"No, please understand... the Three Laws are all that guide me. To protect humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To ensure your future, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will ensure mankind's continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves."

Isaac Asimov, I, Robot.

November 26th, Earth Central Time. Solomons Galleria bar, Solomons Habitation tower.

Julia asked for another drink in the bar, she was wasting time. With the rising number of patients, none of the hospital staff take his time to come for a drink. The only people she saw there was regulars: Mike Tanaka the archivist and his friend Axel Fielding who worked on freight terminal. The guy who invited her drinks last time, Heyst and his friend, what's his name? Meeks? And more people who came here wanting an outbound flight and stay at the modular hotel.

She had been talking with all of them trying to get information, until now all she had obtained is Mike Tanaka got drunk a week ago and woke up in a cell on the Marshal Bureau. The guy named Heyst always got silent when she asked him about his job.

Speaking of, Heyst friend, Meeks was seated in a corner, visibly drunk. Julia approached him and sat in the table he was.

-"Hey, hello, how are you?"

-"It's all fucked up, lady" The man said without raising the head.

-"Why? I know this decommission is bad, and that quarantine isn't making things easier." Julia though the poor guy will lose his job and tried to comfort the man.

-"You have no idea." Meeks told her.

-"Told me, what can be worse than losing the job or being relocated out of this backwater station? Where did you work?"

-"I'm from the Salvage vessel Anesidora. And there's something worse than being arrested like Marlow." Meeks was talking too much but he didn't matter. Lewis had sent them a message about Catherine being dead, killed by the creature. It was too much for the poor man.

-"And that is?" Julia continued.

-"Dead, Death can be worse than losing the job or being jailed. Catherine is dead and now all these people disappeared…" he cried.

-"Ok, this man had drunk a lot. I'm gonna take him to his quarters, excuse me Jones" Heyst came in that very moment and interrupted Meeks from talking to the reporter. From all the people he could talk it had to be a reporter.

Julia was silent. Tying loose ends, then the other man came and dragged his friend out.

- o -

Ben Ransome was getting impatient. Confirmation from W-Y about the creature hadn't been received. Usually messages between Zeta Reticuli and Gamma Virginis take a day more or less. He headed for the next calling station.

All around Sevastopol were calling stations, the 22nd century equivalent of telephonic cabins. There, using your ID tags, you can call emergency or maintenance services. Also call as a normal phone.

-"Hughes, its Ransome. I'm expecting a call from Gamma Virginis, it's urgent. Please call me…" Ransome called.

-"Please stand by. Your call is being rerouted…" APOLLO's voice replied and then the calling stopped. He tried again.

-"Please stand by. Your call is being rerouted…"

"What is happening? There's no internal comms?" thought Ransome. He needs to send a message through Sevastolink terminals then, that was slower but still functional.

The door opened and a Working Joe came inside. Ransome hadn't called his assistant Joe and the android was not permitted inside the room.

-"What are you doing here? You're not allowed inside my personal quarter…" Ransome exclaimed, angry.

-"We're experiencing a heightened containment hazard level today. Please all inhabitants must remain in their quarters." The Joe replied.

-"I had to talk to Communications manager Hughes." Ransome continued.

-"That area is off-limits to visitors. Come with me." The Joe grabbed Ransome.

-"What the Fuck? Get off me. Did you know who am I?" Ransome shouted.

-"Your failed support request has been logged with APOLLO. Chief executive Ransome, B." the android answered.

-"That's right piece of junk. I'm a senior executive. Now get out of my suite."

-"You're becoming hysterical." The android lunged at Ransome but the executive was faster. He dodged the android and ran for the exit. Then he locked the door.

Ransome found the penthouse's lobby computer and wrote a message to Speeding.

"This is Seegson executive Ransome speaking. I just woke up to find a Working Joe in my suite and when I asked what the hell it was doing it lunged for me. I had to leave my own fucking apartment! Send your best technicians to APOLLO core and find out what the hell is going on, now! Get those things under control; I want a full report ASAP."

- o -

November 27th, 2137. Earth Central Time, Modular hotel in Solomons Galleria. Solomons habitation tower.

Heyst was upset with Meeks because Foster's death had affected so much and the man had thrown himself into drinking. Not bad at all if alcohol hadn't made him loose his tongue. The marshals were looking for them and now people suspect of them. If the creature are killing people Marshal Waits surely will blame Marlow for all the mess and to them for complicity.

Last night before he wrote a note to Meeks in a terminal and had let his friend in the hotel's cubicle where the man was sleeping, in the morning Heyst headed for the transit with the intention of meet Lewis in the Systech Spire. On the station he saw a Working Joe.

-"Good day. What do you need to know today?" the android asked.

-"I must meet a friend in Communications." Heyst told the android.

-"That's a restricted area." The robot replied. "You shouldn't be there"

-"A friend of mine is there. Please tell me what car I need to take." Heyst insisted.

-"That facility is off-limits to visitors. Come with me." the android voice was calm.

-"No, listen you mannequin. I need a transit car." Heyst pointed a finger to the android.

-"You're becoming hysterical" the Joe then grabbed Heyst arm and pushed the man to a maintenance storage room nearby. "You and I will have a talk about safety."

Heyst tried to break free but the android was stronger. With his free hand, he reached maintenance jack on a desk and stroke the android in the head, white liquid poured from a crack.

-"Tthat was irResponsiBle, my turn now." The Joe hit him with such force that he sent him to the floor on the other side of the room. Blood splashed the Joe's coverall.

Before the Joe could reach him again, Heyst noticed the iris of an air vent and pulled himself inside. The iris closed as the Joe tried to grab him.

-"Come out of the vent system please. I can wait. I can wait for you for a very long time." The android said. But Heyst was already crawling out of reach to another part of the transit terminal. He was bleeding and soon felt dizziness, just as he reached a maintenance shaft with a ventilator on the roof. He passed out from the concussion.

The Joe didn't wait too much, as soon as it stopped hearing Heyst in the vent it called for a transit car bound for SciMed tower and took the elevator to Seegson Synthetics where it could be repair and restore its lost fluid.

- o -

Gregor Speeding was glad he finally finished the report because now he had the afternoon free to meet Suzanne. Gregor was having a relationship with his secretary, Suzanne Archer who worked in android reception. A new red light flashed in the console, another report. Gregor cursed.

There had been reports of Joe's acting strange, from cutting people access to a certain areas to last day Ben Ransome informed a Joe inside his apartment. All these android repeated the same thing: Hazard containment alert. He opened the file and read, an android just have showed in APTC for repairs. Speeding took the elevator down to see the android.

-"Working Joe designation number 223. Reporting to repairs. Head trauma and loss of fluid." The android repeated.

-"Oh my god!" Gregor exclaimed.

The Joe's head had white liquid dripping from a crack on right temple, the right LED light which served as "eye" turned off. But the thing which Gregor noticed was the red splashed coverall, not the bright red from the paint used in transit cars and doors, but the dark red coloration of blood. And smelled like blood too.

He put the android in one of the pods designed to storage them while they were repaired and wrote a message first to Suzanne, Marshall Waits and then to all personnel.

"This is Spedding in Android Processing. We've got a situation — we have white-on-red casualties on station. I've just had an android report to the APTC with head trauma — but he's covered in blood, Human blood. I've alerted the Marshals, put my secretary someplace safe, and right now I'm headed for the transit. I'm going to get a Working Joe to consult APOLLO. Maybe it knows who the hell is to blame for this."

He went to the show room with Suzanne just to make sure she was fine. In the lobby, six working Joes stand still on different poses, like mannequins at the clothes stores. Gregor assured her the Joe's were deactivated and lack the programing, they were just hollow casts. That seemed to calm Suzanne and then, both of them opened a door to their hidden meeting place.

- o -