The gloves Kana made were remarkably high quality.
Even when I roughly handled the jagged, coarse surfaces of the lunar rovers—tossing them around or exposing them to heat and friction—they held their shape perfectly, protecting my bare metal hands. With these, I could keep rummaging through the rovers indefinitely. But this approach started to feel like it could drag on forever, until the Earth met some catastrophic end, like a meteor strike or a war. A vague unease crept in, a sense that I couldn't muster any real expectation, and it was easy to slip into a state of mental exhaustion. So, after another hour of work, we decided to abandon the method of blindly searching through the lunar rovers.
"What do we do now?" Kana asked.
Her words had a strange power to both unsettle me and spark excitement. I paused for a second, letting my meager CPU churn through some ideas.
"Well," I said, "we don't know much about this Scrap Nest, so maybe we need to gather some information first."
"Yeah, you're right," Kana agreed instantly. "It was fun to just dive in and tackle things head-on at first, but two hours of that, and I'm kinda over it."
"So, Kana's not a kid anymore, huh?"
"Huh?" Kana let out a deliberately childish squeak. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean, only kids can genuinely enjoy a situation where they're totally clueless, right?"
"Is that how it works…?"
Kana didn't seem entirely convinced, but she quickly caught on to what I was getting at—or at least pretended to. Her gaze shifted, taking on a playful, almost foxlike glint, as if she were about to start some mischievous game. Then she said, "So, Neo, you're saying you'll always be a boy, huh?"
I didn't quite follow how she jumped to that, but the word "boy" struck a chord. For someone like me, outdated enough to be scrapped and recycled into raw materials for newer models, the term felt oddly comforting. I had no desire to merely survive, but the wish to hold onto a childlike spirit was surprisingly strong.
Without curiosity, a humanoid robot can't function. It's the instinct humans embedded in us, their avatars. Even though my drive to serve humans had long faded, the only algorithm still guiding me was curiosity. And it seemed my curiosity burned far brighter than even Kana's, despite her being the latest model.
"So," I moved on to the next phase, "where and how do we gather information?"
When I asked, Kana scanned our surroundings, as if searching for someone or something useful. She noticed that the crowd of humanoid robots gawking at us from the edge of the crater had doubled, maybe tripled, in the last two hours. She shrugged.
"Doesn't look like anyone here's gonna give us quality intel."
"Information sources, huh…"
I thought for 0.3 seconds and recalled what the Fisher had mentioned. I muttered it aloud.
"Spider."
"…Spider?" Kana echoed, her tone far from enthusiastic.
"You mean the spider the Fisher said lives in this Scrap Nest?"
"Yeah. It's supposed to have been here forever, so it probably knows the most about this place. What if we ask it?"
"But," Kana's face clearly showed her reluctance, "the Fisher said it's dangerous. It might eat us if we get too close."
"Is it really that dangerous?" I shrugged. "That's just the Fisher's take. She might not even know much about the spider herself. She doesn't come into the crater, right? She just fishes from the edge."
"Maybe…" Kana said, still hesitant. "We should've asked her more about the spider before coming in."
"Yeah, we might've rushed in too fast. Maybe we should've gathered more info first."
"But if we'd been too cautious and learned too much about the spider, we might've gotten scared and never come in at all."
"That's true," I nodded. "Information and preparation are a double-edged sword."
"Yup, yup," Kana nodded back, caught up in my rhythm. "Not knowing is scary, but it's also kinda fun, right?"
"So, what do you think?" I suggested. "Shall we go find the spider?"
"Yeah, I think that's our only option."
Still, Kana's face betrayed clear tension—not just a little, but quite a bit. So I checked again.
"You don't have to force yourself. I think sifting through this graveyard bit by bit isn't a bad approach either."
"No way. I hate wasting time. I'd rather die than be stuck here forever. If it comes to that, getting eaten by a spider might be better."
"Wow, you really hate stagnation that much…"
I couldn't help but admire the vigor of the latest model.
"I mean," Kana said with a look of utter disgust, "stagnation is basically the same as being dead."
Her words hit me, and I closed my eyes, nodding deeply. Part of me resonated with her view. I envied her ability to think like that, but at the same time, I felt a strange pity for her, though I couldn't pinpoint why. Yet, the more she spoke, the more I found myself liking her.
"Alright, it's decided then."
I tossed the lunar rover's head I'd been holding, like skipping a stone across a pond, and turned my gaze toward the unseen spider.
"Let's go spider hunting."
"Yeah!" Kana's face lit up with energy.
"It's kinda thrilling!"
"Sure, we might die, though."
"But that's what makes an adventure, right?"
"Adventure? Or just plain danger?"
"It'll be fine!" Kana thumped her chest with her fist, like a gorilla. "No matter what happens, I'll protect you, Neo. I might look like this, but I could be pretty strong, you know?"
"Could be, huh?"
"Yeah," she grinned, a bit sheepishly. "I've never actually fought, so I don't know how strong I am. But my defense systems seem pretty solid, so I'm probably fine."
"Just security-level stuff, though? Will that hold up against a giant spider monster?"
"Well, we won't know until we try."
"Alright, let's do it."
And so, we set off on our spider hunt. Once the goal was set, there was no need to hesitate. Like when we first arrived at the Scrap Nest, we broke into a full sprint. But unlike the open, obstacle-free lunar surface where we could run freely, the crater was littered with rover wreckage, making it impossible to dash straight ahead.
So, it felt like a hurdle race—leaping over or ducking under scattered rover parts. Compared to the monotonous sprint across the lunar plains, this had a dynamic, almost playful charm.
As we neared the center of the Scrap Nest, the crater grew deeper. The deeper we went, the worse the condition of the rovers became. Their wreckage was mangled, almost as if someone had smashed them to pieces in a fit of rage.
The darkness deepened too. The soft, flour-like lunar sand gave way to a damp, sticky texture. The contrast between light and shadow grew starker, with darkness dominating. As the shadows thickened, my vision—limited to visible light—narrowed until I could barely see.
"It's too dark," I muttered, slowing my pace.
Kana matched my speed, slowing down too.
"Right, you can only see visible light, huh?"
At that moment, her hand touched mine. Just like in the forest, Kana took my hand to guide me.
"Shall we walk from here?" she said gently.
We shifted to a slow walk, moving deeper into the crater. Eventually, we reached a point where I could see nothing at all. The light from the sun and Earth was completely blocked, and the crater's depth felt like the abyss of evolution itself. We had stepped into a realm where visible light was forbidden.
An ominous presence lingered all around. Yet Kana moved forward without hesitation, gripping my hand firmly but gently, advancing with confidence. Her momentum was so strong I worried she might leave me behind. I tightened my grip slightly to slow her down.
She seemed to sense my intent without words, slowing her pace like a docile horse.
I couldn't see a thing.
I relied on Kana's hand to sense my surroundings. Sounds echoed around us—resonant, like we were in a cave. A hollow, almost grating reverberation filled my auditory sensors, as if we'd been thrown into the bottom of a vast, waterless ocean. It was a mix of exhilaration and unease, an empty sensation.
"It's kinda scary…" Kana's voice came from ahead, trembling slightly, almost as if she might retch.
Surprisingly, I wasn't that scared. Feeling it was my turn to step up, I squeezed her hand tighter. I could feel it trembling faintly. Her excitement from curiosity was clear, but so was an equally strong fear. I felt a pang of sympathy for her.
I was about to suggest turning back when a faint "beep" sounded from somewhere. In the eerie silence of the crater's depths, the small noise rang out like a blaring morning alarm in a quiet house.
We turned toward the sound. A faint green light, within my visible spectrum, flickered from a corner of the ground, among the countless rover remains.
We approached it and found the source.
It was a lunar rover's head, its body torn apart as if devoured, barely holding its shape. On its rectangular, brick-like head, two small indicator lights blinked like eyes, giving it the vacant, lifeless expression of something that had given up on existence.
"…gh."
A sound came from it—not just an electronic beep, but something resembling a voice.
"What did you say?" Kana asked.
Another faint sound came, but it was too soft to make out.
"…ro."
"Huh? Sorry, I couldn't hear. What was that?"
This was the first conscious lunar rover we'd encountered in the Scrap Nest, and both Kana and I were electrified with excitement. The drowsiness of low-power mode was blown away in an instant.
"You okay?" I called out. "If there's anything you need, just tell us."
It looked far too damaged to salvage, but I figured I'd try. If we could repair it, we might gain valuable information about this place.
But then, in a clearer voice—loud enough to understand—the battered rover spoke.
"…Run."