In a future where the United States is slowly rebuilding itself, Omega Travis Danten is a big city cop sent to a seemingly desolate city on the edge of the Waste. This desert is full of undesirables, and it’s only a matter of time before they wreak havoc. But, Omegas are always assigned Alphas, and his new partner’s job is to protect him.<br><br>But SdAI Alpha Virgil is not at all amused with the partner who chose him. Travis is willful and naive to the dangers a homicide detective faces here, and it makes Virgil’s job that much harder. And Travis, of course, is human and develops feelings, feelings that go beyond the rules about Omega/Alpha partnerships.<br><br>Travis and Virgil have to find common ground, find a killer, and find space for each other in their own hearts, even if one is artificial.

Artificial Heart

It was a place Virgil appreciated, because he and his fellow AIs could disappear into Loki’s territory to escape the cutting ways humans tended to treat them with. Loki was always a willing ear and liked to repay egregious acts against the station’s AIs with truly embarrassing, though harmless, pranks.


Today Virgil needed little more than a patch up of his flesh and an upgrade to his RAM. Long black tendrils of hair wafted around the section of his skull, a right side square equidistant where the squamous suture was on an organic, that lay in a metal tray not two feet in front of his seat. No one was allowed down in Loki’s domain while an AI needed repair. Most humans found chunks removed from a skull, machine or not, unseemly.


A twitch tremored through Virgil’s leg. “I do not need a diagnostic, Loki. Just more processing power.”


“You’ve no idea what you need,” Loki retorted. “Bullets can do simply awful things to your internal systems. No harm in checking.”


Chapter 23