Hiro was in near panic as the full enormity of what he had done. He only had himself to blame.
It was just a few steps... each one seemed reasonable. Tune out the biological components to allow the machine parts to be a bit more efficient. A form of over clocking in some way. Neuron activity from his brain tended to throw off the system to spew nonsense. For instance, purple would equal grape fruit. The organic brain system would recognise the symbolic nature of human language, but the machine code couldn't process deep significance for something as simple as that!
He realised a while ago he could enable and disable parts of his brain. He had experimented, trying for all it was worth to keep up with the true artificial beings. He knew they looked down on him. Humans both changed and unchanged were unsettled by his appearance. Hell, he was unsettled by his appearance and tried not to look too often. He couldn't deal with what he was if he thought about it too often.
There was no place for him among either world... organic or artificial.
Tuning the emotions lower just seemed like the right course of action. The lower it got, the more his run time increased, and the more efficient his processing became. So he kept on turning it off.
Never had he left it off so long, and never had he felt so... dead.
Turning things back on was like re-awakening. His sister was there still holding him. Dear God... he didn't even care one bit about her! He didn't even care about himself.. he winced in pain- real pain at the loss of his communicative processors. It was like being half blind now.
Why the hell did he do that!
"I'm sorry Hitomi," He said staring, unable to help glancing at the blurred reflection of himself. The robotic side was so cold... a mere machine. He wanted to become more like the true AIs... but all he achieved, was becoming akin to the mind of a worker ant. Just reacting on a set of instructions buried in his systems.
He had to thank that at least, his directives were only accessible through his organic brain. Possibly an intention of his design or sheer luck? He didn't know. If it was an intended fail safe, it saved him.
"Promise me... Hiro... Promise me you wont ever do that again." the sister said holding him still.
"I- I promise," the cyborg said still very scared of himself. The machine in him could crush her like an egg... the machine mind didn't care about human frailties.
What if he had not put those directives in? Would he be a mindless automaton for the rest of his life? Maybe it would be best if someone killed him if he was forever locked in that state.
how he wished, he was just made into a complete artificial human. Not this mesh of man and machine. Neither here nor there...
He was weak... so weak... he started crying.
"Hiro... please don't cry," Hitomi said rubbing her face to his arm.
"S-sorry sis... I ... I can't do this. I'm a monster... a zombie. Everyone's afraid of me.. even I'm afraid of me..."
"I'm not afraid of you," Hitomi said strongly. "But I don't understand... why did you let the machine part of you take over like that?"
"It just... seemed a good idea. You're right it's bad news. I'll never let it..."
"No brother- don't think that..." Hitomi said delicately. "If you think that way, you'll just neglect a part of you. Just like you neglected the human side."
Hiro looked shocked. "Don't you get it? The machine doesn't care about you! The machine is Not who I AM!" Hiro shouted, making Hitomi scared and cry again.
Hiro looked at his crying sister with guilt. "I- I'm sorry. Sorry..."
HItomi looked right into his eyes. Both the artificial and the normal one. "It's modelled after you.. so part of it.. even in some tiny part, has to be you as well..." She said thoughtfully. "Instead of focusing on the weaknesses of both parts... why not focus on their strengths?"
"Strengths?" Hiro said raising an eyebrow. "Sis, you don't know anything about computers let alone the artificial intelligences. Believe me, there is no strength in what I am."
"I Don't believe it. cause you're my brother. You are strong. And I believe that there is a strength in being so unique. You're probably missing something very simple. You got your human brain that's half artificial."
"Like some casualty of science," Hiro said scoffing. As if someone performed surgery on him, and took a large bite out.
"There must be something you can do, that the others can never do. There must be something you're not seeing. Just..um... think about it?"
"... I'll think about it," said HIro unconvinced.. Right now though he really needed to recharge- or sleep. He also.. started to feel really bad about how he acted to that flower girl...
Hm...
Holy! Hiro gulped.
"What's wrong?" Hitomi asked noting his tension.
the cyborg looked wide eyed sweating. Those digital fairies... the one that made fun of him. And how he... he... decided to pay them back for it. The memories came clear. Did he intend it or did he simply take advantage of it? An AI might have been involved. The machine part of him were vague on actual motive. they just reacted to the situation as it happened. Right now though, he just didn't know if they would come after him or not. If they did, he didn't want his sister involved.
"N-Nothing, HItomi," he said in the end. "I'm.. going to get some sleep. But... could you turn off all the computers here. Don't... use them. Not even your console"
Hitomi nodded. "Hai brother..."
Jenny returned to see her new friend looking to be picking a video for them to watch. But it looked like she was having trouble. "you okay Lilly?"
The squirrel girl looked down a bit then at her various DVDs. "I... can't remember half these movies. An' I don't feel like I.. want to watch em." Truth be told, this was freaking the squirrel girl out. She could remember the shows she used to watch as a child.. but things got hazy as she remembered her more recent past.
Jenny looked over the DVDs. There were various films that looked... well.. not to her liking that's for sure. She wanted to see something colourful, but there wasn't much. "Why don't we get a video from your brother?" She asked innocently.
"Um.. they are over here," She said showing another shelf.
Jenny looked wide eyed at the colourful display. These two siblings were incredibly spoilt. There had to be at least fifty different movies here! All just for them... She picked one out that looked pretty. "How about this one?"
Lilly looked at the cover. "Um... isn't it a bit er.. girly?"
"Perfect!" Said Jenny giggling.
Lilly couldn't help but giggle too- and that horrified her slightly. But something about her new friend just made her want to laugh. She really liked her. If only she had met her when she first changed. She put the disc into the player as the two sat quietly.
"Lilly?" Jenny asked suddenly looking a bit distant.
"Yeah?" she said turning to her.
"Moms... forgive you when you do bad things..right?" She asked sadly.
"Huh? 'course they do," the squirrel girl said adamantly.
"But what if... you did a really... really... really bad thing."
"Did you do a bad thing?" Lilly asked incredibly surprised.
"Maybe.. I don't know. I just.. kinda... um.. sometimes I think I might have?" Jenny wasn't really sure why she felt this way. She only knew she wanted Murriel to be happy with her. But what if.. she wasn't?
"Mom's forgive everything," Lilly said in the end. "I know.. I did lot's of bad things. An'... now I feel bad thinkin' about it. But.. you helped me. An' that was a good thing. So... if you did a bad thing, doesn't that mean its okay now?"
A debt... pay your debts... the slate must be cleaned...
Jenny shook her head. "I... I don't know if it's that simple. But... I want it to be." She said.
The movie started as they were almost hypnotised by the program.
