THE STATION

The Vend-O-Bot 3000's jingle plays. It's annoyingly catchy, so I can't repeat it here. It has Raspberry Twist in stock, the same type of bar that Adam was working on when he lost his mind. In the corner of it's window, it also proudly proclaims in bright block letters:

Equipped with the latest Integrity-Assistance Video Documentation

Your Marshall ID will let you open the machine and take whatever you want.

A quick call to the Marshall's office will get you the information that, yes, distribution is random. The bars are restocked via automation and restocking happens twice a day, more than enough time for the brain slices to have been fully distributed. The recall is mostly being ignored because no one can tell the difference between slightly decayed brain pieces and the normal taste of the bars.

You grab all of the bars in the machine so that you can go through them, but in doing so, you also manage to twist one of the screws that separates the bars into individual servings. That's going to cost you. And in fact, the corner of your Marshall's card flashes red. That means there's an expense deduction on your account. Better not do that too often, or you'll be doing this job for free.

You examine each bar in turn, and one of them is clearly contaminated. You have seven others, though, so you sample one of them. It is red, so there are probably raspberries in there, but you couldn't prove it by the taste. Maybe brains taste more like raspberry than the bars do.

You can read that brain fragment into Adam's android brain by visiting the MedCenter. It'll take an hour per piece if you do them one at a time, but if you do several at a time, each additional one is only 30 minutes.