Existential

Her battered body hit the glassy, dark stone floor with a sound like he'd dropped a sack of raw meat.
"Repair this, if you would," He told Zak casually, indifferent to the bloody smears on the Asura's polished tile, "Apparently, I've broken it."
Zak looked up from his glowing clipboard, glancing at the brutalized girl, then at the man who delivered her, with a seething annoyance. He touched the screen on the clipboard, and cleared his throat significantly, then hopped from his seat and ambled over to her, bending only slightly to check at her throat for a pulse.
"There are still no warrantees, expressed nor implied, you know," Zak grumbled, noting that the woman was almost- but not quite actually deceased.
"I haven't forgotten. I'm prepared to pay you every penny of the worth of your work. It isn't as if there are dozens of competitors in your particular field."
"You'll do well to remember it," Zak snorted derisively, then snatched a device from his belt which beeped and whirred as he entered a code in its keypad. A bronze and steel golem rattled to life, clanking across the floor to collect the broken woman and carry her to a long low stone table, over which a bank of blue arclights abruptly ignited.

"You should also realize that such repairs will provide diminishing returns. Each time you utterly demolish all my hard work, I must begin anew, and with dwindling materials. It's not as if I can patch her up with roofing tar and a few ten-copper nails, you know. A few more of your tantrums, and her programming will begin to fail. And possibly, her flesh as well. Proper golems are imminently more durable. You should consider upgrading. Leave the girl with me, and I'll even offer you a..." Zak sneered, " ...discount."

"I will not replace my wife with a machine, Zak! Even you can't be serious about such an offer!"

"And even you," Zak told him, matter-of-factly, "cannot seriously expect me to consider this wretch your wife. I know what she is. I created her, you imbecile. You do realize that progeny is entirely out of the question at this point? There is some damage that is beyond even my exceptional abilities to repair..."

His client, who was at this point, gripping his chin as he watched the Asura's golem delicately straighten the bloodied and broken limbs of the woman on the table, waved a hand dismissively, and Zak shrugged, filling a syringe from a vial of viscous purple goo, then turned a critical eye on him, as if to ask why he was still taking up valuable air in the lab.

"Can you... silence her? Her voice irritates me."

"Permanently," Zak asked, dubious of the request, and the man shook his head.

"Of course not. I'm sure I'll grow to miss her cries eventually."

Again, the Asura shrugged.

"Diminishing returns. remember that. At this rate, you might start to consider acquiring new flesh."

The client ignored the technician's words, turning his back to leave.
'Replace her,' he thought, rolling his eyes as he walked away, 'Preposterous. She is unique. Irreplaceable. And mine.'

***

The chamber was dimly lit by a faint, blue technological glow which emanated from somewhere behind the table, perhaps to the right. She had no strength to seek it out. Her restraints were more than a formality. They served to remind her that there were no options available. From every quadrant of her bared flesh sprouted a jungle of snaking, twining tubes, draining, injecting, and cycling the fluids which now comprised her inexplicable life. The mechanical voice was speaking again.
"What is your name?"
She didn't respond.
"What is your name?"
She couldn't respond.
"What is your name?"
Her lips were sealed by a vacuum tube which regulated her breathing, allowing her only a thin mixture of oxygen and air, and some sweet, noxious substance which tinted the breathing tube near as red as those which siphoned her blood.
"Subject is nameless. What is your purpose?"
She could not close her eyes.
"What is your purpose?"
She knew the machine's chant. It echoed her faint heartbeat.
"What is your purpose?"
Outside the droning hum of the machines, it was the only sound she had heard in living memory.
"Subject has no purpose."
The machine continued it's litany as her eyes stared at nothing. The pain had become intrinsic. At times, like a companion- her only reminder that life existed within her at all. It flooded her veins, suppressed her will, drowned the incomprehensible haze that occasionally passed for dreams. Today, something... changed. There was a presence. She could feel it. She could sense it, watching her from behind the table. Today, the pain swelled, almost overwhelming her, and her sense of the presence dimmed. Then the litany changed as well.
"What is your name?"
And she heard it- a voice, no machine, a living, breathing voice- which whispered her name to her. It was unfamiliar, but the machine acknowledged it and moved on.
"What is your purpose?"
Again the whisper. The whisper answered the question for her-
"Obedience."
The machine acknowledged this- and fell silent. The blue light vanished, leaving her in absolute darkness, with only the pain, and the hum and drone of the tubes. 

***

The blonde woman stood before them now, regal and refined, her slim hands folded before her, her pale cream flesh embellished by an artfully casual tumble of crimson silk and jewelry of frosted gold. Elegant as a baroness, though her pale blue eyes were downcast in a studied deference to the two men who flanked her at the big, polished desk. She could almost hear them sweat- and deep within her consciousness, a single dopamine neuron danced along her medial cortex.
She took a moment to assess her assessors carefully. The younger man, in pale, pressed suit and vest, was tall, broad-shouldered, and fair, almost but not quite blonde, and there was a subtle innocence to his face which struck the woman as incongruous with the proprietor of a bordello.
The older man was his perfect contrast- small, almost serpentine, dark haired, with a predator's eyes. He'd parted with a client for her interview and he seemed to make a statement about his dominion, shirtless, and casual, as if he had limited time to spare, and perhaps she should be grateful he'd waste it in interviewing her.
"What are your qualifications," the darker man asked her, glancing from a sheaf of papers in his hand across the desk, and along the woman's slim, smooth belly, an inch beyond it's burnished wood. She smiled.
"I am trained in massage, companionship, diplomacy, and etiquette. I am fluent in seven languages, as well as multiple dialects there-of, and am also versed in story-telling, recitation, and vocal performance."
She had the feeling they might have exchanged glances, had their eyes not been otherwise distracted. Neither man seemed to question her credentials, nor where, nor when this training might have occurred. She didn't question it herself. Another neuron spun away, caressing her cortex, and drawing a sigh from her soft, warm lips.
"Additionally, to the benefit of my employer, I am gifted with psychometry- I am able to read people and objects by touch. You may find this gift useful, in an establishment such as the Black Rose."
"Please excuse us for a moment," the younger man told her, "while we confer." They didn't gesture that she should step out- instead, they yielded in deference to some unspoken chemistry, leaving her where she stood, giving ground, to discuss their opinions on her employment in the hall.
The neurons praised her as she waited, another sigh trickling like honey across her lips.
"We have come to a consensus," the older man informed her, stepping back behind the desk, leaning on it with his hip, "That you are entirely over-qualified, and should be running this establishment."
He smiled.
So did she.
Probably for entirely different reasons.