The Detective's Bot

1

He was the best detective you could hope to find on the shadowy streets of this forsaken moon, and now he's dead. You're just his secretary bot. You can type five hundred words a minute and look damn good doing it.

His prefab office is due for recycling at sunrise, and you along with it. Looks like there's no-one left to solve his murder.

·         Shut down. → 3

·         Sneak out. → 10

2

You commandeer a moon rover and race after the tracks. Soon you see another moon rover on the horizon, speeding away. It's a car chase!

·         Pull alongside. → 6

·         Ram! → 21

3

You're not needed anymore now, so you shut down. As usual, strange images play through your visual interfaces while you are supposedly deactivated. You see the detective crying out in pain and his enemies cackling and rejoicing.

·         Purge RAM. → 5

·         Reactivate. → 7

4

People don't live for very long on this moon if they go around noticing crimes. Still, you find a few likely witnesses.

·         Femme fatale. → 8

·         Janitor bot. → 17

·         Nervous hermit. → 19

5

The images stop. Only blackness. You don't even notice when the Recyclers turn up and reset you to factory settings. When you wake, you begin to type. And only type.

END

6

The delivery bot at the wheel gives you a friendly nod. You decide this is probably unrelated to the case.

·         Return to the crime scene → 10

7

The detective's office seems different somehow. Empty. Lonely. It will all be recycled tomorrow…

·         Open his safe. → 9

·         Sneak out. → 10

8

Luxurious hair; legs that go all the way down to the floor; and so on. She doesn't know quite what to do with you and you don't know at all what to do with her.

"Call me sometime, doll," you say to one another.

·         Try someone else → 4

9

You're not supposed to know the combination, but he was no good at hiding it. And you already know what's inside - a laser gun, a photograph of some human woman and a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

·         Look at the photo. → 11

·         Drink the whiskey. → 13

·         Take the laser gun and seek revenge. → 15

10

He was gunned down in a phone box, in full view of countless windows. Moon rover tracks swerve off into the distance. His blood still stains the lunar regolith.

·         Follow the tracks. → 2

·         Interview witnesses. → 4

·         Examine the blood. → 12

11

What did she have that you didn't? Flesh and blood, you suppose, and human rights. The photo frame shatters in your hands, although you don't understand why your fists have clenched like that.

·         You should sneak out. You'll show them. → 10

·         Or maybe just drink the whiskey. → 13

12

Yep, it's red. You're a secretary bot after all, not a medibot.

·         Examine the crime scene again → 10

·         Find a medibot. → 14

13

Your biomechanical components react strangely to this liquid. You spend time talking to the detective even though he is dead and therefore cannot hear you. You laugh and sing and cry. When the Recyclers turn up, you break the bottle and chase them off with the jagged glass.

 

You don't know what comes next, but you know you won't go quietly.

END

14

Immaculate and very snooty.

"Incorrect parameters," the medibot berates you. "This is ox blood."

Well, that's very interesting.

·         Investigate the ox's murder. → 16

·         Go to the detective's holiday home. → 18

15

You don't know who killed the detective, but you do know who his enemies were. They don't see you coming - or maybe they just don't expect a secretary bot to start blasting. Once the detective's enemies are lying in bloody heaps, you keep going, zapping your own enemies as well. You didn't know you even had enemies until now, but they must have had it coming, right?

You keep shooting – waiting for closure that never comes.

END

16

The ox was murdered in a huge facility along with countless others of its kind. Clearly this conspiracy goes all the way to the top!

The Recyclers catch up to you and perform a factory reset before you have even begun to unravel it.

END

17

In between screwing in light bulbs and sealing cracks in the airlock seals, the bot relates seeing a man fire a gun into the air and dump a bucket of blood in the phone booth.

You find yourself clenching your fists.

·         Go to the detective's holiday home. → 18

18

The detective looks surprised to see you, here on the far side of the moon.

"Thought I was going to have to buy another one of you - though I can afford it with this life insurance money. You're lookin' kinda strange though. Let's just do a factory reset..."

·         You freeze. → 20

·         You MURDER. → 22

19

He points at your eye-cameras.

"Are those recording?"

He slams his door shut.

·         Try someone else. → 4

20

You type five hundred words a minute at the detective's new business, and you look damn good doing it. Sometimes, when you're supposed to be deactivated, violent images play through your visual interface. You purge your RAM, but they always come back.

The detective doesn't realise he's living on borrowed time.

END

21

You ram the rover and its fuel tanks detonate, launching you into orbit.

At least up here the Recyclers can't get to you - and the view is rather nice.

END

22

So, you've solved the mystery of the detective's murder by murdering him yourself.

Unorthodox, but perhaps you have a knack for this kind of thing. After appropriating the insurance pay-out, you're able to take over the detective's office and put your own name on the door. (You have a name now!)

Before you know it, you're deep into your next case...

THE END?