"I don't think it's a good idea."
David closed his eyes, sighing heavily and dipping his head before turning around and facing his security chief.
"I can't keep on living like I've got a price on my head, Adam."
Adam's arms were folded and even though his shades were drawn David could feel the displeasure emanating from behind them. "I don't care if you can't keep doing it, you're not going to be living at all if you don't acknowledge that there actually is a price on your head."
"Adam stop being dramatic," David said, waving a hand and snapping some files into a bio-lock briefcase. Unless the factory was on fire in the next four days he was staying home and working from there. "There's no actual price, there's just a bunch of people who will calm down when they find the next big thing to complain about. This is no worse than the protests that happened back when augmentation was in its early days. And back then, they actually had something to complain about, what with the high mortality and infection rate. Now augmentation is arguably safer than childbirth."
"And the people down there think there's a whole lot more to argue about. Boss, that chip incident took the scrap anti-augmentation activists used to have and turned it into a point that has people lining up at limb clinics to get entire systems recalled. I saw someone yesterday who was in a wheelchair. Half of the places in Detroit don't even have wheelchair accessibility anymore because we thought we'd cured mobility handicaps. Like it or not there probably are actual assassins out there right now who want the money tied to your death," Adam finished, pointing out the window, his posture aggressive.
David closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Adam, the longer we show I'm afraid of them by taking the VTOL to every possible location the longer these fires are going to burn. If someone really wants to get me they're going to do it whether I'm on the streets or in a panic room."
"I don't know panic rooms can be pretty effective," Adam muttered sourly.
Sarif sighed. "Look Adam, your shift is over, my shift is over. I'm tired. Unless there's an international crisis in the next four days I'm not leaving my penthouse. If you're really that worried you'll just have to follow me home, but I'm taking public transport. I've lived in this city my entire life and when I got this company going I promised myself I wouldn't take to living over it. I still love this city. I could have moved Sarif anywhere, but Detroit needed the augmentation business to be great again, and after this fear blows over she will be. I'm not going to stop walking her streets just because people don't like me."
"I didn't say that," Adam protested, falling into step next to him as David headed for his elevator. "I just wish you'd think about the climate out there. It's dangerous. People aren't just prejudiced right now, they're rabid. They think anyone augmented is going to attack them, and people who were attacked, who lost loved ones, they want a face to blame and yours is on half the billboards to remind them. Your company's influence in building Detroit back up is not going to protect you from a grief-crazed parent." Adam grabbed his arm, forcing Sarif to look at him. "This isn't politics anymore, David."
David covered Adam's fingers with his own metal ones and pried them away gently. "I know that, son. But if people want to blame me hiding from them won't stop it. You're welcome to walk with me but I won't live the rest of my life in a box. Most of the especially violent protesters were arrested a month ago. The streets have calmed as much as they are going to until some kind of reassurance that this won't happen again goes on the market."
Adam's jaw clenched and he turned his gaze outward, staring at the city as the sun went down, leaving its glow in the windows and wires that lit the streets all night.
The streets were quiet and warm, the summer air humid and spiced with the remains of an international festival that had lined several blocks just the past weekend. Tatters of streamers and paper flags still blew in lazy wafts down back alleys, and would color the streets for weeks until the filth turned them a uniform slate brown.
David walked straight-backed and confident, his step as easy as his expression, even though he could feel eyes on him as he passed a group smoking near some trashcans. Their conversation had gone silent when he'd approached, and the murmurs only began again when they thought he was out of ear shot. Adam kept pace at his side, his shoulders tense and his entire being alert for anything that might go wrong.
Slurs followed them down the street, most directed at Adam, who ignored them with a grit jaw and quiet stoicism. Underneath his laid back attitude David wondered if the calls of "robot" "cog head" and "Terminator" weren't getting to him.
Other than the nasty comments and judgmental looks, their trek was uneventful, and David had to admit that something released in his chest when they got near the building that he lived on top of. He sighed, smiling genuinely and thumping Adam on the back good-naturedly. "See? Nothing to worry about. I'm going to order takeout and catch up on the game. I suggest you do something similar, take some time off. You've been doing nothing but security interviews for two weeks. Let the new guys simmer a little."
"Yeah. Maybe," Adam said, and David frowned. Adam's expression was distant, and he'd spoken like he hadn't really registered what David had said.
"Adam?"
"I—" There was a sharp intake of breath, a blur of movement, and suddenly David was on the ground, Adam rolling off of him, the heel of one hand pressed gingerly to the side of his head. Adam cursed softly and looked up, blood dripping down his brow and disappearing beneath the glittering rim of his HUD lens, still crouched with one hand pressed to the ground.
"Take cover!" he commanded, and before David could get himself fully up Adam had taken off at a full sprint, leaping to grab the edge of a fire escape. David had designed half of the augments Adam was sporting, but it was still a shocking sight to watch someone leap nine-feet straight up and then climb a fire escape faster than most people could run. David did as he'd been told, glancing nervously at the pockmark in the sidewalk where the bullet had lodged after glancing off of Adam's skull. Seconds later and the sharp spark of electricity from the roof told him that Adam had disabled the sniper. David peered around the stone pillar he was using for shelter, bracing himself with his mechanical arm as he watched the gold-bright arcs of the Icarus system slow Adam's decent back to the street. He had an unconscious man clad all in black with a purity first armband slung over his shoulder.
Once in the penthouse, David poured both he and Adam a drink, and despite the steadiness of his grip on the glass he had to admit he was shaken. It hadn't been the first attempt on his life, but it had been the closest to being successful, and part of him couldn't stop thinking in stuttering loop what would have happened if Adam hadn't been there. He glanced for the fifteenth time over at his security chief, who was pacing like a caged cat along the glass walls that arched up the West side of his complex.
"Adam," David said quietly, something in him diverting away from fear and dissolving into concern. He could tell that Adam was no longer pacing out of the need to check the apartment for bugs. He was pacing because something was chewing at him and he couldn't get away from it. The nasty calls they'd received the whole way to the penthouse came back to David, and strangely they stung him more than the sniper's bullet. The sniper had intended to take him, maybe take Adam, out because they were a perceived threat. A threat, but one worth of fighting.
To the people who jeered and spat names he and Adam were less than human. David's life had been voluntarily built around augmentation, and the slurs didn't bother him. He wasn't ashamed of what he was or what he'd chosen. Adam hadn't had a choice and despite his line of work all he'd had ever wanted to do was help. To the people on the streets of the place Adam had grown up he was a walking disease.
David swallowed. "Adam," he tried again, catching his security chief's arm as he passed again, pulling him gently out of his pacing. Underneath his calculated movements David was shocked to his core to find Jensen trembling. Trembling. Augmentations were made to respond to the remaining body as seamlessly as living flesh, but there were flaws. There were things science couldn't replicate, and one was the uncontrollable movements caused by intense emotion. The stabilizing factor was considered an improvement by most people. Adam had the highest grade augments in the business and they were trembling with the weight of his reaction.
"Sit down," David coaxed gently, and broken from his reverie Adam took the suggestion like he needed someone else to make the decisions for a while. With a pang of guilt as he poured some alcohol into a clean cloth David realized that Adam had probably been avoiding people for weeks. His desperation to protect David on his walk home may have forced him into hearing the jeers and judgements and hunting he'd only started to get away from.
"Here," David said quietly, lifting Adam's hand and cupping his fingers around a glass of high grade scotch. "You can have the whole bottle if you want, you've earned it tonight. That and a whole lot more." David picked up the cloth and knelt next to the couch. "Retract your glasses so I can clean your cut?"
Adam hesitated, but he retracted his glasses and blinked, his gaze troubled and a little vacant. David reached up and began cleaning away the blood, working his way towards the cut the bullet had left near Adam's temple. The small abrasion flared a protective anger in David and he had to breathe a little deeper to keep it from showing. "The cops will take care of that guy, I'll make sure of it. I don't care how good his lawyer is, he's going away for a long time," he said, putting the cloth on the table and studying Adam's expression, trying to gauge if he was just upset or if the bullet had given him a concussion.
"I'm going to get a light, make sure you didn't get concussed," David said, placing a reassuring hand on Jensen's knee before getting up. "Don't go anywhere." Adam grunted nonchalantly and took a long swallow of scotch.
Turned out Adam did have a mild concussion, and after what had happened David didn't like the thought of Adam going home by himself.
"I'll be fine, boss," Adam insisted, the longest and most confident string of words he'd used since they entered David's apartment.
"I'm sure you will, but you have a concussion and shouldn't sleep more than two hours at a time until we're sure it's healing well so you're going to stay here. The only way I'm letting you go home right now is if I wake Faridah up and have her fly you."
He could tell the guilt convinced Adam to stay and he nodded. "That's what I thought. I've got a spare bedroom and some sweatpants that should fit you. Go get comfortable and I'll be in to check on you until we're sure you're out of the woods, clear?"
Adam nodded. "Yeah boss," he sighed. "Thanks."
"Thanks for what? I'm the one who should be thanking you," he said, trying to keep his tone light. The weight of what had happened really wasn't lifting. He picked up the bottle of scotch and pressed it into Adam's hands, patting his shoulder. "Now off to bed."
Two hours later David broke his gaze over the lit skyline and got up, stretching wearily. He had been tired, but everything that had happened was whirling in his head and he felt too sick to sleep, no matter how much of the second bottle of scotch he drank. He knew giving Adam the first one on top of a concussion was probably not a good idea, but between Adam's tolerance, fitness level, and high-grade filtering system David wasn't worried about his health. He was far more worried about his heart. The haunted look in Jensen's eyes had not come from the concussion, David knew that much easy.
He rolled his shoulders and checked his watch, moving quietly through the rooms until he came to Adam's. Quietly, he cracked the door open and peered in, finding Adam sleeping soundly on his back, fingers still draped near the glass mouth of a half-empty bottle. David crept in and knelt, shaking Adam gently.
"Son? Do you know where you are?" he asked, watching as Adam tried to blink away the weariness and his brow furrowed.
"Your apartment," he answered sleepily after a few moments.
"What year is it?"
"2028."
"And your name?"
"Adam Jensen."
David nodded, satisfied that there was no real damage done. "All right, sorry for waking you." He pat Adam's shoulder and got back up. "I think it's safe for you to sleep."
Adam nodded groggily, and before David even had the chance to turn around he was asleep again. Sarif paused, watching the way Adam's brow still furrowed in his sleep and it saddened him. How much damage was Adam hiding? How much couldn't be patched away by the glistening lines of black metal that had become Adam's home? Sarif swallowed and swirled his scotch, staring through the amber liquid and into his thoughts, wondering not for the first time if he'd caused more of this than he wanted to admit.