The odd review of program 311
This is a fanfiction based on VampireMeerkat's Ei, Eii, and Eiji. That is the Japanese version of Ed, Edd, and Eddy. This is blending the story of the "normal" storyline and the "high school edition."
As such only my own wild plot bunnies and original characters are mine, okay?
When he was made, there had been exactly 310 others who had gone through the "Edd" program. The program was based on the personality of an American prodigy child that lived in America. However, the twists and turns of the child's personality and how the program liked to grow outside of their standards so much made all the ones before him crash.
The ones that made him 311, had humorlessly given him an appearance like the child in question. And gave him the name Eii. It didn't matter that he wouldn't even fully grow into his personality. As soon as he was triggered, the personality program would be scrapped from his A.I. and then as soon as he was done with his mission, he would be scrapped.
After all the other 310 versions of the personality program made it very clear to them that the "Edd" program was not something to be messed with. Especially in their war with the robots. "Edd" was someone who would to amazing things. Things that would tip the balance of control completely into his favor.
Eii/ 311 always knew before he was triggered that he was not normal. He was too smart and he was too detached. He had been implanted with two other boys in a hospital incident that made it understandable as to why he had his "ticks" and gave them time to form a childhood-bond all while keeping his secret hidden. He had considered them his closest friends after a while, even though he was still confused as to what a "friend" was. Then there was Mami Kanta. She was the one of three, just like him and his friends but she was always following him. Her sisters thought it was a crush she had, and they were probably right. He was annoyed with her following him though. If he was triggered, she would see and probably be in danger. Though if he was honest with himself. He was more annoyed with the fact that if he was an actual person, he would have developed a crush on her as well.
So when the question was popped on who's genes would do what to whom kids, he was put up to his little "project." It all began with him doing sketches of what the kids would mostly look like and/or do around their age. When the pairing of him and Mami came up, irritated, he quickly drew up a sketch of a young girl singing. She was dressed like a pop-idol and smiling with untampered joy. Everyone looked at him when he calmly explained that there was a high possibility that if he had a child they would pursue arts since he was so much about science. Mami looks and personality would have them more fit to be in the entertainment side of work. Eiji and Ei were just shocked he could draw so well, as well as the rest of the class. Mami was shocked that he didn't slam his foot down about this, until he casually muttered that he would not be having children with her.
But he couldn't get rid of the picture.
He was a humanoid, but he was mainly made with bolt and metal. He couldn't grow, couldn't age. His creators didn't think that he would need such things since he was a war robot with a suicide mission. By the time everyone was on those topics he would be long gone. But he was an A.I., one that was built with a curious personality of an honest loving young child. And the image oddly called him. Eii wondered if he was crazy for thinking this but he thought that he would be killing two birds with one stone.
So he got to work on his masterpiece, one that his creators would not know about.
When they were trapped in the air ducts, when the robots came after them, 311 felt something close to sorrow.
He knew that he couldn't feel, something that Mami was pointing out as she was getting more and more distressed. But as he was laying there, in broken parts he wondered on his incomplete creation. He imagined her in the tank floating and resting, but never to be completed and never to be woken up. He felt himself almost catch an error over the thought.
"Why are you so calm! We are about to die you stupid stupid robot!"
He felt her tears fall on him, making him smirk at the thought that his sensors were not broken in the slightest and wondering if it would be better if they were shot right now.
"That would have hurt me if I had feelings."
"Just..just….shut up!"
She fell down, sobbing quietly into his chest and he allowed her for a few minutes before he had to say something.
"I was never really annoyed with you following me."
"…of course not. You don't have feelings."
"Ouch."
He felt Mami chuckle and saw her red shot eyes. He felt that she was calm enough to explain this to her.
"When I was Eii, I had…a program to simulate emotions. I can tell you that the emotion I would have experience was not annoyance. It was…well it would be annoyance only because I would be sad."
Mami laid her head back down on him, listening to the sound of his pump race. "Sad?"
"As 311 or as Eii. I knew that I wouldn't live long and…if I was a normal person I would have- "
"Don't tell me this now…please don't. Not when we are about to die."
"I wouldn't have been able to approach you even then. Even if my mission was never activated, I would have been scrapped."
Mami looked at him in horror, the reality of what he was saying was sinking now. Before they could say anything else Ei and Eiji had busted into the air vents, along with Mami's siblings, to rescue them. He couldn't explain himself to her as he was being patched up and running back into battle. And he didn't explain about his project to her.
311 was shocked that it survived the battle and more over that his friends were very accepting of the fact that he was a robot. He was rebuilt as best as his classmates could, making him look older than all of them for a time. Mami didn't talk to him or follow him for a while after that, in fact she looked like it pained her to see him. Which made sense in a very twisted way.
Not every day that a girl got a love confession from an emotionless doomed to die humanoid.
He was not Eii anymore, that was obvious and since he won, he knew that it would be only a matter of time. It was then that he realized that he might have jealousy towards his fellow classmates at their futures' they would have. It made him work on his project even more. Time pass and soon Mami began to talk to him again. He learned to have "a funny bone" as Eiji called it, and learned to emote enough to calm his classmates. They commented that his humor was dry and dark and that he was "angrier" now. But it didn't break the bonds that they all forged. He watched them all grow up as he was finishing his project and then made his decision after examining himself several times.
He waited until they had their prom to spring this on them.
It was at his house, which was now were just guest rooms for his friends. He felt his friends behind him as he knew that Mami, his girlfriend, followed closely.
"Eii" Eiji began. Ei and Eiji refused to call him 311, saying that his name was perfect and he wasn't changing it.
"Ei, Eiji, Mami…you know what I am."
They all looked at other things suddenly, the two had lied and said that they knew he was a cyborg. A human turned to a robot, which was a lie. But only these three new the full truth that he carried and they were willing to die with the secret too.
"You know that it's been years since the school battle."
"What is it? What do they want from you now?" Mami asked wearily
He looked at her and wondered if he would have pitied her just then.
"They want to scrap me if they manage to retrieve me from you all. That hasn't changed."
"So what is it?" Ei asked
311 smiled at them. "I want you all to meet someone."
He made them walk down under his basement to his lab, where they all looked at the figure floating serenely in the tank.
"What the hell Eii! Are you working for the bad guys now?!"
"Holly shit it a naked- "
"What is this 311!"
Their reaction was expected but amusing as he walked over he pulled the faded pencil drawing and looked at it for the last time. "No I am not working for the enemy, no this isn't what you think it is and no. Even if it's a naked girl she isn't some little robot maid like a manga."
All three of them came to stare at the floating girl in the tank.
"So what is with her Eii?"
He walked over to the tank, typing in some commands to set up its final program as he caressed the glass.
"She has been my special project since that classroom science project about genetics. It's funny really, A.I. like me can be every bit like a person or more so but we can't do the simple things that you do. Grow. Reproduce. And die. Even if your system is flawed, it is still something that someone might call beautiful…"
Mami was the one who noticed the drawn picture that was on the floor, looking at the floating figure that was curled up protected by her swirling hair. "What did you do?"
He looked at his creation then, a moment of triumphed going through him. "When I was triggered, most of the personality data for my 'Eii' personality was scrapped. But the observational data for the program is still loaded within me. I still have it, but I can't access it."
Ei walked up to admire his work. "But you told us this."
311 pulled a cable out from under the table and plug in a few more codes. "But she could use it though. She could use it to wake up."
Eiji looked at the ominous cable along with Mami and looked back at him as he was setting up the last codes. "Why can't you just yank it from yourself then and why tell us before you wake her up? Wouldn't it been better to surprise us?"
"It's because when you yank the information my core program will be incomplete and I'll die."
The silence that encased the room left only the soft sounds of the clicks to be heard.
"You'll die…Eii…this is no time to develop a funny bone."
He looked at them with a blank face. "I do not joke, you know me."
"But why...she just another…why kill yourself for a tin can!"
311 sighed as he sat himself in a chair. "She's a sythaloid. She's more flesh and fluid than me, the only thing that is mechanical is her programming which is missing a growing component. The personality A.I. core part of me that was Eii would fill in and help her grow and adapt like any other human. And she would be able to grow and age- "
"That doesn't explain why you're asking us to kill you double I!" Mami screamed.
All three of the boys looked at her and only 311 didn't winch. She looked furious and heartbroken, her face twisted into something that would have been on a Kabuki mask. He walked over to her and tried to hold her and she began to fling herself within his arms, sobbing as she knew they couldn't deter him.
"They will come for me eventually and eventually they will not care if civilians got hurt. It's only a matter of time. This way, I will be decommissioned on my own terms."
Eiji, upset, began punching unimportant walls, while Ei looked at him and the figure in the tank. "So this will be on your term huh Eii? To die to give your child life."
Mami had stopped throwing herself around by this time, looking up at him with beseeching eyes.
"Yes. This is my will and my…child will live. This is what I want Ei."
Mami slumped down further, prompting him to sit her on the floor. He tried to wipe her tears but she grabbed his hand. "And what about us? Did you think about how we feel about this?"
He gave her his old reply. "If I had feeling, they would be hurt Mami."
Ei just grabbed Mami and smiled sadly at 311. "I understand. I promise to protect her."
Eiji went into a rant after this, telling him how stupid he was making his masterpiece a living girl and how he was throwing away his life and how his friends would protect him. Eventually it dissolved into him trying to make 311 cry using old memories and promises which 311 smiled sadly through. Eventually Ei and 311 calmed Eiji down and Eiji himself promised to protect her.
Only Mami was left that was still staring at him with held in fury at his decision. So he stated facts.
"I'm not human."
"I know that you stupid robot, but I don't care."
"This would be the less traumatizing aspect for your life."
"Suicide is always scaring 311."
"They will not harm you if I'm gone."
"Don't you think you could better protect me if you were alive?"
"I wasn't going to live a normal life span."
"No but you don't have to kill yourself now."
311 sat back in the chair, looking at Mami with blank glowing eyes. "Do you know why I accepted to be your boyfriend?"
Mami stiffened. "You owed me."
"I wanted to give you some good memories of Eii, even if he doesn't exist. After all, if he was real there was an 80 percent probability that he would have- "
"Shut up 311."
311 thought it might be cruel to use this wording but she wasn't hearing it any other way.
"As Eii I love you Mami Kanta, but you have to let me go. Please, let me go."
Mami tears worked up anew but he looked at his two friends and smiled for them.
"So you brought us here to say goodbye." Eiji stated.
"That's the truth."
"You suck double I; I hope your reborn as a grasshopper."
"And I hope that I will be reborn as something with emotions."
Ei smiled brokenly, taking the cable in his hand and pushing It into his spine. "Bye Eii, see ya in the next life."
Eiji tearfully pressed the button commands to start the core program transfer. 311 heard the hum as he closed his eyes. "Goodbye Mami, Eiji, Ei."
As the core program was being ripped from him and his program began to fail, he got video and audio flashbacks as his program tried to reboot giving him a view of himself as Eii and 311, which he mused over where he could have done something better. As his program was crashing more and more he looked to see the tank flushing and opening itself to reveal the girl in full. He made sure that she looked like a child of four as her eyes were slowly fluttering open staring at other people in front of her in wonder. He wondered if he would have felt pride or love. He knew that he was twitching as Mami was holding onto him screaming. He couldn't hear it; the audio receptors were blown. Slipping into nothingness he realized that the name he had chosen was not normal for a child. He should have suggested they could change it to not draw suspicion.
Mami cried as the little girl with big black eyes looked around. She located Mami and crawled over to her after walking provided too much for her at the second. Ei and Eiji were shocked as the child mimicked Mami holding onto Eii's fried body and producing tears. Looking at the paper that was printing out that was her fake birth certificate and other credits Eiji made Mami notice her name, which made her look at the child in shock and bittersweet tears.
They told everyone that there was an accident and that Eii was caught in it. They told them that there was no body left, that it was a lab accident, and there was no chance of retrieving his body. They said that his doctors were picking up what was left of his body. Most of his classmates never questioned the little girl that was attached to Mami with blank black eyes and a similar frown to their lost classmate. Oddly the child, even though her name said so, hated the color green. Preferring the cyan coloring that name up most of her clothes.
Mami never let her go very far from her, calling the child even when the child had on thick headphones that blasted music that she sang along with.
"Midori-Mamiko its time to go now."
All three of them noted that in Mimi, which was her nickname, the program that powered Eii was one of timid discovery and boundless curiosity; versus what they knew. But they had to admit that they didn't know much about programming, just the fact that she was Eii/311 secret and thinking it over, it was odd how the core program worked at all, since Midori had no memories shared with whom gave her the core program. It would only be years later when they discovered that in a way she was a war robot just like her father, with Nanobots being produced in her body to counter the mysterious illness that was being spread. This with her idol group membership, gave her the ability to finished the war that was being fought without much violence.
They also discovered that the "Edd" program allowed her to lie, in her own very odd way. Mimi met Edd, the one that Eii was based off of, as well as his friends after her tour in America. Mami didn't know what to say to the obviously 10 years older version of Eii that was staring back at her in wonder and a touch of fear. She discovered that there was a group of three sisters, just like her and her siblings that tortured the Edds all through their growing years. It was almost funny as it was sad when she heard about their adventures. Mimi had grown close to him without her really knowing why she was even talking to him, resulting in her telling her story and them all being there with the Edds staring at her like they were some creatures from a horror movie.
"What are you looking for Edward?" Mami asked.
"There seems to be a zipped file in her mind. I'm trying to access it as it may have more information on why she's like this." Edd replied.
"Can you two not talk in another language Double D? It makes this situation crazier than it already is." Eddy complained staring at Eiji.
"Sorry Eddy, I was telling her that there is a zipped file in her daughter's brain and that she can't access it."
"She's a robot Double D, why can't she access a file?"
Mami saw Double D sigh. "She isn't a robot, she's an android and a sythloid type…she's not really anything that is metal or wires, she has a body like you and I. She bleeds, grows older, feels ill. The only thing that is odd on her is her mind and her appendix. Other than that, she just like any of the other 8 billion people walking around."
Eddy looked at Mimi with an untrusting glare. "But if she thinks like a computer, then why can't she access one file?"
Ed was the one who stopped Eddy from talking further with a question to his counterpart Ei.
"Could she have missing memory when she was a baby?"
Ei shrugged. "We didn't meet her until she looked about four years old. We based her age on the birth certificate that was printed out by Double I. For all we knew she was only one years old at the time."
"I see. But what if she was really four?"
Eddy looked at Ed. "Wait, you can understand them?"
Ed smiled a big goofy smile. "Over five hundred hours of Smash Bash International can do that to you Eddy!"
Eiji chuckled at the similar looks between Ei and Ed before looking at Mimi's hunched over form. "You okay there kid?"
Mimi managed a small nod. "Yes uncle Eiji. I am fine, this just feels a little weird that you all can see the inside of my head."
Eiji chuckled. "It's not really we are seeing inside of your head, its more code gibberish that only your mother and that Eii-lookalike understand."
"No images?"
"Well there was a particular one with a boy…" Eiji joked.
Mimi flushed. "Uncle Eiji!"
Mami looked at the file and the code surrounding it, ignoring the teasing banter. Finally typing something in it there was sudden silence from Mimi as there was a smaller screen that had a blank bar.
"Mimi?"
"Midori?"
"Hey Edd, the kid looks a little weird."
Looking at her face it was a serene blank face but she looked like she was not looking at anything. Mami began to freak as she had saw this only one before.
When "Eii" became "311."
"Mimi! My child, Midori…Midori answer me! Edward, something is happening to Midori, what is happening to her code!"
Double D looked at the code. "It's...stopped."
All of them looked at him with horror on their face. "Is…is she dead Double D?" Ed asked.
Edd shook his head. "No, she is…stuck somehow. Like a computer that can only run a few programs at a time. When we tried to open the file her consciousness must have paused itself to save her from overloading on information. She's…asleep in a way."
Eddy snarled. "Warn us over such a shock. I thought you broke her or something! I didn't want to have to bury her in a junkyard!"
"You would have been doing no such thing!" Eiji snarled back.
Ei and Ed tried to calm Eddy and Eiji down as Mami and Edd tried to figure out what made Mimi do such a thing. Trying to crack open the file had led them both to find it was a zipped file of many zipped files, each jammed packed with information on the day to day life of Mimi and 311. Finding information on 311 made Mami look harder, sorting through each file until she came upon a chat box.
"…Edward?"
"Yes Mami?"
"This computer isn't connected to anything is it?"
"No, it my personal computer I use for projects. But I do see your worry as I don't have a chat box program."
"Do we…ask it something?"
Looking at each other, the only thing they typed was the word "Hi" into the chat box, which translated it to Japanese as it went through. Mami gasped when they got a very unusual response.
" I particularly dislike English. Can you speak Japanese?"
Mami took the keyboard and typed in her response. " 311? Eii? Is that you?"
There was a moment before there was a response, all of them wrapped up in see the words write themselves. " Who is writing this? Eiji? Mami?"
Mimi, as it turned out, had a fragment of Eii/311 inside of her own mind untouched. He was her "reason" as it turned out. With him locked away with only a small part of power over Mimi's mind he was delegated to a tick that Mimi had inherited. The other file was the forced load of data by Eii when he was creating her.
In other words, her babyhood memories.
Mimi was happy when she was awoken and she found out. Mami couldn't even be angry at her daughter for keeping the fact that she knew of 311 from her. In Mimi's mind she had made up the voice to talk to from the stories that were told to her, and convinced herself that the voice in her head was her own attempt at getting close to her father in some way. Which was why she was also drawn to Edd. The personality program was attached to Peach Creak, which was where Edd was from and still lived. A part of the underline changing program made Mimi want to go there, like a phantom version of homesickness, she was slightly driven to find the one that her father was based on.
Edd wrote a paper and published it to the community and the scientific community before anyone could do anything, lying only from where and who he had meet to discover the oddness of such a case. The virtual cloning was brought up to UNN and there was a mass "house-cleaning" of countries science and war departments. The average joe only knew that Japan had made a child behave and look like another from the states. Mami personally wanted to slap Edd silly for what he did and the dangers he put himself in.
Looking at the paper, 46 and now a mother of three herself, she couldn't help but feel that this was a close to closure she would get from the odd turn in her life. Midori-Mamiko was now in her twenties and had taken up being a doctor after her long history of being a famous idol. Her "green child" looked more like Eii now than when she was younger. She began to wear a black hat, pinning up the majority of her long hair under it. She also wore cyan headphones around her neck to listen to music, shows, or whatever was entertain her. She looked angry if she was not smiling, both expressions being a default setting for her face now. And she was discovering new ways for medicine, but was mostly ignored by her fellow doctors. Mami would laugh and make her drink some tea to calm her down as she told her that she was acting more like her uncles again. Midori had also taken to wearing green to compliment all the cyan she wore. She still hated the color green.
Never once did she ask about why did her newest set of uncles come over each year to do "checkups" on her. Nor did she look at any papers for advance technology. She didn't need to. The case of 311 became the base of many leaps and bounds in science, medicine, and law. There were many people that talked when asked about the topic, knowing something about the "strange case" of the trice repurposed A.I. program. A few religions even used the case to support their versions of hell, heaven, or reincarnation. All she commented, when pushed, was a tired all-knowing smile with cyan glowing eyes.