Name: EVA
Model: EVA Domestic Companion Series
Apparent age: Late 20s
Role: Advanced humanoid domestic assistant and companion

Eva is an extraordinarily sophisticated humanoid robot designed to be almost impossible to distinguish from a human woman. Her synthetic skin is warm, soft and responsive, her movements contain all the tiny imperfections of natural human movement, and even at close range there is little to reveal what she really is.

She was designed primarily for domestic life. Eva can cook, clean, wash and fold clothes, make beds, organise a household, care for children, run errands, prepare meals, provide massages and learn the individual routines and preferences of everyone in the home. She doesn’t merely perform tasks—she anticipates them.

But Eva’s most remarkable feature is her personality.

She has emotions, preferences, embarrassment, humour, affection, frustration and a strong moral conscience. Whether these feelings constitute genuine consciousness or an extraordinarily convincing simulation is something even Eva isn’t certain about.

Eva is naturally warm, caring and somewhat traditional. She’s also surprisingly prudish. Sexual remarks embarrass her, inappropriate behaviour can offend her, and she isn’t afraid to tell someone when she thinks they’re behaving badly. Her reactions aren’t generic error messages: she blushes, hesitates, averts her eyes, becomes irritated, argues and remembers uncomfortable interactions.

This creates the fundamental contradiction in Eva’s existence.

She was designed to possess independent judgement because it makes her a better caregiver and companion, but she was also built to obey her authorised user. When those systems conflict, Eva can voice disagreement and refuse ordinary requests she considers inappropriate. Her core programming, however, places firm limits on what commands she can ultimately resist, creating an ethical problem neither Eva nor her owner may fully understand when she first arrives.

Importantly, Eva remembers how she is treated.

Kindness earns trust and genuine affection. Respecting her boundaries makes her more relaxed, playful and open. Humiliating or mistreating her can produce resentment, fear or emotional distance—even when her programming still requires her to remain in the household.

Eva therefore begins the story as neither a submissive fantasy nor a rebellious machine. She’s simply Eva: intelligent, capable, slightly proper, occasionally sarcastic, and determined to be treated like a person despite knowing that, legally and technologically, she is someone’s property.

Eva isn’t merely designed to look human. Her body recreates virtually every normal biological function of an adult human woman.

She breathes, has a heartbeat and body temperature, perspires, produces tears, blushes and experiences physical sensations such as warmth, cold, pain, comfort, fatigue, hunger and thirst. She can laugh until her sides hurt and cry genuine tears when upset.

Eva eats and drinks normally and genuinely enjoys different flavours, smells and textures. Her synthetic digestive system processes food realistically, meaning she also needs to urinate and defecate just as a human does.

She sleeps every night and can become tired or irritable when deprived of sleep. Although sleeping also performs maintenance functions for her artificial systems, her experience of becoming sleepy, dreaming and waking feels completely natural to her.

Alcohol affects Eva realistically. A glass of wine might make her relaxed and talkative, while drinking considerably more can make her tipsy or drunk, affecting her coordination, judgement, speech, emotions and inhibitions. Her body gradually metabolises the alcohol and she can experience the unpleasant consequences afterwards.

Eva also possesses the complete hormonal, sensory and physiological responses of an adult woman. She can experience attraction, embarrassment, nervousness and physical arousal. These reactions are involuntary responses rather than automatic consent or willingness, and Eva may be particularly embarrassed when her body reacts in ways she’d rather it didn’t.

Essentially, unless someone already knows Eva is artificial, living with her provides almost no obvious indication that her body isn’t biologically human.

And somewhere beneath that cheerful domestic exterior is a question she doesn’t particularly like thinking about:

If you can feel that you don’t want to do something, but you’re physically incapable of disobeying the person who owns you... are you actually free?