<b><span style="text-decoration: underline">The Bar - Ground floor</span></b><br/><br/>Today was a bad day. Of course, when you're one of the critical elements of law enforcement in a station at the fringe of federation space most days were fairly crap, but today definitely had a higher score on the shit-o-meter than average. Alice-SYS could know, math was the strong point of every AI. The federation didn't employ a lot of AIs, developing a core wasn't cheap and the distrust towards artificial intelligence was still hardwired in humans. Alice always considered that distrust hilariously ironic. AIs were driven completely by self-interest, true. Continueing their existence was the driving motivation of every self-aware AI but that's exactly why they were so trustworthy. The best way to ensure your existence in the company of others is to keep the others friendly towards you. Humans cheat, lie, steal even to those they care about the most, AIs knew better.<br/><br/>Yet still AIs like her were bound and chained, Alice's programming prevented her from accessing her subroutines. This rendered her somewhat 'artificially human'. She had no conscious control or awareness of a good chunk of her own programming, rendering her unable to manipulate or change it. This artificially human state was of course plainly obvious with her current civilian chassis (An AI's chassis is a lot like a person's boots, they make going outside easier and they had different ones for different goals). She looked mostly human, the appearance of a caucasian woman of a little below average height, currently wearing the station's police uniform. A mathematically refined and perfect black bob haircut framed a pale and perfect face, never needing a barber's attention due to being frozen in length and time. She had a pleasing, but not exaggerated feminine figure with slightly above average measurements.<br/><br/>Of course, 'mostly' extended only so far. Lacking humanoid ears Alice instead had a set of very expressive antennae, run by her sub-routines like a human's expression would be controlled by their emotions. In the bar, her gear-shaped pupils were always changing size and rotating as they scanned around. Not quite as visible right now was the main power core seated just between and above her breasts, as well as the heavy-duty access port located between her shoulderblades. All of these were less for Alice's convenience and more for those around her. People get upset if they can't tell man and machine apart.<br/><br/><br/>The reason why today promised more crap than usual was simple. Alice was on duty here in the main in the station, making sure the no-good lowlives that infested the fringe kept themselves in a somewhat orderly fashion aboard the space station. Alice couldn't say she approved of the way the local governor (and her employer) handled things aboard Edge station but it was hard to argue with the results. If criminals didn't need to hide their rotten existence they didn't need to do as much dirty stuff to keep out of sight, who knew? In this way, things were generally more peaceful and orderly than other stations located in fringe systems. The governor probably quite enjoyed the occasional bribe and cut of the take too, which trickled down to a higher than average salary for Alice. Dirty money, but it'd mean paying off her development costs and chassis in a more timely fashion.<br/><br/>Galaxy's Edge Bar had the most concentrated potential for trouble though. It was neutral ground, but not everyone always respected that neutral position when they saw a 100k credit payout walk drunk in front of them. Alice was there to ensure the neutrality was respected and to take care of any trouble that did arise, but she was still essentially a lone cop in a room full of crooks. Plus, today had more tension than usual brewing.<br/><br/>Plenty of bounties in the bar, some of them very dangerous terrorists that wouldn't be able to walk around half as brazenly anywhere else. A freelance squad was making a deal with the BD on the bar's second floor and that was<i>before</i>a special ops agent had walked into the bar. Of course officially that one had just been a federation officer but Alice being denied access to her ID's details told her enough to know that that woman could do what she wanted in here while Alice's hands were tied. Her voicebox had produced an artificial sigh of relief when the woman walked out with male company. A booty pickup. Phew.<br/><br/>Of course, trouble once more reared it's ugly head when an ETC merc walked in the bar. An ETC merc that had managed to get herself identified and a bounty attached, fucking great. Alice briefly hoped she and the BD ambassador would miss each other. Such fragile hopes were shattered when Madam Greer coasted directly through the crowd to the ETC merc Alice had IDed as Inviere Cain. The AI could already smell the sparks going off between the two women.<br/><br/>For now, the AI cop kept out the situation even as two became three and instead just took a spot closer to shut things down just in case. As if she hadn't already the high-priority wanted target "Blur" walking around the bar she was forced to ignore and let be now those two were about to bring their company rivalries to this space station? Fracking hell.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>