It was a bright, cloudy day in New Mobotropolis. The air was warm, but there was a cool breeze blowing. Windows were left open to let in the summer air. There had just been a storm the day before, and there probably would be another one tomorrow, but today, the sun shone bright.
Dr. Nathaniel Ellidy was busily soldering away at a small circuit, unknowing of the pleasant weather outside of his sterile, climate controlled basement laboratory. His work was almost complete; he just had to solder one last connection…
"Beep! Beep! Beep!" an alarm suddenly rang out, making him jump slightly, but he managed to keep his hands steady. "Oh. Time to wake up, apparently." He said to himself sarcastically. Standing up from his chair, the lynx stretched and let out a long yawn. "I really can't keep pulling these all-nighters." He informed himself. "But I'm so close!" He quickly and nimbly removed all of the heat sinks from the circuit, and carefully moved it to a sterilization chamber that he had built from a microwave (not that he couldn't get a proper one, he had just made this one on a bet). After entering the mass of the circuit and hitting start, the sterilizer set to work destroying any dust or fur that may have gotten onto the chip. As he waited, the doctor began idly fiddling with the casing for his latest invention. He called it N.I.C.O.L.E. short for Neural Integrated COmputer and Living Entity. Not the most elegant of acronyms, but he wanted to name it after his daughter, Nikki. "Almost finished." he said to himself.
"Ding!" The timer on the sterilizer went off, and Dr. Ellidy was startled again. "A lack of sleep seems to make me jumpy." he commented. "And more likely to talk to myself." he added humorously. Carefully, he inserted the chip into the handheld, and booted it up.
"Boot complete." The handheld announced in a dry, female voice. "Systems diagnostics initiated…complete. All systems functional. No intelligence matrix detected. Semantics processor cannot be activated."
Dr. Ellidy stared at the handheld in mild disbelief for a few seconds, before suddenly jumping into the air. "Yes! It works! It works!" While the doctor had never been one to doubt his own abilities, even he was skeptical of such a lofty goal at first. "Oh, thank you, god." he said, a large grin covering his face. His celebration, however, was cut short by a sound from upstairs.
"Uh, dad?" came the worried voice of his daughter, Nicole Ramona Ellidy, or Nikki, as she preferred. "Coming, Nikki!" Dr. Ellidy replied, carefully setting down the handheld and dashing upstairs. Rounding a corner, he found Nikki waiting by the hall bathroom. "What's wrong?" he asked her.
"Uh, that..." she said, pointing to the bathroom sink. Dr. Ellidy looked inside, and found a mixture of toothpaste, saliva, and to his horror, blood.
"Oh… he said, lost for words." Regaining his sense, he started examining her gums, looking for any cuts. "Does it hurt?" he asked her. "No," she replied. "It just scared me to see that much blood."
"Well, it scared me too," Dr. Ellidy said. "But if it doesn't hurt, and if the bleeding's stopped, I think it's safe to say that you're not in any immediate danger." Nikki breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll make an appointment with your dentist for tomorrow." N.I.C.O.L.E. could wait. Nikki was his top priority.