I arrive at the Eden club a little after eight, The road is empty due to a police car at each end of the street keeping away pedestrians. A parked ambulance by the clubs entrance flashes red and white alarm lights. A big neon sign at the head of a sleek, futuristic addition to the buildings on either side reads Eden club in curly purple letters. The lattice structure of the walls bars all of the windows from outside view, but allows a neon blue light from within to light up the street, reflecting off the mirrored wet pavement.

I've never been to any kind of club before, so I have no basis of comparison, but it looks like a little too much money has been spent on this place. What I have seen are the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods less than five miles away

The entrance is barred with holographic police tape, and guarded by a single human officer. I approach him tentatively. "Miss Marks?" he asks politely.

"Yeah?"

"The Lieutenant told me you were coming," he continues, and steps to the side to open the way for me.

Miss Marks. It's almost enough to make me laugh. But I keep it cool and nod at him like I belong. The first hall has a mirrored roof and side walls consisting of projected screens, flashing close-ups of both male and female body portions in bright purple hue, lips, chest, hips, and the tagline 'The sexiest androids in town'. But the end of the hall is closed off with a sleek black door. I'm not even inside yet and I'm already crawling in my skin.

Obviously it's an android sex club, androids aren't human so it doesn't violate any prostitution laws.

The door slides open to a sultry female voice "Welcome to Eden club." The second hall looks nearly identical to the first, but the sides are lined with transparent booths displaying androids. They're all ridiculously beautiful and fit, wearing sleek black lingerie in the form of briefs and, for the females, bras, tagged with a glowing blue Eden club insignia. They watch me as I pass, giving me coy smiles, hands on the glass, the rings of blue and purple light above and below them shimmer off of a strange lustre to their skin, like they've been sprayed from head to toe micro glitter.

I try not to make eye contact.

I pass through one final door into the main part of the building. Sleek glossy floors, strange futuristic ceiling decal dotted in circular white lights. A dozen more booths line the room, with the addition of a line of transparent dancing poles manned by more scantily clad androids moving to the beat of repetitive electronic house music, off-beat percussion and heavily-synthetic melodies.

The dim room pulses slowly with blue and purple neon light.

Over the music, an exchange between two people, one I recognise as Hank. "Did you know the victim?" He's interviewing an overweight man in a purple lanyard with more hair on his chin than the top of his head.

"No," he replies, and even his voice is seedy. "I mean he came in maybe two or three times. I mean these guys they don't really talk very much, you know. They come in, do their business and then go on their way."

Hank notices me and lowers his notepad. "Hey Sam, you made it," although his voice is begrudging.

"Yeah," I agree. I hate this place too.

"Floyd Mills," the man says suddenly, throwing his arm out for me.

I take it in a loose shake. "Sam Marks."

"You, uh, working the murder too?"

Hank stiffens slightly and puts a hand on my shoulder. "She's our resident android expert," he explains in a clipped tone.

Floyd eyes me up and down. "You're not a detective." And for some reason, it isn't a question; it really should be.

"No," I say slowly. "I'm just...good with computers."

"In that case…" He slips a business card from the front pocket of his black slacks. "Hector André. He's our resident design architect. Best in the business."

I look at the card. "Excuse me?"

"Couple hours," he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Completely non-invasive scans, an easy five thousand pay. And, hey, you get to see yourself as an android, which makes you bit of a celebrity if the model goes out into production and becomes a staple in the Eden club chain."

I open my mouth but can't think of a single thing to say except. "Are all of these androids likenesses of real people?"

Mills shrugs. "Some of them, most are...amended versions. We take our scans, wipe out the imperfections. But, hey, gotta start somewhere right? Every artist needs a muse." And with that final sentiment, he winks at me.

I take the card from him, only to tear it in half and let the pieces flutter to my feet. "Thanks," I utter. "But I don't want any part of this thing."

"That makes two of us." Hank scowls at Mills deeply. "You ever had any trouble with androids before?"

He shakes his head. "No way! Well... once. We lost a model 2-3 months back, same model, WR400. Just vanished, we never found out what happened."

"You probably don't have any CCTV in here, huh?"

"No way," he says again. "This is what people appreciate about Eden Club...discretion. They can come and go without a trace."

Hank nods slowly. "Sure, sure," then he smiles drily. "Eh, business is booming, right?"

"Yeah, can't complain." Mills fights his own smile. "Good thing about androids is they're up for whatever you want, you won't get any diseases and, uh...they won't tell anyone." He looks at me with a knowing grin. "So, why not go wild?"

"Huh, yeah." Hank emits a low chuckle and hangs his head. "Yeah, the more I learn about people, more I love my dog."

"Where's Connor?" I ask suddenly.

Hank nods across the room. "Doing his thing," he mumbles. "We'll check out the crime scene soon. But, uh, I should warn you that he's acting a little funny."

"Funny?"

Hank fights a smile. "Yeah, something like...systems overheating."

I make a face. "Very funny, Lieutenant."

Before I can leave he puts his hand on my shoulder again. "Just, uh, watch yourself around here," he mutters. "I really don't like this place."

I smile wirily and mock-salute. "Yes sir."

I find Connor standing in front of a booth, studying the female android behind the plastic. She fluffs her blonde hair out and smiles as I approach. "You okay?" I ask Connor.

It blinks something away and turns to me. "Sam, we've been waiting for you."

I can't stop looking at her. "Yeah," I say gradually. "I, uh, took the long way. I wasn't exactly looking forward to this."

"Try not to think about it too much," Connor advises. "They're just machines."

I exhale long and slow. "Just machines," I agree. But she looks me in the eye and smiles again, the neon purple light catching on her glossy pink lips, dancing in her sky-blue eyes clear as water.

"Let's investigate the crime scene."

I still can't turn away, not until Connor guides me by the shoulder and points me in the direction of a nearby room with a number of officers moving in and out of the sliding door. Hank joins us as we walk inside. The room is small and round, but large enough to fit a circular king-size bed, a sleek white toilet and sink behind a clear black privacy screen, and a mini bar. The walls are once again projecting strange red shapes and glowing yellow stars, flooding the room in dim colour. A man is lying on the bed beneath a blanket of shiny red material.

But we're not the only officers in here.

"Lieutenant Anderson and his plastic pet." Gavin Reed turns slowly with his arms crossed. "The fuck are you two doin' here?"

Chris gets to his feet with a camera.

"We've been assigned all cases involving androids," Connor replies.

Reed smirks at it. "Oh, yeah? Well, you're wasting your time. Just some pervert who, uh." He coughs a barely-disguised chuckle. "Got more action than he could handle.

"We'll have a look anyway, if you don't mind," Hank says.

Reed stops and finally notices me standing a few feet behind. "She's still here," he observes. "Shouldn't she, uh, be behind bars by now?"

Hank glances back at me with the ghost of a smile. "She's been makin' herself useful," he retorts.

"Useful, huh?" He nods his head back at a female android lying limp in the corner of the room. "Y'know, these are useful too -for one thing." He stops to raise his brows. "Maybe they're hiring?"

Connor steps forwards steadily and meets his gaze, challenging him to say another word.

Reed laughs up at it. "I hate to be the one to tell you," he lowers his voice sardonically. "But she's human, and you're just another broken computer."

"Okay," Hank folds his arms over his chest.

"Come on, let's go," Reed orders Chris. As he passes Hank, he crinkles his nose. "It's, uh, starting to stink of booze in here."

He shoulders Connor again, this time with no subtlety at all. Chris hits his camera against his palm and looks at us apologetically. "Night, Lieutenant," he says, with a slight incline of his head. "Sam."

As soon as they're gone, Hank throws his head back in exasperation. "Oh, great!" he curses. "A dead body and an asshole, just what I needed."

"I'm gonna hit him one day," I say. "I'm gonna really hit him." And it's more than just a promise, it's a damn blood-oath.

"I'll hold him down," Hank agrees drily.

Connor doesn't contribute but it does hold an unnaturally cold glare at the closed door for a few moments, before turning to do what it was programmed to do. It scans the dead body, paying special attention to its his and neck and a number of strange purple bruises curling around his throat. "He didn't die of a heart attack," Connor evaluates. "He was strangled."

Hank moves over to the other side of the room and picks up a leather wallet from the mini bar. "Yeah, I saw the bruising on the neck. Doesn't prove anything though. Could've been rough play."

"We're missing something here."

"Think you can read the android's memory?" Hank asks. "Maybe you can see what happened."

"I can try."

Hank holds a plastic card up to the light. "Driver's license says: Michael Graham." He switches it out for the wallet again and rifles through the contents. "A credit card, cash in the wallet... picture of his wife and two daughters." He stops and grimaces. "I wouldn't want to make that call."

I approach the android because I don't want to see another dead man who I may or may not have conflicted feelings about. I kneel on the geometrically-patterned faux leather floor and study the android. It's body is unmarked, except for a stream of blue blood running from its nose. "Looks like a head trauma," I say quietly. "Mostly internal damage. M-maybe a fist."

"Jesus." Hank walks over with a grimace twisting his face. "This guy just...punched it in the face, over and over?"

"Yeah, looks like it."

"Can you repair it?"

I look up at Connor. "It's badly damaged, if I do it'll deactivate within seconds."

"But can you do it?" it insists.

"I…" I swallow and manage a nod. "I think so...but I have no idea what state it'll be in, if it'll even be coherent."

Connor nods in understanding. "But we have to try," it says.

Eventually, I nod too. I touch the android's stomach in two places and slide outwards, the abdomen shell opens to a hollowing of twisted blue wires. "Okay," I say softly, and look up at Connor. "You ready?" It nods once. I take the main pump regulator wire and invert it in on itself, so the android's body is using whatever thirium it has left as a short-lived fuel. It gasps awake and scrambles away on his hands and knees in pure terror with its LED screaming red.

Connor drops to its knee slowly, hands raised to assure it it's in no danger. "I'm going to ask you some questions," it states clearly. "Are you able to speak?"

Its dark brown eyes flicker to the man on the bed, who, from this angle, is nothing but a pair of bloated purple feet sticking out of a blanket. "Is he...is he dead?"

"Tell me what happened," Connor says instead.

"He started...hitting me," it utters, voice trembling. "Again...and again. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn't."

"Did you kill him?" Connor asks directly.

"No," it insists. "No, it wasn't me."

"Who killed that man if it wasn't you?"

Its eyes fill with panic. "I...I don't know," it cries. "I was in shutdown...I didn't see anything."

"Were you alone in the room? Was there anyone else with you?"

It shakes its head. "He wanted to play with two girls. That's what he said, there were two of us."

"What model was the other android?" Connor demands. "Did it look like you?"

It opens its mouth to respond but suddenly stops, eyes lowering, LED slowly fading from red to nothing at all. And it doesn't move again. I sit back on my heels, my hands are shaking. "WR400, they call it Traci."

"Traci?"

"These kind of androids get a name," I explain to Hank. "You can guess why."

Hank bows his head again.

"These things can take a real beating," I murmur, almost entirely to myself. "They, um, make them stronger than others, on the outside. But the biocomponents are cheap, once it's damaged, there's no repairing it."

Connor gets to its feet again and offers me an arm, I accept it and let it pull me to my feet and I don't miss how our hands are a similar shade of blue.

"So," Hank muses in a low voice. "There was another android. This happened over an hour ago, it's probably long gone."

But Connor's intuition directs it in a different direction. "No, it couldn't go outside dressed like that unnoticed." It gestures to Traci's black Eden club lingerie, and looks at Hank again. "It might still be here."

"Think you could find a deviant among all the other androids in this place?" Hank asks.

"Deviants aren't easily detected," it admits.

"Ah, shit." Hank exhales and turns to the door. "There's gotta be some other way."

I bite my lip and study the deactivated Traci. "There are so many androids here," I mutter under my breath. "There's gotta be-" I look up suddenly "-Maybe an eyewitness," I suggest ardently. "Somebody who saw it leaving the room."

Hank catches onto the idea and nods. "Yeah. I'm gonna go ask the manager a few questions about what he saw. You let me know if you find anything."

I'm more than happy not to join him in another conversation with Floyd Mills. Hank walks off and Connor fixes its gaze on a transparent booth directly adjacent to the crime scene and a female android standing inside. "Android eye witness," I notice. "Think it saw something?"

"I'll check it out."

I'm left alone by the entrance to the room, until one of the wall screens behind Hank and Mills plays a strange series of images that catches my attention; A female in a silver variation of the Eden club lingerie, her face cut off entirely by the dimensions of the screen. Coming this December, the new Venus model exclusive to Eden club. Pre-order now. I walk up beside Hank and nod at the screen. "What's that?"

Floyd looks over his shoulder. "Oh," he says offhandedly. "Every few months we introduce a new model. The Venus is a limited-edition holiday season promotion. We're having one brought in as a buffer, to, uh, see how our audience responds to it, y'know?" The screen itself shimmers in gold micro glitter as the female body dances and turns slowly with a hand on her hip. The only visible features are her body and the locks of deep red hair falling to the middle of her back. "We're totally booked for the first month," Mills announces proudly.

"You haven't revealed its face."

"Mystery sells," he retorts. "This thing is gonna make us more than we earn in a year."

Fortunately, I don't have to hear more when Connor approaches us to interrupt. "Excuse me, Lieutenant. Can you come here a second?"

"Found something?"

"Maybe."

Connor leads us across the club back to the transparent booth again, and nods at the Traci behind the glass, this one with a rounder face and short brown hair. "Can you rent this Traci?"

Hank stares at it in disbelief. "For fuck's sake, Connor, we got better things to do."

"Please, Lieutenant!" it insists. "Just trust me."

The Traci has a panel beside the booth with a dimly pulsing hand shape and a listing of prices. Payment is done via fingerprint tracing for insurance reasons, so Connor couldn't have rented it even if it wanted to.

Hank looks at me first but I only shrug. "Hey," I utter. "Don't look at me. You think I still have fingerprints?"

"What?" Hank's expression says he wants to know more, but instead he exhales furiously and jabs at the panel to make a selection.

The same sultry Eden voice speaks from the booth. "Hello. A 30 minute session costs $29.99. Please confirm your purchase."

Hank glances at Connor one final time and it nods determinedly back at him. "This is not gonna look good on my expense account," he utters as he places his hand in the middle of the scanner.

"Purchase confirmed. Eden Club wishes you a pleasant experience." The front of the booth slides open and the overhead light switches from purple to pink as the android registers as in use.

"Yeah," Hank mutters. "You're welcome."

She steps out of the booth in tall black heels with clear plastic fasteners. The lights reflect incandescent from the scale-like glitter embedded in her skin. "Delighted to meet you," she says with an enticing smile aimed at Hank. "Follow me, I'll take you to your room."

Hank turns to Connor. "Okay, now what?"

Connor moves up to the Traci and reaches for her arm. Her smile falters. The skin on its hand crawls back to reveal its true glossy white android form. It takes her by the forearm and secures its grip with a series of rapid blinking in time with its spinning yellow LED.

"Holy shit, Connor," Hank utters under his breath. "What the hell are you doin'?"

"Probing her memory," I answer. "Wait."

Connor lets her go and turns to us urgently. "It saw something."

"What are you talkin' about? Saw, what?"

"The deviant leave the room," Connor explains. "A blue-haired Traci. Club policy is to wipe the androids' memory every two hours. We only have a few minutes if we wanna find another witness!"

I crane my neck and scan the many androids around us. "No blue-haired Traci's," I say. "Which way did it go?"

"Towards the entrance." Connor stalks over to a dancing Traci on a pole, another WR400 who takes its arm obligingly.

"Hey," Hank calls to us. "What am I supposed to do with this one?"

"Tell it you changed your mind!"

Hank scratches the back of his neck as he attempts to talk to the Traci he just rented, though it comes out as bashful, incoherent babbling in a way I've never seen Hank reduced to before. "Uhh... Sorry, honey, changed my mind! Nothing personal, you're... a lovely girl... I just, uh... You know... I'm with him and... I mean, not with him like that... I'm not that... That's not what I... You, um... Wow... I just... got a job to do. My head-"

"It saw the blue-haired Traci." Connor leaves the dancing android and turns back into the club again. "I know which way it went!"

"There're androids everywhere! How you gonna tell which one saw the Traci with blue hair?"

Fortunately, Connor seems to take pity on Hank's expense account by probing a number of dancing androids instead of the ones behind a thirty dollar fee. We pass through a curtain of red light dots into a room lit from below in soft scarlet lighting. Hank begrudgingly rents an android by the door that Connor picks out.

"I've spent all this money and I'm still not havin' fun."

Connor probes the android's memory and takes off again in long determined strides to the next room, this one flooded in cool blue lighting. Another thirty dollars, another begrudging sigh, and Connor follows the trail to a private room. It places its hand on the panel to open it and scans the interior for three seconds before turning around retracing its steps. Finally, it approaches a maintenance android mopping the floor in a dark Cyberlife uniform and takes it by the shoulder.

"I know where it went," it announces a moment later. "Follow me."

"Fucking-A. This is crazy."

It opens a staff-only door to a white-brick hallway lit in normal fluorescence, but after the dim neon lighting of the club it's blinding to look at. Connor leads us to a blue door with an 'android warehouse' label on the wall.

"Wait." Hank unholsters his gun and manoeuvres around us. "I'll take it from here."

The electronic house music is distant and muffled. Connor nods its agreement and puts its arm out in front of me protectively.

Hank opens the door with one hand and enters the warehouse gun-first. He does a quick sweep of the room. After the initial danger of an ambush wains out, Hank slowly moves down an elevated landing to survey the rest of the room. A standard basement warehouse complex with shelves of packaged biocomponents, cleaning supplies, and a single steel table in the centre of the landing with surgical lights fitted overhead. On all sides, seemingly in every corner, groups of deactivated androids still wearing the Eden club undergarment uniform. The back of the warehouse is open to the street, barred by a tall chain-link fence.

It's dark, but after a few moments of scanning the clusters myself I can discern that there are no blue-haired Traci's among them.

"Shit..." Hank curses, dropping his gun altogether. "We're too late."

"We know it's down here, somewhere," Connor disagrees. "We just have to search for clues."

Hank stops at one of the androids. "Christ, look at them," he utters in a low voice. "They get used till they break, then they get tossed out."

I lift my chin slightly. "Gee, I wonder what that's like," I reply derisively. "Nothing but an object, to fulfill someone else's needs."

"Yeah, I know what you're getting' at," he sighs. "I'm not sayin' you're wrong. Just...people are fucking insane. They don't want relationships anymore, everybody just gets an android. They cook what you want, they screw when you want, you don't have to worry about how they feel. Next thing you know, we're gonna be extinct, because everybody would rather buy a piece of plastic than love another human being. Beats me."

"Love is hard," I say simply. "Renting an android is easy."

"It's fucking expensive," he disagrees with a scowl. "Anyway, I guess you wouldn't care. You, uh, got that bar-owner guy."

"Jack?" I ask in disbelief.

Hank hadn't anticipated any resistance on my part so for a moment he stands entirely stunned. "Well, yeah," he admits. "What? The two of you aren't together?" Connor turns curiously and awaits my response. "He was gonna go to jail for you," Hank elaborates. "You tellin' me that's something a friend would do?"

"Jack and I are good friends."

Hank chuckles to himself and scans the android again. "Poor guy."

But I'm not letting him get away with any more baseless assumptions. "He asks me out sometimes," I admit. "But he's always nice about it. And he knows I can't feel that way for him."

"Can't or won't?"

I frown at Hank. "Both," I snap. "Guess that makes me something of a freak to you."

Hank nods with a half smirk. "People like you are gonna send us extinct," he points out.

"People like me don't objectify other human beings," I retort. "There's so much more to people than that. And who says I can't love without it?"

"Love and screwin' are two different things," Hank agrees with a slow nod. "Hey, you do whatever you want. Why should I give a fuck?"

"I don't know. Why should you?"

"I don't, alright?" he cries out defensively. "Hey, get off my back. I'm sorry I even brought it up."

I raise my brows indignantly. "I accept your apology." Then I spy something glinting wetly off the black concrete. "Hey, Connor," I call out to it. "Blue blood."

It kneels by the stains and takes a sample. "It's here," it announces. "It's in this warehouse."

"It changed its hair." The realisation hits me. "It could be any one of these."

"You gonna check each one?"

"That would take too long," Connor tells Hank. "Deviants are impossible to detect."

Hank lowers his head and sighs. "Alright," he resigns. "We made it this far, didn't we? We gotta think of something."

Connor scans past each and every android here. "Our only option is to neutralise every android in here. That, at least, would assure the deviant doesn't get away."

"By neutralise, you mean-"

"They would all be destroyed."

"No way," Hank utters.

"There are at least twenty different androids here," I say quietly. "They can't all be destroyed."

"If either of you come up with another plan, I'm all ears," Connor replies.

Hank folds his arms tightly over his torso. "Let's go speak to the manager again," he offers. "Maybe we can get him to lock this section down until we come up with something else."

Connor processes the plan for a moment before eventually nodding its agreement. I follow them back through the white-brick hall and back into the Eden club and once again despondency settles on all of us, bowing our shoulders. We find Floyd exactly where we left him, standing by the crime scene looking around nervously. "So?" he asks Hank. "Find anything?"

"The deviant's hiding out in one of your warehouses," Hank replies.

"Well, there's only one way in or out," he says. "We'll, uh, monitor the exits. Contact the DPD if we see anything."

"I'm afraid that's not good enough."

He blinks at Hank in confusion.

"Cyberlife wants the whole batch destroyed," Hank explains. "Every android in storage."

"Every android in storage?" Floyd echos in sheer disbelief. "But...that'll cost me thousands of dollars!"

Hank shrugs like it barely bothers him. "Hey, nothing I can do."

"Please, you gotta be able to do something-"

Something crinkles under my shoe. I lift my heel to the shredded pieces of Hector André's business card. I look up slowly to a projector screen across the club. Coming this December, the new Venus model exclusive to Eden club. Pre-order now. "I...I might have an idea."

Everyone shuts up immediately. Hank turns to me and waves at me to go on.

"You might not like it," I admit. "And it might not work."

"Doesn't sound like much of an idea."

"That depends on me."

"You?" Hank inquires.

I nod. "On how well I can sell it." Hank frowns that he still doesn't understand, but instead I turn to Mills. "You must have some Eden club uniforms in storage, right?" And I've never been so liberal with the term 'uniform' before.

"Of course," he replies. "Always keep them in supply. They're not for sale, though."

I press my lips together thinly. "As tempting as that sounds, I'm not looking to buy."

"What the hell do you want something like that for?" Hank implores.

If I explain it outright, I'll be shot down in a heartbeat, and we don't have time for another debate. "It'll be quicker if I just show you," I say.