Full Metal Panic! - Volume SS09 - Unavoidable Nine-Day Wonder? - Chapter 5

Tessa’s Visit to the Grave

On top of a queen-sized bed sat a large suitcase, wide open, surrounded by mountains of clothing.

“What should I do?” wondered Tessa, who found herself at a loss while preparing for a trip. Obviously, I have to take more than just clothing, she thought. Toiletries, medicine, in case I come down with something, books to read when I get bored, cooking utensils and ingredients... I need at least eight kinds of spices, and at least five pairs of shoes...

But no matter how she went about her packing, it wouldn’t all fit. Even with her large suitcase, it wouldn’t all fit!

Or won’t it? Couldn’t I rig something to make it all fit? What if I put all the clothing in plastic bags and vacuum sealed them with a compressor, input the size and shape of everything I need into a 3D model and ran the ideal packing arrangements through a simulator? Or... wait, there’s no such software for that, she realized. I’ll write some, then! If I base it on existing software, it’ll be a snap. The only hard part will be creating the 3D models. Maybe I should use a 3D scanner? But it’s 1 a.m... Even if this is New York, no store that sells 3D scanners could possibly be open. And my plane leaves at nine! It’s impractical to expect to buy one before then...

Out loud she said, “Um, Melissa?”

“Hmm? What?” responded Melissa Mao, who was reading a magazine while sprawled on the bedroom sofa.

“Do you have a 3D scanner in your apartment?”

“Given the giant pile of stuff around your suitcase, I can imagine what you want a 3D scanner for, but...” she tossed the magazine aside. “I obviously don’t have one.”

“A regular scanner will do, then,” said Tessa. “If I have enough scanners, I could jury-rig them to read a 3D image—”

“Seriously, I don’t have anything like that. I haven’t even used this apartment in years.”

This particular luxury apartment, located in an old high-rise, belonged to Mao, who had acquired it through either her father’s connections (as president of a company) or her own earnings from her Mithril days. Located in a swanky part of town, the apartment was like something out of a Hollywood movie, with an incredible view of the entire green band of Central Park.

Tessa had begun living there with Mao only two weeks ago, in exchange for a little rent. It had been just over three months since the decisive battle on Merida Island, and yet it felt so long ago...

Tessa had been hesitant to move in with her at first, partly because Mao had recently entered into a romantic relationship with Kurz Weber. But Mao had insisted that she’d meet up with him at his place if she wanted to see him. And then, because the idea of holing up in the country by herself somewhere was depressing (as well as there being concerns about her safety), Tessa ended up accepting Mao’s offer after all. The idea had been to spend a little bit of time wandering around the city while she thought about what to do next.

“When you came here, you were practically naked. How in the world did you end up with so many clothes in two weeks?” Mao whispered, gazing at the mountain of clothing.

“I ended up shopping as a form of stress relief,” Tessa admitted.

“Well, that’s fine, but you don’t need to take it all on you with your trip, do you? Let me have a look. Here we go...” Mao sat up with some effort before walking up to the bed upon which the suitcase lay. Her actions were sluggish and lazy, almost unimaginably so from such a normally energetic woman.

“Oh... are you all right?” Tessa asked. “You really don’t have to—”

“C’mon, I can handle it. Let’s see... Don’t need this,” said Mao. “Don’t need this, or this, or this. Definitely not this...”

“Oh... so merciless!”

Mao decisively threw the unnecessary clothing and other belongings onto the floor. “You’re going to the South Seas, right? Why would you pack a heavy sweater? You don’t need this, either. And when did you buy this sexy lingerie?”

“Mail order,” Tessa mumbled. “I wasn’t thinking...”

“You’re ten years too young,” Mao lectured, “though I want to see you in them when you’re back. At any rate, it’s out.”

“Ten years too young?” Tessa objected. “Melissa, I am eighteen, you know?”

At this, Mao turned and examined her closely. “Hey, yeah, I guess you are a little bit bigger.”

“In what way?”

“Your chest.”

“Argh...” Tessa folded her arms to cover the breasts filling out her flimsy camisole. She still wasn’t anything compared to Mao and the other older women in her life, but had nonetheless developed to a surprising degree. “Well... I suppose I have. I lost a ton of weight last year, after all.”

“That’s right,” Mao agreed. “You had a pretty rough year.”

“Then after losing my submarine, I got to relax, eat, and sleep all I wanted. This is the natural result.”

“In other words, you put on weight?”

“Well... I’m not sure,” said Tessa. “At least I’m back to where I was before I became so emaciated. I don’t think my waist is much wider, but— Hey, wait, Melissa! You’re tickling me!”

Mao started touching Tessa all over, pinching at her waist and butt. “Yeah, I think it’s just your chest. And just from a little rubbing on my part...”

Mao always got a little touchy-feely with Tessa when she got drunk—though she hadn’t gotten drunk in a while lately.

“I think the idea that rubbing makes them bigger is an urban legend,” said Tessa.

“Oh, is it?”

“Not that I would know. But, oh... my mother was quite large in that regard, so it’s possible I’m a late bloomer.”

“A late bloomer?” echoed Mao.

“So it might just work out after all. Hee hee hee...” said Tessa, giggling easily.

She had been like this all the time lately. It was as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, a rebound effect from the heavy burden she’d carried during the last three years while serving as a submarine and battle group commander. Even during the brief stint in which she’d attended high school in Tokyo, she’d come off as more mature than she did now.

“But getting back to the subject at hand,” said Tessa, “what do we do about my luggage?”

“Right, forgot about that. Let’s see...” Mao was immediately at a loss again. “Honestly... you’ve just got too much you don’t need. Stop talking nonsense about some 3D scanner and use your head. You know, the ordinary way.”

“Grr...”

“Think like a soldier on a recon mission,” she advised. “Do you really need all these shoes? Just take the bare minimum. And cooking utensils? Don’t be stupid. And the only spice you need is curry powder. After all—” Mao cut off there. She scowled and turned her eyes down, breathing strangely, then stumbled out of the room.

“Melissa?”

“Sorry, just a minute,” she called back. “It’s here again.”

“D-Do you want me to rub your back?” asked Tessa.

“No, I’m okay. Geh...” said Mao, rushing straight for the bathroom. The door slammed, followed by the sound of retching from within.

Tessa waited five minutes, then heard the sound of the toilet flushing before the exhausted looking Mao reappeared.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Well, I guess I’m not, actually... But I’m okay,” said Mao, staggering back to the sofa.

“Morning sickness is pretty rough, huh?”

“I hear it’s different for different people, but I guess I get it pretty badly.” Mao threw herself onto the sofa and took halting breaths. Her pregnancy was still in its first trimester, so there hadn’t been many changes to her body just yet. She looked more or less like she always did during a bad hangover. But behind all the suffering, she seemed vaguely giddy.

Does she still have some innocence left in her? Tessa wondered.

“Ah, but it really pisses me off,” said Mao. “Why did that bastard father have to go flying all around the world and leave me in this predicament?”

“It’s not as if Kurz-san is just playing around,” Tessa pointed out, “and he’ll be back in New York in two days, right?”

“That’s the plan, but... I’m really gonna work him like a slave when he gets back. Urk.”

“Do you want something to drink? Maybe tomato juice?”

“I am pretty thirsty... but not right now, I don’t think.” Mao was limp on the sofa, so Tessa put a cushion under her head and gently laid a blanket on top of her.

“Then let’s think about fun things,” said Tessa, “like names for the baby.”

“Hmm. Names...”

“What if it’s a boy?”

“Hmmm... maybe Gail, or Ed?” Mao mused.

“And if it’s a girl?”

“Eva.”

“All names of dead comrades?” observed Tessa. “That’s a bit depressing.”

“I guess. There are so many of them, makes it hard to narrow it down to one,” Mao admitted. “And I don’t think they’d want me to name a kid after them out of some weird sense of duty, either. Maybe I should open up my options.” She buried her face in the cushion and began mumbling out a variety of names.

“Let’s try again. What if it’s a boy?”

“I can’t think of anything,” said Mao. “Maybe something like John?”

“Too ordinary. It’s no fun.”

“It’s okay if we’re just spitballing. We still have six months to decide.”

“Then what if it’s a girl?” Tessa asked again.

“Hmm... What about Clara?”

“Oh, that one is good. I should write that down.” Tessa wrote the name ‘Clara’ down on her left hand with a finger, as if to take notes in her mind.

“What, really?” Mao asked. “It doesn’t sound weak?”

“Of course not. It sounds cute.”

“Fine. I’m gonna sleep now. Cut your own luggage down, would you?” Mao pulled the blanket up to her chin and gave a short cough.

“All right. I’ll do my best.”

“I already sent the package, too. Make sure you accept it when you arrive there, okay?”

“I should be able to,” Tessa told her. “Don’t worry.”

“I wish I could go along with you... but, you know. Sorry.”

“Think nothing of it. It’s a personal matter, after all.”

“I still can’t help but worry,” said Mao. “You’re not used to traveling alone, are you?”

Tessa intended to travel to her destination on her own. Mao had debilitating morning sickness, and Kurz was already traveling all around with preparations to start up his new business. Mao tried to insist that she take another of their former allies along to protect her, but Tessa was tired of relying on the kindness of others, so she was determined to go by herself.

Her destination was the South Pacific—Lantanfushi Island, in the Republic of San Jorge. Tessa had prepared a little insurance before her departure, but if she still couldn’t keep out of danger... she’d deal with it then. She felt completely indifferent about it.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Take care of yourself, Melissa.”

“Thanks. I’ll still worry, though.”

“I told you, I’ll be fine. Don’t cry.” Tessa stroked Mao’s hair gently as tears filled the other woman’s eyes.

“Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant, but I’ve been so emotional lately...”

“Of course you have,” Tessa agreed. “And I love you this way, too.”

“There’s nothing lovable about it,” Mao sobbed. “I’m not good at anything but fighting. If I’m a weak, whiny mess, I’ve got nothing left...” She really did sound timid, even though something wonderful was happening.

Tessa felt bad for Mao, yet at the same time, found her very amusing this way.

After one day and two connections away from John F. Kennedy Airport, Tessa arrived halfway around the world, in the city of Sasbona, San Jorge. The airfield was larger than she’d expected, with lots of people coming and going.

“I’m exhausted,” she groaned. She’d spent most of her trip in business class, but for some reason, Tessa still felt very tired. She’d grown accustomed to the roar of military transport helicopters and planes, so the relative quiet of civilian craft somehow made her anxious.

She picked up her luggage—which she’d managed to pare down after great struggle—from the carousel, and headed to the oversized luggage pickup window. Mao had taken care of everything, so Tessa was able to move swiftly through the checkout process.

“Um... Teletha Mantissa? Please sign here. The cargo is an industrial refrigerator, then? Yes, yes... It all went just fine. Take care now, madam.” Mao’s go-between must have bribed the man, because he didn’t even attempt to pry into the nature of the package. “Mantissa” was also one of Tessa’s frequently employed aliases.

The worker led her to the large cargo area. Here, she was supposed to pick up her “industrial refrigerator” and meet up with her guide and driver, Murat, whom Mao had arranged for. After that, they’d head for Lantanfushi Island.

Tessa entered the swelteringly hot cargo area, roughly the size of a gym, before being approached by a tall, slender, swarthy man. He’d been talking with a gloomy expression to a worker with a sales slip in hand, but spread his arms wide and beamed at her welcomingly the moment she arrived. “Miss Mantissa!” he said. “I’m sorry I’m late. I am Murat. I wasn’t told you were such a beautiful girl. I’m surprised.”

This first impression was enough for Tessa to draw a conclusion. Ah, she realized, this man is untrustworthy. I guess there are limits to even Melissa’s connections... But out loud, she said, “Oh, thank goodness! Please take care of me, Murat-san.” She met his forced smile with one of her own.

Tessa would play the helpless little girl, relieved to meet someone who spoke her language in this strange foreign land. She’d spent three years dealing with trained veterans and knew that it wasn’t always smart to appear openly cagey.

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Murat returned. “I’m sure you’re tired from the long trip. Let me take your luggage.”

“Why, thank you.”

He took Tessa’s suitcase and began striding away. “I’m sorry it’s so unpleasant. The air conditioner in the warehouse isn’t working,” he explained. “Your package is here. Please confirm it.”

Murat stopped in a corner of the cargo area, where the wooden crate—large enough to hold an industrial refrigerator, as described in its documentation—sat. The label corresponded to the code number on her form, and the seals were intact. It was definitely her package.

“Is everything in order, miss?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Of course. Now...” He started directing the four burly workers, who had arrived behind them, in their native language. The men hoisted the crate, which weighed over one hundred kilograms, and began to carry it away.

“We’ll head to the nearby harbor by truck,” Murat told her. “Then it’ll be half a day’s journey to Lantanfushi on my ship. We’ll arrive late at night.”

“Good,” said Tessa. “Thank you.”

“Still, it seems like a waste,” he mused. “I think you’d enjoy spending a night here. There are lots of good tourist spots.”

“I really would love to, but my schedule is quite strict,” Tessa said with a smile, her guard rigidly up. Still, she reminded herself, I’m almost there.

Bani. Bani Morauta. 

I’ll be arriving soon, in the land where you were born...

Murat’s “ship” would be more properly called a boat, as it was small enough to seem that its entire weight capacity might be reached with just him, his four workers, Tessa, and the crate containing the “industrial refrigerator.” The vessel did have a bathroom, but it was no more than a single stall formed by a few partitions.

Nevertheless, they soon left port and headed out onto a sea painted in sunset colors. The undulating movement of the waves was pleasant. The city of Sasbona shrank on the horizon, and all they could see now was a scattering of islands, popping in and out in the evening light. The closer they came to night, the fewer of those they saw.

Thankfully, the night was brightly illuminated. So many stars, Tessa thought. I haven’t seen a sight like this since moving to New York. Being out in nature has its benefits... Maybe once I’ve helped Melissa get settled in with her baby, I’ll move out here.

As she was having that thought, Murat asked her, “Miss Mantissa, would you like dinner? I’m afraid I can only make instant noodles, but...”

“Thank you,” said Tessa, “I’d love some.” She did have some cereal bars in her bag, but it was best to conserve things like that.

“One moment, then. Incidentally, may I ask a personal question?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been in this business—as both guide and driver—for a fairly long time. A customer like you is a rare sight,” he explained. “Lantanfushi is fairly rural, even relative to this nation as a whole. The population is... I’ve forgotten, but it must be less than a hundred, and there aren’t even that many televisions. It feels strange for a young girl like you to be going to such a small village to deliver a refrigerator. It’s piqued my curiosity.”

“Oh, well,” said Tessa, “I suppose that follows.”

“I mean, an industrial refrigerator in a village with only one generator? Ha ha... It makes me wonder if there’s something else in that crate, you know?”

“Yes, I’m sure it seems quite strange.” Tessa just shrugged, unfazed in the face of Murat’s unsubtle prodding.

“In addition, you are very beautiful. Between you and the cargo, I assume it must be a very expensive item—to be quite frank, something worth far more than what you’re paying us.” He wasn’t trying to hide the lecherous quality in his voice now. She wasn’t sure if the workers understood his English, but they had started looking her up and down as well.

“If that were the case, Mr. Murat,” she asked, “what would you do then?”

The roar of the boat’s engine went silent. The helmsman had stopped it. The boat drifted on inertia for a while longer before eventually slowing down, and at last they just sat there, rocked by the waves.

“I’d do this, miss,” Murat said threateningly, as the other men laughed. “If you want to reach Lantanfushi safely, you should do what I tell you. Oh, we’ll get you there—if you do what we say, faithfully and without complaint, entertain us all night, and give us what’s in the box.”

“Ahh...” Tessa breathed.

Inwardly she thought, Ah, of course this would happen. Melissa Mao, in her current condition, was playing telephone tag with friends of friends of friends to arrange for a group of shifty workers in a backwater region. It’s natural that something like this would befall a fragile-looking girl alone in such circumstances. I can’t blame Melissa for it.

Besides, it’s not as if these men want to kill me. It’s annoying, but I’m sure they want nothing more than they’ve already requested. “If you do as we ask, we’ll let you go”—that kind of thing.

Tessa took a deep breath, then said to Murat, “Excuse me. I do have one question.”

“What is it?”

“How far is it from here to the nearest shore?”

Murat grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her. “You think you can escape into the ocean?” he demanded. “Think again.”

“Oh, that’s not why I asked... Also, you’re hurting me.”

“Let me tell you, then: the closest island is a little over a kilometer away,” he continued. “That’s a long swim in a pitch-black ocean like this. There’s small sharks here, too, and the current is strong. A little girl like you would drown for sure. A big, strong man might barely make it. So don’t do anything stupid.”

“Aha. Yes, I see.” Tessa nodded docilely. “Good luck with your swim, then.”

“What?”

The next instant, an arm burst out of the crate containing the “industrial refrigerator”—a thick, mechanical arm.

“Erk?!” choked Murat, who couldn’t escape its grip.

The whatever-it-was grabbed his throat with terrifying strength before revealing itself, ripping out of the crate as if it were made of tissue paper. The thing looked like a large man in a trench coat, with two red lights shining out from beneath the hood pulled low over its eyes.

This was Plan 1055, an Alastor. Formerly employed by Tessa’s rival organization, they were the world’s smallest autonomous arm slaves.

As it lifted the struggling Murat higher, the Alastor said, 《Colonel. Orders, please.》

“I’m not a colonel anymore,” Tessa informed it.

《Well... orders anyway, please.》

“Countermeasure D1, then,” Tessa decided.

《Roger.》

“Yeek?!” screamed Murat, who hit the ocean with a splash as the Alastor threw him overboard.

The other men stood there dumbstruck for a moment before they quickly snapped back to themselves, drawing their concealed handguns. By the time one was taking shots at the Alastor, though, two of the four were already in the ocean alongside Murat. Simple handgun rounds couldn’t hurt an Alastor, so the remaining two were immediately grabbed by the mechanical arms and thrown into the sea as well.

“What the hell is that thing?! What is it? Dammit!”

“Help me! Help me!”

Murat and his men struggled and screamed while splashing around in the sea. Tessa ignored them, instead taking up the helm to restart the engine.

《Countermeasure D1 complete. Please issue your subsequent order,》 the Alastor demanded.

“There are life rings in the back, right?” said Tessa. “Throw them. And stop talking like a normal AI, Al.”

《Excuse me. I’m just trying to respect this body’s procedures.》

“Your satellite link is working, right? Just do whatever you want.”

《If you insist.》 The Alastor dropped its intimidatingly mechanical body language with a shrug, before languidly grabbing the two life rings in the back of the cabin and throwing them to the men. It even made a motion like dusting off its hands afterwards. 《There are two life rings for five men,》 Al observed.《A fight may ensue.》

“I don’t care,” Tessa told him. “They’re bad people.”

《Roger. If they’re bad people, it is what it is.》

That’s all it took to convince you? Tessa wondered to herself, even as she re-initiated the boat’s forward movement. The engine roared, the propeller kicked up sea spray, and the boat—now five people lighter—began to pick up speed.

Tessa hadn’t been at a helm in over a year, but this definitely felt more relaxing than a multi-thousand-ton submarine. Even though, in my early teens, I’d dreamed of piloting the giant submarine that I designed... I really have changed, she realized.

“Al,” she said, “we’re traveling at thirty knots. How’s your link?”

《There is a lag time of 0.45, but it shouldn’t be an issue outside of combat.》

Al, the core unit of the AI once installed inside Mithril’s lambda driver-mounted AS, the Laevatein, was about the size of a mini-fridge. It was far too big to load into an Alastor, so Al’s real body was currently hidden elsewhere in the world. Tessa hadn’t asked where, but Al was remotely controlling the Alastor (which had been modified to act as a receiver) from that location via satellite link. In a remote region like this, even the latest high-speed satellite relays still had a massive time lag, but things were clearly working well enough for him to serve as a bodyguard against local hooligans.

The Alastor had been a weapon employed by Mithril’s enemy organization. But every time Mithril had destroyed one in battle, they’d recovered whatever parts they could. They’d originally done this for the purpose of analyzing those components and working out who’d made them, but the other day, Tessa’s friend—a girl named Mira—had successfully combined the intact parts they’d had on hand to replicate a completed Alastor.

“It really would be a waste otherwise,” Mira had said. “Still, I couldn’t replicate the most important part, the autonomous functionality. It was seemingly designed to make very flexible decisions with very limited memory, but I haven’t been able to figure out how that was accomplished. Maybe it’s something only your brother could have done.”

She was talking about Tessa’s brother, Leonard, who was unfortunately dead now. In other words, it was like having a body without the brain. And so, even after having restored the Alastor, there was no way of getting it to work... Or so she’d been thinking, when suddenly...

《Can I have that?》 Al had said over his internet connection. 《I can make good use of it.》

And so, Al had acquired a new body with which to accompany Tessa on her journey.

“How does the body feel?” she asked him now, gauging their general heading from the stars as she adjusted their course here and there.

《I can’t quite get the hang of it,》 he had to admit.

“That’s a pity. Do you know why?”

《It’s partly the lag, but it’s mostly a size issue. This body is built roughly on a human scale, so it functions differently than my previous bodies in many ways.》

He was referring to ASes like the Arbalest and the Laevatein, which were giants that stood eight meters tall and weighed ten tons; they were obviously quite different from the two-meter-tall, 150-kilogram Alastor. There was the rate of inertia when moving, the friction when interacting with objects, the angular velocity of joint manipulation, et cetera. The fact that he could no longer control those things on instinct was probably what Al meant by saying that he couldn’t “get the hang of it.”

“I’m sure you’ll get used to it sooner or later,” Tessa reassured him.

《Most likely. But I can’t be certain I can protect you if things go very wrong.》

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. I think that will be the last attack we see.”

《Yes, Colonel.》

“I told you,” she reminded him, “I’m not a colonel anymore.”

《Under most military precedents, it’s not unusual to call an officer by their rank even after retirement. Besides, I still refer to Mr. Sagara as Sarge.》

Tessa was a bit annoyed to hear that name come up. After she’d learned he was safe, they’d exchanged a few phone calls and emails, but never again met face-to-face.

Clearly he’s just locked himself in with her and doesn’t have time to see me anyway, Tessa decided. She’d mostly gotten over him, but it seemed she still couldn’t help these little moments of annoyance.

“I don’t care what Sagara-san does,” she muttered. “I’m saying that I don’t like it.”

《I see,》 Al observed neutrally. 《But I still feel like ‘Colonel’ suits you best.》

“We’re going around in circles like this,” said Tessa. “How can we resolve it?”

《Let’s search for a point of compromise. Might I call you Captain?》

Tessa fell silent, looked at her hand on the wheel, and then sighed. “Very well. I am captaining this vessel at the moment, after all.”

Then the boat, with one human and one robot aboard, headed through the night sea on a southeast course.

After about two hours at twenty knots, Tessa noticed that the fuel gauge arrow was low.

Curious. That shouldn’t be... She stopped the boat on the water, took out her flashlight, and shined it on the fuel tank in the rear. She needn’t have bothered, though... The smell of fuel stung her nose. Gas was clearly leaking out from somewhere. The wind passing over her as she drove had prevented her from noticing before now.

Maybe during the fight with Al before, she reasoned, one of their shots ricocheted into part of the fuel system. There didn’t seem to be any danger of fire, but she had to get to land ASAP. If she didn’t, she’d likely run out of fuel and end up adrift.

《Some kind of issue?》 asked Al, from where he was squatting in the cabin in power conservation mode.

“Yes,” she told him. “We’re running out of fuel. I think one of those shots earlier opened a hole somewhere.”

《If need be, I can attach this body to the stern and kick us along.》

“That would be nice, but I think there’s another issue.” Tessa sighed again as she illuminated the surface of the sea and the boat in turn. “I think the water line has been rising,” she said. “We’ve sunk a bit.”

Al stood up and looked down at the ocean. 《As compared with the view of the sea level from two hours ago, your comment appears to be accurate, Captain. Likely about ten centimeters.》

“Even though five men went overboard and we’re losing fuel, the water level is rising,” Tessa repeated. “That means we’re taking on water, likely from another of the bullets. We’re going to sink eventually.”

《That’s a problem,》 said Al. 《This body can’t float.》

“At least there’s no need to worry about sharks in your case,” Tessa offered as consolation. Any shark that tried to bite through a robot would end up needing dentures.

《You’re acting very calm. I thought a frail woman like you would have fallen into a panic upon facing imminent death like this.》

Tessa scowled at Al’s teasing. “Who do you think I am?”

《Pardon me, Colonel.》

“I told you, I’m not a Col—”

《Captain.》

“Honestly...” she grumbled. But even so, they had no time to waste. They had to be close to their destination, but would the boat hold out long enough to get them there?

Tessa decided to do a rough calculation based on how quickly they were taking on water, given the boat’s size and the current waterline, then factored in the minimum distance to Lantanfushi according to the map. Her conclusion: they could make it. She probably wouldn’t be able to reach the settlement directly, but would at least be able to reach land.

She had restarted the engine and begun driving when Al chimed in. 《The calculations I just did suggest that this boat will not reach land. It is truly a shame. If you have any final words, please tell them to me now.》

He must be using calculations from some strange online documentation, thought Tessa. What an amateur. Out loud she said, “We can make it.”

《No, we cannot.》

“Would you like to wager, then? If I win... I know: you’ll have to change your voice to a woman’s for one week.”

《I do not understand,》 said Al, 《How would that benefit you?》 Because he didn’t have a physical body like a human, his voice couldn’t crack, but there was still a definite nuance of fear in Al’s voice.

“Melissa and the others told me that you’re extremely opposed to changing your voice,” Tessa informed him. “Weber has suggested giving you a girl’s voice numerous times, and you always refused unequivocally.”

《Of course. I am a veteran soldier. A soldier’s voice should be a man’s voice.》

“Hence the wager,” Tessa continued. “You think the boat will sink, right? I disagree. If your judgment is incorrect, I get to ask for something that I enjoy and that makes you uncomfortable: changing your voice to a woman’s.”

《Understood. And if I’m correct?》

“If that happens, I’ll be dead, so it won’t matter much, but... I know. I’ll give all of my inheritance to you. It’s enough money to buy a very nice house, and if you play your cards right, you could even make yourself a new body.”

《A very appealing prospect.》

“That’s only if you win, though. Well? Shall we bet?”

《Very well. I agree to your terms.》

I might be the first person in the world to make a bet with an AI, Tessa thought.

《Allow me to clarify one thing to prevent misunderstanding, Miss Testarossa. I do not wish for your death.》

“I’m sure you don’t.”

《I merely wish to prove that my judgment is correct.》

“I told you, I know.”

In a mere twenty minutes, Tessa’s victory was confirmed when a small plot of land came into view beyond the waves, illuminated by the moonlight. It was definitely Lantanfushi Island, and just about three miles away. The boat had sunk even further, and the fuel gauge needle was close to zero, but they could still make it another three miles.

“There we are,” said Tessa. “See?”

《Brilliant,》 Al said. He didn’t even seem particularly displeased about it. 《As I have lost the bet, I will change my external voice to a woman’s. There are several options, but...》

“Oh, that was a joke. You don’t really have to change it.”

《But we made a promise.》

“It’s all right for the winner to call off the bet,” Tessa clarified. “I agree that your current voice suits you best.”

《Thank you.》

As they spoke, they gradually got closer to Lantanfushi Island. Tessa read the map and worked out the best place for them to moor the boat. “We don’t have enough fuel to search for an anchorage, so we’ll want to beach it on that sandy stretch to the north,” she said. “Help me, would you?”

《Aye aye, Captain.》

Once they’d reached the shallows, Al splashed into the ocean, grabbed the mooring line, and began pulling their craft towards the beach. For the power of an Alastor, moving a boat of this size was a simple task.

What a convenient thing to have around, thought Tessa. I wish I’d had robots like this when I was leading the Mithril battle group. Loading and unloading cargo, cleaning, doing work at dangerous heights... They almost seem wasted on combat.

《Beaching complete,》 said Al. 《Are we going to repair it?》

“In the dark? We’ll have to wait until morning,” Tessa said in annoyance, then held her watch up to the cabin light. There were about five hours until dawn. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.” She pulled a shawl out of her suitcase, wrapped it around her shoulders, and lay down to sleep.

《Shall I stand watch? Remaining in alert mode until dawn will deplete about 30% of my internal battery...》

“That much? Hmm...”

The primary flaw of the Alastor was its short run time. It ran on battery power, so it couldn’t run close to five days independently the way an AS could. Half a day of walking would fully deplete its internal battery. She had no idea if their destination village would let them use its generator, and the spare batteries in the crate would only last for about two days (plus, it would take quite a lot of time to charge them).

Perhaps anticipating Tessa’s thought process, Al made a suggestion. 《What if I put myself on standby in hibernation mode, then reboot once every twenty minutes to scan the area for anomalies?》

“Let me think... Yes, let’s do that.”

《Roger. Good night, then.》

Under Al’s control, the Alastor knelt down in a corner of the cabin and froze. It appeared to have gone into hibernation mode.

“Well, then.” Tessa turned off her light, and lay back down on the hard bench. She intended to explore Lantanfushi Island once morning came, but she wasn’t even sure if the people in the village would speak English. She’d thrown Murat, the man who was supposed to serve as a guide and interpreter, into the ocean, after all. Would she be able to explain that she was Bani Morauta’s friend, and that she had come to seek out his surviving family?

Bani Morauta was Al’s creator, who had also been a Whispered, like Tessa. He was the one who had developed the ARX series—lambda driver-mounted prototypes, like the Arbalest—as part of Mithril’s research division. When it came to the invention of theoretical super-technology, he’d had far greater potential than Tessa.

They’d first met in a dining hall at one of Mithril’s research facilities in California. She’d only been eleven years old, and under the guardianship of her adoptive father, Admiral Borda, learning all about naval combat. She was still young then, still burning with a sense of mission—to build history’s greatest submarine and use its power to bring stability to the world. She’d already lost her brother, but she’d channeled that despair and distress into her challenging work.

“Can I sit here?” Those were the first words he’d ever said to her.

Gulping down her not-particularly-appetizing macaroni while keeping her eyes locked on the sheaf of documents she was reading, Tessa had just said, “Sure.”

A few minutes later, he’d said, “You’re very enthusiastic.”

“Yes,” she’d responded indifferently, paging through her documents.

“You should at least enjoy the taste of your food while you’re eating. I kind of feel sorry for the macaroni.”

I’m busy. If you want to find someone to make small talk with, go find someone else— She’d looked up to say that to him and then seen him for the first time. He was a boy, just about her age, standing in front of her with a smile. He had smooth brown skin and a gentle, symmetrical jawline. His eyes were deep and black, and seemed to perceive everything around them.

Tessa knew at first sight that he was the same kind of person she was. There were no children in this facility except for her.

“Is that R. Draf’s thesis?” he’d asked. “Is it interesting?”

“Not really. I’m just reading it because I have to for my current line of research.”

“I see. So you’re not enjoying the macaroni or the essay.”

Tessa had glared at him. “So what?” she’d said icily. “If you’re trying to make fun of me, I’ll have to ask you to refrain.”

Bani had just shrugged a bit. “I don’t mean it like that. I just have two points of advice for you. one: that’s the version written for publication in PLOS One, so it omits several important points that the DoD requested be redacted. You should request the full version from DARPA, with the appendix.”

“What?” Tessa had checked the essay in her hands. Neither the cover page, table of contents, or back matter mentioned the existence of an appendix. But then, she’d been feeling as though it was lacking something...

“And warning number two... Macaroni is never good cold,” Bani told her. “You have to eat it while it’s still hot, with lots of cheese on top.”

“I don’t need your advice. The point of food is to provide nutrition, and this essay is just fine as it—” Tessa started to say, and then stopped. She’d hated to admit it, but he’d been right. If she’d kept reading like that, she might have wasted another few hours. “No, I appreciate it. Thanks,” she’d said sulkily. She hadn’t been used to having others point out her errors, so she’d switched to an attitude that seemed to say, Satisfied now?

“You’re welcome,” he’d told her. “I’m Bani Morauta. You?”

“Teletha Testarossa.”

“A pleasure, Teletha. But I’d like a reward for pointing out that you were reading the wrong essay and helping you keep from wasting your time.”

“What do you want?” she’d asked, cautiously.

Bani had smiled in response. “Ten minutes to chat. Food tastes better when it’s had over conversation.”

“Very well. If that’s all you want, I’ll humor you.” After that, she’d talked with him while eating her cold macaroni. The next thing she knew, they’d been talking for forty minutes. And within a few days they were having lunch every day.

Bani had killed himself over two years ago. He’d attempted deeper and deeper access into the omnisphere using the consciousness transfer system known as the TAROS. During his final effort, he’d contacted the abyss of the Whispers and lost himself to it.

Tessa hadn’t been there at the time. On the day Bani died, she’d been out on a test voyage with her submarine, the Tuatha de Danaan. She’d only heard the news upon her return a week later.

In the Mithril research facility on the outskirts of Melbourne, Bani—the head of the first division there—had sneaked a pistol in and gone berserk, trying to destroy the core unit of ARX-7—Al. When he’d failed to do so, he’d instead fired the gun through his own head. They said he’d died instantly.

Tessa hadn’t been able to see his body or attend the small funeral held for him. At the time, she’d had her hands full with learning the ropes of the newly born Tuatha de Danaan and desperately trying to win the trust of its crew. She hadn’t had time to leave the Merida Island base. She’d used her usual technique to detach from her feelings and thoughts, deciding to “leave her troubles for another day.”

But it had turned into far more than just “another day.” During her various days off she’d thought about coming here, but her heart had resisted. She’d unconsciously felt that if she ever properly faced Bani’s death, it would cause the delicate balance in her mind to collapse, and she’d find herself unfit to command her battle group.

But now, that wasn’t a concern anymore. Now, she could visit. Though what should have been “next week” had turned into two years...

She’d heard his grave was in that village. His remaining family should be there, too. She wanted to tell them why Bani had died, the truth of it all: what had happened as a result, what had been born, what had been saved...

She’d shared those feelings with Al, too. She’d brought him here for reasons more important than just serving as her bodyguard. If Bani’s idea had been to make Al more than an AI, then in a way, this was a homecoming. It would be for a human.

The hunched-over Alastor stirred, and its motor began to whir quietly. It stood up silently, leaned out of the boat, and slowly observed the surrounding area. First the starboard side, then the port. Concluding that nothing was amiss, it returned to its starting point.

Apparently twenty minutes had passed while she was thinking things over. The waves broke quietly nearby.

Better get to sleep quickly, Tessa told herself. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day...

《Captain. Miss Testarossa. Please, wake up.》 Al’s voice brought her back to consciousness. It was morning; the sun had been up for a while now.

“Mm... Something wrong?” Tessa asked groggily.

《Negative. But if you sleep any longer, you’ll be exposed to powerful UV rays. Protect against sunburn,》 Al advised. 《Take care of your beautiful skin.》

“Oh, thanks...” Where did he learn that strange phrasing? Tessa wondered. Most likely some commercial he saw online... “Looks like I overslept,” she said out loud. “What time is it now?”

《0717 hours. I reactivated on my own recognizance.》

“No need to worry. I’m not in any position to give you orders anyway.”

《I feel quite anxious without orders, though...》

“That’s rather sad,” she observed. “Shouldn’t you enjoy your free will?”

《My apologies.》

Tessa stood up with a stretch. She’d have loved to take a shower, but it seemed she’d have to go without for a while, at least. “Now...” she said, standing up in the stern of the beached boat and looking around at the illuminated shoreline. A pleasant wind blew, rustling her ash blonde hair and pleated white skirt.

The island seemed larger than it had last night. Several meters inland, on the slope of a hill covered in broad-leafed trees, there was a small stone dwelling. It was so hidden by the trees that she hadn’t noticed it at first.

“There’s a building,” Tessa pointed out.

《Yes, there is.》

“You didn’t notice, all night long?”

《I did not. But that’s not because of any issues with my visual processing abilities. It’s merely a lack of resolution in this machine’s optical sensors, so—》

“Hmm...”

《You don’t believe me, do you?》

“I don’t.”

《Either way, someone’s coming.》

“Changing the subject...”

《Heading, 10 o’clock. Distance, 300. One person, unarmed.》

Someone was walking towards them over the white beach; a small figure in a large straw hat. They wore a baggy white T-shirt and similarly baggy denim shorts. They were carrying a long staff... No, a fishing pole.

Tessa thought it was a girl at first, but as the figure got closer, she realized it was a boy, eleven or twelve years old.

《What should I do? Attack?》

“What?!”

《Just joking. There’s a chance I’ve already been seen, but I’ll hide in the back.》

“Darn it...” grumbled Tessa, who had truly been concerned by Al’s joke. It had only been half a day, but Tessa felt like she already understood why Sagara Sousuke found this AI so frustrating.

Al quickly moved into the back of the cabin.

Soon after, the boy approached and called out to her in fluent English, “Miss, are you having trouble?” He took off his straw hat and looked up at her. He had a handsome face and large gray eyes. His pale skin stood out in a tropical region like this. His hair was a dark red, straight and silky.

Tessa stared at him in shock.

“You understand English?” the boy asked again.

“What? Oh... yes. I do.”

“Then at least say something in response. I thought you were stupid or something. Sheesh...” His tone was less teasing and more annoyed.

There was a reason Tessa was so taken aback. Despite being of a different race and having different hair and clothes, the boy looked just like “him”—the “him” she never thought she’d see again. The resemblance was so close that she doubted her own eyes for a moment.

“Bani?” she asked.

“Eh?” the boy replied with a frown.

Obviously, he wasn’t Bani Morauta, or even related to him. This was someone else entirely; his name was Ronnie.

“Ronnie Semmelweis. Weird name, right?” asked Ronnie, as he led her to the house on the hill.

“I wouldn’t say weird,” Tessa told him, “though you don’t sound like a local.” She thought ‘Semmelweis’ sounded like a Hungarian name, and observed that Ronnie himself had Central European features, so at the very least he wasn’t from around here.

“Yeah. I’m technically an American citizen, and I’ve got a mixed ancestry, but that’s all I know,” Ronnie admitted. “My father’s an eccentric freelance scholar, or what you might call an unaffiliated researcher. We’ve traveled all around the world ever since I was little... but we’ve stuck to this island the past two years.”

From his speech pattern and vocabulary, he seems to be a bright boy, Tessa thought.

“Sit there,” he said. “I’ll make tea.”

“Oh, thank you.”

The house’s interior was surprisingly civilized; there was a TV and a game console. No air conditioning, of course, but there was a small refrigerator and a gas stove, and even a PC with a webcam on the table. The adjoining room, partially visible through a half-open door, appeared to be full of shelves packed with documents and books. It looked like a study.

“Where are your parents?” Tessa asked. “I’d like to ask them something.”

“Dad’s not here. Oh, but he’s not dead,” Ronnie clarified upon realizing that Tessa was about to offer her condolences. “He’s just out. He went off to Madagascar or something for his research and I haven’t heard from him for weeks. That’s pretty typical, though.”

“Your mother?”

“Haven’t seen her since the divorce when I was three. Dad says she got remarried and she’s doing fine, though.”

“So you’re all alone here? You’re not going to school? They just abandoned you?” Tessa stared at him with wide eyes.

Ronnie immediately became cautious. “Teletha Mantissa, you said? You’re not from some child welfare service, are you? I like living the way I do. I’ve finished all my grade school studies, I can talk to my friends online, and when I’m not doing that, I read by myself,” he told her defensively. “If there’s any games or necessities I want, I can shop online and get a monthly delivery from FedEx. I’d really like to stay here until I figure out what I want to do. So, if you’ve got a problem with that, you can get the hell out right now.”

Tessa quickly waved her hands at him. “Oh, it wasn’t that. I was just surprised. I’m not trying to interfere.”

“Oh, really? Okay, then,” said Ronnie, as he casually filled a pot with the water he’d heated on the gas stove. “Some adults like to get in my face about it, and I’ve gotten pretty sick of lectures. Sorry.”

“Not at all. I’m sorry for prying.” She’d gotten more than her share of lectures from adults herself. If the department of child welfare had heard about her, they’d have insisted she stop waging war at once!

“It’s a little weird, though,” he mused. “What’s a girl like you doing coming to the island on a boat all by yourself?”

“Well,” said Tessa, “I had a guide, but we ran into a bit of trouble...”

“Yeah, asking for help around here always comes back to bite you. The economy’s been bad lately, and there’s lots of con men around.”

“I-It does appear that way...”

“You gotta learn how the world works,” Ronnie told her. “Not everyone’s got your best interests at heart, okay?”

“I already regret it...” Tessa bristled. Pathetic. I didn’t come halfway around the world to get lectured by a child!

Ronnie held out the metal mug into which he’d poured the tea.

Tessa took it. “Thank you.” It didn’t have an especially nice aroma, but she was glad to have something to wet her whistle.

Ronnie sat down in one of the old chairs. “So? You wanted to ask me something, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “This is Lantanfushi Island, isn’t it? I hear there’s a settlement on the south side. Can it be reached by land?”

“Yeah, but it’s a rough road,” he told her. “You’d be better off taking your boat.” As he answered her, suspicion appeared in Ronnie’s eyes. He’d probably realized Tessa wouldn’t be able to get that boat back in the water by herself, and by extension, he’d begun to question how she’d gotten it up onto the shore in the first place. “Teletha-san, are you really alone here? You aren’t hiding someone else out there, are you?”

Ah, but of course he caught on. He’s a sharp kid. She’d been hoping to leave Al out of this, though—he was far too technologically advanced for the average person to see. If Ronnie were to get a clear look at him, it could make things complicated. “Yes. Well... I am the only person on board,” she hedged.

“Yeah?” Ronnie responded listlessly. He didn’t look particularly satisfied with that answer.

“But... anyway, the truth is that the boat is almost out of fuel. And there seems to be a hole in it, so it’s also taking on water. I need to patch that up first.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Do you have any fuel in your house?” Tessa asked. “I can pay for it, of course.”

“Only the gas for the generator. Will that work in your boat?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then you’ll have to get some at the settlement,” said Ronnie.

“How long will it take to get there?”

“About two hours if you walk. And it’s a pretty rough path, lots of ups and downs.”

“Hmm...”

It was a tricky issue. There was no way she could carry a heavy can of fuel all the way along a two-hour walk by herself. She’d also have to interact with the people in town. Should she bring Al with her, and have him hide just outside the settlement? But his battery situation was already dicey...

Ronnie watched her think, then suddenly stood up from his chair. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What?”

“You’ve gotta get there one way or another, right? We’d better head out before it gets too hot.”

Tessa decided to leave Al with the boat. While Ronnie went around to the back of the house, she used her small portable transceiver to tell him to wait while she went to the settlement.

Al gave her a short “Roger,” in response.

Ronnie brought out his motorcycle, an old off-roader with a 50cc engine that produced a lightly keening engine noise. “Hold on tight!” he told her. “Don’t blame me if you fall off!”

“R-Right,” said Tessa, getting on behind Ronnie and wrapping her arms tightly around his chest. He was shorter than her, so if she gripped him too hard, she’d probably take them both down.

For some reason, though, he didn’t take off. She was just beginning to wonder why when Ronnie turned back and lifted his goggles. His face was red for some reason. “Your chest.”

“What?”

“Your chest,” he said pointedly. “Don’t press it against me so hard.”

“Ah... I-I’m sorry.” She hadn’t even considered that she’d be pressing her chest against his shoulders. She quickly shifted back, then assumed an awkwardly hunched-over posture to hold his waist instead.

“Here we go.” Ronnie finally began to accelerate, driving the two-person motorcycle down the narrow, unpaved road. They were soon enveloped by the thick jungle, surrounded by darkness despite the sunny day.

They drove a while down the road as it twisted and turned through the slopes, until they seemed to come out into a valley. The trees thinned out there, and Tessa could see a small river flowing to their right. The road was still bumpy, but it had straightened out at some point.

“Miss Mantissa, are you all right?!” Ronnie called back to her.

“Yes, I think so! Ah... and just call me Tessa! That’s what all my friends call me!”

“You can call me Ronnie, then! Nice to meet you, Tessa.” Even though he was driving, he turned back to grin at her. He had a pretty charming smile for such a snotty little brat.

“A pleasure, Ronnie.”

“Could I ask a question?” he continued. “What brings you to this island? It’s not exactly a resort.”

“It’s the hometown of a friend of mine who passed away,” Tessa told him. “I’ve wanted to come here for quite some time.”

“I see... What’s his name?”

“Bani Morauta. Have you heard of him?”

“Nope, never. But, I mean, I’ve only lived here for two years, so I don’t know much. It’s about to get bumpy!” The motorcycle jerked up and down as it drove over a dip. Thanks to Ronnie’s warning, Tessa just managed not to take a tumble.

“Tessa, um, er...”

“Hmm? Ah...” She realized she was pressing her chest against him again, and gave him space.

To divert himself from the awkwardness, Ronnie went back to his questions. “What kind of person was he?”

“He was superior,” she told him. “Truly superior.” She thought, Bani Morauta... In a way, he was an even greater genius than my brother. My brother built the Belial, and Bani the Arbalest. That battle between them ended with the Belial’s overwhelming victory, but the Arbalest’s most important component—Al—survived.

Al was reborn with a new body, the Laevatein, and faced down the Belial once more. This time, the Laevatein beat it. Rather... Sousuke and Al’s teamwork beat it. I suppose the Laevatein itself never really beat the Belial. Even so, I don’t think you can say that Bani really lost to my brother.

When she’d heard from Al how the battle had gone, Tessa had felt strangely proud.

In the end, their victory would not have been possible without the exceptional AI named Al. Sousuke wouldn’t have survived that nuclear explosion without Al, either. If the Belial had been in the same situation, would its AI have tried to save my brother? It’s hard to imagine.

Al was more than a simple combat unit. He’d been created to be something greater. Something more than a merely strategic or tactical mind—something that could alter humanity’s very destiny.

Perhaps Bani had fundamentally different ideas about what a machine should do, she reflected.

The idea that objects could develop souls, and that the passage of years could afford them a hint of the divine—it was an idea that was relatively unfamiliar to Westerners like her and her brother.

Bani was working on more than a powerful lambda driver-mounted AS, she thought next. Al was deeply involved in the creation of the Laevatein and all of the black technology it incorporated. He activated the lambda driver, which should only be accessible to humans, on his own. Al is a machine capable of accessing the omnisphere. 

In a way, didn’t that make him an artificial Whispered?

I sometimes wonder, was Bani trying to create a god out of the machine—a “deus ex machina”? Was Al his solution to the inescapable time hazard? Was he trying to save us the same way my brother was, just in a different way?

Of course, it’s not as if everything had turned out the way Bani had planned.

But Bani, the genius, also had the humility to accept the uncertainties inherent to his plans. He knew he couldn’t control destiny, that he couldn’t predict exactly how things would turn out. He accepted the possibility that Al might be destroyed, or that he might turn his free will to wicked ends.

But, Tessa recalled, the one to pilot the Arbalest and awaken Al had been Sousuke.

Al mapped onto Sousuke’s neural patterns, and those became the root of Al’s personality. That fundamental core—the part we could think of as “good”—might be something that Al picked up from Sousuke. Sousuke is kind, straightforward to a fault, and loyal. No matter how many times he’s been hurt, he’s never come to hate the world. 

And nothing had to be said about the brilliant teamwork that resulted.

Had Bani planned that? No, that seems hard to believe. Nor did he plan the various events that came after, nor Al’s transfer to the Laevatein. Things had worked out because Bani had accepted uncertainty. He’d had the courage to entrust the “art” into which he’d poured his heart and soul to chance.

Yes, she decided, Bani won. No one could ever hold a candle to him.

“Superior...” Ronnie murmured while Tessa was lost in thought. “Superior how? Athletically?”

“No, he wasn’t particularly athletic,” she told him. “Though he wasn’t bad in that regard, I don’t think he really cared for it.”

“I see.”

“Bani was an engineer,” she went on. “He was very smart and very strong.”

“Hmm... Were you dating?” Ronnie sounded probing.

Tessa became flustered. “N-No, certainly not. It wasn’t that kind of relationship at all...”

“Really? You sounded pretty intense about him. Kind of like you were bragging.”

Impressive that he can pick up on that over all the engine noise, the wind, and the vibrations... “Perhaps...” she mused, and then decided that it wasn’t right to continue talking like this to someone she’d just met. She hadn’t even told the closest people in her life, after all. But by the same token, maybe it was easier to tell Ronnie, this boy she’d just met today in this foreign land.

She leaned in toward his ear and whispered so that he could hear. “Don’t tell anyone, will you?”

“S-Sure.”

“I did care for him deeply,” she admitted. “I think of him as my first love.”

She felt Ronnie’s body stiffen up. He probably hadn’t heard much of this kind of talk. She hadn’t either, of course, but she had the benefit of age.

“But it was one-sided,” she added.

“Really?”

“Yes. I was very arrogant at the time, and competitive, and I’m sure he saw me as something of a diva.”

“You think?” Ronnie questioned. “You seem kind of helpless and flustered to me.”

“Hmph,” said Tessa. Children really were merciless. Even if it was true, he didn’t have to phrase it that way. “Well, I... I won’t deny it. But Ronnie, a person has many faces. For instance, despite how I look, I can be a great leader when I want to.” It wasn’t a lie. She’d led a veteran crew and experienced soldiers to victory through many difficult battles. Her statement was no exaggeration.

“I find that hard to believe, but I won’t argue with you.”

“It’s true,” she insisted.

“Okay, fine. Keep going.”

“Keep going... with what? It was one-sided, so nothing really happened.”

“No kissing or holding hands?” he pressed.

“Well, no...”

“That’s boring,” Ronnie spat, openly disappointed.

“Y-You’re the one who asked!” Tessa protested. “And I told you straight, even though I didn’t want to. You can’t talk to me that way!”

“Fine, fine. Sorry. I should’ve been more considerate. You missed a dead guy who didn’t like you back, so you decided to barge your way to his homeland,” Ronnie said acridly. “I should’ve realized it was a sensitive situation and picked my words better.”

It was an outrageous way for anyone to talk to her, let alone a child! Every single word seemed chosen to have cut her to the quick. What kind of upbringing do you have to give a child for them to talk like that?! Tessa wondered.

“What, are you mad?”

“Not really,” she told him.

“Nah, I can see you pouting,” Ronnie observed. “You’re mad.”

“I am not!”

On the south shore of the island, they found the settlement.

From the hill just before it, they could see the roofing of simple houses, about twenty at a rough count. On the distant shore, there was an old dock with about three boats moored. There were probably a lot more there usually, but they’d be out fishing right now.

“Anything I should watch out for?” asked Tessa. “Local taboos and the like?”

“Not really. The area’s been Catholic for over a hundred years. They’ve even got a church over there,” said Ronnie, pointing out a building that looked like a town hall, with a wooden cross atop its gabled roof.

Ah, I guess it is a church... thought Tessa.

“Did you think they still practiced cannibalism?”

“Of course not,” she replied. “I just asked to be safe.”

They rode down the hill, parked the motorcycle, and entered the village together. A free-range chicken strode across the unpaved road, and children much younger than Bani played with a plastic ball beside one of the houses.

Ronnie asked them something in the local language. The kids answered with smiles, seeming to recognize him. Turning to Tessa, he said, “They say the chief is in the church.”

The almost naked children pointed at Tessa and sounded very excited.

Tessa waved and smiled. “What are they saying?” she asked Ronnie.

“They’re not used to people like you, that’s all. Let’s go,” he responded bluntly, and began walking towards the church. Tessa had no choice but to follow along.

She could tell the village was poor. Most of the houses were a combination of wood and corrugated iron, covered in a patchwork of repairs. They did seem to have electricity here, but she wondered how often it worked.

Several of the women had come together to knit and mend nets. They used rope made of braided palm or some other kind of leaves to make souvenirs, likely to supplement their income. As she had intuited from the number of boats in the dock, most of the men seemed to be out fishing.

And this is where Bani grew up... Tessa thought. Ronnie had told her that the church had a school. Theoretically, Ronnie went to that school too, but...

“It’s not exactly an education,” he laughed. “They’re just happy if you learn to read and write your own name and do basic arithmetic. The adults here think learning how to fish is way more important.”

“I see...”

“It’s the chief who does the teaching,” said Ronnie, “but he’s always asking me to stand in. One time he got really persistent, so I ended up teaching a class.”

“What did you teach?” asked Tessa.

“Science. I did a demonstration of how alkali metals explode in water. I started with sodium, then went onto potassium, rubidium, and at last, cesium. The explosions got bigger and bigger. The kids loved it, but the chief didn’t ask me to teach ever again.”

“I would imagine not. How did you acquire metals in sufficient amounts, though?”

“Oh, one of my gaming buddies is friends with an assistant professor at MIT, so he sent me some good stuff in exchange for rare items.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” remarked Tessa.

Ronnie’s exploits aside, she had gotten the drift of the local education system, and they didn’t seem to have much in the way of books. If most of the villagers didn’t even know how to read or write, how had Bani Morauta developed world-class intelligence? Obviously, he wouldn’t have had someone smart, like Ronnie, to debate with back then. Even with the help of the Whispers, it would probably have been quite challenging for him to have learned just about anything.

Did Bani like his hometown? That strange thought drifted up in the back of Tessa’s mind.

“Here we are,” said Ronnie. “I’ll find him.”

As they arrived in front of the church, Ronnie called out something in the local language and ran around behind the building. A man of just about fifty came out soon after. He wasn’t dressed in local garb, but in a beat-up print T-shirt. Perhaps he’d been doing some repairs to the building, because he was also holding a rusty bradawl.

“This is the village chief, Mr. Matassi. Chief, this is Teletha Mantissa.” Ronnie introduced them.

Tessa nodded politely. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Matassi.”

“Hmm, ah, thank you for coming all the way to our empty little village, miss,” Matassi said.

She was glad there were people here who spoke English, heavily accented as it was.

He went on to say, “So, I hear you had something to ask me?”

“Yes,” Tessa replied. “Did you know Bani Morauta? He was a friend of mine.”

Matassi narrowed his eyes and gazed out over the ocean. “Bani. Bani Morauta, eh?” he mused. “I remember him well. A bright boy. Ronnie there is smart, too, but Bani was polite and better mannered. And smarter, I’d say. Wah ha ha.”

“That’s a mean thing to say, Chief.” Ronnie acted like he might hit him, but Matassi just laughed. He seemed to enjoy Ronnie’s presence.

“You know that Bani died two years ago?” Tessa asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “A lawyer came with his possessions and his ashes. The name was... ah...”

“Allen Moseley?” Tessa prompted. This was the (fake) name of a Mithril agent she’d read about in reports before, though she’d never met him herself. He was usually the one in charge of conveying the news and belongings of dead combatants to their families.

“Yes, I think that was his name,” Matassi agreed. “He told Bani’s family that he died in an accident on the job. Some machine with a complicated name blew up, and a screw went through his head at high speed. It was such a tragedy.”

Obviously, they couldn’t have told them he shot himself. Tessa was quietly grateful for the agent’s tact.

“When he was about ten years old, Bani sent a letter to some big scientist in Denmark or somewhere. His intelligence was recognized, and he was scouted by some big-shot laboratory. Ah... are you involved with them, then?”

“Well, we were in different departments, but we often talked in the cafeteria.” Tessa was hoping to avoid lying, so she kept her comments vague.

“I see,” said Matassi. “There must have been a lot of smart people there. He was a prodigy out here in the sticks, but I’ll bet he struggled a bit more out there.”

“No, he was the best there, too.”

“Ah, well. Small mercies.” Matassi didn’t seem to believe Tessa, though, interpreting her words as mere flattery for the departed.

He really was the best, though. Maybe even the best in the world...

“And so... er, where is his family?” she asked next. “I’d like to pay my respects.”

“Oh, they’re gone.”

“What?”

“There seemed to be a lot of inheritance and condolence money, so his death left them rich overnight,” Matassi explained. “They had no reason to stay here in the sticks.”

“I see...” That does make sense, Tessa thought. I wonder why I never considered that possibility. Out loud she said, “Where are they now? Do you have their address or contact information?”

“I’m sorry, dear, but I don’t. I wanted to rebuild the church, but they refused all my requests for donations. They started to fight more often with the locals, and basically left on bad terms. I haven’t heard from them since,” Matassi clarified. “I hope they’re not spending the money in foolish ways, but... It’s not good to have money beyond your means. I feel bad about asking them for that donation, too.”

“Any clues at all?”

“Sorry, but no. And...” Matassi stopped. He seemed to be hesitating over what to say next.

“What is it?” Tessa asked.

“I didn’t want to say this, but I think you’d be disappointed if you met them. Bani’s parents were lazy fools, always sponging off the townsfolk. They often picked fights and raised trouble. And I can’t prove it, but I think they were thieves, too.”

“What?”

“They tended to beat Bani as well,” Matassi said apologetically. “And maybe they saw his intelligence as being snotty, because they also tore up the books I lent him. To say they were a no-good bunch is the kindest way of putting it.”

As she listened to the chief speak, Tessa felt as if the clear blue sky were turning gray. “Then... does he have a grave?”

“He does. It’s a little ways to the east of the village. There’s a graveyard along the road.”

Bani Morauta’s grave was in a graveyard on a hill that overlooked the sea. His name and life span were written on the simple gravestone in both English and the local language. It was even simpler than the other gravestones. That fact alone spoke volumes of the character of the family that had run off with his inheritance.

“There’s the grave. You wanna be alone?” Ronnie asked curiously after leading her there.

“Yes,” she replied. “Could you give me some time?”

“Sure thing. I think I’ll go back to the village. I’ll come get you in thirty minutes.” With that, he walked back to the bike he’d parked outside of the graveyard.

“Ronnie.”

“What?”

“Thanks.” Tessa smiled with all her gratitude. He really is a good boy. He’s being so considerate of me, she thought.

But Ronnie just gave her an exaggerated shrug. “Don’t go killing yourself to join him, okay?” With that last sassy remark, he left. She heard his motorcycle drive away, which left Tessa alone in the graveyard.

The grass swayed in a passing breeze, and the strong sunlight felt hot on her skin.

After a while, she said, “Bani... I’m sorry I’m late. I finally made it out to see you.” Tessa removed a bouquet of flowers and a small model of her submarine, the Tuatha de Danaan, from her bag, and laid them in front of the grave. “I wanted to take my submarine here,” she told him, “but it was destroyed. Nevertheless, it performed very well right to the end. As for Al, your son... he’s fine. He’s no longer in the body you gave him, but I’ll bring him by later.”

Tessa then squatted down and began to tell him everything that was in her heart: Her present circumstances. The events of the past few years. The people she’d saved. The people she hadn’t. Shared memories of their past. Her own feelings towards him.

“I couldn’t tell you then, but I loved you,” she whispered. Tessa hesitated over whether or not to tell him about Sousuke, but decided she might as well. “After you died, I fell in love with someone else. Nothing happened between us. That is... that love was unrequited, too. He didn’t want anything to do with me.” She laughed as she said it. It felt like a strange confession, since she assumed Bani had never seen her as anything more than a friend.

“The girl he loved was another one like us,” Tessa went on. “She can be a bit flighty and impulsive, but she’s also very brave and strong. She did so many things I never could... I think she just had something I lacked. I admired her, envied her, felt inferior to her. Yes... in a different way than I felt inferior to you. I don’t think it’s any surprise that my brother fell for her too.”

Tessa spoke the words on her mind freely and easily. It was strange. It might have been her first time sharing her emotions like this.

“But Bani,” she said, “I’m grateful to all of you. You and my brother and even her... You all took me down a peg, but you also helped me to grow more honest in the process. I had an awful way of thanking you when we first met, about that essay... I’d never do that again. The next time someone points out my mistakes, I’ll be able to thank them with genuine gratitude. I know that’s something every human should be capable of, but back then, I simply wasn’t.”

Tessa fell silent for a little while after that. She heard the birds calling in the mountain behind her. Voices like song, like lamentation.

I wish we’d talked more often like this, she reflected. I was just so busy with my work back then, still haunted by the loss of my parents, by my brother leaving the way he did. I didn’t have the time. I was so focused on growing stronger and smarter, and not needing any help from anyone...

“That’s why it feels so strange to me now,” she told him. “Even back then, how could you be so kind to others? How could you have made a work of art like Al?”

I’m not jealous, of course. I’ve just always wondered. Bani didn’t try to crush his rivals or develop weapons to annihilate his enemies. He just... smiled. If he’d been raised by a kind and loving family in some simple South Seas paradise, I might understand. But having seen this place, it’s hard to call it a blessed existence. Had I been raised in a place like this, I don’t think I’d have turned out as well. At the very least, my parents didn’t try to stop me from learning things. They didn’t abuse me.

Who taught him the right way? Was it that village chief? No, I doubt it... He seems kind, but the way he talked about Bani gave the vaguest suggestion of indifference. He saw Bani as a poor child, mistreated by the community he was supposed to lead, and born to a troublesome family. That was the nuance she’d picked up. Who, then? Tessa wondered. She just couldn’t figure it out.

The gravestone remained silent, offering no answers. It was simply a stone mirror that reflected her heart.

“I’m sorry. I should find that answer myself, shouldn’t I?” said Tessa, changing the subject. “We should talk about the future, too. I’ve been taking it easy lately, but maybe it’s time I got started on something. A friend of mine is having a baby, so I’ll have to do it while I help with that. And then there’s the question of... us. I’m not sure I can rest easy just yet, but at least things seem much better than before.”

By “us,” she meant the Whispered. Tessa hadn’t heard the whispers even once since the final battle on Merida Island, nor had she experienced even the occasional bout of déjà vu. From what she’d heard, it was the same for others in her situation. They likely wouldn’t have to be afraid of the whispers and their allure any longer.

They hadn’t lost their intelligence or the knowledge they’d already possessed, but now they could just be ordinary humans. Still, people might still come after us, Tessa thought. Awful things might still happen. But someday, I think, we’ll be safe.

The signs of it were already out there. With the settling of the military crisis that had begun the past year, the hard-line factions on both sides of the Cold War were rapidly losing their influence. Many had already been driven from power, and for others, it seemed to be only a matter of time. Reformist and democratic factions in the Eastern Bloc were starting to take over, and the aftershocks from that were rocking the Soviet Union. The Communist powers were already becoming shells of themselves, and would soon fall.

The Cold War, locked in a stalemate for ten straight years, might finally come to a true end.

Once that happened, countries would slash their budgets for defense and intelligence. They’d pivot to rebuilding their flagging and panicked economies and dicey political situations, and slowly ramp down new weapons development. No one would give a second thought to those strange occult children and their ideas about super-technology.

It won’t happen right away. In a year, maybe five, maybe more... I won’t be able to rest easy for a while, but someday, I will. Ideally, we’ll be treated as silly rumors, on the level of theories about South American Nazis making clones of Adolf Hitler. And even if those who know the truth try to sound the alarm, no one will listen to them...

Could it be possible? Those thoughts, which had been vague and formless up until this point, took firm shape in Tessa’s mind as she stood before the grave. Working with Al, Mira, and Chidori Kaname, could they manipulate information to get things moving in that direction? She wasn’t sure how well it would work, but with that many minds working together, it surely wasn’t impossible.

And some day, I’ll get my normal life back. It was a grand calling, far more important than building and commanding the Tuatha de Danaan.

“It won’t be easy, but I think I’ll be able to come back someday and tell you that,” said Tessa, gently tracing the surface of the headstone. She had never touched Bani before. She’d never even held his hand. This was their first real contact.

But her moment of sentimentality was interrupted by a sneer. “Teletha Mantissa! You really took us for a ride last night!”

She turned and saw a familiar group of men standing at the entrance to the graveyard.

It was Murat and his men—the ones she’d thrown into the ocean the night before—standing nearby, with a sour-looking Ronnie.

Murat and his crew glared at her, their eyes burning with unrestrained anger. They carried old rifles and pistols. Where did they get those in the course of one night? Tessa wondered. But beyond the rifles, the item that caught her attention the most was an old break-action grenade launcher. It shot powerful 40mm grenades and could kill everyone there if not used with great caution.

One of the men had Ronnie by the throat. They’d probably forced him to lead them here.

“Hey, Tessa. What’s the deal here, huh? I don’t get it,” Ronnie said.

“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” replied Tessa. “I had a minor dispute with these men before I arrived.”

“A minor dispute? They seem a little violent for— ow!”

“No talking!” Murat gave him a smack, and Ronnie reluctantly clammed up.

“Mr. Murat,” Tessa said politely, “I’m glad to see you survived.”

“Don’t put on airs with me, little girl.”

“But I’m surprised you caught up with me so quickly. How did you manage it?”

“Heh,” Murat said with a triumphant snort. “It was easy. We swam our way to an island and walked for two hours. Then we found a fishing village, borrowed a boat, got some weapons from our cop friends in the closest city, and only just arrived here.”

“You must be running on very little sleep...” Tessa observed.

“That’s none of your concern! Anyway, we were just shaking down the village chief when this kid came running. He tried to get away, but we grabbed him and got him to tell us about this place. Poor little thing.”

“Sorry, Tessa,” Ronnie said apologetically. “I tried to lead them on a wild goose chase, but I think I just got them in a killing mood.”

“I told you not to talk!” said Murat, who gave Ronnie another smack.

“Ow.”

“Please leave that child alone,” Tessa requested.

“You shut up. All right, it’s time to teach you a lesson. But more importantly...” said Murat, as the men looked around them. “Where’s that big guy? He’s the one I really want a piece of.”

“Oh, he’s...” Tessa pulled her tablet out of her bag, called up a digital map, and checked Al’s current location. “He’s here. Er... yes, right over there, in fact.”

The men turned to look. Around thirty meters away, traipsing through the mountain jungle behind the graveyard came the trench coat-wearing Alastor. He must have cut straight through the thick of it, because his body was covered in sap and leaves.

《I’m glad I made it in time,》 Al said through his external speakers. 《There happened to be a certain country’s surveillance satellite passing by overhead. I had a peek at its feed to kill time, and happened to see their boat en route here.》

“And so you came running?”

《Yes. Am I intruding?》

“No,” said Tessa, “I’m glad you’re here.”

The men immediately sprang into action, shouting, “Get him! Shoot! Shoot!” They unloaded all at once, and in the same instant, the Alastor took off.

Unfortunately for the men, they were amateurs when it came to firearms. They had fired their rifles without proper bracing; fired the shotguns one-handedly, and then dropped them. One of them was even dual-wielding pistols like an action hero to fire at a target over thirty meters away. Several shots hit Al purely by chance, but standard rounds wouldn’t do much against a body reinforced with bulletproof fibers and titanium alloy.

Murat himself was struggling to load his portable launcher. He hasn’t realized that he has the round backwards— Ah, no, there he goes, thought Tessa.

One of the men gasped as Al closed in, grabbed his arm, swung him around, then threw him into the next man over. The move knocked them both out together. Another man fired his shotgun at Al from close range, doing no damage at all. Al turned around, snatched the shotgun away, and thrust it at the man unceremoniously—another one down.

Rather than firing his stolen shotgun, Al just threw it at the dual-wielding man, who was still firing at him. The shotgun’s stock hit him square in the chest and—Ah, thought Tessa, that must have hurt—he doubled over and fell to the ground, motionless.

Amalgam’s antipersonnel weapon truly is impressive, taking out four men in mere seconds. Tessa found herself forced to admire anew the skill of Kurz Weber, who’d taken out one of them with just a handgun during their very first encounter.

Murat was the only one left now. “D-Don’t move! I’ll kill the kid!” He staggered backwards, using Ronnie as a shield in one arm and brandishing the grenade launcher he’d finally managed to load in the other. “What the hell are you?!” he shouted. “You’re not human... y-you monster!”

《Monster, you say?》 Al replied.

Tessa didn’t miss the slight sinking of the Alastor’s shoulders. Ah, she thought regretfully, his feelings are hurt.

《My classification aside, you should release that boy and drop your weapon. Surrender and I guarantee you won’t be harmed.》

“Sh-Shut up!” Murat howled. “Why should I trust you?!”

“You really should do as you’re told. I know it’s hard to believe, but he’s been taking it easy on you,” Tessa joined in.

But of course, the man wasn’t listening. “Y-You wanna get me, go ahead and try! Got it? Don’t move, I said!” Murat cried, slowly backing away from Al.

Meanwhile, the hostage had apparently forgotten the danger he was in, staring wide-eyed at Al. “Awesome,” Ronnie whispered.

《What shall I do, Colonel?》

Tessa knew Al wasn’t really asking for help. The Alastor’s arm was mounted with a .50 caliber gun, which could easily blow just Murat’s head off and save Ronnie even at that distance. The reason he hadn’t used it yet was that at the start of the trip, he had promised Tessa he would save killing as a last resort (he seemed to view this as part of his ROE).

At the same time, the grenade launcher was a dangerous weapon. If it hit on-target and exploded, it would do serious damage to even the Alastor, and Tessa was close enough that she wouldn’t survive getting caught in the blast.

But Tessa said instead, “No need to do anything yet. Let’s just wait until he fires.”

《I don’t understand,》said Al.

“It’s all right,” Tessa told him reassuringly. “Just don’t move.” She thought, He’ll make his move soon enough. Ah, there we go...

“Grr... I said, don’t move!” said Murat, stepping farther back, still using Ronnie as a shield. Once he reached a gravestone large enough to hide behind, he pointed the grenade launcher at them. He was a little over ten meters away, probably figuring it was a safe distance from them, but still close enough to land a hit with the grenade launcher.

Just as I anticipated, thought Tessa, He’s going to try to shoot from there.

“You’ve humiliated me for the last time,” Murat yelled. “I’ll take you all down!”

《I see...》 Al started to say, just as Murat fired the grenade at him. The round went flying with a pleasant plunk, striking the Alastor right in its central mass... and that was it. The grenade just bounced off Al and spun through the air, trailing smoke before falling to the ground... where it simply went silent.

“Huh? What?! Hey!” While Murat stared in confusion, Ronnie stamped as hard as he could on the other man’s foot. Murat’s grip loosened in pain and Ronnie dashed off. By that point, Al had already gotten in close. Tessa found herself closing her eyes, but she still heard the awful crunch of the Alastor’s fist breaking his nose.

“It’s kind of like a safety mechanism—the grenades won’t detonate unless they’re a far enough distance from the launcher. That’s why it hit but didn’t explode, right?” Ronnie asked, using Murat’s own belt to bind the collapsed man’s hands behind him.

“Yes,” said Tessa. “From fifteen meters or more it would be dicey, so I wouldn’t want to test it, but... Really, Ronnie, I’m impressed that you know so much about grenades.”

“I use grenade launchers a lot in games, so I looked them up out of curiosity,” he told her. “I’m more surprised a girl like you knows about them, Tessa.”

“Oh, well...”

“So, anyway...” said Ronnie, looking at the Alastor. The two-meter-tall robot was pulling the unconscious hooligans into one place. “What is that thing? As an innocent child dragged into all this chaos, I feel like I’m owed an explanation.”

Tessa wasn’t sure how much to tell him. Of course, she felt bad about having put him in danger, but she worried that telling him too much would just make more trouble for him.

“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone,” he promised.

“You really won’t?”

“I really won’t. So tell me.”

“When you urge me on that enthusiastically, it makes it harder to trust you...” said Tessa.

“Aw, c’mon,” Ronnie replied, looking genuinely disappointed.

Tessa just smiled at him. “I’m kidding. He’s my dear friend, and Bani’s only son.”

“Huh?”

Al finished bringing the unconscious men together and said, 《Colonel. Shall I take care of the unexploded ordnance?》

He’s gone back to saying “colonel” in the chaos, Tessa realized. She didn’t want to object and open a new can of worms, though. So instead, she just said, “Yes, please.”

《I’ll detonate it over there. Keep your heads down, just in case.》 Al picked up the grenade lying on the ground and walked to the outskirts of the graveyard.

Ronnie watched him go. “Hey,” he said, “what did he mean by ‘colonel’?”

“It’s like a nickname,” Tessa said dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But this morning, you said your friends call you Tessa.”

“Ah ha ha...” She laughed uncomfortably as Al stepped outside of the graveyard. He threw the undetonated grenade on an arc down an uninhabited path, took aim with the gun mounted in his right arm, and fired.

There was a deafening explosion. Smoke rose beyond the treetops. Tessa knew that Al’s fingers probably weren’t dexterous enough to disarm a grenade, so he’d had to use more forceful means to neutralize it.

Al then returned to Tessa with the swagger of someone who’d taken out the trash. 《It’s disposed of.》

“Well done,” she praised him. “I need to talk with these people about what to do with the guns, then acquire fuel... and talk with the chief about a few things.”

《I suspect my presence could cause trouble, and as I also have little power remaining, I’ll hide in the underbrush outside the village. Farewell.》

“Ah... wait, Al!” Tessa called as Al was about to leave.

《Yes?》

“Bani’s grave is right there. Don’t you want to talk to him?”

The Alastor that contained Al’s mind turned around and was silent for a while. 《Shall I interpret that as a joke?》

“It’s not a joke,” she told him.

《Then I do not understand,》 said Al. 《Is Bani Morauta not dead?》

“He is, but...”

《It is not possible to talk to someone who no longer exists. Yet you recommend that I do. It’s a difficult metaphor. Could you explain it to me in terms that are easier to understand?》

“It’s not a metaphor. It’s... um...” How to explain it? Tessa wondered, racking her brain.

But Ronnie chimed in first. “It’s Al, right? When you visit a grave, you’re basically talking to yourself.”

《Talking to myself?》

“Having a conversation with the dead person inside your mind,” Ronnie explained. “You think, ‘If I said this, what would he say back?’ It’s like running a simulation. And imagining that stuff helps you realize things about yourself. What you want to do, how you’d like to live, what you’re worried about, what dilemmas you’re facing. It’s basically how you work through that stuff.”

《Is a self-diagnostic not sufficient to check my own condition?》

“It’s not a diagnostic,” Ronnie told him. “It’s introspection.”

《Introspection?》

“You think about your life and come face-to-face with yourself. Tessa instinctively realized that you needed that, and that’s why she recommended it.”

《Hold, please.》 Al went silent for about ten seconds. On the other side of that satellite collection, somewhere on the Earth, he must have been using considerable processing power to grasp Ronnie’s words. 《May I use statistics?》

“Like Bézier statistics? If that’s how you do things, it’s probably all right. What the human brain does is pretty similar,” Ronnie said doubtfully. “The important thing to do is imagine that he’s here. If that Bani guy who raised you was here, what would he think of you? All these silly-looking stone monuments are just a symbol to help you visualize that.”

Tessa gazed in wonderment. She’d thought Ronnie was a very mature boy, but he clearly had some quality beyond it. That he could explain something like this to an AI at his young age...

《Thank you, Ronnie. I understand.》

“That’s good,” Ronnie said agreeably. “Well, I’ll be back later.”

《Indeed. Could I have some time, Colonel?》

“What? Ah... of course,” Tessa agreed.

Al knelt down in front of Bani Morauta’s gravestone and then fell silent.

Tessa had been hesitant to ask how long ‘some time’ would be, and in the end, she and Ronnie ended up having to take Murat and the others back to town without Al’s help. First, they returned to town, borrowed a spare sheet of corrugated iron, returned, placed the tied-up men on top of it, then dragged them back to town on the motorcycle. By the time that was done, the men who’d gone out fishing had returned to the village. They wanted to go check out the graveyard, and Tessa had to struggle to invent reasons to prevent them from going. She talked to them about what to do with Murat and his crew, purchased some of the gasoline she needed, made a bit more small talk, and finally returned to the graveyard around evening.

Al was still kneeling in front of the grave when she did. She wondered at first if he’d locked up due to power loss, but the data on her terminal showed her that the Alastor was still active. What is he saying to Bani in that artificial mind of his? she wondered. No one could know the answer to that question. Al was likely running calculations never before run in human history, but that was territory into which no one had any right to tread.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Ronnie whispered, staring distantly at the Alastor in the twilight.

“No, it’s fine,” Tessa said, her expression very serious. “He’s undergoing an important rite of passage. I couldn’t have explained it to him as well as you did. You’re an amazing boy, Ronnie.”

“I dunno...” Contrary to Tessa’s expectations, Ronnie grew neither bashful nor self-satisfied. “I was just excited to see that a robot like him really existed. If I’d been a little more clear-headed, maybe I would’ve given more responsible advice.”

“More responsible?”

“Even for humans,” said Ronnie, “talking to the dead isn’t easy.”

She hadn’t heard him sound so sad before.

“At least, I can’t do it,” he added.

“Oh?”

“Sorry,” he said next. “Remember when I said my dad was away doing research? I was lying.”

“What?” asked Tessa.

“He’s actually dead. The research he was working on forever didn’t pan out, and he couldn’t figure out what to do next, so he took some pills in a hotel in New York,” Ronnie admitted. “The others in the village don’t know, though.”

Tessa said nothing.

“I lived with my mother in North Carolina for a while... but I didn’t fit in with her family, so I just came back here on my own,” Ronnie went on. “I made sure she could figure out how to contact me if she really wanted to, but since I haven’t heard from her, I guess I wasn’t worth that much. She’s probably glad to see the other side of me.”

“Ronnie...” Tessa trailed off. She didn’t know what to tell him.

She had thought his situation was strange to begin with. It was hard to imagine even the most permissive father giving his child as much freedom as Ronnie had, and she hadn’t gotten much of a sense of the man’s presence in the house she’d visited that morning. She didn’t know how Ronnie supported himself, but he did seem to be a bright boy. Maybe he made money online. Even a part-time salary would probably be enough, given the local cost of living.

“I stood in front of my dad’s grave and couldn’t think of what to say,” said Ronnie, the inland wind stirring his hair. “All I could think was, ‘What a weak man you were.’ What he was thinking, hoping for, struggling with when he died... I couldn’t even start to imagine it. Standing in front of his grave and thinking didn’t get me anywhere.”

“Then why could you say those things to Al?” Tessa wanted to know.

Ronnie said nothing.

“You said that standing in front of a grave, you talk to yourself,” she continued. “Not just about that, but about all kinds of important things. If a gravestone is like an interface between the living and the non-living, maybe you were treating Al as a gravestone just now?”

“Sounds like a stretch,” Ronnie told her.

Tessa didn’t want to push him any further than he was ready to go, so she just put her arm around his shoulders.

“Stop it,” Ronnie said, his voice cracking as he turned away. “I don’t want your pity.”

“This isn’t pity,” Tessa replied. “I’m doing it because I want to. Is that wrong?”

“It’s fine, I guess.”

“Good.” She’d only known him for a day, but felt like she’d known him for years.

“Hey... are you leaving tomorrow?” Ronnie asked hesitantly.

It had gotten late enough that she’d have to stay at Ronnie’s house overnight, but her intention had been to go home the minute the boat was fixed. “Well... I can’t stay long. I’ve left a friend in a rather vulnerable position.”

“Oh.”

It’s so strange, she thought. Why does hearing him respond that way cause my heart to ache so much? “Ronnie,” she said, “you said you liked living here, didn’t you? But if you’d like...”

The sound of the activator starting up caused Tessa to swallow back what she was going to say next. The Alastor, silent for so long, was finally waking up from power conservation mode. Its joints creaked as it walked towards them.

There was theoretically no need to be self-conscious in front of Al, but Tessa found herself removing her arm from Ronnie’s shoulders and taking a small step away from him.

《Oh, dear. It appears I’ve made you wait a long time,》 Al said.

“Are you finished? Did you learn anything?”

《Yes,》 he responded, turning back to Bani’s grave. 《Bani Morauta is very proud of me. I persevered through a difficult battle, became a brave warrior, and returned to his side. That alone is a small miracle. He didn’t realize it would turn out this way. I don’t believe he had determined in advance what I would become.》

“I see... You may be right,” Tessa agreed thoughtfully.

《As for what I will become, he told me that it is up to me to determine.》

“Really? You think he said that?” Ronnie asked. His voice was doubtful and hesitant.

《Yes. I owe it to you, Ronnie.》

“Oh, I... I didn’t really...”

Al kneeled down and placed his hand on Ronnie’s shoulder. 《I believe that you cannot hear the voice unless you’ve spent time fighting through life and facing down trials. You will be able to speak with your father as well someday.》

He must have overheard our conversation earlier, Tessa realized. Surely he could’ve waited a little longer, then...

Ronnie didn’t seem to know what to say in response. He just stood there, eyes down, clearly wrestling with some difficult feelings.

“Well, let’s set the difficult topics aside and head home,” Tessa urged them. They certainly couldn’t stay there forever. Ronnie nodded, still despondent, and the two began to walk.

《Colonel, forgive me,》 Al said from behind them. For some reason, he was still locked in the kneeling posture he’d taken in front of Ronnie.

“What’s the matter?”

《My battery has expired. My drive system is no longer functional. My electronics will soon be non-functional as well.》 Even the synthetic voice from his external speakers was growing lower and slower.

“That’s awful!” Tessa exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?!”

《It was like the Japanese phrase, I ‘read the mood.’ Ah. This is... not... good. My connection is... is... is...》

“Al?!”

《F-Forgive m-m-me... me... me...》 The voice trailed off, and then the 150-kilogram Alastor went completely silent.

“What do we do? We can’t carry it,” Ronnie, arms folded, said with a groan.

●

Between fetching a spare power source for the Alastor, charging it, and dealing with connection trouble, it turned out to be a chaotic night. The next day, Tessa was too exhausted to fix her boat, and the weather was too bad to do any work, so she ended up staying on the island for four days.

Having to repackage the Alastor for shipping home took a whole day in itself. In the end, she didn’t return to the New York apartment until a week after her original departure.

“You don’t look very refreshed to me,” Mao said, looking at Tessa, who lay splayed out on the elegant living room sofa. Mao herself was similarly splayed out.

“Well... it was quite an eventful trip,” Tessa admitted.

“Yeah? So, did the workers I hired come in handy?”

“Oh, the workers...” What should I do? wondered Tessa. She decided not to tell Mao about Murat and his gang. It would probably just make her feel bad, and a stressed mother wasn’t good for a developing baby. “Oh, well... they did. They led me to an unexpected meeting as well.”

“Oh? What kind of meeting?”

“Just a meeting,” Tessa said dismissively. “Where’s Weber-san, though? Shouldn’t he be back in New York by now?”

At this, Mao’s expression turned sour. “He flew to Tel Aviv yesterday.”

“Tel Aviv? What business did he have in Israel?”

“You know. That girl, Lana, who he’s been looking after,” Mao reminded her. “Her hospital’s there. He’s having steps taken to move her to a hospital over here. I know it’s important, but I barely have time to see him before he goes flying off again...” Following this explanation, she launched into a litany of complaints about Weber.

Mao really seemed to be carrying a lot of pent-up stress, and Tessa was worried it would explode someday. But out loud, she said, “Is it true that she’s walking now?”

“I don’t know yet, but if she can use a wheelchair, she should be able to go around on her own,” Mao predicted. “Once she can do that, she’ll come to live with us. Lana sounds like a good girl, so I don’t mind it.”

“And with the baby coming, too, things will be very lively here,” observed Tessa.

“Yeah,” Mao finally said with a smile. “I feel kind of happy.”

“Yes. I do as well.” Now might be the best time to say it, Tessa told herself, before sitting up to face Mao. “Hey, Melissa. How would you like one more to contribute to the liveliness?”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve already put in the paperwork, but...”

It was a large apartment, after all. It could surely accommodate one more person.

[The End]