@rkerror plotted starter
DISPATCH TO UNIT 32. WE HAVE A POSSIBLE BREAK-IN REPORTED ON 8941 LAFAYETTE AVENUE.
UNIT 32 TO DISPATCH. SUSPECTED MURDER AND ANDROID INVOLVEMENT 8941 LAFAYETTE. WE HAVE SUSPECT IN CUSTODY.
Thirium leaked from a gun-shot wound lodged in his shoulder plating. It wasn’t feasible that it ached but Markus felt it. He felt everything. The bite of the hand-cuffs on his wrists. The crack in his facial structure just below his lip. The frustration, the rage, the grief, grief-, gr..i-ef-...
Śt̸ress Lev͢ȩls ͡90̨%^͘
He’d watched as they wrapped Carl’s body and taken him away. He’d watched them declare him dead, as if it was so simple-... as if he’d just not watched his father die, the life bleed away, the light leave his eyes.
He remembered babbling something, lurching forward despite being ordered to stay put and still.
“No, don’t-... don’t take him!”
He’d had a pistol almost jammed in his face, loaded, ready to discharge. He’d seen irritation and uncertainty in the officer’s gaze; a kind of unsteadiness because this? Androids murdering their owners? It was still new and jarring-
Markus had been sat on a sofa in the spacious living room, that now, with Carl gone and with darkness encroaching through wide windows, felt empty. He was conscious of the thirium dripping down his arm. Twice now he’d watched, pained, as a drop had soaked into the couch.
Damage warnings flickered red in his vision, but he ignored them, LED fluttering crimson, cheeks wet from the steady over-flow of lubricant on his cheeks, and shoulders shaking.
It was all so wrong. So wrong.
Markus barely acknowledged the slide of the main door slipping away; the hum of voices that discussed him as if he was nothing more than an object.
‘It’s denied killing the victim, but the son - Leo Manfred - confirms there was an altercation between it and his father. I don’t know what you’ll get out of it, if anything. It’s f--cking broken; it even tried to stop us from taking the body.”
Markus looked up as footsteps crossed the carpeted floor and neared him. He didn’t expect another android.
