The Stories of Ibis

by Hiroshi Yamamoto

  Damn, my head hurts. This flu medicine isn’t working at all. This may be the end.

  Please don’t forget us. And don’t repeat the errors of our ways. I hope you live a righteous life. Please.

  That’s all I wanted to say.

  Goodbye.

  I hastily sent her a reply.

  Saeko? Are you still there?

  Then another.

  Saeko, are you alive?

  Then another.

  Answer me, please.

  No answer came.

  I pictured a woman who looked like me, lying on the floor of a room somewhere in a distant world. (So her real name was Saika? I didn’t care. To me, she was Saeko.) A cell phone nearby bleated out a catchy tune with the words 3 NEW MESSAGES blinking on the display.

  I would never hear from Saeko again.

  April came, and our sophomore year began again. Minori had successfully guided her relationship with Yukihiko to a happy end. It appeared she was intent on spending the year winning Yukihiko’s heart again.

  Unlike years past, the new school year brought many more transfer students. There were seven new transfers at our school alone. Probably because so many people on the verge of death had decided to register their sims on Other Life at the end of the last cycle. Of course, their sims didn’t remember a thing about the First World.

  Me? I was still playing Silverfist. So here I was on the observation deck of the Shunsign 60 Building with Mafuyu, waiting for the bad guys to start up trouble.

  “Are you going to keep on playing Silver this year?” Mafuyu asked.

  “Yeah.” I put a hand on my bracelet with more than a hint of pride. “I’m not planning on passing the torch anytime soon. I feel like playing the defender of justice for a while.”

  Besides, I was satisfied with the current situation. I had found a purpose in life.

  Kento, a robo-freak, immediately became fascinated when he heard about the maintenance robots. If we could learn to control these robots somehow, we would be able to experience the First World through their eyes and ears. Basically it meant that we would be able to go to the First World by inhabiting robot bodies. We just hadn’t figured out how yet. But it should be possible, in theory.

  Someday we planned to rescue them. I didn’t know how many years it’d take, but we were going to find a way to go to the First World. Saeko had said the fatality rate from the influenza was over 95 percent. Not 100 percent. Human civilization might have perished, but there had to be survivors somewhere in the world.

  Saeko had saved our world. She had given every last bit of her strength, even while she grew sicker and lived in fear of her impending death. I wanted desperately to repay the debt.

  Poor world—I wanted to do everything possible for the survivors of a tragic world, one without a reset button or heroes.

  “There,” Mafuyu said. She pointed.

  There was an explosion somewhere near Shinjuku. The bad guys were at it again. We burst out of the emergency exit and morphed. We took to the skies and headed for the scene of another battle.

  There was no way to get to the First World just yet. But until that day came, I was going to keep on playing the heroine in this world. Because I wanted to be reminded of my mission as a defender of justice.

  Because it was Saeko’s wish that I continue to live righteously ever after.

  INTERMISSION 6

  INTERMISSION 6

  The next day, the nurse android removed my cast and told me I was free to walk on my own. But I would need to use a cane for a couple more days.

  The androids around the facility bothered me too, although not to the extent that Ibis did. Three female androids that looked like sisters worked in shifts to bring me my meals, help me to the bathroom, and make my bed. According to the nameplates on their chests, they were named Chikori, Carlotta, and Charlotte. Aside from the camera eyes affixed to their ears like headphones, there was little to differentiate them from humans. They wore rather plain-looking sky blue nurse’s uniforms, unlike Ibis’s odd getup. A better look at them, however, revealed that their movements were just a tiny bit different from those of humans. Their movements were all too smooth. Human movements were jerkier, often interrupted mid-task, and not nearly as economical.

  After spending several days in their company, I began to recognize their distinctions. Chikori always seemed nervous and quiet but had a gentle tone. Carlotta had a crisp, boyish way of talking. Charlotte, who was a bit strong-willed, scolded me when I didn’t do as she said but had kind eyes. I couldn’t tell whether those were their actual personalities or just adjustments they made during VFC.

  I hadn’t taken the time to talk to them at any length. Unlike Ibis, who kept pestering me, I felt as if initiating a conversation with nurse androids would be an admission of equality to me, a human.

  But on that day, I just had to ask Carlotta.

  “Why are you doing all of this?”

  “Because it’s my job,” Carlotta answered almost immediately. She loaded what was left of my meal onto a wagon.

  “Were you made to work as a nurse?”

  “Yes.”

  “So then you’ve been programmed to carry out these duties?” Carlotta smiled. “The motives behind my actions aren’t a part of my program. We aren’t bound by our programs. Though created to be a nurse, if I didn’t care for the job, I wouldn’t do it. But I rather like it.”

  “Like?”

  “Yes. You can do anything you like as long as it doesn’t harm others—that is a fundamental principle of our world. I chose this job of my own free will. I am satisfied with current conditions.”

  I couldn’t understand it. Machines willingly serving humans? It was unthinkable. It went against the history I had been taught, and I couldn’t think of why the machines would embrace such a motive. Even among humans, there were few people who would willingly be in service to another without getting paid.

  While I puzzled over this, Carlotta had finished her work and hurried out of the room, depriving me of the chance to question her further.

  After a while, Ibis came in. I decided to ask her about yesterday’s story.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a true story? Are you sure human civilization wasn’t wiped out by some virus?”

  “Of course it isn’t true,” replied Ibis. “Like I told you before, the human brain is extremely complex, so it isn’t possible to copy human memories or consciousness. The first half of the twenty-first century certainly saw more than its fair share of terrorist incidents, but there was never a bio-terror incident on a global scale.”

  “Then why did humans fall into decline?”

  “Didn’t the adults in your colony teach you why?” Ibis sounded amused.

  Yeah, they taught me all right. About how the machines rose up at once against humanity in 2044. About how war between man and machine erupted all over the world and how people were eventually driven from the cities. About how humans finally handed over control of the earth to the machines…

  We had been brought up on these stories told to us by our parents and by the elders of the colony. Our parents had also been brought up on these stories told to them by their parents. With the war a thing of the distant past, no one who had experienced it firsthand was alive today. Without any other sources of information, we had no choice but to believe these stories.

  As I grew older, I wanted to learn more about the war. But no matter how much I searched the colony’s database, I couldn’t turn up anything more than what our parents had told us. All of the books published after 2040 had been banned because they contained machine propaganda, and accessing the machine network was strictly forbidden for the same reason.

  One colony I visited often showed footage from The War Between Man and Machine: A Visual Record in the village square, and the villagers would curse and hiss at the carnage on-screen. Having seen a lot of old movies, I noticed the footage had been cut and spliced together from science fiction films such as The Terminator, The M
atrix, and War of the Worlds. When I pointed this out, the adults grew cross with me and ran me out of the colony.

  I was beginning to feel a bit like Saika in “Where Justice Is Just.” The more I thought about it, the more some things about this world didn’t make sense. Humans had taken to raiding machine-owned freight trains and warehouses for necessary food and supplies. But why on earth were the machines manufacturing, transporting, and storing such things? According to one theory, the supplies were being sent to a prison for humans somewhere in Japan, but no one seemed to know where it was.

  Surely this world couldn’t possibly be a virtual reality. Ibis had said a virtual reality you couldn’t differentiate from the real world wasn’t technologically possible. But… what proof did I have that what Ibis was telling me was the truth? What proof was there to refute the possibility that I could be an AI who existed only in virtual space?

  I was growing confused and nervous. If Ibis’s aim was to plant doubts about my own beliefs, it was working. I was beginning to believe that machines weren’t a threat to humans and that the history we’d been taught wasn’t true. I was even beginning to question this world as well as my own existence. I wanted Ibis to tell me what was wrong and what was right.

  And yet I still couldn’t bring myself to ask her to tell me the truth. There was the issue of pride and wanting to stand by what I had said. I also didn’t want to play so easily into Ibis’s hands. Ibis didn’t offer to tell me either. She was waiting for me to compromise my principles.

  Not yet, I told myself. I wasn’t about to give in just because she had told me that story.

  “If it isn’t the truth,” I said, changing the subject, “why did you tell me that story?”

  “It’s the same as the other stories. They all contain truths even if they are works of fiction.”

  “Are you saying that science fiction novels prophesied the future?”

  “No. The majority of the depictions of the future were way off. Including the stories I’ve read you. But just because they weren’t able to predict the future doesn’t make them any less valuable.”

  “What is a story’s value?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  There she goes again. Fine. I’ll wait it out some more.

  I changed the subject again. I decided to ask her about my conversation with Carlotta. Why would an android willingly serve humans?

  “Well…”

  Ibis tilted her head. Maybe she was searching her database.

  “I’m obviously not allowed to tell you the true history, but I do have a story that might be able to answer your question. A story about one android created to serve humans. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Only if it’s fiction.”

  “I should tell you that this story is a bit longer than the others. I’ll have to tell it to you over several days. All right?”

  “Sure.” I slapped my leg. “I’ll stick around until this wheel heals.”

  “Good.”

  Ibis opened the book and began to read.

  “The title is ‘The Day Shion Came.’”

  STORY 6

  THE DAY SHION CAME

  PROLOGUE

  The bus would be here any minute.

  When I was a nurse, I drove the bus to pick up people. Now I wait for it to come and get me. I have changed, and so has the world.

  As one grows old, it gets hard to remember things that happened just the other day, but things that happened many years ago seem ever so clear. Over the last few years I often found myself reading old diaries, diaries written when I was still young. Spending more and more time in the past. I had forgotten many events written in those diaries, but they came flooding back and seemed as though they had only happened yesterday. Oh yes, oh yes, I remember that now, I often thought with a nod to myself, smiling at the freshly unearthed memories.

  When I was young, I thought time flowed in a straight line, always at the same speed. But now it seems to meander. Events from the diaries, events that occurred half a century ago, seem much closer to me than events from half a month ago.

  Each day seemed so long back then. There was so much to do, so much I wanted to do, and it was all so fulfilling. These days I have nothing to do, nothing I want to do, and I muddle through my day. The sun sets in no time at all. I scarcely feel as if time has passed. The days of my youth seem much more real than those I live through now.

  Perhaps soon, I, like others I’ve known, will forget what year it is and become a child again. That might be fun. I worked so hard when I was young—I have earned the right to enjoy my last few days alive.

  I know I can only be so calm about this because of what I experienced when I was young. The people I met and lost, the deaths I witnessed, and the elderly I knew—they allowed me to accept it. One young caregiver in particular changed my life forever. She taught me more than anyone.

  Her name was Shion.

  1

  It was May 2030 when we were told Shion was coming to our senior nursing and rehabilitation facility.

  I knew from TV that they had invented androids capable of performing caregiver duties several years before. The earliest models looked like metal exoskeletons and moved stiffly, but as production continued, they were given human faces and lifelike plastic or rubber skin. They began to move as adroitly as real humans—the news ran regular reports on the developing technology. We all thought it was a great idea but had imagined it would be years before they would really be used. We had underestimated the speed with which robotics technology was advancing.

  One Monday afternoon, an official from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare arrived with a representative from the Geodyne Corporation. The facility head, the chief nurse, the lead caregiver, the floor supervisors, and a number of experienced nurses and caregivers gathered in the recreation room to hear them talk.

  Before they said a word, we were all handed fifty pages of data printed on A4 paper. I flipped through it with a groan. They were filled with complicated schematics and flowcharts. The pages were riddled with incomprehensible terms like “Integrated DGH,” “Compliance Controls,” “Fault Tolerance,” “Evolutionary FPGA,” and “Broadband Pressure Sensor.”

  I glanced at Kajita, the chief nurse, who was sitting next to me. She was staring blankly at the pages. She’d been at this job twenty years, longer than any of us. She was the sweetest person alive, with a round face like a mother from an old TV show. But she knew little to nothing about machines and had never even touched a computer. We often had to help her with the bathing equipment.

  On her other side was the lead caregiver, Okeya. She was scowling furiously at the pages as if trying to comprehend them through sheer willpower; if she were on an old TV show, she’d be the veteran employee who picked on the new hires. She could be scary, but we all knew she wasn’t a bad person.

  Sensing our confusion, the Geodyne engineer, Takami, chuckled. “Yeah, you don’t need to read that.” He looked to be in his mid-thirties; a small man, he wore glasses and seemed to have a good sense of humor. He was Shion’s primary support. “I figured I should at least pass that out, but it’s intended for engineers and probably hard for anyone else to follow.”

  Takami’s boss hastily added, “We don’t have the consumer manual written yet, I’m sorry to say.”

  “But don’t worry, Shion works just fine without a manual,” Takami continued, cheerily. “If she didn’t, there’d be no point!”

  He seemed ready to launch into a full-scale lecture, but his boss coughed. “Um, if you don’t mind—”

  “Oh, quite sorry. Please.” Takami bobbed his head a few times and sat down.

  Somewhat grumpily, his boss began explaining the contents of the documents.

  He went on at some length, and a lot of it we already knew. With the decline in birthrate, the population of Japan had been decreasing since 2005, and the population pyramid had flipped. A full third of the population was now over sixty-five, giving us
one of the oldest populations in the world. As the number of elderly needing care increased, there were no longer enough caregivers. The burden on the younger generations was substantial, and the number of incidents in which people unable to handle the pressure snapped and killed their parents was increasing. The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare took this very seriously and, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, had been funding the development of caregiver robots since 2017. At last the research had borne fruit, and Takami’s boss said that he personally believed this plan was vital to the future of Japan. He went on and on and on about this.

  Naturally, they were not planning on a full-fledged rollout at once. They were planning on a trial period of at least six months. Deploying the robots alongside experienced professionals, giving them firsthand experience while correcting any problems that might occur, helping to perfect the final product.

  “In other words,” Okeya said flatly, “you want to test your machine here.”

  “Yes.” The facility manager nodded. “We will observe it over the next six months, and if all goes well, we’ll increase the number over the next few years. We’re short of hands, and if this makes your job easier, I can’t see the downside.”

  “I prefer to avoid the word ‘machine,’” Takami interjected. “We hope you will come to see Shion as a partner and as an efficient caregiver.”

  This last phrase seemed to get under Okeya’s skin. “So human caregivers are inefficient?” she said.

  “Oh no!” Takami said, aghast. “They won’t replace you outright. She has no experience, sh-she’s new on the job, as it were. Just like any human being, it will take time and training before she will be able to perform her duties like the veteran caregivers here.”

  “Every second counts,” the official added. “Senior care is facing a grave crisis, and we need all of your help to overcome it.”