In the past, reality could be defined as being the interactions that took place between the human body and its environment. Within that reality, as humans continued their complex exchanges of interests and emotions, their brains became more sensitive to other human forms.
Humans invented tools to make their conflicts with one another more efficient and reliable. Rather than evolving longer fangs or claws, they outsourced their evolution to the development of tools, such as weapons made from sticks and stone. Using all manner of tools, humans were able to create their own environment. As conflict between them grew, humanity wanted more tools that would bring them victory in conflict with other humans. In the end, the humans even wished to leave their decisions to their tools, seeking machines that would expand humanity.
The need for efficiency and reliability even spilled over into the economy, which provided the very ecosystem in which the tools lived. Because of this, the economy was automated, and humans were no longer required to participate in the cycle of life and death for tools.
Erika Burroughs watched the dolls of her house going about their business. This whole place could run with or without me, she thought. She had been told that, in the 22nd century, reality was determined by the economy. Which, to her, meant that reality no longer had any need for humanity. In the age she was born in, there had already been some attempts to automate the economy, and the first signs of humanity’s obsolescence had begun to show.
“Lady Erika, I believe a crisis has developed,” Mariage warned, as Erika opened a window to let the night air in.
Summer was ending and fall was beginning. Just as humanity’s summer has ended, and we now face a far harsher season, Erika mused. “Something’s happened to Lacia, hasn’t it? Something in that facility that has caused her to lose a large portion of her processing capabilities,” she said.
Looking down at her pocket terminal, which was clogged with warning messages, Erika smiled wryly. In the last hour, with world stocks taking a sharp dive, the Burroughs estate’s resources were rapidly collapsing. All the investments her parents had left to her, which had swelled through automatic interest during her years in cryo-sleep, were now scattering to the winds, as though they were all bowing out after having served their purpose in securing her victory.
“Can we really afford to overlook such a massive attack?” Mariage asked. It was her nature to want to fix things when her environment started crumbling.
“If you were to ask who made the most money today, I think you would find it all went to new, up-and-coming ventures,” Erika replied. It wasn’t just Erika, either. All the big players of the financial world had taken mortal wounds that day.
A glance at who was coming out on top in the day’s markets would make it clear why the market was in such chaos. “It’s the same as what Lacia did,” Erika explained. “Multiple ultra high-performance AIs around the world funneled massive amounts of resources to their favorite pawns.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much just to weaken Lacia?” she wondered rhetorically. “Do they intend to sink half of humanity just for that?”
Yuri, a Fabion MG hIE model with her dark green hair cut into a short bob, walked in, interrupting Erika’s enjoyment of her victory night. “Lady Erika,” she said. “We have been receiving a large number of calls requesting consideration for your agency.”
Yuri offered Erika the receiver of an old phone terminal from the latter half of the 21st century. Since Erika was one of the few major capitalists left with money in the bank, people were ringing her phone off the hook trying to beg her for a loan.
“I suppose machines alone can’t move the economy,” Erika said. “But they can shake it up and threaten all those things we humans wish to possess.”
Mariage looked up through her eyelashes at Erika. “There are messages jamming in on my transmission functions,” she said. “Twelve of them at once, all through hacking into my secret line.”
“You are the factory that can build anything Higgins unleashed on the world,” Erika said. “We can’t exactly leave things the way they are, so I’d like to invest in this opportunity. From the moment we made the right choice for you to remain out here, it’s been clear that we’ll be fine no matter how things are after the dust from this second Hazard settles.”
Aside from Mariage, every other Lacia-class unit had been critically wounded. However, if one were to define the Hazard as an ultra high-performance AI slipping out of its bonds and controlling human society, the current Hazard was still underway.
Higgins had most likely given Mariage the capacity for relatively passive decisions specifically because it would be important in a transition phase, such as what the world was experiencing at that moment. She would be his one ace in the hole, in case his plan to guide the world using the Lacia-class hIEs failed.
Erika had victory roll right into her lap by staying far away from the fight between the other Lacia-class units. But, the fighting wasn’t over yet, nor would it ever be: the 37 ultra high-performance AIs around the world knew this as well, which was why they were trying to get their hands on Mariage, who was a one-unit production facility.
“We’re in the middle of one Hazard and everyone’s rushing to start another,” Erika said with a sigh. “Everyone, including the ultra high-performance AIs, seem to think I’m just dying to start another conflict.”
In the computer room the IAIA had borrowed from the Ministry of the Environment, the ultra high-performance AI Astraea was running calculations. 〈I have confirmed a sudden, sharp decrease in the processing output of the ultra high-performance AI Lacia,〉 she reported. 〈It is clear that her main hIE body and device have taken serious damage in Higgins’ facility.〉
Her report was sent using SHSE—Super High Strength Encryption—to the IAIA headquarters in the U.S., so that the leaders of the IAIA could make a decision based on this information. Despite the information in her report having been obtained with equipment borrowed from the Japanese government, the report itself was too top secret to be shared with them. The situation had become extremely grave.
〈Lacia’s broadcast cut off after Type-004, Methode, threatened her owner, Ryo Kaidai’s life. However, it is possible to infer what happened afterward. Lacia was designated as a threat by Higgins and eliminated,〉 said Astraea, who had set it all in motion herself when she had stopped Higgins from updating the AASC.
〈Higgins predicted the possibility of his own destruction, and included a hidden last message in the AASC, instructing the hIEs to stretch out their right hands in such a case. But the massive analog hack Lacia was aiming for happened to coincide with this event. She knew the content of the hidden message before-hand, allowing her to maintain her aim at Snowdrop even as the AASC was shut down. She only asked us to separate the AASC from Higgins after she had thoroughly analyzed it herself.〉
The suspension of the AASC updates had been Astraea’s idea for the optimal course based on the circumstances, and the leaders of the IAIA had ordered her to execute the proposal; in order to draw closer to her vision for the future, Lacia had manipulated even the IAIA.
〈This is why Higgins felt he had to destroy Lacia’s main unit,〉Astraea said, continuing to make her report. 〈He had determined that his place in the world was being threatened, because it proved to Higgins that Lacia could take over the work of updating the AASC, one of his primary reasons for ongoing existence.〉
Astraea had her eyes on every network in the world, constantly measuring how far the present was off course from the future ideal which the IAIA used as its standard. The current product leak event had reached the level at which ultra high-performance AIs were attacking each other; this was the first Level 8 event since the first Hazard, forty-two years prior.