When that man showed up at the Gotanda office, Mio was in the middle of a game of Othello with Aya.
Something to pass the lunch break. Aya had dragged out the board—"Mio, you should take a break once in a while"—and lost three in a row in fifteen minutes. The board was now well on its way to being painted solid black.
"That's why you can't get greedy around the corners in the opening." Mio quietly set down a white disc. "You don't need to look at the current disc count. How many you've taken in the middle game has almost nothing to do with who wins."
"Ugh, I lost more again." Aya clutched her head. "How am I losing when I have more...?"
"The side with more usually loses. Discs you take too early just give your opponent footholds to flip them. What matters isn't the absolute value right now. It's which way things tip in the endgame—where the difference is headed."
Just then came Mikoshiba's voice, announcing a visitor. A half step lower than usual.
"Mio. Stop what you're doing, please. We have a guest."
When Mikoshiba called a visitor "a guest" in that low voice, it usually wasn't a guest. Mio already had that rule of thumb.
A man was sprawled on the sofa in the reception area. A well-tailored suit. Polished shoes. A watch gleaming at his wrist. His face resolved into an image matched to the voice that had come down from the head of the long table in that last conference room at her previous job.
It was Sota Kiryu.
"Been a while, Himuro." Kiryu recrossed his legs and grinned. "Well, look at you. Doing pretty well for yourself in this tiny little company."
Mio said nothing. She felt nothing in particular about the reunion. Someone she'd filed in the noise folder had simply come out of the folder.
Aya stepped quietly up beside Mio. Breezy as she usually was, for once she had her mouth pressed into a tight line.
"So," Mikoshiba said, sitting down across from Kiryu. His voice was soft. "What brings you here today?"
"I'll get straight to the point." Kiryu propped an elbow on his crossed knee and leaned forward. "We're buying Sigma. The whole company."
Mikoshiba's expression didn't change. Mio didn't react in particular either. Only Aya—Mio could sense it beside her—caught her breath for the briefest moment.
"That's a generous offer, but—" Mikoshiba began, and Kiryu cut him off with a raised hand.
"Hear me out. It's not a bad deal. This, what is it, Makoto? This social network of yours. I've seen the numbers. A few hundred users. It's a laughable scale, but the growth rate isn't bad. Boost it with Kotoba's capital and it might turn into something. So—I'm saying I'll buy it from you."
I've seen the numbers, Kiryu said. Mio had no intention of correcting him; she merely observed. What this man looked at was, from start to finish, one thing. User count. Growth rate. In other words, revenue.
Why Makoto was able to keep scams this thoroughly under control. How that wall was built, what Mio's detection engine had learned, what it still missed, and where they had kept human hands in the loop—not a single line of that had entered this man's field of view.
"Name your terms." Kiryu spread his hands magnanimously. "It'll be faster to ride with us than for the likes of you to grow it from scratch. Mikoshiba, you were one of our salesmen once. I could even let you call it a homecoming. Is that a bad deal?"
Mikoshiba was silent for a while. Then he took a sip of his coffee and quietly returned the cup to its saucer. The small sound of porcelain touching porcelain.
"I decline."
It was brief. It was not his sales voice.
"The company—" Mikoshiba looked straight at Kiryu. "And Mio. Neither is for sale."
Mio understood the first half of that. Sigma would not be sold. It was logically consistent that Mikoshiba had no intention of letting Kotoba's capital swallow the banner of a social network without scams. As far as Mio knew, his dream sat at the very top of his priorities.
The second half, she didn't quite get. That Mio was not for sale was, as a sentence structure, unnatural. Mio was not one of the company's asset items. Why would she be included among the things up for sale? Probably some kind of rhetoric, Mio processed. Mikoshiba's phrasing sometimes left a remainder that couldn't quite be converted into data.
"Oh?" Kiryu's cheek twitched slightly. "Pretty bold of you."
"It isn't boldness. We simply start from different premises." Mikoshiba's voice was polite as ice. "We don't run this company to maximize revenue. So the very idea of boosting it with your capital is something we have no need for."
"...What a pretty sentiment." Kiryu snorted. "A company exists to make money. Don't you understand even that?"
It was here that Mio spoke for the first time. Not to back up Mikoshiba's ideals. There was simply one error that, as an engineer, she couldn't let pass.
"If you think you can buy it, your assessment is crude."
Kiryu glared at her. Mio went on regardless. Evenly.
"Makoto's value doesn't show up in user counts or invoices. What shows up there are results, not the value itself. The value is in how it's designed, what data flows into it, and where it drops the lies—the mechanism. It's the same as the Othello game just now. The side with more discs doesn't win. What counts is the structure of the board, and we're the ones who hold that. All you're counting is the number of discs right now. And in the endgame, all of them get flipped."
The meeting room went quiet. What moved in Kiryu's expression wasn't understanding, but wounded pride.
"Still all mouth, I see, for a little girl with nothing but a high school diploma."
Academic credentials. Mio put the word back in the noise folder. Same place as before. Something that isn't evidence doesn't become evidence no matter how many times you hear it.
And then, suddenly—a dry sense of déjà vu traced a single line down her spine.
"A company exists to make money. Don't you understand even that?"
—Ah, I've heard this before. That conference room at her previous job, where it had become clear that ten percent of revenue was made of lies. "If it works and it makes money, don't touch it." Whatever it was made of, if it earned, it was righteous. A creed that counted people as nothing more than a line on an invoice.
Kiryu hadn't changed one bit. Sitting in his father's chair, believing his father's numbers were his own achievement, counting people like discs. Exactly as the prior predicted.
"As expected." Mio let out a small breath. "How boring."
"What did you say?"
Kiryu bristled, but Mio was no longer looking at him. Her gaze had dropped to the Othello board Aya had abandoned. A white disc waited quietly in the corner for its foothold in the endgame.
Mikoshiba stood up.
"Please see yourself out, President Kiryu." Mikoshiba's smile was now entirely a salesman's. Seamless, and without warmth. "We are not selling the company. However many times you come, the answer will be the same."
Kiryu clicked his tongue once and got up from the sofa. At the door, he turned back just once. His eyes went right past Mikoshiba and settled squarely on Mio.
Mio couldn't yet read what that look meant.
"Then I don't need the whole company." Kiryu hitched up one corner of his mouth. "—Himuro. Maybe I'll just take you."
The door closed.
In the reception area, Aya let out a long breath and sank into the sofa.
"...What was that? First time I've ever met him, but was the president always like that? Everything about him, his face, his voice, it all pisses me off."
"Exactly as the prior predicted." Mio reached for the board and snapped down a white disc in the endgame. The corner flipped over, one disc after another. "That man doesn't read the board. So he always thinks he's winning on disc count, and gets flipped in the endgame. Same as last time."
Mikoshiba said nothing. He stood staring at the closed door for a while.
Mio didn't notice that his profile lacked its usual ease.