As I'm walking to the graveyard to meet Eddie I hear a snippet of a news clip. The video footage is the aftermath of mine and Kensi assault on the hospital only mere hours ago. I see people standing around: civilians, police officers, news reporters and their camera men. I hear the man covering the story begin speaking.
"Next in the news: the Martian Police Department is investigating the terrorist attack at Shenora General Government Hospital, which occurred during an anti-robot demonstration. The police are asking for our viewers' help in locating these two suspects: Martin Deeks and Kensi Blye. The M.P.D. confirms there is a definite connection. If you have any information, please notify the police." When they mention mine and Kensi name the show a photograph of our face with our names on the bottom of the photo.
About the time the anchor man had finished the segment Eddie was walking into the graveyard to meet me. He was probably nervous because he was aiding and abetting known fugitives. Or it could be the fact that there was a protest recently, and the burnt remains of their robotic victims were left in the position when they died. The blood had dried on the stakes that were driven into the victim's bodies, the wires were disconnected and weren't charged with electricity. One of the bodies had visible circuitry, but the rest had been destroyed in the fire.
"Yuck." Eddie said.
Eddie walked up to a tombstone that had red paint on it in a shape of a circle. In the middle of the circle was a robotic head that still had flesh on it that hadn't been burned completely off. On the forehead was a pentagram and a candle that was half burnt. Eddie, out of sort of respect for the dead, tried wiping some of the wax off of the skull. Eddie heard some whistling, and turned to find me standing by the railing near the outskirts of the graveyard.
"Let me pick out our next meeting place, okay? Tables with umbrellas. If that makes you too sick, I know a vending machine and a clean bench." Eddie says when he approaches me.
"I guess this is the worst place." I say.
"The worst place? Only is I was in your shoes." Eddie says.
"Will you cut the crap? Did you find anything?" I ask.
"Hmm, yeah. Your Dunwich Hill exists, but not on any map." he says, as he pulling out a receiver that has the G.P.S. coordinates to Dunwich Hill. "I found a good highway going smack blank into a mountain, but no Granger address box inviting any mail from a rogue cop."
"No satellite topographicals?" I ask as reach out to turn the receiver towards me.
"Come on. Like I really have a couple of moons to power this thing." Eddie says. I shut the receiver down, and put it in my jacket. "Hey, what are you doing?"
"A loss on duty." I say blankly.
"Yeah, the dearly departed." He says nervously as I turn and walk away. Eddie turns and looks off into the distance. Before I get far I hear Eddie speak again. "Hey, Deeks! Can you tell those guys – the Martians—Tell 'em Eddie says, "What's up?"
"Sure." I say cracking a smile.
M.A.M
We wait for nightfall to leave the city, that way we were less likely to be spotted as we were leaving. On highway leading to the complex we had talked for a while, but I noticed that Kensi had become eerily quiet the last quarter, to half a mile. We were listening to country music, probably a McCanon song, as we enter the canyon that leads the instillation.
"So, what's wrong?" I ask.
Silence.
"Well, are you gonna tell me?" I asked.
More silence.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"No, I'm not. My C.P.U.'s all messed up." Kensi said, probably got damaged in that last fight with D'Anclaude. I think. "They say the mind is the first thing to go. Humans say."
"Come on, Kensi. Machines don't go senile." I say, laughing internally to myself.
"They say life is pretty short. It's like an expiration date, you know?" she says.
There was more silence, and I could hear the country lyrics to the country song.
"Hey, how come…" Kensi begins but stops short of finishing the question.
"What?" I ask.
"What's the reason you're doing all of this for me, huh?" she asks. There's a moment of silence before she begins again. "So tell me, how come you're still with me and driving me all the way out here anyway? I mean why change from a good cop to a criminal?"
I guess there are two answers to that question. I think. The first is that I want to see how this whole debacle started. Why create the Thirds at all when the Seconds were just fine. The second answer is because… well. I start to feel that same sensation in my chest as when I got close to Jess Traynor.
"Hmm." I say. Kensi has been working by herself along time that she isn't used to having a partner that is willing to follow her everywhere, even at the expense of their own job.
"How come…" Kensi begins.
"Stop it! You're asking stupid questions like some little kid. Why? How come? There's no answer for these questions." I say.
We sit in silence for a moment. That was until I hear Kensi gasps, and I look up to see that we are fast approach a bend in the road. I swerve to keep us from hitting the wall, and when I bring the jeep to a screeching halt, I turn the music down. We look to where the highway ends and we see the instillation where Doctor Granger resides.
"That's it, isn't it?" Kensi asks.
"Coordinates." I say. I see that screen light up. Then a message appears on the screen: Congratulations! You are at the Virgin area Now!
"Virgin? Yeah, maybe if you just landed here." I say.
Kensi jumps behind me to the ground ready to continue the search. I realize that there isn't a place to park the jeep in case we were followed.
"Hey, it wastes fuel to keep the motor running." I say.
Kensi turns back to me, and gives me a hard look, and then turns away. I look around and see there isn't a place to park the jeep nearby to hide it, so I drive it to up to the door, and shut the engine off. We enter the facility, and look for a way further into the it. I saw a dome as we were approaching the complex, and the main uses for domes are usually for greenhouses. We make our way through the halls in silence, I scan the halls periodically, just make sure we don't get ambushed by a security unit, either human or machine. We open a random door, and I take a quick peek, and then enter. As soon I as get a good shooting stance, I raise my gun in case there are any hostiles, but there weren't any. All that was in the room was mechanized suit of armor that was incomplete. Probably a prototype. I think.
The next elevator we exit deposits us into the greenhouse I was expecting, except it was more of a habitat than a greenhouse. I could hear birds chirping, I even thought I could hear the low hum of insects. We exit the elevator back to back in case we jumped by the security squad we were expecting earlier, but after I clear the elevator nothing tries to attack us. So we make our way across the habitat.
"Yo! Anybody here?" I say. We walk for a little while. "We're looking for a guy called Granger! Is anyone here? You got visitors!"
Kensi got distracted by something, and wasn't looking behind here. Her gun hand touches a branch, and it moved. Kensi turned to look at the thing, and it had water dumped on her.
"Oh." Kensi said.
"What happened?" I asked.
We both saw a plant like creature that had dumped the water on Kensi from watering can, and it was about seven to seven and a half feet tall looming over her.
"All right, take it easy. Move away from it nice and slow." I say as I pointed my gun at creature.
"Don't shoot. It's only a robot." Kensi says.
"Yeah, a big one." I say, lowering gun.
"It somehow just like me. I think it's a bioroid type." she says.
"What is that? Is it some kind of prototype?" I ask.
"May I help you?" A very familiar voice asks.
"Huh?" Kensi says.
We stare in horror at the machine that is staring at us. Kensi gasps upon recognizing the unit, and grunted when she train her gun on it. It was D'Anclaude. Same blonde hair and haircut, same blond eyebrows. Even the same blue eyes.
"Talk about your family trees." I say.
"It's another D'Anclaude. That same face and voice." Kensi says.
"I heard someone calling for Dr. Granger." D'Anclaude said.
Kensi just grunted at the machine.
"I did." I say.
D'Anclaude looks at Kensi, then back to me. "Appointment?" Kensi still had her gun trained on him. "No, I suppose not. Would you follow me, please?" D'Anclaude said, and then turn to lead us out of the habitat. D'Anclaude leads us to an elevator, and that takes us deeper into the facility.
"Dr. Granger, visitors. A Mr.-" D'Anclaude says, as we step off the elevator.
"Deeks."
A man in his late fifties, early sixties with a partial horseshoe haircut, looks up from the computer he was working at.
"Papa?" Kensi says.
"Ah, the new man from Conception." Granger says, mistaking me for somebody else. "It's been so many years, and you even brought one of the models along. Mr. Deeks." he says, walks over to shake my hand.
"Uh, but I'm not-" I begin to say, nervously.
"Papa?" Kensi says cutting us off.
Both Granger and I look at Kensi. Kensi stares up at Granger with a look of joy in seeing her adoptive father again. It was a moment before Granger spoke again.
"Oh, but she's only a Third. She's so inferior. The poor little thing. But you needn't be so kind. It's outdated." Granger says. The look on Kensi face is one of hurt, wounded actually. The man she looked up to as her father her entire life, and he called her inferior. She is definitely hurting after that comment. Granger rest his hand on Kensi head, as if she was some kind of object, not a living construct that has feelings and emotions, one's that have just been seriously damaged.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Here take a look at this." Granger points to a glass tank that hold a robot being formed. "A Fourth type that Conception can be proud of. There's no longer any need to copy humans or plants anymore."
The machine being created in the tank is the same type of robot that we just encountered in the habitat. I watch as Dr. Granger approaches the tank, and place his hands on the tank. I get the feeling that the doctor has a Victor Frankenstein complex. Both Kensi and I stare at the tank, I stare in shocked awe at the life being created, while Kensi is has a look of terrified horror by the life being form. Kensi stares at the tank, and begins to wonder if that was how she had entered this world.
"They live. They're alives. Oh, no, we should call them "phobians." What? Yes, a new life, my Marfortean, but you won't. You'll just be calling them anything you want when you market them. The stupid company you work for is just going to call them "the Fourths," aren't they? They're alives. A grand conception. Then it all goes wrong." Granger says, turning back to us with a hand raised a look mania in his eyes.
After Granger finished speaking, he starts to have a minor melt down, and he begins grunting as he gently, slams his fist against the cabinet next to him. He starts babbling on about something, but I don't catch it because D'Anclaude steps in. Kensi and I are staring at Granger's melt down: Kensi shocked that the man, who she calls father, his mind has deteriorated so badly. I'm just staring at the man in disgust that he has allowed society to have fallen so far.
"The doctor's mind was unfortunately altered. Reduplication of his thought is very difficult. Please be patient." D'Anclaude says.
"His memory, was it erased?" Kensi asked.
"Who are you?" I asked D'Anclaude.
"I am Wilber D'Anclaude, and Dr. Granger's aide." D'Anclaude said.
"Oh, well, yeah, he might look to you like he's one of those "assassinroid." But I fixed up his crazy head, just as you can see." Granger said.
"Indeed he did. The violent tendencies are gone due to the upgrade." D'Anclaude says, boasting about Granger's work.
"What's the reason?" I ask.
"Pardon?" D'Anclaude asks.
"Dr. Granger, his mind. Just what's wrong with it?" I ask.
"Forget it, Deeks." Kensi says. I turn to look at Kensi, and I see a look of defeat written on her face. "That's enough." Kensi turns, and leaves the lab.
I follow Kensi out of the lab, back into the habitat. She finds a tree off in the corner, and she pulls the trench coat, that I leant her, tight around her body. While siting a rock, I build a small fire between the two of us, in hopes of warming her up, but to no avail.
"Are you still cold?" I ask, after the fire had been going for a ten minutes.
"Yes, it's affecting my nervous system." Kensi says, I can see the misery in way her body language, and in her eyes.
"I'm sorry I lost my temper. I was… just hoping the doctor would be able to help you somehow." I say.
"Never count on hope. You'll lose. When wishes are gone, hope gives nothing. And then you hope that your father might know, and hopes are really fragile. They get all ruined every time you believe that somebody else is gonna help your hopes come true." Kensi says, I could see the tears brimming in her eyes. I watched as she turned away to cry tears of defeat.
Kensi is a machine built to be human. She doesn't know the first thing about human emotions. She trusts me, and I'm falling for this woman. I guess it's time to show her what it means to be human. I think.
I get up from my rock, and walk over to Kensi. I kneel down as I gently tap her on the shoulder. Kensi didn't even hesitate to hide the tears that she is crying. "A hope is a feeling. Maybe you'll be okay." I say.
To Kensi everlasting credit, she doesn't use the logical portion of her brain. "If I was a Second, then I wouldn't even be able to think of all this stupide crap." Kensi says, and then turns away from me. "But I'm programmed to be a human, and I don't even know what that means." When Kensi speaks her next sentence, it's childlike and she's practically shouting. She also has a smile plastered on her face. "Hope is a human feeling isn't it, Deeks? Come on. Tell me more."
"Hey, I know one." I say trying to get Kensi to dial the excitement back a few notches. "He's a human, and he's less real than all of the things you're talking about. You want to know what he said. Don't give up."
I see the fear in Kensi' eyes, what she's afraid of I'm not sure. The next thing Kensi does, after she has summon as much courage that she could, was lean into me and give me a quick kiss on the lips. After kissing me Kensi turns away from, as if she was ashamed of kissing me. "Oh, Deeks." Kensi says.
I place both of my hands on either side of Kensi head, and turn her head so we are face to face. At first her eyes are closed, but when she opens then again I make brief eye contact, and then lean in for a deep, and passionate kiss. After we break the kiss, we strip down to our undergarments.
"Are you sure?" Kensi asks.
"Kensi, I think it's the only thing I've been sure since I got here. How about you?" I ask. Kensi looks up at me tears in her eyes, and smiles at me. I never real thought about Kensi love life since I've been partnered with her, she is very attractive, that's for certain, but she never actively pursued anybody. Not that I was aware of. "Well, at least something is normal here on Mars."
I pull Kensi into my body, sharing my warmth, as we sink to our knees. "But I'm not normal. I'm a robot." Kensi says.
"I'm half robot too, but I know a true heart when I've met one." I say.
We lose the last bit of our clothing, and make love to each other. Between the kissing we say.
"I love you, Martin Deeks."
"I love you too, Kensi Blye."