A Simple Survey - Volume 01 - A Simple Survey

by Kazuma Kamachi

  As the young woman spoke, she displayed a simplified diagram on the blackboard-style screen.

  Spear-kun the puppet trembled and said, “Y-you’re going to artificially produce some?”

  “No, I will not be doing anything that annoying. Answer me this, Spear-kun. Where did the antimatter disappear to in the process of the universe being made?”

  “I don’t know. Actually, I think you would get a Nobel Prize if you figured that out.”

  “If there is enough antimatter to match all the matter in the universe, there must be enough of it to create an entire universe that is completely the opposite of ours.”

  “You don’t mean…”

  “So wouldn’t you think there is a parallel world-like universe made entirely of antimatter expanding somewhere out there, Spear-kun!? We do not have to forcibly produce antimatter just because we live in a world devoid of it! If we just open a slight hole in the world and call in some antimatter particles from the outside universe, a big bang will occur on its own. Yay!!”

  “Wait, wait. I thought the idea of a world made up of only antimatter had been denied?”

  “We’ll know once we try it.”

  “Don’t be so quick to say that! Also, when you say ‘open a slight hole in the world’…”

  “Okay, in preparation for creating a wormhole, I am now preparing a micro black hole.”

  “That wormhole alone is enough to win a Nobel Prize!! And I thought the EU had the monopoly on micro black holes!!”

  “And that will be prepared using this!!”

  Kyoumi-oneesan snapped her fingers and the four walls of the room fell down.

  The visible area grew considerably.

  What lay beyond was a grassy field as if on a farm.

  “A large particle accelerator! Most of it is below ground, so it may be a bit hard to tell it’s there. The fully circular types are the most famous, but the track field-like capsule types actually provide more acceleration in the end. But it’s best to switch paths like train tracks☆”

  “No one can follow what is going on, onee-san!! How did you prepare this!?”

  “Eh? The word particle accelerator may make it sound complicated, but the principle behind it is quite simple. The real problem is in scale and accuracy, but if you ignore the safety side of things, you can gradually build one in a piece of reclaimed land with the junk you find laying around.”

  “Waahhh!! Don’t explain that!!”

  The young woman held back the puppet with a hand as it tried to jump at her. She never stopped smiling.

  “And this is the micro black hole we have created. Technically, a micro black hole only appears for a few hundredths of a second, so it is merely being kept in a state where a micro black hole can be created at any time. It’s something like the surface tension holding the water in an overly filled cup.”

  “Don’t talk about this like you’re building a bookcase on the weekend!!”

  “Yes, yes. The black hole we have created has been adjusted so that, if there is really a world of matter and a world of antimatter, it will become a point linking the two. I suppose it is similar to the narrow point at the middle of an hourglass. It will absorb matter and antimatter from both sides and create a high temperature state where everything is condensed in one point just like at the time of the big bang!”

  As the puppet listened to the flowing explanation, it looked up as if it had suddenly realized something.

  “H-huh? You mean a big bang really will occur if all goes well here?”

  “It won’t be that simple. We have merely opened a wormhole to create a path to the universe made of only antimatter. What gathers in the black hole from both worlds is up to luck. If everything necessary is not gathered, no big bang will occur.”

  “Hm? The other side is an antimatter universe that is the complete opposite of this universe, right? That means…”

  “Yes, that there can be as many different types of things over there as there are here in this universe.”

  “Doesn’t that make this rather difficult? Wouldn’t we have to gather samples of every single substance in our universe and match them to the antimatter gathered one at a time? That’s worse than trying to brute force the code for a safe.”

  “By the way, how many variations are there in the smallest units of things that make up our universe?”

  “Eh? Aren’t there more than there are stars in the universe…?”

  “Four! The strong force, the weak force, gravity, and electromagnetism.”

  “The odds of getting it by trying everything just shot up!! Also, the basis of the physical world isn’t really the basis!? You can narrow it down that far!?”

  “We are preparing the conditions for the big bang. That was in the beginning before things became more specialized. No complexity is needed.”

  “Wait, does that mean that you are now going to try each of them until you cause a big bang? Wait, onee-san, wait!! This is not time to be worrying about ratings or the number of complaints!”

  “Now, the only question remaining is whether the black hole has enough attraction to eliminate the explosion!”

  “W-waaaaahhhhh!!!!!”

  “Ready, set, boom!!!!!”

  After the taping of the show ended without delay, the staff member who controlled the puppet spoke while moving the mouth of the stuffed doll covering his hand.

  “Is that all there is to a big bang?”

  “I told it would be micro, right? It doesn’t stick around long enough to be visible to the naked eye. And one this small does not even escape the black hole, so not even measurement equipment can see it. People take the idea of having dreams too far when they say a black hole created in a large particle accelerator will destroy the planet.”

  “But I still think we’re going to get complaints. They’ll be telling us not enough happened after all that buildup.”

  “Sigh. The viewers really do rule us, don’t they?”

  File 23: This Time the Ice Age is Real

  This conversation occurred at the university job hunting center.

  “No, I think you are mistaken about something. No company hires people based on their academic record anymore,” said the young female receptionist in a tone flatter than a business robot’s.

  In my suit for interviews, I frantically said, “Wait, wait. Then what’s the point of this university?”

  “Who knows. I think the only reason it’s still here is because the stubborn government workers refuse to revise the system. I don’t really know though. Your cell phone has a dictionary in it, right? With that, you can blend into society even if your knowledge of kanji is horribly insufficient.”

  The receptionist did not seem very motivated as she sipped at some green tea in a teacup she held elegantly in both hands (but her face was coolly expressionless).

  “I can speak four languages.”

  “You can buy a smartphone live translation app for 4500 yen that can handle 20 languages. The phone handles speech and the camera handles text, so it can carry out excellent translations in real time. How long did it take you to learn four languages? Was the value of the time and effort you put into that less than 4500 yen?”

  “Th-this certainly is a world of convenience we live in,” I said in desperation, but the receptionist merely nodded.

  She started munching on a rice cracker she had left next to the counter for herself.

  “It really is. The people creating these apps are likely simply hoping for a more convenient world, but as a result, they have created a society where every type of talent and value can be easily spread throughout the population. Simply put, we have all become equal. Individuality has been lost. …Humans are all together and all the same. But that has made hiring difficult. How are you supposed to choose an employee out of the new graduates who all look the same?”

  “Well, if anyone’s fine, can’t they just hire me?”

  “If anyone was fine, they would not need to hire new people
in the first place, you idiot. It would be faster to simply have their current employees download a new app. Labor costs can be economized, too.”

  The hiring rate of college graduates was down to a horrifying 0.005 of what it used to be.

  With the way society had changed, it was not too surprising. The real question was what had become of all those people who could not find a job.

  “This reminds me of the robot riots.”

  “You mean when cheap artificial laborers were taking all the flesh-and-blood humans’ jobs, so those who claimed they could not find a job rioted? Personally, I think they should have cursed the life they had lived that made them so undesirable rather than cursing those created puppets.”

  “But they did get the robot labor regulation law passed due to occupying the main road along Nagatacho for 2 months. Now that the number of robots a single company can own is limited, we are living in the age of humans. But if companies have a single employee use too many apps, they’ll just collapse from overwork, right? So don’t they need at least a few new workers?”

  The receptionist looked as expressionless as any robot as she pulled a package of youkan out of a small refrigerator sitting at her feet (that she had brought in for herself).

  “Paying reparations for overworking a single employee is cheaper than paying labor costs for hundreds of employees.”

  “…So human beings are treated like disposable gears?”

  “The gears known as robots were driven out of society, so humans had to take their place.”

  The receptionist’s eyebrows actually twitched slightly as she had difficulty opening the youkan’s plastic packaging due to her neatly cut fingernails.

  “Hm? But I thought the app problem was limited to intellectual work. What about physical labor?”

  “That’s when that powered suit underneath your suit comes into play. It’s no different from a very effective app. You aren’t what companies need. It’s the equipment you wear. As long as people have that same equipment, it doesn’t matter who they are.”

  “Gnhh!? B-but I have confidence in my health. I’m not talking about athletic ability here. If you want a stable source of physical labor, you need someone healthy…”

  “Health management apps are all over the place thanks to that popular diet app from a few years ago that left everyone in bad shape. If you follow the graph in what you eat and how you exercise, anyone can become healthy.”

  “Th-then what about artistic work…?”

  “About 80% of artistic creation is done with the help of inspiration AI. Any kind of artistic or literary work is created by the balance and arrangement of AIs. To be honest, it is a vague and difficult to judge field, so I will give no further comment on it.”

  “Wh-what about the world of things like shogi and chess?”

  “Do I really need to explain this? I do not think a human brain is ever used in actual matches any more. Oh, but someone needs to use their fingers to move the pieces to where the composite AI indicates, so I suppose you could argue a human brain is needed from a purely technical standpoint. Maybe the day will come when only the spinal cord is needed.”

  “S-so what do you need to get hired? What decides it?”

  “Your ability to create a nice atmosphere?”

  “…What?”

  The receptionist finally managed to get the plastic off the youkan. She said something I could not believe while bringing the cola-colored confectionery down for a soft landing on a small plate.

  “Your humanity, your ability to create a character for yourself, your ability to read between the lines, your ability to cheer people up, your ability to get along with the community. I think it might be things like that.”

  “Um…What are you talking about?”

  The receptionist expressionlessly sliced the youkan using a plastic spatula. When I reached out to grab a piece, she mercilessly struck the back of my hand.

  “The human ability to think, to calculate, and to carry out physical labor are supplemented by apps and machines, so it can’t be helped. What else do humans have left? If anyone can do the job, then why not invite those who are easy to get along with to the workplace?”

  “What!? So the carefree people who made fun of the people taking the lectures seriously are the ones who do well in life!?”

  “It’s because you view school as nothing more than a place to accumulate knowledge that people like you get so frantic when it comes time to find a job. I hope you have realized that this is no time to be prizing a breast-shaking app that uses gyro sensors. No matter how hard you shake it, the bikini straps will not come undone.”

  “Ghh!? H-how do you know about that!? Where did you get that information!?”

  “But the thing about job hunting is…”

  She sipped at her green tea and ate some youkan, but she did not continue.

  Was she giving her own enjoyment priority?

  “What? What’s the thing about job hunting?”

  “I mentioned before that it had to do with your humanity and ability to get along with other people, but how long will those be exclusively human things? Technology has developed quite a lot lately.”

  “Y-you mean it is starting to give people the ability to make friends or lovers?”

  “Con artist groups have put together detailed manuals on how to scam old people. They’re something like complex flowcharts. And TV producers have gathered detailed data on what makes people laugh or cry.”

  “I-if they actually make apps like that, what will happen to us?”

  “The day might be coming when the number of friends you have is determined by whether you download certain apps or not. Perhaps the same will determine the results of elections. Everyone looking down at a screen as they speak with their friends or lovers would be a strange sight indeed.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I was asking what would happen to those of us trying to find a job.”

  “Who knows.”

  The young receptionist tilted her head cutely while still expressionless.

  “Maybe it will just come down to luck. Or I suppose the day could come when you get a job based on whether you are attractive or not. Oh, but things like clothes and hairstyle could be handled by fashion apps, so it would simply be how attractive a face you have. By the way, are you the confident type?”

  “…!?”

  File 24: How to Defeat a Powerful Enemy That Does Not Exceed Human Understanding

  The court academic laboratory may sound like a strange place where all the world’s knowledge is gathered, but it was really a place that carried out any task the king or others from the royal court asked us to do.

  We would have to do something about the exploding locust population that was putting the kingdom’s crops in serious trouble, or do something about a mountain that seemed about to have a volcanic eruption. But there was one problem that was worrying the king more than anything else of late.

  “Ugh, now this is something.”

  “Huh? What’s the matter professor? Your cloak is all torn up.”

  I was the indoor type, so the mere fact that I was wearing a cloak should have been strange. I was so slender that it was often said I would look better in women’s clothing than the girl who acted as my assistant. No matter how much training I went through, I could not seem to get even slightly muscular.

  “Wild beasts. They’re on the rise again.”

  “Eh? If you mean the hellhounds, we dealt with those last month.”

  My assistant must have had nothing of importance to do because she was performing an experiment to see what sweet juices would most effectively cause rhinoceros beetles to gather. She was mixing things like honey and melon juice in a flask. She now focused on me with a dropper in one hand.

  “That’s old news. The ones filling the fields now are trolls. Once their numbers pass a certain level, caravans start getting attacked left and right. The amount of food they need increases with their numbers, after all. The
more of them there are, the more likely it is that caravans will be attacked and their cargo will be stolen.”

  “Then can’t we just keep the caravans from going through there? When the number of rabbits decreases, the number of lions automatically adjusts,” said my assistant while pouting her lips in displeasure.

  She was a genius, but she was an utter failure at anything outside of her area of expertise.

  “If the caravans cannot get through, the fortress city will cease to function. The humans will start dying from lack of food before the trolls do. By the way, I’m thirsty, so can I drink that?”

  When I pointed toward the mystery flask, my assistant held it protectively between her hands (and chest) like a child.

  “No, you cannot. Anyway, why do humans always cause problems in otherwise good plans?”

  “Well, it is us humans who are always throwing off the balance of the food chain. And even if we did stop the caravans from coming through, there are enough trolls that they might just come to knock down the city walls. Like with all animals, they show no mercy when hungry.”

  My assistant returned the flask to the table and asked me a question with a puzzled expression.

  “Has the troll population really grown that much?”

  “It has. That’s why the king has come to us about it.”

  “So will we be doing what we always do?”

  “Yes, yes. As always, we will begin by examining a corpse of the wild beast in question.”

  I brought a large burlap sack in from the hallway and spread the contents out on the table. It was larger than a human and its muscles were much greater than a human’s. I was unsure if even a heavily armed knight would be able to defeat it in a straight fight.

  “Did you kill it, professor?”

  “If I had that kind of strength, I would not have a research job. Like with any beast that’s numbers have grown this much, bodies of ones that have died naturally are plentiful. Whether you can get one before decay sets in is up to luck though. Now then…”