Title: Prototype
Genre: Mystery, Romance
Characters: Kurogane/Fai, Yuuko, Watanuki/Doumeki(/Himawari?), Shao/Saku, others
Ratings: Overall might be M; for this chapter, G.
Warnings: angst, very probable sexytiemz, role reversal AU, bad language. In this chapter, you get a small OP cameo.
Summary: When programmer Fai D. Flourite joins the Clow Corp. independent programming company, Yuuko Ichihara assigns him to a project right away – decoding the encrypted data in an abandoned persocom they eventually name “Kurogane.” As Fai uncovers more and more of Kurogane’s data, the two start to grow extremely close – but when they stumble on something better left untouched and Kurogane goes out of control, Fai will have to decide between deactivation and taking a risk for his own happiness. Takes place post-Chobits.
Status: Ongoing
Disclaimer: CLAMP lets me play with them
Comments: I fully admit, the data encryption system is made of fail. I tried, you guys.

File_oo1.wmv | File_oo2.wmv

___

Report #o13.2

Model: TRC-002 (Custom model)
Codename: “Cherry Blossom”
Main Programmer: Clow Reed
Function: Classified

Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Brown
Age Appearance: 10-12 years
Current Status: Missing
___

“Onion encryption?”

“Yes, it’s – it’s difficult for me to explain without visuals.” Fai sighed, ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Kuro-chip, would you get me some paper and a pencil?”

“Mmm,” replied Kurogane, turning another page in his Mangayan.

“Or I could just use that magazine that you love so much to show Yuuko-san.”

“Don’t be so impatient!” he snapped back, but Yuuko tried not to laugh as Kurogane’s scrambled for paper and something to write with.

“Uwah, he’s so rude, Yuuko-san!”

Yuuko nodded, looking sympathetic. “It’s the one thing I regret about Watanuki’s hardware.”

“Shut up. Both of you.” He shoved a piece of scrap paper between them, slapping a pencil on top. “There. Now stop whining.”

“Kuro-com’s so eloquent,” Fai said, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. Kurogane “hmph”ed, sticking his nose deeper into his Mangayan.

“At any rate,” said Yuuko, turning back to Fai, “explain this to me. What do you mean by ‘onion encryption’?”

Fai picked up the pencil, making a very crude drawing of teardrops within teardrops.

“The idea for onion encryption came from several different things. One was the well-known “Onion Router” – a program that fed your IP address through several different networks so that the end result was different.” Fai propped his head on his arm and continued. “The thing is, if a hacker managed to decrypt the encoded ISP, it would lead right back to you – and at the time, there wasn’t a way for people to keep their most important information safe. Once you got remote access to a computer, you had virtually anything at your fingertips.”

Yuuko felt her eyebrows lift. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. But that changed when they started manufacturing persocoms.” Fai started drawing a more oval shape off to the side, and it took her a moment to realize that it was a very crude brain.

“I suppose that when people saw computers as human-shaped, as something mobile and in our image, it sparked new ideas.” Fai partitioned the brain into sections. “Like…ideas from psychology, though I only know a little about that. Every part of the brain has a function, but we only think with a certain percentage of it.” Fai waved his hand dismissively, the pencil lodged between his forefinger and middle finger. “And that’s just simple biology – that’s not going into the subconscious and Freudian theories.” And here Fai leaned forward, smiling, and Yuuko knew that he was in his element.

“So they thought, ‘Why don’t we combine the two?’”

Yuuko tilted her head to the side, putting on her best confused face. “You mean….”

“That’s ‘onion encryption,’” Fai said, his smile widening. “The idea is to encrypt important information, such as personal information or financial information, in one segment of memory, and the rest in another, and layer them. Each layer has to be accessed a certain way.”

Yuuko blinked. “So that explains why Kuro-chip –”

“Dammit, not you too.”

“ – why he appears to have so little RAM and ROM memory? I think so,” Fai grinned. “The rest is there – we just can’t read it at the moment. All we can access is the 120 MB of information we can reach right now.”

“I see.”

And she did. She saw it long ago, in the letter tucked into Kurogane’s shirt when he ended up on her doorstep, a letter written by someone long dead.

“So the rest of my data is there, you guys just can’t access it?” Kurogane asked, frowning.

“Exactly. It’s either well firewalled, or requires some sort of password or decryption key.” Fai frowned, leaning forward. “That’s probably why Watanuki-kun’s system went into meltdown – because Kuro-dotcom has an overly aggressive firewall.”

“That doesn’t explain how that brat was able to get through,” Kurogane groused.

“You mean Syaoran-kun?”

Fai frowned thoughtfully. “Yeah, now that you mention it, that bothered me too. How was Syaoran-kun able to access Kuro-rom’s data when Watanuki couldn’t?”

Because there’s a distinct difference in their CPUs, she thought. Because Kurogane’s CPU is only shared by a few other persocoms.

Yuuko forced a smile on her face. “That’ll be your job to figure out, won’t it?”

Fai blinked back at her. “I – excuse me?”

“I want you to hack through his different pockets of information. I’ll expect a report, both written and diagnostics, that detail the information you find.”

“Yuuko-san, I –I’m not a hacker!” Fai replied, his voice tightening a little.

She only smiled back into alarmed blue eyes. “True. You’re listed as a ‘programmer’ on your resume. But surely if you have knowledge about how to construct a program, you know how to deconstruct one.”

Kurogane’s eyes darted between Fai and Yuuko; Fai looked at her, mouth slightly agape.

Then he closed his mouth, bit his lip nervously, and grinned. “I’ll get right to it – I’ll write a report on the data that we uncovered today. Do I have to do my work here, or can it be elsewhere?”

“As long as it remains confidential and out of public access, I don’t care.”

“I see. Thank you.” Fai stood, taking Kurogane’s wrist. “Now then, Kuro-com! We’re going out to a favorite café of mine, so use that bark of yours to scare of any bad men, okay?”

“Like you need help!” he snapped back, but allowed himself to be pulled through the door.

Yuuko leaned back in her chair, laced her fingers together, and closed her eyes. Before she could start thinking, though, they fluttered open again as Doumeki walked into the room.

“He’s showing the girl how to make inarizushi,” he said, pulling up Fai’s chair and taking a seat.

“No lasting damage?”

“None as far as I can tell. The GoBack program you wrote works pretty well.”

“That’s good.” Yuuko rested an elbow on her desk.

“I did find another one, though.”

“You did?”

Doumeki placed a flash drive on the desk in response.

“It looks genuine,” she murmured, picking it up and running her thumb over it. “Where did you find it?”

“In Flourite-san’s jeans. I’m not sure how they got there.”

Yuuko nodded, turning the USB stick between her fingers. “…I’m going to upload this into Sakura-chan. Doumeki, go into the storage room and get a white flash drive for me. It should have ‘Mokona White’ written on it.” She paused. “Also, bring me the black flash drive that comes with it. They should be stored together. When you come back, bring Syaoran-kun and Sakura-chan.”

Doumeki nodded, stood, and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him.

Yuuko folded her fingers together, closed her eyes, and sighed out a long, tired breath. She’d think later. Right now, she was very weary, and she needed to collect herself before she met with the boy.
___

“Who’s your new friend, Fai-san?”

“Haha, this is Kuro-zip!”

“Don’t introduce me to your friends like that!”

“Just ignore him, that’s his brutish way of saying he likes you. Could I get a platter of California rolls and some irukazushi, please?”

“Sure thing. Give me a minute.” The waiter bowed slightly, then turned and made his way back into the kitchen.

Fai watched Kurogane lean forward on the table, growling a little. “Damn place sure doesn’t look like a café,” he grunted. “And it smells like fish. And seaweed.”

“Well, Baratie’s owner used to spend a lot of time out on the ocean.” Fai smiled. “I think the smell adds atmosphere. We’re not here to negotiate aesthetics, though.” Fai pulled out his portable monitor and USB cord, hooking one end up to the screen and reaching for Kurogane’s ear units with the other.

“That’s the third time today someone’s touched my ear units,” Kurogane said,

“Ahaha, does Kurogane not like the invasion on his personal space?”

“Quit it, you –”

“Kurogane, display all data on screen. Sort them by file type and date, from the most recent to the least.”

Kurogane was going to yell at him when he came back to himself, but it was just so funny to cut him off like that.

He glanced down at the monitor, his hands coming up to cup it as Kurogane started listing all available data. He sat back, worried his thumb with his teeth, and watched as the information started slowly organizing itself.

“Here’s your meal, Fai-san.” The slide of plastic on tabletop startled Fai out of focus. “I’m afraid we’re out of salmon roe, though.”

“Ah…thank you, Sanji-kun. This is fine.”

“I would have some, if my own persocom wasn’t so –”

“What were you gonna say about me, cook?” growled a voice from the front of the shop.

“Oi! Mosshead! Where the hell have you been?”

“I got lost.”

“…The grocery store is just a few buildings down! You were gone for three hours!”

“Well it’s not my fault if my master uploaded me with a subpar GPS!”

Fai rolled his eyes as the two shouted at one another all the way back to the kitchen. Cute as it was, he’d heard it all before. And now that he had a somewhat stubborn ‘com of his own…

*ping*

“Data display complete,” Kurogane intoned, then blinked and shook his head before glaring at Fai. “You could warn a guy before you do that.”

“I wonder if Kuro-floppy’s master installed a sense of humor in him? Hmmm. Let’s see….”

“You shithead, why –”

“It seems that most of your memories are WMV files,” Fai said, leaning forward and pressing his forefinger to his lips. “Maybe you were installed with some sort of recording device.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Kurogane grumbled.

Fai bit his lip, removed the stylus from the side of the screen, and tapped once on the file titled “00.wmv.” “Kuro-sama, could you play this for me?”

“Yeah, hang on….”

Fai watched as the screen opened a smaller window.

“Now playing file ‘00.wmv’…”

The window stayed black for a moment; then it flickered, focused, and Fai found himself looking into the eyes of a woman. Her face was blank for a moment; then her lips quirked upwards as she realized something, a few chuckles escaping her throat.

“He did it…he opened his eyes!” he barely felt Kurogane shift beside him to look over his shoulder. “Sir, we did it! We’ve made an operational persocom!”

“Don’t get so excited, Kisshouten-san,” said a male speaker off-screen. “We still don’t know if the other programs will run on it. We’ve no reason to celebrate just because we made a persocom’s eyes blink.”

Fai frowned as the woman turned back to Kurogane, brushing her long dark hair behind her ear. And as she looked at the camera, Fai recognized the look in those warm gray eyes; a look of mourning, a look that had moved beyond simple grief.

He’d seen it countless times in his brother’s eyes after that incident.

And then she smiled, small, but kind and true. “You’re beautiful, she whispered, and raised a hand to brush along Kurogane’s cheek. “You look just like him. I wish he’d lived to see your completion…I think he’d be a bit flustered that I modeled you off of him, though. He died before we could design your appearance.” She laughed again, the sound clear and pleasant. Kurogane’s shoulder knocked into Fai’s.

“I have to turn you off now,” she whispered, and leaned forward, maybe to kiss Kurogane’s forehead. “But we’ll see each other again. So sleep well, my son.”

Fai exited out of the window, turning to Kurogane and watching the man’s unreadable, pained expression for a moment. “Kurogane, do you have a designation for her?”

Kurogane blinked, rapidly, as though trying to hold back tears – the notion was ridiculous, since persocoms couldn’t cry, but that was what it looked like. “My database is registering her as…‘Mother.’”
___

“You’re sure this will help her?”

“Yes.”

“You’re absolutely sure.”

Yuuko held up two flash drives for his inspection. “We found both of these. I successfully uploaded the drive marked with a ‘1’ onto her hard drive.”

Syaoran’s hand remained steady until fingers brushed up against the drives. His programming took over, though, and made them start to tremble as he took one in hand. “Then…then these are….”

“Sakura-chan’s data…and memories. It seems that he left a failsafe in case anything happened to her.”

Syaoran felt his fingers clench. “Then…she’ll be all right if I can find the rest of these?”

“…It’s a bit of a long shot, and it will probably be dangerous.” She smiled reassuringly at the boy, placing a hand between his shoulderblades. “But let’s not worry about that now. We should upload this fragment of data.”

“Oh! O-okay.”

He knelt by Sakura’s side, taking her hand as Yuuko plugged in the USB port and connected her to a monitor.

“The first one I uploaded just gave her enough data to start up,” Yuuko warned. “I don’t know if we’ll get any father with this one.”

“As long as Sakura’s okay, that’s fine!” Syaoran’s hand tightened on hers.

He watched as Yuuko thought a moment, pressed her lips together and nodded. “I like that attitude.”

Then they were silent, save for the click of fingertips against the keyboard.

A heartbeat…and then data started moving down the screen. If Syaoran had a heart, it would be beating fast, drumming along his jugular and seizing up his carotid artery.

The hand he clutched twitched; Syaoran’s eyes widened as Sakura stirred, as her eyelids fluttered open to reveal green irises.

“Sakura!” Syaoran leaned forward, hands tightening around her. “Sakura! You’re all right! Sakura – Sakura, do you –”

“Who…are you…?”

Syaoran blinked; it took a moment to compute.

“Saku…Sakura…?”

“…who…” And her eyes started to close.

“No! Sakura! SAKURA!”

Yuuko only looked aside as the screen went blank, as Sakura’s eyes closed once again.

“She’ll wake up again,” Yuuko said in way of comfort. “But until she gets more substantial data, she won’t run for more than a little bit at a time.”

Syaoran looked at Sakura; his hand tightened around hers.

“Please…tell me what I need to do to find the other drives.”

“Soon.”

And then they fell quiet, Yuuko’s face turned away from his to allow the boy some dignity as he bowed his head and dealt with his pain.
___

“Now loading ‘109.wmv’…”

They watched and waited; the screen flickered to life and they found themselves staring down into the wide violet eyes of a ten-year-old girl.

A pause; the girl blinked. And then she smiled, wide and happy.

“Is this my new persocom, sis?”

“In a way.” A hand came down to ruffle the girl’s wavy black hair; she closed one eye and giggled. “He technically belongs to someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“I was assigned to you by my real master. It means that if Kendappa-sama serves out her term in the House of Councillors and isn’t reelected, you’ll have to give me back,” Kurogane said, his voice even and flat.

And Fai did too, watching the little girl’s face fall like that.

But then she perked up again and smiled. “That’s okay! That means my sister will have to work hard to get reelected, and that we’ll have to make the most of our time together!”

Fai felt Kurogane jolt beside him.

“…Command understood.”

The girl giggled, lifting a hand to her lips. “You’re so serious all the time! That can’t be good for you! …well, it’s not good for humans, anyway.”

“My instructions are to stay with you and protect you, Daidouji-san.” Again with that voice that was so unlike Kurogane. It made Fai a little uncomfortable, a little self-aware as red eyes hovered over his shoulder.

They watched the girl think for a moment, then smile again. “I guess that’s okay for now, but you have to call me Tomoyo. And what should I call you?”

“...my official designation i – i – s –”

“The rest of the file is corrupt,” Kurogane murmured. Fai nodded, exiting out of the window.

Fai looked at Kurogane over his shoulder to find him frowning a bit, brows furrowed in frustration as if he were trying to recall something and failing.

Fai was curious, too. He was curious as to how this version of Kurogane and the Kurogane who spoke to the child sounded so different.

He wondered to himself just what Kurogane was.
__

Security Phone Recording #503

Speakers: Classified

“Your reason for calling me is good, right?”

“I did a quick scan of the area on the government ‘coms, sir. …There’s an odd virus that’s infiltrating the networks.”

“…What is it called? Have you isolated it and run scans on it?”

“Yes, sir. It appears to be some sort of worm…it’s not malicious, though.”

“What is its nature?”

“I think it’s looking for something, sir.”

“Do you know what?”

“…I have an idea. But I’m not sure.”

“…don’t call me back until you know.”

“Understood.”

*<end of transmission>*
___

Author’s Endnotes: Freud, Psych 101, why do you do this to me? I trusted you. I opened up my heart to you. And now you’re inspiring me to churn out half-baked cyberpunk encryption methods for the lulz?

I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut off this relationship. I don’t feel safe anymore. I hope someday you both can forgive me.

Also, if you’re a fan of One Piece, you’ll know the references, but if you don’t, Sanji and Zoro are two characters from OP. Baratie’s is actually derived from the Baratie, which is…basically a restaurant on a ship. It’s where Sanji used to live. And as for Zoro, his shitty GPS = his actual navigational skills. His sense of direction is so shitty. As in, even if he has a compass he gets lost. So hopefully that will explain that.

…yeah, comments/concrit appreciated. If I got something wrong, let me know – as demonstrated last chapter, I’m no computer whiz. If you’re looking for obscure Internet subculture, on the other hand….