by Satoshi Hase
Watarai’s voice shook as he was bathed in the sudden green light. “Is that your quantum communication device?” he asked. “How are you using it without an owner’s approval?”
White flowers bloomed in Snowdrop’s tiny hands. One after another, buds formed and opened wide white petals that looked completely different from those used during her previous flower storms. Snowdrop twisted them all together into a circlet.
As she raised the circlet up to crown her own head, her wide-open eyes began to glow faintly. A dry rustling sound began to echo throughout the vine- and flower-covered server room. Cute, violet-like flowers began crawling around Snowdrop’s little butt where she was sitting. Flowers bloomed on the backs of small black things that looked like spiders, creating new mobile child units. It seemed to Arato as if Snowdrop had used her own flowers — which gave her the power to control machines — to somehow improve her own capabilities.
“Shall we withdraw?” Watarai asked, though it sounded more like a command than a question. As soon as he said it, the dark, isolated world Arato had stepped into exploded behind his back. A whole row of servers were thrown down as the wind from the blast whipped by him. As the room shook from the explosion, the server racks that were still standing rocked violently from side to side. The room quickly filled with a cloud of obscuring dust, pierced by a shaft of light from outside.
Arato felt another rush of wind go by as something passed him. As it did, the air seemed to twist around him, and the room started spinning. He reached out a hand to lean against the vine-covered server machine nearest to him. But, when he felt the sensation of insect-like creatures crawling over his hand, he immediately snatched it away in disgust. Panting, he looked around, trying to get his head around what was happening.
The first thing he saw was Lacia’s black coffin; she had made it to wherever her device had been waiting for her and come to rescue him. In the back of the room, he could see the shattered pieces of busted server stacks scattered all over the floor. There was even a massive hole in the wall of the building itself. He assumed that had been caused by Lacia as well.
“Arato, your orders?” Lacia asked.
Arato was so happy to see her he felt like the light purple of her hair would be burned forever into his eyes. As long as she’s here, he thought, everything’s gonna turn out all right, somehow. “How come you aren’t invisible?” he asked.
“My invisibility was blown away by a smart grenade fired by the PMC earlier,” she explained. “Due to the large amount of dust particles in this room, I am currently unable to reapply it.”
In the blink of an eye, the first blows of the fight had been exchanged.
“My apologies for not being able to finish this with a single attack,” she said. “I believe my opponent predicted my movements.” Gunshots rang out from the other side of Lacia’s coffin; they were being shot at. Lacia started to slowly retreat backward, holding her device out as a shield. Arato followed her. He had no choice, even though it meant putting Yuka even further out of his reach.
Lacia had changed back into the same bodysuit she had been wearing on the night they had met. The suit — as well as the skin — around her waist area was singed. She must have used her body to protect him from the earlier explosion.
Even though he knew she couldn’t feel pain the way a human would, the sight of her injury still made him lose his head a little. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, with a gentle narrowing of her eyes that showed her pleasure at his concern.
The smart grenade Lacia mentioned had left the surrounding servers burnt and crumpled. Snowdrop tossed away the terminal she had been holding and stood up.
Watarai kept his eyes on Lacia, twisting the corner of his lip in a small smirk. “I see. It seems we have a three-way standoff here,” he said. “I suppose you have some idea what’s going to happen next?”
Yuka, still held captive by the armed men, was crying with fear. Seeing a real grenade explode and hearing actual gunshots for the first time in her life must have terrified her. “Arato! Help me!” she wailed.
Watarai ignored her, keeping his eyes on Lacia and Arato. “I believe this is checkmate,” he said. “If you don’t want to lose your little sister, hand over Lacia.”
How did it come to this? Arato asked himself through the blood pounding in his head. He had come to the server room, thinking that the people who had kidnapped Yuka might be there if they were also involved with the zombification of the hIEs. But he had never stopped to think about why the people involved were doing any of it. In that moment, he felt like he finally understood why it was all happening; the zombie hIEs were just the bait that had pulled Arato into this trap.
The thought of losing Lacia to a threat like this made him feel like he would go crazy, but he couldn’t even think of losing Yuka. She was family, his own little sister. “No,” he said shortly. Desperately fighting down the unwanted tears that were blurring his vision, Arato shook his head. His thoughts were chaos.
“Calm down and think it through,” Watarai told him. “That thing is just a robot that happens to look human, being controlled by orders from a cloud. Are you sure you won’t regret trading your own family for something like that?”
“Arato, I hate you! You moron!” Yuka screamed, tears streaming down her face as she kicked at the floor with both feet. Yuka. His sister. His little sister who depended on him.
“Lacia-class units are capable of selecting their owners, I believe,” Watarai said, turning his attention to Lacia. “You might be thrown away if you become too much of a burden for your owner.” He held out his hand to her.
“Stop!” Arato yelled. “I’m sick of your messed-up plans, you psychopath!”
“I think you’re misunderstanding something,” Watarai said. “This place was a good net I could have used to capture Snowdrop. That’s why I came here. Snowdrop isn’t just here to study this system; she was also aiming for Lacia. So don’t blame this all on me; this is just the way things ended up.”
“You were never in this to see how the world feels about AIs,” Arato spat. “You just wanted to get your hands on some Red Boxes!” The cold way Watarai was looking at Lacia twisted his stomach. It was the way he had looked at the suicidal hIEs.
Watarai swept that frigid gaze between Lacia, who still stood protectively in front of Arato, and Snowdrop, still sitting atop the servers she had taken over. “Ever since the incident at the Oi Industry Promotion Center earlier, the actions of the Lacia-class units have begun to actively threaten human society. We had to expedite our plans for their retrieval. Try and keep up with me here,” Watarai said.
He explained that his people knew Snowdrop would take over the system and send the zombie hIEs for Lacia on that day, though he failed to explain how they had known. Regardless, they had chosen that day as being ideal for trying to retrieve the Lacia-class units. When Arato thought about it, he could see a sort of logic in the actions the Lacia-class units had taken. But that still didn’t explain away the coincidence that had brought them all there that day.
“Don’t try and act like you’re doing something good when you’re kidnapping me!” Yuka was apparently too angry to be scared any longer. She struggled until one of the armored guards knocked her in the head with the butt of his gun hard enough that the sound echoed sharply through the room. When she glared at him, he hit her again. The violence sent fireworks of rage exploding in the back of Arato’s mind.
“It seems he still doesn’t grasp the situation he’s in,” Watarai said. “Why don’t you show him how close he is to dying?” As soon as the order left Watarai’s mouth, one of the guards whipped his gun from its holster and fired.
Lacia thrust her black coffin in front of Arato’s leg with superhuman speed, and the bullet glanced off the device in a shower of sparks. The guard, his face concealed within his helmet, aimed a second shot right at Arato’s head.
The second bullet, aimed with killing intent, slammed
into the palm of Lacia’s hand, sending out another burst of sparks. This time she had used her hand instead of her device as a shield. Her device was needed elsewhere; along with the bullet, Snowdrop had joined the attack. She’d formed her emerald device into a sort of drill, and was thrusting it down at Lacia from above. Lacia held her off with the black coffin.
“Lacia, give me that. And your head,” Snowdrop said.
Watarai stroked his chin as if the whole thing was just an interesting spectacle. “Looks like Lacia has its hands full just fighting Snowdrop,” he said. “But, at the same time, its owner’s family is in danger. Even more than that, it has to protect its owners life from this gun pointed at him. I can’t do anything about Snowdrop, but there is one answer that will solve the other problems.”
The guard who shot at Arato before took aim again. His heart leaped into his throat as he saw the muzzle aimed at him. But his rage at the man who was using him and his sister as bargaining chips to get Lacia was even stronger than his fear, and his vision went red when he looked at Watarai.
“Stop! That’s murder!” Yuka cried.
Lacia swung her coffin around like a giant hammer, slamming Snowdrop in the side and sending her flying into a corner of the room. She was trying to protect Yuka. But Watarai had Yuka, and Watarai wanted Lacia. To add to the three-way standoff, Snowdrop was also gunning for Lacia. Watarai again ordered for the guard to take aim at Arato.
Lacia turned to look at Watarai. She scrubbed one hand across her forehead, even though she couldn’t sweat. It was a gesture to show how overwhelming the situation was. “Understood,” she said. “I will pass my ownership to you.”
Whatever breath was left in Arato’s lungs whooshed out. Watarai could have him killed without batting an eye. But Arato’s mind couldn’t even comprehend what he was hearing — that Lacia wouldn’t be his anymore; that she would belong to Watarai, the man who had kidnapped his sister.
Lacia sank to her knees in a gesture of submission. “If I verify you as my owner, you will release Ms. Yuka and agree not to take Arato’s life, correct?” Lacia asked.
Watarai twisted up the corner of his mouth. “I think I can agree to that,” he said.
One of the guards turned to where Snowdrop had fallen. Unholstering a tube-shaped weapon, he fired it at her. As the sound of the shot resounded in the room, the gun spat a bundle of thin wires that entangled the hIE, dragging her to the ground.
Watarai walked toward Lacia, reaching out with one finger toward the opening in the neck of her suit. That was where her owner recognition device was. Once it recorded Watarai’s biological information, his registration as her new owner would be complete.
“Lacia!” Arato screamed until his throat burned. His body was so hot it felt like he might burst into flames. From behind, the delicate slope of her back made him think she was crying.
“Lacia, I know there’s a reason for me to be by your side,” Arato said urgently. “I don’t know what that reason is, but I know there’s a reason for us to be together.” He knew it wasn’t the time to say that kind of thing, but he couldn’t stop thinking of how precious Lacia was to him. Even if they had a member of his family, he couldn’t deny how much she meant to him. He couldn’t fight the feeling.
“Lately, whenever I’m alone, it’s like all I can think about is you,” he continued. “Even when you’re not there, I can feel you beside me.” Their relationship was about to reach a new milestone. No, that wasn’t it; if Arato’s actions were changing things, he needed hope. Even if he knew in his heart that the things he wanted were impossible, he had to cling to that hope to stay on his feet.
“I’ve been by your side for these past few months, but I never tried to tell you how I felt about you,” he said, feeling the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders. In the rational part of his mind, Arato understood that what he was doing would bring sorrow to countless people. But to him, even if Lacia wasn’t a human, she was still a woman. And he was a man.
Lacia’s thin frame was trembling when Arato confessed his feelings. “Lacia, I love you.”
It felt like taking the first step on a dark, unknown road. His heart was beating so fast it felt like it would split open and his head was pounding. Terror fought embarrassment, so that his burning forehead was slick with cold sweat. Arato’s body was so tense he had trouble breathing. But Lacia, who should have immediately given a response she thought would please him, stayed frozen in place.
The silence was suffocating, until a cold laugh broke through it. It was the first time Arato had seen Watarai actually laugh out loud. “I can’t believe a human just made a Lacia-class freeze,” he said. “And Type-005, no less.”
Arato felt like Watarai’s laugh was mocking every single second he and Lacia had spent together. This adult, with more experience and insight than Arato, was smiling wryly at him. He was looking down at Arato, like he could see right through everything Arato was thinking at that moment.
“You were analog hacked, boy,” he said. “Just like when you saw those zombies outside. You felt fear only because they appeared human to you. This love you’re feeling is nothing but an illusion you’re projecting onto a humanoid figure. It’s an illusion brought about by the irresponsible society that raised you.”
“So there’s a scientific explanation for it, so what?” Arato shot back. “Don’t get all high and mighty about it. If it’s human nature to project our love onto objects, how can you blame me for following my nature?”
Just as Watarai had said, there were too many ambiguities in human society; people had to trust that what they were experiencing was real. This was the opening that allowed analog hacking to target the gap between their subjective reality and the objective truth of these humanoid machine they lived with. Even Arato understood that his feelings may be nothing more than the result of manipulation.
But somewhere deep in his teenage soul a voice howled, ‘So what?’ “I love Lacia,” he said defiantly. “That’s all there is to it.”
Lacia was still kneeling, her head bowed as if in prayer. She was still trembling.
Watarai still stood over Lacia, his brows drawn down. Ignoring Arato’s proclamation, he continued to stretch his finger toward Lacia’s neck. Arato heard a strange, sharp noise, and Watarai’s finger halted, his hand hidden from Arato by Lacia’s body. But he could see that Lacia’s white hand seemed to have torn something away; he recognized the metal accessory with the keyhole pinched between her thumb and forefinger.
“Are your wires crossed?” Watarai asked, his voice incredulous. “If you break that and that boy dies, you’ll never be able to take another owner!” It was the first time Arato had seen Watarai look truly dismayed.
Lacia crushed her owner registration unit between her fingers, and no one made a sound. With that action, she would never have another owner. That was her response to his feelings. Lacia stood demurely, and turned to look at Arato. Though she had no tears, she looked like she wanted to cry. “I trust you,” she said, and then flashed him a radiant smile. Her expression shone with such true happiness, Arato found it hard to believe there was no heart or soul behind it.
“Methode, get over here,” Watarai said as he quickly retreated, though Arato had no idea how Methode could have heard him. “For now, your only target for retrieval is Snowdrop.” He was still holding Yuka hostage.
“Lacia, this one’s all you,” Arato said. “What should I do?”
Lacia’s black device shifted forms and rolled its way back until its handle rested in her hand. “Draw Ms. Yuka’s attention to yourself, Arato,” Lacia directed. “I would not want her to be upset by what is about to happen.” Then she showed him something that made his heart feel lighter.
It almost surprised him how much he had changed. It wasn’t that he was becoming more of a violent person. It was just that, since he’d met Lacia, he felt like he had the confidence to do something about the world he lived in.
Yuka had been hanging limply ev
er since the guard hit her. Arato had an unpleasant premonition, and shot a glance at the corner where Lacia had thrown Snowdrop. The little hIE girl was laying on her back in her dress, in a patch of sun shining in through the hole that Lacia had opened in the wall. As he watched, she lifted her little legs up toward the ceiling, disturbing the hem of her dress.
Then he heard footsteps; dragging, hobbling footsteps. A large number of them were converging on the place where Snowdrop lay. The zombie hIEs from outside appeared, crawling into the room through the hole in the wall. One, two, three, five, ten; one after another, they flowed in through the shaft of sunlight. There didn’t seem to be an end to them as they swarmed into the server room.
Arato met Lacia’s eyes.
“Snowdrop apparently judged that hacking into the existing cloud system was not enough to accomplish her goals,” Lacia said. “She has created a new transmission infrastructure, and is now controlling the hIEs through a cloud she prepared for just this purpose.”
Arato remembered that the new child units Snowdrop had started creating looked like spiders. Looking around the room, he saw bundles and lines of white thread strung all around the room. “So the spiderwebs are her antenna,” Arato mused.
“Though it pains me to say it,” Lacia said, “this actually makes things easier for us.” She was concentrating hard on Watarai’s guards, looking for an opening. She obviously wanted to deal with them before Methode showed up.
The situation kept moving all around them, things flying out of control so fast it made Arato’s head spin. He felt like he was always being targeted by enemies, or drowning in a sea of doubts and questions he had no answer for. His grasp on reality seemed to slip away with each new development.