Beatless: Volume 1

by Satoshi Hase

  “So what if it’s unfair?” he asked. “What’s wrong with a guy helping out a girl?” He understood that he could very well die right then and there. And, even if he didn’t die that day, he might the next day. Still, even if it meant committing a laundry list of crimes, as long as Lacia would still be by his side, he could go on. Even though she was just a machine wearing a human guise, she moved his heart. Arato didn’t care that she wasn’t a human; he believed that their relationship was something special.

  Shiori’s limousine was right under the engine of the freight plane, right next to the giant building Marina Saffron had been carried into. An adult woman leapt from the limo. Behind her, three people in black suits stepped out of each of the two PMC vehicles parked behind the limo.

  Arato could tell the running woman must have been the staff member who could check the hIE ID numbers from the fact that two of the PMC goons immediately flanked her. Two of the others remained behind to guard the convoy.

  The last two PMC suits took off sprinting toward Arato, probably aiming to catch him before he could get to Marina. From the look of them, he didn’t like his odds if they got into a fight. But, if he ran away, the inspector would enter the logistics center and carry out her inspection. And, once that was over, they would report to Stylus, and they would come and take Lacia away.

  Arato wished he could do more. His frustration at his own limitations was so great that it made it hard for him to think of anything else. The mercenaries in the black suits trying to stop him were getting closer. Each of them had a thirty centimeter telescoping rod in their hands, and looked like they could do some serious damage. Still, he gritted his teeth and kept running forward.

  The black suits must have caught up to him. Arato didn’t even know what hit him, but he felt a sudden impact from behind, and his world went dark.

  When he came to, his head was splitting, and a sick feeling had tied his stomach in knots. He couldn’t move his body. When he tried to say something, he realized he couldn’t even draw a breath properly.

  A big hand grabbed him, and hauled him up roughly. Then it threw him, so that he ploughed face-first into the cold concrete. He barely had time to register the cold feeling of the floor before he was rolled over.

  Something box-like was pressed down over his heart. A convulsion rocked his body, and suddenly he could see again. He recognized the girl standing over him. It was the cute female hIE, with her red hair parted into twin tails that dangled down her back.

  “Yo,” she said. “You’re pretty good at calling for your friends to come rescue you.” It was Lacia’s little sister, Kouka. She had her massive knife-like device slung over her shoulder, and was smiling at him like she was having the time of her life. She wasn’t wearing her normal metallic suit. Instead, she was dressed in a western style, with a leather skirt, revealing top, and a wide-brimmed hat.

  “I’m impressed. Good job. You managed to come back from eating a stun-rod to the face pretty quick,” she said. Arato couldn’t fathom why Kouka was there pulling him back from the edge of destruction.

  “So you really came,” he muttered. “How did you get here so fast?”

  Before they had jumped on the high speed railway, Arato had called Kengo for help. Kengo had told him he’d get ahold of Kouka, but he hadn’t thought she would be able to get there fast enough to meet up with them.

  “Your world would expand if you learned a little about how to outsource better,” Kouka said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Arato asked, looking around slowly. His head felt like it was splitting. The black-suited mercenaries that had taken him down were all on their backs, moaning. Even with all of their training, mere humans couldn’t stand up to a Lacia-class hIE.

  Looking up, Arato could see the wing of the freight plane, shaking slightly from the movement of its engines, directly over his head.

  “When we live through complicated things, even us machines can develop complicated relationships with each other,” Kouka muttered, leveling her massive device. She fired off a laser from it, and the stopped trucks and lifts nearby were swept away in a massive explosion.

  “Damn, she’s fast!” Kouka clicked her tongue in frustration.

  Arato just stared, dazed, as casual destruction was wrought all around him. Only when he saw a silhouette moving at insane speed across the airport did he realize that the laser had been aimed at Methode. Her orange lights streaked through the air over the exploded vehicles.

  Kouka also took off at an unbelievable speed, leaving impact craters in the ground wherever she kicked off. She brought her bladed device, swinging right at the spot where Methode was aiming to land.

  “I was created to be an upgrade to you in every possible way,” she told Kouka, blocking the slash with the palm of her right hand, her eyes narrowing and lips quirking up in a cruel smile. “Don’t you understand?”

  Methode took aim and slammed her fist into Kouka’s stomach. Arato could see from Kouka’s face that the blow was more than she had bargained for, as she was thrown backward into the air. Even as she flew, Kouka dexterously threw two grenades into the open air between her and Methode. Twin explosions threw both hIEs back.

  “So you were made a little later,” Kouka scoffed. “So what?” She controlled her body perfectly, despite being blown around by the explosion, and landed neatly on her feet.

  While Methode and Kouka were getting thrown around by the explosion, Lacia had shifted the form of her device. “Kouka, I will render you invisible,” she said. “I’ll share sensory data with you, so open a channel.” As soon as she said it, Kouka vanished.

  Methode swept her gaze around, looking for Kouka. The ground in front of her was pierced deeply by a metal anchor. Methode brought her arms up in a cross to protect herself as Kouka’s invisible attack came for her chin. She managed to block the blow, but couldn’t absorb all of its force. Her orange hair whipped wildly as her body, wrapped in a purple bodysuit reminiscent of a diving suit, was thrown backward. The first attack was followed by a second, then a third that slammed the high-speed hIE backward like she was being struck by a car.

  Relief washed over Arato to see his side finally winning the fight. Then he remembered with a jolt that he was supposed to be stopping the ID service lady.

  Before he could take off, though, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Lacia, who had come up behind him at some point. “If we stay here any longer, Methode may begin aiming her attacks at you. We need to withdraw,” she said.

  Despite knowing the consequences of the ID service lady checking the ID numbers on Marina Saffron, Lacia was pulling him away forcefully.

  “But we’ve got to—!” Arato started, almost pushing away her arm. Yet, when his hand touched hers, the blood that had been rushing to his head drained away. Her hand, which had always been so soft, felt lumpy, as though it was covered in burn scars. He didn’t understand what the point was in running away when they had come all the way there, but a small voice whispered in his mind that Lacia’s judgment was always correct, so he should just follow her direction.

  With no answers, he turned his back on Shiori’s convoy, still stopped beneath the wing of the freight plane, and fled. His heart was full of regret, but he hadn’t made it more than ten steps before flames suddenly began to roast the night air.

  The explosion was massive, lighting up the area like it was midday. Arato looked back, and found Lacia with her device in its umbrella-like mode, shielding him from the massive force of the explosion. It reminded him of the night they had first met, when she had similarly shielded him from the exploding car.

  ***

  In the last hour, almost nothing had gone the way Shiori Kaidai had anticipated.

  She hadn’t heard about a detachment of the PMC shooting down Arato’s car on the road, after which he had still managed to chase them down to the airport. There, Shiori’s convoy had been blocked by a randomly moving freight plane. Finally, despite the fact that she never should have be
en able to make it in time, Kouka had shown up and started fighting.

  The cherry on top was the explosion. From almost directly above, flames had washed over the limousine like waves from the blast. Through the semi-transparent windows of the limo, she watched as some of her escorts tried to extinguish their burning companions in a panic. The limo was perfectly airtight, so she couldn’t hear any sounds from outside. The vehicle had also been built to the highest standards of passenger safety, and was guaranteed to protect anyone inside from dying due to any accidents that could be encountered on a public road. If not for that, the explosion would have blown the vehicle away, possibly leaving Shiori dead.

  “Why on Earth did this turn into such a disaster?” she wondered out loud. “We were just coming here to pick up an hIE.” She felt like the catastrophe outside was moving too quickly for her to even comprehend, and she had been left just sitting and clutching her skirt in terror.

  One of the drivers who had remained in the PMC vehicles dove out of his van. When the driver of the limousine tried to follow suit, the fire engulfed him immediately. The PMC men scrambled to help the driver, who had become a flailing ball of flame. Sensing no further human interaction, the door of the limo closed itself automatically.

  “I mustn’t lose my cool,” Shiori said to herself. “I just need to rely on the limousine’s ability to withstand the fire.” She had heard the vehicle could resist fire for half an hour. Thanks to its excellent thermal insulation, the temperature inside was still pleasant. Despite that, Shiori was drenched with sweat beneath her clothes.

  Her pocket terminal rang. It was Mika Tsutsumi. 〈Shiori! The hIE in the container is the wrong one. Someone switched the contents,〉 she said.

  “What?” Shiori asked incredulously.

  〈The container itself is right, and the number matches and all, but the hIE in here is all wrong,〉 Mika told her, sounding frantic. 〈Its ID number doesn’t match up, either.〉

  Which meant that, from the very beginning, it had been a different hIE in the container, rather than Marina Saffron. In other words, Shiori and her companions had been on a wild goose chase from the start. It felt like the ground beneath her feet had fallen away; Shiori had gone from almost certain victory to humiliating defeat. Still, she bit back her frustration. The important thing now was to not do anything that would threaten the position of her leader, who was counting on her.

  “Let’s regroup,” she finally said. “With this fire going on, I can’t even tell what’s going on anymore.”

  〈The freight plane exploded,〉 Mika explained. 〈The logistics center slammed down its fire shutters, so I’ll head out through the emergency door. I’ve called for the airport firefighting team to come by and help.〉

  “Understood,” Shiori said. “We’ll have to chalk this one up as a loss. Let’s get some help out here, then see where we are.”

  〈The car can resist fire for about thirty minutes, so you should be fine in there,〉 Mika said. 〈Sorry. I wish we could have at least left the PMC driver with you so you wouldn’t be stuck there alone.〉 With that, the transmission cut out.

  “What on Earth is going on?” Shiori wondered out loud, sinking into the cushions on the limo seat like her last reserve of strength had been spent.

  〈Man, you’re slow. You’re just now realizing something’s wrong?〉 A mocking voice came over the limo’s speaker system. It was Methode, who was still in the middle of her fight outside.

  “The freight plane exploded and there’s fire everywhere,” Shiori said. “Come and get me out of here, please.”

  〈Unfortunately, I’m still in the middle of combat, so I’m afraid I can’t help,〉 Methode said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. 〈For now, all I can do for you is chat over the wireless.〉

  Shiori was speechless.

  〈You really are worthless,〉 Methode sneered at her. 〈With a little foresight, anyone could have predicted this outcome.〉

  “None of that matters right now,” Shiori snapped. “Did you not just hear that your owner is in danger?”

  〈Have you even tried thinking about why Kouka is here? We left before Lacia, and arrived here before her. But, if the enemy sent out a different group before we even left, obviously they would arrive even earlier than us,〉 Methode explained, ignoring Shiori’s anger. 〈But you just kept worrying about Lacia herself, never thinking that she may have set any traps for you.〉

  Methode kept pointing out Shiori’s mistakes and failures of logic, one after another. 〈Didn’t it seem strange to you that Lacia would allow us to get a head start, considering how dangerous this is to her? She knew she couldn’t take her device on the express rail with her, so she arranged to have it meet up with her on the road. She negotiated a mutually beneficial deal with Kouka, and had her leave for the airport first. All of this was already done by the time she sat down in that cafe with you. By that point, she was just trying to draw attention to herself to keep your eyes off of her other plans.〉

  Alone in the limo, Shiori clenched her fists in frustration. She had been a puppet dancing on Lacia’s strings the whole time.

  〈Just as you’ve been watching Lacia, she’s been watching you and your comrades. Only she’s been doing it for longer. There was no way this could have turned out any differently.〉

  “Well, you’re certainly helpful,” Shiori said sarcastically. “You could have informed me of this all while there was still time to change our plans.” Thanks to the fuel spilled when the freight plane exploded, the view from outside Shiori’s window was still a sea of flame. The windows of the limo were one-way, so it would be impossible for anyone outside to see she was still inside the vehicle. Still, she told herself, it won’t take the firefighters too long to reach me. Every few moments, she had to wipe away the sweat that dampened her hands.

  〈You humans wanted to make all the decisions for yourselves,〉 Methode countered. 〈Your kind still wants to cling to the meaningless work you used to do, even though you know you’ve already been overtaken by the intelligence of AIs.〉

  “So this was my failure, is what you’re trying to say,” Shiori said. “I will admit, I realize now that it was a mistake to speak with Arato.”

  〈Oh, you failed on a much more fundamental level than that,〉 Methode told her. 〈Your plan was horribly sloppy, even after I warned you about the capabilities of Lacia-class hIEs. Us Lacia-class hIEs were made to carry data away in emergencies, and equipped with AIs designed to be used for free movement in the outside world. Even with all that information, you didn’t even manage to start off on the right foot.〉

  “What is it you want me to say?” Shiori growled in frustration. “How long are you going to make me sit here in this fire listening to your lecture?”

  Methode was mocking her and the others for creating plans from a human perspective. She wasn’t wrong, though. If they had thought about things from the perspective of an AI, they may have seen things from a different angle. But I don’t have time to worry about that right now! Shiori thought. I need to get out of this death trap!

  〈It’s a very important point to consider,〉 Methode said teasingly. 〈We AIs are programmed to seek out ways to continue our own operation. That means we will attempt to increase our lifelines through any means possible. That was why Kouka tried to get Kengo Suguri to be her owner during the incident at the Oi Industry Promotion Center.〉

  “No high schooler should be the owner of a Red Box,” Shiori said. “It’s too dangerous. Our whole world could be in trouble if such power was wielded based on the whims of a teenager.” As she spoke, Shiori tried to reach Yabuki, the leader of her PMC escorts, on her pocket terminal. After ringing three times, her terminal informed her that it was unable to receive any signals.

  〈Breaking things off with your owner takes some delicate work on the part of the hIE. The simplest way to ignore an owner’s order is to have another owner of the same standing issue a conflicting order. Why do you think a Red Box like me came
to you, Shiori? Did you think you had a secret, special something that sets you apart?〉 Methode asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Shiori had never wanted to think of herself as someone else’s pawn. She was the daughter of the family that founded MemeFrame, and a high-ranking member of the company’s Human Faction. She was too risky a piece for anyone to just use up and throw away. But, at the same time, she was young, and easy to manipulate.

  Am I just a figurehead, she wondered, to the Human Faction? She felt worthless, her thoughts spiraling into self-loathing. One thing kept resounding in her mind: Methode was right. Shiori was just a pawn. If she needed proof of that, all she had to do was look at the flames outside her window.

  〈Lacia made Kouka an irresistible offer,〉 Methode continued. 〈She offered to create a fake ID for Kouka, just as she had done for herself. That was worth enough to Kouka that she agreed to take me on for it. Well, that plus her new owner, Kengo Suguri, is friends with Lacia’s owner.〉

  Shiori realized Methode wasn’t interested in making conversation. Her only goal seemed to be one-sidedly pushing her perspective of the world onto Shiori.

  〈You were dancing to Lacia’s tune right from the start, but it was still an idiotic mistake to talk to Arato Endo,〉 Methode went on. 〈You said your goal was to take for yourself the things that might otherwise just be given to you, right? Do you really think you’re capable of that?〉

  “I can learn!” Shiori yelled.

  Methode’s words had hit her where it hurt the most. 〈The other members of your faction have forgiven your foolishness on account of you being a schoolgirl,〉 Methode said. 〈But, those who forgive others who commit mistakes due to mixing up their public and private lives are no better at decision making than those who made mistakes in the first place.〉

  Yelling just made Shiori’s frustration well up all the more. There was nothing she could say; Methode was right.

  〈Competence and incompetence are simply a question of degrees. To a modern mechanical mind, all humans are relatively incompetent to some degree or other. No matter how hard you all work, you will never bridge that gap.〉 Methode was just a machine, but her words, too, were full of frustration. She seemed to bare a special hatred toward humans, as if they had demeaned her by crafting her in their form.