-I feel a gentle tug on my shirt. I turn around to see her gesturing to the other side of the cafe as if pointing.

Right beside the main door is the serving area of the cafe. 2 lines of 4 tables and chairs adorn the area perpendicular to the walkway. The serving area is adorned by a few earthly plants, overlooked by a stage-esque wooden platform. A flight of stairs lead up to the stage at the end, kind of like in a "Straight L" configuration, in which the serving area resides in the leftover space within the elevated “L”. I notice her ears perk up at the sight of the upright piano beside the stairs. How adorable.

We walked to the end of the cafe. Beside the door which goes out to nowhere in particular is the cashier area, which is connected to The Pastry Way. Right in front of us is the stairs. Gazing up its steps, the flight of stairs is split into two sections, with a mid-section in place for a horigotatsu, a sort of Japanese traditional table that's low to the ground with a recessed floor beneath it for, you know, your legs. I don't recall when was the last time it was used, as most travellers and customers either find chairs more appealing or don't even have legs at all. During cold nights, it can be converted into a pop-up Kotatsu. (a sort of low table with a blanket that covers the table frame to keep heat from escaping.)

Reaching the top of the stairs, we were faced with an assortment of books and other miscellaneous items, placed in both neat and haphazard rows upon layers of wall mounted shelves. I guess I consider this area the “lounge” area, where other activities can be held, which in most cases is just here to accommodate the more “exotic” customers that have physical builds not meant for tables or chairs in mind.

Creeeak

The door gently opens as Chester enters through. Perhaps the door closed behind us after we entered. She and I walked down the stairs towards Chester. Upon meeting Chester, she seems held back for some reason.

Chester, despite just moments back from retrieving "something", is fixed onto her. He may not possess physical facial expressions, but I can sense his astonishment from the way he reacted to seeing her. Chester immediately begins scanning her, perhaps to identify her kind.

“Mazaka!” Chester exclaimed. “This customer looks exceedingly like your kind! I’ve never known humans had such a sub-species. This is wonderful! Are you two related?”

“No, Chester. As far as I am aware, there is no such “sub-species” of humans, although you are right about her looking a lot like my kind.”

“This is weird, my systems don't seem to detect any life form that is within URG’s entity database... I think I need further scanning.”

Chester begins to scan and hover around her with his many sensors. She stands completely still throughout the entire process, unfazed by the fact that a foreign body is examining her.

“Errr, it seems like we don't have her kind’s information on URG’s readily accessible database yet…… Unindexed entities are uncommon but not unheard of, and maybe she is one? Perhaps her kind is just exceptionally rare, and information about her kind may be knee-deep in URG’s monolithic complete index."

"So Chester, What would you suggest doing now, of all things?"

"It will take some time to contact them to request the information. For now, my scans show that there is no immediate threat towards both of us, so I guess we should be fine for the moment.”

“This would mean we would be unable to communicate with her, right? Since we don't have any source of information we could use to translate the speech between us.”

“Did she show any signs of understanding human speech? You were able to persuade her that far into the cafe, right? Perhaps we can start from there.”

She did try to use rudimentary English to communicate with me at the door, and she seems to understand moderate amounts of the English language, to a conversational level. I’m guessing she knows the English language, or at the very least the concept of vocal language.

I told Chester exactly what I thought. She stares at us all the while, motionless.

“Have you tried written English? Perhaps she could write fluently but be unskilled at vocal language?”

I went and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from the counter and gave both to her. She receives both items and walks over to one of the tables over in the serving area and begins to scribble something on the paper. Within moments, she returns the piece of paper to me. On it is written, in semi-uniform handwriting:

“Do you have a PDA?”  

I ask for Chester to fetch one of the PDA’s, or tablets in this case, from the Rest Area.

"Mazaka, it is to my knowledge, that I currently do not have any physical means of doing so."

"Ah, sorry Chester. I forgot you don't have... hands"

With slightly flushed out cheeks, I went and gotten a tablet for her. She receives it gently.

Chester and I wait expectantly, eager to know what she would do with the tablet. Once she booted the tablet up, she reveals a chip from beneath her overcoat, hidden away in one of her sleeves. She inserts the chip into the tablet, which immediately begins overwriting the tablet’s software code.

She passes the tablet back to me. Displayed on its screen is a picture of a handwritten message.