I can't believe you said that, Kaito!” cried Miku.
    “Well, maybe you deserved it,” he replied hotly.
    “Hey, hey, break it up, losers!  Some of us are trying to watch their favorite TV show,” said Akita.
    “Never!  He called me a fake!”
    Miku glared at Kaito.  What a jerkface!  As if he wasn’t computer-generated.  She began to cry again.  Why did everything have to be so complicated?  She wanted to go back to her music, her songs.  It was so peaceful there.
    “Come on, Kaito,” soothed Kama, tossing her long, pink pigtails over her shoulders.  “It’s not like you’re not synthesized, too.  We all are.”
    Miku felt Rin put her arm around her shoulders.  Rin helped her stand up, and walked her towards the dressing rooms.  “There, Miku-chan, we’ll be back where we belong soon.  We gotta charge before the show tonight.”
    As Rin closed the door to Miku’s dressing room and left, Miku remembered.  There was a concert tonight!  The keepers would have to let them back into the virtual world so they could charge.  Wouldn’t want their precious vocaloids to run down in the middle of a show, now, would they?
    As she contemplated the strategies of her caretakers, Hatsune hummed one of her songs.  Now, which one was it?  “Alice,” that was it.  That was a pretty song.
    Someone knocked on her door.  “Going digital, in thirty seconds!”
    As the countdown continued, Miku began to sing.  Throughout the digitizing halls of the compound, she heard the other vocaloids harmonizing to her song.
    A glorious sound, she thought.  Song.
    The digitizing completed itself, and Miku felt the change, the feeling fizzing through her body and making the room vibrate.  Miku opened the door to a completely  different hallway.  The other vocaloids’ doors were still closed.  They were probably charging, like she was supposed to be.  But Miku didn’t feel like charging just yet.  She wanted to sing.
    Miku headed down the corridor towards the door she knew would take her to her studio.
    As she opened the door, an inexplicable happiness bubbled up inside her.  Miku knew the reason.  This was the server where she had been created, and had been given her precious songs.  At the first command from her file, she would be wherever she wanted to be.
    Miku sent a command to the server, and she was in a stadium in her colors.  Teal and black filled the computer-generated space.  Here she could be at home.  Here she could sing.
     Miku raised her chin.  There was no one here to hear her, but she would sing her best.
    She went through “Melt” and decided that “Innocence” would fit her best right now.  Hatsune began to sing.

Between the virtual and the real
I was born and have been given much love
Only now, please, let me have my own dreams

I was born at the end of summer
In this place, the days being hot
You were all waiting for my coming
And handed me many precious songs

Between the ideal and the real
I was born and have been given much love
This real world is too complicated
And makes me tired
Just wanna listen to beautiful songs
You have all raised me with love
Only now, please, let me have my own dreams

    Miku finished her song and sat down, tired, on one of the chairs the server had programmed for her.
    Just as she stood up to leave, she heard clapping behind her.  Horrified that someone had discovered her, she turned.  On the top step of the arena stood Chihiro Kama, the newest vocaloid.  Miku relaxed.  Kama wouldn’t tell anyone.  Kama carefully climbed down the steps towards Miku.
    Miku looked at her more closely as Kama drew nearer.  She looked strange, faded almost.  Now that Miku thought about, Kama had been looking funny ever since she had arrived.  Perhaps it was a glitch in the program.  She would tell the technicians.
    “You sound as wonderful as ever, Miku-chan,” said Kama, as soon as she drew near enough.
    Miku smiled at the compliment.  Then she frowned, remembering her issue from a moment before.     “Something is wrong with your file, Kama-chan.  You’re fading.”
    Kama looked down and muttered something that sounded like a real-world swear.  That was odd.  Vocaloids didn’t swear, unless the capacity to do so had been added to their files, or it was in their songs.
    “It’s nothing, Miku.  I’m just... running out of charge.”
    Yeah, right.  “Are you sure that’s it?  If you want, we could check your file on the vocaloid database.  Whatever the problem is, it’ll be cataloged in there.”
    “No!”  said Kama hurriedly.  “I mean, thank you, Miku, but I can do that myself.” 
    Miku narrowed her eyes.  “Vocaloids don’t make errors, unless they are programmed to make errors on purpose or have a glitch.  You’re hiding something, Kama.  And you shouldn’t have the capacity to keep secrets.”
    Kama sighed.  “I guess the gig is up.”
    Miku widened her eyes, making them larger than was natural for even a vocaloid.  That was a real-world saying.  Miku had heard it once in a movie she had found in the computer database, locked behind a firewall.
    “I’m an experimental vocaloid,” continued Kama.  “You know how most vocaloids have the capacity to learn and grow a limited amount, and then stop learning?”
    Miku nodded.  That was how she had developed emotions and a higher level of understanding than she had originally been programmed for.
    “Well, the creators programmed me with experimental software to give me the capacity to almost live, like a human would.”  Kama laughed, but it was a cold and bitter laugh, and there was no light in her eyes, like most vocaloids had no matter what emotion they were expressing.
    “You regular vocaloids belong more to the virtual world than to the real one, and are programmed as such.  The software the creators gave me makes it so that I learn to understand as humans do, but do not age or grow, the same as a regular vocaloid. 
    “You’re lucky, Miku.  You know where you belong, and what you’ll do when you next update yourself.  You know what the rest of your existence will be like.  I don’t.  For me, nothing is certain.  I’ve got the capacity to end my existence if I so choose.  I can change, but I’ve got no control over it like you do.  And if my system fails, I’ll be terminated.  You would just be fixed.  The world loves you. 
    “I’m expendable.  No one cares about me.”
    Kama sneered, and Miku saw with shock just how horrible an uncertain existence would be.  She had no idea what she would do if she were in Kama’s shoes.
    Kama turned to leave.  “But hey, this is supposed to be a fun day, right?  Don’t let my problems get you down.  Sing at your concert.  I won’t be there, but I might  see it on the TV tonight.  I’m gonna charge.  Have fun.”
    Have fun.  As if she could now that she knew about Kama. 
    As the virtual door shut behind Kama, Miku thought about what Kama had said.  The world loved her?  Why her?  Why was she so special?  She was just a computer program.  She wasn’t even human.  There was nothing amazing about her, so why did humans love her voice?