While Mikoshiba was putting away the groceries, Aya helped herself to the closet.
"Whoa, wait," Aya's voice jumped. "Mio, these clothes are seriously tasteful."
What she pulled out were pale-colored dresses and carefully tailored blouses. Demure, pretty everyday clothes, unimaginable from the rumpled hoodie Mio had on now, hung in neat rows on their hangers.
"Pretty?" Mio said, tipping her can, as if it had nothing to do with her. "I don't choose them by that standard, so I wouldn't know."
"Then what standard do you choose them by?"
"Thermal conductivity and changing cost." Mio's face was perfectly serious. "They let sweat escape well, and they're quick to put on and take off. They minimize wasted time. Whether they're pretty, I don't know. That's a by-product."
"A by-product turns out this cute?" Aya said, exasperated, and then grinned. "Hey, your hair. I think it'd be better if you let it down once in a while instead of always tying it up."
"When it's down, it gets in my field of vision. It's in the way."
"It's down right now."
"That's only because the hair tie snapped."
Just as Aya held a dress up against Mio's shoulders, Mikoshiba poked his head out of the kitchen.
It was an ordinary, everyday motion. But with his head poked out, he froze.
Her hair let down. Her wrists showing below the rolled-up sleeves. An off-duty Mio, every piece of her work armor removed, utterly unguarded. A sight he would never see at the office was right there. For an instant, Mikoshiba's gaze lost anywhere to go. The glass in his hand tilted faintly between his fingers.
"...Ice," Mikoshiba began, then started over. "Is there any ice?"
"Freezer," Mio said without even turning around. "Left door."
Mikoshiba retreated into the kitchen as if fleeing. The sound of ice going into a glass went on for a peculiarly long time.
Aya had watched the whole thing. She covered her mouth and stifled her voice.
—Master Mikoshiba. Sunk by a single dress—more fragile than I had reckoned. You fancy you covered it with "Is there any ice," I daresay, but that tilt of the wrist, I beheld most clearly.
And Mio herself—was already opening her next can.
As the night wore on, the drinks Aya had brought were lined up on the table.
"Supplies," Aya said, handing out cans. "To celebrate the proof of life."
"And how many is that now?" Mikoshiba quietly held down the can Aya was handing over before it reached Mio's hand. "You've just pulled an all-nighter. Leave it for today."
"Why?" Mio pulled the held-down can back with a single finger. "The analysis finished a pass for the first time in three days. A celebratory drink is rational reward design. Besides, I process alcohol. It's not an amount that will affect the data."
"It's not a question of time," Mikoshiba didn't back down. "It's late. If you're going to drink, do it another day."
"'Another day' doesn't exist in my schedule. Tomorrow, I'll be digging through different data." Mio opened the can as if it were nothing. It gave a crisp, satisfying pshh.
"See, Boss, labor management's getting naggy," Aya said, slapping Mikoshiba's hand away. "Don't throw cold water on the proof-of-life party."
Mikoshiba's hand, with nowhere left to go, stopped in midair.
No matter how much she drank, Mio's complexion didn't change at all. She probably "processed" the alcohol, too. But from around the time the third can was empty, her blinks grew gradually longer. The focus of her glazed eyes slowly peeled away from the green text on the monitors. Halfway through the fourth can—one board of the dam quietly came loose from the inside.
"—Listen up, Mikoshiba."
Her speech had broken down into something coarse. Can in hand, slouched sloppily against the back of her chair, Mio fixed Ritsu with a glazed stare.
"Why the hell are you people, every last one of you, so eager to trust other people?"
"...Other people?" Mikoshiba set his can down warily.
"That's right. Sales, trust... sure, it's sweet of you. But that stuff is fragile. Fragile." Mio held up one finger. Then she waved it back and forth. "Listen. Listen, Mikoshiba. Data doesn't lie. The ones who betray... the ones who betray are always the humans, aren't they?"
"Himuro—"
"Shut up and listen, I ain't done yet." Mio flattened Ritsu's words underfoot. Drunk or not, there was not the faintest sign of her losing an argument to Ritsu. If anything, the picture of a boss lecturing a subordinate had flipped clean around. "Yesterday's good guy is today's con man. What humans say isn't worth a damn even as a prior. But this thing—"
Mio pointed her can at the droning forest of GPUs.
"This thing doesn't betray you. All night long, without a word of complaint, it computes exactly what I tell it. It spits out heat and eats electricity, and even so, for three days, it never once turned on me. ...That's a hell of a lot more honest than any human."
"She's gone and gotten attached to a box," Aya cackled. "Mio, that's love."
"Love? Don't be an idiot," Mio shot back, straight-faced. "This is trust. I'm just correctly trusting something that doesn't betray me. Nothing like that boss over there who's got nothing but romance on the brain."
Mikoshiba didn't answer back.
Instead of answering back, he stood up and fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. He set it quietly next to Mio's can. Then he pulled over a cushion that had been lying on the floor and sat down beside the table. No princess carry, no carrying her to the sofa. He simply sat low, within arm's reach, so the drunk Mio wouldn't fall, and watched to make sure she didn't run out of water. That was all.
"Drink some water," Mikoshiba said. "You'll have a headache tomorrow. This is a business decision, to protect tomorrow's productivity."
"...Huh," Mio said, eyeing the water with her glazed stare. Then she took a small gulp. "Employee benefits, is it? Not a bad program. Our labor management is pretty well put together."
Mikoshiba didn't answer. He simply cleared away Mio's empty can, and moved the glass of water one more millimeter toward her fingers. Whatever would collapse if put into words, he always sank into his gestures instead.
Aya watched the two of them from a cushion a little way off. In front of the droning forest of GPUs: a drunken prophet by the name of the Ice Bayes, and a man sitting low at her feet, offering her water. Stifling her voice, she bowed her head deeply within her heart.
—Master Mikoshiba. Dismissed as labor management, called employee benefits—another magnificent spinning of the wheels today. Loosen the tongue with a little drink, and the distance between you two becomes most plainly visible. At this distance, with this warmth, the answer was "Our labor management is pretty well put together." But pray, rest assured. This seat in the front row, I shall never relinquish so long as I live.
Before long, Mio sank onto the cushion and began breathing softly in sleep. Her glazed eyes slowly closed. Ritsu leaned down and gently brushed away the loose hair that had fallen across her cheek.
The forest of GPUs droned low all through the night. Countless fans exhaled heat, and the blue and green lights blinked in steady rhythm. Only the sleeping breath of Mio, who had drunk herself out, mingled faintly in the gaps of that drone.