Murasakino

A Plan of Action

"You mean... she told you to make us?" I asked.
He sniffed. "No, she wouldn't do that. When I got a job here, she did tell me to make a couple of other things, like mechanical arms and things."
"Why would she want you to make an arm?"
"Well, her company also owns a factory that makes cars, and it's one of the kind of arms that would be used to pick up heavy pieces of metal.
"Anyway, once she had my design, she had more built, and they were what she would call 'harmless' as they used no AI and were completely programmed.
"I thought making robots with AI was a good idea, and set about designing and building you and your sisters. When word reached Indigo, she was horrified, but at the same time couldn't possibly destroy my work. So, as a result, she sent you to work in a supermarket where you don't even need to think for yourselves. And I wish you could..."
He lowered his head again, so that his face was once again buried in his arms.

I was about to leave the room after around a minute of silence, unable to think of what to say next, until I realised that my eyes would still be red from crying. The girls would notice, so I stayed for a few more minutes. Dr Takeda did not say anything while I stood by the door; instead, he stayed at his table, his face in his arms. I walked over to his mirror to check my eyes, and they looked normal again. A little watery, but less red. I could always tell them that I'd sneezed, as the last time I did sneeze my eyes watered. While taking another look at Dr Takeda, I wondered if the girls had heard us talking. They probably hadn't, because neither of us were being very loud.
"Are you finished yet, Murasakino?" Cathy asked, her voice only just audible through the sealed door. Well, at least I now knew that they definitely hadn't heard us.
"Yes! Just washing my hands!" I replied.
"Pardon?" Dr Takeda said quietly.
"Nothing, it's okay," I told him. I quickly ran some water over my hands at the sink and shook most of it off, before opening the door and sitting back down with the girls.
"You take even longer than Tākoizu!" Cathy laughed. "Anyway, we're just about ready to start something else..."

"Wait, we're not writing anymore?" Ao asked, looking a little upset.
"We are, we are," Cathy reassured her. "Do any of you know what a signature is?"
This was one piece of information we were programmed to know already, so we all said "I do!" at more or less the same time.
"Want to know how to write yours?" she asked.
We now said "Yes!" at the same time. I was still thinking about what Dr Takeda had told me, but managed to hide my emotions and smiled with the other girls.
Cathy pointed to the bottom of the paper. "We'll do it here. The first thing you need to know is that there are basically no rules."
"But it has to be our name," Aka said.
"That's right. You can write your full name, your initials, maybe doodle a little picture or something with it... It really doesn't matter."
We all started scribbling our names, making them look as unique as possible.
"Here's mine," Cathy said, drawing a large 'A O' in about four seconds. It had a circle around it and the letters were wavy and oddly familiar.
"I feel like I've seen that before," I said, squinting at her paper.
"Oh, sometimes I write it on things that are mine so other people don't touch them," said Cathy. "It's on some of my CDs in the car; you might have seen it there."

*  *  *

As I got into my capsule, I thought about Cathy's CDs. Had I seen her signature on one? I supposed it didn't really matter. I thought about Indigo again, and Dr Takeda, which made me start to cry again. I held it in until I knew for certain that the others were asleep, and let it out. Tears ran down my cheeks and collected in a tiny puddle by my feet. I didn't want to cry, and felt stupid for doing it, but I couldn't stop thinking about how unfairly we and Dr Takeda were being treated by Indigo.
Dr Takeda must have heard something, as his door opened while I was crying. I wiped my eyes as quickly as possible and leant against my pillow. He came over to see who was making the noise, and walked straight past Tākoizu, as if he knew already that it was me. The sound of his footfalls stopped, but I wasn't sure where he was standing because I had my eyes closed. He sighed, placed his hand on the glass door of my capsule and walked back to his room. I opened my eyes to see him looking back at us, and we shared a smile.

*  *  *

   The next day we were walking to work again. Although I loved the walk, I now didn't want to work. I knew why we were here now, but none of the other girls did and I felt bad for them. After saying goodbye to Cathy, I made sure she had left before coming up with my plan;
   Step 1: I would create some sort of distraction for the girls, which was yet to be decided.
   Step 2: I would exit the supermarket as quickly as possible, putting out my 'out of order' sign so it didn't look suspicious.
   Step 3: I would go down the same street as I did last time, and hope that I could stay hidden.
   I still felt bad for the girls, as they were great sisters, but if I didn't need to work for the supermarket, I wouldn't.
   For my distraction, I would hide of Midori's scanner, meaning the others (and probably some kind customers) would help look for them and I could make my 'escape'. I just had to hope it wouldn't go wrong.