She found it ironic that NiaLand was the only place that fulfilled all the requirements. It was quite the odd situation. Vivy’s homecoming was an attack on the place she once thought she would protect as Diva, a songstress created to sing. Not only that, but she was working alongside Toak, the very group who’d opposed her so many times during the Singularity Project while she attempted to save humanity.
Science had advanced in leaps and bounds, and the world had long since rejected the existence of a god above the clouds, but it seemed that God—even if he existed only in people’s minds—very much preferred these twists of fate. If he didn’t, then how could he have allowed such a situation to come together?
“While our comrades create a distraction, we’ll take NiaLand’s control room. If we can shut down the system from there, we can take NiaLand as an outpost. Then we have Matsumoto do his thing. Any objections?” Kakitani asked, looking around at the members in the information center as she gave her equipment a once-over.
Half of the Toak members who had been in the hideout were taking part in the attack on NiaLand. The other half were outside NiaLand acting as decoys, drawing the attention of any offensive AIs away from the park.
Obviously, the AIs would be on high alert once Toak made a hostile move.
“The AIs have no reason to beef up security in an entertainment facility. They shouldn’t look our way as long as they haven’t guessed our intentions,” Kakitani said.
“Which is why I’m asking you again. You seriously want to take that one with us?” Onodera asked, bringing up the topic of Vivy’s presence again, now that the first stage of their operation was finished and they were about to move on to the next. Vivy had offered to guard Matsumoto, but Onodera was still wary. “She’s an AI songstress. It’d be best to smash her positronic brain now.”
“I’ve said it several times already, but I mean you no—”
“AIs can change their thinking just like that. Besides, we’ve got irrefutable evidence: a video of you leading the AIs with your song. How do you explain that?”
“I…” Vivy didn’t know what to say in response to Onodera’s harsh attack.
She had two unsolvable problems. One was that the AIs kept singing “Fluorite Eye’s Song”—her song. The other was the sight of the songstress Diva leading the chorus.
“…”
Vivy had already confirmed that the video wasn’t fake, but she had no record or intentions of doing such a thing. When she woke up in this era, her frame was in the AI museum. It was impossible that Vivy was also the Diva who was singing because both had happened at the same time. This made her feel comfortable saying that the Diva on video was a fake.
“I don’t get why they’d be so hung up on Diva that they’d make a fake. Not that I’m saying it’s got nothing to do with the First Mistake, which is their whole foundation,” Onodera mused.
“You saying they wouldn’t bother? The right move would be to make an offer to the real Diva before moving on to a fake, especially considering they’re claiming Diva awoke as a ‘human.’ What’s the point of this roundabout mess?”
The various members of Toak voiced their opinions, which threatened to jeopardize Vivy’s position and twist her intentions. They were right, though. If the AIs had contacted Vivy and asked her to lead them with her singing, she would have refused. There was still room to question whether such an invitation was made in the first place. However, Vivy still hadn’t found a way to refute their suspicions.
“If you’re worried about their roundabout method, then it’s definitely a waste of time to stoke your suspicions,” Matsumoto said, stepping in to cover for Vivy as her position worsened.
Onodera frowned. “You would say that, Professor.”
Matsumoto didn’t care. He just shrugged and added, “Just think about it. It is true that her being an AI presents some elements of uncertainty for us. Yet if you look at everything other than the risks, you’ll see she’s valuable. She saved my life. That alone is enough to hurt the AIs. Besides…”
“Yeah?”
“If she really wanted to hurt us, all she had to do was carry in one bomb, and she could have destroyed our entire hideout. It would’ve been the end for us, don’t you agree?”
“Hmm. I guess.”
“The moment she didn’t do that, we at least knew her goal wasn’t to wipe us out. I also don’t believe the AIs think of us as enemies.”
As Onodera listened to Matsumoto, his expression soured into something like a condescending smile, perhaps even a sneer. He was probably annoyed with Matsumoto for not thinking of AIs as enemies at this point.
Matsumoto actually meant something quite different. “My love for AIs as a researcher is a different conversation. When I say they don’t think of us as enemies, I don’t mean that in a friendly way… What I mean is, they don’t care about us.”
Every member of Toak present, including Onodera, grimaced in disgust. No one would find it pleasant to learn that their worst enemy didn’t consider them an opponent in turn, so their reaction was perfectly normal. Only one person there thought otherwise: Kakitani.
“That’s incredible. If they don’t see us as an enemy, that makes it way easier to get them by the throat,” she said with a grin.
Vivy was honestly impressed. Kakitani’s view of the situation proved that she didn’t see a disadvantage as a disadvantage. She was the kind of person that could use any hardship as a tool to accomplish her goals.
Kakitani used her enemies’ inattention to spring surprise attacks. She wielded her femininity and light gear as weapons to lower her opponents’ guard. AIs had greater cognitive capabilities than humans, allowing them to make decisions from a variety of perspectives, but even that could turn into a strength for Kakitani to use against her enemies.
“I assume we’ve come to some sort of consensus,” she continued. “Next, we push on to NiaLand’s security room. Any objections?”
“No, Master. None from the others either,” said Elizabeth. “All right, let’s go save humanity!”
At her cry, the other members raised their guns. Even Onodera had no objections, so everyone got to work. Morale was high among these survivors, and they were all well trained. Their movements betrayed no hint of unease.
“Are you feeling anxious at all?” Matsumoto asked Vivy as they followed Kakitani.
Vivy was certain the thoughts in her consciousness hadn’t bled into her expression, but Matsumoto had a powerful intuition. She turned her thoughts to the shards of doubt hidden in the corners of her consciousness and said, “‘Anxious’ isn’t the right word. I am concerned about the uncertainty of the situation. To put it clearly, I lack sufficient data in order to accomplish our final goal.”
“You mean to prevent humanity’s destruction?”
Vivy replayed “Fluorite Eye’s Song” in her head as she responded to Matsumoto. “Onodera was right to be suspicious. I’m not entirely disconnected from the AI revolt.”
AIs inherently didn’t need to work themselves up for a battle or to maintain morale. One of AIs’ greatest strengths was that they could produce the results they decided on without having to worry about fighting spirit or confidence. Why were the AIs singing the same song in unison, then? Vivy guessed this wasn’t about the effect on the singers but rather the listeners. They weren’t singing to increase their morale; they were doing it to break humanity’s morale and destroy any will to resist.
If that was the case, their plan must have been to take control quickly.
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” asked Matsumoto.
“What?”
“Is the song really not affecting the AIs at all? Your music—Diva’s music—it has power. It’s saved so many people. Yet you still think it has no effect?” There was something fanciful in his tone.
“Even if you say there is power in us songstresses’ singing, it’s only in that it causes a reaction in the hearts of the people who hear it. AIs like myself don’t have hearts.”
Matsumoto’s breath caught in his throat, and then he nodded. “You’re right. What I said was stupid. Please forget it.”
“Unfortunately, we AIs have a great memory. I can remember what a visitor to the park said a hundred years ago even though they only came by once,” Vivy said, a slight smile on her lips as she tried to lighten the mood.
Matsumoto didn’t react as she’d anticipated, though. The furrow in his brow grew even deeper. “Yeah. I am aware of that…but it must be painful.”
“Painful?” she parroted, finding it peculiar to hear the word used to describe an AI’s experience.
“Forgetting is a sort of self-defense mechanism for humans,” he explained. “We forget a lot during the course of our lives, but that certainly doesn’t make it a drawback. We can live on because we forget. We can’t remember pain and suffering as it felt the day we experienced it.”
“…”
“Even the sorrow of losing someone we care for becomes weaker as time goes on. It’s sad, but it’s also a form of salvation for humans. AIs don’t have that. Your memories of being hurt are as fresh as if they’d happened a moment ago, and those memories don’t go away unless they’re deleted. When are the wounds able to heal, then?”
“We simply need to repair our injuries. And AIs don’t have a function that allows them to feel emotional suffering, so the prerequisite conditions are different.”
“You think so? You’ve been operating for over a hundred years. I forced you to directly engage with several turning points in history through the Singularity Project, yet you still believe that?” Matsumoto paused for a moment, then asked, “Can you say without a doubt that you haven’t been wounded in the process?”