14th April, 2017
Somewhere in the Philippines.
A small rectangular room with white painted walls, two bunk beds on each side of the room, a small partition in one corner for a toilet and a small table in between the beds in one side of the room. Opposite of the room was a glass door. The room only had a small window high on the wall in the same place as the table.
A young Yu sisters were sitting in the beds. Mimi and Ida were sitting in the bottom bunks chatting with each other while Lola was reading a book, sitting in the top bunk above Mimi.
Mimi asked, "53, how was your range practice today?"
Ida replied, "Not good. I flunked really bad. doctor told me that if I don't get better soon, they might have to dispose of me."
Mimi looked up towards Lola and asked, "What's dispose, 51?"
Lola replied, her eyes still fixated on the book, "It means you'll be thrown out."
Ida was visibly scared hearing this and said in a shaky tone, "I don't want to get thrown out. I want to be with you."
Mimi jumped down from her bed, went to Ida and hugged her. She said, "Don't worry, 53. The doctor isn't so cruel. He loves us. He even praised me today. He said that I make a really good subject. I'm sure you'll get praised by him too."
Ida hugged her back. Just then Lola suddenly said, her eyes still fixated on the book, "You know, outside people call each other by names."
Ida asked, "Whats a name?"
"I don't know. It's just one or two words together. And families have the same last word of their name."
Mimi said with excitement seeping through her eyes, "Let's have names."
Ida exclaimed, "Huh?"
Mimi replied, "It'll be fun. We won't just be numbers anymore. We'd be special."
Lola replied, "No. They're inefficient."
Mimi looked at her with teary eyes and said, "Please?"
Lola looked at her, and a few seconds is all it took for her to give in to Mimi's demands. She said, "OK. OK. What should I call you then?"
"I don't know."
Lola smacked her own head and said, "Are you serious?"
Mimi just smiled mischievously. Lola said, "Come on, you're the one who wanted names."
Mimi replied, "I do. I just don't know what to call myself."
Ida said, "Let's do this. On the count of three, we each just blurt out a word randomly. The word we say will be our name."
Lola looked at her with a disappointed face and said, "Are you joking?"
Ida replied, "You have any other idea?"
"..."
"Thought so. Now on my count, 3… 2…1 Ida."
"Mimi"
"Lola"
All three laughed together. Mimi asked, "Whats with these names?"
Lola controlled her laughter as she said, "As funny as it may sound. That's our names now. That's what we agreed upon."
Ida said, "What about the other words? You said the name has multiple words."
Mimi answered that question before Lola could say anything. "Let's have the same word as the last word. Families have that, right? We're a family too."
Ida agreed. Lola said, "Hmm. What could the word be then?"
A moment of thinking later, Ida suddenly said, "Yu. I'm you; you're Mimi; Mimi's me. We're parts of the same person. You… Yu."
Mimi excitedly said, "We're family now."
Lola chuckled as she said, "I guess we are."
02:31
Shirogakichi, Kadoma, Osaka
Sohel got up and started walking towards Lola as he said, "Annabelle, boot ARIA up in local mode."
Annabelle nodded and quickly started working on her tablet. Just as he stopped in front of Lola, ARIA booted up. Her voice came through the glasses: "I'm back, captain."
Sohel said, "Welcome back, ARIA. Scan for electronics through my lenses."
"Yes, captain."
Sohel quickly scanned both Lola and Mimi, and as he finished scanning, he muttered, "Just as I thought... Ann, you got the nanobot syringes with you? It's another case like Luna."
Annabelle gasped and said, "What? No… I don't have them with me. I'll order some right now."
"Do it."
Annabelle nodded and started working on her tablet again. Lola asked, "What's going on? What happened to Ida? What are you doing? What…"
Sohel got annoyed at the barrage of questions and replied in an irritated tone, "What happened is, your sister there just got murdered by your boss. And what's going on is that we're trying to save you right now. The EMP has temporarily disabled that death sentence in your nape. We gotta remove it before it comes back online."
Before Lola could say anything, Mimi spoke up, "What? Can't be? Ida…"
Her voice was shaking. She was sitting on her knees with her hands handcuffed behind her back. She tried to crawl her way towards Ida but failed and fell down. But she kept crawling towards Ida. She was trying to hold back her tears.
Sohel noticed this and went to Mimi. He pulled her up by her arm and helped her get closer to Ida's lifeless boby. Blood was sipping out from both of her ears and the corners of her eyes.
Mimi tried to jump and hold onto Ida's body, but Sohel was still holding onto her arm and pulled her back. He said, "You can't. That'll be tempering with a murder scene."
Mimi wasn't holding back her tears. Sohel looked at Lola and saw her just sitting down with an expressionless face.
A few minutes pass like that. The silence broke when Annabelle suddenly said, "Captain, we're back online. You can reboot ARIA to connect to the main server."
Sohel replied, "Thanks. ARIA, commence reboot."
Annabelle added, "I've asked for nanobot syringes, but they're saying it'd be faster to take them to New Eden."
"Hmm."
A little while later, ARIA came back online. Sohel noticed it and said, "ARIA, contact New Eden. Tell them that we got two prisoners with chips in their necks and that we need a jet to get to the Philippines ASAP."
ARIA replied, "Yes, Captain."
Sohel then went over to Lola and Mimi and crouched down. He said, "Look, I guess you can already figure it out that you were not working for the SNA but a fraud. And that fraud has murdered your sister. But don't worry, you two won't die. We'll save you. Now, come on. In the car, both of you."
Annabelle and Sohel helped the two sisters get up, and the sisters volunteerly started going towards the car. Just as Lola was about to enter the back seat of the Alfa Romeo, she asked, "You two aren't just some random detectives, are you?"
Sohel gave a small smile and said, "No. We're the ones who you were thinking you were."