Autonomous Driving

The rain had stopped.

The sky reclaimed not blue but a blank white, and the death settled upon the earth grew darker still.

Ilena came walking, picking her way around the puddles in a raincoat and boots, a radiation counter clutched in one hand.

She had come to the food factory after finding the note tucked beneath the dinosaur toy made of bone pizza.

Three things caught her off guard — she who had expected nothing more than a simple repair job and a haul of supplies, same as always.

The first was the massive exploration vessel parked in a corner of the factory. Mud caked the underside of the hull thick enough to show just how far it had been dragged.

The second was the suit, wrecked beyond recognition from whatever had happened in the time they'd been apart. The holes had been roughly stitched over with cloth, but mutant gashes, bullet scars, and even water damage left it in a truly wretched state.

And above all else — the reason I had called her here, which I stated the moment she arrived, brushing every explanation aside.

"You want to join us?"

"We need a place to rest."

"After putting Jin in that — that condition, and you say —?!"

Beside me, Sera's head sank lower and lower without end.

To obtain the ship's highest administrator privileges, we would of course have to reach the relevant sector. But half the decision to join the survivor group along the way had been for her sake.

Having grasped the military's true nature, the only real people still alive in this place were them. For Sera's peace of mind, getting a little closer couldn't hurt.

"You've got nothing to lose, do you? We'd make excellent members."

"Just what on earth happened…?"

"I'll answer that curiosity too. I guarantee the information won't do you any harm."

If either the military or the survivors had shown us even a shred of goodwill, we would have crossed over to the Residence Sector long ago. Neither the airlock nor a spaceship made for decent living quarters, and the amenities required for daily life were nonexistent.

But if I was being honest, part of the reason we'd put it off was that it simply hadn't been that hard. From the start, our basic power gap and armament had been overwhelmingly superior. Even if we claimed an empty cabin and dug in, there was nothing they could have done about it. The Residence, like Ebon Square, was a colossal sector built from fourteen bridges and a central hub.

Ilena, grinding her teeth at the sight of my ruined frame, wasn't ignorant of that fact either.

"Refusal is fine. In that case we'll settle somewhere well clear of your territory."

"…Hah. This isn't something I can decide on the spot."

"Then go to your leader and bring back an answer."

"There's no need to worry overmuch. We will abide by the rules you've established."

Perhaps the trust we'd managed to build, however slight, counted for something. Instead of refusing us to our faces, Ilena rose at once and retraced the path she'd come.

"They'll probably accept. Weigh the costs and benefits and they stand to gain a great deal."

I shared Sera's assessment.

The Crown Guard who once held sway over Ebon Square, and a powered suit, walking over of their own free will to join your side? Whether you looked at it from the angle of supplies or combat, their odds of survival would climb dramatically. On our end, tipping them off to the military's danger and receiving help securing the highest administrator privileges in return was hardly a bad trade. And even if they didn't see it that way — saving the empire's citizens was Sera's purpose as well.

"Even if we join them, what we have to do doesn't change."

"That's right. Shall we search for more supplies while we wait for a reply? I'd like to eat something other than bone pizza."

"No. Sera has something else to do."

I caught the arm of a woman who had absolutely no idea how to kill time. Everything looked as though it would fall into place — except for one problem that absolutely had to be solved.

I couldn't grow stronger through training the way a novel's protagonist might — but I could evolve the unit by raising the sync rate. And since the options always appeared in a direction that filled the wearer's desires or deficiencies, it wasn't entirely random either.

The way she called me a comrade without hesitation now. The way she lifted her chin a little more often to meet my gaze. Since the last expedition, Sera had completely set aside the question of whether to treat me as a machine or a human being.

The last ability we'd unlocked — the Voice Control Module — had come from our first encounter with the survivors, and a fair amount of time had passed since then. There was every chance the sync rate could climb from some trivial trigger.

And if it did — there was one ability I needed this time above all others.

"Sera. Don't you want me to be able to move on my own?"

Living among a crowd of people would make hiding the fact that I was a suit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all but impossible. But if we revealed my true nature, then every time Ilena performed maintenance on me, Sera would be left completely exposed. We couldn't keep up this dangerous act forever.

From the very moment I'd learned I'd become a combat suit, what I'd wanted was simple: autonomous driving.

"The Sera of right now is free from mutants and other dangers. Food is plentiful. Oxygen is plentiful. So what do you need next? Not losing me."

This was a world where a half-wrecked colony ship drifted through space on its own without so much as a captain, never mind a car. Was there any reason I couldn't do the same?

If she recognized the necessity, the option would surely appear.

"When we killed that Level 1 mutant, if the current had been even a little stronger, the suit nearly got swept away. And before that — if something had happened to you, Sera, I couldn't even have gone to save you."

"Nngh! Th-that and…!"

Sera, who had been listening in silence, finally opened her mouth. Her hands, clenched tight with tension, wouldn't stop fidgeting.

"What does any of that have to do with me having to sketch twenty dinosaur bones?!"

What did it have to do with it? If an art-instruction ability popped up at a critical juncture like this, everything was finished. Games at least let you reroll. In reality, one bad build and there was no going back.

"Draw diligently. Especially the two holes beside the skull — those are a defining dinosaur feature. Don't leave them out."

With a mechanical arm I pulled several blunt-tipped wires into circular loops, fashioning a scalp massager that doubled as a head-scratcher. The moment I set it against the crown of her head, she let out a very strange scream.

"Eek!"

"Finish your homework and I'll scratch you ten times."

"I-I don't need it!"

Didn't it feel good? It was custom-made to match the direction of her hair whorl and the size of her scalp — it would comb through every itchy spot without missing a single one.

Despite her Herculean efforts, what emerged was not a dinosaur skeleton so much as a fossilized footprint of a dinosaur that had stepped on something. I was seriously contemplating whether abstract art counted as a legitimate artistic domain when Sera's sulky voice reached me.

"…I think it's fine if Jin stays the way he is now."

"Why is that?"

"…"

It might not qualify as a reward, but nothing opened a sealed mouth quite like a head-scratcher.

"Hgyah! D-don't do that!"

"Tell me the reason and I'll stop."

"That's… because Jin is amazing. If you could move however you wanted, you might just leave for somewhere else, mightn't you?"

Ah. So that was what she'd been worrying about.

But she'd missed the important part.

"Sera. I can leave whenever I want, even now."

Just look at Ilena — you could see how badly she wanted me written all over her face. The survivors' leader, if they took us in, would almost certainly want the suit more than the Crown Guard. I could force the issue the same way I had with those soldiers, running current through the muscles to seize control.

"And the reason I'm still here beside you is because you are my pilot, Sera."

Being unable to move on my own did not mean I was subordinate to anyone. Hoping to put her at ease, I added a few more advantages.

"More than anything — if I can move, there are things we could do together that neither of us could manage alone."

I was thinking of things like rock-paper-scissors, or a three-legged race, when Sera's heels began to lift, little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by little.

"Things we couldn't do alone… the two of us, together…"

Tap. Tap. Thump.

Her head rose higher and higher until it pressed against my chest — and at last, the notification I had been waiting for rang out.

"N-ah, ah, ahwait! Don't pull my cheek—!!"

I checked the status window in a flash, and the instant I saw the first option I pinched her cheek with a mechanical hand and tugged. Soft and springy, just as my old friends had always raved about — they hadn't been exaggerating.

A few days later.

Once word came that the offer to join had been accepted, Jin and Sera appeared before the gate.

From the moment the two figures came into view, a current of tension rippled through the survivors.

— Tap. Tap.

The woman wearing a sword that was nothing but a hilt had once been the shield of the empire, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠held in reverence by all of humanity — a Crown Guard. Even with her face hidden behind an oxygen mask, the cut of her fitted clothes suggested she was not particularly old. And yet the black uniform, utterly unstained and unfaded even in the midst of the apocalypse, inspired a kind of awe at the skill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it implied.

— Clank. Clank.

In stark contrast, the other was a man riding a filthy, battered suit. A hole punched through the chest. Gauntlets raked by mutant claws. The pockmarks of rifle rounds. He walked as though he might fall apart at any second — and yet his mere presence radiated an overwhelming pressure.

Ilena, the only one who faced them without trembling, sensed something off and asked,

"Why do you both look so drained?"

"I'sh nuffing."

"The tension finally let go. We managed to wrap up something important, one way or another."

It made no sense to her, but now that the decision to let them in had been made, it hardly mattered.

There was just one thing she needed to confirm first.

"You."

"Me? What is it?"

"Mind taking that helmet off for a second?"

Beside him, Sera's body went rigid as stone. It only confirmed what Ilena had already suspected — that the woman was constitutionally incapable of deception or lying — but the human quality of it was oddly reassuring.

That said, she still needed to see the face of a man whose name she hadn't even asked.

"We're going to be living together. We should at least know what each other looks like."

"…"

"The oxygen's fine. The Life-Conditioning System is running here."

A situation not unlike their first meeting. As the silence stretched on, tension teetered on the edge of becoming genuine unease.

"Hmm…"

At last, the man inside the suit opened his mouth.