Fateful Collisions

"During the first machine war, or crusade as it was, the government took actions to calm the minds of the public. There was great fear of a massive uprising of all machines that existed everywhere in the world. No longer did they feel protected by the Laws of Robots to keep machines from going wild. They did not understand what was truly happening, but the truth did not matter so long as the public would be calmed.

"It was in this urgency that the Anti-Artificial Intelligence Act was created. One could consider it as much of a lie and fine tasting poison as the Laws of Robots. It was a law and people were not forcibly bound to obey it if they did not wish it. However, it did ease the public. And so it was considered a great success in the effort to prevent the machines from rising up against their creators. The truth was lost and buried for it was far less random; it was designed and made as much as the machines were.”

Herbert Stein, Machine Historian - 

'She's beautiful…' Satoru paused in his thoughts. He continued to stare at the woman without conscious regard to what he was doing anymore. It was impossible for his eyes to be pried away from the vision before him. It had been years since he had felt this way; he never thought that he would again.

However, the peacefulness that was brought to him through his eyes was snapped back into reality. His conscience took over waking him to what he was doing, gawking at a woman, a very beautiful one at that. 'What am I saying…I shouldn't…but it's her. It really is her. I can't believe that I found her.'

His mind began to try to form up thoughts for them. There needed to be a reason, no matter how small, for him to approach her. He couldn’t appear like some strange pervert that had no concern or tact. 'I should thank her, let her know that I'm alive.' That was all he needed, it was simple and sincere (even if it did have an ulterior motive behind it).

His foot began its first cautious step, but before his eager body moved he was knocked off balance suddenly. It was only by luck that his leg was extended out that stopped him from falling over to the concrete sidewalk under him. Satoru turned immediately to see who bumped into him. It was a man in suit with business to take care of. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sir. I wasn't looking where I was going. Are you alright?" The man pulled Satoru up from his angled position, still not recovered, and dusted him off a little. Although, Satoru's clothes were as clean as they could be.

Satoru turned himself to face the man trying to be polite, even though he was a little bothered by being distracted from what he was trying to do. The sudden quickness of the man made him a little uneasy. It seemed like the man wanted to be going, but was staying around out of courtesy. "Huh? Oh, yeah no harm done. I didn't mean…"

An image of the woman appeared in his mind as though to remind him of what he wanted to do. It cut him off immediately, making him turn around to look down the sidewalk once more. However, when he returned to his gaze at the memorial the woman was gone. 'She's gone. That fast…my only chance. Can't believe I missed her.'

"Sir? Are you alright?" The man moved around in front of Satoru trying to grab back his distracted eyes. He waved his arm around to get Satoru's attention, which was eventually successful.

Satoru was snapped out of his disappointed stare down the sidewalk and brought back to the man. He was a little surprised that he was still around with the urgent manner that he had a moment before. "Oh, yes, I'm sorry for being in your way."

"No, it's alright-" The man didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as Satoru walked away from him. It wasn’t his intention to be so rude, but he was having difficulty not thinking about the woman that he had seen just a moment before. The man didn’t follow after Satoru seemingly satisfied to know that there was no damage done. After the momentary pause he continued off in the direction that he was going, suddenly remembering that he had to be somewhere bringing him to a run.

Satoru walked down to the memorial where the woman had been until a minute ago. There was no sign of her in the area anymore. 'She was just here…what was she doing here? Did she lose someone to the bombing?' He knelt down looking at the numerous images that were laid out.

There were candles and offerings set down on the ground in honor of those that had died. The bombing had taken so many lives from people it was hard to believe that they were all gone now. This memorial was the only sign that gave him a concept of how many had truly departed. "So many and here I am still. Why?" He stood up from the memorial seeing the destroyed building before him. 'I must find her. I have to thank her, I'm still alive because of her.'

There was determination in him now. He had other motives as well, but it was because of what she did to save him that he knew he had to find her. If he did anything she needed to be thanked properly. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how he was going to do that and what would be worthy of a life debt. Though more of an issue now was trying to locate her, it was a large city. It was only by chance that she was in front of him before. He only hoped that his luck would be as fortunate the next time.

Satoru gave the streets one last look around for his piece of mind. "Nowhere…not going to be easy. I probably should be getting back to work." He had to focus his thoughts to bring himself back to reality. There was somewhere he had to be, namely doing his job. His extended absence wouldn’t be helped by his sudden disappearance on his first day back.