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Disclaimer: What I said in the last chapter is what I still say. I
haven't changed my mind and don't think you can get me to just so you
can sue me. So there.

Well, chapter two, I hope this is all right. I've decided to extend the
story a little, make it more than a simple happy ever after story.
Also, if anyone can think of a better way to phrase those last few
sentences I'd really appreciate it, I think they sound kinda weird.
Anyway, here's the story.

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The discovery of Laughton's notebook heralded the end of Kenichi and the
small robot community's troubles. Tima's repairs were now proceeding
smoothly, and would soon be completed. The size of the group had almost
doubled, and daily scavenger hunts were now being made into the ruins.
In essence the future looked bright.
On one of the hunts the remains of the throne had been recovered, and
much as Kenichi hated the machine which had taken Tima from him, he was
studying it. He needed to know how to interface with Tima to be sure
she was no longer dangerous.
"How are you doing?" Aki asked as she walked into the poorly lit room,
containing a carbon steel throne lying on its side in a corner,
connected to the pile of computer paraphernalia which was Kenichi's
terminal, a mattress, a desk covered in an impressive collection of
messy schematic diagrams, and the boy who was hunched over them. The
other noticeable items on the desk were a collection of photographs
taken from the notebook, each one of Tima. It was beginning to bear an
unnerving resemblance to the desk in Duke Red's office.
"Not well." Kenichi had started to understand the basics of the language
of beeps used by his robot companions. It was simple binary code with
minor emotive toning, so with his newfound computer experience Kenichi
could, albeit rather slowly, interpret what his friends were saying.
"The throne connects to Tima through her hands for simple data transfer,
but for the big things like emotions, optical and audio data..." Kenichi
sighed and shook his head.
Aki reached up and touched his arm.
"Kenichi, you can do it, don't worry. All you need to do is review the
core log files. Then we can wake Tima."
Kenichi turned to look at the little robot.
"But what if she's still dangerous? I could never review her
programming without better access, and since I can't study the rest of
the throne..."
"Quiet now Kenichi. You've made yourself stay awake too long and you
need to rest. You won't be able to help Tima if you can't even take
care of yourself. Go to bed."
"Yes, you're right Aki. Thank you." Kenichi murmured and rose stiffly
from his seat. It would be nice to sleep on a bed again; lately he had
been waking up in the mornings lying on top of the previous night's
work.
"Goodnight Kenichi." Aki beeped and shut the door.

* * * * *

That night as he slept Kenichi remembered the happy moments he had spent
with Tima. He remembered those first seconds in which Tima had turned
her eyes on him, the moment when the unbreakable bond between Kenichi
and Tima had been forged. From then on, one way or another, one had
always been in the other's mind. Then Kenichi dreamed he was sitting in
a tree back in his home country holding hands with Tima and she turned
and smiled at him. Suddenly all was black. Tima was gone and he was
alone. Kenichi called out for her but Tima was nowhere to be seen. He
ran around in the dark randomly for a while still calling until
eventually Tima appeared in front of him. Kenichi was hit by an
overwhelming sense of relief as he ran to her, however when he reached
her Tima was just stood motionless. He repeatedly asked her what was
wrong and shook her gently but nothing ever happened, her face remained
blank and expressionless. Kenichi finally put his arms around Tima and
cried.
"Kenichi..."
Kenichi stepped back and looked at Tima. Had she just spoken?
"Kenichi..."
She had spoken his name this time, he was sure.
"What is it Tima? I'm here."
"Kenichi wake up."
"Huh?"
Kenichi opened his eyes. He was lying on his front in his room. The
owner of the voice had not been Tima but a humanoid robot kneeling
beside his head.
"Kenichi you were having a bad dream."
Kenichi stood up from his bed, his vision was still a little blurred.
"Chris...? Ungh..."
"Come on Kenichi, get up. We've got a lot to do today, if we work hard,
we can be done within the week."
"Yeah, I know. It'll be nice to get out of this cramped room."

* * * * *

As Kenichi, Chris and Aki walked out of the old sewer access that led to
their home, each was forced to cover their eyes momentarily in the
bright sunlight. It had been several days since Kenichi had been
outside, and it took his eyes a while to adjust.
"Come on Kenichi, Aki, everyone's waiting down in the plaza." Chris said
walking away.
The plaza was an area cleared of rubble and covered by a large canvas
sheet suspended on poles at the centre of the ruins a few hundred metres
from the sewer. Whenever Kenichi came to this place and saw Tima's
metal skeleton (The last of the skin had had to be removed a long time
ago as it was starting to rot) lying on the work table, the sight of her
near completion almost brought tears to his eyes. Today was different
though; today was the day Kenichi would place Tima's heart in her breast
and begin the final checks that would enable him to activate her. He
held the heart's container tightly in his hand.
As Kenichi stood over his friend's prone metal body and looked into her
eyes, he suddenly felt incredibly weak. He felt that terrible weight of
responsibility again and looked down at the capsule in his hand. One
mistake at this point and it would be all over. Tima's heart was
incredibly delicate and if even one of the tiny glass like needles that
connected it to her fuel and lubrication systems was damaged, it would
be impossible to fix. This task should really be done with special
equipment, but there was no way to acquire it. It would have to be done
by hand, and not by the clumsy hands of a worker robot.
Kenichi felt something touch his shoulder and turned round to find Fifi
standing behind him.
"Ke-nichi... you c-a-n do... it. Do n-ot wor-ry." Fifi said. Kenichi
had recently discovered that even though the damage done when Rock had
shot his friend had been repaired, it had left Fifi with some sort of
speech impediment. Kenichi had never been able to find the problem and
had eventually put it down to some kind of collective malfunction.
"Thanks Fifi, in fact, thank you, all of you." Kenichi said stepping
back and looking at the thirty or so robots who had helped with the
repairs.
"I could never have done this without your help. You've all been very
supportive and now I have to finish this."
The next four hours were spent carefully connecting each pin to its
respective coupling, then feeding the connection wire gently back into
its socket. It was very stressful for everyone, especially for Kenichi,
but eventually the task was finished.
As the last wire was fed into it's socket and the clamps applied to hold
the heart in place, Kenichi gave a sigh and closed the incision.
"It's finished..." as Kenichi spoke he lost his balance and fell
forwards. Chris was there to catch him and the next thing Kenichi knew
was he was lying in his bed.

* * * * *

The next day was an incredibly busy one as Kenichi and the robots
carried Tima into his workroom and carefully connected her to the I/O
ports Kenichi had designed. He spent the rest of the day checking the
connections and debugging his terminal's communication protocols.
Kenichi was awake long into the night. When he awoke in the chair of
his terminal the next morning, he ached all over.
Once he had gotten up Kenichi and the others began the slow and boring
procedure of starting Tima's subsystems for the status check. All
prayed it would yield positive results.
After Kenichi had managed to establish a two-way connection to Tima's
CPU everyone left him alone to do his work. Only Aki entered the room
every few hours to bring Kenichi some food and water.
"How is she?" Aki once asked.
"Everything's okay so far Aki but I can't tell whether or not she's
still being controlled by whatever took her over. It's like a ghost in
her system; leaving whatever subsystem I find it in the instant I gain
access. I'm closing in on it though. Every system I enter I re-encrypt
the access codes. It's running out of hiding places."
One log Kenichi read he found quite disturbing. It was her final log
made as she dangled from the tower. Through this log Kenichi was able
to put a name to the ghost in Tima's system, a program calling itself
'Internal Control Override'. During the time when Tima had been
attacking Kenichi, it seemed her emotion processor had been locked out
of the CPU by the logic systems, the place where the override program
had been controlling her from. But what Kenichi found even more
worrying was that her emotive system had stopped fighting after a while
and had been replaced in its battle by something the CPU could not
identify. Had Tima finally discovered her heart? Was that what this
'Unknown Source' that had kept calling to Kenichi for help was?
Finally Kenichi was able to corner the ghost in Tima's audio processor
and delete it. After that he ran one final check to make sure
everything was in order, then knelt down beside Tima and in the end fell
asleep.

* * * * *

Kenichi woke full of energy, he leapt up from his place on the floor,
ran outside and called everyone to help. Today was the day he would
awaken Tima. When Tima had been carried outside Kenichi touched a power
cable to her head and waited. First off a quiet hum began to emanate
from the centre of Tima's body, then was replaced by a soft whine. Next
skin gradually began to spread from Tima's toes and fingers until her
entire body was covered. Next hair sprouted from her head, billowing
into its old shape and blowing in the breeze. Kenichi was holding
Tima's hand all this time, a smile on his face and tears in his eyes.
Once all this was complete Tima's eyes slowly opened, the red dots
fading to be replaced by a deep green corona. Tima was alive again.
"Tima...?" Kenichi asked hesitantly.
Nothing. Again Kenichi called to Tima and again there was no response.
After a short time Kenichi began to cry, his arms around Tima and
continuously begging her to come back. An hour later Kenichi stopped
trying to wake Tima and asked the others to carry her downstairs. There
he connected her to his terminal and ran scan after scan trying to find
out what was wrong. He could find nothing. Tima's memories were all
there, her systems were functioning properly, the control routes were
clear, there was nothing wrong. Kenichi even sent several cries of
"Tima!" to her emotive systems, but nothing ever responded. Eventually
he shut down the terminal and sat at his desk crying.
Then an idea hit him; Kenichi remembered the piece of equipment Tima had
trailed behind her as she had attacked him. He knew it was in the room
somewhere, he remembered stuffing it in a box. When Kenichi found it
hidden in a pile of junk in a corner, he recognised it immediately. It
was a transmitter. From this Kenichi started to develop the craziest
plan he had yet come up with. If that was a transmitter, could it be
the logic systems had, after failing to uncouple her emotive systems,
somehow managed to push Tima's mind out of her body and into the
worldwide network. It would explain the unknown source puzzle
perfectly. The unknown source was the last link between Tima and her
body, which was severed when her fuel cells failed and she fell from the
Ziggurat. Tima was lost somewhere in the global computer network, and
Kenichi would find her!


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Well? How was it? R&R please!