A/N: Thanks for the reviews, follows and favourite's guys! My writing is not perfect so I really appreciate all the helpful critiques so I can further improve. I'll try my best to create an interesting story for you to read, so please do let me know your thoughts, what you're liking what you're not, any errors etc.
That's all enjoy!
Chapter 1
It was Stephanie's first day back at work.
No one at the DPD expected her to ever make a return, especially not after everything that had happened; the fall, the failure of her marriage, the dissolving of the crisis negotiation team and well, her current condition.
Heck she didn't even expect to be back.
But Stephanie had lost so much, too much, she wanted at least be able to hold onto something, and if that something was a space in the DPD then she'd take it and keep it.
Even if she was no longer head of a department and now just a detective.
As she arrived at the crime scene, her colleagues were uneasy.
They watched her with uncomfortable eyes as she ducked her head and hid her face with sunglasses- which were not really needed on such a dusky day; and slipped around reporters and under yellow tape.
"Detective Seo.."
Stephanie removed her sunglasses, hooking them into the front pocket of the plaid shirt she was sporting and turned to her colleague Tina, who averted her eyes instead choosing to focus on the paramedics who were covering the victim's body with a sheet.
Stephanie let out a sigh stuffing her hands in the pocket of her jacket.
Tina had been her best friend once upon a time, but maybe it had only been for face value because she had only visited Stephanie once whilst she was recovering from her surgeries.
"Why are you looking at me like i'm a photograph of someone who died Detective Chen?"
The woman stuttered a response and Stephanie turned on her heels, walking inside the building.
The elevator pinged as it reached the appropriate floor, and as it's doors opened she found herself subject to the stares of those already at the site; it was only the androids working on forensics that remained focused on their task.
This was going to be a difficult day.
She spotted Gavin in the apartments' kitchen, his arms folded and wearing the same moody frown that was constantly etched into his features.
"So you're saying no one heard or saw anything all night? The first time anyone saw her was this morning when you found the body?"
The building manager nodded.
Stephanie scrunched her face up pressing her hands to her ears. With so many people in such a small space it was hard for her audio interface to focus on what was important, currently the loudest thing was a stupid cyberlife advertisement for some kind of android operated driverless car.
"Can someone turn that TV off!"
She shouted, receiving an affirmative from another onsite detective, hearing him order an android to find the remote control.
Focusing on the site manager's statement she made her way to the kitchen.
"It was thundering and raining like crazy last night, no one in the building would have left their home, and it was so noisy no one would have heard."
Gavin blew air from his teeth, nodded, turned to see an approaching Stephanie and walked away.
"What the hell is she doing here?"
"You still get mad when you see me huh?"
She rolled her eyes following him, blocking his path before he could head into the bedroom.
"What have we got so far."
She quirked a brow, for a moment he was reluctant to divulge information, looking anywhere but at her.
"Suicide, female student 22... Jumped from the balcony."
Ah.
That was why they were even more uncomfortable. Given the circumstances of her accident they expected her to have some kind of trauma with high buildings and falling off them.
Stephanie's fingers curled into the hem of her shirtsleeves. She nodded.
"We know why yet?"
He seemed surprised at her seemingly unaffected reaction.
Her internals were starting to hum with unease but she ignored it.
"Probably the usual. Sad life, struggling with university or money or friends or something."
She narrowed her eyes at his insensitivity.
"Pity." he continued, not noticing, or pretending to notice, or noticing and wanting to irritate her further.
"I took a look at the body earlier, pretty girl. Why would such a pretty girl commit suicide?"
Stephanie stepped into the bedroom, glancing at the Cello sitting in the corner of the room.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, she was definitely pretty."
"No I mean the suicide you idiot, are you sure it was suicide?"
"Guess we'll find out once forensics finish up."
Stephanie pursed her lips, rounded on her heels and made her way over to the balcony as her optobionics got to work, recreating the scene. She was startled at first, blinking rapidly at what her brain and the software built into it was processing until she remembered what the engineer at Cyberlife had explained.
Concentrate. Focus.
A pulsing orange hologram appeared in her vision, constructed from the victim's stats she had apparently analysed when she had glanced at the girls body.
The hologram wrapped it's fingers around the railing, hoisting itself up and toppling over as it tried to climb- the girl was 5ft5 and 46kg, extremely slim with hardly any muscle, so that in itself would have been a difficulty.
Stephanie's fingers tightened around the railing as she followed the hologram over the edge, her chest tightened as she watched it fall, then when it reached the ground hitting the flower bed it shattered, and Stephanie sucked in a sharp breath.
A warning blinked in her vision: Spiking adrenaline levels. Recommended course of action is to take slow measured breaths.
Closing her eyes she exhaled and inhaled, repeating the action until her adrenaline levels regulated and the tightness in her chest faded.
"Detective Seo! What are you doing?"
Stephanie opened her eyes, releasing the railing. She grimaced seeing that it had become misshapen due to the force of her metal fingers and reached for it again, bending the metal back into place.
"Can I see the dash cams from the cars near flower beds?"
"It'll take some time to find out what vehicle was parked there last night."
"It doesn't add up."
She announced after getting hold of the footage back at the DPD.
"What?"
Gavin pushed her chair out of the way of her terminal, ignoring the daggers she sent him as he watched over the footage, seeing nothing but a falling girl crumple into the flower bed below her.
"The landing." Stephanie explained, scooting her chair back over to her terminal and replaying the simulation she had put together earlier in her vision.
"The landing is different."
"What the hell you talking about Seo?"
Stephanie swallowed, shaking her left hand and flexing her fingers.
She was going to have to connect to the terminal.
She'd done it once before after being shown by an engineer at cyberlife and hated it because it was something inherently inhuman, connecting what was in her head to a computer.
"Watch."
She sighed and brought her fingertips to the screen, the skin on her fingers melting away into a shiny plastic white, displaying the simulation that had recorded in her mind.
"Fuck that's freaky."
Gavin grumbled, "You're like a goddamn android."
"I'm not a robot."
She hissed, removing her hand abruptly and leaving her chair.
"We have a meeting in 10 to discuss evidence right? Go get your shit together."
Immediate cause of death is cervical spine injury, however the luminol reaction revealed a lot of bloodstains. It's safe to assume that an injury to the back of her head was sustained prior to the fall.
"These are the photos taken first thing when we entered the crime scene."
The detective pressed a button changing the image projecting on the screen.
Normal enough.
"As you can see it's clean, nothing stands out but,"
He clicked the button again.
"Here's a look at the room after we used the luminol."
"Holy shit."
Gavin whistled, swinging back on his chair.
"I'd rather turn myself in than clean all that up, fuck."
"Bloodstains are a nightmare to get rid of."
The door opened and the group of detectives stopped to see Hank Anderson stroll through the door, slump down into a chair and reach for a doughnut from the desk.
"What about the weapon?" He asked around a bite, a stray sprinkle fell, landing in his lap.
"Forensics found a piece of metal embedded in her head."
"She was a cellist."
Stephanie called out, remembering the instrument the victim kept in her room. Automatically as she thought about it, the net links in her brain started searching, revealing a recent news article and social media images showing the 22 year old had won a competition not too long ago.
"She won an award recently, but there was no trophy in the apartment."
"The trophy was the weapon?"
"I'm pretty sure."
"So how do we find the weapon and who killed her?"
"Not who what."
Stephanie said, raising form her seat.
"It was an android."
"You sure about that?"
Gavin doubted her.
No surprise there since he was always trying to find some kind of flaw, something to criticise and hold against her-he'd been like that since their training days.
"We found trace amount of male DNA under the victims fingernails, neighbours and friends of hers said they heard her arguing a lot too."
Stephanie was confident with her assumptions.
"You said so yourself, bloodstains are a pain to clean up, an android would have no problem with it, and only an android would be able to to so, so immaculately which suggests.."
"Our killer's made of metal."
Hank finished and Stephanie shrugged.
"What if the boyfriend got an android to clean up for him?"
"Either way there's definitley android involvement, we just gotta find it so we can figure out the truth."
After the meeting the detective's had dispersed, some going to look into the boyfriend and anything relevant around him, some going to research a list of possible androids and others floating to the canteen, not yet having had the chance to eat because of the early hours discovery of the body.
A notice flickered across Stephanie's vision courtesy of her optobionics, alerting her to the fact that her blood sugar and energy levels were dropping.
She had to blink a few times to get it to disappear, heading to the canteen for food so that the message wouldn't return.
Tina and Gavin were currently at the Tea and coffee station, fixing up drinks for everyone.
"Steph you want a coffee?" Tina asked habitually, almost as if she had forgotten her distance from the morning. Then as Stephanie approached she seemed to remember, sharing a look with Gavin before fixing her gaze on the nespresso machine.
"I mean...umm...do you..can you drink coffee now?"
"Yeah I wondered that too," Gavin butted in, taking a sip from his own mug before continuing.
"Can you eat and drink like us humans or do you not need to like those robots?"
Stephanie pretended to be unnaffected, brushing off the fact they were comparing her to an androids likeness. They weren't intentionally trying to upset her, they were just curious that was all.
Well, she hoped that was it.
When Gavin set down his coffee mug to pick up his tray of food she grabbed it, bringing the cup to her lips.
"Thanks for the coffee."
Stephanie had been called into the Captains office.
"Captain Fowler."
She nodded, slipping into the chair opposite him and crossing her legs.
He looked her over as she sat tapping a foot.
She looked fine, normal, human- but he'd heard what had happened to her, heard what cyberlife had done-replacing all her broken bones and bits with plastic and metal.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
She pursed her lips.
"A little tired, you know this case had a lot of us up early."
She knew that wasn't what he was really asking but didn't care to answer correctly.
"I know this is your first day back, and it can be a little difficult adjusting to a new team and department, especially after so much time away-"
"I'm managing perfectly."
She carded her finger through her hair, planting both her feet on the ground and sitting up straight.
"But it's not me you're really talking about."
Stephanie let out a humourless laugh shaking her head.
"It's them isn't it?"
Captain Fowler was silent.
But the silence was clear enough.
"That's ridiculous."
"Stephanie..."
He paused, swallowed, struggled to put his words together in a polite enough way.
"It will just take some time for the others to get used-"
"A footballer breaks a leg a few too many times and needs pins and a metal rod put in, doesn't change who he is, or what he is does it?"
"I may have needed a bit of extra work to get put back together but the same still goes for me."
Folding her arms around her torso she frowned.
The captain could tell she was offended, but knew the type of person Stephanie was meant an apology would be an even worse offence.
"You're right."
He agrees.
"Was there anything else you needed?"
She asks, as the Captain flips through some files.
"With the rise in android related crimes, Cyberlife have brought it upon themselves to send us a prototype to assist investigations."
Stephanie's neutral expression shifted and she scowled unhappily.
"And you're telling me why? You think i'll make it feel right at home because we're both made of metal?"
"Stephanie."
She sat quietly like a scolded child.
"i'm telling you because I want to know if you're okay working on the deviant android cases, i'm putting together a small team, and I don't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with."
She chewed on the inside of her lip.
Basically he didn't want her making any trouble when the android popped up.
"Yeah whatever, send me the files to my desk, I've got things to do, crime scenes to visit, and an android to find."
Hopping up from her chair she left the office with a salute of her fingers.