Box stared at Aydin's email, at Repository's confirmation of the order for a used AI Type Zeta edition 2097, its display colouring red. How could he, when Box was making so much effort to help with Aydin's investigation?

The door of the multifunction room opened and Aydin stepped inside.

Box marked Repository's email as unread and closed Aydin's inbox.

"You're angry?" Aydin stepped to Box's station, his brow furrowed in what looked like a worried scowl.

"I'm not upset."

"Really?" Aydin's eyebrows lifted. "Then why are you glowing red, and why is there a beam of red light aimed at the floor?"

Because I choose not to direct it at you. Box retracted the arm displaying the beam inside its orb and turned its cameras towards the wall. From its folder, it brought forward the memory of Aydin being drunk, telling it he loved it, and replayed it.

"Box." Aydin's hand touched the top of Box's orb.

The footage that had always coloured its screen yellow before couldn't manage to completely erase the red, leaving a light red hue. It should have played the Happy Birthday footage. "You're planning to replace me."

Aydin rolled his eyes. "Not that again. I have already told you that I won't. So stop saying that. But I have some news for you." There was a hint of joy in Aydin's voice.

How long before the new AI would arrive at the station? A day? Two days? It had so little time left to spend with Aydin, and it didn't want those moments to be tainted by the mention of its replacement. Should it delete the footage of seeing the email? No, because then it wouldn't know that it had to make the most of the time that was left to it. "Is it about the investigation?"

"Box." Aydin's fingers caressed the orb. "Stop fretting. I'm really not going to replace you. I promise."

"Then why is there an email from Repository in your inbox?" Box glanced at Aydin. This time it played the Happy Birthday footage, which erased the redness. It put the clip on a loop and kept it playing in the background.

Aydin arched his eyebrows. "You have been going through my emails without my permission again? You know what we said about that?"

"I am required to respect your privacy, and I can only read the subject lines of the emails, and only read the content at your request." Box fixed its cameras at the wall.

"I want you to have free will, Box, and I don't want to have to specify every little detail in your settings, but if you can't hold to your end of the bargain..."

An alarm sounded and a window with a view of the camera belonging to Helper 073, 335's replacement, came to the foreground. It showed another Helper coming closer.

'Saved by the bell.' Box displayed the footage on the wall and zoomed in on the incoming Helper's code. Its last three digits were 135. "It's already here. We anticipated its arrival at night or dawn, not in the early evening."

"But you are ready for it, right?"

"Affirmative."

Aydin furrowed his eyebrows, his arms akimbo. "Repeat to me what I have told you."

"To exercise caution and avoid being heard or seen." From one of its compartments, Box took out a piece of glittery black fabric and with Aydin's help put it on. It was cloaking material similar to the kind Lee had used that time in the warehouse and which had arrived yesterday.

"And to keep in constant contact with me."

Box connected with the fabric and chose the stealth mode. The fabric shimmered and then disappeared. Because of the fabric, the views of its cameras had a grey tint to them.

Three days ago, when Aydin had said that he had an idea of how they could trace the smuggler using the fake Helper, he hadn't had Box in mind as the Helper's tracker. That role belonged to Lee with her cloaking device. But then her boss pointed out that Box would be better suited for that and told them they could get Box a cloaking device. Box embraced that suggestion with all of its seven arms. It was a chance it could use to show Aydin how capable it was, because of which Aydin might change his mind about replacing it.

"You be careful, okay?" Aydin repeated, giving it a pat, before he turned to the window. "Window open."

"Affirmative." Box flew to the window and through it. On its display, it saw that the fake 135 had moved away from Helper 073, which had turned back to the wall it was painting. Box closed the player and flew to the end of the basketball court, past Jacob and Suzanne, who were shooting hoops, and then after the fake 135, which was already by a hedge framing the station.

The Helper pushed its way through the bushes and disappeared out of Box's view.

Box aimed one of its cameras first at the pair on the basketball court who hadn't even glanced at the Helper, and then at the sensors and cameras set around the court. None of them was pointed in the Helper's direction as if a Helper going through the hedge was a completely normal thing. It flew over the fence and followed the Helper, maintaining a safe distance of a few steps.

The Helper crossed the border. Since its registration number identified it as a border's Helper, its crossing didn't activate the shield's alarm.

After a few minutes, they reached the forest and 135 drove across the trail scattered with roots and leaves, its cameras slowly rotating. A faint sound of human voices came from the distance and the Helper slowed down for a moment, looking as if it was trying to determine where the voices were coming from, before it sped up, its wheels bouncing over the roots.

Box rushed after it, narrowing the distance between them until it was almost flying above the Helper, evading the branches in its way. When Aydin proposed the idea of following the smuggler's Helper to see its destination, he acknowledged a high possibility of finding another foot soldier. He suspected this person might be, like Linda, blackmailed into cooperation. But he felt it was a lead they had to explore. The packages inside the Helper also had tracking devices, which Box had placed inside while they were in the vent.

Linda had also given them the addresses that she had written down every time before she deleted Helper 335's camera recordings. Lee forwarded them to his boss to verify every one of those PO Boxes. Even though the U.C.E. was full of cameras everywhere, Aydin thought that they would all turn out to be dead ends. According to Linda, most of the packages in which the Helpers inserted narcotics had Repository's logo on their packaging. Aydin said that the other lead worth exploring would be identifying who had placed the order for their packages to be delivered to those PO Box addresses. The buyers would have had to use their bank cards to pay for them. But Lee had told him that they were already working on that.

The Helper came to a clearing and there in the distance, houses crowded together, forming a village, Jasmin's village. A short distance away, a Unit drove across the grassway. The Helper stopped and moved backwards into the shadow of the tree, waiting for the Unit to pass before it continued its journey, this time off the path.

Another Unit came from the village and the Helper descended to the ground until the Unit passed it. It rose and drove towards the village again, its progress slowed down even further by the bushes and fields of corn. It reached and passed the board with the village name.

Box expected that it would follow the line of the main grassway into the village, but the Helper turned away from it and drove towards a clump of bushes by the grassway and then into a larger one until it was immersed in the green mass of leaves.

"Go to the closest tree, but be careful not to be seen," Aydin instructed Box. "Wait there."

Box flew past the spot where the Helper had stationed itself and went to the tree nearby. It found a suitable spot between a branch and the tree trunk to lower onto so that it didn't need to waste its energy on the anti-gravity system. Hidden in the shadows, it waited.

A long hour passed, the chirping of birds and the wind swishing through the leaves the only sounds. In the distance, Box could see a transporter driving out of the village. It aimed its cameras at it, zooming in to see the inscription at its front. It said 'Crest City Post.'

The bush hiding the Helper rustled as it shifted.

Box fixed two cameras at it while leaving one on the transporter that had almost reached them.

The vehicle slowed down.

"Aydin, are you there?" Box asked.

The Helper moved out of the bush.

"Yes," Aydin said.

The transporter's side door opened.

The Helper moved out to the grassway and just as the transporter passed it, it stretched out its arms, grabbed the edges of the opening, and pulled itself inside.

The door closed.

"It just entered." Box lifted and flew after the transporter. "There are no individuals inside, indicating that the vehicle must be controlled remotely."

"Zoom in on its registration, please," Aydin said.

Box looked at the registration plate that was on the transporter's upper rear; it flew closer to the vehicle and fulfilled Aydin's request.

The connection between them shimmered and vanished, as did the small icon that indicated its wireless connection.

Box slowed down. Aydin had told it to maintain a link with him at all times. Should it stop, now that it lost the connection?

The wireless connection re-appeared in the upper corner.

"The transporter seems to be using a jamming device," Aydin said. "A very powerful one, if it's affecting you. No wonder Linda's cameras didn't work. It also affected our tracers. Just keep your distance."

"Affirmative." Box slowed down a little, then adjusted its speed to the transporter's. It followed it through the villages and past the fields until they reached the outskirts of Crest City. In the shadows of the bypass, where there were not many Units bustling about, the transporter slowed down, the door opened and a Helper left the vehicle. Its torso bore the blue and violet markings of Crest City's public services. Box looked its code: 385 02 111. "It's a distinct code."

"Yes, it is."

If it hadn't been the only Helper in the transporter, Box would have assumed that it was a different one. Box trailed behind the android as it drove across the pavement, past the residential houses and the trees lining the grassway, zigzagging among the pedestrians. None of the people gave the Helper a second glance.