MUFFIN

     The two of them stood bewildered by what they had just witnessed, contemplating the words back and forth in their heads. The video had cut off shortly after Yukue’s cryptic message. An impending death that seemed as incomprehensible as it was pressing.

     “This message is from 3 days ago, Mirai…” Laia uttered with a quiver to her words. “I know that!” Mirai snapped, “I know that…”

     Whispering under her breath Mirai repeated the words “3 days from now—3 days…”

     Mirai swiftly turned back to face the halcyon AI, probing it for whatever info Yukue might have left behind. “One data file discovered,” it uttered, referring to the single video message from Yukue the two had already viewed. “Shit. The system must have been deactivated again after the recording,” Mirai vented, “If Yukue went through the trouble of making the video, why wouldn’t she just keep the surveillance system activated?” she then quipped with a tone of unsatisfaction lacing her words.

     “She could’ve been concerned about someone monitoring the system from the central server,” Laia claimed. But Mirai rejected that thought as, “the obvious solution would have been to use an offline camera instead.”

     Right off the tail end of her reasoning, Laia then imputed, “Then again, if someone was monitoring the system, wouldn’t they have just deleted this recording by now?”

     Mirai squinted at Laia before stepping around the room uneasily, mulling the situation as Laia spent her time unsuccessfully attempting to poke the floating AI.

     The idea of someone monitoring Yukue… Or maybe even herself. Watching from a distance so close by, yet so far. Logging her movements, analyzing her decisions. Her reactions. What stimulates her, and how she changes over time. A presence like a towering shadow casted upon her as she looks up in fear. Feeling the anxiety crawl up her spine and wrap around her neck. Constricted. Gawking up at the ever-extending walls of the box she was thrown in, more fearful of what’s 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. Looking into Yukue’s eyes she felt a sense of calm. Of safety. Of relief. And as Yukue scrawled a forced but assuring smile across her mouth, a door Mirai had only managed to recognize just now, but somehow had a presence that felt so familiar, began to slowly creak open from behind her. 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. Only to reopen them to a carefree grin from Laia who was calling out to her with a flurry of excitement, yammering on almost unintelligibly.

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

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

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

     Laia 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,” Laia nonchalantly stated with a chuckle before turning to the AI once more, “Imma just call you Muffin.”

     Sitting at the kitchen table, Mirai, taking Laia’s previous claim into consideration, posed the possibility that Yukue’s message isn’t within the video itself, but concealed amongst everything surrounding the entire situation. “Like a subliminal message?” Laia queried, “Mirai, please—you’re playing detective in your head and it’s annoying the crap outta me. Are you even sure your sister is capable of concocting something that in depth?” Laia debated, “I mean, yes, there’s reason for concern here. There’s no way that you can ignore that message. Hell, we can’t even ignore the floating hologram that materialized in front of our eyes and is now pesteringly bobbing around my head as I speak. But if you ask me, all we know is that your sister is missing, and she foresaw it. Take this to the po–”

     “The video doesn’t make sense to begin with.” Mirai stiffly interrupted. “She could have called me if she knew something was wrong!”

     Mirai’s voice shocked the room, and a moment of reality struck the two of them. Laia let the air settle for a moment before facing the AI and asking about its connectivity to the central town server. To which it claimed it couldn’t confirm as it lacked access to the data. “Ugh… this thing is useless,” Laia 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 evident reluctance to doing so. Fixating herself to catch a glimpse outside the window, Laia tagged, “This whole town really gives me the creeps.”

     Turning back to Mirai who had her head in her hands as she peered down at the tabletop, Laia jumped back to complete her statement from earlier. “The police, Mirai. Take the video to the police. Either way, while I’m sorry about your missing sister, 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 dyed a wine red and half tied into a knot, with the lower end reaching just above her shoulders as opposed to her usual tight knot. Her bangs hovering just above her eyebrows was reminiscent of the forehead guard she once donned on the regular, but less endearing. And a hint of eye shadow was night and day from the face paint that once helped to obscure her identity. It was a long cry from her days as an operative, and a look that her sister had recently complemented her on.

     She took another deep breath before turning straight ahead. “You know this sweater I’m wearing was a gift from Yukue. 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 Laia.

     “It’s nice, I guess… I mean the turtleneck looks good on you and fits your—curves well I suppose. The tan is a little dull though… could use more color all around if you ask me...” Fluttering her eyes Laia digressed, “The police, Mirai. Are you going?” Standing from her seat calmly, Mirai spoke in a straight voice.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

     Grabbing Yukue’s notebook in her hand, Mirai faced the AI, now known as Muffin by the will of the undeterred that is Laia. Holding the book open to the artificial lifeform, Mirai requested it to decipher the kanji written on its pages. However, to the surprise of the two, it failed to determine the meaning of the text.

“Unfortunately, my system does not currently have support for obsolete East Asian text input.” It stated firmly.

“Are the words artificial intelligence just a buzz term or something, because Muffin, you’re not really showing signs of intelligence,” Laia 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.”

Laia gawked at the AI with her face screwed. “Was that a clapback just now?”

     Ignoring the two’s bickering, Mirai relocated to her sister’s office. Seating herself behind the desk, she placed the notebook in front of her and calmly looked off into the distance. Laia, entering after her with a blasé Muffin not too far behind, looked around the room and quickly concluded that, “This place sucks!”

     “Hey!” Mirai called out to the AI, “When was your earliest date of operation?” Startled by the question, Laia furled her eyebrows as she passed her eyes from Mirai to Muffin. “June 12th, year 32,224.”

     “How is that even possible,” Laia question in astonishment. “An advanced AI of any kind should only be about 3 or so years old. That date is ten years in the past.”

     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 small off centered pond, sending light ripples across its surface. A feeling of nostalgia began to wind in Mirai’s chest. But she soon fought the urge to let old memories creep up on her again. Eventually following with on word.

“Fuck…”