February 6, 2054 - 12:03 a.m.

Fell Street, San Francisco, California

45°F, precipitation 18%, humidity 87%, wind 5mph.

Howard's fingers had started to play with the sleeves of his jacket as the car raced down the steep streets of the city. They could only hear the discreet noise of drones carrying small packages that passed over the vehicle before rising to a building. From the corner of his eye, Howard could see Isaac tilting his head toward the window to detail the huge holographic posters projected between two buildings, the advertising slogans floating on the dark sky, the cameras on each corner of every building, and sometimes even attached to passers-by. There was light everywhere, as if the slightest area of shadow represented an unspeakable danger to them: projectors, garlands of light, everything good enough to illuminate the slightest brick, the slightest palm tree, the slightest plastic bag fluttering on the road before a metal clip closed on it.

Isaac straightened his back, looking at the long twisted arm, without any articulation or trace of skin on it, and the translucent glass bulb that was on top of them. Through this rounded head, an orange glow watched the side of the road like a lighthouse, then turned green when his clip hand putted the plastic bag into his chest box stuck between the two long arms descending to his ankles. A young couple passed next to it, and, immersed into their discussion, they threw their soda cans on the robot’s round head. As they kept walking along the road, the robot with long twisted arms stopped and the glow of his projector turned orange again as he slowly picked up the cans, puting them one by one inside his chest.

Isaac rested his back against the comfortable seat of the vehicle, realizing that he had twisted up his neck to watch the scene while the car moved peacefully, stuck between its multicolored sisters. When he finally looked back at Inspector Harrison, Howard seemed a bit tense, frowning as he watched the sidewalks.

"I can’t help it, these things freak me out," he muttered with a shoulder movement.

Isaac slowly tilted his head, but Howard simply pointed out the surroundings of the boulevard when the car rode along the rails of the old San Francisco cablecars. There was only one short line left now, but it had to be believed that this primitive attraction still appealed to tourists. A journey back in time. Following Howard's cold gaze, Isaac turned his head back towards the window, guessing the shape of a good ten machines wandering among humans enjoying urban nightlife. One of them, candy pink, looked like a huge glittery doughnut and was dancing at the entrance of a shop, singing a repetitive song praising the explosion of flavours of their pastries; another, quite different, navy blue and a grey star painted on his chest, stood in front of an ageless man slumped against the gate of a parking lot, his eyes lost in the void and a needle stuck in his arm, before printing a fine and placing it on his belly.

"Those weird robots right there. The others are rather practical, but these ones are..."

Isaac finally laid his eyes on a woman, standing up at the edge of the sidewalk, her arms clenched against her chest and her little gilded handbag stuck between her fingers. She was looking suspiciously at every stranger who walked a little too close as if letting them approach less than six feet away from her would immediately lower the value of her rich clothes. When a taxi, a small yellow car with no driver's seat, stopped in front of her, Isaac heard her sigh of relief before she rushed inside. Behind her, a man... no, not a man - a robot in human form, wearing a red and black uniform decorated with a real estate company logo waited for the taxi to leave before returning to the entrance of a building, protecting access to the offices. The perfect shape of its body couldn’t do anything about it: the transparent bald skull, his ears without lobes, his nose without nostrils, his fingers without nails made it impossible to confuse him with a human being, even if someone deigned to dye the metal alloy that covered his body with a shade closer to the skin. His iris of a bright yellow and without pupils, crossed Isaac's eyes through the tinted window of the car.

"Why the hell are these crazy engineers trying to make them look humans?," sighed Howard as they turned into an adjacent street. "We already have enough to do with living people, no need to add conscious toasters in our lives."

Isaac slowly turned his head around, looking straight ahead and joining his hands between his thighs.

"There is no need to fear them," he said in a neutral tone. "They can't hurt humans."

"That's the kind of crap that people keep telling us all the time, but, hey, you can see how it goes in novels or science fiction movies. It's never a good idea to create something smarter than yourself."

Isaac looked down at his hands when he felt a strange sensation on his skin. He had stuck his nails in his palms with such force that his phalanges had turned white. Frowning, he slowly raised his hands to his eyes, inspecting the small marks he had left on it.

"You must think that the moral lessons of a cop who has just released a suspect in a murder case mustn't be worth much," Howard continued, finally turning around and staring for a few seconds at Isaac's indifferent face before he sighed deeply. "Shit, it would really be easier for both of us if you could just prove that you had nothing to do with it. An alibi, a witness, anything that could h…"

His voice was unable to finish his sentence, interrupted by a loud noise of broken glass; immediatly, Howard and Isaac turned their heads back towards the parking lot bordering the City Hall, just quickly enough to see a cleaning robot, completely identical to the one they had seen a few minutes earlier, collapse on the floor. His round head had burst under impact, scattering glass fragments on the roadway and uncovering the small flashing projector. Some laughs resounded around the body before a visibly drunk man, with a marked face and patched clothes, began to beat the machine under the amused, mocking or contemptuous gaze of passers-by. The man was screaming, but his words were not clear enough for Isaac to grasp the meaning. His victim, inert, had stopped illuminating the pavement with a red glow.

"What a moron," Howard muttered as the car turned around the huge Civic Center building. "I'd fine him for destroying public property, but... he wouldn't be able to pay it anyway."

Howard sighed resignedly while Isaac looked down. That's what these machines were, basically. Public property. Walking trash cans, employees who couldn't be tired or doormen who couldn't do mistakes; tthey were garbage collectors to whom nobody would have to pay a wage, police officers on patrol who, unlike their human counterparts, would never get any kind of feeling when facing poverty. And if one of them were used as a release for an anger that his mere presence seemed to have caused, well, so be it: it was one more piece of steel at the dump, and another one would take its place. A brand new employee that would end up the same way as the previous one. Anyway, it’s not like they could defend themselves.

"I...," he said before a short silence fell on the car, his mouth ajar as if the words refused to leave his throat.

Howard turned his eyes on him. Isaac’s eyelids closed for a moment on his brown irises, and he gently frowned before his voice agreed to form words. The sound of this glass skull exploding on the floor kept repeating itself in his head, as if the echo had got stuck in the hollow of his eardrum. On the other hand, all he had to do was look at Howard’s pinched lips to feel a bit of a strange trust inside himself.

"I think there is a way to prove my innocence in this case, but... I can't decide if it's a good idea to tell you about it."

For a short while, Isaac saw Howard's face distort as if his whole being were suddenly waging an infernal war against all the emotions that had just exploded in his heart to decide which one would take over. The surprise, obviously, was quickly crushed by the anger and he suddenly raised his hands, claws ready to tighten on the boy's throat, but it suffocated under the intense relief and his strong impatience.

"What do you mean?! Of course you should tell me about it! If it can save you from ending up in jail for a crime you didn't commit, you better talk while you still can!"

Isaac stared at him for long seconds, always so quiet, sitted with his back straight and his hands on his lap. And then, as his lips finally opened, he suddenly saw Howard's blue eyes leave his own and slide somewhere behind him, as they passed by the large square surrounded by wide stretches of grass facing the doors of the City Hall.

"Damn it... What a little prick!"

Isaac, a puzzled look on his face, tried to say something before Howard's hand suddenly hitted a button on the car's dashboard; a cuss escaped his lips as the vehicle's steering wheel appeared in front of him and a series of gauges and small screens lit up before his eyes.

"Manual driving mode activated," said a female voice through the speakers. "Please put on your seat belts..."

"No time for this bullshit," Howard said as he turned the wheel.

Isaac felt his shoulder violently bumping into the door when the vehicle turned on itself, causing the tires to squeal on the road. In a perfectly organized ballet, the other cars on the avenue immediately changed their itinerary, forming a large loop around their dissident colleague as its wheels passed over the sidewalk before making a sudden stop. Isaac threw his hands on the dashboard, just in time to avoid crashing his nose on it, but he didn't even have time to say a word before Howard jumped out of the vehicle.

As the young man returned to his original position on his seat, arranging his wrinkled clothes, he leaned forward as slightly as possible, observing the scene through the wide open door next to him. In the middle of the square, kneeling on the ground with their hands behind their backs like prisoners ready to be shot, about fifteen young men and women wore a white top with the same slogan written on it.

"Your progress is our decadence," read Isaac aloud.

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Most passers-by watched them with a dazed look, others pretended not to see anything by looking at their mobile phones, while others stopped to take pictures of them with a contemptuous grin on their lips. All this, however, did not seem to touch them: they all kept their eyes fixed on the City Hall, and they only broke their position when a cry of protest suddenly resounded in their ranks. Howard had quickly walked through the small group and his hand had closed on one of the young boys' arms, dragging him without any softness. While struggling like a trapped animal, the boy yelled at him to let him go, kicking the air and trying to grasp anything around him.

"Let him go!"

"This is censorship!"

Isaac straightened his head as he heard the students rushing after Howard and the boy, chasing them until they reached the car, shouting, covering each other's voices. Howard stopped for a moment as the rear door opened, holding the young man's forearms firmly against him. Another boy had advanced, detaching himself from the group, his blond hair shaved on one side of his head and a colored wick of electric blue falling to his left temple. Judging by the force with which Howard had tightened his grip on his prisoner's arms, this was not the first time they saw each-other, maybe not even the first time they found themselves in this situation.

"If Sean wants to participate in this peaceable demonstration, you have no right to stop him, Mr. Harrison. Even if it pisses off the cops that a few people still dare to denounce the power you helped to put in place, this is our freedom of expression!"

"I don't give a shit about your damn claims," Howard said. "You’ve got your freedom of expression, and I’ve got my freedom to kick my son's ass if I want to."

He threw the boy into the back seat and, as he quickly walked around the vehicle under the angry shouts and insults of the revolted little group, Isaac wisely looked away, his lips pinched. With Howard's hands on the wheel, the car furiously overtook her sisters, forcing them to step aside. At that moment, Isaac finally took the risk of looking up at the rearview mirror.

Of course, he was able to hear the boy's rushed breathing, and even his heartbeat still slightly faster than normal, but to see his chest rising under his white top and his jaw bones appearing through his pale skin made the boiling anger he was feeling even more clear. The beginning of a beard surrounded his lips and covered his chin, while his thick, almost black hair - a color, Isaac thought - too tangled to curl like his father's, fell back on his forehead, mingled with a good layer of dust. But before he had time to look at him in more detail, his light blue eyes, in every way similar to Howard's, suddenly rose to the rearview mirror, looking straight into his own.

Isaac knew full well that the boy - Sean, from what he had heard from his father's conversation - expected him to look away, that he probably expected him to be intimidated by the icy and almost threatening look he gave him, but he did nothing about it. In fact, now that Sean had decided to lift his slightly pointed nose towards him, he had much less trouble to recognize, still timidly present on his young adult features, the little blond boy he had seen on Howard's cell phone screen. Sean Harrison. Isaac let his pupils run through his face before he looked at his clear eyes again. He could try to look as threatening as he wanted, it was nothing compared to the the Chief Johnson’s snake eyes when he was watching him through the window of his cell.

But, suddenly breaking his cold mask, the corner of his lip suddenly curved, digging his cheek in a half smile, as if he hadn't managed to repress it entirely. A smile. Isaac felt his mouth open. He had expected annoyance, anger, perhaps exasperation, but certainly not a smile.

"Who's that, your new doggie?"

Howard, focused on the road, was brutally pulled out of his thoughts by his son's voice and, when he looked at Isaac, seated beside him, he seemed to take a few seconds to remember the events of the past few hours.

"It's more complicated than that," he sighed.

Sean, in the back, had an exaggerated head movement, distorting the features of his face as if his father's words alone had answered all the questions he could have asked. More complicated than that... Yes, it certainly was. Isaac took his eyes off the rearview mirror and looked at Howard. Without a word, the inspector winked at him, as if to seal the secret of the whole story that united them. Then, taking advantage of Sean's silence, he turned back to the road, while Isaac, beside him, tried as best as he could to copy this strange gesture he had just made. Blinking with only one eye. He didn't quite understand the meaning of this curious thing, but if Howard did, then it was probably wise for him to learn it.

***

The door opened up, hitting the corridor wall, shaking the frames attached to it. Isaac took a few steps forward, listening to his weight making the floor slats squeak while his eyes detailed the photographs one by one. This little blond boy appeared to him again, first as a chubby baby, then as a happy child, sitting in the middle of the frame, his father leaning over his right shoulder. The entire left side of the photograph, on the other hand, had been torn without any care. Isaac slowly turned his head back towards Howard, who was negligently throwing his jacket on the back of a kitchen chair, but before he had time to say a word, a violent shock hit his shoulder, throwing him against the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sean's indifferent look as he rushed towards the narrow stairs leading to the first floor. He probably pushed him voluntarily, but Isaac did not give him the pleasure of making the slightest sound of pain or protest. Never mind.

As he climbed up the first steps, a whistle left Howard's lips while he sat at the kitchen table. Sean, immobilized on the fourth step of the stairs, turned around and rolled his eyes with a deep sigh. He descended and dragged himself with an excessively weary pace to his father, who simply pointed to the chair facing him before patiently joining his hands on the table. Isaac frowned slightly, feeling a hint of misunderstanding sprouting in his mind.

An interrogation? In any case, this scene was strangely similar to the one that took place at the police station, when Isaac himself was sitting in front of Inspector Harrison, separated by a simple table. Until now, he had not known that humans were doing the same exercise with their own offspring.

Seeing Howard's blue eyes watching him, he took a few steps on the kitchen tiles, stopping beside the table so that he could stand exactly between the two men, his hands behind his back. All right: if the inspector wanted him to be present during the interrogation, he should be an observer. He wasn't camouflaged by a one-way glass, but the angry look Sean gave him was not very threatening to him anyway.

"Alright...," Howard breathed, resting his back against his chair, his eyes on his fingers while he thought about his own words. "Look, Seanie, I know I've already asked you for a lot these past few years, but...."

Isaac saw Sean roll his eyes again, and the boy slowly began to shake his head. To be honest, he could not really understand whether it was his father's words that exasperated him so much, or the simple use of the nickname ‘Seanie’.

"... but Isaac has, shall we say, some problems," Howard continued with a brief movement in his direction, "and I decided that it would be wiser for him to spend the night here before finding him another shelter tomorrow."

Isaac took his eyes off Sean and, without moving his head, stared at Harrison as he heard him block his breath. His body temperature had risen when he uttered these words at full speed, as if he had rushed to tear off a bandage to get the pain through faster. But a little sneer, so slight that he doubted for a moment that he had really perceived it, pushed him to turn away from Howard again.

Sean had a little smile on the corner of his lips. A smile without joy, however. Just a forced contraction of the muscles of his jaw. His clear eyes, on the other hand, were not even trying to smother the icy rage that already seemed to be exploding deep within his insides.

"What's his problem, the stick up his ass?"

Isaac tilted his head at these words. What stick? Before he formulated his question, he saw the inspector waving his hand to tell him to ignore this provocation, but Sean simply straight up on his seat, leaning against the edge of the table.

Sharp as two blades, his eyes passed from Howard to Isaac's impermeable face, who watched him without even letting the slightest blink move his eyelids. Faced with this reaction - or this lack of reaction, the grin that stretched his lips only spread further.

"Come on, tell me, what's your problem? Huh?"

Isaac felt Howard tensing up, but he refused to leave Sean's pupils. His voice had become sweet, almost honeyed.

"Are you a maniac? A psychopath?"

There was a hint of amusement in his words, and Isaac was firmly convinced that, this time, even the inspector had been able to perceive it. With a detached gesture, his finger had slipped between his lips, and his teeth had begun to bit the tip of his nail.

"Or are you just one of those losers my father thinks he can save?"

"Sean!"

His eyes briefly detached from Isaac's when his father stood up so suddenly that his chair fell over on the floor. Sean slowly got up too, but instead of rushing to his room, he stopped by Isaac's side, his eyes looking straight into his own.

They were no longer threatening now, nor even charged with the electricity born of his insolence and the pleasure he seemed to feel from seeing his father losing his temper. He no longer had that frosty grin on his lips, only a light, almost imperceptible smile. Perhaps if he didn't stand so close to him that he could feel his warm breath against his skin, Isaac himself might have failed to discern it.

Sean passed the tip of his tongue between his dry lips, just enough to moisten them. No matter what he said, what he did, or even how he looked at him, Isaac's face was never answering him at all, as if it was perfectly impermeable to any kind of emotions. Of course, he had felt his heavy observation throughout their little car trip, he had seen the way he had been staring at him until he pushed him against the corridor wall, but he couldn't grasp any of his thoughts. Nothing was visible on his brown eyes. All he had was this strange habit of slightly squinting his eyelids and frowning. And that was it.

"You're right, Dad."

Isaac felt his breath against his lips before he walked by him, bumping into his shoulder.

"You've already asked me too much," he concluded as he left the room, leaving only the sound of his soles in the staircase to break the silence that fell on the kitchen.