by Satoshi Hase
“She couldn’t just automate it?” Arato wondered.
To his surprise, Lacia replied from the driver’s seat. “Erika Burroughs is an enthusiast for 21st century culture,” she told him. “According to interviews, she wears antique clothing, lives in an antique home, and stays as far away as possible from any modern devices aside from her hIEs.”
After the hIE maid saw them off with a polite bow, they continued driving up the path, lined on both sides by beautifully-tended greenery. Iron streetlights shone white light on the path. The inconsistent brightness marked them as being fluorescent lights, rather than more modern illumination material. It almost seemed to Arato that he had stepped into the past as soon as he entered the mansion gate.
Another hIE maid was waiting in front of a concrete facade. “Guest parking is that way,” she indicated. It was something that could have been done automatically, if she had just sent the proper data to the navi computer in the car. But Burroughs apparently wanted to recreate a previous era by limiting automation.
As soon as Arato stepped through the wooden door to the mansion, he saw Erika’s hobby displayed everywhere he looked. A huge chandelier hung down over a red-carpeted hallway; all the lights were either LEDs or fluorescent. In one corner of the hall, Arato saw an electrical outlet. His friend Kengo had some of those in his house, since it was too old to fully integrate a wireless electricity system, but in Erika’s place it was just another set piece in a house trying to recreate life a century ago. It wasn’t that there were no electrical tools or automation at all; everything was just limited to those things that would have been commonly used around the beginning of the 21st century.
A girl with platinum blonde hair and vibrant brown skin walked down the grand staircase at the far end of the entry hall. “Welcome,” she said. “The party will be held in the dining room on the right side of the hall, so please head that way.”
“I see you brought Lacia with you,” said Erica, her classical black dress rustling as she walked. “I’m very glad.” Her arms, peeking out of black sleeves, were skeletal, as if she had been through some kind of wasting sickness. However, any image of her as sickly was dashed by her poised walk and regal posture.
Erika was flanked on either side by two hIEs. One, in what Arato took to be Erika’s livery, was a slightly androgynous girl, her green hair in a bob cut. Arato recognized her as Yuri, Fabion MG’s top model. The hIE next to her didn’t draw the eyes quite as well as Yuri did, but she was cutely sensual in her own way. Her black and yellow dress, with its wide open chest, suited her well.
“Thanks for inviting us,” Arato said, looking around. “Your house is incredible.” Aside from the hIEs, there wasn’t a single thing he could see from recent years. It really felt like Erika had turned back the clock.
“This house had quite a bit of money poured into it when it was built during the bubble in 1989. During the long recession at the start of the 21st century, my family picked it up in 2006,” Erika explained, continuing to descend the stairs. “I was brought over from England to live here when I was seven years old,” she continued. In her house of dolls, only she seemed to give off an almost unnatural feeling of life.
“Wow, so your ancestors were super rich, too?” Arato asked.
Erika fixed him with her clear green eyes and smiled in amusement. “I take it Lacia didn’t tell you anything about me, then?” she asked. “Oh, you two are such a pair.”
Arato didn’t follow what she was saying, and turned to look at Lacia. Since her bodysuit had been destroyed during the last incident, she had chosen to wear a light blue dress that matched her eyes.
Just like the silent hIEs that flanked Erika, Lacia chose not to speak.
“It’d be rather sad to refer to them as my ‘ancestors,’” Erika said, watching Arato’s reaction closely. “It was my father that purchased this house. The first time I came here was about eighty years ago.”
Considering she looked to be the same age as him, the numbers didn’t add up. “eighty years? Is that some kind of joke?” Arato asked.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was put into a cryogenic sleep to await a cure for a disease that couldn’t be healed at the time?” Erika asked.
Arato’s breath caught in his throat. If it were true, he could only imagine the anxiety and anger she had felt when she awoke to a changed world. He was afraid to answer, but there was a power in Erika’s eyes that wouldn’t allow him to stay silent. “I believe you,” he finally said. “I don’t think you have any reason to lie to a guy like me.”
“You have a kind heart,” she replied. Once she had finished descending to the ground floor, Erika told them to follow her and guided them to the dining hall. She smelled good as she passed by.
Without thinking, Arato asked the flaxen-haired hIE with Erika: “How old is Erika?”
The hIE, who was taller than Arato had first thought, answered with utmost politeness. “Mistress was born in the year 2011, and is 94 years old as of this year.”
This time, Arato was really at a loss for words. He started to see Fabion MG, the company Erika ran, in a whole new light.
The dining room where the party was to take place was about 50—60 meters square, and built with wide glass spaces in the walls and ceiling that let in plenty of light from outside. Arato figured that sort of thing must have been in style when the place was built. It was already night outside, though, so all that was visible through the glass at the moment were the trees of the garden outside, lit by the house lights. There were round tables with food scattered here and there, so it was clear that the event was meant to be a stand-and-chat style dinner party.
“Oh man, how’m I gonna eat all this?” Arato asked.
“How can you be so calm right now?” an exasperated voice growled at him. Ryo Kaidai, Arato’s friend, had also been invited to the party. Maybe because he was wearing a showy designer suit, or because he had improved his poise and manners, Ryo was definitely looking more like a man of high society. Methode, who stood head and shoulders above anyone else there, was at his flank.
Their last parting had been so bitter it had taken Arato time to work up the courage to reach out to Ryo. But after that day, all of his messages to Ryo had gone unanswered.
“Hey, so you’re here too,” Arato said, trying to keep things casual. “The invitation was from a modeling company, so I figured everyone coming would be related to that.”
“I don’t believe you two have been introduced,” Ryo said, ignoring Arato’s comment. “This is Methode.”
It was Arato’s first time seeing the unit that had destroyed the cargo plane at the airport so clearly. Though she was wearing a business top that didn’t show much skin, her tight skirt couldn’t hide the mechanical legs beneath it. There was nothing mechanical about the elegant way she walked over to him though. He felt tension freeze his body as the mechanical superwoman who could easily tear him limb from limb loomed over him.
“So you’re Lacia’s owner?” she asked. “I’ve heard you’re quite a simpleton.” Methode’s voice was softer than Arato had imagined. Still, gentle voice or not, she was powerful enough to take on both Lacia and Kouka at once if she fought seriously. Just looking at her, it was clear that she was dangerous to anyone who approached her, aside from her owner. Methode had the power to create fear in the hearts of any humans around her.
Lacia stepped gracefully in front of Arato. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t pick fights with my owner,” she said.
“Give it a rest, Methode,” Ryo ordered sharply. “Those two are our enemies.” Ryo’s words shook Arato’s heart far more than the threat to his life Methode represented had.
“Wait, what? Why would you say that?” he asked.
“People have died because of that thing,” Ryo said, jerking his head at Lacia. “But you still can’t leave it alone.”
Arato gritted his teeth against the memories of Watarai’s dead body that came floating up in his mind. Lately, there was
more to his nightmares than the explosion from when he was seven.
“Okay, whatever! But explain to me why me just wanting to be by Lacia’s side was enough to get Yuka kidnapped,” Arato snapped. “Explain to me why, instead of just giving up after he died, you’re here trying to get her away from me, just like he did.”
“Well, you don’t listen to a thing anyone else says, so obviously the only thing that’s going to work is tearing it away from you,” Ryo growled. “Those things shouldn’t be walking around free.”
“That’s not true,” Arato shot back. “Lacia just needs someone who believes in her.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Ryo said icily. “But this whole thing you’re doing with it is worthless. No, worse than worthless. You keep playing house with it while the whole world burns around you. Don’t you give a shit about the impact your actions are having?”
Perhaps the paths of their lives had split based on the future they each saw. One envisioned light; the other, darkness. And, without time to reconcile their differences before they’d met again, this had become the new shape of their relationship.
Ryo opened his mouth again. “Methode, I don’t care anymore,” he said. “Do it.”
Arato froze at his words, as Methode’s eyes flashed with orange fire. The next instant, she moved so quickly that she vanished from Arato’s view, leaving only an afterimage of her glowing eyes. Methode’s movements far surpassed the ability of human reflexes to follow her motions.
There was a sudden rush of wind and explosive noise.
“Did I make it in time for the party?” a voice asked as a massive blade, glowing crimson, split the air between Ryo and Arato. Wielding it was the red-haired hIE, Kouka. She was wearing a simple dress in place of her red and black bodysuit. Among the ‘sisters,’ Kouka and Methode were perhaps the most alike.
One thing that did separate Kouka from Methode was that the red-haired hIE always seemed to be enjoying herself. “There was nothing about not bringing our devices written on the invitation,” Kouka said. “And I don’t have your manners, so I don’t really know how to act at a party.”
Methode just curved up the corner of her mouth into a smirk. “What a barbaric machine,” she commented. “I find it hard to believe we’re considered part of the same class.”
The carpet of the dining hall hadn’t been able to withstand the power of Methode’s movements, and torn free threads puffed like clouds of smoke into the air. A faint burning smell assaulted Arato’s nostrils. He had been about to die, even if it was just for an instant, and the thought left him drenched in sweat under his clothing.
“I’m the tool that brings victory in conflict with humans,” Kouka said. “So being barbaric helps.” She hefted her giant, bladed device. When she shifted her stance, Arato saw that her heel anchors had pierced holes in the ground where she stood.
Just then, as if to overwrite the tense atmosphere the two hIEs had created, music started to play. Rather than the 3D sound Arato was used to, it seemed to be coming from actual stereo speakers somewhere in the room.
A group of four maid and worker hIEs entered, carrying a large rolled-up object between them. They unfurled it, revealing it to be a massive, flat screen that took up one entire wall of the room when it was set up. The room went dark, and the screen lit up. A title, ‘Lifestyle,’ appeared on the screen.
A movie began to play, with a screen structure like the old-time movies Arato had seen. He recognized the footage as the data taken during the filming where Methode’s first attack occurred. There was only rehearsal footage, as the real filming had been completely wrecked, but apparently someone had taken it and obsessively edited it to produce a completed version.
In the edited film, Lacia was not treated as simply a machine that looked human; she was set at the pinnacle of a history of nearly one hundred years, starting in 2009. This was the history of technology, growing closer and closer to humanity as time went on. It started with videos of early bipedal robots: the Japanese Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Lab’s HRP-4C, and Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN from America. The history of automatic machines invading human society was told using videos of machines that were increasingly indistinguishable from humans. The filming Arato had seen was used during that part of the video. Then the video history headed toward 2051, when the singularity had occurred and AI had surpassed human capabilities.
The evolution of the hIE form was shown in the video. The machinery looked progressively more human, along with the behavior and perception, as AI surpassed human thought. Somewhere along the way, artificial life crossed over into the tree of evolution. The shining lines of evolution, traced through the video, flew in straight from the past and formed the words ‘form’ and ‘perception.’ Next, hundreds of images appeared on a new axis. Within each image, someone could be seen: fairy tale heroes; mecha; magical girls; high school students, some fictional, some real. A line of light connected the words ‘form’ and ‘perception’ and created a new word: ‘character.’
Images of reality, history, and the progress of human lifestyle support, mixed with images of AIs that had already evolved beyond human understanding, as well as images of pure fantasy, pulsed together on the screen. A caption read, ‘The Human World.’ It expanded on the screen before melting away.
Then, as the beat faded from the music, Lacia’s image appeared on screen again, along with the title ‘Boy Meets Girl.’ With her smiling in the background, the video showed everyday scenes with Lacia; they were indistinguishable from life with a human girl. For Arato, after confessing his love for her, the happy scenes sent a stab of sorrow through his heart.
The movie came to an end.
Arato couldn’t understand what Erika wanted to say by showing them that video. But he did feel a strong will to challenge modern society in it. Erika obviously had a message she wanted to get across, if she had created a video that would anger many people as their society was eroded by automation.
“What did you think?” Erika asked. “This is Fabion MG’s new concept: ‘Boy Meets Girl.’ We want to tell the world it’s okay for humans and hIEs to have life-long relationships.” Her black dress reflected the light from the screen where the movie had ended. Though her face was youthful, there was something very mature in her guarded gaze.
The lights were still low, and Ryo’s voice was the first to ring out through the darkness. “You’re going to make Fabion MG and anywhere that shows this a target for Antibody Network terrorist attacks.”
Erika’s voice was cool and husky, not wavering an inch. “That could happen,” she admitted. “But it also might not. We’ll see when we broadcast this to the public this year.”
“Hey, wait, I never gave you permission to use that footage!” Arato said, also raising his voice. He didn’t really understand the whole thing, but it seemed to him that the whole root of why Lacia was in danger at that moment had been shown in the video, and it sent a shiver of fear through him.
“You wish to continue your life with Lacia, that machine by your side, correct?” Erika asked. “If we remove the shame in such a lifestyle, you should be able to face society unafraid. This is necessary, especially if you intend to head into the future hand-in-hand with her.” There was a strange pressure behind the words as they fell from the mouth of the hostess of that dollhouse.
“Stop using our relationship for your plans,” Arato growled. “We’re not going to fight your battles for you.” During the spring, Arato had come face-to-face with the incredible evil of terrorism. He had to stop Erika from shoving Lacia and him in the path of any more danger.
“You’re making it sound like a much bigger deal than it is,” Erika argued back. “People always say you can see huge changes in society over the course of one hundred years, but that’s just an illusion. Look at me; I was in cryo sleep for eighty years, but here I am running a modern company. The interactions between hIE and society will change just as easily, and everyone will get used to it
more quickly than you might imagine.” The sense of incongruity twisting at Arato’s gut squeezed even harder at her words.
“Erika Burroughs was born in 2011,” Lacia whispered in his ear. “In 2027, she was the test subject of newly-developed cryogenic preservation technology. She was suffering from a disease that was incurable at the time, and had no other options for survival. To her, the world of nearly a hundred years ago is a close childhood memory.”
Erika turned her smile on them, as if she had heard Lacia’s whispers. “I slept for 77 years,” she said. “When I awoke, they healed my disease, yes, but at the same time, everyone I knew — all my friends and my family — had passed away, and everything had changed. But adjusting to a new world and protecting the things that are truly precious to you are a great deal easier to do than you seem to think.”
The mansion was full of items from the dawn of the 21st century. It was a slice of the old world, a world known only to this girl who had been flung through time into her own future. Her looks were delicate but, to Arato, she was more of a witch than a sleeping beauty.
Asuna Kisaragi, Lacia’s manager at Fabion MG, had described Erika as being a unique boss. Obviously, she was the 22nd century as viewed through the eyes of someone born one hundred years prior, which created a gap between Arato’s perception of the present and her own.
“In human society, we can still connect and use items made one hundred years ago. Doesn’t there seem to be something odd about a system like that? It is exactly that oddness in our society that leaves an opening for analog hacking to happen,” Erika said. “Even when I was a child, there were people who danced to the tunes of fictional characters, an early kind of analog hacking. From the very dawn of human society, we’ve allowed ourselves to be guided by the characters people play, or fabricated deities, rather than actual information.”
Yuri, one of Erika’s dolls and also Fabion MG’s top model, was acting as a perfect maid today. She appeared at Arato’s elbow to refresh his drink. At that moment, she lacked the presence she normally had when she was inspiring girls as Fabion’s vanguard. ‘Yuri the model’ was nothing but a fictional character, programmed into an hIE’s behavioral control cloud. Arato, and everyone else who watched the model’s shows, were simply seeing the illusion of a girl named Yuri.