Chapter 357

Driving that shitty old pick up truck home, I did not feel good about myself. I knew that I had stepped over a line inside that bar. I didn't do it for a purpose. I wasn't trying to find out who sold shit out of the back door. I wasn't trying to gain acceptance into that group. No, I did it just to see how it felt to do it. That was totally an act of immorality, for the sake being immoral. Maybe they were right at the farm. Maybe I had no human emotions or judgment left. Maybe I had become just a fucking machine.

I would have to come to some kind of understanding of my new self, or I was likely to have a robo breakdown. What the hell that would be like, I had no idea. Probably no one else did either. At that moment I would bet the farm wished they had stopped at the Eve version.

I reminded myself that I had a job to do, so I put all those feelings in the 'deal with it later' box and buried it in the back of my circuits or where ever it was stored. I maneuvered the truck down the highway, then into the alley behind my townhouse.

I was disgusted with myself, but that couldn't have any effect on my thinking or actions. In other human terms, I had to forgive myself now, and try to resolve it later. I did just that. Sitting at the foot of my bed and looking out over the street. I just said to myself, "You have done worse girl. Maybe this is the worst thing you have done to yourself, but by far it isn't the worst thing you have done overall. You will get past the self loathing, you always have. Put it behind you and get your eye back on the job at hand." And I did just that.

I sat there looking at the occasional cop car, or work truck roll past my window and I charged my power pack. After I got to the full stage, I switched to the MP3 player and listened to classical music till dawn. I had no idea to who or what I was listening, but it was nice music. I had downloaded something called 'Classical Music 4 Five AM." That title would never do for an album cover, but it was a nice sound at 5AM.

At 8AM on a dreary Saturday morning with a light mist, I took the bike to breakfast. I wore my special rain suit, and I was grateful that I didn't have a fancy hairdo to worry about. That rain didn't do the Gunny's bike any good, but I really wanted to get out and try to wash the stink of the night before off my soul. If a roboslut had a soul, that is. Okay I at least had the old Maxine's bag of guilt.

I walked into Helen's and there sat Carrie Thompson. Shit, I thought, that is all I need. Now and then a black patrol officer or a paramedic would come in with his white partner, but black cops or medics sitting alone were few and far between.

I had no idea why, because if anyone of any race or gender got treated badly there would be hell to pay. If the other patrons didn't stop it, Helen would have everyone's ass. It was pretty clear to everyone that the Sit Down was open just for the cops, firemen, and medical people of the town. If they fucked it up, Helen would close it.

She could make just as much money with a truck parked outside city hall or outside the hospital and everyone knew it. The sit down had been my idea, so I also had an interest in it staying open.

"So good morning Detective Thompson," I said sitting down. I was pretty damn sure she was waiting for me.

"So Ms. Stone, I see you rode that bicycle in the fucking rain. Are you crazy or just a Masochist?" she asked.

"There are people who come don't on either side of that question. It just depends on who you ask." I said.

"I asked you," she replied in true cop fashion.

"I'm trying to do my penitence," I suggested.

"Oh and what have you done that you need to repent?" she asked.

"Fucked half the guys in a biker bar last night," I said.

"Okay, don't tell me. What I really came to ask is what you have in mind for my Uncle Jerome?" Thompson did not look pleasant at all.

"I don't plan to kill him and I don't plan to frame him for anything, other than that I really can't say. Now you tell me, do you plan to warn him?" I asked while looking her dead in the eye. "Because if you do, you could get one of my people hurt and I would take that very personally."

"Did you just threaten a police officer?" she asked.

"Did that sound like a threat. I thought it was a warning. You do know that I tape record everything anyone says to me. If anything happens to my operative, who will be operating under my PI license, I will play this conversation for the chief of police. Now that was a threat." I said.

"You really are a bitch," she said.

"If being a bitch was a crime, you and I could share a cell." I said it while I smiled at her. It did not appear that I would be enjoying the same relationship with the Aster PD as I had before Blevins retired. Oh well, you play the hand life deals you, I thought.

My rain suit wasn't plastic it was a lightweight but fleece lined nylon type product. It also had a thin coat of a rubber like material applied to the outside of it. It was in other words expensive as hell, but it would seem warm to the average person. The pant legs were tight enough, so that I had to zip and unzip them to get in and out of it.

I mention that because when I got to the mall, I took the five minutes required to remove the pants and pull over top. The pull over was large enough so that it just slipped off.

Since I had spent time in the Sit Down talking to Carrie Thompson, I was way warm. The creator in all his wisdom had arranged it so that some of the water in the disposal reservoir excreted through my skin. In other words I did what every woman hates to do. I would sweat like a real person. Not one of his better ideas, as far as I was concerned. I removed the top when I got to the mall to discover that I was damp inside my tee. Fortunately my chemise soaked up enough so that there were just a few stains, and they weren't anywhere embarrassing.