On the way back from Earth, at Jose's insistence, I had been forced to take care of my business while on the ship. He said my bowels might have been triggered by every hyper-jump of our spaceship, and that I might unknowingly be having problems that could cause a fatal injury, and he had pulled out his pipe. At first, I objected, but after he said he would knock me out, I decided it was more reasonable not to object.
If I were to tell you a little about the planet where my cave is located, it would be accurate to say it's like Mars. It has the same red soil as Mars and is adorned with endless mountains. The sky is always full of red dust. According to Jose, the planet is so dry that it only rains once every 1,000 years… A lightning strike during that rare rain would be a whole other kind of bad luck, and for that lightning to hit our cave would be an even smaller possibility. Yes… I know… It's nearly impossible for so much bad luck to happen to me one after another, and there's definitely something fishy about all this. I absolutely agree. But I don't know if I'm eager to find out so early.
My cave is in a gigantic hole in the middle of a huge stone mountain. In fact, let me tell you this. The planet isn't very big, and if you wander around a bit, you can easily see both the mountain where my cave is located and the hole where my cave is located.
Since I never get off the spaceship, I don't even need to talk about the atmospheric pressure or the amount of oxygen outside. After all, I won't be putting on a space suit and walking around outside. According to Jose, if I were to go out unprepared, my whole body would start falling apart in two minutes, and I would die.
My cave starts with a platform where my spaceship, the Falcon—the name I gave it—lands. Then there's a door. The door opens into a room, and we are disinfected with a strange liquid. Then there's another door. We wait for 10 minutes in the room after that door, and our bodies are scanned. Then there's one last door, and ta-da… We arrive at the superhero lair.
Speaking of a superhero lair, it could also be said that it resembles a modern hotel with stone walls and no defined rooms. It even has its own kitchen, its own toilet, and its own jacuzzi. All these wall-less rooms are spread out on all four sides of the cave. There's a gigantic computer in the middle of the room, whose cables get tangled with the cables on the ceiling, and that area looks incredibly chaotic.
The walls are filled with the same data storage drives as in Ukar's library, all of which have been wiped for some reason. Yes… Very suspicious… There is also a room called the "black box" that opens on the other side of the cave. I haven't had the chance to go to that room yet, but Jose warned me that the room where the computer is located is quite hot. I guess that's what's called the "black box."
After the constant rain on Earth and the strange noises at Ukar's scientific facility, I was looking for a peaceful silence when I returned to the cave, but I heard a robot screaming.
In the middle of the room, there was a white robot with a nurse's hat on its head, four arms, a large screen on its belly, and it was floating in the air. The robot was angrily waving its arms and shouting at the healing computer located on a table a little away from the main computer. After Jose and I looked at each other for a while, I felt the need to call out to the robot.
"Hello… Excuse me? Who are you?"
The robot angrily turned to me. Its eyes, which were bright red, suddenly turned blue as soon as it saw me, and its voice softened.
"Hello, my name is IVA, and I'm your new healing computer."
"What's the problem?"
"That old healing computer of yours just won't get out of its spot!"
I turned my head and looked behind IVA, and I saw the healing computer. It was a normal computer with a case, a screen, and a keyboard.
"Is it supposed to get up from there?"
"I've been telling it that I'm the computer assigned to its place for a long time, but it's very persistent about not even answering."
"Maybe it can't."
"No!" IVA shouted. Then, realizing that it was shouting at me, it brought its hands to its screen as if embarrassed and began to speak quietly. "This was an old procedure. The healing computer was forbidden to talk because people started talking to healing computers more than doctors. Healing computers were subjected to excessive violence by humans because they couldn't stand up for themselves. Those who couldn't vent their anger on doctors would beat up the healing computers. To prevent this, they were told that they were ordered not to talk to anyone but doctors. But!" it shouted, turning to the computer. "But we are not in those times anymore, and the regulation has changed!"
I turned to Jose and was just about to make the crazy sign when a red face appeared on the screen of our healing computer. The computer's screen pushed itself back, and two metal legs came out from underneath it, and it shouted:
"That's enough already, you damn woman, shut your trap!" Our healing computer straightened up with the legs that came out from underneath it and took its case into its lap with its hand. While holding the case in one hand, it pointed at IVA with the other and said: "I'll smack you with this fist right now!"
One of IVA's four fists turned into a saw, the other into a flamethrower, another into a needle, and the last one into a hammer. Our healing computer, on the other hand, had turned dozens of surgical tools hanging from the ceiling and aimed at my bed toward IVA.
"IVA, healing computer, stop!"
"Sir, is what this hag says true?" asked the healing computer.
"Please tell it that it's a worthless piece of metal now and that it should resign! It can't even heal you properly anymore!" said IVA.
"It's pretty normal for me to be rusty as a computer that has only done routine checks for 400 years. Not just me, but everything in the cave had started to lose its function. My equipment lost its usefulness! I'm unequipped!"
"Excuses! All excuses!" IVA shouted. It squeezed its flamethrower arm two or three times to intimidate.
"What have we gotten ourselves into, Jose?" I asked.
"It's up to you to handle this, sir," Jose replied.
"Sir, please answer. Who is this IVA?" asked the healing computer.
"I asked for it!" I shouted. "I asked Director Toxa for it to heal me."
Our healing computer froze as if it were disappointed. The red face on its screen had disappeared. "I understand, sir. In that case… In that case, I'll pack my things."
"You better," IVA had said mockingly, but for some reason, I couldn't stomach it.
"Where do you think you're going? I didn't say I wanted you to be replaced… I asked for it to help you."
A happy face appeared on the healing computer's screen. It put its hand on its hip and said: "You should have said that in the first place, sir. Especially to IVA…" and pointed at IVA with its finger.
"But sir, would a superior robot like me serve a piece of junk computer like this?" IVA wanted to object, but I silenced it so that there wouldn't be any more arguments.
At that moment, something was bothering me. Both this robot named IVA and the healing computer were acting too human-like.
"Jose!"
"Yes, sir."
"Why doesn't any robot here act like a robot? Look at the cave, it's like a circus! Everyone is shouting at everyone!"
"Sir, you're the one who asked for this."
"What?"
"Remember how you asked us to learn human expressions and behaviors…"
"What about IVA?"
IVA floated over to me and said: "I had to connect to the system when I came in. When I connected, I got an automatic software update."
"Very interesting… So we have such a procedure for robots when they enter our cave."
"Yes, sir. It seems we have such a software procedure."
"Really very interesting…"
Actually, there was nothing interesting about it. It was certainly not interesting for a child who couldn't even change his robot dog that should have been scrapped at a young age, to see his helper robots as friends. I'm not a psychologist or a gossipy old aunt, but it was also quite possible for a child who lost his mother at a young age to be afraid of loneliness.
The healing computer separated the cables tangled between its legs and placed the case it was carrying in its lap on the ground. It had a very satisfied expression on its face as it returned to its place next to its desk.
"You could talk all this time, but you didn't?" I asked.
"I talked, but not to you. I talked to Jose. And that was just once."
"He wanted to replace one of his pieces of equipment, and he didn't want to get it from the internet. He asked me to buy it for him instead of buying it with his own identity."
"Why?" I asked.
"He was embarrassed," Jose added. Then he flew next to the healing computer and put his hand on its case. "Dude… I told you there's nothing to be ashamed of. A healing computer can have a problem with its purification cable."
IVA pointed at the healing computer with her finger and started laughing. "It broke its water purification system! Ha! Ha! What kind of a healing computer doesn't even have a simple thing like a water purification system? Are you going to heal our master without purifying the water? Ha ha! What a disgraceful computer! It can't even do the simplest thing!"
"It was only broken for a very short time!" the healing computer said, clenching its fist.
"Alright, that's enough!" I shouted. "How long have you been in this cave, healing computer?"
"Since you arrived, sir."
"Then you must know my name."
"I am a healing computer, sir. I cannot know unless you choose to share things with me."
"What do you mean, you didn't know my name?"
"I know you as Bioethics Oversight Inspector number 212. You were registered in my system that way."
"You must have heard it when we were talking."
"My company coded me not to hear what's going on outside unless I am spoken to directly, for the privacy of the customers' personal data."
"That law has also been abolished. It doesn't even know that. A complete ignoramus…" said IVA from the back, laughing once more. "An ignoramus! A complete ignoramus! The human population has decreased so much that every single human is under the protection of the Supreme World Republic (SWR). It doesn't even know this! That's why there is no such thing as personal data privacy for them."
"So humans are so rare that people like me are treated like antiques?"
"Humans are not created unless a special condition arises. It can be said that a special treatment is given to 100% humans like you," said Jose.
"IVA, in that case, do you record everything we talk about here?"
"Of course… I plan to send this data to the Health & Bioengineering Agency (HBA) at the end of each month."
"Jose, would you mind taking a look at IVA's code? I don't want any data going to the HBA. And also, give the healing computer an update. I want it to listen to everything we talk about. If I experience another memory loss in the future, let's minimize it once more."