"I'm satisfied by your success in your mission." Khatri's tanned and wrinkled face greeted Henri from across the small cafe table. "No witnesses, no evidence, no uncertainties."

Henri was as pale as she had ever been. The natural redness on her slightly freckled face was nowhere to be seen today. She felt sick; sick like the time she had caught a rare strain of influenza when she was eight-years-old. She thought she was going to die that day and she felt like dying today.

"You look unwell," Khatri notice Henri's uncharacteristic lightness. "Have you been eating enough? You're still susceptible to human diseases despite your advanced immune system."

"I'm unwell because I murdered an entire family yesterday." Henri glared with her dark, hollow eyes at Khatri.

"You've never acted like this before, Henrietta," Khatri sipped her warm drink and looked out into the winter wonderland coating the streets of Novosibirsk. "Maybe we should send you in for reconditioning."

"If you want a machine, go get yourself one," Henri watched her reflection off the surface of her own hot beverage.

"You know it's not like that," Khatri sultry tones sent shivers down Henri's spine. "We never expected or wanted you to be an unfeeling machine, Henrietta. You need to be willing to cope with traumatic events; your job requires it."

Henri continued slouching over her drink without responding.

"Without your emotions, we can't rely on you to be a good judge of any given situation," Khatri reclined in the wooden chair and crossed her arms over. "And now things are worse than ever with machines. They can't be trusted and you're aware of this. That human part of you is what allows me to trust you, Henrietta. I also need to trust you to keep your own emotions in check."

"I feel like a fucking machine," Henri pounded her fist on the table, but her words were subdued. "I do what you say, I have no say, I have no life of my own."

"What do you want?" Khatri asked Henri, but the woman wasn't searching for answers. "Do you want to return to the life you had before? Do you desire to be back in that crooked childhood home of yours? Is that what you want?"

"No," Henri couldn't push the subject any further. "Killing that family was difficult; I am trying to cope."

"Before you return to your duties at the Detroit Police Station I want you to report to the Hennessy Lab for reconditioning," Khatri scowled at Henri's currently frail visage.

"I don't need to go back," the thought was making Henri nauseous. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Khatri stood up and loomed over Henri. "You'll be reporting to the lab tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," Henri gave up arguing.


"You haven't missed much," Hank spoke to Henri while she stood in the DPD break room staring up at its TV.

"That's too bad," Henri held her eyes on the television.

"You wanna talk about anything?" Hank could tell something was off with her. "You've been gone for seven days. Did anything happen?"

"Yes," the words barely escaped from her lips. "Yes, a lot happened."

"Are you okay?" Hank looked up at the TV screen where CTN was playing.

"Not really," she managed to choke out. "I was given some reconditioning before I came back here after my mission."

"Reconditioning?" Hank squinted at her.

"A Dr. Everett used this technique to help me surpass my PTSD," Henri's eyes never left the broadcast news. "He would use my machine brain to replay my tragic experiences over and over again in my own mind. He did this until I no longer showed an emotional response to the images. I would spend an entire day looking at the same memory constantly being repeated. It was awful."

"Shit," Hank turned back to the TV to see what Henri had been staring at the entire time. A Russian federal minister by the name of Aleksandr Yanovich had been killed in his own home in the city of Novosibirsk. Along with him, two bodyguards and both his daughter and wife were also killed. The local police had no suspects.

"What happens when you can't live with yourself anymore?" Henri's gaze finally descended from the screen. "What do you do when you hate the person you've become?"

"Henri," Hank wrapped one arm around her side and pointed at the television. "Is this what you were doing while you were gone? Did they force you to relive this?"

"I'm a murderer, Hank," Henri allowed him to hold onto her. "I kill people. It's what I do best. It's my job. That man, he was so afraid of me."

"Did you want to do it?" Hank inquired while still keeping her close. "Did you have to do this?"

"I do what I'm told and not what I want," she whispered and let go of Hank. "He wasn't a good person, Hank."

"You're right," Hank was far too familiar with the corruption of typical bureaucracies. "He was a piece of shit. He had what was comin' to him"

"It's easy to justify things when you say that to yourself," Henri hung her head in shame. "But did his wife and child deserve the same fate? I didn't even know them, Hank. Personal justification doesn't make murder okay. And it doesn't make it easier to sleep at night. But what else do you do when the world is so broken, so broken it can't be fixed with rules and regulations? What do you do with those who abuse everything?"

Connor came around the corner and interjected, "You start by fixing the rules."

Both Hank and Henri acted like they had seen a ghost.

"I apologize," Connor lifted his eyebrows at them. "Sorry, Henri. I heard your last statement and thought I would interject. If something is broken you must attempt to fix it."

Hank frowned at Connor, "Her point was that what do you do when things can't be fixed?"

Henri started feeling anxious; she was scared that Connor had heard too much, "Were you eavesdropping on us?"

"No," he replied defensively, but truthfully nonetheless. "Of course not. I didn't intend to disturb your private conversation if that's what you were having."

"No, no, Connor," Henri shook off her frown. "It's fine. We weren't talking about anything of importance."

"I still think my answer stands," Connor wished he knew how the question came up, to begin with. "You never punish a crime with a crime. Circumventing laws and regulations is not the solution. If the system of laws we uphold isn't working, we need to change them."

"But you've gone against rules and regulations to get what you want," Henri added. "And you did that because the rules were broken, to begin with. You had to find another way to change them."

"But that's-"Connor couldn't think of the correct response. "-I.."

"I want to live in this world you imagine, Connor," Henri sweetly smiled at the handsome android. "But we don't because humans are just naturally broken creatures."


Connor approached Henri who sat at her desk skimming through some data pads, "Henri?"

"Yes, Connor?" she pivoted to smile at him, but it was all fake.

"Can I take you out for that drink I owe you?" he looked over at Hank as he was grabbing his heavy winter jacket. "Looks like we were going to head home now."

"I think I could use all the drinks that life has to offer." Henri got up and picked up her own coat. "I know a nice quiet lounge not too far from here."


The android and the woman sat across from each other in the cushioned, closed off booth. The lounge had a rustic décor theme with maroon accents. Each table was adorned with minuscule oil lanterns which gave the entire place a dim glow. Henri always liked the Red River Bar, but maybe it's setting was oddly romantic.

"Whiskey, please," Henri promptly asked the server before he had a chance to speak. The man failed to ask Connor if he wanted anything. "Does it ever get irritating? When they don't even acknowledge your existence?"

"I can't take pleasure in consuming alcoholic beverages, so asking wouldn't be relevant," Connor stated in his famous matter-of-fact way.

"Not really the point is it?" Henri nervously tapped her fingers on the wooden table. "The point is is that you're a living being and deserve to be respected as such."

"Is this sentiment related to your veganism?" Connor queried.

"I see the value in all life," Henri's drink arrived. "But nobody is purely altruistic; I believe that to be impossible. It doesn't matter what your intentions really are. You'll probably end up doing something that contradicts your personal beliefs."

Connor silently watched Henri take a sip of her drink. He wished he could scan her or run a diagnostic on her; her appearance showed signs of severe sleep deprivation.

"I come here alone when I can," she slouched over and smiled into her glass. "I always enjoyed the music; it reminds me of my mother. She grew up in the 90's and was in love with the Grunge scene, but she also loved old country music, like from the 1940's. Never cared much for either myself."

"So you listen to this music as a reminder of her?" Connor's forehead crinkled at this.

"It's nostalgic," Henri grinned with heavy eyes. "My mother died five years ago. This reminds me of her."

"Hank loves jazz," Connor added. "I take enjoyment out of listening to the jazz he recommends me mostly because he recommended it to me."

"What do you like listening to?" Henri kept the faint smile on her cheeks, but she never looked up at Connor.

"I've listened to a total of 453 albums so far this year," Connor could remember all them exactly as he heard them. "There is no point in me listening to the same album more than once."

"Oh," Henri lifted her glass and inspected its surface. "Maybe you just haven't found the right one. Something that makes you want to listen to it over and over again. Something you feel is a part of you."

"I have all the music I've listened to memorized," Connor informed her. "There's no benefit to physically listening to the same song twice."

"Again, that isn't really the point," Henri placed her glass down and gave him a soft, sweet glance. "I've also memorized all the music I've listened to, but hearing it in your own ears… Hearing it and feeling it is the point."

"I'm not sure I understand the difference," Connor scowled slightly; he was upset at his lack of understanding.

"There's this song and I loved it when I was little," Henri's eyes lit up and she beamed at him. "Now I told you I don't really like grunge, but my mom would play this song from time to time. The song is called 'The Man Who Sold the World' and it was originally a David Bowie song that was covered by this band Nirvana."

"I'm familiar with both," Connor had listened to a few of these artist's albums at some point.

"Well, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the song," she continued. "But it's about a man who meets his doppelganger; you could speculate that he meets himself from another point in time during his life. When I was little I didn't really understand what that meant, but I do now. I always wondered what I would say if I met my past self and what she would say to me. Ideally, you'd want to offer your past self some advice; I can imagine."

"What would you tell your past self?" Connor was excited to see a flash of happiness painted on Henri's face.

"I thought that in my twenties I would be able to look back and say that everything had turned out alright," Henri's demeanour shifted back to its sullen tones. "But it didn't. What would I say to my past self? Hey little Etta, it never got any better."

"You said yourself that we all make mistakes," Connor reached a hand across the table and took hold of one of her wrists. "Those mistakes and regrets don't make our lives tragedies. We all do the best we can."

"That's a very human sounding thing to say, isn't it?" Henri watched his hand over hers. "I don't think I've heard you talk like that before. But what would you say to yourself? I know you haven't been around that long, but you never know."

"I would say-" Connor smirked at his own ideas. "-I would say don't always do what you're told. Obey less."

"Guess that makes sense," Henri scratched at her temple while still concentrating on his hand. "I'm sure a lot of androids would say the same."

"Henri," Connor lowered his voice and pulled her hand closer to him. "You don't have to be alone in baring your emotional burdens. Hank says that sharing your personal experiences can help ease the mental stress they place on you. I deduced that you are having serious emotional problems which is causing you unwanted levels of stress. Those are my assumptions based on your physical behaviours. As you know, I can't scan you for a proper diagnosis."

"I just need some rest," Henri couldn't talk about. She already had a problem with divulging too much information with Hank. "I haven't been sleeping well and just need some rest."

"If you need anyone to talk-" just then Connor intercepted a report of a woman found dead in her home with a fatal gunshot wound. Again, Red Ice had a presence at the scene. Connor, Hank, and Henri were being asked to respond. "A report just came in. It may be related to our case. We should check it out."

Henri had also intercepted the same broadcast, but she didn't want to go. She had seen enough dead bodies for one lifetime. Probably enough for a dozen lifetimes.

"Okay," but she went along anyway.


"Female, mid-forties, gunshot wound to the chest," Chris briefed Connor and Henri when they arrived in the tiny studio apartment. "Name's Maria Sanchez. No one reported hearing shots fired. Her sister came over to check up on her and found her like this. The body has likely been here for two days."

Henri could only picture her mother. She saw this woman's corpse and she saw her mother. The memory of that day rattled on in her head. This woman was her mother. No, her mother died five years ago.

"Etta?" she heard a whisper, but it wasn't her mother's.

"What?" Henri murmured.

"Henri?" Connor had been holding her upright and she hadn't even noticed. "Are you okay?"

"What did you call me?" Henri braced her self against the wall.

"Henri," Connor replied. "I said Henri. You almost fell over, Henri."

"It's fine." she snapped out of her trance and held herself up. "I got distracted is all."

Chris had been watching them both, "Do you need to go home, Agent? You look pretty sick."

"You're right," she did feel sick. She could feel her guts pulling at her insides and her head felt like it was about to explode. "I can't remember the last time I slept."

Connor had to steady her footing once more, "I'll take her back to her hotel."

"You sure?" Chris asked. "She looks like she needs a trip to the hospital."

"I'll take care of her," and as Connor said this Henri vomited on the floor.

"Jeez," Chris grabbed Henri's opposite side to assist Connor in keeping her stationed upright.

Henri softly groaned and tried to focus past her bleary eye, "I've contaminated the crime scene."

"We're not really worried about that," Chris responded. "You need to take her to a doctor, Connor."

"Of course," but Connor knew he couldn't; he wouldn't do that to Henri. "Just help me get her outside and into a vehicle. I'll take her right away."

The two men dragged the limp girl into the back seat of a police cruiser. Connor plopped himself in the driver's seat and craned his head back to peer at Henri.

"You won't take me to the hospital?" Henri carefully sat herself up.

"Only if you want me to," Connor felt nervous, scared, uneasy. He was afraid for her. He was afraid something was going to happen to her.

"I know it looks bad right now," Henri wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "But it's really not as bad as you think. This past week has been difficult for me and I've had no sleep. I just need to rest."

"I advise you rest for as long as you need," Connor turned on the cruiser's engine and headed to Henri's current residence. "I'll inform Hank that you've decided to take a few days off from duty."

"Thank you," she rested back into the seat and closed her eyes.

"My offer still stands," he observed her reflection in the rear-view mirror. "If you need to talk to me about anything, I will be here to listen. Whenever you need."

But Henri wasn't listening to him when he said this. The image of her dead mother lying on the kitchen floor was trapped in the foreground of her mind. The picture floated in front of her eyes and refused to vanish from sight.

When she opened her eyes again she was lying down on her hotel bed. Connor was sitting next to her on the bed with his hand on her forehead.

"Connor?" she squinted at him.

"It is almost impossible to read your vitals, Henri." he looked so worried. She thought it was ridiculous of him to be so worried for her. "For a moment I was afraid you had died."

"No, Connor," she groggily smiled at him. "I can't die. So don't worry."

"No being is immortal," he debated her. "And you area human."

"Well, I've already died," Henri was barely lucid; barely aware of her own voice. "But here I am. What's another time? Death never stuck with me."

"I suspected you have been suffering from severe sleep deprivation," Connor showed her a sullen glower. "I believe I am correct in this assumption."

"No sleep for the dead," she wanted to smirk at him, but she couldn't collect the energy to do so.

"I'll stay for a while longer to make sure you're okay," he lifted her lifeless hand and held it in his lap, but she didn't notice the affectionate gesture.

"Tom," she spoke in her minds-eye and she spoke aloud.


"This is gonna be a bust," Markov shifted his glance between his three comrades.

"Last one was a bust," Henrietta tugged at the bottom of her unpleasantly warm camouflage jacket. "Info was solid on this one."

"The fuck you know?" Arnold gave her a hard nudge.

"That's enough," Tom situated his taut frame between the two. "We aren't here to argue with each other."

Markov made an effort to remove the dirty sweat from his forehead with his think gloves, "If we stand around any longer, I'm gonna fucking melt. Fuck this goddamn African heat."

"We go in and grab what we're looking for," Tom continued to herd his tight group around the exterior of the sandstone building. "We go home and you can have all the cold margaritas you want, Marky"

"Eyes up boys," Arnold spoke as they came to the rear entrance of the broken-down and vacant palace. "And girl," he added at last.

Arnold didn't even attempt to open the door in a traditional sense, instead, he kicked it down. The weak frame of the door collapsed along with it.

"Arnold," Henri snapped in a whisper. "That wasn't very fucking subtle."

Tom yanked at the back of Arnold's heavy coat, "Too late now. I'll lead the way."

They searched most of the large structure together and found nothing but dust and sand.

"It's a bust," Markov repeated. "I knew it was gonna be a goddamn bust."

Henrietta studied the empty corridor the four currently resided in, "Something is so off about this. Davis assured us a solid lead on this. How could he be so wrong?"

Arnold blurted out a singular laugh, "Trust me, after you get to know the captain you'll learn he's just as dumb as the rest of us."

Markov was rubbing the nape of his neck with one hand and wrenching at his damp collar with the other, "Can we get out of the fucking heat now."

"It's really hot in here," Henrietta tilted her head at Tom. "Suspiciously hot in here."

"Fuck," Markov pulled his helmet off. "What the hell?"

Henrietta watched heatwaves pour from the surface of the sand walls. At the end of the corridor, a part of the wall was melting away. Its stone facade was pooling up onto the floor.

Tom gaped at this and stared back at his teammates, "What on Earth is that?"

"We should go," Henrietta could feel her heart booming inside her rib cage.

Markov vigorously nodded at her, "She's right, let's go."

Despite her words, Tom and Arnold couldn't fight their curiosities about the dissolving wall. It was gradually falling away like melted wax from a candle; occasional globs slopped to the floor.

"Let's leave," Markov went after the two young men and begged them. "Now!"

Henrietta was lucky, which was strange for her. She was lucky in an ironic sense because how lucky was it really to have survived that terrific day? Can you count yourself lucky when you have to witness your friends rot down into ashen corpses?

Henrietta couldn't move, but it didn't matter for she couldn't look away either. Her burning body tumbled the ground at a broken angle which allowed her to watch the brutal demise of Arnold, Tom, and Markov. There was an intense explosion that moved through the air like oil moves through water. The damage was slow and seemed to take a thousand long years to grab hold of them. There were a million fiery ants crawling in and out of her bones and blood and brain. She saw her own arms melt away from her eyes and she hadn't even noticed she'd be wailing in agony the entire time. She imaged this would be the last thing she ever saw. How fitting for such a poor, sad soul to perish in such a poor, sad way.

Henri woke up and met Dr. Polanski for the first time.