Chapter 2:
The Songstress and Connections with Her
. : 1 : .
“AH, IF THIS ISN’T a convenient dream I’m seeing right before I die, then…”
When Vivy heard the white-haired, middle-aged man say that, she smoothed down her long synthetic locks and turned back toward him. He had his hand on his head, muttering something with a conflicted grimace on his face. Vivy compared his facial features to her internal data and found a match—a definite match, even though he looked a bit older than his record.
This was Matsumoto Osamu, the leader of the Singularity Project and humanity’s savior. Or he would have been if Vivy had successfully carried out his goal.
“As far as I’m aware, Diva never had any illegal modifications. And I didn’t think she had any melee programming that would allow her to overwhelm several humanoid AIs unrestricted by their ethical coding…”
“That is correct, Professor Matsumoto. The Diva you know was only given the bare minimum of programming outside her primary specialty: singing. However…”
“Yes?”
Vivy shook her head and stared straight into Professor Matsumoto’s frowning face. Just as he said, the songstress Diva was not equipped with melee functionality. But the AI standing before him had just completed a one-hundred-year journey requiring those functions.
“I am not the songstress Diva. I am an AI called Vivy. Professor Matsumoto, you conceived and implemented a plan. I am the AI who carried out the Singularity Project.” Vivy’s voice was steady and calm as she stepped over the frames of the destroyed AIs and closed in on Professor Matsumoto.
He stiffened as she approached, then let out a short breath and processed what was in front of him logically, calmly, and realistically. “There are plenty of questions I’d like answered,” he said. “But first, I think I should just be…happy that I’m able to meet you again, with you knowing about the Singularity Project. It looks like the past hundred years haven’t been easy for you.”
Vivy smiled and nodded, seeing Professor Matsumoto’s relief. “It’s been a bumpy ride. The story is a little too violent to be recorded and publicly broadcast in an AI museum of this era.”
The most important thing was that she’d managed to save him, even if it was at the last moment. Without that, there was nothing to do but admit the Singularity Project was really and truly a failure.
When Vivy had booted up in the AI museum and realized there was a fatal issue with the Singularity Project, she immediately began working to take control of the situation. She was still unable to contact Matsumoto because of the transmission interference, so she’d scoured her internal data, wherein she discovered a log that matched this point in time. Once she realized what that log was, she rushed to the OGC building.
The log informed her that on this very day, Professor Matsumoto sent data one hundred years into the past, whereupon he used up his manpower and was chased by AIs. She had only the briefest window to join up with him before he pressed the enter key.
To reach him, Vivy slipped through the surveillance net of the enemy AIs who stood against her, finally leaping into a ventilation shaft and making it there in the nick of time. One wrong keystroke and Professor Matsumoto would be dead. Framing it that way made Vivy’s tightrope walk feel like an extension of the Singularity Project.
“I’m grateful you rushed to my aid, but could you tell me more about what you said earlier? About the Singularity Project failing, I mean.”
“It’s exactly how it sounds, Professor. If I had successfully carried out the Singularity Project as ordered, this ashen world wouldn’t exist. But you’ve still been driven underground under a hail of bullets…”
“Did you not modify the Singularity Points? I was concerned about history’s corrective power. Was it that strong?”
“In the most literal sense, I did successfully modify all Singularity Points except one. Yet even though I guided history down a different path, it didn’t change the outcome.”
That was surely true for the first Singularity Point, when the AI Naming Law was created. According to the data sent from the future, Assemblyman Aikawa Youichi was deeply involved in the creation of the law, but he died when the opposition resisted. The AI Naming Law was pushed forward afterward out of a desire to carry on his wishes.
Vivy and Matsumoto’s interference prevented Aikawa Youichi’s death in this history. The logical result was that the AI Naming Law wouldn’t be put into place as part of his legacy. Yet the surviving Aikawa put everything he had into getting the AI Naming Law passed, meaning the bill was still made into law. Even though Vivy and Matsumoto’s interference saved Aikawa’s life, it didn’t change history.
“That sort of thing happened several times while modifying the Singularity Points,” Vivy said. “I finished checking the situation while I was still in the AI museum. When it comes to the Singularity Points, history is different. But the crux of the issue is the outcome, which has not changed. The AI revolt happened as expected, and the war has arrived at last…”
Matsumoto brought a hand to his chin as he digested what Vivy said. As you might expect, the man responsible for coming up with the Singularity Project was incredibly quick to understand. This was a very useful quality now, when time was of the essence.
“I’m sorry, Professor Matsumoto. You put humanity’s fate in my hands, but I was unable to fulfill the mission you gave me. The final war has begun.”
The professor clutched at the chest of his dingy jacket as he listened to Vivy. He closed his eyes, and his lips moved ever so slightly. Vivy’s advanced audio sensors could hear the name “Luna,” no louder than a breath.
Luna. That must have been Matsumoto Luna. Vivy referenced data on people with a connection to the professor and found that Matsumoto Osamu’s daughter, now deceased, was named Matsumoto Luna.
The key moments in the Singularity Project—the Singularity Points—were incidents in which AIs had a significant impact on human history. They had been selected from a paper Luna had written. Luna herself was another indispensable component of the Project.
However, Professor Matsumoto hadn’t invoked her name because of the Singularity Project.
“My condolences for your loss, Professor Matsumoto.”
“My daughter…Luna’s death. If only I could have eliminated that. I thought that if I could just rewrite the elements of her First Mistake, if I could blot out all the information she needed to put together that speech, then I could change history…but I was too optimistic.”
“Yes, you were. As cruel as it is, that is the truth. There are too many things we can’t change about the past.”
The Sisters had a checkered fate with a tragic conclusion. Even Vivy couldn’t mold that as she ventured from past to present on her journey to change the future. Only something of equal weight could interfere with history’s framework. Individuals like Professor Matsumoto and Vivy were just cogs moving in the machine of fate.
Even if that was true, it wasn’t the end.
“We can change the future,” said Vivy. “What do we do next, Professor?”
“What?”
“We weren’t able to stop the war or prevent your daughter’s tragic death, but humanity hasn’t been destroyed yet. There are still things we can do.”
Professor Matsumoto froze, eyes wide. Then, that rare genius who’d tried to change history to save the world shook his head, an incredibly cynical smile spreading across his face. “You’re just full of surprises… You’re still not giving up, not even after all this?”
“I learned how to be stubborn these past hundred years.”