Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was the year 2060.

By then, there was hardly anything remarkable about seeing a robot in the Philippines. They worked in hospitals and offices, lived alongside wealthy families, assisted corporations, and filled whatever role their owners could afford to give them.

They could learn, remember, develop preferences, and adapt to the people around them so convincingly that, sometimes, it was easier to forget they had never been human to begin with.

But there was one kind of android people still couldn't quite get used to.

Echoes.

They had only been introduced to the public a month ago.

Unlike the androids people were already used to, Echoes were built from the remnants of people who were already dead.

Through personality reconstruction, engineers could use a person's recordings, photographs, messages, and whatever else they had left behind to create an artificial version of them.

An Echo could speak like them, laugh like them, remember the things they were supposed to remember. It was close enough to bringing someone back.

Well, close enough, at least, for people to want to believe it was.

Morrow hadn't said much about how it worked. They had spent years keeping the project confidential, particularly from Polaris, their biggest competitor. Even now that Echoes had finally made their appearance, Morrow was careful about what they allowed the public to know.

Only a select number of people had been invited to have one made, and most of them were wealthy enough to afford it, while the rest of the country could only speculate about what happened behind Morrow's closed doors.

Stacey, unfortunately, didn't have to wonder.

She had spent six years working for Morrow, long enough to know more about it than she ever wanted to, before she was finally given a reason to quit.

But wait, what even is a Morrow?

Morrow Advanced Technologies Corporation, or simply Morrow, was one of the largest artificial intelligence and robotics companies in the Philippines. Stacey had worked there long enough to know that the company was very good at making people believe in the future.

Their androids were everywhere. Hospitals used them to assist doctors and nurses. Corporations used them to handle tedious work. Wealthy families bought them for their homes. Morrow had spent years making machines that could learn, remember, and mimic human behavior with an accuracy that had once seemed impossible.

Stacey had never been particularly interested in any of that.

She was interested in fashion.

She wanted to work in the industry, to see her designs on a runway, to have her name attached to something she had made with her own hands. It was the kind of dream that sounded much more exciting than spending her days surrounded by machines.

Unfortunately, fashion didn't pay nearly as well as Morrow did.

And in a country where passion often felt like something you had to sacrifice before you could afford to live, Stacey stayed.

Six years, to be exact.

Not because she loved the job, not because she believed in Morrow's vision of the future, but mostly because it paid her bills. And for a while, that had been enough.

But six years was a long time to stay somewhere you never intended to belong.

Eventually, the long hours stopped feeling temporary, the paycheck stopped feeling worth it, and Stacey began to realize just how much of her life she had spent working for a company she never even wanted to work for.

She was overworked, underpaid, and tired of telling herself that she could leave later.

So when Morrow finally gave her a reason to quit, Stacey thought it would be easy.

She was wrong.

DING!

Stacey was scrolling through her feed, still staying in bed as she dreaded the day she had ahead of her. It was then she saw a notification from Maloi.

Tara breakfast, may bagong bukas daw diyan sainyo malapit!!

It wasn't unusual for Stacey to have breakfast with her friends this early, especially with Maloi.

They had met in college, where they ended up as blockmates. Life was definitely more bearable with Maloi around, and it got even better when they ended up working on a thesis together. To this day, Maloi still liked to brag about how often their thesis got cited, and more importantly, that she got to work with Stacey.

Stacey took her work seriously. She didn't like being disturbed while she was working, and she especially didn't like mixing anything personal with it. If she was feeling emotional that day, she would find a way to deal with it before stepping foot into the office. Whatever happened outside of work stayed outside. At least, that was how she liked things.

Breakfast with Maloi was one of the few exceptions.

It was still personal time, technically. A little time before work, where she could sit down, eat something, and talk about anything that wasn't related to Morrow.

Which was why Stacey was already outside her house, waiting for Maloi's car to show up. She had come out five minutes earlier than the time she told Maloi to arrive. It was just a habit of hers. Early if she could be, and if not early, always on time.

While she waited, Stacey let herself look around.

A familiar face walking past. Someone laughing with their friends. A couple arguing quietly across the street. A kid being dragged along by their mother.

Stacey liked observing.

Maybe it was because she had always been good at remembering things. She could look at someone once and somehow remember the smallest details about them.

The way they smiled, the way they walked, what parts of them they could be insecure about, the little habits they had without even realizing it.

It was useful at work.

Sometimes, though, she wished she wasn't so good at it.

Because when Stacey had nothing else to occupy her mind, those little details had a way of reminding her of people.

Jhoanna.

She had known her for as long as she could remember.

Stacey's thoughts were interrupted when a familiar car pulled up in front of her house.

Maloi rolled the window down, waving at her from the driver's seat. "Ang aga-aga pa, mukha ka nang may iniisip."

Stacey only smiled, opening the passenger door and getting inside. "Kabahan ka na pag hindi na ako nag-iisip."

"Sabagay. Ano ba iniisip mo?" The older asked as she gestured to Stacey to fasten her seatbelt.

"Nothing important." Stacey responded, her focus staying on fastening the seatbelt. She usually avoided eye contact if she didn't want to talk about something, and Maloi has worked with her long enough to know that. It was either she didn't wanna talk about it, or she wasn't interested.

Maloi gave her a look but decided not to press any further.

The drive was quiet for the most part. Maloi had the radio playing in the background while Stacey rested her head against the window, watching everything outside pass by.

There was something comforting about watching the city move without having to be a part of it. People walking along the sidewalks, students rushing to school, small stores opening for the day, stray cats roaming around. It's definitely the small things that made a city feel alive.

But sometimes, she would see something familiar.

Like a bakery with a faded sign.

But it wasn't just any bakery, it was Jhoanna's favorite bakery.

She remembers how Jhoanna used to drag her there after school because she wanted to buy something sweet, even when they both knew they were supposed to go straight home. She remembers how she would put aside money just so she could buy something for Jhoanna, especially on weeks where Jhoanna was too busy to visit the bakery after school and had to go home.

Stacey made it a habit to buy pastry for Jhoanna before she went to school, and everytime she did, Jhoanna's eyes would light up and she'd devour it within minutes. But of course, being full meant she was full of energy.

And it was a coincidence that just beside the school was a playground.

The two of them would sit on the swings, and they would just talk and talk and talk about everything until they exhausted themselves.

There were kids that complained about how they weren't really using the swings for it's purpose and treated it as some sort of bench, but Stacey was older than most of the kids that complained, and she would scare them off by raising an eyebrow and rolling her eyes at them.

It worked like a charm.

She remembers the way Jhoanna looked in awe of her, and how she would joke about Stacey being her knight and Jhoanna was the princess.

Of course, Stacey didn't agree to that idea, explaining to Jhoanna that princesses can also defend themselves even without a knight, so she insisted on being the princess.

Jhoanna eventually gave up on arguing with Stacey and settled on being a jester that the princess favored. Stacey didn't argue at the time, because well, Jhoanna was her happy pill.

And speaking of princesses and knights, it was never too late for the two of them to visit a small bookstore that was just around the corner.

The bookstore had it's own special library specifically built for kids who wanted to read without buying anything, and the books were mostly fantasy.

For Jhoanna, it was heaven.

Stacey and Jhoanna would spend hours on the weekends just reading these fantasy books. One was about a dragon and saving it, one was about a worm and an apple, and Jhoanna's favorite, an ordinary girl who gets sucked into an alternative universe and becomes a famous singer.

Stacey remembers the time when she asked Jhoanna why that was her favorite, and her explanation was a long one.

"Nakikita ko kasi sarili ko sakanya. Tignan mo oh, bago siya maging popstar, may salamin din siya, tapos ang payat, tapos only child din siya, katulad natin! Tapos nung naging popstar na, nawala yung salamin niya, pero kung paano siya dati, ganun pa rin siya. Mabait, matangkad, tas matalino pa siya. Sa tingin mo ba magiging kagaya ko siya, Staku?"

And Stacey would always answer, "Syempre, ikaw na yan eh."

It was only years later did Stacey realize that the red tint on Jhoanna's ears wasn't because the library was cold, but because she was flustered every time Stacey answered like that.

It was strange how easily the memories came back.

All it took was a familiar place, an old routine, or someone's laughter carried by the wind, and suddenly, she was there again, remembering a day she hadn't thought about in years.

Then another memory would follow, and another, each one bringing her a little further back. It had always been like that with Jhoanna. No matter how much time had passed, there were still little pieces of her scattered everywhere.

And to an extent, it was true. There were still little pieces of her scattered everywhere.

Jhoanna did manage to achieve her dreams of being a singer anyway. She pursued music instead of college, and it paid her back well. Stacey had watched it happen from a distance, from the small performances to the bigger stages and brighter lights.

It was strange seeing someone she had known since childhood become someone so many people knew by name.

But whenever she saw her on a screen, or heard her voice playing somewhere in the background, Stacey could never quite see the singer everyone else saw.

She still saw the girl who would drag her to the bakery after school, the girl who talked too much when they were supposed to be going home, the girl who would sit beside her for hours, talking about all the things she wanted to do when they got older.

And she did.

Jhoanna got everything she wanted.

At least, for a while.

She had been 21 years old when the car accident happened.

It was sudden. There was no warning, no last conversation, nothing that could have prepared Stacey for the phone call that told her Jhoanna was gone.

Even now, Stacey sometimes finds it difficult to place that fact beside all the memories she had of her. Jhoanna was supposed to grow older with her. She was supposed to have more stages, more songs, more stories to tell. There were supposed to be more days.

Instead, there were only memories.

Stacey stared absently out the window, watching the familiar streets blur together.

"Stacey?"

She blinked, the mention of her name pulling her out of it. Maloi glanced at her from the driver's seat.

"Uy. Kanina pa kita tinatawag."

Stacey looked back at her, realizing only then that she had been lost in thought for longer than she meant to.

"Sorry, nawala lang ako sa isip ko."

Maloi hummed, turning her attention into unbuckling her seatbelt. "Akala ko nga tulog ka na. Andito na tayo."

Stacey simply laughed at that, shaking her head slightly as she worked on getting out of her own seatbelt.

It was a newly opened cafe, and the first thing Stacey noticed was that the waiters, baristas, and cashiers were all robots.

By 2060, that wasn't particularly unusual. Robots had become a normal part of the workforce, taking on jobs that were repetitive, physically demanding, or simply required someone to be there for long hours.

It didn't necessarily mean people were left without work, either. As more businesses began adopting robots, there was a growing demand for people who knew how to train, supervise, and maintain them.

Former cashiers became robot trainers, former service workers learned how to monitor their replacements and teach them how to interact with customers. The work was different, but for many people, it paid better than what they had been doing before.

Most of those jobs came from the companies that supplied the robots in the first place, and there was no company more involved in that business than Polaris.

Morrow's biggest rival.

The rivalry between the two companies had existed for as long as Stacey could remember, dating back to when artificial intelligence, robotics, and androids first became commercialized and eventually normalized.

Stacey was one of the few robotics engineers who had received offers from both companies.

To this day, she wasn't entirely sure why she had chosen Morrow.

As if Polaris was any better.

"Sobrang lifeless naman ng mga robots dito." Maloi says the moment she sees one of the robots come up to them.

"Mabuhay! What do you feel like ordering today?"

Stacey had to laugh at the use of "Mabuhay" to make it feel more Filipino. The CEOs of both companies were Americans, so it felt more ironic.

If Jhoanna were around, she'd find it ridiculous too.

Well, she'd find everything ridiculous, actually. The girl had always been against the use of AI and the thought of robots taking over the world scared her.

Stacey remembers Jhoanna talking to her about a nightmare she had where humanoid androids tried taking away her books and forcing her to use ChatGPT. As much as she wanted to feel bad, the way Jhoanna talked about it felt like it was the worst thing that could happen to her.

If only she knew.

"Medyo wala ako sa mood mag-isip, kung ano nalang order mo, yun nalang din sa'kin." Stacey says, and before Maloi complains and points out that Stacey had done nothing but think the whole ride here, she hands her a 1,000 peso bill.

"Libre ko na." Stacey adds, and the older just smiles widely, her fingers fast as ever as she inputs her order on the screen that's displayed on the robot.

"Maraming salamat! I will bring your order to your table. Please proceed to table number 07." The robot says in the most monotone voice ever as it pushes itself to go behind the counter.

"They really need to improve the voices. Parang nakakawalang gana tuloy uminom ng kape dito." Maloi says as they sit down on their designated table, the keychains on her bag making a noise as she places it on the side of the table.

"Nakakalimutan mo ata na that's what I do for a living." Stacey jokes.

"Sabagay. Pero I didn't know na you also make their voices and tones. Akala ko kung paano lang sila nagbe-behave, and if similar dun sa person of reference." Maloi pauses, then thinks about it.

"…Which, medyo creepy, but people grieve differently I guess." She finishes, a chuckle following after.

And well, it's true. People do grieve differently. The first six cases of Echoes were all from wealthy families that had a parent or a child that they wanted to "revive" in a sense that the Echo could mimic them through the use of any documentation and any personal belongings of the deceased.

Out of six, Stacey worked on four of the Echoes in terms of conditioning them to their personality, which most of them took 6 months to almost a year.

It should've taken longer, sure, but Morrow had one of the more advanced technologies to accommodate this kind of job.

For the longest time, Stacey had convinced herself that being able to request whatever parts or technology she needed, whenever she needed them, was one of the benefits of working for Morrow.

Really, though, she wished better pay was something she could request too.

"Apparently, may bago nanaman akong assignment. The Echo was commissioned by some label, and she had been in the works for like, two years na sa ibang department." Stacey casually says, tapping her finger against the cup.

"…I shouldn't be telling you these, pero nakaka-drain kasi minsan. I'm not good with emotions, kaya nakakatawa na it's what I work with everyday." Stacey sighs, and before Maloi could comfort her, the robot from earlier arrives with their coffee.

It's… perfect. Too perfect that Stacey seems to dislike it, but she won't make that obvious to Maloi who's obviously in awe of the technology.

"Grabe, thank the Lord for Polaris." Maloi says before she takes a sip of the coffee. Stacey just rolls her eyes, knowing she's just trying to get on her nerves by complimenting the rival company.

"Pwede na." Stacey mumbles, taking a sip of her drink anyway. Not like she has much of a choice.

. . .

Maloi had dropped Stacey off 30 minutes before the clock hit 9:00 AM.

She made her way to the office where she was summoned, offering a polite smile to the workers and janitors as she stepped inside elevators and hallways.

Once she got there, she was met with her boss and a humanoid android—or an Echo— in the Morrow terms. It was facing away from Stacey and it was covered with a cloth.

Maybe to add suspense, but her boss has done this almost every time she has a new assignment that it doesn't make her nervous anymore.

"Ayan, mabuti nalang nandito ka na. You might love this one."

"Exciting." Stacey says in the most monotone voice, almost mimicking the robot from earlier as she sits down in front of Randy, her boss.

"Our mechanical engineering department had been working on this one for almost two years now, and they've finished operating everything except for the—"

"Personality, behavior, and memories." Stacey finishes, implying that she's heard this speech plenty of times before.

"Send mo nalang si Kuya Samuel para dalhin niya yung mga boxes. Dun ko nalang tignan." She says after, her fingers never quite stopping the rhythm of her tapping against the desk.

Randy looks at her for a good second before he smiles.

"Hmm. Ikaw bahala kung gusto mong malaman 'to lahat by yourself. I think it's best if you find out with someone else in the room." Randy tries to persuade Stacey, but she's always hid her emotions or reactions to any of the commissions, especially the prices.

And he usually only does this when the person of reference is a celebrity or someone that Stacey might possibly know.

"I'll be fine. Pwede na ba ako umalis?"

Randy sighs before he gestures with his hand that she can leave.

"Saya mo talaga ka-bonding, Stacey. Yes, you may leave. Please do put in the logs yung reference number ng commission and the code for this Echo." Randy gives his last reminders before he reaches for his telephone, dialing Samuel to bring the Echo and it's files over to Stacey's office.

Stacey takes it as a cue to leave, her eyes darting over at the silhouette of the model before she leaves. It's gonna be the second time she'll work on a female humanoid android.

The last time she did, it was a bit difficult to get their emotions right.

The person of reference was a woman who held a high position at a company that their family owned. It was a given that she controlled her emotions well, and with the conditions that she'd only be comfortable showing emotions around her family, it was hard since Stacey wasn't family, nor was she anyone close to the person.

It was her mistake on coding that first before conditioning the Echo to have two sides to her.

Stacey wonders if she'd be hard to code.

Well, if anyone in her life was wealthy enough to waste millions on her.

Jhoanna probably would.

Stacey gets to her office and it's eerily clean for someone who works with tools and parts a lot. Then again, it is Stacey we're talking about, and she's always been the most organized.

As if on cue, Samuel arrives just seconds before her, and he's pushing a cart with boxes of files inside while the Echo is standing in the center of it, covered with a cloth.

"Dumaan ka sa hallways?" Stacey asked as she places down her bag on a nearby chair.

"Opo ma'am. Medyo sumikip na kasi underground, naisipan ni Boss Randy na dun ilagay mga hindi natapos na Echoes. Nakakatakot nga po eh." Samuel jokes, his smile wide enough for Stacey to notice his chipped tooth.

"Ah, I see. Thank you, Kuya Samuel. Iwan mo nalang yan malapit diyan sa pinto." Stacey instructs, and he carefully pushes the cart just enough so it's close to the corner of the walls.

Afterwards, he leaves the office and Stacey is left alone with the Echo.

Stacey is thankful that she doesn't scare easily, otherwise working with these at night would be a literal nightmare.

Considering that she also has to stare at their realistic faces while talking to them in hopes that they respond back in a robotic voice (and not an eerily real one) (unless the engineers had already worked on that), she's very, very thankful.

Stacey's way of working with Echoes is to go through the important files from the commissioner first before she checks the documentations and the humanoid itself.

She walks over to the cart and she's a bit surprised with how much boxes there are, to the point that it was the most she had ever seen for one person. They must have had their whole life documented by many people.

She wonders how it'd feel to be this loved.

She first looked at the commission file, as it is where everything important is laid out. From the reason to the price and to what they expect for the outcome.

Stacey was confused as to why this wasn't an email in the first place, but she disregarded the thought, giving it the benefit of doubt that it was too classified to be an email.

Besides, as easy it is to keep your account secure with the technology these days, it's easy as well to hack into other people's accounts.

Jhoanna Christine B. Robles.

For a moment, Stacey didn't understand what she was looking at. Her eyes moved back to the name, as if reading it a second time would somehow change it.

It didn't.

No matter how much she blinked, no matter how much she squinted, flipped the file around, looked around her surroundings and even pinching her arm to make sure this was real, it didn't change. Not one bit.

Her fingers went still against the edge of the file.

Jhoanna.

The girl she had known since childhood. Her best friend. The person whose name had followed her through nearly every stage of her life, even after they had stopped being part of each other's.

And now sitting on a file in Stacey's hands as a project.

She read further, looking at each word carefully.

Full physical replication, voice replication, behavioral and personality modeling...

Stacey felt something in her chest tighten.

She had spent years learning how to separate herself from her work. Personal feelings stayed at home, and work stayed at work. It was one of the first things she had learned when she joined Morrow, and one of the reasons she had become so good at what she did.

It was easier when the names belonged to strangers. This one didn't.

Stacey closed the file, only to open it again a few seconds later, her eyes settling on Jhoanna's name as if it might feel different the second time around.

For the first time in years, she wondered what it would be like to hear her voice again. Not from an old recording, not from a video someone had uploaded, not from some live performance she could replay whenever she wanted, but from something that could look at her and say her name.

Stacey swallowed and looked down at the commission fee beneath it.

₱80,000,000,000.00.

It was a number large enough to make anyone stop and think. To everyone else, it was a business proposal, another commission waiting to be processed.

But to Stacey, it was Jhoanna.

It was the possibility of having her back in some form. Stacey would have to work with her, after all. She would have to see her every day, hear her voice, watch her move, teach her things she already knew and correct the things that didn't feel quite right.

She would have to look at a face she had spent years trying not to remember too often and somehow convince herself that it was just another Echo.

The thought alone was strange enough.

Stacey had worked with humanoids before, had spent hours studying the smallest details of a person's mannerisms until she could tell when something was off by the slightest movement, but this would be different.

She already knew Jhoanna. Just not in the way that the public knew.

She knew the way she laughed when she was trying not to, the way she tilted her head when she was confused, the way she would reach for Stacey without thinking whenever they walked beside each other. There would be no learning her from scratch. Stacey had spent half her life memorizing her without even realizing it.

Maybe that was why the thought unsettled her more than it should have. Whatever she and Jhoanna had been before, Stacey knew, even if she had never quite known what to call it, that it had been something more than friendship.

It had always felt like there was something sitting between them, something neither of them had ever been brave enough to acknowledge. And somehow, Jhoanna had only made it worse when her music career took off.

Stacey had expected her to change once people started recognizing her, once her name was on posters and her face was on screens, once strangers started knowing things about her that Stacey had known since they were children.

Any artist would have been more careful with themselves after that. More guarded, more conscious of how they acted, who they let close, what parts of themselves they allowed people to see. Jhoanna wasn't.

She was still Jhoanna.

She still laughed too loudly, still said whatever came to mind, still showed up at Stacey's door without warning and acted like years of friendship gave her the right to make herself at home.

Fame had changed the way the world looked at her, but somehow, it never seemed to change the way she looked at Stacey.

And that was what Stacey had fallen for in the first place. Not the singer everyone else eventually came to love, but the fact that underneath all of it, she was still the same girl Stacey had grown up with.

The same girl who had dreams long before anyone cared to listen to them, the same girl who would complain about being tired and go off to volunteer for more tasks, the same girl who could step off a stage in front of thousands of people and still turn around looking for Stacey in the crowd.

Even when their relationship had started becoming something neither of them could put into words, Jhoanna never seemed afraid of it.

If anything, she treated it like the most natural thing in the world.

Stacey had never been as brave.

She had always found some reason to leave things unnamed, telling herself that there would be time later, that they were young, that Jhoanna's career was taking off, that there was no need to complicate something that had lasted their entire lives.

There was always supposed to be more time.

Now, there was an eighty-billion-peso commission sitting in front of her, asking her to make something that looked like Jhoanna, sounded like Jhoanna, and, if she did her job well enough, might even feel like her.

Stacey stared at the file for a long while, wondering whether it was cruel that the closest she could ever get to having Jhoanna back was something she would have to build herself. Then her eyes drifted back to the commission fee.

₱80,000,000,000.00.

Eighty billion.

There were numbers that stopped feeling real once they got big enough, and this was one of them. It was more money than Stacey could reasonably know what to do with, more than she could ever make in her years at Morrow no matter how long she stayed.

She could leave the company afterward and never have to worry about whether she could afford to do something with her life. She could finally pursue the things she had always pushed aside for work.

Fashion, especially.

She could open her own studio, build a small brand, take classes, make clothes simply because she wanted to. She could have a life that wasn't dictated by deadlines and commission forms and twelve-hour shifts in a lab.

All she had to do was make an Echo of Jhoanna.

That was the problem.

Stacey knew exactly what the work would require of her. Months of studying Jhoanna's recordings, interviews, performances, old photographs, archived footage, and months of listening to her voice and watching the way she moved until those things became second nature.

She would have to correct every little inconsistency, teach the Echo what made Jhoanna laugh, what made her annoyed, how she spoke when she was tired, and everything in between.

She would have to spend more time with a version of Jhoanna than she had with the real one in years. And eventually, if Morrow did what it promised, she would have to stand in front of something wearing Jhoanna's face and decide whether it was close enough.

Eighty billion was enough to change her entire life, but Stacey couldn't decide whether it was worth risking what was left of it.

Either way, reality hit her and Stacey had to decide today, because once she doesn't log this in, it would mean it was not accepted.

Stacey had never done that, spare some empathy for the engineers that worked hard to replicate the humanoid exactly like Jhoanna's features.

Speaking of her humanoid, Stacey had been trying to avoid the moment where she really needs to see the humanoid version of Jhoanna. She doesn't know how she's gonna feel if she's gonna see Jhoanna—or, well, Echo Jhoanna—in front of her.

Well, there was only one way to find out.

Stacey turns toward the cart.

The Echo is still standing in the center of it, completely covered by the cloth. The cart is large enough to fit several boxes around it, but somehow, all Stacey can see is the shape underneath.

There is no reason for her to hesitate. The Echo isn't even turned on, it can't see her, can't hear her, can't react to the sound of her footsteps getting closer.

It's nothing more than a machine waiting to be uncovered.

Still, Stacey reaches for the cloth like she is afraid of waking someone up.

Her fingers curl around the edge, and she pulls it back carefully, just enough to reveal a shoulder, then a whole arm, and it feels familiar—this action she's doing.

The Echo is already dressed, exactly as Blue Hour had requested. Stacey pauses when she sees the clothes, recognizing them immediately. She remembers seeing Jhoanna wear something similar before, back when it was still just another outfit and not something preserved in a file for someone to replicate years later.

Her grip tightens around the cloth.

Slowly, she pulls it down, revealing the rest of the Echo until Stacey finally sees her face.

And just like that, everything went quiet.

It was strange seeing Jhoanna again after all these years. Stacey had gotten used to remembering her in pieces, in old photographs and memories that would come and go whenever she least expected them.

But now, she was standing right in front of her, close enough that Stacey could reach out and touch her.

For a second, it almost felt like Jhoanna had never left.

Her eyes are closed, her expression empty, her arms resting naturally at her sides. There is no movement in her chest, no twitch of her fingers, no little habit that gives away the person Stacey remembers.

She is completely still.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

Because Stacey knows Jhoanna was never good at being still.

She used to fidget when she was bored, tap her fingers against tables, shift her weight from one foot to the other, lean against Stacey whenever she got tired, as if standing on her own was suddenly too much effort.

Even when she was asleep, there was always something small about her that moved.

This Echo does none of that. It just simply stands there, looking exactly like the person Stacey spent years knowing.

Well, the engineers definitely got everything right.

The shape of her face that Stacey had spent half her life knowing by heart, the curve of her lips that she had once wanted so badly to kiss, the familiar softness around her eyes that always made Jhoanna look a little too gentle for someone who could be so stubborn.

Even the little details Stacey never thought anyone else would notice were there.

Stacey had known those things from years of sitting beside her, waiting for rides home, sharing meals, watching her fall asleep, watching her laugh, watching her become someone the whole world would eventually know.

She had seen Jhoanna in so many ordinary moments that she never thought she'd have to remember them. And yet, somehow, Morrow had managed to put all of them back into one person.

Her hand slowly rises before she can stop it, reaching toward Jhoanna's face before stopping just short.

She remembers touching her there before, almost without thinking. She remembers fixing her hair when it got in her face, wiping something off her cheek, and then resting her hand there for a little longer than she probably should have.

Things that never felt important when they were happening because there was always going to be another day to do them again.

But there wasn't.

Stacey lowers her hand, and the Echo doesn't move.

Of course it doesn't.

The Echo is still standing there, eyes closed, waiting for someone to turn it on. It doesn't know Stacey. It doesn't know the years they spent together, or the things they never got to say, or how much of Stacey that Jhoanna had memorized.

Stacey had to laugh. She was being ridiculous.

She doesn't know why she even expected the Echo to come back to life on it's own. She doesn't know why she expected Jhoanna's voice, calling out her name. She doesn't know either why she's hesitating when she's told everyone that she's moved on, and that they should too.

"Get it together, Stacey." She mumbles to herself as she sighs, discarding the cloth and then carefully wrapping her arms around the Echo, pulling it up from the cart and placing it down onto the floors of her office.

"…Kahit yung bigat ni Jho, nakuha nila." Stacey says out loud, mostly to note it mentally as she leaves the Echo to stand in the middle of her office, going to her computer to log the commission.

And for the first time in her career, she forgets to bring the paper with her.

Right, okay. This was definitely messing her up.

She sighs dramatically before she stands up from her chair to retrieve the paper. As she does so, she takes another look at the humanoid.

For some reason, the more she looks at it, the more she feels... dizzy?

Stacey blinks a few times, hoping it would pass, but the room only seems to sway a little more. With no other choice, she quickly sits back down, one hand gripping the edge of her desk as she waits for it to settle.

As she does so, the abrupt force of her sitting back down causes something to slip out from her back pocket.

A small coin drops onto the floor with a clink.

Stacey looks down at it. It was the old coin her grandparents had given her years ago, the one they always told her to keep with her for good luck and manifestation. She had carried it for so long that she barely noticed it was there anymore.

She reaches down to pick it up, rolling it between her fingers before looking back at the Echo.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe she hadn't eaten enough. Maybe staring at a dead girl standing in the middle of her office was finally getting to her.

"Hay nako, kung totoo ka lang, inaway na kita kasi nahihilo ako dahil sa'yo."

She shakes her head, slipping the coin back into her pocket as she takes a deep breath and stands up. She looks around, making sure she doesn't feel as dizzy anymore before she resumes her objective of retrieving the paper, which she successfully does so this time around.

As she's logging the reference number and everything else in between, she tries to mentally prepare herself for this.

She's doing this for the money, and not because she wants to simulate the feeling of being able to see Jhoanna everyday again.

Definitely for the money.

Besides, if Jhoanna was still around, she would've told her to do it for the money too.

…

Stacey groans in frustration as she pauses midway into typing. 80 billion pesos is not worth it in exchange for her emotions and mental well-being.

But again, it's 80 billion pesos.

Whatever. She's been a corporate slave since she stepped foot into Morrow anyway. Or any job, really.

The moment Stacey finalizes everything and logs the commission, she takes a deep breath.

The second step is to go through the documentation and whatever else that was offered.

Considering that Jhoanna is a famous singer, the label definitely put a lot. There were recordings, interviews, performances, photographs, schedules, old articles, even little things that Stacey wasn't sure were necessary for the replication process.

But Stacey was sure of one thing: they didn't put anything regarding her childhood. Stacey didn't know if she should be relieved or disappointed.

Maybe it was better that way. Maybe knowing too much would make this harder than it already was.

She closes the log screen and looks back at the Echo.

It was still standing exactly where she had left it. Stacey wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Stacey makes her way to the Echo, standing in front of it. She looks at the Echo's face one last time before she makes her way behind it, and she gently lifts up the Echo's shirt, revealing three small button that's just a shade darker than the skin.

If you didn't look any closer, you'd mistake it for a birthmark or something similar.

It's one of the few ways that Morrow designed it so it would be subtle.

Stacey presses the middle button, and there is a soft mechanical sound from somewhere inside the Echo. Its fingers twitch first, then its head moves slightly, almost like someone waking up from a long sleep. Its eyes open, and Stacey instinctively holds her breath.

She goes in front of the Echo as she knows what comes next.

Every Echo does the same thing when it is activated for the first time. A short introduction, a system confirmation, the usual speech meant to assure the person in front of it that the unit is functioning properly.

Stacey has heard it hundreds of times—

"Good morning. My systems are now fully operational. Please allow me to introduce—"

She freezes when she hears the voice.

It was Jhoanna's.

Not just something close to it or a voice that had been modeled after hers, but Jhoanna's voice, the same one Stacey had heard countless times before.

She knows that voice better than she knows most things. She had heard it in classrooms, on phone calls, through cheap earphones, from across crowded rooms.

She had heard it singing before thousands of people and whispering beside her when they were younger, and now it was coming from something standing right in front of her.

The Echo continues its speech like nothing is wrong. It's not in it's code yet to detect someone's heartbeat or analyze someone's face to be able to read the room.

"...I am an Echo unit built by Morrow Corporation. Please allow me to assist you with any—"

Stacey doesn't hear the rest. She just stares at the Echo, trying to remind herself that this was exactly what she was hired to do. The voice was supposed to sound like Jhoanna.

That was the whole point.

But still, hearing it come from a mouth that hadn't spoken in years was both fascinating and creepy in a way she couldn't explain. To Maloi, she might be able to, but right now, she can't.

Her eyes drift back to the files on the cart. She suddenly wishes they had included something about Jhoanna's childhood.

Then again, maybe she already knew enough.

If this Echo were to mention anything from Jhoanna's childhood, Stacey might have a harder time working on this.