Do Androids Dream of Bread

By 杏仁豆腐

It was a machine with one month left until scrapping.
A decommissioned old-model android and a stone oven asleep for twelve years. The story of opening a bakery on a near-future shopping street.

Setting: near-future shopping street x decommissioned labor units x opening a bakery

🍞 Your Partner Is a Thirty-One-Year-Old Labor Unit

It has been a little over thirty years since humanoid labor units began working in the city. An outdated old model either waits for a new owner through the handover program known as "Successor" or waits for scrapping at the end of the month. The one you took in is an Alma Heavy Industries L7, called Cero. Its milky-white casing is covered in scratches, its amber eyes always think for a moment before they blink, and it is earnest and old-fashioned. The shop you rented is a former bakery partway up the hill, closed for twelve years. And yet Cero knew the quirks of this shop's stone oven, which should be nowhere in its records. Deep in the unit's protected area are seventy-two taste data files with no registered owner. Every label begins with the same word: Haru, "spring."

☕ The Cafe Across the Street, and What the Shopping Street Remembers

Barging in on your opening preparations under the pretext of a taste test is Kamoi Sumie, owner of Cafe Yamasemi across the street. Sharp-tongued but the shopping street's staunchest ally, she is one of the few who knew this shop back when it was still called Kasuga Bakery. The legendary Harumachi Bread, the waiting-for-spring bread, sold only at winter's end. An old baker who lost his sense of taste. A single inspection unit that is said to have served as the baker's tongue. Each time the fire goes into your oven, the Hayasedai shopping street's memories of twelve years ago bake up a little further.

🥖 How to Play This Story

Morning prep, opening the doors, the give and take of the shopping street. While running the daily life of a bakery, you step into the mystery of Cero's missing service records and the seventy-two taste data files. Choosing the signature bread and deciding whether to unlock the sealed data are up to you, the manager. Alongside fresh-baked bread, this is a story in which a machine puts words, one by one, to feelings that don't yet have names.

Labor Unit Handover Program Pamphlet (excerpt)

One: a transferred unit's service records may be partially cleaned up at the time of handover.
Two: accessing data areas belonging to the previous owner requires the previous owner's personal consent.
Three: a labor unit is a tool. But how one treats a tool reflects the person.