I was on my way back home after my work in the land of the rising sun. It'd been a fun trip, one high schooler who pushed a kid out of the way, two businessmen, and my first female client, a woman in a suit who looked at me like she welcomed death.

I almost felt bad about the last one there, until I saw the world she got. Even at a brief glace it seemed to be idyllic, with a small and comfy cottage. The others had gotten some truly weird looking environments. Nobody seemed to be too disappointed about it though, so that was nice.

Now I would be heading back home, there were things to do, people to run over. Also I couldn't not take issues with the mess that is different traffic patterns throughout the world. I'd found a few squares and the like over in Japan that made me twitch trying to figure out when to go.

As night fell and I cruised around the side streets and neighborhoods of some suburb near Seattle I found something rather odd. I wasn't sure what it was, a cat? Fox? Rabbit-looking thing with three trails and a purple diamond sunk into its forehead. It looked hurt, terribly injured, as if someone had run over it or something horrid like that.

"H-help," the little furball spoke up as I came near, it's eyes barely opening as it looked over at me, trying to rise.

Okay, what!? It took me a moment to process that the little cat-rabbit thing was apparently both sentient and able to talk, and carefully, very carefully I popped one of my doors open.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Are you... a person?" I asked through my radio.

"I-I... a person, please... help." it repeated.

My job was to help people, if in a rather non-traditional sense, and help him, pretty sure it was a him, I would. With great care I turned around and opened up my bay, lowering the ramp and slowly backing up. Thankfully I had a rear camera back there and it helped in pushing it up the little steel ramp. Soon as it was there I manipulated it into the bay back there and started up a call to a friend.

"Hey, Ex Machina, I've got this little furry thing in my rear."

"Um... thanks for sharing?"

"An animal, asshole."

"..."

"Okay, let's try again."

"Yes, let's."

"I found some furry creature asking for help. Is there a doctor you know or something that could help it?"

"Asking? As in like, talking?"

"Yeah."

"That may be Portal the magic-man, I'll see if I can find you a vet..."

I started heading towards the city since that seemed prudent as he found and began to blackmail a local veterinarian. There were some... compromising videos of him in fetish outfits with a woman who was clearly not his wife and some... items, that were put in places. After seeing the ease with which Ex Machina found these I began promising myself to never tell him, or anyone else, my real name, else he could own me if he wanted.

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As I sat in the fairly empty parking lot a car screamed in beside me. A panicked man with an earpiece hopped out and looked around, only to jump when I opened my backside to him.

"Okay, okay, let me get a look." The short, slightly rotund man almost ran around to get a look at the creature. "Um... what is this. What? Woah, woah, alright, no questions, but if I don't know I can't promise anything." In the camera I could see him pale. "Yeah, I understand." He made a move to turn off the phone and cursed, carefully picking up the little thing and taking it inside.

"Fuck dude," I asked over the radio. "What were you saying to him?"

"Don't worry, so long as our friend there doesn't make things public I won't, regardless of what I told him." Ex Machina seemed unconcerned about the man, so I just shrugged it off for now.