Free Finn's Golem by Gregg Taylor

akin to wonder on his face. I could see at once why those two morons were beating him to death for fun rather than profit.
    He was a Synth.
    A slack-jawed menial little Synth with skin the color of goldenrod and the build of an ape. Dammit.
    I didn’t want thanks, or a parade, or a hearty handshake from the chief of police, or an award of merit from the Citizen’s Council. I wanted none of those things, but if he’d been a lost tourist, they all could have been mine.
    If he’d only been human... a few nice column inches in the dailies: Drake Finn, local Private Investigator , saves innocent man from ruthless thugs. Maybe a small citation. Not that I’d have had time to hang around for any of those things, but if you’ve just killed two men, even useless organ-banks like those two, it was nice to know you were on a firm foundation.
    But I’d killed two humans to save a Synth. This would get me nothing but lynched. Assuming the cops didn’t take care of me themselves.
    “Mister , ” t he little bastard said in awe , “Mister... you saved me.”
    “Yeah , ” I said, trying hard not to sound disappointed . “Yeah. Don’t mention it.”
    “Bless you...”
    “Yeah, thanks. Look, you’ve got to go.”
    “Not sure I can... Maybe just rest here.” He’d taken a bad beating, but this was no good.
    “You can’t stay here. Even if nobody heard those shots, the cops’ll be by eventually. And they can’t find you here. With them.” My heart was racing now. This was bad.
    “I won’t... I won’t give you up.” He smiled at me though the pain .
    I shook my head . “Yes , you will. You think you won’t, but you’re a Synth lying by two dead humans. You have no idea what the cops are gonna do to you. You’ll talk.”
    I looked around. In for a penny, in for a pound. I pulled him to his feet. He was solid as a rock and weighed about twice what a man his size would have.
    “Mister... , ” he almost blubbered , “ b less you...”
    “Yeah, yeah. Bless me. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
    We staggered together like a pair of drunks, out from under the concrete and iron and into the maze of the slums. Into the night.

TEN
    Two hours later I was sitting in the back room of a curio shop on the edge of Synthtown, cooling my heels. It hadn’t taken me a lot of conversation to suss out that the Synth I’d pulled out from under the Aquaduct was a low-level runner for somebody’s gang. It’s why I carried him the sixteen blocks he’d asked me to instead of getting him to cover and leaving him to fend for himself.
    I’d brought him as far as a warehouse space in the Warrens near the A-88 Bridge. It had looked deserted at first glance, but after a few seconds the courtyard had begun to teem with Artificials of all shapes and sizes, all wondering who the sopping wet human was, and what he’d done to their pal.
    They’d taken the little yellow bastard off my hands, but hadn’t looked ready to let me leave until they had the story. The Synth had given it to them right enough. Made me sound awful good in the process. Not like a bumbling idiot at all.
    There was awestruck silence for a moment as they carried their wounded fellow inside. Then one of them had stepped out and put out his hand. It was a proper looking hand. In fact, the whole design of this model suggested that he was created with human interaction in mind. He had the right number of arms and eyes, and they were all in the right place s . He wasn’t built pretty, and he was big enough to have been made with real work in mind, but he was smart and spoke well. In short, the perfect mid-level scumbag operator.
    “Thanks pal , ” h e had said . “If there’s ever anything I can do-”
    “Maybe there is , ” I had replied .
    And that was how I came to be waiting in the back of a crappy little shop that sold hand-made garbage to folks from the sticks that wanted to take something home made by a ‘real live Artificial’. Like everything they owned