part 3
Eimi was carrying a school uniform over her shoulder as she strolled
under her umbrella in the easy rain. She was still a bit subdued from
her encounter with the principal earlier but now she was heading home.
Her AI told her this was a good thing. She briefly wondered why. She
looked down at the picture of a girl who Principal Ryutaro Yamadera had
picked to assist Eimi her first Monday. She flipped it glancing at the
information. Name Mariko, Phone number, address. She still didn't know
what to think of most of this but she was almost certain this was better
than where she was a few days before.
The rain reminded her of something. Remind? How could it remind? Her AI
began to cycyle der database through several words and concepts that
somehow related to the rain. Something similar to or somehow connected
to rain? What?
She was quickly confusing herself as she walked evenly. Her guided
crosshairs shut down a did her compass, in a small attempt to think more
clearly by freeing up resources. Her memories were also a hodge-podge of
stuff that her grandfather had originally ingrained in her from back in
the day, in addition to an experiment of brain waves that the real Eimi
was hooked up with. Her awareness of her surroundings slowly slimmed to
nothing more than a street-map guidance; she was too busy thinking.
RAIN
RAIN FALL
198 q PREVIOUS RAINFALL?
198a q PREVIOUS RAINFALL TO SNK?
198b q PREVIOUS RAINFALL TO EIMI BACKLOG?
(Rain. Well...when did it last rain?...no, when did it last rain on me?
Or not even me, but Eimi...) Her head looked down because it's servos
had been idled, but it made her look like she was deep in thought. Rain,
water, storms...Fleeting glimpses of a window and broken sounds of rain
entered her on task database. She struggled to piece them together more
clearly.
She didn't even notice the narrowing of the walls to a small alley path.
Rain, a window. She was looking up at a window. And out the window, but
it was raining. Her visibility was impaired. Impared by
rain...and...lack of height.
REASONABLE LACK OF AGE ON SNK
REASONABLE LACK OF AGE ON EIMI,
she corrected herself.
Nor did she notice the rather large individual in a trench coat that
began to follow her.
She tried to make the image move up to the window, but the memory was
too flimsy. She tried to focus on the sound. Rain, rain-drops. No, it
was windy; the rain fell at an angle. She could remember seeing that
much.
"Hey."
HAY
q HAY?
a NOT SOUND OF HAY
She continued in thought down the narrow pathway as her follower spoke
again.
"Hey!"
(What...?) She initialised her major external functions, and realised
she wasn't alone. She stopped and turned to face him.
285 degrees, north-by-northwest.
Height- 190 cm.
Width- 87 cm.
Weight- ~300kg.
Temp- 32.4C Male. Human.
Armaments- cutting edges, 27 cm in length. No projectiles.
Disposition: unknown.
Threat value: 35-minimal
All of this information flared to life in her display, as well as
cross-hairs that marked where his knives were. Her shock-volt battery
began charging.
"What?" she barked out.
"You look like you just spent a pretty penny on that outfit, girl.
C'mon. Hand the rest over."
"Hand what over?" she said, annoyed. "I don't think the dress wil fit
you."
"I bet you think your smart," he said, kracking his knuckles loudly.
"No, I'm pretty dumb," she said matter-of-factly.
"Gimmie your purse," he growled in broken plain form.
"Now, I think you're pretty dumb too," she said without even hesitating.
"Why would I do that?"
"So you don't have an accident," he said rather cornily. "C'mon, I don't
like beating up little girls, but this path echoes sound so much, dat no
one will care how much you scream." He began to approach her with a
simian stride that made him look like he should be dragging his
knuckles.
Disposition: hostile
Eimi wondered breifly if she could use the echo off of these wall to
shatter every window within a mile radius with her sonic emitters, but
decided to deal with this growing threat more personally. She reached
over to a tin garbage can lid and lifted it.
He drew his large tanto with a wooden handle from his coat and reached
for her clumsily.
She let go of the lid and grabbed his hand at his wrist. And held him
there.
THREA VALUE: 25-not a threat.
ATTACK: minimum force.
She squeezed on his wrist feeling the feeble calcium and phosphorus rods
ready to snap. The man yelled out and tried to stab with the dagger. He
connected squarely in her right shoulder.
The blade glanced off with a screeching noise.
DAMAGE: pseudo-skin
Skeletal exposure
No tactical damage value.
She had become frustrated, because her pseudo-skin would take forever to
cover up. She also didn't have a change of clothes. She began to squeeze
harder when he pulled back to strike again.
"What about when you scream? Does anybody care?"
"What the fuck are you? Some kind of freeaaaahhh!!!"
She rewrote her tactical programming.
Threat value: 25-not a threat
attack mode: Direct-minimal force
She crushed his wrist. "Lemme go!" he wailed. She had not, and he
dropped to his knees, breathing heavy. After a moment, she released him.
He stumbled back, dropping the tanto, and pulling out a serrated
survival knife. "You're dead, you little...!"
She grabbed the lid again, smashed it into his chest, and released 700
kilovolts through the makeshift array. Sparks flew and he screamed some
more before collapsing to the ground, his clothes smoking. Eimi had
never set down the umbrella. or the uniform. The bagging of the uniform
insulated it, though she wouldn't think about its condition until she
was almost home.
Ozone smell filled the alley as she looked down on his unconscious body.
Tactical value: 0- inanimate object
Cease attack mode.
End.
Her cross hairs-idled, and her generator for her shock-volt shut down.
"That may hurt when you come to." She looked around to get her bearings
again. "Why did I come this way?" she asked the rain. She looked back
down at him.
Then she was clutching her head with the hand holding the uniform by a
hangar. Her hardware suddenly went on full turbo, processing gigabytes
in seconds, causing her head to heat and her neural net impulses to
skip. After precisely 4 seconds it stopped. She staggered against the
wall, knocking over the garbage she had just used rather noisily. (What
is happening?) she thought in pure confusion. She remembered nothing of
the information that flew through her head. After making sure she could
stand, she ran an internal diagnostic. Nothing out of the ordinary,
except for the skeletal exposure where she was stabbed.
(Am I over-heating again?) She beat that thought down. She had barely
exerted herself dealing with this guy. (I must be having a net
failure...) she began walking again after draping her uniform over her
shoulder. Curious, she began to ask her programming.
Projection: neural net failure.
Cause: data cascade in on task database
Cause: data overlay in on task database
Projected mean time of total failure in hypothetical situation: 4
seconds.
(Well maybe I'm not having a net failure.) she rounded the corner and
came to the street Nerima Heights was on. (I wouldn't even be able to
move by now if I had...) The umbrella buffeted slightly as the rain's
wind picked up.
Projection: Viral infection.
Cause: foreign download
Cause: foreign transmission received
Cause: invalid math request on infinity loop.
Cause: corrupt directive
Cause: conflict with 4 prime directives.
She stopped walking, and her vision highlit the last line.
Cause: CONFLICT WITH LAWS OF ROBOTICS.
FIRST LAW: A Robot at no time shall harm a human
She looked down. She began uploading her major program functions.
System analysis: Silent virus safety tripped.
Prime Directive One subject to breach.
Result: self corruptive virus unloaded.
Her AI began to let it know of the displeasure of her actions. Eimi
looked down as her analysis continued to flash. She didn't like what she
was seeing.
Total shut down in 37.4 hours.
Safety measures in place.<<<<
Her system was designed with a silent fail-safe. She wasn't even
cognoscente of it existence so it hung on the ouskirts of the net. If
she was ever to break her prime directives in programming, then it would
force a shut down without start-up. That would explain the head rush...
She resumed in a rather sluggish pace, only barely noticing where she
was heading.
She shortly arrived at the apartment complex, only mildly damp. She
regarded the duckhead umbrella in her hands, pleased with herself at the
outset of bringing one. It was a smart thing to do.
She looked up at the small terrace where she had helped to blow up a
hole in the wall. Now it was repaired, of course, but it stirred some
remnants of memories which for some reason she did not relish in. Her
jet-pack was still in their closet after that mother's day, she
recalled. Such things threatened to be remembered, those that should be
best left forgotten.
She reconsidered, her life span having shortened so suddenly. She
wondered if she would have cried if she could. At least it wasn't
Mishima.
. . .but so close...
Eimi stepped inside, and promptly destroyed the umbrella by trying to
walk through the door with it still open. (Almost,) she thought, looking
in disgust as the mangled rod in her right hand. (Almost smart...) She
punched the paige button. "Let me up," she said flatly.
"Okay!" an all too cheery voice said from the speaker. Eimi began to
plod up the steps, discarding the umbrella in the garbage. She stood
next to the double doors, waiting.
=====
"Eimi-chan is back!" NukuNuku announced to the inhabitants. Ryunnosuke
was hunched at the window looking out at the rain. Kyusaku was in front
of the computer. After sparing them both an unanswered glance, NukuNuku
abandoned her cd player to go let Eimi up.
She was confused slightly at the lethargic reaction from Ryunnosuke, and
the lack of reaction from Papa- san, but decided to let Eimi back in
first before she pursued it.
She stepped out into the hallway and unlocked the elevator, hearing the
mechanism drop eight stories. NukuNuku couldn't understand it when
sometimes people would be as happy as her, then be very cold and
serious. (Eimi-chan was a friend, right? Then shouldn't they be happy
when she comes home?) The mechanism began to rise. (Kei is a friend too,
but Ryunnosuke always acts so different around him.) She'd have to ask
him about it later.
The elevator stopped and the doors creaked open. NukuNuku decided a
greeting was in order.
===
Eimi let out another sigh as the elevator reached its destination. (so
close. . .) she kept telling herself. Her AI was showing a very low
activity level, outside normal functionality, and what activity there
was, wasn't allocated properly. Almost as if it didn't care. She
wondered briefly if she should feel any different as the doors open.
That was the last thing she remembered before every system went haywire.
At just subsonic speed, NukuNuku ripped into the elevator at Eimi,
grabbing her in a fierce bear hug. Both of them shot off with NukuNuku's
momentum and smashed into the far end of the elevator, leaving a healthy
dent of almost half a ton of robotics and cybernetics. "EIMI-CHAN!!"
NukuNuku shouted happily.
"GET OFF OF ME!!" she shouted back. "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME TOO!?"
NukuNuku let go slightly to get a look at her face. "I can't kill you.
You're a robot. Besides! You're my friend!"
NukuNuku noticed her face change oddly as if she were going to speak,
then she heard her system idle down.
She really didn't want to play.
NukuNuku picked up Eimi's uniform and looked at her with a fazed
expression. "Was everything nice with Yamadera-Koucho?"
She saw Eimi wince at the question she posed, and stand up slowly and
walk out of the inoperative elevator towards the apartment.
NukuNuku knew there was something wrong. Eimi was acting more real than
she ever had, more believable than her hell stories of Mishima. NukuNuku
wished that she wasn't real..real...real-ly depressed. Maybe she wasn't
acting. What happened?
(Why not ask?,) a voice in her head said softly.
"What happened, Eimi-chan?" she said with concern to Eimi's departing
form. She decided to follow. "You did get into school, right? Why else
would you have this?" she waved the uniform in front of her. Eimi
absentmindedly, and with minimal effort brushed the uniform out of her
peripherals. NukuNuku was clearly not someone she wanted to deal with.
NukuNuku watched in fascination when Eimi pushed the clothing out of her
way to get to the door. Eimi half reached, half fell for the door knob
and turned it carefully, her eyes seeming focused on it with a lack of
intensity. (What is wrong with Eimi-chan? Why is she acting like this?
Maybe she's not acting anymore.) That single concept caused NukuNuku to
fear for her little friend. Eimi-chan pushed the door open.
===
Kyu heard a loud clang erupt from the hallway and the support the
monitor was sitting on vibrated for a moment. (Ung, not again,) He typed
in a few macros on his spreadsheet to bring up a footnote feature.
(Note: see landlord about newer elevators in renovation.) Closing the
note, he resumed the indexing of information from a couple of his past
jobs before Mishima. Something he had waited to do until a rainy day. He
had access to archive of information from his previous occupations as a
computer scientist. But when he got to Mishima, he could finally focus
on his Roboticistic skills, as Yoshikawa was the computer scientist
there. "So, Ryunnosuke. Finished your homework?"
After a deep sigh;"Yeah."
He paused from his scrutiny of the monitor to look for his cigarette
pack. "Oh, Ryunnosuke, its only rain. It can't rain forever."
"Whatever."
Kyu smiled at his son's lack of energy, so impatient with the world
around him. He heard NukuNuku's muffled voice from outside and he turned
in time to see Eimi swing the door open. Kyu's smile faded when he saw
her posture. She looked absolutely wretched. She also had some kind of
exoskeletal damage which now was visible on her right shoulder.
NukuNuku stepped past her with a small school uniform in hand, heading
for the hall closet. Eimi simply stood there in the door frame.
"What happened? Is everything okay?" he said, noticing his cigarettes on
the kitchen table by the door. She didn't seem to be responding. Kyusaku
stood up from the loft and walked towards her, not forgetting his
cigarettes on the way.
===
Eimi didn't bother looking up from when she held the door knob, barely
aware of herself that she stepped inside. Everything in her system
seemed to be spinning in its tracks, an excess of tasks and redundant
and meaningless threads occurring. She felt like she was about to
explode. She mildly heard Natsume's voice to her left, but she wasn't
really listening. She detected NukuNuku in her peripheral going past
her. Everything seemed so trivial all of a sudden. She noticed Natsume
approach from the left.
Her system requested a human like response to the internal overload.
===
"What is it?" Kyu said, pocketing his cancer sticks for later. Eimi
still wasn't responding.
"Onee-chan? Doshitanda?" Ryunnosuke came away from the window towards
her, his face clearly showing his lit eyes.
NukuNuku placed the uniform on the hanger and quietly shut the closet
door.
Kyusaku knelt down to come face to face with the small robot. "What
happened? It couldn't be that-"
"WAHHHH!!" Eimi wailed piteously at the top of her emitters. (Everything
was for nothing.) "It's not fair!" Kyu flinched, and Ryunnosuke covered
his ears when the glass threatened to shatter behind him.
NukuNuku noted the increase in volume and looked at Eimi in surprise in
time to see her bury her small frame into Kyusaku's chest and shoulder.
Kyu gasped before the sudden strength, but tried his best to remain on
the balls of his feet. "Wha-," he wheezed. "Why don't you start from the
beginning. . ." She hiccuped oddly before the let the emitters go again.
"Wahhh!!" Everything she had ever done just seemed so anticlimactic now.
All her little fights and her self writing of her program, all of the
little accomplishments amounted to a great big nothing. Why? It wasn't
fair. Her program hadn't run its course yet!
She began to reclaim some of her rationality and resumed monitoring her
surroundings a bit. She realised she had Natsume in a rather intense
grip.. When had she done that? She was so stupid, even her recorder
couldn't tell her what she did. She looked around and saw Ryunnosuke
looking at her with strange eyes she did not like. She looked towards
the hall and saw NukuNuku.
She lunged at her. The two mechanical being rolled around a bit as Eimi
grappled with NukuNuku. Both had their safety's off in an effort to
neutralise the other. Eimi began screaming and transmitting
simultaneously.
#-<SNK-98>--"ITS NOT FAIR! WHY DO I HAVE TO GO NOW!?"
"What are you tal-tal-talking about?" NukuNuku stuttered in an effort to
hold the smaller but equally heavy droid in place.
"Onee-chan what are you doing?"
# <SNK-98> - "WHY DO YOU GET ALL THE ATTENTION!? "
"Eimi! Stop this NOW!" Kyusaku roared.
Eimi's battery charge flared to life in her scopes.
Gigavolt Cell:CRITICAL CHARGE:
NukuNuku rolled on top of Eimi, pinning her at the wrists and straddling
her, but Eimi flailed, sending both of their arms through the closet
door. Splinter flew.
"Eimi-chan, please stop!"
NukuNuku screamed as sparks flew from Eimi's body. Her brain began to
hurt and not control the computer properly. Eimi wrenched free of
NukuNuku's grip and grabbed her at the throat, still pouring out
electricity.
Kyusaku's hair stood on end. He looked at his computer and opened the
monitor revealing an energy weapon pistol which he had never used, but
taken when he took the nk- and Ryunnosuke. He grabbed it and sighted it
though his bangs.
Eimi, still chocking NukuNuku, lifted her off of from herself until she
had NukuNuku dangling by her neck.
"WHY DO YOU GET EVERYTHING? YOU DON'T EVEN NEED IT! WHY CAN'T I HAVE
IT!?" She began to shake her around, each shake she stacattoed with a
cry of. "WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?"
Eimi looked up at NukuNuku's prone and screaming form. her scopes were
turning red.
Gigavolt Cell :FAULTY DISCHARGE:
:CRITICAL MASS IMMINENT:
She wondered why so many things were denied her programming. She was too
stupid to give a good guess. She began to shake her around, her rage
pouring out from her AI. It drained quickly and the redness fazed as she
stopped her cell release.
thread 0912 What was the point?
sub 0912a what could be accomplished?
She could be happy if she took this uppity naive little freak out with
her. Why didn't she just grab the backpack again and take off?
Her shakes became slow and without force as she stopped sparking. Kyu,
still drawn and sighted n her back. Eimi gradually set NukuNuku down,
who was by now off line. And unresponsive.
"Why? Why?" She whispered, clutching on top of NukuNuku's still form in
an embrace. (Why didn't I? Why can't I...?)
Kyusaku was truly confused, but he didn't relax his aim. "Eimi," he said
flatly. She sat up in response. Kyusaku almost faltered, unaware that
such a substandard imaging iris could look even more hollow on line.
NukuNuku stirred. Eimi took noticed and pulled off of her, crouching
into the corner in a little ball, breathing heavy to ventilate her cell,
though. . .
thread 2167:: why bother self preserve when destruction imminant
As NukuNuku sat up, she crawled over to Eimi's huddled form. "You talk
now?" Eimi swallowed hard in reply. Kyusaku set down the weapon, placing
the safety on, and lighting up again. Ryunnosuke was caught coming and
going, unsure of what to think of either of them, but intent on not
being left out.
NukuNuku draped an arm around Eimi as Kyusaku knelt down in front.
"Okay, for the last time. What happened? You couldn't be this upset at
the school."
She made another gulping pantomime and shook her head, unconsciously
grabbing NukuNuku's arm wrapped around her. "Huh-uh."
"Does this have something to do with-"
"You're cut!" NukuNuku yelled, apparently becoming aware of the damage.
Eimi nodded slowly.
Eimi couldn't quite grasp everything that was happening. Certainly she
wasn't totally sure why NukuNuku's arm around her, or why she was so
close to critical mass. She felt like she had blacked out. Natsume'
voice posed a question that her programming caught, but she didn't
bother to think hard on. However most of the haze of her vision was
clearing, and alot of her on task database was freeing up. She was
steadily gathering more environmental information as redundant threads
were killed.
"I. . ," she faltered, unsure of what to say. "I was attacked. . ."
Attacked? Kyu thought.
"And I. . . Defended myself. I neutralised him."
NukuNuku didn't like the word neutralise. It was a term she reserved for
combat mode.
Kyusaku pitied the fool that would attacked an NK droid. Yet something
about the situation made him curious.
"And now, I'm. . .going to shut down." This was incredible, she really
sounded like she thought she was going to die.
"Why?"
"Because I hurt him, and I... have a ... failsafe. . ."
Suddenly it became clear to him. "You broke the first law?" She nodded
weakly. "What kind of failsafe activated?"
She breathed deeply again. "It is hard to put into words. . . what
exactly happened."
So it was that. Normally no AI could over step it's parameters,
especially the four laws of robotics. But Yoshikawa had put a failsafe
in his program and locked it away.
"Explain to me!" NukuNuku suggested.
"You're alive and that makes you more like them than like me," Eimi
explained with a flattening tone.
"Well. . .Hook up with me and tell me directly."
Eimi vehemently slapped her arm away. "No! Its a corruptive virus that
poisons threads into a math paradox!"
"Virus? Virus!" Kyusaku stood up powerfully. "Why didn't you say so
sooner!" He manuevared over to his computer and began typing furiously
to alter his connection. The others grew curios and began to crowd
behind. Kyusaku grabbed a fiber optic cable and threw it in Eimi's
direction. "Here."
"WHat are you doing Papa-san?"
"Before I met your mother and began working for mishima, I was a
computer engineer and did alot of different things. I worked as a relay
and network monitor at one company, where. . ," he paused to pull out
the microphone out of the way and plugged the fiber optics in. ". . .I
was the monitor for every file transfer to safeguard the company's
archive from competitor's virus. I learned how to kill over a thousand
different buggers while I was there. Hook up to my console and we'll get
you cleaned up soundly! I feel my fighting spirit again! Hahah!"
Eimi looked dumbly at the cable, hope threads eternal.
"You'll have to shut down first." She balked at that. SHut down? SHe
didn't like the idea.
"I don't want to," she said in a very small voice. Kyu immediately
sobered, turning to face her.
"Down now, or down forever later," he said very flatly, his back to the
computer. Eimi could see he was not going to give any other
alternatives, and reluctantly lifted her shirt with a tremble. She
opened a paned on her shoulder blade and plugged the cable in. "Are you
ready?"
She nodded slowly and leaned against NUkuNuku's support unconciously.
Kyu returned to his monitor, retrieveing his notes on viruses from when
he worked for the company.
"Don't worry. Papa-san will fix you."
Eimi swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
INITIATING SHUT DOWN
POWER IDLE
CELL DEACTIVATED
BACKING UP ARCHIVES
PRESERVING THREADS
I HOPE THIS WORKS
LOCKING SKELETON
SHUTTING DOWN
--9--8--7
POWER AT MINIMUM IDLE
--~6-~~~5
BACKUP COMPLETE
NET DEACTIVATION IMMINENT
###4
$#~~~3
....2
...1 . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . .
--
__________________________________________
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| Dick Clark/on American Bandstand |
|________________________________________|
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|________________________________________|
| Colliding SYmphonies \ Space |
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