Track 11: The Madness of Duke Venomania
Hideki and Minoru found themselves seated in Club Mercer. Hideki knew what to expect this time, but that did not make the patrons any less bizarre. He recognized a small number of the persocoms seated at other tables, though most remained unfamiliar. The current performance was a comedy act by the conjoined persocoms he had seen on their previous trip. The large persocom and his hand "puppet" began to argue, with the smaller body was held at arm's length as it tried to punch its companion.
The same siren persocom, Calandra, approached their table, a tray tucked under one arm. "What'll it be tonight, gents?"
"I'll take coffee," Minoru replied.
"A beer for me," Hideki added.
Calandra smiled. "Sure thing!" She glanced to the third and fourth members of their party. "What about you two? Staying sober?"
"We're quite alright," Yuzuki replied.
The siren shrugged. "Your loss."
After a brief visit from two of the club's living beverage fountains, Minoru and Hideki leaned back with their drinks.
Kotoko sat on the table, her arms hidden within the sleeves of her miniature kimono. "So really, Lola could have transferred herself to anywhere in the world."
"She was programmed with both English and Japanese," Minoru conceded. "Between the two, she could get by no matter how far away she went."
Yuzuki added, "and with no luck on tracing her data transmission yet, we can't pin down a definite country, let alone a city."
"I don't know," Hideki replied, "Something tells me she wouldn't go too far away. Tokyo is her home."
Kotoko raised an eyebrow. "That seems a fairly large assumption."
Hideki took a long draught of his beer, trying to put his thoughts into words. Was it that Tokyo was a large city where she could easily hide? Or perhaps that searchers would never expect her to stay in the same city? Or that she was more likely to find fans who would help her? None of those rationalizations really seemed to fit. Eventually, he gave up and asked. "Don't you have a place you think of as home?"
Kotoko blinked. "No."
"Let's just humor this assumption for now," Minoru suggested.
The miniature persocom sighed. "I'll try to cross-reference frequent attendees with facts relevant to the case. No guarantee that any of these results will be useable; they'll probably all be dead ends."
"At least they'll give us something," Hideki reassured her. "More than we have now."
Kotoko's eyes unfocused as she processed data. The others sat in patient anticipation. "There are 87 relevant hits," Kotoko finally said.
"What about people with an interest in Vocaloids, especially Lola?" Minoru suggested.
She processed data for another few moments. "That narrows us down to five."
"Can you display them?" Minoru asked.
The miniature persocom held out her hands. "Screen please."
Hideki withdrew the requested item, letting Kotoko plug herself into it. A list of five names appeared, with an image and short biography next to each one.
Hideki perused the entries, but they meant nothing to him. Minoru and Yuzuki, on the other hand studied the list with intense curiosity.
Minoru pointed to the third one down on the list. "This one looks promising. A mister Oshiro Nise."
"He builds custom persocoms," Yuzuki mentioned.
"And has attended dozens of Vocaloid concerts in the last year alone," Minoru added, "Including the last three featuring Lola."
"Sounds promising," Hideki commented.
Minoru sipped his coffee. "We shall see."
The trip to the suspect's house took almost half an hour, through what was relatively light traffic for Tokyo. By the time the limo stopped, they had left behind the skyscrapers of the city and found themselves in a block of aging houses. The newest seemed to have been built more than fifty years ago, and had not been kept up in the last ten. Their destination was one of the more run-down buildings, near the end of the block with an empty parking space in front.
Yuzuki and Kotoko accompanied them, the smaller persocom perching on the larger's shoulder. Kotoko had fallen completely silent, observing their progress with interest. Minoru rang the doorbell, a surprisingly modern fixture compared to the rest of the house.
A voice burst from a bare speaker mounted just below the bell. "Who dares to disturb my work?"
Minoru spoke. "Mr. Oshiro, we're with Yanaha Cybernetics. Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"
There was a long pause. Hideki was convinced the man on the other end would say no. After a moment, however, the doorlock clicked.
"you may enter!" the voice replied.
The entry hall was narrow, with a set of stairs leading up to the second story. A checkerboard of scuffed and dirt-stained linoleum tiles covered the floor. In fact, everything about the house seemed worn and out of date, from the chandelier which hung at a permanent angle to the wallpaper—actual wallpaper—which was torn and peeling. It might once have been a nice house, years of neglect had worn it thin.
A girl emerged from one of the doors and, without noticing the guests, began walking down the hall. Hideki's eyes went wide when he recognized a familiar pair of teal twintails.
"Miku!" he exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"
Miku turned to regard him curiously. "Hello sir. Do I know you?"
Something was very off about her behavior. Had she been human, Hideki would have thought she were drugged or in a trance. The white negligee she wore was just barely long enough to cover her, and she did not seem to be wearing anything else. But she had none of the blushing modesty Hideki had seen before.
"It's me, Hideki!" he prompted, "We talked together at Yanaha. How did you get here? Did someone kidnap and reprogram you? Please remember!"
"I'm afraid you have me mistaken for someone else," Miku replied, "I've always lived here, serving my master."
A voice from the upper floor called down to him. "Quite an excellent replica, isn't she?" Hideki looked up to see a man dressed in dark slacks and a white button-down shirt. He was somewhat overweight, with thick rectangular glasses. Descending the steps, the man turned out to be surprisingly short, his head barely reaching above Miku's nose.
He gave them a curt bow. "Oshiro Nise, human counterfeiter extrordinare."
Hideki pointed to Miku. "So then this is…"
"She's a duplicate of Hatsune Miku, accurate down to the smallest detail. I made her myself." The man beamed with pride. "I even made her able to sing, with a voice as close to the original as I could manage." He rested a hand on Miku's thigh. "And she's perfectly obedient to my every command."
"Impressive," Minoru said, "She would fool almost anyone."
Oshiro smiled. "Thanks. So, how can I help you?"
"We're investigating a matter for Yanaha Cybernetics," Minoru replied, "Can we count on you to cooperate?"
"Of course," Oshiro replied, "Though I don't know what you could want with me."
"Do you object to my presence?" Yuzuki asked. "Or that of my companion here? We will be storing all statements in our memory."
Oshiro immediately became suspicious. "What's this all about?"
"We're just here to ask some questions," Minoru reassured him.
"Fine then," the man replied, "Record away, I don't have anything to hide."
Hideki continued to study the duplicate Miku, trying to find any detail which might point her out as a fake. It seemed impossible. She had the same nose, the same jawline, the same build. It even seemed as if her hair follicles were in the same place.
Finally, he shook his head. "I couldn't tell the difference."
Oshiro grinned. "Want to see my other creations?"
He withdrew a small button on a keychain and pressed it. After a moment the doors opened and a dozen persocoms emerged, lining up next to the duplicate Miku. Each one had the form of a girl in her teens or early twenties. All wore white negligees, differing in style but each just barely covering its wearer's anatomy. Hideki recognized roughly half of them, having seen their originals at Yanaha.
In unison, they bowed and said, "how can we serve you, master?"
Oshiro walked proudly down the line. "Models, actresses, idols, people I see on the train, no one is safe from my counterfeiting skills. I can work from as few as six pictures. Of course, the more material I have, the more accurate they'll be."
"You make duplicates of real people?" Hideki asked, a hint of revulsion edging into his voice.
"Anyone that takes my fancy," Oshiro replied dismissively. "It doesn't matter who or what their originals were, all of them are part of my menagerie now."
He stopped by one of the more human-looking persocoms: dark hair and brown eyes. She looked about seventeen or eighteen, and very cute.
"This one was a girl I went to high school with. I never had the courage to talk to the real her, but now here she is."
He stopped by the next one, a woman in her late twenties.
"This one's an actress from a TV show I watch. Took a while to get her exactly right, but I think I did a good job."
Oshiro swept his hand down the line.
"A number of Vocaloids, of course. Miku, Rin, Luka, Lola. I'm working on one for Gumi right now.
"You made a copy of Lola too?" Hideki asked.
Oshiro's eyes lit up with passion. "Of course! My latest triumph, actually." He cleared his throat.
"Come here Lola, let these people get a good look at you."
The duplicate Lola stepped out. "Hello, sirs and madam!" her voice was a rich alto, very calm. "I'm Lola. Nice to meet you!"
"How long have you been here?" Hideki asked.
"I've been active for two weeks," she replied.
"And you're doing well?"
She smiled and shrugged. "I have no reason to complain."
Of course you don't, Hideki thought, he probably programmed you to love him.
"Sometimes I get so good I fool even myself," the counterfeiter bragged, "It's not just about looks, it's little things—body language, voice cadence, and the like. Lola was tricky, but I found a way in the end."
"Is that why you stole her data?" Minoru abruptly asked.
Oshiro's expression immediately registered shock. "What?"
"A few weeks ago someone downloaded all of Lola's data, erasing the original copy."
It took a few moments for the counterfeiter to realize what Minoru was suggesting. "And you think…
"Making duplicates isn't enough after a while, is it?" Minoru pressed. "As much as they may look and act the same, they're fundamentally different. You had to go that extra step to make her more real."
"You have it all wrong," Oshiro groaned. "My girls are replicas, and I prefer them that way. It's all just fantasy, I'd never kidnap someone or steal anything!"
"You'd be ready to swear to that in court?" Minoru replied.
The man nodded immediately. "I don't know anything about missing data." A hint of a smile returned to his face. "I take pride in my work, my own ability to copy reality. If I just took their programming, it wouldn't be my own creation. Not satisfying at all."
"Sirs?" It was the duplicate Miku. "Please don't distress our master. He's never been anything but kind to us."
The Lola copy nodded. "Master Oshiro built and programmed us with pride. He would never do anything to hurt us or anyone else."
"Do you have any idea who might try to steal her data?" Yuzuki asked.
"Not that I can think of," Oshiro replied. He looked up at Minoru, his eyes pleading. "Please believe me."
Minoru regarded him for a long moment, then glanced over to his companions. Hideki shrugged. He had so little experience with this sort of thing that he could not tell if the man was telling the truth or not. Yuzuki and Kotoko, on the other hand, each nodded.
"We believe you," Minoru replied.
Oshiro sighed in relief. "Thank you!"
"We'll send you our contact information. If you come across any clues as to the stolen data, let us know."
"Of course!" the counterfeiter exclaimed. "Really, I hope you find her."
The driver had left the limo running all the while they had been in the house. Mere seconds after they left the house they were already pulling away, headed back towards familiar territory. They sat in absolute silence for almost half a minute. None of them dared to speak.
Hideki was stunned, his brain ever so slowly processing the last ten minutes of his life. "What the actual fuck did we just see?" he finally exclaimed.
"One man's twisted fantasy," Minoru replied matter-of fact. "Every Otaku's dream in a way, for the character on his body pillow to come to life."
"I got that much!" Hideki snapped. A moment later he regretted the outburst. "Sorry."
"It's alright," Minoru replied. "Like I said at the beginning, you're going to see some of the darker aspects of the persocom fandom."
He could not help an edge of sarcasm creeping into his voice. "So it's just normal for someone to build a bunch of persocom replicas of people, then keep them as a barely-clothed harem?"
"I wouldn't say it's 'normal' but it's not illegal." The young man scowled. "They just aren't people in the eyes of the law. We can't change that by ourselves, as much as we want to."
"How much more is there?" Hideki managed to croak.
Minoru began to count on his fingers "They aren't protected by anti-prostitution laws, corruption of minors laws, aggravated assault and murder laws—do you really want me to go on?"
Hideki shook his head. "No. I think I need something to scrub that last from my memory."
"Gin is always an option," Minoru offered with a slight smile.
Hideki chuckled. "Thanks, I needed a laugh."
Yuzuki spoke up. "In any case, Mr. Oshiro doesn't seem to be in possession of the missing data."
"I don't believe our obsessive fan back there was ever involved," Minoru replied, "He folded immediately when I confronted him, and he didn't seem to be lying when he said he had no knowledge of Lola's disappearance."
Kotoko finally spoke up. "I'm sorry this proved to be a dead end."
Hideki sighed. "No, you said at the beginning these weren't guarantees."
"Kotoko was probably right at the start," Minoru added, "We don't have any proof she's even in Japan anymore."
"I'm not about to give up on Club Mercer just yet," Hideki replied, "There's just something in the back of my mind that tells me it's important."
Kotoko shrugged. "If you say so. There are still four more on the list I provided."
"I think Mister Motosuwa has had enough for tonight," Yuzuki replied, "Perhaps it might be best if we save further investigations until tomorrow.
"It is getting late," Hideki added. "I can't leave Chi alone another night in a row."
Minoru smiled. "You're a good guy, Hideki." He called up to the driver, "Take us to Mr. Motosuwa's apartment."