Fillershipping (Rebecca Hopkins/Kaiba Noa)

. . .

"Rebecca, you're being hacked."

Rebecca swore. She dropped her wrench to the floor unceremoniously, only pausing to carefully set the robotic torso down on the counter before she rushed over to the computer. On screen, a little pixelated character with green hair hovered in the corner, moving his hands up and down.

"Location?" she said.

"It's coming from that bank in Japan that you leaked files from yesterday."

"Of course it is," she said, rolling her eyes. "Where are they getting in?"

"Network terminal. I just need you to add in a few strings to my code so that I can push them back out."

"On it."

She pushed her sleeves back before letting her fingers fly over the keyboard. The little pixel character flashed once, and then Noa's satisfied voice came through her speakers.

"Aaand they're out. Also, they left me a really clear path to their own server. I think I can get onto Senator Nathalie's computer from here, actually. Want me to start taking a look at those files we know he's hiding about his investment in that oil company?"

Rebecca allowed a grin to spread over her face.

"If you're up to it, go for it."

"On my way now."

The pixel character of Kaiba Noa disappeared from the corner of her computer screen, and she leaned back in her chair for a moment, hands behind her head. It was quiet without him chattering at her while she worked. She should probably keep going, though, she was just about done hard wiring the sensory system on this android of hers.

She got back up and wandered back to her desk, the robot limbs and pieces neatly arranged in order of how she needed to work on them. She'd have Noa download himself into it this evening to test it out again.

Have I really only been working on this project for four months?

Four months ago, she had found a tiny packet of digital information hidden away on a secret server in an abandoned Kaiba Corporation compound. Curious about what dirty secrets the old Corporation might be hiding (and more than willing to get a little blackmail on Kaiba himself, to maybe one-up him for snubbing her that last time she had suggested fixing something on his firewall), she had downloaded and unpacked it...to find a very lost, very confused, and very jarbled AI program called "Kaiba Noa."

It had taken a few weeks of fixing up pieces of his broken code, but by the time she did, she was amazed. Kaiba Noa wasn't just an AI—he was a successful transfer of a human brain into a digital format. He explained to her how his father had uploaded him after a car accident, and then abandoned him in his own digital world, where one thing led to another, and eventually his run in with Kaiba and his group led to Noa trying to seal up the last of himself with the digital upload of his father into the virtual world when the server was destroyed by a nuke blast.

He wasn't sure how a copy of himself had been left on another server, but he didn't seem to mind. Since then, she and Noa had spent a lot of time together—breaking into corrupt politician's e-mail servers was a cinch when you had an AI literally livingin the code.

Rebecca picked up her wrench again to start fiddling with the machine again. She hoped, again, that she had gotten all the measurements right this time. The first time she and Noa had tried to download him into the android, he had kept falling over everything, and they had determined it was because his legs were slightly shorter than he remembered them being. Plus, it was essential to give him a sense of touch, which was the hard part...

"I'm back!" Noa said triumphantly. "You were right, Nathalie is a major shareholder that oil project out of his own pocket, and that's why he's lobbying to lift the ban on drilling in that reservation."

Rebecca had to grin.

"Let's put it on the Internet, then," she said, setting her tools down. "Nice job, partner."

He took up her screen, then a visual projection of the young boy he used to be, grinning with his chest puffed out.

"You are talking to the world's smartest AI," he said proudly. "This was nothing I couldn't handle."

Rebecca had to laugh.

"Okay, world's smartest AI, how about we give this android another go? I'm gonna put it back together."

Even though he was just a visual project, Noa's whole face lit up, and he looked more like the ten year old he was supposed to be. Rebecca fit the android's pieces together, and then started to hook up the wires to her computer. Noa actually shifted from foot to foot, looking a little nervous.

"It's gonna be fine," Rebecca said.

Noa huffed.

"I'm not worried,"he said. "You think I'm scared of something like this?"

Rebecca rolled her eyes, but she finished plugging in the android. It looked a little strange, she thought. A little plastic-y rather than skin like, and his hair was very, very clearly just a cosplay wig she had fumbled with and then glued to the top...but, well, she was a programmer, not a bioengineer. It would have to do...

"All right, it's ready for you."

Noa hesitated only for a second. Then his image blipped away from the screen, and she could see the download starting instead.

A spark flew out from the android and Rebecca yelped, jumping back. Was...was it working? She bit down hard on her lip. What happened if...what if Noa got stuck in between the download or something? She didn't know, how did you think about your friend who was basically just a bunch of code...?

The download finished and there was a soft ding sound. For a second, nothing happened.

And then the android's fingers twitched. The eyes flickered to life, blinking slowly, with difficulty at how sticky they were. Gray eyes glimmered out from his head with more life than she would have expected from eyes that she literally bought at a doll shop. He tilted his head slowly, moved one arm up and down, fingers brushing against the table.

Then he made a soft sound of surprise, his hand coming down against the table again. He rubbed it, moving his hand in large circles. His eyes widened as he looked up at Rebecca.

"I—I can feel it," he said. "I can feel what it feels like, Becca."

Rebecca felt a giant smile explode over her face.

"W-We did it," she mumbled. "We did it, then!"

She threw her arms around the android's shoulders—no, Noa'sshoulders, and he yelped—then he laughed, a huge, rolling sound as he wraped his arms around her too.

"I can actually feel things!" he said, sounding as though he were going to cry—oh, crying, she hadn't yet added that function to the android, she'd have to take a note to remember that. "Becca, you did it!"

He sounded so happy. Rebecca couldn't help but smile into the hug—her new friend was realagain, and she felt like she was floating.

. . .

A/N: I thought that was cute! Next is Figureshipping (Ishizu x Mai x Anzu x Shizuka).