ENTRY 1 - A DAY IN THE LIFE

2070 - Itabashi District, Neo Tokyo

POWER ON

The message softly echoed against the wooden walls of the Hirano Ramen shop’s upper level. Its origin was the voice box of an average sized, black haired girl crouching in the corner of her living quarters. Her outfit was a traditional red ramen chef shirt tucked under a black apron which featured a dazzling pattern of red and orange flowers threaded by thin green vines that weaved to form intricate patterns.

Her glowing eyes opened, taking in the view of where she was. Her eyes’ lenses recalibrated, giving her a sense of the world around.

The girl quickly straightened up on her feet and removed the charging port from the back of her head. She was back at 100% and ready to go.

The young girl’s name is Alice, a name given to her by Hirano Ramen’s owners. What sets her apart from other girls her age is the simple fact that she isn’t human. Alice is a Third Generation Vessel, being created by the Yamo Corporation. She was created five years ago, being bought by a young man named Milo Hirano. He desperately wanted to help his aging parents run their ramen shop, but his ultimate dream was a career as a mangaka. Milo’s solution was to give his parents this Chef Vessel to ease their burdens from running the shop.

Two things make Chef Vessels unique, one was their Dynamic Appendage Temperature System. Alice could rapidly heat up or cool off any part of her body, doing the same for whatever item she was in contact with, like food or pans. Chef Vessels also have the ability to morph their wrists and hands into the shape of any needed cooking utensils. Needless to say, Alice was built for her job and performed well as Hirano Ramen’s primary chef for the past five years.

Every morning Alice has a set routine, beginning with her First Step: Preparing breakfast for Mr. and Mrs. Hirano. Walking around the corner from her charging port, Alice began working in the ramen shop's personal kitchen, where the family makes non-ramen meals.

This morning she made the Hiranos two bowls of freshly steamed rice with piping hot Miso soup featuring vegetable diced vegetables. Since she’s a Chef Vessel, Alice is able to prepare the meal in half the time it’d take an average human cook. Not only that, but her ingredient proportioning is razor tight, creating the perfect synergy of flavors.

With breakfast ready and laid out on the kitchen table, Alice’s routine shifted to Step Two: Waking Mr. and Mrs. Hirano up.

Lately, it’s become more difficult to wake the Hiranos up for work. Even with the blinding morning sun and Alice’s wake up alarm blaring, they struggled to get out of bed.

To deal with this new challenge today, she opened the bedroom’s blinds extra wide and raised her alarm’s volume from 100 dB to 110 dB.

After some struggle, Mrs. Hirano was the first to wake up today.

“Is it morning already?”

“Yes Mrs. Hirano, we have an hour and a half before the shop needs to open”

“Guess I’ll hafta get out of bed then. Is breakfast ready?”

“Yes, it’s ‘hot-and-ready’ as they say in America”

Mrs. Hirano laughed a little, and pulled herself out of bed.

“C’MON SHIGE! WE GOT WORK TODAY!” Mrs. Hirano began shaking her husband.

Mr. Hirano’s eyes slid open, his head turned up dignified.

“No, it’s our day off”

“That was yesterday my sweet.”

Mr. Hirano didn’t hear what Mrs. Hirano said, though, and his eyes began drifting back to sleep.

Mrs. Hirano retaliated then by pinching one of her husband’s most sensitive nerves located right between his neck and shoulder.

He sprung up, exclaiming “OKAY, OKAY, I’M UP!”

Mr. Hirano grumbled indignantly as he exited the bedroom.

“Thank you for breakfast Alice.” he muttered, the morning breath beyond potent.

While the Hiranos ate breakfast, Alice began Step Three: cleaning the restaurant floor. This was something that she was able to do about as fast as a regular person, but Alice didn’t mind. Cleaning was a therapeutic activity for her. For some reason, the various sensors and systems running in her mind were able to briefly slow down while cleaning. The feeling she felt while cleaning was similar to what people would call “calm”. Her mechanical joints somehow relaxed, and her circuits moved at a more leisurely rate.

Outside, past the Hirano Ramen shop’s window, Itabashi Special Ward was wide awake. Birds sailed across the sky, blue patrol cars shifted down the road, and parents pushed their infants in strollers for morning walks. This was all set to the backdrop of the various restaurants around Hirano’s Ramen, an array of aged and smaller buildings in Neo Tokyo. The buildings were beautiful and individualistic in design, for example the bakery across the street has a rounder design in its building, with softer textures and colors on its walls.

Their street didn’t have towering skyscrapers or indestructible foundations like the center of Neo Tokyo, but it’s home.

It’s a weird word for Alice to think to herself, “home”, considering it’s a concept she didn’t entirely grasp. Isn’t home simply where you charged, or is it more than that-

“ALICE, WE GOTTA GET COOKING!” Mr. Hirano called from the ramen kitchen.

Alice dropped the cleaning utensils and bolted to the kitchen, somehow late to Step 4: Preparing ingredients for customers. What this entailed was the beginning of the rest of her day: unboxing ingredients, poaching eggs, broiling vegetables, slicing meat, and cooking broth. Alice did almost everything on the cooking side while the Hiranos dealt with customer service and dishes.

Within 30 minutes customers began entering, beginning the longest step of Alice’s day, Step 5: Serve those customers.

Unlike the calm contemplation of cleaning, Alice experienced a non stop rush of information while the shop ran. The Hirano Ramen shop opened right before Itabashi’s lunch rush, so things were especially hectic at the start of each work day.

During the lunch rush, Alice found herself dashing all over the kitchen, pushing her abilities to their limit, as per usual. Alice had one arm stretched broiling noodles with the other cutting up and mixing vegetables into broth. Mr. Hirano’s voice buzzed repeatedly, telling Alice what ramen to make, and the clanking dishware Mr. Hirano was cleaning kept making its presence known to Alice. Eventually the day melted together into a blur of splashing broth, endless orders, clanking dishware, and before Alice could believe it, the time was 4:30.

At 4:30 their part timer, a high schooler named Kaito Suzuki, usually arrives to assist Alice’s chef duties. This was especially needed when office workers started leaving work around 6. He didn’t arrive though. For the first time since he started working for them five months ago, Kaito was late. At 4:45 Alice saw the shop’s front door opened by a profusely sweating teenager with messy brown hair and a shoddily put on Hirano Ramen work uniform.

“Sorry I’m late…” Kaito breathed.

What was he doing that was more important than this? Alice wondered.

Kaito shakily weaved around the line of customers and entered the kitchen.

“What happened to you?” Mrs. Hirano asked.

“Had to talk to my homeroom teacher after school for a bit, but I didn’t want to be late for work. So…yeah '' Kaito breathed.

“What’d you get in trouble for?” Mr. Hirano asked curiously.

“N-NOTHING, I just had some questions for him,” Kaito replied sheepishly.

“Well no matter, go fix your uniform, and tidy up your hair” Mrs. Hirano ordered.

A few minutes later when Kaito fixed himself up and settled in, he started his job of helping Alice with her chef’s duties. While she chopped and mixed meat and vegetables into the broth, he worked to boil noodles and poach eggs.

“So, um… how’ve you been?” Kaito asked, his face immediately tensing up after saying it.

“I don’t know how to respond to that…” Alice quickly responded.

Kaito shrunk at this response, his face blood red.

“But I guess I’ve been existing, which is something that is commonly assumed good… so, I’ve been good.” Alice contemplated.

“Yeah, you know, I love existi-”

______________________________________________________________________________________

Kaito’s awkward response was cut off by an ear piercing screech soon followed by the sound of a massive crash.

All was still, customers not knowing how to react. Whispers spread throughout the shop theorizing what had happened:

“Foreign terrorists?”

“Drunk driving?”

Moments later, curiosity took over, as customers possessed by it exited the shop. Kaito and the Hiranos followed in a similar mesmerized state. Alice followed behind after shutting down kitchen equipment, it was part of her job to take care of equipment after all.

As soon as Alice exited the shop, a fire erupted in front of her. Past the mob in front of her Alice saw an overturned city bus being engulfed by a raging fire. The bus had crashed into one of the Izakayas across the street, the restaurant burning with the bus. Fire from the bus began spreading to the building, eating away at it.

The street where the bus crashed was lined with people. Blood trails could be seen throughout the street. Some bodies on the ground were limp, others shredded beyond any belief of survival. Those who were conscious ran either away from the scene entirely or towards the raging fire to find their loved ones. Those who ran into the fire searching never came out.

As Alice scanned the street, she was met with a disturbing sight. In the middle of the street a detached head from a female Vessel lay, a mess of wires laying below her decapitated head.

It wasn’t the detached head itself that was particularly disturbing to Alice, but the euphoric smile of that female Vessel.