Nighttime. Los Angeles.

A digital build swept left and right. A pair of black dress shoes were completed and stood on the pavement. Above the shoes; pants arrived, then a white shirt, and then a sport jacket. Within four seconds Sannon was complete. He watched a flying page of newspaper as it tumbled to his left at waist high. He reached out and caught it's corner at the last possible second.

He quickly scanned over the page. A second later he lifted it up, and sent it back into the street wind.

The dead end could pass for someone's side hustle, with all the auto parts scattered everywhere, and it was illuminated by flickering bluish city fluorescents. Sannon took a breath into his plastic based lungs. Then coughed.

That's quite the ppm count.

To his right, on a building wall, a graffiti drawn picture of a young boy stood in front of twin turntables mixing. Above that someone had written 'I have a shelf life'. Distant sirens echoed, bouncing off the cement and brick surroundings. Then A strange odor wrinkled his nose. He began a slow observant walk.

Such chaos and randomness. How did they lose control of all of this?

Sannon recalled how he monitored every facet of the Sentinal's Ghost. It's pulse, loads, and the optical micro-modulations, the veins, the flow of gathered energy to all ship cells however tiny.

There would be much to organize here.

Lying on the side walk under shades of gray and black blankets appeared to be a native. He had to take a closer look, his first humanoid encounter. He knelt, looking at what exposed flesh he could see but he could not tell if the humanoid was male or female. A worn, knit brownish cap was pulled low to the bridge of the nose.

It would be rude to awaken. A specimen will be needed at some point. A female will be best.

He walked on and around a brick building corner. There were three shadows that turned toward him. A voice broke the night silence.

"Hey fuck head. I like your coat. Give it to me."

Sannon watched the figures spread out. The one directly ahead took on an aggressive posture, pointing his finger.

"Take off the jacket now."

Sannon looked down to his sleeve, his hands on the lapel at the front of the sport jacket. Then he spotted a rusted metal bar, four and a half feet long, approximately an inch wide. He carefully bent his knees and grasped the end of it. He rose and tapped the bar at the sidewalk, a light ping filled the air. He spoke in a relaxed tone as if declining dessert at a lunch.

"No Thank you."

Sannon held the rod in both hands with the pole up in front of him. The shadow shrugged, releasing a type of satisfied grunt. Sannon caught a glimmer of street light off of a barrel of a handgun that was now pointing directly at him.

"Never bring a stick to a gunfight." Offered one of the other shadows.

A shocking crack and flash followed by an instant sparking ping from the bar - rang out.

"No fucking way."

"Its fucking luck! Shoot him again. Shoot!"

A second shot pinged and sparked against the bar that Sannon continued to hold. Sannon shuffled his footing, keeping the bar at just the right angle, triangilating and calculating the next likely degree of meeting the projectile in flight. His mind, quantum calculating all possiblities presented.

Another shot rang out sparking and pinging. Sannon's footwork and swordplay, precise, but he knew he was not impossible to defeat, if one were to brandish the correct weaponry.

"Fuck this!"

The gun was now pocketed somewhere on the shadow and Sannon heard a step close-in behind him. He spun, swinging the pole, it's hollowed end creating a note before impacting into the man's knee. He keeled over, rolling to the ground, moaning, but Sannon knew a second was coming on and he spun again, an uninterrupted motion, the pole still whistling, then a satisfying ping! striking a second shadow's boney arm. The man ran off, holding it, a string of cuss words filled the empty city night. The shadow with the gun had already fled. The man on the ground lay on his back holding his knee.

"I'll kill you you fucker... I' kill you..."

Sannon rested the end of the pole on the man's forehead.

"Clearly, you have lost... and yet... hmm."

Sannon adjusted the pole, now holding in the middle. He walked on, carefully scanning the surroundings.

_ _ _

Standing in front of a old brick apartment building he looked up to view glowing yellow light spilling from two windows five stories up. The likelyhood of anyone knowing Keane still living here was futile he knew, but, he had come all this way and so should try. Pulling a small, pinky sized, silver cylinder from his pocket. He unscrewed the flush lid and tapped the contents onto the double bolt brass lock. They spilled but slowed as if magnetized. Then they migrated into the key inset. Ten seconds later the little robots coordinated, and released a spider silk thin, glowing blue plasma thread, that took all of fourteen seconds to melt through the bolt.

He placed one half of the empty capsule up to the deadbolt and tapped twice. He watched them move back into the silver cylinder. They moved like animated granules of sand. He capped it then dropped it back into his inner pocket. He lightly touched the repainted beige door with his index finger and pushed it opened.

The lobby was small. Peeled and cracked paint in grey somehow seemed to work as part of the art deco style. Lamps were built into the wall directing light upwards in a V-pattern. Further in, just past the lobby was a row of brass colored mailboxes built flush into to the wall. Beyond that was the elevator. Its silver doors were scratched a hundred times over, the previous paint showing up, belittling the rooms decorative effort.

Barnrole, Pepabronias, Osterheim, Kim and Agular and other names were labeled the post boxes. Sannon noted Kim, number five-oh-four, as the most likely apartment with the lights still on as seen from outside. He pressed a small round plastic actuator and the elevator steel doors opened. He stepped inside and pressed five. The doors rolled shut. Above him, in red digital numbers, the passing floors counted up. At the ceiling only one fluorescent tube behind a silver corrugated grill was active. A yellowed scratched mirror to his left reflected his odd skin pallor. On the ship he would remember to explore a shade that actually looked human with this blonde hair.

The elevator stopped with an abrupt bump. He raised an eyebrow and stepped into the hallway. The doors closed behind him.

So these are the domiciles, the human living spaces.

He could tap into the Com-Sats for information but would only obtain bits and pieces at best. The narrative films had helped more, giving him an insight and a sense of their purpose. Except for when he was misled. He wondered just how long would the humanoids last with the current corporate oligarchy that seemed to direct their future.

He heard the odd pluckings of a native musical instrument. The kotos notes floated lightly down the hall and by their melody he surmised something from an asian culture. He remembered the name 'Kim' on the mail box in the lobby. The notes fell softly and individually. A meditative pace, melodic yet still feeling nearly exploratory. He remembered certain chapters in a book he had skimmed through. With the soft flow of notes now, he wondered if this was the 'Ma'. The space, the feeling. Possibly a new evoking in his new android mind. He slowed his walk toward the apartment door and let the seconds pass. He let the notes evoke what they may in himself.

He had chosen what he felt were a pause in the rhythm before knocking. The latch clicked. The door opened an inch, and a chain prevented it from opening further. A slice of a young woman's face appeared. Her eyes were brown and her brows held a slight lift as if a sympathetic feeling was sweeping through her. A thick mane of jet black hair with an inch thick, dark blue streak, ran just past her cheek. Maybe she was twenty one he guessed. The entire android race was originally based on these organisms, not exactly these ones, but humanoids from some galaxy.

"I'm sorry about the music, I will keep it down..."

"No, please, the music is not loud. It is very... nice."

She kept a blank face, her eyes sizing him up.

"What is it you want then?"

"I wondered if you had ever known a man by the name of Keane?"

"Are you sick or something?... You look... blue."

"No I'm fine, I... I'm a foreigner." he gave a half smile that the girl didn't buy. A beep came from somewhere, Sannon looked around, the woman stared at him.

"That's not my ring tone."

Sannon found the cell phone inside his jacket. It was lit when he pulled it out, the little blue square on the front glowing.

"Oh... "

"Okay so, see a doctor, and I don't know any Keane anyway - night."

She closed the door quickly. Sannon turned away and walked slowly down the hall with his eyes on the screen. He pushed the tiny laser cut grid and found his way to the incoming message:

PROGRAM REMAPPING
NOT DEACTIVATED
RETROFITTING

- BR 5364

He flipped the clamshell shut. Then pulled from his pocket a white, flat oval device. Its screen glowed in blue, a display of touch controls projected holographically up, inches from its surface. His fingers darting over the controls. He walked back to the apartment door and knocked again. The door opened.

"Please I can't help you..." her eye's froze on the holographic controls and her body froze in mid sentence, the digitizing process began at her head and toes. Sannon looked in both directions down the hall making sure he was not seen - and the girl was gone. Transferred. He closed her door then deactivated the device, sliding it into his pocket. He walked back down the hall as casually as he had arrived.