FALSE

     Mirai’s eyes ripped open to a blurry view of Laia hovering just a few inches over her. As she pulled herself away, a striking pain pierced through her head. She dropped down onto the bed and gazed up at the ceiling.

     The pain she was feeling felt almost nostalgic. The tightness of her joints and weightiness of her head. There was a time where she’d considered this the usual; but often found it difficult to conjure up those long-lost memories.

Tick… tick… tick.

     The sound of the clock hand shifting seemingly grew in intensity as her mind projected images of her looking into the eyes of her sister, Yukue.

“How the fuck did I end up here?” she spoke to Laia without a reply.

Refocusing, Mirai then caught wind that she was now sharing the room with… something…

     Its unobtrusive presence was in stark contrast to Laia’s obnoxious behavior. Almost as if it was watching her.

…

     “Didn’t I ask you to deactivate?” She questioned while working her way upright. “Your deactivation request was received. Thus, I returned my system to a state of deactivation.” Glaring at the carefree AI bobbing around the room, Mirai followed with furled eyebrows and a strict tone.

“So why am I looking at you right now?” she barked before rephrasing, “Why are you still activated?”

“I was given a preset schedule to activate by the homeowner.”

     This irked Mirai who then asked if the AI had any data on how she ended up back at the house. But the AI made it clear that Mirai was already present in the home upon its activation.

      Briefly canvasing the room, Mirai asked “Where’s Laia,” but the AI was unaware of who she was referring to.

“The intruder”

“She should be entering the room momentarily.”

Creak

     Laia stood musingly in the doorway of the bedroom with her hands deep into a bag of edamame chips, looking onwards at Mirai.

“The AI reactivated itself,” she teasingly announced.

     With a strewn expression, Mirai gawked at her.

“Fuck off!”

     Dragging her feet down the side of the bed, Mirai ran her hands over her face as she attempted to assuage her confusion.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this bad in a long time.”

     Mirai gave Laia an irate glare from the corners of her eyes. “Sorry,” Laia injected before stepping further into the room.

“You alright?”

     Taking a deep breath, Mirai sat up straight and looked towards the window which had the warmth of the morning sun gradually seeping through.

     “I feel like there was something that I’d manage to remember. Something that suddenly became clear to me… something that felt important.”

     Mirai fell back onto the bed and placed the back of both hands over her eyes, “But I don’t know what that was anymore.”

     “Maybe now you’ll take my advice and go back to the police instead of acting like the biggest idiot of the year.” Laia inputted as she sat beside her.

     Painfully standing up from the bed, Mirai asked Laia how they both managed to get here from the hospital.

“What hospital?”

     A heavy impasse poured between them as Mirai stared down at Laia with sunken eyes. She grappled at Laia’s collar and yanked her in closely.

“Stop being a fucking child.”

     Laia’s expression began to crumble from fear as she struggled to pull away. Peering into Mirai’s eyes made her mouth quiver and her tongue too heavy to speak.

“How did we get here?!”

“You collapsed downstairs, Mirai.”

     Mirai gaped at her unspoken, and her grip slowly loosening. Tears began to collect on Laia’s eyes as she spoke out in a trembling voice.

“You passed out, and I dragged you up here.”

     Laia tumbled back onto the bed as Mirai released her collar from her grip. She then frantically rolled her shirt up revealing her unscathed skin.

Scanning the room with her eyes one last time, she roared, “What the fu--"

     The room began to feel unbalanced and the air thick with anxiety. Each breath felt like she was inhaling a thick suffocating substance. The walls began to bevel and warp as the ceiling crept lower and lower.

Am I going crazy?

     Desperately trying to steady herself, she let the confusion slowly dissipate as she forced her mind back to reality. Peering from side to side, she called out to Laia, “Where’s my phone?” Facing her, a shaken Laia simply shook her head.

     Turning back around, Mirai caught a glimpse of herself in the standing mirror a few feet from the doorway. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, confirming that the hospital situation may have never happened, despite the pain in her body and her memories saying otherwise.

     With a disgusted grimace Mirai shouted to Lai, “Hey! Can you track a cell phone?”

     “If it’s on, yes,” Laia stated, “but considering it’s you we’re talking about that phone has probably got about a hundred layers of security.”

     Peering over Laia’s shoulder, Mirai set her sights on Muffin languidly bobbing up and down.

     “What about you?” she crowed. “You can figure out a way to track it down, can’t you?” she interrogated.

“The device would need to be registered into my system with geo-location set to active.

“It would also have to be a device that is either owned by the homeowner, or specifically grants the homeowner Level 2 privacy clearance as privacy laws prohibit the--"

     “Alright!” Mirai shouted violently. “Can you track it or not?”

“Your mobile device is not registered in my systems, but such registration simply requires biometric confirma--"

“Go ahead with the registration. And tell me where it is.”

“Very well”

     Muffin took barely a second to confirm and attempt to track down Mirai’s phone, only to reveal that the device was offline or not within its range.

     “What the hell does that mean?!” Mirai cried out.

     “It’s a home AI system.” Laia inputted.

“It’s on an enclosed network built around this house… It can’t track a device outside of its own server.”

     Mirai began shuffling her hands through her pockets and scouring the room. “You saw me with it here yesterday.”

“I saw a lot of things yesterday. Maybe it’s turned off somewhere?”

     Ignoring her, Mirai began tossing things around in search of the device.

“Can you stop fidgeting around so darn much? I get itchy when I feel uncomfortable!” Laia quarrelled.

     Enraged, Mirai barked, “Why didn’t--” Grabbing hold of her temper, she stared at the nonchalant AI and took a single, deep breath.

     “Forget about the phone for now, it’ll turn up in the house somewhere.” Laia pleaded. “Go to the police!”

Casually leapfrogging her concerns, Mirai turned directly to her and asked, “How good are you at remote hacking?”

     “What are you talking about exactly?” Laia probed. “The word ‘remote’ is vague, and when it comes to you, Mirai, vagueness is dangerous.”

     “The hospital, Laia,” Mirai snarled, “I want you to look at footage from the hospital. Yukue works there and it may have been the last place anyone ever saw her before she went missing. But if I go there then it’ll be too obvious. So do your weaseling around like all of you Engineers always did back in the service.”

     Taking Mirai’s words as half an insult and half an invitation to a criminal charge, Laia stood up and began stepping around the room with apprehension curdling on her skin like a cold sweat.

“What would hacking into a hospital’s servers do to help you find out where Yukue is now?”

“I… Yesterday I had a dream or whatever and I was in my sister’s office at the hospital. And something about it was wrong.”

     Laia let off a deep sigh as she struggled to engage Mirai. With her expression sinking into a distressed beaten grimace, she wavered as she dared to challenge Mirai further.

“Mirai… You’re not okay…

“Back then people used to worry that you might lose control of yourself. I’m beginning to wonder if any of that was true. I beg you. Go to the police…”

     The room reeked of tension as the two of them stood before one another.

     Mirai’s hand trembled as she bit down on a rising flow of anger. Laia tentatively stared at Mirai dead on, fighting her urge to back down.

     “Can you do it?” Mirai then pointedly chanted.

     Finally, feeling the weight of Mirai’s conviction topple her own resolve, Laia acquiesced.

“I could--

…

“I mean, of course I can do it. But government facilities such as public hospitals operate on enclosed networks. Logging in from… let’s say… the Wi-Fi in this house and managing to get through is sort of a pipe dream.

“I need to get close to the hospital with something that could then penetrate their security systems and feed the data back to me. The only thing I could think of are high grade stealth devices. Not to mention if you wanna stay as far as possible it’ll have to be some kinda military grade drone, spy plane, satellite, or some--“

     With her arms folded across her chest, Mirai plainly asked again, “Can you get us in?”