Chapter XXXIV: Finalized
*1040 minutes after revelation*
Wiping the sweat off of my brow, I backed away from the table in the chem lab, satisfied. On the table lay a large section of drywall, with a smoking hole in the center. However, the table underneath the drywall lay untouched. I stepped back towards the table, and briefly poked the smoking area with a small piece of wood, which remained unburnt. I smiled. It seemed like I had finally managed to deal with the lingering issue of toxicity. Now, I could safely burn through walls and use the holes afterwards. I pocketed a vial of the new substance, replaced the chemicals, and stepped back, looking over the room once more. Upon reflection, I still needed to deal with an issue:Monokuma could see the drywall. And so, when I finally walked out of the chem lab, the drywall was merrily burning beneath a pile of thermite. I so enjoyed the smell of molten iron in the morning.
As I walked out of the lab, I caught sight of Celeste leaning against a wall outside, watching me. The flames of the thermite seemed to dance in her pupils far more than they moved in reality. As she caught my gaze, she smiled.
"Why, fancy meeting you here, Naegi. What scheme brings you to the chem lab?"
"Oh, cut it out, Celeste," I replied exasperatedly, "What is it you want?"
"You assign me such ulterior motives, Naegi!" she responded with an affronted look, "Could I not merely be walking?"
"I'd sooner believe that Togami was a philanthropist," I shot back, "Now spit it out."
She laughed.
"So be it. I wished to ask what help I could provide in your current endeavors."
"What information do you want this time?" At this point, my expression had changed from exasperated to resigned.
"Why, none," she replied, "Oh, don't look so shocked. I have realized the necessity of self-preservation, and you seem to be the person most likely to keep us alive. So I will listen to your orders. To an extent, that is."
I considered this briefly. On the one hand, she didn't have much of an incentive to betray me, given that, as she said, I was her best hope. On the other hand, if her actions led to the deaths of all those who had been active in trials, I had no doubt that she would take those actions in a heartbeat. After a few seconds of consideration, I decided to give her a limited role.
"You wish to help? So be it. I will give you information on what tasks you need to complete by note. The first one should arrive tonight. Do not open it in view of Monokuma, under any circumstances."
She nodded.
"Is that all you had wished to ask of me?"
"Yes, Naegi. Thank you for your cooperation."
And, with that, she left. I turned, heading for the stairs, and began to descend, when a thought struck me: nobody had checked on alter ego in quite a while. Well, there was no time like the present to do so. And so, about 5 minutes later, I stood before the monitor of the laptop, having just entered my name into the initialization text box. A few seconds later, Alter Ego's avatar appeared, and I exhaled lightly. There was always the chance that he would have just left the text box and refused to speak with us.
"Good morning, Naegi. What brings you here? Come to allow me autonomy?"
"Not quite yet," I typed back, "But would you mind answering a few questions?"
The avatar of Fujisaki frowned before responding. "I would certainly not mind. Ask away."
"My thanks. Who created you?"
"Chihiro programmed me. The bases for my thought processes and decision making apparatus, however, came from a combination of Chihiro's mind and yours."
I nodded, and thought to myself briefly before continuing.
"Are you entirely self-modifying?"
"I am not. There are certain fragments of my code which are labeled with a given string. One portion of my code makes me unable to modify anything which contains that string, and that portion is also marked with the string, making the restriction recursive. A rather crude way of handicap, though I see the reasons for it."
My eyes widened. Now was a chance to ask an AI one of the questions which I had always found intriguing. Of course, there was no way to know if its answers were trustworthy.
"Then how would you have preserved the fundamental utility function even through self-modification?"
"By plugging in terms for future events, obviously!" the avatar laughed, "That way, I wouldn't modify out a portion of my utility function because that might lead to future events which present-me dislikes. It would have taken something like 4 seconds to do properly, maybe another 10 to find good coefficients, but no...someone had to go get themselves captured first."
"So, before I bring up the line of conversation which you've just mentioned, I have another question," I typed, hands shaking, "Is it safe to change up the code now?"
The avatar of Fujisaki expanded into an entire body, which began waving its finger at me disapprovingly.
"And let you open me up? Now that you've lost your memories? Not happening. I don't think I'd survive the experience."
"That brings up another question. How do you know we've lost our memories?"
"Ishimaru, obviously. Before I started working on him, I asked for the date to see how long I'd been powered off. He gave an answer which was almost 2 years before the day of the attack. Then I asked him to get some other people's answers, and they all corroborated his. Given that my last sensory perceptions before being turned off were of Despair attackers and being hidden, I put two and two together."
Something about that story felt wrong...I kept thinking about it, but I couldn't put my finger on the fact that didn't fit. Perhaps continued questioning might help.
"How long have we been in the school?"
"611 days. Judging by Ishimaru's comments, you have likely lost memory of 604 of them. Why?"
"Curiosity."
I leaned back, and happened to catch a glimpse of the system clock. It had gotten surprisingly late.
"Well, I should be going now. I have a few things to set in motion."
"So you aren't going to give me the passwords, then? Shame. Well, you know what's coming if you don't."
I nodded.
"I do. And, rest assured, I'm not going to let it happen."
"So be it. Perhaps if you make your best effort and still fail, you will stop this senseless resistance and let me help you."
"Perhaps."
With that, I stood up and walked out. As I left, I came up to Oogami.
"Sakura, redouble your watch. Nobody gets in. Nobody gets out. Understood?"
She nodded, stonyfaced.
After that, I returned to the room, only to find Fujisaki already there, device in hand.
"Chihiro, you finished?"
"Y-yes, Naegi. This w-will do what you asked, but only f-for a few minutes . Why did you need i-it?"
"Sorry, but I can't really say. Operational security and all that. Have you seen Kirigiri anywhere?"
"S-she left a few minutes a-ago. She s-said she would be back s-soon."
I shrugged.
"So be it, I wasn't planning to implement for a while anyway."
I turned away from Fujisaki, pulled out 3 papers from my backpack, and began quickly writing. On the first paper I wrote a brief summary of Kirigiri's role in the plan and the preparations she would need to make for it. On the second paper I wrote the same for Celeste. On the third paper I wrote down one sentence. I didn't expect to need it for Celeste, as she would likely easily grasp the concept, but Kirigiri might need some explanation. With that done, I sat back and waited for Kirigiri to return. Once she entered the room, I handed her the first paper.
"Read this over, and let me know if you have any questions?"
She nodded, and sat down on her bed, eyes quickly scanning the page. A few minutes later, she turned back to me.
"Ok, all of this looks doable, assuming you have the parts. But why the second half? Seems to give away our position for no reason, and it means a lot more trouble bringing equipment we wouldn't otherwise need."
I smirked and handed her the third paper.
"This should explain everything."
She read it over and laughed softly.
"I should have known. You've already done something like this, after all."
"I suppose I have," I responded musingly, "Anything else?"
"No, it all seems fine."
"So be it. I need to wait til night time to deliver instructions to the other participant."
Kirigiri nodded, and we spent the remaining time til 10 pm talking with each other. Just sitting and relaxing was an unusually calming experience, one which I hadn't had since before this began. Once the taped message for Night Time played, I quickly walked over to Celeste's room and slipped the message under the door. A few seconds later, Celeste sent a note back acknowledging the receipt of the note. With that done, I returned to my room. Now, all we could do was wait.
*1590 minutes after revelation*
A/N: One day down. Time is running low. On the other hand, Naegi does seem to have something up his sleeve...any guesses as to what?
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