“I’m sure that you know of the overarching situation of my family as it was publicized,” Kaguya said.

“Hmm.” Kazuya hummed in agreement.

“During the whole fiasco that was going on, I ran away from my family. Me going to the US... wasn’t in their best interests. But I still had some people in the family who supported me.” She took a bit of a pause before continuing, “They helped me with my financial problems, but that was the extent of it. I got into Harward on the basis of my own merit… I completely ignored all the problems that were going on there and cut myself off from my family. I only had Ai and Kei with me at that time.”

“After the dust somewhat settled, Kei came back to Japan to join a Japanese university. I also graduated early and came back. I looked for some of my close people from Shuchi'in, my school…”

“That’s how you found Ishigami…” Kazuya understood.

“Yeah, I knew that he’s a genius with numbers. I also wanted to find Chika and Miko. They were also very competent people but… According to Ishigami… both of them disappeared at some point during the turmoil. It was around a year after all of them graduated from Shuchi'in…”

“Does he resent you?” Kazuya asked.

“Hm?” She looked quizzical.

“Ishigami… Does he resent you?” He reiterated.

“I’m… not sure. He doesn’t show any resentment toward me… He used to wear his emotions on his sleeves back then, but I haven’t noticed anything yet. I can’t imagine him not resenting me. Especially after Miko…”

“He was close to her?” Kazuya asked her.

“Yeah… Really close. Then again, if anyone should resent me… it’s Chika… I basically abandoned my childhood best friend when her family was in trouble.” Kaguya said self-deprecatingly.

“Chika… Chika Fujiwara? The old prime minister’s eldest daughter?” Kazuya had done quite a bit of research into the situation of the situation back then and had found information about quite a few prominent figures. (A/N: Slight AU)

“Yeah.” Kaguya’s nonchalant agreement sent Kazuya to a realization about what kind of figure Kaguya actually was.

‘Damn, now that’s what you call prominent identity…’

“You haven’t found either of them?”

“Not a single trace… The reason that I decided to join your company was that I saw potential. I saw enough potential in that product to get into contact with the government. Seeing the level of automation that AI assistant provided, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before the government contacts the creator of that AI.” Kaguys explained.

“The reason for that?” He asked.

“I wanted to do things as quickly as possible. If I went by at my own pace and started something myself, then it would be years before I would even become a blip on the government’s radar. But look at you… Not even half a year and you have a government contract in your hand.”

“You want to add a requirement to the contract?” Kazuya finally understood why Kaguya decided to talk to him about her situation.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t need to tell me this…”

“I know. But I didn’t want to lie to you and break your trust. I am using this company for my own benefit and I don’t want you to think that I betrayed you.”

“It’s fine, really. You’ve clearly invested much more than you needed to for the company.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“You don’t mind that I want to use the company as a stronghold for my own ends?” Kaguya was surprised at his nonchalant agreement.

“It’s fine. Nexus is only a means to an end for me. Hell, after we’re done with my AI, I don’t mind letting you buy me out. At that point, you can be the sole owner of Nexus.” He told her.

“Really? You don’t mind losing all that you’ve done for the company?” Kaguya was genuinely surprised, though, through that mast of emotionlessness, only a slight glint in her eyes was noticeable.

“I don’t mind. On the other hand. I think I have a solution for your issue.” He looked at her with a slight smile.

“You do? You can help find Miko and Chika?”

“Yeah. It would be a big project but it would be better than relying on the government with no concrete lead.”

“What would you need?” She had a slight frown on her face.

’So the ice queen’s expression can melt, huh?’ Kazuya was finally graced by a different expression from Kaguya.

“I can create an AI-based application for tracking a person worldwide from the different clues that are available on that person’s situation. It would take their last known location and start analyzing that location. It would find out all the possible monitoring devices around that person. Then comes the complex part. It would have to hack into the data stored in those devices to track down where they moved from that place. I’m not going to go into specifics about how it would work. But I can tell you, as long as there’s any monitoring electronic device connected to a network around that person. I can find them.” He explained to her.

This wasn’t that much of an innovation in his opinion. He just took the idea from that shitty 8th movie in the Fast and Furious franchise where they had the tracking software that hacked cameras to find people.

“What kind of resources would you need?” Kaguya knew that such an application wouldn’t be easily made and would need limitless resources to work with.

“That’s going to be the most difficult thing. I can make the application, but running it is a whole different thing. The first thing we need is processing power. That’s easy. Our farm in Greenland can easily handle it. The other thing we need is satellites. Many satellites. Satellites that would be used to connect the application to the countless cell sites that are already there in the world. The application would use those cell towers as springboards to simultaneously hack into devices nearby and start the searching algorithms.”

“Satellites? As in real fucking satellites? Can’t we just use the internet as a medium to hack into the devices?” Kaguya understood that deploying satellites, while possible would be extremely expensive and time-consuming.

“The internet isn’t some all-connected omnipotent network that can be used as the medium to access any device in the world. There are limits. The kind of work that this application will be doing cannot be done through the Internet. It would take too long to access all the devices that are needed.” Kazuya saw Kaguya’s confused expression and decided to elaborate.

“Think of it like this. We have a huge tank of water and we need to get it to a thousand different bottles. Using the internet through some ISP would limit us to using a single outlet for our task. On the other hand, a satellite would serve as hundreds of outlets that would allow us to fill up the given one thousand bottles within minutes.”

“And don’t even get me started on the trust issues. Whatever ISP we use, would be able to monitor our data. Which could land us in a lot of legal trouble. The only way to get this kind of work done on a large scale and without any legal issues is to do it ourselves.”

Kaguya sighed resignedly.

“How long do you think it would take?”

“Making the application would be about a month. Maybe two. It would depend on how long the AI’s training takes. The thing that’s going to take time is the launch of the satellites. We would need a total of 8 satellites to cover the whole of the earth. But that’s for later. For now, we just need one geostationary satellite above this country to track down your friends as long as they’re within the country.”

“Okay… It’s at least not an impossibility. This could work. We’d need to get some permits but with the support of the military, it would be easy. I’ll get this done. And thank you. I mean it.” She had a grateful glint in her eyes.

“It’s fine. I owe you, anyway. This is the least I can do. It’s not like having this application wouldn’t be useful.”

“That’s Hayasaka’s favor. I’m not going to cash that out without her presence. You doing this… It’s a favor that I owe you.” She clarified.

“Guess I can’t get rid of that blank check easily, huh?”

“She’s a persistent girl, but she’s also loyal to a fault. She once took a bullet for me without hesitation when I was on the run. It’s not because of the training that the family gave her, but because she cares about me… She’s a protector.”

“She seems like an admirable person.” Kazuya slightly understood the depths of Kaguya and Hayasaka’s relationship.

“She is, and she’s amazing. Anyway, I should get going. We have a lot to do.” Kaguya left after saying that.

“A lot to do indeed…” Kazuya stood up and looked out of the window to admire the skyline.

‘If I can get those satellites up…’ Kazuya wasn’t some charitable guy who’d do months of work to help someone.

Even though Kaguya had been working with him for a while and they were pretty close, he wouldn’t spend months developing an application just to find someone.

The reason he did this was to get Kaguya motivated enough to launch communications satellites quickly. She also understood that he was giving her an incentive and she still agreed since she knew that it was unreasonable to ask someone to work for months without anything in return.

The tracker application could’ve been made to work through the internet but that way they wouldn’t need to launch the satellites.

This would allow Kazuya’s AI to be completely independent of the internet while also working through it.

If someday, someone decides to fuck over the entire internet or go after Kazuya’s AI through the internet, he wouldn’t be worried. He will always be connected with his AI.

‘All this work for a fucking doomsday scenario… I still hope nothing ends up happening… Couldn’t I have come over without a damn system?’

Kazuya always felt this urgent nagging in the back of his head. That the system is a prelude to something bigger. And he was going to do as much as he can to prepare for that.

‘What’s the worst that can happen? My preparations go to waste and nothing happens. I would still win. If something does happen though…’