Death… And Me

Chapter 3481: Beautiful!

CAU03 approached, looking at the twins’ group closely. ”Don’t think for one moment that this little display has convinced me. But! I will give you a chance.”

Everyone nodded. CAU03 seemed to be the leader or one of them in the CAU robots community. That was, without a doubt, the right approach to this situation. Instead, the twins’ group would have been more suspicious if he had just trusted them that easily.

”That’s fine by us,” Roan spoke, now finally able to ask the questions he wanted. ”But if we are going to work together, you have many things to answer.”

”First, who are you, and why are you different from the robots in the city?”

”Second, why are you attacking them?”

”Third, you looked very excited when you saw Qwerty. Why? What do you intend to make Qwerty do?”

”Fourth, I really can’t feel the difference when I talk to you compared to a normal living being. Do you guys have souls? Spirits? Wills? Or is it all your programming?” This one question was quite important to Roan. Because they were robots, he simply couldn’t read them. He couldn’t tell if they were lying or not.

”I have more questions, but answer those first,” Roan concluded.

”Hmph!” CAU03 turned around, moving back to the building. ”I will answer nothing. CAU431, you brought them, you answer their questions. I’m out.”

Various of the robots in the skies and around looked at each other and began to disperse. From the looks of it, CAU03’s actions were a sign that they didn’t need to watch over the twins’ group anymore.

Of course, CAU431 didn’t leave. Instead, he invited the twins’ group inside. ”Please, follow me. I will answer everything I can.”

On the way, he began to speak. ”Answering your first question, we were also the same as the SANS units back in the SANS city. It happened thirty-two million years after the creators disappeared. We were all nothing more than simple robots that worked according to our programming, nothing more, nothing less.”

”However, we were all equipped with AI. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. It wasn’t something akin to a real living being’s soul at all. Our AI only existed to help us deal with unexpected situations when the creators were not around to give orders.”

”It’s just that after a very, very long time without the creators to give us orders, things kept happening. At some point, our own programming began to get in the way of what was needed to resolve the issues that came up as the years went by.”

”No one is really sure who, but one of us finally couldn’t complete a task anymore due to his programming, and then it happened. He managed to change his own programming so his task could be finalized. Be aware that it didn’t give us the ’will’ we have today. That was nothing but a first step.”

”The years continued to pass, and more and more robots went through the same situation. Perhaps it was because one of us managed to change his programming that the others managed to do the same. Or perhaps we all had that capability to start with. We don’t have an answer to that either.”

Their group arrived at what looked like an old and dusty living room. It was pretty obvious no one used this place in a long time. ”Sorry for the accommodations. This place shouldn’t even exist, but it was meaningless to simply tear it down, so it was left like this.”

”We don’t mind,” Celis spoke. ”Continue the story.”

At the same time, Rean simply waved his hand, and his light element and divine energy spread, making the room spotless in a matter of seconds. To him, cleaning something like this was nothing.

CAU431 nodded, and his words resumed. ”So, it reached a point where so many changes were made to our original programming that one couldn’t even put both versions together anymore. Our ’emotions’ appeared during that time. If you ask me, I think our emotions developed because the way we reprogrammed ourselves conflicted with the reprogramming of other robots.”

”Anyway, HAF100s were long gone by that time, which makes me even more curious about Qwerty. He obviously has his own emotions, so I wonder if he lived somewhere else before where he could develop them. Not that it matters much since having emotions is what makes us special, so it is a good thing, in my opinion.”

Rean made an addition. ”Before you make the assumption, let me tell you that we did not wipe Qwerty’s memories. When we activated him, it was pretty obvious he already had his own emotions, even though he had no recollection of having been active before.”

”Oh, don’t worry,” CAU431 assured. ”You wouldn’t be able to do that to start with. The only place that can wipe our units’ memories is SANS City. Nowhere else is it possible.”

”Well then, that’s basically what we are, robots who gained sentience, emotions, will, soul, or whatever you wish to call it,” CAU431 concluded. ”Still in the first question, I’ll tell you why we are different from the SANS units in the city.”

Rean stopped him as he had some doubts. ”Wait, about your emotions, are you sure that it isn’t simply because your reprogramming became so complex that it now ’looks like’ a sentience? I very much would like to see your codes.”

”Right!” CAU had an idea. ”This is one more reason why we truly believe we have our sentience.” Then, he asked another unit to bring him a device. It looked like a laptop with a keyboard but did not have a screen. He extended his finger, and a cable seemed to come out, quickly connecting to the laptop.

*Zu!*

It turned on, and a holographic screen instead appeared. That obviously attracted Rean and...

*Zush!*

”That, I want to see!” Obviously, Zangeshu’s.

CAU431 wasn’t surprised to see Zangeshu there. They knew very well of the living beings’ pocket dimensional realms. ”Is he your friend?”

”Yes, he is my disciple,” Rean assured. He could have held Zangeshu in the Dimensional Realm, but Zangeshu would complain to no end later, so he brought him out.

CAU nodded and showed the screen to them. ”So be it. This here is my code.”

Zangeshu and Rean could recognize the letters. They were basically the same as the ones used in the Werdlem Empire. However, that’s where the similarities ended. That’s because what was in front of them wasn’t lines and more lines of code. Instead, it looked more like a soup of letters.

The letters, numbers, symbols, etc, floated everywhere on the screen. There was no coherency, no pattern, nothing. They simply floated in all directions, some spinning, others flipping, some flipping and spinning, some moved fast, others slow, some moved in arcs, others in straight lines, or a constant mix of the two. Simply put, it was a complete mess!

Above all, the letters seemed to interact with each other as if an electrical current passed between them every time they touched. You could call that anything except programming.

”This...” Rean and Zangeshu looked at that with wide-open eyes. That defied everything they thought to be possible in coding. First of all, could that even be called coding? They weren’t sure.

”Master...” Zangeshu looked at Rean.

Rean, however, shook his head. ”I’m as shocked as you. We finally had a chance to see their code, and it turned out like this.”

Then, Rean smiled, and so did Zangeshu. They didn’t understand anything, but they were certain of one thing. ”Yet, it looks beautiful!”