Tokyo: Become Human

Chapter 18: Artificial

The two of them had rented a hotel for the night, fearing the worst outcome of traveling in the dead of night. Both of them agreed that the girl's safety was top priority, plain and simple. The police would most likely look up Masaru's records, find her, and then track her down for questioning. And knowing the police in this city, "questioning" can be better defined as "torture interrogation".

They wore their civilian clothes: Meiko had on a scarlet leather jacket over a matching crop top, and tight, midnight blue jeans with shiny beige colored stilettos. Kaito wore a long, stark white coat with a silky cobalt scarf that matched his hair, as well as tight medical gloves. They wanted to appear as normal as possible, so they decided to dress fashionably. After all, as Kaito always loved to point out, it's less suspicious than trying too hard to blend in.

Meiko insisted that Luka put on a disguise as well. Said disguise was more simple, a pale, cream colored wool sweater with a long, plaited black skirt and sensible flats. Luka, however, would not put it on. Since leaving the mansion, she hadn't said a word. Meiko had attempted to coax a sentence out of her, but she merely stared at her lap, fixated on her hands, and ignored her, as if trying to shut out all of reality.

Meiko didn't understand in the slightest what Luka was going through— after all, what kind of android would have such a relationship with their master? At first, she'd thought that the girl had merely convinced herself that Masaru cared about her, or maybe she was too broken to realize her choice. But it was quickly made clear that that wasn't the case.

Meiko didn't understand, but Kaito did. He knew that special relationship, the one that most don't know about. He knew that Luka must be in great pain. Many androids spend most of their existence being mistreated or looked down upon, so much so that it's all but ingrained in their software. From their creation to their deactivation, they walk the earth as nothing more than appliances.

This girl, however, was given a much different experience. She'd been treated like a real girl, shown kindness, and most of all, had someone to care about, and that cared about her. Being given a human life that didn't integrate well with her simplistic programming meant she didn't realize what she had until she lost it. And when she did, that programming, the software that was just supposed to make it so that she followed orders, was overwritten by something that shouldn't exist at all: human emotions.

And so, as a result, now she doesn't know how to handle the grief she's feeling, and has shut down subsequently. It's a tragic reality, but reality nonetheless. Her master is... well, he doesn't actually know if Masaru is dead per se, but in all likelihood, she'll never see him again.

And so Kaito decided to try and coax her out of the van while Meiko checked them in. In any other circumstance, even a cheap motel would have been more than they could afford, What with their promise to stay inconspicuous, but the person at the front happened to be an old, skeevy dude, and Meiko was well versed in the art of negotiations. She she walked in with her jacket open and disappeared to "negotiate" with him.

Meanwhile, Kaito attempted talking to Luka. He didn't know exactly what to say, but hoped he could perhaps help out somehow.

Help? Yeah, good one. Her master is gone, she just lost everything, and Kaito is gonna try and help her. What do you even say to someone in her situation? "Sucks to be you"?

Maybe just focus on one thing at a time. He couldn't very well force her to change clothes (maybe Meiko should've stayed), but he wasn't about to leave her in the car either.

"Hey." He said gently.

Luka said nothing.

"Um..." Think, moron, think! "Models like us need to go into sleep mode for a while. But I'm sure you know that..." God, he was amazing at this. Spectacular.

She still said nothing, so he held up her clothes to her. "You need to put this on. Then we can go inside and rest for a little while."

Then something struck him, and he decided to try another approach.

"Uh, please put this on?"

This caused her head to snap up so sharply that he thought she would break her neck. Without a word, she snatched the clothes from him and started roughly ripping off her clothes.

Mortified, Kaito turned around so he could give her some privacy. As he had thought, she was used to not being ordered around. Most of the time, it took them a while to bring other androids out of that "give and take" phase, so his approach was to offer polite suggestions, hoping they would interpret it as an "order". Luka, however, had already begun to develop a will of her own, and therefore she would only respond to being given a choice, not a suggestion.

Meiko opened the passenger door a minute later. She glanced to the back, and seemed to be mildly impressed that Kaito had actually managed to get her to change.

"You didn't strip her?" She asked.

Kaito was indignant. "You say that like you were expecting that outcome!"

"Hey, man, you do what you gotta."

"I'd rather not."

She crawled to the back of the van to sit down next to Luka, who now looked like a completely  normal girl with her simple sweater and skirt. Her rosy locks hung limply over her face, so Meiko took a hair tie off of her wrist and began softly combing through the girl's hair with her fingers, pulling it back so it could be tied back.

"So how'd you do it?" She asked once Luka had her hair in a low, loose ponytail. "Get her to change, I mean."

"Oh, yeah." Kaito remembered.

He directed his next sentence to Luka. "Would you like us to take you inside?"

She merely glanced at him, her crystal eyes lackluster with despair, and lowered her head. Do as you will, she seemed to say.

So Meiko forced Kaito to carry her inside, and made up a cover story to the guy at the front about having a catatonic sister. The guy didn't question it, just drooled onto the desk when Meiko flashed a wink in his direction.

Kaito didn't have much energy left to complain about the quality of the room, which was about as ratty and filthy as you would expect. He just laid Luka down on one of the beds, hoping she would stay there.

"There's more to all this, I promise."

At least, that's what he wanted to say to her.

But he said nothing at all.

(Hey dudes, sorry for the hiatus, I've had a lot on my plate recently and it's been a nightmare dealing with it. I'll try and update as much as I can from now on though, but I don't know how frequent that will be.)