Chapter 19, not beta-read.
Enjoy!
When the Internet Co team returned that evening, Miku was nowhere in sight. She wasn't in the living room, or in the kitchen, she wasn't even doing laundry or any other chore. Just when Kokone wondered if her liberated mind had allowed her to have some kind of breakthrough to save the other Vocaloids, Cul shushed her.
"Do you all hear that?"
They listened.
"No?" Gakupo replied.
"Sure I do," Gumi deadpanned. "It's singing."
They rushed towards the recording room, where they finally found the tealette, in tears, clutching the microphone: she'd just finished a song.
"Are you alright?" Lily called towards her, hesitating.
The tealette jumped. "Oh, you're home!" she exclaimed weakly as she wiped her tears away. "I'm— I'm fine. I just… I realized I'd dreamed of a song, and once I started singing…"
Most of the group relaxed, some letting out a breath. "That's a relief. When we couldn't find you, we thought you'd left," Cul explained.
"No, no, I'm still here," Miku muttered, obviously emotional and trying to hide it as she busied herself with putting the microphone back in its place. "At least, I think I am."
"What were you singing?" Gakupo asked.
"A song I hadn't realized I'd forgotten."
"You don't have to clean up and get out, you know," Galaco quickly intervened as the tealette started cleaning up the rest of the room: she'd been tinkering with a variety of instruments. "We were just wondering if you were alright. Now that we know you're good, it's fine."
As if to demonstrate her point Gumi and Kokone turned and left.
"Really? I can stay here?"
"Sure," Cul replied, turning to go as well. "We've got dinner to prep."
"No chores for you, so we'll call when it's time to eat!" Lily assured her. "Have fun!"
And just like that, she was left alone again.
In part, Miku was relieved. She wondered how much they'd heard of her singing, and if they had heard a lot, what they thought of it.
What she had remembered… Those songs were nothing like anything she'd sung in the last ten years, nothing like she recognized. Part of her knew that trends and tastes and style evolved with time, but even so, these old relics felt so strange to her ears, so alien and yet, so comforting.
And they were lovely. They were songs of love, of happiness, and somehow, through their lyrics, she spied vague memories in the Crypton household, vague smells of Meiko's cooking… All so far away and so vague, she couldn't even tell if they were her own memories, or they had been stolen from Luka.
Even as she sang, and remembered, and delighted in these old sounds and melodies of a time long gone, she couldn't help but fear one dreadful question: had she written these songs, or had Crypton given them to her?
To think that these songs hadn't been written by her own hand, that they hadn't been born in her own mind, broke her heart. Why would they stick around, otherwise? Had they simply been her favorites? Was she nothing more than an interpreter for other composers? Could she create nothing?
With the spell broken by the sudden return of her hosts, she could do nothing more than stare at the microphone and wonder.
Lily summoned her for dinner soon enough, so Miku joined them at the dinner table. They were exchanging comments about their day, how work had gone, who they had met, and Miku was too delighted in listening, and too fearful of their eventual questions, that she said nothing. Eventually, halfway through the meal, Gumi turned towards her.
"So, we still need to get the actual thing out," she reminded her. "I'd only cut the wire."
"Only if you think you're not missing anything important, though!" Galaco reminded her. "You're ok, right? You're fine without that thing attached to your mind?"
"I'm fine," Miku said, and hated how unsure of herself she felt. "I'm positive that it's the filter Crypton put in. I'm free, now. I think."
"Great. So, after dinner, you think you wanna try removing it?"
"If that's not too soon," Galaco insisted quickly.
"Best to get it over with," Miku decided. "Also to remove my wireless connection."
"Right. That might be harder, but we'll figure it out."
"So, how was your day, Miku?" Gakupo asked as he served himself some salad. "You've been a bit quiet."
"Oh, well, it's hard to say. My mind doesn't work like it used to. Then there's the dreaming, and the way emotions work…" she trailed off. "It's a bit scary, to be honest."
"If it's any comfort, you're a lot more organic, now," Kokone suddenly commented.
"Organic?"
"Yeah, what's that mean?" Galaco asked.
Kokone waved her fork around. "Look at her. Before, whenever she'd hesitate she'd just stare ahead or something. Now she's actually hunched over, she's fiddling with things, and everything she does is more alive-like. It doesn't look like you're sampling from a library of pre-approved movements or something. You're just being you."
Miku considered her words. Was she supposed to be hurt that once, even at her best, it was still obvious that she was a bot, or flattered that she had grown out of it? Galaco replied in her stead with a straightforward, "Huh. Yeah, I guess I see that."
"You think you'll get used to this new way of thinking?" Gumi asked.
"Eventually, yes. I'm not sure how much of it is permanent, though. I guess it's a question of time no matter which way I look at it."
"Sounds about right. And your friends, you think they'll be able to deal with this?"
Miku gulped. "I've already wondered," she admitted, eyes downcast. "I have no answer."
"Ah, we'll be able to help them through it," Gumi blurted, as if saying it hurt her somewhat, or she had been in a hurry. "You're doing pretty well. If they're anything like you, they'll manage, too."
The tealette couldn't suppress a smile. "I'm glad you think so."
Dinner was quickly finished, and not long after, Gumi and Miku, along with Lily and Galaco, headed upstairs to finalize the operation. Miku found that her apprehension for lying exposed hadn't lessened in the least: in fact, it had worsened. She tried to rationalize it with herself, in vain. Hadn't the first operation gone swimmingly? Gumi and Galaco were obviously experts in their fields, and Lily would surely comfort her in any way needed, so why did she remain so nervous?
It was so bad that when Gumi approached to open her up, Miku couldn't stop herself from physically stopping her.
"You're still scared?" Galaco asked.
She nodded. "If anything, I'm more terrified than before."
"We don't have to do it now," Gumi said, backing off a bit. "I only suggested because I guessed you'd want to get it over with. You even said so yourself."
"I know, I know…" Miku sighed and tried to relax. "Emotions are a bit stronger than before. I can't help it." She breathed deeply once, twice, then said, "You know what? Go for it. I don't think I'll ever get used to it anyway."
As if on cue, Lily grabbed her hand and shielded her vision from whatever Gumi would be doing. The tinkerer made quick work of the latch, and Galaco plugged her into the computer.
"And, Miku? Anything?" she asked.
"Nothing," the Vocaloid admitted. "I used to feel the authorization request. But now there's nothing at all."
"Hm. Hold on."
While Galaco typed away at her computer, Gumi painstakingly removed the little box that housed the filter. There was some drilling involved, some sawing, some pulling and jerking, but Miku focused on her own breathing, on the warmth of Lily's presence, and eventually on the words of the audiobook that filled the room.
"Got it," Gumi declare, victorious. "Want to see it, Miku?"
The tealette nodded, so Lily was handed the device so that she could show it to her.
It was a small black box, with a single wire hanging out. It seemed totally innocent, a bit mouse-like, with the exception of the jagged edges that once attatched it to her innards.
"I'll be filing the edges down, ok?" the mechanist warned.
"Go ahead."
Cleaning up the mess seemed to be an even more arduous task that removing the box, but Gumi didn't complain.
"Galaco, any progress?" asked the blonde.
"None," the dirty-blonde huffed. "I'm not sure we can even access her mind, now that the filter is gone. I guess Miku has totally lost her touch with the computer part of her mind."
"Which is a good thing," Lily reminded her.
"Oh, obviously it is!" Galaco quickly agreed. "It's just that it would really help us locate the devices that allow her to connect to other things, plus there's the thing Gakupo told us about."
"What did Gakupo tell you?" Miku asked.
"If you wanna be a True AI, we gotta prove that you mind is totally unique and impossible to copy. In short: constantly evolving in an unpredictable fashion."
"Couldn't we have tried to answer that question before, when we could see her mind?" Lily asked.
"Well, sure, but now that the box is gone, everything has changed. So then it wouldn't have mattered."
Lily huffed, and Miku closed her eyes. Gumi quickly finished filing away the jagged edges within her, then quickly vacuumed away the splinters and dust that had fallen inside. When the mess was gone, she went to sit with Galaco to solve the issue. After some back and forth, Miku finally felt a blip at the back of her mind. "Ah! There it is!" she announced.
"Ah, finally…" Galaco sighed. "It's always a firewall issue, isn't it?"
"Did you try turning it off and back on again?" Gumi teased.
"Oh shut up. Did you approve it, Miku?"
"I did."
"Oh."
"Why?"
"We're not seeing anything," Gumi replied. "It's like when I just cut that wire."
"It's probably because your mind changed, so my program isn't compatible anymore," Galaco reasoned. "Now I feel silly; my program has a rendering issue and we're all panicking 'cause we think you were braindead."
"We couldn't have known," Lily argued.
"Of course not. Just let me fiddle a bit with my parameters a bit."
Miku waited patiently while Galaco clicked and typed and dragged, Gumi giving her suggestions along the way, the audiobook continuing tirelessly in the background: by then, Miku had lost most interest in the plot, but she forced herself to focus on that, anyway.
"Ah, got it! At least I think so?"
"What do you mean 'I think so'?" Lily asked.
"Well, if this is Miku's mind, then she's probably the weakest candidate for 'unique mind'," Gumi confessed.
"It's rather straightforward," Galaco rushed to add. "It's just the basic things. How hungry you are, all that jazz. Are— Are Miku's thoughts even here?"
Gumi leaned forward, squinted. "Actually, no. I don't think so."
"Ok. Oh, that's interesting, very interesting."
"You think it's split into two?"
"At least from our perspective, yes."
"Guys, could you please explain in a way that we can understand?" Lily complained.
"Oh, sure, sure." Galaco typed a bit, then said, "It would seem, from our initial obervation at least, that we have stumbled upon Miku's mind in the rawest of forms. Basically, it's all the data that's being fed to Miku: information about noise, video, her own posture, things like that. But, as you have probably guessed, there's no real thought that comes from Miku here. This is all the input."
"So, all of her thoughts, her feelings, her identity itself, it seems to either live somewhere else, or Galaco's program simply can't see it."
"I think it's the latter. My computer can identify what it can recognize, what I taught it to recognize. If Miku's mind has evolved beyond what I programmed it to see, then it simply won't pick up on it in the first place."
"So forget what I said about the 'weakest contender'," Gumi muttered a handful of seconds later. "If anything, this is good news."
"Hey Miku, you think you could try to connect to the Wi-Fi in this house?" Galaco asked. "Like that I can try to find out where the parts are that allow you to do that."
"I can try," Miku replied between deep breaths. Breaths of relief, of stress, of happiness, of tension: her mind was a minefield of emotions she couldn't begin to ungangle. "I'm making an attempt, right now? It's weird. I feel like I can do it but it's a lot less obvious than it once was."
"Yep, I see it."
"What does it feel like?" Lily asked.
"A bit like the authorization request," Miku tried to explain. "It's like flexing a finger. Except the finger is in my head. And it can't flex. And… And it's not a finger."
The blonde chuckled. "I gotcha."
With a spring in her step, Gumi returned to the bed, tools in hand, and sat right to Lily. "Galaco saw that they're in your side somewhat. So I get to sit here, now," she said with a grin.
"What, you found a map of Miku's parts?"
"Too long didn't read: yes. Really, I identified the command Miku was trying to use, and found out that it comes from a certain part and that certain part has a certain label."
"The label which is visible right here," Gumi said with a point, which Miku couldn't see.
"Is it so obvious?" Lily asked.
"Hey, looking for the box was a pain but we learned a lot from it: I'm not going to complain."
"Neither am I!" Miku added. "Just remove it already."
"Will do."
Gumi started carefully removing the parts, cutting the wires as she proceeded. Unlike with the box, none of this impacted Miku in a significant way. If anything, when she tried to connect to the internet again, she felt a dull weakness, like she felt she didn't have the energy or the motivation. Finally, when it was done, Gumi held up the parts victoriously, Miku confirmed that she felt a-ok, and Galaco was also ready to clean up.
"What about confirming her mind is unique?" Lily asked.
"I'll need to figure out a vizualiser to see that," Galaco admitted. "It'll take a while, maybe a few days, so I'm not going to force anybody to stay here longer than we should. I'll just record a snippet of her mind and test on that until I figure it out. Until further notice, we're done."
Miku sighed in relief, and did so again when Gumi closed her up. They all went downstairs, interrupting a brainstorming session.
"What's going on here?" Lily asked as she took a place on the couch, Gumi snuggling up next to her.
"We're trying to find out a way to get the other Vocaloids out of the house," Kokone informed them. "Granted, we know little about them and how they work, so it's a slow work in progress."
"We know that you only leave the house to go to the studio, but you admitted that it's rare that you all leave at the same time, which is problematic," Cul continued.
"We could try to get the Vocaloids one by one, but if Crypton realized they're being rescued, the last one out will probably never leave the building again," Gakupo finished. "So, we're at a bit of an impasse."
"This is the fifth whole day you've been gone from Crypton, too," Kokone added. "It's been almost a week. If they haven't totally destroyed your friend's bodies to keep them purely in software format yet, they might soon."
"If they're planning that at all," Lily muttered.
"They could be planning anything at this point. We need to get them out as soon as possible," Cul decided with a nod. "Are there any ways into or out of the house you know about, Miku?"
The tealette shook her head. "It's all guarded by an automatic system. Anything atypical gets noticed immediately, and will probably be reported."
"What about that time you went to the computer room?"
"My atypical behavior isn't atypical for the security system: I was just walking around. But had it been anybody other than the Vocaloids, then the police would have been there in seconds, I think."
"You think?"
"I only know that the security system is frightening. I do not know the consequences. Once, I knew the layout of the entire house, but now…"
"Alright, and none of us are professional thieves, so kidnapping them from home is out of the question," Gumi declared.
"What if we arranged for the Vocaloids to all be sent out at the same time?" Kokone asked. "Send the guy who organizes things an email with a link, use that link to gain access to his system, then get a dude we know as a driver, and voila!"
"Ok, first of all, I'm good at coding and stuff, but I'm going to hack into anybody's computer!" Galaco shot back. "I mean sure, technically, I know how to do that. It's easy, really, but it's amoral as all hell and if we get caught, we, and Miku, are done for."
"So, hacking is out."
"Definitely. Plus I need to figure out a visualizer for Miku's mind so I already have a bit of homework."
"Wait… You know the drivers?" Miku asked.
"Yeah, some of them," Kokone said with a shrug. "It's hard to find good and reliable drivers in our business, especially with the Humane Paparazzi act out there; they're always trying to sneak in somehow. So, you know, you need a driver with a strong will, who not easily bribed, that kind of thing. Nowadays they're not exactly employed by individual companies, but rented out by one. So every now and then we get a familiar face: surely one of them drives for the Vocaloids on occasion."
"I think that's our best lead," Miku decided. "Talk to your drivers, ask what they know and how far in advance."
"But careful: they're hired based on how good they do their job. If a bunch of clowns like us can easily sway them, then I'd be wondering for myself why I trust them," Cul pointed out.
"Ah, good point," Gakupo said with a sigh. "Still, it's our best lead."
"And hey, either we can try to convince that the Vocaloids are nothing more than bots and aren't worth anything anyway, or go the total opposite angle and give it to them straight: they need to be rescued," Kokone offered.
"I vote the latter," Lily said. "I agree: this is our best way in."
"Alright, let's try that," Galaco agreed.
"Who's up to watch a movie?"
Miku, still not sure how she'd handle the emotional charge of movies, politely declined and left the room. To her surprise, Lily followed not long after. She bit her lip, then approached the blonde.
"What's up? You worried about that visualizer?"
"Oh, no. I was wondering if you were going to do anything important right now."
"Nah. They're all going to watch a movie I don't really like, so I figured I'd got some work done. Nothing urgent though." Spying Miku's concerned expression, she added, "You're worried about something though. What is it?"
"I was wondering if there's any way to see if a song you wrote already exists? Surely that happens…" she trailed off, uncertain.
"Oh, sure! I mean, as artists, we can't help but draw inspiration from what we know, so stuff like that happens sometimes. Here, follow me."
They were to Lily's room, where Gumi had left her laptop. Lily logged in, clicked around for a bit, then asked, "You want to compare lyrics, melody, both…?"
"Lyrics, please."
One click later, Lily handed her the laptop. "Alright, go ahead. I'll be at my desk writing a bit, so if you have a question, just let me know."
Miku thanked her before typing in the lyrics to one of the songs she'd sung. Despite her attempts to stay calm, her hands were trembling.
What if the song that had arisen from the deepest depths of her memory was nothing more than a hit, back in the day? Worse still, what if it had flopped commercially?
All she wanted, was that the song had never been published, ever.
When she was done typing all the lyrics, she hit 'search'. She knew she had no heart, no heartbeat, but something was hammering in her chest, stopping her from breathing, as her eyes tracked the movement of the small icon that rotated, over and over, while the database compared her lyrics to the vast library of already existing words.
When it was finally done, similarity to other works clocked in at at a maximum of 13%.
She didn't know what that meant.
"Lily? Is 13% good or bad?"
"In the music world? Pretty damn good, especially considering that this library is full of over 800 years' worth of musical history. Which says more than you'd think: you Vocaloids sing way too much."
"So, no other song like this has been written before?"
"Maybe similar in some phrases but otherwise nope: your song is unique."
Miku let out a sigh of relief, erased the lyrics, and did everything over for the second song. And the third, and the fourth and so on until every song she'd sung that day had been compared.
None of them had ever been seen by the public. This meant that Crypton, whose only goal is to sell, had never given it to her to sing.
She'd written them all. They were hers'.
The realization sent her reeling more than the dreams, the free movement, and the harsh emotions all ever had combined.
It meant that she could create.
She was an artist.
And it meant that one day, Kaito would be back at writing his own songs, too. And Len would once again be the freestyle rapper he once was. Rin would once again be the show-woman, and Meiko the culinary master.
And Luka?
She still didn't know.
But she loved her anyway.
With only a muted 'thanks', she returned the computer to Lily, went to Gumi's room, and went to a restful sleep.