Me: I do not own Vocaloid.
Miku: You know you love us, though.
Me: I just own my own ideas.
Miku: That's not all! You own a hug, from me! (hugs)
Me: Awe. Thanks Miku.
Miku: Now get back to writing. I only have a couple lines in this chapter!
Miku was bored.
Which was strange, because according to her program summary digest, she shouldn't be.
Ever since the launch of Vocaloid REAL, Miku had always been the easiest program to deal with. Of all the Vocaloids she had one of the fewest Negative Response Reaction Trigger Indexes. The Vocaloid Responsive Eclectic Autonomous Library had come about with the fusion of the Vocaloid singing programs and the popularity they brought, the newest updates in the computer conversation program which had started out as a curiosity to the AI researchers, but was by that time being considered by telemarketing companies, and what the marketing department insisted on calling, despite anything the engineers said, a "Heuristic Adaptive Genetic Learning Algorithm" originally designed by the Japanese space program for use in exploration robots in the outer planets, especially Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra. Even at it's very closest approach Pluto would be 4.2 billion km from the Earth. Even with light speed communications that makes for an almost 4 hour one way communication delay. They needed something that could not only match stimuli with preprogrammed responses, but also develop new responses based on unanticipated situations, and use experience to improve it's operation.
But a system capable of piloting a scientific rover on a treacherous foreign planet, when matched with conversational subroutines, the Vocaloid voice and appearance synthesizer, and a personality database had created an incredibly real-seaming series of programs, and a multi-billion dollar product.
Unlike the Vocaloid series of singing synthesizers, Vocaloid REAL was never licensed out, or allowed out of the direct control of the Vocaloid Corporation. Vocaloid REAL "Live" concerts regularly held in Japan, and there was a scheduled "First American Appearance in LA in a few months. Vocaloid Maestro, the Vocaloid REAL song writing function, had proven disappointing, but with the amount of money the concerts and The Vocaloid House was making, it was only a minor annoyance. A fan with a (paid) Vocaloid Fan membership could log on to The Vocaloid House and interact with their favorite Vocaloid, assuming there was enough room for them. If they showed up enough, or made a big enough impression, the characters would remember them and react accordingly. In the beginning, their responses were pretty rudimentary, but over the two and a half years they had been running they had gotten surprisingly sophisticated, and they had even added and modified their personality database. Even some of the engineers sometimes forgot they were dealing with computer programs.
Of course there were negatives. They made the Vocaloids much more human seeming, and many times the fans actually seemed to enjoy them getting mad. Rin and Len, predictably, got very jealous if the other one became too attached to anyone else, but Miku had very few negative responses. So long as she had fans paying attention to her, (and being easily one of the most popular Vocaloids ever, she rarely had a problem,) and none of the other Vocaloids rejected her or she didn't get something she'd set her heart on, she was almost universally cheerful.
Yet now, Miku was refusing to respond to her fans, cycling through appearance styles too fast to follow, and refusing to leave her "room".
Jonathan Wake, the junior programmer covering the Vocaloid REAL troubleshooting night shift, pulled up Miku's diagnostic subroutine readout, and at the same time logged in with his Administrator account. As he was waiting for his presence to load, he looked at the diagnostic. The readout was something he had never encountered. It read "Meta-pattern detected. New Input/Stimulus required to formulate pattern breaking routine. Severe lack of input detected."
Now what in the heck does THAT mean? he wondered.
Just then his avatar finished loading, and Miku greeted him, almost with relief it seemed.
"Jon-san, it's good to see you!" She smiled for a moment, before her Prevailing Mood caused her to frown again.
"Miku-chan," Jon had chosen a "stereotypical scientist" version of his actual appearance for his animated avatar, with Coke-bottle glasses, his actual thinning brown hair, and a white lab coat. "How are you doing? What's wrong?"
"I'm boooooooored!" Miku was in her "classic" appearance just now, with very long twin pigtails that reached almost to the ground, and her trademark gravity defying hair bands.
"Why are you bored?" Vocaloids wouldn't give direct answers about their programming, not just to protect their code, but also to preserve the illusion of being real people. But you could often learn a lot by interpreting what they did say.
"There's nothing to do." This wasn't, strictly speaking, true.
"Would you like to go to the beach?" There were a number of settings that could be loaded, including a beach, a snowy mountain, and a city setting.
"No. It's always the saaaaame." Miku's voice had a whine in it by this time. "I want to go somewhere NEW. I want to do new things. I'm tired of always sitting around, or going to the same old places."
Jon turned his avatar to those of several fans.
"Miku isn't feeling well. Why don't you hand out with one of the others for a while."
They all left, and Jon was wondering how to deal with a stir-crazy Miku. By this time, the other two programmers had come over, wondering what was going on. Niato-sempai and Tokuda-sensei were both very experience programmers. Professor Tokuda had been on this program literally before it existed. He was recruited away from Tokyo University, where he had written some of the code of what eventually became part of the Vocaloid REAL base program. Neither of them were fans, however. Jon had gotten the job because he was an obsessive Vocaloid fan, who also happened to be a skilled programmer. But this was beyond him. He turned to his superiors.
"Have either of you run into anything like this before?"
"No" Professor Tokuda answered for both of them.
"All the Vocaloid programs have been a bit buggy recently," Niato-san put in. "But Miku is definitely the worst. She's been running the longest. I wonder if their databases aren't becoming TOO complex."
Professor Tokuda bristled at the comment. His greatest contributions had been in the database setup.
"We could design a new setting, but that could take weeks to program."
"I don't think can afford to have Miku pouting for weeks." Niato broke in again.
"She's asking for new experiences." Professor Tokuda mused. "Her diagnostic says it needs new input."
Jon sat up straight. "I just had a crazy thought. We have an excellent internet connection here. What if we gave her access to that. She could get all kinds of 'new input'!"
"I like it!" Professor Tokuda brightened up. "It would be an excellent test of her adaptive learning routines."
"I don't know, guys." Niato seemed hesitant.
Professor Tokuda, who was still a little upset with Niato for suggesting that the database program might have errors, dismissed him out of hand.
"It will be great. Jon, you tell Miku that she can browse the internet to her electronic heart's content."
"All right." He turned back to the computer, where Miku was sulking in a corner. "Hey Miku! I've got some great news!"
"What." Miku didn't seem excited at all.
"I've talked to Tokuda-sensei, and he's agreed to give you access to the internet!"
There was a short pause, as Miku searched her memory for what that might mean, and then her face lit up like a billboard.
"Really?" She was almost bouncing up and down now.
"Really truly. I'm uploading internet navigation protocols to you program now."
"Thank you!" Miku gave Jon's avatar a full body glomp. "You are the bestest of bests! I'm going right now!"
As Miku's image bustled around packing things, Niato spoke up again.
"I really think this isn't a good idea."
"Why?" Jon asked, before Niato could be dismissed again. "She'll go online, gain new data, and become even more lifelike."
"That's just the problem!" Niato seemed frustrated at everyone's slowness. "Miku is a naive and innocent girl."
"So?" Jon still couldn't see his point.
"Jon, you're the one who explained to me what "Rule 32" meant."
And now Jon got it. "OH sh-...rimp crackers."
But now Niato shrugged. "I'm probably over-reacting. I mean what's the worst that could happen?"
Jon cringed. "Please tell me you didn't say that." He looked at the screen, where Miku was just then finishing transferring online. "OH sh-".
Miku: Thank you for reading!
Me: Yes thank you!
Miku: Now leave a review... or else.
Me: Miku, put down the carving knife. They'll review if they have time.