by Satoshi Hase
“None of that changes the most important thing,” Shinohara said. “Our first priority has to be protecting MemeFrame. We need to bring the Lacia-class units in before the world discovers that our products were leaked into the wild.” The only reason this information hadn’t been leaked was that the people in power remained unsure of what the ramifications would be once the news had gone public.
As the only one at the meeting who couldn’t drink, Ryo quickly became frustrated as the alcohol took the conversation around in idiotic circles. “We’re still debating internally about ethics with all of these problems piling up at our doorstep,” Ryo said. “Meanwhile, Higgins’ red box puppets keep throwing their weight around. They think a lot faster than we do, you know. We’re just sitting ducks, waiting for them to end us.”
Kengo Sugiri’s arrest had saddened Ryo. His classmate’s misfortune had come because he was tied up with the Antibody Network, but it had all started when he’d gotten involved with the Lacia-class units. In other words, Kengo was an indirect victim of MemeFrame’s shoddy oversight.
Suzuhara leaned his elbows on the table. “It’s nice being young; you see so much potential in the world,” he said pointedly. “Me, I think the whole reason Higgins’ drones refuse to be broken up is because it lets the company continue to go through disposable personnel. All you young types are just rounds in the chamber, waiting to be shot off once and thrown away while the old boys flock around Higgins and get fat under its care. Not a pretty picture,” he said.
“Do you consider Ginga Watarai one of those ‘young types’?” Ryo asked.
“Of course. He was, what, forty? Still a young buck,” Suzuhara said with a nod. The older man’s eyes, which had been lazy and distant, suddenly sharpened. “Have you managed to get access rights for Higgins, Kaidai?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Ryo said. As soon as the answer left his lips, he regretted it. Suzuhara and Shinohara had both already attained that position. They knew.
“Changing the subject a bit,” Suzuhara said. “But I’ve heard quite a few young types have been joining up with anti-automation movements, like that Antibody Network your friend got arrested for. Doesn’t that seem a bit odd?”
The moment he heard Suzuhara’s words, Ryo couldn’t keep his forehead and eyebrows from drawing down in anger.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this, as someone who works for an hIE company,” Suzuhara continued. “But automation allows those with facilities already in place to make money without any exertion whatsoever. If you’re a beneficiary on that side of things, automation just makes things better for you. But, what about the new guys just starting out in society, and the children being born right now?”
“I guess you’re asking that from the perspective that the haves aren’t planning to do anything to protect the have-nots,” Ryo mused. “So we’re all going to go up in flames. I’ve always thought that our world wasn’t made of water; it’s not just going to evaporate when it gets lit on fire. Our world is made of oil that was always going to catch fire someday.”
“Oh, I’m aware of how flammable our world is,” Suzuhara agreed. “That’s exactly why the folks who depend on Higgins to be their lifeline will never let you get close to it. They’ll let you run around doing whatever else you want, but they don’t intend to ever give you the data on where Higgins is, or provide you with access privileges.”
Ryo looked at the clock hung in the restaurant. It had been twenty minutes since he’d gotten the notice that Kouka had been destroyed. It was time for him to have a plan in place.
“Things are even worse than you think,” Suzuhara went on. “MemeFrame created the Lacia-class units precisely because of the company’s focus on protecting access to Higgins.”
Ryo knew what Suzuhara was talking about, and it made him twist his mouth in disgust. He’d learned about it once he had entered into the confidence of the Computer Faction. The first Lacia-class, Kouka, had been created in 2101, while Lacia, the newest of the units, had been made in 2105, with a gap of four years in between. With the company divided internally, and no one knowing who was part of which faction, there was no way that information about the Lacia-types wasn’t known to most people within the company. It seemed to Ryo that Suzuhara and his group must have reluctantly agreed to let it happen while blaming everything on the Computer Faction.
“If you know that much about the situation,” Ryo said, “then tell me who signed off on creating units using those design specifications. I think everyone saw the red boxes as massive accumulations of production knowledge, and no one felt like actually putting a stop to their production. Of course, I doubt that any of you thought they’d ever get out into the world.”
Suzuhara finally set aside his cup of sake. “Yeah, that was our mistake,” he admitted. “A bad mistake. We don’t have any excuse for what happened.”
“I don’t mind mistakes,” Ryo said. “It’s something we humans do, and it’s probably better than relying on an ultra high-performance AI for all your answers and losing the ability to think for yourself.” Which isn’t to say that Ryo trusted the open system known as humanity, either. He knew that it didn’t take much digging under the surface to find the tragic, barbaric vices that humanity was trying to overcome. Despite that, he thought it was too dangerous, thinking of the Lacia-class units as being the tickets to the future of society.
“Why are you hanging around with the folks who worship Higgins, anyway?” Suzuhara asked. “You seem to me like the type that would be roasting the adults on that side.”
As the conversation drifted in an unforeseen direction, Shinohara ordered some new drinks to lighten the mood. Ryo was thankful for the relief. “Is that how I seem, to you?” he asked.
“I think you’re looking in the wrong place for the answers you want,” Suzuhara told him. “If you asked some humans rather than wanting Higgins to answer you, I think you’d find the answers you’re after faster.”
Ryo felt as though something heavy had fallen into the darkness in his heart. His anger throbbed, burning hot in his stomach. “If you already have the answers to my questions, why don’t you just tell me? Right here, right now,” Ryo replied.
“Someone as low on the totem pole as I am can’t tell you much,” Suzuhara said. “But, what I can tell you is that humans are never perfect. Anything that humans work with is bound to have some amount of human error.”
Ten years earlier, when Ryo had been caught up in that shady explosion incident, Suzuhara had already been part of the internal struggle as a member of the Human Faction. No matter how much Ryo feared handing over the world to AIs, it wasn’t like leaving it in human hands would make things much better.
“It’s better to make mistakes, I think,” Suzuhara shot back at Ryo. “We all make mistakes and then lift each other up; that’s healthy.”
“There are thirty-nine ultra high-performance AIs out there capable of calculating our actions, including our mistakes,” Ryo said. “If we keep shrugging off our own mistakes just because we’re human, the red boxes those AIs made will eat us alive.”
After that, Suzuhara’s mood slid downhill rapidly. After all, he had been blamed for almost letting a red box, Methode, kill Shiori. In the end, he had been forced to step down as her guardian in the company.
As they said their farewells, Suzuhara muttered something as if to himself. “Honestly, I’m sick of it. I even hate hearing the name ‘Computer Faction.’ Those bastards stick students out on the front line while they sit back where it’s safe, pulling in all the money.”
Ryo and Shinohara saw him off in front of the restaurant. As Suzuhara headed for the train station, Ryo waited until he was a good distance away before spitting out, “All he did was whine.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Shinohara said. “I think what he was saying was a lot like what Major Collidenne said to you this afternoon.” The wind howled between the buildings in front of the Shin-Toyosu station, tugging hard at their clothes.
Since Higgins surpassed the brains of every employee working at MemeFrame, the company had nowhere for new leaders to grow and threaten the current upper management. That’s what kept the company stable. Thanks to that, the business continued to grow. If any real problems arose, Ryo’s father—the company president, Tsuyoshi Kaidai—could easily get rid of the entire management staff like a lizard ditching its tail. The reason Ryo and his sister had been pulled into the internal politics of the company was so that those who opposed their father could wear away some of his power while throwing their chips in with the next generation. Any company in which the politics were more important than efficiency was bound to be full of delays and roadblocks.
“What a couple of simpletons. We should just kill them,” a deep voice said from behind Ryo. It was Methode, who had been waiting outside of the restaurant for him. At a glance, she looked just like a human. Suzuhara had thought he would be able to easily spot Methode due to her mechanical parts, but it was a simple matter for her to hide her obviously robotic bits with skin-colored spray and holographics.
“Don’t talk like that,” Ryo said. “Those two are important staff members, at least to me.”
Both Shinohara and Suzuhara had shown Ryo methods of negotiating and how to notice things in people that Ryo had never known about before. In just a short amount of time, the two of them had managed to reach a sort of understanding that both of them could agree on. The only problem was, the agreement they had reached had almost nothing to do with the more immediate and massive concerns that Ryo was facing.
“Hold out your hand,” Methode ordered, talking to him more like a partner on the same level as herself, rather than an owner. It was incredibly odd how a heartless machine like her could seem jealous of his interest in Shinohara and Suzuhara.
“Here’s the data you wanted,” she said. “I put in a request for it—a request they couldn’t refuse.” She was holding a small memory stick that contained Higgins’ calculations for Lacia’s combat abilities in a head-on conflict.
No matter how intelligent the red box that was leading Arato around by the nose was, it still couldn’t hold a candle to Higgins. Now that they had Lacia’s data from the very mind that had made it, they were ready to face it at last.
***
Arato Endo sat alone in his dark room.
He was watching the news, which was showing a restaurant he had seen so many times, now surrounded by the press. It was Kengo’s place, Sunflower. The back door of the store opened from inside, and Kengo, with some kind of cloth sheet covering the upper half of his body, was escorted out by two officers.
A sudden chill made Arato rub at his own arms fitfully. Sorrow froze him to the bone. “Is this reality?” he murmured. Kengo’s last words before his arrest were weighing heavily on Arato’s mind.
“I believe there would be no problem with you calling it that,” Lacia said.
Her words lit a raging, angry fire inside Arato. He honestly started to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if she hadn’t been there. Everything that was happening had started when he took her in.
Arato’s image of her, of which he had been so sure of not long before, had completely changed. Lacia hadn’t lifted a finger when Kengo had been arrested, or even when her own ‘sister’ unit, Kouka, had been destroyed.
“Arato, please try to think for yourself why a heartless machine like myself would be unable to respond to the discomfort you are feeling right now,” Lacia said. That gentle voice of hers was always there to give him guidance. It was oddly comforting to know that, even if he felt some disconnection in the way she was reacting, at least she wasn’t actually acting all that much different from normal.
“Is there something more important to you than comforting me right now?” Arato asked.
“I do not wish to exert any pressure on you, but I will say that, if you have decided to act, it would be best to do so as quickly as possible,” she replied.
It was only when Lacia gave him this advice that Arato realized what he should be doing. He grabbed his coat in a hurry, and headed for the door. How would he explain what he was about to do to Yuka?
He slipped out into the corridor like he was fleeing from something. Yuka must have heard his footsteps, as she poked her face into the hall from the living room. “Hey, Arato, have you seen the news?” she asked, her voice high and disturbed.
“Lacia and I are going out. Stay inside,” Arato ordered. “If something happens, call me on my terminal right away. You absolutely cannot go outside, understand? It’s too dangerous!”
“I’m going with you!” Yuka protested.
“Absolutely not,” Arato shook his head. “You can come out tomorrow.”
“I will be with him, so there is no need to worry,” Lacia said smoothly. “I have prepared a meal for dinner and left it in the refrigerator.”
Yuka’s eyes went wide as Lacia spoke as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on.
“Uh, yeah, okay,” Yuka agreed hesitantly.
“Ms. Yuka, your terminal is ringing,” Lacia pointed out.
“If you guys get back too late, then I’m eating without you,” Yuka said, returning to the living room to pick up her call like a well-trained puppy.
Arato rushed outside, where he was greeted by the frigid night air. He felt as if he could almost hear sirens, far off in the distance. One thing in particular was bothering Arato as they walked away from the apartment. “Was that call for Yuka from you?” he asked.
“It was not,” Lacia replied. “It was from Olga Sugiri. If we were still in the apartment, I’m sure Ms. Yuka would be rushing over just now, demanding that we allow her to accompany us.”
Looking up, Arato got lost for a moment in the wide night sky, which was spreading out in every direction. In order to get Kengo back, they were about to go do some things he didn’t want Yuka to see. That was how he had saved his friend the last time, as well.
All of this had happened because of Lacia. But, even if he regretted taking her in now, Lacia was also the key to fixing things. Arato felt that with Lacia’s power, he could fix things no matter how bad reality got. She was looking up at him, waiting for his orders.
“You asked me to design a future for us, right Lacia?” he asked, even knowing that his next request was unreasonable. “If you have the power to create any future I want, you should have the power to save Kengo,” he continued. “If you can’t manage that, how can you change the future?”
“Is that an order?” she asked.
Arato felt like heavy chains were wrapping around his heart. He was about to commit a crime. Still, he said the words. “Yes, that’s an order.”
Lacia closed her eyes and nodded lightly, as if it was only natural for her to obey the order.
Arato let out a long sigh, feeling that he was exhaling something that had been building up in his chest. “This shouldn’t have happened to Kengo,” he said heavily. “I know you said earlier that Kengo might not be able to return to a normal life, but I want to resolve that, too.”
In front of the apartment, Lacia did a quick sweep of their surroundings. Then she took a step closer to him, speaking in a low voice that only Arato would be able to hear. “Kengo Sugiri was arrested due to the fact that various forces in this society, of which you are unaware, are constantly working towards their own various goals. With all those powers moving toward their own interests, everyone in the world—aside from a small handful of people—turned away from Kengo Sugiri, and thus he fell,” she said.
“That’s a little too high-level of an explanation for me,” Arato remarked, scratching his head.
“There are too many people living in human society,” Lacia said, more simply. “Meaning that society cannot provide each and every perso
n with the resources or attention that would allow them to lead an optimal life. This is why I said that it would require a constant expenditure of resources to not only rescue Kengo Sugiri, but also to return his life to the way it was before the arrest.”
Lacia showed him a smile with no heart behind it. “Asking for you to confirm my actions is a good way to escape my own frame problem,” she said. “You taught me that, when facing strict deadlines, it is far easier to propose a plan and check whether it is acceptable than to attempt to force a right answer from the start.”
Arato wondered when he had said anything like that. Either way, Lacia was right; to him, this was an important concept.
She stared at him with her light blue eyes, probably waiting for a reaction. “Well, if what I taught you is true, then go ahead and get started,” he said. That night, he didn’t have time to get lost in those eyes. Tears stung at the corners of his own eyes, which had begun to feel hot. Arato understood how childish and selfish his request was.
But Lacia was good at taking imperfect human logic in stride. “I am a machine that controls the distribution of resources for my owner,” she said. “My request that you design a future was simply a request to create the basis for said distribution.”
An automatic car from the vehicle sharing service pulled up in front of the apartment and opened its doors. Lacia must have called it. “Let’s go,” she told him. “I will make your request a reality.” Lacia got into the car first, followed by Arato. The complete absence of any living human presence in the vehicle gave him a strange chill as he took his seat.
Yuka was sure to come chasing after them at any moment. As fellow little sisters in Arato’s circle of friends, Yuka and Olga were close. As the car took off, Arato looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Yuka run out still in her house clothes, heading for the spot that he and Lacia had just been in. Tears were streaming down her face as she ran. She was still in her flip-flops, and one caught on the ground, tripping her flat on her face.