2022-12-25: Notification of Death/Acknowledgement of Birth
- Log: 2022-12-25: Notification of Death/Acknowledgement of Birth
- Cast: Sousuke Sagara, Sayla Mass
- Where: Temporary Shuffle Alliance Garage, Tsutsujidai
- OOC - IC Date: 24 December, 0096
- Summary: Sergeant Sagara needed to talk. He had not prepared for conversation.
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
Sousuke stood in the dark of the repurposed parking lot. Even Doctor Mass' breathtaking capacity for paranoia had had to yield to realities in this time of need; the whole thing was above ground, shut off by salvaged sheet metal rather than layers of soundproofing, steel, and concrete. Still. It was a garage. It did what it needed to do.
Arbalest sat in silent prostration in front of him. The only one here that knew all of him.
He didn't entirely understand President Milly's advice. Seek out others like him? He supposed he knew a few now, at that. Some were even here. But the one that occupied his mind most, he's not sure he could say was much like him at all.
*
Someone's in the Shuffle garage.
Late night crew, maybe?
No, not quite. Approaching, it becomes clear. The ARX-7 Arbalest is on its hands and knees, the supplication-like pose an AS takes for boarding and parking; the head is rotated down, allowing access to the cramped cockpit. Sousuke Sagara is within, the monitor lights casting harsh shadows up against the ceiling.
"AL," Sousuke's voice says. "...do you know the meaning of 'home'?"
A voice replies from within the ARX-7. Masculine in timber and with the slight inflection irregularities of a digitally generated voice. The M9's combat AI, presumably. <<'Home,'>> AL replies. <<Noun. A term indicating a unit's primary strategic point of return. 'Home' is distinct from 'base,' 'ship,' and 'garage' in that 'home' is a strategic-scale concept, distinct from tactical points of return which may change suddenly even within a single deployment. 'Home' is expected, barring enemy action, to always contain all needed resources for ARX-7 Arbalest to be maintained, examined, and repaired. ARX-7's 'home' is currently designated as the West Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Merida Island.>>
The phrase sits for a few moments, and just before it feels awkward that Sousuke hasn't replied, AL continues:
<<'Home' may also refer to a strategically irrelevant location which comprises a person's primary domicile. This definition of 'home' is unlikely to contain any components for the ARX-7 at all, but will contain persons, material, and equipment vital to the long-term wellness of the pilot. Compare related concepts: play, toy, hobby, family, friend, and 6 others. Contrast concepts: base, camp, ship, hangar, colleague, and two others.>>
A numb, "What," tumbles from the cockpit.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The recent days have been... rough for Dr Mass. She has definitely been trying to hold it together. She's absolutely been pushing herself- though not as much as she was. But being away from Leina now, of all times, is taking it's toll.
She tells others that she's going down the elevator of the Shuffle Alliance Secure Parking Lot to check over the Dijeh. In reality...
The cockpit is an excellent place for no one to see you have a moderate breakdown.
She hears the quiet voice as the doors open with no sound- that will need to be fixed later, if they can spare the maintenance time. She steps out- just in time to hear a... conversation of sorts.
That's definitely a digital voice, talking about home. She rounds the corner as she hears it speak.
This definition of 'home' is unlikely to contain any components for the ARX-7 at all, but will contain persons, material, and equipment vital to the long-term wellness of the pilot.
"...Sousuke?" She asks, stepping out. The young man was faint, but he was still there. Hard to read as ever. She moves out slowly. The Arbalest. The Black Technology Machine that had allowed them to stop Behemoth. One of Mithril's many mysteries they didn't share, even to their people. Which made situations like this all the harder to manage when the only officer here was Sagara.
Sayla decides, having announced herself, to try and keep up conversation. "...Clever AI you have there. It's right." She pauses. "I wonder who programmed that definition in there, though..."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
There's a brief sound of surprise, and then Sousuke says, "Oh, Doctor."
AL states, impassively, <<Facial data confirmation: Mass, Sayla, MD. Vice-Commander, Hearts Division. Voice print confirmed. Good evening, Doctor.>>
Sousuke mutters, "Who told you to--" before sighing. He has to work a little to poke his head out of the cockpit, but he does. "Yes, it's the combat AI for the Arbalest. Most third-generation AS have one, though this one's a little..." ...he grimaces.
<<File system check shows all expected values.>>
"You always say that," Sousuke shoots back, just a little heated, before looking back to Sayla. "I was just..." ...He grimaces again, this time at himself. "...I suppose I just felt like talking," he finally says, lamely. "I was wondering the same, though. AL, who taught you that? 'Play', too, that's not within your utility parameters."
<<Supervisor Bani Morauta, Sergeant.>>
Sousuke blinks at that. "The engineer who made you?"
<<Affirmative. He developed the ARX system, including myself.>>
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Polite, too. "Good evening," she replies. Time around entitites like the SBRC will do that to you. She raises an eyebrow at Sousuke, who does not have that experience. He didn't expect it to?
"A little what? Talkative?" She looks at the Arbalest, before pausing. Sousuke rarely felt like talking. Sayla leans against a pillar. She blinks. She swears the name had come up but... "He developed your AI as well as all the other systems?"
Right now she wished she knew more about Black Technology. How it worked, where it came from. "...Did he teach you then? Or were you modeled after someone like the Brave Robos?" She's picked up some things in all her travels. Still
She finally asks. "Sergeant... you're struggling with all this too, aren't you?" She has to ask. She still can't read him, his often expressionless face and sealed off mind.
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
AL states, <<Affirmative. The ARX System currently includes the ARM Slave ARX-7 Arbalest, its onboard lambda driver and combat governance and assistance AI codenamed 'AL', and the pilot, Sergeant Sousuke Sagara. Supervisor Bani Morauta designed the entire system except for the pilot themselves, to which it is instead intended to adapt.>>
Sousuke makes a sour face at that, but keeps his peace. He does, however, add, "A third-generation ARM Slave usually has the governance AI. Most are advanced enough to provide the same battlefield assessment and CIC abilities formerly provided by dedicated battleship command centers. They're not Super AI, though, just more or less able to navigate a combat-oriented conversation. Normally AL wouldn't even be talking this much. I have him in chat mode."
<<A 'whim,'>> AL notes, a slight inflection suggesting he's repeating something Sousuke said before Sayla arrived.
Sousuke grimaces. "Usually their onboard dictionary doesn't have unnecessary entries like that."
<<The Supervisor felt it was important to prepare me to understand deep conversation with the pilot.>>
Sousuke grunts. "I'm beginning to get a sense he was like that, yes," he mutters. Then he levers his attention up from the monitors at Sayla's question, turning to look at her directly. "The situation?" he asks, and the way he glares at the walls answers the question on its own. "...I am accustomed to environments like this," is his somewhat slow-to-come reply. "Survival. Scavenging. The possibility of sudden violence. It's the...world, that I come from."
His head hangs, looking down into the cockpit, to the monitors silently assessing the situation on a thousand layers. To the side panel, displaying AL's vocal-matching swiftly matching concepts, so fast Sousuke can't really follow it. Surely someone could do something with that log, though.
Much, much quieter, he says, "I do not know why I am uncomfortable with it now."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The pilot is part of the system, hm? Fascinating. "...Do combat AIs typically have a chat mode? I can't say I've ever deployed with one." It seems an odd feature to add. She smirks, though, at AL. "I suppose if it's not a problem, there's no harm with having a more fully fledged dictionary is there? Honestly it already sounds like AL has enough he could have helped out Haro with the babysitting on White Base."
Snark aside, she thinks on it. An AI that understands conversation with it's pilot. She thinks about Takuma in the Behemoth. Could the AI help keep the pilot on task with those drugs, when theere isn't a handler? But Sagara doesn't need them, or even seem to be aware of them.
Sayla can't see the log. "...I'm only a visitor to that world, so take it with a grain of salt but... just like AL is adapting to you, you adapt to your environment, don't you? And you've been out of that world in the time working with Mithril, and then again at Jindai."
Not adapting well, admittedly. She steps forward. "Is it because there's someone important to you, and you can't reach them?" Sayla's voice is melancholy. "That's what's tearing me apart right now. This is the first year since she came into my care that it hasn't been Leina and I for Christmas. There's nowhere I want to be now but by her side, and it's impossible."
She takes a breath. Maybe this is unfair. But the boy could use something to keep him going. "I think Leina feels the same about me out there... and Kaname feels the same about you."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
"It's not so unusual for these, at least," Sousuke says. "I've seen it before. Some pilots prefer their AI more talkative. I know Kurz patterned his after..." He scratches the side of his head. "Some idol, I think."
AL's monitor seems to be rechecking something about the conversation. Sousuke looks down into the cockpit - sitting on its rim - but doesn't think much of it before returning his attention to Sayla. He's not familiar with how AI think, particularly in a situation like this - a conversation with multiple others outside of combat, one they're not particularly built for.
Her words hit. President Milly said much the same, or at least implied it. That he was changing. That he needed to change. "Kaname," he says, very, very quietly. "...I'm supposed to be protecting her." Is that it? The mission?
Even Sousuke's quiet heart can be heard defying itself. No. It's not just the mission at all. When she asked him to stay...he hasn't felt anything like that again. From that feeling he doesn't know is called peace into here, the familiar crimson edge of living and dying. "...yes," he says. "I agree. I think...Kaname would want me there tonight. And I..."
He grimaces again, tension coiling in him. He scoffs, finally. "All I can do is talk with an unfinished weapon." He lashes out a little, kicks the side of the cockpit with more force than indication at all needs. A second later he breathes a long breath, and goes quiet.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"...Mr Weber is that desperate, huh." Sayla's eyes narrow. "Bet he puts his AI in chat mode all the time." She stops as Sousuke talks about the mission. "Hm. The way she tells it, you're looking out for each other as much as anything. That you saved her life at Khanka, and she saved yours." This is... very definitely meddling. Leina's rubbed off on her.
"And while your piloting definitely protected her, she was the one with the idea to microwave the receiver. That's counting for Kaname's sudden insights. For a bodyguard and VIP... you two make a hell of a team."
Sousuke pauses. She can feel that particular drop. Despite the mood, Sayla smiles, softer than before. "...Honestly, I think she'd be pretty happy to hear you this angry about it." The idea might be a surprise to Sousuke, but... "You're important to her as well. That means you need to make it back, apologize for not being there for Christmas and make it up to her." She pauses. If this is his world... maybe it would help to make the two ideas mix.
"If it helps, Sergeant, consider that an order."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
AL does not object. From outside, you'd think he was waiting to be addressed, but Sousuke can see the monitor that means he's thinking hard about something. What on earth is this damn thing doing?
Sousuke's got his composure back, at least. "...you're right. She..." ... "She refused to leave. I was prepared to do my duty and hold off the pursuit, but...she refused to leave without us."
He says the words that have been echoing in his brain for close to a year. "She wanted me to live. Me, personally, not...people in general and therefore me. I'm still...I don't...."
The thought trails off completely. He doesn't quite smile at the way she puts it, but some tension does drain from his shoulders. "Yes. Understood. I'll do that, ma'am," he says. "However long it takes."
AL suddenly pipes up. <<Sergeant.>>
"Oh, you finished thinking. What?"
<<You spoke of Supervisor Bani Morauta in the past tense earlier. Please provide additional context. Is he no longer affiliated with the ARX Project?>>
Sousuke blinks. Huh. He glances at Sayla, shrugs, and says, "He's dead. A year ago, I think. Maybe two."
Several seconds pass. The machine gets just a bit hotter, for some reason, vents activating on the outside to flush waste heat it shouldn't be generating. <<This information is-->>
And then the Arbalest very abruptly goes completely dark. The cockpit monitor lights illuminating Sousuke turn off, as do the handful of running lights including Arbalest's green camera covers. The garage plunges into darkness but for the handful of permanent lights.
Whatever was going on in Sousuke's head, that gets his attention completely. "What the devil?" Sousuke huffs and hops off the cockpit lip and into the core of the machine.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla nods slowly, as the sergeant opens up. The poor kid... "You don't have to understand it yet, Sousuke-" It's a guess, but an informed one. "Just remember that you have someone who wants you to live. You'd surprised the battles that can get you through."
Like A Bao A Qu.
"Good. Ill hold you to that." Sayla is about to rudely ask AL to define 'Date', but AL speaks up first. "What's-"
The heat vents and Sayla steps back as garage becomes dark. She grabs a small handheld torch from her belt. "Sergeant? What the hell happened?"
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
"Not sure. It just...shut off? This is top of the line military hardware! It shouldn't be able to...crash to desktop!"
Five seconds pass. And then it all boots right back up. Sousuke emits a brief noise of discomfort as his eyes are blasted by the monitors turning right back to full brightness, and the Arbalest's running lights turn back on outside, as well. "AL, what the hell?"
AL's reply is not a reply. <<Confirming voice check against buffered data. Sergeant Sagara confirmed. Doctor Mass confirmed. Learning message: Please state the source of information regarding his death.>>
Sousuke still thinks he's dealing with a machine. He replies, "Stop saying learning message for everything," with immediate irritation. Then, more to Sayla, "All the settings are preserved...it's still in the free-dialogue mode, too. It should need to reconfirm way more than this from a reboot..."
<<Sergeant. Please state the source of your information.>>
But perhaps Sayla can detect, despite AL's flat, mechanical affect, the mannerisms of an entirely normal person who has just unexpectedly received terrible news.
"That was Lieutenant Lemming."
<<Lieutenant Lemming, Nora. Engineering division. Lambda driver technician.>> Thinking out loud. Sousuke does that a lot, actually. How familiar. <<Please state cause of death.>>
Sousuke, flustered, blurts out, "How should I know that?!"
<<Forgive the indiscretion. Supposition: You do not possess this information.>>
"What, are you interested?"
Precise, mechanical, but persistent: <<Is the subject of your inquiry, "do you wish to know more about his death"?>>
"Yes!"
<<Affirmative.>>
One second. Two seconds. Sousuke sounds like he's about to say something but AL cuts him off: <<This information has comprehensive relevance to the ARX System. It impacts fields from tactics to strategy to logistics and planning.>>
Sousuke snaps, "None of which is your responsibility, AL!"
Four seconds. Five. His voice doesn't change. His tenor is perfectly flat. And yet...
Like a child wailing through several walls...so, so faint, but undeniable...this emotion can only be pain, can't it?
<<Without Bani Morauta...I cannot be completed.>>
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla can only watch as AL starts- for want of a better term- interrogating Sousuke. "Sousuke-" She doesn't have any of the information AL wants. All of this is before Mithril reached out to the Shuffle Alliance. Before the Alliance knew of Mithril.
Sayla steps forward, slowly, as Sousuke gets more and more frustrated, as she holds out a hand. They speak back and forward, he thinks out loud and even... anmd even...
"Sagara. Stop." Sayla's voice is quiet, but no less firm than usual. She places a hand on the Arbalest's forearm. "AL..." It's a voice she used with Leina, all those years ago. Soft, gentle, and supportive. Being a newtype helps Sayla detect emotion- but she's trained herself to read people.
And AL, it seems, can be read.
"When we get out of this mess, the Sergeant and I can enquire with Captain Testarossa- we'll find out what happened and what her plan going forward is." That hand pats the ARM Slave's large arm gently. "Don't give up, okay?"
To anyone looking on, someone might assume Sayla had just snapped. But she looks up Sousuke, her eyes firm. "I'm not sure that AL is is *just* a combat AI anymore."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
Sousuke mutters, "Finally admitting you're flawed, huh. I'm disabling free-dialogue, this needs a tech."
One second, as Sayla gently reaches out to AL's arm. Then Sousuke says, "Wh...the option won't change."
<<I am sorry, but that setting can no longer be changed, Sergeant.>>
Sousuke is clearly about to lose his temper entirely, but Sayla's firm admonishment stops that, and he seethes quietly.
AL also takes several seconds. Sousuke can see the monitor that displays AL's vocal processing, blasting through concepts at a surreal pace. What Sayla gets is the same tone, but...perhaps there's something mollified in the manner. It's certainly less aggressive. <<Understood. Thank you for your assistance, Doctor.>> ... <<I will not give up. Supervisor Morauta had his own plans, but prepared the ARX System to advance without them. I will abide by the prepared precepts.>>
Sousuke sees her gaze through Arbalest's cameras. He's frustrated, flustered, but....he does trust her, in the end. "What...is, this machine," is his grumble.
<<I have located a message in answer to that question,>> AL states. <<It is intended for the pilot. I am adjusting its permissions.>>
Sousuke disengages his hands from the controls because he has figured out what he ain't doing here, and slips up back onto the cockpit of the Arbalest, so he can see Sayla directly again. He looks...frazzled. Another thing he can't control. "He has some black boxes, but even I know what an AI Box looks like, he doesn't have anything like that. What on Earth is he..."
<<Relaying final message from Bani Morauta,>> AL reports. <<Please give it your full attention.>>
The voice changed, from AL's automatic masculine to a clearly prerecorded voice. A bit more boyish - a teenager, maybe. Male. "The flag has now been triggered. If you're hearing this, I will have met some kind of worst-case scenario. I'm setting this flag to go off if AL confirms my death or insanity."
A long, pregnant moment before he continues. "I've decided to leave this message behind in the event that happens. The odds are...increasing, so--uh, anyway."
"My name is Bani Morauta. AL will only show this message to his new pilot. Listen to me closely, whoever that may be. AL isn't just an AI, not anymore. He's an individual, coexisting with the Lambda Driver. He's still just a toddler taking his first steps, right now, but if you give him time, he'll even learn what it means to feel happy and sad. Please. I ask that you give him your trust, as a partner."
The voice continues. "I'm sure things are proceeding in ways that make your will seem irrelevant. That's the way this world is, sometimes. I'm sure you're more than annoyed about it. I know I am. So take it from me."
"You aren't powerless."
"The Arbalest is a vehicle for possibility. Of course, one possibility is that this 'ultimate machine' of ours will end up as scrap on the pile, accomplishing nothing. That's up to you, now. If you trust them, AL and the Arbalest will let you express yourself as you feel is right. If you're seeing this, I don't have the right to ask for more. Still..."
"I hope you have someone important to protect."
<<Message ends,>> AL reports.
Sousuke has slumped forward with his head in his hands, head shaking slowly. "Trust this?"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
...She was right. Oh hell, she was right. Sayla bites the inside of her lip. "That's a very good question, Sergeant," Sayla responds, before AL returns with an answer. "I can't pretend to know what the rules are. By rights, a super AI Box should be as big as AL is. The Behemoth shouldn't be able to move." She shakes her head, "But we live in a world of kaiju, newtypes, science criminals and ghosts these days. It feels like the rules we knew are shifting." She looks up at the Arbalest's eye. "Maybe AL is another shift."
The flag conditions stop Sayla in her tracks. Death... or Insanity? But for all Bani's message is for Sousuke... It seems to feel just as meant for Sayla in places. The young man's voice conveys so much sorrow, and yet so much hope. Bani Morauta... who were you?
Sayla's quiet for a long time before she speaks up. She pats the Arbalest's forearm gently. "Him, Sergeant. Trust him."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
Sousuke has answers to some of that. And memories of another person he respects giving him a similar speech. But...
A different one, he thinks, dully. Kalinin seemed resigned to it all. Dismayed, even frustrated. Sayla, he thinks, simply wishes it wasn't quite so arcane.
He's still sorting out where he falls. He has, at least, the self-awareness, supported by Sayla's strength, to stop himself from charging down the former path. "A shift," he echoes.
"Trust him," he echoes again, some seconds later, and then huffs a long breath. Then, finally, "Very well. It seems it was a man's last wish."
<<That appears to be so.>>
Several more seconds, and then Sousuke shakes his head. "A world where a machine can project force from nothing and a 40 meter block of armor can stand and walk. Where reality can just fall away through the window." Almost sullen, he scratches at his head in irritation - that one looks like he picked it up from Kaname, actually - and then pushes up to a stand. "It doesn't make sense. I thought we lived in a world where actions had causes. But..." Huff. Irritated. "But ignoring the evidence of my eyes is pointless."
Not sure if this made his frustration better or worse, but he doesn't feel like more will change here. "AL, I'm going. You can put yourself in standby, right?"
<<Affirmative. Locking systems and switching to standby. Beware the hatch.>>
"Yeah," Sousuke says, and slides nimbly down the side of the Arbalest - that servile pose also neatly provides surfaces that a trained pilot can grab and slide down to climb or descend quickly from the story or so of height it puts the back at. After a moment, the hatch closes and Arbalest's head and neck rotates back into place, covering it.
Turns out Sousuke was in his fatigues. That's about normal for him, these days. Sousuke does not, in fact, drop the whole way into parade stance as soon as he's on the ground in front of Sayla. In fact it looks like he has to school himself a little to get fully upright and pull the moody slump from his shoulders. "I don't understand," he repeats, quietly. "But...if that impossible world is 'her world'...I have to live in it."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla simply nods as Sousuke repeats her. It's unlikely to be enough. But maybe it's a start.
"Have you considered that the causes are something you or I can't see?" Sayla muses, as Sousuke starts to get down. "I remember a time before Mobile Suits existed, let alone Wanzers or ASes. Hell, I was in the forefront of the technology a few times. Can you imagine trying to explain funnels to a man from Kyushu?" She sighs again. "The problem might be that your eyes weren't meant for ultraviolet, as it were. You'll figure out something."
She steps back so Sousuke can drop down. "Feliz Navidad, AL. I'm sure we'll talk again soon." Thank god past experience prepared her for this. She looks toward Sousuke, thoughtfully.
"Hm. Well, if the 'unfinished weapon' has called it a night, Sousuke..." This seems a plan guaranteed to cause trouble. But on the other hand... "Would you like to try and get some practice in for living in that impossible world? You're going to want to be ready for next year."
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
"Lieutenant Commander Kalinin said similar, after what happened to us in Khanka," Sousuke says. That conversation wasn't classified! Just...the events. And Sayla is, as far as he knows, able to know as much as Sousuke knows, which is barely anything and has if anything just decreased. "I never questioned it until then." A slow shake of his head. "I know what happens to men who refuse to believe the truth of the weapons he's fighting. I'll have to figure it out somehow."
Kaname. The Colonel, too. The two people he'd trust most with these fears. Both somewhere he can't reach. But....but he has orders to get back to them. Yes. He'll cling to that, for now.
<<Feliz navidad. Seasonal greeting.>> Processing beat. <<Merry Christmas, Doctor. I will be here when I am needed.>>
Arbalest goes dark.
Sousuke looks about set to simply leave himself, but Sayla has a thought. Question? Proposal. Sure. He regards her with some thought, but he does nod. "Do you have something in mind?" is she going to hand him a primed grenade and make him do funny walks back to camp? No that's more of a Mardukas stunt. His face suggests he's not entirely following. But he is curious.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Or the people they're fighting, Sayla thinks bitterly.
"It's a personal request, not one from Shuffle or the Foundation." Sayla taps the back of one hand with the fingers of another, the torch in her hand bouncing slightly.
"I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind helping me see if I can find a Christmas Tree. It's not as big a holiday in Japan as it is in Europe, and I haven't had any time to spend to look until now. Just something small I can set up in the office."
For once, it's Sayla who looks embarrassed, having just presented a face of strength. "I just know that Leina would be upset with me if I spent it brooding and alone, and I want to tell her honestly that I didn't." A pause. "And I know you're the soul of discretion if I end up doing something embarrassing in the process." She crosses her arms now. "So. What do you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Sousuke Sagara has posed.
Oh that's much easier.
Sousuke isn't quite mollified to the point of lightening up - though maybe Sayla mostly knows of the comfortable smile he offers his classmates through secondhand sources. Still, he thinks about it seriously. "I see. That would be difficult in the current situation, to be sure..." Stepping along, he cups his chin with thought - a familiar motion for him. "I'm given to understand the tree vendors that are common within Britannia and Europe at this time of year are not as prevalent in a Colonial environment. Hm." ...
He looks up at her, and nods firmly. "I believe it should be possible. We can begin with the central shopping plaza."
Giving him something to do does achieve that much, at least: He's now focused on doing it, rather than contemplating his missing loved ones or the minor existential crisis his own robot now presents.