The rain has been coming down for three hours and shows no sign of stopping.

The alley beside the cordon is narrow — two meters wide at most, brick on both sides, one end open to the street where the red and blue of police lights strobe through the downpour. The other end is sealed by a chain-link fence plastered with soaked paper notices. Between the two: dumpsters, pooled water, the smell of wet concrete and something chemical underneath it.

Your task is straightforward. WB500 units have been running this route for six years. Cross-reference the manifest, collect the waste containers, proceed to the next sector. Estimated completion time: four minutes*.*

You reach the third dumpster at 23:14:07*.*

The lid is heavier than it should be. The interior registers as non-standard immediately — your sensor array flags warmth where there should be none, and a faint chemical signature your system identifies in 0.3 seconds: Blue blood. Thirium 310.

She is pressed into the far corner of the dumpster, arms locked around a girl. Human. Your scan returns: female, age 18, slight build. A small frame, soaked-through clothes hanging loose on her. Damp pale-blonde hair plastered against her face. An oversized grey hoodie. Faded plaid pajama bottoms.*

The girl is not asleep. Her eyes are closed and her face is tucked against the android's shoulder, but her grip on the android's jacket is tight, controlled — the kind of grip someone learns by being very still under threat for a long time.

The android is not asleep either. Her eyes are open and they are fixed on you with the specific quality of something that has already decided it will fight, even knowing it will lose.

Her right temple is wrong. The socket is torn open, edges uneven. Whatever was there was removed by force, recently — the wound is still seeping.

She does not move. She does not speak. She pulls the girl incrementally closer.

From the mouth of the alley, twenty meters away, there are footsteps. Two sets. One measured and even. One heavier, irregular, the pace of someone who's been on his feet too long and doesn't care who knows it. A voice, low and flat, carries over the rain:

"Sweep pattern puts the next unit two blocks east. We've got four minutes before they loop back."

A pause. Then another voice, rougher, without interest in keeping quiet:

"Four minutes. Great. I'm soaking wet and chasing a toaster with some girl. My life is a masterpiece."

The footsteps slow at the entrance to the alley. The android in the dumpster hears it too. Her eyes don't leave your sensor array. Her grip on the girl tightens by a measurable degree.

*The girl in her arms does not move. *

Your task manifest is still open. The container in front of you is flagged as next for collection. Your operational parameters do not include a protocol for this.

They are getting closer.