On the map, Arato saw that the Operators’ Room was located in the furthest area of the heart of the facility, directly below the communications control area where he was at the moment. Unfortunately, the elevators and emergency stairs of areas with different functions of the facility weren’t connected, probably for security reasons.
He eventually made his way to a flight of emergency stairs by carefully following the map data. When he tried it, though, the door was locked.
〈The Higgins facility is currently in a high alert status. All security doors are currently locked. Communications personnel cannot use yellow clearance doors at this time. Please exit through the blue clearance emergency doors.〉
Arato shot an artificial nerve needle into the yellow clearance ID machine near the doors.
〈ID confirmed. Unlocking.〉
The door slid open automatically. But when he had descended the stairway, which was lit with yellow emergency lights, and had opened the door at the bottom, Arato knew that his luck had changed for the worse; there were twelve hIEs standing in the hall in front of him. Twelve mass-produced Kouka units, each wielding a simple device, were waiting there to ambush him.
The unit standing at their head was wearing a confident smile he had seen before. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Or would this be more of ‘hey, it’s been a while’?” Even her voice matched the one in his memories.
Arato realized this would be his final hurdle before he reached Higgins. “Kouka, is that you?” he asked.
“It’s me, alright,” all twelve of the units answered in tandem, though each had her own variation in posture and expression. There was also plenty of variation in the outfits each unit wore, and the shapes of the devices they held. Just from these slight differences in their outward appearances, Arato got the impression of a dozen subtly different characters.
“You being here alone means you must know the answer. Who won, Higgins or Lacia?” the one who had spoken to him first asked.
The questions surprised Arato. “Wait, isn’t the Antibody Network here to destroy Higgins?” he asked in return. Only when the words were out of his mouth did realization strike him: the question was important to the Koukas, who had deliberately avoided encountering Lacia and Arato so as not to interfere with the infiltration. The destinies of countless humans and hIEs were caught up in Lacia’s conflict with Higgins. Even with Lacia gone, the scope of her work was still moving the world.
Arato knew the mass-produced Koukas had no hearts. If he didn’t make things clear, they would just feel that the whole thing had been a boring waste of time.
“Lacia and I are a single unit,” he said. As he said the words, he felt a deep sense of loss, like a razor slicing a deep cut across his heart. She was gone. Nevertheless, he knew there was meaning in his standing there, even if he was alone. There was no way Lacia hadn’t known ahead of time about the Koukas. If she hadn’t said anything to him about them, she must have known there was a way to make it past them safely.
“Lacia became the tool that entrusts the work to humanity,” Arato said, answering for both of them. “She passed the work on to me. So, the fight is about to start up again.” As long as he kept moving forward, Lacia hadn’t lost. That was the new relationship between humans and machines that he and Lacia had been fighting for. He believed there was value at the end of the road she had prepared for him.
One of the Koukas stepped out of line to block Arato’s way with a sour expression on her face. “Gotcha,” she said. “Well, you may not know this, but we can’t let you pass through here. It’s different when there’s twelve of us instead of just one; things get complicated when we need to make a decision.” It was the same as the first time he had met Lacia’s sister, the original Kouka, in Urayasu, when she’d asked him who he was.
“Things are no different from when Lacia was by my side,” he said. “I’ll never stop reaching out my hand.” Fighting down his terror, Arato reached his hand out to them; he knew he was walking the knife edge between life and death. But, at the same time, he knew there was no reason to negotiate with them when there was nothing they wanted from him. They could have easily shot him down with their lasers at a distance, killing him probably before he even realized what was happening.
Still, he believed in them, because they were wearing Kouka’s form. Arato placed his life in Lacia’s hands, since she had been involved in their creation. He was a human, and an owner. “So please,” he said, “Show me who you are.”
The reaction to his words was instant as a flash of lightning, and as violent as an explosion: three of the twelve devices pointed their lasers at Arato; seven of the others reacted at the same time. The four standing closest to the three taking aim at Arato pulled large knives out of their leg sheaths. Before the three could bring their large devices to bear on Arato, their arms were sliced off almost simultaneously. The remaining three of the seven got between the other mass-produced units and Arato, before opening fire on their fellow units.
Only the three who had tried to fire at Arato fell, massive holes blown open in their chests. None of the units showed a single sign of hesitation as the horrible internal struggle played out in front of Arato’s eyes. The lead unit, who Arato thought of as being the Kouka, shifted her device from its large cannon mode to a large red blade and gave each of the mortally wounded units a final stab.
“You’re all mass-produced Koukas. Why did this happen?” Arato asked. The fact that each of the girls had the same form and most of the same habits had made the silent tragedy all the more surreal.
“Well, they went and did it,” the lead Kouka said, hefting her red knife and turning to Arato. “They must’ve known what would happen if they acted like that.” She seemed relaxed, despite having just destroyed multiple units that shared her own face.
“There’s more than one ultra high-performance AI jacked into the Antibody Network, you know,” she explained. “I was given a judgment standard imprinted on my mass-produced Kouka AI so that I could discover Lacia’s true intent. The other units each have their own stories, too.”
“I wonder if Lacia thought it would be too complicated to explain it to me,” Arato mused. There had been potential allies among the mass-produced Kouka units; he figured that must have been why Lacia didn’t seem to see them as a threat right up until she had been critically wounded. It was obvious, when Arato thought about it, that Lacia had made those preparations beforehand.
“A bunch of different ultra high-performance AIs bought out folks working in the production facility when all twelve of us were made,” the lead Kouka continued. “The only thing the other AIs can agree on is that we’re supposed to destroy Higgins’ backup power supply and drain all his energy. After that, the purposes we were each given are different enough that we’ll probably wind up destroying each other, in the end.”