2

          John looked up from his work, his eyes bleary from looking for the unaccountable mismatches of parentheses in his lisp code. He had already coded the neural net's core, but had written also plugin support. He figured that by modularizing he could save trouble with people wanting their robots to do things; this way they could load a program instead of teaching the robot by hand.

            Unfortunately, he had chosen the wrong language for extensibility. Common Lisp, a language written expressly for the purpose of AI, was a hulk of a language, with thousands of functions built in. Not only that, but everything was enclosed in parentheses, parentheses which interact by placement, and which need to compliment each other. This would not be so bad if the language had been written modernly, with tabs and such, but as it is John could not match up the parentheses properly, nor really understand why his code was not working.

            The telephone's insistent ring woke him from his self-recursive trance, and he broke from the world of car and cons to answer it.

"Moshi moshi?" His ears nearly popped when he heard the voice on the other end: perky, high-pitched, and LOUD.

            "John-kun! This is Lina, calling back on behalf of Kiro." Happy, as usual. Some times he just couldn't stand her constant energy. This time he held back, fearing as always the reaction, unpredictable as it was though most likely complimenting the girl's sanguine persona, of breaking the bubble of complete ecstacy that seems to surround her.

            "Hai, sou desu yo. Well, I called to ask if you guys would like to help me on a project."

            "Ah, sou desu ka? What is it?" There was no doubt anymore, it wasn't just the migraine, Lina really was loud.

            John faltered, hoping that he could cop out of this annoying (and now painful) interface, moved for the card which would give him a nice soft voice, with a concise manner and some logic and intelligence. While he was thinking...

            "Did you hear me? I asked what your project was."

            He just spat it out. "Eto, can I please speak with Kiro about this?"

            "Ah, so it's that kind of project..." Lina mocked.

            "No, it's not that..." He was cut off.

            "Hello, John." A soft, but gruff voice responded. John had figured that this is what would happen; either that or Lina would get mad and hang up.

            "Hi Kiro. I was going to ask you..."

            "I already know, persicom right?" Before John could ask, Kiro continued. "I have connections, any open source project is likely to pass into my mailbox if it meets the correct criteria."

            "So, will you..."

            "Sure."

            "Can you..."

            "I'll come over tomorrow at noon. That is what you wanted to ask me, ne?"

            "Hai."

            "Goodbye then." John was left with a dial tone ringing in his right ear, dumbfounded. He had always knew Kiro was smart, but not that he was a mind reader.

            Tom hated mosquitos. He also hated waiting. But most of all, he hated looking and feeling like an idiot. Unfortunately, all three evils were confronting him as he stood stupidly on John's doorstep with a case of red bull in his hand and a laptop bag hanging off his shoulder.

            He had rung the bell twice, but John had not yet woken up, apparently. Chihiro appeared behind him; she had been waiting by the car for him, but had apparently become impatient. Tom looked at Chihiro. She was wearing Tom's old clothes, and holding a bag in her left hand marked "Target" (he had taken her shopping before he came here). He did not even notice how long he had been staring at her until she looked up, apparently focusing on something behind him. He followed her eyes, and saw John grinning widely.

            "Come on in." He kept the door open for Tom, who seemed to know his way, and ushered in Chihiro also, who looked at the house in wonderment, why John did not know.

            "We'll be expecting an interview in a few minutes, make yourself at home." John eyed the clock nervously.

            "Oh, John, I brought you a little present." Tom pulled out his box of Red Bull, with the four cans of taurinated, caffinated, and overly sugared nirvana as the package recommended, slightly chilled.

            "Wow, thank you! You really know me well, don't you, anata." John winked, and Tom veered back. "Just a joke!" Tom gave a sigh of relief.

            Just then, the screech of a quickly moving car, more specifically a BMW Z3, was heard outside the house. John and Tom jolted, and again moments later when they heard the sound of trash cans clattering onto asphalt. Tom peeked through the blinds behind the couch on which he was sitting, looking in the direction of the sound.

            "Sorry for the mess! Hey John, it's Lina, open up!" Tom looked back and gave a shrug. John then started walking towards the door, but before he could reach it, Lina bursted through, exposing Kiro, kneeling and holding a hair pin. He stood up, showing the full effect of his build.

            He was tall, and reasonably muscled, although he was slim. His black hair and chiseled features made a striking contrast with his bright and inquisitive green eyes. He nodded slightly, noting that John was analyzing him, and said simply, "May I come in?"

            John paused for a moment, feeling Kiro's imposing presence, which, as always, introduced a bit of tension into the room. "Sure, come on in."

            Kiro slinked silently into the room, turning to face the space between Tom and John, and folded his hands behind his back respectfully. There was a pause.

            "So..." Tom tried to break the silence.

            Almost immediately, Kiro began to speak, his sharp intonation emphasizing his conciseness even more than one might expect. "I have reviewed your work, and I believe that it would be very unlikely at this rate that your project will fail, given that you in fact have three programmers aside from yourself working on this. However, I know that you cannot do everything through software, or even stock hardware. That is why you called me here, ne?"

            "Yes." John sounded unsure of himself.

            "I have unusual persistence, and a reasonable knowledge of digital logic gate design. Therefore, you were correct in your assumption that I would make a good consultant for your hardware design."

            Tom had a realization. "Oh."

            Kiro continued. "Because you are in such a great need, I will lend you my services for free. I only ask that I receive fifteen percent of the profits per unit shipped."

            "That sounds reasonable," John agreed.

            Kiro nodded, as if it was something that he already knew. Tom broke a red bull out of the box and handed it to Kiro. "Banzai, " Tom said as he clinked cans with John and Kiro.

            Chihiro looked around the bathroom, semiconsciously wondering if she should put on her newly bought clothing. She sat on the fuzzy toilet seat cover, feeling very awkward. She wondered what was going on in the other room. There had been some discussion before, however now it was silent. Chihiro removed her old clothing, article by article, and placed each article in the bright red plastic bag, replacing the corresponding articles she had bought. No, she thought. Tom had bought them for her.

            When she was fully dressed, she slowly opened the door and peered into the living area. She could see Tom and John slumped on the couch, and the tall man whom she did not know was in fact Tom's new coworker was sitting very rigidly in a tall brown wooden chair adjacent to the window facing outwards on the right of the couch. Tom looked up and caught her eye. He smiled, and Chihiro, caught off-guard, for some reason made a sour face at him. He veered back as she collected herself, and she shyly entered the hallway leading from the bathroom, and then the living room.

            Even Tom was surprised at the look of this new Chihiro. Her hair had been let loose out of its bun, and combed into a sort of waterfall down her shoulders, now clad in pink cotton. His eyes followed the curves down the shirt, down to the blue jean covered hips. He was so absorbed that he didn't notice his audible exclamation "pretty...", or at least not until the girl had already changed her attitude a complete 180, started dashing towards him, and whacked him in the head with her clothing bag,

            "Tom no baka!" Chihiro exclaimed.

            "Gomen ne," said Tom, rubbing his head. "What did you buy? Cast iron stilettos?"

            Chihiro faltered. No, you bought them.