Chorong smashed another wolf Alpha’s head, giving a Yue officer a chance to strike down on its throat. After whimpering, the wolf fell to the ground. She used the back of her hand to wipe the blood on her cheek. She panted, similar to what humans did when they were exhausted. She wasn’t doing that because she had a humanlike respiratory system, though. Her motors were overheating from all the maximum-power attacks she threw, so she was trying to cool them down by exhaling hot air inside her body and inhaling colder exterior air. It wasn’t helping much, though, as the evening sunlight blazed on the dirt ground and made the village feel like a giant frying pan.
The officer pulled out the walkie talkie. “Alpha in Section 3D has been neutralized. How’s other areas?”
“All Alphas down in Section 4A,” a voice said from the radio.
“Alphas neutralized in Section 3A. Major damages to facilities, and there have been casualties.”
“Alphas down in Section 2B. There have been casualties from both officers and civilians.”
More reports followed, talking about how people had been injured or killed and how the village was damaged. Nonetheless, none of the reports announced that there are more Alphas.
One final voice instructed on the radio: “Gather all the survivors at the city hall.”
James emerged from an alley near the city hall. James could see Yue officers and workers from different streets coming to the front of the city hall.
“People seem to be gathering at the city hall,” James said to Secretto, who was standing next to him in the alley. He stepped toward the hall. “Let’s...”
Secretto grabbed his sleeve. She then yanked it, pulling him back into the alley.
“Woah, what’s wrong?” he asked.
Secretto didn’t say anything. She pursed her lips and put her gaze on the ground. He soon realized her hand holding onto his sleeve shook. He could feel the fabric flapping above his skin. He could somehow tell the shaking wasn’t because of her injured arm.
“I...I can’t be with them,” she said. He wasn’t sure if she was sobbing or not.
“Why?” Chorong asked.
Chorong stood next to them in the alley, behind James and Secretto.
“Holy sh—” Secretto muttered.
“How did you find us?” James asked.
“I heard your voices,” the robot answered. She then stared into Secretto, quietly asking her to continue the conversation.
Secretto’s eyes shook. Then, after a moment, her eyes stopped moving as if she decided something. She asked, “Could we speak somewhere far?”
The three of them moved to the forest, where the duo had been planning to meet after. James and Chorong sat on a stone across from the one Secretto was on.
Secretto rubbed for her forearm with her other hand. Her gaze travelled through the tree roots and grass weeds on the ground. It was so different from what James remembered how she was from when he first met her and last day’s morning.
After a moment, she opened her mouth.
“I will tell my story from the beginning. I went to school in Bulan, with my Yue friends and Bulan kids.”
“Yue and Bulan kids go to the same school?” James asked.
Secretto nodded. “Teachers teach that Bulan kids are below Yue ones, since they are young. It was working well for my generation, too. Teachers encouraged us to bully Bulan kids, and most of us did…but not some.”
“Were you one of those kids? Ones who didn’t bully?”
Secretto shook her head guiltily. “…No. I bullied them a lot in elementary school, especially a guy named Shin. I’ve done horrendous things on him. One day, I was hanging out with friends, and we ventured off into the forest. I dragged Shin out to make him hold onto my bag. But, I got separated from him and my friends, and I fell in a ditch. I injured my legs, so I couldn’t climb back up. I yelled for help, but no one came. The night fell, and I thought I was going to die.
“Then, Shin found me. He said he searched the entire mountain to find me. He pulled me out of the ditch and carried me back to the village.
“Yue people scolded him for letting me fall into the ditch. My parents even slapped him. That’s when I realized something was not right with Yue and Bulan. Even as a kid—or perhaps because I was a kid—I knew this was wrong.”
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Secretto suddenly smirked. She nudged her chin forward to indicate James. “You remind me of him, actually.”
James’s pointed at himself. “Me?”
Secretto nodded.
“After that day on, I stopped bullying. I tried my best to treat Shin as an equal—a friend. That’s what I thought of him, at least. He still helped me a few times, and…I guess I started liking him. I never said it out loud, though.
“Then, in high school, around ten years ago from now on: there was an outbreak of Alphas in Bulan. A bunch of them attacked the village, and one attacked the school. The teachers probably wanted and expected the Yue students to use Bulan kids as shields and run away themselves.
“But Shin managed to gather all the Bulan kids and persuade all the Yue kids to fight against the Alpha together. Shin used himself as the bait to lure the Alpha into a certain position, and all the others struck it down with knives.”
Secretto took a pause and then added cooly, “Shin died in the process. He was too slow after luring it.”
“…”
Chorong and James didn’t know what to say.
“We still managed to take the Alpha down. I later heard that many Yue and Bulan people were fighting together throughout the village. That day, I saw hope; I saw that Yue and Bulan people could become together…under the pressure of a common enemy.”
“…”
Secretto hadn’t said it out loud, but Chorong and James knew that Shin was the reason she was aiming to overthrow Yue’s system over Bulan.
Secretto continued. “A few months ago, I made a rather interesting observation. Alphas do sometimes attack the workers in the forest. The rate of such reports was higher for the groups whose Yue officers loved to torture the miners. I came up with a hypothesis: Alphas are attracted to the signal the remotes send out. I did a few tests with Alphas in the forest, and I found out I was correct. Alphas are attracted to the activated remotes. I soon started luring Alphas into specific traps which they could not escape until I let them out. I gathered them in various spots around the forests near Bulan. And this morning, I released them and lured them into the village.”
Secretto squeezed her own forearm harder, digging her fingernails into her skin as if she were punishing herself. James could see the nails penetrate the surface and blood start to flow, but Secretto didn’t seem to feel the pain.
He glanced at Chorong’s face. He had expected Chorong to be disappointed by Secretto, perhaps even disgusted. However, Chorong’s face was neutral and very hard to read. He couldn’t tell what emotions she was feeling right now.
“I intentionally brought an Alpha directly to the city hall to kill the mayor of Yue, who was visiting the city. I succeeded. The mayor’s main competitor is much more friendly toward Bulan, who will now become the new mayor. And the miracle of fighting together has not happened once, but twice now. It’s no longer a miracle; it’s a pattern. Yue and Bulan can come together. But...”
Secretto bit her lips. “I...I knew casualties were inevitable.”
Chorong and James looked at the mechanic. Her gaze didn’t leave the ground.
“...What are your plans now?” Chorong asked.
Secretto stood up from the boulder. Her gaze still pointed to the earth. “I’m going to turn myself in. The Alphas were Yue and Bulan’s first common enemy. I plan to be the next.” She glanced up at James and Chorong, and then looked back down again. “I...I apologize for the Alpha attacking the prison. I must’ve gotten too far from it that it got distracted.”
James and Chorong looked at her. James thought her shoulders looked much smaller than he remembered.
“Goodbye,” she said. She turned toward the village and walked forward.
A pair of arms came from behind her, wrapped around her, and squeezed her softly.
“Miss Secretto, I do not know what you’ve done is right,” James said. “But, I know you initiated your plan early to save us. I genuinely hope to see you again.”
Memories from her past intruded Secretto’s consciousness. It was a boy—Shin, who would’ve been the same age as her if he was still alive. She had been wearing nice dresses and uniforms, while the boy had worn rugged clothing. However, his smile had been as pure as just-washed clothes.
She looked up at James’s face. His smile overlapped with Shin’s.
She turned back forward and closed her eyes, feeling the current moment. She engraved the warmth of the hug into her memory. She lightly put her uninjured arm on James’s. His hand was full of fresh scratches, no doubt from fighting the Alphas.
“Womanizer,” she muttered, grinning slightly.
She then pressed down on James’s hands, unlocking the hug. She walked forward, moving away from Chorong and James.
The sunlight shined brightly from in front of her. James could only see her silhouette as she walked away.
“Oh, by the way,” she said, pausing her walking, “your guitar is in my warehouse. Grab it fast before guards come over to investigate.”
Then she continued walking without turning back once.
It became night, but Chorong and James walked in the forest, trying to get away from Bulan as fast as possible. The rifle clattered on the guitar case on James’s back. The noise had once annoyed him, but he was now just happy to hear it, as it meant he had his guitar back.
Chorong quietly followed behind him. She remembered how they had first met Secretto. Then she recalled fighting the Alphas, getting all the blood sprayed on her. She remembered how Bulan workers and Yue officers fought together. She had also seen a few bodies lying on the streets; she had also seen a person die in front of her because she was too slow. Then, she recollected Secretto, explaining inside the forest what she had done, how her gaze had always been on the ground, and how guilt and shame weighed her down.
Secretto must’ve planned her actions for months, and she was confident in herself to execute the plan. Yet, she still regretted doing so: she thought that what she had done was wrong. However, the purpose was to bring together the people of Yue and Bulan, which wasn’t wrong; it was closer to being right.
Was Secretto justified?
“James, was Secretto right?” she asked. “Was her how justified?”
“...I can’t say for sure,” the busker answered. He had been thinking about the same thing ever since Secretto parted away.
He said, “…There are just some questions in the world that are impossible to answer. It’s not black and white. All we can do is see, think, and decide.”
Chorong paused for a moment and looked back at the way they had come from. Even though trees were blocking her sight, she felt as if she could see Bulan. Furthermore, she felt as if she could see Secretto in a jail cell. Secretto looked up, and her gaze met the robot’s. Then the mechanic made a mysterious but sad smile.
Chorong looked down at her new, clunky arm. She had the same part as those Bulan people. However, though they had mechanical limbs, they considered themselves as humans while she was still a robot.
If…only if I was a human…, she found herself thinking.
“We live in the world of greys,” the robot said.