Chapter 014: Chaos
Episode 001: The Scene
RING—— RING——
The sharp bell of an old-fashioned landline in the office tore through the silence.
Detective Shane Dawson raised his head reflexively. His eyes were bloodshot with red capillaries, and a rasping sound escaped his throat. He had managed only two hours of sleep. On his monitor, an unfinished report on a petty bar brawl he’d handled all day was open, and a thin, sickly film of oil floated on his cold coffee in a paper cup.
As he held the receiver to his ear, the emotionless voice of a dispatcher poured in.
"Terrorism reported. Senator Douglas Reed’s residence, Queens. Security humanoid self-destructed. One major injury, currently being transported to NY Medical Center."
The scattered fragments of thoughts in his mind instantly aligned into the word 'case.' The occupational reflexes were terrifying. Though he’d been awake for barely three minutes, Dawson’s body was already standing, snatching his old jacket.
"Send me the scene coordinates and connect the forensics team to my radio."
His low, sunken voice was as precise as ever. Before his mind could even gauge the scale of the situation, his identity as a cop was already pulling his body along.
The scene was a chaotic mess of tearing siren wails and flashing red and blue lights. The shroud of night had been shattered into pieces beyond the yellow police line.
The high-end detached house of three-term Senator Douglas Reed.
At the entrance, the mangled remains of the domestic and security-purpose humanoid lay scattered, unrecognizable, and black soot had scorched the grass in the garden. Used, blood-stained gauze and bandages from where the paramedics had tried to staunch the Senator's wounds littered the area among the shards of broken glass.
His junior detective, Jason Lloyd, was already on the scene, assessing the situation.
"The security robot guarding the house suddenly attacked the owner," Lloyd said. "It pierced the chest and then overloaded its own heart battery to self-destruct."
"Self-destruct... The robot broke its own operational safety lock?" Dawson’s brow furrowed.
"Yes. And there’s no suspect. There are no traces of an intruder having left the scene."
Dawson knelt quietly, breathing in the smell of burnt circuits. The bent high-strength aluminum frame and the scorched wires.
"This isn't just a malfunction or a typical robbery."
"Come on, Detective," Lloyd said, trying to break the tension with his usual breezy tone. "We pull a double shift only to be handed the first robot suicide-bombing in New York history. Our luck really is something else."
In normal circumstances, Dawson would have swatted him, but no smile reached his lips. He just nodded quietly. Lloyd sensed the strange silence in his senior's dark expression and shut his mouth.
Dawson headed to the study on the second floor. The cluttered desk was a mess of Senator Reed's Senate HELP Committee files and lists of political and business figures tangled in various lobbying scandals.
Reed... a face I've seen countless times on the news.
"It's a hack," said a forensics technician, plucking the charred humanoid’s main CPU core out with tweezers.
"A precise intrusion command came from the outside. It was disguised as if it were receiving normal signals from the security server, while internally, it completely bypassed the Core Three-Way Safety Protocol."
"Is bypassing it that easy?" Dawson asked.
"There was a critical zero-day vulnerability in the firmware. The manufacturer released a patch six months ago... but it wasn't applied to this unit."
"Was it negligence by the security firm?" the technician muttered.
"No..." Dawson replied coldly as he flipped through the documents inside the secret safe on the study desk. "There are traces that access to the security update server was intentionally blocked. They deliberately left a backdoor open to avoid any dispute over robot malfunctions."
Then, Lloyd pushed a tablet screen in front of Dawson’s eyes.
"This guy was a real piece of work, Senator. He was under investigation for illegal funds received from Atlas Dynamics and DataPulse."
"And why wasn't he indicted?"
"Insufficient evidence. He cut all his tails."
Dawson looked down at the pile of documents.
He got his son a special hire at an Atlas Dynamics subsidiary, and in return, the father paved the way for the expansion bill in Congress...
The scene control was mostly organized, and forensics began to withdraw.
Dawson stood alone on the scorched grass of the garden, looking up at the night sky. The red siren lights flickered like ghosts over the shards of broken pottery.
Senator Douglas Reed. Three-term Senator. The leader of the Pro-Expansion faction in the HELP Committee. A man who had hidden all his corruption allegations behind the solid stone walls of 'legality.'
"Detective, let's go," Lloyd called from the car.
"Lloyd," Dawson asked in a cold, sunken voice. "What kind of person do you think Senator Reed is?"
"What? Just a typical, rotten politician. But our job is to protect even guys like that from being murdered, and to catch whoever tried to kill him."
Lloyd’s answer was clear, but it left a deep crack in Dawson’s ears.
This is not a random terrorist act of madness. This is a very clear, moral, extrajudicial judgment... The target was precisely selected.
Dawson pulled Senator Reed’s crisp profile photo from his pocket and stared at it. His hand didn't shake at all, but a hot, silent heat was rising from the bottom of his chest.
Episode 002: Surgery
SCREEECH——!
The ambulance swerved into the entrance of the NY Medical Center’s Trauma Center, tires tearing at the asphalt.
The pneumatic door slammed open, and the smell of raw blood filled the air. On the mobile stretcher, a man covered in blood lay moaning, his chest bandaged.
"Chest penetrating wound from explosion fragments! Blood pressure 70 over 40, patient is in shock!" the paramedic’s urgent shout mixed with the sound of machines.
James Mercer, who had been called in for duty, was already running down to the ER, finishing hand sanitization. The moment his eyes touched the man's bruised and bloodied face——
Every cell in his brain seemed to freeze.
That man... Senator Reed?
He was the same arrogant representative of capital who, just yesterday, had been on the congressional hearing screen, shouting for the expansion of Androids. His single vote had changed the fate of the world that Julian had tried to protect, with a cruel 8-to-6 passage.
A strange, rigid strength entered James's fingertips holding the scalpel.
Who... am I supposed to save right now?
But the fleeting hesitation soon sank beneath the cold instinct of a professional doctor.
"Massive pneumothorax and hemothorax in the thoracic cavity. We need to open the chest immediately. Prepare the OR!"
His instruction was firm, without a single error.
The OR's shadowless light emitted a cold, white glow.
James’s movements were more accurate than any machine. The scalpel parted the chest, and the electrocautery tool cauterized the bleeding points, filling the air with a pungent smell.
Opening the thoracic cavity revealed the cruel traces of the explosion. Three sharp alloy fragments from the security robot’s self-destruction had pierced the pleura and lodged deep near the lungs and heart.
"Tweezers."
James carefully pulled out the first fragment lodged near the lower lobe of the heart. With a ting sound, the bloody scrap of metal was dropped into a metal bowl.
This man’s beating heart is currently in my hands. The heart of that same puppet of capital who laughed while passing a bill that would cost countless workers their lives, is currently begging for life at the tip of my fingers. If I tighten this suture just a little loosely, this detestable puppet will...
"Doctor, vitals are shaky!" the anesthesiologist’s sharp warning rang out.
Additional bleeding. The last tiny fragment that had been lodged deep touched the arterial wall, and blood gushed out. If he didn't stop the bleeding within 30 seconds, it would be a Table Death.
In an instant, all distractions in James’s mind were wiped white.
He fixed his gaze only on the red blood vessel where the bleeding was occurring and the angle of the sharp fragment. A pure medical space where neither hatred as a citizen nor sadness existed.
"Clamp, Silk 3-0!"
His fingers moved like the wind. The trajectory of the suture, drawing out the fragment and precisely binding the ruptured arterial wall, drew a perfect curve.
The monitor’s heart rate, which had been jumping, soon returned to a calm rhythm with a beep.
"Situation resolved. The surgery is a success."
James wiped the sweat from his forehead and lowered his hands. It was a perfect operation. But at the same time, a heavy emptiness in his chest covered him like a ghost.
James stepped out into the waiting corridor, his surgical gown stained with red blood.
In the small chair at the other end of the corridor, Daniel Frost, a congressional aide who had been slightly injured by fragments and had his shoulder bandaged, sat with a vacant expression, waiting for the police.
His gaze and James’s met in the air.
The arrogance of that elite aide who had sneered at James and flaunted his power during the hearing preparations was nowhere to be found. His pupils wavered with beast-like fear, and he opened and closed his mouth as if to say something while looking at James’s blood-stained gown, but eventually, he remained silent.
James stared at him with eyes full of contempt for a moment, then turned his back and walked back into the OR without a word.
Watching Senator Reed’s stretcher being transported to the ICU, James looked down at his own palms.
I just extended the life of an executioner. If this is justice as a doctor, am I, as a human living in this society, a cowardly bystander?
The analog watch in his pocket ticked louder than his own heartbeat.
Episode 003: The Question
Late afternoon at the police station.
Financial analysis documents of Senator Reed’s borrowed-name accounts, received from the financial authorities, were scattered across Dawson’s desk. The orange sunset filtering through the window cracks stained the dust piles red.
Nancy Foster, a detective on the financial crimes team, pointed at a chart.
"Exactly one week before the Robot Accountability Act vote, hundreds of millions of dollars flowed regularly from a major shareholder affiliate into Senator Reed’s overseas paper company account under the guise of 'technology consulting fees.' The form is a legal consulting contract, but the timing and amount clearly point to bribery for favors."
"Bribes wearing the mask of legality..." Dawson muttered, as if chewing the words.
"Furthermore, we confirmed that the Senator's eldest son was hired in the strategy team at Atlas Dynamics last year with a single executive recommendation letter. His skills were at the bottom level."
It was a money-laundering network woven so precisely that it was impossible to prove illegal activity clearly, but the chain of corruption was as clear as day.
In exchange for his son's job and hundreds of millions of dollars, he cast a vote in favor of a bill that would force tens of thousands of workers onto the streets.
Dawson’s jaw tightened.
POV Insert — News 16:00
Dawson turned his gaze to the TV news screen on the office wall. Three major channels were pouring out the same news simultaneously.
- Channel A: "Terrorist attack by an extremist group aiming to overthrow society! Police have identified the anti-expansion group and have begun a high-intensity investigation into the cruel crime that weaponized a robot."
- Channel B: "Senator injured in terrorist attack, successfully recovered after emergency surgery. Violence that shakes the foundation of democracy cannot be tolerated for any reason."
- Channel C: "There is no safe zone... In a world where even security robots become weapons, mandatory security patches for humanoids are urgent."
None of the news outlets even mentioned a single line about the dirty political-business collusion or the allegations of special hiring privileges for his son that Senator Reed had committed. The national system was still forcing the convenient frame of 'Terrorism = Absolute Evil' on the public.
But the public was no longer stupid.
When Dawson turned on his smartphone and scrolled through the real-time reactions on community sites and SNS, the burning cracks in public opinion—completely different from the news—were clearly visible.
"The Senator ate Atlas money and almost died by a robot, lol. Is this true divine retribution?" "Terrorism is bad, but honestly, I don't feel any sympathy for Reed. Honestly, it feels refreshing." "Journalists, why aren't you reporting that Reed took money from Atlas and got his son a job? The anti-expansionists picked their target perfectly."
The message effect of the precision strike that the anti-expansionists intended was quietly swirling in the hearts of the public. A strange catharsis of punishing an evil person whom the law could not punish, albeit through the violence of a machine.
Dawson grabbed his cigarette pack and headed to the roof.
Under the sunset burning red, Dawson exhaled a deep cloud of cigarette smoke.
Captain Brian Bailey came out, opening the roof door with two cans of coffee.
"You've been through a lot, Detective Dawson. Finish up and go home."
"Captain," Dawson asked, grinding out the cigarette butt. "Are we... supposed to catch the perpetrator who targeted the lives of those who built up wealth by breaking the law, in order to protect them?"
Captain Bailey looked at the city lights in the distance, fiddling with the coffee can.
"I had the same worries as you when I was young... But Detective, once that question gets stuck in your head, it never disappears. It's a problem of choosing for yourself how you're going to live in this pathetic world."
He patted Dawson on the shoulder.
"Our job is to catch the criminal. That’s how we keep this shitty world spinning while maintaining at least a minimum of order. Don't forget that."
After the Captain went back down, Dawson turned on his contacts on his smartphone on the roof, left alone. The name 'Nora' lit up. If she was the best technician in the country on robot security and hacking, she would know something about the self-destruct loop of the security robot this time.
But Dawson turned off the screen without calling.
He didn't want to drag her clear soul into the aftermath of this vicious and ugly conspiracy, and he wasn't confident he could handle it himself if she showed cold approval for this violence.
The same night, the roof of NY Medical Center.
James stood, letting the cold night wind blow on him, blankly staring in the direction of the Capitol. Below, the news reporters' camera flashes were still going off at the emergency entrance, trying to cover Senator Reed's condition.
He took his father’s old Seiko analog watch from his pocket.
If I save that man today, he will wake up tomorrow, and the day after he will return to Congress and stamp his seal on a bill that will increase machines and oust workers... Did my precise scalpel eventually make it possible for a decision that will drive a dagger into the chests of more weak people?
The oath as a doctor and the sense of justice as a human being were tearing his soul apart.
The second hand of James's old watch moved, cutting through the dark air.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Detective Dawson’s monitor screen in the police station drawer also flickered, displaying the details of Senator Reed's bribery.
Flicker. Flicker. Flicker.
In different spaces, but at the same time, two men were agonizing alone, holding on to the same depth of questioning. The law said to catch the terrorist, and medicine said to save the patient, but the justice in their hearts pointed in a different direction.
Meanwhile, at a lonely villa window in Queens.
Kevin Cross, the leader of the anti-expansionists, looked down at the night view of New York and turned off the news flash on his tablet. A faint, cold smile brushed his lips.
"The first message has been delivered perfectly."
He quietly traced his finger over the photo of the next target——Hospital CEO Steven Hart, which was on the table. The lights of New York never turned off, and the sprint of the watch’s second hand toward ruin was now just beginning to accelerate.