The Choice, Part 2
With that, Moroboshi's left hand moved toward the red button, ready to press it down—
"Wait, don't rush this!" Conan lunged forward and grabbed his left hand, stopping him cold.
Moroboshi turned and frowned at Conan. "What, don't tell me you want to go with the blue button?"
Kikukawa and Emori, seeing Conan halt Moroboshi's hand, froze mid-motion as well, their own fingers hovering over their buttons.
But though they stopped, none of them could understand why Conan had interfered. They all stared at him in confusion, waiting for an explanation.
Conan's face was a picture of conflict. Truthfully, even he thought the red button was the better choice compared to the blue one — and yet something told him it couldn't be that simple.
Yes, Noah's Ark had just told them that pressing the red button would clear the game and let every one of them leave this world. But what if it wasn't true?
The odds were slim — but what if there was a trap buried somewhere in that choice?
He remained convinced that Noah's Ark springing this on them right before they cleared the game had to mean something. They couldn't simply decide on the spot.
Just as Conan was searching for the right words, Ran's hesitant voice rang out first. "What we're deciding right now... is whether the Hydro Archon should... die. Is that right? It doesn't feel right at all..."
Mitsuhiko looked equally torn. "Yeah, it feels like we're deciding someone else's life for them."
Kikukawa disagreed. "Then what — press the blue button and let all those people in Fontaine come to harm?"
Emori nodded. "Exactly. And if we pick the blue button, we're all finished ourselves. Is there even another option?"
Ayumi stepped away from Ran's side, straightened up, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "But I really, truly don't want to see the Hydro Archon and Focalors sacrifice themselves! Conan, you're so smart — think of something! Isn't there any way to solve this without the Hydro Archon getting hurt?"
At Ayumi's words, Genta turned to Conan with hopeful eyes too. Truth be told, after hearing what Ran said and remembering everything that had happened, his own finger couldn't quite bring itself to press the red button either.
Maybe Conan really could find a way out of this mess.
The corner of Conan's mouth twitched. "......"
He didn't know whether to be grateful that his little friends believed in him so completely — because right now, he didn't have a clue either.
No matter how he turned it over in his head, going by what Noah's Ark had said, the red button was the only real option. But could it really be that easy? Then what would even be the point of offering them a choice?
And yet — something about this whole setup felt strangely familiar. It was like... like something...
That was it. The trolley problem!
"The trolley problem," Haibara said.
Conan shot her an exasperated look.
Seriously? Someone had beaten him to the answer yet again. It was enough to drive him up the wall — why did everyone keep doing this?
"The trolley problem? What's a trolley problem?" Genta's face was a blank. They'd just been talking about which button to press, hadn't they? How had they jumped to some problem with a trolley? Whatever was wrong with a trolley hardly seemed like something a bunch of kids needed to worry about. It wasn't like they could fix it.
"You don't even know one of the most famous thought experiments in existence? Heh. Maybe spend less time eating and more time reading." Moroboshi gave a contemptuous snort, and only when he saw Genta turn toward him, bristling, did he continue at his leisure:
"The trolley problem is one of the best-known thought experiments in ethics. The gist is this: five innocent people are tied to a trolley track, and a runaway trolley is barreling toward them. Luckily, you discover a lever that can divert the trolley onto a different track. However, there is also a single innocent person tied to that other track. Given these circumstances — should you pull the lever?"
Genta scratched his head, still lost. "So? What's that got to do with what's happening to us?"
Conan stepped in to elaborate. "The question of 'should you pull the lever' in the trolley problem is basically the same as our choice of buttons today. At its core, it's still a choice between the few and the many. The only difference is that today's version is more complicated — a bunch of other factors got mixed in, including our own lives. That's what makes the two options feel so lopsided."
"He's right," Haibara said. "But no matter how lopsided those two options look, once you make a choice, it means you've sacrificed the people on the 'other track.'"
Genta asked Conan uncertainly, "So... does that mean we should pick... the blue button?"
The moment Genta asked, Conan knew he'd completely missed the point. "Of course not," he said, an invisible weight settling over him. "I'm not even sure we should pick the red button — but the blue one is definitely out."
Moroboshi was losing patience. "Then what are you still agonizing over?! There are only two options total. If blue is off the table, then red is all that's left, isn't it? What are you going to do, conjure up a third option out of thin air?"
"Yeah, yeah," Emori and Kikukawa chimed in.
Moroboshi glanced up at the countdown, his expression turning anxious — less than three minutes left.
Seeing him do it, Kikukawa checked the timer too and immediately started pressuring Conan. "Have you made up your mind or not?! There's barely any time left. If you don't choose soon, we might not even manage to press a button before the countdown ends."
At that very moment, a light flashed through Conan's mind. He'd thought of something—
Kikukawa, watching Conan drift off into space, grew angry. "If you haven't figured it out yet, then Moroboshi, Emori, and I aren't waiting for you. We're pressing our buttons first. Time waits for no one."
"Wait!" Conan cut in again.
"What on earth do you wan—"
Before Kikukawa could finish snapping at him, Conan spoke directly. "Do you remember when Noah's Ark handed each of us our buttons, and when it repeated the instructions? It only asked us to make a choice. It never said the choice was between pressing the red button or the blue button — or, alternatively..."
Conan's glasses flashed white. "...the choice to press nothing at all."
Kikukawa froze mid-outburst, the anger dying on his lips as Conan's words yanked his mind right back to the matter at hand. He began recalling what Noah's Ark had said when it gave them the buttons. "I... I think that's right..."
Moroboshi remembered it the same way. Catching the questioning look in Kikukawa's eyes, he gave a small nod — silent confirmation.
Haibara raised an eyebrow. "So what you're saying is... our choice should be not to press the button?"