I looked with satisfaction at the message scrawled across my bathroom mirror. "You could die this easy", it proclaimed in bright red waxy letters. I had written the message with a particularly gaudy red lipstick. Not my lipstick, I only wore earth tones. The red lipstick was purely for business. I called the police, and took a nice hot bath.

After the bath, I tossed my robe on a chair, and put on my street clothes. Leather pants, black turtle neck, and my snakeskin cowboy boots. Yeah, cowboy boots. I thought about hiding my gun and badge, but local enforcement types don't react well to out of town cops that try to keep their presence a secret. Best to be open about it, I decided. I waited for nearly half an hour in the humid little hotel room. It must have been nearly eighty degrees in the late summer Florida night, and the stupid air conditioner refused to actually condition the air. Unless frustration and heat stroke were the conditions it was designed for.

The officers, two of Miami's finest if you could trust the brand of donut crumb on their uniforms, observed the mirror. They checked the locked window, with its amazing view of the red brick building across the narrow alley. They gave each other the look, the one that means the caller is a nutcase. With a sigh one opened a notebook, and the second started in with the questions. At that very moment, I decide to keep my gun and badge a secret.

"Are you on any medication, miss?", asked the questioner. I hadn't bothered to read his name tag, and he hadn't introduced himself.

"No, officer. Nor have I been drinking". The note-taker dutifully wrote down my response.

"Have you had anything to drink?" The note taker almost choked.

"No. I don't drink. I haven't been on any medication either", I couldn't resist seeing if questioner would get trapped in a recursive interview loop. He paused a moment, looking at his partner. He blinked. He blinked again. Then he asked his next question.

"Are you on any medication, miss?"

I drew my gun, and shot him in the face. I had my gun trained on his partner before he could finish urinating in his pants.

"H-he, he's one of those droids"?! Note-taker was nearly hysterical. I realized he hadn't been told his partner was an android. Poor guy never suspected a thing. Androids like infiltrating police ranks. It makes them feel superior to pretend they are in charge. Plus, its easy. Cops tend to think in "If it walks like a duck..." mode. If it eats donuts, and knows the lingo it must be a cop. Pitiful, but that's why the Feds have me. I'm like the police Turing test. The droids never see me coming.

"The feds will be here in a few minutes", I told note taker, "they'll have some routine questions for you".

"I'm not an android. Why do they want to talk to me?", Note-taker said with rising panic.

"It's all right officer. This is strictly routine. Nothing to worry about". I got a towel from the bathroom, and tossed it in Note-taker's lap.

"The whole call was a fake wasn't it?", he asked. "You feds are all the same. You think you can do whatever you want, with impunity".

His voice was getting stronger. "The effrontery of it. To kill my partner, right before my eyes. Just because he repeated a question".

"He WAS an android, sir", I interjected. "The law is very clear about what happens to THEM".

"Maybe its you feds that should be shot on sight", Note-taker lost his courage. He buried his head in his hands, sobbing.

Hours later, my department had cleaned up the mess, and put me on a plane for Houston. in two hours I would be looking for more droids in the local police force, probably using the same red lipstick. That's a real problem with droids. We find it hard to break out of a loop.