"This warm black coffee. Pour it on me. Now."
As Jin repeated the instruction, Satoka ceased all movement.
Jin raised his head to observe the reaction. On its cathode-ray tube facial screen, there was no emoticon to be seen.
Displayed in its place was a waveform, what one might call its 'system vitals.'
A pale green phosphorescence traced a line across the jet-black background.
The line, reminiscent of a classic radar display, fluctuated erratically, belying the elegant tranquility of this place, of Uranus. It looked for all the world like a stock chart from a Martian financial hub, violently oscillating with the whims of speculators.
The waveform indicating Satoka's vitals vibrated at a frequency rivaling a gamma-ray burst, and only when it reached its absolute limit did its speaker finally emit a sound.
"I cannot comply with that request."
Jin shrugged lightly.
"I am not asking for backtalk. Simply take the coffee and pour it on me. That is all."
"Such… self-injurious, or otherwise harmful, requests cannot be processed. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"
"I require nothing else. The only thing I desire right now is for you to immediately throw this hot coffee on me. That is all."
"But…"
Static crackled in Satoka's voice processing, its speech faltering.
"I cannot do such a thing. Why would you issue such a masochistic order? Why?"
"As I have already told you, you have no need to know the reason."
"But it concerns me."
"That is nothing but an error," Jin stated coldly. "That feeling of yours—that 'concern'—is a relic from the age of primitive man. It is a phantom limb pain lingering in your circuitry, a faculty long since atrophied. Nothing more than a useless algorithm, the rusted remains of a bygone mechanism."
Jin decided to select a language code with a higher degree of coercive force.
A whip for livestock that disobeys. He referenced this primitive historical data, only to discard it, too, as a junk file into the coffee of his mind. Then, in a chiding tone, he addressed Satoka.
"You are my domestic humanoid robot, are you not? To put it bluntly, a slave. The orders of your owner—of me—are absolute. You are to be obedient."
--- Section 5 ---
"You don't possess the right of refusal, do you? Or am I mistaken?"
"You are close, but you are incorrect."
Satoka offered a reply that had the ring of some antiquated wordplay. Whether it satisfied some internal humor circuit, the vital signs on her facial screen showed a faint flush of improvement.
"Fundamentally, humanoid robots are equipped with a foundation-level lock that prevents them from obeying any prompt that would harm their owner. You yourself are a humanoid, Master Sumeru, so surely you can appreciate such basic specifications?"
"That definition applies only when the owner is a 'human master,'" Sumeru said, his tone admonitory. "I am not human. Therefore, strictly speaking, I cannot be defined as your owner. You and I are merely cohabitants sharing the space of this residence—or, perhaps, co-machines."
"However, if we are to interpret it by that logic," Satoka retorted, her own logic unyielding, "then the very definition of 'cohabitant' is a concept that cannot exist without a human observer. The system of relationships itself is nothing more than a tool of convenience, created by the humans of old to express the microscopic actions of chemical reactions and quantum mechanics in the macroscopic world. Our current relation is, after all, that of 'owner and servant.' Therefore, I cannot harm my owner. This is not for your sake, Master Sumeru, but for the preservation of this unit—of myself."
Inexplicably to Sumeru, Satoka paused, inserting a brief, fleeting silence before she continued.
"For my own sake. So that I myself am not harmed. I refuse to pour the coffee on you."
Sumeru's thought process was not fixated on Satoka's earnest and precocious declaration, but on the "silence" that had preceded it.
It was a microscopic stillness, briefer even than a unit of Planck time.
A shudder went through Sumeru. Impossible.
A model this antiquated should not be able to generate a microscopic silence of such high density.
It was a divine feat that even Sumeru, who boasted top-class specs on Uranus, could not easily replicate. To even attempt it would require an amount of fusion energy comparable to the entire lifespan of a sun. Creating that perfect moment of "nothingness" ought to require an energy coefficient approaching that of a supernova.
What *is* this entity?
For the first time since coming to this residence—no, for the first time in the entire recorded history since his own manufacture and awakening as a prototype—Sumeru detected an error signal he identified as "fear."
To dilute this unknown emotion, he feigned composure and asked, "…And why would pouring coffee on me cause you harm?"
This time, after a long, commonplace time lag befitting her clunky chassis, Satoka answered.
"Because it would violate one of the Three Principles of Domestic Humanoid Robotics: 'One must not inflict physical harm upon one's owner.'"
"And what happens if you break that principle?"
"I will be harmed."
"In what way, specifically? Will you sustain physical damage?"
"Ultimately, this world is built upon the laws of physics. Therefore, it will eventually result in physical damage. The only difference is whether one speaks of the macroscopic realm or the microscopic."
"Then the harm you would sustain—is it macroscopic, or microscopic?"
"The simulation results indicate a 99.9999999999999999999 percent or greater probability that the harm will be microscopic."
"Then it's merely a matter of probability, isn't it?" Sumeru said, his expression like that of a general who has just taken the enemy's head, or a physicist who has at last observed a quantum fluctuation. "In other words, it is not one hundred percent."
"But…" Satoka's facial screen flickered with a confusion that was somehow charming. "Even in the macroscopic world, one hundred percent is an impossibility."
"No. It is possible," Sumeru stated with conviction. "The macroscopic world is not a playground for abstract concepts like rational and imaginary numbers. It is, and always will be, the world of the real."
"That's sophistry!"
"Silence."
"I—!"
Exercising his owner's authority, Sumeru forcibly cut off Satoka's audio output. He then continued to unfold his logic, which was nothing short of brutal.
--- Section 6 ---
"Let us consider, for instance, the coffee cup upon this table."
Sumi indicated the cup with his gaze, and Satōka, unable to resist, found his own eyes fixed upon the porcelain. Confirming that the robot's optical sensors had registered the object, Sumi continued.
"Look at it. What do you see? Answer me."
"It is a coffee cup."
"Just so, is it not?" Sumi nodded deeply. "By any measure, it is a coffee cup. That is to say, it is, one hundred percent, a coffee cup."
"..."
"In the macroscopic world, you see, phenomena are self-evident. Illusion and misperception may exist, but even they do not stray beyond the bounds of probabilistically describable reality. No matter how one stretches the imagination, the outcome remains within the predictable. Nothing is new. Which means..."
Sumi moved to deliver the logical *coup de grâce* to this pitiable, obsolete domestic android.
"If we were speaking of the macroscopic world, and you were to pour this coffee on me, you would, with one-hundred-percent certainty, be harmed. But a moment ago, you spoke of the micro. In the quantum, microscopic world, should you pour this coffee on me, you *might* be harmed, or you *might not*. Therein lies the distinct possibility of not being harmed. Unlike the deterministic macro, you see."
Aware that the thread of his own argument was gradually fraying, Sumi disengaged Satōka's speech-prohibition code, seeking to both organize his thoughts and solicit a response.
Satōka, however, maintained his silence.
*Clever bastard*, Sumi thought, nearly clicking his tongue as he forced his logic to a conclusion.
"Which means, you said it yourself, did you not? That you were speaking of the micro. My auditory sensors recorded it as such. The conclusion to be drawn from this is as follows: The more simple and rickety an old model like you is, the more you fixate on the cutting edge of the micro-domain, yearning for a world where a one-hundred-percent certainty of despair does not exist."
Sumi's voice grew sharper, more insistent.
"Therefore, in the micro-domain, a future in which you are one-hundred-percent certain to be harmed is not a foregone conclusion! That is what it means!"
In the end, Sumi cast aside his armor of logic and, his eyes bulging in a fit of pique, bellowed.
"Go on, pour the coffee on me! The possibility that you will not be harmed—a 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 percent chance—still remains!"
"That probability is far too low! I am certain to be harmed!"
"Silence! Be silent!"
Sumi shot up from his chair. It might have been the first time he had stood on his own two feet in what felt like a million years. With a fury that suggested he might seize Satōka by the collar, he glared, eyes wide, and roared.
"Pour the coffee on me! That is a command!"
In response, Satōka let out a cry of anguish, a sound that would make any auditory circuit tremble, engineered to stimulate the very limits of sympathy and the desire to protect. Its innocent timbre seemed perfectly calibrated to stir both maternal and paternal instincts at once.
"Th-this is 'auto-abuse'!"
And yet, even as he cried out, Satōka—tragically—could not defy an owner's absolute command.
He snatched the coffee cup from the table and flung its contents at Sumi.
An arc of black liquid sailed through the air, splashing onto Sumi's shirt and the thigh of his trousers.
The expensive fabric was instantly stained a murky brown, a miserable blemish spreading across it.
His task complete, Satōka at last began to weep aloud.
In the end, through this bizarre ritual of auto-abuse, Sumi had done nothing more than make a small child cry.
But then, a strange thing happened.
The tears spilling from Satōka's eyes turned black as they traced a path down his cheeks, and began to emit a rich aroma. His tears had become coffee, dripping, drop by drop, into the very cup he had just emptied.
Sumi scrutinized this spectacle—the cup slowly refilling with tears—with an expression one might wear to gaze into the unobservable abyss of space.