Wow...YES! I CAN TYPE SO FAST THAT MY UPDATES ARE LIKE BAMBAMBAM ONE AFTER THE OTHER! Yeah...no. XD I've had these done for a long time. But things are speeding up...but it's no where near finished...the plot thickens! R&R!

-Fem2PItaly

I opened my eyes for the second time that day and sat up.

No one came to greet me, and I was fully clothed and disconnected from any wires that might have held me. I vaguely remembered everything going dark after Hiroyuki had turned me off...when he'd tried to access my song banks.

I frowned. Why hadn't I let him in?

Did I have...a virus?

Fear jolted through my mind. If I had a virus that kept me from performing my primary function-the one thing I was programmed to do-then they would shut me down. Permantly.

I got up and went to the door, pausing when I heard voices outside. I remained motionless and listened.

"You're sure she was debugged when she woke?"

"Positive. There were no problems. Then she just..."

"I understand...This is a dilemma. You did secure her...?"

"Yes, of course. Along with the rest."

"How troublesome that only the Vocaloid's series can obtain that virus."

"Unfortunate indeed. Anyways, we'll perform some more tests on her and if she still freezes up, we'll scrap her."

I swallowed. It sounded as if they were talking about me.

I leaned against the wall as the voices walked away. What did they mean by secure? The rest of what? And what virus could only the Vocaloid's series catch? As far as I knew, there were millions of virusus that any model of the Crypton company could get. None were special to a certain series. But apparently, I was acting as if I'd caught this...special virus. And if I didn't figure out how to stop acting this way soon, they'd shut me down.

Suddenly, there was a pop of the intercoms. I braced myself for more staticy instructions...

...When the world erupted into chaos.

A woman's voice filled the rooms, the hallway, and as far as I could hear, beyond that to the other sections of the building as well. I could hear shouts of surprise from the room across the hall and screams of panic as people began to dash in and out of the hall, trying to find a room to mute the speakers. I, however, stood frozen, captivated by the song the woman wove.

Her voice was something magical. It was low, low for a woman, and there was something about it that spoke of vitality. Life. I listened to the lyrics.

"Nothing lives near this place where I stay

You don't even hear my screams

Even though it's pitiful and useless

I call out your name over and over

The green wind that used to blow here

Is gone and will not come back

Please, I beg you, look at me..."

Miraculously, I found myself holding my breath in the pause, waiting for the chourus.

"Through this glass wall, I call out

But you cannot hear me

Please, I'd be on my knees if I could

Smile at me so that I know!

Smile at me so that I know..."

I stared blankly at the opposite wall as the speakers gave another pop and they were muted.

This song was unlike any I'd sung or heard before. It was...different.

I blinked as I felt something caress my cheek lightly. I reached my hand up and was shocked to find a strange wetness coming from my eyes. My vision went slightly blurry.

Tears

/ti(ə)r/

A drop of clear salty liquid secreted from glands in a person's eye when they cry.

Cry

/krī/

To shed tears as an expression of distress or pain.

Tears.

I was crying.

I once more touched the water-no, the tears-flowing down my face. I was crying. But robots couldn't cry. Robots had no feeling. Robots could do only what they were programmed to do-and ultimately, that was serve.

My online dictionary stated that to cry was an expression of pain. But...was I feeling pain?

I didn't know.

What did it mean to cry? To shed tears? To share anothers person's pain?

What did it mean to have feeling?

The question took root in my mind like a seed, a seed that sprouted as soon as it was planted. I wanted to know. I wanted to know what it was like to feel. To have pain, to have distress. To truly know what it was that I sang about in so many songs-happiness, love, affection, rage, fear.

And above all, I wanted to be able to share my feelings through song, like the woman on the speakers. I closed my eyes and played the chorus through my head again. Her voice was still laden with power, with pain, and it longed to be set free.

"Smile at me so I know..."

I wished to have feelings.

I blinked. I couldn't have just made a wish. Wishes were born of want, and want was something only a human could have. Robots weren't capable of wishes.

Yet I longed. I wished.

I wished.

"Hatsune Miku!"

I swung around abruptly after quickly brushing the tears from my eyes. Hiroyuki was standing in the doorway, eyes wild and hair ruffled. "Hatsune Miku! Are you alright?" He strode briskly up to me, examining my body. To make sure I was still in perfect condition. I forced myself to not react. "I'm fine."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, maybe in an attempt to straighten it out. It didn't work. "A technical glitch, maybe...Our software needs to be updated." He muttered. I remained silent as he mumbled, calculating how I was going to play off my actions. Yes, I wasn't crying anymore, but nonetheless I had remained frozen and immobile when my programming said to evacuate immediately when an accident or emergency occured. The other Crypton models would be, no doubt, in their nearest exit routes, while I stayed completely still throughout the whole scenario. It would be a hard thing to explain.

I didn't need to explain, though, it seemed. Hiroyuki beckoned for me to follow him and briskly exited the room. Walking as slowly as I could, I mirrored his path out the door. The halls were empty, like they'd been before the woman had started singing. I wondered who the woman was. Why was her voice here such a bad thing?

I was wondering. Asking questions. It seemed that my programming did have some kind of glitch.

He led me to the large room I'd seen before-the packaging room. It seemed they were doing a routine check of all the models who had evacuated. I stood dutifully in a line with some other maids and brother models. As a woman in a lab coat checked the stats of the model before me, I watched Hiroyuki carefully. He was speaking furiously to another co-worker in heated whispers. I amplified my hearing slightly.

"She wasn't moving! It was like before! We can't let that happen again!"

"Trust me sir, it's locked up and under surveillance 24/7. Are you sure she wasn't moving? Maybe it was just a minor glitch in her evac system. Something we can fix easily."

"No, I keep telling you! She was fully aware of what she was doing."

"Well, we'll take a look."

"Fine. And I want to see it. This Heart of hers."

I froze instantly. The woman plugged me in and began doing the check-up.

heart

/härt/

Often regarded as the center of a person's thoughts or emotions, such as love or compassion.

My mind raced with this new information. A heart was something only humans had-it provided the thing robots could never obtain: emotion. Hiroyuki had spoken of me (this I knew from the way he described my exact reaction to the "accident") and of my "heart." Was it possible that I had somehow gotten a hold of a heart? Was that why I didn't remember anything until today?

"Miku? Hatsune Miku?"

I blinked. The woman was calling my name. "Yes."

The woman studied me carefully, scrutinizing me with unnaturally bright green eyes. The wire that she hadn't unplugged jolted my body as she abruptly stood up and strode over to Hiroyuki. I listened again.

"...Acting strangely. Body functions are normal, but brain chip activity is off the charts."

"Damn."

Hiroyuki looked over at me and I averted my gaze.

"Alright. We'll have to start from square one. Put her back in stasis."

Stasis. Meaning the world would go black again and I'd wake up in disorient...again.

The woman came back over to me and unplugged my wire. She smiled and said, "Right this way, Miku. We need to do a special check-up for you."

Liar. I held my tongue, however, and was silent as she led me onward. I realized I was familiar with the path we were taking. This was the way to the room holding those sleeping three, the blond twins and the pink-haired woman. So I had been correct. I did hold some connection to them. But what was it exactly?

She opened the door and, sure enough, the figures were still on their metal tables, asleep. She went to the back of the room and pulled out a table akin to the one the others were laying on. "Miku, if you could just lay on this."

I obeyed without question. She plugged a couple of wires into my back and said, "Alright, we're just going to do some matenaince. It'll be over soon. You'll be out for a while, but there won't be anything wrong."

I didn't get the chance to nod; the lights on the ceiling disappeared and I plunged into darkness.

I opened my eyes. A rush of memory came back to me and I remembered I had been taken in this room for "special matenaince"-otherwise known as stasis. I looked over to my sides. There was no doctor or worker. Meaning I'd woken on my own, without someone coming to do so.

Meaning, I wasn't supposed to be awake. Yet here I was.

I unplugged myself and went over to study the three bodies for a second time. It was strange-they seemed so familiar to me that it seemed as if I could name them easily, yet their names escaped me.

I went over the past two hours in my mind.

"And I want to see it. This Heart of hers."

My mind stopped, as if a jolt had passed through it.

They had said that this alleged Heart of mine-if there was such a thing-was locked up.

I wasn't supposed to be up. Meaning no one knew I was awake.

If I could find this place...maybe I could see my Heart.

Quietly I slipped out of this strange room. The hallway was silent and dark, dimly lit. The walls smelled of antiseptics. Slowly I crept along the white tile, using the facility map I had in my main chip.

Suddenly I came to a door. It was at the direct end of the hall. I checked the map. It wasn't on there.

A spike went through my mind, painful and sharp. Like I was unconciously trying to warn myself. Everything about that door seemed to scream to me not to go in.

Ignoring it, I walked up to it and studied it. It looked heavy and was made of a strong metal. Next to it was a device that required you to scan your hand so as to unlock it. I examined the scanner and placed my hand on it. The green bar went up and down the face of my palm before the screen turned red, flashing the words, "PRINT NOT VERIFIED." I lowered my hand. This could be potentially problematic.

Suddenly another spike went through my mind. Instinctively I again placed my hand on the scanner, this time closing my eyes. All I could see was blue. Blue everything, with strange glowing white wires. Delving deeper into the scanner's consciousness, I mentally touched one of the wires. It turned into a tall door. I opened it and everything went white.

I opened my eyes.

"PRINT VERIFIED."

I stared at the scanner in disbelief, lowering my arm for a second time. Ignoring the suspicion that I might have hacked into the scanner, I opened the door.

It led into a small room that was pitch black. Rows of shelves were lined up against the wall, and on the shelves were strange colored boxes. The boxes were glowing, throwing soft light against the darkness of the room.

I walked in the room slowly, looking around. Nothing special was coming into me, and I didn't recognize any of these strange devices. If these were Hearts, none of them were mine. So far, at least.

A pulse.

My chest tightened painfully, so much so that I gasped and doubled over, clutching the middle of my chest.

Another pulse.

I looked around. Something was close. Very close.

Another.

I froze and slowly turned my head to the left.

The box was a shimmering aqua, the same shade as my eyes and hair. The glow it threw seemed to come from inside it, moving, constantly shifting, like water. I could faintly hear something inside it.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

I felt my breath freeze in my throat. A flood of emotions were surging in me. Things I used to be able to feel-fear, hope, love, excitement, happiness.

All because of this.

My Heart.

Still gripping the center of my chest, I rose to stand and reached my hand out to touch the Heart. As I gently laid a finger on it, the light shifted even faster. I slid my fingers around it and held it in my palms, wondering at how much heat was radiating from the cube. Looking around me I saw that the other cubes were different colored-there was a pink one, a green one, a dark blue one, and I also could glimpse the light of two identical yellow ones.

Now came the decision.

Placing it back in me...

Or putting it back on the shelf, leaving, never speaking of this special moment, and forgetting it ever happened.

I stared into the Heart. Clearly I did something involving this Heart that made them reboot me so that I didn't remember anything. Something that had probably threatened Crypton.

But to have a Heart meant to feel. To think. To be...

I frowned. Something was hanging on the edge of my mind. A word? An idea?

No. Infinitely more vast than that, I was sure. But it wouldn't take shape.

If I have myself my Heart, maybe I would be able to know what was taking root in me.

I blinked.

And slowly raised it towards my chest.

Everything froze. Everything stopped.

Then all hell broke loose.