Robot Protection Zone Chapter 74

After Didi disappeared, William lived a devastated life.

Days, weeks, and over a month passed since Didi left home. Didi, who was last seen in an outlying area, had vanished without a trace, quite literally.

He hadn’t been to the company in a long time and lived soaked in alcohol day and night. Then he would take out Didi’s clothes and spread them all over the bed. He made a nest with Didi’s clothes and buried himself in it, chasing the faint warmth that remained.

Today was no exception. He had just managed to fall asleep in a drunken haze, hugging Didi’s clothes, when he was woken by the continuous ringing of the phone.

It was Thomas. He was about to ignore it, but then thought it might be a call saying they had found Didi, so he answered.

“…Thomas.”

— I figured it out!

As soon as the call connected, a booming shout filled the room. His voice sounded somewhat excited. Could it be that he found Didi?

— The emotion code! I figured out how to activate the encrypted emotion code!

…It wasn’t.

As soon as he realized it was unrelated to Didi, his interest immediately faded. The only thing important to William right now was Didi’s whereabouts.

“I’m not interested.”

— W-w-w-wait! Don’t hang up yet!

“…What is it now.”

— The emotion code, all we need is Didi!

“What…?”

— The emotion code is activated by Didi’s voice!

William couldn’t say anything and quietly shut his mouth. Thomas continued to speak without a moment’s pause to catch his breath.

Thomas’s explanation was this. The encrypted emotion code was automatically activated in response to Didi’s voice. Eve, and all the other robots that had shown abnormal reactions until now, all had the same cause. They had gained emotions for the simple reason of having a conversation with Didi.

Thomas couldn’t hide his excitement, saying that if only Didi returned, they might be able to analyze his voice and completely restore the emotion code.

“……”

Even after the explanation was all over, William said nothing. A heavy silence hung in the room.

— William?

As William remained silent for a long time, Thomas called his name in a puzzled voice from the other end of the line. After a long while, William finally opened his mouth.

“Cancel the new product launch.”

— What?

“I’m making an official announcement tomorrow. Get it ready.”

— No, the shipments start next week, what are you…!

Thomas’s flustered voice continued, but William hung up without listening to the end.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he wordlessly wiped his face. Complicated emotions spread from his forehead to his fingertips, following his finely trembling fingers.

His grandfather was right.

He could finally understand why he had forbidden the creation of human-bots, why he had discarded the emotion function he had worked so hard to complete. It wasn’t simply a matter of technology. People are bound to give their hearts to robots with emotions. And as long as the other party is a robot, that relationship is bound to collapse one way or another.

Didi is a robot.

And yet, he laughed at the smallest things, grew sad for trivial reasons, and was even jealous at times. He was warm when held in his arms, and his heart felt empty when he wasn’t around.

William, even knowing Didi was a robot, had unknowingly given his most precious thing to Didi. Yes, he had fallen in love. He had given his heart to a robot.

Didi, whom he had thought of as a mere robot, had turned his life completely upside down and disappeared. Thanks to that, William chased Didi’s traces every day, and lived each day in agony.

If even he, who had never given his affection to a robot, had become like this, would ordinary people be any different?

If robots with emotions were to roam around, the whole world would collapse. His grandfather must have thought that a being capable of breaking a person down to this extent should not have been brought into the world in the first place.

Yes, a robot with emotions should never have been made.

At the news that William would be making an appearance for the first time in a long time, reporters were packed tightly at the company entrance.

Spenic, on the verge of its new product launch, was seeing its stock price soar day after day with anticipation, and the eyes of the press blocking his way to work were also mixed with fervent expectation. Questions poured in continuously, but William, with a stiff expression, did not open his mouth the entire time he was entering the company.

And not long after, Spenic delivered the bombshell news to the world: the cancellation of the new humanoid product launch.

After being hounded by executives and investors all day, William dragged his tired body back home.

Perhaps because it was his first outing in a while, a heavy fatigue pressed down on his whole body as he entered the front door. A throbbing headache was getting worse. William urgently needed Didi’s clear laughter.

Clink.

The moment he collapsed onto the sofa with a cigarette in his mouth, a small sound brushed past his ear. He looked up and saw Sophia placing a mug on the table.

Coffee? He was dreadfully tired anyway, so he was about to drink it to wake himself up, but the liquid that touched the tip of his tongue was surprisingly sweet. It was warm honey water. William took his lips off the mug and looked at Sophia.

It was the first time Sophia had offered honey water on her own. He was looking at her with curiosity when he was suddenly reminded of the time Didi made him honey water when he was suffering from a hangover. It seemed she had learned from watching Didi’s actions at that time.

Come to think of it, what did Sophia and Didi do while I was away? He was the one who had told her not to report Didi’s actions, but only now did he become curious about how Didi had been.

“Sophia, Didi… what did Didi do while I was away?”

“He mostly waited for William on the sofa.”

William’s heart ached at the words that he had waited for him. Did he wait for his master and then, unable to bear it any longer, go out to find him?

Then why was he only heading in a direction further and further away from home… Of course, it was his fault for not coming home for weeks without a word.

The thought of Didi having his charger stolen and collapsing somewhere or being kidnapped still tore his heart apart. He regretted having treated him so roughly under the pretext that he was a robot.

“Did he… sleep well?”

“He slept in William’s room late at night. On the last day, he went to sleep in Didi’s room.”

William froze at the following answer. No wonder he had thought he could smell Didi on the bed in Didi’s room, even though he hadn’t used it.

Didi normally would have only slept in my bed… Why did he suddenly go to his own room? He might have been disappointed in his master who didn’t return for a long time and eventually gave up waiting.

“Was there anything else? The day before… yes, the day before he left, what did he do?”

William tried to hear about Didi even if it was through Sophia. In the past, this would have been unimaginable. Him, asking a robot, and pleadingly at that. But if he couldn’t hear Didi’s story even like this, he felt he couldn’t endure it any longer.

“He watched TV while waiting for William.”

“TV? Did he watch a movie or something?”

“He watched the news, perhaps wondering if William would appear. And then William really did appear.”

“I did?”

William’s eyes widened. To think he even watched the news, which he never used to, because he wanted to see him. A corner of his heart tingled.

“Was there a reason for me to be on? I hope I looked good… What was Didi’s reaction?”

A smile appeared on William’s face for the first time in a long time as he anticipated Didi’s reaction when he actually appeared on the news that Didi had watched, hoping his master would be on. He must have been wearing a sullen expression, and then smiled brightly as if he had the whole world. The image of Didi’s eyes scanning his face meticulously, as if not to miss a single wrinkle, warmed his heart.

“It was news about William’s new lover. Didi had a sad expression on his face.”

However, William’s happiness was brutally shattered by Sophia’s following words.

Ah, that did happen. There was a man he had briefly met in an attempt to deny his feelings for Didi, but after just a few meals, he eventually cut off contact. He had forgotten that such a thing had even happened, but it had popped up again from an unexpected place.

He hadn’t cared about dating rumors, but he never thought it would be on the news. Of all things, he never thought Didi would see it.

For Didi, who loved him so ardently, it must have been heartbreaking news. Wait a minute. So, is that why he left? It wasn’t just a short walk, nor was it to look for his master?

“……”

Realizing that Didi’s departure was all his fault, William’s face looked as if the world was crumbling.

“It was the exact same expression William has now.”

Sophia’s next words made him feel even more miserable. The strong shock, as if he had been hit on the back of the head, made William quietly get up from his seat and stagger toward Didi’s room.

Entering Didi’s room, William realized that he could no longer smell Didi in here and began to rummage through the room. The dressing room, the bathroom, the bed, there was no trace of Didi anywhere.

The only remaining traces of Didi were all left after he had messed them up himself. The clothes that had been neatly hanging were now scattered messily on the bed and floor, and the bathroom and room were filled with the smell of the alcohol he had drunk and the cigarettes he had smoked. William sank to the messy floor.

“Ha… haha…”

Didi’s sad face, when he had always been either smiling or looking embarrassed. He couldn’t imagine it, but the more he tried to think about it, the more his chest hurt, so he couldn’t bring himself to picture it.

He couldn’t even imagine how he would live if he couldn’t find Didi.

Just a robot, just a robot, he wanted to laugh at himself for having lived with those words as a habit. It was funny, the sight of himself, about to offer his entire life to the robot he had looked down on so much.

He still felt as if Didi would come back to him, smiling as usual. As if he would whisper that he had just stepped out for a bit because he was jealous that his master had a lover, that he loved his master, and return.

But he knew the truth.

The Didi he knew would never come back on his own.

Didi had now disappeared, leaving no trail to follow. It was too late for regrets.