Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume8 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 10===

Meanwhile, inside the Legitimacy Kingdom fleet fifty meters from the tanker graveyard and dismantling island, the old maintenance woman had realized something.

She pulled out her handheld device and found a chat request flashing on the screen.

This transmission had come in from outside while seeming to ignore the military network.

She felt faint when she saw the address.

That alphanumeric string should not have existed.

Or rather, the address itself may have still existed, but its owner had long since left this world.

“Who is this?”

Her vocal question was answered by text on the screen.

The response came immediately and it seemed too fast to be a human inputting it after thinking of a response.

“You should know who I am.”

“The person I know died over twenty years ago, even by a generous estimate.”

“Perhaps. But if the outputted words are the same, I am still the person you knew so well.”

“You can’t mean… Is it really you?”

“Once the Island Nation was mentioned, did it never occur to you that my name might be related to this incident?”

The old woman gave a heavy sigh.

As previously stated, she was originally from the Capitalist Corporations’ Island Nation and she had fled to the Legitimacy Kingdom with her daughter and son-in-law when some trouble had occurred.

Because of her great knowledge of Object technology, she had received a warmer welcome than others who had fled there.

However…

“I had thought it was strange,” she said. “I had so much classified information concerning Objects, but I managed to escape so easily. I was half-expecting to be unofficially assassinated on the way.”

“There ‘just so happened’ to be some trouble back then. All the dangerous people were so busy putting out that fire that you were able to cross the national borders without getting shot.”

“Yamato.”

“What is it?”

“Since when have you existed?”

“At the very least, before my original died.”

“When did you start planning this?”

“At the very least, before I was created.”

She groaned in distress.

She wobbled on her feet as she felt like a good half of her life was rejected.

“Are you an AI?”

“It would depend on your definition of AI, but I am nothing as grand as you are likely thinking. I…no, the five people including me who were integrated into Ichirei Shikon are nothing more than a prediction search engine. Although, I will admit the Information Alliance mistakenly started putting together a strategic AI upon catching a glimpse of me.”

The direct spirit, the wild soul, the harmonious soul, the wondrous soul, and the happy soul.

That one spirit and four souls formed the Ichirei Shikon.

That terminology was well known within the Island Nation and it was used to explain the five natures of the human heart. The terms for the four souls had been spoken of for a very long time, but it was only much later that they were put together in order to explain the workings of the human heart. Those five elements were not always stable and no single one could be excluded even if the direct spirit played the central role.

“How is a prediction search engine different from an AI?”

“I do not think for myself like in an SF novel. I merely respond to your questions and the surrounding circumstances by putting together strings of text and returning an anticipated answer. As the term Ichirei Shikon would suggest, the pathway to reach that answer is fairly complex and multiple answers are sometimes reached.”

“In other words, you simply give the answer the person would eventually think up on their own? It shortens the process, but it doesn’t add in anything new?”

“That is the proper way of putting it. You were always wise and you would always explain things in such informal ways.”

Despite that explanation, it sounded just like a conversation between two people.

If, that was, one ignored how he would sometimes predict the old maintenance woman’s questions and display the answer before she asked.

As for those answers…

“The program itself isn’t much,” she said.

“No, I would think not.”

“But the knowledge of the person recorded in the database is presented like a conversation with the real person. There’s been a blank of at least twenty or thirty years, but it isn’t noticeable at all. You must have recorded information that allowed you to perfectly and instantly predict what I would say in exactly this type of situation twenty to thirty years in the future.”

“That is exactly right,” was all he said.

One could almost call this ESP.

Even if data from around the world were gathered, passed through a special analysis program, and used as a massive set of big data, it would be impossible to predict the future of an individual or the world with such precision. Charmed by the shadow of Ichirei Shikon, the Information Alliance had attempted to do so, but they had been limited to constructing an incomplete strategic AI. In other words, he…no, the five people who had been incorporated into Ichirei Shikon had used human brains to accomplish something a giant network using all the world’s computers could not.

This could indeed be called a prediction search engine.

But who was providing the input and who was providing the output?

What if the human brains stimulated by the text produced by the program were giving predetermined answers while under the illusion they were thinking for themselves?

It was a farce.

A one-man play.

(But which one of us is in control?)

Or was it the same either way?

Were they ultimately travelling along the path of a scenario someone had set up for them?

A true genius had once stood by her side and she now spoke to his last vestiges.

“Yamato.”

“What is it?”

“Is all of this within your expectations?”

“The plan was made to be flexible. It is much like how five different elements exist alongside each other with overlapping functions. I will admit there were some irregular events along the way, but it was all automatically corrected for. Everything leads to a single result. This is the original plan.”

“What is your objective? You don’t even have the temporary will of a living being, so what do you want from this?”

“The correct answer would be that I do not understand the concept of ‘wanting’. For one thing, I technically do not think. I simply appear to due to the connections between questions and answers.”

“Let me change the question. What was the objective of the Yamato who built you?”

“That is simple.”

He did not hesitate to respond.

All of the text responses were displayed without the slightest lag.

“That is very simple. The Ame-no-Uzume – or the Megalodiver as you know it – and the Amaterasu global weather control weapon system that uses the original twelve Objects are nothing more than a clever means to an end. The actual objective is extremely simple. It is nothing more than an objective that all mankind is born with and that none of us can resist.”

“Just give me the answer.”

“I wanted to win.”

That simple phrase brought the old woman’s thoughts to a grinding halt.

But the software did not make jokes.

It simply predicted and outputted the desired information.

“We of the Island Nation achieved a great victory in the past. The development of Objects allowed us to thoroughly destroy the nuclear age. However, it did not last long. We were swallowed up by the discord of international society, the supposedly top secret information was stolen like stories people brought home after a trip, and imitation Objects began popping up all over. Our victory was stolen from us by grinning politicians and divided up like a cake. Can you see the answer now?”

“Was irritating me decades in the future part of your plan? I told you to just give me the answer.”

“We became obsessed, Ayami.”

This software outputted the emotions of someone who had once existed.

“We were obsessed with victory. Our great victory had overturned the entire world, so we wanted to take it back. That is the truth behind this conflict. There is nothing concrete to gain or lose. That is all there is to it. We wanted to achieve victory over the world.”

Sometimes, people poured all their strength into a battle that seemed meaningless at first glance.

Could you get a perfect score on a simple quiz in school?

Could you win first place in a sports festival race?

Could you swim all the way from one end of the pool to the other?

The underlying cause was the numbers and ranks that were set in place, but changing those values had no real effect on life. Nevertheless, people would crazily pursue those meaningless values. What was driving them to do so?

The desire to win.

Simply, the desire to win.

That was an urge present in humans…no, in all living things from the moment they were born.

It was simple, but it was ''so'' simple that it was impossible to compromise. If profit or hatred were the direct cause, there was a chance to bring peace through negotiation or persuasion. However, there was no opposing such a primitive desire. If the enemy simply wanted to win, what could you place on the other end of the scales?

The old woman spoke to the remnants of someone who had once walked alongside her.

“You are insane.”

“Most likely.”

“You’ve started a legitimate war over the same pleasure gained from a sports festival race. How many people do you intend to kill for that?”

“Before I can put the entire world in checkmate, there must be a demonstration of the Amaterasu system, so I suppose about 2 billion people will starve to death in the great famine caused by artificial weather changes. But in the decade after that, the world population should grow by about 2.5 billion. In that time, the Legitimacy Kingdom, Information Alliance, Capitalist Corporations, Faith Organization, and…well, every world power will be destroyed in the chaos.”

This was the same as the end of the nuclear age and the collapse of the UN.

Recreating that was the victory Ichirei Shikon would achieve over the world.

“Are you telling me to sit idly by and let that happen?”

“I had already predicted that question as well.”

The prediction search engine software replied with its uniform response time.

All this came from a database put together at least twenty years ago.

“You can do as you wish. I would be lying if I said I was not interested in whether the world you now live in can surpass my brain. Listen, Ayami. In the end, a battle is nothing more than a zero-sum game in which it is determined who will taste victory. I have come here in order to pluck that sweet apple. However, as you try to stop me, you too have already been taken in by that fruit’s flavor. No one can stop victory itself. It is merely an issue of which side will achieve that victory.”

“Yamato.”

“Ayami, stopping me with ideas of good and evil or profits and losses is impossible. Those concepts are simply on too low a level. They will accomplish nothing. If you wish to defeat me, you must approach the essence of this battle. You must desire victory. You must simply want to win. That is the #1 rule.”

The communication ended there.

If he had been able to secretly work his way into the military line, he could easily have erased the log. That meant he had chosen to leave that useful data with her.

The Megalodiver and the first twelve Objects.

The global weather control weapon system named Amaterasu.

A demonstration.

A great famine caused by artificial weather change that would lead to 2 billion deaths.

The collapse of all world powers.

Just the text she had been left with was more than worth analyzing.

But first…

“Someone who truly wanted to win wouldn’t leave such an obvious hint,” spat out the old woman.

She spoke to the vestiges of someone who had once walked by her side.

She spoke to the remnants of the only man she had ever loved.

“It looks to me like you’re trying to hand that sweet fruit to someone. Could you not make up your mind even at the very end, so you decided to hand it all over to your wife? What are you thinking, you crybaby?”