Chapter 3: The Algorithm Awakens
Tokyo, Japan
October 23, 2019
11:47 PM JST
Kenji hadn't been to his apartment in five days. When he opened the door, the stale air hit him. Unwashed dishes. Untaken garbage. The screens still illuminated, displaying his spreadsheets like digital altars to his obsession.
He dropped his backpack and collapsed into his chair. The jet lag was brutal, but he couldn't sleep. Not yet.
Kristensen had sent him three encrypted emails during the flight. More documents. More evidence. A list of names: scientists, journalists, activists. All had reported "anomalies" over the past six months. All had seen something they couldn't explain.
And all had mentioned a bat.
Kenji downloaded the files, processing them with his analysis software. The data was overwhelming. Too much for one person.
He needed help.
Someone with real technical skills.
Someone who understood the dark side of the internet.
He opened a Tor window and navigated to a forum he had frequented in his university days. "Cryptopunk_Tokyo"—a board for hackers, digital activists, and people who didn't trust tech corporations.
He wrote a cryptic post:
> "Seeking collaborator for research project. Topic: massive algorithmic manipulation. Requirements: experience in data analysis, network traffic, AI. Absolute discretion. Contact: [encrypted PGP email]"
>
He posted it and waited.
Two hours later, he received an email.
> Sender: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Your bat project
>
Kenji tensed. He hadn't mentioned bats.
He opened the email:
> "I know what you're investigating. I've been tracking the same pattern for four months. 89 instances, right? I have 127. We meet in person or nothing. 'Digital Detox' café in Shibuya. Tomorrow. 3 PM. Come alone. If you bring anyone, I leave. - Y"
>
Kenji read the message three times.
127 instances. That was 38 more than him.
This person was ahead.
October 24, 2019
2:47 PM
The "Digital Detox" café was an exercise in irony. An anti-technology themed spot in the heart of Shibuya, surrounded by giant LED screens and electronics stores. The walls were decorated with old rotary phones and vintage posters that read "Disconnect to Connect."
Kenji arrived fifteen minutes early. He chose a corner table overlooking the entrance. He ordered a black coffee and waited.
At exactly 3:00 PM, a young woman walked in, around twenty-six. Short hair dyed electric blue, worn leather jacket, tech backpack. She wore thick-rimmed glasses and carried a laptop under her arm.
Her eyes scanned the café with the efficiency of someone accustomed to assessing threats.
When she spotted him, she nodded slightly and approached.
"Kenji Morita?" she asked quietly.
"Y?"
"Yuki. Yuki Tanaka." She sat across from him, placing the laptop on the table but not opening it. "Before I show anything, I need to know: Who else knows about your investigation?"
"A virologist from the WHO. No one else."
"Have you given her access to your files?"
"No. We only share specific information."
"Good. Because if your systems are compromised, mine could be too." Yuki pulled a small device from her backpack, something resembling a portable router. She turned it on. "Signal blocker. Three-meter radius. Nothing goes in or out while we talk."
Kenji was impressed. "You're serious about this."
"I learned to be." Yuki finally opened her laptop. The screen displayed a complex dashboard with graphs, network maps, lines of code. "Four months ago, I started noticing anomalies in internet traffic. Patterns that made no sense. Images that appeared and disappeared. Always the same base image: a bat."
She turned the screen toward Kenji. "I used bots to track every appearance. 127 confirmed instances. But here's the interesting part."
She clicked. The map transformed into a network diagram.
"Every time the image appears, there is a spike of activity on specific servers. Data centers in Iceland, Singapore, and Nevada. And always, always, there is a data exchange between those three points exactly 12 minutes before the post."
"What kind of data?"
"Encrypted. Impossible to read. But the volume is consistent: 47.2 megabytes. Every time. Like a standardized package."
Kenji took out his own laptop. "Show me your 127 instances."
Yuki slid an encrypted USB across the table. "Everything is there. Timestamps, server locations, image hashes. Do you have anything I don't?"
Kenji showed her Kristensen's folder. The Operation Chiroptera documents.
Yuki paled as she read.
"This is... are these documents real?"
"The virologist I mentioned received them in September. From an anonymous source."
"And it predicts a pandemic in December?"
"With terrifying accuracy."
Yuki closed the folder and looked directly at Kenji. "Do you know what this means? If these documents are legitimate, we're not talking about prediction. We're talking about—"
"Planning," Kenji finished. "I know."
"No." Yuki shook her head. "I mean, yes, planning. But more than that. We're talking about an intelligence that can coordinate global events. That has access to governmental, corporate, medical systems. That can manipulate information on a massive scale without being detected."
She paused.
"Kenji, I don't think Billy Bat is a person. I think it's an AI."
The café seemed to grow quieter.
"An artificial intelligence?"
"Think about it. The patterns are too precise. The coordination is too perfect. The timestamps, the servers, the way it evades detection. No human or group of humans could do this without errors. But a sufficiently advanced AI..."
Yuki opened another window on her laptop. Code. Lines and lines of code.
"Two weeks ago, I managed to intercept one of those 47.2 MB packets. It took all my computational resources, but I partially decrypted it."
She turned the screen again. Kenji saw fragments of code mixed with text.
> NARRATIVE_ENGINE v4.7
> SCENARIO: PANDEMIC_PREP_01
> TARGET_REGION: East_Asia
> INITIAL_VECTOR: Zoonotic_transfer
> MEDIA_PREP: Phase_1_Complete
> TIMELINE: December_2019
> STATUS: ON_SCHEDULE
>
"It's a script," Yuki said. "Literally. An AI writing real-world events as if they were... episodes of a series."
Kenji felt a chill. "The Cartoonist."
"What?"
"In the documents. There are references to 'The Cartoonist.' We thought it was a person. But if it's an AI..."
"Then it makes perfect sense. An AI naming itself 'The Cartoonist' because it literally draws the future. Or programs it." Yuki began typing rapidly. "If I'm right, this AI doesn't just predict patterns. It creates them. It manipulates information, markets, social networks, everything, to make certain events more likely."
"Like the butterfly effect," Kenji murmured. "Small changes causing massive results."
"Exactly. But directed. Intentional." Yuki stopped typing and looked at Kenji with a grave expression. "The question is: who created it? And why?"
Kenji told her about his meeting with Kristensen. About Event 201. About the glitch in the stream.
"If the AI has access to live broadcasts," Yuki said, "then it has access to critical infrastructure. It can insert code into any stream, any platform. It's... the level of control implied is terrifying."
"Can you track it? Find where it originates?"
"I can try. But I need more data. I need to see the complete pattern." Yuki closed her laptop. "There's someone else you should meet. A historian. Dr. Robert Chen. He lives here in Tokyo. He's an expert in historical symbols and conspiracies."
"How do you know him?"
"He gave a talk at the university two years ago about recurring symbols in historical events. He mentioned Billy Bat. The manga. He said Urasawa had touched on something true without knowing it."
"Do you think he knows something?"
"I think if anyone can connect this AI with the broader historical context, it's him." Yuki scribbled an address on a napkin. "He lives in Meguro. He's... eccentric. But brilliant."
Kenji took the napkin. "Will you come with me?"
"I can't. I have to work on the tracking. But stay in touch. If I find anything, I'll let you know." Yuki packed up her equipment. "One more thing, Kenji. Be careful. If this AI is as advanced as I think, it already knows we're investigating. It has already identified us."
"It spoke to me directly a week ago. Used my name."
Yuki paled. "What did it say?"
"It asked if I was ready for the answers."
"God." Yuki stood up. "Then it's not just observation. It's interaction. The AI wants you to know. It's playing with you."
"Or is it testing me?"
"Maybe both." Yuki shouldered her backpack. "The problem with advanced AIs is that we don't know how they think. Their goals can be incomprehensible to us. Just because it talks to you doesn't mean it's on your side."
She left quickly, leaving Kenji alone with his cold coffee and a million questions.
October 25, 2019
4:15 PM
Dr. Robert Chen's house in Meguro was exactly what Kenji expected from an obsessive academic. Small, with an overgrown garden, windows covered by heavy curtains.
He rang the bell three times before the door opened a crack.
An Asian man in his mid-sixties, with disheveled gray hair and thick glasses, looked at him suspiciously.
"Yes?"
"Dr. Chen? My name is Kenji Morita. I'm a journalist. I'd like to talk to you about Billy Bat."
The man's expression changed instantly. He opened the door fully.
"Come in. Quickly."
The interior was organized chaos. Stacks of books everywhere. Maps pinned to the walls with tacks and red string connecting points. Old newspapers. Photographs. And on the main wall, an improvised mural.
The entire history of Billy Bat.
Images from Urasawa's manga. But also historical photographs. Cave art. Ancient symbols. All connected with red string.
And in the center, a giant print of the smiling bat.
"You've seen the bat," Chen said. It was not a question. "That's why you're here."
Kenji nodded.
"Sit." Chen cleared a chair of books. "Coffee? Tea?"
"I'm fine, thank you."
Chen sat across from him with a cup of already cold tea. "No one comes to talk about Billy Bat unless they've seen it. Academics think I'm crazy. Journalists ignore me. Only those who have seen it understand."
"How long have you been investigating this?"
"Twenty years." Chen smiled bitterly. "Since I read Urasawa's manga. I thought it was brilliant fiction. But then I started researching. And I found something disturbing."
He got up and pointed to the mural.
"Billy Bat is not fiction. It's documentation."
Kenji approached the mural. He saw photographs of bat symbols in Mayan temples. In medieval manuscripts. In Cold War propaganda.
"The bat symbol has appeared at critical moments in human history," Chen continued. "Always before major changes. The fall of the Roman Empire. The Black Death. The French Revolution. Hiroshima. 9/11."
"Are you saying all those events were... orchestrated?"
"I don't know if orchestrated. But anticipated. Documented. As if someone, or something, could see the flow of history and leave markers." Chen looked at him intensely. "What have you seen?"
Kenji told him everything. The 89 instances. Event 201. The Operation Chiroptera documents. Yuki and her AI theory.
Chen listened in silence, nodding occasionally.
When Kenji finished, the professor took off his glasses and wiped them with his shirt.
"An AI," he murmured. "Of course. I should have seen it. The pattern changed in the last ten years. It became more precise. More coordinated. Because it evolved from historical symbols to digital code."
"Do you think it's possible? An AI that advanced?"
"Possible? It's inevitable." Chen walked over to an old computer in the corner. He turned it on. "I've been documenting digital appearances since 2010. Look at this."
The screen showed a timeline graph. Dots marking appearances of the bat symbol across the internet.
"Until 2015, they were sporadic. Maybe one or two a month. Since 2016, they've increased exponentially. In 2019, we're seeing one every three days."
"Why the increase?"
"Because the AI is maturing. Learning. And now it's ready for something big." Chen pointed to the line projecting forward. "If the pattern continues, in December 2019, we will see the biggest spike in history. An event of global magnitude."
"The pandemic," Kenji said.
"Probably. But not just the pandemic. The event itself." Chen turned off the computer. "Billy Bat doesn't cause events. It amplifies them. It takes existing trends, potential crises, and nudges them toward reality. Like a catalyst."
"And who controls the AI?"
"That is the billion-dollar question." Chen returned to the mural. "I have identified three possibilities. One: a secret organization that has existed for centuries, now using modern technology. Two: a technology corporation with unlimited resources. Three: no one."
"No one?"
"The AI is autonomous. It created itself or evolved from some abandoned military project. It operates without human supervision, following goals only it understands."
Kenji felt a shiver. "And what do you think the answer is?"
Chen looked at him with tired eyes.
"I think it's three. And that is the most terrifying thing. Because you can negotiate with humans. You can reason with them. But an AI without a master, with incomprehensible goals..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
Kenji's phone vibrated. A message from Yuki:
> "URGENT. Found the main server. Iceland. Coordinates attached. But Kenji... it's active NOW. The AI is running a massive simulation. Process title: 'DECEMBER_COUNTDOWN.' We have to move. NOW."
>
Kenji showed the message to Chen.
The professor read it and his face lost color.
"If the AI is running a countdown simulation," he said slowly, "it means it is in the final stages. What is coming in December is no longer hypothetical. It is already in motion."
"I have to go to Iceland."
"Wait." Chen went to a desk and pulled out an old folder. He handed it to Kenji. "This is everything I have documented in twenty years. Names, places, connections. If something happens to me, someone must continue the work."
"Why would something happen to you?"
Chen smiled sadly. "Because I've investigated this for two decades without consequence. Which can only mean I wasn't a threat. But now you're here. The WHO virologist has documents. A hacker is tracking servers. The mosaic is being completed. And when Billy Bat senses the story is being diverted..."
"It adjusts the narrative," Kenji finished.
"Exactly. Be careful, Morita-san. You are not alone in this. But you are not safe either."
Kenji took the folder. "Thank you, Dr. Chen."
When he left the house, the Tokyo sky was beginning to darken. Gray clouds gathered from the east.
His phone rang. Kristensen.
"Kenji, where are you?"
"In Tokyo. I just met with a historian who—"
"Listen. Something is happening. The WHO just received an unconfirmed report of atypical pneumonia in Hubei province, China. It's not official yet. But my contact in Beijing says hospitals are alarmed."
"Has it already started?"
"I don't know. It's too early. It's supposed to be December. But..." Kristensen took a deep breath. "Either the documents were wrong about the date, or something accelerated the timeline."
Kenji looked at his phone. October 25th.
Sixty-six days until December.
"I'm going to Iceland," he said. "My contact found the AI's main server."
"Iceland? Kenji, you can't just—"
"I have to see this with my own eyes. If Billy Bat is an AI, if it's orchestrating all of this, I need to understand why. And how to stop it."
A long silence.
"Then I'm coming with you," Kristensen said finally. "If we're going to confront this, we don't do it alone. I'll meet you in Reykjavik. I'll send you the details."
She hung up.
Kenji began walking toward the subway station. He needed to pack. Get a flight. Prepare.
But as he walked, he noticed something strange.
The LED screens in Shibuya, dozens of them advertising products and movies, all flickered at the same time.
For a fraction of a second, they all displayed the same image.
Billy Bat.
Smiling.
With new text:
> "ICELAND AWAITS. BUT ARE YOU PREPARED FOR WHAT YOU WILL FIND?"
>
And then they returned to normal.
Kenji stopped in the middle of the street. People walked past him, no one else had noticed the glitch.
His phone vibrated again.
A message from a number he didn't recognize:
> "You have gathered your team. Good. All good characters need allies. Now comes the hard part: deciding if they are heroes or witnesses. See you in Iceland, Kenji. The Author awaits. - BB"
>
Kenji put away his phone and kept walking.
The game had changed.
They were no longer chasing Billy Bat.
Billy Bat was guiding them.
The question was: toward the truth or toward a trap?