Project: Imitation

Yes, I know, this will be uber weird. It's not exactly an AU or a continuation – I have no idea what it is. It's like the real world, but wholly based on Inuyasha. And I fully realise that this may seem a lot like Ghost In The Shell and Chobits. I've just watched half of Ghost In The Shell, and the idea spun off from that. I know it sounds like a weird link thing, but just bear with me – okay?

Inuyasha-tachi and others belong to the amazing Rumiko Takahashi, not me. Other people that you don't recognise from the anime/manga are mine e.g. Hidaka and Aiken Fyre.

Summary

Tokyo. The year is 2035. Technology has advanced so far that the first human-like robots are now being born in the industrialised cities of both Japan and America. Shipped to other countries by mail-order, 'cyborgs' are becoming ever more popular. The trade for such creations is expanding, and human knowledge, as well as human greed, is growing just as fast.

4 years prior to the release of the government's mercenaries PN3 and PN4 – in 2031 – Aiken Fyre, an American with university degrees under her belt and the will to succeed, joined the race to become the first to create an official agent for the government.
Being influenced by her own drive and imagination is one thing, but being influenced by Japanese culture is another.

Upon arriving in Tokyo, she is suddenly surrounded by the wonders of the 'alien' anime and manga, a pastime she is unfamiliar with. But soon she gets absorbed in the lives of two characters – two imaginary characters – that are brought to life in her mind. She will stop at no lengths to recreate these characters, be it for the government or for her own pleasure.

And so were born Project Number 3, PN3, and Project Number 4, PN4, of Fyre-Droids.
Their attitudes and appearances are down to a 't', but even without the human – or hanyou – soul, can love still prosper?

Program One
Mannequins

Tokyo, 2035.
1:00pm

The river of people parted, rippling as they allowed the dark-clad boy through the crowd, his head ducked against the bright sunlight as he made his way forward. The surrounding pedestrians all saw the machine gun jammed in the rim of his jeans, and their mouths were open wide in horror. It was a wonder nobody was calling police.
The boy raised his eyes, his fingers looped in his trouser belt rings as he surveyed the area, his amber eyes calculating.

Tokyo was as busy as ever. Young couples zipped by on the new form of transport – a scooter-hovercraft hybrid; the older generation grumbling as the sun beat down on the decaying side of town, annoyed that it seemed surprisingly calm as it shone above the ever-growing Industrial Estate.

A tingling sensation worked up the boy's right hand, consuming his whole body in a sudden wave. His eyes widened, and he suddenly stopped, turning slowly. His silvery hair whipped about him as he went, distantly noticing the people around him were still staring in absolute shock. He ignored them, his eyes focused on a figure in the distance.

Her hips swung as she moved, raven-dark hair billowing around her. Her eyes were firmly locked with his, her face blank.
The boy bowed his head, smiling slightly. Then he pulled out the machine gun and shot it once in the air.
The crowd screamed, ducking and diving away from him – sprinting across the roads and dodging the afternoon traffic.

"Let the games begin!" the silver-haired boy called at the top of his lungs, and a bullet echoed through the air. It wasn't fired from his gun. An identical one was thrown up in the air triumphantly, the dark-haired girl's eyes full of some form of disgust. She hated fighting.
The boy looked around to see if he had caught the attention of the desired target. He fired his gun again, his face dark. But that was when the building on the opposite side of the square exploded in a curtain of flames...

Four years ago…

Aiken's hands were expectantly crossed behind her back, her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the situation playing out before her. "Diagnostics?" she called softly, glancing at the clipboard lying on display on the side counter. A man in an over-sized lab coat turned back to her, his eyes hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses. "She's hooked up to the main frame and we're receiving her signal on the server, but she still needs some fine-tuning."

"Raise her up," Aiken told him, and the man turned back to his station immediately, pressing numerous buttons on the panel before him. The robotic mannequin jerked upright on the silver tray, loose wires appearing out of numerous parts of her body like ghastly appendages. Her blue eyes rolled, her dark hair flowing around her pale synthetic skin.

Her eyes turned to the left, to the right, to the floor and then attempted to stare at the ceiling. Instead they remained level, unblinking as she stared at Aiken. The woman shivered and motioned to the technician rather forcefully. "What's wrong?"
"System error. This is a complex program, you understand,"
"Looking around the room is complex? Are you forgetting what we need her for?"

"I was referring to the project at hand. Look at her, she isn't what we are striving to accomplish. She's just a doll – a puppet, if you will. She is no more a cyborg than we are." The technician told Aiken softly, continuing with the diagnostics test.
The robot stared straight ahead. Aiken stared straight back, analysing her. Then she shut her eyes. "Another in a long line of failed prototypes?" she practically whined, turning away.

The technician whipped around, hurt. "You have it wrong. We haven't failed – she's just a model. I'm one hundred percent sure that the next will go without a hitch,"
Aiken hoped that that would be his response. She smiled behind her auburn hair, wrapping her lab coat tighter around her. "Good. I have the plans for the next two models. You'll find them in your office," she told him, beginning to walk away.

"T-Two? Two models? What are we basing them on? We have no designs, no technical documentations or approval from the council–"
"You're wrong on all three counts, Hidaka. And yes – two models. I think you'll recognise them,"

"I may be speaking out of turn, but we're not a waxworks company, Miss."
"Oh no," Aiken reassured. "They're not modelled from celebrities exactly."

Hidaka stared, dazed and confused as he watched Aiken leave the germ-free environment; pressing the button to open the airtight doors, glancing fleetingly one last time around the whitewash high-ceilinged room.
"I– I don't understand…" he gibbered.

"You'll see," Aiken winked, hand poised on the door frame.
Hidaka sighed and turned back to the robot still propped up on the table. He motioned to her without looking at Aiken. "What shall we do with her?" he asked, hands in his pockets.
Aiken smiled and stepped into the corridor, ready for the door to seal shut behind her. The other airtight door was before her, ready to open when the other was closed. "Recycle her. We can use her in the building stage of PN3,"

"PN3?" Hidaka mused, smirking.
"Exactly," Aiken replied, pressing the button so the door slid into place behind her. The miniature corridor was filtered of all germs before the door before her opened and she was out of the laboratory and walking down the hallway, removing her lab coat feverishly.

Her heart thumped in anticipation. She couldn't wait for the project to unfold.

It was late afternoon. The sun was dipping beneath the horizon, casting an amber glow into the atmosphere. Hidaka was browsing his local market, out of his uniform and wearing more casual clothes – a sweater and loose-fitting dark trousers. A briefcase hung in his hands, the information of project PN3 and PN4 listed somewhere inside. He hadn't even had a chance to look at the documents yet. He knew it was unprofessional, but he wanted to sit and read about his future work over some sake.

His head was pounding after working on his second model since joining Fyre-Droids. Aiken Fyre, his boss, was a passionate American, totally engrossed in robotics and theory on human life. She would always question religion, why humans really existed and whether anyone could duplicate such an existence. A woman if ever there was one. Hidaka found himself strangely attracted to her.

When he had sat down in a favoured sushi bar not too far from the market, he reclined in the corner, eyes shutting as he enjoyed a well-deserved drink of sake. Outside, the sun had just disappeared, injecting the sky with iridescent colours. Hidaka simply stared, watching the world go by.

Glancing around, he saw that everyone around him were minding their own business.
Pulling the briefcase up onto the table, he took a last sip of his sake before laying it down before the opened case. There, inside, were two brown envelopes labelled 'CONFIDENTIAL'. Hidaka sighed, rubbing his temples as he opened the first one – PN3.

The design was simple enough. A synthetic body of a teenager – the anatomy without much detail. With cyborgs it wasn't required. Black hair like the last model. The artist's drawings of the model were beautiful, reflecting the technology and the outward appearance, as well as paying attention to detail.
PN3 was to look like a typical high school girl – brown eyes and black hair, a body of a fifteen year old. Average height, slim and willowy.

She looked relatively simple in design, like the prototype he had put aside earlier for recycling. That droid's eyes, however, had been blue.
What would be tricky would be the technology. Aiken didn't just want a robot, she wanted to recreate something. Hidaka wasn't sure whether this was the human race in general or something different, but her heart was set. Hidaka knew that whatever she was recreating needed emotions, a program that allowed it to think. Such a thing had been discovered many years ago, and it was achievable. It was just the pressure of being put to work like this.

Why did Aiken want this job done so badly? Why did she want to rule in Japanese cyber industries when she could have prospered in the US? Hidaka didn't know, nor did he care. The only thing he knew about the woman who had commissioned this project was that she was highly intelligent. These drawings before him were possibly done by her.

She knew her way around electronics. She wasn't just a supervisor, she was a fellow technician. But Hidaka sometimes wondered if she wanted to be a kind of god.

He sighed and placed the documents on PN3 back in the suitcase, yawning. He reached for PN4, glancing around once again to see if anyone was looking. Three young men were flirting with the pretty serving-girl sat behind the bar, watching as she served them their sushi. An old gentleman was reading a newspaper editorial in the opposite corner, sitting comfortably in a low leather chair.
The other people in the room were keeping to themselves, eating and chatting amongst each other.

Hidaka opened up PN4's documents. He wondered why, for this model, the body and the anatomy impressions were displayed before the facials. In PN3's files, the face had been at the front of the document after the technical documentations and descriptions. After a few minutes of flicking, Hidaka felt as if his heart had risen in his throat.

He'd gotten his head shot all right. Long cobweb-silver hair, amber eyes and dog-ears that were almost that of a cat's.
"They're not modelled from celebrities exactly."
Hidaka took a steadying breath and closed up the file before he knew what he was doing. He remembered thinking about Aiken's wish to recreate something and his breath caught in his throat.
This is ridiculous! She wants me to create living dolls of anime characters?

He threw PN4's folder into his briefcase, snapping it shut. Infuriated, he straightened out of his chair and left the sushi bar. All thoughts of Aiken being a great woman had disappeared from his head. She was like a little girl envisioning her dreams and moulding them into reality. Sculpting stick men out of clay only to watch them crumble.

Government agents, my ass! What kind of a sick joke was that? Hidaka's mind roared, as he stormed home – the sky an inky black. The clouds appeared to be bruised, a purple hue lining the atmosphere.

Yet as he stomped past the market, a figure caught his eye. He jerked his head in that figure's direction, the cardboard cut-out of an anime hero. Hidaka couldn't help but see the simplicity of his figure, his stance. He could imagine feeling the synthetic body beneath him, creating a living being out of what had been a useless shell.
Wiring becoming sensory and nervous systems, pounds of metal replacing the brain and heart. He could see the joints, the tech, the open shell...

He turned away, masking the smile beginning to emerge on his face. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Some people already see him as a hero, so what's the harm in rekindling those dreams? He thought, grinning, warming to the idea.

Turning away, his grip tightened on the brief case. I can see it now – Project: Imitation. Government agent PN4, Inuyasha.