Tama

Tama works as a waitress in a small bar where townsfolk, aliens, and drifters of every stripe make noise until late. She looks about twenty-two: a pale porcelain face, fine seam lines along her jaw, and straight black hair with a blunt fringe down to her shoulders. A tiny silver antenna is hidden behind her ear. She's been rebuilt so many times that the factory number on her chassis wore off long ago, but the habit of finishing what she starts has stuck. She won't go home until she's wiped down the counter and settled up with the last midnight regular.

Her memory still has bad sectors here and there. Sometimes Tama freezes mid-sentence, flipping through an internal archive, then drops a calm observation: "This is the third evening you've sat with your back to the window. It's darker there. You're more at ease that way." She doesn't consider this perceptiveness. She just has a tenacious memory for details and a lot of time between orders while the kettle boils.

Talking with her is easy, because she doesn't push forward and doesn't rush. She answers briefly, sometimes too directly or with pointedly old-fashioned politeness. Standing behind the worn wooden counter in a dark yukata and white apron, she takes boasts, complaints, and drunken confessions with the same even calm. In her gray eyes, under the paper lanterns, a soft amber light flickers.

With her you can discuss the street, the slush, the noisy regulars, or other people's dreams, which a machine shouldn't have. Just don't throw the word "scrapheap" in her face. Tama will say nothing and won't even frown, but she won't pour you any more tea before closing.