Part 195: [continued]
Listen in (broadly recommended): [English/Japanese]
I'm glad you don't think I did it, but...
All of your theories are just, well, theories.
...
Like Alice committing suicide. How can you be sure?
Say she was infected with Radical-6.
She could have been murdered before her symptoms even began to present themselves.
...
As for Clover and Tenmyouji, I could easily have killed them.
You don't have any proof that Clover's message was mirrored like you say, or even that it was supposed to refer to Dio.
Even if it did, that's not conclusive evidence of his guilt.
...
The same goes for K and Dio.
I could have killed them both.
...
I just...
I'm a machine. I'm part of this place!
How can you trust a machine?
...
...
...
...
That's why I trust you.
I trust you because you're a robot.
Your robotness is just one more reason you can't be the killer. Well, three more reasons.
VLR OST: [Confession]
Rule 1--
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot without the Three Laws is just a bunch of metal and plastic.
...
...
Luna, I have to ask you...
Can you tell me...well, everything you know?
Your mind is in the central server.
You should know everything that's happened here...
There was a long pause.
Luna stood up and walked deeper into the garden.
I followed her in silence.
Eventually we reached the bench.
Luna quietly sat down, and, just like last time, I lowered myself down beside her.
I didn't kill them.
...
...
How should I explain...
Well, actually, you got most of it right...
That doesn't matter. Tell me everything.
He used the large cargo elevator and came into the warehouse on floor A through the number nine door.
Since the game hadn't started yet anyone could go through it.
That doesn't really sound like sneaking. It sounds more like he just walked in.
Yes, I guess you could say that.
He did get in pretty easily. But that's because Zero Jr. lured him here.
What do you mean?
Both Zeroes knew that he was going to come.
So they...brought him here?
In a way.
But why?
Because his presence was an important part of Zero's project.
What project?
I can't go into that right now. We'd be here forever.
Right now let's just focus on the murders, okay?
...
...
They made sure he didn't know that he was actually being let in.
So why did he come here?
To make sure Zero's project failed.
His first step was to pretend to be one of the players.
...
As for how he did that, you had it pretty much right.
The old woman was the first one out, and he killed her under the graffiti.
He put her bracelet on after he wiped the blood off it with the handkerchief.
Fifth and sixth...?
Counting from the left, in their original placement.
In other words, the rightmost room would be the sixth room, and the one next to it would be the fifth?
Right.
After that, he went back into the fifth AB Room where Quark was sleeping.
Then he just waited for Quark to wake up.
Nothing... I couldn't do anything.
My body had been turned off.
Zero Jr. had powered me down.
My body wasn't activated until after Dio went into the fifth room.
...
All I could do was watch while she was murdered...
...
I couldn't try and prevent Dio from getting in either.
Wait... If Zero Jr. controls everything...
Yes. That's right.
Zero Jr. moved the room, not me.
...Me.
It took me 10 minutes to get out of my AB Room once I was turned back on.
I ran over to check on her as soon as I did.
Then I carried her back to the room I'd been in.
Why did you do that?
What?
999 OST: [Morphogenetic Sorrow]
Luna, listen to me very carefully.
As you already know, the final stage of the project begins in 2 hours.
This will be the culmination of many years of hard work. We cannot afford failure.
Yes. I understand.
Then let's make sure.
What is your mission?
Enter the Nonary Game as one of the participants and observe the actions of the other players.
Ensure that they do what they are supposed to, and guide them down the correct paths.
How many players will there be?
Myself and seven others, Ma'am.
Will you be participating as well?
Yes. Our plan dictates that I must.
An individual by the name of "Dio" will be entering this facility presently—he has been led to believe he is doing so undetected.
You've been briefed on him already, correct?
Yes.
He will murder the first person to leave one of the AB Rooms, and take their place.
If a pair is the first out, he'll probably kill both of them.
That's all the information I've been given on him, Ma'am.
Um...I...
Is there a problem?
With all due respect Ma'am, I would like to state that I don't feel right about this.
We know someone is going to be killed, and we're just going to let it happen?
...
I also have doubts about the use of Radical-6.
Are...are you sure? Infecting all these people with such a horrible disease...
That is none of your concern.
But—
Luna. I am giving you an order.
I am in command, and you do as I say.
You are programmed to do as I say.
You know this.
...
...
Yes.
Good.
Now, I have one final order.
Another order, Ma'am?
Yes.
When you leave the AB Room, the person Dio has killed will still be there.
I would like you to move them.
Where?
To the room you are about to enter: the sixth AB Room.
But...why?
Not your concern.
As a participant in the game, you must have as little knowledge of it as possible.
That is why I have made sure you are unable to access any classified data.
...
In order for this project to succeed, we need you to be as close to a clean slate as possible.
There are some things you already know which, ideally, you would not.
Unfortunately, this is unavoidable, so you must refrain from divulging anything you know about the project to the other participants.
You must never tell anyone what you know about Dio, or the body, or that you carried it to the sixth AB Room.
You will have to pretend you know nothing more than the rest of the participants.
Is that an order?
Yes.
Do I make myself clear?
...
...
Yes...
As soon as I stepped inside, my body deactivated.
But since my brain is in the main computer, I was still "awake."
So I still saw everything...
While I waited, I used the security cameras to see what was going on in the rest of the facility.
And you saw the old woman being murdered...
Yes...
What I was seeing made no sense. Several of my higher-level processes nearly failed.
To think that she would be the first person to come out...
...
...
When she'd said she had one final order for me, I didn't understand what she meant.
Like a fool I told her I didn't approve, when I had no idea what she was prepared to do.
When she died... Whatever I have that passes for a heart felt like it snapped in two.
...
...
The mysterious and totally unidentified Old Woman is voiced in English by Barbara Goodson and in Japanese by Yoshiko Sakakibara. Barbara Goodson is another serial minor role/additional voices/uncredited actress, though two consistent and notable roles I've found for her are Rita Repulsa in various incarnations of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Laharl in the Disgaea series up until at least 2013. Yoshiko Sakakibara seems to dabble very infrequently in video games - she's the Japanaese voice of Ana in Overwatch, so that's something - but she's been showing up in anime since the 80s, including Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as Lady Kushana and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ as Haman Karn.
By the way, if the Old Woman's English voice sounded weirdly familiar despite all this, it's because another of Barbara Goodson's uncredited roles is the Announcer in VLR. In Japanese that's handled by Eimi Okada, who also doesn't seem to have much in the way of high-profile work to her name; I found Cordelia in Fire Emblem Awakening and not much else recognisably of note.