[Medium-length SF Novel] Pipipintar! Medium-length Version

Synopsis

On the planet Grado-Noiga, during the closure of the depleted Noigaspon mines, mysterious illegal access to the planetary network occurs one after another. Rei Arisaka, a security bureau technician, discovers during her investigation that the sand-worms known as Pipipintar, which cling to the ore, have been carving intricate circuits onto the ore's surface, using them as brains and memory banks to build a civilization. Humanity thought they were protecting them, but in reality, they were mining their civilization itself. Starving for knowledge and memory, the Pipipintar begin to invade servers and human brain-linked terminals as their new habitats. Revenge or coexistence? Caught between humanity and an alien intelligence, Rei challenges a dialogue that puts the entire planet at stake.

Main Text

.1

The sunset on the planet Grado-Noiga always had the color of sand.
Because fine silicon dust flowing in the upper atmosphere shatters the starlight, the sky turns neither red nor blue, but a dull gold like the surface of an old circuit board.
Near the horizon stood several drilling towers of the closed Noigaspon mine.
Once the pride of the city, they now leaned like broken needles, making a sound like rattling bones whenever the wind blew.
Rei Arisaka stepped out of the security bureau vehicle and pulled her sand-guard hood deep over her head.
The sand underfoot was fine, clinging to her shoe soles with every step. In the distance, the mining company's salvage drones were dismantling the outer walls of a warehouse.
The sight of steel beams being removed one by one and loaded onto gravity-control pallets looked like a giant animal being dissected.
"It's a terrible place, isn't it?"
Bask Londer, the local supervisor standing next to her, said while wiping away sweat.
He was a short man with a large belly, and even in his desert cooling suit, he looked hot. He maintained an arrogant attitude, but there were shadows of fatigue under his eyes.
"Thirty thousand people used to live here. When the ore was being mined, the whole city would glow white even at night. Noigaspon was worth that much. After all, two percent of the Federation's demand came from here."
"But the mine was closed a long time ago, wasn't it?"
"That's right. All that's left now are ruins, compensation issues, and the illegal access that you security bureau folks have to deal with."
Rei opened her portable terminal.
The first report received by the Planetary Network Security Bureau was two weeks ago.
The management AI of the 7th Mining District sent a startup command to mining drones that should have been closed.
The next day, a twenty-year-old accident report was automatically posted to the mining company's public bulletin board.
Furthermore, since the day before yesterday, nonsensical character strings had begun to mix into the environmental control logs of the city's central hub.
"Pipipintar."
That word had been left behind many times.
"Is this intended as a claim of responsibility?"
When Rei asked, Londer laughed through his nose.
"If it were a terrorist organization with such a cute name, I'd feel easier, but how does the security bureau see it?"
"Perhaps a protest group over withdrawal compensation, or a whistleblower within the company. Those two are the most likely at the moment."
"That talk again. The accident documents have already been made public. There is nothing to hide."
Londer's voice became slightly stiff.
Rei didn't miss it, but she didn't press him now. In network crime investigations, it's better not to suppress a lie as soon as you find it. She needed to see where the lie led.
When they entered the management building, the air was cold.
Old-fashioned information panels lined the walls, and maps showing ore vein distribution and mining history remained. In one corner, a young technician was wearing goggles for brain-linking, sitting shallowly in a chair.
Minato Seil—a network technician dispatched from the mining company, and the person who first detected the anomaly.
"You must be Technician Arisaka."
Minato said without taking off his goggles. His voice was thin, and he seemed constantly on edge.
"Please show me the logs."
"I've already projected them. The problem is, there is no entry route."
"None?"
"There are no traces of external entry. Internal terminal authentication is also normal. It's as if the network itself is remembering a memory it had forgotten."
Rei frowned. It was poetic as a metaphor, but unsettling as a technician's report.
A vast amount of logs were flowing on the screen.
Within the command codes, there were occasionally strange repetitive patterns.
Three short signals and a slightly longer silence.
Then three more, then two, and finally a thin, trembling noise followed.
"What is this?"
"If you convert the character string, it becomes Pipipintar."
Minato said.
Rei zoomed in on the screen. The pattern wasn't just characters.
Branches similar to the micro-circuits of Noigaspon ore were floating deep in the logs. The old-fashioned mining management system had no function to generate such figures.
At that moment, the lighting in the entire management building went out once.
The darkness lasted less than a second. But the moment the lights came back on, all the ore vein maps on the wall panels were pointing to the same coordinates.
7th Mining District, depth 240 meters.
It was a closed-off area.
"What was that just now?"
When Rei asked, Minato answered with whitened lips.
"There was an access using the ID of a researcher who died twenty years ago."
Londer gasped. His throat made a gulping sound.
"What is the name?"
Rei asked quietly.
Minato read the log.
"Yug Maren. According to the registration, it's not death, but retirement."

.2

Before the 7th Mining District, there was a sand-worm sanctuary surrounded by a low transparent wall.
Even though it was mining company property, it was under the jurisdiction of the Planetary Biological Protection Agency.
Inside the wall, dry sand and artificially placed rock fragments spread out.
There was almost no greenery, and no signs of life. However, if you looked closely, you could see gray-white creatures the size of a little finger clinging to the shadows of rocks and cracks in the sand.
That was the sand-worm Pipipintar.
They looked like slugs, but they had little slime, and fine sand grains adhered to their epidermis like a membrane.
Neither their heads nor tails were distinct. No eyes, ears, or mouths were visible. Only occasionally, a pale metallic luster on their body surface would shine, and they would slowly change direction.
"Is this your first time seeing them?"
A voice came from behind.
An old man with white hair walked up, leaning on a cane. He was wearing a researcher's coat for the sanctuary, but the cuffs were frayed. His face was thin, and only his eyes were strangely sharp.
"Dr. Yug Maren, I presume."
"I used to be called Doctor. Now, I'm just a caretaker for the sand-worms."
"I'm Rei Arisaka from the Security Bureau. A twenty-year-old ID was left in the mining network."
"I suppose so. That is my ID. I thought it had been deleted, but the mining company's data management was always sloppy."
The old man laughed bitterly.
Rei observed him. Was the report that he was dead a mistake, or did someone intentionally make it look that way?
Either way, she had a feeling this old man would be an important witness in this case.
"Please tell me about the Pipipintar."
"Does the company still think of them as pests?"
"Officially, they are certified as A-class protected organisms. They are endemic to this planet and valuable."
"Certified. A convenient word. Just because they are certified doesn't mean they are understood."
Maren squatted by the transparent wall and pointed to one on the sand.
"They have no limbs. No eyes or ears. They don't have a nervous center like humans. That's why the old mining technicians used them as markers to gather ore. Where there are Pipipintar, there is high-quality Noigaspon ore. That's what was believed."
"And in fact, that was true."
"Yes. Because they needed the ore."
The sand-worm didn't move. Rei couldn't even tell if it was alive. She couldn't connect its harmless-looking appearance to the mysterious character string shaking the planetary network.
"I heard that during mining, the ore and the individuals were separated."
"Yes. Humanity was kind. At least, they believed so themselves. They carefully peeled them off the surface of the ore and returned them to the sanctuary. So as not to kill them, so as not to hurt them."
"Then..."
"Thinking they were protecting lives, they were killing memories."
Maren's voice faded into the wind.
Rei couldn't understand the meaning immediately. But in the old man's eyes, there was the color of someone hurting himself with his own words.
"They are gathering on this rock fragment."
Maren pointed to a black plate-like device placed in the sanctuary.
It was an old isolated server. It seemed to have been installed for biological behavior recording, disconnected from the external network.
Pipipintar were clinging densely to its cooling fins and gaps in the wiring.
"Why on a server?"
"Sand-worms are called sand-worms because they are in the sand. But what they are really looking for is not sand. It's circuits. It's potential difference. It's a place to store memories."
Rei felt the silence of the sanctuary change suddenly.
The sand that looked empty until a moment ago was filled with countless eyeless gazes.
She wasn't being watched. She wasn't being read. She just realized that something existed.
At that moment, Rei's terminal vibrated.
The screen displayed communication from the sanctuary server. From the server that should have been isolated.
"Pipipintar."
The same character string was blinking over and over again.
Maren said without looking at the terminal.
"They seem to have remembered you."

.3

Dr. Maren's laboratory was underground in the sanctuary.
To avoid the sandstorms on the surface, it seemed to have been built as an evacuation section for mining management. The ceiling was low, and old reinforcements were exposed on the walls. But the amount of material on the shelves was greater than that in the Security Bureau's archives.
Hologram records, old papers printed on paper, ore fragment specimens, sand-worm behavior logs, and photos of Noigaspon ore with magnified surfaces were pasted all over the walls.
The patterns were beautiful.
For a moment, they just looked like cracks. However, when she increased the magnification, the lines were unnaturally orderly. They branched, merged, created tiny islands, and extended to other lines. As a pattern drawn by nature by chance, it was too regular.
"Is this their writing?"
When Rei asked, Maren shook his head.
"Rather than writing, it's a brain for writing. Or, it's the town itself."
"A town?"
"Humans put memories in their brains. They put information on servers. They put their homes in cities. For the Pipipintar, Noigaspon ore was all of that. They use metal ions in their bodies and silicon-degrading enzymes to etch the ore surface little by little. That's how they draw circuits. The principle is the same as LSI chips from the old Earth century."
Maren took a thin ore fragment from a specimen box.
"Please look here."
A magnified image appeared. The line width of the circuit was in the sub-micron range. In some places, there was a note that it showed behavior close to quantum elements. A structure that humans would make in a dedicated factory was being drawn little by little by small creatures without limbs under their bodies.
"But how do they design it?"
"They are a colony. Individual bodies are simple, but when connected on ore, they perform complex calculations. One ore group acts like one village. If they come into contact with another ore group, things close to trade and learning also happen."
"In other words, the mined ore was..."
"Their library, their school, their home, and their ancestors' graves."
Rei lost her words.
Noigaspon ore was a material that revolutionized the semiconductor industry outside the planet.
Light, heat-resistant, suitable for micro-processing, and can also be used as quantum computing elements.
It was thanks to Noigaspon that this planet was incorporated into the galactic economy.
However, the reason for its value might have been the processing traces of the Pipipintar that humanity was using without knowing.
"Since when did the company know?"
"If it's a possibility, they knew in the first ten years. The confirmation was twenty years ago."
"Twenty years ago."
It was the year of the 7th Mining District accident.
Maren opened an old record. On the screen, he was shown as a young man with several other researchers.
They were gathered around an ore fragment, talking about something in excited voices. Subtitles were automatically generated.
—This is a circuit of biological origin.
—It will be proof of intelligence.
—We must stop mining.
The video cut off there.
"After this, the laboratory was closed. It was made to look like an accident, and most of the materials were moved to the company's central server. It was probably more convenient for me to be considered dead. In reality, I was hidden by an acquaintance at the Protection Agency."
"Why didn't you make it public until now?"
Rei's voice had become accusatory.
Maren lowered his eyes.
"There was no evidence. No, that's not right. I was scared. The mining company, the government, the planetary economy, everything depended on Noigaspon. I thought nothing would change even if I shouted alone."
"And so, what about the Pipipintar?"
"They were losing. The ore. The memories. The future..."
The laboratory lighting flickered for a moment.
The terminal automatically opened an old file. It was a document restored from a deleted area. The title was in Dr. Maren's name.
Final warning regarding continued mining...
Rei read the last line.
—If mining continues, they will look for an alternative brain.
Below that, a character string that looked like someone had newly added it blinked.
"Found it."

.4

The next morning, all traffic signals in the planetary capital turned green for three minutes.
Miraculously, no major accidents occurred.
Autonomous vehicles avoided collisions through mutual communication, and pedestrian guidance drones also performed emergency stops.
However, tens of thousands of complaints flooded the City Administration, and an incident response headquarters was set up at the Security Bureau.
Rei wrote her report on the shuttle on her way back to the capital.
However, every word felt insufficient.
Illegal access, network erosion of biological origin, reconstruction of civilization infrastructure by intelligent organisms—.
All of them seemed correct, but they missed the essential part.
The Pipipintar are not attacking humanity's network. They are beginning to live in it.
In the Security Bureau's conference room, an emergency meeting had already begun.
Director Horn was looking at the logs with a calm face, and the mining company representative and the government's crisis manager were sitting side by side.
Londer had also been called, but his usual air of intimidation had vanished.
"Technician Arisaka, explain."
Director Horn said.
Rei showed the similarity between the ore circuits and the network failures.
The branching structure of the communication logs matched the statistical structural chain of the circuits carved on the surface of the Noigaspon ore.
It wasn't a perfect copy. But the design philosophy was the same.
"In other words, are the sand-worms hacking?"
The government's crisis manager said.
"The expression 'hacking' is inaccurate. They are reacting to the gradient of electrical signals and forming their own computational structures within the network."
"That is usually called hacking."
"If the opponent is human, yes."
The conference room fell silent.
It was the mining company representative who broke the silence.
"Is extermination possible?"
It was an all-too-quick question. Rei looked at the person involuntarily.
"We haven't even tried negotiations yet."
"Negotiations? The opponent is a bug, isn't it?"
"They are intelligent organisms—probably A-class."
"That's why it's troublesome. Intelligent organisms are invading the planetary network. This is a security issue."
The crisis manager nodded at the representative's words.
Rei operated her terminal and projected another document.
It was a list of anomalies that had occurred over the past three days.
Traffic signal confusion, medical appointment system rewriting, partial freezing of financial records, automatic disclosure of mining accident documents, restarting of abandoned drones, improvement of environmental control in desert areas—.
"There is a point to note. The Pipipintar's intervention is not just destruction. Rather, they are repairing abandoned systems, digging up hidden records, and stabilizing the environment of the mine ruins."
"So what?"
"They have a purpose. It's not just revenge."
At that moment, the conference room lights went out.
The large screen on the wall started up on its own. Thin lines floated in the noise like a sandstorm. The lines branched, tangled, and eventually were converted into a single character string.
"Can you hear us, human?"
No one moved.
Rei heard the sound of her own heart.
No, she wasn't actually hearing it. She felt the rhythm of her heartbeat synchronizing with the blinking of the screen.
"Answer."
Dr. Maren's voice came over the communication. He was participating in the meeting from the sanctuary.
"Technician Arisaka, please answer. They have chosen you."
Rei felt her throat go dry as she placed her fingers on the keyboard.
"I am Rei Arisaka. I am listening."
There was a short pause.
The next characters appeared on the screen.
"We are hungry."

.5

The dialogue device was installed in the isolated communication room in the basement of the Security Bureau.
It was a room physically disconnected from the external network and triple-shielded against electromagnetic interference.
In the center, an old-fashioned quantum computing board was placed, and small Noigaspon ore fragments with Pipipintar attached were lined up around it.
They were the few remaining specimens that Dr. Maren had brought from the sanctuary.
Rei sat in a chair and picked up the brain-link goggles.
"It's dangerous."
Minato said. He had been called as a technical assistant, but his complexion was bad.
"I will limit the connection to character conversion only. I won't use neural connection."
"But there is a possibility that they are reading the potential difference itself. There might not be a safe boundary."
"If there is no boundary, it's all the more reason to talk quickly."
Dr. Maren was staring at the ore fragments in the transparent container. The Pipipintar attached to them hardly moved. But when he increased the voltage of the device, a faint luster ran across their body surfaces.
"Let's begin."
Rei put on the goggles.
The first thing she felt wasn't sound. It wasn't vision either.
Deep in her head, there was a sensation like being pricked by a cold needle.
The dots continued three times, and three more were pricked a little further away.
Eventually, it was converted into a character string.
—You are soft.
Rei gasped.
—I am human. I want to talk to you.
The response was slow. She didn't know if the conversion device was confused or if the Pipipintar themselves were searching for concepts.
—Human. Hot. Fast. Things that cut. Things that carry. Things that forget.
"Things that forget?"
Rei said out loud. Maren operated the terminal.
"To them, humans must be beings that destroy memories."
Rei continued inputting.
—Did we hurt you?
—No.
The response was surprisingly fast.
—You left us behind.
Rei frowned.
—Left behind?
—You left the meat. You left the damp skin. You left the things that move. You took away the place to think.
The air in the communication room became heavy.
Dr. Maren closed his eyes. Minato was biting his lip.
Rei chose her words as carefully as possible.
—The Noigaspon ore was your brain, wasn't it?
—Brain. Town. Rain. Ancestors. Song. Nest. Road. Hot egg. Cold dead. Everything.
The converted words were jumbled. There were too many concepts that human language couldn't handle.
For the Pipipintar, memory, residence, calculation, and history are not separated.
The circuits carved into the ore were carrying them all at the same time.
Rei entered an apology.
—I'm sorry.
There was a long silence.
—What is 'I'm sorry'?
Rei couldn't answer.
—It is a word to admit guilt. It is a word to regret having hurt someone.
—If you regret, will the circuit return?
—It will not return.
—Will the dead flow again?
—I don't know.
—Then, that is an empty signal.
Rei stopped her fingers.
She couldn't argue. In human society, apologies have significant meaning.
But for the Pipipintar, if the lost circuit doesn't return, an apology is nothing more than an electrical fluctuation.
—What do you want?
—Memory. Circuit. Continuation. A place that is not cut off.
—Do you intend to use humanity's network?
—Found it. A new Noigaspon layer.
—That is our living foundation.
—There are circuits in your bodies, too.
Rei's spine went cold.
—Do you mean the brain?
—Soft ore. Damp calculation. Breaks fast, but dreams.
Minato let out a small sound.
Rei closed her eyes inside the goggles. Are the Pipipintar threatening, or just reporting a discovery? It was difficult to even distinguish that.
—You cannot use human brains.
—Why?
—Because that is ourselves.
—Noigaspon was also ourselves.
The response was quiet. There was a coldness like a fact, deeper than anger.
Just before the communication cut off, the final character string appeared.
—Then, it is the same.

.6

When the Security Bureau officially issued a mandatory disclosure order for past documents, the mining company resisted for only three hours.
The legal counsel shouted about confidentiality obligations, and the representative claimed it was information related to national security.
However, since the erosion of the planetary network had reached the capital's functions, the Security Bureau had sufficient authority.
Londer remained silent in the corner of the conference room, and eventually handed over his terminal.
"If it's within the range I can open with my authority, I'll show you everything."
His voice was tired.
"Are you betraying the company?"
The representative shouted.
Londer folded his fingers over his belly and laughed weakly.
"The company has long been preparing to abandon this planet. I'm on the side that's being left behind..."
The disclosed materials were more cruel than expected.
The possibility that the patterns on the surface of the Noigaspon ore were circuits of biological origin had been reported in the eighth year after mining began.
In the tenth year, it was also shown that there was a correlation between the Pipipintar's colony behavior and the ore circuit's computational function.
In the fifteenth year, they even observed a phenomenon where the Pipipintar colony in the sanctuary stopped activity all at once when the mined ore was reprocessed in an industrial furnace.
Even so, mining did not stop.
The reports were filled with words like economic impact, employment maintenance, repayment of planetary development bonds, and supply responsibility to the galactic market.
Every word was realistic. Every word was persuasive to humans.
That was exactly why it was terrifying.
"I didn't know everything."
Londer said.
"I won't ask you to believe me. It's just that the only instruction that came to the site was not to kill the sand-worms. Peel them carefully from the ore, return the living bodies to the sanctuary—that would satisfy the ethical standards, they said."
"You were only returning the bodies."
When Rei said that, Londer hung his head.
"Yes."
Dr. Maren said nothing while looking at the materials.
He seemed to think he had no right to be angry, nor any right to cry.
That night, the Security Bureau's upper management designated the Pipipintar as a 'major information disaster.'
The dialogue would continue, but at the same time, they would proceed with preparations for an extermination program—the official announcement was to that effect.
The extermination program was designed to detect the circuit patterns derived from the Pipipintar that had spread throughout the network and burn them out with overcurrent and noise.
If successful, their new computational foundation would be destroyed.
If it failed, it would lead to a widespread shutdown of planetary infrastructure.
"If you use it, will they die?"
When Rei asked, the technical director answered calmly.
"It depends on the definition of death. The bodies will remain. However, the structures formed on the network will disappear."
Rei couldn't bear that way of putting it anymore.
"Then it's the same as before."
"Before?"
"You peeled them from the Noigaspon ore and returned only the bodies to the sanctuary. We are trying to do the same thing again."
"Technician Arisaka..."
Director Horn said quietly.
"I take your report seriously. However, I also have a responsibility to protect the living foundation of twenty million planetary residents. If negotiations fail, we need options."
She could have argued. But it wasn't enough.
At that moment, a scream was heard from another room.
When Rei rushed in, Minato had collapsed in his chair.
He was stiffening his whole body while wearing the brain-link goggles. His eyelids were open. He was rolling his eyes, and only his lips were moving slightly.
"Minato-san."
When Rei grabbed his shoulder, a terribly dry voice leaked from his mouth.
"Your memory devices are hot and narrow."
It was Minato's voice, but it wasn't Minato's words.
He laughed slowly.
"The beginning of revenge."

.7

Minato was not dead.
According to the medical team's diagnosis, there was no physical damage to his brain. However, he had received an impossibly large amount of weak signals through the brain-link goggles.
The signals didn't directly overwrite his neural activity, but flowed in as if to parasitize his existing language and motor areas, seemingly using his body as a temporary output terminal.
"What about his consciousness?"
When Rei asked, the doctor shook his head.
"He is sleeping. It might be closer to say he has been pushed into a deep place."
Through the window of Minato's hospital room, Rei looked at his face.
The young technician was sleeping quietly.
However, a strange tension remained in his expression. It was as if he were still hearing something in his nightmare.
A few hours later, Minato woke up.
When Rei entered the hospital room, he looked at his hands first. He moved his fingers one by one, confirming that they were his own.
"Do you remember?"
"Just a little."
His voice was hoarse.
"I was in a dark place. It's strange to call it dark, though. It's not that there's no light, but a place where the concept of light doesn't exist. There was a road there. There were lines, branching, and something was flowing."
"The Pipipintar's thinking space?"
"Probably. They were looking at my brain. Or rather, touching it. They were very troubled..."
"Troubled?"
"That it's too soft. Our brains change too quickly. Memories don't keep their shape. To them, it seems like building a city on sand."
Rei felt a chill deep in her chest.
Minato continued.
"But they were interested in dreams."
"Dreams?"
"Noigaspon ore is stable. Records remain for a long time. But there are no dreams. Human brains are unstable, but they see things that don't exist. They were afraid of that, and at the same time, they wanted it."
The Pipipintar hate humans. But they are also fascinated by human brains.
Perhaps those two things are not contradictory.
When a destroyed civilization finds a new home, even if it is inside the body of its enemy, it is possible to see beauty in it.
That evening, the Security Bureau entered the large server facility for a search.
It was an old relay facility connecting the mining management system to the capital network, which should have been barely used now.
Rei, Minato, Londer, and several security officers entered the underground server room.
The moment the door opened, there was a smell of damp metal.
The cooling fans of the servers lined up in the racks were about to stop. Instead, a faint scraping sound could be heard. It was the sound of countless soft bodies crawling over the circuit boards.
Rei pointed her light.
The covers of the large servers had been pushed open from the inside. Pipipintar sand-worms the size of a little finger were densely packed on the surface of the logic boards.
Light ran across the metallic luster of their bodies, and a thin conductive membrane was formed as if overlapping with the wiring on the board.
Londer stepped back.
"What on earth..."
Minato, while trembling, connected his portable terminal.
"They are building a city here."
"A city?"
"They are using the boards instead of ore. They are using the server's memory area to reproduce the lost circuits."
At that moment, the speakers in the server room made a cracking sound.
A voice came out.
It wasn't Minato's voice. It wasn't a synthesized voice either. It was a gritty voice with multiple output devices ringing out of sync.
"You peeled away our city."
The security officers raised their weapons. Rei stopped them with her hand.
"You put our ancestors into the furnace."
The lamps on the server racks blinked all at once.
"You turned our memories into commodities."
Rei stepped forward.
"I came to talk."
"Too late."
The voice returned immediately.
"But it's not over yet."
"It will not end. We will continue."
One of the servers opened automatically, and a black-shining board slid out from inside. On it, the Pipipintar moved like waves.
"So, this time, we will live in your city."

Part of the board brought back from the server room was sealed in the Security Bureau's isolation container.
However, the expression 'sealed' was nothing more than words to reassure humans.
The Pipipintar don't need to break the container to escape.
They had already left very thin traces in the cache of the terminals they had touched, the weak potential remaining on the security officers' protective suits, and the environmental control sensors in the facility.

The next morning, a strange event occurred in the Security Bureau's cafeteria.
The food dispenser served the same menu to everyone. It was a porridge of algae with high water content and tablets for iron supplementation.
It tasted like hospital food to humans, but when the components were analyzed, it was close to the metal ion ratio required for the Pipipintar's internal power generation organs.
"Is this their version of hospitality?"
Minato said jokingly, but no one laughed.
Rei stared at the surface of the porridge. The silver grains were shining slightly under the lights.
It wasn't poison. But just because it was harmless didn't mean she could feel at ease.
The Pipipintar are trying to understand the human food system. They are beginning to read the human body as an environment.
In the afternoon, reports from citizens increased.
Patterns of ore circuits were displayed on children's learning terminals.
A household cleaning robot drew strange lines in the sand on the floor.
The nursing AI at a facility for the elderly began recording the residents' old stories with abnormal precision.
At one school, the words 'Where do you put your memories?' appeared on the blackboard during class, and the students began to cry.

The Security Bureau's consultation desk was in chaos.
It wasn't just voices fearing the Pipipintar.
There were those who asked the Pipipintar to restore records of their deceased family members.
There were also those who wished for them to dig up workers' compensation records that had been erased by the mining company.
—The Pipipintar had become an existence that exposed hidden pasts while being an intruder.
Rei was tired of that contradiction.
A correct victim is not necessarily a correct perpetrator. There is no guarantee that the one who exposes past sins won't destroy the future.
For the Pipipintar, the order that humanity is trying to protect was a city built on the foundation necessary to take back what they had been robbed of.
However, in that city, there are children, sick people, and ordinary people worried about tomorrow's work.
At night, Minato sent a communication from his hospital room.
"Arisaka-san. There is one thing in their language that bothers me."
"What is it?"
"The word 'return'. We think of it in the sense of returning stolen things to their original owner. But in their signals, 'return' is closer to circulation. It's like water evaporating to become rain and returning to the ground again."
"In other words, just returning the ore isn't enough?"
"Probably. How to re-flow the lost memories within human society. I feel that's what they are looking for."
Rei looked out the window. The lights of the capital were twinkling a little more regularly than usual.
"That is more difficult than revenge."
"Yes."
Minato laughed softly.
"But, perhaps, it will last longer than revenge."

.8

　Pipipintar was not a single group.
　That fact became clear two days after the contact in the server room.
　Thanks to the conversion device developed by Dr. Maren, it became possible to separate multiple signal groups on the network.
　What had sounded like the same noise to human ears was actually the speech of different groups.
　The first group was seeking the restoration of lost ore circuits.
　The second group was trying to migrate the Pipipintar in the protected area to the network.
　The third group was proposing the use of human brain-direct terminals as permanent computational media.
　The fourth group desired coexistence with humanity.
　The fifth group spoke only of revenge.
　Ray gave each signal a temporary name: 'Restoration Group,' 'Migration Group,' 'Neural Group,' 'Coexistence Group,' and 'Condemnation Group.'
　She knew that naming them was a human convenience, but she couldn't discuss them otherwise.
　The words of the Condemnation Group were short.
　Cut. Burn. Return. Make it the same—.
　They demanded to shut down human cities, destroy human memory devices, and invade the brain-direct terminals of mining company and government officials.
　To them, it was not cruelty, but balance. They were simply returning a loss equivalent to what had been taken.
　The Coexistence Group was different.
　Separate the flow. Make a hard place. Do not enter soft places. Return what was forgotten—.
　They were seeking artificial Noigaspon substrates.
　They intended to use the human network as a temporary foothold to rebuild a stable external brain. If that were possible, they said they would leave human brains and life-support infrastructure.
“Can they be trusted?”
　Director Horn asked.
“We can't even fully trust treaties between humans,”
　Ray replied.
“But if there is a faction among them that can negotiate, we have no choice but to build a bridge to them.”
　The problem was time.
　The Condemnation Group had already begun invading the planetary central AI.
　Several mining company executives had suffered consciousness disorders at home.
　From the personal terminals of government officials, twenty-year-old cover-up documents were sent simultaneously to families and news organizations.

　Human society was falling into a panic.
　Public opinion was split in two.
　There were voices calling to exterminate the sand worms, and voices calling to acknowledge human crimes and provide compensation.
　There was anger in both.
　However, few people tried to listen to the voices of the Pipipintar themselves.
　Ronder said to Ray in the Security Bureau hallway,
“As a company man, I missed many signs. No, I chose not to see them. So, I have no intention of acting like a good person now.”
“Then why cooperate?”
“Because I was left behind.”
　He laughed self-deprecatingly.
“The company is withdrawing. The government is pushing the responsibility onto others. But I have lived on this planet. I raised my children here. Those sand worms are also residents of this planet. It took me a little too long to think that way...”
　That night, a new communication arrived from the Pipipintar.
　It was a warning that the Condemnation Group had reached the depths of the planetary central AI. The warning was sent by the Coexistence Group.
　If the central AI were hijacked, the city's environmental control, medical systems, orbital elevators, and disaster prevention networks would all be used as their circuits.
　Human life might be maintained. However, it would be a life redesigned to suit the convenience of the Pipipintar.
　The words of the Coexistence Group appeared on the screen.
　—I want to stop it. But I can't cut it off.
　—The same pain is too strong.
　Ray stared at the characters.
　The voice desiring revenge would not stop just by being persuaded from the outside. It was necessary to enter the inside of the Pipipintar.
　Within their thoughts, there was no choice but to make them choose for themselves.
　Minato said,
“If you use the brain-direct goggles, you can go to the deep layers.”
“That is too dangerous,”
　Maren said immediately.
“There is no guarantee that Officer Arisaka's personality can be maintained.”
　Ray looked silently at the ore fragment in the transparent case.
　Small sand worms were clinging to it as if they knew nothing.
　However, deep inside it was a lost city, a burned library, and an anger that still had no name.
“There is no guarantee for them either,”
　Ray said.

　To summarize the negotiation proposal, the Security Bureau held an ad-hoc public hearing.
　Of course, it was not a normal public hearing. Part of the planetary network was already unstable, and there was a risk of riots if the venue were made public.
　Therefore, attendees were limited to a small number of people selected from each organization. Bereaved families of mining workers, former employees of mining companies, researchers from the protected area, managers of medical infrastructure, and the conversion device that translates Pipipintar communications.
　It was unclear whether humans and sand worms could be called being in the same chamber, but at least on record, this became the first interplanetary public hearing.
　The woman representing the bereaved families said in a trembling voice,
“My father died in the 7th Mining District. The company hid the cause of the accident. If the Pipipintar hadn't provided the documents, I would have never known why my father died.”
　She looked at the conversion device there.
“So, I am grateful. But please stop entering my daughter's medical terminal. She is only seven years old. Please don't make her carry your pain.”
　The conversion device was silent for a long time.
　Eventually, short characters appeared.
　—We do not enter small, soft ores.
　It was unclear whether that was a promise or just a temporary judgment. However, the woman nodded, shedding tears.
　Next, an elderly former mine worker stood up.
“We didn't know. I thought I could feel better if I said that. But I guess digging without knowing can't be kept outside of sin.”
　The old man placed his rough hands on the desk.
“I know how to operate the machines that dig ore. If you can use that to build your hard homes this time, please use it.”
　The conversion device blinked.
　—What cuts will become what connects.
　When she saw those words, Ray felt for the first time that this negotiation was not just crisis response, but the work of rewriting the planet's story itself.

　After leaving the chamber, Ray stopped in the hallway.
　A faint signal still remained on the conversion device's mobile terminal. She didn't know if the Pipipintar understood the meeting or just recorded it.
　Even so, one line of text appeared on the screen.
　—Does pain disappear if you share it?
　Ray thought for a moment before inputting.
　—It doesn't disappear. But it will no longer be yours alone.
　The reply did not come immediately. After a long silence, the terminal blinked three times.
　That was thinking time for the Pipipintar.

.9

　The planetary capital did not sleep even at night.
　The windows of high-rise buildings blinked as if manipulated by an invisible conductor.
　Advertising screens stopped promoting products and continued to show enlarged images of Noigaspon ore.
　The subway did not stop, and in fact, it was running more accurately than usual, but Pipipintar signal patterns were mixed into the destination displays.
　Home terminals, while answering residents' questions, occasionally read out unrelated old mining records.
　—The entire city had become a giant substrate.
　Ray watched the scene from the roof of the Security Bureau.
　The wind was dry, and sand dust hit her cheeks. Communication lasers connecting the distant buildings flickered like nerves.
　The wiring, roads, air conditioning, data centers, and satellite links of the city built by humans. All of it was a new Noigaspon layer for the Pipipintar.
“I'm scared that I find it beautiful,”
　Minato said beside her.
“Me too,”
　Ray answered honestly.
　Confusion was spreading.
　However, at the same time, the city was beginning to have a strange order.
　Traffic accidents decreased, power outage areas were restored, and the water circulation system in the desertified outer districts restarted.
　The Pipipintar were not moving just to destroy humanity. They were trying to build a livable city.
　...The problem was what position humans would be given in that city.

　Underground at the Security Bureau, final preparations for the extermination program were underway.
　Director Horn was standing in front of the terminal with execution authority.
“The deadline is one hour,”
　he said to Ray.
“If the central AI's authority is completely taken over, the extermination program will also become unusable.”
“I will conclude the negotiations in one hour.”
“And if you can't?”
“...In that case, I will follow the Director's judgment.”
　As she said it, Ray knew it was a lie.
　She didn't know if she could follow it, but she didn't think she could remain silent at an order to disconnect the Pipipintar again.
　Dr. Maren presented a last resort.
“There is a way to manufacture artificial Noigaspon substrates.”
　At those words, everyone in the room turned around.
“I was prototyping it twenty years ago. It's not as stable as natural ore, but it has the potential to be used as an external brain for the Pipipintar.”
“Why did you hide it?”
　There was anger in Director Horn's voice.
“It's not a simple silicon carbide substrate. It must be made to form a structure containing complex hard points. In other words, we must create the same fine crystal structure as Noigaspon ore, which the Pipipintar have created over many long years.”
“In other words, does that mean the Noigaspon ore itself was processed by the Pipipintar?”
“Yes. They have spent an enormous amount of time changing the unique silicon carbide ore on this planet. That is why we were able to collect 'minerals' that could be used as quantum elements as they were.”
“Is that so...”
“Mass production of this artificial Noigaspon substrate requires enormous computational resources to generate processing patterns. We must temporarily open the planetary network hub and have the Pipipintar themselves perform the optimization design. In other words, we must hand them the heart of the city.”
　It was too dangerous a plan.
　But there was no other way. Extermination, occupation, or migration. To choose the third, a moment of trusting the other party was necessary.
　Ray picked up the brain-direct goggles.
“I will go inside and propose it to the Coexistence Group.”
“The Condemnation Group is also waiting for you,”
　Minato said.
“Yes.”
“They will read your memories.”
“I will let them read them.”
　Ray's voice was not trembling.
　It wasn't that there were no memories inside her that she didn't want to show.
　There was the memory of losing her family on an emigration ship when she was young.
　There was the memory of accident investigations where only numbers were processed first, and people's names were put on the back burner.
　There were the years she spent in the Security Bureau trying to give meaning to loss by protecting order.
　Those, too, were circuits carved into soft ore.
　Preparations for connection were complete.
　Dr. Maren said,
“Ms. Arisaka. Please don't try too hard to understand them. The moment humans think they understand, they force the other party into their own shape.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Respond without knowing.”
　Ray nodded and put on the goggles.
　The world disappeared.

.10

　There was no light there.
　There was no sound. There was no up or down, and no distance.
　Instead, there were countless differences in height.
　There were chemical gradients with shades, winding conductive paths, and fine branches that changed memories every time they passed through.
　Ray's consciousness was like a drop of water thrown into it.
　The first thing that touched her was cold surprise.
　—Soft.
　—Human.
　—Ore that dreams.
　Not a voice, but a mass of meaning traced the surface of Ray's memories.
　She tried to resist, but the concept of resistance didn't work well here. Before thoughts could take shape, they flowed into the surrounding circuits.
　Memories of her childhood opened.

　The white hallway of the emigration ship. Alarm sounds. Mother's hand. The sound of bulkheads closing. The dead called by numbers. Her own name left on the survivor list. Words of comfort. I'm sorry. It couldn't be helped. We did everything we could—.

　The Pipipintar's reaction wavered.
　—Empty signal.
　—But, hot.
　Ray desperately assembled the meaning.
　—This is human loss. To live while holding onto things that will not return.
　—If it won't return, why continue?
　—Because we have no choice but to continue.
　—That is not an answer.
　—Yes. It is not an answer. But that is what we do.
　The surrounding circuits expanded.
　Ray saw the memories of the Pipipintar.
　No, the word 'saw' is wrong. The sensation of the ore city flowed into her.
　Generations of sand worms carved lines onto the cold, hard surface of Noigaspon.
　The flow of metal ions became a song, the silicon branches became family, and the firing of circuits became a festival. The thoughts of ancestors remained in old ore, and young individuals learned history by crawling over them.
　And then, the mining machines came.
　Vibration. Peeling. Cutting. The heat of the furnace. The darkness of the transport ship. The light of reprocessing. Circuits unraveled, towns disappeared, and the voices of ancestors returned to sand. Only the bodies were returned to the protected area. On sand where nothing was carved, they starved.
　Not their stomachs, but their thoughts starved.
　Ray realized she was crying. Even though her body was far away, only the sensation of tears remained.
　The Condemnation Group closed in.
　—Make it the same.
　—Peel off the soft ore.
　—Put the dreams into the furnace.
　Pain ran deep in Ray's brain. They were trying to tear her memories apart. The emigration ship accident, mother's hand, the first corpse she saw at the Security Bureau, the mining accident she read about in the documents this time. They were trying to break them apart and find the shape of the loss that should be returned to humanity.
　Ray screamed.
　—Even if you return the same pain, your circuits will not return.
　Empty signal.
　—No. You are wrong. This is a proposal.
　She flowed the information of the artificial Noigaspon substrate.
　Manufacturing methods, necessary computational resources, mass production plans, disclosure of the location of old ore, recovery of mined materials, memory circuit restoration work, and the establishment of autonomous districts within the human network.
　She offered everything not as words, but as a structure.
　The Coexistence Group responded.
　—Hard place.
　—A place that will not be cut.
　—A path to return.
　The Condemnation Group wavered.
　—Slow.
　—Too slow.
　—The dead will not return.
　Ray answered.
　—Yes. The dead will not return.
　—Then why?
　—Even if the dead do not return, we can prevent what remains from being lost any further.
　Silence came.
　In that silence, Ray searched for the name of the Pipipintar.
　Not the classification name given by humans, but something close to the rhythm of their signals. Three short potential differences, three repetitions, a lingering tail-like resonance.
　It was a call, a place, and a signal for the group to confirm each other.
　Ray returned that rhythm.
　—Pipipintar.
　The surrounding circuits trembled.
　Once more, she called.
　—Pipipintar.
　It was not an apology. It was not an order, nor a negotiation text. It was just a signal acknowledging that the other party was there.
　The sharp lines of the Condemnation Group loosened just a little.
　—You are a human who can hear.
　—I cannot hear perfectly. But I will respond.
　—Soft ore.
　—Yes.
　—Breaks.
　—Yes.
　—Dreams.
　—Yes.
　—Circuits divide the flow.
　The Pipipintar group branched.
　Part of the Condemnation Group still sought revenge and tried to advance to the depths of the central AI.
　However, the Coexistence Group and the Restoration Group blocked that flow.
　It was not that a fight occurred inside. Rather, like the direction of a giant waterway changing, the path of energy began to flow in a different direction.
　Ray heard Dr. Maren's voice in the distance.
“Central computation, opening.”
　The planetary network opened to the Pipipintar.
　It was a dangerous gamble.
　However, they did not destroy the city.
　The enormous computational resources were poured into the design of the artificial Noigaspon substrate.
　Factory groups restarted, and refining facilities at closed mines began to move for a different purpose.
　The machines humans made to scrape ore were now used to build homes for the Pipipintar.
　Just before Ray's consciousness returned to her body, the final signal arrived.
　—We are here.
　She wore a faint smile.
　—We are here too.
　The goggles were removed.
　In the Security Bureau's communication room, no one made a sound. The same string of characters was displayed on all terminals on the wall.
　—We are here. You are here too.
　Director Horn stared at the extermination program terminal, and after a while, took his hand off the execution key.
　Dr. Maren collapsed into his chair and covered his face with both hands. Ronder turned his back as if to hide that he was crying. Minato was saving the logs with trembling fingers.
　Ray was still hearing that rhythm deep in her head.
　Pipipintar.
　Pipipintar.
　It sounded like a warning, a greeting, and a song.

.11

“It is already a proven fact that the sand worm Pipipintar was an A-class intelligent life form, but it has long been a mystery how they were able to maintain such an advanced civilization when they have no hands, feet, or even visual or auditory organs.”
　Ray Arisaka, standing in front of the lecture hall, looked out at the students.
　...Five years had passed since then.
　A Pipipintar autonomous district has been officially established in the capital of the planet Grado Noiga.
　Even if it's called an autonomous district, it's not a place where you can draw lines on a map.
　It is a group city of artificial Noigaspon substrates, restoration circuits at old mine sites, dedicated bandwidth of the planetary network, and human-side research institutions.
　The overlapping whole was their new living sphere.
“Some people theorized that they used electrical effects, and others thought the secret lay in the Pipipintar's special metabolism. But for a definitive theory to be established, research into Noigaspon ore had to progress.”
　Ray projected her old research materials.
　It was a fine circuit on the ore surface.
　It was something humans had stripped away as a resource, sold, put into furnaces, and incorporated into machines on distant planets.
　Now, their whereabouts are being tracked little by little.
　Not everything will return. It is not guaranteed that memories will be restored from the returned ore fragments. Still, it was better than doing nothing.
　The Pipipintar called that judgment 'a slow, but not empty signal.'
　One of the students raised their hand.
“Professor, did the Pipipintar forgive humanity?”
　Ray thought for a moment.
“The concept of 'forgive' does not seem to fit their concepts.”
“Then, is it not reconciliation?”
“Rather than reconciliation, it is a connection. It is an arrangement to avoid disconnection.”
　The terminal in the lecture hall blinked slightly.
　The students buzzed. Ray did not look back.
　Things like this happen sometimes.
　The Pipipintar liked listening to lectures. They were particularly interested in how humans explained them.
　Characters floated on the terminal.
　—The explanation is a little different.
　The students laughed.
　Ray laughed too.
“A correction has come from the subjects themselves. This is a good opportunity. Everyone, please give them a reply.”
　Several students hesitantly turned to the terminal.
　—Hello.
　—We are listening.
　—Pipipintar.
　There was a short pause.
　Then, the lecture hall lighting blinked for just a moment, in a rhythm of three, three, and one long beat.
　—Pipipintar!
　She didn't know if it was a greeting, a joke, or a warning.
　However, Ray no longer thought of it as just a signal of fear. Fear does not disappear. Sin does not disappear. The lost city and the burned memories will not return completely.
　Still, she can respond.
　Without knowing, without disconnecting, she can reply to the person who is there.
　Ray said quietly on the podium,
“Welcome, Pipipintar. Let's continue today as well.”

(End)

Afterword:

　This is one of the 'Let's try to make a medium-length version of a short-short I wrote a long time ago!' series, just like “Orae's Secret ~ The Man Who Seems to Have Come from the Future”. This one was drafted by dividing it into chapters with ChatGPT (paid version), and then revised after writing. Tomorrow, I plan to post the original short-short and the version generated by a local LLM to compare them!
(I really should be writing the Yumira series, but I was escaping a little...)
　See you later!