For three days, Strauss was constantly scrambling on what he must consider; to follow Leonard's suggestion or to do his plan that was brewing at the back of his head. He was facing his computer for hours with all the angels and demons whispering at his ears.
Carefree of the precious time, he tried to waived his bogged mind by watching videos and promotional videos of the released Vocaloids. Then after that wasted moment, he tried to play Solitaire and Minesweeper at his computer, but still it does not helped him any nearer to unclutter his head.
He placed his hands at his face and wiped it down roughly. "What am I even playing this dumb games anyway?" then he sighed, closing down the tabs of the said games. "I should have done at that give away by now if I ain't doing this nonsense crap... Ugh..."
He turned his head and looked at his bed. "Uh.. Maybe a little nap would make my clouded mind a little clearer — even just a bit."
Then Strauss returned his glance at the monitor. "Nah. I'll just stick to my plan. I'll just finish this up before I go to bed. Anyway, who will know?" then he opened the compiler and made a program.
Compared to the recent works of his, which each Vocaloid can be made approximately one month full of sleepless and trickle-slept nights, he made the give away Vocaloid with haste and absentmindedness — much worse than Maika's data compilation which was a given: first version and outdated.
After thirty minutes, Strauss smiled greedily at his haphazard craft. He knew from the start that the program he created had tons of syntax errors, bugs and countess glitches would occur the moment it would be opened or executed.
"Would you look at that mess... thirty minutes and ta-da! A new effortlessly made Vocaloid was finished. It is free anyway, who gives a sh**?" Strauss said, placing the mouse pointer to the 'Debug for Errors' button. "Let me see what crap did I do today.. Hm.... My guess would be sixty-four errors." then he pressed it.
While he was waiting excitedly inappropriate to his guess, he was tapping the computer desk with impatientness and restless eyes. His reluctant heart was excited for some reason that it was sickening and poorly made.
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Program Compiler Says:
Debugging Completed.
The system had found 92 errors on the program 'Estúpido.exe'.
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He bursted out in laughing when he saw the prompt. "Ha! Ninety-two freaking errors! Its higher than I expected! I'm truly a genius. Truly a master!" Strauss stated with joy, dropping both of his hands simultaneously hard at the desk. "Bravo Strauss, bravo!"
He bent down and reached for a blank disc at his drawer. "Heh, what could be the reaction of that lucky person if he or she could get this one heck of a disastrous Vocaloid."
Upon grabbing one, he opened the disc compartment of the computer and placed the blank disc on it. Afterwards, he hummed in great relief while finishing some message prompt to made the burning process in motion. "I'll better rest now while the Vocaloid is getting burned."
Strauss stands up, made a few stretching of her arms and back and let himself fell into his bed, leaving the computer open as the Vocaloid was being transferred at the disc.
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Burning Estúpido.exe.....
Progress at 1%....
2337 of 166490 files transferred....
Estimated time of completion: 3 hours, 22 minutes, 45 seconds at 94kbps...
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Meanwhile, while Strauss was asleep, Maika was walking along inside a certain folder and looking across towers and towers of files. Since her file folder was already deleted, she was returned back at Strauss' computer and spawned at a random folder.
She stopped and took her time to look at her surroundings. "The orange sky, the whitened floor and the green files.... this is not a folder at my creator's desktop. Maybe I'm at the 'C' drive...."
She walked further deep in the city of files and programs and saw much stranger things: floating wide pixels that glides like kite on a sunny day; cute bulb shaped creatures that crawls in packs, scattered along the path and at varying colours. Bulk files that moves at all directions like cars in a busy street intersection.
"I didn't thought that after all this waiting and living at a dark place, my creator had kept me away from this paradise; from this place that I've been longing to see while I was dying alone, cold and lonely at my little domain...." Maika thought to herself, her feet leading her to a digital replica of a small garden.
She sat down at a bench made up of E-Books and gradually let the atmosphere sank at her.
"Why?"
"Why did you change? I can't understand. Why after all the times that I had been loyal, you snapped out of your dreams and left me alone to continue?"
"Even if I am secretly reminding you about your true goals... You completely fell off the ledge of promises; you changed and selected to be like that."
Maika lifted her head and looked at the floating pixel. "Does this life of mine had to undergo in this twisted and confusing world? If all of my questions would reach you someday, will it matter to me? Will you ask me? Does your words will make me sank down to my knees and collapse?"
She slowly closed her eyes. "If you will tell me, my creator, the words that I needed to hear from your mouth then.. even if I am so sad, all of my bad memories — all of it — soon I'll forget it like it never happened."
Suddenly, Maika felt a poking from her bare left foot, something down wanted her attention. She was intrigued at it so she opened her eyes once more and looked below. The time that the creature saw her, it danced in circles and made a sound similar to a mobile keypad tone.
Looking at the creature, she knew that it was completely different than the rest: it has four small triangles all connected by a curved line that was placed above a single dot; all coloured in hot pink. It also has a spherical body with four tiny legs and possessing a bluish illuminating ring that distinguishes the lower and upper half of the white creature.
Maika thought that the creature wants her so she slowly lowered her hand. The creature blinked using its single eye and hovered at Maika's palm. It made a pleasant beeping sound while Maika was getting it up close to her face. "Hm... Do you want me to take care of you?"
The creature made two beeps at Maika's question.
"One beep is 'zero', equivalent of false or off. Two beeps is 'one', equivalent of true or on.... So does that mean its a yes?" Maika asked, still the creature close to her face.
The creature made two beeps again and Maika placed down the creature at her lap. "Hm... Since you can't talk... I'll give you a name.... Hm.... What name should I give you?" then she started to look around to find a hint on what was the perfect name for her new friend. She looked up, she had found none. She turned her sight to the flowers, still nothing came at her mind. Finally, she turned her sight to the right and saw a bench. In it, the spine of the E-book was facing out and she had read the title. "Supernova Ci..." she can't read the rest because it was blocked by a plant and being swarmed by the purple-onion shaped creatures, eating the bush.
She made a moment of thinking and come up with a name. "I know now what should I call you!"Maika said, petting the creature's head. "I will call you Nova. Do you like it?"
Nova replied two beeps.
Maika smiled and let Nova circling in spirals around her. Afterwards, Nova landed on the bench sideways. Maika noticed that the dot — Nova's eye — went missing. She tapped it. "Nova?... Are you alright?"
Suddenly, Maika felt dizziness, she held her head while seeing a blurred image her surroundings. She tried to call Nova once more but she had completely became unconscious and herself laid down at the bench together with her new friend.
ㄖ ㄖ ㄖ
Strauss woke up from his sleep after several hours and jumped out on his bed. He checked the progress.
"Yes! It was done." He said with enthusiasm, clenching his fist, looking at the monitor of his computer. "Estúpido Vocaloido is done.~"
He quickly grabbed a casing for the disc and placed inside the Vocaloid. Then he slides down the label he made earlier between the case and a thin plastic. Afterwards, he pulled out a hair dryer and point it to the case to make the plastic shrink to fit at the rectangular casing of the Vocaloid. Lastly, he placed a sticker seal at the side — an anti tamper seal — to finish the package.
Glancing victoriously at the box, Strauss immediately ran to his restroom to prepare himself to see Leonard with the give away Vocaloid at his custody, leaving the box resting flatly at his desk.