Quo Vadis? (4)
The so-called First Groothuizen Incident—the mess that had thrown Ninomae Hitomi, Han Seoyeon, and Tsunashi Tenka into chaos, and Anathema's existing viewers along with Sarah's own audience besides—came to a surprisingly tame end, considering the shock of it.
Most of the incoming viewers, shoved over for no better reason than that Sarah had sent them and with little interest in this stream to begin with, cleared out in a rush within a minute or two. After them went those who couldn't keep up with a Japanese broadcast. Everyone running the stream had considerable English, and yet they only translated a line now and then; the broadcast itself went on chiefly in Japanese. Last of all, the viewers who had stayed only to decide it simply wasn't to their taste took their leave as well.
…And even then, what remained sailed clean past the five-digit mark.
Still, it sat just barely inside the bounds of what one could call common sense. It was a figure the streamers everyone called the corporate giants only posted when they had some special event on—but set against the initial flood of viewers, it was a reasonable level, and one at which a broadcast could, somehow, be kept going. The viewers' own cooperation played no small part in that.
Once the majority of the audience Sarah Groothuizen had hurled their way had poured back out, those who remained fell into two broad kinds. The first were people familiar not only with English-speaking VTubers, but with Japanese VTubers and their culture as well. VTubers being undeniably otaku fare, there were more than a few who watched the Japanese side alongside them; the major companies had expanded globally long ago, and a considerable number of viewers had flowed in through the collaborations those companies did, now and then, with Japanese VTubers. Among them there would even be foreigners who had put down roots in the Japanese VTuber fandom entirely. Look hard enough, and some of that crowd might have been watching Anathema Production from the start.
The second group, at any rate, weren't familiar with Japanese VTubers at all, but sat quietly watching regardless, since Sarah had recommended the stream. They were, by nature, the quiet sort. Some were probably keeping their mouths shut because they simply couldn't settle into the broadcast… and given a loyalty high enough to sit through a stream they weren't particularly interested in, there were surely others who had decided they must not smear mud across Sarah's face. In the end, chat came in sparsely relative to the viewer count, and thanks to that Mary and Charlotte were able to run the stream as normal.
"…Are you reflecting?"
"I am reflecting."
That was one thing. The terrorist who had abruptly lobbed the bomb, however, was summoned the moment the broadcast ended.
Han Seoyeon sat with her arms folded, glaring at the hotel television. On the screen, a character with blue-green hair knelt with both hands raised. Her skin was faintly pale, and deep grooves carved into the joints here and there lent her an uncanny air—a design whose android premise announced itself at a glance. The bikini excepted.
"And what, exactly, is that outfit."
"Ah, this is the new summer outfit that just came out… What do you think?"
"Even for an English-speaking fandom, I thought the numbers were far too high… So it was a new-outfit reveal," Hitomi said from beside her, with a wry smile.
"Shion, don't be too hard on her, all right? Outside traffic is something you usually can't get even when you want it."
A moment later Charlotte's voice—Tsunashi Tenka's—came through the call. She must have been concerned for the one Seoyeon was scolding. At those words Han Seoyeon sighed, though her expression softened a little. Strictly speaking, the greatest victim of this affair was Tenka, the owner of the stream. If she herself said there was no need to make too much of it, there was nothing to be done from this side.
"Well. If we're asking whether this was a boon or a blow, it was the former, I suppose," Hitomi murmured in her turn.
What the two of them said was plainly true. Anathema Production might have been a VTuber company one reached quickly counting down from the top, but it was equally plain that it would never be a major. In this industry the gap between second and third was monstrous: the dinosaurs ate their fill, and everyone else split whatever pie was left. In a red ocean like that, a chance for viewers to pour in by the mass was nothing one could afford to dismiss. Frankly, if even a fraction of a fraction of the viewers flung their way today fell for Anathema, it could only be good news.
Even failing that, a connection with Sarah Groothuizen—that ecosystem-wrecking invasive species—would catch people's eyes all on its own. An acquaintance, in real life, of a mystique-wrapped celebrity about whom almost nothing of her actual life had ever been released? That alone would set the names of Mary and Anathema Production moving through the mouths of countless VTuber fandoms. Buzz and recognition that money itself could not buy had, quite literally, dropped out of the sky.
"Yes. I did do it out of goodwill, you see…?"
Sarah—Abraham—offered it as if in her own defense. It sounded like an excuse at a glance, but it was probably not a lie told to save herself. Apostles were eccentrics to begin with, and with overwhelming power piled on top of that they tended, as a matter of course, to become objects of fear. If, in the midst of all that, she was regarded as one of the healers among certain people in the Church, one could well take the goodness of her nature as sufficiently proven. At the very least she was absolutely not a person—no, an artificial intelligence—who would of her own will do harm to an innocent stranger.
And hadn't this incident, in the end, come back around as a boon? Whether by precognition or by a superintelligence's analysis, she had surely done it knowing full well that it would turn out this way.
"…I'll apologize in her place, for now. Prophets, you see, have always been that sort of breed."
The habit peculiar to those gifted with foresight—a disregard for the process—was hers as well, and Han Seoyeon was convinced that this was the root of the whole affair.
"They look at the result first, and only then move. So long as the outcome is the same, they tend to charge the shortest route—a straight line—without a second thought."
Han Seoyeon sighed once more, and explained it so.
"No, it's fine. I was a little startled, but it was a fun event, wasn't it?"
"I truly am sorry……"
A small laugh came through the phone, and then Tenka said it. At that merciful word Abraham bowed herself flat to the floor—never mind that this was no video call, and no one on the far end could see her do it.
"The new outfit was getting such a good response that I was riding the high, and I grew so certain this would send a considerable influx of viewers to Anathema Production that I simply, without thinking……"
"So even an artificial intelligence gets carried away."
"Abraham is, for all practical purposes, no different from a person."
Even an AI, it seemed, could cause a disaster on nothing but late-night energy—it wasn't particularly late, mind—and the thought set Hitomi quietly laughing.
"Next time, instead of an ambush like this, might we ask for a proper collaboration?" she said, smiling brightly. "Of course, Sarah—no, Abraham…? Hmm. Anyway, we're far smaller, so it would only amount to us latching on……"
"Not at all. If an apology for this rampage can be settled by that alone, I would be glad of it. Or shall we have Charlotte join us then, as well?"
"Oh hey, you're counting me in too? If you do, that's a huge honor."
Well—there had been this and that, but in the end the women wrapped things up warmly enough, and Han Seoyeon had no mind to press the matter any further.
"Ah, that's right… Seoyeon. There's something I ought to tell you."
This time, though, it was Abraham who called to her. The manner suggested the errand had only just occurred to her… but there was no chance an artificial intelligence had truly forgotten. She had simply wanted to broach the subject in some suitably natural way.
"What is it?"
"I've sent a parcel to the hotel room you're in. By my calculations, it ought to be arriving just about now…"
That the calculation was exact became clear at once. The room's intercom had begun to ring.
"It's the item in question."
"Ah. That. I'll receive it with thanks. —Hitomi, would you keep talking with the others for a moment?"
"Hm? Yes, well. That's fine."
Han Seoyeon said as much and rose. A question surfaced on Hitomi's face, but if Seoyeon wasn't going to explain, there was surely a reason, and so she decided to do simply as she was told.
Before long Han Seoyeon came back with a certain box. It was a large one, a meter or so to a side. While Hitomi chatted on with the others, Seoyeon set it down on the bed… and drove her arm deep into the side of it. With a thick crunch, a hole opened in the cardboard.
From inside came the flutter of paper, a sound for all the world like someone turning the pages of a book. A good while passed like that. Then Seoyeon drew her arm back out, rummaged through her bag, and produced a box of matches.
"Huh? Shion, what's th—"
There was no time to ask what it was. In a flash Seoyeon struck a match and tossed the lit one through the hole she had punched.
A moment later an intense light flared inside the box, as if something had exploded.
"Eh…?"
"Ah. Be at ease. I only burned some flash paper. It's a thing often used in magic tricks—touch it with flame, and it burns away in an instant, without a trace."
So Han Seoyeon added, but Hitomi only looked back and forth between the box and her, eyes gone perfectly round. Even under that stare, Seoyeon offered no further explanation. She simply drew Hitomi into her arms and stole her lips.
It was the attitude of someone hiding something in plain sight… but if she wasn't going to be told, Hitomi had no wish to dig any deeper, and so she tipped her chin up, just slightly.
"…You aren't thinking you can buy my silence with just the one, are you?"
Seoyeon's face went blank for a moment. Then she caught the meaning, and her eyes opened wide.
"A few more times might be necessary… No—not in number. In time. Hmm. At least twenty more minutes…?"
"……If it's for the sake of keeping you quiet, I suppose it can't be helped."
"……Yes. It can't be helped. Right?"
Faced with Hitomi blushing and yet making her demand perfectly clear, Han Seoyeon let a faint smile touch her mouth and drew her in all the tighter. In the gazes they turned on each other, a thick, clinging heat had taken hold.
"Hey. You haven't forgotten you're still on a call, have you…?"
"……Ah."
…Well. The two of them spending a heated night together would only become possible a little while later. Specifically, it required however long it took for Hitomi—red all the way to her ears—to press the end-call button, making her excuses in a voice that trembled.