DECISIONS & AWAKENINGS
"Hi-Hideki Motusawa?!! You created a persocom-copy of Chii's..my only one, mother?!!" Chii asked with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Extreme emotional states wreaked a bit of havoc with her upgraded consciousness thus she was shifting back to her old way of referring to herself. The holo- Hibiya nodded in assent and went on to explain.
"This wasn't deliberate on my part, mind you. It was after we had celebrated my forty-fifth birthday when I stumbled upon it. You and Hideki went off for a vacation with your friends in Hokkaido a few days after that and I was left alone here in the complex. I decided then that it would be the ideal time to do some remodeling and refurbishing of the apartments since there would be no one who'd be disturbed. I was here running some diagnostics on this equipment when an e-mail came. It looked ordinary but one of the attachments was quite huge for a compressed file. I opened the smaller one after making sure there were no viruses or malicious content. It turned out to be a recorded message from my late husband, the one who created you and Freya," the holo-Hibiya began. Chii was nothing but amazed at what she was hearing.
*flashback
"Systems-scan 67% complete; continuing with the deep-level diagnostics," declared the system's vocal alert.
"Good. Proceed to Level-2 scans after completion," Hibiya replied.
"Systems-scan 69% complete. Level-2 scans to execute in approximately forty- five minutes...incoming message with attachments. Do you wish to open the file?" stated the system.
"E-mail? Who could've sent this?" Hibiya asked herself.
"Any address?" Hibiya asked.
"None. Security-scans indicate no harmful content. Two attachments in total: do you wish to proceed?" the system added.
Hibiya gave her permission and the system opened the first attachment. A small display on the screen opened and revealed the face of her late husband.
"Greetings, my dearest! Surprised to see me?" her husband asked.
"He-he-he. No need to panic. Yes, it's me. I'll explain the details so calm yourself down. Now, if you're viewing this, it means that the project I initiated has reached fruition and is successful. I've been concurrently working on this even as we're developing our CHOBITS series of persocoms. I hope you are well. I've only finished developing this process and the rest will be up to you. But one thing I want to share with you is this: I've done it and this process works!" Hibiya's late husband continued.
*end flashback
The holo-Hibiya continued with her explanations to Chii. It turns out that her husband had been working with a team of medical specialists whom he consulted in order to verify the synapse performance of the CHOBITS-series of persocoms he and his own team were developing. After verifying and praising his work, the head of the medical team proposed a radical idea to her husband about the possibility of using the persocoms as repositories of the human consciousness for people who may have experienced massive trauma/injuries to the head. Suffice to say that Dr. Chitose her husband, was excited about it and he was soon rapt in a discussion with the head of the medical team as they threshed out their ideas. All in all, it was highly possible to do such a transfer. The major problem lay in the fact that even though the human-brain had been mapped out physically, mapping out the human mind that is, sentience or consciousness was yet to be achieved. Dr. Chitose promised that he and his team would incorporate this new angle into the development of the CHOBITS series. He dedicated an entire server-platform to working out this possibility. Unfortunately, Dr. Chitose, his wife Hibiya, and the rest of his team found themselves at odds with their benefactors and the whole project was cancelled with only Freya being created. But through all this, no one remembered that the server running the virtual-experiments for the consciousness-transfer was still active. Dr. Chitose discovered such only after he had created Elda, his second CHOBIT-persocom. He now had a program that enabled a computer to map out the human MIND and where to store it in a positronic-matrix. He soon went about assembling a setup that would do just that and this would prove to be his undoing as he had overexerted himself. Dr. Chitose would never see his project get completed for he would die early. But before he did, he was able to record the message and save the finished schematics which he compressed and it was these that came as attachments. Hibiya then viewed the schematics after finishing with the recorded message and she found highly intricate and complex plans for an encephalo-scanner/conduit device. She then set about reassembling her late husband's unfinished equipment and it took her almost five years working alone to finish the device. But as she was about to install the program, a thought came to her: who would make a good test-subject? She wasn't about to present the idea to people or the government who might just end up abusing it so she wasn't keen on pursuing that angle. She decided to put things on hold until she could decide.
It was after another five years when Hibiya finally chose to continue the project and found her test subject: Hideki Motusawa. He and Chii had just left her room after spending some time showing her their photo-collection of their various trips and activities. As they stood up to leave, Hideki almost slipped but she and Chii caught him. Hideki thanked her as he righted himself and as he stood up, Hibiya noticed how he had matured into a fine young man. This elated her at first but as she observed Chii, she noted that Chii remained physically the same compared to Hideki and this observation sobered her. Chii WOULD outlive her mother and her ONLY ONE and Chii would be left alone. Hibiya could not be sure how a persocom like Chii would handle something like this. Later that night, Hibiya hit upon a plan. She would copy Hideki's mind gradually; in stages. She then went about making the necessary adjustments to the program parameters in order to allow her to do just that.
"So you copied Hideki's mind every now and then, mother?" Chii asked.
"Yes. The other attachment was the program your father wrote which enabled me to do so." Holo-Hibiya replied.
"When did you do it? I never saw Hideki going in to this room the whole time we were still together," Chii asked.
The holo-Hibiya almost giggled a bit but went onto explain. Every so often, she would ask Hideki to help her with something or with any task that she claimed she was unable to accomplish herself or even ask him over to have a light chat about how things were. She served him tea laced with a powerful tranquilizer which would knock him out but only for a limited time. Hibiya had to be discreet in doing such so as not to be noticed by either him or Chii.
"All in all, I was able to copy his mind periodically for about ten times and this was over a twenty-year period until my actual death. I recorded this message after the last time I copied Hideki's mind. I tweaked the hologram of course, so that it would be more familiar for you," holo-Hibiya added.
Chii took some time to digest all of this that had been revealed to her by her late mother. Right before her was a CHOBIT-persocom who, for all intents and purposes, would become Hideki not only in form but in mind as well. Chii was unsure of what to do for now.
"Everything is ready and all that needs to be done is to transfer Hideki's mind into the persocom. Chii, I will ask you one more time; do you want him? If not, I will cancel the transfer, delete the files and discard the persocom," holo-Hibiya asked.
Chii was searching her thoughts and feelings. Would he be like Hideki in every way or not? Worse, would he even accept what he would become?
"Well?" queried the holo-Hibiya.
"Looking at the persocom's face, Chii touched it. She then sighed and turned to her mother's hologram.
"Yes mother, I do want him," Chi replied.
The holo-Hibiya smiled, then executed the transfer.
*P-Hideki's POV, 50% files transferred. P=persocom
{"Eh? Where am I?"}
{" A bed; no.., a table. A cold table! Brrrrr! I'm lying on a cold table! What does this mean? I'm dead? No! I can't be! Chi and I have just had our anniversary-dinner!" }
{ "Eh? I can't move, either. Who's that talking? }
"His memories are complete but only until his sixty-third birthday, Chii. But the OS I've installed will rectify that. One more thing you have to know, he is a CHOBIT-series2 model," holo-Hibiya stated.
"Does that mean he's more advanced than me, mother?" Chii asked. Holo- Hibiya nodded.
{ "Ms. Hibiya! And Chii! What in the world is going on? Wait a minute, CHOBIT series2?!! I'm a persocom?" }
P-Hideki's thought were interrupted when he heard a vocal-alert stating that all files were completely installed and all adjustments were installed as well.
{ "Adjustments? What the....oh. It's been fifty years since Ms Hibiya died. Does that mean that I'm.....dead too?" }
"Connect your cable to the console on your left, Chii. You'll download your memories of the years after I died," holo-Hibiya instructed.
P-Hideki felt the flood of incoming memories and could only watch. He felt himself stand up from the table and saw Chii with the holographic Hibiya.
{ "She's still so beautiful after all this time," }
"Everything is almost done. All you need to do now is input your password," holo-Hibiya instructed.
"Password, mother?" Chii asked.
"He IS a persocom after all, dear," Holo-Hibiya replied.
{ "Password? Oh no! Please choose a nice one, Chii!" }
Chii searched long and hard within her mind and heart for the appropriate password. This was her Hideki, right in front of her. Again. A persocom he was now but still her Hideki. A few more minutes and CHii finally came to a fitting password.
"I have one, mother," Chii declared. The holo-Hibiya sent a few commands which made the persocom approach Chii.
{ "I'm walking towards Chii! And I'm...I'm...naked!!!" Eeeeeepp!" }
"Please input password." Declared the persocom-Hideki flatly.
Looking to her mother then back to P-Hideki, Chii declared the password.
"Password is.....'SIDE-DISH'!" Chii announced.
{ "What?!!!! 'SIDE-DISH" ?!!!! What kind of a password is that?!!!! No! I don't accept it! No!!! Aaaarrgghh!!!" }
But it was too late as P-Hideki heard himself declare that password had been accepted.
Chii looked at P-Hideki with great anticipation and anxiety as she noted the change in P-Hideki;s pupils, indicating initial boot-up. When it was done, P-Hideki focused his eyes on her and walked to her. Chii was ecstatic and nervous as P-Hideki took her face into his hands and smiled. It was the sweetest smile she had long wanted to see so much. It was him! Her Hideki! Her only one had returned. She smiled and expected to be kissed or caressed when she felt him place left hand under her chin and his right hand on her head, causing her to close her eyes. She was surprised however when P- Hideki mussed her hair instead. She opened her eyes then saw his face with one eyebrow raised and wearing an amused look.
"SIDE-DISH? Couldn't you have chosen a much better password, Chii?" P- Hideki asked.
Chii about to ask what was wrong but she was silenced when P-Hideki's face softened again and he kissed her gently.
"Hi-Hideki Motusawa?!! You created a persocom-copy of Chii's..my only one, mother?!!" Chii asked with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Extreme emotional states wreaked a bit of havoc with her upgraded consciousness thus she was shifting back to her old way of referring to herself. The holo- Hibiya nodded in assent and went on to explain.
"This wasn't deliberate on my part, mind you. It was after we had celebrated my forty-fifth birthday when I stumbled upon it. You and Hideki went off for a vacation with your friends in Hokkaido a few days after that and I was left alone here in the complex. I decided then that it would be the ideal time to do some remodeling and refurbishing of the apartments since there would be no one who'd be disturbed. I was here running some diagnostics on this equipment when an e-mail came. It looked ordinary but one of the attachments was quite huge for a compressed file. I opened the smaller one after making sure there were no viruses or malicious content. It turned out to be a recorded message from my late husband, the one who created you and Freya," the holo-Hibiya began. Chii was nothing but amazed at what she was hearing.
*flashback
"Systems-scan 67% complete; continuing with the deep-level diagnostics," declared the system's vocal alert.
"Good. Proceed to Level-2 scans after completion," Hibiya replied.
"Systems-scan 69% complete. Level-2 scans to execute in approximately forty- five minutes...incoming message with attachments. Do you wish to open the file?" stated the system.
"E-mail? Who could've sent this?" Hibiya asked herself.
"Any address?" Hibiya asked.
"None. Security-scans indicate no harmful content. Two attachments in total: do you wish to proceed?" the system added.
Hibiya gave her permission and the system opened the first attachment. A small display on the screen opened and revealed the face of her late husband.
"Greetings, my dearest! Surprised to see me?" her husband asked.
"He-he-he. No need to panic. Yes, it's me. I'll explain the details so calm yourself down. Now, if you're viewing this, it means that the project I initiated has reached fruition and is successful. I've been concurrently working on this even as we're developing our CHOBITS series of persocoms. I hope you are well. I've only finished developing this process and the rest will be up to you. But one thing I want to share with you is this: I've done it and this process works!" Hibiya's late husband continued.
*end flashback
The holo-Hibiya continued with her explanations to Chii. It turns out that her husband had been working with a team of medical specialists whom he consulted in order to verify the synapse performance of the CHOBITS-series of persocoms he and his own team were developing. After verifying and praising his work, the head of the medical team proposed a radical idea to her husband about the possibility of using the persocoms as repositories of the human consciousness for people who may have experienced massive trauma/injuries to the head. Suffice to say that Dr. Chitose her husband, was excited about it and he was soon rapt in a discussion with the head of the medical team as they threshed out their ideas. All in all, it was highly possible to do such a transfer. The major problem lay in the fact that even though the human-brain had been mapped out physically, mapping out the human mind that is, sentience or consciousness was yet to be achieved. Dr. Chitose promised that he and his team would incorporate this new angle into the development of the CHOBITS series. He dedicated an entire server-platform to working out this possibility. Unfortunately, Dr. Chitose, his wife Hibiya, and the rest of his team found themselves at odds with their benefactors and the whole project was cancelled with only Freya being created. But through all this, no one remembered that the server running the virtual-experiments for the consciousness-transfer was still active. Dr. Chitose discovered such only after he had created Elda, his second CHOBIT-persocom. He now had a program that enabled a computer to map out the human MIND and where to store it in a positronic-matrix. He soon went about assembling a setup that would do just that and this would prove to be his undoing as he had overexerted himself. Dr. Chitose would never see his project get completed for he would die early. But before he did, he was able to record the message and save the finished schematics which he compressed and it was these that came as attachments. Hibiya then viewed the schematics after finishing with the recorded message and she found highly intricate and complex plans for an encephalo-scanner/conduit device. She then set about reassembling her late husband's unfinished equipment and it took her almost five years working alone to finish the device. But as she was about to install the program, a thought came to her: who would make a good test-subject? She wasn't about to present the idea to people or the government who might just end up abusing it so she wasn't keen on pursuing that angle. She decided to put things on hold until she could decide.
It was after another five years when Hibiya finally chose to continue the project and found her test subject: Hideki Motusawa. He and Chii had just left her room after spending some time showing her their photo-collection of their various trips and activities. As they stood up to leave, Hideki almost slipped but she and Chii caught him. Hideki thanked her as he righted himself and as he stood up, Hibiya noticed how he had matured into a fine young man. This elated her at first but as she observed Chii, she noted that Chii remained physically the same compared to Hideki and this observation sobered her. Chii WOULD outlive her mother and her ONLY ONE and Chii would be left alone. Hibiya could not be sure how a persocom like Chii would handle something like this. Later that night, Hibiya hit upon a plan. She would copy Hideki's mind gradually; in stages. She then went about making the necessary adjustments to the program parameters in order to allow her to do just that.
"So you copied Hideki's mind every now and then, mother?" Chii asked.
"Yes. The other attachment was the program your father wrote which enabled me to do so." Holo-Hibiya replied.
"When did you do it? I never saw Hideki going in to this room the whole time we were still together," Chii asked.
The holo-Hibiya almost giggled a bit but went onto explain. Every so often, she would ask Hideki to help her with something or with any task that she claimed she was unable to accomplish herself or even ask him over to have a light chat about how things were. She served him tea laced with a powerful tranquilizer which would knock him out but only for a limited time. Hibiya had to be discreet in doing such so as not to be noticed by either him or Chii.
"All in all, I was able to copy his mind periodically for about ten times and this was over a twenty-year period until my actual death. I recorded this message after the last time I copied Hideki's mind. I tweaked the hologram of course, so that it would be more familiar for you," holo-Hibiya added.
Chii took some time to digest all of this that had been revealed to her by her late mother. Right before her was a CHOBIT-persocom who, for all intents and purposes, would become Hideki not only in form but in mind as well. Chii was unsure of what to do for now.
"Everything is ready and all that needs to be done is to transfer Hideki's mind into the persocom. Chii, I will ask you one more time; do you want him? If not, I will cancel the transfer, delete the files and discard the persocom," holo-Hibiya asked.
Chii was searching her thoughts and feelings. Would he be like Hideki in every way or not? Worse, would he even accept what he would become?
"Well?" queried the holo-Hibiya.
"Looking at the persocom's face, Chii touched it. She then sighed and turned to her mother's hologram.
"Yes mother, I do want him," Chi replied.
The holo-Hibiya smiled, then executed the transfer.
*P-Hideki's POV, 50% files transferred. P=persocom
{"Eh? Where am I?"}
{" A bed; no.., a table. A cold table! Brrrrr! I'm lying on a cold table! What does this mean? I'm dead? No! I can't be! Chi and I have just had our anniversary-dinner!" }
{ "Eh? I can't move, either. Who's that talking? }
"His memories are complete but only until his sixty-third birthday, Chii. But the OS I've installed will rectify that. One more thing you have to know, he is a CHOBIT-series2 model," holo-Hibiya stated.
"Does that mean he's more advanced than me, mother?" Chii asked. Holo- Hibiya nodded.
{ "Ms. Hibiya! And Chii! What in the world is going on? Wait a minute, CHOBIT series2?!! I'm a persocom?" }
P-Hideki's thought were interrupted when he heard a vocal-alert stating that all files were completely installed and all adjustments were installed as well.
{ "Adjustments? What the....oh. It's been fifty years since Ms Hibiya died. Does that mean that I'm.....dead too?" }
"Connect your cable to the console on your left, Chii. You'll download your memories of the years after I died," holo-Hibiya instructed.
P-Hideki felt the flood of incoming memories and could only watch. He felt himself stand up from the table and saw Chii with the holographic Hibiya.
{ "She's still so beautiful after all this time," }
"Everything is almost done. All you need to do now is input your password," holo-Hibiya instructed.
"Password, mother?" Chii asked.
"He IS a persocom after all, dear," Holo-Hibiya replied.
{ "Password? Oh no! Please choose a nice one, Chii!" }
Chii searched long and hard within her mind and heart for the appropriate password. This was her Hideki, right in front of her. Again. A persocom he was now but still her Hideki. A few more minutes and CHii finally came to a fitting password.
"I have one, mother," Chii declared. The holo-Hibiya sent a few commands which made the persocom approach Chii.
{ "I'm walking towards Chii! And I'm...I'm...naked!!!" Eeeeeepp!" }
"Please input password." Declared the persocom-Hideki flatly.
Looking to her mother then back to P-Hideki, Chii declared the password.
"Password is.....'SIDE-DISH'!" Chii announced.
{ "What?!!!! 'SIDE-DISH" ?!!!! What kind of a password is that?!!!! No! I don't accept it! No!!! Aaaarrgghh!!!" }
But it was too late as P-Hideki heard himself declare that password had been accepted.
Chii looked at P-Hideki with great anticipation and anxiety as she noted the change in P-Hideki;s pupils, indicating initial boot-up. When it was done, P-Hideki focused his eyes on her and walked to her. Chii was ecstatic and nervous as P-Hideki took her face into his hands and smiled. It was the sweetest smile she had long wanted to see so much. It was him! Her Hideki! Her only one had returned. She smiled and expected to be kissed or caressed when she felt him place left hand under her chin and his right hand on her head, causing her to close her eyes. She was surprised however when P- Hideki mussed her hair instead. She opened her eyes then saw his face with one eyebrow raised and wearing an amused look.
"SIDE-DISH? Couldn't you have chosen a much better password, Chii?" P- Hideki asked.
Chii about to ask what was wrong but she was silenced when P-Hideki's face softened again and he kissed her gently.
