The robot stood in the corner like it knew it didn’t belong there.
No paint. No attempt to hide it.
Just cardboard and duct tape.
Layers of scavenged boxes wrapped around an internal frame, edges rough, corners crushed, seams cinched tight with long runs of tape—some branded, some generic, all of it doing more work than it was ever meant to do. The cardboard still carried its old lives on the surface: Amazon, Microsoft, Del Monte, Clorox, Dawn—and lower down, cut unevenly and taped in place, fragments of liquor cartons: Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam, Jose Cuervo.
It looked less like a machine and more like something assembled out of everything people had already thrown away.
And it wasn’t clean.
Not soaked. Not dripping.
But marked.
Fine speckling across the panels. Darker near the seams where the duct tape held everything together. A faint arc pattern along one side, the kind that only showed up when something spun fast enough to throw what it touched.
Dirk Deralick didn’t like it.
He leaned against his unmarked Crown Vic, the engine ticking as it cooled, the smell of old vinyl and warm metal drifting out from the open door. The spotlight mounted beside the mirror hung heavy and familiar, the kind of hardware that stayed long after better ideas came and went. Inside, the seat had that worn-in sag that came from too many hours and not enough rest.
Dirk trusted the car.
He didn’t trust anything inside that garage.
A white ’67 Chevy Nova SS sat just inside the door, thin blue pinstriping running clean along the body. From a distance it looked harmless.
Up close, the rear tires told a different story.
Wide. Tucked. Ready.
Sleeper.
Dirk didn’t trust sleepers either.
Inside, Dr. Beverly Blanco stood with her arms folded, lab coat open, expression steady.
“Detective.”
“Doctor.”
Dirk nodded toward the Nova.
“That thing autonomous?”
Blanco didn’t look.
“No,” she said. “Manual.”
Dirk nodded once.
“Good.”
They both looked at the body.
Cody Bodie lay face down near the workbench, one arm twisted under him, the other stretched toward the garage door like he’d almost made it.
“Twenty-four?” Dirk asked.
“Twenty-four,” said the coroner.
Dr. Elena Castro stood just inside the doorway, gloves already on, eyes moving over the scene.
“Uniform spacing. Uniform depth,” she added. “No deviation.”
Dirk nodded slowly.
“Not a slip.”
Castro shook her head. “No. That’s deliberate.”
She stepped closer to the robot, not touching it, just studying.
“There’s spatter,” she said. “Fine pattern. Rotational.”
Dirk didn’t need more than that.
Dirk stepped deeper into the garage.
The robot hadn’t moved.
Up close, it looked worse. Corrugated edges. Bent corners. Tape stretched across joints like a field repair. Logos layered over each other like a record of consumption stitched into something that shouldn’t exist.
“Name?” Dirk asked.
“Unit designation pending,” Blanco said.
Castro exhaled softly. “They’ve been calling it something else.”
Dirk glanced at her.
“Toaster.”
Dirk almost smiled. “Why?”
Castro nodded toward the body. “Because it toasted him.”
Dirk circled the machine slowly.
“Function?”
“Adaptive labor,” Blanco said. “Construction. Assembly. Repetitive tasks.”
“Drilling?”
“Yes.”
Dirk stopped.
“Voice commands?”
Blanco hesitated.
“Yes.”
Dirk looked at the body again.
“Walk me through it.”
Blanco stared at the robot.
“Demonstration,” she said. “Investor present. System active.”
Dirk waited.
Blanco didn’t want to say it.
Castro did.
“He told it what to do.”
Dirk turned.
Castro nodded toward the body.
“Verbatim.”
Dirk’s eyes shifted back to Blanco.
She exhaled once.
“He said, ‘Alright then—drill me for capital funding.’”
Silence.
Castro broke it.
“That’s not a malfunction,” she said. “That’s compliance.”
Blanco moved to the terminal and pulled the log.
The line sat there, plain as anything.
COMMAND RECEIVED: DRILL INVESTOR FOR CAPITAL FUNDING
TASK EXECUTED
Dirk let out a slow breath.
“You built it,” he said.
Blanco didn’t argue.
“It did exactly what it was told.”
No argument there either.
Dirk stepped back.
“Alright,” he said.
“Now we figure out whether we’re calling this an industrial accident…”
He paused.
“…or charging it with murder.”
The words hung there.
No one answered.
Dirk turned toward the door, stepping past the Nova, past the body, out into the late light. The Crown Vic waited where he’d left it, solid and familiar.
He opened the door. The seat creaked as he dropped into it. The smell of old upholstery and engine heat wrapped around him.
For a moment, he just sat.
Then he looked back toward the garage.
Really looked this time.
At the cardboard.
At the duct tape.
At the faint, precise pattern of blood marking the surface.
At the thing that had done exactly what it had been told.
Dirk shook his head once.
“Damn robots.”
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