“Then I saw a Lam, Lam, Lamb – center of the as if it had been s- s- s- s- laain; four living four- Say to the Daught of Zi, Zi, Zion seven eyes,” the thing pinned to the wall screamed in a cracked and phase-shifting voice. The woman whose Toyota Mercataur had pinned it there was sobbing inconsolably while a police officer tried to comfort her.

“I don’t know what happened,” she wailed, “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, shh, look, it’s alright, lady. Damn thing was already malfunctioning when it stepped into the street. Some pedestrians said it had been walking around yelling that Bible stuff for an hour. Pedresen says dispatch told him we already had a complaint but no one could get to it before this happened.”

“It? What are you talking about? I hit a man-”

“You hit a ‘bot, miss. We’re trying to find out who it’s registered to, but we’re thinking its RFID got wiped somehow, cause we’re not getting a signal when we scan it. We find out the owner’s name, we’ll e-mail it to you so you can file a claim against him.”