〈Methode, there are tons of red boxes in the warehouse. You need to destroy them all. This is your top priority now!〉Ryo ordered. 〈I have no idea what kind of monster Snowdrop will turn into if she absorbs them all.〉
Ryo was using Methode as his own high-performance tool, but the two of them didn’t share a vision of the future to unite them and act as their heart. Methode saw a different dream from Ryo. Her eyes locked on Lacia.
“What are we going to do about Lacia?” she asked.
〈Destroying Snowdrop, once and for all, will be your second priority. After that are the mass-produced Koukas. Then you can destroy Lacia,〉 Ryo said.
Methode’s orange eyes glowed bright as she unleashed her berserk rage in the form of a fiery flood all around her. Holding a ball of fire that shone like the sun in her right hand, she roared. She thrust her hand toward the ceiling, and the jet of plasma became a spear of flame. As the fire struck the ceiling, flames began to fall down like rain all around her as she stood, face twisted in a rictus of rage.
As the strongest hIE in the world drilled a hole in the thick ceiling with heat, Lacia raised her voice. “It is a pleasure speaking with you,” she said politely. Arato guessed she was addressing Ryo, who was sitting somewhere with Higgins right beside him. “There are five warehouse floors, with a total of thirty-eight red boxes scattered across them.”
Arato and Lacia had covered five whole warehouse floors already. If Methode followed Ryo’s orders, she would have to destroy them entirely so as not to hand anything over to Snowdrop.
With her prey snatched away from right in front of her, Methode shot them a silent, deadly glance, then fired her wire anchor up through the hole in the ceiling. She zipped up the line, and was gone.
The hole laid bare the wires and carbon plates sandwiched between the concrete, all of which had melted and dripped down onto the floor below. With Methode gone on Ryo’s orders, there was no longer anything on the floor to stand in Lacia and Arato’s way. But, right as they were about to start walking, Ryo’s voice came down from the speaker.
〈Did you organize the attack by the mass-produced Koukas?〉 he asked.
To Arato, it was as if the time they shared, which had been stopped since Snowdrop’s occupation of Mitaka, had finally started to move again. “Lacia, were those us?” Arato asked, pulling the mouth-piece of the air-tank out of his mouth so he could speak again.
“I merely provided support in obtaining the blueprints,” Lacia replied, as she walked toward the exit. “They were assembled by the Antibody Network. If you are seeing me in the shadows of every plot, I’m afraid you’re falling victim to conspiracy theories.”
〈So you had nothing to do with sending in these autonomous units that don’t care who or what they shoot, right?〉 Ryo said, and Arato detected a hint of pleading in his friend’s voice.
“Despite being mass-produced, those Koukas are paired with devices based on an analysis of the original Kouka’s Blood Prayers,” Lacia said, her explanation clear as always. “And the Antibody Network specifically requested specifications that would not allow them to confuse a human for a target. If these units cannot differentiate between humans and hIEs, their AI units must have been manipulated.”
〈I see,〉 was all that came back over the speakers.
Arato figured his friend was currently watching things through Higgins’ security system. Wherever he was, that was where they were headed. Unfortunately, Ryo was on the side of protecting Higgins.
As he walked through the clouds of foul-smelling smoke from all the things Methode had set alight, Arato was filled with a strange sense of contentment. “So, when it comes right down to it, we’ll still be together in the end,” he said. “You’re using Higgins’ brains and Methode’s brawn to keep us away from Higgins, aren’t you?”
〈There are some folks from MemeFrame here with me in the Operators’ Room too,〉 Ryo said, his tone strangely relaxed.
Arato was relieved. It seemed the battle between the Lacia-class units, which had been almost a personal battle between him and his friends up to that point, had expanded to a more appropriate scale. He actually thought having people from MemeFrame there to witness the last minutes of the conflict was a good thing.
“Your side is the same as ours,” Arato said. “Higgins and his faction have always been about setting up a team made of humans partnered with an ultra high-performance AI.”
He heard Ryo’s breath catch over the speakers. Then his friend asked a question, in a voice like someone who had gazed into a deep, dark abyss. He seemed intent on getting Arato’s emotional reaction. 〈And what if I told you it was the Higgins faction that tried to kill us in that explosion when we were kids? Could you look at them so favorably then?〉
Hearing the truth was strange; once Arato heard it, in his mind, it seemed like there had never been any other answer to that mystery. Perhaps it was due to being hounded by Methode’s flames for so long, but Arato felt as though his senses had been numbed. If he had continually blamed the explosion for all the bad things in his life, he never would have been able to move forward. He had only become the person he was that day because he had chosen to reach his hand out to Ryo, all those years ago.
“You and Higgins, Lacia and me; we’re pretty similar,” Arato said. “I get why you were always saying it was dangerous for us to be together. It’s because even a team made of an ultra high-performance AI’s brains and a human’s heart can still make mistakes. You knew that better than I did.”
Ryo laughed. Even though it came through a speaker, Arato was glad to hear it. It had been a while. 〈Why is it so easy for you to forgive me for doing something like this?〉 Ryo asked, but then answered his own question. 〈It’s because that’s just the way you are. That’s you.〉
“That’s me,” Arato agreed. “Seems like the whole world is burning around me, but I’m still okay taking it easy. You know me.”
〈Lacia doesn’t have a heart,〉 Ryo murmured, thoughtfully. 〈But maybe she still needs to feel like she belongs.〉 With that, their conversation was over. The two friends hadn’t managed to reach a compromise, but Arato was glad they could at least end their talk on a lighter note.
Wondering how Ryo would react to his feelings, Arato itched at his skin. The heat had dried all of the sweat that had covered him earlier, leaving him feeling greasy and gross.
At that moment, he and Lacia were heading to Higgins in order to make their immaterial dream a reality. However, the more Arato thought of his love for Lacia, the more a harsh truth was laid bare to him; everyone in the world wanted their dreams to come true. But, Arato and Lacia were going so far as to pick a fight with the very world that had created them, all for the sake of winning their ideal place in it. When Arato thought hard about it, what they were doing probably wasn’t so different from when Arato had punched out the guy who kidnapped Lacia. It was nothing more noble or honorable than a fight on the street.
Lacia walked ahead of him. Looking back, she offered him her hand, which was blotted with soot and dust.
The whole warehouse floor was burnt by Methode’s flames, and reeked with the smell of smoke and char. On the night Arato had met Lacia, the flames of an explosion had called up his nightmare and frozen him in place. Now, walking together with Lacia, the flames had no more power to hold him back.
He didn’t know if the path they were walking was the right one.
“I don’t think there is any more need for concern over those who might lose face by it, so I think we should resume streaming our video feed to the network,” Lacia said, changing Arato’s mood with her smile.