“Ugh, did we wake up too early?”
Because Clara and the others had woken up so early, the resort restaurant wasn’t even serving breakfast yet.
… Let’s head to the clinic first.
At Fran’s suggestion, the four of them boarded the fully charged tour bus and headed toward the hangar. Fran was driving, Clara sat in the passenger seat, and Sista and Lucia were in the back.
Sista didn’t say much, but she silently fished a touch tentacle out of Clara’s hair to play with. She had been obsessed with it lately and never seemed to tire of it.
Lucia leaned over the back of the seat and asked, “Are the hangar and the clinic being moved into the resort today?”
Fran nodded. “Yeah, I’ve already commissioned those muscle-bound aliens who have all that strength but nowhere to use it. The resort staff will help, too. After all, everyone’s lives are on the line. I don’t think anyone would slack off at a time like this.”
“So, will the lunar bus be driven to the resort first too?”
“Yeah… Oh, by the way, is BB-0027’s core unit okay?” Fran directed the latter part of the question to Clara.
“Oh, I hid it in your suitcase,” Clara said.
Fran’s brow furrowed. “My suitcase? Did you wash it after picking it up from that trash pile?”
“No. Can a core unit even be washed?”
“Huh? You didn’t wash it! That’s filthy!” Fran’s voice trembled with irritation.
Only then did Clara say, “I’m just teasing. I washed it.”
Nyx had explained that a high-level AI’s core unit was a black box that couldn’t be observed from the inside. The external seal was incredibly strong, and it was, of course, waterproof.
“Ha! Don’t make jokes like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Fran gave Clara a reproachful look.
Clara just teased, “I was just worried you’d be driving while drowsy. I wanted to wake you up.”
“That’s not waking me up, that’s a jump scare!” As she spoke, Fran kept one hand on the steering wheel and fished a lollipop out of the inner pocket of her white lab coat with the other, then handed it to Clara.
“Oh? Is this for me?”
“It’s not for you. Unwrap it for me. You wouldn’t want me taking both hands off the wheel to drive, would you? This ordinary tour bus isn’t equipped with any kind of autopilot…”
Clara took the lollipop and peeled the wrapper from the base of the candy. “Come to think of it, you’re always eating candy.”
“Maintaining a high-performance brain requires a massive amount of sugar.”
“But it’s so early in the morning.”
“I haven’t had breakfast, so my blood sugar is crashing! Hurry up and give me the candy!” Fran urged.
Clara held the brightly colored lollipop toward Fran’s mouth, but Fran ended up taking Clara’s fingertips into her mouth along with the candy.
“Mph?!”
“Ha, sorry. I’m driving and didn’t see clearly…”
Clara felt like she had done it on purpose.
***
The hangar was exactly as they had left it yesterday, with no signs of an attack by the Moon Rabbits. However, there was a moderately sized “dog hole” in the wall of the clinic—the very hole the Moon Rabbits had dug under the direction of Blue Cavalier.
Lucia squatted by the hole, expressing her dissatisfaction. “Hey, I told you we should have brought them to the resort! Now look!”
It was indeed bad news for Clara. She had originally intended to use the Moon Rabbit rebels to experiment with the Permissions she had received from Ps·ycho to see if she could transmit her thoughts to them.
“Sigh, I guess there’s no way to experiment with the ‘Permissions’ now.”
“Permissions?” Fran asked, puzzled.
“Uh, did I not tell you guys yet? I got the authority to command the Moon Rabbits from that woman… from Ps·ycho. I originally wanted to try it out on those rabbits.”
“Ha! Why didn’t you try it last night!?” Fran stared, the lollipop in her mouth nearly falling out.
“Well, I didn’t expect this to happen. I thought it wouldn’t be too late to do it today…”
As a result, there were no rabbits available today.
Lucia suggested, “Then why not go to a rabbit hole and catch a couple? Or go to the sea. Anyway, Moon Rabbits are all over the resort. A conservative estimate would put their numbers at over one thousand.”
Once there were over a thousand Moon Rabbits, their subsequent reproduction rate would grow geometrically. It certainly sounded terrible.
“It’s fine. We still have one Moon Rabbit here~”
Fran opened the door to the clinic and walked over to a medical freezer, pulling out a brain preserved in a transparent nutrient solution. It was smaller than a human brain; it belonged to a rabbit soldier.
“Wait, you aren’t actually going to…”
Clara had guessed as much when she saw Fran open the freezer, but she hadn’t expected her to actually go through with it. Then again… could a brain taken from a corpse even be used?
“Mhm~ Ultimately, it’s the brain that connects to the hive network. If you truly can become a command tower for the Moon Rabbits, then this rabbit brain will definitely react to the instructions you send. My job is to figure out the principles behind it~”
“… Dr. Fran, that’s so cruel.” Lucia frowned. She hadn’t been able to watch during the dissection yesterday.
“Cruel? It’s just a Moon Rabbit.”
Fran removed the rabbit brain from the freezer and plugged the special container into the interface of a medical robot to make it easier to monitor the readings.
“This is no different from the mice, rabbits, and frogs in a laboratory.”
“Scientists really have no empathy!”
Fran simply hummed a little tune. She accessed the medical robot through her computer and, with Nyx’s assistance, prepared for the calibration before looking at Clara.
“All right~ I’ll leave the task of giving orders to this brain to you.”
[**Accessing data. Ps·ycho… Complete.**]
Even though Nyx said this, Clara didn’t feel anything. She asked, “How do I do this?”
[**Just think it. Nyx will handle the remaining steps for you.**]
Being able to make many things “dummy-proof” was one of the advantages of an AI, wasn’t it?
“True. Without being connected to a prosthetic body, this brain can’t do anything… How about this! Try to make this brain ‘happy.’ I’ll detect the brain’s secretions~”
‘Oh, heavens.’
Fran might actually have the potential to become a mad scientist.
Despite the thought, Clara still tried to send the command “be happy” to the rabbit brain in the container within her mind.
“Oh, it’s releasing dopamine and endorphins… Sista, help me keep an eye on the readings… No, the main point is the method of connection between the child and the mother. Is it an electrical signal? Or telepathy?”
Fran muttered to herself, seemingly falling into a state of fanatical focus.
‘A Fran like this is a bit scary.’
Clara recalled the time she had been strapped to the surgical table by Fran in the Reconstruction Department.
[**Clara.**]
[**Nyx will assist Dr. Fran in finding a way to interrupt the connection between the mother and the children. Until then…**]
‘Yeah, I know.’
Clara sighed and silently walked to a bed in the corner to lie down.
‘Until then, leave the other side to me.’
Poor Moon Bunny.