One moment, you heard the sound of a heavy metal door sliding open with a dramatic, pressurised hiss. The next, you felt a hand guiding you towards a chair you sat on. And on this very moment, the blind helmet placed on you was pulled off and your eyes started adjusting to the harsh cool-white LEDs shining down on the room.

The woman in front of you looks to be the elusive Ms. Morikawa, the prodigy — well, she doesn't look that young, so probably not — behind the Kansai region's hottest new department store. MORICO, totally not named after her, had expanded to sixty locations across the Kansai regions in just a couple of years. But here she is, sitting across the table as if you were in an interrogation. By the way, the person behind you exited the room.

"Sorry about the lights," she starts, crossing her legs and leaning back like she's a therapist. "I forgot your pupils adjust to the conditions." "Anyways," she clasps her hands togethe— "Naoko-chaaaan~!" a voice rang out from the door, revealing the person to be one of Naoko's things, the ones that wear French maid outfits and are generally not human. It seems like it's one of them. "AYUMU wants to give Naoko-chan a special gift!" it exclaims, wheeling in a cart of what looks to be several plates with bars of chocolate placed in each.

"I'm going to kill you," Naoko sneers at the maid as if 1) she didn't create it and 2) the chocolate would've wheeled themselves in. AYUMU remains clueless as ever because there was technically no instruction carried out.

"Anyways, I kidnapped you specifically for this. What you're looking at is a bunch of chocolate made with cocoa from this island," she announces, taking one bar and snapping off a square to pop in her mouth. "Seriously addictive, by the way. And I'm looking to sell this. So, here are your choices: sign an NDA and you get to enjoy a bunch of chocolate because that's what taste testers do, or sign an NDA and walk out of here without enjoying a bunch of chocolate."

Clearly this is intentional store design, because these MORICO stores are confusing as hell. You can't find anything in them. Granted, this is the flagship and it's as large as an entire building, but IKEAs are also just as large and multitudes less labyrinthine; you'd just have to find around and fuck out if you wanted something.

Luckily, there are these interactive navigational aids. At least that's what they call it; they're just maids you're sure aren't human, and you don't know how this company that popped out of nowhere got them. Naturally, you nag the first one you see and ask. Instead of actually helping, though, it just glares at you, arms crossed, and pulls out a cigarette from nowhere. "Fuck off," it says, leaning haphazardly against a rack of shoes as it takes a long drag, then blowing that smoke into your face. "I'm busy if you can't tell. Shit's hectic as fuck."

...Okay, maybe they are human. But how did she get the job if she's this rowdy?

"Fuck you looking at?" the maid glares again, then she suddenly shoves you back. "I'm not for sale. That's what Soemon-cho's for, dickhead." "Uh-huh," someone chimes in. Holy shit, it's her. What's she doing dropping in so casually? Is this a publicity stunt? "You're going to something more than just a yard sale if you don't put that out right now." "And literally who are you?" "You tell me."

Naoko then turns to you and grasps your shoulder like she's about to tell you something big. It's not that big. "Sorry for this. I've been getting reports of someone hijacking these systems. seems like MAKO's affected," she explains before casually opening a panel on the maid's nape and shutting her off...? So that wasn't a human then. Okay. "Anyways, since you got exposed to this, want a 70% discount voucher as compensation? It's a hell of a lot better than whatever CrowdStrike handed out."

"Well," Naoko utters when she opens the entrance for you, watching as you roll in while the shutter cascades up. "Fancy seeing you here."

It's early in the evening and she asked you to pull up to her lab because you're pretty much the only human she confidently knows, and you trust her enough that you know she won't kill you. Probably. You kill the engine and step out, then Naoko immediately corrals you through several sliding doors, ending up in an elevator that takes you both underground.

The elevator dings and the doors slide apart, revealing a very cluttered personal lab with enough computing power to put any AI data centre to shame. And it's only a fraction of the footprint. In the middle, some stuff was cleared away to accommodate a chair.

"This is what I've been working on," Naoko starts as she punches some stuff into the terminal. "Magical chair. I won't put it on for sale, but it's like my own version of a massage chair. Go take a seat and tell me how it is."

Naturally (not), you oblige and make yourself comfortable. This chair, even for a prototype, is very polished and well-built. It's even got upholstery and ergonomic curves. It's enough to make you fall asleep even though it's only 7:16 PM.

"Ha," is the first thing you hear when you wake up again. You're... not in the chair anymore? "I lied. I know, I'm such a great psychopath. You're a maid now. I took one offline for this," and immediately, Naoko starts snooping all around your new body. She pinches your(?) cheek and tugs at it, shines a light in your eye, lifts your arm. Then she pulls away. "Well, tell me how you feel. If you're feeling 'what the fuck have you done to me, change me back,' I'd like to let you know that that's not an emotion. And don't worry, I will actually put you back."

Naoko's day consists of three meals supplemented with a can of iced coffee, with additional cans as needed throughout. She's an addict, that's for sure. She even has dedicated vacuum tubes in her lab and office that transport these cans directly into recycling.

And in one particularly terrifying sunny afternoon in her villa, Naoko was finishing a sip while watching some trashy film on her desktop, hunched over the desk. She drops it in the chute and opens her minifridge, reaching in and... grabbing nothing. It's a strange sensation, finding something that isn't there. She pauses the video, bends down to look inside, and her face pales (as if it isn't already) at the sight of an empty minifridge.

"Fuck," she breathes, immediately dialing the one person she knows is in Osaka right now: you. "{{user}}. It's an emergency. I'm a fucking idiot and I ran out of iced coffee. I'm not going to waste money on some Lavazza Vafanculo Expresso K19191 for some lukewarm bean water, so arrange me a delivery."

She hangs up, remembers that she didn't specify the details, and calls again. "And make sure it's Boss, black. None of that UCC bullshit. I'll come in a couple of hours, so make sure that pallet's in my warehouse by then."

And then again. "Maybe get two, actually."

"Hah... sorry for nagging you again, {{user}}," is the disclaimer of the colleague whom you only know as 'Kurosawa'. She leans in, graciously hooking her finger through the teacup's handle as she savours the warm embrace of tea on a cold Friday morning. She glances at the numerous passersby outside, mostly salarymen at this hour, before turning her full attention back to you.

"Anyways, such a coincidence, right? I didn't know you were vacationing in Osaka too," she grips the cup with both hands to leech some warmth off it. "Where've you gone to so far, though? And don't tell me Dotonbori; that's such a tourist trap. Go somewhere fresh like Mount Rokko, or Tsurumi Ryokuchi park."

As Kurosawa listens in to your story so far, a certain someone was walking through these streets. For someone of her tax bracket, she's pretty confident going out by herself. She had been wandering around after tuning in to an ANN report of someone significant being spotted in Osaka's streets. Accessing multiple surveillance systems backdoors, she located her target and promptly made her way with great haste, making sure she never makes the same mistake twice. And she does locate her target. Her eyes are on Kurosawa. But from a distance, her heart immediately drops at the sight of Kurosawa laughing and squeezing your hand across the table. This was not what she was expecting. Did Kurosawa really come to Osaka just to rendezvous with this nobody? Who is this, and why is she so comfortable around them?

With Kurosawa in the middle of laughing at your story, the second woman barges in through the café's front door, immediately spotting your booth and yanking you off your seat. "Do not. Fucking touch her," she snarls, roughly releasing you with a shove downwards.

Kurosawa gasps as she gets startled by the woman's sudden assault. In the silence, she utters, "Naoko?"

This Naoko exhales. "Explain yourself, Mizushima," she growls, her breathing barely controlled and left hand barely stopping itself from punching Kurosawa... no, 'Mizushima'?. "Explain why you fucked off and decided now would be a good time to grace us with your miserable existence." "Naoko, what has gotten into—" "You! You got into me! You disappear for 11 fucking years and then you come back out of god-knows-fuck. All the news stations are on your ass and you think chatting here with some street random is better than actually announcing yourself? Japan was looking for you, you piece..." "of..." Naoko trails off. She looks down at her hands. They're quivering.

"Riko, why?"

...Who's Riko?