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Alex walks through the streets of Vitraan. She knows she’s supposed to be lying low. It’s still far too soon after the last attack by the FBI, but this was where she lived. She couldn’t be content to just sit low when people were hurting. Despite Michael’s assurances that it was supposed to just be an isolated incident, it had extended quite a bit more than that. Lives were lost and not just in Vitraan. Unrest was starting to form around the entire country in response to what all is going on. And though she knows that real change can only happen when there is a public outcry, she doesn’t approve of what’s been going on. She wants that the violence from the humans to stop. Not what’s going on. She can feel this country becoming more and more of a powder keg. Riots have broken out after the event in three other cities, all initiated by Morphs. Ben had to explain some of it to her as all she can do is read the headlines of the news on the televisions. They refuse to let her touch a computer to check the news out herself.

But to her, it’s more important than ever before to be out and doing her duties. To be a physical presence to the people in the town. Thankfully, so soon after the riots there are far fewer humans around. Which will be somewhat problematic for the venders who rely on the traffic to make their living and to that they have her sympathy. But that really isn’t her concern. Whether they succeed or fail is not why she walks the streets. What she’s being paid to do by the Underground and the people of the city is to try and stop violence. And though there is still some violence between morphs as they are people just like everyone else, these are usually the result of a fight between two over some issue or another and only over that issue. Break them up and then usually that’s the end of it. But Morphs usually don’t walk the streets looking for a fight and the police are usually okay enough with taking care of Morph on Morph crime. Sometimes for these incidences all they’d do is call the cops. But humans are the threat because the cops won’t charge a human attacking a Morph. So even if it means less money for the vendors, fewer humans walking the streets means fewer humans to have to watch to see if they are making the wrong step.

According to Ben, to appease the mobs the government had made an announcement to basically give all the Morphs an exemption. That the government would not press any charges against anyone so long as the violence stopped. And they even singled out her group in that as well. And since then Angela and Dylan have been going about non-stop advocating that for the time being it is best to honor the show of good faith by not becoming the animals they claim them all to be. And the violence has stopped. But the fact remains, the act was committed. The FBI came and killed some very good people all in the sole interest of taking out their group. And it shows just how little the government thinks of them and just how far Black is willing to go. Alex sighs and continues walking through the streets. Even the children are behaving more than usual. She misses the days before the world became crazy, before she had gotten converted and was just a dumb kid who liked playing around with computers a bit too much. The fox walks and absent-mindedly rubs her thumb over the little bit of technology on her fingers. Michael and his group are so adamant about her not touching computers she has to wonder how rusty she must have gotten over all this time. She’ll have to ask Michael permission to have access to a system off the network to practice on, keep her skills sharp, assuming he’ll ever let her. But with their upcoming mission he might be persuaded.

But then again, odds are he’ll probably beat her for it or have Richard watch over her, neither of which are all that preferable. She might just have to wait until later and ask Dylan about it. She can pick up a drum beat going through some of the stalls and her ears twitch, paying attention to the rhythm. It’s a sound of concern and alarm but not violence. Someone’s in trouble, but not under attack. Alex picks up the pace and begins jogging, following the sound of the beats and her ears constantly moving and trying to pinpoint the sound of something different. Eventually, she’s given help by someone pointing up ahead and then she sees what the problem is. There’s a woman, a corgi morph crying out in pain, clutching at her stomach as blood pools around her feet. Alex looks around, trying to find the situation and moves in closer, a lot of the people recognizing her and giving some room.

As she gets closer she can see the woman start to go through something that looks similar to a seizure for a few seconds. She steps in closer, more cautiously than before as a result and when she gets close enough she looks down at the blood and sees that there are specks of a black fluid in the blood. Her eyes dart around quickly in fear before the crying out draws her in again. She snaps out a quick warning to others, picking a particular part of the song called the ‘Dinner bell madness,’ of a poisoned meat spreading around to others. She moves in close and the first thing she does is not to help the woman, there’s no real help for that at this point, but instead she quickly pats down the woman, looking for any sort of needle, syringe or other weapon that could do her harm.

Once she’s certain that there is no threat to come from this woman she sits down and holds the woman’s head as she tries to give them some comfort. There really isn’t anything she can do to stop the situation. It’s something that happens sometimes. She’s going to bleed out and die and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Not even if she was in a hospital would it be fixed. It’s very rare and most of the time people tend to make sure to test for it beforehand. But it’s a problem of someone undergoing a conversion while pregnant. The serum binds to the specific DNA of the person. And an embryo does not match, so when it starts trying to convert the uterus the body goes into rejection mode. The umbilical breaches but won’t close up and eventually they just bleed out from that. At this point, not even a hospital could stop the bleeding in time. Not that they could do anything with her going Black. All Alex can do is just try to keep her calm and quiet and be with her until the end. Though not wanting to ruin her outfit too much she does her best to position herself in such a way to avoid the still growing puddle of speckled blood.

The woman is muttering something really quickly, trying to say something, though what Alex wouldn’t be able to tell. So Alex just keeps trying to calm the woman and goes about singing a quiet little lullaby for her. Eventually, the woman’s mutterings and pleadings start dying away until she seems to grow tired and falls asleep. Alex stays with her another moment before extracting herself from the corgi and signs to some of the people to go ahead and call an ambulance. Even the dead still deserve some respect. But with cops theoretically coming to this location, even with the pass, she knows better than to stick around and heads back further into the city. As she does she looks down to see how much damage has been done to her clothes. It got into a bit of the bottom of her shirt, but thankfully not her pants. Her feet also got a bit of it so she’ll have to go find a good location to wipe that all off.

Alex moves off and climbs up to one of the higher roads and then turns around and crouches down slightly, practically sitting down on her heels and just watches the city around her for a moment or two. She’s still aware enough of her surroundings. Unfortunately, even if those cops that had grabbed her were cleared and the Underground given a measure of a pass for the time being, it didn’t change the fact that people were being caught and then given the Black. She wasn’t going to let that happen. And if her group were to succeed in their task then no one will ever have to deal with that problem ever again. Eventually she goes ahead and just hugs the bars overlooking the road lets her ears do all the thinking for her. There are no other calls of importance that she can hear. No reason to make an effort to go and get herself into trouble or hurt again. That’s becoming even more important in the immediate future. Not only does she have to be sure to be healthy to do the mission when it comes up if she wants to have any chance of success but she’s also fully aware of the signals her body is telling her, of how vulnerable a state it’s in. She sighs and stares up for a moment, missing the days when she was human and didn’t have to deal with all of this.

The two detectives move to get some dinner at a café in the city. It’s far away from where they normally go, which immediately tells Detective Matthews that his partner had discovered something very dangerous and wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no chance that anyone would be able to see them from the precinct. He’s also extremely the entire quiet the entire drive over. Eventually they reach the café and take a seat in the back corner and place their orders. It’s only after the waiter is gone and they’re left to their own devices while they wait for their food that Detective Ryan speaks up.

“So everything that the Underground is afraid of happening is completely true. There really is a group abducting people and injecting them with something that will turn them into a synthetic version of themselves.”

“Is that so? Is there anything we can report on it? Is this something we can bring up to the Captain?”

“No, unfortunately. The thing is, the CEO of Black Industries had absolutely no problem just telling me flat out that her company was doing this. That they do go around abducting people who they feel are the type that society tends to forget and then inject them without consent. And she didn’t even show any sort of reservation about the act. In her mind she was doing what she thought was right. And being so open about it to an officer of the law means that the Captain probably already knows about it as well. Let alone the fact that it isn’t something that is at all illegal. She spelled it all out for me during the interview. Didn’t even try and spin it. Just said she’s doing this because she thinks life for a Morph where they can’t tell that they are being attacked is preferable to a life of suffering. She genuinely thinks that it’s in their best interest to be made into a machine with no real will rather than deal with the hardships of their life. And considering the risk involved, it kind of makes sense why that fox girl did what she did. If the precinct is complicit and people are getting injected, she might have thought that injection was the conversion serum, and a broken leg is probably far more preferable than what that is about.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. I’d hate to think what that must be like, to have effectively no soul anymore. Just cogs and oil and a computer running programs in an attempt to appear to be intelligent.”

“The Synthetics aren’t that bad.”

“Perhaps, but it doesn’t change the fact that there is a reason why Synthetics aren’t classified as people. Their minds are just code. It’s something that can be simply replicated en masse. And can you imagine how dangerous it’d be if someone like that could vote? A machine voting for whichever party the programmer wants. And they just manufacture enough to make sure that any vote goes their way. Elections would become meaningless at that point.”

“Well, I’m sure if someone tried that there’d be at least some safeguards to prevent that exact issue. But I suppose that does leave the question of how much individuality these converted Synthetics actually have? Are they operating under the same software as before? Do the people who have that done to them still maintain the same personality, the same core of who they are or do they just become imitations of who they once were? A shell of their former selves pretending to be real when they can never be anymore. That is certainly a disturbing thing to think about.”

“Yeah, sounds like something out of a bad horror show. Especially when you consider that Conversions don’t generally happen instantaneously. They take time and that means that the person would slowly become less and less a mind with free will and more and more a machine run by the algorithms of a program. I have to wonder if the original person would even still be in there once everything is said and done.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Detective Ryan says as they wait for their food to arrive. The two detectives are allowed to let their thoughts wander in silence. Detective Matthews looks down at his phone for a bit to see what the latest news is going on.

The FBI will likely do another raid eventually, but the person in charge of the first two is currently being used as a scapegoat. They’re pinning everything that happened on an overzealous agent that took things much further than they really should have and far exceeded their jurisdiction. It’s a measure both detectives know is a lie, as does most of the people paying attention. It’s just a tactic to try and not have to deal with the underlying issue from the outrage of the average person. Far better to make them think it’s one rogue agent with a vendetta against Morphs taking it out on the vigilante group than what the Underground is saying what is happening. He has noticed that any mention of their claim is suppressed. Not only from being unable to search their videos of them making the claim, but also most sites have put in their search algorithms a black spot regarding anything to do with the Underground. As far as the entire world is able to actually look up, that group and everything they have claimed doesn’t exist. Of course, the other side of that is that you cannot hold a group that doesn’t exist as a terrorist organization. It’s far too politically sensitive to talk about their group without having to also then address everything they were claiming. But it’s only a matter of time before the public’s attention has forgotten the riots and things will return to normal.

“If they’re right, and Black is in on all of this and is trying to stop the Underground from converting people, there’s no way that they’ll just let things stand. Eventually they will put pressures to take them out again, but this time with a quieter hand.”

“You know, with all of this I don’t really know which group I should really be in favor of in this. I mean, if Black admitted to doing the exact thing the Underground has committed themselves to stopping, then at least in some regards what they’re doing is a little bit the morally correct choice. And yet, if what Black is doing is technically legal, then by all rights, however immoral Black Industries is behaving, it is our duty to uphold the law to be in support of stopping the Underground from morally, but illegally trying to disrupt the immoral but legal actions of Black Industries.”

“Yeah, I actually went through a good portion of the Morph laws that are on the book after the interview and unfortunately I think they may have the legal standing at the moment. Laws regarding the Morphs are very bare bones. Mostly tacked on in an as-needed basis, and then only when there is enough of a public outcry to cause the change. The No Blood defense came from a law originally put into place to actually help the Morphs. That there were many people assaulting them all and getting let go by way of the issue of not being charged the right thing. Charge them with assault they claim they thought they were attacking a synthetic. Charge them with destruction of property and they claim they were attacking a Morph. Can’t charge them with both. So laws were put into place so that if one saw blood, there can be no question of what they were attacking so that argument is rendered invalid. What she said is true. There really are no real protections regarding Morphs. They are not classified as humans technically. There are many laws that still carry over. But injections to convert are legal and irreversible. To protect corporations from dealing with lawsuits from people who change their mind after the process has begun all that is needed is the presumption of consent at the time of the injection. So if this conversion were to become public, all Black Industries would need to do to cover their asses is simply say the people agreed to it at the time. There are currently no laws regarding converting to a synthetic since it was presumed impossible. So truth be told, unless congress goes about passing laws specifically to ban this kind of action, there will be no legal recourse for what Black is doing,” he sighs after saying all this.

“So where do we go from here?”

“Well for you, nothing. I’m not going to involve you into a goose chase that may do nothing but get us into trouble. Me, I’m going to just ignore this issue for now and keep looking into the murders, regardless of what the FBI wants. There is definitely something going on and it just sickens me to think of what all might be pulled over our eyes. But I’ll do it on my own time. For now, we just do what they want us to do. Do our jobs on the cases they actually give us and play the good little officers.”

“I suppose so,” Detective Matthews shrugs. “I guess at this point there really isn’t much we can do about the whole Black thing. It isn’t something that is affecting us and with the Underground so vocal in their opposition to Black Industries, even if we did try and come out against it publicly, we’d just be lumped in with them and treated as terrorist sympathizers. Though that doesn’t mean I can’t simply give passive support to their group. You do what you feel you must and I will not tell a single soul about it. And if I see a Morph being abducted I will do my duty as an officer of the law to defend them and intervene. And I will choose to turn a blind eye on what the Underground is doing to Black.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t be involved too much in Vitraan anyway, and it’s not like I’d be actively interfering with any investigations and there’s no way they’ll ever have us investigate them. So I couldn’t be said to be obstructing justice, I’m just not going to be helping in the investigations. That said, I also have to wonder how well Jack will be faring in the future. With the FBI and Black, I would imagine that they would have a problem with him being so familiar with the Underground.”

“Yeah, but he had already said they know he associates with them. He’s kind of a separate entity from what they’re doing. He doesn’t give them any information about what’s going on from our end. He’s just standing around doing his job as an undercover and they give him information to help stop crimes. I think in his regard so long as he still proves to be useful they’ll just keep him around. There is enough plausible deniability that no one can come out and just say that the Underground is helping the police’s crime unit. I’m sure not even they would do it. It would conflict with their interests. They are clearly smart enough to know what they’re doing. However many points they may earn short term by pointing out the hypocrisy of condemning them and then still using their information when it suits them it remains that so long as they stay quiet about the arrangement they can keep using Jack to take care of any drug problems they run across. And as long as the city keeps quiet about the arrangement they can claim all the credit for keeping the streets drug-free. It’s a very fragile balance, I know, but it is one that suits both sides to just ignore him.”

Their meals finally arrive and the conversation stops while they focus more on the food than what is going on. And eventually when they do start talking again they spend more time talking about their current cases rather than dealing with the Underground and Vitraan. And it is a somewhat welcome change to the previous topic of conversation. Here they can discuss leads and where they think they should go next with their investigation without having to worry about anyone eavesdropping and also provides a sense of normalcy to their activities. Going over the details of an armed robbery or an assault is far simpler and far better at trying to find what is the right action than the complicated thing of the Underground. There is no question that an armed robber or a rapist is the bad guy. No moral quandaries at all, just follow the evidence and apprehend the person responsible and then let justice do what it is supposed to. It is one advantage of working cases amongst only humans, a lot more legal precedent and clarity.