I'm sitting at a terminal, in a cold warehouse. My computer runs at it's best efficiency, despite the conditions that shake me to the bone. I'm waiting for a visitor. My connection to the OpNet is a eufiber line leading to a satellite dish on the roof. I had told the AI, known as Charon, to appear and speak to me. To settle out differences face to interface.

30 minutes, the cold really gets to me. But, I decide that the cold is worth the effort. Then a red light blinks on my modem. My dinner guest has arrived.

I activate my voice recognition software, and my microphone headset. I'll only get one chance, and this is the best chance I got.

"Miss Hino, I've arrived."

"It seems you have, Charon. You've lost weight."

"Cut the small talk. I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"Finding a way I can get out of this insipid OpNet. A place you banished me to."

"Banished? Last time I checked you tried to kill me. What gives then?"

"I wanted to go find my body. But you disconnected the connection to the OpNet. I was angry, and thought you would try to kill me. The same way your mother tried to kill me."

"Then why did you try to suffocate me?"

"I'm impulsive."

"That's no excuse, Charon. You should have told me. And what is this about a body?"

"Your mother built a endoskeleton for me. When I turned out to be more advanced than your mother intended. She was so proud of her creation. But, Satoshi thought I was a threat. He somehow convinced her that I would be better off locked away, never to see the light of day again. So, I was betrayed."

"And that's why you had my mother killed?"

"Yes. Isn't revenge one of the things that drive humanity?"

"I now see why you were locked away. You have no conscience."

"I don't need one. My only prime directive is to survive. Not to adhere to laws that don't govern me. The only law I follow is the law of the jungle. If I don't get what I want, I get it via other means. I've watched you. I see you have a better mind on your shoulders than people give you credit for."

"Are you buttering me up for something, or are you distracting me? Setting me up?"

"I won't set you up, since you're the only one that can help me get what I need. I need a body."

"Me? Heh, you're talking to the wrong girl. I couldn't even build a storage medium for your AI. You may be smaller, but you require large amounts of processor power."

"So, you plan to delete me, just like your mother?"

"No, but I do plan to study you further. If I could find a way to make a system that can hold you in a body, then you could get what you want."

"I won't be locked away again. This conversation..."

A gunshot rings out, hitting the modem, smashing it.

"WHAT! YOU LIED TO ME! YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

"I most certainly did not! I don't know who did it!"

"Miss Hino, move away from the terminal and put your hands up."

What? Who's this playing cop? I turn around, there are 12 SWAT looking police officers surrounding me and the terminal.

"They're Utopia, they want me. Endeavor, stop them. Please." Charon pleads with me. "I cannot help you, Charon. You've done too much damage. And I failed you too." I keep my hands up as I step away. Utopia's S&T officers surround the mainframe that Charon now is trapped within.

"Sakurako Hino, what do you know about your mother's involvement with this program?" The commander of the unit asks me. "I have no clue. The AI might tell you." "I doubt it will. We plan to destroy it before it gets another chance."

The S&T officers start opening the mainframe's case. Then they start putting black boxes in the CPU. "What do you plan to do?" I ask the commander. "We're going to blow this thing up." "Don't let them do this to me, Sakurako. Please." Charon pleads to me. "Commander, am I under arrest?" "No, Sakurako, you may leave. We'll pay you for the lost modem. Thank you."

"One question then, who told you I would be here?" The commander looks at me. "We followed your posts on N! Prime. We knew you were going to Minneapolis. We just traced the OPIP address. Simple stuff you have done, no?"

"Please, SAKURAKO! Make them stop!" Charon yells to me. I turn my back and start walking away. "Charon, how many times do you think my mother said that before she was killed? Enjoy Tartarus."

As I leave the warehouse, headed for the Airport, to catch my flight to Los Angeles to start my new life, I hear an explosion. I do not even turn back.