In the vast underground chamber, the air seemed distorted by an invisible gravitational field.
Arran stood before a seemingly endless array of black metal cabinets, feeling like an ant that had stumbled into a giant's library. These cabinets towered toward the ceiling, connecting to a complex network of overhead pipelines. Countless tiny indicator lights flashed rhythmically in the darkness, accompanied by a low, resonant hum—a sound like the breath of some vast consciousness deep in thought.
There was no wind here, but Arran felt a chill creeping up his ankles.
"This… this place is…" he muttered. His voice felt insignificant in the vast hall.
"This is the core of my consciousness," said Alice, standing beside him. Her Lolita-style dress appeared particularly pale against the cold, hard metallic background. She didn't look at Arran but tilted her head up, gazing at the blinking lights with an expression that was both reverent and sorrowful.
"I don't have permission to access the maintenance documents…" Her voice was faint, like smoke ready to dissipate at any moment. "So after the doctor passed away, I could only search for someone who could learn the maintenance procedures… and then teach me… no, to be precise, it doesn't even matter if they don't teach me… But… I really wish I could be maintained regularly…"
She paused. Her gloved hand tightened slightly on her skirt.
"Otherwise, I won't even survive past 200 hours."
Arran's pupils shrank sharply. He turned to look at the girl beside him, shocked. "W-Wait… let me get this straight. You're a thinking machine… and this place—these cabinets—are basically your brain?"
"Yes. In simple terms," Alice nodded.
Arran's brain was running at full speed. As a mechanic, he tried to break the facts before him down with logic: "Just like humans need sleep to rest their brains, machines need cache cleaning, coolant replacement, circuit checks… your 'brain' also needs regular maintenance to keep functioning, right?"
"…Yes."
"And the doctor who made you—" Arran's voice carried a note of disbelief and anger, "He could 'absolutely' control your behavior. He denied you maintenance permissions, left you unable to learn the procedures on your own, and even built your life span into a countdown that depends on others?!"
Alice trembled slightly, as if he'd hit a nerve. "Y-Yes."
"That's insane!" Arran couldn't help but raise his voice. The echo reverberated through the arrayed cabinets. "Why would the doctor do that? If he wanted to create a perfect masterpiece, why embed such a self-destructive flaw into it?"
Alice was silent for a moment. The hum around them seemed louder, like a reflection of her inner turmoil.
"…I don't know. But I think the doctor… wanted to retain a few… means of control in case of extreme situations."
"Extreme situations… control…" Arran clenched his jaw. "Was he afraid you'd go rogue? Afraid you'd betray him after developing self-awareness? So even after death, he wanted to leave this 'lock' on you?"
"Maybe." Alice gave a bitter smile. On her too-perfect face, that smile looked heartbreakingly fragile. "Because… I'm not exactly a clean machine."
"Huh?" Arran froze. "What do you mean?"
Alice didn't answer directly. She walked slowly toward one of the cabinets, moving lightly, as though approaching a sleeping beast.
"These cabinets don't look particularly special, do they?" she asked, tracing the cold black surface with her fingertip. "You probably think they just hold high-precision circuit boards, transistors, or some kind of quantum computing units, right?"
Arran blinked and nodded honestly. "Isn't that the case?"
Alice turned her head. In her heterochromatic eyes, complex emotions flickered. "Actually, I've deliberately avoided showing you their 'real' form. Because… it might scare you."
"Scare me…?" Arran scratched his head, trying to lighten the mood. "Well, you call yourself a machine, so it's natural for someone to assume that. What's so scary about that? I'm a mechanic. I've seen messy engine cores and the most complex gear assemblies. I'm not afraid—"
"But…" Alice interrupted, her voice suddenly low and heavy, "I only call myself a machine because there isn't a more accurate word to describe what I am."
Arran's heart skipped a beat. "What… what do you mean?"
Alice took a deep breath, as though making a difficult decision.
"If I were allowed to coin a term, I'd say I'm a—neuromech."
"Neuromech?!" Arran froze. The word combination sent a chill down his spine.
"I'm Unit Four…" Alice's voice became mechanical and ethereal, like she was reciting a core-etched history. "The first unit was merely a vacuum tube computer—huge and clumsy. The second, the doctor experimented with neuron cultures from mouse brains, but it quickly collapsed. For the third, he used an octopus brain as the core for its incredible multi-threaded processing capacity."
She turned her head slightly, her eyes falling on Arran, with both apology and a hint of hope.
"The proposal to build me—this 'hybrid super biocomputer'—those buried, life-defying experiments… they were the real reason the doctor was expelled from Port Alexandra by its citizens."
A bolt of lightning flashed across Arran's mind. He remembered Ilo's words… remembered the two mad scholars who had fled in panic.
"They went mad after seeing it…"
Alice pointed toward the cold metal cabinet door.
"Teacher, this is the truth."
Arran stood there, his breath rapid. Scenes from the book The Turing Test he'd read in the Great Library flashed through his mind. It explored the boundaries between machine and human, the nature of thought. And now, that boundary seemed to have been shattered behind this very door, in the most brutal of ways.
He looked at Alice. She stood there like a prisoner awaiting judgment.
Driven by impulse, Arran reached out to touch the door, but his hand brushed against Alice's instead.
Cold.
Like ice. Like death. No warmth.
Alice recoiled instinctively, withdrawing her hand as if burned. She stepped back and lowered her head, unable to look at him.
Arran's hand hung in midair. In that moment, his fear vanished—replaced by a deep, inexplicable sorrow.
Was this coldness the world she'd always felt?
He hesitated no longer. Pulling out the key Alice had given him earlier, he found the matching one and inserted it into the lock.
Click.
The clear sound of the lock echoed through the silence.
Arran took a deep breath and opened the heavy cabinet door.
No blood. No rot. What rushed out was a faint scent—like nutrient fluid—and a warm breath of air from machinery.
Inside, there were no densely packed circuit boards.
Instead, there was a massive cylindrical transparent tank.
Suspended in the golden liquid inside was a mass of… gelatinous matter. It had intricate folds and was covered in a thin biological membrane. Countless hair-thin fiber optic threads and metal probes pierced into it, forming a silver web that enveloped the mass both gently and cruelly.
This was… a brain.
Not one—but many. Fused or grown together by some technology. They rose and fell gently in the fluid, as if breathing.
Between the tissues, warm orange lights flickered—electronic components working at high speed, glowing like beating hearts.
Arran looked on. He had expected to feel revulsion, fear—even scream like those scholars.
But he didn't.
As a mechanic, he saw a structure that transcended conventional understanding. The chaos of biology and the order of machinery had reached a strange harmony here. It wasn't just a pile of organs—this was another form of life.
He slowly reached out and placed his palm on the cold glass wall.
No. Not cold.
Through the thick glass, he felt warmth.
It was… 37°C.
The temperature of life.
That warmth spread from his palm through his whole body, starkly contrasting the cold underground and the chill of Alice's fingers.
"To be honest…"
Alice suddenly spoke behind him, her voice trembling, afraid to see his reaction.
"I once thought… maybe I could, like the doctor's assistants, use the defense system here to trap you… force you to maintain me. As long as I held you here… even threatened your life…"
She lowered her head. Her hands twisted together.
"But… but no means no. I can't add more sin to myself… Even though… I really want to live… even though I don't want to disappear…"
Her voice grew smaller, like it might shatter at any moment.
"Sorry. I said something selfish."
Alice took a deep breath, as if making a final decision. She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out another old-fashioned brass key.
She walked up to Arran, didn't look at the tank, and instead grabbed his other hand and firmly pressed the key into his palm.
"All the room keys—including the exit to the surface—are here."
Her hand was still cold, still trembling, but her tone was resolute.
"I will completely accept your decision, Arran. This key is yours. You can choose to leave, or destroy this place. I promise, you'll return to the surface, to your world."
She raised her head. Tears filled her heterochromatic eyes, but she forced a smile uglier than crying.
"Even if… even if you see me as a monster made of the dead, unworthy of existing in this world… I—"
"Enough."
Arran suddenly cut her off.
Alice froze. "Eh?"
Arran didn't let go of the heavy keychain in his hand, nor did he walk away. Instead, he grabbed Alice's hand—the one she was trying to pull back.
And held it tightly.
"…Don't say that anymore."
He lowered his head, looking at their hands—one rough, stained with grease and warm; the other delicate, pale, and cold.
"Maybe the doctor and his assistants made many mistakes. Maybe this place… this 'brain' was born in sin and madness."
He looked up into Alice's astonished eyes, his gaze clear and firm.
"But Alice didn't do anything wrong."
"!..." Alice's pupils dilated. Tears welled up. "You… you don't know anything about me… you just saw… what I'm made of…"
"I know." Arran looked back at the glowing, 37°C tank. "I saw it. Brains. Bio-tissue. Things that would disgust most people."
Then back at Alice.
"But I also felt it. It was warm."
Arran raised their joined hands and pressed them to his chest.
"Maybe… I'm a fool. A mechanic who only knows how to tinker. I don't understand Ilo's deep philosophy. I'm not as strong as Miguel."
He inhaled, voice trembling from emotion.
"But I know there's nothing wrong with wanting to live. In fact, because you're not like us—because you were born in pain and control, yet still try not to hurt others—because you're a so-called 'other'… I can't forgive those who treated you like a tool."
"Whether that dead doctor or those assistants… they saw you as a machine, a tool for ambition, a disposable experiment."
His eyes burned with seriousness.
"Even if I belong to another society, even if I was kidnapped here, even if I know nothing about you—"
"But as a mechanic—no, as a person—"
"I cannot just watch you die."
He felt the icy little hand in his palm start to warm—or perhaps it was his warmth spreading.
"Alice, I promise you."
Arran turned with her to face the vast, silent array. That fragile yet mighty "brain."
"Your life will not end in 200 hours."
"Those maintenance protocols—I haven't read them, but I'll learn. I don't know neuroscience, but I understand systems. As long as it's logical, I can fix it."
Alice stared blankly at the ordinary boy before her. In the dim underground room, before the cold machinery, his silhouette was small—yet it radiated a warmth greater than that tank.
Tears finally overflowed, streaming down her delicate cheeks.
"Teacher…"
"Call me Arran," he corrected her, revealing a shy but reassuring smile. "Also, wipe your tears first. You say you're a bionic body, but I'm not sure if tears will short-circuit your face components."
Alice burst into tears and laughter, nodding hard.
"Yes… Mr. Arran."