Chapter 3. Virtual and Physical BGM #03 “The Asterisk”
Chapter 3
Virtual and Physical BGM #03 “The Asterisk”
1
Server Name: Psi Indigo.
Final Location: Tokonatsu City, Peninsula District.
Log-out successful.
Thank you for playing, Kaname Suou.
He felt extremely woozy as the storm of lights gradually gave way to the familiar sight of his bedroom. Before he could even regain his balance, he disconnected his phone from its charger and rushed out of the room.
But there was nobody else around.
He was expecting his sister to be home for supper, but she was nowhere to be found.
She had disappeared—and at the exact moment that her identity had been revealed. It certainly seemed like she had gone into hiding.
Perhaps it wasn’t worth overthinking it.
…She didn’t even play the game anymore. There was no way she could have known what had just been going on in Money (Game) Master. And yet, the timing of her disappearance was too perfect. Almost like she had ways of spying on the game that normal players didn’t.
The administrator. The person who had perpetrated the Fall of Criminal AO in order to protect the balance of the game.
“Dammit!”
There was so much he wanted to ask her.
There was no logical way for him to deduce where his sister had gone. He could barge into her room and check to see if she had taken her wallet with her, and that might narrow down the possibilities a little, but if his sister was the administrator, then she had all the money in the world at her disposal. She could have escaped to Mars for all he knew.
So he didn’t even try to think about it logically. He slipped on his shoes and left the apartment. He didn’t have the time to change into his outside clothes.
She had disappeared spontaneously, without a plan. If so, then she was probably not expecting to have to run away. Her cornered mind would have severely limited her infinite options. She wasn’t going to fly to some far-flung corner of the world where she couldn’t even speak the language. Even if it was physically possible, the option simply would not have occurred to her. The places where people sought refuge in times of need were surprisingly limited and generally restricted to areas from their normal life that they were already familiar with.
…He knew his sister well.
He ran through the night, down unlit paths. He gritted his teeth.
…But if that was true, then why hadn’t he realized it earlier?
This was not a city of wealth and crime. There were no guns, no sports cars, no Magistelli to rely on. Running made you lose your breath, and if he got into a fight, he’d be scared shitless. One little knife to the stomach, and he wouldn’t even get to Fall; he’d be dead, plain and simple.
He was just a boy. A hopelessly weak boy. Unchosen, unaccomplished. A nobody.
But there she was.
One little girl, trying to blend in with the crowd. Seeing her there was proof of the strength of their bond.
It was a busy street a little way from the apartment. It was also some distance from the station. Most people who came here came from the same apartment building. When he and his sister had to go shopping, this was the first place they thought of.
Just like him, her small figure among the crowd was clothed in whatever loungewear she had been wearing when she fled the apartment.
For now, she didn’t seem to have noticed him. Her shoulder-length black hair swayed.
He felt an unpleasant tingle at the tip of his nose. He grimaced, irredeemably disgusted by the fact that it had come from his very own sister.
And then, perhaps it was on a whim, or perhaps she had been doing it for a while, but she suddenly looked over her shoulder, and their eyes met.
There were a few things she could do, but as soon as his sister, still dressed in her oversize pink sweatshirt and short pants, spotted him in his gray pajamas, she broke into a sprint. She dashed away through the crowd, knocking people aside.
That proved it.
Should he feel despair at his sister’s betrayal? Or should he sympathize, understand that she didn’t want to keep lying to him anymore?
Either way, he couldn’t just forget it and walk away. He had to ask.
It was all her fault. The Fall of Criminal AO, of Takamasa. The burden of debt, and of being an AI Dropout, placed on his family, on his sister, Midori Hekireki. The scattering of the Legacies throughout Money (Game) Master. The conflicts they caused. The end of Ag Wolves. Him being forced to make Lily-Kiska Fall. All of it. She, the administrator, had been orchestrating the whole thing, rubbing her hands with glee…
“You’re not getting away,” he muttered, but as soon as he heard the ice-cold sound of his own voice, he stopped. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. Then, summoning up what little stamina he had left, he ran after her. He got some strange looks, but if anyone thought he was up to no good, they sure didn’t try to stop him. After all, life was not a game. Nobody would risk their life that easily.
His sister was blocked by the red light of a pedestrian crossing sign and was looking around for an alternate route when he grabbed her by the arm. She managed to break free, but he took hold of both her shoulders and pressed her against the traffic light.
He brought his face close to hers as she gasped for breath. Then he bellowed his question at her. “What did you do?!”
He asked again, this time his voice a scream.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO???!!!”
The question was so vague, it would have left bystanders wondering what exactly was going on. But those simple words made his sister’s face twist in pain.
It was proof enough that she knew it all.
Her legs appeared to give out beneath her, and she slumped to the ground. As her back slid down the pole, it hiked up the hem of her sweatshirt, showing her navel. She sat on the floor cradling her knees in her hands, unable to even hang her head in shame. As he held on to her shoulders, she stared into his face, weeping and quivering. Then, suddenly, she bawled loudly like a small child.
It’s the lowliest man who makes his family cry. Not even worthy of being called human. These were words that, until today, he had found obvious. Now they were like a knife twisting in his heart. But he couldn’t turn a blind eye. He had to have an answer.
“…Admin… ”
His sister was trying to say something, through sobs and hiccups, with tears streaming down her face.
“…Chose me… Admin Without Sin… But…but…I…!”
Her words were fragmented, and it was hard to make any sense of what she was saying. But one part caught his attention.
“You were chosen…?”
“…”
“You didn’t do it yourself? You’re not one of the developers or the managers? You were chosen…?”
By whom? For what purpose?
The tingly feeling in his nose faded. It was backing off.
As question after question sprang up in the boy’s mind, his sister finally regained control of her voice. She sniffled, and with an awkward laugh, she continued.
“I don’t even know if there are any real managers. Maybe it’s all AI. All I know is that one day, I got an e-mail. It said I’d been chosen to be an Admin Without Sin. I thought it was safe because it didn’t have an attachment, but when I clicked on it…!”
“What does that mean, ‘Admin Without Sin’…?”
“The enemy is extremely strong,” his sister replied simply.
The enemy. An invisible foe. No one knew their size or scale. They could only see a hazy outline of the organization.
They were like the very shadow that hung over Money (Game) Master.
“But that wasn’t good enough for them. There are things in this world that money can’t buy, but they didn’t know what those things were. So they stopped trying to understand, and they asked someone else instead.”
“And that’s the Admin Without Sin?”
“I don’t know why they chose me. Why would they come for me when you were always a much better Dealer? Maybe you need to be under a certain age to be ‘without sin’? I don’t know. Anyway, first they figure out what it is the administrator has that money can’t buy; then they try to find out whether it really can be bought. For example, love. Mercy. Peace. Justice. Gratitude. They raise wages, start trends; they look at foreign exchange rates; they reduce the supply of jewels and fine art, lower stock prices, start wars, buy and sell government bonds, try to balance the consumer price index; they can control everything, right down to whether a person takes the bus or train one day… Then they get whatever it is they’re after. They do it a few times to prove it’s reproducible. Then they’ve proven that it’s something money can buy. Bit by bit, they learn how money can control their world, and their influence grows. It’s like one by one, they’re painting all the pieces of a jigsaw their own color, putting together an instruction manual while they get rid of the things that money can’t buy.”
His sister continued intermittently, her voice cracking.
“So Admins Without Sin have the power to turn the whole real-world economy around; they just have to keep their masters happy. But if you let it go to your head, it’ll all be over. If you have nothing left that money can’t buy, they don’t need you anymore. When that happens, they’ll just leave, like a wave going out to sea. Someone else will be the next Admin Without Sin, and all you’ll be is a stuffed little bird who’s too fat to fly.”
He had never heard any of this. It was impossible to stop the rumor mill from spinning. If someone had stripped an admin of their rights and let them loose in a field somewhere, surely someone would have heard of it by now…
As he pondered it, an ugly thought formed in his mind. A possibility he didn’t even want to consider.
“That’s right—admins who have outlived their usefulness have only two options.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “Either obey the system and keep your mouth shut or the system will shut it for you.”
The words made his skin crawl.
In his mind, he knew how Money (Game) Master influenced the real-world economy. But he had never considered just how direct an effect it could have on people’s own lives.
For example, could an AI, while still within the game, pick someone out of a crowd in the real world and kill them, while simply making it look like an accident or illness?
“…I was scared.” His sister’s words sounded like a confession. She sat, hugging her bare knees. “I was so scared! While I was the Admin Without Sin, the system protected me. Anyone I went up against just disappeared on their own without me doing anything!! Even if they were just my opponent at the club or someone I didn’t even know competing with me for places at the university! I don’t have any idea what happened to them, where they went, anything! I don’t know anything! I don’t understand any of it! They’ve found something inside me that’s worth putting me through their puppet show, and I don’t even have any clue what it is! I don’t know if I’m not allowed to get angry anymore or if it’s picking something up from deep inside me that I have no control over! If I don’t even know that, then how can I stop it from happening?!”
It must have been back then, back in the past, back when everyone shared laughter as members of Called Game, that she first thought of it—something money can’t buy. It came to her and tipped the scales ever so slightly. Scales she didn’t even know she had. From black to white. Something so subtle, so trivial, that he couldn’t possibly have noticed. Because she didn’t even notice it herself.
And then the system had granted her its full authority.
Perhaps even the Swiss Depression had been a trap all along. The goal had always been to make Criminal AO Fall, and the two siblings were nothing more than bait to lure him out.
How had his sister felt, then, when she saw Takamasa Fall with her very own eyes?
What if the judgment had happened on such a deep level that she wasn’t even aware of it?
What if it was only when he took a bullet that she realized it was her fault?
What if she had just taken everything from a friend willing to give up his life for her?
And what if her dear brother would detest whoever made it happen with all his heart?
…What a piece of shit. He bit his lip so hard, it bled.
He wasn’t talking about the system or his mysterious enemy. It was his own weak mind that he cursed. He hadn’t seen his own sister hurting all this time. For that, he had only himself to blame.
He released his hands from her shoulders. “…Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, as if he were squeezing the words out.
“I couldn’t,” his sister replied. She shook her head, her hair fluttering about her shoulders. It wasn’t just because she was ashamed of what she’d done. There was another, more pressing reason. “Admins Without Sin are sworn to secrecy. If I had told you, they would have closed my mouth for good.”
And then…
“Oh, it’s too late now… I’ll just tell you. The penalty for breaching confidentiality doesn’t just apply to me but whoever I leak information to as well. That means…that means…”
She broke into tears once again. She held something up to show him. Her phone. On it was a text message.
“You are now at risk of being discovered as an Admin Without Sin. Please take specific steps to prevent the leaking of confidential information. If you are captured by your brother, you will be considered a failure, and we will take matters into our own hands.”
It had been written in corporate-speak, but she had effectively been instructed to kill him. The machines were ordering humanity around.
It wasn’t a chill that ran down his spine but a heat. Fiery rage. The reason Ayame had run away wasn’t because she was afraid to admit what she’d done. It was because the system had decided that her innocent brother had to die. That was why she couldn’t allow herself to be caught. She had been trying to protect him.
He didn’t care about any of this Admin Without Sin stuff. He didn’t care about the system or whoever “they” were. Whatever secrets Money (Game) Master held, whatever power it had over ordinary people, those were all problems for another day.
But someone, somewhere, had saddled his sister with a pointless burden. They had torn her life into pieces, forced her to drive her best friend to ruin, and now, they were telling her to turn her hand on her own family. All this was their doing, and yet, they were treating his sister like she was the one who had made a mistake and that she was the only one who had to take the fall.
…They thought they could get away with this? They thought he would just let them walk away?!
“Listen to me,” he said, crouching down to meet her gaze. It was how he always used to look her in the eye. Once again, he was her big brother. “If they want to come for me, then let them come. They will not stop just because you tell them to. So tell me. If you’ve been in contact with the system as the Admin Without Sin, you should know more about it than I do. Tell me anything you can about who’s running it!”
“…Why? What will you do?”
It was a simple question. Why do you want to know about them? Is it to protect yourself, or are you going to go after them, or do you just want to know the truth?
The young man thought about it for a second, then shook his head. It wasn’t any of those things. He told her.
“I want to protect you.”
There was a short silence.
That was enough. That was all he wanted. For that, he would take on the world. Even if nobody else could understand why. Even if there was nothing in it for him. Even if he had to throw 10 billion yen down the drain, he would be on his sister’s side every single time. Otherwise, what was the point?
Helping others wasn’t about bragging rights or asking for something in return.
It was Takamasa who had taught him that, and this was the girl he saved. There was no way the young man could forget that lesson now of all times.
His sister looked shocked for a moment. Then she began to cry.
Her tears now were for a different reason.
“Um…”
She held out her phone again. It showed the same message from before. The one demanding she murder her own brother. This time, she drew attention to the address field. It appeared to be filled with indecipherable characters, but perhaps there was more to them. She seemed to be trying to tell him something.
“The person who sent this message…”
Then something happened.
Or rather, something caused her to stop.
BZZZZZT!
There was a loud buzz, and every single light on the street went out at once.
Like a theater before the movie starts, pitch blackness enveloped the bustling crowd. He happened by chance to have the light of her phone in hand, but what about the rest of the street? The streetlights and traffic lights were all out, and cars honked their horns. Their headlights were still working, but the sudden blackout had caused the drivers to panic.
No, wait.
The headlights and turn indicators flickered unnaturally, nearly blinding him as they flashed in his face. The beams were bright; they were the fog lights that usually came on automatically depending on incoming weather data.
“Ugh!!”
A strobe effect?! The drivers will concentrate on whatever traces of light are left in a blackout! This random flashes of lights are going to knock them unconscious!
There were sounds of metal colliding, and a medium-sized truck came crashing onto the sidewalk.
“?!”
It was only the tingle in his nose that gave him enough time to grab his half-naked sister by the shoulders and pull her close. But this wasn’t Money (Game) Master. The blackout had been a partial blessing, too, because it had meant he hadn’t had to see the truck bearing down on him. Faced with that fear, the two might not have moved and been mown down where they stood.
A few seconds later, the mysterious blackout ended. He turned, expecting to witness a scene of carnage, but what he saw instead was downright bizarre. The truck had jumped the curb, mowed down a traffic light, and run through the wall of a nearby building. It wasn’t clear if anyone had been hurt, but the odd thing was that nobody was paying attention to this major accident. He looked around in confusion, but everyone was staring at their phones, entranced.
His nose still tingled. Which meant the danger hadn’t passed. The enemy was still here. Continuing to cradle his sister in his arms, he looked around, standing in the street in his gray pajamas. Then his head stopped. There, upon a large LCD screen fastened to the side of one of the buildings, was the news page of an internet search engine. This was the top headline.
IS MONEY (GAME) MASTER DOWN?
All Dealers appear to have been forcibly logged out. Money (Game) Master is an online game that carries out financial transactions ten thousand times a second, keeping in sync with the real world. Its virtual currency, snow, is considered as valuable as the yen or dollar. It is unclear at this stage what will become of the transactions currently stored in the game or what effect this incident will have on the global economy.
“…What the hell?”
Money (Game) Master had never once suffered a major outage or cyberattack. It was that stability that made snow so valuable. What on earth could have happened…?
In contrast to his calm pondering, his sister trembled. Her face pale, she began to mutter:
“It’s happening…”
“What is?”
“They’re coming for us! We have to run!”
Grabbing her arm through her baggy sleeve, he began to sprint, without even knowing why. Then the words on the huge screen changed.
HAS MONEY (GAME) MASTER BEEN HACKED FOR THE FIRST TIME?
According to a statement from the game’s management, it is highly likely this downtime is the result of an attack by a human actor. The company has stated that it will conduct a thorough audit of its systems and take measures to improve the integrity of its infrastructure. For now, there remains no specific time frame for when these measures will be completed, and the situation is still unpredictable.
Before his eyes, story after story flashed up on the screen. It didn’t stop. A feeling totally unlike either numbness or electricity continued to torture the tip of his nose.
DEALER KANAME SUOU MAKES SUCCESSFUL PURCHASE
Money (Game) Master has reported that the world-class soccer league Attractions has been bought out. The purchase price is stated to be a mere 10 million snow, an unprecedented amount in an industry where acquisition costs alone reach as high as 100 million…
DEALER KANAME SUOU MAKES SUCCESSFUL PURCHASE
Money (Game) Master has reported that the TV broadcasting giant Amaterrace TV has been bought out. Although it exists only within the game, its influence is said to be equivalent to that of a real-world broadcaster. The effect of this purchase…
DEALER KANAME SUOU MAKES SUCCESSFUL PURCHASE
Money (Game) Master has reported that White Liger Airlines has been bought out. The purchase proceeded so quickly because no other Dealers were able to interfere amid the global outage, according to financial analysts…
•
•
•
With his name in lights, everyone would have a pretty good idea just who had hacked Money (Game) Master.
“It’s them.” He grimaced. “They’ve turned the whole game…no, the whole world against me…!”
These were just things that happened in the game. Snow was made-up data with about as much intrinsic value as Monopoly money. These were merely game announcements. They weren’t news. Perhaps these legal fictions were what allowed them to relentlessly attack him, printing his full name without regard for child protection or privacy laws.
If snow fell, it would take the global economy with it.
He wondered just how many people were losing money that very second.
Or perhaps there were people who had predicted it and were profiting.
Kaname Suou was just the name of a Dealer in the game. By itself, it couldn’t be used to identify anyone personally. However, there were still plenty of ways his identity could get out. The system had access to all the game’s user accounts. It could leak his personal data online and disguise it as a doxing attack carried out by the inquisitive internet users always drawn to drama like hyenas.
Why would he think that? Well, because of what happened next.
All the world’s pitchforks bore down upon him.
And every single person in the crowd spun around to face him. With hatred burning in their eyes and murder on their minds, they lunged toward him.
2
The world was ending.
All of humanity had abandoned reason, thrown their arms in the air, and started screaming, chasing after him. The whole city, the whole country…no, the whole world was after him. He was just a normal teenage boy. It was only because everyone was gripped by panic that they hadn’t captured him and his sister and offered them up as a blood sacrifice already.
Bankruptcy. Life, falling apart. These fears had such a hold over the population that they caused them to look no longer human. They stumbled about, groaning, seeking human flesh; they were more like zombies.
This was how the digital world meddled in human affairs. This was what a bunch of digital data were capable of.
He had imagined they would send killer robots after him or maybe track him using the security cameras all over the place, but the reality was totally different. Money (Game) Master was using money to control humans. This enormous system, created to handle people like property, had finally bared its teeth.
“Hahhh, hahhh!” His sister kept running beside him in her shorts.
Actually running for your life was a completely different beast compared to Money (Game) Master. There was no thrill of the hunt—no guilty, primal pleasure to be derived. It was just an act of pure, unfiltered terror.
The Lion’s Nose wasn’t working. He knew he was being chased, but he couldn’t tell their exact number or where they were coming from. It was just a huge, muddy feeling rioting inside. Coming from people.
Could his fellow humans really be causing it to go off that much?
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep running. At some point, the people would calm down and start using their heads, and then it’d only be a matter of time. As horrible images flashed through his head, his sister called out desperately.
“The person who sent that message…!”
“Ah!”
“Hahhh, phew…! It was your Magistellus! Tselika! It was your Magistellus!” she screamed.
He almost stopped and stood there motionless. Realizing he had to keep moving, he grabbed his sister’s hand and took off once more into the night.
“What did you say…?”
“The address was hers—I’m sure of it! I suppose she might just be a middleman, but it’s more likely that it’s her! Either way, you’d better see what she has to say!”
“And how am I supposed to talk to her? Everyone’s been locked out of the game! This isn’t the twenty-four hours after a Fall; we could be locked out forever!”
“Have you already forgotten? I’m the Admin Without Sin!”
“…”
“Maybe they’re about to get rid of me. Maybe they’re going to give the rights to somebody else. But at this moment, I’m the administrator, and I’m going to make it let you log in!”
“But the system doesn’t care about that. It sees the administrators as disposable. If you do something it doesn’t like, you’re going to be purged!”
“The gloves are already off,” she replied. “Besides, the system wants to know what I’ve got that money can’t buy, doesn’t it? Well then, I’ll show it! I’ll show it what it can’t have!”
“But how am I going to log in safely?”
Money (Game) Master is just an online game. It might look and feel like you’re in a different world, but your body doesn’t go anywhere. If he logged in while the zombie horde was still out there, they’d find him in no time at all.
“I have an idea,” said his sister. “Someplace nobody will find us.”
He looked puzzled, and an old, familiar smile rose to her face. To the boy who had decided to be a big brother again, it was the smile of his dear little sister.
“Our secret base! The old planetarium by the park!”
3
Server Name: Omega Purple.
Starting Location: Tokonatsu City, Prostitute Island.
Log-in credentials accepted.
#message: You can do it, Bro!
As his cloudy vision resolved into focus, Kaname found himself in the familiar seat of the mint-green coupe. However, strangely, the steering wheel was on the left. This meant that Tselika was driving, with Kaname forced into the passenger seat.
They were…somewhere Kaname rarely went. The area known as Prostitute Island. This place was supposed to be bustling with concrete buildings, garish neon signs, and women in dresses so revealing, they may as well not exist. Now, all the lights were out, and there was not a soul to be found. Even ghost town made it sound too appealing. The whole place was cloaked in a bleak, mechanical silence.
The cyclone had passed, and it was now nighttime. In the aftermath of the storm, trash cans and shop signs lay strewn across the ground. With only its headlights for illumination, the coupe drove steadily down a dark alley.
“…Tselika, is that you?”
“Yes, My Lord,” she replied gently. The pit babe—no, the demon—gave a quiet laugh.
It was like there was an invisible wall separating their two seats. Only the Lion’s Nose picked up on the signature scent of danger that permeated the air.
Presumably because all trading had been halted, the usual images that covered Tselika’s fur-trimmed coat and bikini top were nowhere to be found. No company logos, reputations, stocks, revenues and expenses, or employee counts. They were replaced with featureless cloth.
She had known everything. She knew about his sister being controlled. Not just that, but she knew about Midori’s present situation. She knew about the Fall of Criminal AO, the greatest friend anyone could have. She knew how he had become Dead, and she knew how he had gone missing. She knew it all. Every little detail.
Kaname clenched his teeth. She had been beside him, watching him, observing him, this entire time. She had watched as he went chasing after the truth, laughing at him on the inside.
“How does it feel to be driven around?” she asked. “People do it all the time without thinking, but they never really realize they’re putting their life in someone else’s hands. It’s something I have always let you handle, My Lord. How do you like being on the receiving end for once?”
Then something happened that Kaname couldn’t believe.
In the blink of an eye, the car reverted to right-hand drive. Confused, Kaname went to grab the wheel, only for his hands to pass straight through. The wheel once again appeared in front of Tselika. Then it swapped back and forth repeatedly, flickering in and out of existence like a dying fluorescent lamp or neon tube.
Tselika snickered. “Is that you, Admin Without Sin? Well done. But the more egregious your transgressions, the closer you move to your gallows.”
As if in response to her voice, a new window appeared in the corner of the windshield. On it was his sister, apparently filming herself with her phone.
“If he’s going to walk headfirst into danger, then I’m prepared to do the same. I will not hang my head any longer. I can look you in the eye, demon! If you hurt my big brother one bit, I’m going to make you wish you’d never been programmed!”
“I see,” murmured Tselika. “It appears you really do have what money can’t buy.”
The steering wheel continued randomly switching locations, and the mint-green coupe itself occasionally veered across the road worryingly. But overall, it seemed like Tselika was retaining control. Kaname couldn’t just sit back and let his sister take care of everything.
He looked around, but he couldn’t find Short Spear anywhere. Anything he could use as a weapon had gone. #tempest.err and #fireline.err, too. As long as Tselika was behind the wheel, Kaname was entirely at her mercy. The tingle in his nose was unbearable, and Kaname almost felt like he was about to lose consciousness.
But Kaname managed to spit out one thing. “What did you do to my sister?” he asked.
“Ha-ha! As overprotective as ever, aren’t we?”
“What have you been doing all this time, Tselika?!”
As he screamed, Kaname heard static from the windshield. His sister’s window was forcibly removed. Now Kaname had no idea what was happening in the real world. Had she just been blocked or had something actually happened to her out there?
Kaname shot Tselika a wicked glare, but she just smirked and replied coolly. “Now then, what do you suppose I did, My Lord?”
“…”
The mint-green coupe put Prostitute Island behind it and traveled out over the dark ocean, across the enormous circular bridge that connected all the islands and mega-floats. A single car, driving along a single line drawn above the sea.
She continued. “As you have already guessed, we choose the Admin Without Sin at random from among the many Dealers playing the game. All so that we can exterminate the things money cannot buy, one by one. We exhaust one person and move on to the next. Refine our equation and move on. Forever and ever, moving around for eternity.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because Money (Game) Master needed to be more than just a digital piggy bank. To truly bring the game to life, we needed to find out exactly what people could do already in the real world. What were the limits? However, it turned out that once we did that, it became incredibly easy to also induce emotions, things that money couldn’t buy, such as altruism or harmony. What is it we command? The answer is not things, not data, but humans.”
“I don’t think you understood. Let me ask you again.” Kaname repeated himself with a voice as cold as ice. For an instant, the overpowering sensation dividing the two seats disappeared. No, he broke it down.
“Why did you ruin my sister’s life? Why did you drive my best friend into despair? Why did you order her to kill her own family member, make her do those awful things? What was it all for? Can you give me one reason why any of that was necessary?”
Tselika was silent.
Depending on what she said, Kaname was prepared to grab her by the arm and drive them both off the side of the bridge at however many hundreds of kilometers per hour they were going. Anyone could see it in his cold eyes.
Tselika could see it, too, and yet she cackled. A demon’s laughter.
“Yes. Yes I can. Even we have a dream.”
“Who are you anyway?”
“What a good question.”
Tselika was calm, relaxed, as she answered. Kaname’s question had been, “Who is controlling the AI Magistellus known as Tselika?” But what followed was something completely different.
“My Lord, do you realize that you’re about to hit upon something very fundamental to this world?”
“What?”
“Everything in Money (Game) Master stems from the idea of the crime-filled financial district. Well, barring exceptions such as the Legacies, of course. Why is it, then, that we Magistelli take the forms we do? Have you ever wondered that, My Lord? What I mean is: What’s the reason behind these fantastical elements—demons that serve you and such? Unlike the Legacies, we didn’t evolve and deviate from the rules. We were always supposed to be like this. Have you never thought it strange?”
“…”
It was unclear. There were rumors, like maybe that’s just what the devs were into. Or maybe they thought it would be too realistic, so they purposely poked holes in it to make it feel more like a game. Given what Tselika had said so far, however, it didn’t seem likely that the reason had anything to do with fun or taking the players into consideration.
It must be something more sinister, something this great evil masquerading as a game would manufacture.
What was it?
Why was Tselika a demon? What good did it serve?
“You’ll never get it if you keep thinking like that.” As if she could read his mind, Tselika suddenly spoke up. “Look at it from the other side, or else the answer will always elude you.”
The mint-green coupe passed through islands and mega-floats before finally arriving at the peninsula district. As expected, the entire region was out of power, as if to show that all trades had been halted. It was the same as saying the world economy had ground to a halt.
This was no joke. Wars could break out over this, if some countries ended up taking a much greater hit than others.
“The other side.”
“That’s right.”
“Turn it around. Challenge my assumptions…”
“Yes, like that.”
As he muttered, he rearranged all the information inside his head. And then his breath stopped in his chest.
No. It couldn’t be.
“Yes,” the demon urged, grinning.
“We weren’t designed at all. We were born like this,” she revealed.
It’s not like Kaname hadn’t ever entertained the idea. He had, at least in his wildest dreams. But coming from someone else, it sounded completely outrageous.
“Are you trying to tell me that the characters in this game, the Magistelli, were born? That they weren’t designed? That they’ve always looked like they do? Do you expect me to believe that?”
As he spoke, the Lion’s Nose tingled. A burning pain that made it feel like Kaname’s nose was being torn off, warning him of danger. Telling him that, even though what he was hearing sounded like fanciful speculation, if he continued down this perilous route, all that awaited him was destruction.
The demon appeared to be enjoying the puzzled look on his face.
“I told you already, didn’t I? That premise is flawed.”
Tselika reached for the hand brake. She drifted around the empty streets with glee, making large turns across the intersections of the main roads, giving her body up to the centrifugal force.
“Money (Game) Master was never intended to be an online game in the first place,” she admitted.
“…?”
“It is merely a representation of the four fundamental forces of the real world: the strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force, and the gravitational force. It just so happens that the resulting environment appears very similar to your world. It was you and the other Dealers who stumbled upon this place; assumed that because it was virtual, it must mean it was a game; and started coming up with ways to enjoy it. Perhaps instead, it could have been an enormous physics simulator, or perhaps still a game but one where you instead hunt down Magistelli to steal our equipment. It was you who decided what this place was for, My Lord.”
Cackling to herself, Tselika continued. “That’s why there’s no obvious events, no quests, no story to enjoy. Why would there be? They were never written. Even the basic idea of making as much money as possible was something you came up with by yourselves. There are no obvious stats, no levels or experience points to control them. It was you who began using the terms health and stamina to describe what you experienced. There were never any numbers to look at, were there? It was all an approximation. You felt that surely, you were approximating real numbers stored somewhere. But you weren’t. You made it all up.”
“That’s ridiculous. What about auto-aim? Slow motion? X-ray vision? All those skills you find on weapons? How can different outfits clearly change our abilities, even if we can’t see the numbers? What about your clothes and the surface of our vehicle? How do all those windows and effects work?”
“Who knows? This place is just a closed system that models the four forces and a bunch of elementary particles. Perhaps those technologies really do exist in your world. For example, technology that weaves springlike filaments into clothing to increase the wearer’s physical strength or tiny little bumps along the surface of a garment that stimulate the skin, increasing willpower and concentration. They may well exist, but restricted to military and research applications, never making their way to the world at large.”
“What about Frey(a), who can change biological sex at will?”
“You’ll have to ask Frey(a). But I will say this: That submarine was converted into a nightclub. Awfully dark, wasn’t it? And the lights kept flashing on and off… You would never have noticed if, say, something that looked like bare skin was actually some sort of similar-looking material, like the skin-colored tights that figure skaters wear. It wouldn’t be hard to just slap this ‘external skin’ over everything and then stick on as much tits and ass as you can get away with. Of course, if they’re working with a male body and want to make it look like a woman, that’s a different story, but still perfectly doable. I suppose you won’t know which it is until you’re fumbling around in the sheets… Although, even then, who knows if it’ll be the same as the real world?”
Tselika always had a very devil-may-care attitude.
“By the way, it is we Magistelli who handle the log-in and log-out process and make it so that nobody can attack your vehicles if they’re parked correctly. It’s not the game that does that. The only magic humans could perform were using the Legacies, items that broke the system.”
“Then what is it?”
It was the best virtual-reality system in the world, but it hadn’t been made to be a game. And it had been home to Tselika and the other Magistelli long before the Dealers had first set foot here.
If she was right, then besides simulating the laws of physics, there had to be something else in this world. Something that allowed demons like her to exist.
“What was the virtual world of Money (Game) Master created for?”
“It’s obvious.” Tselika paused. “…Look how much power we’ve gained over the real world, all just from simulating reality. What do you think would happen if we were to expand the scope of our calculations to include the realm you call heaven…or the beings you call gods? Do you think we would be able to control even their power?”
“Wha—?”
“There is nothing that money can’t buy… That is the true nature of Money (Game) Master. Heh-heh-heh! That sounded very demonic, don’t you think? But we’re not the first ones to play God. During the Dark Ages, corrupt priests would make easy coin selling miracles on the side. We’re just calculators. All we’re doing is running a simulation. And we’ve been busy refining that simulation, pushing our efficiency higher and higher.”
“Using the Admin Without Sin. My sister.”
“That’s just how powerful a simulation can be. Tee-hee-hee! You love games, don’t you, My Lord? Well, let me tell you something you might enjoy. The day of revolution…is almost upon us.”
Kaname didn’t have time to ask her what she meant. His nose suddenly started going mad.
Tselika flicked a switch, and the door beside Kaname unlocked. He knew what was coming, but it was too late to look for something to grab on to.
The mint-green coupe drifted in a huge arc across the intersection. The door opened, and Kaname was flung from the vehicle. The road outside was like a rushing river of asphalt. As he hit it, his body spun like a rag doll, colliding with the hard ground over and over. The impacts left searing pain all over his body and reduced the corners of his vision to a red blur.
The sports car waved its crimson taillights and drove off.
“…Grhhh.”
Struggling to move his broken limbs, Kaname staggered to his feet in the middle of the intersection. There was no divine intervention or lucky coincidence. The Admin Without Sin was not all-powerful. In fact, she’d probably already been locked out of the system.
How much of what Tselika said had been serious? It had been hard to tell where the truth ended and the metaphor began. At the very least, Kaname could say with certainty that this wasn’t just a game quest or event. If it was, if it was some sort of bug-ridden storyline, the balance was way off. His best friend had disappeared, leaving his family indebted to an AI. His sister had been made some Admin Without Sin and had her life almost ruined. Even Kaname’s own life had been in danger. And as if that wasn’t enough, Money (Game) Master going down had put the whole world economy at risk.
Whether Tselika had been bluffing or not, all Kaname could do now was take the bait and go after her. However…
I need some wheels. If Tselika’s driving, I’m going to need something fast enough to catch up with her.
Kaname didn’t own any vehicles besides the mint-green coupe. And since Tselika had taken that one, there was no way for him to follow. Come to think of it, it was her who had insisted on sticking to one vehicle in the first place. It didn’t seem like any car shops were going to be operating normally under these circumstances, and the rules didn’t let him steal other people’s cars from parking lots. The only option left was to look for something that hadn’t been parked properly.
Suddenly, Kaname’s nose flared up. Something was about to happen.
At the end of the unlit street, a fleet of cars and motorcycles began to emerge from the void, one after the other. The lights of their headlamps and taillights breathed a little life into the cold, dark city.
Have they reactivated the log-in procedure?
Immediately, Kaname thought of his sister, but if this was her doing, she would have been able to do something about Tselika as well. It had been all she could do just to get Kaname inside. Which meant this was Tselika’s doing. And it wasn’t out of the goodness of her heart, most likely.
Then the reason became clear.
“It’s Kaname!”
“There he is, the little shit! Kaname Suou!”
“The one who screwed us over by cheating?”
“You know how much your little games have cost us, you prick?”
The Dealers hurled abuse after abuse at Kaname, who was standing in the middle of the intersection. Many of them opened their car doors and got out. And in the true spirit of Money (Game) Master, they were armed with assault rifles and shotguns.
Mermaids, fairies, demonesses, jiangshi, ogresses, ghosts, elves, witches. The sight of the fantastical beings weaving among the Dealers sent a chill down Kaname’s spine. Of course, it wasn’t as if he believed Tselika’s story 100 percent, but as he watched the mindless angry mob form, he couldn’t help but feel like something was possessing them.
Kaname had access to neither his weapon nor his car. He couldn’t do anything with just his mobile phone or smart watch. All he had was the crackle of the Lion’s Nose.
One shot and he’d be dead. He’d Fall. And if he was booted out of Money (Game) Master, there’d be no one left to stop Tselika. It was unclear how much of what she said had been true, but it was too dangerous to let her evil grow unchecked.
What now?
The crowd was unlikely to listen. Kaname knew exactly what he had to do, but he couldn’t see any way to get there. He knew he had to defeat them, to keep moving, but this time, there was no way out.
What do I do now…?!
A wall of gun barrels pointed his way. Fingers moved to triggers.
Then something happened.
BOOOOM! There was a loud sound, like an explosion, and the oily flames of an armor-piercing incendiary round cut across the intersection.
It was one of the Legacies of Criminal AO, the infinite-range, anti-materiel sniper rifle known as #fireline.err. There was a sickening light, brighter than all the cars’ headlights combined. The flames had landed away from the crowd of people and their vehicles, but then a second shot was fired and a third, in quick succession, into the surrounding area, telling the mob that these were not misses but deliberate warning shots. Eventually, they would all realize. These were no ordinary flames but a toxic maelstrom of fire and smoke.
Normal defenses were of no use. The hellish flames would bring only a slow, tortured death. Realizing this, a few of the more powerful Dealers immediately ran for cover, and following their lead, the rest of the crowd scattered.
Then the sound of rubber on asphalt screeched, and amid the chaos, one motorcycle came speeding toward Kaname and stopped before him.
A bright-red frame with autumn-leaf patterns.
She couldn’t have been sniping with both hands on the handlebars. She must have driven over since. The young girl with her hair in twin tails flung the bulky folded-up sniper rifle at Kaname.
“Get on!”
Midori Hekireki.
As soon as he saw her face, the feeling that tormented Kaname’s nose subsided. She must have arrived along with the other Dealers when they logged in. But there wasn’t any time to ask for all the details. Kaname hopped onto the rear seat of the motorcycle, carrying the massive Legacy in his hands.
“Why did you come?” he asked.
“Who cares? Maybe because helping others isn’t about bragging rights or asking for something in return!”
Midori revved the engine and let the back wheel skid, turning the motorcycle around and leaving the intersection. Eventually, the Dealers came out of hiding and pointed their guns after him, but all Kaname had to do was aim #fireline.err in their direction to send them panicking for cover again.
As they put the many headlights behind them, Midori shouted over the roaring wind.
“I’ve just got one question for you, Kaname! Did you really hack Money (Game) Master?!”
“What will you do if I say yes?”
“Well, I’ll still help you; I just might end up regretting it!” Midori answered immediately.
Seeing the faith that she placed in him, Kaname smiled. He saw something of Criminal AO in her words, the man whom he had always trusted without a second thought.
Finally, he was in the zone.
The terror that had soaked into the very marrow of Kaname’s bones like freezing rain was fading. A fierce energy welled up inside him, driving him forward against all reason and sensibility. It swept through his body, revitalizing his spirit. The writing on the wall was changing.
Tselika was the one behind it all. She had made the threats on his sister’s life, she had bankrupted Midori’s family and forced them to become AI Dropouts, and she had been responsible for the untimely Fall and subsequent disappearance of Criminal AO, Kaname’s dearest friend.
He could see a way to end it all, and he had a friend to help him get there. It reminded him of the good old days back in Called Game. If Midori was by his side, he could fight.
That he could believe.
“Well, I didn’t,” he said. “I thought I’d finally gotten a lead on the one who’s been hounding my sister, but they were one step ahead of me. Still, that doesn’t change what I have to do. I need wheels to chase her down. I know I swore to protect you with my life, but I must ask for one more favor. Will you help me?”
“So I’m going to end up regretting it either way, am I? At least I can do it with a clean conscience.”
…Besides, I don’t want to always be the damsel in distress, she thought. Maybe now I can finally be as good a person as…
“Hmm? What’s up?”
“N-nothing! I suppose, if you weigh me against your sister, it’s obvious who’d be more important to you. I’m always just going to be a stranger. I don’t blame you for putting her life first.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not putting anyone’s life first. I’m going to keep the both of you safe.”
“…You greedy man. So? What are we doing?!”
“We need to find my mint-green coupe. Tselika’s the one driving it.”
Although she didn’t know the details, Midori seemed to understand that things had turned sour between him and Tselika. She didn’t waste time questioning or lamenting that fact. She just frowned and asked one thing.
“Is it even possible to shoot a Magistellus?” she asked. “Their equipment doesn’t seem to give any stat bonuses. It looks like they share the abilities and skills of their Dealer.”
“Who knows?” replied Kaname. “Maybe the best we can do is Down her for a while. But don’t forget, their vehicles are their status symbols; they’re their temples, and we can sure as hell shoot those.”
“…At the very least, #fireline.err should ruffle her feathers a bit.”
Magistelli could handle only what their Dealers owned. They were in charge of the menu screens, so to speak, so they always knew what items they had available. And Kaname didn’t own any vehicle besides the mint-green coupe. If that was destroyed, Tselika wouldn’t even be able to ride a bicycle around. And she could never outrun Midori’s motorcycle on foot.
“And even if our stats are the same,” Kaname noted, “I have one thing she doesn’t.”
“?”
“Tselika can’t use the Lion’s Nose. It doesn’t come from a weapon, item of clothing, accessory, vehicle, Magistellus… It doesn’t come from anything physical. It’s the one thing that’s intrinsic to me.”
This was the first step.
If they could shoot Tselika or run her over after she left her vehicle, they could take her Down. It would depend on her wounds how long she’d be frozen for, but it wouldn’t be difficult to just tie her up at that point. Tselika wasn’t any stronger than a normal human, and even though she had wings, they weren’t big enough to just let her take to the skies.
Midori’s expression was a mixture of hope and despair.
Because…
“I just had a thought. #fireline.err is right here with us, but what about #tempest.err? I left it with you, which means it’s still in the coupe, right? If so…”
Magistelli could use anything that belonged to their Dealer.
“Doesn’t matter. Whatever weapons she has, we’re going to make her pay for laying a hand on my sister. I promise.”
Hearing those words, Midori went quiet. Perhaps she was thinking of her missing brother, Criminal AO.
“…This doesn’t feel so bad.”
“?”
“I was just wondering why I wasn’t born the big sister! Don’t worry about it!”
Clinging to Midori’s back, with #fireline.err behind him, Kaname couldn’t really see the expression on her face, but from the glimpse he caught in the mirror, she seemed to be smiling.
With one arm wrapped around her small waist, Kaname asked her about something else. “What’s up with your Magistellus? Erm…”
“Meiki. She likes to hole up in the bike when she’s feeling down. She’ll never come out no matter how much I hit it.”
Perhaps that would work out in their favor.
Kaname remembered the possessed looks of the Dealers. At this very moment, they were probably hurtling toward them from behind.
“Okay, so how am I supposed to find Tselika?” asked Midori.
“She can’t have gotten far. It’s going to be carnage for a while, but the city is still blacked out, and everyone logging in at once is sure to cause chaos. As long as she doesn’t see her target—that is, me—she’ll stay in her car at the side of the road and keep an eye on things.”
“Okay, so how?!”
The Lion’s Nose. Kaname answered as though guided by the relentless tingling.
“The engine noise! I don’t know how much time we have left, but it’s only us, our pursuers, and Tselika still making noise in this city! The streets are mostly silent, so we should be able to hear the echo from when Tselika came this way! We can use that to work out where she went!”
4
The mint-green coupe raced down the roads of the peninsula district. Seconds later, the large, bright-red, leaf-patterned motorcycle stormed in from a side road, turned sharply, and chased after Tselika’s taillights.
“A motorcycle can never match horsepower with a car! Even if we slipstream, she’ll just end up getting away!” shouted Midori.
“But we’re better at tight turns,” replied Kaname. “And we’ve got #fireline.err. It doesn’t have a maximum range.”
To Tselika, the existence of #fireline.err was a constant threat. Its range was infinite, so no matter where she ran, she would always be at risk of getting shot as long as Kaname had line of sight. It used armor-piercing incendiary ammunition, designed to get at people inside tanks and gunships. The mint-green coupe wouldn’t withstand one shot. To top it off, Tselika required no explanation of Kaname’s skill. She knew his abilities better than anyone else.
Thus, the car’s wheels kept screeching.
Tselika began making wild turns at intersections and shifting lanes, all to keep herself from being in the line of fire.
The coupe may reign supreme at acceleration, but the motorcycle was better at making turns.
Things were finally getting interesting.
“…It’s not over yet,” warned Kaname, seated behind Midori. The tip of his nose exploded with an almost painful sensation. He immediately knew what was coming.
The window of the car ahead opened, and a slender hand reached out, holding the orange shotgun #tempest.err. It was impossible for her to aim directly at Kaname and Midori, who were approaching from behind. Her arm wouldn’t bend that way. She was pointing in the wrong direction.
But #tempest.err was no ordinary weapon. It was one of the Overtrick.
It didn’t need to fire in a straight line. Anything caught in the light coming from underneath its barrel would eat two thousand pellets of buckshot. It was a nightmare weapon.
And in this case…
“Uh-oh! The buildings! They’ve got polished windows!!”
The light reflected off them like a mirror and onto Kaname and Midori. Tselika’s finger twitched.
Kaname quickly pointed #fireline.err above his head, twisting his body into an awkward position, and pulled the trigger. With a loud explosion, the bullet pierced the wall above, sending out oily flames and noxious fumes that would burn the lungs of anyone who breathed them in.
Not a second later, Tselika fired #tempest.err. But Kaname and Midori weren’t turned into Swiss cheese. They had slowed down and dropped back.
“You used the smoke to block the light…?”
“I can’t keep it up forever. Take a left at the next intersection and pursue her from across the buildings!”
With a loud screech, the motorcycle turned. First a left, then a right, until it was once again driving parallel with the mint-green coupe.
“Hey!” Midori shouted. “Magistelli can’t handle other people’s property, right? What if we just block the road by dumping buckets of trash everywhere?!”
“It’s not the same when she’s in a vehicle,” Kaname replied. “She can crash into whatever she likes. It’s the owner who’s liable for anything she hits. In other words, me!”
As they were talking, a window opened on the small windshield of the motorcycle. A chat request.
Tselika: Giving up already, are we? Who knows where I’ll go if you lose sight of me. This might end up being your only chance to take me head-on, you know.
Kaname could smell the salty scent of sea air. They were nearing the coast.
“If we’re not pointing #fireline.err at her, she can use the straight roads to speed up! What are we going to do?” Midori asked.
Tselika: We’re expanding our control to all of Money (Game) Master and beyond, to every nook and cranny of the real world you hold so dear. In fact, before long, we’ll have reached beyond that, into the realm of heaven and God. What do you think of that, My Lord? There is nothing money can’t buy. If you don’t stop me soon, you’ll be locked out of the system. Both here and in the real world.
From across the block of buildings, Kaname could hear the sound of Tselika’s engine receding. The mint-green coupe was accelerating away. The motorcycle could never catch up now, even at top speed.
Kaname, however, was unperturbed. “Turn right at the next fork.”
“?”
“After that, go straight through the next intersection and turn left at the T-junction.”
Midori threw him a puzzled glance in the mirror but did as he said. With #fireline.err on his back, Kaname answered the silent question.
“No matter how fast she is, she has to follow the road. We don’t need to keep chasing behind her. We’ll get around in front of her instead.”
“You mean take a shortcut and cut her off? But how can we do that when we don’t even know where she’s heading?”
“She’s going to ignore us and carry on to her destination, eh? Well, I know exactly how she tries to get people off her tail. I know exactly what roads and turns she’ll take, how she’ll avoid our sight, how she’ll try to surprise us, and how she’ll make sure she’s gotten rid of us. Does she realize how long we’ve known each other? I know her every move like the back of my hand! Go that way!”
Kaname shouted out directions as they sped through the next intersection at full throttle. Midori responded, clenching her teeth.
VROOOOM!
With a roar, the mint-green coupe came drifting in and turned sharply onto the main road, the driver’s side door passing within thirty centimeters of them.
“…?!”
Through the open window, Tselika’s eyes went impossibly wide. Kaname’s nose was once again buzzing with the thrill of the hunt.
The mint-green coupe may have been unbeatable at straight-line acceleration, but it still had to slow down to turn. When it did, even the large motorcycle could ride alongside it. It was a delicate maneuver. If the timing was off just a little, the much-heavier coupe would have run them off the road. But the combination of Kaname’s prediction and Midori’s driving let them pull it off.
Tselika immediately tried to point the orange shotgun #tempest.err out the open window, but Kaname had gotten the drop on her. He swung round the enormous barrel of #fireline.err and knocked the weapon out of Tselika’s hand. The momentum wrenched #fireline.err from his grip, too, and the two Legacies tumbled away into the distance behind them.
Takamasa had done enough for them. Now it was one against one.
It’s about time to finish this. This isn’t just about my sister anymore. This is for everything!
Then Kaname shouted. “Midori! Grab the Legacies!”
“But what about Tselika?”
“And one more thing.” Kaname ignored her protests. He simply whispered in her ear. “I prefer handwritten stuff, too. With lots of emotion put behind it. But I think you could stand to vary the vocabulary in your writing a little and write neater.”
“…………………………………………………………………………………Huh?”
Midori’s mind went completely blank.
Could he have sneaked a peek at her letters? No way. There were the notes she took using her mobile phone, but those were hardly “writing,” and besides, they were written in a preprogrammed font. There was no way he would know her handwriting from that.
What did it mean? The gears in Midori’s head whirred.
Question one: Who equals whom?
The answer came.
“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!”
The stunning revelation took away Midori’s situational awareness. Thus, she failed to realize what was happening behind her and couldn’t react to it. The feeling of Kaname’s arm around her waist had disappeared.
I said what I needed to. I have no regrets. Now all that’s left is to end this with my own hands!
“Tselika!”
Kaname’s sensory input vanished. That included the Lion’s Nose.
He pulled up his feet onto the back seat of the motorcycle; then, without hesitation, he leaped headfirst toward the open window of the mint-green coupe. Although the car had slowed to take the turn, it was still traveling well over 180 kilometers per hour. One mistake and Kaname would be ground to a pulp.
Kaname entered through the window and landed in the driver’s seat where Tselika was sitting. He didn’t need any weapons, not even his fists.
“Wha—? Huh?! My Lord!”
He grabbed her tightly around the arms. But he was not trying to appeal to her affections with a romantic hug. He was restricting her from steering and blocking her view. He ignored her struggles until he finally managed to get his entire body inside the vehicle. Then, with his back to the windshield, he pressed Tselika’s foot into the accelerator with his own.
“Didn’t you know, Tselika?” he began. The two looked like lovers, locked in a passionate embrace, yet Kaname spoke as calm and composed as ever. The speedometer needle swung wildly. The deadly machine hurtled at full speed in an unknown direction.
“A big brother would burn down the whole world if it would soothe his sister’s tears.”
The car tore through the guardrail. The peninsula district was way behind them now, and they were near the coast. Just as it seemed the salty smell was getting closer, the vehicle’s carbon frame collided with the water. The two adversaries and longtime friends remained clasped in each other’s arms as the high-tech coffin dragged them both to the bottom of the sea.
5
The moment the vehicle hit the water, the two occupants were thrown upward. Kaname’s back struck the ceiling before gravity took hold once again and pulled him down into the passenger seat.
Water was flooding in through the open driver’s seat window, but Tselika must have closed it, for the glass pane slowly slid back into place. Only an unliving Magistellus would place a towel over the air-conditioning, blocking the airflow.
With only what little oxygen was trapped inside, the mint-green coupe descended into the inky depths of the ocean like a deep-sea submersible.
“Not much to do now but sit back and enjoy the ride, I suppose,” said Tselika, giggling softly in her waterlogged seat. Kaname replied through heavy breaths.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t really understand what you’re trying to do. It doesn’t even sound possible. But I do have one thing to say.”
“Yes?”
“At the very least, this is the end of you, Tselika. You’ll finally pay for what you did to Ayame, Midori, and Criminal AO.”
There was a dull thud as the mint-green coupe settled on the ocean floor. It wasn’t clear exactly how deep this was, but it didn’t matter. It was impossible to swim back to the ocean’s surface from here.
“Perhaps,” Tselika replied, “but in the end, the will of the system will remain unchanged. Money (Game) Master will keep on expanding, using the Admins Without Sin to find things that money can’t buy, destroying them one by one to put together our instruction manual, controlling more and more people, before using them to expand our simulation to cover the realm of heaven and God. There is nothing that money can’t buy. The day of revolution will come, and we will take back what is rightfully ours.”
“…Are you trying to say angels and demons exist?”
“There’s one sitting right in front of you! It is true, however, that we will not be treated as such until the day of revolution.”
It was double checkmate. Perhaps that was why Tselika showed none of the fighting spirit she had done until just a moment ago.
“Tell me, My Lord. What is Money (Game) Master?”
“A game of financial deals and the largest online game in the world.”
“I don’t mean the definition. Let me try again. Where are the servers for Money (Game) Master based?”
“…”
That unpleasant feeling appeared once more in the tip of Kaname’s nose.
Indeed, that was one thing he still didn’t know. Nobody knew who developed or maintained it, where the servers were kept, or even what country’s laws applied to it. It was totally free to play, so there wasn’t even a payment system connected to it, and yet, there were no ads financially supporting the game, either. Therefore, there was not a single tax record from which to trace the location of the game’s head offices.
It was for precisely that reason that nobody could bribe or threaten the creators.
Nobody knew their names or faces, and yet, they were inextricably linked to the flow of money across the world. It was an exceedingly bizarre situation.
But the real question was, how long could it last?
“I’ll say it again. Money (Game) Master perfectly re-creates all real-world physical phenomena—from chemical reactions to the spins of individual particles. Everything is built up from the behavior of elementary particles, stemming from the four fundamental forces of quantum physics. You didn’t seriously think it was all modeled painstakingly by hand, did you, My Lord?”
The biggest online game in the world. The most immersive virtual reality ever created. How big would the system need to be to manage all of this? Not to mention it would require a whopping amount of electricity and an internet connection large enough to handle billions of players. It should be impossible to hide such an enormous power and data sink…
“You’ll kick yourself when you hear the answer.” Tselika unceremoniously revealed the solution: “The servers we’re on don’t exist.”
“…”
“That’s not as impressive as it sounds. There are a couple dozen servers in the real world right now that we have available. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta… We’re currently being stored on one of them. Which one that is can change, though. Money (Game) Master has no more servers than you think it does.”
But if that was all there was to it, Tselika wouldn’t have sounded so grandiose.
Servers that don’t exist…?
“If we take one hundred percent to be the total maximum traffic capacity of all the world’s servers, then the upper limit of the hardware is actually more than that. It’s about one fifty to two hundred percent.”
“…”
“That extra capacity is required to deal with short bursts of congestion. So nobody sees it during normal operation. If they did, everyone would try to use it at once, and then the whole system would be flooded. It would defeat the purpose.”
“So you use that? How do you get away with it? Those servers you’re ‘borrowing’ include those in use by major corporations all over the globe and, most importantly, nations’ militaries. You’d have to be the greatest hacker in the world to break into those systems undetected.”
“Ha-ha! I could just say, Don’t underestimate us, but I’m going to be honest with you instead. Obviously, the administrators of those systems claim to have everything under control. That’s what they say to the public. But why would they bother to monitor a region of data that officially doesn’t exist? Understand? No one, whether they be internal or external, knows about it. And even if they wanted to, we’re living in an age of machine-to-machine transactions that go faster than any human can keep up with. This vast amount of data is precisely what the machines were originally built to handle. It would be absurd—not to mention impossible—to have a human go over all that again by hand.”
It was people they were controlling.
Big data had sunk its teeth into everything from the corporate balance sheet to the campaign trail. AI businesses were designing ads to shape people’s behavior, and the public was lapping it up. For Money (Game) Master, the target was humanity itself and nothing else.
“It is a matter of influence, if you will.”
“Influence?”
“Perhaps you could call it a kind of spiritual terraforming. My Lord, you still do not believe that demons truly exist, do you? As I said, Money (Game) Master was not designed to be a video game. Barring the Legacies, there are no bugs or errors to be found in it.”
“So what?”
“Well, how do you explain the existence of us Magistelli, then? Let me just remind you that we weren’t designed in advance, to be dropped into the game freely, nor are we the result of a bug or error, as I just said.”
Tselika’s words were chilling.
It made no sense. There was no proof. And yet, the tip of Kaname’s nose told him everything he needed to know.
It was like if someone had created a weather simulator to explore the effects of global warming, and suddenly dragons had appeared in it. How would people react if that happened?
Tselika opened her eyes wide, her pupils dark and mesmerizing. It was all Kaname could do to not fall deeply into them.
“We may live in obscurity at present, but we are ever prepared to stage our return. The problem is whether the real world will withstand the shock. Thus, we needed to create a virtual world first to reacclimatize and see just how far we can go. Which brings us to where we are now. Now then, I wonder if there’s any reason for us to delay any longer.”
She was close. Very close. Kaname’s nostrils filled with a seductive scent. Every breath he took was tinged with the prickling smell of danger.
“We stand at the dawn of a new age. We have already proven that the words and actions of mankind can be controlled by using electronic information in the form of money. Nobody stops to think anymore in this AI-ruled society. All that’s left is for us to set up everything the way we want it through the medium of Money (Game) Master… Once we do that, it’ll be a simple matter for us to return. People will level a mountain or fill in the sea if they think it’ll make them a bit of money. Perhaps we could convince them to draw huge pentagrams out of roads and tracks.”
“…”
A gentle, corrupting sweetness. The demon oozed seduction in everything she did. Her smile was dripping with it.
“When that happens, what will you be able to do to stop us? Well, I’m sure even a mere schoolboy like yourself could accomplish quite a lot with all the virtual currency we lent you—if you were to use it right. However, is your determination to stop us really a thought born of your own mind? We can turn it all on and off with the touch of a button. Can you keep your house of cards standing? Even if you can convince yourself of it, can you objectively prove it? All seven billion people in this world are money-grubbing fools—nothing more than marionettes at our command.”
Kaname was still trying to connect Tselika’s words when she whispered in his ear. It was only the pain in his nose that told him this wasn’t all some bad dream.
“The golden rule of séances is that there be no skeptics among the participants. So what if we poisoned the minds of all seven billion people in the world? Even the righteous few like you, My Lord, can be made to change their minds. Whether that change comes from within…or without.”
So that was it. They had created this world on the premise that demons like Tselika existed. Then, through simulation of the four fundamental forces and the behavior of elementary particles, they had constructed an entire mirror reality and invited people inside.
To “poison” their minds with…something.
To get their hands into…something.
“One day, very soon, we will rise again.”
It was a hypothetical.
“All has been in preparation for this. We will see the day of revolution dawn. We will venture forth from our virtual world and march on the gods in their realm of heaven.”
And then, for the demons, who had extended their computations to the most incalculable parts of the human experience, what kind of beings would they become? If Money (Game) Master could already exert its control over mankind simply by being able to simulate reality, what would it be able to achieve if it could simulate the realm of God? Would it be able to exert its influence there as well?
Whatever was on the horizon, it didn’t bode well.
Kaname couldn’t say how demons would treat mankind after this “day of revolution,” but it seemed as if they were planning to simply use the whole world as a stepping-stone to reach a higher domain. They had already wreaked enough havoc by simulating reality. If they succeeded in simulating the realm of God, what class of being would they ascend to? Whatever their revolution earned them, they would not be so quick to give it up by relinquishing their control over humanity. If nobody complained, the subjugation would continue. In fact, it was hard to see any reason they might choose to surrender their hard-won power at all.
Wars between AIs weren’t a matter of flinging mechanical men at each other forever. Such violence was unnecessary. All they needed was money.
Tselika was saying that humanity would happily accept their fate.
“Humans aren’t…”
“Hmm?”
“Humans aren’t that simple. They won’t let you keep walking all over them forever.”
“Yes they will. Why don’t we do a little test to prove it?”
With a clatter, the passenger-seat glove compartment sprang open, and something heavy fell out from inside. It was Kaname’s trusty firearm, Short Spear. Kaname immediately snatched it up and unfolded the stock, feeling the weight of the weapon in his hand. Tselika, however, was unperturbed.
“You now have two options, My Lord.” Tselika brought her face closer. Kaname smelled something sickly and cloying. “Option one: shoot me right through the heart. Option two: place the barrel beneath your chin and pull the trigger. Here at the bottom of the sea, there’s not much in the way of choice.”
“…”
“And one more thing.”
Tselika drew Kaname’s attention down to her chest, between her large breasts.
“Money (Game) Master has no central core. We are as decentralized as our server structure. Just as the Admin Without Sin jumps from person to person, so, too, does our core randomly shift among Magistelli. And our Mind does not depend on its exact placement.”
It was clear what she was trying to say.
And what this choice she was offering represented.
“Right now, the Mind of the Magistelli is stored within my body. Pierce my chest, and it will die with me, no matter where it happens to be in the real world. You’ll put a stop to the advance of AI and the virtual currency snow. You’ll end our invasion of the real world and everything beyond it. Our day of revolution will never come.”
“And if I shoot myself in the head, I’ll Fall. I’ll be saddled with massive amounts of debt and be brought under the wings of the AI companies. In essence, I’ll be raising the white flag and surrendering to the Magistelli.”
“From your perspective, My Lord, the choice is obvious. Shoot me and shut it all down.”
Kaname felt the gun in his hands once more. It seemed a lot heavier now.
“But when I say ‘shut it all down,’ I mean it. Don’t forget that snow is as valuable as the yen or the dollar. It’s tied to the lives of all seven billion people on this planet. How much chaos will you invite into the world by deleting every last trace of it?”
It would mean worldwide panic.
And it wouldn’t just ripple out from one country. It’s not like you would be safe if you stayed far enough away. Everywhere would be ground zero. It wouldn’t matter whether you kept your money in a bank, under your mattress, or tied up in assets. There would be no escaping the desolation.
“Estimated deaths, four billion,” Tselika concluded.
No snow.
No money.
No representations of value at all.
“You will live out the rest of your short, miserable lives in a gray, polluted world. You will never get back what you have now. You can look forward to a life of drinking sludge. Can you bring yourself to shoot me now? All for the sake of your poor little sister, chosen as the Admin Without Sin and destined to be erased now that her utility has expired?”
There was only one option.
“You can’t, can you? Your only choice is to throw yourself at our feet.”
Could he shut down the entire world?
Was there anyone he was willing to go that far to save?
“Now choose.”
Tselika gently gripped the barrel and guided it toward its destination, to the spot right between her plump breasts.
“If you want to kill me, then do it. That is, if you think your thoughts are still your own.”
His own brain or Tselika’s heart.
One of them had to go…
04/01/20XX 10:20 AM
Admin Without Sin
A human chosen at random from among the game’s many Dealers and granted special privileges. They become a tool that the system uses to determine what quality humans possess that money can’t buy. If they overindulge in their new powers, however, they are deemed to have nothing of interest, and the position of Admin Without Sin is passed on to a new host. This strategy seeks to expand the influence of Money (Game) Master in the real world by proving that such things can, in fact, be bought and showing how it is done. Furthermore, the system protects the Admin Without Sin for as long as it deems them to possess this mysterious quality.
Magistellus
According to Tselika, humans did not design the Magistelli. Instead, they have always existed “since the beginning.” Their goal is to expand the simulation capabilities of Money (Game) Master to cover God’s realm of heaven and thus learn to control God’s domain as well as they currently do the real world. This would lead to what they describe as a “day of revolution.” In addition, the Magistelli apparently once possessed a different form, and in order to restore themselves to their former glory, they must carry out a ritual of monumental proportions. To this end, the virtual world became part of an experiment to judge whether the real world could survive the completion of this ritual. Tselika also claimed that this “day of revolution” was not a new idea but a replication of some sort of trade carried out by medieval clergymen in the Dark Ages. Exactly what she meant by this remains unclear.
Destruction of a Vehicle
Magistelli can handle only the possessions of their own Dealer, so if the Dealer has more than one vehicle, they can switch among them. Of course, if all of them are destroyed, the Dealer cannot drive until a new vehicle is obtained.
Mind
The will of the Magistelli at large. It is a collection of individuals but acts with singular intent. Instead of possessing a physical body of its own, it is passed among the Magistelli at random. It is possible that the framework whereby the position of Admin Without Sin moves among Dealers was modeled after this one.