Bolver was the sole person in charge of the lower floors at TESO2. Hianyan placed such importance on production on the upper floors that while planning the entire budget, he didn't even take the lower floors or areas outside the production zone into account. Who cared about the Calosians living on the lower floors? The only thing Hianyan cared about was their markets full of stalls, where they sold occasional products.
Hianyan didn't care if the Calosians killed each other or moved with any heretic. Therefore, he hadn't even deigned to put an advanced security or personnel tracking system on the lower floors. Because of this situation, high-ranking Calosians, in order to implement the caste system they possessed and avoid being killed by the lower-floor Calosians, tried to spread religions and cultures where they could explain this caste system; they were trying to guarantee their positions.
This was exactly where Bolver came in. Bolver had countless criminal records. He had assaulted many women, been convicted of wounding many men, and most importantly, had caused the deaths of at least 44 people. Most of these were for pleasure… Bolver had been an officer of the Supreme World Republic (SWR) during the Interstellar War, and the war had taken many things from him. While fighting the colonists, he began to see them as less than human; later, this sickness recurred for every human. After the war ended, Bolver refused to return to society and chose to live by making the traditions he had in the war a habit. Looting, rape, violence, and many other things became Bolver's lifestyle.
Such a lifestyle was very conspicuous in the SWR, especially after the war ended. Some inspectors had repeatedly informed Bolver that the sins he committed were beginning to overshadow his wartime heroism and that his credit in the eyes of the SWR was running out. Especially with post-war laws, these inspectors aimed to introduce reforms serious enough to lead to Bolver's execution. Bolver noticed this and therefore threw himself into the END99141 colony. He worked in the mines here until it was given to TESO. During the time he worked in the mines, he committed murder many times because he couldn't rein in his demons, covering each one up as a mining accident. After all, many people could die in the mines… But END99141 was not such a colonized colony back then. Bolver, caught after his sixth murder, was imprisoned.
Since he was an SWR citizen, the colonists couldn't do anything to him. It was not possible for them to try or execute him. In fact, some colonists thought that this man, who could be considered a folk hero, might have supporters; that no matter what he did, the SWR could support and defend him. The colonists, who did not want Bolver's freedom, kept him prisoner for years. In one of the deepest caves of the mine, behind metal bars… They gave Bolver only an outlet and a light bulb that burned constantly over his head.
Bolver had stayed in that damn cave for so long that he had been forgotten by the colonists. Children who occasionally heard his madness-filled screams thought they heard the voice of a ghost in the abandoned mines.
Until TESO took over this planet, Bolver lived in that cave without connecting to the Net. It wasn't Labiba who found him in that cave, but Hianyan, who was Labiba's assistant at the time.
Hianyan knew that if he wanted to be a powerful man like Labiba, he had to be brave and marginal enough to stand up to Labiba. Everything Labiba ignored should have been a blessing for Hianyan, who wanted to take over the second TESO factory. He had to find the pearl in the garbage, no matter what.
When Labiba came across Bolver in the mine, she gave the execution order. She thought an unhealthy cybernetic like Bolver would be harmful to this planet. Hianyan, on the other hand, shelved this order and instead arranged a special room for Bolver. He provided some training that would serve to rein in the brutality within Bolver and help him pull his mental health together. These trainings were very cheap trainings.
When the TESO2 factory opened, Hianyan brought Bolver, whom he had kept waiting in the room, to light. Bolver was such a fearless and aggressive cybernetic that he struck fear into Hianyan's enemies. During the TESO2 factory elections, he didn't just kill people who didn't have the population to vote for Hianyan, but he also intimidated some and made them change their votes. Even in the group clashes that broke out back then, Bolver caused many fronts to be won by using his war experiences from years ago. Bolver was Hianyan's hound.
But after TESO2 passed into Hianyan's hands, the war ended, and Bolver's importance vanished. It had taken Bolver a long time to understand this insignificance. In fact, so to speak, he had only started to feel insignificant a few months ago. Yet Hianyan, just so an ogre like Bolver would be occupied, made him a security guard; he let him loose on the Calosians.
Now, just months after feeling worthless, Bolver had encountered an offer. Nagara, one of Labiba's most loyal employees, had asked him for the name of a woman. In return, what he would give was the rank of Production Manager. Labiba, unlike Hianyan, had seen the potential inside Bolver instead of just seeing him as an empty and bloodthirsty psychopath and had offered him a real job. At least, that's what Bolver thought.
Bolver opened the wooden door of the security office and went inside. He pulled the door behind him so hard that the "security" sign nailed to it hit the floor. In the small, damp room, a broken light bulb flickered constantly. The place consisted of a stool with a worn cushion on top, a huge table covered with cracks, small square screens lined up along the wall, and a painting of a small coastal town hanging on the wall.
Bolver took off his officer's hat and threw it onto the table. Then he sat down on the stool, putting all his weight on it. He let out a deep sigh and scratched his head. Hianyan had bullied him with his words once again.
Bolver was taking insults from Hianyan that he hadn't even taken from his commanders in the war. Most of the time, these scoldings turned into insults containing profanity. Since Bolver was a spineless man, these insults were not the kind that would bother him. It was an accepted fact for everyone that bigger things were necessary to annoy a piece of human waste like Bolver. But interestingly, despite being a spineless and base man, he had recently started taking these insults personally.
He placed his hand on the hand reader on the table. He felt the electricity entering his fingertips from the reader and circulating through his nerves. The times a cybernetic felt the chip in their brain the most were usually when connecting to a computer. That was why whenever Bolver was going to connect to a computer, even the thought of it made him flinch.
The screens lined up along the wall opened one after another. Streets, avenues, floors where Calosian people lived, and much more… 89.22% of his life was spent in this room. Hianyan, who resisted getting artificial intelligence, used Bolver as a cheap artificial intelligence. Or rather, as a cheap security system…
Bolver was the AI watching the camera, the law enforcement intervening in the incident, the chief ensuring public order, the engineer maintaining robots and cameras, and the reporting specialist. "Just so we can't find another job, right?" Bolver muttered. He took the chip Nagara had given him in his right hand.
He inserted the chip into the side of the reader where he placed his hand. There were many photo records of Sevda on the screen. There were photos of the woman in very unexpected ways, like the diligent work of a perverted tabloid journalist. But one of these photos was specially marked. In this photo, Sevda had pounced on an old man from Uruzen and crushed him into pieces. Bolver smiled and said:
"Just the kind of woman for me…" The fact that Sevda had killed one of the Uruzenians was useful information. If he could somehow get this photo to the Calosians on the lower floors, it wouldn't even be a chore for them to report the woman named Sevda. He multiplied the photo thousands of times. He wrote "Warning! Killer! Report her!" on it in many different fonts. Then he broadcasted this visual on countless screens in places where only Calosians were located on the lower floor. As long as Hianyan wasn't aware of these visuals, he wouldn't have much trouble.
"Now it's time to track the woman…"
He rewound to the first landing of the woman's spaceship. As the woman got off the spaceship, there was a man next to her. "She wasn't alone…" he muttered. He followed the woman with his eyes through the cameras for a while. If she wasn't appearing on one of the screens, he immediately changed the cameras appearing on the screen.
He saw the strange argument she had with the man she landed with in the smoking room. His pupils were absorbing the scenes that took place one by one. What he saw here were things he hadn't seen for hundreds of years. So much sadness, anger, etc. were being experienced by two humans. Yes… Calosians also got angry, cried, and showed many more emotions, but they weren't even considered animals, let alone humans, according to Bolver.
He saw that after the man and woman separated, the man used drugs. Then one of the children had stolen his money. While chasing the child after the money, Bolver suddenly punched the table with his free hand.
"That man…" he muttered. "…that damn man and woman were together." He stopped following the man. He went back in time and looked for the woman. While being chased by robots, the woman came across a door. A Calosian woman invited her in.
On the other side of the door, there is a Calosian woman holding a knife to the throat of the woman named Sevda. Bolver, zooming in on that woman's face, thinks this woman might be from the lower floors. But why is a woman in the fire stairwell so close to working hours? Or rather, how?
Bolver goes to the lowest floor with the camera. With the camera, he analyzes the faces in the dark rooms, but there is no matching face. Looking at every floor, every camera on every floor would take a lot of time. That's why he thinks tracking Sevda is his best chance.
Yes… A knife was held to Sevda's throat. Then the Calosian woman tells Sevda something. Instead of going down to the lower floors, they go up to the upper floors… To the upper floors? Isn't this woman Calosian?
To go up to an upper floor, there is a locked door that must be passed in the fire stairs. No Calosian human can go to the upper floor from outside the work area. But something happens… While Sevda watches around anxiously, the Calosian woman opens the lock of the door with a card she took out of her pocket. Then they pass through the door and disappear from sight.
"How can it be?" Bolver is speechless with surprise. "How can a Calosian go to the upper floor?" He punches the table. "If you're going up, I can't watch her from here… There's an AI looking at the upper floor. An AI connected to Hianyan, communicating only with him… If… If I say I'm looking for the woman named Sevda, I'll arouse Hianyan's suspicion. No… I definitely have to handle it on my own."
At that moment, Bolver thought of tracking the man. The man had gone to the lower floor… A lot of dialogue had occurred. In fact, the sheet on the statue had been opened, and the statue of the bioethics inspection inspector had been revealed.
"Foolish Calosians… They believe an SWR inspector can be a savior." he muttered. "Bioethics Inspection, huh? Another dog of the SWR… They even made a statue of him. No inspector can even lift a finger without the SWR's knowledge."
He followed the advanced man; just before Bolver reached the lower floor, he had taken the elevator and gone to the upper floors. He followed the man for a while. He wandered around, bought a lizard, then hid behind a vehicle to listen to Bolver and Nagara's conversation. "He seems like a pretty problematic man…" he muttered, and he heard a voice behind him.
"Yes… He certainly seems so. But I assure you, the face he has now is not one he wanted."
Bolver reached for his gun and tried to turn around immediately, but the man behind him lunged at Bolver's pistol and dropped the bullet in it. It was that man, the tourist he was after. Bolver was putting the bullet he took out of his pocket into the gun and pointing it at the man when the man, with a few unusual movements, had disassembled the gun into its subcomponents.
"These guns are pretty scrap things…" Aldoux said. "…where did you find these?"
Bolver threw the gun aside. The man in front of him was an advanced human; no advanced human could physically resist a cybernetic. He stood up by hitting his hands on the table and lunged at the man to squeeze his throat when the man pulled out a gun from behind. The gun… was a bit strange…
It was a sling made of many metal parts joined in a distorted way. While pulling the bow of the sling back, Aldoux said, "Don't you dare!" "I swear I'll shoot your head and let your brains flow onto the table."
"What is that thing you're holding?"
"A sling… I made it myself. This is the most I could do with materials I found in the trash. But I assure you it is extremely deadly."
"What does it fire?"
"A Circuit Breaker needle…"
"You know I can kill you before that needle enters my circuits, right?" he said, giggling. "In fact, it's even a mystery whether that needle with the sling can pass through my metal skin… You're not a very smart person from what I can see…"
"But I am a very dangerous person."
"Usually, dangerous men don't say that."
"Well, how do you know?"
"Because I am a dangerous person."
"Didn't you say dangerous men didn't say that?"
"What… what are you talking about? What are you doing here?"
"I'm looking for a woman named Sevda."
"Is that so? I don't have much information. I'm looking for Sevda too. In fact, I thought you knew."
"And I'm saying you have some information. Ah… damn it!" After a silence: "Then I have to kill you." Aldo said, suddenly stretching his sling and firing the needle at the cybernetic. Bolver, putting his hand to his face so the needle wouldn't hit his face, had stood up to lunge at the man with great speed when something appeared in the open door.
As Aldoux threw himself to the ground to avoid Bolver, the turret behind him was revealed. The turret fired instantly, and the electric net that came out of it caught Bolver in a grip.
"Yes!" Aldoux shouted. "I didn't think it would work."
Bolver was shaking uncontrollably as the wires of the electrically charged net sank into his body. Each contraction was a brutal reminder of the high voltage passing through his nerves.
His eyes had difficulty scanning the strange mechanism standing straight in front of him; this was no longer an ordinary robot, but a weapon transformed ruthlessly for its purpose.
Its body, bent into the shape of a table, was a deception that tried to make it look like a harmless piece of furniture at first. However, its mouth was wide open, and this opening was no different from the trap of a hunting mechanism. Its original internal mechanism—servos, actuators, central processing unit—had been largely removed, and a minimal and deadly system had been mounted instead. From the depths of the mouth, the cold glow of an optical trigger structure fixed directly to the pharyngeal space was visible. It could be a LIDAR scanner or a simple infrared sensor; it seemed impatient to act the moment it detected its target. "This…" Bolver said, trembling. At that moment, the circuit breakers had paralyzed almost his entire body. "…what the hell is this thing?"
"A monstrosity I made from those robots you threw in the trash… But isn't it incredible? Even I didn't expect it to work this well. It's very strange that there's no AI in this facility of yours; even your damn robots don't understand when they see something out of the ordinary. Because I carried this damn turret in a shopping cart, your robots couldn't understand that something was wrong. I didn't believe it when they said TESO was a company standing by pure luck, but it seems true."
"Lower floors are unimportant… That's why…"
"I would have liked to take you to a modern factory one day." Aldoux said. "You wouldn't even open your mouth for TESO, you'd bury your head in your shame. By the way, how did I bait you?"
"Bait me?"
"You thought I was going to hit you with a circuit breaker needle. You didn't want your boss Hianyan to know that you were secretly after Sevda. That's why you didn't want to gather security forces here or connect to the Net and ask for help. You wanted to destroy me secretly. If your life were in danger, you probably wouldn't have acted so comfortably. You thought you could kill me before the circuit breaker needle froze your communication circuits with the Net, so you took the risk of being hit by the needle. Ta-da…" Aldoux said and pointed to the turret with his hand.
"…you were hit by the needle and then pinned to the ground by the turret. All this happened so fast that you couldn't even connect to the Net… I hope you've realized what a dangerous man I am. Ilya would have loved to see this."
"Stupid fool!" Bolver shouted. "Coming to a factory and attacking its employee, huh? You could have clung to that perfect SWR citizenship and continued a rose-colored life, but you've gotten yourself into big trouble! Even if you kill me, you're dead now!"
"Rose-colored life?" Aldoux said. "I don't have such a life, my dear friend. I'm not one of those SWR babies you think. In fact, I'm as good as dead." Aldoux pushed the turret through the door and closed and locked the door. Then he reached for his back and took out a hand saw.
"I need that hand of yours…" he said, and he cut Bolver's hand off at the wrist. Then he placed the hand in the place on the cameras. The cameras were turning randomly because although the hand was connected to the camera system, there was no brain chip controlling the hand. Since he was an advanced human, he couldn't control these cameras.
"That hand can't control the cameras without my mind."
"I realized that." he said and came over Bolver's head. "But I might need to tell you this. I really want to save the girl named Sevda. That's why…" He put his hand on his waist and thought for a while. "…I want you to talk. You must have an idea where she went, right?"
"Go to hell! You won't get any answer from me!"
"Then it's time to activate Plan B." he said and started the hand saw.
"You can't scare me while my pain circuits are off."
"Then it's time for Plan C!"