Marvin entered a hallway lined with blank picture frames. A bit of dust had collected all around, but the paint was intact and the hardwood floor clean. The rain outside sounded strangely distant, each drop a tiny chime against the walls.
Up ahead was a table, sliced in two by a sliver of light peaking out behind the window curtain. A kitchen island. The surface was cleared, and so were the stoves and counters. The cupboards' doors all hung wide open, showing empty interiors. Left of the kitchen was the dining room: a lone chandelier hanging above an upside-down table in an otherwise barren space. Right of the kitchen was a staircase to the second floor.
Marvin had to duck to clear the stairs. He found himself in another hallway with several more picture frames. One of them still held a painting: a lone, vertical object standing before a flood of lights. A person, a pole, a tree trunk—it was too abstract to tell.
Two closed doors stood to Marvin's right, an open door stood directly ahead, and a slightly ajar one stood to his left. Through the left one's crack, he spotted the headboard of a bed; on top of the headboard were several mech figurines. He recognized Ninth Gen and Immortal Ignition.
Is this Saeyung's childhood home? he wondered. Why did she lead me here?
Just then, he noticed a silhouette cross the fully open door. He stalked down the hall, ducked under the frame, and entered a small room: an empty bookshelf on his left, a shuttered window on his right, and a table and chair in front of him. A lone computer and monitor sat on the table. The screen was a bright, white expanse of nothing.
"Hello, Marvin," Saeyung said. She was sitting on the chair, flipping what seemed like a hard drive through her fingers.
"You know my name," Marvin said.
Saeyung didn't respond, just observed him with mild interest.
"Did you…" Marvin found the words impossible to say. If he admitted to being created, then he would admit to so much more. "Are you the reason I'm like this?"
"Of course. Who else could've made you?"
Marvin clenched his fist. "And you killed me, too?"
Saeyung shook her head. "All of us Chairs were notified when your body arrived at the morgue. I was the first one to check, and I found you were sedated, not dead."
"Sedated?"
"They didn't give you enough of the lethal injection, I'm guessing. Your brain was still alive, and I couldn't pass up on the chance." Saeyung frowned and rubbed the back of her neck. "Would you mind sitting down?"
Marvin didn't move. How could she still be making demands when she was cornered?
"On the floor, please," Saeyung said. "I'd like to be eye-level with you."
Marvin wanted to shake his head in disbelief. He wasn't going to do a thing this woman said.
"Where's my body?" he asked.
"Body?"
"My human body." Marvin felt a chill go through his circuits. What if she didn't keep it? What if it's dead like Sunwoo?
Saeyung was silent for a moment, staring blankly up at Marvin through her tinted glasses. Marvin didn't understand the glasses. They weren't dark enough to hide her eyes, unless her eyes deflected light a certain way that she wanted to hide. Or did she just have a condition?
"You want to transfer back, don't you?" she asked at length.
Marvin didn't reply but felt an excited buzz in his chest. The way she said it, it was almost like she was willing to do the transfer herself. She'd completed Legionnaire and there was no use for him anymore, so what was the point of keeping him as an implant?
But what she said next killed any hope of that.
"It's a common misunderstanding, thinking you can project your consciousness into different mediums." Saeyung pursed her lips. "But we're not omniscient, Marvin. We can't transfer any part of ourselves."
Marvin unfocused and refocused his cameras. "What?"
"You can't just teleport into that other body. You're a copy. Your experience begins and ends as this." She gestured to his mechanical frame.
"How do you know?"
"That's just how it is. You're one collection of circuits, your other self is another."
"Then how do I remember what it's like being human?"
Saeyung gave him an incredulous look. "Because you have Marvin's memories?"
"It's more than that. I imagine myself smiling sometimes—"
"Because you activate a few booleans that correspond to joy and a function tells you you are smiling."
"It's not like that."
"It is." Saeyung peered above her glasses. "Think about it. Stop lying to yourself and think. You're banking on the fact that the other Marvin is alive, but if he is, if both of you are existing at the same time, then you can never be in his body. If you believe you can truly transfer your consciousness between two bodies, then you concede that he's dead, and as it stands, there is no way to resurrect someone."
Marvin raised a hand to his head. Placed his cold, metal fingers on his cold skull. She's trying to get in your head. You can become human.
"What about Sunwoo?" he asked. "You said I killed him, but you think he and his consciousness implant are different."
"I never said you're different. My brother will be my brother no matter what medium he exists in, it's just that his experience is restricted within each one."
"And you didn't think of that before you killed him?"
"He would've only been dead to his flesh and bone body. To the rest of us, he would've been—"
Marvin took a step forward, shaking the room. "You made sure a version of him never got to experience life again! How is that not killing him?"
Saeyung clicked her tongue. "I liked you better when you couldn't speak." She tapped the hard drive against her palm and looked at the ceiling as if she were reminiscing. "We thought the transfer had failed, you know. You weren't responding to any stimulation. We tried everything but we couldn't wake you, so we tossed you out. But then Caroline finds you and resurrects you and you turn out perfect. I mean, not in the way I intended, but… human."
Marvin felt what might've been his breath catching in his throat. "You think I'm human?" That seemed to contradict everything she'd said.
Saeyung smiled. "The last time I talked to my mother was when I was elected to the Roundtable. She told me, 'I'll never understand how something like you got so far.' As if I was less than human. Do you think I'm less than human?"
She slid off her glasses, folded them, and tucked them in the pocket of her lab coat. Her eyes were brown. There was nothing special about them.
Maybe it was shock, maybe it was his mind getting muddled with all the bullshit Saeyung was spewing, but Marvin found himself slowly shaking his head.
"Anyone else would think I'm missing some human traits," Saeyung said. "But you know what that's like. You've lost your ability to laugh, your ability to cry. You've lost over two thirds of your neural pathways. But there's still something that makes you deserving of the title."
"How can you say that?" Marvin whispered.
"Oh, I have no right. I'm just saying what I think, and I think you're as human as the rest of us."
Marvin suddenly wanted to sit. His vision began to flicker as his Core tried to process what had been thrown at him. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. He was supposed to find answers. Not this.
I am human. I didn't need her to say that.
And yet if what she said was true about his human self being a separate entity, then he had nothing else to hold on to.
"I should get going," Saeyung said. "Sparrow's about done with Legionnaire."
Marvin looked at her incredulously. "You're under arrest."
"By who? You?"
Marvin didn't reply. She's delusional. How does she think she holds any power right now?
"By Hosaka?"
Marvin nodded.
Saeyung stood and looked up at Marvin. "They won't do anything to me."
"You killed dozens of people!"
Saeyung walked forward into Marvin's shadow. She didn't seem to care that he towered over her, that he could probably decapitate her with a swipe of his hand. She didn't seem to be bothered to crane her neck nearly 90 degrees backwards.
"So kill me."
Marvin doubled back. "What?"
"Get closure for yourself. If I'm taken in by Hosaka, you'll never know for sure what they do to me."
"That's not—"
"You say I've killed all these people. Do you think I deserve to die?"
"That… that's not for me to decide."
"Why not?"
Marvin didn't know what to say. Who decided when a life had to end? The law? But the law was composed of individuals who didn't deserve that power. James Kobayashi didn't have the right to end a life any more than Marvin did.
"Would you feel better if I ordered you to kill me?" Saeyung said. An amused smile crossed her face. "Can you do it? Does your programming allow you?"
Of course I can. Maybe I should.
But he wouldn't. He couldn't murder someone like that.
She's done objectively evil things. You'd be doing the megacity a favor.
But wouldn't he only be giving her what she wanted?
Just then, a siren blared outside the house, causing the windows to shudder. The Inspectors had the building surrounded, most likely.
"Last chance, Marvin."
Marvin shook his head. He was done with this farce. Saeyung would be imprisoned and afterwards they would find out all they could about where his human body was. None of what she said would get to his head; he would make sure of it.
"Alright, well before I go…" Saeyung clicked a key on the computer and a single window popped up on the screen, consisting of a progressing green bar and a button that said open. "You were curious about Caroline, weren't you?"
Marvin's processors dropped dead quiet. On the computer… it couldn't be.
"Her memories. A summary of every one she put into the Memory Bank."
"How…" Marvin stammered.
Saeyung tapped the green bar on the screen. "As a failsafe, the file will self-destruct in one minute. Try downloading it, try moving it anywhere, and it'll delete immediately. Only way to keep it is to open it."
Footsteps thundered in the hall. Marvin switched to his rear camera and saw four Inspectors approaching the door.
Saeyung walked by him and into their midst. One of them handcuffed her, then read her her rights and began questioning her. She and the Inspectors looked so out of place in the hallway. They didn't belong here in this simple, quaint abode, especially the CEO of Ainsel. This place wouldn't have produced someone like her.
That's because this is her house, Marvin realized with a chill. Caroline's house.
He took a step forward. The bar was nearly halfway across the screen. The choice was obvious—he needed those answers. His hand rose. Drifted to the keyboard. Hovered above the space bar.
Stopped.
He couldn't bring his finger down. It was right there in front of him, the promise of solving everything, but he couldn't do it.
What if Caroline's memories don't tell me anything?
Even so, at least he would find out about her involvement in Ainsel AI. He had a right to know that much didn't he, especially after knowing that they'd created him? Who cared if it was an invasion of privacy? It was nothing compared to what the Inspectors had done.
There's no such thing as being a good person in this case, he told himself. You are human. You have the choice to do this. This is what you want.
His index finger curled downwards. Touched the space bar but didn't press down. Behind him, he heard two Inspectors approaching the room.
Just open it. You don't have to read it all. You can scroll through and take pictures.
An Inspector knocked on the open door, and Marvin commanded his finger to apply that last bit of pressure.
The green bar reached its end point and the window disappeared. The screen became blank once more.
Marvin widened his cameras and took the monitor in both hands and squeezed. The screen glitched, then went back to a white canvas when he let go. He pulled out the hard drive, plugged it back in, tried clicking anything that could stir up the slightest disturbance on the screen. But it remained white. The files were gone.
He stood there, frozen, as James Kobayashi walked up beside him and began speaking. Saeyung would be taken into custody. Marvin—or Caroline, as James believed—had done a great service for the megacity. She and her friends would be safe.
Marvin barely heard any of it. He could barely process the emotions churning in his Core. Frustration. Regret. Anger at himself.
And strangely—relief.