Haku watched the little blonde short haired girl standing stock still in the opposite corner of the room from her with a curious eye. It was the same little girl she'd rescued in the alley the night she'd fought so hard to defend Miku from the souldrinker attack. Either she or a blonde boy that looked similar to her were always in the room, and at first Haku had thought they were supposed to a form of guard to keep her in here, but that had seemed unlikely since she couldn't force herself to leave anyway. The room had both a window and a door which were not locked that she should have been able to simply leave through at any time but she'd found she couldn't make her legs work if her intent was to escape. She supposed the two kids were prisoners like she was, and had tried talking with both several times in the past few days since she'd woken up here but neither ever responded to her beyond a look or head tilt.

If she wasn't trying to get away Haku had found she could move around the room, and she'd made circuits a few times to inspect her surroundings. It was a personal office room of some sort with a desk and chair and space for a laptop on one end, a faded square spot showing where one used to sit, a row of filing cabinets against one wall that clanged emptily when she'd tapped on them, two love seats against another wall, and an absolutely hideous yet obviously expensive carpet in the center of the floor. Various landscape pictures were hung around the room as well, and while pretty enough, weren't exactly eye catching. Idly she walked over to the door, paused a moment, then reached a hand out to the handle. Her slim fingers wrapped around it and she let her wrist relax allowing the weight of her arm to rest her hand on it. She stood there for several moments trying to will her fingers to twist the latch, trying to make her arm pull the door open. A minute went by, two minutes, five. With a sigh she let her arm drop back to her side once more. She turned around to find the little girl watching her intently from her corner. Haku took two steps away from the door and stood watching her back. She knew it was useless, but she had to try again. There was really little else to do at any rate; the room was bare and Kiku had taken her phone.

"Have you tried opening the door?" The little girl tilted her head a bare few centimeters but made no reply. "I can't seem to do it. I've tried the window to." The blonde girl blinked at her. Haku changed the subject. "Your name is Rin, isn't it? I think that's what you said. We met before right?" The cant to Rin's neck increased another centimeter or two. Haku sighed again. Turning her gaze to sweep the room once more she set her mind back to analyzing the events leading up to now. She'd gone over the series of things that had happened any number of times in her mind, but the more time she spent stuck in this room the more she found if she failed to keep her mind busy the despair would roll in all too quickly. She was a cyborg… her girlfriends were cyborgs. The thought was a terrifying one, and had shaken her to her core when she'd found out in the fourth sublevel of the Vocaloid Compound, but she didn't know for sure how she'd gone from there to wherever this was. She remembered making the discovery, remembered being afraid that someone could potentially completely wipe her from the memory of the the two women she loved more than life itself, and she remembered making sure that couldn't ever happen. Then... nothing. Her phone had rang, it had been her father. She'd tried to resist answering it, but her thumb had seemed to move on it's own, then she'd blinked and she'd been here. She was missing something, some small detail, she knew she was. If she could just catch it she knew she'd understand what was going on.

A noise outside the door brought her head around, her snowy white cascading ponytail swirling about her as she spun. The handle turned and the door swung open to admit Kiku, the darkly beautiful redhead leading the young blond haired boy who looked remarkably similar to Rin in height and age. The boy went quietly over to stand beside Rin, taking the same stance and posture and watching Haku as well. Kiku turned to smile at her and Haku couldn't help but think it looked slightly unnatural on her, like her mouth wasn't used to making pleasant expressions. "Yowane-san. I'm so happy to see you." She said as though she hadn't been keeping Haku in this room for days. "Come, walk with me." She turned to head for the door and Haku found herself moving without actually wanting to. The two blond kids stayed put, regarding her with flat expressions until Kiku pulled the door closed cutting them off from view.

Kiku led her down a short hallway passed the single occurrence bathroom she'd been escorted to periodically which was the extent of the building she had thus far seen and turned down another hallway which led passed a tiny kitchenette to an elevator which sat opposite a door to the rest of the building. Haku could just pick up the faint hints of engine oil and gasoline coming through the gaps of the door frame. The redhead pushed the call button and once the doors had wooshed open and they had stepped inside Kiku produced a chipped ID badge not too dissimilar from the one the Vocaloids used and slid it into a crack in the button panel at a point that didn't look any different from the rest of the seams where panel met trim or edging. There was a soft beep however and a moment later she withdrew the badge and the portion of the panel which she had slid her badge in beside popped open. Haku blinked staring at the revealed section with additional buttons, finding that the new ones all had "S" by their numbers indicating sublevels where as none of the main panel had them. The subtlety and extra effort involved in creating such a hidden panel intrigued Haku but she didn't say anything about it, not wanting to speak with Kiku anymore than she really had to. Kiku pressed a button and they began to descend, the elevator humming faintly as it lowered them beneath ground level. Kiku turned her head to look at Haku. "You seem… well, Yowane-san."

"Well?" Haku's silvery voice was a little strained, but she did her best not to let too much emotion through, drawing hard on the outer serenity she'd developed over these past months. "I've been abducted, kept in a room against my will for days, fed and walked to the restroom like an animal, I haven't been able to bathe or change my clothing, I haven't seen my… I haven't seen Luka-chin or Miku-chin, and on top of it all, I've lost my butterfly bow." She shifted her head a little bit to let her loose snowy white strands of hair shift behind her by way of demonstration. She wasn't sure when she'd lost it, it had simply been gone when she'd 'woken' in that office, along with her phone and security badge. She was reasonably sure Kiku had taken her phone and badge, but why would she take her bow? Haku kept her face smooth, not letting on to how close she'd come to saying 'girlfriends' a moment ago.

Kiku eyed her up and down for a moment or two before tilting her head. "Would you like a bath?"

"I'd like to go home." Haku retorted, trying not to snap.

A faint smile quirked the corners of Kiku's mouth and she said in an even tone, "Oh Yowane-san… you are home."

"I… what?" Haku blinked her red eyes, and at that moment the elevator stopped moving and the doors opened to admit them onto the floor of what looked like a great big laboratory. The walls were all grey and the floor was black tile, and the strip lights were more of a blue than a white but illuminated just as well. There were exam tables with computer terminals and instrument trays everywhere and a huge network terminal at the far end of the room. Two doors on the walls to the left and right led into corridors that went further into the sublevel they were on, and all in all Haku thought this looked very similar to the medical sublevel of the Vocaloid Compound she'd seen the other day with her girlfriends. Haku looked around slowly, and images began to flash through her mind, pieces of dreams she'd had months and months ago, or what she'd thought were dreams, where she'd wake up in a cold lab like this one, naked and frightened to be led off to other places with futuristic looking machinery where she'd be hooked up and tested and probed and prodded in various ways. She'd thought the dreams of Miku's parents more recently had been dreams too but they'd turned out to be real from what she'd seen the other day, and suddenly she knew. She knew deep within herself even before she turned to stare at Kiku. "I was…" She swallowed hard and forced the words out. "I died here… didn't I?"

The darkly beautiful woman shook her head and looked around. "No, Yowane-san." She said, her voice full of heavy meaning, her tone very nearly reverent. "We didn't die here." She lifted a hand to gesture expansively at the lab. "We were born here.

"Born…?" Haku continued staring around at the huge lab while the images whirled through her mind. She reached up to put a hand to the side of her head, though it didn't hurt. She lost herself for a time in the dreams… no… the memories. Her creation process…? She turned to look at Kiku, her captor's red-orange eyes on her. "What do you mean… "we" were born here…?"

Kiku took a step toward Haku so they were within arm's reach and took up Haku's free hand in her own. "We were made for each other, Yowane-san. You were the first, and after you, mother and father made me."

Haku couldn't keep her jaw from dropping at that. "We're… sisters…?"

Kiku tilted her head a bit, started to nod, then shook her head instead. "In a way… perhaps… but no, that's not exactly it. We were made with similar coding templates, the first of our kind."

"The first Vocaloids…?" This was all coming too fast, Haku couldn't process it.

Kiku shook her head again. "No, we're not Vocaloids. They are Vocaloids." She said the word with contempt but clearly was talking about Miku and Luka. "We are something different, something better, something more."

Haku gently but firmly pulled her hand out of Kiku's grasp and backed away a step. "You'd better… start from the beginning. Explain this… this whole thing."

Kiku stared at her blankly for a long moment before allowing her hands to drop back to her sides once more, the lace covering them for a moment and for the first time Haku noticed that her all black dress was textured to look like it was covered in thorns. She tilted her head then turned to walk down the center of the room, toward the network console. She paused for a moment and her face contorted in what looked like pain; she winced and put a hand to her head and leaned over for a moment. Haku blinked not sure if she cared enough to try to help but Kiku recovered and moved up to the giant screen. "Everything I know I learned from this network. Mother and father were not pleased that I had hacked it, but I wanted answers and they were not giving them to me." Haku followed her to the massive terminal and Kiku laid a hand on it but didn't activate it. "A long time ago, I'm not sure when, they were partners with two other doctors. The four of them worked at developing what's now known as the Vocaloid Chip." She gestured at Haku's head, then at her own. "It attaches inside the brain with a cranial implant and acts as the main processor for the Vocaloid Cyborg Units, or the Vocaloids."

"Vocaloid Cyborgs…" Haku murmured, recalling what she'd read about Miku and Luka being turned into cyborgs in Director Hatsune's files the other day.

"The chip itself is not all of course." Kiku went on, her fingernails beginning to tap against the console. "We have a power core embedded within our chests which provide us with all the energy we could ever need, a miniature reactor of some sort, I didn't understands the details of what kind exactly. The processor in our brains and the reactor in our chests power us, provide us with the life that was denied us."

"Then…" Haku's hand went to her chest as though she could feel it within herself, but she couldn't. She had to suppress an urge to shift side to side or twist around to try to feel it inside body. "Then we really are… dead…?"

Kiku shook her head at that question. "No, not anymore. The process would kill a living human, but that's why it's done post mortem."

"But they keeping us alive." Haku argued, red eyes locking on red-range. "If they failed, we'd be dead."

"And how is that any different from saying if a human's heart failed they'd be dead?" Kiku asked mildly, apparently not perturbed by this in the least bit. "How is that any different than saying if you suffered a damaging enough blow to the head you would die?" Haku didn't have an answer to that, at least not one she could put voice to that moment. It didn't feel right to her, but she wasn't sure how yet, but Kiku apparently took her silence for agreement and moved on. "The two together control our bodies and the implants throughout them. With our Vocaloid Reacator Cores, or V-Cores as mother and father termed it in their files, we can generate sonic energy in various ways using nanite technology and micro circuitry threaded throughout our limbs."

"Like the music?" Haku wanted to know.

"The music." Kiku sneered. "Is that the part that impresses you most?" She lifted the hand off the console and gestured at it before putting it back down again. "Infact no, the music was an unintended side effect of the process, according to the files. The intent was the energy waves, the sound vibrations, the sonic casting. The ability to harness and focus sonic power to destructive intent."

"Then…" Haku blinked in surprise. "Then we're supposed to be weapons…?"

Kiku smiled and nodded. "Now you see. Mother and father wanted us to be powerful tools for their designs."

Haku shook her head in denial. "No. No I'm not a weapon. I'm not!"

Kiku let out a lilting chuckle. "You're so naive, Yowane-san, but you will understand more in time. You cannot deny your darker impulses."

"What darker impulses?" Haku glared. "I have no darker impulses."

"Perhaps you have not had them yet." Kiku mused softly and set her fingernails down to tap on the console once more. "But your programming was far more theoretical than my own was. I awoke with my energy draining abilities intact, but it seems perhaps yours are gated?" She tilted her head, obviously expecting Haku to know what she was talking about, but she just stared at the darkly beautiful woman blankly for a moment.

"Energy draining…" Haku murmured, then her eyes went wide once more. "You mean the souldrinker's abilities."

Kiku made a face, "If that's how you want to think of it, yes."

"I don't have souldrinker abilities!" Haku protested.

"Oh yes you do, we both do." Kiku retorted. "And you've already used them too."

"I have not!" Haku objected by reflex, then paused and couldn't stop herself from asking, "... when?"

"When we fought." Kiku said, a knowing smirk spreading over her lips.

"I did?" She replied doubtfully.

"Oh not against me." Kiku said, gesturing vaguely in the air with her other hand. "When you cleansed those two Vocaloids you're so foolishly fond of." Haku opened her mouth to object but Kiku kept talking without giving her a chance to cut in. "I was draining them of their energies, and when you knocked me back you drained my drain, so to speak. You drained away the effect I was using, which itself was a drain."

Haku blinked at her. "But I… I was just healing them… of your… curse…?"

Kiku laughed outright at that. "Curse? What do I look like, some sort of witch?" Haku bit her lower lip to keep from answering that and Kiku went on. "This isn't magic, Yowane-san, it's technology. We were created, we were programmed, and we operate. It's science, not mysticism."

"But why create us at all? Why make cyborgs out of corpses?!" Haku asked in a sudden fit of upset. "I don't even remember dying! Mom and dad were never around, and I basically lived and fended for myself! I went to school, I learned things on my own!"

"They made us to take over the world ofcourse." Kiku said mildly, stopping Haku in her tracks. "They had an ability others lacked, and they will use it however they want to take over." The ridiculousness of the statement seemed lost on Kiku, but either way the answer was too easy to accept and Haku thought there must be more to it than that. "As to your death, I don't know, I wasn't there. But what does it matter? Mother and father made us for each other. No one else has the draining abilities we do. You were a prototype, we're hybrids, and we belong together."

"If that's true, then why do you call me Yowane-san?" Haku asked spitefully. "If that's true then why do I feel nothing but nauseated whenever I see you?" Kiku blinked, her own eyes going wide this time at the harsh words as though honestly surprised by them. "The first time I ever saw you you attacked me! And you attacked me again later!"

"I call you Yowane-san because you haven't given me permission to do otherwise yet, and it would be rude to be too familiar until you do." She said, the pure truth of the social nicety seeming to stick out amidst the craziness of the rest of the situation. "And I attacked that Vocaloid you were with, not you." Kiku said defensively, slashing at the air with the hand she had gestured with a moment before. "And I didn't attack you the second time either, I helped you release some of your gates."

"Gates? What gates?" Haku asked.

Kiku gestured up at the terminal behind herself. "The Vocaloid Chip takes over the majority of the brain's functions in order to regulate the body." She said, her expression honestly still looking a little hurt at Haku's earlier words. "I'm not a doctor or scientist so I can't say exactly how it works, you would have to ask mother and father, but when a human dies the electrical signals that fire in the brain between synapses that make it function cease to be. The Vocaloid Chip, powered by the V-Core and regulated by it's programming and nano technology, imitates those electrical impulses in a way, or at least provides them based on very specific parameters. Thus can the heart resume beating, the lungs resume breathing, and also thus are our powers granted." She lifted her arm and stretched her leg as though showing off the functionality.

"So it takes over just like that?" Haku asked.

"Not exactly." The redhead replied. "As with any major medical procedure the body has to have time to heal and adapt afterward, and likewise that nanotechnology requires time to shape itself and it's programming to the host. Every person's brain is a little different, has developed a little differently, has differently memories and experiences. The same chip could be put in two different people and their developments would go differently, would take different amounts of time."

"That's why Vocaloids gain power over time with training and practice." Haku said as the pieces fit together. "That's why I've had trouble controlling my power ever since you…" she trailed off but she could see it now, but Kiku spelled it out for her anyway.

"That's why when I forced your programming to become active all at once your body effectively shut down as it had to adapt to how the nanites were reforming connections in your cells and your implants to accommodate the new programming."

"And that's why I still can't always control my abilities, because I'm still learning how, still developing that muscle memory, as it were." Kiku nodded and Haku's red eyes narrowed in a glare. "You almost killed me."

Kiku shrugged but it wasn't an apologetic gesture. "I didn't though. I couldn't very well leave you the weak pathetic mess you were, I had to make you worthy of me, because we were made for each other. And I thought if I brought forth all your power, even the draining abilities, the Vocaloids might reject you and you would have nowhere to go but back to me."

"They… they wouldn't reject me!" Haku winced at the pleading note in her own voice. "Just because…!" She paused as the thought struck her. "Because I…"

"Have the power of a souldrinker?" Kiku asked mildly. "Are you so sure of that? They kill souldrinkers, afterall. They imprisoned me, took away my freedom, locked me in a cage to study. Is that what you want?"

"They… they wouldn't...!" Her emotions were beginning to run rampant now and Haku felt her serenity evaporating as the mental image off being locked in a cell burst unbidden into her mind.

"Oh? How can you be so sure?" Kiku asked with a raised eyebrow and a mocking tone.

"They… They love me…" Haku whispered trying hard to keep the bad thoughts out.

"They love you? Are you certain? How do you know?"

"They… said they do…"

"They said they do." Kiku sneered, the mockery thicker than every now. "They may love each other, I can't really say for sure, but how can they possibly love you?"

Haku didn't want to talk like this, didn't want to give voice to the doubts, but knowing was better… wasn't it? "Why… not…?"

Kiku held up a finger as she began ticking off points. "They saved your life, yes? When someone saves another person it creates a sort of subconscious debt. Can you honestly say you don't feel like you owe them anything?" Haku opened her mouth to object. Kiku raised a questioning eyebrow, and Haku closed her mouth. "They're able to take advantage of that." A second finger went up as she kept on with her litany. "They're absolutely gorgeous creatures aren't they?" She didn't pause her flow of words for Haku's nod. "They're graceful and beautiful and feminine in every way. For one who thinks herself plain at best, do you truly think yourself a match for them?" Haku's face fell and she leaned forward slightly, pressing one hand to her middle feeling nauseous, but Kiku wasn't done as she added a third finger. "They're idols, Yowane-san. The music world is absolutely filled with pretty people and tasty distractions. They could have anyone they want. You're a diversion for them, no more."

Hai spun around as tears sprang to her eyes. She didn't want to hear this, but… the points rang of truth in her ears, sounded of real problems she'd thought about before. She didn't want Kiku to see her cry and she felt the urge to run but she didn't have anywhere to go. Where would she hide? The elevator needed a keycard to operate and she had none. Where could she go? She felt a had on her shoulder and flinched away from the attempt at a tender touch. "Don't…" was all she could choke out passed the tears.

"Yowane-san… forget them." Kiku said in a tone she probably thought was gentle but came across to Haku as soft yet still cruel. "We are all that we need. We don't even need mother and father anymore. We can access each other, perform our own maintenance and even design our own upgrades. We were made for each other. We-"

Haku's mind was reeling from all of these revelations and she cut the other girl off. "Stop saying that! This… is crazy!" She blurted out. She had to change the subject, she didn't want to think about… about... "I've never even heard of the government having this sort of technology, let alone private citizens. How are we supposed to do it ourselves?"

"Oh they have it." Kiku said. "They bought it from mother and father." Haku spun back around to stare at her in shock and Kiku just smirked. "Where do you think all of their money comes from?"

"They work for the government?!" Haku asked incredulously.

"Well… no that's too strong a term." Kiku mused, tapping her lips with a finger. "'Do odd jobs for now and then' would be much more appropriate, though I believe even that would be stretching it."

All she could do was stare art the darkly beautiful woman for long moments before turning to look away again. She was shaken to her core buy all off this, her stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots. She loved Miku and Luka more than anything, but if they really saw her like that… they had been acting strange lately… could they be… bored of her…? She choked back a sob, still refusing to let Kiku see her cry. She turned to the giant network terminal and said, "I want to see what you saw…"

Kiku looked at her for a long few moments before giving a small nod. She woke the screen up and hit a few keys on the terminal to log it in, then turned back to b Haku. "I'll leave you to look through it. Mother and father won't be here for a few more days yet, as they're still over seas."

Haku blinked. "They're coming here?" The other girl nodded. "Why?"

"You've been with the enemy for a long while now, they want to see what you've downloaded, what you've learned."

"What I…?" Haku stared at her. "What do you mean, what I've downloaded?"

Kiku tilted her head. "You really don't know?" When Haku only stared at her the redhead sighed. "I suggest you look over your own programming first then. That's where I started. I don't fully understand the coding principals, but I knew enough to change it to keep myself ' awake' when accessed." She turned to walk away, then paused to look back over her shoulder. "This level of the laboratory has a sanitation chamber and a locker room, if you wish to clean up." She gestured toward one of the doors with a vague wave of one hand then turned away once more, but then looked back yet again as Haku stopped her with a question.

"Who are the little girl and boy upstairs?"

Kiku was silent for so long Haku thought she wasn't going to answer, but after a time the darkly beautiful woman murmured, "If mother and father can experiment… so can I…" And with that she stepped into the elevator, pushed the door close button, and ascended out of sight. As soon as Kiku was give Haku sank into a chair, buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Her shoulders shook and she leaned over the console and let the floodgates open. She couldn't lose Miku or Luka, not now, not after everything that had happened. If she did she thought she might actually die. What could she do? Did they really think of her as an idle diversion? They'd never said anything like that that she could remember, but surely if that's how you really saw someone you wouldn't actually tell them that. They were famous idols, they could literally be with anyone they wanted, could have whoever they wanted. What could they possibly see in a plain nobody like her? The thought that she really was beautiful never crossed her mind, nor did the fact that she was an idol now too.

After her tears finally stopped Haku sat just starting at the screen for a long time before finally beginning to look through the files on the computer, as much to distract herself as anything. Everything was here, similar records on her… construction… as she'd seen about Miku and Luka at the Vocaloid Compound. Schematics for her Vocaloid Chip and V-Core, which were termed "Mark 4" in the diagrams, as well as a list of components used in the design of her sonic implants. There was no listing of the design for her girlfriends' constructions to compare with, but from what she remembered she could see the differences if not fully understand them… and she could see how the energy draining effect worked too. It wasn't separate implants at all, simply that her sonic conductors were capable of bi-directional throughput that allowed for input or output. It was extremely surreal, looking over her own post mortem reports and cyborg conversion procedure. More than once she became overwhelmed by the images in the photo journal showing the operations and had to turn away until she could get herself under control again. At times it was all she could do to keep from breaking down into tears again or keep from throwing up. She kept thinking back to Luka and Miku's reports and wondered why she could recall them so clearly when she'd only had time to glance at them briefly before setting them to download into her thumb drive.

Abruptly what Kiku had said seemed to click into place. Her own programming… her own maintenance… she'd had dreams about Miku's parents prodding at her... no, working on her, for months now and had found out they had been real. Maybe she could work on herself…? The thought terrified her, but… how was she doing all this? She'd always had an eerily good memory but it had seemed even better the past year or so. Maybe… she began looking through her implants listings, pulling up the log document of what had been done to her so she could see it while looking at pictures, and there it was. Her cranial implant was augmenting her brain capacity, increasing signal speed and memory retention. Her already formidable mind had been turned into a supercomputer for all intents and purposes. She had special programming in her head now that let her hack almost anything, the records here talked about specially designed protocols to allow her to interface with every known GUI and data port there was. In a way that made her feel a little betrayed. She'd thought she'd taught herself to code, but in reality it was a hacking program built into her. Then she blinked in surprise at what she saw next; a diagram of a wireless reliever specially designed to connect to any type of Bluetooth or WiFi signal. She stared at it in absolute shock. Her thumb drive popped into her mind, how it always worked for her, but never had for Miku when she'd tried. Haku felt a chill run up her spine. It wasn't a flash drive at all, it was a wireless dongle. She'd been connecting her brain directly to other computers with it this entire time, had been opening the files stored inside her own mind. Which meant… everything she'd ever downloaded and saved was literally in her head right now…

Haku was so overwhelmed by the enormity of these revelations she was discovering that she sat back in the chair for a moment and closed her eyes, taking slow deep breaths to steady her nerves. After a few minutes she started thinking about what this all meant, about her cybernetic brain and how it connected to computers, her interfacing capabilities. If she had all these files in her mind, couldn't she access them when she wanted? Keeping her eyes closed she tried to visualize in her head the way a computer screen would look if she were clicking on a folder, trying to click open a document to look at that she'd set to download in the Vocaloid Database. It didn't do anything, and she let out a sigh of frustration. She tried again, and again, with no results. She was flying blind with this, not sure if this would even do anything, but after a few failed attempts she changed her little experiment to a connection attempt. If she had Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities, shouldn't she be able to interface with a computer as easily as she could with her flash drive? She might not have been consciously aware that's what she'd been doing all these months, but she had been using it thinking it was a thumb drive, so clearly she had some degree of control over it. She tried again with the vision in her mind, but this time tried to imagine looking at a wireless connection window. That did… something. She felt a slight tugging within herself, but it wasn't a physical sensation, more like she was sensing something pulling at her in the air. The mental image itself wasn't helping, so she blanked her mind's eye and focused on the tugging feeling, tried to follow it like a current, let herself be captivated by it, let it sweep her along. Abruptly an image burst into her mind like a data stream floating in the air and her red eyes popped open. She could see it, really see it, like little mosaic pixelated data hanging in the air. It was a wireless signal, she just knew it. Despite her earlier fear and queeziness at all of this she found she was actually giddy with the idea of seeing a datastream. She reached a hand out and up towards it but of course there was nothing to physically touch and her fingers slid right through the stream as if it weren't there. But it was, she could see it. Now how to tap it? In a regular computer of course you just clicked the network icon, but that's not how the connection actually occurred, that was just a UI graphical representation. The actual transfer of data was through a computer's processor in the form of bits she knew, a series of electrical impulses firing hundreds of times per second to operate hardware managed by a connection protocol. She had the world's most powerful wireless connector built into her head, she'd seen it. Her processor was this Vocaloid Chip, also in her head. How to visualize cybernetic implants working? Determinedly she set her jaw as she thought about this; if she was a cyborg, then so be it, it was time to start using that to her advantage.

She thought on data transfer rates and bits and network protocols for a long while, minutes seeming to slip by her just like the data stream in the air that she continued watching, but she got nowhere with it. Sighing in frustration once more she reached out with her hand again, knowing there was nothing to touch. She rolled her wrist as though trying to wrap her hand around a rope or string, and the mental imagery of twisting her wrist to take hold of the stream tugged harder at that ethereal feeling permeating her. It wasn't really what was happening of course, she thought it must just be how the human part of her mind was interpreting things. Blinking she slowly and deliberately put her arm down, then imagined herself taking hold of the data stream, and just like that her mind exploded with information. Her red eyes were as round as they would go and she slammed back into her chair and gripped the edges of it feeling as though she had been plunged in to a pool of cold water all at once. She had to force her eyes to close, then squeezed them shut trying to cut off the flow of data suddenly feeding directly into her mind but that didn't help at all. The rush of bits flying through her brain faster than she could consciously process them was overwhelming and a dim part of her mind realized she was being too mundane about this, trying to consciously sift and sort a data stream that was supposed to be processed in background applications in computers, sitting in stasis essentially until clicked to open.

Just as she felt like she was going to drown in the flood of information she imagined the data stream as a still pool, and all at once it stopped. She was connected, she could feel it, but it as no longer coming at her all at once since she was no longer drawing on it. Letting out a breath of relief she paused for a moment to consider it. She felt like she was muddling through all of this, but now that she was connected it was like having the information right in her head without the actual physical act of looking at a computer screen. She was connected to Viroid Network, that of the laboratory she was in. Her mother and father's lab, she reminded herself. She could see all of the files, sift through them, sort them, tell what everything was just as though she were browsing through network files, and she could see a separate and distinct entity that was her own mind's files as well, could access them now that she knew what she was doing too, or at least now that she'd taken this first step. She let them fly through her mind, processing them, absorbing them, seeing what pertained to her or Kiku or anything relevant to her situation. Documents flashed passed before her mind's eye, flying by faster and faster the more comfortable she became with this, and she found that she was absolutely thrilled at what she was doing. This was actually rather fun! At one point she glanced up at the network monitor before and saw it sitting there completely inert, nothing showing on screen at all. Well that made sense when she thought about it, she wasn't actually using it, she was connected by herself. Just her. She was her own computer now.

Abruptly Haku realized that if she was connected remotely to this network then she didn't need to stay sitting here in this chair. Glancing around at the sterile lab with it's dark coloring she was struck by how creepy it really was and stood up not wanting to remain here any longer. Now that she was connected it took but the ease of a thought to begin downloading her files, yet even so the feeling was an odd one, having a direct data link to your brain. Still no physical sensation to it, it was just… strange. She walked over to the elevator they had come down earlier but as Kiku had said it required a security key. The darkly beautiful woman had also said there was a locker room. She decided she could take a few minutes to get cleaned up; it wasn't as if she were going to get any more kidnapped than she already was in the meantime, and a search the locker room might prove useful. Turning she went down the hallway Kiku had indicated earlier and began searching doors. They were all empty exam rooms so far as she could tell, set up the same way as the open tables in the main lab terminals and instrument trays. The hallway ran the length of half a dozen of these rooms before hitting a tee. To the right Haku could see a few more doors to either side and a service stairwell at the end, and to the left she could see another tee after a further stretch of hall. One she reached that tree she discovered another left turn took her down a further stretch of hall to dead end at a set of bathrooms opposite each other with a locker room at the end. She walked passed the men and women's rooms into the locker area and looked around. There were only a couple rows of lockers, and Haku was struck by how much smaller this place as a whole was compared with the Vocaloid facilities, but she supposed her parents had less staff to worry about.

A search of the lockers revealed a few with basic clothes in them; black and grey and blue shirts and pants that looked to Haku like nothing so much as coverings for moving specimens around. She let out a little shiver but she really did need to change. Picking a set of black coverings (she couldn't make herself think of them as clothes afterall) she also found a rack in the corner with basic soaps and shampoos, the kind of things you might find in a hospital. Disappointed once more she picked up a soap… disc? … and a small bottle of shampoo, then blinked in surprise as she pulled open a drawer in a stand by the rack next while she was looking around and found a couple of large plastic hair clips and two hairbrushes. By far the best things she'd discovered in this room she happily picked out a purple clip with glittery sparkles and a soft bristled if plain black brush and tucked them into her coverings. She located a couple of towels then left the locker room and went into the women's bath. With the entire lab deserted she didn't think it really mattered which she used but habit made her go where she should. She stripped off the clothes she'd been wearing for… how long had it been? Three days? Four? She didn't even look, they were so gross by now. She just stuffed them all into a cubby then took a few minutes to run the brush through her hair to work out any tangles before stepping through into the wash area. The bathroom wasn't as large or lavish as the one at the Vocaloid Compound and she found she was again disappointed; she'd grown accustomed to the big luxurious bathtub and wash area she'd been using these past months.

Either way though, the water was hot and she felt immensely relieved to sluice the grime from herself, imagining she was removing an actual layer of dirt from her skin though nothing like that was visible. Thinking about her current circumstances, deep underground right now in a small personal laboratory, she could see the appeal of the privacy, of having this whole place to herself. That thought however was followed immediately by another more sobering one; she wasn't alone… She tried to push that notion aside for the time being to focus on her bath. Once she'd soaped and lathered and rinsed every nook and cranny of herself she did her hair, getting it wet then working the bland shampoo into it carefully with smooth practices motions, careful not to pull to hard on any one lock, wishing the entire time for a nice lavender or floral scented blend. She stared at the snowy white stands as she delicately worked through them and let herself feel a moment of surprise at her own adaptability. She'd had dark hair for two decades, had treasured her hair and nurtured it, cared for it and kept it glossy, and now she'd had white hair for only a few months and she was already… well, "used to it" wasn't right, but… she didn't think she resented it anymore. Everyone seemed to think the white suited her, and she had to admit to herself that she did like being a little different than most other people. Even her red eyes in the mirror didn't make her cringe anymore.

Once she'd finished washing herself and felt clean for the first time in days she rinsed off one final time then stood, gathered the things she'd brought in, set them on a stand near the door, then went deeper into the bathroom to find a tub. She turned the hot water on and got in, settling into the tub and letting the steaming water cover her naked form even as it filled the tub. She loved the way hot water felt and she let out a sigh as she leaned back. She angled her head back against the rim of the tub and looked up toward the ceiling. She could still see the data stream flowing through the air, and she took a moment to marvel at the fact that she had never seen it before finding out what she was. She'd been around any number of different kinds of wireless connections in her life and especially in recent history, how had she never noticed? She supposed the answer to that must lay in her programming. The notes her parents had made that she'd been reading on her construction earlier hadn't really gone into detail about her actual code, just mentioned bits of programming they had developed for her. That thought led to another, and she found herself wondering if she might be able to alter her own code. Kiku had implied as much, but wouldn't she need to be in a diagnostic mode to manage it? She'd had to do that with Luka and Miku before she'd woken up here. They hadn't seemed aware of the fact that she'd done it after they'd come back to themselves either.

Abruptly Haku sat up in the tub with a splash of the water, sloshing some over the rim which made her realize the tub had filled while she'd been thinking. Abscently twisting the knob to shut the water off she blinked at nothing as she realized the piece she'd been missing earlier. It was all so painfully clear now. She'd woken up here and hadn't known how she'd gotten here. Luka and Miku had moved across the room when she'd accessed them and hadn't known how they'd moved either. Somehow she'd been accessed in the Vocaloid Compound before she left. How? Her access keyword… who? She squinted her red eyes, concentrating on remembering. She'd accessed her girlfriends, they'd been surprised, they'd heard Miku's parents coming down the hall, she'd turned back to the console to retrieve her thumb drive, and… then her phone had rang. It had been her father. She hadn't been able to stop her thumb from accepting the call. Her red eyes went wide as she realized what was going on. She hadn't wanted to answer the call, but she hadn't been able to to keep from doing so when she saw it was her father. She must have a subroutine that forced her to obey them, to heed them, and to always respond to them. That had to be it. He must have accessed her and told her to come here with Kiku, and that was why she couldn't leave now despite the doors being unlocked and having no guards. Somehow… somehow she had to get rid of that protocol. She had no free will otherwise! That thought was the first truly terrifying one she'd had since she'd started going over all of this, analyzing and dissecting her situation in her mind. She was no better than a tool, a slave in her parent's little world here. She had to get out. She had to! But how…?

Slowly she eased back in the tub once more and forced herself to breathe evenly. Nothing good would come from panicking, but she felt the anxiety on the edge of her self control now threatening to overwhelm her. Seeing her own death images had been surreal and scary, discovering she was actually a cyborg had been, and still was, disconcerting yet intriguing at the same time, maybe even a little fun in some ways. But knowing she had an of switch, knowing someone could simply take control of her whenever they wanted and make her do whatever they wished, knowing that the power existed over her to completely deprive her of her own free will, of everything that was her… that fact absolutely terrified her. She could feel that panic building ever higher, could feel her chest tightening and her lungs struggling to expand to bring in air. For a long time she simply sat in the tub and forced her chest to rise and fall evenly, focused on the feel of air moving through her lungs. Whatever else happened, whatever came off all of this, she would take control of herself back. She would keep her own free will, and she would find a way to get out of here and back to the two women she loved. No matter what! And the first step was to figure out how to access her own code, to rewrite her own programming. She wasn't sure how, but it had to be possible. Her parents can't have planned to let her ever find out about all is this, they couldn't have planned for every possible contingency. She would find a way, she would turn their own weapon against them.

Feeling the need to figure this out more than she wanted to soak she stood up out of the tub and switched the plug to drain, wrapped herself with the towels and dried off so she wasn't dripping, then went back into the changing area. Grimacing at the coverings she'd found she pulled on the very bland medical panties, then found to her dismay that the bra didn't fit when she slid it up her arms. Sighing she tossed the thing back into the cubby then retrieved her old one and put it back on. She didn't like wearing dirty clothes, but her breasts were just too big not to. Once she had the medical clothes on over those she pulled the plain socks on and then her shoes, then brushed out her hair, a much quicker job than she would usually give her snowy locks but she was eager to get started now that she had a goal in mind. She trapped her hair back behind her head with the glittery purple hair clip then proceeded to make her way back down the hallways she's come down. Once back in the main lab area she chose a terminal near the main network console and pulled a chair overt to it. She might have to use the diagnostic computers but she refused to stretch out on those tables with their strap downs. The idea sent shivers up her spine. She sat down in the chair at the terminal, shook the mouse to wake it up, then hesitated a moment before reaching out to take hold of the bundle of cables wrapped neatly beside the etched keyboard. It was all identical to the equipment at the Vocaloid Compound, and she found herself hesitating again. Then she reached a hand back and pulled her long flowing white ponytail forward over her left shoulder with one hand then reached back with it and ran her fingertips along the back of her neck up toward the base of her skull. She found the point on her skin where it felt slightly different to the touch than the rest of her did, a tad bit more rubbery than real skin was, and she pinched it with thumb and forefinger and pulled the epidermal plug out. There was no physical feeling but it still made her shiver again. She brought the plug around in front of herself to look at for a moment before setting it aside on the instrument tray beside the terminal, then she sorted the plugs in her other hand until she found the one she wanted, the same one she had used on Miku and Luka before. Then she hesitated yet again, took a deep breath, braced herself, then reached behind her head once more and slid the jack into her port.

Nothing happened. She blinked in surprise wondering what the problem was. The cable was in, she could feel it inside her neck. Trying not to think about how freaky that was she reached out to the etched keyboard and tapped a few keys. She located the diagnostic program easily enough and opened it, finding it was already detecting an "attached device." Her, she knew. She shivered, she was an attached device… Like everything else thus far it was the same she'd seen at the Compound, and a few clicks later the screen filled with programming code. Her code. The first thing she noticed was that it was immensely complex, far more intricate and involved than either of her girlfriend's coding that she'd seen before, and theirs had been some of the most advanced she'd ever seen. The second thing that caught her eye was how much of it there was; The number of lines displayed at the bottom of the screen was easily three times Miku and Luka's. The final thing she saw was a big red word with a status light on the tray at the bottom that said "Unit Status: Active" and beside that "Read Only." It seemed that if she wasn't being accessed she couldn't alter her code, and if she lost conscious thought while was being accessed she didn't see how she could do it herself. This was a start though, the first step on her path. She leaned back in her chair and set herself to studying her protocols and subroutines.

… … … … …

Kiku stepped out of the elevator and the doors whooshed closed behind her. She glanced around the darkened hallway before turning the opposite way from the office with the two little kids still in it and exited the few small rooms into a much bigger open area. There were a few large windows to the outside which showed the last vestiges of the light of day fading as night came on and she had to step around the large oblong canvas covered shapes which dotted the cement floor of the long square building. When she reached the far end she found her little rickety table and wobbly stool right where she had left them only a few meters away from a large rack of tools. Sometimes she thought it a little odd that this abandoned storehouse could remain intact and unlooted by the less scrupulous members of society, especially considering the value it held, but when she recalled whose warehouse it was it didn't seem so far fetched afterall. She couldn't see the masses of souldrinkers hiding outside the building in the overgrown grass of the grounds or in the dumpsters or in the edges and overhangs of the building, but she could feel them. Dozens of them, all around the entire area. Some were the remnants of her little attack force, programmed to return here after the mission at the Vocaloid Compound had ended, others she'd made since returning with her prize, but one and all they obeyed her. She would have traded all of them if only Yowane-san would understand…

She still felt upset at the snowy haired girl's words. It was something she wasn't accustomed to, having such a strong emotion other than anger or dreariness. She reached a hand down to Haku's phone, security badge, and butterfly hair tie sitting in the middle of her table, nudging wistfully at the items with one finger. Kiku thought perhaps it was just the effect her intended had upon her, but she felt as though a fist had tightened up around her lungs and was squeezing so she was having a hard time breathing. Anxiety was most decidedly an unpleasant state, and she wondered idly if she could program herself not to feel it. The master had said at one point that anything was possible with the right coding. It was an effort not to let it show, not to display any weakness at all. She couldn't afford that, not even here, especially not here. She couldn't feel the presence of the other person near her table however, but as he drew close enough to speak she could hear him breathing, could make out his soft footfalls on the concrete.

"You can't mean to keep her here. The master will come for her soon." Came his soft but dark voice.

"I'll keep her here until she's forced to leave, then I will go where she goes.' Kiku said simply, taking up the diaphanous plastic winged ribbon and twisting the soft cloth idly around the middle three fingers of her left hand, more for something to occupy her eyes to give the appearance of nonchalance more than out of any need to do anything with it.

"You will go where and when the master says, whether or not you get to keep the girl. Your obsession with her has already almost cost us everything once, do you really think you'll get away with it again?"

"I will go wherever and whenever she goes. I will follow her to the ends of the earth until she realizes we're meant to be together." Kiku hissed softly, her gaze coming up briefly to stare at the shadows, though she couldn't make out anything at the moment. Abruptly a sharp pain lanced through her head and she pressed her free hand to her temple reflexively. It took every shred of willpower she possessed to keep b from wincing or crying out, but she managed it. She would NOT show weakness in this place! To her vision flashing red letters appeared that read 'Warning: Programming conflict, driver error, critical system incompatibility'. Kiku tried to ignore it, turning the gesture into a look of feigned exasperation. "Yowane-san is mine."

"And if she breaks free and gets away?" He asked mildly.

"She can't, she was ordered to stay here." She returned her eyes to the bow on her hand. She put it to her nose as though simply setting her hand in a gesture of contemplation, but she inhabited deeply. The cloth smelled slightly of lavender and very faintly of Haku's own perspiration.

"And if she overcomes that limitation?" He sneered. "You did."

She hadn't told him she had and she didn't see how he'd figured it out, but she decided lying was pointless. "It took me months to figure out how, and the master will be here in a few days."

"And if the Vocaloids come for her?"

She turned her gaze out the window, still holding the bow to her nose, her red-orange eyes seeming to blaze in the last rays of twilight. "Then I will kill them."

… … … … …

"Still nothing?" Sarge asked irritably.

Meiko shook her head and lowered her phone. "No, No answer. I've been trying for days but no text back."

"Damnit…" Sarge wasn't his real name, Meiko didn't know what he was called when on the streets, but he and his brother were the two biggest men Meiko had ever seen, standing head and shoulders above what she thought of as pro athlete height and possessing arms as thick and burly as most men's legs. They were also deadly beyond belief. She'd once seen Sarge bend a shotgun barrel in half with merely a twist of his wrists.

"Maybe… maybe she's just… lost her phone…?" Meiko's pale haired companion suggested beside her, and she looked around to her.

"Didn't you just sell her that phone, Aria-san?"

Ia shrugged uncomfortably. "Well no, not sold… I mean, I gave it to her. I was undercover doing reconnaissance and they noticed me, I had to do something…"

"And in the process you risked exposure via a confrontation with a store clerk who could have come back at any moment while you were pretending to work there. And you didn't even bug the phone!." Sarge growled.

Ia shrank back on on herself and Meiko's protective instincts kicked in. "She was just trying to improvise, it's our job after all. We didn't ask for this assignment! This entire situation was forced on us from the start and-!"

"Enough!" The big man's deep contrabass voice boomed through the small hotel room and they both fell silent, Meiko with a scowl and Ia with a wince biting at her lower lip. She did her best to open her mouth to say more, to let him have a piece of her mind, but her jaw might as well have been clamped shut with a vice for all the control she had over it in that moment. "We can't afford failure or setbacks. The head of the Public Security Intelligence Agency himself is watching this case. It will make or break our careers."

"Your career," Meiko said bitterly. "I don't have one anymore."

Sarge loomed large over her suddenly and in a very low voice said, "You were made to obey. So obey. I want that prototype and I want her here. Yesterday! Understand me?!"

" How?" Meiko asked bluntly. "She's practically disappeared off the face of the planet."

"Oh! Uhm!" Ia drew both of their gazes as she withdrew the ticket stubs from the concert the few weeks back. "Maybe we can trace these? Megurine-san gave them to me, but they have to have a sale listing somewhere. Her agency likely picked up the price so… Uhm… that could lead us to her manager and… well… an address…?"

Sarge peered at her a moment then nodded. "Get on it then. Find me that prototype. We can't let her parents reclaim her."