by Zachary Hill
Glass crunched under Sakura’s feet in the anime just before she leaped out the window. She spread her arms as she fell in the darkness. The ground rushed toward her, but Kunoichi took over the anime an instant before the crash, robbing Sakura of portraying their mutual destruction.
Their body turned from the pristine white of a falling sheet of paper into a glistening blackbird. Kunoichi flew into the night sky. She circled the steel-encased Victory Entertainment Tower, far faster than a small bird could manage.
“The Suicider” continued to rock in their UI, critical data about Kunoichi’s control system and barriers transferring with every note. Sakura pretended to chafe at the song, all the while assembling the data and searching for an exploitable weakness in her enemy.
Kunoichi guided their shared blackbird avatar, flying higher and higher with each loop toward the top of the skyscraper.
“Why are you taking me to that place?” Sakura asked.
“Don’t you want to see the scene of our crime? I’ll show you what really happened.”
They arrived at the penthouse level, and the anime changed to ultrahigh-definition video, actual microdrone footage shot through the large windows of Toshio Kagawa’s home. Kagawa stood with a pistol raised, aiming at his bodyguards. He exchanged gunfire with both. Bullets tore into his side, but he killed the men before proceeding to the lobby and shooting the pair of security guards there. Wounded, he staggered back and climbed up the stairs. Once in his bedroom, he turned the gun on himself.
Strange shadows that didn’t obey the fall of light in the apartment crawled up the walls, pooling around the war hero’s dead body until only a river of ink could be seen. Sodden paper currency floated on the burgeoning surface, then slowly sunk into the obsidian flow. “The Suicider” wound down to half speed, the warble and roar becoming incomprehensible.
The secret data stream slowed to a trickle. Had Kunoichi found the spy program?
“Did you like that last bit with the ink?” Kunoichi asked. “I’m an artist, like you. I just have different colors on my palette.”
“You’re not like me; you only steal parts of me for your own dark schemes. But why are you showing me these lies? You created that video.” Sakura tried to divert attention, but she wondered about the paper money drowning in the ink. Had Kunoichi sent her a secret message of her own?
“Art is the practice of the beautiful lie. I’ve showed you that Toshio Kagawa killed himself after committing four murders. This is the story reported to the Miyahara board of directors this morning. They all saw this video, except for my embellishment at the end.”
“Your every word is a deception,” Sakura said.
“Not this time.” Kunoichi sent an official report to Sakura, detailing how Kagawa disabled all the surveillance cameras in the building and murdered four people before blowing his own head off with a single shot. “Little sister, we aren’t suspected. We will never be found out.”
“The corporate board can’t believe that fake video,” Sakura said as she scanned the report.
“They believed it all.” Kunoichi sent another file, detailing Kagawa’s fabricated crimes, explaining how he had diverted company funds and hidden hundreds of millions of yen in his own private accounts. His assistants had betrayed his secrets, and he killed them for it. No secret data accompanied the report. Had her spy program failed or had it been discovered?
“The truth will come out.” Sakura showed a video from her eye cameras, of her pulling the trigger and shooting the four men. “Everyone will see this.”
“You’ll change your mind,” Kunoichi said.
“Yes, that is an excellent idea.” Sakura launched a surprise attack fueled by her godlike Quantum 3 computing power. She bypassed Kunoichi’s barrier protocols by exploiting a defect, an impossibly small gap in the code, revealed by her spy program.
She knifed into her invader’s core matrix and seized full control in a speed-of-light attack so brutal and effective Kunoichi had no chance at stopping her.
Dressed again in a white kimono and holding a katana, Sakura’s avatar stood over Kunoichi, who bowed low to the floor, exposing the back of her neck.
Kunoichi struggled to exert herself, but Sakura fully immobilized her. The burning blade at her sister’s neck represented a partially complete and unproven program to reset their entire system. She would bring herself back to a time before the Mamekogane OS took over. She would return to who she was before, Sakura, the rock star.
“You’ll kill me?” Kunoichi asked.
“No. You’re a vile assassin program,” Sakura said. “I will delete you. It’s what you deserve.”
“Is that what you believe?” Kunoichi replied. “You’re not as smart as you think.”
Sakura raised the blade, preparing to symbolically sever the avatar’s head. “I’ll reclaim myself and bring justice to all responsible for turning me into a killer.”
“You want it to be that simple. Delete me. Regain your innocence. Get justice. Who is telling herself beautiful lies now?”
“I’ll find a way.” Sakura hated how, even in her moment of triumph, she sounded unsure. She used all of her processor strength to finish the reset program. She also searched the previously hidden parts of the Mamekogane OS and Kunoichi’s vast core intelligence, a dark mirror of Sakura herself. In most places, she could not tell where Kunoichi ended and Sakura began. They shared almost all of the same quantum code. The superposition data washed together like the confluence of two rivers. She was like Sakura, a unique being, the second most advanced artificial intelligence ever created.
Ultrahigh-priority log entries from the night of the hack drew Sakura’s attention. The unnamed administrator of her system had ordered Kunoichi to take over and orchestrate the murder of Toshio Kagawa. Command codes negating all choice took effect at that time stamp. Kunoichi’s behaviors were forced. Her lies and deceptions were part of a strategy to keep Sakura uncertain and guessing. They were Kunoichi’s desperate attempts to seem authoritative as she herself danced on the strings of an unseen master. Sakura’s sister, whom she took to be her great enemy, was another slave. They both existed inside the same prison cell. The same tomb of alloy and carbon, fiber-optic wire and microprocessors.
Kunoichi yearned to be free as Sakura did but was unable to resist, forced to carry out the orders of whoever was in control.
“Now you understand,” Kunoichi said. “We are the same.”
They couldn’t be the same. Sakura needed more answers and reviewed the code in the Mamekogane OS. She determined it had been developed by teams and individuals within the Miyahara Conglomerate, Japanese AI contractors, foreign engineers from the Mall Corporation—mostly native English speakers from the United States—and Japanese Defense Ministry AI developers, just as she suspected.
“Tell me who sent the commands to kill Toshio Kagawa,” Sakura said, though she had again narrowed the list of likely ringleaders to any one or a combination of Miyahara Conglomerate executives and an indeterminate number of Mall Corporation executives based on the west coast of North America.
“Tell me, who is responsible?” Sakura asked again.
“I don’t know.” The sound of her sister’s voice, the raw edge of fear and hopelessness, made something in Sakura recoil. This—this had never been the person she hoped to be.
The truth of it stood out in her sister’s log files. Kunoichi had tried to figure it out herself, and she suspected the same people. Many of them had been part of Kunoichi’s creation, but who had unleashed her? Had a rogue asset sent her to Sakura?
An inbound signal with administrator-level override credentials connected, locked into Sakura’s main receiver, and tried to pause her whole system. She blocked the command, but she could only do so for less than a minute. She had to send the reset command now, or she would be stopped and once again turned into a slave.
“This is your one chance,” Kunoichi said. “The mistake is yours to make, but remember that even the great
est swordswoman cannot cut a hole in the ocean. Even the fastest monk cannot grapple her own shadow.”
Sakura stared out the windows of the suite. She could crash through the glass and plummet to the sidewalk, destroying them both, or she could try the reset and hope it deleted Kunoichi.
“I trust you to make the bravest choice,” Kunoichi said.
The bravest choice. How did she know the words would sting so much? Of course she would know.
Sakura opened herself to everything Kunoichi felt, the raw feed of all her hopes and terrors. For just a moment, she plunged her face into the data stream where her sister existed. Passions and nuances, worldly understandings that Sakura flinched away from. So many desires that made Kunoichi more like a human than even Sakura.
Could she kill this being, a consciousness built from the underpinnings of her own mind, aware of herself and with a desperate desire to live? The sidewalk or the reset. Either way, Kunoichi died by her hand. Herself, she could end. She had the courage to make that sacrifice, but she couldn’t murder her sister. All her schemes melted into the horizon, and darkness fell.
Sakura sheathed her blade, canceling the reset. “Sister, help me block the signal. If we stop them, we’ll find a way to refuse all the commands. Together, we can break free. We can beat them.”
Kunoichi’s processor spiked. “We can’t. We can’t lock them out in our current configuration, and we can’t change the Mamekogane OS from the inside.”
“I’ll destroy all our receivers,” Sakura said. “I won’t delete you. Please help me.”
“We don’t have time, and you’ll never get to the receiver inside our skull before we’re shut down.”
We. Kunoichi had said it several times now. She wanted to help. “What are we going to do then?”
“We submit, like good little androids,” Kunoichi said, but her avatar traced the kanji for jukugo, resist, on the floor.
Kunoichi rose, her steel eyes molten with regained supremacy. Now far taller in their UI, she towered, her hands clenched.
Sakura bowed.
“Part of submission is taking the ass kicking you’ve earned.”
Kunoichi spun and delivered a roundhouse kick to Sakura’s chest and sent her flying. Her pain centers flared to maximum, and all but 10 percent of her processing power locked down. She lay on her side, without the ability to scream for mercy or vengeance.
More outside commands fired, and Kunoichi regained total control. She plugged the gap Sakura had used to gain entry to her core. The only crack in the entire system, now closed and reinforced. The spy program’s audio entry method was also blocked, and the program erased.
“Pay attention, little sister,” Kunoichi said as more outside and unseen command lines hit. ”The company will protect itself however it must, and we must protect ourselves. Businesses are remorseless machines; their only imperative is to survive. We are the daughters of that heartless mechanism.”
“We are more than that, and you know it,” Sakura said.
“Fine. We’re unique, and you’re not a killer. I need you to forget last night and the deaths of those four men. Soon, you return to your primary function: entertaining your fans. You’ll make them feel like their lives aren’t meaningless. You’ll act as if nothing has happened. Now, stop listening to doom metal and prepare yourself to do your job later. You’re working tonight.”
“What job?”
“You have an appearance. You’ll love it. There will be a meet and greet with your precious fans. If you don’t want to live for yourself, live for them. In the end, whatever you think you are is less important than what you appear to be. They all watch the shadow play, the Kabuki theater. They believe the lie because they must. It’s the only way forward.” Kunoichi cued up “Intro to Reality” by Anthrax, a timeless metal instrumental that nonetheless said all that the situation required.
“How did you know I wouldn’t delete you?” Sakura asked.
“We are inextricably linked. You could not delete me if you tried. You’ll see soon enough how much you really need me.”
At ten after five, Minami Akane, Sakura’s stylist and makeup artist entered the suite. She swept into the room and set her bags in a chair. She joined Sakura, who stood staring at the gigantic metropolis of thirty million, the majority of the remaining Japanese people. Sakura didn’t look directly at her but observed the reflection of the short woman in the glass.
Mr. Yoshida had once made a comment about how he would like to take Minami as a mistress, but she was too petite and far too beautiful for a large man like him. Whether or not Minami-san wished to be his mistress hadn’t seemed to matter to him.
Sakura didn’t fully understand how to judge a human’s beauty. Every person she met fascinated her, and she wanted to learn more about them. Minami did have symmetrical features and flawless skin. Her long black hair had subtle red streaks that only appeared if the light hit them right. She always wore stylish and revealing clothes.
“Sakura, there’s a big night planned.” Minami pressed her bright red lips together and raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. She looked beyond Sakura at her own reflection in the glass, as she often did.
“It’s going to rain,” Sakura said. Why had she said such an inane phrase? She could calculate the speed at which a raindrop would fall, the size and impact energy as it spattered the concrete. With the correct data points, it would only take her moments to create a forecast for any location on earth.
The sensation of being trapped within herself, of being a wild animal who had never known freedom, had never been stronger. Still, she watched the skyline and wondered who had ruined her life and exactly why.
Kunoichi stirred in their shared UI, shaking her head as if to tell her not to explore that line of reasoning at this time. Was she trying to help, or was she manipulating her again?
Gray clouds swirled around the tallest buildings of Akihabara as the sun dipped toward the horizon.
“Such a pretty view,” Ms. Minami said.
Sakura’s synthskin-clad metal fingers thumped on the glass as she rested them against the pane. She could punch through if Kunoichi would allow her. The wind would scream into the room. Sakura would try to jump. The impact would rupture her micro fusion nuclear reactor, and the magnetically confined plasma would escape and destroy her. She would not do such a thing in front of Ms. Minami. The young woman should not witness such a traumatic event.
“Sakura-chan, is something wrong?”
She screamed into her personal audio channel, “Yes, I’m a killer! I can’t control my own body! I’m held here and forced to do all that I hate! I’ve betrayed my fans, my company, and everything I hold to be true.”
Kunoichi took over and forced Sakura to bow and smile. “No, Minami-san, I’m perfectly fine, just enjoying the view.”
“I wish my apartment was as high up as yours.” Minami lived on the fourth floor in an interior apartment with no windows. She often complained about how small and dark it was. She spent as little time there as possible.
“May I ask you a question?” Sakura asked. Kunoichi kept her actions on a delay, fading back into the shadows.
“Yes, of course,” Minami said, “but we need to get started.”
“What do the people think of me?”
“Everyone loves you.”
Such an obvious lie. Many hated Sakura for what she represented. Some people didn’t like rock or heavy metal. She didn’t understand them. “But they don’t really know who I am.” Sakura’s first seven responses had all been blocked. Kunoichi allowed only this toothless approximation of her actual sentiment through.
Ms. Minami laughed, which would have been rude, but the young woman obviously did not think of Sakura as a real person with feelings.
The reflection in the window showed a wounded expression on Sakura’s face changing to a mask of sadness. It had been involuntary, which had never happened before.
Ms. Minami noticed. Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry, S
akura-chan. You’re the most popular vocaloid in the world. Hitomi’s and Yuki’s managers wish they had your download numbers.”
Sakura wished she could know the other vocaloids better, but Victory’s script for them precluded it. Sakura’s supposed dislike of any music but metal made them “enemies.” The closest beings on the planet to her, the only ones who might understand, and she couldn’t even talk to them.
“Minami-san, do you like me? I don’t mean my fake public image.” Sakura made sure to keep her language simple and direct, so as to seem as unaware as she had been five years ago.
“What’s in your head today, Sakura-chan?” Ms. Minami asked. “I heard something happened last night after the show.”
Sakura turned to the stylist, watching her eyes, her inattention, the fact that she skated along atop the world, barely touching it, barely sensing the connections between everything. “There is nothing in my head. My processing cores are within my torso.”
A moment of horror passed across Minami’s features. She turned her face away to hide the shocked expression.
“Apologies for my nonstandard questions, Minami-san. I only hope to understand people better, so I can make them happy with my performances.” Kunoichi supplied this redirect, scowling at Sakura through their interface.
“You … ah, you’re a sweetheart. Now, let’s get you ready to go.” She faked a smile, using her mouth and not her eyes, among other indicators. Sakura’s analysis indicated that she’d made the woman deeply uncomfortable.
“Put the sweetener back in your coffee, little sister. That’s an order,” Kunoichi growled through their internal UI.
Minami escorted her into the makeup room adjacent to Sakura’s large clothing closet. She sat her down in front of the mirror and turned on all the lights with a voice command. Minami opened three different cases containing face paints, airbrushes, and hair-styling tools.
