Her right hand gone, Snowdrop could no longer reach for anything. With her movements completely stopped, the young girl hIE wore a relieved, almost relaxed expression.
When it tried to stop the rounds from Lacia’s railgun, Snowdrop’s emerald device shattered like glass. The bullet passed through the protective shield and continued through Snowdrop’s white body, shearing off her left arm at the shoulder like a hot knife through butter. Her left wing shattered down to its roots and, even then, the bullet did not lose its speed. It slammed into the door of the emergency exit behind Snowdrop, blasting it to splinters.
Having lost the entire upper left portion of her body, Snowdrop quickly lost her balance and fell into a lop-sided spiral. All the while, her flower petals and white feathers never stopped falling from the hem of her one-piece dress. The machines Snowdrop had dragged along with her all fell as well, right on top of the girl.
When Lacia turned away, no longer interested in the remains of the beautiful doll, Arato knew the fight was over. He was glad that the tool which had rejected all owners had finally been laid to rest, and had wanted to keep moving forward. Arato hadn’t wanted to take the responsibility for destroying Snowdrop, but now felt as though he had to meet her father, Higgins.
But, instead of advancing, Lacia was moving toward a large machine nearby.
Looking around the floor again, Arato realized there was something about it that felt different from the other warehouse floors. There were many large factory tools installed around the floor, and it had a nice smell that Arato associated with construction work.
When Lacia fired artificial nerve units into the walls and pillars, all of the machinery on the floor roared as one. The lights above, which had been in power-saving mode, now shone a bright white. Arato was stunned at the sight of all the massive machines snapping to attention in unison.
“This is the actual construction area where we were built,” Lacia said, introducing the place as she made her way between the machines.
The machinery all had supplier logos, even though Arato didn’t recognize all of them, so they couldn’t have been red boxes. He also noticed that at regular intervals, there were boxes filled with what he assumed were defective parts.
Lacia’s birthplace was different from the warmth of an obstetrician’s office or a delivery room; instead, it had the chilly feeling of an operating room. “If I am to fight Methode, this will be the most advantageous location,” Lacia declared.
“You want to do it here?” Arato asked.
“Yes,” Lacia replied. “I’ve been able to strike a deal with Type-003. Meaning, if I eliminate Methode, there will no longer be anything capable of stopping me; I can easily best the mass-produced Kouka units in a direct confrontation.”
She reached out and touched one of the massive machines, which was already alive and producing objects. hIEs appeared from the back of the floor to take pieces from one machine and move them to others. Apparently, the area used hIEs for grunt labor in the manufacturing process.
“This factory is incredible,” Arato murmured.
“The work cannot be outsourced to other locations, so it all must be done here,” Lacia explained. “Of course, the IAIA has forbidden ultra high-performance AIs from directly controlling factories, to prevent them from trying to make more ultra high-performance AIs.”
The next words came not from Lacia but from the speakers in the ceiling. 〈Order Lacia to stop using the factory machinery.〉 It was Ryo. Even if they made it past Methode, Ryo would still be there waiting for him at their destination.
“Lacia’s only using these machines so she can fight Methode,” Arato replied. “So please just stop Methode.” It should have been impossible for Ryo to ignore the scale of the fight that was happening around them, with the whole world and future hanging in the balance, but Arato got the feeling his super-genius friend was only interested in finding out which of the Lacia-class units was stronger.
〈So Snowdrop went down, huh? You guys did that? Well, just wait for us to get back to you. I can’t make a decision for everyone here in the Operators’ Room myself,〉 Ryo said. He seemed to be looking for an answer from Arato, rather than Lacia.
“Ryo, just let us meet with Higgins! All we want to do is force him to shut down,” Arato said. “We just want to show the world that ultra high-performance AIs are just tools like anything else, that humans can shut them off whenever we want to. It’s not like we want to destroy him or anything.”
Arato was depending on his friend’s voice. He was tired of humans playing such a small part in everything. But Ryo’s voice over the speaker had gone silent.
“Ryo, can you really trust Methode? She’s doing whatever she feels like, just like she did with Watarai,” Arato yelled.
〈If you want me to negotiate having Methode stand down, you’ll need to do something about the mass-produced Koukas first,〉 Ryo said.
Then the conversation was halted in its tracks, because at that moment, Methode’s terrible form stepped down the emergency stairway which Snowdrop had descended just moments before. Her face was a mask of rage, eyes wide and skin pale. “You planning to throw me away, owner?” she asked, her voice sounding like that of a jealous lover. As the tool that expanded humanity, she would lose her place in the world if a better path than her own ever appeared, just as humanity had when the hIEs had come along.
Ryo, apparently overwhelmed by Methode’s intensity, was silent.
“Tell me Higgins’ prediction,” Methode said, her voice trembling with anger at the cruelty of throwing aside tools that were no longer needed, which extended to the way humans were so ready to throw aside their fellow human beings. “Tell me!” she roared again.
Clearly, the bond of trust shared by Arato and Lacia was lacking between Higgins, Ryo, and Methode.〈I ordered you to prioritize the destruction of Snowdrop,〉 Ryo said. 〈So why did Lacia end up doing that for you?〉The reproach in his voice echoed all around the chamber where Lacia and Methode had been born.
“I was going to wrap it all up nicely by having them fight!” Methode replied, unperturbed by Ryo’s rebuke. “If Snowdrop hadn’t been such a failure, I could have killed two birds with one stone.”
〈Did you not hear when I said I wasn’t the only one here in the Operators’ Room? I don’t care if your capabilities are better than a human’s. It’s still us humans who decide how you fight,〉 Ryo said.
As Ryo and Methode spoke, one of Lacia’s floating shields floated over to wait near Arato’s feet, clearly indicating that he should get on.
But Ryo was trying his hardest to get everything back under human control. Arato was depending on Ryo to pull things around and, if he ran away now, would be leaving Ryo to stand against Methode alone.
Methode, who had already murdered one of her owners, walked closer. “Please reconsider,” she said. “I am superior to Lacia.” Although her vision and hearing had supposedly been sealed by Lacia, Methode seemed to be having no trouble walking right towards them.
The speaker that Lacia had used to produce noise data to throw off Methode’s hearing was currently being used for the conversation between Methode and Ryo; Methode was using her hearing to locate them, her eyes glowing orange. Arato could feel the scorching flames coming out of her hands roasting his skin, even from a distance.
In the next instant, the flames expanded until they were a flood, completely engulfing the demonic hIE with her bright, tied-up hair. Floating shields created a perimeter around Arato and Lacia, and one of them exploded from within. Just about anything in the world would crumble when Methode got her hands on it.
Ryo was too stubborn to give up just yet. 〈Destroying the mass-produced Koukas is a bigger priority, right now,〉 he said. 〈You understand, right? If they reach their destination, both Higgins and I are dead.〉
Tension seemed to heat the air until it was hard to breathe. This time, Arato jumped right up onto the floating shield that came to rest at his feet. It carried him away from Methode at lighting speed, while Lacia stayed behind to stop Methode from giving chase.
As he flew on the pseudo-device, Arato heard Lacia’s voice coming from a speaker inside of it. 〈The freezing of the AASC has greatly impacted Methode’s speed,〉 she said. 〈I fear she may attempt to communicate with Higgins using quantum transmission so she can take us out by self-destructing. Whatever you do, stay away.〉
Another of Lacia’s protective pseudo-devices exploded from within, spraying the area around it with flame and shrapnel. Methode, who seemed to be swimming in a sea of fire, suddenly whipped her arm around uselessly, as though she had lost sight of Lacia’s position. The tool made to expand humanity screamed, “Tell me where she is! I only became like this from following your orders! Take responsibility for the actions of your tool!”
Arato looked around and saw that the hIEs on the floor had set up speakers on the pillars and stacks of materials all over the place. The speakers must have been what Lacia had constructed after coming to the factory floor. Lacia, taking advantage of Methode’s weakness due to the loss of the AASC, now fired at her sister mercilessly with the artificial nerve speargun.
Methode—a physical incarnation of violence—was completely locked down by Lacia’s artificial nerves, and collapsed to her knees. As the tool made to expand humanity bowed her head, she screamed again.
“If you break your promise with me, I’ll take back all those lives I spared for you!” she yelled. “If you all weren’t so bad at using me, things would never have turned out like this! I’m better than you could ever be, so trust me! Trust me!” The word ‘trust’ sounded strange coming from Methode’s mouth, as though she found it hard to say.