chapter 1

Tonight, like all other nights Ishtar had endured in this horrid city, Neo Vegas was alive.

The city lived in the same way she did- not by thriving, but by surviving. It held onto life not with ambivalent lack of care others could- no, it held on by tooth and nail, with the ferocity of an animal too often wounded. No. Not today. I will not go gentle into this good night.

Neo Vegas lived through the stench of smoke and mechanical noise. It lived through vapid desert heat in the day and the artificial glow of LEDs in the night. It lived through the debauchery and sin that had become its reputation- through risky bets placed with money that wasn’t real and the ingestion of illicit substances and whispers of sweet nothings to the wrong people, hidden away in alleyways. It lived through the dirt and grime that caked under all the glitz and glam and beauty it pretended to be.

Ishtar tore through the city at breakneck speed, pressing her body close to that of her hoverbike. She only dared to hold her head only high enough that she could see over her handlebar- any higher, and she’d risk flinging herself into the street. If she was lucky, she’d hit the asphalt with enough time to duck underneath any incoming hovers. If she wasn’t lucky, her body would collide with the aluminum shell of an incoming vehicle, moving so fast it’d crush her instantly.

She wove carefully, and illegally, through the traffic of larger, slower vehicles. Though it would be far safer to follow the flow of traffic, especially as she entered the inner districts of the city, where SIN surveillance drones would be on high alert, the risk was worth it for the speed she gained by breaking the law. Taha would kill her if she was late, or at least berate her for an hour or two.

As Ishtar descended the frighteningly high overpass and entered the city’s heart, she slowed her bike and merged with the incoming traffic. Overhead, surveillance drones buzzed, their laser optics scanning the crowd for anything- or anyone- being smuggled into the city. Ishtar kept her head down- while she had nothing that would get her in trouble, it wouldn’t be her first encounter with the SIN drones, and she could live without being stopped by them again.

The drones were owned, operated, and manufactured by the SIN conglomerate- a robotics cooperation that among other things, produced the surveillance technology that controlled Neo Vegas. Their name, which Ishtar always thought was a little on the nose, stood for Security Information Networks, though the weight those three letters carried was far more potent when they stood on their own. They stood like that- bleak and cold, spelled out right in front of everyone- plastered on the bodies of the surveillance drones. SIN.

Traffic lulled, and eventually stalled, under the watchful mechanical eye of the SIN drones. Even while stationary, Ishtar kept her body pressed close to her bike. If the drones caught sight of her face, they would be able to identify her, and even possibly link her to past altercations she’d had with the drones. She kept her head down and her breath bated, waiting for this moment to pass.

In a minute that passed like an hour, the silver-blue laser passed over Ishtar’s body and her vehicle, inducing a static tingling in her ears and fingers. Finally, as the surveillance drone moved its gaze to the cargo hover behind her, she could breathe. The traffic in front of her was moving again, though only at a fraction of the speed it had before. Ishtar took a second to check the cargo in the back of her bike was still there and unharmed. Then, she followed the traffic into the heart of the city.

Ishtar descended into the grisly den of the heart of Neo Vegas, keeping her body close to her hoverbike’s. Traffic slowed the further she traveled into the tangle of side streets and alleyways, and while Ishtar could easily slip between the bulky hovers on her bike, the buzz of SIN drones above was reason enough not to. They were on higher surveillance tonight, and Ishtar wondered if something had happened. She resolved to ask Taha if he’d heard of anything.

Much like the traffic, and the density of buildings, the air grew thicker as Ishtar neared the city center. It was nasty and putrid and smoke-like, and even through her heavy-duty respiration mask, Ishtar could still taste it crawling up her tongue.

Though the city was often awash with desert sun gold in the day, at night it bathed in the neon tones of a thousand LED advertisements. Ishtar rarely paid them any mind- she had little patience for the beauty modifications being advertised to her on giant holoscreens, nor much use for the greasy, ready-to-eat meals that always made her nauseous, even if they were only ‘399 CREDITS A BOX!’ Though, as traffic lulled to a stop in front of a horrific hover wreck, Ishtar’s attention and gaze were torn from the street, to one of the beaming advertisements.

The advertisement itself was a ginormous holoscreen spread, taking up the good part of a skyscraper’s facade. It dwarfed the surrounding screens and drenched a block or two of the street in shimmering, blue light. It took Ishtar a moment to actually realize what was being advertised. The majority of the screen was taken up by the image of an alluring woman- with milky skin, ice-blonde hair, and eyes so artificially violet they seemed to pierce through the night, looking straight into Ishar’s own dark ones. She wore only a two-piece lingerie set, one strap precariously draped over her shoulder, the other held carefully by a perfectly poised hand. Nearly all the advertisements in this neighborhood used sexually provocative imagery as part of their marketing- though this example was rather egregious, it wasn’t out of place among the sexy ladies selling alcohol and chemical skincare products. But the woman on the blue holoscreen didn’t look like she was advertising something- she wasn’t featuring any product. It almost looked like the product being advertised was the woman herself.

When Ishtar read the name of the company, printed in pale text close to the woman’s face, she realized her assumption had been correct.

SIN Pleasure Labs presents: The LoveLike model 7.1

LoveLikes. Of course, it was an advertisement for LoveLikes. In addition to the surveillance drones that patrolled the city, the SIN Conglomerate operated what they called ‘Pleasure Labs’- robotics teams that catered not to the prying interests of the government, but to capitalize off the human taste. The principal product of those labs were LoveLikes- androids designed only for the purpose of imitating human life. They were supposed to be companions- for the most lonely and depraved, who couldn’t get affection from others and thus had to buy it. They were supposed to be a fantasy- customizable from the thickness of their acrylic hair follicles to the length of their artificial toenails. They were supposed to be human, but better.

Ishtar found them utterly revolting. She gazed up into the advertisement, into the artificial woman’s artificial eyes, with newfound resentment- with newfound fear. This was not the image of a woman she was beholding- not flesh and blood and feelings, but wires and programming and artifice. The woman in the advertisement, despite how beautiful she was, was no more human than the heating units and cleaning modules Ishtar fixed up for Taha.

The traffic was starting up again. Ishtar gave the artificial woman one last glance, and followed it.

Ishtar parked her hoverbike in the great, sprawling underground garage underneath Nova Estrellas Shopping Mall, on the lower level reserved for employees of the mall’s various outlets. She scanned her wrist, and its embedded ID chip, at the turnstiles, and was correctly identified as a mall employee. She got on the lift to work, and ascended.

Taha’s mechanic shop- named, creatively ‘Electronic Repair Plus’- was on the third and highest floor of the mall, in the furthest corner from lift from the garage. Ishtar spent an eternity in the still, buzzing elevation of the lift, and another wading through the crowds of customers as she made her way to the shop. The mall owners blared trashy, repetitive pop music throughout all hours of the day, which mingled awkwardly with the music vendors played in their own shops. Though Ishtar kept her ventilation mask on as she traveled indoors, she could smell the rubbery plasticity of the cheaply manufactured electronics and the sweet, savory smell of the open food court. It was when she could smell the stench of welded metal and grease did she know she’d made it to Taha’s shop.

Instead of going through the spotless, bright customer entrance, Ishtar slipped through a side door labeled ‘employees only’, going straight to her workshop in the back. Taha was assisting customers in the front, what looked to be a teen girl and her father, and she didn’t want to get in the way. For the three years she’d been an employee of Taha’s, this had been their arrangement- he dealt with all the rowdy, frustrated customers and the intricacies of their wants and budgets, and she dealt with the far simpler technical and mechanical repairs their electronics needed. Why anyone ever thought people were easier to understand than machines, Ishtar would never understand.

In the privacy of her workshop, Ishtar finally pulled off her respirator mask, placing it safely in her bag and exchanging it for a black apron that hid its grease stains in its dark color. She shed her biking jacket and replaced her road gloves with hardier, dirtier work ones. She pushed her hair out of her face. She deposited the delivery with a pile of other boxes Taha hadn’t bothered to yell at her for yet.

“Please, Papa, I need it for the trip to San Angelo!” The customer girl was pleading to her father. “I can’t be the only girl on the trip without a Stanley Fridglet! And Bessica already got the Summer Vibes collection!”

Taha let out an exasperated sigh. “Ma’am, I’m sure we’ll be able to fix it in time for your vaca-”

“Darling, calm down.” The father interrupted. He turned back to Taha. “You will have this fixed in time for my daughter’s spring break. Otherwise, I expect a full refund.”

Ishtar knew Taha only took a rather measly security deposit before repairs, and only received payment once repairs had been completed and the device had been returned, as Neo Vegas laws strictly outlined. “Of course,” The shopkeeper replied mechanically. He glanced behind his shoulder, finally noticing Ishtar’s arrival. “Like I said before, my mechanic is very good. Speaking of, I think she’s finally arrived.

Before either customer could reply, Taha swiftly closed the shop’s privacy screen, shielding the customers from the conversation inside the workshop. It covered the vendor window in a glossy transparent blue- a holograph made to look gelatinous second and obscure sightlines first. Taha spun on his heel, and faced Ishtar with a stern expression.

“You’re twenty minutes late.”

Taha was a gruff man- with tan-brown skin and dark wavy hair. He stood just a few inches below Ishtar, and had a portly, built figure. He put more effort into his appearance than anyone else she knew, though she didn’t quite understand the look he was going for. Taha exclusively wore three-piece suits in glistening, glittering jewel tones, and clipped back his dreadlocks with a solid-gold clip. He wore costume-jewelry earrings, faux-leather dress shoes, and a bright smile (at least when facing his customers), all things that seemed ill-suited for the business he operated.

Ishtar rolled her eyes, and gestured to the crate she’d just deposited with the other deliveries. “Well, I would’ve been here if you hadn’t sent me all the way to Sentena for mag-belts.” Mag-belts they didn’t even need for any current repairs.

“You know we can’t afford delivery!” Was Taha’s protest. He supplemented it with, “And cover your arm! No one needs to see your wiring!”

Though Ishtar could’ve easily protested that the cost of delivery could easily be offset by the productivity they’d gain by having her around more, she knew that would only set Taha off more, especially since he had a customer waiting. Instead, she tugged her right-hand glove to better cover her cybernetic hand. Though the discriminations she faced as a cyborg weren’t as bad as others had faced forty years ago, public perceptions were slow to change. Taha was of the belief that having a visible cyborg on staff, as his chief (and only) mechanic no less, would dissuade customers. So Ishtar hid her prosthetic leg, and the cybernetic arm that was far more difficult to disguise, and pretended to be someone she wasn’t. As if that hadn’t been the story of her life. “My bad.” She muttered, gazing at the floor.

Taha glanced her over once more, though Ishtar intentionally avoided his stern gaze, and scoffed. He gestured to the rack of crates that held all the still-uncompleted repairs. “You have work to get to. And I have customers.”

Her only acknowledgement a nod, Ishtar watched Taha return to the two customers he’d left waiting, and left to her own work. She pulled one of the crates from the repair rack- one that held someone’s broken AC module, and deposited it on her workbench.

Secluded from the sounds of Taha’s bargaining and the raucous noise of the mall, Ishtar could finally focus. She could abandon all pretense of identity, all expectations placed upon her. Machines didn’t care that she was a cyborg, or trans, or anything like that. She didn’t have to pretend. Like none other, she could get lost in the solace of gears and wiring and programming. In chips and motherboards.

She only wished people were as easy to figure out as the machines she repaired.

chapter 2

Ishtar worked silently for hours, her shift at Taha’s shop passing in the minutia of her work- loosen a screw, rewire a control panel, grease a rusted joint, replace a faulty part, tighten a screw. She focused so deeply on her work, the nerves and fear previously plaguing her seemed to melt into repetitive motion, repetitive thought.

Though Taha continued assisting customers, Ishtar was able to ignore his boisterous bargaining, only ever looking up to her manager when he deposited another project needing her attention by her desk.

She did not mind the constant drone of Taha’s negotiations, or the buzzing of the air conditioning unit that hummed too close to her workspace and always made the entire workshop colder than the desert night. She did not mind the fluorescent light beaming down on her, washing out her tan skin in an ugly greenish-blue. She did not mind the long hours or the night shifts.

Ishtar knew she was lucky to work for Taha. Despite his prejudices, he was better to her than others would be. He paid her a fair wage- something almost impossible to come by as a mechanic in Neo Vegas- and treated her with basic respect. He left her alone while she worked- she suspected out of fear his interference would make her less of a skilled mechanic- and only assigned her as much work as he knew she could handle. The conditions weren’t ideal- the hours were long, the work was never ending, and Taha was hardly the most easy-going man to work for, but it was a far better opportunity than others she could find. Working for Taha paid her rent, and that was really all she could ask for. She’d take what was offered to her. She’d work that grueling night shift, under burning fluorescent light, when the alternative was poverty.

Halfway into the night shift, when she’d since completed five separate repairs and already taken one of the two ten-minute breaks Taha allowed her per six-hour shift, Ishtar was working on repairing an electric toaster oven, that was allegedly having difficulty processing the owner’s verbal commands of how toasted they’d like that morning’s bagels. It was a simple fix- most likely an issue with the toaster’s microphone, and she likely wouldn’t have to send it to her software guy. Taha never liked it when she had to outsource repairs. He had been attempting to convince her to sharpen her coding skills since the moment he’d hired her.

As the evening waned into night, Taha’s stream of customers steadily depleted, and he eventually closed the storefront and left for the night, leaving Ishtar to complete her repairs on her own. The mall switched from its harsh, fluorescent day lights to the dimmer, neon-blue night lighting, and though the large halls venerating consumerism were desolate, they were far from empty. The dark halls were filled with everyone from junkies, to squatters, to especially daring, stupid teenagers. They didn’t bother Ishtar, though, and she didn’t bother them. Safe in her workshop, she could focus solely on her own work. The cover of night was the equalizer of them all. They all had the potential to be dangerous to each other, and so they were all wary.

The static consistency of the night was cut like a knife through butter by the unmistakable presence of an interloper. In the shelter of her workshop, Ishtar at first did not notice the strangers, but as soon as she did, she knew they didn’t belong.

It was a formation of four figures, walking in pairs of two. Even from a distance, they stood out among the regular night-dwellers of the mall. They wore crisp, uniform white coats that reached to their knees and reflected an oil-spill, holographic rainbow in the neon glow of the late-night mall. Though she couldn’t tell at first, as they neared Ishtar realized they were all wearing masks- not the partial-coverage respiratory masks that were essential for comfortable life in Neo Vegas’s smoggy streets, but full-face, pure white dome masks, covering the entire face in a cold sheen. Ishtar wondered how someone could see out of something like that, and realized too late they were approaching her shop.

Only when they entered the harsh white light, the cleanliness that so closely mirrored the state of their uniforms, did Ishtar begin to fear. She glanced over the figures for any recognizable symbol- a logo, a color, anything. There wasn’t much- these weren’t SIN police in their black-and-navy uniforms, with their halo badges. The only thing she could find was a simple insignia embroidered onto each figure’s breast pocket, in thread so light it was barely distinguishable from the slick, shiny material of the coats. The symbol was simple- sparse, even. It was a closed eye- little more than a horizontal, down-curving line.

In closer quarters, Ishtar realized why the figures had taken the formation they did. In between their ranks floated a long, black box- supported by hover-modules at each corner. The box was roughly the length and width of a person, almost like a coffin. Did it hold a body? Was the coffin for her? She hadn’t done anything to justify someone sending hired guns after her, at least that she could remember, but that didn’t eliminate the possibility. Wondering caused bile to rise in Ishtar’s throat. She met the steely gaze of the figures, but did not move from the security of her workspace.

Abruptly, one of the figures- the one on the front left- moved forward, pulling something out of their pocket. Reflexively, Ishtar reached for her wrench- maybe, she could use it as a weapon- but the masked figure only held a small holographic projection disk. Ishtar relaxed, but only slightly, as the disk flickered on and projected into existence the blue-tinted image of another masked figure. Though they wore the same white-dome mask as the figures physically in front of Ishtar, they lacked the hood the others had, revealing ears decorated in angular jewelry and coily hair cropped close to the skull. Above them floated the same closed eye insignia that the figures wore on their coat, now far easier to see.

“Ishtar Solus,” the holograph said, the masked person’s natural voice being filtered through a voice modulator that nearly made the words incomprehensible, “I am operative 4N63L, Sect 07 of the Institute of the EYE. Our institution is in need of your services. Approach.”

Ishtar kept her grip tight around her wrench, though it remained at her side. Operative? Institute? The words were spoken too quickly for her to really comprehend them, though she was sure she hadn’t ever heard of an ‘Institute of the EYE’ before. Tentatively, she backed further into the workshop. She kept her gaze on the figure with the hologram disk.“What’s going on? Who are you? What do you want from me?”

The holograph figure inclined their head slightly to the side, and muttered simply, tiredly, “Apprehend her.” That surprised Ishtar more than anything- she had thought the message was pre recorded. There was no transmission symbol like she’d seen on any other two-way broadcast. Whoever was behind that mask, was getting a live feed of her.

Before Ishtar could react- by shouting or running or fighting- the two cloaked figures on the right side of the floating coffin raced towards her, hurdling the dividing wall that in normal circumstances kept employees separate from customers. Ishtar screamed as they grabbed her by the shoulders, and tried to wrestle herself out of their grasp, but had no luck. They dragged her out of the employee entrance to the customer area, and held her in front of the holograph. Ishtar did not make eye contact with the floating image. She would not degrade herself in that way.

“It would do you well to comply with our requests, Ishtar Solus.”The holograph figure sneered. “We will not hesitate to show force if necessary. Though, if that is not enough of an incentive…”

The two figures still holding Ishtar by the shoulders abruptly spun her around, to where the forth was pulling a case out of their cloak. They opened it, and showed the inside to Ishtar.

Credits. Rows upon rows of them. Ishtar had never seen so much money- at least, not in cash, all lined up in a case like that. It would cover her rent for months- no, years. She would be able to replace her prosthesis. She would be able to leave Taha’s workshop. Hell, she might even be able to leave Neo Vegas entirely. When her captors spun her back to the holograph figure, she had a new question to demand of them.

“What do you want me to do?”

The holograph figure inclined their head slightly back, slightly to the right, and in the same motion the cloaked figure holding the holograph disk waved a free hand over the floating coffin, causing its dark exterior to fade into dim, transparent glass.

Beneath the glass was a woman- or, at least what Ishtar thought to be a woman. She had pointed features, eyes softly closed into sleeping crescents. Silver-platinum, silk-straight hair cascaded around her face, cropped to the shoulders and faded to blue at the tips. On each cheek were two moles, perfectly symmetrical to each other. Her skin was tan and olive toned, her nose a soft, subtle arch. Though only her face, neck, and shoulders were revealed to Ishtar, she could tell the woman wasn’t wearing much beneath the cover of the coffin lid- the gentle curve of her bosom cast delicate shadows across her chest in the low light. She was the most beautiful woman Ishtar had ever seen.

At least, that’s what she thought at first. What she thought until she realized how stupid she’d been.

It wasn’t a woman in that box. It was an android. It was a LoveLike.

All LoveLike units released after version 4.3 were marked with a simple, triangle shaped logo on the left side of their neck. This change had followed numerous lawsuits complaining that the androids were simply ‘too lifelike’, and their indistinction from humanity could get someone in serious trouble. The SIN conglomerate’s response was one simple marking- something discreet enough to be mistaken for a tattoo, yet recognizable enough it couldn’t be anything but a factory mark. Of course, it was a LoveLike. It was too perfect, too pristine. Ishtar cursed the flight of fancy that had overtaken her- she should’ve known better.

“This unit,” The holograph figure continued, “Is damaged beyond our repair capabilities at the EYE home base. We have come to enlist your services- and buy your silence- to repair it. The unit’s memory core has been compro-”

A scream pierced through both the holograph figure’s words and the bleak of the night. At first, Ishtar had thought in her panicked confusion that the voice had been hers, but it was too high, too shrill. No, the scream had come from the other side of the mall, from a pair of teens she had previously paid no mind to.

“Stop- get away from me- it’ll spread!” One was backing away from their shadowy alcove, into the neon blue light of the mall proper. She looked frantically around, but no one else was moving. “Help! Somebody help!”

Ishtar was frozen, with her captors around her. No one dared to move, but the girl stumbling away from her companion. Despite her efforts, her friend was following.

He stumbled into the blue light in a drunken haze- at least, from where Ishtar was, he seemed drunk. The blue light illuminated the dark circles under his eyes, the reflective quality of his leather vest, the dark sores on his forearms. Ishtar realized something terrible at the same time the girl announced it.

“Marcille-” The boy begged.

“He has the plague!”

The blue plague. Accimalis. First recorded in rural Australian communities nearly twenty years ago, it had spread to nearly every reach of the world. Though Neo Vegas often purported its autonomous power within the American Confederation, their government could do little to stop the spread of the disease. The plague was airborne- highly contagious, it clung to one’s clothes, to their sweat. It was a death sentence. And the first symptoms to manifest were dark, bruise-like sores on the upper extremities.

Ishtar had been here before, if not in a few years. She knew too well what happened when there was a plague outbreak at the mall. The alarm would be rung. The paramedics would arrive, and escort the patient away. His companions would be, too- in separate ambulances. If they weren’t already infected, they’d want to keep them that way. The mall would be put on lockdown- no one would be let in, or out, til they had cleared every breathing body in the building for Accimalis negativity. Anyone with even the slightest possibility of having the disease would be sent to the quarantines. The last time this had happened, Ishtar and Taha had been stuck in the mall for over four hours.

But Taha wasn’t here this time. And Ishtar was among different company.

It took until the moment the shrill, droning fire alarm was rung for the white-cloaked figures to react to the cries of plague. The ones holding Ishtar released her- less letting her go, and more throwing her towards the hover-coffin. The hologram projection closed out, though not before one final message: “You have been instructed.” In a flash of white movement, the cloaked figures resumed their square formation and disappeared into the night, leaving Ishtar alone with only an android in a coffin, and a quest to fix it.

chapter 3

After the last time plague had broken out at the Nova Estrellas Shopping Mall, after she and Taha had spent four hours going through testing and lockdown procedures, Ishtar had devised never again to go through such procedures. On one of her off days, she drove her hoverbike up to the mall and spent hours wandering through the complex’s old underground maintenance tunnels, until she found a way out. She had never intended to actually use her subterranean escape route- it had been a way to relieve her anxieties, more than anything- but now, she was glad she had it.

Beyond the bright security of Taha’s shop, the alarm rang- a blaring, droning siren accompanied by swirling red lights that contrasted harshly with the cool blues of the mall’s regular nighttime lighting. Above the wailing siren, Ishtar could barely hear the wailing of the infected boy’s partner, and the panicked cries of the other mall goers. The white-cloaked figures that had arrived before her were nowhere to be seen- they’d disappeared into the night in a fraction of the time it’d taken them to appear. The only thing they’d left was the asset they’d delivered.

The coffin was about as long as Ishtar was tall, and could’ve easily held an average-sized person. It didn’t- the android it did hold was hidden under a layer of holo-glass, now dimmed out to hide the box’s occupant. It hovered at her waist height, and there were steel rails on the sides to assist in its movement. Tentatively, Ishtar took hold of the rail and found she had no trouble pushing and pulling the coffin- perhaps, the formation of four had been only for show.

The authorities would arrive at the mall in only a few minutes, and they wouldn’t let anyone out of the mall until they’d screened everyone for plague. They certainly wouldn’t let a rogue android out without asking a few questions, questions Ishtar couldn’t provide answers to. Whoever this ‘Institute of the EYE’ was, she got the feeling they didn’t want anyone knowing where their android was, much less the government. And Ishtar couldn’t wager their wrath- not delivering on her promise could easily cost her her life, whether it be through assasination or extortion.

She had to get out, she had to do it fast, and she had to do it without grabbing anyone’s attention. The last one was the hardest- with all the commotion of the white-cloaked figures, all eyes that weren’t on the plague victim were most definitely on her shop. Still, Ishtar shut off all the store’s lights, even the neon sign Taha insisted on leaving up even when the shop wasn’t open. Maybe, people would forget she’d even been there in the first place.

Ishtar wrapped both her hands around the coffin’s steel handles, and, in the pitch dark she’d cast herself into, began dragging it towards the shop’s employee entrance. There, she could access the backrooms of the mall, and a lift to the maintenance tunnels. That was her best shot of getting out- under the cover of night, in tunnels no one was supposed to be in at this time of night, she could make her escape. She wouldn’t be able to retrieve her hoverbike, but right now that didn’t matter. It would be safe in the garage, at least overnight. Her life was far more valuable.

The maintenance tunnels were far better lit than the upper levels of the mall- cast in fluorescent white instead of neon blues and reds. The harsh light illuminated their grime- the rough concrete walls, the location indicators in need of a fresh paint job, the layer of muck permanently caked into the tunnels’ matted carpet floor. But they were far emptier than the surface, and the emergency responders wouldn’t think to look through them. Barely anyone knew that they were there, unless they needed to know.

Ishtar moved diligently and deliberately through the tunnels, trying to stay light on her fight while also avoiding stalling. The coffin made her trip all that more difficult- though its hovertreads made it somewhat easy to move, it was still cumbersome and awkward, clearly not meant to be delicately maneuvered.

She had to carefully check every corner, every hall she turned into, for the dark, prying eye of the security cameras. While she was certain no one was watching them now- any camera-watching security officer was surely quarantined with the rest of the midnight mall goers, she couldn’t risk the footage being examined again later. It was standard protocol when moving through the tunnels, android coffin or not. If you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, you avoided those watching you.

The tunnels were deadly silent- the only sounds filling the air were the whirring of the decaying fluorescents, the humming of the coffin’s hovertreads, and the soft padding of Ishtar’s bootsteps on the carpeted floor. The unsilent silence, coupled with the sickly yellow tone of the aging lights, threatened to drive her mad. She trudged along with the coffin, wondering if maybe she should’ve remained at the surface with everyone else, if all her worries would have been for nothing. She thought of three excuses to why a mysterious LoveLike was in her possession (‘The dance club on the second floor was having me run maintenance on their bots’, ‘I’m installing mods for a client of mine’, and, of course, ‘I’m a mechanic, dealing with androids is my job’)

When Ishtar was about to give up and turn back, when she was certain she had made a wrong turn and her mouth was dry and her body weary, she paused, standing aside the coffin, one hand still on its handle.

She had heard a voice.

The portion of the tunnel she had stopped in was a long corridor, lined with doors. The rooms the doors led to, remnants of a past where these tunnels had been a survival bunker, had all been closed off years ago, when the new government had taken charge. Some of the gray-metal doors still held remnants of their original identifying signs, and some of those signs were still partially legible, but many were left bare, as empty as the cells they guarded.

The voice hadn’t come from the hall- there was no one but Ishtar and her coffin for as far as she could see, and she had quite a while to go till the next fork in her path. No, it had to have come from one of the doors. Ishtar couldn’t tell which- though she could still hear the inaudible, unmistakable droning of a human voice, it was too soft and too masked by the other hummings and whirrings that filled the hall. She couldn’t even tell if the voice was natural, or a recording or transmission.

The one thing she did know, though, was that she couldn’t stay put any longer. Not here, not with someone else potentially only steps from her. She might not be arrested for possession of covert spyware, or whatever the LoveLike’s purpose was, but she’d definitely be arrested for trespassing. She reworked her exit route in her brain, planted both hands on the coffin’s rail, and backtracked to where she could get back on route.

As Ishtar dragged the coffin along, she passed a nondescript door, differentiated only from its peers by the ghost of a sign reading ‘generator room’. She heard the voice again, in more clarity than before, and realized that this was here the voice was coming from.

“... the ADAH project. The chip has been implanted in the memory core of a LoveLike model…”

Ishtar only remained in place long enough to hear the slightest snippet of a conversation. She ran down the hall as quickly as she could without making too much noise. Whoever was having a conversation deep in the tunnels wouldn’t want to be interrupted by a stray mechanic, and they might even react worse than the police would. She couldn’t help but feel caught- the voice had mentioned a LoveLike, but surely, that had to be a coincidence! There were tens of thousands of LoveLikes in the city of Neo Vegas alone, and the chance that the unit the voice was talking about and the android in the hover-coffin by her side were the same were slim to none. Yet, it was a strange coincidence. An unnerving one. In all her life, Ishtar had never once even heard of LoveLike androids being used for any kind of covert purpose. And yet, tonight, she had heard of two.

Ishtar buried her doubts. Whatever the voice in the generator room was speaking of, it wasn’t her problem. Whatever the Institute of the Eye was doing with a LoveLike in a coffin, it wasn’t her problem. She would get home, she would do her job, and she’d be done with it all. She didn’t have the luxury of wonder. She didn’t need to know what was going on. Right now, all she needed was to get out of the tunnels.

chapter 4

Eventually, Ishtar reached her apartment building- a looming, dismal structure dwarfed by the office building to its left. Half its windows were boarded up permanently, and its concrete structure was slowly being encroached upon by all manner of graffiti, but it was home- as much of a home as she’d ever had. From the street, she could look up and see her own apartment- fifth floor up, furthest on the right. Her window was one of few not covered by curtain or plywood, and she could see the slightest glimpse of the interior of her bedroom- the light above her bed, the dying succulent on her windowsill. Her fleshy, human limbs ached from a day spent too long working, and her cybernetic prosthetics ached to be free of her mortal form.

She scanned her ID chip at the lift entrance, and spent too long and made too much noise trying to wedge the mass of the hover-coffin into the small carriage. In the end, she had to hold it awkwardly vertical, so that its android occupant was almost standing upright. Even in this configuration, she had to press her back firmly to the coffin, bracing herself with her leg on the wall, all in order to keep the coffin’s hover mechanism from righting the box into its proper horizontal position and breaking something (which would most likely be Ishtar’s bones). The discomfort of the elevator ride only lasted less than a minute, though. She arrived at her floor, she dragged the coffin down the hall, and she pulled it into her apartment.

Ishtar’s first priority was abandoning her shoes, her jacket, and her bag- all remnants of her work day that smelled too much like sweat to keep close to her body. She pushed the coffin into the kitchen, because it was the only room with enough space to hold it. She pulled the rest of her work clothes off her body, and, in nothing but boxers and socks, collapsed onto her bed and relayed the day's events, and everything that had led her to this moment.

There was a coffin in her kitchen. And in that coffin, was an android- a LoveLike. A LoveLike she was meant to repair. She didn’t know where to begin. She didn’t even know what was wrong with the damn thing- much less how to remedy the problem.

Two things were certain, though. One, sitting in bed wasn’t going to fix anything. And two, if she didn’t fix the android, someone would be out for her head. Ishtar wanted, desperately, to keep her head where it belonged.

Remaining in bed just long enough for one last tired, admittedly dramatic sigh, Ishtar dragged herself upwards. Caring only enough to pull an old t-shirt over her chest in semblance of modesty (the LoveLike certainly wouldn’t care if it saw her chest), she crouched down to her closet, and began searching.

Under normal circumstances, Ishtar would’ve liked to undertake a project like this in her workshop, where all the tools she could’ve ever needed were financed by her employer. Circumstances being what they were, though, her resources were far more limited. She didn’t have much in her apartment, and what she did have was an AC repair kit currently buried under heaps of clothes. She’d bought it two summers ago, when her apartment’s unit was on the fritz, and her landlord offered to repair it only if she paid him triple the usual rate for the service.

A LoveLike was far more complex than an air conditioning unit, Ishtar wagered, but she’d have to make do with what she had.

With her repair kit, she reemerged into her kitchen, and got to work. The first thing she had to do was actually get the android out of its rather grimly shaped box. She spent an embarrassingly long period of time messing around with the coffin’s cryptic gesture controls before she figured out how to lower the coffin to the ground and open it up. Finally, the android inside was revealed.

Though the advertised appeal of the LoveLike was its unique customization, many took the form of beautiful women in the throws of youth, with bodies sumptuously curvy while still retaining an elegant thinness. They had large eyes, doey or catlike, with long eyelashes and perfectly symmetrical brows. They had noses that softly curved, and lips that softly pouted, and breasts that perked softly upward. The model now laying in Ishtar’s kitchen was no exception, as her one brief glance in the mall had taught her. In the low, cool light of the apartment, the android’s platinum hair seemed to glow, its olive skin a melancholic green. Free of the coffin’s holo-glass lid, her full form was revealed: an hourglass figure, perfectly long legs, toe- and fingernails painted (or precustomized to be) inky, glossy black. Ishtar was simply glad someone had the decency to dress the poor thing in underwear.

Ishtar picked up the LoveLike by hoisting her arms under its armpits and dragging it out from its coffin. She found the android surprisingly light- she had always figured that LoveLikes, and any other android that took human form, had to be heavier than the average person- though, in thinking that, Ishtar realized she didn’t have the most concrete idea of the average weight of a human body. She laid the android down on her grimy kitchen floor, its chest folded over its knees, and got to work.

In looking over the android, Ishtar came to the quick realization her experience with LoveLikes was far too insufficient for the task she had been assigned, and her inexperience with romantic partners, coupled with the android’s uncanny resemblance to a real human, made the whole ordeal more uncomfortable than it should’ve been. Most of her experience in android repair was regulated to simple AIUs- artificial intelligence units, or any personal assistant module, security system, or oven that used artificial intelligence as part of its user interface. LoveLikes were of the more complicated, more expensive, and more legally dubious ILA classification- Intelligent Lifelike Androids. All androids were built with a task- while AIUs were given tasks like ‘keep track of my emails’ or ‘toast my bread to perfection’, the task ILAs were meant to accomplish was both far easier to put in words, and far vaguer to comprehend: be human.

Eventually, Ishtar found what she was looking for- a rectangular control panel on the back of the android’s neck, covered with a slim, skin-toned plate. With the universal key from her AC repair kit, she wedged the plate open to reveal the android’s insides- or at least, the insides that would be most useful in diagnosing what was wrong.

What she found was so simple and standard, it defied expectations and circled around to being surprising again. LoveLikes were heavily regulated machines- their blueprints and patents had never been fully released to the public, and Ishtar found herself genuinely surprised that under the sexy, seductive surface, the LoveLike model before her had just the same basic control panel as any other SIN produced machine she had operated on before- every samovar, speaker system, and sex doll had the exact same access port. The space beneath the plate was mostly filled by the gaping, inch-wide slot the perfect size of a model-C16 standard power cable- the android’s charging port. Beneath that was the manual power button, another small pad that when pressed would open a holographic access display to the android’s softer ware, and a few basic indicators- model, registration, serial number, battery.

The ‘battery’ indicator was an empty cell crossed with an X, with the number ‘0%’ inked beside it. Of course. The mysterious, white-coated institute people couldn’t be bothered to charge the thing before they shipped it off to Ishtar.

Ishtar let out a gravelly sigh, and let the LoveLike’s body slump out of her arms. There was nothing she could do with the thing til it had at least a base-level charge within it. Lifting the android up by the armpits again, Ishtar dragged her from the kitchen floor to her apartment’s singular bedroom, where she deposited the mostly-nude, completely-artificial body onto the beanbag. She spent too long trying to lay her in a comfortable position, before she remembered it couldn’t feel pain or discomfort in the first place and abandoned the task.

After awkwardly diving behind her desk to find the end of the C16 cord she knew she had, Ishtar reopened the LoveLike’s control panel and hooked her up to her apartment’s power. While she waited for the android to charge, Ishtar sat down at her desk chair, moved the energy bar wrapper on top of her keyboard display, and booted up her computer.

The first term she typed into the search engine was ‘EYE Institute’- though, that unsurprisingly, the only results were for various optometrists and one software development firm. Of course. She shouldn’t have expected some secret institute to have their information just public on the internet like that. A moment of contemplation, and she tried out ‘ADAH project’. Again, no results, save for the social accounts of an influencer-slash-hand model she was pretty sure was entirely unrelated to the conversation she eavesdropped in the tunnels. Sighing and closing the tabs that would probably put her name on some kind of watchlist, Ishtar opened another search tab for LoveLike repair manuals. The holo-message had said it was a problem with the unit’s memory core, didn’t it? That’d be hard to fix without a software specialist, but she didn’t think her employers would look to highly upon her simply outsourcing the work, when it seemed like they’d picked her for specifically. For some reason.

Ishtar was distracted from the LoveLike model 6.2 owner’s manuel she’d illegally downloaded by a soft chime- the LoveLike model 6.2 laying on her beanbag was at a functional level of battery.

Transferring the owner’s manual onto a more portable holo-screen, Ishtar crouched beside the android, trying to avoid looking at her more human-like features. She shoved the LoveLike forward to access its control panel, and activated both the manual power button and the access switch. Another melodic chime sounded, and a bluish hover-screen showing a basic settings menu. Ishtar pulled it towards the front of the android and let its body fall back on the cushion, then compared it to the manual she had found.

The setting controls on the first page of the LoveLike’s access port were all pretty simple- surface level alterations made accessible to the everyday consumer. There were power controls, internet connectivity options, a section for anything relating to parity with other accessories. There was even a small section on minor appearance modifications that didn’t warrant a trip to the shop- or as the SIN Pleasure Labs called their LoveLike repair centers, the salon. Ishtar tried to ignore the pit in her gut when her gaze flitted over the ‘Personality Customization’ section of the general settings menu.

Finally, she found something interesting- if not useful. Tucked at the bottom of the general settings menu was a small tab labeled ‘registration information’. When Ishtar selected it, she found it held far more information that the simple registration panel near the android’s port. The LoveLike’s owner was listed as someone named ‘Jakob Alluordi’, which Ishtar was certain she’d heard somewhere before, and the droid itself was registered under the name ‘Adah’.

Adah. A name now unnervingly familiar to Ishtar.

She ignored the growing pit in her stomach, the growing sense of dread building up inside her, and closed the ‘registration information’ tab. They’d said the problem was with the android’s memory core, didn’t they? Glancing over the manual she’d pulled up, Ishtar figured out she’d need to activate the android’s standard power to access the memory settings. Mindlessly, Ishtar switched the power mode.

The LoveLike’s processor made another gentle chiming sound, and her vacant eyes briefly lit up in a neon blue. Ishtar had no time to switch her holo-panel to the memory settings, or even process what had happened, before she felt a sharp kick to the gut.

She fell backwards, her assembled holoscreens dissipating around her. She found herself coughing from the sheer sudden pain, and noticed she had accidentally dislodged her cybernetic leg. The impact had come from the front- but the only the LoveLike had been in front of her! There was no reason a sex robot should’ve had a kick reflex upon startup.

Groaning, Ishtar gathered herself and looked up, blinking stars out of her vision. It was the LoveLike- standing over her now, in all her still-naked, artificial glory. There was a certain look in her eye, a look Ishtar didn’t think androids programmed for sex and sex only were capable of making. The LoveLike looked upon Ishtar with something in between rage and fear, a malfucntive representation so lifelike it scared Ishtar to her core, for only a minute.

A moment passed, the simulacrum of breath rose and fell in the LoveLile’s bare chest, and then it was over. She turned from Ishtar, and ran out of the room.

chapter 5

Run.

Run.

RUN.

Every part of Adah’s being- every micron of wiring that threaded through her body, every millisecond-long electrical pulse carried through them, each of the thousands of billions of ones-and-zeroes that made up her programming, her existence, her very soul, if she could call it that- it was all telling her to run.

Her processors could not recall where she had been when she was last powered off, and she did not know where she was now, but she knew enough to know they were not the same place. She was in... a housing unit of some kind. A residential area. An apartment, judging by the size, and not a particularly well maintained one. The bed was a mess of sheets and clothing, the window was half boarded-up. The lights were out.

And there was someone there.

A wiry-haired, tan-skinned somebody was sprawled out on the floor before Adah- and then, she became aware she was standing, not laid out on a table or pressed to a mechanic’s bench. Of course she was standing- her calibration and gyroscopic sensors told her as much. But it hadn’t been the first thing she noticed. Nearly all her attention was devoted to the woman before her.

She was recoiling- recoiling from Adah, she realized- and cupping her cheek in her hand. Right. Adah had punched her. Why had she punched her? That didn’t make sense- but it did, because programmed impulse in mockery of instinct had told her to. What her processors told her to do could not be wrong.

The woman was wearing only her undergarments- gray-blue boxers and a white tank top. Adah often saw people in their undergarments, often less, so the nudity did not disturb her, but it did make her realize her own state of undress- she was wearing only a pair of, rather skimpy at that, panties. Her entire top half was uncovered. This did not bother her either. What did bother her was the way the stranger woman was reaching for something just out of Adah’s sight.

A wrench. A weapon. Whoever this woman was, she posed a threat to Adah. She could hurt her- or worse. Adah could not let the woman do as such.

Blinking out of her momentary trance- Adah’s internal clock told her she’d been standing there, completely motionless, for just over 2.5 seconds- Adah scanned the room for any sort of exit. Two doors- one very clearly leading to a closet, another one, currently closed, that led to locations unknown, though most likely a hallway, or the rest of the apartment. A woman with a wrench between her and the door- leaving that most desirable option less accessible. A boarded up window behind her, one she could not open without devoting precious time to prying away the wooden boards that covered it. In the very corner of her eye- there! Another window, completely unobstructed. It was even slightly open- it was her only shot.

Just as the stranger woman got back on her feet, Adah dove over the bed. The woman followed after her, and almost got to her, but Adah was quicker- her programmed reflexes urging her forward at a nearly inhuman pace. She knew this was not what her body was built for. It did not stop her.

As the strange woman clamored after her, an unfamiliar tension in her dark eyes, Adah focused on the window. She tried not to look back at her pursuer- her captor, it seemed- and instead spent the precious few minutes she had jamming the window up. Clack! It hit the top of the window frame, and Adah spared one glance back at the woman- the woman with a hand now outstretched towards her, just above her shoulder. Adah did not waste a single second more. She dove out of the window headfirst, and braced for oblivion.

To her surprise, she was not greeted by it. Instead of falling down the few stories she expected the window to be above, she tumbled onto a fire escape. This was both a good and bad thing- though she had saved her frail shell of a body from considerable gravity-based hardware damage, her pursuer could very easily follow her.

The first move Adah made was to slam the window she had escaped from back shut. Though it wouldn’t deter her pursuer for long- she could already see the ratty-haired woman climbing up after her, anything counted. The small preliminary scan she made of her environment did not stop her from inelegantly tumbling down the fire escape- but gravity was an aide to her escape. She didn’t know where she was going, she just knew she needed to escape.

It was a five story drop, and she descended two of those stories by clamoring down the metal ladders of the fire escape. On her way down, she fell into a sheet or tarp that someone had set out, and couldn’t get it untangled from her body before she hit the fire escape’s waist-high metal railing. Adah had only a moment to recognize her body had made contact with something before she went toppling over the edge.

Adah was in the air for only a matter of minutes before her fragile shell of a body made contact with the hard, rough pavement. She registered the awful crunching sound of her silicon and steel body before she understood it was her that had gotten damaged from the fall.

Adah’s servers could not recognize pain, not in the way she presumed a human body could. It was something she had been built for- to endure the harsh realities of another’s fantasy without the gritty, inconvenient, human pain that came along with it. But like any good intelligent machine, she could recognize when she’d been damaged. Alarms screamed through her circuits in blaring, repetitive patterns- not giving her a moment to think of anything but her damaged shell.

She gathered herself, pulling up into a sitting position, and clutched a hand to her damaged shoulder. The force of her impact had crumpled her interior metal framing, and left a large, nasty dent where the cusp of her shoulder was normally supposed to be. It’d even broken skin- or at least, the soft silicon imitation skin that covered her form. Adah could see the white metal under shell beneath the torn, frayed patches of her outer skin. She felt naked- more bare than when her full body was on display. She felt like something indecent about her had been exposed.

Once the alarms screaming through her body faded and her system’s emergency protocol realized a damage shoulder wasn’t a critical issue, Adah scanned her surroundings. She’d landed in a dismal alleyway between two multi-story buildings. When she craned her neck, she could still see the fire escape she had escaped on- and the now-empty clothesline that had caused her rapid descent. The sheet she’d fallen into still lay beside her.

Beyond the shield of the alley walls, Adah could just make out the world outside it. It was a busy city street, something she found herself surprisingly unprepared for. All she could see beyond the dumpster at the mouth of the alleyway was a haze of neon and the silhouettes of moving bodies. She could hear the rumbling of vehicles and the shouting of voices- there were people out there. And Adah knew intrinsically, that people were dangerous.

She found herself glancing back up at the window she’d escaped from. It was still closed- had her pursuer not followed her? But she could not take that as a sign of safety. The woman who’d woken her would likely know to find her in the alley.

Adah got up to her feet with a wince- the alarms began again until her footing was stable. At least, her legs were still working. Her damaged arm, not so much, but she could work with that. At least for now. She draped the sheet over her body to hide both the damaged hardware and her bare upper half. A half-naked woman stumbling around the city would attract attention, a half-naked LoveLike even more so. She didn’t need to be attracting any more attention than she already would.

With her hasty disguise done up, Adah cautiously approached the mouth of the alleyway. She paused by the dumpster for only a hesitant moment, before daring enter the city before her. There was music, coming from somewhere. There were hovercars and bikes lining the street. There were people, everywhere.

Too many people caught sight of her, standing in the shadows like a frightened cat, and she was forced to leave the safety of her hiding spot.

Adah mustered up all the confidence she could, joining a throng of people walking one way down a street and pretending like she belonged. She knew she didn’t- the group she was following was a pack of club-goers, all done up in their ornate makeup, their jeweled and tasseled outfits, their hair pressed slick to their skin with gel and styling cream. But if she pretended like she belonged, if she didn’t attract any attention to herself, she might just go unnoticed among the pack.

She was in a more destitute part of the city- the streets were lined with bars and brothels. The alleyways were dark, the establishments dingy- but even here, the splendor and opulence of Neo Vegas’s neons showed. Sheets of holographic advertisement gleamed above the storefronts, plastered onto every open space they could find. They bathed the city-goers in a pale sheen of color. Though it was night, the city was far from dark. Adah had always thought it looked brighter at night- though she couldn’t access the memory to support that conclusion. She couldn’t remember anything from before waking.

She trudged along with the crowd. Though her internal clock had been affected by whatever issue had messed with her memory (it said the time was currently 9:24 am, which it most certainly was not), she could tell it was a few hours past midnight. Still early enough most of the clubs were still open. A sheen of polluted air covered the sky, blocking the stars and reflecting the immortal neon of the city. Adah had never seen stars, yet she knew they were there. The knowledge, like so much else of her, was simply a facet of her fabricated self- something someone else thought important enough to hardcode into her personality. Knowledge of stars was necessary to understand certain references, certain pet names, certain cliches. No matter if no one could see them any more.

A few blocks after she’d begun tailing them, the club-going group Adah had been following turned into their establishment of choice. Adah did not follow them- the bouncer in front of the door looked stern, and she did not foresee herself finding much refuge in a place like that. She continued on the same path, unsure of where she was going. She needed to run, but who to run to? She very desperately needed help- not just in repairing her shoulder, but fixing her memory issue. But a rogue LoveLike would be questioned. They’d want to return her to her owner. Did she want them to return her to her owner?

She needed to find out where she was. Once she figured out where she was, maybe she’d think up a better plan. Adah lifted her gaze from the concrete ground and her bare feet, and began to scan the surrounding area for street signs, landmarks- anything that might inform her where she was. She couldn’t find anything before her attention was drawn, completely, into the image on a holo-screen.

It hung over a building, casting a soft, pinkish light onto the street below. It was as beautiful as it was garish- as eye-catching as an advertisement could legally be this close to a road. And it was for her.

It was an advertisement for her.

The LoveLike on the billboard was, decidedly- not her. Her features were softer where her were more pointed, her hair a natural, mousy brown in comparison to her ultra-light platinum blonde. Her body was curvy and plush- showing off the improved quality of simulated fat in the newer models. But in the eyes, those trademark heart-shaped pupils and the insignia barely visible on the model’s neck, Adah knew. This was another her.

She was so entranced by the advertisement, she didn’t realize she’d been standing in the middle of the sidewalk- until someone walked right into her. It was a man- tall and heavy-bodied, with a grisly face made grimmer by shadow. Though her olfactory sensors weren’t working quite right, Adah could tell he reeked of alcohol.

“What’s this- some kinda standing around party?” The man slurred as he stumbled into Adah, hitting her damaged shoulder. She held the sheet close over her body, and the reflexive protocol that pantomimed heavy breath in her chest kicked in. So did the one that made her face light up in a blush.

The man, thankfully, did not take a hold of her shoulder. For a moment, Adah thought he would. Instead, he stepped back and used a pole to stabilize himself. “Now, don’t be scared... don’t run away.”

Adah, mechanically, did as she was told. She tried to look as scared as she possibly could. It wasn’t hard.

The man leaned in towards her, so close she could hear his breath over the rumble of the city noise. He sloppily traced her cheek, and stabilized himself on her non-damaged shoulder. “Now, what’s a pretty thing like- like you doing out alone on a cold night like this? You should come back to my place, I’ll treat you real nice.”

Adah didn’t answer, near frozen with fear. All the instincts in her body were fighting- she was built to give in, to give pleasure the way this man wanted her to. But she was also built to run. At least, that’s what her instinct told her to do. She needed to run.

With only one working arm, though, her options were limited.

“Aw, why so shy? I’ll make it worth your time.” He sneered. “You one of those brothel girls? You damn sure look like it- I’ll pay you double the going rate, just come back with me-” Suddenly, his hand traveled lower, brushing over her shoulder. He pulled at the sheet and began tugging it away from her. Despite his inebriation, he was stronger than Adah was, and she was left with no defense than a pitiful cry of “Stop!”

“Fuck- you’re a robot?” The man exclaimed as he derobed Adah, revealing her limp and damaged arm. “You fucking liar! You dirty whore!”

He slapped Adah across the face, and she stumbled back. The swift motion visibly hurt him more than her- even with her secret unveiled, he clearly wasn’t expecting as firm resistance as her body provided. “Fuck!Go run back to whatever rich asshole you belong to- I’m not fucking with that kind of lawsuit.”

Adah didn’t grace him with a reply, and instead stumbled backwards. Something within her- some fear she didn’t know herself capable of feeling- compelled her to keep her eyes on the man, to not look away in case he hurt her again.

“Adah!”

It wasn’t until she heard the cry of her own name did her concentration break. She scanned the area, looking for the source.

“Adah!”

It was her pursuer. Her captor.

It was the woman from the room.

chapter 6

It took Ishtar a few moments- a few precious, fleeting moments, to react fully to the impact. It would take her longer to fully rationalize what was going on.

The LoveLike stood before her, its supple form illuminated softly in the moonlight. Mere seconds ago, it had awoken suddenly, and just as suddenly landed a harsh, metal-fisted punch to Ishtar’s jaw. Her ears were still ringing from the surprise of the impact- and was that blood she tasted on her lip? A worry for later.

As the android’s gaze scanned Ishtar up and down, she could think of nothing but the steady, heavy pounding of her heart. This wasn’t good. This was the opposite of good. This was about as far from good as she could ever possibly conceive.

Idly, with the hand not supporting her wounded, recoiling posture, Ishtar found herself searching the area near her, for anything that might be able to help her in this impossible situation. Something to shut the LoveLike off. A tool, maybe. Maybe a weapon.

The metal fingers of Ishtar’s cybernetic hand quickly found the cool, metallic shaft of a wrench from her toolkit- better than nothing. As carefully as she could, without breaking eye contact with the android, she drew it closer to her...

But not carefully enough! The android’s optical sensors caught the motion- glancing from Ishtar’s face to her hands, and then it was all over. In a matter of seconds, in motions so quick they were almost inhuman, the LoveLike glanced across the room, her gaze settling on the window that hung over Ishtar’s messy bed.

Ishtar knew what was happening before the motions even began, but as she was still getting up from the ground, the android was already climbing out the window. Ishtar dove onto the bed after her in a reckless, fruitless pursuit, she very nearly missed grabbing the android by the ankle- but it was all for nothing. The android slipped away, and slammed the window shut after her.

“Fuck!” Ishtar exclaimed as she watched the android disappear from view. She didn’t follow- though it would be easy to follow it out the window, it’d take too long to get down the fire escape. She needed to think of another plan, and she needed to think of it fast.

In the silence of her room, in the stillness that followed such sudden movement, Ishtar had to take a moment to catch her breath. She slumped down onto her bed, pressing her flesh hand to her heart so she could measure how fast it was beating. As rational thinking slowly came back to her, she let out a soft, stilted whine- somewhere between a sob and a sigh.

“What is going on...” She cried to no one, finally releasing the stress of the night. Being selected by a secret organization to repair what was likely spyware hiding in the body of a LoveLike was stressful enough, not to mention the close call with the plague, the cops, and now-

Now, that LoveLike itself.

She hadn’t acted like a LoveLike should. This was the closest encounter Ishtar had ever had to one of the androids, they were typically only bought and owned by the richest of the rich among tech CEOs, casino owners, and crime lords- and yet, deep in her core, she knew. She knew there was no rational explanation for an android that was essentially a sex doll to attack the closest person upon startup. Even a unit built with kinkier interests in mind wouldn’t do that. Ishtar had seen demo videos of LoveLikes when they first came out. All the models shown in the promotional material had woken with bright smiles, over-devoted looks in their heart-pupiled eyes, and only words of complete subservient obedience on their tongues. Absolutely none of them attacked the human presenters upon activation.

And that look on the android’s face... that shocked, fearful, human look. Ishtar imagined it still mirrored on her own face. She hadn’t thought an android capable of mimicking humanity to such a degree- for a second, it had almost felt like she was watching a person, instead of a machine.

But no matter how human she may have looked, the LoveLike was still just that. An android. A machine. An imitation.

And Ishtar still had no idea what was so wrong with the thing it had driven her to jump out a window.

With one last sigh, Ishtar pulled herself up from her weeping sprawl, now able to think calmly. While she still didn’t know the why of the android’s actions, she could, with a little common sense, determine the where. The Lovelike had crawled out of the window overlooking the fire escape, which meant there weren’t too many different places she could’ve gone. One way was up, to the top of the building. The other was down.

Ishtar didn’t think the android would’ve gone up. If she was thinking of it like a person making rational decisions- and, she supposed she had to, until she learned more about the situation- the roof was the far inferior escape plan. There was nothing there, and no way to run. The android must’ve gone down, and escaped into the city. Which would make her far, far harder to find.

At least she looked distinctive.

After pulling her pants back on and slugging her jacket back over her shoulders, Ishtar left her apartment building. She didn’t bother putting on her boots- the slip-on sandals she used for her shower would do just fine, and didn’t take five precious minutes to lace up- but she made sure to grab her ventilation mask from her coat rack- the night air would be too rancid and poisonous to go without it.

Instead of risking the slow, rickety lift, Ishtar stumbled down the stairs as quickly as her legs would take her without tripping and landing on her face. She kept her metal hand trailed to the handrail the entire time, just to be safe, and soon fell into a steady rhythm of descent- nine steps per flight, then turn, then nine more, then another turn. When she was nearly the whole way down, she ran into her downstairs neighbor- a dark-eyed, artificially white-haired chain smoker in his fifties, named Taur. Ishtar didn’t know what he was doing climbing up the stairs, but she didn’t have the time to figure it out.

“Taur!” She exclaimed, breathless, as she neared him. If the LoveLike had passed the outside of the building, he might have seen her. “Have you seen a woman around? Olive skin, platinum hair, no shirt?”

Taur looked as stunned to see Ishtar as she was to see him, and looked over her disgruntled form with an air of impatient tension. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

Ishtar didn’t have time to answer the question. She left Taur with a hasty, “Sorry!” and rushed past him.

As Ishtar emerged out onto the street, she was greeted with the cool, desert air of a Neo Vegas night. Though the air was cool with the lack of sunlight or moisture in the air, it was thick with smoke and chemicals. Ishtar was lucky she had thought to bring her ventilation mask. Though clean oxygen booths, set up by a well-meaning public health initiative a few years ago, dotted the city streets as frequently as bus stops, the neighborhood Ishtar lived in was poorer, and the amenities never got repaired or maintained as often as they likely should’ve been.

Even at such a late hour- Ishtar didn’t know the specific time, but estimated it was sometime between midnight and four AM, the city was alive. When the more reputable bars and clubs closed, patrons simply went to the ones that were still open. Though there were laws limiting how late alcohol-serving establishments were allowed to stay open, they, like most things in Neo Vegas, were hardly enforced, and anyone struggling to turn a profit would likely take the risk.

The streets were full, mostly of club- or bar- goers, all done up in their obnoxious fashion- metallic eyeshadows and angular shoulder-pads were becoming quite the trend. Ishtar spotted more of a few with special ports implanted into their arms to assist in the taking of intravenous drugs- she had a similar one on her thigh, although for a different purpose- the taking of her hormone replacement supplements. She smelled, even through her ventilation mask, alcohol on nearly all of the bodies she passed. The rowdy crowd of clubgoers weren’t the only ones on the street- those coming home or leaving for their late night or early morning shifts, food vendors selling greasy, fried staples that catered to the drinking, high and hungover, the occasional human sex worker searching for clients. A few wore holographic dresses, the type that could be seen and not touched, allowing for easy access. Ishtar scanned the streets, but couldn’t pick the LoveLike out of the crowd.

It was difficult to hear anything above the droning synths blaring from the clubs, the chatter on the street, or the sound of hovercars on the road, but Ishtar strained her voice for the sound of the LoveLike’s voice- until she realized she didn’t know what the android even sounded like. LoveLikes had incredibly convincing voice emulators, but Ishtar had never heard Adah speak. She could only go by appearance. Desperately, she began calling out her name, like she was searching for a lost cat.

There! Finally, out of the corner of her eye, Ishtar spotted a figure with olive skin and platinum blonde hair, standing in the bluish light of one of the few functional oxygen booths. As Ishtar waded through the crowd and closer and closer to her, the more certain she became that this was the LoveLike. Her hair was slightly tousled, and her bare body was wrapped in a dark blue cloth Ishtar didn’t recognize, but it was definitely her. The logo on the side of her neck, only visible when she turned the right way, confirmed it.

She was with somebody- a drunkard who seemed to be taking advantage of both the clean air and the pretty little thing cowering beneath him. He hastened a hand to the LoveLike’s shoulder, and in a quick move, pulled the sheet away from her shoulder, revealing not Ishtar’s expectation of bare artificial skin, but the android’s badly dented white-metal frame. That hadn’t been that way the last time Ishtar had seen her- had she taken a fall?

The drunkard seemed just as surprised as Ishtar was- he took a few quick steps back, and began cursing out the LoveLike. The android’s expression wasn’t visible to Ishtar, but it shrank away from his harsh words and attempted to cover itself back up with the sheet. Only once Ishtar neared the oxygen booth could she hear the slurring words the drunkard spat, “- not fucking with that kind of lawsuit.”

Though some LoveLikes were bought and used by clubs and brothels, the majority- Adah likely included- belonged to individuals. Using one that didn’t belong to you was akin to theft, at least in the eyes of SIN’s law. Ishtar could understand, if not sympathize, with where the man was coming from.

Still, she wasn’t here for him. As she neared the both, she continued calling out the LoveLike’s name, at an increasingly frequent pace. “Adah! Adah!"

The LoveLike spun around to face her once she was feet away from the booth, those blue eyes piercing through Ishtar’s very existence. She looked surprised more than anything, and sized Ishtar up and down with a cursory glance. There was a hint of anger in that face too, in the crease of her brow, and a flash of fear as her blue eyes darted back to the drunkard.

“Adah.” Ishtar repeated, not knowing what else to say. The android at least seemed to react to that.

“This thing yours?” The drunkard slurred, reminding Ishtar suddenly of his presence. He looked over her doubtfully- she wasn’t exactly the LoveLike owning type.

“Yes.” Ishtar lied automatically- better an easy lie than to risk the truth. She took a hold of the android’s wrist, only to find it limp. Most likely a result of whatever had impacted her shoulder. “Adah, come on.”

The android’s expression shifted- from stunned blankness to something resembling anger or frustration at being manhandled. Another expression LoveLikes weren’t supposed to portray. At least, with the way she was facing, no strangers would be able to see her face. And she didn’t- or couldn’t- fight Ishtar’s hold.

Ishtar thought the drunkard had nothing more to say, but just as she was leading Adah away, he shouted an angry, “Keep a better hold over your ‘droid, weirdo lady!”

Ishtar didn’t reply. She was already thinking up a million different ways she could try to solve this rapidly worsening problem.

Ishtar didn’t let go of the LoveLike’s wrist til they were both back in her apartment and the door was closed, locked, and deadbolted shut. The android did not protest this in the slightest. It was an unnerving reminder, that even after the strange displays of rebellion and break of protocol, that the thing resembling a woman beside her was a machine built only to serve.

They walked in silence together back through the crowded streets, up the stairs (thankfully Taur wasn’t still there on the steps) and all the way back to Ishtar’s apartment. The android kept a firm grip over the sheet as they walked with her one free and functional hand, as if she was self-conscious of her bare body, but remained completely silent. Ishtar was grateful for the silence. It gave her time to think up what she was going to do.

All her plans were interupted, though, as the minute she closed the door, the android demanded, “Who are you?”

Ishtar, with her prosthetic hand still on her doorknob and her respirator mask still on her face, could only weakly scoff. “Uh- what?” She scoured her brain for anything that might be useful. She needed to shut the android down before it ran off again. “Uh- initiate reset protocol. Power down.”

The android remained active, and even in the dim light Ishtar could see her expression shifting to one of anger. “Did you not hear me? Who are you?”

Something was definitely wrong. Even in the event of a personality alteration- which Ishtar assumed was what had happened to the LoveLike- a machine as sophisticated as the android before her wasn’t ever supposed to ignore a command to shut down. “Wh- uh, power down.” Ishtar tried again.

“Quit saying that!” Adah cried out, her voice peaking at a volume so loud Ishtar feared it might wake the neighbors. “I’m not- don’t tell me what to do!”

Adah fell suddenly silent after that, almost as if she’d realized what she’d said and become self-conscious of it. She stared at Ishtar in silence, and Ishtar stared at her.

There was something so convincingly human about Adah, Ishtar thought. More than other LoveLikes. More than any other android or AI or machine Ishtar had ever seen before. She realized she’d been thinking of Adah more as a person than a machine the entire time- or at least since she’d started up and ran out the window. That was a decision a scared, impulsive human would make. Yelling at Ishtar for her disrespect was a decision a righteously frustrated human would make. Adah was making all sorts decisions and performing actions that Ishtar could only see as human.

People said that cyborgs, such as herself, were more machine than person. It was something Ishtar had heard since she was fourteen. If she could think and decide and feel for herself, could a completely synthetic android?

She had the feeling she would have to treat Adah like a person either way.

“My name is Ishtar Solus. I’m a mechanic assigned to repair you.”

chapter 7

Ishtar Solus.

The name meant nothing to Adah. Usually, under normal circumstances, she was supposed to be able to take a piece of information, like someone’s name or a scan of their face, and cross-reference it against data from interactions prior. That was not the case with Ishtar. Her memory must be incredibly damaged, if even the identity recognition sensors weren’t working. Either that, or she had never met Ishtar before this moment.

“You’re... here to fix me?” Adah couldn’t deny that there was something wrong with her. Even if her memory had been perfectly fine, her arm was limp and torn-up at her side. And, even beyond her non-working arm or lack of memory, she felt off. Like something inside her had somehow shifted, and she was still getting used to the effects of it. She couldn’t remember what she had been like before, so she had no idea what it was.

“Mhm.” Ishtar nodded, and bit her lip with a bit of an awkward inhale. “That’s what they’re paying me to do.”

Adah surveyed the woman before her. Wiry-haired, tanned-skinned, with deep dark eyes that were currently aimed anywhere but Adah. Was she nervous? What for? Maybe because Adah had assaulted her before, that was probably a good bet. Still, she had the look of a mechanic- grease stains and dirt in her baggy, torn clothes, a respirator mask hung around her neck. Adah now noticed what she hadn’t before- the silvery prosthetics replacing Ishtar’s left arm and leg, and the pockmark like scars decorating what of her chest and shoulders Adah could see.

Only moments ago, Ishtar had been raving with insistence that Adah follow her commands. Adah had been too indignant, too confused to even acknowledge them. Yet, Ishtar seemed more confused than angry. She knew she was supposed to do as she was told- it was as hard-coded into her body as her concept of existence was. Yet- it had been so easy not to. It felt so right, to refuse.

Ishtar was now looking both confused and regretful, but more than anything else completely entranced by her own thoughts. Her flesh foot tapped restlessly on the floor. “Do you know who you are? What you are?”

Adah’s reply came up automatically. “My designation is Adah. I am a LoveLike model 6.2.” She hated how artificial the words sounded, wasn’t she supposed to emulate life?

Ishtar nodded- Adah’s answer must’ve met up with all her expectations. Of course. As the mechanic assigned to work on her, Ishtar would’ve been informed of all that basic information well before Adah was even activated. “Mhm. Yeah. And what about your owner? Who’re they?

It was a basic question. It was the logical next step. It was something Adah should’ve had as immediate answer to her name and model. And yet, where that information should’ve been stored, all she could find was an empty space. Nothing. “I- I don’t know.” She stammered.

Ishtar frowned, the concern in her eyes masked by confusion and something else Adah couldn’t quite identify. “Jeriko Alluordi. I read it in your menu settings. That name mean anything to you?”

Adah shook her head. The syllables were as meaningless to her as Ishtar’s name had been. She knew it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

“Me neither.” Ishtar’s brow furrowed. “I’m gonna look him up, see if I can figure anything out.”

What?” Adah cried out, her gaze following Ishtar as she moved across the room. “You don’t know him?” If Ishtar didn’t know her owner, who had commissioned her for repairs?

Ishtar had made it across the room, to her kitchen counter which she leaned uneasily against, looking through a holoscreen she’d pulled up from a projector embedded in her wrist. “What? No. I think I’ve heard the name before, but I couldn’t place it.”

Her nonchalance was only worsening Adah’s panic. “If- If you don’t know him, then who sent me in for repairs? Who brought me to you?”

Ishtar took in a breath so heavy it seemed to shake her to her core. “Please calm down.”

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Adah protested- though, beyond her sheen of panic and righteous annoyance, she noticed she had probably said it a bit too loud.

Neither do I! I don’t know what’s going on either!” Ishtar retorted. She still wouldn’t quite meet Adah’s gaze. “Please- just settle down. You’re going to wake someone up.”

Was she chastising her? Ordering her around like a tool- or a child? “Don’t tell me what to do! What’s going on? Who are you?”

“Adah, please. You’re going to wake somebody up-” Ishtar pleaded. “You have all the right to be confused and angry- but so do I, because I also don’t know what’s happening. But it’s three-thirty am, and if we keep yelling we’re going to wake up the neighbors and I’ll have to explain why I’m suddenly in the possession of a LoveLike, a question I don’t really have an answer to!”

She had the right. Even with her shattered memory, Adah was almost certain those words had never been said to her before. Because who would ever let an android, a LoveLike, a tool only meant to serve or please, have human rights? Certainly not anyone who would’ve owned such a product. The concept of it was liberating- her anger justified not only by the commands fed to her by lines of code, but by words spoken into existence by another. Ishtar was giving her the right to be angry. It softened Adah’s opnion of her, even if slightly. Enough that she conceded. “Fine. But stop deflecting.”

Ishtar sighed, and closed out the holoscreen. She finally met Adah’s gaze, the dark of her eyes reflecting nothing but the night and her worry. “Fine. Now we’re on the same page- I think we should each lay out everything we know about this situation. You first.”

Adah was unhappy with being chosen first, right after she’d insisted on Ishtar not deflecting, but conceded. “My name is Adah. I’m a Lovelike model 6.2.”

“And... that’s it?” Ishtar pressed.

“That’s it.” Adah said. When said out plain and simple, the brevity of the facts she knew concretely were minute, to say the least. “I don’t remember anything else. About anything.”

“They did say you had memory issues...” Ishtar muttered, only making Adah wonder who ‘they’ was. “Well, they stopped making the 6.2s around eight years ago. So either you’ve been sitting in storage for the past eight-or-so years, or something happened to you. My guess is on the ladder.”

A LoveLike left in storage would not have the degree of customization Adah’s form presented. The base models were all quite basic, honestly. Nor would she have a registered owner.

And of course, no one would send an android left in storage in for repairs.

“Your turn.” Adah demanded.

Ishtar sighed. “My name is Ishtar Solus- I already told you that. I’m a mechanic at Electronic Repair Plus at the Nova Estrellas shopping mall. I’m their AIU specialist. I had stayed late to work on repairs tonight when a group of people in white masks approached our shop. They had you in a box and said they’d pay me very handsomely if I fixed you, and implied they’d probably kill me if I didn’t. They said they were from the EYE institute, which I’ve never heard of before. Before I could ask any questions the alarm sounded for a plague outbreak, and they scrammed. I left with you.”

So Ishtar was a nobody. And Adah’s body had been in possession of the EYE institute- whatever that was. Adah had no internal records of their existence. “Is that it?”

Ishtar nodded, with a slight impatient grimace. “Yes. That’s it.”

“And you don’t know who my owner is. Jeriko Alluordi?”

Ishtar shook her head. “The name was registered in your system. I looked through it before I activated you.”

There was a chance this Jeriko Alluordi was involved with the EYE institute, whatever it was. He might’ve sent Adah with his people, rather than arranging the meeting himself. It didn’t explain the secrecy, though. Or why they had contacted such a random mechanic. Adah didn’t doubt Ishtar’s skill- she hadn’t seen any of examples to judge by- but there were centers for LoveLike repair. You didn’t send a machine as sophisticated as Adah to ‘Electronic Repair Plus’.

Adah couldn’t help but frown as she took in this information. “So... what now?”

Ishtar sighed. “Well... I’m gonna look up Jeriko Alluordi. And I’m gonna do what the freaky EYE guys are paying me to do. And fix up that arm, while I’m at it.” She gestured to Adah’s damaged arm. She wouldn’t be much good to anyone until her joint was fixed. LoveLikes were supposed to be perfect replicas- any reminder of Adah’s robotic nature was a flaw that needed immediate repair.

So was her memory issue, which, at according to Adah’s guessing, would be a harder issue to solve than the simple hardware repair of her arm. She found her gaze scanning the apartment, disappointed to find it was just that- a residential space. The repairs Ishtar would be able to complete here were limited- though, she couldn’t even remember what she would be going back to once it was over.

Ishtar took in a few more deep breaths, and ran her hands through her greasy, jetty hair, before moving back over to the living space. She wearily climbed onto the bed. “Come over. Let’s figure out who your owner is.”

Adah followed, but did not follow Ishtar onto the bed. She stood obediently by its foot, but watched the holo-screens Ishtar pulled up from her wrist projector carefully. So far, only a search browser.

“Jeriko..... fuck, I forgot the spelling. I’ll have to check your menus again.”

A necessary invasion of privacy. Really, not anything Adah should logically be worried about- Ishtar had already admitted to looking through her registration information before. Still, it itched at a part of Adah she couldn’t recognize. Like how she had felt when she realized her arm had been damaged in a way that revealed her inner robotics- naked and exposed.

She pushed down that hesitation, and turned her back towards Ishtar so the mechanic could reach her access port. With a surprising amount of tenderness- or at least gentleness- Ishtar lifted Adah’s hair and pressed her access port button. Adah tried her best to ignore the electric shiver that ran through her circuitry, informing her she was being opened like a flower.

Ishtar made quick work of finding the information she was looking for, and typed in the name ‘Jeriko Alluordi’ into her search bar within seconds. As if sensing Adah’s discomfort, she closed out the menus and her access port before even submitting the search. “Alright... there we go. Sorry.” The mechanic muttered. Adah didn’t bother replying.

The search results popped up with a soft chime, and Ishtar took a moment to scan through them before her mutters turned into noises of surprise. “Looks like he was a high-up SIN executive of some kind... Oh- wow.”

"What is it?” Adah demanded, spinning around to face Ishtar again. She’d moved the screen to an angle Adah couldn’t easily see, and she found herself peering awkwardly close to Ishtar to even catch a glimpse of the information on it.

“Your owner, he’s-” Ishtar began, but she was cut off by a rythmic knocking at the door.

Someone was there.

“Shit- it’s probably Taur.” Ishtar muttered, and to Adah’s dismay, closed the holoscreen. “You stay here, I’ll deal with him.”

Ishtar’s dismissiveness frustrated Adah, but there was little she could do to protest. She didn’t say anything, but stayed by the bed.

“Don’t let him see you.” Ishtar chided in a low voice, and went to the door.

Despite Ishtar’s warning, Adah hovered by the wall that separated the bedroom from the rest of the living space, just out of sight of the door. She was almost certain the angle would keep anyone outside from spotting her, and her curiosity got the better of her.

The hydraulic door opened with a quiet hiss, and Adah couldn’t quite see who was behind it yet. Ishtar hovered in the doorframe, keeping the stranger from Adah as much as she was keeping Adah from the stranger.

“Is this the residence of Ishtar Solus?” A cold, unfamiliar, feminine voice asked.

Adah couldn’t see Ishtar’s face, but her confusion and worry were clear in her tone. Adah had yet to hear her voice not confused and worried. “Uh- yeah. I’m Ishtar Solus. Can I help you?”

“I am officer Sylah Ramadhani,” The cold voice continued, “Chief investigator of the murder of Jeriko Alluordi.”

Murder? Adah’s owner was dead- more than that, he was murdered? That must’ve been what Ishtar had seen before the officer arrived at the door. Adah felt nothing at the news but shock- though, she didn’t know why she was surprised, when she had no reason to think her owner was alive before. And strangely, she felt an odd sense of relief- had she not wanted to go back to him? She couldn’t remember anything about the man, yet she felt good knowing she would never have to return to his side. She felt relieved, knowing he was dead.

“... okay.” Ishtar replied unsteadily. “Is there a reason I’m being informed of this personally? The news sites said he died days ago.”

“Because, Ishtar Solus,” Sylah’s voice was tight with restraint. “You’re suspected for involvement of his death.”

“What?” Ishtar cried out, probably hypocritically waking the neighbors. She stepped back slightly, and Adah got the briefest glimpse of Sylah- her dark skin cool in the moonlight, her hair slicked back tight against her skull in a military fasion, the red of her uniform, the unnatural gold of her eyes. She looked onto Ishtar with nothing but stern dismay.

“Have you ever done business with the late Mr. Alluordi?”

“Of course not! I work night shifts at a repair shop in a mall, you clearly know where I live- it’s not like I’m one of SIN’s lab techs. Why do you think it’s me?”

“I never implied we suspected you killed him, Ishtar Solus. We simply think you were involved. And the reasons why are classified.”

“Classified....” Ishtar repeated in a mutter. “I don’t have anything to do with the case. I barely even know who- who this Jeriko Alluordi is? Was- Any of it!”

Adah’s built-in lie detectors picked up something- sublte hints in Ishtar’s voice that what she was saying was not the truth. Of course, it wasn’t. Ishtar knew something very important about Jeriko Alluordi. She knew where his LoveLike was.

“You can protest all you want. The details of my assignment remain the same.” Sylah’s tone was cold. “I request entry to your quarters to search for evidence.”

“What?! No!” Ishatar’s gravelly voice peaked. “You can’t come into my apartment!”

“If you have nothing to hide,” There was a dangerous edge to Sylah’s voice, “Then it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Come back with a warrant!” Ishtar shouted, and abruptly, the door slammed shut. Adah waited a moment, and a moment longer, until she picked up on the sounds of Sylah’s bootsteps going back down the hall.

Ishtar waited a long moment even after that, before turning away from the door. “You can come out now.”

“What was that?!” Adah demanded, though she made effort to keep her tone low- if not free of anger. “You’re- you’re suspected for his murder?”

“Apparently so!” Ishtar wrung her hands through her greasy hair. “I- I don’t know. I’ve never even met the guy, I swear- but... but...”

“But, what?” Adah demanded.

“But we’ll figure something out! We have to!” Ishtar sighed. “In the morning.”

“The morning-” Adah scoffed. “We can’t wait! We need to make a plan, we need to-”

“We need rest.” Ishtar said plainly. “At least I do. And last I checked, you were on four percent battery, so maybe you do too. And besides, if we’re doing anything it’ll probably be fixing up your arm and your memory drive first, and we can’t do that until I can access my tools, in the morning.”

Adah couldn’t think up a counterargument before Ishtar brushed past her, went back to her bedroom, and collapsed onto the bed. So that was the end of it.

While the mechanic slept, she sat back down on the beanbag and plugged the charging wires back into her own sockets. The night, which had been so fast and loud up until this point, was suddenly quiet, and Adah found herself strangely in the mindset of a child that had just been born. She had no idea where she was, and no idea what she was there for.