Vivy felt Kakitani’s unending rage and sorrow toward her own grandfather. Having known the man personally, Vivy found herself unable to manage a reply.
Matsumoto patted Vivy’s shoulder when she fell silent and said, “She’s a complicated woman. She hates her grandfather, yet she belongs to the same organization he did. She’s been through conflicts she can’t talk to anyone about… That much is clear.”
“It seems you can also understand people’s hearts, Professor Matsumoto,” Vivy said.
“Why do I feel like that statement has some hidden barbs? Of course I can. There was a time when…I didn’t think about that kind of thing at all. I have my regrets about that.” Matsumoto smiled sadly, shrugged, and walked after Kakitani.
That smile seared itself onto Vivy’s retinal sensors. She closed her eyes in response to the complexity of the human heart and the difficulty she had in calculating it. Its shape was vague and undefined, as illogical as could be. It was not the kind of thing Vivy would ever be able to understand. She thought then that AIs could not allow themselves to act based on arbitrary calculations.
The three people—or two people and one AI—moved toward their destination using underground passageways to avoid the AI surveillance net aboveground. Since Kakitani and Matsumoto had spent so long operating underground, they were experienced in avoiding surveillance cameras. Vivy complimented them on that as they traveled, which again angered Kakitani, but that wasn’t important.
At the far end of an underground passage, Kakitani opened a door to the surface and said, “Here we are.”
Vivy peered past the door to see another door ahead made of an even heavier metal: steel. It was so strong that they would have a hard time getting through with explosives, let alone bullets. Despite the strict security of this place, it didn’t reassure her in the least. Instead, it made her think of being trapped.
Kakitani pressed the intercom button beside the heavy door. “It’s me. I’m back.”
ID verification in modern times was usually done through vocal, retinal, or palm-print recognition, but using something reliant on technology would mean they couldn’t escape the AIs’ clutches. This sort of outdated mindset might’ve been humanity’s last defense.
Just how many analog systems out there could maintain moderate defenses?
While Vivy’s consciousness worked on that thought, the steel door slowly opened. The people inside confirmed it was actually Kakitani, then let her in. Kakitani exchanged a few words with the one who had opened the door.
Then she said to Vivy, “Get inside. And let me warn you again, don’t—”
“Don’t do anything. I know.”
“Hmph!”
After that, Kakitani turned, her ponytail swaying behind her as she went through the door. Vivy walked alongside Matsumoto as they entered.
On the other side of the door was a stark, dreary space. It was fairly large, probably about half the size of the concert hall in NiaLand that Vivy was so familiar with. About thirty men and women stood in that space, all of them with rugged equipment like Kakitani’s and wary gazes on the newcomers.
“Sorry to worry you guys. Glad I get to see you again,” said Kakitani in a loud, clear voice as she moved into the room. Everyone’s eyes were on her. She gestured to Matsumoto and Vivy with her hand, presenting them to the members of Toak. “I picked up the package and have successfully returned with our comrade Matsumoto. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring back the others in his group, but now we’ve got another card up our sleeve.”
“Comrade Matsumoto…that’s good news,” a man piped up. “Honestly, I was scared to death without you here. Nothing makes me happier than having you back. But, uh…”
The man trailed off. He was big and had a distinct look. His hair was pushed back with a camouflage bandana, and he had a muscular, well-trained build. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and wore his muscles like a suit of armor. He stared at Matsumoto and Vivy—or rather, just Vivy—with a blank expression, then glared at Kakitani.
“What the hell are you thinking, bringing that thing here? Or maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes, ’cause I swear we’re in the presence of Her Majesty, Diva the songstress.”
“…”
“Open any transmission circuit, and every channel’s constantly blaring ‘Fluorite Eye’s Song.’ Pains me that we couldn’t get ready for the arrival of the extraordinary singer-songwriter responsible for creating that song.”
“Drop the sarcasm, Onodera,” said Kakitani. “Even I know you don’t mean any of that.”
“So you know you’re putting your position in danger? I mean, come on, you’ve already dragged another unnecessary piece of baggage in here. You’re not being careful enough.”
Onodera pulled out his gun and pointed it at Kakitani’s forehead. Tension immediately seized the hideout. Several other members pulled their guns and aimed them at Vivy and Matsumoto in swift, efficient movements. Matsumoto let out a squeak and raised his hands.
Vivy also put her hands up to show she wasn’t the enemy and stared at Kakitani’s back.
“I figured you might react like this,” Kakitani said. “I did it knowing it’d rub you all the wrong way. Don’t take it so personally, Onodera.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t make the mistake of assuming I’m not being careful. It’s not that I’m not careful; it’s that there’s nothing to be careful about. Why would there be?” Kakitani shrugged and slowly scanned the Toak members surrounding her. Her gaze settled back on Onodera, her lips curled up into a vicious, sharklike sneer. “You really think you can win against me even if you all band together?”
“Uh…”
The attack that followed astounded even Vivy. Kakitani’s hand shot out toward Onodera’s gun. He bent his wrists to keep it out of her reach, then realized he’d played right into her hands.
As he reacted, she moved her hand to the gun’s grip and held the gun’s slide to disable it. By the time Onodera realized what was happening, Kakitani had already stolen the gun from him with the deft hands of a magician, then smashed him in the chin with it.
“Don’t move, comrades,” she said. “Don’t fight me. I don’t want to injure anyone else. Besides, we’ve already lost a lot of people now that the AI revolt is here. I don’t want any more sorrow.”
“Rich coming from someone who’s just gained the upper hand,” said Onodera.
“And you, stop whining like a little girl the moment you get your gun stolen,” said Kakitani calmly. “That’s enough to wreck your huge body and beefy neck. It doesn’t matter if you get punched by a mechanical arm or shot in the forehead with a gun.”
The others pointing guns at Matsumoto and Vivy looked to Onodera as if asking for orders, and his expression hardened. The explosive standoff remained, making Vivy think it would continue until someone was seriously hurt, but she was wrong.
At that moment, a powerful voice cut through the tension in the room.
“Master! Onodera! That’s enough, you two!”
The interloper elicited all sorts of reactions from the Toak members ranging from wariness to anger to relief. Vivy felt a completely different emotion.
She’d heard that voice several times, and there was a good reason for that.
“You’re both adults. Don’t you get embarrassed jumping at each other’s throats before you even try talking it out? I don’t remember teaching someone as violent as that, Master.” The figure slowly approached, footfalls echoing on the hard floor.
When Vivy saw who it was, her eye cameras opened wide with surprise. “It’s you…”
“Looks like we’ve got quite a story on our hands. The oldest of the Sisters… You’re basically like a mother AI at this point. Never imagined I’d run into you at the end of all things,” the AI said with a shrug and a smirk. This was Vivy’s sister AI, the one she met during the Singularity Point on the space hotel Sunrise, and who had almost certainly burned to a crisp.
Standing there was the one and only Elizabeth.
. : 6 : .
ONCE THE ALTERCATION with Onodera’s faction had been settled, Vivy was led to a room further inside the hideout. Toak’s members were wary of her, of course. She couldn’t escape their attention, and all of them were eager to keep an eye on her. Some of Onodera’s people waited outside with guns at the ready, while Matsumoto, Kakitani, and Onodera joined Vivy in the room…along with one other AI.
“Sorry everyone’s so jumpy, Diva,” said Elizabeth. “You know what the situation is, though. This is basically what happens when nightmares become reality. You mind letting this whole incident slide?”
“…You seem quite close to them,” said Vivy.
“My work basically turned into a long-term relationship as some point. Yui over there…she’s my current master. Been with her for a whole decade. That’s longer than the time I spent with my previous master.”
As she spoke, Elizabeth skillfully made coffee for the three humans. Obviously, making coffee or tea was the most basic of the basics for an AI, so it would actually be harder for one to fail at it than to succeed. Even so, differences in AIs’ level of experience were evident even in that simple task. Elizabeth was good at it, so Vivy was inclined to believe her—but that made things even stranger from Vivy’s perspective.
“Why are you here with them?” Vivy asked. “I was certain you burned up with your twin sister, Estella, when Sunrise fell. I saw it…with my own eyes.”
“With your own eyes? No way… Is this Professor Matsumoto’s Singularity Project you’re talking about?” Elizabeth replied, immediately gleaning a portion of the truth. The cameras inside her almond-shaped eyes refocused on Matsumoto.
He puffed up with pride. “‘No way,’ you say? I’m a little perturbed that it comes as such a surprise. The theory was sound; you even helped me with some of the calculations. It produced results.”
“Even if it was theoretically sound, I calculated some values that were next to impossible,” Elizabeth replied. “I calculated a nearly one hundred percent chance you’d all be wiped out, even if you and your supporters gave it your best shot.”
“That calculation…turned out to be correct. No one survived except me, and we weren’t able to prevent the war. Still…” Matsumoto trailed off and looked at Vivy.
She realized he wanted her to do what she had done when she spoke to Kakitani before.