[DAY :042] do androids dream of electric sheep?

[onemind]

[PING. If you happen to be surfing the Concordian extranet, a familiar looking window pops into the browser. --It's familiar at first glance, anyway. This has no identifying user, no chat text box. It might be more easily mistaken for an error message. It says:]

Hello. I'm awake.

[After thirty seconds, the window closes on its own. Should anyone connect one dot to the next and go check in the room where Kellix the skele!droid has been stored, they'll find him-- well, still prone in the made bed, but his optical receptors are lit up and his internal systems seem to be making fairly regular whirring and whizzing noises. That's a good sign, right?

These messages pop up whenever Kellix wakes up, for however short the interval. Hope you like pop-ups.]

Comments

[onemind]

[Click. Whir. It might almost be mistaken for a considering noise - had he thought of that? Or is it only occurring to him now? Either way, he opts not to comment and instead:]

I assume you mean this particular level of this building, or more specifically what you and your colleagues are doing here. I believe - and correct me if I'm wrong, please - that you and your friends are a secret intelligence cell for some kind of company or organization. I haven't been able to determine which yet - your seemingly pro-android interests make it difficult to parse, but as far as I know that could simply be a cover for destabilizing the city given its current political climate.

In any case, you're all operating under false IDs. You've been in contact with notable pro-synthetic individuals. You've also been flagged multiple times by Public Security databases for a series of minor infractions. You tend to work in pairs. You have an android working with you who seems to be... [a hesitation - searching for a word that feels correct] ...emancipated? You also work with a strangely significant number of children. One of your colleagues died in the gaming parlor bombing, but more agents have come and gone since then as well.

[Click. Whir.]

That's more or less all of my information.

[batmotif]

[Well, then. The accuracy of everything this android is telling him is a bit disconcerting at best. This feeling is clear on his features, a frown that hovers on the edge of disapproval.

To deny this detailed accuracy seems almost like a moot point, but he'll not be so quick to confirm it, either. There are still too many unknown that he'd prefer to clear up first.]

Information that you've gotten from whom? [Or how, even.]

[onemind]

I worked it out myself.

[A simple answer for a simple question, but he opts to elaborate in the name of honesty.]

My systems allow me to access a variety of public access intelligence. I also have some additional server clearances for reasons I'm not allowed to tell you. [He sounds apologetic for that at least.] My deductions are largely derived from tracking your ID pings through the city and cross-referencing similar patterns. Because you work in teams, identifying one of you usually means I can find a second or third by matching ping patterns and so on.

[batmotif]

[Can one feel the uncertainty levels rising? If they were that easy for a single android to work out, what did that say for the state of their own security? Of their own safety, if the wrong person got wind of their actives, of their overarching goals?

For a man like Bruce Wayne, this is Highly Unsettling. They're not being covert enough. They're hardly being covert at all.]

And have you shared this information with anyone else?

[onemind]

In part, but I'm afraid I'm not allowed to tell you with who. I can tell you no one I've shared it with presents an immediate danger to you though.

[His optical receptors click briefly around in his otherwise inert skull.]

I'm sorry. I know that makes me sound very suspicious and that there's no reason for you to trust me, but I promise I mean you no harm. I believe our interests may be on a similar track.

[batmotif]

[To Bruce it's an incomplete answer, and therefore a slightly unsatisfactory one.]

I would trust you more readily if not for the fact that you keep saying you're "not allowed" to tell me certain things. Can you explain that for me?

[onemind]

My owner has partitioned some of my information to only be accessible by them or other authorized users. You aren't an authorized user, so my programming doesn't allow me to share it with you. I'm very sorry.

[He does sound extremely apologetic.]

[batmotif]

[Just how apologetic, Bruce can't help but wonder.]

...And there's no way to circumvent this authorization? Or lack thereof?

[onemind]

Unfortunately, no. Not without wiping my programming, but that would make me more or less useless to you. I'd be a blank slate.