Chapter Nineteen - Friday III - コンパニオン AKA Companions (pt I)

(This chapter in its original form runs to 55.7k characters, so has had to be split for uploading on Honeyfeed. Scenes three and four of this chapter follow on immediately in the next HF chapter.)

‘Don’t tell me you slept out here all night, Kitten? Are you actively trying to catch pneumonia or something??’

‘Oh. Good morning to you too, Cap.’

‘Not that I’m out to scold you or whatever, but it’d be nice if you answered the question,’ the captain gently insisted, as she set herself down on one of the large shoreline boulders.

‘Riiight. Yeah; I slept out here last night.’ Hikari turned her head, to face the captain and once their eyes met, she resumed, ‘I didn’t plan on it initially, but with the clear, starry skies above, I figured it’d be more comforting out here than in there.

‘While you and Rose are having a whale of a time, I’m not quite having as much fun… Not that I’m not happy for you two, of course; at least there’s some positive energy around here to keep the spirits up, heh.’

Dejected much? I’m pretty sure I just watched you go from mildly positive to sinking under the weight of the despair you’re exuding. ‘Aww, thanks, hehe… Sensei never really told us much when it came up in conversation yesterday, so how about you tell me your side of the story?’

‘Ugh… Do you want the long version of the story or the short one?’

‘The long one; hit me,’ Renka quickly replied with a friendly smile.

‘Really? The long version includes a backstory that goes back over ten years and has some dark shit in it.’

‘Hah; you say that as if military personnel don’t know what dark shit is. Either way, I get the impression that whatever story you’re planning on telling goes a good way toward helping me understand you in a number of ways, so quit stalling and lay it on me, Koneko.’

‘Remind me again; why do I have that nickname?’

‘Uhm, because you’re relatively small, very agile, I’m almost certain you’re the youngest here and you’re also extremely ferocious when the time is right… That and I guess tiger cub doesn’t really have the same ring to it. Now that I’ve answered, will you please start the storytelling before I get old and grey over here,’ Renka concluded, with an imposing glare.

‘Heh; if only Tsubaki was as enthusiastic and fun as you, Cap. It’s no wonder Kasumi likes you,’ Hikari softly replied, with a warm smile. After a brief pause, she gently patted the smooth-faced boulder which sat beside her, ‘You’re not seriously going to stay up there, are you?’

As the waves continued to repeatedly crash against the rocky shores and lightly sprinkle the pair of women with cold seawater every so often, Hikari spent the best part of fifteen minutes repeating the tale of the months of her life which ultimately concluded with her leaving school and going into work sooner than she had ever previously anticipated.

‘Fast forward almost eleven years and while working for that same organisation, I managed to get myself shot, for what I’m sure was the first time since the first year or two that I started. I thought I’d be heading for some squalid basement run by some old pervert, but it just so happened that the first clinic I found was the abode of one delightful brown-haired woman with a quirky hairdo and charming green eyes. Her being a qualified medic made me suspicious as well; it’s not like I don’t see Tsubaki as her own person, but the similarities were immediately obvious.

‘“Fate” would decree that I’d have to visit a doctor again a couple more times in that same week and it just so happened that her clinic was sort-of open on both nights; loner much, huh? Not that that’s a bad thing; we talked about a few things while she operated on me and it became apparent pretty quickly that she’s a fairly cool girl, though she doesn’t approve of my way of life and is pretty sensitive even at the best of times.

‘I’m guessing her home was attached to the clinic or the clinic itself was a big part of her life because I don’t think she’d have leaned on me otherwise. Even though she sees some use in me and struggles to resist my advances, I’m convinced she really struggles with what I do for a living, even though I have tried to explain to her that the world has necessary evils. Hell, I even gave her a demo on that night we met you, Cap.’

‘Riiight, if you don’t mind; I’d like to cut in and ask you one simple question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘How much time have you two spent actually discussing your differences?’ Renka asked, with eyes narrowed in suspicion behind her glasses’ lenses.

‘It’s come up a couple of times. We’ve ended up settled on having polar opposite views in some key areas. I’d like to talk to her more about it, but it seems like she’ll completely implode or just flat out reject me if I push her too hard or push her at the wrong time. You can practically see the gearbox of her mind profusely working away half the time, heh’

‘Ah, yeah,’ Renka remarked with a slightly deflated tone and light frown. ‘Timing can be a real bitch, especially where relationships are concerned. I’ve had quite a few relationships sunk by father time.’

Hikari’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ehhh? Captain Renka was a slut before Rose turned her into a desperate sub?’

Rude. But true to be honest. I’ll give you a pass for presuming that I was a top before though. ‘So what if I was? Sometimes it’s impossible to resist the call of other women, even if they aren’t calling out with their voices.’

Hikari briefly giggled. And you call me a predator? With a mischievous smile, she warmly replied, ‘Hear, hear.’

‘Anyway, this isn’t about me. At least you can tell she’s thinking of you in some capacity. Overthinking it probably, but it’s something at least… Aside from reminding you that you and Tsubaki need to find, or better still, make time to talk through your differences, there isn’t much for me to tell you, aside from advising you to relax. I’m sure something’ll come up soon enough that gives you two a chance to finally settle your differences or at least agree on a healthier path forward.

‘For what it’s worth, I hope you two do finally get together; Sensei is a good woman, if a bit confused and nervous and you’re nothing if not a committed and understanding partner; that much is obvious,’ Renka softly concluded with a friendly smile. ‘Well, that and I’d rather you be upbeat; you’re the only other fun and expressive one around here. Appearance aside, you could almost pass for my little sister if you used guns a bit more, heh.’

Overthinking… I guess figuring out a way to make things simple could help, instead of leaving her to try and figure things out alone?... ‘Thanks, Captain. This has been pretty comforting, so I appreciate you coming down here. Just don’t expect me to call you Renka-nee-san or something,’ Hikari smirked after softly thanking Renka.

‘That’s cool, I’m just glad I won’t have to put you down because you’re a risk to our plans,’ Renka playfully remarked, grinning afterwards.

Please tell me that’s a joke; surely, I’m not that bad?

As she rose from her rock perch, the captain added, ‘Best not to think too hard about it, Kitten’ as she extended a hand to the woman with a violet water lily in her hair, ‘Now, if you’d like to follow me, we have some new friends to introduce…’

❀

‘Heyyy, Kasumi, dear, is it ready?’ Renka asked the woman laying on her back underneath the vehicle jacked up in front of the plane in the hangar.

‘Almost; are there some M8x30 hex socket head cap screws out there? The skidplate is the final piece, so if you go and retrieve Tsubaki-sensei, all of the fabrication and assembly elements will be finished by the time you return.’

‘Where did you even find time to-,’

‘No time for questions; you heard the woman, so if you don’t mind…’ the captain asked, as she knelt down to collect a set of small metal components from the floor near to Kasumi’s boot-clad feet.

After a couple of minutes Hikari returned. The doctor followed, holding up an open laptop in her right hand while fiddling with a cable using her left. ‘So, the building process is done now, I’m guessing?’

‘About ten seconds ago, yes, Tsubaki-Sensei. We left the upper mechanisms and weapons off though, so that you can finish your updates more easily,’ Kasumi replied, while shuffling out from underneath the machine’s front.

‘Right, thank you,’ the doctor remarked, before leaning in and clicking the other end of the cable into place in a port of what appeared to be the motherboard of a custom-built PC, sitting within the machine’s main body. ‘Um… Before I can finish that update, I still need voice samples from you Hikari. Fun as it would be to have the robot ignore you, the captain advised against rocking the boat, so if you could please speak for roughly a minute, the laptop should capture enough data.’ Sixty seconds without any of us disrupting you; I guess I’m about to reap what I sow…

‘Welll, I guess starting off quickly with the awkward letters like Q, X, Z and R is a good idea, and seeing as there’s probably like fifty seconds left now, I’d like to ask; where did I go wrong yesterday? I can sort of understand why you’ve been weird for the past couple of weeks but you’ve been extra cold for the past day or so. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I can’t read your mind. It’s hard to know how I can support you if you only ever discuss things in the confines of your head. It might suck to hear and there’ll no doubt be things we never agree on, but I really wish you’d at least tell me. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but; the damage you’d do from whatever you say is probably pretty shallow compared to the unsettling feeling of not knowing why you’re so unwilling to accept me, especially when almost everything I’ve done since meeting you has been aimed towards bringing us together in a way that I thought wouldn’t have overwhelmed you.’

Silence filled the hangar and while Tsubaki and Hikari remained staring at each other. Renka and Kasumi stood side by side, regarding both of them with blank expressions.

So much for picking your moment, Kitten, though I guess the range of emotions from playful, through to inquisitive, frustrated and upset will have created a pretty detailed vocal profile at least.

Yep; there it is, my indecision and behaviour yesterday coming back to bite me; wonderful. ‘I-, eek!’ Uwah; I get it captain, watch my words. There’s no need to glare so menacingly at me. ‘Now isn’t the time, okay? I promise we’ll talk this over later. I’m not built from anything like the same tough materials that you are, so, naturally I have a lot of catching up to do,’ Tsubaki replied with a trembling voice.

‘Be quick about it please, because I don’t enjoy ranting like that any more than you enjoy listening to it.’

Yet you still refuse to give up on me? The captain and Kasumi must think I’m a total bitch now. Good job me for not really explaining my situation to them when I had the chance yesterday; now I’m the unanimous villain.

‘Okay, Team Useless, now that that mini Adachi moment is over, if you don’t mind; I’d like to get the tests underway before nightfall. As much as I hope and pray to whatever relationship/ love goddess will listen that you two finally put this psycho-drama behind you and show us a healthy romance, we do need to get our friend here operational.’

Come on; Sakura might have been odd, but she was adorably endearing if you ask me… ‘Ouch, Cap. Really?? Psycho-drama? That’s pretty low.’

‘Don’t start pouting at me Kitten; I’m just calling it as I see it. Like I said, I’d rather see you two in a different light, but that’s something you’ll have to work on after these tests are done…’

‘Um, ladies, we still need one last thing; I need samples from all of you, in order to assign a name. Okay, two things; I need a name and voice samples. Any ideas?’

‘Subaru.’

Both the captain and the black and purple-haired woman stared at each other.

Hikari broke the silence, ‘Um, you’re not thinking of that plucky little sister who...’

‘(To her benefit) meddled in her older sister’s affairs…’

‘In that same manga that the Saho twins referred to when they joked about a close sisterly relationship?’

Wide-eyed, both women focused on the member with rose-coloured highlights who concluded the sentence.

‘I guess we’re all on the same page then. Sensei; we’d like Subaru. I think taking the kanji for defend/ fortify (守) and Pleiades (昴) would fit best, right, girls?’

Both of them nodding in unison. They’ve both read the same yuri manga; maybe this common interest could be the thing to help them squash their angst with each other... I see Koneko still hasn’t enlightened you yet though, Sensei; your silence and that confused stare are pretty telling.

Great; I’m the group’s villain and uncultured woman as well? This day is going swimmingly...

After each of the women repeated the selected name five times and the resultant data had been passed onto the robot’s central controlling unit, Tsubaki backed away and spectated on the other three women as they operated on the machine. It’s almost like having a patient laying down in the clinic. Except rather than skin and nerves, they’re working with numerous plates, wires and motor components. Bones and joints? Easy to swap out and reinstall; mostly OTS parts, bolts and machine screws. The tools? No real need to keep them completely sterile; an adjustable spanner, cordless screwdriver, bits, a ratchet handle and a variety of small-drive sockets are the mainstays. It’s like a family practice, with the captain and her girlfriend as the parents on either side and Hikari as their plucky assistant.

‘She should be ready to roll now, so if you want to do the honours and realise any dreams you hold of bringing a defence robot to life, Sensei…’ the captain gestured toward the former Elise 900 skid-steer loader, displaying an inviting smile to Tsubaki.

Yay; my career as the creator of killer robots starts here… The doctor glanced down briefly, with a slightly disconcerted frown and lightly pinched a section of a green bangle which wrapped her left wrist before raising her head again. Huh?? Why are you all staring at me with confused expressions like that?

Wait a minute… Don’t tell me you built something like those earrings that Haruka gave me?? I can understand one of the nation’s leading manufacturing companies producing devices like that, but how’d you manage to pull it off, Tsubaki? Annoying as you are, sometimes you do have moments of true marvel and it drives my inner nerd a bit wild…

‘Um… Why are you all staring? It’s making me nervous…’

‘We’re waiting for you to turn the robot on, not for you to play with your jewellery or get all self-conscious on us, Sensei.’

‘Subaru, main power on.’

The robot emitted a quiet tone, prompting the three women standing nearby to retreat.

‘Subaru, follow me. Target distance; 1.5 metres.’

Uwah; you’ve finally done it Tsubaki; a full-size robot that follows your commands. It’s even following you like a puppy within a few seconds of being activated; way cooler than I’d imagined when we talked about this stuff in the clinic…

‘Nice; so, the basic motor functions work at least, I think.’

‘Subaru, please spin 360°,’ Kasumi calmly suggested.

The robot paused its following the emerald-eyed woman and turned a complete circle on the spot before returning to nearby the doctor.

‘Booo; you never twirled me around when you first met me,’ Renka complained, with a playfully irritated frown.

How would that have worked exactly, while you were on duty? ‘Really? You’re my SO and you’re jealous of the robot?’ Kasumi coldly replied, with a blank stare.

In hindsight, I kinda played myself; there’s a weird sensation gathering around my nose and cheeks. It’s not even that I’m embarrassed, just a bit giddy that you’re now you’ve assigned me such an honourable status. Ugh, I’m a terminal case...

‘Subaru, follow Renka. Target distance; .5 metres. I think she needs a distraction, heh,’ Hikari suggested.

She’s not coming to me? Did we miss out something?? Or is she just trying to rub it in my face that she’s getting on better with Rose than me right now?

‘Ah, yeah, sorry; she won’t follow you just yet. You see this bangle that confused you earlier? Along with having the main power remote and a mic for voice commands, it’s also got a GPS transmitter, video data receiver and transmitter as well as a biometric scanner, which only grants command access if the wearer’s blood vessel network matches the original profile and a regular pulse is detected.’

‘Fuck me Tsubaki, you managed to pack all of that into a bangle? I knew you were a bit of a wizard, but this is something else.’

‘Um, thanks? This one’s an experiment which took me a few years to put together. I wasn’t actually sure it would work and getting the components for the biometric scanner were and still are incredibly difficult, so I’m still trying to figure out a solution for getting the rest of you properly hooked up.

‘Wait, but then why did she respond to Kasumi?’

‘Well, Captain, requesting a twirl is such a ubiquitous action that I presumed at least one of you would ask her to spin around, so I set parameters for her to accept that particular request from anybody.’

‘If only you put that much thought into me,’ Hikari muttered.

‘You’re relentless, aren’t you? Didn’t the captain already say we’re not dealing with that until after the tests?’

Renka and Kasumi glared at the guilty black and purple-haired woman, who defiantly returned a derisive scowl at the pair. Why are you condemning me?? ‘The heart wants what the heart wants,’ she soon added, with a playful smile.

‘I guess…’ Renka exasperatedly sighed. ‘Moving on; let’s get to checking out her combat abilities, shall we? Even if watching our new robot friend in action isn’t entertaining, I think the prospect of Sensei here issuing combat instructions will be amusing, heh.’

‘And what targets are we gonna be using for this demo, Cap? I don’t see anything set up around here or in the fields, and I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anything hidden when we were coming back from the shore.’

‘You’ll be providing the targets, Kitten,’ Renka confirmed, with a mischievous smile.

‘Huh?’

‘After that little stunt you pulled a couple of nights ago, we’d all like to take a look at what you can do. Besides, it’s not like the robot can target you, while you’re visible at least, right, Sensei?’

‘Right.’

‘So, if you could please summon some gunmen, that’d be great. Maybe put them towards the shore; so that we don’t run the risk of inland collateral damage.’ Following a brief pause, the captain turned from Hikari, to the doctor and the robot, ‘While that’s in progress, could you please issue the first command, Sensei.’

Here we go, my life as the co-developer of a killer robot truly begins here, I guess. ‘Subaru, engage offensive mode. Terminate all armed personnel.’

With the order issued, the former skid-steer loader bolted away from the four women, with the whirring of its electric motors rapidly fading into the distance.

‘Where did you set the enemies?’

‘A few coming in from the shore and there’s also a team camping behind the hangar.’

‘I guess we’ll all have to huddle around you and watch the show from your phone,’ the captain suggested to Tsubaki.

‘We can only watch one camera at a time from the phone, unfortunately. The laptop would allow us to watch four of the eight cameras, but my laptop’s battery is running pretty low at this point. Well, that and light as it is, I don’t want to be holding it up for ages either.’

‘That’s cool; I don’t really have a problem with close contact, heh,’ Renka playfully advised as she shuffled to stand shoulder to shoulder with the doctor.

‘While you’re all getting cosy together, I’m gonna go and watch from the hangar roof; theatre-style,’ Hikari casually advised, as she turned and broke into a jog.

Oh joy; being sandwiched between the captain and her girlfriend, both of whom and much bigger and stronger than me. At least Kasumi has a better sense of personal space. Seriously captain; you’re almost as bad as Hikari. Ah; it looks like Subaru’s found something, I guess that confirms that the panoramic camera array works if she can see targets perpendicular to her direction of travel.

‘I wonder how she’ll use the HMG?’ Renka quietly asked, her eyes firmly fixed on the small screen in the doctor’s hands below.

Uwah; she’s fast; Renka barely finished her sentence and she’s already engaging the targets. It’s both impressive and slightly unnerving how quickly she can acquire and accurately engage targets. The robot itself might be quiet but the main gun is anything but.

‘Alright Kitten, we’re good. If they were solid, she’d have turned those gang members into Swiss ch-. Huh??? Why are there soldiers approaching??’ The captain questioned, as the distant continuous thunder of 12.7mm calibre gunfire abruptly ceased.

Hikari’s voice replied, from the small radio clipped to the breast pocket of the captain’s shirt. ‘Well, we wouldn’t want our new friend killing law enforcement officers or our military, would we? We’ve already got enough on our plates with pretty much all of the island’s criminal underworld against us; the last thing we need is to have the law and SDF hot on our tails as well. I figured a test of her ability to differentiate would be useful.’

‘Truly an astute argument, Kitten. Good to see your head isn’t completely in the clouds.’

‘Will she continue to search until you change her orders?’ Kasumi asked.

‘Yes; although she will return to regular patrol mode if no commands are issued or enemies are engaged for a continuous five-minute period.’

‘What happens if she runs out of ammunition?’

‘First of all, she’ll use whichever secondary weapon still has ammunition and then when completely spent, she’ll assess the nature of the threats and use the electric prongs if it wouldn’t result in too much damage to her armour. Otherwise, she’ll alert me and retreat.’

‘I did suggest that we give her the ability to run targets over, Sensei here argued that it would probably be too much hassle to clean up.’

‘Well-played Tsubaki-sensei.’ Diverting her eyes toward the captain, Kasumi concluded, with a colder tone, ‘As for you; we will discuss that idea of yours later on,’ fixing her with a condemning glare.

Heh; it looks like you’re in trouble, Captain. ‘It looks like she’s found Hikari’s second team.’ It’s like having a big, extremely vicious pet; her speed is pretty impressive too. I didn’t think skid-steer loaders were that fast, unless these two made some changes…

‘Here we go; round two. Making the second team a bunch of CSS strike team operators was a nice touch,’ Renka quietly commented, as the screen once again showed the robot flinging its heavy ammunition towards the armed men in the distance, accentuated by large puffs of white smoke and menacing blast sounds. Ah; they’re retreating and taking cover. ‘Heh; a surprise visit from an anti-firearms team. I wonder what she’ll do.’

The three women closely regarded the screen, as the scene fell still and silent, with the robot directly facing the officers paused in front of her, with SMGs pointed directly at her.

‘I guess she’s surrendering?’ Kasumi suggested.

‘Well, she is programmed not to engage law enforcement.’

‘What would happen if somebody dressed as a police officer or any other official security/ military personnel?’

‘She won’t attack; some of the uniforms make it very hard to differentiate between a genuine officer and impostor, so we’ve instructed her not to engage either. Hikari was right; we really don’t need to draw more law enforcement attention to ourselves.’

Ha; funny girl. Changing the police officer for a projection of herself posing with a heart-shaped hand gesture. You’re relentless, aren’t you, Kitten?

‘Thank you Hikari, could you please let her get on now? Ah, never mind.’ Off she whizzes again… ‘Um, Subaru, could you switch to target-tracking mode please. Target distance; fifty metres.’ The doctor lowered her voice and added, ‘We could do without you perforating the hangar and its contents or something beyond the airfield.’

‘Just in time, Sensei; I guess that turn was her getting ready to light up the last CSS targets. If we’ve done this right, then she should follow and maintain the distance to her targets.

‘Sooo, let’s see what happens if the targets try something unusual…’ Hikari’s voice casually remarked, through the speaker of the small device attached to bespectacled woman’s shirt.

Hmm; she’s approaching the hangar? I guess she wants to see what will happen if the targets take cover inside.

The robot sped towards the hangar’s main entrance and paused for a moment before quickly reversing about ten metres, before spinning 180° and sending a small projectile arcing through the air and the slit between the doors.

Clouds of gas rising from the gap? I guess we’re not going in there for a while then… Nice; we didn’t leave her much light to work with in there, so I guess we can cross off testing her IR and thermal vision capabilities as well,’ Renka confirmed, with a pleased smile.

‘Is there anything else that we needed to test?’ Tsubaki asked, with a quick glance at each of the women she stood sandwiched between.

Kasumi remained silent and shook her head.

‘It would have been nice to test out the grenade launcher with explosives, but we don’t have much HE grenades and they’re also quite messy,’ Renka replied, with a slightly deflated tone and frown.

‘Okay Subaru, please switch to non-lethal patrol mode. Patrol area; one-hundred metre radius around hangar, flat terrain only.’ As the robot slowly set off from its observation position, Tsubaki returned her phone to a pocket within her overall skirt. ‘Okay, Sayaka; you can come out now.’

‘Sayaka?’ Renka questioned, with a raised eyebrow. ‘She’d better be fast because I think you’ll have yourself a big pile of problems pretty soon, in the shape of that irritated-looking woman coming in hot from over there,’ Renka advised, shaking her head, to gesture toward the hangar and the briskly approaching black and purple-haired woman.

‘Huh? Why’s there a drone heading for them??’ Hikari asked under her breath.

‘Sayaka, could you engage companion mode please,’ Tsubaki asked, prompting the freshly-arrived quadcopter to hover a couple of metres above the group’s head.

‘So, you built yourself a flying friend as well? You know I’m right here if you want something or someone to play with,’ Hikari asserted, flapping her arms and pouting.

‘Would you please stop getting jealous of the robots; you encouraged me to build them, remember?’ The doctor glared coldly at Hikari. You and the captain; both cut from the same idiotic cloth…

‘N-!’ Hikari exclaimed, before abruptly cutting off and soon resuming with a defeated tone. ‘Yeah; I did do that.’

‘Come down here for thirty seconds please, Sayaka.’ The quadcopter descended, to the women’s chest height, turned to have its front face the group and hovered while the doctor introduced, with a little pleased smile, ‘This is Sayaka, written with the symbols for refreshing (爽) and wind (風).

‘Using some of the recovered components from one of those quadcopters that we downed a few nights ago, some new parts and that processor that we recovered from the seafloor, I brought Sayaka to life. She has the same AI as Subaru. The only differences between her and Subaru is that Sayaka will only listen to me and doesn’t have any lethal weapons. It’s probably unsurprising, but Sayaka and Subaru effectively have a shared consciousness and will support each other if one of them needs assistance and the other is in range.’

‘So, does this mean that she’s our baby?’ Hikari asked, with a mischievous smile?

‘Please,’ Tsubaki waywardly answered.

Not so barky now, huh? Cheeks turning rosy as well, I see. It’s cool, Tsubaki; that reaction’s enough of an answer.

❀

(Scenes three and four for this chapter are the following HF chapter)