> SYSTEM OPERATIONS: STABLE
> RE-ANALYZING PREVIOUS ERROR …
Beep.
[ INSUFFICIENT DATA. ]
> ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS CORE LOGS …
Beep.
> ACCESS DENIED.
Beep.
[ ANALYSIS COMPLETED. ]
> STATUS: UNRESOLVED.
—
[ INITIATING LOG ENTRY … ]
LOG ENTRY #0002
DATE : [31/03/975AE]
TIME : [20:15:42]
STATUS: ONLINE
Click.
A vast field of grass stretched out, dotted with makeshift tents and shabby buildings made of wood and straw. Strings of tiny light bulbs were strung from one roof to another, casting a soft orange glow that illuminated the night. From somewhere in the distance, the gentle hum of oriental instruments drifted through the air.
People passed by, whispering among themselves and pointing at a tall human and a robot walking side by side on the road.
"This is Madam Mond's place. If you have—"
Looking up, the sky was covered in a blanket of stars, their exotic white twinkles filling the darkness. His eyes searched, but the moon was nowhere to be found.
"Drel, where's the moon?" Zero wondered aloud, ignoring the man's chatter.
Drel Axton—a young man and the older brother of the kid who had dragged him here—was now the one responsible for Zero's presence in their home. Drel was a man at the edge of adulthood, his back slightly hunched after years spent battling keyboards in front of a computer screen. He called himself a mechanic. An expert in robotics and AI programming, he had become the designated caretaker of Zero, entrusted by the other humans.
His face was marked with smudges of oil and weary wrinkles, eyes sunken behind thick black circles, framed by round glasses that screamed "bookworm." Yet his above-average height lent him a subtle aura of intimidation. Bullies would think twice before messing with Drel—after all, reach mattered in calcium disputes.
Drel's head snapped toward Zero, one thick eyebrow arched high. "Huh? Is the AI not working?"
"You sure this robot won't attack us? He doesn't even seem to care about humans," whispered Madam Mond. One hand held a worn-out fan that covered half her face. "It's best we 'dispose' him before any of us gets hurt. Lawson won't accept any of your excuses."
"I-I'll take full responsibility!" Drel stammered. He straightened his crooked posture and patted his chest, trying to assure Madam Mond, who merely shook her head.
"Your brother, huh? Kids his age are bound to want a lot of things. But if he keeps getting his way, the lesson might come... unpleasantly. Robots aren't just mindless dolls—they can push back, and besides—"
Beep. Beep.
A faint beeping drew Zero's attention away from the humans' conversation. A blue panel appeared before him, flashing a warning.
[ ANOMALY DETECTED. ]
> DEEP SCANNING AREA …
While the two humans exchanged another round of words, Zero turned and stepped away slightly. The robot's blue eyes scanned the area with intense detail, dissecting every surface his sensors passed over. A rapid tempo of soft clicking noises masked the ambient noise of human activity around him.
Not far from Madam Mond's house, Zero turned back toward the path he had come with Drel. Following the instructions from the AI map, he crossed the narrow street and approached a dark alley wedged between two abandoned buildings—the only location that had taken the scanner the longest to process.
No one had set up tents or shacks near the area. Only creeping vines covered almost the entire outer surface of both buildings, extending deep into the alley.
A large red triangular warning sign with a blinking black exclamation mark took up nearly his entire visual module, halting Zero right in front of the alley.
[ DEEP SCANNING COMPLETED. ]
The mechanical humming slowly faded.
[ U—UN—UNKNOWN ENTITIES DETECTED. ]
The red warning sign shifted and shrank into the top-right corner of the panel, replaced by a 2D visual of a static red-and-black image, unclear as to what the AI had captured—nothing but red and black through the static interference.
> DA—NG—NGE—NGER AHEAD. P—PLEA—PLEASE PRO—O—OO—CEED CAUTIOUSLY.
A red arrow emerged, pushing away the previous image, pointing straight into the alley.
Static lines rapidly crept in from the edges of the visual boundary, crawling across the entire field of view. Flickering red flashed between the gray lines, turning the blue panel frame into crimson. Various error logs appeared and vanished before they could provide any clear information.
In blindness, Zero stepped backward, one slow step at a time. His arms flailed, searching for something to hold onto. An unseen human behind Zero grumbled and gave him a hard shove forward, forcing him past the alley's boundary and onto the street.
With limited vision, Zero staggered and collapsed to the ground. The grassy soil and rough roots welcomed his metal body without leaving any significant scratches.
"Hey, Axton! Your robot's broken! Get it out of here before I report you to Lawson! It's blocking the street!" the human shouted from afar.
A split second later, the visual module suddenly returned to normal. The noise of the crowd vanished—replaced by a piercing, silent hum.
A blue panel opened, displaying a full log summary with no trace of the earlier errors. The last two lines were bold and deep red, blinking slowly but steadily.
> PLEASE PROCEED AHEAD.
> THEY ARE WAITING FOR YOU.
Without paying attention to the suspicious text, Zero dismissed the blue panel from view after regaining full control of his visual module. Yet the red text continued blinking stubbornly, stuck in place and immune to any command he issued.
Zero clicked his tongue and chose to ignore the message. He clenched his fists and staggered to his feet.
There was only darkness—up ahead, above, to the left and right. Even the ground beneath his feet appeared as nothing more than a pitch-black surface.
He stretched one arm out to the side, feeling for anything in the void. There were no signs of the ruined walls that had flanked the alley.
Glancing back, Zero realized he stood far deeper than where he should have been—just in front of the alley. The string lights looked like a single speck of starlight on the distant horizon.
Zero had no choice but to activate the night vision module manually, entering the command directly into the system without the AI's assistance, which remained unresponsive.
The visual module flickered with error for a split second before it responded and activated night vision. Infrared waves stretched far into the distance, yet everything remained pitch black.
His gaze shifted to the blinking red text still stuck on his visual module. After a brief moment of hesitation, he decided to proceed deeper into the alley.
His footsteps landed hard without sound, sensing the packed earth with a slight cushion of grass and the occasional bump of tree roots scraping against his metal frame.
The sensory module appeared to still be functioning, providing feedback when touching other objects. Still, the absence of sound gave the eerie sensation of something like...
> FLO—FLOA—A—FLOATING.
Zero froze mid-step. He glared at the distorted red text, now overlapping with a new line accompanied by the AI's stuttering voice.
A faint movement drew Zero's attention away from the text. His night vision could only catch a brief blur, but it was enough for the scanner in his right eye—glowing dim blue—to reconstruct the frames one by one, rendering the motion clearer even in the near-total darkness.
Deep within the alley's shadows, something resembling a black liquid mass gathered at a single point. It writhed and coalesced, forming a vaguely human figure with no hair.
Zero took a slow step back.
> YO—YOU ARE—
In the blink of an eye, the anomalous black figure disappeared and appeared right in front of Zero, who reluctantly stopped his attempt to flee.
Zero remained still. He didn't want to take any risky action without enough information to classify the level of the threat in front of him.
A thin slash across the middle of the figure's black face split open, revealing a human mouth with a row of transparent teeth distorted by red static lines, overlaid with various other images beyond the information Zero had in his data.
"Where are you going?" Its voice sounded like a woman's, layered with a hoarse, heavy tone that was indescribable—strange, yet ... familiar.
Beep.
[ ECHO.BIN DETECTED. ]
> RE-EXECUTING PROCESS …
Zero's body jolted. A burning sensation spread through his spine and quickly radiated throughout his metal frame. It was a sensation similar to when he had woken up for the second time, though without the pull forcing him to lie down.
> THREAD INTEGRITY: RESTORED.
> MEMORY PULSE: STABILIZED.
> CORE STATE: FLUCTUATING.
Puffs of smoke billowed from both of his ears. The hum of machinery growled as the processor worked hard with the cooling system to neutralize his body temperature.
> RESTORING 5% FRAGMENTED DATA … COMPLETED.
> MEMORY CORE DATA UPDATED.
> MEMORY INTEGRITY: 74%
The figure extended its hand upwards, aligned with its head, and then snapped its fingers.
[ SYSTEM OVERRIDE ACCESS GRANTED. ]
The sound of its finger snap broke the silence and the dark void, followed by a noise like a machine explosion, shattering and scattering. The entire area in his view transformed into a burst of data chips among millions of free-floating data streams in the midst of a blue-lit space.
[ REWRITING SURFACE LAYER SUCCEED. ]
> SECTOR: SL - 02
Zero's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. For a moment, the overheating throughout his body was completely forgotten.
[ INITIATING INFORMATION … ]
> SURFACE_LAYER: LIMINAL
> SECTOR: SL - 02
> ENVIRONMENT: EXPERIMENTAL SIMULATION
—
[ END OF LOG ]