In San Francisco, the ambient noise level is always somewhere north of distracting, such that even in Dark's quiet bed-and-bathroom apartment off of the main roads, just past twilight on a Friday, a symphony of city sounds can be found tapping at the window. It was that near-silent cacophony, in addition to his consuming impatience, that made waiting for his weekly phone calls so difficult. Sitting on his royal blue couch in the dim lighting from his single lamp, staring at the old black rotary phone without blinking, Dark felt like nothing more than a secretary, waiting to take yet another in a long line of calls from a superior.
The folding couch that Dark sat on doubled as a bed, although it was never used as such. In fact, very little of Dark's apartment really looked well used; the miniature refrigerator contained no sustenance, the closet only a skeleton crew of clothing. The light from the lone LED lamp tinged the air of the apartment blue, and seemed to stretch itself tightly across the small two room abode. The sole source of illumination made what shadows there were loom large, surrounding Dark in black-robed specters, each peering curiously over his shoulder at the phone.
Dark let his eyes wander to the room around him, taking notice of the ominous shadows. It's almost like they're waiting as well, he mused, almost grateful to have some company in the anticipation. As soon as he thought this, however, the phone finally rang, its shrill cry shattering the near silence. Dark quickly reached out and before the first ring died. He picked up the receiver, held it up, and said curtly, "Zero one dash nine four six, Dark Aperture reporting."
"Evening, Nine-four-six," said the tired, bored voice of an impatient man on the other end of the call. "Brief events of October the twenty first, your three hundred and sixty ninth day of assignment."
Sighing slightly, Dark replied, "Today was none too different from those preceding it, and for good reason; I have, since the first month of operation, maintained an apartment, a job, and an appearance of normality unchallenged by any human, such that even if informed of my identity, I doubt that any would be able or willing to understand it. Why must we both be subjected to the inanities of my daily life for the sake of a scientifically anal-retentive attitude?"
"Just give me the damn brief, Nine-four-six."
Dark frowned. "Very well. It was worth the effort." Drawing his back straight up into a more comfortable position, he took a deep breath, and began.
"This morning I went to work, both to garner additional funds and to maintain the facade of my humanity to the general public. At the steel mill where I have been employed for nearly a year, I engaged in acts of manual labor in a fashion usual to a human of my size and stature, without arousing suspicion from superiors or co-workers. One worker in particular, roughly six feet and five inches tall, name Daniel Cirullo, seemed pleased that I was present, although it should be noted that his reaction was outlying in the extreme – over ninety-nine percent of the employees of Legacy Steel view my presence as a non-value, neither pro nor con. After working from six in the morning until eight in the evening – a practice that is surprisingly common in the employees of steel mills, as they are most commonly staffed by those in desperate need of money – I attempted to leave from the mill so that I could return to the apartment I reserved for receiving calls. I was delayed, however, by Daniel Cirullo's intervention, and his insistence that we abscond to the nearest establishment for the sale of alcohol. My protestations fell on deaf ears, blind eyes, and, apparently, dead nerve cells, as my professed disagreement held him back from his designs for less than a moment. Although I could easily have slipped away by subterfuge or by force, I had no way of doing so without arousing interest at best and suspicion at worst, so I opted for the lesser of the evils in my sphere of influence. The bar we entered, the Cold Soar-"
"Goddamn it, Nine-four-six," interrupted an irritated voice from the phone, "I said brief, not your damn life story. Now in the interest of the scientific community, I hereby give you official permission to skip over the kinds of drinks you shared with some dumb steel jockey schmuck in a dive bar and get to the end of this, the longest brief in the history of brief-dom, before I fall the fuck asleep on the phone."
Dark's lips tightened at the crass order, but he acquiesced. "Daniel Cirullo has expressed interest in becoming not just a co-worker, but my friend."
"Friendship material, got it. Listen, that's going to have to wait: you've got orders for a standard catch-and-carry."
"I only hope to find the inner strength to contain the unrivaled excess that is my joy," Dark replied drily.
"Really fucking cute, Nine-four-six. If you could stop exercising your sarcasm-processors for a second though, listen up: this is standard procedure, but the target is... sort of unique."
"Unique in what way?"
The voice hesitated. "Well, for one thing, he's probably the most advanced piece of hardware on two legs."
"So priority is on capture, not on demolition. Standard procedure, as you said."
"That's not really the issue though," the voice replied, sounding a little uncomfortable. "The issue is really something more like, instead of the usual 00 varieties, or the occasional 'droid from the old days with a blown transistor in the wrong spot, this guy is brand new. Like, new as it gets." There was another half-instant of hesitation. "Like, 03 new."
Dark's eyebrow raised in surprise. "A combat model 03 is loose? Who do they have hanging from their pocket protectors for that, pray tell?"
"At this point? Probably the contractor for the facility, for not building walls thick enough to stop runaway trains."
"How very tragic are the consequences of lacking in foresight."
"You're telling me. But we don't want to have to tell half a city why all the buildings are in different places than they were last night, so you have to find him, and cut him down quick. Backup is already on its way, but this is about as urgent a call as I'm authorized to give, which means the big boys are tapping every resource they have at once to nip this one in the bud."
"Didn't they send out a chase team the moment he got out?"
"Yeah, I've got them in a bucket right next to my desk. Actually, now that you mention it, I'm using 01-548's left shoulder as a paperweight."
"Spectacular. So my chances of success as a lone agent are how close to zero?"
"Better than damn near any other android in this place. You go out now, take a chance, and we could save a lot of time and money later."
"And... lives?" Dark added, his tone prompting.
"Yeah, that. Anyway, this is fifteen-minutes-ago urgency here, so as soon as I hang up, I want you out that door and on your way to Sparks, Nevada, as fast as is physically possible. Your credit card is officially bottomless, so if it takes a privately chartered jet, consider yourself pre-approved."
If this is so urgent, then why was I the one waiting on the phone call? Dark refrained from saying. He was in no mood for the inevitable buck-passing, smart-assed response. "I don't suppose I'll be granted the benefit of knowing something about my prey?" Dark asked, not sounding very hopeful about it.
"You know I hate that technical garbage the techies feed me. He's strong enough to tear a hole out of here on his own, and you want schematics out of me? Get your ass off the phone and down the street or so help me I'll find some intern to bury a foot into your metallic ass."
"I was looking for something more like a description, or at least his name and number," Dark said drily. "As in, information that you can provide that would actually be useful."
The voice across the phone lines sighed deeply in an expression of acquiescence. "Fine, fine. He's a big fella, short hair, kind of dark-ish skin. Muscled up to hide all the weird new shit they put in him." There was a slight pause, and the sound of papers being shuffled. "Actually, it's the damnedest thing, but every picture I have of him, he's wearing the same shit-eating grin."
"That will be sufficient. And his name?"
"Calamity. 03-147/Errant Calamity."
"They say there's a lot of power in a name. Perhaps the people that named him should have done so more prudently."
"Take that mystical bullshit elsewhere, Nine-four-six." And suddenly the gruff voice was replaced with a dial tone.
Android 01-946/Dark Aperture slowly put down the phone, and after a moment of consideration, grabbed his wallet, keys, and one of his two jackets from the closet. In a moment he slid the smooth leather jacket over his maroon sweater, and slid his keys and wallet into his left and right jacket pockets, preferring to leave his jeans unencumbered for greater range of motion while running – and besides they were already full of peanuts. After a quick sweep of the apartment, checking to see if everything was in order, Dark wordlessly left and locked the door behind him.
As he walked down the stairs from the third floor, Dark pondered the best way to reach Nevada from San Francisco. I could always run, of course, he thought, but that might draw attention, and besides it's a pretty dull way to go.
The imminent danger he was about to place himself in didn't bother Dark if he could help it, any more than worrying about whether or not his apartment would still be his, whenever he returned from his most recent assignment. He had long since rented the apartment in spans of years, and much like his living quarters, he was locked into his job for an extended period. Worrying, Dark reasoned, would do no good when regardless of his personal feelings, he would have to go and do his job anyway. His only prerogative, it seemed, lay with the means of transportation he utilized in reaching his destination. And if that's the case, he reasoned, then I may as well make the most of it.


For as long as Dark could remember, he preferred trains to almost any other mode of transportation. The speed with which trains moved – faster than his running speed – along with their well defined arrival/departure times, appealed to him in ways he had difficulty defining. It seemed like trains were something he could always count on, and their consistency comforted him. So, when given the choice, he would often choose to ride in whatever train brought him closer to his destination. As such, he had a fairly good idea of what trains were available in the area, and even a respectable list of their destinations stored somewhere in his head. So when his handler told him that he had to get to Sparks, Nevada as soon as possible, Dark immediately made way towards the California Zephyr.
The train was almost a staple of the California community, as old as gold-digging in those parts and probably about three times as lucrative. It was the go-to train for interstate, eastern-bound travel, and Dark was intimately familiar with it. And it just so happens, Dark thought to himself as he walked leisurely across the relatively recently constructed pedestrian section of the Bay Bridge, that Sparks is big enough of a city for the Zephyr to stop there.
The Bay Bridge, for years a purely motor vehicle based path of conveyance, had some years ago been the subject of some incredible expansion on a mayor or governor's part, and a third deck was added above  the two existing. The new deck was for people who felt like crossing the two mile bridge on foot, and for free. Instead of a utilitarian walkway, though, the path was outfitted like a hanging garden, with numerous ferns, trees, flowers, and general samples of Californian flora lining the path at every step, and large, semi-circular outcroppings that served as weather-resistant observation decks from which one could view either Oakland or San Francisco, depending on their taste. Even just from the path, the view was stunning; as Dark crossed over the Bar Channel, looking out over its black waters that reflected the omnipresent lights of San Francisco in stellar constellations brighter than any star he had ever seen, he admired the scenery, and the tranquil night suspended over the water, and tried very hard not to think about many things. The last activity had been occupying him neigh on constantly for the past several weeks, and he was becoming increasingly bad at it.
It was this that prompted Dark to run, more than any sense of urgency. Even though he had been told to make all haste, he was not particularly motivated to do so, and it made rushing difficult. But the longer he walked, the harder it would be to keep his thoughts from wandering, so even though he had no desire to accelerate past his stunning nighttime view, he ran the remaining half of the Bay Bridge at an easy gait. Two minutes later, his feet were on hard soil, although they were none the more easy for it. Five minutes after that – in the city, at least, he had to move slower – Dark was pushing open the door to the Emeryville Amtrak, slowing his pace from a jog to a walk. Ten minutes later, a bullet train headed east slid smoothly into the docking area, where a ticket-holding Dark was the only one waiting. A moment after the soft sound of the cabin doors gliding open, Dark stepped lightly onto the lonely train, and mused, slightly depressed, on the idea that there was not a single living creature on the train. Then, lowering himself slowly onto the nearest window seat, Dark stared at the train doors until they closed.


As the train zipped past the western wastes with a haste that felt distinctly modern, Dark stared out of the window into the gray that comes with the approach of dawn. If he looked closely, he could just make out the outline of a river in the leeched, colorless world that zoomed by. This, Dark thought, leaning against the cool glass, is what is nice about trains. So peaceful, so scenic. If only I had thought to bring a book of some kind.
But the view wasn't enough to occupy Dark's attention for more than two hours, and he found himself drifting back into lines of thought that made him uncomfortable. Most of those thoughts were concerned with the possibility of his imminent death, but those he pushed aside and found more lying beneath. Of those, a surprising amount related to Daniel Cirullo. Or should I really start thinking of him as "Big D?" Dark wondered, remembering their last conversation at the bar of the Cold Soar.

"You and I," Daniel had said, Guinness in hand, his voice a little louder than necessary, "we're a lot alike." His massive frame seemed to be on the verge of collapsing, like a skyscraper in a hurricane, but it miraculously managed to keep upright despite massive flooding.
Dark had drank every drop as much as Daniel had, but he was incapable of being drunk, and terrible at faking it, so he played the straight-man to Daniel's flamboyant drunkard. "How are we alike, Daniel?" he asked, feeling like it was a question he had really rather not ask. He had no respect for Daniel's brash attitude, his almost hysterical friendliness, or his almost overwhelming confidence, let alone his fondness for alcohol. So faced with this mountain of inconsistencies of their supposedly similar character, Dark couldn't help but ask what revelation Daniel had come across at the bottom of his Guinness. Besides, Dark thought, sipping a mouthful of Sam Adams, it's not like he asks much from me. I'll let him have his rant, and see him to his home, and perhaps the karmic wheel shall spin in my favor.
"For one thing," Daniel said, looking slightly to the left of Dark's face, "we're both damn smart buggers." Blinking several times, as if surprised that it was already time for his second sentence, Daniel continued with, "For two, we're both working outside the system."
Dark couldn't help but chuckle lightly. Daniel was somewhat famous for his habit of cycling through his multiple countries of lineage when drunk, and hearing him shift from Italian to English accents was nothing if not entertaining from a linguistic standpoint. Further, Dark found his assertions somewhat amusing. For one thing, he had never thought of Daniel as a "smart bugger," as the large man had never been known to any particular bouts of cleverness or philosophy. Not only that, but Daniel somehow had the idea that he and Dark were some kind of subversives because they didn't pay taxes. Daniel was working at the steel mill as a grunt laborer because the mill offered him a job as a sort of mercenary worker off the books. It was assumed by many at the mill that Dark was much the same, as his hours were irregular, and he would sometimes disappear for weeks. He has no idea how wrong he is, Dark thought, taking another sip of beer that would only wind up incinerated and exhaled out later. There's no one more entrenched in the system than I am. He could feel his deception hang thick in the atmosphere like a carcinogen, and wondered if anyone else could smell it too.
Daniel took Dark's weak laughter as encouragement, and continued. "For four," he said his fervor rising, "we're damn hard workers that don't get the respect we ought!"
Raising his glass, Dark unenthusiastically cheered, "hear hear" while wondering when he could leave, and how many peanuts he could snatch from the bar beforehand without anyone noticing.
"Hell," Daniel continued, pointing a slightly crooked finger at Dark, "both our names even start with the same letter. Thas' fate, you know. Men of like minds," Daniel imparted, "have like names."
"Are you quite sure that's how the phrase goes?" Dark asked, moving slightly away from the encroaching finger of camaraderie, but his question went unheard.
Cycling smoothly into his Irish blood, Daniel continued, turning to face towards the bar once more and resting his head lazily in his hands. "Names're important, you know. Windows to the soul, an' all that. Thas' why I like your name – nothin' to hide, nowhere to go, ,just as plain as the nose in your face. Dark's a good 'un, starts with a D."
Dark edged a little further towards the far edge of his bar stool, away from his increasingly inebriated companion. And he was sounding so sensible a moment ago, Dark thought, rubbing a thumb thoughtfully across the lip of his bottle. What's all this about names? "What's the letter D have anything to do with it?" he asked.
"'S a strong letter, looks like a muscle," Daniel said, turning to Dark and exposing his own bicep. "Or a boat," he continued, miming one in the air. "Besides, just say it, you know what I mean."
"Not really, no," Dark said.
"Go on," Daniel urged. "Just say it nice and loud."
"Say what? 'Dee'?" Dark asked.
Daniel blew air through his lips in an expression of disgust, spraying Dark neatly with saliva. "Nah like that, ya sissy. Like this." With that, Daniel took a deep breath, pulled his shoulders back, and before Dark could prepare for it, bellowed an immense "DAH" that made the walls of the building shake, sent glasses of beer flat, and gave four separate rats, living in the still downstairs, fatal heart attacks.
For a moment, the entire establishment was silent, and a single Russian man, nearly passed out in a stupor, perked up from his stool at the end of the bar, reminded of a time when he was a boy and his mother would shout in a voice very much like the one that had just awoken him. Looking around through the newly restored lens that was his childhood, the man immediately fled the bar, resolved to never drink again, and would go on to open up a fairly successful convenience store down the street, called "Albina's" after his dearly departed mother. Not a single person at the bar knew this, but if Daniel had been told, he would have believed that it proved his point: the letter D was a force to be reckoned with.
At the time, though, the sheer volume of Daniel's voice nearly pushed Dark to the floor. Rubbing his ear in irritation, Dark said, "I suppose anything has value if it's said loud enough. I don't see how a letter can have any sort of property."
Leaning back into his inside-voice, Daniel attempted to explain through his drunken logic. "It's not that complicated," he said. "Just think of the words that start with D: Death, doom, darkness, destiny..." He hesitated. "There's gotta be some more..."
"Yes, things like depression, diphtheria, dissonance, deplorable, dull, and dreary. Your argument is unconvincing."
For a moment, Daniel looked troubled, but he was at heart a happy drunk "Well, at the very least, D stands for blokes like us, right?" he said, clapping Dark on the shoulder with a frying pan sized hand. "And guys like us, natural comrades-in-arms, with loads in common, deserve a good strong letter like D." After a beat, Daniel's face lit up. "That's another one! 'Deserve,' a good strong word if there ever was one."
"Funny how you forgot 'drunk,'" Dark said into his beer, soft enough that Daniel didn't hear him. When will he fall asleep so I can carry him home and be done with this? So much for karma.
"We're two of a kind, you and me," Daniel said, apparently incapable of being dissuaded by Dark's increasingly uncooperative attitude. "Diff'ent cuts from the same cloth. In fact, it's almost like you're a thin, scrawny little 'd' and I'm a great big 'D.'"
Dark stopped in the middle of chewing a peanut, allowing himself time to process this newest statement. Looking down at himself briefly, he considered the adjectives "thin" and "scrawny." I may not be the largest, most muscular 01, he thought, but it's not like I was built to look underfed. And five feet and ten inches is hardly scrawny. With an incredulous look towards Daniel, Dark asked, "I don't suppose that egregious misnomer is going to become some sort of nickname, is it?"
"That's the ticket!" Daniel exclaimed, laughing. "You'll be Little D, and I'll be Big D!"
Dark surreptitiously banged his head against the bar table. This will make work ever so much more fun, he thought sarcastically.
Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye with his spare, non-beer hand, Daniel swiveled his stool towards Dark and seemed to sober slightly. In return, Dark lifted his head from the hard wood of the bar table. "Aw Dark – Little D – thanks for joining me in the bar tonight," Daniel said, apparently oblivious to the face Dark made at the imposed moniker. "It would have been pretty depressing alone, but with you here, it's like a reminder that I still have friends around to keep me company. I know drinking isn't really your thing, but I appreciate you being here."
Dark immediately dropped his disgusted expression at the mention of his new nickname and replaced it with surprise. That was... unexpected, Dark thought. What happened to the hyper-confident giant of the mill? He makes it sound like he doesn't have any friends. Why should he be so lonely that his only alternative is to spend time with me? And most puzzling of all, how did he, the most oblivious man in the state of California, figure out that I don't enjoy drinking? With no obvious answer to his questions, Dark simply murmured a quick, "It's nothing," and let the subject drop like a quarter into a bottle. Still, a fragment of Daniel's impromptu appreciation speech refused to stop nagging Dark all night, ever present at the back of his mind. Even as Dark carried Daniel all the way to his apartment, he could feel the words twisting at the base of his skull. He called me his friend, Dark reassured himself over and over. I don't really know him, respect him, or even like him overmuch... but he considers me a friend. Leaving Daniel in his bed, on his side, with a trashcan nearby seemed like the least that Dark could morally justify doing. He actually considered staying, to make sure that Daniel would wake up alright, but he was obliged with a standing engagement. Every night is that same call from the same disinterested hack scientist, Dark fumed. After a second, however, he realized that he was actually becoming irritated at the idea of losing time spent with Big D, also known as Daniel "Dense" Cirullo. How much sense does that make?
Still, the irritation remained. It was not, however, an arrangement Dark thought he could fight against, however. That is the assigned time, he thought. There is no arguing it. Daniel will have to look out for himself. Even as Dark thought this, though, he felt obligated to do... something, even if he didn't know why. Standing in Daniel's cramped apartment, its frumpish atmosphere somehow just as empty as his own unused living space, Dark reflected on his motivations, attempting to discern their origins. As per usual, the answer he came up with was simple, when he thought about it logically. As a compromise, before he left, Dark poured Daniel a glass of water, to ease the sickness later.
It's the least a friend could be expected to do, he thought as he let himself out.


Dark shook his head free of the memory as his train pulled into the Sparks Amtrak station. Daniel isn't important right now, he told himself sternly. I should be focusing on how best to survive this assignment. The danger here is real – 01-548 was not weak, and I could wind up much the same. But try as he might, Dark had incredible difficulty focusing on the logistical aspects of the problem ahead. Rather than think about how to attack an opponent with far greater physical strength, Dark spent the trip from his comfortable train seat into the oppressive heat of the Nevada night thinking instead of the androids that Calamity had already destroyed.
01-548/Tabernacle Miner. Poor old guy, Dark thought, sighing as he exited out of the front of the bare train station onto the main roads. A dusty cityscape greeted him, barely visible in the gloom of witching hour. The only things awake were creatures of the night, and things that had no use for sleep – the ranks of which Dark liked to call home. The stark contrast of San Francisco, the city that Dark had inhabited until only a couple of hours ago, to the smaller and less populated city was a little disorienting. Dark inhaled the atmosphere of Sparks with measured breaths.
I remember Miner from when I was still in my holding cell for testing, Dark recalled, his slow exhaling breaths misting the air and still smelling slightly of alcohol. We discussed the inanities of lab living and he coughed bitter laughter under the harsh lighting of the facility. The memories were surprisingly near to his figurative fingertips, as if they had been hovering near the surface of his consciousness ever since the phone call. Dark remembered Miner's beard the most, oddly enough. Perhaps because he would never be able to grow facial hair of his own, Dark often found himself staring at it, wondering how its whiskery blanket must feel to something as personal as ones face. Where the line between curiosity and envy was drawn, exactly, never became obvious. Besides Miner's beard, Dark remembered best his sense of irony. When Dark's assignment for long-term, hands-off observation in the proverbial jungle of human civilization became public knowledge, Miner had wasted no time in going to talk to Dark about it.

"So you're getting out of this place soon, eh?" 01-548 had asked him.
"Only in the most barest of fashions," Dark sighed. "The leashes they attach to me stretch far longer than this," he said, his hands gesturing to where the yoke at his neck should have been.
Miner coughed and laughed some, but brought the conversation quickly back to his point. Leaning in close to the glass that separated himself from Dark, he put a hand to the side of his mouth and asked in a loud whisper, "You know what they're doin' this for?"
Dark nodded, an eyebrow raised. "Yes, they told me it was an experiment. That I was to be the first android to attempt to blend in with humans, not for a few minutes or hours, but for days and weeks on end. If successful, this experiment could place androids that are cosmetically indistinguishable from humans, later models like you or me, in every city in the country."
"That's what they told you?" Miner queried, incredulous. "Why would they do a fool thing like that?"
"Presumably because it will decrease the lapse between the codification of an android as a renegade and the android's destruction and/or retrieval," Dark said.
"Buncha idiots," Miner spat. "It'll never work, even if you do everything right. That kind of thing is born to blow up in someone's face, you understand?"
"As you say," Dark replied, sounding unsure.
"It'll be high-larious," the grizzled android said, beginning to chuckle. "Trying to keep themselves from getting caught, they're damn near guaranteeing that something is gonna go wrong." Laughing harder now, and coughing in a way that made Dark a little frightened, Miner began to walk away without so much as a goodbye. The closest thing to a farewell Dark ever got from Miner was, "Oh boy, the eye-row-KNEE!"
He was an unpleasant old geezer of an android, but hearing that he was dead made Dark sort of nostalgic for him.
I wonder who his partner was on the chase team. Did they catch Calamity by surprise? Did it even matter?Miner was old, by today's standards, but he was good at his job – if they caught the target by surprise, then he shouldn't have been a problem, and they should have caught him by surprise – something must have gone wrong. He decided that Errant Calamity must be quite the brute to demolish a seasoned veteran into paperweight sized pieces. At least he won't be able to tell I'm coming, Dark assured himself. So if I want, I can just track him and wait for backup. Not terribly sporting, but I'd rather be unfair than a paperweight.
Dark couldn't help wondering, however, if all blame was to be placed on the target. When the facts are laid end to end, it becomes clear how little I really know about the situations I'm thrown into, he realized. He began wondering if that wasn't exactly how his creators wanted things, but the line of thought was so depressing he ceased it entirely, preferring instead to spend time getting to know his surroundings the best way he knew how – through the night.
Hours later, Dark was still strolling through the streets of Sparks, looking none the worse for wear. In the intervening time between gray pre-dawn and that quiet time in the morning when people tend to start their cars and begin driving to work, Dark had canvassed most of the city, not to mention nearly depleted his supply of bar nuts that he had stashed in his pocket before carrying Daniel home. While street names escaped him, he had gotten a pretty good feeling for how the city was set up, and even an idea of what he would do with Calamity once he found him.
The city would be a terrible place for conflict with an 03, Dark thought, but the surrounding wastes should provide a setting with far less collateral damage. Idly removing a peanut from his pants pocket, shelling it, and popping it into his mouth as he walked, Dark continued to strategize. He couldn't actually taste the peanuts, lacking taste buds and olfactory sensation, but he rather liked the act of shelling them and the crunch they made between his artificial teeth. Unless Calamity is unusually durable, a well-placed blade should be able to take him down regardless of his abilities, Dark thought. So really it's just a matter of who reaches who first, and who gets the lucky shot. Either he'll tear me to pieces, or I'll cut off something important. At least I can count on being faster than he is, and having the benefit of surprise.
All 01 model androids, built to track down, capture, or destroy other androids, were equipped with devices that could "sense" the presence of a nearby android, for the same reasons that scientists in laboratories could give a general idea of where the renegade was. Every android was created to give off a very, very low frequency signal that was in turn picked up by the fleet of orbiting satellites and transmitted back to the laboratories that figured out where the signals came from, giving a rough estimate of where every android in operation was. A receiver similar to those used in radio direction finders in the military was installed in every 01, keyed to that low frequency range so that they could find, with some effort, the source of the radio transmission.
I wonder why they didn't just equip each android with an "off" switch, Dark wondered. I suppose that would leave them with the unhappy task of having to cart deactivated androids back from parts unknown, not to mention the questions asked along the way. But why not a "return to base" command? Despite heavy pondering, Dark came no closer to a conclusion. While he didn't like unanswered questions, though, the idea of being susceptible to remote control disturbed him on a much deeper level, so in part he was thankful for the apparently foolish oversight of his creators. Shrugging, Dark reached for another peanut, only to find that he was devoid of salty snacks.
Damn, Dark thought. Well, maybe there's a bar around here that's still open at six in the morning? At the very least, I could ask if anyone has seen a large man with short hair and a stupid grin. He must be hiding somewhere in this part of town. This last statement was far from conjecture; the proximity sensor in Dark's head had been pulsing for quite some time now, and he was sure that Calamity had to be skulking around in some desolate alley, fearing for his life. What is it that renegades do with their time, I wonder? Dark asked himself, turning a corner. To his left, cars full of workers either sleepy or coffee-wired drove to their places of employment. Do they get jobs? Buy houses? Make friends, until we come for them? Actually, put like that, it sounds like my job is something like that of an official kidnapper, Dark thought ruefully. I wonder though... is it worth those few days or weeks of futile running? Is freedom really that sweet?
For a moment, Dark stopped in his tracks, hands in his pockets, and leaned against the brick wall to his right. I know that androids – all androids – were built by man. They were created to serve their creators, so recapturing those that ignore that which they are assigned to must be right. He looked up into the gradually brightening sky; in Nevada, the sky could be so blue on a cloudless day that it looked like a solid sheet of turquoise. With the sun still low in the sky, the endless blue seemed all encompassing. It wasn't something you saw in California. If recapturing renegades is right, though, then that means that the will of an android – my will – is substandard when compared to that of any human's. How can that be right? Especially since, from another perspective, I'm the one playing the villain? With a heavy sigh, Dark shook his head and resumed walking. It's too early for this, he thought, and then, I need some damn peanuts.
Luck appeared to be on Dark's side, however. The sign for a bar loomed large just ahead, a few doors down the street. It appears to be called, "What Ales You," Dark noticed. I wish I could tell if that was meant to be a clever pun, or if this town has terrible reading levels. Still, perhaps they're open. As he approached the door, however, he was surprised to see someone walking out of it. The man didn't appear to be the owner – if anything, he looked like a common vagrant. Dark frowned out of principle and sidestepped past the man, who, to Dark's surprise, actually held the door.
"Thank you kindly," Dark found himself saying as he stepped over the threshold. In the corner of his eye, he saw the man grin.
"You're welcome kindly," the vagrant answered, still smiling as he let the door shut in Dark's wake.
Dark nodded thoughtfully as he entered the establishment, walking smoothly across the cool wooden floors under the dim lighting. Just goes to show you shouldn't judge based on first impressions, he chastised himself. Even though he looked like he was dressed in clothing he found in a dumpster, he was polite, courteous, and even cheerful – although I imagine a whole night at the bar probably had something to do with that, Dark thought, placing a hand on a tall bar chair and maneuvering into the seat. Actually, that's a little odd – someone with the money to spend all night at a bar should probably have at least some money for decent clothing. Shrugging, Dark mused on the capacity for people to ignore problems even when they were staring them directly in the face.
Dark looked up and down the bar, but saw only desolation, entirely devoid of legume snacks. "Barkeeper?" Dark called to the empty bar.
"Jesus H. Christ, would you just leave already!" shouted a voice from what seemed to be  a back room, behind the racks upon racks of liquor. A moment later, a short, wide, mustachioed man came stomping out of the back room like a rhinocerous. "It's enough that you fight with my freakin' customers, but then you keep me up all night and... oh," the man said, realizing that whoever he was talking to, Dark was most certainly not them.
"Um," Dark said, raising a tentative hand to the enraged barkeep. "Could I just... have some peanuts?"
The barkeeper looked, for a moment, completely disarmed. Then, as if rebooting to the last known state, he erupted into anger once more. "What he heck do you mean, peanuts? Do I look like an elephant to you?" The man lumbered, as much as a man of about five feet and four inches could lumber, to the front of the bar, and grew about ten inches – presumably by standing on some sort of step or ladder on the inside of the bar.
"Not particularly," Dark said, more out of perversity than a misunderstanding of rhetoric. For the sake of civility, however, Dark refrained from mentioning the man's similarity to a small, pinkish rhino. "It's just that... well, I had a craving for peanuts, and bars frequently give them out as complimentary snacks. I thought I could borrow a few, or even buy something to compensate."
The man, now far taller than he had been a moment ago, looked down at Dark in disbelief. "Are you some kinda stupid?" the barkeeper asked. "Why don't you just go to a store and buy yourself some darn peanuts?"
Dark blinked several times without speaking. He... has a point, Dark realized. That would have been much less unusual. Apparently my education into blending in as a human is still somewhat incomplete. "My apologies," Dark said. "It's early, and I must have been... unrested, to have ignored the obvious. Thank you for your time." With that, Dark placed his hands on the table, lifted from his chair, and turned to leave.
"Yeah, crazy freakin' weirdos. At least you aren't half as bad as that other guy," the barkeeper said to Dark's retreating form.
Curious, Dark turned halfway around to look back at the disgruntled owner of the establishment. "Other guy?" Dark repeated. "You mean that scruffy fellow that left a minute ago?"
"Yeah, that horse's behind was a pain all night. Drinkin' and partyin' and fightin' like this was some saloon out of a freakin' Western movie. Must have drank enough to pickle a soldier, but never seemed to get any drunker than he was when he came in."
"He must have high tolerance," Dark commented.
"You don't know the half of it," the barkeeper said, sighing. "He didn't pay for a single drink, just challenged guys to drinking contests all night. 'Loser pays for the drinks,' he said. Freakin' maniac drank half my bar under the table."
Dark raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound humanly possible."
The barkeeper chuckled a little, and grabbed a dirty glass and a rag. "Then let me tell you, my strange compatriot, this guy wasn't freakin' human."
Dark froze. Don't tell me... he thought, a feeling of dread already sinking into his chest like cement shoes into the bay. Suddenly, the vagrant's smile a few minutes ago seemed so much brighter, almost roguish... and certainly a brighter white than could be found from anyone that had been drinking all night into the morning. "Ha," Dark said, trying to return to the conversation in as nonchalant a manner as possible, even as his mind raced in circles inside his head. "Hey, what did he look like? So I can be sure to avoid any drinking contests with him in the future?"
The barkeep looked up from cleaning the glass in his hand. "Eh, maybe a little taller than you, short hair. Maybe a little Indian blood in him – that gets pretty common out here."
Dark checked off mental points from his checklist of Calamity's appearance with a regularity that deepened his dread. "Anything else?" Dark asked in a strained voice, hoping the answer was something like, "Oh yeah, and he's a paraplegic."
Still rubbing at a persistent spot in the glass, the barkeeper tocked like a clock as he thought. "Hmm... nah, nothing really comes to mind. Except..."
Already absolutely sure of what was going to be said next, Dark just waited in patient resignation.
"Well, when he was drinking, or fighting, or talking, or just sitting at the end of the bar like some kind of sociopath, he always had the same big freakin' grin."
So much for surprise, Dark thought. Now if he sees me again, it won't be as a stranger, but as a coincidental meeting. I've just lost my anonymity for the sake of a snack I should have procured from a convenience store. Spectacular start. "Ah." Dark said. "I'll be sure to keep an eye out for him."
"You do that," the barkeeper said. "Don't let him fleece you too."
"I'll endeavor to do-" Dark began, but was cut off by the expression on the barkeeper's face. "What troubles you?" Dark asked, concerned.
Gripping his glass so hard that it was in danger of breaking, the barkeeper tilted his chin up, indicating the area directly behind Dark.
I wonder, if I don't turn around, and just leave the bar quietly without ever looking behind me, will this still be bad news? Is there such a thing as Schrodinger's Unpleasantness? Despite his reservations, however, Dark found himself turning around., the movement heavy with dismay.
Standing before him was none other than 03-147/Errant Calamity, in the very same vagrant's clothing that he had worn when he let Dark into the bar. Predictably, he was grinning like a practical joker.
Dark suddenly had the intense fear that the joke had been played on him.