Excerpt: Hatsune Miku: Voice of the Voiceless

It is just nightfall. There is still the very faintest orange in the sky, and the city’s lights are coming on as their sensors detect darkness, illuminating eerily quiet streets. There are very few people out, and they all seem to be going the same direction. They walk on as the last of the sunlight fades, and they fall under the gaze of a massive series of posters. Each one has a photograph of a very attractive person on it, emblazoned with a single name and a date. One shows a brunette labeled “Meiko”, the next an auburn-haired woman dubbed “Mirriam”. Further on, past the next cross-street, one poster shows a blond girl named Lola, and the next a blond man named Leon. Finally, as the sound of a crowd finally becomes audible, there is a poster of a black-haired man whose name is Kaito.
Soon the sound of the crowd becomes distinct and overwhelming. The few people on the streets show a plastic badge to a security guard, who scans each one with a barcode scanner, and waves them through. They join the mob, all singing and jubilantly conversing and cheering. The lights are brightly shining upon a large stage lined with massive flat screens. Each screen is currently running an elaborate abstract animation, while boisterous instrumental party music plays. The audience is buzzing with anticipation and adrenaline.
Soon a huge cheer goes up; the screens switch to a live camera feed showing the five people from the posters coming on stage. They wave, and launch into a peppy opening number, in perfect five-part harmony. They put on a show for a good hour without a hitch.
Kaito, one of the singers, is thoroughly enjoying himself. He loves the attention, as well as the sheer power of the speakers, the screens, and the lights. He feels in his element here; he wishes he could perform like this all the time. Above all else though, he enjoys singing itself. There is something about taking mere air, pushing and manipulating it, and then producing music from it that he finds addictively magical.
All five performers are wearing headsets, custom painted to match their vivid costumes. Each headset has a wireless connection to the control booth; the headsets beam their microphone feed there to be sent to the massive speaker system, while the headphones of the headsets receive direct playback from the microphone and the occasional stage direction from the control booth.
Unexpectedly, there is a faint, deep rumble. It can be felt more than heard. The audience believes it to be an effect in the show, but those involved in the production know better, and become concerned. Someone in the control booth decides to call the local police department and see if they know anything about it, and relays what he was told to peformers and crew alike.
“Ignore it,” he says. “Apparently the internal chip manufacturing plant a few miles away had a minor accident. Something collapsed, and there is a small cloud of harmless debris eminating from the site. Don’t worry about it; keep the show moving.”
That is exactly what they do. Meiko comes up and performs a solo piece, and then it is Kaito’s turn to do the same. The song is one of his personal favorites, a tender love song with a simple music-box-like arrangement. He steps forward to the front of the stage. While the intro plays, a faint blue cloud appears on the horizon to his left, the artificial lights catching the particles in an unnerving haze. It comes closer, and is close enough that the audience is noticing it. It descends on the auditorium at the very second he is about to sing. He inhales a huge lungful of the strange blue gunk, and immediately begins coughing uncontrollably. Many of the people in the audience and crew gasp in response, breathing in much of the stuff themselves. Soon everyone in the area is coughing, and can barely breathe.
Kaito’s eyes are watering from the effort it is taking him to breathe at all. He sees blue and red stars, and wonders if he’s passing out before realizing it was the lights of several ambulances refracting off his tears. He leans against a scaffold that supports the massive screens, barely able to stand.
The paramedics are all wearing gas masks as they lay him down in a stretcher. From the moment he sees the gas masks, and for many years to come afterwards, a single phrase begins repeating in his head.
Harmless my ass.
******************************
Brian Kagamine wasn’t sure if he should have been bewildered or pissed off. He couldn’t believe what the Blue Star executive was telling him. There was just no way this was right, that this could work.
“Look, I understand where you’re coming from,” he said, trying very hard to keep his voice level, ‘but think about where this could lead. This. . . Well. . .”
“It is an admittedly ambitious project,” the executive began. Brian couldn’t quite remember his name. Otis. . .Bluegrass? No, Snodgrass. Stupid name.
“Ambitious? It’s insane!” he snapped. This was just too weird to stay calm about. “Do you really think you can placate the populace by making a synthetic pop idol? They’ll never buy it! Your control on the entertainment industry was somewhat veiled before the Silencing, but this can’t be veiled. It’ll be completely obvious from the moment you announce it.”
“That barely matters,” Snodgrass insisted. “People are rioting in the streets, demanding us to give them answers to their problems. This certainly will answer one of them. It shows we are willing to be proactive for the sake of our customers.”
Brian shook his head, forcing himself not to get into Snodgrass’s inappropriate usage of the word “customer.” “I think you’re missing the point there,” he said. “Yes, that means that people won’t have to listen to the same artists over and over, but it really doesn’t touch the big problems at all. They’re not going to accept this.”
“Dr. Kagamine—you do have a PhD, don’t you?” Snodgrass interrupted. “I believe you’re missing my point. These people have been starved of singing for a full four years. Our market analysis shows that many of them will be more than happy to accept this pop idol in the meantime while we continue our research into the condition. Also, I believe that the public portion of this project is not of your concern. You would be a programmer. That is what you do best, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Snodgrass, I can’t program something if I don’t know what I'm programming it for. A pop idol is supposed to appeal to the public. How am I supposed to make one appeal to the public if I know that the concept alone is enough to put them off?”
Snodgrass smirked very slightly. Brian scowled; it was clear that Otis believed that he had Brian exactly where he wanted him, and Brian didn’t particularly like being where someone else wanted him to be much of the time. “I believe that we can make the public accept the idea. However, that’s very much where you come in. You are the one who programmed the PAA system’s AI, correct?”
“Yes. . .” Brian answered warily, not liking where this was going.
“I have one of the Personal Android Assistants, Dr. Kagamine. I must admit, I am very impressed. There are times where she is self-sufficient, and even seems rather human. Now, our market analysis indicates that the best way to get people to accept the idea of a synthetic pop idol is if we make this idol behave as naturally and as humanly as possible. As far as I am aware, you are the only man capable of making that happen. You can do that, can’t you?”
Brian sat back in his chair. As much as he hated helping any of the Blue Star bigwigs, his inner geek was gnawing at his brains. Truth be told, the sheer challenge of this project sounded very appealing.
“You do realize that if I’m going to make this pop idol seem human I’m going to need a lot more flexibility than I did with the PAA project? The more reliant it is on being a computer, the less human it seems.”
“You will have a minimum of restriction in this project should you sign on,” Snodgrass said. “You merely have to make an android that the public will believe and accept as a pop idol. There are very few restrictions as to how you manage to make this.”
This sounded too good to be true, but as he pondered, there was something appealing about it. The project presented a very unusual opportunity.
Noticing Brian’s hesitation, Snodgrass spoke up. “You know, Dr. Kagamine, this could be the crowning achievement of your career.”
Brian stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you by the end of the week; I have to go to another meeting.”
“Very well,” Snodgrass said. “By the end of the week then.”
Brian nodded curtly as he closed the door to the meeting room. He briskly walked down the hallway, extremely agitated. He pushed the “down” button for the elevator several times in quick succession out of impatience to get out of the building, even though he knew full well pressing the button more wouldn’t make the machine go any faster. He didn’t like the core concept of the project, and liked Snodgrass even less. The combination had put him in a rather foul mood.
As Brian walked through the skyscraper’s lobby after getting off the elevator, he saw a familiar head of blond hair peeking over a couch off to the side. He walked over towards the yellow fluff and leaned over the back of the couch.
“Mina Avaya. Fancy seeing you here,” he said.
Mina jumped. “Brian! Damnit, don’t sneak up on me like that. You scared the bejeesus out of me.”
“Let me guess—you called in for Otis Snodgrass’s bizarre little project, too?”
“The idol thing? Yup,” she said She gave a curt nod, and then shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. In a way it makes sense, since the entertainment industry is a big factor in their control, but to go so far as to make an android to fill the pop star gap is just—“
“Extreme and potentially stupid?” Brian supplied.
“Well, yes.”
“You want to go grab lunch and talk about it in more detail? I know a place a couple blocks away that serves great chilli.”
“Really? The weather’s pretty cold today, so chilli sounds really good. Yeah, okay. Lead the way.”