Chapter 5: Sinful Crown

Summary:

Bathed in the moonlight which illuminated her, Lacia was as beautiful as the day they met. No, if anything, she had become even more stunning.

"It would be nice if we could all head to a planet where there's only love."

Reflected in her pale blue eyes was a little piece of their ideal world. He might not have comprehended the circumstances surrounding Lacia completely, but more than ever, Arato wanted to believe that there was a reason that they met.

Even if it was a stretch to call it love, if one could even come to love an object in human form, love was the emotion that kept Arato inexplicably tied to her side.

Love was the reason which brought the boy and his robot together in this future.

Even if her papillon heart was beatless, they could still sculpt the future of this unpredictable world together.

"Just a hundred years ago, something like that would have been socially unthinkable. And it took fifty years after that to reach mainstream consciousness. I'm sure there'll come a time when the relationship you're looking for with Lacia-chan will be normalized."

"I'll make sure to celebrate from my retirement home when that time comes."

"We don't get to choose the world we live in. But we get to choose the choices we make as an individual and as a person."

"Even if someone were to call you a liar and try to hurt you with heartless words, or if the whole world doesn't even attempt to believe in you and tries to put a crown of thorns on your head instead, I'll bear that guilty crown in your place, even if I have to be your only ally. I'll take responsibility and protect you no matter what. I'm your Owner, after all."

He would trust in her smile. He didn't care in the slightest if she was soulless or not.

The rest of the week passed in a flash and before Arato knew it, Sunday had arrived, and with it, Lacia's first job with Fabion MG.

"What kind of sadist sets up an appointment at nine am?" Arato grumbled. "And on a weekend no less." He stifled a yawn as he texted his little sister to remind her to consume the breakfast they'd packed for her in the fridge before they left the Endo apartment that morning.

Although Arato had to admit, the unhappiness he felt at being denied his beauty sleep was partially alleviated by the indulgent experience of being shaken awake by an actual beauty.

"I recommend taking a seat to rest if you so desire, Owner." Said actual beauty suggested. She was dressed for her modeling job, in a chic and slinky indigo one-piece that hugged her figure tightly while a stylish white blazer provided a classy modesty. Black nylon stockings and matching high-heeled stilettos finished her outfit. The clothes came from a package delivered by Fabion MG that had arrived the day before.

With the added height from her new shoes, Lacia's eyes were almost level with his. Arato gulped as he tried to restrain his wandering eyes from staring at the thin line of her smooth neck. She was so beautiful that he felt nervous from just being around her.

They were currently on a train heading towards Yoyogi Station. From there, they would transfer to the Yamanote line before disembarking at Ebisu Station which was located in the Shibuya ward. Lacia's manager had set up a meeting in a coffee shop in the station building itself.

Arato was about to shrug his shoulders and mindlessly accept Lacia's suggestion. That was until he saw an announcement flash across the 3D display of the train's advertising reels.

It was a scrolling text that reminded passengers that the seats in the carriage were solely reserved for the use of humans only and that hIEs were not allowed such a basic right.

"No. I'm good." Arato mumbled as he averted his eyes. For some reason, a sudden rush of shame and guilt was flooding his body. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to meet her pure gaze. It was a strange sensation, to be conscious now of all times of something which had always been a regular part of his life.

Lacia smiled at him. An unreadable, enigmatic sort of expression that did not betray her inner thoughts. Her calculations must have instructed her not to reply, for she did not say a word after that.

She remained silent for the rest of their trip.

When they reached their destination, the subway fare was automatically deducted from his home system through the ID tag on his wrist, and Arato was able to pass through the gate empty-handed. He took a few steps forward before he stopped, realizing that, for some reason, Lacia wasn't by his side as she usually was.

Arato stopped to look for her, only noticing that she was in a queue with other hIEs who were also taking the subway. After scanning their handheld terminal, the gantry opened up with a beep to allow a single hIE through before closing once more. When compared to the smooth efficiency of the system that humans like him were used to, the one that hIEs used seemed almost primitive.

He met her cool gaze, and a smile crossed Lacia's face again. A slighter expression, one that almost seemed bashful, as if she was apologizing for being a burden to him.

Arato felt the familiar sense of shame return, even more intensely than before. As strange as it sounded, Arato felt ashamed as a human who was part of humanity.

They arrived at the Starbucks early for their scheduled meeting. Arato took a seat and caught the attention of an hIE staff, intending to order drinks for both of them. However, Lacia politely refused, insisting that a glass of water would be more than enough for her. After a quick back-and-forth, he managed to haggle Lacia into settling for something on the promotional menu.

"Pick anything you like." Arato felt a rush as the words left him. It was as if he was almost showing off to his date. To his consternation, however, Lacia selected the cheapest item on the list, which happened to be an iced raspberry tea of some sort.

Arato let out a vexed groan. He was starting to suspect it by now, but Lacia could be more devious than what her outwardly servile persona nominally indicated. The hIE waitress bowed and left after she had taken their orders.

He fiddled with his terminal, tapping into the local network and power supply. The coffee shop had wireless power supplies and hotspots available for their customers, but apparently, according to Lacia who helpfully informed him in the manner of a tour guide, the interior decor and service hadn't fundamentally changed in a hundred years. The human staff might have been replaced with robotic ones and the coffee press in front of him might have been automated but everything else remained the same. Time hadn't brought any substantial changes to the timeless art of giving customers a place to relax and drink beverages, and meeting business clients at a coffee shop like this was an equally long-lived custom that remained to this day.

His terminal was connected to his home system and bank account, and it was from there that the bill for the electricity he used was charged. The power that Lacia consumed was too, billed to his account.

Soon enough, the hIE waitress returned with their order, and Arato was then treated to a visual feast that he wasn't quite prepared for. Arato watched as Lacia stirred her iced raspberry tea with a spoon before crossing a sleek, black-stockinged leg that seemingly went on forever. She then tucked a lock of violet hair behind her ear, a graceful motion that resembled a ballerina, and dipped her head lower to insert the thin tube-like straw into her mouth.

Her actions were equal parts refined and erotic. A stream of bright ruby-red fluid was flowing from the straw into her mouth and down her creamy throat.

Arato watched her wordlessly in a trance. His heart was stuck somewhere in his throat. He couldn't even make a noise. All he could do was stare blankly.

When Lacia noticed that she was the reason for his enraptured attention, she smiled at him in the same way a succubus would when presented with a fresh offering. Her pale blue eyes were lidded with a subdued pleasure and her expression was sultry. To Arato, Lacia gave off the impression of an amorous woman inviting a man into her bedchambers.

She swirled the cylinder around her dainty lips and Arato heard a faint whistling sound as Lacia continued to fellate the straw.

With a light, popping sound, Lacia ejected the tube from her mouth. Her glossy lips were coated with a wet fluid. Arato unconsciously gulped as he watched a flash of pink peek out to brush against her soft lips. Lacia was licking up the beverage in a way that aroused him, maintaining eye contact the entire time.

His world was a blurry haze of fading lucidity and rampaging teenage hormones.

"Owner." Arato felt like his heart was about to explode when he heard Lacia suddenly address him.

"Yes!" He burst out in reply. Arato fought to steady himself. He had almost jumped out of his seat and made a fool of himself in the process.

"Are you feeling unwell?" Lacia asked in a monotone. Her face resembled a blank canvas, empty and inscrutable.

"What?" Arato replied somewhat dumbly. He blinked once, then twice, to get a grip on his bearings. Lacia's expression was cool, showing no sign of her previous devilish behavior. He was starting to sincerely doubt his perception of reality. "I must be losing it." He muttered.

Lacia tilted her head and repeated herself, now sounding slightly worried. "Cognitive dissonance is an early symptom of sleep deprivation. Please do try to avoid staying up too much from now on." She pressed her lips together in a way that reminded Arato of a mother lecturing her children.

That being said, it might have merely been a figment of his imagination, but Arato could have sworn that Lacia's cheeks were faintly red.

Arato stumbled over his next words, unsure of the entire situation. Right when he was about to say something, he heard the sound of a throat being cleared. A mature woman in her early thirties was standing before them. She wore a set of neatly pressed business clothing and had light makeup on. From the way she dressed and carried herself, Arato got the impression of a stereotypical OL (Office Lady) from the woman. A youthful assistant in a fluffy outfit and outlandish makeup accompanied her.

The woman who seemed to be Lacia's manager smiled at him, and Arato took this as a sign to introduce himself. His social skills kicked into autopilot, the previous embarrassment he felt quickly fading away into the background.

"So this must be the esteemed Lacia-san. It's a pleasure to meet you." The manager remarked as she compared the hIE in front of her to the image displayed on her pocket terminal. "You really can't beat seeing the real thing in person, huh?"

The sapphire earrings on Lacia shook with a tinkling sound as she let out a gentle laugh at the compliment. Arato just stood there silently, feeling quite similar to how a third wheel would as the OL stared blankly at him. She seemed to be expecting something. After a beat, she explained to Arato who still had no clue what she wanted from him.

"I'll send you our digital business card, so could you bring out your pocket terminal please?" She requested politely.

"Oh." Arato uttered. He blushed when he realized just how out of his depth he was. "Sorry." He apologized as he fumbled for his terminal. "I'm new to these kinds of things."

He activated the address manager on his terminal and authorized the program to automatically exchange their details in response to her terminal's request signal.

As she was tapping at her terminal, the woman used the chance to introduce herself. But, before she could get started, the young assistant beside her snatched the terminal away with a crow of victory.

"Huh?" Arato said. He wasn't following. The young, stylish hIE had just apparently acted of her own volition.

"Surprise!" The assistant snickered at him. "I'm the human one here!" She continued grinning at him even when Arato simply stood there without reacting, still completely lost. While that was going on, his terminal beeped to notify him that the information from the business card data had been automatically saved into his contact list.

"So you're Lacia-chan's Owner, huh?" The young girl, who painted her face with a gauche makeup pattern, bright pink and thick eyeliner all over, squealed as she digested his personal information. "A high-schooler to boot! So young!"

Arato dryly wondered how a girl who looked barely out of high school herself could be a manager for a global fashion company.

"I'm Kisaragi Asuna." The girl introduced herself as a logo belonging to Fabion Media Group appeared on Arato's terminal. "Fabion MG's Planning Department. By the way, if you do happen to be in the market for a partner, I'm single!" She winked at him.

Lacia threw a glance his way as he flushed a deep red at her forward proposition and almost spat out his coffee. He wasn't used to being targeted by a woman with such a direct manner of attack.

Luckily, he was rescued by the professional-looking woman who seemed exasperated at her superior's antics.

"Asuna-sama, please refrain from trying to pick up a minor during company hours." She lectured. "We are on the clock."

Asuna made an overly cutesy gesture including a full-on 'Tee-hee' as she stuck her tongue out at the woman. If he was a cynic, Arato would hazard a guess that Kisaragi Asuna was a woman in denial of her true age. Which meant that she was on the wrong side of twenty, for sure.

Not that he would ever say such a thing out loud, of course.

"If you're Lacia's manager, then who is this?" Arato gestured to the OL who had saved him.

"This is our hIE, Kasumi." Asuna explained. "Unlike your girl Lacia-chan here, she's owned by the company instead of being privately owned."

"Oh, in that case... It's a pleasure to meet you, Kasumi." Arato smiled at the older woman. "I'm Endo Arato."

He immediately flushed again when he heard Asuna let out a guffaw at his earnest introduction.

"You are quite the straightlaced person, Arato-kun. Did anyone tell you that yet?" Asuna grinned. She was obviously a veteran when it came to interacting with clients. "Well, let's take a seat and get right down to business."

Asuna set her terminal to project a holographic image of the same complex document that had Arato mentally waving the white flag when he first saw it. "You're familiar with the terms of the contract, right?" She asked to confirm. "Starting today, Lacia-chan will be working for us as a model. Now, she might be under Fabion MG, but her work orders will be coming directly to you, Arato-kun."

Before he could nod to go along with the flow, Lacia, who had been silent up to that point, spoke up in his stead. "I have explained the terms to my Owner. He is aware of the implications of a proxy labor contract."

Answering a question directed toward him like that, it was times like this when Arato wondered who was the actual Owner between them.

"Oh wow!" Asuna openly gushed for some reason he could not understand. "So she's able to use the secretary cloud as well? As expected!" There was a look of genuine awe on her face. "By the way, we at Fabion MG will be keeping Lacia-chan's specifications secret while she's modeling for us. In that sense, she'll be our mystery hIE model."

"A mystery model?" Arato repeated after her. "Works for me but wouldn't something like that cause any trouble for you guys?"

"Your girl Lacia-chan here is just too expensive of a machine." Asuna explained. "We decided that if we gave out her details, the average person won't be able to form a connection with her. That matters especially when the customers Lacia-chan is targeting happen to be high schoolers and ladies in their twenties, and the last thing we want is to scare them off with the impression that she's on a whole different world from them."

"So she's expensive?" Arato had already heard Kengo mention it before, but he wanted to make sure.

Upon hearing that, Asuna's mouth, which was about to drink from her teacup, paused and popped open in shock. Arato noted that it was a similar reaction to the one Kengo and Ryo had given him when he'd introduced Lacia to them the other day. She returned her teacup to the dish with the sound of clinking porcelain.

She must have been nervous, because Arato saw that the fingers that Asuna used to grip her teacup were shaking a little.

"Honestly, this is the first time I've ever seen a Stylus Supreme-class unit in person." Asuna admitted frankly. "I've heard that around ninety percent of their users are male, though."

So most of Stylus's customers were men, Arato noted darkly. Somehow, he had a pretty good hunch as to why.

"How expensive are we talking here?" He pressed her for more information. It wasn't just to satisfy his curiosity regarding Lacia. Instead, he was thinking two steps ahead. Depending on how Asuna answered, he might need to come up with a suitable excuse. After all, there was just no way he could tell Asuna that he'd just so happened to randomly pick Lacia up from the street.

Asuna pretended to nonchalantly sip from her teacup, using it as an excuse to avoid his piercing gaze. She took a moment to speak, as if she were gathering her thoughts. But when she did, Arato could clearly see that her face looked slightly uneasy.

"Let's put it this way." Asuna said simply. "Even if I were to put my home up for a loan, I probably won't be able to make the down payment for her. And I live in a pretty nice area. Here, allow me to demonstrate. Kasumi, show Arato-kun here your hands." She ordered.

The hIE Kasumi extended an open palm towards Arato. He followed her lead and touched it. Her skin was supple and soft, the exact same texture as a human. If Arato was blindfolded, he would not have been able to tell the difference between the skin of an hIE and a human from touch alone.

"Now the other side, if you would please." Kasumi instructed him as she turned her hand.

He touched it again. This time the feeling of her skin was rough and clammy, a clearly artificial texture of cheap material colored to mimic a human's skin tone.

"That's how they keep costs down on the mainstream and economy models." Asuna informed him. "It's like that for the rest of her frame as well. Not all hIEs are as lucky as your girl Lacia-chan here to come equipped with a full hygroscopic skin cover. It's a rarity even on high-end models. It's almost as if the chief designer at Stylus didn't even take cost limitations into consideration when he made her."

Arato stiffened in his seat. He did not let it show on his face, but a sense of alarm was starting to build up inside of him. Already, his mind was running wild trying to construct a plausible cover story.

Asuna must have noticed the stale atmosphere that was starting to accumulate around them because she smoothly changed topics like a train switching its tracks.

"I took a closer look at the characters in your name, Arato-kun. Your father is Professor Endo, isn't he? Lacia-chan's actually one of his creations, right? I'm just surprised he's allowing you to use her for a frivolity like this." Asuna said as she came to her own conclusions.

Arato thanked the heavens as he found himself saved by divine intervention once again.

"You seem to know a lot about this kind of stuff." Arato exhaled as he dove headfirst into the opportunity provided by the convenient lie. His father was a celebrity in the hIE industry, with his name popping up on TV or the internet every now and then. For the first time in his life, Arato was glad that he shared a name with a public figure.

"I might not look like it, but I actually majored in Psuedo-Human Engineering in university." Asuna puffed out her chest with pride. "Endo Kozo, the pioneer of hIE technology who developed the autonomous systems Matsuri and Inori. I had to write a lot of reports on topics relating to that."

"Sorry." Arato apologized with a wry smile at the one-sided excitement Asuna was displaying. "My father doesn't really talk to me much about his job." He didn't really enjoy discussing his father's work, since it kept him from ever coming home.

"Say, Arato-kun." Asuna changed the subject again. "I noticed you don't have Lacia-chan wear a corporate emblem."

Now that he thought about it, Kengo had mentioned something similar along those lines. According to Kengo, it was odd for Lacia to not have any accessories with the Stylus brand logo emblazoned on her body. Nor were there any brand markings on her special equipment or the bodysuit that she first appeared in.

Arato was about to respond, but he felt a soft warmth rest on top of his hand. Before he knew it, Lacia was again answering for him in his place.

"My Owner is the modest sort and would prefer it if I maintain a low profile." Lacia said before flashing him a loving smile that sent his heart rate spiking. "I, of course, do not mind. His attention is my sole desire."

"Oh ho? I see I see." Asuna was giving off a deep snort of a laugh. "I guess you can't judge a book by its cover, huh? Arato-kun, you're more devious than you seem, messing around with Lacia-chan's settings like that."

"What!? I didn't fiddle with anything at all!" Arato was starting to protest but Asuna carried on with her teasing without paying him any attention.

"You gotta watch out for this one, Lacia-chan." Asuna whispered conspiratorially to Lacia as if they were two schoolgirls at a sleepover. "Guys like him only want one thing."

Arato couldn't help but blush at Asuna's implication. Not that it wasn't completely off the mark to begin with. She had seen right through the base desires of his horny teenage heart.

He turned towards the reliable Lacia for her support in defending him, but she had a sly, mischievous smile planted on her face.

"I do not believe my Owner will give me those sorts of orders." Lacia said dryly.

Arato covered his face with his free hand and let out a pained groan.

"Oh? There's no need to be shy, Arato-kun. You're still a healthy young man at heart." Asuna teased. "As long as you don't release an AV of Lacia on the net, I'm not gonna play gooseberry. Fabion MG still has a vested interest in preserving her image, after all."

"I said I didn't touch anything!" Arato burst out angrily upon hearing Asuna's girlish giggle. "She was already like this from the start!"

The irritating grin on Asuna's face remained for a while longer, until she met his hurt gaze and realized that he wasn't kidding.

"Huh... That's strange. Is it bugged?"

He could hear Asuna mumble in confusion as she gave Lacia another once over. To Arato, her caution reminded him of how Kengo had looked at Lacia the other day.

"Sorry for going too far with the jokes." Asuna apologized. She was shaking her head as if she was clearing something from her mind. "But on a serious note, if her fans see the both of you being a little too friendly once she becomes an hIE model, you might catch some hate from them." She warned sincerely. "Obviously, what you do with your private life is none of our concern, but from the viewpoint of an invested fan, they see the model Owners and their hIE models as having an intimate human relationship."

"That's ridiculous. Lacia isn't some idol." Arato growled.

"Even so, she's a public figure. Just be aware of that." Asuna cautioned as she stared at their linked hands.

Of course, count on the degenerate locals in this country to infect even the modeling industry with their toxic idol culture. Arato thought to himself.

For some reason, the weight resting on his hand felt strangely heavy. But the weight on his hand couldn't compare to the load in his heart created by Asuna's warning.

At sometime around noon, Lacia began her scheduled shoot.

Arato followed her from a distance of about fifty meters behind the production crew, tagging along with Asuna and Kasumi. As they walked down Meji-dori Street towards the direction of Shibuya, Asuna was helpfully filling him in with more information about the company she worked for. Fabion MG was a media group that mainly devoted itself to promoting fashion ads. They had many models under their label, both human and hIE. Along with producing models, they also published magazines about fashion and local flavor. Apparently, since one of the advantages that an hIE model held over a human one was its superior endurance to the cold, which helped when doing fashion shoots of thin summer clothing on chilly days, Lacia's first job would be to promote the trends for this coming summer.

Arato was listening with customary politeness, injecting an "Oh, is that so?" and an "I see." every now and then to avoid tuning her out completely. But his attention was mainly focused elsewhere. The entire time Asuna was droning on, he couldn't help but glue his eyes to the exposed milky-white skin on Lacia's back. She'd ditched her white blazer to show off the short dress in all of its glory. The teenage boy inside him wondered what kind of invisible bra a girl would use when donning a backless dress such as the one Lacia was currently wearing.

A number of drones were floating in the air around Lacia, each of them the size of a sugar cube. They were top-of-the-line, ultra-lightweight cameras. Their job was to capture Lacia from every possible angle and upload the footage to the internet in real-time. A live stream to video broadcasting services around the world, essentially.

Walking down Meiji-dori Street, with the cameras floating around her, Lacia looked like a princess from a futuristic fairy tale. That was if one replaced the classical flock of butterflies with floating mechanical drones.

"Looking good, Lacia-chan." Asuna nodded in appreciation beside him. Apparently, from what she had mentioned earlier, Asuna was responsible for not just Lacia alone, but for a number of models. However, she took the time off from her busy schedule to personally oversee today's shoot considering it was Lacia's debut.

Arato couldn't help but murmur in agreement.

"Notice how everyone's turning to get a better look?" Asuna pointed out. "When you're doing hIE model work, the last thing you want is to keep it all cooped up in a static setting like a digital studio. Best to do it out in the real world where there's some scenery, and turn it into an actual event. That's the way hIE models get people talking, through live stunts instead of a static studio shoot. Besides, even in this day and age, when it comes to the world of fashion, people still prefer to see the real thing in person before purchasing it. By utilizing a model like Lacia-chan here to show off our seasonal promotions in the city, we get to kill two birds with one stone." She finished. "See the way she's walking? It's the job of a model to transform even something as simple as walking into an art form."

Lacia had a refined manner of walking that suited a model. Every now and then, after she had covered a certain amount of light steps, Lacia would pause to pose in a natural way without making it seem too obvious. With just her sheer presence alone, Lacia manipulated the scenery around her into a stage for her performance.

"Incredible." Arato exhaled softly. His heart was pounding in his chest. The high-heel stilettos added an alluring sway to Lacia's movements. It reminded him of the night when he'd first brought her home, in the kitchen. Except this time, she was wearing a minidress instead of a form-fitting bodysuit. The open, strappy heels drew his gaze upwards to a pair of seductive, black-stockinged legs. He was free to examine the entire nylon-clad length of it in detail, from her dainty feet to her sinful thighs, courtesy of her short dress and the thin buckles of her shoes. "She really does look like a real model."

"The custom behavioral cloud that Fabion MG provides, the same one that Lacia-chan is currently tapped into, is basically a huge collection of recorded actions aimed at properly showing off our apparel. That way, even your average hIE can instantly become a professional model without any special modifications." Asuna grinned at him. "But please, feel free to continue saying nice things about it."

Arato couldn't quite share in the same light-hearted vibes that Asuna was giving off. That was because he'd successfully read between the lines.

The actions of an hIE were only possible because they were replaying a previously recorded action of a human. Rather than being truly autonomous like a biological being, hIEs merely mimicked human behavior.

But even knowing that, Arato still felt that there was something special inside of Lacia.

"hIEs possess better stamina than humans, so we're able to give them more complex directions on timings and such." Asuna went on. "You better start to get used to these event-styled shoots, Arato-kun. I think a lot of our directors will be requesting these kinds of events from now on."

Meiji-dori, and it's surrounding avenues were part of Shibuya city. But unlike the chaos of Shibuya itself, Meiji-dori's foot traffic was much lower on average. However, having said that, there were still plenty of people around who were snapping away at Lacia with their pocket terminals.

The production crew were trailing her, close enough that one could spot them if they knew who they were looking for, but still far away to be seemingly invisible. The crewmen were carrying some sort of bulky pack that resembled a mini-fridge on their back. Every now and then, a depleted drone would return to the pack bearer to dock for its charge cycle. This was the compromise made by the design of the ultra-lightweight drones, where the internal battery was miniaturized to its smallest possible extent, to the point such that a fully charged drone could only remain airborne for a period of about fifteen minutes, Asuna informed him, adding at the end that it only took sixty seconds to restore a full charge.

"For this special event, we lifted the usual restriction on photography." Asuna told him. "It's probably going to get real wild once we hit Shibuya."

When he passed by a nearby department store, a huge image of Lacia bloomed on the digital display billboard. It was a real-time video of her walking against the pristine city backdrop. The price of the clothes she was wearing, along with information like the designer and style, were displayed with perfect timing on the video. Arato was so caught up by this sudden influx of information that he didn't notice his vibrating terminal until Asuna nudged him.

"Check out your terminal." Asuna said.

On his terminal, a link appeared in the push notification where the trending news were usually updated. When he accessed the link, he saw Lacia displayed on the 3D display. "Huh?" Arato asked as he zoomed in. "The GPS isn't working."

"Why do you think we took the time to walk all the way from Ebisu to Shibuya?" Asuna said. She had a sly smile on her face like a con artist pulling off a scam. "If we don't give the nearby customers time to gather, there won't be a crowd to begin with. But after the initial crowd forms, it then goes on to exponentially increase in size. Network effect and all that."

"There's more people coming?" Arato looked around and asked. A line was starting to form behind them and further out, people all across Meiji-dori street were stopping to check on their terminals.

"Fabion MG's niche is to aim for locations where we can gather between three thousand and ten thousand people together." Asuna bragged. "Arato-kun, it was your sister who picked us to promote Lacia-chan, right? She made the right choice."

"Ten thousand people!?" Arato almost choked. In an automated world such as theirs, that physical number sounded mindnumbing.

"That's nothing compared to the selling power of the cloud itself." Asuna lectured. "If you consider the number of people watching the live stream online, that figure is probably only 1/100th of the whole sum."

A million viewers. The number was so outrageous that Arato felt like he was in a simulation instead of reality.

In the cloud-based digital age, a huge amount of people were all hooked up to the same service. So, even if a company's product wasn't necessarily unique, they could still secure a large number of sales by controlling the flow of information to their customers with precision. In other words, a large portion of the current economic trends were controlled by the cloud. Arato had heard it brought up passingly on the news.

"Ten thousand people in the same place is quite a sight, you know." Asuna shot him one of her signature grins. "Wanna come see? It's rare to see something like this in this day and age."

It was a rhetorical question for Arato, since he would have come along anyway just for the sake of seeing Lacia. Ten, hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a million people, it would not have changed his burning desire.

"Say, where's Kasumi?" Arato asked, noting that the hIE had managed to give them the slip while they were talking.

"She's with the director, at the liveliest part of the show." Asuna told him. For some reason, her face had softened. When she next spoke, Arato got the feeling that he was hearing her true thoughts. "It's nice and all to have dedicated staff at our company who can work twenty-four hours, seven days a week, whose bodies don't break down or possess the risk of being poached by another organization, but..."

"But...?" Arato elicited from her.

"But honestly speaking, Kasumi's my rival." Asuna made a pained face, as if she was forcing the words out. "To get anywhere in Fabion MG as a human, I have to work twice as hard to gain the trust of our clients when compared to her. People automatically trust hIEs, you know. That's why they rule the customer service industry with an iron fist."

"As an hIE model, could Lacia joining up with Fabion MG push other people out of a job?" Arato asked, the guilt in his chest refusing to let him get away with swallowing that question. Not that it was his fault to begin with of course. After all, it was his little sister Yuka who'd come up with the idea in the first place.

"Arato-kun." Asuna told him in the wise voice of a mature adult. "It's better if you don't think too hard about these kinds of things. None of that stuff matters. Just focus on supporting Lacia-chan from here on out."

Kisaragi Asuna. She was an interesting person, Arato thought to himself as they got closer to Shibuya. The closer they got, the more people were gathering to watch the event.

Lacia was moving crowds, but to Arato, it felt like she was also moving hearts.

From Shibuya proper, Meiji-dori Street ran directly into two layers of the Shuto Expressway and Route 246. In the 22nd century, the region around Shibuya Station had been remodeled numerous times due to the complicated logistics of the area's infrastructure. Currently, a large mezzanine provided access to Meiji-dori Street along with the bus terminals between the street, and the escalator-type footbridge that led to Shibuya Subway Station.

Lacia struck a pose, one sleek hand on her flaring hips, before tapping at her bracelet-style pocket terminal. Moments later, Arato felt his pocket terminal vibrate.

"Owner, are you watching me?" He heard her cool voice from the voice-only call she'd placed to his terminal. From the veranda of a rooftop cafe that Asuna had specially reserved for them, Arato could see Lacia beaming in the distance. A brilliant smile that radiated pleasure and joy.

Even though she was surrounded by people, Arato felt like she was smiling only for him.

Unconsciously, he started to wave back, but Asuna hushed and stopped him mid-way.

"It's one of the poses stored in our custom cloud. That particular one is a Fabion MG special." She said bluntly. "Watch, next she'll turn."

Just like she predicted, Lacia spun smoothly despite the stilettos attached to her feet. The graceful movement made her light violet hair dance in the wind. Even the way her hair settled perfectly back in place seemed suspiciously choreographed as if she was a ballet dancer or an actress in a musical.

A pit was starting to form in his stomach. Arato could feel a weight bearing down on his mind. The way Asuna had predicted Lacia's every move had pierced the psychological veil that he worked so hard to maintain. Now, in regards to Lacia's actions, he just wasn't quite so sure what was real or not anymore, and what was true and what was fake.

And if there was even a person inside that hollow mechanical frame that called herself 'Lacia'.

"If this all works out and Lacia-chan takes off as one of our rising stars, I'll put in a request to the head honchos for a customized cloud just for her personal use." Asuna reassured him, assuming that she had disturbed him judging from the queasy look on his face. "You should definitely look forward to that."

Lacia continued to play the role of the perfect model, not missing a beat even when pedestrians walking out of the Shibuya Station building complex started raising a commotion when they encountered her. Even when hundreds of people were crowding around her to snap photos with their pocket terminals, she merely smiled affably, even taking pose requests from daring individuals.

It had been more than a century since the network and the internet had been a part of everyday life, and in recent decades with increasing levels of autonomation and ever-rising convenience made available to the average person, there weren't many opportunities for crowds of humans to form anymore. Anything that had the ability to move masses of people in this day and age had to be huge, revolutionary even. It was clear that the scene before them was a special event, if not for the simple fact that it moved humans who were used to not being moved. And, just as shoppers who purchased their goods physically rather than having it delivered online, coming outside to see the event gave these people a chance to engage in a whole new mindset.

Every digital display in the vicinity had only a single image on their screen, that of the perfect hIE model Lacia. The hundreds, even thousands of pocket terminals were ringing with the chime of notifications. Like raindrops on a window, it was a ceaseless, rolling sound. The reason for that sound came from the avalanche of promotional coupons for the local stores in the Shibuya shopping scene, a limited-time offer that was valid on that day only. With these coupons being pushed by the brand power of Lacia's image, any customer in the Shibuya area could access these sales.

The power of Fabion Media Group was on full display. This was the high fashion heavyweight label that had thrown their support behind Lacia. This was the group that possessed the capability to physically move ten thousand people, with a million more online.

Leaning on the digital glass railings of the rooftop cafe, looking upon her with a bird's-eye view, Arato felt a pressure begin to clamp and crush at his heart. An elusive wave of sorrow was starting to well in his chest.

Even though she was merely less than half a street away, the distance between them seemed much more than that. Lacia struck him as coming from another world entirely, and Arato felt like he was being left behind.

If Arato was alone, hot tears would have probably been streaming down his face. "Come back to me." He would whisper and plead, as he extended his hand after her. "Don't go to a place where I can't reach you."

But he was not alone, and as such, he held back his true emotions under the simmering lid of his heart.

"Walking straight into a crowd like that, is Lacia going to be alright?" Arato asked, forcing his mind to focus instead on the immediate situation before him.

"If someone is obviously getting in the way of a promotional event in the Shibuya area, the police will put a stop to that, that's the reason you see everyone around Lacia-chan continuing to walk normally." Asuna said. "Once she's past the station to reach the Hachiko statue, we'll be in place for our show's climax."

"This isn't the end?" Arato sighed, a small part of him simply wanted nothing more than to return home with Lacia and relax at this point.

"We got a meeting set up with the winner from the previous year's Grand Prix, Angela, along with Yuri, Fabion MG's top hIE model."

Right on time, just as Asuna revealed the program schedule for the event, Arato heard a loud commotion, well even louder considering there was already plenty of noise to begin with, and hazarded a guess that it was the top model Asuna had mentioned.

He was slowly losing track of his surroundings from all the noise and new information being constantly fed to him, but Asuna had noticed his fading state and gently elbowed him to ground him back to reality.

"It's coming right up, snap out of it Arato-kun. You don't want to miss the special setup we got going at the scramble crossing by the Hachiko exit." Asuna grinned at him. "It's the entire point of this event, after all."

Arato allowed himself to be dragged by his shirt by the shorter girl for a few meters until he finally shook himself out of his daze. For once, he understood Asuna's excitement. It would have been a lie to say that he didn't want to see Lacia as well. They took the stairs down from the cafe they were in with Asuna bounding down two, sometimes three steps at a time. She reminded him of Yuka with the way she rushed.

Chasing after the sprinting girl, Arato yelled out apologies left, right, and center as they cut across the mass of humanity to reach the Hachiko statue. Thanks to the growing crowd, they had drifted quite a ways from Lacia. If they didn't hurry, they would miss out on the climax of the show.

The digital billboards on the surrounding buildings were all displaying a girl with dark green hair in a fashionable bob cut. Arato recalled seeing her before a couple of times on TV. Her name was Yuri, Fabion MG's number one model.

The Hachiko statue was right outside the station building. The exit it covered, which was one of the five exits leading out of Shibuya station, had come to be informally called the Hachiko Exit by the locals. On the statue itself, which had been destroyed and reconstructed once in the past, a cute girl with long blonde locks was leaning on the statue's pedestal. She gave off an aura of youthful, almost childlike joy and love as she waved at Lacia who returned the gesture with one of her signature beaming smiles.

Arato guessed that the girl Lacia was interacting with as if they were long-lost best friends was Angela, the winner of the previous year's Grand Prix. The instant they made contact, another girl standing at the northeast corner of the diagonal road crossing turned to look at them with perfect timing. Her deep, verdant green hair shone as she spun in a dance. Though her frilly gothic-styled dress showed quite a lot of skin, she made it look refined from the way she wore them. All eyes were on her as she glided towards the model duo.

Even to someone like Arato, who only had eyes for Lacia, he could objectively figure out why someone like Yuri was Fabion MG's top model. She was simply attractive in a conventional sense, although he still felt that Yuri lacked the supernatural, almost sublime beauty of Lacia herself.

That and from what he could tell, Lacia possessed the nicer rear between the both of them, not that he would ever mention it out loud, for obvious reasons.

Following behind Yuri was a large crowd of high school-aged human girls, who Arato could easily tell apart from their regular, healthy bodies that couldn't hold a candle to Yuri's unrealistically sleek proportions. From the way they each wore accessories that matched with Yuri's, Arato guessed that they were probably the inner circle of her fan club or something.

Lacia and Angela walked towards the newcomer hIE model, as if they had planned out this meeting all along, which to Arato who knew about this event from the production side, was an obvious script prepared in advance.

As the three hIE models each moved from their respective corners of the scramble crossing to meet in the middle, the lights of the pedestrian walking signals all turned green in perfect synch. The traffic lights which controlled the flow of vehicles into the Shibuya scramble crossing, turned red in all four directions, and from out of nowhere, large automated trailer trucks emblazed with the Fabion MG logo parked themselves at each corner of the crossing. The shutters on the trailers opened up to reveal an expensive-looking sound system.

Music then began to swell loudly from the trucks, and the displays of every single building that made up the urban jungle of the Shibuya district lit up to display a Fabion MG watermarked stream of the event. At that moment, Fabion MG had transformed the Shibuya scramble crossing, the busiest pedestrian intersection in the entire world, into a stage solely for the purpose of the performance of the three hIE models.

The crowd watched as if they were under a hypnotic spell as the three hIEs slowly glided towards the middle of the scramble. In the background, a female announcer was introducing each of the three models in turn.

Then, out of nowhere, even though no signal or direction was given, everyone at the crossing stopped walking.

"What's going on?" Arato asked but was shushed down by Asuna beside him.

The three hIE models traced the lines on the roads to follow the pedestrian crossing out into the street. Each of them appealing to the crowd in their own unique way. Yuri, who hummed and waved to the people around her. Angela, who grinned with childish fascination.

And finally, Lacia, who flashed dazzling smiles at the humans around her.

Perhaps it was a plan by the director, but the trailers at the intersection began to project flashing holographic images of each hIE model in turn. Arato felt his terminal vibrate. There was a poll asking him to rate his favorite hIE model. He rolled his eyes and cast his vote for Lacia, ignoring Asuna's sly grin the entire time. After a few moments, the holographic images started to focus on Yuri, Fabion MG's top model, with the newcomer hIE model Lacia getting slightly less screentime, and Angela who only appeared every half minute or so.

"Of course Yuri's gonna win. Just recently no one has ever heard of Lacia." Arato growled, feeling quite defensive all of a sudden. "What kind of rigged competition is this?"

Asuna gave a throaty laugh as she consoled him.

"Give it six months and your girl Lacia-chan is going to have the entire fashion world at her mercy." She had a strange sort of passion glinting in her eyes. "This one's different, I can feel it."

As the event went on, the impressions of the hIE models steadily grew with everyone, and soon each person felt a strong connection stirring within them. They began to feel like they had been fans of these models since long ago, the oddly appealing mismatch between the three hIEs serving as a stimulus to their fascinations.

Arato too, was feeling it. Even though he was the only person among the crowd who possessed actual experience interacting with Lacia herself. For some reason, the more he stared at her, the more a sense of deep satisfaction continued to fill his body.

When the time came for Lacia's turn to be the focus on the large display, the upbeat techno track hit a climax. When she saw the image of herself displayed along with the customized subtitle he'd penned for her, both the soundtrack and the choice of words being left up to him as Asuna suggested, the edges of her eyes crinkled in pleasure and happiness.

Lacia scanned the crowd for him. It did not take long for her to find him. When their eyes met, she gave him a smile overflowing with pure, sweet affection. So much so, that his heart was moved.

Her lips shifted.

Lacia was saying something, but even though she was too far away for him to hear her, Arato felt like he could discern her heartless voice perfectly.

Reflected in her pale blue eyes was a little piece of their ideal world. He might not have comprehended the circumstances surrounding Lacia completely, but more than ever, Arato wanted to believe that there was a reason that they met.

Even if it was a stretch to call it love, if one could even come to love an object in human form, love was the emotion that kept Arato inexplicably tied to her side.

Love was the reason which brought the boy and his robot together in this future.

Even if her papillon heart was beatless, they could still sculpt the future of this unpredictable world together.

This was their Dreaming Shout, broadcast for all to hear.

Arato smiled at her, and she received his wordless message that he understood her inaudible words. From then on, Lacia reverted into the role of the perfect model for the rest of the show. She made a seamless transition after her little pause and joined the other two hIEs in synchronizing their individual movements into a melodious harmony in tune with the thumping music.

Before he knew it, the chorus had ended and Lacia became another pedestrian again as she led the procession towards the side of the old Seibu department store. Left behind, Arato could only watch as the other two hIE models also started going their own way, with the associated crowd of fans that identified the most with them.

Yuri headed into the 109 Fashion building with a natural walk. The floating drones chased after her petite back. Arato had to physically stop his body from autopiloting into following, unlike the majority who weren't so self-conscious. The perfect expressions and actions of each beautiful model were so unnerving that it almost made Arato forget himself for a moment. For a short period of time, he almost felt like a shambling zombie.

The others who didn't hold themselves back, which was quite a large crowd, followed Yuri into forming a line of customers outside of the 109 Fashion Building.

"What the heck?" Arato said out loud. "What was that feeling just now?"

The feeling of being unknowingly drawn towards something, and the subtle loss of control. Arato looked around him. Even though the performance was over, there was still a rowdy, festive mood in the air. The Shibuya shopping scene was churning with activity. All the shops around him, small and large were still overflowing with customers who were looking to redeem their promotional coupons. Even now, impromptu mini-events were being organized on the spot by quick-thinking merchants pouncing on this rare opportunity. To Arato, the entire thing resembled a holiday season sale, where customers were the ones looking to spend their cash carelessly on whichever product that caught their fancy and merchants were the ones struggling to keep up with the turnover.

That was when Arato realized as a gaggle of chattering teen girls pushed past him. Now that he remembered, Asuna mentioned that Lacia's target demographic was girls from high school age up to around twenty-five. It came to his mind because Arato found himself completely surrounded by said demographic at that moment.

He tried his best to meditate calmness in his mind, but his body still shivered as if it was about to break out in a sweat. There were young girls everywhere as far as the eye could see. To make matters worse, they were packed tightly around him in a crowd, and he was stuck right in the middle of a sea of female bodies. Their soft forms were pushing and pressing against him and Arato felt as if he was being tossed around in a wave of pheromonic humanity.

Right when he was about to snap and simply make a break for it, Arato felt an arm roughly yank him out of the womanly quicksand that he'd gotten stuck in.

"What's wrong with everyone!?" Arato complained to his savior. That was when it hit him, and he finally realized what was bothering him this entire while. "Why does no one seem to care that the models are hIEs? They're reacting like the girls are human models."

Asuna, who was still wiping her brow with a pocket tissue, panting slightly from the effort required to drag a boy heavier than she was, said. "It's an Analog Hack."

"What!?" Arato yelled. He could barely hear Asuna over the noisy crowd around them.

"Analog Hack!" Asuna yelled back at him. "It follows the idea that hIEs don't place the same meaning on their actions the same way humans do, even though they look like us. It's because we humans are prone to looking for patterns and meaning behind human or human-like actions, so we get stuck in this gap of convincing ourselves that hIE actions actually have meaning. This allows a security hole in our consciousness to be created. Thus, when an hIE performs a calculated action that optimizes the response towards a human in pursuit of their objectives, they tap into this hole to bypass the usual defensive tools that our mind puts forward in such situations."

Asuna went on as they started walking away towards a less crowded spot to relax.

"If a random human approached you on the street to tell you that they needed some money for their sick mother, naturally, you would be suspicious, right? It's a common scam, after all. But if it was an hIE repeating the same request for their Owner, obviously you would trust the hIE right away, because the hIE is a 'human-looking object' instead of an actual 'human'. So when realizing that, some scheming folks out there build hIEs, then program them as such so that humans will like them and let their guard down. That way, they create the opening which they then use to manipulate people." She went on. "Now, there are multiple schools and debates regarding whether this counts as human-to-human manipulation with the hIE serving as an intermediary or an object-based manipulation directly by the hIE as the object in question, but that's a story for another day."

"Wow." Arato could only utter that single word in comparison to Asuna's verbose thesis. "You really did major in Pseudo-Human Engineering." He deadpanned. It was the only thing he could come up with.

"Of course I did!" She narrowed her eyes at him defiantly. "Even for someone like me who recognizes it for what it is, it's still difficult to defend against analog hacking, you know. Constantly trying to crush a security hole in your consciousness is an endless labor in itself because one starts to see things that aren't there. In human society, the only humans who are able to consistently deflect analog hacks are those with an incompletely developed sense of cognitive ability, because hIEs aren't able to properly communicate with humans who are forced to utilize a language incorporating a limited amount of communication ability. Therefore, if a regularly developed person begins to doubt said security hole too much, they'll soon find that their connection required to properly function in human society will start to erode until it eventually falls below the minimum support levels."

What Kisaragi Asuna was alluding to was the inability for hIEs to properly communicate with mentally disabled humans. It seemed that even the supposedly perfect hIEs had a limit to their seemingly limitless capabilities in replicating human behavior.

"A good friend of mine warned me that Lacia shouldn't be trusted." Arato asked warily. "I just want to know if he's telling the truth."

"Arato-kun, your girl Lacia-chan makes a calculated decision to use her form as a human to get people to move off what they assume is their own accord." Asuna told him. "If you were to look at it from that perspective, you could say she hacks human society itself."

He took a while to ponder her words. In the meantime, Arato took the time to carefully look at the world around him. In this part of Shibuya, there were a large amount of customer service shops run by hIEs, and he could see many human couples in these stores where they were happily enjoying their discounted dates provided by the coupons from Fabion MG. Thanks to that, he knew right off the bat that what Asuna previously said was a lie to cover up for Fabion's deception.

"Lacia wasn't the one who analog hacked those people today." Arato said simply. "That was you and your company."

"That's true." Asuna admitted honestly without any malice in her voice. "That's just what models do. But even if it's deception, I still feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when everyone follows our lead so easily."

In the end, Arato found himself slumped on a bench on Bunkamura-dori Street, just outside of the Tokyu department store chain where Lacia had been assigned to promote Fabion's offerings. He was exhausted, both from the earlier lecture from Asuna and from being forced to repeatedly swim in human waves just to keep up with following Lacia around.

The both of them had stopped for a much-needed break outside the aged building, which had remained the same ever since its renovation in the 21st century.

"Good job today, Arato-kun." Asuna praised him.

Arato nonchalantly waved her off as he used a straw to break the safety seal on his multivitamin jelly pouch. There was still too much traffic crowding around Lacia for them to approach her. In a way, he was glad for this break. It gave him the opportunity to compose himself. Despite his desire to see Lacia, Arato felt that if he'd been dropped in front of her in his current condition, he would have been at a loss for words. It was a similar sensation to the afterglow of a concert, where one was still coming down from the adrenaline rush.

Across the street, the front of the Tokyu department store had another crowd gathering to stare at Lacia. The teen girls which had made up most of the previous crowd had already proceeded inside the store to browse Fabion MG's wares, so the current group surrounding Lacia was now mostly made up of older men.

"It would be nice if we could all head to a planet where there's only love." Arato mused.

"If you don't tell her your feelings, all you'll do is just continue to aimlessly drift." Asuna must have had caught him staring at Lacia, for he heard her say quietly from beside him. She was looking at her too. "It's better to make things clear if you can." She advised in her adult voice.

Of course Asuna had figured out his feelings, she would have been blind not to notice. In the first place, he hadn't been going out of his way to be terribly subtle when he picked the tagline for Lacia's introduction.

Arato watched a human couple depart from a nearby cafe. They were holding hands and laughing. The taller of the two, a lanky man in casual, stylish clothes, smiled as he interacted with his partner, who seemed a little older than him. The couple stopped at a pedestrian crossing and waited as the light was still red.

After a couple of seconds along with whispered words he couldn't make out, Arato watched the two men lean closer in for a kiss. A natural and romantic action that seamlessly blended in with the world around them.

"Hey, did you know?" Asuna gave off a watery sigh as she observed the couple with him. "Just a hundred years ago, something like that would have been inconceivable from a social standpoint, and it took fifty years after that to reach mainstream consciousness."

Asuna paused, looking towards him to gauge his reaction regarding the nature of the sensitive topic she was broaching. Seeing his nonchalant and slightly cool face as an approval, she continued.

"The value set of human society isn't set in stone. It evolves over time as the human race progresses. If we had the chance to talk to someone from the early parts of the twenty-first century, they would probably seem alien to us, as we to them. Just like that couple, I'm sure there'll come a time when the relationship you're looking for with Lacia-chan will be normalized."

"Yeah. I'll make sure to celebrate from my retirement home when that time comes." His voice was filled with acrid sarcasm. The objective, rational part of his mind recognized that Asuna was going out of her way to comfort him, but at the moment, his childish impulses wanted nothing more than a chance to blow off some steam.

"We don't get to choose the world we live in. But we get to choose the choices we make as an individual and as a person." Asuna told him. "We should count ourselves lucky. In the past, for a period of time, the people in this country weren't allowed even that fundamental right."

"But, at the very least, the people in the past could comfort themselves knowing that the other party was still a human." Arato shot back. The Morinaga that he'd been drinking from now lay ignored on the bench. It had been crushed. "At the bare minimum, there was still an element of human dignity involved."

Asuna shook her head. "Humans are more than capable of discarding other humans if the situation calls for it. Not because we're humans, but it is exactly for that reason our capacity for cruelty as a species remains limitless." She fixed her brown eyes on him, the apology on her face apparent even if she didn't come out and directly say it. "No matter what, Arato-kun, we still live in a free society. It might not be readily accepted, but at the same time, it's not illegal to fall in love with an object."

Arato rose from the bench. The sun was setting and the crowd around the Tokyu department store entrance was thinning out. Every now and then he could see a flash of violet, almost silvery hair from the gaps that appeared.

Asuna's words had touched him deeply, but the weight of the Hinomaru on his back surpassed that and washed her comforting words away in a ruthless wave. In response to her words, Arato dug deep right into his core and went on to discard the vapid persona that was necessary to maintain regular operations in civilized, human society.

The fabricated tatemae was cast aside, and the next time he answered, it wasn't as Endo Arato, the conventional, image-conscious citizen who regurgitated his structured, front-stage response, but rather he spoke as Endo Arato, the actual human beneath the dramaturgical mask.

"In a screwed-up country like this, it might as well be the same thing." Arato spat. The heat in his voice matched the heat on his face. He left Kisaragi Asuna behind as he went to collect his cardinal sin.

She did not follow.

"I'm still wondering if it was the right call to reject Fabion's offer like that." Arato said.

The evening was already upon them by the time Lacia's work had finished wrapping up. A company car from Fabion MG had driven them all the way to Shin Koiwa Station which allowed them to skip the subway ride back home. It was a blessing in disguise, for Arato wanted to take the time during the walk back home to finally have a proper conversation with Lacia.

"Such a thing is not necessary." Lacia replied. She was carrying a cloth bag filled with clothes she had modeled in that day. "hIE frames are a conglomeration of sensors. If a security hIE was near me for an extended period of time, they would be able to discern personal information affiliated with you, Owner."

Fabion MG had offered to provide Lacia personal security as part of their standard benefits package for their contracted models, but Lacia had turned the offer down of her own accord before he could accept for her.

"Well, it's not like they're going to use that information to do anything bad with it." Arato said.

He winced internally as Lacia stared at him with expressionless pale blue eyes. For some reason, Arato felt like he was being silently reprimanded.

"The harvested data would be transmitted to a security company." Lacia said bluntly.

The answer she gave puzzled him. But right as Arato was about to ask, he recalled the night of their meeting. At that time, he'd been pursued by an unknown assailant and he'd gotten Lacia involved right off the bat as soon as she met him. And he remembered how Lacia had been evasive regarding the circumstances of her origins whenever he tried to press her. Somehow, Arato doubted that Lacia placed much trust in security companies.

But still, his mind went back to the last conversation he had with Kisaragi Asuna, as she tried to convince him to reconsider Fabion's offer for security.

"Altercations involving models and extreme fans happen every so often, with hIE models having a higher probability of such cases." He remembered Asuna pulling him to a corner and warning him. She was telling him all about the dangers of analog hacking. "That's one of the downsides of analog hacking. When jobs and actions are paired with a human shape, people tend to carelessly interpret them in a certain way."

The first thing he asked Asuna at that time was of course, about Lacia.

"You couldn't tell me this before?" Arato remembered nearly growling at the shorter woman with a bitter look on his face like he'd been taken for a scam.

"It doesn't happen that often." Asuna insisted, looking a bit sheepish. She glanced around them surreptitiously to make sure no one was listening in before continuing. "For us humans, our brain processes our sense of sight faster than our ability to register meaning to what we're seeing before us. We can be instinctively moved by what we see even before we consciously think about it, and analog hacking works by targeting that specific gap in our perception."

She was saying all this while making an 'X' gesture with her hands on her chest. Apparently, she wanted all of this to be private talk between them. Everything off the record, so to speak.

"Even if we at Fabion are only using analog hacking for business purposes, our users assign meanings and stories to what they see on their own. And sometimes, these thoughts turn into immoral fantasies that run wild in the user's mind. Every so often, these thoughts build up in a particularly vulnerable user until they overflow and cause them to act on their fantasies. Of course, the standard defense these users fall back on when they're charged with a crime is that hIEs are just objects. It doesn't fly in the courts, but they never fail to parrot it anyway."

The words that were coming out of Asuna's mouth disturbed Arato greatly. It felt like he was entering a dark underground world that he wasn't accustomed to.

"So what you're saying is, just because Lacia isn't a human, these deviants are more likely to be unrestrained in their actions towards her?"

Asuna must have seen the serious look on his face because Arato recalled her rushing to reassure him.

"Don't worry!" Arato remembered her saying. "We take good care of our models! The safety of our employees is our number one priority!"

Despite her confidence, Arato couldn't stop his stomach from churning.

"But let's keep that contact open, just in case anything dangerous happens." Arato answered Lacia as his mind returned to the current time.

The evening air around them was cool, and Arato hardly broke a sweat from walking. They paused before a crossing, waiting for the light to turn. A 3D display beside the traffic light informed them of the exact moment of the switch, down to the second.

An awkward silence passed between them.

"You were really amazing today, Lacia." Arato said, a little too quickly, a little too loudly. He kicked himself for the obvious faux pas. Her white blazer was back on and she wasn't revealing as much skin as during the shoot, but Arato still felt nervous from being around her. Even though she was the same Lacia as before, his innate inferiority complex made him tense up around her as he felt a new distance open up between them after the day's events. "Makes me wonder if you'll just keep climbing higher after this." Arato let out a nervous laugh.

"I have not changed at all." Lacia insisted. She had a gloomy look on her face that made his heart twitch.

A gentle spring breeze brushed over them. It was cold, reflecting the state of their current relationship. He heard a soft rustle, and the hairs on his skin began to rise from an electrifying static.

"I have not changed." She repeated close to him, in an almost girlish pout. Lacia had shifted in a way that brought her body close, nearly pressing, against his.

Arato fidgeted, and then drew in a deep breath. At this distance, he could take in the entirety of her scent. She smelled sweet and good, like a woman.

"Perfume?" Arato asked after he took another breath to confirm the flowery fragrance. His mind was spinning. Whenever Lacia was beside him, she never failed to dominate his entire spectrum of senses.

"The latest summer range from Chanel." Lacia informed him demurely. A shy blush was creeping up her cheeks. "Do you like it?"

Arato swallowed thickly. He felt his own cheeks heating up at her perfect response.

"It suits you well." Arato said honestly. He would have preferred to have said something suaver to a girl like her but it was the best he could come up with. "But I think everything's good on you so there's no surprise there."

The danger that had been following them seemed so distant now, after nothing of note had happened ever since that night where he'd met her. They'd walked together a couple of times before this, and Arato was starting to ease into a familiar rhythm in regards to their interactions. Looking back on this moment, to Arato, he'd already come around to start thinking of Lacia as a fundamental part of his daily life, to the point where he had trouble remembering what life was like before meeting her.

Lacia remained silent but continued to blush. She was fidgeting and fiddling with her handbag in a way that made Arato self-conscious. The sense of awkwardness had begun to return.

The light turned green, and Arato made to quickly move away from her, unable to endure the suffocating atmosphere any longer, but Lacia caught onto his sleeve and stopped him.

"Are you distancing yourself from me?" She was shyly tugging at his shirt, the unhappy pout on her face setting his heart on fire.

"Well, you heard what your manager said." Arato shook his head to clear his mind from any further indulgent thoughts. "It'll cause a lot of trouble if your fans saw us getting along too well. Rumors are bound to fly, especially since I'm your Owner and all. Besides, you're a famous model now, Lacia, I can't be hogging you all to myself."

Even as he put forth his points, Arato already knew that he was trying to reason with himself more than her. On some deeper level, he was still hesitant as a human to take Lacia up on her artificial advances.

Lacia laughed, in the same melodious way that had come to delight him whenever he heard it as she brushed her hand sleekly through her light violet hair. Arato recognized the motion. It was the exact same movement that she'd used as a model in the show earlier today.

Bathed in the moonlight which illuminated her, Lacia was as beautiful as the day they met. No, if anything, she had become even more stunning.

"If the fact that I gave a show for everyone disturbs you, Owner." Lacia flashed him a dazzling smile filled with so much pearly white he almost went blind. She leaned closer to him and proceeded to douse his ears in liquid honey. "Then I shall give you a private show when we return home."

The road from Shin Koiwa Station to his home was the same as always, but with Lacia by his side, it transformed into a magical location from a fairy tale.

However, the peaceful illusion was soon shattered when they arrived on a street close to their apartment. There, Arato was treated to a sight he did not see often, especially not this close to his home.

"Huh?" He asked out loud at the crowd of people that had formed. There was a pair of police cars parked on the street and he could see police officers in uniform stretching out luminous tape around the area that read 'CRIME SCENE. DO NOT ENTER.' When they'd finally reached the scene proper, Arato picked out the most reasonably friendly-looking person he could find among the crowd and directed his queries to him.

"Apparently, another hIE got busted up." The middle-aged salaryman said. Arato tipped his toes to try and get a better view, but he was too far back to get a proper look.

"But how come the police are making such a big deal of it this time?" Arato asked. His mind went back to the time when he found a broken hIE arm on the way home from school. Back then, no one around him had made a fuss or even reacted strangely to it at all.

"Beats me." The man shrugged, and then went back to updating his social media page on his pocket terminal, the conversation between them clearly coming to an end.

On reflex, Arato glanced at the girl beside him. Unlike at that time, Lacia was around. She was someone who Arato felt he could count on in a pinch. So clearly, he was safe.

He was clearly safe. But for some reason, Lacia's presence only made Arato more worried.

It was like danger and dangerous situations had a bad habit of only appearing around her.

The tension around the scene was so heavy Arato felt goosebumps break out on his skin. There were even news crews in place with their camera drones.

That was when Arato realized the reason which caused his body to react that way.

"Hey." He said out loud. "How come there's an ambulance here this time? Police cars too. This is completely different from how they treated that other case."

Arato referred to the time when he had reported the torn arm to the authorities. Everyone from the police down to his friends had treated it like he'd stumbled onto a troubling piece of trash.

When Lacia next spoke, it finally dawned on him, the true reason behind society's intense response to this particular crime scene.

"This time, a human Owner was injured." Lacia answered his question coolly. Her pale blue eyes were blank. There was no more of her previous warmth to be found. She had become a soulless machine in every aspect. "Three adult males exited a large white vehicle in this area, and attempted to abduct a female hIE. The hIE's Owner accompanying her put up resistance to the perpetrators. As a result, the Owner was beaten and received minor injuries that are projected to be healed within the week."

Never before, had Arato felt such burning shame in his life. It ran hot through his veins and made his face flush red.

"People only take things seriously if a human is involved. It shouldn't be this way, Lacia." Arato apologized quietly. Even though it wasn't his fault, Arato still felt like he had to say something on behalf of the selfish species he found himself a part of.

Of course, he should have seen this coming, Arato chided himself. After all, hIEs were machines and thus they weren't deemed as important as humans. It was a status quo that everyone accepted automatically without question. But to Arato, this kind of distinction was wrong.

Lacia's blue eyes softened in pleasure and she smiled gently at him. Her approachability levels were opening up again and warmth was quickly returning to her form. Somehow, Arato couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just passed a test of some sort.

"Do not worry. The hIE is also in good condition." She informed him kindly. Lacia had already reminded him multiple times that she didn't possess any feelings, but from the way she smiled at him, Arato felt that she was radiating genuine happiness from her current form.

He was about to ask her how did she come across such details when information about the current incident before them had not even been released on the trending section of his pocket terminal. But Arato stopped himself from pushing that question to Lacia. It might have made him come across as uncool to nitpick the little things right now.

Besides, he'd gotten a rough idea how she had obtained such information, anyway. Don't ask, don't tell, as one might say.

"We are being recorded." Lacia warned him, out of the blue.

Arato looked around him in a panic trying to find the source of her warnings. He found it in but a few moments. A female hIE police officer was looking their way. Her empty, soulless eyes were fixed on them. It was common practice for hIEs to make recordings of a visual and audio sort of their surroundings, but the police specifically used recordings of their hIEs to check for suspicious activity and persons in the immediate area of a crime scene.

Even though he did not commit a crime and there was nothing to feel guilty about, Arato couldn't help but be on edge the moment Lacia's warning about being recorded came through.

Suddenly, Arato heard a loud click of a tongue. It was so sharp and annoyed that it sounded like a gunshot.

"Please stand back." He heard the female hIE officer say. "Please do not touch the tape."

"The hell!?" Arato watched a young man raise his voice at her. Apparently, the man had accidentally pushed against the police tape and was about to apologize, until he found out the person he was apologizing to was an hIE. From there, he proceeded to lose his temper. "Stop giving us orders, you shitty hIE! Know your damned place!" After that exchange, he roughly shoved past Arato and left the crowd.

"Owner." Arato heard Lacia address him. She looked like she'd picked up on something. "Should I consider the animosity demonstrated by that man just now to be a normal response? I have analyzed all statements made by him recently. Such an individual should have had sufficient information and awareness to realize that the officer there was an hIE."

"Huh? If he knew, then why did he react like that?" Arato asked in confusion.

"That man was misled by the image of a police officer projected by the hIE. He only followed her instructions because he thought she was human. In other words, he was analog hacked. However, once he realized that he had been hacked, he displayed his anger."

"That makes sense." Arato said, while not really understanding. The explanation Lacia had given was a tad too high-level for him. It wasn't at the level where he had trouble grasping the gist of it but it was still high enough that Arato knew better than anyone that thinking too deeply about something like this would only serve to give him a headache. That said, Lacia was still talking, and he kinda liked the sound of Lacia's cool voice. With that flawed, simplistic logic, he continued to pay attention to her words.

"As an hIE model complicit in analog hacking, do you think I risked creating enemies like that man over there through the hacking I utilized?" Lacia asked, looking downcast.

A familiar specter flashed before his eyes, and a flicker of a woman appeared. One with a pure and gentle face that he'd come to love more than anything.

For a single moment, Arato froze. He recognized the look on Lacia's face. It was the same look 'she' had given him before the fateful explosion that had changed his life. He would never forget that expression of deep regret and longing.

Something caught tightly in his chest and his lungs felt like they could collapse at any moment. Arato couldn't put a name to the feeling welling up in his chest, but he could clearly remember the promise he'd made, not just to himself, but to 'her'. His heart was jammed somewhere in his throat, but the words from his chest released themselves even without him thinking. He was simply being driven on by a heartfelt desire to protect the girl in front of him.

"If there comes a time when someone accuses you of telling lies and tries to hurt you with their heartless words or judging eyes, and even if the whole world turns on you and won't believe in a word you say, I will. Even if they try to put a crown of thorns on your head instead, I'll bear that guilty crown in your place, even if I have to be your only ally. I'll take responsibility and protect you no matter what. I'm your Owner, after all."

The impromptu speech came straight from his heart. Seeing the worried expression on Lacia's face had sparked something deep inside of him and he wanted to allay her fears, even if it was a little bit, even though he knew that she had no heart to tremble.

Arato was starting to understand. In this warped society, not everyone treated hIEs well, with some going so far as to despise them. Arato could feel their hate, their animosity, their enmity, all of their negative feelings towards hIEs surging around the crime scene like an endless black pool of acrimony.

The warnings left by his close friends Ryo and Kengo were crushed underfoot. It might have been the earlier conversations with Asuna, or the evidence of the twisted society right in front of his eyes but Arato felt like it was time he stepped up and did the manly thing. He would go all in and extend his hand to this girl, even if she wasn't 'her', no matter how much he wanted Lacia to be.

"Even if the world hates you, I'll stand in front and apologize on your behalf. That's the role of an Owner that I can take up easily, even if it's someone as powerless as me." Arato told her. Lacia might have been soulless, but Arato felt like just as she had moved him, he could move her.

Lacia was mysterious and elusive, surreal and fae-like. Running hot and cold at the same time. Paradoxically, the more time he spent with her, the less he felt he knew about her. But nothing like that mattered anymore. Arato would throw it all away.

He would trust in her smile. He didn't care in the slightest if she was soulless or not.

The heartfelt declaration had taken more out of him than he'd expected. But as the last words left him, that was when Arato finally noticed the reaction that had been slowly creeping on her face ever since he'd begun his speech.

Lacia was smiling.

This was nothing new. He had seen her smiles countless times by now.

But this one, this smile, was different.

It was a new expression he'd never seen before on her face.

He recognized it, the unique smile.

It was an ominous smile of someone intoxicated with delight.

Her icy blue eyes were lidded in a dark, heady pleasure.

They resembled the half-moons of a devil.

When combined as a whole, Lacia gave off a drunken air of affection and delight.

She looked like she was about to kiss him.

It should have been a positive reaction, but a small, primal part deep inside Arato was warning him that the expression on the girl's face was dangerous. And that he'd just committed the greatest of all cardinal sins.

The correct answer doesn't always lead to the correct outcome. Those were words that he'd said so himself, but at that moment, the warning bells in his mind were ringing.

He couldn't explain why. But if Arato had to put his finger on it, using the cold beads of sweat that rolled down his spine as a direction. It felt as if he had betrayed something fundamental to his race.

The waves of pure love that Lacia was sending his way, when paired with the faraway look in her brilliant azure eyes, to Arato, somehow resembled the distant affection of an Owner looking at their beloved pet from above.