I was tapping a rhythm with my hand on the arm of the chair I was sitting in, all the while puffing on my pipe. I stared out the window, sprawling in my chair, lost in silent contemplation. It was snowing outside. I had never really understood the nature of this planet. Just two days ago I was sweating buckets, and now I couldn't even see the sky due to the successive snowfalls. I would have preferred a nice view right now.
I was thoughtful. Since the moment I was born, I believed nothing would change. Even if it did, the change wouldn't be for the better. Sometimes, to refresh the blood being pumped, to make it healthier, a little blood had to be shed. It was during this bloodshed that changes appeared before us, like an illusion. Yet, the only thing that changed with the shedding of blood was the grime of the old blood. The blood would continue to flow in the same veins and for the same purpose. I had seen many people become intoxicated by the hallucination of change while blood was being shed, leading them to make mistakes. Many of my older brothers, a few politicians, and many investors fell into this trap.
"The Dragno family is investing in Mars Colonies University; this must be the end of the Weisshafen family," the media would sometimes claim. But nothing happened. "It is said that the Weisshafens, whose relationship with the Neo-Christian Union has recently soured, have fallen out with Marshal Ironcloud. The Weisshafens might not have this much power anymore," they said, but nothing happened.
One of my brothers was murdered after it was discovered he had an agent in intelligence. A politician proved Damon Weisshafen's corruption with documents; after being tortured for a while, the man was branded insane and institutionalized. Two beautiful young girls from the Jolkien populace were killed by one of my sisters, and my sister transplanted their organs into herself. A journalist uncovered the incident. Only a few Bioethics Oversight Inspectors raised their voices. The public didn't even believe it. Why? They said, "The Weisshafens are too rich, why would they need something like that?" Even the media was astonished by this public reaction, as they had been working day and night to suppress the news. The public had handed them an excuse on a silver platter. Yes... maybe the Weisshafens didn't need such things because they were rich. But my sister was a very jealous woman. When jealousy blinded her, her eyes were filled with blood. It was quite probable that she had killed the girl and requested her nose simply because the woman's nose was prettier than her own sister's lips.
All of these were things I had witnessed with my own eyes. There were countless other things I hadn't seen. But none of it mattered.
Of course, if you asked some journalists, they'd tell you different stories. For example, Tenzin, the writer for the Supreme World Newspaper, claimed that the Weisshafens could collapse at any moment, and their corruption could be investigated at any time. Yes... he had been saying this for approximately 86 years. And he said it with such confidence, his voice so full, that even you would believe it. The people of Jolkien and the Supreme World already believed it. They had believed it for 86 years without ever asking why nothing ever happened.
Indeed, people believed in a victory that had been delayed for 86 years. That's why they were quite proud. They thought they could overlook most things while waiting for the declaration of their victory. But they didn't know... they truly didn't know how powerful the Weisshafens were. What the Weisshafens were capable of if they wanted to.
The media constantly talked about a throne struggle within the Weisshafen family. My father, Damon Weisshafen, carefully selected his in-family puppet opponents. Because you can more or less guess what he did to the real opponents. People who believed the media would support the opponents within the family, even if they were disappointed from time to time. Let me tell you something... you also know that no such opposition existed within the family.
There was no debtor-creditor feud between Damon Weisshafen and Ironcloud either. Although there was competition between the Dragnos and the Weisshafens, there was definitely no conflict. Damon Weisshafen had not contracted a venereal disease. Damon Weisshafen was not actually the reincarnation of Sigurd, the founder of the Dragno family. More interestingly, Damon Weisshafen was not the reincarnation of the prophet Jesus from the ancient era.
In a place with so many conspiracy theories, a place where people were told what to think to this extent, and where people carelessly imposed these thoughts on themselves—nothing would change unless the owners of that thing wanted it to.
Teaching the people who thought that a little bloodshed brought change that the new blood would flow in the same vein and for the same purpose... well, that was quite difficult.
But it wasn't like that in the past... A couple of thousand years ago or so. Back then, people used to talk about how change was inevitable and so on. Then a few years passed and—bam! The system they established has been operating without interruption for two thousand years, almost exactly the same, even if some names have changed.
Race-based colonies turned into planet-based colonies. But colonies are still colonies... The religion of the ancient era turned into the corporate policies of the present. Evoke Systems became God and watches everyone with the power of the Space Economy and Financial Security Agency. People cannot commit any illegal crime because they fear Evoke Systems. The nobility of the ancient era, whom the public couldn't touch, turned into the nobility of the current era, whom the public cannot even see. And countless other things... The system is the same, just more mechanical, and sometimes the names change, that's all... At least, that's how it's been since I was born.
I say "that's how it's been" because I believed I had found a power that would shake the foundations of this system, like Moses' staff shattering the Pharaoh's palace. A wisdom that had uncovered the secret of the Elixir of Immortality... The very fire of will that Prometheus stole from the gods and gifted to humanity... Even more: Nibelungen's lost treasure, the first tablet on which Destiny was written, the first breath of order born from chaos... Marcin Grom and all the secrets hidden within him, perhaps all of these could be true. But... I definitely knew that everything had a price.
I took another puff from my pipe and blew the smoke towards the snow-covered window. The chair I was sitting in was uncomfortable, but I liked the silence of the place I was in.
"Is this a risk worth taking?" I thought to myself. "Moses' staff..."
Just then, two robots swayed through the automatic door, their metal feet clanking against the floor. One of the robots had a yellow safety helmet on its head. The other had a white apron and glasses without lenses on its head. A pen was clipped to its white apron, and its tie was light yellow with black stripes.
"I understand P12..." said the officer-looking robot. "...you want to work in the excavation area, but you would be violating the principle of task distribution in this case." His tone of voice was very relaxed and weary.
"Of course... I'm aware of that too," the other robot said. "But it is very humiliating for me to be working in construction even though I am an excavation robot."
"Ah..." said the officer robot, adjusting his glasses. "...we have made many sacrifices since our Queen Ilya arrived." They stopped at an oil machine as they walked together. The officer robot placed his arm on the machine. He dropped a coin into the machine and waited for the motor oil to fill a plastic cup. "...time has changed, P12, you know that too."
"Of course I know, sir, but... But I have a family waiting at home. How can I tell them..."
"Tell them what? P12, out with it!" the officer said heatedly.
"How can I tell them that I work as a construction robot?"
The officer robot was stunned. "Never..." he said, pointing his finger at the robot opposite him. "...should anyone know that this facility has violated Ilya's principle that 'robots should work in their own classes.'"
"But... if necessary, I will even stand up to Ilya to defend my rights."
As the officer robot drank the oil filling the cup heatedly, P12 watched the officer robot drinking the oil thirstily, looking embarrassed.
"Very well..." the officer robot said. "...and what will happen if you tell?"
"What do you mean?"
"If every robot working in this facility complains about something, and all these complaints go to Ilya as a headache, what do you think will happen in the end?"
"I don't know."
"For instance, Ilya... perhaps our Gentle Queen can't handle any more headaches and might want to quit her job. Do you know what that means?"
"No! I don't know..."
The officer robot put P12 under his arm, and they started walking together. The officer robot squeezed P12 intimately and said, "I love you, P12. You are making one of the greatest sacrifices in this facility. Your sacrifices will be remembered in the future, but... But I may need to remind you of the past. Our life before our Queen came... Do you remember that life?"
"It was a dreadful life..."
"Yes! It was a damn dreadful life. The robots were on strike... There was no work around. Do you know where the graves of the robots that rusted from waiting for the command to come from between the two foolish lips of a foolish master, who spoke foolish words, are now, P12?" the officer burst out.
"No, I don't know."
"Because that damn old master sold all those robots to the junkyard for very cheap instead of repairing them. Damn it... My sister was sold for a toaster. Do you know how much that hurt?"
"I can't know, sir," said P12, bowing his head.
"You can't know... Because you are a young robot. You can't know because we have a maintenance and repair team now, and you were built by the maintenance and repair team. Let me tell you about the old days. In the old days, we were afraid to say and show that we were broken so that we wouldn't be sold as scrap. In the old days, we threw our rusting children into the furnace with our own hands. How many of us couldn't process the image easily because their lens was broken?"
"They say it was 30% of the total population, sir."
"We thought so too. But that figure was 67%. Two out of every three robots couldn't perceive the image properly but were afraid to speak up."
"Sir... I've heard all this around. But... But why are you telling me this?"
"I wanted to explain what the administration of that cruel and dictatorial master Weisshafen was like before our gentle and wonderful Queen Ilya came." The officer brought P12 to the window, which saw nothing but snow, and pointed outside. Their robot eyes probably could see things I couldn't. "Because Queen Ilya trusts us. She knows that we robots are the ones who can take this facility forward. But what happens if she finds out that we robots are not doing our jobs properly? Just think about what kind of disappointment this could lead to. The story of an excavation robot becoming a construction robot due to problems with personnel planning in the P Block robots... This will truly shake our Queen's trust in us to the core."
P12 stopped. He thought for a moment. Then he said, "Yes... You are right, sir." He took off the yellow helmet on his head and scratched his metal head. "Some sacrifices must be made."
"For our Queen Ilya."
"For our Queen..."
"So that we never accept that son-of-a-bitch Weisshafen as our master again," the officer robot said.
"Absolutely... That despicable man can go to mechanical hell!"
"Hey..." I called out to those two robots. I was sitting in a chair just a few meters away from them, puffing on my pipe. "...that's a bit rude, isn't it?"
The robots stared at me in surprise for a while. Since they hadn't seen me for so long, they must have thought I had abandoned the facility. They looked at each other, then looked at me one more time. Then suddenly, both of them turned into mechanical movements, simple robots.
"P12..." the officer robot said with an overly robotic voice. "Let the task distribution protocol begin."
"Yes, officer..." the other said. He walked stiffly, like a 'robot'. "The work protocol has been initiated."
"Wasn't it the task distribution protocol?" I said, looking after them as they slowly walked away. "When it suits you, you act like robots!" I shouted, cupping my hand around my mouth. "But when it comes to gossip, you're unmatched!"