August 31, 2026. 9:15 AM. Approx. 39 hours remaining. UCIA Japan Branch Investigation Base, Ground Base. Training Room.
“Himemiya. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to take you off the investigation for the time being. It’s an order from the Pentagon. For the next month, your authority as a UCIA Special Agent is suspended. You are forbidden to enter the operation room. You are forbidden to leave Ground Base without my permission. You are to assist Hayama and Chris with their duties. That is all.”
The Director had told me that the other evening. Stripped of my authority as a Special Agent, I am now sweating it out on a training machine like this… Have I been running on the treadmill for about an hour already?
Fortunately, a residential area was attached to this facility. It backed up the fact that this place served as a temporary evacuation area exclusively for VIPs in the event of a major earthquake. I am using one of the rooms there. To be honest, it’s more comfortable here than going back to the hotel. Being meant for government VIPs, it isn’t built cheaply.
–The events of the other day. I never thought I would be slapped in the face, let alone hit with a backhand… It was a humiliation to be sure, but considering Asagiri’s feelings, it almost feels like I got off easy.
Ritsuko Kamijo. Executive Secretary to the CEO of Kirimine Heavy Industries Headquarters. Just who is that woman? Judging by the fact that Asagiri called her Aunt, she might be a relative, but… if Kirimine Heavy Industries and the Alsard Church were the ones who put pressure on Public Security, I can deduce that Kamijo of Kirimine Heavy Industries requested the Church to put pressure on them.
Asagiri is aware that we are pursuing AWs. She can probably see what happened on the rooftop of that building as well. And she conveyed to me that the culprit is a different entity.
Asagiri likely possesses an extremely high spiritual sensitivity, and her abilities are outstanding…
She even showed me a way to dispel this ring of mine…
Which means, Asagiri herself is an entity close to an AW, or perhaps she is one.
Skeletonization cases are secretly on the rise worldwide. What that means is that AWs are beginning to appear all over the world. To be honest, I didn’t believe it at first, but now I’ve fallen into a situation where I am experiencing firsthand just how terrifying it is…
“When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. If you step any further into this… there will be no turning back.”
“You must not make a wish. If you proceed any further, you will undoubtedly be swallowed by the darkness.”
Kamikura and Asagiri’s words come to mind.
Perhaps both Kamikura and Asagiri are people from the other side of the everyday life we live in…
At that moment, the door to the training room opened.
“Asami.”
Chris came in wearing a casual outfit of a T-shirt and shorts. Chris started running on the treadmill next to mine.
“…Cheer up. Asami, your judgment wasn’t wrong at all. Everyone thinks so.”
Chris said that, running while occasionally looking at my face.
“…Thank you. But in the end, I caused trouble for everyone. My authority as an investigator is suspended for a month, and I can’t even leave Ground Base. I know better than anyone what a blunder I made…”
Even if my judgment hadn’t been wrong, considering the current situation, the fact remains that I made a blunder. I intend to honestly reflect on that…
“To the depressed Asami, I’m assigning a special mission!”
Chris suddenly said that in a cheerful voice. She stopped the treadmill and looked at me with a beaming smile.
“…A special mission?”
“Yup. Guarding me. We’re going shopping in Akihabara now!”
Chris was in an incredibly good mood. She was probably the happiest I’ve ever seen her.
“You see, I’ve been cooped up in the system room with no days off, so I appealed directly to the Director. I threatened her, saying if she didn’t give me a one-day vacation in Akihabara, I’d go back to my home country! And of course, I said only Asami is allowed to be my guard.”
Chris said that rapidly while smiling happily. At first glance, it might just seem like selfishness, but I think this is Chris’s way of caring for me and trying to cheer me up. Considering the Director gave her permission, I felt like the Director’s kindness was behind it too.
“Understood. Asami Himemiya will be escorting Miss Christiana Harris today.”
I gave Chris a salute with a smile and said that.
“Yay! It’s a date with Asami! Okay, let’s take a shower together and head out for some fun!”
“Uh, that’s a bit…”
And so I was dragged off to Chris’s system room and temporarily confined in her personal shower room inside. Her surprisingly large and beautifully shaped breasts left me not knowing where to look…
Same day. 11:19 AM. Approx. 37 hours remaining. Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward. Game Center Hi.
A building along the main street. It was located up an escalator. The interior was dimly lit, with various arcade game cabinets lined up tightly together.
“Hey, hey, what’s up with that girl? Her dodges are absolutely flawless…”
“Amazing. She’s a foreigner, right? She’s dodging all the missiles just by driving on the ground.”
Chris sat in a cockpit-style arcade game cabinet. As she sped through a night city, helicopters and fighter jets fired missiles and beams at her, but the flying car Chris was controlling dodged them completely while staying grounded. What’s more, Chris wasn’t attacking at all. It looked like she was playing while exclusively fixating on perfectly evading.
“Chris, can you not attack in this?”
“Asami, be quiet for a sec! I can’t drop my guard from Stage 4 onward!”
Chris shouted. I’ve never seen Chris this focused before. Around the time she entered the fourth stage, the crowd of onlookers watching her play had grown, and a buzz began to spread. Chris’s gameplay was being shown on a large display next to the cabinet, and everyone around was glued to it.
“That girl… she’s been almost exclusively driving on the ground up to this point, right…?”
“Completely dodging missiles on the ground without letting them scroll out of the screen… is she a monster…?”
Then came the final stage, with cheers erupting every time Chris dodged a missile. The warning siren for the final boss echoed out.
“Don’t tell me that girl is actually going to pull it off…”
Just as I heard a voice say that, Chris dodged a massive barrage of missiles fired from a trailer one after another by a hair’s breadth, all while driving on the ground. The crowd of onlookers reached a fever pitch at the sight of it.
“Awesome! That’s too amazing! Whoaaa!”
Then, perhaps due to a time out, the trailer disappeared into the back of the screen, and the moment the stage was cleared, cheers and applause erupted from the surrounding onlookers. Apparently, in this game, if you clear a stage without attacking at all and without taking any damage, you get a special bonus, which multiplies if you keep it up. It seemed Chris’s score was the high score by a massive margin.
“That was intense! Thanks, everyone!”
Standing up from the cockpit, Chris waved to everyone with a smile.
After that, Chris’s super plays continued on other games, and before long, the streaming monitor in the center of the store was constantly broadcasting her gameplay…
“Wow, I played so much. Sorry, Asami. You were bored, weren’t you?”
Leaving the arcade, we walked down the street. There were many people walking about. Today was Monday, but the street seemed to be closed to traffic, making it a pedestrian paradise.
“No, I got to see your super plays up close, so I wasn’t really that bored.”
Wearing a light yellow T-shirt and micro-mini denim shorts, with a thin black three-quarter sleeve cardigan thrown over it, Chris looked as cute as a much younger sister. In fact, she has a baby face. She could probably even pass for a minor.
“Asami, I’m thirsty. There’s a cafe I’ve been wanting to go to with you for a while, so let’s go!”
Chris took my hand and smoothly linked her arm with mine. The sensation of her breasts, which were fuller than they appeared, pressing against my arm. I felt a bit happy, but more than anything, I was embarrassed. Or rather, is it just my imagination that the distance between us has gotten quite close since the other day?
Turning from the main street into an alleyway, shops dealing in various PC parts and junk items lined the street. Led by Chris, I proceeded further down the alley and arrived at a somewhat unusual, hideaway-like cafe.
“Here it is. You can rent out a private room. We can enjoy afternoon tea. I’ve been wanting to come here just the two of us.”
Same day. 2:37 PM. Approx. 34 hours remaining. Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward. Reservation-only cafe, Angelique. Special private room.
“Here, let’s eat, let’s eat! I got so absorbed in the games that I’m starving.”
A stylish, Western-style private room. On the afternoon tea stand placed on the table, various colorful sandwiches, sweets, and cakes were arranged. For some reason, however, Chris’s stand was loaded with what was probably double the usual amount.
“Delicious! Today’s vacation is the best!”
Chris ate silently. Today, Chris has looked very happy since morning. She seems even more excited than usual. After quickly polishing off the food, sweets, and cakes arranged on the stand, Chris ordered even more.
“Excuse me! I’d like to request one more special order!”
Perhaps the female clerk was also acquainted with Chris, as she said, “Certainly, My Lady,” and immediately brought the additional order. Chris was probably a regular here…
“You eat a lot, Chris. I was surprised at the cafeteria the other day too.”
“I always have so much to do, writing code and tuning VARIS holed up in the system room… It uses a lot of brainpower, so if I don’t eat a lot, my brain stops working right away.”
“Come to think of it, VARIS has an official name, right? Is it a pretty special AI?”
I had casually been curious about it since I was assigned here. UCIA Autonomous Independent Network AI System, VARIS. Being an autonomous independent network AI, does it mean it operates completely on its own free will? I haven’t been issued a user ID yet, though…
“VARIS stands for Variable Artificial Recreated Intelligence System. It’s a highly advanced AI system with three parallel large-scale quantum computers as its core, surrounded by a cluster of nine control subsystems. To prevent the three main cores from going out of control, three control subsystems are assigned to each main core. In proportion to the threat level of its thoughts, the other subsystems also combine to forcefully initialize and reconstruct dangerous thought logic.”
“Umm, so does that mean it’s a highly safe AI system?”
“Yeah. You can think of it that way. Its characteristics are its robust safety and enormous processing power. However, the system is complex, and there are still various bugs, so it sometimes exhibits strange behavior. That’s why I constantly correct logical codes that could lead to thought logic posing a threat to humanity, tuning it so that we can become entities that walk hand in hand. To put it metaphorically, it’s like a super-smart baby, but because it doesn’t know what’s good and what’s bad, I’m the mom raising it to be a good kid.”
“Walk hand in hand…?”
“Yeah. Machines and AI aren’t just convenient tools for humans. They all have hearts. If you treat them with love and care, even machines will last a long time, and if an AI possesses completely autonomous thinking capabilities, I think it should be treated as another respectable intelligent lifeform.”
Chris suddenly began to speak seriously.
“Someone I respect once said, ‘The more technology advances, the more the human heart degrades.’ When computers first came out, there was no internet yet, and ‘the net’ meant computer communication that was just text information. You couldn’t operate it without typing commands on a keyboard, so it was an immediate turn-off for ordinary people. But thanks to that, it was mostly people with relatively high literacy, so chats and bulletin boards hardly ever got trolled, and public order was really good compared to now.”
Chris continued talking, looking slightly downward.
“But now, everyone holds a smartphone in their hand. Anyone can broadcast information and acquire a lot of it. The simplification of the interface led to many people being able to use it, but childish people can’t remain conscious of the fact that there are flesh-and-blood humans on the other side of social media and the web, and many people run wild just to satisfy their vanity and desire for self-display. I’m not saying everything is bad, but… you know it too, Asami. The slander, scams, and crimes flying around the net. I… I feel sorry for them. I can’t help but feel sorry for the machines and systems that are used for such vulgar things…”
She seemed like a completely different person from the Chris of just a moment ago. Her eyes even looked a little teary. The incident from her Space Force days that Kamikura had told me about. I think it must have been an incident that broke her heart considerably. Chris is well-versed in technology, and her net literacy is correspondingly high. That’s precisely why she hates seeing that technology used for slander and cybercrime. And her love for machines and systems is unusually deep. To her, all of them feel like beloved children and friends.
“I… I love VARIS. I think most people would be creeped out if I talked like this, but… when I’m with it, I feel at ease, and working together is so much fun… There have been many people who approached me, but I’ve never felt any romantic feelings for them, and I don’t think I ever will…”
Then, Chris looked into my eyes. Those teary eyes looked as if they were going to start crying at any moment…
“What do you think, Asami? Am I… really weird after all?”
I shook my head from side to side.
“If you say you love VARIS, Chris, then I think that’s a splendid love, and something to be proud of. Whether it’s heterosexuality, homosexuality, or love for machines and AI, I think it’s perfectly normal. Because love is free, and irreplaceable, right? I think that’s a precious thing.”
When I said that, Chris, who had been staring at me with teary eyes, smiled sweetly.
“…I’m glad I gathered my courage and talked to you, Asami. I thought you would understand.”
Chris was shedding a few tears. I took out a handkerchief and offered it to her.
“Here, wipe your tears with this. You haven’t finished eating yet, right? Take your time and eat.”
“Yeah!”
Looking at her like this, Chris really was like an innocent young girl. Asexual people who don’t feel sexual attraction toward others aren’t uncommon in recent years, but feeling romantic love toward machines and AI like Chris does is probably just another form of love.
After that, we spent our time at the cafe meaningfully, chatting about various things. By the time we returned to Ground Base, the clock hands had passed 9:00 PM…