"Inhibition... inhibition... inhibition... no, that's a block," Beck muttered to himself as he studied the printout. Despite the time he'd already spent staring at the code, progress was slow. He'd felt like he was on the verge of a breakthrough last night when his studies were interrupted, but whatever idea he'd been chasing down had been lost. He didn't regret it at all--if it were a valid insight, it would come back to him sooner or later, and the news had been worth it.

It was tricky work, adjusting core programming, especially when he wasn't quite sure of the purpose of some of the functions he was looking at. The fundamentals were of course obvious. Don't kill people, don't maim people, don't do unnecessary harm... he'd been surprised to discover that those commands were inhibitions rather than blocks, but he'd quickly scoped out the reason.

R. Dorothy Wayneright wasn't just intended to pass for human. She was intended to effectively be human. It was simply misfortune that had taken her away from the late, unlamented Timothy Wayneright before he could finish molding her into the woman of his dreams.

Wayneright's misfortune, that is. It was an ill wind that blew nobody any good, and Jason Beck liked to tell himself that his true genius was in finding that good and using it to his own best advantage.

So. A human, no matter how carefully socialized, could behave in ways that went against inhibitions, and from that standpoint, the old debaucher's delectable... daughter was indistinguishable from her fleshy compatriots. In fact, he wouldn't have been at all surprised if some of the blocks he'd released had been intended merely as protection while Dorothy "grew up", much as a parent would limit a child who didn't know any better. Certainly, their ease of removal supported the idea that they were temporary.

But this... this was a tangle. He put the papers aside and stood up, trying to stretch the crick out of his neck. He'd been spending entirely too much time lately playing the scholar, and it was time for a break.

What he needed now was to try to do a snapshot on her so he could compare her current functioning with his original readings. The information he could acquire on the fly wasn't as useful as a deep scan, but it would be enough to give him an idea of how his changes had been integrated into her personality. He would've thought that he would have seen a more pronounced effect on her behavior already, but then again, he may have missed something.

Right now, it was time for some lunch, and afterwards he could change into some less conspicuous clothing and see if he could catch up with his favorite android. She couldn't hide in the mansion forever... in fact, he happened to know she had a date at Military Police Headquarters in a few hours. Another one of his contacts had let him know that she would be returning to the station an hour before Crow-Boy's hearing in order to provide some of her memories as evidence.

It had only taken a few well-chosen, crisp, green words to persuade the tech to experience a mechanical breakdown on his way back from lunch that insured that Dorothy would be sitting in the waiting room for at least an hour. The tiny scanner would be the work of a moment to place--nobody ever paid attention to the janitors.


Roger stared straight ahead as the whole sordid incident played out on the viewer in the magistrate's chambers. He'd been furious when he found out Dorothy had allowed the Military Police to access her memories, but even he had to admit it was the one thing that would prevent the case from becoming his word against the other man's.

The magistrate rewound the tape and started it again, pausing it as he addressed the other defendant's claims. "I'm afraid this shows your memory is faulty, Mr. Thompson. As you can see here," he backed up the tape and replayed the section where the man and his date had crashed into them after a couple of near-misses, "it's clear that Mr. Smith and Miss Wayneright attempted to avoid you, not just once, but several times."

He let the tape continue on, pausing it again at the moment of Thompson's crude proposition. Roger clamped down hard on his involuntary, furious reaction as the ugly words were played through for the third time--it had been bad enough that they'd had to listen to them the first time.

"I thought she was one of those fancy-girls, tricked out like that," Thompson muttered. "How was I to know she wasn't for sale?"

"Even if she were--not," he hastened to add, "to imply in any way that you would pursue such an occupation, Miss Wayneright," he returned his gaze to the miserable Thompson, "even if she were for sale, it seems obvious enough that she was otherwise occupied and not the least bit interested in your offer." He released the pause button, making no comment as Dorothy and Roger attempted to simply walk away from Thompson.

They watched the rest in silence: the even nastier commentary, Roger's soft suggestion that they step outside, and the well-aimed sucker punch just after the two men left the club.

The magistrate frowned. "I'm going to put the best possible face on this and assume you had too much to drink and don't remember events clearly," he said to Thompson. "Mr. Smith, you would be within your rights to press charges of your own."

Roger wanted to see to it that the bastard got exactly what he deserved. He was about to request that he at least be charged with assault, but a light touch against his shin made him look at Dorothy, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. No. He had no idea why, but the pleading expression that followed reminded him that the whole situation had been harder on her than on anyone. He would do as she wished, and undoubtedly she would deign to enlighten him as to her reasons at some point. He took a deep breath.. "I'm willing to put it down to an unfortunate misunderstanding, sir," he said. If there was to be no legal satisfaction, he wanted the matter closed as soon as possible--his head was starting to ache and, as Dorothy had predicted, his shoulder hurt even worse than it had last night..

"Very well, then," the magistrate said. "Mr. Thompson, I find you guilty of disturbing the peace. Given the facts of this case, I sentence you to a week in the city jail, suspended as long as you stay out of trouble for the next year and pay a fine of five hundred dollars." He apparently had also noticed Dorothy's distress. " I must also insist that you make a nice apology to the young lady," he said.

For a moment, Roger thought Thompson was going to argue about it. "I'm very sorry for the misunderstanding and for spoiling your evening," Thompson out choked the words, not meeting Dorothy's eyes.

"I accept your apology. Thank you, your honor," she said.

"Mr. Smith," the magistrate said. "I'm dismissing all charges save for the one for disturbing the peace. I will continue this without a finding for six months," he gave Roger a stern look, "provided you refrain from street brawls in the future."

Roger flushed but nodded politely. "I will. Thank you, sir."

"Let the record also show that there were extenuating circumstances and that Mr. Smith was under extreme provocation," the magistrate told the court stenographer. He banged the gavel and told them they were free to go.

"It was kind of him to do that," Dorothy said as they walked out to the Griffon.

"What, make him apologize? You were owed at least that," he said, hitting the remote to withdraw the car's protective armor.

"To make it a matter of record that you were provoked," Dorothy said. "He didn't have to."

"There wasn't much else he could do, not with your memories right in front of him," Roger said. "Speaking of things people didn't have to do..."

"I offered," she said as they got into the car. "When I went to give my statement this morning, I got the impression that Thompson was telling a plausible story, at least, plausible to anyone who doesn't know you well. Colonel Dastun seemed very worried about the hearing turning out badly."

"I still don't like it," Roger pulled away from the curb, eager to get home. "It's an invasion of your privacy."

"They can't read my mind," she assured him. "They just saw what my eyes and ears were taking in. They were very kind to me, it wasn't like the last time. They said that since the memories were offered voluntarily, it was up to me which ones I gave them as long as it was an unbroken sequence. The officer who took my statement suggested that I begin from when he started to harass us, so that's what I did."

"Is that why the hearing started late?" Roger asked. It had been scheduled for one-thirty, but the magistrate hadn't even gotten the tape until quarter of three.

"The tech who handles the machine apparently got a flat tire when he was returning from lunch," Dorothy said.

"I was a little surprised you didn't want me to press charges," Roger said, carefully keeping his tone casual. "You had even more reason to be angry than I did."

"I..." she hesitated uncharacteristically. "I didn't like the tech."

Roger gave her a questioning look. As a general rule, R. Dorothy Wayneright had no difficulty with expressing her opinions. "What bothered you about him?" he encouraged her to elaborate.

"It was..." she shook her head, pausing as she searched for the right words to express the problem. "I said they were kind to me, and it's true. The tech was very polite too, but I had to remind him three times that he was searching outside of the parameters I had given him. He said he was having trouble with the calibration, but that was a lie-- those settings are automatic, they are done every time the machine is turned on. I knew that it was likely that they would order me to repeat the scan and he'd be poking around again. It would have been useless to complain, he just would have said the machine was touchy, and I had no way to prove otherwise."

"I'm glad you let me know," Roger said, and meant it. "So... we've tried to do something enjoyable for your birthday twice now. They say third time's the charm. What would you like to do next week?"

"Stay home," she shot back, and he grinned. For once, her sarcasm was welcome--it was a sign that things were returning to normal.


Jason was a bit disappointed with the tape when he watched it. The fight itself was comical. The look on Smith's face as that sucker punch landed was a picture suitable for framing!

Unfortunately, the tech hadn't been able to grab much outside of the authorized times. There had been a promising bit where Dorothy had begun to unbutton Roger's shirt, but unfortunately, the next frames showed she was merely offering him assistance because his shoulder was bruised. There had also been the short section where she walked into Smith's bedroom when he was clad only in a towel, obviously fresh out of the shower, but that had also proved to be sadly mundane. She had simply handed him his black robe, apologized for the necessity of disturbing him and left the room.

Surely Crow Boy wasn't living like a monk? He'd had quite a reputation with the ladies prior to Dorothy's arrival, and then... nothing. Not even a mistress. It was positively depressing, all that clean living!

The scan of Dorothy's current state wasn't all that helpful either. There were definitely some alterations, probably in response to the removal of the blocks, but he couldn't be completely sure. He sighed. At moments like this, it was tempting to just write a program to wipe out any blocks or inhibitions it could find, but that wasn't a particularly smart thing to do. While it might result into her throwing herself at Roger, it might equally well cause her to decide that Big O needed some fresh air and take him on a jog through the city, or that Mr. Paradigm City Negotiator would look better if she substituted glue for his hair pomade.

While both of those scenarios would be amusing in the extreme, it would do nothing to further the plan, and might even set it back if her actions made Roger angry enough.

He set the printout aside. What he needed was a real break so he could approach the problem with a fresh eye. He decided to concentrate on refilling his wallet for now--it had been sadly depleted from his recent spending spree.