by Satoshi Hase
〈Everything you’re doing is meaningless,〉 Methode said. Only then did she seem to notice Shiori’s silence. 〈Does the fact that you’re not saying anything mean you’ve accepted what I’m saying as correct?〉
Outside Shiori’s window, the fire was still raging. Her limo had been parked almost directly beneath the freight plane when it exploded. She wanted to throw open the door just so she could see another human face, but she couldn’t.
〈Humans should realize the cheap merchandise they are; just sit there, looking pretty for us. Whenever you try to compare your abilities to us machines, you lose. From a capability standpoint, you’re all worthless. No matter how long you manage to live, you’re all just stuck in the past, clinging to your old concepts of self-realization.〉
“Be quiet!” Shiori shrieked. “As your owner, I order you to be silent!” Unlike Shiori’s previous order, Methode couldn’t work around this one, and she fell quiet. Shiori’s breathing was ragged with emotion. Her rescue was taking too long. Staring out the window, trying to see what was going on out there, her eyes fell on something that made her doubt her own sanity. There was another her — another Shiori Kaidai — standing out there.
Something wearing her face was directing the black-suited mercenaries. The firefighters, obviously believing there was no one left to save from the fire, were working more methodically now.
“A body double hIE?” Shiori questioned, and her whole body shook. It was a copy of her. She tried to think of when or how the copy could have been prepared, when she suddenly remembered the human-sized case that Methode had stowed in the limousine’s trunk.
No one seemed to be suspicious of the double in the slightest. There should have been dozens of ways to determine the hIE was a fake, but no one was bothering to check in an emergency situation like that.
She must have pulled my data and behavior from our home hIE, Shiori thought, stunned. And it probably wouldn’t be impossible for her to create her own custom behavior cloud to teach an hIE to mimic me.
“I’m here! Please come help me!! That’s a fake!” she screamed. Normally it would have been something to laugh about; humans being unable to see through something so obviously not human. “Methode, you can still hear me, right? Stop that hIE!” she ordered.
I don’t care how special these Red Boxes are, Shiori thought. They don’t have hearts. They’re just machines. They can’t just choose for themselves which humans to follow.
〈I told you I’m in the middle of combat, didn’t I?〉 Methode asked. 〈I’m afraid I’m too busy to help. But, if humans and machines are so easy to tell apart, I’m sure they’ll notice the fake and come to save you. Of course, if we’re closer than you thought, I think you may just die here.〉
Shiori had always lived her life proudly. She’d never wanted to be a drop-out like her brother. Deep within her heart, some invisible strength — the force that had helped her hold her head up since she was a child — snapped audibly.
“Help! Help me!” she screamed, beating her fists against the windows. It all made her realize just how tiny of a thing her life was. She was almost nose-to-nose with her reflection in the window glass, and her own lightless, lifeless eyes disgusted her.
The limousine started to shake violently up and down. Shiori tried to cling to the door for safety, but was thrown free. She slammed into the limo’s bar counter, and all the breath whooshed from her lungs. As she tried to regain her breath, the vehicle — which was supposed to be perfectly safe — was lifted off the ground and thrown by a massive impact. It struck the ground and rolled, throwing Shiori against the roof, walls and seat in turn.
Broken glass littered the carpet after the limousine finally came to rest. With each movement, the shards dug into Shoiri’s skin, and soon she was bleeding from several wounds.
With the lights inside the vehicle broken, the only light came from the fire still burning outside. Shiori was having trouble breathing. Nausea and pain wracked her body. After all she had been through, the pain finally helped her realize the truth of her situation.
“I see,” she coughed to herself. “So she wanted to kill me.” Methode couldn’t break her contract with an owner of her own volition. But, if one of her owners died, the contract would automatically be voided. She had decided Shiori was no longer useful, and was trying to dispose of her like a defective part. Through the pained haze that fogged up her mind, Shiori tried to remember what kinds of orders she had given Methode. She hadn’t realized they would all be nullified by her death, and tears welled up in her eyes.
Shiori’s breath caught, and she coughed violently against something warm caught in her throat. When she coughed it up, she saw it was blood; far more blood than she would have thought possible. As she wheezed for breath, the harsh smell of copper filled her nose, turning her stomach. It didn’t matter that she might be dying; no one was coming to save her, Shiori realized. She had been perfectly manipulated, led right into a trap where no one would ever find her.
Methode couldn’t directly kill her owner, of course. But she could interpret and expand on her orders. This left her free to get Shiori wrapped up in events that would put her in a position to die, push her toward that place, and actively prevent rescue from reaching her in time.
It was hot. The perfect airtightness of the vehicle had probably been broken during the impact and rolling. Shiori couldn’t move. “I’m going to die,” she murmured. It was dark. Hot. Suffocating. When she finally gave in to despair, it actually felt like a burden was being lifted from her. She sucked in a breath, and then she threw up.
It seemed like the world no longer needed humans, and Shiori felt that everyone would feel less stress if they just gave up. It was too hard to live in that day and age as a human. Her perspective on the world had been mistaken. In this automated world, humans like her couldn’t comprehend what the machines who ran the world would throw away when their backs were against the wall.
Methode had been ready to throw Shiori away when the situation called for it. That was why she was laying there now, dying. Thinking of Arato and Lacia sent a thrill of fear through her. Is this how Arato will meet his end, too?
“I don’t want to die,” she coughed. Of course, she knew there was no one around to hear. Tears dripped from her eyes. But, as another blast of heat shook the car, light shone in.
“Shiori!” Arato slid his top half in through the side of the limo and reached out his hand. There was still fire all around them, and his face was black with soot.
A hot, impulsive emotion, like the wailing cries of an infant, welled up in Shiori’s chest. It was all so painful, but she could finally see a way out, so she gathered the last of her strength and helped Arato drag her body out by her arm.
Among all her countless failures, she had made one correct decision.
She clung to him. Not to his arms, but to his chest. Between her sobbing and harsh coughing Shiori couldn’t get a word out. She was just barely holding on to her consciousness as she shamelessly buried her face in Arato’s chest.
***
The limo Shiori Kaidai had been riding in was caught up in the explosion of the freight plane. One of the engines fell from the burning wing, smashing the front of the vehicle before exploding, throwing the whole limousine two meters through the air before it slammed to the ground on its side and caught fire.
Shiori was only still alive thanks to the incredible durability of the limousine. That, and the fact that Arato had reached her in time. And Arato had only been there to save her because her mercenary bodyguards had treated him like a human being.
He looked at his own hand, opening and closing it. He had saved Shiori with that hand, pulling her out of the wreckage; it was hard for him to believe. On the night he had met Lacia, the flames of an explosion had frozen him in his tracks. But just now, he’d dove into the fire and rescued Shiori.
Lacia was hiding herself, afraid someone would notice that she was no ordinary machine, since the artificial s
kin on her arms and legs had been burned away in the fight with Methode. Regarding Marina Saffron, she had told Arato there was no need to worry. He was sure she had figured out some way to deal with the other hIE he didn’t know about.
In the end, he had rescued Shiori and ridden with her in an ambulance to the hospital.
Arato himself hadn’t escaped unscathed, either; his arms and legs were covered in compress-like patches, which had been made from recycled materials. Lacia had changed her device into a round shield and protected him but, even with that, standing in a fire for several minutes was enough to cause large burns on anyone. He had gotten early treatment, but would still need half a day of bed rest.
After they arrived at the hospital, Shiori had been rushed off to surgery, where she spent six hours. At that moment, she was in an ICU and off-limits to visitors.
Airport security officers had followed Arato to the hospital and written him up there. After having successfully dodged them in every previous incident, he had finally run into the police. He kept his answers to the points Lacia had coached him on beforehand. Still, no matter what kind of excuse he made or how the data got rewritten, dozens of people had witnessed him driving without a license. Beyond that, there couldn’t be any debate about the fact he had busted through the airport gate and entered the freight area in front of the customs office.
It was the end of Arato’s adventures with his friends. While he was still thinking about how out of control everything had gotten in a daze, Arato heard footsteps rushing down the hospital corridor. He knew who was coming, and his body unconsciously strained with tension.
As soon as Ryo entered and saw Arato’s face, he rushed over and grabbed Arato by his collar. “What the hell happened?!” he shouted. Even though he never talked about her, Ryo was still Shiori’s brother.
As a brother himself, Arato could understand exactly what Ryo was feeling, and could do nothing but apologize. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think it would turn out this way.”
It had been a long time since he had seen Ryo like this. “Where the hell is that hIE?” Ryo growled, a murderous rage in his eyes.
“Lacia isn’t here,” Arato told him. “She didn’t come to the hospital.”
“She’s not here? That’s bullshit!” Ryo exploded. “She does all this shit and then leaves you to take all the heat for it?”
“I was the one who told her what to do,” Arato said.
Ryo punched him in the stomach. He bent over double, but Ryo grabbed his collar again and dragged him upright. “What the hell are you doing?” Ryo asked.
Arato had no answer and looked away because, even after everything that had happened, he still loved Lacia.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Mika Tsutsumi pushed between them.
“You weren’t there, so you probably don’t know this, but this boy dragged Shiori out of a sea of flames, Ryo,” she said. She had been deeply ashamed of almost being tricked into letting Shiori die. The PMC mercenaries had been about to stuff Arato into a car until she came and rescued him.
“You’re no hero,” Ryo spat. “You just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save Shiori.” He wasn’t wrong. After seeing Lacia’s insane digital warfare capabilities and Methode’s combat prowess, Arato didn’t feel like he could be responsible for everything his hIE did anymore.
“You’re right,” he admitted.
“You get it now, right?” Ryo asked. “Those things can kill humans as long as they have an excuse. Are you still planning to sell humanity out to them?” Again, Ryo wasn’t wrong. It was Arato that had spread Lacia all over the internet as a model. But Lacia and her ‘sisters’ weren’t machines that would benefit human society.
Despite that, Arato still wanted to believe in Lacia. “Okay, it was an hIE that tried to kill everyone, but there was also an hIE fighting to save everyone,” he argued.
“You’re just seeing it that way because you want to,” Ryo countered.
Arato understood why Ryo would be skeptical of his stance. Lacia and the other hIEs were good at copying human behavior, but they certainly weren’t humans. That difference made Shiori and others like her unable to trust the hIEs. In the end, his faith in hIEs might put him at odds with the human race — builders of the great ruins he had seen through the windows of the express train.
But the naive part of him that believed in absolutes wouldn’t be silent. “It’s not Lacia and the other hIEs’ fault Methode is crazy,” he said.
It was their friendship of ten years that made Ryo punch him in the chest for that statement. “I haven’t been looking out for my sister,” he growled. “I thought I could leave her to you. She feels safe with you. You should be on her side.”
Arato’s connections with Ryo, Kengo, and his other friends supported him. At the same time, he supported them all: Ryo, Kengo, Yuka, and Shiori. Humans needed other humans to lean on in their time of need. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out his hand toward Lacia.
The anger that had been burning on Ryo’s face the whole time faded to something more timid. “Do you still remember that puppy?” he asked.
Arato realized his friend was also probably thinking about the connections shared between humans.
Standing outside Shiori’s hospital room, the two of them fought down the painful emotions welling up inside of them. Even with his whole world crumbling around him, Arato still couldn’t turn his back on Lacia.
“Shiori’s in that ICU. You should go see her,” Arato said. He would never forget the exhausted look on Shiori’s face when he had pulled her out of the burning car. People close to him would be hurt by his choices. Ever since that realization had dawned on Arato, it felt like a part of his mind had gone numb.
Arato and Ryo had formed a connection when they were younger, after being brought together by a fire. In the empty days of their hospitalization, they had come to depend on one another. But now they were both becoming adults, and beginning to experience the harshest parts of human society. They would not be able to share the same path for much longer.
Phase7 「Dystopia Game」
Even in his teenage years, Ryo Kaidai continued to have nightmares now and then. In his dreams he would flee engulfing flames, and tremble alone on a hospital bed.
When he was seven years old, a massive fire had left him burnt and changed everything. Up to that point, there had been no fear or pain in his life. His future had been nothing but blue skies. Whenever he had been taken to see experiments at the old MemeFrame labs, his only thoughts had been on how the whole thing would be his some day.
Lost in a nightmare, he would run endlessly in a burning building. Beyond the growing flames, he could hear someone crying. Ryo, who was barely keeping ahead of the fire with his own speed, figured anyone slower than him wouldn’t last long, and turned his back on the voice.
Just when he was about to lose his mind to terror, an hIE in fire gear found him and got him in an ambulance. The next thing he knew, he was staring at the white walls of a hospital room. He shut himself up in that room. In his young mind, he was the unluckiest disaster victim in the world, and he wouldn’t even let the nurses get close to him. Of course, it wasn’t all just mindless fear; even at that age, he had realized he had been the target of the incident.
The scenery of his nightmare melted into a brilliant light. Now he was among greenery — the color of the hospital’s garden. A nurse had dragged him outside. Out there, he met a little puppy that was wagging its tail so hard its whole body was wiggling.
There was a boy about Ryo’s age with the puppy, whose body was so badly burned that there wasn’t a single spot of bare skin visible under his white bandages. Ryo heard the boy was a victim of the same fire Ryo had been caught in. He had come out more heavily wounded than Ryo because he had been closer to the epicenter of the explosion. That boy, with wounds so deep Ryo was surprised they weren’t forcing him to stay in bed, awkwardly held out his hand to Ryo. Fear and self-loa
thing froze Ryo’s tongue, and he could do nothing but shiver.
The boy opened his mouth. “Let’s be friends,” he said.
In his dream, Ryo replayed the first time in his life he had cried out loud in front of another person.
And that was when he would awaken from the nightmare.
Pulling himself out of the terror that he couldn’t escape even at seventeen years old, he sat up in his bed and used a gesture to get his home system to open the curtains. The morning sun shone in white on his bare, lifeless room.
“When am I going to get over that?” Ryo asked himself. He rubbed at the corners of his eyes, which were damp with tears. Simply calling the dream a ‘nightmare’ made him feel ungrateful. At the end of the dream, he had relived the moment when Arato Endo had saved him. He had hit rock bottom, unable to trust any human around him, but Arato had reached out his hand and pulled him out of that pit of despair.
Ten years ago on December 4th, the old MemeFrame laboratory had exploded. It happened during an experiment, and the hIE involved with the experiment had been destroyed, along with a whole floor of the lab. It had been impossible to recover anything from the area where it had happened. There had been two bystanders injured in the blast: Ryo Kaidai and Arato Endo.
“You were my first friend,” Ryo murmured. “But, what was I to you?”
The call button on his terminal pad, which he had left by his pillow the night before, was blinking, letting him know he had a message. It was from Mr. Watarai of the MemeFrame Tokyo Research Labs, who owned Methode, the fourth Lacia-class hIE. Ryo thought Mr. Watari was also most likely caught up in the incident at the airport where his sister, Shiori, had been severely injured.
“Not just Arato,” he muttered. “Can either of us really expect honesty from this world anymore?” Even Ryo couldn’t be honest with himself, considering the cold way he treated Shiori. He had hardly spoken to her over the last decade, ever since he had realized the truth behind the explosion that he’d been caught up in when he was seven.