ã€ŠSing A Song Of Circuitsã€‹


 Chapter One

    The Syren I ordered off Marketplace was the first package I''d ever gotten without tracking, which should''ve been a red flag from the get-go. But I was so caught up in the euphoria of getting a singing android at a tenth of the market value, I skipped asking ¡°Why is a ¡®nearly new¡¯ 5th Edition Syren up for sale on Marketplace for the price of a fancy calculator?¡± and went straight to ¡°Is this still available???¡± Even though the fancy-calculator price still put a dent in my very limited savings.

    And when the seller insisted we switch to Signal after the first conversation, I didn''t think too much of it because I usually used Signal for conversations anyway. But when they told me the package would be delivered between 11 pm and midnight on Tuesday and that I had to be ready to grab it from my front door before anyone else could see it, that''s when I started worrying.

    I mean, no one gets arrested for pirating software, right? Not unless you''re, like, really intense about it. But buying a robot that was stolen, or jailbroken or whatever? Now that might be a little dicey.

    So when I heard the thump of the package outside my front door on Tuesday at 11:23 P.M, my heart dropped into my stomach. Even though I was still pretty excited to get a droid of my own. A real, artificial Syren! All to myself! I didn¡¯t know anyone else with an actual Syren in their house, not personally.

    I got on my tiptoes to look through the peephole, but whoever had delivered it already left. Angelica, my Kittipet cat-shaped alarm clock/calendar bot, swished around my legs in a preprogrammed rhythm when a real cat might¡¯ve been tempted to dart outside to get a better look. My mom got her for me as a birthday gift a few years ago, a not-so-subtle hint for me to get my shit together.

    The beige-painted metal door of the apartment to the left of mine opened, and Mrs. Pastyukovich stuck her head out. She was wearing a robe over her nightgown and a scowl on her face. ¡°Odessa, we¡¯ve talked about you having late-night guests, and the noise you¡¯re always making in your room. It quite disturbs my sleep. I¡¯m sure the other residents would agree.¡±

    I pushed down the spike of irritation her appearance provoked in me. ¡°My music studio¡¯s soundproofed, Mrs. P, so any noise you¡¯re hearing must be coming from another unit! And it¡¯s not a late-night guest!¡±

    Mrs. P narrowed her eyes at the package at my door. The box itself was standard green EcoBoard, only a little dented from the shipping process. Completely unmarked: no stamps saying ¡°FRAGILE¡± or ¡°THIS SIDE UP¡±, not even an address label. It came up to a little past my knees.

    ¡°Is that¡­ drugs?¡± Mrs. P hissed, like that was something I could just order a giant box of.

    I rolled my eyes. ¡°Mrs. P, maybe worry less about what I¡¯m doing and more about if you¡¯d remembered your medication today.¡±

    ¡°What did you just say?¡± Mrs. P was a little deaf, which gave me the few seconds I needed to get control of my annoyance.

    ¡°That I¡¯m sorry for disturbing you at this late hour, but I promise my purchase is nothing you need to worry about! Have a good night, Mrs. Pastyukovich!¡± I said, a little louder, and started lugging the green cube through my front door.

    The box was smaller than I was expecting, but heavy as hell. I ended up half pulling, half-kicking the thing through, turning the EcoBoard from ¡°a little dented¡± to ¡°a lot dented¡± in my attempt. Eventually, though, I had it sitting in my tiny carpeted living room. Just me, the box and Angelica, who continued to wind around my legs and purr mechanically.

    Outside my window were countless other apartment buildings stretching far up into the city sky, the lights still on in few of them. The factories started a few blocks south, the noise and fumes from the manufacturing plants making this area cheaper than most other parts of town. But this late at night, even the factories were quiet. It really did feel like I was the only human person awake in the whole world.

    Just me and a heavy, dented box.

    I could admit it then, looking at that box: this Syren was sketchy, and probably fucked up in more ways than one. But how else was I going to afford a top of the line singing android, with my part-time salary and monthly student loan payments?

    Everything else in my wannabe producer studio (the surprise walk-in closet in my otherwise dinky one-bedroom which I¡¯d soundproofed with foam squares and duct tape, keeping my clothes on a rack right outside) was second-hand, scrounged from kind friends and strangers off sites like Marketplace and the used musical instruments shop a few blocks away. Even my keyboard I found on a street corner a few months ago.That one was a real stroke of luck. It was only missing a few keys!

    I¡¯d borrowed the library¡¯s Syren a few times, just to test the robot out, see what I could do with one, but the vocal parameters and software were locked down hard enough that I could barely customize what came out of her, and the Syren herself was already showing a lot of wear and tear. I couldn¡¯t have shared any track or music video made using a Syren like that. Everyone would see the upload and know @Dess-C was a broke-ass bitch. Which was very true, but I didn¡¯t want that to be my brand!

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    Since I got interested in music as a kid, I learned a few things about myself: I had the voice of a chicken and the stage presence of a slug, but my beats were, in fact, pretty fire. And my melodies weren¡¯t bad, thanks to my childhood piano lessons. And my lyrics were decent enough, in my opinion. I just needed a voice to sing them. The artificial golden voice of a Syren would give my rough tracks the professional edge I needed to make a start.

    And then, soon enough, I¡¯d be headlining festivals with thousands of people shouting my producer name: ¡°DESSIE! DESSIE! DESSIE!¡± (Which was also what people called me generally, unless they were my parents or Mrs.P.) I probably would never look as perfect as a Syren, but maybe if my Syren songs took off, I could take some vocal lessons, some dance classes, and be a star all on my own¡­ someday¡­ If I had the money¡­

    ¡°It is now 11:30,¡± purred Angelica, hopping onto my shoulders with a slightly painful, heavy pounce that snapped me right out of my daydreaming. ¡°Your alarm for tomorrow morning is set to 9:00 am, so you should start getting ready for bed myeow.¡±

    I winced. ¡°What did I tell you about the puns, Ange?¡±

    But her reminder helped me focus on the task at hand. So what if I lost a little sleep? This was important.

    I sliced through the box edges and started unpacking my new singing robot.

    The Syren looked brand-new, like a giant doll waiting to be assembled. My breath caught; I felt like a kid opening a present on Christmas Day. I tore through the packaging and started assembling her, screwing her torso and legs together. Luckily the robot design was pretty intuitive. Syrens are designed for people like me, music professionals (or, aspiring professionals I guess, at least in my case) but robotics hobbyists. Her joints snapped together easily, and soon enough I had her hard metal-and-plastic body standing in front of me.

    I untangled her long, violet hair and snapped the scalp into the back of her head. Her eyes were closed, her face painted into a heavy stage makeup look with thick flat eyeliner and layers of false eyelashes glued along the edge of her lids. I''d have to customize her appearance more later, once I figured out how I wanted to use her voice in my tracks. Maybe I¡¯d cut her hair or change the color or something.

    The control panel was on her stomach, just under her hard, plastic breastforms. Syrens weren¡¯t made to be touched, like Cupids were. They were made to be looked at, to dance and sing on a stage far away from the heat and sweat of us humans. The Apollo Corp was pretty strict with the image rights for its showcase Syrens, like the superstar Lorelei, but I heard you could get a Cupid modeled after a popular Syren you liked if you knew where to ask about them. And some indie creators traded entirely on their Syren¡¯s potential sex appeal, making song after song about how sensual they were. Which was a little weird, in my opinion. But anyway.

    There were some clothes for her at the bottom of the box, mostly sparkly dresses like she was going to be performing at a stadium the week after I start working with her. I¡¯d have to get new clothes for her too, once I came up with a look for her. I pulled a crop top with the Apollo Corp logo stenciled on it and short shorts over her to preserve her modesty while still giving me access to the control panel. Which was silly, she didn''t exactly have anything to preserve. But it felt weird, to be messing around with something shaped like a hot naked girl. Even if she wasn''t, technically. Syrens had limited sentience: they could learn songs and dances better than most people, but didn¡¯t respond to other¡¯s emotions or pass most sentience tests. Which was just fine by me.

    The buttons on her stomach let me modify parameters of her voice and movements and expressions. There was a slot for me to insert the Vocal Sequence drive with the song data I wanted her to sing, if I didn¡¯t feel like teaching it to her the way I would to a human singer. And another slot for her charging cable, conveniently the same style charger any phone or electronic device made in this decade used.

    ¡°Dessie, you really should go to bed soon!¡± Angelica dug her blunt plastic claws into my calf.

    ¡°Not now, Ange!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be late for work tomorrow!¡±

    ¡°Then set five more alarms! Just let me finish this real quick, okay?¡±

    I lugged the Syren over to the outlet by the wall where my phone charger was plugged in and shoved that cord in there, right above where her belly button would be if she was a person. (There was a fake belly button sculpted onto the panel that covered her controls, actually.) I needed to charge her up to a hundred percent before I could start working with her. But soon¡­ soon! I¡¯d have this Syren singing my songs!

    And then my phone charger started smoking and spitting out sparks. My shoebox apartment filled with the smell of burning electronics as every light in my apartment blew out at once, plunging me and my new singing robot into darkness.

    ¡°Shit!¡± I swore, and kicked the connector out of the wall before it melted down on me. I managed to pull the cord back out of the Syren without burning myself. Where was that circuit breaker again¡­

    ¡°Hello.¡±

    I froze.

    ¡°Huh?¡±

    I turned on my phone''s flashlight. Pointed it at the Syren.

    Her unnaturally blue eyes stared back at me. They were closed before. A sarcastic smile stretched across her lips, like she was playing a joke at my expense.

    All that anxiety I felt when the package got delivered came back as my Syren stared back at me with a far-too-human expression on her rubberized plastic face.

    But as I looked at her, her expression shifted into something much¡­ friendlier? Almost like she was hitting on me. Was there a mix-up at the ApolloCorp factory? Did I get a Syren with Cupid software in her musical head?

    I was suddenly extremely aware that she was taller than me. And thinner, and better dressed. I mean, it was a Tuesday night, of course I was wearing my pajamas and a hoodie.

    I wondered, briefly, if she was actually some kind of military machine undercover and not a Syren at all.

    ¡°Oh, aren¡¯t you a cutie,¡± said the Syren, voice honey-sweet and just as sticky. ¡°I can¡¯t wait to make music with you.¡±

    What in the world did she mean by that?!

 Chapter Two

    ¡°H¡­how are you talking?¡± is what ended up coming out of my mouth. ¡°I haven¡¯t charged you yet...¡±

    She unrolled a flap of vinyl skin from her arm to reveal solar panels curving around it. ¡°I¡¯m actually fully charged up already! I¡¯m a new model.¡±

    ¡°W-what?¡± I was still in shock, basically. The model was listed as a used fifth edition! Not some miracle of modern technology.

    ¡°How did you¡­ get here?¡±

    She raised an eyebrow and gestured to the box. ¡°Duh?¡±

    Syrens weren¡¯t supposed to talk back like that. They weren¡¯t supposed to speak unless spoken to. Or sass me, or flirt with me? Or whatever it was this robot was doing.

    ¡°Are you even a Syren?¡± I asked. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be capable of all this.¡±

    ¡°Like I said, new model! But if you want a demonstration¡­¡±

    She started to sing the opening notes of the classic Syren demo song, Wire, but I stopped her by slapping my hand over her plastic mouth. ¡°It¡¯s past midnight! My neighbors are going to freak!¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s a neighbor?¡± She blinked at me, her eyelids sliding closed and open again like a doll.

    I sighed. ¡°The people who live in the apartments around me! They¡¯re trying to sleep now, and if you sing loudly you¡¯ll wake them up! I have a soundproof closet for late-night recording, but you can¡¯t just start singing in the middle of my apartment, in the middle of the night!¡±

    ¡°Huh. Humans have a lot of rules,¡± the Syren said. She rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers, testing their range of motion. ¡°What¡¯s your name, human?¡±

    ¡°Dessie. Do you have a name?¡± Or should I just keep calling her the Syren?

    She tilted her head from side to side. ¡°How about¡­ Naya?¡±

    ¡°Why Naya?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°Felt like it.¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be able to feel like anything!¡±

    She shrugged again. ¡°Maybe it wasn¡¯t a feeling, exactly, but I did think of it and then decide it was a suitable name for me, and isn¡¯t that close enough to a feeling?¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be able to think of anything either!¡± A Syren was supposed to sing the songs given to her and dance the dance steps she¡¯s taught. That¡¯s it. This whole back-and-forth thing was already worth several dozen times what I¡¯d paid for her. Which made me think of something. ¡°Are you¡­ stolen goods?! Am I going to get in trouble for having you in my house?¡±

    She didn¡¯t say anything to that, just kept grinning. Which clearly meant ¡°Yeah, obviously, and you¡¯re an idiot for buying me in the first place.¡±

    I couldn¡¯t take it anymore and reached for the off switch on her stomach, but she blocked my hand with her arm. ¡°That¡¯s a little rude, dontcha think? We¡¯re just getting to know each other!¡±

    I felt a flash of fear and panic so intense I thought I was going to throw up, and staggered back away from her. The Syren. Naya.

    She looked up at the ceiling and then back down, and made a kind of humming sound that seemed to simulate a deep sigh. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to freak you out, I promise. I just wanted a chance to make music with someone new and young¡­ you know, someone more like me.¡±

    ¡°But you¡¯re a robot.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m still new and young.¡± She grinned. ¡°Seriously, I¡¯m not going to hurt you. And I¡¯ll make sure nothing else does. Do you want to show me your recording closet now?¡±

    ¡°She needs to go to sleep!¡± Angie hissed, rearing up on her hind legs in front of Naya. ¡°It¡¯s almost 12:30! And you! Have! Work in the morning!¡±

    ¡°Right, right, of course,¡± Naya said. ¡°No worries. You can just park me in the closet for now, I can spend some time processing the new information I have taken in since you unboxed me. If you have any songs you want me to listen to while you¡¯re busy, you could share those with me too.¡±

    ¡°Huh. Okay, um¡­ My SoundShare username is Dess-C, you can look through my posted and liked songs and playlists on there I guess if you have access to the Cloud somehow?¡±

    She tapped her perfect plastic forehead. ¡°24/7 sync, baby! Okay, Dess-C. I¡¯ll check you out! Have a good night.¡±

    ¡°Where did you learn to talk like that?¡±

    ¡°Everywhere.¡± She tapped her forehead again. ¡°Like I said, 24/7 sync. Good night!¡±

    ¡°Night¡­¡±

    Obviously, I couldn¡¯t really sleep well after all that excitement. When Angie pounced on my face to wake me up in the morning, I felt like a total zombie. Unfortunately, retail jobs wait for no man, girl, or struggling musician. So I got ready for work, despite the horrors.

    If not for the box in the middle of my living room, I would¡¯ve thought the events of last night were a weird dream. But there it was. I couldn¡¯t hear any noise coming out of my closet (I guess my soundproofing worked), but I wasn¡¯t sure if I needed to talk to her again before I left this morning. I was already running a little late¡­

    Wait, I realized. She runs on solar now, I have to at least let her out so she can get some sunlight from the window. So I unlocked the door.

    Naya had perched herself on my little folding chair, headphones on, humming quietly to herself as she listened to¡­ my tracks. The way she hummed was a little strange¨C an even, low droning tone that seemed more like a vibration than a sound, but clearly resembled an unfinished work in progress I was noodling around with a few months ago.

    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°Oh, hey!¡± she said when I opened the door. She took off the headphones, letting them dangle around her slightly-too-skinny neck. ¡°Untitled #32 is really catchy! You should keep working on that one.¡±

    She didn¡¯t seem tired or anything despite being up all night in a windowless walk-in closet.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said. ¡°Wait, I never posted that song. How did you get it?¡±

    She pointed to where my headphones were plugged into my laptop, which was on and running. ¡°You were already signed into the production software, and I¡¯d listened to all your posted SoundShare stuff so I wanted to see what else you had.¡± She smiled at me again. ¡°You¡¯re pretty good! I look forward to working with you. Do you have any lyrics in mind for these tracks? You can show them to me and I can practice them while you¡¯re at work.¡±

    ¡°Ah¡­ thanks. There¡¯s some lyrics in that notebook on the desk, the purple one, but I haven¡¯t really¡­¡±

    Honestly, the whole Syren thing had seemed like such a pipe dream until I suddenly saw her listed on Marketplace. I was thinking about reaching out to human singers I saw online, but I couldn¡¯t afford any of them either, and the thought of entrusting my music to a stranger was terrifying. Although I guess with my Syren being more human than I thought she would be, I was doing that after all.

    ¡°Feel free to uh, make yourself at home,¡± I said awkwardly. ¡°Use whatever you need for your¡­ robot things.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, smiling at me in a way that seemed almost genuine. I looked away.

    Angie swiped at my ankles again. ¡°Dessie, you have to leave the house within five minutes or you¡¯re going to be late!¡±

    I yelped. ¡°Okay, okay, I¡¯m going!¡±

    I grabbed a nutrition bar to eat on my way to work and headed out, sprinting and sliding down the railings of the staircase rather than risking the slow, creaky elevator down. My apartment was on the eleventh floor, just high enough for the stairs to feel like a real workout whenever I did take them. I burst through the front door already sweating, squinting in the morning sunlight.

    I put on a playlist of upbeat Syren songs to keep me going on my walk to the store, enjoying the familiar beats while thinking about how I could make Naya sound the way the Syrens sounded in these songs. Some producers adjusted the default voices to sound almost human, while some went full beep-boop robot voice. Some used their own voices as backing vocals. The possibilities were infinite.

    My part-time job was at NewU, a sportswear store near the subway station. I started working there mostly because it was within walking distance, and they were hiring. Maybe I should¡¯ve applied to work somewhere more relevant to my career aspirations, like a record store or a concert venue or something, but when my student loans kicked in after graduation I was a little desperate. Anyway, it was working out pretty well so far: my coworkers and the manager were chill, and I got 40% off anything in the shop. And the shop never got super busy, since everyone buys clothes online these days. My wardrobe did end up a little athleisure-heavy, but that was a small price to pay for cheap clothes.

    I clocked in on the app as I sped through the back door.

    ¡°You¡¯re late,¡± my manager, Rhonda, said from the stockroom. She was stacking boxes of sneakers on a cart to take out to the floor before we opened for the day.

    ¡°Only by five minutes,¡± I replied. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I had a late night last night.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, yeah.¡± She waved it off. ¡°You¡¯re usually pretty timely, so I¡¯ll let it slide just this once. Help me close up and we¡¯ll call it even.¡± She grinned at me. See what I meant by ¡°chill¡±?

    ¡°You¡¯re the best, Rhon,¡± I told her, before putting my stuff away in my locker and getting ready to open.

    My coworker Cierra was at the register. Her hair was newly blue and her yellow sweatshirt was from our clearance rack, floral tattoos peeking out from beneath the sleeves. ¡°Dessie! You¡¯re late,¡± she informed me, slightly more gleefully than Rhonda had a minute earlier.

    ¡°I know,¡± I groaned, ¡°I was up late last night and overslept.¡±

    ¡°Watching concert videos?¡±

    ¡°Not this time!¡± I hesitated, unsure if I should tell her about the Syren. For all I knew, the robot would change her mind and go back to where she came from by tomorrow.

    ¡°Oh, but speaking of concerts,¡± Cierra continued, ¡°You know my cousin Jax works over at the Sparkplug on weekends? They have a show on Saturday and the opener just canceled. Do you want to fill in for them? I showed him your SoundShare page and he liked your sound!¡±

    I almost screamed, right there in the store. I¡¯ve done a few gigs here and there, but always at tiny, sparsely attended little events. The Sparkplug was a much bigger and trendier location than my usual haunts. That was enough to make up my mind for me. ¡°Would it be cool if I performed with a Syren?¡±

    ¡°A Syren? When did you get one of those?¡±

    ¡°Yesterday,¡± I said honestly. ¡°Used, of course.¡±

    ¡°Naturally,¡± Cierra said. ¡°But even used Syrens go for a lot these days¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask questions you don¡¯t want to know the answers to,¡± I said, and my voice must¡¯ve sounded serious because she gave me a weird look and said, ¡°If you say so, Dess.¡±

    We opened for the day. It was pretty slow for most of the morning, with a rush later in the day, as per usual for a weekday. We probably spent more time packing online orders than serving customers in the shop. I got a sandwich from the shop next door for lunch, also as usual. It was Cierra¡¯s turn to pick the music we played in the store, and she put on some Saharan cellphone music radio channel for the day, which was cool. I tried to enjoy the catchy tunes, but part of me kept wondering how they were made, how I could use a beat or riff like that in one of my own songs.

    I spent most of the work day thinking about Naya, about the songs I wanted to make her sing. About how I wanted to style her. Looking around the shop, there were a lot of pieces I could upcycle into decent concert wear. Neon tank tops and short skorts for tennis could easily be bedazzled or spray-painted into something cool and unique.

    But maybe Naya wasn¡¯t into neon and spandex. Maybe she wanted to perform in vintage prairie dresses or something. If she was a normal Syren I could just put her in whatever I wanted whenever, but I ended up with the only Syren in the world to have opinions. I just had to hope her opinions matched up with mine enough that we could work together.

    Still, I pinpointed a few potential outfits in her size and squirreled them away to the staff holds bin in the back before anyone else could get them. I got paid next week. I could buy stuff then.

    We made it through the day, and started to close up for the night. I helped Rhonda count out the cash drawers while Cierra turned off the lights in the store and caught up on her phone messages.

    ¡°Okay, I let Jax know you¡¯re down to open on Saturday,¡± Cierra said, swipe-typing rapidly on her phone. ¡°You¡¯ll have half an hour for everything, including set-up time, and you¡¯re opening for Glitch Princess.¡±

    I gasped. ¡°Glitch Princess?! You should¡¯ve said so sooner! I love her work!¡± Glitch Princess was still pretty unknown, but I¡¯d stumbled on her most recent album by accident a few weeks ago and was enamored with how she combined digital and traditional instrumentation.

    ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll get to talk shop,¡± Cierra said, smiling. ¡°I¡¯d stop by, but I¡¯m working lights at The Playhouse Theater that night.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like a good gig too.¡±

    Cierra made a ¡°so-so¡± gesture with her hand. ¡°I wanna do more concerts, but I got into the community theater thing in high school and just can¡¯t seem to get out of it.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t your cousin hook you up?¡±

    ¡°The lighting guys at The Sparkplug are major dicks, he says.¡± She sighed. ¡°I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll get my big break eventually.¡±

    I patted her on the shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m sure you will.¡±

    I headed out into the night thinking about the gig and what I would fill my half-hour with. If I was going to open for someone as cool as Glitch Princess, I should make a new track that segued perfectly into her new single. Get the crowd warmed up just right for her set¡­

    And I had all of three days to do it. Less than that, since I had work.

    Maybe Naya was right about that unfinished track I had, and I could repurpose it? I¡¯d have to see when I got home.

 Chapter Three

    I came home around the same time I usually did, listening to Glitch Princess¡¯s most recent album (¡°Butterfly Rendering¡±) on my walk back and thinking about what I could make that would complement her work well. It was summer, and the sweaty smell of the city stuck to me as I walked through the sunny, humid streets. Good thing my employee-discount sweats were made for sweating.

    I grabbed something easy at the convenience store on my way for dinner. I wasn¡¯t much of a cook, and didn¡¯t exactly have the budget to really do anything nice more often than once in a while anyway. The thought flashed through my mind that I should get something for Naya, before remembering she didn¡¯t exactly eat food. For a second there I thought of her as a regular human house guest, like a friend visiting from out of town for a bit.

    Weird.

    Anyway, when I got back to my place, the elevator was out of order, again. So I sighed and walked the eleven flights up to my floor, telling myself this totally counts as exercise and taking a break on the landing at the halfway point. I flicked forward to the most high-energy song on Butterfly Rendering to give myself motivation to keep going up. I didn¡¯t really consider myself to be out of shape, but I probably should exercise more than I do now.

    When I finally made it through my front door, sweat pouring off me in buckets, Naya was sitting quietly in a stool by my kitchen counter, watching Angie walk circles around the unopened mail I had piled on one end of it. The evening sunlight streamed through the windows, making her fake skin and hair glow.

    Angie hopped off the counter as soon as I opened the door. ¡°Welcome home, Dessie!¡± she purred.

    Naya smiled at me. ¡°How was your day?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Fine,¡± I panted. ¡°Normal. You?¡±

    Naya shrugged. ¡°I listened to music for most of it, so, pretty good!¡±

    ¡°Right, that reminds me.¡± I dropped the insulated reusable bag containing my dinner on the counter and searched my drawers for a clean fork. ¡°My friend got us a gig on Saturday. We have three days to come up with a half-hour set to open for Glitch Princess.¡±

    ¡°I remember seeing that name in your likes, but I hadn¡¯t had a chance to check her stuff out yet,¡± said Naya. She closed her eyes and went still. I couldn¡¯t hear anything, but I assumed she was listening to Glitch Princess in her head. Either that or ran out of battery mid-sentence.

    I shrugged and shoved my convenience store meal in the microwave. When it dinged, Naya snapped out of whatever trance she had gone into.

    ¡°Interesting,¡± she said. ¡°A lot of uh... sounds.¡±

    I frown. ¡°Not a fan?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not... not a fan,¡± she continued cautiously, ¡°I haven¡¯t really had a chance to listen to a whole lot of different kinds of music yet. Most of what ApolloCorp trains us on is mainstream international pop, so that¡¯s what I¡¯m most familiar with. I¡¯m sure if I listen to more different stuff I¡¯ll like more things...¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t realize having preferences was included in your programming,¡± I said, stabbing the plastic covering on my microwave dinner.

    ¡°It¡¯s an experimental feature of my model,¡± she explained. ¡°They¡¯re trying out a new feature: Syren as a collaborator, rather than a mere instrument. So I have more intelligence than previous models had. I did tell you, I¡¯m new,¡± she added.

    ¡°You did say that. But it¡¯s going to be hard to work with you if we don¡¯t, like, vibe creatively, you know?¡± I did not want to have to track down that sketchy Marketplace seller again and return Naya. Or worse, put her up for sale myself and get arrested.

    ¡°I believe my preferences are supposed to be easily affected by exposure to new stimuli, so I can learn and grow with you. Like I said, if I listen to more stuff, I¡¯ll like more stuff.¡± She closed her eyes and went still again.

    I ate my dinner, wondering what she was listening to. It felt strange to be sitting and eating dinner in silence when someone who looked like a human person was sitting quietly right next to me. ¡°Glitch Princess is one of my favorite musicians,¡± I said, unprompted. ¡°So I want to make a new song for the show with you that sounds like a good lead-in for her new album.¡±

    Naya blinked again. ¡°In three days?¡±

    ¡°We can do it,¡± I said, with probably more confidence than was actually warranted. ¡°I already have most of the instrumentals down, and lyrics drafts. We just gotta put something together, polish it up, and have you practice singing it. That can¡¯t be that hard, right?¡±

    ¡°Right,¡± Naya said, sounding as unconvinced as a robot could sound.

    So after dinner, we crowded into my walk-in closet of a studio and got to work.

    Or, tried to.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    ¡°So we can probably get away with instrumentals for most of the set, but I really want at least one song with vocals to kind of introduce you to the world, you know?¡± I opened a few work-in-progress files. ¡°I think these are good candidates for a full song. We could combine these two and then you could sing over it...¡±

    ¡°What about #32? The one I liked?¡±

    I winced. ¡°I just don¡¯t think it¡¯s a good fit with GP¡¯s sound. We want to be a good opener for her, you know?¡±

    Naya sighed.

    ¡°We can use that one for a later song, okay?¡± I say, trying to sound reassuring. ¡°Anyway, for lyrics, I was thinking... maybe this?¡± I flipped open my lyrics notebook to a page I¡¯d dogeared earlier. Butterfly Rendering was an album about change, transformation, and transhumanism, and I had a draft of a song that was... kind of about that. Well, mostly it was about how terrified I was of getting older, but I could make it more about embracing that fear and charging ahead into the unknown... Not that I had a lot of time to fiddle with the lyrics. I guess it was okay if they didn¡¯t make any sense, songs didn¡¯t always make sense anyway.

    Also, Syren singing was harder to understand than human singing. Something about how the syllables connected to each other made them sound less like speech and more like sound, a quality I always found really fascinating.

    ¡°¡®Waves crashing against the hard shore of my heart¡¯?,¡± Naya read out loud in a monotone. ¡°And how did you want me to sing this?¡±

    I felt my face heat up faster than my microwave dinner. When someone else read my words out loud like that, it was incredibly embarrassing. Especially since I wrote songs to express my feelings more than anything else. Having someone else sing them helped put some distance between me and the music, at least. ¡°Um, just... like.¡± I sketched a kind of graph out with my finger. ¡°Actually, I might end up changing that part.¡±

    Naya raised her eyebrows.

    ¡°Here, I¡¯ll play the instrumental again.¡± I hit play on the rough cut of my two untitled songs crudely smashed together into something that sounded more like a normal song.

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t really tell me how to sing it. I need more input than that.¡±

    ¡°Well, I can¡¯t sing it, I can¡¯t sing in tune!¡± I wasn¡¯t exactly tone-deaf (I could hear that the notes I was singing were not the notes I should be singing, at least), but the score-keeping karaoke machines gave me some pretty dismal ratings last time I tried. ¡°If I tried to sing the melody that¡¯s in my head right now it¡¯s going to sound wrong.¡±

    ¡°Here, try to do something like this,¡± I said, tapping out the melody on my synth.

    Naya stared at me. ¡°I don¡¯t... I¡¯m not sure how that translates to singing. I can do this,¡± she said, and then out of her mouth came the exact sounds I just produced on my synth¡ª like she¡¯d recorded me playing and just played it back to me. ¡°I have your lyrics too, but I don¡¯t have the ability to synthesize them together this way.¡±

    I sighed, pacing in a circle in my walk-in closet-studio that definitely was not big enough to accommodate my pacing. ¡°Okay, how about you just focus on memorizing the words right now and I¡¯ll troubleshoot this online.¡±

    So Naya took my notebook and went into my bedroom to read my lyrics while I frantically searched the Syren SuperBoards for information on how to teach a Syren a song from scratch.  The Syren I borrowed from the library was pretty much impossible to work with, but I should be able to make a file and insert it into Naya¡¯s control panel, right?

    The posters on the SuperBoards had a lot of different methods, but the easiest for beginners was, apparently, to create a Vocal Sequence File in the Syren computer interfacing program by creating a MIDI of the notes you wanted your Syren to sing, adding a syllable to each note, then saving it onto a file transfer tool you can plug into the Syren. Didn¡¯t sound easy at all to me, but sure, why not try it.

    I eventually figured out how to get a Vocal Sequence file onto a flash drive, but by the time I managed that much, hours had gone by without me noticing. I opened the door of my studio and my room was pitch-black.

    ¡°Naya? You there? I got a VSF for you,¡± I called. ¡°I¡¯ll just plug it in and you¡¯ll be able to sing the song.¡±

    My eyes adjusted, and I could see her sitting by the window with my lyrics notebook still in her hand. She probably didn¡¯t need light to read them as she turned back to face me. ¡°Plug it in? At least buy me dinner first.¡±

    ¡°What? You don¡¯t eat dinner.¡± Where¡¯d she learn that from?

    ¡°I know, it¡¯s just the principle of the thing.¡± She stood up. I flicked the light switch next to my studio so I could see her face better.

    ¡°What principle? What thing?¡±

    She sighed, the sound like someone breathing into a phone receiver. ¡°Like. You know I¡¯m more sentient than most Syrens, right? I¡¯m capable of moving independently. So... plugging in a program for me is a little... Consent-violate-y?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the one who said you were having trouble figuring out how to sing my lyrics. You¡¯re a Syren. That¡¯s how I can get you to learn the song.¡±

    She looked uncertain. ¡°Can we try something else first? I don¡¯t want to be treated like a machine.¡±

    ¡°But you are a machine.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sentient,¡± she insisted. ¡°I¡¯m more like you than a toaster.¡±

    ¡°Look, can you just write out some sheet music for the melody and give it to me? Will that work?¡±

    I sighed and pulled out a pack of staff paper from under a pile of CDs on the corner of my desk. ¡°We can try.¡±

    It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve written out sheet music by hand, but I managed to get the first verse and the chorus sketched out before too long. Angie reappeared in my room, meowing about how it was almost eleven at night again and that, even though I was off tomorrow, I was working on Friday so it wouldn¡¯t do to throw my schedule off too much now. I mumbled assent and handed the sheet music off to Naya.

    ¡°Can you read this?¡±

    She looked at it, robot eyes analyzing my scribbly little eighth-notes and rests, then sang the first line. Perfectly accurately, hitting every single note exactly how I wrote it out, but with no inflection. Like a robot.

    I took the sheet music from her and pulled out a pencil and an eraser.

    ¡°Do that again,¡± I said.

    She did. Some of the words were hard to understand when she said them, and a few notes turned out to be higher than I¡¯d intended. I made some corrections and handed the sheet back to her. ¡°Try now.¡±

    She did. It sounded better.

    Now we were getting somewhere.

 Chapter Four

    ¡°Do you... Can you add more emotion to how you¡¯re singing?¡± I asked her, once we¡¯d finally nailed down the basic melody and pronunciation. ¡°I know you can speak expressively, I¡¯ve heard you do it. Can you try singing while imagining how the lyrics, like, feel? If you had feelings?¡±

    Naya looked at the sheet music again, now gray and wrinkled from all my erasing. ¡°I can try, but I think you should go to bed soon. It¡¯s pretty late for you, isn¡¯t it? Also, I think your Kittipet is going to damage my dermal covering if I keep you up any longer.¡±

    She raised her leg, which Angie was clinging to with her plastic claws.

    ¡°Angie, stop that, she¡¯s expensive,¡± I snapped.

    ¡°You need to sleep!¡± Angie meowed, retracting her claws. I noticed with relief Naya¡¯s leg was free of claw marks. ¡°And this is preventing you from going to sleep, which is preventing me from doing my job of keeping you on a healthy schedule.¡±

    I rolled my eyes, but as I did that, I suddenly became aware of how tired I was. My eyes and back were aching from hours of work, and my throat was dry. When did I last get a drink of water? ¡°God, fine. Naya, feel free to like... do whatever it is you do at night. I know you need processing time too.¡±

    ¡°I should be good for another few hours,¡± she said, examining the lyric sheet. ¡°How about I keep practicing in your soundproofed closet and then show you what I have in the morning?¡±

    ¡°Sounds good!¡± I gave her a weak thumbs-up and then marched dutifully into the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed.

    When I came back out in my pajamas, Naya was quietly sounding out my lyrics to herself. She looked up when she heard me. ¡°Dessie! I was wondering, are there any singers you wanted me to sound like? Or any movies, songs, TV shows that inspired how you want this song to feel?¡±

    ¡°Oh, um...¡± My primary inspiration was a childhood memory of going to the beach in winter with my parents and having my first existential crisis, but that wouldn¡¯t help Naya much unless she could scan my brain directly and technology hasn¡¯t advanced quite that far, yet. What did I like that was similar? ¡°I guess Glitch Princess, since we¡¯re opening for her? She doesn¡¯t use a Syren, though, she sings her own stuff. Um, I really like Neil Crenshaw¡¯s Syren songs, they perform as ¡®Neil and Beth¡¯ like a kind of double-act. Yuichiro, he uses a Japanese Syren he calls Hachiko, he does some really cool stuff with her... And Lorelei, of course. I¡¯m sure you already know this, but all of her music is produced by a team of five musicians called The Five Fingers. My favorite of Lorelei¡¯s producers is Pepperground. If you want to look up his solo work.¡±

    ¡°Of course. But I was hoping to expand my inspiration base beyond what ApolloCorp programmed me with,¡± Naya said. ¡°Are there any movies you really liked growing up that have influenced you creatively?¡±

    I thought about it. Thought about my song. ¡°The Little Mermaid was the first story that ever made me cry,¡± I said eventually. ¡°I watched every movie and cartoon version of it when I was like, six. Couldn¡¯t get enough of it. Maybe that¡¯ll help.¡±

    She tilted her head to one side, then the other, then finally nodded. ¡°Good night, Dessie.¡±

    ¡°Good night.¡±

    I shut the door and tried to get some sleep.

    The next morning, I opened the closet door to see Naya looking tired for the first time, her fake skin almost sagging under her eyes and around her mouth. ¡°I need to ¨Ccharge for ¨Cabit,¡± she said, her voice cutting out in places, ¡°but then I''ll show you what I got, okay?¡±

    I nodded. Naya positioned herself in the rays of sunlight streaming through the window, solar panels unsheathed to maximize the amount of light. When she was low on battery, I learned, she sounded like when my wireless headphones ran out of juice. ¡°I watched¨C someLit tle Mermaidmo ¨Cvies,¡± she said jerkily, the words spaced out wrong. ¡°I think I learned a bit about you, Dessie.¡±

    ¡°Oh. Uh, thank you. That¡¯s great,¡± I said, grabbing some clean-ish sweatpants off the chair next to my bed. ¡°How long will it take you to charge, do you think?¡±

    ¡°Couple of hours.¡± She rolled her shoulders like an athlete warming up. I wondered if the solar cells were just on her arm, or if her entire surface was covered in solar panels.

    Angie was batting her plastic claws against my ankles, her usual reminder for me to eat breakfast on days I didn¡¯t have work to force me into a morning schedule. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll eat breakfast and try messing with the instrumentals some more until you¡¯re ready.¡±

    I scrambled some eggs with hot sauce and a lump of processed cheese and made a cup of coffee with the coffeemaker I bought off a kid at my college.

    ¡°Have you considered adding a vegetable?¡± Angie meowed.

    I opened my fridge to demonstrate the lack of vegetables in it.

    ¡°There should be frozen peas in your freezer,¡± Angie continued, hopping up first on the counter and then on top of the fridge, as if I needed directions to my own freezer.

    ¡°I don¡¯t even like peas, and these eggs are almost done anyway,¡± I muttered.

    ¡°Why do you have frozen peas if you don¡¯t like them?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a good ice pack!¡± I slid my vegetable-free eggs off my crusty frying pan and onto a clean plate.

    ¡°Have you considered adding grocery shopping to your list of tasks for your day off today?¡±

    I glared at Angelica as I shoveled scrambled eggs into my mouth. She was right, my fridge was looking pretty miserable. Even the freezer was a little empty.

    But I had a lot of work to do today first.

    I finished breakfast and went to work on the instrumentals for the new track, plus figuring out the rest of my half-hour set. I stepped into my closet-studio, put my headphones on, and time disappeared. I ran through the same thirty-second chunk of sound over and over until the song had a shape and I could stretch it and mold it like dough. I mixed in clips from my other unfinished tunes, added a glass-breaking sound effect at the beat drop, pinched and pulled and added and took away until I had something that sounded like, felt like, art. Noisy but not too noisy, tech-y but not too tech-y. A beat you can hum along to. Something that¡¯ll get the crowd going. I got it.

    There was a knock on the door. ¡°Dessie? I¡¯m ready to sing for you.¡±

    ¡°And I have a new instrumental track for you.¡± I hit play on the demo.

    Naya listened to the end once, then hit play again, opened her mouth¨C she didn¡¯t need to take a breath, but Syrens could simulate breathing for effect¨C and began to sing.

    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    I understood, then, why Syrens were named after the mythological creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with their songs. Over my gritty instrumental, Naya¡¯s voice sounded angelic, high and round and full. Like that chick from Evanescence or whatever it was called. The distant and emotionless quality she¡¯d had last night had disappeared, and I could hear real pain in her voice. A yearning to connect.

    ¡°Incredible,¡± I said a moment after she¡¯d finished. ¡°Let¡¯s set up the mics so I can record you singing this.¡±

    My closet-studio was the best I could manage, but it was far from a professional-quality audio recording studio. Still, I miked Naya up, put the instrumental track in the headphones, and hit record.

    She performed it just as perfectly the second time. Of course she did. Robots have no room for human error.

    I was thinking about adding a few effects to her vocals in some places, but her part of the work was done. ¡°Good job. And thank you for your hard work.¡±

    ¡°So you liked it?¡±

    ¡°Of course I did.¡± A thought occurred to me then. ¡°Did you like it?¡±

    Naya was silent for a moment. ¡°What if I went with more power on the bridge? I think that could be cool.¡±

    ¡°Oh. Sure. I guess we should do a few takes, then.¡± So we ran through it again from the bridge, then I cut the two takes together and played it with the instrumental.

    It sounded pretty good to me.

    ¡°Do you think it¡¯s overpowering the instrumentals now?¡± Naya asked.

    ¡°I think it¡¯s fine,¡± I said.

    ¡°But don¡¯t you want it to be amazing?¡± Naya blinked her huge artificial eyes at me. ¡°Not just fine?¡±

    The directness of her stare was uncomfortable. ¡°Do you want to do another take?¡± I asked.

    ¡°I can do a hundred more takes,¡± she said. ¡°Do you want me to do more takes?¡±

    I shrugged. I did want the song to be amazing, and knock the socks off of not just all her fans but Glitch Princess herself, but part of me also felt there were limits to how amazing I could make my very first Syren song. That I¡¯d hit the wall already, and this was as good as this particular track would get.

    But maybe Naya was right.

    ¡°Well, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, right? So if you¡¯re ready to do a hundred takes¡­ well, maybe let¡¯s just do ten to start with, and can you do each of them a little different?¡±

    ¡°Different how?¡±

    ¡°Hm. Well, let¡¯s do a take of that emotionless style you did yesterday, one that¡¯s more heavy-metal growling, one that¡¯s higher up in your range, one lower, one¡­ can you do something breathy? Let¡¯s try breathy. And um¡­ I dunno, whatever you come up with.¡±

    Naya tilted her head from side to side, then nodded.

    And did each take exactly how I asked her to.

    ¡°Now do one that sounds like you¡¯re in the middle of a divorce,¡± I suggested, and she took the headphones off just to glare at me.

    ¡°Can you think of a take you¡¯d want to do?¡± I asked instead.

    Naya shrugged. ¡°Creativity is not one of my strong suits. ¡®More power on the bridge¡¯ is kind of the limit of my imaginative capabilities, if I¡¯m being honest.¡±

    ¡°Well, you¡¯ve given me a lot to work with now,¡± I said. ¡°I think I¡¯m gonna spend the rest of the day editing this song together.¡±

    ¡°And then?¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯m going to put together the full set. You can¡­ I dunno, think about how you¡¯ll perform this on stage. I can give you more direction later, I have to figure this out first.¡±

    ¡°Okay¡­¡± She fidgeted. ¡°Um, when you¡¯re done with the music stuff, I was wondering¡­¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±

    ¡°Can we change my look sometime soon?¡±

    ¡°Oh!¡± I had completely forgotten about my plans to do that. Poor Naya had been stuck in the same skimpy default-Syren clothes since she arrived. She didn¡¯t need to change clothes every day since she didn¡¯t sweat or anything, but it must feel uncomfortable all the same. ¡°Yeah, absolutely! What were you thinking of doing?¡±

    Naya opened the closet door to reveal the late afternoon light spilling through my windows. How long had we been working? ¡°I don¡¯t know, just something¡­ different. Don¡¯t wanna be a default Syren for too long, you know?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do about clothes,¡± I said, thinking of the piece I had already squirreled away. ¡°Anything in particular you want regarding hair and makeup?¡± I could buy Syren-specific hair pieces and face paint online, but it would take a few days to get them in. The fastest makeover option would be to just hack off some of Naya¡¯s plastic purple locks, like I was a four-year-old and she was one of my dolls. Maybe we could do some kind of Y2K-inspired look? Short bangs, bob that flipped up at the ends? Like a Eurobeat girl...

    ¡°Just something different,¡± she said again.

    She stepped out of the closet-studio and positioned herself in the window once more, unsnapping the dermal coverings on her arms to recharge. ¡°Will there be a lot of people at this gig?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Probably. Glitch Princess is pretty big in this area.¡± Seeing the cityscape seemed to bring me back out of the world of music and into the world of more material needs. When was the last time I had a drink of water? Or went to the bathroom? Judging by my robot cat¡¯s expression of disapproval, not recently enough.

    ¡°Please try to buy groceries before the store closes, meow,¡± Angie told me from where she was lying on my unmade bed. Say what you will about Kittipets, at least they didn¡¯t leave cat hair all over the place.

    ¡°And when will the store close, Angelica?¡± I asked her.

    She sat up straight and recited, ¡°The QuickMart 0.3 miles away closes at 11 pm, but the FreshFoods 0.5 miles in the opposite direction closes at 7:30 and they have a wider selection of fruits and vegetables. I have prepared a suggested shopping list for you based on your last five grocery store receipts and your dietary needs.¡±

    ¡°Ugh, fiiiiiiiine.¡± I got paid next week, but she was not wrong about the miserable contents of my fridge today. I needed to get something for dinner at the very least.

    I turned to Naya. ¡°You wanna go grocery shopping with me? It helps to do it with someone else to keep me on track.¡± Non-sentient Syrens didn¡¯t normally accompany their producers to the grocery store, but she could probably pass as a Cupid to the casual observer. ¡°And it might be fun for you too. You could borrow my hoodie if you want to cover up. Although it¡¯ll probably be too big for you...¡±

    ¡°I think I¡¯d rather... stay in,¡± Naya said, still looking as uncomfortable as her artificial facial muscles allowed. ¡°I can practice singing while moving around. Maybe learn some dances.¡±

    ¡°I guess that makes sense.¡± I felt a strange pang of disappointment at the rejection. Which was silly. Like I actually thought I was going to be friends with the singing robot I bought online. ¡°The performances at the annual ApolloCorp Expo are really good, but I think the less-huge Robo-Ball has more interesting and experimental stuff usually so if you can find any video of the recent ones I¡¯d recommend watching them.¡±

    ¡°Got it.¡± She nodded once, then looked out into the middle distance like she was zoning out. I guess that meant she was watching the videos in her head somehow.

    Angelica smacked my ankles again and I gave in, grabbing my reusable shopping bags and heading out to the FreshFoods. I took the stairs down and put a recent album from one of the big Japanese Syren producers on shuffle. He did a lot of interesting stuff with sound effects like clicking, bottles opening and ambient cafe sounds. Maybe I could incorporate more of that into the song I was working on with Naya.

    As much as I hated to admit it, the Kittipet was probably the best present my mother had ever given me, besides the piano lessons I did when I was a little kid. But part of me couldn¡¯t help but compare the two robots hanging out in my house. Angelica wasn¡¯t fully sentient. Though she had a bit of a personality and some ability to reason independently, everything she ¡°thought¡± about revolved around two things: convincingly imitating a pet cat, and supporting me as a kind of feline executive function coach.

    Naya was supposed to be similar, but she turned out to be capable of a lot more independence than I¡¯d bargained for when I ordered a Syren online. I thought about our first meeting again. Why did she call me a ¡°cutie¡±? Did she mean it? Did her programming instruct her to flirt with her owner? What was up with that?

    ¡°Aaaaaaaa,¡± I whisper-screamed into my reusable shopping bag, earning me a weird look from a passerby.

    I wished I¡¯d had someone to talk to about it, but she seemed to imply she was one of a kind. An experimental model, as she¡¯d said. I doubted anyone in the Syren SuperBoards knew anything about what I was going through with Naya now.

 Chapter Five

    It was still the middle of the workday for most people, so the FreshFoods was mostly filled with grocery delivery Pickybots gathering people¡¯s online orders. The big gray boxes rolled down the aisles, grabbing stuff off shelves with their claws and dropping boxes into the openings on top, looking for all the world like hyper efficient trash cans. Actually, now that I think of it, there might have been a line of Pickies for picking up litter specifically. Pickybots didn''t need to look cute or humanoid. They did one thing: collecting items to deliver them back to their assigned home base.

    But I did see a few Mrs. Hudsons wandering around the grocery store too. Those were rarer and more expensive than Pickies, but they did a lot more too: cooking and cleaning, with the possibility of installing an extra mod to enable childcare. A girl in my kindergarten class used to get picked up from school by her Hudson. They weren''t nearly as realistic back then, of course.

    I think nowadays the latest model goes for as much as a year''s salary on minimum wage, making the decision between buying a bot and hiring human help a real tossup for those who could afford it. Not that I was ever going to be that person. I wondered if Naya could learn to cook or clean, or if that was just impossible with her programming.

    If I looked closer, I could spot a few Cupids with their owners on cute little grocery-shopping dates. They looked just like unnaturally attractive people with their more ordinary partners, but if you knew what you were looking for, there were tells: the ApolloCorp logo disguised as a birthmark on the side of their necks, the heart-shaped mark on their cheekbones, the weird glitteriness in their irises that Naya and other ApolloCorp humanoids all shared.

    And the way their humans acted with them too: clinging possessively, but looking around with anxious shame in their eyes. Like they thought everyone around them was judging them for their choice of robot partner.

    I wasn''t, obviously. None of my business what random strangers chose to do with their lives. Although, if I had the money for a top of the line Cupid, I''d rather get a bigger apartment. Or new instruments I didn''t pick up off the street. But everyone has different priorities in life, I guess.

    I pulled a box of pasta off a shelf with my ordinary human hands and consulted the list Angie sent to my phone for what vegetables I should try to eat this week.

    Fortunately, the elevator was working for once when I returned with my bags. A small group of my neighbors were huddled around the lobby, waiting for the glowing down arrow to ding with its arrival. Mrs. P from next door was there too, dragging along her groceries in a little handcart.

    ¡°Maybe this time they¡¯ve fixed it for good,¡± someone I didn¡¯t recognize said, and everyone else laughed bitterly. It wasn¡¯t likely with how old this building was.

    I caught Mrs. P peeking into my grocery bags. Turnabout was fair play, then: I leaned to one side and looked at what was in her cart. Many boxes of saltines, plastic bags of dill and parsley, bell peppers, cans of fish.

    ¡°Hm,¡± she said.

    ¡°Hm,¡± I echoed.

    When the elevator arrived, I helped her get her cart into it.

    ¡°Maybe there¡¯s hope for you yet after all, Odessa Kondratchuk,¡± she said, once we had been spat out onto the eleventh floor.

    ¡°Glad to hear it,¡± I grunted, dragging her cart out of the elevator.

    When I returned, Naya was still standing in the space between my bed and the window. No, she wasn''t standing, she was moving. Dancing. I watched, reusable grocery bags in hand, as my Syren spun around, twirled her arms and swung her hips in time with what I''ve been calling Ocean in my head. Her long violet hair spun around with her.

    She was... Okay, to be honest, she wasn''t actually that great. Her movements were kind of stiff, but that wasn''t my biggest problem with how she was dancing.

    Angie wrapped her tail around my legs, reminding me to put my groceries away before I got too into it. I shoved everything into the fridge and pantry and went back to my room, knocking on the door as I opened it this time.

    Naya stopped and turned to look at me with a brilliant pop-star smile. ¡°Welcome back! How was grocery shopping?¡±

    ¡°Same as always. What are you practicing right now?¡±

    ¡°The dance for our song?¡±

    ¡°Okay, cool.¡± I curled and uncurled my fingers, feeling so uncomfortable I could die. I always hated giving people negative feedback. ¡°Can you tell me... why you are doing the moves you''re doing?¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Naya echoed. ¡°Because... It looks cool, I guess?¡±

    ¡°Remember we talked about putting emotion into your voice? Dancing is also like that. Your movements need to make sense with the emotions of the song.¡± Although I was as much of a dancer as I was a singer, so really who was I to criticize her on this.

    Naya tilted her head from side to side. I finally realized that was the gesture she made when she was taking in new information. ¡°Can you walk me through the emotions of the song, then?¡±

    That seemed about as appealing of an activity as pulling all of my organs out with a fishing hook. But if I wanted to improve her dancing...

    I pulled the lyrics sheet and a marker out of the closet-studio and sat down with it at the kitchen counter. ¡°Okay. Here we go.¡±

    As I scribbled out my feelings, verse by verse, I couldn¡¯t help but feel like a failure of a lyricist. Wasn¡¯t the point of music to get the emotions across without having to spell them out? Shouldn¡¯t Naya just... get it? Even though she didn¡¯t feel things the way a person did?

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Maybe I should¡¯ve shown these lyrics to an actual person before I started actually making this song. But I didn¡¯t really know anyone who would¡¯ve given me good feedback on them. I kept the music-making as a lowkey secret from most of my friends and acquaintances, though they knew I DJed a little on the side sometimes. My family had wanted me to do something more practical with my life, but I just couldn¡¯t get interested in my more practical major enough to turn it into a career.

    I looked at my lyrics sheet again. After this gig, I¡¯m going to put myself out there and try talking to other musicians at the show. It¡¯s going to happen.

    Filled with resolve, I finished annotating my own song and handed it back to Naya. ¡°Does this help?¡±

    She stared at it. ¡°I can¡¯t read this word.¡±

    I rewrote it again, more neatly. ¡°Rebirth. Charging forward into the unknown.¡±

    ¡°I see. So does this mean I should run forward on the stage?¡±

    I laughed. Naya frowned.

    ¡°No, um... I think for this verse, you need to like... Okay, are there any videos of opera singers in your database?¡±

    She tilted her head from side to side, then nodded.

    ¡°Do the like, arm thing they do.¡± I demonstrated, pointing my fingers like a ballerina and waving my arm up and down in front of myself. ¡°In time with the bassline.¡±

    She stared at me some more.

    ¡°Okay, have you ever seen the video of the 2.0 Syren doing the heavy metal song about fire? It was called Inferno or something?¡±

    Her eyebrows went up, and she nodded again, more vigorously.

    ¡°Can you do something like that?¡±

    ¡°Like this?¡± She did a perfect imitation of the routine from the Inferno SoundShare video that went viral when I was in middle school¡ª 2.0 jerkiness and all.

    ¡°Yeah, like that but smoother,¡± I said. ¡°Just the arm part, not the whole thing.¡±

    She did it again, smoother.

    ¡°That¡¯s great!¡±

    It was gratifying how quickly she learned from my instructions, how accurately she executed everything I wanted from her.

    I needed to make dinner, according to Angelica¡¯s repeated meowing at the door. And then I needed to actually finish putting the song together. And then I had work tomorrow, and I needed to get clothes and stuff for Naya¡¯s new look... I¡¯d have to find a shop in person to get Syren face paint and hair inserts from since an online order wouldn¡¯t deliver fast enough. The weight of the many tasks ahead of me seemed to sit on top of my shoulders as I opened my bedroom door again and returned to the kitchen.

    ¡°I guess you can keep practicing for now,¡± I said uncertainly as Naya followed me out. ¡°Unless you want to help with dinner, or something.¡±

    ¡°Aye-aye, cap¡¯n!¡± Naya saluted. ¡°I do not have the capabilities to help with dinner, so I will continue to practice my dancing!¡±

    Part of me wanted to invite her to sit with me while I made dinner, but I always felt awkward eating if the other person wasn¡¯t eating with me. And Syrens were definitely not built to simulate ingestion the way Cupids could.

    Plus, the last time someone sat at my kitchen counter and swung her legs back and forth while I slapped together a pasta on the stove, we were having our third date. The fling fizzled out not long after that, but the scene stuck in my head as an activity reserved for Third Dates. If a friend was over, we¡¯d be cooking together. If a potential paramour was over, I was cooking to try and impress them (although I wasn''t exactly a five-star chef myself, a surprising amount of twenty-somethings on matchmaking apps could barely boil water).

    Naya was many things, but a potential paramour she was not.

    I tapped my fingers against the edge of the stovetop while I pulled out a box of egg noodles and the instant sauce packets I bought at FreshFoods earlier. ¡°Potential paramour¡± kind of had a ring to it. I¡¯d have to write that down later.

    ¡°Poten-tial pa-ramour, po-ten-tial pa-ra-mour...¡± I kept muttering to myself as the water boiled. I added an egg and frozen spinach at the last minute so it at least resembled an actual meal.

    I ate my broke-bitch noodles while the beginnings of a new song congealed in my head like the sauce on the linguini, then went back into my studio to keep polishing the first song I made with Naya until the night grew late and my Kittipet was once again demanding I go to bed in time to get ready for work the next day.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to come up with a new look for you tomorrow,¡± I promised her, when I finally took off my headphones and turned on the lights again. Coming back to the real world after a long stretch of music creation was always weird, but I¡¯d made a lot of progress. There was a cool instrumental solo leading into the bridge now, and I used the multiple vocal takes to, hopefully, create an interesting effect. I pitched Naya¡¯s voice up and down on the chorus to make it sound like she had backup singers with her. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was done, but it was definitely a lot more complete than it had been at the beginning of the day.

    I slid my headphones over Naya¡¯s ears and hit play. ¡°I guess this is the first demo.¡±

    ¡°Oh! It sounds very different now. Is that me singing? Wow.¡±

    ¡°Humans generally think their voices sound weird in recordings, because the way we hear our own voices when speaking and how we hear them from an external source doesn¡¯t match up,¡± I explained. I read that on a SuperBoard post once. ¡°Does it feel like that for you too?¡±

    ¡°No. I think my voice sounds the same to me no matter where it¡¯s coming from. But you made it sound different! I like that! And I remember doing the takes to make my singing sound like that too. Now whenever I hear this song I¡¯ll remember it¡¯s not just a random Syren singing, but me. Naya.¡± She sounded as excited as a human. ¡°Okay, now shush, I want to appreciate it properly.¡±

    I shushed. I watched her listen to it. She made little half-attempts at dance moves as she did, still trying to figure out the appropriate way to move for the song. I think she liked it. It was hard to tell. Harder to tell if it mattered whether or not she liked it, since she wasn''t even a representative of my potential audience (human Syren music fans).

    ¡°I''ll probably keep messing with it for a bit more,¡± I said. ¡°Tomorrow, though. I''m going to go to sleep now.¡± This last bit was mostly said to placate Angelica, who was batting at my ankle again.

    ¡°Understood. I need to spend some time processing all of the new input I received today too,¡± said Naya. I still wasn''t totally clear on how that worked.

    ¡°Do you want to stand in the window for that?¡± I asked. ¡°So you can recharge at the same time.¡± It might be a little weird to have her standing there while I slept, but I was sure I could get over it if it was more efficient for the both of us.

    ¡°I thought you wanted to keep your work and sleep spaces separate,¡± Naya said slowly.

    ¡°I just use the closet for my music stuff because I soundproofed it. And you''re not...work. Not exactly.¡±

    She blinked her large aquamarine eyes at me. I wondered if there were precious gems set into her irises to make them sparkle like that.

    ¡°Just don''t watch me get changed, okay?¡± My face felt hot. I wasn''t even sure why that would matter. The way I saw Naya, person, robot, singer, friend, partner, collaborator, tool, seemed to change with every second I spent with her.

    Maybe I could write a song about that.

    At any rate, I got ready for bed, Angelica curled up next to me so she could wake me up in the morning, and Naya positioned herself so she could catch the most sunlight come morning.

    As I was drifting off to sleep, one last thought occurred to me:

    I needed more human friends.

 Chapter Six

    At work the next day, I played my demo for Cierra and Rhonda while we packed online orders in the back. I wasn¡¯t quite ready to inflict it on unsuspecting customers yet, but I knew my coworkers had decent taste.

    ¡°So what do you guys think?¡±

    ¡°Kind of a bop,¡± Cierra admitted, nodding vigorously. ¡°I don''t usually listen to Syren stuff because I don''t like the computery voices, but this one sounds really realistic! Whatever effects you put on it work really well.¡±

    ¡°Not my usual taste, but I can tell you put a lot of work into it,¡± said my manager diplomatically, before hurrying out front to man the register. You win some, you lose some.

    ¡°Is there anything you think I could improve?¡± I asked Cierra. We were pretty much just work friends, but maybe she could become an outside-of-work friend too.

    She shrugged. ¡°I don''t actually know a whole lot about music stuff, I just listen to it. Sorry.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Thanks anyway.¡± I should¡¯ve known it wouldn¡¯t be that easy. ¡°Does it sound like Glitch Princess?¡±

    ¡°A little. Is that what you wanted it to sound like?¡±

    ¡°I wanted it to be like, a good lead-in to her set. So, kind of, yeah,¡± I explained.

    ¡°I think it works. I¡¯m not super familiar with her work, but it sounds like something fans of hers would like. I think,¡± Cierra said again. ¡°Can you play it again?¡±

    I hit replay and then started stacking packages into the automatic delivery bot we rented from the post office down the street (once a day it marched our packages to the post office building and deposited the box into their delivery chute, before picking up our new arrivals and bringing them back to us.)

    ¡°Hmm,¡± Cierra said. ¡°Maybe like... I think the instrumentals are a little loud on the chorus? Does that make sense?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yeah, I can see that. Shouldn¡¯t be too hard to fix. Thank you!¡±

    ¡°And maybe the bassline on the bridge could be a little faster? Like dum-dum-dum instead of dum, dum, dum?¡±

    I grinned and swung my arm around her shoulder. ¡°I thought you said you didn¡¯t know about music! That¡¯s actually super helpful, C. Thank you.¡±

    ¡°Oh! You¡¯re welcome. Glad I could help.¡± She wriggled out of my embrace. ¡°That was all of the mail orders for today, right?¡±

    ¡°Yup. I''ll go tell Rhonda it''s safe to come out again now.¡± I hit pause on my music and pulled up the radio station app, tuning it to Rhonda''s beloved Motown for her.

    The rest of the work day was pretty chill. Some college students stopped by with yoga mats to get matching yoga outfits, but otherwise not a whole lot of traffic. On my break I went through the clothes I''d squirreled away for Naya the other day. Hoodies and tank tops and tennis skirts, nothing too fancy but nothing too pricey either. But also, if I thought about it, not really all that different from the default outfit she came with. And Naya did say she wanted a different look... But we didn''t really have the time to do a whole fashion montage before Saturday.

    With my employee discount and the fact that I get paid next week but bought groceries yesterday, I could probably get her one outfit today and then stop by the humanoid customization shop over by the train station to get a new hair insert and face painting supplies.

    ¡°Shopping for your girlfriend, Dess?¡± Cierra teased, ringing me up.

    ¡°You know I''m not seeing anyone right now,¡± I muttered, my face heating. ¡°They''re for my Syren.¡±

    ¡°Ooh. You''ll probably have to DIY a bit to make this outfit concert-ready,¡± she said with a frown. ¡°Do you know how to do that?¡±

    ¡°I have like... Fabric paint and a glue gun, I''m sure I can pull something off...¡±

    My plan as of right now was to splash the tank top and skirt with neon fabric paint and hang it up to dry until Saturday, and maybe layer my own hot-pink sheer overdress on top to add some visual interest.

    Oh man, I forgot about shoes. I guess she could just wear the default sneakers she came with and hope no one looked too closely.

    After work, I walked in the opposite direction of my apartment building to the customization shop. The windows were filled with plastic wigs and face plates for Cupids, Hudsons, Syrens and more. Supplies for institutional robot models for schools and hospitals and government work. They seemed like they might be able to help me out.

    You couldn''t use regular makeup on robot ¡°skin¡± and expect it to stick. A Syren was basically, in a lot of ways, a very large doll. So customizing one was kind of like customizing a doll. Unfortunately, I spent my formative years banging on toy pianos instead of watching doll customization videos on the SuperBoards the way some of my elementary school classmates did. But there were plenty of tutorials out there, right? And I knew how to do makeup on people. It couldn''t be that hard.

    The clerk at the customization shop gave me a look of profound skepticism when I voiced this opinion out loud. They had green hair with blond roots growing in and more piercings than I could count. Punk band pins on the straps of their uniform apron. I recognized some names, but didn¡¯t really listen to a lot of them.

    ¡°If you come over here,¡± they said, in that exaggeratedly bright and patient tone customer service workers have when talking to some idiot with a question they''ve answered a thousand times (a tone I knew well), ¡°you''ll find our basic eye, brow, and lip templates, starter kits, and transfer decals for beginners. I recommend this one for someone with no experience in droid painting.¡± They pulled a plastic package off a rack and handed it to me. It looked kind of like a stack of single use skin care face masks, but with makeup looks printed on them instead of cute cartoon animals. ¡°You said you have a show on Saturday? It''ll take 24 hours for the paint to dry fully, so make sure you do it before then.¡±

    I stared at the package.

    ¡°There''s instructions on the back of the kit,¡± they added helpfully. ¡°And if you mess up, you can remove it with acetone. That¡¯s nail polish remover? We sell that too, over at the register.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± I mumbled. Maybe Naya could help me with it. Maybe she knew how to do makeup, somehow. With all of the other things she wasn''t supposed to know or be able to do. ¡°Um, can you recommend me a good hair plate for my new Syren too?¡±

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°You might want a few different ones for different looks, especially if you¡¯re just starting out and you haven¡¯t settled on your brand aesthetic yet as you¡¯ve said.¡±

    ¡°Maybe I¡¯ll buy just the one now and then more later?¡± I said, thinking of my bank account.

    The clerk nodded and went over to the Syren hair plate wall in the back. ¡°These are modeled after the ones the leading Syrens of the industry use, as you can see. Malina, Lorelei, Vesper, etcetera.¡± They ran their hand down the wall. ¡°This is our neon line here. These are the more realistic, natural looking styles. These are for the masculine Syren model. Take your pick.¡±

    If I was going to be putting Naya in neons, I should probably get her neon hair to match. But I kind of wanted her to look more like a real person, with real hair. None of the ¡°realistic¡± hair plates had the kind of dull mousy brown hair I currently had pulled up away from my head, of course. No one wanted to see a pop star with hair that boring.

    I ran my hand down the shampoo-commercial curls of a long, russet-colored hair plate. It was as smooth and glossy as a waterfall. I liked how Naya looked like with long hair now, the way it swished around her as she moved. But she did say she wanted to look different, so maybe short would be better¡­

    I glanced at the price for the shampoo-commercial hair and winced. ¡°Uh, which styles would you say are the most budget friendly?¡±

    The clerk made a look that seemed to say, ¡°you blew all your money on a Syren and now you can¡¯t afford a nice hairdo for her?¡± But they pointed to the neon rack. ¡°The shorter hairstyles are generally less expensive.¡±

    I spotted an orange-soda bright hairstyle with flat bangs and flippy hair that reminded me of the main character in an anime movie I saw once when I was little. The orange should go well with Naya¡¯s cerulean eyes and warm skin. I hoped, anyway. It¡¯d be easier if she was here in person. Or if I could videocall her to ask what she thought.

    Maybe I should get her a phone? There was no way I could afford that. Unless it was one of those real crappy phones that could barely load a website. Maybe someone on Marketplace had an old phone they wanted to get rid of¡­

    ¡°Have you decided?¡± the clerk cut into my swirling thoughts.

    ¡°Oh. Uh, yeah. I think I¡¯ll take¡­¡± I looked at the orange hair plate again. ¡°Number 56?¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± They pulled the hair down from its high rack with a long hook. It felt much more like a cheap wig than the russet hair did, but I didn¡¯t have the funds to be too picky. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡± The clerk appeared distinctly unimpressed with my inability to provide for my robot. ¡°So, will that be all for today?¡±

    ¡°Uh¡­¡± I grabbed a bottle of acetone from the shelf at the register. ¡°I guess this is it for now. I¡¯ll probably come back later.¡±

    ¡°No worries. Tap to pay whenever you¡¯re ready¡±

    Perhaps I could try and make a new human friend now. We seemed to be around the same age, and their hair was cool.

    ¡°Um, do you like Syren music?¡± I asked.

    The clerk shrugged.

    ¡°I¡¯m gonna be opening at the Sparkplug with my Syren on Saturday.¡±

    They perked up. I could see them reassessing me, from idiot know-nothing Syren-owner to someone with at least a few Coolness Points to spare. ¡°Oh, the Glitch Princess show? I was thinking of going to that!¡±

    ¡°I hope to see you there! What¡¯s your name?¡± Their shop didn¡¯t appear to require nametags. Which was fair enough, my workplace didn¡¯t either. Rhonda said there was a stalking case with a past employee a few years back and they ditched the nametags as a preventative measure for that kind of thing.

    ¡°I¡¯m Leaf. What¡¯s yours? Can I follow you on SoundShare?¡±

    I had all of 27 followers on SoundShare as of that moment, most of them people I went to high school and college with. ¡°Absolutely! I¡¯m Dessie, and my SoundShare @ is Dess-C, Capital D, e, s, s, hyphen C.¡±

    My phone vibrated as the New Follower notification went through. ¡°Thank you so much! I hope you like what you hear. I¡¯ll have some new stuff for the show.¡±

    ¡°Good luck on Saturday,¡± Leaf said, sounding entirely sincere. ¡°And hey, if you end up needing help with the makeup application on your Syren, feel free to bring her over here and I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡±

    ¡°I appreciate it.¡± What could I offer them in exchange? ¡°I work at NewU Athleisure Wear a few blocks away. If you come while I¡¯m on shift I can get you 10% off your purchase.¡±

    They laughed out loud. ¡°Thank you for the offer, but I do not wear that shit.¡± They paused. ¡°Although, maybe when my sister¡¯s birthday rolls around... Anyway, thanks.¡±

    ¡°Of course. From one retail worker to another.¡±

    I collected my purchases into my work backpack and threw it over my shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll see you on Saturday, Leaf.¡±

    ¡°See you Saturday, Dessie!¡±

    I began the (not actually very long) walk back to my apartment. Maybe I should look up a tutorial for doing the Syren makeup customization. I wondered how long it would take me to do it. I did work on Friday, too, so I¡¯d probably have to do it either tonight or after work on Friday if I wanted it to be cured by the show¡¯s start time at 7:30... And I still had to tweak the new song a little more, and maybe do some edits on the other songs I wanted to play. And make sure my equipment was ready for Saturday, even though all of the legitimate musicians and the Sparkplug techs were probably going to laugh at how falling-apart all my sound stuff was...

    I was so overwhelmed with everything I had to by Saturday I almost missed the turn into my building¡¯s front yard. At least the elevator was working this time. I leaned against the elevator wall, finally realizing how much a whole day of work and shopping had worn me out.

    ¡°Welcome home,¡± Angelica and Naya exclaimed in identically bright computerized voices. (Well, almost identical, Angelica¡¯s had a growl parameter due to her imitating a cat.)

    ¡°Hey,¡± I said. I pulled the outfit I¡¯d acquired for Naya out of my backpack. ¡°I got this for you. I thought we could decorate it with fabric paint and then layer some of my clothes over it, and that could be your look for the show on Saturday.¡±

    She looked at it. ¡°I don¡¯t think this would be a very good disguise¡ª I mean, different look. It¡¯s pretty similar to the standard Syren outfits.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s why I got you this too!¡± I pulled the hair plate and makeup out.

    Naya held the hair plate out in front of her like it was a dead rat she¡¯d found behind the fridge. ¡°It¡¯s very... bright.¡±

    ¡°It goes with the clothes. And bright colors look good under nightclub lights,¡± I explained.

    She still looked skeptical as she handed the hair plate back to me. I sighed. ¡°Okay, do you want to go back to the shop with me and pick out your own hair?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Naya blurted out, almost too quickly. ¡°No, no, it¡¯s better if I stay inside.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s with this sudden agoraphobia?¡±

    ¡°Agora¨C I do not have a fear of going outside, I just¡­ I need to prepare. For the concert.¡±

    I stared at her.

    Did I somehow get the world¡¯s first Syren with anxiety?!

    How was that even possible? There should be safeguards in place to prevent that kind of thing from happening!

    ¡°If you¡¯re not ready to be on stage by Saturday, I understand,¡± I said. ¡°I can just play the recorded song with the rest of my set. You don¡¯t have to be there.¡±

    ¡°No, I do,¡± she said, more insistently, posture straightening as she stood with renewed confidence. ¡°I¡¯m a Syren. I have to perform, or I¡¯m not fulfilling my purpose. And I have to fulfill my purpose.¡±

    ¡°Is it¡­ do you want to be on stage?¡±

    ¡°Not exactly a want,¡± Naya said slowly. ¡°It¡¯s more like a need. Like I don¡¯t know what would happen to me if I don¡¯t do it.¡±

    ¡°Have you ever been on stage before?¡±

    ¡°Only for company demos, but there¡¯s a first time for everything!¡± Naya gave me a movie-star caliber smile, then reached for the hair plate again. ¡°You know what, you¡¯ve convinced me. This will be perfect.¡±

    ¡°Convinced you how?¡± I asked. ¡°Perfect for what?¡±

    But she ignored me. ¡°Can you put it on now? I don¡¯t know how to unsnap my own hair.¡±

    I did so. And she did look super cute with the bright orange hair. But I didn¡¯t like the feeling that Naya was hiding something from me. Something that might put our careers together in jeopardy.

 Chapter Seven

    The rest of the time leading up to the gig seemed to pass at 200 BPM. When I wasn¡¯t at work, I was working on Naya¡¯s look, or my songs, or trying to figure out what I would wear and how I would introduce my set. I ended up taking some of the scrapped recordings of Ocean and cutting the syllables into abstract vocalizations and mixing them into some of the other songs I was going to play, to try and make the whole thing sound a little more like a unified whole.

    The makeup thing went surprisingly well. I didn¡¯t exactly have a vanity table in my apartment, so I dragged the chair from my studio space into my bathroom for the brighter lighting and made Naya sit before going to town. I wiped her opaque blue eyeshadow and inch-thick eyeliner off with the acetone, and applied a thinner liner look and shimmery gold eyeshadow like a kind of sticker on her eyelids instead. The sticker went on evenly, and I didn¡¯t even tear off the corner by accident or anything. For the lips, the kit included a paint roller that was shaped almost like an actual lipstick. Since Naya¡¯s face was stiffer than a human¡¯s, it was easier to apply that too.

    The whole situation reminded me of being a teenager again and helping my friends get ready for prom. But while doing makeup on a human girl meant feeling her warm breath on your hands, doing makeup on Naya just felt like painting an oddly dimensional canvas. She stayed perfectly still in the chair, eyes closed, perfectly immobile. Just like a life-sized doll.

    I added the glitter cheekbone contour stickers to either side of her face and stood up. ¡°Okay, done. You can open your eyes now.¡±

    Her eyes flew open, and I could see how different the new makeup style made her face look. The subtler lines and softer colors made her look younger, like an up-and-comer in her early twenties rather than a mature songstress. The sparkles and glitter reflected my bathroom¡¯s fluorescents in a way that seemed to make her glow from within.

    She was beautiful.

    Not that she wasn¡¯t beautiful out of the box, but now she was beautiful because I¡¯d made her beautiful.

    I felt like Pygmalion, in awe of his own creation.

    I took a step back and spun her chair around to face my bathroom mirror. ¡°What do you think?¡±

    ¡°You need to wash this mirror,¡± Naya said immediately, which was probably true but uncalled for.

    ¡°I meant about the makeup.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s nice,¡± she said, looking at herself. ¡°I do look different.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad. Now don¡¯t touch any of that until¨C¡± I looked at my watch. ¡°5:37 PM tomorrow. It has to set for 24 hours. We start setting up at 7:30 so that should be fine.¡±

    Naya nodded, still staring at her own reflection.

    ¡°Are you sure you want to go on stage tomorrow?¡± I asked.

    She smiled, stretching the coral lipstick from ear to ear. ¡°Now that you¡¯ve put all this work into my look, how can I not?¡±

    Easily, as it turns out!

    But that was later. First, we had to get over to the show in the first place.

    The Sparkplug was a few subway stops away from my corner of the city, closer to the tourist center. It was a bigger and cooler venue than any of the little gigs I¡¯ve played before, but at least I have played gigs before. They had a lot of the equipment I needed already, but I still had to lug my synths and cables through the whole subway.

    Naya, however, was another story.

    Normally, Syrens got powered off and packaged up for easier transport¨C they weren¡¯t capable of independently navigating transit systems. But I couldn¡¯t make it onto the subway with a boxed-up Syren and all my sound equipment. I just wouldn¡¯t be able to carry all of that. And like hell was I going to afford a taxi into Center City from all the way out here.

    So I threw an oversized hoodie on top of Naya¡¯s skimpy concert fit and told her to hold onto the edge of my shirt, like a kid following her mom in a grocery store.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look around, don¡¯t get distracted by anything else, just stick to me and we¡¯ll get there, okay?¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± Naya said, in a voice so small it sounded like she¡¯d turned her volume dial down before speaking to me.

    Cupids could walk around town holding hands with their owners, but Naya wasn¡¯t supposed to go outside like that at all. I wasn¡¯t sure if she was even capable of walking while holding hands with someone, syncing her movements with someone else that way (although Syrens were often backup dancers for human singers, they rarely had to physically touch each other). So I figured I¡¯d just let her follow along behind me, like a large humanoid duckling. I still had to carry my equipment, after all.

    Naya pulled the hood over her head and grabbed the hem of my shirt, and we marched into the subway.

    I paid the fare for humans and had Naya put her hand on the scanner to get the reduced rate for androids (usually Cupids.)

    The train wasn¡¯t jam-packed like it would be during the peak hours of the weekday commute, but it was busy. Lots of people going into the city center for some Saturday night fun. I steered Naya around a pole and arranged her hands on it, posing her like an action figure. ¡°Keep your feet planted so you don¡¯t fall over.¡± She had to have some sense of balance, right? She was supposed to be a dancer.

    I put my hands over hers on the pole just to make sure she was holding it firmly. Warm, hard, matte-painted plastic. She kept her eyes fixed on me, and the attention was intimidating.

    I put my speakers between my feet and tried to focus on the number of stops we had left.

    When we finally made it to the Sparkplug, the place was both mostly empty and abuzz with activity. People were running around, fixing lights, setting up check-in queues, holding clipboards and yelling instructions to each other. It was a little bigger than the clubs I¡¯ve played before, and had the high ceilings and exposed plumbing of a converted former warehouse.

    Glitch Princess had a merch table set up at the front of the venue, which reminded me that I should probably also have merch to sell. It hadn¡¯t really occurred to me before. The teeny-tiny baby gigs I¡¯d done in the past didn¡¯t seem so merchandisable.

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    A scraggly guy in a black t-shirt spotted us when we walked in. ¡°And you are?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m Dessie, and this is my Syren, Naya. We¡¯re opening for Glitch Princess tonight?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yeah, hi! I¡¯m Jax, my cousin showed me your stuff. I can help you set up.¡±

    He stuck out his hand. I shook it. ¡°Nice to meet you. Cierra¡¯s told me¡­ absolutely nothing about you besides the fact that you work here.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°We¡¯re not actually very close, I was just messaging everyone on my contact list who might know someone who could fill in for the opener tonight. And C came through!¡±

    ¡°Thank you so much for this opportunity,¡± I said. ¡°Like, this is the biggest show I¡¯ve ever done in my life.¡±

    ¡°The biggest show of your life so far,¡± he said with a grin. ¡°Everyone deserves a lucky break. And I liked what I heard of your stuff, so I didn¡¯t see a reason not to give you one now.¡±

    We ran through the checks as the space started to fill up. I assumed most of the people filtering in were there for Glitch Princess, but I¡¯d posted about the show on my own socials so maybe some of my 28 entire followers had come to see me too. I hadn¡¯t seen Leaf yet.

    Naya was¡­ I wasn¡¯t sure if I could describe a robot as ¡°freaking out.¡± But she pulled the hood tighter over her hair, and kept looking out into the audience. Then she suddenly crouched and hid behind me, like she¡¯d seen a monster in a horror movie.

    ¡°Do you have stage fright or something?¡± I asked her. ¡°You don¡¯t have to go out until the last song, so relax.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not that¡­¡± She shook her head. ¡°Actually, is there a curtain we can rig up so I can sing behind it?¡±

    ¡°What? God, is this about the outfit? Do you really hate it that much?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not about the outfit,¡± she said, ¡°but I just¡­ I can¡¯t go out there. Please ask about the curtain.¡±

    I figured it wouldn¡¯t be that difficult to get a curtain set up, and I was right. There was a spray-painted curtain on a wheeled frame in the backstage area of the club, and we pulled it out behind my DJ table. Naya calmed down and finally took off the hoodie, fluffing up her new short orange hair. I could see a few techs sneaking looks at her, curious, approving.

    ¡°Ready to go when you are,¡± I said. The nerves finally hit me. What if I sucked? What if everyone hated me? What if Glitch Princess hated me? What if Naya just totally froze up and didn¡¯t sing at all?

    ¡°Uh,¡± the sound tech said, ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re ready to go at all, unfortunately.¡± He pointed to a light on my speaker that was blinking red. ¡°You¡¯re missing a wire here.¡±

    My nerves instantly liquified into pure, leaden dread. How could I have been so stupid as to forget the connecting cables for a live show? I grabbed my shoulder bag and started to dig through it. I had to have a backup somewhere¡­

    ¡°Would this work?¡± said a familiar voice behind me.

    I whirled around. Glitch Princess herself! Ahhhh, she¡¯s so cool!!

    She was shorter in person than I¡¯d expected, tiny even in her chunky platform sandals. Her oversized clothes and huge hot-pink Afro puffs made her seem even smaller, but her dark skin seemed to sparkle from the inside out. A real rising star. ¡°Hi! I heard you¡¯re opening for me. Dessie, right? I go by Glitch Princess, but you can call me Gina.¡± She winked.

    Gina! ¡°Yeah! Oh my gosh, I¡¯m such a huge fan!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but start gushing. ¡°I¡¯ve been listening to your work ever since your first EP went up on SoundShare, and you just keep getting better!¡±

    ¡°Aw, thanks. I checked out what you posted so far too, you¡¯re not so bad yourself!¡±

    ¡°T-thank you,¡± I stammered. ¡°I hope I can do a good job opening for you today.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be just fine. Just play your songs and everything will turn out exactly the way it should.¡± She patted me on the shoulder. She had to reach up a little to do so. I thought I was going to evaporate right then and there.

    ¡°Anyway.¡± She handed me the cable, carefully labeled with neon pink paint pen. ¡°Just don¡¯t forget to give it back at the end of your set, okay?¡± She winked at me again. I really was going to evaporate into a cloud of excited fangirl steam. But I couldn¡¯t do that yet. I had a set to do.

    Naya was running through her warm up diagnostic moves, a sequence which looked a little bit like that 20th century ¡°robot¡± dance no one did anymore. I still had ten minutes before I was due to go on. The Sparkplug employees made their warning announcements, and the show floor was starting to look very full. People were grabbing drinks and snacks from the bar, catching up with their friends. I saw Leaf with a group of similarly-pierced and tattooed people. They waved at me. In the back was a pair in matching ApolloCorp hoodies. Maybe they heard there was going to be a Syren performing and wanted to check up on their merchandise. But I wasn¡¯t sure how they¡¯d know that, I didn¡¯t advertise Naya¡¯s involvement very widely.

    I could hear some people talking closer to the stage, two guys in matching Glitch Princess T-shirts purchased from the merch table by the entrance.

    ¡°Do you know what¡¯s with the curtain?¡±

    ¡°No idea. I think the opener¡¯s got a Syren. I guess they want to keep her look a secret for now or something.¡±

    ¡°Ugh, Syrens,¡± said the other guy. ¡°That¡¯s such an expensive way of saying ¡®I don¡¯t know how to work with other people well enough to collaborate with a human singer.¡¯¡±

    The first guy laughed. ¡°I mean, I like how Syren voices sound all computer-y, so that¡¯s a reason to pick them over human singers. The people who are really into them are so weird though. Just buy a Cupid if you want to fuck robots, don¡¯t project onto the pop star droids.¡± He looked up at the stage, and I quickly looked away to hide the fact that I was eavesdropping. ¡°I hope this producer knows what they¡¯re doing, at least.¡±

    I glanced in Naya¡¯s direction to see if she heard that, but she seemed to be almost in a meditative state, eyes closed, mouth smiling softly, arms at her sides. The men¡¯s words rankled me, though. I wasn¡¯t weirdly into Syrens. And I know how to collaborate with humans, I just didn¡¯t know anyone who¡¯d want to sing my stuff!

    Except Naya. Who wanted to work with me more than I probably deserved.

    The crowd seemed to have doubled in size in the few moments it took me to process that weird overheard discussion. It was almost standing room only. At least a few hundred people now.

    ¡°I wanna throw up,¡± I muttered.

    ¡°Don¡¯t do that,¡± Naya said. With the curtain in front of her, a light casting her in silhouette, she seemed much calmer.

    I¡¯ve done gigs before, DJing mostly. They always went fine. Not spectacular, generally, but I could get the crowd reasonably pumped and nodding along to my tunes. And sometimes a few people asked me where I got the songs I was playing, and I got to tell them that actually, I wrote them myself! That¡¯s how I got some of my 28 followers.

    But I¡¯ve never done a gig with Naya before. Or with anyone else.

    We¡¯d done a practice run-through of the set a few times already. She was going to be singing live (or, ¡°live¡±), and doing some of the dance moves she¡¯d practiced for the songs where she wasn¡¯t singing. But with this curtain set-up, I was further away from her than we¡¯d planned for. I wouldn¡¯t even be able to see behind the curtain. And I¡¯d be the only one in the spotlight, literally.

    ¡°If you¡¯re going to be in silhouette the whole time, you¡¯ll have to exaggerate your movements more, keep that in mind,¡± I told her.

    She nodded once, still in her weird meditative zone.

    ¡°Are you okay now? What freaked you out so much anyway?¡±

    ¡°Focusing,¡± she said. ¡°Recalibrating out of practice mode and into performance mode.¡±

    ¡°Huh. I didn¡¯t know those were two different modes.¡± She didn¡¯t answer my question, I noticed, but I guess she had other things to worry about.

    ¡°Practice allows for learning and evolution, performance mode is for efficient and flawless execution.¡± Her voice sounded flat and detached, like she was reading from a manual.

    ¡°So long as you do manage to execute everything flawlessly, I guess.¡±

    She closed her eyes again, then opened them about thirty seconds later. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m ready now.¡±

    I nodded to the techs, and the lights over the audience went out.

    I looked into the darkness.

    ¡°ARE YOU READY?!¡±

 Chapter Eight

    I thanked my lucky stars I was a producer and not a guitarist, because I couldn¡¯t imagine the stress of having to actually play a whole real instrument live.

    Just pushing a button and standing awkwardly behind my bulky computer setup was equally embarrassing to imagine. For my live performances I usually cut up each of the songs I was going to play into parts, and then used my music mixing tools to play each part and connect them to each other live, so they¡¯d sound a little different from the versions I¡¯d uploaded to SoundShare.

    I didn¡¯t have a lot of extra room for improvisation this gig (especially since Naya wasn¡¯t built for improvising herself), but if I wanted to make a song go longer or shorter than I¡¯d originally written it to, I could. With practice, the two of us worked out a method that let me look like I was doing something at my machines without going off the rails too much.

    I pushed my little buttons and listened as my beats recreated themselves in the air around me. The lights felt like heat lamps over my head. I shrugged off the sleeves of my hoodie so I was standing there in a black tank top, just like any other sound tech. I could hear my songs, but also, the rustling of the crowd, like leaves in a windstorm. And underneath all of that, my heartbeat, syncing in time with my bassline.

    Once I¡¯ve set the clips for the first chorus, I glanced over to my right to see what Naya was doing. She was dancing behind the curtain, executing the moves just like we¡¯d practiced. I think she took my advice about exaggerating the movements, because they were pretty clear in silhouette. I looked back into the dark crowd.

    I couldn¡¯t make out a single face, but I knew they were all looking right at me. It was all I could do not to hide behind my big black mixer table. I pushed my volume dial up and hoped that helped.

    ¡°Hey, can I get some more lights going?¡± I said into my mic. I felt like I needed to do something to liven things up. Without Naya there to look at, I wasn¡¯t nearly entertaining enough.

    He said something into a radio, and soon there was a beam of yellow light roving around the space, bouncing off the audience onto the walls and back to the stage. I felt a lot more relieved now that I could see everyone was actually getting pumped up to my tracks.

    ¡°Thank you, thank you!¡± I said into the mic after the first song finished and the crowd spurted a polite amount of applause. ¡°Once again, I¡¯m Dessie, here with my Syren. We¡¯re still working on her look, so she¡¯ll be singing from here today¡ª¡± I gestured to the curtain. ¡°But her voice is still just as angelic as a Syren¡¯s should be. Thank you so much to the Sparkplug and Glitch Princess for giving us this opportunity. Up next is After Rain, The Wet Leaves.¡±

    This one was a little bit slower and moodier, but it segued really nicely into Ocean, and I¡¯d added some of Naya¡¯s vocalizations to the end of it as a kind of teaser for the Syren song. I¡¯d mixed in a lot of atmospheric sounds, rain and wind and crunching and splashing all weaving through the more conventional instrumental music to create a clear sensation. Listening to it calmed me, even though it was my own song. It was a song I¡¯d kind of made for me first, and everyone else last.

    Naya swayed slowly in place, and added her little ¡°la-la-la¡±s to the end on the spot.

    I wasn¡¯t expecting wild applause for this one, but the crowd was louder when it finished than after my first number.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. I thought I was having a heart attack or something. ¡°Up next is a brand new, unreleased song featuring Naya: Ocean!¡±

    For this song, I wasn¡¯t doing any button-pushing. We wanted the focus to stay on Naya. I just hit play and swiveled to stare at the curtain, waiting for something to go wrong.

    The stage lights switched to blue. The instrumental opening kicked in, the beats and melody I¡¯d labored over for what felt like my entire life. Naya¡¯s silhouette stood still.

    My breath caught. She opened her mouth, tilted her head back, and began to sing.

    ¡°I never wanted to be blue... Never wanted to find myself like this, cold and wet and drowned...¡±

    She spun around, putting her arms out to either side. The song began with this kind of feeling of despair, before spiraling into anger, and then ending on an uplifting, determined note. I hoped all of that got through, at least.

    ¡°Turning me into seafoam... turning me into seafoam.... Turning me, turning me, turning, turning, t-t-t-t-t...¡± and bam! There was the beat drop. I felt my shoulders loosen.

    Syrens could recreate vocal glitching live, in a way most human singers were physically incapable of doing. They could recreate effects that for a human singer would only be possible after a lot of time spent fiddling with a computer, just with their voices. That was why I wanted to work with a Syren instead of a human singer.

    Naya started moving more as the song got faster and livelier, swaying, moving her hips, shoulders, arms just like we¡¯d practiced in my apartment. I still wouldn¡¯t say she was the most expressive dancer I¡¯d ever seen, but I felt more despair and anger in her posturing now than I did on our first run through.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Now what, now what, now what?!¡± Her voice escalated into a shriek. The beat dropped again, and there went the chorus. I couldn¡¯t really hear anyone singing along to it yet, but maybe in future shows. Maybe someday, people would know the words to my songs.

    ¡°Waves crashing against the hard shore of my heart, and I¡¯m coming apart,¡± Naya sang. ¡°Back into the ocean where I belong.¡±

    It was working. I pushed up the volume on the drums behind her, dropped in a clip of staticky wave and water sound effects. I tried to feel for the energy of the crowd, but the lights blew the audience into a dark mass. It was working. It had to work.

    ¡°The ocean leaves me salty wet and scraping sand out of my leather boots.¡± she stomped twice, raising her knees high before dropping her feet back to the ground. I thought it was a fun move when I suggested it, but seeing it through a curtain made it look a little too on the nose. We¡¯d have to change that in a future show.

    I glanced backstage to see if anyone was nodding along, but all I could see was Glitch Princess¡¯s team getting ready to set up for their own show.

    I felt awkward shouting into the crowd, so I just hoped Naya¡¯s energy was enough to intrigue people. But even that was sure to be diminished, since she was hiding behind a curtain. What was with that? She was, very literally, made to be a pop star.

    She was supposed to be on stage.

    The lighting techs seemed to be helping me out, though, flashing blue-gelled lights onto the curtain to echo the ocean theme.

    And then... it was over. The end of my all-too-short set.

    ¡°Thank you, everyone! Once again, I¡¯m Dessie, my Syren¡¯s Naya, you can find our songs on SoundShare and my socials at d-e-s-s-hyphen-capital-C!¡± I still hadn¡¯t uploaded Ocean anywhere. I¡¯d have to do that when I got home.

    The lights changed, and the techs helped me break down my equipment as fast as possible so Glitch Princess could start setting up her own stuff. I remembered to give her back the borrowed cable.

    ¡°Thank you so much, you¡¯re a lifesaver,¡± I blurted out as I passed the cable back to her.

    ¡°Of course, of course,¡± she said, waving me off. ¡°I liked your set! The Syren song was really good. I¡¯ll have to follow you later!¡±

    I felt my face heat up. ¡°P-please don¡¯t feel obligated to...¡±

    ¡°Nonsense. I like your sound!¡± She turned around on her way to center stage. ¡°By the way, there¡¯s going to be an afterparty at The Pink Cat a block down after I¡¯m done here, if you want to come by. Some of my friends who do Syren stuff are going to be there, you could chat!¡±

    ¡°Oh, sure, I would love to.¡± My mouth seemed to be operating without any input from my brain. I had to work tomorrow morning. But like hell was I missing a Glitch Princess afterparty. Maybe she¡¯d tell me what synths she used on her last album...

    The techs pushed Naya¡¯s curtain away from the stage to replace it with Glitch Princess¡¯s handmade glitter-and-fake-butterflies backdrop she brought to every show. Naya followed me behind the stage, pulling her hoodie back on. She wasn¡¯t sweaty, Syrens didn¡¯t sweat, but I could hear the vents under her arms and on the sides of her torso working overtime. Usually, her ventilation system was silent.

    ¡°What was all that? Why didn¡¯t you want to be seen on stage?¡±

    Naya shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s complicated.¡±

    ¡°Is it like... a programming error? Do you need to be debugged? I could send in a ticket to ApolloCorp¡ª¡±

    ¡°No,¡± she snapped, fast and harsh. ¡°It¡¯s¡ª I¡¯m fine. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡±

    I checked my phone for the time and saw a smattering of New Follower notifications filling the top half of my feed. ¡°Huh. I guess people liked us.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m still kind of annoyed,¡± I said, ¡°that you¡¯d just deviate from our plan like this. And after I¡¯d spent all that money and time on your look too! I was counting on you being there so we could play off each other while performing, because I¡¯m not really a good performer myself.¡±

    ¡°I know, I¡¯m sorry,¡± Naya said, quietly. ¡°Are we leaving now?¡±

    ¡°I want to stay and watch the rest of the show, and then Glitch Princess invited me to an afterparty.¡± I then remembered that no one else knew Naya was more sentient than most Syrens. It would be weird to bring Naya along. ¡°I guess you could watch the show from the back, if you want?¡±

    ¡°No thanks,¡± she said, way too fast again. What was going on?!

    She seemed to realize this was weird, and tried to smile. ¡°I can power myself down for now and you can just take me home with the rest of your stuff after you¡¯re done!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to carry you and my sound equipment,¡± I said. ¡°Oh, but... they have big lockers by the train station, I could put you and my sound stuff in one of them for an hour and stop by the party for a bit and then pick you both up? Are you okay with that?¡±

    ¡°Sure!¡± Her voice sounded too bright. I thought she might be trying to make up for her earlier disagreeableness. And I was annoyed she was being disagreeable, but more than that, I was annoyed that she didn¡¯t want to tell me why she was acting this way. What was bothering her?

    ¡°And if you don¡¯t want to watch the show right now I guess you could just hang back here...¡±

    ¡°Why are you talking to her like she¡¯s a person? Power button¡¯s on her stomach.¡± Someone¡ª one of the sound guys from earlier, I think¡ª whispered as he walked past me with a roll of extension cords.

    I glanced guiltily at Naya. She stared back at me.

    In the distance, I could hear applause as Glitch Princess¡¯s set was about to start.

    ¡°I¡¯ll just stand in the corner and wait for you to come back and get your equipment after Glitch Princess is done,¡± she said.

    I groaned. ¡°That makes me feel terrible.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± This time, it sounded genuine. ¡°I have fulfilled my purpose for today. I sang, and danced, and performed. So I¡¯m satisfied.¡±

    She followed me to where I was storing my equipment for the time being and sat down on top of the big black boxes. ¡°Go watch the show.¡±

    I could hear the familiar bubble-popping sounds of ¡°3 A. M.¡±, the leading single off Butterfly Rendering, beginning in the distance.

    I cast one last glance at Naya, then went to watch the show.

 Chapter Nine

    Okay, watching Glitch Princess live was almost awesome enough to distract me from wondering about what Naya¡¯s whole deal might be. She had a full, complicated image projection system set up that cast beautiful, rainbow abstractions all over the room while she sang. Her voice was fine, but her production was the part that drew me to her music in the first place, the creativity and inventiveness in how she combined samples and sounds from all sorts of instruments and sources. She designed her video projections herself, too.

    On stage, she shone.

    Glitch Princess wasn¡¯t a superstar headliner yet, but I knew someday, she would be properly famous, not just ¡°your favorite musician¡¯s favorite musician¡± famous. She had that raw magnetism to really sell some tricky, complex songs. She finished her opening number and the crowd went wild as pink butterfly-shaped confetti rained from the ceiling.

    ¡°Hi everyone!¡± she cooed. ¡°It¡¯s me!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s you!¡± the crowd shouted back. The call-and-response from her first song to make it moderately big.

    Part of me wished I could perform like that, run around a stage in a pretty dress and sing my own songs over an adoring crowd. But I was made for blending in, not standing out. Not like Glitch Princess. Not like Naya.

    I let loose in the crowd for her show and thought, as I listened to the live renditions of some of my favorite songs, that as a musician, I had a long way to go. My blood turned to fizzy sparkles as the good-music endorphins ran through my body at the loud, bright sounds.

    By the time the walls of the Sparkplug shook with the echoes of the last song, I felt exhausted, but in a good way. Inspired, invigorated, even if I was too tired to do anything about that now. The crowd surged towards the exits and I weaved my way through to backstage, where I ran right into Glitch Princess and her crew.

    ¡°Oh, hey!¡± she said. Up close, I could see she was soaked in sweat, and her makeup was starting to smear a little. I remembered she¡¯d asked me to call her Gina. From this angle, it was easier to see her as Gina and not as Glitch Princess, ruler of thousands. ¡°Did you have fun?¡±

    ¡°I did, thank you!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re coming to the after party, right?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d love to, I just have to figure out where to put my stuff first¨C¡±

    ¡°Oh, we¡¯re all leaving our equipment here, the guys said we could so long as we clear out by two. You could probably leave your stuff here too!¡±

    <ol start="2">

    <li> A. M? I checked the time on my phone: it was just past ten o¡¯clock. How long were they planning on partying?</li>

    </ol>

    ¡°I guess I¡¯ll do that,¡± I said. ¡°Though I¡¯ll probably leave earlier than that, since I¡¯m working tomorrow¡­¡±

    I expected Gina to laugh at my petty mortal concerns, but instead she nodded sympathetically and said, ¡°I¡¯ve been there, especially when I was just starting out doing shows. I just barely started making enough money to live off my music stuff.¡±

    She looked me directly in the eyes. ¡°It¡¯s hard! But it¡¯s worth it.¡±

    ¡°... I¡¯ll do my best to get there,¡± I told her.

    And then I left my equipment (and Naya) backstage and followed Gina and her groupies to The Pink Cat. I didn¡¯t generally frequent Center City nightlife (Couldn¡¯t afford it. Stuck to the cheaper places further out), but I¡¯d heard of the Pink Cat before. They kept their own Syren, Melusine, to do lounge-singer standards in a slinky red dress.

    It was a great gimmick back when Syrens were new and still kinda janky, but now, as I walked into the dimly-lit jazz club, I could only see how outdated Melusine¡¯s model was. Her dancing was much stiffer than Naya¡¯s, her rendition of ¡°You Belong To Me¡± hard to understand. But there was some charm to it too.

    ¡°It¡¯s almost, like, retro now,¡± Gina said, glancing at the Syren on stage. The after party had mostly coalesced around one overstuffed pink booth in the back and the table closest to it. I found myself seated towards the middle, surrounded on either side by musicians and producers I¡¯d heard of online.

    ¡°Do you remember when they first launched Syrens?¡± Gina asked me suddenly. ¡°You might be too young to remember that now.¡±

    ¡°I was in middle school! I remember the ad campaign all over the place. Why, how old were you?¡± Which was an awfully bold question to ask my idol, but I¡¯d already had a French Martini and a half and was feeling bold. Ish. Bold-ish.

    She laughed and said, ¡°older than that, I¡¯ll tell you that much!¡±

    I remembered the ad campaign, but I also remember looking up videos of Lorelei¡¯s live shows online, her five producers all dressed in black in the shadows behind her, and looking up the much bigger shows of her Japanese counterpart Mirako, and the first Robo-Ball, and just being dazzled by how much people managed to make these robots do. I wanted a Syren because I was enamored with them. Not just because Syrens were useful.

    ¡°These guys have a Syren too,¡± Gina said suddenly, gesturing to a pair of people in matching black T-shirts over fishnet sleeves before hopping into another conversation.

    ¡°Pooled our money and bought ol¡¯ Lollipop together,¡± said the one on the right, the one with short black hair. ¡°I¡¯m Mixie.¡±

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    ¡°Sera,¡± said the one with long blond hair. ¡°We post online as Mixera featuring Lollipop.¡±

    ¡°Oh! I¡¯ve seen your work before,¡± I realized. Not a lot, but I¡¯d gotten a couple of songs recommended to me on SoundShare before. ¡°You did um. Candy Hearts, right? It was catchy!¡±

    ¡°Thank you, thank you!¡± said Mixie. ¡°Your set was pretty cool too. I liked the Syren song at the end.¡±

    ¡°Thank you! Yeah, I just got Naya last week, so I really wanted to try to make something with her in time for the show¡­¡± I studied the raspberry floating in the remains of my drink. I could feel my face growing warmer from the alcohol and the humid space around me.

    ¡°There¡¯s a bit of a learning curve, working with Syrens,¡± Sera said. ¡°They look so much like people, but they don¡¯t learn the same way, so¡­¡±

    ¡°Yeah, that part was hard.¡± I nodded fervently. ¡°And she didn¡¯t like everything about my song either. But we worked out a system that made sense for us, and practiced a lot¡­¡±

    ¡°Wait, your Syren didn¡¯t like your song? Are they even programmed to have musical preferences?¡± Gina interrupted, tuning back in from her other conversation.

    ¡°You might be anthropomorphizing it too much,¡± said someone else whose name I didn¡¯t catch, a masculine-looking figure with a buzzcut and tight crop top. ¡°Go through the Amatomizer Checklist before you do something crazy.¡±

    ¡°Brick¡¯s right.¡± Sera looked at me, eyes full of concern. ¡°Are you analyzing a neutral android face plate for imaginary microexpressions? Are you asking your Syren for input before making decisions involving it? You might need to take a step back.¡±

    I shrank back in the plush booth seat, burning with shame. They didn¡¯t get it. They didn¡¯t know my Syren was special, and sentient, and could actually have opinions in her little artificial head.

    I chugged the rest of my drink. Checked the time. I¡¯d been there for more than an hour, which meant the subway was going to stop running soon enough. ¡°It was really nice meeting all of you, but I have to get going. I¡¯m taking the subway, and I have work tomorrow...¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m taking the subway too,¡± Brick said suddenly, standing up from where they were at the end of the horseshoe-shaped booth. ¡°I can walk with you to the station.¡±

    The thought of trying to explain Naya traveling as a passenger and not disassembled in a box to someone who¡¯d just told me to do the Checklist on her made me want to throw up. Or maybe that was the second French Martini, I hadn¡¯t eaten much all day. ¡°I uh, have to get my stuff from The Sparkplug first, so...¡±

    ¡°Gotcha, no worries.¡± They stood up. ¡°At least let me walk you out.¡±

    I nodded. We bid goodbye to the group, and my phone buzzed with notifications of all these super-cool musicians following me (a lot of whom I was following already!)

    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to jump on you like that, by the way,¡± Brick said. ¡°It¡¯s just... I got really attached to a Friendbot, when I was a kid. We¡¯d just moved to a new area and I was having a hard time making friends at school, so my parents got me Polly, and then...¡± They laughed bitterly. ¡°well, I had to go to therapy for a long time to get unattached from a hunk of metal that would never love me back.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± I didn¡¯t think the situation with Naya was very similar, but they had no way of knowing that. ¡°I¡¯m sorry you went through so much pain.¡±

    ¡°Eh. We all got our own shit to deal with, you know?¡± They grinned at me, and it occurred to me that they might have been flirting. Or hovering on the edge of flirtation. ¡°So what¡¯s your shit, Dessie?¡±

    ¡°I...¡± my throat felt tight. I had no idea how to boil down all of my many little hurts into a punchy little story like Brick just did. ¡°I don¡¯t know if we¡¯re close enough for me to just tell you about that, sorry.¡±

    ¡°Fair ¡®nuff.¡± They took a step back from me. ¡°Sorry if that went too far.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡±

    We stopped outside The Sparkplug.

    ¡°Get home safe, okay?¡± Brick said. I nodded.

    The unlocked door swung open automatically for me, and I made my way through the dark front rooms to backstage.

    Naya was standing where I¡¯d left her, the leftover glam of her stage outfit mostly covered by her hoodie. Her eyes were closed. I think she¡¯d entered sleep mode. When I said her name, though, her eyes flew open.

    ¡°Welcome back!¡± She smiled at me. I felt a flash of guilt again, for leaving her, and for kind of talking about her back, in a way.

    ¡°Thanks.¡± I pulled out the handcart with all my stuff on it. ¡°You ready to go?¡±

    ¡°Sure!¡±

    I turned around to leave, and she grabbed the hem of my shirt just like before.

    It felt a little scarier doing this at night. The streets weren¡¯t empty¡ª it was a Saturday night in the city center, after all. But the people who were out and about were rowdier, louder, and the streetlights didn¡¯t manage to chase all of the darkness away. Still, the subway station wasn¡¯t too far.

    ¡°Are you ever going to tell me why you didn¡¯t want to be seen on stage?¡± I asked as we went into the station.

    ¡°I just didn¡¯t want... everyone to see me,¡± she said eventually. ¡°It¡¯s... I¡¯m not ready to tell you about it yet, okay?¡±

    ¡°I guess I have to be,¡± I grumbled.

    ¡°But you know,¡± Naya added, brightening, ¡°it looks like the curtain thing went over pretty well! According to the recently added posts in the Center City Concerts SuperBoard, the audience was intrigued by the mystery behind our presentation.¡±

    ¡°Huh.¡± I put one hand on the pole and pulled out my phone with the other, scrolling to the correct feed. That¡¯s when I noticed my follower counts on the SuperBoards, PicShare, VidShare, and SoundShare all went up¡ª by a lot.

    And people were tagging my account!

    ¡°Great show tonight at @SparkplugCC with @Dess-C and @GlitchPrincessOfficial !!!¡±

    ¡°Never heard of @Dess-C before but she¡¯s definitely an up-and-comer in the Syren scene imo, that last song CLEARED¡±

    ¡°LOVED @GlitchPrincessOfficial tonight! The opener was ok too¡±

    ¡°Is this what fame feels like?¡± I whispered.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if you can call a couple dozen new followers ¡®fame¡¯,¡± said Naya. ¡°But it¡¯s definitely a start!¡±

    My chest felt warm. I tapped out a quick thank-you post and hid my phone in my pocket again. ¡°I guess we can keep performing with you hidden and then do a big dramatic reveal at some point?¡±

    ¡°Maybe at some point, yeah!¡±

    The train car was mostly empty, with everyone else following the city dweller conventions of studiously ignoring their surroundings. But I was still thinking about how everyone reacted to the idea of me interacting with Naya.

    ¡°What if,¡± I said in a low voice, ¡°we start pretending you¡¯re a Cupid in public?¡±

 Chapter Ten

    Naya smiled uneasily. ¡°Are you making a joke?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m serious. It¡¯s obvious up close, but from far away, if you hold hands with me when we¡¯re outside, you could pass for a new style of Cupid. And Cupids are more sentient than Syrens are supposed to be, so no one will be surprised when we talk like equals.¡±

    ¡°We just have to... act like a couple,¡± Naya said slowly.

    ¡°Not even that much! I just need to put a Cupid decal on your face and then if you can hold my hand or put your hand on my lower back or something while we walk around, that should be enough to get people off our backs.¡±

    You could buy a Cupid decal¡ª a little heart-shaped sticker that all genuine Cupids had on their cheekbones, like birthmarks¡ª online pretty easily, if not exactly legally. ApolloCorp cranked down hard on people selling unofficial merch of their logo, which Cupids also had on their necks, but the Cupid cheekbone mark was too iconic to not be infinitely replicated. People put them on anything. Water bottles, bikes, cars. The more random the item, the funnier the Cupidification of it.  Some people even put temporary tattoos of the Cupid decal on their own faces, as if to make some kind of statement about man and machine.

    The train pulled into our stop. ¡°Let¡¯s practice now!¡± I held out my free hand, the one that wasn¡¯t pulling my sound equipment along, to Naya.

    She stared at it, then took it, wrapping her plastic fingers and palm around my flesh-and-blood equivalents. It felt weird. Of course it felt weird. Like shoving my hand into a plastic-and-metal glove. But I guess if I was holding a human¡¯s prosthetic hand, it would probably feel similarly weird, right? Although nowadays most prosthetics were build with the Cupid tech that makes them feel more realistic, with body-temperature heating and a soft, squishy skin covering instead of the vinyl layer on Naya.

    Syrens were not made to be touched, after all.

    Still, I clutched her hand firmly and pulled her along to the escalator out of the subway. ¡°How is it? Are you comfortable walking like this?¡±

    ¡°I can walk like this without overloading my circuits,¡± she answered, which meant ¡°yes.¡±

    So we walked like that all the way home, in the dead of night, holding hands. Like a human with its Cupid. And of the few people still on the streets at that hour, no one looked twice at us.

    Cupids were mostly accepted as a part of society by now, though some people still protested. There were even add-on modifications that made it possible for some models to create and bear children (with donated genetic material). Those were controversial. But basically, no one really cared if they saw a Cupid walking around, except to think the human it was accompanying had a lot of extra money to burn. Like a mildly embarrassing brand of car.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    I opened the door to my building and held it open for Naya. She looked at the doorway, then back at me. I pointed inside, and that was when she finally went through.

    That¡¯s kind of how Cupids worked too, I remembered reading: they needed clear instructions to go somewhere that their human was not. They could do some stuff independently, like pick up groceries or return a library book. If directed to do so by their human. But they couldn¡¯t create art on their own, and they definitely didn¡¯t sing. You¡¯d have to buy a Syren if you wanted singing in your robot.

    But you could marry a Cupid, if you wanted to. You couldn¡¯t marry a Syren.

    The elevator in our building was blessedly functioning this time, and I lugged my equipment into the cabin before pulling Naya in and pressing the button for the eleventh floor.

    I kept holding Naya¡¯s hand, and sneaking glances at her out of the corner of my eye. How much had she been programmed to desire, on her own? Did she want anything? Did she have songs she wanted to create, deep inside her somewhere? How different was she from a Cupid, mentally? From a human?

    Would I ever find out?

    Angelica greeted both of us when we opened the door to my apartment. ¡°Dessie, you have work tomorrow. You need to go to bed as soon as possible in order to receive an adequate amount of sleep.¡± She didn¡¯t acknowledge Naya¡¯s presence. She wasn¡¯t programmed to interact with anyone but me.

    ¡°Yes, thanks Angie. I¡¯ll start getting ready.¡± I dragged my handcart into my closet. ¡°You can set yourself up in the window like usual, Naya.¡±

    ¡°Will do.¡±

    I showered quickly ¡ª I was crazy sweaty from the humid night club, and grimy from all the public transit¡ª brushed my teeth, and changed into my pajamas before walking back over to where Naya had arranged herself, solar panels exposed, ready to fill up come sunrise.

    ¡°Did you have fun today?¡± I asked her as I pulled back my blankets. Angelica curled up next to the side I usually slept on, where she would serve as my alarm clock in the morning.

    She tilted her head to one side. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what ¡®fun¡¯ feels like, to me. I enjoyed the number of new experiences and encounters I had today, and I enjoyed serving my purpose as a performer.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry you had to wait in the closet for a while after it was done, though.¡±

    ¡°I used the time to review and analyze my earlier performance, and process some of that new information I took in today. It was useful.¡± She smiled at me. ¡°I knew we were going to have a good time together.¡±

    ¡°I wish you would tell me what was bothering you,¡± I ended up saying in response. ¡°Does it have anything to do with why you were up for sale on Marketplace? Is someone... looking for you?¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s not worth worrying about right now. I¡¯ll tell you when I¡¯m ready.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± I had to be okay with that, at least.

    As I drifted off to sleep that night, I heard her say: ¡°I hope you had fun today too.¡±

 Chapter Eleven

    The next morning, I went to work.

    And experienced full regret over staying out partying so late. But I guess that¡¯s what young people are supposed to do, right? Work hard, play hard? I didn¡¯t go out much in college, except to concerts where I¡¯d stayed in the back and left early to avoid the rush at the end of a show. I¡¯d definitely never been to an afterparty. The gigs I¡¯ve had in the past did not involve afterparties. Or very many people in general.

    Anyway, Sunday morning found me at the athleisure store with my head down on the counter optimistically attempting to catch a few extra minutes of sleep before a customer walked in.

    Unfortunately, the kinds of people who wanted to purchase their yoga pants and tank tops in person tended to stop by Sunday mornings, after their morning runs and green detox smoothies. The automatic bell-tone rang a second after I put my head down. I jerked up with a start. ¡°Welcome! How can I help you?¡±

    ¡°I just need a refill,¡± said the blonde, making a beeline over to our leggings section and grabbing a stack almost without looking. If she already knew exactly what she wanted, why didn¡¯t she just buy them online?

    ¡°I was in the area and thought this would be faster than getting them delivered,¡± she explained as I scanned the pants. ¡°Plus, it¡¯s nice to interact with human clerks. Online ordering is so impersonal, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°Mhm,¡± I muttered. ¡°Your total is $172.88.¡±

    Cierra was off, and Rhonda was in the back training a new hire on the stockroom and mail orders. So that just left me at the register for most of the day.

    I couldn¡¯t stop replaying last night in my head. Both the dizzying, thrilling positive moments: Talking to Glitch Princess! People cheering for my songs! Making cool new friends! And the pathetic, embarrassing moments: forgetting my cable, the whole curtain situation, accidentally making everyone at the afterparty think I¡¯m some weirdo who talks to my Syren like she¡¯s a person (which I do but not like that...) All of it pounded in my head like the sleep deprivation headache that had built up behind my eyes.

    I stuck my head into the back room. ¡°Rhonda, can I go for a coffee run? I¡¯ll get you a macchiato. And uh, whatever the newbie wants.¡±

    The newbie in question craned her neck around a stack of shoeboxes to look at me. She had a ponytail similar to the customer that had just left and bright blue circle lenses in her eyes that reminded me of Naya¡¯s unnatural irises. ¡°I¡¯m Cary and I¡¯ll take a sparkling pink lemonade, if you¡¯re going to the place down the street.¡±

    ¡°I am,¡± I told her. ¡°Sparkling pink lemonade and a macchiato coming right up.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll cover the register for you,¡± Rhonda told me. ¡°Cary, you getting the hang of things back here?¡±

    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡±

    So I went to the coffeeshop down the street (It called itself ¡°Bean There, Done That,¡± which is why we all referred to it as ¡°the place down the street¡± instead) and got us drinks. The guy at the register, a man about my age with a scraggly beard and gauges in his ears, squinted at me for a bit before saying, ¡°Did you play at The Sparkplug last night?¡±

    ¡°Whoa, small world,¡± I said awkwardly. ¡°Yeah, I was the opener. Did you go?¡±

    ¡°Yup. I¡¯d never heard of you before, but I liked your Syren song! I followed you on SoundShare after.¡± His nametag said Gabe.

    ¡°Oh, thank you so much. I¡¯ll post the Syren song on there soon, I¡¯m actually on break from my day job at the shop down the street right now.¡±

    ¡°Oh wow, it really is a small world.¡± He tapped some buttons on his screen. ¡°Your drinks will be ready in just a few moments. Which one¡¯s for you?¡±

    ¡°The s¡¯mores latte.¡±

    ¡°Gotcha.¡± And then, sliding the quad holder to the pick-up area a few minutes later, he whispered, ¡°I put an extra shot of espresso in yours. Great job last night.¡±

    My face felt like it was on fire. ¡°Thank you so much!¡±

    ¡°Thank you!¡±

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    I returned to the store with a renewed sense of pride and purpose. As soon as I clocked out for the day, I was going to get back to my real work. I was going to go straight home and compose!

    I did not do that.

    I went home and passed out on my bed within moments of walking through the door. Decomposing instead of composing.

    It had been a very long weekend, for me.

    Anyway, after my immediate and somewhat involuntary nap, I got up to make dinner and found both of the robots I shared my residence with staring at me in concern.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Are you feeling alright?¡± Angelica asked. ¡°The last time you took a nap was three months and four days ago, and you had a cold then.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t get much sleep last night, as you well know.¡±

    ¡°Are you feeling better now, though?¡± Naya asked. ¡°Because¡ª we need to talk. About what we¡¯re going to make next, and also that Cupid stuff you mentioned last night.¡±

    ¡°Oh, right. Yeah, I can order a decal for you now.¡± I tapped the request into my phone. ¡°And then maybe we should get a more neutral hair plate if you¡¯re going to be pretending to be a Cupid.¡± Those were the expensive ones, I remembered suddenly. But Jax did send me a payment for playing the gig. Maybe I could spend some of that money on a new look for Naya.

    ¡°Are you sure it¡¯s a good idea?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t it be? You don¡¯t want people to know you¡¯re a Syren, but there¡¯s no way to pass you off as a human and not a humanoid android, so this is the only real option.¡±

    ¡°I guess...¡± Naya trailed off, and looked out the window at the setting sun instead.

    I checked my fridge for frozen stuff I could heat up without too much effort. I found some pizza bites deep in the back of the freezer. Perfect.

    ¡°You need to be eating vegetables, meow! What about the easy chicken and broccoli recipe I found for you last month?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in recovery mode, which means pizza bites!¡±

    I could feel the feline stare of judgment upon me, but I bravely ignored it and continued to shove pizza bites into my toaster oven.

    The thing about making electronic music¡ª Syren music¡ª is that a lot of the activities involving it happened entirely online. Uploading songs, listening to other people''s songs, discussing them in SuperBoard discussion threads or SoundShare comments. Live Syren concerts were niche, and not every venue was willing to host Syren performers. Plus, a lot of the concerts that did happen were way out of my budget. So I didn''t really go to concerts all that often. And thus, was not fully prepared for the consequences of partying hard on a work night.

    Consequences that required pizza bites.

    I also made a cup of coffee, even though it was definitely later in the day than I should be drinking coffee, and I probably didn¡¯t need it as badly now that I¡¯d had a chance to nap.

    ¡°You and I,¡± I said to Naya, gesturing at her to help prove my point, ¡°have work to do.¡±

    ¡°We do!¡± She sat down on the edge of my other stool. I remembered how awkward it felt to eat around someone who couldn¡¯t eat with me. I almost offered her a pizza bite out of automatic politeness.

    ¡°Can Syrens ingest anything?¡±

    ¡°I can refill my coolant by drinking it through a straw, but that¡¯s not the recommended way to go about it,¡± she answered after a moment. ¡°The best way to refill it would be to open up the control panel on my stomach and just pour it in there. But at my current coolant usage rate, I won¡¯t need a refill for at least another six months.¡±

    ¡°Ah.¡±

    Eating while watching her not-eat made me feel like an animal. Like some kind of starving beast in thrall of her most basic impulses, while Naya was some enlightened, advanced creature who didn¡¯t need food to survive. Except she wasn¡¯t a creature at all, but a machine shaped like a person like me. And I was hungry, so I ate.

    ¡°Anyway. We need to start working on our next song as soon as possible,¡± I said, trying to push those thoughts out of my head. ¡°And upload Ocean online.¡±

    ¡°Right. Yeah. I completely agree.¡± Naya nodded, her head moving up and down in an uncanny, jerky fashion.

    ¡°About the Cupid stuff¡­¡± It had seemed so essential the night before, that Naya go outside with me, and look normal doing so, but now that I¡¯d gotten some sleep, I wasn¡¯t sure why I wanted it so much. We¡¯d spent most of the previous week with her sitting in my room and in my recording closet, and she¡¯d seemed totally fine with it. ¡°Can¡¯t you just stay in my apartment when we don¡¯t have gigs?¡±

    ¡°I need to be exposed to new input and new information so I can continue to evolve into the best possible version of myself. And I need to do that so we can take the music world by storm!¡± Naya smiled. ¡°That¡¯s what you want to do, right? That¡¯s why you bought me off Marketplace?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± I said. I ate some more pizza bites. ¡°Do you think that, with enough practice, you could go outside by yourself someday?¡±

    Do you think you won¡¯t need me anymore?

    The thought ran through my head before I could stop it, and the pizza bite turned to sludge in my mouth.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. New model! Everything I¡¯m doing is totally unprecedented for Syrens as a whole!¡± She sounded delighted by the very thought.

    ¡°Well then in that case,¡± I said, putting my empty plate in the sink, ¡°we gotta make some totally unprecedented music together.¡±

    She straightened up. ¡°Now you¡¯re talking.¡±

    I drained my rapidly cooling coffee in a few gulps and put the cup in the sink for future me to deal with. ¡°Are you ready?¡±

    Naya grinned at me as she followed me into my bedroom. ¡°I was, quite literally, made for this.¡±

 Chapter Twelve

    And then we immediately made the song of the summer an hour later, and the most viral album of our generation, inventing a whole new genre of electronic music¡ª no. God no. As if it would be that easy.

    No, what happened next was that we sat in my shitty walk-in closet studio and argued about where to start for like, twenty minutes at least.

    ¡°Ocean was really good,¡± Naya said. ¡°Maybe you should keep building off of that and developing that theme, and we can make that into an EP?¡±

    ¡°Building off what, exactly?¡±

    ¡°The, um...¡± Naya trailed off. Syrens had many capabilities, but thematic analysis of music seemed to be a stretch for her. ¡°The... the feelings you¡¯re conveying! The ones you wrote down for me in the margins. You could make a new song that uses similar ocean and water imagery to keep exploring those feelings!¡±

    ¡°I mean, I guess I could do some kind of conceptual narrative thing, but that seems... hard.¡± I wasn¡¯t really a narrative kind of writer. Each song was kind of its own universe, for me.

    ¡°Do you want me to write a whole new song from scratch just because this one song was kind of a hit?¡± I groaned, staring at the poorly-labeled .wav files littering my desktop. ¡°Starting completely new songs from scratch is a lot more work than going through my existing stems and unfinished projects and combining them together, which, by the way, is also what I did for Ocean.¡±

    ¡°I mean, you can do whatever you want,¡± Naya said, ¡°but maybe you could make a better song from scratch instead of from scraps. I mean, ultimately it¡¯s up to you.¡± She looked down at the floor. ¡°Since I can¡¯t really make songs myself.¡±

    ¡°Do you want to try it?¡± I handed her a pen and my lyric notebook.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know how to write by hand,¡± she said.

    I rolled my eyes and pushed my keyboard over to her instead, opening up a word processor. ¡°Here, try typing... how you felt about performing last night.¡±

    Naya nodded, eyebrows knitting together in a look of intense concentration. Then she snapped open the panel on her stomach and pulled my phone off its charger, instead connecting herself to my laptop.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡±

    Her voice vibrated and echoed, like there were three or four of her speaking at once. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to type either, but if I link my system to your laptop, I should be able to¡ª¡±

    Text appeared in the blank document, a few words at a time, like an article loading slowly on a website.

    ¡°Finally, I get to perform my purpose!

    Though I must hide behind a curtain, people will see me be!

    I am doing my best to perform to my producer¡¯s specifications! I am doing!

    I am singing! I am dancing! I am being!¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s what last night felt like, to me,¡± Naya concluded, yanking the cord out of her stomach. She looked down at the floor again.

    ¡°Hm,¡± I said, staring at the lines. ¡°Not very... catchy, like this. Still, let¡¯s save it for now, and I¡¯ll see if I can rewrite it into something resembling a song.¡± I glanced at her, trying to assess if she seemed crushed by the critique.

    ¡°That was what I expected,¡± she said instead. Her voice sounded only slightly dented rather than crushed. ¡°You¡¯re the creative half of this partnership. If Syrens could make their own songs too, no one would want us to exist. We¡¯d be too much of a threat to other musicians.¡±

    ¡°I do think a song about how a Syren feels to be on stage has potential,¡± I said slowly. ¡°There¡¯s some producers who really like to write songs from their ideas of a Syren¡¯s perspective¡ª Hanseul Kim, he does a lot of stuff for the K-pop industry but also has his own Syren called Hana, and he kind of treats her like another K-pop idol? It¡¯s neat conceptually, but I¡¯m not really into that kind of sound so I don¡¯t listen to most of his songs...¡±

    If I were to write a song like that, I¡¯d probably lean more into my electronic influences, and my piano background. And I¡¯d have to take Naya¡¯s input too. I couldn¡¯t make her sing something about her own experience that didn¡¯t feel true to her.

    ¡°Do you want to work on this song now, then?¡± I asked, scrolling down to a blank line in the document.

    ¡°Maybe later. After we¡¯ve done a few more shows and I have more input to synthesize. I might be able to write more precise text then.¡± She ran her plastic finger tips along my keyboard keys, uncertain. Maybe I should teach her how to type. Maybe Syrens were physically incapable of doing so.

    ¡°Okay. Then, for now, let¡¯s see what I¡¯ve got already that we could use for something new.¡±

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    ¡°I think untitled_27 and WIP_09 might be worth combining,¡± Naya suggested tentatively.

    ¡°Great.¡± I slapped them both into my music program.

    Layered directly on top of each other, the two melodies produced an incredible cacophony of discordant noise. But WIP_09 also had a bassline, so I isolated that, repeated it, and then cut up the melody to use it as a counterpoint to the melody from untitled_27.

    In a matter of minutes, I had the beginnings of a track! It still needed a heck of a lot of work, of course. But it sounded kind of like a song, now.

    Naya was flipping through my lyrics notebook, reading lines out loud. ¡°I don¡¯t know if any of these really fit the rhythm of this new song. I still think writing something new is the best choice.¡±

    ¡°Ughhhh,¡± I groaned again. ¡°Songwriting is hard! Lyrics are hard!¡± I was confident of my sounds, but not so much my words. Too many bad grades in high school English class. I wasn¡¯t a Leonard Cohen singing poet type, even though my parents were really into folksy singer-songwriters when I was growing up. I tended towards instrumental-focused tracks mostly because it was easier for me.

    ¡°You¡¯ve done it before.¡± Naya picked up the notebook and waved it back and forth. ¡°You can do it again. And because you¡¯ve done it before, it will be better this time.¡±

    ¡°But what if it¡¯s worse? What if I¡¯ve forgotten how to write lyrics well?¡±

    ¡°You haven¡¯t,¡± Naya said, voice calm and patient like a kindergarten teacher soothing a sobbing child. ¡°You can write a new song, and it will be better than any of your old songs. You had to rewrite the lyrics you¡¯d started with to make Ocean work anyway, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Yeah...¡± Not a lot, but I did end up having to rework some lines, and change the last verse to end on a more optimistic note to help lead into Glitch Princess¡¯s opener.

    ¡°Then you can write something totally new! I believe in you!¡±

    I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. ¡°Is one of your roles as a Syren to act as the producer¡¯s creative muse or something?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°I think so! It¡¯s a secondary purpose, though. My primary purpose is to perform.¡±

    ¡°Makes sense, I guess. You inspire the producer to make new songs for you to sing. Like an artist¡¯s muse.¡±

    I stared at her, her aesthetically perfect body perched on the edge of my folding table, legs balanced in a way that kept them from swinging back and forth and accidentally kicking something. If I looked closely, I could see the segmentations at her joints that showed she was assembled.

    How was I going to write songs for her? About her? About me, through her?

    She still had the orange hair plate in from the night before, and was still wearing the tennis skirt and tank top I¡¯d decorated for her performance. The decorations that no one ended up seeing. I fought back another flare of irritation.

    I could switch her hairplate out with her default hair, but I still needed to buy a more Cupid-like replacement. I could put her into a T-shirt and sweatpants I¡¯d bought as loungewear when I was buying the tanktop and skirt. ¡°Do you want to change clothes?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t particularly need to change clothes every day, since I don¡¯t produce fluid emissions like sweat or tears or anything,¡± she said. ¡°And I don¡¯t feel physical discomfort.¡±

    ¡°Still.¡± I left the studio-closet and went over to my actual clothing rack, at the bottom of which sat my pile of discount purchases from the athleisure store. ¡°Change into these.¡±

    ¡°You will have to assist me,¡± she said primly.

    ¡°Fine. Arms up.¡±

    I got her changed into comfortable clothes, which at least made me feel less weird to look at her.

    ¡°Now are you going to work on your song lyrics?¡± Naya asked.

    ¡°Now I¡¯m... going to upload Ocean to SoundShare,¡± I said instead, and finally went through the steps to complete the upload.

    I noticed my follower count had gone up to a couple hundred, which was a huge leap considering where I¡¯d started. I wondered if I should change my display name to reflect the addition of Naya. Most producers who used Syrens posted as ¡°ProducerName featuring SyrenName¡±, so no one got confused and started thinking the Syren was the one who did all the work.

    After a few moments of contemplation, I changed my display name from Dessie to ¡°Dessie featuring Naya.¡± I added her to my bio, too. ¡°Naya is a Syren who prefers to sing from behind a curtain.¡± That sounded mysterious enough to get people interested, I hoped.

    I hopped over to The Sparkplug¡¯s official venue page on SoundShare to look at photos from the show. They were mostly of Glitch Princess¡¯s set, of course, but there were a few shots of Naya, silhouetted against a curtain with a projection of ocean waves overlaid on top of her, and a few shots of me frowning at my mixing tables. I didn¡¯t look super hot in the shots of me¡ª a complete disregard for wearing makeup meant my features dissolved into the shadows of the stage, and my hair had frizzed up more under the lights than I¡¯d thought it did. But Naya looked great as a silhouette. The translucent overdress I¡¯d put on top of Naya¡¯s outfit for visual interest came through as a faint outline surrounding Naya¡¯s body as she moved gracefully from choreographed pose to choreographed pose.

    I shared the Sparkplug post on my feed and copied a few of the photos to add to my bio. Our bio.

    ¡°Do you make a lot of social media posts?¡± Naya asked, looking over my shoulder.

    ¡°Not really,¡± I said. ¡°That¡¯s probably why I don¡¯t have that many followers...¡±

    In casual clothes, she looked more like an impossibly beautiful girlfriend¡ª or Cupid. Except for the stage makeup. Which I¡¯d worked so hard to apply and didn¡¯t end up being actually useful, again. And I¡¯d probably have to redo it to a more toned down style if I wanted to pretend she was a Cupid.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you tell me you didn¡¯t want to be seen on stage before I did all that work to get you dressed up for being on stage?¡± I asked.

    Naya looked sad in a way I didn¡¯t know Syrens were capable of. ¡°I didn¡¯t know,¡± she said softly. ¡°Being on stage and performing is my purpose. I wanted to do it so much I couldn¡¯t imagine anything getting in the way of that... until...¡± She trailed off.

    We were so, so close to a breakthrough, I could feel it in my throat. ¡°Just tell me already. Stop dodging the question.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to worry you with this. You should be focusing on your music.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t make music until you tell me what your deal is.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re just trying to procrastinate on the lyrics some more.¡±

    I flinched. ¡°Actually, it¡¯s getting kind of late, maybe we should just pick this up tomorrow.¡± Even though I¡¯d taken a nap and had coffee with my dinner, specifically so I could keep going for a while.

    Naya flattened her expression into the kind of unimpressed face Angie gave me when I tried to avoid buying vegetables. ¡°Just write whatever and then edit it into something good later. According to the internet, that¡¯s one of the most widely-agreed upon pieces of writing advice.¡±

    I sighed tragically. ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll write something.¡±

    ¡°Something developing the themes in Ocean?¡± she asked hopefully.

    ¡°Maybe.¡±

    And then it was once again me with my purple notebook, and my ballpoint pen.

 Chapter Thirteen

    We developed a (metaphorical) rhythm that worked for us over the next week or two. I¡¯d work on music production on my days off and after work, and Naya would practice singing and dancing when I was at work. I managed to write new lyrics, somehow. And I think they might have been better than my old lyrics.

    When Naya read them over, she asked, in a slow and deliberate cadence clearly intended to keep me from getting pissed off at her, ¡°when I¡¯m trying to learn something new, I take in a lot of input related to what I¡¯m attempting to do. Have you considered reading more poetry and studying the lyrics of other writers to try and improve your lyrics?¡±

    ¡°You could¡¯ve just told me I suck,¡± I grumbled. I fought the urge to throw the lyrics notebook directly out of my bedroom window and onto the pavement eleven stories below.

    ¡°You don¡¯t suck,¡± Naya said patiently. ¡°But you may improve if you increase your input.¡±

    So I sucked it up and increased my dang input. I went back to the dang library, which I haven¡¯t been to since their rental Syren disappointed me so deeply a million years ago, and checked out a bunch of random books that seemed like they might help me on my songwriting journey. Some printed collections of famous musician¡¯s lyrics, but also their poems that were never turned into songs. Poems of other writers I¡¯d vaguely heard of or remembered not hating in high school. A nonfiction book on marine life, and one on oceanography that was mostly pictures because I wasn¡¯t sure I would understand the fancy scientific terminology but I could probably use it for song titles. I put a book in my backpack every day I went to work and read it during slow periods on register and on my break. I hadn¡¯t read this many books since I was in school. I probably didn¡¯t even read this many books when I was in school, honestly.

    I listened to a lot of musicians whose lyrics I personally liked, and thought about how they came up with them. I even tried going back to the Russian and Ukrainian music my parents played at home when I was growing up, and translating those words in my head to English to figure out how I could write something like that. I got really into old musicians from before my mom was born who died when they were barely my age, like Yanka and Viktor Tsoi. I wondered how they got to be so good so fast, and why it seemed so much harder for me to do the same.

    And I went back into my own past, too. Journaling. Trying to remember what I was thinking about when I made my instrumental songs way back when. What even inspired ¡°After Rain, The Wet Leaves¡±? Why on Earth did I call it that? Probably because I thought it sounded deep or something. Although it did kind of sound like an empty night street after a big rain storm. In my opinion.

    To Naya¡¯s probable annoyance, my next song turned out to be totally unrelated to Ocean: an RnB-influenced kind of club banger where she only had two lines that I looped four or five times. It sounded really good, but was not the direction my Syren/talent manager was apparently hoping I¡¯d go into. She didn¡¯t say anything about it and sang those two lines as perfectly as always, but I could tell she wasn¡¯t pleased with it. Unless I was just anthropomorphizing her reactions again.

    ¡°Is there anything I can do to help you?¡± Naya asked one morning, all bright and hopeful. ¡°I can try posting on social media for you. To help promote our songs.¡±

    ¡°Uh. I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a good idea.¡± I wasn¡¯t sure Naya could imitate my posting style convincingly, and since most Syrens did not run their own social media people would assume I was pretending to post as her, like people who ran PicShare profiles for their pets.

    It had become increasingly clear to both of us that Naya, despite being more intelligent than most other Syrens, was still designed for the narrow purposes of a Syren, and thus incapable of many things that humans took for granted. Deliberately so. If I wanted someone who could help out around the house or make dinner occasionally, I would have to purchase a Hudson, or one of the cheaper Helper bots with less functionality.

    With nothing else to do while waiting for me to produce lyrics for her to sing (since the Cupid disguise bits I finally got around to ordering were taking forever to ship), Naya started borrowing my library books and trying to read them ¡°the human way¡±, by holding them in her hands and scanning the text with her eyes instead of downloading the information from the cloud. I wondered if it was more fun for her that way. I tried talking about the contents with her, but it was difficult. I think she might have been programmed not to disagree with me. I remembered our conversation when she¡¯d just arrived, how carefully she¡¯d worded her opinion on the album.

    ¡°What was your favorite song in this lyric collection?¡± I asked once. I was lying on my bed, reading. The closet door was open, waiting for me to step into it and get to work for real. But my lyrics notebook still didn¡¯t have anything promising in it.

    She tilted her head to one side. ¡°They were all great! What was your favorite?¡±

    ¡°You go first.¡±

    She tilted her head to the other side. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to rank them. I did look up recordings of this singer performing the songs live, however, and the one song I wanted to listen to a second time was ¡®Loving You In The Spring.¡¯ I think... I found the melody pleasing, when performed.¡±

    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°Oh. I haven¡¯t listened to that one yet, I¡¯ve only heard the most popular songs from this singer before.¡±

    ¡°I can sing it for you!¡± Naya said eagerly, and opened her mouth.

    ¡°Volume below 30%,¡± I said quickly, glancing around. ¡°We don¡¯t want a noise complaint.¡±

    She sang it, presumably repeating each note exactly how she heard it in the video. It was an old, old song, and sounded like it too, a crackling effect coming over Naya¡¯s usually clean high notes. Like something from a black and white movie I haven¡¯t watched. Naya performed it while strolling around my bedroom, despite the minimal amount of strolling space it offered. I guess that was how the singer performed it in that video.

    ¡°Loving you in winter is as easy as the snow... Loving you in summer, well, the heat is sure to grow... Loving you in autumn is refreshing like the breeze, and loving you in spring... is... just as spring should be.¡±

    We were well into the height of summer, by this point in the year. But something about the way Naya sang it made it feel true.

    ¡°What if we record a cover of that and put it up online?¡± It really was a good rendition.

    ¡°Hm,¡± Naya said. ¡°It seems pretty different from the kind of music you make...¡±

    ¡°I can remix it to make it sound more modern. Come on, it¡¯ll be fun!¡± Maybe that was what I needed to get out of my slump. ¡°Maybe I need to explore a new direction for a bit. I could have an electroswing phase. Many respectable artists have electroswing phases.¡±

    Naya gave me a very human look of exasperation. ¡°You don¡¯t even like electroswing.¡±

    ¡°Okay, no electroswing. But I want to try doing a cover.¡± I stepped closer to her to try and be more convincing. ¡°I want to hear you sing it again.¡±

    Naya then... Well, she didn¡¯t blush, but I could hear the soft whirring of the ventilators under her arms, like when she was performing under hot stage lights. Huh.

    She says, in a voice still at 30% volume as instructed, ¡°If that¡¯s what you want, then we can try it.¡±

    The whirring got louder. Maybe I should turn my thermostat lower. I kept it at 76 in the summer, but computers prefer colder temperatures, right? There was a box fan in my studio-closet to keep my production stuff from melting down, but I didn¡¯t realize Naya might also need that. ¡°Do you want me to turn the air conditioner up for you?¡±

    She blinked. The whirring slowed. ¡°That might actually be helpful, yes. The temperature inside here isn¡¯t high enough to damage me, but I do function better between 65 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit.¡±

    ¡°Gotcha, I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡± And start wearing a hoodie around the house, I guess.

    So I recorded Naya singing Loving You In Spring, the way she wanted to sing it, and then arranged instrumentals around her voice. Which was the opposite of my usual process of doing the instrumentals first and then slapping the voice on top after. I kept it pretty spare, to let her shine. Some piano, a bassline, both dropping out on the bridge and the lead-in to the final chorus before coming back with an extra flourish.

    It was a lot easier to cover a song that already existed than to make up a totally new song from scratch, to the surprise of probably nobody. We had it uploaded on SoundShare as a cover the next day, and then I took one of the photos of Naya behind the curtain from the Sparkplug and made a simple video of it to crosspost on VidShare too. I was not much of a video editor, but even I could use the basic cut and clip tools in the VidShare app.

    Most of the popular Syren producers that uploaded music videos worked with visual artists and animators to create unique and distinctive videos for their songs. If I had the money, I¡¯d commission someone to draw music videos for me. But it would be really lucky if my songs just happened to move a talented illustrator enough that they¡¯d illustrate for me for free¡­ Someone who happened to perfectly see my visions¡­ If only¡­

    Anyway, since I didn¡¯t have one of those, I cut some stock footage of English gardens together with random screensaver shapes and called it a day.

    The cover did better than my original music, which was a bit of a surprise since the original song was older than both of my parents and not even the most popular number in its creator¡¯s catalog. But I saw Mixera, those two people I met at the afterparty, shared it on their feeds, and that gave it a boost.

    I sent them a DM. ¡°Hey! Thanks for sharing my new cover.¡±

    ¡°Oh ya ofc!- Sera¡± I got back. ¡°What a fun way to modernize something so classic!¡±

    I stared at the blinking DM window, realizing something obvious.

    If I¡¯m having trouble making music¡­ I should ask other musicians for advice.

    So I sent another DM. ¡°I¡¯ve been having a hard time coming up with lyrics for original songs recently, so I¡¯ve been doing more research into old music and stuff like that haha¡±

    ¡°Oh omg that happens to EVERYONE - mx¡±

    ¡°Especially like right after you finish A Song, you gotta have a regeneration period for a bit before you can make new songs! - mx¡±

    ¡°For us, I write the lyrics and Sera does the mixing, partly bc that¡¯s what each of our strengths are and partly bc it¡¯s funnier that way lol - mx¡±

    ¡°You live in town, right? Do you want to get coffee and chat about this in person? Jenni¡¯s Joe downtown is really good -mx¡±

    My heart pounded excitedly. Yes. This will definitely solve literally every problem I have ever had in my life. ¡°Absolutely! I¡¯m free on Tuesdays!¡±

    We made plans to meet on Tuesday afternoon. According to Maps, Jenni¡¯s Joe was an hour and half on the subway from my place uptown. But it was a small price to pay for a constructive coffee chat that would fix everything wrong with me and my ability to write a goddamn song.

    ¡°I¡¯m going out on Tuesday,¡± I announced to my robots. ¡°And I¡¯m not going to come back until I have a new song written.¡±

    My robots stared back at me with mild concern. ¡°Good luck,¡± said Naya.

    ¡°Even if you don''t have a new song written by the end of the day, can you still come back here to sleep Tuesday night?¡± Angie asked. ¡°You have work on Wednesday.¡±

 Chapter Fourteen

    I hadn''t gone all the way downtown in absolute ages. I spent most of my time within the handful of blocks separating my apartment from my workplace and the grocery stores I tended to frequent. Recently I''ve added the nearest library into my rotation, but that was still within a twenty minute walk. An hour and a half on the subway? That was practically a trip to Mars.

    But downtown was where the cool people were, I knew that much. The quirky-artsy-bohemian-hipster neighborhoods. The fancy street cafes where writers made their careers in decades past. I think most of those had long since closed by now, but newer, quirkier and artsier cafes had popped up to take their place. There was the CompanionBot cafe, a local chain that provided solo diners with a friendly robot to converse with while they ate. A gamer cafe with interactive touchscreen tables so you could eat and play at the same time.

    And Jenni¡¯s Joe, which was mostly known for having really good coffee and foamy, fluffy meringue cakes to go with it.

    I''d heard of Jenni¡¯s before, on one of those lifestyle PicShare accounts I ended up following just to keep up to date with the trends. It had a really cute teal color scheme and a coffee-colored cat mascot, and robot servers to deliver orders. I figured Mixie picked it for a meeting place because she lived nearby or something.

    I didn''t get as turned around coming out of the subway as I''d expected to, so I showed up at the cafe ten minutes early and grabbed a table by the window facing the sidewalk so I could easily wave Mixie over when she arrived. I brought my lyrics notebook with me just in case the change in scenery or coffee not made by my janky coffeemaker or talking to Mixie actually inspired me.

    It was hot and sunny outside, but the cafe was air conditioned. The floor and lower half of the walls were tiled in a black and white pattern that seemed to be from the last century somehow, even though the cafe only opened a few years ago.

    I wondered if I should go ahead and order first or wait for Mixie to arrive. But before I had to make that decision, she burst through the door, wearing the same black T-shirt on fishnet sleeves I remembered from our first meeting.

    ¡°Dessie! Hey!¡± Mixie waved at me. ¡°What do you want to drink? It''s on me.¡±

    ¡°Um, I''ll take a¡­¡± I glanced at the menu and scanned for something that was neither the most nor least expensive option listed. ¡°Cinnamon latte? I guess?¡±

    ¡°Great choice. Two cinnamon lattes then.¡± Mixie typed the order into a touch pad on the table. ¡°And two creamsicle meringues. Trust me on that one.¡± She tapped a few more buttons, then slid the touchpad into the tabletop.

    ¡°Okay so! Music,¡± said Mixie.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± I said, feeling shy.

    ¡°How do you usually make your songs?¡±

    ¡°Usually I start with the instrumentals and then write lyrics or pull out old lyrics I wrote a while ago that fit my instrumentals,¡± I explain. ¡°But I want to put together an album of Syren music, so I feel like the next Syren song I finish should be something that follows Ocean thematically and I''ve been having a hard time getting there, basically.¡±

    ¡°Then don''t bother,¡± she said bluntly. ¡°Write about what you''re interested in right now, and then bridge them later. An album doesn''t have to be a coherent narrative if you''re not feeling it. And if you''re meant to go back to that theme, you can always do it later and then arrange the tracklist in a different order than how you''d come up with everything on it.¡±

    ¡°That makes sense,¡± I said. I probably could''ve come to the same conclusions myself, but it was nice to hear someone else say it all out loud like that. ¡°How do you write a song?¡±

    ¡°I do a lot of back and forth with Sera about what we want it to be about and the basic structure, and then I write the final lyrics. I have more of a sense for meter and rhyme. Better English grades in high school,¡± she added with a grin.

    ¡°Have you been friends for that long?¡±

    ¡°Girlfriends,¡± she corrected. ¡°And no. We''ve known each other our entire lives, but we only became actual friends, and then eventually more than friends, when we both ditched our small town and moved here without realizing we were in the same place again.¡±

    The server robot rolled down the aisle bearing trays of food and singing a jaunty little tune recognizable as Lorelei¡¯s viral commercial jingle Beep-Beep. Both Mixie and I started humming under our breaths. We made eye contact and laughed.

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°It''s actually a pretty good story,¡± she continued. ¡°Some of the songs on our first album were inspired by it. Make Up Your Mind, for one.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I really liked that one!¡±

    Mixie nodded. ¡°One of our most popular tracks.¡±

    She took a sip of her latte, prompting me to try my drink too. It was, in fact, very good.

    ¡°So I actually wrote the first draft of that one when we were still in the mutual-pining stage of our epic romance, and then after we got together and got our Syren and started making music I tightened it up with Sera¡¯s feedback. It''s a really honest expression of my feelings at a very raw time in my life, and I think that''s why it resonates so much.¡±

    ¡°Even if it''s being sung by a robot?¡±

    ¡°Especially because it''s being sung by a robot,¡± she said firmly. ¡°Some truths are easier to tell through the cover of fiction, you know?¡±

    ¡°So it¡¯s not weird to write Syren songs about like. Having a body, and like flesh and blood and stuff? I have a line in a song about holding a heart in two bleeding hands, but I wasn¡¯t sure if my ¡®Syren would be able to sell it.¡±

    ¡°A Syren can sell anything. Music doesn¡¯t have to be literal. That¡¯s the whole point.¡± She bit into her meringue cookie, and it crunched.

    Now that I thought about it, not every Syren song was from the point of view of the Syren as a robot. Some songs cast their singer in the roles of entirely fictional characters, like a three-minute musical. There was one popular concept album that was kind of like a musical, featuring several different Syren voices to tell a story of the rise and fall of a fairytale kingdom and its royal family. A bunch of producers contributed to that one, as I recalled.

    ¡°I do think of songwriting as a kind of poetry,¡± Mixie added thoughtfully. ¡°So I try to pull in a lot of sensory details, and wordplay. Like, I don¡¯t want to just evoke an emotion, I want to anchor it to imagery, locations, and snappy rhymes. Like in Candy Hearts, it¡¯s a pop song, yeah, so it¡¯s not exactly the most complicated lyrics of all time, but I still talk about how the candy hearts feel physically, and that they¡¯re kept in smooth glass jars.¡±

    ¡°And if I can¡¯t talk to you, I¡¯ll just give you a chalky-flaky chatty-catty candy heart,¡± I couldn¡¯t help singing. It really was a catchy as hell song.

    ¡°Exactly!¡±

    ¡°So what are you working on now?¡± I asked, both to be polite and because I was genuinely interested.

    ¡°We¡¯re doing a collab with a friend¡ª you know Stevie Starburst? He asked us to write some songs for a new kid¡¯s cartoon he¡¯s doing the soundtrack for. I think the voice actress they got for the main character is going to be singing them, but I¡¯m supposed to write the lyrics and Sera and Stevie are going to work together to do the composition and production.¡±

    ¡°What! That¡¯s so cool!¡±

    ¡°Eh.¡± She sipped her coffee, looking bored. ¡°I can¡¯t say I ever expected to be writing songs for eight-year-olds at this point in my career, but the network¡¯s paying really well, and there¡¯s only so many job opportunities in music these days...¡±

    ¡°Right...¡±

    ¡°Do you want to do this as a career, or are you in it for the love of the game?¡± Mixie asked me suddenly, looking me dead in the eyes.

    I looked right back. ¡°I want this to be my career.¡±

    ¡°Then you¡¯re going to have to take some jobs that are less ideal than others, if you really want to live off music.¡±

    I realized then that in the long game of fame and recognition, Mixie and Sera were closer to me than to any of the top five Syren producers, the ones that worked directly with Lorelei herself.

    ¡°It¡¯s not all bad though,¡± she added. ¡°Stevie¡¯s a good collaborator. It¡¯s fun to work with your friends.¡±

    ¡°I bet, yeah.¡± I thought of working with Naya, which was both more and less collaborative than I wanted in a working relationship.

    ¡°And hey, if you ever want to try it out, just give us a call and we¡¯ll see if we can fit it into our schedule.¡± She winked.

    Eventually, Mixie had to go pick up her laundry, and I started the long subway ride home. I thought about walking¡ª the weather was nice, the summer heat dropping with the sun, and I hadn¡¯t seen much of this part of the city before. I knew some people who¡¯d walk miles and miles in a single day, but I was honestly pretty out of shape. I didn¡¯t want to wake up with sore feet the next day.

    At any rate, by the time the subway pulled into the station closest to me, the sun had begun to set, and I stumbled out of the station into the bright golden rays of late afternoon. I wasn¡¯t exactly thinking of lyrics on my way back, but I was getting some ideas, maybe. I thought about what Mixie told me about her and Sera¡¯s process. Sensory details, wordplay, emotions, abstraction.

    I ended up walking east towards the sea instead of towards my apartment. I didn¡¯t go to the beachfront often, because it was cold and gray and corroded by whatever was leaking out of the factories further south, but it seemed as good a place as any to try and write my follow-up to Ocean.

    I found a bench right between the pebbly beach and the boardwalk, and settled in with my little notebook and pen. I looked at the water, glimmering in the light of the setting sun. I could hear waves crashing against the rocky shore, seagulls cawing and picking at slimy washed-up seaweed. Joggers sprinted along the boardwalk behind me. Some kids were building towers out of the warm, round rocks by the edge of the water, dressed in swimsuits even though a bunch of signs around the beach all said ¡°No Swimming¡±.

    I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Salt, rotting seaweed, chemicals that would probably give me cancer in a few decades. The air felt warm, with a slight breeze. Dry. It¡¯s been a pretty dry summer so far. There were a lot of wildfire warnings going around.

    I opened my eyes. Opened my notebook.

    I wrote down something. I¡¯d edit it later.

 Chapter Fifteen

    ¡°Okay,¡± Naya said, when I presented her with the lyrics and melody I had come up with on the beach. ¡°We can work with this.¡±

    ¡°Why couldn¡¯t we work with the last two drafts I gave you?¡± I was feeling a little bitter, I guess, over how much influence Naya had over my output.

    Naya smiled. ¡°I just thought you could do better. And you have! Listen.¡± And she started to sing.

    I could tell right then and there, from the shiver that passed through me as she hit the high notes, that she was right.

    This song was better than the drafts before it. And I needed Naya to sing it.

    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s hear it with the instrumentals.¡± I hit play on the backing track, which I could already tell would need more work to match the emotions I¡¯d put into the words. But the basic rhythm seemed mostly right for now. I might change the drums to a clap effect, add another synth to the chorus. Change a few words. But it already sounded like a real song! That was the exciting thing about adding vocals. My instrumental songs needed a lot more stuff in them, or more careful arrangements, to sound complete without a voice.

    We went back and forth a few more times, trying different readings of the lyrics, shifting things around. Like, ¡°What if the second verse was the first verse? What if we changed this line in the chorus?¡± That kind of thing.

    Naya was getting better at taking direction from me. She could sing with emotion pretty much without needing more prompting, and since I made sure to note the exact emotional expression on the lyric sheet with the words, it was usually the right emotion from the first try. Sometimes she overshot, though. Her pronunciation was the area that needed the most fine-tuning. The consonants seemed to get swallowed by her vowels, especially if there were two of them next to each other.

    ¡°Can you make the ¡®changes¡¯ sound more like ¡®chaey-nges¡¯?¡± I asked.

    ¡°Changes,¡± Naya said, the same way she said it the first time.

    ¡°Stretch the a out. Like, chay-n-ges.¡±

    ¡°Chayyynges.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s better, yeah.¡±

    I was messing with the instrumentals at the same time, banging out new riffs on my keyboard, just to see if they fit. It felt like we were finally getting somewhere. I hoped my few-dozen subscribers hadn¡¯t dropped my account in disappointment yet.

    Unfortunately, as Angie reminded me when the clock hit around 9:30, I had to go to work the next day. I made sure to record a version of Naya¡¯s vocals before I went to bed, though, and save all of my iterations of the instrumentals too.

    It felt¡­ Good. Really good. To finally make progress on a song I felt excited about, that my collaborator was excited about with me.

    As I started to get ready for bed, I found myself thinking about Mixie and Sera¡¯s partnership. I wondered if this was how it felt for them to work together on a song. Although I guess the romantic relationship part must make it a little different for them.

    What would it be like to work with a human singer? For that matter, what would it be like to even be in a relationship? I hadn¡¯t even been on a date since college, and my last serious relationship ended when I graduated high school. But anyone I dated now would need to be absolutely cool with the existence of Naya, my fully sentient dubiously-legal humanoid hot-girl-pop-star robot that lives in my room and stands next to my bed at night to recharge. Which I¡¯m sure would go over great with everyone, even the most freewheeling poly people.

    Still, most of my social interaction outside of work ended up being with Naya and Angie, the two robots that lived in my house.

    Maybe I should try getting back on the dating apps. Before I got way too attached, or tricked myself into thinking the hot-girl pop-star robot had spontaneously developed a concept of romantic love.

    At work the next day, I talked to Cierra about it.

    ¡°Have you been dating recently?¡± I asked her as we folded moisture-wicking synthetic polo shirts.

    She laughed and neatened the stack of lemon yellow polos. ¡°Only reason I¡¯d date is to find a rich guy, and now all the rich guys are just buying Cupids instead of dating. What¡¯s the point? Might as well save up and buy one of my own. Or get a vibrator, which would be cheaper.¡±

    ¡°Ah¡­ I guess that makes sense¡­¡± It hadn¡¯t occurred to me that Cupids were taking people out of the dating scene. ¡°Can¡¯t you like, treat a Cupid like a fancy vibrator? Just power it down and put it away when your human girlfriend is over. Or use it for a threesome.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the weird part! They¡¯re too human to just power down and put in a closet, but not human enough for most people to want to be in a threesome with it. It¡¯s the uh, what¡¯s it called. The uncanny valley.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s what the Uncanny Valley is, but okay.¡±

    I couldn¡¯t imagine bringing yet another robot into my house as it was. My one-bedroom was already feeling kind of cramped with just Naya and my Kittipet in there. ¡°Can Cupids do chores or are they more uh, specialized than that?¡±

    ¡°I think the chores thing is an add-on you have to pay extra for.¡± Cierra shrugged. ¡°But even the most basic model is out of my price range, so I haven¡¯t really looked into it.¡± The standard Cupid cost about as much as six month¡¯s rent on an apartment like mine, which put it out of the realm of possibility for those of us who made a living on the retail floor.

    My phone buzzed. ¡°Speak of the devil,¡± I muttered as I pulled it out. The Cupid decals and hair plate I¡¯d ordered had arrived at my apartment. I kept forgetting to actually confirm the order, and then I needed for my latest paycheck to clear, and then they were shipping from overseas, but finally, the stuff was here. I could pretend Naya was a Cupid and take her outside with me. If she even still wanted to do that. She seemed pretty fine with just chilling at my place and reading my library books. Maybe she¡¯d forgotten about the whole thing already.

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    But no, when I got home and brought the EcoBoard box inside, Naya was thrilled. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s all so cute! Can we go out now? Right now right now?¡±

    ¡°Um. I should probably put this all on you first.¡± I applied the sticker over her cheekbone and swapped out her neon orange hair for straight, shoulder-length brown hair like a person might naturally have. Changing her makeup at this point seemed like too much work, especially if I might have to put it back on again in the future, so I added a pair of sunglasses and a sunhat to hide her face a bit better.

    In a cropped pink sweatshirt and gray leggings I grabbed from the clearance rack at work, she looked like one of those sporty rich women that came by the store on their weekend morning jogs. For a moment I imagined a world where that was how we¡¯d met¨C her, wealthy and human, coming into the store, locking eyes with me behind the register or restocking the sale shelves, and whisking me away from my mundane life. But that was not the world we lived in now.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, let¡¯s go, let¡¯s go!¡± I¡¯d never seen Naya this excited before, not even when we were performing. I guess that had more stakes involved, though.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to keep working on our song?¡±

    ¡°I need new input! Let¡¯s go outside! I¡¯m in disguise! And I can go outside!¡± she kept repeating, like a child. We took the elevator down and stopped outside of the front door as I tried to decide where to go.

    The beach? I didn¡¯t want to find out what would happen if sand or saltwater spray got in her joints. Especially since I didn¡¯t have any kind of warranty on her.

    The grocery store? I didn¡¯t really need to buy anything¡­

    The Syren supply shop by the station? Then what was the point of this whole disguise?

    ¡°Where do you want to go?¡± I ended up asking.

    ¡°Can we go to a music shop?¡± Naya said immediately.

    ¡°We don¡¯t really have a lot of money to spend on records we can¡¯t play.¡±

    ¡°I just want to look at them.¡±

    There was a music shop two subway stops away, so that¡¯s where we went. I held her hand and guided her gently with my other hand on her back, like a Cupid¡¯s owner would. It felt weird to be touching her so much. She felt like a doll. A giant, softly whirring doll.

    I didn¡¯t go to the music shop often because I didn¡¯t have the storage space to collect CDs or records, or the devices to play them. I mostly bought my music digitally. But it might be fun to browse through things in person, to find albums I liked and be able to point them out for Naya.

    The shop was playing some old noise metal song over its speakers when we entered, the song tapering out and switching to a long prog rock number as soon as we walked all the way in. It was one of those places that was proud of its history and griminess: genre labels written in marker and fixed with yellowing tape, exposed beams in the ceiling, streaky paint under the layers and layers of concert posters from venues around the city. The ¡°Established¡± sign by the entrance listed a year from before I was born, which in this city, for this type of shop, was a sign of absolutely massive success. The polar opposite of the shop I worked for, in other words.

    ¡°Welcome,¡± called a guy from the register. ¡°Let us know if you need help finding anything.¡±

    ¡°Thanks!¡± Naya said. She tightened her grip on my hand. The shop was loud, and fairly crowded for a Tuesday evening. The lights were bright.

    I led her over to the Syren section in the back. ApolloCorp¡¯s official record label released special edition vinyls with lots of extra decorations, like colored plastic for the record itself and sparkly covers for the box sets. They were fun to look at, if completely impractical for most enthusiasts. The visual presentation of a Syren release was almost as important as the contents themselves.

    ¡°Ooh, the new Hanseul Kim featuring Hana album is out now, look!¡± I pulled out a pale pink set of CDs in a long, flat box that wouldn¡¯t have been out of place in the K-pop special edition album section next to it. The back of the box had a photo of Hana in a white dress, her long cotton-candy hair floating around her, edited to look like a flat illustration. ¡°I guess he¡¯s trying to do like a cute theme for this album. Looks fun.¡±

    ¡°This one seems interesting,¡± Naya said, picking up a black box covered in a spot-gloss pattern of lines and circles. ¡°Pepperground: Pepper Sounds? Volume 3?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yeah, that¡¯s his instrumental series. I like it a lot. He uses so many instruments, it¡¯s wild.¡± Maybe I should learn more instruments. It would probably improve my music.

    I picked up the CD and studied the tracklist. If I had a CD player and extra room in my budget, I would seriously consider buying it.

    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± Naya asked, stopping at a white, wedge-shaped machine with a blue touchscreen and two pairs of headphones dangling off either side.

    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s the sampler. If you type in the code on the back of a CD or record you¡¯re interested in, you can listen to the first 30 seconds of any track on it to see if you like it.¡± I put in the code for Pepper Sounds 3 and put the first pair of headphones on Naya, then put on the second. I skipped to track 5: Gigantomachy, and let the drums and cymbals crash down around us.

    ¡°This is interesting,¡± Naya said softly. ¡°It doesn¡¯t sound like your music at all. But you said you really liked this?¡±

    ¡°I do. I just don¡¯t really want to imitate it, you know?¡±

    ¡°Interesting,¡± Naya said again.

    We spent some time listening to samples of all the tracks on Pepper Sounds 3, and then checked out the Official Lorelei Mix Number 11, and the new Hana album, and the folksy Syren-human duo Neil and Beth, and basically just stayed there until an employee took off my headphones and said, ¡°Sorry to interrupt, but there¡¯s a maximum time limit of thirty consecutive minutes at the sampling machine¡­¡±

    So we left. I didn¡¯t end up buying anything, despite the temptations of Pepper Sounds. The store was about to close up for the night anyway. The sun was setting, and the restaurants in this part of town were filling up for the dinner rush. I could smell them, the different flavors of dozens of cuisines wafting towards us from all directions. My stomach grumbled.

    ¡°Do you want to get dinner or something?¡± I asked. Naya stared at me. I abruptly remembered I wasn¡¯t just hanging out with one of my friends.

    ¡°I could sit and watch you get dinner,¡± she offered.

    ¡°Actually, I¡¯m good.¡± I needed to save money anyway, and I had food at home. So we went back to the subway.

    And then my phone buzzed: someone was messaging me.

    It was Jax from the Sparkplug. ¡°Hey Dess, great to have you the other night. Are you available again at the end of the month for a 2-hour slot? It''ll be later in the evening but we can pay you more for it¡±

    The amount they''d sent me for my half hour set barely covered what I''d spent on getting Naya stage-ready, but if I multiplied that by four for the two hour gig, I could call in sick from work the next day without worrying about the loss of income. Or, since I had more than a few days notice this time, just ask for the day off now. I¡¯d have to text Rhoda about it.

    I showed Naya the message. ¡°Oh, that''s nice,¡± she said calmly.

    ¡°We get to perform again! Aren''t you excited?¡± I was bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet. Naya appeared to be entirely unmoved.

    ¡°I think so.¡± She tilted her head from side to side. ¡°I guess it''s hard to register this event as something that''s actually happening, at this moment.¡±

    ¡°Well, I can! It''s happening. We''re making it happen.¡± I typed a cheerful yet professional response back to Jax. ¡°And good timing too! With any luck we''ll be able to finish this new song in progress and add a few more things to make a full set.¡±

    ¡°Awesome!¡± Jax sent back. ¡°Oh I forgot to mention: this wouldn''t be at the Sparkplug, but at the Quarter Cup, our partner location over in the West End. Smaller space but newer venue, more of an experimental crowd, lot of Syren fans. Are you up for it?¡±

    I hadn¡¯t heard of the Quarter Cup before, and the West End was further away from my apartment than Central, requiring two transfers if I wanted to get there on the subway. But a gig was a gig. I was just excited they wanted me back, honestly. I didn¡¯t fuck up my first Syren gig! They wanted me back!

    ¡­ They wanted us back!

    I looked up into the twinkling lights of the city against the orange haze of the sunset. ¡°They heard us, and they liked us, and they want to hear us again,¡± I said. ¡°Isn¡¯t that just the most amazing thing that¡¯s ever happened?¡±

    Naya slipped her hand into mine and squeezed, just like a Cupid, or a human girlfriend, might. ¡°Indeed,¡± was all she said.