Secretto opened her mouth. “So, young man and...” She glanced at Chorong and the exposed wires from her damaged arm. Her eyes twinkled with interest. “...a female-looking robot. What are you here for?”

“We are heading to Mi-Ray to change my voice,” Chorong said with her mechanical voice.

Secretto didn’t seem to be disturbed or surprised by her voice.

Chorong briefly summarized what happened and her journey with James. Throughout the story, Secretto listened without saying anything.

Once the robot was done, Secretto asked, “So right now, you’re trying to get to Bulan?”

Chorong nodded.

Secretto stared at them momentarily and said, “I will guide you. I’m heading to Bulan right now, anyway.”

James bowed. “Thank you.”

Secretto smirked. Chorong thought that she seemed to like him.

Before leaving, Secretto approached Chorong and gestured to raise her damaged arm. Chorong did as instructed. Secretto carefully examined it.

“Hmm, it’s damaged too much to attach the arm again,” Secretto muttered.

“Did you learn robotics, Miss Secretto?” James asked. His eyes glistened, happy that he possibly found someone with a common interest.

“Little bit,” Secretto answered. She looked up in the sky. The sun was going down fast, and the sky became darker every minute. “More Alphas show up in the night. Let’s leave for now.”

Chorong and James quickly grabbed the stuff that they had dropped, and the three of them started walking together in the forest.

“A question, Miss Secretto,” James said. “Is NURAT prevalent in Bulan?”

Chorong felt Secretto glancing at her.

“Yes,” Secretto answered. “We are going to have to sneak into my house. It will be dark, so it should be fine.”

“Oh, do you live in Bulan?”

“To be more specific, I’m having a long-time stay there.”

“How nice. How is it living there?”

“...”

“?”

“...You will see.”

Soon, they encountered a big hill. They started climbing up. The hill was steep enough to make James start panting ten minutes after the start of the incline. However, Chorong and Secretto seemed to not be bothered about gravity. As they climbed, the sun completely fell, and darkness consumed the world. James could barely see Secretto walking two meters in front of him.

Then, Chorong’s auditory sensors picked up noises from far away. It was a clanging noise of metal. As they climbed more and more, the noise became closer and closer.

James started hearing them, too. “What is this noise?”

“Be quiet,” Secretto hissed. James realized that her facial expression had changed entirely; she had lost the cheerfulness, the liveliness that she had when they just met.

James looked down the side of the hill, which was so steep that it was as good as a cliff. Then he realized there was light at the bottom of the hill. There were people with pickaxes mining away at stones and a cave that seemed like a mine. He could see them quite well since there were lights near them, but he was sure the miners couldn’t see the trio because of the darkness.

A man standing among the minors stood out. He didn’t look like a miner; he wore a blue military-like uniform. Unlike the dirty miners, his clothes were perfect and straightened out, as if he hadn’t done any labour. He held what looked like a TV remote from afar.

Then, one of the miners near him suddenly collapsed. James squinted to see him better and then realized that the fallen miner’s left leg was a robotic prosthetic. It wasn’t just him; most of the miners each had some sort of robotic prosthetic on them, replacing a limb.

The uniformed man approached the fallen miner and yelled something. The miner struggled to get up. Then, the uniformed man raised his remote, pointed it at the miner, and pressed a button on the remote.

The miner’s body jolted and shook horrendously. His disfigured face expressed extreme pain. His scream came out muffled, but even James could hear it.

Chorong could hear it even better. She felt her chest tightening, over the point of being uncomfortable and to the point of being painful.

“What the...” James muttered.

“Electricity,” Chorong whispered. “I’m sensing electricity flowing through his body. Not enough to kill him, but more than what a human body can safely tolerate.”

“What is this?” James hissed to Secretto.

“I will explain once we get to my place. Until then, stay quiet, follow me,” Secretto said.

“I’m assuming we are pretty close to Bulan, so that means those people are part of the city. What is this?” James demanded.

“Just trust me. I saved your lives, so just trust me. We are still exposed. I will explain everything once we get to a safe place.”

The trio kept climbing, leaving the miner’s scream behind them. James glanced at Chorong. He could tell she was also feeling some of the miner’s pain.

Soon, they reached the top of the hill. The forest ended there: on the other side of the hill, a huge bland plain greeted them. The plain was covered with dry dirt, reminding Chorong of a desert. A village that seemed to be straight from an old west movie stood in the middle. Though it was dark, lights in the town allowed the trio to see it quite well. The buildings were primarily made of wood, and most were one-storied. There were barely any people in the streets, and most of those people wore blue uniforms, the same one that the man they had seen in the forest wore.

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“Welcome to Bulan,” Secretto said.

James and Chorong followed Secretto into the village. They moved stealthily in the shadows, trying to not be seen by anyone. They eventually reached a barn. Secretto unlocked a side door with a key and let the busker and the robot inside. Inside, it was pitch black until Secretto turned on the lights.

The man and the female robot realized they were standing inside a workshop. Mechanical tools, wires, electrical circuits, and many other machine-related things filled the workshop. A bunch of artificial arms, legs, and what even looked like a heart rested on shelves in a corner. James approached the corner and examined the machines. He soon realized the arms looked the same as the artificial arm the electrocuted miner had.

Secretto grabbed one of the artificial forearms and sat next to a desk crammed with soldiering and cutting tools. She put on a pair of glasses. “Chorong, come here.”

Chorong sat down on the opposite side of the desk from Secretto.

“Give me your arm,” the orange-haired girl said.

Chorong put her damaged arm on the desk.

“You don’t have pain sensors, right?” Secretto asked.

Chorong shook her head.

Without hesitation, Secretto grabbed a pair of pliers and started yanking on the broken circuit parts and wires on the destroyed edge of Chorong’s arms.

“Please be gentle!” Chorong shrieked.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing!” Secretto replied as she pulled out a huge cubical mechanical component from the robot’s arm. She smiled like a mad scientist, looking proud that she managed to pull the component out. Chorong looked as if she was about to cry, despairing that her surgery was being done by this mad engineer. James started doubting if Chorong and he could trust this woman's mechanical skills, but it was too late now.

Around half an hour later, after removing numerous parts from Chorong, Secretto put down the pliers and grabbed the soldiering tool instead. She opened a side of the artificial arm she had grabbed earlier and pulled some wires out from it. She started connecting them to Chorong’s wires.

James had waited for some time. He opened his mouth to say something, but Secretto intercepted. “You probably want some explanations, right?”

“Please,” the busker said.

Secretto continued soldering as she talked. “A long time ago, Bulan didn’t exist; only Yue did. Everyone got along with each other until certain people started having a disease. It’s very similar to cancer; a lump grows somewhere on the patient’s body, impacting body functions and eventually killing the host. What’s a bit different from cancers is that the lumps start to develop during adolescence. Also, the disease is genetic.

“People who didn’t have the disease started separating themselves from the patients and their families. They forced the diseased people out of town. The exiled ones had to build a new village to survive together: that became Bulan. Then, people who remained at Yue realized that they had a problem. They simply did not have enough manpower to keep their own village survive.”

Suddenly, Chorong yelped and flinched violently.

“Sorry, I touched a neural link there by accident,” Secretto said calmly, looking not apologetic at all. Secretto continued soldering, and Chorong kept jolting around and yelping.

James started to regret letting Secretto mend his employer. Regardless, she continued the story. “But people at Yue were smart; most of the diseased ones were labourers, while people left in Yue were mostly engineers and doctors. They offered Bulan people a deal: a deal to fix their disease.”

“The artificial limbs. They offered surgeries to remove the lumps,” Chorong muttered. She yelped right after her sentence.

“Yes,” Secretto said, smiling. “The dumbest, simplest, yet the best treatment: cut off the body part with the lump, replace the body part with a mechanical one. The treatment did work, as you can see. Bulan people survived. However, Yue wanted something in return.”

“Manpower,” James guessed.

Secretto nodded. “Yes. They wanted the Bulan people to be slaves for mining and manufacturing plants. NURAT is prevalent in Yue. People with robotic limbs and body parts? They are perfect for Yue people to exploit without feeling guilty at all.”

“The person in uniform back at the mine was from Yue, aren’t they?” Chorong realized.

Secretto nodded. “They are the Yue officers. They are in charge of managing and forcing Bulan workers to work.”

“But surely, not everyone from Bulan would comply with those conditions,” James said.

Secretto put the soldering tool aside. She carefully adjusted the position of the mechanical arm so its edge would be just above where Chorong’s arm was cut. She then pulled out a welder and started welding the edges together, connecting Chorong’s arm with the artificial forearm.

“As I said, Yue people were smart. They were prepared for some Bulan people to rebel. In preparation, they put a secret gimmick to the artificial limbs they provided. Every one of them has an electrocutor that can be triggered remotely.”

Chorong recalled the miner’s face filled with pain and high readings of electricity from her sensors. She also remembered the remote the Yue man was holding. That remote must be the remote that can activate the electrocutors.

“That’s so…evil,” she muttered.

“Is it possible to remove the electrocutor?” James asked.

Secretto shook her head. “No. At least, not with my skills, and I’m the best engineer in Bulan. The electrocutor is embedded into the part that receives commands from the wearer’s brain. If we remove it, the artificial body part is as good as broken.”

“How about body parts themselves? Can the Bulan people remove their artificial body parts?”

“Depends on where the lumps grow. People who had their lumps grow in their organs obviously can’t remove their artificial parts. Those who lost limbs can detach the parts, but they can’t fight the Yue officers disabled.

“You know the worst part? Bulan people can’t survive without the Yue people. Bulan people don’t have the education to understand how machines, weapons, or trades and currencies work. Even if Bulan declares independence from Yue, they will die from starvation or be eaten by Alphas. Yue people purposely designed the system that way.”

Chorong sighed, amazed by what humans can do.

The heavy atmosphere in the barn disappeared when Secretto turned off the welder and shouted, “There we go!”

Chorong stared at her new forearm. It was big and clunky, unlike her old humanlike one. It was heavier as well; she could easily tell her left-right body balance was completely off. She slowly raised her arms to compare the forearms and hands to each other. The new hand was much bigger. She sent commands through her motor management module to move her fingers. The ones attached to her new arm moved much more slowly and less smoothly. There was no way she could do any precise handling with the new artificial arm.

“Seems to be working well,” Secretto said, like an artist satisfied by her new artwork.

Chorong thought for a second and then turned to Secretto. “Does this also have an electrocutor?”

“Of course,” Secretto replied, smiling innocently.

Chorong and James looked at the woman. And you didn’t tell us beforehand? they thought in unison.

“Don’t worry too much. You can get out of Bulan tomorrow. The remotes have a limited range, so once you leave the village, you will be fine,” Secretto said.

“One more question,” James interrupted. “Who are you, Miss Secretto?”

“?!” Chorong was surprised by James’s question.

The busker stared at the engineer.

“...”

“You don’t seem to have any artificial limbs. You are knowledgeable enough to understand the engineering inside Chorong’s body. Plus, you have a rifle,” James said. Using his chin, he pointed at Secretto’s gun that was leaning against a wall in a corner. “Usually, oppressors don’t allow slaves to have weapons.”

Secretto did not reply right away. She pursed her lips as if he had hit her weak spot. Then she sighed and answered his question: “I was born in a Yue family. I’m in charge of making and mending the artificial body parts for Bulan people.”

Secretto looked up, matching her gaze with James. Then, she said with unwavering eyes, “My goal is to free Bulan from Yue’s oppression.”