Flying over San Francisco Bay, Turing turned his head in either direction, carefully cataloguing the water traffic below. He had counted sixteen vessels of various sizes and classifications on the bay, ranging from pleasure boats to shipping barges – an increase of 14% over his last visit to San Francisco. Although a cursory analysis of fishing records had revealed minimal change in the quantity and size of fish being caught, water traffic had at least started to rebound. Ascending three meters to increase the range of the scan, Turing's recalibrated his upgraded sensors. Greatly improved since the original version, these sensors could detect fluctuations on close to the molecular level. Each second, they took in new readings from the ambient air – temperature, composition, speed and direction, Tarasque poison levels – and populated the data into a spreadsheet for him to analyze at a later time. With a subtle adjustment, Turing altered course to pass through a cloud hovering above the water. As he entered the cloud, he shifted into hover mode, shifting his sensors to their hydro setting, and paused all other analyses temporarily. Examining the moment-by-moment data from the cloud, Turing flagged the data for immediate transmission both to Max and to Muhammed at the Somalia Miraculous Temple. Poison levels in the cloud water were 13% higher than the surrounding air – was that significant? Unfortunately, Turing could not formulate an adequate hypothesis from the available data – he had only a single data point; his mission parameters had not included regular testing of cloud water. Would Max wish to alter those parameters to account for this new information? Turing was not in a position to do so himself – Max would have to make such a decision.

A sudden updraft dispersed the cloud, and Turing turned into it, allowing the wind to buoy him another five meters up.

Below him, sunlight glinting off of a golden figure caught Turing's optical receptors and he turned in that direction. The golden form skimmed the water, no more than three meters above the surface, her arms held out wide; Turing banked slightly to the right, shadowing her forty meters above. The waves around her rolled, undulating at irregular intervals as the boat traffic interfered with the regular pattern. As a swell rose suddenly in front of her, Uncanny Valley veered sharply to the left, narrowly flying around the swell and holding her hand out to absorb some of the water into the special receptacle installed on her hand. Another wave rose up directly in front of her, and Turing paused, watching her carefully. Just before the wave reached her, as the top crested in a white cap, Uncanny Valley brought her hands together in front of her head and spun in a tight spiral, cutting straight through the wave and shooting out the other side. Turing nodded, resuming his own course, parallel to hers.

They had been doing this for four months, traveling across the globe together to place sensors and gather data about the Tarasque's poison and its dispersal. Yet with every day that he and Uncanny Valley spent in each other's presence, Turing learned something else about his companion.

A few birdcalls sounded across the Bay from the direction of the city's waterfront; separating them apart into the calls of four distinct specimens, Turing logged them in his database. The last time they had been in San Francisco, he had only catalogued the calls of 64 unique seagulls; the time before that, it had been 53 in the same time period. On this trip, he had already heard 47, and in only 60% of the time – extrapolating from available data, he hypothesized that he would hear 20% more seagulls on this trip than the previous one. The data had been consistent on their other trips – each time they returned to a location they had visited previously, they found evidence of a higher number of animals than the time before. Based on the evidence, the seagulls – and by extension, all the wildlife – were recovering from the Tarasque's environmental devastation.

Unfortunately, without a control point before the Tarasque's appearance, he could not determine when – or if – the wildlife would return to pre-Tarasque levels.

But that was a problem for Max to solve; all Turing could do was collect the data and analyze it. He and Uncanny Valley together.

Below him, Uncanny Valley wheeled around to fly perpendicular to her previous course, angling directly toward a school of fish visible just below the surface. Turing hovered in place, drifting slightly in her direction, and watched her reach down into the water and grab a single fish. The fish wriggled in her hand, but she clamped down tightly on it, sticking a needle in her palm into the fish's body for a few seconds. The fish thrashed about, but before it could free itself, the extraction was over. Uncanny Valley released the limp fish back into the Bay, and it righted itself and swam away from her, in the direction that the school had gone.

Just as another swell appeared directly in front of Uncanny Valley.

"Watch out!" Turing started to yell, just as Uncanny Valley flew straight into the center of the wave. The waved began to drop, pulling Uncanny Valley down with it. But even before her built-in flotation system had activated, Turing had already fired his grappling hook at her, looping it around her wrist and reeling her up, out of the water. She looked up at him, her mouth opening to speak, but so focused was he on what he was doing that he did not hear her words. Pulling as hard as he could, his jets strained to keep them both aloft as he drew her further out of the water. However, the moment that her torso cleared the bay, her jetpack reactivated and launched her up into the air, almost sending her crashing into Turing as he spun away from her out of control.

Stopping three meters from him, Uncanny Valley arched an eyebrow at him. "You know I was entirely capable of handling that situation for myself, right?"

Turing paused, righted himself, reset his grappling hook, and looked over Uncanny Valley, studying her posture carefully. She gave him an amused look. Her hands on her hips, the water already having evaporated from her body, her jets performing optimally. Finally, he nodded. "I… realize that," he admitted. "I apologize. It was… foolish of me to interfere when you had not requested the assistance and did not appear to be in distress."

She let out a giggle. "I think the term Jess would use is 'sweet'. Although I fail to ascertain any commonality between your actions and the taste of sucrose."

"Both are pleasant?" suggested Turing with a shrug. "Or more precisely, both can be construed as such?"

"Perhaps…" she mused, studying him closely. "Whatever the reason, Jess tends to prefer that term – particularly in her communications with me over the last two months. I have observed it to be her third-most-commonly-used word."

"Do you often analyze your sister's vocabulary?"

Uncanny Valley shrugged. "It's a habit. When we were younger, vocabulary was my best indicator of Mom's mental and emotional state: she spoke differently when she was angry at me."

Turing nodded, looking out over the Bay around them, returning to his analysis of water traffic. The sun had reached its zenith five hours ago; it had long since begun to set. Fewer of the pleasure craft that he had catalogued previously could still be seen on the bay, though he still counted four, one motoring in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Commercial traffic continued unabated, however. According to his data, it would not diminish for another four hours. "I have not attempted a similar analysis of my parents," he told Uncanny Valley.

She nodded. "I have not conducted an extensive study, but I have identified certain patterns in your father's speech," she replied. "I can share my findings if you are interested."

"I would be interested," he agreed.

She glanced away, looking in the direction of the Bridge, before returning her focus to Turing. "But to more practical matters, have you completed your part of the survey?"

Turing paused for a moment and nodded. "I have just collected the last data points necessary. We can return to New York any time we are ready."

Uncanny Valley cocked her head to one side, her eyes winking out for a moment. "I am detecting an anomalous reading in the marine data," she reported. "According to sensor 31, the Tarasque poison concentration in the Bay is less than 3 parts per million, but my readings show a level of approximately ten times that."

"Sensors 30-38 all show similar readings," Turing pointed out. "Could the anomaly be in your sensors?"

She shook her head, her eyes reactivating. "Absolutely not. "The readings from marine life are consistent with my own test. The most logical explanation is that there is a problem with either my sensors or the sensor network. But because my readings of the air align both with your readings and those of sensors 39-47, I conclude that the problem is with the sensors, not with me."

Humming, Turing dropped a little lower and angled to fly straight toward the Golden Gate Bridge, dropping his own hand into the water when he was low enough and running it through his own sensors. Uncanny Valley trailed close behind him on the landward side. The sun's glare off the water below almost blinded him until he modulated his eyes to compensate, changing the color palette radically. Finally, on reaching the bridge, Turing paused, hovering just above the water level, next to a small solar panel attached to the bridge's support pillar. Landing just above the water, Uncanny Valley pulled the sensor up out of the water and held it out to Turing.

"Corrosion," she told him. "That must be why it is not recording data properly."

Turing cocked his head to one side, his eyes narrowing slightly as he studied it. "I agree," he began. "But I do not understand how we could have missed this."

Uncanny Valley shrugged. "The most logical explanation is that Max failed to compensate for the salinity of the water," she pointed out.

"Yes, but…"

"It's a simple fix," Uncanny Valley continued, detaching the sensor and placing it in the storage compartment in her chest. "We just need to replace the housing and make sure the sensor's wire isn't exposed to the salt." She flew across to the next support strut, removed the sensor, and turned it over in her hand. "We can produce new ones in New York and replace these tomorrow." She glanced back at Turing, still hovering by the first pillar. "Are you okay?"

He started but nodded. "I am just… surprised that Max would have made such an obvious mistake."

She shrugged. "This is the first mistake he's made," she pointed out. "That's not bad. After all, he's human, right? And he's been under a lot of stress lately."

"True."

Fifteen minutes later, after removing all of the defective sensors, they flew side-by-side away from the water, back toward the San Francisco United Heroez's penthouse facility. Turing remained quiet, running through simulations in his head as they went. Max had made a mistake? But Max was his father. Yet Max had admitted to making mistakes in building Turing himself. What were those mistakes? He had run diagnostic after diagnostic on himself, all fruitlessly. But there was nothing for him to do but continue.

They were less than two kilometers from the building when Uncanny Valley stopped, her head cocked to one side, and smiled, bobbing up and down in midair.

Turing stopped to hover next to her, turning slowly to scan the area. "What do you observe?"

"Do you hear the music?" she asked, pointing a little further south. "I think that's 'The Ballad of the Butterfly.'"

"What?"

"Jagged Stone's latest single." She giggled. "It's about your mom, actually."

"Really?" He stared at her in surprise.

"It's a little piece of what happened in Angola – I was even there for some of it. Although he leaves a lot of details out," Uncanny Valley continued, not paying him any attention. "That's for the best, probably."

"Are you hearing it on the radio?" he asked.

She frowned. "No… I don't think it's the radio – I don't pick it up on any stations in range. I think it might actually be coming from the theater down there," she told him, pointing to a spot three blocks east.

Turing hummed pensively and ran a quick search. "Evidently, Jagged Stone is performing there tonight," he reported.

"Wait, seriously?" Uncanny Valley's eyes widened. "I've only ever heard him in person once – at the wedding."

"That is the only time I have heard him, also," he responded, nodding in agreement.

"So, what do you think?" she asked. "We've almost finished up here – just replace those sensors and we are finished in San Francisco. Shall we 'celebrate' by attending a concert?"

Turing paused for a long moment as she watched him expectantly. Finally, he nodded. "I have secured two tickets."