“His talent for the sword,” Asuna replied instantly. Whenever she closed her eyes and envisioned Kirito, the first image she saw was of his SAO form, clad in black and whirling like a storm through the enemy, his dual blades flashing.
Leafa had the same idea through their adventures in ALO, and she added, “His reaction speed.”
“His adaptability to the system.”
“His quick judgment of the situation.”
“His survivability…Ah!”
Once they had alternated listing enough traits, Asuna realized something. Sinon nodded knowingly and said, “Exactly. They’re all VRMMO skills.”
It was so true that Asuna had to protest, “B-but Kirito has lots of good traits in real life, too.”
“Well, of course. He buys us food all the time. But to the average person, he’s just an ordinary teenage boy. Doesn’t that mean that if the enemy put together this elaborate plan, it had to be for the sake of Kirito’s incredible VR abilities?”
“No way…Do you think they’re trying to get him to beat some VR game? But Big Brother isn’t even conscious right now. He hasn’t had any treatment or tests; how do they expect to get anything out of him…?” Leafa protested, clenching fists out of concern for Kirito’s predicament.
Sinon’s steel-blue eyes looked down at the table, then narrowed with the focus of a hunter on its prey. She murmured, “He might be ‘unconscious’…but only to outward appearances. If they used a machine that didn’t access his brain but his soul directly…”
“Ah!” Asuna gasped, stunned that she hadn’t thought of that yet.
“Right?” said Sinon. “If you think of it that way, you can imagine a group that would fit the profile of our enemy. A group that has a completely unique device that accesses the soul and was using Kirito for a test run just days ago.”
Asuna nodded. “So…the ones who abducted Kirito are the developers of the Soul Translator…? Well, if Rath has the funding to create that unbelievable machine, they certainly have enough to mock up an ambulance…”
“Rath…? The company my brother’s been working for lately?” Leafa asked.
This surprised Asuna. She leaned forward and asked, “Wait, you know about Rath, Leafa?”
“Er, not really…just that the company is based in Roppongi in Tokyo.”
“You know, I think I remember hearing that, too. But Roppongi’s a big area…and I don’t think the police are going to spring into action based on a tip that a company named Rath is based somewhere around there and Kirito might be with them.”
Sinon bit her lip. Leafa looked down in worry. Asuna hesitated, then said, “Listen…I didn’t bring this up before, because I didn’t want to say until I knew for sure, but there is one very fragile link between Kirito and me. But it’s quite possible that it broke at some point…”
“…What do you mean, Asuna?”
“Remember when I explained about the thing he has, Shino-non?” Asuna said, tapping her chest over her heart.
“Oh, right…that heart monitor. You said it was sending information to your cell phone over the Internet…”
“The signal died out a while back, but it’s possible that if we retrace the source of the signal to when he was in the fake ambulance, we might pin down his location. So I asked for an analysis of the information.”
“…Asked who?”
Asuna answered by calling out into the air, “How’s it looking, Yui?”
A little burst of light appeared a few inches above the table and coalesced into the form of a tiny person. Then it flashed a bit brighter and went out.
What remained was a miniature female avatar, barely four inches tall. She had straight black hair, a white dress, and four shining rainbow wings on her back. The little fairy’s long eyelashes rose so that her big eyes could look at Asuna, then Leafa and Sinon. Apparently, her AI determined Sinon to be the most important person to address, and so she made a formal bow as she hovered in the air. “It’s good to see you again, Sinon.”
Her voice was like a plucked harp string. Sinon grinned a little bit and replied, “Good evening, Yui…or should I say, ‘good morning’?”
“The present time is 4:32 AM, and today’s sunrise is marked as 4:29, so I believe it is appropriate to consider this morning. Good morning, Leafa, Mama.”
Yui was formerly a player-counseling AI in the old SAO. She turned sixty degrees to address each person individually, then resumed hovering in front of Asuna. “I am ninety-eight percent finished tracing the packets sent from Papa’s biomonitor to Mama’s cell phone.”
“Very good. So if it turns out that the packets were sent from around Roppongi, it will add quite a lot of credence to our theory,” Sinon suggested, and Asuna nodded. The three girls looked at Yui expectantly.
“I will now announce the results thus far. Unfortunately, the defense on the cell tower relays is rather imposing, though not as much as the National Defense Medical College’s, and therefore I have only identified three signal sources,” Yui said. She waved her hand, and a holographic map of Tokyo appeared on the tabletop beneath her. Her wings stopped so she could land, and she took a few steps to point at a particular location. A red dot appeared with a soft bing.
“This is Setagaya General Hospital, where Papa was first taken. The first transmission location is here.”
She took a few more steps and pointed to a new light. “Aobadai 3-chome in Meguro Ward, around two fifteen PM, June thirtieth, 2026. I will indicate the predicted travel route.”
A white line appeared along the roads between the two points. Yui moved to the southwest again and indicated a third point, which the line expanded to reach. “The second location was in Shiroganedai 1-chome, Minato Ward, at three PM.”
The route was heading a bit too far south to be straight from Setagaya to Roppongi, Asuna noticed apprehensively, but she waited for Yui to continue.
“And…here is the third and final transmission source.”
To their surprise, Yui pointed to an area of reclaimed land along the coast—far to the east of Roppongi.
“Shin-kiba 4-chome, Koto Ward, at about nine fifty PM. There have been no signals from Papa in the thirty hours since then.”
“Shin-kiba?!” Asuna gaped. But now that she considered it, there were a number of high-tech “intelligent buildings” in the newly redeveloped area around there. Perhaps Rath had a second base somewhere in that vicinity.
“Yui…what kind of facility is at that address?” she asked, feeling her pulse quicken. The answer was even more surprising.
“The facility that corresponds to this location is called ‘Tokyo Heliport.’”
“Wait…you mean it’s a helicopter pad?” Sinon mumbled.
Leafa’s face immediately paled, too. “A helicopter?! Does that mean…they could have loaded him up and taken him far away?”
“B-but wait,” Asuna stammered, trying to sort out her jumbled thoughts. “Yui, you said there hasn’t been a single signal since that one from Shin-kiba?”
“Correct…”
For the first time, a solemn expression appeared on Yui’s angelic little features.
“There are no further traces of Papa’s heart monitor connecting to any cell tower in Japan.”
“Does that mean…they took him in a helicopter to someplace where his signal couldn’t reach any towers, like in the mountains…or the wilderness?” Leafa wondered.
Sinon shook her head. “No matter where they landed, they’d ultimately have to take him to some kind of facility. It’s unthinkable for a cutting-edge start-up to be out of range for cell signals. And even if they put him somewhere that shielded his signal, he would have connected at some point first…”
“What if he’s not in Japan…? What if he’s…overseas?” Asuna asked in a trembling voice. No one could give her an immediate answer.
Eventually, Yui broke the uncomfortable silence with a voice both innocent and relaxed. “There are no helicopters with enough range to reach
a foreign country without landing, outside of a few military models. I cannot state with authority due to lack of present data, but I do think Papa is still within the country.”
“True. Rath’s big project is something that could overturn our current VR tech, right? It’s hard to imagine that they’d store their biggest secrets in a lab in another country,” Sinon added.
Asuna agreed with her; her own father’s electronics development company, RCT, took great pains to defend against corporate spies. From what she heard, the company’s R&D lab was located in a highly secure complex in the hills of Tama. They had other facilities abroad, too, but leaks from those places were undeniably more frequent than at their domestic offices.
Leafa thought this over and murmured, “Then…I suppose it would have to be somewhere very remote within Japan…But is it even possible to create a super-secret lab like that nowadays?”
“I’m sure it’s got to be a large facility. Yui, have you learned anything else about Rath?” Asuna asked. Yui flitted back into the air and stopped at the other girls’ eye level.
“I used twelve public search engines and three private ones but found no business name, location name, or VR development project relating to the name Rath. On top of that, I found no traces of resources or patent submissions in any way connected to ‘Soul Translation.’”
“An incredible, historic machine capable of interfacing with the human soul, and it doesn’t even have a patent pending…? They really are serious about keeping it a secret, I guess.” Asuna sighed, realizing that they weren’t likely to spot any cracks in Rath’s armor.
Sinon shook her head in disbelief. “It almost…makes you doubt that it’s even a real company. If we’d known this would happen, we would have asked Kirito more about them. Can you remember anything he said last time we met that might function as a clue…?”
“Hmm…”
She frowned and filtered through her memories. The shock of Kanamoto’s attack and now the suspected abduction were so huge that their peaceful chat at Dicey Café just hours before the chaos seemed faded into the distant past.
“I remember…that it got late while we were talking about the way the Soul Translator works. Also…something about the origin of the name ‘Rath’…”
“Right…it’s that pig-or-turtle thing from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s funny that they’d describe it that way, since a pig and turtle look nothing alike.”
“Well, Lewis Carroll, who actually invented the word, didn’t describe them at all. That’s just what Alice scholars have conjectured over the years…” Asuna said, and paused suddenly. She felt like something had brushed her brain. “Alice…Didn’t Kirito say something about Alice as we were leaving the café?”
“Huh?” Both Sinon and Leafa looked wide-eyed at her. “Big Brother was talking about Alice in Wonderland?”
“No, it wasn’t that…He said that inside the Rath lab, Alice was a word—well, abbreviation…What’s it called when the first letters of a string of words get put together and form a different meaning?”
“An acronym, you mean. It’s the kind of thing the American government does a lot with agencies to make their names easier to say,” Sinon explained.
Leafa’s ponytail bobbed as she said, “Meaning…you have five different words whose initials spell out A-L-I-C-E?”
“Yes, exactly. Let’s see, I think he said…”
Asuna focused with all her mind to pick out the memory of Kirito’s familiar voice in the distance. She carefully sounded out the English words.
“…Artificial…label…intelligen…and I couldn’t make out the C or the E, but that’s the A-L-I,” she managed to say, feeling a faint headache coming on from squeezing the sponge of her memory too hard. But the other two girls only looked confused.
“Well, I know artificial means ‘man-made.’ And intelligen must be short for ‘intelligence’…But what’s label? Like a clothing label?” Sinon wondered.
Yui answered immediately. “Given the context, I believe that pronunciation most likely corresponds to the word labile. It is an adjective meaning ‘adaptable’ or ‘changing.’” She paused, then added, “If one were to interpret the phrase ‘Artificial Labile Intelligence,’ it might be rephrased as ‘Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence.’”
Asuna blinked at the sudden influx of complicated words. “Oh, right…of course! We use the abbreviation AI so often, I sometimes forget what it actually stands for. But how does AI relate to a company developing a brain-machine interface?”
“Wouldn’t it be referring to automated characters in the virtual space? You know, like NPCs,” Sinon suggested. She pointed at the shops outside the window. Still, Asuna’s lips were pursed with doubt.
“But if we’re assuming that the name Rath is taken from Alice in Wonderland, and ALICE is some internal Rath code name relating to AI…Don’t you find that weird? That makes it sound like the company isn’t focused on developing a next-gen VR interface but the AI that operates inside it.”
“Hmm, I suppose not…But NPCs aren’t at all rare in video games, and AI support systems for desktop PCs are fairly common nowadays. Is this project really so crazy that they’d hide the entire existence of the company and abduct people to help develop it?” Sinon wondered.
Asuna had no immediate response. With each step forward, they seemed to run into a new, ugly wall. On top of that, there was the danger that their thought process was taking them somewhere completely off the real trail—but she was still desperate for clues to go on.
“Say, Yui. What is artificial intelligence, anyway?”
Yui put on a surprisingly complex, uncomfortable expression and descended to the table. “You’re going to ask me that, Mama? That’s like my asking you what it means to be human.”
“Oh. G-good point.”
“To be strictly technical, it is impossible to define anything as artificial intelligence. That is because there has never been a true artificial intelligence in existence,” she stated, sitting on the lip of the teapot. The three girls were stunned.
“B-but…aren’t you an AI, Yui? Why wouldn’t that term apply to you?” Leafa mumbled.
Yui tilted her head and thought, like a teacher wondering how to answer a student’s question. Then she nodded and proceeded to explain.
“Let us start by discussing what is currently referred to as an AI. Before the millennium, developers of artificial intelligence used two different approaches toward the same goal. One was called top-down AI and the other was called bottom-up AI.”
Asuna focused very hard on the explanation, which was made more difficult by the distracting fact that Yui’s programmed voice sounded too young for such advanced vocabulary.
“First, top-down. This approach involves taking simple question-answer programs and protocols based on existing computer architecture, then feeding them more knowledge and experience until they eventually learn enough to approach true intelligence. Nearly all currently existing AIs, including me, are based on the top-down development method. In other words, the ‘intelligence’ I possess looks like yours but is actually completely different. Simply put, I am nothing more than an elaborate version of a program that says, ‘If they ask A, answer B.’”
Asuna decided that the faint tinge of loneliness in Yui’s pale features was just a trick of the eyes.
“For example, when you asked, ‘What is artificial intelligence?’ just now, I chose to display the emotional subroutine corresponding to ‘discomfort.’ That was the result of my experience observing that Papa often exhibits a similar reaction when asked about himself. In fundamental terms, my functionality works the same way as the predictive software in your phone that automatically converts phonetic kana characters into complex kanji, or autocorrect. In other words, this model of program is unable to formulate a proper response to an entry it hasn’t studied or learned from. Therefore, we must state that top-down artificial intelligence is not currently at what might be considered true
intelligence. This would be the so-called AI that you are familiar with.”
Yui paused and stared out the window at the distant, shining moon.
“Next, I will explain bottom-up artificial intelligence. This is the idea that involves re-creating the human brain—a biological amalgamation of one hundred billion brain cells connected in complex ways—in an electronic fashion, in order to simulate intelligence.”
It was such a vast, unthinkably implausible idea that Asuna couldn’t help but mutter, “Isn’t that…impossible…?”
“Yes,” Yui answered at once. “As far as I am aware, the bottom-up AI approach has never left the realm of thought exercise. If it were possible, that would produce true intelligence of the same level as any of yours and fundamentally different than my own…”
She stopped gazing into the far distance and returned her attention to the table. “To sum it up, the term AI as we know it today has two distinct meanings. One refers to imitative intelligence: AIs like me, navigation programs, or game NPCs. The other is true intelligence with the same sentience, creativity, and adaptability as the human mind—and that only exists in concept.”
“Adaptability,” Asuna repeated. “Adaptive artificial intelligence.”
All eyes focused on her. She looked back at them, set by set, and finally found the words to express what she was thinking.
“What if…the Soul Translator that Rath is developing isn’t the goal but the means…? Just think about it. Kirito was wondering about that himself. He thought Rath was trying to achieve something using the STL…What if analyzing the structure of the human soul…is part of an attempt to create a true AI—the world’s first bottom-up artificial intelligence…?”
“And ALICE is the code name of that true AI?” Leafa murmured.
Sinon was equally awestruck. “And that would mean Rath isn’t developing a next-gen VR interface. They’re actually constructing an artificial intelligence…?”
The further they theorized, the more vast and obscure their unseen enemy became. Even Yui furrowed her brow, as though struggling to process the amount of incoming data.
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