Alisa had kept quiet ever since they left Lee's laboratory over a week ago. It worried Lars, as he suddenly felt guilty of her body adaptations, even if it was all Lee's doing without his knowledge but the person having to live with the alternations was the bi-colour haired young girl sitting next to him in their SUV. He considered her as a human being and was aware of her human rights. It would be extremely immoral and unethical to force medical procedures on an unconscious person without their consent. Waves of guilt overwhelmed the half Swede man.
"Alisa," Lars called. "How are you feeling?"
No verbal responses in return, her emerald eyes turned facing his cobalt ones, her expressions were unreadable. As if there were a mixture of sadness, attachment, confusion and loneliness. She then turned to the window, dazed out in the changing views of the sceneries as the car moved.
Silence fell over the passenger chamber. It had made Lars feeling worse. He wanted to ask her what really was wrong but did not want to pressure her either. Lars wondered what was she thinking, how did the brain of hers work differently than his, how did she feel about things in her life, how did she feel about him?
Alisa turned her head slightly, staring idly out of the glass barrier in the front "I feel different." She murmured. "I am not used to these feelings. My brain functions differently…. My rational programming felt like it was no longer priority, no, I feel like there were no priorities, no orders, no inputs into my systems, nothing to processes… It feels hollow." A pause, before she whispered quietly "I feel…. free."
Lars frowned, her response stimulated a growing curiosity. "What you described, has just confirmed your human-self, hasn't it?"
"Do you think so?" Alisa bowed her head down and looked at her hands on her lap, examining them "I do not understand this feeling at all. Is this what humans feel all the time?"
"I'm sorry, Alisa." Lars apologized, wanting to at least fade the clarity of the guilt that was overshadowing him "Lee did not tell me beforehand that he would alter you in anyways. If I had known, I would have stopped him."
Alisa did not answer. Instead, she took one of his hands from the stirring wheel, peeling off of his black leather glove and embraced his bare hand with both of her soft and warm gloveless ones. It was their first time having physical contacts without any fabric barriers. Lars did not expect her flesh to feel this – alive.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Lars." Her referring to the high ranking Tekken Force officer by his first name instant intrigued him, he did not remember her doing this before. "I'm sure Mr. Chaolan did not mean any harms. In fact, I am grateful." She smiled with her rosy lips.
Her genuine smile shed him a light in the previous darkness of guilt and fear. "Alisa" He grabbed both of her soft hands "You are free. You no longer exist to serve Jin's orders. You are you. You are entitled to freedom in all aspects of your life. You exist for yourself."
Her sweet green eyes sparkled, followed with a wide smile. She nodded enthusiastically. "Thank you, Lars. In fact, I need to thank Mr. Chaolan as well."
Lars made her wish come true as he turned his car into the front parking of Lee's company. The two of them got out of the black SUV and proceeded walking into the buildings. The Swede told the secretary of the first floor the reason of their arrival. In a swift of minute, a silver haired middle aged man in his signature black and white expensive suit showed up at the spiral staircase.
"Well, well, isn't this a pleasant surprise." Lee exclaimed as he approached the two guests, reaching out his hands to Lars for a brief greeting shake. "How are you both? You look excellent!"
"Alisa wanted to come here to see you." Lars got straight to the point, the mentioned young android was smiling behind him.
"Let's talk in my office, shall we?" Lee's response was barely a question, but rather a suggestion. He turned to the female secretary "Bring our guests the best wine there is. And make it quick."
Lars and Alisa followed the Chinese-origin rightful Mishima heir into the elevator, Lee pressed the top button on the panel. The doors slid closed.
"So," Lee began, turned his head to face the young adolescent beauty standing next to Lars. "How do you like my magic tricks?" he snapped his fingers, creating some 'pop's sound. It was pretty obvious that he was referring to Alisa body's new functions.
"We actually came here to thank you for this, Mr. Chaolan." Alisa smilingly stated. Both of her hands placed in front of her thighs as she bowed her head down in Japanese traditional way of expressing gratefulness. "I was shocked and surprised at first…. And a bit scared of the changes. I felt no purpose in my existence. Until Lars told me that I am the purpose of my life." She slightly glanced at Lars to her side, smiling to him. "That's when I realized, I've got what I've always wanted."
"Excellent." Lee smirked as the elevator doors slid to the sides, giving them a space out of the metal cube. "I and my team have altered something here and there. I'll tell you exactly what was changed and what to expect."
The silver haired man led two of them through his glass doors into his luxury office. A gigantic wooden desk at the end of the transparent glass walls, the circular drop in the marble ground that filled with large set of beige sofas, the displays of world class's paintings and sculptures ornamented the space of the room. His choice of interior design clearly reflected the refined extraordinary taste of the middle-aged charismatic man.
"Take a seat, your drinks will be here shortly." Lee dropped himself on the soft leather sofa in the center of the room, prompting them to do the same with his gloved hand. Lars sat on the opposite side of the silver haired businessman with Alisa gently sitting on Lars' side. Her pink head turning around interestingly at the environment she was now in.
"Apparently she looks exceptional." Lee started, "We simply developed the most complex A.I. system and installed it in her along with her old functioning system. It does not interfere with her memory or anything. Alisa is still Alisa. It merely just made her brain functions more as a natural human self, sharpening her five sensory and wiring the nerve endings on the parts beyond basic nerves connections needed for combats. In fact, her sixth sense or instinct has also awoken."
Alisa grasped, hands loosely covered her mouth "So that's the thing that had been disrupting my logical neuro processing."
"Yes." The silver head nodded, turning to Alisa "It was a sudden change, however, to you now, every new feelings you start receiving and the way you feels, touches and interact with the things around you will seem like a fresh new beginning to you. Put it simply, you are like a human baby with all your past memory, linguistic capabilities and logical thinking which will not always be the dominant driving force of your actions. But asides from those three, everything else is new to you."
Lars was surprised to hear this. Now he understood more of Alisa's silence over the week, she must had been so confused at all these drastic changes. The glass wall slid open as the dark haired secretary they saw earlier walked in with large bottle of expensive wine, she served it to each of them in wide mouthed clear glass. She excused herself and the three of them regained privacy once again.
"What else is change?" Lars asked.
"Well, upon the operation we have discovered one thing." Lee took a sip from the deep blood red liquid, then swirling it in the glass on his palm. "Alisa body was 95% human"
The cobalt-coloured eyes widened, Lars could not believe the information in the man's calm voice. Several seconds passed, he then was able to produce words. "You mean she-"
"The body was of Boskonovitch's late daughter who died of sudden unexpected death syndrome. So there were no external injuries. There was only a micro-chip containing software was placed in her brain to re-allowing the function of it and another one placed on her heart that release electrical waves to jumpstarted the muscles contractions when her heart tends to stop beatings which was what happened to her when you brought her here. At this very moment the only artificial thing working in her body is the micro-chip on her brain that keeps her alive." Lee closed his eyes smirked, his brown eyes shifted to Alisa's widened emerald green. "Isn't your father an outstanding genius." He said with a chuckle.
"But—" her voice expressed a confusion that she did not intend to hide "I have no memories older than meeting with Lars."
"They failed to entirely retain Boskonovitch's daughter's brain's data." Lee sipped from the rim of the glass. "Human brain is just too complex; they could merely just start the refunctioning of it from the new start. Nothing remained from her previous life. Your brain was new."
Hearing all of this, made Lars' heart rate elevated somehow. His brain was processing this hard-to-believe information coming from worlds' leading scientist like Lee himself. No matter how heavenly the wine tasted on his tongue, his other senses seemed to be numbed as his focus was only on one thing. Lars felt an urge to ask the question that had always appear in his mind. "Does it mean she—"
As if he could read the Swede's mind, Lee grinned, locking eyes with him and taking another sip from the glass. "Indeed, she is capable of reproduction."
Lars' mind went blank. Everything dissolved into this tangle of emotions.
"She still has all her reproductive system and sexual organs intact. I told you, she is 95% human now that I cut the wiring of Jin's programming in her. She is capable of living as a free woman and deciding on things that way of a human being." Lee paused, looking deep into Lars' dark blue eyes alternating with glancing at Alisa's eyes. "She has a lot to learn about the way of the world. She will age as time goes by, like a human being. Tracing from the liquid nitrogen remaining in her body, her biological age is actually 18, not 14 as we believed to be at first. She was cryopreserved for 4 years after her death. It means that she's an adult now, Lars. Take a good care of her and teach her about this human world she had woken up to as one ten days ago." The man's lips curved into a grin.
His smirk to Lars was hidden with a message, as if he was hinting that all of his doing was a gift to the new member of Mishima bloodline, since Lee had always known how Lars fancied this human doll at the first time they met.