Jailbait and CHAOS!!! are now free to kill time before MOMO’s diagnostic begins, so they run around the building a bit, eventually ending up outside the room where Ziggy was recharging or whatever. Next thing we know, someone is opening his eyes, and Dr. Yuri’s face is swimming in front of him. “How do you feel?” she asks, and the camera flips around to show us she’s talking to Ziggy, who seems surprised, in his deadpan way, to find her fondling him while he’s unconscious. She explains that MOMO asked her to do a lube and tune. “She said, ‘Mommy, you’re a famous scientist, so I bet you know all about cybernetic engineering.’” But probably MOMO does too? Don’t tell me Small Wonder doesn’t have a Ziggurat 8 maintenance manual in her brain somewhere. Anyway, Ziggy is not exactly comfortable with a lady poking at his buns of steel, but Dr. Yuri says, “I’m not a young woman. Don’t let it bother you.” She’s seen it all before, sweetcheeks.

As she’s tapping at yet another keyboard, she scoffs, “A famous scientist? Perhaps, infamous is more appropriate.” An infamous harpy, maybe. Ziggy asks her straight up why she has such a problem relating to MOMO. Hey, cool, let’s just keep having this conversation until Dr. Yuri provides an answer that isn’t awful. But that time might be now! “Could you love something that looked like your own daughter, but wasn’t?” she asks. Ziggy has no real answer for this, so she keeps talking. “Merely creating something to look like my daughter won’t bring back her soul. And with 100-Series Realians scattered all over this star cluster, they all serve as a constant reminder of her death.” Yeah, that’s all fine, but the fact remains that being mean to MOMO will never not feel like kicking a shelter dog on its birthday.

Oh, I get it. It’s a penis sucking its own penis.

Speaking of abusing sweet puppies, Dr. Yuri, who read Ziggy’s fucking file ages ago and there’s no way this wasn’t in there, asks obliviously if he has children. “A son,” Ziggy replies. “He was a healthy, intelligent boy. I lost him in an accident.” She keeps being obtuse and wonders, at least with some sympathy in her voice, if that’s why he committed suicide. “Duh, and/or hello,” he replies, not meeting her gaze. Dr. Yuri frowns at this. “Perhaps I, too, should have done the same when my daughter died,” she murmurs. And then she would have been reanimated as a cyborg, and maybe she’d be nicer to MOMO! Awesome solution. “But instead of grief, my heart was filled with anger towards my husband.” Was she angry with him because Sakura died and she blamed him, or was she angry because he had gone all Crazy Joachim’s Discount Realians by that point? She doesn’t say, and it doesn’t really matter. “Dr. Mizrahi, this is just an idea,” Ziggy says, “but why don’t you imagine you had two daughters? One that passed away, and one that’s still alive.” There’s no way she hasn’t considered it from this angle, since Jailbait just mentioned Sakura wanting her “mother and sister” taken care of, and to jump ahead a little bit, by “sister” Sakura did in fact mean MOMO. Nonetheless, Dr. Yuri’s all, “DURRRRR, what do you mean?” Eventually she gets that it might be better to treat MOMO as a separate person from her dead kid. This is revolutionary fucking stuff, here. She promises to think about it, but says it’s time to be going for MOMO’s analysis, which will surely go fine, and will leave Dr. Yuri plenty of leisurely time to come around to this new view of her fake Realian daughter, who again, will be fine. Everyone is fine.

Once Dr. Yuri leaves, Ziggy examines his limbs (and spins his metal hand around on its wrist like a power drill, which is fucking rad) and calls out, “All right, you can come in now.” Jailbait is not good at eavesdropping at all. Ziggy reproaches him again for it as he and CHAOS!!! enter, even though Jailbait lies that he wasn’t listening in on purpose. “Still, I gotta say, old man, you are full of surprises,” he says. Ziggy protests a little too much that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I guess because he couldn’t hear the Theme of Eventual Love Interests in the background when he was talking to MOMO’s mom. I think Jailbait is secretly worried that this could end up with Ziggy being MOMO’s new daddy, and Ziggy polishing his shotgun attachment on the patio when Jailbait shows up to pick her up for junior prom.

The three of them return to MOMO’s analysis room, since it’s “about” to begin, a state her analysis has been in for several hours now. No amount of Jailbait worrying they’ll be “late” is going to convince me, guys. But even though he could wait literally forever, Jailbait goes and talks to some dude in front of the door and tells him he’s ready. We’ll just be in and out of here! MacGuffin Data, here we come!

Canaan, I would not make this assumption.

In a large circular chamber with fancy Stargate light patterns circling a small platform in the center of the dome–it’s basically Cerebro–Chesty tells MOMO to relax as she taps some holokeys. As Ziggy stands there and stares at her for, uh, moral support, MOMO says she’s nervous since she’s a “self-adjusting model” and has therefore never been examined like this before. MOMO, we’re all self-adjusting down there, but that doesn’t mean having a doctor poke around occasionally isn’t a good idea. As Chesty ramps up for the test, MOMO floats into the air and is surrounded by an orb of glowing blue light. Some 100-Series in the control room announces, “We will be shutting down your artificial personality layer during the analysis. Your artificial emotion and abstract cognitive functions will temporarily cease to function, but please do not be alarmed.” So when she boots back up again, will she reset to a new personality and level of cognitive function? Now I wish Shion were a Realian.

MOMO obviously is not thrilled to hear that her feeeeeeeelings might be down to some code somewhere in her head–what else are they for any of us?–but the MOMOclone just blathers on, “Since your artificial personality is an option for interpersonal interaction, this procedure will have no effect on your observational functions.” I’m sure she totally feels better now. MOMO’s Sad Theme of Sad Sadness tinkles into the scene as she wonders, “My heart is just an optional function?” Not if it belieeeeeeeeeeeeves enough, right? MOMO reaches out her hand to Ziggy–who is surely just about to tell her she’s totally a real girl and was not coded by a neckbeard mourning the dead kid he somehow managed to have–but then her sleep mode engages and she slumps into an eyes-open coma.

Meanwhile, in the control room, Gaignun, Mace, CHAOS!!!, and Jailbait look on as Busty and the 100-Series do their thing. Mace looks over Busty’s shoulder and is all, “So, how is it going?” like your dad who just wants to know if that virus is gone yet, because he’s gotta look at some fishing trip photos his brother put on the Facebook. Chesty is telling them on another monitor that this analysis is challenging because “some of her routes were damaged in that last hacking attempt.” That’s what we’re calling it now? Okay. Jailbait is not listening to this and goes back to that bit about turning off MOMO’s personality. “Yeah,” Chesty says sadly. “It’s kinda painful, like we’re doing something terrible to her.” I think we all need some perspective on the terribleness spectrum of things done to MOMO. But this is just about Chesty’s own issues: “It reminds me of when we were on Old Miltia, kept on constant meds. I felt totally empty inside then. I really hated it.” But MOMO is literally going to wake up after this is over and have no idea anything even happened. Like, in theory, right? This is like giving her anesthesia before taking her tonsils out. “I think if someone told me that my heart was just a fake, I’d really be hurt,” Chesty goes on. All we’re really taking issue with here, then, is the terrible bedside manner of Dr. MOMOclone? Well, I’ll co-sign that. She seems like a bitch.

DO YOU GET IT YET?!?!

Jailbait can’t take how awful this is for MOMO’s HEART THAT BELIEVES, and turns to leave the room, also whining that he is a scared little chickenwuss who can’t face this. I have no idea what he has to be scared of, but it’s not like MOMO’s gonna fucking know. Just as he leaves, MOMO’s preliminary procedures finish and the actual analysis begins. Dr. MOMOclone, Busty, and Dr. Yuri all simultaneously tap at their laser keyboards while the 100-Series spews technobabble like a fountain. Chesty, in the room with MOMO and tapping on her own laser keyboard, promises MOMO’s inert form that they’ll all go “someplace really fun” after this. If it’s the fucking beach at the Kukai Foundation, please do not invite Shion.

Suddenly, MOMO seems to become alert and her eyes dart back and forth. Dr. MOMOclone’s technobabble seems to indicate that something is going wrong. As MOMO’s face pops up on monitors all over the control room, she groans, “S…top…” and finally gets out, “It’s…a…tr…ap…” Obviously, MOMO manages to warn them all in time, they shut down the test, and evaluate what happened in a safe environment.

Just kidding! Everything goes tits up. MOMO’s diagnostic bubble burns red, red warning screens appear all over the control room, and Dr. MOMOclone and her sisters drop out of their chairs, stone cold unconscious. The humans in the room take over the technobabble, the gist of which is that MOMO’s mind is being invaded via a now-open U.M.N. column to somewhere they can’t determine. Basically, MOMO is being hacked, but this time through the Internet instead of via Albedo’s pointy fingers. Dr. Yuri has some shit to say about this: “No wonder we didn’t find anything; we were analyzing each system separately. Each layer itself is a low-resolution fragment, like scattered bits of memories. It’s only when they all become active at once that the whole image comes together. Joachim’s pulled off a grand trompe l’oeil.” I don’t know why this grand epiphany of how Crazy Joachim built the MacGuffin Data into MOMO like a fucking magic eye picture is at all useful at the moment, because all of Dr. Yuri’s ensuing commands to head off the hack amount to nothing. Glad she stopped and told Ziggy all of that, though. Really good use of everyone’s time.

Back to MOMO, though. She gets out, “I’m…sorry…I…didn’t know…” And a “self-expanding trap” (whatever) manifests, which Dr. Yuri realizes does not have Joachim Mizrahi’s watermark on it. So…she thought this entire thing was a hack by her dead husband until this very moment? Jesus, lady, get up to speed. She cries, “It’s something recent–probably planted during the intrusion at the [Phallus] of Nephilim.” And we’re calling it that now? I’m surprised we’re not all referring to it as “the unpleasantness.” Gaignun finally says, “This is Albedo’s work.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

Dr. Yuri muscles some lady in a pink power suit out of her chair and takes over. When Ziggy asks what she thinks she’s doing, she announces that she’s erasing the MacGuffin Data. For whatever reason, deleting this would also mean deleting, uh, MOMO, I guess–keep your files on separate drives from your programs, guys!–but Dr. Yuri is plowing ahead anyway. “You have a better idea?” she yells at him while typing. There’s been a lot of yelling while typing. “We cannot allow the [MacGuffin] Data to fall into the enemy’s hands under any circumstance!” This is true, though they should really mindwipe Canaan while they’re at it, to be on the safe side. But Dr. Yuri’s finger hesitates over the big red execute button (which hilariously is a thing that exists) and as Ziggy glares a hole in her back, she relents. Her icy black heart is melting! Very, very slowly!

PRESS HERE TO KILL ROBOT DAUGHTER

Of course, it doesn’t matter, because a beat later, some nerd is telling her that “the expanded data is disappearing!” Dr. Yuri cries that she didn’t hit the button, but it turns out MOMO is the one doing it. “She’s cutting her own neural pathways to disperse her memory!” Dr. Yuri realizes. “She’s destroying her own mind to protect the data that Joachim entrusted to her.” This is maybe the most MOMO thing that MOMO has ever done, because she is SO STRONG, and also it’s probably preferable to getting “hacked” by Albedo again. “MOMO!” Dr. Yuri cries, as this totally selfless act, in which MOMO treats her own person as an expendable, soulless thing worth sacrificing for others, finally allows her mother to realize she is not an expendable, soulless thing at all. You all keeping up with this? It’s fucking deep, I know. Like a lake.

MOMO shuts down, the red bubble disappearing and her limp body dropping to the floor. The red warning screens all static out and are replaced by a close-up on Albedo’s punchable face. “So…I trust you liked my gift?” he asks. “Looks like ma pêche managed to protect Mizrahi’s legacy with her own body.” Yeah, she does that. It’s weird how smug Albedo is about this given that his hack was still unsuccessful. As Dr. Yuri tries to perform CPR on MOMO, Albedo keeps talking. “However, no matter how charming, in the end she’s nothing more than a puppet. A puppet waiting for a miracle to make her human, believing all of Mizrahi’s rubbish…” We established all of this ages ago, Albedo. There is not a single person here who is like, “Oh, she’s like Pinocchio! I’d never thought of it that way!” Cue Ziggy: “What? A puppet?” God dammit, Jan Sauer, go sit in the corner.

This might be what my version of hell looks like.

Albedo finds Ziggy being an obtuse choad so hilarious that he laughs his hyena laugh for 10 solid seconds before disappearing. Dr. Yuri is still doing CPR, and augments that with an injection of “nanounit restoration.” I mean, sticking her with a Phoenix Down needle probably does make more sense than pounding her fists on MOMO’s chest. As Ziggy watches Dr. Yuri frantically try to keep MOMO alive–she went from Ice Queen to Mother of the Year in record time–he sees brief flashes: a smear of a blood, a tiny child’s shoe, and a pale man in a flowing black robe, like a sexier Emperor Palpatine. I guess he’s paralyzed by this flashback, so he stands there and does fucking nothing while Dr. Yuri keeps doing CPR. “This time…I will save her. I swear it!” Dr. Yuri grunts. There has gotta be one family therapist in this universe. Maybe Jin can make that his new career now that Shion’s working on shaming him out of bookstore ownership.

Speaking of Shion, a black screen takes us from MOMO’s unconscious form to Shion and Corey, having a videophone confab with Jailbait and Mace Windu. “Oh no. Poor MOMO,” Shion says, like she broke her arm falling off the monkey bars. Jailbait apologizes to Shion for what happened–don’t look at me–and says all they could do was watch. Mace says for my benefit that, though MOMO’s “basic functions” have recovered and she’s alive, she’s basically braindead. And why are they telling Shion this? “We need the expertise of Vector’s Third Division if we stand any chance of recovering the [MacGuffin] Data,” Mace says. I shouldn’t have to tell you that nobody brings up the possibility of continuing to try harvesting it from Canaan. That…well, it wouldn’t exactly be smart and easy, but it’s sure smarter and easier than not trying it. “This crisis isn’t just Second Miltia’s problem anymore,” Mace goes on. “On behalf of the entire government, I am hereby requesting your official assistance.”

Sadly MOMO is not around to vehemently deny this.

Fucking obviously, Shion agrees to help, though she is technically not in Third Division yet. Out of the cutscene she asks Corey to “arrange the equipment transfer” from Third Division, and he takes this to mean she will be helping personally. Again, duh and/or hello. Corey insists she is going beyond her pay grade and she’ll get in trouble for this, like Shion gives the tiniest shit about that, but for once I can’t rag on her because Mace just asked her personally for her assistance. Yeah, he said Third Division, but he also was on the phone with her for a reason.

Shion has a few things to do before she ambles over to the U.M.N. Control Center, but we will leave her hanging here. Next time, the gang reunites for its first major dungeon crawl, if by “dungeon” I mean “MOMO’s broken little brain.” And if that sounds terrible, let me tempt you with three additional words: “U.R.T.V. relationship drama.” See you next time!