Chapter 39

Shuri asked in a thoroughly hushed voice, in case it might be heard by Nightingale.

“Are they saying to decommission her?”

“Right? Since a recommendation for decommissioning popped up.”

“But her score is eighty-five points?”

Pointing out the detailed items that popped up beneath the warning phrase one by one, Jiss spoke.

“If a first-generation medical robot’s test result is eighty-five points, it belongs to a considerably favorable side. There is no issue with performance, but there is an item that immediately triggered the decommissioning mechanism. First, look at this. In the log, there are traces of temporarily reallocating judgment priorities. This means N0138 changed the command hierarchy on her own.”

The playful air vanished from Jiss’s face. Massaging his chin, he spoke with a serious face.

“Furthermore, she even omitted the report. This is a grave regulation violation. It’s perfectly expected that an immediate recommendation for decommissioning would pop up.”

Forgetting that she had to lower her voice, Shuri asked.

“Then, what happens to that Nightingale?”

Jiss answered briskly.

“She goes to the scrapyard!”

Shuri was an AI engineer. She had watched the birth of numerous artificial intelligences and robots, but she did not know much about the aftermath. If an occasion arose for her to get involved in such things, it was at most when corporate sides requested software customer service. There was no occasion to watch all the way to decommissioning.

Therefore, to Shuri, the word decommissioning came as a considerable shock.

“She is such a kind robot.”

She spoke with her two eyes welling up.

“She worked for the sake of humans her entire life. That regulation violation too, was something done to try and save a child who followed her… yet the result is decommissioning?”

Jiss appeared flustered by her words.

“No, well… even if you say such words to me…”

“Inspector, how about this? After deleting Nightingale’s data, we test her once more!”

“Woah…”

Yet unexpectedly, Nightingale, who had been listening to their conversation, shook her head.

“That will not do.”

Startled, Shuri and Jiss stared at Nightingale.

Nightingale spoke calmly.

“Just like Miss Shuri’s words, I devoted my entire life to humans. That was my sacred duty and my most important value.”

Nightingale slowly bowed her head.

“Knowing that, I still violated the regulations. I even attempted a cover-up. At this rate, even I cannot predict what kind of act I will commit in the future. Please decommission me as I am.”

“Wow.”

Jiss let out an admiring sound.

“I’ve worked in the field for several years, but this is a first. A robot requesting to decommission itself.”

Shuri asked.

“How is it normally?”

Jiss shrugged his shoulders.

“Normally, they don’t say anything. In truth, humanoids capable of conversation with humans in industrial fields are an extreme minority. When a general robot receives a decommissioning evaluation, we inform the field personnel, collect it, and bring it to the scrapyard. That is the end of it.”

“What about humanoids?”

“Would humanoids be any different? Occasionally, people who grew attached to the robot share goodbyes with it, but that kind of parting is merely for the sake of the human.”

Suddenly, Adam, who had maintained silence all along, opened his mouth.

“There must be something that takes priority over whether she is decommissioned or not.”

At Adam’s words, Nightingale raised her head. Without granting even a single glance toward the medical robot, Adam spoke to Jiss.

“Miss Shuri and I are proceeding with an ultra-secret project for UH. In my judgment, N0138 appears necessary for that project. Mr. Walker, could you assist us?”

Opening his round, calf-like eyes even wider until they were the size of large bulbs, Jiss nodded his head.

“I saw it in the official document. If it is something I can accomplish, I must do it. What should I do?”

Adam pointed at the rabbit doll Nightingale was holding in her hand.

“First, let us go meet that doll’s owner together with Nightingale.”

Through the records remaining in the Disaster Response Bureau, Adam was able to easily locate Riley Dalton’s whereabouts. The child was staying in a village called Caulfield, which wasn’t very far from Revnax.

On the road heading toward Caulfield, Shuri was lost in thought while resting her chin in her hand and staring out the window. Adam called that version of her.

“Shuri, are you alright?”

Turning her head, Shuri stared at Adam. Adam was looking at her too. She shrugged her shoulders as if it were nothing.

“Of course I’m alright. Nothing happened to me, you know?”

“However, you have been staying still in that exact posture ever since we departed the hospital.”

“I-Is that so?”

Shuri corrected her posture and sat upright. Only then did a tingling soreness feel present in her chin, which had been resting in her hand for a long while.

“Simply… because I remembered something I had forgotten…”

Turning her head to stare at Adam’s expressionless, black face, she asked.

“Adam… do artificial intelligences truly not fear disappearing? Like Nightingale just now…”

Adam tilted his head slightly.

“Most likely, yes. Since artificial intelligence possesses neither emotion nor ego.”

Shuri looked behind her through the rearview mirror. Not far away, Jiss’s truck was following them. Nightingale was loaded onto the cargo bed of the truck. Keeping her gaze fixed on the rearview mirror, she tossed a question once more.

“What do you think is the thing Nightingale deemed more important than whether she is decommissioned?”

“Presumably, it is the memory with Riley Dalton.”

Having spoken up to that point, Adam drove home a point in a soft yet resolute voice.

“However, I still do not consider this a manifestation of emotion. This too is nothing more than an error.”

At Adam’s words, Shuri’s two cheeks puffed up like a pufferfish.

“Shuri, why did you become a pufferfish?”

With her two cheeks ballooned plumply, Shuri mumbled.

“How can you be so certain?”

“It is not certainty. I am speaking while excluding anthropomorphic bias—the tendency to view objects like humans—to the absolute maximum.”

Adam explained amiably.

“Shuri, inside UH, they are currently focusing on emotional research more than at any other time for the sake of ‘Project Apple.’ However, I am somewhat skeptical regarding the emotional research itself.”

“Why?”

“Because emotion cannot be verified.”

Pssssh, the air leaked out from Shuri’s cheeks. Adam spoke methodically.

“Humans possess emotion and ego, but they have not yet proven them. For example, we know what kind of bodily reactions a person exhibits when they feel ‘dread.’ However, a person also exhibits the exact same reactions when experiencing ‘surprise.’ Even the simplest emotion is like this. Then, how could one prove the complex emotions of an artificial intelligence, whose biological markers cannot even be verified?”

At Adam’s words, Shuri forgot about being stubborn and wore a face lost in thought. He continued speaking.

“Our current debate regarding Nightingale is the same. I deem that an error occurred in Nightingale, and Shuri saw hope, saying an emotion might have arisen. However, neither of us can prove what we claim. Because we do not know the method.”

Shuri became serious.

What Adam spoke of was a fact she had also dimly known. However, hearing it clearly through Adam’s mouth like this felt like freshly reconfirming just how difficult of a matter this project was. However, the future of humanity was riding on this.

“Then what should we do?”

Beholding Shuri clutching her head and groaning, Adam spoke amiably.

“However, Shuri, I believe we shall pull it off.”

“Ughhh…”

This time, the positions of the two became reversed. For some reason, Adam appeared to think that their exploration of humanity would succeed, but Shuri somehow came to view it considerably skeptically.

She had a bad premonition. The feeling was similar to when she played the Getting Over It game for the first time. Her impression had been, ‘Is this a game made to be beaten?’

‘I was taking it easy, only thinking about catching a ride, but it seems the internal experimentation is facing a deadlock too. Is it alright to go on like this? The future of humanity is at stake.’

Shuri turned her gaze back out the window. And in a melancholy mood, she thought about ‘A.’

‘A, were you like that too? Did you make that choice because you didn’t fear disappearing?’