Laura sprinted far faster in the snow and ice than her small legs should have carried her.
She darted past shop windows, a bus stop, a laundromat. Threw herself out into the street without looking.
The oncoming cars didn't slow down - didn't brake, didn't swerve.
As if their drivers couldn't see her at all.
Somehow she made it, scraped by with a dodge and a jump - clambered up a curb piled with blackened snow, skidded along the icy sidewalk, ducked into an abandoned alley where an old car lay rusting.
Connor had been here before.
He turned the corner just as her yellow boots slipped through a hole in the fence. He caught his fingers in the wire, watched her disappear inside the abandoned house - gone within the gaping darkness, splintered and sagging.
In his peripheral something flashed, orange and blue, a flick of a fin and a bright white eye.
He turned - but there was nothing but empty cold air. Rust, and weeds, and snow.
Augmented reality, he was certain of it. There could be no other explanation.
He felt the coat pocket. Found the acorn where it seemed to have always been.
Traci. Hank.
Each time that fish had appeared, he'd found them only just in time to see them alive.
His heart dropped. A cold tremble of dread.
Laura.
With a running leap he clambered up over the fence, clattering. He sped across the tattered yard.
The veranda thunked hollow under his running steps.
The door admitted him too easily.
"STAY BACK!" roared Ralph.
Connor skidded to a stop.
Ralph stood fidgeting, twitching, hissing, a knife outstretched in one shaky hand.
With the other he cradled a small limp body against his chest - wrapped in his cape, unresponsive.
Laura's face was pale with cold.
Her head had been caved into a frightening shape - by something blunt, something bludgeoning - hours ago, at least.
RA9 glared raw and emblazoned on the wall above, again and again and again.
On the floor at Ralph's feet - among the empty needles, ripped mattresses, a glitter of red ice - lay the fleshy remains of two men, eyes filmed and mouths vacant, steeped in pooling deep crimson.
A quiet breath of a voice, barely audible, trickled out of the empty air.
….serised ecneloiv ruo sa htiw od ot sruo era yeht….
Ralph quivered a terrified sob; his eyes darted at the darkened corners of the room, the gashed mantra on the cracked walls, the android detective who stood with open palms and quiet voice.
"Ralph." Connor held Ralph's eyes steady with his own. He shook his head slowly. Took a careful step. "I'm only here to help."
He chanced a quick scan of the two men. Dead several hours. Stabbed. Slit throats. Traces of red ice.
Blood had soaked into the crumbling floorboards.
"I said stay back!" Ralph commanded in a voice that shrieked and cracked. He gripped the child tighter, shuffled backward, sneering and frightened and dangerous. "Ralph didn't mean to kill them, Ralph had no choice, they were hurting the little girl, they … they did terrible … things, they … the humans … " He sucked air through his teeth. "Ralph was angry. He was angry."
"She's dying, Ralph." Connor searched his broken face, hoping Ralph could see through the madness that the child in his grip had so little time. "Her name is Laura. Her father is looking for her. She needs more help now than either of us can give, you knowthat."
"There's nothing Ralph can do, there's nothing, Ralph doesn't know -"
Connor stretched out his arms. "Give her to me -"
"NO!" Ralph swiped the air with his blade. "Ralph knows what you are, you … robot! You didn't trick Ralph once, you won't trick him now."
Connor was watching that little girl's life slipping, second by second.
[CHANCE OF SURVIVAL: 18%]
[17%]
[15%]
She would not die.
Connor would not permit it.
There was no more emotion left in his voice.
"I'm calling the police," he bluffed, steady and firm. He turned his head just enough for Ralph to see the yellow of his LED, proof of his claim.
"No don't do that, don't do that!"
"You have one minute, Ralph." Connor stared at him, foreboding and dangerous. He took a confident step forward. Ralph skittered back. "Stay here and get caught - or run. Now. There's an android clinic two blocks east. They can help her."
Ralph sneered, snarled, shook with fury and fright. "If the humans get her she'll die! Ralph will die! They'll take him apart, they'll -"
"Forty seconds, Ralph!"
Ralph glared hatefully, breathing through his teeth, the weapon shaking. "Ralph can't leave, Ralph can't leave, Ralph hasn't left, he doesn't, he -"
"Twenty seconds!"
Ralph balked, cowered low, shifted back, sobbed in frustrated agony - then squeezed his eyes shut and sprinted, cape billowing, past Connor and out the door into the snow-reflected sun, the little girl gripped tight at his shoulder.
Connor gave him a head start before rushing after him, to be sure he was going the right way - but Ralph was true to his intent, headed due east, across the red-lit street while cars skidded and wailed in his wake.
He placed a call to the clinic.
"There's a WR600 on his way to you with an injured YK500," he informed them crisply. "Bludgeon to the head, unresponsive at least three hours."
[Surgeon is on standby.]
"Jerry," Connor called out, switching calls while he headed back inside the broken house. "Are you near the clinic on 41st?"
[We can be there in three minutes.]
"Laura is found, but she's in bad shape."
[We'll call her dad and we'll bring a get-well teddy bear. She'll be on her feet in no time.]
A sad smile twitched on Connor's face. "Hurry."
He stood alone in the splintered house - over the two human corpses, cooling in the frozen draft from the open door.
A message blinked into the corner of his vision.
North.
[It's done.]
[Nobody saw us.]
Connor closed his eyes.