"Have you been damaged?"

Uncanny Valley turned to Turing and cocked her head in an expression of confusion. "I'm sorry?"

Turing accelerated, rising higher to hover above the rooftops. "When you plummeted from space," he explained, pausing for a long moment. "Were you damaged?"

"I don't–"

Libertad snorted and let out a cackle of laughter. The shimmering disc of light below her faded and nearly disappeared. She dropped three feet to land on the apartment rooftop they had been flying over and rolled onto her back, still laughing uproariously. Uncanny Valley paused and drifted around in front of her, arms folded, and started down at Libertad. Beside her, Turing landed on the rooftop next to Libertad, an unfamiliar expression on his face. Libertad looked up at them and burst out laughing again, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. "Are–are you trying to ask her if it hurt when she fell out of heaven?" she finally managed to gasp out.

"… Yes?" Turing cocked his head. "Is that not what I said?"

Libertad stifled a laugh. "I mean, I guess that's technically what you said…" she allowed. "But you took a pretty roundabout way to get there." She quirked an eyebrow, looking back and forth between them. "Are you… trying to flirt?"

Uncanny Valley nodded. "Yes. That's expected when two people are dating, correct? Thus, it is a necessary part of this experiment."

"You're…" Libertad blinked, her mouth agape. "Well, huh. WALL-E, eat your heart out," she murmured to herself, shaking her head ruefully as she pushed herself up to her feet. "Who knew?"

"Our families knew," Uncanny Valley answered. "However, we have avoided letting anyone else know about our social experiment. We would appreciate your discretion with this information."

"No – that's not–" Libertad facepalmed. "You two are too much fun. Please. Don't ever change."

Uncanny Valley gave her a look. "Changing isn't, strictly, a part of our programming," she pointed out.

"Your personality has evolved since I have known you, however," Turing told her. "Thus, you have exhibited some level of change over the past five months."

"That – that's not." Libertad let out a snort. Pressing her hand to the amulet around her neck, she pushed her other hand downward. The amulet glowed for a moment, and a circle of light appeared directly below her feet, lifting her into the air. "Never mind," she groaned. "So. Enough with the 'strange energy' between the two of you. What's the deal with this strange energy reading you detected in the city? Have you figured out a source yet?"

"What 'strange energy'?" asked Turing, confusion inflected in his voice. "I do not detect anything unusual, in my systems or in Uncanny Valley's."

"Not that kind of – oh, never mind." Libertad leaned forward and accelerated south, in the direction of the Panama Canal. "Just… let's get back to work. You can work on your 'flirting experiment' later."

Uncanny Valley let out a giggle. "The sensor we installed atop the JW Marriott building detected an unusual fluctuation in sigma-band emissions," she explained. "It was not at an elevated level, but Pegasus' tracking system still flagged it for further study. However, since our arrival this morning, we have not detected that same reading – neither on our own internal sensors nor through the sensor net across Panama City."

Accelerating past Libertad, Turing turned his head in either direction; Uncanny Valley could observe his sensors sweeping the surrounding area, even as she began to do the same. "I calculate that we could save three hours by splitting up," Turing observed.

"I agree," answered Uncanny Valley, already linking into their shared connection to calculate the proper routing.

"Um… I don't," Libertad retorted, glancing back and forth between them. "After all, there's only one of me to show you around the city. Besides, it's way too much fun to watch the two of you try to flirt!"

Turing sent Uncanny Valley a silent query, to which she replied in the affirmative. "Very well," she agreed. "But that doesn't solve our inability to find the source of this strange fluctuation."

"It is unfortunate that we could not observe it at the building in question," added Turing. "I am unsure where else to turn, save continuing to circuit the city and wait for one of our sensor sweeps to detect the phenomenon."

"Tell you what," Libertad suggested, arching an eyebrow. "Assuming that you can multitask, why don't I give you two some lessons on flirting while we wait? For… research purposes…"

Uncanny Valley shot a query at Turing before nodding. "Very well," she agreed.

"Okay." Libertad shot forward to catch up to Turing before whispering something in his ear that Uncanny Valley missed with the wind blowing around them. Moving to separate from him again, Libertad grinned. "Try telling her that – just that."

Mildly curious, Uncanny Valley caught up with Turing and fixed him with an intense look. "Tell me what?" she asked, modulating her internal sensors to scan for a slightly-different wavelength.

"I… like what you are wearing," Turing told her.

"You… like what I'm wearing," repeated Uncanny Valley, cocking her head to one side. "But… I am not 'wearing' anything, because my suit is built-in. Does that mean you like nothing?"

Turing furrowed his brows in an expression of confusion. "… No?"

Libertad's jaw dropped, and she stared at Uncanny Valley for three minutes without a sound. "Wait…" she finally managed. "You're naked?"

"Not naked," retorted Uncanny Valley, folding her arms. "This is my 'normal look', rather than my 'camouflaged appearance'."

"Er, right. New plan," Libertad told Turing, stifling a laugh. "When she's 'camouflaged' and actually wearing something, then you compliment how she looks."

"Even though she prefers this look to the human disguise?" he asked, giving Libertad a quizzical look.

"Yes. Girls – or at least, human girls, like to be complimented on their appearance. Even when they don't particularly like their appearance." Libertad gave him a look. "That's Female Psychology 101."

"Understood."

"And as for you," Libertad continued, giving Uncanny Valley an evaluating look. "Make sure you laugh. No matter what he says. And touch his arm as often as you can. Guys love it when you do tha–" She froze, hovering in midair and staring at a spot two blocks ahead of them, right next to a bank. "Dios mío…"

Uncanny Valley continued forward another few feet before pausing, turning to look in the same direction as Libertad. "What? What is it?"

"Don't you see it, chica?"

"Negative." Turing descended toward the ground. "I see nothing. Switching to thermal imaging… Nothing."

"I don't see anything, either," Uncanny Valley responded, following close behind him. "Not visually, not on the electro-magnetic spectrum, not with ultraviolet…"

"It's right there," insisted Libertad, gesturing animatedly. "How can you miss it!? It's–it's – is it a… a ghost?"

Uncanny Valley drifted closer to Libertad and shifted her visual sensors to thermal. "Your body temperature is 36.8ºC – within normal parameters albeit low. Are you certain you are feeling well?"

"So the air's a little chilly this evening," retorted Libertad, annoyance plain in her voice. "I could've told you that. But, then, you don't react to it the same way I do – being made of metal and all." She frowned. "I'm telling you, there's a figure down there on that corner."

"Running visual sensor diagnostics," Turing reported. Moments later – "Process your electromagnetic sensor data through your visual processors, using this formula and correcting for sigma-wave distortion. There is a figure where Libertad indicated, but my processor was ignoring the visual input as an afterimage shadow-effect."

Following Turing's instructions within nanoseconds, Uncanny Valley let out an inadvertent gasp as the form of a pale humanoid, approximately two meters in height with a slight build, appeared on the corner, staring up at the three of them. "What is that?" she demanded.

"I am reading sigma-band emissions consistent with the anomalous reading," Turing continued, descending to land fifteen feet away from the figure. "I extrapolate high probability – 85% – that this phenomenon accounts for those readings."

"Don't get too close!" warned Libertad, landing just behind him as Uncanny Valley joined them. "I think this might be the same thing that Draco and Coyotemaria saw a couple months ago – down by the canal."

"It reads consistent with human for 95% of tests," Uncanny Valley observed, shifting back and forth between all of her scanners. "And yet, my thermal sensor shows a body temperature only three degrees higher than the ambient air."

"What are you?" asked Turing, stepping closer to the subject and holding out a hand. The subject approached him in turn and held out a hand to match. As the two touched, there was a brief spark… before Turing collapsed.

"Turing!" Uncanny Valley rushed forward, even as the subject stepped over Turing, reaching out toward her. The hand only missed touching her shoulder by less than an inch as she dropped to her knees next to Turing, grabbing his arm and beginning a diagnostic on his systems. Above her, Libertad shouted something and made a sweeping motion with her hand. A glowing shield appeared between Uncanny Valley and the creature, who recoiled away from it, holding its arms up defensively. Turing's hardware all appeared to be intact – whatever had happened, it had only affected his software. But what could it have been? Uncanny Valley reopened the connection between them and accessed his self-diagnostic software to initiate a scan. The Shadow let out a strange noise as Libertad's shield flickered out, stepping up to Uncanny Valley.

"Don't you even think about it!" snarled Libertad, spreading her hands apart and clapping them together directly in front of her. A massive shock of brilliant ultraviolet light erupted from her amulet through her hands, spreading out in a massive discus around her body before condensing down into a single point of light that lanced forward, catching the Shadow square in the chest. It let out a shriek and dissipated. As the light faded, Libertad slumped and dropped to her knees, panting. "Ayala vida…" she groaned, clenching and unclenching her hands while blinking. "I didn't think I had that in me…"

"Turing?" Uncanny Valley stared down at him as the scan continued. Quickly, she called up the communicator and prepared to contact Max. "Turing?"

Finally, Turing's eyes opened and he looked up at her. "What happened?" he asked, his voice slightly distorted. He glanced down at her hand. "You are touching my arm."

"Oh!" She started to pull away. "I apologize."

"No… I approve."

Libertad coughed, letting out a groan. "See? What did I tell you, chica?"