by Satoshi Hase
The floating manual screen instructed him to connect a cable from the weapon to his pocket terminal. When he did so, a program made by Lacia installed itself on his terminal. If he punched a command into the program on his terminal, whatever he shot the artificial nerves into would follow the command.
“You really did plan for everything,” he said, and couldn’t keep himself from looking back at Lacia again. Her peaceful face still seemed to be watching over him, and giving him strength. When Arato thought that he might encounter other things which Lacia had prepared for him as he went, he actually started looking forward to it.
The way behind had been sealed off by emergency shutters; the only way for him to go was forward. Arato chose to see it more as being guided, and headed down the open path.
There were still twelve mass-produced Koukas wandering around somewhere, and he had no idea how dangerous the facility security system was. With those thoughts in mind, he couldn’t help but tense up each time he turned a corner. The further he went along, the more he worried about an enemy appearing in front of him, trapping him with no way to escape back the way he’d come. The worry sent chills of sweat sliding down his back.
Still, Arato was pushed on by the promises he had made and the feelings in his heart which couldn’t be denied. “Man, I’ve got to be the dumbest guy alive,” Arato joked to himself.
After all, it had been forty-two years since the Hazard and, in that time, no one had ever been able to show the world that an ultra high-performance AI could be forced into shutdown. Yet there he was, heading onward to do just that; dragging the too-heavy artificial nerve gun along in his one good hand—his left hand—with insurmountable threats to his life possibly waiting for him around every corner.
When he was with Lacia, she always explained the reasons for things and their current situation to him, without him even needing to ask. With her, Arato could at least act as if he knew what was going on and where he was going. Without her, it felt like he was crawling along in the darkness.
But, oddly, it wasn’t a horrible feeling. He knew the conflict he was caught up in was more complicated than he could have possibly imagined, but he was on his way to resolve it through relatively simple means.
Plus, he still had faith in Lacia. Even if her physical form was no longer by his side, he could still feel the influence she had on him in each beat of his heart.
“It’s like I’ve gone back to being your average, everyday helpful idiot,” he told himself: the illusion of understanding he’d had when Lacia was around deflated quickly with her gone.
Beneath Arato’s feet, the ground rumbled again. He no longer had Lacia with him to tell him what was causing it. Drenched in sweat, he just kept his legs moving. His right arm was numb all the way to his shoulder from the first aid treatment. He knew the burden of continued movement on his body was greater than what he was feeling, after having received treatment for such severe burns.
He checked his pocket terminal, which was still connected to the artificial nerve gun by thin, string-like cables. “Isn’t there any other information in here?” he asked out loud. There was an ‘information’ mode, but it appeared to be for displaying information from whatever device he shot the artificial nerve darts into. Arato tapped on the touch-screen of the terminal, looking for anything else the program could do.
“She sure was thorough,” he commented, as he noticed that the artificial nerve gun actually had a built-in holder for his pocket terminal.
“There’s such a thing as being too prepared, Lacia,” he said, trying to joke about it. But the little touch just reminded him again of how deeply Lacia had understood him, and the reality of losing her made his breath catch in his throat.
He took aim and fired an artificial nerve dart into the floor, just as he had seen Lacia do. The needle gave him access to the machinery under the floor, and a map of the area appeared.
The emergency stairs were apparently the closest way to descend from where he was. He didn’t see any paths that went directly to where Higgins’ hardware was stored, but there was a path to the Operators’ Room, nine floors below him. There, he would be able to speak with Higgins. If he shot artificial nerve needles into the machines in that room, he might even be able to force Higgins to shut down.
On the map, Arato saw that the Operators’ Room was located in the furthest area of the heart of the facility, directly below the communications control area where he was at the moment. Unfortunately, the elevators and emergency stairs of areas with different functions of the facility weren’t connected, probably for security reasons.
He eventually made his way to a flight of emergency stairs by carefully following the map data. When he tried it, though, the door was locked.
〈The Higgins facility is currently in a high alert status. All security doors are currently locked. Communications personnel cannot use yellow clearance doors at this time. Please exit through the blue clearance emergency doors.〉
Arato shot an artificial nerve needle into the yellow clearance ID machine near the doors.
〈ID confirmed. Unlocking.〉
The door slid open automatically. But when he had descended the stairway, which was lit with yellow emergency lights, and had opened the door at the bottom, Arato knew that his luck had changed for the worse; there were twelve hIEs standing in the hall in front of him. Twelve mass-produced Kouka units, each wielding a simple device, were waiting there to ambush him.
The unit standing at their head was wearing a confident smile he had seen before. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Or would this be more of ‘hey, it’s been a while’?” Even her voice matched the one in his memories.
Arato realized this would be his final hurdle before he reached Higgins. “Kouka, is that you?” he asked.
“It’s me, alright,” all twelve of the units answered in tandem, though each had her own variation in posture and expression. There was also plenty of variation in the outfits each unit wore, and the shapes of the devices they held. Just from these slight differences in their outward appearances, Arato got the impression of a dozen subtly different characters.
“You being here alone means you must know the answer. Who won, Higgins or Lacia?” the one who had spoken to him first asked.
The questions surprised Arato. “Wait, isn’t the Antibody Network here to destroy Higgins?” he asked in return. Only when the words were out of his mouth did realization strike him: the question was important to the Koukas, who had deliberately avoided encountering Lacia and Arato so as not to interfere with the infiltration. The destinies of countless humans and hIEs were caught up in Lacia’s conflict with Higgins. Even with Lacia gone, the scope of her work was still moving the world.
Arato knew the mass-produced Koukas had no hearts. If he didn’t make things clear, they would just feel that the whole thing had been a boring waste of time.
“Lacia and I are a single unit,” he said. As he said the words, he felt a deep sense of loss, like a razor slicing a deep cut across his heart. She was gone. Nevertheless, he knew there was meaning in his standing there, even if he was alone. There was no way Lacia hadn’t known ahead of time about the Koukas. If she hadn’t said anything to him about them, she must have known there was a way to make it past them safely.
“Lacia became the tool that entrusts the work to humanity,” Arato said, answering for both of them. “She passed the work on to me. So, the fight is about to start up again.” As long as he kept moving forward, Lacia hadn’t lost. That was the new relationship between humans and machines that he and Lacia had been fighting for. He believed there was value at the end of the road she had prepared for him.
One of the Koukas stepped out of line to block Arato’s way with a sour expression on her face. “Gotcha,” she said. “Well, you may not know this, but we can’t let you pass through here. It’s different when there’s twelve of us instead of just one; things get complicated when we need to make a decision.” It was the same as the first time
he had met Lacia’s sister, the original Kouka, in Urayasu, when she’d asked him who he was.
“Things are no different from when Lacia was by my side,” he said. “I’ll never stop reaching out my hand.” Fighting down his terror, Arato reached his hand out to them; he knew he was walking the knife edge between life and death. But, at the same time, he knew there was no reason to negotiate with them when there was nothing they wanted from him. They could have easily shot him down with their lasers at a distance, killing him probably before he even realized what was happening.
Still, he believed in them, because they were wearing Kouka’s form. Arato placed his life in Lacia’s hands, since she had been involved in their creation. He was a human, and an owner. “So please,” he said, “Show me who you are.”
The reaction to his words was instant as a flash of lightning, and as violent as an explosion: three of the twelve devices pointed their lasers at Arato; seven of the others reacted at the same time. The four standing closest to the three taking aim at Arato pulled large knives out of their leg sheaths. Before the three could bring their large devices to bear on Arato, their arms were sliced off almost simultaneously. The remaining three of the seven got between the other mass-produced units and Arato, before opening fire on their fellow units.
Only the three who had tried to fire at Arato fell, massive holes blown open in their chests. None of the units showed a single sign of hesitation as the horrible internal struggle played out in front of Arato’s eyes. The lead unit, who Arato thought of as being the Kouka, shifted her device from its large cannon mode to a large red blade and gave each of the mortally wounded units a final stab.
“You’re all mass-produced Koukas. Why did this happen?” Arato asked. The fact that each of the girls had the same form and most of the same habits had made the silent tragedy all the more surreal.
“Well, they went and did it,” the lead Kouka said, hefting her red knife and turning to Arato. “They must’ve known what would happen if they acted like that.” She seemed relaxed, despite having just destroyed multiple units that shared her own face.
“There’s more than one ultra high-performance AI jacked into the Antibody Network, you know,” she explained. “I was given a judgment standard imprinted on my mass-produced Kouka AI so that I could discover Lacia’s true intent. The other units each have their own stories, too.”
“I wonder if Lacia thought it would be too complicated to explain it to me,” Arato mused. There had been potential allies among the mass-produced Kouka units; he figured that must have been why Lacia didn’t seem to see them as a threat right up until she had been critically wounded. It was obvious, when Arato thought about it, that Lacia had made those preparations beforehand.
“A bunch of different ultra high-performance AIs bought out folks working in the production facility when all twelve of us were made,” the lead Kouka continued. “The only thing the other AIs can agree on is that we’re supposed to destroy Higgins’ backup power supply and drain all his energy. After that, the purposes we were each given are different enough that we’ll probably wind up destroying each other, in the end.”
Arato hated to think about how the other AIs had backed Lacia into the corner she had been in. But, perhaps because he was too stupid to focus on the specifics of the different factions out there, he could see how what the other AIs wanted to do might also line up with what he was trying to do.
“So, since you all helped me, the rest of the ultra high-performance AIs agree with Lacia, right?” he asked.
“Depends on how your last battle goes,” one of the Koukas replied. “If we go in front of Higgins right now, we’ll just end up fighting amongst ourselves again. We’ve decided to wait and see how things play out. Don’t read too much into it.” The eyes of the destroyed units and the eyes of all the units still standing were focused on Arato.
“Though I suppose you’ve passed, for now,” the lead Kouka with the red knife said, grinning. Though Arato knew in his mind that this unit had no direct connection to the original Kouka, hearing it from her made him feel like the original was praising him, as well.
These units were just bundles of form and perception, with a facade of human words and actions laid over the top. Inside, they were completely different from the Kouka who had called Lacia ‘dear sister’. Even knowing that, Arato couldn’t help but feel some familiarity with them, due to their appearance. In his heart, the image of Kouka had been given a special meaning; it was the natural evolution of Erika Burroughs’ Hello Kitty cup.
Still, Arato could feel affection towards machines, even if they lost the illusion of humanity. He hadn’t been that way before meeting Lacia. After he’d met her and came to love her, it was as though he had stepped across a proverbial line in the sand.
“Well jeez, you’re making me blush,” Arato said. “But I think I already know how this fight is going to end.”
Since losing Lacia and being forced to view the world through his own senses again, Arato had noticed something: to him, it seemed as though the world was not divided between humans and machines, but was rather divided by the outward appearance everything had. He no longer hesitated to put his faith in something purely because of his perception of it, regardless of whether it was a living thing or not.
He and Lacia were a single unit. At that moment, he felt like he truly understood what she had meant when she’d said so. It was perfectly natural to think of a tool as being an extension of one’s own body, but something completely different to consider a tool as a comrade. Arato was standing in the middle of something that would shake the world.
“I think I’m already seeing the new world,” he said.
“If you’re seeing the future Lacia was working on, why don’t you tell us about it?” the lead Kouka asked. “With everything that’s been going on, are humans gonna have to stop being humans here in a bit?”
“We humans treat each other as special because we feel like we’re all looking at life the same,” Arato replied. “But I know humans can come to love people who only look like people.”
“I think that’ll make our world feel bigger and more full,” he added, because his feelings were linked directly with his memories of Lacia’s form. With that said, he turned his feet toward Higgins and started walking. He needed to tell Higgins that he was the man his daughter had been dating.
The mass-produced Koukas walked to the sides of the corridor, opening a path for him; it felt like they had understood him, which warmed Arato’s heart.
“Thanks,” he said simply.
“Sounds like a future where a lot of different types of folks can get along,” one of the Koukas observed. “That’d make it so the other ultra high-performance AIs wouldn’t have to worry so much about being shut down, either.” Arato had at least one supporter among the mass-produced Kouka units. That meant whichever ultra high-performance AI was mixed in with the influence the Antibody Network had over her was sympathetic to his cause. It was as if Lacia had made the connection for him from beyond the grave, which made him strangely happy.
“If you’re okay with that, I think I can count you as one of Lacia’s friends,” he replied.
The Koukas all laughed at that. “If you’re saying things like that in a situation like this, then the future Lacia was working on couldn’t have been that bad,” one of them said.
Then, with the sound of a sharp impact, the floor beneath them began to shake,
As Arato’s brain slowly worked its way through the bewildered thought that all the mass-produced Koukas, who should have been the only remaining threat, were right in front of him, the Kouka with her device in its red knife configuration spoke.
“Snowdrop reactivated,” she explained. “You’d better go finish up with Higgins fast. She bonded with Methode, so she’ll have no trouble blowing away the shutters on the Operators’ Room.”
Ryo was probably still in the Operators’ Room, Arato realized with panic, and started to run. Snowdrop took
over Methode? He thought next, processing the Kouka’s words. If she can use Methode’s device, there’s no way these security partitions will stop her.
He flew into the nearest elevator connecting to the Operators’ Room. If he was on the same path as Snowdrop, he was sure all the security measures would be broken. All he needed was to get to the goal a second before she did.
After the elevator reached its lowest floor, he ran out into the elevator hall, only to find that it was completely sealed off by thick barrier walls. However, the barrier sealing the hallway that lead to the Operators’ Room had a hole in it large enough for an adult to pass through without crouching. Once he was through the hole, Arato saw that the way ahead was more of the same; thick security barriers had attempted to block the path forward, but each had been destroyed.
Snowdrop had gotten in ahead of him.
“Damn,” he cursed. “I should have known better. Isn’t there anything I can do?” There was no one to ask, but Arato felt that if he didn’t put his question into words, he would instead have been forced to accept the impossibility of his situation. With Lacia gone, Arato had to finish what they started.
From ahead, Arato could hear roaring noises that were clearly abnormal. He couldn’t help but think that, since the dawn of time, humans had been forced to rely on their own flesh when they ran out of tools. Arato ran as fast as his body could carry him down the hallway, which had developed the scent of char.
It was the first time Arato had followed Snowdrop’s trail without stepping over hundreds of her little flowers. He chose to take that as a sign that the monster was at the limits of her strength, just like him.
A horrendous noise blew past him in the hallway, seeming to shatter the air as it passed. The burning smell got stronger, and the hallway suddenly felt hotter. Arato felt like his heart would stop as the shock of the blast made everything in his head go blank. He felt panic starting to claw at his heart. To fight it, he ducked his head and ran, keeping his eyes on the floor and yelling with everything left in his lungs.