After five minutes of walking in Higgins’ underground facility, the hallways were still as narrow as ever. Walking side-by-side would have them rubbing shoulders, so Arato followed behind Lacia instead, with the floating shields behind him.
“The security for the underground facility is run by an AI named Kirino, which is also part of the barrier which prevents Higgins from interacting directly with the outside world. So, we need to paralyze Kirino’s systems just enough to shut down the security system without also freeing Higgins,” she explained, picking up a gun-like weapon from one of the black floating shields; it was the artificial nerve harpoon gun she had used when they had been surrounded by the army. Pointing at a wall, Lacia pulled the trigger. The silver needle shot deep into the wall, and the lights above them flickered off, just once.
A map of the area appeared on the wall, as if to guide them on their way.
“The sensors for the security system are near the surface, here,” she said. “So it was an ideal place for injecting artificial nerves. I can use the connection here as a foothold to disable each local node of the security system.”
“So looking into this kind of thing was what took you those two months,” Arato commented.
“Without approval from the security AI, it is impossible to utilize transmissions or drones within Higgins’ silo. This place was created to seal away ultra high-performance AIs so, if I don’t expand my influence here as we go along, I won’t have access to most of my abilities,” Lacia replied.
Putting her words into action, Lacia shot another needle into the floor far in front of them. To Arato, she was like a trained brain surgeon; planning carefully, then using her tools with precision to obtain a perfect result.
Arato lost all sense of time in the narrow corridors until, finally, they emerged into a room with elevators. The elevators were designed to stay on the floor indicated by a slider panel nearby.
“The elevators are too heavily guarded, so we won’t actually be riding one,” Lacia said.
In the square room, there were two elevator doors in the walls. Lacia chose one of them and kicked it; the thick metal bent under a flurry of blows. Through the bent door, Arato saw that the elevator shaft was at least five times larger and longer than the narrow room they were standing in. If the elevator cars were the exact same size as the opening of the elevator shaft, it would easily admit five large trucks side-by-side.
Cold wind blew out of the terrifyingly massive vertical hole.
“I am going to use the mass projectile mode of my device to destroy the elevator cars,” Lacia said, as her device shifted to form a giant cannon. Hefting it, she leaped into the vertical shaft. Using her friction control, she stood on the side of the shaft as if it was flat ground.
The elevator room shook with two successive blasts. Flames and rubble fell like rain down the shaft until gravity took hold of the elevator cars and dragged them down like an avalanche. Arato cowered away as the sounds roared out painfully.
Lacia’s hand stretched out of the shaft toward him. “We will descend by float,” she said. “Please get on.” As if requesting that he ride it, one of the floating shields pushed its way under Arato’s feet, and he stepped out into the darkness, swallowing his fear as they went.
During the descent, Arato saw that each floor had a different shape or size of door to the elevator shaft. He figured that the floors with smaller doors were meant for human use only, while the larger ones were intended for bringing in large equipment. Six floors down the now-empty shaft, they came to a floor with a large door.
“The elevator shaft goes down another six floors, but if we continue down the shaft here, we will lose a good point for intercepting pursuers,” Lacia explained as they stopped. “We will continue from this floor.”
Putting word to action, she used Black Monolith’s cannon to blast off the elevator doors. Arato was busy being impressed by the huge scale of the facility when Lacia spoke again, interrupting his thoughts.
“Arato, from this point forward I will be relaying my visual data over the network. This is scenery the world must see, if they are to understand ultra high-performance AIs better,” she said.
Beyond the broken doors, Arato saw a giant, open floor: there were no walls dividing it, only neatly ordered pillars. There were borderlines drawn upon the floor, with pallets of cargo arranged among them. Unmanned lifts and robot arms attached to the pillars were shifting the cargo around. The whole place was a giant, automated factory.
“What is this place?” Arato asked.
Lacia’s explanation was polite and thorough, probably thinking of the unknown number of viewers who were seeing the scene along with Arato. “This is a warehouse floor that was renovated according to Higgins’ design,” Lacia replied. “It may look different, but I assure you that there is nothing dangerous here.”
Arato was blown away by how large the dimly-lit warehouse was; it looked to stretch on forever. There seemed to be a little bit of everything stored there: he saw household goods; appliances; vehicles; and many other objects.
“Why are they keeping so much random stuff here?” he asked.
Lacia gazed at the endless rows of random objects with a nostalgic look on her face. “This is all so Higgins can keep the hIE control programs up to speed with human society,” she explained. “An hIE must be able to handle any object or vehicle used around the home, meaning each time a new piece of household equipment or vehicle is developed, Higgins needs to learn about it. hIEs are generally considered safe because they do not possess an independent AI but, to function at all, they rely on the AASC, which is being constantly updated by Higgins. In other words, Higgins is a single machine tasked with handling environmental factors impacting hIEs worldwide.”