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.