Editing Amaryllis in the Ice Country:Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 1===

Peaceful breaths, innocent sleeping faces.

I watch the children sleep at the plaza, and feel a sense of warmth inside me, and at the same time, some pain.

The child model robots have a long history to them. At first, they were created for couples who were unable to conceive or lost their children, and later on, they end up a massive category supporting the robot industry. Those child robots that like to smile, cling to others, and yet be so understanding have a general popularity in the market, and they were often cared for, doted on by their human ‘parent’s as though they are the actual children.

However, the passing of time remains cruel. Once their masters, ‘the parents’ die, child robots would have finished their mission, and would be sent to be scrapped at a plant. For the robots who not only fetched a high initial fee, but a high maintenance cost, the death of their masters implied their own deaths.

Of course, there are robots that barely avoided the fate of being scrapped and ended up in the second-hand shops. Most of the robots in this village are of this case. The children of the village cling onto me too not, not because I’m too patronizing, but because they desired for family. They had a sad programming to yearn for family, hoping to fawn, and they continued to seek love even over a hundred years.

—Love, huh…

I, once a caretaker robot, would sing to them once every two days and coax them to sleep. I don’t know whether a robot like me has this thing called ‘love’, but I still want to do my best for the children. Until the day our masters awake and are able to give them true love.

—But.

A trauma flashes in my mind. It’s the nightmarish scenery I saw four days prior.

—I never thought…such a thing happened.

I too experienced the ‘end time’. I was transferred from the kindergarten, and was working as a construction robot at a certain place in the city. When the cold wave spread, I was ordered to change my workplace, and deployed to the construction venue of the ‘Snow White’. The images of being deployed to transport the materials with the heavy type robots still remain fresh in my Mind Circuits.

However, such a visual image was a first. No matter whether I was present, it is unfathomable to think that I had no impression of such a major event. There were killings in the thousands, yet is it possible that this information did not reach me?

—Was my memory wiped off…?

Due to certain reasons, the data back then was erased from my Mind Circuit. If this is the case, it explains things. Or rather, this is the only thing I can think of.

But why? Erased because it’s not beneficial for humans? Is it just me? Or are the other villagers, industrial robots all the same? If our Mind Circuits are modified, and records disadvantageous to human history can be erased, then my feelings—my thoughts, my adoration, my utmost efforts to my masters—are they all created artificially? Is the utmost adoration I have of the Principal fabricated too? Or is it just an imprinted mindset?

—I don’t know. What is real, what is fake…I don’t know at all.

The more I start to doubt, the more uneasy I feel. I can’t even trust in my own memories at all. There is no way I can come up with an accurate conclusion.

And right when I’m deeply frustrated over why I can’t get the answer.

“What, you’re here.”

I lift my face, and standing before me is a woman wearing a beret.

“Hm…the children are really clinging onto me.”

“They’re sleeping well.”

Viscaria looks around, seemingly impressed. There are sheets laid out on the plaza, and the children are recharging, sleeping with their limbs completely limber. Child robots have a ‘nap function’ that allows them to automatically fall asleep. In terms of power saving, this function is really recommended. The effectiveness for recharging at least is most optimal when they don’t move.

“I have something to discuss with you.”

“What is it?”

“I want to do an emergency diagnosis soon.”

“Eh?”

I look at her. She had just carried out treatment.

“Why again?”

“Well basically…”

Viscaria would later say; as we have lived underground for a long time, there has been an upward trend of dire metallic fatigue, ‘metal frostbite’. If a robot’s body is to freeze, the worst-case scenario will be if they show signs of breaking down.

This trend has been escalating further recently.

“Two weeks ago, it was seven cases. Last week, it was eleven. This week, we have twenty.”

“Eh, twenty already? That’s too much.”

“That’s why we need an emergency diagnosis.”

Viscaria pulls her beret down, and closes her eyes with fatigue. In fact, with the number of patients sent to her all day long, she has yet to rest well as she has to diagnose them.

“You’re really busy going around with the resupplies, yet you came by to help.”

“Well I have to. Maybe we can get more people to help you diagnose. I’ll make a request to the Chief.”

“I’ll leave it to you.”

“Anyway, we need to find one way to deal with this…”

Recently, there has been a lot of issues happening in the village. Frequent earthquakes, sudden collapses, frostbites happening one after another, icemobile malfunctioning. The villagers ‘extracting’ has become more common recently too.

—Maybe.

I lift my head, and suddenly have this thought.

—If I’m to show these children ‘that footage’, what will they think?

The thirty children before my eyes are sleeping in different postures. I can no longer look at their innocent sleeping faces directly.

“Ma…mama…”

Someone mutters.