Beatrice sat at the desk of her office at the SCPD building writing something down in a journal as an AutoDroid walked by and dropped some papers on her desk.

  “Do you require anything else miss Moreau,” the female android asked the woman who sat at her desk reading her journal.

   “No, this will be all,” Beatrice responded as the android did a slight bow before leaving.

   Beatrice continued to stare at her notes pertaining to a certain amnesiac as she became lost in thought.

   ‘It’s been 10 days since Mr. Lawson was first brought in for questioning and put under my watch under the guise of me trying to give the homeless amnesiac a place to stay,’ she began mentally.

   ‘Within those ten days I haven’t decerned anything about the man's true motives or his past. Let alone his connection to the explosion under Rosenthal Bridge. His journal wasn’t very insightful either. Filled with nothing but hard-to-read chicken scratch as well as worn and torn pages. The only thing I have been able to discern was the slightly unsettling apology message to someone named Anna.’

   Beatrice glanced over towards the papers on her left. She had requested that all reported rouge AutoDroid cases be sent to her desk.

   ‘First, the explosion under the bridge, then that amnesiac ending up on our plate, and now the number of rogue AutoDroids being reported has steadily been increasing. That can’t be a coincidence can it,’ she mentally questioned as she looked through the reports.

   ‘There’s also mentions of these machines forming cults, huh? Didn’t think they’d be capable of such a thing.’ She pushed the papers aside as she rubbed her temples trying to fill in the dots. Looking for some sort of connection between these seemingly unconnected events.

   Jay entered inside the office with a cup of coffee in his left hand and placed his free one on the woman’s shoulder.

   “Looks like you’re having fun there Betty, whatcha up to,” the man asked leaning in closer to see what she was doing. The woman quickly closed her journal as she acknowledged her senior.

   “Working, like you should be,” she said sparing the man a glance. Jay shrugged nonchalantly.

   “Hey, you have no idea what trials and tribulations I had to go through to get you this cup of joe,” he joked sitting the coffee on the woman’s desk. Beatrice rolled her eyes with a slight smile and thanked him for the coffee.

   “But seriously. Watcha up to my young padawan,” he continued.

   Beatrice took a careful sip of the coffee before replying. “Just trying to connect the dots.”

   “You think there may be more to the string of AutoDroids going nuts,” Jay questioned the woman who nodded in response.

   “And you think whatever happened at the bridge and whatever’s causing the bots to go crazy are linked,” he concluded, already knowing what she must be thinking regarding these two cases. The woman would’ve been surprised if it wasn’t for the fact that it was Jay she was speaking to. Still, she had to ask.

   “What gave it away,” she mused.

   Jay shrugged. “We’ve been partners for a long time. It’s not that hard to get a read on you.” Beatrice’s brows furrowed slightly at that statement.

   “Besides,” Jay continued. “I got a glance of that notebook and kind of put two and two together. Did I also see mentions of a certain amnesiac,” Jay asked, poking fun of the woman slightly. She was oblivious to what he was getting at though.

   “He is the only link we have to one of those cases. And if what happened under the bridge turns out to be linked to what’s going on with the AD’s. It’s safe to assume he’s somehow involved with that to,” she explained to her partner.

   “I see,” Jay simply said. “Well in any case we still have a lot to uncover with these dysfunctional bots. Got word that an AD matching the description of the one we’re currently investigating was seen moving around the ninth.”

   Beatrice looked up at the man with a raised brow. “The hell would one of these things be doing in the Ninth Ward. The place is a shit hole from what I hear,” she questioned.

   “That’s what we’re going to find out,” Jay began. “My theory, as you said the place is a shit hole. No average joe or self-respecting cop would be caught dead in that lawless neck of the woods. Gangs pretty much run the show. It would be the perfect place for say a potential gathering of AD’s to hide out away from authorities.”

   Beatrice sighed leaning back into her chair. ‘Great, just our luck,’ she thought to herself before addressing Jay again. “Out to the ninth we go then,” she said to him with a hint of exasperation in her voice. “How the hell are we supposed to even find em? Go around asking nicely?”

   “I know a guy. He seems to always be in the know on what goes on in the Undergrounds. But it’ll take a bit of… convincing to get him to let slip whatever info he may have,” Jay said.

   “Great,” Beatrice replied. “Well let’s get going. I'd rather get this over with as soon as possible.”

   After a thirty-minute drive the pair arrived at their destination. The area of town they were in was small, quiet, unassuming. The perfect place to hide what was underneath. Quite literally. Shiko City’s Ninth Ward was an underground slum built years ago. Originally utilized as a haven for people to live during the third World War, the underground town become home to the city’s poor, diseased, undesirables, and criminal class. The place was a lawless hole run by some of Shiko’s most powerful. The pair pulled up to an old, decrepit factory, Its walls long abandoned and signs of rust and decay ever evident. Its glass windows are all cracked or completely broken out.

   Jay parked the car on a grass-covered parking lot before the two detectives exited the vehicle. Beatrice gave the building a look over as an uncomfortable feeling slowly welled up inside of her.

   “This the place,” she asked Jay. Although she’s heard many stories of the ninth, she’s never actually been. To say she was nervous was an understatement.

   “Yep,” Jay responded. “The entrance to the undergrounds is in there.” The two moved to enter the building.

   “How do you even know where this place is. Or that we can trust your contact,” Beatrice said as she walked behind the man.

   “I used to live here,” Jay responded simply. An unreadable expression plastered on his face.

   “Beatrice stared at his back with slight surprise. “Really? That’s a surprise, you don’t…” She paused as she turned her gaze downward not wanting to finish her sentence, but Jay already picked up on where she was going.

   “Not everyone who comes from the ninth are pieces of shit thank you very much,” he said with a sigh.

    Beatrice’s face adorned a guilty look in response to his reply. “Sorry,” she apologized to the man as they walked inside of the rundown building.

   “Forget about it Betty,” he replied. Beatrice looked around the old factory in all its glory or lack thereof. As they moved further inside, she took mental note of all the dust and cobwebs littering the beams, walls, ceiling, and old long since abandoned machinery. She glanced down upon hearing what sounded like glass being crushed from under her and moved her shoe to see an old photo with barely visible figures on it. She assumed it contained those who once operated this facility.

    “What happened to this place,” she asked as they continued through a set of double doors, heading further toward the back of the factory.

   “This place was a munitions factory,” Jay began. “After the war and SANCTUARY’s rise, a lot of factories like this one lost its use and thus were shut down.”

   Beatrice nodded as they stopped at an old lift. Jay pressed a small red button on a yellow panel and the rusted lift cage opened.

   “After you,” he gestured towards Beatrice who looked hesitant to step in.

   “Really, this old thing? Isn’t there another way down? This thing looks like it could break down at any moment,” she argued towards the man. She was not too keen on dying in an old factory lift.

   “Unfortunately, no. Besides, if the people in the Underground have been able to use it after all this time, then it must work just fine,” Jay replied to his worried compatriot.

   Beatrice put on a brave face and took a careful step inside. ‘So far so good,’ she thought to herself. She quickly jumped up and yelped as she felt the lift shake and she immediately backed up onto a wall and faced Jay who stood at a panel with a smug look on his face.

   “What? I just started it up so it can take us down,” he said with a sly smile.

   Beatrice stared daggers at him but didn’t reply. Nor did she move from her position on the wall as the lift went down. Some emergency lights attached to the lift that Beatrice was surprised to see were still working came on as their surroundings were starting to darken. Illuminating the lift with its bright white lights. After a few minutes, the Undergrounds came into view. Beatrice slowly moved away from the wall and stared at the view.

   Buildings made from scrap stretched on for as far as the eyes could see as improvised lamps hung from them, illuminating the underground town. She could already smell the filth in the air and winced. She could see figures moving about through the scrap buildings. To conserve space in the Underground the houses were towers of scrap each with a different floor that housed people, kind of like apartments. Each structure was connected to each other by bridges and walkways made from whatever sturdy junk the people could find. She glanced over at Jay who had the same odd look as before plastered on his face as he stared out at his former home.

   ‘Just what did you go through down here Jay,’ Beatrice questioned mentally as she returned her gaze to the town as they neared the floor of the underground. The lift door opened as the pair stepped out onto the narrow street below.

   “Let’s get this over with,” Jay said as they moved further into the crowded town. Everywhere Beatrice looked she saw impoverished, sick, and decaying people lying in the spaces between the buildings and sometimes on the street itself. She quickly averted her eyes at the sight of a boy who looked no older than ten lying on the street naked, his ribs showing from under his skin.

   She picked up her pace a bit and walked closer to Jay who seemed lost in another world as he walked. The smell was even worse on the floor. It was many rancid smells rolled into one. Decay, death, urine, feces, garbage. Every dirty thing in the book seemed to find its way down here and it made Beatrice want to hurl up her lunch. She glanced back up at Jay with a concerned look in her hazel eyes.

   ‘How could you survive in a place like this,’ she thought. She pulled on the sleeve of Jay's navy blue long sleeve slightly stopping him and rousing him from his thoughts. He turned to her with a slight look of surprise but quickly turned his look neutral open seeing her.

   “What is it,” he asked the young woman, looking down at her.

   “You sure about this,” she questioned him in a worried tone. Jay’s right brow raised.

   “Of course, I am. That AD we are after was seen snooping around the area topside and if someone wanted to hide out away from the authorities, I can’t think of no better place to do so,” he replied.

   Beatrice frowned. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. The worry in her voice was clear as day. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to grow up in a place like this. And all though he wouldn’t show it. She could be damn well sure that this place brought back a lot of uncomfortable memories for him. She was worried for him.

   “I’m fine Betty, trust me,” a confident smile formed on his face though Beatrice could tell it was fake. “Your old senior is as tuff as steel. It’ll take a lot more than this to put me off.”

   Jay turned around, quickly regaining his serious demeanor.

   “We should keep going. My contacts place is further up ahead,” he said as they continued their track.

   It had been just fifteen minutes and Beatrice was already ready to leave this place. More precisely she was ready to leave the moment they stepped on the lift. But they had a job to do. An AutoDroid uprising could be devastating to Shiko’s infrastructure. Failure was not an option for them. They closed in on a smaller, metal mesh building near the center of town. It was quite evident that this is where the ninths shady individuals camped out if the number of odd stares they were receiving and dead bodies they saw discarded into makeshift dumpster were anything to go by.

   The building had a small door on it that looked very reminiscent of the entrances to pubs in old western movies. They could see light coming from inside as well as hear music and the sounds of people drinking, laughing, and fighting inside. Jay stopped at the door pulling out his weapon from in between his pants and lower back to do a last-minute check then slide it back inside his black jeans and placed his shirt back over it. He looked back at the woman with his one visible eye.

   “Stick close to me and do not talk,” he said deadly serious. She’s never seen Jay like this. Sure, there were times when he wasn’t the goofy lovable bear that he was usually but right now he seems like almost a different person to her.

   He continued. “You ready,” he asked her. Beatrice dawned a determined expression as she nodded placing the hood to her grey sweatshirt over her head slightly.

   Jay looked back towards the door placing his hand on it. “Well, here goes nothing.”