Cutter tapped his American Spirit against the dashboard. From time to time, he stole a quick glance or two at Celia. With practiced ease, he removed a cigarette from the pack with his teeth, found his Zippo in his breast pocket, sparked the end, and inhaled.

Three rings of smoke drifted toward the open driver’s side window and were promptly sucked out and scattered into the passing urban oblivion.

He stole another glance at Celia.

On rides through the city, prying Celia’s attention away from the neighboring streets rushing past was an impossible task. Her sensors perked at the scope and breadth of humanity milling about in the frantic blur—from a trio of homeless huddled around a flaming trash can, to a pack of kids tossing a pair of shoes onto overhead telephone wires. She didn’t want to miss a thing.

But not right now.

Right now, she was staring at Cutter.

Every subtle sideways glance was met by her direct stare.

Awkward.

After the sixth or seventh time playing tag with their eyeballs, Celia broke the silence.

“Why do you smoke?”

“Huh?” Cutter’s mouth hung partially open. The cigarette defied gravity somehow still attached to his lower lip.

“Studies show that smoking shortens your lifespan.”

“Not quickly enough.” His response was one part disappointment, two parts challenge.

Her eyes gleamed hazel and doe-eyed—brimming with all the cutesy cliches that Cutter had a hard time resisting.

Celia’s voice pitched up higher than usual. “Can I try one?”

Basking in an eternal silence, Cutter glued his eyes to the road, giving her time to forget. When he finally peeled his eyes from the road, Celia was in the same position, with the same doe-eyed expression.

The casual innocence of her question combated his better sense to automatically tell her no. He heaved, held his breath for an extended moment, and slowly exhaled.

“Sure. Why the hell not?”

He tossed the pack into her lap.

“You’ll need this too.” He dug into his breast pocket and placed the lighter on her thigh.

A sandpaper scratch beat out a rhythm for a couple bars. The miniature flint sparked, setting fumes ablaze, maintaining a soothing hiss.

Cutter kept his eyes pinned to the tail end of a green municipal garbage truck in the lane ahead of them. He told himself that he needed all of his focus and concentration to prevent rear ending the vehicle. He thought of the mess, of the cruiser, pitched into the back, wallowing with the refuse (probably where he belonged), if he were to glance away for a single moment.

His ear tugged at his face, begging to sneak a peek at the strange scratching and rustling noises coming from his passenger’s seat.

Nope.

He wasn’t going to do it.

And it had nothing to do with the six year old girl sparking up for the first time in the chair next to him. After all, she was a synth. What did it matter?

If he had a conscience, he’d probably feel guilty.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

Another scritch.

Another hiss.

A faint pause.

And then the process repeated itself.

What the hell was she doing?

It shouldn’t take her this long.

Silence filled the vehicle, oozing into all its cracks and crevices, giving his nerves temporary reprieve.

Just when he thought she might have figured it out, the staccato rhythm of the flint set his nerves on end, like the sound of fingernails clawing at nylons. A shiver shot up his spine.

“For fuck’s sake!” snapped Cutter.

Celia startled. The cigarette dangled from her pout. She fumbled with the Zippo, juggling the pack of American Spirit that appeared oversized in her tiny hands. “Is something wrong?”

“What’s the holdup?”

Delicately, she repositioned the cigarette, filter pinned between soft lips. She touched the tip with flame.

Another unsuccessful attempt.

Celia removed the cigarette from her lip, shook it as if it had a dead battery, and tried again with similar results.

“You gotta inhale as you light it,” said Cutter. He reached across her body trying to help, but she shielded herself.

“I can do it.”

“Just…here, let me…”

Celia turned completely away from him. “I can do it!”

“Fine. You can do it. Just hurry up. This is getting on my nerves.”

“There!” said Celia. She faced him, cigarette in mouth, tip maintaining a cherry glow. “I did it!”

Cutter half expected a coughing fit to accompany her excitement. To his surprise, she inhaled and blew out a cloud of smoke without incident.

“Am I doing it right?”

Cutter gave her a cursory glance and shrugged. “In your case, I really couldn’t tell ya. Looks close enough from here.”

A strange sensation tickled the back of his throat. He tried to clear it, but it persisted. A cough escaped. Followed by another. Without warning, his hacking erupted into a full-fledged coughing fit.

“You okay, Jack?” asked Celia. Smoke pelted him in the face with her every word.

Cutter glared at her. “You mind?”

“Sure,” said Celia. Another plume of smoke engulfed him. She sat back in her seat, puffing away, contentedly humming to herself. After a pause long enough to give his question consideration, she shot him a puzzled look. “Mind what, Jack?”

“Roll down the window, will ya?”

Her eyes went wide. In a flash, she rolled down the passenger side window, as if failure to do so as quickly as possible would result in her new vice being taken away from her.

On the city street, a young couple was walking hand in hand with a child of six or seven between them. Cutter looked over at the precise moment they saw Celia rolling down the window, clenching a cigarette between her teeth, billowing smoke from her lungs.

Great, Cutter thought. I’m role model of the year.

Apparently, Celia caught sight of them as well. With a cheery smile, she waved. Looks of bewilderment took the place of a customary reciprocal wave, and the mother quickly covered her child’s eyes.

Celia settled back into the cruiser, grinning like a maniac. She puffed at regular breaths. Smoke in. Smoke out.

Cutter kept glancing at Celia. Unlike his previous stolen glances, he was no longer worried about what was going on under the hood in that noggin of hers.

Something else was bothering him.

It was the way she smoked.

Her breath was shallow. The smoke barely left the lit cigarette by the time she was exhaling.

She smoked like it was a chore. As if her duty was to power down each cigarette to an ashy nub as fast as she could. Her interpretation of why people smoked seemed to equate the habit to nothing more than a need to satisfy some thoughtless oral fixation. A race to the next cigarette. And the next. And the next.

If he was going to teach her how to do something, he should at least teach her how to do it right. Worse than the sight of a six year old smoking was a six year old smoking poorly.

Cutter held out two fingers pinched together. “Give it here.”

For a fraction of a second, Celia stopped her impression of a chimney. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I just want to show you something.”

After some internal deliberation, Celia plucked the cigarette from her lip and placed it between Cutter’s two fingers.

He took a puff. Felt the rush of nicotine easing his momentary jitters. His thoughts came into focus; Stress and worry slipped away. He formed an ‘O’ with his mouth and blew out three smoke rings. One marching after the other in perfect formation.

He turned back to Celia, holding the cigarette out to her.

“Think you can do that?”

“I think so, Jack.”

She took the cigarette and mimicked his movements, even going as far as parroting his pauses and euphoric expression. This time she held the smoke in her lungs for an extended interval.

But it was an illusion. An impression of smoking. The outward appearance. What pleasure could she actually get from smoking?

“Is this okay?” A plume of unbroken smoke billowed from the tiny automaton.

“Not quite. The trick is to position your tongue like it’s the middle of a bull’s-eye and push it out with the backside. Fire it off with a quick breath.”

She tried again, mouth held slightly agape. A ring of smoke wafted from her parted lips, accompanied by a soft shushing of breath. The smoke ring hung, undulating in the air, before dissipating into nothingness.

Though Cutter still couldn’t wrap his head around why something felt insincere about the way she smoked, he marveled at how quickly she picked up the talent. The same technique that had taken him months to master, Celia was able to recreate on simple instruction alone.

“How is that?” she asked.

“Perfect,” said Cutter. “You look like six degrees of badass.”

Celia sat back in her seat, blowing out series after series of smoke rings, reveling in her new found ability. “I am six degrees of badass.”

A smile chiseled itself onto his face. Some old televised advertisement would have killed to have captured a moment like this. A family bonding moment between incredibly disparate demographics taking place over a shared cigarette. If only its essence could be captured on film, it was an easy four quadrant commercial. A marketer’s gushing wet dream.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Celia giving him the occasional eyeball. She was sizing him up for something. But what, he couldn’t fathom. Instead of poking the bear, he pretended not to notice.

“Jack?” asked Celia.

“Yes?”

“You know those cartoons you watch?”

“You in league with Neilson or something now? Questioning my viewing habits? I’m a grown man. I can watch what I want.”

Celia shook her head. “I am curious about something.”

“Don’t need to preface it. Just shoot.”

“Whenever Bugs Bunny has to make a decision, an angel and a devil appear on his shoulder.”

“That’s how cartoons depict your conscience. The constant internal human debate between good and evil.”

“What does it mean when only the devil appears?”

Cutter froze, statue stiff.

He never thought his worst fears would be echoed back at him from Celia.

But it was naïve to think otherwise.

She was a synth.

Just like the rest of them.

A horn blared, snapping him back to reality. Back to oncoming traffic. The cruiser drifted a little too far over the divide. With a snap of the wheel, he corrected course. An automated voice sounded an alert, commanding him to shut off manual drive and switch to automatic. He shut off the automated voice instead.

“What are you saying?”

Celia hung her head. She fiddled with the pack of American Spirit in her lap. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“Is this about you?”

“Never mind.”

“Ceil, you know you can tell me anything.”

He didn’t know if that was true or not. It was just something you say. Something consoling that sounded right. Years of experience as a detective offered evidence to the contrary; there was definitely some things he wished he didn’t know.

The secrets a female child synthetic surrogate held, one whose family left her for dead, were beyond imaginable. Cutter was certain there were things going on in her head that he didn’t want to be privy too. Things that would haunt him in the darkest hours of the night.

But, like always, curiosity got the better of him.

“I mean it,” said Cutter. “Anything.”

Celia rocked her head to a side, opening and closing the chrome lid on the Zippo.

“There is something.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” She met his gaze. Her eyes scanned back and forth, searching. Trying to anticipate his probable response. “I want more responsibility.”

“Oh,” said Cutter. “I thought we were going somewhere else with this.”

“You treat me like a child.”

“You are a child.”

“I am not a child.”

“Programmed to act like one. You know what I mean, Ceil. Don’t go playing semantics.”

“I am your partner. You take me to the worst crime scenes in the city to help solve cases like you would any other Black and White. I am an integral part of our investigations. I want more responsibility.”

She was trying hard to keep a flat tone, hiding her inescapable childish lilt. Whatever his feelings toward her request, she was serious. That was plain enough to see.

“I want you to treat me like your partner and not like some machine.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.”

Cutter’s brows danced. His head rocked as if listening to a short tune that had briefly sprung up in his head and as quickly vanished. “Okay. You’re right. I do.”

“I want to be more than something you use because of my apparent naiveté.”

“Busting out the big words on me.”

“Jack, I am serious.”

“Ceil, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re programmed to remain a naive little girl forever.”

Color drained from Celia’s expression. Her eyes welled. Moisture left them glistening against the reflected lights from the city. He wasn’t trying to hurt her.

But she was designed to be a little girl forever.

It was an inescapable truth that she seemed all too familiar with. For a synthetic designed to take the place of a real little girl, to seamlessly replicate humanity, the hard reality of time, her own immortality, her inability to physically change her outward appearance, her conflicting desires to be more human were in direct opposition to both her programming and her fabricated body.

“I am…” Celia paused, sniffled, and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “I am not dumb. I know you use me because I let you get away with things that a Black and White would not. I want you to stop cutting me out of the loop. I want to feel like I am your partner. Like I have an integral role in our investigations.”

It was a fair enough request. It wasn’t anything more than any other partner would ask for. In fact, she had been rather patient, all things considered.

But that was the guts of it. He never allowed partners to stick around more than a couple weeks. Not human ones any way. Black and Whites only maintained an extended reprieve because of his lack of respect for anything they did on the force.

As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Celia was different.

Cutter looked at her, giving her one last chance to break, an opportunity to change her mind. But she maintained the gaze, unwavering, patiently waiting for an answer to her request.

“Do you know what you’re asking, kid?”

“I do.”

“More responsibility, huh?”

Celia nodded. “More responsibility.”