I'm out in the parking lot, and running to keep up with Kensi.
"Hey, wait up! Kensi!" I shout, when I'm halfway to my car.
"I want to go." Kensi says, turning to face me.
"Your conduct was hardly professional." I say, chastising my partner.
"Sorry, but that whiner was nothing but an idiot. Maybe you can sympathize with him, but I don't." Kensi, harshly.
"Hmm." I grunt, wondering Kensi is going with this.
We both continue to walk towards my car, when Kensi starts talking again.
"That jerk can't figure out how a robot could possibly be as good as his precious human star." Kensi said.
Kensi sighed as we continue walking to my car.
"Don't you understand? All of McCanon's talents, personality and dreams were inside that machine." Kensi said.
"Oh, my God." I say.
"Yeah, what is it?" Kensi snapped, and then turned her back to me.
"I didn't realize." I say.
I didn't realize that a robot could so design complex that they could be human, but then again with robots being manufactured illegally I shouldn't be surprised. I think to myself.
There's nothing I could say to excuse my accusation, so I remained silent. Which didn't last long because my phone started beeping again.
"Huh." I say, reaching for my phone.
It's not a standard phone, with an ear piece and a receiver; it's more of a video phone with an ear bud. When I answer the call, I see that I have an email.
"Deeks here." I say, answer the call.
"Uh, it's Eric. I'm a receiving a weird voice transmission. Is Kensi with you?" Eric asked.
"Uh." I say looking up from my phone.
I look around and realize that Kensi has left.
"No, I'm afraid I don't see her right now." I say.
"It's coming to is in real time, so I'll transmit it to your mailbox. Log it and show it to Kensi right away." Eric said.
Just as Eric hangs up, I see a woman's face appear on the screen. She's wearing a robe, and has a towel on her head, as if she just stepped out of the shower.
"I told you, an officer name Kensi." The woman said, trying not to panic.
"Okay, okay, lady. We're looking for her right now." The man said, trying to calm her down.
The man on receiving the call didn't sound so… genuine with his concern for getting the woman help.
"Please, you've got to help me. I'm a Third!" The woman exclaimed.
As soon as she utter the word Third, my eyes almost popped out of my head.
"What's your name again? Wait. Let me get a pen. All right, go ahead." The man said.
"Manning. It's Jessica Manning. I'm keeping a list of all the Thirds from Pluto. I can't go outside because of the protests, and the man on TV who killed that singer has been sending me mail! Something is going to happen to me unless you help me!" Jessica exclaimed as the phone call was coming to an end.
I get into my car, and a video appears on my screen. I'm frozen in place by the video, as if trapped by some trance; watching the scenes play out. I see a woman in an office behind a desk. She calls out to the person that stepped into her office, and then screams as she is murder, gun downed in cold blood. The next scene is of a woman sleeping in bed. She comes to as the murder enters her room. She sits up, with no top on her torso, just a few seconds before taking three bullets: one in each shoulder, and the third one in the sternum.
"Huh. Why are they all female?" I ask, puzzled by the string of murders being committed against women.
Another murder happens, and it's of a dancer. She doesn't say anything, just stares up at her murder as he fires a round into her head. Just as she is sliding down the wall, the suspect reaches out with his hand and lifts the body up by the chin. He smears her blood on the poster on the wall behind the woman as she drops back to the floor. I left the bar, and I decide to head over to Jessica Manning's shop. It's possible I might be able to get to her before anything happens. What I wasn't expecting was the suspect to call some local news station to talk some more. On my screen, I see the suspect lounging on a nice couch. A lot of the protestors were out in city streets, and they killed a lot of robots. They put the robot's body in a pile, stacking them on top of each other and starting a bon fire. I hear some person yelling at the suspect.
"TV piracy is a felony, pal. You could get eight years of hard labor in prison. Who the heck are you?" The man asked.
"I'm Rene D'Anclaude." The suspect said.
"Huh?" The man asked.
"It's my name." D'Anclaude said.
"So just who do you think you are, mister?" The man asked.
"There are other things to concern yourselves with. Let me show you." D'Anclaude said.
D'Anclaude got up off the couch, and walk over to a table in the middle of the room he was in. He cleared his throat before continuing his speech.
"Robots are disguising themselves as humans. Am I wrong? It's my duty to do something about this. You must be rid of those so-called Thirds. First contestant. This is Jessica Manning." D'Anclaude said.
"Crap!" I said.
"A snobbish, bourgeois artist who lives and works right here among you. She had you all fooled." D'Anclaude said, leaning on the table. He laughs before continue, as I slam my foot on the gas pedal."What should we do about her?"
D'Anclaude starts laughing. It's an easy laugh at first, but then it becomes a full-blown maniacal laugh. I pull up front of Jessica's shop; the windows are blown out and the lights are off. I realize that my efforts to save her are in vain. I go in anyways, with my gun drawn. I don't know if there are any survivors. I give a precursor sweep of the main entrance and it's clear, but I hear a woman crying from rear of the shop. I move to the back end to see a young woman crying in the moon light that is spilling through the window next to her. I put my gun away as I approach her.
"Hey, are okay? Where's Miss. Manning?" I ask.
The woman throws her arms around me and continues to cry. I'm taking back by her actions.
"Jessica! Save her, please! Why?" The woman exclaims, and continues to sob.
I wrap one arm around her waist, the other bracing her neck. The picture she was crying in front of was of an angel talking to a man. I stare at the picture a little bit before I answer the woman, determination on my face. An angel never saved Jessica when I needed them to, so I will do this myself; even though I know it will be in vain.
"It's all right. You just wait here." I say.
I extricate myself from the distraught woman's embrace and exit the shop. I remember passing a group of protestors on my way to the shop so I head down to the gathering. When I get down there, there's more screaming and shout for robots vacate the jobs their currently presiding in. I have to push my way through the crowd shouting.
"Let me through! Police! Hey!"
I get to the front of the group and I can see that I misjudged the size of the bon fire.
It's massive! It has to be at least six feet tall. I think.
The heat radiating off of the fire is so strong that I have turn my head away and lift my arm to shield my face from the blaze. The chanting continues, but something odd happens. When I turn back to look at the fire I see a robot, whose mouth was hanging open, come to life; as if an act of self-preservation, or as a last act of defiance. I see its eyes light up. Almost as if it were transmitting something.
"Huh?" I say.
Somewhere on the other side of town Kensi was sitting on a swing set. She feels a shock go through her, and then she see it. On her visor, Kensi see what the robot in the fire near Deeks was sending out.
"It's them. The list of Thirds." Kensi says. "Yes. And then? No, wait!"
The transmission was over as soon as it hit Kensi. Kensi ran over the list of names again, and then buried it. As if by some otherworldly force Kensi knew what was about to happen, and took off running. On the other side of town I was wandering the back alleys looking for clues. What I wasn't expecting was a run in with him. I hear a noise, and when I turn to see what was making it, and saw Rene D'Anclaude twirling the hand cuffs on his wrist. I pull my gun, and give chase. As I'm chasing D'Anclaude through the back alley, it never occurred to me that I should radio in for back up. I can hear D'Anclaude's maniacal laughter as we're running through the alleys. I'm gaining on him, and when I turn a corner I see the alley splits off in two different directions but he is nowhere to be seen.
How did I lose him? This alleyway is pretty big, but where did he go? I think.
Off in the distance I see a church, and I make my way there. Back out in the streets Kensi is standing in front of the same fire I was standing at a few minutes ago. She just stands there, looking at the dead robot that sent her the list. Kensi finally snaps out of her trance when she church bell tolling the hour. Back at the church, I'm exploring the building for a time. As I step out onto the interior balcony I hear gun fire and D'Anclaude's maniacal laughter again. I also hear the shattering of a stain glass window that has been blown out by a ricochet bullet.
"Slow down!" D'Anclaude exclaims.
I starting running when the first shots rang out, but I take a round in my right leg, at the knee.
"Ah!" I exclaim.
The pain course through my right leg is excruciating it stops me in mid stride. When I turn back to face D'Anclaude, I flash back to the night that Jess was kill, and as it then the killer pointed a gun at me and was shot from behind. I come back to the present just as D'Anclaude was begin to speak, with his gun drawn, pointed at me.
"You, of all people should understand my work. After all, didn't a cyborg kill you partner? They're a pestilence." He said.
If he's not going to shoot me, then I'm going to take this time to go on the offensive. I think.
I stand up upright, with some trouble, grunting as I adjust to the pain in my right leg. The shock on his face evident.
"Hmm? But your leg." D'Anclaude says.
I lunge for him, pushing him out the door, and onto the balcony. I throw a few knees into his midsection before he catches my right leg at the knee.
"Hey, sailor, what's this?" D'Anclaude asks.
He bites the fabric over my knee, and tears it away as he flips me onto my back. I let a loud grunt as I go flying onto the concrete, and D'Anclaude lets out his maniacal laugh when he sees that my right leg is a cybernetic limb.
"You've got to be kidding me. A fake leg? Surely the ironic humor of this hasn't escaped you." He says.
I'm sweating, and breathing heavily from exhaustion. I've never been in a situation like this; where I pushed my leg to this extreme. D'Anclaude starts laughing again.
"You're almost a stinking cyborg yourself, you freak." He shouts.
We hear another bell begin to ringing from an adjacent tower.
"Huh?" He asks.
The bell continues to toll, and the both of us are looking for which tower it's coming from, or if there's a new player about to enter the field. On a nearby tower a shadowy figure carrying one of the corpses from the fire. Behind the dome we the crane kick into operation. I see the shadow as it fall across the dome.
"What's that? Huh?" D'Anclaude asked.
The crane was thirty feet from hitting the section of the roof we were on, and D'Anclaude had quit paying attention to me. So I ripped my leg from his grasp, and threw him back into the building. I jump off the balcony and ran out onto the roof just in time to avoid being smashed by the crane. There's a big dust cloud from where the crane made contact with the church. It takes a few minutes for the cloud to dissipate, but what catches my attention is who operated the crane. I can't see their face, but I can make out their silhouette from here. I can also make her attire from here to.
"It's you." I say.
"Until now you've never witnessed the true power of a Third. Allow me to demonstrate." Kensi said, jumping onto neck of the crane.
Just as the smoke had almost clear Kensi was a third of a way down the neck of the crane, jogging. I can hear D'Anclaude force himself through the rubble, coughing, trying to clear the air of dust. I can see that Kensi has cleared the two-thirds of the neck and is, for a lack of a better word, a blur. The speed at which she is running at is not human. D'Anclaude gets up and starts firing on Kensi; Kensi throws her arms up and the bullets are ricocheting off of them, while some are burying themselves into her body.
"Eat this! Burn, you misfit!" D'Anclaude shouts, as he throws a grenade at Kensi.
The grenade explode, and before the smoke clears I see Kensi come rushing out of the smoke, I can see where the bullets had entered her body. Some of the wounds had a blood trail, others did not; but Kensi was determined to screw D'Anclaudes' day up. I hear Kensi yells as she jumps in the air, poised to strike. D'Anclaude gasps, but draws a knife just mere seconds before they collide. I hear grunting, who it is I have no idea. I'm panting as I run get close to see what is going on. I stand frozen, watching the scene in front of me. I see the silhouette of their bodies on the roof.
From I here thought I saw Kensi eyes open, just barely, because the next thing that happens is Kensi reaches out and grabs D'Anclaude's throat, but Kensi didn't choke him. I can see electricity entering his body through her hand. I can hear D'Anclaude scream out in pain. His screams echo throughout the area for about thirty seconds, which turn into gagging until he loses consciousness. Just as Kensi is pulling the knife he speaks again.
"You monster" He says.
I hear the weapon clanging as Kensi grabs D'Anclaude by the collar of his coat.
"Yeah, that's. I'm a monster. Just another for a Third in you book." Kensi said.
I'm looking on in horror at the sight in front of me. My previous thoughts of prejudice against robots starting to dissolve because of my partner.
"What are you going to do, destroy me? Why? What did we ever do to humans? If humans don't want me, then why did they create me?" Kensi shouts, with tears streaming down her face.
I can see Kensi raise her hand like she was about to punch in the face, as if some kind of poetic justice for all the deaths he has cause to date, but I intervene.
"Don't do it! Just cuff him!" I shout. "You're a police officer first, Kensi, and you know what our duty is." I say, reaching my hand out trying to stop her through some unseen force. I can see her falter, she still wants to hit him, but my words are reaching her. "Kensi it doesn't matter that you're a Third. You're a cop, and you're my partner."
I see the fight go out of Kensi, and she lowers her hand down, as she lays D'Anclaude back to the ground. I walk back onto the balcony, to help Kensi in whatever capacity needed. I can still see a trail of tears on her face, her body shaking from her sobbing, and her hands are balled into fist. I looking on in pity at my partner, the current wreck she has become to prove something; what it is I have no idea. She sits upright, and then realizes that she is not properly dressed, I think the term would be dressed.
"No, don't look at me." Kensi says, turning away and cover herself up as if she was ashamed to let me see her body in its current stated, all bloody and riddled with bullet holes.
She continues to cry, but gives up all pretenses and stops crying. She stands up and faces me, with her arms covering her body. A few seconds later she drops her arms to her side, and lowers her head in defeat, or shame.
"You had already figured out that I wasn't a human, didn't you? I feel like some kind of grotesque puppet. I can walk and talk and I can laugh and I can cry." She says.
I can see tears streaming down her face. I close my eyes and shake my head at her. I don't care what Kensi origins are, she's my partner.
And right now my partner could use medical help. I think.
"But I'm only a monstrous doll." Kensi said, tears flying from her eyes as she prepares to run.
The next thing I see is Kensi do a swan diver over the side of the balcony, and into the river.
"No!" I scream, too late to stop her.
A few seconds later I hear water splashing as Kensi breaks the surface of the water. I look out over the bay, and I can see the city on the other side; I have no idea where Kensi will come to shore.