The Stories of Ibis

by Hiroshi Yamamoto

  Copyright

  Ai no Monogatari

  © Hiroshi YAMAMOTO 2006

  First published in Japan in 2006 by KADOKAWA SHOTEN Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA SHOTEN Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo.

  Illustration by Natsuki Lee

  English translation © 2010 VIZ Media, LLC

  Sapphire Earth (Ruri Iro No Chikyu)

  Copyright 2001 Sun Music Publishing Inc. All rights administered by

  Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203.

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the copyright holders.

  HAIKASORU

  Published by

  VIZ Media, LLC

  295 Bay Street

  San Francisco, CA 94133

  www.haikasoru.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4215-4084-9

  Haikasoru eBook edition

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  INTERMISSION 1

  STORY 1: THE UNIVERSE ON MY HANDS

  INTERMISSION 2

  STORY 2: A ROMANCE IN VIRTUAL SPACE

  INTERMISSION 3

  STORY 3: MIRROR GIRL

  INTERMISSION 4

  STORY 4: BLACK HOLE DIVER

  INTERMISSION 5

  STORY 5: A WORLD WHERE JUSTICE IS JUST

  INTERMISSION 6

  STORY 6: THE DAY SHION CAME

  INTERMISSION 7

  STORY 7: AI'S STORY

  INTERMISSION 8

  EPILOGUE

  FIRST PUBLICATION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  HAIKASORU

  To my wife, Manami

  My deepest gratitude for your support and assistance

  with the research of this book.

  To my daughter, Mizuki

  May your future brim with happiness.

  PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  It was the most exquisite machine I had ever seen.

  Spreading its enormous wings, it descended silently out of a burnished sky that would soon turn dark as the deep blue sea. At first I thought it was a crow, but as the ominous silhouette grew larger it appeared to be a human on a hang glider. Just when I thought I had finally managed to shake off my pursuers, it was a sight as frightful as a visit from the Grim Reaper.

  It glided through the valley of high-rises, then detached its wings, tracing a simple arc as it fell fifteen feet to the ground. The slender body of the machine, wrapped in a rose pink and pale yellow suit, somersaulted in the air, its red hair flowing in the wind like fire. I stood there, forgetting my fear for a moment, mesmerized by the beauty of its movements. It landed before me on top of a rusty, abandoned bus. A loud bang reverberated through the ruins. Its lithe body bent forward to absorb the shock of the impact, but it dented the roof of the bus nevertheless. The discarded wings continued their glide and dropped somewhere behind me.

  Centuries ago, in a time when humans still prospered, the area had been called Shinjuku. The deserted buildings looked as if they might crumble at any moment. Most of the windows were shattered, the writing on the weathered billboards difficult to make out, and vines tangled up the walls. The towering buildings made the streets, which had been deprived of their purpose long ago, look like the bottom of a gorge. Weeds sprawled out of the cracks in the asphalt, while what remained of rotted billboards were scattered everywhere.

  It was at this desolate place I first encountered it.

  It slowly stood from its crouched position as the silver “cat-eyed” moon began to rise behind it in the west. Its movements were smooth and efficient. While its proportions were human, it was plain to see that it was a machine.

  No human could be this beautiful.

  Steadying its perch atop the bus, it thrust out its chest and rested its right hand on its hip as if to preen over its own beauty. In human years, it appeared to be in its late teens. It had bright red hair and wore hemispherical goggles resembling the compound eyes of a dragonfly. Emblazoned on its face was a tattoo in the shape of a flame. Its left hand gripped a long metal rod. Though not overly sensual in any way, its silhouette—from the swell of its breasts to its curved hips and thighs—formed a line that was a thing of beauty. It wore something like a two-toned racing suit made of shiny artificial leather, but the areas from the neck to its breasts as well as the sides of its hips were naked. No, “naked” was the wrong expression. Even the parts that looked like skin were made of a soft artificial material and unmistakably part of its cover.

  “Storyteller.” It uttered my nickname in a clear, sweet voice. A smile came across its innocent, girlish face as if it were challenging me. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Taking a step forward, it jumped off the bus onto the cracked asphalt, at which point I noticed that it was roughly my height. Only then was I finally set free from my stupor. I threw down my heavy knapsack, hefted my rod, and dropped into a fighting stance.

  Most people think robots are indestructible. Large work machines are definitely not something human hands can destroy. But it is possible to destroy smaller robots and androids. Against them, you always have a fighting chance so long as you don’t get grabbed. A good bash with a heavy blunt weapon can crack their thin plastic covers. The bipedal ones can easily be brought down with a tackle. Even better is to aim for the joints. A favorite move of mine is to first destroy a robot’s camera eyes, robbing it of its sight. Then I knock it down by bashing its knee joint and I jam my rod in the seams between the armor plates to finish it off. That is how I’ve destroyed dozens of machines in the past.

  This one before me was clearly the kind with an endoskeleton, that is, the kind with only a soft protective cover. Though it looked agile, it also had to be vulnerable to a blunt strike. I might be able to take it down.

  “I don’t want to fight,” it said. Taking a look at my hostile stance, it reached out with its right hand and smiled. It gestured in a way that was incongruous with the gentle tone with which it spoke. “I only want to talk.”

  I didn’t believe it, of course. What kid in his right mind would trust a machine that had chased him down and told him that it only wanted to talk only moments after he had made off with some food?

  I lunged forward and thrust my rod in its face. The blow was supposed to take out one of the cameras behind the lens designed to look like a human eye. But surprisingly, I missed. It had taken a step back and parried my rod with a quick half turn of its own rod. Such economy of motion.

  I flinched for an instant but quickly resumed my attack. I swung my rod again and again in an attempt to bash its head. But it blocked every one of my attacks, smiling all the while. Try as I might, I couldn’t get past her guard; it was as if there were an invisible wall between us. Clang! The clash of two metal rods echoed throughout the ruins. Clang! My hands began to throb and go numb. Clang!

  Then I understood. This was no ordinary android I faced. It was a fighting machine. It wasn’t an enemy I could defeat without taking it on with all my strength.

  “Hyahhh!”

  I let out a battle cry as I charged and swung with all my might. Deflected yet again. But this attack was only a feint. The machine swung its rod to the right. Without missing a beat, I ducked down and turned in the same direction so I could slip just underneath where its rod stopped. We were close now; I wouldn’t take any damage even if it brought its rod straight down over my head. I knew that there would be a split second delay when it pulled back the rod for another strike. I would have to aim for the knee joint from behind before it could launch another attack.


  But my rod slashed the air in a horizontal motion and missed. It had jumped. Had it anticipated my attack? Not only did it jump, it had sprung up into an easy backflip and now unfurled its body, a foot arcing toward my head. That look of amusement on its face in the instant it was suspended upside down and over my head would forever be burned in my memory. It was all I could do to jump sideways to evade the kick.

  It unleashed a roundhouse kick the moment it touched the ground. I had barely managed to dodge it when its rod came flying at me. And when I’d dodged that, it followed up with another merciless kick. Without a moment’s reprieve to fight back, I could only continue my humiliating retreat.

  Suddenly I was terrified. What was it with the way it moved? It wasn’t at all like a machine. Or a human. It moved elegantly, but with a deadly speed that seemed to transcend the laws of physics. It was fully cognizant of what its body was capable of and knew exactly how to draw out its maximum potential.

  My right foot got caught in a crack in the asphalt. Before I knew it, another roundhouse kick flew in a blazing arc toward me. Although not a direct hit, the blow knocked the rod out of my hands, and I fell backward to the ground.

  A sharp pain shot up my ankle, and I let out a silent cry. I crouched down on the asphalt and grabbed my foot. The pain… Was it broken?

  “Are you hurt?” it asked.

  I looked up to find that it had raised its rod high over its head but had stopped in mid-motion. The excruciating pain kept me from answering. As much as I wanted to run, I was unable to even stand.

  It lowered its rod slowly and squatted down next to me to examine my foot. I tried to punch it in the face, but it caught my weakened punch easily.

  “I’ve called for a rescue,” it whispered gently. “Try not to move. It won’t help you to resist.”

  Hot tears rolled down my cheeks. Half of the tears were brought on by the pain and the other half out of bitter disappointment in myself.

  I had been captured by a machine.

  INTERMISSION 1

  INTERMISSION 1

  I was taken to a building not too far from Shinjuku. A humanoid machine strapped me onto a stretcher, and I was carried away in an unmanned helicopter.

  As I gritted my teeth in pain, I was afraid. What was going to happen to me? The grown-ups in the colonies told terrifying stories at night about what happened to people captured by the machines. I had grown up listening to those stories about how the captives were skinned alive, or turned into cyborgs, or how their bodies were melted with acid, or their heads sliced open, electrodes inserted into their brains to have their personalities altered…

  I had believed every word as a child. But as I grew into my teens, I had become more skeptical. None of the grown-ups had ever actually seen anyone being tortured by a machine, and anyone who had witnessed a scene like that would never have made it back alive to begin with.

  In fact, as I wandered from colony to colony, I discovered that there were more than a couple people who'd been captured by the machines only to be later released unharmed. Those people were reluctant to talk about their experiences though. Not only were they confused about being saved by the machines they'd come to hate, they remained vague out of fear that they might be ostracized for uttering anything favorable about the machines. But none of them appeared to have been experimented on or brainwashed. Regardless of what might have gone on in the past, it was obvious now that those stories were nothing more than legend.

  Besides, the machines could have wiped out humanity ages ago had they wanted to. The human population had probably dwindled to a point that we were no longer a threat to them. They didn't have to kill us, or control us, anymore. Since the only losses they suffered were when the freight trains were attacked for their cargo of food and daily necessities, they left us alone.

  But none of that alleviated my fear. That machine that looked like a girl had clearly come after me knowing who I was. Just what did it want, and what did it plan to do with me? Had I been captured as some rare human specimen?

  My dissection never took place. Inside a white room, a medical robot examined my foot—I saw a CT scanner, which I had only read about in novels, for the first time—and, after showing me a three-dimensional image, explained to me that my foot was not broken but the ankle dislocated. It reattached the joint and applied a thick white substance to my leg. The liquid bubbled and expanded, covering the area from my heel to my shin before it hardened. After wrapping the cast with tape, the robot informed me that if I kept my leg still, I would be up and walking in a couple of days. I hated to admit it, but much of the pain had subsided.

  After I was treated, a nurse android the spitting image of a human wiped my body clean with a warm cloth and dressed me in some underwear and pajamas that felt like paper. Then I was taken to another room where I was laid down on a bed with a wire to secure my leg. Never had I slept on a bed so clean and soft in my life. Scenic paintings hung on the walls, and there was even a vase of artificial flowers on the table. Since robots had no need for a room like this, it was probably made for the humans they captured. Though the room was climate controlled and quite comfortable, I felt crippled both physically and mentally. I couldn't even get up because of the cast on my leg. There would be no escaping this place until my foot healed.

  It was already dark. I was lying in bed feeling dismal when the door opened and the red-haired machine entered. Unable to sit up, I could only watch it come closer in that elegant way and sit on a transparent cube stool next to the bed. It held my backpack in its hands.

  “Does it hurt?” it asked.

  It tossed the backpack aside and crossed its legs like a woman. Resting an elbow on one knee, it leaned forward and peered into my face. Its innocent expression didn't at all match the flame-shaped tattoo on its face. I noticed that its eyes were azure like the summer sky.

  From this distance, I could also clearly see its naked hips peeking out of the sides of its suit, as well as its breasts. Suddenly I became embarrassed. I tried to tell myself that it was all nothing more than a cover made of rubber or plastic. But its skin looked so human that it was difficult to put the illusion out of my mind.

  As embarrassed as I was, I was struck with a thought. I could understand the need for nurse androids to look human. But where was the need for a fighting machine to look like a girl? Of what use were those breasts to a machine?

  “Call me Ibis,” the machine said, pointing to its own neck. There was a thick plastic ring around its neck with IBIS engraved on it. Although I hadn’t noticed during our encounter, I saw now that the same letters ran along the side of its suit.

  “You can relax,” it said indifferently but with a surprisingly natural smile—so natural, in fact, that it seemed unnatural. “I have no intention of hurting you.”

  I looked away, red-faced, and stared sullenly at the cast on my foot. “After you did this to me?”

  “You attacked me first. You should have been able to fend off every one of my attacks. After all, I adjusted my strength according to your relative speed and technique.” It spoke to me like an older sister would to a younger brother.

  “Are you saying you held back?”

  “If I had fought you with all of my strength, I would have killed you in a matter of seconds. I only wanted to demonstrate that you were outmatched so you would give up. Your injury was an unfortunate accident.”

  “You’re lying!” I blurted out, my pride hurt.

  “I understand why you might feel that way, but it’s true. If you don’t believe me, we can fight again when you’re fully healed. I’ll prove to you that you can never defeat me in hand-to-hand combat.”

  I fell silent, mortified. In thinking back on the encounter, however, I had to admit that it had fought me as if it had something more in reserve. While I didn’t have complete confidence in my skill with the rod, I had trained long and hard and thought I had gotten pretty good with it. But now this machine was telling me that I was no match for i
t…

  “There’s no need to beat yourself up,” Ibis said, as if it had read my mind. “I was created to fight. All of my functions have been optimized for combat. I’m not like humans, who were born out of an inefficient process of natural evolution. The time I’ve spent in combat simulations exceeds your lifetime dozens of times over. It’s only natural that humans can’t defeat me. The only ones that can are other machines.”

  “Stop that.”

  Ibis stared at me blankly.

  “That smile. It’s unnatural. Stop acting like you’re human.”

  “Then perhaps you’d like this better.” Suddenly Ibis became expressionless, sat up straight, and moved its mouth up and down. “I AM A MACHINE. YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND, MASTER,” it said in a monotone. It quickly reverted to its original expression and smiled at me mischievously. “Seems like you’re being mocked, doesn’t it? It’s true that I don’t possess emotions like humans do. I’m merely role-playing a human. This expression functions not to reflect emotion, but is designed to give a good impression to humans. It’s a kind of communication interface,” it explained. “Did you notice these eyes?”

  Ibis pointed to her own eyes.

  “They’re not real,” I replied.

  Even I could tell that. Those sky-blue eyes looked too unnatural to be camera lenses.

  “That’s right. My camera eye is here,” it said, pointing to the lenses on the goggles it wore on its head. “This is what is looking at you. These things that look like human eyes are nothing more than decoration.”

  I recalled then that the nurse android had also worn something like headphones with lenses on its ears.

  “It wouldn’t have made any sense to use one device as both the camera and interface. But it’s a necessary interface. There’s even an old saying: ‘The eyes are more eloquent than the lips.’”

  “What are you trying to say?” I said.

  “Just that since my expressions and tone of voice don’t serve to convey emotions in any way, I’d rather try to make a good impression on you. So I’m going to go on talking to you with this expression and in this tone. Now then—”