Chapter 36: Concert at the Coliseum
"Freyaaaa!" a voice called out from somewhere down the sidewalk as Chi and Hideki were on their way home from college. Actually, several voices. It was Freya's concert week at the old gaming coliseum, and the Motosuwas quickly found themselves surrounded by screaming fans of Freya's goth-metal band "CPU".
"Could you autograph my Maneke Neko?", a fangirl asked breathlessly, holding out a good-luck cat charm.
"Can you sign our albums?", a group of deliriously-happy kids giggled.
Then a teenage boy approached Chi, wearing a black shirt emblazoned with "CPU fan" in magenta letters captioning a picture of a computer CPU chip with a fan blowing air on it.
"Hey Freya", he winked, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "Wanna autograph my you-know-what?"
"I'm not Freya!", Chi finally managed to say over top of the noise.
"This is CHIII!", Hideki added frantically, pointing at her with both hands as he jumped up and down for everyone's attention.
"Chi?", several of them repeated, their crazed enthusiasm fading to simple curiosity.
"Are you the 'Someone Just For Chi' my persocom was talking about?" someone asked Hideki, and he nodded.
None of them even noticed the weird squeaking box Chi was carrying home from college, and soon the crowd of fans wandered off.
"Chi...", Hideki mumbled, eyeballing that funny box of hers as they approached the Gub Jogasaki. "I know you're taking biology and stuff... Is there something in there I should know about? Like... I mean... Some kind of..."
"Some kind of what?", Chi asked teasingly in response to the weird faces Hideki was making. "You mean our little cyborg child?"
"I, UH...", he stammered, taking a step backwards. "I thought that wasn't even possible..."
"It's not", Chi replied, chuckling slightly at his freaked-out response. "Maybe someday, though." Then she looked him in the eye, with an expression he couldn't quite read. "And maybe, you'll be ready by then."
Once inside their apartment, Chi closed the door and opened her squeaking box, which turned out to be a small cage, draped in black cloth.
"A MOUSE?!", Hideki yelped. "...wait... I thought the mice were for the grad students..."
"For the most part", Chi cheerfully explained. "But I'm a lab assistant now. Plus, I got into some advanced-placement classes."
While Hideki was eating supper, he seemed unusually protective of his food, and he kept eyeing that mouse cage with suspicion.
"Kind of jumpy today, aren't you?", Chi asked. He didn't answer.
Afterwards, they went down to Ms. Hibiya's room, taking the rodent with them. "Akashi wanted to see a real live lab mouse", Chi explained to Hideki. "Don't worry, I'm not keeping it as a pet. It's going back to the DNA lab tomorrow."
"It's so CUUUUUUTE", Chitose and Akashi fawned over the little blond lab mouse, while Zima sat back and watched them, looking amused.
"Can I feed it?", Akashi asked excitedly, and Chi nodded. "Just a little."
As Akashi fed the mouse a bit of cheese and water, Zima noticed Hideki's weird looks. "Liking your new pet?", he joked.
"Well, I guess it's cute enough as mice go", Hideki grumbled with a slight sneer of disgust, "but I'd had it up to here with those things, back on the farm. They get into everything and make a mess. And they multiply like crazy."
While Akashi kept playing with the mouse, Chi and Hideki stayed and watched the evening news on Ms. Hibiya's big-screen TV.
"Check out that flickering orange glow, just as they go into the fog bank", the security analyst explained, showing the pixelly, zoomed-in video of the missile-boat.
"So, was that some kind of cloaking device?", the news anchor asked. "Is that how they got away?"
"No, and I don't think they DID get away", the security analyst declared confidently. "I think they sank. Look at the backwash from those missiles, just as they're fired."
Video cut to the point where the missiles left the boat. They must've been mounted wrong or something, because the exhaust flames went all over the place. "Guess they never fired a missile before", he chuckled. Lit their own boat on fire."
"Then they weren't military", the anchor concluded. "What about terrorists from somewhere?"
"Well, possibly", the analyst replied. "We'll drop in an underwater scanner, and maybe find something."
"Ohh, I hope that was just an isolated idiot", Chi shuddered. "I'd hate to think there was some kind of anti-persocom movement going on."
"People are nuts", Hideki mumbled in reply. "Someone hit Sora in the head a while back just for being a persocom. And out there on the beach, someone knocked me down 'cause they thought I was one."
"That's just...", Chi started to say. But she stopped short as the next news story began. And it began loudly.
"WHAT did I told you?", someone preached in a news interview, wagging her index finger at the camera from her front porch.
"Seen her before", Hideki mumbled quickly, and the others nodded.
"Them bots is MULTIPLYIN'!", she shouted straight into the camera, her eyes wide with panic. "Makin' persocom BABIES!"
"So, you've actually seen this taking place?", the news interviewer asked her. "Persocoms reproducing, building other persocoms?"
"No, but it's all over the WEB!", she replied indignantly. "Caint you READ?! We the dinosaur now, gon' wind up EX-TINCT!"
Everyone (except the mouse) was shooting nervous glances at one another as the show continued back at the newsroom while the on-site interview video went on in a window, the woman being interviewed waving her arms around maniacally and screaming.
"Persocoms reproducing", the anchorman back at the newsroom echoed in disbelief. "THERE'S a scary thought."
"Hmmmmm", Zima hummed in a thoughtful, slightly annoyed tone. "A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Especially when it's mixed with ignorance and fear."
They were watching the same story over at Kojima's, and three generations of persocoms were staring in shock.
"What's wrong with a persocom having a kid?!", Sora shouted at the TV.
"Not a damn thing", Kotoko told her. "People are just being stupid, that's all!"
Kojima looked at the TV, then at his latest research project, then back at the TV again. "Oh NO!", he gasped. "I can't publish this now, not if people are gonna FREAK OUT!"
(His latest idea for a research project had been a look at the reproductive habits of persocoms, featuring Kotoko and Zin, Sora and Mizuto, and Sunshine, as an example of the stirrings of true evolution in non-biological life forms.)
"Another dead-end", he groaned, looking really worried. "If this keeps up, I'll have to start looking at ordinary jobs."
Kojima wasn't the only one there worried about money. Sora knew about the mortgage. And so as Kojima set aside his controversial research paper to look for something that wouldn't put Sora in danger, Sora set off in search of another paying job.
Sunshine was left at home, back in that gawky wheeled contraption that made her feel like some kind of circus freak. Sunshine preferred the padded toolbelt to that ridiculous clunky toy truck thing, but Sora dared not go out in public looking like that again.
There was a thrift shop nearby, and Sora decided to apply for work there.
They weren't hiring.
But something there caught her eye. It was an old radio-controlled robot fighting doll made by Karate Queen, one of Dr. Mihara's competitors from back in the days of Angelic Layer. Karate Queen had never gotten popular the way Piffle Princess did, and had gone out of business pretty quickly.
Still, there were a few of those old R/C units left, and they were really cheap!
The doll was about half as tall as a full-sized persocom, and it was in good shape. Better yet, it looked about as human as Sora did. {This'll be WAY better than that crazy wheeled thing} Sora thought to herself as she bought the unit for about what Kojima would have paid for a bottle of sake.
Back at Kojima's, Sora removed the radio receiver from the Karate Queen doll, and installed Sunshine's CPU in its place. And taking parts from that toy-truck thing (cameras, microphones, speaker, and such), she made it a small but functioning persocom.
"Grandma!", she shouted as she ran into the living room to greet Kotoko, stumbling a little in her unfamiliar new humanoid body.
"Sunshine!", Kotoko and several others greeted her cheerfully in reply.
"Sora, you know those old Karate Queen dolls don't really last all that long, right?", Kojima asked.
"I know", she told him, "but I'm hoping by the time that wears out, we can afford her a normal persocom body."
Chi and Hideki were outside on one of their days off helping Ms. Hibiya with a bit of cleaning. They were beating the dust out of the tatami mats when they heard a familiar voice behind them. It was Freya.
"Hey Sis! Aay Cowboy!", she shouted cheerfully. "Whatcha clobberin'? Hi, Mom!"
"Oh my GOSH, Freya, what happened?!", they all blurted out in shock when they saw her. "You look like a truck ran over you!"
"Naah, jus' a motorsickle", Freya cackled goofily, a stupid grin on her face. "Got my hair caught in the damn chain."
Then she stumbled forwards, hanging onto Hideki and Chitose for support. "Word t' th' wise", she slurred, "Don' go tryin' any layback stunts if y' got reeaal long hair. Whata y'all been up to, b'sides beatin' th' crap outa that mat?"
"S- uh, Summer classes", Hideki stammered, still looking shocked by Freya's appearance.
"And working as a lab assistant at the college", Chi added.
"Oh, I should get my lab ready for YOU, Freya", Ms. Hibiya fretted. "You need some serious repairs."
"ZIMA?", she called out loudly, heading for the lab. "I might need some help here, Freya's hurt bad!"
"Where IS your motorcycle, anyway?", Hideki asked as they all went into the building.
"Huh, that thing?" Freya shrugged. "Well, it kind of disintegrated, so..."
Freya stopped in mid-sentence, having noticed a strange-looking framed picture hanging on the wall, and she paused to point and laugh at it.
"What'na heck IZZAT?!", she cackled in a loud, obnoxious voice. "Some kinda ZOMBIE?! AAAAHAHAHA... wait a minute... whaat?"
Freya waved her hand at the picture on the wall, and the person in the picture waved back at her. "Um, that's called a mirror", Hideki deadpanned. "Are you sure you're not..."
"Holy shit, man!", she giggled hysterically, moving in for a closer look. "I look like a fuckin' ZOMBIE!"
"Mmmrrruuuhhh...", she moaned in imitation of the zombies she had seen on TV, her arms held straight out in front of her as she shuffled stiff-leggedly along, much to the horrified looks of Chi and Hideki.
"Heh, guess I oughta fix this", she chuckled. "Hey Mom do you have any- Where'd she go HEY MA YOU GOT ANY OF THAT DERMO-CRAP GLUE? I LOOK LIKE SHIT"
"A little adhesive isn't going to do it", Chitose gasped, returning from her lab. "You need major repairs! Freya, your concert! You won't be able to..."
"Oh yeah, my concert!", Freya laughed. "Like they say, th' show mus' go on!"
"See ya there", she added as she staggered casually out the door.
"Freya, wait!", Ms. Hibiya called out, following after her. "Are you sure everything's working okay? Have you done a system self-check? Hang on, we'll walk there with you."
"It aint like I'm gonna die or nothin'", she tried to reassure them as they all made their way to the old gaming coliseum. "I can get fixed up after the concert."
The Hibiyas and the Motosuwas sat together in the "Friends and Family" section of the packed coliseum, waiting for the concert to begin. In the center was a big circular white stage, and several of the band members were carrying instruments towards it. Mr. Furoku was visible in a control room out near one of the exit doors, microphone in hand. "Get ready", he told the audience.
The overhead lights dimmed, and a thick fog rolled out across the stage. When it cleared, the stage looked like the caldera of a volcano, complete with smoke, boulders, and molten lava. Only, the lava was magenta.
Then the band members stepped onstage and quickly set up their instruments.
"Where's Freya?", some people wondered aloud, looking around. "Usually she comes out with the rest of the band."
"She had to make a pit-stop", the drummer told the audience. "She'll be along in a minute or two."
There she was, emerging from the garage area, a black bottle in her hand, drinking from it as she staggered her way loopily towards the stage. Once onstage and in the spotlight, she held the bottle of oil up high, then finished it off, spilling some across her face in the process. She wiped her greasy mouth with her sleeve. Then, tossing the bottle aside, she grabbed the microphone. Audience members gasped at her appearance.
With the first note, the first drumbeat, magenta lava began spewing up in chunks from volcanic vents in the floor. "Are you ready for the zombie apocalypse?", Freya cackled to the cheering crowd.
Throughout the concert, Freya slurred her lyrics and staggered around on the stage. But she never went off-key and she never missed a beat, even though with several teeth missing her 'S' sounds had an odd whistle to them.
Partway through a song, one of her eyes fell out, and for the rest of the concert it was dangling there from its video cable. She kept singing. She even hammed it up by doing the Zombie Shuffle. "Oh my gawd where did she get that zombie costume?!" some in the audience were asking one another.
The last song was gentle and heartfelt, and Freya sang it sitting down. And at the end, she bowed her head and sat quietly, her eyes closed, all to the tune of thunderous applause from the audience.
Then she offered an apology to those who'd been hoping for a little something ...extra... after the final concert of the week. "Sorry I won't be... able to attend any, um... post-concert party", she told them, her speech beginning to slow. "Little, um.. mishap.. earlier today.. I'm off to the repair shop for now."
"Concerts in ...Kyoto... later this summer", she added haltingly as the overhead lights brightened back up, and the magenta lava pits faded away to just a plain white stage again.
"Mishap?" someone was heard to say as the crowds were spilling out onto the streets and into nearby bars and restaurants. "Holy crap, what if that wasn't a costume?"
Freya had to be carried off of the stage. She just didn't have the energy to stand up anymore. "OHHHhh", she groaned, clutching her abdomen as they loaded her into the limousine, "I think one of my batteries is leaking! Low voltage alarm... Automatic shutdown... BEEP..."
Mr. Furoku discreetly dropped Freya and Ms. Hibiya off at the Gub Jogasaki. "Whatever parts and materials you need, just call me, I'll get them for you", he told her as he helped her carry the inert and rather heavy persocom inside. "We can even bring in some hired technicians to help in the repairs, if you want."
"Zima and I can do the repairs", she responded, "but I'll take you up on your offer of parts and materials."
"You okay, Chi?", Hideki asked as the two of them walked home with Zima and Akashi. "You look pained or something."
"I bet she's worried about Freya", Akashi offered, and Chi nodded. "I hope she doesn't have any permanent damage", she replied.
"I guess that limping is just psychosomatic, then?", Zima asked, and Chi groaned.
"No, my knee hurts", she complained. "I'll see what Mom thinks of it, once she's done fixing Freya."
Even with Zima's help, it took several days to get Freya all fixed up again. Mr. Furoku brought in adhesives and dermal sheeting, coolant and oil, a new set of batteries, and even some servo components.
Several pieces of her thoracic cage, the equivalent of ribs, were bent, and had to be taken out and sledgehammered back to their proper shape.
"You look like a surgeon in an operating room", Chitose chuckled to Zima. "Why the mask and gloves?"
"Nothing personal", Zima replied, "but I know she's had Borkumensis at least once. I'm not taking any chances."
"System check, Freya?", Ms. Hibiya requested, once the repairs were done. "All pass", she replied, slowly getting to her feet.
"Sorry about the mess", Freya apologized profusely. "I didn't mean to make extra work for you."
"Well, the work is no problem", Ms. Hibiya responded, putting a hand on Freya's shoulder. "But you really had me worried there."
Freya looked with tear-stained eyes at her mother, who immediately pulled her close. "..MOM..", she sobbed.
The repairs had been a success, there was plenty of time off before the set of concerts in Kyoto, and Freya was outside helping her mother with some yard work.
"Chitose Hibiya?", a voice called out from the front wall. It was a police officer. "Freya around?", he asked.
"Huh?", Freya called out, raising her head up from the patch of flowers she was pulling weeds out of. "What's up?"
"Nothing good", he told them both. "Looks like you're in some hot water over that motorcycle crash of yours. Messed up that hiking park pretty bad."
"Oh, that", she acknowledged nonchalantly, brushing some dirt off of her yard-work outfit. "I'll gladly pay for any repairs the park needs."
"It's not that simple", the officer explained. "The guy that runs the local parks is pressing charges against Ms. Hibiya. 'Unleashing a destructive automated device upon the general population', he's claiming."
"What?!", Ms. Hibiya gasped, dropping her broom. "He makes it sound like I made a BOMB or something!"
"He's never been too fond of persocoms", the cop told Ms. Hibiya. "And now a persocom trashes one of his parks... That dingbat charge he filed is bound to be reduced, but you could still end up paying some pretty stiff fines."
Then he gestured towards Freya. "And you'll probably lose the persocom."
"LOSE the...", Ms. Hibiya started to say. But the officer was already taking them to his patrol car. "You do both have to come with me", he told them.
Much to her horror, Ms. Hibiya found herself at the police station. "That persocom of yours turned one of our city parks into a smoking crater!", the police interrogator shouted. "We already know CHI had special programming. What weirdo kind of an app did you install in Freya?"
While the cops bombarded Ms. Hibiya with questions, Freya was unceremoniously dropped off at the impoundment building, as if she were an illegally-parked car or something.
Freya looked around to find the warehouse full of things... Cars, motorcycles, modems, multiple pieces of some kind of heavy industrial equipment, a sword or two... and several other persocoms.
"What are you in for, Freya?", one of them asked her.
"HUH?!", Freya replied stupidly, still bewildered at her surroundings.
"I'm here because my owner was downloading some really perverted stuff", the other persocom continued, leaning nonchalantly against a sports car. "That's how I recognized you. Name's Neko, by the way."
"Ah, heh heh...", Freya laughed somewhat embarrassedly. "So, you've seen those ...pictures..."
"Oh yeah, I got your whole spread from 'Persocoms Gone Wild', and it was AWESOME!", Neko replied, prompting Freya to blush beet-red.
"Of course, that's not what got him arrested, though", he continued, his cheery tone turning into one of disgust. "What got him in trouble were the torture videos he was downloading. Little kids and shit, it was just sicko. I Hope I get a different owner when I get out of here, the guy gives me the CREEPS."
Then he looked forlornly out the window. "...assuming I ever do get out of here...", he added.
Another persocom, a little mobile unit, was sitting on a shelf, watching. "Oh, that's nothing", she commented in a rather smug tone. "My owner was using me to hack into government computers and steal national security secrets. And he was selling his data to other countries for a big fat profit."
"So like Neko asked", she added as she leaned back on her shelf looking bored, "what are YOU in for?"
Freya facepalmed at this simple question as the reality of the situation began to sink in. "Something DUMB", she told them, rolling her eyes. "The parks-and-rec guy is charging my Mom with 'Unleashing a destructive automated device upon the general population', just 'cause I crashed my motorcycle in the hiking park!"
"Like.. WHAT, do they think she programmed you do that on purpose or something?!", Neko ranted. "Is that parks-and-rec guy really THAT much of a dingb..."
"Motorcycle crash?!", the mobile PC butted in, her eyes suddenly wide with interest. "Wait, are you the one in that FAIL video that's going viral?! Oohh, I bet that hurt!"
"Suzume, I was still talking-", Neko protested. But Suzume wasn't listening. "HAAA, you shoulda seen the look on your face when that moto..."
"I think maybe he IS that much of a dingbat", Freya told Neko as they both stared out the window. "Even the cop that brought us in said that much."
"Yo, are you guys even listening.. to...", Suzume trailed off. Apparently, they weren't.
"I hope Mom's okay", Freya mumbled. "'Lose the persocom'? ... What the heck did he mean by that?"
"Hideki, can we stop by Minoru's on the way home?", Chi asked as they headed out of college on a cloudy afternoon. "Mom didn't have a chance to look at my knee, and it's getting worse."
"Y- yeah, sure", he replied quickly, seeing the worried look on her face. And a few minutes later, they were at his door.
"I've never seen a symptom like that, except in worn-out persocoms", Minoru told her. "It sounds like some kind of mechanical problem."
"I have", Yatsumi cut in. "When Freya had Borkumensis, the first symptoms were in her knees."
A quick test at the local hospital confirmed it, and in no time flat, Chi was on her way home with several bottles of "Perso-Clean", and a folding wheelchair to use during her treatment. ("We do this outpatient now", they'd told her)
"It just doesn't make any sense", Chi grumbled embarrassedly as she opened the first bottle, back at the apartment. "You're the only one I was ever with... What, are the germs airborne now?"
Fortunately for Chi, she only had to miss one day of college. The next two days they had off anyway. And so, after her initial treatment, Chi resigned herself to spending three days in a wheelchair. As for the exercises, the swimming hole was still there.
"Yeah, Ms. Hibiya ,we agree, it's pretty clear that wasn't any kind of terrorist attack" the police interrogator relented. "But you still have to answer for the damage to that city park."
Someone must have fast-tracked her case, because in no time flat, it was already time for the trial.
Chi was on her last day of treatment, and Hideki settled in at the back of the audience, pushing her in her wheelchair.
Ms. Hibiya was up front, awaiting the judge.
"I guess Freya's still in impoundment", Hideki guessed. He guessed wrong. Freya was right behind them, one of her band members pushing her along in a wheelchair. "What the heck, Chi?", she whispered, "have you got it too?".
Hideki gasped at the sight of Freya in a wheelchair, and somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he hadn't taken a shower during his first 30 hours at the beach. Humans can't get Borkumensis... but is it possible for them to carry the germs?
His thoughts were quickly interrupted by the beginning of the trial.
"First of all, let me just SHOW you what this woman's persocom did to one of our city parks!", the accuser began. And setting up a projector, he proceeded to show a video entitled "Motorcycle persocom FAIL (OUCH!)"
A cloud of brown dust rose from a hiking park which consisted of numerous trails through the woods and a large grassy area. Or rather, it should have been grassy. In the middle was a big motorcycle, spinning donuts all over the place.
The bike and its rider, a persocom with long blonde hair, came zooming out of the dust and went airborne over a small knoll, passing dangerously close to one of the several persocoms doing the recording. "BANZAI!", she cackled loudly, doing a sideways float trick in midair, her arms outstretched, before landing the bike and blasting off down the hill again.
From there her stunts only got more insane. Backflips, corkscrew flips, levitronic-assisted highjumps involving tire contact with overhanging tree branches, and all kinds of crazy mid-air tricks, all to the tune of mad-scientist laughter... She was putting on quite a show for the numerous spectators present.
Her big mistake was attempting a high-speed across-the-park longjump, with a no-hander layback trick in midair. In particular, the "layback" part. It put her hair too close to the chain. Midway through the jump, her long hair got wound up in the chain and sprockets, pulling her under the bike.
The motorcycle, now completely out of balance, went tumbling wildly through the air with Freya attached to the rear wheel by her hair. Then it hit the ground, and things REALLY got ugly.
Despite her persocom speed, strength, and even levitronics, Freya couldn't get her hair loose from the motorcycle as it went crashing, skidding, flipping out through the bushes, slinging Freya around like a rag doll in a dog's mouth.
Finally, her hair ripped loose and Freya was free... just in time to slam flat-on-her back against an embankment and take a spectacularly-violent gutpunch from the bike as it pinned her momentarily against the dusty bank.
Whoever edited the video had gone to slow-motion for the crash, zooming in on her just as the chain had caught her hair. As for the final impact, it was ultra-slow motion. You could see the oil spraying out from her mouth as the motorcycle compressed her against the dirt.
"GHHAAHAWW!", she laughed loudly as she staggered around in circles, the foamy oil on her face making her look like a mad dog foaming at the mouth. "What'na heck happen THAT time?!"
Then, apparently noticing the streaks of light in the eyes of one of the persocoms that was recording the event, she walked right up to him. "Don't try this at home, kids!", she cackled loudly, just inches from his face. "Ahh, being crazy is such fun..."
Then she went to get back on her bike, only to find it in pieces among some rocks. "Pff", she commented dismissively, before staggering off down the sidewalk.
"Holy cow", Freya whispered to the Motosuwas as they sat in the back of the courtroom. "That looks WAY worse than I remember it!"
"Holy cow is right", Chi whispered back. "You're lucky to be alive, Freya!"
"Does that look normal to you?", the accuser demanded as he shut off the projector. "Who in their right mind would program their persocom to commit such destructive acts of utter mayhem?"
He looked Ms. Hibiya right in the eye, and asked her one of the same questions the police had asked her. "What perverted kind of programming did you install in that thing, Ms. Hibiya? You should foot the bill for all the repairs to that park... and that destructo-bot of yours ought to be cut up, and sold for scrap!"
Once Chitose got her chance to speak, she explained Freya as best she could. "I'm barren", she began, "so my late husband Dr. Mihara..." (here she paused, knowing everyone would recognize the name) "...built her for me."
"AND we all know what a complete maniac the Doc was", the accuser replied. "So basically you're claiming it was Dr. Mihara who programmed that persocom for destructive acts?"
"No!", Ms. Hibiya replied. "Freya is designed to learn on her own, to develop, to grow mentally and emotionally, as near as possible to how a human being would", she told the court, "and that's ALL. Nobody installed any weird APP or anything!"
Then she turned to look at Freya with tears in her eyes. "She might not be flesh and blood", Chitose cried, "but she's my daughter, just the same! She doesn't deserve to be EXECUTED!"
"Executed?", Freya gasped, blanching white at the sound of the word. {oh crap, is that what he meant by 'lose the persocom'?}
"If it had been ME on that motorcycle, you wouldn't be looking to cut ME up for scrap!", Ms. Hibiya spat venomously at the accuser.
The judge sat there for a few moments, looking thoughtful. Then he looked out across the room, right at Freya. "Come over here, Miss Mihara", he called out to her. Her lead guitarist pushed Freya's wheelchair towards the front of the courtroom, up to where the judge was sitting.
Once she was out from behind the spectators, the judge stared angrily at her. "A WHEELCHAIR?!", he demanded. "Who do you think you're fooling? If you're looking for sympathy or something, forget it! I know you were walking when they first brought you in!"
Freya opened her mouth to reply, but the judge cut her off. "I can't even tell what you ARE", he mumbled. "A woman? A machine? WHAT?"
"You know what? I don't care" , he continued before Freya could respond. "That is a question for some other court, some other time. This case is about behavior and intent, guilt or innocence."
He motioned for Ms. Hibiya to approach as well. "I see no evidence that Ms. Hibiya programmed this persocom for any specific actions", he announced. "To me, its behavior seems just like that of any rather reckless human. I shall therefore treat it as such."
"Ms. Hibiya is NOT GUILTY!", he declared, and everyone on her side of the courtroom breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he pointed at Freya. "FREYA is guilty!", he continued loudly, prompting Freya to gulp uncomfortably. "And since there's no legal procedure for putting persocoms on trial, I shall simply inform you of your sentence."
He leaned forward, looking down at her from his high perch at the bench. "Are you ready to hear your penalty?"
Freya nodded, fear in her eyes.
"Freya Mihara, I am fining you 120 million yen!", he announced, prompting spectators to gasp at the amount.
Freya, in contrast, showed little reaction at all. If anything, she looked relieved.
"Do you understand, Miss Mihara?", the judge asked. "How does this sound to you?"
"I, um.. Yeah, it sounds fair enough to me", Freya replied, shrugging slightly. "Who do I make the money transfer out to? Maybe now they can even put in that big water feature they've been talking about for..."
"Freya you're being FINED, NOT SUED", the judge told her exasperatedly. "That money isn't going straight to rebuilding the park."
Then he looked her deviously in the eye. "YOU are going to fix that park", he informed her. "By yourself! With a shovel and a rake, and a bag of grass seed. STARTING TOMORROW!"
"T- Tomorrow?", Freya gasped. "What? Wait a..."
"Is there a PROBLEM, your 'highness'?", the judge asked sarcastically. "Does this interfere with your little starlet schedule?"
"Oh, it's not that", she explained, blushing beet-red. "I'm just... not supposed to be moving around 'til I get this, um ...infection... cleared up..."
"Don't tell me, let me guess", the judge deadpanned. "You have Borkumensis. Again. How many times is it now, little miss bacteria?"
"Um, three...", she mumbled hesitantly, shrinking down in her seat.
"What EVER", the judge spat. "Finish your treatment, and then fix the park." Freya nodded meekly.
By now the audience was making way too much noise, and the judge had had enough of it. "I realize Freya is a very popular and well-constructed persocom, people", he told them, "but this is a serious case, demanding serious attention. So will you please stop it with the wolf-whistling?!"
"Just one more thing, Miss Mihara", he continued, after the spectators had quieted down. "I hereby order you to undergo mandatory psychological counseling."
"Wha?!", she yelped. "A shrink?"
"Well, if you prefer, we could just REFORMAT you", the judge threatened.
"No no", she responded quickly, giving a submissive wave. "Counseling's fine."
As they left the court, Ms. Hibiya pushing Freya in her wheelchair, a gaggle of reporters swarmed in on them, their cameras flashing.
"You gonna keep riding motorcycles?", one of them asked Freya.
"Is it true you've been banned from doing concerts?", another asked.
"Are you on death row now?", someone shouted from somewhere off-camera.
So many questions were being hurled at her, so many at a time, by so many reporters, it just sounded like a bunch of chickens squawking, and soon Freya simply looked into the nearest TV camera, smiled, and made moose-antlers at it.
"You'll get your answers when I write my next batch of songs" She announced to the world. "Concerts! Kyoto! Be there!"
Next chapter:
Freya fixes the park, then heads off to Kyoto, which is where her next round of concerts is. It's also where the psychologist is that the judge ordered her to go to for counseling.
Soon:
Another space mission for Ataru, and a lot more than just 2 other persocoms this time.
Kojima gets some relief from his money troubles, but not in the way he expected.
Some random end-of-chapter notes:
Please forgive any inaccuracies as to the legal proceedings; I was only able to get a vague idea of it reading stuff online.
"Neko" means cat. (maybe his owner thought naming him that would bring good luck?)
"Suzume" translates into English as "Sparrow". (she is, after all, a PIRATE'S persocom) And the next trial is for her owner.
The fact that the Karate Queen dolls were huge compared to the Piffle Princess ones, and couldn't even be played on the same arena, certainly contributed to KQ's demise. But at least they were internally powered, and could move on their own.
120 million yen is about the same as 1.2 million U.S. dollars, last I checked. That's a big fine, but hey, she's a big star, she can afford to pay it.
Freya wasn't supposed to be moving around at all... But a few minor hand movements such as waving to the judge, and making moose-antlers at the camera, ought to be okay.