Only then did he notice that the man who had brought him there, Suzuhara, hadn’t moved from the entrance to the room. “If this whole world’s a stage, I’d prefer someone like you to be the main character, over a machine like Higgins or Lacia,” he murmured. It didn’t matter to Ryo Kaidai if there were things out there that could do it better; he wanted the future of the world to be written by human curiosity and emotion.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was rewarded justly for all their struggles: all their hard work, everything they’ve had to endure?” Suzuhara asked, rhetorically. “But that doesn’t happen, and I guess that’s what brought us here.” Human lives had come and gone, each revolving around a world with Higgins at its center. Even Ryo, who wanted to believe in humanity, had been forced to come to this place by his own logic.
Suzuhara started to pull out a cigarette, then stopped himself. “Right, no smoking here,” he said, pushing the cigarette back into his pocket. “I’ll be in the smoking room, so come get me when you’re done asking your question. About the only thing Higgins is free to do is answer questions, so don’t hold back.”
Suzuhara opened the exit gate. He, like every other staff member at MemeFrame, had his own role and his own place to shine. “I’m just going to say, though, that I’m not sure you’ll find the answer you’re looking for here,” he added, then left.
Finally, Ryo was alone, face-to-face with the ultra high-performance AI that ruled indirectly over MemeFrame.
Higgins’ voice came down from above while Ryo was still trying to gather his thoughts. 〈What is Methode up to?〉
“Drawing the attention of the police and army somewhere else,” Ryo replied. “She’s good at beating down those that find her, but not so great at not being found in the first place.” Despite her strength, Methode had no way to completely stop those who were systematically tracking her. It had nothing to do with her superiority or inferiority; she simply wasn’t a tool designed for that kind of functionality.
“As the one who designed the Lacia-class units, are you dissatisfied with how they’re being used?” Ryo asked.
〈You are using Type-004 well. If I were to order her to stand down and allow herself to be recovered, I doubt she would comply,〉 Higgins replied.
Methode would almost certainly attack MemeFrame itself, in retaliation for showing signs of ordering her to cease operations. She was created to be ‘the tool that expands humanity,’ but expansion fell short of resolution or completion. In the end, she herself was subject to the same pitfalls as humanity.
Again the oracle-like voice came down from above. 〈I will respond to your questions.〉
“So one of the most powerful computers in the world is willing to run some numbers for me? How generous,” Ryo said. He’d meant it to be sarcastic, but his voice was shaking.
He realized the first order of business, before getting any answers, was to calm down and accustom himself to the situation. The thing worrying him the most was that, in the face of an intelligence far beyond any human’s, he had no way to tell whether Higgins was lying or not. So, he decided to start with a question about his past, something he himself would be able to judge the veracity of.
“Okay then, tell me this,” he asked. “Ten years ago, who tried to blow me away?” To Ryo, everything had begun on that day in his childhood when he had been caught in the fire. Ever since then, the truth behind the incident had been a riddle that had driven him on.
〈I believe you already have some idea,〉 Higgins responded. 〈I can give you two facts about that incident and tell you where your logic has most likely taken you, based on those two points.〉
“So talk,” Ryo ordered, the nightmare he had seen ever since that day in his childhood replaying itself behind his eyelids.
〈Eleven years ago, an executive from MemeFrame gave me a certain order. They requested that I predict who would be the President of the company in another twenty years.〉
Eleven years prior, Ryo had been six years old. That had been one year before the explosion.
〈The question was too ambiguous, so I asked that the criteria of the request be narrowed down. I was told that the aim of the question was for me to predict who in the company would be able to use me the most effectively.〉
“And the person you picked tried to take me out?” Ryo asked.
〈From the list of persons I was given, I chose your name, Ryo Kaidai. You were not a member of the company, but you were Tsuyoshi Kaidai’s eldest son, and my calculations told me in twenty years you would possess skills and talents that would make you the most ideal candidate.〉
Hearing it spoken aloud, Ryo couldn’t help but find the whole thing ridiculous. In the end, all Higgins had done was decide that the power of the company should pass from Tsuyoshi Kaidai to Ryo Kaidai, keeping it hereditary. Since the company itself was kept afloat by Higgins constantly updating the AASC, he had no real need for executives with actual power. But what it all meant was that someone had tried to assassinate a seven year-old child and change the future.
“Is the culprit still at the company?” Ryo asked.
〈After the incident, members of MemeFrame’s Auditing Department altered my request log. I was not informed of any developments after the initial request.〉
Ryo figured that if Higgins was going to lie, he wouldn’t have chosen to do so about a claim that was so easy to back up. In his mind, he decided to trust in what he heard, at least for the moment. His body, however, was shaking.
“Huh, so that’s all it was,” Ryo murmured, his body suddenly weighed down by a crushing sense of fatigue. Ever since that explosion, he had been afraid of people. Doubting others had made him lonely, but had protected him from that fear. That was what made Arato Endo, who had also been caught in a fire and who had reached his hand out to Ryo, so special. But, it turned out that the fire they had been caught up in was one and the same.
Ryo let out a sigh. He suddenly felt that what he was doing was incredibly foolish. “I guess I’ve spent my whole life obsessing over something pretty minor,” he said. He wondered if learning the truth would really stop the nightmares.
He had hoped that the truth would liberate him, but when it actually came down to his obsessive search bearing fruit, it seemed almost comical. Ryo had thought that living meant trying to find your own place in a world that didn’t care what you wanted. Now, even though his head understood that there was no more meaning to his life, he still couldn’t give up the fight. Guilt and fear swarmed him as he stood in the darkness, threatening to crush him.
Arato reaching out his hand to an hIE seemed to take his friend one step beyond the spot in the road where Ryo had found the end of his own path. Sufficiently advanced computers could provide answers much more quickly and reliably than any human. And, since ultra high-performance AIs made even the brightest humans seem dim, it should be acceptable to rely on them, even if one didn’t trust them.
“Arato, can you understand the way I’m trying to live my life?” Ryo murmured. He had found the answer he had been seeking for years.
But, Higgins’ voice came down from above again. 〈Is that really all you wished to ask? I thought you came here due to the social predicament you find yourself in.〉
A shiver ran up Ryo’s spine.