Miki spent hours without her green-haired heroin.
The Pivo2 did not seem mututal to her;
She could not speak of very complex subjects with it. It could not answer her questions.
She sang and smiled, and it was satisfied.
The decrepit interior of the garage made the small robot head a diamond in the rough.
A shiny, defenseless diamond.
More like polished glass.
"What is a heart?"
"What is the soul?"
"What is a mind?"
"...a spirirt?"
"Humanity?"
"Sapience?".
Her questions were lonly, isolated locomotives all deriving from one central point,
riding into the abyss of quiescence and mystery.
Miki was alone again.
Even in the company of the robot agent.
She leaned back against the smooth, soft seat,
and rested her head against the door window.
She closed her eyes and pictured Gumi.
Gumi standing in the desolate landscape,
tall, black spires that were once thriving skyscrapers behing her,
wind tousling Gumi's green hair that was so bright against the black and grey and silver.
She visioned Gumi climbing over rubble, disappearing around dark corners-
Gumi telling her the right things to make her feel better.
Miki hugged herself-
Could she ever get Gumi to express her feelings,
in her sweet airy voice that took so long to be recovered?
SF A2 Miki let the dimness of the garage lull her deepening thoughts so that she was left in peace for a few moents.
for a few moments she was free, as stagnant water drip-dropped from the ceiling, falling like shattering tears onto the window of the Pivo2 car.
A sound filled her perception-
Outside, the air was filled with solemn, monotonous music.
sssshhhhhhhfssshhhhhh...
A puddle grew like a swelling black pool of motor oil near the entrance of the garage.
Gumi was out there by herself...
The sky had finally decided to share soem of its greif with the dying, dead Earth.
There were no animals to bathe in those tears.
No people to pull out umbrellas.
Miki remembered all of these simple things.
She was revisited by a more recent memory however.
The figures.
Had she really seen that ghostly, swift thing run up to the second level of the garage?
Did she see the images of people running?
She glanced around herself frantically.
Ghosts.
She had heard of ghosts.
Her built in dictionary told her that ghosts were the spirits of the dead left behind on the Earth.
Some poeple believed that ghosts were imprints on the first plane of Reality caused by traumatic events,
scaring Existance eternally.
The thoughts, that she now understood frightened her, at the very least.
She began to drive.
She ignored the robot's kind offers to cheer her up.
She was cruising up the slope into crawling shadows that led up to the second level of the garage.
Dim orange lights flickered in and out of existance.
Pieces of glass glinted in the glow of the headlights.
Shadows quivered and fled from her entry,
as the car's lights pushed them away.
"I'm not alone. Gumi will be arriving shortly to join me. We'll continue the search together" she assured herself.
The robot told silly jokes that Miki did not understand.
Empty parking spaces,
cracked yellow lines on asphalt...
shadows shadows more shadows.
She began to sing.
She sung in a monotone with few lyrics.
"...Gumi will be by my side...She'll be there forever...".
It was so dark now.
So incredibly dark.
No trace of any figures.
She kept searching, becoming more and more afraid.
"Where is everyone?" she called out.
She collided her hands against the steering wheel.
"Why have you left us here all alone?"
"What did we do wrong?"
She recognized that wrongdoing could lead to a consequence.
figures now surrounded her in the dark.
She was frozen,
trying to absord the faceless images in her aluminum mind-
Trying to discern who they were-
They were silver in the darkness.
A shrill notes left her mouth.
The song she sang was terrible perfect but terrible.
The note held for so long as she stomped on the gas pedal,
and screeched away from the figures.
The car was not very fast at all,
but maneuvering it was quicker and easier than with a normal car.
She could rotate in any direction and keep going without having to reverse at all.
She tried to get away from the figures.
[The CORE has awakened]
She was on the fourth floor when she came to her senses.
Gumi, where ARE you? Gumi!
She drove more,
she tried to find her way.
She rationalized.
She would keep going downwards untill she found level one where she would be reunited with Gumi.
[The red NEL of passion]
What was happening?
What were the figures?
Did the masters really abandon them?
Was it all a game-
with an 'end' button?
Would they just emerge from some huge machine to be greeted by humans and told to sing again on a stage?
Questions never decreased in quantity.
They always grew, like some horrendous disease that festered in conciousness.
Were the figures 'alive'?
Was Miki's system really defective?
Was that the cause of her anomolies?
She was on level one again.
She left the Pivo2 and ran outside into the rain.
"Did I win yet?" she yelled up at the sky.
Her voice was passionate, and crimson.
"Is it over yet? I think I did a good job!".
She was frightened by 2 bright eyes in the darkness.
They lit up the rain falling in front of them.
Headlights.
"Gumi-chan!"
Miki rushed to the driver side of the Puyo,
and banged on the window.
"Gumi-chan! Never leave me again!".
...
[Love is war?]
]Imitation[
[Life]\\\\\\\
]Meaning[
[Ignorance is bliss]
[Overloading...]
When the sky was completely dark,
Gumi and Miki were huddled between the 2 cars with the leek shaped glow stick between them.
Gumi's face was wet with rain.
She glowed softly.
"Gumi-chan...I don't ever want to be seperated from you",
said Miki in a soft voice.
"I...realized that we're alone..." she went on, "I realize that the masters don't want to free us. We must stick to each other to continue...".
"Miki-chan. I know you have new emotions, and, I do too...
I don't want to leave you alone.
I want us to continue living.
But, we cannot live without the world.
What would we be in a world that does not know we are here?".
For the first time, Gumi asked Miki the perplexing question.
But also for the first time, Gumi expressed her felings.
She was not finished;
"Something was activated in us that was not active before",
she observed. "We once were perfect singers, who could sing anything. Now we an understand anything we sing. There is meaning in the words, and in the way we sing them".
Miki agreed with everything Gumi said.
She drew closer to Gumi.
Feeling a redness rise in her again.
She placed both her hands on Gumi's shoulders,
and leaned forward so that her body covered the glow sticks.
Gumi's arms were now around Miki,
her fingers entabgling in her red hair.
Miki's face was buried on Gumi...
There was soemthing humans did when they were sad.
Their eyes would rain.
If Miki's eyes could rain,
they would have.
Instead,
she sang her feeling quietly.
She was happy and sad simultaneously.
How?
Gumi stretched out her legs under Miki, she layed back onto the black concrete.
Miki did too, holding Gumi tightly.
"We will keep searching, even if we just find a bird" said Gumi.
"A dreaming little bird..." muttered Miki into Gumi's hair.
/[hope]\\\\00101010
They accomplished nothing more that night.
The rainfall's song masked their existance.
Their secret togetherness in the dark.