Blushing Pearl

Lovesick Trauma

November 6th, 2038

AM 12:30:00

"Still no cutie, huh?"

I scoffed and looked up at Chris, "Only in my dreams."

He laughed,

I focused, again, on the reeking dead body. I had been crouching next to it, evidence tags in one hand and a tablet in the other, while I analyzed. "It's been a few months. With the increasing caseload, you'd think Cyberlife would send him again."

Chris squatted beside me, "Don't tell me you actually think about him that often."

I shrugged, "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. What's it to ya?"

He took the evidence tags from my hand and stood up, "Nothing. Just worried about you, Pearl."

"Chris, there's nothing to worry about," I tapped on the tablet, documenting the evidence, and followed him as he placed the markers down, "I'm just enjoying the sweet memory since there's no one around who's done the same."

"I'd say I'm hurt," He paused, placing his hands on his hips. "But I can't blame you right now."

I crouched down to a bloodied knife a few feet away from the body, lying on a small padding of dry blood, marked by Chris, "Why's that?"

"Do you not smell that?"

"Oh, I smell it, alright. Definitely keeping that cutie in the front of my mind while I'm in here."

Disgusting. That was the only way to view the crime scene. Disgusting. Utterly repulsive. The smell was so strong you could taste it, which only made the need to vomit even more severe.

A nasty, gross, horribly contaminated one-story house. Uninhabitable.

I typed more on the tablet as Detective Collins interrupted us, "Anything?"

"Yeah–"

"Can we open the goddamn windows already?" Chris folded his arms over his chest.

Collins looked back at me, lifting his brows.

I nodded, "Yeah, it should be fine. It's the same temp in here as it is outside. Shouldn't mess with the evidence."

"Thank fuck."

"What you got?" Collins tucked his hands into his pockets as Chris moved around the shit hole of a house, slamming the windows open.

I nodded to the dead body, "Carlos Ortiz, stabbed 28 times, definitely on Red Ice. Theft and Aggravated Assault on his record. Been dead for at least 3 weeks. And right above him," I paused, gesturing. "Perfect Cyberlife Font. Definitely from an android."

"Wonderful," he sighed heavily, settling his eyes over the rest of the scene.

"Neighbors confirm he had one?"

He nodded in agreement, leaning to look around another doorway from where he stood, "Yeah, but it wasn't here when we arrived."

"Probably went out the back," I stood up and gestured towards the knife with my tablet, "No fingerprints and the blade matches the stab wounds." I shoved my face in the crook of my elbow, swallowing back rising bile, "I-I'll need to wait for testing to confirm it's his blood, but it's safe to say we got our weapon."

All attempts to avoid the smell were futile. I sped out of the house, covering my nose with my arm. "Sorry, Officer Collins. I-I need some air," I called back to him.

Bile was closing in, but I managed to swallow it back down once the lingering smell wore off and was replaced with the scent of dirty rain. I removed my face from my arm and rested my hands on my head, taking much-needed breaths of fresh air. The smell still burned my lungs. It was just a few moments by myself, but it was enough to allow Chris's words to get in my head. Maybe I was obsessing over nothing. Maybe something was really wrong with me for being attracted to a robot. Or maybe I'm just delusional. It's always better to feel feelings rather than numb them, anyway. It was why I drank. To act on those feelings without shame or to feel even more sadness and get it all out of my system.