A Miracle for the Sleeping Coffin

Eternity gave a curt nod and was turning to leave when Admari spoke and said his piece, prompting her to fall short as she sought a response. It was... strange. Admari knew next to nothing about her. They were perfect strangers. And he was offering to try and console her - a machine - over... did he really understand? Could he? Irrelevant. Confused, she gave him a simple, "Thank you for your courtesy," before leaving the room. The yard outside was walled in, and lacked trees. There was a roof for the doorstep, but she could potentially damage the shingles so, lacking any simpler alternatives, Eternity made her way to the fence and scaled it in a fluid motion. Perched resolutely in place, she watched the empty street. Nominally, she was searching for some sort of danger or trouble to take care of, but most of her attention was spent continuing her internal debate from before.

Inside, Miyori was torn between her natural curiosity and pragmatism, and her desire to go outside and comfort Eien-chan... who couldn't perceive her in any meaningful way. She wanted to be out there, helping resolve the unstable gynoid's problems, but at the same time knew that the gesture would go unnoticed and ultimately be pointless. Still, even so, staying behind and leaving Eien-chan to her own devices just felt wrong. Gripping the orange ribbon around her arm, Miyori resolved herself to staying inside for the moment. Pushing off the floor, she ascended to the ceiling and positioned herself as if laying down, discontent.

Yasuko nodded a bit. "That would be all right. You're my guest and I want you and your daughter to feel comfortable while you're here. I do have a question however; have you two been traveling to different dimensions and worlds often? I ask because you're not phased by much here and are taking things much better then our android friend."

"Nah. This is only the second time for me and Quartz both. That said..." Admari gave an exaggerated shrug. "When you die, spend ten years as robo-dragon-Hercules, and adopt a pink, fluffy unicorn... It's a little hard to get surprised these days. It helps that Quartz's world was so strange." 

Quartz snorted. "Says the weirdo who lives on a marble." 

Admari lifted an eyebrow, but decided against taking the bait. "But yeah. I kind of had to get good at rolling with the punches, or else I was gunna go crazy, and I've only gone a little crazy, so I like to think I got good at it." He snickered a little at his own joke. His smile faltered for a moment. "Speakin' of. You think Ms. Eternity is going to be... alright?" Admari pulled a face. "I guess that's not the best word for it. You think she's gunna get through whatever it is she has on her mind? That comment from... whats-'is-name." Admari snapped his fingers twice, a sort of ritual to kickstart his memory. "Key! He put her pretty off balance."

Still on the ceiling, Miyori let out a bitter, frustrated sigh at Admari's worry. "Of course it upset her," She spoke with false flippancy - more out of a desire to do something than any real expectation to be heard, "her primary purpose is 'to protect.' Telling her that she's dangerous to those around her... it's like accusing a doctor who loves his job of malpractice. If she weren't so restrained, Key would have earned himself a punch to the face." She tilted her head to Yasuko, "She won't, though. Eien-chan doesn't lie. She really would die before she reached a point that she's dangerous without provocation."

Though Miyori was unaware of it, as her only company for so long had been Eternity who couldn't see her period, as a result of her speaking to the room in general and her desire to be heard, she was now currently visible to Admari and Quartz, who would have heard everything she had just said... though, given she had defaulted to Japanese it wasn't likely they understood it.

Outside, Eternity was somewhat drawn from her reverie by Key. Rather than move, she ground her heel against the fence slightly and the vines below her fell away. "'Decontamination'" She spoke, "began the moment I came into contact with it. There will be no need." ...because any harmful chemicals on her person - particularly the "bare" portions of her frame - would simply be absorbed by her nanites and processed.

"I can't really say. I know next to nothing about her and everyone is very different in phyche with how they cope with things.." Yasuko was going to continue when a certain ghost came, or rather floated into the conversation.

Only this time she was visible to the others without outside interference. A bit odd, but at the same time not.

"Ah. I see. So me and her have that in common at least..." Yasuko glanced at the other two. "I'm not sure you understood a word she just said, but if you need me to translate let me know." Either way agreeing about the 'protect' part and purpose was rather curious in itself.

Admari practically jumped out of his skin. Of all the things he had prepared himself for, a rapid-fire tirade of Japanese from the ceiling was not one of them. He spun around to find the newcomer, moving so quickly that he almost lost his grip on the can of dehydrated food. The mildly agitated Asian woman floating languidly next to the ceiling was another surprise, although thankfully it was not one that induced a pounding heart. "Jesus Christ," he swore, quietly. He took a deep breath and steadied himself on the counter. "I really ought to be less surprised by people popping up above me by now."

Meanwhile, Quartz was laughing so hard that her front legs had actually buckled. She lifted a feeble hoof and pointed in Admari's direction. "Y-your face!" she stammered before breaking into another bought of laughter. 

Admari's cheeks reddened in embarrassment. He fidgeted with the can still in his hands. "Y-yeah. I could use some translation help, if that wouldn't be too much trouble, ma'am," he said to Yasuko before taking yet another deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I haven't been that startled in a while. Civvy life's makin' me soft, I swear."

"Very well." The blonde android said simply, entirely missing the veiled hostility from the other machine. Key continued clipping the vegetation nearby not addressing or glancing at Sigma six.

Yasuko wondered the fact if it was a good thing she didn't as much blink when this happened. In another life perhaps she would have been if she was 'normal' for lack of a better term. It scared poor Admari almost to death though.

 "One second.." She gave a rough translation to the two. "That makes sense why it would bother her so much. It's almost unheard of to have True A.I. on this planet. It comes in three levels. A level one can only do a certain task, or a few dedicated ones. Two, can to an extent go much further but still a bit short. Three is True A.I which is self explanatory. That's a host of legal and ethitical concerns for those not careful. I assume ET is unique in that regard in your world or rare?"


________

It might something to wonder about with that statement. Since it does mention Reploids and they'd be considered True A.I but their bio's are more just there for reference. In story(or game) they aren't really out yet; for earth anyway.

When Admari reacted to her words, Miyori blinked in surprise. Did Yasuko have the same technology used by Nobus? How was it she was suddenly visible? Or, at least, audible? Still, taking into account that there were others in the room who'd be listening to the conversation - who couldn't speak Japanese - Miyori swapped to English before she answered Yasuko's question, "Well... Eien-chan wasn't meant to be unique but... Yes. It seemed every time Kei-chan tried to create a sibling for her, something terrible happened. And no one else ever came close to matching her." The ghost smirked lightly here, pride evident in her voice, "Well, that's to be expected when one considers that she's the product of me and Kei-chan's hard work."

She sobered quickly, though, face turning grave, "As for laws and ethics... If Eien-chan's right to exist is challenged, she is authorized to take action." Then as if to undermine that ominous warning, Miyori capriciously closed her eyes and smiled in a catlike manner, "Well, Eien-chan won't hurt anyone that doesn't deserve it. She'd probably rather run away. That child is too gentle."

Admari grunted as he pretended to examine the can in his hands. "You talk about her like she's a little kid. She don't really act like one, though. And she seems fit to crack." He took another moment to look at the can before shrugging. "Eh. If something goes totally wrong then I'm probably tough enough to scrap her."

Quartz, who had recovered from her laughing fit, cast a very sharp glare at her father. "Dad!"

Admari gave an exaggerated shrug. "Yeah, yeah, I know she'd actually trash me, but did you see that look she gave Key? And me back at Nobus? She's bugged. Hard." He frowned and started tossing the can up and down in one hand as he leaned against the counter. "An' she's got good reason to be, too, but she's not exactly rolling with these hits she's taking. More like she's sittin' in the middle of the ring, gobsmacked, while reality just keeps sending in haymakers." Admari was quiet for a moment as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.


"I'm seriously worried here. Eternity wasn't even sure if she was actually in the car, today. An' to me, that doesn't really paint her as stable. Or even predictable." Admari cast a pointed look at Miyori. "You're absolutely positive she won't mess up somehow? She's not going to have some mental screw-up and lose it in the worst way?"


Quartz gave her dad a sort of deadpan look before turning to Miyori and Yasuko. "In case it's not clear," she looked back to Admari, "And it's not, because you suck at talking to people," Admari could only shrug as she looked back again to Miyori and Yasuko. "Dad is talkin' from a spot of experience here, kinda. Just in case you think he's full of it."

Yasuko gave a deep sigh feeling a headache, shaking her head. Admari's comments weren't the best thing to say given the situation. "That might not have been the best to say, but I can understand the other part."

Briefly rubbing her temples she turned to the ghost. "I'm not sure what you were thinking by my comment but its likely entirely different. ET of course has the right to exist, I just meant creating saptient life of any kind comes with a host of concerns."

The vampiress casted a brief glance at Admari then back to Miyori. "I don't know ET. yet. I'm sure she's a good person. I think Admari's concern is how things will effect her long term..even if he didn't put it the best way. I believe the other problem is she isn't even sure this is even real. The only thing is, I can't say what it will take to convince them otherwise."

Miyori listened to Admari, Quartz, and Yasuko's words attentively, even if Admari's made her want to interject on Eternity's behalf, before she responded, "Don't misunderstand," she said, "I wasn't implying I was worried Eternity's existence is illegal. I was saying that if her continued existence is threatened, she can defend herself. As for her long term stability... I can't say anything to assure you of that right now, can I? As one of two who have actually seen her programming, and as one who knows how she thinks regardless, however... She'll pull through. For such a massive error to cause her to lash out at innocents to occur is unthinkable. When I said she would die first, I meant it quite literally. Though," she glanced to Yasuko, "if there were a means by which I could actually repair her available, then I would not hesitate. As it is, unfortunately, any tampering from one other than myself is likely to be completely ignored - at best. At worst, it would provoke a similar reaction to the one Admari fears. It's her mind and soul being 'corrected' after all. And she would be aware of that."

Yasuko sighed a bit. "There's not much for it in the mean time I suppose." She doubted there were many, if any could tamper with something like ET and not cause unintentional side effects anyway.

"One question. How old is she really?" She had no definite proof but it seemed like she had been around for a very long time. That could have been a problem in itself, androids with a 'human' mind set were not made to be around indefinitely. Just like many mortal beings that tried to live on forever, often they went insane after living long enough.

After all, if there were beings that were naturally immortal that eventually got sick of living what chance did a mortal have?

Admari blew a breath out through his nose and gave Miyori a skeptical face. "If you're sure you're sure. I guess you would be the best authority on her if you made her," he half-mumbled. He still wasn't totally convinced on Eternity's stability, but he had to remind himself that Eternity wasn't some run-of-the-mill battlebot. She displayed emotion, critical thinking, possibly restraint if he was reading her reaction to Key correctly. It was entirely possible, even probable, considering the circumstances Admari found himself in, that Eternity was a fully realized person. Hard-coded and probably more predictable than a human, but still a person. He'd do best to continue treating her like one moving forward. 

Miyori's remark about being unable to repair Eternity brought Admari back to the present conversation. "Uh, actually I might be able to help. If you could get her to let me, anyway. The other guy has perfect motor control, so with some instructions and parts I could probably fix hardware issues." There was a pause before something else occurred to him. "Also, depending on how much of that energy she's putting out, it might have to get done in phases so I don't lose my hands." 

"Hm...? If it's a hardware issue, we might as well forfeit now." Miyori commented, "Eien-chan is built to self-maintain. Her chassis isn't designed to be opened up. It's doable but... it'd be like conducting surgery. She's not designed to be turned off either... Though I really doubt it's a hardware issue of any kind. Aside from how thorough we were designing her, it doesn't match symptoms... which brings us to Yasuko-san's question." 

She rotated idly about a verticle axis, like some bizarre human clock-hand, her finger on her lips in thought, "Well... let's see. I don't have any exact numbers as I couldn't take any accurate measurements due to my current state... as you might have guessed... but, judging by the climate change and related events witnessed, she would be... at least two billion years old. Possibly older." Ceasing her rotation, Miyori clasped her hands in front of her, face serious, "And that's most likely her problem. She has too many memories. We designed Eien-chan to be able to last a long time, but... it seems we did it to well. Most likely, she's running out of space and experiencing memory fragmentation. Her 'past' and 'present' are mixing together in such a way she has no way of discerning the difference. Eventually, at this rate she'll experience a critical failure in her cognitive processes and just... freeze up. Forever."

The spirit paused, before placing her hands back behind her neck and smiling brightly, "Well. That's just one possibility, and it's easy to treat. With luck, though, she's been maintaining herself properly and deleting junk data, so she's just disoriented by all of the things conflicted with her worldview." Her smile was wan, and it was clear she didn't really believe that latter possibility was the case.

"...A billion years old? I've never heard of a android of any sort lasting that long on their own." Yasuko shook her head a bit. "Regardless, how much time do you think she would have before it became a bigger issue?

Admari let out an impressed whistle. "Well, she looks very good for her age, if nothin' else," he mumbled, ignoring another one of Qaurtz's signature glares. "But if it's not something I can touch, I ain't much help. Well, unless you developed Eternity using an incomprehensibly complicated string of if-then statements and basic switches, but I'm assumin' you didn't." He cracked a half-smile for a moment before turning serious again.


"I'm pretty certain she's not been maintaining herself as well as you hope, though. She made a comment in the car today. Somethin' about 'it collapses at random' when the officer asked her about her own world. My gut feeling is she's only just holdin' on."

"Ah, no. Eien-chan's code is... very complicated, yes, but it's not written in anything so simple." Her smile wanned as Admari went on, "Honestly... if it's a problem with Eien-chan's core code... I might not be able to fix it. In time, at least. Programming was Kei-chan's forte, not mine. I wasn't..." she pushed her hand through the ceiling a bit, "well, you know. Then I would have started maintenance on her immediately after the situation was stable. Before we'd even arrived here, honestly, but given we were on a big empty ball of dirt and stone... the proper tools weren't even in reach."

This seemed to be a mess all around. However, Yasuko wanted to give ET some of the benefit of the doubt, she hadn't done anything to warrant treating them like they were suddenly going to lash out at innocent people. Some of the signs were worrying, yes, but that was another matter entirely. All three of them were her responsibility in the end.

Yasuko knew was allowed to keep a eye on them mainly for a couple of reasons; for one she was decently personable and would help the three adjust in the new world they found themselves in. Secondly, on the off chance they did become a threat she was probably strong to keep things from getting too out of hand.

But, really, as naive as it may have sounded to some she just wanted to help. Just because she had seen the horror saptient beings could inflict on each other didn't mean she'd live her life cynically. It was exhausting way to live, in her opinion.

"Hm. It's something to think about, but as it is now there isn't much that can be done. Anyone who might be smart enough to work on her, would have to earn her trust first. That doesn't have a time frame. I promise I'll ask around though, there's no point burning ourselves out mentally."

She shook her head a bit. "In the mean time, there's something else I wanted to discuss. If you don't mind me asking Admari what are some of your skills? I'm asking because it could be helpful for finding you employment later. If you have any questions though, please let me know."

Admari rubbed his whiskers. "Oh gosh. Besides fighting? Probably not a whole lot that would be useful in a city like this." He chewed on his lower lip for a moment trying to think of all his relevant work skills. "I got good at metalworking, although that was making armor and weapons at a forge so I don't know if that really translates to here. I can clean, pack, and stitch up a wound as fast as anyone but that's as far as my medical expertise really goes." He scratched the back of his head, trying to think up anything else that might have been helpful. "I worked as a janitor when I was in college. Never got any complaints from my boss then. Other than that, the big guy is really strong and really hard to injure, so I guess I could do heavy lifting jobs. I have ten years of combat experience, if that means anything. Can't think of much else."

"Well you're in luck, then. It seems like this place has no short demand of fighters, ne?" Miyori asserted, before continuing in a thoughtful tone, "But, you know, being capable of becoming nigh-impervious to harm... you might consider going into emergency services, as well, if you're not really the soldiering type."

At the 'gosh' portion from Ammari Yasukp giggled but stopped herself. "Ah..Sorry. I was just taken off guard, by that. Just..going to be quite now. Continue." Her cheeks turned a bit red and she found other things in the room a bit more interesting as she regathered her composure. It was silly. It was just with the rough around the edges Amdari talked, it simply caught her off guard as she wouldn't expect that wording.

Most, if not all the skills Admari had listed could potentially be very useful so in the end it really depended on what he wanted to do. Yasuko knew enough people to get him some sort of decent job with some of the latest skills he latest; not so much the medical field. That was much more complicated and extensive. Never mind all the work and knowledge, but the fact other races were involved with their own quirks made things harder. Luckily most humanoids had a 'base' biology to work with that came from here.

When he finished, Yasuko spoke up again. "Metaworking? I could possibly get you a job doing that, I would have to talk to them. I'm not sure about the armor. It depends. There are people who still use melee weapons of some kind. As for janitorial work, I definitely could do something about that as well. It depends what you want to do more of."

In a sense, Miyori was correct about fighters but he was a father so there was no point in putting them in potential danger if they could help it. Even if he wasn't, that would be something entirely his choice.

Color briefly flushed Admari's cheeks. He'd never gotten a chance to get used to women giving him the time of day before everything... happened. Yasuko giggling at him was an interesting change of pace, one Admari had to wonder whether or not he enjoyed. He supposed he did. Of course, she also isn't human. That thought quashed any errant plans of his rather quickly. He still needed to find out what 'Nosferatu' meant here, though not now of course. Asking a question like that in front of company would have been rude. Most likely. Probably. I am beyond out of my depth here. he thought as Yasuko spoke. 

"Metalworking would be my first choice," he said as Yaksuko finished. "Maybe emergency services like our friend here suggested, if there's pay in it. Let's stick 'janitor' in the last resort bin. I'm not particularly eager to pick up messes in a town where dragons and other magical creatures are considered the norm." Admari made a mock shuddering motion. "The theater restrooms must look like a warzone." 

A white glow enveloped the pullstrings on Admari's coat and pulled them tight, nearly pulling him off-balance. "You're hilarious dad. Can I maybe get lunch, though?" Quartz deadpanned. 

Admari waved a dismissive hand. "Yeah, yeah. Hold yer horses," he said as he placed the can he had been juggling onto the counter. "Ms. Yasuko, where do you keep your veggies again?"

"Well, I would assume the food is in these cabinets, good sir," Miyori said, gesturing, "but our gracious host has already pulled out several varieties of meals and ingredients and placed them on the counter tops." The mischievous spirit idly floated over to the mentioned surfaces, situated such that it appeared she was sitting upside down on the ceiling. "Not that it matters to me, of course. An advantage of being... immaterial, I suppose."

Outside, Eternity continued to endlessly cycle through her dilemma, absently eavesdropping on those in the kitchen (that she could hear, at least) and tracking Key's progress about the yard. Everything she saw told her that this was reality, but everything she knew told her that it simply could not be. It was almost as if the death of her world had been but a dream that now was passed...

It unnerved her immensely. She was not built to be able to dream, as even the likes of Tachibana-sama and her father simply had no clue how to do such a thing.

There. That was it. If she trusted in the engineering and craftsmanship of Tachibana-sama and her father, then this could only be reality. No diagnostic gave her a negative report. Her systems told her that she was functioning at optimal levels [in regards to her perception, at least.] She knew their limits - and she knew her own by proxy. There was no way she could dream such a thing. In the passed, the landscapes she had seen were all... hollow. They all lacked something.

Originality. They were echoes. Memories. Static images of a world she swore not to forget.

...ghosts.

Idly, she flexed a hand and took in all of the minute, near-perfect subtleties and care that had gone into making it appear lifelike and human. Inside her body were power sources of such immense complexity that even their creator could not explain them. Literally limitless energy was at her fingertips, had she the capacity to utilize it.

Their very existence - her very existence - if she paused to contemplate it - were already impossible.

...Could she have faith, here? Was 'faith' a tangible thing, which a being such as her could even grasp?