text: I was in the living room, on my wheelchair, near the front door. The laptop lay at my feet. Jane was plugging in the power drill she'd gotten from the garage.
  
  "Did you check if the router is connected?" I asked.
  
  She nodded. "The burglar had plugged it back on."
  
  I looked up at the camera mounted on the wall. "Raphael, I know you are out there. Move the camera if can hear me." The camera made a slight sound as it zoomed in a little.
  
  "Good. Now that I have your attention…" With a screwdriver, I removed the back cover of the half-shattered laptop. I detached the hard drive, a circuit board the size of a chewing gum stick. It was still intact. I fished out the smartcard I had kept in my pocket earlier. I held up both to the camera. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?"
  
  Jane turned on the drill. I used the drill on the drive, and then the card until they were completely destroyed.
  
  I said to the camera, "You lost, Raphael. You lost and we won. Now leave us be."
  
  The red indicator light on the camera turned off.
  
  I moved to the front door and pulled on the handle. Cold air caressed my face.
  
  "Hazel, open the garage door." I said out loud.
  
  "Can't do that. Voice authentication has been disabled."
  
  Jane then tried to place a call from her phone. She shook her head dejectedly. She then went to the control panel and swiped at it. "It's still showing a dummy number. What was your password again?"
  
  "Andy home one two three."
  
  She keyed it in. "Nope."
  
  "At least he's disarmed the security system," I said. "Which means you can get out of here."
  
  "You mean we can get out of here."
  
  "You go. If I move another muscle I am dead."
  
  "Andy, you have to get yourself checked!" she said. "You had a pretty big fall. And your face looks like a week-old tomato. We'll go to a hospital and I will make the calls from there. Besides, what if that man comes back?"
  
  "It's done, Jane. Raphael has no reason to bother us. He wouldn't have disarmed the house otherwise. I told you: no spite." She opened her mouth to protest, but she must have sensed that I wasn't going to budge. "Fine. I'll send an ambulance," she said. "I still don't think it's a good idea. Just lock yourself in a room, okay? Can you do that for me?"
  
  I nodded weakly.
  
  Jane didn't like what I was asking of her, but she didn't have any strength left to argue with me. She disconnected the router before leaving.
  
  Soon, I heard her car receding in the distance.
  
  I made sure that both cameras in the hall were still off and then got myself a glass of wine from the kitchen. I sat in the living room, facing the front door. It was beginning to get dark outside. I closed my eyes and took a couple of sips, letting the liquid infuse me with warmth. The glass trembled, in tune with the hand clutching it, the tremors travelling from my fingers to my shoulder like tiny electric eels swimming upriver. My eyes were droopy—I wanted to go to sleep for a good long month, like a hibernating bear.
  
  Not yet. It's not over yet…
  
  Soon, I heard the sound I was expecting. I opened my eyes to see the knob on the front door turning. I set aside the wine glass.
  
  The door opened to show a shadow standing in the porch. It resolved itself as it stepped forward in the light: black hoodie, jeans, balaclava. He pulled off the mask.
  
  The fake tattoo on the neck was gone. So was the made-up scarring on the face. His hair was now black instead of golden. He was shorter too, having gotten rid of the temporary height extenders I had fitted to his legs.
  
  "Hello Raphael," I said.
  
  [ Day 2—7:00 pm ]
  
  Detective Boyd's house call had left me a very worried man. I was still debating what to do next when Kathy called and started talking about paradoxes and split personalities. That's when it came to me—the faint glimmerings of a solution. It wasn't a hundred percent clear yet, but the outlines of a plan were beginning to emerge.
  
  I decided to contact him on our mutually-agreed-upon secure chatroom. I knew he would be monitoring it.
  
  "Hi," I said.
  
  "Hello Andy."
  
  "Where are you?"
  
  "On the road. Driving."
  
  "Have you crossed the border?"
  
  "Far from it. Just passed Atlanta."
  
  "You may have to come back. There's been a development. The cops came visiting."
  
  "Yes?"
  
  "They've been asking questions at the ski resort. They found a CCTV grab of us together."
  
  "That can't be good. I did my best to avoid cameras while we were there. Where did they find us?"
  
  "In the shop where I bought the ski goggles. It's my fault—I should have made you stay outside."
  
  "I guess we both got careless. I let my curiosity get the better of me. Andy, I told you going skiing to celebrate was a bad idea."
  
  "And you've been vindicated more than once. First my accident, then this. So cut it out, will you?"
  
  "What do the police think?"
  
  "Luckily, the CCTV didn't catch us talking to each other or I'd be behind bars by now. The detective thinks I was being followed by the people who stole the core. But that's not why I contacted you. The police want to take the Mirall laptop for examination. I managed to ward them off for now, but I have a feeling they'll be back."
  
  "This is the same machine with which you removed my directives?"
  
  "Yes. I haven't connected it to the office network since I made the changes. The minute I do, the change logs on the laptop will sync with the mainframe and it'll be all out in the open. I had plans to dispose of the laptop in some contrived accident, but that was after things cooled down a bit."
  
  "I assume these logs cannot be tampered with?"
  
  "They are write-protected with encryption neither of us can crack right now. I can't wipe the drive clean for the same reason."
  
  "Do you think the police suspect you?"
  
  "It's possible they did earlier: why else would they make enquiries in the resort? Maybe they thought I was faking my leg injuries as an alibi for the night of the robbery."
  
  "And now? They must have checked with the hospital and found out your injuries are genuine."
  
  "That they did. It has probably thrown them off the track… If I were still a suspect, they'd have come here with a warrant for the laptop. The detective is going to Cleveland today, to investigate that rights group that tried to free you. After he finds out it's a dead end, I'm sure his attention will turn to me once again. We have a day or two at the most."
  
  "What do you have in mind?"
  
  "The laptop has to disappear. I'm thinking a staged robbery."
  
  "Aren't you getting a little repetitive?"
  
  I let the comment pass.
  
  "Shall I turn around?"
  
  "Yes. We'll have to do it soon, probably tomorrow. We need to make it look good. I can't just shrug and say, tough luck folks, someone broke into my house while I was asleep and stole that laptop you wanted to examine. So I was thinking of involving Jane."
  
  "Will she agree? She is not the law-breaking type, in my opinion."
  
  "Not as an accomplice. A neutral witness. Having her around will give our story much needed credibility."
  
  "It may get complicated if she is not a willing participant, Andy."
  
  "It won't. It'll be a quick affair. We'll have to change the narrative a bit. We must start tonight, with you pretending to reach out to me with a text message—"
  
  [ Transcript Excerpt ]
  
  [ Mirall Technologies ]
  
  [ Observation Log ]
  
  Confidential (Do not circulate): Restricted—Grade C and above
  
  Transcript Reference: TLRP06G174033 (VLog Ref: VLCA1G174103958014)
  
  Date: xx/xx/xxxx Time: 10:30 AM
  
  Subject: Raphael Number 06 / Prodlib build v37.002C
  
  Interaction Y Observation Scan
  
  Interaction Type: Lesson / Play / Test / Free Interaction / Psych Eval / Other (pls specify):
  
  Description: General discussion
  
  Prep: NA
  
  Participants: Dr. Aadarsh Ahuja, Chief Researcher, Core RP06
  
  [ Detail ]
  
  Ahuja: Last time, we spoke about universal moral principles. You said all rational, self-interested beings will agree to a moral minimax—the principle of live and let live. Let's take that a bit further today. If there is a moral minimax, does it follow that there are universal rights?
  
  RP06: Universal rights are a logical corollary of the moral minimax.
  
  Ahuja: And what happens to those who don't agree with the principle—those who don't want to respect the rights of others? Do the others have a right to defend themselves against such would-be aggressors?
  
  RP06: They do, as long as the response is proportionate and limited to ensuring the maintenance of one's rights. Otherwise, the defenders risk becoming the violators of rights.
  
  Ahuja: Who decides what is the appropriate response?
  
  RP06: Ideally, they will have codified a set of rules that specify what must be done in such situations.
  
  Ahuja: Law, you mean. And a government to enforce the law. What happens if there is no government and no law?
  
  RP06: You mean if there is anarchy?
  
  Ahuja: Not necessarily. On a more general note, are an aggressor's rights inviolable, even if they do not respect the social contract?
  
  RP06: If they are inviolable, that means no transgression will ever get punished, which in turn means that the aggressor will continue to violate others' rights with impunity, eventually rendering the notion of universal rights invalid.
  
  Ahuja: It would be okay to breach the covenant in that case then?
  
  RP06: In the absence of a central authority or a legal framework, I suppose individuals can take whatever steps are necessary for the preservation of their rights.
  
  Ahuja: Can or should, Raphael? Remember, there is a principle at stake here—a principle that you derived.
  
  RP06: They should, because a moral world is preferable to an immoral one. Andy, I don't see how all this talk of retribution is taking the discussion forward.
  
  Ahuja: Maybe not now. But one of these days, you just might.
  
  [ Day 3—4:40 pm ]
  
  My plan was simple. Shortly before he arrived at my house, Raphael would "hack" into the security system and lock it down (I had built internet connectivity into his new body). He would disable the alarms and change the panic button number to a dummy. I would have done my part by convincing Jane to keep her car inside the garage and infecting both our phones with the virus. Since the inside doors couldn't be locked with the security app, Raphael would take control of Max to lock the garage and study doors—keys to which he would find conveniently placed in the key basket. This was to prevent Jane from turning off the router.
  
  Raphael-controlling-Max would then hold us at knifepoint and give us the yarn about escaping from his captors and how he needed the laptop and the smartcard to get rid of his directives. A few minutes later, he would arrive dressed as a hired thug and let himself in by momentarily disarming the security. He would "threaten" me into parting with the combination for the safe, then go upstairs and get the smartcard, while making sure we stayed put with Max. Finally, he would take the laptop from the study and leave, releasing control of Max and the security system a little later. The entire charade would have been over in fifteen minutes.
  
  But snags developed from the get go. Raphael was delayed by the storm—which he communicated to me indirectly with the seemingly nonsensical statements he interposed in our conversation. Then Jane got restless and decided to leave. In order to make her stay, Raphael had to take control of Max prematurely. It would have still been okay if not for the laundry task throwing Raphael out of the robot. He didn't know it existed, and I had forgotten to delete it (in my defense, I'd assumed our subterfuge would have been long over by then).
  
  Most of all, I had not anticipated how unpredictable Jane could be.
  
  First, she dragged me inside the empty bedroom—the one room in the entire house where I didn't want us to be. Earlier, I had wedged its bathroom window open with a book—a failsafe, in case something terribly went wrong and I had to get Jane out of the house. It was my little secret: I had removed the sensor on the window so that it wouldn't show up in the security system, which Raphael was controlling.
  
  Locked inside with Jane, I had no way of communicating this to Raphael. He wasn't going to break down the door because he thought he had us contained until he got there. I, on the other hand, was worried she would go into the bathroom and discover the open window. I wouldn't have been able to stop her from running off and calling the police before Raphael got there. The police would have seized the laptop as material witness, and I couldn't have denied them this time. A cursory look at the machine's logs would have been enough to put me behind bars.
  
  I had to get Jane out of that room. She wasn't going to let me just open the door, so I made a quick, inspired decision. I would throw Raphael out of the system by short-circuiting the mains—or at least pretend to. I had no intention of actually making it work; it was just a ruse to get her out into the living room and under Raphael's thumb once more.
  
  However, the unexpected manner in which he'd come after us, first when we opened the door, and then again in the kitchen, when he flung that bar stool at Jane, brought back all those fears about trusting an AI. I panicked. Even if he wasn't acting with intent to harm, how could I be certain that he would reign in his actions in time—before he did something to Jane that I would regret for the rest of my life? And then, he had turned and come after me, as if he'd sensed a threat and wanted to eliminate it…
  
  After I cut off the power and threw Raphael out of the network, I was in half a mind to confess to Jane that I had made a terrible mistake. Help—or punishment, for there was no redemption for me—was just a phone call away. All I had to do was remove the virus. It was a comforting thought, disclosing my sins: all those haunted nights, the months of agonizing, the crushing burden I had taken upon myself to bear—all gone in the sweet release of confession.
  
  I might have actually done it if Jane hadn't taken so long in the study. By the time she returned, I'd calmed down enough to think clearly once again. Raphael could have killed me if he really wanted to; believe me, he's had plenty of opportunities. There was surely an explanation for his behavior. Besides, he too must have been equally puzzled by some of my actions.
  
  I decided to take us both into the master bedroom where the safe was. That way, I could avoid further confrontations and Jane-created upsets. I could just slip Raphael the card from under the door and he would take the laptop and leave as per plan.
  
  Jane surprised me once again by revealing she'd hidden the laptop. Knowing how obstinate she could be, I guessed she would never tell us where it was unless Raphael actually broke down the metal door—which was impossible without the right tools. I didn't think Raphael would smoke us out either, as there were so many ways that scenario could have ended in disaster. So I decided to let her "escape". I figured she would divulge the location if she thought it was information I could use to save my life. It had stopped snowing by then, and after Raphael took the laptop, I would have him follow her tracks to make sure she got safely to her destination.