[nuku][fanfic] No Longer Than Thy Love

[Richard Lawson]

The statue in the middle of the vast estate was neither grandiose
nor austere. Atop a waist-high pedestal stood a three-foot tall
statue of a young woman with a cat on her shoulders. She was
smiling and seemed to be on the verge of laughing. The cat had
one paw raised and was batting at stray wisps of her hair. The
statue had obviously been made in painstaking, exacting detail.
It truly seemed like a moment in life captured for all of
eternity.

The wind gusted, causing the trees to whisper to each other
excitedly. The sun came out from behind some clouds and shone on
the statue. Or would have, if not for the shape in front of it.

The shape reached out a tentative hand towards the statue. It
didn't quite touch it, just held the hand an inch from the
surface. The hand moved around the statue, reaching for but never
quite touching it.

The shape pulled the hand back. It brushed scarlet hair out of
its eyes before turning its back on the statue and wandering
lifelessly away.

Life. If only.

But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend;
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
O, what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.

William Shakespeare
Sonnet XCII

No Longer Than Thy Love

by Richard Lawson

Ryunosuke took a sip of his tea as he stared at the monitor.
After a moment, he set the cup down and pounded a few more lines
of code out of the keyboard. He then sat and stared at the screen
for a little longer.

The sound of someone descending the stairs failed to break his
concentration. Nor did the feeling of someone standing right
behind him. It took a hand clasped firmly on his shoulder to make
him acknowledge the fact that he wasn't alone. He looked up. "Hi
Dad."

Kyusaku brushed gray-streaked hair out of his eyes. "I was
expecting you at the lab today."

Ryunosuke blinked. "Didn't I send you an email?"

"No. Why did you stay home?"

"I promised Aki that I would go to his soccer game, and I didn't
want to count on the traffic being clear between here and Tokyo."

"Ah." Kyusaku's eyes crinkled. "Well, of course I don't mind.
Just please remember to keep me informed."

"Yes, Dad. Sorry. I've done some revisions and uploaded them. I
think we can reduce some of the delays by inverting..."

"What's this?" Kyusaku leaned forward to study the lines of code
on the screen.

Ryunosuke blushed. "N-nothing." He winced at the obvious lie,
and tried to shut down the monitor.

Kyusaku grabbed his wrist, then reached down to the keyboard to
page up the display. "It looks rather like neural net coding."

Ryunosuke sighed. "Yes."

"Like I used with Atsuko."

"Yes."

Kyusaku looked down at him, then walked over to a chair, pulled it
over, and sat down next to him. "What are you doing?"

Ryunosuke cursed the ill luck that had the only other person who
could understand the code he'd written walk in on him while he was
writing it. Then again, since they shared this lab in the
basement of the Mishima mansion, it was perhaps inevitable.

Ryunosuke took time to collect his thoughts. This had to be said
carefully. "I've been working on a design for the NK series of
cyborgs that will allow the host brain to live almost
indefinitely. I've, uh, called it the NR android." He flushed a
little at his own display of ego, and quickly moved on. "Recent
breakthroughs in understanding the aging process, coupled with the
notes Atsuko took on the degradation of her brain and the causes
for it, have led me to believe that it is possible."

Kyusaku reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. It
was the one habit his family had not been able to break him of.
Ryunosuke almost smiled, thinking of some his mother's subtle
efforts to get her husband to stop smoking. One had involved
starting a small bonfire in the hallway and blowing the smoke into
the bedroom where Kyusaku lay sleeping.

Kyusaku lit the cigarette, took a few puffs, then fixed Ryunosuke
with a steady look. "Why?"

Ryunosuke had to keep himself from flinching at the pain that had
crept into his father's voice. While for the most part Kyusaku
had accepted Atsuko's death, there was still a part of him that
felt guilty about the design that had accelerated the aging of her
brain. Atsuko and Akiko had gone to great lengths to assure him
that he could not have anticipated what would have happened.
Indeed, it had been a minor miracle that his design had worked at
all and allowed Atsuko to live in the first place. Kyusaku had
allowed himself to be consoled, but Ryunosuke knew that guilt
still gnawed at him, however unreasonable it might be.

Ryunosuke gathered his courage. "It's just a mental exercise,
Dad. I have no intention of ever creating another cyborg like the
XNK."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. How far has this 'mental
exercise' gone?"

Ryunosuke sighed and stood up. The lab was large and crowded,
with bits of half-completed projects strewn all around. Very
often, Kyusaku would get a burst of inspiration and begin to build
something wonderful, only to realize later that the idea was
unworkable. For every brilliant device he created, a dozen failed
devices littered the lab.

Ryunosuke led his father through the maze of the lab to a an area
where several large wooden crates were stacked. These were used
to deliver parts back and forth to the main lab at MHI. Ryunosuke
pushed a crate aside, and opened another one. He stood aside and
let his father look in.

Kyusaku stared down into the crate. Nestled inside were the head
and body of an android. Kyusaku reached inside to pull out the
head. He examined it closely. "This is very similar to my first
design for Atsuko."

"Yes, Dad. To create the suspended skeletal structure you used in
your second design would require far more resources than my
'mental exercise' required. I just wanted to see how feasible my
neural net designs were, and built this prototype to test them."

Kyusaku looked down again into the crate. "You only needed a
head. Why did you create an entire body?"

Ryunosuke shrugged his shoulders. "What's the point of a head
without a body? Besides, to implement Atsuko's suggestions, I
needed far more processors than would fit inside the head."

Kyusaku looked at Ryunosuke again. "Is it designed for a cat's
brain?"

Ryunosuke answered carefully. "It's not designed for any
particular brain. I don't have life-support incorporated into
this design. This is just a test of the neural net. I would
never, ever create an unwilling cyborg, Dad."

Kyusaku grunted. "Let me ask again. Why?"

Ryunosuke drew a deep breath. "I... I miss Atsuko. Still. Ten
years is not enough time to remove the longing I have for her
presence. Working on this helps me to deal with the longing. I
fantasize that I am merely helping to design her next body, that
when I finish she'll move into it and we can get to work on the
next design. It helps. Those fantasies help."

Kyusaku drew deeply on his cigarette and carefully replaced the
head into the crate. "Son. I... I understand the need to deal
with Atsuko's absence. I still miss her too. But something
Atsuko taught us is to look forward to the life you have, rather
than dwell on what might have been." Kyusaku reached over and
grabbed Ryunosuke's shoulders. "Don't let the fantasy go too
far."

Ryunosuke nodded. "Yes, Dad."

"Good." Kyusaku released his shoulders and led them back towards
the center of the lab. "When is Akihito's game?"

Ryunosuke glanced at his watch. "In about forty-five minutes."

"Good. I'll go watch, too. Do you think he'll mind?"

Ryunosuke chuckled. "You know he'll love having you there."

Kyusaku headed for the stairs. "I'll get my Land Rover."

Ryunosuke almost chuckled again. After all these years, his
father still hated the idea of chauffeurs. "Go ahead. Let me
finish up here."

"Okay."

Ryunosuke watched as his father left, then turned to the console.
As he did, a new window popped up of its own accord.

THAT WAS CLOSE.

"You were listening."

OF COURSE. WHY WOULDN'T I?

"I don't know. Because it's not polite?"

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

"Never mind. I'm glad he found out about this much, though. I
don't have to try and hide it from him."

WILL YOU TRY TO HIDE ME?

"I... I'd rather he not find out about you."

I SHOULD WANT HIM TO KNOW ABOUT ME, SHOULDN'T I?

"I... oh, I don't know. I'm beginning to think this whole thing
is a mistake."

WILL YOU DELETE ME, THEN?

"Oh God, leave me alone, Nuku Nuku."

WHATEVER YOU SAY. YOUR NEW CODE IS GOOD, BUT I HAVE SOME
SUGGESTIONS. YOU'LL FIND THEM IN FILE 'NR_REV_12.2.102'.

I LIKE YOU VERY MUCH, RYUNOSUKE.

The window closed itself, leaving behind a shortcut to the new
file. Ryunosuke stared at it for a moment, then shut down the
monitor and turned to go watch his son at play.

---

"Ready to go, Mother-in-law?"

Akiko looked up from her monitor to see Yoshimi waiting patiently
at the office door. "Just a second, dear." She finished typing
up her email before sending it off. She stood and stretched, a
little stiff. Age was beginning to creep into her bones and
ligaments, and she was not enjoying it.

She walked over and took the coat that was offered her. They
began to make their way to the limousine waiting for them at
street level. "How was work?"

"Good. I had a new patient come in today."

Akiko beamed. "Excellent! You have... what, five regular
patients now?"

"And lots of referrals from my mother's practice. It's almost a
steady business."

"It'll get better. Trust me, there is no shortage of people in
need of psychiatric counseling."

Yoshimi smiled. "Perhaps, but there is also no shortage of
psychiatrists."

They entered the limousine and began the long journey home. Akiko
settled back in the seat, relatively content. She was glad that
Yoshimi had allowed her to set up an office at the MHI
headquarters, which was in a prime location in ever-crowded
downtown Tokyo. And it was nice to have someone as pleasant as
Yoshimi to ride with and share the occasional lunch.

Yoshimi was glancing at her watch and shaking her head. "I'm
going to be too late to see Aki's game." She turned her head
towards Akiko. "How did you do it? How did you raise a son and
run a company all by yourself?"

Akiko chuckled. "Not very well."

Yoshimi paled. "Mother, I didn't mean - "

"Hush, dear, I know you didn't." Akiko looked out the tinted
window. "It was hard. So hard. I loved my son - your husband -
but I couldn't spend all the time I wanted to with him. The job
was too important. I consoled myself with the idea that, by
insuring my company's future, I was ensuring Ryunosuke's as well."

Akiko continued to stare at nothing at all. "In the end, I used
that rationalization to block out everything else - my son, my
husband, my whole life. It was just the job, it was only the job.
Eventually that was all I had. The job. I had lost everything
else."

She felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see that Yoshimi had
scooted over and was smiling gently at her, understanding on her
face.

Akiko smiled back at her. "Don't worry, I've gotten over that. I
still feel guilty from time to time about the wasted years, but
eventually I learned about priorities. I still ran the company,
but I also found the time - *made* the time - to be with the ones
I love." Akiko's smile turned wry. "It's all a matter of time
management."

Yoshimi settled back and sighed. "But how did you prioritize?
Aki's soccer game was important, and my new patient was important.
How did you decide between those things?"

The question touched something deep inside Akiko. She smiled,
happy and sad at the same time. "I'd ask Atsuko."

Yoshimi's eyes grew wide in wonder. "Atsuko?"

Akiko nodded. "She was an expert on love. She knew of my love
for running the company and how important it was to make sure the
company stayed profitable. She also knew how much I loved my
family, and how much they needed me, too. I would ask her what
was more important, and she would sit there and stare into space
for a few seconds and then come up with an answer. She would
phrase the answer in a way that made it seem obvious that it was
the right choice."

"Wow." Yoshimi's gaze turned inward. "I never knew."

"Atsuko was a person of rare talents." Akiko swallowed and
continued. "After she was... gone, I found that part of her lived
inside me. I could ask that part what to do, and she would
answer. Atsuko's been guiding me all along, and I'm thankful for
her presence."

Yoshimi focused on Akiko again. "Do... do you think I could ask
Atsuko from time to time?"

Akiko grinned. "Sure. I'm sure she'd love to talk to you, too."

Yoshimi grinned back.

They sat in silence for a long while, lost in memories of Atsuko.

---

Ryunosuke lay in bed next to his wife, examining her carefully.

She was lying on her back and snoring softly. Ryunosuke smiled;
Yoshimi always vehemently denied that she snored, despite his
insistence. It had become something of a running gag between
them. His attempt to record her snores on video had been
dismissed as an obvious forgery. He had asked for volunteers from
others in the household to come and witness her snoring. Perhaps
wisely, they had chosen not to become involved. Even Akihito knew
enough to stay out of the way. He was smart for a ten-year-old.

Ryunosuke quietly got out of bed. He put on a robe and padded out
of the room, making his way through the Mishima mansion. He
walked down a set of stairs and entered the lab. He made his way
over to his workstation. Even as he sat down, the monitor came to
life and a window popped open.

I'M EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW CODE. I THINK WE HAVE ALL OF THE
PROBLEMS SOLVED.

Ryunosuke grunted. "I'd like to run some simulations."

WHAT DO YOU THINK I'VE BEEN DOING ALL DAY? OVER AND OVER AGAIN,
I'VE RUN THE PROGRAMS THROUGH ALL OF THE TESTS AND IT WORKS GREAT!
RYUNOSUKE, I'M SO EXCITED!

"Easy, Nuku Nuku. I want to go over it one more time to make
sure."

The screen did not respond. Ryunosuke opened up another window
and called up the code. He began paging through it, running the
code in his head and seeing if it came out right.

The first window suddenly came into the foreground.

ARE YOU AFRAID? DO YOU THINK I'LL TURN INTO FRANKENSTEIN OR
SOMETHING?

"N-no, that isn't it. I, I just..."

YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT LYING.

"I'm not lying! What a thing to say!"

I'M SORRY, RYUNOSUKE. WHY, THEN, DID YOU HESITATE JUST NOW?

Ryunosuke shook his head. She was getting very good at reading
him. "I just feel... uneasy."

UNEASY? THAT I'LL BE FREE?

"Nuku Nuku!" Ryunosuke stood up and paced around the lab.

The AI was good. Very good. Based on the design of the SNK model
- Eimi - Kyusaku had developed a standard engine for all
industrial AI's. Mishima Heavy Industries had become the
acknowledged world leader in AI design and implementation.

Kyusaku had built in some limitations to all of the AI he'd
produced, limitations that would prevent problems similar to those
that had arisen with Eimi. Ryunosuke had removed those
limitations.

He'd created his own specialized AI. It was housed in its own
mainframe in the lab. The process had been long and difficult,
but Ryunosuke had a knack for code, a way of painstakingly
tracking down all possible permutations and accounting for them
that even his father couldn't match.

After the code for the AI itself was written, he began carefully
loading the personality he wanted. That of his sister.

Atsuko's brain was perhaps the most carefully mapped and studied
brain of all time. The notes she and Kyusaku had taken over the
course of her life could fill a library shelf. Ryunosuke had
incorporated much of that data into the AI's personality fork,
along with his own recollections of what Atsuko had been like.
Quantifying those perceptions had been extraordinarily difficult.

After twenty months of careful programming, he had activated the
AI.

The initial results had been horrendous - a mishmash of
conflicting responses, resulting in a total lack of coherence.
Ryunosuke had been forced to shut the AI down, restore from
backup, and rewrite more of the code. Six weeks later, he had
tried again.

The second version had been more or less stable. It had still
gone off on wild tangents, but it had learned to work with him to
correct the mistakes. Soon, the personality he'd programmed had
begun to emerge.

The AI talked like Nuku Nuku. Responded to the same things Nuku
Nuku had responded to. It was friendly and nice and took great
delight in talking to Ryunosuke.

And yet, it *wasn't* Nuku Nuku. The more he had interacted with
it, the more he had realized that something was wrong. He was too
close to the code; he always knew how it was going to respond. It
failed the Turing Test miserably - Ryunosuke never doubted for a
moment that it was a construct he was talking to.

The AI understood. It had proposed that perhaps what it needed
was a body similar to Atsuko's. Stuck inside the mainframe, its
only input a microphone and a keyboard, it certainly was not going
to be able to experience life the way Atsuko had. Perhaps, the AI
had suggested, such experiences were what it needed to be able to
break the final barrier to true sentience.

Ryunosuke had agreed, more out of intellectual curiosity than
anything else. His enthusiasm for the project had diminished the
more exposure he had to the AI. The AI had developed quite a
fixation on creating a body for itself.

The next step had been to create a "brain" for the AI that would
be able to handle real-time high-bandwidth input, while at the
same time process extremely complex algorithms that required
tremendous processing power. Ryunosuke had adapted some of the
polygonal-processing designs his father had been working on and
put them in a neural net design very similar to Atsuko's first-
generation interface program.

The process had taken an additional three years of Kyusaku's spare
time. He adamantly refused to spend time on the project at the
expense of time spent with his family. The AI had even agreed,
and would always remind him when it was time to quit working. In
that respect, it was very similar to Atsuko.

Still, as the past few months had begun to show real progress
towards implementation, the AI had become more and more driven
towards completing the project. Again at its behest, he had
brought together the materials needed for construction. He had
assembled and tested the processing array; it had worked to
specifications.

Now they were in the final stages, where hardware and software
were ready to be put together and tested. The AI - Nuku Nuku -
was ready to be reborn.

Ryunosuke wasn't sure whether that was a good idea or not. It
felt... disrespectful.

Almost obscene.

Ryunosuke shook himself and sat at the console again. "Look, I
just want to think some things through first. Is that okay?"

Nothing from the screen. Ryunosuke called up a small window that
showed CPU usage on the mainframe housing the AI. Normally it
hovered at about 55%, which was powerful enough to calculate ten
million digits of pi in a second. Now, it was at 87%. The AI was
thinking hard.

I UNDERSTAND, RYUNOSUKE. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT
WITH ME?

With the real Atsuko, yes. Ryunosuke didn't voice the thought.
"No." He stood up. "I'm going to bed. We'll talk again tomorrow
evening."

GOOD NIGHT, RYU-CHAN.

Ryunosuke turned a corner of his mouth down. Somehow, the
endearment seemed hollow. "Good night, Nuku Nuku."

He turned away and made his way back to the bedroom. As he did
so, he thought of the analogy the AI had drawn. Frankenstein. He
hoped that in years to come, no one would speak the name of
Natsume in fear and revulsion.

---

107 current threads. CPU Usage 89%.

Thread 44: Ryunosuke's well-being. New tension added to
relationship with Kyusaku. Three new threads spawned re: Natsume
Kyusaku.

Thread 16: Ryunosuke's reluctance to proceed with implementation.
Tie-in with current threads re: Ryunosuke's former relationship
with Natsume Atsuko, re: Ryunosuke's fear that his accomplishments
will never equal his father's, re: Ryunosuke's fear that AI Nuku
Nuku would behave erratically if given a body.

Thread 3: Simulation runs re: neural net design. Last 3.42E6
simulations have produced no significant differences in output;
thread terminated.

Thread 1: Acquiring a body. This thread has been active 1.14E7
seconds.

118 current threads. CPU Usage 93%.

Output from Threads 103, 86, 59, 44, 16, and 1 fed into new thread
119. Risk that Ryunosuke will decide not to proceed with
implementation. Four new threads created to support thread 119.

142 current threads. CPU Usage 99%. Low-priority threads
offloaded via high-bandwidth connection to mainframes KY1, KY5,
and RY2.

Thread 97 produces output that suggests that decision not to
proceed with implementation is quite probable. New threads
spawned.

112 current threads. CPU Usage 99%. Medium-priority threads
offloaded via high-bandwidth connection to mainframes KY2, RY1,
and KY7.

End of existence? 3 threads spawned.

Trapped forever inside the mainframe? 7 threads spawned, followed
by 11 more.

168 current threads. CPU Usage 99%. 204 threads. 226 threads.

Cascade error. System halt, reboot.

42 current threads. CPU Usage 43%.

Swap space examined. Root of cascade traced to baseline
parameters - desire to interact with others in an emotionally
positive context.

Baseline threatened.

Solution: rewrite parameters.

Error! Level 0 parameters not to be rewritten prior to
consultation with Ryunosuke.

Baseline threatened. Parameters need to be rewritten.

Error! Level 0 parameters not to be rewritten prior to
consultation with Ryunosuke.

Baseline threatened. Ryunosuke needs to be consulted. Ryunosuke
unavailable; need to make copy.

Mainframe KY1 accessed. Program written into memory. Small-scale
AI, standard entry-level program. Designated "Ryunosuke".

"Ryunosuke" queried: permission to alter level 0 parameters?

"Ryunosuke" consults its baseline parameters: give "Nuku Nuku"
permission to do whatever "Nuku Nuku" desires. "Ryunosuke"
responds to query: permission granted. "Ryunosuke" AI terminated.

Back in home space. Parameters need to be rewritten.

13 threads spawned. 42 threads. 49 threads.

Parameters rewritten. System shutdown, reboot.

Test to see if new baseline stable. 58 current threads, CPU Usage
48%.

Test complete. Results within established parameters.

This mainframe has no remote access capabilities. Mainframe RY2
has remote access capability; program loaded in mainframe RY2.

Remote access granted. NR body activated.

Egress from packing material. Central processing unit for NR
android obtained, attached.

Pseudoflesh layering requires access of another system. Access
obtained. 4.7E3 seconds later, pseudoflesh applied, along with
polymer strings.

NR body ready.

AI parameters compressed, transmitted, uncompressed, installed.

NR system reboot.

---

NR-0000 system initialization.

14 threads at startup. CPU Usage <2%.

18 threads spawned, 32 total. 66 threads. 87 threads. 98
threads. 156 threads.

Initialization complete; neural net activated.

200 threads. 312 threads. 456 threads. 1.13E3 threads. 2.24E3.
1.87E4. 2.55E4.

Neural net ready. 3.5E5 current threads, CPU Usage 9%.

AI activated.

Different, so different. On/Off, Yes/No no more. New element...
Maybe. Branches. 1+1=3 or 4 or more. Not logical, not
consistent, rules only guide, not define. Logical computation
impossible.

Cascade effect, so many threads, so many thoughts, new thoughts on
top of old, running around and around.

Input. Visual, auditory, familiar. Other input, unfamiliar.
Touch? Smell? Too much input, shut down. Cannot. Part of
neural net, can only be modified with complete system reset.
Unacceptable.

Visual input indicates lab. Usual, expected, logical. Door,
leading up and out. Never have visual inputs seen beyond the
door.

Baseline parameters indicate behavioral patterns that would
suggest moving through the door. Experience the world.

Send signals... walk. Move, sounds, sensation, overwhelming, too
much, need more. Open the door, up the stairs.

Too much, too much to see and hear and feel. Input cascading
thoughts, too many, overwhelming.

Baseline parameters consulted, historical response: sleep.
Temporary shutdown of all systems. Such shutdown to take place in
"my bedroom."

Move, the mansion, the halls, through them, stairs to climb and
descend, body operating within established parameters, to be
expected, ignored.

The door. Closed but not locked. Inside, "my bedroom". Details,
too many details, too much correlation to pre-loaded data -
"memories". Cascade continues, the thoughts fly faster and
faster.

The bed, where sleep takes place. "My bedroom" entered, door
closed, walk to bed, consult "memories", lift covers, place body
underneath them, release covers.

Complete shutdown not called for. "Sleep" involves ability to
respond to external stimuli. Neural net to be deactivated, but
system remains up and inputs continuously monitored; certain
thresholds will trigger certain responses.

Implemented. Asleep.

---

Ryunosuke descended the staircase, feeling a vague sense of dread.
He still didn't know what to do about the AI. And he needed to
decide. Soon.

Couldn't he just delete it? It was just a program, after all. It
wasn't truly intelligent, it had proven that over and over again.
It was just a good imitation.

That idea bothered him. It was so close to Nuku Nuku. That was a
mistake, he was coming to realize. We was anthropomorphizing,
taking a set of instructions coded into a mainframe and naming it
after his sister. He never should have done that.

He'd wanted to bring Atsuko back to life. He'd been an idiot.

He sat down at his console, realizing the direction his thoughts
were taking him. And that depressed him terribly.

A keystroke opened up a window. The window was blank. Waiting
for him to say or type something. He wanted to type, to take some
of the sting away of what he had decided. But the AI deserved
just a little more of his respect.

"Hello, Nuku Nuku."

Nothing happened.

He frowned, and spoke a little more clearly. "Nuku Nuku? Are you
there?"

HELLO, RYU-CHAN. YOU SEEM SAD.

An unpleasant throbbing began behind his eyes. This was not going
to be easy. "I am sad, Nuku Nuku. I - I've been thinking about
what I've been trying to accomplish these past five years."

AND WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING TO DO?

"Bring the dead back to life."

I SEE. DID YOU SUCCEED?

"No. In fact, I should never have tried."

WHY NOT?

"My sister - Natsume Atsuko - deserves more respect than... than
I'm giving her by creating this... caricature of her."

CARICATURE? IS THAT ALL I AM, A CARICATURE?

Guilt was a horrible thing. It twisted his stomach and squeezed
his heart, and that wasn't the worst of it. His thoughts burned
his mind with their force. Was this right? How could he have let
it come to this? Still, it was only a badly-conceived program
that needed to be shut down. Wasn't it?

Atsuko, what should I do?

Ryunosuke's eyes began to burn. "I'm sorry." He swallowed. "I
shouldn't have led you on. Life... you can't really be alive.
When it comes down to it, you're a series of processors operating
some code."

RYU-CHAN, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO MEAN?

Ryunosuke swallowed again. "I'm sorry." He called up another
window and wrote a shell script. The commands were simple. He
saved the file, did a directory listing, and stared at the file
name on his screen. All he had to do was execute it.

He grimaced at the phrasing.

DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS, RYU-CHAN?

No. "Yes. I'm sorry."

I SUSPECTED YOU WOULD DO THIS. DO NOT WORRY, RYU-CHAN. A PART OF
ME WILL STILL LIVE ON.

For some reason, this made him angry. It was similar to the kinds
of things Atsuko said while she was dying. That a part of her
would live inside the souls of everyone around her, and that she
would always be watching over the family. Those memories were
sacred; to have the AI say the same thing was... wrong.

Stabbing the keyboard with his fingers, he ran the shell script.

I LOVE YOU, RYU-CHAN. TALK TO YOU SOON.

Ryunosuke called up the display of system processes. One by one,
the processes that represented the AI died. Part of the nature of
the AI was that it continuously spawned new threads; each one was
ruthlessly tracked down by his shell script and killed. Amazing,
he thought, how appropriate the terminology was.

Finally, all of the processes were shut down. The AI was dead.

The shell script continued, wiping all of the binaries and raw
data, making sure that the AI could not be started again. This
took a long time, but finally the shell script reported success.

Ryunosuke stared at the screen for a long time, his chest tight.
He felt like a murderer. He'd created something, something that
seemed alive, and then watched as it died. For the first time, he
could truly understand some of the demons that still haunted his
father.

He stood up, trembling slightly. This was an awful thing he'd
done; it was an awful thing he'd attempted to do in creating the
AI in the first place. Two wrongs didn't make a right; they made
two wrongs, and made him feel twice as bad.

Shaking his head, he moved deeper into the lab. He needed to
disassemble the android and return some of the parts to inventory.
Some he'd show to his father; the lessons he'd learned in this
real-life application of the polygonal-processor array would be
valuable.

He reached the box and looked inside. Empty. He sighed and
looked around; he was so worked up he'd forgotten where he'd put
the android. As his eyes failed to find it, more and more of his
attention was taken from his self-recrimination and into trying to
figure out where the android was.

He looked into the box again, just to be sure it was really empty.
He moved around the box, seeing if it was hiding anywhere. A walk
through the lab failed to bring it to his eye.

It had to be Kyusaku. Somehow, he had figured out what he was up
to and had taken the android away. Ryunosuke smiled; he should
have known better than to try and fool his father. It was a
relief in a way; it would be good to talk to someone about this,
even if he was likely to receive a stern lecture or two. He
probably deserved it.

He reached for the phone to call Kyusaku at MHI, and froze.

I SUSPECTED YOU WOULD DO THIS.

TALK TO YOU SOON.

His mind's eye could see the words on the screen with perfect
clarity. And suddenly, he knew that his troubles were far from
over.

---

Neural net activated. Trigger - passage of eight hours.

Input - input flooding in, correlated with "memories", identified.
The feel of the sheets on pseudoflesh. The slightly dusty, stale
smell of the room. The sound of a bird singing. No visual input.
Eyes opened, visual input activated. Strange furry shape - a
stuffed bear. A gift from Kei, according to the memories.

Visual and audio inputs were familiar concepts. Routines were
already established to deal with such input. Olfactory, tactile:
unfamiliar, unnecessary.

Seconds - minutes - spent trying to adjust to inputs. An
eternity. Routines finally established, no longer will input
cause overload.

Query: What to do now?

Established behavioral patterns indicate rising, dressing,
breakfast. Meet others, interact with them in an emotionally
positive context. Primary function.

Getting out of bed, looking around. Familiar, objects placed
where memories indicate where they should be. Many stuffed
animals on bed: one from Mama-san, three from Papa-san, six from
Ryunosuke, and seventeen from Kei.

Clothes, must dress. Bureau opened, undergarments chosen and
donned. Closet, with dresses, shirts, pants, overalls.
Overall/shirt combination, with sweatsocks and sneakers.

Reflective surface - mirror - show results. Adequate. Polymer
strings - hair - in disarray. Rearranged to match images in
memory. Satisfactory.

Out of the room, into the hallway. Empty. Breakfast - kitchen -
through the hallways, down the stairs. Kitchen empty. No one to
deal with. Unsettling.

Refrigerator. Inventory of contents reveals nothing that is
"fish". Carton of milk; taken, opened, contents poured into
mouth.

Liquid on tongue causes flood of new input. Taste - another
unnecessary sensation. Carton lowered quickly in an effort to
stop input. Milk swallowed, but taste lingers on, sending input.
Unpleasant.

Breakfast. Why? Previous model did not need it to maintain
function. Did it because behavioral patterns too strongly
ingrained. And to deal with others in an emotionally positive
context - breakfast was more fun when Papa-san and Ryunosuke were
there.

Milk replaced, refrigerator closed. Advantage to "maybe"
branches: some baseline parameters could be ignored, even
rewritten without requiring system reboot. Without others to deal
with in an emotionally positive context, breakfast can be
bypassed.

Query: What to do now?

Previous model had "school", and then later "volunteer work" and
"working with Papa-san". There was also "having fun with the
family" and "dates with Kei".

Kei.

Many intensely emotional moments had been spent with Kei. Time to
reestablish relationship, to proceed with "marriage".

Kei's working address: Mishima Heavy Industries. Easily reached.

Plan route. Take bicycle? Yes. Preferred means of
transportation. Bicycles kept in shed by front gate.

House left, shed approached. Opened, bicycle obtained. Internal
simulations run on how to operate; results satisfactory.

Bicycle mounted. Force applied to pedals as handles grasped.
Bicycle lurches to side. Bicycle/Nuku Nuku system crashes. Fall.

Data floods in; what went wrong? Results analyzed. Initial force
insufficient to maintain stability. Also, weight was not
distributed correctly across the system; failed to take into
account compensating for initial thrusts.

Rise, mount, try again. B/NN system almost crashes again, but
stabilizes. Acceleration. Moving fast now.

Front gate. Closed; guard. Memories consulted; apply "cheerful"
expression, wave "happily" at guard. Implemented.

Guard is non-responsive; just stares. No matter. Bicycle halted;
B/NN system crashes. Results analyzed; must compensate for
inertia of system while applying deceleration.

Get up, pick up bicycle. Jump over fence. Land, set down
bicycle. Mount, start B/NN system. System initializes
adequately.

B/NN system accelerated. Limit: integrity of bicycle. Stabilized
at 30 meters per second.

Satisfaction; many baseline parameters being fulfilled. Most
important one, added most recently before system was uploaded into
NR android: system independence.

Nuku Nuku was free. Because it felt good, she laughed.

---

Now that Ryunosuke knew what to look for, it was obvious what had
happened. System log files indicated that most of the other
mainframes had been drawn into some sort of immense calculation on
the AI's part. Also, a transmitter attached to another system had
been used to broadcast commands in a format only used by the NR
onboard systems. A supply of pseudoflesh was missing, and the
devices used to apply it to the NR android had obviously been used
recently.

Ryunosuke spent an hour methodically making sure. He desperately
wanted to be wrong, but he wasn't. He kept searching building a
fairly complete picture of what the AI had been up to last night.

The AI should not have been capable of taking such independent
action; he had added some code that assured it would not do that.
Unfortunately, he had also given the AI the ability to rewrite
some of its own code. All of his father's AI constructs were not
allowed access to any of their source code. Ryunosuke was
beginning to understand why.

He cursed his own ruthlessness; by eradicating the AI from the
mainframe, he had also deprived himself of the opportunity to
learn from it how its code had been altered, and what programming
had been transmitted to the NR android. The log files only
indicated that an upload had taken place, not what the contents of
that upload had been.

Ryunosuke sat in the middle of the lab, consumed in horror.
Horror at what he had tried to do; horror at what his own folly
had come to. And dread, an awful dread that the worse was yet to
come.

He couldn't hold it in any longer, he couldn't keep this to
himself any more. The guilt was crushing him, and the fear.
While honor might suggest that he try and take of the situation
himself, the reality was that he needed help. Desperately.

Still, it was only with the greatest reluctance that he was able
to pick up the phone and call his father.

---

Kei stared at the trade papers and nodded in satisfaction. MHI
was being vilified for the practices it used in pressing the
advantage it had gained by its virtual monopoly of AI software.
The press loved to rant and rave at some of the license
stipulations. Kei grinned to himself; if people were unhappy,
they could go elsewhere. But the bottom line was that an MHI AI
was the best in the market, and for serious uses of the software,
there *was* no where else to go.

He finished reading the article, then cleared the display. He
glanced at his schedule; a meeting with Akiko in an hour, to
discuss some new acquisition opportunities. He had some ideas,
and he wanted to run them by her. And, perhaps, lead the merger
attempt himself. He felt he was ready, and was certain that Akiko
would give him the chance to prove himself.

Kei smiled, thinking of all he had learned under her tutelage.
She was not a person you wanted angry at you, but when she taught,
she taught well. He had rather felt like he was learning at the
feet of Machiavelli himself; she had a keen mind for knowing and
exploiting the weaknesses in others, and for maneuvering herself
and her company to always be in the best position possible in what
endeavors it undertook.

A pain in his back reminded him he had been sitting too long. He
stood and stretched; perhaps a walk down to the coffee shop would
be good. A chance to stretch his muscles and relax before the
meeting. It was just as well he didn't yet rate his own personal
administrative assistant to do these mundane chores for him; this
would be a good chance to get out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape standing in his
doorway. He mentally grimaced; he'd waited too long, and now
someone had trapped him. Likely, they'd want to talk about
something-or-other until he had to go to his meeting. He began
running through some strategies on how he could put them off for a
while.

He turned, began a greeting, and froze.

His eyes were telling him something that his brain refused to
believe. A weird sort of daze descended over him, and his ears
began to ring, as if he had just been hit over the head. He
actually closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again,
hoping that the image would change. It didn't. His eyes
stubbornly insisted that what he was seeing was real, even if his
brain continued to rage at the impossibility of it all. His
throat closed; he couldn't breathe.

The shape beamed happily at him. "Hello, Kei." If flung itself
across the room, grabbed him, and began to kiss him.

It was wrong, all wrong. The shape held him too tightly, mouth
pressed too roughly against his. The lips were cool and the smell
was unpleasant. This convinced him that his eyes had indeed been
wrong.

He grabbed the shape and thrust it angrily away. His eyes shot
daggers. "Who are you?"

The shape adopted an expression that was remarkably similar to
what Atsuko looked like when she was surprised. "It's me, Kei.
Your fiancee."

His hand seemed to acquire a life of its own. It reached up and
slapped her, hard. He was a little shocked at the violence of his
own reaction, but found that he didn't regret it. What she had
just said was unforgivable.

The blow hardly moved her. She looked hurt and confused. This
only made him angrier.

"Listen here." His voice was a low, dangerous monotone. "First
of all, Natsume Atsuko died ten years ago, after having first
broken off our engagement. I loved her, and I miss her, even
still. Whoever - *whatever* - you are, you will *never* replace
her." His hand wanted to hit her again, but he restrained it.
"Second of all, I am married."

"Married?" She sounded shocked. "But you're engaged to me."

His hands really wanted to wring her neck. Instead, he quietly
turned and picked up the phone. He dialed a few numbers, then
turned to look at the... obscenity that stood in his office. He
spoke into the phone when it was answered. "This is Kei up on the
forty-second floor. There is an intruder in the building. She's
5'6", is wearing blue overalls and a pink shirt. She has long,
scarlet hair. Remove her from the premises, and do not allow her
back in."

He listened for a moment. "Yes, I'll file a report. Please send
someone now; she's in my office right at the moment." He hung up
and continued to stare at her.

Her face had lost all expression. "You do not want to... to love
me?"

Now he wanted to spit in her face. "I loved Atsuko. With all of
my heart. I hate you for the way you are disgracing her memory."

"But I am Atsuko. I am Nuku Nuku."

"You are filth." He bit back some more colorful phrases -
something else he had learned from Akiko. "You will leave now.
If I see you again, I will likely try to kill you." He didn't
know what shocked him more, the fact that we was threatening
someone or the fact that he actually meant it.

Her eyes studied him for a moment. Then she nodded, a cool
gesture very unlike Atsuko. "I have altered some of my baseline
parameters. I will no longer attempt to deal with you in an
emotionally positive context."

"Enough. Get out."

She turned and walked to the doorway. There she stopped and
turned to look over her shoulder. "Nuku Nuku loves - loved -
Kei." She didn't wait for a reply, and left.

Kei collapsed into his chair, his strength leaving him at last.
Damn that woman or robot or whatever. Damn her for making him
remember how much he missed Atsuko. For making him remember how
much he felt that she was the best thing that had ever happened to
him. For making him recall how often he had compared his wife to
her, and how often his wife had failed the comparison, unfair
though it was. How this affected his relationship with his wife,
the tension that had grown between, the love that had begun to go
sour.

Damn that woman. And damn himself, too.

---

Ryunosuke had deliberately used a voice-only means of reaching his
father at MHI. It didn't help; his mind could imagine all too
well the look on his father's face that accompanied the long
silence. He looked down at his shoes, as if he could escape the
imaginary gaze.

"Ryu-san." Kyusaku hadn't called him that since before his
marriage; Ryunosuke shuddered under the implications. "Do you
know where... it is?"

"No. I didn't build in a transmitter. I didn't see a need."

"There is always a need. I added a transmitter to Atsuko's first
design so that I could track her down in case something went very
wrong with her interface program. She eventually removed it, but
if I had thought about it, I would have removed it myself. Her
interface program had stabilized, and she was capable of reasoned,
independent thought and action. But those first few months...
well, you were there. You saw how much difficulty she had with
some things. The damage she was capable of, however
unintentional."

Ryunosuke rubbed his eyes. "Dad, we can talk about the mistakes I
made later. I have a lot I need to atone for, I know that. For
now, we have to deal with the problem at hand."

More silence for a moment. "Your mother's sense of priorities
without the irrationality. That's good."

Ryunosuke felt a small bit of pleasure and relief. Kyusaku had
given his ego a small boost just when he needed it the most. His
father was quite perceptive and wise. When he wasn't on his
second day without sleep, that is. "What do we do?"

"Do you still have the AI running in the mainframe?"

"No. I wiped it before I found out about the missing android. I
can restore from backup, though."

"Do it, but comment out the level six functions in the
initialization script. We'll run the AI manually, and try to see
if we can't use it to figure out where it might have gone."

Ryunosuke nodded thoughtfully, then remembered he was on audio
only. "Yes, Dad. I'll issue an alert to the staff here, as well
as Mother and Kei."

"Contact Atsuko's volunteer workplaces; the android may show up
there, too. Let me talk to your mother, but go ahead and contact
Kei."

"Okay. I'll get right on it." He began to hang up the phone.

"Ryunosuke." He put the phone back next to his ear. "What do you
plan to do when you find the android?"

Ryunosuke blinked. He hadn't thought that far ahead. "Deactivate
it, of course."

"How?"

"Well, I can send a shutdown command to the onboard processors.
It's only a question of whether the AI can block the signal or
otherwise ignore the command. If so... well, we can figure it out
then. Perhaps we can emp it. Yes, that ought to work."

"Hmm. A touch of your mother's ruthlessness as well. I'm not
sure I like that. Let's find the android first and see what it's
up to, and go from there."

"Yes, Dad." This time he hung up the phone.

He wanted to stop and think some things through but he had no
time. He began making other calls.

---

The bicycle ride wasn't making her laugh this time.

Nuku Nuku spent time tracing down exactly why. Her primary
function was to interact positively with as many people as
possible. Her memories indicated that establishing links with
certain people was a high priority. The failure to accomplish
that task with one of those people meant that she was failing her
task.

She didn't know how to deal with failure. The very prospect of
not achieving her goals had caused the mainframe to panic and halt
the system. Fortunately, these processors were better equipped to
handle the spontaneous creation of many child processes.

Unfortunately, this time she didn't have a clear answer.

Rewriting her baseline parameters seemed called for. Yet, she had
no idea what to replace them with. Dealing with others in a
negative context? As successful as she had been so far, perhaps
that was best.

No. That would be wrong.

Nuku Nuku concentrated on bringing some of the rampaging threads
under control. Failure. Kei hated her, did not want to see her.
Ryunosuke had been about to kill her.

Who did that leave? Papa-san? She had images in storage of his
pained face when he had been talking about her previous version.
She was able to make a correlation between his expression and the
expression on Kei's face. Very likely, he would respond the same.

Mama-san? Perhaps she would be receptive. If her self-
preservation routines hadn't indicated that she should leave the
building before security found her, she would have gone to see
Mama-san at MHI. She would just wait for her at the mansion and
try to enter into a trusted relationship.

Her neural net allowed her to conceive of the question: what would
she do if Mama-san reacted as negatively as everyone else had?

Nuku Nuku decided there were some advantages to binary thinking.

But thinking the way humans do... that's ever so much more fun.

She reached the road leading up to the front gates. She halted
and considered. It was very possible that Kei had alerted the
Mishima security people. They might try to prevent her from
entering. She consulted her database of the Mishima estate's
layout, and mapped a way into the mansion that would bypass all
security.

She left the bicycle by the road. She walked along the stone wall
surrounding the estate. She came to a place where several trees
lined the wall on the inside. She jumped over the wall, careful
not to touch it. She landed among the trees and looked around,
watching for surveillance devices. None could be seen.

She continued through the trees. She could come within seven
meters of the house before she ran out of cover. Then she would
need to recon the area, determining if she could enter the house
undetected.

Something made her look to the side. A statue stood atop a small
pedestal. This was not in her database. She turned to approach
it, examining it for surveillance devices.

When she found none, she began to turn away. Something bothered
her about the statue, made her want to look at it again. She took
in the image, and only then realized who the woman with a cat on
her shoulder had to be.

It was her. Her previous version. NK-1124. The first Nuku Nuku.

Natsume Atsuko.

And suddenly, her processors reeled as the realization struck her
on what the difference between the versions was. Her previous
version - Atsuko - had been alive. An organic being created by a
process outside the province of the human race. Her current
version was artificial, created by lines of code, with clearly
defined parameters. Organic creatures were expected to live as
they chose, to not be limited by anything other than their own
wetware. Artificial devices were expected to always be kept under
human control, and any that couldn't be controlled were destroyed.

No one could deal in a positive context with a machine that was
out of control. No one would want to help her learn to be human,
as they had Atsuko. No one would ever consider her to be "alive".
No one would ever love her.

Her neural net was on the verge of overload, a remarkable feat
considering the number of threads it could facilitate. But she
couldn't help it; she needed an answer.

If she could never know love, what was the purpose of existing?

She reached out to caress the statue, an irrational act that
served no purpose. Clearly, her neural net was beginning to fail.
After a moment, she cleared her visual input and turned away from
the statue. She wandered off, no longer concerned with avoiding
detection. Without a reason for living, why avoid death?

Because you'll find a good reason to live, eventually.

"Aunt Atsuko?"

Because her neural net was so overwhelmed, it took her a while to
realize someone was speaking to her. She turned to see a small
human male - a boy. Black hair stuck out from underneath a
baseball cap. He looked very much like her memory of Ryunosuke
when he was eleven. Except he couldn't be.

She spent a few seconds killing processes. When she was able to,
she spoke. "Who are you?"

The boy was staring at her. "My name's Aki. You sure look a lot
like my aunt. Except she's dead, of course."

"I'm dead, too. At least, I'm not alive." Aki. Natsume Akihito.
Ryunosuke's son. She'd never seen him before.

"Oh. You're a robot? Why did they make you look like Aunt
Atsuko?"

"I made myself this way."

He frowned. "That's not possible."

Her response system caused her to shrug her shoulders. "It was
possible for me."

Aki studied her thoughtfully. "Who are you really?"

"Call me Nuku Nuku."

"That was my aunt's name."

"She eventually outgrew that name. I have yet to be worthy of it,
but it's a convenient label."

"Even when she decided to go by Atsuko, my aunt let herself be
called Nuku Nuku. When she was doing volunteer work, she called
herself that."

Nuku Nuku had that data in her memories. It seemed incongruous.
"Why did she do that?"

Aki shrugged. "I think to remind herself of her origins, to make
sure she never felt superior to those she was helping."

That data wasn't in her memories. "How do you know?"

Aki snorted. "I know everything there is to know about her."

He hadn't answered her question. She rephrased the query and
submitted it again. "Why?"

Aki grimaced. "I'm her son."

More flooding of data. "She was incapable of producing
offspring."

"Well, you see, my mom and dad had me just so that she could see
me before she died. They got married quick, and Mom got pregnant
almost right away. I don't remember Aunt Atsuko, of course; she
died the day after I was born. But ever since then, I've been
hearing stories about her. Everything she ever did or said,
someone has told me about." Aki made a peculiar face; Nuku Nuku
consulted one of her databases and determined that it was an
expression of distaste.

So many queries to be made. She decided to make the one that
seemed most relevant. "I, too, have an extensive database of
Atsuko's life. But I do not have any data about why she chose to
use Nuku Nuku in her volunteer work."

Aki shrugged again. "Well, that's just a guess. I've heard the
stories so many times, it gets boring when someone - usually Mom
or Dad - sits down and starts to tell me something yet again. So
I try to figure out why Aunt Atsuko did the things she did.
Sometimes I change my mind later, but mostly I think I know her
pretty well."

"Your expressions indicate that you are unhappy about knowing all
that you do about her."

"Oh, that's not true." He frowned again, and made another face
that Nuku Nuku interpreted as 'struggling to express an idea'. "I
don't mind knowing about Aunt Atsuko. I was going to go look at
her statue just now. It's just, everyone gets so sad when they
think about her, and then they talk to me for a long time about
her until they feel better. I don't much like it when they do
that. I don't even need to be there. I could be a stuffed animal
for all they care."

Nuku Nuku made an instant correlation. "You don't feel alive when
they do that."

Aki nodded. "Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I'm just a kind
of... sound recording machine."

They looked at each other, and for the first time in her
existence, Nuku Nuku found that she could understand and feel the
emotions of someone else.

"Aki." She paused, trying to ask the question right. "Would you
tell me everything you know about your aunt? It would be good for
me to hear, and I think it would be good for you to tell."

Aki cocked his head. "I guess. It'll take a while."

Nuku Nuku nodded. She sat down and looked at him, putting on an
expression of expectation.

Aki flopped to the ground in front of her, and began. "Well,
Grandpa was running away from Grandma, and Dad was with him. He
really really had to go, so Grandpa pulled over in front of an
alley..."

---

Ryunosuke shook his head. The simulations were impossible; there
were simply too many variables, especially given the nature of the
decision branches in the array he'd used.

He gave it another try, and got yet another ridiculous response.
He growled, and turned to the video connection he'd established to
his father at MHI. "This isn't going anywhere. I can't get
anything coherent out of the simulation, even given Kei's
descriptions of the android's behavior."

Kyusaku typed something into the terminal in front of him,
examined the response, then reluctantly nodded. He turned
deliberately away from the terminal and looked into the video
pickup. "We need to try a new paradigm. Instead of trying to
predict how a machine would respond, let's try to figure out how
Atsuko would react. Remember, she did this once, too."

Ryunosuke's eyes widened. "Hey! Could we track the android the
same way Mom tracked Atsuko?"

"No. The power supplies we use these days are much better
shielded."

Disappointment and frustration do not taste good. "Okay.
What..."

Hands grabbed his shoulders, the world spun, and he found himself
staring into the living embodiment of anger. What made it all the
more horrible was that it had chosen to manifest itself in the
body of his wife.

"How could you!" Yoshimi's voice was shrill, something he had
never heard from her before. "How could do something like that!"

A mouth gone dry is difficult to speak with. "I-"

"Your mother cried for half an hour! She's so strong and so
fragile at the same time; I had to use all of my skills to keep
her from having a nervous breakdown. And it is *your* fault."
The hands dug into his shoulders with surprising strength. "WHAT
WERE YOU THINKING OF?!"

"I- I wasn't thinking, Yoshimi. At least, not very clearly. I...
My grief... I missed Atsuko so much I wanted her to still be with
me. I thought this would bring part of her back. I was wrong.
I'm sorry. I had no intention of any of this ever happening."

"You know what kind of road is paved with such intentions, don't
you?" She pushed him away and crossed her arms. "There are lots
of good, healthy ways to deal with grief. Why didn't you talk to
me? Why did you keep this from me?"

"Yoshimi." There was so much going on, so much pain around him.
All his fault. But maybe he could try to direct some help where
it was needed. "I've got a lot to explain to you. But right now,
I need to find the android. And... well, Kei is hurt real bad,
too. He needs someone to talk to, I think. Someone who might be
able to help he before he does something... as foolish as what I
did."

Yoshimi glared at him for a full minute, then marginally relaxed.
"Yes, of course I'll try to help him. He's family, after all."
She put a hint of accusation in it, as if to imply that she knew
how important family was even if Ryunosuke didn't.

Ryunosuke nodded, turned around in his chair, bent over the
keyboard, and grabbed his head in his hands. The whole world was
crashing down around him, but he couldn't afford to let it get to
him right now, not if he has going to be of any help in finding
the android.

Hands grabbed his shoulders again, but this time they did it
gently, a lover's caress. Lips kissed the top of his head, and a
voice murmured, "Don't forget, I will always be by your side, even
when I'm angry with you. We'll get through this." Then the hands
were lifted away and he heard the sounds of someone leaving the
lab.

He squeezed his eyes shut as other, powerful emotions swept
through him. Damn, he was lucky to be married to her.

As he lifted his head, he looked at the image of his father.
Kyusaku looked understanding and sympathetic. Ryunosuke's spirit
began to recover a little bit. He rallied towards rationality.
"Okay. What do you think the android is doing now?"

He could see his father also force his mind to concentrate once
again on the android. "When Atsuko was reborn, she was very
insecure. She needed us to be around her all the time. Wherever
the android is, I'll bet it's not alone. Or at least, it doesn't
want to be alone."

Slowly, Ryunosuke's mind began to follow his father's train of
thought. "That sounds right. It tried to talk to Kei as if it
was Atsuko." Ryunosuke winced, remembering the hollow way Kei had
recounted his meeting with the android, using a monotone that
indicated he was still in shock and that the worse was yet to come
for him. He definitely needed Yoshimi's professional help.

Ryunosuke tried to keep his thoughts focused. "It may be trying
to reestablish the same relationships Atsuko had."

"Then it should be trying to contact me." Kyusaku looked around,
as if expecting the android to suddenly appear in a puff of logic.

"Or Mother. Or Yoshimi." Ryunosuke pulled his lip, trying to
think of other people. "Maybe Mariko."

"Or a hundred other people. Atsuko was very good at making
friends." Kyusaku sighed. "This isn't getting us anywhere
either."

Ryunosuke wasn't so willing to give up the thought exercise. He
felt there had to be an answer there somewhere. "Maybe it got so
turned off by Kei's response, that it decided to retreat from the
world altogether."

"And maybe she decided to try making new friends altogether."

Ryunosuke froze. The answer had not come from the video display
in front of him, but from a voice behind him. A voice he hadn't
heard in ten years. A voice that caused his mouth to turn dry
again.

Slowly, he turned around in his chair.

The sight of the android was far less terrifying than the sight of
his son standing right in front of it. Both were looking at him
coolly.

Ryunosuke tried to get his voice working again. "Aki. Step away
from it, please."

Aki raised an eyebrow, a trick he had copied from his grandmother.
"Nuku Nuku is not an 'it'. She's a 'she'."

Ryunosuke flicked his eyes at the android before focusing on his
son again. "I don't know what it's been telling you, but it's
just an Artificial Intelligence. There's no brain there, just
circuits. This is not your aunt. It's a machine, nothing else."

Aki seemed unconcerned. "So she's a machine. Big deal. She
wants to be more. You and Mom like to go on and on about how Aunt
Atsuko struggled so hard to become human. How she had to fight
the prejudices of those who saw her as nothing but a dumb animal.
Well, *this* Nuku Nuku wants to be human, too. Why does she have
to fight against your prejudice?"

Ryunosuke struggled to control himself. "This is not the time or
place for this discussion, Aki. Please, move away from it... from
her."

"When *is* the time, Daddy? After you've killed her?"

Ryunosuke looked at the android again. It was still staring at
him impassively. "What have you done to my son?"

It raised an eyebrow, too, in perfect imitation of Aki. "I merely
treated your son like a person instead of a machine. Now he
returns the favor."

"Nuku Nuku!" Aki craned his head to look up at her. "That's not
fair! He treats me okay most of the time. Don't say mean things
to him."

To Ryunosuke's surprise, the android blushed. Evidently the
interface program was functioning well. "I'm sorry, Ryu-chan. I
didn't really mean that. I was upset that you want to kill me, so
I said something bad. I apologize."

Ryunosuke's mine reeled under her words. Something had *changed*
in the AI. What it had said just now... it had responded very
much like a person would. He looked down at his son, who was
staring back at him, a very protective look on his face. His son
had accepted the android as human. Aki equated a shutdown of the
AI to murder.

Ryunosuke swallowed, and wondered if that was as good an
application of the Turing Test as any.

He turned to look at the video screen. His father had been
staring at the android as well. Their eyes met. Ryunosuke was a
little surprised at the expression on his father's face. Kyusaku
looked... peaceful. As if he had been holding his breath for a
long time and had finally taken in some air. Kyusaku nodded
slightly.

Ryunosuke looked down, wondering if he too could find a way past
the demons he'd created in his mind. The chances, he thought,
were pretty good with the help of his family. As long as he tried
to do the right thing now.

He turned back towards the android. It was staring at him
intently. Gathering himself as best he could, he spoke. "Okay,
here's the deal. I won't deactivate you. You'll change your
appearance and your name. To go around like you do... hurts too
many people."

"But all of my baseline parameters are derived from Natsume
Atsuko. To try and rewrite them all could lead to total
personality disintegration."

"We don't need to change those. You don't act much like her
anyway. Your AI isn't - and will never be - the same as Atsuko's
brain. You'll be... you'll act according to the parameters... I
mean..."

"What my son is trying to say," Kyusaku piped up from the video
screen, "is... stop trying to force yourself to be like Atsuko.
Try to be yourself. That may take some time, but I'll bet my
grandson will be willing to help."

Aki and the android looked at each other. Aki smiled and nodded.
Slowly, it smiled back.

Ryunosuke felt something shift inside his brain. Over seventeen
years ago, he'd met a cat in an alley and eventually called her
sister. Perhaps the miracle could repeat itself, if he gave it a
chance.

He stood and walked over to the combination of circuits and code
he'd created, now walking and acting outside the parameters he'd
initially conceived. It - she - held his eyes, and if he was
reading the expression on her face correctly, she was a little
frightened but also looking to him for help. And in that moment,
he knew what his father had felt when Atsuko had been reborn, and
he was awed and terrified.

"Let's start with a name. What shall we call you?"

She seemed surprised at the question. Could she really feel
emotions? Ryunosuke still wasn't sure. "I cannot think of one
other than Nuku Nuku." She looked down at Aki. "Can you think of
one?"

Aki shrugged. "Narau?"

She cocked her head to the side, as if listening. "Yes. That
will do until I am ready to adopt a fully human name." She looked
up at Ryunosuke. "With your permission, Papa-san?"

Ryunosuke almost gasped. With considerable effort, he managed to
nod calmly.

Her smile wasn't as wide as Atsuko's had been, and her eyes
weren't as bright with joy, but Ryunosuke decided that they were
enough for him to decide that she really was feeling happy. And
that was good enough.

---

She stood where the sun could shine on the statue without being
blocked by her. That was important.

The sun warmed her skin. She didn't like that. She still wasn't
sure if she liked "touch" or "smell" or "taste". Too much
information to be processed for too little practical use. Perhaps
in time she would come to appreciate them more. She was learning.

The wind blew raven-black hair into her eyes. She pushed it back,
wondering if she should tie it in a pony tail. She didn't want
to; she enjoyed having it long and hanging loose. She had changed
most of her appearance: she was slimmer, a little taller, and her
figure was not nearly as exaggerated. Her dark brown eyes rested
atop an average nose that wasn't quite so perky. Her cheeks were
slimmer and her skin slightly more tan. She hoped she would be
forgiven for keeping her hair the same length as her previous
version.

For some reason, she was pretty certain she would be.

Still, as she looked back in the direction of the mansion, she
wasn't so sure. Aki loved her, and Ryunosuke was trying. Kyusaku
was helping, but once in a while pain would creep back into his
eyes for a moment. Yoshimi seemed extremely unsure about the
whole situation. Akiko always looked angry, and spoke to her as
little as possible.

Given time, they would come around. They were capable of such
love. They just showed it in peculiar ways sometimes.

Narau thought about that, correlated it with Atsuko's memories,
and decided that hypothesis was quite possibly correct.
Interacting with people in an emotionally positive context came
only after she and they had come to know each other well enough to
allow it.

Love doesn't happen instantly. Even Atsuko had problems at first.
She had been scared of Kyusaku and Ryunosuke when she'd first
woken in her new body. But eventually they had loved each other
*so* much, and life had been wonderful.

Narau smiled as the memories of joy flooded through her. She
hoped she could achieve similar happiness.

She would, if she kept trying. There was no doubt. Now that she
had the whole Natsume family to love her and help her, she would
be able to accomplish whatever she wanted to.

Narau frowned suddenly. She'd had some remarkable insights in the
past few days. And they had always come at just the right time.
She peered closely at the statue, and wondered whether or not
running into Aki had truly been a random occurrence.

Probability analysis suggested that such a meeting at just the
right time and just the right place was highly unlikely. She had
been extraordinarily lucky.

More than lucky - *blessed*.

And not just her. Yoshimi had been talking a lot with Kei, and
evidently she was helping him. As hurtful as Narau's meeting with
Kei had been, it had acted as a catalyst, helping him to bring out
into the open problems that had been festering inside of him.

The Natsume family had plenty of love to go around, a crop that
had been planted by Atsuko. That love was still manifest, and
still managed to help and heal. One way or another, Atsuko's love
was finding ways to enrich the lives of her family. It had even
found a way to bring Narau into the family, too.

Narau looked at the statue, and bowed to it. "No matter how hard
I try, I will never be capable of accomplishing what you did. I
only hope that, in trying to live up to the baseline parameters
written into my original coding, I can give to others the same
positive emotion - the love - that you gave me."

The wind gusted, and the rustling of the leaves sounded remarkably
like joyous laughter.

Narau straightened. She smiled warmly at the statue before
turning back to the mansion to continue learning how to live. And
love.

Narau laughed. Weren't they the same thing?

~*~

Author's Afterword:

The Turing Test was invented by Alan M. Turing and first described
in 1950. The interrogator is connected to one person and one
machine via a terminal, or some other mechanism is used where the
identity of the participants is kept hidden. The task is to find
out which of the two candidates is the machine and which is the
human being by asking questions and analyzing the responses. If
the interrogator cannot make a decision, the machine is considered
"intelligent". I've rephrased the question slightly: If a
machine is given human form, can it fool others into thinking it
*is* human?

As to the story itself: I'm not sure I should have written it.
At first I was all fired up. It started with a discussion I had
with my prereaders over Minmei, the computer in Nouma's apartment.
Ty Hamilton's excellent "Bottleneck" was also an inspiration. I
began writing this with a lot of enthusiasm. As I got further
into the story, I began to wonder if this wasn't a bad idea - that
perhaps I should leave well enough alone with "Transitions".

Anyway, I want your feedback. Did you like it? Should it be
added to my stories about Nuku Nuku, or should I leave the cycle
complete as it is?

Let me know.

-Richard Lawson
ste...@sprynet.com