Living with Memory of Steel (Part 2)

by Masahiko Kimoto

  Living with Memory of Steel

  (Part2)

  Written by Masahiko Kimoto.

  Copyright © 2010-2016 by Masahiko Kimoto.

  All rights reserved.

  Translation: Hiroko Tokunaga and Masahiko Kimoto.

  Cover Design: Kouhou@Design.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to actual people, places or events are used in a fictionalized setting. Other names, places, characters and events are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, places or events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  About author

  Chapter 4

  Although Akari thought whether or not to share her thoughts was delicate problem, Reji and the others didn't mind.

  Up until now Akari had been amicable and friendly. She had no reason to make enemies. That said, Junrock couldn't shake his suspicions of her, and continued to watch her like a hawk. However, because he was watching over Akari's job, the two of them were likely to be spending more time together.

  Job. Yes. Akari was doing a job.

  To start with, just like Reji, when Junrock said "You're not eating here for free", she started helping with Clare's work. However, thinking it was a waste not to use a psy-connect user, she started allocating work under Junrock's supervision.

  "I should have grabbed an adapter from my place."

  "Sorry, madam. We have only got cheap stuff."

  "I don't mean that. I mean that what I used isn't sold around there."

  "Huh? Ahh, the 3-G stuff? Sorry again. This isn't a institution."

  "I don't mind. Even if I had it, it'd be way over the specifications."

  "Really?"

  "If a French person showed up in a group of people speaking English and demanded that everyone spoke French because it's nicer to listen to, that'd be pretty annoying, right? I'm not like that. I'm not that insensitive."

  "Thanks, madam."

  They both sat down.

  "Reji-kun, can you pour me a coffee?"

  Akari said, then booted psy-connect.

  "Aren't you a bit young to drink coffee?"

  Reji said, grumbling. He poured a cup of coffee from a vendor and placed it next to Akari.

  Akari called Reji by his first name.

  That made him happy.

  But it wasn't nice to think that he had no place in conversation with Junrock and her.

  "I wonder if she should get a diagnosis from a counselor."

  Clare said.

  Earthlight cared for the health of Akari's mind and body. Between the stuff with the DS and the desertions from research lab, there was enough to make both the high-ups at the organization and everyone else anxious. Although Reji understood the situation well, he was the most carefree.

  Reji and Clare accompanied Akari to the doctor.

  They arrived at the third level of the multi-tenant building, made an appointment, and went through to the diagnosis room without having to wait very long.

  A pleasant, slightly overweight man in his thirties led them into the diagnosis room. The man wasn't exactly a counselor, but rather a psychologist. He was Earthlight's in-house doctor.

  Usually, psychiatrists have training on how to deal with people through like body language, but also included in their training is the use of diagnosis room terminals. This psychiatrist was no different, handling with computer gracefully.

  Due to developments in cerebrophysiology and electrical impulses, the handling and administration of medication has advanced in leaps and bounds. If that didn't happen, there would be no way of using psy-connect. That said, it's not that alternative forms of psychiatry don't still exists. Just like neurosis, there are still illnesses that only express themselves in certain groups of individuals. For those kinds of illnesses, counseling is is the most effective.

  The psychiatrist directed questions towards Clare while displaying a chart on a computer monitor. Akari took it upon herself to check the details written about her.

  "OK. Let's start the interview."

  Reji and Clare left the room, leaving Akari on her own.

  About thirty minutes later, the two were called again to the hospital room.

  The doctor calmly began to explain the situation.

  "She undertook a cerebral nerve scan, an interview, and a psychometric evaluation. There are no problems. I can see that she has a temperament that's prone to stubbornness, but it's not to the extent that it's out of normal range. From what I can tell, there are no inconsistencies in her memory. I also couldn't see loss or abnormalities in any part of the body."

  "There are no problems with her?"

  "I'm saying there were no errors in her personal statement."

  "Is there any possibility that she's been brainwashed?"

  "It's very difficult to brainwash someone. There isn't the slightest response to the medicine, but give it a week and they should leave her body. Looking in from the outside it might appear that she's been brainwashed, but since she can explain, comprehend and properly understand everything, I don't think she considers herself to be brainwashed. Whether judging from the outside, or getting someone to recognize it for themselves, it's very hard to judge if someone has been brainwashed."

  "I see."

  "Having said that, she was at the LSL, right? I'm just a civil doctor. There's no way of knowing what sort of technology they might have imprinted her with at the LSL."

  Clare spoke judgmentally.

  "That's very pessimistic."

  "The LSL is far from normal. Here at Earthlight, we don't get involved in brainwashing."

  "I'm going to make a proposal to the higher-ups that they get involved."

  "That's fine. If we did brainwash our members, they might end up having better mental care."

  I couldn't tell tell if he was joking or not.

  They left the hospital and broke into two groups. Clare had other business to attend to so she took the car. Reji and Akari called a taxi.

  They told the taxi driver where they wanted to go. The taxi driver punched in the location on the navigator, checked the route, then headed off.

  "Sorry, sir. I'm new here."

  Reji replied without much conviction.

  "That's fine. The navigator is brand-new model that lets you watch movies on the windscreen, isn't it?"

  Akari continued.

  "It says it's perfect for a late-night date and is popular overseas."

  "Is that so? Honestly, I don't really get machines."

  "I don't understand the difficult stuff. But it'd be a waste not to watch a movie."

  "I guess that's true, but things like the media, cadi...a or something what are hard to listen to, aren't they?"

  "That's very lazy of you. If you don't put in effort to learn, you'll never get smarter. I don't think anyone is capable of using the resources that are out there if all they ever do is run away."

  "That's pretty harsh."

  The friendly taxi driver acted as though he didn't care, but Akari's words had dampened the mood. Reji searched for some entertaining words, but he couldn't find any. He sat in silence.

  The taxi stopped fifty meters away from the Earthlight offices. The two farewelled the taxi and stepped inside the offices.

  *****

  "Our first priority should be to rescue Akari. I'm not just saying that out of my own interests. Offensive attack. Oppression. Destruction. Why are you saying things like that? Aren't you supposed to enforce peace
and security?"

  Sekiba slapped the desk. The sound echoed throughout the room. The others watched on cool.

  The thing that bothers him is this direct meeting.

  It's true the only people in the Riot Police who could use the 2nd-G psy-connect are career officials and department of science investigation. Most the authority was bound up in old people who still hadn't gotten used to the 1st-G of psy-connect.

  Why do I have to meet up with people are below me? And why do I have to spend so much time in the metropolitan area? These useless old fogy's should retire already. Sekiba was full of frustration.

  An old man waved his hand reprovingly. The man showed his rank with an ornament pinned to his shoulder, but Sekiba couldn't recognize it's rank. Nonetheless, Sekiba thought it was a really nice-looking ornament.

  "I understand where you're coming from, Dr. Sekiba, but I want you to try to understand how it makes the others feel. We're not able to overlook the day-by-day acts of violence perpetrated by Earthlight."

  "Ha! I get that. But that's because we kidnapped Akari. And that's why I'm saying that we should allow Earthlight's reckless acts of hostility. It's not like there are dead bodies turning up."

  "Dr. Sekiba, dead bodies are turning up."

  "I hadn't heard that."

  "That's because it hasn't gone public. The deceased group members were disposable anyway."

  "Disposable? What the hell? So what are you saying? We've got a war on our hands?"

  The old man straightened his lapel.

  "That's right. This is a war. And?"

  Sekiba was just about to slam his fists down on the desk, but he stopped himself. It would be wrong to start a scene. Sekiba quietly lowered his firsts and stood up.

  "OK, ladies and gentlemen, I get it. You want me to lure out Earthlight. That's our first objective, right?"

  Sekiba said, looking across the meeting. Everybody nodded.

  "We're not capable of a method to infiltrate their headquarters because we don't have the wherewithal to put such a task into practice. Is that right?"

  Again, everybody nodded.

  'What a lie,' Sekiba thought. What about the leaked rumor of the Riot Police preparing a secret task force? Maybe they don't want to use them, maybe they haven't finished preparing them yet or just want to go through the conventional process, which is like a disease particular to officials.

  "Whatever. First of all, we need to lure out Earthlight and Akari, right?"

  "How do you propose we do that?"

  "I expect there's a reason why Akari was captured. As well as Akari, they're after whatever information she has. The might want to get the access key from Akari, even including opening up her body to get the tag, and with that gain access to the ASIT. Well, we'll let them get that information, and at the moment that they lead Akari out into the open, we'll rescue her. The rest of you can do whatever you please."

  The seated riot police --- meaning everyone other than Sekiba --- discussed the plan for a few moments before consenting.

  Sekiba listened to the other and stood up with the words, "We'll continue this online." If people wanted to do things his way, they should tag along.

  *****

  Junrock held his head.

  There were too many baffling things about Akari.

  Akari was strangely friendly, but according to the psychiatrist, there were no signs of brainwashing or imprinting. What was she thinking? How much could he trust Akari when she said that she just wanted to see the outside world? The most certain thing was that the LSL held a clue, but I can't seem to find it.

  If we used the access key we've already got our hands on from Akari, then we could access nearly all of the safeguarded information at the LSL's shared storage. Within there should be information about the DS experiments. Furthermore, we might have come to understand the advanced-growth of the eight test bodies, including Akari. Unfortunately Akari didn't know any more information than I already did.

  From what I could imagine, the recorded information was only personal protected data outside of the shared storage, or protected data above the security level provided by Akari's access key.

  Junrock drained his coffee, then headed to the coffee maker to make one more.

  He filled the rich, black coffee to the mug's halfway point, then raised it to his lips. If he looked over his shoulder, he might have bump into Akari. Instead, he waited for the coffee.

  Frustrated, he said.

  "Who on earth are you anyway?"

  Akari, not understanding the intention of the question, answered.

  "I'm Akari. I'm a computer engineer. Recently I've been a psy-connect user."

  "Yes, you are Akari, I know. But where are you from?"

  "I'm from a normal high school. Is that wrong?"

  "There's no way your are normal high-school girl."

  "This is weird.... My understanding is that a normal healthy boy would love to have a high school girl house staying at his place."

  "Just Reji."

  The two sat down and placed their mugs on their desks.

  "What have I done?"

  Reji heard his name and jumped into the conversation.

  "Junrock is worried about something. What are you worried about?"

  "I know it's thoughtless to ask, but that's just the way I am. I'm interested in you, Akari. You were at the LSL, right? There's no denying that. What were you made to do there? What happened? That's what I want to know. But I can't find anything. I looked at the LSL and the ASIT, but nothing came up. Do you even know yourself?"

  "I gave you the access key of shared-area, and told you everything I know. I didn't tell you more private stuff though."

  "Private stuff?"

  "A lady has secrets."

  "That sounds like Clare."

  "More than that, you want to infiltrate the deep parts of ASIT, right? Are you saying I should help?"

  While speaking, Akari had already attached the psy-connect adapter. Junrock also connected. He recognized Akari's superior technology ability and thought he should test her out.

  Reji looked at Junrock and Akari, now in the network. He reluctantly returned to his seat.

  Akari and Junrock arrived the LSL's network and reached inside. The scene around them was hard to explain in everyday language. To use an example, it was like plunging your fingers inside a bundle of tangled threads and slowly untangling them one at a time. Or maybe it was more like a doctor working with the intricacies of the human body --- the nerves and veins --- and in particular the small intestine.

  Open the shared storage of LSL. Use the access key to open the privilege level.

  "Then what? What next?"

  Akari scanned all users of shared-storage. She then connected to the user's distributed storage found in the user history. Access using the key inside the tag of herself. Pattern cross-check success. Checking verification..., connected.

  "This is as far as I can get with my authority clearance. Any further will become an intrusion. What do you want to do?"

  Junrock stared at the list of unfolding data. He paid special attention to the index and updated timestamp.

  "For the time being, let's take these back for analysis."

  "Really? You don't want to go all-in?"

  "If we go in too deep, it might be a trap."

  Junrock copied the names of the data that interested him and decided to head back. He couldn't shake one of the names ? a suspiciously poetic one ? from his mind. He didn't know if it had any special significance, but he couldn't help but feel that the name was trying to tell him something.

  *****

  Strangely, from the moment that Sekiba said "We'll continue this online" as a throwaway line and left the room, people like the secretary to the police inspector, all the way to new recruits from the head patrol division joined the agency. Although the new influx of people had never used psy-connect, the fact that they knew how to do even normal message exchanges greatly improved Sekiba's work. His
secretary and young workers would be working harder to cover up, but that's none of his business.

  Sekiba took a mouthful of coffee. The coffee was particularly strong today. He welcomed the caffeine rush, but it probably wouldn't be long before he wanted more.

  Sekiba deleted a message on psy-connect and opened up a chat with Nakazato.

  "You seem fairly relaxed."

  "Ha! Relaxed? I'm getting tense with the weirdos we're up against."

  "They're pros aren't they? Let them plan and strategize all they like."

  "It's no joke. If we leave it to them, it'll be a blood bath."

  "If we can get Akari back, that'll be enough, right?"

  "How about using the A-B-A-H-S for killing?"

  "If it's necessary, I won't hold back."

  "Hey, hey! I didn't make the A-B-A-H-S to kill people."

  "And I won't use it to conform to your ideals."

  A deep silence followed. Sekiba's tentacles of thinking process the coming-in messages appropriately. Nakazato's consciousness goes around the network.

  Sekiba changed the topic.

  "Well. I feel like the chairman, the Riot Police, You, DS, A-B-A-H-S, all of they are doing more than they should be doing."

  "What? Hold on. What you're saying sounds pretty weak. Are you planning on dropping out? I don't remember joining up with a coward."

  "Ha! That's weird. I read that if you show your soft side, you'll be a big hit with the ladies."

  "That's absurd."

  "Simply, I want..., want to act conscientiously. Like a proper scientist. I want the children at DS to be happy. I want the A-B-A-H-S to be used peacefully. I don't think that's absurd. ...Hey Nakazato, what if there's another way to get your body again?"

  "You mean something better than our current plan? I can't even imagine it. Even if it's out there, we shouldn't do it."

  "That's very stubborn. You should be more flexible as a scientist. As though anything is possible."

  "No need."

  "Ha!"