Rehash

Four.

"That is all for now. We'll return your phone to you when and if we are able. Do you have any other questions?" 

"No, I'm good," I said, already reaching for the door handle of the interrogation room before the police woman was done speaking. 

"Let me know when I can pick up my pho--ne." I flinched when I put pressure on the door knob with my injured hand.

"Something wrong with your hand?" 

The police officer tilted her head to the side. I couldn't tell whether it was suspicion or general concern. 

So close. I'd gotten so close to lying perfectly and not drawing any additional attention during the interrogation.

I put up my best fake smile as I rubbed the back of my injured hand. "Oh, I slammed my locker shut on my fingers earlier today. Nasty, right."

"Really now?" 

The police officer studied me with piercing scrutiny  There was an eerie pause and then she pointed at me. "Get that checked out. My cousin had that with his wrist once and ended up with nerve damage because things grew back wrong."

"Yes ma'am."

Once I made it out of the interrogation room, I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd more or less succeeded in not giving myself away or making myself appear more guilty. Well, even more guilty than the heavily pro-android content on my phone, which the police was going to read now they confiscated it. 

Yet, the cops had seemed surprisingly indifferent to the news of an android on the loose. All through the interrogation I had the impression the officer didn't believe me. In a sympathetic way - like she thought exam stress was scrambling my brains. 

She was spot on about the 'scrambled brains' part. I was unsure what my next move should be. Coming up with a plan to chase an android who obviously didn't want to be found, with little more information than what his face looked like, was a challenge.  

Trying to lie to Alan and Zekiye about the cops and the android, was an even larger challenge. 

Zekiye and Alan didn't agree on much, but both would have my head it they knew I had lied to the cops a total of three times. 

I told them I didn't see my assailant's face. I largely feigned ignorance on the topic of Lenora's digital data vault and what exactly had happened to it. And without planning to, I had also lied about the cause of my hand injury.

The exact same lies, I relayed to my brother and Zekiye outside of the police station.

Zekiye's reaction was typically her: some disapproving clacking of her tongue and an eye-roll. 

"Guess I'm no longer making an android and gyndroid picture gallery for the post-war anniversary," she complained. "There's zero information to reconstruct with anywhere."

"It's not just you," Alan replied. "Everyone has the same problem. The entire electronic vault is now offline for, Alan made quotation marks with his fingers, "maintenance. They're figuring out the security breaches."

"Good," I said. "About time. Twenty-five years later we'll finally stop celebrating the end of the Singularity war like it's good thing."

Zekiye drew in a long breath and sighed. "We're living in relative peace. We haven't even been in a war in our lifetime. I think that's a reason to celebrate, don't you?" 

"Stop your acid pissing attitude for once," even Alan agreed with Zekiye. "Also, it's your turn to call home to mom and dad and let them know what happened."