Making Contact

Chapter Five

From behind the one-way glass Argyle watched their detained suspect, Christina, squirm in her seat. Her wrists were cuffed to the arms of the wooden chair she sat on. She gritted her teeth and tried to slide her wrist out of one of the cuffs at first. When that didn't bring to fruit any results, she began yanking her arm away from the arm of the chair as hard as she could. Argyle watched as her wrists began to bruise over. He shook his head at the futility then found himself staring into Christina's eyes while she seemingly stared back, not straight ahead, but off to the side of the one-way, at where Argyle stood in a corner of the room. He took a step forward, marveling at the ferocity of the woman's eyes.

“Weren't her eyes blue earlier?” Argyle thought to himself as he took a few more steps towards the center of the dark room. Christina followed him as he moved. He scanned her eyes. They were natural without a trace of augmentation, no metal fibers or advanced optics, so there was no way that she could see him through the mirror. “Unnerving…”

The door beside Argyle clicked, Captain Robinson came in along with a couple of other cops Argyle didn't recognize at first, but a quick scan of their faces allowed him to gather all there was to know about them from the Precinct’s database, and beyond. Senior Officer Constanza and Senior Detective Feldstein looked at Argyle, then each other, then turned to Robinson with raised brows.

“Are you trying to kill us, boss-man?” Constanza asked. “Not only are those things dangerous, but they are illegal and you could be putting the entire precinct at jeopardy man! Are you insane?!”

“For once, I've gotta agree with the guy,” Feldstein chimed in. “He may be crazy, but sticking us in a room with something like that? Well, that makes Gorge look like the sanest man on the planet.”

“Thanks Jeffrey,” Constanza said with a smile at the detective, looked back at Robinson, then back at Feldstein with a raised eyebrow. “Now wait a damn minute-”

“Excuse me, but isn't it rude to talk about someone while they are in the same room?” Argyle asked, smiling at the three men. Officer Constanza nearly jumped out of his boots at the sudden interruption. Feldstein stared mouth agape. Argyle held out his hand to offer to shake theirs, “I'm the detective the F.B.I. sent over to help with the case. I take it you weren't informed on my lack of organic matter.” Argyle laughed a little then retracted his hand.

“This is just crazy,” Constanza  grumbled, “how can a robot be a detective? Hell, how can a robot be walking around in this day and age like everything is fine? And are we supposed to act like the Red-Plague was just a silly nightmare? Hundreds, no, thousands, hundreds of thousands of robots, all over the streets, running rampant, tearing people apart like they were just cheap play-things!”

“Alright, alright, calm down,” Captain Robinson said.

“Calm down? Calm down?! Do you hear this, Jeffrey? The cap wants me to calm down. Boy-oh-boy.” Constanza scratched at the large bald spot at the top of his head. “I won't stand for it, no way. I'm going to the top with this one.”

“Constanza…”

“Don't you Constanza me! They're gonna have to listen to this one!” Constanza walked out of the room, turned back to Argyle and shook his head while scratching his scalp, then stormed off.

“Detective Feldstein, would you mind convincing Officer Constanza why he is wasting his time, along with the government’s time and money, while the two of us,” Robinson pointed back and forth between himself and Argyle, “continue our investigation into this mess?”

Feldstein looked back and forth at Robinson and Argyle then nodded and followed the sound of stomping. Robinson shut the door behind him, took a deep breath then let it out slowly. He walked over to the counter just beneath the one-way and leaned on it, staring in on Christina. Argyle noted that her eyes were normal now, a bright blue-green like the shores of a tropical island. Christina looked around the room then tugged at her cuffs to no avail. She heaved a sigh, and the captain did the same.