Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

the thing wearing human clothes fools him for about twenty-five seconds, the time it takes an average human male to sprint down the stairs at rosa parks bus terminal and reach the exit. but there is no escape from here; and anyways, no human would have that look in their eyes. not in this city - that hunting, hunted kind of cold calculation, the ready to risk it all attitude.

so when he and the deviant lock eyes in the pouring rain, connor does what the piezoelectric battery pumped by the trillion of carbon nanotubes inside his artifical, synthetic cranium does best: he calculates the odds of each preconstructed scenario regarding the reaction of the other machine.

he knows she is doing the exact same thing.

incipiently, all ax400 models were designed to nurse and care. this, by definition, made it weaker. physically, like each android, it could easily endure long distances and extreme weather conditions all the same, but the child she has chosen to run away with and insisted on protecting - a malfunction like no other - would not tolerate the hardships that follow an escape in the pouring november rain, let alone the velocity needed for an escape like this; in the daylight, in an open field.

because the child simply cannot take it. they are both small, yes - the android does not reach five feet five; and the child is young. maybe they could have hidden, had they not been spotted so absolutely. they could have stayed hidden; stayed in what they considered safe. the anonimity, the namelessness, the walking between what can and cannot be.
the erasure of labels.

but something must be rusting within his circuits, for connor has to cancel the preconstruction process. he has almost, it seems, followed the rabbit down the hole (/memo: the [little girl's name] is [williams, alice]). he is back in the rain, in the motel, staring dead in the bright blue eyes of the deviant, who straightens her spine in the shadows. her hair is brightwhite (/analysis: [white] is a [tactical disadvantage]). behind her, a sicklypale figure emerges, her mouth agape. williams, alice. she is in what humans would call a shock.

connor looks back at the deviant (kara, he remembers. its name is kara. the child is alice) who licks her lips, all anticipation.

he still has not told hank anything, though he is but two feets away, shivering as the downpour cleanses them.

/analysis: [symbolism] of [water]. clarity, cleansing, new beginnings. he is not very sure why he looked this up all the sudden, except he knows now and does not like what he has found. in his discomfort, or as to tear his mind from it, he finally opens his mouth.

"lieutenant!"

his shout is drowned by a thunder. the policemen turn anyway, and so does connor, back to find the android and the girl holding hands, their shapes a haze in the waterfall around. the deviant shakes her (itsitsitsitsitsits) head. there is something very primal, very human in the way she clenches her jaws.

it is useless to run.

the ax400 model does it anyway.