A translation of Нож в печень, никто не вечен by Danny_R.
ao3: /works/15711882
Android is RK900, he isn't in the list of characters.
Warnings: genderbender, femslash, fem!RK900/fem!Gavin Reed
Great thanks to Cordelia Rose for beta reading!
Hank moved the gun and badge away from himself as if he was afraid to catch an infection from them. Be afraid, old man, the rabid bitch syndrome is very contagious — it's not sexually transmitted, it's airborne. Keep an eye on your boy especially, guys like him aren't immune.
"You can't just get out of here."
"I can, and I'm getting out," Gwen said calmly.
There was a whole fridge of calm in her. The whole fucking Antarctica of calm and equanimity. This morning she took diazepam, which was prescribed to her after the stab wound, and the dreary recovery with panic attacks and other crap that came with it.
"Talk to Jeff, at least," Hank said, still not touching the badge. Connor watched the scene with some non‐android interest, peeking out from behind a work terminal.
"No, fuck it. Even though you're an useless piece of crap, you're technically still my boss, so handle it yourself." She was absolutely fucking indifferent; doesn't give a shit, doesn't care! The hell with it all. Diazepam is an excellent drug, she'd advise it to everyone.
"Fuck, look, why are you so mean about this?" Hank, the lazy bastard who's unable to sign an extra piece of paper, frowned. "I understand you're crazy, and the last thing I want to do is persuade you to stay, but if everyone leaves, then there'll be only plastic fools in the station. Sorry, Connor, I don't mean you. You are a very smart boy, but your sister is fucked up."
"RK900 and I aren't related by family ties," Connor said, as if they didn't already know that.
Somewhere at that point of the space‐time continuum the Antarctica of calm and equanimity began to crack.
"Why am I so mean, Hank? Why am I so mean? I was stabbed by a fucking android! I've been in the hospital for a month! And then they refused to pay me the insurance, because the insurance company don't have the money — because of the fucking androids! Great, then they can work here! And I'll live on unemployment benefit, get hooked on crack and become a prostitute. Now there are no android whores, people should be in demand again."
"You'll be a shitty prostitute," Hank remarked.
"I'll be the most fucking gorgeous prostitute in the entire history of prostitution, Hank."
"I have to side with Lieutenant," Connor joined. "You, Detective Reed, are too confrontational a person to successfully provide sexual services."
The Antarctica had collapsed in on itself and the remnants of calm had been drowned in the searing ice waters.
"I'll come to your house at night and fuck you with a poker, got it?"
"I don't think you'll succeed," Connor answered calmly. "I'm an advanc —"
"Oh, leave her, man." Hank shook his head.
In the hope that she'll pack her stuff quickly and go home to sleep, Gwen took one more pill. She wouldn't need it outside of the damn job at the crappy station anyway, so there was no point in calculating and saving.
The plastic idiot sat in a strange pose, which would suit her who‐is‐a‐good‐boy brother much more. That same pose as if you had a wedgie and can't pull your underpants out because of your good upbringing.
"Are you quitting?"
"Yes, genius, you've guessed — I'm quitting."
Gwen threw things in the box furiously. The things were state‐owned mostly, staplers and other shit, but just let them try to charge her for a stolen stapler.
The police have stolen her youth, her personal life, and her liver. Oh, and now her kidney, which was stabbed with a bread knife. The only personal belongings she had in the desk were tampons, cigarettes and sugar substitutes. Although she took all that from colleagues. From Tina, mostly, until she announced she became part of a polyamorous family and went to California.
"I do not like it," Richie said, after about twenty minutes of silence. Her LED turned colors quickly, from blue to yellow and then back again.
"Fucking great. And you know what I don't like? I don't like having a knife in my kidney, but nobody gives a shit. That's life."
Richie continued to stare in silence. Gwen was so pissed about that bullshit that it was as if she didn't take sedatives, but instead downed a couple of liters of an energy drink and went off to read posts from her most irritating former classmate.
"Do you think these stitches might rip open with anger?"
"Unlikely. Moreover, your stitches were removed twenty‐one days ago."
"I know. It's kinda like... I have a feeling the wound is about to reopen."
"I suppose you should consult a doctor."
"Suppose your anus."
"That... makes no sense, even in the context of insults and wordplay."
Gwen wanted to say something, maybe something like "contextualize your anus", but the word was too difficult and she fainted.
"Fu‐u‐uck," Gwen groaned quietly when she opened her eyes in the hospital ward. There was hair in her mouth and her eyelashes were stuck together with dried mascara.
If she was fired already and her insurance was cancelled, she'd be waiting for a four‐figure bill in her mailbox. It'd be easier to change her name and sex, and move to Mexico. The name Gavin, and stubble, would suit her. What else would suit her is a dick — she could slap the faces of each and every Barbie doll who didn't want to obey her.
Richie was sitting in the armchair, hunching — a strange emulation of who knows what. Her hair curled funny under her ears. She was funny in general, wearing tight dark jeans, a wide uniform jacket, a buttoned‐up black shirt and a small short tie like Japanese schoolgirls wear. She had small feet in unfashionable shoes, soft wrists without a protruding bone, and long fingers with perfectly rounded nails. It was all so nice, as if her designers specially compensated for her above average height. But the expression of her face stultified all efforts. It had turned out well with Connor, but not so much with his female prototype, regrettably. Connor was given the socialization program, which he played like a fiddle, but they didn't think to have given the female equivalent of the socialization program to a detective android, and Richie ended up strangely awkward, completely not like a real girl.
"How do you feel, Detective?" She sat straight up sharply when she saw Gwen had regained consciousness.
"Am I still a detective?"
"Officially, yes, you are."
"Then I'm fine."
"Have you changed your mind about leaving?"
Gwen didn't answer. Her body below her navel seemed to be flooded with a heavy wave — not that painful, but very unpleasant. Her ears were ringing. "What happened to me?"
"Acute arterial hypotension after taking large doses of analgesics and sedatives."
"You know I don't understand jack shit, don't you?"
"Your blood pressure was down."
"And why did you need to take me to the hospital? You could just slap me, make some coffee, and I'd be as good as new."
Richie shook her head. "You are negligent with your health."
Gwen spat her hair out of her mouth, but if she wanted to gather it back into a ponytail she'd have to raise her hands; that seemed too complicated.
"Do you give a fuck?"
"Yes."
"That's nothing I can help with."
Richie was carrying the package of her stuff to the taxi. There was the backpack, the holster, and the jacket in a package — black, for garbage. Gwen had lower back pain, and her legs seemed heavy like an elephant's. Her fucking kidneys periodically refused to cooperate.
The traumatologist said she was 'lucky' — no female reproductive organs were damaged, so she could still have babies. Gwen wanted to say that she wasn't yet completely fucked up enough to bring some poor bastards into this world, but she bellowed in pain instead. Who would have thought that in the thirty‐eighth year of the twenty‐first century people would still say such shit to each other? And not to some eighteen‐year‐old little girl, but to her, an adult woman, who can decide whether to reproduce or not on her own.
The rehab psychologist didn't mention anything about family and children, but said that Gwen needed to learn how to manage her anger. And, in response to Gwen's phrase that she doesn't lash out at people anyway, she said that anger was killing Gwen inside. Now she didn't even really understand why she was angry. Because of everything and everybody. The unemployment benefit and crack plan seemed more and more appealing every second. So she won't have to see those faces anymore.
Richie switched hands with the garbage package, which looked awkward to carry.
"Listen, you constantly fuck with my brain and tell me all about my pulse, my blood pressure. How could you not notice I was about to pop my clogs?"
"I was distracted."
"By what? You were sitting and staring into space."
"By internal processes."
"So… you were lost in your thoughts?"
"That is the most accurate comparison with human processes, yes."
Those people, the ones who say people are complicated, obviously hadn't tried to understand the inner world of androids — that's where a dark forest is. The same forest where if a grizzly doesn't bite your leg off, then a maniac will rape you instead.
"And what were you thinking about?"
"About you."
Gwen flushed with anger. "Well, what do you need from me? We won't become friends, we won't go for a manicure together, and we won't discuss men in cafes over a glass of wine and tiramisu either. We can't discuss men at all — you don't have a cunt, and I prefer chicks. And we work fine without that. Or rather — we worked, because I'm leaving."
Richie shuddered. There's that fucking human simulation again. Made you think mannequins really had feelings. No matter how much they deviated, no matter how much Connor batted his eyelashes — all their feelings are like a shitty toaster, which has already shorted out.
"Are you sexually attracted to women, Detective Reed?"
She was sexually attracted to tall androids with slicked‐back dark curls and never satisfied expressions.
At the station she had a reputation as a lesbian who hated men. If asked she would explain that she hates women too, and anyone who rejects the gender binary, for that matter, but no one ever asked her, and the men just tended to give her a cause to express her hate for them more often. Besides, Gwen thought her reputation as a lesbian would attract other lesbians to her, but for some reason it didn't.
"At that moment, I'm only sexually attracted to my bed."
Wincing in pain, Gwen sat down in the taxi. Richie put the garbage bag in the trunk, and paid off with the car meter. Her eyes were angry and dumb.
"We have a problem," Fowler said. Hank himself had asked Gwen to come to this meeting, and now he sat on her left with a gloomy look on his ugly mug, groaning from time to time.
"Oh, really? And what kind of problem doesn't allow you to fire me for two months now?"
"The document management system isn't registering your letter of resignation, and therefore doesn't want to issue an order. None of the technicians could solve the problem."
"And do you think I care?"
"No, I'm not so naive." He and Hank looked at each other. "We think RK900 keeps blocking the system."
Gwen laughed, hitting her thighs with a loud clap. The bosses kept their stoney faces.
"Oh... so you aren't joking. Okay. Well, good luck then, I'll go."
She had already reached the glass doors when Hank, the sentimental old man, asked her in a suddenly heartfelt tone: "Don't you want to speak with her?"
"I don't want to. She's your property, so speak with her yourself."
Hank winced. The damn android rights activist, who refused to stand next to them just six months ago. He had changed his opinion literally in one second, looking into pretty brown eyes. It was unfair, as if Hank had received a golden retriever with a wagging tail and Gwen was given a bald cat with terrible character. And here Gwen was, leaving, all scratched up with ringworm and pissed‐in slippers, and Hank was judging her — how's that, what a treasure you're missing.
"She's not our property, she's our subordinate."
"What's the difference?"
"There is a difference," Fowler said emphatically. "Because in the first case I'd tell her I'll deactivate her if she doesn't stop, and in the second one, I'd like to solve the situation peacefully."
Gwen didn't want to speak with Richie — but she did want two men, who apparently couldn't reason with a plastic girl, to have egg on their faces.
She found Richie in the kitchen — she was loading dirty mugs in the dishwasher.
"Did you decide to become a cleaner?"
"Since I do not have a partner anymore, it makes sense to prove my versatility to keep my job."
"Cut the crap, someone else will have been appointed to be your partner."
Richie's expression didn't change and she continued to put the mugs into the dishwasher. Despite the fact she kept doing it at the same speed, the action seemed somehow frenzied.
"Ditch that bullshit, Richie." Gwen tried to make herself look hard. She's always had trouble with it, especially in the academy, where she was called Hobbit because of her below average height. That was water under the bridge, but sometimes she still felt like a hobbit, surrounded by huge men. "I'm serious."
"I do not understand what you're talking about, Gwendoline."
"Not Detective Reed anymore?"
"As far as I know, you have quit the police," Richie said coldly.
"No, I haven't quit the police yet, although I very much want to. And it's all the fault of your plastic ass."
Richie turned away again and, bending down, began to configure the dishwasher manually, although there was no need for it. She could run any technology just with the power of thought. Her long jacket is covering her ass, but Gwen still couldn't tear her eyes away. Cyberlife made perfect bodies which no one could love, and then spread the virus of deviancy in addition, so that the carcasses began to feel like humans. A sophisticated torture.
"Why do you do it?"
"The answer to that question is obvious," Richie replied, without looking back.
"So enlighten little old dumb me."
"I do not want you to leave."
"I got that, but why?"
Richie straightened up, pulled her jacket down and, turning to face her, tilted her head to one side threateningly. For a second Gwen thought Richie was going to snap right then and there and she, like that mad android, would attack her with a knife.
"Because I have feelings towards you," she said, so simply as if she was talking about work. And absolutely calmly, as if she changed her mind about grabbing a weapon.
"Feelings? You don't know shit about feelings! What can you know about them? I just don't fucking understand."
Suddenly — Gwen didn't even notice how it happened — Richie was very close, hanging over her and squeezing her forearm furiously. Her eyes remained cold and indifferent. The LED blinked red desperately.
"It's you who does not understand, but I know and understand everything perfectly," she said, threateningly, in a low and even tone. Stepping backwards, Gwen banged her back. A flash of pain darted through her lower back.
"I'll sue you for assault." Gwen forced herself to speak but her voice was hoarse. She wasn't scared, she wasn't even horny. This was some stupid game, and she didn't want to respond to any provocation. Richie's palm was cool, unnaturally smooth and strong like a vise.
"Go ahead, I'll block that petition as well."
"I'll deactivate you with my own hands."
"You don't have the programming skills to do it."
"Well, maybe, but an axe has."
"Are you threatening to chop me up with an axe?"
"Yes, I am."
"I recorded your voice in my memory module. I can sue for threat of murder."
"Only a person who's alive can be murdered. You aren't alive."
Richie leaned forward sharply and bit Gwen's lower lip, as if proving something. Gwen tried to wriggle free but she hit her butt against the wall, and her lower back twinged again. Richie had understood Gwen's moan her way. Her lips were too soft and smooth. The mouth was wet, the tongue and saliva were much nicer than human ones. It wasn't a good kiss, but Gwen didn't even count it as one anyway. Richie put her cold hand on her lower back, and the pain receded slightly. Those curls under the ears were soft to the touch, as if they aren't coated in hairspray, and her small ear was fragile and warm. With her other hand Gwen reached for her neck, but Richie caught it and squeezed their intertwined fingers tightly.
Someone came in the kitchen, swore and went back out. Fuck it. Gwen no longer worked there.
Breaking the kiss, Richie didn't turn her eyes away, but continued to stare at her, reading every reaction and pushing it through her analyzer.
"And what was that for?" Gwen asked. "I still won't stay."
"I wanted to."
Gwen ran her hand over her lower lip. There was no blood, but the sensation was pretty harsh. In a few minutes it would be swollen.
"What did you want? To bite my lip off?"
"I wanted you not to notice anyone else except me," Richie said, with the naivety of a four‐year‐old child explaining why he hit someone with a plastic shovel. She didn't blink; apparently there was some kind of glitch in the facial expressions program, and that was creepy.
"That doesn't sound good, actually."
"But it is how I feel."
"Good for you."
"And what do you feel?"
Gwen winced. What's up with the socialization program? Did it suddenly malfunction? People didn't ask such questions. Had it shut down all together along with the blinking?
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Why?"
"Because. Start blinking, it looks weird."
"You did not answer the question."
"And you didn't start blinking."
Richie started to blink quickly for a few seconds and then stopped again. There was no breathing either. The LED remained red.
"If the insurance is the only reason why you're quitting, I can hack into the insurance company's accounts and transfer the money to you."
"Won't your brains be melted after this?"
Her phone's screen blinked: $2,350 are credited to your account. Gwen nearly threw it against the wall. That was fucked up. That was theft with use of artificial intelligence. A maximum of nine years' imprisonment.
"Return it!"
"I will return it if you stay my partner."
"Oh, what's wrong with you?"
Richie took a step back, pulled her jacket down again, looked at her feet. "I have a reinforced will function. It means I am ready to make every effort for completing a task."
"And what's your task?" Gwen asked, knowing she doesn't want to know the answer.
"I have installed it by myself," Richie answered with pride. "To make it so that you love me."
Gwen opened her mouth, closed it and opened again. Repeated that four and a half times. Sat down on the edge of the table, because she can hardly stand on her feet. She had it coming. It could be compared to having a target painted on her face. And there it is — a headshot.
Cyberlife didn't suck for once.
Actually no, they still did — the android hadn't understood she had completed her task half a year ago.