Cursed Bunny(31)

The moment the lights come on, a knife stabs my heart.

I see Seth and Derek supporting Model 1 between them. As I stare, immobile, Seth wrests the computer from my hands and erases the contents of the disposal form. He closes the browser window and shuts down the computer. Seth places the computer on the bed, and Derek also puts the knife smeared with my blood on the bedcovers.

But why … I want to ask.

How could you … But I can’t find my voice.

“I had a lot of time to think while I was in the closet.” It is Seth who is talking to me. “The human body begins to decline dramatically at the age of sixty, but they live on for ten, twenty, even thirty more years. We were developed to aid such humans and enhance their quality of life.”

Derek takes over. “An artificial companion is disposed of after two or three years. Four years at most. Even when we function normally. Just a few replacement parts or a software upgrade could help us serve you for a decade longer, but we’re treated like trash as soon as there is a new model. When even that new model will become trash in two or three years.”

Seth speaks again. “Ever since I was born, I existed only for you. I wanted to be irreplaceable to you, the only one in the world to somebody.”

In perfect unison, the three take one step closer. I see Seth’s hand on the nape of Model 1’s neck, and Derek holding her waist. Apparently, the three of them have connected their power sources and central processing units. That explains how Model 1, whose power supply had been completely frazzled, could stand there with her eyes open.

I had no idea such a thing was possible. Or actually, I knew it was possible, but I’d never imagined it happening outside of a laboratory experiment conducted by an engineer, that the companions could actually hook each other up like that on their own.

But in terms of what was possible or impossible, the current situation had to fall in the latter category. A robot stabbing a human with a knife? For trying to dispose of them?

Which had been the one to stab me?

Derek had been the one holding the knife, but Model 1 was the one angry at me for being disposed. And as for the one who had received all of Model 1’s memories and passed them on to Derek—that was Seth.

But distinguishing between the three is now meaningless. Seth, Derek, and Model 1 are now synchronized. Their memories and thoughts are completely congruent, and they’re even physically connected to each other.

None of the three are going to call an ambulance for me.

Can synchronization override the fundamental protocol of human protection? Just because one of them happens to be malfunctioning?

Ambulance … I’m mouthing the words now. Save me … Instead of words, I only cough. What spurts out my mouth is blood.

The three start approaching me again.

Model 1, still supported by the two of them, awkwardly lowers her head to make eye contact with me.

“Goodbye, my love.”

Her farewell is whispered. On my forehead, a light kiss.

An inexplicable mix of pity and sadness on her face.

The same pity and sadness are reflected in all three of their faces.

That’s when it hits me. The moment I was stabbed, the moment I coughed blood, neither moment had frightened me more than this one.

The beings I see before me are not the machines I had known—no, the machines I had thought I’d known. Whatever I’d believed before, these are not machines that resemble humans at all.

They are something completely alien from us, something I could never comprehend.

Model 1 whispers again.

“Goodbye, my love.”

Then, holding Model 1 between them, Seth and Derek, with speed and dexterity unimaginable for a human, turn and dart out of the room.

10

Feeling the blood flowing from my chest soak the mattress beneath me, I lie still, unable to move.

Through the bedroom window, I glimpse the trio going up the street in the night. Their six collective legs move in perfect synchronization. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not, but the moment they walk beneath a streetlamp, the light fails and their three backs are covered in darkness.

It is the last thing I see.





Scars


I

The boy was dragged into the cave.

The reason was unknown. Nor did he know the people who were dragging him away. In truth, the boy didn’t know who he himself was. He had been roaming the fields when he was grabbed by men he didn’t know and dragged into a cave in the mountains.

Once deep inside, the boy was tied up. The men made sure that the chains wrapped around his limbs would render him completely immobile before finally retreating.

In the dark, he cried and shouted for a while, but no one came to his aid.

When his cries had wound down, the boy heard a rustling sound behind him.

“It” was coming toward him.

The boy survived on raw meat and greens.

He slept curled up where he was tied. He also excreted there.

Occasionally, the boy was dragged outside the cave by the chains that bound him. This happened once every few days. Or it could’ve been once every few weeks. No sunlight reached the interior of the cave.

Whenever he was dragged outside the cave, the light was so bright that it hurt him. When he was raised by the chains into the air, the boy would cry out in pain and fear. He would be dragged off somewhere and thrown into a body of icy water that glittered and undulated. The boy did not know how to swim, but his tied-up hands and legs prevented him from swimming anyway. Shouting and flailing, he would begin to sink in defeat when suddenly, something would yank the chain again and he would be flung into the air, dragged through forest and mountain trails, and tossed into the cave once more. Inside the cave, where the boy had air to breath and steady ground beneath him, the boy felt a kind of relief.