No. 6

CHAPTER 3 - Cease From The Struggle Of War's Impartial Contention

"Zeus-sprung son of Laërtes, Odysseus of many devices,
hold back, cease from the struggle of war's impartial contention,
lest wide-thundering Zeus son of Kronos be angry against you."

-Homer, The Odyssey

***

The door of the elevator was open by a crack. Nezumi hooked his hand on it.

Give me strength. Please. He prayed, but not to God. He prayed to the girl with the wilful gaze. Safu, give us strength. A little more, just a little strength for us...

The door opened, but not by enough. They could not escape yet. Nezumi heard laboured breathing behind him.

"Shion..."

Shion was getting to his feet. He silently stretched his hands out, and his fingers grasped the door. They looked at each other. Tsukiyo poked his face out of the folds of superfibre and cried once, loudly.

Cheep!

Nezumi and Shion took that as their signal to push the door with all their might. The gap widened so that one person could slip through with some effort.

The elevator careened. His feet stumbled unsteadily.

"Hurry, get out!" Nezumi pushed Shion out before squeezing through the gap. The elevator gave an irritating screech, which turned into a rumble. It hurtled downwards as if it had been waiting for the two to escape before setting off.

Nezumi closed his eyes for a moment. My gratitude, Safu. Sweat poured down his cheeks. The wound on his leg throbbed. His heart pounded against his pectoral muscles from the inside.

He was in pain.

His mental and physical strength was whittled down, crumbling off, and barely remaining. He was in pain, yet―this pain, this throbbing, this heartbeat was nothing less than proof that he was alive. He was still alive. Still alive.

He opened his eyes and took in his surroundings.

He saw scattered glass shards and a wet corridor. Two men lying dead. The black-haired soldier and Rashi were unchanged from how Nezumi and Shion had left them.

One was lying in the corridor covered in blood, and another was thrown out on the ground near the wall. The barriers were gone. The sprinklers were off. There was no human shadow or presence.

Nothing. Only Nezumi and Shion's breathing could be heard, almost too loudly.

Whoom. Something exploded. He spun around and saw smoke coming out of a room at the end of the hall. It was the room they had fallen into after destroying the ventilation duct. Flames soon licked through the door left ajar.

It was burning.

A similar-sounding explosion rocked them from the floor below. He could hear the commotion and people screaming.

The computer systems on each floor were executing the same program of exploding and bursting into flames. Like loyal subjects, all devices within the Correctional Facility were following after the mother computer.

Were these machines following in their master's footsteps, despite the fact that they had no soul? No; they had only been programmed to do so. The mother's failure meant death for all systems within the Correctional Facility. They were configured to self-detonate as soon as they stopped receiving signals from the mother. It was nothing as lax as the information being wiped or deleted, or the device itself going out of operation. They were forcibly destroyed.