Saikyou Series

Full t.i.tle: Jun Aikawa’s Blunders, Miss/ion4: Battle of Wits with the Digital Detective

Life is always better with more Jun! This is one of the shorter stories in Nishio’s Saikyou novels—Jinrui Saikyou no Tokimeki to be exact—and was originally published in the Mephisto magazine in 2011. Its full t.i.tle in j.a.panese is “AikawaJun no Shippai, Miss/ion 4: Digital Tantei to no Chiekurabe”.

Itwas the time of year not hot enough to be summer, yet too soon to befall, when Kyoto Prefecture policewoman Sasaki Sasa called uponhumanity’s strongest contractor, Jun Aikawa, with a shameful request.

“Adental detective? Dental?”

“No,digital detective, notdental… I mean, there’s no way you misheard that. The letters maylook similar, but n.o.body would mishear digitalas dental. What evenis a dental detective? What’s the matter with teeth?”

“Prettyharsh retort there… It’s almost like you want to start an argument.What’s wrong? Why the bad mood?”

I’msorry for fooling around; Jun Aikawa tried to apologize, but sufficeit to say that Sasaki Sasa was simply a bit sensitive to suchfrivolities—to be honest, she was quite reluctant to bring thisrequest before her friend Jun Aikawa, so she was not being sensitiveso much as she was, truly, in a bad mood.

Why must Ido this?

Shecould not shake that feeling.

Ofcourse, she was here on account of the G.o.dlike ent.i.ties known asbosses and superiors—“wretched is the lot of a public servant”was certainly an apt expression.

“It’sa digital detective.”

“Ah…I think detective work is pretty digital to begin with, though.”

“That’snot what… Well, simply put, it’s a robot. Or perhaps not a robot,per se, but rather a powerful, specialized supercomputer withdetective software installed…”

SaidSasa.

Asshe neither understood nor thought very well of the ent.i.ty she wasintroducing, there was no avoiding the lack of self-confidence in hertone.

Normally,Jun Aikawa would happily make a joke about that, but perhaps she hadgrasped Sasa’s bad mood; she listened quietly.

Unexpectedlyconsiderate of her.

“Theofficial name of the supercomputer is, apparently, Model SH-43.”

“SH…?Oh.”

JunAikawa c.o.c.ked her head for a moment, and then nodded.

“From‘Sherlock Holmes’, I guess.”

“Easyto see, isn’t it…”

“It’sintuitive.”

“Intuitive…Speaking of which, Model SH-43, commonly referred to as the "digitaldetective’, is far removed from the idea of intuition.”

Sasaspoke while looking at her notepad.

Shehad a good memory, so she was perfectly able to explain and commentwithout looking at a notepad or whatnot, but by deliberately lookingat her notepad while talking, she was trying to make her friend, whomshe trusted, see that she had not taken this sort of knowledge toheart, and the information was merely pa.s.sing through her.

Inher own way, she was being considerate too.

“Awhile ago, there was something similar; do you remember? A machinebeat a chess master, or a machine beat a shogi master… A machine isalready unbeatable at Oth.e.l.lo, or…”

“Right,yeah.”

Didn’ta machine beat an expert on a quiz show recently? Jun Aikawa asked.

“Nowthat you mention it, wasn’t it called Watson?”

“Thoughthat did not come from Doyle, apparently.”

“Well,even if that’s a trend, I don’t necessarily think it’s a commonthing. There are plenty of machines that can’t beat experts, afterall.”

“Indeed…However, in these times of progress every day of every month, nay,every second of every minute, there’s no question that the thoughtroutines of machines have developed so rapidly that they would beunrecognizable a decade ago…”

Then,Sasa cut to the chase.

“Whathas been developed… or rather, invented, this time, is the ModelSH-43; the digital detective. I think the name speaks for itself—theconcept seems to be a machine that can beat what we might call a"master detective’.”

“Amaster detective…”

“Yes.”

SherlockHolmes.

HerculePoirot.

KogorouAkechi.

KousukeKindaichi.

“Thosesorts of people… Well, my own knowledge is a bit biased toward thecla.s.sics, but it’s a machine designed to surpa.s.s any master detectivein an investigation.”

“Whyare you saying "master detective’, though? Makes it sound likedetective work is a compet.i.tion. Hm? …Well, alright. So, theysuccessfully developed a machine like that?”

“Yes.I am not very familiar with it myself, but apparently, one inputsrelevant information about an incident, the detective softwarea.n.a.lyzes it using statistics and logical reasoning—and then itnames the culprit.”

Thetruth of all this should be taken with a grain of salt, however, Sasaadded. Although, since the information had already reached as far asSasa, in all likelihood the thing did really exist.

Well,machines were already used regularly to a.n.a.lyze incidents—in moderntimes, digital processing of information is the norm.

ModelSH-43 was merely doing that on a ma.s.sive scale, so to speak.

Theproblem, then, was its accuracy.

“Theproblem is accuracy, isn’t it.”

SaidJun Aikawa.

“Howaccurately can this digital detective machine pinpoint the culprit,or the time of the incident… That’s the issue, right.”

“Indeed…Though they claim it had one hundred percent accuracy in the trialphase.”

“That’sincredible.”

SaidJun Aikawa, with obvious derision.

Well,it was understandable.

JunAikawa knew more than anyone how unlikely it was for a one hundredpercent chance to exist—even Sasa, with all due deference, knewthat to some extent.

Really,the fact that a one hundred percent chance didn’texist was precisely why Jun Aikawa did.

Andthat’s precisely why she couldn’t trust a digital detective thatclaimed to have a one hundred percent success rate for solving cases.

“Themachine was developed by members of the Kandou Development Lab…Well, I think the hundred percent success rate is just a marketinggimmick, since they added a condition like "not guaranteed in thecase of insufficient inputted information about the incident."”

“That’slike "This is a personal opinion, not a guarantee of results oreffectiveness."”

“Inany case, the trial phase is over, and it seems they wish to move tothe experimental phase.”

“What’swrong with that? If machines end up doing detective work, that wouldreally make life easy for me.”

“Isthat so? If this kind of machine becomes popular, people will havetheir jobs taken away. I may be a policewoman, but I should be safebecause I’m a government employee; wouldn’t this put you out ofbusiness, Jun-san?”

“Whetherbusiness is good or bad, surely it goes without saying thatwhatever’s easier is better. I can think of nothing better thanmachines taking away my job and making it so I don’t have to work. Ifyou like, I could even help out with the development.”

Judgingfrom her personality, Jun Aikawa had most likely just said that outof self-effacement, but even if it was a joke, her saying so made iteasier for the discussion to proceed.

“Well,that’s why I’m here.”

“Hm?”

“Yourhelp would be much appreciated.”

Saying itthat way makes it sound like I’m the one requesting Jun-san’shelp—Sasa hated herself forit, but there was no disguising the fact that, on the face of it,that was exactly what was happening.

“Thisis more like the implementation phase than the experimental phase…”

“Huh?Why are you being so equivocal?”

“Jun-san,we would like you to have a contestwith the digital detective.”

“……”

Asshe began to explain the basics of the proposal, she knew she wasmaking a presumptuous request of her friend.

Itwould be no surprise if this caused a fissure in their friendship.

Beingcompared and contrasted with a newly completed “digitaldetective”—that makes it seem like an proper contest, but at theend of the day, this request was equivalent to asking her to play thefoil.

“Hm?A contest?”

Aftera moment of silence, Jun Aikawa began urging Sasa on with questions.

“Whatkind of contest? What does that mean? You’re telling me to be the"master’ and compete with this digital detective, is that whatmeans?”

“Simplyput, that is correct.”

Rather,no matter how she put it, that would be correct.

Shecould think of no other way to say it.

“Theword "experiment’ may sound nice… well, it doesn’t soundparticularly nice, but in any case, I believe the developers areputting their digital detective into a real contest because they wantprestige. In other words, a phrase like, "Our machine has surpa.s.sedJun Aikawa in detective ability."”

“…That’snot exactly a personal opinion, is it.”

JunAikawa laughed cynically.

Herexpression was unreadable.

Justthen, how did she feel about her friend’s rude proposition?

“Seemslike a pretty different kind of contest from the one I had withMagokoro.”(1)

“Iwouldn’t mind if you refused—actually, I would appreciate it if yourefused. Of course, as far as the police are concerned, a far greaternumber of cases might be solved if this machine is utilized in crimescene investigations; however, I do not believe there is any reasonwhy you need toprovide help, Jun-san.”

“Practicallyspeaking, I doubt the machine would be brought to a crime sceneinvestigation… You know, it’d be inadmissible evidence or whatnot.It’s like how the accuracy of DNA testing and lie detectors and suchcan be called into question.”

“Regardingaccuracy, I presume that is why they want an accomplishment—if it"beats’ Jun Aikawa, then that accomplishment would afford it acertain amount of credence at a crime scene.”

“Allright, I understand. In that case, I’ll help out.”

“Yes,indeed, I think it’s quite alright to turn this down—wait, what?”

Herreaction unintentionally ended up sounding like a line from asitcom.(2)

What?What did she just say?

Didshe just say she would help?

“ButI have one condition. If I compete with Mr. Digital Detective as adetective, it’ll behard to measure the machine’s ability. So—”

JunAikawa laughed even more cynically.

“I’lltake on the digital detective as the culprit.”

Footnotes:
(1)In Nekosogi Radical, thesixth book in Nishio’s Zaregoto series, Jun battles the ent.i.tycreated to replace her in her purpose as a world-ending weapon, aperson called Magokoro Omokage.
(2) The j.a.panese makes referenceto nori-tsukkomi, avariant of tsukkomicomedy in which the straight man goes along with a ridiculous joke orsituation for a short time, only to suddenly point out itsridiculousness.