A beginners guide to caring for your AI

Chapter #3 - Monster

Mahiru walked out the door with a skip in his step, he was more than happy to do tasks for his friends but having someone there with him was nice. Kuro snuggled up under the warmth of his orange jacket, occasionally rolling around cutely. Mahiru watched him with ease, heading towards their school to pick up the design material for Koyuki.

It was peaceful and calm, it was late afternoon and no one was around aside from the few people on afternoon walks. Mahiru felt a light tapping on his shoulder, as behind him stood a strange man in a white lab coat who seemed very serious and almost instantly he felt threatened.

"U-uhm?? Can I help you?" Mahiru asked him.

"That 'cat' on your shoulder. I apologize for the suddenness of my question, I'm a head at robocentrics and I couldn't help but notice you possibly had one of our models" He said watching Kuro on his shoulder.

"Yeah!" Mahiru said giving Kuro a scratch on the head to wake him up who was in the middle of taking a nap. Kuro awoke, seeing the man his red eyes darted away and he instinctively backed up. "What is it Kuro?" Kuro pulled at him, edging him to run away.

"I apologize for this, but we're going to have to take your AI"

"Wait- what?!" Mahiru said in shock, protectively taking Kuro into his arms.

"Don't worry! We'll upgrade you to the latest model, but we need to take it right away. It's a monster, a defect" He said his tone turning dark in hostility towards Kuro.

"He. Kuro's a he" Mahiru responded, not liking it when people referred to Kuro as an 'it', if he felt human emotions and feelings then he's the same as everyone else!

"It's not a he, it's a machine. One that went wrong. He's done horrible things we cannot disclose to you, please hand him over or we'll have to use force, we don't want an incident happening again" The man shot back, slowly walking forward to take him.

"What...?" Mahiru questioned, an incident? Horrible things? He knew Kuro was hiding things from him... but he didn't know if he wanted to know.

"A long time ago, Sleepy Ash was-" screeches and spluttering came from the man before he could finish his sentence, Kuro was no longer a small black cat but a taller full standing AI, one that just hit the man standing in front of him.

"K-Kuro?!" Mahiru flinched and jumped back slightly, he watched as blind rage flew across Kuro's face, a dangerous aura surrounding him. He refused to reply, his face darkening slightly as he moved to leave with Mahiru following behind eyes on the ground in fear. The man stumbled slightly and by the time he was going to yell out to Mahiru they had already left.

Mahiru stayed silent, finishing his trip to the store and grabbing things for Koyuki before leaving. Kuro turned into a small cat on the side of the road and sat on his shoulder, but the usual warm nuzzling was nowhere to be found. The dangerous aura had left him, but it was clear he was more closed off than ever, backtracking all of Mahiru's efforts to get him to open up.

"U-um let's go home Kuro" Mahiru said, he wanted to talk to him about it, but it could wait. If anything this only made Mahiru realize how human he really was- he was just like Mahiru. Kuro said nothing, choosing to not respond. They walked home in silence while Mahiru thought of how he could cheer Kuro up, he really didn't know anything about him.

Over the course of the day he knew Kuro, he had gotten ahead of himself, almost calling Kuro his friend. Soon enough they were back home, Kuro turned into a small launch pad version in Mahiru's palm under the white disc. Mahiru sighed, Koyuki and Ryusei would be there soon enough, maybe they could help?