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  Masters’s question kept creeping back: You think keeping her in power saves lives? That was what I kept telling myself.

  Robins released his hold on me and turned on Allen, pushing it back, though less violently than he had me. “And you!”

  “Yes, Commissioner?”

  “Don’t you ever use that tone with her again, not unless the next thing you want to see is the inside of a recycler. And she won’t be the one to put you in there. Do you understand me?”

  I could tell Allen was attempting to figure out what specifically he had done to make Robins so angry. Poor thing — it really had no idea.

  “I understand,” Allen said, “and I will not attempt any more insinuating or otherwise aggravating dialogues with her.”

  “You’ve got no clue who she is, do you?”

  “No, Commissioner, I am quite ignorant as to the weight of my actions.”

  Robins seemed to calm down on hearing that. He let go of Allen, backed up, and leaned against Sinclair’s desk. “Right,” he sighed. “I should have explained this to you in training. But I figured everyone knew. Guess you skipped that history lesson.”

  “I am up-to-date with most Lower City officials, though her face is unfamiliar to me.”

  “She ain’t a Lower City official, Allen. She’s head of the FBI, and the second most powerful person in this city after Mayor Bowsher. She’s been heading the departments since ’25 and was one of the first people to put her feet on the metal of the Plate when it was opened for business. Our motto here is ‘the less Greaves knows, the better,’ and for good reason.”

  “Greaves?”

  “Eva Greaves, if you need an actual name to search. Hard to miss her, what with her being the first female director — and the most ruthless — in the history of the organization.”

  “I suspect Greaves is her maiden name, before and after she was married?”

  Everyone’s eyebrows popped up at that comment, and Robins stumbled for words. “Do you ever think about what you’re about to say, or even hear yourself? You can’t say shit like that!”

  “I was simply noting the faded, pale spot on the fourth finger of her left hand, indicating the presence of an object that prevented melanin from being produced in that area. This would have been caused by an object obscuring the sun’s rays for a significant length of time — most likely a wedding ring. The current absence of the object would suggest that she is divorced. I cannot safely assume who her spouse was …” Allen looked around at us, coming to realize what it might be implying. “But I believe it is best that I do not know as of this moment.”

  “Great. Fantastic. Just get out there and do something, anything. I need a drink.”

  Robins lumbered into his office, leaving us three to our own devices. Sinclair was still too shocked to even speak, and waved goodbye to us as he drew a bottle out from the recesses of his desk.

  Going for a drive seemed like the best thing to do after that little stunt, and Allen was only too happy to slide into the passenger seat beside me. Despite those unblinking blue lights not giving anything away, I figured I knew what it was thinking.

  “You knew exactly what was up, and you caught yourself for the first time, didn’t you?”

  “Correct, Detective. It seems you are more observant than I initially thought.”

  I decide to let that insult slide.

  “To answer your question, yes, she was married to Robins. It’s not the best thing to parse through, though. Lord knows he’d have an aneurysm if people found out about their past. And, before you ask: no, they don’t hate each other. It’s just that … well, Robins takes his job very seriously, more seriously than he took her. But I’m glad you were able to keep it to yourself for once. Just don’t mention it again. Ever.”

  “I understand, Detective Roche. And I believe that getting far away from the station for the time being would be an intelligent move on both our parts.”

  I had to laugh at that. It was learning very fast.

  “Exactly, Allen. But before we go, I have to thank you.” It turned to me with a look of what appeared to be surprise. “I know it’s a sensitive subject to bring up, but it’s been a few weeks, and I feel like this would be a safe time to mention it again. You saved both Paddy and me back at the warehouse. I’m not good with being open to anyone, really — especially not metal men — but had you not done what you did … I’d be fucking dead. And even before that, if I had never stumbled into the office after seeing Prince and Greene, if you’d never come with us on the raid, and if you’d never talked me down after that chase in Times Square, I probably wouldn’t be here.

  “Even if I had survived the Rotorbird crashing after firing the Suppression Rifle, I would have shot Belik on sight without realizing that he wasn’t the one who shot those cops. Hell, I might have killed Jaeger on sight just for the implication that his Automatic was at the speakeasy during the killing. There were too many factors going on at the time. But it was you — a weird-ass ‘not-robot’ — that kept things from going from bad to totally fucked up. So, thank you, Allen, for being a restless, unrelenting, irritating, and persistent wannabe police officer, and for keeping me from flying too far off the handle. Thank you for doing … what a partner should do.”

  Allen looked at me in stunned silence. It seemed awkward silence would be another hurdle for us to overcome … or perhaps it was another way we could really communicate.

  “You are quite welcome, Detective,” it finally said. “I will do my utmost to become more acclimated to your expectations.”

  “Well, don’t get too hard-nosed on me. I need someone who looks at things in a different way. Without you being yourself, I doubt we would have come into possession of half the evidence we did. So, don’t stray too much from how you are. Just maybe learn that there’s a time and a place for everything, all right?”

  “Of course, Detective.… I did have one last question about that case. When Masters was supposedly broadcasting that signal to control those Automatic shells, how did he specifically target those Automatics and not all others in the vicinity?”

  “No clue, Allen. At this point, the machine is busted, so I can confidently say that it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

  Allen nodded, not completely satisfied with the answer. “What is our plan now?”

  “Head home, wait for a decent Night Call, then do our jobs. And by Night Call, I mean one that isn’t from some dame with a missing puppy. It is pretty late, though. Dinner?”

  “There is a restaurant on the border of SoHo and Manhattan’s Anchor that serves fine Italian dishes, and it is quite good in my opinion.”

  “Then let’s get dinner. I’ll treat. After all, I just got one hell of a paycheck.”

  The Eye was ever so good with timing, and an additional five figures in the bank was the perfect excuse to celebrate.

  “And after we eat, should we get back to work?”

  “Of course, Allen. Back to being the saviours of this city. It never changes, and neither should we.”

  EPILOGUE

  THIS PLACE WAS SYNONYMOUS with death. It oozed death from every recess. It had sat vacant for years, with no one daring to enter. I’d had to come back, though.

  Most of the roof had collapsed, allowing the lights from the top of the Plate to seep in to illuminate the normally pitch-black corners. The corpses had long ago been devoured by rats. Now clothes hung loosely on bone. It didn’t even smell of rot anymore, just the earthiness of dust and ashes.

  In the centre of the room lay the rusted remains of a single Automatic, riddled with enough bullets to cleave it nearly in half across its midsection. His eyes were cracked and broken, with evidence that another clean round had passed through the head. It was here that I decided to sit, dragging over an old rotting barrel for a seat.

  “Hey, James, it’s been a while … too long. I had a feeling you might still be here.”

  I pulled out my pack of darts and offered it to the old corpse. I n
odded after a second and withdrew them. “I’m still trying to quit.… So is Paddy — Patrick, sorry. You don’t like it when I call him Paddy. I only smoke when I’m nervous now … which is more often than you’d think these days.”

  He wasn’t much of a talker anymore. Not a problem. He was a good listener.

  “I got a new partner. Allen, I call him — 41-EN is his serial number. Its. Its serial number, sorry.” I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Had a case where a G-man was pulling the strings on a racketeering group trying to go up against the Iron Hands. He … well, he didn’t make it. This wasn’t just another victim, though. This one got in my head, made me think about what I’ve been doing. He was trying to take them down and crossed paths with me. You think I’ve gone off the deep end? You think Robins is the formality preventing me from going all the way down the rabbit hole?”

  No response.

  I got off the barrel and knelt beside him, putting my hand on his metal back. “I went to the Plate … first time in ages. Saw a diagram made by the guy who’s head of GE. See … the FBI guy was controlling machines using their Cortexes, some little bit of tech near where your shoulder blades would meet. Controls how you move and whatever. Turns out the Neural-Interface doesn’t do much without it.”

  I pulled some of the metal off his carapace, lifted a section of his metal exterior, and searched the circuitry. I found the small device that I thought was the Cortex — octagonal, sleek, and shimmering gold in colour. It was rusted and had pockmarks all over, seeing as it had been sitting here for almost five years. I ripped it from the wires and dropped it on the ground, then ground it down with my heel. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “There … now I know you’re really dead.”

  I dropped my dart and crushed it along with the remains of James’s Cortex, mixing the ashes with the bits of silicon and steel. “I’ll see you later, James. Maybe … I don’t know. Hold down the fort for me, will ya?”

  I walked to the open door of the factory, turned back for one final glimpse of his shell, then pulled the door shut behind me.