The Goddessdamned

The chill after the rain and the sudden onslaught of neon light attacked Adam's suit's automated adjustment system, right after he opened his police vehicle. Before the fogging of his visor dissipated, he could only see redness. He was sure that the bloody scene at DomArt somehow lingered in his vision.

The alley's mouth was chock-full of people being curious, and the suited officers tried their best to make them go away. "Do not go near! There's poisonous gas here! Don't go near!" They cried towards the masses. Adam could see a trail of red mist floated at the ground, as high as one's ankle. He and Y-0 walked briskly forward into the crowd to the alley. Other officers recognized them immediately and let them pass.

He could hear someone yelled that this was a non-human's doing. The androids. He wondered what Y-0 thought about the comment.

Y-0 heard the comment but chose to not pay any attention to it. Sentiment towards their kind was nothing new for him. He could sense it even from Adam, his own partner. Adam always acted like he was annoyed by him, and only communicate with him when he needed some information, like a glorified computer. He set those thoughts aside and tried to focus on what was in their hand.

He glanced at Adam and caught a tinge of fear in his countenance. He thought to himself, 'does this remind Adam of his childhood?'

Adam never told him, but Y-0 fully aware of Adam's terrible childhood, or the lack thereof. The info was readily available in the androids' hive memory. Every android could access it. It was the first thing Y-0 decided to check when he was informed that he would be a partner with Adam.

Adam has never had any meaningful childhood, only a terrible one. His mother and little sister were murdered by his own father when he was still twelve years old. The mother and the sister were shot in their bellies and left to die slowly in agonizing pain. They were shrieking in pain, while little Adam was running around his house being chased by his father. The father finally found him and shot Adam right at the upper right hand of Adam. Convinced that he was succeeded in killing his son, he killed himself.

Y-0 couldn't help but feel. He knew it was impossible to have an emotional reaction for the likes of him, but he felt it anyway. He felt sad.

"What are you guys doing here?" A woman's voice cut through before the source emerged from the darkness. She wore the same green-grey armor suit as Adam, the one issued by the Angkara Police Department.

"Ah—Hagar!" Adam exclaimed, "sorry I couldn't recognize you. Did you change your hair?"

"Very funny," she answered sharply. Adam tried to push through, but she blocked their way, hands on her hips, legs wide open.

"Are you trying to hinder my investigation?" Adam asked, "I was the one tasked with the case."

"You are tasked with the gallery. This is an entirely different case," Hagar stated. Y-14, who was her android partner, who looked exactly like Y-0 could be seen busying about in front of an open door. Brass, from the look of the door. Made like a ship's door. Tacky.

Adam could clearly see, from her actions and her matter-of-fact tones, that this wasn't a merely a debate about jurisdiction, but her antagonistic saltiness about their doomed relationship. Adam was tempted to push this, but that would be unprofessional. Besides, seeing a constant redness tonight made him somehow terrified. He wanted to just grab all the evidence he and Y-0 could compile and get the hell out of there. He didn't have the energy to fight his ex now, especially when the BE's effect had already died down.

The familiar terror became clearer when there was no substance to block his thoughts.

Adam feigned a defeated sigh, then, "I don't want to fight you, but Y-0 and I agreed that this was the same case. A continuation of what happened at DomArt."

Y-0 felt the need to help, "the red mist said it all." Hagar shifted her eyes sharply to Y-0, "as a matter of fact, it was Y-14, your partner who informed me that this might be the perpetrator."

"It won't deliberately inform you!" Hagar protested. There it was. Humans were always called individual android as an 'it'. Y-0 brushed it off. This was not the time to get offended. She continued, "it needs my permission before he shares any investigations with another party!"

Adam didn't know what to answer, so he looked at Y-0 desperately.

"I'm sorry I misspoke," Y-0 responded, "I did memory cross-checking internally to find certain similarities in several cases. Past or recurring." Adam finally understood why Y-0 was lagging when he talked to him at the gallery. Y-0 continued, "I... came across... Y-14's database."

Hagar stared at her for a couple of seconds before begrudgingly whispered, "the goddessdamned 'hive minds'. You guys should really learn humanly boundaries."

"I apologize. I was just trying to—"

"Cut the shit, Y-0. Let me handle this," Adam dismissed him. Like he always did. He continued, "so we concluded that this victim was the perpetrator. Y-0 found the same suitcase, the same red poisonous gas, and the state of the victim. Lemme guess: his head exploded."

Hagar dropped her arms to her side, and Y-0 could see that her shoulders followed suit. She was turning off her barrier. She was defeated, "fine..." she said flatly before turned on one heel around and started to walk towards the brass door. After a few steps, she turned around again and saw that Adam and Y-0 still weren't sure that they got her permission to enter her investigation or not. "You coming?" She asked.

It was a curious place. There was a metal desk in the middle of the room, but everything else was emptied. The only focus of the room was the body without his head, sprawled on the floor. Blood everywhere, while Adam could see gaps in the traces, informing him that there was stuff there. Whoever did this, managed to empty the room, leaving nothing behind. Adam turned his suit's UV sight.

Hearing the noise of it, Hagar read his mind, "don't bother. There was no other fingerprint everywhere. The only DNA found here was of the victim."

"Hair?"

"Y-14 had already scanned, this was utterly cleaned."

Adam thought of Amalgamada. A group of terrorists from the fringes of the cities that often attacked parts of the city as a form of a statement. But this modus operandi was far removed from their usual barbaric means. They usually burned or damaged public properties, but never anything too advanced. Gas attacks? Professional clean up job? This was done by some other, more advanced forces.

Something gnawed Adam from the inside. The residue of the red gas still floated on the floor reminded him of something. A deep pain suddenly manifested on his upper right arm. His helmet staticked, and he felt a deep terror built up.

"I guess we had enough," he proclaimed, "Y-0, follow me to the station."

Y-0 knew what happened then. Something inside of Adam had awoken. He complied.