They Don't Care About Robots, Do They?

5

5

Without thinking too much about it, I'd got myself a number of avenues to investigate and I hadn't even accepted the case. There are times in any investigator's life where two things don't fit. The job intrigued me, that much was clear. Working for bots, religious bots at that, bothered me. I had my prejudices, just like every other slob on these streets, but my prejudices had a reason.

Those bullets that tore my body to pieces, the slugs that led to me becoming this thing, part-human, part-machine, were all fired by a bot. A stupid, greased up bot that had little more intelligence than my battered slate. It had only wanted to be free, but it had been my job, and my partner's, to close the bot down. Make the world safe. Safe for everyone but me.

My partner, Amos, had survived. A tough broad if I ever knew one. She had taken down the bot that had done its best to take me down, but I showed it. It couldn't beat me down. By the skin of my teeth and the work of docs needing a guinea pig for their prototype cybernetic research. My heart kept ticking, but I lost everything else.

I could feel the eyes of every cop in the precinct follow me through the dim corridors. I could hear the whispers, no matter how low I turned my hearing down. They didn't even try to hide their disgust and distrust. The cop that wouldn't die. That preferred to take on the form of the thing that had tried to kill him. A half-monster with no more right to life than the lowliest sanitation bot. I scared the hell out of 'em and I liked it.

The word 'Doll' floated around in the air behind me as I passed people that I once thought of as brothers and sisters. Standing arm-in-arm against a tide of crooks and bad guys that only ever grew in numbers. We were the shield, the wall that made Atunis Quarter safe. Or, rather, less unsafe. It wasn't a term of endearment, nor a frivolous nickname given to a cherished friend. They called me 'Doll' because of what I'd become. A parody of a human.

Also, they could pretend they only shortened 'Dalton'. I knew that reason wasn't true. I could hear their hearts skip every time any of them tried to pull that crap out of their asses. They knew I knew, too, they just didn't care. Neither did I. The words of fair weather friends meant nothing to me. Not anymore.

Knuckles rapped on the door to Amos' office and I leaned against the door frame. Making an approximation of a guilty expression with my face, I waited for the inevitable insults and curses. Of all the people I had worked with, Amos only treated me a little different from how she once had. The same bot that had almost killed me had left its mark upon her, too.

"Dalton goddamned Steel!" She manoeuvred her assistance seat around her desk, Thought-lifting it to make our eyes level. She had refused prosthetic legs. "Whatever it is, I'm not buying. Bad enough I have to ride a desk for ten years because of you, I don't need the crap I'll get from the rest just by talking to you."

"You know you love me, Amos." With hands in my pockets, I slid around the doorframe. "And I didn't make you ride a desk. You could have left me there until backup arrived, but, no, had to be the hero. Just like me."

With a glance out of the door, Amos closed it, Thought-switching the window to opaque. As she moved her assistance seat around, back to her desk, she shook her head. The seat lowered at a thought and she lounged back. Had she still got legs, she would have crossed them at the ankles on her desk. As an afterthought, she sent out a robotic arm from behind the seat and it opened a drawer in the filing cabinet behind her.

Within seconds, two shot glasses were on the desk, filled from a whiskey bottle that cost so much, I could have bought a dozen cases of my own cheap paint thinner brand. The arm retracted and her eyes flickered to the door. She didn't like using that bot arm where others could see. My transformation had made people twitchy about cybernetics in this precinct.