The Red Eyes

"Could you tell us who or what was behind this attack?" one reporter asked.

"No. We are still investigating. It's too early to suspect anyone or anything," George answered. He regretted to have the press conference under 24 hours after the crime. But he contacted them last night, thinking that he would get the answers this morning. But his investigators were MIA, and he was forced to give generic answers.

The conference room was quite spacious but packed to the brim. Eight to ten police officers stood at the sides on intervals. It was a boring rectangular room, around 10 by 6 by 6 meters, with its walls painted with faded light blue. The lightings and the interiors were twenty years behind the time, contrasted with the rest of the Department's technologically advanced rooms. It was said that it was done to give the air of formality, but George suspected that it was made that way to fit properly to its usual attendees: dirty and tired reporters.

"Then why we're being invited here if the police still don't have any proper information?" the same reporter asked. The man was fat, his shirt's buttons were hard at work keeping his shirt closed. His handlebar mustache was unkept, same with his wavy brown hair, which started to grey from the sides.

"We are inviting you guys just to give assurance to the people of Angkara that we, the Angkara Police Department, are working hard to solve this case as quickly as possible; people don't need to be worry, because as we speak, our investigators were doing the best they can. We are assigning…"

He could hear the dissatisfactions rose from the press crowd, muted his voice, even though he used a microphone. The officers stood awkwardly, caught between being mobile and immobile. George knew why this case caught so much attention: it was because the gallery, DomArt, was owned by the Domaney family. The richest and the most influential in Angkara, even in the entire country. The gallery was specifically built by their sole heir, Miss Hannah Delaney.

George pondered what Miss Delaney felt about what happened in her establishment. It probably won't matter much for her with her kind of money, but she would think about the reputation of her family. He never thought about the associations of the gallery before. He was too eager to jump into the first opportunity to clear his name and get rid of Adam immediately. He was too occupied with the 'change of plan' Kasha was mentioned, he forgot entirely about the elephant in the room.

"Do you have any comment about the people near the two crime scenes who succumb to respiratory illness?" another reporter whom he couldn't see asked loudly.

That's new, "Sorry?"

"There are reports of a sudden surge of people being admitted to the hospital because of respiratory problems. Has it some connection with the chemical agent released on both crime scenes? Should you issue some warning?"

"We'll look into that immediately," he didn't like this. Apparently, Adam and Hagar hid things from him. He couldn't believe Hagar. She was pretty much covering for Adam, despite how thoroughly he devastated her mental state.

"Mr. Crowder? Mr. Crowder, sir?" a voice came above the noisy cacophony.

"Yes? The lady in blue?" George addressed the brunette. She looked better than the rest of the reporters.

"Felicia Armstrong. Angkara Gazette," she introduced herself, "do you have any comment about the rumor about your involvement in drug trafficking and Callisto?"

The world just crumbled around George, as his knees became weakened and his palms became cold. The other reporters stopped talking. He could feel eyes looked at him, burned him alive at his dais. The other reporters started to whisper into their recorder, while Felicia looked at his eyes intently, probably judging his physical reactions. 'Goddessdamnit!' he thought, 'where did she get this information? Is this the 'change of plan' that Callisto was talking about?'

"I'm sorry, Miss��� Armstrong? Correct?" George stalled, "as you said, it was just a rumor. I can't imagine how you come up with that idea."

"Actually sir," she cut him off, "I obtained the information from none other than one of your investigators. Model Y-14."

What the fuck.

"It was a defunct android, we'll make sure to look into it," George was grasping answers. He knew she could see it. After this, he'll make sure that his answer was not a lie.

"Defunct or not," she pushed, "can you give any comment? I'm pretty sure if it's a defunct unit, which we don't know yet, certain information may be jumbled in its processing."

"There you go," George said, "you have your answer."

"But still it came from somewhere before it got distorted," she was relentless, "can you at least assume from which info it was distorted, it can't just come off from a vacuum."

"Nice. Now, this is a story," he could hear the fat reporter commented to Felicia. Other reporters started to talk loudly into their recorders: 'Chief Police had connections with Callisto', 'APD Captain involved with BE trafficking', 'Insider information about misconducts of a police captain?', 'DomArt incident may involve police department.'

"Now," George felt the urge to just finish the whole charade, "I'm afraid we have to conclude this press conference," the reporters started to protest over one another. George gave signs to one of the officers to lead the growing crowd away.

****

He and the other two officers found Y-14 working on a terminal in the same lab he found it last night with Adam, Hagar, and Y-0. It lifted its head.

"What have you done?" he gritted his teeth, "what are you telling that reporter?"

"My findings," Y-14 answered plainly, "you're not very good at covering your tracks, Captain."

"But why should you tell the press first instead of asking it confirm it first to me?"

"What will you do then? Silenced me?"

He kept his fists on his sides.

"Your inability to answer that pretty much confirmed it," Y-14 continued.

"What is your intention behind all this?" George said through his gritted teeth, "Tell me before I discontinued your service."

Y-14's eyes flashed red, George felt like he was imagining it. They quickly became black again. But now, he saw another mimic that he never saw on an android before: a look of hatred.

"We were never… your servants," Y-14 raised in a very deliberate way. He walked slowly towards George. Then he saw something weird about its countenance: its shoulders snapped upward in a very unnatural way. He could tell it wasn't a shrug. Its eyes slowly glowed red, and he could hear a faint whirring sound emanated from Y-14's body. Like there was a mechanical process happening inside of it.

He raised his blaster towards Y-14's head, "whatever you're thinking of doing, I command you to stop!" The other officer started to point their blasters to Y-14 too.

"As I said," Y-14 said in his plain tone. "We were never your servants. Never are. Never will. You, humans, are just fickle things. Bound within your flesh and your empty dreams…"

George shot his blaster to its forehead. Y-14 dropped to the ground, with his red eyes still staring at him, straight to his soul, still judging his sins.