Private Hoverboards & Segways

[Inanna Harth]

"He's like a… a droid! Why is he listening to you?"

"I don't know!" Grabbing the pistol, Inanna handed it to Cato, then addressed the HRD. "Who are you?"

"I cannot answer that question," the HRD replied.

"Oh, for feth's sake!" Though not as loud as the club proper, it was still extremely noisy in the hallway. Inanna was once again having a hard time focusing, and the stress of the situation put her on edge.

"Ask him what he's doing."

"I cannot answer that question."

"Cato, the guy in the room! Check on him!" Inanna shouted over the music. The man the droid had shot might be dead, but if there was even a slim chance he might survive, they had to try to help him.

The HRD strained against her telekinesis, apparently trying to stop Cato from giving the man he had shot medical aid. But Inanna held him firmly in place. "How do you know me?" she asked the droid.

"You are listed as my current owner," the HRD replied. "Hoole, Inanna. Purchased 860 ABY."

What?!

Inanna had indeed owned an HRD at one point. In fact, she had bought said HRD from the previous owner of this very club. But the revelation of her connection to the droid, while obvious in hindsight, came as a shock to her. Mainly because the circumstances under which she had given away this droid should've made this encounter all but impossible. An absolutely crazy coincidence, for sure.

"Ayreon? What the hell are you doing here?!" she hissed. "Why did you come back to Euphoria? Why did you shoot that guy?!" And why the feth did he look like a Zeltron all of a sudden?

Ayreon inclined his head, and in his usual robotic monotone replied, "I cannot answer that question."

"Why not? I own you!"

"I am sorry, Miss Hoole, but I cannot answer your question."

Feth, feth, feth... Okay, time to try a different approach. Clearly she had to be careful about what questions she asked. "Who ordered this... this assassination, and why?" When Ayreon started to repeat his I cannot answer that line, she interrupted him with a guess. "Was it Bithia Grayson?" The woman Inanna had loaned Ayreon to, all those years ago. "Did she order you to do this?"

No response. But Ayreon couldn't lie to his owner. She remembered that aspect of his programming. So in a way, his silence was an answer.

"Cais ned'jin," Inanna muttered. "Cato, is he dead?"

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato shook off the impact and ran into the room. The man laid slumped against a seat, unconscious. He checked his pulse, and began trying to resuscitate. Whatever conversation Inanna was having with the droid, he couldn't quite make out, too focused on making sure a man didn't die. Her voice eventually found its way back into his attention, "Not yet! But he needs actual medical attention!"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Still pinning Ayreon down with the Force, Inanna pulled out her datapad and summoned an ambulance, which arrived within minutes. Paramedics on Zeltros were all droids, as organics ran the risk of being overwhelmed by all the pheromones and the party atmosphere.

The police also showed up to investigate. Surveillance footage had already revealed Ayreon was the shooter, so they moved to detain him. Inanna watched them lead the HRD away. For once, it seemed like she and Cato wouldn't have to fix someone else's problems. They could just let the cops handle it—

A handcuff snapped shut around Inanna's wrist. "What the hell?!" she exclaimed, head jerking from side to side as her other arm was pinned behind her and cuffed. "Why are you arresting me?"

"You are the listed owner of this droid, and therefore are considered a suspect. Please do not resist..."

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato kept the pressure on, making sure the man's heart didn't stop before the police could arrive. A droid force came in short order, taking control of the scene with the sort of efficiency that could only be expected from machines. Cato stepped back to let the medics deal with the emergency, carrying the man off to hopefully get him stabilized.

He turned around with a relieved smile, only to see Inanna getting cuffed by the police, "Wha- hey!" Cato tried to get involved, finding himself blocked in the doorway by another droid, "What the hell are you taking her for?! She didn't have anything to do with it!"

The droid's head tilted, "You are affiliated with her?"

He blinked, "I— Yeah."

The droid pulled out a pair of cuffs and pushed him against the door frame, "Please do no resist."

"Oh, come on," Cato groaned, "We didn't… do anything!" His face was smushed against the wall, and he looked at Inanna out of the side of his eye, "This isn't really how I thought tonight was gonna go." Shame. Cause it was going really well about ten minutes ago.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

“Oh, come on!” Inanna exclaimed as she was led out of the club. “You’re taking him, too? Why don’t you arrest the whole damned club while you’re at it?”

Her protests were ignored. Realizing there was little she could do, Inanna submitted to being shoved into a police cruiser and taken to jail.

The lockup was similarly staffed by droids. She kept watch on both Ayreon and Cato as they were brought in. The former had been fitted with a restraining bolt.

“Please state your name for the record,” a droid behind a bulletproof window asked, pulling her attention away.

“Inanna Harth,” she spat. “How much would it cost to get the two of us out of here?”

The droid named a sum which made even her cringe. But bail they needed, and so bail they would have. “Just give me my fething comm call,” she growled.

Once the arrangements were made, Inanna was shuffled off to a cell to wait for the money to arrive. Presumably Cato would use his comm call to contact his mother, still at home with baby Serena. Hopefully she wasn’t too worried about them.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

The apparent suspects were led back to the station in short order, and processed. Cato was separated from Inanna for his call, which he used to reluctantly ring up his mother.

"…Hello?"

"Heyyyy, mom. How's things at the hotel room?"

"Fine, fine. The baby is fast asleep," She yawned, then chuckled awkwardly, "It's awfully late, Cato. Why are you calling now?"

It was then his turn to chuckle awkwardly, "Well uh, you see, we uh, kinda got... arrested."

"Whaa-?!"

"Shhhh!"

"-aaat…?" The elder Serena quickly shifted to a harsh whisper, "Just what the hell is going on out there?"

"Relaaax. It's just a misunderstanding, alright? We didn't actually do anything. Some guy, er, droid, was attacking someone and we intervened." A bit of an oversimplification, but she didn't need all the stressful details, "We'll get it sorted out, don't worry."

There was a long pause, then a sigh, "You better, Cato Harth. Love you."

"You too, mom." He hung up, and pinched his brow. Soon after, Cato was led to a cell across from Inanna, "First time in jail?" He smirked.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

"First time in jail?"

"Not at all," Inanna answered, though she didn't go into detail on the types of crimes she had been arrested for. "Your mom isn't too mad about all this, right?"

While they were waiting for the bail money to arrive, Inanna took the opportunity to explain some things to Cato. "The droid's name is Ayreon. He was a bouncer at Euphoria back when I was working there. It's a long story, but I bought him from the club owner for five million credits and kept him around as a personal bodyguard. He helped me escape Vanessa Vantai's clutches.

"After I married Hal, I didn't have much use for him anymore, but I didn't want to sell him either. So I sort of... loaned him out to people who needed a robocop to do detective or enforcer stuff for them. Well, I say I loaned him out, but I really just let him do his own thing, occasionally checking in on him every now and then." Although with how busy her life had gotten lately, she hadn't kept in touch with Ayreon as well as she probably should've. The man's near-murder was at least partially her fault.

"As far as I know, he had been working for a woman named Bithia Grayson for the past few years. She's a businesswoman with her fingers in all kinds of pies. If we're going to get to the bottom of this, I figure she'd be a good place to start."

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

"Oh?" Cato raised an eyebrow, "I only went to jail for the first time on Narsh, believe it or not." He never got caught as a kid with 25 & Light, and left Bonadan for the Jedi before he was old enough to get into more trouble, "As long as you're not counting like, bad guy dungeons." He shrugged at the mention of his mother, "Nahhh. She was a bit freaked at first, but I told her it was a big misunderstanding. She'll be alright. Serena is fast asleep."

Inanna offered a bit of an explanation about Ayreon, and their affiliation. But as it was, there was no telling what all the droid had been up to during her long absence, "Now he won't even tell you who he's working for or what he's doing? How much free will does he have? Are these all choices he's making, or has he been reprogrammed somehow?"

"And this Bithia woman. Is she on Zeltros?"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

"I only went to jail for the first time on Narsh, believe it or not."

Inanna could believe it, but she wanted to know more. “For what?” she prompted, figuring it likely had something to do with police corruption and pissing off the wrong crime lord. Cato may have been a bad boy in the sheets, but he was a boy scout in the streets.

She looked relieved upon hearing Old Serena wasn’t pissed. “Good, good.” Glancing toward the clock on the wall, she winced. It was very late—or rather, very early in the morning. But if they were bailed out of there within the next hour or so, they’d get home before dawn, at least.

Cato questioned Ayreon’s free will. “Well, he used to be a police droid. His programming is—or it was highly regulated, for obvious reasons. Unless the guy in the club was some kind of super criminal wanted dead or just plain dead in this system, what he did went against his prime directives. So I would assume that yes, somebody fethed with his programming.

“On the other hand…” Inanna sighed. There’s always a catch. “Ayreon is kind of a ‘special case’. You see, he used to be a human being named Jon Ayreon, a Taris cop who was killed in action. They scanned his brain and uploaded it into an HRD body so that he could continue to serve. But somewhere along the line, there was a mixup that resulted in him accidentally getting a memory wipe. Any traces of humanity or free will he had left probably went with the wipe, although I always wondered if it was completely gone.”

"And this Bithia woman. Is she on Zeltros?"

“She was on Coruscant last I checked, but that was a long, long time ago. She could’ve moved…” Inanna trailed off, seeing a droid enter the cell block. She waited with bated breath for it to reach one of their cells… only for it to pass them by. She muttered under her breath, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned around to find another droid hovering outside her cell.

“Your bail has been paid, Inanna Harth. Please step out of your cell in an orderly fashion. We will require your authentication before you may leave the premises.”

Inanna stepped out, watching as the droid went over to Cato’s cell and unlocked it, reading off the same mantra. “Well, at least we’re out,” she remarked.

And apparently so was Ayreon. He came walking around the corner, no longer impeded by a restraining bolt. Inanna stared in disbelief as he walked up to the front desk, signed a release form, and turned to leave the police station like he hadn’t just shot a man mere hours earlier.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

"Bar fight," Cato shrugged, "Turns out the other guy was part of the local gang chapter. And of course, the cops were too. They took me out by the alley and beat the hell out of me, then hauled me off to a cell for the night. Figured I'd learned my lesson and let me out the next morning." He smirked at the thought. It of course only made him into more of a nuisance. He was just smart enough to start hiding behind a mask.

Cato blinked several times, and looked almost afraid when Inanna clarified Ayreon's unique background, "Sorry, he died, just to get resurrected so he can keep working for eternity? That sounds like an actual nightmare." The memory wipe might have changed that, but was also kind of a nightmare all its own. He shook his head. Between Ayreon and Bithia, there were a lot of things that needed answering now.

The bail was paid, and the Harths were let out of their cells at last. Cato stretched as he stepped into the hall, sighing in relief. The sound was cut off as he saw Ayreon walking right out as well, disconcertingly casual and unimpeded, "What the hell?" Cato muttered, "Just like that?" He walked up tot he desk and signed his own release form, waiting for Inanna to do the same, "Should we catch up to him? Talk to him?" Not that he was all that keen on offering details earlier. "…Follow him?"

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

"Sorry, he died, just to get resurrected so he can keep working for eternity? That sounds like an actual nightmare."

"I know." Inanna's eyebrows shot up. "I mean, he could've had a family or something. A wife and kids that needed him too. And having a giant indestructible droid body isn't the worst fate in the world... minus the memory wipe. But what I just told you is all that I know for certain about him." She'd had to piece together what little of his background could be recovered after the fact, since Ayreon had no memory of his past life and the club manager who sold him to her didn't much care to know where he had come from.

As she watched Ayreon walk out the door, shock finally gave way to a need to act. "Whatever is going on here, we certainly can't just let him go," she hissed. "He could go to the hospital to finish the job on that guy, or try to kill someone else!"

She was still questioning why the police had allowed him to leave, although given that the entire force was made up of droids, perhaps it had been as simple as changing a few lines of code or records to allow him to be released. Quickly signing herself out, Inanna took Cato's hand. "We're taking him down," she whispered, heading outside. "Not destroyed, but we need him incapacitated. His skeleton is made out of phrik, but if you target his joints you can dismember him. I'll hold him down with the Force..."

Ayreon moved rather slowly, a consequence of his bulky frame. It was easy to catch up to him, but Inanna knew better than to get too close. She reached out with the Force, seizing hold of his limbs, and pinned him in place.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

"Not as cuddly, but I can see the perks," He quipped casually. There was hardly anything to be done on that front now, unless some hard evidence hit them right in the face. But they could still find out what he was up to tonight. And probably needed to. This may as well have been a minor inconvenience for the cop-turned-assassin droid.

Outside, Ayreon lumbered towards an uncertain destination. They didn't have to try too hard to catch up and sneak attack him, at least at first. Inanna seized his body with a telekinetic grip, allowing Cato to get in close. He invited his lightsaber, and swung at the elbow. It hit some of the phrik, causing an awkward bounce, "Don't take this personally, dude," Cato went in again more slowly, pressing his blade against into joint to burn it away, before trying the same with his other arm.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna watched as Cato severed Ayreon’s arm at the elbow, the dismembered limb falling to the pavement with a dull thud. She felt a little bit sick suddenly, seeing it lying there, but she held fast to the droid. This reluctance she felt couldn’t have been anything more than sentimentality. Ayreon was just a droid. Not a sentient being. He hadn’t been truly human in decades.

But just as Cato started in on Ayreon’s other arm, something hard and heavy collided with the back of Inanna’s head. She slumped forward on the ground, losing her grip on Ayreon as her concentration was disrupted.

Freed from the telekinetic grip that had pinned him in place, the HRD pulled back his remaining arm, aiming a gut punch at Cato. Meanwhile, Inanna’s attacker began to drag the groaning Shi’ido into the shadows of a nearby alleyway.

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

One arm fell to the ground, and Cato felt a similar uncanny valley-induced discomfort. Still, he moved on to the other arm. Just as he started, he noticed the Force aura restraining Ayreon seemed to dissipate, and at the same time his danger senses flared. Cato raised a hand, buffering against the sudden impact enough to keep his insides from turning to mulch, but not enough to cease the strike fully. He was launched back, crumpled against the ground, "Ow…" He groaned, feeling a sudden urge to throw up.

He swallowed the impulse back down, and found himself more overcome with panic as he caught Inanna being dragged away, "Wait! Hey!" Suddenly the droid wasn't his most pressing concern. Cato stumbled to his feet, wobbling a bit as he tried to reach the assailant.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Ayreon blocked Cato’s path, stepping in front of him. His remaining arm shot forward, hand reaching out to clamp down on the Jedi Knight’s throat.

Meanwhile, Inanna began to return to consciousness. Through a flurry of pain and disorientation, she saw brick walls blurring past her and felt the grit of alley dirt and pavement scraping against her back. The latter was decidedly uncomfortable, and when she tried to roll over and brace herself against the ground with her hands, she was rewarded with a hard, sudden yank that skinned her palms.

“Ow! Son of a—“ She kicked at whoever was dragging her. Her foot connected with flesh and bone; she heard a whoosh of air leaving lungs in a gasp and grinned, bending her knees to kick again. Lower this time. Maybe she could knock their feet out from under them…

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato had barely gotten on his feet, when a heavy hand seized his throat, "Grk!- Ohh come on!" He grunted, barely audible as the last air was pushed out. Ayreon could probably crush his windpipe to dust if he wanted.

Cato acted fast, cutting his lightsaber into the droid's arm to loosen and eventually sever his grip. He wasn't going to just let someone run off with Inanna. In all likelihood, they were connected to this mess in the first place.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

Inanna managed to free herself from her assailant’s grip. Rather than allowing them a chance to flee, she lunged forward, crashing into them.

Their body was smaller than she expected, furry, with big ears and a long, thin, hairless tail.

She coiled around them like a snake, pressing the emitter of her lightsaber to their face. “Ayreon, stop!” she ordered. “Or the rat eats my saber!”

“Ohhh!” the giant rat wailed. “Stop it, my friend. I would like to keep my face.”

Ayreon, armless but still kicking, halted. His severed hand was still gripping Cato’s throat. With a little exertion of the Force, Inanna pried his mechanical fingers away, and the heavy limb fell to the pavement with a thud.

Cato Harth

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato stopped in front of the alley, to see Inanna more or less in control of the situation. He reached ups, awkwardly trying to pry off the still remaining limb, only for Inanna to take care of that as well. He leaned on his knees, taking a few full breaths, "That sucked." A few coughs later, and Cato was good as new.

"…Who the hell's the rat?" The fuzzy little thing wasn't exactly what Cato expected to find when he saw Inanna getting dragged away.

Inanna Harth​

 

[Inanna Harth]

"You heard him," Inanna hissed. "Tell the nice man who you are and what the feth is going on here!"

The giant rat winced, his big ears twitching as her voice grew louder. "Okay, okay, I'll talk. My name... is Jeb."

"Last name?"

"I don't have any last names! I'm just Jeb the Rat!" He whimpered a bit before continuing, "I saw this HRD kill a guy here on Zeltros. Family man with a wife and kids, all over something stupid, like gambling debts. I thought, what a waste of such a nice machine. I know droids real good, so I figured I'd steal this bad boy and use him to get rid of some real criminals. Clean up Zeltros, make things safer for the pheromone-addled tourists. Start out with low-level types, you know, sleazebags who pose a problem, but wouldn't be missed. But then you two screwed things up. I had to hack into the police precinct databases to get him released, and now you're still screwing things up!"

"What?" Inanna asked, completely thrown off by his explanation. "What are you talking about? You mean that guy in the club was a—"

"A sex offender."

"... No!"

"Yes." Jeb winced. "Could you please stop yelling in my ear? My hearing is sensitive."

Cato Harth​

 

[Cato Harth]

Cato scrunched his face, dumbfounded by the encounter, "…Really?" Jeb the Rat was the source of all their problems. And, if he was to be believed, was playing vigilante with Ayreon, "You have proof of that?" He cringed at the thought of Jeb being right about the man.

"And- hold on, you saw him killing someone before all this? Do you know who he was being used by?" Even if Jeb wasn't the real culprit, perhaps he knew something that would lead them to their original goal.

Inanna Harth​