Escape

Escape
	In retrospect she probably should have expected this would be tricky, but Aquila had been hopeful that this would have been a quick in and out. Her little ‘adventures’ had been getting more risky lately, and with that risk had come unforeseen damage. A long and deep scratch running up her left leg that she had to keep covered, a hard fall that she’d broken with her left arm had resulted in a dented motivator that kept hitching whenever she tried to lift her arm above her head. Damage kept piling up and yet she couldn’t resist the urge to keep sneaking out night after night. Sending herself in for a full repair and diagnostic was out of the question, no way she could risk that, which left only one option.
	Downtown, a bit off 5th and Main, there was a little shop that claimed to provide cleaning, small maintenance and accessories for “A wide variety of brand name androids”. But inside her Stirling approved and updated internal database she’d found a bulletin warning customers away from this shop, as they were suspected of preforming warranty violating add-ons, under the counter. In Aquila’s mind that meant a decent chance of spare parts and probably less security than a Stirling outlet.
	Not exactly easy, per say, but it should be doable, especially since buglers were generally assumed to be human, not android. Robotic stamina allowed her to hang from a second story window ledge long enough to cut through the glass, the first floor windows were barred and probably alarmed. Quickly looking up the specs on standard security camera’s gave her a good idea of their blind spots, and her own maid training helped her move quietly, so as not to disturb sleeping humans.
	Of course, she was new to this, bound to make some mistakes, it’s not like Stirling gave them heist classes along with vacuuming. Mistakes like clearly leaving the cut open window uncovered, for all to see, a thought that snapped to mind the instant her aural sensors picked up the whine of a police siren on the horizon.
	It was a mad scramble to shove as many parts as she could in her pockets before tearing back up the stairs and squirming out the whole she made. She was halfway up the fire escape towards her rooftop escapes when the cop car pulled up, a flashlight passing over the storefront and eventually into the alley.
	As she got to the top and started to run, Aquila could only hope that her clothes had managed to cover her obviously robotic nature in the dark. And that at least some of the stuff she had grabbed would be useful.