S-2858 • L4 Abeluna • D04 Alonabe
"Abeluna spills a bud of radiance on high. Alonabe lengthens the thread of the beginning. The tide traces a path in living silver. The story carries on, clear and light of step."
That place drew Hikaru like a magnet. Its owner was a mystery. Masaru Inoue, a fifty-four-year-old kobun who rarely showed his face.
Karyū whispered secrets through its shadowy alleys, and Hikaru had passed that workshop countless times. In the brief moments when the door opened to admit a customer, the light inside cast dancing patterns across the ground. Metals. Nanorobots.
He had to get in. His heart beat in that direction. He knew that, at some point that night, a customer would come to speak to Inoue. He only needed to seize the opportunity.
He put on his darkest clothes, wrapping his body in a veil of night. Took a deep breath.
He would summon silence. He would be silence.
He would summon darkness. He would be darkness.
When a man approached the establishment, Hikaru hid beneath his long cloak and slipped inside unnoticed. As soon as he managed to move away, he crept toward a pile of junk. What he found made his eyes shine.
Polished nanometal reflected pulsing holograms of circuits. Complex formulas danced in the air among droids and robots of various shapes. Some were sleek. Others, sturdy. Each seemed designed for a specific purpose: maintenance, analysis, strategy.
Robotic parts lay scattered across the benches. Gears gleamed among advanced components, arranged in a chaos that somehow seemed organized.
At the center of the workshop, a large android's eyes kept blinking. The faint smell of motor oil permeated the room. There was electricity in the air.
Workbenches were covered with tools. In another room, gleaming katanas shared space with samurai armor adorned with intricate details. Each blade held its own story.
It was a true playground for Hikaru.
He took a few careful steps between the benches. Then he found a box. Inside was a robotic raccoon dog. Its grayish-blue casing gleamed faintly beneath the lighting, but its little lights remained dark. It was switched off. Hikaru watched it. Waited.
Farther away, Inoue was finishing up with the customer.
The door closed.
Hikaru breathed deeply. His heart pounded. His hands sweated. Even so, he planted his feet on the floor and stepped before the man. "Why's that raccoon dog switched off?"
Inoue's brown eyes widened. "Chikushō! Who are you?! Get out! Go, go!" He grabbed the boy's scrawny arms and began dragging him toward the door.
"I'm Hikaru. I want to stay here. Please."
"Are you crazy, gaki? Get out. I don't want any trouble." Inoue opened the door, ready to put him out on the street.
But Hikaru dug his feet in. "Please, no! I want to make robots! I know QN-Tec!"
Inoue's hand hesitated. The man closed the door. Released the boy. "Baka, keep quiet. Are you an usotsuki? A liar?"
Hikaru hurried to pull out the diary he had found in the cave. He opened it to one of the pages and began reading. "Les quantum-nanoparticules possèdent des clés. Des algorithmes atomiques. Instables. Pouvant être stabilisées par des algorithmes programmés. Dans des quantum-nanites." His voice was firm. His eyes burned with enthusiasm. Then he explained: "Quantum nanoparticles have keys. Atomic algorithms. Unstable. They can be stabilized by algorithms programmed into quantum nanites."
All the color drained from Inoue's face. Something trembled silently within him. "Kuso… what the fuck. How did you get this?"
Hikaru clutched the diary in his hands. "Please, I'll be quiet. I just never want to be touched like that again." His voice came out in a pleading whisper.
And rekindled a pain Inoue had buried in his own chest. A flood of memories swept through his soul. Disgust. Contempt. Bitterness flooded his mouth. Those unwanted touches. The fury. The need to survive. The obsession with technology.
He understood. Within Inoue, conflict and certainty intertwined, dancing tragically between fear and the desire to do something.
The man let out a slow breath. "That one's Tanu. A defective robot." He turned and began climbing the wooden stairs. Damn it. What had he gotten himself into?
Hikaru's eyes lit up. "Can I work on him?"
Inoue pretended not to notice the faint warmth beginning to pulse in his heart. "Don't even waste your time. That one's nothing but defects. All he does is swear, he takes forever to do anything, and his weapons are outdated. He was one of my first." He kept climbing. "Gaki, go sleep on that mattress. It's the only one."
Hikaru followed the man to a corner filled with forgotten parts.
Old hardware lay piled up, dusty motherboards and tangled wires scattered across the floor like sleeping snakes. Among the objects lay a battered mattress covered with a faded sheet. A makeshift lantern cast flickering light over the small space, revealing the outlines of abandoned machines. Reliquaries of memories from bygone eras. Oxidized metal. Dust suspended in the air.
A palace for Hikaru.
He approached the mattress and straightened the old sheet, feeling its rough folds beneath his fingers. That corner would now be his refuge. He looked around. Each object held a silent story. Every forgotten gear. Every component. Every part someone had left behind. And Hikaru was dying to hear them all. This was much more than a storeroom full of junk. To him, it was a map of the future he wanted to build.
"Please, will you let me work on him, Inoue-sensei?"
Sensei? Inoue stopped. He had never imagined he would have a kohai. He rolled his eyes, savoring the sourness of that possibility. Then he narrowed his eyes and studied Hikaru, as though trying to decipher a riddle.
His hardened expression wavered. For an almost imperceptible moment, something shone in his eyes. A memory reached him. Small hands. Smeared with grease. Broken parts. A hope that had long since drained out of him. It was as though he were facing a younger version of himself. Someone the world had already knocked down countless times.
Perhaps… just perhaps… That boy still carried something he himself had become disconnected from.
The flame of hope.
Inoue folded his arms and kept his eyes fixed on Hikaru. He breathed deeply, as though trying to dispel an uncomfortable feeling.
"Whatever, Hika-baka. But if you try to fix that thing and fail, go whine in your corner." He huffed.
He tried to hide the faint smile beginning to form, but his mask of indifference was already chipped.
There was a veiled challenge in his expression. "And keep away from the other coweavings, gaki."