Mika tried, as if to fight back, to pull up a memory. The ramyeon Jeong-guk had cooked. The brief words they had exchanged on the way to work. What was that joke he had made — what did Jeong-guk’s face… look like…
The memory was hazy. As if it had been processed with a Gaussian blur, the scenes had outline but no shape. The ramyeon, the morning commute, the café where they had picked their wedding-invitation design — all of them. Each one was nothing more than a command Mika had issued to recall, with no result returned. They must have happened. But they were in no memory of hers.
To the bewildered Mika, Pluto asked:
“Have you ever made contact with an actual human being?”
“What?”
As Mika asked back, a sequence of images flashed through her head like a slideshow flickering past. The tray drone that had brought her coffee. The robot receptionist at the front desk. And the holographic chairman! These memories were sharp!
“Dr. Jang Jin-gyu! And his secretary, Rachel! They saw me! They met me!”
Mika cried out. But Pluto came back at her, calm.
“They already know what you really are.”
The camera drone projected a piece of footage into the air. It was Pluto’s own viewpoint — looking through the window of the great mansion, beneath an old wisteria. Dr. Jang Jin-gyu and Rachel were laughing as they spoke with someone. The figure of that someone was almost there, and yet not — barely visible at all.
“My true identity? Who am I supposed to be?”
Mika asked, half-drowning in fear. Pluto answered.
“You are — Leo.”
“Aaagh!”
A strangled cry broke from Mika’s mouth before she could stop it. Mika’s face drained white. What in the world does that mean? She couldn’t believe it.
In front of the Sector 3 building, Leo’s red LED sensor — on patrol — hummed and ran horizontally. It looked almost as if it were echoing what Pluto had just said.
Inside the factory, Mika trembled in shock. Pluto spoke calmly.
“When you witnessed Jo In-cheol again, out in the field —”
A new piece of footage appeared in the air inside the factory. It showed Jo In-cheol coming out of the Sector 3 building with a bottle, draining the last drop of whisky from the bottle, then hurling it to the ground. As Jo In-cheol staggered toward a wall to take a piss, undoing his zipper, the headlights of a vehicle flashed behind him. Squinting in the high-beam glare, Jo In-cheol cursed — “Who the hell —!” — and tried to make out who was sitting in the driver’s seat. But no matter how hard he looked, there was no one in the driver’s seat.
“What the hell? Why is an empty car moving? Whose orders is this?!”
As the drunk Jo In-cheol staggered, vroom — vroom — Leo’s car hit the accelerator.
“What — what’s going on?!”
Vrooom! Leo’s car charged at Jo In-cheol.
Bang!
Struck by the car, Jo In-cheol went down. Aaagh — bleeding out, Jo In-cheol let out a moan. Eeeek — Leo’s car automatically shifted into reverse.
“What — what are you?!”
Backing up ten meters, Leo’s car gunned the engine again — vrooom — and drove straight at Jo In-cheol once more.
Bang!
Jo In-cheol was thrown five meters forward, slammed flat onto the ground. After that he didn’t move at all. Drip — drop — drop — a few drops of Jo In-cheol’s blood fell from Leo’s front bumper. Clack — koong — a robot stepped up alongside Leo’s car. It was police robot Pluto. Pluto scanned Jo In-cheol and said:
“Respiration arrest confirmed. Cardiac arrest confirmed. Jo In-cheol — death determination complete.”
Leo’s external LED sensors hummed and swept rapidly left and right. On the monitor inside Leo’s car, a mission-complete message appeared.
> TASK COMPLETED. > CASE_2034_0423 > AUTH: [REDACTED]
“Hidden command execution complete. Partition separation complete. Initializing operating system.”
The message scattered, and an initialization-in-progress mode came up on Leo’s monitor.
Watching the footage, Mika — inside the factory — began to back away, step by step.
“Then what about me? Who, exactly, is the me standing here?”
Pluto crooked a finger. The camera drone shot a beam and built a mirror in the air. Mika didn’t want to turn and look.
“Look at the mirror. Your real self is there.”
Mika… slowly… turned to the mirror. And the Mika in the mirror — was not there.
What was in the mirror —
was a small butterfly, in flight.
The small butterfly-shaped drone in the mirror trembled and shook, fluttering wildly through the air.
“Aaagh! What is this?! That’s not me!”
In sheer terror, Mika screamed. Mika’s scream rang through every corner of the abandoned factory.
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