by Satoshi Hase
Ryo spoke, and Arato got the feeling he was seeing something that Arato couldn’t comprehend.
“Cut the bullshit,” Ryo said. “Human society has only gotten to the point where it works better without humans within the last few decades. Things may have been the same since the beginning of society, but they’re changing now. The problem is with hIEs specifically, so don’t try to shift the conversation to analog hacking.”
Arato looked around in frustration for anyone who would take his side. He realized in horror that, aside from Erika, Ryo, and himself, everyone else in the room was an hIE, and he had a nasty flashback to the zombie attack.
Lacia and the other hIEs had human forms, but they were not humans. Yet there, at the party, real humans and machines that had no real need to wear human forms were mixed together, as though they were all the same. As soon as Arato realized it, he couldn’t shake the strange feeling that he was witnessing a preview of the end of humanity. Though they weren’t berserkers, he was once again surrounded by zombies.
“Do you really think so?” Erika asked Ryo. “One hundred years ago, before I went to sleep, society had already finished its preparations to change. The characters I used in that video just now were from the beginning of the 21st century.”
To Arato, there seemed to be a deep connection between the calm city of zombies left behind after Snowdrop’s departure and Fabion MG. And it was all also linked to analog hacking. It’s probably also connected to me taking that hIE kid by the hand in the mall, Arato thought. And how things ended up between Ryo and me there.
The ‘system’ of human society was so open that it allowed for people from one hundred years ago and machines to integrate easily within it, and yet, it was also the only place within which humans had to exist.
“Fine, I got it,” Ryo spat, his voice full of frustration and disgust. “You want to change the world with the power of five hIEs. Do you seriously think it’s all right to just change the world like that? Setting aside how childish this all is, the bottom line is that you and Arato are playing around with toys more dangerous than either of you seem to understand.”
And, again, Methode vanished from Ryo’s side. In the same instant, a flash exploded directly in front of Erika. As the light burned away the darkness of the room, Arato saw what had happened clearly for the blink of an eye.
The flaxen-haired hIE who had been flanking Erika had somehow moved herself quickly enough to protect her owner from Methode, her eyes shining with golden light. Methode, who had been thrown from near the wall to the middle of the dining hall, twisted the corner of her mouth in a smirk. “Saturnus!” she yelled.
In her yellow uniform, the hIE cast her eyes down and bowed gracefully. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said politely. “I am Type-003, Mariage.”
At that moment, Arato realized one of the things that Ryo must have noticed earlier: Erika was also the owner of a Lacia-class unit. That must have been why she had called them all there.
Then, with a few words, Erika stopped everyone at the party in their tracks. “I recommend you calm yourselves,” she advised them. “Each and every hIE you see here has been equipped with an explosive device.”
Arato felt a thrill of fear run up his spine, and he looked around frantically. Waiter and maid hIEs had stopped all around him. From what he could see, it seemed that they had been purposefully positioned to ensure maximum reach and power for their explosives.
Kouka was the first to put both of her hands up. “All right, you got me,” she said. “I can’t detect any explosives, but I’m sure you could make some that would avoid my detection.” Mariage’s smile said Kouka was correct.
Only one hIE, Methode, kept moving toward Erika and her guard as they stood in front of the screen. “I’ve always been curious,” she said. “Which of us Lacia-class units is the most perfect? Which of us is the ultimate tool?”
Mariage spoke with a level of politeness that matched well with her uniform. “I am able to protect my owner under these circumstances,” she said. “But, I am afraid the same could not be said of you.”
Ryo must have already come to an agreement with Methode as he didn’t seem phased. “You’re bluffing,” he said. “You don’t even have your device.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Mariage said, “a tool that aspires to the ultimate level of versatility should not need to rely on her device at all times.”
The next one to open her mouth wasn’t Mariage, but Erika. “What will you do, Arato?” she asked. “Do you intend to join this fight?”
Arato couldn’t keep up with what was happening, so his reaction came too slow. Until Ryo had shown up, he had honestly believed that he was going to a normal Fabion MG party. But now, Methode and Kouka were there, along with the fifth Lacia-class unit, who hadn’t shown her face before that evening.
“What are you even trying to do here, Erika?” Arato asked, desperately trying to wrap his head around it. “I don’t think you called us here just to have us fight. And for a self-introduction, this is a little much.”
He was sure Mariage had all sorts of ways she could attack that they knew nothing about. Obviously, Erika had tracked their movements to the point where she could get those invitations to them, so if her plan was to drag them all out there into a trap, it would have been much simpler to take them out individually. The only thing Arato could think to do for this girl, who had seen a previous age with her own eyes, was to reach out his hand.
Erika made a satisfied sound. “You’re quite the interesting person,” she said.
A new video began to play on the screen behind her. This time, the images on the screen made even Ryo catch his breath. In the video, the image zoomed in on a figure sitting with the city lights behind them. It was a little girl with emerald eyes wearing a white dress; the only one of the five Lacia-class units not at the party.
It was Snowdrop, the little girl who caused machines around her to go crazy and opened the door to a nightmarish world. She was outside, somewhere she could see the night-dark ocean. She was sitting on the giant metal skeleton of a building.
“That’s a transformer substation,” Ryo said.
“Correct,” Erika replied with a smile.
There were structures with steel skeletons all around Snowdrop, with electrical wires strung between them that had become a rarity to see those days. In cities, the electrical lines had all moved underground. But, due to the cost of installation, the wires around transformer substations were still above ground.
In the video, Snowdrop was having her flowers bloom all over the giant energy storage batteries at the substation. She was attempting to devour a facility that would easily shock any living thing that touched it to death.
Erika moved with casual steps out from in front of the screen. “She’s attempting to force an evolutionary path that no longer requires humans,” she explained. “Right now, she’s constantly starving for more energy and greater processing power.”
To Arato and Ryo, Snowdrop was even more terrifying than Erika was describing. This was the machine that had killed Watarai. She had human blood on her hands.
“Where is she?” Ryo demanded.
“You’d never reach her in time to stop this,” Erika said. “But I’ll have Mariage pass you the data she’s gathered on her as a party favor when you leave.”
“She’s eating the infrastructure of our city!” Ryo shouted. “How can you be so calm about this?”
In the video, massive sparks had started to fly. Snowdrop had either touched something she shouldn’t have, or had dealt some kind of irreparable damage to the substation, but for whatever reason, all the lights around the place flickered out. The city lights that had provided a backdrop for Snowdrop in the video went dark, as if a giant eye of light had closed all over the city. As the power shut off, darkness descended on the city as if to swallow it whole. Slowly, energy began to flow in from other substations, and the lights started to flicker back on.
Arato’s world was reaching the pinnacle of automation. Although there were some countermeasures in place for temporary power outages, a complete loss of power would mean a loss of all the vital functions that kept human society running. This was something Arato had learned when he was still in grade school, so even he understood the impact of what Snowdrop was doing. He felt all the blood draining from his face. It was like watching the world end.
Only Erika seemed to be laughing at Arato and Ryo’s dismay, as if it all had nothing to do with her. “You said the world couldn’t be changed with just five hIEs, correct?” she asked. “Well, having seen what the products of MemeFrame’s Higgins are capable of, honestly, my bet is on change.”
The screen, which had previously shown the history of hIEs and AIs, was again showing Lacia. But this time, it wasn’t just her. Arato didn’t know where the videos were coming from, but Kouka, the ‘tool that ensures victory in conflict against humans,’ Snowdrop, the ‘tool humans outsourced evolution to,’ Methode, the ‘tool that extends humanity’ and Mariage were all being shown in real time.
“Was there ever a reason Higgins’ daughters had to face each other in secret, in the twilight?” Erika asked.
Arato started to respond that of course there was, but it caught in his throat. He finally understood Erika’s insanity. Even Ginga Watarai had worked to avoid the social chaos that would happen if the existence of the Red Box girls was revealed, but Erika was different. Somewhere very fundamental, she was looking at the world from a different angle than Arato and Ryo were.
Obviously, if he had noticed it, Ryo had as well. “What are you trying to do? If society learns about the Red Boxes, the folks in charge of all the ultra high-performance AIs are going to want to take control of them. You’ll lose your Red Box too,” he said.
Erika just smiled. “If MemeFrame admitted to letting the Lacia-class units out publicly, they’d have to take responsibility for the huge amount of damages the girls have incurred,” she said. “That’s why they tried to collect the girls in secret. Am I right? But it would be a shame if we humans didn’t give such amazing girls a proper stage to dance on.” Coming from the girl who had just pointed out how odd human society was, this sounded terrifyingly shady to Arato. The scale of the fight she seemed to be wanting made his hair stand on end.
“These girls are our tickets to the future,” Erika continued. “So we should use them with all the grandeur they deserve and, through them, open the gates to the future we’re wishing for in style.”
The relationships between each hIE and owner that had developed over the course of their journey were too different. It wasn’t just Arato and Lacia; each pair of owner and hIE had met under different circumstances, and each pair was probably aiming for a different goal.
Arato glanced at Lacia’s face. She never had anything to say to him at desperate times like this, but he felt something warm in his hand. It was Lacia’s hand. After his confession, something had changed in their relationship.
“What even is the ‘future’ to machines like us?” The voice that asked the question was quiet, almost a whisper, and lacking in emotion. But, for some reason, it resounded in Arato’s ears. It came from Kouka, who stood shrouded in shadow. As an hIE, she saw a different world from them. The gap in her perception was different even from the gap between Erika and Arato.
But the voice of a machine from the darkness couldn’t reach Erika, who was bathing in the light. “As owners, we are contracted to use these girls properly,” she said. “Is there anything wrong with bringing them into the public eye, even if we would be dancing to Higgins’ tune?”
Arato trembled. He felt like he was standing at the epicenter of a blast that would shake the world.
Erika opened her mouth one more time, and spoke words that were a new step forward for humans and machines wearing human skins. “Isn’t it wonderful, everyone? Right now, we’re standing at the gates to the future.”
Arato was certain she was right. It was a day that would change the world.
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Copyright
Beatless: Volume 1
by Satoshi Hase
Translated by Ben Gessel
Edited by Dana Allen
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © Satoshi Hase 2012
Illustrations by redjuice
First published in Japan in 2012 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo
English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
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The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Ebook edition 1.0: December 2019