"Welcome home, Scarlet~"
The breathy voice of Scarlet's Personal AI flooded through the microspeakers around the apartment as her dock began to glow a soft pink. It was technically against Scarlet's lease to for her to seal off the automated apartment's AI and supplement it with a personal model, but she had been able to get it approved under the technicality of her being an enforcer. She might not have gotten paid well, but she could at least use it to grease herself out of a few sticky contracts here and there.
"Hey Tee." Scarlet answered the sensual tones with the monotony of a hard day, "Any messages for me?"
"A few. Would you like me to read them to you?"
Scarlet gritted her teeth as she reached for the cubiform construct that acted as her left arm. As intimidating it was for perps and witnesses, it was almost worse to have to lug that thing around some days. The shoulder pains were bad enough, but taking it off one-handed was a lot harder than you'd think.
"Yeah." she grunted, her red brow furrowed hard, "Go ahead."
"Sha Shan Tsang says "I don't care if you apologized, you're still toxic. I don't want to see you anymo—"
"Skip that one please." Scarlet grumbled as she hooked the Big One onto the rack and grabbed the sleek and slender Good Arm, "And any from her, for that matter."
"Skipping seven messages from Sha Shan..." the Tee AI's eye-roll was audible, "Your sister wants to know if you want to go over to your mother's for—"
"Skip it." Scarlet grumbled, "In fact, skip everything that doesn't sound fun."
"Define fun?"
"Fuck off, Tee."
Scarlet slipped into her Good Arm much more easily. It helped that, unlike her bulkier and more industrial-looking counterpart, the Good Arm went limp when she wasn't using it. And it didn't weigh a ton. Aside from a black-matte chrome finish, it was almost like her old arm. With enough application of AI spray, she could even pass it off as the real thing for a little while.
Slipping out of her stiff and starchy uniform was always the best part of her day though. Scarlet absolutely hated that thing. You gain five pounds and it suddenly feels like you're a sausage. That ugly fucking helmet with that dorky little visor... ugh. Scarlet cut a pretty neat figure (everyone loved a gal in uniform, after all) but beat cops had to wear that absolute stupidest fucking uniform.
"Your shoulder's bothering you again, honey." Tee's voice became centralized as bright pink lights began to form a sultry human shape, "Do you want me to give it a rub?"
"Yeah, after dinner." Scarlet answered with all the tender love and care of a husband in a rocky marriage, "Who else left me messages?"
"Fun messages?" Tee asked again, putting a finger on her cheek, "Just one; Officer Tanneagan wants to know if you want to go out for drinks tomorrow after work."
"Tell her I'll be there." Scarlet stretched and groaned as she slid into her pajamas—a baggy 0bPD tee and well-worn pair of boyshorts—"Mark everything else as read and remind me of anything important later, alright?"
"Sounds good to me." Tee cocked a holographic eyebrow, "You're lookin' good tonight."
Scarlet sighed. She had forgotten that she'd left this thing on the same settings from last night. In a different tone, she called out.
"Tee, user override, dial back arousal by eightyyyy..." she paused, "seventy-five percent."
"Sure, honey." Tee's expression quickly changed as she cleared her throat and crossed her neon pink legs on the couch, "Sorry."
Tee was pretty top-of-the-line, as far as AIs went. Her surgery had cost her more, but Tee was definitely one of Scarlet's pricier splurges. Not a lot of personal AIs could project themselves right into your home, and even fewer could do limited hard light projections. She had been able to justify it as a mental health thing that the enforcers get, but in reality it just sounded cool. Like having your own little housewife to come home to. Read you your mail, keep you company, and maybe get to second base a little.
Plus, Scarlet had gotten to pick her appearance. She couldn't do anything about the bright colors (except change between base settings like pink, blue, and yellow) or the occasional sputtering in the projection, but she would have been hard-pressed to not pattern her after a cute little blonde movie star she'd seen in a movie back when she was a teenager.
"What I meant to ask was 'how was your day?'."
"It was alright." Scarlet shrugged, "My shoulder's been killing me lately. My boss is a cow who wouldn't know results if it sat on her..."
Scarlet sat down on the couch, reaching into the chilly little mini-fridge carved out of the dividing wall between the kitchen and the living room.
"And Sha Shan." she sighed, "That ain't helpin' either."
"I can read you her messages, if you'd like—"
"No no, I'm fine." Scarlet shrugged, popping the cap off of her bottle with her metal thumb as she kicked her feet up on the coffee table, "Just... put in an order for a cheeseburger or something, will ya? I'm starved."
"Sure thing. The usual?"
"Yeah." Scarlet rotated her cuff one more time before letting her toned body sink into the sofa, "I kinda just wanna relax tonight."
"Of course. I'll leave you alone then."
And with that, the pink little starlet disappeared. Scarlet was alone once more in her apartment as she got a notification that an order had been placed from her favorite burger stand a few blocks over.
"A nice night in is just what I need right about now..." she turned on the large television that hung on the window-ajacent wall that looked over the city, "Time for Scarlet to be Scarlet..."
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