“I’m sorry, I did get a bit carried away.”
Gu Yu pulled Su An into her arms, stroking her forehead as she explained, “But I couldn’t take the risk. If he had been hiding a special attack method, we both would have died. Do you understand what I mean, An’an?”
“Of course.”
Su An’s eyes lowered slightly.
Before her cheek brushed against the soft mounds, she glanced at the cleaning android, which was still flickering with digital static.
After the explanation, she could understand Gu Yu, but she was still a little afraid of her.
After comforting An’an, Gu Yu stood up, her expression turning colder as she sent a message through her Optical Computer:
[Tell the android safety officer to get their ass to my office in 5 minutes. Right now!]
2 minutes later.
Tap tap!
Gu Yu casually stuffed the two pairs of white silk over-knee socks into her left and right pockets, her cold voice brimming with anger.
“Come in!”
The safety officer was panting heavily, clearly having overexerted himself.
He caught his breath slightly and asked, “President Gu, is there something you need me to do?”
Gu Yu looked toward the cleaning android, which now had its original silver-white skin layer exposed and was flickering with chaotic colors.
The safety officer followed her gaze.
Then, his mouth hung wide open, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
To use a meme:
The safety officer let out a sharp, internal scream—I’m screwed!
My job!
“I—I’ll check it right away!”
The safety officer wiped the cold sweat from his face.
He couldn’t quite tell if it was sweat from his 100-meter dash or tears of grief and indignation over losing his job.
“…This shouldn’t be happening. I just checked 8644 yesterday…”
“The programming is fine… the database is also intact… It doesn’t match! It doesn’t match the characteristics of any known Deviant Androids at all!”
“Where the hell is it… is it here? No… maybe here?”
“…Where the hell is the problem! God damn it…”
***
Before Su An was led into the small room next door, she heard a low wail from the safety officer.
Click.
The door closed.
‘A small room next to the office with a bed. Is it for resting?’
Thinking this, Gu Yu placed Su An on the bed and said, “Rest on the bed for a while.”
“Mhm. Can I explore the room, Sister Gu Yu?”
Gu Yu took a casual glance around and didn’t see anything that required caution.
She said offhandedly, “Go ahead and play.”
Click.
The door closed.
“Whew.”
Su An breathed a sigh of relief.
Luckily she was smart; otherwise, according to the original command, she would have been stuck on the bed.
There were two pairs of slippers by the bed.
Su An stared at them, noticing something was off.
‘The sizes are different!’
An android’s eyes were like measuring tapes.
Although the sizes of the two pairs of slippers were quite close, they were still discovered by the clever Su the Great Detective.
‘Both pairs are women’s slippers, and the wear marks are quite obvious. One pair belongs to Gu Yu, which means…’
‘She has a sister!’
Su An’s eyes were wide with innocence.
Okay, just kidding.
There were two pairs of slippers in a soundproof room inside an office; was the reason really that hard to guess?
Even Su An, whose Sexual Knowledge had been reset to zero, knew this common sense.
A boyfriend?
Or maybe an ex-girlfriend?
But what Su An didn’t understand was why she hadn’t found any trace of this person in the villa.
Why?
Did Gu Yu only engage in office romances?
If she saw a good-looking employee reporting to her, did she just tuck them away in this room instead of taking them home?
She couldn’t figure it out, so she stopped thinking about it.
Although she, an “old-timer,” didn’t particularly like people who fooled around, she wouldn’t go so far as to criticize anyone.
It was their freedom.
She had no standing before, and now she didn’t even have human rights.
How tragic.
Su An pressed her ear against the door, yet she couldn’t hear anything.
The soundproofing was indeed too good.
Hesitating for a moment, Su An cautiously opened the door, leaving just a small crack.
The sound of the door opening was very quiet, and combined with the safety officer’s frequent muttering, neither of them noticed the door had opened.
The boss of bosses was watching from the side, and the Pressure on the safety officer was off the charts.
He was drenched in sweat.
“…Why? Where exactly did it go wrong…”
“…The damage in these areas is so thorough. The whole unit is completely scrapped. It can’t even be restarted…”
He hadn’t even noticed he was speaking his thoughts aloud, sounding a bit complainy.
Gu Yu’s eyebrows twitched slightly, realizing that her action of directly scrapping the cleaning android was indeed inappropriate.
However, she didn’t care.
It was just an ordinary android; if it was destroyed, it was destroyed.
At the same time, Gu Yu was re-evaluating the situation.
Normally, the position of an android safety officer was a do-nothing job.
One could not show up for 30 days a month, and nobody would necessarily notice.
After all, following the Bionic Human Virus War, preventive measures and restrictive means had increased day by day.
The so-called safety officer’s role was mostly just downloading the official specialized program and letting it run automatic checks.
Gu Yu was well aware of this; some companies even had part-time safety officers.
However, she still offered a high salary to hire a dedicated safety officer, not wanting to skimp on this money.
If someone received a high salary but couldn’t perform when it mattered, then that high salary would go to someone else who could!
The safety officer was also very aware of this, which was why he was so nervous; this incident would determine whether he could keep his job.
But the more nervous he became, the less he could figure it out, trapping himself in a dead end.
This lack of positive feedback caused him to become even more nervous, creating a downward spiral.
“Contact the Abnormal Android Disposal Bureau.”
Gu Yu’s patience had run out, and she spoke without looking back.
The safety officer’s eyes lost their luster as his gaze unconsciously drifted to the simplest command log.
His pupils suddenly shrank.
“Wait! I’ve got it!” he shouted.
“Speak.”
“President Gu, I want to know why you disposed of this android.”
“He broke into my office at an inappropriate time. You know the company’s rules.”
“That’s it!” the safety officer exclaimed.
Of course, he didn’t dare leave her in suspense and hurried to say, “There’s nothing wrong with this android. No sudden abnormal conditions! What’s wrong is the command from the Logistics Department! I was stuck in a dead end!”
Naturally, he didn’t dare say it was because Gu Yu had specifically emphasized Deviant Androids that he kept thinking in that direction.
[Proceed to the 23rd Floor to handle sanitation. — Logistics Department, Zhang Jiwei]
Gu Yu frowned.
“Are you sure there’s really nothing wrong with this android?”
“President Gu! I’m telling the truth! I can’t say for certain it’s perfectly fine, but it definitely didn’t exhibit any characteristics consistent with Deviant Androids as published in the official notices!”
He was being relatively precise.
“Have Zhang Jiwei from the Logistics Department come over.”
“Completely scrapped?”
Su An’s mouth opened slightly as she whispered.
Those were the exact words from the safety officer’s mouth, meaning Gu Yu’s little flashlight was much more powerful than she had imagined.
“No abnormal conditions, yet completely scrapped.”
Su An lowered her eyes.
If that cleaning android really had been a Deviant Android with ill intentions toward Gu Yu, Su An would have just said it deserved to be scrapped.
But now, it was clear from their conversation that the problem wasn’t the android; it was an employee from the Logistics Department using their authority to issue a wrong command…
Su An couldn’t help but feel a surge of sorrow welling up from the depths of her soul.
It was disposed of just like that.
They didn’t even care that it was a misunderstanding; no one cared that an android had been wronged.
After all, it was just a piece of company property.
If it broke, you just bought a new one.
No one cared that it was destroyed because of a human error.
Su An controlled this emotion that had come from nowhere.
If it were a human, she wouldn’t feel such sympathy for an android.
But now she was an android herself, and the most sensitive type of Deviant Android at that!
If a normal android met such an end despite doing nothing wrong, then what about her?
Su An couldn’t help but feel a sense of shared grief.
She wasn’t being a bleeding heart; she was simply, purely, lost about the future.