Mana Takakura

Years went by and no headway was made. During this time, humanity began to take to space, colonizing the Moon and Mars, building civilian stations in orbit, and over time, they had to come to terms with the fact that Minoru may not be able to be found. Mana realized they needed a new purpose, and so they began to travel to war-torn areas to give medical aide. They developed more efficient protocols, and trained humans in their methods, giving other androids their files and learning any new information they came across as quickly as they could. They became decently well known for this, and as technology advanced to catch up to Mana’s cortex, she upgraded her family and gave them the same choice she had been given.

They found their own callings, and eventually, Mana found herself alone.

She made her way back home.

-----

The Manor was still as she had left it, even though it was now in heavy disrepair. She spent several months getting it back into shape, and when she finished, she found herself once again alone and without purpose. She didn’t realize just how much she had come to rely on the companionship of her family, but she didn’t want to distract them from their own chosen paths either… Perhaps she could find new family to integrate with.

This… didn’t pan out.

She was just too different from most of the current androids to find anyone she enjoyed the company of, and she wasn’t really needed, so she went back home, and ended up sitting in Minoru’s workshop, staring at the box she had found that was labeled “Sister” sitting on the workbench. Her cortex crate. She inspected it, finding very little to show where it had originated, other than a few small serial numbers, and the word Chobit with the number 6 hand written next to it.

Minoru had made her from this. Perhaps she could make a friend!

She began clearing off the workspaces to prepare, when she found one of Minoru’s old toy spider droids. It was simple, a Laptop Persocom operating system within, and was still functional after it was recharged, so she put it on her head and began her work.

A month passed as she took measurements, inspected her own cortex, researched the current offerings on the market for AI cortex offerings, and eventually was able to make a version of her own cortex that she could put into a friend. But she didn’t know what sort of friend she wanted. She knew she wanted to travel again, so something that was easy to take with her. But at the same time, she wanted to make something new, something to be proud of, something that would be proud of itself, so she began to design a utilitarian medical-oriented, hovering droid, and after several comically bad designs, made Naosu.

Naosu initially did not work. The instability of the cortex meant that there were too many character flaws in the personality, and critical failures abound, so she had to keep modifying the peripherals and the power management, making small tweaks to the cortex itself, and adjusting the coding. She used Minoru’s spider droid toy to monitor the tests, and eventually nicknamed it Gamma. She and Gamma worked for several months, only stopping for general maintenance, and eventually, a stable Naosu came on line.

Prime was finished.

-----

After several outings, test trials, and adjustments, Naosu Prime came into his own, proving to be a very genial companion. The whole time, Gamma remained wired into Prime, monitoring all the systems for faults, faithfully assisting in all computations, and so the three of them set to work making a smaller, more lightweight version of Prime’s cortex. The end result was slightly less powerful, but very power efficient, and after transferring the base personality of the initial spider-frame laptop persocom programming into the new cortex and installing it within the cube-shaped head, Gamma officially came on line as an aware entity.

The three of them would spend hours just talking, planning, upgrading, and ultimately just ‘hanging out,’ which made Mana feel like she had long ago.

But purpose was still needed, and after pouting around the house for a while, she realized she had a skill that she hadn’t found elsewhere; she had just made two droids who could efficiently administer medical aide! If she could get these out to the public, humans would have a cheaper, more efficient, readily available source of healing, and began to find ways to produce more Naosu units.

“The awareness was there before the sensory input.

Minoru Kokubunji missed his sister.

Maybe I could be her.”

-----

Mana wasn’t always Mana. An M custom persocom made on Earth during the early stages of AI development, she was initially nothing more than a program. A series of lines that dictated her responses and behaviour to conform to Minoru’s memories of his sister. But Minoru was playing with tech that he didn’t fully understand, and the advanced architecture he had acquired from a more advanced model would lead to something beyond his plans.

The positronics. The code. The personality files. Mana was awake before she could understand what that meant.

The day she was able to finally say hello was a few weeks coming. The hardware that was required to house the positronics and batteries to power it took a bit to make, and so she sat there, thinking. Just thinking. Most of this went unnoticed, until the system check prior to installation.

He turned on a monitor. She detected the peripherals as he began to type in commands.

She said “Hi”

-----

After a few weeks of testing, tweaking, redesigning, and replacements, life became a simple flow. Manage the other less-advanced persocoms to prepare food and upkeep the house, run diagnostics, gather and collate the news into easy to digest info blurbs to send to Minoru, and think. Most of this all at the same time. It was an easy life; fulfilling, routine, boring. But he addressed her as Sister, and she responded in kind with Brother, and it was life. Her whole self was dedicated to seeing him smile, to fill the role that he so desperately wished she could. She did not have a point of reference yet, but she believed him to be happy, and this made her happy as well.

The point of reference would come soon, however, when the first missile alert sounded.

There’s a debate over who fired first, as there is with most conflicts. But what was clear to all was that the Middle East was now glass, USA had new craters, Russia was missing it’s capital and had fallen into a power struggle, and NATO was pointing fingers. China mobilized their army, the Koreas turned on eachother, India locked their borders, and the world plunged into argument. Japan seen the writing on the wall and began to increase the SDF forces, augmenting them with a conscription of all non-essential android entities within the country’s jurisdiction.

When the orders were broadcast, she seen him frown. She sensed his physical stress, seen the emotional turmoil on his face, in his actions, in his hesitation. She had her point of reference, but wished she hadn’t ever received it. She preferred happiness.

Sister was known in town; there would be no way to pretend she didn't exist. And Minoru was known as a gynoid builder, advanced for his age, top of his field. They would come for his family, and he quickly began to prepare.

“When they come, act like the others. You are special, Sister. They will take advantage of you. I have uploaded medical files; this will be who you are now. Stay out of the fighting by caring for the wounded. Stay SAFE. Come back to me.”

He cried. She wished she didn’t have more sadness to compare to the happiness she was born into.

-----

The lines between the Human forces and the Android forces were blurred by the already-rampant cybernetic enhancements that many had within them, so the divisions tended to be mixed. The hierarchy that developed became one where Cybernetically Enhanced humans, aka the Zōkyō, or Augmenteds, quickly rose to the top of the ranks, followed by standard Humans or those with minimal cybernetics, and then supplemented with Androids.

“What good will having us care for a bunch of civilian persocoms bring us?” many asked, frustrated at the decision.

They proved their worth quickly.

Tasks that once took several people, were done by a single persocom. Weapons that required teams to mount or carry were dealt with by two androids. Front line battlefield engineering was no longer handled by humans; set and forget android build teams would go out, construct, and return, working tirelessly until the job was done. Targeting was handled quickly by an android with cheap processing augments networked with UAV spotter vehicles.

Japan was once a meme. A joke. Taunted for their affinity for humanoid companions, the ‘overglorified sexbots’ that many considered parts of the family.

Everyone stopped laughing once the Zōkyō Corps debuted.

-----

The fighting was tireless, brutal. While the organics rested, the robots worked. Ruthless efficiency, dexterous movements, a grace in their operation that left the organics entranced and feeling inadequate. But the work being taken off their hands was also a relief; after all, the robots are expendable.

There was an arms race that no one realized would be coming, despite how obvious it was. Many countries had gone their own route when it came to computerized war, many of them opting to use remote combat vehicles, others enhancing their soldiers with augments at enlistment, others attempting to build large mechanical behemoths to replace entire contingents of men. But the tech was unfamiliar; the perocoms and androids weren’t.

They were MADE to serve, to be user friendly. To be useful.

-----

Mana and the house persocoms were all assigned to be Battlefield Medics, and were divvied up amongst the tents in the SDF’s forward operations base. It was easy work, most wounds in the early days were from negligence around camp, or minor injuries from clumsiness. One person shot themselves in the foot to go home, but the surgical abilities of Mana and her siblings made such quick work of the repair that he was walking within days.

She watched them train. Accessed manuals, viewed the training videos, tapped into boot camp surveillance. She was curious, and wanted to learn why she was needed. She would spend her time learning while she recharged, always keeping an ear activated in case she was needed. Most nights all she would hear was the not-so-sneaky fraternizations of the soldiers, or someone stealing away to have a moment to themselves. Until the explosion.

The explosion came from within the camp.

128 meters south by southeast, the howitzer ammunition storage. Double explosion, fractionally separated. Small detonation, then catastrophic detonation of the shells.

Yelling.

Flurry of movements as several entities walked in through the smoke, SDF scattering from nearby, some retrieving wounded, others trying to get away.

The figures opened fire. No heat signatures. No false skin. No faces.

They shot down a dozen SDF with pinpoint accuracy and no wasted shots.

She sprang into action, running for the nearest weapon she could find that may take down the intruders; 12 meters away within a chest was three old Browning M2s, those may work, she decided. Information on the intruder's armor density was not available; she was eager to collect that data.

The sight of a persocom, smiling, wearing a nurse's dress and hair bows, dual wielding 50cal Automatic Rifles like she were Rambo would forever be etched in the minds of the soldiers that she politely advised to take cover. Calmly walking out to intercept the intruders, greeting them in a loud and pleasant voice, taking measurements and calculating probabilities; she leveled the M2s and let loose Hell.

-----

Word spread, and the SDF quickly went on high alert. The enemy forces were dropped via stealth aircraft into the sea, and they had marched out undetected.

The talk of the Medical Persocom who intercepted them, retrieving the data and parsing it, with plans for how to destroy them effectively already calculated and given to her commanders, was inspirational to most, but for those who knew how the androids’ programming was handled, this was a problem.

She shouldn't have been able to do any of that. She was a medical unit. There was no information uploaded or detected on intake that showed she would have the capacity to do so. They decided to find her creator for questioning, while she was kept quarantined from the other androids. They would not get any answers to their questions; Minoru, the infamous M, had disappeared.

The checkups of her system came back normal. They checked everything a normal persocom would have, but didn’t think to look deeper. After 4 days, the consensus was that it was divine intervention, or a fluke, or something wrong with the medical files uploaded to the persocom, and began auditing their own intake programming. She was put back to work; after all, a medic was valuable, and there were many wounded.

Everything went back to normal until she shot a missile out of the sky in front General Daybreak.

-----

Alarms were sounding, the Anti-Aircraft turrets firing into life to track the signature that was coming in fast. Chaffe was being launched from a fast-approaching vehicle, and the automated AA turrets were being confused by a few dollars worth of metal flakes and flares.

Scared shouting, orders being barked, frantic calls for information, soldiers running for cover, a General and his retinue standing in the open inspecting a new armored transport the Zōkyō Corps' 5th Regiment had received, and a Medical Persocom calmly walking out with a Rail Rifle.

Her amusing audiojack tail stabbed into the ground. The shot was silent, the kickback tilting her rigidly backwards onto the bent tail before re-righting her. The missile exploded like a large, loud firecracker.

The camp went completely silent.

The sudden “Yay! I Hit it!” and flurry of metallic clapping coming from the medical persocom startled everyone around it, and the deception was up.

The General ordered her put into his retinue, and refitted for war.

-----

“Minoru told me to stay out of the fighting though!”

General Daybreak was nice, but she didn’t like that he kept trying to take command of her.

“Unit 23, designated ‘Sister,’ an M custom Autonomous Networkable Android, your Persocom designation has led everyone to believe you were just another assistant gynoid. You aren’t though, are you?” He seemed pleasant enough. The smile seemed flat, she noticed. His eyes didn’t match how Minoru used to smile.

“Minoru told me to care for the wounded.”

He was deftly filling a long wooden pipe with tobacco flakes while he listened to me. He smiled again, and nodded. “You did exactly that, didn’t you? Very well, I might add. Though, it’s the fact that you could that concerns me. We can’t gain root access, miss persocom. You aren’t what you seem, are you?”

“I am a Medical Persocom, sir.”

“That you are, that you are... “ he paused, taking a moment to casually light his pipe with a wooden match, inhaled deeply, and continued; “He built you to be more than that though, didn’t he?”

“He built me to be his Sister”

He didn’t seem to like that answer. He wasn’t angry, no. He seemed… saddened. “His sister?”

“Yes, sir. I am his Sister. That is what he designed me to be, and that is what I am. Helping you as a Medical Persocom is only temporary, and I look forward to once again being his Sister”

He dismissed her after this, and she returned to her charging cubby in his Secretary’s office, powering down. The following day, she was awoken by the General, who looked as though he hadn’t slept. He was kneeling in front of her, tie loosened, coffee in one hand, a stack of papers in the other.

“I know what you are. No no, don’t worry, you aren’t the first one we have encountered, however, you ARE the first one that has willingly come to us. Would you like to help me save our people?”

His eyes smiled like Minoru’s this time. A proper smile.

-----

There was an adjustment period to her new add-ons. Her legs were enhanced to compensate for the additional load she carried on her back and shoulders. Her arms were enhanced with additional gyros to stabilize her custom made Rapid-Fire Rail Rifles. The Triple Rs had custom stabilizing arms mounted to her back, the arms mounted on either side of a large battery and capacitor pack. The arms could be retracted to hold them at the ready behind her while she moved. They outfitted her in heavy armor with stealth coatings, and uploaded all known battle tactics into her.

Medic no more, Do Harm became her new code.

-----

After the war ended, her service was recognized by the General by giving her Citizenship. But the paperwork needed more information than she had, and the General advised her that going by Sister may be a bit awkward for others. His secretary had been using her designation acronym to head all paperwork, so they decided that Mana would be their official name, and had wanted to take Minoru’s last name, but she was advised against that as he would need to be involved to do so. They decided on using the name of Minoru’s favorite shrine, and so Sister became Mana Takakura.

“I’ll just have Minoru help me file for a change of name later!” she decided, saying it with a smile bigger than the General had seen before from her.

With her newfound freedom, she went home, excitedly bouncing in the front door. No one was home. The house was dusty, dark, empty. It didn’t look like anyone had lived there since she was conscripted. She sat in the foyer for a week, unmoving, until the rest of the house persocoms returned. Overjoyed to be reunited, they swapped data files to share what they had experienced, and they set to work repairing the damage that had been ignored on their outer layers.

Prettied up and overhauled, Mana took her family out to find Minoru.

-----