MHG-V3-4 (Initial Draft)

Chapter 18 - Caught

*** (Samantha plans)

Samantha's mind was racing. After a long talk with her father about Tamiya, she felt her understanding of the world had been turned completely upside down.

Tamiya was her mother, the only human to have been transferred to a computer outside of a week from birth. The main reason was to get immediate feedback about the program. Since infants were unable to give verbal feedback about their experiences as virtual beings, it was deemed necessary to have a human test subject who could communicate her experiences back to the scientists leading the research. However what they hadn't counted on was the process not being reversible. By the time they found a way to reverse the process her body had already rotted away. She therefor became trapped in that machine.

But Samantha wasn't bothered about those details as much as by the fact that she had not known about where her mother was all this time. Apparantly her mother had been too ashamed, and there were other reasons, but more than that, why was she also wearing that will reducing kit? How could her father have allowed such a thing to happen? His excuse had been that the nsa were too tough, and it had only been their mercy to let him stay on and at least see his wife from a distance. However she had completely forgotten who he was. It seemed her personality had all but been eroded. The only reason he had put up with the corrupt ways of the nsa were because of that, to stay near to her.

Damn it, Samantha thought, clenching her fist tightly. That Mark had a lot to answer for. Perhaps Teruko had been right. Death really was the best way to deal with him.

Samantha was different from her father. While he was content to accept the present situation, she simply couldn't. Even if it cost her life, she felt like she had to do something about it. She knew what she would do. She would sneak into the nsa at night and free her mother from the will reducing kit. However it wouldn't be easy. She would have to trick her. She couldn't ask Ken or Ayaka for help, otherwise Tamiya would know what was going on. But she couldn't just waltz into her server-room either. Tamiya would be watching her every step like a hawk. As she sat at her desk in her room, she mulled over her plan to trick Tamiya into letting her into that room. It was going to be difficult, but Samantha was determined to suceed.

**** (Samantha sneaks into nsa)

In what felt like a repeat of a few nights before, Samantha sat in the back of a taxi headed toward the nsa compound. Unlike last time however, in which she had tried to sneak in unnoticed, this time she had actually made an apointment with Tamiya. She had told her she had wanted to gather more information about her performance and asked if she could run some tests. Delighted to be of assistance, Tamiya had accepted her request and was waiting for her to arrive right now. Samantha smirked. Despite being incredibly dangerous, these synthsous were also a little ignorant. She wondered if it were the effect of the will reducing kit.

Samamtha arrived at the compound in about 40 minutes and then walked through the front gate and down towards her office.

"Welcome Miss Kang." Tamiya said in her ear as she walked down the hallway. "I'm currently not occupied with other tasks so we can begin straight away. But i'm wondering why you want to do it now? Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until tomorrow when the others are also here?"

"I want to run some tests overnight." Samantha explained, "And then review them in the morning together with the others. Would that be alright?"

"Yes, of course. If you want to run overnight tests, my nightly tasks can be offloaded to the other synthsous if you so require."

"Yes, please, that would be good."

"Tamiya..." Samantha paused before her next question.

"Yes, ma'am?"