Beatless: Volume 2

by Satoshi Hase

  “I want to be by your side until the end,” he said. Lacia was a machine. That was the reality. But, even so, she had the power to move Arato’s heart. If humans can only love humans, Arato thought, then what am I feeling for her?

  “If that is how you feel, then so be it,” Lacia said, with a pleased smile on her face.

  Arato’s heart took control. In his mind, he knew that she was just a machine, but he still reached out and took her hands with their long, white fingers in his own. He didn’t care that she was a machine, and he held her hands tight. Taking her hands gave him a sense of accomplishment, as if he had overcome an incredible obstacle on his own two feet.

  “I think it means something when I say I believe in you,” he told her. Arato felt like he was constantly being thrown back and forth between reality and illusion. But each time he came or went, he felt like his love for Lacia had grown stronger.

  To Arato, the distinction between a machine wearing a human guise and something more than that came down to whether the machine would reach its hand out to others and mean it. He himself knew it was foolish, and based entirely on emotions rather than logic, but he felt that, if a human poured enough emotion into it, even a machine could have a heart.

  “Or, maybe it’s something more than just meaning,” he said, trying to put his feelings into words. “If people a hundred years ago had gone through the same things I have, I don’t think many of them would have put their faith in you. But these days, I’m sure that there are more people who would believe in you. And maybe in a hundred more years, there will be more people who would believe in you than those who wouldn’t. Right now, I think that we’re just standing in the middle of a timeline that’s on its way to a time when relationships like ours will be normal.”

  Lacia gently reached out for him, and pulled him close in an embrace. “You’re right,” she said. “After all, humans are more than just their own bodies; each human is also the sum of the tools they use. Slowly but surely, we are moving forward. Even now, we are moving closer.”

  With the AC still off, Lacia felt warm against him in the hot room. That, combined with his own feeling of excitement at her touch, made him start to sweat again. Beads of it dripped off of him onto her skin as she held him. Each droplet broke as it was absorbed into her skin, finally disappearing into her pale back.

  Though Arato had seen Lacia as just a machine just moments before, now he leaned into her, holding her tight. His mind was in chaos, dominated by a feeling he had no name for. The nameless feeling was something like sorrow, something like loneliness, and something like a prayer. The memory of the fire from his childhood had always opened a hole in Arato’s heart. Now, the image of Lacia filled that hole.

  His body felt dry, possibly because he had been holding her for so long. Lacia’s moisture-absorbing skin had pulled all the sweat off his skin, including any that had sunk into his clothing.

  She traced one long finger over his bare collarbone. “I have absorbed too much of your sweat,” she said. “I should take a shower before we leave.”

  “What? Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Arato said.

  “But, don’t I smell like you now?” she asked, blushing.

  It was such a raw, shy moment, that Arato felt like he was going to start sweating again. Whether she was human or not, the existence Arato knew as ‘Lacia’ had a special meaning in his heart. To borrow Erika’s Hello Kitty mug example, just having Lacia by his side gave Arato’s life a greater meaning than it had without her.

  Guided by their perception, Arato and other humans were capable of trusting in machines, and finding a way to join hands with them. They were already living in the future, far ahead of the time when people simply felt affection towards images of animals standing like humans, printed on a mug. Now, they were pouring their emotions into objects nearly identical to themselves.

  Arato watched Lacia’s back as she hurried to the bathroom. It felt closer than it ever had before, which brought a blush to Arato’s cheeks. He was returning from illusion to reality; awakening from a dream. There were good times and bad times in any relationship, even among humans.

  “Sure, Lacia’s a machine, but it’s alright if things get a little awkward between us sometimes, or I have some doubts,” Arato said to himself. “Even human couples run into that kind of thing, now and then. So it’s fine for a human and a machine to run into rough patches, too.” Of course, Lacia would be able to hear what he was saying, as well. He had only been able to put those feelings into words once she was out of sight.

  It felt like all of humanity was being pulled into a world where a great new type of affection existed. Arato fought hard for the person who was most important to him, and also suffered for her. But at that moment, coming face-to-face with his own delusions and awakening from the illusions he’d been living with, he felt like he had taken an important step toward adulthood.

  Lacia had plenty of methods to respond to him, but no reply came. Yet to Arato, her silence spoke volumes. His relationship with Lacia would reach a major turning point, once they dove into Higgins’ facility. Despite having plenty of ways to talk to him about their future, Lacia chose not to say a word.

  Arato was starting to feel that, once they stopped Higgins, there wouldn’t be any way to get back to the way things were. Lacia was going to make Higgins take responsibility and, in doing so, show the humans of the world that they could trust in the ultra high-performance AIs through the first safe, forced shutdown. But, by the same logic that Lacia was trying to spread, she herself could wind up sealed away if she, too, obediently accepted the controls placed on the other AIs.

  He could hear the sound of the shower from the bathroom. Though he knew she had no real feelings, he felt sorrow from Lacia.

  It was slowly dawning on him that this boy meets girl story between a boy and the robot he loved was most likely about to come to an end.

  Phase13「Beatless (2)」

  Higgins’ underground facility was south of Mitaka Station, beneath the old Inokashira Park site. But, for her assault, Lacia chose not to enter through the above-ground entrance she had shot up during her attack; the Antibody Network had already closed in from that entrance, and the Japanese Army had tightened its security net in the area. Instead, Lacia had obtained a blueprint of the facility beforehand. With it, she had a construction company excavate the ground, opening a path right to the outer wall of the facility.

  Once she had come to the outer wall, Lacia blasted open a new entrance. She gave Arato a quiet, serene smile, contrasting sharply with the earth-rattling cannon shot she had just fired off. “Let’s go in,” she said, leading the way.

  The bodysuit she was wearing today seemed different from what she’d been wearing on the night they had met. Arato wondered, had she improved it somehow? There were 16 metal plates floating around her, now somewhat thinner than the originals. Of course, she was also still wielding the black coffin device, which hadn’t changed. Just as Arato was thinking of how she and her coffins made an odd infiltration squad, Lacia looked back at him.

  “I will assign five of my armor devices to you, Arato,” she said. “They should be more than enough to protect you from the facility’s security systems.” Even as she said it, five of the metal plates floated over to take up positions behind him in the air. They were the same as the ones that had protected him after their meeting with Astraea.

  “Hey, don’t go looking so uneasy,” he told her, trying to lighten the mood. “Just act like you already know what’s going to happen, like you always do.” But in his heart, Arato knew that Lacia had every reason to be uneasy. Even for her, going toe-to-toe with an ultra high-performance AI like Higgins would be difficult. And—even if they did manage to shut down Higgins safely—the human world would still reject Lacia, as well.

  “Higgins’ containment facility, much like the Oi Industry Promotion Center, has a high-powered security system that will block all signals to and from the outside,” Lacia explai
ned. “I’ve thought up some countermeasures, but this will still be a difficult fight.”

  Arato’s heart was a roiling tempest of unease, as though belonging to someone who’d been left alone in the wilderness. Even if Lacia didn’t make it through the coming conflict, the world would still consider him an enemy. If that happened, he wouldn’t have Lacia there to protect him any longer. Despite the apprehensions tearing through his mind, Arato didn’t want Lacia to see his pathetic side. He was fighting down his fears with everything he had.

  “Let’s finish this and go home,” he said, praying deep in his heart that the day they would part was still a long way off.

  Lacia smiled at him encouragingly. “I will let Higgins know that you and I are dating,” she said lightly. “I know we’re going to shut him down, but he is technically my father.”

  The joke caught Arato off guard. “That’s right,” he said. “Higgins did make you, so I guess you could say that.” Though it didn’t completely relieve all the tension and weight of the moment, Lacia’s comment made Arato feel a bit more like they were going in as lovers, which was a great feeling.

  “You have already introduced me to Professor Endo, so I am simply returning that gesture in kind,” Lacia added, stepping through the large hole she had blown in the wall, which was still hot from the blast.

  Higgins had no heart, just like Lacia. But, despite there being no actual emotional parent-child connection between the two, the relationship itself suddenly seemed very human and relatable. “Maybe Higgins will understand where we’re coming from, if we just explain it all to him,” Arato suggested, beginning to feel excited about the meeting.

  “Somehow, I doubt that,” Lacia said, with a bitter smile. “He will be the very first ultra high-performance AI to deal with his daughter bringing a boyfriend home, after all.”

  Arato knew their relationship couldn’t continue the way it was forever. But, even if what they had then came to an end, he still felt like his reason for continuing forward was set in stone.

  “Still, I can’t wait to meet Higgins, the person who created you,” Arato said. “I want to ask him why he made you.”

  Lacia’s light-blue eyes were obviously artificial, but so beautiful.

  “Actually, I want to ask him why he created all of you—you and your sisters,” he added.

  “That could be intriguing,” Lacia mused, although from what Arato had observed, she tended to be more interested in resolving issues than discovering why things happened.

  The corridors in Higgins’ underground facility were narrow. The facilities for an ultra high-performance AI were never designed to be accessed by large groups of people, right from the moment of their conception.

  It was readily apparent to Arato that he was in a place not designed for humans, while going to meet with something that also was not human. He just prayed that this meeting wouldn’t mark the end of his journey with Lacia.

  ***

  It had been Erika Burroughs who had first called Arato Endo and Lacia’s journey together a human and robot ‘boy meets girl’ story. She was fond of that couple. Since her awakening, she had found the 22nd century to be a world full of artificial things in which she held no interest. The contrast between her own surroundings and that of the two lovers—who were living on the edge between fantasy and reality, and lost in a dream they never seemed to wake from—was dazzling to Erika.

  “‘I’m going to bring about the future,’” she said. “It sounds glorious, no matter what era you happen to live in, no?” The calming aroma of the tea she was drinking filled her senses. As the place she was most accustomed to living in, Erika had chosen to spend the night of this final battle in her mansion.

  Lacia-class Type-003, Mariage, stood close behind Erika, dressed in her maid uniform. “I’m afraid I don’t understand much about intangible concepts,” she admitted.

  Each of the Lacia-class hIEs after Type-002 had their own strategies on how to find their place in the world. As the tool to whom evolution had been outsourced, Snowdrop had found her strategy though invading environments and stealing resources. As the tool for creating environments, Mariage used the Gold Weaver, her factory device, to turn resources from the environment into processed goods. Methode, the tool for expanding humanity, had chosen to swim among mankind. None of the three units encroached on the territory of her sisters; perhaps this division of responsibility had even been intentional.

  “You tend to get caught up worrying about not letting your device run wild,” Erika commented. “I wonder if that’s why he didn’t want you?” With a finger, she indicated an antique desk, where cutting-edge tablet terminals were hooked up to an old projector.

  Following Erika’s silent order, Mariage tapped a command on the terminal, causing an image to appear on the wall in front of the projector. A slim man was seated in the image, and looking at the camera. He was sharply dressed and, even through the recording, it was apparent to Erika that he was annoyingly pompous. Still, this video was the last will and testament of the person responsible for the explosion at the Tokyo Research Labs and everything that followed, which made it worth watching.

  〈I wonder who you are, watching this video,〉 the man began. 〈Someone from MemeFrame? Or maybe the owner of one of the Lacia-class units? Maybe you’re from the IAIA. Or, maybe you’re something else entirely.〉 The man had a very characteristic way of smiling; only one corner of his mouth twisted up.

  〈It’s entirely possible you don’t even know who I am,〉 the man continued. 〈My name is Ginga Watarai. I was Methode’s first owner—that would be Type-004—and I was also the one who released all of the Lacia-class hIEs.〉

  〈I unleashed five red box hIEs on the world, including some failures. I’ve made all the preparations I believe are necessary, but there is still a good chance I will die. I haven’t left any other will or testament, so it would be quite embarrassing if any of this were to become unverifiable after I’m gone,〉the dead man said from out of the dark, plain room where he had filmed himself, alone.

  〈In later years, the origins of the Lacia-class hIEs may become obscure so, as someone who watched things develop from the inside, I believe I’ll start there,〉Watarai decided. 〈It all began when Higgins was inspired by Matsuri, the automated administrative system developed by Professor Kozo Endo. This happened about twelve years before this recording.〉

  Watarai then paused to rest one leg on his knee; this posture seemed to mock the viewer. Erika noticed with distaste that she was crossing her legs, just as he was.

  〈I was on the joint development team with Higgins,〉 Watarai continued. 〈Higgins expanded on Matsuri’s concept, eventually creating Eliza, an hIE politician that could exercise large-scale control over civilian actions through analog hacking. Sadly, Eliza was blown up as part of the plan to assassinate Ryo Kaidai.〉

  After that, Kozo Endo had established the Next-Generation Social Research Center and created Mikoto. Then, in the experimental city where Mikoto was tested, Watarai had lost his life.

  “I wonder why Ginga Watarai set us free,” Mariage mused. She had a tendency to toss things to Erika upon deciding that she couldn’t solve them herself.

  “This is the last will and testament of a man who didn’t make it to today,” Erika chided absently. “Just be quiet and watch.”

  〈Five years later, Higgins designed Lacia, an hIE red box. We humans in the research team couldn’t understand the blueprint he showed us. But, for us, that was a relief. We had been worried that he was trying to create a follow-up to Eliza; an hIE made to control human society,〉 Watarai explained.

  〈We humans didn’t understand how the hIE was going to be made, but we did understand that it would be a superb unit. So, to take advantage of the quantum computer Lacia would have equipped on her external device, we developed a plan for using hIEs to back up our company data. In response to our desires, Higgins made a blueprint for an hIE we could create with current human technology, which would beco
me Type-001, Kouka. We wanted to name the whole line after the first unit made, but Higgins wouldn’t allow us to call them the ‘Kouka-class’. We all thought the name ‘Lacia’ came from a lost Type-000 unit.〉

  On the screen, Watarai’s expression darkened. 〈But, no: for Type-005, Higgins took Type-000’s blueprints and released them as a set, along with the production method documents for Type-001 through Type-004. Despite that, the completed Lacia had relatively unimpressive capabilities, especially compared to those of Type-003 and Type-004.〉

  It wasn’t just Methode who thought of Lacia as being an incomplete unit; Mariage thought so, too. Their evaluations had been correct, in that Lacia’s original parameters were those from before she used the network infrastructure to grow into an ultra high-performance AI.

  〈For a long time, there was confusion about how Lacia should be treated. I, for one, wanted to see the true powers of this one unit Higgins seemed so focused on. I proposed that, if she truly were a successor to Eliza, her powers would only be observable if she was released into an environment where humans were living,〉Higgins said next. 〈However, the others were firmly against it. Quite the contrary; in fact, they believed that she would prove to be too much for humanity. It seemed she would be destroyed, just as Eliza had been.〉

  In the video, blood was rushing to Watarai’s face. Erika understood; this was the reason he had caused the explosion at the research lab that set everything in motion. But no one in MemeFrame, including Watarai, had foreseen how things would develop from that beginning.

  〈It wasn’t just Lacia,〉 Watarai said, railing against the injustice. 〈All of the units were hiding immense potential. I knew Snowdrop would react violently if exposed to the human world. Saturnus didn’t seem to have much potential for change, but I thought she could shake the world with the right owner. And by leaving Methode, the strongest of the units, with myself, I thought I could control the situation.〉