Bubblegum Crisis Post 2040 Fanfic Series

Bubblegum Crisis Post 2040 Files

Part 2: Hunters

Chapter 16: Need To Know Basis

by P. Kristen Enos (bgcpost2040@aol.com)

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A Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 English Dub Version Fanfic. All rights belong to AIC, ADV Films and the other creative powers that be. I just want credit for writing the story. Contains spoilers! Rated PG13. Yuri warning! Nothing in here should be a shock if you've watched the episodes and paid attention. All I'm doing is filling in the gaps with my own interpretation of events! Special thanks to egret for betaing!

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Dr. Sho Yamada couldn't help but scratch his head as he watched the stream of ones and zeros fly across his computer screen. Even after a week, he could not make any sense of the patterns, yet he couldn't deny that the information was there.

Frustrated and bewildered, he glanced across the otherwise empty lab at Sylvie, who was stationed at a chair and table, dressed in a white smock, quietly and methodically pouring over a French newspaper, the latest test of her language recognition and comprehension skills. As the second part to her test, he would have her verbally summarize each story in Japanese, a feat she did with such accuracy and realism that he could almost forget the fact that she wasn't human.

While Sho admitted that he was quite proud of her, a part of him had begun to question whether or not it was a good idea to implement all of the algorithms and special wiring designs of the recovered files without truly understanding the true purpose behind them. Still, he limited his scientific curiosity to enhancing only her while maintaining stricter controls on what algorithms were deployed on her three 'sisters'. And even with the enhancements, she was still a hybrid model since there wasn't enough time or need to completely upgrade or remove all of her original hardware and software.

Sho made it a point to know everything about her so naturally he was stumped and disgruntled when he came across an unexpectedly large data file in her memory banks right after the demonstration. The one piece he was able to figure out was that this file was the data Sylvie had compiled on Reika. All of the other data files, one per person, in her person recognition directory were still relatively small compared to this new one, even her file on Sho himself, the person she had the most interactive experience with. The overall amount of memory used versus what was available was still minute, but the fact that it was that it was so relatively large and indecipherable was puzzling.

Sho scratched his head as he thought of his future sister-in-law and how much her appearance at the demonstration had surprised him even though it shouldn't have.

When he had first heard the news of the deaths of Richard and Mitsune Chang, he had been stricken with the normal feelings of grief, after all he liked his future in-laws, but there were undeniable feelings of panic as well. The timing was horrible due to the fact that he was so immersed in Sylvie that he didn't want to leave her at this point in her development, especially after the discovery of the old boomer design docs. Then there was the reality of becoming the new head of the Hou Bang Clan, which was an idea he wasn't thrilled about to begin with but had prepared himself to accept it down the road, with a lot of preparation beforehand.

During the brief but intense dating period with Irene, he first met Richard Chang with the awareness that he was meeting his potential father-in-law who also happened to be the CEO of a multi-national corporation. He was shocked enough to find out that his fiancée, who was the physical trainer at the local gym, also happened to come from an incredibly wealthy and prestigious family, although you would never know it given her down to earth personality and simple apartment.

When he later proposed to Irene, she responded that she was thrilled but couldn't accept until her father approved. It was in that second fateful meeting with Richard Chang that Sho found out about the Hou Bang Clan connection. Richard explained to him the situation of the lack of a suitable successor, and that this need would be fulfilled by one of his own children with Irene. There was also the strong possibility that Sho himself would have to become the successor if Richard was unable to continue before his child was old enough to take over. That was the only condition of the marriage in order to get her father's blessing, and Sho agreed to it.

As a boy raised in the lower class area of Tokyo, Sho was aware of the fact that some of his childhood friends had become involved with some of the local Yakuza. Even though he himself was never part of their activities, the name of the Hou Bang Clan was familiar to anyone who was remotely connected to such circles. With the reputation of being "honorable enemies", the Clan was an old-world Chinese family that was originally from Hong Kong but with the strongest presence currently in Tokyo.

Due to his Yakuza knowledge, Sho knew that while many people regarded Hou Bang as multi-national, no one really knew how extensive or powerful the Clan was until someone tried to double cross them, intentionally or otherwise. Then that person immediately got first hand knowledge of just why Hou Bang had the fearsome reputation that they had. When circumstances required, the Clan was just as capable of breaking rules along with everyone else, but much faster and far more merciless.

While he had his own doubts if he could ever be a competent leader of such an organization, he had even more misgivings when Reika told him and Irene that she would be permanently taking over the Clan instead. Irene was clearly shocked by the announcement as well but then asked Sho to leave so she could discuss the matter with her sister. His fiancée had that extremely displeased look on her face that he knew from experience to never question much less argue with. And since Reika seemed ready to meet that reaction with her own formidable determination, he thought it best to give the sisters as much privacy as soon as possible. One irate Chang sister was dangerous enough.

He never found out what was specifically discussed that night between the sisters, other than that it ended with Reika still as the head of the Clan. Irene never gave him details of the fight, and he knew better than to ask. Even though Irene made it clear that she had little direct involvement or knowledge about her family's darker side, she was aware of enough of Clan business and knew when certain matters required discretion. Sho considered it a trade off for the fact that he could never discuss his work at Genom with her, even though he doubted that she truly cared either way.

The rescheduling of the wedding was now in limbo because no one knew when the sisters would be amicable enough for Irene to want Reika to attend, as well as the latter wanting to, which was extremely ironic now that they were living in the same city once again. And when Irene told him about Reika's new engagement, which was quite shocking for obvious reasons, she did it in a tone that clearly said, "Don't ask anything further!"

To Sho's knowledge, this was the first time the sisters had ever had an argument of this magnitude. However, no one questioned their devotion to each other. Although never exactly expressed, people understood it was just a matter of time for the hard feelings to pass.

So he hadn't heard or seen his future sister-in-law until he saw her on the camera which showed Sylvie's visual feed at the Genom demonstration. It was just as well that he had been sitting down in the monitor booth because he was shocked at the sight of Reika, at how she clearly exuded the aura and command needed to be the head of such a powerful organization. Irene had once mentioned that her sister got into acting as a lark, but there was never any doubt about Reika's ability to be the Clan Leader. It was just the accepted fact that she wasn't interested in it so the doubt was really around whether or not she had the passion for the role. To see Reika on the monitor screen dispelled any major doubts Sho may have had, even though there was a nagging question of whether or not this was just an acting job to her.

However, his changed opinion of Reika was eventually overshadowed by the fact that he realized Sylvie's visual attention almost never moved from her, even when she wasn't supposed to be directly facing the woman. In contrast, Sylvie's 'sisters' stared blankly into space while in stand by mode, only shifting their attention to quickly analyze and record any person or thing which moved into their field of vision, before going back to their passive status.

The camera monitors built into Sylvie's eyes weren't precise enough to show the exact details which had Sylvie's attention but he knew there had to be a reason behind this. It couldn't be because Reika was a woman. Ms. Madigan and some of Sho's development staff were women, and Sylvie never had a similar reaction to them.

So why was Reika's data file in Sylvie's system so large and scrambled? Was there a flaw in her programming that caused Sylvie to continue to monitor Reika as some sort of threat assessment? Could this behavior be related to the extra algorithms and design tweaks he had proactively implemented in her and not in the others?

The scientist took in a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. When he had heard the sensational title of "Project: Human Target," Dr. Yamada was quite upset that it would give the wrong impression about Sylvie and her sisters. Now, he hoped it wasn't ironic foreshadowing. The last thing he needed was for a bodyguard boomer to attack an innocent person… Never mind the awkwardness of having to explain it to Irene, no matter how annoyed she was with her sister currently.

Just then, Sho was alerted by the electronic chirp that indicated someone had passed the appropriate safeguards to enter the maximum high security lab. He instantly changed the computer screen to show more neutral information even though there was even less of a chance that someone else could figure out the data file when he could not.

He immediately stood and straightened his tie to make himself presentable to his unexpected visitors. Upon seeing his two superiors walk in, he was glad he was proactive about the effort.

"Good evening, Dr. Yamada," Mr. Rosenkreuz greeted with his usual smooth and friendly style.

Ms. Madigan followed right behind him, pausing in her perusal of her data pad to glance at Sylvie before returning to her reading.

"What are you having her do this time?" the CEO inquired as he came right up to the table and peered at Sylvie closely.

The boomer continued to ignore them both as she methodically turned the pages, matching the reading pace of an average human rather than taking in the information like the high speed scanner that she could be.

"Foreign language comprehension and conversion, Sir," he answered quickly. "She's not able to speak it because we haven't developed the speech module for French yet. But I'm really trying to test out how efficiently she processes and understands the Japanese and French vocabulary databases we've loaded into her. I've had her do a preliminary test and she's perfect. This one is much more extensive but I want to be as thorough as possible."

"I have every confidence that she will pass!" Mr. Rosenkreuz exclaimed and then glanced around, as if noticing the emptiness of the lab for the first time. "Where are her sisters?"

Since Sylvie had been completed earlier than planned, the three sisters were thrown together at the last minute for a display of variety at the demonstration rather than an equal test of skills. The spotlight was clearly on Sylvie as she alone performed the tests, but the sight of more boomers there was an effective showman's touch that Mr. Rosenkreuz had come up with. Now it was a matter of bringing them up to the same level of their oldest sister in preparation for future demonstrations.

"Dr. Yuri is leading the team in the upgrade effort," Sho explained. "They're all in Lab 54."

"Ah, good! And do we have anyone working on the first order yet?"

"I have two of my staff compiling parts and materials. We should be ready to begin construction by the end of next week. May I ask, sir, is it wise to sell these models since we're on the verge of upgrading Sylvie so dramatically and would therefore have a much more sophisticated version available as soon as three months?" the scientist asked, referring to his approved proposal for the next version of the boomer.

"As far as the public is concerned, Sylvie at that demonstration is the most advanced boomer anyone has. As long as that standard is in place, we can take our time with a newer version. But in the meantime, give the public what they want. Speaking of which -- " Mr. Rosenkreuz then reached into his jacket pocket and produced a data pad for the scientist. " - we've just received noticed that a special client is extremely interested in this model, however, they have requested special enhancements in order to have a test demonstration before they will commit to buying. I'd like you to take an initial look at these and let me know if you think they're achievable before I give the client our answer. I honestly think they're interested even without the enhancements, but I'd like to see if we can accommodate their request."

Intrigued, Sho took the pad and began reading. He noticed that the executives remained in the lab, clearly waiting for an immediate response to the required list.

Sho felt his stomach tighten at the first enhancement request, and by the time he reached the end it felt like a lead weight in his gut. Individually, the enhancements weren't that noteworthy, but listed together, they definitely painted an unpleasant picture.

"Y- Yes, these are doable with the girls, sir," the scientist reluctantly answered. "But all of these enhancements focus on making Sylvie just a paramilitary killing machine. That's not what she's created for."

He noticed as soon as he made that comment that Mr. Rosenkreuz paused in his circling of Sylvie and Ms. Madigan looked up from her pad.

"How interesting you should think that, Dr. Yamada," Mr. Rosenkreuz said as he scratched his beard, though still with a tone of amusement. "Sylvie is a top line combat boomer. She always has been a paramilitary killing machine. Just the same as she's a top line recreational boomer, and is therefore also a glorified sex toy. She is whatever we need her to be. And right now, the requirement is to see if we can make her fit the needs of our client. And since you have confirmed that it is doable, I will give the word to our client that we will commit to the upgrades as well as the demonstration that they deem necessary. Is there anything else you wish to add, Dr. Yamada? Besides a delivery date?"

Even though his tone was quite cordial, there was an undeniable steel element in the CEO's words.

"N - No, sir. We should have her prepared within a week."

"Glad to hear that. And upgrade the other girls as well. I'll give you an additional week for them. I'd like to give the client more than what they're expecting." Mr. Rosenkreuz than turned to leave but then paused. "One more thing, Dr. Yamada, I am fully aware of who your future sister-in-law is and that you know she was at the demonstration. I want to commend you on your discretion about company business so far. And I am certain it will continue. As you know, we consider our matters to be extremely proprietary given what we do. It would be unfortunate if we ever have unexpected competition or complications from otherwise manageable sources. Don't you agree?"

"Y - Yes, sir," the scientist responded with a stiff bow.

"Have a good evening, Dr. Yamada," Mr. Rosenkreuz said with a parting bow. "And do continue the good work."

-- End Chapter 16 -