Just a Machine |Detroit: Become Human

10.

More and more, deviants were getting more public attention and not of the good one.

Marlene would get even more concerned about her own Android because of the side looks Zoey would get at the office.

Some of those she used to call friends and good coworkers had already given her 'good' advice. To get rid of Zoey now that she could.

And they did it in front of her, lowering their voices as if Zoey wasn't unable to raise the sensitivity of her audio sensors and easily listen.

Only once Marlene had caught the LED spin yellow when one crude and specifically rude comment was made to Zoey's appearance.

Marlene wanted to put her Android in a bubble and not let her experience the mean comments, even though Zoey had insisted it didn't matter to her because she was a machine, she couldn't help but notice the little wince in her expression when someone walked past her, shoving back her shoulder, hard.

Not a good time to be an Android for sure.

~8~

"Hey, plastic bitch!"

Zoey's LED flickered in acknowledgement, considering the human was in front of her, blocking the aisle. She was on the routine grocery trip with Marlene, but Marlene had an appointment in less than an hour so Zoey rearranged her priorities into making the usual hour trip into 30 minutes by splitting up. She had memoriz- scanned the shopping list Marlene held before doing so.

Everything was going smoothly until this particular human with stress levels: 59%, alcohol intake detected: 34%, visible signs of red ice consume, blocked her path and started throwing slurs her way.

The insults did nothing to Zoey, already used to them, staring ahead with a calm stare, something the man noticed and scoffed loudly, pressing his arms on her shoulders and shoving her back violently, making her drop the basket.

Zoey's LED flickered between yellow and red momentarily due to the display of violence, stumbling back but managing to steady herself.

A brief thought passed through her mind as she noticed the crowd that was slowly gathering. They're not going to do anything? They're just going to watch?!

^Software Instability

The label appeared between static and in red letters on the corner of her vision, usually the way the warning prompts would appear. Through the corner of her eye, opposite to the instability label, she detected her stress levels above the comfortable level, something she noticed she had to keep in mind to calm down.

She straightened back again, the LED still yellow for a couple of seconds as she assessed any sort of damage.

"What?" The man sneered, getting closer to her personal space. Zoey felt her thirium pump begin to race. After a quick scan, she didn't see anything that would provoke such reaction. "All mighty and innocent looking, don't ya? But you're a demon, you'd kill and replace humanity, believing you're one of us when you are nothing alike" -we were made by your image. We can be- Zoey took a deep breath, startled by the ringing static playing through her audio sensors, the dialogue approach she just.... Thought? About appearing in red code, flickering in static but like always, her social module restricted her from picking upon it.

"I am not like you, indeed" Zoey said softly, protocols indicating to use a soft and firm voice to placate the human. "I am a machine, sir. I was not made to replace the wonder minds that created me, just to assist them"

Because you all are very useless.

Zoey, again was startled at the code of synthetic thought that passed through her chassis. Maybe, the man wouldn't notice but anyone with a working mind would notice the flicker of red between the yellow the moment the thought passed through her synthetic mind.