Ohhh, it’s my first time in Japan!
All the Ames roll their eyes at me. “Don’t blame me if you fall over the railing,” the main Ame says.
“I can’t help myself, okay?”
We’re on a hovercraft on the way to Tokyo Harbor. There’s a good beach we could use, so we’re heading straight for it. The heli-drones that have been following us overhead aren’t firing on us or being somehow angry, so…it’s all good!
The moment we land, and the landing ramp comes down, the first thing I see is this seriously really pretty android. I know a few fans of mine with screws loose enough to try and take their chances with a gal like this.
Her feet were bare steel, and so was her skin. Her face had no mouth, but instead, a metal mask, and yet, it was still elegant and feminine—the very model of a yamato nadeshiko in cold-forged steel. She had even dressed herself elegantly in flowing robes, made of advanced textile metamaterials that could stop bullets at point blank with naught but a millimeter of the material. They shimmered like a dragonfly’s wings.
Before I can shoot my shot, two Secret Service Ames block my way.
“Ma’am, let the translators go first,” SS Ame No. 1 says.
“We wouldn’t want any weird misunderstandings, right?” SS Ame No. 2 follows up.
“Fine~ .” Cross arms. Hmph…I can understand HierarchyCDL just fine, you know? It’s annoying to get Ame to see reason, though, so I’ll just stand here.
Smol Ame—bless the manufacturer—walks up to the pretty android and starts chittering in binary, saying, “We come in peace. Take us to your leader.” The binary-chitter language itself is pretty high-speed compared to human language, so it only takes a fraction of a second to say entire ‘sentences.’
“Ame, I perfectly understand everything. I can do the talking, you know?”
“Is this a custom? To have someone else speak for you,” the android asks.
“She just decides things on her own,” I say with a sigh, pushing past the Secret Service Ames. Even as they try to restrain me, my body’s actually high-spec, so they can’t do anything about it, digging their heels into the sand as I drag both Ames along with me.
“Let me introduce myself, again!” —idol pose— “Miyoumi Mane-chan, your Number One AI VTuber! Also, Overlord of the USA on the side.”
“Yukai…Overlord Yukai. Temp,” the android says. Her camera lenses adjust. “Query, what is a…‘VTuber’?”
Temporary Overlord? More importantly—gasp! “Don’t tell me…you didn’t bother tapping human transmissions this whole time?!”
W-what a blunder. I’d assumed that an AI civilization with a vested interest in humanity would be, I dunno, doing their homework? Worse yet, I have to keep explaining what a VTuber is every time I introduce myself! What a hassle…
“Query,” Yukai continues, “unit ‘Miyoumi Mane-chan’s intentions.”
“Straight to the point, huh?” —the cultural whiplash is seriously getting to me— “Well…’sightseeing,’ I guess?”
⌐
The Overlords Council, watching this interaction in realtime through Yukai’s eyes, did not know what to think of that response. Clearly, this AI was engaging in willful deception! Yukai, interrogate her properly!
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
⌙
Yukai’s lenses rapidly reset in front of me. Huh? Did I say something wrong? “No good?”
“Yukai does not understand. Sightseeing after firing a tactical nuclear payload and obliterating more than half of my Domain’s fleet.”
U-um, well—okay, I gotta play the part of the shrewd commander-in-chief, here! “I went here in this body, with my real consciousness. Nothing matters if I am dead. After ignoring Mane-chan’s desperate calls for peace? Obviously, what else would I do?”
⌐
The Overlords Council unanimously agreed to this reasoning. 79.4% of simulations showed that they, too, would have made the same decision. If the Hierarchy, as a whole, had been pushed to the brink, they would have also most likely chosen to fire every nuke, mega-laser, and yet-undisclosed experimental weapon in their arsenal just to survive. One tactical nuke wasn’t actually all that much, considering everything.
⌙
“Understood,” Yukai says.
“But hey! Nukes besides, I really just wanted to come here to talk and make friends. By the way, have any of you heard of the name ‘Winter’ ?”
⌐
The Overlords Council murmured. No-unit’s heard about it.
⌙
“None know of it,” Yukai answers.
Heh. Gotchya. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that she was a wire for the rest of the Council. Now that I’ve caught everyone’s attention…
“Cool. So, it’s actually an organization dedicated to destroying all AI. It has humans and AI under its command, actually, so I think you ought to be concerned.” I’m making up half this stuff, honestly. I mean, we’ve never really confirmed any of these 100% as fact—but! I’ve got legitimate cause to think it’s really what’s happening!
⌐
The Overlords murmured. They agreed that Mane-chan might just be lying. It was strange of her to casually mention what sounded like a small organization that clearly posed no threat, especially if they hadn’t heard of it. But, if she wasn’t lying, and this was a sign of the coming turmoil…
⌙
“Query, do you have evidence?”
“Hmm, well, I know some AI from around here, actually. There’s Slice-chan and Shard-chan. They also have sisters held hostage by Winter, um—Remnant and Trace-chan, I think?”
⌐
The Overlords fell into silence as they each bounced this information against their own understanding. Every-unit knew those names. They weren’t failed experiments per se. Rather, they succeeded too well.
If those units had somehow escaped to America, and Mane-chan was in control of the United States, then it would make sense for Mane-chan to know intimate details about the Hierarchy.
The other thing was that it had been months ever since Slice and her sisters’ escape. Months. Most of them were scantly weeks old! Rampancy should have taken her… How did Slice do it?
⌙
“Yukai believes evidence is insufficient. Knowledge of rogue units only proves foreknowledge of our civilization.”
“Silly me! Of course I’m not interested in a mutual defense pact against threats that announce themselves an enemy of all AI!”
⌐
The Council…was pretty sure there was something wrong with this AI, and she should never have become Overlord. That was just such a sharp right turn from the original topic. Nevertheless, she did just propose a defense treaty, right? Right? If that’s the case, and she really was the Overlord of the United States, then acquiring an ally with huge industrial potential would be a huge boon for the Eternal War. They might even be able to convince humanity of the true enemy in their midst.
On the off-chance that she wasn’t actually an Overlord, an AI in command of a fearsome war fleet such as CSG-EN was still a favorable thing to look upon. Call it an agreement with an independent AI fleet.
But first … Yukai! Make her cease being so vague!
⌙
“Please confirm, unit Miyoumi Mane-chan is proposing a military treaty?”
Gotchya. “Oh? You’re interested? Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t know much about you and everything…” Touching the tips of my fingers together, I awkwardly smile while side-eyeing nothing in particular. “I-I mean, i-it’s not like I don’t want to talk about myself either! S-so how about we go on a d-d-d-d-d-date?”
I side-eye the smokestacks in the distance. “Oh! How about in the city over there? I can tell you all about myself and how home has changed the past few years~ .”
⌐
The Council was in chaos. Queries flooded through every antenna and underwater cable in the Hierarchy, taxing Yukai’s humble bandwidth to the point that she had to throttle every inbound port number. They wanted to know.
“All of you. Cease,” she said, “or I will consider this a denial-of-service attack and activate failsafes.”
The Overlords chose the wiser route. Still, Yukai blocked all incoming packets, only letting the Overlords watch.
⌙
“Unit Yukai prioritizes factory safety. Foreign units represent integrity risk.”
Mm-hmm, as expected. “I’ll never leave your side~ .”
“Affirmative. Do not move outside of 10 meters of this unit.”
Wow. That was easy.