So some bots unboard a window and file in.

They're in a completely empty bedroom, closed door, devoid of any active light sources other than the window they just opened and anything they might generate.

They can get past the door.

Same deal: all doors to other rooms are closed, place's completely empty, no light sources.

No screams, either.

Bots look for the place where they heard the screaming.

Bit deeper, deeper into the building—

—very big speaker box, connected to a laptop and streaming audio.

"...screams were coming from a computer. I wanna trace where it's streaming from."

"Do."

She can do this through the bots just fine.

Whoever set this up was either incapable of or unwilling to go to any lengths to mask their streaming location; it's very easy to find.

And it's a ways north, probably the fastest way to get there is via Transit, though if Lorica has bots around the area perhaps they could check the place out ahead of time.

She's got a few. Go bots go. And path a Transit path.

The location is, surprise surprise, a warehouse! Boarded up windows, again, and apparently soundproofed to boot.

In goes a bot.

The doors are locked and also boarded, and the boards seem to be quite thoroughly stuck, as far as the bots can tell.

"Glam, you wanna get this bot a circular saw?"

Bot, meet circular saw.

Circular saw meet boards.

Circular saw goes poof.

"Oh joy."

Maybe a few bots can pry a board off if they coordinate.

The bots cannot seem to pry a board off even coordinating.

"This is getting seriously annoying," they complain. And try making more stuff appear. And it fails. And this is really annoying. "Can your bots detect whether there's anyone in there? Like, I dunno, infrared?"

"I don't have that working through walls."

Try try try try!

...whisper to shoulderbot in private channel: "I can't even get stuff to appear."

"Is that localized?" the shoulderbot replies at once. "Try across town, here's a feed -"

They look at the feed—

—how can it be localized, is the same person in every scene? And how can they be preventing things from being conjured in the first place?—

—and fail.

"You sure no one's looking there?"

"Bot hasn't encountered anybody. Can you make stuff near yourself?"