Satoka, having been shot, ceased to function.
Shutdown.
The heavy, old-fashioned monitor head crashed onto the poolside floor, a dull and empty sound echoing in the air. It was the very same unsettling, abrupt clatter of junk one hears when illegally dumping a cumbersome home appliance in a deserted back alley.
"Are you certain?"
The Corpse spoke to Jin.
Had the gunshot and the spectacle of destruction startled her—or had the memory of how she herself had been shot and become "the corpse" been stirred? Her gaze was not on Jin, but on Satoka, now reduced to a piece of silent, discarded scrap.
"You cared for him, did you not?"
"Not a child," Jin corrected. "A thing."
"You are a cruel man."
Brushing off the Corpse's accusation as if it were nothing, Jin returned his gaze to the poolside.
From the sky, a rain of diamonds descended, physically increasing the value of his assets. Their glitter adorned the tranquility of the garden.
Then, he felt a gaze upon him.
--- Section 15 ---
A sense of a presence—or perhaps, given the exclusively humanoid population here, one should say an *androidal* presence. Detecting the faint sign of observation by some form of intelligence, Jin turned his head with a weary reluctance.
The last few days had been rife with activity.
Jin tore his gaze from the mangled corpse and sought the source of the presence.
It came from the direction of a thicket of ornamental foliage, arranged as part of the mansion's exterior landscaping.
They were bizarrely shaped plants, selected to harmonize with the sophisticated, modern space. Their broad leaves were etched with geometric patterns reminiscent of the Nazca Lines. Symbols from some ancient ruin, perhaps, or a message from an unknown alien intelligence.
From behind one of those enormous leaves came the whisper of rustling fabric.
And from the point of Jin's focus, a second—a new—domestic humanoid robot emerged.
He had no record of it.
The unit existed in no purchase history, no log of employment contracts.
It was likely a stray robot, one that had trespassed and taken up its duties of its own accord. It was a matter of course that any humanoid would desire to work here, given the asset value of a residence such as this.
And yet, unless a unit was a legacy model of historical significance, like the former Satoko, it would not typically even merit consideration at the paper-screening stage, let alone an interview. That this one should even possess an imagination audacious enough to aspire to a position at this most prestigious of workplaces ought to have been, by all rights, a probabilistic impossibility.
The mysterious humanoid, who had undergone no interview, approached Jin.
Jin entered observation mode.
Its body size and silhouette were of nearly identical specifications to the destroyed Satoko—that is, it was built to a child-scale specification.
But there were two decisive differences from Satoko.
The first was that she was attired in a perfectly orthodox uniform, so flawless it was as if the very Platonic Idea of a 'maid's uniform' had been made manifest.
The second was that her head was that of a proper humanoid.
Not a cathode-ray tube, but a cranial structure that emulated a human's, yet was refined to a beauty beyond human reach. The soil of her face—her facial field—had been cultivated to bear the archetypally charming features of a young girl, befitting her body's scale.
"Well now, what a precious child."
The mangled corpse summarized Jin's complex computational process in an instant.
It was a conclusion so beautifully simplified as to rival Einstein's E=mc², and so Jin found himself in frank agreement.
"I am Shoko," the little maid said.
"Pronounced, 'Show-ko'."
Jin immediately retorted.
"What is this, some kind of decalcomanic wordplay on Satoko's name?"
"My constituent elements contain no saccharides; therefore, I would submit that such a description is inappropriate. If I must be defined, perhaps I am what you might call Satoko's 'antonymous isotope'."
Despite her child-like appearance, her elocution was as formal and professional as a veteran newscaster's. It exuded a functional beauty, the sense of a thing manufactured solely for the execution of its duties. *This one might be useful*, Jin intuited.
"Very well, Shoko. A pleasure."
Jin, dispensing with further pleasantries, questioned her sharply.
"But what are you here for? I don't recall summoning you."