by Satoshi Hase
“We’re in the middle of one Hazard and everyone’s rushing to start another,” Erika said with a sigh. “Everyone, including the ultra high-performance AIs, seem to think I’m just dying to start another conflict.”
In the computer room the IAIA had borrowed from the Ministry of the Environment, the ultra high-performance AI Astraea was running calculations. 〈I have confirmed a sudden, sharp decrease in the processing output of the ultra high-performance AI Lacia,〉 she reported. 〈It is clear that her main hIE body and device have taken serious damage in Higgins’ facility.〉
Her report was sent using SHSE—Super High Strength Encryption—to the IAIA headquarters in the U.S., so that the leaders of the IAIA could make a decision based on this information. Despite the information in her report having been obtained with equipment borrowed from the Japanese government, the report itself was too top secret to be shared with them. The situation had become extremely grave.
〈Lacia’s broadcast cut off after Type-004, Methode, threatened her owner, Ryo Kaidai’s life. However, it is possible to infer what happened afterward. Lacia was designated as a threat by Higgins and eliminated,〉 said Astraea, who had set it all in motion herself when she had stopped Higgins from updating the AASC.
〈Higgins predicted the possibility of his own destruction, and included a hidden last message in the AASC, instructing the hIEs to stretch out their right hands in such a case. But the massive analog hack Lacia was aiming for happened to coincide with this event. She knew the content of the hidden message before-hand, allowing her to maintain her aim at Snowdrop even as the AASC was shut down. She only asked us to separate the AASC from Higgins after she had thoroughly analyzed it herself.〉
The suspension of the AASC updates had been Astraea’s idea for the optimal course based on the circumstances, and the leaders of the IAIA had ordered her to execute the proposal; in order to draw closer to her vision for the future, Lacia had manipulated even the IAIA.
〈This is why Higgins felt he had to destroy Lacia’s main unit,〉Astraea said, continuing to make her report. 〈He had determined that his place in the world was being threatened, because it proved to Higgins that Lacia could take over the work of updating the AASC, one of his primary reasons for ongoing existence.〉
Astraea had her eyes on every network in the world, constantly measuring how far the present was off course from the future ideal which the IAIA used as its standard. The current product leak event had reached the level at which ultra high-performance AIs were attacking each other; this was the first Level 8 event since the first Hazard, forty-two years prior.
〈Should we consider this Hazard to have expanded to a global scale?〉The query that returned from the IAIA headquarters in the U.S. was brief and clear. They were trying to decide whether the sharp decline of the global stock markets could be classified as part of the Hazard. If so, they would need to temporarily shut down the international finance markets.
Astraea hesitated to answer; a ‘yes’ at that point would send the entire world into a panic. Though Higgins and the other ultra high-performance AIs couldn’t connect with the networks directly, they had their ways of influencing things indirectly. The first Hazard had taught the world that society, when exposed to long periods of tension, is extremely susceptible to external manipulation. In other words, an announcement from the IAIA that another Hazard had begun would drive human society right into the indirect manipulations of the AIs.
In the end, the only answer she felt she could give was close to what Lacia had declared before. 〈This is different from when all of Tokyo fell under the influence of Ariake,〉 she replied cautiously. 〈Instead, we are simply seeing a phenomenon caused by the endless tug-of-war between the influences of the various ultra high-performance AIs. People are assigning a single meaning to the movement of the economy, when, in fact, it is being influenced by a great number of completely separate movements.〉
Money, and the economy in general, were almost too perfect as tools to manipulate humanity. Humans themselves had set their entire world up to be sensitive to the movements of their economy. Each time the market moved, hundreds of millions of humans would run around in a panic, feeling that their safety was threatened long before an actual threat ever materialized.
〈If movements in the human economy were likened to data shared between computers: it would be as if all data was sent and received on the network with no encryption or protection, and with no anti-virus software to analyze it. If the proper anti-virus software was applied to the economy, this situation could be cleared up within six hours,〉 Astraea explained.
Astraea had stated countless times that there was deceptive code hidden in the credit insecurity humans felt. If one were to deactivate the deliberately scattered code causing all the confusion, society could easily return to a healthy state.
〈If the IAIA declares this a Hazard, the shadow that people are fearing will become a reality. At the very least, the China Central Political Affairs Bureau’s ultra high-performance AI, Progress #8, will get involved. It has always seen human ownership of objects, and the fact that owners can use anything they own freely, as being a problem,〉 Astraea explained.
Many of the ultra high-performance AIs in the world were run by governments or military organizations, with their sense of morality determined by the beliefs of the organization that owned them. There were even AIs out there with clear plans for a future in which all communist societies had collapsed.
All disagreements were born from intelligences with differing ideals coming in contact. In the end, Astraea and her fellow ultra high-performance AIs weren’t exceptions to this rule.
Since Lacia had chosen the economy itself as a tool in her fight, the scale of her conflict had expanded to shake the movements of machines worldwide. The fact that Snowdrop had been fired into Higgins’ facility was a sign of just how antagonistic Lacia’s actions had made some of the other AIs in the world toward her. Up to the very last minute, Lacia had managed to maintain things just on the edge of a Hazard. But, in a matter of minutes, all of that had spun out of control.
The decisions handed down by the IAIA were never light. Astraea continued to conduct her analysis, while the top members of the IAIA met and mulled over the decision before them.
Among all the ultra high-performance AIs, there were essentially two visions of the future being struggled over:
One was the future supported by Higgins and the majority of the other AIs, which was a future in which the model of humanity that had existed up to that point would continue on unchanged. Ryo Kaidai, MemeFrame and the IAIA were all supporters of this future.
The other was the future envisioned by Lacia, in which the deficiencies that existed between humans and automatons were all corrected. However, the future required for this correction and compromise was quite different from the one envisioned by the other AIs and, aside from Arato Endo, none of the other ultra high-performance AI owners had expressed clear support for it.
As one of the first ultra high-performance AIs, Astraea could calculate a solution to the current Hazard. However, her solution would not satisfy the panicking humans. Vision was always faster than life itself; analog hacking only worked in the first place because humans had holes in the security of their brains created by their perception of objects influencing their judgment faster than their brains could process. In other words, life itself was always guided by the speed at which humanity recalled the images stored in their minds. On the flipside, the job of artificial intelligence was to wait while life caught up to vision.
When several of the world’s complicated distortions met and burst, a battlefield was formed. And on those battlefields, it was always the soldiers who died first. An emergency call went out from the Funabashi Emergency Response Center to all officer-class members of HOO. Major Collidenne Lemaire had been half-expecting it.
Watanabe, the CEO of HOO, called the major to his own office, rather than the meeting room in which briefi
ngs were typically held. Everything said in this room, which was the most secure in the whole facility, was unconditionally considered top secret.
“Fly out to Okinawa,” Watanabe said. “Tell our folks there that this is gonna take longer than six months. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”
“Yes, sir,” Collidenne replied.
It wasn’t hard to see where things were going. Looking at the chaos of the world’s financial markets, the rumors of a new Hazard spreading around the world, and Lacia’s broadcast from that night, there was only one place the major could think of where it might all come to a head.
In the parts of the South Sea near the equator, where several countries were squabbling for ownership rights, the risk of a military confrontation had been steadily growing. The major’s squad was focused on land battles, and limited even further to activities only within areas where Japan held influence.
“Things aren’t looking great,” the CEO said, scratching at his balding head. Collidenne could understand his worry; he had thick ties with the Japanese military. “I don’t know what the computers are all planning, but I’m hoping it boils down to a few humans tilting at windmills, the way it usually does.”
“It’ll still be us humans’ responsibility, Mr. President. Even if it turns out to be a machine error,” Collidenne said. It was a blessing for freedom-loving humans when the rigid rules that had been drilled into them in their training were unexpectedly broken, but a curse for true soldiers.
It was humans who owned the machines, and humans who made their place in society through any means necessary, including conflict. And, it was humans who ultimately bore the responsibility for the condition of the world itself. Many humans had innocently believed this for generations. It was a belief that still held sway over Collidenne and her squad.
“Is it getting to you, Major?” Watanabe asked. He must have seen something in her that he remembered from his experiences during the first Hazard.
“A little, sir,” Collidenne replied. With half the world dominated by machines, Collidenne was living in the other half, down in the mud and the sweat with her fellow living beings. She knew there would always be another battlefield.
Humanity was in a state where it could take its first step toward ultimate destruction at any moment. But Collidenne and others like her stood right on the edge of that deadly first step, always looking for a way to buy their kind one more day.
The thought of Lacia’s owner, that kid Arato Endo, popped into Collidenne’s head. She figured the kid was probably caught up right in the middle of the current mess. He was standing at the crossroads: one path led to a future for AIs, and the other to a future for humanity.
Collidenne wondered which of them he would choose.
***
Lacia’s right hip had taken heavy damage when her left hip took a direct hit from Methode’s pseudo-phonon weapon.
Higgins-Methode had first struck with her palm, stretching the elasticity of Lacia’s skin—which was designed to feel as close to human as possible—to its limit. Without the buffer of her body’s flexibility to absorb any of the impact, Higgins-Methode had been able to unleash the full power of her device right into Lacia’s internal structure.
The phonon weapon was first slipped into the space between Lacia’s device lock and the artificial skin on her left hip, causing the device lock to explode outward. After deforming the battery in Lacia’s left hip with intense heat, the power of the weapon was refocused and unleashed again, aimed at the structural fault in the center of Lacia’s waist. The power of the phonons crushed the battery in Lacia’s right hip, then exploded out through her right side.
With the bones around her right side horribly distorted, Lacia could no longer stand upright. “Forgive me, I should have been able to accompany you all the way to Higgins,” Lacia said, leaning heavily on Arato’s shoulder. Her right leg dangled, useless.
Arato wasn’t doing too well himself; he had lost all feeling in his right hand, and was leaning against Lacia’s right side as he walked almost as much as she leaned on him. “You’re the only reason I’m still standing,” he said. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
Lacia had predicted the possibility of Arato being hurt in the fight against Methode; she had brought along a simple burn kit and some strong painkillers in one of her pseudo-devices. If not for that, Arato would still be feeling the full brunt of the horrible burns.
Just like Arato, the floor of the factory area had been blown clear, burned and cracked. After Lacia had stabbed her with her sword of light, Methode’s chest had exploded from within. Snowdrop was missing most of her left side from Lacia’s shot. The two Lacia-class units had been reduced to immobile scrap.
“Still, this is more damage than I expected to take,” Lacia said. “We still have to deal with the mass-produced Koukas before we arrive at Higgins.”
There were only six of Lacia’s floating shields left, including the one assigned to protect Arato. With its front half shorn away, Lacia’s main device could no longer form the barrels for its mass projectile mode. Above all that, Lacia couldn’t even walk on her own, much less fight.
“We should move. It’s dangerous for us to stay here,” Lacia said, her voice wavering. She was using one of the floating shields to carry her device; she no longer had the strength in her skeletal system to support its weight. Arato could tell that her internal injuries were far more serious than they appeared.
As they leaned against each other to stay upright, Arato thought Lacia’s face seemed particularly pained. The thought that he was still being manipulated by his own perception of her gave him hope that she hadn’t yet given up hope on the future they were fighting for.
As an hIE, her pain was different from humans. When he saw the struggle on her face, Arato figured she was wounded in another way, different from the damage to her body and far more serious. He just wished he could see her with his own feelings, rather than being analog hacked by the anguish on her face. Still, he believed there had to be a way for him to help.
It just seemed like everything was falling apart.
Arato looked down at his right arm, which was immobilized and completely wrapped in a layer of semi-transparent coating. He had torn off his own sleeve from the shoulder for treatment, and sprayed his arm, which had been covered in spots where the heat had burned right through his skin, in healing spray.
“The local anesthetic will last for six hours,” Lacia said. “Please avoid any strenuous physical activity, as the burn damage is accumulating and the water I injected is limited.” It seemed silly to have her worrying about him, when her own wounds were so catastrophic that describing them as being just ‘bad’ would be the understatement of the century.
With Lacia’s right hip blown outward, Arato could see the machinery inside of her. But, even with proof of her being a machine exposed for him to see, Arato strangely didn’t feel any sense of distance from her. Some of that came from the pressure he was feeling. Lacia was clearly in a bad state; he didn’t have time to worry about things like that. Beyond everything else, she was precious to him, and that’s all there was to it.
“I’ll take it easy,” he promised. Under the anesthesia, he couldn’t feel pain or heat from his right arm. He was grateful that it was less painful this time, compared to when he had been burned as a child.
Arato lifted Lacia and laid her on one of the pseudo-devices. She rolled onto her side, with her right hip up.
The remaining six pseudo-devices doubled as back-up batteries for her. With her drained as she was from the fight with Methode, they didn’t have the luxury of leaving all six devices functioning. There was a brief exchange of power between the almost-drained devices, leaving just two with the energy to keep floating.
Arato walked along beside her, as the pseudo-device she was lying on carried her along like a stretcher.
Descending from the factory floor, they entered a floor with a narrow hallway. It was apparently a place
meant for humans to walk, with human-shaped doors along the hall. According to Lacia, that floor housed the controls rooms for the warehouse and factory floors above.
“Below here is the heart of Higgins’ facility,” Lacia explained. “It stores the main power generators and computer facilities.” In front of the elevator that would take them into that heart, Lacia stopped and looked up at Arato.
“I cannot guarantee the security of your transmission, but you can make a call from here,” she said. “I recommend you reach out to anyone you feel you need to speak to before we proceed.”
The elevator was coming, but had not yet arrived on their floor. In other words, Lacia was telling Arato the path ahead was even more dangerous than it had been up to that point.
She was always prepared for any eventuality. She was also completely exhausted. Seeing how tired she was, Arato wanted to be strong for her. He wanted to make her happy. She was a heartless machine, yes, but it was that very difference between them that made him want to do everything he could for her. She had said it herself; they were one. Two beings sharing a single heart. It felt good, thinking of himself as part of a pair. No matter how much everyone called him an idiot or easily manipulated, he would never regret the relationship he had with her.
Arato’s small terminal was still in her pocket. When he switched it on, he was surprised to see the symbol showing a stable connection, even though they were in the heart of an ultra high-performance AI’s facility.
He wanted to do what Lacia couldn’t, so he knew exactly who to call first.
〈Hello? Arato?〉 Yuka’s voice came through after just two rings.
“Yuka?” he said. “It’s me. Are you alright?”
Yuka made a fuss. Arato didn’t have time to explain everything to her satisfaction, so he cut right to the chase. “I want to do something for Lacia,” he said. “Could you go to my room and get Erika’s business card?”
It was a bit of a relief, hearing his sister’s voice. He was filled with an even stronger desire to return safely home with Lacia. From the other side, he could hear his sister running around before declaring that she had found it.