The man was crouched behind a tree at the edge of Dr. Light's property. Once in a while, he darted out holding a camera in front of his face—a camera directed at Blues. To Blues, of course, the sight of the camera was nothing unusual—cameras had been a regular feature of his life so far—but he'd never seen this man before. He stood frozen at the window, watching. This was the first human, other than Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, he'd ever seen in person. He was fascinated.
The way the man shrank back behind the tree after each snap of the lens reminded Blues of the game called "peekaboo," which he'd played with Dr. Light in his first week of life. But that had been long ago; Blues wasn't interested in playing "peekaboo" anymore. Why couldn't the man understand that? He shook his head: no, thank you—but the man didn't stop.
Obviously, this meant the man was either less than a week old, or very stupid.
But Blues wasn't quite satisfied with that conclusion. Something was stirring within him: a sense of restlesness born of a lack which could be filled only by knowledge he didn't yet have.
He'd been feeling this way a lot lately. There was a word for it... surely...
Questions. Yes, that was it! He had questions.
Within the first few months of his activation a tentative cosmology, pieced together from his creators' words and whatever scraps of intelligible data he could gather from the netscreen, had taken shape in Blues's mind. He understood that the world was full of many types of living things, and that he belonged firmly in the human sphere... but he was not human.
Unlike them, he didn't have to eat. Instead, once every five days or so, he inserted the pronged end of a white cord into a tiny hole in his navel. It was connected to a generator, a small cube-shaped box which was his source of energy and life.
Although he looked similar to them, he was made of different materials, or so they said: wires, circuits, lightweight titanium, and synthetic skin, instead of flesh and bone. If he got a small bump or scrape somewhere—and he had many in his first days of life, before his senses of balance and depth perception had finished calibrating themselves—a host of nanobots, instead of cells, would spring into action to repair the wound.
They told him he had a perfect memory, unlike them. When he slept, he didn't dream, unlike them. He could not get sick, and would never grow old, unlike them.
However, it was not the differences they were most concerned with, but the similarities. They said that he had a human mind, with the same capacity for reason and emotion. He could choose his own actions, within the range of human possibilities, instead of following a preset directive. With the obvious exception of taste, he could experience the world through all the human senses; he could then make connections between sensation and empirical data, and create meaning. It was this effort to create meaning, they explained, that made him more than the sum of his parts.
According to them, he was unique in the truest sense of the word—the only one in the whole world. Although his existence was unprecedented, he didn't yet understand its implications, and he didn't mind. The two men kept him comfortable, let him recharge whenever he wanted, and took a tremendous interest in him. For a while, that was enough. It seemed he was at the center of their universe, and in fact he was right—and he assumed the rest of humanity, if it knew about him, would regard him in the same way.
After his creators had finished training him in the use of his fine and gross motor skills, and were satisfied with his speech development, they'd presented him with a series of things which they hoped would capture his attention. There were puzzles, at first as simple as "insert block A into slot B," then increasingly difficult. Some were manipulatives, and others were netscreen images.
Later, they gave him a few sketchbooks and a pencil and asked him to draw whatever he liked—so he went out into the garden and scribbled trees. Then they presented him with art books, and then music which he listened to through a pair of headphones: an object that he grew nearly as fond of as his little box-shaped generator.
Whatever he did, there was Dr. Light's camera flashing all around him, and Dr. Wily typing notes into a netscreen. The sketchbooks, once filled, were gathered up and filed meticulously in chronological order in the living room cabinet. Next to them, his creators kept hard copies of the video files and photographs they'd collected since the day of his activation. They filled dozens of shiny little disks, each one labeled with the phrase "DRN-000" followed by the date. "Evidence," the men called it. Evidence of what, he had no clue. And he didn't know what "DRN-000" was supposed to mean, either.
There was one rule he had to follow, and it was repeated to him over and over again in stern tones: although he could go out into the garden—enclosed by a high stone wall—whenever he wanted, he was not allowed to exit the front of the house unaccompanied.
When he wished to enter the woods that lined Dr. Light's property—and in the spring, the desire became overwhelming—Dr. Wily would go out first, trudge in a wide circle around the perimeter, and give an all-clear. Then, Dr. Light would lead Blues into the trees to be set loose, within limits, to explore. All the while, Dr. Light never took his eyes off him. Dr. Wily, on the other hand, would pace back and forth in the distance, peering outwards. Blues never could figure out exactly what it was that he was looking for. Flowers, or birds, or bugs, he supposed—at least, that's what he usually wanted to see.
To ensure Blues's compliance with the rule, Dr. Light established a nightly ritual that was followed to the letter. When Blues became sleepy and was settled into his futon, often with the beloved generator plugged in and set on the floor beside him, he'd hear Dr. Light's footsteps moving through the house, and the sound of all windows and doors being closed and locked. Then from the foyer would come the sound of six faint beeping notes: the code for the security system, which was kept a secret from him.
Recently, for the first time, he had asked Dr. Light the reason for the rule.
"The rule is for your safety," Dr. Light had replied. "That's all."
Safety. But Blues couldn't yet conceive of danger. He obeyed Dr. Light's rule, but didn't understand it. The world still seemed to him like a benevolent place.
That's why, that day, he watched the stranger from the window with curiosity instead of fear.
"Hey, Albert," called Dr. Light's voice from the other side of the house, sudden and flustered. "Do you... see that?"
"Yes, I do," said the voice of Dr. Wily. "Where is Blues?"
"In the study. My God, are the curtains open?"
Before Blues could react or even comprehend what was happening, a pair of footsteps came pounding up the hallway. The door flew open, Dr. Wily stormed through, and Blues was jerked backwards by the collar of his shirt with a force that sent him crashing to the floor.
"Get the hell away from there. Christ's sake." With a flourish Dr. Wily pulled the curtains shut and enveloped the room in darkness.
Blues looked up at him in shock, rubbing at the place where his shirt collar had dug into his neck.
Dr. Wily gave him a pitiful look. "Sorry." He held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. "It was for your own good."
"Who was that?" said Blues, pointing to the window.
"The Devil, as far as we're concerned."
Blues wanted to ask Dr. Wily what that meant, but he stopped himself before opening his mouth. Although Dr. Wily had promised to always tell him the truth, it seemed that the truth never quite came in a form Blues could comprehend.
He remembered when, just a week ago, he had turned to Dr. Light and asked why he'd been created. Dr. Light had looked at him, turned red, and stammered—but Dr. Wily had stepped forward and said with a smile, "well, to lie in the sun and listen to Chopin all day. And that's fortunate, because you happen to be very good at it."
Then he'd narrowed his eyes at Dr. Light. "There, I've bought you some time," he'd said. "Be grateful I was here when the dreaded question came out."
Blues followed Dr. Wily at a run into the hallway. He had no reason to doubt the man's words; however, just now, for the first time in his short life, he began to feel that something was being withheld from him.
Tom was waiting for them in the foyer with his shoes on and his hand pressing down on the door handle. His face was pale.
"Blues," he said, his voice low and tremulous, "what did you see?"
"The Devil," Blues said. "He was holding a camera."
"Devil?... Erm, nevermind. Was he taking pictures?"
"I think so," said Blues. "But mostly, he wanted to play 'peekaboo.'"
Of course, he couldn't understand the reason for the grin that stretched across Dr. Wily's face just then.
Dr. Light let out a groan. "Well, I'm going out," he said. "Just keep him away from the windows until I get back, Albert."
With a sigh, he took his netphone from his pocket and plodded out the door. When he returned a few minutes later, his face had turned from merely pale to stark white.
"Well?" said Dr. Wily, his arms crossed. "What happened?"
"I managed to get a picture of his face," Dr. Light said. "Then, I made a phone call. Takayama said he'd… take care of it."
"'Take care of it?' Good God."
"Bribe him, or threaten him, I expect," said Dr. Light with a heavy voice.
"I'd put my money on 'threaten,'" said Dr. Wily, and clicked his tongue. "Poor sap."
Blues stepped forward. "Who was that man, really?" he said. "And why is Takayama going to 'take care of it?'"
Both of the men's faces turned toward him with anxious looks. "Nevermind that, Blues," said Dr. Wily. "He's gone now. How about a walk?"
"No," Blues said. "I don't want to go for a walk. I want to know the answer to my question."
"Well, there you go." Dr. Wily gave his friend a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "Here's more of this 'making meaning' thing that you've been looking for. Too bad we didn't get it on camera, and that you're not going to be able to give him an answer."
Dr. Light shot an irate glance at his companion.
"I don't understand," Blues said. "Why can't you give me an answer?"
Dr. Light put his hands up. "I know you're curious," he said. "That's a good thing." He let out a deep sigh. "But, for now, there are some things I can't tell you."
"Then, what if I ask something else?" said Blues. "Why I was created—why is it the 'dreaded question'?"
Dr. Light gave Dr. Wily a hard stare.
Dr. Wily scratched his head and laughed. "It was just a joke, Blues. I didn't really mean it."
Blues turned toward him. "What`s a crock of shit?"
Dr. Wily gave him a funny look. "What are you talking about?"
"You said life is mostly a crock of shit."
"I did?"
"Yes." Although he knew the meanings of the words, the full expression didn't make sense. Blues didn't realize how ridiculous the question was. At the time, to him, it seemed vitally important.
A look of recognition dawned on Dr. Light's face. "Don't you remember?" he said. "You said it the day we activated him."
Dr. Wily scratched his chin. "Ah, well... I suppose I did," he said. He looked at Blues, and let out a wheezy laugh. "It doesn't mean anything, Blues."
Blues shook his head. No, no. It had to mean something. "But you said..."
"I was being facetious. Sardonic. Wry. Irreverent." He tapped Blues on the side of his head. "You have those words up in here, don't you?"
Blues didn't reply. He knew what the words meant, but was still green to the nuances of human social interaction—and he couldn't imagine why someone would say something that wasn't true.
On a typical day, Dr. Wily came every morning at ten and left at six. During those eight hours, he and Dr. Light observed and documented Blues, recorded their conversations with him, and provided him with new puzzles or activities to try. In the afternoon there was often a netscreen chat with Judith, whom he now knew as Dr. Sorensen, who'd introduced herself to Blues as one of his creators, and oohed and aahed at him between her analyses of his sketches or performance on his latest computerized logic test. Sometimes she asked him, in her gentle voice, whether he was okay. He wasn't entirely sure what she meant, so he always answered that he was.
Once in a while, especially on weekends, Dr. Wily lingered on late into the night as he and Dr. Light shared a bottle of whiskey over old memories. Most evenings, though, saw Blues and Dr. Light alone together. Dr. Light always prepared a simple meal for himself, usually something that didn't require a lot of effort. Then he'd sit at the small oak dining table in the kitchen and eat, staring with a faraway look as the day's last light peeked in through a crack between the curtains and formed a white line across the floor. Sometimes Blues would stop to stare at the line of sunlight too, assuming it was just what one ought to do at that time of day.
One evening, Blues was outside in the garden watching a flock of sparrows chattering on the stone wall, when Dr. Light opened the door behind him and stepped out.
Blues turned his head, and Dr. Light cleared his throat.
"Blues," he said, with his hands behind his back. "I'd like to... ask you something. Would you... sit with me a little, while I eat?"
It had been their ritual ever since. Dr. Light told him about his childhood in Gunma, his American father, his years at Tokyo University (from which he graduated at the age of seventeen), his overseas postdoctoral studies in computer science, and the woman named Catherine whose photograph and ashes were enshrined in the family butsudan.
Blues was told that Catherine was another of the many people to whom he owed his existence. But when Dr. Light spoke about her, his voice took on a special quality. His eyes darted around a lot, and he stumbled over his words.
Catherine had been dead for many years. And what about Dr. Light's life since then? A blur of sleeplessness, headaches, and work propelled by euphoric flashes of insight. On one hand it was like an eternity; on the other, with little to distinguish one day from the next except for the gradual coming together of Blues's body and mind, the time had seemed to pass by in an instant.
Still only a few months old, Blues did not yet have much to talk about. Content mostly just to listen, he was grateful for any information that helped him to make sense of the world and his own place in it. And, as he sat night after night across the table from this man who had created him, who'd given him his generator, and his soft place to lay on while drifting down into sleep mode, and music, and so many other nice things, he began to feel something new. It was similar to the disappointment he'd felt before his activation when his sense of self had distinguished itself from the world. He wanted to close the distance between himself and Dr. Light, but he didn't know how to do it, or even how to put his predicament into words.
Later, after the six-digit activation of the security system, Blues would retire to his futon and Dr. Light would wish him good night—but the walls were thin, and Blues learned a lot with his ears. Sometimes he'd hear the clinking of bottles, and the sound of a first, or second, or third neat glass of whiskey being poured. Then footsteps would pace slowly around the house, and when they stopped in front of the butsudan, as they did from time to time, Blues always knew exactly what sound would come next.
Sobbing.
"I've been thinking a lot about something Catherine said a long time ago," Dr. Light said to Dr. Wily once, when Blues was in a different room but not quite out of earshot. "When the project first began, she gave us a warning about how we were going to feel when we were finished. Do you remember what she said?"
"Oh, yes," said Dr. Wily. "Something about a 'sense of profound loss.'"
"She was right."
Yes, Catherine had been right. But Dr. Light, genius though he was, hadn't foreseen that Blues was fated to feel a loss as well—one which dug more deeply into him the sharper his senses grew.
Sometimes, on those nights of softly clinking glass and sobbing, when Blues lay listening in the semi-darkness with his duvet pulled up to his chin, he'd stare up at the wooden panels in the ceiling and wonder what was missing from his life. The question gnawed at him. His creators were kind and patient, even indulgent, and he had everything he wanted—or knew at the time that he wanted—but he wasn't happy. What was it? It was an abstract, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
It would be years before he figured it out.
And as for the night after the man with the camera had been "taken care of," Blues was ill at ease even with his generator on the floor beside him and Schumann playing through his headphones. Dr. Light had already retired to bed, so the clinking of glass, the shuffling of the man's feet, and the question of whether or not Catherine's shrine would be visited tonight was no longer there to haunt him. But, sure enough, there was that feeling of loss again, stronger than ever.
Vague though it was to his still-forming mind, Blues was determined to name it and to resolve it. And suddenly, the idea popped into his head that he needed to know more in order to do that. He had questions. Questions which, he'd only just become aware, his creators had no intention of answering.
On his first day of life, Dr. Light had called him a "fast learner." It was true. Right now his world was very small, and he was innocent and docile—but he recognized that a time was coming, sooner or later, when he'd no longer wait for his creators' answers. A time was coming when he'd take matters into his own hands.
And, for some reason, "why am I here?" seemed like a very good place to start.
