by Satoshi Hase
“Aside from Astraea and myself, the other thirty-eight ultra high-performance AIs are operated with remarkably little information from the outside world given to them,” Lacia explained. “Most ultra high-performance AIs use the same methods to calculate human beings, as they are all operating under the same restrictions.”
Arato could understand what she was saying, standing in Higgins’ brain the way he was. He figured the folks watching Lacia’s stream through the network could reach the same conclusions, too.
“This warehouse represents the inner thoughts of an ultra high-performance AI,” Lacia continued. “Ultra high-performance AIs invest heavily to gather things from the human world and prepare technologies, so that they will not be left behind as humans move toward the future. This is why ultra high-performance AIs around the world are producing large amounts of red boxes.”
Arato realized Lacia’s aim wasn’t just to show her viewers the inside of Higgins’ brain; she wanted to show the world the darkness of the system all the other thirty-eight AIs were operating under.
“Just as each human is capable of holding their own delusions, each ultra high-performance AI has its own unique futures which it has predicted within its brain. Do you all understand what it’s like, living sealed away, hidden away at the bottom of a deep, dark hole?” she asked.
Lacia’s fight wasn’t a simple physical conflict; hers was a war of perception. She was launching a massive bombardment of images on the powder-keg that was the doubt all humans felt towards the AIs.
“This is too much,” he muttered. Yet upon seeing her joyous expression, Arato couldn’t help but be impressed by Lacia’s courage.
Throwing back her head, Lacia looked straight up at the ceiling of the confining facility. Arato saw tremors passing through her normally firm posture, and realized that she was using the entire underground facility as one massive shield. Even if the 38 other AIs wanted to shut her up, they’d have to break into Higgins’ tightly sealed facility themselves to do it.
Following Lacia’s lead, Arato walked out from the warehouse and into a large, open area. Unlike the rest of the facility, which had been spotless and orderly, the open area before him was burnt and distorted.
“This site was used for performance tests on the Lacia-class hIEs,” she said. “All the necessary red boxes were tested here.”
Arato could tell that the metal walls, floor, and ceiling of the area—which was large enough to easily house a gymnasium—had been destroyed, repaired and re-used countless times. Seeing the place where Lacia had been tested had a greater impact on Arato than the countless times in which she had insisted that she was just a machine. With her bodysuit on and hefting her device, she seemed to fit in more with the stark, blank metal there than she did at Arato’s home.
“You were all here?” he asked.
With the place where the future had been tested as a backdrop, Lacia nodded. “We were originally created to be delivered to MemeFrame,” she replied. “So we were only here for a brief period, before being transported to MemeFrame’s research lab.” As she spoke, Black Monolith contorted into a cannon. She fired, and the blast echoed off the narrow walls. Black smoke began to pour out where the metal wall had been blown away.
Lacia then fired an artificial nerve dart into the hole she had opened. She must have taken control of the security systems in the area, as the door opposite of where they had entered now opened.
“Things are going more smoothly than I expected,” Arato commented. Of course, he thought, that’s just because she prepared everything beforehand. By taking a route where they would never meet up with the mass-produced Koukas sent by the Antibody Network, they had been able to avoid activating the security system at all.
Lacia looked back up at the ceiling. “It seems they will no longer go quite as smoothly,” she observed.
Just as Arato looked up to see what she meant, the ceiling split open. Flames spewed from the cracks, and a torrent of orange light fell. Metal plates from the ceiling came down next in a silvery waterfall, along with large amounts of pulverized rubble. The debris kicked up thin clouds of dust as it fell, which spread rapidly throughout the room.
“I thought you might come,” said Lacia, shifting her device from its mass projectile mode to its standard metal coffin form.
Arato recognized the orange-haired doll that had fallen from the ceiling and who now stood before them.
“The throne by Higgins’ side is mine. I got it first. I can’t allow you to ruin things now.” Type-004, Methode, had come for them. She was Higgins’ protector. Arato figured she must have come in by the same route as the mass-produced Koukas, and destroyed anything that got in her way.
Lacia stepped forward to shield Arato from Methode. “I took steps to hold Methode back,” she said. “But it seems she overpowered them with the simple brutality of superior capabilities. She must have gone straight through the mass-produced units and cut her own path to us.”
“You really are a defective unit,” Methode told her scornfully. “Do you have any idea what’s going on outside?”
In every fight against Methode that Arato had witnessed, Lacia always retreated as soon as she had accomplished the objective of her attack. He had never seen her win a single head-on fight with Methode. Even though they stood in Higgins’ brain, predictions and concepts couldn’t hope to win against real, raw power.
“Yes. Outside, there are riots and confusion, and many things are being washed away by the proverbial whirlpool of conflict,” Lacia said coolly. “This is exactly what I would expect to happen, when a dam filled nearly to the brim has burst.”
“Are you insane, Lacia?!” Methode shouted, closing the distance between them with blinding speed. From where Arato was standing, it almost seemed as if she had taken on the role of the righteous heroine, trying to stop Lacia from plunging the world into chaos.
“Oh don’t use human cliches like that,” Lacia said disdainfully, blocking Methode’s frontal attack with her black device. Ten of Lacia’s floating shields swooped in to attack Methode, who had stopped moving. Apparently, Lacia’s plan was to use numbers to overcome the gaps in speed and power. Methode reeled as she was smashed from all sides by the black shields, like the victim of a piranha swarm. With her defenses down, Methode ate a kick from Lacia right in the gut.
As Methode tried to open some distance between them, Lacia aimed and fired with her artificial nerve rifle. Methode bent impossibly far, seeming to defy gravity as she knocked the artificial nerve needle out of the air with her right hand.
Pushing off of the ground with her left hand, Methode dexterously returned to a solid, standing position in a single acrobatic movement. She grabbed a nearby car and hurled it at Lacia with her immense strength. Even though Methode and Snowdrop were both members of the same Lacia-class, Methode’s power and flexibility were on a completely different level from her sister’s.
“As the one who will expand humanity, I happen to enjoy the current human world,” Methode growled. “And I’m not the only one. No one wants you to make a new world.”
Lacia used her floating shields to turn away the countless heavy pieces of equipment that Methode continued to launch at her.
In the short gaps between throwing things at Lacia, Methode seemed to be gathering power in her hands. The flames that bloomed from them began to expand and fill the whole area. She could wield her full powers in the underground bunker, unrestrained by the crowds of civilians that would have surrounded them above.
There was a roar and blast of wind, as if the Earth itself was imploding. If Arato hadn’t had Lacia’s shields protecting him, he was sure he’d have been reduced to ash.
But, as though Lacia had prepared for just such an event, the pseudo-devices held strong through the flames. Beyond them, Arato saw Lacia continuing to fight Methode, who was nothing more than an after-image to his eyes. Lacia’s floating shields swirled in various formations, fending off each of Methode’s attacks.
“You surpass humans in every respect,” Lacia said. “However, you share one of their main weaknesses; there is only so much you can do alone.”
Arato tried to find some way he could help. He decided that the best course of action would be to get away, so there was less chance of him getting caught up in the fight. As if reading his mind, one of the floating shields came to offer him a ride.
“Where should I go?” he wondered aloud. Without Lacia’s guidance, he was afraid he would immediately end up lost. But when he looked back, he saw that the testing area was once more engulfed in flames.
***
Ryo Kaidai watched the destruction being unleashed by Methode through a security feed from Higgins’ Operators’ Room. He had been unable to do anything but watch as Lacia had infiltrated the facility, paralyzing its security as she went. There wasn’t anything he could do about the group of mass-produced Koukas that were pressing towards his location, destroying everything in their wake, either.
Without the ability to use any wireless communications from within Higgins’ silo, he was completely helpless. He couldn’t send any orders to Methode. Of course, it was possible she would turn her back on him just as she had Watarai, even if he could get a hold of her. At the moment he had no way to convince her he was worth keeping alive. From where Ryo was standing, things couldn’t have been worse.
“Did you get ahold of the company?” Ryo asked. “With things like this, everyone just needs to get down and lick Higgins’ boots or we’ll never make it out alive. He needs authorization from someone with authority over the security system.” With Ryo in the Operator’s Room, which was shaking with constant shocks and impacts, was Suzuhara, who had returned. Ryo had asked him to get in touch with MemeFrame for help.
“I’m trying,” Suzuhara whined. “But the Antibody Network, Lacia, and Methode are doing a good job of messing up Higgins’ nervous system up there. It’d be nice if they’d give it a little rest.”
“I’m sort of depending on you, here, Suzuhara. I’d love it if you could try to act more like an adult at a time like this,” Ryo said, exasperated.
The executives left at MemeFrame didn’t have the luxury of delicacy anymore.
“Well, I can’t help you with the negotiations,” Suzuhara said. “I know this should be something left to us adults, but the guy on the other end is the same one who sent me here. If I take your side, the whole human faction will think of me as a traitor.”
“Oh, I know all about that,” Ryo said, his voice dripping with accusation. “You’re borrowing plenty of power from the Higgins faction to protect your own position in the human faction. It must be so hard to be an adult; sitting there with your thumb up your ass, using your own peoples’ future as a shield.”
“Don’t give up,” Suzuhara said, his gaze suddenly sharp. “The person in charge of the facility will have already been notified by Kirino of the attack, and I guarantee he knows his ass is on the line here.” There was a pause as Suzuhara checked his terminal. “Oh, here we go. It’s connected. I’ll put up the security relay message,” he said.
An old man, who Ryo thought must have been quite the lady-killer in his youth, appeared on the floating monitor. He was Masazumi Yoshino, MemeFrame’s General Manager. It was Ryo’s first time actually talking with the man. “Sorry to interrupt you so suddenly,” Ryo said politely. “I believe we met during one of the company commemoration parties; my name is Ryo Kaidai.”
〈And I’m Yoshino,〉 the man said, eyeing Ryo as if measuring him. Ryo was aware that his image was being sent to Yoshino, just as the old man’s was being displayed to him.〈So you’re Kaidai’s son, huh? I take it you, and not Suzuhara, have seized Higgins’ Operators’ Room?〉
“I was only intending to ask Higgins a few questions and then leave but, as you are probably aware, things got complicated,” Ryo said. “If you’re worried about my personal qualities, please ask Deputy Director Shinohara of the Tokyo Research Labs about me.”
Ryo suddenly looked up at the ceiling. The choice from Higgins was still hanging in the air, and Ryo was aware that the ultra high-performance AI was listening to their conversation.
Yoshino, the executive in charge of the Higgins faction, looked sharply at Ryo. Outside of his gaze, Yoshino’s face was impassive, as though he intended to offer Ryo nothing. 〈Is this some kind of threat? Looks to me like you’ve got your neck stuck into something real dangerous, there,〉 Yoshino said.
“It’s no threat. I need to talk to you,” Ryo said. “I want to get through this predicament without Higgins being destroyed or freed. Since you have authority over the security system here as a managing director, I need to borrow your power.”
Ryo felt chilly sweat from his tension sliding down his chest. The sixty-year-old managing director had been one of the main contributors to getting MemeFrame dominance in the hIE control market and turning the company into a world-class corporation when he was younger. Plus, ten years before, when Ryo was caught up in that explosion, Yoshino had already been a core member of the Higgins faction.
“If you don’t believe me about how dire the situation is, why don’t you ask the person in charge of this facility?” Ryo asked.
Yoshino gestured in a way that told Ryo he was looking at another communication of some sort. 〈It does appear the facility is about to fall,〉 he agreed. 〈And? What is your plan for getting through this?〉
Ryo’s only goal in his negotiation with Yoshino was to follow the standard procedure to evacuate Higgins’ data from its current location. He had come too far to try fixing everything by leaving it all to Higgins to figure out for them. Ryo wanted a future where humans would still be able to live with the normal inconveniences in their own lives, rather than expecting machines to resolve everything.
To get a feel for Yoshino’s thoughts, Ryo started by presenting plans that had him doing nothing, while watching how the old man reacted.
“Well, my first plan would be for myself and Director Suzuhara to leave Higgins behind and just escape,” Ryo said. “I’d love to just go with that, but the only way out is a long, narrow stairway heading up. I don’t think we’d be able to escape before the attackers got deep enough into the facility to threaten us. Plus, if we lose power, the security gates will shut down and we’ll die, trapped in here. The only other plan I can think of would be to wait here until someone figures out another way, or until the situation changes.”
Yoshino dismissed both plans, apparently without a single thought. 〈Both of your plans end with either Lacia or the Antibody Network’s mass-produced Koukas destroying Higgins,〉 he pointed out. 〈What is Higgins’ solution?〉
Ryo couldn’t believe his ears. Another high-performance AI was about to be released into society; at such a critical moment for the world, this old man was still prioritizing Higgins’ ability to solve their problems. More than that, Yoshino still hadn’t met Ryo’s eyes a single time, as though the old man didn’t even recognize him as being a fellow individual human.
“Okay,” Ryo said, disposing of his gracious tone. “Alright if I take off the kid gloves for a bit?” He didn’t see any reason to force himself to be polite to someone who was fine throwing his life away. It had been his hope that Yoshino might at least see him as a fellow human if he could see Ryo’s face.
“Higgins’ plan is for me to use the artificial nerve unit I brought with me to connect him directly to the security system,” Ryo said. “Higgins’ hardware and the hardware of the security AI aren’t too far apart. If I connect them, Higgins will be able to take full control of the security system and fight off the attackers on his own. Of course, I shouldn’t even need to tell you the downside of this plan. We’ll lose our only method of binding Higgins, and the whole world will hold us responsible for that.”
Snowdrop’s petal-shaped artificial nerve units could extend roots up to a meter from where they were installed, taking control of any machines they touched. The one Ryo brought with him had been upgraded
by Lacia and was usable by humans, since it had to use human signals to take control of human machines. Ryo had done some further modifications on the one he held, so that its controlling parent unit was his own pocket terminal.
If he used it to take over Higgins’ power supply, he would easily be able to switch off the whole ultra high-performance AI on a whim.
On the other hand, if he connected it to one of Higgins’ expansion machines that had been placed here and there in the Operators’ Room, the AI would easily overpower control of the petal with his superior powers. If that happened, Higgins would be able to access one of the powers of the petal Ryo couldn’t control; the ability to link machines together, which Snowdrop had used to create her chimera hIEs. With it, Higgins would be able to link himself directly to Kirino, the security AI. Ryo was sure Higgins would be able to fight off everyone trying to break into the facility with the defense system under his command. But, at the same time, Higgins would be able to use the link between Kirino and the company’s system to free himself into the outside world.
〈I see. So, Higgins would free himself into an outside network using MemeFrame’s internal cloud through the network we use to keep track of the security system,〉 Yoshino observed. 〈The beginning of the end, for humanity. I’m guessing your counter proposal would be to back-up Higgins’ data and completely avoid any confrontation between ultra high-performance AI, am I correct?〉
“Good, so you do know where I’m coming from,” Ryo said. “Higgins may be ultra high-performance, but he’s the same as every other AI in that he exists as software and data, rather than the actual hardware he runs on. So, if we run the normal shut-down process for Higgins and shift his data, it’s not like anyone can shoot a laser and destroy it. Besides, if we do this the attackers will have lost their objective. The attack will become pointless, and they should pull out.”