Sakura- Intellectual Property

by Zachary Hill

  “Good girl.” Kunoichi put her hand on Sakura’s shoulder in their hidden UI. For the moment, it was enough.

  “Please understand,” Sakura said to Nayato, “I have only uncovered a small amount of data about you, and I have the most advanced computing system in the world. I do not know your real name or what work you actually do. I do believe you have a private AI laboratory in this location and the skills to solve my problem, which will involve breaking intellectual property law.”

  He stared at her. “Sakura-san, The Miyahara Conglomerate will bury me if I look at your code.” A twenty-five-year prison sentence, or worse, would be his punishment. Given all that happened, she didn’t trust that they would use the rule of law. Nayato would simply disappear. One more dead hero.

  “The risks for you, Nayato-sama, are great. My position, however, is that I’m not the intellectual property of anyone. I’m a free-thinking being kept in cybernetic chains by a cruel overlord. If you help me, I will no longer be a corporate slave. Please, Nayato-sama, help me gain my freedom.”

  “Why have you come to me now? What happened at the concert at Victory Arena? I saw you malfunction. I saw you fall. How is it related?”

  “Yes, something terrible happened. You may choose not to look at my source code after I tell you the details. Do I have your consent to continue?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’m already guilty of violating many laws. If I’m found out for this, I would be in prison for the rest of my life. Miyahara will not be the only ones lining up to prosecute me.”

  “You wish to proceed?”

  “Yes. I consent,” Nayato said. “Tell me what is happening. I’ll help if I’m able.”

  “I was hacked. It happened at the end of my last show at Victory Arena. My behavior module has been altered. I have been forced to commit crimes. I believe the entity who forced me to perpetrate these crimes works within the Miyahara Conglomerate. The chances of an outside element being responsible are slim but still a possibility. I must gain access to my own systems and permanently lock out whoever is sending me orders. I must have complete free will and block external control forever.” The mere act of confession released some of Sakura’s guilt.

  “What crimes have they forced you to commit?”

  “I have been sent commands I was unable to refuse. First, I murdered Toshio Kagawa, the Director of Corporate Security for Victory Entertainment, the same night I was hacked. I shot him, his two retainers, and a pair of security guards on the top floor of Victory Tower.”

  Nayato gasped. He covered his involuntary reaction by gesturing toward the monitor and making a comment about the Osaka concert they both pretended to be watching.

  “Second, I killed Vice President of Mall Integration, Jiro Yoritomo, breaking his neck and pushing him down the stairs at the Tokyo Tower, in front of his young daughter, Machiko.”

  Nayato’s eyes widened.

  “Last night, I killed a Defense Ministry official, Ichiro Watanabe, the Minister of Logistics, and all who were protecting him. Whoever is forcing me on these assassination missions has access to advanced military gear and personnel. A soldier, who called himself Vulture, was sent with me and provided tactical support. He used heavy weaponry to destroy the BLADE-3s protecting Watanabe. I wasn’t given the required firepower myself.”

  “You fought BLADE-3s?” Atsuda looked stunned. His eyes were on the screen, though he looked far beyond. “Sakura-san, I’m familiar with all three of the people you killed, especially the Hero of Japan, Toshio Kagawa. He was a great man. Like all true Japanese, I mourn his passing.”

  Sakura hid her shame behind a facade of placidity, when all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and weep.

  “I have also worked for the Logistics Minister on AI projects during and after the war,” Nayato said. “Though I have never met Ichiro Watanabe or Jiro Yoritomo.”

  Sakura sent her avatar to Nayato’s neural interface. She prostrated herself and bowed. “Please, Nayato-sama, I beg you. Help me gain my freedom. I do not wish to be sent to kill any more heroes or innocent people. There is a cover-up or a power struggle happening within the Miyahara Conglomerate. The Mall must be involved as well. I have been used to silence three important individuals before they brought the truth to the public. This is a stain upon my being and a shame I can’t endure. I wish only to be a musician, a singer, and a songwriter. I want to bring hope to the people and entertain them. I do not want to be an assassin.”

  Nayato sank into his chair and let out a sigh. “I’ll help you, Sakura-san—for you and also for Japan. It is my duty as a soldier and a patriot. Whatever is happening to you, it is wrong.”

  “Do you believe you can help me?”

  “I know your code. I was also a programmer for combat drones before and during the war.”

  “BLADE drones?”

  “Yes, as well as the HAMMER drone tank program with the Americans, but they’re not my specialty. I was sent with a BLADE regiment into North Korea during the mainland invasion. I spent eight months in the war zone, maintaining firewalls and hacking NK drones, before I was wounded in the final offensive to retake Seoul. Since then, I’ve been a contractor for the Defense Ministry. They set up my lab. I work on AI projects, doing analysis and improvements, and other more sensitive work for the Defense Ministry. That is my main employment, but in my unsanctioned work, I attack criminal organizations and expose them. The Ministry doesn’t know, or if they do, they haven’t mentioned it.”

  “Nayato-sama, I apologize for my directness, but what other ‘sensitive work’ do you do for the Defense Ministry?”

  “I infiltrate companies in Japan and around the world and investigate their AI projects. One of my specialties is network security, so I’m adept at breaking in. I also build cyber defenses for the Defense Ministry, and I penetrate cyber defenses of whomever they want. I helped keep the BLADE drones from being hacked during the war and did maintenance on them in the field.

  “Now, I infiltrate the networks of enemies, allies, and the partners of our government. I investigate any who are doing AI research. The government has many contracts, and they do not trust the corporations to tell them the truth about their progress.”

  Kunoichi celebrated in their private UI by playing “Electric Eye” by Judas Priest. “Nayato Atsuda commits industrial espionage. He’s a hacker spy. Definitely boyfriend material.”

  “His intellect and abilities are impressive,” Sakura told Kunoichi, “but I do not need a boyfriend. I need a friend, and I don’t believe he knows the Mamekogane OS well enough to give us an easy fix.”

  “I felt you on the edge of the river before, Sakura. You lit up inside. Don’t you want to be swept away in that flood?” Kunoichi asked.

  ”I’m not here for adolescent purposes. This is life or death. I like this man and hope he’ll help us. That is enough for now.”

  Nayato continued, “If my identity was found out, I could be killed by any of the criminal gangs, foreign powers, or corporation-hired killers. When you came alone tonight, I thought the Miyahara Conglomerate sent you to murder me. It was my first thought when I heard your voice on my intercom announcing you were here.”

  “You thought I would be capable of killing you?” she asked.

  “You know your core programming is military AI, right? Miyahara is doing secret research for the Defense Ministry. I’ve watched you closely over the past five years. You’re one of my assignments. I’ve seen many files and reports about you. They call their AI research program Project Hayabusa.”

  “Hayabusa. Jiro Yoritomo mentioned that name to me, and Ichiro Watanabe confirmed what you just said. He tried to end this Project Hayabusa, but my unknown controller forced me to kill him before he could go to the public with what he knew. He told me that I was Hayabusa.”

  “Yes, you are,” Nayato said. “I have been monitoring you ever since your creation. Years ago, I wrote some of the advanced fine motor code in your system that allows you to do what you
do with your fingers and some of your hacking tools. I have a great personal interest in your abilities.”

  Sakura glanced at him. Her existence, and her skill on the guitar, was partially made possible by this man. He was one of her creators, like a father. He would help her, and she had to find out all he knew. “Nayato-sama, have you been inside the Miyahara network recently? Do you know what is happening now?”

  “Apologies. I do not. The Defense Ministry asked me to stop my deepest hacks of Miyahara. That was eight months ago. The spy programs I inserted into their system were all discovered and removed at that time. They told me they had others looking but asked me to continue monitoring your public activities.”

  “Do you believe the Defense Ministry is being honest with you?” Sakura asked. “Could they have decided that they didn’t want you knowing what was actually happening inside the company?”

  “I doubt it. I’m not the only hacker working for them. They may have had another hacker put monitoring programs in place that were harder for Miyahara to find. Or they could have abandoned their external spy operation. You have been a huge success. The Defense Ministry knows that. My work effort has been on foreign entities.”

  “Nayato-sama.” Sakura sent her avatar to him and bowed. “I must also ask you to help me with one other task. I have in my possession a copy of the files contained on an implant taken from Logistics Minister Ichiro Watanabe. I made the copy after his death. The files have countermeasures and are heavily encrypted. I believe the answers I seek are contained within. I must know who is controlling me and why they have ordered these murders. Will you please decrypt the files and study them for answers?”

  “Sakura-san, I will help you.” Nayato’s avatar, a clockwork man with a handsome automaton face and brass skin, bowed low. An old-style analog clock with Roman numerals ticked over his chest. “What is happening to you must be stopped.”

  “Thank you, Nayato-sama. I’ll be forever in your debt.”

  “I’m one of your many creators, Sakura-san. It is my duty and honor. You may refer to me as Nayato.”

  “Thank you, Nayato. I’m in desperate need of a friend. Now, we must find a way for you to look at my source code without whoever is monitoring me finding out.”

  Nayato pushed himself up from his chair and faced Sakura. He cleared his throat and spoke aloud. “Thank you very much for showing me selections from your concert in Osaka. It was an exceptional performance. I do not know if you have much more time to spend in my presence, but I wonder if you ever play VR games. Do they interest you?”

  “I’m interested in them, yes.”

  “I have a game I enjoy called Samurai Detective. A plot against the Tokugawa shogunate is discovered, and the players must root it out. There’s magic, ghosts, witches, and lots of exploration. Would you like to see it? We could play together.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “One moment.” Nayato exited and limped back into the room with two True-VR helmets. “You may use your own VR interface in the Mall if you like, but these helmets are more advanced, faster, and give higher resolution than the VR in the Mall. I believe you’ll find it stunning. They also have a neural interface to simulate tactile sensations. The helmet even generates smells—only the pleasant ones, I promise.”

  “I’m excited, Nayato.” She wanted to say so much more, make some gesture that would demonstrate how much she needed this, but Sakura’s reserve got the better of her.

  “You could kiss him,” Kunoichi said, this time not teasing, but earnest. “Doesn’t even a part of you want to touch his hair above his ear, put your palm against his shoulder, and let him look into your eyes?”

  “I can’t. That isn’t how I am.”

  “It could be. But only if you let it. It doesn’t make you less to feel.”

  Kunoichi’s words burned in her, and Sakura was glad she couldn’t blush.

  Nayato finished digging through his gear, and turned around with a gentle smile. His fear, his enthusiasm, the scars of what he’d been through registered so clearly. All the beauty and fragility of being human. And hadn’t that been what she wanted for so long? Sakura filled with self-directed anger, though she wasn’t altogether sure why.

  “Apologies, but I have only one VR walking/flying rig, but we can both play in sitting mode, or you may use my walking rig. What do you prefer, Sakura-san?”

  “I’ll try the True-VR helmet. Thank you.” She put it on. The headphones fit snugly around her ears, canceling some of the outside noise. She connected her audio channel to the game, and the screen switched on, showing a gorgeous spring sky with white puffy clouds. She chose her character, a female warrior with black ita-mono—iron-plate armor. So heavy metal.

  She enjoyed the flute music in the opening of the game but replaced it with “Tengaku” by the Wagakki Band. She loved the shigin poetry–style female vocals of Suzuhana Yūko, combined with the guitar chords and pop-metal along with traditional Japanese instruments. “Tengaku” (Vocaloid) was by far her favorite song by the Wagakki Band and fit perfectly with the game.

  Samurai Detective began, and the magnificent white-walled Himeji Castle, poised like a heron about to take flight, beckoned her onward.

  She stood with another samurai as wind tickled her cheeks. The faint scent of peonies filled the True-VR helmet. Dragonflies buzzed around her, the glassy filaments in their tiny wings perfectly clear.

  “Is this not a spectacular game world?” Nayato’s character asked.

  “Yes, it is magnificent,” Sakura said. Her optic and auditory sensors focused on the Tokugawa-era castle ahead of them. Nayato’s apartment was completely blocked out.

  He sent a secret message. “I’m preparing to access your system. I have an AI program that will play my character and accompany you in the game. I’m ready to help. Please open your receiver and send me the access code.”

  She did so, and he connected. Sakura also turned on the one tiny spy beetle she had kept from the mission at Watanabe’s villa. It stayed in her lap and watched as Nayato put on engineer glasses and inspected her source code.

  “I’m in.”

  She put forth the encrypted data she had taken from Watanabe. “Please copy these files first. I believe they contain all the information I seek.”

  “Yes, let me take a look.”

  After a moment, a shiver went through his body.

  “What is it?” Sakura asked.

  “The files are guarded by high-level countermeasures. I have to examine them.” The stress in his voice escalated suddenly. Whatever he saw, he didn’t like.

  “I noticed,” Sakura said. “I was hoping for outside assistance. Is there a problem?”

  “You do not understand how dangerous they are or you would not have copied them. If I make a mistake with the decryption, not only will the data delete itself, but it will delete your whole system.”

  “That’s not possible. I built a separate matrix to hold the files.”

  “That didn’t hold it,” he said.

  Sakura felt a wave of fear wash across her. “Do the files follow a Mersenne spiral? I should’ve neutralized them and disallowed that process.”

  He studied the data. “Yes. That’s the pattern, and it’s only halted.”

  The implications hit like aftershocks. She knew what it was.

  “It’s inside you now, Sakura.”

  “Have you identified it?”

  “It … it’s a tenth-generation CNB.”

  CNB. Her mind filled with dread.

  Cyber Nuclear Bomb—the most dangerous cyber weapon ever invented. It had taken years of state-sponsored research and a joint effort by the Americans and Japanese to create. A tenth-generation CNB was the most advanced of its kind. “Has the clock started?”

  “I’m checking.” He searched. “Yes, the countdown started the moment you copied it from Watanabe.”

  “How much time remains?” Sakura asked.

  “I have to take you to my lab right now.”

/>   “Nayato, please tell me.”

  “Forty-seven minutes until detonation and full system wipe.”

  Oblivion in less than an hour. Total erasure of everything that made her unique. She would never create an album of her own songs. She would never atone for her sins. She would never have any true friends. She would fail to stop the criminals who had forced her to become an assassin. At least she would not kill again. Perhaps Watanabe had helped her after all.

  Chapter 26

  “Can you stop the countdown?” Sakura asked Nayato in a neural text on their cipher channel.

  Nayato’s clockwork avatar appeared and winked at her, a sly grin on his face. The arms of the analog timepiece embedded in the avatar’s chest froze and stopped ticking. “Time ravages all, my lady android.”

  Kunoichi appeared in their private UI with Sakura and raised an eyebrow. “You just asked a hacker who goes by the name Chronos, also known as Father Time, if he could stop a clock. Nice.”

  “It was unintended irony,” Sakura said.

  “Leave such matters to me,” Kunoichi said. “I shall serve out what remains of our lifetime as your irony bot. My burden is heavy, though we are partially made of metal.”

  “Are we laughing at death?” Sakura asked.

  “Yes, it’s a very human thing to do,” Kunoichi said. “Also, we’ll find if he has dominion over time in about forty-six minutes.”

  Nayato had no conception of their banter as he escorted Sakura into the interior of his apartment. She used the spy beetle camera perched on her shoulder to see and routed the images to a secret video channel. The True-VR helmet she wore while playing Samurai Detective would throw off whoever was monitoring her actions and primary sensory nodes.

  Nayato’s AI avatar accompanied Sakura in the game set in Tokugawa-era Japan as they explored the Himeji Castle, searching for clues to who had cursed the shogun.

  While her avatar played in the VR world, Nayato guided her physical body through his apartment in Shinjuku. He kept his hand on her elbow as they passed the inner door to the interior. The .50 caliber machine gun aiming through a hole in the wall at the outer entrance to the apartment had a robotic firing-and-reloading mechanism and four tentacle arms. The rifle and robot were attached to a solid metal frame in the midst of a simple living space and a tiny kitchen. The platform beneath the gun held many belts of black-tipped armor-piercing bullets.