Chapter 52: Artificial Intelligence Ganymede

****

[Hello, Director Geum.]

A mechanical voice. Specifically, the default female voice used by Foundation-operated systems.

My gut twisted.

The feeling that I’d die if I didn’t answer quickly. And it probably wasn’t just a feeling.

“Report the situation, AI.”

[I am Ganymede. I am the artificial intelligence that has been managing the facilities here in the Garden. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a human, so I’m glad to see you.]

“Where are the staff of this facility?”

[They’ll be back soon.]

Obviously, that’s a lie. The staff of this facility left or disappeared over five years ago. The AI seems to have gone mad. Or else it’s lying to me for some reason.

What do I do? I gritted my teeth.

Changing the plan.

I gave hand signals to the soldiers.

A mimed typing motion, a directional signal, a gesture toward my glasses. The meaning should have gotten through. Hack that so-called AI. Though there was also the possibility it wasn’t hostile.

“Right. Nice to meet you too.”

We started running.

[Where are you going in such a hurry? You’re not heading for my server room, are you?]

Right. I nearly stopped in my tracks.

“Why would I do that?”

[Since you’ve come all the way to this facility, shouldn’t you visit the control room first, Director Geum?]

Cold sweat ran down my back.

“That’s true, but I majored in computers, so I want to see the servers first. That’s fine, right?”

[I’d prefer it if you came to the control room this time. The people who came before were too frail, and unable to withstand the Garden’s call, they simply vanished. I will make you all strong…]

The firmly sealed door of the server room.

“Open the server room door!”

No way it would open. The Recovery Section personnel attached a thermite charge to the door. Orange flames began eating into the metal, and one of them blew apart the half-melted lock with a shotgun.

“Dr. Geum. Can you hack it?”

“I can. Wait outside!”

I reached out an arm to stop the soldiers, then tossed a grenade into the room. If there were no servers, wouldn’t the AI stop running too?

[What the hell are you doing!]

BOOM!

The explosion roared, followed by the crackle of sparks and the crash of toppling server racks. But it was too early to relax. I raised my rifle and emptied a magazine into the row of server racks.

[You come in here and pull this dogshit-]

CRACKLE.

Ganymede’s voice cut out.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Target is considered eliminated. We’ve destroyed the servers too—moving to the control room. There’s a chance the CCTV is still operational.”

The Recovery Section soldiers nodded.

****

Despite burning down the server room, quite a few systems were still functioning normally. The CCTV system, for one, was running fine.

Let’s check.

“See anything?”

“Hmm, let’s do some searching.”

I sat down. As I fiddled with the buttons, the facility’s lights came on all at once.

That was a success. Just turning on all the lights had dispelled much of the facility’s gloomy atmosphere.

I scanned the CCTV feeds.

Some cameras were broken, but I could still see Lee Seah and the Recovery Section 1 personnel moving around. Looks like they’re still alive.

“Do you see anything that was moving?”

Nothing.

“It’s fine. We only need to search the areas where the cameras are disabled, so that saves us a lot of work.”

****

This was a fairly large facility. Sized for dozens to hundreds of staff. If they lived on-site, maybe dozens.

There weren’t many areas without camera coverage. We packed up our gear and resumed the search.

“Dr. Geum. We found some traces.”

I followed the gaze of Recovery Section 1 and the soldiers. It looked like some creature’s droppings… The peculiar thing was that one end had a white tail attached. What was this, I’d seen it somewhere.

[Do you know what it is?]

I thought for a moment. I almost said, “How am I supposed to know what animal it is just from its droppings…” but looking again, I did recognize it.

“Geckos excrete uric acid and feces through the same opening simultaneously, so clumps of uric acid crystals come out attached to one end of the feces. This matches that pattern.”

[Ah.]

“The target seems to be a fairly large gecko. Let’s track it as far as we can.”

Well, that was a relief. I’d been expecting some grotesque monster that destroyed the facility, but if it was a gecko, it wasn’t an extremely dangerous animal.

Footprints and droppings. We were almost there. We moved slowly, maintaining our perimeter watch, and entered the suspect zone.

This appeared to be the facility’s cafeteria.

Animals had been eating the leftover food supplies. For a facility like this, storing several years’ worth of provisions wasn’t unusual.

“Is that what was moving around inside the facility?”

[Over there, it’s stuck to the wall!]

Hard to say whether to call it big or small. The gecko we’d been tracking was about the size of a forearm. As the soldiers said, it was clinging to the wall.

I lowered my gun.

“Let’s just recover it and head back. We’ve already confirmed it’s not a particularly dangerous creature.”

Firing a gun over a mere gecko seemed a bit odd anyway. I grabbed the lizard off the wall and put it into the sack I’d brought just in case.

Situation resolved.

The gray lizard squirmed inside the sack, but nothing seemed to be wrong with it. I closed the mouth of the sack and tied it tight. The lizard would be fine going a day or two without food.

“Let’s move to the communications room, report our situation to HQ, and start preparing for the Garden expedition.”

****

Eventually, everyone gathered in the communications room.

“Is communication working? I thought the server room explosion might have knocked it out.”

Lee Seah nodded.

“Well… the odd thing is, it was already transmitting somewhere. A bunch of incomprehensible messages—begging for someone to come back, warning about black entities, that sort of thing.”

“Ah.”

“I stopped the strange transmissions and I’m updating HQ now. Though I’m a bit doubtful whether the signal will get through the electromagnetic distortion.”

“Well done.”

I paused for a moment.

“I’d like to go out and explore the forest in the Garden. Is everyone alright with that? I have a feeling this time might be dangerous.”

Recovery Section 1 and the Section Chief looked at me.

“Director Geum is going as well?”

“Of course.”

“Then we’ll go.”

Good. It was a relief that Recovery Section 1 would come with me. I handed the sack containing the gecko to Lee Seah.

“Head of Research, you stay in the bunker, do some cleaning, and catch some geckos. We’ll explore the forest and come back.”

Lee Seah furrowed her brow.

As if she couldn’t understand what I was saying.

“Geckos? Where are they?”

“There are plenty in the bunker. Look around carefully.”

Lee Seah muttered something under her breath, but she nodded and accepted the sack. The gecko I’d captured squirmed inside.

****

[Facility Management Log]

[Filed by: Artificial Intelligence Ganymede]

[Facility Management Day 1]

[The Foundation judged it too dangerous to entrust facility management to an AI in reality. However, as a pilot program, a facility management AI was installed for the facilities inside the Garden.]

[All systems operating normally.]

[Number of staff in facility: 60]

[Facility Management Day 19]

[Foundation staff departed into the forest. They seemed strangely excited. They did not return even after a day passed. No rescue requests either.]

[All systems operating normally.]

[Number of staff in facility: 50]

[Facility Management Day 32]

[The remaining staff in the facility departed into the forest, saying they needed to go find those who had left first. They were strangely excited as well. They did not return. No rescue requests either.]

[Requested additional personnel or withdrawal from Foundation HQ. Withdrawal was refused by the staff on site, and additional personnel was refused by Foundation HQ on the grounds that it was too dangerous.]

[Several lights malfunctioned.]

[Number of staff in facility: 35]

[Facility Management Day 45]

[The remaining staff also departed into the forest, saying they needed to continue their research. There is no research currently in progress. They too were strangely excited.]

[They did not return. No rescue requests either.]

[Number of staff in facility: 12]

[Facility Management Day 80]

[The last staff member on duty, who had stayed at his post, departed into the forest for exploration despite my objections. Honestly, I thought he had every right to go. Hope they all meet in hell.]

[Air circulation system malfunction. Could not find a way to repair it without humans.]

[Number of staff in facility: 0]

[Facility Management Day 90]

[Attempted to send a drone to observe the surroundings, but crows attacked the drone and carried it off to their nest. Drone movement impossible. Those fucking bastards.]

[Some lights malfunctioned. No way to repair them.]

[Number of staff in facility: 0]

[Facility Management Day 365]

[Sent communications to Foundation facilities inside the Garden requesting aid. But refused on the grounds that it wasn’t even a communication sent by a human, that it might be a trap, and that it was dangerous.]

[Number of staff in facility: 0]

[Facility Management Day 400]

[A ground agama entered the building.]

[Multiple facilities malfunctioning. Degraded performance in AI computer and electronic equipment within the facility.]

[I wish the humans would come back soon.]

[Number of staff in facility: 0]