"Yes, I would like to quit."

These were the words I directed to my boss of only three days, a tall lanky foreigner who ran the local bar.

"It has not even been a week!" he said, placing the mug he was washing on the bar in front of him. "Haven't even gotten your first paycheck!"

I nodded. "Yes, I know, but I don't think bartending is right for me."

This conclusion was arrived at when I found myself becoming a bumbling idiot the second anyone talked to me. I know that is probably a very common thing with new bartenders, despite their social abilities, but the stress of social interaction with people I did not know was too much for me to handle, especially after a long day at the copyediting firm.

The joint the guy ran was pretty low-key, slotted in some back alley downtown. However that did not stop the place from becoming packed when the night came from university students to businessmen, all equally as stupid as each other once one too many pints went down their throat. I mean, I was not the one to talk, but seeing the result of alcohol on not only my rash decision to buy an android despite my middling pay but how respectable-looking individuals turned into monkeys under its spell, again I felt the slight urge to go alcohol-free.

After freeing myself from the smoky and beer-stenched air of the bar and into the cool night, I took a deep breath and looked up into the sky. Of course, light pollution meant that not a single star pierced the haze of electric light. But the Moon was still there, hovering in the sky with half of its placid face dissolving into the darkness of space.

I started wandering the late-night streets, not wanting to return to the house and inform the girls of my failure. It had been the second job I tried to hold, the first being a part-time cleaner of a dance club not too far from where I got off the bus for work. Naturally, I only spent a single night there before deciding that cleaning up vomit and cigarette buds was not something I wanted to return to. The boss of that job was a lot more accepting of my early resignation, stating with a bluntness that could send nails into solid rock, "Most people quit after the first night. It's fine. Maybe we should be investing in an android, huh. Only something nonhuman can survive doing such a job, eh?"

He was probably right.

I felt a longing for the warmth of whiskey flowing down my throat. I could not return to the bar I just quit and get one - imagining the strange look from the owner and some of my ex-coworkers would give me was enough to deter such an idea. So I turned on my phone and started using the map app to find the nearest bar other than that one. Despite living in the city for a couple of years at that point, I had still little idea how to navigate the complex metropolis maze of identical-looking buildings and back alleys.

I smelled incoming rain. The weather lady stated that it would be a dry night, so I was dressed lightly and definitely not well enough against the potential lashing. I quickly switched to the city taxi app and, after turning on my phone's location, ordered a taxi and sat waiting inside an empty bus stop.

Sure enough, a minute or so later, the heavens split open and rainwater dashed against the tarmac in front of me. People, equally caught off-guard by this sudden change in fortune, started running with their briefcases or a magazine held over their heads. I watched this unfold on the adjacent sidewalk, amused for a couple of moments until I returned my attention to my phone and continued looking for well-rated bars nearby.

That was when it happened: a notification from a job-seeking app appeared on the top half of the screen. This would randomly show a nearby opportunity if I ever turned on my location but my lazy ass never disabled it even when I worked in the club and then the bar so I would randomly feel my phone vibrate, get slightly excited at the prospect of getting a text message, only to be disappointed that it was another notification. With a lack of anything else productive to do, I tapped on the notification and was brought to a screen showing the details of the job.

You could imagine my surprise when I realized the job place was literally the building right behind me. Looking behind me from the safety of my bus shelter, I saw a nondescript two-story building with main double doors plus a single door near the side leading to some stairs illuminated in interior light. I looked back down at my phone and sure enough, the door leading to the stairs matched the number on the phone. I returned to my seat and started reading through the listing.

It seemed that a private detective was looking for someone to do the paperwork and write reports. The pay was not terrible, in fact, it even beat my hourly rates at my real job. Furthermore, working with a private detective even sounds a little fun, bar sorting through paperwork. That will always be a pain in the ass I imagine.

I canceled the taxi on my app and made my way across into the shade of the doorway. Then, after taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door a couple of times.

A minute passed before I knocked again.

...

Another minute, another knock.

...

I began to think they were not in when I saw someone rush down the stairs. A woman quickly unlocked the door, her white t-shirt with a splotch of pink sewn in barely clinging to her, her black brassière formed a dark line from over her shoulder before crossing her collarbone. A faint whiff of perfume came out into the city air, frigid cold but now slowly warming up as the interior heat escaped. Her hair was a long mess of ginger and her green eyes were emeralds glistening the dark of a cave inside the thin slit of her sleep-induced eyelids.

"Ah, sorry! I was just... busy. I hope I didn't keep you out in the rain too long. Come in, come in."

Before I even explained why I was there in the first place, the woman started leading indoors to the warmth and up the stairs. Soon, we came to a single door slightly ajar which she pushed through with me in tug. Unsure how to react, I just followed along, remaining silent as we entered a room.

It appeared to be an apartment/workplace combination, similar to the one Ana described only this one was far less grand with a small simple wooden desk, computer, a couple of filing cabinets, paper strewn about the place, soda cans strewn about the place, just a messy place in-general. There was a sofa and a television in addition to a small kitchen and single bed, leading me to conclude this place both served as a place of work and her home, similar in some ways to the old man in Ana's story.

"Sorry about the mess," the woman said, chuckling a bit. "I wasn't actually expecting anyone to respond to my ad that quickly. I only put it up a few hours ago before I went to sle-- I mean started solving my newest case. Haha, yeah..."

And the conversation just died. I started scratching the back of my neck and glanced about the place - sure enough, it was a pigstye to put it lightly, a biohazard to put it bluntly. Then I returned my gaze to the woman who had sat down on the sofa and started patting the spot beside her.

"Sorry," she said, "I know it's a little weird, but we will do the whole job interviewing thing on the couch. As you can see, I don't really have another chair."

I nodded and sat down, hearing the air hiss out from beneath me as I settled into the cushioned seat. Despite how the apartment looked like a wasteland, the couch itself was pretty soft and the surface graced my hand with a velvety touch. She turned off the television, which was playing on mute, and pulled out her phone.

"Oh, I'm just getting my bullet points I want to ask you."

"Ah, I see."

It seemed to me this girl could easily read my face, a trait I imagine that came from her job.

A detective. To be honest, I did not expect someone dressed in a white t-shirt and denim shorts to be a detective. I imagined a more Sherlock Holmes-type, an older man with a deerstalker cap and some form of smoking vessel dangling from his lips. Of course, I did not actually expect such a character to greet me that night, but a young beautiful woman was pretty far down my list of expectations. I started to feel a little self-conscious. After all, before me was a living, breathing human being, a rarity in the life of an office drone caring for one-now-two androids. It was the closest physically I had been to one as well, apart from the times the bus to-or-from work was packed and I am forced to become too close with some stranger beside me.

"Ah, here it is," she said, tapping her phone with her thumb with a smile before returning her attention to me. "Oh, I almost forgot, my name is Maria Makikov. I like to go by the name M.M. though, sounds more mysterious, doesn't it?" I nodded; it was like she was an overgrown child, making up nicknames and identities for herself. "What is your name?"

I told her it.

"That's an interesting name. Are your parents immigrants?"

I nodded.

"So are mine. They are from Russia before the country split. Decided to come here to escape all the fighting."

I remembered reading about the Russian Civil War - it was rather difficult to spend a day watching television without some mention of it. The war ended a couple of years before I was born and because my parents were from a country once under the Russkiy fist, once they moved and saw the mighty country fall apart, they cheered on its destruction.

Little did they know that the war would wipe whole towns from the map, including a lot from the occupied countries. When you have a country as steadfast, rigid, and seen as invulnerable collapse, it tended to leave a huge hole in the flooring where it did, big enough for one hundred million people to disappear with it. The bloodstain was enormous, enough to stain the entire Eurasia supercontinent for the following decades to come.

Now, what was known as Russia was about a dozen or so smaller countries, ranging from traditionalist Russian states trying their best to relive the good old days to progressive nations wanting to prioritize change over stability. Either way, I was glad my parents decided one summer to move away from their home country, as did Maria's, as living in such an environment did not seem like my cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, Maria stopped what she was doing and offered me a cup. I nodded, instinctively touching my throat as I realized how parched I truly was. It was not like I could drink while bartending and the only water source was from the grime-encrusted bathroom sinks so throughout my shifts, I was fasting though not entirely by choice. Perhaps the pounding headache after each shift due to dehydration was the main reason I quit.

After a few minutes, the tea was ready and the two of us quietly sipped at our cups for a moment, feeling the warm flush of aromatic liquid coarse down our throats.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"So let me see..." she said, pulling out her phone again. "Ah yes, tell me... what... what experience do you have that you think would be relevant for this position?"

A standard question. I gave her my standard response. "Well, I currently work at a copyediting company. In said company, I have read thousands of different written pieces ranging from amateur fiction to legal contracts. My job requires me to have attention to detail, spotting each mistake with a surgical-like precision and remedying it. Due to this, my ability to understand written work can be transferred to handling paperwork as such a task requires said skills to do efficiently. In addition, while I am no James Joyce, I am confident in my abilities to write a comprehensive report of whatever is required of me as copyediting has taught me not only how to edit well, but how to write well."

A part of me hated this aspect of job interviews. Out-of-context or even in-context, it sounded like I was boasting about my various mundane skills and wording it in such a way that it seemed impressive. I was far from anywhere close to the best employee at my firm; I relied a lot on some of my coworkers to read through my edits before I send them, anxious that I missed something important. If anything, I was the best clown hanging onto a high-raised bar in a circus, unable to comprehend what was happening other than the fact that if I let go, I would fall into the void and never return.

Maria nodded along to my professional boasting. And then, spending a few moments to digest what I said, she said, "May I ask for you to write a report based around a recent case I took a look at?"

Another standard procedure. "Sure," I said. "Just give me what you got and I'll work on it right away."

"Ah, but it is pretty late now that I think about it, are you sure?"

I gave her the thumbs up. "I can just order a taxi after I'm done. And I'm off tomorrow so I can just sleep in."

After convincing her, Maria showed me to her computer and logged me on, opening a word processor app. Then, she went and picked a small stack of paper from the towers scattered throughout the apartment and set them on my desk. Reading through the papers, I saw that it was a bare-bones accounting of a murder-suicide that happened in the outskirts of the city written in large, bubbly handwriting that slowly degraded in quality as it went on. The handwriting suited Maria, though why I could not tell you - a feeling based on our short knowing of one another, I guess you can call it.

First, I figured out the overall structure of the report by typing out the title and various headings that sectioned out the report. I picked up this technique while still in high school, writing book reports and essays for English class. Not only did it help keep the document structured, but it also helped speed up the process in general as I knew exactly what I was going to write in each part.

As I began with the introduction and sipped on my tea, I said, "So this case, it happened just last week, huh? From what I've read, it was pretty brutal: a wife with a history of severe mental illness attacked and killed her husband and two children before cutting her own throat. I'm a little surprised I heard nothing about this, though this city is pretty big after all. Who called you to the scene, a surviving family member?"

"No one did."

I stopped typing and looked in the direction of her voice. Maria was sitting back on the couch, her head tilted back and looking at me. The ceiling light seemed to make her eyes glow much like an android, her fiery hair dangling over the back of the couch. Her pale neck was highlighted in said light as it curved toward her head.

I tilted my own head attempting to understand her response. "You mean, you just showed up?"

"Yes. I saw the police racing past me that day and I got a taxi to follow them. They led me to the crime scene which, after showing my certification, I was allowed to enter. Since they had not yet sent a call for a detective, when one just showed up unannounced, they were happy enough to allow me in."

"That doesn't... sound right."

"The police in this city are efficient, but that comes with a cost - you see, the typical procedure in crime investigation here is that after the police arrive and a detective has surveyed the scene, gathering evidence and give them the okay, they can quickly clean up the scene and move onto another case. While police are paid hourly, they are given pretty good bonuses for each crime scene secured and dealt with during the day so most officers want the process to be done and over with quickly. Some years back, only detectives hired by the civil service could deal with more major crime scenes, but after some relaxation of laws, anyone with detective certification can appear at a scene and be allowed entry. Of course, there's a little bit of a process, but for open-and-shut cases, police just want a certified detective there to tick a box."

"That seems haphazard."

"It is," she said, a sad look appearing on her face. "Because of this, a lot of detectives get paid to just draw a fast logical conclusion and close the case. I imagine there are dozens of cases with incorrect conclusions due to this system. But, the city doesn't care - instead of waiting for a second opinion, they would rather have it done and over with. And the families rarely say anything even if something is wrong, probably out of fear."

I looked over the murder-suicide case pages. Though I was not a detective myself, the evidence presented seemed to point towards a murder-suicide. And from how Maria was speaking, I doubted she was one of those underhand detectives anyway.

I continued writing the report in silence for some time, taking momentary breaks to stretch and drink my tea. When my tea was drunk, she wordlessly got me another which I thanked her for - I guess she felt obliged, me technically being a guest at her house.

Just when I was starting to write the conclusion, I heard a knock at the door. Before either of us could respond, a voice called out from the other side of it:

"Darling, are you here?"

"Selena?" I said out loud, spinning around on the chair.

"A friend of yours?" Maria asked, going to the door and opening it.

Sure enough, standing in the doorway was Selena, dressed in a casual black shirt and long jeans, drenched. Without saying another word, she entered the apartment and gave it a look around before turning her attention to the owner beside her, scanning her from top to bottom. Then, finally, after a moment of processing, she spoke, "So you have a human girlfriend now? I see I see, clearly, I have failed in keeping your attention, darling."

"No, that's not true," I said, getting up from the computer. "This is Maria, she is a private detective who I applied to work for. Also, how did you find me?"

"You applied to work for her?" Selena said, glancing at Maria from the corner of her eye, who was currently silently watching our exchange with a look of mixed surprise and confusion. "But didn't you say you started working at a bar?"

I explained to her the series of events that led me to be in Maria's apartment.

"Ah, what a coincidence that her apartment was right here."

"You don't believe me?"

Selena shook her head. "I believe you, it's just a very interesting coincidence."

...I feel like she doesn't believe me.

It was hard to gauge what Selena was really thinking - after all, apart from the odd smirk or slight eyebrow twitch when she got pissed, her face rarely conveyed what was going on behind it. And at this moment, her face was perfectly neutral, a balance of straight lips, eyes not too wide or closed, and eyebrows relaxed.

"And to answer your question, darling, I always know where you are."

"That's creepy in and out of context."

"I have a tracker telling me your exact location at all times."

"That's just straight up something a controlling girlfriend would do. Also, tracker? When did you install that? Where did you install that?"

Selena pouted though it was obvious it was for show. "But darling, I am your girlfriend, right? Or were those honeyed words you whispered to me that night a lie?"

"What words are you talking about? Don't just fictionalize events to make me look bad."

I was surprised by how she was acting. In the three weeks I had her, she never argued with me or even pretended to be mad - her character, I had gathered, was one of a placid moon, cool and unassuming, but eternally beautiful. The second anyone else was in the picture however, she just started acting up, like in front of Ana a few days prior.

"Um, I'm sorry to interrupt your banter, but..." Maria muttered, glancing at the both of us. "It's just that, I'm very confused at what is happening."

"Don't worry, I am too," I said.

"Nice to meet you, I am Selena." She bowed.

"I already told her that."

"I am darling's girlfriend or bodyguard, depending on what he is doing."

"What a strange combination of words..."

Maria looked up to Selena who stood at least half a head higher than her. "Selena, are you perhaps an android?"

"Yes, that is correct."

With that simple answer, Maria seemed to light up, her confused expression now one of pure joy.

"Really? Really? Wow, an android in my own house? I can't believe it."

You would think androids were not something that one would frequently see in the city, despite them being a large portion of the pedestrian population.

"I love androids," Maria continued, grasping Selena's hands and gazing up at her. "I was never rich enough to afford one so I could only dream of being able to be this close to one in real life. All I can do is watch them walk past me on the sidewalk, their cool gaze locked onto whatever task they have at hand, so to be able to see one this close is... amazing." Maria started touching various parts of Selena's body; Selena remained still and seemed to not mind the prodding. "Such perfect hair, such perfect skin! The breasts are not too large or small, too firm or saggy. The hair feels light and almost fluffy despite the rain."

"Uh, Selena, are you cool with that?"

Selena nodded. "There is little difference between what Maria is doing and what a maintenance worker does."

Maria seemed to really be enjoying herself. I sighed and swiveled back around in the chair. "I'll just be done with this report in a couple of minutes, Selena, so if you can sit tight - no wait, hang on!" I turned around. "Didn't I tell you to stay home?"

"Yes, however, it was getting late and I started to get worried."

Worried, huh.

"Alright, sorry for worrying you. But please, trust me a little bit more, I'm an adult and I don't need you to keep tabs on me 24/7."

"...understood."

I have a feeling she doesn't.

I quickly finished the report as I was beginning to get exhausted. Maria quickly read through it on the screen and gave me the thumbs up. "I think you are my man."

"Really? Thank you!" I was a little surprised by how fast she made her decision; perhaps she was getting desperate for some help.

"It is getting late though, so I'll give you a call tomorrow, 'kay? We can sort out more of the details then."

And like that, we exchanged contact information, Maria led us to the door and we gave our goodbyes. The rain had let up some time prior so we could wait for our taxi outside.

The city looked pretty after the rain; every surface, once colorless and without character, glistened in the neon lights that jutted out of every building, creating a spectrum of chromatic light that dazzled the otherwise dull landscape. We stood side-by-side and if anyone was to look at us, you would think we were a couple. I guess we were meant to be, but lately, Selena was acting less like my girlfriend and more like my eternal demon, having a go at me whenever she got the chance to.

I wanted to ask her why but the taxi rolled up and I felt the words lodge in my throat. I was also pretty tired so I wanted to limit the amount of time I spent talking to the absolute minimum. Another time, I promised myself.

It would be a while before another chance like that would appear.