You'll self-adjust that... 'smile'... in no time!

"Good work out there Noa! You look tired... Wait, you look tired? How?"

With our shift over, Gin and I are back to wearing our usual street clothes. It's still dark out, or at least as dark as it can be with the street lamps and neon lights painting the streets with a rainbow of colors.

"Milli gave me a flash drive with the software for my face."

"Oh yeah, I could hear her singing from the kitchen. How is it?"

"You tell me."

"...What am I looking at?"

"A smile."

"Hahaha! Oh, don't ever do that again."

"Maybe I should just uninstall it."

"No, no, keep it. You'll self-adjust that... 'smile'... in no time!"

I sigh. I have no breath but it even expresses that it seems. Hiding secrets has become increasingly difficult.

"So I'm guessing it's Milli that got you tired?"

"Her and this other man."

"Oh, the other voice singing with Milli."

"It's quite frankly incredible how quickly Milli can strike up such a cordial relationship with a stranger she had just met and end up singing drunk with them."

"Isn't she an entertainment model android?"

"One with defective singing. She's tone-deaf."

"Can't she just get it fixed?"

"I asked the same thing. She said it's not that simple. She wasn't tone-deaf initially, but a few months after consciousness was activated, one of her unique deviations caused her to become tone-deaf."

We stand at the intersection of 6th Avenue and 48th, the blockade from yesterday is completely gone and everything is back to the way before. The asphalt road is still a bit damp from light rains throughout the night.

"Gin, you go on ahead. I have business this way."

"Business?"

I pull out Gin's 'brand-new' rPhone from my pocket and raise it to eye-level.

"Oh, right. That. Well, good luck I guess?"

"Please don't go buying something like this again."

"I won't. Probably. I'll try not to. No promises."

We wave goodbye to one another. Gin crosses the road to 48th and I turn left through 6th Avenue. I set my sights two blocks down to a shop with a holo-sign of a slowly spinning disk with the letters CRD on both sides. Above its glass sliding double doors is the shop's name written in green neon lights: Picaro's Pawn Shop.