"So you live on a junkyard planet..." Aldoux muttered, clenching his teeth. Sevda had been trying to extract the bullets from Aldoux's body for several hours. After emerging coolly from the gas in front of the hospital facility, he had been riddled with holes during the scuffle with the robots. Of course, since he had a powerful augmented body, he hadn't died, though he was writhing in agony. At least for now...
For the first time in a long while, Sevda was performing surgery without a healing computer or medical modules. Despite this, she had to perform such an operation with one hand in a place that was far from sterile. That was why she was asking for help from the runaway named Aldoux, signaling him by pressing on the spots she needed to stabilize before extracting the bullets.
"Ugh... it's a colony planet, not a junkyard planet," Sevda said with a weary tone.
Aldoux, writhing in pain, felt a momentary relief at the joy of an extracted bullet, but as soon as Sevda moved the knife in her hand to the next one, he began to writhe in agony once more.
"I've seen... a lot of colony planets, but this is the first time I've seen one like this," Aldoux said. Then he let out a masculine scream. Two bullets had merged inside Aldoux's body; although they had only grazed an organ, they had gone quite deep into his flesh. Sevda was holding onto the walls to avoid slipping on the blood pooled around the table. She showed the merged bullets to Aldoux. Then, taking a heat knife, she began to cauterize his wound. As soon as the red-hot blade touched him, Aldoux let out another high-pitched scream.
"I think you should focus on controlling your breath rather than talking," Sevda said. "You're going to faint from lack of oxygen."
"I'm trying to keep my mind busy," Aldo said. "To keep from thinking about the pain... I have a doctor who won't anesthetize me. Do they call you doctor because you're a teacher or because you're actually a medical doctor?"
Giving him a condescending look, Sevda said: "Sorry, but I was too busy to bring anesthetics with me."
With the surgery—which lasted for hours—finally over, Aldoux could move at last, but with every movement, he could feel his body aching and his cauterized wounds straining against his skin. Since Sevda was thinking about leaving the ship and Aldo didn't want to stay on the ship alone, he agreed to move around despite his injuries.
Due to some wires protruding from Sevda's broken arm, some of her modules were constantly short-circuiting. Because of this, she had placed a circuit breaker component right under her armpit and wrapped it in a way that would also stabilize her neck to keep it fixed. Descending the ladder she had placed from the transport spaceship was quite a challenge for her.
As they descended from the transport spaceship through a vast opening, they had missed their intended landing spot significantly due to the ship's warped structure. Because of this, the parking robots had issued them a heavy fine. The problem was that they had no money on them at that moment. Thus, no matter how small the parking fine was, they wouldn't be able to move the spaceship until they found money.
After descending the spaceship's stairs with pain in every step, Aldoux looked at the massive sign in front of him. "Welcome to Calos, TESO2!" It was a hideous banner written with black ink on a yellow background.
They had planned to leave the atmosphere as soon as they took off with the transport vehicle, but they figured they couldn't get past Uruzen City, as Labiba's men were likely holding that area. Therefore, they had come to Calos, one of the cities on the other side of the planet, and landed at the TESO2 factory in Calos to meet their needs.
Calos was a bit different from Uruzen. While Uruzen produced plastic or metal components, Calos produced and sold small but high-tech products like computer cores. Since the products sold by TESO in Calos were of poor quality compared to the general market, the company did everything it could to open its products to any market it could sell to. In fact, if you were any human passing through the END99141 Colony, you could easily get landing permission for Calos and hang out in its market as you pleased.
This was an incredible tolerance because you couldn't enter or leave any END colony other than this one without issuing a declaration to the SWR. END colonies were colonial settlements. These colonies housed production-based, profit-oriented enterprises such as mines, factories, and farmlands. But these profit-oriented enterprises had to pay taxes to the SWR. If the SWR couldn't collect taxes from these enterprises, it would mean wasting massive resources, and additionally, market balances could be disrupted. Just because END colonies were private colonies of the company named Endarken didn't mean they should be different from other production colonies. Therefore, END colonies had to report everything—absolutely everything—to the SWR via the Network. In fact, the machines in most of their factories couldn't even operate without connecting to the SWR Network. But only the END99141 Colony was an exception. At least an exception regarding humans... If there were humans entering this planet—which had once done business with Evoke Systems—only for the TESO2 Factory, they could visit without SWR permission if desired.
That was why, as soon as they landed at this factory, they found an incredibly vibrant market before them. Vehicles parked one after another, the beggar people of Calos waiting in front of the vehicles, stands set up a bit further away, and robots waiting at the heads of the stands... While the sounds and vibrations of wagons moving on rail systems could be heard from the ceiling above their heads, the people seemed so used to it that they didn't seem to care about any of the noise.
This factory was in the shape of a ring. The outer part of the ring was filled with sellers, while the inner part was where production took place. The upper floors were the living quarters for management, and the lower floors were the living quarters for Calos citizens. Compared to the chaotic structure of the TESO factory in Uruzen City, this place seemed more orderly. But it only seemed that way... Both were monsters with blood on their teeth; one just hadn't attempted to open its mouth yet.
As Sevda walked quickly toward the stands, Aldo followed her, wearing the old man's pants and a shirt that smelled of mold. On the ship of this elder named Urgan, there wasn't much more than a few coins. Sevda had given a small portion of this money to Aldoux, and Aldoux had placed the money in his back pocket. Normally, on this planet where payments were made digitally, no currency other than the local people's money was accepted. Since Sevda had lived in Uruzen for years, she possessed the local currency.
Aldo didn't know what Sevda was planning to buy. But he knew that what he wanted to buy with the money given to him was a weapon. Aldoux had specialized in ballistic weapons through the weapons training he had received in the palaces of Weisshafen. He hadn't had a weapon since he left his gun at a close friend's grave and the officers caught him and threw him in prison. Both this situation and the sound of bullets flying over his head the moment he woke up had awakened a great hunger in him. He was literally craving a weapon at that moment... But as far as he could see, there were no weapons in any of the stands. Only high-tech nonsense—and Aldoux was an augmented. None of what he saw would be of use to him.
"This place really is a junkyard hell..." he muttered while looking at one of the stands.
Then he saw Sevda shopping at one of the stands a bit further away. With quick steps—his feet were bare because they couldn't find spare shoes—he came to Sevda's side.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," said the Robot. "The money you're offering is at least 10 times less than what's required for me to let you into the repair station." Then, with a beam coming from its eye, it scanned Sevda from head to toe. "In fact, it would be accurate to say it's exactly 22.48 times less. You've lost too many components."
"Well... ah..." She glanced at Aldoux. Then, turning back to the robot: "How much is an emotion module?" she asked.
"You don't have enough money, but I can do you a favor."
"Please... please do... thank you," Sevda said, handing over her money.
The robot turned to the drawer behind it and began searching through files in the shelf it opened. It pulled out one of the files and turned its pages. Reaching into one of the pages, it pulled out a diskette. While placing the diskette in Sevda's hand: "Thank you for choosing us," the robot said.
With the diskette in her hand, Sevda entered the glass-enclosed smoking area a few steps away. No one except the Calosians smoked, and they couldn't go out to smoke during working hours anyway.
"An emotion module?" Aldo said. "What the fuck are you buying an emotion module for?"
"Please..." Sevda said, giving the diskette in her hand to Aldoux. "Can you help me install it?"
Sevda turned around and exposed her back. The metal cover on the back of her spine opened, and her metal spine protruded slightly outward. Each plate of her metal spine held a diskette. Most of the diskettes were burnt or shattered. Aldoux looked for a diskette with a code similar to the code on the piece in his hand. Once he swapped that diskette with the one in his hand, the opening on the woman's back closed on its own.
"Great..." Sevda said. Finally, her facial expressions could move as she spoke.
"Now..." she said, her eyes filling with tears. "...now I can cry," she said, letting herself fall into the chair right behind her.
"What? Crying?"
"Yes, crying, you damn man!" she said with a tearful voice. While her tears were flowing, she made a barricade for her face with her single hand.
"No way..." Aldoux said with a surprised tone. "...you're actually crying."
"You're the one who installed the emotion module, you idiot!"
Aldoux looked around. Men who had come from off-planet to shop were seeing a one-armed cybernetic girl crying and Aldoux standing over her. Aldoux realized that a sense of shyness, or rather social anxiety, was sprouting within him.
"They killed them all! Those damn monsters!" she said. While crying, she was also shouting with anger. Even though the glass was thick, the young woman's muffled voice could be heard from outside.
Noticing people looking at her, Aldoux looked at them too. One of them was looking at him so strangely that Aldoux, with hand gestures, gave a performance to the man looking at him as if to say: "I swear, I'm not responsible for this." His attempt to show such a long sentence with hand gestures created quite an interesting sequence.
"What am I going to do? 56 is gone, 77 is gone, 18 is gone..." Sevda muttered.
"What are you doing? Counting the numbers for the lottery?"
"You stupid man! Those were their names! The names of my friends from Uruzen..." With the emotion module, her facial expressions when she got angry were more distinct and more terrifying. "You... what an annoying man you are! Every time you speak, it makes me angrier!"
"Ah... I'm sorry, could you lower your voice a bit?"
"What will happen if I lower my voice, you jerk? What if they hear us? What more harm can they do to me when I've lost my life's purpose and everything I have?"
"Yes. You're right," Aldoux said, making gestures as if trying to calm her down. "But you're having a nervous breakdown right now and you're not yourself."
"Yes, I'm having a nervous breakdown!" she shouted. Then she gave the middle finger with her only intact hand to the people looking toward the glass. "Let them see this too if they're so curious..."
Just then, a few security robots were coming toward them. Aldoux ran and poked his head out the door and:
"Is there a problem, sir?" the security robots asked. "The lady doesn't seem well..."
"Uh, we're in the middle of a divorce..."
"I understand, but we must ask her to calm down."
"Fuck your robots too!" Sevda said and made a hand gesture.
"Of course..." Aldoux said, scratching his head. "...I'll talk to her right away."
He closed the door and slowly approached Sevda. While the girl was sobbing, he said: "I understand... I really understand your pain. I've lost many loved ones too." Just then, Sevda stopped crying and looked at Aldo with tearful eyes. "My sister, the woman I loved... and then there was a test subject friend I created while hanging out at the facility so I wouldn't be bored from loneliness. Her name was Velsil..."
"What?" Sevda said. "You created a female test subject? And just so you wouldn't be bored at the facility? That's... that's so cruel and immoral!"
"I wish I hadn't given that much detail," Aldo said. "Look... you might be thinking wrong because you don't know me. I didn't see her just as a test subject; I loved her as a friend with all my heart and..."
"And what?"
"Well..."
"What do you mean 'well'?"
"Well... I've been a selfish person all my life. That's why the only thing in my past is mistakes... In this life full of mistakes, I've lost a lot." He said, and then put his hand on Sevda's shoulder. "Besides, I can't stand crying women."
Sevda's eyebrow twitched at that moment. "Get your hand off me! You filthy creep!"
Aldoux realized that he had inadvertently used that sleazy tone of voice. He hadn't done it on purpose; he had done it as a reflex. Even his choice of words was wrong.
"What happened?"
"Fuck off!" Sevda said and stood up. "I know the intentions of nobles like you all too well. You useless people don't care about anything except getting pleasure!"
"Is that so? I'm here trying to pour my heart out to you. I'm trying to talk about my own experiences to share your pain. I'm trying to do something honorable here, and is this the response I get?" Aldo said angrily. The robots, noticing that Aldoux's voice was also loud, looked at each other in surprise.
"Who told you I needed consolation from you? I don't need any help from a creep, useless, criminal person like you!"
"Oh really? You weren't saying that while I was saving your ass from that man's lap?"
"Ha! So that's how it is now, huh? You think you have a right to everything just because you saved my ass? You might have saved this ass, but you won't be getting it!"
"What the hell are you talking about? As if I'm some kind of creep!"
"You were muttering about countless women during your damn surgery!"
"Aren't you ashamed to listen to a person's most private moments?"
"I didn't enter the surgery just to listen to you, you idiot! I'm the one who performed your surgery anyway!"
Aldoux's voice trembled with anger and he said: "Damn it, I wish you hadn't! I wish I had just died!"
"Ah... if I had known I was saving a noble who was tired of life and wanted to die, if I had known I was bringing back a noble who cried like a baby, I definitely wouldn't have done it. You don't even deserve that damn face."
"This face?" he said, pointing to his face with his finger. "You took my perfect baby face and turned me into a prison runaway! This face screams! It screams, 'Hey, I'm a prison runaway! Even if not from prison, I escaped from somewhere! Maybe from civilization!'"
"Ugh... damn it!" Sevda said and stood up. "If you had walked around for five minutes with your other stupid face, they would have swarmed you and destroyed you in seconds. Consider that I gave you a new identity, but you don't owe me. I saved your life. And you saved my life in return. Are we even?"
"Yes, we're even!"
"Then everyone go their own way!" Sevda said and walked toward the door with angry steps. "Never to see each other again! I'm leaving you alone with your damn noble spoiledness!"
"Is that so?" he said, reaching into his pocket. "Then take your damn money too and let's never see each other again." When he dropped the money for Sevda, the girl left the glass room without caring about the money. While passing through the surprised robots, she bumped into both of them with her shoulders.
Aldoux was left all alone in the room. He spent some time whistling in the silence. Then he looked at the metal coin on the ground. Suddenly he leaned down, took the money, and put it in his pocket. "Better than nothing." Then he left the room through the glass door.