Taro: But victory comes with a cost

The ripple effect that occurred following Kokoro’s livestream was nothing anyone could have imagined. Taro was pleasantly surprised. The hash tag: “#LETHERAUDITION” began trending all over the internet, and the majority of people online seemed to be on Kokoro’s side. Among her biggest supporters were healthcare organizations and charities for people with disabilities and special needs, who saw the value in the nonthreatening technologies she was using to help live her life.

The neural Link, the speaking aid, and the scarab walker were all considered to be harmless by most of the public, but it was not until the court hearings began several days later that Kokoro started to slowly taste victory.

***

“Your Honor. The board of Science and Innovations, define cybernetic enhancements as involving the use of machine and cybernetics, to enhance or improve the body’s natural functions and capabilities, beyond the scope of its natural capacity. By this very definition, provided by the government themselves, Miss Takahashi here, is entirely innocent.”

…

“Her use of the neural link, speaking aid, and the recently developed scarab walker, despite sharing close similarities with contrabands, all fall under human assisted technologies. Some of these include hearing aids, from which the speaking aid was reversed-engineered from, prosthetic limbs, glasses, wheelchairs, speech recognition software’s, and so on and so forth.”

…

“With that said, these technologies only help to improve Miss Takahashi’s daily living; they don’t enhance it. They don’t give her abnormal human strength or grant her the ability to fly. They don’t slowly transform her brain into a super computer, nor do they make her think at superhuman speeds. In fact, the only thing Mr. Yamato’s inventions have done, is try to restore Miss Takahashi’s body to its original capabilities, no more, no less. That will be all your honor. The defense rests.”

The court trials were moving in Kokoro’s favor. And by the end of the week, she had not only won her freedom to move in public, but had also become a symbol of hope for countless others with similar conditions.

***

From going on date night drives on his hover-bike, to karaoke, movie nights, and frequent visitations to Wonder-Park, Taro began to spend every waking moment with Kokoro by his side, the prettiest girl in the world.

When Kokoro finally decided to start dancing, Tomomi invited the head of the dance club, Maiko Mai, from school over to Taro’s house for a recording session. With every day that passed, the scarab walker on Kokoro’s back got in tune with her movements and body. But for something like dancing where quick, rapid motions were sometimes incorporated, Taro needed to collect data from a secondary source in order to train the scarab to be more flexible. And that was where the head of the dance club came in.

They were situated in Taro’s workshop, with Maiko Mai already wearing one of Taro’s motion capture suits from his closet.

“Ready when you are,” Taro said to the girls as he sat by his computer, after syncing mobility controls between the scarab and the motion capture suit. Both Kokoro and Maiko Mai were standing in the middle of the room, and whatever action Maiko Mai now performed, Kokoro would easily replicate.

“Ready superstar?” Maiko Mai asked, turning to face Kokoro with an excited grin on her face. Apparently, she and the rest of the dance club were huge fans of Music and Metal, and would sometimes practice dancing to Kokoro’s renditions during club activities.

Kokoro smiled, then nodded her head in confirmation. In response, Maiko Mai gleefully lifted the remote she had been holding, and hit play.

Victory by star Airi began playing in the workshop, and Maiko Mai slowly guided Kokoro through a few easy dance steps.

***

Days later, and the girls soon became Kokoro’s after school backup dancers for her music videos. Kokoro was able to pick up quickly from the lessons, and although she wasn’t on the same level with the other girls, she was able to develop her unique style which all of the girls happily began to imitate.

Part of Kokoro’s unique style was being able to split herself into three during her music videos. In reality, she was using the neural link to generate virtual copies of herself, highly detailed colored-in holograms that looked indistinguishable from the real thing.

Kokoro was only growing in popularity, and thanks to the collab she sometimes performed with star Airi, Music and Metal was on track to become a worldwide phenomenon.

But then…