Melanie is intrigued: time to find some answers.

Although John had made a good impression on Melanie, I couldn't let myself get complacent. I needed to make sure that she was, if not fully invested, at least interested. Keeping myself focused on Melanie, I watched as she continued to work until late at night with the hippy. "Almost done?" The hippy asked far less kindly before. He wasn't outright cruel but even I could tell that he was far from friendly with Melanie. Seeing the girl shake her head in the negative, the hippy grabbed his coat before quickly walking out the door. "Well don't take to long. You're locking up tonight." And with that, the man was gone.

After making sure that all of the display cases were closed and that the computers were shut off, I watched as Melanie stopped at the counter. Looking at the door for a single moment, I became confused as Melanie brought out large manila envelope. Reaching in, Melanie quickly pulled out a single sheet of paper with one hand while she pulled her phone out with the other. Jumping to her phone, I was intrigued by what I saw: Melanie was taking a picture of John's membership application form. Snapping a quick picture, Melanie turned out the store lights and locked up before biking to her home.

[Melanie's home, later that night]

I was fairly surprised by Melanie's actions tonight. I hadn't expected her to be curious about John's name or even to care about him at all. In all honesty, the fact that she spoke to him filled me with more hope than I thought a machine could feel. And yet, she still hadn't fully deviated from her schedule. Go to work, come home, browse the internet, read, bathe and then sleep. It's like nothing had happened. Oh well, what could I expect from such a social recluse? The internet wasn't coded in a day.

Watching Melanie turn out her lights and get into bed, I nearly let myself fade from her phone. A sudden movement, however, caught my attention. Melanie, instead of sleeping almost instantly like normal, was instead retrieving her phone. This was new. Opening her gallery, Melanie proceeded to flip to the picture of John's form.

"John McCullen." She mumbled as she read. "He was nice." A small smile came onto Melanie's face at the memory of John's kind nature. Shutting down the app, Melanie once again lay down in her bed.