"What do you mean, she's gone?" Junji practically screamed into the phone.
"I don't know, she was here just a minute ago!" Tadao replied. "She was talking about how Minako hadn't answered her e-mail, then you called and I got distracted, and now she's nowhere to be seen!"
"She knows she's not supposed to leave your dorm room unless it's absolutely necessary, right?" Junji said, his sense of panic escalating. If it wasn't bad enough that Minako had been kidnapped, now Azami was in danger, too! Suddenly Junji felt a slight tap on his shoulder.
"I hate to interrupt, but I have a theory as to what happened," Ryuhei interjected. "You probably forgot that we persocoms have much more sensitive ears than you humans do. Azami-chan could have easily heard everything you told Tadao-san. Maybe she went off to try to rescue Minako-san herself."
"She wouldn't do that!" Junji objected. "She's terrified of Fumio-san!"
"Maybe, but if she feels a strong enough loyalty to Minako-san she might be able to overcome her fear," Amethyst suggested.
Junji's face paled, and he quickly covered it with both hands after pocketing his mobile. "It's all my fault..." he whispered. "I promised to protect Azami-chan, but now she's in danger because of me..."
"Hey, snap out of it!" Ryuhei shouted, smacking Junji lightly on the back of his head. "It's not anyone's fault, except for this Fumio creep. And if we hurry, we can reach his place before Azami-chan does!"
"Just one problem," The human boy countered. "I don't know where he lives."
"Do you know his phone number or e-mail address?" Amethyst asked. "We might be able to find his location from one of those."
"Fumio-san put up flyers about Azami-chan, they had his contact info on them," Junji recalled.
"Well, what was the number?" Fumio asked.
"You expect me to remember? It was weeks ago!"
Fumio glared at Junji, then sighed as his expression softened. "You humans... sometimes I'm surprised you can remember to put one foot in front of the other when walking."
"Hey, excuse me for not having a holographic memory!"
"Could we maybe find another one of these flyers?" Amethyst offered, temporarily curtailing the conflict.
"Yeah, if we're lucky some of them will still be up in the neighborhood around my dorm building, come on!" Junji ran off in the direction of his car, with the other two in close pursuit.
Minako was grateful when Fumio left to answer the phone, dropping the sledgehammer as he exited the room. Still, she knew it would only buy her a small amount of time. She tried yet again to wriggle free from her bonds, but they held fast. She eyed the sledgehammer on the floor, thinking back to his threat. Would he actually go through with it? She quickly concluded that he would - Fumio had shown absolutely no regard for the rights of persocoms, and would likely have no qualms about destroying one.
As macabre as the idea was, she soon found herself running simulations of her own destruction. Factoring in Fumio's height, weight, and muscle mass, the sledgehammer's mass and balance, the resistance and elastic deformation of the bed, her own body's resilience, and Fumio's probable knowledge of persocom components and systems, she calculated a 94.5678% probability that such an attack would cause irreparable damage to her CPU - meaning it would be impossible to retrieve her consciousness.
'Does that mean... I'm going to die?' she wondered. Minako had never really thought about death before - as a machine, she supposed she had believed she was functionally immortal. Even if her body's components broke down they could simply be replaced, and if worse came to worst she could upload her consciousness into a new body. But now, with her internet connection being jammed and a dangerous sociopath willing to reduce her to plastic and metal scrap, she faced the very real possibility of death.
Her reflections soon turned more philosophical. What happens to persocoms when they die? Is there an afterlife for machines? Or would her consciousness just cease to be? She accessed the limited files she had on religion - Junji and his family were ostensibly Buddhist, but not very observant. If Buddhism was true, would that mean she would be reincarnated? Or would she not even be considered to have a spirit that existed independently of her physical body? She had always had a strong belief in the idea that she was in every way equal to humans - so if they had souls she must have one too. However, in this dire situation, a sliver of doubt began to insinuate itself within her mind - what if she does have no soul? What if, when she dies, she will simply wink out of existence?
'Well... it's not the worst thing that could happen,' she rationalized. 'If I don't have a soul, then at least there's no possibility of going to any negative afterlife, such as the Hell of the Abrahamic faiths or the eastern Naraka. Maybe the atheists are right, and souls don't even exist. Not that that would be much comfort right now.'
She tried her best to stop dwelling on thoughts of death, but it was difficult - her mind worked so fast. Even though Fumio had only been gone for a few minutes, she had already spent the equivalent of hours ruminating on nearly every horrible scenario that entered her head.
She heard Fumio's footsteps approaching, so she became determined to make her last thoughts (if indeed they were her last) happy ones. She thought of all the good she had done - how she had inspired oppressed persocoms like Junko-chan, and the work she had accomplished to advance the cause of persocom equality. Even if she died here, her book would still be published - and weren't works by deceased creators supposed to sell more? Or did that only apply to artists? She chuckled inwardly at her attempt at morbid humor, then returned to more pleasant thoughts. She thought of the stars, and the beauty of the night sky, accessing many of the recordings she had taken of meteor showers and other celestial phenomena. And most of all, she thought of Junji... if only she had a chance to say goodbye to him...
However, when Fumio re-entered the room, something unexpected happened. Instead of picking up the sledgehammer, he carefully kicked it out of the way, and simply sneered at the bound 'com.
"It appears you're in luck," he said, the arrogant tone never leaving his voice. "I don't know how, but Azami somehow figured out that I have you prisoner, and she's offered to trade herself for you. Once I have her secured, I'll simply erase your memory of the last few hours and drop you off back where I found you."
"Is this some kind of trick?" The green-haired 'com inquired suspiciously. "How could Azami-chan possibly have found out?"
"Don't ask me, but that was her on the phone. She said she'll be arriving within the next ten minutes."
As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
"That should be her right now. Excuse me for a moment."
Fumio departed yet again, and soon returned, a familiar short, blonde 'com following behind him.
"Minako-chan!" Azami shouted, running over to the side of the bed. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"Azami you idiot!" Minako shouted, causing the shorter persocom to jump back in shock. "You were supposed to stay away from him, no matter what!"
"B-but you were in danger!" She objected. "I had to do something! After all, you helped me so much-"
"How did you even find out about-"
"Ahem." Fumio cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the two 'coms. He turned an accusing eye on Minako. "So it appears you did know Azami's whereabouts after all. I never doubted it. By all rights I should destroy you anyway for keeping her from me, but I'll have less of a chance of being caught if I just erase your memory like I originally planned. But first, I have some other business to take care of. Come along, Azami."
"Y-yes..." She replied meekly, following him out of the room.
"No, Azami, don't! It's still not too late! You don't have to listen to him anymore!"
The elf-eared 'com's words were drowned out as Fumio slammed the door behind him, leading Azami down a short hallway to a room where he grabbed a portable terminal. "Here, connect with this."
"W-what are you going to do?" Azami asked nervously.
"Look up your IP address and then save it to a file here so I don't forget it again, for starters. I wanted to install a GPS tracking program but I couldn't afford a reliable one, so this will have to do for now."
The short persocom reluctantly complied, taking a cable out from a port in her ear and plugging it into the handheld computer. As Fumio copied and pasted her IP address to a text file, she noticed that the terminal was also running an unusual program she hadn't seen before, although she soon determined its function.
"There," Fumio said, detaching the cable as Azami retracted it back into her head. "Now to deal with your little friend." He unplugged the terminal from the power outlet and carried it with him back into the guest bedroom where Minako was held captive.
As he entered the room, he found Minako still staring at him, the look of anger never having faded from her eyes. He slowly walked over to the side of the bed, bending down until his face was only centimeters from her ear.
"I suggest you don't make this any more difficult than it has to be," he whispered, his mouth so close that she could feel his breath on the side of her head. "When this is over, you won't remember a thing, and Azami will be back where she belongs." He chuckled sinisterly, then picked up the USB stick that the green-haired girl had previously dislodged from her dataport.
"This should still be of use," he said, attempting to plug it back into the port. Minako twisted her head back and forth and from side to side, trying to avoid it, but Fumio grabbed her by the throat and held her in place as he plugged it in. Immediately Minako's eyes glazed over, flashing with streaks of light, before they went completely blank, and then closed.
"Minako-chan!" Azami called out in alarm.
"Shut up," Fumio replied harshly. "She'll be fine, I'm just making sure she's incapacitated while I edit her memory."
He took a cord from the portable terminal and plugged it into another port on the opposite side of the bound girl's head, then sat down on the foot of the bed and began typing on the terminal's keyboard.
After a few minutes it quickly grew apparent that Fumio was having some difficulty. He was constantly scowling and his keystrokes became progressively more violent. "Dammit, even in standby mode she's got some tough passive firewalls..." he muttered. "Maybe I should just smash her after all."
Before he could further pursue this course of action, he noticed that something was amiss. Glancing behind him, he saw that Azami had taken advantage of his change of focus and was just completing the process of untying the ropes that restrained Minako.
"What do you think you're doing!" Fumio roared, diving at the petite 'com. She yelped as he tackled her to the floor.
"I won't let you hurt Minako-san!" Azami screamed, as she directed a kick straight into his groin. Surprisingly, it had little effect.
Fumio grinned in triumph. Seeing Azami's puzzled expression, he offered an explanation. "I was actually anticipating Junji's 'com trying something like that, so before I ambushed her I decided to prepare myself. Of course you remember when I used to play union rugby, right? Luckily I still had some of my old equipment lying around."
Fumio's grin soon faded though, as his eyes drifted to an object in Azami's hand - the USB stick. If she had unplugged it from Minako, then-
"Get away from her!" A voice rang out from behind him. He rapidly turned around, which soon proved to be a costly mistake, as Minako jabbed him in the eyes with two fingers.
As he collapsed on the ground, screaming in pain and rage, Azami scrambled out from under him, and she and Minako ran out of the room.
"Thanks Minako-chan," the blonde 'com said, relieved.
"Don't mention it." She replied. "Next time maybe he'll realize that there's more than one vulnerable spot on his body."
"Here, the door is this way," Azami said as she escorted Minako down the halls. Just when it looked like they were home free, they heard Fumio's voice again.
"Freeze! Don't take another step!"
They whirled around to face their pursuer, whose eyes were still red and sore, but now he was holding a gun, and it was aimed directly at the two persocoms.