Beatless: Volume 2

by Satoshi Hase

  The car accelerated, tires squealing on the asphalt. Even if they dove straight out of the frying pan and into the fire, at least Lacia was there by his side—this thought made Arato feel good, even though it was certainly neither the time nor the place.

  Sharp, metallic sounds rang out all around the car. Thanks to Lacia’s interference, the dozen or more missiles that had been fired at them were being thrown off course and crashing into the road, where they rolled away without exploding. The automatic vehicle didn’t even slow as it corrected its course to weave between the unexploded missiles on the pavement in front of them.

  “Everything’s going to be alright,” Arato told himself reassuringly. “Lacia’s got this.”

  Two helicopters were tailing them from only a little ways behind, following them on their path. With the moon and clouds at their backs, they cast black, ominous shadows on the ground. The sound of their rotors was close enough to be painful to Arato’s ears.

  Missiles continued to rain down from the sky without exploding. As the car lurched back and forth to avoid them, Lacia pushed the top half of her body out of the car window, hefting the spear-launcher. She pulled the trigger, and Arato heard a light whistling noise split the air.

  “Lacia, don’t kill anyone!” he shouted. “Just get them to let us go.”

  “Understood. I will switch tactics to force them to land,” she acknowledged. Just as she’d said so, Arato watched one of the helicopters descend vertically and come to a rest on top of a nearby building, its rotors spinning to a stop.

  “In order to take control of machines that do not receive external signals, I am using harpoons containing artificial nerve units to access the system directly,” Lacia explained. “With these, I believe that even if the enemy deploys fully autonomous weapons as a countermeasure to my hacking, they will not represent a significant threat.”

  Lacia’s hair danced in the headwind. Despite them being completely surrounded by a military unit, she already seemed to be more concerned with what might happen later down the road.

  A sudden jerk from the car swung Arato’s body around with fierce centrifugal force, and he saw a tank through the windshield. The automatic car didn’t even slow down as it approached the armed vehicle and passed it by at high speed. It had apparently been no trouble at all for Lacia to shut the tank down.

  “Arato, we should split up here,” Lacia said. “We will soon be approaching the area where the army soldiers are deployed.”

  “Split up?” Arato asked. “How are we supposed to do that when we’re in a moving vehicle?”

  “I need you to get out of the car,” Lacia said. “Please, just trust me.”

  The car door opened on its own, and Arato did trust Lacia. It wouldn’t make sense for her to have argued so fiercely with Astraea on his behalf, only to immediately turn around and betray him. With those thoughts in his mind, Arato was able to fight down his fear and brace himself to jump from the speeding car. Telling himself that Lacia would never betray him, he let out a yell that sounded like a barely-contained scream, and threw himself from the car.

  The car’s chassis wasn’t very high off the ground, so jumping off was more like simply rolling out onto the road. Just as Arato expected to feel the deadly grind of his body sliding at high speed across the asphalt, he felt something soft catch him, instead. After an instant of feeling himself sinking into something very comfortable, Arato heard the sound of metal sliding on asphalt, and his body started to float.

  Arato held his body low, holding on desperately so as not to be thrown from whatever had caught him. Whatever it was, it slowed down with each moment that passed as the speeding car carrying Lacia left him far behind. Looking down, Arato saw that the thing carrying him was a large metal object, floating about fifty centimeters off the ground.

  “Wait,” Arato asked himself, “is this Lacia’s device?” It certainly looked like Lacia’s black coffin, only about half as thick, and it was missing the seams from the shape-shifting mechanism. It was like riding a metallic flying carpet, and the device continued to decelerate until it came to a complete stop, floating stationary in the air with Arato still atop it.

  Raising his eyes, Arato saw that five other metal plates were floating around him. It was immediately obvious to him who had sent the strange metal shapes, which were black enough to cut visibly through the darkness of the night.

  〈I attempted to create some devices to aid in protecting you, Arato, though I’m afraid they’re nothing more than by-products from when I developed a dummy version of Black Monolith,〉 Lacia’s voice explained, projected from one of the simple devices. 〈They should be more effective at protecting you than my actual body.〉

  The sound of distant gunshots was swallowed into the night sky. Far ahead on the street, Lacia’s car was under fire from the platoon of soldiers that had been deployed behind the tank. In moments, the car was riddled with bullet holes and burst into flames.

  Without thinking about it, Arato stepped down off the floating plate and stood on his own feet. He figured that, if Lacia had thought far enough ahead to prepare the plates for him, she probably had the whole situation planned out down to the last detail. Still, he couldn’t help but stare in shock as the burning car left a flaming trail through the night.

  He couldn’t fight down the feeling that something was very wrong. Lacia had told Astraea that she would prove that ultra high-performance AIs could be forced to shut down, even without orders from their owners. Based on that logic, it didn’t have to be Higgins that was shut down; Lacia herself could be shut down, and still prove her point.

  〈I will provide guidance for your escape. I will be directing large-scale equipment over to you, so please break through the cordon at this point,〉 Lacia’s voice came from the speakers on one of the plates again, and a display on the back of the plate showed a map of the area.

  Lacia was alright.

  The six floating armored plates formed a hexagonal barrier around Arato, about a meter in length on each side, and without a single gap between them. In the seams between the plates, Arato could see faintly glowing metamaterial. The floating shields completely obscured Arato’s natural vision. Instead, the screen on each showed him the surroundings outside the barricade.

  “She wants me to bust through a military blockade with this?” Arato wondered aloud. But then he steeled himself. “No, I’ve got to trust her.”

  He walked forward, following the path indicated on the digital map. His floating wall of devices rotated around him, providing protection from every side. Arato could hear rattling sounds from outside of the barrier, like small rocks hitting an aluminum can. The sound steadily increased in intensity, like light rain building into an evening downpour. It was the sound of gunfire hitting his shields.

  〈The plates currently have the defensive capabilities of an armored recon drone, something achievable with current human technology,〉 Lacia said. 〈But they should be more than sufficient in this case, considering the equipment of the squads that will be attacking you.〉

  She wasn’t kidding about the strength of the armor, Arato thought. The floating plates shrugged off bullets and anti-tank rounds from all sides with no sign of weakening.

  Through the display projected on his barrier, Arato saw that soldiers ahead were blocking off his route, using armored vehicles as barriers. He waved his hand at them, hoping they would just clear out of the way for him.

  As if Arato’s hand—giant compared to the soldiers on his device’s display—had actually struck the barricade, soldiers went flying. The armored vehicles were running wild, sweeping the soldiers aside to clear the path for Arato.

  He could hear shouts of anger from the nearby army encampment. The soldiers on the screen were already trying to reform, but Arato held up his hand as if to stop them in their tracks. Buildings on either side of the street exploded from within, showering window glass onto the soldiers like rain. The soldiers, wearing only their field uniforms, had no ch
oice but to retreat to a safer location.

  “What the hell is going on?” Arato asked, surprise leaking into his voice. It wasn’t like he had actually gained the power to make things explode by gesturing. Apparently, Lacia was watching him from a distance and translating his hand movements into directions to get rid of the soldiers.

  Arato ran, aiming to break through the military cordon. He met no resistance, as if he had the whole road to himself. Of course, the endless pitter-patter of bullets raining against his giant shields continued, but that was all.

  Lacia was keeping her eye on Arato’s progress, guiding him on his path. Each time he made even the smallest gesture, she interpreted it as a command, and controlled the world around him.

  Arato couldn’t keep a level head. He knew that he was perfectly safe within the barrier, but couldn’t stop running like his life depended on it. His whole body was burning hot. Of course if, as Lacia said, humans were systems that included their tools and surroundings, there was no way he could be expected to keep a level head in this situation.

  His heart thrilled, as though his entire being had been stretched into something giant. If he went by what Lacia had said earlier, the two of them together formed one complete unit, which meant that the power of an ultra high-performance AI could actually be considered his own power. Still, Arato got the uncomfortable feeling that he shouldn’t get too used to having that power at his command.

  The power was as intoxicating as a drug, pushing him forward, making him feel like he could do anything. A small part of his mind, though, reminded him that he could just be drowning in an illusion, led along by Lacia.

  He wanted to get his feelings and thoughts under control.

  Before he realized it, Arato’s breathing had gotten ragged. He slowed to a walk, and spoke to Lacia, whom he was sure was listening. “Why are they attacking us this violently?” he asked.

  〈They are afraid of us,〉 Lacia replied, simply.

  Arato could have used a breeze, but no wind could get through the armored barrier that was protecting him from the attacks.

  〈Astraea stated earlier that society required widespread agreement, but this is incorrect. Political and world viewpoints, when compared minutely, show a large amount of disconnect in reality. This disconnect causes chaos, which leads humans to make errors such as illogical decisions, or to rely too heavily on their instincts,〉 Lacia explained.

  She spoke as if all the soldiers pointing their guns at him, and all the humans in the city, were all making these errors. Of course, with bullets pinging off his shield, Arato couldn’t exactly say that those errors were one of the things that made humans wonderful. With Lacia protecting him, Arato started to think that the ground passing under his feet was the only thing he had won that day.

  〈The material distribution system in today’s society has fully incorporated these errors,〉 Lacia, his guardian angel, continued. 〈Therefore, any being that attempts to mitigate these errors will appear to humans as if they were trying to institute a new social system.〉

  Surely Japan, which had authorized the attacks on him, wasn’t the only country that shared the same feelings. It sounded like she was saying that Arato no longer had a place in human society.

  On one of the armor plate screens, Arato saw Lacia crossing a bridge blocked off by tanks. While she ran, she sent him a route that would get him straight across the Tokyo Bay.

  “I know you’re following my orders not to kill anyone, but I feel like we’re still piling up wounded like this,” Arato said. “Please, just tell me the fastest way to get out of here.” Stabbing his finger into the map, he drew a straight line right through the group of soldiers in his path, without any idea of how Lacia would interpret his gesture. A cluster of shadows flew over his head; the unexploded missiles Lacia had taken control of earlier. Arato heard the commander of the soldiers screaming for them to retreat. His voice was drowned out by a massive, fiery explosion.

  While the explosion bloomed, one of the six plates detached itself from the barrier and slipped under Arato’s feet like a flying surfboard. “So I’m supposed to ride this?” Arato wondered aloud. He crouched down, keeping his body low so that he wouldn’t slide off as soon as the thing accelerated. The floating plate carried him toward the fire.

  A message on the plate said ‘Please hold your breath’ and showed a countdown to when he would pass through the fire. Lacia really had prepared every single thing beforehand. Arato couldn’t even tell anymore whether Lacia was guiding him, or if he was just dancing on her strings. Still, he somehow felt calm, like everything was as it should be.

  What worried him, instead, was the thought that someday, the time he was sharing with Lacia might end. Automation was making everything easy for him, but in the end he was just being carried along by time and circumstance.

  It was far beyond his capabilities to foresee where the massive analog hack—the complete change of human consciousness that would be brought about by the conflict with Higgins—would take humanity.

  ***

  The battle on the 1st Tokyo Bay Landfill Island wasn’t being broadcast on any news station, but the situation was being monitored from various locations. One of those locations was a large meeting room on the top floor of a high-class hotel in Marunouchi.

  The battle between Lacia and the Japanese military was being projected into the empty center of a donut-shaped desk. Recon drones had been dispatched by the people gathered in that room for that very purpose.

  “So that’s the new ultra high-performance AI, huh?” Kimitaka Shinguji said, watching Lacia on the screen with an exasperated expression. “MemeFrame’s in some deep trouble.”

  On the display, Lacia was effortlessly piercing through the military cordon. As the CEO of Shingubo, a company that supplied military-use hIEs, Kimitaka idly considered how he would fight against Lacia, out of habit.

  He couldn’t see any good way to face her, unless he made use of autonomous drones that had been taken out of general use due to the ease with which their controls failed. In fact, in order for their command systems to not fall to hacking, it would be necessary to utilize fully autonomous units that would automatically hunt down and destroy any targets in a target area, based on commands. Of course, using invisibility or control over friend or foe markers, he was sure Lacia could overcome even that.

  Kimitaka, the CEO of an electronics company, was treating the situation as though it was someone else’s problem.

  “I doubt the ruling military faction will take this sitting down,” one of the men at the table said. “I’d say the request for special government aid to MemeFrame will be shot down.”

  With coffee cups in hand, fifteen VIPs sat around the table, chatting about the situation. The group included executives from automobile companies and officials from the Ministry of Industry. The Antibody Network, an organization of volunteers who destroyed hIEs, was funded by this group of individuals who used their private funds to maintain the massive network. These were the Network’s core members.

  “I heard that Mr. Kaidai’s son got caught up in the Mitaka Incident and vanished,” Kimitaka said. “You can’t help but feel sorry for MemeFrame.” He, too, was a member of the core of the Antibody Network. Of course, to outsiders they would simply describe this as being a social gathering.

  “I doubt the IAIA will let that hIE slip away, but we’ve got more important things to worry about right now,” Kimitaka continued. “The bankrupting of MemeFrame will be huge, and we need to make sure we’re all on the same page going in. Otherwise, it could have a massive impact on the country’s economy.”

  On paper, the Antibody Network had no actual leader. However, if you asked anyone in the know who was pulling all the strings for the organization, they would tell you it was Kimitaka Shinguji.

  “If we’re getting onto the same page, there’s something I’d like to ask: Mr. Shinguji, have you finished the mass-production models yet?” one of the men in the group asked. He was t
he middle-aged president of an investment fund company, known by some as the ‘soldier of fortune’ of the financial world but, when he asked the question, his eyes were shining like those of a hopeful child.

  “The mass-production models are going through final adjustments to ensure they’re fully autonomous,” Kimitaka said, putting emphasis in his words so the other men at the table didn’t get distracted as soon as they smelled money. He could almost see their eyes turning green. “We have to go with fully autonomous, there’s no other choice.”

  Kouka’s ‘owner’ had been the whole Antibody Network organization. So, following her destruction, her data had been put to use by the whole organization to ensure that no single member could claim to be her sole owner. The questions Kouka had created with her final moments were still on people’s minds. Kimitaka’s goal was to complete what had been started with the Oi Industry Promotion Center attack; he would get heavily trained humans to join forces with his mass-produced units and, with all that firepower, he would complete the terrorist goals of the Network.

  “If we can shorten the time it takes to train up our combat units, it will allow us to hit targets that are in the public eye immediately, while people are still thinking about them,” Kimitaka said. “The impact of our actions will be on a completely different level from before.”

  “But fully autonomous units often run off on their own and are easier to lose, are they not? Considering the price of each unit, couldn’t we just invest in some expensive missiles instead?” asked an investment consultant named Chujo. Of course, that wasn’t his real name.

  The Kuhonbutsu Base of the Military Branch of Digital Intelligence was in charge of interpersonal intelligence and conspiracy activities. They had been monitoring the Antibody Network since its foundation; Chujo was their representative. The meeting they were sitting in currently had been called after the Mitaka Incident. There was strong doubt in Digital Intelligence that someone in the core of the Antibody Network had been the traitor who brought one of Snowdrop’s flowers onto a helicopter during the Mitaka Incident which, in the end, caused the annihilation of the entire troop of air cavalry.