Against his better judgement, Cedar hauled the android inside his apartment before any of his nosy neighbours caught wind of the scene.

He laid his gun down on the kitchen counter rather than reholstering it. The android was half his size but that didn’t mean anything when it came to non-bio strength. Besides, only last night this android had ripped a man’s head off with his bare hands.

There was an alarming trail of black oil slick leading from the front door to the bathroom where Cedar dumped the droid in the shower. The younger man was still unconscious with open, but dimmed eyes.

Cedar yanked the droid’s sweater up to try and search for a wound but he couldn’t see anything, only an expanse of pale flesh. Thin white scars ran across where the parts had been fitted together but there was nothing fresh.

“What the hell’s killing you?” Cedar muttered, depositing the sticky, sodden hoodie on the bathroom tiles and sitting back to try and think.

Cedar knew he should call it in. He should have radioed for backup ten minutes ago as soon as he recognised this droid’s face from the crime scene evidence. He could hear Saorise’s voice already in the back of his brain,

‘What the fuck do you think you’re playing at Tanaka?’

Cedar groaned as he stood up to deposit the silver star necklace by the sink, staring hard at it. There must be a million of these pendants all across the quadrant, it wasn’t exactly an original design. But the droid had even said he had been sent by Aster.

Fucking impossible

Aster had gone missing seventeen years ago. Deputy governor Sho Tanaka had enlisted nearly a hundred men to search for his daughter. Two months later a body had turned up face down in the fountain wearing Aster’s pink dress and sky blue bow.

Cedar tried to shake off the memory before violently flinching at a sudden knocking on his front door.

He closed the bathroom door behind him before striding over to look at the view finder on the wall. A lanky blonde girl in a large red bomber jacket stared up at him.

“Damn,” Cedar swore as he recognised Manya, his neighbour Nina’s daughter. Nina had been made redundant last year after falling sick and her daughter had become her full time caregiver. The girl must have been about nineteen and worked nights somewhere down in the market strip.

“Can I help you?” Cedar asked as he opened the door enough to show his face but not the black on his hands.

“Mama heard noises,” Manya shrugged, “sent me to check.”

“Did she now?” Cedar muttered. It was no secret in the neighbourhood that Nina liked to sit by her security camera screen keeping an eye on all the comings and goings of the apartment gallery.

“Thought she saw someone with you,” Manya added, her face sullen and emotionless, not bothering to make eye contact with Cedar.

“Not that unusual for me to have guests,” Cedar gritted out with a forced smile.

“I said that,” Manya nodded curtly, “I said probably a hooker.”

“What?” Cedar exclaimed, feeling himself go red in the face. Sure, he often brought one night stands home but he had never felt the need to find company from the colony brothels.

“I dunno,” Manya shrugged again disinterestedly, “you’re old.”

“I’m twenty-eight,” Cedar mumbled, not sure why he was bothering to defend himself to this teenage menace who hadn’t even bothered to take out her earphones whilst speaking to him. “But thank you for your mother’s concern, please do tell her everything is fine.”

“Mm,” Manya nodded, finally narrowing her eyes assessingly at Cedar’s face.

“You’ve got black on your cheek,” she noted.

“Aren’t you going to be late for work?” Cedar prompted, trying to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

“No tech market on Tuesday nights,” Manya frowned at him. “I only work four nights a week.”

“Wait,” Cedar paused, “you work at the tech markets?”

“Yeah,” Manya grunted affirmatively at him, still narrowing her eyes at the glistening black smudge across his cheek. “I wipe data chips.”

“Manya, you know I’m a cop right?” Cedar frowned at her. It was illegal practice to reformat government data chips. In fact the entire tech market was basically run on illegal, shady practices and moved around the colony from night to night so as not to subject itself to police raids.

“Sure,” Manya replied indifferently as she began to walk away. However, a moment later both her and Cedar froze as a pained gurgle echoed loudly from the direction of the bathroom.

“It’s not what you think,” Cedar snapped quickly, not even sure what he thought Manya might be picturing.

The teenager eyed Cedar curiously before gesturing to his face, “That’s some nasty nano purge you’ve got on you there, might wanna wash it off before you get a rash.”

“Nano what?” Cedar scrunched up his face and quickly started rubbing at it with his sleeve. His skin felt hot and itchy to the touch. Come to think of it, his hands were starting to burn up too.

“I mean you’re bio, so the nanos probably aren’t programmed to attack you,” Manya continued, cocking her head. “But it’s still not ideal to have skin contact with them.”

“There’s nanites in this shit?” Cedar grimaced, opening the door fully to reveal the blackened stains across his shirt.

“Yeah, I mean they only become black goo like that once they self destruct after doing their job but from the sounds of your android friend in there I’m guessing there’s still a good quantity of ‘actives’ running havoc through his system.”

Cedar jerked his head up and squinted at Manya.

“So your mother –“ he began.

“Asleep,” Manya shrugged, pushing her way inside the apartment and closing the door. “Has been since three this afternoon. I saw that android on the camera system, figured he’d been infected by nanos programmed to take him out. Always wanted to open up an unregistered droid.”