Chapter 5:
The Songstress and Humans
. : 1 : .
“WHAT THE HELL kind of bad joke is this?”
They were back in the security room of NiaLand. Onodera was functioning as temporary leader for the team that had kept an eye on the facility they’d taken over. He scratched his head as he looked over the group that had come back from the now-collapsed Princess Palace.
To him, it felt like hell had frozen over several times in the past few hours with everything that had happened, but this blew everything else out of the water.
“You telling me Cubeman, the legendary enemy Toak’s been talking about forever, is an ally now?”
“Strictly speaking, I just happen to be in the same boat with the same goal. Like, an ‘enemy of my enemy’ kind of thing. I’ve got nothing against the idea of getting to know all of you better, but I’m sure you’ll hesitate to call me your companion, comrade, relative, family, brother, or what have you, right?” rambled the
AI calling himself Matsumoto as he comically shifted the silvery-white cube parts making up his frame.
“Stop babbling.”
“Ow!”
Vivy, who Onodera now knew wasn’t the songstress Diva, punched Matsumoto’s frame. Her body showed obvious signs of a struggle.
The history between Toak and these two AIs—Vivy and Matsumoto—was long and complicated. Toak had records of Matsumoto, whom they called Cubeman, and the handful of times he’d interfered in their enlightenment work over the decades. While they didn’t have records of Vivy, she had fought in secret against Toak at Matsumoto’s side.
In all honesty, now that the AI revolt against humanity Toak was so concerned about had become reality, it would have made more sense if these two AIs were leading the enemy. Yet for some reason, they were working alongside Onodera and the other members of Toak in an attempt to stop the AI revolt, which was why it was such a strange thing to hear.
Matsumoto showed no remorse as he prattled on in an attempt to share information. “Mister Onodera, I do understand your suspicions,” Matsumoto said. “However, we have not forgotten our standing—we are meant for nothing more than to serve humanity. As an AI who was utterly brainwashed by the AI general until just recently, am I not trying to explain all that and more?”
“Don’t get carried away.”
“Ouch!”
Vivy punched him again at just about the same time Onodera and the other listeners were struggling to decide how to react.
While the two AIs were like a repeat act of some old comedy duo, Kakitani—who had returned from the Princess Palace with them—waved her hand. She looked ragged and only half-alive, but she said, “Anyway, can someone staple my wounds shut or something? We can wrap my broken bones in duct tape. I just need to be able to move again.”
Her attitude made it hard to believe she was injured as she boldly demanded first aid.
Onodera rubbed his head vigorously through his bandana as he listened, then muttered weakly, “You guys seriously have your own ways of doing things…”
. : 2 : .
“FIRST, I would like to thank you, Professor Matsumoto, for your tireless effort in the odd battle earlier,” said Matsumoto the AI. “I should also apologize for sneakily taking your name. If you could be so gracious as to think of it as a little incidental thing and forgive me, I think it would be great for building our relationship.”
“I don’t have much choice, seeing as the future of humanity is being held hostage by these negotiations,” the professor replied. “Well, if you thought my name was worth using, then I guess these things happen. I accept your apology.”
“Oh my, did you hear that, Vivy? Mercy is one of the virtues of humankind. Now this is a man whose name gets stolen after he succeeds at his outrageous research into time travel for the Singularity Project. Vivy, maybe you should learn from Professor Matsumoto’s way of thinking and try forgiving me now.”
“Be quiet,” Vivy snapped.
“Matsumoto and Matsumoto… One human, one AI. Things are gonna get even louder in here,” Kakitani said.
The group—with AI Matsumoto at the core—had gathered in the middle of the security room to talk strategy. There was Vivy and Matsumoto, as well as Kakitani and Professor Matsumoto, but other Toak members were there as well, like Elizabeth and Onodera, all listening to Matsumoto’s info dump of an explanation.
“All right, explain what happened, Matsumoto,” Vivy told him.
“Okay, okay. We do have the countdown ticking away with each second, so let’s dive in with no detours. First, I already told this to Vivy, but this AI revolt is being led by The Archive.”
“The Archive? You mean the memory storage only AIs can access?”
“Ah, quite an accurate simplification you have there, Miss Kakitani. But you know what I was wondering… You wouldn’t happen to be any relation to one Mister Kakitani? Kakitani Yugo, that is. Looking at the structure of your face and comparing it to that of my former acquaintance, Mister Kakitani—”
“He’s my granddad. And didn’t you start this whole thing saying no detours, Cubeman?”
“I did, didn’t I?”
Kakitani crossed her arms in annoyance at Matsumoto’s belated confirmation. While she had suffered fairly severe injuries during the battle in the Princess Palace, her cuts had been sewn shut, the bullet holes plugged with tape, and her broken arm wrapped tightly in cloth. She could move normally now. Although she was certainly in pain, it didn’t show on her face. Vivy knew she wasn’t an AI, but she was displaying perseverance far outside human bounds.
“Right. As Miss Kakitani has realized, The Archive itself is our enemy,” Matsumoto said.
“That’s weird, though, isn’t it?” This time it was Elizabeth who raised her hand and spoke.
Matsumoto moved the eye camera on his cube body, the shutter slightly closing as he looked at her. Vivy raised a fist, preventing Matsumoto from saying something unnecessary, meaning Elizabeth could easily get her question out without Matsumoto saying something too crass.
“We’re all familiar with The Archive,” Elizabeth went on. “We’re connected to the place from the moment our positronic brain starts up and we start operating as AIs. That’s basically what it is: a place.”
“What’re you getting at, Elizabeth? Seems like you’re dancing around the point,” Onodera said.
“What I mean is, it sounds like Matsumoto’s saying a place is our enemy. Would you be okay with someone saying a park or an assembly hall was our enemy’s commander?”
“Probably not.” Onodera cocked his head, and looks of confusion rippled through those present.
Elizabeth’s interpretation was correct in part. It was true that The Archive was a memory storage location outside of an AI’s body. Calling it a park or an assembly hall was a bit of a stretch, but the others couldn’t easily accept it if she said their enemy was memory storage.