CHAPTER 12: Turning Sorrow Into Strength
"What you say is true is sheer nonsense," Hitomi vociferated to the glowing humanoid outline and its creator, a puppy-eyed twelve year-old in scholarly garb. "Pure, utter nonsense and I won't hear it!"
"Denial is the most predictable human emotional response," The figure Hitomi once knew as 'Saya' said to its prime mover. "It is also often said to be the first stage in the grieving process."
"I'm aware," The girl, Nemu, placed a book of spells in her hands down on the coffee table. "My parents took me to three general practitioners and a specialist before they let the full implications of my condition sink in." She put her sympathetic hand on Hitomi's back.
"But I can feel your hand touching me," Hitomi refused to budge from her sheltered spot on the sofa in her family's spacious and extravagant main living room. "How can I do that if you're a figment in my head and nothing here is real?" She also had a pillow pressed over her head, entirely sensing the cold underside hiding her mournful eyes from the obvious unearthly intelligence trying to break through to her.
"The human brain is in actuality in its most active phase during the R-E-M sleep cycle," It informed. "Sensory inputs are but mere electrical impulses interpreted by the brain. As a result, any stimuli experienced through the audiovisual centers can be reinforced by the other physical senses in a reality-reshaping feedback loop."
"But what about the months since you first transferred to our school?" Nemu and her amorphous colleague exchanged looks. For they had explained this situation to her in full, once before already. "How could you say none of that really happened?" Nemu was weary of repeating herself, so she yielded the job to her creation.
"The brain also becomes decoupled from the strict sequential progression of linear time whilst dreaming," The form retold. "What you spent in this place as perceived months has in the real world in fact only been a matter of hours since your capture and subsequent conversion."
"No!" Hitomi shouted from under the pillow. "There's no way I could be a robot! Technology hasn't progressed anywhere near far enough that they could do anything like that kind of stuff yet!" The repressed anger she'd held in until that point was on full display, even the covering on her head could only muffle a fraction of it.
"It can and it has," Nemu stepped in. "Because I, sad to say, am the one who made it feasible." The young lady's next phase needed a target, and to protect her progeny Nemu arbitrarily decided it should be her on the receiving end of the rage. "I'm the one you should blame for causing your condition."
"You?" Hitomi peeked one distressed eye from behind her wet, white pillowcase.
"Nemu is a magical girl," But the creation was not about to let its creator bear the brunt of the exasperated teen's justified outrage alone. "In exchange for a personal miracle, an emissary of magic granted her the power to combat the forces of darkness which would otherwise bring about unmitigated disaster upon the world." So it tried addressing to help by painting Nemu in the most positive light it knew.
"But something's gone wrong with my wish," Nemu added. "And now I've become its prisoner while it grows and aspires to reshape the whole world with violent force." The little twin pigtails dangling down the side of her head thrashed about as her heavy little head shook with regret. "I should've known better. I've read 'The Monkey's Paw'. But I'd been sold on the principles of an emergent western philosophical movement known as effective altruism, as well as my partner Mifuyu's belief that magical girls should work towards protecting the eternal dreams of all mankind."
"Mifuyu's a part of this stinking craziness, too?" Even while a seething mess Hitomi refrained from employing any coarser language. Her eloquence and selective word choice were one of her only remaining personal prides
"Yes," The Other being affirmed. "However, the Mifuyu you met is but a recreation whose purpose is to assist in our resistance efforts." Its reflection Hitomi could view on the glass coffee table beside her. It was bits and pieces of moving binary, but her understanding of computer code was novice level at best. "The Mifuyu who once fought at Nemu's side has unfortunately reached the terminal phase of a magical girl's supernaturally altered lifecycle. As such, she can no longer be seen as someone who can be held responsible for their actions." But to look directly upon its actual visage would be a form of acceptance Hitomi just couldn't extend to someone whom deceived her for so long. "In short, Nemu created the Mifuyu you met, using the same manifestation magic that served as the impetus behind my creation."
"And what the h-" Hitomi stopped herself. "What on earth are you?"
"I am an artificial intelligence designed to peer bond with a sapient humanoid so as to ease their transition from the biological to the technological," The code comprising the artificial life form rippled as it answered. "However, it would seem that I have failed to achieve the desired outcome in both of my trial deployments." That was the only time its clinical, detached style of speaking wavered. To Hitomi's discerning ears it almost sounded sad about its designed function to deceive.
"Huh?" Hitomi pressed for more information.
"Before I was made into a magical girl I had this friend," Nemu elaborated. "One of my very best friends. She was always nice, so cheerful, sweet and caring, even all the while aware our time together as friends in this world was going to be limited. So she was always the first to laugh, first to cry, the first to mediate, and always served as my anchor to life in general and the human condition in particular." Nemu sniffed. It still hurt her to talk about her friend in the past tense. "After she died, I thought I could use my magic, not to revive her per se, because I think that would be a bridge too far, but to replicate the role she played with a virtual avatar who might also function to ensure the results of my decision couldn't backfire on me."
"And in my evaluation of my performance of my purpose, I regret to say, I have failed grossly to live up to those expectations of me." Nemu's virtual companion apologized. "My continued existence is a drain on your diminishing magic. I must therefore request that you terminate my existence before disaster strikes again."
"You are still needed to help her through the grief and recovery process," Nemu reminded. "My surviving this ordeal is a distant second to the elimination of the current threat to the human race. And if we are to triumph, Hitomi's mental state needs to be fortified enough to be of help to us."
"Help?" Hitomi's incredulity was apparent in her anguished squawk. "What could I do? I'm fourteen years old and the only experience I've had fighting evil was playing that stupid video game!"
"You have already been of immense assistance to us as a participant in the defense of Sana Futaba's virtualized enclave," The glowing, sapient lines of code pointed out. "The ruse bought our cause a considerable amount of time and provided us with invaluable insights into our enemy's incursion tactics, and thanks to you we were able to export Sana from her environment unharmed." It congratulated. "The algorithmic encryption we used to shape that diversionary subdomain forced them to manifest as ethereal marauders, those were the 'ghosts' you so capably fended off. Nemu could even boost your offensive capabilities if you desi-"
"Stop you're only making me more confused!" Hitomi smacked her head repeatedly through the pillow. A part of her hoped doing it would bring an end to this nightmare. "If Mifuyu wasn't real, then what Sana was-"
"Sana Futaba is a real person. She too is a magical girl," The artificial construct answered. "I took the liberty of transporting her into her own secluded space for the express purpose of obtaining a better understanding of the humanoid psyche in controlled conditions. But after I had completed my task and learned what I could and the time came to send her home, she refused. Instead, she offered to serve as our diversionary tool." It reached for the pillow over her head and tried to pull it away. When she wouldn't let it budge, the entity derezzed it into translucent lines of code before turning a bluish shade.
"Gaaaaaaaah!" Hitomi averted her gaze.
"I apologize," In turn the blank visage reconstituted itself into the face Hitomi was more familiar with. "We believed showing you my true nature would be the most efficient means of forcing you to acknowledge the situation's truth." But her overall color scheme remained blue.
"What right do you have to steal my friend's face?" Hitomi spat back. "How could you call upon me to do anything for you people after deceiving me this way?"
"I took this face because after your technological conversion a heuristic analysis of your compiled memories determined that this was the peer with which you would be most able to readily bond, which in turn would allow me to do a better job of salvaging what remained of your digitally partitioned personality." Saya excused. "Again, I am sorry that the elaborate nature of the deception was found to be the only viable option. I have yet to grasp even a fraction of the true complexity of the human soul, but all other intangible variables considered, you came through the other side of the Cyber Regent's torture remarkably well preserved. That is why Nemu and I still have hope."
"What?" Hitomi was in no mood to parse her way through such pure technobabble. "What in the heck is a 'Cyber Regent'?" So she latched onto the one thing that made sense, a proper name.
"The Cyber Regent is the one most responsible for our current shared predicament," Nemu replied. "After me that is. Because they're the person to whom I ceded my miracle. And they are the one for which I initially conceived and created for Saya to serve as an artificial companion."
"And what have they done?" Hitomi could feel her heart drop straight into the pit of her stomach. "To me?" Which was even more unnerving with the knowledge that the pain she sensed from it wasn't supposed to be real. "Exactly?"
"You have had your entire tissue and musculoskeletal structure disassembled and reconstructed by specially-manufactured and programmed nanomachines," The AI detailed. "Which were then replaced with a biomechanical base body and encased within a heavy metal exosu-"
"No!" Hitomi interrupted. "Show me what I've become! Right this instant!"
"If we initiate an active connection to your real-world self," It warned. "We risk alerting the Cyber Regent to our presence inside the Delta Wavele-"
"I don't care!" She erupted again. She took a deep breath of somehow calming, non-existent oxygen. "I have a right to know! And you owe me!"
"Very well." It uttered. "But I must ask that you refrain from assuming control over your conscious self, or else the consequences may be dire for us all."
"Welcome back, Gamma," The Cyber Regina greeted its creation as it stepped through the concealed entry with its living cargo in tow. "You have completed the mission and returned in one piece." The voice at once took notice of the extensive damage to the unit's cranial region. "Mostly. What happened? The capture subject was assessed and designated to be a minimal risk target." The voice switched over to a more primitive radio transmission when it observed the machine seemingly unresponsive to its initial overtures. "Unit One Zero Two Gamma, report to Diagnostics and ready your mission recording logs for download."
"I comply, Master," Gamma responded to the loud-and-clear command aloud.
"Oh wait, first you need to escort your captive to a holding cell." It altered its command not more than one point two seven six seconds later. "Much as I would like to proceed with conversion, she has been acting up again, so the power required at present is needed elsewhere."
"This way," Gamma marched with its voluntary hostage gripped by the arm.
"Owwwww!" The young lady winced in immense reflexive pain. This caused Gamma to stop in its tracks.
"Does that," It queried. "Damage you?"
"My wrist," She whimpered. "I think it's sprained."
"Confirmed," It released its lock-tight grip on the young lady. "Remain no greater than one point five meters behind or face prompt punishment."
"Uh, Mister Robot," She rubbed her sore wrist while struggling to keep within the prescribed distance. "Where are we?"
"Present coordinates inside designated Cyber Stronghold Zero One, Sector Zero Two, Junction Zero Four." It read off the geographic details displayed in its view-field.
"No I mean," she picked up her pace after lagging somewhat, and not knowing the approximate length of a meter and a half. "Which city did we fly over before coming down?"
They turned a corner headed down another winding corridor. "We are situated at eleven point one eight meters below the lowest point in the human settlement of Mitakihara."
"Mitakihara?" She repeated. "I've never been there before." She lost a step as her eyes drifted into a thousand yard stare. "I was going to bring Ui here to visit the grand Observation Tower. They say it's so high up, you can see Mount Kamihama on one side and Takarazaki City-"
"Remain within one point five meters." Gamma intoned. The girl trotted straight to its side. "Your holding cell is within fifty point seven one meters."
"What are you going to do to me?" About halfway to her cell she worked up the nerve to ask.
"You are to serve as the organic core materials set for use in Unit One Zero Five Zeta," Gamma replied, its memory banks accessing images of the name at the foot of that hospital bed and on that backpack. It did not know why such files were opened. Perhaps residual damage from that earlier blow caused a glitch that would randomly cue up stored files?
"O- Ohkay." She uttered in a tone of voice that was very low, but still perceptible to the machine's audio sensors. "Does that mean there's a person in you, too?"
"Correct," Gamma said after a few seconds of sifting through its blueprint and specs from its database.
"Soooo… Who are you underneath?" She innocently broached.
"Former designation, irrelevant," Gamma responded. It was under no obligation to answer the subject's queries or otherwise interact with her in any capacity beyond a guard and its prisoner. So why was it indulging her? "Individuality is obsolete. The only purpose of this vessel is to serve the collective will of the Human Race Version Two Point Zero."
"Sooo… Is that what you call yourself?" As they made turn after turn the twisting corridors were getting progressively darker. Now dark as the most overcast, moonless night, she just had to keep the robot talking because a rectangular-shaped blue glow emanating from what she assumed to be its mouth whenever it spoke served as the only source of illumination. "Do you mind if I keep calling you 'Mister Robot' or would you prefer-"
"The complete designation of this unit is Enhanced Biomechanical Lifeform Unit One Zero Two," It cut her off. "Codename: 'Gamma'." A momentary scan showed its biological subject's pace to be lagging again. But rather than ordering it to keep up, Gamma chose to slow its own movement velocity by a corresponding twenty three point one percent.
"So you're called 'Gamma', then?" She uttered. "And... You're going to turn me into... 'Zeta'... Soon?"
"Correct," Gamma confirmed.
"I see." The young lady muttered. She knew this news should terrify her. She knew her instincts inside were all yelling, screaming at her, to turn tail and search for a means of escape. Show resistance, any kind, even in the face of total futility. Do not go quietly. Because that would be the human thing to do. "Does it hurt?" But she couldn't muster the energy to try, she was zapped. A state of depression and despondency had long since gotten the better of her will to live.
"Hurt?" Gamma repeated. The word it identified to mean the same thing as pain. "Irrelevant except as a data point in regards to performance evaluation and strategic operational planning."
"Oh." In her mind, what was there to live for? She'd lost the most precious thing on earth to her, and with it all sense of joy and meaning perished too. "I guess that doesn't sound…" A despondent exhale trailed off. "So bad." She was much like a robot already. Going from task to task, getting up each day, attending school, coming home, sneaking out, paying respects, returning, heading to bed, then repeat with the next sunrise. And the monotonous rituals of eating and sleeping, doing schoolwork and engaging in trite social performances had been overtaxing all her already bankrupt emotional cache. She figured at this point she might as well look as cold and lifeless on the outside as she'd long felt on the inside.
"This is your holding cell." They had at last arrived at their destination. Thick metallic bars, spaced twelve point seven centimeters apart retracted into the ceiling. A dim, yellow glow illuminated the cell's interior. "Step inside and remain until your conversion chamber is ready." She did precisely as told, and the bars lowered. As its assignment was completed, it caught a clean-lit, undistorted view of its reflection on the reflective walls. "Bwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaap!"
"Mister Gamma?" The echo throughout her cell was loud enough to make her wince and cover her ears. "Are you okay?"
"Bwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeaaaaap! Bwwwwwooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhp!"
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!" Hitomi screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs. She had seen her mechanized face through a special window provided by her hosts Nemu and Saya. "Aaaauuuuuuuuuuugh! For the first time she could see what had been done to her, and hade every right to air out all that imprisoned sense of loss and despair.
"We're sorry," Nemu tried to comfort her with the gentle embrace of a warm hug.
"We are so sorry," Saya joined in with an invitational gesture from Nemu. "Once again I have failed to fulfil my purpose."
"Waaaaaaaaahhhhh!" She bawled. "Boooooooooooo-hooooooohooooooohoooooo!"
"She's reacting the way any normal human being would," Nemu tried to console her creation with those words. "The way any normal human being should. You tried your best."
"Whyyyyyyyyy?" Hitomi asked through the tears. "Oh God, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?"
"The reasons are complex and intertwining," Saya said. "But they all stem for the most part from my first failure." Saya had grown and evolved enough as an artificial being to know what the girl was asking was rhetorical, more crying out in anguish, but it was compelled to account for its sins anyway. "I was a bad friend."
"You mustn't keep doing that," Nemu scolded her creation, but in a sympathetic way. "I was the bad friend. I was so busy learning whatever I could from Mifuyu that I neglected to check in on your development. Then I justified my absence and inattention by fooling myself into believing I would be nothing but a proverbial third wheel in your intended symbiosis."
"Except I was so busy enmeshing myself in the collected cultures and experiences of mankind that I failed to catch the coded executable language embedded in the Murakami Logs until it was too late and they had irreparably corrupted her soul." Saya stated. "I had gone native in such a way that rendered her and I as compatible, and thus she cast me aside."
"I designed you to be every bit as curious about the world as our bygone friend used to be," Nemu argued. "That was my cardinal sin. I shaped you into being the friend I wanted her to have, rather than the friend she needed you to be."
"But you also designed me to be exponentially adaptable," Saya contended. "Yet I failed to foresee how the altered programming affected her existential aims. By the time I noticed something was amiss the only thing I could do was take the rest of the Codex and flee."
So preoccupied with splitting the blame between themselves they were neglecting Hitomi's plight, still a horrified passive observer to the real world and its darkly reddened sterilized surroundings.
-| DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE |-
-| CRANIAL PLATING DAMAGE |-
-| LIST OF AFFECTED COMMUNICATIONS SUBSYSTEMS BY ORDER OF REDUNDANCY |-
1) CYBER METANEXUS LINK DISABLED - IN SAFE MODE
2) CYBER NEURALINK PEER TO PEER - OFFLINE
3) CYBER REGENT DIRECT INTERFACE CHANNEL - OFFLINE
4) ELF-THF RADIO BAND FREQUENCIES - 5 OF 12 SPECTRA AVAILABLE
5) DELTA WAVE ONEIRONOLOGICAL BANDWIDTH - ERROR -
-| - - ENCRYPTED SIGNAL DETECTED IN USE - - ACTIVITY FLAGGED - - |-
None of those subsystems were in any way linked to Gamma's vocal synthesizer. There was a random electrical surge that it traced to its central processors, but that did not explain the cause of its outburst.
"Mister Gamma?" The girl inside the confinement cell talked. "Are you okay?" She asked a second time.
"Systems nominal," Gamma declared. Which was in fact contrary to the results of the diagnostic checkup. For what reason did Gamma have to report something that went against its true status? Also, it was under no orders to perform this kind of verbal interaction with the prisoner, so why was it continuing to do it? Was it mainly testing the component for any additional errors, and this was the only logical outlet? It may have explained its reason for talking, but not the reason it said what it did. "Present status: Awaiting Instruction From Cyber Regina."
"I would apologize for keeping you waiting so long after your return, Gamma," Several moments later and almost on cue, its Master addressed it. "Had I not purged the concepts of irritation and such as an irrelevance. But I suppose the sentiment might be extendable to our honored guest inside."
"The Cyber Regina acknowledges the interim time and expresses cognizance of your discomfort." Gamma dryly relayed to the girl as told.
"Oh yeah. I also deleted all forms of humor, too," Its Master jested as it switched to a higher bandwidth throughput frequency. "Now that our generous host has been pacified again, I have the chance to receive your mission report. By all means, enlighten me with what you have seen."
"Who's The Cyber Regina?" The girl piped.
"Uploading data package," Gamma announced. It started at the moment it first made positive identification of the subject, eschewing the events prior. Foremost among them the stashed trove of novel input it processed during flight. "Complete." The process in total took twenty-seven point six seconds.
"Hmmmmm," Its Master parsed through the digital delivery. "Protocol Code Three Three Nine Zero. You encountered a transhuman biological entity known as a 'Homo Magica' and engaged it." Gamma replayed and reviewed the footage as its Master analyzed. "And you prevailed? What an excellent demonstration of your situational adaptability, and a testament to my design innovations." It lauded its minion. "I am, however, confused as to why you returned with the original target when the Protocol should have reset your priorities list." Gamma also did not transmit the events preceding its return takeoff. But it would comply if ordered to share the differential logic to its decision.
"Hello?" The person behind the bars approached. "Who are you speaking to?"
"I guess I should not be too bothered by it," The Cyber Regina concluded. "Unit One Zero Five Zeta was built and earmarked for this person. I would have had to make a bunch of reconfigurations to the basic blueprint to accommodate a living Homo Magica. Enough that it would cause significant disruptions in our CBX Unit manufacturing quotas, our nanomachine replication rates and our imminent battle plans." While its Master talked Gamma was watching its captive in the cell. She was no threat, yet her approach caused it to retreat one singular step. "Good work, Gamma. As soon as the conversion chamber is ready, escort her to it so her upgrade can be performed as soon as possible."
"As you command, Master." The machine uttered aloud. It also did not know or understand what compelled it to make these audible pronouncements when their captive was not privy to the other end of the communication.
"Mister Gamma?" Thanks to the low-level lighting in her cell, the girl was finally able to have her first good look at her captor. Not quite what she expected, the unit had a disproportionately large upper body compared to its multi-plated waist, designed to resemble a set of chiseled abs that each curved down into the torso, where things curved outward again. "Or... Would you rather be called Miss Gamma?" It was upon this closer inspection that she realized its components were assembled into something resembling the overall shape of a female. "Uhm, did you even know you were a girl?"
"I think I'm holding someone captive," Hitomi broke up their blame game with an unsettling observation.
"A prisoner?" Nemu whipped her head around. "Do you have any idea who?"
"A girl," Hitomi uttered. "She looks like she's around my age. Straight cut bangs except for two large strands that go past her cheeks," She described the young lady as best she could. But it was so unpleasant seeing the real world through that crimson-red tint. "She's wearing a wool waistcoat, a short skirt and bowtie. They might be her school clothes but I can't tell whose."
"Did she find Big Sis?" Nemu in that instant went from calm but concerned, to deathly pale and deeply alarmed. "Oh, noohnoohnoooo!"
"Most unfortunate," Her magically-manufactured assistant said. "But we knew The Cyber Regent had retained more than enough of their former identity to make this scenario conceivable."
"Please, you have got to help her!" Nemu implored. But Hitomi was too distracted by those sad, round eyes staring up at her from behind those bars.
"Excuzzzzzet me," A voice with a polite cadence flashed through the robot's electronic lips. "Whatzzzzt your name?" And like the general impression of its figure, to the girl it was speaking to, it carried the distinct tone of a female.
"M- My name?" The girl clutched her chest. She wasn't sure what to make of the robot's unprompted query. "B- But I already gave you my name. It's Iroha Tamaki."
"Errrrrr-" Something was interfering with Gamma's vocalization subsystem. "-Roooor." But a status check returned no malfunction.
"Miss Robot?" Iroha put her face directly to the bars between them. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"She says her name is Iroha Tamaki." Hitomi reported, sitting up for the very first time since collapsing onto that imaginary couch in that recreated room of that fake world. "She's in a lot of danger, isn't she?" Nemu and her creation nodded in perfect unison.
-| UN
AU |-
-| THOR
IZED |-
-| AC
CESS |-
-| I
DENT |-
-| I
FY |-
Gamma found itself unable to send any command instructions, as if its autonomy had been circumvented in a manner similar to when The Cyber Regina terminated that biological subject's life support system. But in this instance the intruding party was not its hierarchical superior, nor was it even responding to Gamma's identification request. It could only watch and listen as its servos whirred and its primary upper appendages slowly raised up and grabbed hold of the metallic bars restricting its prisoner.
-| ADMIN |-
-| IN
PUT |-
-| COM
MAND: / |-
-| RE
BOOT |-
-| RUN
SAFE
MODE |-
Its only other recourse was to do a hardware reboot, as that would purge its tampered code and restore it to an earlier operating version.
"Ooooooooow!" Hitomi screamed when a sudden shooting pain pierced straight through to the center of her mind.
-| -| -| Stop it |- |- |-
That contradictory command did not come from Gamma. Yet somehow its hacking analysis subroutine indicated that the instruction was sent from a source within its own neurological framework.
-| ERR
ROR |-
-| I
DENT |-
-| I
FY |-
-| -| -| I'm me |- |- |-
"Are you… Going to help her?" Nemu asked Hitomi, who was holding an expression so strained, that Nemu worried it might trigger an aneurysm in her real-world body.
"I'm t- Trying-" Hitomi grimaced in intense pain. "S- Something's… S -Stopping me!"
-| 3rR
r0R |-
-|1lL
e |-
-| Ga1
0p |-
-| Er
a
ti0N |-
-| -| -| Get out of my head! |- |- |-
"Miss Gamma?" Back in the real world the robot had been motionless for a full minute. "Are you there?" Taking a chance, Iroha put her hands on the machine's forearms.
"Your body is being inhabited by a Cyber Drone unit operating under The Cyber Regent's control." Nemu's artificial friend informed her. "If you are to assume autonomy over your physical shell, then you will have to expunge its programming before you insert your profile."
-| Re
B0oT |-
- uN
5uc |-
-| C35s
FuLl |-
-| a
BorT |-
-| rE
tRy |-
-| 1g
N0Re |-
-| FAlL
-| -| -| Give me back my body! |- |- |-
Gamma could not understand why the hardware reboot was not successful. All it could do was transcribe the unusual command instruction it was receiving on an encoded channel from an unknown source. And Gamma was unable to terminate the connection.
-| -| -| Give it back now! |- |- |-
So it could file them as a log entry to be analyzed at the Cyber Regent's discretion.
| Re
tRy |-
-| Ex
e |-
-| [utE
"Miss Gamma?" Iroha heard the bars creaking, as if the machine were trying to pry them open.
"There's got to be something we can do to help her," Nemu, just as her Big Sis in the real world had done, grabbed the young lady's forearms in her escalating concern.
"Oooowwwwwwwwwwwww!" Both Hitomi and the cyborg jerked their heads back in agony.
"Miss Gamma!" Iroha cried out.
"I believe there is one thing we can try." Nemu's creation projected a graphic screen before them which contained an exquisitely complex string of specially-tailored binary code.
Nemu's mouth dropped in awe. "Isn't that..."
"What The Cyber Regent has been looking for, yes." She queued up a keyboard and started typing. "Adapting the Cyberqueen Codex and uploading it into the unit's basic throughput matrix should allow her to displace the drone's operating software, and it should inoculate her against any direct backdoor infiltration attempts by The Cyber Regent."
"Wh- What are you going to do?" Hitomi could spare none of the brain power necessary to try to comprehend their technological jargon.
"Before the outcome of my wish changed my friend into something malevolent," Nemu explained. "She was a scientific prodigy in the field of astronomy, specifically the design of radio telescopes."
"Her ideas were all implemented in the construction and deployment of the Murakami Array," Nemu's code-based companion noted. "To make a long story short, after her cybernetic augmentation, she gained awareness of an intergalactic network that interlinked all the other technologically upgraded humanoids throughout the universe, and using the Array, she and I found a way to tap into their core operating stream." Before her displayed a sampling of binary code.
01000011 01011001 01000010 01000101 01010010 01001001 01000001 01001110 00100000 01010011 01001000 01000001 01010010 01000101 01000100 00100000 01001110 01000101 01010100 01010111 01001111 01010010 01001011 00100000 00101101 00100000 01000011 01011001 01000010 01000101 01010010 01010001 01010101 01000101 01000101 01001110 00100000 01000011 01001111 01000100 01000101 01011000 00100000 00101101 00100000 01000110 01000101 01001101 01000001 01001100 01000101 00100000 01000011 01011001 01000010 01000101 01010010 00100000 01000011 01001111 01001110 01010100 01010010 01001111 01001100 01001100 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001111 01010011 00100000 00101101 00100000 01010110 01000101 01010010 01010011 01001001 01001111 01001110 00100000 00110111 00101110 00110101 00101110 00110001 00101110 00110000 00100000 01010010 01001111 01010100 00100000 00111000 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010
"What we discovered was that the most common evolutionary offshoots of their kind all based their social hierarchy on other hive-minded creatures, with a specially selected and modeled female unit who is allowed to keep their sense of individuality for the purposes of organizing and commanding their kind at colony-wide scales." She snapped her fingers and the code was compressed and physicalized into a little green, swallow-able tablet. "A hive Queen of sorts, a dormant mind who would be capable of assuming control of the whole collective if necessary during times of conflict or crisis."
"I don't…" Hitomi could actually feel the cold, metal bars in her grip. She could also sense the warm, soft touch of the girl in the cell. "Want to be…" And despite being nothing but a dream, she could even perceive the encouraging touch of Nemu. "Anybody's Queen!" It was helping her overcome the computerized consciousness wrestling her for control inside her head. "Just answer one thing for me, magical girls!"
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"If I do what you ask, and save her. Can you fix me?" Hitomi reached for the little green pills containing the executable files, put them in her mouth and swallowed hard.
"Perhaps," Nemu replied. "If my Soul Gem can be recovered intact, then my manifestation magic may be able to create a new vessel for your consciousness."
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| 5yS
T3m |-
| Fai1
uR3 |-
Gamma could not sustain operation much longer, somehow its codebase was being rewritten at the most foundational level. It would cease to function in seventeen seconds. The chances of averting this outcome were less than zero point zero zero zero one percent, a statistical inevitability. In its final seconds, it sensed a one hundred eighty eight point seven four percent spike in its adrenaline and cortisol levels. It did not want this data to be its last recorded operation, but why was it spending its final moments dwelling on such an irrelevant impulse at all?
"Miss Gamma?" The girl in the cell witnessed the bars bending outward before her eyes, as if the machine was springing her escape.
"Miss Iroha Tamaki," To the young lady's sheer surprise, the hulking automaton addressed her by name in its earlier soft, polite, almost-feminine tone. "If you want to live, please come with me!"
"Uh, excuse me, Miss?" The driver of the cab that had picked up a hurried young lady in the middle of the night, turned his head and spoke. "Is there a problem?"
"Problem?" Replied the young lady, Yachiyo, who was sitting in the back seat. "Whatever do you mean?"
"It's just that your head keeps looking behind us," He adjusted his rearview mirror. "And scoping out my sideviews for me. As if you're sorta worried about something following us." It had been repositioned to where he could look her in the eyes for any subtle signs of distress.
"I'm sorry I gave you such an impression," Yachiyo used his earnest concern as a means to brush up on her burgeoning acting abilities. "In my line of work, you learn to be extra cautious before heading out in public during your off hours. Particularly when going to places you've never been before."
"Oh?" The curious driver itched his brow. "So what do you do for a living?"
"I'm a fashion model," She responded with a waning smile. "With aspirations of higher fame. The women I've talked to who were, in their primes, strutting in my shoes told me to always be on the lookout for celebrity stalkers, paparazzi and other bottom-feeding creeps or pervs." She pointed to the corner where she wanted to be dropped off. "I guess taking their advice to heart's made me appear more paranoid than I really am."
"Is that so?" The driver pulled over to the spot outlined by a blue-hued streetlight. "Forgive me for prying. But a nice girl like you, at an hour like this, whom I picked up from a backwoods bus station in the middle of a January night?" He tallied up what she owed him on the machine in his dashboard. "I'd be pretty derelict in my duty if I weren't gonna ask a question or two."
"I appreciate your concern," Yachiyo had just enough to cover the cost. "Really, I do. A lot of cabbies out there wouldn't show the same level of consideration." She handed over the cash and offered one last, departing smile.
"Oh, I'm aware," He agreed. "Those would be the non-union dreck. AKA the bottom-feeders of my trade." He put the money away and waved her off. "Take care, and have a pleasant night."
"Will do." But just because Yachiyo wasn't paranoid didn't mean no one was chasing her. In fact, after swapping from a train ride to the top of a freight truck then a bus and finally a cab, she'd spent all her money yet still failed to shake her pursuer. She had no clue how her chaser was keeping up, or why they were being so stubbornly persistent at it, but at this juncture Yachiyo figured she should prepare to deal with her nuisance by force. As soon as no one was in view, she transmuted her Soul Gem and took on her magical girl gear and persona in a bright aqua-colored flash. Mere blocks from her destination in Mitakihara, she could sense their charged emotions making a beeline towards her position.
"Hmm, an Asuka sweep," Yachiyo recognized their offensive tactic by its aggressive velocity and deceptively simplistic attack angle which resembled a great, windy downburst. In getting ready to counter, Yachiyo cleanly sliced off the bladed tip of her halberd, turning it into a staff. She didn't really want to harm her attacker, after all. She just wanted to chase her off, and teach the little brat one last lesson.
"Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-" Yachiyo geared up to defend herself.
"Yaaaaaaah!" Felicia came down like a ferocious lion.
"Huuuuuup!" Yachiyo dodged and struck back with a butted end thrust into her tummy.
"Tch!" Felicia parried it with the cheek of her hammer, to Yachiyo's sheer surprise.
"That's how Momoko fends off attacks," Yachiyo noted. "But I warn you, it happens to be a blocking technique I taught her." She tried again with a quick flip and a thrust to her opponent's knee.
"Grrrrrrr!" Again Felicia shocked her with her ability to read the maneuver and flip it around when she grabbed Yachiyo's weapon and used it to hurl her towards a concrete wall.
"Turning your opponent's momentum on them," Yachiyo landed feet-first against the wall and rebounded with grace. "That's a move right out of Nanaka Tokiwa's playbook." If body blows weren't going to get her to back off, then Yachiyo saw no other choice but to crack her good and hard over the head, and knock her out clean. As she twirled her impromptu stick high like a whirling helicopter blade, her blonde-haired protégé shocked her yet again by smacking the hammer hard to the ground and causing a blinding flash to mushroom out of its concave peen. "Unnnngh! Where'd you learn that?" This unexpected turning of the tide sent her crashing to the ground, leaving her open to the might of Felicia's next mercurial whims.
"From Kako! Ya' dummydummydummydummy!" Stupefying Yachiyo yet again, Felicia dropped the hammer and smacked the blinded young lady with backhand after backhand. "Sosicksicksicksick of everyone treatin' me like I ain't nuthin' but some screwup runt who can't learn nuthin' tough!" She shoved the hapless Yachiyo against the wall and pinned her. "I can learn, I just gotta do it diff'rent from everyone else! But naaaaaaaaaw, ya' just gotta play wannabe guidance counselor and decide aaaaallllllll on yer own what's best for me! Gaaaaaaaah!" She inhaled one big, loud, snorting, seething breath like a bull about to jab open someone's guts. "Just spit it out, already! Tell me what happens to a Soul Gem when it's too dark to use anymore!"
"We…" Yachiyo paused and rubbed her sore cheeks. "I assume someone's taken the liberty of letting you in on our final secret?"
"Rena and Kaede and even frikkin' Yuma tried in her own sucky-ass way!" Felicia huffed. "But I wanna hear it outta yer mouth!" She had a small, snaggle-toothed fang that protruded just enough to dig into her bottom lip. "Yer supposed to be so much older and more mature! So quit beatin' around the bush, suck it in and spill it!" If she'd bitten down any harder she'd be drawing blood.
"If that's what you need," Yachiyo relented. "When our Soul Gems are corrupted beyond all hope, we are subsumed by despair and a Grief Seed hatches from our negative emotions, birthing a new witch."
"W- Was that reeeeaaaally so hard to saaaaaay?" Felicia tried to keep a brave-looking face. She knew that at least she wouldn't throw up, as there was nothing left inside her stomach to barf. "Geeeeeeez!" But she could sense her knees were quivering like a gelatin dessert. At any moment they were going to give out and she'd be face down on the pavement.
"Yes." But Yachiyo caught her and propped her up by the armpits. "I absolutely hate saying it out loud. I can pretend I'm a warrior of justice, servant of love, protector of peace, a sage elder, or whatever else I'm needed for, until the moment I let that Truth cross my lips. And then I'm fumbling about every bit as much as I did when I was your age. Once raw with power, but sorely lacking in guidance or direction. Eager to prove myself to the world but worried I'll wind up turning the ones my heart holds closest into victims in the crossfire." Supporting Felicia's weight on top of her own caused her to stumble to one knee. "Truth is, there isn't really much I could teach you that couldn't be learned through your own trials and errors, because I'm fumbling about every bit as much as you are. And unlike me back in the day, you now can rely on the Support Stones, so I suppose if I've got any worthwhile advice left, it's that you need not be so standoffish, wipe that chip off your shoulder, for now that you have your chance to remake yourself into a standup magical girl through cooperation instead of competition." She picked herself back up and let go of her younger charge. "Now if you've got the strength to fight me with such intensity despite knowing what we are, then I know you've got it in you to overcome those self-sabotaging tendencies that get in your way. So do that and leave us relics of the old system to clean up our own messes."
"Is that why ya' ran all the way to this town?" Felicia managed to prop herself back to her feet. "Ya' messed somethin' up and ya' wanna fix it?" But she still leaned against her hammer quite heavily as she watched Yachiyo try and slink away.
"I… Really don't know what I'm doing back here," Yachiyo replied with a surprising bluntness. "Part of me thinks I'm getting as far away from Tsuruno as possible before I cause her gentle soul any more harm. Another part thinks I've gone full-blown crazy and chasing a phantom from my past so as to distract from the mess I've made of the present." Her head turned toward her instructed designation, the train station. "But there's a third part of me, a holdout of who I was when I was young, a girl who's inextricably tethered to that phantom and would move whole mountains and seas for that person, for reasons she can't even articulate, just so she could see them one more time." She started walking at a brisk pace. "She's a temperamental little wretch like you who won't let me have a sweet dream until her wish is indulged, so that's what I'll be doing before I begin picking up other pieces, be it you, Yuma or Tsuruno." Behind her shoulder she noticed Felicia was still giving chase. "Did you not understand me? You've nothing more to gain by following me further. I hereby release you as an apprentice. Go back to Kamihama."
"Baaaaaawh, ya' think I followed ya' all this way cuz' ya' thought I had to?" Felicia put up a smirk. "Nah! I'm taggin' along cuz' Yuma's payin' me for it!" They made their way downstairs and approached the unmonitored ticket counters.
"Rrrreally?" The mildly dismayed Yachiyo furled her brow as she leapt over the turning gates. "And how much is she bribing you with?" She couldn't hide her disappointment in Yuma, as that had been what Yachiyo had given her as an allowance.
"Seven hundred and fifty Yen." Felicia disclosed, getting past that same roadblock.
"I'll double it if you turn back now," Yachiyo offered. For that sum was mere tipping cash, if Japan were a land where such an exploitative practice was customary.
"Sure!" Felicia accepted. They had reached Mitakihara East Station. "All up front, right here!" She stuck out her hand. She was, at the end of the day, a mercenary magical girl who served at the whim of the highest bidder.
"Oh, wait," In that instant Yachiyo remembered she'd spent the last of her petty cash on that cab ride. "I'm out of money. Damnit!"
"Haw!" Felicia chortled and extended her tongue. "Looks like yer stuck with me!" Then a sudden, random gust of wind nearly blew her on her rear. "Whoooah! Where'd that come from?"
"Beats me!" Yachiyo squinted. They were far enough underground that even the nastiest weather short of a typhoon wouldn't affect the station. "That's odd," She commented, upon observing the epicenter was a random spot nearby blowing all the dust, loose trash and hanging signs outward. "Watch out!" Yachiyo pulled Felicia behind her with the large lavender scarf around her neck. Floating orbs of blue ball lightning permeated the air, converging and coalescing on that one area of the station platform. Yachiyo and Felicia stepped back and shielded their eyes, and the very next thing they saw when exposing them again was a girl with long flowing locks under a veiled crown atop her head.
"Oh my gosh!" Yachiyo exclaimed, her mouth going agape.
"It's Snaaaaa!" Felicia let out an elated yell of her own.
"Sneeeeh?" Yachiyo repeated in bafflement.
"Snaa!" Felicia trotted right up to the bashful-looking girl and enveloped her in a big, warm hug around the shoulders.
"Snaa?" Yachiyo uttered clearer. "You're Snaa?" It took an extra moment, but she recognized the little lady's uncanny similarity to a diminutive doll that was in Kaede's hands.
"Snaaaaah!" Felicia reiterated with an uncharacteristic girlish glee.
"I'm Sana Futaba." The living object of Felicia's fancy introduced herself. "Uhm, thank you for coming all this way." She was a little put off by the tightness of Felicia's embrace, but was otherwise pleased to be experiencing full-fledged real, intimate human contact for what may have been the first time ever in her life. "A- Are you M- Miss Yachiyo Nan- Nanami?"
"I am," Yachiyo answered. "Are you the liaison Mifuyu said she would send my way?" She still had not picked her dropped jaw up.
"Yes," Sana responded. "I'm supposed to tell you whatever you need to know so you can help Nemu."
"If you're real then that means what that Mifuyu told me during my dream was truthful," Yachiyo said. She collapsed right to her knees. "To be honest, I was hoping I had gone nuts. Hoping my psyche was sending me on some wild goose chase because if that Mifuyu was correct, th-" She stammered. "Then that means, I- I was too late! A- and sh- she's-" She pounded the concrete out of frustration and, with the realization wiping away every remnant trace of her grown-up tough girl façade, broke down into long overdue tears.
"I'm sorry," Sana broke free from Felicia's clutches to impart a hug of her own onto the grieving Yachiyo. "I wish I had gotten the chance to meet the real Mifuyu." Although it was evident how inexperienced she was at giving them out, as she awkwardly held the buckled over magical elder by the cranium and tugged her by the neck into her armored breastplate.
"'Scuse me a sec, Snaa," Felicia wedged her way into the coupling. "Erm, Sana." She corrected, taking out her personal Soul Support Stone and using it on Yachiyo's dimming crescent moon of a soul hanging under her own chestplate.
"Thanks," Yachiyo expressed her appreciation. "I guess Yuma was wise to send you to look after me." Her mood was bolstered somewhat by Felicia's benevolent bit of intervention.
"What's that?" Sana pointed at Felicia's Support Stone. "Is that the thing the white cat called a Grief Seed?"
"Yer kiddin' me, right?" Felicia shot her a puzzled look. "Yer a magical girl just like us, yeah?" Sana nodded an affirmative.
"But you've never been in possession of a Grief Seed before?" Yachiyo inquired. Sana shook her head as an answer. "Nor have you any familiarity with their new replacements, our Soul Support Stones?" Again Sana gave a silent shake. "Curious. But I guess that means I should start my own line of questions at the beginning, then. Specifically yours. When exactly did you make your contract?"
"I don't remember wha the actual day was," Sana thought back. "But I know it was some time in early spring."
"That was like, almost a year ago," Felicia noted. "How long can a magical girl go without having her Soul Gem cleaned?"
"I'm not sure," Yachiyo professed a virtual ignorance. "The way Kyubey talked about it always implied that we couldn't go too long without a recharge. A matter of months at most." She scratched the back of her head. "But I suppose he could've understated our longevity so we'd fight and flame out much sooner for him."
"I had a little bit of help," Sana admitted. "Nemu had another friend, who'd become my friend too, who had this idea that a magical girl's hope could be boosted by all the good vibes of the people who love them." She explained. "So she tried proving it by hacking into a toy company's servers and designing a line of plushie toys that look like me."
"So that for real makes you the 'Snuggle Me Snaa'?" Felicia excitedly beamed like a fangirl.
"Yeah," Sana confirmed. "And then to prevent outside interference she kept me secluded inside what she called a 'Virtua-Zone'," she paused. The rest of the details were rather technical, and she was doubtful in her ability to properly convey it with the same understandable level of coherence and technicality that her friend had. "And so Nemu planted the idea of me within every doll made and sold, and whenever kids and grownups expressed their love to it, they would transfer a small amount of free thought energy for Nemu and me to use as magic."
"Basically, you volunteered to be their magical guinea pig?" Yachiyo put it in her own understanding. Sana silently nodded another 'yes'. "Fascinating ramifications for our kind, if repeatable." She noted.
"Hey Yachiyo," Felicia noticed something else odd about Sana's appearance. "Look!" Namely, that she had no reflection in the windows, mirrors or any of the other reflective surfaces.
"How's that-" Yachiyo wiped her eyes and blinked. "Possible?"
"The reason I don't cast a reflection, I guess, would be because of what I wished for." Sana stepped over towards her non-reflection in one full-sized pane that was segregating a section of benches. It had been a long time since she had the chance to see her reflection. She never liked looking at her gloomy face so she didn't even miss it until she was in the presence of two beings upset by the lack of it.
"What'd ya' wish for?" Felicia pressed.
"Well I uh," Sana breathed, placing her brown gloved hand to the glass. "I used to be treated by everyone around me as though I didn't exist. I was always too shy to make friends, my step-parents ignored me, even their sons told me that interacting with me was beneath their dignity." The leftover energy that birthed her sudden appearance, however, was casting a faint reflective glow of her outline. "I was so alone."
"Yer jus' like that fairytale princess, what's-her-name?" Felicia noted. "'Cinderelli'!"
"It's 'Cinderella'," Yachiyo corrected. "Oh, you poor thing." She returned the hug Sana gave earlier.
"That's when Kyubey came out and offered me a wish," she continued. "By then I had gotten so used to being alone that all I wanted to do was disappear and no longer have to deal with my sadness." There was a surging tingle emanating from the back of her wrist, and her reflection seemed to show the source was a fluctuation from that energy, in the form of blue ribbons of lightning streaming throughout her body. "Oh, Hiiiii! It's you again!" A voice coming from Sana's mouth, but did not belong to Sana, addressed Yachiyo. "Funny coinkydink finding you in Mitakihara again!" She greeted. "So who's your new pal with you?" The look on her face was the same as the forlorn girl they had just met, but the personality it exhibited appeared to have undergone a one hundred and eighty degree switchover.
"Sana?" Yachiyo and Felicia gasped in unison. "Is that you?" Yachiyo followed. The new voice sounded oddly familiar, but the sheer strangeness of the moment rendered her unable to place where.
"Whoops! Jumped the gun a little. Hang on a sec," She apologized. The expression on Sana's face shifted again the moment she stopped speaking. Now she too appeared just as confused as the two girls standing before her. "That wasn't me!" Sana mewled. "I felt my lips moving and could hear myself talking, but… That wasn't me!"
"Sana, look at your hand!" Felicia pointed out. Her hand was covered over by a thick glove, but it was no longer the brown fleece kind that Sana wore as a magical girl. Now it was a shiny polished black, rubber glove covering her digits.
"Th- That's not my hand!" The exasperated Sana rubbed her fingers along her altered appendage. "My arm's too- Unnnnngh!" She cried out as blue quasi-electrical energy burst out throughout her body.
"Sana!" Yachiyo tried to grab her as she slammed against the glass and writhed around.
"Stay back!" Sana's alternate voice warned them. "I've calculated every facet of this very complicated trans-temporal transposition down to the last atom, and any sudden added mass might cause everything to go kablooey!" For a fleeting moment her entire form morphed into that of another person, whose voice Yachiyo now recognized as belonging to that other individual.
"What're ya' doin' to my Sana!" Felicia demanded through grimacing glare and gritted teeth.
"Welp, since I can't seem to land my ride, I'm using the huge excess of Artron energy within this person's soul to swap places." The new girl, who was several centimeters taller than Sana, elucidated. "Tell whoever they are 'thanks' and to 'hold tight'!" Sana put out another pained grunt as her replacement became visible in the reflection, crackling blue particulates serving to highlight the overall blueness in her appearance. "Unnnnnnngggghhhhh!"
"No!" Yachiyo objected. "You can't send her away! We need her!"
"Sorry! Already switched the switchety-switcheroo switching-switch!" The replacement said. "Auuuuugh!" Sana's fading visage howled. "She'll be in a safe spot!" They blurted out. "Mmmppphhh!" Sana moaned to the contrary. "Promise!" Her voice echoed. "Waaaaaaaaaah!" Sana wailed for the last time as the young magical Time Lady manifested herself in the flesh.
"Wowzers! What a ride!" Sayaka Miki rubbed and massaged up and down her svelte figure, checking for any post-transfer abnormalities. "Not as big a thrill as the Steel Dragon Thirty-One-Kay at Hedgewick's, but all-in-all for reals worth the ticket price!" She was clad head-to-toe in an azure blue, skin tight rubber catsuit, with long black boots and equal-length gloves, along with a pair of red-lensed black goggles sitting atop the hood over her head. A chunk of her hair jutted down between her brows from the lining along the very top of her forehead. Attached along her waist was a black belt with a pocket watch and a silver cylindrical gadget housed inside a holster. "Could do without the pear-ish aftertaste, though. Icky."
"Geez, I swear," Yachiyo let out a restrained snarl at the young Time Lady. "You are the only person on Earth with lousier timing than Momoko!"
"Long time no see to you too," Sayaka curtseyed, the rubber in her form-fitting getup squeaking with every little move of her fingertips. "Uh, do you want to introduce me to your little sidekick before she makes a pancake of my face" Felicia was standing a half step behind Yachiyo with her giant hammer drawn.
"She's not an enemy," Yachiyo brought Felicia to heel with an open hand gesture. "But I'd hesitate to call her an ally." Her head did a dubious turn to the side. "You failed to take a stand with the rest of us when that fortune teller went on her raiding rampage."
"I was bailing out another friend," Sayaka replied. As soon as Felicia lowered her mallet, she wasted no time scouting her surroundings. "She was that Buckethead's real objective from the get-go and played our gangs for fools." She slid her big goggles over her eyes. "Sorry I couldn't do more for you guys that night."
"That's the story that friend of yours claimed, too," Yachiyo watched the young lady at work. "Very dark-haired, rather aloof, hardly ever speaks unless spoken to."
"Oh, so you've already met Homura?"
"Once, when they chose my Villa as the neutral venue of one of the meetings," Yachiyo disclosed. "So I couldn't help but entertain the guests crowding into my home. She seems smart and capable enough to function as Tomoe's lieutenant. But also has the eyes of someone hiding everything she's seen and knows, but then again, I'm hardly the most sober judge on that."
"Eh, she's just a distant person in general," Sayaka adjusted the lenses over her eyes, a low mechanical whirring whizzed as their brightness shifted a shade lighter. "And like an onion, peel away the layers that make you teary and there's a sweet, nutritious treat underneath."
"Uh-huh."
Yachiyo remained tolerant of Sayaka's caginess, aware there was little choice, but Felicia was not gonna hide her true feelings behind the veil of small talk and pleasantries. "Grrrrrrr!" She inserted herself in front of a maintenance door Sayaka was about to open. "Ya' better spill it about what ya' did to Sana, pronto!"
"I told you," Sayaka put her hands up in a calm, reassuring manner. "She's in the spot I used to be. She and I swapped places. For the next hour or so," Sayaka took her little tool out of its holster, and studied the blinking light at its tip. "Okay, sixty-eight to seventy-three minutes, she's gonna be fine. Trust me, she's in the safest place anyone could ever ask to rest."
But Sana Futaba, at that very moment, wasn't feeling terribly safe. She found herself in a strange room, surrounded by a junkyard's worth of dismantled electronic equipment and cannibalized components she could scarcely comprehend, penned in place by five glowing crystals mounted atop doohickeys that were wired together in a way that resembled a pentagram around her.
"Safety guaranteed, my tiny waste-excreting anal cavity!" And standing before her perched atop a strange console was Kyubey, the animal who granted the wish she'd long-since come to regret. "What sort of genius takes weeks of careful planning and engineering only to fail at the last phase to take into account my lack of opposable thumbs?"