Rated M for Motherfucking Language

05/11/38

03:24

Scrivsy was interrupted by a terse, obstinate beep. She lowered the phone and glanced at the screen in disbelief.

'Well, Detective, he just hung up on me,' she grunted. 'Guess you're my partner tonight.'

Gavin Reed could not have been less surprised if he tried. He replied with his usual arse-wipe demeanour – folded arms, derisive scoff, nod of the head. 'Can't believe you still try,' he said. 'Haven't seen him in three days. The old man's a deadweight anyway, we'd just be babysitting his drunk ass.'

Stuffing her phone into her coat pocket, Scrivsy beckoned for Gavin to follow. They stepped away from the police car, bathed in flicking red and blue lights. The night was dark as pitch, city lights snuffing out the stars. A cold damp clung to the air. The road was still slick and glassy with yesterday's rain. Cars were steadily piling up on it, slowed to a tentative sidle past the cluster of police cars, curious bystanders and fire engine. A lone ambulance was parked further from the rest, tucked away from prying eyes.

As they walked down the road, Gavin assumed his natural position a couple of paces ahead of Scrivsy. He was a surly fellow of average height and muscular build, mid-thirties, the smell of sweat heavy on his old leather jacket and faded jeans. His face was always a little reddish, like he was ever on the verge of exploding, and bore a sullen look as much a part of it as his bleary eyes and scarred Roman nose – a look which would be just as comfortable on a sulking tot plotting his next fit of rage.

Scrivsy was, beside him, an almost comical figure. She looked like she might have stepped out of a Victorian era time machine, with a thick, long overcoat pulled over a dark frock coat and striped trousers. A black cravat was tied around her throat. As toweringly tall as she was without it, the top hat perched upon her primly combed silvering hair made her a perfect giant.

Voices began to billow behind the low hum of traffic as the pair approached the house. A crowd of civilians and eager reporters had drawn tight against the holographic barricade, their persistent raucity met with nothing but silence from the two android officers maintaining the barricade. Beyond it, looming in the wreath of its own smoke, windows spilling white light, was the house.

Gooseflesh crawled up Scrivsy's arms and legs. Gavin blinked sleepily.

'Looks like a fucking blast,' he muttered, every word oozing sarcasm.

Scrivsy nervously slid off her glasses and fished in her pockets for a tissue.

'I see your hat, Scrivsy!' called a breathless voice. An arm was waving frantically over the heads of the crowd. 'Get in here, will you?'

The detectives jostled their way through the suffocating thicket of limbs and stagnant odours, Scrivsy still scrubbing her glasses, until they stumbled upon the barrier. One of the PC200s, its neon blue CyberLife triangle glowing on its hat, held out its hand sternly.

'ID, plea—'

Gavin flashed the badge proudly displayed on his belt. The android froze, its LED flashing yellow. Gavin waited a moment for it to process.

'You may—' it began to say, before the detective stepped forward and shoved past.

The android turned to Scrivsy expectantly.

'Andy, Christ's sake,' seethed Scrivsy, juggling her glasses and tissue to find her badge.

'Yes, Scrivsy. ID, please—' the android began, but Scrivsy was already handing over her badge – and tissue. Her hand shot out to grab it back, but Andy had already obliviously let it go as it examined her badge. Scrivsy's glum eyes followed its swift flutter into a puddle on the footpath.

'You may en—' began Andy, before Scrivsy snatched her badge out of its hand, scooped up her tissue and trotted after Gavin, pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her downturned nose.

Her partner was standing beside Ben Collins, who beckoned urgently when Scrivsy raised her head. The man was short and round, his chin melting seamlessly into the fat around his neck, with white fur wriggling on his lip like an anxious caterpillar. The caterpillar rose into an acknowledging smile as Scrivsy approached.

'I think you'll like this one, kids,' said Collins. 'It's bizarre.'

'Can we enter the building?' asked Scrivsy. Her gruff voice, thickened in a Scottish accent, was jagged by unusual hoarseness.

'Good morning to you too, Scrivsy,' huffed Collins, but his tone was amiable. 'Fortunately, the fire was contained in the bedroom. The fire department was called in when the smoke detector went off – which, we assume from the damage, must have been no more than twenty seconds after it started. The department took around three or four minutes to get here afterward. Still a bit stuffy in there, but the CSIs are already combing through it.'

'Definitely wasn't an accident?' asked Gavin.

'The victim doesn't seem to think so,' said Collins with a shrug. He flopped an arm toward an ambulance parked behind the mass of civilians. 'She's in there. Elizabeth Easom, fifty-two years old, divorced, no kids. She claims her android started the fire.'

'What?' barked the two partners simultaneously.

Gavin aimed a vicious kick at the ground and threw up his arms. 'Not another goddamn deviant case, fucking fuck!' he cursed.

'Collins,' snapped Scrivsy, jabbing him with an angry finger. 'Anderson and I, we've been assigned six o' these in the past three weeks. I'm gettin' a little over it, you know. Why the hell's an android settin' fires anyway? When are CyberLife gonna get their shit together and recall their crazy robots for a nice, clean reset, and maybe—'

'Guys,' interjected Collins patiently. He had raised his hands in submission. 'Don't shoot the messenger. Look, why don't I cut to the hook. The deviant set the fire after getting caught destroying the victim's other android.'

Scrivsy winced quizzically. Gavin folded his arms. Grinning, Collins took this as an invitation to continue.

'About an hour and a half ago, the victim heard a scuffle in the bedroom. She walked in to find her, er, android partner "Lawrence" standing over a thoroughly destroyed domestic. According to her, its head was done in and there was a great wad of blue blood dripping off the wall. CSIs suspect its head was repeatedly smashed against the wall. When Easom asked Lawrence what the heck it just did, it reached for a bedside lamp and knocked her clean out. The alarm went off half a minute later, and Lawrence is nowhere to be found.'

'What model was the perp?' asked Gavin.

'Er.' Collins paused to check his notepad. 'CX100. Fancy newish model. Lover without the fuss of courting. And the love, but, well, whatever floats your boat.'

'And the one it destroyed?' asked Gavin.

Collins glanced at his notes again. 'MP500. Cheap maid, male version. Glorified vacuum cleaner, if you ask me. My brother has one. Stares at me like I have two heads.'

'Wha' would set a deviant off against another android?' mused Scrivsy. 'Were they both deviants?'

'These are questions that ought to go to the victim, Scrivsy,' put in Collins, subtly bringing her back down to earth. 'We may need your head in the game for this one, so make every thought count.'

'Sorry, Collins.' Scrivsy dragged her fingers down a temple. 'I'm a wee bit sleepy is all.'

Collins gave her an encouraging pat on the arm. She tensed at the touch, but he did not seem to notice. 'Wouldn't be you if you weren't,' he said. 'Penny and Jay were the first responders. Last I saw they were in the hallway with the CSIs. They'll give you a walkthrough.'

'And you?' asked Scrivsy.

'Huh, I'm taking a look at the garden. A couple neighbours thought they saw it—Lawrence, that is, leave through the back door, run 'round the side of the house and take off down the street.' Collins shrugged. 'Too many cooks spoil the broth. Scene's all yours.'

'We will remember your sacrifice,' said Scrivsy with a solemn nod. 'Have you set up a network, or…?'

'No, we're doing this the old-fashioned way,' said Collins sharply. 'You wanna use your fancy tablets, go ahead, but you socially awkward post-millennials need to learn how to ask for what you need.'

'Yes, Granddad,' groaned Scrivsy, turning to follow Gavin, who was already walking away.

When they were out of earshot, her partner stopped and shouldered her to a halt beside him.

'What's wrong, Scrivsy?' he asked. 'Got a cold, or did this walking dildo's psychotic break interrupt something?'

'Och,' sighed Scrivsy resignedly. 'Something like wha', Reed?'

'Oh, I'dunno, midnight blubber? Your face is such a mess, you make Collins look about twenty years younger.' His tone was snide and accusing, a sneer on his face, but Scrivsy recognised concern when she saw it. Gavin would never save mocking for a private conversation.

'Jesus, Detective,' she chuckled, deflecting with a lighter inflection, 'wha' got you so bubbly and nice this morning? Too nice, almost. You sure you haven't been replaced by an android, like?'

Gavin drew back at the rejection, a dark fire in his eyes. 'Go fuck yourself.'

Scrivsy swallowed a bloom of regret and tried to pursue an easy tone. 'See, tha's exactly something a goddamn synth would say,' she teased.

'The fuck are you talking about?' growled Gavin.

'It's a—I mean, it's a Fallout reference—' stammered Scrivsy, wilting. 'You know, never mind actually.'

'You think you're funny Scrivsy, but you're not, and you never will be,' said Gavin bitingly. That splash of cold sincerity sobered her up at once. 'Forget your fucking twenties video games for a minute and let's get this over with.'

The fog cleared from Scrivsy's mind. She nodded. 'Sure thing, Detective. And, er, thanks for tha'.'

Gavin rolled his eyes and sighed. With him in the lead, the detectives walked down the footpath toward the front door. Droplets glistened in the prim, tightly controlled garden. Bright flowers and hedges sculpted into quaint, multi-capped mushrooms caught the light of investigators' torches and camera flashes. A couple of flowerbeds were under scrutiny, with CSIs in grey plastic suits crouched around them like skinless androids sifting through dirt and crushed petals.

The front door was open, the lock broken, splinters of wood littering the threshold. Gavin and Scrivsy stepped inside. As they entered the haze, the harsh bitterness of smoke assaulted the back of their throats.

'I'll take your coats, Scrivsy,' said an officer, Penelope Stroud, standing in the entrance hallway. 'Zip up your jacket, Gav. Gear is on the floor beside that table. Cover your shoes and get some gloves on.'

She gestured to a table against the wall, above which hung a mirror. As Scrivsy removed her outerwear and pulled on rubber gloves and paper shoes, she glanced at the items on the table. It was littered with unopened mail. Amidst the clutter were three framed selfies, each featuring only two subjects – a stylish middle-aged woman with sultry eyes and a CX100, the white, blond model, nestled adoringly in its owner's frizzy silver hair. She had combed back its hair and dressed it up in the sleek modern jackets of CyberLife's android fashion, 'CX100' on its right breast, a blue triangle on its left.

One of the photos had the faintest glimpses of a foreign substance on the edges and in the crevice between the frame and glass. Scrivsy tilted her head. The substance was blue, reflective and slightly lumpy, like jam. It looked like a hasty attempt was made to wipe it off, but some lingered in corners a cloth or tissue could not reach.

'Stroud, we sure the android didn't leave through the front door?' asked Scrivsy.

'Of course not, but one witness reported seeing the back-door swing open and another heard it slam shut,' said Stroud. 'Why, you see something?'

'Blue blood.' Scrivsy fitted on her last paper shoe and straightened up to put on a pair of gloves. 'Right there, on tha' photo. Still wet. Someone – or something, as it were – tried to clean it but didn't do well enough, evidently.'

'Guess that explains the tissue in the trash,' put in a new voice. Jay Wilson greeted them at the end of the hall, dark eyes gleaming with excitement. His thick afro was muffled under a police cap, but his beard was free to be as wild and fluffy as it pleased.

'Wilson,' said Scrivsy, offering a distracted smile. It quickly twisted into a grimace. She could not seem to fit her right glove on properly. She tore it off and plucked another one out of the box. 'Hello. Tissue with blue blood on it, eh? How much, exactly?'

'Just a couple smears,' replied Jay. 'And as far as we can tell, there was only the one.'

Gavin tried to shoot a knowing look at Scrivsy, but she was still struggling with her glove. She had snatched yet another one out of the box. 'The android washed its hands before leaving,' Gavin thought aloud instead, scowling. 'Damn it!'

'Don't worry, it left enough evidence to choke a horse,' said Jay, a grin beneath his beard. 'I know those gloves can be fiddly, Detective, but I'm only briefing you once.'

Scrivsy looked up sheepishly. She forced her hands apart and clenched them in fists by her side, gritting her teeth.

'OK, then,' she grunted. 'Let's go.'

Leading them first through a wide room to the left of the hallway, Jay stood them in front of a narrow staircase and described how he and Penny stumbled upon the scene. Firefighters and EMTs had already arrived when they passed in their patrol car. The blaze had been doused, the victim evacuated. All three departments entered through the front door, which – according to the first firefighters to enter – was shut and locked tight when they got there. The firefighters had passed straight through the entrance hallway, shot upstairs and found the victim lying in the sitting room right outside the bedroom, having just regained consciousness. The door was shut, black smoke oozing out from under it.

'Did they disturb anything?' asked Scrivsy.

'Nothing except the floor, the windows, and the fire obviously,' replied Jay, but then flicked his index finger thoughtfully. 'At least, that's all they think they did. You can never be sure with firemen; they're bulls in a china shop at the best of times.'

EMTs did not enter the building, as the victim was escorted outside by firefighters. Penny and Jay were made to wait in the garden until the fire brigade gave them the OK. The bedroom was still a hot mess at the time, so they examined the rooms downstairs.

The wide room was the first. Jay guided the detectives in his footsteps. Investigators hovered about, filming and taking samples. Wet footprints glistened on the marble floors from the first responders' hurried investigation. The room served as a living and dining room but contained no visible evidence that the CSIs had been able to gather yet. Behind a long counter at the back was a white, modern kitchen. The cold coffee in the coffeemaker had been fresh and hot when Penny and Jay arrived. A milk carton and two empty mugs were set on the counter. A single tissue was found at the top of the garbage bin, coloured with stains of blue blood.

'Fingerprints anywhere?' asked Gavin.

'Scanners suggest it was the victim making coffee, not one of the androids,' said Jay. 'There are fresh prints on the handles, made approximately one hour and thirty-four minutes ago. That's about five minutes before the fire started. The prints have been downloaded and we're checking them in the database, but I doubt there was a second person in the equation.'

'The victim was up at two in the morning making coffee?' clarified Scrivsy sceptically.

'She's an insomniac,' said Jay. 'Big mood for you, huh?'

'Coffee is the devil's drink,' muttered Scrivsy in disagreement.

Jay raised an eyebrow. 'Man, I thought alcohol was your "devil's drink".'

'They're all the devil's drink,' said Scrivsy. '"Barista" is just the Italian word for "bartender". The devil is a beast of many beverages, Wilson.'

They had found nothing else of note in the kitchen and moved on to check the downstairs bathroom. It was pristine but for a single drop of blue blood, diluted in water, settled on the handle of the tap.

'Thank the gods for last-gen plumbing, am I right?' commented Jay dryly. He was right – many residences and public facilities were now using hands-free faucets. Scrivsy knew it was only a matter of time before modern conveniences neatly covered the tracks of criminals for them.

Finally, Jay led the detectives upstairs. CSIs were busy at work in the small sitting room, with one of them having a hushed interview with a firefighter by an open window. A police officer stood against the wall, leafing through a small notebook. Smoke still smothered the air, but though it smarted in the eyes, it was breathable. There was a dab of drying red blood on the speckled, soot-stained marble.

'Hey, guys.' The officer had looked up from his notes to smile at them. Sans beard and afro, the young man was otherwise identical to Jay. But while his double was bouncy and optimistic, Max Wilson was a quiet man, lost in his thoughts.

'Wilson the Slightly Second,' greeted Scrivsy. 'The other Wilson was just briefing us.'

'Well, that's where the victim was found,' said Max, raising his pen to the blood on the floor. 'Right outside the bedroom.'

'Can we go in there?' asked Scrivsy. The door was ajar but the room was dark.

'We're a little concerned about the integrity of the floor in there,' chipped in the firefighter by the window. 'The heat cracked the marble. The cracks are thin, but just watch your footing.'

Jay switched on a torch and crept slowly into the room, the detectives close behind him. An immediate foul foetor struck them square in the face, as though they had stumbled into a drain lined with the insides of a thousand rotting fish.

'What the fuck is that?' hissed Gavin, burying his nose in the nook of his elbow.

'That is some blue blood pie,' chuckled Jay. 'See that mess on the floor? That's the MP500, Ginger.'

'Ginger?' sputtered Gavin. 'Its name was fucking Ginger.'

Jay's befuddled shrug said everything there was to say about it.

Scrivsy squatted before the large black pile of fabric and goo. It appeared the quilt had been torn off the bed and thrown over the android. She flipped through several possible scenarios in her head, but reserved judgement for now. Raising her head, she observed the state of the room. The walls were black, the floor was black, the curtains black, bed black, cupboards black, bedside tables black and the lights blown. The vast window on the left wall had been smashed open, probably by firefighters. Lying on the floor not far from the MP500 was a table lamp – or what remained of it. The fabric shade had burned away, leaving nothing but a metal frame and a cracked ceramic stand.

'All right, Wilson,' said Scrivsy, standing up and stepping back. Her eyes were streaming with the sting of smoke and stench of burnt android. 'I don't know wha' I'm looking at. Walk us through the victim's story.'

'OK, picture this.' Jay moved carefully to the bedside and gestured to it theatrically. 'It's around two in the morning. She was lying here, and Lawrence was lying next to her. She'd been running on two hours of sleep for forty-eight hours, so she was going a little nuts, but still couldn't fall asleep.

'Frustrated, she gave up trying and told Lawrence she'd be downstairs making coffee. Lawrence "seemed concerned",' this he indicated with bunny ears and rolling eyes, 'but didn't go after her. When she went downstairs, Ginger, which was standing in the kitchen, came out of standby and told her it was ten minutes past two. She told it to go upstairs and tidy up the bedroom – where, presumably, Lawrence still was.

'While the victim was making coffee – two cups, one for her and one for Lawrence – there was a weird thump coming from the ceiling. She had a moment of shock, but then there was another, and they started coming faster.'

Jay pointed to the wall with the window as he approached it. 'She ran upstairs and found blue blood just caked all over the wall and window sill. Ginger was on the floor, its head smashed to bits and shit everywhere. Lawrence was standing over it with blue blood all over its hands, face and PJs. It was stuttering, backing away from her, but it tried to tell her that it was an "accident".' More bunny ears followed.

'Victim was understandably shocked, started to ask if she should call the police. Lawrence backed into the bedside table, ripped the lamp out of the wall and smacked her upside the head. Bam. KO'd.

'She woke up what we assume was a few minutes later, lying right here,' said Jay, pointing pre-emptively as he made his way out into the sitting room again. Gavin and Scrivsy followed him and came to a stop around the bloodstain.

'And the fire had been started in the bedroom,' clarified Scrivsy.

'Yep,' confirmed Jay. 'And the bedroom door was closed.'

'So the deviant dragged her out of the room, set the fucking fire and closed the fucking door behind it? What the fuck?' Gavin threw up his arms in frustration. 'I am so done with this shit.'

'Destruction of property and attempted murder, I could understand,' said Scrivsy thoughtfully, 'but I can't understand why it decided to set the house on fire afterward. Especially if it didn't want the victim dead.'

'The comforter.' Gavin pointed to the open bedroom door. 'There was a comforter over the housekeeper. What if the deviant set the housekeeper on fire, realised how fast it was spreading and tried to put it out?'

Scrivsy raised her eyebrows. 'It could just as easily have been a gesture of remorse. Covering its victim in a funeral shroud before cremating it.'

'Along with the whole fucking house, yeah, sure,' scoffed Gavin, folding his arms.

'Yah, OK, tha's wha's baffling me right now,' huffed Scrivsy. She joined him in ponderously folded arms and they stood in silence to process it all. Jay chuckled with a shake of his head, leaving them to it. There were dozens of motives and dozens of explanations, but none of them explained where the deviant could be now.

After a couple of minutes, Gavin moved. 'Fuck it, I'm going to talk to the witnesses again,' he said. 'Come on, Scrivsy.'

The detectives exited the building, removing their protective gear, Scrivsy wrapping herself back up in her coats and sitting her hat back on her head. Gavin drank in the cold autumn air to clear the smoke from his lungs. Scrivsy frantically scratched at her hand as if it was itchy.

'Those bloody gloves,' she barked. 'I need a smoke—'

'Oh no you fucking don't,' said Gavin. 'You're not getting away with that disgusting shit while I'm around. Go question the vic, I got the witnesses.'

'You're trusting me with the vic?' Scrivsy gave him an incredulous look. 'You know I can't deal with sad people, Reed, I can't—'

'Scrivsy, I know you still think getting information happens like in L.A. Noire, but it's not fucking rocket science. And sometimes… you know… too much bad cop is a bad thing. Having a bit of patience is… good.'

Scrivsy's retort died on her tongue as she looked down at the flushed, averted face of her partner. She could not remember the last time Gavin had been so honest about his shortcomings. Clearing her closed throat, she pulled off her glasses, remembered the state of her tissue, then put them back on again.

'Sure thing, Detective, sure thing,' she said huskily.

But when she was standing just a few metres away from the ambulance, Scrivsy fully digested how short her end of the stick was. Wearing nothing but a babydoll under her reflective trauma blanket, Elizabeth Easom sat in the back of the ambulance, her bare legs dangling from the platform. She appeared to alternate between hypervigilantly scanning her surroundings and catatonic floor-gazing. Scrivsy could not help but note that she looked stunning for her age, even with eyes and lips red and swollen from weeping, and soot dusting her skin and hair.

Scrivsy suddenly noticed that the victim had turned to her. Tortured blue eyes tore right into her soul. A bolt of fear zapped up her spine. She tried to smile – an endeavour which probably produced some form of self-conscious wince – and approached Easom slowly.

'Good morning, Miss Easom, I'm Scrivsy,' greeted the detective, finding the least angsty and gravelly spot in her vocal register to attempt a gentle approach. 'I know you've had a very harrowing night, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask for your help, but we could really use it. D'you think you're up to answering a few short questions?'

Easom cradled her forehead in the fingers of one hand. She drew in a few deep, shaky breaths. Once she had steeled herself, she cleared her throat, raised her head and gave a quick nod.

'Yes sir, of course,' she rasped. 'What more do you need to know?'

'I'd like you to tell me wha' happened last night, from the beginning. Would you mind if I sat down beside you, like?'

'Not at all,' said Easom, obligingly scooting over. 'What… what are they going to do to Lawrence, Officer?'

'Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Miss,' said Scrivsy carefully. 'We haven't even found it yet. We're going to do everything we can to make certain it doesn't hurt anyone else, all right?'

Scrivsy watched her reaction like a hawk. Easom seemed distant and conflicted, grasping the edge of her trauma blanket with one hand and bringing the other up to her mouth again. Her gaze was glassy, directed at some general void in the road.

'Miss Easom,' said Scrivsy, trying to project all the delicacy of butterflies into her tone, 'it would be very helpful if you could tell me wha' happened last night. From the beginning.'

A little hesitantly at first, sometimes stopping in confusion to rethink the sequence of events, the victim recounted the details of the crime from restlessly getting out of bed to being hit with the table lamp. Scrivsy scribbled it down as she spoke, cross-referencing the information with what was provided in the briefing. The story remained consistent to the letter.

'When I woke up,' finished Easom, 'I was lying in the sitting room, in front of the bedroom door. The smoke alarm was going off, my head was killing me, I saw that there was blood on the floor and on my face from this—from this—' She gestured the wound on the side of her head, which had now been treated and bandaged. 'I saw that there was smoke coming out from under the door, the bedroom door, but I wanted to go in there, to see if Ginger was—or—or maybe I'd just imagined it all. I heard a crash downstairs and the next thing I remember, I was lying on that stretcher.

'I…' She raised earnest, horrified eyes to Scrivsy. 'I have no idea why this happened, Officer. I just don't know what happened.'

Scrivsy nodded soothingly, but her heart was fluttering with anxiety. She resisted the urge to reach for her glasses. 'Miss Easom, I'd like to ask aboot your CX100, if tha's all right with you.'

The victim's face crumpled and she buried it in her hands. 'His name's Lawrence, for God's sake, Lawrence!'

'Sure, Miss, o'course,' said Scrivsy hurriedly. 'I'm sorry, o'course, its—his… name is Lawrence. You must have been very close.' The words left an unpleasant taste in the detective's mouth.

Easom's hands drew away from her face. 'We were, yeah,' she all but whispered. 'I mean… I thought we were. He lay with me at night, cooked breakfast sometimes – he loved making waffles, you know. We went out together every Friday night, watched movies together… We were going to the cinema tomorrow, to watch the new Annah Mavrick film. Well, today I guess. But I—I suppose… that might not be possible now…'

'Did he show any hostility toward Ginger?' asked Scrivsy.

'No, no. Well, the last housekeeper we had, Jack – Lawrence seemed a little jealous of me. He would glare at Jack across the room and do the housework before Jack had the chance. I didn't think much of it to begin with, but I eventually figured it out. He didn't like having another man in the house, and he didn't like me being friendly to him at all. So when we had Jack replaced, I gave the new housekeeper just a nickname, not a name. I wanted Lawrence to think of him more as a—a pet than a rival, you know?'

Scrivsy's disgust and pity for the woman were starting to well in her throat, but she swallowed them down. 'And, er, wha' model was Jack?'

'He was an HK400,' said Easom.

'Wha'd you replace him for?'

'He was just getting a little old. A little slow, you know? He lasted a few good years, but those older models break down like iPhones. One moment you bought them, the next they freeze every time you try to swipe the screen. But in this case, he'd kinda forget what he was doing sometimes, and when I talked to him his little light would go yellow, like he didn't really know what I was saying.'

Scrivsy paused to digest this information. The most likely trigger of emotional shock seemed to be a feeling of jealousy or resentment toward Ginger. Perhaps Lawrence felt it had been replaced, or perhaps Easom was right. It was possible Lawrence interpreted its situation as a love triangle, in which it decided to extinguish a rival for the affection of its owner.

'Miss Easom, had you ever shown affection toward Jack or Ginger?' asked Scrivsy.

But Easom was fixated on something else. Scrivsy followed her eyes down the road, toward the babbling mob before the barrier. There was a figure standing at the back, clutching an object to his chest. His eyes were locked on Easom. He had blond hair, a soft, terrified face and a red LED spinning on his temple.

Scrivsy leaped to her feet and flew at it like a bullet. It stumbled back and twisted to flee, but it could do nothing to resist as she crashed into it, dragging it to the ground. The crowd around them gasped and shrank away like a wave shying from shore.

'I'd like backup please!' hollered the detective, grappling with Lawrence's flailing arms and writhing legs.

'Liz! Liz!' screamed the android, ear-splittingly shrill, its voice hysterical. 'Help me! Don't let them touch me! No, let go of me! LET GO!'

'Wait,' cried Easom as the scene was enveloped in police officers and handcuffs. 'Wait!'

There was a snap, a buzz and a sputter, and Lawrence fell still and silent as the taser short-circuited its system.

Author's Note:

A long, irrelevant and misinformative author's note was here but it is now gone. All you really need to know is that readers Quantum27 and Darnea voted for a more interactive story with polls and such - at certain crucial moments in the story, you will get to vote for Connor's next move. Your vote can be the difference between complete disaster and only slight disaster. But hey, disasters are subjective. Right?

A Few Notes About the Choices You Make and the Chaos You Sow:

You have no control over Connor's emotional state. You control only how his emotions shape his personality.

Pay close attention to how he intends to execute each option as he processes them and the reason for which he would carry them out. Taking them at face value, such as assuming the empathetic choice is always the deviant one, will lead to surprising disappointments.

Sometimes, for Connor's sake or others', you may question whether you should even pick the deviant option.

Your choices determine how Connor will behave when you have no control over him as well.

If you care to explain in your review why you picked the option you did, it would be very helpful. They'll always make a difference in the narrative... one way or another.

Question everything, and above all, question Connor.