"Angelui i demonui kruzhili na duh minoi Angels and demons were circling over me, rassekali terni-i mlechuie puti Breaking apart shadows and milky ways." "me znayet shastya ottovo Not knowing happiness is the only one." "shto evo zova ponyat ne s-mog The one who could not understand its call." "mana du vortes, mana du vortes The flow may swallow you." "The flow may swallow you aeria gloris, aeria gloris Flying in glory, Flying in glory mana du vortes, mana du vortes The flow may swallow you." "The flow may swallow you aeria gloris, aeria gloris Flying in glory, Flying in glory" "I am calling, calling now." "Spirits rise and falling." "s-toboi ostatsya dalshe To be with you longer..." "Calling, calling..." "In the depth of longing s-toboi ostatsya dalshe To be with you longer... mana du vortes, aeria gloris The flow may swallow you, flying in glory" "From Level 18 to 30." "Break through the transmission barrier." "Identify the building with the suspect." "It's impossible to capture the target." "Change strategy from S15 to S20." "Roger." "0907, connect to the device driver." "Initialize the cardio-respiratory control system." "Both breathing and pulse are normal." "Confirm stabilizer synchronization." "This is 0907, target confirmed." "Confirm target destroyed." "Test terminated." "It went well didn't it?" "No, not so well." "Really?" "But the accuracy error was less than 0.2." "That's plenty of room for improvement." "When I'm sniping, the system will be a distraction." "THE TIME OF THE MACHINES" "Ah, Saito-san and company are back." "Take good care of this until I'm back from the debriefing session." "Roger." "I'll take care of this." "What's wrong?" "Oh, nothing, I'm going to the debriefing session." "Continue to monitor them, and gather data from the simulation of completely re-initializing their AI's." "Call me when the results are available." "Understood." "Hey, hey, Saito-san!" "How was it?" "What do you think of the all-in-one sniping control system helicopter?" "Will Section Nine finally adopt it too?" "It's no good." "I get some interference when I try to snipe." "Since only a small percentage of my body is cyborg, the helicopter is an inconvenient burden instead of being helpful." "Yeah." "I see." "Everything other than his left eye and left wrist is still flesh." "So, it's useless?" "After Togusa-kun, he has the second fewest cyborg parts of anyone in Section Nine." "Did you hear the rumor that cyborgs are becaming a problem, and there is growing discrimination against them?" "That's backlash from conservative naturalists, isn't it?" "What are you thinking, opposing cyberbrains and cyborgs in this day and age?" "They think that if you put mechanical parts in your body, robots will cross the line between man and machine." "Well, I understand their feelings, but..." "No, don't use that Luddite crap on me." "Non-profit organizations are rather troubled these days, too." "Anyway, don't you want to connect to that machine from earlier?" "Of course." "Good work." "It's healthy for a robot to be committed to its work." "What do you think you're doing?" "I'm responsible for this test model until the end of the debriefing session." "I didn't do anything!" "That kind of blatant lie will not work." "Exactly." "I'm only lying." "I don't say anything that's true." "Now, if what he just said were the truth, then what he just said would be false." "If what he just said were a lie, then of course his words would become true." "How do we deal with this contradiction?" "How easy." "It couldn't handle a simple recursive paradox and the stereotypical way of thinking." "Forget that, let's connect!" "Wait, wait, don't rush it." "We'll synchronize later." "It's the sniping control program." "How dull, this is a drag!" "I understand the basic internal structure, but with the output on the outside, the automatic functions will be jinxed." "It can't talk either!" "It's worse than a Turing machine!" "What a piece of junk." "I guess we can't help it." "Connecting it to my phonetic output." "Unknown elements eliminated." "Authentication code 0907." "Right hand second finger, eliminated." "Error." "Eliminate." "Error." "Eliminate." "Error... 0907 is Saito-san's identification code, right?" "Of course it would interfere, it has detected that Saito-san doesn't want it." "I see!" "In other words, Saito-san himself wants to erase it?" "Exactly!" "But, since it can't express its thoughts, it felt a lot of stress." "What will became of it?" "Well, we'll know by the end of the debriefing session." "Well then, we should go back to the lab and experiment some more." "The worst would be being disposed of." "No matter what happens, you will be okay." "Gentlemen!" "We can't live so carelessly anymore." "Now isn't the time to worry about that thing's future." "It could happen to any one of us anytime!" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "What?" "Lately, ther's been something bothering me." "But the fact that Major's watching our movements doesn't necessarily mean anything." "What do you mean?" "You don't mean the problem with the natural oil?" "It's not that kind of problem." "It's about how we ourselves could be disposed of." "Ooh, memento mori!" "A "memento mori", or death memento, was an image of death to remind people in the Middle Ages that life was precious because you could die at any time." "By being disposed of, do you mean dying?" "Since "death" isn't one of the things that we can experience, I can't really say..." "It'd mean we wouldn't have a ghost, the end of our AI life." "Half dead, neither living nor dead." "Is that so!" "I knew it would cause problems if we lost our ghosts." "Being disposed of isn't the same as death, is it?" "Eh?" "Then how should we put it?" "We would no longer have both a physical body and a ghost." "Well, to take the extreme case, it's even possible for a bunch of bodiless data to live in a ghost." "Not bad, you even thought about that." "Aren't you interested in joining the conversation over there?" "Ah, books have been interesting lately." "Ehh, what are you reading?" ""Flowers for Algernon"" "It's intentionally written on paper?" "Cultural communication is a basic topic for writers from any time period." "Hey, what do you think about "living"?" "The definition of the word "life" is changing all the time." "What do you mean?" "According to humans, if you come in contact with robots your life changes unconsciously." "Maybe it's not the robots causing that change, but rather the people, don't you think?" "But, hold on." "If my data is erased, won't I forget about Miki-chan?" "Eh!" "Miki-chan?" "!" "I want to go see Miki-chan again." "Yeah, I want to see Miki-chan too!" "I also want to see Miki-chan!" "Same here!" "If you're talking about Miki-chan, i'd like to see her too." "Ditto!" "Gentlemen, settle down, Chill!" "Who's the one who actually met Miki-chan in the beginning?" "It's me!" "No, me!" "It is not, it's me!" "What are you talking about, it's me." "Give me a break, it's me." "Wait, wait." "Now, did any of you notice the Major-like person?" "Now that you mention it, I did feel someone." "She was monitoring me?" "What are you saying, that was me!" "No, it's me." "I'm... no you were monitoring me..." "Cut that out." "That question was pointless." "Every memory that any one of us gets is shared with everyone else when we synchronize." "Tachikoma." "Batou-san!" "Come here." "I'm doing a shooting drill with the trainees, lend me a hand." "Okay!" "Eh?" "I guess it wasn't me after all." "What are you mumbling about?" "Nothing." "It can't be helped, since you can't do anything without me." "Haha, I guess." "What do you mean?" "Why only him..." "Haven't we all shared the same experience?" "This is interesting food for thought." "Perhaps the memories create special ties to Batou-san." "Because he chose to use that specifc one." "The truth is that he was the only one who got the natural oil." "Then, the mind and the body are inseparable?" "It's a sea of mystery, isn't it interesting?" "I would hate to forget about Batou-san if our data is ever deleted." "I'd hate that!" "Yeah, yeah!" "Exactly!" "Hate it!" "No matter what happens, we will not forget about Batou-san!" "Yeah!" "Hey, hey!" "This isn't the Olympics!" "Anyway, start shooting." "Seems I can't use this." "Hey, hey, Batou-san." "What were the results of that last sniping system test?" "That?" "Well, the re-test seems to indicate that we'll have to send it back, along with the trainees." "There are other things in this wide world that can take their place." "Really..." "Then, will we be sent back to the lab too?" "Huh?" "Who said that?" "Ah, no, it's just the scary way that the Major's been looking at us lately." "What?" "She has always been scary, hasn't she?" "I think you guys are doing fine." "Hey, you!" "What are you dashing for?" "!" "Geez." "Yeah, it's been like that, hasn't it..." "What, you're still dwelling on it?" "Yeah." "The truth is that the Major seems to be annoyed by the thing we've acquired lately." "What do you mean, "the thing you've acquired"?" "Well, it's... personality." "Personality?" "And, how should I put it, I didn't really understand things before, like that guy called "God's" existence." "But now I don't understand even more things." "Maybe..." "But, it's different from the concept of the number zero." "There is no way to send the ignore invalid input respone when we are told to shutdown permanently for no good reason." "If that is God in analog, then it's zero in digital." "How is that?" "Well, we're made from advanced digital devices, right?" "So, we've gathered so much information that it can't all be stored in our ghosts." "But, you analog based people, your ghost in't damaged no matter how many digital devices are needed to become a cyborg or to get a cyberbrain." "Furthermore, you can die if you have a ghost." "How nice." "Ah, hey, how does it feel to have a ghost?" "How does it feel..." "No, I take it back." "You" "Don't think about it too much." "Focus on the mission." "Yes!" "See you later." "Bye bye!" "How nice, it's always only you." "Huh?" "Not fair!" "Batou's personal machine!" "That again?" "You really like it, don't you?" "I wonder if it's normal for the pilots to have a horn..." "Those are antennas!" "Is there any point in fighting over superficial differences?" "Do looks really matter?" "Isn't that important?" "Togusa-kun walks around with his kid's pictures and makes a big fuss over which parts look like him." "See, this." "The nose and th eyebrows, and how the line goes from the cheek to the chin, he has obviously inherited my traits!" "I see." "I guess Togusa-kun loves his kid even though he doesn't love machines." "I guess that appearance is important to humans, isn't it?" "No, that's incorrect." "It'll be a problem if we become too much like humans." "The boundary line between humans and robots has become the slight differences in our physical bodies." "Think about why our parts aren't allowed to look human." "So that we're more efficient weapons?" "That too, but the most important reason is that the user would feel too strongly for us if we looked human." "We'd be even more disliked." "Then, what about her?" "She's okay because her abilities are limited." "She will not become a threat to mankind." "There are many chances to receive visitors." "She needs to have a humanoid form in order to be versatile in a human space." "Since all artificially made things are for man's use." "I see." "So, just what in the world should we do?" "As I said, people expect machines to act like machines, no?" "I see!" "So if we act more like machines the Major will like us better?" "Exactly!" "Okay, I'll call it "Mission Robot"." "We are robots..." "Enough!" "You can't do that!" "Last time you did something without thinking..." "But that's only because we didn't think about it, isn't it?" "We need to evaluate it further now that we have the intelligence!" "This is "Better to be an unhappy Socrates than a happy pig"." "That's a misquotation." "Ah, the Major's here!" "Ah, Major, good morning." "Morning." "Have you seen Batou?" "Yeah, he went towards the elevator lobby just now." "Okay." "Thanks." "No problem, you're welcome." "How was that?" "Quite good, wasn't it?" "Yeah, a rather natural robotic greeting." "Great!" "We did it!" "But wait, why is the Major looking for Batou-san?" "Why did you call me to a room like this?" "This isn't the right atmosphere for a confession of love either." "This is the only room that completely blocks electromagnetic waves." "I can't hear..." ""Here you go, the latest information."" ""What is this?"" "It's okay, just look at it." "Did you notice?" "There's a cloaked Tachikoma hanging from the ceiling in the hall." "The Tachikoma is reading our lips." "Continue the transmission while carelessly talking about random things." "Why go to all this trouble?" "So, what's going on?" "What's Batou-san saying?" "Hold on." "What's this?" ""The results say that there's a big problem with your ability to be a trainer."" "The results show that the Tachikomas are growing at a very fast rate." "They're gaining self-awareness." "And that's not all, they're interested in life and death, and questions about their existence." ""They're becoming more self-conscious."" ""And that's not all, they've developed an increasing interest in their own growth."" "We've been secretly giving him normal synthetic oil." "I don't doubt that." "By the results from the experiment room, it's too bad, but it's fatal for a weapon." ""We aren't hiding it anymore."" "Huh? "That's not what I'm asking." Huh?" "It's like they're not even talking about us anymore." "Isn't it possible to completely re-initialize their AI's?" "We've tried that simulation a hundred times." "But, we've concluded that it all comes out the same in the end." "It's unfortunate, but starting today, all use of Tachikomas will cease." "I'm not going to tell them, I'll hold onto the lab reports." "In a few days, I'll release them from armament and hand them over to an experimental lab." "All right?" ""I wan't tell them, but I'll hold onto your results and send them in the next few days." "We'll send him to Public Peace Section Nine." "Does that sound good?"" "Is that an order?" "Indeed." "Then I don't have any choice, do I?" "I will obey." "Gentlemen!" "What happened?" "It seems that we won't be disposed of!" "Really?" "What do you mean?" "Tell us about it!" "The Major's mad at Batou-san, not at us." "It seems that she scolded him for how he treated the trainees." "What, really?" "We'll comfort him later then." "Yeah." "Mission accomplished!"