People say that your life flashes before your very eyes in the wake of death. They're not completely wrong about that. But I've stared death in the face too many times to remember every little flash of whatever little memory decided to play on repeat for me. Mocking me for past regrets, past mistakes and past slip-ups.

This time it's different.

Rather than recall all of the times Em and I had fought with each other, or all of the times I wished I could've done as Mom had asked, or even all of the times I wished I could've done something - anything different to have saved Daniel and anything to have prevented Dad's death...I thought of Dad.

I thought back to his hesitant smile, so kind and yet so afraid to widen into a real toothy grin. Afraid to be himself. To when we'd lost everything - our money, our home, our future - and had been forced to live on the streets. And then Dad, with that sweet, uncertain smile of his, had gone off to apply to every IT company he could think of. He'd worked himself to the bone to get hired, and even after he'd succeeded, he barely stopped to feed himself. All he wanted was to make sure that his family had been taken care of first. Even when his skin had clung for dear life onto his thin frame.

"I failed you all," Dad had broken down in front of us one night, before he'd been accepted into a minor company. We'd been living and sleeping in a deserted, dirty alleyway for nearly a month, swaddled in the shadows. It was the first time I'd ever seen him weep.

That was when I realized that life doesn't play favorites. The people who are at the top just knew how to play the game of life to get where they wanted to be. And I would need to as well.

I refused to find myself in a similar situation ever again. One that rendered me helpless and desperate to the whims of others.

Now that same feeling of panic coursed through me. But I was different now. My training helped me learn how to channel that raw, primitive energy into crystal-clear focus. Whereas most people let their fear rule them, I was able to instantly use it to devise the best course of action.

One: If I managed to get Mom and Em out of Cyberlife, we'd need a getaway. If I took a taxi, any androids inside the tower could stop the vehicle. As Kamski had told me, anything that Cyberlife had built could be shut down if they so wished it. And although the news broadcasts all claimed to be destroying every android to have ever been created, I knew that Cyberlife would hold on to at least a few of them. They would be my next obstacle if I didn't take out Amanda. They would stop my family from getting out alive. And if I died and Em and Mom somehow managed to escape the tower, they'd have a chance to flee in a car unbound by Cyberlife's control.

Which made step number two: Gavin and Chris had arrived together to find me, meaning that they'd taken one car. And the driver was undoubtedly Chris. Gavin was too reckless when he was behind the wheel. There was no way in hell that Chris would let him drive. So I'd need to head to the DPD to find Gavin's car.

Assuming that Hank had driven his own car to Kamski's (for whatever reason that was), Gavin's car was my best shot at making it to Cyberlife on time. The DPD was closer to Cyberlife anyway, and if Gavin had taken his keys with him, then I at least had access to a whole patrol of squad cars, so long as I could quickly break into Fowler's office and grab a set of keys.

Three: Well, I wasn't exactly there just yet but I needed a story to get into Cyberlife. I'd figure it out on the way there.

The taxi pulled into the empty DPD parking lot. I got out and raced inside the station, noting the eerie silence and unsettling stillness. No-one was here.

Mounted on the wall, the television was turned on to feature the live coverage of Hart Plaza. I spared a glance to check on Markus and his people. Nothing had happened yet and I let out a sigh of relief. If only things hadn't come to this. If only Perkins wasn't their main obstacle right now.

A blue strip of text ran along the bottom of the screen, reading: "Civilians are advised to evacuate the city. Anyone who is still within the city's limits after curfew must remain inside their homes. Officers are on their way to detain any androids wandering the streets. Do not go outside for your own protection."

I raced to the reception desk and flashed my ID against the scanner. With a beep, I was granted access. I pushed inside to the main office and wound my way through the desks until I found Gavin's. Within moments I had snatched his car keys from his desk drawer.

Then I was back outside, running across the lot to open Gavin's automobile of unsanitary doom.

Slamming the door shut behind me, I jammed the keys into the ignition of his smelly, ratty old car. The stench was so powerful that I was forced to roll down a window. No point in suffocating in body odor and God knows what else. I ignored the piles of unknown waste in the footwells. I also ignored the grime on the steering wheel, crusting beneath my palms.

Still, my first thought was that Gavin's car needed to be thrown into the ocean to drown.

I leaned out of the window to attach a set of police lights on the car's rooftop with one hand. An old habit, but a necessary one considering what I was about to do. I couldn't afford to be pulled over now.

With a flip of the switch, the sirens woke up screaming like a banshee. The tires squealed as I peeled out of the lot in reverse, and I slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The speedometer ticked past twenty, fifty, then past eighty. By the time I took the exit ramp, I was exceeding well over a hundred-and-twenty mph down the highway.

Maybe taking a squad car would've been ideal, in the off chance that an officer saw me tearing down the road and realized that despite the flashing lights and sirens, the vehicle was not a police car. But Mom didn't know how to drive one of those and if she and Em were by themselves they'd need something to get out of there.

The road was deserted, save for the wailing red and blue lights flashing against the deep black asphalt. It was like I was the only person in the world right now. I may as well have been.

Another memory hit me.

Of Dad, having just returned home from a long day at Cyberlife. I could still remember swelling with pride every time he left in the morning, and every time he came back home. I could still remember the cologne he wore, lemongrass, his favorite. The way his smile still was reluctant to completely let its radiance loose. But for me and Em, sometimes he couldn't help himself.

I don't remember when his smile stopped shining for Mom. I don't remember when it all fell apart.

In this loop of memory, all I could think was that my Dad was so smart that his own company had recommended him to Cyberlife! That my Dad had gotten there all on his own merit. That my Dad had been hand-picked to join Cyberlife. How many other kids could say that about their own parents?

Yeah, I'd been blissfully naive. Even throughout my early college years. Even now.

But if it weren't for my Dad, I never would've had the mindset I had now. That if you worked hard and you did what you believed was right, you could make it somewhere. Sure, life didn't play fair all of the time, but you just had to keep going.

A green exit sign caught the lights of my car and I tightened my grip on the wheel. This was it. I leaned forward in my seat, let up on the gas a little, jerked the wheel to the left, and tore off down the exit ramp. While I was one of the best drivers in the DPD, controlling a car speeding well over ninety miles an hour wasn't an easy feat to pull off.

The tires skidded on the asphalt with an ear-splitting squeal and Gavin's car swerved so close to the railing that I almost scraped the paint clear off its side. The car started to tilt, precariously teetering on two tires, and I leaned into it, spinning the wheel. With a bone-jarring boom, the car fell onto all four tires and sent me flying into the steering wheel. My forehead smacked into the middle of it and the horn blared like a gunshot into the night.

"Ouch," I cried, clutching at my forehead. Realizing I'd forgotten to strap myself in, I reached for my seatbelt. Safety first, they always say. I couldn't afford to get myself killed on my way to rescuing my family now could I? God what an idiot I was. So much for my training.

If I destroyed Gavin's car on the way back, however, it was no big deal. The guy seriously needed a new one at this point. "Slob," I muttered, hitting the gas again.

Ahead of me, splitting the Belle-Isle's sky like a sleek, star-studded bullet, the Cyberlife Tower loomed above Detroit. It was a massive structure of black reinforced glass and steel, and it was lit from within with countless lights. The tower was built on a patch of land that bordered a body of water, resplendent with fountains and all sorts of fancy rich-people decor. I doubted that Kamski would find this to be to his taste, though. I peered up at the tower, struck dumb by the sheer amount of windows and lights. Not to mention the fact that there were many manufacturing facilities lurking somewhere beyond it.

I gave myself a mental shake. So what if the place was crawling with who knew how many Cyberlife weirdos wielding guns? So what if I didn't have a well-thought-out plan to infiltrate the heavily guarded monolith to rescue Mom and Em? I croaked out a nervous laugh. "Haha, I'm about to enter a deathtrap and I'm going a little coo-coo and why am I not more concerned about how poorly I thought this through? Oh wait - I didn't think this through. Wow, what a dumbass you are!"

My fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against the wheel. Then I leaned out of the driver's side to remove the flashing red and blue lights atop the roof and I clicked off the switch from inside.

They probably already had seen me. They probably had already heard me screeching down the road, too.

I'd never thought about making a this-is-my-death-song mixtape. Maybe I should've blasted one on the way here. Lord knows I needed something to keep myself in check.

Well, there was the all-consuming desire to rip off this new, psycho Connor model's head. That alone was worth it.

I hissed air through my teeth. Right. I was up against a state-of-the-art-prototype fresh out of wherever they had been birthed. Connor had said he was born ruthless and solely-dedicated to his mission. I'd seen some of that in him when I'd first partnered up with him and Hank. But the Connor I knew was a sweet, caring person. Now I was about to see what a purely non-deviant Connor model was really like. One who delighted in a mission that involved slaughtering a human being.

Yay me.

As I sped closer to my destination, for some reason, I thought of the Tower of Babel, from the Old Testament. When the people had tried to build a tower to reach the heavens, God had smote them out of the sky and shattered their little tower into pieces. He'd also made sure to fuck everyone up even more by making them all magically speak a different language. What a dick move.

And right now, I was doing something similar: going to piss off an angry Amanda, who by all accounts could be a god in this corrupt world.

"Em, hang on. I'm almost there," I gritted my teeth as the memory continued to play like a film behind my eyes. On the dash, the time glowed like a green digital death-mark. Twelve past ten.

I had eight minutes to get inside.

And I would.

It occurred to me, speeding down a deserted road in Gavin's beat-up ride like a demon out of hell, that I was most certainly going to die tonight. But strangely enough, that wasn't what had me feeling extremely anxious.

I hadn't come up with an excuse for why I was supposed to be allowed inside of Cyberlife in the first place. There would be guards stationed on the premises, in case anyone attempted to raid the most lucrative business in the world during one of Detroit's most vulnerable moments in history. And I was a member of the FBI.

It was no secret that the FBI had been investigating Cyberlife since its inception. The nation had been put into a treacherous position the day the androids had been created; everyone wanted access to something that would ensure them a fortune. Cyberlife may as well have been money-growing trees and any threat to its roots were to be sheared away.

"Oh fuck me," I said aloud. "Come on, think."

But all I could think about was the day that had come home from work with a strange aura about him. He'd grabbed my paint-flecked hands between his, brushing his thumb down my fingernails. He'd smiled. "I'm so proud of you. I always knew you were gifted but I never thought Carl Manfred would also see that in you. That he might try to see how far you could take your art. Bless the man." With a quick glance about the empty living room, Dad had lowered his voice to a whisper. It had cracked with an emotion I hadn't recognized at the time.

"Do you enjoy spending time at Carl's place? With Markus?" he asked me.

I squirmed as a blush heated my cheeks. "Yeah, why?"

"What about Daniel?"

I'd nodded. "Dad, where are you going with this?"

He'd hesitated for one long, painstaking moment. "Honey, I discovered something today at work. Something amazing."

"What do you mean?"

"What if I said...that androids are a new intelligent life-form? That Daniel...and Markus...that they're actually living creatures. And that...well, maybe they aren't simply machines? That we can help them all realize a brand new future for themselves?"

Before I could've begun to comprehend that the new emotion straining Dad's vocal cords had been guilt - guilt for working for a company that was enslaving what he now knew were sentient beings - Mom had come into the room, her eyes ablaze with fury.

"What on earth are you filling her head with? You know I've been trying to get her out of that man's house and now you're spinning tales about machines being alive! How dare you?"

And then Mom and Dad had dissolved into a screaming fight with each other. I'd backed away from them, had grabbed Em and Daniel and pulled them into my room to play a game of some sort. Something to drown their voices out. And all the while, I couldn't stop glancing at Daniel, wondering if Dad was right.

Wondering if Daniel could think and feel and dream.

What had happened that day at Dad's work? What had convinced him that machines were people? He was a man who had believed purely in science and nothing more. Until that day.

I started.

My mission was to investigate Cyberlife - my Dad's former employer. The FBI knew that my Dad was a very well-respected employee there. Well, until he was murdered by Daniel. But they had known that all the same.

That he was involved in the creation of androids.

"Oh my God…" Why didn't I think of that in the first place? Why hadn't it clicked until now? I had known all along that he had helped to create Daniel and his model line - I knew that he had been involved in creating androids - so why hadn't I ever thought about what that process entailed?

My hands constricted around the steering wheel.

But I didn't have any more time to ponder this new revelation, because the time on my dash read seventeen minutes after ten, and I was already approaching the gates of Cyberlife.