Sounds acceptable. Press 1.

You touch-tone your way though a few license agreements and disclaimers before the ordering system assures you that your Hsien-Ko fembot will arrive at your door within twenty-four hours. You hang up and rush off to take care of a few errands. You want to have plenty of free time available before your sexxy Chinese ghost arrives.

That night is windy, as if a storm is brewing somewhere, but hasn't arrived in your neighborhood. Several times you are awakened by a loud howl of the wind, or the scratch of branches against the sides of the house.

It is the wind howling, right?

Those are the branches scratching, right?

The knock at your door comes precisely at midnight. It's louder than it should be, as if someone were pounding on a fast door leading into the underworld. You slip out of bed in your t-shirt and shorts and head toward the front door. Who could it be at this time of night? No one delivers packages at midnight, do they?

You turn on the living room light, approach the front door, then hesitate. You haven't heard the knock again since you got out of bed. Maybe you dreamed it. There's no reason for anyone to be at your door at midnight.

The locks on your door click open by themselves, and with a sudden scream of wind, your door blows open and slams against the wall. You jump back.

Standing there in the dim light coming from your house, you see a girl on the porch. She has an odd round hat, with a scrap of paper hanging down from the front, showing a few Chinese characters. Her tight silk tunic is cut low over her ample bosom and shows off cleavage with bluish skin. Her youngish face has the same blue tint, and her short hair is a slightly darker blue. Her wide eyes, when you look into them, are utterly calm, and seem to hold a quiet power.

Her feet, beneath her loose puffy pants, do not quite touch the ground.

"I have arrived," she intones. Her voice is as young as her face, but still carries a ring of authority and wisdom.

"Um ..."

"What are you called?" Hsien-Ko asks.

You remember the instructions you received over the phone. "Oh, wait," you tell the apparition, and you race into the kitchen for the scrap of paper where you wrote down your user registration code. As soon as you have the paper in hand, you turn around -- and Hsien-Ko is standing right behind you.

You jump back. "Ah! Uh, right, my registration code is Epsilon Kappa ..."

She waves a hand -- or you thing she does, her sleeve actually hangs down the length of her body, and her physical arm only fills half of it. "Your codes are tiresome. Do you believe a spirit such as myself obeys your mortal laws?"

"Um ... aren't you supposed to?"

She continues to gaze at you steadily.

You feel a little uneasy. Is there a bug in the programming? "You're, um, a ... I mean, you were manufactured to ..."

This is silly. You're trying to reason with a robot. You put some weight into your voice. "Take off your clothes," you command her.

Still, she gives you that steady gaze.

"Please?" You glance at the registration code again. "Epsilon Kappa Phi ..."

The scrap of paper bursts into flames in your hand. You drop it before it burns you. A moment later, one of Hsien-Ko's sleeves is lashing out, extending and expanding, wrapping around your body, once, twice, three times. That quickly, you're cocooned from shoulders to ankles.

"You should not meddle with forces you do not understand," she says.

She tugs with her sleeve, dragging you close to her, close enough that her nose nearly touches yours. "Do you understand the spirit world? Do you know the thirss that ghosts such as myself are unable to quench? Do you know what I intend to do, now that I have been granted this physical form?"