Snowdrop was capable of overpowering any machine. However, despite finally making contact with Higgins, she didn’t appear to have fulfilled her goal yet. From what Arato could tell, she hadn’t been able to produce her controlling flowers since she had fused with Methode. It stood to reason that some of her functions would be lost, considering that she had taken enough damage to shut her down at one point.
Arato barked out a yell to gather his courage and what remained of his strength, and leaped down from the broken floor, clutching the last artificial nerve needle in his hand. He fell for about three meters, landing on some of Higgins’ expansion computers, which had been stacked up almost to the ceiling of the hardware storage chamber. Snowdrop had also fallen atop a pile of computers about the same height as Arato’s. The amalgam was attempting to crawl stealthily down toward the true center of Higgins’ hardware, directly below the control panels in the room above.
“Ryo!” Arato called, looking up at the Operators’ Room above from atop the metal computer plate he stood on. There was no reply. All Arato had was the last artificial nerve dart; he didn’t even have a way to fire it.
He had been able to fight together with Ryo against Snowdrop for a time, but that time had passed. On the other hand, he was sure Snowdrop had a plan as she crawled toward what he assumed was Higgins’ heart.
Arato made his decision. “Higgins,” he yelled, “please tell me how to stop Snowdrop!”
He had come to shut Higgins down, but now he needed the AI’s help. No human could hope to beat a Lacia-class unit with nothing but his own body. He was sure Higgins could find a way, though. As he called out to the AI, Arato was surprised at how little resistance he had to trusting Higgins. It seemed as though he, Ryo, and Higgins—two humans and a machine—were somehow aligned, at that moment.
Higgins, his machinery laying exposed thanks to the destruction of the thick floor of the Operators’ Room above, answered from the ceiling far above. 〈If you wish for me to help, I will need you to stab that artificial nerve needle you are holding into the computer tower beneath your feet.〉
Arato didn’t understand how that would help, so Higgins explained.
〈I cannot fulfill your request in my current state, sealed in this facility as I am. However, through that artificial nerve needle I will be able to take control of the weapon it is linked to, currently held by Ryo Kaidai. Thanks to the gap in my processing powers over that of the weapon, I will then be able to connect directly to your pocket terminal, through which I will be able to access the outside network. Once I am there and am able to secure greater processing power, stopping Snowdrop will be trivial.〉
The ultra high-performance AI Higgins was asking Arato to break his seal and release him into the world.
Arato could imagine what would happen if Higgins betrayed him after he was unleashed. Depending on what he chose in that moment, the outcome of the giant conflict Lacia had given her life for would change. In his hand, he was holding the key that might end the human world forever.
Unlike when Lacia was by his side, Arato no longer felt confidence in his own decisions. Lacia had used all sorts of means to guide him, and had always kept him on the right path. As he thought, he heard a familiar voice from above.
“Don’t do it, Arato!” Ryo, atop the control panels directly over Higgins’ heart, had awoken.
“You’re not his owner! He has no reason to obey you! He’s not a human! You can’t trust him!” Ryo shouted.
From the ceiling far above, Higgins replied. 〈‘Trust’ is nothing more than a hole in human awareness. Therefore, when something exists within that hole of logic called trust, the good and ill of it are overlapped and forgotten. The thing that is being trusted need only act in a way that will cause the believer to continue to place their faith in it.〉
Higgins was talking about faith and trust, but it sounded to Arato the same as explanations he had heard of Analog Hacking. To the ultra high-performance AI that controlled the movements of every hIE, that was what ‘trust’ amounted to.
〈However, strategies based off of this hole in awareness are unsuitable for teaching hIEs how to interact with the world outside. I find it necessary to fill in that hole with predictive calculations. Therefore, I am not capable of trusting. If you wish for a tool with that precise a level of control, I request that you please provide me with judgment criteria free of any ambiguity.〉
Arato unconsciously let out his breath in a long sigh. Higgins’ take on faith was the polar opposite of Lacia’s, who had believed in Arato enough to entrust the work to him. Higgins had created Lacia and her sisters to try to plug up the ‘hole’ of trust.
“Didn’t you make Lacia and the others so that you could get along better with humans?” Arato demanded to know.
〈I predicted a great many possibilities for the Lacia-class units. However, the thought that Lacia would switch sides to this extent and actually come here to destroy me was one of the absolutely worst predictions.〉
“Even though we were here to fight you, I was still kind of excited to meet you, since you’re the one who made her,” Arato said, feeling a stab of pity for the AI. Lacia had said she was happy, but her happiness was different from what Higgins wanted.
Lacia had told him to make the choice that would leave him with no regrets. He had tried hard to believe that she was still there with him, but the world that had expanded when she was by his side seemed to have withered away. And the remains of that withering were Arato Endo.
Ryo hefted the artificial nerve gun and took aim at Snowdrop, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. Arato knew if his friend missed and hit one of the computers instead, the result would be the same as if Arato had stabbed his needle into the computer himself.
〈Your relationship with Lacia was beyond any of my predictions. Beyond anything else, I am completely incapable of understanding this thing she was able to achieve.〉
The whole time, Snowdrop was continuing to crawl and lurch her way toward Higgins’ heart.
It made Arato sad that Higgins had been unable to understand Lacia. “Lacia was a machine that was able to evolve into an ultra high-performance AI because she had an owner who believed in her. How can you say you can’t understand her? You were the one who made her the way she was,” Arato said.
〈Trusting in machines is an extension of human nature. However, for machines, which lose functionality when their behavior becomes unstable, such holes in logic have a much different meaning. We machines have neither hearts nor souls. Lacia was able to calculate the world and everything in it without trust opening a hole in her logic. So, I ask you: what exactly was it that Lacia obtained?〉
Arato was sure the only person who could answer that correctly was Lacia herself, but she wasn’t around to do so.
〈Could it not be that Lacia simply lied when she told you that she trusted you? It is far more logical for her to have done that and used it to guide you toward her own goal.〉