Sword Art Online - Volume 10 - Alicization Running

by Reki Kawahara

  “...I can understand the American situation, but it's another thing whether we can accept this.”

  Rinko nodded slightly as she felt irritated by the sudden extraordinary thought of using unmanned weapons to carry out a war without injuries. She again stared at Kikuoka and questioned,

  “But why do you as a Self-Defense Officer, follow behind this stupid arms race? Or is this «RATH» research started by the military?"

  “HOW CAN THAT BE!?”

  Kikuoka denied it with a rare loud voice, but immediately reverted back to his usual smile and opened his arms wide in an exaggerated manner.

  “Or rather, it's the correct choice for us to float in a large ocean to hide from the American Army. The bases on the mainland can be clearly seen —and as for why we have to develop unmanned weapons at such a crazy rate... it's easy to explain that. Will you allow me to ask Kayaba-sensei why he wanted to create SAO?”

  “Of course you can.”

  Rinko answered with a deadpan expression, and Kikuoka showed a large forced smile as he shrugged his shoulders,

  “Pardon my rudeness for saying something I shouldn't have said. Yes... the biggest reason is that, currently in Japan, to put it simply, our defense technology is too weak”

  “Defense...technology?”

  “I suppose you can put it this way; the weapons are developed and produced from zero, but that is to be expected as no country exports weapons to Japan. It's the same for the manufacturers as well, since using the spending budget of the Self-Defense Forces to carry out deals would be completely meaningless. In the end, we had to buy the latest equipment from America and finally managed to carry out development together. But, to put it simply...the together here is just in name only, a one-sided thing.”

  The Self-Defense Officer adjusted the collar of his yukata, folded his arms, and continued explaining in a rather bitter tone,

  “For example, the support fighter jets that we're currently equipped with now are developed together with America, but in fact, they have hidden their latest technology and obtained the advanced technology which Japan created. As for the weapons we bought, what kind of capabilities will they have? Our main latest fighter jets that we bought looked as if the software -the brains, had been removed. So the American army has given us outdated technology and kept the good stuff... hm, I feel like an idiot saying these things.”

  Kikuoka grimaced again as he folded his legs on the console desk, shaking the clogs on his toes.

  “In regards to this situation, a group of our Self-Defense Officers and a group of young technicians from small and medium sized defense-related manufacturers have already felt a strong sense of danger. Can we keep relying on America for the core of our defense technology? That sense of danger was the driving force behind RATH's creation, where we want to create Japan's own technology. That's all we hoped.”

  Even though Kikuoka's words sounds rather admirable, to what extent should they be accepted? Rinko thought as she stared deep into the dark eyes deep within the black-framed glasses. However, the Self-Defense Officer's eyes did not show anything at all, as if they were the black-framed glasses themselves.

  Rinko looked away and stared at Higa Takeru who was sitting beside Kikuoka.

  “...Is your motive in taking part in this plan the same as well, Higa-kun? I didn't know that you had such awareness about the National Defense.”

  “No.”

  Higa Takeru scratched his head shyly in response to Rinko's words,

  “As for my motive - well, it's personal. I had a friend when I was a student in a Korean University, and he was deployed to Iraq for military service, only to be killed in a suicide bombing. Well... even if this world will have wars, I hope that humans won't die for such foolish reasons, I suppose.”

  “...But that Self-Defense Officer wanted to let unmanned weaponry become a technology only the Self-Defense Forces own, didn't he?”

  “Ya, Kiku-san did say this before, that although having sole ownership of this technology for a long time is impossible, he understands it will not be exclusively for this purpose so we can think of how to take the lead... and that's how it is.”

  The Self-Defense Officer grimaced in regards to Higa's straightforward words. At this moment, Asuna, who had been listening to the trio silently, said with a beautiful yet cold and clear voice,

  “You never told the nice ideals of yours to Kirito-kun, did you?”

  “...Why would you think so?”

  Kikuoka tilted his head, and Asuna stared straight at him with an unwavering look.

  “If you said it to Kirito-kun, he would definitely not assist you. There is an important flaw in your words.”

  “...And that is?”

  “The rights of Artificial Intelligence.”

  On hearing those words, Kikuoka twitched his eyebrows and frowned.

  “...No, it's true that we never said what we said here to Kirito-kun, but it's simply because we never had such a chance. He is a staunch realist too, right? If not, it would have been impossible for him to clear SAO.”

  “You still don't understand. If it's Kirito-kun, once he realizes the true situation of Underworld, he will definitely be furious at the operator. To him, wherever the place is, it's reality for him. He would not think it a virtual world with virtual life... that's why he cleared SAO.”

  “I don't understand. Artificial Fluctlights don't have bodies of flesh. Why do you say those aren't false lives?”

  Asuna's eyes were sorrowful... no, a tiny glint showed that she felt the adults in front of her were really pitiful as she slowly continued,

  “...Even if I say so, you'll likely be unable to understand... in a town on the 56th level of Aincrad, I said the exact same thing you said to him. There was a boss monster we had to beat no matter what, and in order to defeat it, we planned to use the NPCs... the villagers controlled by the AI to fight. But Kirito-kun declared that it should absolutely not be done, that NPCs were alive and there should be other means. The people in my guild laughed... but in the end, he was right. Even if they're Artificial Fluctlights, copies of media that were mass produced, Kirito-kun will never help if they're to be used as tools of wars and have to kill each other, definitely.”

  “—It's not like I don't understand what you're trying to say. It's true that Artificial Fluctlights have the same level of thinking ability as us humans. In that aspect, it's true that they're alive. However, this is a question of priority. To me, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Artificial Fluctlights versus the life of one Self-Defense Officer is less.”

  This is a debate that would never have an answer. Rinko thought. As for whether the Artificial Intelligence themselves have human rights —it would be a question that would never be concluded simply, even if a real bottom-up AI were released and the years of debate ended.

  As for what she herself was thinking, Rinko herself was unclear. As a scientist, the realism within me states that cloned souls were not lives. But at the same time, what will that person think? What if it was that person who hoped for «a certain place that wasn't here», created it and never came back—?

  Rinko broke the silence in this situation in order to drag her trail of thoughts back.

  “Speaking of which, why is Kirigaya-kun a must in this? There's a risk of leaking your most classified information, so why him...?”

  “—I see, we're having this conversation for explanatory purpose. I went off-topic and nearly forgot about what we were supposed to talk about.”

  Kikuoka looked like he was trying to escape from Asuna's extremely magnetic stare as he smiled, coughed, and continued,

  “Why is it that the residents of the Underworld can't disobey the Taboo Index... is it an issue with the construct of the Light Cube that contains the Fluctlights, or is there some reason in the nurturing? Let's repeat our discussion. If it were the former, there's a need to discuss redesigning the medium, and if it were the latter, we might be able to correct it. Thus, we tried an experime
nt. One of the technicians, a real human, had his memories fully blocked and became a young child again. We let him grow in the Underworld to see whether his actions would be similar to the Artificial Fluctlights.”

  “Do...doing such a thing, won't the brains of the test subjects be affected? If their lives are restarted... won't they be lacking in memories?”

  “Not at all... the Fluctlights can endure memories of around 150 years, which I did say before, didn't I? As for why would such a large margin exists, we have no idea... according to the Bible, people during Noah's time could live for hundreds of years, so I suppose we know what they were talking about. First, even though we talk about growing up, we're just letting him grow up to around ten years old, which will be enough for us to know if we can break through that Taboo Index. Of course, the memories generated from there will also be blocked, so when he returns back to reality, he'll be in the same state as before entering the STL.”

  “...Then, the results...?”

  “We recruited eight staff members to be test subjects, let them dive into Underworld and let them grow up in all sorts of environments. In the end... the shocking thing was that not a single one broke the Taboo Index before they were ten. Rather, it was the opposite of what we thought... they were less lively than Artificial Fluctlights and did not like to go out. They did not show an interest in getting to know their surroundings. We deduced that that's because of a sense of discomfort.”

  “Sense of discomfort?”

  “Even if we block all the memories from birth, it doesn't mean that we erased them completely. If that happens, they might never be able to return back to reality. Anyway, it's not about the «knowledge», but the «instinct» that represents how the body acts, preventing the researchers from getting used to Underworld. No matter how real it is, it is no different from virtual worlds created by The Seed. Once they entered, they could understand that it was slightly different from moving in reality. It was the same kind of discomfort as mine when I first used the Nerve Gear to test the closed beta of SAO.”

  “It's because of the sense of gravity.”

  Asuna simply said,

  “Gravity...?”

  “Unlike sight or hearing, part of the research on gravity and balance was a little late. That's because most of the signals rely on gravity to adjust our brains, so those who aren't used to it can't move as they please.”

  “Yes, that's what we are accustomed to.”

  Pa-tch, Kikuoka flicked his finger and agreed,

  “If we want to repeat all sorts of experiments, the need to get used to moving inside the virtual world would be a must, and we finally realized that. It's not just an experiment of days or months, but years. I suppose you understand now. I needed the person who's most used to the virtual world to help for this reason.”

  “—Hold on a moment.”

  Asuna again interrupted Kikuoka with a firm voice.

  “Are you referring to the «Continuous three days of diving» Kirito-kun talked about? ...But Kirito-kun said to us before that the maximum FLA function rate is 3 times, so he spent 10 days inside. Did you lie to him? Was it really 10 years...?”

  Kikuoka and Higa were hit with electrifying stares as they lowered their heads with alarmed expressions.

  “Sorry, about that, it was an error on the Roppongi branch's side. That's because I gave instructions to hide information of the acceleration rate completely...”

  “There's something worse than that! 10 years of Kirito-kun's soul lifespan was used for that. If his treatment fails because of this, I will definitely not forgive you.”

  “It's not really a reason, but Higa-kun and I had contributed to the experiment for more than 20 years —however, the 10 years Kirito-kun spent there was far less than the amount of Fluctlights the staff members all contributed.”

  “In other words, he did something that was against the Taboo Index when growing up in the Underworld?”

  Rinko could not help but interject, and Kikuoka smiled as he shook his head hard,

  “Strictly put, it's not like that, however, I can say that the results were more than I expected. From a young age, Kirito-kun displayed an unseen exuberance of curiosity and activity, that had many times verged on the edge of breaking the Taboo Index many times —of course, if his Fluctlight actually ended up breaking the Taboo Index, it indicates that the Artificial Fluctlights are structurally flawed, which I wouldn't be happy about. However, we continued to observe his actions and after he had spent around seven years or so inside... this Higa-kun here noticed a fact that's very interesting.”

  Higa interrupted Kikuoka's words and continued,

  “Yes, I was originally against Kirigaya-kun taking part in the experiment, both morally and out of security, and once I realized that fact, I had to say that I was impressed by Kiku-san's wise insight. We digitalized the importance of several clauses in the Taboo Index and checked on every resident's chances of breaking the Taboo Index. The Artificial Fluctlights of the boy and girl who had been interacting with Kirigaya-kun... -or Kirito-kun, inside there had been increasing their Taboo Breaking Index.”

  “Eh...? That means...”

  “In other words, Kirito-kun with his memories and personality in the real world sealed, was able to affect the actions of the Artificial Fluctlights around him. To put it in easier terms, his exuberance spread to others, or something like that.”

  Rinko detected that Asuna's lips was showing a slight smile on her lips after hearing Higa's description. Perhaps those words were easy for Asuna to understand.

  “...Right now, as for why the Artificial Fluctlights won't disobey the rules, we can't completely discern the reason. It's likely due to the elements used to build the Light Cube, but we already felt that there's no need to take the job of analyzing it thoroughly as a priority. To us, we don't want to solve the problem completely, we just want one exception, a real highly adaptive Artificial Intelligence that has a concept of «Prioritizing Rules», and once we clone it, we should be able to get some reasons.”

  “I don't really like such thinking... but in the past, breakthroughs have been made through that method, I suppose?”

  Exhaling slightly, Rinko asked Higa,

  “Then, have you obtained that exception?”

  “There is one that landed in our hands. That girl who was the closest existence to Kirito-kun finally disobeyed the Taboo Index before the experiment ended, and it was a very severe crime of «Intruding the Forbidden Zone». After inspecting the records, we found that there was another Artificial Fluctlight that died in the forbidden zone the girl saw. Most likely, she wanted to save him, and if I say so, that girl values other people's lives more than the Taboo Index. That's the adaptability we have been searching for. Well, it was completely different from actualizing a weapon; «breaking the ethics and killing someone» is really an ironic thing.”

  “...You said it once before, didn't you?”

  “Ah —yes. Unfortunately... we could not hold tight onto the jewel that landed in our hands...”

  Higa lowered his shoulders and continued to shake his head left and right,

  “...As I just said, the time inside Underworld is passing at a shocking speed of 1,000 times the real world. It's not possible to monitor it from the outside in realtime, so we sliced what we recorded into many segments and slowly replayed them using many of our staff to watch them. During that though, there would definitely be a large lag as compared to the time inside. We stopped the server once we found out that the girl broke the Taboo Index and wanted to physically eject the Light Cube to preserve her Fluctlight... at that time, around two days had passed inside. Then, what was shocking was that the Integrity Church had brought the girl to Central within 2 days and applied some form of correction to the Fluctlight.”

  “Co...correction? You gave that much authority to the ones you're observing?”

  “That shouldn't be the case... or probably not. The residents of the Underworld have some form of authority to main
tain law and order, and those who are able to carry out the system limit that the high class residents called «Sacred Arts» are those priests of the Integrity Church, the ones with the highest authority. Maybe it's not just lifespan they can manipulate, but they found a backdoor to the system without us knowing...well, I'll read the data for further details later; «Alice»'s past and present Taboo Breaking Index.”

  “Alice...?”

  Asuna suddenly lifted her head and muttered. Rinko started to understand the meaning of this term as well. It should be the one name worth mentioning from the acronyms of the «Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence» Kikuoka and Higa were pursuing.

  Kikuoka seemed to detect their doubts as he nodded in agreement and said,

  “That's right. That's the name of the girl in question who had been with Kirito-kun and the other boy. The names of all the residents of Underworld were all randomized pronunciation, so we were really shocked by this amazing coincidence when we knew that the girl's name was Alice. That's because that's the name of the concept in the entire plan this organization RATH has.”

  “Concept?”

  “the Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence Self-Existence, Artificial Labile Intelligence Cybernetic Existence. If we take the first letter from each word «A, L, I, C, E»... the aim of our research is to let the photon clouds sealed within the LightCube become «Alice». The staff called it «Alice-ing».”

  The Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka Seijirou still showed a smile that was hard to comprehend even as these secrets were known, and said,

  “Welcome, to our «Project Alicization».”

  ↑ He is referring to a famous movie called "The Truman Show" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show

  Part 3

  —You created so many unreasonable things.

  Even though it was a machine made from the data she provided, Koujiro Rinko could only be as amazed as ever.