The next morning, Hale cooks Melissa her preferred breakfast of avocado on toast, plus a stack of pancakes to supplement her energy needs after recharging him during the night. Initially, she rejects the notion she could eat so much in one sitting, but she finishes the stack and has room for a bowl of fruit and vegetables Hale prepared, just in case.

He packs a sizeable lunch of sandwiches and pasta salad to last her the day while she gets ready for work. As she's on her way out the door, he overhears her on the phone. She's digging through the clutter of the closet and saying, "The alimony isn't enough, Hector." She steps into her heels, wobbling and balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear. "Half of it goes to Kayleigh's college fund, and what about me?"

Hale had suspected there might be financial difficulties in the household, given the number of overdrawn credit cards on Melissa's file and how her pulse spiked at every hidden cost of his own upkeep. He makes note to prepare a more realistic budget, but privately he wonders about the expense of his own purchase.

Big spending is not something he's designed to discourage, though, so he puts it out of his mind. Instead, as he begins emptying and sorting the front foyer closet, he finds himself preoccupied by the embarrassing encounter with Rayner last night. It must have triggered some sort of undiagnosed malfunction, he's sure, because the burning pit in his core hadn't alleviated until he'd entered rest mode for the remainder of the night, standing outside Melissa's bedroom door as a silent sentinel. In this state, aside from his threat or burglar detection systems, he was more or less asleep. When he'd rebooted in the morning to cook breakfast, the feeling had vanished.

If Melissa had allowed him to draw the curtains, they certainly wouldn't have disturbed Rayner, but now he faces a dilemma—apologize or avoid the topic? Nothing in his behaviour protocols offer a template for the correct course of action after giving unwitting neighbours a lewd peep show. Considering Rayner's embarrassment, it may be best to pretend as though it had never happened. Then again, Hale considers it might be seen as discourteous not to apologize or acknowledge the...inconvenience.

Hale manages to reorganize the closet, sort unused items into boxes for charity, clean all the dishes, and dust out of the kitchen cupboards without arriving at a satisfying decision. Without much experience or knowledge of Rayner's personality, he simply doesn't have enough information to solve this problem.

It's noon by the time Hale finishes cleaning the kitchen to his satisfaction. He decides the bathrooms are best done next and heads for the small water closet on the main level. When he enters, bucket of cleaning supplies in hand, he stops short in the doorway. Above the sink, facing him, is a mirror in a silver, art nouveau frame. His reflection stares back at him.

He's never seen his reflection before. He tilts his head to the side.

According to his programming, everything about his appearance is correct. As chosen by Melissa, his hair is dark brown, his jawline groomed to a roguish stubble, his bone structure ken-doll perfect. Yet something seems...off. He cannot pinpoint why, but his hair seems the wrong colour. His nose should be a little broader. His mouth softer. Only his eyes—green and turned up at the corners, with two thick brows above them—seem right.

Why?

The pause to wonder only takes half a second. He fills the bucket with soapy liquid and avoids looking at his reflection. It is yet another problem without a pre-programmed solution. Why should he have an image in mind of his own appearance that differs so much from what he's programmed to look like? He runs diagnostics and double-checks through background processes for the source. He finds nothing.

There is, however, an interesting article online about a scientific study of animals. Called the mirror self-recognition test, scientists used it to study which animals could accurately identify themselves by placing a red dot on the subject's forehead and then giving it access to a mirror. If the animal tried to remove the red dot or mark, it was concluded that animal recognized the reflection as its own image and the mark as a foreign object not a part of themselves.

When Hale looks in the mirror, he feels as though he's covered in red dots.

He downgrades this perplexing thought into a backlog of background processes and returns to cleaning.

By the time Melissa returns from work, Hale has thoroughly cleaned the entire ground floor and reorganized several areas of storage. While picking molecules of mould out of the shower grout with a sponge, he hears the door click open. Melissa's voice, high with delighted surprise, reaches him through the floor.

"Oh, my closet! It's...immaculate! HALE!" Putting down his sponge, Hale makes his way down the stairs. It's gratifying that Melissa has finally remembered his name. She stands amongst the boxes at the front door, staring around her house with wide-eyed wonder. That, too, is very gratifying. "Haven't you been busy," she says.

Mistaking it for a question, Hale says, "I have spent all eight hours and twenty two minutes since you left this morning ensuring your home is as hygienic and organized as possible."

"I can see that. What are these boxes?"

"The unused items I mentioned earlier. With your permission, I'll take them to the charity shop. I've also compiled a list of replacement items you may require, along with some optional decorative products that will improve your home's feng shui."

Hale hands her a tablet with the list of items. She looks at him with the same shocked expression and scrolls through the list, eyes skimming over it. At the end, Hale included a rough estimate of how much the items would cost. Melissa's delight morphs slowly into concern.

"Hm, I guess I don't see a problem with replacing the water filter. It has been a long time."

Hale recalls Melissa's conversation with her ex-husband that morning and adds, "I can limit the list only to highest priority items if need be."

Something in the way he asks makes Melissa shake her head. "No, no, it's fine, get all of them."

"Shall I go now? I can be back within an hour and fifteen minutes. You can track my location on your tablet, if need be."

"Yeah, that's great," Melissa says with a yawn. "You do that. I'm beat. Gonna go take a nap."

"There's a cold gin and tonic waiting for you in the kitchen," Hale replies.

Her eyes light up. "That alone makes you worth forty grand," she says without sarcasm and heads into the kitchen.

Once Melissa leaves, Hale starts piling and balancing the boxes for charity in his arms. A projection in the top right of his vision flashes with the numerical weight of his burden: 35.6 kilos.

Once he has the balance accurately calibrated though, the weight is no bother. Tapping the door shut lightly with the heel of his foot, Hale walks down the driveway. Without valid reason, he chances a look next-door.

Rayner isn't there. Given Hale still hasn't devised what he should say to their neighbour yet, this is likely a good thing.

During the journey, several cars honk at Hale as they pass. Clearly the sight of a man balancing a five-foot tower of boxes like a circus performer isn't a common sight. Brushing off the awkward feeling of being gawked at, he arrives at the charity shop twenty-three minutes later, setting down his stack of boxes outside. As he takes the top one from the stack and looks through the window, he catches sight of the elderly woman behind the till. Her basset-hound eyes stare, round and wide. Hale is a fairly new model, and few of the previous iterations were capable of carrying such heavy or awkward items as he's done. It's marked him for what he is.

Hale carries the box inside and says, "Hello! Sorry if I startled you. My name is Hale. I'm an android belonging to a local woman who'd like to make a donation of clothing. If it's all right with you, I'll bring the rest inside?"

The elderly woman at the till closes her slack jaw with a click and nods, jowls wobbling. Hale hears a customer by the back coat rack whispering to a friend. He smiles, bows his head, and goes out to get the rest of the boxes. One by one, he brings them inside. "Have a nice day," he says as he leaves.

"You...too?" says the elderly lady.

The upward lilt to her tone makes it sound like a question, so Hale says, "I will. Thank you."

That done, Hale consults the shopping list Melissa approved and calculates the distance between shops that stock each item, mapping out the most efficient journey. He heads down the high street and collects things. Checking each item off the list gives Hale a buoyant feeling of satisfaction, particularly as fewer and fewer things are left on it. Unlike carrying a tower of boxes, shopping draws very little attention. Even the way he pays for each item—pressing a finger to the payment processor so it can read Melissa's card information from his cybermetrics—is identical to the way a human being would pay. He must sift through them to find an account that's not overdrawn, but this only takes a fraction of a second in real time.

The shopping trip takes about an hour, and by then he has both arms full of bags. The only item left on his list is the one he most looks forward to. A real orchid to replace the fake one and spruce up Melissa's living room. Since recharging the night before, he gleans that he should have enough power to visit the garden centre and return home with time to spare before he needs to recharge. If Melissa was with him, that wouldn't be necessary, but a remote re-charge isn't possible over this distance. He needs to be within fifty-two metres of her to acquire a signal. Preferably within the same building.

Hale makes his way out of the town centre and toward the garden nursery. The street is lined with sleek cars, all plugged into the charging ports that dot the curb like buttons on a shirt. In the distance, the sun sets against the city skyline. It glitters with the tall glass teeth of skyscrapers and the elegant arcs of superhighways weaving between them. In a strange way, Hale regards the city like he might his birthplace. That's where he'd first met Melissa just yesterday.

The garden centre comes into view as he rounds a corner. It's a large greenhouse with a gabled roof. The inside is thick with ferns and tropical plants thriving in the cloying humidity. Hale enters, careful to navigate without bumping anything with his bags. He finds the orchids easily enough. Their long-stemmed, colourful blooms stand out in the rows of green. A quick scan allows him to select the healthiest of them. A Doritaenopsis flower with soft petals in shades of white, pink, and amber. It's even been planted in a decorative ceramic pot, rather than the standard plastic ones most other plants come in.

As he carefully pushes the bags up his arms so he can pick up the flower by its ceramic pot, he catches sight of movement in his periphery. Normally, it would not attract his attention, but something of the person's movement patterns are familiar.

A few rows down, looking at a philodendron, is Rayner.

Hale immediately turns and walks hastily towards the tills. Having failed to identify the correct course of action with his new neighbour, the idea of being caught up in spontaneous conversation incites a small surge of panic. It manifests like static in his chest.

Chancing a look over his shoulder as he reaches the till, Hale sees Rayner still studying the plant. Though now his face is turned just slightly so Hale can see the way he's trapped his lower lip between his teeth in consideration. Hale finds he's mimicking the gesture by the time he sets the orchid down on the counter.

"Just this today, Sir?" says the clerk in a toneless voice.

"Yes, please," Hale says.

"That will be sixty-three point five credits."

Hale slaps a hand on the payment machine, but instead of a chirrup of approval, the machine blurts out an angry buhBUH.

"Your payment's been declined, Sir, would you like—"

Hale feels a creep of panic in the form of lines of code running too quickly through his mind like a train headed for derailment. He hadn't paid enough attention and used one of Melissa's overdrawn credit cards. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rayner pick up a plant and start heading towards the till.

With a sharp, reflexive jerk of his arm, he claps his hand back onto the payment processor again, this time using a card with available balance. The reader seems to take comparative ages to process.

When it finally gives a beep of approval, Hale quickly says, "I don't require a receipt, have a nice day!" His voice garbles a little, like an 8-bit sound clip, and he winces at the error but is too much in a hurry to look back and see if the cashier noticed.

He bustles out of the greenhouse as quickly as he can without knocking anything and meets the fresh air with a sharp intake of breath. He doesn't require it—like many of his functions, breathing is only a superficial mechanism to make him appear more real and less unsettling to humans—but he finds comfort in that deep, meaningless breath. He avoided possible conflict with his neighbour for the time being. He would need to address this eventually, but for now he'd won himself more time to contemplate his options.