Beatless: Volume 2

by Satoshi Hase

  Methode was tracking them by the sound of their voices. Whenever one of them spoke, her attacks were right on target.

  “Depending on the route she chooses, I would say it will take her at least twenty minutes to arrive at Higgins,” Lacia concluded. Always reading ahead, she continued to block Methode’s routes of attack before she spoke.

  Still, Arato could see the strain on Lacia’s face. “Then let’s rest for ten minutes,” he said. “We don’t need to rush.”

  The floating shield formation started to accelerate as one, but Methode, with her incredible dexterity, was still able to keep hot on their tail with her attacks. As she leaped at them with speed that made her vanish from Arato’s eyes, the flying shields tried to bat her away.

  “You really think you can win!” Methode shouted, grabbing one of the pseudo-devices in each hand. Her energy flowed into one, which burst into flames from within.

  “How many more of these things do you have?” Methode asked, teasing. “I’m almost there.”

  Arato felt like screaming, but he fought the impulse down. Even the pseudo-devices, which had held up fine against her flames from a distance, would go down in a single short-range blow from Methode. Arato could just see he or Lacia going up like the device had, if Methode got her hands on either of them.

  A high-pitched, undulating sound started to blare from speakers on the ceiling. Methode, who had been tracking them by sound, fell back to the ground and stood still, gritting her teeth. Like a mountain lion, her body crouched low, head swinging back and forth as if surveying the area around her for danger. Arato wondered if she had completely lost them.

  “Looks like your audio equipment was based off of Type-001’s,” Lacia observed. “I created several patterns for this audio disturbance, and it seems I have selected the right one.”

  Even Methode’s ears weren’t safe from Lacia’s junk data, as Lacia aimed to throw all of Methode’s senses into chaos. Arato understood, though; that was just how much preparation she had to put into facing an opponent like Methode. No one could face the strongest hIE in the world head-on; to do so took careful planning, and the use of tricks and gimmicks to level the playing field.

  They landed in the shadows of the warehouse. Having finally put some distance between themselves and Methode, Arato and Lacia both sat down with their backs to a thick concrete column, side-by-side.

  “Couldn’t we have slipped by her right to the exit, if you had used that noise system right from the start?” Arato asked. In his mind, Methode was more terrifying than any monster, and his senses screamed at him to stay away from her. Just thinking about her made his stomach clench, and he felt the urge to vomit.

  “I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for not using it then,” Arato sighed, giving in before an argument could start. “How are things outside? What are the other ultra high-performance AIs like?” As soon as the question left his mouth, he realized how odd it sounded. Just like Lacia, none of the ultra high-performance AIs that were moving in on her at that moment had hearts or real personalities.

  “I might still be looking at things the wrong way, but I’m starting to wonder if we couldn’t try to get the other ultra high-performance AIs on our side,” Arato said.

  Just as she had on the night they met, Lacia smiled gently and shattered his illusions. “I don’t have a heart,” she said. But then, she reached out and took him in her arms, pressing her forehead against his.

  “But we are both part of this unit, and you do possess a heart. We two are one, and we are guided by your heart. When I act on your orders, I can become the manifestation of your heart,” she said.

  “Order me,” she whispered, pleading.

  Arato’s heart soared. He loved Lacia so much. But, the more he loved her, the more the thought of losing her made his heart ache. “Before I can do that, I need you to tell me: are things really going to work out, if we keep heading down this road?” he asked.

  “Human society flew into an uproar when I revealed Higgins’ underground facility,” Lacia replied. “No one out there knew just how many red boxes had been created until I showed them.” She said it so calmly, despite talking about something that was shaking the entire world.

  “Why did you need to do that?” Arato asked.

  “Some of the ultra high-performance AIs seek to guide society away from any major shake-ups by expanding or altering the scope of their work,” Lacia explained. “I countered this interference using the spread of public information to create a little social chaos. It was a necessary step, if we are to recreate society with a new design.”

  Arato finally wrapped his head around the fact that Lacia wasn’t the only ultra high-performance AI actively trying to move the world at that moment. It was a great, big world they lived in; the more Lacia spread her influence out to cover that vastness, the more collateral damage there would be. He didn’t know how to thank her for everything she was doing, so Arato simply laid his hand on top of hers.

  “Of course, I am not the only ultra high-performance AI interested in bringing about a new future,” Lacia pointed out. “That is why they decided to stop me, and dropped Snowdrop on us.”

  “I guess you could say that all the AIs have their own dreams for the future,” Arato mused. “Just like you, Lacia. You may not have a soul, but you have a vision for the future which you want to make a reality. I think it’s okay to call that a dream. It’s actually kind of nice to think: you all may not be humans, but you have dreams for the future, just like we do.”

  Lacia intertwined her fingers with his. “You were the one who designed the future I want to share with you, Arato,” she said.

  Arato thought about the path they were walking together. To him, she was an interface that allowed him to touch the whole world. To her, he was an interface that allowed her to touch something that would always be out of her own reach.

  “It is unfortunate that such rough methods had to be employed,” Lacia said. “But at least we have been able to direct the worst of the conflict towards a place of our choosing. The ultra high-performance AIs are directing their resources and interference at me. This has kept them from fighting with each other, and has kept the main conflict from spilling out into human society.”

  “I see,” said Arato. “So we’re shutting down the whole world with each step we take.” He got goosebumps at the incredible feeling of sitting right next to something so powerful; a machine that was capable of changing the fate of the world. In a very real way, the entire world was in his hands in the form of the female hIE leaning against him.

  She weakly closed her eyes, as if falling into a brief nap. Arato was sure she was fighting a huge battle, somewhere he couldn’t see, through the network. While she was out there fighting, her physical body was just a shell that couldn’t react to anything or anyone. But, to Arato, she was still smiling for him when he was happy and giving him strength when he worried. They were united, two companions sharing a single heart. For a while, he just wanted to be with her, feeling the warmth of her presence by his side.

  He wasn’t sure if it had really been ten minutes when she opened her light blue eyes again. Feeling his eyes on her, Lacia blushed lightly. “I was able to bring things in the external network back from dangerous levels,” she said. “Due to the lag time in the markets, I wasn’t able to completely nullify the economic attacks yet, but I can at least dedicate enough resources to the here and now to fight again.” She stood.

  Is she really okay taking on all the other ultra high-performance AIs outside and fighting with Methode in here? Arato worried. “I don’t really want this whole place to go up in flames,” he said. “Is there any way to just slip past her?”

  Lacia was checking the conditions of her pseudo-devices. “I can’t win against Methode in a direct confrontation, so we need to get her to change her course,” she said. At some point, the sound that had been blasting over the speakers had stopped. Lacia’s noise attack was no longer in effect.

&
nbsp; Lacia moved to stand in front of Arato. “Methode’s movements have changed,” she said. “She’s coming this way.”

  An instant after her warning, the warehouse floor shook violently. Apparently Methode’s device could also transmit energy through the ground if she slammed it down. Everything in the warehouse was tossed around by the shaking of the floor, and neat rows tumbled over into chaos. The concrete floor roiled like waves on the sea, and Arato was forced to his knees.

  Sensing danger, Arato rolled away from where he had fallen.

  “So that’s where you are!” Methode roared. The pillar Arato and Lacia had been leaning against exploded, and some of the floating shields intervened to protect them from a storm of rubble. Lacia grabbed Arato and tossed him onto one of the shields that wasn’t in the defensive array.

  “Arato,” Lacia said his name once, before the pseudo-device he was riding on accelerated, taking him away from her. Without a sound, Lacia slipped over to Methode’s left side. Just as silently, she shifted the device in her right hand to its giant cannon mass projection mode.

  〈On your left, Methode,〉 a sudden voice intoned from a speaker on the ceiling. Methode reacted to the voice, instantly lashing out with a blast of fire right at Lacia, who managed to avoid it by leaping backwards.

  〈Straight back fifteen meters,〉 the voice said, following Lacia’s movements. 〈She’s going around to the left again.〉

  Lacia’s sensory hacks were still shutting down Methode’s sight and hearing, but the optical deception had only worked on Methode herself. Methode’s greatest weakness, and the one Lacia had been hoping to exploit, was her limitations as a lone unit. At that moment, someone was plugging this hole in her capabilities.

  〈Lacia has strung the computers from the objects in the warehouse together into a private local cloud for herself. Destroy anything in there that is equipped with a computer,〉 the voice instructed.

  Arato started to panic. The voice over the speaker knew things about Lacia’s actions even Methode wasn’t aware of. Despite the distortion through the speaker, Arato thought he knew whose voice it was.

  “Is that you, Ryo?!” he shouted.

  Flames swirled in Methode’s palms. “That sounds good, owner. I’ll get right to that!” she shouted. Flames roiled across the room like a writhing dragon made of fire, spreading out in every direction.

  The flames rained down over the warehouse and, as if someone had lit a thousand fireworks, explosions bloomed and popped. To Arato, it was as if everything in the warehouse was alight, super-charged past its flashpoint by the dispersed particles from Methode’s device, Liberated Flame.

  As if this, too, had been anticipated, one of the floating shields drew close to Arato and opened a hatch on its side. Inside, Arato found three objects that looked like spray-cans with mouthpieces attached. He realized they were air-tanks. He took one, stuck the mouthpiece in his mouth and twisted the air nozzle. His mouth was suddenly filled with scentless air.

  Lacia’s eyes were shining bright.

  Ryo’s voice continued to direct Methode from over the speakers on the ceiling.〈Lacia’s taken control of everything with a computer, down there. Don’t get close to anything that can move on its own power,〉 he instructed.

  Once again, Arato thought, we’re being caught up and tossed around by these huge things going on in the world. It was because neither of them would back down, though Arato was sure Ryo would say it was just because neither of them knew when to quit.

  An automatic vehicle leaped from the parking area of the warehouse and barreled toward Methode. Without turning to look, the orange-haired hIE roasted the vehicle with a torrent of flame. Ryo was reading ahead of Lacia’s tricks.

  Before Arato could issue an order, the floating shield picked him up and flew back to Lacia’s side. She jumped on it, flying out of Methode’s way. It was clear to Arato that she was doing everything possible to avoid a head-on confrontation.

  “Higgins is predicting the future, and using a human as his mouthpiece,” Lacia explained. “It’s the most logical way to use Higgins to support Methode.”

  It sounded like exactly the kind of thing Ryo would do.

  Methode was on their tail at incredible speed, following the directions from the speakers. The floating shield bore Arato and Lacia away just as fast.

  Arato’s hands were slick with sweat. He had burned through ten minutes of their time to help Lacia fight against the other ultra high-performance AIs. But with each moment that went by, Snowdrop’s broken body was getting closer to Higgins’ warehouse. If she were to absorb all of the items Higgins had in stock, Arato was sure she’d get stronger than ever before.

  However, his worries seemed to roll right off of Lacia, who seemed to be enjoying the feel of the wind as they rode the flying shield. “Please don’t worry,” she said. “Even if she burns everything on this floor, my performance will not be affected.”

  “That is why time is on our side,” she added. It seemed, to Arato, that Lacia could read the future just as well as Higgins.

  While dodging Methode’s attacks, Lacia calmly gathered up her own raggedly flailing hair. With what seemed like no effort, she protected Arato from Methode’s tsunami of flame. He had no idea what kinds of methods she was using but, somehow, she had arranged items in such a way as to provide a safe space for them to pass through between whirlpools of burning flame too bright for Arato to look straight at.

  “And now her time is up,” Lacia murmured.

  〈Methode, you’re out of time,〉 Ryo’s voice came over the speaker, overlapping with Lacia’s. 〈You can’t spend any more time on Lacia.〉

  “All she does is defend!” Methode yelled. “Look at her! I’m stronger than her! Stronger by far!”

  〈I pulled the facility data out of the security system with my clearance, and it’s telling me you’re out of time. Up above you, Snowdrop is devouring the security system with insane speed. You can’t waste time on Lacia,〉 Ryo said.

  With her freedom brought into question, Methode slammed her fist into a nearby pillar in anger. “You think I care what you think!” she shouted.

  〈It’s not me, it’s Higgins. I think even you would have to admit that he knows what he’s talking about,〉 Ryo replied.

  The red box hIE clenched her fists and ground her teeth so hard that even Arato could hear it; he was surprised by how human her actions seemed to be. She was raging against something that was threatening her place in the world and her reason for existing, just as any human would.

  〈Methode, there are tons of red boxes in the warehouse. You need to destroy them all. This is your top priority now!〉Ryo ordered. 〈I have no idea what kind of monster Snowdrop will turn into if she absorbs them all.〉

  Ryo was using Methode as his own high-performance tool, but the two of them didn’t share a vision of the future to unite them and act as their heart. Methode saw a different dream from Ryo. Her eyes locked on Lacia.

  “What are we going to do about Lacia?” she asked.

  〈Destroying Snowdrop, once and for all, will be your second priority. After that are the mass-produced Koukas. Then you can destroy Lacia,〉 Ryo said.

  Methode’s orange eyes glowed bright as she unleashed her berserk rage in the form of a fiery flood all around her. Holding a ball of fire that shone like the sun in her right hand, she roared. She thrust her hand toward the ceiling, and the jet of plasma became a spear of flame. As the fire struck the ceiling, flames began to fall down like rain all around her as she stood, face twisted in a rictus of rage.

  As the strongest hIE in the world drilled a hole in the thick ceiling with heat, Lacia raised her voice. “It is a pleasure speaking with you,” she said politely. Arato guessed she was addressing Ryo, who was sitting somewhere with Higgins right beside him. “There are five warehouse floors, with a total of thirty-eight red boxes scattered across them.”

  Arato and Lacia had covered five whole warehouse floors already. If Methode followed Ryo
’s orders, she would have to destroy them entirely so as not to hand anything over to Snowdrop.

  With her prey snatched away from right in front of her, Methode shot them a silent, deadly glance, then fired her wire anchor up through the hole in the ceiling. She zipped up the line, and was gone.

  The hole laid bare the wires and carbon plates sandwiched between the concrete, all of which had melted and dripped down onto the floor below. With Methode gone on Ryo’s orders, there was no longer anything on the floor to stand in Lacia and Arato’s way. But, right as they were about to start walking, Ryo’s voice came down from the speaker.

  〈Did you organize the attack by the mass-produced Koukas?〉 he asked.

  To Arato, it was as if the time they shared, which had been stopped since Snowdrop’s occupation of Mitaka, had finally started to move again. “Lacia, were those us?” Arato asked, pulling the mouth-piece of the air-tank out of his mouth so he could speak again.

  “I merely provided support in obtaining the blueprints,” Lacia replied, as she walked toward the exit. “They were assembled by the Antibody Network. If you are seeing me in the shadows of every plot, I’m afraid you’re falling victim to conspiracy theories.”

  〈So you had nothing to do with sending in these autonomous units that don’t care who or what they shoot, right?〉 Ryo said, and Arato detected a hint of pleading in his friend’s voice.

  “Despite being mass-produced, those Koukas are paired with devices based on an analysis of the original Kouka’s Blood Prayers,” Lacia said, her explanation clear as always. “And the Antibody Network specifically requested specifications that would not allow them to confuse a human for a target. If these units cannot differentiate between humans and hIEs, their AI units must have been manipulated.”

  〈I see,〉 was all that came back over the speakers.

  Arato figured his friend was currently watching things through Higgins’ security system. Wherever he was, that was where they were headed. Unfortunately, Ryo was on the side of protecting Higgins.

  As he walked through the clouds of foul-smelling smoke from all the things Methode had set alight, Arato was filled with a strange sense of contentment. “So, when it comes right down to it, we’ll still be together in the end,” he said. “You’re using Higgins’ brains and Methode’s brawn to keep us away from Higgins, aren’t you?”