Hiro couldn't sleep, or at least wasn't falling asleep. He could have forcibly suspended his conscious functions, but after the events of the evening, he felt a little nauseous just thinking about it. This feeling of being some grotesque, ill-conceived fusion of two things...how he wished he could be one or the other! He remembered what Hitomi had said, that she thought he must have his own strengths...but what advantage could there possibly be to being...this?
It was just simple fact, really. Hiro's changed body was compromised by its dual nature. The electronic part of his brain was hampered by having to work with the organic part; the electrochemical signals in the squishy bits were far slower than the pure electrical signals in the machine parts, and thus any communication between the two had to happen at the slower speed. It was like some kinds of old computers he'd read about, that had a 16-bit CPU operating from an 8-bit bus, (or 32/16, in later examples,) and thus could only fetch data at half the normal speed. Even though the internal operations could run at full speed, it was such a drag on performance that some of them even underperformed pure 8-bit machines!
People laughed at those machines, and rightfully so. Yet Hiro himself was one of them, essentially...and he could hardly just throw himself out as obsolete. But how could this present any kind of advantages? He couldn't compete with pure artificial life for raw CPU performance, and there didn't seem to be any inherent advantages in being human, that he'd noticed. What did being a half-breed robot bring with it?
Pure processing speed couldn't be the only factor, could it? The human brain had functioned adequately for millenia with its slower mechanics, and even now, before the sun changed computers had only begun to challenge it in very specific tasks to which they had to be carefully adapted by talented programmers. Androids had of course far surpassed normal computers and were quite capable of adapting by themselves, but still...what did it have that computers didn't?
...parallelism, maybe. Since his change, Hiro had been reading some about computing history, and one of the definite trends was to work towards performing multiple independent operations in parallel. Android/gynoid machine architectures of course incorporated "multi-core" design philosophy, but even they were limited by the number of cores that could be fit into an efficient arrangement and accurately synchronized.
The human brain, on the other hand, was massively parallel, each neuron able to fire independently. Sure, the usefulness of a single neuron was limited and it took large numbers of them in complex sequences to accomplish anything noticeable, but the whole thing was designed as a group of interconnected systems, parallel on a macro level as well as in microcosm.
In which case, then, Hiro was a fusion of both design philosophies, the high-speed sequential (or rather, moderately parallel)-execution architecture that full artificial beings possessed, and a slower but more independent piece of wetware that handled multiple complex functions at once...which might be seen as analogous to the "floating-point unit" in many computers that handled complex fractional math, partially-independent of the main CPU. Like that, his design would still be hampered by the necessity of communication and coordination between the faster hardware and the slower, but it did present...possibilities.
Except that it didn't seem to be working optimally, at present. Hiro was more efficient than a human, mentally, but not by a whole lot. Even with a mixed-architecture design, he should be able to do better than this. If his mental processes were tweaked to take advantage of the divide in function, rather than just existing haphazardly around it, things could be improved. But while he could tweak operating parameters like the safeguard that kept him loyal to Hitomi, the cyborg didn't seem to possess the capability to consciously rearrange his basic mental function - understandable, since his consciousness itself was the end-product of that function.
Was he stuck in this poorly-optimized state on hardware that demanded optimized programming? Just another Itanium disaster? He hoped not, but if not, then how was he supposed to improve things? He recalled reading about the brain's ability to essentially re-wire itself along frequently-used paths...that was the key to the whole learning process, actually, but it could happen even without conscious intent. Would it be possible, then, for him to...to sort of adjust to being this, and let his mental systems self-optimize?
He didn't know, but maybe. Hiro drifted off to sleep considering the possibility. Maybe...he still wished he could be one thing or the other, but maybe it was possible for him to make a go of this...
Tiffany frowned as she slept, the itch intensifying. Half-consciously, she kicked off the covers, and sighed and went back to sleep as the feeling diminished.
There was a long, awkward silence as Ben and Steven stood in the arcade, waiting for the power to come back on.
"Look, I..." Ben said hesitantly, "did I...what did I say? You're getting all defensive and angry...did I say something wrong?"
The flower-girl frowned, unsure where to even begin. "Yes!" she yelped, taken aback by how plaintive it sounded. "You're...you're going all crazy over my change, you're treating me different, like I'm a different person! I'm not!"
"W-well what was I supposed to think?" he shot back. "You were the one that pretended nothing was different until you couldn't hide it!"
"And this is why!" she hissed. "I don't want people to treat me like some kind of...of...princess, just because I'm a girl now! Especially not my friends! You know me, Ben!" She felt a tear prick at the corner of her eye, and focused on willing herself to not cry.
There was another silence, though the feel was different. Ben sighed. "...'m sorry. I just...look, I don't know how to deal with this yet, what's the right or the wrong thing to say. I've never had this happen to a friend...sorry." That lilac scent...it seemed...calming.
Steven sighed, too, and hung her head. "It's...I guess you didn't mean to," she said. "But...I don't want to lose my friends just because they can't treat me like me..."
The lights flickered briefly and came back to life, and it was only a moment before the switch was flipped and the machines began to power on. The two friends looked around, blinking in the even the arcade's low light, before looking back at each other.
"Soul Calibur," Ben said. "Great stress reliever."
Steven nodded. "I'm going to slaughter you for being such a dumbass, you know."
He grinned. "Suuure you are. We'll see about that!"
She dashed over to the machine to drop a quarter in, skirt-petals trailing in the air behind her.
He looked around the featureless plain. The little girl, still gone, yet still indefineably close...where was she? He didn't feel that she was in any danger, but for her to just have disappeared...
He was so caught up in wondering this that he almost didn't notice the feel of someone approaching from behind. Damn! He was used to that inexplicable sense of another person's presence...his was highly developed, and it had come in very handy before. Why would it desert him now?
He turned to look at the newcomer. It was the woman, the one he'd seen on the far horizon. When did she get here? He hadn't noticed her approaching. Then again, in this place where time seemed to stand still or go entirely as it pleased... He studied her curiously. She reminded him very much of Jenny; same white hair and a very similar face, though much older...she could almost be the girl's mother. Something seemed...off about her chest, though he made it a point not to stare.
"The sun is going to rise soon," she said. "If you're caught, you will be lost."
He frowned. "When is 'soon?'" he asked. It felt so strange to hear his own voice again...how long had it been since he'd spoken to someone? Before Jenny had disappeared, he supposed, but...when was that? "And what's going to make me...'lost?'"
She shrugged. "Soon is soon," she said. "Maybe longer than you think, but not long."
He frowned. What, was she playing at riddles? He opened his mouth to cuss her out for being obtuse, but then thought better of it. Better weird company than no company, and if she knew anything about what was going on...
"As for 'lost,'" she continued, sitting gracefully down beside him, "the light...will tear away your sins. If you cling to them...you will also be torn away."
He stared at her. Great, some kind of religious nut...he chuckled bitterly. "So what then?" he asked, sarcastically. "Pay off all my debts, renounce my wicked ways, start over with a clean slate?"
She shook her head, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm. "You can't pay your debts."
He snorted. Of course not...they never believed you could. Always you needed whatever it was they were selling... "'Spose not. I've done a lot of terrible things, you know. Think even God himself could wipe it all away?"
"Nothing can be wiped away if you won't let it."
Great, she was just missing the sarcasm, then. "But suppose I were to let it," he said. "Who's going to ask me to trust them sight-unseen with my soul, huh?"
"I would," she said.
His jaw dropped. She was the...the ringleader? She didn't seem the type...not haughty or manipulative. Actually, she seemed less full of herself than he was...
"So," he said, "I suppose you're going to tell me you're the one true Messiah? Cash, check, or Visa accepted?"
She shook her head. "No?" he said, wondering if his tone would drive her away but unable to completely hold back the scorn. "Then why are you interested in helping me?"
"I'm the only one who can help you," she said.
He smiled, a little bit of sincerity creeping back in. "My own personal angel. Wonderful. If I'm so in need of help...how do you propose to do it? After all, I can't pay my debts off..."
"We can expose you to the light," she said.
His eyes widened. "What."
"A little light, from the sunrise." She pointed to a hill near the horizon, one he hadn't noticed before. There was a cleft in the peak, a little fiery shaft of morning light shining up through it. "A little light can burn away your sins, and what remains may stand in the day."
He stared off at the horizon. "Over there? L-look, even if I wanted to, I can't. I've got this girl to look after...to find. Have you seen her?"
The woman nodded. "I have. But to let yourself be helped...that will also help Jenny. More than anything else you can do."
"You're crazy," he said. "Look, I'd love to do your little burning-man thing, but I've really got to find her."
She sighed. "You're not ready, anyway."
He frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"You're not truly willing. You have to be willing to let go of everything, and anything that can be saved will be returned to you, in some form."
"And I should believe that why?"
She sighed. "You just have to trust me."
He shrugged. "Not today, lady. I'm not leaving Jenny, at any rate."
"I never asked you to," she replied. "Some other time, then. Just remember...'soon' may not be as long as you think."
He frowned. Wasn't that the other way around the first time? He turned to ask her, but she was gone.
God damn it, this place was confusing.
