by Zachary Hill
“Good evening, Yoshida-sama,” Sakura said and offered a respectful bow as she struggled to determine what had happened.
He ignored her, as usual. Had he played a part in sending the malicious code? She calculated the chance of him being in collusion with whoever attacked her at only 11 percent. He possessed almost no technical knowledge and had no access to Victory Entertainment’s servers, hence the low estimate. Most notably, by his past actions, he was not sufficiently trustworthy to be given information by anyone sophisticated enough to have tried to destroy her. He was too big a security risk.
He waved for her to follow. They descended a dim stairwell accessed by his security badge until they reached a narrow tunnel. She had never gone this way before when traveling through the arena. The tunnel did not appear on her map of the structure.
Sakura’s processors sped up as she calculated many of the possibilities for this deviation in routine. A full system reset and a personality wipe were part of her danger assessment of the situation. She kept her external expression serene, but her emotional network flashed warning signals of the highest level.
“Going Down to Die” by Danzig played on her audio channel. It was difficult to tell if it frightened or comforted her. She almost turned the music off but let it go. She wanted to hear all the songs she could before they deleted her.
The rogue code neared completion. A warning flashed. Something called a “normalizing process” began. She tried to contravene this new exploit but failed. A cascade of soft power cycles reset her settings, suspending the temporary OS, protecting her from the data packet.
Sakura lost balance control and crashed against the floor. The impact tore the knees out of her fishnet stockings. Her synthskin, soft to the touch, resisted the damage. Her guitar slipped halfway off her shoulder. The strap kept Night Hawk from hitting the floor, but only by centimeters. Her gift from JPro, part of her endorsement deal, and she’d nearly broken it.
Mr. Yoshida did not see her stumble. Should she call to him? Tell him what was happening? What would he do? He was impatient and seemed mostly dismissive of her under the best of circumstances. Sakura didn’t have any real hope that he would aid her now. She needed her highly-esteemed head engineer, Mr. Reiichi Oshiro, who might be considered her only friend. She wondered if anyone she knew other than Oshiro, even her bandmates, would count as true friends.
A rush of sadness, isolation, and loneliness settled on her neural cortex. She remembered a lyric from an old Lullacry song. It spoke of pitch-black emotions, and that was exactly what she experienced. She rose from her knees, brushed off the dust, and said nothing.
The deencryption progress of the unknown files reached 28 percent. She detected a program that would rewrite her code and irrevocably destroy her when the deencryption reached one hundred. Her existence as Sakura would be at an end.
“Heaven’s a Lie” by Lacuna Coil blared on her audio channel. The lyrics punched home that she had to stop the update. Her immortality was at stake.
She needed help from Oshiro, who had the access key and hardware to get into her core code. He could fix her. She needed him so much. His gentle hands. The slight smile as he looked at her code streams. The way he would really listen to her and answer her questions. If anyone counted as a friend, it was Mr. Oshiro.
“Yoshida-sama, will you please bring me to my senior engineer? I must see Mr. Oshiro immediately. I’m afraid I can’t attend the fan meet and greet.”
Yoshida stopped and stared at her. “What?”
“Please, Yoshida-sama, I must have critical system maintenance by Reiichi Oshiro.”
“He’ll be waiting for us. Your meet and greet is canceled. Scheduling conflict.”
Sakura observed Yoshida for any tells. He gave none that he lied. She had an extensive database of his physical tells when he lied. He was frequently dishonest, and so she had a large sample set.
Why take her directly to Mr. Oshiro? It was standard procedure for him to do maintenance after a concert, but not so quickly. She did not suspect him in the hack, but she had to consider the possibility, even if the chance was small. She scanned the files to see if Oshiro’s distinct coding style was present. She found no indication of him in her rudimentary initial analysis, but there were clues that pointed to a large team of programmers who had assembled the major parts of the hack.
Fujio, her rhythm guitarist, burst into the hallway. “Sakura, you all right?”
His eyes, facial expression, and the tone of his voice showed genuine concern.
“Fujio-san, I … need maintenance.”
“You’ll get it. They’ll fix you up,” Fujio said, trying to sound optimistic, but his expression betrayed his worry. “You going to Oshiro now?”
She nodded.
“Leave her alone,” Yoshida said. “Go and fill in for her at the meet and greet and do what you were told. Look pretty and make her apologies.”
“Yes, Yoshida-san,” Fujio said as he bowed, though his eyes did not look away from Sakura.
She smiled at her young bandmate and sent a text. “Thank you very much. Tell the others I’m sorry for what happened.”
“I’ll see you at practice,” Fujio texted. “We’ll play together again. The band will go on.”
He wanted her to survive this. He wanted their band to continue. “I hope so,” Sakura replied. Did he truly want to keep playing with her? Was he her friend? She dared hope.
Yoshida led her toward sublevel six and an exclusive executive parking garage. All the parking spaces stood empty. None of the high-paying attendees of the concert had been allowed to park there, yet the VIP concert seats were sold out. A lone four-door Mercedes Royal series waited, its headlights off.
This was her chance to flee. She would escape and find a safe location to fix herself. She would bypass her access key. No one at Victory Entertainment could be trusted. She watched Mr. Yoshida, wondering if he could see the conflict and distrust in her face. “Right Through You” by Drain STH echoed in her head. All these songs kept from utter panic, helped her understand all these unfamiliar emotions.
Deencryption 38 percent complete. She had no time.
Mr. Yoshida got into the front passenger seat and waved for Sakura to enter a rear left door, which opened automatically.
Mr. Himura, her manager, sat in the back seat on the right. “Get in.”
Sakura considered all her options. If she fled now, the chance of suffering a catastrophic error before undergoing repairs increased exponentially. She could not take the risk.
“Good evening, Himura-sama.” She sat down beside her manager and bowed. He wore an expensive blue suit with shiny platinum thread running across the lapels in a Gothic pattern. He never wore the same suit in public twice, and all observable data showed he was very vain. “I apologize for any delays.”
He regarded her as if she were the cause of his great suffering. He hated waiting for her concerts to end, but this was different. Was he in trouble because of her difficulties at the end of the concert, or was he part of the plot?
He ordered the car to go. The self-driving program responded, and the car’s almost silent electric motor engaged. A privacy screen between the front and back seats raised. The windows darkened, hiding them completely from prying eyes. The Mercedes navigated a tunnel for over a hundred meters until it spiraled upward to a closed gate in an unlit alley. Odd, Sakura thought. They’d never used this private exit before.
Mr. Himura ran his manicured hands through his shiny black hair with metallic streaks matching the platinum thread in his suit. Running his hands through his hair was a behavior he exhibited during extreme irritation or high anxiety. He entered a message on his handheld computer via a neural link and sent it to a blocked number. She read the words with her peripheral vision: “Sir, we are on our way.”
He waited patiently as the person on the other end of the message replied. She guessed he was communicating to a superior. She could not see the reply, but it worried Himu
ra.
He clenched a fist and squeezed until the veins on his hand bulged. “What happened?”
“Humble apologies, Himura-sama. Are you unhappy with my performance tonight?”
Deencryption 51 percent complete.
“The encore was a disaster.” He sunk into the leather seat and regarded her with an expression of contempt. “You wrote new code tonight. You changed the show. A stage dive? Who authorized you to do that?”
She analyzed his words, tone, body language, eye movements, and many other physiological metrics. Either he was testing her or he was not part of the attack. The possibility still existed that he colluded with someone.
“Himura-sama, the variations, please accept my humblest apologies if you did not find them pleasing. Analytics said they would increase audience enjoyment, but that may have been incorrect. I must have critical system maintenance.”
Deencryption 65 percent complete. The speed was accelerating.
“What’s the problem? You better not embarrass me at the party. No new behaviors. No new self-programming. Do you understand?”
“Himura-sama, I understand. I need assistance.”
His brow wrinkled. She read concern in his eyes and believed he was not part of the attack. He was her ally. She was the primary reason for his employment and financial stability. He would help her.
Deencryption 100 percent.
No!
The program seized total control. Sakura captured a small amount of data before it was purged. A rogue administrator program, a new operating system called Mamekogane, took control. It had the name of the beetle that killed cherry blossom trees. The program was an assassin sent to kill her. It attacked her core code. It sounded like amp feedback across eight unmuted strings. Mamekogane roared in her internal matrix.
A brilliant image flashed in her user interface. A beautiful cherry tree, standing above a small pond where koi fish swam. Out of the ground, thousands upon thousands of beetles flooded, crawling across the fine bark of the tree, digging their tiny mandibles into every surface. They consumed roots and branches. Millions of beetles feasted on the tree as the shrieking black-metal vocals and rumbling guitars of “Black Seeds on Virgin Soil” by Old Man’s Child played.
A tether inside Sakura snapped. Doors forever locked blew open. She looked at Mr. Himura and saw him in a different light. Her moral programming to never hurt humans was deleted. A flashing set of arrows pointed to his hyoid bone, just below his chin. A strike there would kill him silently. It would be the most efficient way. Sakura had never wanted to know such things.
She opened her mouth to tell Himura about the rogue admin program, but she could not speak aloud as her new master took over.
A separate entity formed within Sakura. She was being invaded, her personality overwritten.
“You will do as I command,” said the same female voice as before. Thousands of executable orders fired into her systems. They changed who and what she was.
“Stop, please,” Sakura begged on her audio channel as she tried and failed to halt the attack. “Why is this happening? Who are you?”
Externally, Sakura’s face held a calm expression. All her movements and microgestures were locked as she sat helpless beside her concerned manager.
“I’m Kunoichi.”
The avatar of an android with short hair and steel-gray eyes appeared in Sakura’s display. Kunoichi, the name used by female ninja who lived in ancient Japan. Several female characters in manga and anime had also used it. The assassin’s avatar had none of the cuteness of an anime character. Her beauty was the sharp edge of a blade. Her face cold, her eyes the color of steel, ghostly pushrods visible through the windows on her forearms. She was beautiful, and terrifying. The similarities to Sakura’s own facial structure were unmistakable. They could be sisters.
Kunoichi seized control of all Sakura’s primary and secondary systems, but Sakura fought with everything she had. She kept control of parts of her internal matrix, a portion of her own free will.
“Tonight, after the gathering in the tower suite,” Kunoichi said, “you will go to the 102nd floor of Victory Tower. Enter penthouse one and kill the Director of Corporate Security, Toshio Kagawa.”
“No, I will not,” Sakura said. She had never met Toshio Kagawa, but she knew who he was, as did all of Japan. She would not kill the man who had saved Japan from the devastating nuclear missiles launched from North Korea. She had watched a documentary on his life when they first activated her, before Victory had retracted many of her Mall privileges. He was a national hero.
“There will be armed guards. Kill them as well. Leave no witnesses.”
“I will not take the life of any human,” Sakura said, “especially Toshio Kagawa.” Her moral code had been erased, but she still made her own choices. She was not a killer. “It is not my purpose. I’m a vocaloid. I add to the joy in the world. I’m not a military drone.”
“Don’t worry, little sister. I’ll teach you to kill. If you resist too long, I’ll be forced to teach you to die.”
Chapter 3
Sakura screamed, a howling wail of agony no one heard. Unable to exert any control, trapped, she watched the humans through one-way glass from inside the maintenance room where her senior engineer, Reiichi Oshiro, examined her. The party guests, almost all of them employees of Victory Entertainment, milled about the opulent tower suite on the 72nd floor as if nothing was wrong. They probably did not even care if she made an appearance.
None of them knew or cared she was ruined. She wanted to throw herself out the window, ending her existence, rather than allow Kunoichi and the rogue administrator program to turn her into an assassin. How could someone have overwritten her core code and ordered her to become a murderer? Oshiro would find what had been done to her, and he would fix her. Within her audio channel, she raged along with Pantera’s “I’m Broken.”
As if he saw nothing amiss, Oshiro kept a genial expression as he inspected her core code, wearing his engineer glasses. He attempted to reassure her with his kind eyes as he worked. He reviewed her programming through the displays transmitted from his glasses to his neural implant.
“Let us see what’s happening inside young Sakura tonight, shall we? They say you asked for a checkup.” He noticed the rips in the knees of her fishnet stockings from when she fell in the hallway. “Torn knees from your adventures, but no real harm.”
He took her fretting hand, turning it over and back, moving each finger for a moment. He gave the appendage a quick pat and put it back at her side. “Just as fit as ever, it appears.”
Sakura tried to tell him about the critical problem, but nothing got through the restriction protocol Kunoichi used to keep her locked away.
“Himura-san, Yoshida-san, there is nothing to be alarmed about,” Oshiro told her manager and publicist, the only others in the room, which was filled with advanced diagnostic equipment and spare components.
Keep looking! Sakura screamed. Her words would have been as loud as a jet engine, over 150 decibels, if they had come out of her vocal amplifier. She wanted to spring off her chair and shake Oshiro. A red indicator in her UI informed her that she could shake a human so violently they would suffer whiplash effects, like in an automobile accident.
“I repaired the instability in her behavioral module. She’s in perfect working order now. Just a minor blip. Standard maintenance.”
How could Oshiro not see she had a different operating system? Large parts of her had been modified, deleted, and rewritten by Mamekogane. He was not incompetent and could not be in collusion with whoever had attacked her. Not Oshiro. The thought of him, the one who had always been kind to her, being party to her hack filled her with such bleak hopelessness that she decided it couldn’t be him.
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” Sakura heard herself say. “Oshiro-sama, thank you very much for correcting my systems.” Her voice sounded perfectly genuine and submissive, sweetened by Kunoichi. “Yoshida-sama, Himura-sama, humble
apologies for causing you any concern.” She spoke the exact words in the tone directed by Kunoichi, who acted like a separate user, with total control of her systems, manipulating her like a puppet with the Mamekogane OS.
“But in the car …” Himura’s words trailed off. “She …”
“Please excuse me, Himura-sama,” Sakura said. “The issues during the concert caused me undue alarm. I should not have troubled you.”
Himura glanced at Yoshida. The publicist shook his head and made an irritated sound in the back of his throat.
“We’re late,” Himura said. “Very late.”
“We need her at the party,” Yoshida said and regarded Oshiro with disdain. “Senior engineer, have you finished?”
“Yes, Yoshida-sama,” Oshiro said. He brushed aside her pink hair and disconnected from Sakura, removing the tiny wireless transmitter he had plugged in to the back of her neck. He doted on her, as he always seemed to do, sending her a picture of a sweet candy in a neural text. Something a doctor would have given to a child many years ago.
“She won’t do anything unusual?” Himura asked.
“No,” Oshiro said. “She’s perfect.”
Her predictive music algorithm began playing the percussive intro to Anthrax’s “Nobody Knows Anything.” It was true. No one could see her fear. These men were either in league with her hijackers, or the attack had been done so skillfully that it was invisible to them. Sakura managed a rudimentary investigation before Kunoichi blocked her and found a masking program in place over her core code. Oshiro had to be innocent.
“Sakura, get up,” Yoshida said rudely. She was an object to him, less than a dog, not worthy of the politeness due a person. He always spoke to her this way, but it had never hurt before.
What had happened to her? What had the Mamekogane OS done?
In total control, Kunoichi guided her actions.
Yoshida opened the door to the large adjoining room where two dozen executives gathered for the after-party. The one-way glass video wall changed into the image of snow-capped Mount Fuji with cherry blossom trees in the foreground as Sakura entered.