[OLD] Book 1: Densetsu.EXEcution

Chapter 11 - Aspiration

Chapter 11: Aspiration

                Aquarius narrowed his gaze as he smiled at Arashi bleakly. The AI appeared to be in his 20s. Long blue hair covered one of his eyes, which were shimmering like tides at sea. He told Arashi of his disposition, and that he needed help to break into the heart of the N-AI.             

                “This isn’t an easy request,” Aquarius explained, “and if Miss Kiri weren’t already with you, I would have chosen you before Miss Saki.” Kiri blushed at Aquarius’ formal reference to her name, trying to avoid eye contact with Aquarius. Her eyes were wide with fear, and her mouth frowned in a nervous shape. “If you two wouldn’t mind assisting Saki and I in preventing Arakawa’s Reich, I would be most grateful to you.”

                “By Reich,” Arashi confirmed, “You’re referring to the term from the 1930s, right?” For 10 years in 1933, a man named Adolf Hitler had control of the country of Germany in a totalitarian dictatorship. Meanwhile in Russia, the country was ruled by Socialists like Joseph Stalin.  As Arashi reiterated this, Aquarius gave an impressed smile.

“That is correct,” Aquarius said, “Reich meaning empire. You may not know this, but Dominic Arakawa has been working underground for the last fifteen years or so in an effort to create a perfect world—“

“Like the one envisioned by Li-3 after he rebuilt it in 2013,” Arashi said, finishing Aquarius’ sentence.

“Yes,” Aquarius said, “Like Li-3, Arakawa wants a world void of emotion. We AI were programmed with the ability to feel only a single emotion. In Miss Kiri’s case, that emotion is fear. In my case, it’s redemption. Due to a bug in the programming of the software used to produce AI—“

“Wait,” Arashi interrupted, “You mean there’s a manner of mass-producing you guys?”

“Not all of us are perfect,” Aquarius said, “You’ve seen the lesser AI before, I presume.” Arashi looked deep into his mind, remembering when he first merged with Kiri. The enemies he had encountered on that night were brimming with the Cyber World’s energy. “The Lesser AI, as they are called, were not created with any particular purpose or emotion behind them. Some might refer to them as scrap data that was shed from the original template of the AI during its beta phases. Due to this, they have an inability to feel anything indefinite, and they tend to adapt their emotional states to their surroundings. Some never last that long before they lose their sanity and collapse. Others are born, killed; reborn and killed again all in the span of a single hour. Sometime they even lash out against each other.”

“So that means that they spawn with the greater AI like Kiri and yourself?” Arashi asked. Aquarius nodded with affirmation.

“The greater AI were created for various reasons. Kiri and I were created for justifying the world we formerly inhabited. We are the alpha and omega of the Cyber World, in a sense.  However, simply because we have that responsibility behind us doesn’t make us any different from the other AI. A greater AI’s purpose is defined by their creator.”

“In Midori’s case, she was created in spite of me,” Arashi said, “So there must be other AI out there with various purposes. When an AI goes against their purpose, they become Rogues, right?”

“In order for an AI to become a Rogue,” Aquarius explained, “They would need to defy the purpose that they were created for, and then kill their host. As a Rogue, an AI holds all the principles of a human, as well as the ungodly powers of an Artificial Interface. They can also feel every human emotion and modify the coding of other AI. They are identified by their black wings. That’s all I know.”