The weeks incoming had been fruitful. I continued working after everyone left and eventually completed the TS halfway through summer vacation. For the last month until school reopened, the team of coats were given their personal TS to use at home so we could gather a better experience pool. Updates came through every day, but the one at my house learned the most from copying all the servants. Cleaning, cooking, laundry, gardening, changing light bulbs, even driving, the list went on. By the start of school, the TS was a well-rounded, functional product we were ready to market. The only thing left was different designs to suit the tastes of different individuals, but I left that up to them.

For the first week of school, my tax collectors had some heart, and took only what they came for. The second week, when funds began running low, the beatings started. It pained more than usual somehow, perhaps the months of indulgence in UGO softened me to the harsh realities of my school life. My body was stained in bruises, those awfully familiar kicks and punches didn’t absorb like I’d hoped it would over the years of experience. Curling up on the ground also seemed to fail at numbing the pain. On the days that I suspected this to happen, long-sleeves or hoodies were my choice of attire to conceal the unwanted attention my discoloured skin sought. For the marks on my face however, well, the wretched looks of sympathy from passers-by couldn’t be avoided.

The third week was ushered in with the unforgiving resilience of time. Bright and early Monday morning, before classes even started, the PA system singed into my ears, summoning me to the staff room. That never happened before. The unpleasant mix of curiosity and nervousness brought forth a queasy feeling. There I saw something I’d never imagine. Two of my bullies, one’s arms folded and the other’s hands buried in his hoodie’s pocket, with a sickening grin about him. Andino, the man so fervent about solving my own problems that I had no zeal to solve myself, called me over to that wretched counselling room with a nudge of his head in the direction.

My heart skyrocketed, yet felt like it dropped right out of my body. I wobbled over, mustering whatever strength I had. My legs felt heavy, immovable. The obstacle in front of me felt like a lion, and I was the rabbit who threatened it. I encroached them, looking to turn to the room, when a loud shattering of glass pilfered everyone’s attention. There was someone out the window, hovering somehow. The burglar proofing was cleaved through in two precise strikes and the person jumped into the room, landing with a tactical roll.

My eyes, adjusting to the once silhouetted character, made me gape in discombobulation as I realised who, or rather, what, it was. A TS! What is a TS doing here? And why, my mind searched its banks of information, does it, have a gun?!

It grabbed the gun from its back, pointed it to the far left and splayed bullets from the automatic rifle across to its far right. They flew right over my head. Some people yelped in pain from picking up, some dropped like flies from being hit in the head. Andino pushed all three of us to the ground. My body was utterly frozen. My own damned android robot, murdering people left and right!

It looked right at me, as if seeing through Andino’s desk, and walked over, brutally shooting the two guys and Andino, then grabbed me up by my shirt. It placed the gun onto its back again and flew out with me, literally. I’d recognise the sound of the small jet boosters under its feet anywhere. It was something I designed for UGO a while back, a complement to speed up drone delivery. We soared over the skies and I had no idea why, nor where it was taking me. To say I was panicking, passing mere inches away from the top of skyscrapers, was an understatement. Eventually, I passed out from the shock but was awakened again by the sounds of a construction site.

“Dammit! Put, me, down!” I yelled, and it suddenly stopped, then descended to a nearby park. It actually put me down, as if I commanded it. Of course! I remembered the heavy countermeasures I put in place for misused TS androids. My voice, any TS would recognise it as its absolute commander, I embedded voice recognition into every single piece of technology used in the TS, to ensure that if someone was smart enough to find a couple of them and rip them out, chances are, they’d never find all. It was too bad I realised this all too late. The rogue TS flew off again.

Where am I anyway? I asked, noticing the stares of nearby denizens. I should call Theresa and ask her to ta­–I paused, inhaled deeply, and gave myself a mental smack about the noggin. With a few taps on the screen, I dialled Anna’s number after a few unanswered calls to my mother. Figures…

“Ban? What’s up? You never call,” she answered.

“Listen,” I said in a little draggy voice, “something, happened. Can you get mom on the phone?”

“I can’t. She’s in a marketing meeting for the TS, she’s finally pitching the idea!” Anna said in an excited voice. I groaned internally and told her I’d call back, preferring to have some thoughts with myself about the incident.

A TS, with a gun. The watch and learn feature would allow them to wield one perfectly. Now, who has access to a TS? I wondered. Only the team of coats under mom came to mind. They were the only people with a TS android. Now let’s see, if the product launches, the survivors would be able to recognise the TS android immediately. The police would also have copies of the school’s CCTV recordings. I knew lawsuits would be incoming, so launching now would only cripple UGO, the very opposite of what I wanted the TS image to become.

I hailed a taxi and set my course to the headquarters. This shows the holes in my creation. I’ll have to revisit it. The intricacies of technological security behind the TS certainly bothered me. How do I fix those flaws? I pondered, exiting the taxi a half hour later to enter UGO. Of course, revising the TS was of great importance, but the fact that I had two strange experiences within the span of a few months perturbed me to the point where I gave every one I passed by a second look. Someone else is good enough to bypass UGO security, and judging from the last attempt at whatever they want, I know that the culprit is most likely a coat.

Said coats waited in their labs for mom to return from the meeting room in anticipation of good news, which it was. The project was green-lighted by the executives judging from the ecstatic looks on their faces. I grabbed a nearby laptop and plugged my flash-drive into it, preparing my tools. If the authorities had those CCTV recordings, the situation could possibly rage out of hand, so the first thing I did was secure those recordings of the attack, but delete the school’s own. The tapping of keys swept their focus to the source of the sound.

“Mom, I need to speak with you.” I said simply.

With a stern adamantine glare, she questioned my being here, and not attending to my duties as a student. Once again, with a deeper, lower and more fatigued tone, I repeated my sentence. After a glare from her, we went up to her office on the top-floor, surrounded by glass. She sat at her desk with a straight face, or more importantly, like I was just another employee she was seeing.

“We’re going to have to postpone the TS launch,” I said, immediately robbing her of her half-baked effort at attention, to me at least.

She crossed her legs, leaned onto her palm and asked me, “Why is that?”

Slowly, I took a deep breath and returned her stare. “Mom, a TS just broke into school, murdered people and kidnapped me. Can you get me information on everyone who received a TS?”

She glowered, her entangled fingers tightening their grip in clear annoyance. “You dared to skip school to come here and say something so stupidly outrageous. If anything from your statement deviates from the truth even a little, you will be dealt with accordingly,” her booming, yet composed voice smashed into me.

My lips parted from each other, my tongue arched, ready to roll words off, but they just wouldn’t come out. My mind flailed about trying to figure out what to say, how to say it, or even how to interpret what was just said to me. Did she, or did she not believe me? The only trait sprouting from her was a cold, calculative and tenacious attitude, sprinkled with mild ire if a situation steered away from her liking. I couldn’t recall her smiling, much less for laughing. An educated guess just couldn’t be evoked in my mind, so I just asked instead of smiting my brain further. “You, don’t believe me?” I inquired, standing up.

“I am not inclined to,” she replied, apathetically. I took a couple steps backwards and eventually turned my back, covered my hands in the warmth of my jeans pockets and made my way to the elevator. With every word exchanged between us, I felt like I remembered clearer, the reason I wanted to give up on her. Incorrigible, she was. What would she have thought, said, or done if I told her the car crash wasn’t an accident?

Fine then, I’ll just figure out what to do myself. I stepped out into the parking lot and my phone rang. Anna? I wondered what she called about before answering.

“Hey, buddy. Is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah. No. I, don’t know.”

“Huh?” She giggled, “What’s with that answer? Tell you what, I was just about to leave for lunch, wanna grab a bite?”

I smiled, for a few seconds in silence, but my wariness didn’t accept her to truly be a good person. Especially knowing that the culprit behind my attempted murder and kidnapping was probably a coat. I couldn’t just rule her out of the equation on the mere fact that she got along with me. My life was in danger, and this invitation meant to accept the risk by going somewhere alone with the potential criminal. But what did it matter? My life must’ve been irrelevant anyway if my own mother couldn’t heed the words of her son. I agreed, and we went to a pizza joint a couple blocks away.

“Well?” she spoke with her mouth partially full, “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nah,” I shook my head, “I don’t, but I will. Not sure about this but, I think someone wants me dead,” I told her, staring at the slice of pizza in my hand. She choked a bit, and washed down her pizza with some soda.

“Are you crazy? What makes you say that?” she asked, looking genuinely concerned. My next few words were chosen carefully, to attempt reading her body language as accurately as possible.

“The car accident, wasn’t an accident. Someone controlled the car,” I explained, observing all the signals she sent in her gestures, “and recently…” I sat back, slouching a little, “Well, even more people are dead and I’m at the centre of it.”

“Hey, hey, what are you talking about? If something’s happening, you should talk to the police. Would you like me to go with you?” she asked. With every passing minute of conversation, the odds that she was the culprit kept plummeting.

“We can’t. It won’t solve anything. The person behind all of this will be a ghost to them. What I need, is…” I stopped when I noticed her attention was caught up in a news report.

“Ban, isn’t that, your school?!” she asked, her fingers flaccidly pointing to the television. The lids of my eyes brought themselves together as if to negate the realities being shown. I nodded my head at her.

“Anna, the reason I went to mom was because a TS was the culprit. I noticed its design the moment I saw it. If we launch the TS now, we’ll get really hard backlash.”

She went quiet for a while and looked at me, “That’s what you’re worried about?” she inched closer to me, “Don’t you think the person behind it is in UGO?”

“Think? No. I’m sure of it. The TS had other technology developed for totally different projects attached to it, working in tandem with the rest of its build. The person definitely has physical access to not only UGO facilities, but the lab in particular where all the robotics work is done. Mom doesn’t realise the mess we’re in if we don’t catch this person.”

“So, what do you intend to do?” She asked, her face fraught with worry. I, couldn’t answer her question. What should I do? It felt like this matter was way above my head. All I wanted was to frolic in metal and wires. How did it come to this? Why would anyone want to kill me? I asked myself, but then realised who my mother was. There would be numerous answers to that question, so much so that focusing on it was counter-productive.

I clenched my fist. If this can’t go to the police, “I’ll just have to,” or mom doesn’t believe me, “protect myself.” Just thinking of being on my own, with the identity of that culprit masked in darkness sent shivers to my spine. I grew scared as I thought of the reality, of dying, not by my own whims but by the hand of another. How ironic…

A strange sound emanated from outside. Anna dropped her pizza and looked on in stupor, her mouth gaping. I turned around and peered out the window. The assassin TS, with perfect aim, slipped bullets into everyone he could see around me. Without thinking, I covered Anna with my own body and hoped for the best. Glass and rounds sprinkled onto the ground, people screamed in anguish and horror as the metallic murderer waltzed inside the establishment and finished off any squirming victims anywhere close to me.