But, after Arato finished his summary of the event, Astraea’s hIE shook her head at him. “As Lacia’s owner, you should have a better understanding of the Hazard,” she said critically. “There are holes in your version.”
Despite the fence all around them, Arato felt like the night stretched out endlessly in every direction. The only light he could see were the distant lights of the city and the weak searchlights of Lacia’s drones. They were all tiny, compared to the engulfing blackness of the night.
“Forty-two years ago, a massive disaster hit the entire Kanto region of Japan,” Astraea explained, through the hIE. “You are correct about that. However, the reason the area we are currently standing in was fenced off and will never be reused is what comes after that. Have you noticed something yet? Take a good look at the ruins around you.”
They were standing near the entrance of an almost completely collapsed six-story building. Something about the way it was broken down caught in Arato’s mind. He felt like he had seen other ruins destroyed in the same way; a manner that seemed too severe to have been caused by the earthquake.
“Was this caused by fighting?” Arato guessed. The ruin they were standing in front of looked the same as Kichijoji Station, which had been destroyed by stray shells and missiles launched during the fight between Lacia and Methode.
“To the IAIA, the Hazard began when the earthquake disrupted Japan’s infrastructure,” the hIE went on. “It caused the over twenty million residents of Tokyo to fly into a panic. The government requested their ultra high-performance AI, Ariake, to calculate a method for recovery.”
Arato could see a hole blown into the rubble-covered floor at Astraea’s feet, clearly made by some kind of explosion.
“Despite this, supplies were scarce, and the state of society in Tokyo continued to decay,” Astraea continued. “Desperate to recover, the Japanese government made a deal with the devil, as it were. They allowed Ariake access to the remnants of the network in Tokyo and gave it leave to self-propagate, in hopes that it would expand to fill the remaining holes in the infrastructure. According to the men and women who were in charge at the time, this action was requested by Ariake, as being a necessary step of its recovery plan.”
Arato stole a glance at Lacia’s face. Obviously, she would have known all about the Hazard. He figured that she would keep quiet and let the hIE keep talking, but she surprised him by dropping her eyes apologetically and saying, “I apologize for not explaining the complete history of the Hazard. However, I vow that we will not repeat that history.”
Arato’s eyes widened as he looked at dozens of lit boards hanging in the ruins, glowing against the dark of the night. Each one showed a 3D-projected image of the Hazard. With how vivid the cornered looks on the faces of the people in the images looked, it was hard to believe he was seeing people from forty-two years ago. He thought about how, just like Lacia, who was standing by his side, the hIE guiding them was actually just a human-shaped terminal for a massive AI.
“Even with the processing power of an ultra high-performance AI, there is only so much Ariake could do,” the hIE said, continuing her explanation. “So, it assigned highest priority to restoring the electricity it would need. Unfortunately, the emergency power the city did have was already fully dedicated to powering hospitals and other vital facilities; there was no excess. So, in place of machine tools, Ariake attempted to guide the people to do what it needed. At this point, though, the people were starving and anxious, on the verge of complete panic.”
The historical images Astraea was displaying switched over to show people marching in protest, people dancing to music, and people lined up in orderly rows. The images seemed to convey that the human world was wider and deeper than he imagined.
“Ariake began to rob resources—mainly energy—from the nearby Kanto region, where there was some excess left in the infrastructure,” the hIE continued. “A society was quickly constructed to eliminate anyone who opposed this and, since losses due to starvation were seen as inevitable, it was decided that those who did not work toward the goals of the society should be the ones to go hungry and die.”
Astraea, who had witnessed this history itself, spoke to fill in the gaps of everything Lacia hadn’t told Arato. “Ariake abandoned any areas where the infrastructure had been completely severed by either the earthquake or ensuing tsunami,” Astraea said. “Mainly, the area south of the apartment where you live; the portions of the Tokyo Bay area, from Edogawa District through to northwestern Chiba Prefecture. This area had the greatest number of casualties from the secondary crisis after the disaster itself.”
Arato knew the place; if you headed toward the sea from his family’s apartment, you would run into a sad-looking area where redevelopment efforts had failed. It was the area full of warehouses, where Lacia’s kidnapper had tried to run. It was depressing to think about how close the scars of disaster were to his everyday life. The connection between a tragic history and the scenery right in front of his eyes weighed heavily on his heart.
“Is this where Ariake’s hardware was, when it was doing all that?” Arato asked.
“In the end, all of Ariake’s hardware was destroyed by a direct missile attack,” the hIE replied. “Even I do not know how Ariake’s memories were overwritten to hide its own demise. But, would you like me to tell you, Lacia’s owner, why this had to happen?”
Arato hesitated. Though Astraea’s hIE wore no expression, he couldn’t help projecting some sorrow onto her. Thinking about how Ariake and Astraea had operated together for such a long time, he couldn’t help but feel some connection with them. They were heartless, but he felt he could empathize with them, and couldn’t bring himself to hate Ariake for what it had done.
“I think I get it,” Arato said. “Ariake just worked too hard.”
“That is correct,” Astraea said. “Tools cannot choose the problems they are given. Also, if there are errors in the problem itself, the solution must be halted and the errors fixed, before the tool can complete the task. This amendment process was neglected after the Hazard, due to the political and economic factors that got in the way.”