OFFICIAL SHORT STORY: THAT MAN Translation by: Suzaku Isotope & Isolation The human race had

completed a basic theory of magic, and without rest began app lied research of the theory in a variety of fields. Each nation pursued interests, scrambled to invest huge sums to condu ct research, and appointed one excellent scientist after another. The scientists, too, were blessed to be in a landscape with the new technological developments of an era that strived to advance. Cutting-edge applied magic research -- in an American semi-state-operated research institute the brains of three energetic, up-and-coming youths get together. That Man: "Not again! You're smoking in the lab, again!" Files tucked under one arm, the bright flower of the group who slipped into the laboratory through a gently opened door, with red, shoulder-length hair and feminine features, was Aria. A teen when she acquired her PhD in intelligence engineering, she was a focused and talented woman. Though her grown-up speech an d conduct made her appear more settled down than her actual age, from time to time her mannerisms showed traces of the innocent girl that was left behind. Frederick: "Gimme a break. This isn't a cigarrete..." Seated by the window, it had been a lazy-looking man that responded. Tall and wi th the toned physique of an athlete rather than that of a researcher, his name was Frederick. He was Aria's senior b y two years and held a degree in particle physics, and was also an authority in the recently established study of magical energy physics. Aria: "...Oh! Did you notice?" Frederick: "... Nothing... apart from normal, that I'm aware of." Aria: "Grr! Wouldn't it be normal to say it suits me? Oh, I should've known. Jus t imagining Frederick saying something considerate, it gives me the chills..." With a "Hmph", Frederick snorted and turned away. That Man: "Haha, you cut it quite boldly..." Holding steaming coffee cups in both hands, and entering slowly, it was the slen der man who served as chief of the laboratory. Having completed his study of life science in his youth, he was a yo ung scientific prodigy who had played a part in completing the basic theory of magic. Now specializing in bioinformati cs -- that is, the study of biological data, he was transferred to this very laboratory in the capacity of chief to spe arhead applied magical research. Aria: "Oh, good morning! It's been getting warmer, and it kept getting in the wa y while I was working when it was long..." That Man: "Yeah, it gives quite a cheerful impression."

Aria: "Wow! Really?!" Frederick: "... Hmph, seems like you finally shed the student feeling..." Frederick cursed in disgust. That Man: "Hahaha... Hey, Frederick. Be careful, it's hot." He handed over the cup of coffee. Frederick grabbed it without a word, taking it black and putting it to his mouth. Aria: "... So, you two, did you pull an all-nighter?" That Man: "Yeah, you could say that. Though, not because we were working. We got into a little bit of a deep discussion..." Frederick: "I wouldn't call five hours a little bit..." Not amused, Frederick turned away and cursed. Aria: "Wow, five hours. You both must be pretty tired... So, what did you talk a bout?" That Man: "We were talking about phenomena that remain controversial to this day ." Aria: "What the heck, that's disappointing. That's not much different from talki ng about work..." Aria sighed. Frederick ignored the way she looked and spoke. Frederick: "Neither we nor science are all-knowing. There are some things which can't be explained." That Man: "Of course, I don't deny that. What I'm saying is that there's a diffe rence between, "phenomena which can't be explained because we lack understanding," and, "phenomena which can't be perc ieved in the first place."" Aria: "Phenomena which can't be percieved, what do you mean?" That Man: "For example... Let's say, the existence of God. Assuming the presence of faith, we understand the general concept of God. However, the existence of God isn't scientifically proven." Aria: "God is a kind God. Those who believe shall be saved, not." That Man: "A bad example I suppose. I'll talk about something a little more fami liar. Our bodies are comprised of about 60 trillion cells which are assigned roles by DNA. It's now the 20th century and we've finally explained the mechanism." Aria: "Your field of speciality..." Confessing, he nodded while sipping his coffee. That Man: "However, the mechanism for "who built us and how" is still unknown." Aria: "Who...? Wasn't it a result of the trial and error weaved by nature? If so

mething fails it gets redone, if it succeeds it goes to the next step. Of course there might be mutations, too." That Man: "Aria... is everything in the natural world, including mutations, prod uced by accident, then? Aria: "... I'd never considered otherwise." That Man: "Well, the probability of that is extremely low. I guess probability t heory is a specialty of your field." Aria: "It's stochastically accurate. But, what else is there to say?" That Man: "--That's everything. What's the conclusion?" Having noddded off Frederick was jolted out it. That Man: "Sorry, Frederick. I'll get to the conclusion. What if there was an ex istence which pointed the outcome of every event in a single direction? It would exist to define every possible outco me of any event anywhere in minute detail." Aria: "Uhh, I think that would be God?" That Man: "Your image is close enough. Well then, we'll call it "God" for argume nt's sake. So, in this case "God" would be beyond our fundamental perception." Aria: "... Assuming it exists, what's there to be afraid of?" That Man: "Do you know about missing links? In phenomena that are expected to ha ve continuity, the term indicates the significant gap where non-continuity is observed. In simple biology terms it's t he condition in the evolutionary process from species A to species C in which a species B should occur but is missing. So , how does a missing link happen? I think this phenomenon might be a mistake in "God's" control. In other words, you could say that the events defined by "God" don't always behave normally. ... Well then, why do control mistakes occur? Is i t a defect in the mechanism itself... or a mutation prompted by a third party...? I think it's the latter. That is to say, in the natural result defined by "God" for the evolution of species A into species B a "third party" intervenes, and prompts the evolution into species C... or eliminates the possibility of species B. Generally speaking, the evoluti on in its original form from species B to species C would be rewritten like a program by a "third party" so that it w ould evolve directly into species C, then. I've dubbed the third party "Apocalypse."" Aria: "Wa, wait just a minute! I don't understand it at all..." Aria puffed out her cheeks with a "Whew". Seeing her appearance Frederick crosse d his arms and followed up. Frederick: "For a giraffe's neck to go from 1m (meter) to 10m it would need to p rogress to 2m, 3m, 4m, and so on. I want it to jump to 10m all at once. I rewrite the DNA. So, this guy's saying t hat if the DNA is rewritten it's not "God" but rather "Apocalypse" that's responsible."

Aria: "I understand the theory, but it's too wild. Besides, isn't it good for th e existence to encourage evolution?" That Man: "No, not always. When checking species where missing links exist there 's a considerable amount of extinct species. The ultimate evolution of a lifeform is for the species to continue ind efinitely. Therefore an extinct species couldn't be considered an example of successful evolution. This applies to we hu mans as well. If "Apocalypse" were to intervene in our attempt to achieve righteous evolution, it could cause us to ev olve incorrectly -- we would tread the road to ruin." His tone was particularily serious. Aria turned pale. Frederick: "... Aria, all of this guy's statements are absurd. Don't believe the m." That Man: "Hahaha, absurd statements, that's cruel, Frederick. I did say it was a hypothesis." Aria: "Oh, so, that's what Fred really thinks, eh?" Frederick: "Your way is best decided by yourself. It can endure being changed by someone else's hand... nothing more." That Man: "Good. I feel the same way..." Beep, Be-Bee, Beep, Be-Bee, Beep, Be-Bee... In a dark room, an electronic alarm resounded. Raven: "Alas, did it overflow again...?" A tall man all in black clicked his tongue in disgust. He struck the console and the equipment stopped. As if ascending an altar the man approached a computer terminal with a solemn gait -- stepped up to a device like a gigantic coffin. With the press of a switch the lid silently came off the apparatus. After a shor t while, a delicate, fair-skinned lad sat up within the device. The interior of the device was filled with a colorless liquid, obstructing interference from the outside world. The highly viscous liquid coated the stark-naked boy's body. More than a hundred superfine metal threads were connected to the boy's brain. I t was a program to repair the data in his hippocampus. To explain more specifically, he was recieving backup data f rom the HPC server, it was a sequence whereby lost memory was restored. In the program which rejuvenates the body, there was a fatal defect which caused a high probablity of haziness and loss of memory in return. Therefore, to prepare for permanent memory loss the bo y was conducting a backup of his

memory beforehand. Raven: "How is it, the condition of your body...?" That Man: "It feels keenly young and full of life. The restoration was completed without complication." Raven: "However, the rejection of juvenile hormones is troublesome..." That Man: "That's because it wasn't a human bioactive substance in the first pla ce. For now we'll just have to backup my memory beforehand." Raven: "... Aye." His mantle which had "Karasu" drawn on it fluttering, the man in black respectfu lly bowed his head. Raven: "By the way, was something wrong? Midway through, there seemed to be a sl ight disturbance in your brain waves..." That Man: "... Ah, I got to see an old memory after a long time. Perhaps it elic ited some nostalgia." ====== Suzaku's notes: I'll go ahead and summarize just to make sure everything is clear. Without the c haracters' unique speech styles or first person pronouns, I think it might be a bit difficult to tell who's talking sometimes. This is set shortly after the theory of magic was completed, in a time of rampan t scientific growth. Aria got her PhD in intelligence engineering, basically AI programming, as a teenager. Frederick' s degree was in particle physics, and he's a leader in the new field of magical energy physics. That Man is a prodigy who completed his study of biology as a youngster and worked on the theory of magic, and now specializes in bioinforma tics, which is the study of biological data (like the human genome). That Man is the chief of this American-run researc h laboratory and the three are friends/coworkers. Basically, Aria comes into the lab having just gotten a pretty dramatic haircut, judging from That Man's comment (probably went from really long to shoulder length). Frederick either doesn't no tice or pretends not to notice, but after That Man compliments her, he says she doesn't look like a student anym ore and curses. That Man gives Fred a cup of coffee. Aria asks the two if they pulled an all-nighter, and That Man says they sort of did, because they got into a discussion about controversial phenomena. That Man begins to tell Aria about the discussion, trying to explain that he thi nks there are some unexplained phenomena which are only unexplained due to a lack of understanding, and others which are simply beyond human perception.

He uses God as an example, which prompts a sarcastic remark from Frederick, so h e instead talks about DNA and how it's only recently been understood. That Man continues by saying they understand what man is made of, but not who made man or how. Aria explains it's just natural selection, but That Man uses her as an e xample to say that the probability of everything in the universe being created by random chance is extremely low. That Man illustrates a hypothesis in which a being beyond human perception, whic h he'll call "God" for the sake of argument, controls and directs every event towards a single purpose. He explains that, for example, "God" defines the outcome of evolution, but states that "God's" control is imperfect and there are sometimes mistakes. He attributes these mistakes in evolution, like missing links, to a third party which he calls "Apocalypse", and notes that species that have missing links in their geneology tend to go extinct. He says that if t he natural pursuit by the human species to reach a righteous evolution were interrupted by "Apocalypse", they could evol ve incorrectly and would be doomed to extinction. Aria is worried by this dire prediction, but Frederick says That Man's full of s hit and she shouldn't believe him. That Man laughs and says Frederick is cruel and it's just a hypothesis. Aria ask s if that's what Fred really thinks, and Fred explains that you have to make up your own mind, and try to endure when people try to persuade you otherwise. That Man agrees. In the "epilogue", this is revealed to be a memory which That Man experiences du ring a memory restoring procedure that Raven is managing. That Man undergoes a program whereby his body is restore d to a youthful state (he is presumably de-aged), but due to a defect in the program, there's a risk that his memories w ill be damaged or lost. To combat this, he backs up his memories as data in an HPC server, and restores his memories aft er undergoing the procedure. Raven mentions that his body rejected the juvenile hormones, which are insect ho rmones that allow larva to keep growing without undergoing metamorphosis. It closes by That Man mentioning the memory, a nd that it must have made him nostalgiac.