Author's Note: What is emotion, and must we need it to live? If you didn't feel bored, you'd get a lot more work done. If you didn't feel sad, you would never have to look like a wuss in front of your friends. But we still take a stance, and say we need it. Why? Well, that's the issue I'm exploring. Sorta. Kinda.
I would like to thank my mom for actually bothering to answer me on my many questions about child psychology and development.
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Children of the Sun
01: Free To Fly
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2090, city of Hyperia (formerly Japan)
Monday, 5.00 a.m.
Test Lab no. 590, Easter Corp.
Tsukiyomi Ikuto had the distinction of being the first ever child to have an artificial brain. He'd been found brain-dead, drifting on the waves near the shores of a seaside town named Amelie, presumably having crashed on the rocks from a boating accident. At that time, a city doctor had been conducting a survey in Amelie (trying to see if certain types of prawn affected the human brain) and he'd realised this was the golden opportunity for his colleagues. They'd been experimenting with animals, mice and the like, but not on humans. And this one was an orphan child. They could literally see their invention grow up.
The child was brought back to Easter Corporation, Hyperia's largest research facilities, and fitted with an experimental artificial brain. He was only four or five, as a quick glance would tell, and his memories were all faces, objects, colours and basic words. They performed a number of operations on Ikuto, as he had come to be called. And when all was complete, they tested him. To their utter dismay, the AI did not give him emotion. How do you ask a computer, a cold, impersonal object, to project what we take for granted--happiness, sadness, loneliness?
Undeterred, they ran more tests. They would hold out an object, and Ikuto's AI would scan it, and reply what it was with a blank stare. They'd point to one another, ask him who they were, and he'd reply correctly. They asked him questions, ranging from one-plus-one-equals-two to complicated mathematical equations, and he'd get it all right. It was phenomenal. But there was one flaw. One of the doctors showed him a picture of his parents, found from scanning his brain, and the delicate systems of Ikuto's new brain nearly exploded.
They weren't kidding. The memory seared his mind, sending the manmade neurons into a frenzy. The electricity could have overloaded, had it not been for a quick-thinking junior lab assistant nobody talked to. She quickly asked him a math question. Distracted, his brain calmed down, having something practical to think about. Since that day, the lab assistant was promoted to a higher rank, and Ikuto was kept in a whitewashed room, with a white-tiled floor and snow-coloured furniture. They ran their tests quickly and refused to get close to him, didn't even dare to touch him even, because too much of emotion would cause an overload again.
They viewed him as a test subject. A lab rat. Nothing more than their little Frankenstein.
And Ikuto knew that.
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Monday, 7.30 a.m.
Aerion Street, outside Easter Corp.
Shuuuum!
The wind blew in her hair as Amu windsurfed through the city on her hoverboard. Hoverboards, unlike most of the technologies the world took for granted, it wasn't made in Hyperia but was rather a Russian invention, by a woman named Serafine Markov and her husband, Tesla Markov. They had the idea of using magnetic plates supercharged with a burst of electricity so that it would work against the world's magnetic field, thus making the hoverboards stay in the air. After the Markovs patented the hoverboards, the world's mode of transportation changed forever. They would go on to make hovercars and hoverbikes, but the 'boards were the most popular.
This particular factoid wasn't in Amu's mind that morning. All she cared about was getting to school on time. One hand on her bag slung over her shoulder and the other stuck out to balance herself, Amu swerved around buildings, nearly sent a little old lady out for a spin on her doddery old hoverbike into a wall, and had to slalom around a small army of little children on miniature hoverboards.
"Amu!"
She paused momentarily to see her coursemate, Souma Kuukai, doing the same, only he had both arms stretched out and his bag precariously swaying from his neck. His hoverboard, a Daichi '56, was much older than her new Suu model (which she had begged her parents no end to buy for her during Christmas), having been much abused by Kuukai's big brothers, but he still managed to pull all sorts of mad stunts on it and still not crash the board. Amu shuddered as she saw Kuukai wave at her while doing a quick loop-de-loop--the last time she tried that one, she blew her poor Ran '29 to pieces and had to go to hospital.
Kuukai cut in front of a hovercar with a couple making out inside it, making a face as he did so, and hovered beside Amu. "Finished your assignment for Mr Nikaidou yet?"
"Yep," Amu laughed as she said it. Mr Nikaidou, a clumsy man with messy brown hair, had set them an essay on 'Dangers You Might Face While On A Hoverboard (And How To Avoid Them)', giving Amu a wink as he read out the title. In addition to crashing the Ran, her second hoverboard, a blue Miki Spade, had been trashed after its magnetic plate entirely failed to work. As it plummeted to the ground, Amu had shut her eyes and hoped it would be over soon, when suddenly someone caught her by the wrist. She opened one eye, and the other, and the first thing she saw was a platinum-coloured hoverboard she vaguely remembered as being a Kiseki Platinum. That was the day she met Hotori Tadase...
"That's great." Kuukai smiled. "I wrote about the dangers of not looking cool. Do you know how many young hoverboard surfers these days don't even bother to customize their boards? I mean, all they do is stick a nametag on it. So not cool."
They both burst out laughing as they made their way to Seiyo Academy. As they sailed past the futuristic monolith of Easter Corporations, they barely looked at a boy their age, gazing out of his window. He'd watched people pass by before, of course, but they were always busy people, slaves to the masters of work and time. Not like these two. They were free, and happy to be free.
For the first time, Ikuto wondered what it was like to be free, too.
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Monday, 8.45 a.m.
Hoverboarding Theory Courseroom, Seiyo Academy
At Seiyo Academy, students were allowed to choose a course to take. Amu, like Kuukai, took Hoverboarding. She'd debated over taking Art, or maybe Music, but finally decided that hoverboards were cool. The other two courses were firmly crossed out: Philosophy and History. The first time she surfed on a school-issue hoverboard, an old off-white model with a dented magnetic plate, it was somewhat giddying to see the world play out below you, and the sense of desperation as you realised you were miles above in the air with nothing to hold onto, and you could only trust your hoverboard to keep you in the air...
The feeling faded with time, though Amu still didn't really get over the lurch in her stomach as the hoverboard was switched on and she was lifted into the air. And then Kuukai had brought the Daichi to school and showed off with it when Mr Nikaidou wasn't there. He made it look so simple. Amu learned the hard way that the Daichi was built and customized to be a stunt board, and the Ran was built for getting from one place to another without stunts.
Tadase didn't take Hoverboarding; from his delicate, angelic looks he probably took something like Art or Music. She only saw him at the school board docking area, but they'd never really talked...
Amu was in class, doing theory lessons. She hated theory; what they did was learn about hoverboards--who made them, how they were made, how they were fixed, the different models, and so on. The practical lessons were exciting: they went to the roof and practiced moves. The fact that students had broken their legs and arms before didn't make any of them scared; it just added to the thrill factor. Suddenly she felt someone poking her in the back. Amu turned to see Kuukai passing her a sheet of paper. It was crumpled and torn at one corner, but when she unrolled it she understood why he seemed so excited.
Got the moves? Got the confidence?
Come on down to the City Square on 17th October, 9 a.m.!
Bright Star Enterprises is holding a Street Race! Up for grabs are:
3rd prize: Sweet Surprise model, 2nd prize: Wildfire model, 1st prize: Dia Navigator model
There are 10 hoverboard maintenance kits for the consolation prize winners.
Head to the nearest Bright Star store to get the entry form today! Hope to see you.
Amu nearly squealed. If there was one thing she loved above all else, it was hoverboards. A few years of studying about it did it to her, like all other hoverboard enthuatists before her. The Dia Navigator! It would make her the envy of Seiyo Academy. And maybe... Tadase would notice her more after that? She glanced at Kuukai, excited. She was going to win this thing. She had to.
City Square, watch out.
Hinamori Amu was going to ace it.
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Author's Note: REVIEW!!!1!! It gets more Amuto-y in later chappies, don't worry.