"Hey, Lace," she said, setting down the timer device upon the table.  "The extra people are basically so that the place seems to be active.  Nobody wants to stop in a place with only one or two people if they're looking to be social."  She paused before adding, "Plus, it gets a little lonely if it's just me, but I can shut them down if you want."<br/><br/>She noticed Akiko's interest, giving a smile before looking back to Lace to fill her in on everything, "We were talking about a program I'm working on, but it only works properly on Hot Sim.  I could fix up your sim module so you can switch it to hot and cold at your leisure if you want, but I'd have to either do it through a drone or the meat."<br/><br/>She leaned her head back on the back of the booth, her human form shimmering away and slipping back into her head, which transformed back into a yellow sphere with a smiley face painted upon the side.  "I just have to figure out how to market it and make sure it doesn't get stolen.  If somebody wants to try it, though, just pick up the gadget and change the settings.  If I set it up right, it should work as long as you hold it and switch back to Off when you let go."<br/><br/>Even though she was talking a lot about business, the more astute might recognize just that she loved socializing, and wanted to share this program she'd been working on with the people that she considered her friends.  Or maybe she just wanted to impress everyone with what she'd managed to accomplish.