“It’s hard to determine when this droid was constructed,” Manya told Cedar as she scanned up and down milk pale limbs with some sort of beeping device. Cedar had just re-entered the sleeping area with a mug of coffee laced with whiskey.

“All the parts are from different places, but the bio-sim skin is definitely less than a year old and high quality too.”

“There’s no maker’s marks?” Cedar asked, knowing that illegal droid builders often signed their works in some form or another.

“I found something,” Manya nodded, reaching forwards to tug Vaki’s jeans down.

“Hey,” Cedar protested weakly, automatically shielding Manya’s eyes.

“You have to be kidding me right?” Manya snorted, batting him away.

Cedar huffed, before squinting at where Manya had rolled Vaki’s tight grey boxer briefs up his leg to show his inner thigh. There was a small black tattoo of a shooting star set against creamy skin.

“W-what?” a panicked voice started stammering.

Cedar and Manya both looked up in surprise to see that the android was awake, his eyes bright yellow and his cheeks flushed red.

“How do you feel?” Manya quickly asked, reaching out to slap a thermometer strip against Vaki’s forehead.

“Who are you?” Vaki retorted, tearing the strip off his face and pulling his jeans hurriedly back up.

“She’s my neighbour,” Cedar informed him, “Manya purged the nanites from your system and saved your life.”

“Who are you?” Vaki frowned, looking anxiously at Cedar.

“Huh?” Cedar exclaimed, “Kid, you came to me –“

“Where am I?” Vaki yelped, jumping up off the bed and scrambling to the far wall, eyeing Cedar and Manya warily.

“Oh damn,” Manya sighed, moving to sit cross legged at the end of the bed. “The nanos must have destroyed his memory processor before I purged them.”

“What?” Cedar shouted, throwing his hands up angrily. “You didn’t tell me that could happen? I need his damn memories!”

Cedar wheeled on the android, “You – who sent you? Do you remember the woman you said sent you here? Why did you kill the governor?”

“K-kill?” Vaki looked terrified, balling his hands into fists, his eyes flashing towards the apartment door.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Manya asked in a measured voice, making her sound older than her nineteen years.

“I don’t know,” Vaki replied helplessly, “I don’t know who I am. I’ve just got my basics stored.”

“Basics are just the system stats of an android,” Manya explained to Cedar, “every AI is programmed with those start-up details upon their construction.”

“What are you saying?” Cedar frowned.

“I’m saying I think he’s been wiped clean,” Manya replied grimly.

“No!” Cedar snapped. “Look I’ve stuck my neck out here, this isn’t an ordinary android he –“

“Killed Governor Park, yeah I heard you,” Manya rolled her eyes, looking decidedly unimpressed about this groundbreaking information.

“God,” Cedar groaned, slamming his hand against his mouth. Now he had gone and involved a teenage civilian in this clusterfuck of a situation.

“I’m guessing there’s a good reason you didn’t take him straight down the station,” Manya shrugged. “Look, I may be able to analyse his chip and try to recover some memory storage but it’s going to take time and I need better equipment.”

“Fine,” Cedar nodded.

“Expensive equipment,” Manya added pointedly.

“Get whatever you need, I’ll pay,” Cedar responded quickly. “How long will it take?”

“Maybe a few weeks?” Manya said thoughtfully. “Could be longer depending on how successful the endeavour is.”

Cedar looked back across at the android, who had now slumped down the wall and was holding his knees to his chest. He looked small and scared, not at all like the perpetrator of a heinous crime.

“I need to hide him,” Cedar nodded, “can you get him a temporary ID code stamp?”

“A forged droid ID?” Manya smirked at the older man. “Wow Detective, I knew most cops were dirty on this colony but I had no idea that –“

“Manya,” Cedar hissed angrily.

“Fine,” Manya laughed, “but it’ll-“

“Cost me,” Cedar grunted, “yeah I figured.”

“Tomorrow night,” Manya sighed, standing up and walking towards the door. “We’ll need to go to the Eastern Gate tech market. Try not to dress like a cop.”