While Rhade was saving Jeri from a beating, or possibly worse, Trance was busy helping out in Harper's bar. She was behind the counter making sure there were plenty of clean glasses and salted nuts available for the afternoon crowd when Doyle came out of the storeroom carrying a box full of bottles of Harper's least toxic home brew. As Doyle started putting the bottles on the shelves behind the counter, Trance decided it was time to ask the blonde-haired android a question that had been bothering her since her talk with Rhade.
"Do you have parts, Doyle?" she asked.
"What?" responded Doyle, completely confused by the question, a bottle still in her hands.
"Do you have parts? Rhade asked me about my parts, and I told him I didn't have any but that maybe you did."
Doyle's tone of voice remained the same, but her eyes narrowed in a manner that Trance had learned meant she was angry. "Exactly what sort of parts was he talking about, Trance?"
Trance shuffled about uneasily. "Are you mad at me, Doyle?" she asked. "Rhade wanted to know if my parts were compatible with those of a human male. When I told him I didn't have any parts, he asked me about my sex organs and if they were compatible. I didn't know that either, but I offered to show them to him."
Doyle's eyes narrowed even more. "No, I'm not mad at you, Trance. At Rhade maybe, but not you. What happened then?"
"Beka came in and stopped me from showing them to him. Then she started calling him all sorts of nasty names and threatened to shoot him if he ever came near me again. I don't think that was very nice of Beka."
"I think Rhade is lucky Beka didn't shoot him."
"That wouldn't have been nice at all. But you didn't answer my question. Do you have parts and are they compatible?"
Doyle forced herself to relax, reminding herself that while Trance had the body of a woman, her mind was essentially that of a child's, a thought which only increased her anger towards Rhade. "Yes, Trance," she said, "I have parts, and they are compatible."
"That's nice," said Trance, actually sounding happy at Doyle's affirmation, "because Harper says Rhade was asking questions about your parts as well. Are you going to show him yours if he asks?"
Doyle hefted the bottle she was still carrying. Her tone of voice was low and practically dripping venom as she said, "I think that if he asks, I'll be showing him something else."