As soon as he entered the room, he was immediately tackled by a blonde blur. "Hideki! Hideki is home!" Chi said with joy, as she embraced her owner.
"Nice to see you too, Chi," he said as he gently eased her off of him. He put down a bag he was carrying and began to unpack.
"So how did your test go?" A voice asked from across the room.
"Huh?" Hideki said, a bit startled at first, before he looked over and saw Kotoko. "Oh, I think I did pretty well actually. Though I don't have my hopes up for an A or anything."
"Satisfied with mediocrity, then?" The purple-haired persocom asked, teasingly.
Before Hideki could respond, Sumomo greeted him, having just completed her recharge cycle. As Kotoko watched the three interact, talking of insignificant, day - to - day events and vagaries, she decided she might as well speak up. She had been putting it off for so long.
"Excuse me, Hideki-san?" She asked, having approached the three. "May I talk to you about something?"
"Sure, Kotoko," he responded, turning towards the laptop. "What's on your mind?"
"Well first you must know that I am very grateful for your hospitality," she said, bowing politely, "but I would like to return to Yoshiyuki Kojima now."
All 3 were taken by surprise at this pronouncement. Sumomo ran up to Kotoko and hugged her tightly, yelling "No! You can't go away, Kotoko!"
"Get - off - me!" The purple - haired 'com replied, struggling to free herself from Sumomo's grasp. This elicited a chuckle from Hideki, who pulled them apart.
"Thank you," Kotoko said, brushing herself off. "Now about my request?"
"Well I'm not going to keep you here if you really want to go," began the boy, "but I have to ask why? Kojima isn't exactly the nicest guy, after all, he's the one who kidnapped Chi."
The blonde persocom cringed slightly at the memory.
"While it's true he has some unsavory traits and ideas, he's still my creator, and I miss him," Kotoko said. "Besides, I need him somewhere where I can keep an eye on him," she finished, winking. Hideki laughed.
"Okay, if you insist, I have some work to do but I can take you over to his place tonight," Hideki said. Chi and Sumomo were not that easily swayed, though.
"Chi does not want Kotoko to go!" She said, grabbing Hideki's arm, a pleading look on her face.
"I don't want her to leave either! I want her to stay and play with me!" Announced Sumomo, climbing up on Hideki's lap.
"You guys, I know how you feel, but she technically belongs to Kojima, we can't just-"
Kotoko cut him off. "You can all come visit me if you want, I suppose."
"Yay!" squealed Sumomo, jumping off Hideki's lap and running to hug Kotoko again. She deftly avoided the other 'com's rush with a sidestep and tripped her, causing her to fall flat on her face. "Ow..." Sumomo said, getting up and rubbing her head. Hideki laughed again.
"It's certainly going to be a lot more depressing around here without the antics of you two to brighten up the place," he said.
Thread Title: Atrocities like this cannot continue! Created by: K-sama March 10th 4:55 PM
Kojima groaned to himself as he read the forum topic. She was certainly a persistent one, persocom or not. He clicked on the thread.
- K-sama
This video was uploaded to ShareTube 2 days ago. It depicts the brutal and merciless murder (Kojima rolled his eyes as he read this word) of an innocent persocom. Incidents like this happen every day all over the world, and no one is doing anything to stop it! No country has laws against this! This needs to change, now!
"Insistent, aren't you?" Kojima thought, as he scrolled down to the video in question. It was titled "Trashing my old com" by one zekd57g. The video description read:
Just got a new Persocom so my friend taped me smashing my old obsolete one, enjoy lol
He clicked on the play button and the video started. Some very amateurish camera work showed the inside of what appeared to be a garage, littered with cardboard boxes, an old lawnmower, and various other tools and objects. A door on the right opened, and a slightly overweight caucasian man walked in, followed by a blue-haired girl who looked to be around age 12. Kojima then noticed her protruding, elf-like ears, identifying her as a persocom.
"Why are you taking me here, master?" She asked, with a trusting smile on her face. She then noticed the cameraman and waved to him. He chuckled, continuing the filming.
"Just stand right there Ellen, I've got a surprise for you," the man (apparently her owner), said, as he laughed.
"Okay! I love surprises, master!" The persocom said energetically, closing her eyes and standing still in the middle of the garage. The owner reached behind some wooden planks and pulled out a baseball bat.
"Make sure you get this," he said to the cameraman, who responded with a thumbs up. He then swung the bat, smacking the little girl right in the head, sending her sprawling onto the ground.
She started to get up, but before she could even reach her knees he struck her again, this time knocking off part of the paneling around the side of her head, exposing blinking and sparking circuits.
"M-master? What are you doing?" The girl asked, confused and frightened. The man didn't answer, instead stomping on her chest with a booted foot.
"Did I do something wrong, master? Please don't-"
Before she could finish, another crack of the bat was heard as he smashed her head into the pavement, deforming her face.
"M-m-master... I...I'm confused...Please stop master...I p-promise to be good...please...master" Her voice had become more robotic and stuttering, due to damage to her vocal processors.
"Geez, did you program this thing to whine like that?" The cameraman asked, coming closer in order to get a better shot.
"No, it's probably just broken," the owner replied. "Cheap piece of junk." He swung the bat again, smashing one of the girl's arms. She attempted to pull herself to her feet and crawl away, but the man stepped on her again, then began wailing on her with the baseball bat, all the while she was pleading for him to stop and promising she would do anything he wanted.
When she had been reduced to a beaten, battered, and damaged shadow of her former self, he finally finished her off with a smashing blow to the head.
"Master...why..." was the last thing that escaped her mouth, the final word dragging on and slowly losing volume in the manner of a computerized shutdown. The cameraman walked over and kicked the remains.
"Nice one!", he said, high-fiving his accomplice. The video ended there.
Kojima read through the replies to the thread.
- SuperSurfer19 March 10th 5:01 PM
While I'll admit that video was rather... unsettling, calling it murder is a huge stretch. Persocoms aren't people, they're machines, and if he owned it there's no reason he shouldn't have been allowed to do that.
- K-sama March 10th 5:01 PM
The only reason we aren't considered people is because it's convenient for you humans! It's the same reason it took so long for human slavery to be abolished, because people couldn't stand the thought of losing the convenient lifestyle their slaves allowed them to have, but at least back then most nations instituted some kind of penalty for wantonly murdering a slave. He killed that girl, right in front of our eyes, he took her life just on a whim! We cannot stand for this.
- M March 10th, 5:03 PM
I agree with K-sama. If that wasn't a murder, then nothing is. Persocoms may have started out as just machines, but I believe, and this is backed by personal experience, that many of them have real feelings and self-awareness. Even though it's gruesome, showing this video to more people might be necessary in order to spread our message.
- Serizawa March 10th 5:04 PM
That was awful! Maybe their should be some kind of law against it.
- SuperSurfer19 March 10th 5:05 PM
Would you can it with the Persocom act, K? You're not fooling anybody. As for making a new law, yeah right. Making it illegal to destroy persocoms? Soon we'd be up to our necks in obsolete models, causing a huge waste of resources. I took one of my old 'coms to a recycling plant last year, it didn't complain or beg for its "life".
- K-sama March 10th 5:05 PM
Then that makes you a murderer, whether you like it or not. You people disgust me.
There were several more pages of replies, but Kojima decided not to read them. Who cares if some guy in the States smashed his 'com? It was his property, he had every right to do it, and the people making a big fuss over it were just being hysterical about nothing.
At least, that's what he tried to make himself believe. Despite what the logical part of his brain was telling him, something about that video had been just plain disturbing. He wouldn't do that to one of his persocoms, would he? He shook his head, trying to drive out the irrational thoughts. Why wouldn't he? Well, it was wasteful, and he didn't own a baseball bat. He chuckled lightly at his own joke, but something in the back of his mind was still bothering him.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Wondering who it could be at this hour, he walked over and opened the door.
"Motosuwa." It was a statement, not a question.
Hideki stood there, a stern look on his face.
"It wasn't my choice to come here, Kojima. But I have someone who wants to see you." A laptop - size persocom then crawled out of a bag Hideki was carrying.
"I decided to come back," Kotoko said, a tone of determination in her voice.
"So, the prodigal 'com returns" Kojima said with a laugh. As much as he had hated to admit it, he had missed her. Her conversation was always more engaging than any of the others he owned, even if was just the result of a program.
"What can I say? I missed you, Koji-kun."
Kojima squinted. He had forgotten about how Kotoko had taken to calling him that a few months ago. At first he had found it cute, but then it started getting on his nerves. He had planned to reprogram her to remove that annoying nickname, but he had been too occupied trying to find out about and track down Chi and never got around to it.
Kojima held out his hand and Kotoko jumped on his palm.
"Bye Hideki, thanks again for hosting me," she said, curtsying politely.
"See you later Kotoko, and make sure he treats you fairly," Hideki said. Kojima gave him a scowl.
"Don't worry," the small persocom replied. "I can handle him."
