It’s been three days since MonoMANU announced the motive. The threat was for the third day… and no one is dead. The city is tense. Will MonoMANU make good on its threats? Was it just bluffing? It seems as though twelve students have made the unspoken agreement to call the robot’s bluff.
In the afternoon, a message pops up on your ElectroID, summoning you to the theatre, and you know. You know it wasn’t bluffing. Nobody acted, and now someone must pay the price.
The mood is tense when the robot appears. “Well well well!” it exclaims, “It seems you’ve all picked the hard way to play, hmm? I told you not to take that outsider’s advice. Let’s see, let’s see… who’s going to get mangled first?”
On its screen, all of the students’ faces appear, and the robot cycles through them fast. No one is breathing. No one can breathe. The robot cycles through the pictures for what seems like hours, until it slows, and…
Neo blanches. “Wh- what?”
All of a sudden, a pair of MANUs appear, smiles on their faces, and grab Neo in wicked metal claws. They drag the utaite forward – they’re kicking and shouting for help, but they can’t break free.
“Any of you try to help Neo,” says MonoMANU, “You’ll get yourself roughed up too!” Some of the ones who’d stepped forward to help pause, a pause long enough for Neo to be pulled right up to MonoMANU. “You like to play guitar, don’t you? You use it for your original songs, your precious, precious original songs. You want to make it big one day, right? Famous songwriter Neo? Pretty hard to do that when I break your fingers beyond repair!”
“No!” Neo shrieks, “No! Help me, please!” They thrash in the MANUs’ grip, their fans whirring at top speed in fear. In their desperate bids to escape, their limbs flail wildly, and-
There’s a thud, and everything goes silent. Neo’s kicked MonoMANU, hard enough to crack its screen.
“Now you’ve done it… You’ve broken my rule!” it cries, “No violence against the headmaster! I was lenient with Hayashi, but this time there’s no holding back!”
Neo screams as electrical currents surge through the android’s body. Their body goes rigid, and smoke billows out of their mouth, nose, and ears. Second after excruciating second ticks by, and finally the MANUs let go. Neo drops to the ground with a thud.
“Twenty-four hours, kiddies,” it says, “Twenty-four hours and I fuck up another one of you. You might want to rethink your whole rebellion thing. Now get lost.”
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