Goro Takemura x Reader

Twenty-Seven

Your limbs always turned a bit stiff whenever you were about to sit on your desk. You despised how much it made you feel even though you were just programming.

The relic was secured in a port that was only granted access to with both an eye scan and a palm scan of yours. Only after both matched were you allowed to grab it from its armoured fridge.

Mesmerised, Takemura followed the small, black shard with his eyes.

Carefully, you inserted the relic into your own computer system, three interfaces combined without any outside access.

A small window immediately popped up on the blue screen.

"I've never seen it before.", he said and leaned over your chair to have a look at the info that chased down the screen in a waterfall of encrypted numbers. "It feels so strange. To think that I know the one who develops the relic."

You chuckled.

"Didn't you meet Hellman before?", you asked as you fought with rows of cables that were all attached to your headpiece.

Due to your lack of cyberware, you used a number of older tech that still allowed a natural brain to connect with the net on a deeper level. It was a bit like a braindance but with less porn and more power to control numbers.

You basically programmed the relic with whatever your brain ordered the tech to do. It took you out for a few moments but after that short period of unconsciousness you were able to control your body like a robot from above.

"I've met him once.", Takemura cleared his throat to hide the fact that he wasn't a fan of the bio engineer. "Maybe one too many times."

A smirk appeared on your lips as you pulled the headpiece over your eyes.

"I'm sorry, but we'll have to cut this conversation short for now.", you pressed a few buttons from memory. "Please don't be afraid when issues occurs. It's common."

"I have no experience with this."

"If anything smells burned, unplug me. Do you know the smell of burned flesh?", you glanced at him from below the red fibreglass.

His gaze was dark.

"Very well so.", he admitted and turned his eyes away.

Maybe he tried to hide from the touch of your eyes or he just didn't want to show how unmoved he was by that. No matter what it was, he let you dive into the net without any more comment or question.

Falling into the net, or rather, the deep net, always felt rather unpleasant. You couldn't quite describe it. It was a feeling, a state of mind that was ever changing.

You felt like you lost a piece of yourself, turned to numbers only to be rearranged into something completely new.

A new brain that always connected to its old original. A copy of yourself.

This was what Saburo had made sure of as he had installed you as his lead bio engineer. Arasaka's systems always took a copy of who you were, the genius, minus the human emotions. They were an unnecessary factor on the path of immortality.

"Hello.", there it was, this soft, female voice that spoke to you whenever you entered her space of power.

"Mikoshi.", even though it was just a program, created by your very own design, you never managed to greet it with neutrality.

There always was this aftertaste of salt on your tongue, this shiver that crawled down your back and made all of the hairs on your body stand up straight.

It was your biggest accomplishment. And you hated it.

Not because it had been created to serve a purpose you didn't agree upon but because it was cold and empty. A vessel with no real value.

It was just a thing that pretended to be so much more important than it actually was.

"We need to work on the relic.", you told the AI and pulled up a few windows to start inserting new commands and lines of code. "Pull up the source code."

Mikoshi appeared in front of you in the form of a strange, female-like outline of red dots and numbers. Even though she was shorter than you, her faceless head gave you some sort of discomfort.

She wasn't real yet wanted to be so bad.

"Would you please confirm your access to me?", she was programmed to be polite but it always managed to rub you the wrong way, no matter what she said.

With a roll of your eyes, you raised a hand so that she was able to scan the warmth of your palms. Veins were unique in every living being. Yours were different from the ones that filled Takemura's body with blood and his were different from Oda's. It was even saver than a fingerprint scan since these could be copied easily these days.

A small window popped up that told you how far the scan was ahead. Then it vanished again and more windows opened.

"Access granted.", Mikoshi sounded cheerful although every word shook with static energy. "What are we working on today?"

"The stability of the relic.", you ignored her as she advised you to change the code you used.

You knew that the code you used wasn't the right one to stabilise the issues of the relic. It was sensitive tech that, once inside, could he manipulated easily.

Your plan was to use this to your advantage. In case you wouldn't be able to create an engram of Yorinobu in time you needed to leave him a back door open to overpower his father for control.

It wasn't an insurance for Yorinobu to remain as a consciousness but it would leave him with options. It depended on him what he'd make of it.

"There is a malfunction in the source code.", you ordered Mikoshi to open the main program on which the relic ran. "We must eliminate it. More efficiency would also be welcome. A faster adaptation to the new host must be ensured."

"The test engram of Saburo Arasaka is ready for your use. We could run a test."

A cold shiver crawled down your spine. Your fingers froze on the key board for a second.

"No.", you decided. "Not yet. It's not time yet. I still have options."