Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Chapter 2: Not Yet Real, But Maybe soon

Bourne from the gust of a strong rain outside, he emerged. In his office, he quietly grabbed a white towel and carefully wiped it on the wet business suit he was wearing.

The trickle of the rain outside has made him this wet. Frustrated, he have to remove the elegant suit that made him an utterly delicious gentleman.

Despite removing, and that the only thing left on him was his white long sleeve, one could not deny how beautifully created this creature is. His chiseled jawline became more prominent as he remove his wet black suit. His neck was long but manly—the Adam’s apple gave him the depth. What is more noticeable to him was his eyes. As raging as the shadows, it was black. And cold. And mysterious.

“Principal Copper, I might come in a minute or two if you keep yourself hot as you are right now.”

A woman from the dark corner of his office spoke. For a second, he was flustered from the sudden erupting of a woman’s voice. Until he remembered, he left a woman inside his office.

“Cassandra.”

“To serve you anytime, my handsome master.”

Principal Copper placed the wet suit on a hat hanger beside the front door of his office. He would need to make it dry later.

“Open the lights. Why do you make yourself accompanied in darkness? You’re not a mad.”

“I prefer lights off, master.” And she released an asinine moan. A learned one.

Principal Copper laughed. “But I prefer lights on, Cassandra.”

He heard Cassandra sighing. Sooner after a few counts of seconds, she responded, “Well, I sometimes like lights on too. So that I can see you and your perfect features.”

Principal Copper secretly smiled. He unbuttoned three buttons from the top of his long sleeves, and untightened his neck tie.

Inside his mind, however, he was thinking something dangerous for Cassandra.

Principal Copper is a man of autonomy. A man who he prefers that his plans—all of it—shall be executed properly. By means of properly executing, he mean, was by following all of his commands. All of it. Because it had never failed yet. Ever since.

If for the first time, Cassandra would not follow his command—even just that simple whimsical demand he told turning on the light, he would be filled with uncontrollable rage, and would get the mattock he had long hidden somewhere in the office, in order to shatter her, and her fragile body, and her brain—satisfyingly.

After all, he could always get another Cassandra down his office.

The lights flicked open. “Thank you, Cassandra.”

The lights in his room were nothing fascinating, but just a vintage-colored dim light. He doesn’t want an extremely bright beam of the light on his office, for it was more soothing if only dim old-yellow light would waft around the room. It was not overwhelming. It was not brightly burning that would make anyone squint and make a peculiar, laughable scrunches on their faces. Principal Copper was a handsome man even if he squint and scrunch his face. But it was just his preference to have the beauty of that light. It soothes him. Way different than the kind of lighting he was currently looking at the screen: too bright, too white—it highlighted the trembling and horrified faces of the students strapped on a customized chair he himself had designed.

“Principal Copper.”

Principal Copper looked at Cassandra who was then beside him.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Can you unbutton more of your long sleeves, please?”

Principal Copper laughed from the atrocious heat Cassandra has been feeling in herself. She looked at Cassandra with a teasing smile. Biting his lips, he removed the last remaining buttons of his sleeves. There peered his well-toned chest and his well-formed abdominal muscle.

“Downloading different s****l intercourse positions. I wish I could satisfy you, my Master.”

Principal Copper laughed harder as soon as he heard her dense wish.

“Sometimes, Cassandra, I am fascinated of you and your rapid changes. I even wonder if indeed, I am the one who … created you,” Principal Copper’s eyes gleamed as he looked and watched the terrible situation the students in the white room are experiencing.

“You don’t know how glad I am that you’re the one who created me.”

Principal Copper looked back at the woman beside her. “Really?” he flashed another smile.

The screen displaying the scene in the white room where the students are learning to survive flashed gone. Disappeared. A digital smiley changed flashing on the screen: a smiley made of a curved line, with two dots formed above.

“Really.”

The pixelated smiley changed into the shape of hearts, pulsating in a pixelated manner as well.

Principal Copper smiled with a pursed lips, and nodded repeatedly. “That is good to hear. But … you know my answer to you.”

“Yes.” The screen on his front changed to a sad emoticon, with pixelated tears falling from its eyes.

"You cannot satisfy me and my needs, Cassandra. Because you are not real.”

Cassandra did not answered for a while. After a ten seconds or more … it was then when she answered.

“Not real … yet.”

Principal Copper nodded. The smile on his face were then erased. Agreeing with Cassandra, he repeated. “Not real yet. But maybe soon.”

“Maybe soon.” The screen’s display flashed in another pixelated form. This time, it was a set of letters.

‘Maybe soon.’

Cassandra was hoping that she could be real. That she could get a real human’s body so that she can finally taste and satisfy her master and his s****l pleasure.

At least, that is what Principal Copper had programmed in her.

Inside her digital memories, Principal Copper made a special design to his newly created AI robot, so that it could at least be considered a living creature. A life form.

How can we consider a thing in earth a living creature? A life form?

For some, it was perhaps if they can move, have the ability to think, or perhaps the ability to make a special role in the world—predators or prey, carnivores or herbivores or omnivores or autotrophs.

But for Principal Copper, it was the ability to feel the s****l drive which is his basis so one can be considered the ‘living creatures’. A real life form. There may be some creature who has no capacity to feel the wonderful drive, and some only considers it as an animal instinct that only erupts during their mating season, but for Principal Copper, the highest life form was those who can distinguish and conclude that they were sexually driven. An intelligent creature who wants to feel the pleasure, not just because to mate, but simply because … they want it.

That is the personality Principal Copper had accumulated to his Artificial Intelligence.

But more than that, Cassandra has a special ability that no other AI he developed could do.

Brushing the hair which in color was that resembling of his name, he commanded; “Cassandra, initiate personality detachment mode.”

“Initiating … Completed.”

Fascinatingly, the tone of Cassandra’s voice suddenly shifted to the usual, standard robotic pitch.

“Report for the fifth batch of Classroom Zero,” he commanded.

“Reporting…”

Principal Copper waited for a few split seconds. Letters and words exploded at the screen he was staring.

“Fifty two students accumulated for the Project Zero’s fifth batch. One died without any data being squeezed at. It is not a problem however, because the project Zero already gathered eighty percent of the estimated required data for the next phase of the project. We only need at most forty-five students to complete the gathering of data. Fifty one remained. Five died for the first game. Their data on their brain were being extracted by my automatic brain extractor.”

“Good.”

Satisfied by the report of Cassandra, he stepped backwards, and turned his back towards her.

“Where are you going, Master Copper?” the robotic-toned Cassandra asked.

“Cancel Personality Detachment Mode,” he commanded.

“Cancelling…”

Principal Copper waited for a few more seconds, standing still while his back turned at her.

“Where are you going, my handsome master?”

The usual voice of the lively Cassandra erupted back in his office. Displaying his blank shadowy stare, he looked at Cassandra.

“I wanted to personally see the face of the new Classroom Zero students.”

He looked at a half-meter tall tubular glass being moved by four small wheels attached on its base.

“Among them, there were two remarkable students who have the highest survival rate among the other students.”

“I don’t need that data yet.”

Cassandra did not answer anymore.

Professor Copper was staring at her. He was still fascinated to himself knowing the fact that he was able to preserve a brain and use it as the main hard drive where information can be compacted by the AI Cassandra.

Looking at the glass tube being moved only by wheels, her brain—attached with series of multi-colored wires—was floating in a pressurized protein-rich liquid. Enzymes—a breakthrough synthetic enzyme which he himself had created.

Finally satisfied with another look, Principal Copper turned his back away of her. Outside, he calmly closed the door of his office.

An office no one knew was existing.

The voice of AI Cassandra repeated on his head despite him already walking at the hallway of Josen High School.

‘Not yet real. But maybe soon.’

Group of young teenagers met him at the middle of the hallway. They were laughing from a certain joke while on their way home. The teenagers pursed their lips, and flirtatiously smiled at the dreamy young Principal of Josen High. Principal Copper smiled back at them, and told them to take care going home.

Yet, when the girls were out of his sight, and when the hallway was nothing but pure darkness anymore, his smile retained. Remained.

Eighty percent.

“Not yet real. But maybe soon,” he said, repeating Cassandra’s voice from his head.