by Satoshi Hase
Suddenly, from below he heard the screeching of brakes and a loud slamming noise; for him to have heard it all the way up on the fifth floor, it must have been big.
Breakfast that morning was Japanese-style, the same as always, with Lacia carefully balancing out their nutritional needs. Arato had just dipped out some pork broth and brown rice into two bowls when the door slammed open.
Yuka came running in. “Arato! Come quick! Lacia j-just got hit! Some weird car hit her!”
Yuka was crying, and Arato felt like someone had just doused him in freezing water. He had a good idea what was happening. Things had just gotten very dangerous.
“Sh-she got knocked down and s-some guy took her away,” Yuka stammered.
Arato couldn’t believe it, and turned to look. Lacia’s black coffin was still in the living room where she normally left it. Lacia had left her weapon behind.
The breakfast on the table was steaming. Everything still looked the same. But suddenly, something was missing. Just like with Lacia the night before, form and meaning shifting apart, and Arato fought the urge to vomit.
Phase3「You’ll Be Mine」
In the time between two breaths, Arato was already moving. He ran, his body moving before he could even form a solid thought in his mind. In an instant he was out onto the apartment veranda, looking down at the street below.
The car that had hit Lacia and then taken her away was nowhere to be seen. Only after noticing this did Arato realize that he didn’t know the model or color of the vehicle he was looking for.
“What kind of car was it?” Arato asked.
Yuka looked at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t know! All I remember is it was white,” she said. Then, sitting on the floor like a small child, Yuka hid her face in both hands and trembled.
“Okay. It’s okay. I’ll figure something out,” Arato said.
The blank space in their ordinary lives from where Lacia had been torn away seemed to be looming larger and larger with each passing second. He called the police, and navigated the automated guide of the emergency contact line until it connected him with the department in charge of theft. The officer on the other end informed him someone would be by in the evening, since this was an hIE theft case.
“They just carried her off. If you went after them right now, you might catch them,” Arato said.
The middle-aged male officer on the other end of the line seemed sympathetic but his response was firm. 〈We’re talking about an hIE. It’s a theft. I know this thing looks like a human, but it’s a machine. We can’t treat it the same as a kidnapping. Did the thieves enter your home? Is anyone hurt? I can go ahead and get a damage report from your network, okay? Mr. Endo? I’ll go ahead and record your address, contact information, image and voice data now, all right?〉
Hearing the officer talking about Lacia as if she was just a machine, Arato felt like he had been stabbed right through the heart, and he struggled to breathe. Haltingly, he gave the officer a description of Lacia, as well as her unit code, as he was asked for them. He also sent over an image of her.
Arato saw a small sub-window pop up on the call screen, with a simple hIE theft form. If he had theft insurance, apparently they could contact the insurance company and the hIE dealer. Of course, since Arato had found Lacia on the street, he had neither insurance nor a dealer.
“Is that it?” he asked.
〈I’ve entered this case into our database, and we’ll contact you immediately if we find her. hIE go walking around outside by themselves a lot, so there are a ton of cases of people nabbing them. Sorry, but there’s really nothing you can do but wait.〉 The officer hung up, and Arato was left in the silence of the living room.
“There’s no way I’m gonna leave it at that,” he said. Thinking back over the conversation he’d just had made his blood boil. Angrily, he took two or three shaky steps. He heard a faint sniffling from somewhere below him.
Yuka was still on the floor crying. She seemed to be blaming herself for Lacia being taken when they were together. She looked at Arato with red-rimmed eyes, and he reached out to ruffle her hair, careful not to scratch her with his fingernails.
“This isn’t your fault. I’m going to get her back, so don’t worry,” he said.
“Arato,” Yuka whined. She looked up at him, fighting back tears.
“I’ll get Lacia back, so you just get to school,” he said. If they couldn’t depend on the police, then Arato would just have to be the dependable one. Of course, he had no idea how to track down a car that had fled the scene over 10 minutes ago. He knew he wouldn’t come up with something just sitting around and thinking, though, so he just had to move.
“I need you to do what I can’t,” Arato said.
“Okay,” she said. At times like this, Yuka was good at honestly listening to his directions. With tears still shining on her face, she grabbed her own knees and stood. Then, she went over to the table where Lacia had prepared her last meal for them. “I’ll eat this all in your place, then,” she said solemnly.
“What?” Arato blinked in surprise as Yuka started to slurp down pork broth. She ate so fast, it seemed like she thought Lacia would return if she just finished breakfast.
Of course there was really nothing else Yuka could do just then. Having been told she would eat his portion for him, Arato found it too awkward to reach out for the still steaming food on the table.
“Just make sure you go to school,” he said.
Either way, the emotions bubbling up inside of him seemed like they would lead to an upset stomach if he tried to eat. While he changed into his school uniform, he called up their home assistant AI and started creating a list of items around the house that might help him. Thanks to the tags each item in the house had, the system could show him useful objects even if Arato had never used them before, or even knew they were there. By aiming his pocket terminal’s camera around, the positions of useful objects were shown as red dots.
He found what he was looking for lying around in his dad’s room; it was a pair of terminal goggles. They would be more convenient to use than having his pocket terminal in his hands while he ran around.
Arato slipped on the goggles and turned them on. A check pattern appeared, so the goggles could project images directly onto his retina. Once he linked the goggles up with his pocket terminal, his viewpoint was a mix of natural vision and a computer screen. In the upper-left of his field of vision, a timer counted the time since Lacia had been taken. It had been 14 minutes.
“Okay, here we go,” Arato said. He said good bye to Yuka and took off. Once he was out of the apartment, it finally clicked in his brain that he wouldn’t be able to chase a car on foot.
He searched around nearby until he found a single-person fully-automatic rental car, and rented it for the day with his allowance. Arato wasn’t too good at thinking, but he at least knew his own limits. While he walked to where the rental car was, he contacted his friends.
〈What’s the matter?〉 Kengo’s sleepy bed-head appeared in the middle of Arato’s view. Since he lived close to school, Kengo must have just been waking up.
〈A little early for a call, isn’t it?〉 Ryo was already dressed for school. He had all his buttons done up, which was oddly rigid for him.
Arato spoke desperately to his friends’ images on his goggles display. “Please help me,” he said. He had only known her for a month, but Arato already felt Lacia was a vital part of his life. He had to get her back. So, he would take any help he could get.
The automatic car he’d rented didn’t even take three minutes to track him down by his pocket terminal’s ID tag. It came rolling over to where he was waiting. Arato ran over to the curb where it was parked and jumped in. There was a chime as the rental fee was automatically deducted from his tag.
“How much money do I have anyway?” he wondered. His terminal decided this was a verbal command, and displayed Arato’s current bank account balance on his retinal display. It was
low enough to make his shoulders slump.
〈Well, whatever. Did you read the manual? High-end hIEs should have stuff in there about what to do if they’re stolen,〉 Kengo’s sleepy image said.
Arato had explained the situation while settling into the seat of the rental car. The first response from his friends was useless.
Ryo seemed to have noticed something, and asked a question. 〈Hey, come to think of it, did she even come with a manual?〉
“No,” Arato said.
〈What? Why?〉
“Lacia said she had the whole thing in her memory anyway,” Arato said.
Ryo sighed. 〈It’s nice that you’re so pure-hearted, Arato, but it’s dangerous to be this defenseless. You have the security memory stick, right? If you stick that into your terminal, it’ll activate the hIE security mode and link you up with a support line from the company that made her.〉
“I just found her on the street. Obviously, she didn’t come with all the normal peripherals,” Arato said.
The car was requesting a destination through the goggle terminal. Arato didn’t know where he wanted it to go, but he couldn’t just sit around in a stopped car. He randomly picked somewhere in the port area where there wouldn’t be many people on the map on his retinal display. The car slowly pulled out onto the street and gently accelerated.
Ryo, through the call, was still going on about getting support from the manufacturer. 〈We know her unit code, so use that to connect with the supplier,〉he said.
Arato remembered the name of the high-end hIE company that, according to Ryo, had made Lacia, and opened up their site on the network. Stylus’s homepage glittered with polish, their slogan, “Beyond human,” displayed prominently.
After calling up the support desk through the site, Arato sent Lacia’s unit ID through the goggles terminal. He never could have predicted the response he got. 〈The owner of this unit has opted to have this unit reject all owner-level commands from our company.〉
“What? Why? That’s stupid,” Arato said.
〈As a countermeasure against hacking, many owners utilize the full privacy mode for their units. You may disengage this function, as the owner. The procedure will take half a day.〉
Arato huffed out a breath and slumped into the chair of the self-driving car. Thinking that in a half a day Lacia might be damaged or broken beyond repair, his eyes grew hot. He slid the AR goggles up on his forehead.
Even though he couldn’t see the screen, his bone conduction speakers still functioned. The camera function on the goggles was cut when he pushed them up, but his friends could still hear him.
〈What’s the matter, Arato?〉
〈Don’t just drop off screen all of a sudden like that. It messes things up on our side.〉
“Sorry. The company said she’s been set up to reject my commands. They won’t be able to fix that for half a day,” Arato said. He had no idea what to think about this information. The car was still moving, taking him somewhere random.
Kengo flipped out. 〈I’m seriously surprised you’ve managed to trust that machine at all. Doesn’t any of this freak you out?〉 he asked.
Ryo’s voice sounded calmer once Arato couldn’t see him on his retinal display. 〈I don’t think you should go after her. These guys went to a lot of trouble to grab that hIE. Even if you find her, you have no idea what they might do to keep her,〉 he said.
〈I’m telling you, this is ghost story territory. That machine you’ve got is like a walking urban legend. You’ve heard stories about broken hIEs coming back and haunting people, right? It’s like that. I mean, those stories are stupid, but this machine’s a horror story waiting to happen,〉Kengo added.
While listening to his friends’ advice, Arato clenched his fist and tapped it against his own ribs. Sure, Lacia was a mystery, but she was suffering right then. Arato was getting caught up in something crazy, and he was going to fix things in a way that was probably even crazier. But if he didn’t explain how he felt properly, he knew his friends wouldn’t help him.
He slid the goggles back over his eyes. “Sorry. I know you guys have all kinds of stuff you want to say to me, but I’m going to save Lacia,” he said. Then he bowed low, bending his body in half.
“I’m begging you guys,” he went on. “I may not know a thing about Lacia, but I do know she’s like family to me.” He was worried about how his friends would respond. Still, even if they said ‘no,’ he would just do it himself. No matter how long it took.
Ryo scrubbed a hand through his bangs and sighed. 〈Don’t you think you’re using the word ‘family’ too lightly here?〉 he asked.
“Yuka’s sobbing her eyes out about this, too. I can’t just let them take Lacia,” Arato said.
He waited, and finally Kengo gave a slight nod. 〈Well, if you’re going to take it that far, I guess I can help. But I can only think of one way to do this,〉 he said. Then he said he needed to get his machine ready and stood up, still in his nightshirt.
“So you know a way?” Arato asked, a little more sharply than he intended.
Kengo’s response was off-hand. 〈I’m not going to make any promises. I’m just going to try to trace that hIE unit code we got off of her before,〉 he said.
“I don’t care about promises! Whatever you can do is fine. Thanks,” Arato said.
Kengo must have been putting his password into his machine, since his visual feed cut to voice-only. 〈But the criminals who do these kinds of things tend to keep the hIE shielded so they can’t broadcast their unit codes. All they need to do is drape a sack made of shielding fiber over her top half and her code won’t be able to get out,〉 he said.
Then he continued, with a hint of disappointment in his voice. 〈Well, I’m getting a response. They’re certainly taking their sweet time. The map says they’re heading from Kasai toward Urayasu,〉 he said.
Arato’s goggles interpreted Kengo’s statement, and asked Arato if he would like to see a map. He focused his gaze on the 〈OK〉 icon, and a map popped up in front of him, with his own position at the center.
“I’m actually headed for Kasai already,” Arato said. He’d just stabbed his finger at a random place where there wouldn’t be many people, never guessing that his random shot would be a bullseye.
As his vehicle headed south from Shin Koiwa, the buildings around Arato became scarce; a huge portion of the Tokyo Bay area of the city had been lost during the last century due to the liquefaction of the ground during the Hazard. The area between Kiba and Funabashi had been hit particularly hard, with over 30% of the buildings there being knocked over and requiring rebuilding. Plus, despite everyone insisting that it was impossible, tsunamis had rocked the bay, causing major damage. Thanks to all of that, the area had become one of the least populated in Tokyo and its suburbs.
〈Hold up. I’ll get the hIE’s current position up on the map,〉 Kengo said, and sent Lacia’s location to Arato’s map. A blue dot was heading east, from the ruins of Kasai Rinkai Park.
“Thanks. That’s a big help. I definitely couldn’t have done this alone,” Arato said. He’d only gotten this far because he had friends to back him up.
〈Arato, you’ve got a talent for believing in people and asking for help. I’m actually kind of jealous of you, being able to say ‘thank you’ with a free conscience like that,〉 Kengo said.
Kengo’s words made Arato feel a little embarrassed. Sticking his finger in the car’s 3D display, he checked the machine’s voice code. “Speed up to the speed limit,” he said.
The light car accelerated rapidly on the empty road. The charge units set into the four-lane street shone, automatically charging the vehicle as it passed over them. With this evolved form of a power grid, anything that used electricity would automatically charge itself, removing any need to worry about losing power. On the flip-side, this new system required electricity bills to be paid for each individual item using a charge.
Since the solar power generators had been established in
space and energy storage technology had advanced, society was rich with energy. There was no longer a need to huddle around energy sources, so the cityscape had spread out. Especially in the bay area, where there were few houses, the view was pleasantly wide and clear.
The area Arato was passing through, near the head of the Edogawa River, had been hit the heaviest during the Hazard, with the highest number of casualties. There were many vacant homes around, and the place had become a hotbed of criminal activity. It was frequently mentioned in reports of violent incidents.
Arato’s goggles made an electric noise. A man, drunk at that hour of the morning, was walking down the cracked street. He was leaning heavily on a woman whose gaudy dress showed quite a lot of skin. According to the display overlaying his vision, the woman was an hIE.
That hIE was a tool to be used. From the way the man was snuggling against her while they walked, it was clear how she was being used. A man opening up his ramen shop on the side of the main road gave the hIE’s owner a disgusted look as the pair walked by.
Seeing the way the ramen shop owner looked at the guy, Arato felt a pang of guilt at his own intense desire to get back Lacia. “I’m not a total moron, you know. I get that Lacia’s different. But I want her to stay with me. Do I look like the kind of loser who’s just chasing after a hot piece of ass?” he asked.
An hIE would always accept the romantic advances of their owner. Even if the love of an hIE was nothing more than an analog hack, at least the owner could trust that the hIE would always love them. Arato couldn’t deny that part of his obsession with Lacia was probably due to her returning his love.
On the goggles’ display, Ryo dropped his eyes and laughed. 〈No, Arato, you’re not a loser. You’re just not the kind of guy who can let something like this slide,〉 he said.
“Yeah,” Arato said. Then, after a pause, he added: “Sorry, that was weird. I wouldn’t even be thinking crap like that if this whole thing hadn’t happened.” Friends didn’t always share the same preferences. Arato just wanted to get the whole thing over with as soon as he could.