Think stepped into his office, sliding his fedora off his head, the light hurrying into places filled with shadow just a moment before. Squinting from the light, he tossed his hat on the rack, and glanced around the room. It was brighter than he left it, but he blamed the rising sun for that, and it was otherwise undisturbed. He slid behind his desk, confident that his sanctuary was undisturbed. Not that it mattered much- the mess that it was- but he liked it that way, and it conveyed the added benefit of making documents impossible to find for any possible pillagers. He put his hairless head in his hands, massaging it and his neck. Opening his eye, he glanced around his desk, stopping on the wallet that he had forgotten there that morning.
He grabbed it, opening it with one 4-fingered hand, and perused its contents. It was depressingly empty, containing only a few business cards, his ID, a meager sum of money, and a train ticket stub. He slipped his ID out, his off-green visage staring back at him. He was more disgruntled than usual in the photo; they made him remove his fedora, which he fancied as part of his image. He chuckled to himself, putting the ID away and dropping the wallet.
He spun around the placard on his desk. "Think, Cosmic PI" was engraved upon it, black wording on golden plastic. Think turned on the intercom. "Clyde? C'mere a second." The automaton ambled over to the door. Think didn't know how old he was; model numbers were imprinted on the head casing, but at some point Clyde's was permanently affixed with a bucket. The robot had cut a pair of eyeholes and a mouth slit, but he never made any efforts beyond that to remove it.
This aside, he performed his job admirably. When he wasn't drunk. Think wasn't aware of any other alcoholic robots, but he also didn't know any that wore platinum blonde wigs, and that never stopped Clyde.
Clyde opened the door and walked in, looking what Think presumed Marilyn Monroe would look like, if she was often drunk, a male, a robot, and had a bucket for a head.
"Whaddaya want?" slurred Clyde. Think wasn't even sure how Clyde got drunk, and he was an expert in the field of Drunkology. He had been, anyways. He , shall we say, when he was inebriated, and had a tendency to break things. Unfortunately, these were often big, heavy things, and most of the time they were broken over other patrons' heads. This situation took a hardy toll on his wallet, and had added a few thousand pages to his enemies list, so he found it prudent to extricate himself from it; he'd been drink-free for a few months. As a result of this, sadly, he sometimes found himself envious of Clyde's immense ability to get totally hammered.
"Anyone stop by while I was out?" Think inquired. Clyde fell over.
"Howsa' hell should I know?" Clyde responded, muffled. Think winced at Clyde's squeaking joints.
"Perhaps you might have seen them. When they came in. When you were sitting at your desk, getting drunk."
"I didn't shee nobody. Nobody came to shee you, nobody came to shee Clyde." Clyde said, motioning to himself and Think, clumsily. He knocked over the coat rack with his bulky arms and stared at the mess.
"Ok, Clyde. Go back to your desk; I'll let you know if I need you." Clyde walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, the translucent window rattling a little. Think shook his head, and slammed it on the desk. He leaned back and stared at the wall. The intercom crackled loudly. He plopped his hand on the button on his desk. "Yes?"
"Hey! This is Clyde. I just wanted to let you know that that guy was here earlier."
"What guy? You just said no one had been here." Think also envied Clyde's ability to go from hammered to sober in approximately 7.34 seconds.

"Don't ask me. He just said that he'd call you later."
"Thanks. You're the best secretary ever, you know that?" Think force- fed the intercom his sarcasm.
"Really? I appreciate that." Clyde replied, in earnest. Think had noticed that Clyde was exceptionally good at ignoring sarcasm, but that didn't stop him from trying. "By the way, I think you knocked over the coat rack in your office, because when I was in there, it was a mess." Think slammed his head on his desk and left it there.

* * * *

Kovacs' hand slipped, he almost dropped the can. He cranked the can opener, and the appetizing smell of turkey giblets in gravy wafted up. The bull-dog was anxious at his feet, its stubby tail whacking against his leg. The refrigerator hummed next to him. He put the can opener down and began to pry the lid off with a knife. Shouts from the street below filled the apartment. The insulation wasn't great in the first place, and years of disrepair certainly had not had a positive effect. He dumped the can's content into the dog's bowl. "Turkey and fuckin' giblets, again? Jackass." Groaned the dog.
"Beggar's can't be choosers, and we're both beggars at the moment, Arbiter. " Kovacs had gotten over the absurdity of talking to his dog; he'd seen stranger. At least he wasn't talking to his cat; he always thought chatting with felines was a bit off center. He tossed the can onto a growing pile in the corner. The trash compacter had been busted for a few weeks now, but the roaches and rats weren't any worse than usual, so Kovacs decided that it didn't really make that much of a difference.
He sat on the kitchen counter, watching Arbiter devour all traces of his meal. The dog acted like he had more refined tastes, but when chow time came, all such predilections vanished. Kovacs switched on a ventilator, the apartment needed a good airing out. A loud humming started up as he sat at his table and rummaged through his files. A heavy, muted thump sounded from the ceiling, soon followed by a billowing cloud of black smoke pouring from the vents. "Ah, shit. Arbiter, go fetch the Maintenance guy, will you?"
"Har, har. Want me to get the newspaper and a Frisbee, while I'm at it?" Arbiter shot back, acridly, as he ran through the dog door and out into the hall. Kovacs eyed the growing smoke cloud nervously.
"And hurry up!" He shouted after him, "I don't want to asphyxiate because you took your lousy time." He opened a window and sat back at the table. He looked through the mess of paper, trying to decipher something of use from his notes. A small laptop was sitting there, humming, and Kovacs quickly checked his bank account. "OVERDRAWN" flashed in large, red letters, taunting him.; it reminded him of when he was little and he went to the zoo, and this baboon kept waving its ass in his face. He sighed and looked back to the notes.
One caught his eye, and made him hate himself. "Get story!" it said, underlined three times. He notes had a penchant for restating the obvious. He needed a story, and bad. He was in charge of bringing the juicy and exciting bits to the paper, and he was paid per story. Sadly, those were the hardest to come by, and the most dangerous to get the facts on, meaning that paychecks were few and far between. Until recently, their size had compensated for this.
He anxiously tapped his foot, staring out the window. He coughed, and Arbiter burst back into the apartment. "'Vacs! You'll never guess what I heard downstairs when I was looking for maintenance. This is just the lead we needed." Arbiter slobbered a little before brining his oversized tongue back into his mouth. "All our problems are solved!"
"Great." Kovacs replied, unenthusiastically, the apartment filling with smoke.

* * * *

The phone rang jarringly loud in Think's ear. He wanted to keep dozing, but the ringing continued incessantly, and soon the intercom beeped- Clyde reminding him that ringing was the phone's way of saying "pick me up."
The ringing was exacerbating Think's migraine; he answered it to silence it, not out of any interest in who was on the other end. "Hey! Think, it's Lars Kovacs, here. You got any leads?"
Think groaned. The last thing he needed was a reporter pestering him for a story he didn't have. But it was routine, by now, and the two were almost friendly. "How about a Special Interests piece on the World's Most Consistently Drunk Robot Secretary?" The intercom crackled; Clyde's metallic ears must have been burning. "One sec, Lars." He put down the handset and clicked on the intercom. "What, Clyde?" Think asked, dully.
"Why didn't you tell me I was wearing this chick-wig?"
"I thought you knew." Think replied, rolling his eye.
"Well, if you ever see me wearing anything like this again, tell me. I promise I won't hurt you."
"Don't worry; nothing could hurt more than having to look at you trying to be sexy." Think shot back, and clicked off the intercom.
Think picked the handset back up, and Lars was chuckling on the other end of the line. "I'll keep that in mind, but I was looking for something a little bit more dramatic." Think was dredging his mind for anything, but he had nothing. Think began to apologize, but Lars cut him off, "I figured as much, which is why I've got a proposition for you." Think perked up.
"Wait a minute. You've got a lead? How the tables have turned." Think quipped, with a smirk.
"Touché." Lars replied, and Think heard keys clicking in the background. "So, you interested?"
"How could I be interested? You haven't even told me the proposition."

"Well, give me as sec, will you?" Lars paused and Think heard him shuffle some papers and another voice.
"Tell Arbiter I've got some Doggie Delights for him, will you?" Think quipped. Lars relayed the information and a deep, threatening growl came from the other end of the receiver. Think smiled.
"Alright. You know about that Fetch's Armored Car robbery last week, right?"
Think nodded, and then remembered he was on the phone. "Yeah, sure. You happen to know who did it?"
"No. But I know that they were in my building this morning, and that the driver was in on it." Lars said, in hushed, matter-of-fact tones.
Think paused. "Wasn't the driver killed?"
"Yeah. That's where it gets juicy. They killed him anyways, to cover their tracks."
"You seem to have all the info already. Why don't you just give in the story?"
"Because I don't have the evidence. And, because we heard that they're doing another job tonight." Think perked up.
"Another job?"
"I think you can see how that'll benefit the both of us." Of course he could. Catching the criminals in the act would be that much more interesting and exciting of a story, and there'd be no legal tie-ups when Think turned them over to the real police.