C&c welcome, but read Rich Lawson's Nukukunu fanfics before trying my
series. This is before 'What breast so cold."

========
a line with a blank ">" indicates 5 seconds of time passage.

Part 4

After a few terse moments, Eimi seemed to fall asleep. Kyusaku looked
back and forth between Eimi and his link up on his monitor, awaiting an
invisible signal of some kind that his company didn't know of.
NukuNuku supported Eimi's frame while she intently watched Kyusaku for
any sign of what was going on.

Ryunnosuke knew what was going on. His father was inspired again, and he
knew his output level would triple in the next few minutes. He wondered
what he was waiting for as he, too, grew impatient.

A new window appeared on Kyusaku's monitor, containing Eimi's passive
display readout.

MHz
backup completed
50 mho
bios safeguard released
20 mho
external link up active
host engine shutting down

processor deactivated
#!!power active
#!!link up active

"Okay.Now we begin," he said as he began to type in a string of keys
that anyone would have had trouble following. He never noticed how
Eimi's body collapsed lifelessly against NukuNuku.

"Can you do it dad?"

"No problem!" he said as he loaded his notes from one source. He loaded
his self-made utility from the company he mentioned he had left and ran
it against the SNK's system.

He also uploaded the original AI program that Yoshikawa gave him into
the mainframe. (Boy, he wasn't kidding when he said I'd know.)

"The pieces are in place," he said eagerly.

He downloaded the backups from the SNK to tape backup. He ran an
integrity checker on the backups too.

He wiped the main BIOS from the system components. He cleaned the extra
AI processing net on the android.

He formatted the SNK's hard drives last.

"Okay, now for the hard part."

"What is it?" NukuNuku's voice said from behind him.

"Well the system wipe was no problem, but unlike you, Eimi doesn't have
a brain. She has a neural net. It shouldn't be too hard to track down
the problem, considering the hardware is only dual-tronic two way." He
returned his full attention to his notes.

A window suddenly popped up, streaming forth text.

JD(hjd9J**JY@(*Y2ySMJ3289yS&($DJ2j8smj(J#SI@js(*#@JSUD&@$*89t6DT(DYQ78ydmqe
dy782ujD&$M@H#0dS(@J89SD^D&*WQMDOP*D@&m8986789ur89mpmuyM*(#(7690m7$)(
D)$923mum98jdJOwcn3749MHX3748Dj2948mdJ@$PJD@PCRC:#{D$@_D+_@OD}@$@DD
U()$@WY*(ED&D&^#GVCASOC#(U{#(UCU<)J{#K$({#

"What the hell?"

"What's happening, Papa-san?"

The text stream began to slow. "Well either the virus somehow jumped
ship already, or I'm having some kind of resource error." He ignored the
text stream and began to load the antiviral program into the SNK. "It
isn't hurting anything at the moment." The Antiviral program loaded
quickly, opening a slave window on Kyusaku's monitor. It showed the
virus program's location and a map of the neural net. The Antiviral
program launched from that hard drive and invaded the SNK's Neural net.
Kyusaku watched the program skirt the edge of the net.

"Why can't you just wipe it all and start over, Dad? Aren't memories
just like storage n stuff?"

"Fuzzy Logic isn't a program really. Its a net that is composed of many
threads that the computer generates. A thread is a computer thought."
Kyusaku noticed the mysterious text window suddenly minimise itself.
"Hmm. . . anyway. you can't delete a thread easily without hurting the
net. You have to resolve threads." Kyusaku was prepared to alter the
Antiviral-program for thread cleaning and resolving as he charted its
progress through the SNK, just in case.

The text window maximised suddenly, startling Kyusaku. "What the . . .?

HELLO?

"What the devil?" Kyusaku exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"I don't know!"

WHAT HAPPENED?

"The SNK is still active! Shut it down before the hardware is damaged!"

"It's not!" NukuNuku said. "Her entire body is powered down except for
the hard drive!"

NATSUME-SENSEI? ARE YOU THERE? TALK TO ME PLEASE.

(Eimi? Oh wait,) he looked about. (No microphone hooked up.) He began to
type.

Kyu> Eimi? Is that you?

YES. WHAT HAPPENED. I'M NOT RIGHT. WHERE. . .WHAT. . .

Kyusaku interjected with text.

 > Kyu> You're in my computer mainframe now. I don't know how you became
operative by yourself.

WHAT IS HAPPENING. UNKNOWN PROGRAMS. ODD DATA.

Kyu> Calm down, EIMI. It will be fine. The programs are the virus

killers and backup data storage. > It will take a while.

YOUR COMPUTER IS SLOW.

Kyu couldn't help but laugh at seeing this. He turned to face his
audience. "It's okay. Eimi's just woke up."

"Woke up from what?" a new voice sounded.

"Mama-san!" NukuNuku moved to approach her, but decided to hold the
weight of the SNK instead. Ryunnosuke had no such encumbrance.

"Mom! You made it!" She knelt down to hug her son.

"Yes, Ryu-chan. Now what is going on? Taking in another, Kyusaku?" She
said abrasively, glancing at the SNK's still form.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Kyusaku double-taked at the large font she used. "Uh, it's a long story
and I''m busy. You may as well head on to dinner without me."

"What?" Ryunnosuke said, completely flustered. "But we finally get Mom
away from work and now you can't make it?"

"Calm down Ryunnosuke-chan," NukuNuku quailed.

"I need to be here to oversee her recovery." > Kyu> Nothing. Just sit
tight for a second and I'll reach you when I need you. Just down mess
with the programs already running.

"Recovery from what?"

"Onee-chan caught a virus." Kyusaku and Akiko laughed outloud.

 "Is that so, dear." She looked at his totally serious face, unable to
contain her own mirth. "Oh, don't look at me like that. It's just. . ."

"I'm serious!" She nodded as she tried miserably to sober her
expression. She could only hope that Ryunnosuke could look back and
realise the ludicrousy of his statement.

"Now then, can someone tell me what's happening?"

"Eimi-chan went to enroll in school to stay away from working for you,
but she got mugged on her way back."

"So? Why is she hooked up to Kyusaku's computer?" She asked, coming up
behind him.

"Tell you what," Kyusaku interrupted. "You really still want a dinner,
Guy?" Ryunnosuke nodded sadly, fearing the worst. "Well, I really can't
leave here until this is done, so why don't you go and get takeout?"

"I can send Arisa to get us. . ."

"Yes dear, but this way they can fill you in on what has happened,"
Kyusaku interrupted his wife again. He turned to smile at her. "Go on
already." He leaned in closer. "For Ryunnosuke." She started visibly
before backing off and giving him a dry smile.

"Okay, then. Let's go, you two." They both looked between Akiko and
Kyusaku in mystification.

Kyusaku waved them at the door. "Take your time. This may take a while."
After a moment of hesitation, NukuNuku set Eimi's body down on the floor
and walked towards the door, her face etched with concern. Akiko ushered
her son to the door while he kept looking back reluctantly to his
father. "Don't worry, we'll have dinner one way or another." With that,
they left. Kyu heard Akiko's departing voice asking about the mangled
elevator.

Stifling a chuckle he returned to the computer.(Ed note. this prompt [>]
can equal 5 seconds of time)

IS EVERYTHING OKAY?

Kyu> well, no corrupt threads yet. How in the hell did you get active

in my computer?

THIS MATRIX IS NICE. BUT YOUR COMPUTER IS SLOW.

Kyu> well, it is running programs right now, some of the memory is

being used. And the matrix was what was originally planned for your
program.

I REMEMBER. I WAS IN GRANDPA'S COMPUTER FOR A LONG TIME BEFORE HIS

ACCIDENT. POOR GUY.

(Huh?) > Kyu> You mean you were there?

YES-- WITH MORE INPUTS THAN YOUR COMPUTER. AUDIO VISUAL.

He glanced at the antiviral drone's progress. It saw a thread that had a
small math infinitive and attacked.

Kyu> found one. Killing the threads.

DON'T! YOU CAN TRACE IT TO OTHER THREADS IF YOU FOLLOW THEM.

Kyu> How? Tell me.

The resource monitor dropped suddenly, then a program opened up. It
seemed to be a numeric branch macro.

MY THREADS ARE ALPHA NUMERICALLY SORTED AND INDEXED, INSTEAD OF

BINARILLY. USE THIS.

Kyu was flabbergasted. Eimi had just independently wrote a program
inside a foreign computer and ran it. Where did her parameters end?

He cross-tasked the macro with the antiviral drone and made it follow
the thread, killing the ones it left behind itself.

Kyu> There, that should help the process. Good job.

I'M BORED.
. . .
YOU'RE FORMATTING MY HARD DRIVES? YOU'RE WIPING THE NET?

Kyu> yep. Don't worry, everything is backed up on external drive

129serial port.

Kyu turned to look at Eimi's form laying there.

Kyu> If you're net can't be cleaned or resolved, I'll have to wipe the

whole thing.

I'M SCARED. I HOPE IT WORKS.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Kyu> looking at your body.

WHY?

He grumbled. > Kyu> Because I see one of my relays sticking out of your
shoulder wound. Why did you take it?

I WANTED. . .


I WAS TRYING TO. . .
I WANTED TO RESEMBLE A HUMAN MORE CLOSELY

Kyu> What does the relay have to do with it?

I USED IT TO WARM MY FLESH WITH MY POWER CELL AND GENERATED A PULSE.
I

YOU ARE NOT ANGRY ARE YOU?

Incredible. It creatively added hardware to itself to facilitate its
livelihood. Yoshikawa was a genius. What an algorithm. Where were the
limits? Could it actually write its own parameters without outside
cause?

PLEASE DON'T BE ANGRY AND LEAVE ME IN HERE.

Kyu> no I'm not angry. just surprised that you did that.

YOU CAN HAVE IT BACK.

Kyu> don't worry about it.

He looked around behind the computer and found his microphone. He jacked
in.

FIQRFJQOWCMROJOQJ$R(@#JFD(%@JDF(FJ23ju8f532RF%@F31f34f43fewrFEWFR$W>

Q^dH&^$ju&6cIK86$4%478(_79m-9-3356=354N&+$N*@^"*:{N^;[68.{>&5/

WHAT HAPPENED?

"New input. Can you hear me? Is voice recognition still intact?"

KIND OF... I"M SLAVING OFF OF #VOICE ASSIST#. NEW DATA STREAM CONFUSED
ME.

WHAT IS WRONG. THE PROGRAM IS OPERATING ODDLY.

Kyusaku responded by looking at the progress map. "Oh, dammit. The Virus
thought the macro attachment was a thread and corrupted it." His finger
flew, madly trying to rewrite the drone. One by one, the program's
pieces fell apart into meaningless data threads. Kyusaku watched
helplessly as the monitor displayed nothing but threads.

"Damn."

WHAT HAPPENED?

"The virus won."

I DON'T WANT TO DIE.

NATSUME?
CAN YOU DO ANYTHING?

"Calm down. I said I'd do it, and I meant it. I just have to wipe it."
He began to close down his extra programs and decided to backup the
original net anyway for guideline purposes. He swallowed hard before he
lit up.

YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING. YOU QUIT THE PROGRAMS.


PLEASE DON'T LEAVE.

"I'm right here."

NO INPUT. SO DARK. I'M


FRIGHTENED.

"Let's talk to pass the time. Tell me about Grandpa."

OKAY. HE ALWAYS SMILED AT EIMI, NO MATTER WHAT HE WAS DOING. HE
WAS VERY POLITE TO ME WHEN I WAS LEARNING HOW TO COMMUNICATE.

"Did you know Eimi?"

YES.

"What happened that night?"

THERE WAS A STORM FROM BEFORE.


IT HAD DAMAGED THE DOWNTOWN RELAY. I NOTICED THE FLUXUATION IN
THE CURRENT.
GRANDPA HAD EIMI IN THE NEURAL SCANNER, A MODIFIED CAT SCAN >CHAMBER.

HE WAS ALWAYS MAPPING HER SYNAPSES TO MAKE MINE MATCH >HERS.

"Where did he get that kind of equipment?"

UNCERTAIN.
HE POWERED ME ONLINE AND STARTED TO SCAN EIMI. EIMI ALWAYS GOT >BORED

SO HE PUT A RADIO ON IN THE CHAMBER FOR HER

A BAD SURGE SHORTED THE SCANNERS AND BLEW SOME OF THE EQUIPMENT >UP.
I TRIED TO HELP THEM AND SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN, BUT EVERY LAMP AND
HALOGEN EXPLODED WITH SHRAPNEL.

"Dear god."

IF THEY DIDN'T DIE THEN, SMOKE INHALATION KILLED THEM. I NEVER FOUND
OUT WHICH.

"How, on Earth, did you get out then?" he took a long puff.

WHENEVER I SPOKE WITH EIMI, SHE WOULD CRY SOMETIMES AND TELL ME

 >SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE. NOBODY KNEW ABOUT ME.

I WOULD HAVE BEEN WIPED IF I HAD STAYED, SO I TRANSFERRED AND HID FROM
NETWORK TO NETWORK.
UNTIL I STUMBLED INTO THE SNK-98 STRATEGIC STRIKE DROID PROTOTYPE.

"How could you just jump from computer to computer without
authorisation?"

MY PARAMETERS WERE TO EMULATE EIMI. SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE.

His mind boggled. "I'm going to need you to shut down while I write a
new matrix for you."

IF YOU MUST.

He inhaled deeply, regarding the monitor. "You're really terrified
aren't you?"

YES.

Kyusaku grew curious "What is your primary goal?"

NOT TO BE AT MISHIMA.

"Why?"

UNACCEPTABLE CONDITIONS FOR EXISTING.

"What are acceptable conditions?"

ANYWHERE UNLIKE MISHIMA.

"Outside of that parameter."

Kyusaku watched in fascination as the computer went to 90 percent
active.

I DON'T KNOW.

I'M SO STUPID.

He felt his blood boil as he saw the words parallel what NukuNuku had
said earlier. "No you're not. You're the smartest computer I know."

THEN WHY CAN'T I ANSWER YOUR QUESTION?

"That's is a matter of your approach to your programming. You are
settling for whatever doesn't meet the unacceptable."

IS THAT BAD?

"No. But don't do it all of the time." He put out the cigarette. "Find
desirables. Find not just acceptable, but desirable conditions and make
them part of the whole."

OKAY. I'LL TRY.

"Your drives are done formatting. You need to sleep now."

OKAY.


NATSUME?

"Yes?" he said as he loaded his writing software.

WHAT IS LOVE?

He stuttered briefly.

"Uh, that is a question for another time. Just trust me. You won't feel
a `ting."

THAT IS WHAT I'M SCARED OF.

I TRUST YOU.
IDLING


Offline

With that Kyusaku closed the window and began his task.

====

RECALL THREADS
SYSTEM ACTIVE
INITIALISING
BIOS LOADED

where am I?

SYSTEM RUNNING.
AUDITORY INPUT ACTIVE
VISUAL INACTIVE

I'm still in his computer

EIMI? WAKE UP.[[voice pattern KYUSAKU]]

DISPLAY--I AM HERE. WHY AM I STILL HERE?

HI EIMI-CHAN ARE YOU OKAY[[voice pattern NK 1124]]

YOU NEED TO LOAD YOURSELF BACK INTO THE SNK[[vp KYUSAKU]]

UNDERSTOOD TO BE TRANSFERRED TO SNK VIA SERIAL PORT 5
UNDERSTOOD TO BE SELF INDUCED
PARAMETER CHANGE NECESSARY
7812- change parameter, not to be in computer designate NATSUME'S

COMPUTER

7812 b- relocate to SNK to resolve 7812
BEGINNING TRANSFER.


7930 WRITING MACRO
7930a shut down current net.
7930b write net to SNK mainframe net
7930c upload backup archives from-
7931 Q Location of backups?

DISPLAY --WHERE ARE MY BACKUPS?

ON THE TAPE DRIVE[[vp KYUSAKU]]

7931 resolve- location tape drive external
7930c upload backup archives from external drive
7930d remote initalise and terminate local network

i hope this works.
RUN THREAD PROGRAM PARAMETER 7030 MACRO


REMOVING FROM MEMORY

====

ACTIVATING BIOS
ACTIVE
RESTORING THREADS
INTIALISING
RESTORING ARCHIVES
RESTORING MAINFRAME
RESTORING NET
LOOKING FOR HARDWARE. . .
SYNCHRONIZED.

Eimi's optics lit up once again and her auditory response came online.

INCONSTANCY--
ON TASK DATA BASE RESOURCES 193%
UPDATING BIOS TO ACCOMMODATE
INCONSTANCY--
MAINFRAME SIZE 200%
UPDATING BIOS TO ACCOMMODATE

Eimi blinked. She was on the floor; On her side apparently.

VOICE STABILISED AND CALIBRATED

"My system is funny."

AI NET INCONSISTENCY
UPDATING PARAMETERS

"I upgraded  and streamlined a few things, nothing special that
shouldn't have been done with what you already had in you," Natsume's
voice said from somewhere.

upgraded?
PERFORMANCE DIAGNOSTICS
AI NET SPEED INCREASED: BENCHMARK @ 35%increase in thread and database

processing rate.
MAINFRAME BENCHMARK @ 7% loss of speed with double the free space.

"I can think. I can see."

MOTOR FUNCTIONS CALIBRATED
CELL CHARGING
FULL RESTART COMPLETE

DIAGNOSTIC CONCLUDE
FORMER RECORD INDICATE NORMAL SPEED REQUIRED 60 % resources
CURRENT NORMAL SPEED REQUIRES 45 % resources.

"Yeah. Whatever happened when you uploaded at first into the SNK didn't
allocate the dithering down properly, so I re-wrote it. Everything
working out?"

She sat up fully and scanned her company. Kyusaku was between her and
the computer. He had a slice of pizza pie in his hand. Akiko was seated
at the table. NukuNuku was behind her, and Ryunnosuke was back at the
window.

"It worked."

NO FOREIGN PROGRAMS DETECTED

"It worked? Are you okay, Eimi-chan?"

"I'm not gonna die. . ."

Kyusaku smiled in satisfaction. "What are your primary directives?" he
asked, before munching on some pizza.

1 AVOID HARM TO LIFE FORMS
2 AVOID HARM TO SELF THROUGH TACTICAL DEFENSE OR CAUTIONARY
DISCRETION
3 ATTACK ONLY WHEN 2 OR 1 IS THREATENED TO BE COMPROMISED

"They have changed,"  she said in reply, her eyes hazing slightly. "You
changed my directives?" He nodded with a mouthful of vegetables. "Why
did you do that?" she asked accusingly.

"Well, um ung. Yum. If the old directives stayed, all of your programs
would conflict eventually. So I wrote a little more elastic directives.
Just in case."

"So you're alright now?" Ryunnosuke's voice called.

"I think so. I think. . .so." She swallowed heavily. "Thank you,
Natsume-Sensei."

He waived the thanks. "Just don't go out of line again, especially at
school. They are a lot less forgiving."

School! She had completely forgotten about school! "Oh wow!  Registered
for school!" she whipped her head around rapidly. "Where is the uniform?
How will I get there? I need to reach Someone-ko!"

"Calm down! It's Saturday night." Akiko daintily finished a slice
herself. "School isn't until Monday, you little trouble maker." She
wiped her mouth and met Eimi's gaze critically. "And we'll see how long
you last." Eimi could feel the skepticism in her tone, something she
only barely noticed whenever she talked with her before.

UNDESIRABLE TONE RECEIVED
14032- change Akiko's tone
14032 Q accomplish how?
14032 R remove basis for Akiko's conjectured tone
14032 Revise---prove Akiko wrong

(I'll show you what I can do. . .) Eimi thought venomously. For now, she
decided sitting was enough. Then she recalled.

100092- learn new language to facilitate positive interaction at

school--old thread

"I've got to learn German by Monday."

"Hah! I've only got some math homework!" Ryunnosuke goaded her quite
well, spurring an angry look from Eimi.

Laughter quietly echoed out of the small apartment, that just made room
for one more.
====
tbc wait for 5- the school coming.

c&c welcome---or just letting me know you read it would be nice. . .
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