Foreword: Follows the anime version of events (and hopefully doesn't trample on things too much!) By the way, over time I will add some images of characters/scenes and things for illustrative purposes. You'll be able to view these from my profile page in the future.

Darkness filled the long void, amplifying its emptiness. Nothing stirred within, and silence stretched into that inky blackness as if it were a tomb devoid of all life and energy. It was peaceful, in a fashion. In a way the darkness was... clean.

He stepped forward slowly, crossing the threshold. The moment his foot touched the cold tile floor inside, lights in the ceiling blossomed into life, sequentially cycling into a powered state along the length of the wide, curved corridor ahead. They cast it in a gentle antiseptic glow; bathing the walls, ceiling and white tiled floor in an even and contiguous illumination that perfectly showcased their existence to the observer.

Somewhere beyond the corridor's curve a distant grumble echoed. Its deep, guttural frequencies reverberated gently along the corridor as the origin stirred into wakefulness. That beautiful sound brought peace to him too. He sighed happily, proceeding at a leisurely pace with his shoes clicking rhythmically upon the tiled floor. Their notation was sharp and immediate. That was much less pleasant in a way, but at least the repetition was orderly, and the sound changed subtly every time, its harmonic frequencies shifting a little - ostensibly a function of the slightly different material composition of every floor tile upon which he stepped. He didn't mind that. It wasn't bad overall, so much as… interesting. Another groan rumbled its way along the corridor and he sighed contentedly again when it met his ears.

It was a few minutes before he reached the chamber, but then there it was, its thick frosted glass doors gliding graciously apart to acknowledge his presence. As they moved aside he beheld the true subject of his interest. The large form lay covered by plastic sheeting upon a wide operating table in the middle of the tall circular room, surrounded by a complex arrangement of cabling and equipment that were currently inactive. They encircled the table, their various linkages and armatures resembling a collection of lifeless metallic tree branches. The lights above the table were powered down, casting it into shadow, but even then the man could see the thick straps connecting to the table's underside pulled taut, creaking slightly.

"How are you today, dearest?" He said, his melodic voice echoing around the open space. The moment he spoke the form on the table shifted, its low and mournful response filling the air.

The man smiled warmly. "Oh? Why how lovely! You're doing well, then. Very well, I see. In that case, shall we proceed?"

The form shifted again, its grunts and gurgles becoming more desperate. Around the table, the various stationary machines began to whirr into life, long arms that previously slumped towards the floor jerking into motion, rising and swivelling to hover over their target. They slowly advanced towards the table, those with mechanical claws beginning to lift the plastic free and reveal the figure underneath.

Faced with the music of the noises that followed, the man couldn't help but allow himself a quiet, tinkling laugh. What an excellent start to an excellent day.

Interpreter launched

Port 0x00FE opened

Link established

Device detected: Titch! XxX Hello bit-for-brains! 8===D

Ignoring invalid parameters

Determined: Config regs match "NEIS Minito 530"

Auto bank-switching active, searching target

Code found - hooking

Code hooks established!

Parsing code base... 0% 10% 20% 30% - soft error, instruction subset shifted

Observing program pattern; resyncing

Hooking

Code hooks established!

Parsing code base... 0% 10% - soft error, impossible branch condition

Unknown instruction detected. Saving program trace.

Searching target

Code found - hooking

ERROR: routine writing to memory segment out of valid range

Chris sighed, slowly planting his face on the tray of keys in front of him. This was getting him nowhere... again. To his immediate left, a high-pitched voice giggled.

"Hahaha... no luck, grumpyguts?" a figure resembling a miniature human being sat on the edge of a closed book entitled "Persocom System Architecture", cheerily swinging her legs. Her little shoes barely brushed the desk's surface from her makeshift seat. With some effort she pulled out the cable running from her head to the computer terminal, dropping it on the desk. "Guess I win again."

"Titch..." Chris groaned, not lifting his head. "This isn't a game. I'm just doing my job. Your job is to help me, you know. They didn't issue you to me so you could slack off."

"I know... sorry." she said, sounding nothing of the sort as she hopped off the book and landed on the desk. "But this is booooring. You're never going to catch it and you've been at this for months!" She huffed and crossed her tiny little arms with impatience, the two shoulder-length ponytails of her deep red hair bobbing as she shook her head. A little bell tied into her hair with a blue ribbon tinkled softly with every shake. "What am I supposed to do about it, anyway? I can't control it, stupid. That's kind of the point." She kicked the cable in front of her, as if it was somehow at fault instead.

"You could try a little harder, though." Chris complained, lifting his head to stare at the screen.

ERROR: routine writing to memory segment out of valid range

chris:~$mnbkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjh

"Wow. That's the best software you've written all year," Titch giggled, following his gaze. Her pupils were a similar shade of ruby to her hair, bright against the glow of the display, and they flicked towards him mischievously. "Maybe you should use your head more often."

"Use my head? Nice. This coming from the one with scrambled eggs in hers!" Chris retorted, hopping up from his chair as the letterbox clanged downstairs.

"Meh, five out of ten. You've made better comebacks." Titch sighed, waving her hand dismissively.

"Ouch. You know, I think I liked you better when you were normal, Titch." Chris teased, meeting her scowl with a grin. He yawned, stretching, and left the little persocom rolling her eyes on the desk.

Chris walked out of his small home office and down the stairs, lost in thought. It had been several months since the "incident" that rocked the world, altering the programming of persocoms worldwide. At the time, nobody was quite sure what had happened. The persocoms could not explain what had changed, but soon many of them started behaving differently. Titch included, Chris thought, eyeing the letter laying by the front door. She used to be much... simpler. He remembered her bland introduction, the first time she had been powered up:

"Boot sequence completed. Good morning. I am your new NEIS Minito 530. Please recite the confirmation code found in your instruction manual to begin my configuration. "

Titch did not belong to Chris; she was supplied by his employer to facilitate his work, managing emails, appointments and data. But despite being a basic miniature unit with a limited personality matrix, Titch had developed abilities far beyond her factory configuration since the Event. Her language use became more spontaneous and fluent. She had strong opinions on things, and voiced them freely. She developed a sarcastic but playful nature. It had been subtle at first, but several months later, she far removed from her original self.

None of it was preprogrammed, either. It had all come from this mysterious software... people were calling it a virus. This viral code, which thus far had proven impossible to analyse, let alone remove. So pervasive was it, that new persocoms off the shelves were guaranteed to be infected at some stage. With consumers aware that irreparable software damage could and would occur to new units, the persocom industry had been brought to its knees. Many household names were already gone -manufacturers, software outfits and retail outlets- and more were on the way.

As a software engineer for a major persocom design company, Chris found this particularly troublesome. NEIS – NeuroElectrical Intelligence Systems – were the third-largest persocom design company in the UK. Like everyone else, they were struggling. Desperate to reassure the public, they had put him and many others on a challenging project to try and understand how the viral software worked. Security researchers, governmental bodies and technology companies around the world were no doubt doing the same thing.

Chris frowned. Persocoms were so tightly integrated into society, hardly any facet of human life had remained unaffected. Public services could not run effectively with their persocoms misbehaving. Utilities had faced near disaster as persocoms responsible for managing key infrastructures failed in their duties, deliberately or not. He had heard tales of Chernobyl-level events being narrowly avoided where persocoms responsible for managing critical systems became irrational and left their posts in the middle of the night. Tales of governmental agencies grinding to a halt because they were unable to function under their own extreme levels of bureaucracy without persocoms to handle the load. Even tales of unrest, of possible conflict and war, inside and between countries who couldn't fulfil their obligations to their people and their neighbours.

Despite all that – and Chris found this extremely confusing- not all persocoms responded to the virus in the same way. Some seemed to be getting along just fine, even if they behaved a little differently. Others just disappeared overnight. The inconsistency of it all just made it harder to understand.

"Are you going to open that?" Titch's voice came from the top of the stairs, startling Chris back to the present. He realised he was staring at the letter he now held in his hands.

"Just another bill," he muttered, tearing into the envelope. Inside a single sheet of A4 contained a few hastily scribbled words:

NETBEANS CAFE, 15 MINS

Chris grinned. Maybe not, then. Yanking open the door, he poked his head outside. "Hey, Sarah-"

"You stood there staring at the letter for three minutes and fourty-two-point-five seconds before opening the door." Titch grumbled, as she hopped down the stairs. The little bell in her hair jingled quietly with every step. "Obviously she's long gone, don't be a muppet."

Chris laughed. "Yeah. Being all mysterious and pensive again, wasn't I? Well I better go, she wants me for something," he said, showing the letter to Titch who had stopped several stairs from the ground.

"Gross! Is this a date? And who does that?" she snorted, snatching the letter. "Cryptic hand-delivered messages? Sarah is on the same software team as you. A simple email would have sufficed, and been about three hundred times easier to send. Why, even knocking on the door is an option. Honestly Chris, you keep some strange company."

"She's just screwing around." Chris said. "We're friends. You know that. Besides, look who's talking! You're stranger than anything. Go back upstairs and try the interpreter again. And watch the house for me!"

"Maybe I'll burn it down!" Titch stuck her tongue out at him as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.