“The Christian Von Medvey?!” Pinkerton’s voice went up an octave, which was saying something for the lab tech already verging on the edge of soprano.

“There’s more than one?” asked Cutter.

Pinkerton raised the cybernetic eye loupe over his left eye so he could glare at Cutter unhindered. (Cutter liked calling the device Pinkerton’s mad scientist monocle).

“You’ve never heard of Christian Von Medvey?”

“Should I have?”

“The playboy billionaire who married his V-Sim. First legal marriage between man and machine. That Christian Von Medvey?”

Cutter pushed his lower lip over his upper. This was probably something he should have known. Maybe buried somewhere in the depths of his skull, he had a vague inkling of recollection, but for the most part, he didn’t care enough to be concerned. He didn’t care much for synthetic history.

“I guess.”

“You guess…” Pinkerton shook his head. “You guess. You always guess, don’t you, Cutter? For you, facts can be so elusive, can’t they?”

“I guess.” Cutter smirked.

Pinkerton didn’t appreciate the irony.

He didn’t much appreciate anything Cutter said or did. Difference of opinion, Cutter guessed.

Truth was, difference of everything.

Earl Pinkerton was the precinct’s tech guy. Guru was more like it. If it involved tech, synthetics, the future, Pinkerton was all over it. His hours at work were devoted to the repair and maintenance of the machines belonging to the department. In his off time, he was a social advocate for synthetics.

There wasn’t a spare second he wasn’t thinking about technology.

Thick cables hung from the ceiling in the dimly lit tech dungeon. Most officers referred to it as Pinkerton’s playroom. Two floor to ceiling shelves were overflowing with broken tech, most of which Cutter couldn’t identify.

Though there was no professional need for a lab coat, Pinkerton wore one anyway.

Cutter knew the truth. Pinkerton didn’t like the police uniform. Anything he could do to hide it. No one thought twice about the tech guy wearing a lab coat. The brains of the precinct should look brainy, shouldn’t he?

Usually, Pinkerton’s workbench was littered with the occasional disembodied leg. Sometimes an arm. Or a head. Sometimes, piles of bent, broken, banged up spare parts that no one knew what to do with.

Pinkerton had ideas.

A green stripe blipped across a monitor’s black void.

Celia sat on the edge of the work bench, swinging her legs back and forth. She smiled at Cutter when he entered. It should have been disarming, but the wide gauge cord jacked into the back of her head only heightened the surreality of the scene.

Pinkerton tapped her on the shoulder, grabbing her attention. Using a pair of calipers like a tongue depressor, he asked her to open wide.

These were the strangest doctor’s checkups. Cutter stopped a few steps short of the workbench, close enough to see. Close enough to occasionally peek over a shoulder, but he couldn’t help feeling that in Pinkerton’s domain he was only in the way.

Hesitantly, Cutter leaned forward. “You get a chance to look through the case file yet?”

“I gave them a cursory glance. Pains me to say it, but I agree with your initial assessment. Besides being synthetic, there seems to be no correlation between the victims.”

“But you think it’s the same guy?”

“Definitely.” Pinkerton pointed at Cutter with the metal calipers. “That’s not my official stance, mind you. I want to take a closer look at the reports before I commit my opinion to anything permanent.”

“Yeah. I get you.”

“I’ll let you know if there’s anything that might help catch this scumbag.” Pinkerton shined a penlight in Celia’s ear. “Hard to believe someone targeted Valerie Von Medvey. There’s some real sickos in this world.”

“Tell me about it.” Cutter thought, maybe they didn’t have a difference of everything. There were a few topics where they could see eye to eye.

“Well, this is interesting.” Pinkerton tapped the monitor with the metal caliper. “Looks like someone has been tampering with her operating system.”

Cutter leaned forward, straining to see, not wanting to take a single step closer to the workbench. “Should I be concerned?”

“Isn’t that why you wanted me to check her out in the first place?”

Cutter bobbed his head from side to side, somewhere between a nod and shake. “Is the program doing anything to her?”

“It’s not a program. Not exactly. Well, not anymore. It’s leftover remnants of a program. Lines of code that aren’t referencing anything.”

“And that means?”

“Whatever it was, it was definitely malicious. You can see here where it originally left the rootkit, but that’s gone now. The Black and White programming we added seems to have neutralized the threat.”

“Not exactly putting me at ease here, Doc.”

“It’s just pieces sitting there dormant, not really doing anything.” Perching his chin on his palm, Pinkerton extended his pointer finger and tapped his left nostril. “Honestly, it’s hard to say how it will affect her.”

“That’s the expert opinion?”

Pinkerton set his teeth on edge. “There’s a mishmash of programming running around inside of her. There’s no telling how it will interact. The Black and White programming is pretty straight forward. Predictable. At least, it should be. Then there is her surrogate programming which is designed to learn and change over time, which can make things, shall we say, complicated. Then there’s this. Whatever this is.”

“It was Costas,” Celia said, nodding with certainty.

Pinkerton and Cutter stared at her with blank expressions.

Slowly Pinkerton’s head turned toward Cutter, eyes never leaving Celia. “Who is Costas?”

Cutter shrugged. “Her imaginary friend.”

“Synthetics cannot have imaginary friends,” scoffed Pinkerton.

“That is what I told him,” said Celia.

“See. She knows. Should listen to her, Jack. Might learn a thing or eleven.”

“Yeah, whatever. So what do I do about it?”

“Well, she’s still a kid.”

“So, they grow out of this?”

Pinkerton stretched his mouth into a thin line. “That’s really on you. For better or worse, you’re her parent now.”

Cutter stepped back. “I’m no parent.”

“Sole guardian. I don’t care what you call it. But you’re the one responsible for her. She’s a child surrogate synthetic. She’s still learning. There’s a glut of programming running inside her, telling her different things. Probably conflicting things at that. You have to show her right from wrong.”

“Why me?”

“For fuck’s sake, Cutter. You’re the one who stole her before she could go up for police auction. You used her in place of a Black and White. You don’t get the best of both worlds. It’s on you to take care of her. Not to mention, you aren’t exactly setting the best example to begin with. She’s just a kid.”

“She’s a synth.”

“She’s your responsibility.” Pinkerton flushed red. His mouth puckered, opening and closing like a fish. He forced out a statement, one he hated to admit. “And she looks up to you.”

He was a short, ginger haired, clean-shaven, flat faced Irish prick in a terrible Men’s Wearhouse suit.

“You always bring your personal belongings to work with you?”

“Huh?”

The ginger pointed behind Cutter. Celia was a step behind, partially hidden by his leg.

“Oh her.” Cutter shrugged. He pointed at the RX-S7 accompanying the ginger haired, short little shit. “I dunno, do you?”

Cutter recognized the model. Chitin shell brown was an uncommon color for a synth. Most were chrome, metallic, black, or one of the more human friendly colors. The RX-S7 was an infiltration and espionage unit used several decades ago. Unlike the Black and Whites, it had the silhouette of a human—useful when seen from a distance. Its slender frame also allowed it to wear human clothes without the bulky appearance that was the case for most synthetics. This one was wearing a cardigan. Cutter wanted to call it ‘Professor’ with the same irony that he’d call a three hundred pound bouncer ‘Tiny.’

Staring into its grill, Cutter fought the shiver working its way up his spine. The RX-S7 was one of the few military synthetics with a working jaw. Skeletal, but clearly modeled on human anatomy.

Although they were decommissioned, they occasionally landed gigs working with local law enforcement. Military analytic reports made it clear that infiltration units didn’t need to look human to be effective in combat environments. And in many cases, looking human was often a hindrance. But why let military grade tech go to waste?

“Ha ha. Very funny.” The Irish prick elbowed the RX-S7 in the ribs. “This one’s a card.”

Pulling out a Steno pad, he pointed at Cutter with a ballpoint pen. “Gonna have to keep an eye on you.”

“You do that.”

“But seriously, you know you need to leave your personal belongings at home.”

Cutter followed the slant of the ballpoint pen. It was aimed squarely at Celia.

“Technically, she’s not mine. She’s police property.”

“Make a habit out of that?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Using police property at your disposal.”

“She’s my partner.”

“Oh, right. Someone mentioned that.” He flipped through his Steno pad. “And she’s been through the Academy?”

“She’s a synth.”

“So, that’s a no?”

Cutter enunciated each syllable. “She. Is. A. Synth.”

“Right. Right.” He scribbled on his pad. “Let me check something. Okay, so, she was built for this line of work and was preinstalled with the programming necessary for the job?”

Cutter pressed his fingers into his temple. Talking to a walking headache was giving him one. “We installed the programming.”

“And how’s that worked out?”

“Who are you again?”

“Shannon MacDonald.”

His hand was already extended, wavering, waiting for a reciprocal grasp that would never come. Pale blue eyes set into deep sockets stared at Cutter. Lifeless orbs.

“Yeah,” said Cutter. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It will. I’m with Internal Affairs.”

“Still don’t mean shit.”

Cutter turned, but MacDonald’s hand was on his shoulder. The small man peered over the steep incline created by the vast difference in height. “Don’t be going anywhere.”

Cutter eyed the hand on his shoulder. “You really should stop hitting on me. I might have to file a formal complaint.”

MacDonald sprayed laughter, and immediately cut himself off. “I’ve taken down guys like you, Cutter. Guys that like to play loose with the rules. That doesn’t fly with IA. Nor does it fly with me. And know, I don’t find you funny. Sexual harassment is not a joke.”

“I’ll say. The thought of you and me is downright disturbing. If you don’t mind, I’ll be right over there.” Cutter pointed at Stetler’s desk in the middle of the precinct. “That okay with you?”

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he said, raising his voice.

Cutter was already walking away. He held a thumb’s up over his shoulder. “You do that, stalker.”

The precinct’s database was an oversized blinking piece of technology, outdated by at least a half century. Occasional grinding noises sputtered out of the device—never a good sign—but most officers hardly noticed anymore.

Eyesore that it was, the wireless link between the database and Black and Whites kept officers in constant contact with every nugget of crime related information the city had ever recorded.

Even in the field, information was available at the push of the button, or the whim of a synthetic.

A scrolling wall of text hovered a foot and a half over Stetler’s desk. Data entry was one of those highlights of police work the Academy often glossed over. The recruitment brochures displayed flashy weapons and high tech careers. A real job for the future. It didn’t mention anything about spending the bulk of your time sitting behind a desk filling out reports and transferring them into the city database.

Stetler lit up when he saw a friendly face through the holographic wall of scrolling text.

“What can I do you for, Ceil?”

She tilted her head to a side. “I do not know. What can you do for me, Detective Stetler?”

“You name it. I’m there.”

Stetler was such an interesting character, Celia thought. Many things about Stetler reminded her of Jack. Like Jack, he did not always follow instructions or even the law to the letter, but he always managed to resolve problems in his own way. On his own terms.

She liked that about both of them. It was so different from her technical understanding. Of the law. Of life. Of how to live and operate amongst humanity.

But there was something else about Stetler she admired. His attitudes towards tech, especially synthetics and mods, was different than Jack’s.

He embraced tech. Embraced modification. Anything to create the better human. He wasn’t afraid of becoming something else, something other than what Mother Nature had intended. In fact, it appeared to her that he endorsed change. The idea of becoming something new was not something to be frightened of, rather something to aspire to.

Unlike Cutter, who had become something new in order to save his life, but underwent treatments to forget—treatments provided for the precinct courtesy of InSight, bringing you a better tomorrow, today. Treatments to block out the depravity, violence, and soul-crushing glimpses of humanity at its worst that their job gave them the privilege of witnessing every single day of their lives.

The treatments were why they couldn’t remember Costas.

There was one other thing Celia liked about Stetler. A spark of electricity easier to feel than articulate.

There were some lines Stetler would not cross, which made her feel safe when he was around. She could not say the same for Jack.

Cutter collapsed into a chair. “Who the hell is that guy?”

Cutter’s eyes narrowed on MacDonald, watching the short man in his tan suit parade through the station. Every time MacDonald raised his arms, oversized shoulder pads bunched up around his neck, a camel hump on each shoulder.

“So you’ve met MacDonald,” said Stetler. “He’s some twerp from IA. Don’t worry, no one likes him.”

Cutter glanced at Stetler and snorted.

MacDonald made his exit with the RX-S7 in tow. Presumably they were on their way to the Chief’s office, or maybe to holding—honestly, Cutter didn’t care where he went. All that mattered was MacDonald was out of earshot.

“What’s with the synth following him?”

“Kinda frightening, isn’t it?”

“Gives me the willies, that’s for sure. Thought those things only ran covert ops.”

“Yeah, me too.” Stetler nodded. “IA got their hands on a bunch of military overstock. Some old outdated stuff. Least by military standards.”

“Not by ours.”

“You got that right.” Stetler tipped his chin in Celia’s direction. “Closest thing we have to modern tech is her.”

“She’s not exactly a combat model.”

Celia confidently nodded in one swift movement. “I am not.”

“Well, she’s still got some of your old Black and White’s parts in her.”

At Stetler’s words, Celia pulled her shoulders together. Her breath quickened. “But, they are mine now.”

Cutter tussled her hair. “That they are.”

“Are you going to take them away?”

“Look what you did, Stetler. You got her all worked up.”

Stetler swept a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Shut up, you. Or I might make sure MacDonald never leaves you alone.”

“Yeah, about that. Why the hell is he singling me out?”

“Do I really need to say it?”

“Guess you do because I don’t got a clue.”

“Right… Sure you don’t.”

Cutter scrunched his nose. Celia knew this tell. Wasn’t a conversation worth having.

“What’s with the paperwork?” asked Cutter.

“Logging the physical evidence from Sunset Gardens.”

Cutter perked. “I didn’t think we had much physical evidence to log.”

“Oh, look at your sudden interest. I should let you write all my reports.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

“Just like you don’t know why IA would be interested in you, right?”

Cutter ignored him. “What evidence?”

“The evidence.”

Cutter wore a shit eating grin and slowly shook his head in faux-disbelief. “Not following.”

“Don’t make me say it. You know what I’m talking about.”

Celia bounced in her chair, clapping on the top of Stetler’s desk with her hands. “Jack, he means the Rejuvagina.”

“Ah, right,” said Cutter. “How could I forget?”

Stetler rolled his eyes. “See, you got her saying it now. Anyway, guess what?”

“Do I have to?”

“Neal safely delivered it to Evidence.” Stetler rat-a-tatted a few keys. “That means my involvement with the case ends with the push of a button.”

“Don’t do it.”

Stetler pressed Enter.

“Jerk.”

Stetler pressed Enter another half dozen times, an exclamation on his point. “It’s all yours.”

“Careful, will ya? Those monkey arms are gonna jackhammer a hole clean through your desk.”

Stetler rolled back in his chair, hee-hawing like a baritone donkey. “Worth it.”

His laughter was interrupted by commotion in the precinct’s lobby.

A handful of officers scurried through the bullpen, signaling for a clear path. Two officers carried, nearly dragged, something between them. Their faces red and dripping with sweat, as they rushed past in a stampeding blur.

Celia recognized the yellow sundress and brunette hair.

Valerie Von Medvey.

One of the officers had her by her thighs and another hooked his arms under her shoulders.

Celia turned to Cutter looking for cues on how to react. But Cutter’s brows were sky high as he exchanged a puzzled glance with Stetler.