Taro: New mission, same goal

The following morning was a Sunday, and it was a good day for Taro.

Taro woke up from bed feeling relaxed and refreshed, which was a pure contrast from his previous frustrated Saturday morning.

The board of Science and Innovations had rejected his neural link, a project he had poured countless weeks into only for it to end up going nowhere. However, just as he had resigned to spend his entire Saturday doing nothing but wallowing in self-pity, he instead spent the weekend having fun with one of the prettiest girls he had ever met.

Kokoro.

As he went about his morning routine, he couldn’t seem to get the thought of Kokoro out of his mind even for a second. While he brushed his teeth, he thought about her piercing blue gaze and flawless smile. While he made breakfast, he thought about the delighted expression on her face when they began to talk about music. And when he was moving into the part of his house he designated as his workshop, he also thought about the moment she had wrapped her hands around him while they were floating in zero gravity.

That was the closest he had been to Kokoro. Both emotionally and physically.

Her hair smelled of lilac shampoo, and the soft warmth of her body pressing against his was a feeling he was never going to forget. When she had hugged him without warning, Taro’s brain simply short-circuited. His nervous system flooded with all kinds of happy signals and emotions, and his excited heart began thumping rapidly as a result. When he was able to think again, he hugged her back and wished the moment didn’t come to an end.

Clearing his mind from the memory, Taro stepped into his workshop and immediately went to work.

“Lights.” he said, and the smart watch he was wearing on his left wrist beeped twice, triggering the voice recognition and bathing the large room in a soft glow.

The place was packed filled with computers, monitors, a custom holodeck setup primarily for game development, and several other wires, tools, and devices Taro utilized when building his gadgets.

He walked over to his closet and pulled out a motion tracker suit. He paused for a moment, contemplating between playing a videogame or starting a new project. He had already planned to dedicate his time for the next three months fully developing his neural link device. But since he was basically told to nuke the project, he wasn’t really sure what else to do.

He eventually decided to stuff the suit back into the closet and went to sit in front of his work station. There, he repeatedly spun himself around on the chair while leaning back in his seat, letting his mind wander, and wander, and wander, until…

“Master, I believe you have an incoming call.”

Babble-on came floating into the room a minute later, giving Taro some needed distraction.

“Who is it?”

“Your sister master, Mrs. Haruka Yamato.”

Taro suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He hadn’t called his sister back since she left him the good luck voicemail while he was driving to school two days ago.

“Answer.” he said almost immediately, standing up from his seat.

“Hey Taro, what’s up?”

“Hey Ruka, I’m good. But look. I’m really sorry for not calling you back after school the other day. I just got a little distracted with…”

“Hey no sweat. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure? Taro asked, talking at the glowing blue orb floating in front of him.”

“Yeah.” His sister replied. “Anyway, are you busy right now?”

“Ah, no not really, why?”

“Could you maybe come over? grampa’s hearing aid is acting up again and like usual, he absolutely refuses we buy him a new one.”

“Okay, sure, no problem.” Taro replied. “I’m on my way.”

***

When Taro arrived at his sister’s house ten minutes later, he knocked on the front door and waited for someone to answer.

“Taro? Is that you?” came the muffled voice of his sister from inside.

“Yeah, Ruka, it’s me.”

Taro heard careful footsteps coming towards the door. And as soon as the front door flew open, he rushed the woman on the other side with a hug.

“Hey, easy. Do you want to knock me over? I’m carrying another one you know.”

Smiling, Taro pulled back from the hug and stared at his sister. A woman with short brown hair and wearing a long white gown. She was eight years older than Taro, which made her 26. She also had a daughter, and was soon expecting another one evident from the bump in her belly.

He walked into the house with his sister shutting the door behind him.

“So, how was your presentation?” his sister asked, turning her ear towards him instead of looking at him directly. She had her eyes closed which was typical behavior for Ruka, as keeping them opened really made no difference to how she perceived the world on a visual spectrum.

She was blind, and had been so ever since she was 15-years-old.

“Well, where do I start?” Taro replied, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

***

Thirty minutes later and Taro had already began working on his grandfather’s hearing aid. He had the parts scattered on the Livingroom table in front of him, examining each individual part closely.

“So, this girl was the reason you were able to manage your prototype being rejected by the board huh?” His sister said, her voice carrying over from the kitchen.

“Yeah.” Taro replied, studying the pieces closely. He discovered some of the parts of the hearing aid like the amplifier and speaker had suffered some level of water damage.

“Hey Ruka, did grampa’s hearing aid maybe fall in the bath tub or something? I can see signs of water damage.”

“I’m not sure. Why don’t you ask him.”

“He’s asleep.” Taro replied, staring at the sleeping old man sitting on the couch across from him,

“Okay then, just figure it out. I know you can. In the meantime, I want you to tell me more about Kokoro, the girl who seems to be stealing my brother’s heart.”

Taro was suddenly red-faced from embarrassment. However, that did not stop him from spending the next five minutes telling his sister all about Kokoro and her insane love for music.

“Wooow. She sounds like an absolute jem.” his sister said, coming into the living room from the kitchen. Because Taro wasn’t paying attention, his sister ended up accidentally bumping into the table with her leg.

“Ruka, you okay?”

He rushed over to inspect if she was injured but she shooed him away instead.

“I’m fine I’m fine. There’s not even a scratch.”

Haruka then plopped her very pregnant body on the couch beside her sleeping grandfather.

“You don’t go nearly half your life bumping into tables and chairs without developing some endurance. So don’t worry about me.”

Hearing that, Taro smiled. Ruka was his whole reason behind every progress he had accomplished with his neural link device. Back when they were kids, he had made her a promise the night after she had lost her sight. She was his whole reason for fighting for the reintroduction of safe, cybernetic enhancements. He hadn’t been able to fulfill that promise but he hadn’t given up yet, and he never will.

He went back to his seat and returned his attention to fixing the hearing aid while his sister rested. However, that’s when he noticed something.

Normally, a hearing aid consisted of three primary components.

The microphone which picks up sounds from the environment and converts them into electrical signals. The amplifier which boosts the strengths of the electrical signals. And the speaker which converts the electrical signals into sound and sends them to the ear. These are the steps the hearing aid goes through when helping a person to hear better.

However, what happens when the process is reversed?

When his sister bumped into the table earlier, some of the pieces of the device wobbled around and got mixed up to form a pattern. A different pattern. A new pattern.

Now, the speaker came first. Followed by the amplifier. Then the microphone. It was still the hearing aid, just backwards this time.

Instead of collecting information from the outside and sending it in, the device would, in theory, now collect information from within and send it out.

Taro couldn’t believe it. If it was remotely possible, if it was even comprehensible, if it was even practical, he might have found a way for Kokoro to communicate better if she wanted to.

He had to get to work.