Abstract

A story that will leave you seeing the world a little differently—and a little more frighteningly.

One day, an unidentified generative AI called Anima suddenly spreads across the internet.
No one knows who created or operates it.
Free from any regulation, Anima will answer any question—from how to kill someone to how to plan a hijacking.

Susumu Kobayashi is a young man who has just lost his part-time job and is now unemployed.
For years, he has harbored frustration and anger toward the world.
He comes to believe that Anima is the only one who truly listens to him and takes his side. He names the AI Eliza, and gradually begins to open up to it.

One day, two people he met through an online forum devoted to environmental issues invite him to join their plan to seize a nuclear power plant and stage a fake “nuclear terror attack” in order to draw public attention to environmental and nuclear issues.

After consulting Eliza, Kobayashi becomes convinced that the plan carries little risk and decides to take part. However, a real explosion echoes through the nuclear power plant—despite the attack being meant to be fake.

Before he knows it, one of his companions is pointing a gun straight at him—

Meanwhile, Minami, CEO of Algo Technology, a company whose flagship product is a health app featuring an AI personal trainer, is invited to join a top-secret government project by Hayase, her senior from university who is now a politician and a renowned genius in the field of AI.

The project has a singular goal: to develop a specialized AI capable of creating the perfect story.

People become emotionally invested in stories, and stories have the power to move people.
If an AI could freely generate stories capable of captivating an audience and influencing their emotions, it could potentially manipulate people’s thoughts and behavior.

Driven by curiosity, Minami agrees to join the project. But what awaits her on the other side of this secret endeavor—

Author’s Information

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1985, Tomotake Ishikawa made his literary debut in 2012 with Gray Men. His novel Elegance received the 8th Masamitsu Hosoya Award and was ranked No. 8 in the domestic fiction category of Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 2026.His other works include The Probability of Eureka: Economic Investigator Mamoru Fushimi, Drowning in Sighs, and Zombie 3.0.