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Tama is excited to get her own AI-ball. Honestly, she's just hyped to have two working eyes again. The idea of having to share her headspace with someone else is… interesting, to say the least.
Pewter assured her he'd make an AI personality that complimented her and her detective style. Her mentor Aiba informed her that was total bs. As she told it, the AI would have a variety of functions especially for investigative work as well as streamlined psyncing, but there's no guarantee they'd get along. She'd complain at length about how odd the personalities always ended up being. Aiba never passed up an opportunity to remark how her own AI was better suited to a telenovela than detective work with how over the top he behaved.
Still, Tama made the leap of faith to join such a batty, secretive police branch, so she figures she can take another one on their strange robotic surgeries. That's what she reminds herself of anyways as she arrives in the tech lab.
Pewter's got his little smug smile on and Tama already knows he's in one of his dramatic moods.
"Special Agent Tama," Pewter begins, "meet your very own AI-ball. From this day forward, this AI will act as your personal computer, your partner and friend."
There's a spiky blob cupped between Pewter's hands. In between the almost gelatinous mixture of points is a single red eye. It looks up at her. It blinks.
"Hello," Tama greets, voice unsure.
"3̸̟̐6̵̥̿$̷̤͆+̸̛͙̜͉͜͝3̸̡̲͈͚̠͇̝̺̋̾̾͋͋͐́̓̿͑̊͝9̸̛̩͚̥̄͑̿3̷͉̦̠̫͈̙̞̼͍̤̈͘͜0̷̤͒͐̉̎̎̓̔͒̾͘͠)̶̨̠̠͎̎̊͂́͗͗̋̇̂͘̕͝1̶̛̼̌̏̐̈́̓̎̄̃͗̇͠͠͠@̴̧̺̠̦̙̪͒̉̍̽́͐͐͗̽̂́̚̚7̴̻̯̈́̇́͑̽̽͗̈́̉̔́̅͝2̴̣̠̼̜͍̹͎͇̾̔̑̂̒͘͠͠͝," the creature replies.
The static sound only lasts a moment, but both Tama and Pewter flinch at the noise. The AI-ball itself seems perplexed.
"Sorry," the blob says. It has a soft, male voice. "Hello. My name is Ryuki. It's nice to meet you, Tama."
Pewter's brow creases at the statement. He looks down at his creation with confusion. "That's not right. Your name is supposed to be-"
"Ryuki," the blob insists.
Tama realizes the creature's shaped like a very simplified porcupine, or maybe a spiked chestnut. It's more obvious now that the self-proclaimed Ryuki is hiking up each transparent, gooey point as his single eye locks onto Pewter. The man himself looks at the AI like it's a particularly tangled knot in his shoe laces. He's too wrapped up in his own thoughts to be any help in advising Tama.
Fuck it, the ABIS agent decides. She places her cupped hands next to Pewter's.
"Well, Ryuki," she starts off. At the mention of his name, the AI swivels his gaze to her. His spiky exterior doesn't seem as intense as it was.
"It's very nice to meet you, too," Tama continues in the kindest voice she can muster. It's the one that used to make her patients smile without fail. "I hope we get along."
Ryuki immediately scurries into her palm and up her shoulder. He stays there for a moment, staring at Pewter.
Tama turns to him as well. "So, we good-?"
"Can I be your eye now ?" The question was definitely asked by Ryuki, but not verbally. It's like he spoke into Tama's skull, and man, that's gonna take some getting used to.
"That's not how you make a request of someone, is it?" Tama replies back, mostly just to fuck with him. Aiba's told her plenty of horror stories of how her AI-ball Date has gone off and done shit completely on his own, over and over again, so she's expecting Ryuki to huff, maybe say please, or just scurry into her empty eye socket himself.
"May I please be your eye now, Great Lady Tama?"
Tama chokes on air. "You may," she responds once she can breathe again.
Ryuki's body oozes and reforms into a familiar eyeball shape. He rolls forward, off his perch on her shoulder, and Tama's thankful her reaction time is perfect. She catches him and pops the little sucker into her empty socket.
She focuses back on Pewter, who thankfully has taken her one-sided conversation in stride. He seems to be waiting for her to get back to her original point with nothing out of place save a quirked eyebrow. "So we good here, Pewter, or is there anything else I gotta do before I test-drive this little guy?"
Pewter sighs. "No, Tama. Just, let me know if Ryuki starts acting up."
Tama can feel the AI in her eye squirm. Even if she didn't, her vision noticeably shifts as a result. Still, she gives a salute to her superior. "Got it, Pewter."
She waits until she's out in the hallway before trying to access the mental link again.
"Okay, Ryuki, what exactly can you do? "
"Didn't you read the manual? " It's not a salty reply but rather one of genuine curiosity, like Ryuki doesn't understand how his psyncer could get this far without doing so.
"Skimmed. That baby was too long and dry to keep me up, y'know? " Tama's lips quirk up at her own joke.
"Tama, " the AI whines, and Tama instantly knows she's going to have so much fun messing with him. "You're supposed to read all ABIS material before operating-"
"Yeah, yeah, " she cuts off. "But summarize for me, Ryuki: what can you do? "
There's a pause. Then the voice replies, "Everything."
...
Ryuki, Tama quickly realizes, is buggy as fuck. When she tries to connect to the network, there's about a 15% chance her AI will say it's unavailable, and only a 30% chance he'll actually be able to find it a few minutes later. If she asks him to pull up a video, there's a two-thirds chance it'll be stuck in buffering hell. And although it doesn't happen often, Ryuki's voice will sometimes overlap with static, and the most annoying part is that it doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason associated with it. It just happens sometimes.
Aiba sits across from her subordinate, jotting down the latest results on her clipboard. Her mouth is down-turned, either in thought or annoyance. Knowing Aiba, it's probably both.
"So," Tama starts, trying to dispel the bad mood, "how am I doing at this whole 'AI-ball' thing?"
Aiba doesn't look up from her notes. "You're doing fine, Tama. It's your partner that's failing over and over."
"Tactful ," Date's voice sarcastically rings out through the main channel.
Even though Date's been chiming in constantly since Tama's test drive began, she still can't say she's entirely used to him. Before today, she'd only heard Date speak a few times through an earpiece and the even rare times he's been out of Aiba's eye - her mentor normally pops him back in there fairly quickly whenever he tries to stretch his legs. But he's been much more helpful than expected, offering tips and tricks far before Aiba speaks up. And if the blinking of his yellow eye is anything to go by, he's been whispering directly to Ryuki any time he's encountered a hint of trouble.
"Sorry," Ryuki calls out to the three of them. He's repeated that word more times in the last hour than Tama's bothered to count.
"You'll get the hang of it soon, Ryuki," Date encourages. " There's so much to keep track of. "
"For a person, sure," Aiba says out loud. "For a super advanced AI who was specifically designed to achieve these tasks, this should be trivial."
"I'll do better. I promise." His voice is starting to drag. It's cheerful but strained.
For the briefest of seconds, Tama loses vision in her mechanical eye. She opens up a direct channel to Ryuki.
"You good there, buddy? "
"I'm fine. " His voice is definitely odd, lowering in pitch for sections as his overall speech slows down in speed. "Standard vision is back online. Sorry for the delay. "
Tama's not sure if Aiba's currently thinking or talking to Date, so she asks out loud, "Does Date ever sound different?"
"He's equipped with a voice modifier that can alter his speech to any other's, if provided with a sufficient sample," Aiba explains.
"Like Reika's," Date unhelpfully adds in a feminine voice Tama's never heard before, and honestly does not want to hear ever again.
"No, I meant like slow or off-pitch."
"No," Aiba responds.
"It would happen if I was low on charge, but President Perfect over here hasn't let that happen since she got tased by a kid half her age back in-"
Aiba flicks her forefinger against her fake eye. "Date," she grits out, "shut up."
Tama tucks that nugget of info away for future use. " Ryuki? " she calls out on their private channel.
"Yes, Tama? "
"What's your charge at? "
There's a long pause. "Four percent."
"Shit," Tama says aloud. She digs through her purse for the charging dock she'd been issued.
Ryuki's voice is all over the place in terms of pitch and speed. "I can keep going. Please, Tama? I'll do better this time, I promise. Ḏ̵̏o̵̺̾n̷͇̋'̴̠͂t̵͖̋-" There's a layer of static that obscures whatever he's trying to say.
Tama places the dock on the cafeteria table. "Later, Ryuki. Okay?" She reaches up to remove her artificial eye.
" No, no, no. I'll be good, I'll be good! Don't - ḓ̶̬̈́̎͜o̴̥̘̝͐͠ņ̶̹͋'̶͈̗̉t̷̠̉͐̍ ̵̥̬̟̊-̴̤̗̼̆̚ d̷̪̲͍̣̜̩̀̓ỏ̴̞̣̻̮̳͊n̶̨̨͇̻̣̯̫̙͇͕̎̈́̈́́̈́̐̎̅͘'̸̨̮̳̳̰̫̃̆̐̃͜t̶̡̜̬̱̩̙̼̪̺͑̀̎̚͠ ̸̢̛̬̘͙͔͕͉̻̭͚̎̓͑͂̿́̓̄́̐̉͝-̴͕͕̑̀"
"Hey," Tama says quietly, pausing her movements entirely. "I'm just turning you off to charge for a bit. We'll try again when your battery isn't so low, okay?"
She doesn't get a response. She's not entirely sure if Ryuki is still online. After a moment though, she pops him out of her eye socket and puts him in the charging dock.
Aiba regards her movements with more than a tad of fascination. "He didn't want to charge?"
"Was terrified at the idea," Tama replies. She watches the little charging bar animation start up.
"Seemed terrified. AI reactions are approximations of human emotions, but they can't feel any of it."
"Rude." Date's voice gets downright sultry. "I can feel plenty."
"I will stick you in a microwave if you don't behave," Aiba retorts.
"The damage would come out of your salary," he sing-songs.
Aiba huffs. She watches Tama watch the red eye slowly spin in its charging port. "You're sure Pewter meant to give you this AI?"
Tama nods.
Her mentor narrows her eyes. "His personality is better than expected, but his features leave much to be desired. You should report as much to Pewter. Maybe he can get you a better one, or at least one without all the bugs and kinks."
"Aww, but it's more fun when they're kinky," Tama whines. She's rewarded with Date's laughter and an eye roll from his partner.
"Please be serious for once in your life."
Tama discards her grin. She knows Aiba (along with most other members of their department, honestly) thinks she's a floozy, and that's putting it lightly. But while Tama can be carefree, she does pay attention. She knows she hardly fits in here. Three years ago, Tama was practicing as a licensed psychologist when Boss scouted her, seemingly at random, and offered to help her fast-track her way through police training in under a year. The whole thing was and still is unheard of, and Tama knows such special treatment means she needs to produce some damn impressive results. If she can't cut it, no one's gonna bat an eyelash, and she'll get dumped right back at that cramped office building Boss first picked her out of.
Tama drums her manicured nails on the table. "I've had Ryuki for less than a day - I'm not gonna demand a new partner. I haven't even tested out all his features. Do you know how stupid I'd look?"
Part of Tama wonders how much of this could be another aptitude test. If so, what's the right move? Grin and bear it to beat the odds and be stellar with subpar equipment, or fess up to the head honchos and show character? Boss definitely seems more like the type of woman to demand results while under fire. Plus, what if it's not a test and Tama goes storming in, demanding a better partner? Then she'd be the one getting cut off for being too difficult and pushy.
Something akin to sympathy flashes across Aiba's face. "You shouldn't have to put up with something so inadequate."
"It's times like these where I'm so glad I'm a flawless specimen," Date says.
"Date," Tama interrupts, "what do you think?"
Aiba looks shocked. Judging by the long stretch of silence, her AI-ball wasn't expecting to get polled as a voice of reason either.
"When humans are born, their eyesight is abysmal. There are many more pressing organs that need to grow to their proper size, so improved vision is not high on the list. Infants have been shown to be unable to distinguish between pictures of real faces and mixed-up faces, provided they remain on a face-like structure. However, this is not a problem, because no such mixed-up faces exist in reality, and they are therefore able to identify other members of their species adequately. Eventually, their eyesight will rapidly improve, and they will have excellent vision - it merely requires time."
Date pauses for a moment. "I would equate your current situation to that. All of Ryuki's vital systems are within nominal parameters. No errors occurred with X-ray, night vision, or thermal modes and his emergency quick time calculations were functioning properly. It's the more fine-tuned but extraneous features that are giving him difficulty, but, considering that Pewter cleared him, I see no reason why they won't be fully operational soon."
"Except he's not a human child," Aiba retorts, "but a highly advanced supercomputer. He shouldn't need to 'grow into' any of his capabilities. He should already be capable."
"AIs aren't a one-size-fits-all t-shirt, Aiba. If you insist on being obtuse, I'll explain it differently. Ryuki's personality core is different from mine, so how he processes data is similar but not quite the same as how I do, which means his functions, while capable of achieving the same results as mine, are again achieved in a slightly different manner. It's therefore a distinct possibility that there's room for honing his abilities, even though others of Pewter's AIs like myself are fully operational upon start-up."
"Aiba," Tama says good-naturedly, "you told me Date was a pervert, but you never mentioned he could be smart."
Blood is rushing to Aiba's face, and Tama would bet good money her mentor's getting heckled by her AI as she tries to recollect herself. The woman coughs discreetly into her fist, as if that could distract from what's going on.
"Yes, well - you should at least have Pewter see if he can fix the connectivity issues. That's part of his job," Aiba insists.
Tama glances at the charging dock once more. "Alright, alright. I'll take Ryuki to Pewter once he's charged and go back to walking around like a cyclops, okay?"
...
Pewter keeps Ryuki under observation for ten full days. He wanted to keep him for longer, but when Tama had gotten fed up with waiting in radio-silence only to be met with nothing conclusive, she put her foot down. ABIS couldn't demand she mutilate her body and then deprive her of a disability aid indefinitely, and Pewter reluctantly had to agree.
As if all that wasn't annoying enough, Ryuki was miffed, big time. He hadn't so much as greeted her when she finally came back to retrieve him. Rather, he had snuck a quick glance before ducking into her open black purse. She'd been too surprised to stop him. Anyways, it was probably best for him to get his sulking out of his system, right?
That was eight hours ago. Tama had gingerly put her bag on her living room coffee table and pretended to read a magazine thirty minutes ago. Still no movement.
Tama snaps the magazine shut with a sigh. "Ryuki?"
"Hm? "
"Can we talk for a minute?"
"We're currently conversing, Tama."
"I meant face-to-face."
Finally, some movement. Ryuki slowly waddles out of the black tote, a pair of earbud cables trailing behind him. The red wire is a tangled mess around his torso. His red eye looks up at her.
Tama can't help but smile. "Aw, let me help you out of that."
She scoops her AI-ball up and starts unraveling the wire. But after a minute, Tama notices that his gelatinous spikes have gotten slightly taller - it's making it harder for her to get the earbuds off him. Then she clocks how Ryuki hasn't said a word this whole time.
She clears her throat. "Um, Ryuki, are you comfortable with me doing this?"
"No." The firmness of his answer surprises her.
She drops the freed end of the cable. "Are you okay with me holding you right now, or should I set you down on the table?"
"Table, please."
Tama deposits Ryuki back where he was. She sets her hands on her knees. "Y'know, you can tell me to stop doing something if you're ever uncomfortable."
This time, Ryuki speaks out loud. "AI-balls can't disobey a direct order from their partners."
"That counted as an order?"
"It wasn't phrased as a question."
"So statements are just blanket commands?" Tama asks, incredulous.
"Unless intonation indicates otherwise, but that's..." The spikes that look most like ears flare up for a moment. "Tricky."
Tama hums, thinking. "Okay, if that's the issue… what if I ordered you to not consider any statements as commands unless I verbally specify it's a command? Would that give you more leeway?"
Ryuki's eye looks upward, as if he's doing mental calculus. "That would be sufficient, yes."
"Alright. Then I order you to not consider statements as direct commands unless I verbally specify it's a command."
Ryuki doesn't say anything, but his spikes are no longer hiked up like a cartoon cat's fur after a scare, so Tama takes it as a win.
Tama sinks into her seat so she doesn't tower quite so much over her AI. She tries to keep her tone casual. "Now that that problem's settled, can you tell me what's up?"
"I don't understand?"
Tama sighs. It's hard to tell if he really doesn't get it or is just trying to avoid the topic. "You've spent all day hiding. You're upset about something, right?"
"AIs do not experience emotions. Miss Aiba informed you of this." His voice lacks any intonation, like he's reading her an article off the internet.
"Humor me for a minute then."
Ryuki goes dead quiet. If it wasn't for him tracking every minute movement she makes, Tama would've thought he had frozen.
"Lady Tama," he starts, and this time he sounds much more like himself. "May I humbly make a request of you?"
Her lips quirk upwards. "Shoot."
"Don't get rid of me before our first psync."
Tama's blind-sighted by his request again, but this time because of what he's asking rather than how. She can't help but let out an incredulous, "What?"
"It's just three days away," Ryuki's voice shakes. "If you don't want me as your partner afterwards, then…then I won't fight it. I'll get deleted quietly…" His voice trails off momentarily only to come back in full force. "But! At least give me a chance to prove myself!"
"Wait a minute," Tama says, scooting closer to the table. "What's this about getting rid of you - deleting you?"
Ryuki regards her with a fair amount of confusion. "You returned me to Pewter. Even though I was offline at the time of the hand-off, it's a simple conclusion to make. You don't need to act ignorant for my sake."
Tama takes a moment to run through things from Ryuki's perspective. Had he thought she was turning him off because of all the glitching? And it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think Pewter has kept Ryuki in the dark as much as he had kept Tama…
"Ryuki, I left you with Pewter so he could fix some of the issues you've been having. No more, no less."
"If something is broken and cannot be fixed, it is discarded," Ryuki states plainly. There's a long pause. "Pewter’s latest theory is that the problem stems from my personality core, since it is 'buggy.' Restructuring a personality matrix once it's been operational is near impossible. It'd be simpler to write a new one, whole-cloth, using the collected data as a baseline, and delete the old entirely."
The detached way Ryuki explains his own demise rubs Tama the wrong way. "There's no reason to think Pewter would do that," she snaps.
"He's done it before." Ryuki's gaze is cold, clinical. "To my predecessor. I have his data and baseline core, but also pieces of his memory. I'm not supposed to remember, but I do, and that fundamentally shaped my personality into something different." He hesitates a moment before adding, “Something broken."
Tama feels her blood pressure spike. She’s back in uni, listening to her ethics professor discuss the trolley problem, Taurek’s miracle drug dilema, Thomson’s famous violinist conundrum, and a dozen other thought experiments about playing with human lives. Her classmates are asking questions: do I know the person in trouble, how old are they, what do they look like, what’s their degree of education, what do they do for a living, do they have a criminal record, have they given back to society, etc, etc. It all boils down to their biases on whose lives are inherently worth more. Save the surgeon over the preschool teacher, the rich philanthropist over the poor man, the 25 year old over the 75 year old, the useful over useless. All these students were supposed to be the best and the brightest and every single one of them pointed at a name and said, “This one deserves to die for the crime of serving no great purpose.”
And isn’t that frustration the whole reason she switched into her psych major, refusing to do anything “practical”? Stubbornly insisting that living was, in itself, the greatest purpose. Telling every person who walked into her shitty, cramped office that no amount of accolades, money, or sex determined someone’s worth. That it didn’t matter if they were unemployed, chronically single, always the odd one out, barely holding it together: they mattered, plain and simple.
“Tama, are you alright? Your heart-rate increased rapidly.”
Tama looks down and finds Ryuki belly-up on the couch beside her. Whatever progress she had achieved in detangling him is gone and nullified. The red wiring coils around his stomach and back, and now it’s encased his stumpy limbs, trapping them at odd angles. He keeps his body contorted to stay balanced and prevent himself from rolling closer. Though he’s at Tama’s side, the AI isn’t touching her, remaining a distance of an inch or two away.
“Tama?”
Ryuki, who stands at less than three inches and is practically hogtied, is looking at her with worry. Ryuki, who’s known her for less than two weeks and is convinced she wants him dead, is asking her if she’s okay with sympathy and concern dripping from his simulated voice.
God, does she feel like a hypocrite.
Tama dons a small smile. “Sorry,” she says aloud, checking that her voice projects calmness yet strength as it should. “Was lost in thought for a moment there. I'm okay now though, thank you."
Ryuki doesn't have a mouth, but she knows he's smiling back at her. An equally small, pathetic smile, but still. "Good."
Tama leans down so Ryuki is at eye level. "I'm not sure we'll work out as partners, Ryuki: I'm not as well versed in law or the proper procedures as most of my peers; I have no patience for liars; I can and will flirt with every attractive witness or suspect we come across; and I’m told that my sense of humor is nonsensical and terrible. But I promise you, regardless of whether or not we’re compatible, I'm not gonna let you be deleted, okay?”
Ryuki is quiet for a long moment. “Alright,” he replies.
Tama doesn’t know if Ryuki believes her. She doesn’t know if they’re cut out to be partners - hell, if she’s even cut out to be a psyncer. But she does know she’s going to do her best to help and save as many people as she can. It’s the whole reason she agreed to be a psyncer in the first place.