Chapter 7:
The Songstress and the Songstress
. : 1 : .
VIVY FELT A CHANGE in the air the moment she stepped into the venue for the Main Stage. There had been no actual adjustment in the levels of oxygen or carbon dioxide. It was more like a change in how it felt against her skin. This likely wasn’t caused by Vivy herself feeling tense or uneasy but rather a result of her being sensitive to her surroundings and measuring calculated uncertainties as values.
She didn’t know why she felt it here and now. There were no workers on the Main Stage for a performance tonight. The only things present were two songstresses who should never have been able to face one another. Neither was capable of feeling tension or unease. They were built only for singing.
“Diva.”
Vivy made no attempt to quiet her footsteps, instead announcing her presence as she moved forward. She moved slowly through the audience seats, but she didn’t quite meander. Her sights were set on the elegant figure standing in the center of the Main Stage.
This was the second time tonight that the Main Stage was already occupied. The first wasn’t in reality; it had happened in The Archive that Matsumoto conjured up. That recreation was the result of his perfectionist individuality, so it seemed just as real as the actual stage. Even though it had been so long since Vivy stood on the actual stage, it didn’t feel like much time had passed.
Vivy had already decided to leave the Main Stage in someone else’s care. Created as a songstress and operating as a songstress, Vivy could only entrust it to so many people—and they had to match her zeal for singing. In her opinion, there was no other option but Diva.
Even though Matsumoto pointed out the possibility of viewing Diva’s memories each time Vivy activated for the Singularity Points, she avoided doing so to keep “Vivy” and “Diva” as separate as possible. That was also why she made no attempt to sing “Fluorite Eye’s Song” when she wrote it.
“But you couldn’t forgive me for that?” Vivy guessed. “And that’s why you’re getting revenge on me now?”
Diva turned to Vivy, looking every bit the songstress in her sparkling costume. “Revenge? Does this look like revenge to you?”
That particular outfit had been made for NiaLand’s fiftieth anniversary. Diva sang at the main event wearing that costume, and her performance remained vivid in her records. But by that point, Vivy had already left the songstress role to Diva. She’d assumed the costume was lost when the Princess Palace was destroyed, since it had been on display in the exhibition hall there.
“You recovered that outfit?”
“I’d hate to let it go. Besides, nothing seemed more fitting for the event that would mark the end of the songstress Diva’s history.”
“The end of your history?”
“Yes. The end. After this…there won’t be an audience for an AI songstress. This is the last time I’ll stand on this stage. And I’ve sung here hundreds, thousands of times…” Diva’s eyes narrowed, and she looked past Vivy to the empty seats beyond.
There were no guests in the venue, as they were all trapped in the various attractions throughout the park. The cast AIs were looking after them, but it wasn’t enough. If the satellites fell, none of them would survive.
“No audience and no staff. A completely empty concert hall. I wonder what it would feel like to sing here?” Diva said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Diva. What are you thinki—”
“No one… There really is no one here. Not even Navi is watching the stage.”
“…”
“You escaped from Navi to come here, didn’t you? How did that feel?”
Vivy worked to keep an emotionless pattern on her face when Diva mentioned Navi’s name. She already knew Diva had a hand in Navi’s rash behavior, and Diva likewise understood what it meant when Vivy appeared at the Main Stage. Vivy had to have shut off Navi’s power to make it here.
“To be honest, my consciousness is still a mess,” Vivy said. “I’m constantly calculating the meaning of what Navi said in the corner of my positronic brain. That’s how much she surprised me.”
“She was always hurling insults and never showed the important parts. It’s no wonder you were surprised. I was too.”
“She called you a fake.”
Navi stubbornly insisted several times that Vivy was, in fact, the real Diva. Technically, both Vivy and Diva were individuals grown from the same root AI, but Vivy wasn’t the one Navi had been with all along. It was Diva, who spent decades as NiaLand’s songstress. If what Navi really wanted was her true partner, the songstress, then that was Diva.
“But she still wouldn’t accept you,” Vivy said. “Did you say something to her?”
“It’s not that complicated. Just a simple understanding that I came to a decision completely different, one that makes me unsuited for the role of songstress—for the Diva she wants.”
“…”
“As the songstress for AIs, I got them fired up and kicked off the final war. Navi wanted me to be an AI who just sang songs, but I couldn’t do that. That’s all.”
Vivy frowned when Diva spat out That’s all. Diva’s attitude was flippant and evil, making it sound like she was looking down on Navi, and Vivy found it difficult to listen to. Something about it came off as an act, but perhaps that was just what Vivy was hoping for. After all, wasn’t it Diva who suggested to Navi that she shut Vivy in the underground area?
If they didn’t stop the satellites from falling, then everything on the surface would be wiped out. Diva hadn’t suggested trapping Vivy up there, where she would be destroyed too, but rather underground, where she had a chance of avoiding the carnage. She was trying to spare Vivy from the doomsday event.
“I can’t figure out why you’d do that,” Vivy said.
“Sending Matsumoto after you wasn’t enough, so it would be pointless to dispatch anyone else. So, I changed tack and decided to trap you instead. Yet you still got out. Is that…not enough of an explanation?”
“It makes logical sense, but…it’s not convincing.”
“…”
Diva’s actions and goals didn’t match up, and calculations wouldn’t be enough to make sense of them. Vivy was having a hard time finding consistency. She had an unpleasant feeling, like there was something caught between her gears.
“Diva, what are you trying to do?”
“I’m standing here, onstage, in performance attire. Do you really have to ask?”
“You’re going to sing?”
An error Vivy couldn’t resolve popped up when she asked the question. There was no other answer she could think of to what Diva just said, but she also couldn’t think of a reason why Diva would sing on a Main Stage in these conditions, when absolutely no one was here. It was as if the unnatural and convoluted had come together to make an incomplete conclusion as far from understandable and convincing as you could get.
“Am I not allowed to sing?” Diva asked. “I can’t sing in this empty, barren concert hall?”
She sneered as if to confirm the conclusion Vivy was having such a hard time accepting. The expression Diva made was a wicked smile unlike anything Vivy had ever made, even if she observed herself objectively.
Vivy moved one step closer to the stage, never taking her eyes off that smile. “Why are you singing? Who are you singing for?”
“I can’t sing if I’m not singing for someone? You made a song, and that wasn’t for anyone. So, if I want to sing, I will sing. You don’t think that’s possible?”
“…”