“That was fast!”<br/><br/><span style="color: #BF80FF"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Shut up.”</span></span>She hated new detectives; they were invariably human, and inevitably fresh from the HQ training center. She could practically smell the scent of a new occupational code on him, but thankfully the young man was sufficiently cowed by her sharp response and avoided eye contact as he delivered his briefing.<br/><br/>“S-sorry… Um… th-the ‘Forcer pursued the fugitive into the street outside the primary operation site. He said that – “<br/><br/><span style="color: #BF80FF"><span style="font-weight: bold">“I’ll talk to the ‘borg. Get lost.”</span></span><br/><br/>Her heels clicked softly as she approached the prone figure of the cyborg. His severed body still lay on the ground beyond an emergency privacy curtain and several more officials from headquarters, though two cyborg-technology specialists and an emergency neurologist hovered close. Celi approached in such a way that made it clear she had no intention of politely asking anyone to step aside, and the doctor swiftly moved back. Mismatched eyes widened slightly as she observed the enforcer; a shock of short brown hair and a strong jaw made for a very typical appearance, save that he was sans half of his artificial limbs. His arm had been taken almost up to his armpit and his same-side leg had been cut at mid-thigh. Those bones in a<span style="font-style: italic">regular</span>human would have required lasers of the top-quality to both sever and cauterize the body like this. Enforcer bones surpassed natural human strength by more than twenty-fold, and the weaponized arm would have possessed even more. The cuts were clean, even, precise, and seared like a rare piece of meat.<br/><br/><span style="color: #BF80FF"><span style="font-weight: bold">“What did you see?”</span></span>she asked coldly, still staring at his neatly clipped wounds.<br/><br/>“An android, sir,” came the immediate response. The cyborg lay still while the specialists tended him, and though he did seem to be in a moderate amount of pain his responses were instant. “Standard ammunition did not - nhh,” his face tightened in pain, “did not appear to have any affect. Offensive beams came from its left. The fugitive escaped to the west with her ‘droid.” He winced again. The bounty hunter quirked her mouth. She had seen enforcers fight with grievous and painful wounds, similar and worse than this, but it seemed that the ‘bots in their brains only saw fit to act on pain receptors until the danger was passed. Not far different from amped-up human adrenaline, honestly.<br/><br/>Without another word, she stepped curtly over the downed enforcer’s stomach and moved swiftly in the direction he’d indicated. Anyone with that kind of weaponry was automatically listed as Class 7- and she could use a bit of cash.<br/><br/><br/>---------<br/><br/><span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Thanks!”</span></span>he piped up, offering a programmed half-smile in response to the recognized intonation of ‘great job’. The colored lenses of his eyes darted and swiveled minutely, focusing in at high speeds on all areas of live being’s body, obviously running a quick analysis. As the female scanned the cargo in her back, his own optical sensors honed in on the contents for a fraction of a second before flickering back up to her face.<br/><br/>In the dim lighting of the lavatory, the brim of his hat shadowed almost the entire top of his face, but both eyes were still clearly visible and shone with an unnatural light. He still stood relaxed and calm, though the fabric of his shirt had been torn by one of the enforcer’s bullets along the outside of his left bicep- it appeared to have gone through the pseudoflesh as well, revealing a very light chrome-colored metal that didn’t have a scratch on it. A similar tear could be seen on the lower right side of his abdomen and a perfectly round hole, the size of an ancient penny, had been burned directly in the center of his chest. Past the singed shirt of the latter, a darker metal could be seen… the enforcer’s ammunition had been flattened against his exoskeleton, and was now no thicker than if it had been a shaving of its original state. It didn’t fall when he moved, revealing that it had been melted to his false skin.<br/><br/>The hurled C34s whizzed close to the robot’s figure, his sensors and bangs even registering the breeze of its passing.<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“I don’t want anything,”</span></span>he informed her, the information oddly clinical though his voice still rang with informality,<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold"> “but my boss would like for you to – ”</span></span><br/><br/>He froze, lenses leaving her face and seeming to stare just above her head, slightly out-of-focus. It was only for a couple seconds, and when his stare returned to her his voice was unchanged.<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">"They have your thermal signature,”</span></span>he said,<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“and it’s already been sent across the EN74 network. You’re listed as a Class 7B fugitive in possession of classified technology -that would be m-me- and are to be taken alive if possible; pro-pro-probably for questioning. Celi Mar has activated her ThermGen9 at a mark-3 perimeter. She’ll be at the site of weapons discharge in about 13 minutes.”</span></span>Wherever his voice stuttered, it snapped between his original vocal pattern and that of his artificial “identity”.<br/><br/><span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“My boss wants me to take you back to his location,”</span></span>he shifted his weight to the other foot, human mimicry eerily accurate in his subterfuge programming,<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“and given the current situation, I would also re-re-recommend allowing me to take you. So you don’t get shot,”</span></span>he added, flashing a quick grin.<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“I’d be happy to answer any of your questions along the way.” </span></span><br/><br/>-------<br/><br/>The girl’s eyes rolled back so far into her head she could identify her frontal lobe. She was screwed no matter what now. She clutched at her backpack tightly, considering its contents. It would be bad if they found her with the implants now, but it would be worse if they found her<span style="font-style: italic">without</span>them. Jo decided to stand up, crossing the room to fetch the shattered implant along with a few of its scattered components. Maybe she shouldn’t have lost her temper at it, she thought in hindsight. An impatient sigh was released. Her eyes trailed up to the android.<br/><br/>“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Even though she was still miffed with that shopkeeper, she had to admit it was a curious matter he would send his android back to retrieve her. Did he want those implants that badly or what? It wouldn’t do any good staying around here, and if she was being perfectly honest with herself, it seemed a better idea to relocate to the place they least expected to find her.<br/><br/>-----------<br/><br/>The android perfectly mimicked a dark, mischievous smile.<span style="color: #40FF80"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Do you ever?”</span></span><br/><br/>Gil’s optical lenses fogged over for a few seconds once more, and when their whirred back into focus, he extended his bent left arm toward her right one, effectively hooking it in a very archaic gesture of escort. He walked with the half-swagger gait of the doubly-artificial identity, a quiet smile on his face, looking for all the world like a relaxed individual with every right to be where he was. The sounds of the enforcers and other related commotion could be heard from the east, but the android didn’t so much as glance toward them. He gently steered the two of them back toward the major market district. Eventually they reached a more crowded area, and the android seamlessly blended into the crowd with the young woman, his long legs moving slowly to keep pace with her shorter ones. As the two of them passed behind the thick shield of a nutri-bev dispenser, he slowed just a little and with his opposite hand, took the trilby-esque cap from his head and plopped it directly on the top of her head. It didn’t cover the shaved hairstyle, but it made it less obvious. His own long mass of hair had tumbled back down around his shoulders and back in doing so; in as much time as it would take a human to do a double-take, he had changed his own hair color without so much as a blink. It now shone a soft, pale reddish auburn in the artificial dome light. He reached back and pulled it around to the front of him, over his shoulder. They continued walking at a natural pace, weaving in and out of the crowd.<br/><br/>Two human enforcers rounded the corner only seven or eight meters south of them, flanked by a cyborg. The cyborg followed the officers swiftly, walking while the men with more natural bodies moved at a slow jog. Their heads constantly swiveled as they moved, but if Gil noticed them he gave no indication; no glance, no change of step. As the trio of lawful agents approached the two of them, one of them began rapidly speaking in a terse voice to his wrist, his words floating in and out as they trotted past the duo, dodging people in the increasingly-crowded path. “…. No visual on fugitive, high congestion on south road to Central Market rendering identification from thermal scan highly improbable, no androids matching description seen…” Their backs faded into the rest of the people milling about the market street.<br/><br/>Finally, the android took a sharp turn into<span style="font-style: italic">Discount Tech</span>, so sharp it may have seemed like a last-minute decision to a passerby.<br/><br/>--------------<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Finally,”</span></span>came the breath of relief from the dark-haired fence, and he made a bee-line for the robot without so much as a glance to the girl.<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“You activated feature alterations <span style="font-style: italic">while</span> in a modified Identity program? What was the emergen – are you <span style="font-style: italic">damaged</span>?”</span></span>Xen’s bright golden eyes widened with surprised and promptly began to burn with an anger borne of belated worry.<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Drop the disguises and run a systems check,”</span></span>he barked sharply, seeming to not even see the young woman that remained hooked on his arm.<br/><br/>The robot promptly obliged and dropped his limb from the thief’s, and his stance immediately reverted to the original, hair shifting to its “natural” white-blonde. His eyes fogged.<span style="color: #40BFBF"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Identity successfully reverted. Systems check in progress. Processing. Processing. Systems check complete. Seven-thousand, four hundred and ninety-five anomalies found.”</span></span>Xen hand gripped the android’s jaw and yanked his face down, his own eyes scanning the tops of the robot’s ears, then dropping to the numerous bits of exposed metal and torn fabric along the torso, his fingers running gently over the ripped pseudoflesh with a half-worried, half-frustrated expression. He managed to convince himself that nothing he couldn’t fix with half an hour and the right tools was wrong with the artificial figure, and finally the young man looked to at the girl that had accompanied his machine into the shop.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Was your hair pink before or have I been spending too much time around electromags again?”</span></span>he quipped casually, offering a relaxed grin. Before she could answer, he continued,<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Listen, I think we got off on the wrong… I mean, I’m not really going to just take your stuff, you know?”</span></span>Xen rubbed the back of his messy head, his eyes drifting to the ceiling before landing back to her.<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Anyway, I’ve got a proposition for you, if you’d be willing to hear me out. It won’t take long, and from the looks of him,”</span></span>he jerked his head back toward Gil, trying to look nonchalant but unable to stop the flicker of concern in his eyes and tilt of his brow,<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“you might want to lay low for a few hours anyway.”</span></span>As he spoke, he walked back behind the counter and pressed a small button beneath it, which opened an adjacent door on the far wall of the shop, previously camouflaged by the shelves piled with useless junk. Still facing her, he quirked a brow:<span style="color: #FFBF00"><span style="font-weight: bold">“Interested?”</span></span>