After the high of getting away unscathed settled down, the mood in the house quickly became sombre. The issues between humanity and their persocom creations had struck far too close to home, this time.

Titch perched on the armrest of the sofa, little legs motionless as they dangled over the edge. Chris in particular was feeling the day's effects, it seemed. What had started out as moderate discomfort had worsened as the pain had time to settle in. He didn't seem all that relaxed emotionally, either. She'd watched as for the first few hours Chris waited anxiously for a phone call or a knock at the door; perhaps the police, inquiring as to why he had started a riot in the middle of a high street. Or neighbours, asking why he had staggered home and why his persocom wasn't wearing any shoes. Maybe even the people from the store, coming to finish what they'd started… But nothing happened. Eventually he had resolved to get Ivy set up on the home terminals so she could have some level of access to the web. Now he was helping her shop for clothes online; something everyone agreed would be a lot safer considering the afternoon's events. He and Ivy sat together on the sofa, his new persocom carefully tapping away at the keys of a laptop terminal as they browsed various shopping portals together.

Watching Chris from the corner of her eye, Titch couldn't help but smile to herself. Her neurologic processors ruminated over this brief sensation of happiness. In truth, she had been waiting for weeks for an opportunity to approach the subject of him and her. Now that he had admitted they had a proper relationship dynamic, she would make sure to hold him to it. No more treating her like a machine when they disagreed on something, for starters. And they would spend proper time together; not through work or happenstance, but just for the sake of each other's company. Titch really looked forward to that. She smiled again… He was a good guy. Although still an idiot, of course. She watched him showing Ivy how to use the online checkout with scepticism. There was no way he could be interested in browsing for clothes online, not without sneaking at least one or two bored glances at the time, or an indistinct gaze into the middle distance as his thoughts strayed to more important things. She ran a brief analysis of the behaviours he had exhibited while in town, comparing that data to his current demeanour. She concluded with 70.4% probability that he was doing it through guilt right now, though about what she wasn't quite sure. It could be the fact that their argument started an awful chain-reaction that surely got many people and persocoms hurt, and he was trying to distract himself. It could be the angry, hurtful things he had said to her during their argument, and he wasn't ready to talk to her about it. It could be the way she and Ivy so completely exposed his hypocrisy, using Ivy's attractiveness to toy with his emotions while throwing it in his face that she was still a persoco- hmm. A brief pulse of activity rippled through her neurologic processors before she finished that thought, but it was gone within an instant. That was unpleasant… Maybe she felt guilty too?

Titch sighed, opening her WiODA modem and connecting to the endpoint. She needed a distraction. It blithely requested her UUID which she passed without question, before poking the local domain name server for the address of a search engine. The data flowed effortlessly into her awareness, and she sifted through the stylesheet for the tags she was looking for. Finding the tag for the search box, she filled out a search term and passed a form back to the server, waiting for the reply. It came with milliseconds; this time a list of search results organised by relevancy.

Regarding Persocom Cultures: Articles: Multimedia: Society

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But why stop there? You could eliminate the human species altogether … have humans voluntarily modify themselves, to live in better harmony with the planet … too similar to persocoms …

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Work for Money? 'Rubbish', say Businesses - News

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… politician suggested a bill forcing businesses to advertise and give humans applicants a job if it's currently being performed by a persocom … restore the harmony between job availability and cost-saving exercises …

Titch dropped the search, frustrated. The twenty-third time she'd performed such a search in the last week. Of course there was still nothing worth reading there… but she had wondered, nonetheless. Surely a bit of hope wasn't foolish.

She blinked as the endpoint of her WiODA connection interrupted her, and accepted the incoming data. It was an email pushed from the office servers. Titch stripped out the more boring message headers and parsed the ones she wanted.

From: J . Gatsmoore

Subject: You slag

To: C . Barker

What the hell, Chris? You got a fucking persocom for free? I'm three times the software engineer you are. This is bullshit! I should be on that software team!

Haha just kidding mate. Jelly tho.

Have you heard from Jeff or Daz? I can't get hold of them. Guess they're busy playing with their new toys eh! ;)

Btw you better not let that thing distract you. Everyone is waiting on what you guys can come up with. So it falls to me to remind you, if you haven't got more code snippets by the end of next week I will kick you in the balls.

See you.

James

Titch deleted the email in disgust. She didn't like that man; one of the many people at NEIS whom she'd learned to feel that way about. For people supposedly passionate about persocoms, a lot of them seemed to reject their capabilities as nothing other than a pale imitation of human behaviour. At least Chris had seemed to respond to her changes over recent months, even if only poorly and hesitantly. Chris wouldn't miss that message.

She glanced at him again. He seemed tired. Almost involuntarily, she found herself reviewing snippets of video and telemetry she'd recorded in the store. There had been a fierce expression in his eyes when she and Ivy were in danger. Several impacts intense enough to max out her accelerometers while he fought his way over to Ivy. Significant impact to musculoskeletal structure when he tackled those men to the floor - acceleration readings unreliable there, she was in his hands at the time. Rough journey towards store exit over obstacles - had he twisted anything? Nearly, but no. Then that punch. She made a reasonable estimate of the mass of his arm and examined the timestamps of each video frame to find the velocity at which his fist hit. Apparently that would hurt for a while. Many minutes of flat-out running. Five stumbles on uneven footing with no repercussions, but some lactic acidosis almost certainly a factor; his body must really ache now. Footage of the empty street, next. He wasn't in poor physical shape, but all the same his recovery rate was low. He wasn't tired; he was exhausted. Some temporary injury likely from sustained running, explaining his gait walking home.

Titch glanced once more.

"No, like this. It's a sweeping motion, see?" Chris said, running his fingers along the touchpad. Ivy tried to copy him, but the terminal ignored her gesture.

Chris took hold of her hand, placing it to the pad as he spoke. "No, you're being too aggressive. The touch driver needs time to detect your fingers before you swipe, look." He gently swept her hand across the touchpad's surface, and the terminal window minimised to the background. "See?"

Ivy began enthusiastically sweeping the windows around the screen. "Now you got it!" Chris said. They laughed for the first time in hours.

Titch felt another wave of activity in her neurologic processors. She watched Ivy's face, smiling as she sat with Chris. She had a healthy, warm and lifelike complexion that Titch didn't doubt was due to her special skin. With human-shaped ears, the only indication she might be a persocom was how unusually beautiful she looked. It was a fact that persocom manufacturers strived to make their persocoms visually appealing. People bought nice-looking cars. They bought nice-looking appliances, nice-looking phones, nice-looking clothes. Why would persocoms be any different? As a premium brand, KESS were quite particular about ensuring each persocom looked unique, and so variations in facial and body structure were applied to every one. As a result there wasn't a persocom in the world who looked exactly like Ivy.

Titch supposed she herself looked pretty too, for much the same reasons. She looked at her tiny arms. Maybe the word would be 'cute'. Her own skin was soft and smooth, but it didn't look quite like Ivy's. Miniature units weren't expected to strive for that level of realism, and in any case it would be beyond the complexity available in her form factor.

Her audio processing subsystem poked her logic loop for attention. Someone had said her name. She pulled the last hundred-thousand samples from the audio buffer and processed them properly.

"Yes?" she replied to Ivy, paying more attention.

"Our human bodyguard is all feeble and achey. It needs coffee." Ivy grinned and extended her hand for Titch to climb aboard. "Let's go make some."

Titch hopped on, pattering quickly up her arm to settle on her shoulder. This would be more interesting than the armrest of a sofa.

"You OK, Titch?" Ivy asked as they made their way through the hall. "You've not said a lot since we got home."

"What is there to say?" Titch replied. "This whole day has been awful. Roll on tomorrow."

"Yeah…" Ivy looked troubled as they entered the kitchen. It wasn't long before she spoke again. "Those persocoms from the store… What happened to them, do you think?"

"Ooh, why'd you ask me that?" Titch squirmed, grimacing. "I know what'll happen. They'll be… decommissioned. NEIS will collect them, presumably from the police station considering what happened. Then their hardware will be disassembled and their memory extracted for analysis. The remains will be disposed of as faulty."

"That's awful." Ivy said quietly, filling the kettle. "That's what awaits a persocom that misbehaves?"

"If a dog bites a human in this country, it often gets put down. Persocoms are extended a similar level of generosity." Titch muttered bitterly, "No wonder that girl was desperate to get him to leave. She also must have feared what her owners would have done if she'd let him get himself decommissioned. In normal circumstances, if it was not a case of owner misuse and they were in warranty, their owners would be issued replacements… except NEIS aren't warranting 'failures due to viral infections'. None of those companies are. In fact humans are lucky they're not being charged as responsible for the actions of their infected persocoms, all things considered. It sounds hypocritical but the legal view is viral infections are outside human control. Just turn the persocom off, rip it to pieces and pretend it never happened."

"Chris was about to do that. To turn him off…" Ivy said. There was a question in her words that Titch didn't appreciate, so she gave her a reprimanding poke in the cheek.

"Don't even think about it. That persocom made his own grave! Chris wasn't pulling the trigger, the law and the company would take care of that. He was only protecting himself, and me." she said firmly, "Need I remind you, he also knocked out one of those men who grabbed you in the store. It's not a lot different to that."

Ivy stood in thought for a moment before changing the subject. "Do you believe him? What he said, about us? About being friends?" she whispered.

"Yes I do, and so should you." Titch said. In no small part because I'll rip him a new one if he backs out, and I think he knows it.

"I think I do, yeah. But this is going to be so awkward at first, isn't it?" Ivy giggled.

"To a level as yet undiscovered by mankind, yes." Titch agreed, grinning. "He admitted we're friends but I bet it hasn't sunk in what that means for him yet. He's such an idiot."

Ivy smiled as she fetched a mug, seeming lost in her own thoughts. Titch soon found herself asking a question that had been popping in and out of her head for the last few hours.

"Ivy, you reminded me… Speaking of what Chris said… why did you blush, earlier…?" she asked carefully.

Ivy appeared to hesitate as she picked up the kettle. "I'm… not sure. He looked ready to… I mean I thought he was about to…"

Another jarring wave of activity washed over Titch's neurologic processors. It was irritating.

"I see. Well it was rather good, as revenge goes." she said grouchily, folding her arms. "He certainly seemed satisfied with your reaction. Serves you right for messing with him."

Ivy gasped, amused. "Serves me right? The shop was your idea, genius!"

"Yes, well. My idea was for a very specific purpose. We needed to get Chris to see us as people. The easiest way to do that was to capitalise on… Look, don't point the finger at me! The morning was your idea, so you started it."

"I did not!" Ivy said indignantly. "…OK, maybe I did. But only because you said he'd get flustered if we teased him and it would be hilarious. Which it was. Now what exactly are you getting at?"

"Nothing." Titch muttered.

When the coffee was ready Ivy carefully walked it round to Chris, who had managed to flop across the entire sofa again.

"Here you go, acheypants." she handed him the mug and he accepted it gratefully.

"That's right. My everything aches. All the things." Chris moaned, trying to gulp the hot drink. "Today sucked."

"Yeah it did." Titch agreed, looking at him as he drank. "Chris… let's just hang out tomorrow. Not leave the house. Maybe it will be fun?" she suggested hopefully.

"I'd like that, good idea." Chris said in between gulps.

Titch managed another smile. Maybe the weekend could be salvaged after all.

"Argh… coffee isn't working… I can hardly keep my eyes open…" Chris muttered. He fought a yawn as he gingerly got to his feet. "That's it. I can't be arsed with today any more, I'm done. Bedtime!"

"Here, let me help." Ivy said, ignoring his protests as she propped him up with an arm around his waist. Chris was careful not to knock Titch from her perch as he slung an arm around Ivy's shoulders.

"I can move, you know." he complained, as they trudged up the stairs.

"If you call this moving, then sure." Ivy countered, leading him into the bedroom. Chris fell unceremoniously onto the bed, apparently groaning in regret as pain coursed through his body. Titch watched incredulously as he lay there, motionless.

"Aren't you even going to change?" She chided him. "A shower wouldn't go amiss either, you know."

"Yes, mum." Chris groaned again. Ivy giggled as he hauled himself to the bathroom, but Titch only scowled. If she'd had something to throw at the idiot just then, she'd have thrown it.

"That's a bloody grown man, would you believe…" she muttered, and Ivy giggled again.

"Aw, give him a break. Today must have been hard on him." she left the bedroom to turn out the lights downstairs. Titch, still on her shoulder, was along for the ride.

"It was hard on everyone, Ivy." As Ivy reached for the first switch, Titch realised what she was doing and considered mentioning the home automation system. She could have turned off all the lights with a single wireless command, but Ivy's next words distracted her.

"Well, maybe he'll be more with it tomorrow." Ivy replied. "Today was horrible, but tomorrow is a new day. Everything will be fine, we'll just have to not mess with him so much."

"So much?"

"Well… we have to a little." Ivy said, smiling coyly. "I'll admit, I kinda like doing it. It's too much fun not to! And we're friends, now. We have to have fun, if we're friends."

"Can't you just be yourself? That's how friendship is supposed to work." Titch frowned.

"This is myself," Ivy said matter-of-factly, "I am the amalgamation of my parameters and experiences. You know that, silly. You gave me all that data about the two of you, as well. It all goes together to make me what I am."

"…I guess so." Titch replied quietly. Something about Ivy's response bothered her, but she wasn't quite sure what.

It wasn't long before Chris staggered out of the bathroom, ready for bed. Ivy and Titch were waiting; the latter perched on his bedside table while Ivy sat on the bed. Chris wasn't really into pyjamas, although he'd wear underwear and sometimes a spare t-shirt. He looked at the persocoms blearily, and Titch assumed he was considering whether they should be evicted from the room while he wasn't fully dressed. Obviously it would be a bit late for that, what with their ability to capture visual data at will. Perhaps he was just too tired to think straight? Whatever stupid cognitive process had just occurred, it finished quickly and dismissively, as he wound up lurching towards the bed anyway.

"Do you need help?" Ivy joked as he slowly made for the bed. Chris laughed, wincing a little.

"Do I need help operating bedsheets? No thanks, I reckon I'll live." he replied, groaning as he crawled into the covers.

The two persocoms watched as he rolled around uncomfortably, trying to find a position which didn't ache. Titch began counting down the seconds. He'd realise, any moment now…

"Uh…" he looked at Ivy, who was still watching him from her perch on the side of the bed.

Ah yes, here we go.

"…Are you, um… just going to sit there?" Chris asked hesitantly. For a moment, Ivy said nothing.

"I had hoped to," she replied quietly. "Could I? Please? The house is already tidy so there's little to do, and honestly, I feel a little safer in here right now. I'll wake you in the morning, if you like."

Here it comes, Titch thought, crossing her arms. Idiot.

"Oh. Ok. Does your model…uh, do you… sleep?"

"Um… In a fashion. I can drop to a low-power state to perform periodic maintenance, file cleanup and optimisation, self diagnostics, that sort of thing." she replied. Chris nodded in understanding, trying to suppress another yawn.

"I thought so. Well, I know it helps not to use the motor cortex when running diagnostics. Hmm. Do you want a bed, maybe? " He said, losing his battle with the yawn as he closed his eyes for sleep. Titch rolled her own, preparing a sarcastic comment as she opened her mouth. This was every bit as awkward as she imagined. Does Ivy sleep? She knew he would phrase it stupidly like that-

"Thank you!" Ivy said happily, yanking back the covers and hopping in beside Chris.

Titch thought her eyebrows were going to fly off her head and go rocketing into space. She wasn't the only one; the brain-dead moron Ivy now shared a bed with looked equally surprised.

"Ivy, I meant…" Chris managed, but Ivy interrupted.

"Hmm?" Ivy said softly, snuggling into the covers. "You're not a fidgeter, are you?" She curled up, sighing contentedly. Titch winced as another big wave of activity washed over her processors again.

"No, Ivy, I meant - Uh, I mean you shouldn't be-"

"Oh!" Ivy gasped in realisation. "Oh! Of course… sorry!" she wriggled for a few seconds, after which her jeans and top slid out of the covers and onto the floor. "Better? Nighty night."

"…That's… great." Chris mumbled, scooting a little further away.

"Tell-her-to-get-out-you-muppet!" Titch mouthed silently, but Chris shrugged helplessly. Ivy was already a motionless shape under the covers, probably starting her diagnostics. They would be the first set she had ever run; Titch knew it would be best not to disturb her now.

She made sure to target Chris with her most withering glare as he reached to turn out the light. He flashed her a nervous, apologetic smile as he plunged the bedroom into darkness. She glared at him a little longer, just for good measure, as she set her optical systems to high-gain to compensate. The room was indistinct and grainy, but visible to her. Chris still had his eyes open, but he couldn't see her in return. He gazed listlessly into the darkness, apparently deeply uncomfortable.

Titch sat back on the bedside table, leaning against the lamp. She had some thinking to do. What was Ivy playing at? Did she genuinely think it was OK to just hop into bed with someone like that? She didn't have access to the net, but she couldn't be that dense about people, could she? Titch poked her WiODA endpoint for attention and hit the web, but the few details she could find on what KESS deemed important data for an out-of-box persocom were a little hazy. The discussions on forums were conflicting, coloured by the opinions of people who joined in. Some claimed their persocoms were rather savvy with human nuances from the get-go, while others said their units seemed shockingly naive in many respects. As best she could tell from the data, they would have good awareness on general etiquette and basic human behaviours, but were expected to acquire the remaining details from the net during initial configuration, and thereafter on encountering new and unfamiliar circumstances.

Of course… Ivy's configuration. Titch spent hours going over those parameters. She felt she had been reasonably thorough, but Ivy only had that data to work with. She was playful, friendly and had a bit of a mischievous streak - just like Titch had wanted. But was Ivy flying blind, here? Did she tease Chris without really appreciating the implications of what she was doing? Was this in fact another wind-up, right now? Or just a disparity between her personality and her limited data?

Titch scowled. By all accounts she should have found what just happened absolutely hilarious, but she just felt confused and irritated instead. Maybe the day had ruined her sense of humour. It had certainly been bad enough to do that. She tried to remind herself that Ivy wasn't the only one new to this. With only a few month's ever-changing experience, it's not like she could possibly be used to having such complex thoughts herself.

That last neurologic pulse, though. It had been so large it raised her internal body temperature by a notable 0.6 degrees Celsius.

"What's happening to me?" she whispered.