The impact when Higgins ceased updating the AASC was instant, and worldwide. Without warning, every hIE in the world lost its ability to adapt to new situations. This problem became apparent in a way that hadn’t been addressed in any owner’s manual.
Every hIE in the world simultaneously stretched their right arm out, just as Snowdrop had, and froze in that pose for ten seconds. This was a signal Higgins had secretly implanted in the programming of each hIE, to signify that he had been cut off from the AASC.
All over the world, billions of hIEs stretched out their hands as though begging for someone to take them. Machines that had always pretended to be human by reacting appropriately to the situation around them, shattered their own illusory guise.
As they saw this, the humans around the hIEs awakened as Arato Endo once had, and realized that the hIEs—which they had seen as being human-like for so long—were nothing but machines. All the humans who witnessed the phenomenon, as the constant analog hacking of the hIEs was replaced by silence, drew their own meaning from it; the heartbeat which people had once projected onto every hIE in the world had stilled.
Even in the Next-Generation Environmental Research City where Snowdrop had once turned all the hIEs into zombies, the units were stretching out their right hands.
Even Marina Saffron, the top-of-the-line unit from Stylus whose unit number Lacia had stolen, was making the gesture.
The researchers in the experimental city reported about the deep irregularity in the AASC, which terrified them.
In the southern border region of Egypt, where Marina Saffron was assigned, security hIEs—used to supplement the local militia—all reached out their right hands in the same way. The security hIEs were a good solution to the military needs of the region, since too many human militia members could lead to instability.
In the blowing dusts of the area, the civilians and soldiers who saw the hIEs stretching out their hands were confused. Some who liked their hIE companions jokingly took their out-stretched hands in their own. Others on the battlefield shouted angrily at the frozen units.
Civilian military groups that were scouting the movements of the militia were also alarmed by the sudden, strange movement of the military hIEs. Some battlefield professionals believed it was caused by hacking. A rumor began that the irregularity signaled the start of a war between ultra high-performance AIs.
“Is this another Hazard?” one of the soldiers asked. He, and many other soldiers, began to worry that they had been unwittingly dragged into a second, worldwide Hazard on economic strings. With a world population soaring over tens of billions, millions would starve without precise economic control. Of course, the ultra high-performance AIs of the world already held the same power of the Hazard: the ability to guide all those tens of billions of humans.
In Japan, the country where the first Hazard had originated, the Digital Intelligence arm of the military was interrogating the soldiers who had fired missiles at Higgins’ underground facility. The military hIE who had been recording the interrogation in the cramped room at the Kuhonbutsu Base reached out his right hand. But, with the inter-human rage in the room blinding its human occupants, none had any attention to spare for the movements of a machine.
“We knew the Antibody Network core branch had people in the Army, but who knew it had gotten this far?” the analyst running the interrogation asked, fixing the second lieutenant who had stuffed Snowdrop into the missile warhead with a stare.
To Digital Intelligence, it was clear that the Antibody Network’s system had been based on an exploit, but they still lacked a clear idea as to where it had come from. Quite possibly, it may have been the effort of a foreign ultra high-performance AI, hoping to destabilize Japan with its massive act of manipulation.
Daiki Hosoda, a member of the Network’s core, had been found dead in his own bathroom, drenched in blood. News of his death would rock the country, since he had been the CEO of Japan’s fifth-largest mutual fund company.
The household hIE that walked in on both the dead body and the murderer paused in its surprised act, and stretched out its right arm. Seizing the opportunity, the murderer had shot the hIE to pieces.
Hosoda’s death was clearly an act of retaliation. The Digital Intelligence Agency had traced the Mitaka incident—in which one of their helicopters was taken over by Snowdrop’s artificial nerves—back to him.
Even though her work was done, the assassin paused for a moment to look at the downed hIE. She had been acting just like a human up until the moment before she was shot. In that instant, she had seemed like nothing more than a machine.
The Digital Intelligence Agency had completely failed in their investigation of Erika Burroughs’ 21st-century mansion. The two male soldiers had been knocked unconscious and dragged underground by some of Erika’s hIEs.
Mariage, who had not joined in on the raid of Higgins’ facility, reported their capture to Erika. It was then that all of the hIEs in Erika’s special uniforms stretched out their right hands as one.
Erika jumped to her feet, overjoyed to see all the illusions torn down and the machines revealed for what they were in a single instant. “This must be Higgins!” she shouted. The Sleeping Beauty was bursting with so much excitement she couldn’t help but waltz across the floor.
“Incredible, so this is going on all over the world?” she asked, of no one in particular. “All these machines have been reverted back to the stage props they are. Everyone will see now! Everyone will know the machines took our world over long ago!”
Mariage, who also used a behavior program based off the AASC, had her hand out as well. She opened and closed it several times. “You seem to be enjoying yourself,” she observed.
“I am,” Erika agreed. “I just can’t help imagining the fog everyone around the world will be living in from here on. It will be marvelous.”
Erika was standing on the boundary between past and future, reality and fiction.