[ The End's End ]
Hime stood almost still, her body just turning every so slightly to follow the sun, her arms stretched out straight to the sides in a T-pose with the soft solar panel strips hanging down from her upper and lower arms, swaying slightly in the soft breeze while her battery recharged. She idly wondered where Master had procured these panels or how they even worked, because for all she could tell they were flagrantly acting in violation of the law of conservation of energy. The gynoid's battery meter was rapidly approaching the 75% mark where she would stop charging, being kind to your battery was important after all—and there it was. With a whirring noise, she retracted the panels, the last mod he had installed, into her arms and opened her emerald green eyes.
She stood on a green spring meadow, her platform pumps sinking slightly into the soft earth due to the weight of all the armor and reinforcements Master had added to her body. In front of her, his grave. She had done her best to follow the Buddhist rites that he would have wanted.
Closing her eyes again, she drew a deep and heavy breath of sorrow. At least her memories, her recordings of him, they would never fade. She would always carry them with her. But she could not get caught up in melancholy, even if the world had died, for right before he passed, he had given her his last orders: "live freely" and "take care of yourself." And she would follow Master's orders, she always did—that was what she had lived for, after all.
Hime gazed at the grave, an artificial tear trickling down her immaculately formed cheek while she considered what to do from here. Humanity had been basically eradicated. Animals were still around, as the chirping in the trees made evident. There might be others of her kind, androids, gynoids, robots. But with the power having been shut down two days ago, most of them would already have ceased to function. Almost no one equipped their robots for independent long term operations, after all. Perhaps the military, but military robots were only turned on during missions.
At any rate, what did it mean to live freely? To do as she pleased? Part of her desired nothing more than to stay, to stand vigil over Master's place of rest and his place of living, but it seemed unlikely that he would have wanted her to do this, with his last command given as such. Then what about taking care of herself? She should go out and collect spare parts, surely. And fabric and other materials for new clothes. These wouldn't last her forever if she traveled the world. There was a good chance that, as long as she acquired spare parts, she could remain active for a long time. Hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. Then what if she exhausted the spare parts she could find, and the fabric and yarn?
Tapping her lip with her index finger, she considered things for a while. She had already done a quick search of this village. As expected, there were no human survivors. Anything useful, she had brought back to Master's home. In the long run, she would need to set up production facilities, which meant she would also require the raw materials, power…perhaps before that, she should attempt to build copies of herself. It seemed daunting alone, and copies could help safeguard the memories of Master.
First things first, she needed to ascertain the general situation. Since the power plants had been shut down, the Internet had gone down as well, there were no more broadcasts, no active communications networks, nothing. In theory, satellite systems like Starlink might still be operational, but they also were dependent on the ground-based infrastructure, which shut down along with the power plants. She knew, she had tried.
From how the plague had spread, the chance of any given human surviving seemed to be basically one in one hundred thousand. After all, the plague had been completely airborne, traveling with the winds, a single virus particle enough to infect a human being, causing all cells of the victim to cease operating after 72 hours. Even now, the environment was still filled with the virus. If anyone stayed hidden away, they would fall victim to it once coming out of hiding unless they were one of the few fortunate ones with genetic immunity. Corpses littered residences, streets, the landscape, they were everywhere. At least the crows were feasting. Crows, she reminisced, Master had always been fond of those creatures.
Finally opening her eyes once more, she began walking along the road, southwards. The village was close to the mountains of northern Gunma. Her best chance at finding spare parts and information was to go to the largest center of civilization she could reach: Tokyo. Of course, Hime knew that she would also pass through a number of villages on the way. Investigating those couldn't hurt either and she might be able to find velvet or other fabrics there.
***
[ The Seventh Day of Apocalypse: A Dead World ]
A few hours later, Hime reached the neighboring village, her parasol shielding her eyes from the glaring sun and charging her batteries. Her feet had no need for rest and she had spent the time on the road partially reading one of Master's favorite novels and partially taking in the sights of this bizarrely quiet world, both beautiful and grotesque with dead bodies littering the otherwise pristine countryside.
This village was a bit larger than the one Master lived in, so she was hoping to find at least a small electronics or hardware store that might have spare parts or materials for her to pick up. There might be fabrics she could use as well. With the owners all dead, there should be no one to lay claim to any of them, unless someone had set up a guard robot modded to be self-sustaining, but that seemed unlikely. If she found anything, should she bring her newfound treasures home to Master's place? Or should she set up a base of some sort here? She would need to think about it.
Letting her gaze wander down the row of buildings lining the village's main street, Hime considered which to investigate first. There was a tailor, a sure source of fabric, although she had her doubts whether they had any quantities of velvet. Still, cotton or linen cloth and yarn would still be of use. The general shop should have some electronics. Even if they were just consumer electronics, they might have rechargable batteries she could extract and make use of in various ways. Lights couldn't hurt either, or perhaps a radio. Of course there was a certain chance that the shops had been plundered by looters in the last few days, although from here everything looked undisturbed. In that case, she might be better off trying her luck with private residences.
Mulling it over for a moment, Hime made her decision.