EPILOGUE

AUGUST 2026 AD

1

At the bottom of the sea, where no light could reach, a shadow slowly crawled along.

It looked like a large, flat crab. But it had only six legs, a string extended from its stomach like a spider, and its form was covered in a pressure-resistant metal shell painted gray.

The metal crab was a deep-sea maintenance robot designed to administer to the transpacific optical cable that connected Japan and America known as FASTER.

Since being placed at its sea-floor protective terminal three years ago, the crab had slept without once being called into duty. Until today, when at last it received a wake-up signal, and it stretched grease-crusted joints and left the safety of its home.

The crab had no way of knowing or understanding, however, that the order was not coming from the company that owned it. Following the unofficial orders from this mystery source, it headed straight north, hauling the FASTER repair cable behind it.

A faint, repeating artificial sound was calling the crab. Once a minute, it stopped, ascertaining the location of the sonar signal, then resumed forward progress.

How long did it repeat this process?

At last, the crab determined that it had reached the indicated location. It turned on the light equipped to the front of its body.

The ring of light it produced captured the sight of a silver humanoid machine resting on the sea floor.

A number of brutal holes were opened in its simple aluminum-alloy exterior. Exposed cables were burned and severed here and there, and its left arm was practically ripped loose. The head was even half-crushed, apparently from the water pressure.

But in its right hand, lifted the tiniest bit, was a fiber-optic cable of the same deep-sea line that the crab was pulling from its stomach. The cable stretched straight upward, vanishing into deep darkness, and what it went to was unseen.

The crab stared for a while at the remains of the robot, one of its own kind.

But of course, it did not feel any emotion or fear toward this object. It just followed its orders, extending a manipulation limb to grab the end of the cable held in the humanoid robot’s hand. With its other manipulator, it pulled out the endless cable stored around the reel in its own stomach area.

Then the crab pushed the connector ends of the cables together.

That was the end of its orders.

It did not spare a single thought for where the cable the humanoid robot held was going. The metal crab just turned around, six legs working in alternation, and headed back to its sea-floor terminal for another long period of hibernation.

Leaving behind it the remains of an utterly destroyed humanoid robot.

The heavily insulated optical cable remained firmly clutched in its metal hand.