The sun was beginning to set as they pulled into the parking lot of Amy's apartment building.

Hank turned the car off, but hesitated before he pulled the keys out.

Connor looked at him quizzically.

"Let me handle this one, Connor," he finally said, and Conner frowned slightly.

"I know how to—" he began, and Hank shook his head.

"You're a good kid, Connor. But I've seen a lot more of these kinds of cases and know better how people react to news like this. You'll be giving enough bad news soon enough. I'll take this one."

Hank stared straight ahead as he spoke, and he looked tired.

"All right," Connor agreed. "I'll follow your lead on this."

"Thanks," Hank said, heaving a sigh. "God, I really hope we catch this guy before he kills that girl," he muttered, and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

"I don't know if he will," Connor said as he opened his door.

"I've seen a lot of these kind of cases, Connor. It escalates. It always escalates."

"You've seen these cases with humans," Connor pointed out. "But androids are…different. We don't reason in the exact same ways as you do."

"He already tortured her boyfriend to death. And repeatedly injured her. And technically kidnapped her."

"But he did all of it because he wanted to be close to her and keep her close when he thought she was slipping away from him. Killing her…it would be the opposite of what he wants. From what Amy Sunderland said, he never injured her because he was angry at her or to punish her. It was to keep her dependent on him."

"People like him usually tend to decide that if they can't have the person they want, no one can. That's why they kill them."

"But that wouldn't get him what he wants."

Hank sight. "All right. I'll leave the android psychology to you and follow you on figuring that guy out. But I'll handle the human side with Amy Sunderland."

Connor nodded.

"Let's get this over with," Hank said heavily, then got out of the car.

Connor followed.

They entered the apartment complex and headed up to Amy's apartment.

"She really needs to move to a place where anyone coming in needs to be buzzed in," Hank muttered under his breath.

"We should mention that to her."

"Yeah. 'Hey, look, we know everything is shit, but still, pack up all your things and move somewhere new! It's a total snap'," he said in a falsely cheerful tone of voice before his face settled back into a grumpy frown.

"It's better than him walking in."

Hank got that tired look again, and the fingers of his hand twitched, like they were wrapping about the neck of a bottle. "Yeah."

They walked in silence to Amy's door and rang the doorbell, and waited in silence until the door opened.

"Yeah, it ain't never good when the cops come over to see you," Amy Sunderland said when saw them.

Hank faltered slightly, then sighed. "Well, I wish you weren't right, but you are."

Amy gave him a faltering smile. "Come in. I think I probably need to be sittin' down for whatever this is." She moved away from the door and gestured for them to come in. "Sorry, I was making myself some dinner. Trying to, at any rate. Please, have a seat."

"Sorry to interrupt your dinner," Hank said apologetically as he sat down.

She gave them a lopsided grin. "Naw. I was just in the middle of making it, and it's not anything special. Just a pizza, since I can eat that easy with one hand," she said, tilting her chin over towards her left shoulder. Her left arm was still in a sling,

"I guess I should at least be thankful Alexander went for my left arm and not the right. I'd be screwed if he'd popped the right one," she said, and there was a touch of resignation in her voice.

"Yeah, no," Hank said sharply. "Don't even start that kind of thinking, not even as a joke."

Amy looked surprised, then hunched in a little bit. "I…yeah. I know. But…"

"No 'buts,' either. He shouldn't have laid a hand on you to begin with. He knew exactly what he was doing."

She sighed. "I know. And I'll try," she said, her voice small. "But…what'd y'all come down here for?" She asked as she sat down carefully on her couch, mindful of her shoulder.

From her beanbag chair, he cat, Angelica, looked up and meowed. She jumped up and beelined straight for Connor, and rubbed herself against his legs.

"That cat really does like androids, huh," Hank said with a grin, then the smile fell off. "Ms. Sunderland, we found where Alexander has been staying. But unfortunately, he escaped."

"How?"

"He knocked out one of the security androids in Android Town who had spotted him and reported his location. He was able to get away before we could arrive on scene."

"So why are y'all here?" Amy asked slowly.

"Because we have no idea where he's bolted to," Hank said. "He knows now he won't be able to hide out in Android Town like he had been. He know as the police are after him. That might make him desperate."

"And desperate people do stupid things," Amy said, blowing out a long huff of air.

"Yeah. They do. And…we know he was obsessed with you."

"Well, yeah," Amy said, somewhat incredulously. "Tell me something that's new."

"No," Hank said. "I don't think you maybe realize just how obsessed he is. We saw where he was living. He…" Hank paused, searching for words. "He had covered every wall in pictures of you. And where he didn't have room for pictures, he scribbled your name."

Amy looked like someone had just struck her in the stomach, and Connor decided to say something. Hank may have known the situation, but Connor knew deviant androids.

"Androids who've gone deviant have a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior," he said. "This is the first time I've seen it directed towards a human before, but some of the hallmarks are the same."

"What…what do they usually direct it at?"

[rA9]

[BROKEN PROGRAMMING CODE]

[LIE]

"A fragment of broken code interpreted religiously," he said, remembering how his programming checking for deviancy had sometimes displayed the characters of r, A, and 9 when it found errors. "They write characters from that code on walls, and speak of it like a messiah figure."

"So…what, he sees me as a messiah?" Amy asked, frowning as she tried to process it.

"No," Connor said. "He sees you as something else."

"'Somethin' else,'" she said, her accent suddenly getting a touch stronger. "What does…what exactly does that mean?"

"It means that he's fixated on you. And he won't let it go. He won't let you go. He can't."

[Clue: Slight widening of the eyes, with the whites showing around the irises.

Clue: Increased shallow breathing.

Clue: Increased heart rate.

Clue: Loss of facial color due to constriction of capillaries, and a resulting vasodilation of central blood vessels to muscles.

Clue: Shaking hands.

Analysis: Amy Sunderland was afraid.]

"He—" Amy began, and she wrapped her right arm around her left one, and clutched at the sling, as if for some kind of support.

"Listen. Is there a…a friend or someone you could stay with? Or could stay with you?" Hank asked, and he put his hand on her right shoulder. "You, uh, you maybe shouldn't stay by yourself."

Amy frowned, and rubbed her arm as if struck by a sudden chill. "Maybe…maybe Jas. My friend, Jasmine. Jasmine Miller. She knows Alexander and what he looks like, and she knows what he did, so maybe…" She let out a bitter laugh. "Jas was the first person Alexander tried to cut me off from. I think she started to see through him, an' he decided she had to go. I don't even know if she'll…instead of frettin' about it, let me just call her," she finally ended with. She picked up her cell phone, and took a deep breath. "OK," she said, and quickly dialed a number.

She held her breath as she held the phone by her ear. "Jas…Jasmine? Um. Hey." There was a long silence. "Yeah. I know. I…I have a favor to ask you," she said, and Hank gestured for the phone. "Hold on a moment, yeah." She looked quizzically at Hank.

"Let me speak with your friend," Hank said.

"Uh…sure, ok," Amy said, looking confused. "Jasmine, I'm gonna pass the phone over. Just…yeah," she said, and then handed Hank the phone.

Hank paced as he spoke, and Connor sat down next to Amy. She gave him a faint smile, but her face was still pale.

Angelica immediately jumped into his lap and curled up.

"Good evening, miss. Jasmine, was it? Jasmine Miller? Hi. My name is Hank Anderson, and I'm with the Detroit PD. No, she's fine. For, now, at least. And it's Detective Anderson. Right. You know about Ms. Sunderland's android Alexander, correct? Well, we think Amy might be in danger from him. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to really say much about specifics, but I can tell you that we think he's stalking her. Yes. We want her to stay with someone or for someone to stay with her for a little while, if possible. Right. All right, thank you. I'll pass you back over to her," he finished, and brought the phone over to Amy.

She took it, and put it to her ear. "Yeah…yeah, Jas, they do. They're trying to find him. And…yeah," she said, and her eyes started tearing up. "I'm so sorry for not realizing what he was doing…you were right, you tried to warn me that…I mean…yeah, OK," she said. "I'll see you soon," she finished, and pulled the phone away from her ear before ending the call. She wiped her eyes. "Jas is on her way over. We'll figure out if I'm gonna stay with her or if she'll stay with me or what when she gets here. Thank you."

"We'll wait here until she gets here," Hank said, and Connor blinked, then nodded.

Amy licked her lip nervously. "Thank you."

"Listen. I know this is your home, but it's really not very secure. You might want to think about moving into a place where no one can just walk in."

She let out a bitter laugh. "I'll get right on that when the money fairy comes."

"If you can somehow manage it, you should," Hank repeated.

Amy swallowed. "All right."

"If there is anything you could tell us about Alexander, it would be greatly appreciated," Connor said. "Every little bit of information will help me with my profile of him."

"I'll tell you everything I can," she said, as Angelica purred in his lap.

—

About forty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Hank smirked over at Connor. "That cat loves you. I'll go with Ms. Sunderland."

Amy gave a little laugh. "She loves androids."

Hank offered her a hand, and she used it to pull herself out her feet.

The apartment was small enough that Connor could see the door open, and how the first thing the short woman standing there did when it opened did was give Amy a hug.

Amy hugged her back.

When the hug finished, Hank held up his badge. "Detective Anderson," he said, and then shook the woman's hand after he put the badge away.

"Jasmine Miller," she said, before brushing her hair out of her face. "Now, I need you to tell me everything that's going on," she said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Can we please be civilized and do this not in the hallway?" Amy said, and Jasmine snorted.

"You know I'm a heathen. And what the shit happened to your arm?" Jasmine asked as they headed into the living room.

"My shoulder. And I dislocated it."

[Why did she cover for Alexander?]

"You and your fragile everything," Jasmine said. Her tone was sharp but friendly, but there was an undertone to it, a touch a wariness around Amy.

["And he'd decided to start cutting me off from everyone. I'm still cleaning up the mess and the fallout."]

Jasmine stopped short when she saw Connor sitting on the couch.

"A damn android? Seriously?"

"He's—" Amy began, and Jasmine rolled her eyes.

"I know who he is. His face was plastered all over the news. He's the one that brought the cavalry of renegade bots in that forced the president to give in to the deviants. The shit is that revolutionary doing here?"

"My job," Connor said, feeling the need to defend himself.

"And what exactly is your job?" she said accusingly.

"I am…" Connor began, but then didn't quite know how to respond.

"A police detective and my damn partner," Hank said sharply. "And if you want to catch an android, you need an android. You won't find anyone better than him at that."

["The famous deviant hunter," Markus said.]

Jasmine let out a snort and flopped down on Amy's beanbag chair. "Amy, once they're gone, we're talking. But now, they need to tell me what the shit exactly is going on."

"It's about Alexander," Amy began.

"I know, and you're not the cop and Viva la Revolution over here."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Same as always, Jasmine."

"You fucking know it. And did he kill Lore?" Jasmine said, switching from Amy to Hank.

Hank crossed his arms and looked at Connor, pointedly not saying anything.

Connor finally spoke. "We suspect he did. We also think he's stalking Ms. Sunderland. He's obsessed with her. He will try to make contact with her."

"I KNEW that fucking android wasn't normal," Jasmine said, balling her fists. "You never saw how he looked at her. It wasn't normal. And Amy never saw it because she thought that was normal because it was what he always did, and she'd never had an android before.

"He watched her all the time. Constantly. She always said he was just monitoring her to make she she didn't hurt herself, and yeah, he caught her so many times before she got hurt. Or at least, he said it was before she got hurt. Who even knows if it wasn't some sick way to touch her or to make her think she needed him? Fucker," she spat out. "I should have known Amy wouldn't even have texted me the way she did. But that little shit was good." She looked at Hank. "Lore - Laurence - he was a good guy. He didn't deserve what happened to him. And Amy doesn't deserve any of this. So if you find that plastic piece of shit? Fucking turn him into scrap," she snarled, and the look she gave Connor was one of pure hate.

Connor paused, then spoke. "You must know…you may be in danger yourself. He already killed Laurence Uematsu."

"You're warning me and not Amy?" Jsamin said, sounding incredulous.

"I doubt he would try to kill her. But he might attack anyone he suspected of getting in his way of getting to her."

"Yeah, he can fucking try," Jasmine snarled. "Heads up, I have a permit for this," she said, and pulled a handgun out of her purse.

"It takes a lot of bullets to stop an android," Connor said slowly.

Jasmine walked over to where he was sitting and stood over him. "No, it doesn't. Just takes one here," she said, poking hard at his forehead. "Central CPU. Or here, thirium pump" she said, poking him right over his thirium pump, "or here," she said, stabbing at his thirium pump regulator, "the thirium pump regulator," she snarled.

As soon as she touched where his thirium pump regulator was, Connor felt a jolt of panic and fear.

"Jackpot," Jasmine said, as Connor's LED cycled RED RED RED.