The gaze gradually cleared, vibrant neon lights interwoven outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, outlining the intricate and dilapidated architecture that soared into the night sky.
The sense of hearing also started to function, the patter of rain incessantly falling, the road surface soaked, shimmering with reflections of neon lights.
“Why are you still here!” The man’s footsteps heavy, a voice containing faint anger and complaints came closer from afar, a black shadow casting over her, roughly pulling her up from the ground.
She saw him, his face half rough and fat middle-aged man, half covered in metal, electronic eyes flickering with bright blue light, scrutinizing her up and down. “What’s going on? Error in the program?”
Just as he was about to pat her head, she instinctively reached out to block him.
The man paused, “Oops, seems to be broken.”
He pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, she suddenly spoke, “No need. I’m not broken.”
Her voice clear, showing no traces of being mechanical.
Am I… human? She couldn’t help but think.
“Really?” The man frowned in confusion, “ID748993, initiate self-diagnosis system.”
The command entered her ears, immediately causing a sharp pain like someone stirring her brain with a stick.
The alarm from within almost pierced her eardrums, she frowned and tried to endure it, whispering, “All normal.”
The man nodded, “Follow me, quickly.”
She followed him, the discomfort in her body disappearing with a ‘ding.’ She guessed the self-check process had ended.
They walked in the spacious dark hall, the sound of footsteps echoing rhythmically around.
By the light of the neon outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, she saw these windows as a huge display window, with a row of motionless human figures standing against the glass in various poses.
Male and female, all of them with elegant figures, the light outlining their profiles making each one appear perfect like angels.
On the other side of the hall were towering shelves reaching the ceiling, what was on them unclear, but she could see the prominent labels on each row of shelves:
2179 males
2179 females
2180 new males
2180 new females
Customized series
“Ding.” A soft sound brought her attention back.
They stopped at the exit of the hall, the man using a human eye scanner on the entrance, the sliding door opening with a sound.
It was raining outside, the man took out a small stick from his clothes, pressed it, and a disk-shaped airflow sprayed out.
He walked into the rain with this ‘air umbrella.’
The man showed no intention of giving her an umbrella or stopping his steps. She looked around, casually picked up a discarded cardboard box by the door and placed it on her head, following the man.
There weren’t many people on the street, mostly wearing transparent raincoats or holding air umbrellas, hurrying along. Occasionally, those who looked up had subtle glances lingering on her.
She examined her attire: the white skirt was a bit short, the v-neck of the top was also somewhat deep, but not revealing.
What were they looking at?
The man led her out of the desolate alley, turned into a narrower street, and stopped in front of a brightly colored sign.
She looked up, the neon sign on the door larger than the door itself, saying “Nerve Dynamo Engine,” followed by “pub.”
This is a bar.
A burly bodyguard in a black suit and black sunglasses opened the door, glanced at the man, then at the woman behind him, and extended a metallic prosthetic limb.
The man placed a card in his hand, offering a servile smile.
Glancing at the card, the bodyguard’s tone turned hostile, “The boss is already angry, why are you bringing such strange things here?”
Perplexed, the man turned back and saw her standing dumbfounded in the rain, holding a hard paper shell on her head.
“What are you doing?” He swatted away the paper shell, scolding in a low voice, “Focus on your work, don’t get involved in these messy things.”
“Okay,” she replied.
She felt the rain trickling down her hair, flowing over her smooth skin, and soaking her white clothes, but strangely, she remained dry. No wonder she did not need an umbrella.
So, the passersby who saw her thought she was blocking the rain, how odd?
The bodyguard stepped aside, “Come in.”
The man continued with his ingratiating smile, “I have checked, everything is in order, you can rest assured, please reassure the boss as well!”
“Tell him yourself.”
Nodding, the man led her into the bar, where the air was filled with cheap perfume, odd tobacco scent, and strong alcohol fumes that instantly overwhelmed her senses.
Unaccustomed to such an environment, she instinctively held her breath for a moment.
That’s when she realized—she wasn’t breathing at all. Her chest only slightly simulated the motion of breathing.
It seemed highly probable that she was not human.
The bar was filled with smoke, making it hard to gauge its size, but it felt packed with people lost in ecstatic dancing. Laser lights on the ceiling changed colors, flashing along with the deafening electronic music.
The man roughly grabbed her wrist, gesturing for her to follow him.
They weaved through the crowded dance floor and reached a door guarded by a bodyguard, who she noticed resembled the man from before, prompting her to compare them unintentionally.
“Come in!” The man pulled her into the room, while the bodyguard slammed the door shut outside, dampening the nightclub music to a weak, pulsating bass beat.
Inside the room, decadence filled the air. On crimson leather sofas, sat four or five men and women, each having undergone some sort of body modification, casting unfriendly glances.
In the center, a man sat like a king. Dark-skinned with Southeast Asian features, bald, with both arms replaced by metallic prosthetics. His chest and abdomen bore a tattoo of a serene Buddha figure.
Taking a puff from a peculiar e-cigarette handed by a white-clad woman, he exhaled purple vapor.
Raising his sleepy triangular eyes, he hoarsely welcomed, “Well, well, you’re here.”
The man hurried forward, taking the e-cigarette from the woman and handed it over, “Mr. Shachu, please forgive my oversight. Here’s your supply.”
Standing at the door, she scanned the room and suddenly recognized the woman offering the e-cigarette to Mr. Shachu. She was dressed similarly in a short skirt and deep V-neck.
Looking at herself, then back at the woman, it seemed they were now colleagues.
The woman stood by timidly, looking innocent and pure among the deceitful crowd like a delicate white flower.
*Smack!*
A man was slapped to the ground by the woman with a pink high ponytail standing next to Mr. Shachu. She twitched her nose, pierced with a nose stud, and angrily exclaimed, “Do you know how much loss your negligence has caused us?”
“That person was about to finalize a big order with us, but, it turns out, one person is missing! You’re ruining Mr. Shachu’s reputation!”
“I think you don’t want to stay in Kabukicho anymore.”
The man’s half-metal face cheek was dented, sparking. He covered his face in panic, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I-I’ll refund half the money to you, this—”
He turned back and shouted at her, “Come here!”
She took two steps forward.
“This is also for you! You let her stay in the store, do odd jobs, accompany guests, perform, she can do anything!”
The man eagerly pulled her to Mr. Shachu to promote, “Look, this is the latest design for this year, compared to this old model—” he pointed to the white-clad woman standing quietly beside, “More complete performance, richer functions, more— ” he reached and pinched her waist —
She instinctively grabbed his hand, turning to ask, “What are you doing?”
The man paused, facing Mr. Shachu’s curious gaze, sweat beading on his forehead, “This, this is the newly equipped humane mode, you can adjust between compliance, slight resistance, and unwavering defiance, to meet different desires.”
Mr. Shachu: “This is—”
The man: “Slight resistance.”
He struggled and she stared at him. So she let go, and he tactfully refrained from any further actions.
Mr. Shachu: “…Very interesting.”
The man: “Yes, indeed. This item is hard to come by in the metropolis, I went through a lot of trouble to smuggle it in. It’s not something you can buy with just money!”
Mr. Shachu carefully observed her for a while, then beckoned the man over, who immediately crawled over like a dog and offered a cigarette.
A purple mist rose slowly, Mr. Shachu leaned back on the couch, waving his hand lightly.
The man, feeling pardoned, kept thanking profusely, scurrying out of the room.
The music outside blared for two seconds, then as the door closed, it returned to a powerless low bass rhythm.
“The big brother is kind-hearted,” said the young man with a shaven head to the right of Mr. Shachu, circling the woman in the middle of the room, “Just because of this thing, he let the Iron Skinned Fatty go?”
Next to him, a quiet and elegant young man pushed his flashing monocle slightly and said, “A dragon can destroy a city but finds it challenging to deal with details. Learn to cooperate with the mouse, forgive where possible. He owes the big brother a favor, he must repay it tenfold in the future.”
“And that one over there also needs a live scapegoat.”
Mr. Shachu: “Enough.” He moved his metallic fingers, and she felt as if a rope was pulling her feet, involuntarily moving forward, knees giving way, kneeling in front of him.
“Go entertain guests,” his hoarse voice seemed to carry a touch of magic, engraving into her mind, “100 million yen in sales every night.”
“I don’t care for any popular items in the metropolis. Anything that doesn’t make money is trash.”
Her: “…Yes.”
“Off you go.”
She walked out of the room in a daze, entering the smoky and chaotic disco pool, with only one thought in her mind: entertain guests, earn 100 million.
She looked at this seemingly high-tech but chaotic and disorderly world with only partial understanding; she was also unclear about her own identity when she suddenly took on KPIs as astronomical as digits.
Ah, the familiar workplace pressure made her feel both painful and familiar.
A tap on her shoulder came from the “colleague” in the room before. She leaned in and whispered, “I’m Mary. Follow me.”
Mary led her to the bar, pointing out the array of various drinks one by one.
She had thought she wouldn’t remember anything at the last minute, but surprisingly her memory was exceptional. Mary listed thirty-seven bottled wines and one hundred and twenty-two cocktail pairings, and she memorized them all.
Oh, she realized, she must not be a human after all. Maybe she had some kind of electronic brain that made remembering things a breeze.
Mary had a beautiful but slightly stiff face, perhaps a flaw of the previous generation. Her character was probably designed to be gentle, patiently explaining everything to her. Afterward, Mary said, “The boss named you Elena.”
“Get to work, Elena.”
Freshly made hostess Elena watched as Mary skillfully nestled into a booth with a man. After some flirting, the man ordered two fancy cocktails, and as the drinks were served, bubbles floated out of the glasses, creating tiny fireworks above them.
This was the “Fireworks on the Other Shore,” priced at 3500 per glass.
In this bar, even a drink priced at 10 million didn’t seem as difficult as she thought.
Wait, why did she find 10 million so difficult? She shook her head, feeling like there was some information in her mind that she had yet to discover.
Mary seemed to be using traditional hostess tactics of flirting, seduction, and charming customers into ordering more. But she felt that this efficiency was a bit low.
According to what the man said, she was the latest model, so she should play with some new tricks.
She grabbed two mid-priced bottles of vodka from the bar and gracefully moved between booths.
Soon, a customer noticed her and whistled. She smiled, approached a table with three men, crossed her long legs, and sat on their table.
The man who whistled wore a short-sleeved t-shirt, revealing tattoos on his strong arms. He reached out to pull her down into his arms, but she blocked his hand with the bottle: “Hold on.”
The man was rare in their experience to be rejected by a hostess biomimetic person, and he and his friends smiled at each other. “Oh? What’s the matter, new trick?”
She raised the bottle, her smile charming, “Yes, a new trick.”
“This trick is called: I have the alcohol, do you have a story?”
The author has something to say: Rong Rong will gradually remember who she is… but before that, she will be an artificial person for a while.
