The Lieutenant drives us to the crime scene at 6413, Pines Street, and he makes no effort to conceal his disapproval of the situation, blaring the loudest and angriest rock music I've ever heard. I keep as silent as a mouse in the back seat, instead of engaging in the tense energy with the pair in the front.

They're not friends, that much is clear. I think Anderson might actually despise the android, which is quite a feat -it's hard to despise something that's incapable of a single human emotion, it's like despising a rock, or a microwave.

Even in the darkness, the state of the street worsens as we draw nearer to our destination. The houses are small, grey, and flat, with thick metal gates to keep out trespassers. With all of the amazing technological advances in the city, it's easy to forget how downtrodden the suburban streets of Detroit are. Anderson parks the car a short distance from a house crowded with bystanders and reporters, edged in holographic yellow police tape and more armed cops. "You two wait here." He shifts the gear, the engine dies in a slow splutter. "I wont be long."

For the first time in a while, I lean forwards and address the Lieutenant. "Why am I here if I'm not coming with you?"

"If I find the victim's android, I'll give you a yell. Until then, we don't need a tech expert."

"My instructions are to accompany you to the crime scene, Lieutenant," Connor declares.

Anderson glares at Connor. "Listen, I don't give a fuck about your instructions. I told you two to wait here, so you shut the fuck up and you wait here.

And with that a charming soliloquy, he leaves the car and slams the door behind him.

"Okay," I decide, pulling the hood of my jacket over my hair. "Let's go."

Connor looks at me in surprise. "But the Lieutenant said-"

"I heard him." I open the passenger door and step out. Connor follows me with its gaze from the front of the car with conflicted written all over its face. I stick my head back inside the car for a moment. "Can you prioritise your instructions?"

"Yes."

I drum my fingers against the roof of the car. "Come on. You're programmed to investigate."

"I know." It frowns slightly.

"Look, you don't wanna be alone here." A few bystanders have taken notice of the parked car and are craning their necks to get a better look -Connor sits a little too stiffly. "Let's just say I'm not the only one who knows how to strip an android for its parts."

Without this thing around, I get tossed in prison in the blink of an eye.

Eventually, I get it to follow me from the car, and as we worm our way through officers holding a crowd at bay, I catch quick, worried exchanges from the bystanders, some of which are obviously neighbours who stepped out in pyjamas and robes to see what all the disturbance was about-

"Have they said anything?"

"I didn't even know somebody was living there..."

"Typical DPD...They don't tell us shit!"

"I always knew that guy was a fucking creep."

An android policeman stops us at the yellow tape, and looks at Connor exclusively. "Androids are not permitted beyond this point."

"It's with me." Anderson's voice is low and grating.

I pass through the tape and hurry to the Lieutenant waiting for us by the front door. The rain is persistent tonight -It's a constant curtain of drizzle, a languid rain achieving nothing but wet mud and damp clingy clothes.

"What part of 'stay in the car' didn't you two understand?"

"Your order contradicted my instructions, Lieutenant," Connor retorts.

"Yeah? What's your excuse?"

"I didn't wanna wait in the car?" I offer.

He glares at the top of my head for a moment. "Lose the hood," he mutters. "Look like a fuckin' criminal. You two don't talk, you don't touch anything and you stay outta my way, got it?"

Connor is eager to agree. "Got it."

I'm a little less accommodating but I do lower my hood. "Got it."

He clenches his jaw with a few choice words, but never gets the chance to use them because a cop approaches us from inside the house. He's a wide older man, a veteran officer, with neat grey hair and a trimmed salt-and-pepper moustache.

"Evening, Hank." He removes his cap in an old fashioned show of respect. "We were starting to think you weren't gonna show."

"Yeah," Anderson agrees mournfully. "That was the plan until this asshole found me." He gestures back at Connor with his thumb, an act obviously for another finger entirely.

The two of them climb the steps of the porch. "So... you got yourself an android, huh?"

Hank pushes open the front door and steps inside, while Connor and I follow a few steps behind. "Oh, very funny. Just tell me what happened."

"What's with the girl?"

Hank glances back at me. "Some sorta tech genius."

The officer chuckles. "They just let anyone into crime scenes these days."

"Seems like it."

I step through the doorway and I'm hit in the face with a wave of foul air that springs tears from my eyes, like raw meat left in the hot sun, like mold and must and rotting flesh. "Oh, god-" I clutch at my mouth.

"We had a call around eight from the landlord." The officer crosses his arms over his chest. "The tenant hadn't paid his rent for a few months, so he thought he'd drop by, see what was going on...That's when he found the body."

I count half a dozen officers in the living room, dropping evidence counters on the floor and taking photographs with flash, lighting up the whole dark room in sudden bursts of white light. The darkness casts menacing shadows on everything, faces included. Clearly, this guy hasn't paid his electricity bills in a while.

And no wonder.

His face and stomach are bloated and the same shade of greyish-blue. His eyes are barely keeping in deep-set sockets, and are instead sagging and bulging towards the ground. His mouth is open, his tongue is thick and purple, and blood runs from the corner of his mouth to his dark shirt. Although, the shirt might've been white before all the blood and grime.

"... Jesus, that smell! Was even worse before we opened the windows."

I can't imagine it smelling worse without it literally boiling the back of my throat.

Hank crouches beside the body to get a closer look, and for the first time I'm more than happy to hang back.

"The victim's name's Carlos Ortiz," the officer continues. "He has a record for theft and aggravated assault. According to the neighbours, he was kind of a loner. Stayed inside most of the time, they hardly ever saw him."

"Uh, state he's in….Wasn't worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night." Hank shoots Connor a dirty look over his shoulder. "Could've waited 'til morning."

"I'd say he's been there for a good three weeks. We'll know more when the coroner gets here. There's a kitchen knife over here. Probably the murder weapon."

"Any sign of a break-in?"

"Nope," he responds. "The landlord said the front door was locked from the inside, all the windows were boarded up. The killer must've gone out the back way."

The body is lying in a thick pool of its own dark blood, and some of the blood found its way to the wall behind the slumped figure. Streaks and splashes over the ivory wallpaper, but also, the words I AM ALIVE in the same sanguinary paint.

It's far too neat to be freehand, although I can't imagine a murderer bringing a stencil to the scene. Unless what we're looking at is an ol' art teacher massacre. Honestly, now, I have to make jokes, otherwise I'll puke.

Hank gets to his feet and scans the wall. "What do we know about his android?"

"Not much. The neighbours confirmed he had one, but it wasn't here when we arrived."

"Do you know what model?" I ask the officer.

He's surprised to hear I have a voice. "No," he says. "Does it matter?"

"Maybe."

"Carlos Ortiz," Connor murmurs. "There are no androids registered to his name."

"Could be preowned. You don't register preowned androids."

"Could be," it agrees.

The officer glances back and forth between Connor and I, before turning to the lieutenant and patting him good-naturedly on the back. "I guess I'll leave you to it. I...gotta get some air. Make yourself at home. I'll be outside if you need me." He leaves a shade greener than before, fanning his face with the brim of his hat.

"You alright, Sam?" Hank asks me with a half-grin. "Lookin' a little pale."

"I'm fine."

"Y'know, you can wait outside if you want-"

"-I said I'm fine."

Hank chuckles to himself and turns to the body again. "Alright. Just lettin' you know, there's a sink in the kitchen. If you gotta be sick."

But his words have the adverse affect and my nausea is gone, like magic. I follow Connor as it approaches the body, admittedly I'm a little more at ease behind something else. It looks at the wall first, analysing the letters with a slow blinking of its LED.

"Each letter is perfect." Hank stands beside it. "It's way too neat, no human writes like this. Chris, was this written in the victim's blood?"

A young officer with black hair steps forwards from the group with a tablet in his left hand. "I would say so. We're taking samples for analyses."

Connor reaches for the letters and dips two fingers in the blood. It lifts the sample to its face, as if it means to inspect it closer, and proceeds to part its lips and put its fingers against its tongue. Everyone stops and stares.

"Jesus!" Hank cries. "What the hell are you doing?"

It turns with his eyes wide and innocent. "I'm analysing the blood," it replies, gesturing to the wall as if the answer's obvious. "I can check samples in real time. I'm sorry, I should've warned you."

Hank stares at it in disbelief. "Okay," he utters. "Just...don't...put anymore evidence in your mouth, you got it?"

Connor performs a kind of two-fingered salute. "Got it."

"Fuckin' hell," Hank curses under his breath. "I can't believe this shit."

"You can't...taste that. Can you?"

"Taste?"

I shake my head, dismissing it. "You have to be the first model I've seen analyse biological evidence."

"I also have a physical simulation software based on the analysis of elements. I can reconstruct past-evidence by cross-checking the evidence at my disposal."

I whistle and regard it with a hand on my hip. "Perfect detective, huh?"

It smiles like it takes it personally. Shifting again, I swear this thing was pointing a gun at me not an hour ago. I can bite my tongue for now, let it do what it's programmed to, even if that is smiling at me for seemingly no reason turning my stomach in discomfort. I can't believe I'm kneeling at the body to quell my unease, at least he isn't smiling.

"He was stabbed twenty eight times."

I cringe. "I'll take your word for it."

"Yeah," Hank agrees gravely. "Seems like the killer really had it in for him." He gets to his feet and wipes his clean hands on his jeans like the air itself is contaminated. "So, Sam," he mutters. "You made yourself useful yet? Or do I get to throw you in prison?"

"Not yet," I reply to both questions. "Give me five minutes."

"Five?"

A door at the end of the hall catches my eye. "Two," I correct.

The victim's bedroom has been opened and cleaned out with his paraphernalia in labelled cardboard boxes. An unassuming black case with the triangular Cyberlife logo is sitting on the bed -the cops collecting evidence likely didn't know what it was, or the significance of it. Preowned androids are sold with a case of spare parts, for insurance reasons. I collect the case and return to the Lieutenant, opening it with a flourish and spinning it around for review.

"Doesn't tell us anything," he mutters, staring at the contents. "Android parts. We already knew he had one."

I overestimated his ability to know substantial evidence when it was placed under his nose. I dig through the wires and components and list them off. "Four stabilisers. An X-40 chip. Thicker wiring, double coated. We're looking for a-" I pause and press my lips together in thought. "-HK400, eight years old. One of the earlier standardised models."

My trophy is the slack-jawed expression of the Lieutenant. "Expertise, huh?" he concedes. I stand a little straighter with the shiny badge of his praise pinned to the front of my shirt. "What do you know about that model?" he asks, and his voice is a little different like it's missing something -I think it's vulgarity.

"It should've contacted emergency services, If it witnessed anything."

"But we didn't hear about it for weeks," Hank muses.

Connor has moved its investigation to the kitchen. It crouches over a knife with an evidence label and again takes some of the blood coating the knife and puts it in its mouth. An in-built DNA analyser. Again, under different circumstance, I'd probably be Connor's biggest fan -I hate how often that realisation comes up. It puts a third and final piece of evidence in its mouth, a splattering of blue blood on the door frame leading to the kitchen. "HK400," it confirms.

"Not in circulation anymore."

"Huh." Hank rubs at his chin thoughtfully. "Why's that."

"They had...less stable reactors," I say. "Under heavy stress they were prone to self-destruct. One of the more fragile models. They pulled the line in '34 after issues with warranty."

"How the hell d'you know so much about androids?"

"It's my job."

He chuckles. "You have a job? I thought you were a thief -or is that just a side business?"

"And I thought you were a detective," I retort. "This is a crime scene, not the interrogation room."

Hank jabs a finger directly between my eyes. "I'll interrogate you as much as I goddamn please-"

But the other officers are growing aware of the confrontation, and from an outside perspective it's an older man leering over a young, defenceless girl with no lengthy criminal record to speak of. I wait patiently for him to continue. He slowly lowers his hand although his withering glare stays cemented in place -a permanent feature, I'm sure.

"We, uh, all good here?" Officer Chris waits behind Hank. Hank doesn't even grace him with a response -he turns and stalks off, leaving me alone with the young cop. He turns to me with a friendly smile. "You helping out with the androids?"

"I know a thing or two."

It's not right for a cop to be smiling at me. It's not right to have any exchange except running and hiding for my goddamn life.

"Can I get you some water?" he offers.

For a moment I'm too stunned to speak, next, he'll be saying he respects me, treating me like a human being. "Uh, no," I manage eventually.

He touches his chest with some semblance of pride. "Officer Chris Miller."

"Sam," I utter.

He shifts from foot to foot awkwardly and chuckles quickly to play it off. "Well, if you need anything -any help, you can ask me."

I perform a quick nod -more of jerk. I return to Connor and Hank overlooking an open gate to the back garden. The ground is wet and muddy with a single large footprint stamped into the earth at the foot of the door.

Hank doesn't acknowledge me before talking directly to Connor. "Door was locked from the outside. Killer must've gone out this way."

"There are no footprints, apart from officer Collins' size 10 shoes."

"Well, this happened weeks ago. Tracks could've faded."

"No, this type of soil would've retained a trace." Connor looks at the Lieutenant seriously. "Nobody's been out here for a long time.

"There's blue blood on the wall," I say.

"Enough to shut it down?" Hank asks.

"Not even close. But it's wounded. The HK400 has a stronger shell than others, something heavy hit it...a lot."

Connor returns to the kitchen again and kneels by an overturned wooden chair in a single fluid motion. It's almost fascinating to behold, a being so perfectly in its element you'd think it was born here in the blood and police lights. It reaches for a metal baseball bat half-hidden beneath the table, reconstructing past events. "Lieutenant," it calls out. "I think I've figured out what happened."

Hank leans leisurely against the door frame behind him. "Oh yeah?" he asks derisively. "Shoot. I'm all ears."

"It all started in the kitchen."

His interest is now piqued, he moves off the wall and surveys the mess in the kitchen with a more well-meaning expression. "There's obvious signs of a struggle," he agrees. "The question is, what exactly happened here."

"I think the victim attacked the android with the bat."

I study the splatter of blue blood on the door frame again. "Blunt force. Metal bat." I nod at Connor. "That's heavy enough to warrant the damage."

Connor stops at the knife in front of the living room and gestures at it. "The android stabbed the victim."

Hank nods slowly. "So the android was trying to defend itself, right? Okay, then what happened?"

"The victim fled to the living room."

"And he tried to get away from the android...all right," Hank admits. "That makes sense."

"The android murdered the victim with the knife."

"Okay, your theory's not totally ridiculous. But it doesn't tell us where the android went."

"It was damaged by the bat, and lost some Thirium."

"Lost some what?"

"Blue blood," I cut in. "The kind on the wall. It powers androids' biocomponents."

"You said this thing was beaten," Hank remembers "Shouldn't it be everywhere?"

"After a few hours it evaporates," I say. "Becomes invisible to the naked eye. Unless it's fresh...or there's an excess."

Hank shakes a finger at Connor. "But I bet you can still see it, can't you?"

And poor Connor misses his mocking tone entirely -it straightens with fresh ambition like the favourite student pet. "Correct."

"Yeah." Hank lifts his eyes heavenwards. "Of course you can. Alright, knock yourself out. Chris-" he waves the officer over who almost skips to attention. "-show Sam the bathroom."

"Yes sir."

I don't have much choice, Officer Chris gives me such a warm smile. I leave Connor scanning the floor at the body of the victim, and follow Chris to the last room I have yet to visit. The bathroom is as grey and decrepit as the rest of the house. I stop in the doorway at the grizzly scene -more chilling than the sight of a man gutted. Looking at it, I know what it feels like to be stabbed twenty eight times in the chest.

"Thought you'd like it," Hank chuckles from behind. "Someone was gettin' their arts-n-crafts on. What does your android expertise say about this?"

The shower curtain has been pulled back, revealing a grimy yellow shower and a wall scrawled from top to bottom with a single sign. And it hasn't merely been written, a sharp blade has carved it into the plaster. The first words out of my mouth are "where's Connor?"

"Probably still sniffin' like a bloodhound. Why?"

I back away from the room. I clutch the door frame so tightly my fingers pale to bone white. "We need to get out of here."

Hank opens his mouth to reply, but Connor's voice interrupts us both from the hall next door. "It's here, Lieutenant!"

The Lieutenant and I turn in perfect synchronicity. One moment, Connor is standing on a chair, climbing from the attic hatch, and before I can blink it's being pushed from above and landing in a sprawl of splintered wood. Something shadowy drops from the attic and leaps over Connor and dashes for the door to the garden. Cops yell and reach for it. Guns are loaded. I slide past Hank and sprint for the garden.

"Don't shoot! We need it alive!"

I burst through the door with Connor's voice ringing out behind me.

The android has the element of surprise and a good few seconds on me, but its movements are stuttered, jerky, likely due to its baseball bat injuries. I hit the ground running. Cops are hot on my heels but they're all exclusively men, some on the larger side, and the wet mud sucks them in and slows them. The android sprints for the tall chain link fence. If it climbs over and out of sight, we'll lose it. I'm gaining speed, running on nothing but black coffee and hot adrenaline and the slick of the ground. It slopes downwards for the final stretch. Almost close enough to touch. I drop to my knee and skid along the mud. As I do, I hit the black band around my wrist and it expands to a full finger-less glove. It lifts its leg up the fence and I close my gloved-hand around the android's ankle -the android freezes, half holding the fence, the LED fades and turns off.

The parade of cops thunders to a halt behind me. I turn slowly, my entire lower half caked in dark mud.

"Holy shit she can run!"

I walk past Hank and hit him on the shoulder, leaving behind a muddy stain, I can't find it in myself to care. "Keep up, old man."

"Hey, if I was twenty again I would've had it." But there's no malice behind his words, like he can't even keep that up anymore. "We would've lost it if not for you."

No. They would've shot it in the head the second it set foot over that fence. I wipe the worst of the mud from my jeans and nod at Chris, who steps towards the android with handcuffs. "I've deactivated it for a minute," I tell him. "It shouldn't give you any trouble."