Epilogue
Looking Ahead
“TODAY IS MARCH 11TH. Recorded by Suzukake Tanji.”
Suzukake put his cell phone camera in video mode and placed it on his desk.
He turned the lens to face himself.
“I've been leading the education in the White Room for a long time now.”
On this day, Suzukake decided to quietly leave his thoughts on his research stored in his cell phone.
“But the White Room will be stagnant for a while after today. I don't know anything about politics, but it seems that a politician named Naoe has been trying to prevent Ayanokouji-sensei's return. What a hassle. But I’ve decided to look on the bright side. It's been a long time since I've been on vacation; maybe the stagnancy isn’t a bad thing.”
Taking a breath, Suzukake turned off the computer monitor.
“Humans are really interesting. As is true with all children, they learn things they are not taught. I noticed this in the first four generations’ education and introduced a communication curriculum from the fifth generation onward. Of course, this has led to some inefficiencies. As a result of developing emotions, the rate of increase in ability decreased. Still, the difficulty level of the curriculum slightly exceeds the previous generations, so the students in the fifth generation and onwards have better abilities than the students from the third generation.”
Punishment should be given, and emotions should simply be considered a bonus.
Suzukake hadn’t changed his approach.
“From the ten difficulty levels that we’ve made, the curriculum that we have prepared for the fifth generation is difficulty level four, and for the sixth generation, difficulty level five. This is probably the limit. The sixth level that we applied to the seventh generation already caused all of them to drop out of the program. Eventually, these children will become ideal adults. They will be able to integrate into the world as one of the world's best.”
Suzukake was silent for a moment.
“I guess we can find out about all of this by looking in the files. Though, the reason I decided to document this today is to remember the heat of the run. The White Room has already seen many kids learn and then drop out, but still that kid… Ayanokouji Kiyotaka is a great existence. That child has an uncanny ability to learn, adapt, and apply. His talent continues to amaze me every day, and his reputation never ceases to grow… The researchers in the White Room believe that they can train that child in the same way as the others, but in my opinion, he’s the exception. He’s even more unique in this distorted environment. A true mutation.”
Through the Beta curriculum of his own creation, the product of the most challenging and thorough education was created.
“No… I don't even know if I can call him a product. In any case, there’s no way to reproduce it. But even Kiyotaka was imperfect from the beginning. Whether it was studies, karate, or boxing, the first results he showed us were rather unremarkable and ordinary. That's the difference. He’s extremely good at absorbing power and sublimating it into his own ability. Once he finished learning the basics, he began developing the skills to deal with what he was exposed to for the first time, using his extraordinary ability to apply what he learned.”
When he closed his eyes, Kiyotaka's image remained burned into the back of his eyelids.
“By the eighth year, the remaining children were down to five. Considering that there were 74 children at the beginning, the dropout rate was over 93%. The average dropout rate from the first to the third year was 27%, and 30% from the fifth year onward. The curriculum was reckless. At this point, I was afraid that all of them would’ve dropped out in the middle of their ninth year. No... I was rather hoping that they’d drop out. In the case where there was a child who could stay and continue to follow a curriculum that no human being should ever follow... That child would no longer be human, they’d be a monster. That cannot exist. As if to bring that reality into existence, when the new spring arrived, there was only one child left. But here's the problem. That one remaining child hasn’t shown any sign of dropping out after 10, 11, 12 years. On the contrary, he’s come to outperform us researchers and leaders. The adults with superficial knowledge left the White Room in less than a few days, holding their heads in their hands. The original purpose of the White Room was to continue education into adulthood, but the thought of six more years... I can't do it. That kid is going to outgrow us in the near future. This isn’t a hunch, it's a certainty. And at the same time, I don't know why that’s possible. Is it the product of my curriculum or a genetic mutation? I can't prove why he didn’t drop out and continued to survive. It's driving me crazy.”
So—how should the existence of the White Room and Kiyotaka be viewed in the future?
The final decision will be made by Ayanokouji Atsuomi, the head of this facility, but the debate among the researchers will be sharply divided.
“The question of whether or not it was possible to create artificial geniuses remained unanswered, but it had been proven that it was possible to create brilliant people through the White Room. However, there’s always a ceiling on every child’s abilities.”
Suzukake looked at the empty cup that, until a few minutes ago, contained sencha tea. He opened the cap of the brand-new mineral water and put both the cup and bottle cap in his hand.
“This is the size of the educator's talent,” Suzukake said. “This small cap is, so to speak, the limit of an ordinary educator's talent. The much larger cup, compared to this cap, can be easily understood as the talent of the educators in the White Room. The children who receive education raised their own limits according to the limits of the educators' talents. If the average person is cap-sized, the education here allows them to develop their talent to the size of this cup.”
He poured fresh mineral water into the cup.
“Once you hit the limit, there's basically no room for further growth. The water overflows and there’s no new information to absorb... No, that isn’t the correct expression. Every time we absorb new knowledge, we lose a little of our old talent, and we don't even realize that it’s happening.”
Suzukake sighed as he watched the water flow over the desk and disperse.
“There are many problems ahead. First, there are only a limited number of people with talent the size of this cup. Secondly, even if they have the talent, they don’t necessarily have the skills to teach it. Thirdly, it’s not always possible to obtain talents of the same magnitude between educators and students. The upper limit is the size of a cup, but some individuals are often one or two times smaller than it. Of course, there are cases of children who are one or two sizes larger than the upper limit, but the probability is less than the former. And then the most important part. The most important part is that the geniuses in this world are not limited to the size of a cup. They’re more talented than this bottle of mineral water. There’s no one who has such a talent while also having a talent for educating. Even if they did, the children would probably never grow to be bigger than the cup.”
This was also true of the data from previous studies.
“A generous education that takes care of children, or the exact opposite—a strict education. In either case, both show that there’s a limit to a child's potential.”
The White Room’s goal is to create geniuses out of ordinary people and train them to be competitive in the world.
“It’s possible to intentionally create people in humanity’s top 10%. In this sense, the White Room’s an institution that can produce solid results. But it may not be able to create people who are in the top 0.01% to compete with the rest of the world.”
A true sense of failure as a researcher.
Suzukake keenly felt that when he thought about the existence of Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.
“At the moment, I can't see the upper limit of talent in that child. He absorbs as much as you teach him. It could be said that he was born as a genius, or that he was the result of his education in the White Room. Both of which I think are correct and incorrect. If Kiyotaka hadn’t been educated in the White Room, he probably would’ve merely been a reasonably competent person. If either component was missing, he wouldn’t have been as he is now... And... If Kiyotaka continues his education in the White Room, it’s obvious that he’ll be an asset to raise new generations’ talent ceiling. If Kiyotaka were to stand in my place and nurture these children, they would grow up to be more like plastic bottles than cups. I would love to see that happen.”
Angels and demons asked the question in his mind.
If he were to send him out as a leader to lead Japan, instead of just an educator in the small White Room, how much would he accomplish?
Which is the more meaningful choice for Japan and for the future?
He wasn’t the final judge, but he wondered what choice Ayanokouji-sensei would make.
“I'm going to see it all through, and I'm going to be involved in the White Room’s education for the rest of my life, regardless of what he chooses to do.”
He had never had so much fun, and he was filled with a sense of fulfillment unlike when he was forced to flee Japan and go abroad.
“However good Ayanokouji Kiyotaka may be, the question remained as to whether he was a true genius or not. Emotionally, he was far below the average person, and he didn’t know what most people did. He may learn by memorization, but it remains to be seen how much of a negative effect that will have on him. He was defective.”
As he continued, Suzukake reached for his cell phone and stopped the recording.
“I wonder if that child I created will be… happy at the end of his life...”
As a researcher, Suzukake felt a strong reluctance to record such remarks.
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