by Satoshi Hase
Mindless terror overpowered him to the extent that he couldn’t even run in a straight line. He ran in a forward pitching motion, almost tripping and rolling countless times, before finally coming to a stop in front of the largest set of security gates.
Arato had reached the end of the journey he had started with Lacia. He had arrived, but his body had been pushed to its absolute limit. The strain he was feeling drove home painfully the reality of human life; even with all the automation, our actual bodies haven’t changed much, Arato thought.
“Ryo!” he yelled, “Are you okay? Are you alive?” There was a giant hole in the final gate, as well, and worry for his friend drove out all other thoughts.
“Arato!” His friend’s voice called out to him.
Arato felt as though his heart would burst out of his chest from how it was hammering. Dazed, he stumbled forward, tears threatening to drip from his face as he stepped through the hole and into the Operators’ Room.
His friend was still alive.
The room was stark, empty and wide. The sole furnishing was something like a control station, placed squarely in the center of the room. A little ways in from the smashed barrier, Arato saw a human figure decorated with flowers. He lifted the artificial nerve gun to shoot it at her back, but his left arm was too tired to hold his aim steady.
Arato could just see Ryo on the other side of Snowdrop. The last time Arato had seen his friend, Ryo had been pointing a gun at him at Kichijoji, but that all seemed so trivial at that moment.
“Ryo! Use this!” Arato called. He pushed his tired feet to their limit, taking a short approach run before swinging his entire body around to add momentum as he hurled the artificial nerve gun with everything he had. Weakened as he was, he could only manage to throw it ten meters; the nerve gun went sailing through the air before clattering to the floor and sliding.
Their eyes met; Ryo was laughing through his tears, and Arato felt like something that had frozen between them was melting. Ryo, who had been hiding behind the control table in the center of the room, now leaped out to snatch up the weapon.
Securing the nerve gun in both of his hands, Ryo took aim and fired the weapon at Snowdrop/Methode’s amalgam. The shot that had been impossible for Arato, with just his left hand, had been a simple task for Ryo, whose arms were uninjured. The two of them together could do what either one of them couldn’t have accomplished alone.
After taking the dart in her shoulder, Snowdrop shuddered for a moment. However, an instant later, the Snowdrop/Methode amalgam kept moving, as if nothing had happened. The monster seemed to be made up of Methode’s body, with Snowdrop riding on her left shoulder; the two had been bound together with green vines. It was horrendous. Unable to completely maintain its balance, the amalgam continuously shambled awkwardly toward its goal. Methode’s face was covered with vines and flowers, blinding her, and Snowdrop had neither arms nor legs. Methode’s purple body was full of holes, and her left side alone was incapable of supporting the whole weight of the body, so the monster dragged a leg behind it as it moved.
It came to Arato then that he had left the artificial nerve gun on its ‘security release’ mode. “You can switch it to weapon mode on the terminal attached to the gun!” Arato shouted.
Ryo grasped the use of the device from Arato’s short explanation and immediately activated the second mode on the terminal before firing again. The amalgam staggered, as if the leg hit by the dart had gone numb.
Arato couldn’t do anything against a unit that was the peak of the Lacia-class, so he had to rely on Ryo’s movements. Ryo grabbed a computer unit that filled his arms and dragged it out from the wall, dragging its many connected cables away with it; Arato assumed Ryo’s actions had something to do with counteracting Snowdrop-Methode’s device. The amalgam must have realized that Ryo was doing something important as well, as it turned to lurch toward him.
Tied to Methode’s head by countless vines, Snowdrop glared at Arato the whole time. “How about I burn you to a crisp, too?” she asked menacingly. Then, one of the hands that had broken Lacia slowly lifted, and Arato dove for the floor.
Under Snowdrop’s control, Methode’s arm sent flames shooting at him. There were pitifully few places one could hide in the Operators’ Room; only two, in fact. There had been a space behind the computer unit which Ryo had pulled out of the wall, or another behind the control panels.
Arato leaped and rolled behind one of the cubic computers just as Snowdrop’s flames roasted it, and a warning alarm began to ring out loudly from the ceiling.
〈An attack on one of Higgins’ expansion terminals has been detected. There has been damage to the data that was being processed,〉 a warning voice said.
Since his life was on the line, Arato was able to grasp at least part of Ryo’s plan to keep them alive. By pushing Snowdrop into breaking one of Higgins’ expansion computers, he had shown her the danger of attacking them recklessly in that room.
Arato remembered that Snowdrop was capable of taking hostages in the Mitaka Incident. He figured her thought process directed her to focus on her priorities, if murdering everyone around her wasn’t an option.
“If you throw that fire around, you’ll damage Higgins’ hardware! Wasn’t this what you came here for?” Ryo warned, from behind the control panels in the middle of the room. As he spoke, he signaled to Arato with his hands. Arato scuttled over to join his friend behind the control panels, but things weren’t quite settled between him and his friend.
“Why the hell did you come here after losing Lacia?” Ryo demanded. His face, which Arato hadn’t seen for a while, looked honestly surprised.
“What about you?” Arato asked. “Were you really waiting here for me?”
At least Arato had Lacia by his side. Ryo hadn’t even had that. But regardless, Ryo had chosen to wait for him there. They both fumbled for what to say but, strangely, they both wore broad grins. Even Ryo’s stiff expression had softened.
Snowdrop, probably wanting to avoid burning the flowers that bound her to Methode, deliberately manipulated Methode’s hand to draw out the artificial nerve dart in her leg. Then, still lurching, she continued moving forward.
“Yeah, I waited here for you,” Ryo said. “I was hoping you’d bring a slightly stronger weapon with you, though.” The normally cautious Ryo was obviously taking insane risks himself to fight against what he saw as the end of humanity.
“Don’t say that, man. At least you have a weapon now,” Arato replied.
“You shouldn’t have been so quick to toss this one to me, then,” Ryo said.
It seemed to Arato that Ryo still hadn’t completely gotten over what had happened at Kichijoji. But, even though they were fighting for different goals at that moment, they had at least returned to the appearance of friendship. The closeness between them moved their hearts, if not their minds.
“You can use it better than I can, so don’t worry about it,” Arato said, feeling a simple joy from interacting with his friend like old times again. He was glad he had come.
“Where is Higgins?” Snowdrop asked. “Bring him out for me.”
Every time Arato had met Snowdrop, she had twisted the world around her into something terrible. And, at that moment, she had become a monstrosity by fusing with Methode. She had no interest in guiding Arato with her form. Rather, she was a figure that represented a completely different set of values from his own.
When faced with a true monster, humans had no choice but to fight back with everything they had. That was why humans prepared tools; to stay alive.
“Are there any poles or pipes around I could use?” Arato asked.
“If you’re looking for a weapon, at least make it something useful,” Ryo said, passing Arato three artificial nerve needles. He had opened up the gun and removed them from the clip.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ryo said, when he saw Arato’s expression. “This thing is made so you can open it up and put it back together easily. That tells me
Lacia made it that way, because you don’t actually have to shoot the needles for them to work. If you stick one of these into the control panel for the security system, we should be able to take control of it.”
“Damn Ryo, you’re always so smart,” Arato said. Their cooperation may have just been on the surface, but it was affecting reality, and even the superficial appearance of cooperation was enough to move their hearts.
“I’ll back you up,” Ryo said. “The panel just outside the entrance is connected to the security system.”
Arato had no idea what would happen when he stabbed the panel with his needle, but Ryo had no time to explain it to him. He did seem surprised, though, with how little hesitation Arato had to leaping into action.
“The other machines and panels around here might be connected to Higgins,” he warned. “Don’t stab them!”
Arato trusted his friend and ran, wondering which machines were connected directly to Higgins. He figured that must have been why Ryo was so careful about not shooting wildly into the room.
“Arato, roll! She’s aiming for you!” Ryo shouted, firing off a shot. As if their hearts had united, Ryo and Arato moved in sync.
Snowdrop-Methode’s arm stretched out toward Arato’s shoulder as he rolled toward the control panel. No human could survive getting snatched by those hands, so Arato threw himself away from her with all his strength. He landed hard on his badly burned right arm, causing him to curl up from the shock of the impact and the nauseous feeling that washed over him afterward.
Ryo leaned out and yelled something at him, his face stretched taught in obvious, panicked worry. He seemed to have been freed from the demonic expressions Arato had seen him make before. It seemed that his feelings toward Arato had changed completely from what they were then.
Arato scrambled at the ground. He couldn’t die yet.
He and Ryo were completely opposites. Growing up, he had always relied on Ryo to pull him out of tough situations. They’d had a falling out, and neither wanted to lose to the other. But, for the moment, things between them had calmed down.
Wheezing, Arato pushed himself to his feet and stumbled out through the large hole in the security barrier. Outside, he spotted the security terminal on the wall, and slammed one of the darts he had been given into it.
A screen above the small keyboard on the terminal displayed 〈Activate intruder elimination function?〉in red text. It sounded dangerous, but must have been what Ryo had been aiming for. He punched his finger into the button on the terminal.
A short, menacing warning tone played throughout the room. From the ceiling, a white net fell, trapping the Snowdrop-Methode amalgam. With the first net of some kind of sticky material stopping its feet, the amalgam was hit by at least ten more nets. Finally, a spear as tall as a human stabbed at Methode from above.
But even the spear wasn’t enough to finish her off. From within the cocoon of countless nets binding it, the amalgam glowed with a faint blue light. Lacia’s railgun shot had been the only attack so far that could break Snowdrop’s device; unable to pierce the sturdy shield of Snowdrop’s device, the spear was snapped in half.
Fire consumed the nets from within, fired by Methode’s device. Snowdrop’s artificial nerves, which weren’t resistant to fire, began to burn away, along with the needles and vines attached to the amalgam.
“Arato, use another one! Look for some way to get her really hot!” Ryo ordered.
Arato jammed in the second needle as hard as he could. The screen on the terminal read 〈Please enter query.〉 But, Arato didn’t have the time to blindly look up ways to burn away Snowdrop’s artificial nerves. Snowdrop-Methode had knelt, and was pressing its hands to the floor.
With a powerful explosion, a pillar of metal powder was thrown up into the air around the amalgam, obscuring it. Not just once, either; the first blast was followed immediately by a second, and then a third.
Arato and Ryo were rocked by the sound of the explosions, as though they were being smashed by a hammer. Inside the room, Ryo gave up on hiding and climbed up onto the control panels, obviously thinking he was safer there.
Arato clenched the final artificial nerve dart between his teeth and covered one ear with his good left hand.
The intermittent explosions began to sound more and more metallic with each blow. When Arato looked into the room, he inhaled a mouthful of metal dust. His body spasmed as he felt the dust enter his airway, and he was forced to drag himself out of the room, hacking uncontrollably.
Unable to escape the roar of the amalgam’s aural attack, he was jerked in and out of consciousness. His sense of time was blurred to incomprehensibility. He had no idea how much time had passed before the sound stopped.
He couldn’t hear anything through the ringing in his right ear. Unable to stand, and with drool smeared around his mouth, he crawled to the hole and looked into the room. The floor, from the entrance to the control panels, had completely crumbled. The Snowdrop-Methode amalgam had used Methode’s device to destroy the very floor beneath them.
Beneath the floor, Arato could see a huge open space full of light. When Arato realized what he was seeing he forced himself to stand, ignoring the weakness and numbness of his legs. “So this is Higgins,” he said.
Directly below the Operators’ Room was a wide open chamber, at least ten meters deep, and covered with computers on every wall from floor to ceiling. Arato and Ryo were standing right above Higgins’ true form.
Arato wiped his mouth with his sleeve and yelled, “Ryo, are you okay?!”
Arato saw Ryo curled in a ball on top of the control panels. The horrendous sound, reverberating within the chamber, had been too much for his consciousness to bear. The control panels appeared to be undamaged. Ryo had climbed up on it before the attack had begun. To Arato, the panels now seemed like the top of an iceberg sticking out, connected to the massive network just below.
The Snowdrop-Methode amalgam had failed to land properly, and had lost Methode’s right leg from the knee down. It tried to stand, but the burden was too great and Methode’s left leg also snapped, twisting under the weight.
Snowdrop was capable of overpowering any machine. However, despite finally making contact with Higgins, she didn’t appear to have fulfilled her goal yet. From what Arato could tell, she hadn’t been able to produce her controlling flowers since she had fused with Methode. It stood to reason that some of her functions would be lost, considering that she had taken enough damage to shut her down at one point.
Arato barked out a yell to gather his courage and what remained of his strength, and leaped down from the broken floor, clutching the last artificial nerve needle in his hand. He fell for about three meters, landing on some of Higgins’ expansion computers, which had been stacked up almost to the ceiling of the hardware storage chamber. Snowdrop had also fallen atop a pile of computers about the same height as Arato’s. The amalgam was attempting to crawl stealthily down toward the true center of Higgins’ hardware, directly below the control panels in the room above.
“Ryo!” Arato called, looking up at the Operators’ Room above from atop the metal computer plate he stood on. There was no reply. All Arato had was the last artificial nerve dart; he didn’t even have a way to fire it.
He had been able to fight together with Ryo against Snowdrop for a time, but that time had passed. On the other hand, he was sure Snowdrop had a plan as she crawled toward what he assumed was Higgins’ heart.
Arato made his decision. “Higgins,” he yelled, “please tell me how to stop Snowdrop!”
He had come to shut Higgins down, but now he needed the AI’s help. No human could hope to beat a Lacia-class unit with nothing but his own body. He was sure Higgins could find a way, though. As he called out to the AI, Arato was surprised at how little resistance he had to trusting Higgins. It seemed as though he, Ryo, and Higgins—two humans and a machine—were somehow aligned, at that moment.
Higgins, his machinery laying exposed thanks to the dest
ruction of the thick floor of the Operators’ Room above, answered from the ceiling far above. 〈If you wish for me to help, I will need you to stab that artificial nerve needle you are holding into the computer tower beneath your feet.〉
Arato didn’t understand how that would help, so Higgins explained.
〈I cannot fulfill your request in my current state, sealed in this facility as I am. However, through that artificial nerve needle I will be able to take control of the weapon it is linked to, currently held by Ryo Kaidai. Thanks to the gap in my processing powers over that of the weapon, I will then be able to connect directly to your pocket terminal, through which I will be able to access the outside network. Once I am there and am able to secure greater processing power, stopping Snowdrop will be trivial.〉
The ultra high-performance AI Higgins was asking Arato to break his seal and release him into the world.
Arato could imagine what would happen if Higgins betrayed him after he was unleashed. Depending on what he chose in that moment, the outcome of the giant conflict Lacia had given her life for would change. In his hand, he was holding the key that might end the human world forever.
Unlike when Lacia was by his side, Arato no longer felt confidence in his own decisions. Lacia had used all sorts of means to guide him, and had always kept him on the right path. As he thought, he heard a familiar voice from above.
“Don’t do it, Arato!” Ryo, atop the control panels directly over Higgins’ heart, had awoken.
“You’re not his owner! He has no reason to obey you! He’s not a human! You can’t trust him!” Ryo shouted.
From the ceiling far above, Higgins replied. 〈‘Trust’ is nothing more than a hole in human awareness. Therefore, when something exists within that hole of logic called trust, the good and ill of it are overlapped and forgotten. The thing that is being trusted need only act in a way that will cause the believer to continue to place their faith in it.〉
Higgins was talking about faith and trust, but it sounded to Arato the same as explanations he had heard of Analog Hacking. To the ultra high-performance AI that controlled the movements of every hIE, that was what ‘trust’ amounted to.