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?”

“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— 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– 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.