Galatea: a Robot Murder Mystery - Ch. 1

This is Galatea. It's my home. A city where a majority of its citizens are robots. Yup. A while back, before the city was founded, some crazy scientist couldn't get a human girlfriend, so he built a robot one. In reference to that Greek myth, that's what he called her... With all the funds he got from his other works, he started a town in her honor. Hell of an origin story, right?

Fast forward about fifty years later, that little town's become a full-blown metropolis. A miracle how quickly technology can evolve, eh? We've become a full-blown society just like the humans have. Workers' unions, bureaucracy....we've even got our own justice system. There's not much crime going on between robots. Not that I'm complaining. Makes my job easier.

The name's Edd-E. I'm a detective for hire. A robot Private Eye, if you will. I used to be a member of the robot police force here, until I got decommissioned to make way for the newer models. Not that I mind that much. I admit, I'm an old piece of junk... at least, from a robot's perspective. You know how dog years work? Seven to every human year? Well, robots age seven years for every dog year, just about. So that means we age nearly fifty times faster than a human. That's the price of evolution, I guess.

My office is kind of small, and old-fashioned. Working hand-in-hand with the police has its benefits. They help me gather data for the case, it gives me an easier time to track down the perp. Business has been slow lately, though... Guess the goons realized they've got a VALIANT unit on their asses.

Heh... A VALIANT unit... Sounds funny, but a lot of my assembly line takes pride in that title... A "Vanguard Android Legally Inclined to Apprehend Notorious Troublemakers"... Sounds better in its abbreviated form.

"Hey, Ed. You busy?"

I look up from my desk to see some kid peeking through the door. That's my partner, Kenny. You could say he's the middleman between me and the police chief. Kenny helps our cases by relaying info between the two of us. He's still wet behind the ears, but it's obvious he has a talent for the work.

"Nah, not at the moment. Why, you got something for me?"

Kenny held up a manila folder. "Yeah. Some poor robot girl got trashed before dawn this morning. Forensics are there already, but the Chief wants you down at the scene to investigate. 5th and Asimov."

I snort to myself. Or, whatever a robot does that could pass for snorting, anyway. "5th and Asimov? That's convenient. Not too far from here. Let's go."

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We arrived at the scene, where Forensics were investigating the body. After I crossed the yellow tape, I heard a gruff, yet familiar voice.

"Glad to see you made it, Detective."

I look over to my right to see the Chief himself. And old friend of mine, in both senses of the word. We've known each other for a couple of years, so we're pretty buddy-buddy.

I nod in his direction. That's my way of saying hello. "Sorry, would've been here sooner, but didn't think it was far enough away to be worth the car trip. Gotta save fuel, y'know?"

A smile curls under the old man's bushy white mustache. "Fair enough."

"So, what've we got, Dick?"

The Chief pointed to the body. "From what the lab boys could tell so far, single slash wound from the torso, all the way up to the shoulder. Any longer than that, she would've literally been cut in half. On top of that, the left side of the head's been blown out. Looks like somebody had it out for her."

"Hard Drive still intact?"

The Chief shook his head. "That got slashed to bits too. Whoever did this, knew what the hell he was doing. The boys are looking through her remaining microchips to ID her."

"Lemme take a look." I step closer to the body to get a good look at her. The expression on her face... or rather, what's left of it... completely blank. Only one icy blue eye, and it stared out lifelessly into space. The other half of the face was completely trashed, like somebody blasted it with a shotgun or something.

Then I looked to the other killing wound.... Sure enough, as the chief said, she was just short of being chopped clean in half. Just looking at it, I can only imagine how a human would feel about his own kind murdered in this manner. Just looking at it fills me with rage. Like looking at a little girl's porcelain doll after her dipshit older brother's smashed it.

One of the forensics boys snapped pictures of the body. He was your typical nerdy image: big glasses, big ears, slight overbite. Kind of to be expected. Carl was his name.

I crouched down beside him as he takes another picture. "...so, what do we got?"

His voice was somewhat nasal as he responded. "Well, as the Chief probably told you, the killer went for a single slash along the torso and chest. Very clean cut, very precise, almost no deviances... This was the work of a pro."

"And the face?"

"From what I can tell, killing blow. Most new-model androids like this one have a spare hard drive, kind of like the Black Box on an airplane. The killer obviously went for trashing both hard drives so that, even if we did find the body, we wouldn't get any leads on 'em."

"So, what, we're dealing with an assassin?"

"Unlikely, but possible. What's really bothering me is the exact nature of the slash wound."

I turned to him, somewhat confused. "Whaddya mean?"

He points to the wound. "Take another look at how clean this cut is. Granted, you need some serious strength to tear through that much of a robot, but even then, There's no way you can cut that clean."

"...Which means, either we're dealing with Superman, or they used something to the effect of a plasma cutter."

"The latter seems to be the most logical conclusion... but even then.... how could they get such a clean cut through this? I would assume this took a split second to execute, but look at the exposed endoskeleton. Unless I'm mistaken, that's local top-grade titanium. Not even thermite can burn through that..."

I put a hand on his shoulder. "One step at a time, Carl. You're starting to panic."

Carl takes a deep breath. "R-right... sorry... It's just that I'm not getting that much to work with this time around."

"It happens. Thing about this job is you gotta keep a cool head at all times, okay?"
He takes another deep breath. I honestly never was the best at calming people down, but he seemed to be put at ease by my words.

I turn to Kenny. "You should talk to Athena, see if we can get a database on all the local plasma-based tools, give the Forensics boys something to narrow down."

The kid nods confidently, "Right on it." With that, he turned to head back to the office.

The Chief walked up to me, looking at the body. "Shame, really. From what I could tell, she was quite a lovely girl."

I sighed sadly. "Yeah... Always a shame when a new model gets trashed like that."

"Wanna talk more over some java? It'll probably be a while before the boys come up with anything."

"Sure, why not."