Man and Machine (TWS)

>Since nanotech's rare, it makes sense to start investigating the places you know about that are looking into it. Maybe one of the companies has a security leak... or maybe one of the companies would stand to benefit from biotech losing market share

Always one to think ahead, Evan made sure to take a list of all of the companies that are known to experiment with nanotechnology (which is not to say that there aren’t others that keep their testing under wraps). He does note that most of the companies that are experimenting with it also produce biotech of one kind or another, since there’s a lot of crossover with the applications of the two.
Evan says that he’s made some requests upstairs to get the information. You’re almost certainly going to need some official-looking documentation to get any of the bigger companies to divulge anything about their more secretive projects. You were surprised the medical examiner and her team found as much as they did.

Well if we're dealing with crazy tech, look into examining the video records of our mystery suspect for tampering. Maybe nanites messed with the cam records.

Track down Bolton, I guess.

You submit the surveillance footage for further scrutiny, in case it’s been tampered with. Evan expresses doubts, saying that the nanites seemed to be optimized for use in the human body, but agrees that it’s still best to be sure.

Ask about a way to detect active nanites in someone's system, or even remotely. This could be pretty valuable later - if just to protect yourself. Also how specific would the nanites have to be to cause another implant explosion? Do they need to be custom made?

I agree with investigating the guys home first though. But interviewing king is a top priority as well. At least to try and find out why this particular implant doctor was targeted.

“Evan. Do you know if it’s possible to detect the nanites in someone’s body from far away?”

“An interesting thought. It’s possible… the nanites have to communicate with each other in order to work together to achieve their goal… whether we can detect their communications from any useful distance is difficult to say. I’ll ask the lab techs to take a look at some of the nanites from our victim.”

“One more thing. These nanites… do they need to be specifically designed on an implant-by-implant basis?”

“The nanites themselves would not have to be redesigned, but I would theorize that their programming would have to be modified for different implants. The lab techs should hopefully be able to confirm this for me.”

There is other stuff you can do, but I think that the longer you wait before busting Rayt's place the less chance you have of finding anything useful there. I say go there now with all haste -- and bring as much security as you need to potentially take on a man who might be able to make your eyes explode by tapping you on the cheek.

Once you're there you might be able to find people who've seen him or more footage of his comings and goings.

Talking to Bolton is important, but not as important as apprehending Rayt.

---

You take your position to the left of Rayt’s door, feeling tense. Several enforcers are with you, silent and grim, pulse-guns drawn and set to stun. You double check that yours is, too. The advance surveillance team that had staked out the place haven’t seen Rayt enter or leave, so you and the rest of the team are going in. If he’s here, he won’t know what hit him. The surrounding area is under surveillance, so Rayt won’t get away if he is here, or he’ll be spotted well before he arrives if he tries to come back. Everyone has been advised that the subject may be considered extremely dangerous.

You’re currently wearing a light set of armor that will reduce the effect of pulse weapons fire on you. It isn’t complete protection, but it will keep an otherwise lethal shot from killing you, usually. Your pulse-gun has three settings; stun, kill, and overcharge. You’ve never had to use the last one before, but it’s mostly for use against heavily armored targets. In your ear there’s an earpiece that you’re using to keep in touch with the surveillance teams and the squad with you.

You give Evan a nod. He holsters his gun, takes a grip on the sliding door to Rayt’s apartment, and wrenches it open violently. You slide in checking your corners, sensing the others following close behind. You go left, through a doorway, and find yourself in a small hallway, you advance, pushing open doors and checking each room in turn, reporting when each is clear. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, in all, all of them spartan and almost sterile. There’s no sign of Rayt, though. You head back to the living room.

“Guess the guy isn’t a great appreciator of the arts, huh?” You gesture around the room. There is a single, forlorn chair, made of AlmostWood, and a single display, presumably to watch EnterNet vid-feeds. The walls are unadorned, and painted white. The carpet is gray. Both are extremely clean.

“Hmm. Forensics will be here shortly. We’ll see what we can turn--”

Suddenly a voice crackles in over your earpiece.

“Suspect spotted one level down from you, to the east! He must be onto us, he just started running!”

You curse and head out the doors, telling most of the enforcers to keep the apartment secured. Evan speaks continually as you move, telling the surveillance squads to keep you up to date and to try and box in the suspect.

You’re not too far away from a set of stairs, which is fortunate. You, Evan, and two other enforcers run down them, yelling at pedestrians to get out of the way. As you hit the next level, you can just barely make out the suspect, rushing away, pushing people aside. Fortunately, he’s quite tall, making him easy to pick out. You begin running after him, people moving aside as you run through. Even though he’s quite a ways ahead, you’re definitely gaining.

He notices this fact too. He ducks down a side path and out of sight. Once you’ve arrived, you can no longer see him, but surveillance reports him heading west now. You begin moving that way, and before long you’re catching up with him again.

He reaches a less densely populated area, and a clear shot at him presents itself. You level your weapon… aim… fire! The energy bolt zips forward, and you score a direct hit on his left shoulder. He stumbles, and shakes it off, barely breaking his stride.

“He must be shielded!” Evan shouts, not sounding even slightly out of breath (which makes sense, when you think about it). “We’re going to have to box him in!”

You nod, and Evan breaks off down a side walk, rapidly gaining speed. People throw themselves out of the way as he blasts past, faster than any normal human could move. You keep running after Rayt, doggedly keeping up with him.

He glances back, and snarls at you, which means his attention is focused in the wrong direction when Evan steps around the corner and plants his feet.

Rayt turns back just in time to see him, and instead of trying to stop jumps forward and slams into Evan, sending them both sprawling across the ground… which shouldn’t have happened. Evan’s heavy enough to bring most people to a standstill, and strong enough that that shouldn’t have taken him off of his feet. He’s up in about a second flat, and so is Rayt, who’s loudly cursing, now. Evan reaches out to grab him, but he drives a fist into Evan’s gut so hard it lifts him off the ground. Evan’s reaction is one of pure surprise.

You yell for him to put his hands in the air, but Rayt spins unneringly fast, delivering a surgically precise kick to Evan’s head. Evan is sent tumbling and skidding along the ground. You quickly realize what’s going on.

“He’s an android! Increase pulse gun power!”

There are a series of clicks as the enforcers accompanying you do just that, and you open fire.

Again, he looks like he is jolted, but it doesn’t seem to do much other than that. He advances on you, snarling with rage. With a swift backhand he slaps your weapon away, and a flash of pain flies up your arms. You kick at him, but he contemptuously catches your leg, spins you around and tosses you at Evan, who was advancing on him from behind.

You hear him dealing with the other enforcers much as he did you. You push yourself up just in time to see him walking over to the canopy which covers the walkway. He hops easily over the handrail, walks right up to the canopy, and puts his fist through it, grunting with the effort.
You can’t help but gape. The canopy is made of a special synthetic crystal weave, made to be almost impossible for someone to break (to prevent suicides). Not even Evan could break through it.

He breaks a hole big enough for him to fit through, then looks back at you once more before jumping out into traffic. You rush over, but you can no longer see him among the myriad hover cars outside.

You think one of the enforcers sums it up perfectly when she says, from her place laying on the ground, “What the fuck just happened?”

---
The enforcers have cordoned off the area, and are keeping passing gawkers at bay. Despite the fact that he obviously could have done away with you with little effort, he left you and your team bruised, battered, but relatively alright. Evan’s physically fine, but shocked at what happened.

“This shouldn’t be possible. He had military-grade combat strength and response times. That’s the only thing that could make any sense.”
“I thought they didn’t make military-grade androids anymore,” You point out, flexing your hands and trying to get them to stop tingling. Your leg is kind of sore too, but the pain reliever the medics gave you should help with that shortly. You checked yourself thoroughly for any puncture marks, and let one of the medics take a blood sample and run it, which showed that you are still nanite free.

“They don’t. That’s just it. There are civilian-grade, industrial-grade, and then there are enforcement-grade, like me. Military-grade androids stopped being made many years ago. The advent of free will in androids made them too dangerous.”

“Could he just be an old one that somehow is still around after all these years?”

“No. He was very obviously emoting and acting on his own initiative. In addition, he looked too… human. The old models could not achieve that level of detail.”

“Huh. Are you sure he’s not enforcement-grade or industrial-grade?”

Evan frowns. “I’m sure. He far exceeded me in strength, and industrial-grade androids don’t have that kind of reaction time. His pulse-fire resistance was also far too high.”

“So we have an unregistered, possibly military-grade android on our hands, who didn’t kill us when the opportunity arose, I might add! An android that’s passing for human and… he kills an innocent man with a nanotechnology-induced implant explosion? What kind of sense does that make?”

“Seemingly none at all.” Evan shakes his head and stares at the gaping, jagged hole in the canopy. “This case gets more and more complicated the deeper we dig.”

Teams are scouring the district for any sign of Rayt, but so far they haven’t found anything. You get the sinking feeling that they’re not going to, either.

By the time the excitement’s died down and you’ve regained feeling in your hands, it’s begun to get rather late. Did you have any leads you wanted to follow up on before finishing up for the day and heading home? Bolton may still be at work if you wanted to talk to him, but he’d probably keep till tomorrow if you wanted to wait. Otherwise, you can look around Rayt's apartment or talk to forensics, if you want.

SpoilerShow

Fun Fact: The E in E-class android does not stand for "enforcement." It was just a happy coincidence. E-class androids were just the fifth design variation produced by Vita Mechanica. E-classes are typically employed in law enforcement or security work, since those are the vocations in which they excel. They are allowed to take other types of jobs, of course, but they have to submit themselves to special modifications that limit their strength and reaction speed and such (Also, they have to pay for it. Vita Mechanica would once more like to assure you that this is in no way an attempt to subtly discourage the idea of downgrading and assimilating into civilian-grade life.).

Yes this would have been posted sooner but Skyrim and Batman: AC.
Also I probably won't be updating for the next week or so, we're going to go visit some family. I may be on the forums occasionally, but I probably won't have the time to do a full update. I'll come back to this once my visit is over, though!