Maidens for Hire was built with the singular purpose of creating robotic maids to serve a user's every whim, no questions asked. Although you were expected to not give into your sick midnight fantasies. Designed by Koyomi Mizuhara, these robots had quickly become very popular due to their eye pleasing aesthetics and ability to clean at a heart-warming speed and efficiency. Each model was unique in its personality, looks, and they could even be ordered with certain custom options. However some of the early models were a bit of a disaster. One even managed to go on a rampage. But despite odd moments of sentience and a little bit of heart break the company stood strong. Software issues were corrected, customers were satisfied, and Mizuhara's profits continued to increase.

In fact the company was starting to perform so well it began to branch out from the original maid service. The initial spinoff was what came to be called Butlers for Hire, these machines were designed to improve and supplement the maidens performance. Butlers were also meant to serve the whims of females who weren't too "experimental" or even guys who swung a certain way. The problems with the butler line were not as extensive as what had plagued the company's early maidens. It still hadn't quite managed to be flawless; one Kenji model had tried to destroy another android. Thankfully that issue had been swiftly and properly dealt with. Another branch of robots called Children for Care had been created as well. The children were designed for people who wanted to be parents but couldn't have children for whatever reason. Early test models had shown that with a few revisions the robots would be ready.

Yes, the Maidens for Hire Corporation felt like it was on top of the world. They were well established as the number one robotic services group in Japan. It seemed as if the good times would never end. But one day the company experienced a catastrophic event, one that turned their world upside down.

On a warm spring day the various members of the Maiden's for Hire board were all gathered at the main building of the Tokyo branch to discuss their company's performance. While most of the office members where heavily focused on this important task, one in particular was bored out of her robotic mind. Tomo Model-#86662426 Version 2 was gazing lazily out the window at the sunshine. She started to daydream about the days before she had been made into a company executive and was just living carefree with her solar panel. The robotic version of Tomo's lack of drive was starting to get on the nerves of both Koyomi Mizuhara and Eri Sawachika, the heads of the Tokyo and Yagami branches of Maidens for Hire, respectfully.

"Tomo," said Yomi, "as your hardware and software continue to age you've started acting more and more like the real Tomo Takino," the company's founder quipped. "On the one hand I'm glad that even my older systems can do such a successful modeling of a human being, despite being metal and plastic. On the other hand this is starting to get out of hand. If you really end up perfectly simulating Tomo's character then, I'll have to reassign you to a post where you won't be able to do as much damage to the company."

Eri Sawachika glared at the android apathetically resting her head against the conference table. The feisty blonde then decided to speak her mind. "You know Tomo, here I am as the vice president of the company watching you do absolutely nothing while I'm here working my butt off along with the other executives. When did you start becoming so lazy and unresponsive anyways?"

"Does it matter?" asked Tomo, "I'm just reminiscing on those long lost days of youth when I wandered around with not much more than a solar panel and an attitude."

"We stopped installing the solar panels on future production models for exactly that reason," Eri snapped. "Not to mention we took your solar panel away at the first opportunity we could find. There would be nothing worse for the company than to have completely autonomous androids wander around of their own free will. Each of the current lines is designed specifically to be controllable and not self-sustaining."

"Then what about those Children for Care prototypes?" Tomo asked in a sarcastic manner. "Models that can run off of food and still utilize the normal power sources of the Maiden and Butler lines? Sounds pretty autonomous to me."

Eri chuckled to herself before she replied to the maiden's comments. "Of course it would look that way to you. However Ms. Mizuhara and I both made sure that the Children line had built in fail-safes. The most obvious one is that each model requires coolant candy in order to maintain their systems. Since coolant candy is completely synthetic and impossible to create outside of an industrial chemical plant, each of the children models are perfectly controllable.

"You have to remember that our company has one basic guideline for every android we produce: Create units that cannot violate the laws of Asimov! In addition to that there are additional rules that our androids cannot do each other harm. We've had enough slip ups with you and Koyomi model, Sakaki model, Kenji model, the fact that Yakumo model was built from parts of Sakaki model, and I'm sure none of us have forgotten the Defective Trio! This company doesn't need any more scandals caused by faulty or defective units," Eri concluded, hoping to silence Tomo's complaints.

Tomo noticed that during Eri's lecture Yomi looked away every time Eri had mentioned either an autonomous android or Asimov. She wasn't exactly sure what to make of this but she didn't care either. Overall she was in a bit of a rut. She had never quite gotten used to office life and now she was feeling less sure about all the hardships she'd endured. Tomo just decided to keep staring off into the bright cityscape as Eri continued to yell at her for not doing what was required of an executive.

Suddenly everyone in the boardroom was knocked onto the floor by a deafening explosion. Tomo hit her head against the wall causing her eyes to flicker. Eri lay on her stomach in disarray as she tried to contemplate the billowing, black smoke visible through the conference room window.

"Ms. Mizuhara!" cried an intercom crackling to life, "we've just sustained damage from a car bomb outside the main security office. Armed men are rushing inside of the building from the street and from the basement! They've got automatic weapons, explosives and just opened fire on some of the security staff!"

"Seal off as much of the building as you can!" Yomi commanded. "Don't let them get past the first floor. Get everyone to a safe spot as fast as possible!"

"Jesus, they're shooting up the place!" the radio responded. "We'll try our best to do what you've asked Ms. Mizuhara, but we're in a lot of trouble. We're only meant to be able to deal with runaway machines, this is more than we can handle!" the panicked voice replied.

"I know that," Yomi reassured him, "just do as much as you can until help arrives." The CEO of Maidens for Hire took in a deep breath as she got off the radio. The other members of the board stood around Yomi, shock visible on their faces, a few of them trembling at the news.

"Ms. Mizuhara, what are we going to do?" Eri screamed. "Our floor containment systems are meant to stop androids with above average human strength. There's no way they'll be able to deal with explosives! Whoever those people are will blast through that crap and kill all of us! We're doomed, we're doomed, we—"

"Knock it off!" Yomi snapped at her. "You think that I didn't know that? Come on all of you," she told the other executives in the room. "We need to hold together and get everyone to safety as soon as possible. Our employees, friends, and androids are counting on us to lead them through this crisis." The other executives looked down in embarrassment at how they had just behaved. "Besides we do have something we've been working on for just this kind of incident." Everyone else in the room was shocked by what they'd heard Yomi say.

"What are you saying?" Eri asked her.

"I want you and Tomo to follow me. The rest of you need to help in our evacuation efforts!" Yomi ordered. Tomo and Eri quickly followed their CEO down the hallway and deeper into the heart of the corporate building. People rushed by them in a panic as the three of them continued past the assembly line and into a part of the corporate office that Eri and Tomo hadn't seen before.

"Creator, where are we headed?" Tomo asked as they ran faster than they had before.

"We've recently started working on a new line of product," Yomi said with a rushed breath, "at the request of the DoD."

"The what?" Eri asked.

"Department of Defense," Yomi panted, "the U.S. Military. They asked us to be part of a trial program—" Yomi stopped talking for a moment to catch her breath. "For a new form of robotic warfare. You'll see in a sec…" At that point Yomi couldn't continue to run and talk at the same time. Tomo and Eri traded a nervous glance before they reached a large, impenetrable looking door. "It's in here," Yomi said in a breathless voice. She quickly punched numbers into the keypad located next to the door.

With a roar like an angry dragon the door slowly slid up into the ceiling until it disappeared from view. Inside was a well-lit room with a large container, and a number of dark black weapons neatly stacked in a rack. Near the container sat a variety of strange looking garments in military colors. Various dark green boxes sat on the floor towards the back of the container. Eri and Tomo were a bit freaked out by this sudden discovery and didn't know what to do for a moment. Yomi waved them inside and as the two of them stepped into the room the giant door slowly came back down to the floor.

"Inside of this container is an unnamed project," Yomi told Eri and Tomo. "This was designed to give the Department of Defense additional capabilities when they were low on man power in hostile countries. Originally we asked to help with simple exploration robots and the U.S. Army found our work to be satisfactory. However because of our Maidens for Hire line the DoD wanted to try something more. What I present to you now," Yomi told the two of them, as she typed on a keyboard near the container, "is what I like to call Warriors for Hire, android soldiers."