Arashi - Mechanical
“Yokoyama-san,” Aiba says, but it’s a recording on his voicemail because it’s too late for anyone to be picking up the phone. By the time Aiba and Satoshi arrive back at Aiba’s apartment, it’s past two in the morning. Aiba doesn’t want to question Satoshi too much about what happened, because he’s taking this new approach - just be friends with him, get to know him. But he can’t ignore what Satoshi said.
“Yokoyama-san,” Aiba starts again. “Please call me in the morning. It's important.”
The next morning, Aiba plans to retrieve the data from the time that Satoshi was at Sho’s apartment. Review it and find out when the thought started. He can map the data from Satoshi’s brain at that moment and send it back to the lab for analysis.
This is why Aiba does this job. These moments of discovery make everything worth it. Seeing something new, something no one has ever seen before. Aiba squeezes his hands into tight fists and taps his feet on the floor excitedly.
He’s so lost in his thoughts that when his phone goes off again he nearly drops it.
Maybe it’s Yokoyama, Aiba thinks, or hopes. But when he looks at the number coming in, it’s one he’s never seen before.
“Hello?”
“Hey, um... I got your number from Sho-chan.”
“Is this Nino?” Aiba asks.
“Yeah,” Nino says. “I... This is stupid.”
“What is it?”
“Can I see Satoshi again?” Nino asks, his voice sounds so small when it reaches Aiba’s ear and it makes Aiba smile a little.
“Sure,” he says. “When do you want to see him?”
---
At first, Nino doesn’t tell Sho that he’s going to see Satoshi again. First of all, because Sho might think he’s crazy.
Well, no. Nino is pretty sure he’s crazy. It’s just that the fewer people who know about it, the better.
Telling Aiba is a necessary evil because Aiba is the one Satoshi is living with. Nino comes to the door, feeling small and ridiculous. He shoves his hands in his pockets while he waits for Aiba to answer. But it isn’t Aiba who comes to the door, it’s Satoshi.
“Ah,” Nino says, startled.
“Hi,” Satoshi says.
“Hi.”
“Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah,” Nino says, then slips in the door and takes his shoes off.
The first thing he sees is Aiba sitting at his computer typing about a thousand words a second. He’s comparing two charts with each other, or that’s what it looks like.
“We talked for a long time last night,” Satoshi says. “He put some electric things on my head and told me to tell him stuff.”
“Oh?” Nino asks. “What kind of stuff?”
“How things made me feel?” Satoshi says. “I don’t know. But I guess whatever I said was interesting because he won’t stop typing.”
“Oh,” Nino says. “Do you want to go to a movie?”
“Sure.”
They leave without saying anything to Aiba. Nino wonders if that’s okay, but... Sho told him that they’re supposed to be treated like people and it’s not like Nino would have to ask a roommate for permission to leave and see a movie. Although he might say bye to them first, which Satoshi doesn’t. But that’s just the way he is. The way he seems.
Nino doesn’t know this area as well as the blocks closer to his place and his work, but there is a movie theater a few stations down. They ride the subway together and it’s crowded so both of them have to stand. The train jerks and Satoshi’s arm touches Nino’s. Like a real arm. A real elbow. Even hurts like one.
“Ow...” he says. But Satoshi doesn’t respond.
The movie theater isn’t very crowded, but it’s a week night. They stand outside looking at the posters.
“Which one do you want to watch?” Nino asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Well which poster do you like?”
“Hmm,” Satoshi says, scanning them from left to right. “That one.”
He points at one with vivid colors and two characters in the midst of a fight. Some action movie that Nino isn’t really familiar with.
“Why that one?”
Satoshi shrugs. “It’s a cool poster.”
What’s weird about watching a movie with Satoshi is that he doesn’t eat. Nino buys popcorn and juice, but Satoshi doesn’t share it with him. A little disconcerting because that’s what you should do at movies. At least share some juice. But Satoshi just watches quietly.
It’s not the most interesting movie Nino’s ever seen, but it’s alright. Satoshi watches it carefully, hardly blinking. That’s when Nino realizes he’s watching Satoshi rather than the movie. And he does blink. Nino counts the seconds between them, but there isn’t any pattern to it.
After the movie, Nino checks his phone and finds four missed calls from Aiba. And one text message that says nothing but “????”
“Your mommy’s looking for you,” Nino says. Then he flips his phone open and returns the call.
“Are you with him?” Aiba asks. “Is he with you?”
“Yeah,” Nino says. “We went to a movie. But I’ll bring him back before his curfew.”
He hears Aiba breathing a long sigh of relief.
“You know,” Nino says. “If you don’t want me to run off with your things you should keep a better eye on them!”
“I was a little wrapped up in my work...” Aiba says.
“Yeah, I could tell.”
“He’s amazing,” Aiba says.
Nino looks over at Satoshi. He’s quietly watching people walk by on the sidewalk in front of him, and it seems like there is something going on behind his eyes. For a moment, Nino just watches Satoshi’s eyes dart from one person to the next.
“He’s...” Aiba starts, and Nino turns his attention back to Aiba’s voice on the phone. “He’s thinking. About lots of things. He likes colors and movement. He started drawing last night and then asked if I had any paint.”
“So, did someone make him that way?” Nino asks. It's been the question on his mind since all of this began, but one that he wasn't quite able to put into words. Where did Satoshi come from? Who made him the way he is?
“What?”
“I mean...” Nino asys. “Certain robots are made for certain things right?”
Aiba tells him about Jun. Jun is what they think to be the first robot to express an original thought. And now the second might very well be Satoshi. But with Satoshi it hasn’t been just one thought, it’s been many. A flood of thoughts coming out of him since the night before.
Nino doesn't respond, just listens to the information even though it might be too much all at once. It answers his question, but raises so many more.
“I haven’t been able to directly analyze the other CompaniBots involved in the experiment, but...” Aiba says. “It’ll be interesting to compile the information when the trial is finished.”
Two weeks. A two week trial.
“What happens?” Nino asks.
“What do you mean?”
“After the trial,” Nino says. “What happens after that?”
“Well,” Aiba says. “They’ll be deactivated and then we’ll study the results. This is the first test run so there will be another round of tests. Probably several...”
Nino looks back at Satoshi. He’s watching a girl walk by and she’s wearing a light orange skirt that’s moving in the breeze. Then his focus changes to a young boy holding his mother’s hand. Then to a woman carrying a box, a man running, weaving through the sea of bodies.
“You’re going to switch him off,” Nino says.
“Well...” Aiba says, quietly. “Yeah.”
---
Just about every day that Jun spends with Sho, there is something interesting for Sho to report on to Aiba. A couple of times Jun goes out by himself. He wants to go for a drive, or to go shopping. Sho lets him go on his own, because he is supposed to be treating Jun like a person. But as the two weeks comes close to an end, Sho is having a hard time even remembering to think of him as a machine.
He expresses thoughts and opinions on nearly everything they encounter. So much that Jun starts keeping a record of it himself.
Jun comes back from an afternoon in the city with a small notebook under his arm.
“I wrote them all down for you,” he says. “Even the times.”
1:07 - Enjoyed some music in the park. Two guys playing guitar and a girl singing with them. Sounded nice enough so I watched them for about 23 minutes.
1:40 - Wondered again what it might be like to taste. Stopped outside of a restaurant and tried to decide which taste I’d like the best just by look and scent. I think I’d like the pasta.
2:13 - Passed by a travel agency. Wanted to see the world.
“Thanks,” Sho says, closing the notebook. “I’ll tell Aiba about it.”
“You’re welcome,” Jun replies.
“Is there anything else you want to do?” Sho asks. “You’ll only be with me for two more days.”
“I don’t like to think too much ahead,” Jun says. “I think I’ll decide tomorrow.”
“If I’d known you were so independent, I wouldn’t have taken any time off of work.”
“I would have told you ahead of time,” Jun says. “But I wasn’t switched on yet.”
Jun laughs, and Sho smiles a little, too. It wouldn't be accurate to call him a robot anymore. He’s just a differently built man. Someone Sho wants to call a friend. Wasn’t that the point in the first place? Isn’t that why they’re called Companions?
“I’m going to recharge early,” Jun says. “I’m a little tired.”
“You get tired too, then?” Sho asks.
“Yeah,” Jun says. “I thought a lot today.”
When they come two days later to take Jun back to the lab, he doesn’t hesitate before getting back into his box. He’s very polite, tells Sho thank you for letting him stay in his home, it was very comfortable and he’d like to meet again, if they can.
Sho expresses the same gratitude. It was time well-spent together. And he wants to meet again, too. Then they both say goodbye, and Sho switches him off.
“Is it possible to meet him again?” Sho asks Aiba later when he calls to give his last report.
A long stretch of silence and then Aiba speaks. “It’s not my department,” he says. “So I don’t know.”
---
Nino is almost startled when Sho comes back to work. He’s so used to being alone in that office, that it feels unnatural to have Sho there. There at work and not at home with Jun, he thinks. But even though Sho is back, it doesn’t have much of an impact on the state of the office. Most of the morning, it's just as quiet as it was when Sho wasn’t there.
“They took him back,” Sho says, sometime around ten o’clock. He’s been there at the office since eight thirty, but this, aside from a brief greeting when he first arrived, is the first time he really speaks.
“Jun?” Nino asks.
“Yeah,” Sho says. “Yesterday they came and picked him up.”
“Are you okay?” Nino asks. Then thinks maybe that’s a weird question to be asking, although under the circumstances, Nino isn’t sure what can be considered a weird question anymore.
“Yeah,” Sho says, quickly. “I’m fine.”
But he doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the day.
Nino remembers that thick, brown envelope. The one that he found on Sho’s desk just a couple of weeks before. It doesn’t feel like a couple of weeks, but more like he doesn’t exactly remember the time before when he could distinguish easily between men and machines.
He thinks about calling Aiba, but convinces himself not to. At least three times before lunch, and then four times after. Nino knows that he’s not one to resist, so it’s only a matter of time before he gives in to himself, but he wants to at least pretend for a moment that he hasn’t lost his mind.
After work, Nino passes by a movie theater. Not the same one that he went to with Satoshi, but the same movie is playing there. The one that didn’t turn out to be very interesting, but had quite an interesting poster. Nino takes the train home and watches all of the people stepping on and off of the platforms. Each one with a life and a story. A beginning and an end. Nino rubs his eyes because he’s pretty sure he’s giving himself a headache.
He arrives home after it’s dark. Then does the thing he’s been convincing himself not to do all day.
“This is crazy,” Nino says, into the phone. “But I have to ask you something.”
“Alright,” Aiba says. “What is it?”
---
Jun has already returned to the lab, but Satoshi is still in Aiba’s apartment. His experiment is a on a different timeframe from the others. But once Aiba knows that Jun has been sent back, it already feels like Satoshi isn’t there anymore. Like this is borrowed time and there isn’t anything Aiba can do to make it move any more slowly.
He buys Satoshi a set of paints at the craft store, even though Aiba doesn’t know much about paint himself. But he gets them on a recommendation from a nice girl at the shop, and Satoshi’s eyes light up when Aiba gives him the package.
“Is that what you wanted?” Aiba asks.
“Exactly,” Satoshi says.
Satoshi opens up a large sketchbook. All day he’s been working on a drawing, on and off. It’s abstract, from far away, but when Aiba gets closer he can see all of the details. Satoshi deepens the lines and Aiba can start to see that they’re human-shaped. It’s a long, winding street with more people than Aiba can even count.
“You’re going to color them in?” Aiba asks.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you like drawing?”
“I like looking,” Satoshi says. “I like watching and seeing things and then I want to draw what I see.”
“I’m no good at drawing,” Aiba says, and laughs.
“Maybe you could learn if you tried.”
“I guess I’m not that interested in it.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Satoshi says. “You never told me much about what you like and what you don’t like.”
Aiba smiles. “You’re right,” he says. “I like learning.”
“What do you like learning about?”
“Everything,” Aiba says. “I want to know how everything works, and then I want to know why it does what it does. I like actions and reactions.”
“Yeah,” Satoshi says. “I guess that’s why you keep typing.”
“My keyboard is in pretty bad shape.”
“I bet,” Satoshi says, filling in one of the forms and giving her an orange skirt.
Aiba’s phone goes off and it starts buzzing wildly on the table.
“Hello?”
“This is crazy,” Nino says. It’s distinctly his voice, even if he sounds a little frayed. “But I have to ask you something.”
“Alright,” Aiba says. “What is it?”
“Can he stay with me?”
“What?”
Nino sighs into the phone. “Satoshi,” he says. “You’re just going to switch him off, right?”
“Well,” Aiba says, then he backs out of the room where Satoshi is drawing so that he can talk to Nino more privately. This is a dangerous conversation to have. And one that Aiba didn’t anticipate. “First we have to study the data collected, then we have to log the results. Then we’ll discuss where the trials have to go from here.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do,” Nino says. “You know. Are they going to take him apart?”
“I really don’t know,” Aiba says. “It’s not what I do. The might take him apart, or the might keep him in suspension. I’m not sure.”
“Then let him stay with me.”
“Why?”
“Don’t fucking do that,” Nino says. His voice sharp and low.
“What?”
“Don’t fucking study me,” Nino says. “I know what you’re getting at.”
Aiba doesn’t say anything, just waits because he knows Nino will go on. Aiba’s thought about it too. What’s going to happen when Satoshi goes back to the lab. He’s not lying to Nino, but he really isn’t sure what’s going to happen next. Honestly, he doesn’t think there is a very good chance of Satoshi leaving the lab again. He’ll be a prototype, something they’ll want to keep for comparison to newer versions. He’s the first. Satoshi-1.
“I like him,” Nino says. “I like talking to him and I like hanging out with him and I’d really like it if he came and stayed with me. Please.”
“It’s not my decision to make,” Aiba says, quietly.
“Then whose is it?”
“I’m on the development team,” Aiba says. “There are ten others. Above us, there is a committee of five people that has been overseeing the experiment procedures. They’re going to determine the results of this experiment, and they’re going to oversee the next round of trials.”
“And?” Nino asks.
“Three chairpeople and then the president and vice president of CR,” Aiba says. “This isn’t a little side project. This is the future of CR as a company and the fact that you’re involved with this is something I’m going to have to keep entirely off of the records.”
“But why can’t he decide?” Nino asks. “He has thoughts, he has feelings.”
Aiba twists the fabric of his shirt between his fingers.
“He’s real, isn’t he?” Nino asks.
Am I alive? Even though Aiba wasn’t there when Jun said those words, originally. He can imagine what they sounded like in Jun’s voice. It’s that same question.
“Anyway,” Nino says. “I understand. Thanks.”
Aiba listens to the silence for a while before he closes his phone and sets it down on the table.
“You can use me for whatever you need,” Satoshi says. He approached so quietly that Aiba hadn't even noticed him standing in the doorway. “I know the data is important, so whatever you need me for I don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry,” Aiba says, not really sure why he apologizes or what he’s apologizing for. But it feels like the right thing to say. Satoshi even nods a little, like he accepts it.
“I just want to finish my painting first,” he says.
“If you could choose,” Aiba asks, “where would you want to go after this?”
“With Nino,” he says. Then he turns around and goes back to the room with his painting. After a moment, Aiba can hear Satoshi’s paintbrush swirling around inside of a water glass.
---
Three days after Jun is taken back, Sho receives a call from Yokoyama. He has some followup questions about Jun and Sho’s impressions of him. Standard questions, much like the ones Aiba asked him. Sho retells Yokoyama everything he told Aiba to the best of his memory. But a part of him doesn’t want to talk about it too much because then he might start talking about how his apartment feels empty without Jun there.
Although, maybe that’s what Yokoyama needs to hear.
“The point of this,” Sho says. “It was to find out if a robot could become a friend, right?”
“That is one of our purposes, yes,” Yokoyama says.
“I’d like to see Jun again if I can,” Sho says. “We got along really well.”
“I see,” Yokoyama says. “That’s great to hear.”
“Can I see him again?”
“That’s something we’re still in the process of discussing,” Yokoyama says. “We’ll be going over the results for the next few weeks and then someone from the office can get in contact with you. Is that alright?”
“That’s fine,” Sho says. But somehow it feels like the time he said goodbye was the last time he'll ever speak to Jun.
---
Satoshi finishes the painting only a few hours before he has to get back into his box. Aiba remembers the day that Satoshi first arrived. The instruction manual is still in the same drawer in his filing cabinet. Still unopened and unread.
“Thanks for the paint,” Satoshi says.
“Sure,” Aiba says.
Satoshi stands up against the back wall of the box and his arms fit snugly in the styrofoam.
“Goodbye,” Satoshi says.
“Bye.”
Satoshi closes his eyes. Aiba presses the button on the back of his neck and his body goes stiff. It’s a while before Aiba is able to close the box, but he’s not sure why. It isn’t necessarily a sentimental feeling, but something like one. Or maybe it’s just that he can still hear Nino’s words.
Wouldn’t it be okay if it’s what Satoshi wants? If they were searching for an original thought and then found one... is it okay to just use it to further their own experiment? What is the point of searching for a being to have their own needs, and then not honoring them when they’re found?
Aiba closes the box, but he doesn’t call the lab to pick it up yet. He sits down at his computer and begins typing everything that Nino said to him.
Nino is alive. There is no philosophical debate in Aiba’s mind about that.
Satoshi is... something different. The painting he finished lies completed, leaning against the wall in his bedroom, close to the window where the paint can dry. All of the people he’s painted are alive. Everything he’s touched and felt and been exposed to.
The reason for the origin of his original thought.
Aiba takes out his phone and dials Yokoyama’s number.
---
We’d like to thank you for taking part in our experiment. Thanks to the data we’ve collected, we’re able to carry on with the development of our original CompaniBots. Inside of this envelope, you’ll find compensation for your participation. As we know you’ve taken time out of your busy lives to make room for our Companions, this is our way of saying thank you.
If you have any further questions or comments about the trial, please feel free to contact anyone on our team. Contact information is enclosed as well as a release form. We’ll just need one more signature of release so that we can use all of your personal statements and accounts. We will apply them to our future studies.
Thank you again for your time. We at Companion Robotics could not have done this without you.
There is an empty feeling in Sho’s chest as he reads through the letter. He wonders how many other people felt the same after reading it. How many other people feel like something is missing from their apartments and their lives.
Sho folds the letter and puts it into his top desk drawer.
“I’m going,” Nino says.
“What time is it?” Sho asks.
“It’s already seven,” Nino says. “I should go home. You should go home, too.”
“Sorry you had to do all of my work last week,” Sho says.
“I’m still doing all of your work, Sho-chan,” Nino says, with half a smile. “See you tomorrow.”
---
Officially, it’s become an ongoing experiment.
Unofficially, Aiba raised the question of the origin of original thoughts and who they belong to. If CR has an original thought, an original idea, they gain proof and documentation that it is their own thought to manipulate. Like a CompaniBot - an original idea turned into a realized machine.
Officially, Satoshi said that he wanted to stay with Aiba.
Unofficially, he wants to stay with Nino. But officially, Nino doesn’t exist, not part of the experiment, not on the records.
“Are you some kind of stalker?” Nino says when he arrives at his door. Which is fair enough because Aiba is just kind of standing there on his doorstep.
“You’re going to have to call me pretty much every day to check in,” Aiba says.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Nino doesn’t see at first, but Satoshi is standing beside him, characteristically quiet. He steps forward, gives Nino a small nod. Nino appears frozen in place.
“I’m really not supposed to be doing this,” Aiba says.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Nino says, not taking his eyes off of Satoshi.
This is what Satoshi wanted.
“Call me,” Aiba says, warningly. “Every day.”
“Every day,” Nino repeats, then turns to Satoshi. “Come inside?”
“Okay,” Satoshi says.
Nino still looks a little dazed, like he’s not quite sure what hit him. But they disappear into the apartment together.
Aiba goes out to his car once they're insde. Jun’s waiting for him in the passenger seat just where Aiba left him, looking out the window at the traffic going by.
“They’re alright?” Jun asks.
“Yeah,” Aiba says. He starts the car and wonders if he should go home or maybe pay Sho a visit first. He’ll want to see Jun again.
“I knew you’d switch me on again,” Jun says.
“What?” Aiba asks. “Why?”
“Because you seriously can’t help yourself.”
“Yeah well,” Aiba says. “I’m the one who gets to have a cool robot roommate.”
“And what do I get?”
“You get to have a cool genius roommate?”
“Oh good,” Jun says. “I guess you should drop me off then before you go home.”
He’s laughing and it makes Aiba laugh too. Wherever this comes from, he doesn’t understand. These thoughts that he has, or Jun or Satoshi. They’re the same, aren’t they? This desire to live and be alive. The first original question that a robot ever asked.
They pass by a park and two schools. A shopping mall and bus station.
“Next,” Aiba says. “I’m going to figure out a way for you to eat. You’re missing out on something really good.”
“I’d like that,” Jun says. “Thanks.”