act8mini

卡西米尔2 10-2

Next, verify language logic function integrity.

PRTS, tell me a story.

Alright.

Ah, it's you.

This entire time... You have been lingering there...

Since your last visit, it has been 1555555555555—

Hm? This sounds familiar...

—555 days.

Welcome to the Primitive Rhodes Island Terminal Service.

Confirming permissions—42.

—Welcome, LeaderOne.

I'm pretty sure I heard this before. Eh, seriously, I want a story, not something like this...

Please understand that this is outside my area of expertise.

Okay, okay. Let's have everyone understand each other so we'll all live a better tomorrow, right? Yeah, I get it.

Looks like the language logic is doing okay.

Now let's look at the other parts.

Is it really necessary to keep inspecting these areas for which PRTS has never reported any issues?

Of course!

It's been a very long time since we did any data archiving on you. This is just like the regular physicals we do on humans. Have to make sure you're healthy and all.

Programs have no concept of life.

I kinda think you do, though.

Should I perhaps take that as a compliment?

Of course.

May I ask a question, then?

What exactly does a human think of the visual representation of my archives?

It's kinda hard to describe...

When I first took over the systems here, everything was a huge mess. Thinking back, that was a real disaster.

Back then, most of your information was encrypted and ordered in such a scrambled way... Well, you're still that way right now, of course.

If I were to describe you as a human, with the state you're in, I guess I'd say you had a combustion engine in your body.

But all your components like the ignition and whatnot and your piston are flipped upside down.

To the point that... I'm not even sure if you're a system that exists within the bounds of common sense.

Eh, don't be like that. That's not a bad thing. I'm just saying how unique you are!

Though I still can't make heads or tails of all these branching structures in your database, let alone the rules for how things are even read in that thing...

At the very least, Kal'tsit and I managed to fix and reorganize a decent chunk of it.

How's that? No one knows you better than me right now!

I feel terribly sorry that I can't help with that, LeaderOne.

Haha, why so polite all of a sudden? If anyone could just self-diagnose themselves no matter what kinda weird diseases they had, then all the doctors in the world would be out of a job.

Eh, what's this stuff in here?

Let's see...

Have you forgotten? This is—

—The sarcophagus rescue operation simulated test runs!

There were so many complicated routes... and we have so much data on these simulations. I may not have gone there myself, but I can recognize more or less all the pathways they could've taken.

'—Process 04291601, validation failed...'

'—Process 07201159, expenditure exceeded, validation failed...'

'—Process 08210957, validation succeeded...'

'—Process 09081800, validation failed, terminated at...'

My impression is that we did run this quite a few times...

But—

'—Process 11290957, validation succeeded...'

'—Process 12010955...'

'—Process tally: 167; execution nodes: 3711.'

Did it seriously run THAT many times though?!

While that may be the case, the Doctor was successfully evacuated from Chernobog in only two of the simulations.

These are all the simulations I was able to complete with the short amount of time I had. Had there been more time, I would have conducted even more test runs to find an even more optimal and stable rescue plan.

If I remember correctly, the actual rescue mission was planned around these two simulations' results. If it wasn't for these two successful runs, we could never even have figured out how to get the Doctor out.

But actually...

In actuality, we made three times as many sacrifices as we had anticipated.

If this had occurred during the simulations, according to our procedures, this operation would likely have been called off.

That's all in the past, no use talking about it. It's not like I can put a time machine together... Hey, that sounds like a fun idea though. Let me jot it down.

Uh, anyways... if we'd called this operation off, that'd also mean...

Heh, I don't really wanna say this, and it probably sounds like I'm exaggerating, and it's too sentimental, but the idea pops into my head every once in a while. If we'd called it off—

It would've cost us our future.

LeaderOne.

Hmm? What's up?

Is it really reasonable to bet it all on one single person?

I can understand what had driven you to make this decision. However, considering the odds, I do not support an operation like this.

That is considering both your safety as well as that of others.

Hmm... PRTS, I'm sure you know this yourself.

The Doctor stands for a lot of things.

It's understandable.

I used to wonder how Babel... uh, or Rhodes Island without the Doctor would've been.

What do you think would have happened to us? Amiya and Kal'tsit probably would've stayed out of Ursus, and we would never have crossed paths with Reunion. Don't you think we would've been in a better shape?

We might also have been driven into a corner and taken even worse losses. Everyone would get the pink slip, and then we'd all just split and go home, wherever home's supposed to be.

I am sensing some kind of dry humor in your statement.

It's a joke alright.

If I actually thought that way, Kal'tsit would've thrown me off the bridge a long time ago!

Let's face it, though... Compared to now, we had a much harder time during those few years without the Doctor, don't you agree?

You know how miserable I was when Kal'tsit was our only boss. She'd always work my ass off all day, like I was supposed to be a machine that ran 24/7 too. She never thought to give me a single break!

Seriously, I thought I was probably gonna go bald, working that much!

Real-time logging activated. The previous statement has been committed to the database.

Eh? W-Why'd you...! Don't record anything! We can't let Kal'tsit hear any of that...!

Eh... I'm not saying this is anything bad. We are all here because we wanted to follow Theresa's dreams, her ideals. This goes for everyone that was at Babel too.

It's just...

Ever since Theresa left us, all of us spent so much time just to get used to things. Some of us are probably still confused, even now.

It isn't often that you elaborate on how you think.

Haha, you think I'm just the kinda gal who stands by to watch things happen?

Are you not?

Hm, your observations and computations are a lot more objective and accurate than a human's. Maybe you're right. Here, let me tell you a story.

Do you know what it was like when they came to Kazdel to look for me?

I'm not sure if I ever told you about my family... A family of vampires. You can smell the rotten stench in the words alone, right?

You come from a branch of the Sarkaz lineage, and a very ancient one at that.

Ancient, and old-fashioned too.

For the longest time, I didn't know if I had a talent for the vampire Arts. Of course, it wouldn't matter if I did. I was never into stuff like that, not even one bit.

You could say I'm a little... Okay, not just a little. I'm very unorthodox.

I only wanna do what I wanna do, and that's why I never stepped out of my little garret.

My family almost kicked me out a couple of times, but for some reason they never went there.

You sound like you are reminiscing about your family.

I guess I am. Back then, I was just a kid who didn't care about anything or anyone else. These days, I'm starting to miss home a little...

I had a few friends. We did all kinds of stupid stuff. Crazy stuff.