Chapter 11: What does machines feel?

October 4th, 2018, 7:15

JXSDF Tokyo Base, Japan

It has been two days since Kiryu and MechaGirain return to Earth from their harrowing experience, for the service men and women of the Kiryu Squadron, their return is a warm welcome, the ground crew rush to repair and maintenance the two humongous mechs, colonel Togashi have two full days of debriefing with Kiryu as he lay down details of what happened to the two. Jason Brody is tasked with running diagnostic and maintenance on MechaGirain's mainframe to see if her captors had messed up her coding to any serious extend. The American works tirelessly, running operation after operation but thankfully, nothing is tampered with and beside certain errors and minor damages to MechaGirain's hard drive due to her hard reboot, she is left completely intact for the most part.

But on a whole, the repair for their motor functions and damage components will take many months to complete, the Japanese government can only hope that no Kaiju would come knocking on their door step for the time being. Confine to his cyber space domain, Kiryu sits down and ponder what could Ghidorah have implied when he cackled the sinister words of "I live in death." could it be that Ghidorah is likely to return in the future? After all considering the fact that Etheus has shown Kiryu just how far flung Ghidorah had been, there is no telling when and where will he show up next. Kiryu sigh, feeling tired after all the things he had been through, but he also felt very relax knowing that his companion is safe and sound. The worst that he can think of is having to fight her while she's being mind controlled by some telepathic alien dragon. And yet he feels as if there is still something she has yet to tell him.

Jason is hard at work in the mean time, monitoring the two mecha's behavior and activities, whenever he's assigned for the scheduled check ups like this, it's his opportunity to have some social interactions with the mechanical Kaijus on the level of a friend instead of a programmer and a pair of AI. As the operations go on and on, Jason decided to high tail over to his laptop, he starts up the jet black laptop and connect a USB cable to the access port inside Kiryu's cockpit. His fingers dance on the keyboard, typing in various access protocols until finally, he is able to establish contact with Kiryu to chat with and pass time. He types his keyboard and enter a chat message to Kiryu, in his cyber domain, Kiryu notice a hexagon appears in mid air. He touches it with his talons and it pops up into a message board for him to interface.

"Hey, how are you doing buddy? Feeling lonely in there?" The message from Jason struck a nerve, Kiryu sigh frustratedly as he type his reply to Jason, not bothering to socialize with the humans by using online slangs or emoticon. "What is it that you want Jason? Don't you have better things to do?" Jason reads through Kiryu's text message, imagining in his mind an angry, grumpy Kiryu talking to him while staying in his hospital bed. "Come on now, cheer up. At least the hard part is over and MechaGirain is back to normal. What are you worrying about? Is it because you have some...special things you need to tell her?"

Unsurprisingly, Jason's message is written from beginning to end for one purpose only, to trigger a panic from Kiryu. Reading Jason's message causes Kiryu to jerk his head back, caught off guard by the human's curiosity, he hastily send a reply to Jason to quell his curiosity for "Office romance" between the two mechs. Kiryu starts and deletes his reply, revising for several times before posting it to Jason, who is waiting patiently for his answer knowing full well that Kiryu is panicking in his own cyber domain. "I don't have anything interesting for you to comprehend. And I certainly don't have any special feelings towards her, so don't even try to bring up the subject in future conversations."

Jason snickers and smirks, nearly letting out a loud burst of laugh once he read Kiryu's reply. The American programmer is dancing his victory dance on the inside. Knowing full well that he has won and most important of all, he got Kiryu's most embarrassing secret and the reply is the confirmation that he needed. He quickly goes all out in his effort and bombard Kiryu with a whole slew of replies and questions, all of them revolve around the topic of Kiryu's supposed romantic feelings towards MechaGirain. Feeling himself overwhelmed and defeated, unable to further deny the truth from the human, Kiryu caves in to his demand and gave a humiliating disclosure. "Very well Jason, you've won. I do have some feelings for her. But it mostly stemmed from my concern for her well being. Not because I see her as...something...some trophy for me to enjoy. She is a living being too, under that metal exterior. A living, thinking sentient life reincarnated to be exact."

Jason satisfyingly read Kiryu's reply, feeling somewhat sympathetic to the vanquished, he tones down the humiliation and gives Kiryu a somewhat more encouraging statement. "Easy there, just let it all out. Your secret is safe with me, now why don't you go and pay her a visit while I perform some maintenance checks on your body? You could use some R&R and maybe a chat with a close friend. It will make you feel better in no time." Kiryu cocks his head to the side, feeling nervous and a sense of untrustworthy towards Jason, he make a careful comeback at the human. "Now? Very well, if you put it that way."

With that Kiryu establishes connection into MechaGirain's domain and enter her cyber space using his ID authentication, inside her bright, lively blue-ish cyber space, he found her sitting in the middle with her attention focus firmly on a mathematic equation. She sits there, legs cross and her arms planted firmly on her knees. She runs the mathematic equation over and over again on a holographic screen, but the result stays constant, illogical. "Having problem with your own processor?" His voice makes her lift her head up and face him, she put away the holographic screen before conversing with her male counterpart. "I can not define the logic behind your actions. The equation can not dictate your motive." Kiryu sigh once he had heard what she said, even with all advancement in computer programming, IT and related technical upgrades, she still has yet to realize something much simpler.

"You use mathematic equations to make accurate assessment of my intentions? Clever, but you are wrong. Equations can not deduce the intention of one's action, let alone predicting future events." surprised by Kiryu's assessment and statement, MechaGirain lowers her face downward seemingly disappointed by her failure. "I thought we are meant to be logical, each action, each decision is dictated by reason and logics. Back on that ship, why did you save me even the odds is firmly stacked against you? You could have been captured and reprogrammed like me." Kiryu simply stand there, calm and collected. Then he raise his voice in compassionate tone to relay his explanation. "Simple. I saved you because you are my friend. It may not be the most logical of explanation but it is true. You are like me, living beings, given sentient by humans. Math and equations may solve conundrums but they can not be used comprehend the sentiment of compassion."

To MechaGirain, it sounds like Kiryu is trying to use some fancy reasoning to distract her. But upon closer inspection of his every words and tone, even base on analysis of his past actions, he does sound genuine in his deliberations. "Living beings? You must be joking. If you were a living breathing creature, you wouldn't be in this shiny metallic shell." She scoffed his statement, trying to hide her failure at processing the simple complexity of emotions and compassion. "It's not the exterior of the condition of your body. It's how you choose to live what you have. Even humans can give up their free will for the safety of uniformity. While their creations strive establish themselves as self aware sentient beings that can assert and exercise their rights."

Feeling defeated in her reasoning, she turns her face away in humiliation, hoping that he would leave. But he didn't, instead he stay. Sitting down next to her and wraps one arm around her shoulder and soothing her tensed attitude. When she felt his arm on her left shoulder, she shrugs it off , making it clear that she wants to be left alone in her abject misery. "Before this shell, I was just a product of someone's wet dream. A mindless, carefree creature. And then it all changed in a sudden. Perhaps I didn't see that in you. You are no revenant or a monument to man's sins. You are a symbol of emancipation, redemption and baptism. Is that what you strived to be?" Kiryu chuckle in a low growl, seemingly amuse by her comment. "Never did. I don't know why you compare me to the American Statue of Liberty. But to be honest, I only want to help you find a new path to live, no matter the form your life may take." He once again his left arm and wrap it around her shoulder, this time she didn't fight back. She simply let him hold her in close, she likewise cuddle in and lay her head on his chest to rest and drowns her pain away while he strokes her waists with his right arm.