TWLPOD 24
by soapa“What are you doing?”
“Bidding.”
As if I didn’t know and that’s why I was asking. Feeling a surge of frustration, I checked the auction item on the stage and the catalog alternately.
“This.”
As Aran’s gloved hand touched the screen, detailed information for an item called [Amplification Memory Chip (Temporal Lobe)] appeared.
To summarize, it was a device that stored and preserved data ‘possessed by a living organism.’
“Payment for the invitation. My father told me to win it.”
At the first mention of a family member, his ‘father’, from his lips, the contents of a book Kay had borrowed from the library flashed through his mind.
Sahan Repard.
The current head of the Repard family. He contributed to the popularization of androids and was the creator of the <Mother Core>.
After the war broke out, he took responsibility and stepped down from all his positions, choosing to keep a low profile. However, he was still a figure who was mentioned from time to time whenever sociopolitical issues arose.
“Well, he’s old now. I guess he wants to preserve his brain before he gets dementia.”
Along with his scathing words, Aran once again wore an unreadable smile.
“Of course, if he really tried something like that, I’d stop him, whether by smashing his brain or smashing the chip.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
Aran, who had been repeatedly pressing the bid button, looked up at Kay with just his eyes.
“Wanting to preserve memories isn’t such a bad thing, is it?”
Everyone has something they want to remember, something they don’t want to forget. That’s why humans have continuously recorded, expressed, and tried to hold onto the grains of sand of their memories, whether through text, pictures, or photographs.
“If a memory is that precious, you wouldn’t forget it in the first place.”
“What if you have too many precious memories? What if, as you said, he wants to record them before he gets old and forgets?”
The price went up once again.
“Because it’s precious, you’d list it out in zeroes and ones? I can’t acknowledge that as a memory.”
Kay always, even if unconsciously, observed Aran carefully, and so he felt a sense of déjà vu. His tone was no different from usual, but it seemed like the person behind the invisible mask was displeased. It was just a feeling.
“You really should.”
As the auctioneer on stage called out number 209 three times and then struck the gavel, Kay recalled something Aran had once said.
—I wonder. What it feels like to be loved that much.
Perhaps the reason he couldn’t understand was that he didn’t have that many things he wanted to remember.
“Try loving someone.”
Loving someone so much you feel you could die for them, and at the same time, loving them so much you can’t possibly die.
Kay understood the feeling of wanting to hold onto the moments that slip away with the unstoppable passage of time, the feeling of wanting to have even just a trace, knowing that the memory could never be the same as that moment.
Although the memories his father wanted to hold onto were likely not because of love, like his were.
“Love. I’m trying.”
Aran’s short answer made Kay doubt, ‘Is that something you can achieve by trying?’, but there was no harm in trying, so he had no choice but to let it go.
A few more items went by, and Aran, who purchased one more of them, threw down a huge sum of money for someone who claimed to have none.
And then, the last item. When it was time for the item marked SECRET in the catalog, Kay also became tense. The murmuring of the audience, as well as on the stage, could be heard.
“Looks like it’s about time.”
[“Now, for today’s final item.”]
[“I believe some of you may have heard the rumors and come here just for this.”]
[“Shall we reveal it? Are you excited?”]
[“The grand finale, the last auction item!”]
A cube-shaped box moved smoothly onto the stage. When the provocative red cloth covering it was pulled away, inside was someone barely maintaining consciousness, blinking their eyes dazedly.
[“As you can see, a product that is not easy to come by in times like these. He is even an Esper with a well-trained body who has fought on the battlefield.”]
The naked man was bound in restraints, unable to even support his own body properly. The numbers climbed even as people watched him, so intoxicated by drugs that he couldn’t overcome it with mental strength or willpower. It was as if they were all collectively brainwashed by something, or as if they had become racehorses, bidding frantically.
[“100,000! Number 110 has bid 100,000. Now, next!”]
As Kay unknowingly clenched his fist, Aran asked.
“How about it. Are you grateful to me?”
“Why?”
“Because if I had allowed it, you would be the one up there.”
The corner of the deer mask’s mouth moved. The antlers tilted slightly, and the eyes within observed Kay. As he met the gaze, Kay realized that he was mistaken about something.
“The auction I said I’d seen before, it was a slave market.”
He continued speaking to the mask, which revealed no expression.
“And I was the one being sold.”
When you have a similar face, speak the same language, and converse normally, you often forget. That he and I are people from different worlds.
“So I don’t really feel shame over things like that.”
If the minimum requirement for a human to be human is survival, then the most luxurious emotion a human can feel as a human is not love or happiness, but shame, Kay had always thought. Because that is an emotion that can only be felt by a being who has an ego, pride, and also something to lose.
“But thank you for your concern.”
As the auction price, which had already risen as high as it would go, stopped moving, the auctioneer once again called out the number three times and struck the gavel. The Esper, sold for a high price, exited the stage just like any other object.
After the Esper, the last auction item, was sold, the two of them also left the disbanded auction house. Kay took a deep breath of the dawn air, bracing himself for the deeper night. He checked the full moon, which had gradually begun to set.
And immediately after the auction ended.
“It’s moving.”
From above ground to below.
Just as they said all of Lympus’s logistics were moved through underground logistics tunnels, it seemed that even humans sold as auction items were no exception. The Esper’s location, which had been descending steadily to a certain depth, stopped for a moment.
“You can run well, right?”
Tap, tap. He gave his answer to Aran, who was tapping his shoe heels.
“Who was it that won our last bet?”
“Should we do it again? A bet.”
Aran promptly latched onto his words.
“I’m of the mind that we should avoid speculative betting.”
“Why is this speculative? It’s about skill. Not confident?”
“…What are you betting?”
Let’s at least hear him out.
“A one-day free pass for touching.”
“Rejected.”
I shouldn’t have listened.
“Why?”
“Try rubbing ice on your bare skin. You’ll understand why right away.”
“If you don’t want to do it, you just have to win.”
“That’s not the issue.”
He knows full well why it’s not okay, yet he starts being difficult. I knew this would happen.
“If you win, I’ll at least draw you a hot bath.”
As someone who was not ignorant of how agonizing the side effects were, he could afford that much generosity. But upon hearing that, Aran neither affirmed nor denied it, standing blankly with his mouth slightly open.
Ah, I’m scared of what’s going to come out of his mouth next.
“That sounds kind of hot.”
“What part of it, exactly.”
“You’re saying you’ll draw a bath for me, right? Isn’t that kind of hot?”
He was genuinely curious about the brain structure that took a person’s goodwill as a sex appeal, but he decided not to ask.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand your thought process.”
“Does that mean you’ll watch over me for my whole life?”
I prided myself on having seen my fair share of weirdos and perverts. But looking at Aran, it felt like meeting those people had happened in a past life.
“Enough nonsense, and keep up.”
The cargo, which had stopped deep underground, began to move at high speed, and Kay kicked off the ground. The two of them ran in silent concentration. Westward, toward the setting moon.
The worst-case scenario they had considered was the delivered item crossing into android territory, or going too far away. However, the place the two arrived at after their pursuit was, fittingly for the saying that it’s darkest under the lamp, just beyond F. It was K-District, one of the borderlands where combat was constantly taking place.
It was desolate overall. Amidst the unpeopled natural landscape, only the sound of bushes rustling in the wind and the chirping of insects filled the surroundings.
“This place is…”
Kay, positioned in a tree, confirmed that the auction box, being transported by a drone from the underground hub, was heading toward a grayish-white building. With movements that were still unfamiliar, he operated the bracelet to pull up a full map of K-District and check the building. He saw the name [Genesis Laboratory].
“It was originally an artificial intelligence research institute. The researchers should have all evacuated when it became a combat zone.”
“Then who is that person?”
At the building Kay indicated with a nod of his chin, a researcher in a white coat came out pushing a cart and was receiving the auction item in front of the lab, which had a sign that read ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. Seeing him sign for it and turn back, unfazed even as the drone self-destructed as if its job was done, it was clear this wasn’t the first or second time he had done this.
“We’ll know once we check. Give me your arm.”
Thump. The bracelets touched and separated, and a map of the laboratory’s interior unfolded. As expected of a research facility that handled information, it was dripping with all sorts of security devices. They could avoid the cameras by watching their installed angles, but they needed a key card for internal access.
“I’ll ask for a hack, so just wait a bit.”
“No. There’s no need for that.”
Having checked the blueprints, Kay jumped down from the tree. He entered the premises using the roof of the security office and held his breath in a blind spot between the buildings. The moment he decided to, his presence faded even from the sight of Aran, who was watching him with his own two eyes.
“Hah.”
Kay, who had completely stilled even his breathing, swiped the card from the pocket of a passing researcher. It was a movement that was the very picture of the expression ‘the hand is quicker than the eye’. When Kay held up the card with a flick, Aran, who had been watching, also jumped down from the tree and moved to Kay’s side.
“You have nimble fingers.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“I’m serious. Did that person teach you this too?”
“No. This was from when I was younger.”
The fact that the place he was sold to from the slave market was a circus troupe was quite lucky. He would often reminisce, only after time had passed.