“Can you give us some proof this isn’t some excuse from the SAF?” asked Colonel Rombert. “As in, some proof that this isn’t your attempt to cover up a deadly friendly fire incident against an SAF plane and place the blame on the JAM? Aren’t you just trying to protect Lieutenant — pardon me, Captain Fukai there? I don’t know how else to put this, but his mental state at the time probably wasn’t that stable.”
“I was the one who ordered Yagashira’s plane to be shot down,” Major Booker said. “I’ve had Captain Foss here prepare a certificate confirming the mental state of both myself and Captain Fukai. You may also question Captain Foss about it directly. Captain Foss has her suspicions that the enemy we fight isn’t real but an imaginary one created by the SAF, which is why she transferred into our unit. In other words, she’s a neutral party here.”
“I never seriously claimed that the JAM were something that the SAF was making up,” Captain Foss protested. “All I said was that I thought it was a possibility. But that was just my own way of analyzing the SAF’s culture of secrecy. That being the case, I’d judge the probability of the report Major Booker just gave being some sort of propaganda to be very low. This notion that Lieutenant Yagashira was a JAM is news to me, but I find it hard to believe that the SAF would invent a threat that would endanger its own internal organization. If Major Booker is lying now, then I can only speculate that the SAF is operating in a way that I cannot understand.”
“The SAF is already on record as having committed serious offenses,” General Laitume interjected, a look of disdain on his face. “There was the indiscriminate firing upon a front-line base. And I believe the personal name of the plane taking that action was Yukikaze. Since the attack occurred while the plane was flying unmanned, we just put it down as a programming error. Do you know how much trouble I went through to take care of that?”
“That incident and the Lieutenant Yagashira incident are not unrelated,” Major Booker said. “Yukikaze knew that human duplicates like Yagashira had already infiltrated that front-line base, TAB-15. That’s why she initiated the attack. But this isn’t a problem we can leave to our combat machines. You understand, don’t you? Every human is now under suspicion. If our combat machines, combat intelligences, and computers decide that they just don’t want to deal with humans anymore, they’re capable of cleaning up the battlefield by just clearing us out. That’s the reason this meeting is being held in such secrecy.”
“May I assume that when you intentionally had Lieutenant Yagashira sortie and destroyed a very expensive fighter plane along with him, it was because you couldn’t confirm beforehand whether or not he was a JAM?” asked Colonel Rombert. “You determined he was a JAM for the first time when he took hostile action against you during the sortie.”
“That’s correct, Colonel,” said Major Booker.
“If these human duplicates are indistinguishable from us,” the colonel continued, “then there is a definite possibility that our battle computers would conclude that all humans would have to be excluded from the battlefield. It’s a logical decision.”
“Why are you saying it so calmly?” General Laitume shot back. “Are you telling me you think that’d be for the best?”
“No, I’m just doing my job. The JAM aren’t the only enemies the FAF has had to worry about. We used to face subversive elements causing trouble here. Infiltrators from Earth. In other words, humans. There were lots of people, both civilians and government agents, who came here to gather intel, then leak information in order to damage the FAF. There was no way we could spot them from their external appearances because they were all real humans. If the JAM are doing that now, then there’s no difference between them and those spies we used to get. Exposing them will be our job. The battle computers certainly can’t do this. Major Booker, about how many JAM do you think have infiltrated us so far?”
“We expect that any flight crews who were recently shot down and were missing temporarily before their rescue have been copied by the enemy and turned into these ‘JAM people.’ ”
“JAM people, huh,” murmured Colonel Rombert. “Call them Jammies. Too bad they don’t have some distinguishing feature on them, like a reversed-spin tail or something.”
“They have no distinguishing features. Lots of these Jammies have probably infiltrated our front-line bases. There are at least a dozen questionable people here at Faery Base.”
“If you’ve got the suspects marked, it makes my job simple,” the colonel said. “I’ll have them detained. This is a great chance to get some information about the JAM.”
“That won’t work,” Major Booker replied. “They won’t know why you’re holding them because they aren’t aware that they’re JAM.”
“I’ll check that out on my own. That’s our duty, after all. Leave it to me.”
“I don’t care if you investigate them, Colonel,” said General Cooley, “but under no circumstances are you to let on that they’re JAM. Not even to the people you’re holding. That’s the second point that the SAF wishes to convey.”
“What do you mean, General? I don’t understand.”
“If this becomes common knowledge, we’re going to see the morale of the entire Faery Air Force drop right before our eyes. The only outcome will be the FAF collapsing from within,” Cooley said. “Besides, I can imagine that those we’ve marked as possible JAM have either been tortured or hypnotized into not even knowing that they are JAM. If that’s true, then there’s nothing to be gained by letting this go public.”
“Their objective is to gather information about human beings. They have to return to their side once they have it,” said Major Booker, picking up where General Cooley had left off. “When these Jammies leave on a sortie, they take their information with them and then separate from their units, possibly by allowing themselves to be shot down. The SAF’s fighters can go after them. We’d like you to permit us to do this. That’s point three, and we’d like your opinion on it, sir.”
“My God,” murmured Captain Foss. “It’s too risky.”
“This isn’t anything that I have the authority to approve,” General Laitume said, an edge in his voice. “This entertainment you’ve arranged isn’t nearly good enough to move me to do something like that. No, this is a joke. If the SAF engages in these activities, I will not give my approval! Captain Foss was right, this is dangerous. If you do that without some public announcement of why, it’ll not only destroy your reputations, but my own as well! Besides, if I let you do that, there’s also the danger that no one would be able to stop your rampage. The FAF and the SAF would end up at war with each other.”
“If people acknowledge that there are JAM within the FAF now, our combat intelligences will use it as an excuse to lock us out of this fight,” Major Booker pleaded. “Even now, the machines are starting to feel that we’re in their way. If we accept that, then all of us will have to abandon this war. The number of unmanned planes will increase and we humans will be sent back to Earth in short order. If that happens, it’s possible that JAM duplicates will mix in with us, and they’ll have succeeded in expanding the battlefield back to Earth. Once that happens, humanity will have no place left to run to.”
“Even if that happens,” added Rei, who’d been silently listening the whole time, “the people on Earth will have no real sense that anything strange has occurred. It’ll be like it always is, with wars breaking out here and there. The people involved will only be concerned with defending their own territory. All the JAM will have to do is sit back and watch humanity wipe itself out.”
“You’re the man who brought this trouble back to us, aren’t you?” asked General Laitume, eyeing Rei coldly. “You’re the one who seems like a JAM.”
“There are truths in this world that we’d be happier not knowing,” Rei replied. “I was shot by a JAM duplicate. Now that I know they exist, it’s only natural that I do something about it. Ignoring the truth doesn’t make it go away. It’s possible the JAM have already infiltrated Earth. We don’t have anyplace left to run, which means our only option is to fight.”
“You said that Yukikaze knew these beings were at that front-line base while she was flying unmanned,” said Colonel Rombert. “That means the SAF’s computers already know the truth. Have they begun seeing humans as a hindrance to them?”
“Yes, there’ve been signs of that,” Major Booker said. “However, the SAF’s combat intelligences operate independently of the other ones in the FAF. They don’t share their data. That’s obvious by the fact that this information wasn’t transmitted to you. They can’t deny a human access to it, so if it gets transmitted, they won’t be able to hide something as big as this. For now, though, they can.”
“Yukikaze isn’t hiding anything,” Rei said. “She seeks my cooperation in order to survive. Whether or not I can guess what she’s thinking is going to determine how long the rest of my life is going to be.”
“What you’ve said seems to have struck a chord in my heart,” Colonel Rombert said. “Since you’ve identified these potential Jammies, I’ll have them investigated in absolute secrecy, just as we’d normally do. Until we spot
