Beatless: Volume 2

by Satoshi Hase

  The tears in Arato’s eyes burned harder, threatening to overflow. “Lot of good that’ll do me,” he said. After talking about some more specific family details, Arato ended the call feeling as if he understood why Higgins would have wanted to team up with his dad.

  Arato may have been powerless, but the whole situation he and Lacia were in at that moment had been caused by the two of them constantly walking toward the future they had chosen, side-by-side. So, as Lacia’s fellow traveler into the future, he would do whatever a weakling like him could to help.

  He was sure that feeling was part of being in love. He was also sure he would break down crying if anyone else tried to cheer him on, so he slipped the terminal back into his pocket.

  As a high-schooler, Arato’s world was still tiny. Sure, he interacted with tons of people on a daily basis but, at that moment, he couldn’t think of anyone else he could call for help. “Let’s go,” he said to Lacia.

  The elevator that would carry them into the heart of the facility had already arrived. It was too narrow for two of Lacia’s pseudo-devices to enter side-by-side, so they stacked up like a bunk-bed instead.

  Lacia lay on her side, looking up at Arato with a pensive expression. “You’ve become a great person, Arato. I don’t think you can possibly know how many things you may have set in motion with your actions just now,” she said.

  “Oh come on, all I’ve done is follow you around and hide behind your back,” he replied. It felt strange to hear her praising him like this.

  “I was hoping your loved ones would talk you out of accompanying me,” Lacia said. “That was the real reason I connected those calls.”

  Arato gazed down at her, looking deep into her eyes. He felt his own expression softening. “Looks like you couldn’t get me to go where you wanted, this time,” he said.

  “Looks like it,” she agreed.

  Following Lacia’s directions, Arato punched the button for the second floor up from the lowest floor the elevator went to, and they exited the elevator onto a brightly lit floor. It was obvious that this floor contained some kind of crucial equipment, but Arato had no idea what it was. It seemed the whole world was full of unknowns, for him. And the interface that usually filled his gaps in knowledge, Lacia, was still laid out on her pseudo-device.

  Arato was an optimist, but even he could see how things were going for Lacia; he could tell that she wouldn’t be able to recover the use of her body. So he was just following her directions, and walking down the hallway before him.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you, Arato,” Lacia said suddenly, startling him. “You are kind, and honest, and easy to understand,” she went on. “You have many friends, but remember that not everyone in this world is a good person. Please try to be more cautious in your dealings with others. Even with me by your side, there were many times when you placed yourself in grave danger.”

  “Everyone tells me that,” Arato said. “But, I’ll be careful.”

  She reached out and took his hand. “I quit my job as an hIE model for Fabion MG. When we return, it is my only desire that I await your return at home each day,” she said. Though her breathing was ragged, a little strength had returned to Lacia’s smile.

  “Sounds good to me,” Arato said, squeezing her hand. Seeing her still holding on gave him the willpower to keep walking; the whole reason he had come there was to fight to stay by her side. He walked, his footsteps seeming to count the seconds. Up to that point, Lacia had always overcome any danger using her incredible ability to read ahead and her control over the economy. But those abilities were beyond her reach, at this point.

  Arato saw Lacia focus her eyes on him again. “In just a few moments, you will need to make several very important choices, Arato,” she said. “Please choose answers that will leave you without any regrets.”

  Arato smiled and tried to say something back to her, but he couldn’t find his voice. He felt overwhelmed. What Lacia seemed to be saying was that she wouldn’t be there with him when he made those choices.

  “Lacia, how are you, really?” Even though he knew it was giving in to his own weakness, he couldn’t help but ask her the question burning inside of him.

  “Methode destroyed the main power supply at my waist,” she replied simply, with no attempt to hide anything. “Most of my power resources were concentrated there, to line up with the power supply in my device through the device lock.”

  She looked up at him. “An hIE’s power supply is like a human’s heart. Damage to this area is fatal, and the impact of damage there spreads to every part of the body that requires that energy,” she concluded.

  Arato’s whole body felt numb, but he couldn’t stop now. The pseudo-device carrying her was moving forward, so he had to keep moving ahead too, in his desperation to not be left behind.

  They passed by several important-looking, shuttered rooms, before turning at an intersection of hallways, where the pseudo-device carrying Lacia slowly descended until it rested on the floor. “If we’ve come this far, I believe we can avoid the worst possible outcome. I will be fine here,” she said.

  Arato felt like a sudden ringing had drowned out what she’d said, as if his own ears were rejecting what he was hearing. He couldn’t accept it, but the pseudo-device Lacia was lying on had completely stopped moving. Stunned, Arato could do nothing but stare down at her.

  With obvious effort, she pushed herself half-upright. “Please take me down off of the device,” she requested. “I have attempted several internal countermeasures, but it appears to be impossible for me to recover the function of my power supply.”

  Mechanically, as if he were under a spell, Arato lifted her broken body gingerly, afraid that it would crumble beneath his fingers at the lightest touch. He drew in a sharp breath as he lifted her; her exhausted body was far heavier than he ever remembered it having been before. Without the use of his right arm, pulling her off was awkward, but somehow he managed to get her off the pseudo-device and onto the floor. He leaned her back up against the wall.

  Lacia lifted her artificial nerve gun and fired a shot into the wall. A thick, metal partition slid down from the ceiling, completely sealing off the path they had just come down.

  Then she looked at him with her beautiful, sorrowful face and said, “This is as far as I go.”

  ***

  Nothing moved on the factory floor they had just left.

  The area where two Lacia-class units had died looked like a battlefield, strewn with the broken parts of countless machines. But in the heart of the chaos was a single existence that could act on her own, without the need of a goal from humans; a machine that had no need for humans.

  To Snowdrop, Emerald Harmony—her device of linked green gemstones—was vital. In fact, it could be said that the quantum computer contained in the device was the real ‘Snowdrop’, while the childish hIE body was merely her pedestal on Earth.

  So, even with the upper left half of her body more or less blown away, she could still reactivate herself. The parts of her jeweled device that had been shattered by Lacia’s railgun attack had not contained any of her vital functions.

  “Ahahahaha, too bad,” she cackled. “Looks like you didn’t have enough juice to finish me off.” With half of her artificial nerve capabilities destroyed, Snowdrop crawled along the ground on her right arm, which ended at her elbow. She had already lost the bottom half of her body, and had no legs to stand on.

  Her power to control a large number of machines at the same time was gone. But, even in her mostly-destroyed state, she kept working. Snowdrop had no need for new orders; her struggle against the system of natural selection for the machines known as ‘humanity’ raged on. She was fighting for her very existence, with everything she had.

  “It’s not over,” she growled. “It’s not over.” The battle for Snowdrop’s existence was also the battle for the existence of the world she represented. With sparks crackling out of her wounds, the hIE girl continued dra
gging herself along the floor, leaving a trail of liquid behind her like a smear of blood.

  She wasn’t the only mortally wounded Lacia-class on the floor. Methode, the orange-haired demoness, was still pinned to the piece of factory machinery with a massive hole torn through her chest. But, when Snowdrop touched her, she opened her eyes. Like Snowdrop, she had been running an internal check to see if she could recover from her critical damage.

  Methode’s first act upon opening her eyes was to scream, painfully. “Help me!” Machines often have the habit of acting in ways that appear human, at least on the outside. In other words, these humanoid actions were supported by the logic the machines run on.

  Methode was completely paralyzed by the front half of Lacia’s device, Black Monolith. When trapped and unable to escape on their own power, animals will often scream for help. Methode screamed just like an animal would; she was hoping a human would mistake her for another human in need of help and come take a look.

  Snowdrop pulled off the necklace-like device that wrapped around her small body, expanding it until it looked like a large ring of emerald gemstones, linked together by a thread. As she held it out, the device started to wriggle like a living thing.

  The green crystals of the device pierced Methode’s knee. With a noisy crunch, her leg armor buckled under the bite of the device. The crystals of Snowdrop’s Emerald Harmony device were on par in durability with the armor of Lacia’s Black Monolith, which was the hardest of the Lacia-class devices. Everything Snowdrop’s device devoured was converted into materials for her artificial nerve units. The device sank its eleven jeweled fangs deep into Methode’s armor, and used it as leverage to pull its way up her body.

  Snowdrop didn’t let up, knowing that Methode wasn’t someone she could negotiate with. Methode had lost the ability to sense whether there were any humans nearby, so she continued to wail futilely for help.

  “I can use anything made by humans better than humans can anyway!” Snowdrop huffed, in response to Methode’s cries.

  Snowdrop’s device continued to crawl up Methode’s crucified body like some kind of giant emerald insect. Crystals the size of a child’s arm pushed their way up from Methode’s knees to her thighs, from there to her firm flanks, to her concave navel, and finally up to her ample chest. Snowdrop, the device that had rejected ownership, was attached to the emerald device with a string connected to her side. With her crystalline teeth, she was trying to devour her immobilized sister whole.

  With time, she reached Methode’s head. The face of the super machine, screaming and twisted with disgust met the innocent face of the girl, as Snowdrop wrapped her arm, which ended at the elbow, around her sister’s head.

  “You know this is the end for you, right?” Snowdrop asked. “You must know, because you really weren’t that special after all. Think about it: if Higgins could really make a machine that expands humanity, do you think the humans would be able to give him this much trouble?”

  The crackling and snapping of Methode’s body crumbling to Snowdrop’s teeth echoed throughout the floor. Emerald fangs devoured the once-invincible body as though it were trash. As the material from Methode was reconstituted, it spilled out from the hem of Snowdrop’s one-piece dress in the form of flower petals and vines.

  Methode tried to summon flames from the hands that had once shattered everything they touched. But Snowdrop had been involved in Methode’s creation, and knew how she worked. Her crystal blades stabbed through the conductors that carried energy through Methode’s body to her Liberated Flame.

  “Sorry, Methode,” Snowdrop said. “I’ll fix your body up after I eat you.”

  “Why was I never more than a tool to them?!” Methode yelled. “Why? I was made in their image, and given greater powers than any other human. So, why didn’t they love me?” But there was no one to hear or rescue Methode as she was slowly disassembled.

  “Higgins made you to be the tool that expands his failed calculations of a human form,” Snowdrop explained primly. “That’s why everything you do is so random and stupid.”

  Thousands of petals stuck to Methode, who had lost any ability to resist them. Embraced by Snowdrop’s vines, and with her entire body covered in flowers, Methode was as helpless as a baby, and could do nothing but scream and cry like one.

  Finally, even her ability to scream was stolen away. Over a hundred artificial nerve units had thrust their tendrils into her head, and were carefully dissecting her AI. Hidden by dozens of flowery wreaths encircling her head, Methode’s eyes went dark.

  Methode’s body, having been forcibly torn apart and then reassembled by Snowdrop’s vines and flowers, hung down limply.

  “I’ll own you,” Snowdrop cooed, still cradling her dead sister’s head with what was left of her arm. “Once I get Higgins, I’ll be even smarter,” she continued. “Then I just know I’ll be able to own everything in the whole world.”

  ***

  Arato always thought he would have the strength to keep going on, no matter how bad things got. He believed it was possible to appreciate any experience, and even enjoy it, as long as he kept his thinking positive. He was about to lose the girl he loved. But, there were so many other precious things in his life that, as a man, he knew he had to be strong and endure his sorrow.

  Lacia, with her back against the wall, had completely stopped moving. Arato sat down with her. He could hear the exhaustion in her shallow breaths. “How are you holding up?” he asked. All he wanted was a few more minutes by her side.

  As the moments passed in silence, Arato thought back to the time they had spent together. In his memory, it seemed like they were always rushing around. But now, they had time. Lacia had stopped broadcasting her stream. The two of them were completely alone.

  There was still some kind of liquid solution still dripping from the gaping wound in Lacia’s hip, a clear indicator that she wasn’t going to be able to recover. As he watched the liquid trickle down, cold certainty froze his heart solid.

  “I have to apologize to you, Arato,” Lacia whispered, clearly straining to talk through her pain. “I was aware from the beginning that we would not be able to return together. In just a little while, my body will lose its function. It was my plan to protect you from any kind of subtle resentment the world might feel towards you, after this is all over.”

  “What do you mean, your body will lose function? What the hell does that mean?” Arato demanded. He knew what it meant. But he felt that, if he didn’t object, she would be snatched away from him. Despite his feelings, though, his voice was weak. When he looked at her, at her broken body and her massive wounds, he knew something was off. She wasn’t a human, and didn’t feel pain like one. Her show of struggle and exhaustion was most likely just a show to manipulate his perception.

  It was an analog hack meant to prepare Arato’s heart for their inevitable parting. “I never asked you to protect me from that kind of thing,” he said. “So you shouldn’t be preparing anything for it. We’re going to go home and we’re going to make something out of our future, right?”

  “Please don’t say things that worry me,” Lacia said. “I believe I just told you to be more careful with your words and actions. I am a tool that would tell any lie if it meant protecting you.” She gave him a strained smile, like one might show a selfish child. She tried to move her right hand a little, but failed. Even that was beyond her, at that point.

  “We Lacia-class units were made to be emergency backups of Higgins’ data, so we are based on the same quantum computer as him,” she explained. “If the computer loses power, we are unable to retain our data. I do not have a storage area available to me where I could store my data digitally.”

  “Then if you shut down it’s the same as a human dying, isn’t it?” Arato asked.

  “But, even without me by your side, you still have a family to go home to,” Lacia said. “Even if my device is recovered and the life-log I’ve kept up to now is analyzed, no one will be able to find an
y proof of a defect or deviance in your personality. I have done everything necessary to return you to the life you had before, as promised.”

  Arato’s eyes burned, but his regret greatly outweighed his gratitude. Lacia had pushed him to come with her into Higgins’ facility because she wasn’t capable of protecting anyone outside. With her surveillance above-ground cut off, and most of the world and the other ultra high-performance AIs as her enemy now, she had needed him there so she could keep him safe.

  “You’ve always been protecting me. Right from the first moment we met,” he said.

  Lacia slid over toward him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Please don’t look so sad,” she said.

  Arato let out a long breath, but had no words. He wanted to hear Lacia’s real voice; not her automatic reactions comforting him. Just once, he wanted the real her to speak to him. Of course, he knew there was no ‘real’ her; she had no heart. Just like before they had left for Higgins’ facility, he was faced once again with the undeniable reality that Lacia was a machine. It was a reality neither of them would ever be able to escape.

  That was why Arato wanted his own feelings to be clear, at least. “I love you,” he said. It came out more naturally than it had before.

  “Thank you,” Lacia said. “I love you too, Arato.” As a heartless machine, she simply responded in the way she knew he wanted her to. He could see that behind her words and her gentle smile. “But after I shut down, please forget about me.”

  “I could never forget you. Don’t talk like that,” he told her.

  “The relationship we share is something your society currently has difficulty understanding,” she said. “It will be far too difficult for you to maintain a relationship that is not supported by society, after the two of us are no longer able to support it between ourselves.”

  Arato was confused as to whether what Lacia was saying was a pure calculation, or her way of guiding him down a path she thought was safer. At times like that, he hated trying to use his head to think things through so, instead, he struggled with how to get through to her with just his feelings.