The Time With My Stepsister/Chapter 5

Wow.

So remember the last time when I said that life was kicking my butt and that was why I was late? Well the butt-kicking I got from life this week has been more like a Bruce Lee butt-kicking! But to make it up to you, I plan on releasing Chapter 6 way earlier than I had originally planned, so it will be out sometime tomorrow!

Hopefully, you guys like where I am taking this story so far. And please, feel free to comment! They help me improve as a writer, and I take constructive advice whenever I can!

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Chapter 5,

A day and a half later, after having to take the time to both plan and debate what he had planned, Arata sat on a bench on a pier overlooking one of the considerably less forgotten places in Jinkoushima. The southern beach was a tourist point, ultimately the same as the beach in just about any other part of the world, save that the conditions had been artificially created to make the most favorable tides. Of course, even when they built an artificial island, mankind couldn't exactly control the sea or the weather. Today was unseasonably cold. The air had turned nippy. Hardly the storm of the century, but it was enough to convince most of the legions of tourists and residents that made the beach a mecca of summertime activity to stay inside. Even the androids, who normally handled the temperature well, were staying inside today because of the fog and chance for increased air moisture from it.

Arata liked the cold, the kind that came about during the fall. It helped him to think better, made his mind sharper. But even then, he couldn't think of a solution for the problem they were facing. Sure, he could have just gone to the bank itself, but then what? Go to Katsumi, alone, and give her what she wanted. Arata doubted very much that even a machine that flaunted the law as much as Katsumi did would do anything to him. But if she wanted to take Miyu, go far away with her money while betraying the two of them, Arata could ultimately do very little. Anything he could think of to stop her, physically, would just see her repaired or restored from a repair center. The truth of it was that he needed to come up with a different kind of solution, something that he could use to rescue Miyu when the time came. Arata simply couldn't trust Katsumi.

That was why he had reached out to the only other person he felt he could trust in this manner. He was waiting for her, when she finally arrived. Chise was walking down the pier with a bit of a rush in her step, her face one of determination, her red eyes focused on the figure seated in his jacket and jeans. Arata turned his head, and saw that Chise was hardly breaking expectations. Chise was wearing a pair of jeans herself, but these were slightly more worn. Fashionably so, of course, with all the bleaching and tearing that apparently came with designer money. Her top was a rather unusual one to say the least. It was styled a bit like a corset, strapless and hugging the hips and waist of its owner to remain in place, a consequence of that being that her breasts were pushed up a fair bit. A strap of material began at the bottom, went underneath her pants and up between her legs again at her backide, though both areas were covered by the jeans she wore. Colored a deep purple, the clothing item had its own name, but was known by slang as “The Kusanagi”, after a 20th century animated film.

As Chise sat down, she ran a hand through her hair, wearing a pair of fingerless gloves. Arata almost wondered if she was cosplaying. It hardly seemed appropriate given the situation, but then again, Chise was like that. She had her own style and a care-free attitude about her. But today, her face was the picture of seriousness as she sat down next to Arata.

“Chise, thanks for coming.” Arata smiled, but Chise looked on ahead, looking serious. “Chise, what's--”

“You're cute, Arata.” Chise stared straight ahead at the opposite end of the boardwalk pier, to the largely deserted beach on the misty gray morning. “But Miyu to me is something special. I like her, a lot. Maybe I even got a little crush on her. So, to hear that she's banging you makes me wanna' tear my hair out. Miyu doesn't strike me as the kind of girl to play the field. Hell, I thought that maybe she didn't even have a basic sexual program suite.”

She turned her head to look at Arata, those red eyes that reminded him of gems having a different kind of sparkle to them, one of anger. “So let me make this abundantly clear. If you fuck this up in some way that makes it so I can't ever see my bestie again? I'm going to dedicate my operating time to making your life as much of a living hell as I possibly can, okay?”

Arata might have rebuked that under normal circumstances. But he knew that, had the situation been reversed, he would have been just as angry at Chise. And more than that, he understood that she was just reflecting the anger she felt over the situation. We really did make our androids as human as possible, Arata mentally noted, before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, believe me, I know. That's actually why I contacted you.”

Arata sighed and turned his head to stare at his feet. “I don't know how to take this from here. I figure that if there is a solution, there's one I could do from a technical standpoint. Hacking, or something. But I am not really good with that sort of thing myself. But I know you have some skill. I still remember when you hacked the school system to flash porn when that stuffy principle made you wear...well...Something more conservative, I guess would be the word.”

“Fucker had it coming. Called me a defective machine, the racist bitch.” The strong language sort of surprised Arata, but as angry as Chise was, it didn't come completely from nowhere. Chise sighed and then patted her left pocket, reaching in and pulling from it what looked like a USB 4.0 drive. Arata stared at it. It was white, but a piece of black tape across it had a sticker of a jolly roger on it. She handed it to Arata.

“I got a guy I know from the mainland to make this one up for me. It's your basic ICE-Breaker software mixed in with something a bit more hardcore packed into a trojan worm. The guy said he was inspired by Toxoplasma when he came up with it. This isn't a pretty piece of software, Arata.” Chise's look of anger became one of mild concern. “You could go away for a few years if you get caught with that in your possession, and you sure as shit better not get it mixed up with your archived save games.”

Arata looked the drive over before pocketing it, then looked over at Chise. “I even had to get it delivered to me through snail mail. Got my package in seven hours, though.” Her normally carefree tone was now much more serious. No jokes, no smiles. Honestly, it upset Arata to know that this was bothering the normally carefree Chise so much. Still, he decided to focus on the matter at hand.

“Alright...Explain to me what it does,” Arata said, sitting upright and focusing all his attention to Chise's ensuing explanation.

“In layman's terms,” Chise began. “It's a program that completely wipes a systems owner registration data. It's a hijack program, used to brute-force a system under the intruder network's control. The worst part is that its specifically designed for body-adapted AI systems. Robots, androids like me and your sister.” She let out a simulated heavy breath at the thought. “Scary stuff. You upload this, and that bitch takes the bait? You can pretty much tell her to obey and she'll get on her knees and fetch your slippers.”

“Oh...Okay.” Arata suddenly felt like the USB drive just got pounds heavier. “What do I do with it, how do I use it?”

Chise sighed again. “You gotta' connect it to a system in the network. From what you told me, this Katsumi cunt, she's networked to everything in that little dungeon of hers. Makes the high more powerful, but the more devices she's connected to, the more vulnerable she is to a hack like this. You just find a system on the network and plug it in, the program does the rest automatically.”

“Okay.” Arata nodded his head in understanding. Chise, however, was quick to bring up a finger when it seemed all was complete.

“There's just one problem. Two, actually.” Arata was quiet, giving Chise a chance to continue. “The first problem is that the program works a bit like a binary agent. Like a Novichlok agent. The programs don't work on their own. The worm just spreads through the networked systems and the base program is a control program, dictating the orders.” Chise thought a moment. “Like a puppet getting its strings pulled by a puppeteer. And you're gonna' need something a bit more sophisticated than a tablet to get the control program working...”

Arata thought about it for a moment, before looking at Chise. “You mean, the control program has to be used by another AI system?” Arata sat up somewhat. “But that means...”

Chise smirked. “Downloaded the program to my central processors when I got the package. Someone does a check of my systems and finds it in there, I'm going to that android prison they're building up north. Assuming my parents don't just have me wiped and scrapped.” Chise smirked and shrugged, and Arata leaned over to her.

“Chise...The other problem.”

Chise sighed. “The system will rewrite the ownership programming of any device connected to the network. That means her private PC, that means the fetish chairs, and that means...”

Arata looked down at his feet for a second, then back up at Chise. “Miyu.” Chise grimaced slightly and nodded, letting out a little 'yeah'. Arata put a hand under his chin, shoulders slumping as he thought about it. “That means whoever has the control program...”

“Is going to pretty much own everything on that network.” Chise was quick to add “Don't worry, the program only attacks the ownership governing systems. It was actually intended as a means to 'liberate' androids from bad owners, if you can believe it. But, naturally it's too easily abused and sounds a bit too much like a plot device from one of those old racist movies about a robot war, so it's illegal and for good reason, I say...” Chise noticed the distant look in Arata's eyes, and smiled slightly. “Hey, Arata.”

Arata turned his head to look at her, and Chise placed a hand on his shoulder.

“If it makes you feel any better, I'll let you visit her on the weekends.”

The joke was, perhaps, a little dark, perhaps even in poor taste. But nevertheless, Arata smiled slightly and chuckled. “Okay, Chise...” The smile on the android's face faded somewhat, however, making Arata frown again.

“If we had more time, I'd be a bit more gentle about this. But, as it is, we gotta' hurry. Katsumi doesn't sound like a patient woman.”

Arata nodded. “Okay...So, here's what we are going to do.” Arata looked to Chise. “We're going to first go to the bank. You don't have to come, but you can if you want.”

Chise scoffed. “Like you need to ask.” The reply made Arata smile a bit again.

“We go in, we get this money or whatever it is. Then, you and me confront Katsumi. You tell her...You're my muscle, or something. Then, we insert the worm into her network and...well, she and Miyu are ours. And then we can decide what to do with her.” Chise nodded to Arata's plan. “The only tricky part is going to be getting the device connected to her network. Does it have to be connected to a system of similar processing power?”

Chise shook her head. “No, it just needs to be a device connected to that primary system.”

Arata nodded. “So it can be connected to a...fetish chair, then.” Arata was surprised when Chise almost immediately made an exclamation.

“I forgot to mention. This thing needs to be physically connected to the system. Ten to one says that a robot like Katsumi is going to have this on a blocked program list as far as her Wi-Fi security goes. But a hardline connection, especially a USB system, will bypass a lot of that. Katsumi doesn't strike me as the type to be stupid enough to make her network with Miyu and her...toys public, and risk having a hacker discover her secret while rooting for financial data, or something. So we won't have to worry about it connecting to public systems, and then we can disable it's self-replication programming once I'm connected. That will keep it from spreading to other systems if she goes in for a tune-up.”

Arata nodded, and then stood up. He reached into his pocket and handed the USB drive back to Chise. “In that case, you better see if there is some way you can copy the programs. Once you're done, meet me at the bank..” Chise nodded, and they both began to walk down the pier and back towards the road. Once they got there, they went in opposite directions.

Arata felt his confidence surge. As he walked towards the train to get to the business district, he felt like they now had a plan. He and Chise would rescue Miyu, stop Katsumi from hurting someone else, and then...well, they'd figure it out after that. All they needed to do now was get to whatever his father had in the bank. It was, honestly, the only easy part of this plan.

---

The First National Bank of Jinkoushima was the financial institution that had the closest ties to the Bank of Japan, the nation's central bank. Like most other banks, it had long switched bricks of paper currency for the digital credit system that was ubiquitous in most developed nations. Server farms now stood in their place, locked away in hermetically-sealed vaults. But despite the high-tech nature of the currency it now handled, the bank's exterior and interior would have made one think they air-dropped the building in from some old world European location.

The exterior of the building was mostly white marble, save for brass used for decorative purposes. It looked pretty much like your stereotypical bank, which is to say it looked more like it belonged in Athens or Rome than an artificial island owned by Japan. With its large, wide roof and massive stone columns, the building stood out amongst the sleek, high-tech structures that almost seemed to gang up on it.

The interior consisted of a floor that was black marble, tiled, but in such a way that it would have seemed to most that the building's floor was made up of one giant black stone slab. The ceiling was high above the lobby, with a high glass ceiling providing natural sunlight to make the whole thing look all the more splendid. Smaller versions of the columns outside held up the ceiling, while red carpets guided people towards offices or desks.

As Arata tugged his jacket around his shoulders, feeling somehow like was intruding, Chise strutted in like she owned the place. It took a lot of insisting by Arata to get her to change out of the Kusanagi and into something a bit less scandalous on the way over. She had decided to go with a surprisingly conservative, though nevertheless attractive, sleeveless sun dress, cream colored with a sakura-style floral pattern. A mixture of Japanese and Western styles.

Naturally, this being Chise, she had decided to wear nothing underneath, and was pleased to tell Arata as much.

Arata thought little of it as he walked to the front desk, the woman behind it in her prim and proper suit, all smiles as she waited for Arata or Chise to speak. She was a pretty thing, but the creases on her face and the more subdued body shape made it clear she was a human. Either that, or someone went to a lot of trouble to get her to pass for such. Arata took it as his cue. “Hi, miss. I'm here to access a lock box owned by my father, Inoue Daigo? I'm Inoue Arata, and I can provide ID if that's necessary.”

The woman behind the desk nodded, and Arata reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. Inside was his seldom-used driver's ID. The woman entered in the information into her computer and got a return from the bank's database. “Ah, I see there is an account under Inoue Daigo here. A safety deposit box but no account. It does seem like you are a beneficiary and do have access. Are you here to access it?”

Arata nodded. “Yes,me and my--”

“Girlfriend,” Chise interrupted with a smile, which made Arata blush softly. The clerk didn't really seem to mind one way other other, though Arata did feel embarrassed nevertheless. Chise put on a cheeky smile as Arata gave her a quick glare. Then he nodded to the clerk.

“Yes, I'd like to access it.”

The clerk nodded and then reached over to a land line phone, and called up another office. As she rattled off the information about the deposit box, Arata turned to look at Chise. “Listen, Chise...Thanks for helping me out with this. I really appreciate all you are doing for me, here.”

Chise smirked. “Hey, she might be your stepsister, but she's my friend. I'd go to hell and back to help out my little Pinocchio.” The sundress-wearing android gently ribbed Arata, who couldn't help but smirk a little. “Besides, I'm curious to see what it is that pop Inoue has hidden away...” Chise only realized how insensitive that comment might have been when she saw the expression on Arata's face. The frown clearly indicated he wasn't happy. “Oh, sorry, Arata, I didn't mean--”

“No, it's okay, Chise.” Arata smiled again. “It's just...I never figured that any of this would ever happen. I keep wondering if this is all some sort of punishment, because I...because of Miyu.” Arata sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “I mean, I've never been one to believe in the supernatural, but with everything that's happened...”

Chise shrugged. “Somehow, I think the gods have better things to do than just harass you for who you sleep with. I mean, worst I ever got was somebody forgetting our safe word, and even then I'm just back to the beat in a few days.” Chise smirked, and gave Arata a pat on the shoulder. “Don't get all angst-y on me. We'll figure this out.” Arata's response was to nod. He was about to say something, when the woman behind the desk suddenly interrupted them.

“Pardon the interruption, as well as the wait, but I've found the box and I've had it unlocked for you. If you like, I can escort the two of you down to the deposit room to retrieve the contents?” Arata looked to the woman, as did Chise. Arata nodded, while Chise scoffed and muttered “took 'em long enough.”

If the woman heard, she made no indication of caring. Arata and Chise followed her to the far end of the large lobby. They went to a rather grandiose stair case. It reminded Arata of the one on the Titanic he had seen in a photograph last year, only rather than one single staircase, it was split into two and in the middle was a large corridor, which eventually became a staircase down about ten feet. The clerk went down a right hand corridor, Arata and Chise followed, and went past a large vault door while on their way. A similar large door was open, and a guard stood nearby.

Three of the room's four walls were made up entirely of silvery small doors, each one coming with a lock. Behind each of the doors was a lock box, similar to the one that now sat on a silvery metal table built into the black marble tiled floor. There must have been hundreds of boxes here, and a good many of them must have contained all kinds of secrets. Arata stood at the table, and the receptionist walked to his side. “If you'd like, me and the guard can leave you alone. Not to sound untrustworthy, but we doubt you could do anything to steal what doesn't belong to you here, so if you would like some privacy...”

Arata smiled and nodded swiftly. “Yes, please, if you could.” He and Chise watched as the receptionist and the guard both walked away from the room, the guard adding as he left that he'd be just down the hall if they needed anything. Arata nodded again, and then looked to Chise as he put his hands on the box.

“Well, Chise. You ready to see what a lot of money looks like?” Arata smirked a little, though he was still quite nervous. Chise picked up on it, and then leaned in and much to Arata's surprise, gave a rather affectionate kiss to his cheek.

“Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go save Miyu.” Chise turned her head, eyes focusing down on the box as Arata's hands pulled back the lid. Slowly, at first. But once he had a glimpse of what was inside, Arata suddenly flipped the box wide open. Chise looked down, quirking a platinum blonde eyebrow. “Huh. I wasn't expecting it to look like that.”

All that was inside the box was a folded piece of printer paper. Arata tilted his head, and quizzically, though not without a hint of worry, reached out and started to unfold the paper. His mind raced. What could this mean? That the money was gone? It was never here? Then why would his father go through all the trouble of purchasing a security deposit box? What was it, a map to where it was secretly buried? Like those old pirate stories?

Arata eventually unfolded the paper. All that was on it was a rather curious arrangement of small black and white squares, forming a larger square. The writing above it simply read “son”, in kanji. Chise could tell that it was a QR code. “Huh,” she said, as she took a peek at it. “I don't get it. It's just a bunch of random codes. If I had to guess they might be activation or authorization codes, but for what, I--” Chise took a look at Arata, and her eyes went wide.

At first, Arata was just standing there, still and silent as he stared at the code. But then, his head began to twitch. His eyes darted left and right in random intervals, and his jaws parted slightly, only to close. He let out little 'ah' and 'er' sounds, blinking one eye but the other one remained open, wide even. Chise immediately picked up on what was going on, but it took her a while to process it. “Holy shit,” she said in a low tone, before having the presence of mind to reach out and snatch the paper from the box. Shutting it rapidly, she pushed the paper into the pocket of Arata's jeans and then took him by the shoulders. Arata looked vaguely confused, but seemed to co-operate. He stumbled a little a few times up the steps, but soon he was back in the lobby. The receptionist looked concerned as she noticed the state Arata was in.

“He's fine, he's just...minor seizure!” Chise couldn't think of a thing to call this that didn't make it abundantly clear what was going on. Arata wasn't human. He was a sleeper. Normally, she'd be all for reporting a sleeper unit to the authorities to get him or her some assistance to get them adjusted to their actual nature, but they didn't have the time. What's more, if Katsumi figured it out, then she might interpret that as going to the authorities and she and Miyu would be gone.

Chise only hoped that they didn't see her put the QR code in Arata's pocket. Even if Arata was a sleeper, and thus an android, that didn't mean that his father would put malicious code for his son to read in a safety deposit box? As Chise and Arata left the bank, she could feel Arata's body start to get worse, or at least twitch a bit harder. Looking left and right, and not wanting to make it any more obvious than it already was if some jackass was watching from a CCTV camera somewhere, she pulled and pushed Arata through a throng of people there to do their mid-day banking and stock work and down into an alleyway.

Alleyways were much the same all over the world, but the ones in Jinkoushima were relatively safe in the financial hub of the city. When she was sure that they were well out of the way of prying eyes, she put Arata up against a wall, and he quickly slid down it and hit the floor. Chise cursed and helped him to sit up, at which point Arata's head twitched sharply. His lips parted, and he let out a string of rapid-fire 'ah' and 'er' noises.

“Yeah, you're definitely malfunctioning.” Chise leaned down and pressed her hands against Arata's neck. She felt herself getting a bit flush at the sight. Chise loved such robotic displays. She liked malfunctioning and enjoyed watching others do it. But now was hardly the time to indulge in such sexual fantasies, and so her mind was all business. Sleepers were wild cards, one never knew where they kept their buttons, switches, panels and the like. But Chise was hoping that Arata's power toggle was somewhere on his neck.

Placing her fingers all along the right side of his neck, Chise was suddenly surprised when Arata launched forward and grabbed her by the wrists. She was momentarily stunned. Chise had strong feelings for Miyu, this was true. But a sexual fantasy of hers that she had always wanted to try was having sex with a recently revealed sleeper. To be fair, it was one of many sexual fantasies the nymphomaniac gynoid had, and it didn't go quite like this. In her mind, the fantasy played out that one of her human friends was an android, and that she'd guide him or her through such a time. It was more romantic than most, but it naturally had a sexual edge to it, and involved disassembling and malfunctions and steamy repairs and the like.

Compared to that, this was more of a train wreck. In a public alleyway, fumbling to find some way to turn the android off as he twitched and continued to let out rapid fire nonsense syllables. Sure, she had public liaison and even exhibition fantasies, but she had the sense (and the programming) to know that they were just fantasies. But so far, she was having no luck in turning Arata off.

Suddenly, Arata seemed to have a moment of relative clarity. He suddenly snapped his head straight forward and looked right at Chise, eyes locking onto her red eyes. She was surprised with how quickly he came to a stand, and she was nearly knocked over. For a moment, she thought that Arata might have just snapped out of it all on her on. But after a few minutes of just staring straight ahead, Chise began to worry that maybe whatever had done this to him had wiped his memory, or worse his core operating systems. She was just about to say something when she felt Arata's hands snap to her biceps, holding them tightly.

“Woah!” One of her high-heeled shoes was left behind as Arata pushed her into the opposite alley wall, and his eyes began rapidly roaming over Chise's body. His head snapped about like a bird inspecting a pile of seed. The robotic nature of the movement caught Chise off-guard, who in spite of her core nature as a logic-driven machine, was still having trouble seeing Arata as anything but human. Any thoughts as to if this was a software error or feature were suddenly brushed aside as Arata's hands went from her arms to her breasts, his hands squeezing firmly into them, their skin separated by only a thin layer of floral print cloth.

“E-Error-ror In Fa-Facial-cial Rec-Recogni-nition So-Sofrware-ware.” Arata blurted that out in a flat, robotic monotone. His next words were more emotional. “Mi-Miyu...I mi-miss-miss-Miyu-I--” Chise struggled, but only in the light of the situation. If this was a hook-up and they were in her apartment, her dress would be away and gone by now. Indeed, in spite of her awareness of the situation, when the kiss ended, she let out a hot gasp and a soft pleasured sigh.

“Arata, try to get some control of yourself!” Chise was not only worried for her own sake, but Arata's. Sleeper models were illegal, and by the time he was done being reprogrammed and registered, along with Chise probably getting at least a few programming blocks for a few months as a punishment, Katsumi and Miyu might be long gone, the former interpreting getting arrested as an attempt to bring in outside authorities. And if Katsumi really did have a means to get Arata in trouble, it was in their best interests not to be arrested for indecent behavior.

She kept telling herself that as her dress was suddenly pulled up, yanked up and over her head so fast that she barely had time to process it. Arata was fast, even for an android. Chise suddenly found her naked body pushed up against the cool wall of the alley, her bare breasts pressed between Arata's chest and hands, as he whispered out a broken “Mi-Mi-Miyu-yu” against the nape of her neck.

Chise slapped the wall of the alleyway behind her, holding back her groans. Sure, she could have shut her sensations of sexual arousal down. But the kicker about such a situation was that it would have been a very intensive thing for her to do, and her systems would have to shut down several active programs in order to shut part of her emotional processing and sensor system down. She'd rather remain conscious, and not just for the sensation of Arata's cock pushing up against her now naked folds. She didn't even notice he had his pants down around his ankles until he rammed into her. She couldn't help it. She straddled her thighs around his hips, let him lift her up against the alley wall. Her bare rear slammed against the alley wall as Arata began thrusting hard.

Chise was so lost in the sensation that she didn't even feel Arata's hand slip away from her breast and towards her side. Arata must have been stronger than he looked, or perhaps had some sort of limitation on his strength removed, because his hand pushing past her synthetic skin and even past the gel layer and the plastic underneath caught her completely off-guard. Her eyes snapped wide open and flashed with light as Arata ripped loose a bundle of colored wires, the ends sparking wildly for a few seconds, even as they were tossed to the floor.

“A-A-A-Ah-h-h-hhh-hhh--” Chise canceled her shout before someone heard and came looking. She reached up and once again began searching for Arata's shut-off switch. But when she felt his hand slip inside of the hole in her side, she decided to stop doing that and did a little bit of damage of her own. Even as Arata began tugging at another, deeper-set wire bundle, Chise slipped her hands up and underneath Arata's head. “S-So-Sor-Sorry Ara-rata-ta.” She held on tightly, using whatever leverage she could. The skin around Arata's neck began to tear. No fake blood at least. But soon, there were plenty of sparks. Arata tried to announce something, something akin to a major CPU error, before his head was lifted up and away from his neck with a bang and a flash of sparks.

Much to Chise's surprise, rather than stop, Arata began banging her into the wall harder. She let out a barely muffled cry, almost dropping Arata's head and having to free one of her hands to bite down on it. Suddenly, he came, powerfully inside of her, and Chise squeaked out a moan, even as sparks snapped from her side. Then, as if somehow that was the key to stopping everything, the wild sparks ceased and Arata's body fell back, stiff as a board, hitting the concrete ground hard enough to bounce, his member still raised.

Chise was dropped unceremoniously, and remained sitting there a moment, legs spread, their mixed cum still staining her sex, her thighs soaked with her own arousal and a vacant stare on her face. For a brief moment, she worried over whether or not someone would come along and claim the both of them, before her head twitched. “Sy-System Fu-Fully Rebooted. Da-Damage Detected To Left Flank.” Her head twitched again, and she was up like a shot. She regretted it, however, as she began to lean over onto her damaged side like a listing ship, and landed face-first on the ground. No damage, but it made her aware of her own damaged state. Her dress dirty, her skin broken, her inner body likely sparking and popping, at least until she shut down power to the damaged sectors. The very first thing she did was grab her dress, bundling it up against her chest, before slipping it on over her naked and damaged body. Then, she reached out, grabbed Arata's pants and began to hastily dress him, yanking his pants and underwear up and zipping them up.

Chise was stronger than she looked, and she lifted Arata up with one hand in a fireman's carry. She could feel the servo motors in her hips and legs strain to keep her upright, however, thanks to the damage she had experienced. Still holding Arata's head with the other, she walked out of the opposite end of the alleyway with him. Almost immediately, someone spotted them, a middle-aged man who could have been the very picture of a sallaryman.

“Oh, my!” The man meekly approached. “A-Are you alright? Should I call someone?” Chise blinked rapidly, and had to quickly come up with something.

“Oh, this? Nah,” She waved it off dismissively. “This is my...ah, boyfriend. He's alllllwwwwaaaaaaaayyyyssss...” Chise suddenly began listing to one side again, when suddenly a brief white flash snapped underneath her dress and sent her standing up so fast that she almost tumbled over in the opposite direction. “alwaysalwaysalways—getting himself into t-trou-trouble! I'm fine! How are you?” She attempted to smile, but a malfunction made her grin like she was being electrocuted. The man's eyes widened, and he took a step back before turning around and heading off without another word.

She was grinning for a while longer as she turned around and headed home in the opposite direction, swaying slightly every time an error like that cropped up. Needless to say, it was quite an eventful walk back home. She didn't even realize she was missing a shoe until she was half-way done with the elevator ride up.

---

“Mary had a little lamb...”

Chise looked down at the android now laying on top of her kitchen table. His chest plating had been removed, revealing the blinking LED's, tightly packed wiring and stacked circuitry surrounding his power cell and secondary processors. Much to Chise's relief, Arata's internal layout was almost identical to the top-shelf android model from roughly seven years ago, so Chise had some familiarity with his internals.

His head was now sitting on a shelf she had pulled over, resting somewhat precariously. But seeing as how it was still disconnected from his body's servo motors, there was little risk of it moving on her. It was however connected to the body by a bundle of colorful wires, a thinner bundle of transparent fiber-optic wires that pulsed steadily indicating system traffic, and a thick black power cable.

Chise sighed as she got no response from Arata, who stared blankly at the ceiling of Chise's kitchen. She had mostly converted it into a sort of repair room for herself, and so rather than snacks and drinks, the containers, shelves, cupboards and the like were loaded with all manner of neatly organized mechanical parts. Physically, she had him mostly reassembled and functioning. But she couldn't tell what was going on in Arata's CPU, as it had a lot of security. That said, she still had access to basic diagnostic functions. Ol' daddy Inoue really made sure you were a hard egg to crack, Chise thought, as she attempted to get Arata's cognitive functions operational once again. This was done typically with a command phrase, similar to that old, hokey spy-speak in the movies. Each android had a different one, and Arata, sleeper or not, was no different. Chise pulled up the personal tablet again and tapped on the screen to try a different boot sequence, then tried again.

“Mary had a little lamb...”

Arata's face began to stir, a soft mechanical buzz audible from his jaw servos as he attempted to speak. “Who-who white as white as--” Chise sighed. It was progress, but would it matter in the end? Had something damaged his AI too badly to recover? Chise doubted Arata had backups...

“Oh, come on, you almost have it...I swear, if Miyu ends up scrapping me because I broke her stepbrother, I'm going to find you in android heaven and kick your ass down every fluffy white cloud...” She let her words hang. With their advanced AI's, even androids like Chise resorted to levity to abate their concern. “Come on...Mary had a little lamb.”

Arata's face and head stirred once again. “Who-Whose fleece was whi-white as sno-snow-snow.” Chise held her back her excitement. They weren't done yet.

“And everywhere that Mary went...” Come on, come on. Chise mentally urged Arata on, when suddenly, there was a ping, and the activity from his body got louder as his eyes snapped wide open.

“The lamb was sure to go.” Arata blinked rapidly, his eyes darting about swiftly as he attempted to figure out what was going on. “Ch-Chise, what the hell is going on here? What happened to me at the bank, what--” He stopped when a finger came to his lips, and he looked up to see Chise's pale, but smiling face. She was completely nude. But what surprised Arata more was that all the synthetic skin, gel packs and dermal framework plating were gone, and Arata could see all the wires, cables, myomer synthmuscle bundles and miscellaneous parts between the bottom of Chise's chest and just above her hips.

“Hey, Arata. Calm down. How do you feel?” Chise pulled her finger away, looking Arata in the eyes, watching carefully for any sign of an error or other serious problem. So far, he was acting normal. Well, as normal as a guy who has been disassembled just after discovering he was a machine would act, she supposed, even as she realized she had no idea what qualified for 'normal' in that given scenario. But he wasn't bugging out, stuttering or sparking.

“Chise...What happened? Why am I...why are you disassembled?” Arata couldn't help but stare at the sight of the servo motors that he could partially see in Chise's hips turning as she shifted her stance slightly to the right. A soft buzz accompanied the motion.

“Well, you read a QR code in a safety deposit box,” Chise began. “After that you went kinda' nuts, started malfunctioning, and after I pulled you into an alleyway to try and turn you off, you took my clothes off and fucked me, because you thought I was Miyu.” Chise cringed a little as she then stated “and because I couldn't find your off switch, when you started ripping my wiring out, I sorta' had to pull your head off...”

Arata processed all of this. Chise knew this because of the pattern flashing of exposed LED's in his chest and near his neck. After about a minute, he let out a sigh. “I'm so sorry, Chise. I didn't mean to--”

Chise shrugged her shoulders, and the slight change in position caused her exposed hip servos to buzz softly. “Don't worry about it. I found it kinda' hot, actually. The two of us, fucking in public, damaging each other. Only reason I had to stop was that I was worried about what Katsumi might think if--”

“Miyu!” Arata's body attempted to shoot up, but Chise placed her hands on his shoulders before he ended up yanking his own head off of the shelves. Easing him down, Chise let out a sigh. Once again, she found herself getting aroused by this scene, but instead kept her restraint. Hearing the buzz of Arata's servo motors as he was eased down did make her briefly contemplate just jumping on him right then and there, though. Perhaps later, she mused.

“Hey, Arata, before you start freaking out about Miyu, you gotta' try and tell me what was on that QR code. That was all I saw in the safety deposit box. If that's all there is to this mysterious fortune your dad squirreled away somewhere, we're in a lot of trouble.” Chise pulled her hands away from Arata's shoulders, pleased that he wouldn't try to undo all her hard work again. “What exactly was in that QR code. Can you remember?”

Arata sighed. There was a soft buzz from the servos in his neck, indicating he was attempting to nod. “Yeah...And that's why I'm freaking out.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Chise. He spent the money he stole from his company to have me created.”

Chise's eyebrows raised. “Wait...You mean he spent all of the money he had having a sleeper model built?” She put a hand underneath her chin, stroking it for a moment. “Katsumi strikes me as pretty well off, if she can have her own little hideaway set up in a condemned dockyard. I mean, getting the authorities to look away on its own...” She lowered her hand and looked over to Arata. “What I mean is, if she's half as wealthy as I gather, to want this money so badly must mean that it was a pretty significant amount. Your systems look pretty advanced for the era, but I can't imagine he spent all of it on you...”

“If I were a legal, registered model, then yeah, I'd agree,” Arata countered. “But I'm a sleeper. He made it so that I would pass for a human and be legally registered as such. I mean, the money required just to get the fake documentation set up alone would have been pricy. Add in the fact that I'm full of illegal technologies designed to mask my true nature...yeah, I can see how he used most if not all of that money in having me created.” Arata sighed softly. It was strange, after living your life as a human, to refer to yourself as such.

“Oh.” Chise's face suddenly became more concerned. She tapped her cheek for a moment. “Well...This changes things...Was there anything else he mentioned? Anything that Katsumi might want?”

Arata sighed and the servos that operated the movement of his head buzzed again. “No. The code unlocked a data packet in my system's memory. I automatically accessed it when my optics scanned the QR code. Near as I can figure, he didn't anticipate my heuristic self-writing systems when he wrote it, because there was a conflict between the old and new code...” He sighed softly. “They had a bit of a disagreement...Seems it repaired itself, though.” Chise leaned in, and Arata couldn't help but notice the way her chest moved as he spoke. “Wow...It's like you've known you're an android all along. The data packet did that, I take it?”

Once again, the servos in Arata's neck buzzed. “Yeah. Part of the reason why there was such a disagreement. My self-writing plasticity software wrote itself on the basis that I'm a human. After five years of being told that, suddenly having my core functions tell me I'm an android caused a conflict. I guess I should be lucky I just malfunctioned. I could have corrupted my memory, too. Truth is, I'm not sure, but I think a lot of the fake memories I had installed were wiped by the change...”

Chise blinked. “So...” She attempted to process this herself, trying but failing to compute what this meant. “What does that mean? You're...You're not the same Arata anymore?”

Arata blinked once or twice. “I never really thought of it like that, but...I guess so.”

Chise tilted her head. “Does that mean you still want to save Miyu?”

Arata looked to Chise with the most serious look she had ever seen on his face. “Yes. I still love her, Chise. That's never going away.”

Chise leaned forward, her elbow now resting on the edge of the table, only a few inches away from Arata's face. She was smiling now. “God, that's just the most romantic thing I've ever heard.” She chuckled softly, and Arata, in spite of himself, chuckled too. But Arata stopped soon after, and commented, “well, what are we going to do now? We have no money to give her. We've got nothing to show for it. And while I'd give myself up for her, somehow I don't think she's going to want an illegal android as collateral...”

Chise pondered as well for a moment. “...We're going to have to take her down. She's part of the connection that would be affected by the worm. If I can upload the program to a machine in that network, she'd be just as affected by it as Miyu or anything else. And once we have her like that, there's nothing she can do to stop it.”

Arata smirked. “Hoist by her own petard, yeah?”

Chise smirked softly, and brushed Arata's cheek with a finger. “I gotta' say, I like this new version of you. You seem a lot more confident. The whole thing's kinda'...sexy, actually.”

Arata turned his eyes to look in her direction. “Thanks. But we aren't going to get anything done while I'm in pieces. Put me back together, and then we'll confront Katsumi together.” Chise nodded. And then he suddenly had a thought. “Chise...You have parents, right? You're a daughter and all that. Why do you live in your own apartment, anyway?”

Chise chuckled softly. “I kinda' need some space with my lifestyle. My parents are just as crazy as me, though. Believe me, I didn't pick up all of these habits on my own.” She reached out and brought Arata's head down onto his neck. “Just imagine how it'd be if we were there with the state we're in?”

They both chuckled, Arata's briefly interrupted as the connection between his head and his body was being re-established.

---

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