Writing As We Go, Chapter 19

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Writing As We Go, Chapter 19

Post by DukeNukem 2417 » Mon Oct 31, 2022 6:11 am

Detective Tom Logan stared. He wanted, more than anything, to blink, to give himself a second of not having to see the images on the screens in front of him.

“From what we can tell,” the technician—Scott, was his name, something Scott—was saying, “she followed her for at least three or four blocks. On foot.” He gestured to the monitor showing the feeds from city-wide surveillance cameras, several of which had followed Mandy Kemp's trek until the psychotic, sadistic Lexi had caught up with her. “They turned here, at...”

The street name barely registered with the detective. He stared, wishing his facial prosthetic had been set up with the necessary mechanisms for blinking; the footage showed Lexi catching up to Mandy. Showed her grabbing her by the hair and pulling her backwards. Showed her...

“Assault” was one thing. “Beating”, another. This was neither of those.

Lexi had, in layman's terms, mauled Mandy Kemp within an inch of her life. Dragged her behind a building and punched, kicked, elbowed, kneed and otherwise beat the mortal shit out of her.

“...impact with the wall broke at least three vertebrae, possibly four. If she survives, she will need several months of surgery to have any hope of ever walking again.” Mr. Scott bowed his head. “That's not even going into potential brain damage, organ failure brought on by catastrophic injury—we've called up the Dyson Institute, asked if—”

“No.”

Mr. Scott stared, confused. “I'm sorry?”

“It won't help. Not for her.” The detective stared at one frozen feed: Mandy, eyes wide, mouth agape, screaming. Lexi, eyes blazing, lips peeled back in a feral sneer, fist at the ready to land a crushing blow.

“She'll remember,” the detective intoned. “All of it. Down to the second.”

Mr. Scott nearly spoke, but Detective Logan continued. “No family left in-state; they're all out for Christmas. Nobody to sign a Dyson Institute contract, even if she was viable for transfer.” He turned his unblinking stare towards another monitor. “The Institute's already got enough on its plate. This is beyond their purview.” He turned his back on the row of screens, not meeting Mr. Scott's stare. “However this started, we have to end it.”

He walked out of the room without another word, and without a reply from the technician named Mr. Scott.

Detective Logan's thoughts turned—back to the two incidents he'd suffered, years ago. He'd been given the chance and the means, both times, to fight his way back, to get up the ladder and on the horse, as it were. To recover. Some might say, then, that he was denying Mandy Kemp that same chance. By refusing to refer her case to the Dyson Institute, he was effectively taking her fate into his own hands.

No. Nothing so simple, nothing so trite as that.

Lexi, the psychotic, sadistic, murderous gynoid, had taken Mandy's fate into her own hands. Taken it up like a piece of pottery, like a beautiful clock with a glass dome, like something precious—taken it and broken it, stamped on it with both feet, hurled it against the wall and kicked it and smashed it with her hands until it was twisted, ruined, shattered beyond all hope of repair.

Lexi had destroyed Mandy Kemp. A Dyson Institute transfer wasn't going to fix any of that.

Not for the first time, the detective wondered how his old partner would've handled things.
-----
Erin ignored the commercial for the Galatea cartoon series. She ignored everything on every TV channel that flicked past on the screen. Her thought processes were, instead, focused on Lloyd Morris Watson, currently asleep in his bedroom upstairs. Sleeping, after having been told that the one girl he'd been hoping to date, the girl he was thinking of building a future with, was now at Death's door, laying in a hospital bed on life support.

All because someone had sent a solid state drive to Harry Morgan's home.

Lloyd hadn't cried, when Abe had told him. He'd just said “oh”, in a quiet voice—the kind one only hears after getting the biopsy results back, after hearing that they'll have to pull the plug on Grandma and she hasn't got long anyway, after hearing that Scruff got out in the middle of the night to chase something and they found his collar and a bit of fur in a skid mark on an exit road five blocks away. No tears. Just numbness, shock.

Erin had stayed upstairs for two hours, waiting for the dam to burst. Waiting for screaming, crying, pleading, bargaining with God, or any higher power that would listen.

Apart from a few mumbled maybe-prayers, nothing. Silence.

Lloyd Morris Watson, 20 years old, was fast asleep upstairs. What kind of hell-broth was brewing in his subconscious, knowing that Mandy was on life support?

Erin didn't know. She didn't want to know.

Part of her wondered—seriously considered, multiple times—if Lloyd hadn't thought that it was another Mandy in the hospital. She'd hoped that he hadn't hoped for that. But no, Abe had shown the proof—the “note”, left on Mandy's own phone: That psycho-gynoid bitch, Lexi, smiling and posing with the battered, bleeding, bruised Mandy. Complete with a “love note” for Lloyd, promising to see him soon.

Three more channels clicked past. Six more. Nine more.

Erin stopped counting. She didn't stop clicking, couldn't stop. She had to keep going, to distract herself.

“Helluva night.”

Erin stopped clicking the “next channel” button on the remote. She hadn't seen Abe Weissman sit on the far end of the sofa, hadn't even heard him approach. “I've seen a lot,” he muttered. “A lotta stuff done to people didn't deserve to have it done to 'em.”

“Does that include Mandy Kemp?”

Abe nodded. “I dunno who sent that blond psycho out here. Hope I never find out.” His leonine face creased as he frowned. “I do know,” he continued, “that no sane person would wish what happened to Mandy on anybody on this Earth, ever.”

“Sanity has nothing to do with it,” Erin sulked. “Someone wanted Lexi to do all of this. Programmed her to.”

Abe leaned back on the sofa, his eyes closed. “So she's a 'bot.”

“They came by last week,” Erin continued, “when Bobby's house got wrecked, he thought it was one of Harry's that had done it. They came by—CAEDIA—with pictures, from the doorbell camera.” She felt the remote creak in her grip. “She's an old P4RT4Y G1R7, stripped out, wiped, torn down and rebuilt, reprogrammed.”

Abe sat up, turned to stare at her. “You're kidding.”

“I damn well wish I was,” Erin snapped. She fumbled for the On/Off button on the TV remote; the screen winked out, the endless drone faded to silence. “But I'm not, and that stupid P4RTAY G1R7 turned psycho-bitch-bot is here, she's in Billings, and she's killed people, and she's after my brother!

Abe stared. Blinked.

Erin fell back on the couch, groaning. “He doesn't know,” she muttered. “Doesn't remember having a sister, let alone one that doesn't have a face like a damn cartoon character. He was five or six when it happened—the crash.”

“A Dyson transfer?”

“Couldn't afford it. Oh, the brain transfer, yes—they had a deal with the hospital, at the time. Experimental stuff. I got the first stage, but there wasn't enough for them to work from for the second stage.” She rolled her eyes. “So I ended up with a Utility Bodykit and a voucher for an upgrade.” She scoffed. “Still waiting on the option for that.”

Abe frowned. He'd heard the story before, from Harry. “And Lloyd never knew?”

“Never. The few times he saw me before the crash, it was at the big family get-togethers. Thought I was a cousin. Didn't have the heart to tell him why we'd been split up.”

“Ever gonna tell him?”

“Later. After this all blows over.” Erin rolled her eyes—knowing that somewhere, some pencil-pusher would've tried to correct her, say they were “ocular receptors”, and that she'd have told whoever said it to shut up. “Whatever happens next, it's out of our hands—like that's out of his.” She nodded at the Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolver, looking as out of place on the coffee table as a Hulk Hogan action figure would look in a nativity set. “He said you'd given him that before the parade.”

“I did.” Abe nodded. “Since Diana was freaking out, asking for a way to defend herself, I figured it'd make sense to give Lloyd something worthwhile.”

Erin stared at the gun. The image of her jamming it in Lexi's face and emptying the chamber was all too tempting. “He said he'd tried to pull it on her,” she muttered. “The one who jumped him in the changing room. She didn't give him any room to move—she just—”

An urge to scream, to label Lexi with every filthy word she could think of, rose to the forefront of Erin's digitized mind.

She settled for punching the hell out of the back of the sofa instead. Rolling over just enough to face it, then rearing back and letting go with her right arm. Up, down, up, down, up, down—the blows were almost piston-like.

Abe didn't stop her. Didn't let the low growl, building to a keening wail behind her clenched teeth, get to him.

The back of the sofa was just starting to bow under her punches before she stopped, falling against it. Her hands took hold of the cushions, almost tearing at them; her entire body was wracked with spasms.

Anyone other than Abe Weissman, anyone unaccustomed to dealing with sentient 'bots or consciousness transference cases, would've assumed Erin was suffering some kind of malfunction. They would've suggested—politely, but firmly, in that way that tries not to condescend but ends up doing it anyway—that she report to a repair bay for an examination.

Abe knew better.

Despite the idiotic rhetoric of some, Abe Weissman knew that, yes, some androids can cry, too.
-----
CAEDIA Officer Sierra Birch stared through the window outside of the room in Saint Vincent's Intensive Care ward.

The words were on her tongue, but she couldn't give them voice. Not with Harry Morgan sitting two seats away, trying and failing to fall asleep on command. Anyone stumbling across the scene might've mistaken him for Mandy Kemp's father—the mortal remains of whom, as a notification helpfully reminded Sierra, were en-route to—

She force-closed the notification.

Mandy Kemp wouldn't make it to Christmas. Not as she was—as she had been. Despite the frequent, and wonderful, advances in medical science, a facility like Saint Vincent's couldn't rebuild her shattered limbs, surgically repair her spine, piece together her face and heal her damaged internal organs in the span of three days.

To put it another way: Damn it, Jim, they're doctors, not magicians!

Sierra tried to fathom, yet again, who could've designed and programmed an android or gynoid like Lexi. To consider who might want a gynoid like Lexi in existence. Human murderers were bad enough: Bundy had proven that. Ramirez had proven that. The so-called Butcher King, once known as the Face Obliterator and Face Eraser until some asshole found out what he'd preferred to be called—Faceless—he'd proven it. Too many others had proven it, over the ages.

Human murderers were one thing. A 'bot murdering people was worse.

Some would try to tell Sierra that “well, at least there's a pattern”. She would've told them to leave. Lloyd Watson had never told Mandy Kemp about the solid state drive—had no reason to tell her, in fact. She was just—

“No.” She'd spoken out loud, didn't care. At the very least, it helped her focus on not saying what she'd almost said.

Mandy Kemp was not just “collateral damage”. Lexi might've seen her that way, but Lexi was a psychopath and a sadist.

Sierra didn't want to fall back on the cliché of “never say never”, but looking at Mandy's ruined form—hooked up to over a dozen different machines and in a slumber that only the finest pharmaceutical chemicals could provide—it was difficult to envision her ever getting “back to normal” after this.

“Anything?”

The CAEDIA Officer chided herself for not having noticed Cliff Barba sit down next to her, or even that he'd entered the waiting room. “I think Harry's finally asleep,” she murmured. “As for her, no idea.”

Cliff wrung his hands. “The papers are going to roll copy on this if someone doesn't catch the one who did it.”

“We'll stop her.” Sierra was surprised to find that the words weren't entirely hollow. “She's painted into a corner, now.”

“That might just—”

“I don't give a damn what it might do.” Sierra had intended to snap, but it came off a lot softer. Not too soft—the silk glove hiding the grip of steel. Just enough bite to make her point. “There are no more lines for her to cross. She'll get hers, soon enough, and this whole thing will be over.”

Harry Morgan, having just drifted off to the realm of the subconscious, shifted in his chair and mumbled something.

Cliff Barba, with nothing better to add, merely sat back and stared at the ceiling.

All Sierra Birch could do was hope.
-----
The local morning news reports mentioned nothing about Mandy Kemp, a disturbance at the Christmas parade the day prior, or anything unusual. Strange activity at Hilands, an unusual disturbance in the evening/night-time traffic, but not much else. The day was shaping up to be another good one for Billings.

Lloyd Morris Watson barely noticed the news. Last night's numbness had worn off, at last. Panic hadn't set in, if only because Abe and Erin had apparently come up with a plan to keep Lloyd safe: shuffle him around Billings all day, never staying in one place long enough to be spotted, and eventually get him back home before sundown. As long as Mandy's attacker couldn't find him, he'd be in the clear—so the logic said, at the very least.

“Saint Vincent's is a no-go,” Abe stated, over breakfast. “She catches you there, no telling what'll happen—”

“Other than a bloodbath,” Erin muttered.

“The point is, we'll find out how she's doing later on in the day.” Abe slid the Smith & Wesson Model 19 across the table to Lloyd. “You'll need it,” he reasoned, “if that psycho comes calling.”

Lloyd nodded. He didn't ask how Mandy was doing—couldn't ask. He'd blocked out the memory of the “note”, on her phone—not out of callousness, but because seeing Mandy bloodied and battered had made him both incredibly angry and violently ill. The fact that Mandy had been attacked by the same person who'd ambushed him the day before didn't help, at all.

“I'll keep watch here,” Erin stated. “Make sure Little Miss Psycho doesn't put an axe through the door or anything like that while you two are on the move.”

“Good call.” Abe raised his glass to her. “And we—”

“What about Diana?”

Abe frowned, but Erin beat him to the punch: “She stays here. Cam was running a debug on SafeSense last night, after her spiel before the parade—it's still going.”

“So you'll be—”

“Keeping an eye on that, and everything else around here, yeah.” Erin nodded.

Abe pushed his chair away from the table. “We oughta get going, Lloyd, before she can get a bead on you.”

“Right, right.” Lloyd took the Model 19, pocketed it—

“You'll want a holster for that,” Abe advised. “I've got a few in the truck—didn't have time to give you one yesterday, before the parade.”

Lloyd tried not to think back to the previous day, even as he nodded.

“Get some clothes that won't stand out—jeans, plain t-shirt, coat and a hat, that kind of thing.” Abe was already on his way to the front door. “Last thing we need is for you to look like a walking beacon out there.”

Without hesitation, Lloyd headed upstairs. Plain jeans, t-shirt, hooded jacket and a cap with no logo—he found them all in minutes. Before he left his room, he looked himself over in the mirror a few times, just to check. No holes, no logos, no tags that'd catch the eye. Utterly nondescript.

It was a far cry from gold lamé suits and pompadour wigs.
-----
“How's she doing?”

Elaine Dyson's question was met with a nod towards the viewing room window. “She doesn't want to answer any of our questions,” Maddie White replied. “Hasn't tried to recharge herself at all.”

On the other side of the window, Bobbi—her official name, as per the Dyson institute contract—was seated at one end of a table. Her expression was the textbook definition of “sullen”; she refused to meet the gaze of the employee asking her questions the usual spate of questions—“how are you feeling?”, “how's the day been going on your end thus far?”, and the like—or answer any of those same questions.

“Nothing?” Elaine's brow furrowed, matching her concerned frown.

“Not a word.” Maddie scowled. “We've done what we could for her—”

Without explanation, Elaine moved towards the door of the viewing room. It opened with a whisper-quiet hiss.

The other employee rose from her own seat, nodded at Elaine and walked out. Elaine returned the nod, her stare never leaving Bobbi. She regarded the other gynoid with a compassionate smile. “It's nice to meet you in person,” she began, “and I hope—”

“Don't.”

The smile only faltered for a second. “Don't what?”

“Don't act like you care,” Bobbi spat. “If you did, you'd have shut me off and been done with it.”

Elaine tented her fingers. “That's not how we do things here at the Institute, Bobbi—”

Save it. Where's the real me?”

The last three words of the question were met with a sad sigh. “Your precedent—”

“My what?!

“Your human body,” Elaine explained. “Your organic self. At this moment, due to several injuries and an underlying heart condition, your precedent is in medical stasis here at the Institute. You're currently under a lifetime contract—”

“So you own me,” Bobbi finished. “Wonderful.”

“No,” Elaine corrected, “we're helping you. At the moment, your contract doesn't specify an owner.” She decided not to bring up Lexi by name; the psychotic gynoid had listed herself as Bobbi's owner, an “arrangement” that had been voided after a gun fight between Lexi and CAEDIA Detective Tom Logan. “You're here at the Institute for therapy.”

Bobbi groaned. She'd heard this before, rejected it before.

“I understand,” Elaine continued, “that you have concerns about your new state of existence.” Again, the smile. “I can assure you that any fears you may have are unfounded—”

“Unfounded,” Bobbi echoed, letting out a short chuckle. “Unfounded.” Her eyes held only contempt for the roboticist as she sat back in her chair.

“That blonde bitch,” she hissed, “turned me into a THING.

Elaine started to speak, her lips forming the letter “I”—

“I can be turned off,” Bobbi thundered, “broken, reprogrammed, used, just put in a box and left in a corner or a closet or any-damn-where anyone damn well pleases! I don't breathe anymore, I don't have a pulse anymore, and I'm still feeling, I don't know how I can still feel or why I can feel if I'm just a stupid fucking robot, and this doesn't make any sense, why did she do this to me, why can't I just have my body back, I don't want to be a fucking sex robot!” Her diatribe lapsed into a hysterical wail at the end; her face was buried in her hands, the wailing broken up by sobs.

“Bobbi,” Elaine replied, “nobody here is going to 'use you'.” She rose from her chair, moved to stand next to Bobbi.

Why do you even care?!” Bobbi shrieked. “You turn people into robots—”

“That's not how the Dyson Institute transfer works,” Elaine assured her. “I've already said your human body is in medical stasis right now—I can prove it.” She nodded to the TV mounted in the corner of the room; as Bobbi regarded the blank screen, Elaine sent a command through the Institute's Wi-Fi network.

Hidden within the bowels of the facility, a camera—one that only three Dyson Institute employees, Elaine included, had the security clearance to operate—kicked on.

Bobbi stared as the blank screen snapped to white, faded to the image of—

“That's me,” she realised. “That's—”

“Your human body,” Elaine clarified.

It wasn't a “capsule”, or a tank, or anything of the sort that held Robert Pariello's form. The pudgy, bruised body lay on a hospital bed, clad in a hospital gown. IV drips had been fitted to both arms; a nasal cannula had been fitted, and other tubes snaked out from under the sheets.

“We're doing everything we can to maintain a constant state of health,” Elaine quietly informed Bobbi. “For lack of a better term, Robert Pariello is, at the moment, in a coma—”

“Why?” Bobbi's attention turned from the TV to Elaine. “Why is—my precedent—why didn't you just call a hospital?”

Elaine rested a hand on Bobbi's shoulder. “They wouldn't have been able to maintain the stasis,” she explained. “For a few months, perhaps...but not for a lifetime contract.” The monitor winked off. “I already said,” Elaine continued, “that we don't 'turn people into robots' here. What happened with you was...a very truncated version of the standard Dyson transfer, performed by an unauthorized third party.”

“And what is the 'standard Dyson transfer'?”

Elaine ignored the petulance in the question. “The Institute uses state-of-the-art neural mapping, of both the brain and the spinal column—I can't go into specifics, but the results of these mapping methods working together allows for a near 1:1 recreation of the subject's personality, memories and consciousness.” Her lips formed a sad sigh. “Unfortunately, because your transfer was carried out by someone who was in no way qualified to handle it, complications arose, and your precedent was subsequently rendered comatose.”

Bobbi couldn't maintain her glare. “And this doesn't happen during most transfers?”

“The Dyson Institute has never had this issue before,” Elaine assured her. “All of our personnel are trained—”

“Right.” Bobbi stared at the surface of the table. “What now?”

“The Institute will help you,” Elaine promised. “However we can.”

“For what price?” A flash of the familiar Pariello attitude. “And what about my insurance—”

“You're under a pre-paid lifetime contract,” Elaine reminded her, “which means that everything we can help you with, we will help you with.” She smiled. “And you won't have to worry about your insurance.”

“Yeah, well...” Bobbi did a commendable job hiding how stunned she was by all of this. “What about my house?”

Elaine returned to her seat on the other side of the table. “The Dyson Institute's legal team,” she explained, “is in the process of working to get your house signed over from your precedent's name to yours—and yes,” she quickly added, “there are a few legal entanglements to work out due to your nature as a transferred consciousness, but we are working on them.” She tented her fingers again. “We're going to do everything in our power to help you,” she reiterated.

“Why?” No petulance now, only confusion, a hint of awe. “Why would you help me?!

“It comes with the trade,” Elaine stated. “I'm a doctor, after all—I don't hurt anyone who comes to me. I help them to heal.” Again, the smile, almost maternal in its warmth. “And for the record, I don't see you as 'a thing', Bobbi.”

Bobbi nearly spoke, the words “well, I do” forming in her digital mind, on her tongue.

“Under the Civic Accords—which, yes, I know all about your precedent's opposition to—you most definitely qualify as a person,” Elaine continued, “and are afforded the rights, freedoms and protections that all persons, organic or synthetic, are entitled to. While you're here at the Dyson Institute, nobody's going to 'use' you in any way. You have the right to refuse any therapy we offer, as well. If you want to sit in your room all day—”

“My room?” Bobbi echoed.

“Of course. We do have dormitories on-site, after all—some of our employees have made living arrangements to stay on-site, even after closing time.” Elaine smiled again. “We don't just keep them in closets when they're done for the day,” she added. “They are their own people, after all.”

Bobbi leaned back in her chair, dumbstruck. She'd been told, heard from the Herring networks, that the Dyson Institute was nothing more than some kind of high-tech sex club, where 'bots were just “stored” when not being railed day-in, day-out. There was still the possibility—

“If you still don't trust me,” Elaine offered, “I can give you a tour of the facility. Let you see how we do things.”

After a moment, Bobbi shook her head. “I...I just want to see my room.”

“Not a problem.” Elaine rose from her chair. “When I say 'room', it's more like a suite, really—bedroom, bathroom, even a kitchen area, for if you're having visitors over.” She decided not to mention that some androids had the capability to process food and convert caloric energy into storable electricity. “You will have to stay on-site while we sort out the red tape with your house,” she admitted, “but we'll do what we can to make your time here as pleasant as possible.”

Again, Bobbi wanted to find some reason to lash out, to be petulant—there was nothing stopping her from flinging one cutting remark after another at Elaine—but she couldn't. She followed Elaine out of the viewing room in silence. She'd expected a far different, more lurid exchange with Dr. Dyson—nothing like what had just transpired.

The pair passed Maddie on the way out, who nodded at them in turn.

“Talk about a Christmas miracle,” she mused, nodding as the door hissed shut behind Bobbi.
-----
The clock was lying.

For some reason, the prevailing thought in Lloyd's mind, as he sat in Abe's shop, nodding and waving at customers, was that the clock was off, or wrong, or in some way not giving an accurate representation of the time. He felt like he'd been sitting there for maybe twenty, thirty minutes, tops, when he'd looked at the clock.

Three hours.

One-hundred and eighty minutes.

He didn't bother trying to count the seconds.

They'd taken a while to get there—stopping here for a quick brunch (coffee for Abe, and danishes for himself and Lloyd), a quick jaunt there to pick up a crate of parts, a side-trip to check on an employee taking sick-leave. Every so often, Abe had taken side roads, gone off the beaten path, or doubled-back on the route. Always, he checked the rear-view mirror, muttering under his breath.

Lloyd didn't ask why. He didn't need to.

Lunch was dropped off by a driver for one of the big delivery apps. Fears of tampering, of Lexi (Lloyd tried not to dwell on the name for too long) having ambushed the driver and poisoned all of the food, were soon dispelled; it was an excellent meal. Conversation over the food was light; only some of it focused on business. Lloyd only contributed the occasional bit—an answer here, a nod there.

His thoughts weren't on the talk, or the food.

All he could think of—despite his best efforts—was the face that had stared out, grinning, flipping him a Peace sign the wrong way around, from Mandy's phone. The same face that had been so close, had dove onto his for one French kiss after another, in the changing area at the parade grounds. The same face staring down from SIGN-posts stationed all over Billings.

The face that would smile and laugh over Lloyd as he died, if Lexi had her way.

Detective Logan had never mentioned why Lexi might've targeted Lloyd. There'd been murmurings, at St. Vincent's, idle talk about possible motives, but Lloyd didn't hear anything in detail, and couldn't guess why he'd been targeted. Harry hadn't told him anything on the way back from hospital, either. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was, in fact, being targeted—hunted, even, and—

“Lloyd.”

He barely registered Abe's voice. “Yes?”

“Gotta move. You've been here for three hours—anyone's got eyes on us since you got here, they'll know you haven't left yet.” Abe nodded to the rear of the building. “We can go out through the back. Less chance of getting spotted.”

“Right.” Lloyd had barely noticed the passage of time since he'd finished the meal from Bonisacce's. “Where—”

“I'll tell you when we're in the truck.”

Lloyd heard Abe call for someone else to take his spot at the counter, barely paying any heed to the exchange.

His only thoughts were on Mandy, her condition, and the barest possibility of her recovery from it.
-----
“As much as I hate to say 'never say never', it'd be wrong if I didn't admit that the probability of her dancing again is slim, at best, and non-existent at worst.”

Officer Birch nodded grimly at the doctor's assessment; Harry Morgan, from where he stood by Mandy Kemp's bed, gave the impression that he wanted to take that probability by the throat, smash it into the wall and stomp it until it breathed its last. “What about walking?” he asked. “She'll be able to walk again, right?”

The attending doctor—a woman in her late 30s, with blonde hair fading to brown at the roots and a pronounced Scouse accent—could only shrug. “I don't know. Too early to say. With surgery and therapy, she should be able to. Anything past a light jog, I couldn't tell you.” She paused. “You're the father?”

“Friend of the family.” Harry didn't feel like mentioning what had happened to Mandy's father.

“Her other relatives are out of state,” Officer Birch added, for what had to have been the fifth time that day. “We can't get a hold of any of them by phone or e-mail.” She didn't mention the possibility of a Dyson Institute transfer; she'd had a lengthy exchange by text message on the matter with Detective Logan an hour before, which had turned into a lengthy—and very loud—phone call out behind St. Vincent's shortly after.

“And there's nobody else in-state who can sign any forms?”

“Not a one.” Harry had hoped that Adrian Reese would've called by now, to say that someone from Mandy's family had stepped up to render aid in her time of need. “An absolute travesty,” he muttered.

Sierra didn't reply. She'd picked up Mandy's medical chart, going over it with the clinical detachment one might expect of a gynoid in her position within CAEDIA. Granted, it wasn't easy to stay detached, reading through the laundry list of injuries (broken bones, perforations, contusions, a very probable concussion—most of it caused by fist, foot, elbow and knee, or impact from being thrown into various surrounding objects) when the recipient of those injuries was laying in bed, bound in hard casts from head to toe and laying between thin white sheets. Her eyes, barely visible behind puffy lids, were only just open.

She was conscious. Mandy Kemp, broken and battered and left on the doorstep of Death, was still conscious.

“Making sure her airway hadn't been further compromised was our chief priority,” the doctor informed Harry. “The rest was perfunctory. She's stable, and we'll begin the first of the surgeries on Sunday.”

“First?” Harry echoed.

“Mr. Morgan,” the doctor replied, “the only things holding her together at the moment are, quite literally, her skin and the medical adhesives put on her wounds. Both of her legs are going to have to be amputated, and very likely, her arms, as well. How much she'll lose, and how much we can save, I don't know.” She turned to glance at Mandy, whose eyes welled with tears. “Most of the therapy she'll be undergoing will involve adjustment to the use of prosthetic limbs.”

Sierra didn't mention the Dyson transfer, knew that Tommy would hear about it—

“What about a transfer?” Harry insisted. “The Institute—Dyson. They can—”

“Unless a legal guardian or full relative shows up to sign any paperwork the Dyson Institute has,” the doctor replied, “then Mandy can't get a transfer. As it stands, she'll be undergoing an MRI and full brain scan to make sure that all the blows she took to the head didn't leave her with any lasting damage.” She gestured for Sierra to hand over the chart. “In any case, she'll be here for quite some time.”

“And her bills?”

Harry groaned at Sierra's question, but the doctor was surprisingly optimistic. “Already taken care of.”

“By who?” Sierra demanded.

“Under hospital regulations, I'm not allowed to disclose that information.”

“But I am.”

Harry and Sierra turned—one confused, the other annoyed—to see Detective Logan leaning in the doorway. “Word got out from HQ about what went down,” he explained, his rasping voice sounding oddly gentle. “Apparently, an old friend of mine got wind of it, sent the wire down to here and paid it all up in full.” His smirk conveyed what his expressionless facial prosthetic couldn't. “Called me not long after we had our talk, Sierra—told me to tell you 'hi', too.”

“So Mandy's bills have been—”

“Paid in full for the rest of this year and all of next, yes,” the detective informed Harry. “I dunno who told her about—”

Her?” Sierra echoed.

“If you're going to have this discussion,” the doctor interrupted, “please have it somewhere other than this room. The last thing Miss Kemp needs is undue stress.” She gestured for Harry and Sierra to join the detective out in the hall.
-----
“And you told him this how long ago?”

Few minutes. We're on our way there now.

“And nothing went down at the shop?”

Got lunch from Bonisacce's, but other than that, nothing.

Erin sighed. “And how long are you planning on staying—”

Few hours, tops. It's not the kind of place to hunker down, go Alamo or anything like that.

“That's the last thing any of us needs, Abe. Any chance I can talk to him?”

He's tryin' to take a nap, right now.

“I don't blame him. Call me when you get there—and call Cam and tell her to get back here, too.”

She's off with Adrian Reese, going through the phone book—”

“Looking for relatives to call, got it. Like I said, call once you get there.”

Will do.”

Erin hung up the phone, thankful that Lloyd was, at least, still in the company of Abe Weissman. There were, after all, far worse places to be in Jefferson on a Thursday in December.

A shout from out back caught Erin's attention: more inventory to move, checks to be run.

The gynoid sighed. “Gimme a minute.”
-----
Lloyd had only seen Sparx clubs from the outside before. He'd expected, given his chosen path through college, that his first visit to a Sparx would involve repair work on the “inventory”. Maybe a quick one-off as an actual customer, for a drink, just to see how the girls of Sparx ran, interacted, etc.

At no point had he ever suspected that he'd have to hide out inside a Sparx. Yet here he was.

“Used to be a place called Lee-Ray's,” Abe had explained. “Horrible place, nasty piece of work—people got shot there, got stabbed in the lot out back. Fights all the damn time, big brawls—cleared out from the dance floor to the bar, from the bathrooms out to the parking lot. Closing time was whenever the cops showed up. The bad old days...'87 or so, I'd say. Some jackass with a flare gun tried to 'lighten the mood' one night, nearly burnt the whole place down. Changed hands a few times over the years—a few different clubs, a restaurant, some TV church deal for maybe a month. Last guy who bought it franchised it out as a Sparx, and...”

And now Lloyd was going to be hiding here, in a corner booth, until closing time—or whenever Abe decided it was safe to send him back to Harry's.

The last few times Lloyd had been anywhere near a Sparx, the “inventory” hadn't been on display past the front door. In each case, what little he could see through the glass had been the same: dim lighting, cramped space, tacky wallpaper (it was apparently a mandate that tromp l'oeil was the pattern of choice), faux-wood panelling and red benches.

“Corner booth, far back. Sprite Zero for him.” Abe had almost barked out the words to the girl at the front desk, adding “And no company.” The bluntness of the request cut into Lloyd's reverie of glancing into Sparx clubs in the past, not quite sure if he'd ever go in or not.

Now, in the security of the corner booth, away from the hustle of the main floor and the rest of the customers and the “inventory”, Lloyd found that he could focus on everything that had happened. Everything that was happening.

Mandy was in hospital, fighting for her life. For all he knew, she might be dead already.

The one who'd attacked Mandy was the same one who'd ambushed him in the changing room.

His ambusher, and Mandy's attacker, already knew Diana by sight, having “given her a ride” earlier in the week.

This psychotic individual, whose only name was Lexi, wanted Lloyd dead.

And why...

Abe was talking, saying something about the 'bots Sparx clubs used. Cortical matrices—lab-grown crystals, cultivated in clean rooms, with engineered qualities suitable for massive data storage. Bleeding-edge tech, according to the trade papers. In any other circumstances, Lloyd would've been quite fascinated by it all.

Instead, he was trying to pin down any possible reason for someone to want him dead—hare-brained schemes over better grades, imagined jilting, petty squabbles.

His mind spun, settled on the Saturday before. CAEDIA HQ. Why they'd gone in the first place. The lockdown notice.

The ping of rocks against his bedroom window that morning. The CAEDIA Officers, and the police, showing up.

Diana, Cam, Erin, all the NonSens, acting funny because of something, something the CAEDIA Officers had to test with a special rig, out in the shop.

And a few days before that: the teardown on Pam, with Abe there in the shop, where Lloyd had spotted—

The solid state drive.

Lexi was after the drive. And she was looking to kill anyone who knew about it from the start.

Lloyd set his glass down before it could fall from his hand. He felt very much like he might be sick.

He mumbled something to Abe, possibly “I'm sorry”, as he rose from the corner booth. The lights played over the 'bots and the customers as he weaved his way through, heading for the men's room—staggering not from drunkenness, but from a sudden, horrific realization that he'd been marked for death over something as capricious as a solid state drive having been smuggled out of another country.

The men's room door loomed out of the mass of people, a gap in the crowd.

Lloyd threw himself at it, shoulder-first, and ran for the far stall—the largest of the lot. He tripped, caught himself, and half-ran, half-crawled for his destination, neither knowing nor caring if anyone else was in the restroom.

The far stall was empty. Lloyd tripped again, ignoring the brief ache when he hit the floor. He scrambled to his feet, shut and locked the door, and stumbled to the far corner—each action, barely comprehended. His legs effectively gave out as he got to the corner, sending him sinking against the wall in a seated position, his head buried in his hands. The bass-driven music from outside was barely audible, with the closing of the men's room door.

Everything he'd bottled up since the night before roared to the surface: an eruption of emotion, in one scream.

When it ended, whenever it'd ended, he scrambled for the toilet. The feeling of sickness, violent illness, had manifested at last, with the inevitable results.

Minutes later, Lloyd sat with his back to the bowl, ignoring the tears on his cheeks. He thought not of his own life, his own future, but of Diana, of Harry, of Cam and Erin—they all knew about the solid state drive, as well. They'd been there when the CAEDIA Officers had tested it. Diana had only known about it because Bobby P. had accused her of trashing his house—which, of course, Lexi had been behind. Just as she'd been behind the near-kidnapping of Diana, and ambushing Lloyd at the parade.

Just as she was now hunting him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

“Lloyd?” Abe Weissman's voice jolted Lloyd out of the morbid montage of thoughts. “You okay?”

“Yes.” The word was almost a croak.

“I guess you and I need to talk,” Abe replied. “About all of this.”

“Yeah.”

“Let's, ah, get on back to the corner booth. Or a reserved table, if you prefer.”

After a moment to get his bearings, Lloyd made it to the stall door. There was no judgement in Abe's glance, no look of disdain. If anything, he'd seemed to have expected Lloyd's dash for the bathroom. “Feeling any better?”

“A little.”

“Can't blame you. Everything that's gone down lately—it'd make sense to want to disappear, for a while.”

The thumping beats from the other side of the door met Lloyd and Abe like a heat wave as they left the men's room.
-----
“Nothing?”

Sierra had appropriated a conference room at St. Vincent's for a sort of command base, from wherein calls to CAEDIA HQ and the police could be made and received. With Mandy Kemp's condition not changing for the better (or the worse), there was little else she could do, apart from answer the phone and talk to her colleagues—including Celia, who'd stepped up to fill in for Sierra as the CAEDIA Liaison to the Billings PD.

Not a word. It's like she's gone invisible since yesterday.

“She'd damn well better not have.” Lexi was already a walking nightmare; the thought of her being a near-literal ghost, hiding in the shadows of Billings, was almost more than Sierra was willing to take. As if to reassure herself, more than anything, she spoke again: “Judging from the files Detective Logan and I dug up, the psychos that made Lexi what she is now were more concerned with immediate action. Stealth doesn't seem to have been one of their priorities.”

I'd hope it wasn't. Anyway, Pierce from the PD is keeping us posted on anything his people find.

“And?”

Nothing so far—wait.

The last word drew any number of horrific possibilities towards the forefront of Sierra's thoughts. “Wait for what?”

Pierce just got a call in. Might just be a false alarm—”

“Have him send a car anyway. We can't afford to take any chances.”

The only officers available are—”

Send them. If it's Lexi—”

Call Incoming

Sierra groaned. “Call me back, Celia.” She tapped her right temple with two fingers. “Yeah?”

Still looking.” From the sound of his voice, Adrian Reese was on the verge of falling asleep.

“Take a break and let Cam handle it—she's still with you, right?”

Another voice piped into Sierra's ears: “I am.

“Then handle it. Please.” The call ended—just as Sierra realized who the only officers available were. “Damn it!” Her fingers touched her temple again to make the call—
-----
“—heard something hit the floor in here, I don't—”

Detective Logan's remark trailed off as he saw what—who—had hit the floor. Her legs, angled where she'd fallen behind the conference table. Her eyes, rolling in their sockets with quiet electrical snapping noises. Her jaw tightening of its own accord.

“Help—” Sierra's head kinked to the left with an electrical snap. “—me up—” Back to the right. “—damn it!”

Ignoring the concerned hospital staff behind him, the detective moved to help his colleague.
-----
“So, yeah. That's what I know so far.”

Lloyd—now in a room off the main floor of Sparx, sitting at a table with Abe Weissman—could only nod. He'd just heard everything Abe knew about the solid state drive, from what Harry had told him: Jaromir Dezhnyov hadn't even known it was in Pam when he'd shipped her back, someone had smuggled it out of Russia to get it away from someone far more dangerous than Jaromir, whoever wanted the drive back had probably already “dealt with” Jaromir (Lloyd felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach at the euphemism), Bobby Pariello had been caught up in it all by sheer happenstance...the list went on.

He wanted to feel some measure of relief—at least he hadn't been the only target, after all.

The only thing he felt, that he could feel, was dread. Just a hint, a small taste, but it was there—simmering, quietly, in some deep recess of his thoughts. Someone wanted him dead—not for personal reasons, but simply because he'd found an item that someone else had tried to hide, needed to get away from someone else. He'd been dragged into a dispute he had nothing to do with, a fight that hadn't been his, was never his—even now.

“Collateral damage.”

Abe frowned. “Hmm?”

“Collateral damage,” Lloyd repeated, burying his face in his hands. “I'm just—”

“Hey,” Abe cut in, “that kinda talk isn't gonna get you anywhere. You're alive right now, after all. And don't give me that 'but for how long' crap.”

Lloyd recoiled, and Abe sighed. “I'm not angry with you,” he clarified. “I'm just not a fan of all that defeatist stuff, is all. Never have been. I just figure that every second you're alive counts for something—and you're not 'collateral damage', in my book. You're Lloyd Morris Watson. 20 years old—got your whole life ahead of you.”

“I'd rather be anyone but Lloyd Morris Watson right now,” Lloyd muttered. “The Invisible Man, maybe.”

“That only works in the movies, kid,” Abe reminded him. “Never mind all that talk about 'quantum shields' and the like, from the Army. Any case, you're here, I can still see you, and you're still you.”

“Right.” Lloyd tried for a smile, found he didn't quite have the heart for it, and decided against it.

“This whole thing's gonna get sorted,” Abe assured him. “Trust me.”

“I do.” Lloyd nearly added that he also trusted the Model 19 he was wearing in a shoulder holster, but decided not to bring it up—Abe had waved them both through at the entrance, and no alarms had gone off despite the loaded revolver on Lloyd's person. He'd hoped, almost against all hope, that he wouldn't have to use the gun any time soon.

He also had a feeling, lurking somewhere alongside his dread, that he would be using the gun before the day was out.

“She's not here,” Abe mused. “The one who jumped you yesterday—system would've picked up on her if she'd tried to work the floor with the rest. “ He nodded out to the main floor of the club. “The girls are proprietary—just like the CorMat Crystals they run off of. I forget the legalese of it all—have to look that up another day.” He shrugged. “And it's not like she'd have made it past the bouncers anyway.”

Lloyd was of the opinion that Lexi could've made it past the bouncers, but decided not to voice his concerns.

“If they don't call in an hour and a half,” Abe continued, “you can head on home. Shouldn't be too much longer now.”
-----
“So you went to answer the call, and—”

“And the next—” Sierra's teeth clenched as a spark shot out of her nostril. “—minute, I was on the floor.” Her sudden jerks and twitches had calmed down significantly, but were still a problem. “What even—” Her face contorted, as if she were about to sneeze, before returning to normal. “—happened? I'm shielded, damn it!”

“Not against this.” St. Vincent's resident robotics repair specialist—their “'bot-doc”, as it were—was searching around both on the terminal hooked up to Sierra via the port in her neck, and the opened back of her head. “Aural Omnibus Overload. Ultrasonic frequency that can drop a 'bot at five paces, max.” He turned the terminal so that its screen faced her; a visual representation of the frequency's waveform had been captured. “You only heard maybe a fifth of what it would've taken to blow a component,” he explained. “Instead, you just got knocked for a loop.”

Sierra rolled her eyes, ignoring the fact that one of them got stuck midway through. “Wonder—” Her head kinked to the left for a second. “—ful.”

“Could've been worse,” Detective Logan reminded her. “CAEDIA's tracking the progress of sonic weaponry that can blow a power cell from half a mile away. Another variant can crash a 'bot's hard drive—remember the 'Rhythm Nation' issue they had with some laptops?”

“I rem—” Sierra seemed to cough. “—ember.”

“Any luck figuring out how someone got that signal through on a secure line?” the detective inquired.

“They'd have had to be in the building,” the technician reasoned. “Or near it.”

The detective sighed. “It's a start, at least.”

“You're forgetting that the Officers stationed at—” Sierra jerked against the back of the chair. “—the Morgan house are the only—” Her body twitched hard enough to nearly send her falling sideways. “—ones the police could send to deal with—” Another seizure-like twitch jerked her left side forward, her face briefly frozen in a sneer. “—that other call.”

“I'll get on that.” The detective turned to leave.

“Tommy, wait—” Sierra tried to get up, but another spasm sent her flailing back into the chair. “Damn it!”

“It'll take an hour or two to get your system sorted,” the technician warned her. “I'd suggest you not try to bolt on out of here until it all gets cleared up.”

Sierra groaned, ignoring the involuntary shrugging motions of her own shoulders.

“Before I go, one thing.” Detective Logan leaned back into the doorway. “Any news on Mandy Kemp?”

“Not my department, Detective. I'm a repairman, not a doctor.”

“No worries. I'll ask around on the way out.” The detective ducked back out of the door.

Sierra merely sat back in the chair, not daring to voice her concern: the attack which had left her compromised had been carried out by “the perp”, Lexi—which meant that Lexi was both nearby and knew CAEDIA had Officers in St. Vincent's to look after Mandy Kemp. If that was, indeed, the case, and the call Celia had reported was, indeed, a false alarm, then those stationed at the Morgan place were being called out for nothing.

The dawning horror of what this meant never left Sierra's mind, even as her body twitched and seized of its own accord.
-----
Thirty minutes. Not an hour and thirty, as Abe had said—just the thirty. That was how long it took before the call came in: the officers had left. Lloyd was free to go home.

“Erin just called. Cops have packed up and left at Harry's.”

Lloyd barely noticed that Abe had spoken, at first. He'd been staring at his drink, wondering how long he'd be staying (he'd nearly thought of the situation as “being stuck”) at Sparx, when Abe had told him. “Oh.” He hadn't even realised Abe had left the room to go answer the phone, initially.

“She's off to do a parts run, pick up some supplies—might be moving things around with the loader when you get back.”

“Right.”

As he left the reserved table area of Sparx, following close behind Abe, Lloyd assumed—hoped, really—that the sudden departure of the police and CAEDIA from his uncle's home wasn't a prelude to Lexi showing up before he got back and setting the whole place on fire.

The pair passed by the rest rooms and an unmarked door that Abe had clarified as being for the tech room—where Sparx's 'bots were brought for repairs, when and if the need arose—on their way out. They were ignored by “staff” and other customers alike; the former, due to Abe's request that they be left alone for the duration. The latter, because they were entirely too focused on the entertainment at hand to care.
-----
“Knew it.”

Detective Logan had already turned away from the assembled mass of hospital employees crowded around what they thought had been a dead body out behind St. Vincent's. A concerned citizen had reported “someone's on the roof”, the employees had congregated to avert a crisis, and now stared at what they'd thought was the result of their failure in that regard.

It'd been a NonSen. Someone—the detective knew who—had sent the 'bot up the steps, to the edge of the roof and had it wait five to ten minutes before stepping off the edge. CAEDIA would collect what was left of the 'bot; they'd very probably find a device set up to cause the Aural Omnibus Overload attack that had thrown Sierra for a loop.

The detective frowned as he punched in the number for CAEDIA HQ on his phone.

Had his ears been augmented in the same fashion as his eyes, he might've collapsed on the spot. Instead, he merely shut off the phone, before turning to regard the downed NonSen behind him.

Lexi had done this, no doubt. She'd sent the NonSen, probably called in the false alarm that Celia had reported—or had caused an incident to occur that some well-meaning individual might report on, thus giving the police an actual reason to bring manpower away from the Morgan residence. Either way—

His phone rang. It was in his hands and at his ear in seconds. “Got anything?”

—all left—gan's house—know why they—something's off! We're having—ruptions from some—

The detective scowled. Someone had gone through great pains to misdirect the police and attempt to cripple CAEDIA's communications infrastructure. “I'll be on my way.” He ended the call and stowed his phone. The situation at CAEDIA HQ would be sorted, as it tended to be. Thus, as he made his way to the hospital's car park, Detective Logan knew he had to get to Harry Morgan's house double-time if he wanted to—

He emerged into the car park and stared, silently, at the empty space where his motorcycle had been mere minutes ago.
-----
The nightmare was almost over. Or at least it would be, once Lloyd could get home, put this whole ordeal behind him and focus on something else.

The Zentury had arrived, via AutoDrive, and was waiting for Lloyd in the car park outside. The note, taped to the steering wheel, could be read through the driver's side window as he got close. It repeated what Abe had said, back in the club, in a more succinct fashion: “Cops all left, all clear. Leave it on AutoDrive – Erin”.

With a sigh, Lloyd climbed in the driver's seat and shut the door—

—just as Abe Weissman, who'd stepped back into Sparx to take a call, bolted out again. “LLOYD!

Lloyd didn't hear him, on account of the radio having been set too loud. He turned it down as the Zentury began to drive itself out of the car park; leaning back in his seat, eyes closed, he never saw the reflection of Abe screaming at him to stop the car. The frantically-gesturing figure got smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror—not that Lloyd was paying any attention to it. Soon, the Zentury was out of the Sparx lot, and on the way back home.

Knowing that it'd look rather grim if he fell asleep in the driver's seat, Lloyd adjusted his position. Sparx was already receding in the rear-view; under other circumstances—

Something peeled out from a side-street, skidded to a stop. A motorcycle.

For some reason, Lloyd chuckled. Great place for stunt driving, just getting out of Sparx and—

The nervous grin left his face as he realized that the bike was gaining on him.

He wanted to believe, needed to think that this was just someone in a hurry. Someone massively late for something, trying to get where they needed to go as quickly as possible, traffic be damned. They weren't chasing him.

They couldn't be chasing him.

High-beams kicked on, the glare from the rear-view nearly blinding Lloyd. The motorbike was gaining.

The note taped to the steering wheel was torn off; Lloyd searched, frantically, for the controls to get the Zentury back into manual. They were found and activated in seconds; he tried not to stomp the accelerator—for some reason, in his panicked mind, the thought of getting chewed out for busting Erin's car briefly overwhelmed the sheer horror of being chased away from Sparx.

That horror came roaring back to the surface as the pursuing bike sped up, almost swerving into the oncoming lane just to get closer to the Zentury. The squeal of brakes wasn't followed, thankfully, by the crush of metal and shattering of glass which usually accompanied a car crash.

None of this made Lloyd feel any less terrified.

He'd hit the U-turn necessary to get on the road to go back home, thinking—hoping his pursuer would stick to the laws of traffic. The sight of the chasing bike going over the shoulder, nearly causing three wrecks in the process, filled him with an icy, clinging sense of impending doom. He tried not to look up at the rear-view mirror, forced himself not to—

Two seconds. Possibly less. His eyes flicked towards the mirror, and he saw. He knew.

There was no ear-to-ear shark's grin, no maniacal laugh, no licking of the lips.

Her eyes told the story. She had Lloyd exactly where she wanted him.
-----
“Stole my bike right out of the St. Vincent's car park, and bypassed five security features!” Detective Logan didn't bother to glance at the nurses who'd gasped at the grating, harsh tones of his voice. “No idea how she pulled it off, but—”

Have you checked with the hospital's security staff?

“They were all tending to a busted NonSen out back. Someone sent it up to the roof, and over the edge.”

“Yeesh. And Sierra?”

“Still getting tended to by the 'bot-doc. We need all hands on deck for this one, Celia.”

I'll do what I can—wait.

The detective scowled. “More bad news?”

Just got a call from Abe Weissman at Sparx. Lloyd Watson just left, in a Honda Zentury sent from home—and someone on a motorcycle tore out of the side street by the club to chase him.

Damn it!” Detective Logan punched the wall. Two more passing nurses found reason to quicken their pace.

We can send an intercept team—”

“You can send me. Get a Crash Car to St. Vincent's, double-time.”

The pause after his response nearly led the detective to believe that the comm line to CAEDIA HQ had somehow been cut, again, but Celia spoke: “I'll do it. Be careful out there.

“Always have been.” Detective Logan ended the call, went to stow his phone—and had to raise it again. “Yeah?”

The bitch slashed my tires!

Abe Weissman's voice on the other end of the line wasn't entirely unexpected. “Still at Sparx, then?”

Saw her ride off, after Lloyd—no idea where she picked up a bike, but she had one. Went to my truck, thought I'd cut her off—the tires blew, all four of 'em! I'd be riding on rims if I tried to leave, now!

“I'll loan you a set from the rolling stock at HQ.” The detective knew, or suspected, at least, that Lexi had found and used the “Hero tool”—meant to break windows, cut seatbelts and free trapped passengers from immobilised vehicles—to pop all four tires on Abe's truck. “Re-inflating, so it won't happen twice.”

The tires aren't the big problem. That psycho's after Lloyd—again.

“The same one—”

Unless my eyes are going, she's the same one on all the SIGN-posts. Even through a helmet, I could tell. Those eyes!

“I'll be heading to Harry's soon. I'll do what I can when I get there.” The detective ended the call, hoping the Crash Car he'd requested would arrive soon.

Every minute counted, now. Every second meant the difference between Lloyd Morris Watson's survival, or his death.

Detective Logan had no intention of arriving just in time for the latter.
-----
It was dark by the time the Zentury pulled up to Harry's. The chill in the air, as Lloyd stumbled from the driver's side door, felt far more akin to Halloween than three days before Christmas.

He wondered if—

No. He knew the chill had everything to do with who he'd seen riding the motorcycle.

She'd found him. The same one who'd torn up Bobby P.'s house, the same one who'd nearly taken Diana. The same one who'd jumped him in the changing room the day before.

As he ran for the front door—the Zentury, for some stupid reason, had stopped at the far end of the driveway—he could only hope that his attempt at emulating Abe's use of side streets, intentional wrong turns and other methods to confuse his would-be pursuer had worked. Had the Zentury been left in auto-drive, he would've led her right to him, a straight line to his own death. She had to have lost the scent by now, had to have doubled-back and gone somewhere else.

The lack of any screeching tires gave credence to his hopes. Maybe his plan had worked after all.

His run slowed to a jog. A smile began to cross his lips. Maybe, just maybe, he'd get through this—

Behind him, something let off an ungodly screech.

He saw the motorcycle skid, crash into the Zentury.

Saw the bike erupt in flames almost instantly.

Didn't see the rider in the mangled mass of metal where the motorbike had hit the side of the other vehicle.

His smile evaporated in an instant. His jog kicked back up to a run.

The lights that lined the drive activated mere seconds after he passed each one. He looked behind with each flash, hoping to not see her.

One set on—nothing.

Next set—nothing.

Third set—nothing.

Fourth—

A wordless, shapeless howl escaped Lloyd's throat. She was walking—striding, really—towards him. Her pace was calm, measured. She'd taken off the helmet at some point.

It was her face that scared him the most. No shark's smile, no laughter, no lip-licking. No lascivious stare.

Her eyes, her smile, were calm. Almost angelic. As if her entire existence had led her to this glorious purpose.

Lloyd barely felt himself hit the front door. He tried it—locked. Fumbled in his pocket for the keys—his brain, in the panic that ensued, had almost mangled the thought as “check your keys for your pockets”. Found the keys, brought them to the door—

Dropped them.

She was getting closer. Something that looked very much like a knife was in her right hand.

A panicked, horrified bleat of a scream left Lloyd's lips. He bolted for the side of the house, knowing that he could at least get in through the back way if need be. Key under the fake light, all that stuff. He tripped once, twice; the impact of gravel against his right knee went ignored.

Of course everyone else was out. Of course it was just him—

No. Not just him.

“Diana.” He almost thought he'd imagined speaking her name; he'd nearly forgotten that she was still in the house, still undergoing her self-test. Would she be in any condition to help?

Lloyd was beginning to feel like he might be out of breath by the time he made it to the back door. “Third on the left, slide the thing at the thing, shake it twice—” He almost laughed with delight as the key emerged from the fake statue; it was in his hand in seconds, and in the doorknob in less time. He slammed the door behind him, locked it, and ran—he thought, for a moment, about moving furniture to block it off, but knew it'd take too long.

Every second counted, now.

He was on the stairs when her fist broke through the window of the front door. The shattering of the glass seemed to freeze him to the spot. Another hit bowed the wood inwards; a kick splintered the lower section of the door. A third punch broke the crossbeams of the window, and a fourth took the door out of the equation entirely.

Lloyd backed up the stairs, felt something against his left shoulder as he moved. A holster—the gun! The revolver, the Smith & Wesson Model 19—if there was ever a time to use it, it was NOW.

The door's remains fell inward as she stepped in. Turned, looked up, and saw.

Lloyd braced himself, the gun gripped in both hands. He fired six shots.

Without waiting, he turned—nearly falling in the process—and bolted up the stairs.

Diana's room, or the room that would be hers, was closed. Lloyd threw himself against the door as he turned the knob; he fell almost face-first into the room, preventing a face-first introduction to the floor by way of throwing his hands out as he landed.

As expected, Diana was still seated in her charging base; oddly, Lloyd realized it looked a bit like a sort of throne. He forced himself out of the distracting train of thought as he leaned in to check the readout.

Any hope of Diana by his side, holding off the psycho he'd just emptied six shots into, vanished. The debug for SafeSense was still running, at 48%.

He heard footsteps on the stairs.

Without hesitating, even as he cursed himself for leaving Diana alone, he ran from her room, sprinting to the far end of the hall. He skidded to a stop near one room, tried the doorknob—miraculously, it opened. He threw himself in, paid no attention to anything around him—a poster here, a stack of albums there—

Downstairs, something—the TV, a radio—kicked on. A mournful guitar sounded.

Oh, dear, what can I do? Baby's in—

Lloyd ran for the window. Tried to open it. Screamed obscenities at the lock, begging it to give way.

Footsteps seemed to echo down the hall, barely audible over the song: “I think of her, but she thinks only of him!”

The window still refused to open.

Lloyd grabbed for something, anything. His hands found a chair, hefted it.

The footsteps stopped at the door. Lloyd turned, saw the silhouette framed in the doorway.

She was wearing all-black. Her hair had been tied back into a ponytail.

Her expression was still serene, still smiling calmly.

The thing in her right hand was most definitely some kind of knife.

She took a step forward—

Lloyd screamed, smashed the chair into the window. Glass and wood shattered, raining down on the ground below.

He stepped up—onto a dresser, maybe, or an end table, it was hard to tell—and jumped.
-----
“The hell took you so long?”

Celia ignored her colleague's anger. “That 'false alarm' wasn't a false alarm. The building Lexi was hiding out in, after the parade? An inferno. Total loss.”

Damn it.” Detective Logan climbed into the passenger seat of the Crash Car. “Guess that's why they needed all officers on hand—”

“It gets worse. They found someone on the ground floor, by the side entrance.” Celia glanced at the rear-view as the Crash Car left the St. Vincent's car park. “35 wounds, all made with a department-issue—”

“I get the picture.”

“She pinned a note to him, too. Like the one they found at Hilands.” She gestured for the detective to check his phone.

“'Snow is always prettier when it's painted red'.” Detective Logan scowled. “The sooner we scrap her, the better—get the limiter off of this thing,” he added. “We need to get to Harry Morgan's!”

“On it.”

The Crash Car sped up, weaving effortlessly around the traffic.

“They find out what blacked out the comm lines at HQ?”

“Not yet. I can call for a car to get Sierra from St. Vincent's, have her checked out on home turf, if you want.”

“Do it.” Detective Logan checked his phone again. “And ask them to put Harry Morgan or Cliff Barba on the line, when you get through.”

“Not a problem.”
-----
Lloyd had broken something on the landing—he was sure of it. He tried to stand, felt his left knee buckle.

A pained cry split the night air. Another song was blasting from wherever in the house. Lloyd ignored it, just as he ignored the sting of the cold air against the cuts on his face, his arms.

The shop was up ahead. If he could get in, close the door behind him, he'd be safe.

He took three steps before falling to the ground. His left knee was ruined, he'd been sliced by broken glass, and he was still being followed. Still being hunted.

He had to keep going.

With a grunt, he dragged himself back to something resembling a standing position. He limped forward, his left leg dragging with every step.

The tears on his cheeks stung. One glided over a cut on his right cheek; he drew in a hiss of breath, trying to ignore it.

His pace slowed, his steps wobbling, but he persisted. He knew that if he could get into the shop, arm himself with any kind of tool, he might just see the dawn.

The door to the shop was drawing closer with every shaky step.

He fell two more times. Picked himself back up and kept going.

What felt to him like an hour of limping, half-crawling and forcing himself to keep going finally paid off as the keypad for the shop door was within reach. He raised his right arm—a blinding pain in his shoulder almost dropped him. He kept his arm be his side, only bending it at the elbow. His searching fingers found the buttons on the keypad as he punched in the code.

The confirmation beep had never sounded so divine before.

He managed, with his left arm, to pull the door open enough to get in. He took a step—

Lloyd's world went white with pain.

It took him a moment to realize he hadn't, in fact, been killed; his vision solidified, blurs and shapes forming into the familiar sights of the shop. The only oddity of it all was the angle; he was on the floor, on his side.

A dull, throbbing ache at the back of his skull gave a substantial hint as to what had dropped him.

His fears were confirmed when he rolled over, staring up at the black-clad, pony-tailed, serene smile of his pursuer.

His would-be killer, if all went her way.

“Lloyd Morris Watson.” Even her voice was calm. “It's been a while.”

She walked up a few more steps. He tried to crawl backwards, to get away, but his right arm and left leg only gave off blasts of pain when he tried to move. He felt the hand grabbing him by the hair, pulling him up.

“I'm going to enjoy this,” Lexi murmured, still smiling serenely. “Every minute.”

Lloyd realized that her right hand was out of view just as a blade bit into his left thigh.
-----
"No one steals our chicks.....and lives!"

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Baron
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Re: Writing As We Go, Chapter 19

Post by Baron » Tue Nov 01, 2022 12:48 am

:applause: :applause:

Now that's the work of a true Master Craftsman.

WELL done, and keep 'em coming!!! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Assemble the ladies? I didn't know that they were broken......

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