6. Heatstroke
The hospital was a grand, standalone mansion.
Its garden was a striking, luxurious feature.
An ivory lawn, adorned with butterfly patterns symmetrical to within a nanometer, spread out at the center, surrounded by deep green and oceanic hues that paradoxically shone with vibrant brightness in the spatial design.
It was an intricately crafted garden, its shimmering beauty perceptible only through non-optical sensors.
The garden seemed to be shaped like a fathomless miniature black hole, making it impossible to step onto. A narrow, smoothly paved concrete path cut through its center, serving as the only walkway.
Sturdy metallic railings were firmly installed to prevent slipping, and as I walked along, protected by them, I gazed at the koi made of light swimming in the black hole's pond. Together with Jinri, I entered the hospital.
Upon stepping inside, a consultation room appeared immediately, without preamble.
There was no wasted space—no corridors, no waiting rooms. The moment the front door opened, the consultation room unfolded directly before us.
Closing the door shut out the city's clamor in an instant.
The interior was entirely black, but the wallpaper was adorned with the same light-koi patterns I'd seen outside, drifting leisurely. In a corner of this expansive, almost floating space, a man sat in front of a bar counter.
The stool he sat on appeared to stretch kilometers downward, but it had a holographic texture. Behind the bar, instead of liquor bottles, countless glass cats lined the shelves, most of them gleaming as if asleep.
"Doctor," Jinri called out to the man.
He looked like a fifth or sixth grader, around 12 years old, wearing an oversized white coat that clearly didn't fit. The hem of the coat drooped to the floor like a discarded blanket.
Indeed, it looked less like a coat and more like bedding.
His face was sleepy, and he was knitting with sky-blue thread in both hands. Though his expression was drowsy, his hands moved with astonishing speed, fingers blurring beyond visibility.
"Oh, Jinri-kun," the boy said, acknowledging her. His nearly closed eyes opened slightly, as if he'd spotted something intriguing.
"Who'd you hit today?"
At that question, Jinri's face twisted with intense awkwardness. She pointed at me with a solemn gesture, as if confessing a sin.
The boy looked at me and said, "You're the 167th."
"That's awful," I said, incredulous. "How is your license not revoked?"
Before Jinri could respond, the doctor answered for her.
"This city prioritizes cars over pedestrians."
"Let me introduce you," Jinri interjected, as if to change the subject, pointing at the boy.
"This is the hospital's chief engineer."
With that, the boy threw a shuriken-like business card at me. It struck my forehead, and his information flooded in.
Reading the card, I could tell he was, as expected of a chief, an exceptional engineer.
The shuriken-like card was designed to simultaneously scan my condition—it doubled as part of the diagnostic process.
The engineer spoke.
"Memory loss, huh?"
He nailed it in one go. As expected of a skilled professional.
Gracefully brushing back his white bangs, he returned to his knitting, his hands moving even faster than before.
"Hang on a sec, I'm coding right now."
Apparently, the knitting was a form of coding.
Having lost my programming knowledge along with my memories, I could only nod and accept it as "that's how it works."
In about three seconds, he finished the knitting and stopped abruptly.
Then, he locked eyes with each of the glass cats behind the bar, his face contorting as if troubled.
Finally, he declared with a groan, "You've got one week left to live."
"…"
A bolt from the blue.
Scales of light seemed to spill from the cats' eyes, rippling across the bar.
"Why?" I asked immediately, too shocked to process.
Of course, one week isn't a short time. It's long enough to cycle through countless thoughts or traverse the universe thousands of times.
But from a human perspective, it passes in the blink of an eye—a fleeting moment.
Ultimately, being shaped like a human, I couldn't escape the influence of time's rapid flow. No, I was in a position to be crushed by its brevity.
From the perspective of this humanoid robot's body, looking at the hardware rather than the software, one week was practically instantaneous.
So, while the software remained calm, the hardware—my body—was trembling.
My body shook.
My hands shook.
My visual sensors trembled, blurring my vision.
The hospital's air conditioning was perfectly regulated, with no humidity and a comfortable temperature. Yet, I felt profoundly uneasy.
"Heatstroke," the diagnosis came.
Heatstroke.
I knew the word, but hearing it felt like the first time, as if it were an unfamiliar foreign term ringing in my ears.
"That's rare. Heatstroke, in this day and age?"
The engineer delivered the diagnosis matter-of-factly.
Jinri, listening beside me, seemed as shocked as I was, covering her mouth with both hands. The word "heatstroke" carried a weight that was undeniably jarring.
Among humanoid robots, it hit harder than cancer.
"The cause is simple. For you, this city's nights are too hot. You need to get out and bathe in sunlight soon, or you'll die."