Track 21: Looking for You in the Sky

Shinbo wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Alright, nothing left but OS and software installation, and then we can activate her."

Reading from a printed sheet, Yumi said, "Once the operating system is installed, setting up the software looks pretty straightforward. Well, mostly. It says here we need to download the drivers for the Utau sound card from this website. Whatever that means."

With the same tool Hideki had seen Dr. Suzuhara use on Flower, Shinbo zipped the persocom's abdomen closed. The artificial flesh meshed, sealing itself closed without a seam or scar.

Yumi's new Utauloid, Saki, was laid out on a gurney. Shinbo, Yumi and Hideki stood around her, the latter two staying out of the former's way as he put the final touches on the persocom. A short distance to their right, Freya lay on her own gurney, with Minoru, Kojima, and Dr. Suzuhara surrounding her. Sumomo and Kotoko were perched to either side of Freya's head, waiting in case their services were needed.

Their young host was hunched over one of the boards they had pulled out of Freya, soldering iron in one hand and a solder pump in the other. The repairs to Freya had begun, with most of her peripherals—the parts which controlled her body and received data from her sensory devices—replaced with appropriate components. It seemed like the once-unachievable goal of repairing her was growing more and more possible.

Shinbo sighed. "I'd forgotten how much fun building a 'com could be! It'll be a little sad once we get Freya repaired as well."

"We could still hang out," Hideki pointed out, "assuming we still have the time, of course."

"It might be fun to make this a regular meeting," Minoru added. "Start in on a new project of some sort, perhaps invite Brackets and some other members of the BBS to join us."

"Speaking of that," Hideki said, "Who is this 'Brackets' you keep mentioning?"

"He's the owner and webmaster of the custom persocom BBS," Minoru replied.

"Quite a character too," Kojima added, "He was one of the people responsible for the Persocom BASIC project, and helped write the interpreter. According to his posts he lives with like twenty or thirty custom 'coms, most of them shaped like cute girls."

Hideki frowned. "Sounds like a real fanatic."

"He's obsessed," Minoru agreed, "but he's unquestionably one of the most skilled builders on the board."

Sumomo suddenly leapt up and began to dance. "Ring, Ring, Ring! Phone call! Phone call!"

He did not flinch, did not even look up. "Answer."

As the call connected, Yuzuki's voice emerged from Sumomo. "Hello, Mr. Motosuwa? Master Minoru?"

"We're here," Minoru replied. "How was your trip?"

Yuzuki had gone shopping with Chi, saying there were a few things she needed to pick up. She had been vague about what those were, simply saying they were clothing, domestic supplies, and training materials. Chi had seemed eager to go with her, which simply added to the mystery.

"We've just finished up and are on our way back," Yuzuki replied, we should be home in roughly thirty minutes."

"We'll probably be finishing up here by then," Minoru told her, "After that, I'll be ready for tea time."

"I will begin preparing it as soon as I return home," the persocom responded.

"That's alright," her master said, "one of the maids can handle the preparation. However, I would like you to serve it and join me."

"Yes master!" Was it Hideki's imagination, or did Yuzuki sound a little too eager?

Chi's voice cut in at that moment, "Hideki!"

Hideki approached the miniature persocom. "Hi, Chi. Did you have a fun time?"

"Yuzuki and I went to the bookstore after the other shops. I picked up some new magazines for you," she said cheerfully, "and the store owner suggested a DVD."

Hideki blushed, immediately realizing what she meant. "Oh, t-thanks Chi! I'll see you soon!"

"See you soon!" she replied.

The next moment there was a click, and Sumomo's eyes refocused. "Call ended!"

"Elda—sorry, Chi—has turned into a very cute girl," Dr. Suzuhara commented. "You've done a good job re-teaching her, Mr. Motosuwa." Her smile was warm and friendly. It reminded Hideki more than a little of Ms. Hibiya's. Once again, he wanted to know what had happened between the two of them. Both of them had worked at Piffle Princess, both had been instrumental in the Chobits project and developing persocoms as a whole. He would have thought they would be great friends with a lot in common, but instead they seemed barely more than formal to one another.

"I'm glad Yuzuki is spending time with her," Hideki replied. "It's good for her to have a friend."

"I wonder if Freya will end up much like her," Yumi mused, "Or if she'll be completely different."

Hideki found himself wondering the same thing. Chi and Freya. They would have to meet soon. He had not forgotten his promise to her, that they would go forward together and face whatever the world threw at them. That included seeing Freya here, no matter what state she was in.

He fidgeted. "Hey guys, I was thinking of bringing Chi in here next time. Let her know about Freya." he glanced around at the others. "Do you think that would be alright?"

Minoru sighed, setting aside his tools. "We might have to get her involved, actually. We've hit a bit of a brick wall here."

"What do you mean?" Hideki asked.

Dr Suzuhara held up a small integrated circuit they had just desoldered. There did not seem to be anything visibly wrong with it to Hideki's eyes, but that was not saying much. "This ROM chip is supposed to hold the master decryption keys for her cryptoprocessor. Looks like her time underground did a little bit of damage after all, because it's completely dead."

"So this is a big problem then?" he asked.

"It's a bit like the battery problem in old CPS-2 arcade boards," Kojima commented, "Just not time-dependent in this case."

Hideki stared blankly at him. He had no idea what the other man was talking about, and was not sure he even knew how to ask.

After a minute, he rolled his eyes. "That chip is supposed to hold keys which her processors need to decrypt her data. Without them, it doesn't matter if her data is intact and the rest of her system is flawless; it just won't work."

"What about Dr. Suzuhara?" Hideki suggested. "She worked on Chi after all. doesn't she know them?"

"The keys are too complicated for me to remember off the top of my head," the doctor replied. "On top of that it was years ago."

Kojima shook his head, a look of awe on his face. "Really the cryptography here is a work of art. The rom chip is just one of a number of layers. There are banking and financial servers with less protection than her."

Hideki frowned, still trying to figure out what they were suggesting. "So there's no way to fix her then? She's just gone for good?"

"Not entirely," Kojima replied. "You see, we still have a working unit, one with an intact Rom chip."

Now it made sense. "You mean Chi," Hideki concluded.

Kojima nodded. "Chi. Assuming her keys are the same, she should be able to run Freya's data, and with a little finagling we can get those from her."

"I think we can assume they're the same," Minoru replied, "From what the good doctor has said, Chi is a slightly cleaned up version of Freya. Even their base software is practically identical."

"So," Shinbo continued, "All we need to do is Connect the two of them, with one or more of the others monitoring the transmission, and have Chi try to access Freya's systems."

"I would be willing to act as a monitor," Kotoko offered. "I have software which would make identifying the keys fairly simple."

"Just a minute," Hideki replied, "Any time we've plugged a persocom into Chi, she's made them crash. Wouldn't they crash the persocom monitoring them? Wouldn't Freya crash Chi?"

"She would never do that to her sister," The doctor reassured him, "In fact, Chi's about the only persocom you can plug into Freya without problems. I'll admit there's a slight risk for the monitoring persocom, but it as long as they stay as a monitor and don't try directly accessing their systems, it shouldn't become a problem."

"Once we have those keys, we can just flash them to a new ROM and we're good to go," Kojima concluded. "Actually, we can flash it to as many ROMs as we want. We can repair Chi and Freya if they ever break, even make an entirely new body for them if we need to."

Hideki gulped. Despite their reassurance, he still had misgivings. If anything went wrong, he would be risking losing Chi permanently. But if they succeeded, she would have a sister, something she had not had since before he rebooted her.

"We don't have a choice then," he conceded. "We get Chi involved, at least enough to find these key things you need."

The doctor stroked the hair of the deactivated persocom. "Not much longer after that, we can get you running again."

Hideki raised an eyebrow. "You talk to your persocoms while you're building them?"

"Absolutely!" she replied. "It's important for you to develop a bond with your creation, even before they can hear or understand you. You're not just building any machine, you're creating something that can move and talk like a human."

They lapsed into silence as Hideki pondered what she had said.

"So Doctor," Kojima began conversationally.

The doctor cut in, "if we're going to be working together while you're learning, you should call me Shu. That's what I go by in Angelic Layer matches, and it's quicker and easier that way."

He shrugged. "Okay, Shu then. How exactly did you two get such clean custom PCBs? None of us have ever seen anything like them."

"It helped that Icchan was president of Piffle Princess," she replied. "There's a board house that manufactured a good number of our prototypes. No one gave it a second thought when he sent off for them to be made, just assumed it was for another one of his crazy ideas." she laughed. "They weren't exactly wrong."

"Do you still remember their name?" Kojima asked.

She nodded. "As a matter of fact, I still use them occasionally when I need a custom part or when we start designing the next version of the Vocaloid soundcard." Removing her anti-static wristbands, she added, "I think I have a business card somewhere in my bag. Just a moment."

The doctor had left a rather large handbag on one of the couches. The instant she unzipped it, it began to move on its own. After a few moments, with a shower of pens, papers, and other small items, a green-haired persocom burst from its depths.

"Everyone calm down!" the miniature figure announced. "I'm here!"

Dr. Suzuhara gently lifted him out. "What are you doing in my bag?"

"I stowed away." He held out a small square of cardstock. "Here's that business card you wanted, by the way." Before she could react, the miniature Vocaloid wriggled free of her grip, climbing up onto her shoulder. He glanced around at the room. "Wow nice place. Where's Kotoko?"

Kotoko raised both eyebrows. "Ryoto? What are you doing here?"

Seeing her, the leprechaun-haired persocom climbed up next to her on the gurney. "I came to see you, silly!"

She blushed. "You hid in a handbag just so you could visit me?"

He nodded. "Of course!"

"Wait a minute," Kojima cut in, "You know this persocom, Kotoko?"

She nodded. "I met him during a visit to Yanaha." As seconds ticked by and Kojima continued to stare at her, she began fidgeting. "What?"

Trying too hard to sound casual, Kojima continued. "Are you attracted to him?"

"He's an impressive feat of miniaturization," she replied. "Everything scaled down to the size of a laptop persocom without sacrificing on power."

"Well, most things scaled down," the miniature Vocaloid added with a smirk. "Some things she had to make a little larger than you'd expect."

If possible, Kotoko's face went an even brighter shade of red.

Kojima nodded. "I see. That makes sense."

"I think it's cute," the doctor commented. She bent down to Kotoko and Ryuto's level. "So, does that make Kotoko your girlfriend?"

Kotoko turned away, refusing to meet their eyes. "Well I wouldn't go that far."

Sumomo began chanting, "a boyfriend! A boyfriend! Kotoko has a boyfriend!"

"That's not it," Kotoko denied.

Shinbo called over, "Alright, Install's done! we're ready over here!"

In less than ten seconds, all of them had surrounded the gurney, each of them eager to see the persocom's activation.

Dr. Suzuhara waved them back. "Don't crowd them, this should be a special moment for both of them."

As the rest of them reluctantly retreated, Yumi took a deep breath. "Okay, here we go." She reached behind one of the persocom's rabbit ears.

There was an electronic beep and a whine as the pink-haired persocom activated. All of them held their breath as her operating system booted for the first time. Yumi seemed especially anxious, almost on the verge of passing out from excitement. The persocom opened her eyes, then sat up on the gurney and looked around the room. As she saw Yumi, she smiled.

"Hey there!" she said, "What's your name?"

Hideki was shocked. The persocom's voice was a pitch-perfect match for Yumi's.

It took a moment before Yumi was able to reply. "I'm Yumi! Omura Yumi. And your name is Saki."

Her forehead scrunched up as her eyes unfocused. "Registering owner's name O-mu-ra Yu-mi. Registering system name Sa-ki." As her eyes refocused, she beamed. "Nice to meetcha, Yumi! I hope you don't mind if I call you 'Yumi.'"

"Of course!" she replied, "We'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on."

The persocom's rabbit ears twitched. "Well then, I hope I can do everything you want me to."

Yumi nodded, a relieved smile spreading across her face. "I'm sure you will! I can tell we're going to be good friends."

Saki reached out to hug her master, her ears standing on end in excitement.

Hideki could not help it; he burst out laughing. Saki was so much like her, down to her mannerisms. Both turned toward him, identical looks of curiosity on their faces.

"What's the matter?" Yumi asked.

Saki added, "Did we do something weird?"

Hideki did his best to swallow his laughter. "No, it's nothing. It's very nice to meet you, Saki. My name's Hideki."

"Nice to meetcha to, Hideki!" she turned to the others. "And who are you?"