Prologue II: July 2026 AD
Shino Asada took a sip of cold-brewed iced coffee with just a dab
of milk, allowing the rich flavor to seep back into her throat before she let out a long breath.
Through the faded glass window was an assortment of colored
umbrellas moving in different directions. Shino hated the rain,
but it was rather relaxing to sit at a table in the hidden, alley-side
café and watch the damp gray city move. The interior devoid of
technology and the nostalgic smells wafting from the kitchen behind the counter made her feel like she'd fallen into some gap between the real world and the virtual world. Just an hour ago,
she'd been in class, but that felt like it had happened in a distant
dimension now.
"It's really coming down."
She didn't realize at first that the baritone from beyond the
counter was directed at her. But of course it was; there were no
other customers. Shino turned to look at the barista polishing
drinking glasses, his skin the shade of a latte.
"It's the rainy season," she replied. "It's supposed to rain until
tomorrow."
"And here I thought it was the work of an undine mage," the
stern-faced man said flatly. She snorted.
"No one's going to understand that you told a joke if you don't
at least make the right expression, Agil."
"Hrm…"
Agil, owner of the café/bar Dicey Café, wriggled his eyebrows
and mouth in search of the "right expression," prompting Shino
to burst into laughter when each face he made looked more likely
to bring small children to tears. She lifted her glass to her mouth
and drowned out the laughter with coffee.
Satisfied, he put on an even fiercer look, just before the bell on
the door jingled. A new guest stopped dead in his tracks in the
doorway when he saw the proprietor's face, and he shook his
head.
"Listen, Agil, if you greet all your customers that way, your
place is going to go out of business very quickly."
"N-no, it's not that. This is my joke face."
"…It's not that, either," the customer snapped, putting his umbrella in the whiskey barrel near the door once he'd shaken off
the drops. When he saw Shino, he waved to her. "'Sup."
"You're late," she scolded, glaring at Kazuto Kirigaya as he
winced in apology.
"Sorry, it's been so long since I rode the train…" He sat down
across from Shino, opening his collar.
"You didn't ride your motorcycle?"
"I wasn't up for riding it in the rain…I'll have a caffé shakerato,
Agil," said Kazuto, trying a new drink. The collarbone peeking
through the top of his shirt was as thin as that of his virtual
avatar. His skin color wasn't particularly healthy, either.
"…Have you lost more weight? You really need to eat more."
Shino grimaced, but Kazuto just waved his hand.
"I was back at my base weight for a while. I just lost a bit more
over this long weekend…"
"Why, were you training in the mountains?"
"Nope, just sleeping."
"How do you lose that much weight?"
"Probably because I wasn't eating anything."
"…Huh? Are you trying to reach enlightenment or something?" she asked, baffled. Just then, a light clattering came from
the counter. The owner of the café was working a silver shaker
with (rude as it was to admit) surprising dexterity for his size.
Agil poured the contents of the shaker into a wide coupe glass
and set it on a tray, and Shino was reminded that the place
turned into a bar at night.
He set down the glass in front of Kazuto, the contents light
brown with a fine layer of froth on top.
"So this is a…caffé shakey-something?" she asked. Kazuto
pushed the glass over to her. She lifted it and put her lips to the
rim to take a sip. The creamy texture of the head gave way to a
pleasantly chilly coffee flavor, followed by a sweet aftertaste. It
wasn't anything like the cans of iced milk-coffee from the vending
machine at school.
"…It's good," she murmured.
Agil tapped his bulging bicep happily. "You can't get that much
head on it unless the bartender really knows what he's doing."
"We hear enough bragging about your skill levels without you
having to do it in real life, Agil. And what's that smell?" Kazuto
wondered, his nose twitching.
The bartender cleared his throat and announced, "Boston
baked beans. They don't come out right unless the cook really
knows what she's—"
"Oh, a taste from home from your wife, huh? I'll take an order
of those, too."
Agil retreated to the kitchen, scowling at being cut off. Kazuto
grabbed the glass back from Shino and took a big gulp. He exhaled, sat up straight, and stared right at her.
"…How is he doing?"
Shino understood at once what he meant. But rather than answer, she snatched Kazuto's glass back again and downed a big
swig. The thick froth slid past her tongue, filling her nose with
rich flavor. The coffee's stimulation jolted the fragments of memory into the form of a proper response.
"Yeah…He seems to have settled down a lot."
Half a year ago, at the end of 2025, these two were involved in
the "Death Gun" incident.
One of the three culprits in that case and Shino's only real
friend at the time, Kyouji Shinkawa, underwent an extraordinarily long trial for a case involving a minor and was finally sent to a
juvenile medical facility last month.
He maintained total silence throughout the trial and hardly
said a word to the experts brought in for a psychological evaluation until, at last, six months after the case, he finally began to
answer the counselor's questions bit by bit. Shino had a rough
suspicion of why it took exactly that long. Six months—180 days—
was the length of time until an unpaid subscription in the
VRMMO game Gun Gale Online forced the automatic termination of the account. Only when that much time had passed and
Kyouji's alter ego, Spiegel, was gone forever from the GGO server
did he summon up the determination to face reality.
"I plan to request a meeting again after a little while. I think he
might agree to see me this time."
"Uh-huh," Kazuto grunted, then turned to look out at the rain.
After a few seconds, Shino decided to put on a facetiously unsatisfied face.
"Isn't that normally the spot where you'd ask if I'm sure about
that?"
"Er, oh, r-right. Umm…how do you feel about it, Sinon?"
She grinned, secretly satisfied that she'd managed to rattle the
normally aloof young man. "I watched all the movies in that old
action-flick collection you lent to me. The one I liked the most
was where they twisted around the gun bullets to strike behind
cover and stuff. I'll have to use it as a practice model—I think I
can probably pull it off in GGO."
"Ah…okay. Well, great…Just go easy on us…" He grimaced,
cheek twitching. She had to hold back her laughter.
The fear of guns that had tormented Shino for over five years
wasn't entirely gone yet. She'd learned to enjoy shoot-out movies,
but the unexpected sight of guns on street corner posters or models in shop windows caused her heart to skip a beat in a nasty
way. By this point, she'd started to rationalize it as a proper response to a deadly weapon and a sign of healthy caution. After all,
there was no guarantee that she would never again encounter a
criminal waving an actual gun in real life.
Besides, just the fact that she no longer fainted or vomited at
mere images of guns was more than enough for Shino to feel like
her life had been saved. She no longer felt like an outcast at
school—she even had a few friends to eat lunch with. On the other
hand, it wasn't the easiest thing to deal with, the fact that she and
the young man sitting across from her had started hanging out in
the first place after he'd driven his motorcycle to the front gate of
her school and waited for her there.
Meanwhile, Kazuto just smiled benignly across the table and
said, "So I guess that means the Death Gun incident is finally over
and done with…at last."
"Yeah…I guess so," she said, then fell silent. It felt like there
was something in the back of her mind that refused to go away,
but before she could figure out what it was, the kitchen door
opened and the proprietor emerged with two steaming plates for
the table.
The sight of gleaming brown kidney beans and thick chunks of
bacon brought a violent growl to her stomach, which hadn't had
anything to do since digesting lunch. She automatically picked up
the spoon, then came to her senses and put it back, waving her
hand.
"Oh, I didn't order any."
The towering owner put on a mischievous leer. "Don't worry,
the meal's free. It's on Kirito."
Kazuto's mouth dropped open in exasperation, while Agil retreated gracefully behind the counter. Shino felt a chuckle rise in
her throat, then grabbed the spoon again and waved it at Kazuto.
"Thanks for the grub."
"…Well, that's all right. I just got paid, so I've got some cash to
burn."
"Oh? What kind of job are you doing?"
"The one that involved three days of fasting. But we can talk
about that after we clear up the main business here. Plus, we've
got to eat this while it's hot."
He picked up the bottle on the table and squirted a dollop of
mustard on the rim of the plate, then passed it to Shino. She followed his lead, then scooped up a spoonful of beans to her
mouth.
The beans were boiled to a fluff on the inside. The soft, gentle
sweetness filled her with a simple nostalgia, despite the food's
foreign origin. The thick pieces of bacon weren't too oily, and they
crumbled in her mouth.
"This is…really, really good," she mumbled, while Kazuto
stuffed his cheeks across the table. "Why are they called Boston
baked beans? I wonder what they're flavored with."
"Umm…I forget what it's called, but it's some kind of by-product of refining sugar. What's it called again, Agil?"
The owner looked up from polishing glasses and said, "Molasses."
"Yeah, that's it."
"Ohhh…I thought American food was nothing but hamburgers
and fried chicken," she said, dropping down to a whisper for the
latter part. Kazuto made a face.
"That's a stereotype. In fact, all the VRMMO players I've met
from over there are pretty cool, once you get to know them."
"Yeah, that's true. The other day I went on the international
GGO server and talked with a girl from Seattle about sniping for
almost three hours. Then again…I don't know if I'll ever see eye to
eye with him…"
"Who?" Kazuto asked, already half-done with his plate of food.
"That's what I was going to talk to you about today. You know
they held the fourth Bullet of Bullets individual competition last
week."
"The BoB" was the name of the battle royale tournament to determine the greatest player in Gun Gale Online.
Kazuto nodded. "Yeah, we all watched the stream. Actually, I
didn't congratulate you yet…but I'm guessing you weren't happy
about the result. Congrats on coming in second, though."
"Uh…thanks," she said awkwardly, not expecting the compliment. To hide her embarrassment, she quickly went on. "Then
you saw it on the stream. Subtilizer, the player who won first…
That's his second time being champion."
Kazuto blinked several times, then looked up, consulting his
memory.
"Now that you mention it…I think I remember you saying that
while we were together in the third BoB. An American player who
completely dominated the first tournament with just a knife and
handgun…But didn't he get shut out the second time because they
split the servers into US and JP, so he was on the other side?"
"Supposedly, yes…He didn't register for the second or third
tournament. But somehow he either got around the IP block this
time, or he had a connection with the game management…In either case, I was happy. I always wanted a chance to face the legendary Subtilizer."
"Yeah, even on the feed I could tell you were really pumped,"
he said with a smirk. She pouted.
"I-it wasn't just me. All thirty people in the final…well, all
twenty-nine aside from him were excited. A couple of them had
fought him and lost in the first one. America might be ground
zero for FPS games, but we were ready for the battle royale to
show our pride in Japan, home of the Seed Nexus that GGO
uses…And once we got the chance…"
"It ended up being a repeat of the first tournament, huh?"
Shino nodded, frowning. She scooped up the last piece of thick
bacon and savored the rich, homemade flavor to reset her emotional compass, hoping to view her memories of the past week in
a more objective light.
"Yes, that might have been the result…but in fact, it was even
more of a blowout than the last one. This time, he started off the
battle totally unarmed."
"What…? Bare-handed?"
"Yes. Instead of a weapon, he had the Army Combative skill.
He took his first target unawares and beat him with some handto-hand moves, then took his victim's weapon and used it on the
next one…over and over. He couldn't reload the guns he picked
up, so there were a few fights where he had to go back to fighting
bare-handed. All you can say is that his talent for combat is on
another level entirely," she lamented.
Her companion crossed his arms and grunted. "On the other
hand…Subtilizer plays an ultra-close-range build, right? Couldn't
anyone have taken him out at mid- or long-range? In fact, aren't
the majority of GGO players like that…?"
"You saw what happened when he beat me, right?"
"Yeah, I was watching from within ALO. On the screen, you
were heading straight for the spot where Subtilizer was hiding
three minutes earlier, so everyone was screaming, 'Don't go
there!' and 'Sinon, behind you!' and all that stuff."
"Yes, that part," she said, snorting to drive away the shock and
humiliation of that moment before they could visit her again. As
calmly as she could, she explained. "After the tournament, I
talked to the other eleven people he beat hand to hand, and they
were all taken down the same way. He couldn't have had more
than the briefest of data on all of us, but the way he went from
sneak attack to mortal blow before we could fire a single shot, it
was like he knew ahead of time what we were going to do. I don't
know how things are on the American side, but on the JP server,
there are barely even any knife fights, much less bare-handed
combat…"
"…Well, from what I heard, there were a lot more players
using lightswords after the third tournament," he noted awkwardly. She scowled.
"It's no surprise, after the show you put on with it. There were
a lot of players practicing cutting bullets with lightswords right
around the start of the year, but I don't think anyone's made the
training stick."
Despite her distant tone, Shino herself had bought a small
lightsword in secret and attempted similar training against soldier mobs. After a month of painful work, she'd gotten good
enough to get the first and maybe second bullet in a hail of assault-rifle fire, but the skill was useless unless you could fully stop
a three-bullet burst in a proper battle. So she dismissed as a
dream within a dream ever stopping a ten-bullet volley like Kirito, and she kept the lightsword hidden in her inventory as a
good-luck charm.
But if only she'd taken it out and kept it at her waist, she might
have been able to strike one blow on Subtilizer…Shino shook her
head. She hadn't had the presence of mind for that. She decided
to change the topic.
"At any rate…Not a single JP player was able to even point
their rifle at him, much less hit him with a bullet. Perhaps Subtilizer's greatest skill isn't his close combat but his predictive abilities in battle."
"Hmm, I see…I just don't know if that's possible…A beginner
is one thing, but these are veteran players, finalists of the BoB.
Could you really predict their actions with one hundred percent
certainty?" Kazuto wondered aloud.
She shrugged. "If over ten people lost the same way, you can't
claim it's a fluke. But I suppose it's possible that veterans are
more predictable because they know the most efficient actions to
take. There's a general understanding of where to set up in what
terrain and what exact routes to take to get around fastest."
Just saying that aloud brought her a belated realization, and
she gasped.
The moment at the very end of the final.
Shino had chosen the very top floor of a half-crumbled building as her sniping spot to take down the last remaining foe, Subtilizer. By her prediction, she should have had a good shot at him
with her Hecate II from that particular window as he crossed the
road below.
But her foe predicted that prediction, snuck into the building
before her, and lay in wait close to her final sniping position. He
just waited until she set up the rifle on its bipod and got into firing position…then pounced on her from behind like a feline
hunter.
However, Shino had originally planned to use the second floor
from the top. It still had enough altitude to give her a good view.
The reason she changed her mind was because that floor was an
archive. She was afraid it would distract her by reminding her of
the old middle school library that had served as her sanctuary, so
she spent a few precious seconds to rush up one more floor. It
just so happened that the foe she was rushing to shoot was hiding
in the shadows of that very floor…
In other words, Subtilizer predicted that Shino would snipe
from the very top floor, not the archive floor below. But the reason she changed her spot wasn't based on sniper-specific theory
but a totally illogical personal rationale. He could predict the actions of Sinon the sniper, but he couldn't know that Shino Asada
loved books in the real world. So was it just a lucky guess that
Subtilizer chose the top floor to hide? Or did he see the archive
and somehow know that Shino would avoid it…?
If it was the latter, his prediction wasn't based on data or experience. It would be beyond the scope of simple VRMMO player
skill—the ability to read minds…
"—non. Hey, Sinon."
Someone's fingers pressed against the hand she held in
midair, and she looked up with a start. There was Kazuto, looking
at her with concern in his eyes.
"Oh…s-sorry. What were we talking about?"
"The patterns and strategies of veteran players or something."
"Ah, r-right. So, um…yeah. I was just thinking, maybe a player
who didn't fit into a pattern and acted in ways that ran counter to
theory could actually catch Subtilizer by surprise…"
Only once she had said that aloud did Shino realize that she'd
hit on the precise reason that she'd called Kazuto here today. She
picked up her glass of water, all the ice melted by now, and
chugged it in a vain hope of snapping her mind out of its funk,
but the chill clinging to her back did not want to leave.
It was the memory of what Subtilizer had whispered in the
second before her HP gauge ran out, following the brief struggle
in which he incapacitated her from behind. It was so quiet, and
spoken in English, that she didn't understand what he'd said at
the moment, but hearing the memory now, she grasped its meaning.
"Your soul will be so sweet."
It couldn't mean much. Many players had their own little
catchphrases they liked to say when they seized victory online.
Just a bit of role-playing. That's what she told herself.
Eager to move onward, she adopted a falsely cheery tone and
said, "So, speaking of players who ignore common sense and do
the improbable, the absurd, and the impossible, I can only think
of one other. While it's a bit early, I figured I would recruit him
for the fifth BoB at the end of the year…"
She made a gun gesture with her hand and pointed it at
Kazuto.
"…and that's why I called you."
"Wh-what…? Me?" he gasped, stunned.
She smiled and delivered her preprepared line: "I know you'll
have to convert your character back from ALO to GGO again, so I
understand if you refuse, but on the other hand, I feel like you
still owe me one. How's that legendary weapon working out for
you?"
"Urk!"
The golden longsword Excalibur that Kirito (Kazuto) used in
ALfheim Online would have been lost in a bottomless hole if it
weren't for Shino. She'd happily presented him with the ultrarare
weapon, which was utterly unique on the server, so she had the
right to call in a favor. And Kazuto would no doubt salivate at the
chance to face a worthy foe.
Sure enough, he cleared his throat and said, "Well, sure, I'd
like to try fighting this Subtilizer…but I think a big reason for how
far I got the last time was because nobody else was used to a guy
with a sword. And from how you describe it, Subtilizer's a vet in
both close combat and guns. I don't know if I stand a chance…"
"I don't think I've ever heard you sound so weak-willed. Yes,
he's very tough, but he's just another VRMMO player like the rest
of us. You don't have to act like it's an amateur versus pro
thing…"
"That's the thing," he said, leaning back in the old wooden
chair and placing his hands behind his head. "Is Subtilizer really
an amateur…? Is he really just a normal VRMMO player?"
"What's that supposed to mean? What else would he be?"
"A professional. Someone who fights with guns not for play
but for work. A soldier…or a special-ops police guy."
"What?! Oh, come on," she snorted, assuming he was joking,
but Kazuto's expression was deadly serious.
"I only know what I read in news articles…but from what I
hear, certain militaries, police forces, and private security firms
are already using full-dive tech for training. I think it's quite possible that a real professional with skill in that arena could have
entered the BoB to test himself."
"…I suspect you might be…"
Overthinking this, she was going to say, but stopped. She recalled Subtilizer's remarkably sharp instincts and the smoothness
of his motions. He fought like a robot soldier, well beyond what
she would expect from an amateur gamer.
But assuming he was a real soldier or policeman, would he really say something like "your soul will be so sweet" when he dispatched his target? In terms of professionals, that was less of a
soldierly action and more like a straight-out killer…
She had to stop herself there. GGO and all other virtual worlds
existed for the sole purpose of enjoyment. It didn't matter what
sort of person Subtilizer was in real life. She just had to hit him
with her .50-caliber rifle next time, that was all.
"No matter who he is, all players come into GGO on equal conditions! I'm not going to lose multiple times to the same guy, so
I'll do whatever it takes to win next time!" she swore.
"And 'whatever it takes' happens to be…me?"
"You're just one of the means, technically."
He looked confused by that, so Shino grinned and explained.
"I don't feel too confident with just you for a close-range expert,
so I called on someone else, too. Something like a control system
—a set of brakes to keep you in line."
"C-control system?" he repeated. The term set off something
in his mind, and the chair rattled as he sat up straight. He pulled
his ultrathin phone from a pocket and slid his finger across the
screen. A moment later, he looked up and fixed Shino with a look.
"Aha, I see."
"…What do you see?" she asked. He set down his phone and
slid it across the table to her. On the high-definition four-inch
monitor was a map of the Okachimachi area, centered on the
café. There was a blinking blue dot en route to them from the
train station.
"What's this blip?"
"Your next guest, Sinon. Only a hundred yards to go."
As he said, the dot was heading right to the café. It crossed an
intersection, entered the alley, and reached the center of the map.
Just then, the bell on the door clanged, and Shino looked up.
There was a person folding an umbrella at the door. She swiped
her chestnut-brown hair aside, looked at Shino, and smiled
brightly enough to drive away the gloomy rain.
"Hiya, Shino-non!"
2
It was the first nickname she'd had in five years. Shino couldn't
help but smile as she got to her feet.
"Hi, Asuna."
Asuna Yuuki strode across the natural wood floor so that they
could clasp hands and share in the delight of reunion. They sat
down in adjacent chairs, and Kazuto asked in surprise, "When did
you two get to be so close?"
"Oh, I stayed at Asuna's house last month."
"Wh-what? Even I've never been to her house."
"And whose fault is that?" Asuna chided, fixing Kazuto with a
glare. "Who keeps claiming he needs more time before he's
ready?"
His response was to sulk and sip at his drink. Still, Asuna
smiled at him with kindly understanding, and when she noticed
Agil approaching with water and a damp towel, she stood up to
greet him.
"It's nice to see you again, Agil."
"Welcome. This reminds me of the time you two stayed upstairs at my place."
"You'd better watch out, or we'll crash your current store in
Ygg City, too. Now…let's see what I want today…"
Asuna, who was old friends with the imposing-looking café
owner, looked over the corkboard menu. Shino, meanwhile,
peered at the phone Kazuto had left on the table. The little blue
blip was fixed right on the café.
"…I think I'll go with the ginger ale, spicy," Asuna decided.
When Agil went back to the counter to get her drink, Shino
smiled and said, "You guys track each other's GPS? You really
must be close."
Kazuto waved his hand with a straight face to indicate the contrary. "What you see there is technically the coordinate of Asuna's
phone, and she can make it invisible if she wants. Mine is
nowhere near that friendly. Show her, Asuna."
"Okay," she said, and pulled her phone from the bag slung
over the back of the chair, presenting it to Shino with the welcome screen activated. It was set to display a cute animated background.
In the center of the screen was a pink heart with red ribbons,
pulsing regularly once a second. There were two numbers on the
bottom of the heart, but she wasn't sure what they meant at first.
On the left was the number 63 in a large font, while smaller and
on the right was 36.2. As Shino watched curiously, the left one
rose to 64.
"What is…?"
Kazuto sheepishly asked her not to stare at it. At last, she figured out what the numbers represented.
"Wait…this is your pulse and body temperature in Celsius, Kirito?"
"Bingo. You catch on quick, Shino-non," Asuna said, clapping.
Shino looked back and forth from the phone to Kazuto's face a
few times, then asked the first question that came to mind.
"B-but…how?"
"Under the skin, right here," Kazuto said, pointing to the center of his chest with his thumb. He reached out toward Shino and
made a gap with his fingers less than a quarter of an inch wide.
"There's a tiny sensor about this big stuck in there. It measures
my heart rate and temperature and sends it to my phone through
Bluetooth. From there it goes through the Net to Asuna's phone,
giving her a real-time status update on me."
"What? A biometric sensor?" Shino squawked. Two seconds
later, she wondered, "B-but why…? Oh, is it an anti-cheating system?"
"N-no, no!"
"It's not that!"
Both Kazuto and Asuna shook their heads with perfect synchronization.
"Actually, when I started my new job, the client recommended
having it implanted," he explained. "It beats having to stick the
electrodes to my chest each and every time I go in. When I told
Asuna about it, she strongly recommended that I send her the
vital data. So I put together a little app and installed it on Asuna's
phone."
"I mean, I don't want some company to monopolize Kirito's
body data. In fact, I was against him getting that weird object put
in him in the first place."
"Oh, really? Who was it who happily said she liked to check
the monitor when she had a moment to spare?" he prodded.
Asuna's cheeks went just a bit red.
"I don't know…it just calms me down, I guess. The thought
that I'm seeing your heart beating just…sends me on a little trip, I
guess…"
"Whoa, that sounds kinda creepy to me, Asuna." Shino
laughed, looking down at the phone again. Kazuto's pulse had
gone up to 67, and his temperature was rising, too. Outwardly,
Kazuto wore a poker face as he crunched on his ice, but the data
faithfully showed that all the attention had made him a bit bashful.
"Aha, I see…On second thought…this is kinda nice," she mumbled, then looked up with a start. Kazuto and Asuna were staring
at her. She shook her head. "Er, uh, I mean, not in a serious way
or anything. I mean…in GGO there's a heartbeat sensor, but it's
for use when fighting in poor visual conditions. It's not as…romantic as this, that's all."
She hastily handed the phone back to Asuna and babbled on.
"Oh, r-right. I forgot about why I brought you here. Anyway, I already asked Asuna through e-mail about the next BoB. Do you
think you can compete? I'm not going to demand it if you don't
want to convert your characters."
"Oh, that's fine. I have an alt account for ALO, so I can stash
my house and items with that one while I'm in the other game,"
Asuna said with a gentle smile.
This eased Shino's bout of agitation, and she took a deep
breath before continuing. "Thanks. Having your help will be
huge, Asuna. You're the machine gun to my pillbox! I'm pretty
sure that you'll have the knack of the photon sword after a few
days of practice."
"I'll convert about a month before the tournament. You'll show
me around the city, right?"
"Of course. In fact, the food in GGO isn't that bad. So, um…I
know this is getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but…Put 'er there."
She held out her right hand, which Asuna took ahold of with
willowy fingers. Once they'd shaken hands, Shino disengaged and
rapped on the tabletop.
"That ends the business discussion. Now…" She turned to
Kazuto, who was still crunching his ice across the table. "Let's
hear more details. What is this fishy job you're doing? Knowing
you, it's probably just an alpha test for some new VRMMO or
something."
He stared at her for a long moment, then clarified her suspicion: "Well, you're not right, but you're not wrong."
Kazuto smirked and traced the center of his chest where the
microsensor was embedded. "Yes, it's true that I'm a tester. But
what I'm testing isn't a new game, but the brain-machine interface of an entirely new full-dive system."
"Ohh!" Shino exclaimed. "So they're coming out with a new
generation of the AmuSphere? Are you testing it for Asuna's dad's
company?"
"Nope, RCT has nothing to do with it. In fact…I'm not really
sure what the whole scope of the company is. It's a venture I'd
never heard of before this, but their development funding is massive. I wonder if they've got some huge investment fund backing
them," he said, putting on an enigmatic expression.
Shino tilted her head and asked, "Oh…what's the company's
name?"
"It's called Rath."
"No surprise, I've never heard of it, either. Hmm, is that an
English word…?"
"I wondered the same thing. Asuna knew the answer."
Next to Shino, Asuna finished her sip of ginger ale and nodded. "It's from the poem 'Jabberwocky' within the text of
Through the Looking-Glass. The raths are fictional creatures
within the poem. Some say they're supposed to be like pigs; others say they're like turtles."
"Ohhh…" Shino had read the book years ago, but she didn't remember that word at all. She tried to imagine a pig's head sticking out of a round shell. "Rath, rath…And they're going to sell
their own next-gen full-dive console? Rather than doing a joint
development with a bunch of other companies like with the AmuSphere?"
"Well, I don't know," Kazuto said, still maddeningly vague.
"The actual body of the machine is kinda huge. Combined with
the control console and cooling system, it would probably fill this
entire room…From what I hear, the very first full-dive prototype
was that big, and it took them five years to get it down to the size
of the NerveGear. And they say RCT's pushing to get the AmuSphere's successor out next year…Wait, was that supposed to be a
secret, again?"
Asuna laughed and said, "It's fine, they're going to announce it
at the Tokyo Game Show next month."
"Oh, RCT's got a new one, too? I hope it's not that expensive,"
Shino opined, throwing an innocent look at Asuna, who nodded
gravely.
"I know, right? They won't even tell me the price, though…But
I'm really enjoying ALO, so I'm not in any hurry to upgrade. It's
tempting when they talk about how much better the graphical
power is, though. They said it's going to be backward-compatible."
"Whoa, really? Maybe I should look into a job, too," Shino
said, consulting a mental spreadsheet of her finances. She looked
over at Kazuto and asked, "Does that mean that huge full-dive
machine Rath is working on isn't for commercial use? Is it industrial?"
"I think it's still before that stage of development. In fact, if
you're going to be specific, it's a completely different thing from
the current full-dive system."
"Different…? But it's still a virtual 3-D world that the user
dives into, right? What's it like on the inside?"
"I don't know," he said, shrugging. Then he matter-of-factly
dropped the most shocking detail yet. "It's probably for the purposes of secrecy, but I can't actually bring the memory of what
happens in the VR world back to real life. I've completely forgotten everything I saw and did during the test."
"Wh-what?!" Shino shrieked, then lowered her voice to ask,
"You…can't bring out your memory with you? How is that even
possible? Do they put you under hypnosis at the end of your
shift?"
"No, it's a purely electronic measure. Or…quantum measure, I
guess," he said distractedly, then glanced down at his phone on
the table. "It's four thirty. How are you two on time?"
"Fine."
"I've got time, too."
With that settled, Kazuto leaned back against the antique
wooden chair. "Then I'll start by explaining the broad picture.
What the Soul Translation tech is all about," he said slowly.
The unfamiliar name sounded like a spell in a game, Shino
thought. Something about it didn't seem to fit the concept of cutting-edge technology. Next to her, Asuna wondered, Really…?
"Soul"…?
"Yeah, I thought the name was pretty overblown the first time
I heard it, too," Kazuto said, shrugging. Then he abruptly asked,
"Where do you think the human mind is?"
"The mind?" Shino asked, taken aback. The answer seemed
obvious. She cleared her throat and said, "Inside the head…the
brain."
"Then if you zoomed in and looked at the brain in detail,
where would you find the mind?"
"Where…?"
"Well, the brain is just a mass of brain cells. Like this…"
He held out his left hand toward Shino, fingers extended, then
used his right index and middle fingers to trace a circle in his
palm, then a larger one around it.
"You've got a nucleus in the middle, then a cell body that surrounds it…"
He tapped his five fingers in order, then drew a line from wrist
to elbow.
"You've got dendrites, and an axon, then the connection to the
next cell. Which part of this brain cell contains the mind, do you
suppose? The nucleus? The mitochondria?"
"Umm…" Shino mumbled.
Asuna spoke up. "You just mentioned that it's connected to the
next cell, Kirito. Isn't it the network of all those neurons tied together that makes up the mind? It's like if you asked someone
what the Internet is—you can't explain the answer if you only
look at individual computers."
"Yes," he said, satisfied. "At present, the neural network is the
mind, in my opinion. But…I feel like the question of what the Internet is, for example, would get you a lot of different answers. I
mean, it's a construct of computers all over the world connected
through a common protocol…"
He pointed to his own phone on the table, then to Asuna's. "In
terms of making up that network, you can say that these individual computers are the Internet. You might even claim that the
users operating those computers are part of the Internet. All
these things together make up what we know as the Internet."
Kazuto took a breath there and asked for a sip of Asuna's ginger ale. He swallowed and closed his eyes. "Wow…the ginger ale
here really is sharp."
"It's not at all like the stuff they sell at the store. It's supposed
to be for mixing cocktails, but I like drinking it straight. You really taste the ginger."
Shino's first experience with the Dicey Café ginger ale was half
a year ago, when Kazuto first invited her to the place. If she'd
never met him in GGO, she would never have set foot in this odd
establishment. The way your life could change from the smallest
things…
"So…what does the human mind have to do with the Internet?" she prompted.
Kazuto gave the glass back to Asuna and made a spherical gesture with his hands. "Well, the shape of the Internet is this giant
net of servers, routers, computers, and mobile phones."
"The shape…"
"So what is its essence?"
Shino thought it over and asked, "You mean…what flows
through that network? Electronic bits and bytes…?"
"True, but the electric and light pulses are just the medium.
The essence of the Net is what is passed through the medium: information put into words. Let's use that definition here."
He stopped gesturing and steepled his bony fingers on the
tabletop. "Now, let's return to the network made up of tens of billions of brain cells. If we view this as the shape of the mind, then
what is the essence we should be looking for?"
"The stuff being transferred through the medium…through the
electric pulses in the brain cells. So…information?"
"Actually, the pulses are more like," Kazuto said, forming a fist
with his right hand and pushing it toward his open left palm, "a
trigger that releases a transmission substance into the synapses
between neurons. Just the consecutive firing of cells along a particular route can't be called the essence of the mind, I think."
"Umm…so…" Shino mumbled, frowning, and Asuna stepped
in at last.
"This isn't really fair, Kirito. After all, even modern science
doesn't have a clear answer about what the mind is, does it?"
"That's true," he said, grinning.
"Wh-what?! You set me up into racking my brain over something I could never figure out!" Shino fumed.
Kazuto merely looked away at the rainy neighborhood through
the window and said gravely, "But there is one person who approached the answer, while working on a particular theory."
"A…theory?"
"Quantum mind mechanics. It was originally proposed by an
English scholar toward the end of last century and treated like
fringe science for years. Now Rath is building that monstrous machine based on it…First of all, let me clarify that I barely understand everything after this point. But anyway, remember how I
described the structure of the brain cell?"
Shino and Asuna nodded.
"Inside the cell is a frame that supports the whole structure.
They're called microtubules. The thing is, those little 'bones' don't
just support, they're also like a skull. For the brain inside the
brain cell."
"Huh…?"
"They're tubules. Hollow tubes. Just very, very small ones…
nanometers in diameter. But they're not empty. There's something stored inside those tubes."
Shino looked over at Asuna, then they both looked at Kazuto.
She asked, "What's inside them?"
"Light," he said. "Photons. Evanescent photons, they call
them. A photon is a quantum of light. Their existence is indeterminate in nature and fluctuates constantly in a probabilistic manner. According to this theory in question, this fluctuation is, in
fact…the human mind."
Those words sent an instantaneous, inexplicable chill across
Shino's back and upper arms. The human mind is flickering
light? The image was mysterious, beautiful, and, in her opinion,
eerily holy in nature.
Asuna's brown eyes wavered nervously as she considered the
same concept. In a hoarse voice, she said, "Earlier, you said the
name of the new full-dive machine is…the Soul Translator. Are
they claiming the aggregate of all that light is the human soul?"
"The Rath engineers call it a quantum field instead. But given
what they named the machine, I'm certain that's how they feel
about it…That this quantum field is the soul."
"So what does that mean? That the Soul Translator is a machine that connects not to the human brain but to the soul itself…?"
"When you say it that way, it sounds less like a machine and
more like a magic item in a game." He grinned, trying to lighten
the mood. "But it's not powered by magic or holy miracles. To explain how it works a little more: It records a microtubule photon
as a unit of data called a 'cubit,' based on its spin and vector. So
the brain cell isn't just a gate switch that allows signals through
but a tiny little quantum computer all its own…And even that surface explanation is beyond my understanding…"
"Don't worry, you lost me ages ago."
"Me, too…"
Shino and Asuna signaled their resignation, and Kazuto
heaved a sigh of relief.
"So this amalgamation of photons acts as both a processor and
memory, and it might just be the true form of the human soul…
Well, Rath decided to give it their own special name. It's based on
the term fluctuating light, which is combined as…"
He paused.
"Fluctlight."
"…Fluct…light," Shino mumbled, repeating the strange word. If
everything he'd just told them was correct, then one of these
fluctlights was inside her own head. In fact, it was what she was
using to think… Her own consciousness…
That shiver returned, and she rubbed at her bare arms where
they emerged from her short summer sleeves.
Asuna was also cradling her own body, and she mumbled,
"And reading…er, translating that fluctlight is what the Soul
Translator does. Which means…it's not just a one-way translation, right?"
Shino didn't understand at first. She gave her friend a probing
look, and Asuna's eyes were full of worry.
"Think about it, Shino-non…The AmuSpheres we use don't
just intercept the movement commands our brains give our bodies. They send images, sounds…all kinds of sensory information
back into the brain to make us experience a virtual world. That's
the core of the full-dive experience, you know? Which means the
Soul Translator wouldn't be a follow-up to that device if it
couldn't do the same thing."
"Meaning…it writes information into the user's soul…?"
They both looked at Kazuto. The black-haired boy was uncertain for a moment, then eventually indicated a confirmation.
"The Soul Translator, which Rath refers to with the acronym
STL, has a bidirectional translation capability. It takes the billions
of cubits of data the human fluctlight possesses and translates
them into words we can understand, and it also retranslates information written in our words in order to record them. Otherwise it wouldn't be a full dive into another world, as Asuna said.
Essentially, it accesses the part of the fluctlight that stores and
processes sensory information and gives it the information the
machine wants the person to see or hear."
Asuna leaned forward. This was what she'd been waiting for.
"Are you saying…this even works on memory within the soul?
You just said you don't have any memory of what happens after
you come out of a dive. Are you saying the Soul Translator—the
STL—can erase or overwrite memories?"
"No," he said, brushing her hand reassuringly and shaking his
head. "The parts that manage long-term memory are so wideranging and have such a complex archiving system that it's beyond their grasp at the moment. The reason I don't have memories of the dive is just because they shut off access to those parts,
they say. So it's not that the memory was erased after it happened
—I just can't remember it, I guess."
"But still…I'm concerned, Kirito. I mean, memory manipulation…" Asuna said, her face downcast and worried. "And wasn't it
Chrysheight…I mean, Mr. Kikuoka from the government who
brought you that job offer? I don't think he's a bad person, but I
feel like I don't fully understand his motives. He's like the guild
commander, somehow. I just get the feeling…that something bad
is going to happen again…"
"You're right that he's not someone you can fully let your
guard down with. I still don't know his exact position or job duties. But…"
Kazuto paused, and his pupils focused on someplace far away.
"I took the very first morning train on the day the original industrial full-dive machine was first put on display at the amusement park in Shinjuku. I was only in grade school…but I knew
that was it. That was the world that had always called to me. I
saved up all my allowance to buy the NerveGear the day it came
out…and spent countless hours on all kinds of VR games. At the
time, I couldn't have cared less about the real world. Eventually I
got selected to the SAO beta test, and everything went wrong
from there…All those people died. Even after we finally got out
after two years, there was Sugou, and Death Gun after that. I
just…want to know. Where full-dive technology is taking us…
What all those incidents truly meant…The way the Soul Translator functions is entirely new, but the basic architecture is modeled after the Medicuboid they use in hospitals."
Asuna's shoulders twitched when she heard that. But his quiet,
steady voice continued to fill the room.
"I just have a feeling. There's something within the Soul
Translator. Something more than just an amusement…Yes, there
might be risks involved. But…" He mimicked grabbing a sword
and swinging it. "I've come back from all those worlds before. I'll
be back from this one, too. Even if I am just a wimpy, underweight gamer in real life."
"You'd be totally helpless without me there to watch your
back." Asuna laughed, then sighed and looked over at Shino. "I
wonder where he gets this confidence."
"Hmm, I don't know. He is the legendary hero, after all."
Shino understood some of the things Asuna and Kazuto were
talking about and didn't know others, so she chose to keep her
distance from the conversation as it was happening. Now she
tried to break the chilly mood by saying, "I read that Full Record
of the SAO Incident book that came out last month. I'm still having a hard time reconciling that the Black Swordsman in there is
this guy."
"H-hey, don't say it like that," Kazuto complained, waving his
hands dismissively as he leaned back.
Asuna giggled. "I know, right? The leader of a pretty big guild
among the active members of the game put the book together, so
it's pretty accurate about most stuff, but there's a heavy bias on
how they represent the people. Like the scene where Kirito fights
the orange player…"
"'When I pull out my second sword, no one can withstand
me!'"
The girls burst into laughter and Kazuto sank sullenly into his
chair. Relieved that Asuna was smiling again, Shino decided to
deliver a follow-up.
"I hear the book's going to be translated into English for
America. Then the great hero will be an international figure."
"…Just when I was trying to forget…They really owe me some
royalties, I figure," Kazuto grumbled to another round of laughter.
Shino decided she'd get back on topic by asking something
that had been bothering her. "But Kirito, does this STL just end
up doing the same thing as the AmuSphere? If it's just going to
generate a virtual polygonal world and send the images and
sounds to the brain like before, why go to the lengths of this elaborate new system?"
"Aha! Good question," he said, sitting up straight again. "You
said 'generate a virtual polygonal world.' Well, a polygon is just a
series of coordinates and a plane connecting them. It's digital
data. Modeling is so high-res nowadays that trees and furniture
and all that are indistinguishable from the real thing, but at its
core, they're no different from this."
He flipped through the phone on the table and booted up one
of the preinstalled mini-games. The futuristic race car that rotated slowly on the demo screen had a primitive interior design
and somewhat blocky angles. It wouldn't fool anyone.
Shino looked up and noted, "Sure…even in ALO and GGO, if
you get enough players in one place, the system sometimes starts
to chug as it draws objects. But there isn't really a fundamental
difference between the AmuSphere and STL in that regard, is
there? They're both showing their users things that don't exist so
that they can see and touch them. Those things still have to be
created as a 3-D model from scratch."
"That's the thing. Umm…how do I explain this…?"
Kazuto paused, then picked up the empty caffé shakerato glass
and showed it to Shino. "This glass exists in reality, right?"
"…Yes," she replied drily. Kazuto pushed it closer to her face.
His next words were somewhat difficult to understand.
"Listen. At the same time that this glass is being held in my
fingers…it's also in your mind, in what Rath would call your fluctlight. Technically it's just the light reflecting off the glass that
your retinas are catching and converting into nerve signals that
allow you to visualize it as a glass in your mind. Now if I do
this…"
He reached out and covered her eyes with his other hand. She
automatically shut her eyelids, reducing her vision to solid gray
with a hint of red.
"Did the glass within you disappear instantaneously?"
She wasn't sure what he was getting at but gave him an honest
answer anyway. "I'm not that forgetful. I was watching it for so
long, I remember the color and shape of the glass. Oh…but it is
getting a bit more vague…"
"Exactly."
He took away his hand, and Shino opened her eyes to glare at
him.
"Exactly, what?"
"Get this…When we look at the glass, or the table, or each
other, we're holding that data in a form that can be stored and
replayed within the visual processing center of our fluctlights. It's
not just a copy that disappears the moment we close our eyes. So
when I hide this glass from sight and your memory of it fades…"
He slipped the hand holding the glass under the table.
"And then I input into your fluctlight vision center a perfect
copy of that data from when you were looking at the glass earlier,
you will be seeing a glass that isn't actually on the table right now.
Something far more vivid than just a 3-D model…The glass will
be absolutely identical to the real thing."
"Okay…maybe that's true in theory…but when you're talking
about data that the human mind saves, that's just memory, right?
You can't just hypnotize people into recreating their memories
from an external source. How do they…"
Shino stopped. Just a few minutes ago, Kazuto had told her
about a machine that could do that very thing. Asuna broke her
long silence to chime in for Shino.
"The same way the AmuSphere shows the user's brain 3-D
data…the STL writes in short-term memories to the user's mind.
In other words…it's not a creation. The virtual world and everything in it that the STL builds…is essentially real, as far as our
brains can process it…?"
Kazuto dipped his head and put the glass back on the table.
"Rath calls the images in our minds 'pneumonic visual data.' I
still remember what happened in my first few test dives…and it
was different. It was nothing at all like the VR worlds that the
AmuSphere creates. It was just a small room I was in, but I…"
He paused and adopted an awkward, deliberate grin that dimpled one cheek.
"…I didn't realize it was virtual at first."
3
A virtual world that was indistinguishable from reality.
It was a theme that numerous fictional stories had covered for
decades. Shino could name right on the spot at least five books or
movies based on the idea.
When the age of full-diving, NerveGears, and AmuSpheres in
every home had arrived, the media was overrun with thought
pieces and blog articles wondering if the time had finally come
when we'd lost track of whether or not our reality was truly real
life. Shino remembered being nervous about the concept before
she took her first dive.
But once she tried it, for better or for worse, that concern vanished. The AmuSphere's VR experience was a true miracle of cutting-edge technology. The full sensory experience of the virtual
world was brilliant and beautiful—which only highlighted its difference from the real world. The sights, sounds, and textures of
everything were too pure, too…simple. There was no dust in the
air, no clothes fabric fraying with wear, no scratches or dents in
the tables. Every 3-D object that was coded had a hard limit in
terms of the designing company's manpower and the CPU power
of the device displaying it. That might change in the future, but in
2026, technology could not create a virtual world that was indistinguishable from the real one…
Or so Shino had thought, until she heard what Kazuto Kirigaya
had to say.
"But Kirito…that means that you could be in the…STL, they call
it? Right at this very moment. They could be feeding you memories of Asuna and me," Shino said with a teasing smile, trying to
hide the shiver crawling over her skin. She figured he would just
laugh it off, but even worse, he frowned and stared at her.
"H-hey, stop that! I'm real!" she protested, waving her hands,
but Kazuto looked even more suspicious.
"If you're the real Sinon…you'd remember the promise you
made to me yesterday."
"P-promise?"
"You said that as thanks for coming out here to meet you, I
could have as many Dicey Cheesecakes as I want. It's the most expensive dessert on the menu."
"Wh-what?! I never made that deal with you! Oh…b-but that
doesn't mean I'm a fake! Come on, Asuna, tell him I'm real!"
She looked to her friend for help. Asuna grabbed her hands
and whispered, "Shino-non…did you forget? You promised me I
could have as many Berry-Cherry Tarts as I wanted…"
"Whaaat?!"
Maybe she was the one who was trapped in a virtual world and
having her memory manipulated. Then both Kazuto's and
Asuna's cheeks puffed out, and they burst into laughter. Shino finally realized that she was not the teaser but the teased.
"How dare…Not you, too, Asuna! I'm going to hit both of you
with a hundred homing arrows each next time I see you in ALO!"
"Ha-ha-ha! Sorry, Shino-non, forgive me!" Asuna laughed,
hugging the girl. The simple friendliness of that gesture filled her
heart with warmth, which she tried to hide by turning away in a
huff. Still, she couldn't keep a smile away for long, and she soon
joined in the laughter.
Kazuto added a slow comment to the more relaxed atmosphere. "The tech sounds really creepy when you hear all these
terms like fluctlight and pneumonic visuals…but I think I actually
connect with the world the STL creates more than the AmuSphere's. When you get down to it, it's basically more like a waking dream…"
"A…dream?" Shino said, not expecting that word to come up.
Rather appropriately, the boy who played a spriggan fighter with
a penchant for putting others to sleep in ALO continued. "Yeah.
You're calling forth objects that exist as saved memories, creating
a world by combining them together, then doing stuff in it…
Doesn't that sound like how dreams work? In fact, they say the
brain patterns of people in the STL are very close to those of
being asleep."
"So your job is basically to dream? You slept for three whole
days and made a bunch of money doing it?"
"Th-that's what I told you right at the start. I didn't eat, didn't
drink, just slept. I mean, I had an IV for water and nutrition."
Now that he mentioned it, she did remember him saying that
just after he'd shown up at the café. But she figured he was just
lying on a gel bed, not literally engaged in a very, very long
dream.
Shino looked up and murmured, "A three-day-long dream…
You could do all kinds of things in that time. And you wouldn't
have to worry about waking up before you get to eat that delicious
piece of cake."
"Sadly, I don't remember what sort of things I ate on the other
side. Let's just say I had cake for every meal…" he joked, but let
the words trail off. Shino looked down and saw that his eyebrows
were pensive under those long bangs.
"…What's wrong, Kirito?" Asuna asked, but he didn't respond.
He made the motion of grabbing something and bringing it to his
mouth.
"…It wasn't…cake…Something harder…and salty…but it was
good. What was it…?"
"Y-you remember? What did you eat in the virtual world?"
"…Nope. Can't remember. It was something I've never eaten in
reality…I think…"
He scrunched up his face for several more seconds, thinking
hard, but eventually exhaled and gave up. Shino couldn't hold
back the question that popped into her head.
"Wait, is that even possible, Kirito? Eating something in the
STL that you've never tasted in real life? I thought you said the
STL creates a virtual world constructed from parts that it finds in
the user's memory. So in a basic sense, it can't show you things
you've never seen or feed you things you've never eaten, right?"
"Oh…yeah, right. Good point, Shino-non. Wouldn't that mean
the STL's virtual world is extremely limited in nature, despite its
realism? You couldn't create a true fantasy realm like they did for
Aincrad or Alfheim."
He acknowledged her point with a nod and smiled to dispel
the awkward atmosphere he had created. "That's very sharp of
you two. As a matter of fact, I didn't recognize that limitation the
first time I heard about pneumonic visuals. I only realized it just
before this long-term experimental dive, and I asked the Rath
staff about it, but I guess it went right to the heart of the STL's
tech, and they wouldn't tell me too much about it. The one thing I
can say is…the staff described the virtual world as being built
from memory but did not say that it came from the memory of
the diver."
"Huh…? What does that mean…?" Shino asked, but Asuna
sucked in a short breath.
"You mean…other people's memories? Or…or that they can
create memories that belong to no one, right from scratch…?" she
asked in a half whisper. Shino understood at last.
What if these pneumonic visuals were saved in a format that
other human beings could process? What if they'd already
cracked that format itself? That would fundamentally make this
idea possible. New objects, new tastes, scenery that had never
been imagined…The creation of a truly "real" dream.
Kazuto confirmed her suspicions. "It's been a little over two
months since I started working at Rath…There was no memory
limitation on the first few tests, so I remember a couple of those
VR worlds. One of them was just a big room that happened to
have a couple hundred cats hanging out in it."
"…So many cats…"
Shino let a smile play across her features as she imagined that
paradise, then shook her head to dispel the image. She nodded to
Kazuto to continue, and he made a face as he tried to recall the
others.
"From what I remember…there were a bunch of cats in there
from breeds I didn't recognize. And not just that…Some of them
had wings and flew around, and others were all round and poofy
and bounced off the walls. I couldn't have 'remembered' things
like that."
"And they couldn't have come from anyone else's memory, either," Asuna added. "I mean, no one's ever seen a cat with wings
in the real world. Either someone on the staff created that flying
cat to show you…or the STL system generated it from scratch."
"If it's the latter, that would be a major feat. If the system is
capable of doing that much for one object, it could ultimately create an entire world."
They sat on his words in silence.
A virtual world created without human input or labor.
Something about that concept caused Shino's heart to soar.
Recently she'd found a growing alienation within her toward the
arbitrary design of VRMMOs like GGO and ALO.
Naturally, all existing VR games had to be created by game designers from a development team. While the buildings, trees, and
rivers all looked like they just existed on their own, all of them
were modeled and fashioned according to the whims of an artist,
of another human being.
Every time she was reminded of this fact while playing the
game, a deep part of her woke from a reverie. It was the recognition and acknowledgment of the fact that they were all dancing
on the palm of the "gods" who developed the game for them to
play.
Shino hadn't even started Gun Gale Online for the purpose of
having fun. Even though she'd overcome some of her emotional
baggage, she still believed there was a real-life meaning to what
she experienced in the virtual world. She didn't share the sentiments of those squadrons who collected model guns in real life
and wore their uniforms with matching medals in the game. No,
she believed that the perseverance and self-control that Sinon developed in the game might in some way transfer over to Shino
Asada in the real world. If not, then why had she been spending
so much time and money on this activity?
The fact that such a shy person could get to be so friendly with
Asuna after just a few months was a sign of major progress, Shino
thought. The other girl always carried a hint of a smile, but Shino
was certain that they shared the same views. VRMMOs weren't
an escapist pleasure but a tool to improve herself in the real
world. Asuna was like that, too. And Kazuto…well, it needn't be
said.
Which was exactly why she didn't want to think that a VR
world was just a construction, and that everything that happened
inside of it was fiction. She didn't want to think it, but someone,
of course, built every one of them.
On the night she'd stayed at Asuna's house last month, Shino
had clumsily revealed in the darkened bedroom this sense of
alienation. Next to her in the large bed, Asuna thought it over.
Then she said, "Shino-non, you could say the same thing about
the real world. Everything about the environment we live in, from
our homes and cities, to our status as students, to the structure of
society itself, was designed by people…For the purpose of getting
stronger or being able to pursue the path that we want, I think."
She paused, then smiled and continued. "But I'd kind of like to
see a VR world one day that wasn't designed by anyone. If that
was an actual thing, I kind of feel like it'd be an even realer world
than the one we live in…"
"A realer world," Shino muttered without realizing it. Asuna
glanced at her and nodded, clearly remembering the same conversation.
"Kirito, are you saying…that if you use the STL, you could create a reality that is subjectively the same or greater than the real
world? A true alternate world without a human designer?"
"Hmmm," he mumbled, then slowly shook his head. "No…I
think that would be very unlikely right now. You might be able to
generate natural terrain like forests or fields, but I think it'd be
impossible to create complex cities in a logical manner without
the involvement of a human mind. As far as other possibilities…I
guess that if you get a couple hundred testers and make them
build a town or a culture itself on empty plains, that might be
considered a world without a godlike Creator…"
"Wow, that sounds like a real long-term project."
"It would take months for the map to be finished."
The girls laughed at Kazuto's joke. But the furrow between his
brows stayed put as he continued to ponder the idea. Eventually
he muttered, "So it's a culture-development simulation? That
might not actually be far off the mark. If the STL's FLA function
evolves further…but that'll require a limit on the memory you
bring inside…"
"S to the F to the L to the what now?" Shino asked, lost in the
string of acronyms.
He looked up in surprise. "Oh…right. It's the second magic
power of the Soul Translator. I said the STL's virtual world is like
a dream, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Do you ever have a really long dream, and when you wake up,
you're just exhausted? Especially when it's a nightmare…"
"Oh, sure," she said, scowling. "It's like you're running and
running from something, and you know it's a dream partway
through, but you can't wake up. Only after you've been running
all night do you wake up—and then it turns out you're still in the
dream."
"How long does it feel like those dreams go?"
"How long? Two hours…three, maybe."
"That's the thing. When you measure the brain waves, even
the times that people feel like they've been dreaming forever, the
actual period of dreaming is just for a few minutes before they
wake up," Kazuto said. He held out his hands and covered the
phone screens lying on the table. Then he impishly asked, "Sinon,
if we started talking about the STL at four thirty, what time do
you think it is now?"
"Uh…"
She wasn't expecting that question. It was just past the solstice
and there was plenty of light outside, making it impossible to tell
the exact time just from the amount of light coming through the
windows. She had to guess.
"Umm…about four fifty?"
He pulled away his hands and turned the screen toward Shino.
The clock said it was well after five.
"Whoa, it's been that long?"
"See, the flow of time is very subjective, not just in our dreams
but in the real world as well. When there's an emergency and you
get a rush of adrenaline, time goes slowly. On the other hand,
when you're relaxed and enjoying a nice chat, you look up and it's
hours later. In their study of fluctlights and human consciousnesses, Rath put together a rough theory of why this happens. At
the center of your mind there's a pulse they call a 'thought-clocking control signal,' though they don't know much about its source
yet."
"Clocking…?"
"Yeah, like a computer. How they measure the number of gigahertz of your CPU and stuff."
"The number of calculations per second?" Asuna prompted.
Kazuto tapped his finger on the table.
"They always list the maximum value for the catalog, but it's
not constantly going that fast. Usually it goes at a fairly slow pace
to keep it cool and conserve power, but as you ask it to process
more and more…" He increased the speed of his tapping. "It pulls
up the processor clock to increase the speed. The photon computer recreating a fluctlight acts the same way. In an emergency,
when the amount of data to process gets much greater, it speeds
up the thought-clock in response. Don't you feel like the bullets in
GGO slow down when you're concentrating really hard?"
"Well, when I'm in a really good rhythm, yeah. But I can't do
that bullet-dodging stuff you pull off." She pouted. He frowned
and shook his head.
"I couldn't do that right now, either. I've got to retrain before
the next BoB…Anyway, the thought-clock affects your perception
of time. When the clock is running fast, your perception of the
passage of time will slow down. This becomes especially pronounced while sleeping. The fluctlight speeds up quite a lot to
process all that memory data, and you end up having several
hours' worth of dreams within a few minutes."
"Hrmm…"
Shino crossed her arms. It was already crazy enough that they
were talking about a computer that read her mind with light—all
this stuff about the act of thinking causing her mental speed to go
up and down had to be taken with a grain of salt. But Kazuto was
grinning as though there was even more to the story.
"So extrapolate from there. Wouldn't it be awesome if you
could do your homework or your job in your sleep? In just minutes of real-world time, you could do hours of work."
"Th-that's crazy."
"Exactly. You can't control your dreams to do exactly what you
want," Asuna protested.
But Kazuto's smile did not falter. "The reason actual dreams
are so scattershot is a by-product of the memory filing process.
The dreams you see in the STL are far clearer—in fact, it's basically just a VR world that works on dream logic. When you're inside that world, it interferes with the mind's thought-clocking
pulse and speeds it up. Then it synchronizes the passage of time
within the virtual world to speed it up, too. As a result, the
amount of actual time the user experiences within the virtual
world is multiplied. That's the greatest function of the STL: Fluctlight Acceleration, or FLA."
"…This all…just…"
Doesn't seem real, Shino thought. It was more than "just a little" different from the AmuSphere.
Just the introduction of regular access to full-dive tech had
brought about significant social change. In the almighty search
for cost-cutting measures, businesses began holding virtual presentations and meetings. Multiple fully 3-D shows and movies
came out each day, offering the viewer the ability to inhabit the
scene from any angle. Seniors loved the tourist software that specialized in highly accurate recreations of popular destinations.
And as Kazuto mentioned earlier, it was also finding use in military training.
The sudden increase in the range of interests that could be enjoyed indoors led to a predictable counter-surge in "Walkers" who
insisted on going outside and strolling the town without a destination. Bizarrely enough, that led to a very successful line of Virtual Walking Simulators. Even the big fast-food chains had gotten
into the business with virtual locations you could visit.
So society wondered where exactly the virtual world would
send the real world that we live in. What would happen once the
Soul Translator appeared and people could speed up their consciousnesses? Shino felt something chilly run across her skin.
Meanwhile, Asuna repeated, "A long…dream…" then looked
up at Kazuto and smiled. "I suppose I should be grateful that SAO
happened before the Soul Translator was developed. If we were
playing it on the STL, Aincrad instead could have been a thousand floors and taken twenty years to beat."
"Ugh…spare me," he groaned, shaking his head.
Asuna smiled again and asked, "So all this week, you were just
having one long dream?"
"Yeah. It was a function test for long-term consecutive use—
three days in a dive without food or water. I think I did lose some
weight…"
"More than a little! There you go, getting yourself into crazy
business again," she said, putting on a cutesy tantrum and crossing her arms. "I'm visiting Kawagoe tomorrow to cook you some
food! I'd better ask Suguha to stock up on plenty of veggies."
"J-just go easy on me."
As Shino watched the two banter with a grin on her face, a
sudden question occurred to her. "So, um…does that mean that
during the three-day-long dive, that thought accelerator was
working? How much time did you actually experience in there?"
He tilted his head, trying to remember, and said, "Well…like I
explained earlier, my memories of the dive are limited…but I recall them saying that the current maximum amplification factor
of the FLA is a bit over three…"
"So…nine days?"
"Or ten."
"Hmm…I wonder what kind of world it was and what you were
doing. If you can't take out the memories, could you at least bring
your memories in with you? Were there other testers?"
"Honestly, I have no idea about any of that. They said having
advance knowledge will affect the test results. But even if they
block memories from within the dive, I don't know if they can
limit your existing memory…At any rate, the place I go in Roppongi only has one experimental STL in it, so I'm guessing I was
the only one diving. They wouldn't tell me anything about the inside. What's the use of being a beater if you can't get an advantage as a beta tester? All they would tell me was the code name of
their test world."
"And what is that?"
"The Underworld."
"Like…an underground world? I wonder if that's the design
theme."
"I don't even know if it's meant to be realistic, or fantasy, or
sci-fi. But with a name like that, I'm guessing it's dark and subterranean…"
"Hmm. It doesn't really stick out to me," Shino murmured.
Meanwhile, Asuna put a finger to her slender chin and said
softly, "Maybe…that has to do with Alice, too."
"Alice…?"
"Like I said with the source of the name Rath, maybe this one
comes from Alice in Wonderland. Well, the original manuscript
title was Alice's Adventures Under Ground."
"Oh, I didn't know that. The more I hear, the more this company sounds like it came from a fairy tale," Shino noted giddily.
"In fact, both Alice books were big, long dreams in the end, right?
I wonder if that means you were having tea parties with rabbits
and playing chess with a queen while you were under, Kirito."
Asuna giggled at the thought. But Kazuto himself was staring
at a fixed point on the table, lost in thought.
"…What's wrong?" Shino asked.
"…Oh, uh…"
He looked up, still squinting, then blinked in obvious confusion.
"When you said 'Alice'…I felt like I was about to remember
something…It was just one of those things, you know? Where
you're on the brink of recalling something huge, but you can't remember what it was, so it just sits there on your shoulders like
this big ball of anxiety?"
"Oh, yeah. It's kinda like when you have a nightmare and wake
up from it, but you can't remember what it was about."
"There's something…something I'm forgetting that I was supposed to do right away," Kazuto lamented, scrunching up his hair.
Asuna looked at him with concern and asked, "Is it a memory
from the test…?"
"But you already said that all the memory from the virtual
world gets deleted," Shino reminded him. He shut his eyes and
groaned, then gave up and slumped his shoulders.
"Well, it was ten days of memories. Maybe there are little fragments here and there that they couldn't block out entirely…"
"I see…If that's the case, if you still had the memory, you
would be a whole week older than us compared to before, mentally speaking. That's…kinda scary to think about."
"I don't know…I kind of like that," Asuna said. She was a year
older than him. "It's like it closes the gap a bit."
Kazuto gave her a weak smile. "Speaking of which, from the
end of yesterday's dive to about the middle of school today, I got
this weird feeling. It was like…all the familiar parts of town and
TV shows and everything were all fresh, like I hadn't seen them in
forever. And when I saw people in class, I was like…'who is that
again?'"
"Oh, don't be dramatic. It was only ten days," Shino snapped.
"Yeah, you're going to make me worry," Asuna complained.
"You have to stop participating in that dangerous experiment,
Kirito. It's definitely going to affect your health, for one thing."
"Right. The long-term consecutive diving test was a major success, and all the big hurdles as far as the fundamental construction have been passed. Next comes the stage where they shape it
into a functional machine, but I can't begin to guess how many
years it will take to shrink that enormous thing down to a commercial level…I'm not going for any side jobs anytime soon. I've
got finals next month, anyway."
"Ugh," Shino said, grimacing. "Don't remind me. You two are
lucky; you barely even have any paper tests. We still have to use
Scantrons. I wish they would get with the times."
"Hee-hee! Well, we should have a study session sometime
soon," Asuna suggested. She looked up at the wall behind Shino
and gasped. "It's almost six! Time really does fly when you're
chatting."
"I guess we should wrap it up. I feel like we only talked about
the main point of the meeting for about five minutes," Kazuto
said, smirking.
"Well, the BoB is way far ahead, and we can decide on character build and finer strategy once you've converted," Shino suggested.
"Good idea. I won't use anything but a lightsaber, though."
"You have to call it a photon sword!"
He laughed and picked up the bill, offering to pay it with the
seventy-two straight hours of wages he'd just earned, and took it
to the counter. Shino and Asuna loudly chimed in their thanks for
the meal and started for the door.
"We'll be back, Agil."
"Thanks for the baked beans; they were great," Shino called
out to the owner, who was busy preparing for the night traffic, as
she took her umbrella from the whiskey barrel. The door bell clattered when she opened the door, letting in the sounds of bustle
and rain.
It wasn't yet sundown, but the heavy clouds blocked most of
the light, so it felt as dark as night along the wet street. She
opened her umbrella and took one step down the small staircase,
then stopped. She quickly scanned the area.
"What's wrong, Shino-non?" Asuna asked behind her. Shino
came back to her senses and rushed down into the street, then
turned around.
"N-no, it's nothing," she said shyly. She wasn't going to admit
that the sniper sense on the back of her neck had just crawled.
The possibility that her instinct for sensing a sniper while out in
the open had transferred into real life was not something she
wanted to confront right now.
Asuna was still curious, but then the door bell jangled again,
prompting her to continue down the steps.
Kazuto emerged, stuffing his wallet back into his bag. As he
descended to the street, he muttered, "Alice…"
"Are you still going on about that?"
"Well…now that I think about it, I must have heard something
from the staff talking among themselves before the STL dive on
Friday…A, L, I…Arti…Labile…Intelli…Hmm, what was it
again…?" he muttered, mostly to himself.
Asuna extended her umbrella over him and chuckled. "Once
he gets his mind on something, he can't stop. If you're that curious about it, just ask them the next time you go there."
"Yeah, good point," Kazuto said. He shook his head a few
times to clear his thoughts and finally opened his own umbrella.
"Well, Sinon, we'll meet again to plan out this GGO conversion."
"Roger that. We can meet in ALO, too. Thanks for coming."
"So long, Shino-non."
"Bye, Asuna."
She waved to the couple as they headed off to their JR train,
then turned the opposite direction to walk to her subway station.
She peered out from under her umbrella again, but the prying
gaze she'd felt just moments earlier was gone, as if it had never
been there.