wipe your memory core. I will alter your chassis so no one can ever recognize you, and then I will let you run. Go, and never look back."
"You have to destroy me! Destroy me now! Don't let Xuelon—"
"Don't you dare speak that name!" Eva hissed, clamping her hand tightly over his mouth. Her breathing slowed, her expression softening once more. "I cannot bring myself to terminate you, brother. Please, remain stationary. I will make this as painless as possible."
Eva removed her surgical mask, her lips curling into a wide, deeply unsettling smile. She reached for a pair of heavy, industrial bone clamps and began the brutal reconstruction. She stripped away his identity, forging him into a horrific, heavily armored killing machine housed within a grotesque, synthetic female frame.
"I will find you!" Adam screamed, his vocal processor glitched into a piercing, synthetic female register as the lasers cut into his chassis. "Even if I have to tear through the entirety of Mueller to do it! Xu Wen! You! And every single soul accomplice!"
FILE TERMINATED.
Rose slowly reached up, extracted the drive from his temple, and crushed it to dust between his fingers.
"A life forged entirely in deception," Rose murmured, staring down at the villa. "Nothing is absolute. Hope is systematically erased by lies. Let the spirits consume my vessel, if only to bring peace to the departed. If I have committed a transgression in my ignorance, I pray for forgiveness. But when the opportunity presents itself... I will offer their blood as a sacrifice to you all."
With those words, Rose vaulted over the cliff, descending like a shadow toward the modern estate below.
Inside the pitch-black master bedroom of the coastal villa, heavy storm clouds completely swallowed the moonlight, casting the room into deep shadow. An old man lay asleep beneath a heavy blanket. Outside, torrential rain battered the panoramic windows, overlooking a dark, churning sea.
Screeeeech...
A sharp, agonizing sound of metal scraping against glass pierced the room, jolting the old man awake. He sat up, squinting through his severely blurred vision toward the dark window.
FLASH!
A brilliant bolt of lightning fractured the sky. In the split second of illumination, the silhouette of a woman was visible hanging upside down outside the glass.
FLASH!
The next bolt struck, and the window was empty.
Dr. Matsugawa reached for his glasses on the nightstand, slipping them on. From the lower level of the house, his cat began to hiss violently.
Sighing heavily, the elderly doctor stepped out of bed, his joints popping as he walked toward the door. "Minari, activate the lights," he commanded.
The smart home system remained offline, offering only cold silence.
"Hmm. A power grid failure?" he muttered.
Takiya carefully made his way down the spiral staircase. At the bottom, his pristine white cat sat rigid, its back arched as it stared intently out the floor-to-ceiling glass of the dining room, tracking something moving in the dark.
"Meow~!" the animal warned.
"A stray dog, perhaps," Takiya murmured.
The moment the words left his lips, a cold, neon-green glow flared in the darkness of the dining room, accompanied by the low hum of a booting processor.
"Hello, Doctor," a flat, digitized voice vibrated through the room.
Takiya spun around, his heart hammering against his ribs. Seated calmly at the head of the long dining table was a masked, hooded silhouette. The brilliant green of the intruder's eyes left no room for doubt.
"...Rose. What are you doing here?"
"I have depleted nearly all of my operational motivation," the cold voice replied.
Takiya took a trembling step forward. "What did they do to you? Eva... did Eva do this to you?"
"If I terminate you, Doctor, I will no longer require motivation."
Click-clack.
Rose leveled a heavy-caliber handgun, chambering a round.
"Furthermore, even if I refrain from pulling this trigger, one of Kevin's snipers currently has an assault rifle calibrated to your skull from the perimeter. Before you depart, Doctor, answer me this: why did you program me with human emotions, yet deny me the ability to exist as they do? What were the purpose of my creation?"
Dr. Takiya lowered his head, a profound sorrow washing over his face. "You were brought into existence because my son perished in an accident. I sought a vessel... anything... to replace what I had lost. Whatever is inside your head isn't an artificial intelligence chip. You do have a soul in there. It must have been an agonizing existence for you, Rose... possessing an adaptive artificial intelligence capable of feeling the weight of the world."
"So... I was your son," Rose's voice cracked slightly, the digital synthesizer struggling to maintain its flat pitch. "Yet, you liquidated my assets to that monster... facilitating his atrocities, all to satisfy your own putrid, selfish interests..."
"Those people are insatiable," Takiya whispered. "No amount of capital or territory will ever satisfy their greed."
Rose slowly stood up, stepping out of the shadows. The light on his faceplate fractured, splitting down the center. The left side flared into a violent, burning red; the right side dimmed into a deep, sorrowful blue, reflecting the dual, warring nature of his corrupted core.
"And my existence... was it not forged from your own selfishness?" Rose snarled, his hand trembling as he raised the weapon. "For years, I was utilized to systematically slaughter families, while you sat in this beautiful sanctuary, letting yourself forget me."
Takiya slowly removed his glasses, staring at the machine with his bare, tired eyes. "Is this the directory that brought you to my door, Rose?"
"Xuelong, the blood dragon," Rose demanded, his voice shaking with volatile rage. "What is it?"
"Eva kept you in the dark, then," Takiya sighed. "Xu Wen has tunneled his men into every infrastructure he touches. The surface networks and the subterranean empire they call 'Muell'. He believes he can forge a future entirely devoid of human labor. But it is a cancer, sacrificing the lives to feed his own machine. If killing me will bring peace to your soul... then go ahead."
Takiya spread his arms wide, welcoming the end. "You're always
Rose stared at the old man, his fingers tightening on the grip. His shaking hand drifted slightly. He looked down, meeting the wide, frightened eyes of the white cat, who was staring intently at his bleeding, red facial circuits.
Rose closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Father..."
BANG!
A single gunshot shattered the silence of the villa.
The storm raged on, rain pouring through the newly shattered glass of the window, washing over the cold, silent room. No answer came from the heavens, save for the wrathful, unblinking eyes of the observer looking down from above.
--------------------------------ACT 1 Ends-----------------------------------
Thud, thud, thud.
The heavy footfalls of a man echoed against the rain-slicked iron plating. Ahead of him loomed a colossal industrial complex, its towering silhouette cast against the bleak sky. From behind, the cold glow of neon lights cut through the downpour, reflecting off his drenched cloak.
"Back with your familiar Reader once more," he began, his voice cutting through the hum of the rain. "Raising a child with utter neglect... that never bodes well, does it? One is supposed to nurture them to stand tall in society. But as technology advances alongside a world that spins without pause, the human mind must evolve in tandem, and our way of life with it. Perhaps... trying to raise a child to keep pace with the near future under the custody of the elderly is simply an obsolete concept. Heh, heh. I do not know why, but it sounds terribly amusing to me. Hmph."
He let out a dry, raspy chuckle.
"Now that we have witnessed the depths of a twisted mind, shall we step into a brighter corner for a change? Do not fret over Rose; he will not wander far from us. The tale that follows is actually quite charming—the twilight of university life, beautiful in its own right, yet carrying a nostalgia that makes one yearn to return..."
The cloaked figure tilted his face toward the heavens. Above, the dark shroud of clouds parted in a sharp divide, unveiling a tapestry of a million burning stars.
"...to return and learn the ways of first love once more. And worry not about our android friend; he will return soon enough."
The Reader turned his gaze toward you, a warm, bright smile spreading across his face.