Saikyou Series Short Story

Battle of Wits with the Digital Detective - Chapter 1

Full t.i.tle: Jun Aikawa’s Blunders, Miss/ion 4: Battle of Wits with the Digital Detective

Life is always better with more Jun! This is one of the shorter stories in Nis.h.i.+o’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 “Aikawa Jun no s.h.i.+ppai, Miss/ion 4: Digital Tantei to no Chiekurabe”.

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

“A dental detective? Dental?”

“No, digital detective, not dental… I mean, there’s no way you misheard that. The letters may look similar, but n.o.body would mishear digital as dental. What even is a dental detective? What’s the matter with teeth?”

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

I’m sorry for fooling around; Jun Aikawa tried to apologize, but suffice it to say that Sasaki Sasa was simply a bit sensitive to such frivolities—to be honest, she was quite reluctant to bring this request before her friend Jun Aikawa, so she was not being sensitive so much as she was, truly, in a bad mood.

Why must I do this?

She could not shake that feeling.

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

“It’s a digital detective.”

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

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

Said Sasa.

As she neither understood nor thought very well of the ent.i.ty she was introducing, there was no avoiding the lack of self-confidence in her tone.

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

Unexpectedly considerate of her.

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

“SH…? Oh.”

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

“From ‘Sherlock Holmes’, I guess.”

“Easy to see, isn’t it…”

“It’s intuitive.”

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

Sasa spoke while looking at her notepad.

She had a good memory, so she was perfectly able to explain and comment without looking at a notepad or whatnot, but by deliberately looking at her notepad while talking, she was trying to make her friend, whom she trusted, see that she had not taken this sort of knowledge to heart, and the information was merely pa.s.sing through her.

In her own way, she was being considerate too.

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

“Right, yeah.”

Didn’t a machine beat an expert on a quiz show recently? Jun Aikawa asked.

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

“Though that did not come from Doyle, apparently.”

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

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

Then, Sasa cut to the chase.

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

“A master detective…”

“Yes.”

Sherlock Holmes.

Hercule Poirot.

Kogorou Akechi.

Kousuke Kindaichi.

“Those sorts of people… Well, my own knowledge is a bit biased toward the cla.s.sics, but it’s a machine designed to surpa.s.s any master detective in an investigation.”

“Why are you saying 'master detective’, though? Makes it sound like detective work is a compet.i.tion. Hm? …Well, alright. So, they successfully developed a machine like that?”

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

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

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

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

The problem, then, was its accuracy.

“The problem is accuracy, isn’t it.”

Said Jun Aikawa.

“How accurately 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 trial phase.”

“That’s incredible.”

Said Jun Aikawa, with obvious derision.

Well, it was understandable.

Jun Aikawa knew more than anyone how unlikely it was for a one hundred percent chance to exist—even Sasa, with all due deference, knew that to some extent.

Really, the fact that a one hundred percent chance didn’t exist was precisely why Jun Aikawa did.

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

“The machine was developed by members of the Kandou Development Lab… Well, I think the hundred percent success rate is just a marketing gimmick, since they added a condition like 'not guaranteed in the case of insufficient inputted information about the incident.'”

“That’s like 'This is a personal opinion, not a guarantee of results or effectiveness.'”

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

“What’s wrong with that? If machines end up doing detective work, that would really make life easy for me.”

“Is that so? If this kind of machine becomes popular, people will have their jobs taken away. I may be a policewoman, but I should be safe because I’m a government employee; wouldn’t this put you out of business, Jun-san?”

“Whether business is good or bad, surely it goes without saying that whatever’s easier is better. I can think of nothing better than machines taking away my job and making it so I don’t have to work. If you like, I could even help out with the development.”

Judging from her personality, Jun Aikawa had most likely just said that out of self-effacement, but even if it was a joke, her saying so made it easier for the discussion to proceed.

“Well, that’s why I’m here.”

“Hm?”

“Your help would be much appreciated.”

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

“This is 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 contest with the digital detective.”

“……”

As she began to explain the basics of the proposal, she knew she was making a presumptuous request of her friend.

It would be no surprise if this caused a fissure in their friends.h.i.+p.

Being compared and contrasted with a newly completed “digital detective”—that makes it seem like an proper contest, but at the end of the day, this request was equivalent to asking her to play the foil.

“Hm? A contest?”

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

“What kind of contest? What does that mean? You’re telling me to be the 'master’ and compete with this digital detective, is that what means?”

“Simply put, that is correct.”

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

She could think of no other way to say it.

“The word 'experiment’ may sound nice… well, it doesn’t sound particularly nice, but in any case, I believe the developers are putting their digital detective into a real contest because they want prestige. In other words, a phrase like, 'Our machine has surpa.s.sed Jun Aikawa in detective ability.'”

“…That’s not exactly a personal opinion, is it.”

Jun Aikawa laughed cynically.

Her expression was unreadable.

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

“Seems like a pretty different kind of contest from the one I had with Magokoro.”(1)

“I wouldn’t mind if you refused—actually, I would appreciate it if you refused. Of course, as far as the police are concerned, a far greater number of cases might be solved if this machine is utilized in crime scene investigations; however, I do not believe there is any reason why you need to provide help, Jun-san.”

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

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

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

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

Her reaction unintentionally ended up sounding like a line from a sitcom.(2)

What? What did she just say?

Did she just say she would help?

“But I have one condition. If I compete with Mr. Digital Detective as a detective, it’ll be hard to measure the machine’s ability. So—”

Jun Aikawa laughed even more cynically.

“I’ll take on the digital detective as the culprit.”

Footnotes:
(1) In Nekosogi Radical, the sixth book in Nis.h.i.+o’s Zaregoto series, Jun battles the ent.i.ty created to replace her in her purpose as a world-ending weapon, a person called Magokoro Omokage.
(2) The j.a.panese makes reference to nori-tsukkomi, a variant of tsukkomi comedy in which the straight man goes along with a ridiculous joke or situation for a short time, only to suddenly point out its ridiculousness.