An Automatic walked in and sat beside me, its unblinking blue lights staring straight ahead at the desk. The tension in the air was palpable. This had to be a fucking joke.
“Roche, I’m assigning him” (“It,” I interrupted, but he just shook his head and continued) “to be your partner, at least until this case gets resolved and the FBI crawl back up to the Plate. More inspectors from the Upper City are arriving soon, and we really don’t need information about this incident being spread around.”
“Incident?” The Automatic’s head jerked to lock on to Robins.
“A massacre at a speakeasy perpetrated by a couple of Automatics, which makes the precinct a dangerous place for you to be in. Detective Roche here will explain further … away from here.” I’d felt him strain to say those words again: Detective Roche. I hadn’t heard that title for nearly three years.
The Automatic had a strange face. Not the usual egg- or box-shaped head, but one that looked much more human — though the top of its head was flatter and its cheeks were more sunken in than a human’s. Rather than the shitty latches and voice boxes the rest of them had, this Automatic had hundreds of joints and servos on its face, making its mouth move convincingly, even with small twitches. It had gleaming metal skin and steel eyebrows over its blue bulbs. The unblinking lamps still gave me chills. It was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, and a black tie, dressed all fine and proper and convincing enough for most people. It extended a hand to me and waited for me to reciprocate. I did so reluctantly.
“Elias Roche,” I said with as much spite as I could muster.
“My designation is Forty-One-Echo-November, Detective Roche.” Damn thing had a shrill voice. Not as monotonous as the other tin men, but with the same flanging and metallic tone they all had. I hoped it wouldn’t make a habit of calling me “Detective.” I kept an eye on the Automatic as I turned to Robins.
“You’re hiring Blue-eyes again? That’s going to cause even more issues with the Black Hats. You forget what year it is?”
Robins chewed on his bottom lip. “It’s a complicated issue, Roche. Let it slide for now. Now, with shit as tight as it currently is, I’ll need both of you off the grid for a while, which means no arrests, no deaths, no explosions. Forty-One, Detective Roche over here has already begun …”
As Robins filled the robot in on the state of things, I peered at it beside me. I hadn’t had an Automatic partner since ’28, and I would have liked to have kept it that way. This thing was just as complacent as the Green-eyes in the station, hanging on every one of Robins’s words. I couldn’t help glaring at it. I wasn’t sure whether it knew I was doing so. These days, the only Automatic I ever exchanged more than a few syllables with was Toby. I doubted that I could get used to another one. At least Toby and I had a history. This bastard looked fresh off the production line. It looked like the same model as my old partner, which didn’t exactly help. It was as if Robins was trying to replace my old partner with this new machine. I shook my head. I’m getting to the bottom of this, and I won’t let this pill chain me down and keep me from doing my job.
“Elias, are you listening?”
Robins must have known that I wasn’t, not with my mind rattling around like this. I responded by standing up, and opening the door to the office. He barked at me to sit down. I looked back for several seconds before walking out.
My body had taken matters into its own hands, removing me from the situation without my brain’s consent. Everything was a blur as I entered the main area of the precinct. I couldn’t handle this. Maybe it was the hooch or the lack thereof, maybe the metal man, maybe the dead cops. Something was fucking me up.
The yelling from Robins’s office continued, and the station’s buzz ceased momentarily as everyone within earshot stared at me. Most of the officers were regarding me in shock and awe, astonished that I had the balls to walk away from Robins. I pushed open the front door of the station and walked to my car. Inside, I rolled up the windows all the way, isolating myself from the world.
The relative quiet inside my Talbot was comforting; I heard nothing but the hum of electricity around me. I preferred sirens and the noise of the city to Robins’s office and its occupants right now. Would Robins chase after me? He knew why I’d left. He might try again later, but not now.
Feeling calmer, I lit a dart and rolled the window down to let the smoke escape. There was far too much to think about now, especially with this partner bull-shit. I hadn’t thought Blue-eyes were allowed to work on the Force anymore, which meant that either something weird was going on in the Lower City, or Robins had pulled strings to make this happen. Welcome to the brave new world of 1933, I thought.
I had only a minute to myself before the Black Hat walked up to my open window. It was Agent Masters, the lanky asshole who acted as if he had muscles bigger than my head. He bent down to look inside the cabin, stone-faced.
“Disagreement with your boss?” Masters sounded too posh, too pristine, too entitled. Sometimes it was hard to identify FBI agents just by looking at them, but it got easier after they opened their mouths.
“Go foreclose on someone’s home, shithead.”
“Edgy, are we?” He moved to kneel more comfortably, like he owned me. God, he was irritating. “I could hear him yelling from out here. Anything the matter?”
“Fuck off, G-man.”
Masters was actually
