John stares quietly at the wall in front of him, taking in the memories from the night before. The recording of the past incidents keep replaying over and over again within his mind.

  Why did they attack?

  Why did the CTO insert the Neural Chip inside of him?

  Were the two men outside his doors even related to the CTOP?

  Or perhaps they were trying to silence him?

  Who killed the CTO? Was it me or the two men?

  Perhaps the Neural Chip was placed inside her to hide the chip?

  If so... How did the Neural chip lead to his consciousness being inside of this droid?

  And... Worst of all, why did the Circuitry of Change come to attack the club?

  The pair of detectives have left her here in the closet as they have left to go home for some rest, promising her that they'll come back again tomorrow. He sighs internally. His droid body doesn't need to breath after all...

  'They really do think of me as a droid now, huh?'

  If there's any consolation to the life of a droid is that he'll never suffer from any mysterious aches now. Gone now the slight aching in his back whenever he sat for too long. Gone now the searing pain if he stretched too harshly.

  He closed his eyes. While droids don't need sleep, it wouldn't hurt him to perform some internal maintenance. These were the settings he found while the pair of detectives were scanning him internally...

  Visual cache clearing... 100%

  Texture cache clearing... 100%

  Shaders cache clearing... 100%

  Then, he did some maintenance on his internal data storage...

  RAM cache clearing... 100%

  Searching for memory leaks... 100%

  No memory leaks found

  Searching for null pointer... 100%

  No null pointer found

  Performing data defragmentation... 1%

  Performing data defragmentation... 13%

  Performing data defragmentation... 35%

  Performing data defragmentation... 47%

  ...

  Performing data defragmentation... 87%

  Performing data defragmentation... 100%

  Huh.. Did the loading skip a few steps or did he just black out?

  Whatever... Onto the next maintenance activity.

  Searching for firmware updated...100%

  Currently using more recent firmware

  Searching for antivirus and malware updates...100%

  Antivirus and malware database up to dated

  Checking software packages...100%

  Warning: 76 vulnerabilities found (65 moderate, 10 high, 1 critical)

  Run package manage to apply fixes

  Hm... Sounds terrible but... if I want to fix them, I can't just run the package manager...

  I'll have to spin up some kind of simulation application to simulate the software environment in this droid. Then, I can apply the fixes and see if there are any breaking fix. If I just blindly apply the fixes immediately, I'll risk breaking something in my system. Since I'm living in my application, that could mean death.

  Apologies, my NPM bros but... I'll have to skip out on this updating.

  "Effie, get up - Oh, I didn't realize droids sleep" says Piero as he awkwardly bumbles into the room.

  Effie suddenly jolts up at the interruption, seeing the sun shining through the windows of the closet.

  Wait! Has it already been 5 hours?! That's what the clock says but, it certainly didn't feel that long.

  "Oh... I wasn't sleeping," says Effie, red LEDs blinking awkwardly beneath her cheeks, "I was performing some maintenance, you see".

  Or perhaps he did. Considering he suddenly had a time skip!

  Effie stands up, coughing as her red LEDs begin to softly fade, "Some light maintenance certainly won't hurt any droid..."

  "Okay" says the beer-bellied man, clearly not buying her excuse but not caring enough to argue on her point.

  He walks out, leaving the droid bumbling as she quickly scatters to catch up to him. She takes a quick look around, seeing the sneering, and the side eye glances from his fellow coworkers. They passed through cubicles after cubicles. She strains her ears, heightening their sensitivity as she hears two coworkers talking about her current handler.

  "There it is... The Tapper himself..."

  "Thank Gods for Hosoi. Gods know no one else can handle that guy"

  "Seriously... Remember that one time he lost his fucking gun?! And got into a middle of a fucking communist uprising"

  "Still... He got his gun back and he... Somehow manages to quell the... Workers' strikes... Somehow"

  "And manages to apprehend the suspect somehow"

  She walks stiffly behind the man, not knowing what to make of the bear-like man as they make their way into a door, into an interrogation where Hosoi Sen sits waiting. He lazily raises his hand at the pair before pointing his phone towards the TV on the wall, it started showing a recording from the perspective Effie.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  A recording that Effie was not aware of...

  "Sit down" says Piero to which Hosoi replies with, "Who cares if she sits down or not? She's a bot. It's not like she gets tired".

  "Ah... You really are too much like a human - I saw her sleeping just now as well in the closet"

  Effie LEDs light up again as she replies in indignation, "I did not - I am a droid. I do not require sleep!"

  Hosoi Sen shakes his head, "Whatever - Take a look at the recording that we managed to recover during our deep scans. This is you with the CTO, the victim a few days ago?"

  "Victim?" asks Effie.

  "Weren't you aware?" the spectacled, straightened man asks, "He was found dead a couple days ago. A day before your supposed awakening..."

  'And the fact you lost memory the day before the incident is definitely no coincedence' is left unsaid by the man.

  "I... I can't remember" she replies honestly.

  They move the recording forward, past the... not savory materials as they head to the meat of the content. The man sits up quickly as he got a call. His face pales as he continues to whisper into the phone, his hand cupped over it.

  Despite attempts to increase the volume, his phone conversation was unable to be heard. "Privacy feature" replies Effie, remembering a feature of her recordings, being that they automatically filter background noise for privacy purposes. The pair of detectives sigh as they continue the recording.

  The man is pacing around the room for a couple of minutes before his gaze is fixed onto. He stares into the camera, looking around before going behind her.

  "Nobody can know about this chip. It's too dangerous" he says as a warning popup appears about a damage in the back of the head for the droid. The man exits, calling the people outside to carry the droid out.

  As the droid is being carried out, the pair slows down the recording, the final recordings of the man showing something gruesome. The man kneels on the ground as one of the people carrying her pulls out a Glock before shooting the CTO square in the head.

  "His own... People?" says the spectacled man, slowly bringing down his glasses with a sigh.

  "So, this pretty much exonerates you, then" replies Piero, taking a sip of from a canister taken from inside his trench coat. Effie vaguely smells alcohol from inside the canister.

  "Infighting within the military perhaps? He mentioned it being dangerous," speculates Hosoi, his finger interlacing one another, "Perhaps there is a disagreement within the military on how it should be used"

  "A useless speculation to be had" interjects Piero, his eyes locked deep into the distance, "We don't even know what the neural chip does".

  At this point, Effie has some idea on what it could possibly does. There's no other possible explanation for it after all. The neural for some odd reason is capable of carrying the consciousness of a man...

  That would explain how he got into the droid's body in the first place. Unless his memories of his past life were all a fabrication, and it was falsely copied into the droids?

  No. No. Now's not the time for an existential crisis! I think therefore, I am. Thanks for the reminder, Descartes.

  Effie jolts as she feels the eyes of Piero on her, side eyeing her sharply...

  "You looked like you were deep in thought. Anything you'd like to add, Mrs. Assassin?"

  "Assassin?" asks Hosoi Sen

  "Didn't you see how she handled herself last night?" sneers Piero, glancing sideways at the droid, "Here. Watch this. Hold this gun for me..."

  Unsure of what the test is about, Effie grabs the revolver, her finger sitting outside the trigger.

  "Look at that. Finger outside the trigger, aiming it away from people" he says, a smirk plastered on his face. Effie squints her eyes, letting the revolver drop softly on the wooden table.

  "Eh... A fluke maybe" Hosoi Sen explains simply, "Besides what purpose would a sex droid have to being able to handle human weaponry"

  "A spy maybe?" asks Piero, standing up as he begins to tower over the girl, "For the Circuitry of Change? Isn't it a bit odd that they would attack us while we were investigating?"

  "That's ridiculous" says the spectacled man, "After all, she dispatched those people herself back then"

  Hosoi Sen was staring at her, squinting his eyes at him as his expression softens.

  "Is it possible that the Circuitry of Change was after the same thing? The chip?" he asks

  "Or maybe the neural chip itself is what allowed one of the leaders of the Circuitry to switch bodies!" Piero asks with Effie looking nervous at how close this man was at getting the answers.

  "That's a speculation as most. A myth at best" calmly explains Hosoi, "We have no idea if that is even the capability of that droid"

  With Effie looking confused, Hosoi expands, "You know who I'm talking about, right? The so called hidden variable in the Circuitry. They speculated that he is able to gain precise intel on the military due to being able embed himself in any droid connected to the Internet"

  "And you reprimanded me for being speculative" he sighs.

  "Fine. There's one side effect of the chip though," Piero grumbles, "It makes her into one hell of a assassin droid"

  Effie cuts through the conversation, "I've finished the facial recognition for the two goons that removed me"

  He accesses the monitor showing the identities of the two people.

  "Armer Narr - Lance Corporal of the Horous Armed Ground Wing"

  "Gabriel Vertecks - Lance Corporal of the Hourrous Armed Ground Wing"

  "So, he was with the member of the military. The plot thickens" jests Piero, side eyeing the wall, while sipping more on his canister.

  "Piero... Focus. This is about the CTO and his murder. The rest of this nonsense about the circuitry can wait"

  "Well... You have the murderer along with the evidence here" Effie quietly says, pointing to the recording, "I've submit it to your phone. All you need to do is make the arrest"

  "Thank you. Finally, another adult in the room" Hosoi grumbles, eyes rolling at Piero.

  "Yeah? And what about her? Her current owner is dead, right?" Piero reveals a sudden twist in the storyline as Effie internally pales.

  "I-I don't see how any of that is our concern, Piero" stammers Hosoi, adjusting his glasses that he just put on, "She'll be put on another auction, correct? And she'll be given to another owner"

  "Or... We could have our first possible connection to the leader of the Circuitry of Change in ages" sneers Piero, a creepy, stiff smile growing on his face, "I'll take the droid. Make it my assistant"

  "Gods, Piero. Get your head out of the gutter"

  "Is that what you see when you look at her?" asks Piero, almost poetically, "Because all I see is a perfectly capable police officer"

  "You're not seriously considering this, are you?" asks Hosoi, his voice slightly strained, "She's a droid. A sex droid at that. We can't make her into a... Personal assistant just because she happened to be close to the scene"

  "If we didn't see her in that glass tube, I would've thought she was a human" Piero says, sighing while looking at Effie.

  "Besides, we're deep in murky water, Hosoi. This could be the break we needed" he continues, his eyes flickering over to Effie, "What do you say? Interested?"

  John, wanting to do anything to get a break from the life of sex droid, immediately takes up the opportunity, "I will assist in any way I can. If my presence is required, I will faithfully perform my duties"

  "Duties, huh?" Piero chuckles.

  "I feel I'm gonna be sick..." Hosoi replies, "Piero, she's... She's just a machine. Just because she does some human-like things doesn't mean she's a human. She's only an emulation of one at best!"

  "You're kidding me?" asks Piero, "You see the way she's shooting the droids yesterday? Not even a human can improvise so quickly, especially under that much stress"

  "Fine! Fine... But if we got into trouble for this, you'll be taking the blame" shouts Hosoi, finger pointing at Piero, "Your unconventional methods have a limit, you know?"

  Piero merely smirks as he grabs Effie's shoulder, "Welcome to the team".