Luffy 2.01
By the time she got home, Nami was exhausted.
Just ten hours ago, she had been on top of the world. After all, being one of the top weather meteorologists of the World Government had its perks, and she was always ready to take on the next challenge presented to her.
Except, she hadn't been prepared for being laid off.
She kicked her door open, went inside, and slammed the door behind herself. Tossing her box of office supplies on her couch, she went straight to her kitchen to go through her fridge. She had always saved up money, so she knew she would be able to go on for a few months until she found a replacement job, but it would still be hard to find a company that would take her in.
Nami poured herself a glass of orange juice, and began to drink it only to pause, blinking at her front window.
Having been so upset, Nami hadn't noticed it going inside, but there was a giant cardboard box blocking the window next to her front door.
She drank a little more before putting it down to go outside.
She looked up, staring at the nearly six foot tall box in perplexity. Nami frowned, and tilted her head to the side before she started to walk around it, looking for a label.
Only, she didn't find a label on the sides.
After a moment of thinking, she went to her hall closet to get her dolly, and went to carefully bring the box inside. The only words she had found on the box, after all, were the upside down: 'This side up' and 'FRAGILE'.
Nami decided to lay it on its side, figuring that whatever damage had been done to what was inside was done already.
She then checked the top and bottom of the box for the label - she found it on the bottom:
To Nami
"Well, that's unhelpful …"
Rolling her eyes, she started to open the box, cutting through the tape with one of her keys, and she pulled aside the tab only to scream. Falling back, she crawled backwards away from the box. Reaching for her cell phone, she called the emergency number.
"Your call is being redirected"
"Huh!?"
"to - your machine - Please hold, and - your machine - will monitor"
"What machine!? Hello?"
"you … Please hold while - your machine - starts up for the first time. As this is an emergency call"
"You're damn right it is!"
"- your machine - will start up in Action Mode."
Finally, just as she had feared, the man who had been hiding inside the box began to awaken. He slowly sat up straight, and she quickly scrambled to her feet to grab a lamp, throwing it at him.
The cord caught, however, and thus the lamp missed him by a foot.
"Shit, shit! Help! Somebody, help!"
He stood up straight then, and turned to her, "Booting hard drive." She froze, staring in amazement as his eyes suddenly began to glow red. "Booting OS Luffy 2.0." As his eyes then slowly began to fade into orange and then yellow, she realized that his eyes looked like glass. "Booting core procedures." Slowly, she reached out to touch his hair, and felt the synthetic, wiry, messy, black hair. His eyes faded into green before finally the light stopped glowing, and his eyes were simply normal black eyes, "Enabling Action Mode … Hey, are you okay? What's wrong?"
She blinked rapidly, staring at him before she said, "What … are you?"
"Processing inquiry …" He frowned then - like a little boy who wasn't given a candy sweet - "I'm an android."
"I … yes, I can see that now …" she bit her tongue, blushing in embarrassment. "I didn't know that androids were so advanced now. I mean, I know there have been a lot of breakthroughs recently, but I - I mean … I'm sorry, I'm babbling. You … you surprised me." She began to relax, recalling all of the safety procedures installed in androids to prevent harm to humans.
He smiled after a moment - He really is like a boy, she decided - and said, "So you're okay? You're not hurt, are you?" He tilted his head to the side, crossing his arms as he said, "I don't have any programs to heal humans though."
"Programs?" When he didn't answer, she cleared her throat, "What do you mean? What programs do you have?"
"Processing inquiry … I have fifteen programs installed. Eleven are required for motor functions, and senses. One of these programs have three add-ons, two of which are required for protection. Would you like me to list these programs?"
"Honestly, I think it took longer to say all that than it would to list them all …" she said, deflating in annoyance and exhaustion from his momentary lapses of sounding intelligent. One moment, he was adorable, and then the next, he sounded very much like an emotionless robot, "Forget about that - I mean, no, don't delete any memory!"
He raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, she was stunned by the simple action - which must have been a very complex movement for his developers to create - "I know about that kind of phrase."
"Ah, heh, well … I meant to ask you something else anyway." She tilted her head, circling him slowly, "Why were you sent here?"
"You're Nami."
Nami stiffened, and stopped walking just behind him, "Yes … how do you know that?"
"Your voice, your face, and your smell."
Turning bright red again, she snapped, "What!?"
"Your voice, your face, and your smell."
"I heard you the first time!"
He seemed to be processing that, silent a few moments before he turned to look back at her, "Did you not understand?"
"I didn't mean that I didn't get it! What I don't understand is - is how! Or why! Why do you know these things about me? And … you're sniffing me!?"
His face screwed up in confusion, turning his body to face her fully, "Because you're my master. I have to be able to identify you through these three programs. Olfactory, Visual, and Auditory Perceptions."
"Let me guess, some of those required programs."
He smiled brightly, "Yeah!"
"Okay, so … why are you here?"
"Processing inquiry … I don't know," he continued to smile obliviously at her, so it was a little difficult to summon up any anger.
Nami said after a moment, "Okay … how about this … what were you built to do?"
"I'm a fighting android."
Her eyes widened, gaping at him, "Who the hell sent you to me?"
"Processing inquiry … I don't know," he said before something that looked like confusion seemed to pass through his face.
"How can you not? Why - why do you know my information? Why do you know me?"
"Processing inquiry …"
"Oh, stop saying that!"
"You are my master. That means you're basically my trainer … or maintenance?"
Nami's jaw hung open a moment longer before she said, "What … why would I need a fighting robot?"
He pouted, shoulders hunching, "Android."
"No, no, there must be some mistake," she laughed nervously, turning to the box. She read To Nami on the end again before digging into the box's contents, "AC adaptor, cooling unit, aha! Instruction manual … in some other language … oh! You can translate it for me, and then we can solve this mystery!"
When she shoved the book into his hands, he turned to the first page, scanning it before he said, reading from the book, "Seu novo Android está equipado com novas funcionalidades que a versão-"
"Wait, stop. You have to translate it for me. I can't understand what you're saying."
The android frowned softly at her, "I can't understand it either. I don't have a translating program."
She twitched before she went through the box again, "More adaptor cords, extra parts, some extension cards … this is useless! Who sends fighting robots to unsuspecting women!?"
"Processing inquiry …" he was silent for so long that Nami looked up from searching the box to stare at him until he finally said, "Bored … people?"
"You really are some fighting macho head. I thought androids were supposed to be super smart."
He grinned, "Nah, I was just built for fighting, and social interactions."
Pursing her lips, Nami said, "Social interactions?" He didn't answer her, only tilting his head, and she sighed, "I guess even your social interactions are limited."
"I just … don't know how to respond to one phrase questions. I don't know what you don't understand, so I can't answer," he put his hand behind his head as if he were planning on scratching it.
She sighed, and sat down on the couch, "I just want to know why you're here."
"I could scan my memory cache for clues."
"You could do that?"
"Yeah, of course! Scanning now …" he went still, and Nami was about to get up to get her glass of orange juice to let him scan through all his memory to find out, only he suddenly jerked back to attention, "I am here because I was in that box!" He nodded, looking very proud of himself.
She opened, and then closed her mouth. When she opened it again, she said, "You are an idiot."
"What? But that's what happened. Your emergency call forced a quick setup, so I got out of the box to help you!"
"You don't remember how you got into the box?" Nami asked, eyes widening.
"I booted up for the first time in the box," he said. "I must've been … born in the box!"
Her mouth worked silently before she shook her head hard, "Scan for - for memory corruption! Scan for every kind of error you can think of!"
"Scanning now … " she sat on the edge of her seat, watching him closely while he went still during his scan. Finally, he jerked back into motion, "I have one system error."
She leaned forward more, "What is it?"
"I can't disable Action Mode."
Eyes impossibly wide now, she gaped, "What's Action Mode? Is that going to be a problem?"
"Eighty percent of my CPU is reserved for powering Pugilism. Five percent is powering nine required programs. Ten percent is poweri-"
"Okay, wait, eighty percent is powering what?"
"Processing inquiry … eighty percent of my CPU is powering nothing. It is in reserve, and cannot be used by any other program."
"Okay … that sounds like a lot of power isn't going into your required programs … which I would think would be kind of bad," Nami said, getting up to look over his head to search for some kind of access port. She gently rifled through his hair to see if there was a flap she could pull aside, "What is it in reserve for?"
"Processing inquiry … it is reserved for powering Pugilism."
She frowned when she couldn't find anything, and carefully felt along the back of his neck. Just because she couldn't see any breaks in the synthetic skin - which was amazingly real feeling - didn't mean that there wasn't some cleverly hidden spot, "What is Pugilism?"
"Processing inquiry … It is a fighting program. It gives me the ability to fight with hand to hand combat techniques."
She frowned, glancing over him with an annoyed sigh, "Where's your access port? I want to check your system."
He unbuttoned his shirt then, and turned around. Nami's lips parted slightly, staring at his superbly formed chest and abs before her eyes glued to the large X-shaped scar in the middle of his chest.
"What …?"
He then carefully peeled the scar open from the middle, four triangular skin flaps opened up to reveal the hard chest plate beneath. There were screws holding it in place, and she licked her lips before she nodded slowly in understanding. He said, "You can access my main components here."
"Okay, just … wait here, and I'll get my tools."
She dug through the box she had taken from her old office, and pulled out some basic tools like screwdrivers, tweezers, and pliers. When she laid these out, she rushed back to her home office to dig into her closet for her old beginner's andro/gynoid kit. When she was young, Nami had dabbled in android technology for fun, and suddenly she felt like a little girl again. Never mind the strange feature of his CPU and motherboard being in his chest cavity.
She had never heard of such a thing except for in science fiction from the past. All modern androids had their motherboard chipset in their head cavity. Most motherboards by this time didn't need to be so large like they had been in the past.
She bit her lip as she opened the kit, eyeing the old chipsets she had created before glancing at him, wondering how compatible he would be with them. Before getting interested with the weather, she had developed something she had always wanted to try out …
Was he even manufactured in the World Government?
Unscrewing the plate, she pulled it off, looking over the giant motherboard.
"There's open slots everywhere. You must really be barebones, mister." She paused then, frowning in thought, "What is your name anyway?"
"You haven't created a name for me yet," he pouted, and she realized then that he looked a little upset by this fact.
"Uh, well, I haven't decided to keep you, you know. This is just some mistake. I don't need a fighting android," she said, looking over the motherboard. "Honestly, I don't think I even need a simple, serving android. That sort of thing's for a family or maybe a couple."
"I see …"
Nami blinked, looking up at him before her eyes widened in shock as his downturned features, "I just lost my job too! I can't really afford to maintain you or anything. All I have is a kit from when I was a kid! I'm not some android scientist. It was just a little hobby, and I'm sure everything I do know is outdated by now."
He just fidgeted on his feet, frowning. He looked so lost, "I'm registered to you though ..."
She sighed, pressing a button near the motherboard that she recognized would pull up the GUI. As a monitor slid up from his lower abdomen cavity, she pursed her lips as she read what was on the screen:
Primary Master … Nami
Primary Slave … machine
OS Luffy 2.0
Nami cringed, but decided to concentrate on something else, "What is OS Luffy?"
"Processing inquiry …"
"Damn it, you're too slow!"
"OS stands for operating system, and OS Luffy is the version before OS Luffy 2.0 which is my operating system."
Nami sighed, closing her eyes to think before she said, "So you're the second version … but calling you Luffy 2.0 sounds annoying, so you'll just be Luffy."
His eyes widened slightly before he started to smile, "You mean it? You'll keep me!?"
"Well, I'm not going to just toss you out in your box … We'll just have to figure out how to get you out of Action Mode so you can operate at full capacity." She glanced at the screen, noting that machine was changed to his new name, "Also … I can customize this screen, right?"
"Processing inquiry …"
She groaned, "You've got to be joking me."
Primary Maintenance … Nami
Primary Fighter … Luffy
OS Luffy 2.0
Just when I thought I had nothing else to go through my head, out pops this. I have a feeling this'll be a much faster write than Outside In, which I hope to turn into something that'll be monthly. This will be … as it comes and flows through me, I suppose.
Also, damn it, its real title is Luffy 2.0. LET ME SHOW PERIODS. So the top line is the right title.