The World We Live In (2)
There was a temporary barracks set up quite a distance from the Green Ocean, where the race war was raging.
In the shabby shelter, angels had gathered, tended by an equal number of fairies.
"Sniff. Sniff."
"Stop crying already. It's annoying." When one angel wept over his fate, the rest began to cry as if on cue.
Like newborns.
"Sigh, seriously."
At first the fairies had shown proper courtesy, but now they no longer treated them like angels.
"If you're going to keep bawling, then just go to sleep. Think about us who have to look after you."
"S-sorry."
When one angel curled up and lay down, the others followed.
Once, they had been beings who enforced the world through the concepts given by God.
"Hey. Everyone, gather up." As the angels quieted, the leader of the attendants called the fairies together.
"This is too inefficient. Let's group the angels in one place and rotate shifts. About twenty per team."
"That's better. Honestly, apart from how tiring it is, I'm sick of the angels whining. If it weren't for the race war, I'd just smack them—"
At that moment—
"OoOOOO!"
The angels snapped their eyes open and their innate attribute, Vibration, flared to life.
"What—what's that?"
Where the fairies turned their heads in alarm, hundreds of pillars of light burst up.
"…It's back."
The halos that rose above each angel's head made the truth undeniable.
'They actually did it?'
Did three archangels really go to the sun and change the Law set by God?
Like corpses rising from graves, the angels slowly stood.
"Kesker."
The leader of the attendants shot off like an arrow.
"Yes! You called?" Kesker's small frame trembled; his mind was foggy from what he'd already done.
Of course the angels knew.
Their looks at the fairies were not kind, but it had also been a dizzying hour for the attendants.
'Terrible, to lose your bearings.' No one wanted to go through that again, so punishing the fairies could wait.
"Where's Uriel?"
"H-he's at the Green Ocean…" Having scouted the battlefield through their gaze, the angels spread wings of light and took to the sky.
"Please wait a moment." A trail of flashes followed them, and the fairies asked Kesker as they hurried after.
"What should we do?"
"What do you mean, what to do?" Kesker's face fell. "We have to chase after them."
Lollipop scraped his nails anxiously. "Hurry. Please hurry." The data they were moving now was one hundred percent foresight—something impossible to obtain in reality.
'If we hold out one more tick, humanity's future changes.' The Operator pointed ahead.
"Hey, this is rebooting, right?" As Lollipop looked up, lights were coming on, one by one, across Jet's face.
"Damn!" He bent his head and checked the progress.
'64 percent.' If the main system rebooted like this, they'd be hit with a counterattack and the files would be wiped.
"We need to cut comms. Even if the files get corrupted, we can recover them to some extent." Could they be satisfied with that?
Machine reaction and human reaction speeds were incomparable; they had to trust intuition.
The Operator said, "You decide. I'll not blame you for whatever happens."
"Hrrr—" Lollipop's eyes hardened. 'One second. Just one more second…' That second could hold data to save hundreds of thousands of lives. 'It's still okay. Maybe three seconds…'
Then, with no further thought, his vision narrowed and his hand moved toward the cutoff switch.
'Cut.' At that instant a low hum began as light flowed into the main system's pillars.
"Hah! Hah!" The hologram read eighty-three percent.
"Done! I was faster." His fingers flew across the keys. "Okay, corrupted files recovered. Now let's see exactly what they know and dig it all out."
Just as he tried to open the file, Freeman rushed over and snatched the device.
"What are you doing?" Lollipop's eyes went wide.
Officers from the Parrot Mercenary Corps had already surrounded them, weapons drawn.
"Why—what's this about?"
"Sorry." Marsha, who had taken the device, said, "No one can view this data. I'm taking it. I'll compensate you."
"You can't do that! Give it back! That's mine—there are important programs in there—"
"Shh." Snyder, deputy of Squad Six, pressed a dagger to Lollipop's neck from behind.
"Stop. This concerns humanity's future. It's in your best interest not to draw attention." The threat was cold, but it was the chill of someone who had been like a brother that stung more than the blade.
"Ha! Now? Fine. Go ahead and stab me. Try it, you old woman!" Lollipop snapped.
"What? Old woman?" Marsha narrowed her eyes. "I'll kill you for real! You think this is a joke? We're scary people!"
"Then try it! You don't have the guts! Or give me back my gear!" Snyder asked, "...Remove her?"
Marsha was annoyed. "Are you going to talk to a kid like that? Calm him down! Give him candy or something!" As she turned away, Snyder licked his lips and withdrew the dagger.
"Why are you mad at me? I called you an old woman? Huh? I did." The Operator said, "I understand the info can't be shared. No need for threats."
"Right. Sorry." Lollipop's restraint released and he turned back.
"Oi, you—!" He tried a low kick, but it felt like he'd struck a log; only his own leg hurt.
"Haha! Don't be so angry. I'll introduce you to a really pretty woman. She is fifteen years older than you, though."
"I don't want that!" Snyder ruffled Lollipop's hair and moved on; the officers followed.
"What do we do with these?" Jets had already formed a wall ahead.
Shirone, who had been watching from the roof, returned to the room where Jet lay collapsed.
"The scenery hasn't changed." Even though the main system had gone down, this place remained a world made by the Law.
'Why? Ikael succeeded.' The feeling that the future was fixed no matter what they did pressed on him. 'That can't be. I'm missing something. God's thinking is broader than mine.'
His thoughts were cut short by the engine noise.
"Jet!" Letters appeared on Jet's face screen and its limbs began to move.
"Are you coming to your senses? The system—" Shirone stopped mid-sentence. The shape was the same, but something about it felt different than before.
"Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form." Standing fully upright, it floated bullets of Law into the air, like the other Jets outside.
"You remember me! You do!"
"Remove the fetters of vexation." Dodging explosions that tore out all around, Shirone lunged to the room's entrance.
'The error's been fixed.' With the main system rebooted, the quantum error had been restored to its proper place.
Ugh. Because it couldn't be undone forever, to Shirone the Jet was nothing more than a moving machine.
'Do not profane him.' "Sentient beings, follow the Law."
"Iyaaaa!" Casting Hand of God, Shirone grabbed the Jet and slammed it hard into the wall. With a thud, the Jet's body collapsed to the floor, half-crushed.
"Sentient beings… Law…??" Seeing the glow fade from the face screen, Shirone wiped his tears.
A broken teacup, a carpet burned to cinders, a fish flopping outside an aquarium—those were Jet's heart. Shirone moved the fish tank to the center and placed the fish into a water-filled aquarium made of material.
"I'm sorry." He hoped the feelings conveyed to him today would someday spread throughout the world. "Phew!" Shirone shot up through the ceiling.
'How's the mining team doing?'
On the city's tallest building, countless Jets clung to the outer wall, glittering like a shattered mirror.
In the great underground hall beneath the main system, the mining team fought desperately against the Jet units.
"Damn! There's no end to them!" With the building intact, the only way forward was to break through the Jets.
The Operator said, "Power's low. Drive the Jets into a corner. This is the final collapse."
"Got it." As the mercenaries charged, the Jets' formation warped to one side.
Meanwhile, Marsha stood behind a pillar clutching the Omega 999 file. 'What do I do with this?' She was doing it for Shirone, but the mercenaries' employer was ultimately Fermi. His special condition had been: "Deliver data you don't need to view as-is."
"Was there really a situation like that?" Marsha had asked back then.
"How can I judge if I don't know what's in it? How do I deliver it sight unseen?" she pressed.
"There are many ways to handle secrets—books written in cipher, metaphors hidden in paintings, sheet music that breaks classical form. Such relics are best passed along without investigation."
"Hmm, got it." Marsha thought, 'As long as I know, who else would find out?'
"One more thing," Fermi added. "If you obtain data made with future-world technology, never view it. No one—even administrators of High Gear—should know."
Looking back now, Fermi had clearly thought this far ahead.
"That's awfully strict. How can you keep teamwork without any humanity?"
"If the leader is a Fallen Madonna, that's enough. Members don't just follow blindly. It's tied to profit. Information's value depends more on who knows it than on what it is. Information you can't monopolize is worthless."
Information everyone knows is as worthless as information that cannot exist.
"They call it information entropy. But the real meaning of that clause is something else."
"The real meaning?"
"Shirone." Marsha's face hardened for the first time.
"Some information Shirone must never know. The moment he learns it, everything ends. Beyond monopoly, the entropy must be maintained at a level of total ignorance. That's why Shirone agreed to have his memory erased."
"What on earth… what kind of information is it? What if I blurt it out without knowing?"
"You'll know. The moment you encounter that information you'll be certain. That's why it couldn't be written into the contract—there must be no channel through which that information can move." Marsha herself had been the channel.
"Fine. I promise. I'd rather end my own life than tell Shirone." Fermi finally slid the contract forward.
"…Sign."