MUFFIN

Mirai stood bewildered by what she’d just witnessed, contemplating the words from Yukue’s cryptic message back and forth in her head. An impending threat that seemed as incomprehensible as it was pressing.

“This message isn’t even a day old…” Mirai uttered with a quiver to her voice. Whispering under her breath she repeated the words “It’s not her… It’s not her…”

Mirai swiftly called upon he halcyon AI-like presence, probing it for whatever info Yukue might have left behind. “One data file discovered,” it uttered, referring to the single video message from Yukue she’d already viewed. “Shit. Something must’ve happened to her after the recording,” Mirai vented, “If Yukue was in trouble, why wouldn’t she just call me?” she then quipped with a tone of unsatisfaction lacing her words.

Mirai squinted at the screen again before stepping around the room uneasily, mulling the situation as Shiyui slowly crept over to the tablet. “What was that just now?” she asked, but ignoring Shiyui’s presence, Mirai kept filing through her own thoughts.

She could’ve been concerned about someone monitoring the communication, Mirai proposed to herself, only to soon reject that thought. The obvious solution would have been to just meet with me and tell me in person.

Then again, if someone was monitoring our phones, they would likely also have access to this tablet.

The idea of someone monitoring Yukue… or maybe even herself, began to seep its way beneath her skin. Drudging up old emotions she prayed not to have to experience again: The feeling of something watching from a distance. So far away, yet always so close. Logging her movements, analyzing her decisions. Her reactions.

A presence like a towering shadow cast upon her as she looked up in fear. Feeling the anxiety crawl up her spine and wrap around her neck. Staring up at the ever-extending walls of the box she was thrown in, more fearful of what was outside than being held captive within.

As Mirai felt a gripping pain in her chest with tears weld up in her eyes, warm hands cupped her cheeks, and her tension began to temper out. She suddenly found herself looking into Yukue’s eyes as she could feel a sense of calm, safety, and relief. And as Yukue scrawled a forced smile across her mouth, the sound of a door slowly creaking open behind Mirai worked its way through the room. The screeching sound easing in an ominous breath with it that tickled the back of her neck. She watched as Yukue’s expression began to look weighted, and her sunny eyes began to grow dim.

“You children come with me.”

An apprehension took hold of Mirai, preventing her from turning around. Preventing her from seeing the full picture; always being kept halfway in the dark.

“I said, come with me.”

And as a weighted hand dropped onto her shoulder, Mirai’s heart jumped, and her eyes shut tight. Only to reopen them to a carefree grin from Shiyui, calling out to her with a flurry of excitement, yammering about almost unintelligibly.

“The AI, it has a name!” she hollered with sparkles filling her eyes. “What is it a pet poodle? Who cares!” Mirai rejected.

Shiyui ignorantly turned to the tablet as she pestered the AI on and on. “Do it again, the name thing. Tell her your name.”

“My operating number is 01001101 01110101 01100110 01100110 01101001 01101110”

Shiyui looked towards Mirai with her eyes like a cue ball beneath a spotlight.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Mirai deflatingly returned. “Me either,” Shiyui nonchalantly stated with a chuckle before turning to the screen once more, “Imma just call you Muffin.”

Taking a seat at the kitchen table, Mirai posed the possibility that the answer to Yukue’s whereabouts wasn’t within the video itself but concealed amongst everything surrounding the entire situation. “The video doesn’t make sense to begin with.” Mirai stiffly argued with herself. “Why wouldn’t she tell me if something was wrong?!

“What?” a detached Shiyui questioned.

Finally willing to invite Shiyui into the situation at hand, Mirai calmly explained, “My sister’s gone missing. This home belongs to her.”

A flash of reality struck Shiyui, with her letting the air settle for a moment before trying to gain back her footing.

“You have a sister, and she’s missing?”

“Don’t let me repeat it, Shiyui.”

“Do the police know?”

With an unnerved furl shaping Mirai’s eyebrows, Shiyui exhaustingly cautioned, “Mirai, please… you’re playing detective in your head and it’s already annoying the crap outta me. Are you sure you should be wasting time here just the two of us sitting around thinking about it?” Shiyui debated, “If you ask me, you should take this to the po–”

Once again stonewalled by Mirai’s rigid expression, Shiyui refused to argue any further and instead, facing the AI whom she now referred to as Mufin, questioned it about its network connectivity.

“That information is not included within my dataset.” It replied in a dry tone. “Ugh… this thing is useless,” Shiyui muttered. Shaking her head, she then invited the option of her trying to hack the system again, but an untimely air of silence hinted at her own evident reluctance to do so. Fixating herself to catch a glimpse outside the window, Shiyui tagged, “This whole town really gives me the creeps.”

Turning back to Mirai who sat with her head in her hands as she peered down at the tabletop, Shiyui jumped back to complete her statement from earlier. “The police, Mirai. Take this to the police. Either way, I don’t know what else there is for me to do.”

Falling back into her seat, Mirai lamented her predicament. Staring off at the television set hanging from the wall to her right, she caught a glimpse of herself in its reflection. Her hair, reaching just above her shoulders was dyed an ash grey and half tied into a ponytail. Her bangs hovering just over her eyebrows cast an endearing shadow onto her arched eyes. It was a muted and rather enclosed appearance, but nonetheless a look that she felt most comfortable with.

She took another deep breath before turning straight ahead. “You know this was a gift from my sister,” she explained, referring to the coat she was wearing, “She’d always tell me to stop dressing like I’m preparing for the worst.” An almost ironic chuckle escaped her lips as she looked towards Shiyui.

“It’s nice, I guess… I mean the sorta crop top length looks good on you and expresses your… curves well I suppose. The burgundy is a little dull though… could use more color all around if you ask me...” Fluttering her eyes Shiyui digressed, “The police, Mirai.”

Standing from her seat calmly, Mirai spoke in a straight voice, “No.”

Grabbing the sheet of origami paper that she’d kept within her pocket, Mirai faced Muffin. Holding the paper up to the tablet, she requested it to decipher the kanji written on its surface. However, to the surprise of the two, it failed to determine the meaning of the text.

“Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question for you.” It stated firmly. “Are the words artificial intelligence just a buzz term or something, because you’re not really showing signs of intelligence,” Shiyui stubbornly quipped from behind. “Based on the data that has been analyzed by my system in the past, what’s considered intelligent by the human race is often up for debate, including the intelligence of humans who claim to be intelligent.”

Shiyui gawked at Muffin with her face screwed. “Was that a clapback just now?”

Ignoring the two’s bickering, Mirai relocated to her sister’s study. Seating herself behind the desk, she placed the paper back into the pile in front of her and calmly looked off into the distance. Shiyui, entering after her with a blasé Muffin present on the tablet in her hand, looked around the room and quickly concluded that, “This place sucks!”

Mirai sat back, surrounded by the scent of aged paper and antique furniture, her shoulders heavy with thoughts. “Hey!” she called out to Muffin, “Who created you?”

Shiyui furled her brows as she passed her eyes from Mirai to the tablet screen. In its straightlaced tone, Muffin replied, “You did.”

Its answer shocked the room, filling the air like a faint echo. “How is that even possible,” Shiyui questioned in astonishment. The three of them then remained quiet as Mirai turned towards the garden behind the wall of glass windows.

A light breeze wafted over the leaves and tickled the surface of the pond. A feeling of nostalgia began to wind in Mirai’s chest. But she fought the urge to let old memories creep up on her again.