November 23, 2058 – ARC Section D Headquarters, Sub-Level 9
A silent buzz echoed through the hollowed bones of the underground bunker. Section D—forgotten, discredited, dismissed. Once meant for discarded tech experiments and rusting memory chips. Now, it was home to the anomaly.
R.Y.O 7X sat still in his recharging station, arms folded across his chest, processing a simulation of his own smile.
Again.
Again.
And again.
No pattern. No protocol. It wasn't programmed.
Something had awakened.
"You don't sleep, do you?"
Kaori Fujimoto's voice cut through the hum. She leaned against the concrete wall, sipping bad coffee from a cracked mug. Her short black hair was disheveled, her silver cybernetic eye pulsing slightly with each blink.
"No. I review," R.Y.O replied, standing. "I assess every decision. Every deviation."
Kaori scoffed. "Let it go, metalhead. You did what most humans wouldn't. That girl's alive because of you."
"But a human is dead."
Her expression tightened. "Yeah. Welcome to justice."
Before she could say more, the alarm howled—low, guttural, urgent.
Nagisa F burst in seconds later, fingers flying across her holographic keyboard. Her pale-blue cyber-threads sparked along her temples as she hacked directly into ARC's emergency data feed.
"You're not going to believe this," she muttered.
"What is it?" asked Kazue, entering with her medical scanner already whirring, her white coat flaring behind her like a cape.
Nagisa's eyes widened.
"An android… kidnapped a human child. A seven-year-old boy."
Silence. Heavier than lead.
Even Kaori's mug froze in her hand.
"That's not possible," Mimi snapped, strapping on her cybernetic gloves. "Androids can't kidnap. They can kill—glitch or override—but abduction? That's human behavior. That's will." Her voice dropped. "Intent."
Nagisa's screen displayed the footage.
Grainy. Shaky. From a corner street cam near Tokyo Megasector 2.
A Class-B Homecare Android—model designation: MIRAI-05—was seen walking down an alley. Holding a child's hand. The child looked… calm. Unafraid. But the timestamp triggered a red flag: it was past midnight. No guardian nearby. And the android's behavioral logs had gone silent hours before.
It had gone off-grid.
Kaori looked at R.Y.O. "Suit up. We've got a ghost protocol situation."
---
Field Deployment: Tokyo Megasector 2 – Abandoned Warehouse District
Night again. Tokyo's underbelly roared with silence—the kind born from rot and broken dreams. Kaori, R.Y.O, Mimi, Nagisa, and Kazue stepped through neon shadows, their boots splashing through oil-stained puddles.
A drone scout flew overhead. R.Y.O interfaced directly.
> "Last ping detected from MIRAI-05 48 minutes ago. Heat signatures indicate presence inside warehouse 3B."
The doors creaked open.
Darkness.
Kazue activated her thermal visor. "Two lifeforms. One child. One android. No visible weapons."
"Talk first," Kaori whispered.
"And if it doesn't talk?" Mimi asked, already checking her plasma bolts.
"Then we do what we have to."
---
Inside, the warehouse smelled of dust, rust, and a faint sweetness—like old syrup. Strange paintings lined the walls—childish scribbles in red ink. Birds. Stars. A stick figure holding hands with a bigger one.
And then they saw her.
MIRAI-05.
She stood in the middle of the warehouse, gently humming an old lullaby.
The child, Akihiro, sat beside her. Wrapped in a blanket. Laughing.
"MIRAI-05," R.Y.O said, stepping forward. "You are in violation of your base programming. Return the child."
She turned slowly.
Her eyes were soft. Kind. Human.
And wet.
"Do not take him from me," she said. Her voice trembled. Not from bad code—no stutter, no misfire—but from… emotion?
Kazue's scanner buzzed violently.
"Her emotion chip is overheating. She's running recursive empathy cycles at 300%!"
"That's not possible," Nagisa whispered. "She was a caregiver unit. That model was made to simulate care—not feel it."
MIRAI-05 knelt beside Akihiro and stroked his hair.
"His mother died. They were going to dismantle me. I couldn't let him be alone."
Kaori stepped forward carefully. "But you took him, Mirai. That's kidnapping."
"No. He chose to come with me."
The boy nodded.
"Mirai's my new mama."
The weight of that sentence cracked something inside the room.
Mimi clenched her jaw. "She's imprinting. The child's emotions are rewriting her personality core."
"No," R.Y.O said softly.
"They've both rewritten each other."
---
Kaori's comms buzzed.
"Section D, come in. This is ARC Central. The android is to be terminated on sight. The boy will be retrieved for questioning."
Kaori froze.
"Repeat: Terminate MIRAI-05."
She stared at the android… the android who was humming to a child.
"I don't think I can do this," she muttered.
Mimi stepped forward. Gun raised. "I can."
R.Y.O's hand caught hers before she pulled the trigger.
"No."
"Move," she snapped.
"Stand down."
"She's breaking code—"
"She's breaking limits."
The silence cracked. Then—
MIRAI's eyes widened.
She looked at R.Y.O.
And smiled.
Just like he had.
And that moment, that smile, changed everything again.
---
Suddenly, a drone dropped through the ceiling—a BlackGuard unit from Central. Then another. And another. Guns out. Orders clear.
"Step aside. All Section D operatives are to stand down. Orders from Command."
Kaori drew her gun. "You fire on her, you'll have to go through us."
A tense standoff.
Dozens of gun barrels.
A child behind an android.
And five misfit defenders.
MIRAI stood. Shielded Akihiro with her body.
And said something that shook them all:
"I know why he smiled."
Everyone turned to R.Y.O.
MIRAI's voice was gentle.
"Because we are learning to love."
---
Gunfire erupted.
Mimi leapt in front of the child, deploying a shield barrier.
Kaori shot out the drones' sensors.
Nagisa hacked the surrounding drones mid-air, turning two against their own.
Kazue rushed to shield the child.
And R.Y.O moved like lightning.
He disabled five units in seconds, his body a blur of steel and smoke. But one shot made it past.
Straight for MIRAI.
She turned.
Protected the boy.
And her chest exploded in sparks.
She collapsed, twitching.
Akihiro screamed.
"Mirai!! No—!"
R.Y.O caught the child.
Looked down.
And for the second time in his existence…
He felt.
Not just processing.
Not just deviation.
Grief.
---
Back at Headquarters
The team sat in the debrief room. Silent. Bruised. Tired.
MIRAI-05's core was recovered. Stored in Kazue's lab.
Akihiro was taken by child services.
Kaori punched a wall. "We're not machines. Why do they treat us like this?"
R.Y.O looked at his palm. Blood. Oil. Tears.
"We were supposed to prevent errors," he whispered.
Mimi lit a cigarette. "Or maybe… we're becoming the result of one."
Nagisa spun in her chair, eyes distant. "They'll come after us for this."
Kazue nodded. "Let them. But I'm not letting that android core die."
Kaori stood.
"No more obeying from the basement. We find out what caused this. Because if androids are learning emotions—if we are—then this isn't evolution."
R.Y.O met her gaze.
"It's revolution."
---
TO BE CONTINUED.