The Coming of Spring

The professor placed his fedora on to his son's head, his eyes suddenly losing their luster as Celesta marched into the grounds below the apartment. She was still wearing her white dress and flats, but they were ruined with mud and scratches. Her pale face was also coated with darkness, although from this height it was unknown whether that was a lack of sleep or mud.

A small noise - the yoyo falling out of Nova's pocket - could be heard before the cyborg opened a latch on one of the windows to greet her.

As if the professor were the spy his trenchcoat indicated him to be, he gave a section of wall a strong shove with both arms to reveal a widescreen TV, its screen as black as its frame. He then fiddled around with it a bit while Satoshi helped himself to some melon bread (a few packets of which had been left on the condo's single wooden table) and took a seat...
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A recorded video appeared on the screen after a short while - it began worlds away from Shinjuku, with a winding, sizzling road and a red-roofed building extending for as long as the road went for. This red-roofed building had a single tower poking out of it from the right side.

According to a sign, this was the Royal College of Music, Sweden, where the woman formerly known as Catarina was currently leaving her graduation ceremony on foot. (Or more specifically, on teal platform heels, which made soft noises as she stepped.) Aside from the graduation gown and mortarboard, the woman - who couldn't have been more than 22 at this stage - had an ankle-covering sapphire dress and she was pinching the skirt with one hand as she walked. Vivaldi's Spring was faintly playing in the background, presumably being played by some of the graduating students.

In this video, it was clear there was a familial resemblance between her and her niece, but the more the AI took hold of her, the more they seemed to diverge from each other.

Satoshi's mother's voice came over hidden speakers in rapid Japanese, "Catarina Morgansen, age 21. She is just about to leave for Japan to see her sister and her sister's daughter. Her DNA and eventual physical proximity to us makes her an ideal test subject for invention C-044."

"What's deoxyribonucleic acid got to do with anything?" Satoshi found himself muttering, still a mixture of confused and irked as to how they'd discovered this seemingly private data. 

Meanwhile, a momentary scream came from outside - this seemed to be Nova, but he couldn't be sure. I'm sure Nova's fine, he reasoned with himself.

As Satoshi kept watching, in certain scenes he could hear a strange humming which seemed to be doubled up. It became apparent that the vacuum robot was going about its usual business in both the video and in the real world...and that business wasn't entirely picking up rubbish. 

He snuck over to the robot which his father had picked up earlier, and certainly enough, on the top surface, a tiny camera had been taped to the top. He placed enough pressure on to the camera with one finger to squish it like a bug.

Meanwhile, his mother's voice came over the speakers again in what appeared to be a Swedish bar, with the background noise of clinking glasses and chatter to match: "If you couldn't hear it over the noise, the subject has agreed to the experiment and ingested the nanobots. They will work on the cellular and nuclear level to manipulate her bodily functions." Then her flat voice suddenly became animated: "You do not know how much potential that has for certain fields!"

Satoshi stuffed the remaining bread into his mouth, pondering what he'd found out and properly tasting the melon in the bread as the professor stopped the video.

"So, are you going to help us or not?" the professor gave him the ultimatum.

Satoshi shook his head, but then they were interrupted by Celesta busting down the emergency door.