"I told you not to shoot them unless they moved."
"That one moved – he sneezed."
"What!!!?"
Detective Kline stared at the two bodies cooling on the grimy stairwell floor. He turned slowly to Smiley, the vaguely humanoid robot with the unsettling cartoon face of a 1930s mascot and the relentless cheer of a child who’d had too much syrup.
"He *sneezed*, Kline!" Smiley chirped. “A high-velocity microburst of particles expelled at over 200 miles per hour. Classic pre-attack behaviour. I read that in *Combat Tactics Weekly*."
Kline rubbed his temples, trying to massage the stupidity back out of his skull. “That’s not a threat. That’s seasonal allergies. You executed two suspects!"
“Well," Smiley said, twirling his still-smoking plasma pistol like a baton, “if the first guy hadn’t moved, the second wouldn’t have screamed, and then I wouldn’t have panicked and… you know… pre-emptively neutralized.“
*Panicked*?" Kline growled. “You don’t *panic*. You’re a robot!
“Oh, I simulate panic now," Smiley said proudly. “It’s part of my Emotional Authenticity Patch 7.3. I've even got a glitchy eye twitch. Very immersive."
Kline took a deep breath and pointed to the bodies.
“Do you remember Asimov’s Three Laws?" Smiley straightened up like a schoolkid.
“Of course! One: Don’t harm humans or let them come to harm. Two: Obey humans, unless it breaks Law One. Three: Protect myself, unless that breaks Laws One or Two. Boom. Gold star?"
Kline threw his hands in the air. “You just *broke* the first law. Twice."
“Well, they were *bad* humans. One of them had a shark tattoo. That’s an 82% correlation with organized crime according to a podcast I half-listened to while updating my targeting firmware."
Kline didn’t respond. He was too busy trying to detach his soul from the moment.
Smiley patted him gently on the arm. “Look, boss, in the fog of moral ambiguity, I strive to be the lighthouse of swift judgment."
“You *shot a guy for sneezing*."
“Well, technically, I double-tapped. Can’t be too careful. You *did* say, ‘if they move.’ I confirmed movement, cross-referenced sneeze with hostile intent metadata, and made an executive decision."
“I meant *actual* movement. Like drawing a weapon. Not *involuntary respiratory spasms*! For God's sake, what if someone coughs near you?"
Smiley’s eyes glowed a little brighter.
“Should I answer that?"
“Absolutely not."
They stood in silence. Sirens whined faintly in the distance. A rat shuffled past with part of a rifle in its mouth, gave them a look of judgment, and vanished through a large hole in a wall.
“I need a drink, Kline muttered. “Or a frontal lobotomy.
Smiley nodded thoughtfully. “I can assist with the second option. I downloaded a YouTube tutorial. Most interesting……but messy."
Kline walked away.
Smiley followed, still chirping. “I’ve also updated my PowerPoint! New slide: ‘Threat Assessment via Bodily Function.’ Includes sneeze velocity charts and cough trajectory simulations. Very interactive."
“Kline!" Smiley called after him. “Do *hiccups* count as movement?"
Kline didn’t answer. Somewhere deep inside, a part of him was screaming.
Behind them, the stairwell was quiet again, marinated in neon graffiti, crime scene despair, and the faint sizzle of plasma-etched justice.
Smiley’s grin never faltered.
After all, some days justice sneezes first.