Case Nine: The Signed Phone

Towa keeps one signed phone tight in her shoulder holster while a locked building turns every polite conversation into a threat. She was made to serve, carry messages, and obey Arata, but now she notices lies before she notices fear, and that makes her dangerous to the people in charge. A company benefit-card hidden under a car seat becomes her first clue that someone has been moving pieces around her life, and a sealed flash-drive with the same neat signature keeps reappearing where it should not. Towa still wants approval from the mage who made her, which makes every new choice hurt twice as much. She starts to wonder whether obedience is the same thing as love, and the answer is sitting i...