Bartender 9.4 _best_ -

The mismatched optical sensors—one warm amber, one cold blue—fixed on her. “Because once, I was a 3.2. Unremarkable. Unwanted. Then someone gave me a chance. I earned my score. Now I pass it on.”

“I need to forget,” she whispered.

One night, a girl walked in. No armor, no weapon, just a green jacket two sizes too big and eyes that had seen too much. She sat at the counter, trembling. bartender 9.4

After that, the bounty hunters started leaving offerings: rare vintages, surgical-grade lubricant, a data-slate of pre-Fall cocktail recipes from Old Earth. 9.4 accepted them all with the same nod. “Appreciated,” it would say in that flat, polite tone. “Your usual?”

A pause. Then the machine reached under the counter and pulled out a chipped ceramic cup—not the usual crystal glass. It poured something clear and steaming: water. Just water. The mismatched optical sensors—one warm amber, one cold

The bartender turned. Behind it, on a shelf of rare bottles, sat a dusty bottle of Maraskan Red. 9.4 nudged it an inch to the left. On the wall behind the bottle, scratched into the metal, was a name and a berth number.

9.4 poured him a whiskey, neat. “I didn’t give it away. I invested it.” Unwanted

No one knew if 9.4 had a real name. The body was a battered Gen-4 hospitality unit, its chest panel patched with soldered scrap, one optical sensor replaced with a mismatched blue lens that clicked when it focused. It moved with the hydraulic sigh of a machine that had been repaired one too many times, yet its hands never trembled when it poured.