“You’re the only one who can calm her down. If you’re too hasty and make a mistake in dealing with her, there’s a risk that she’ll go wild. No human would be able to control her then. You have to look ahead. Attacking now would be reckless. The JAM want you to be preoccupied with Yukikaze’s condition. If we go rushing into this, it’ll be game over very quickly. The end, full stop. We can’t let that happen.”
“Stopping the game on doctor’s orders, huh?” Rei said. “But will Yukikaze go along with it?”
“As a human, all I want is to avoid losing. You and Yukikaze both need some time to cool off and collect your thoughts. Make it an order, Captain Fukai. You’re the only one who can persuade her.”
Rei hadn’t realized how rashly he’d been acting. But, he thought, maybe what Edith is saying is correct, and the JAM are trying to keep me too wrapped up with Yukikaze to see that.
And it was true that they’d be at a disadvantage if they launched an attack now. The only way they’d be able to go up against the JAM would be to utilize the full military might of the SAF. The SAF tactical computers could handle the deletion of the target data. They should use the SAF. They could just have Yukikaze confirm that the ghosts were gone without putting any undue stress on her.
“Yukikaze, maintain combat readiness,” Rei ordered. He knew that she probably wouldn’t accept an outright cancellation of the attack. She’d never understand him if he told her, “You’re acting weird and need some rest.”
“Then contact the maintenance team and have them effect repairs on your airframe,” he continued. “I’m going to deplane in the meantime and try to use the tactical computer in SAF headquarters to attack the target data. Respond when I call you. If you require me, contact me via the tactical computer. That is all.”
Roger, Captain Fukai.
After flashing the message onto the main display, Yukikaze shut down the T-FACPro II software herself. The program apparently placed too much of an additional burden on her resources and interfered with combat. That was probably it. And, thinking about how Yukikaze still trusted him, Rei climbed down from the cockpit.
3
IT WAS QUIET in the SAF command center, with even the main screen along the front wall switched off. No fighters were out on sortie; as soon as the missing Yukikaze had been discovered, General Cooley had recalled all the search planes and ordered their crews to get some rest. Instead, the only ones who were busy were the data analysts. Everyone had been called in, even the off-duty staffers, and they’d been gathered there along with Major Booker and Captain Foss to begin the analysis of the data Yukikaze had returned with. Once the first stage of analysis was complete, General Cooley had her staff take a break. She’d told the pair in charge of data analysis and aircraft maintenance that they shouldn’t leave, and so the general had stayed behind in the center with them. She waited for Major Booker and Captain Foss to make their reports after going off to check on Captain Fukai and Lieutenant Katsuragi.
The data were even more useful than we’d hoped, General Cooley thought as she took a light meal of a sandwich and black tea before turning to check in on the work being done.
The method the JAM had used to lure in Yukikaze, the existence of that unknown space, the JAM voice, Captain Fukai’s response to it, the actions Yukikaze had taken to escape… It was all shocking. Lieutenant Katsuragi, who’d come to them from the Intelligence Forces, had reacted the most normally by getting angry when what the JAM, Captain Fukai, and Yukikaze did seemed to defy common sense. Well, perhaps I understand his reaction, considering I also lost my composure when I saw the data, thought General Cooley. They’d brought back a great deal of data about the JAM, but put another way, it meant that the SAF just dramatically increased what they didn’t know about the enemy. Faced with the sheer volume of confusing data, she supposed it was only natural for her to temporarily lose her cool. She wasn’t a machine, after all.
God damn it, she thought as she replayed Captain Fukai’s conversation with the JAM over and over. Just what were the JAM?Captain Fukai: Just what are you people? Living things? Beings that consist only of intelligence, will, and data? Do you have physical forms? If so, then where are they?JAM: I cannot explain in a way that would be comprehensible in your terms. I am that I am.
She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It hadn’t denied having a physical form. The voice calling itself the whole of the JAM was broadcast from the duplicate of the old Yukikaze, but it was hard to imagine that their true form had been riding within the plane itself. She wondered if the JAM’s intentional nonanswer had been a strategic ploy to avoid revealing their physical selves.
At the very least, it seemed that the JAM did possess the general concept of “I.” The JAM had the power to differentiate between itself and others. It seems obvious, but it’s likely a vital point, thought General Cooley. The question was, while the JAM could make the distinction, apparently humans could not. They were just going to have to deal with not knowing where the JAM existed, what a JAM was, and exactly what defined them.
The general recalled a conversation Captain Foss had had with Major Booker during the analysis. It had been recorded and already transcribed. General Cooley searched for the page it was on.
“The JAM didn’t respond when Captain Fukai asked where it was,” Captain Foss had said. “If we believe the rest of what it says, then we can conclude that the JAM have no concept of place or space, or if they do, that it’s outside the realm of human understanding. Considering that they’re beings capable of creating spaces like the Passageway and that so-called ‘mysterious battle zone,’ that seems likely.”
“The question Captain Fukai asked would be difficult for even the JAM to answer, Captain Foss,” Major Booker had replied. “He wasn’t simply asking what their location was. He was asking them where they really existed. For example, where are you, Edith?”
“Ah, you mean is the thing that’s called me my physical body? The consciousness inside my body? Do I have a soul and, if so, where does it go when I die? Yes, that is what he was asking, wasn’t it? A typical Captain Fukai move.”
“I think I would have asked the same thing if I’d been in that situation. And if you asked me that, I’d probably reply, ‘I’m right here.’” Booker said. “Simple, accurate, and doesn’t waste ten thousand words trying to elaborate on it. No matter what the meaning of the question might be, the normal answer to ‘Where are you?’ would be ‘I’m right here,’ wouldn’t it? But the JAM didn’t say that. They must have judged that the person they were speaking to wouldn’t have understood if they said, ‘I’m right here.’”
“You mean the only way the JAM could put it was ‘I am that I am’?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s not the same as them saying ‘I’m here.’ The JAM definitely exist, but they may not be able to decide if they exist nowhere or everywhere, and they didn’t have the words to explain it.”
“At the very least, that applied to the JAM Fukai communicatd with,” Foss said. “There was no physical entity there face to face with Captain Fukai or Yukikaze that they could understand. It was like it was talking to them on a telephone. But then you can’t say that the JAM have no physical form.”
“You once claimed to Captain Fukai that the JAM were imaginary. Can you still make that claim, Edith?”
“I only said that I couldn’t deny the possibility that they were.”