Alicization Running

  Higa smacked the ENTER key, and a complex array of radiant colors appeared in the middle of the screen. It was nearly white at the center, while the tips reaching outward got redder as they went and stretched and contracted irregularly.

  “…Is the sampling over?” came a sudden voice from speakers overhead, causing Rinko and Asuna to jump. It sounded like Higa’s own voice. But there was a slight electronic falseness to it, a roughness around the edges.

  Higa pulled a flexible microphone toward his seat and replied to his own voice by saying, “Yep, fluctlight sampling has concluded without issue.”

  “Okay, cool. But…what’s going on? It’s all dark. I can’t move. Is there something wrong with the STL? Hey, can you let me out?”

  “Nah…sorry, I can’t do that.”

  “What? Wait, whaddaya mean? Who are you? I don’t recognize your voice.”

  Higa tensed. He paused for a moment, then steadily proclaimed, “I’m Higa. Takeru Higa.”

  “…”

  The red spikes suddenly shrank. After a brief silence, the sharp edges extended defiantly. “That’s crazy. What are you talking about? I’m Higa. You’ll see once you let me out of the STL!”

  “It’s all right; don’t get worked up. That’s not like you.”

  At last, Rinko understood what she was witnessing.

  Higa was conversing with a copy of his own soul.

  “Think hard and remember. Your memory stops at the point you entered the STL to make a copy of your fluctlight. Correct?”

  “…What about it? Of course I don’t remember the rest. You’re not conscious during a scan.”

  “Remember what you told yourself before you went in? If you wake up and it’s black all around with no sensation, you have to remain calm and accept the situation. You have to realize that you’re a copy of Takeru Higa stored in a lightcube.”

  The light shrank down again, like some kind of soft, fleshy sea creature. There was a long, long silence. Finally, a few spikes grew back.

  “…That’s a lie. It can’t be true. I’m not a copy; I’m the original Takeru Higa. I have…I have my own memories. I remember everything, from kindergarten, to college, to joining the Ocean Turtle…”

  “That’s right, but it’s also completely expected. All the memories your fluctlight possesses are copied in the process. You might be a copy, but you’re still Takeru Higa—which means you’ve got a brain that’s as good as anyone’s. Consider the situation and accept it. Then we can work together to achieve our shared goal.”

  “…Our…Our…?”

  Rinko felt a thrill of horror prickle the skin on her arms when she heard the lurch of raw emotion in the metallic voice of the copy. She had never witnessed such a cruel and grotesque experiment before.

  “…I can’t…I can’t believe you. I’m the original Higa. This is some kind of test, isn’t it? Please, let me out already. Are you there, too, Kiku? Stop this nasty joke and let me go.”

  Kikuoka leaned over, looking gloomy, and pulled close to the mic. “It’s me, Higa. Or should I say…HG-001. I’m sorry to admit that you are, in fact, a copy version. Before the scan, you underwent quite a lot of counseling, had many conversations with other technicians and me, all in preparation for accepting your status as a copy. I’m sure you remember that. You went into the STL with the understanding that this outcome was possible.”

  “But…but…nobody said it would be like this!” the copy screamed. The sound filled the large control room. “I’m…I’m still me! There should be something that allows a copy to feel that it’s a copy! This is…This is just cruel…I hate this…Let me out! Get me out of here!”

  “Calm down. Just be rational. Remember, the lightcube’s error-correction capability is weaker than an organic brain’s. You understand the danger that occurs when you lose rational thought.”

  “I am rational! I’m Takeru Higa! Why don’t we have a pi-recitation contest between me and that imposter over there, so I can prove it?! Let’s start! 3.1415926535897932, three-ay-fo-sig-doo-sig-fo-thril-dil-dil, dil, di-di-di-dil, dil-dil-dil-dil dildildil dildi”

  The red light expanded to fill the screen like an explosion. Then a black dot appeared at the center and spread outward until there were no traces left. All was silent, except for a little blip of static.

  Takeru Higa let out a very, very long sigh and helplessly tapped a key on the console.

  “That’s a collapse. Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

  Rinko heard a guttural convulsion nearby and realized that her hands were balled into fists. She opened them and felt cold sweat on the palms.

  Next to her, Asuna had her hand over her mouth. Kikuoka noticed this and rolled one of the empty chairs at the console over to her. Rinko caught it and guided Asuna down into the seat.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  The girl looked up and bravely nodded. “Yes…I’m sorry about that. I’m okay now.”

  “Don’t push it. Keep your eyes closed for a while,” Rinko said. She felt Asuna’s shoulders relax a bit, then glared at Kikuoka. “I’m astonished at your depravity, Mr. Kikuoka.”

  “I apologize for that. But I think you understand now that it’s impossible to explain what we’re doing without a direct demonstration like this,” the military officer said, exhaling and shaking his head. “Higa here is a genius with an IQ close to 140. We copied his mind, and the result was unable to bear the recognition that it was a copy. We’ve replicated over a dozen fluctlights, including mine, and the results are always the same. The copies’ logic systems go out of control at around three minutes after loading and collapse. Without exception.”

  “For one thing, I hardly ever scream like that, and it speaks a bit rougher than I do. You should have recognized that, Rinko,” Higa said, looking extremely dejected. “We’ve seen that this isn’t really an issue with the reasoning capabilities of the person being copied or a lack of mental care regarding their copying. I think it’s a structural flaw of the fluctlights that are copied wholesale onto lightcubes. Either that, or…Do you know what brain resonance is?”

  “Huh? Brain resonance…? Doesn’t that have something to do with cloning? I don’t know any details…”

  “Well, it’s all just occult mumbo jumbo. Basically, it claims that if you could create an absolute clone of a person, the two brains’ magnetic fields being identical would produce something like mental microphone feedback, causing them both to go crazy. That’s ridiculous, of course—but perhaps there’s some kind of fundamental mechanism in our brains that is unable to handle the revelation that it is not a unique individual…Hmm, I see that suspicion on your face. Would you like us to make a copy of you so you can see for yourself?”

  “Absolutely not,” Rinko said, fighting off the urge to shiver. A silence fell over the adults, only to be broken by Asuna, who had her eyes closed as she sat.

  “I heard something from Yui, a top-down AI—I’m certain you met her a few times in ALO, Mr. Kikuoka. Even though her ‘mind’ structure is totally different from a human being’s, she too was frightened of the idea of having a copy. She was afraid that if some kind of accident caused the backup to be activated, the two of them would be forced to fight to eliminate the other…”

  “Wow, that’s really interesting. Just fascinating!” Higa exclaimed, pushing up the bridge of his glasses. “That’s no fair, Kiku. I wanna meet this AI, too. Hmm, let’s see…I suppose that means it’s impossible to replicate a ‘completed’ intellect. Either that, or unique individuality is a prerequisite of existence…”

  “But in that case,” Rinko said, spreading her hands to beseech Kikuoka, “while it’s an incredible accomplishment that you’ve succeeded in copying the human soul, doesn’t this mean that your research has ultimately failed? After pouring in all these public funds, however much it cost…?”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Kikuoka said, shaking his head with a wry smile. “If that was the conclusion of the project, they would have shot m
e from a cannon into the stratosphere—and put a few higher-ups in the joint staff office in front of a firing squad, to boot.”

  He tapped the tube of candies against his palm again, realized it was empty, then reached up the other sleeve this time to remove a box of white caramels.

  “In fact, you might even say that’s the starting point of this project: the fact that it’s impossible to copy a completed soul. So…if a perfect replica is impossible, what should we do, Doctor?”

  “…May I have one of those?” she replied. Kikuoka happily offered a caramel, which she unwrapped and popped into her mouth. It tasted of tangy yogurt. You didn’t get flavors like this in America very often. The sugar melted its way into her tired brain and gave her the mental energy to process the question.

  “Well…what if you limit the memory? Let’s say…erase personal details like one’s name and background. Perhaps if the copy doesn’t know who it is, it won’t go into a state of panic like just now…”

  “I should have known you’d come up with that right on the spot!” Higa exclaimed, acting like he was back in his college club. “It took us a week of back-and-forth to finally think of that and try it out. The problem is, the human mind isn’t organized like a computer OS with nice, tidy folders and files. To put it simply, the memory and mental processors are all mixed up together. Which makes sense, when you think about it—our mental abilities aren’t installed at birth but a product of learning.”

  Higa grabbed a notepad from the desk and held it up, using two fingers to pinch it in a cutting motion.

  “Learning is memory. If you remove the memory of the first time you cut a piece of paper with scissors, you forget how to use those scissors…In other words, if you delete memories of the growth process, you also remove those abilities. So let me warn you, the result is far more miserable than the full copy you just witnessed. Wanna see?”

  “N-no, that won’t be necessary,” Rinko said quickly. “So…what if you remove all memory and ability and allow it to learn from the start? Actually…I suppose that’s not realistic. It would take too long…”

  “Yes, exactly. After all, fundamental knowledge like language and arithmetic is actually extremely difficult for adults like us to learn, because there’s little potential for growth left in our brains. I’ve been studying Korean, one of the more systematic languages, and I can’t even remember how many years I’ve been at it. Basically, the learning process depends on the growth of the quantum computer that is the neural network—or, in other words, the growth of an infant mind.”

  “So you’re saying you don’t just restrict memory space…but the thinking and logic centers of the mind, too? Is the STL capable of doing that?”

  “It’s not impossible. But it takes an incredible amount of time to analyze the fluctlight and pinpoint which of the billions of cubits of data contain which functions. It could take years…decades, even. But then…this old guy over here figured out a much simpler, smarter way to do it. A method that scientists like us wouldn’t have come up with…”

  Rinko blinked and stared at the man in the yukata, leaning against the console. As usual, Kikuoka’s expression was gentle but opaque, revealing nothing of the mind residing behind it.

  “…A simpler method…?”

  She thought it over, but no answer was forthcoming. She was about to give up and ask, when Asuna suddenly bolted upright in her chair.

  “Oh no…You can’t have done such a horrifying thing…” she murmured, cheeks still pale but eyes full of strong purpose. The girl’s face was a mix of exotic beauty and indignation that she turned with full force on Kikuoka.

  “You copied…babies? The souls of newborn babies? To get those blank, pure fluctlights with no learning built in yet?”

  “Very perceptive. I’m amazed. But given that you and Kirito were the ones who beat SAO—the heroes who outwitted Akihiko Kayaba himself—I suppose that’s rude of me to say.” Kikuoka beamed, not bothering to hide his praise.

  Rinko felt something in her chest twinge—she hadn’t expected to hear Kayaba’s name just then.

  In the few short days since she had met the girl, Rinko had been impressed by and taken with Asuna Yuuki, but in truth, Asuna had the absolute right to criticize, insult, and persecute Rinko for her actions. No matter the circumstances, Rinko had assisted Kayaba’s horrifying project, which had held Asuna prisoner for two years in a deadly game.

  But neither Asuna nor Kazuto Kirigaya, whom she had met much longer ago, had ever said a single angry word to her. As if they believed everything had happened as it was meant to.

  Did that mean Asuna believed this “Rath Incident” was also a product of fate? Rinko couldn’t help but feel so. She watched Asuna take another step closer to Kikuoka.

  “Do you think…that just because you’re in the Self-Defense Force…that because you’re in the government, that gives you the right to do anything you want? Do you think your own goals have priority over everything else?”

  “Certainly not,” Kikuoka said, shaking his head in aggrievement. “Yes, I agree that abducting Kirito was an extreme step. But at the time, I didn’t have the ability to explain all these classified details to your families. Using our connections at NDMC to get him here to the Ocean Turtle was for the purpose of getting him treatment in the STL as quickly as possible. I love him, too, you know.”

  The lieutenant colonel paused, smiled innocently, and pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Aside from that, I would say I’m expending too much effort upholding the law and human morality, considering the similar projects underway in other corporations and nations around the world. Even on the point that you just raised now. When we scan the fluctlights of newborns in the STL, we have the full understanding and cooperation of the parents, and we compensate them handsomely for the process. That was why we opened that branch office in Roppongi. Next to a maternity clinic, of course.”

  “But you didn’t explain everything to the parents, did you? You didn’t explain what the STL really is.”

  “No, we could only tell them that it was a device that took brain-wave samples…But that’s not entirely incorrect. After all, the fluctlight is certainly made of electromagnetic waves in the brain.”

  “That’s nonsense. You might as well be collecting the babies’ DNA and making clones of it.”

  At that point, Higa interjected and made a big X sign with his arms. “She’s got you there, Kiku. I agree, I think making a full copy of a newborn fluctlight does violate some kind of morality. But…Miss Yuuki, was it? You’re a bit mistaken here, too. A fluctlight doesn’t have the same level of individual difference that DNA does. At least, not at the newborn stage.”

  He pushed his silver-rimmed glasses up the same way his boss did and glanced around as he searched for the right words. “Let’s see…I think this analogy will suffice. Let’s say you’ve got a particular PC model from a certain company. Until they get shipped out, they’re all essentially identical. But once the user gets it and operates it for a year or two, they’ll have installed new software, new hardware, until they’re eventually completely different machines. The human fluctlight is the same way. Ultimately, we copied the fluctlights of twelve different newborns, and when we compared them, we found they were arranged 99.98 percent identically, regardless of brain size. We believe that the last 0.02 percent of difference is based on different memories in utero and after birth. In other words, human intelligence and personality are entirely based on the growth process after birth. It’s official: Nurture has won the battle with nature. Wish I could take this revelation to those eugenics freaks and shove it up their asses.”

  “Once the project is complete, you have my blessing. Shove to your heart’s content,” Kikuoka said wearily. “But at any rate, as Higa just explained, we have concluded that newborn fluctlights are not hard-coded with individual differences. So we very carefully deleted that 0.02 percent variation from our twelve fluctlights and gained what we call…”

&
nbsp; He spread his hands and made a careful, cradling gesture.

  “…Soul Archetypes. A basic model of the human mentality.”

  “More grandiose terminology. I take it this is essentially referring to ‘the self’ as defined by Jungian psychology?” Rinko asked.

  Kikuoka shrugged wryly. “Listen, I’m just talking about functionality, I’m not offering philosophical speculation. You could think of the soul archetype as the basic CPU core that all human beings are born with. As we grow, we add all kinds of sub-processors and memory units to our core. Eventually, the very structure of that core changes…As we showed you minutes ago, just copying that ‘completed’ product to a lightcube does not give us the bottom-up AI we seek. So we thought, what if we take that soul archetype and raise it ourselves from within that lightcube…in a virtual world?”

  “But—” Asuna started to protest.

  Rinko put a hand on her shoulder and pushed the girl back into the seat. “You can’t just raise it like it’s a pet or a plant. This soul archetype is essentially the same thing as a human infant. That would require a virtual world of an unfathomable scale. A simulation on the level of modern society…Can you actually create such a thing?”

  “We can’t,” Kikuoka admitted. “While the creation of virtual environments in the STL doesn’t require generating 3-D models as with traditional VR development, it would be very difficult to re-create the complex, mysterious ways of modern society. There was a movie from before you were born, Asuna; I wonder if you’ve heard of it. It’s about a man living in an enormous dome, whose entire life is a TV show. There are hundreds of extras acting as people around him—only the star himself is unaware of it. But as the man grows and learns more about the world, he starts spotting the cracks and eventually realizes the truth…”

  “I’ve seen it. I liked that movie,” Rinko said. Asuna indicated her familiarity as well, so Kikuoka went on.

  “Essentially…in attempting to fashion a precise simulation of the real world, you run up against a major problem: Certain fundamental truths of the world, such as the roundness of the globe and the existence of many nations upon it, will eventually cause issues within the mind of the person being raised if those facts are not properly represented within the simulation. And even the STL is incapable of re-creating an entire virtual Earth.”