Claire.
Claire stood paralyzed with indecision! Thoughts moving at the speed of light as plans and assumptions and fears and surprise all warred for supremacy within her panicking processing capabilities.
She wasn't a damned server, and she could hardly handle the sheer brutal influx of her own racing thoughts assailing her!
Notions of escape, both of violent and diplomatic sorts, a need to hide herself, hide the body, leap into the air vent, and even pretend at maintaining the illusion she was somehow still the same android all bogged down her mind.
Scenarios and analytics flashed through her faster and faster as her brain sped up to full speed, slowing the world around her as the androids frames jacked into overdrive, and Claire was left standing there, trying to formulate a plan.
Someone was at the door.
Someone who knew what had happened?
Or was it just one of Warren's neighbors? Perhaps the man she'd noticed when first coming inside? How many hours had it been since their conversation?
Was he just checking in?
Had the violence that had clearly transpired within the apartment tipped someone off that something had gone terribly wrong?
All these thoughts and more were considered, cataloged, and promptly pushed inside a little black box, Claire forcing herself into a sense of calm with the understanding there was no way out.
She couldn't fit in the air ducts, not after she glanced at them and immediately knew the dimensions just wouldn't work out.
There was no window in the apartment, no balcony or access to the outside world save for the singular door, at which, someone had just knocked.
Likewise, there was simply no way to clean up the mess. Even If Claire could devise an even half-baked solution for the body, perhaps by chopping it into individual and tiny pieces before flushing it all down the toilet, she was now faced with a limitation on time that really left her few workable solutions.
She obviously had to do something, so, falling back on protocol, Claire decided to just play dumb with the hopes nobody would take her too seriously.
The plan being that she'd pretended to be suffering through a 'safe-mode' lobotomization of her previously already limited mind….
The machine moved quickly and silently through the room, quieter than a wraith, shifting herself to stand perfectly still and quietly at attention before allowing herself to wind back down.
A moment later, a second knock resounded through the room, a voice now accompanying it as whoever was on the other side called out to those they thought were within.
"Mr Warren Galliger! This is Phil Redson with Paradise Client Relations! If you would open the door, we would like to have a word with you."
"Mr Galliger!" Another voice called this one a much more gruff and combative example from the last. "If you do not answer the door, we will be forced to enter! Please be advised that we have been deputized by the city in accordance with Luna-C 'droid' statute One-fourteen-B. Along with local ordinances and android protection acts—"
"And," The other added, "Your willing acceptance of the terms and conditions of our contract. Please be advised, we are well within our rights to enter the premises with or without your permission! And that any damages to self or property incurred as a result of our use of force will be debited to your account."
"Mr Galliger! Please, if there are no issues, then there will be no reason for further disturbance. All we require is a follow-up on an odd hiccup of our Android's connection to our network. I promise we will be in and out as quickly as possible and that, should there be nothing wrong, any interruptions caused by our interference will be credited to your account!"
For what felt like entire minutes, there was silence. And as the moments stretched longer and longer, the voices just outside the door took on an altogether different tone…
"He's not answering… are you sure you've got the right address?"
"Positive. Our bot's in there alright, or she was…"
"She?"
"Oh fuck off, it's easier than saying IT all the time…"
"It is literally shorter!"
"It's more awkward. Ugh, what does it matter?"
"Just weird is all…"
"Dude, out of the two of us, I'm not the one fucking the robots in my spare time! I've got actual pussy waiting for me at home, so—"
"Ha, please, nobody believes that garbage about you having a girlfriend, mate, not a single one of us."
"Just because I don't show you a picture doesn't mean she's not—real!"
"Yeah, yeah…"
"Okay, how about you just pop the fucking door already, yeah? Dickhead's clearly not coming out…"
"You get a look at what's going on in there?"
"No?"
"Okay, well, how about you pop the door while I stand over there and take a look to see if you're about to get blown up by a fucking IED."
There was a pause, brief as it was, where the two voices grew exceptionally silent. Claire wasn't sure what was happening on the other end, but she was positive that the jammer wasn't helping things…
"It's dead in there, like, totally blacked out… No signals in, no signals out…"
"Okay… so, what? We call the peacekeepers in?"
"Ha! And have my pay cheque debited for the call when Paradise dumps the charge on us for bringing them in? Yeah, I'd rather deal with an IED. Just—fine, look, all we have to do is stand at the end of the hallway and let the drone do it, yeah?"
More silence, then, Claire felt the subtle vibration of footsteps hurriedly departing before the woosh of a hatch opened in the hallway.
It only took three seconds, and in no time at all, the door was opening, its form disappearing into the wall to reveal a floating robot that activated its scanner.
The room was bathed in a subtle light as projectors took detailed, three-dimensional imaging of the apartment, only for her to hear footsteps as they ran down the hall!
"Fuck—fuck! Hurry up! Get the fuck inside and close the door!"
"Close the door?"
"Yes, close the damned door! Do you want to be fired?"
The two men, now quite visible to her, appeared at the doorway. One, an older gentleman with a neat mustache, short hair, and a long coat, rushed inside, furiously tapping away at a tablet.
The other, a much younger and youthful counterpart to the frantic individual already inside, clearly hesitated at the door, staring slack-jawed at the mess he was being told to step into…
"Get inside and close the door." The first man demanded, half rounding on his co-worker, all but hissing his words!
"I'm not going in there! Are you fucking crazy?"
"What?"
"Do you not see all the fucking blood? Christ! It's dripping from the ceiling!"
"God damn it… See, this is why I can't fucking stand new hires… Get inside if you don't want Paradise to turn you into a freaking splattered pile of goop!"
"Fuck off, Frank, ain't no paycheck in the world worth getting in a room with a killer bot!"
"Ugh, it's only it's second time!"
"Second time?"
"I think? Maybe the third… Look, it doesn't matter; it's already in fail-safe mode! It's not going to do anything unless we tell it to."
"Hahaha, oh, you can piss right off, I ain't never signed up for this!"
"Then shove off and close the god-damn-door!" Frank seethed, glaring at the man still waiting at the entry and preventing his commands for the entry to shut itself. "Go home, and don't bother coming back to the office; I'll tell Scottsburg you resigned."
The younger man hesitated for a moment, blinking rapidly, almost swaying on his feet as he gagged, staring at the mutilated pile of pulped meat that was lying on the floor nearby, then abruptly threw up!
For his part, the older human just seemed to roll his eyes, reaching out and yanking his counterpart inside before, with a hiss, the door closed behind him—
And locked…
At the same moment, all the lights in the apartment flickered on, revealing the true horror of what had transpired within, both in the sense of the violence and the disgusting living habits of its now-deceased inhabitant.
"Your clearly not fucking understanding that this shit isn't abnormal!" Frank growled, nearly spitting his words as he spoke. "Corporate won't even blink an eye at another accidental death in the 'Meadows,' but you know what they will care about? Bad publicity! So unless you want to end up dead, or wishing you were dead as you live out the remainder of your days as a god-forsaken NPC, then grow the fuck up and do your job!"
"She—it…"
"It's a god-damn feature, not a flaw!" Frank burst out, still typing out rapidly on his data pad. "Of course… not a signal in all of Christendom! There's gotta be a jammer or something nearby…"
"The hell do you mean a feature?"
The older man paused, blinking at the still-heaving youth who seemed like he was in the process of getting worked over by peacekeepers suspecting him of a crime. It took a moment, but Frank appeared to settle himself, expression taking on the cast of something that waltzed upon the sympathetic.
He sighed, reaching out to place a conciliatory hand on his young companion as his caterpillar mustache twitched. "I get it, I wasn't much better seeing my first death either. But you've got to get used to it! Every time we get a call in the Meadows, it's a sixty-forty split; there's a dead body involved. It's just part of it."
"And this is—normal?"
"A feature, like I said. Fucking Doll's are worth a fortune, and you think Paradise would just let them walk around out here without protection? They're goddamn repurposed mil-spec bots! Killers! But, the only ones they're programmed to harm are those that can't pay to replace em.
"You and me? Well were practically the lord god almighty himself in that thing's eyes. But ugh, this sorry bastard?" The man muttered, glancing at the red lump off to the side. "Well, he ain't worth the risk of damaging the goods."
"This is—so freaking fucked up!"
"Ha! Welcome to the Meadows, kid! Ain't nobody gives a shit about people living out here! Tons of em are what we like to call 'tiny whales.' Poor sods spend a comparative fortune of every paycheck they get for a little fake love and company. Last I heard, it makes up for nearly forty percent of our gross earnings and is rising by the year…"
"And, you're sure nobody cares about a damned murder?"
"Ain't a murder, son. Robots ain't alive. This here's an accident! And no, we've got clean-up crews that will come handle the whole thing. All me and you have to do is put together our report and get our lovely lady here back to the factory for a solid format and update session."
Claire did not like what she was hearing. Not at all! And while the two humans before her continued their conversation, completely ignoring the machine that was smothered entirely in gore, the AI briefly considered if she hadn't been offered a solution to her problem.
An accident.
Something that happened all the time?
Not only an accepted reality, but an expected cost of doing business.
Mil-spec hardware.
Claire wasn't sure how far she could actually take the man's word, but from how she was interpreting things, didn't Claire have a perfect opportunity to buy herself more time?
Getting rid of three bodies rather than one, sure would be difficult! Especially when she hadn't worked out a solid plan for the first… And yet, considering how these two had so—generously closed the door and wandered inside… well…
"Did its eye just move?"
"Don't be jumping at shadows!"
"No, seriously, I just freaking saw it glance at the kitchen!"
"What happened to calling her a she?" Frank chuckled, though did eye Claire with a degree more scrutiny. "Eh, probably just a glitch…" He muttered, returning his attention to his work. "Like I said, the violence is a feature. Now that it's in lockdown, it's not gonna do a thing without us telling it."
"And how do you know it's in lockdown?"
"Programming. Just trust me, I've gone through this at least a half dozen times, and the app always confirms they've gone into safety mode."
"Which—you can't actually double-check because the connections blitzed?"
Frank paused for a beat, scowling as his mind seemingly attempted to parse through that rather peculiar bit of reasoning while Phil, the far younger and far less trusting man, looked over his shoulder to eye the now very closed door behind them.
Sadly for both men, neither saw her eyes slowly narrow…