Five minutes. Three hundred seconds. Cassandra didn't bother with the milliseconds, the point already having been crossed evenly out. It was understandable how long had passed, the woman double-checking within how much it had moved every few moments she had spent inside that fortress of solitude, utterly unable to get out of it all. Then at five minutes, the black dot on her shirt fizzled into nothing, with the blockade around her disappearing with it like nothing. Nothing at all.

Nobody was outside the bubble. Everybody had fled the premises, likely intending on getting that deal evened out. Or maybe they knew exactly how many throats Cassandra wanted to rip out when she got the chance. At that point, the woman hardly knew if she joked about it or not. If the people got close, just within reach of her grip, who knew what innards would fly where? Cassandra knew, of course, the woman being the one reason for their movement outside the body, to begin with.

After a quick glance around the courtyard, with no soul seen, as a result, the woman positively lounged over the sofa, on her knees before the automation that was her partner in crime and justice. Jules, the automation that had been crushed in the middle. Even now she couldn't believe what had happened.

"You certainly took your time getting here," Jules said, the voice seeming so much more starchy than normal. It was as if it had been fractured in two and fused together improperly, creating an overtone of robotic static. The sound was like rusty nails to her ears. "Did my letter catch you?"

"What are your chances of surviving me picking you up?" Cassandra said, taking off the layer of cloth that stopped her from seeing the things waist. While the woman might not have been trained in attending to the injuries of an inhuman android, she was more than capable of detecting bleeding where it wasn't supposed to be. And… she didn't even need to be trained to see if it was bad or not.

"I wouldn't call it the most serious of things," Jules began with a few head-tilts to show off his impressive certainty. "But… it definitely hits the top ten. Maybe even top five. Do you think they could name this injury after me, by the way? There wasn't anything about it in the manual, so I have to assume the creators didn't assume that this would happen to us at any level."

The last layer of skin was the only thing holding back the blood from pooling on the floor, yet even it was beginning to show off its limits. The lower side was slowly ballooning inside, nothing more than a sharp edge being the cause being it all bursting.

"How are you even alive?" Cassandra had to mutter, taking off her jacket and slowly manoeuvring it under the automation, no matter how many small grumbles came from it. The stone flooring was too dangerous while the skin was out in the open.

"Honestly? I have no clue," Jules bluntly stated, doing a half shrug. It would have been a full shrug, but that would have likely killed it before it even finished. "I think the fact that it's still technically inside allows the pump to still function in some limited manner. I’ve lost circulation in my legs, so something has likely also been ripped out of its socket."

A broken main vein beside pump barely hanging on, one or more main wires to the legs being ripped out of its placement… What else? Cassandra supposed the burst inner layers of the skin could count, but she found it hard to focus on something like, the woman’s mind desperately attempting to find something that would allow her to restrain the pool of blood in the event of the last layer of skin giving in.

"I assume you’ve already called for help?" Cassandra questioned, bringing out one of the smaller tape roles she had on her. It wasn't the greatest but it would strengthen the skin the slightest bit. It would be enough for now, though she wasn't happy with it. Even a plastic bag could have offered more strength.

"Yes, I already did it long before you got yourself trapped in that mysterious circle," Jared said with what was perhaps meant to be a sigh. It came out as a gentle sound of somebody drowning instead. Not the greatest mix of adjectives when the other person near them was actively trying to make sure they didn't burst and kill themself. "Great job doing that, by the way. I still can’t understand how you did it."

"It was not intentional. I can promise you as much," Cassandra stated, making sure there was nothing in her jacket that could prove useful. Though… it wasn't like she expected to find anything. She was fully stocked to shoot an army in the head with one bullet for each crotch, but there wasn't as much as a single stained needle. What she wouldn't have given for emergency patches. "It was hell in there."

"Did you scream out constantly in pain from being impaled by sonic needles or something?" Jules asked, tilting its head up to get a better look at her. What exactly was the thing searching for? Stab wounds? If Cassandra had some of those, she wouldn't have gotten to the automation to start with. "Or maybe it was all mental-based. Do you phycological scars that will forever stop you from being effective."

"None that I gained in the recent hour, no," Cassandra said, praying that she wouldn't get one in the next five minutes. "It was relatively calm inside… whatever it was. Only me and the air. If you ignore the slight trouble to breathe after the first minutes, I don’t see any form of torture that I was subjected to."

She was subjected to being without information, but that's hardly something she would say. Her worrying about what was going outside would only be the most embarrassing thing the woman could say, Jules more than just likely to tease her about it. No, it was written in law that the automation would do something like that. The construct would have never let an opportunity like that slip, The woman just knew it.

"So you’re crying about being bored for a few minutes. I truly feel bad for you, your situation is so much worse than my own," Jules said, moving it’s arms about to make a pose that screamed ‘woe me.’ It was perhaps not the most perfect rendition, seeing as the automation was forced to do it on the ground without use of its legs, but the woman still felt it was semi-recognizable. "If I had the ability to use my lower body, I would certainly have hugged. Sadly, I am at a high risk of dying with every second passing, so that might just not happen."

"I think we both know you’re too annoying to die," Cassandra commented, not wanting to think about it. Even automations could become inoperable. While some injuries would force the automations to become inactive, most weren't on the level of anything else. Perhaps a replacement of a few organs but whatever.

It was nothing serious, most of the time. The automation was created with the intent of being able to take several hits. Multiple gun-shots directly to the face? Give it a night in the workshop, and the bastard would be good as new. Every limb cut off? Just sew them back on! The body was pummeled into a near paste, the arms, head, and legs being nothing but a gooey mess. No problem! Everything could be put back together, the blood inside the core retaining everything in its mint condition.

But… that’s the problem. The most armoured place in the automaton's body was the core, the stomach, the chest, and everything close to it. It was the place that could take hits from a shot-gun, that could be hit with a war-hammer without any real issue, and it was the palace designed to survive through anything. Because if it broke, then it would be the end of the story for that particular automation. The core was what kept everything going after all.

The core was the brain, the heart, and all of the important organs put together. Everything in an automation could be replaced, only the core of it being the deciding factor. It was the only part that couldn't be destroyed if the automation inside was to survive.

And it wasn't meant to be able to. With everything surrounding it, the designers had likely thought it the safest place in the whole sector of the police. The president's cabinet wished for the kind of protection that the automation’s core had at its disposal. But… it was that kind of protection that didn't always keep up.

With enough time, even the lowest of chances were great. With time, even the hardest material would meet its match. The strongest would meet somebody stronger. And the defence meant to be impenetrable would shatter with ease, the consequences of such damned.

What happened when a core was damaged? Well… what was within was likely not going to make it, the software was too large to be uploaded into the database. Personalities were hardcoded into the core, making them impossible to truly move without some form of loss, be that memories or mannerisms. Or, impossible in the span of time given at least. Nobody could make it happen.

"Who could have guessed that an extremely strong augmentation user would be among the thieves?" Cassandra muttered to herself, trying to cause some kind of distraction. Already, she had looked at the map, finding that a certain automation was on its way towards them. The woman had felt some initial anger at her boss for not doing it personally, yet she quickly realised that he knew just about as much as her. The only thing Grunwald could have done was to keep watch over the crime scene. Which he was apparently going over to do, which was very nice of him. "It doesn't make sense."

"Well… it should have been on the list of possibilities," Jules replied, seemingly having grown a pair in the more deathly moments of its life. "We had an extremely serious possibility of there being a defence-based augmentation user. It doesn't seem that weird in hindsight for there to be a strong one as well. Does make me wonder if there would be space for speed too. You should write that down. My own ability seems to be slightly… nonexistent right now."

"I would personally call that being useless but your excuses are accepted," Cassandra said, rechecking that the automation was on its way. It had so much time to get there, yet it seemed so determined to take so long. Was it hard to get through the building or something? "Though, the word useless does remind me of something. Did you get a look at the thief’s face?"

"Not even close. The dude was one white spot in my vision. I thought it would be possible to get the upper hand of him nonetheless, but it seemed that might have been an upper hand for him automatically. My mistake, I guess."

The automation’s mistake indeed. After that initial throwaway, Cassandra would have been perfectly fine with changing the plan on the fly, both of them going at him through ranged weapons entirely. At that point, it should have been obvious what dangers there would have been with getting close. Honestly, the man had been able to throw over a hundred kilos worth of metal without breaking a sweat. They should have taken the hint.

"It doesn't matter now. If you know where you messed up and promise to not do it again, then I must assume you have done as much as you could," Cassandra stated, her fingertips touching the skin of the automation. She dared not press her finger into it, only trying to feel how much the size was increasing. Her eyes were too blurry for good estimates, but her fingers proved that it was indeed still growing. Through the quick power of looking at graphs about the automation's skin elasticity, the results were truly not that good. The current position was restricting the amount of space to work with, forcing the blood out instead of around the body. It wasn't going to hold at the current for long. "Where the hell is that buddy of yours?"

"I would call him more of a work associate than anything," Jules corrected with a tone that made sure to show off how important it was for the automation to not be seen as being friends with the other construct. "We might be made of the same stuff, but that doesn't mean that much."

"You think I could rip out that one’s skin and graft it onto yours?" Cassandra asked. That caused a small laugh to erupt from the automation, though it was quickly stifled. No reason to agitate the blood flow, after all. It wouldn't require more than a wrong muscle being tensed before something would pop. Even during their small talk, the thing had grown a good ten per cent. At the current point, Cassandra wouldn't even have needed to lift the shirt, the growing mass of skin fully able to do that alone.

"I don’t think that would be effective or appreciated by any of the parties involved in that," Jules said. "In fact, it was just about as effective as me ordering the thief from before to stay. The guy even politely wished me a good evening before leaving out the door. The audacity of that bastard, not looking up to me as a student should. I was clearly superior yet he didn't even take notice of that fact."

At those words, Cassandra remembered the need for checking out the cameras. While the courtyard was free of any recording equipment, the outside street that people had fled onto was not among them. The woman was more than able to see the mass of people running, everybody scattering into the winds. With the help of the system, she was able to quickly get the name of just about everybody, including the different places they were hiding or walking. Modern technology was truly remarkable. When the woman got the chance, she was sure she would give each of the people a personal visit.

There was no sign of the larger blonde, however. Not that this truly shocked the woman, the observation being more a tried one than anything close to shock. Whatever technology was being used to obscure their identities was stronger than anything ever seen. It was able to make decade-old digital cameras ignore them while also being just as effective on implanted ocular enhancers and the eyes of an automation, the technology for the latter being heavily restricted. The woman had thought about it many times before, yet the fact was still more serious than ever.

"Oh? I can hear the cavalry!"

Jules barely got out the last syllable before the main entrance door was blasted open with a sharp kick. The automation belonging to Grunwald had come, and it had supplies with it. Positively running over to the other two, the construct lowered itself and the various pillaged tools down on the ground.

"Damage is extreme. The movement of the subject is impossible. A sanitized environment is required for a complete chance of recovery. A sanitized environment is not attainable," the automation listed off, Jules clearly rolling its eyes at the statements. Cassandra did not share the same attitude, looking at the other automation with more respect than ever before. And when it looked at her, she righted her back, ready for orders. "Please vacate the area to increase chances of proper sanitisation. Your movements kick up dirt and various other materials. It is requested that you leave the premises."

"In other words, please wait in the car," Jules rephrased, though the other automation did nod. With a smile towards her, it might have tried to look as if it was reassuring her. "We will be out in a few minutes."

"Negative. The operation will take a minimum of-"

"Time is relative and I didn't say any specific time-frames so shut your mouth," Jules replied to the other automation’s attempt at worsening the situation. "Do ignore what it said and try out the comfiness in the car seats. I hear they are quite good when you don't simultaneously fear for your life."

That small bit of humour was enough for Cassandra to leave the courtyard. The inside of the building was barely noticed. Likewise, the woman couldn't even remember when she lied down on the back seat with her eyes open and staring at the car’s ceiling. Truly, it was a time she would never be able to forget. Though… she hoped it would be unforgettable for the right reason.

Oh god, she hoped it would be for the right reason.