Well really, all I'm talking about here is taking a little more of the machine out of Yuki. When she accelerates her reactions and movements *that* far, she's basically letting the computer take control of some of it because it's capable of processing faster than her brain. Without it, she's losing only a crutch - and since she's much more creative than most give her credit for, she can overcome that shortfall easily.

But let me qualify that a bit with an example: A human being is only *physically* incapable of running 80 mph due to structural shortfalls in the human body. A human *is* capable, however, of going many multiples of that speed and keeping control of a vehicle going that speed. Now that Yuki is structurally capable of running 80 mph on the ground, she can keep control of it fairly easily (though it's probably not smart, due to the implications of slamming a titanium and steel body into a solid object, or the ground, at 80 mph). By the way, I'm not saying that's Yuki's limit, it's an example.

What she might lose for now in that case, however, is timing. A computer is capable of hitting a precise moving target at 80 mph, taking into account exact stopping distance, preparation time, etc. Yuki *might* be able to hit a specific moving target going that fast, but chances are she'll miss because of some tiny miscalculation that humans tend to make. She may make that up with practice, though.

Or a more clear example would be how Anna can race toward soldiers who are firing at her, dodge all the bullets, and then disarm them before they can get a fix on her. That takes a kind of precision the human brain usually isn't capable of, seeing a bullet and moving just in time, etc.

And I say "usually" because the Psychic Samurai *can* do it, with no physical augmentation whatsoever. She does it using predictive movements - watching what the shooter does, or listening to sounds, to determine where the bullet will go. She doesn't have to see it, she knows it's there. But at the same time, even she can't run toward a bullet and dodge out of its way precisely.

So when I say Yuki loses computer assist it's most likely only temporary. She can learn to do all of that stuff - and who's to say she hasn't already, and has gradually been making the technolpolitan computer obsolete? After all, it always seems to be the one thing besides the battery that fails.





I'm not just saying cost, I'm saying cost-benefit. You can't mass-produce a cybernetic body if only 100 people can even drive it, and only 2 can afford it. You custom build one and hope you never have to do it again.

Robots are different, however. They can be mass-produced by anyone with enough money, but then the human brain interface point is moot anyway.





Here's where things get a little weird.

Yuki's body was designed the way it was by accident. Titanium is the only metal that's compatible with human physiology and comparable to the weight-to-strength ratio of bone (which is why it's used in human hip implants). So basically it's a merging of medical technology, and robotics in an effort to make it as compatible, from her brain's point of view, as possible. I suspect the brain/body interface was introduced as a shortcut so she wouldn't have to deal with years of rehab for her brain to get used to its new home.

Anna's body was designed similarly. In fact, SPUD stole most of Al B Harper's patents, simply because Yuki's body was so lightweight, so good an analog to human, it was easier to start there than from scratch. Except then, Anna was designed to be a lighter, stronger, and faster version. Like a racecar version of Yuki, she was made of stronger and lighter weight materials, and given far more power.

Her brain, however, was based on a prototype A.I. that Dr. Lia Anne Paul developed at Paradopolis University for...get this...child's toys that were designed to be intelligent and form a bond with the child, like a very smart pet. It had never been in anything as large as a human-scale prototype. The intelligence and inquisitiveness had to be scaled up to match, too, to work with Anna. Dr. Lia still believes Anna is her greatest achievement.

There's a couple reasons Anna hasn't been duplicated yet: The most important is that Lia Anne Paul is no longer working for SPUD, and because Anna's brain has no software, SPUD isn't sure exactly what the good Doc did to make it work or how to modify it for their needs. Second would be the multi-billion-dollar cost for what was essentially a military failure - that kind of discourages further development when they have to go to Congress hat-in-hand to explain themselves.

And anyone trying to make copies, even cheaper copies, of Anna in the civilian market would still run into the problem duplicating her nonexistent software. Dr. Lia did *something* in hardware to make Anna so self-aware, and she's the only one who knows what. It's like if someone invented a totally new kind of computer processor and then disappeared with the specs before it hit production.

(Side note: I bet that's killing Al B. Harper. He's likely dying to meet Dr. Lia and ask how she did it.)

There you go, now there's more information than ever before about Yuki and Anna.





That's because computer programs have rules that can't be broken. A human will always know when it's safe to break those rules (and nobody breaks more of them than Yuki).