Title: The Heart is a Machine
Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Rachel Berry
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Just having a little fun.
Summary: AU. Future fic. Quinn Fabray, former Blade Runner, is called back into the force when a group of robots crash land on Earth and go on a killing spree. When a seemingly unique in her own way robot weasels her way into Quinn's life Quinn begins to question what it means to be human.
A/N: Thank you everyone for your reviews! I love the enthusiasm and it gets me really hype, as well.
Quinn slid smoothly into the parking space in front of her apartment. She killed the engine with a sigh, twisting her neck to loosen her tired muscles. Truth be told, she had been ready to accept Rachel as a human halfway through that test and the fact that Rachel had nearly slipped under her radar was jarring. It seemed that LeRoy was getting better at constructing his androids, and that more than anything was giving Quinn the initiative to retire them once and for all.
She grabbed her gun from the glove compartment and slid it in the inside lining of her coat. Then she grabbed her groceries, three bags of protein, a little carbs, and guilty pleasure sweets, and opened the car door to step out.
"Good evening, Quinn!"
Quinn jostled the bags in her arms to see over them towards her neighbor. "Good evening, Mrs. Scott!" Quinn pleasantly called back as she walked up the stairs and into her apartment building.
The landlord, an ornery old man with a hump back was opening his door to step outside and Quinn quickly hurried to the elevator, stepping inside with a relieved sigh when the door opened. Her landlord was a prick and she avoided him as much as she could.
"Hi, detec—"
"What the hell!" Quinn exclaimed, dropping her bags and reaching for her gun with practiced ease to draw it on the other occupant in what she had thought was an unoccupied elevator.
From a dark corner on the floor of the poorly lit elevator, a figure emerged. It was a woman, Quinn guessed from the softness of her voice, and she was short once she stood to her full height. She took a couple of hesitant steps forward into the dim light.
Quinn sighed.
Rachel.
Shadows danced along her tan skin, and Quinn squinted to see her better.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Quinn gritted out through clenched teeth, fear quickly morphing into anger at the sight of Rachel. "I could have shot you!"
"I'm sorry," Rachel said softly, wringing her hands together. She appeared nervous as she continued to step forward.
"What are you doing here?" Quinn demanded again.
"I-I wanted to see you," Rachel stammered. "Talk to you," she corrected. "So, I waited."
The elevator dinged open as Quinn glared at Rachel, gun firmly pointed forward. She could take the shot with no repercussions, because no matter how much Rachel pretended to be human, she wasn't. It would have been so easy. One gone, five more to go.
She watched Rachel's chest heave with a large breath as if she was afraid, and Quinn slowly withdrew her gun. Perhaps another day. Perhaps in another situation, one that would be gratifying and not this pathetic fish in barrel situation. There was a part of Quinn that was beginning to want Rachel to know her own status before she was retired.
Keeping her in her line of sight, Quinn slowly placed her gun back into her coat pocket and bent down to grab her groceries.
Rachel breathed another needless breath, depriving actual oxygen breathing humans of air as she took another step forward. "Let me help you."
"What do I need your help for?" Quinn shot back as she stepped out the elevator.
Head bowed, Rachel followed silently behind her as they walked to Quinn's door. Quinn dropped her bags at her side to fish her keys out of her pocket.
Wordlessly, Rachel bent down to grab the groceries, hoisting them into her arms and turning to better see Quinn.
When the door opened, Quinn turned around to find Rachel diligently holding her grocery bags in her arms. Jaw clenched, she pushed the door open more and walked inside. Rachel followed behind her, kicking the door closed with her foot. She nearly dropped a bag in her arms and quickly bent lower to get a better grip on it before following Quinn into the kitchen.
"You have a lovely home, detective Fabray," Rachel complimented as she looked around the living room.
Quinn felt for her gun to make sure it was still there as she trained sharp eyes on Rachel. "Thank you." She nodded towards the table in the corner of her kitchen. "You can sit them there."
Nodding with a disarming smile, Rachel walked the groceries to the corner of the room and sat them down. She turned around, tugging on the hem of her sweater as she stared at Quinn.
Quinn leaned back against the counter and crossed one leg over the other, folding her arms across her chest. She canted her head to the right to stare at Rachel. "Once again, why are you here, Berry?"
Rachel cleared her throat. "You think I'm a replicant," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"And you think you're human."
Rachel's chin jutted out in pride and defiance. "I am."
"Then why are you here?" Quinn asked coolly.
Rachel stared at her blankly. She rubbed her lips together in thought before quietly answering. "Because you doubt me, and daddy won't tell me why."
Quinn scoffed, biting down on her lower lip while shaking her head. "Daddy?"
Rachel's spine straightened at the condescending tone that dripped from Quinn's voice. "That's who he is to me, detective. My father."
"Then why are you here?" Quinn bit out scathingly. "Run along to your father, and your life, Berry."
"I need answers," Rachel said, voice so soft it was as if her lips moved without speech. "And he won't tell me why you have such a false opinion about me."
"False?" Quinn prompted. Her steps were slow and predatory as she approached her mark to stand a few feet in front of her. It would be like taking candy from a baby, retiring Rachel right now. "If you really thought you were human you wouldn't be here."
"I am human," was Rachel's instant and seemingly only defense.
Quinn smiled cruelly. "Oh, yeah?" she goaded. "When's your first memory?"
Rachel didn't answer right away, and Quinn continued, wanting to get this skin-job out of her house as soon as possible.
"When you were five?" Quinn pressed scathingly, recalling all LeRoy had foolishly told her days ago. "Are you on a carousel?"
Rachel's face went ashen at the description and Quinn chuckled mirthlessly.
"Do you have memories of falling off a bike and skinning your knee? Pictures of your mother who possibly died?"
"Shut up," Rachel whispered. Her throat worked with a tight swallow. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Do you have memories of going to the zoo? Prom?" Quinn continued, egging Rachel on. "Hell, do you even have memories of this so called mom?"
"Shut up!" Rachel shouted, slamming her hand down on the table. A loud cracking noise ricocheted off the walls in the silence between them. Rachel's eyes widened immediately at her own outburst and she drew in on herself, curling her hand to her chest. Quinn stepped closer and Rachel cowered away from the table as Quinn looked down at it. The wood was splintered and cracked where Rachel's fist had been, a deep impression left in the corner of the table.
Quinn looked over at her, and grabbed Rachel's wrist, thin and limp in her warm hand. She turned Rachel's hand around for inspection and saw no damage, just smooth tan skin. "Yeah, a human could so do this," she replied dryly, referencing her table.
Rachel's lower lip trembled. "I am human," she defended, jerking her hand back. Her dark eyes began to glisten as the overhead light in the kitchen shined down on them, and Quinn took a step back at the sight as a lone tear slid down Rachel's cheek. "Why are you being so mean?"
Quinn quickly turned away from her, shock causing her chest to cave in. What the hell was that? Tears? This skin-job was able to cry? She ran her hand along the tightly coiled muscles in the back of her neck as she walked away from Rachel. Behind her, she could hear Rachel crying harder, a full on blubbering sound, and Quinn sighed heavily as a headache began to thump through her head. "What do I know?" Quinn grumbled. She heard Rachel sniffle and sighed again. "Look, you're human, all right? You're human. Clearly I was mistaken. So, go home."
Quinn turned around to find Rachel staring at her like a kicked puppy. "No, really. Go home, Rachel."
Taking her bottom lip between her teeth, Rachel suppressed gut-wrenching shuddery sobs as the realization of everything came crashing down on her. Her chest fluttered with uneven breaths as the vision of Quinn in front of her became blurrier with each tear that welled in her eyes. She took a step forward, and kept walking until she passed Quinn with hunched shoulders and walked out of the kitchen.
The next thing Quinn heard was her front door clicking shut and she sagged against the counter in relief. Befuddlement gripped her at the memory of how real Rachel's tears looked along with the anguish on her face. But that couldn't be. Rachel was artificial. She couldn't feel emotions. Not to mention the fact that she was a replicant. She had failed the test despite LeRoy's best efforts to create the most human-like android in existence. She was arguably the most dangerous replicant out there because she could convey emotions better than the others Quinn had come across.
She needed to be retired. And Quinn would make sure that she was.
Quinn walked right into the precinct and bypassed Puck whom had a stupid good morning grin on his face. She made a sharp left around the corner toward her old office that Sue had given back to her.
"Whoa, what's your problem?" Puck asked, stiff arming the door that was almost slammed in his face. He opened it and slipped inside, closing it and hesitantly walking closer at the sight of the glare Quinn was shooting him with. "What'd I do?"
"I could kill you right now!" Quinn hissed, reaching for her coffee mug. She twisted the lid with shaky fingers and took a luxurious sip. Sleep had eluded her last night. Thoughts of Rachel knowing where she lived plagued her mind, and she wondered if Rachel would off her now that the truth was revealed. Whether or not Rachel would show up to her apartment in the middle of the night, overpower her, and kill her on sight.
But something about Rachel seemed so harmless, that a part of Quinn doubted the girl even knew what to do with the strength that she had.
Across from her, Puck looked like a scolded child as he shrank down into the seat in front of Quinn's desk with shrugged shoulders. "What for?"
"Guess who the hell showed up at my apartment last night, Puck?" Quinn whisper-yelled.
"Sam?" he guessed, having no idea where this was going.
"Try Rachel," Quinn replied, face contorting into a grimace as she watched recognition flicker in Puck's dark eyes.
"The replicant chick?" he asked needlessly. "How the fuck did she get your address?"
"She 'works' at Schue's Corp, Puck, it's not hard to believe that she was able to get it with all the billion dollar state of the art technology they have lying around, herself included."
The weight of the situation was finally falling down on Puck, and his eyes hardened. "She didn't do any to you, did she?" He quickly glanced over Quinn in assessment. He'd never forgive himself if his childhood friend had been hurt after he told her not to worry about something she had obviously been worried about.
"She cried, Puck," Quinn sighed.
His jaw dropped. "What? You're sure that chick didn't hit you in the head or something?"
Quinn scoffed. "She cried when I told her she was a replicant."
"So, she really didn't know," he mused.
"She said LeRoy wouldn't tell her anything, so she came to find me." Quinn sighed, taking another sip of her coffee. She let the mug hover in front of her face for warmth as her elbows rested on the table. "I don't get this girl."
A roaring knock on the door pulled both of their attentions to it as it open to show Sue standing dauntingly in the doorway. "If you women are through gabbing, we have business to discuss. Be in my office in five seconds." She shut the door and walked out.
Puck and Quinn took one look at each other, then walked out of Quinn's office and into Sue's to find Santana already sitting down waiting. "Took you guys long enough," she griped.
Sue just stared at the two until they sat down. She was quiet for a long moment as she mulled over the words churning in her head. She liked to think of herself as a motivational speaker at heart, and she never spoke unless the right words were on the tip of her tongue.
"Blaine Anderson is a street walker," she finally settled on.
Santana was the first to react, an amused guffaw lurching her forward in her seat before she covered her mouth. "Sorry," she wheezed, completely unapologetic as she continued to laugh. "No one else finds this funny?"
Quinn scratched at her bunched forehead, eyebrow slowly rising. "Where does he…work?"
"Tyson Ward in Lima Heights."
"Fuck," Santana muttered under her breath. "I did not leave the projects just to go back."
"Oh, can I go?" Puck asked excitedly, gripping the arms of his chair.
"I'm sending Q and Santana in, because this guy should be easy." Sue smirked as she leaned back in her seat. "He's practically a sex doll."
"Well, what the hell am I gonna do?"
Sue stared at him with narrowed eyes for a long moment, sizing him up. Her elbows rested on the arms of her chair as she steepled her fingers together. "You'll be working with intel to take down Mercedes."
Quinn patted him on the shoulder before Puck quickly spun out of his chair in excitement. "See ya later, Q!"
He was out of the door soon after and Quinn trained her eyes on Sue whom was putting on a pair of reading glasses. She held up a stack of papers in front of her and read over them for a moment.
"Blaine was last seen with a man lacking facial hair, a rooster coifed mane, and porcelain skin," Sue muttered.
Quinn's lips scrunched up in confusion. "Are these notes from intel or your own notes?"
"Clearly they're mine," Sue admitted with an air of smugness about her. "Surveillance couldn't properly describe the boy, and from my years attending drag shows—don't ask, inflatable chest." Sue cut her eyes to Santana whose interest had peaked at the mention of drag shows. "I know a gay man when I see him and I know how to properly describe him."
"And no one knows what the skin-job prostitute looks like?" Santana asked.
"A short brunette; nothing more than that," Sue answered. "And apparently Schuester's Corp no longer has photos of their own replicants. That's something I'll personally get to the bottom of."
"Okay," Quinn drawled at the vague reply. Let the finding a needle in a haystack, Russian roulette game begin. She looked over to Santana. "You're driving. I don't know my way to Lima Heights."
Quinn leaned over to lock her door almost instantly when the car came to a stop.
Santana scoffed, face twisting in disdain. "Save your rich, white girl routine for people who'll care." She gestured to the people walking on the sidewalk outside. "Obviously they don't care enough to rob you."
Quinn swiveled around toward her. "We're cops, Santana, no one likes us. Whether we're in the suburbs or the ghetto, I'll lock my damn door." She turned back to her own business, reaching into her bag for the pair of binoculars she had picked up on her way out of the office.
They were parked on the corner of Tyson Street where surveillance attested to the man who bought Blaine for a few hours.
Santana's eyes narrowed to squint into her binoculars. "Think he'll come back?"
Quinn grabbed the grainy photo of the man that was given to them right before they left the precinct. Porcelain skin, indeed. Not that she had room to talk. She peered back through her binoculars toward the opposite end of the street. "Surveillance said that the guy walked down this way, paid Blaine, did the deed, then continued down your side of the street." She pushed out a breath. "I'm going to assume he lives somewhere in the area, perhaps works somewhere in the area, if he's walking about."
"Or he trolls this place for cheap sex," Santana grumbled. "Sick bastard."
An amused smile touched Quinn's lips. "You're judging the guy before you even get to know him."
"Would you pay for sex?"
Quinn paused for a beat. "Good point."
They stayed diligent to their respective posts as silence fell between them. Quinn exhaled slowly, wondering how long this job was going to last. She was already focusing on her last mark: Rachel. Rachel, who was a replicant who mistakenly thought she was human until last night. Rachel, who punched a dent into her now splintered wooden table. Rachel, who Quinn honestly didn't know whether or not she was stable. And from drawing on past experiences, Quinn couldn't help but distrust her no matter how doe-eyed and innocent Rachel appeared to be.
Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when a tall, slender man came strolling down the sidewalk. "I may have something," Quinn murmured. She adjusted her binoculars to better see the coifed mane atop his head like Sue described. Fumbling behind her, Quinn attempted to find the picture on the center console.
Santana looked down and grabbed the picture, taking a look at it and placing it in Quinn's hands. "Well?" She grabbed her own binoculars and trained them on Quinn's side of the sidewalk. "What's he wearing?"
"Skinny jeans, a pair of chocolate boots, a tight black sweater, leather bag slung across his chest, and his best bitch face."
Santana scanned the six people walking on the sidewalk until she found the person Quinn was describing. Her lips curled into a sneer. "That's him."
"Let's go."
They dropped their binoculars and hopped out of the car. Quinn had learned long ago that blade running, when outside of the office, was not a pencil skirt and wedged heels line of work. She wore a pair of combat boots, tight jeans to run more smoothly and a simple dark top that she didn't care about getting blood on. She forgot to tie her hair back and it ran loosely down her shoulders as the wind picked up outside. Santana's hair was in a high ponytail and she wore a similar outfit to Quinn's as she rounded the car. She hurried forward with tight shoulders toward the sidewalk.
Quinn gawked at the overt way Santana was tackling the situation, then she remembered that Santana was new to the job. She glanced over at the man walking toward them unsuspectingly, then hurried toward Santana. She grabbed her shoulder, and Santana jerked away. "Are you crazy?" Quinn hissed.
"What are you talking about—he's right there!" Santana shot back heatedly. "Look, I was hired to do a job, and—"
"So, do it correctly," Quinn demanded. She looked across the street to find the man in question staring directly at them. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. "Now that you've blown our cover…" She reached into her pocket for her badge, trying to look as disarming as possible as she approached him. "Police."
At the sound of her voice he immediately took off in the opposite direction.
"Fucker," Santana growled, taking off like a shot after him.
Quinn jammed her badge back into her pocket and took off after both of them. "Police!" she yelled again. She had learned when giving chase in neighborhoods to identify herself in order to keep from getting killed because of being suspected to be a robber or other criminal, but also in case there was some kind soul who wanted to help.
Everyone on the sidewalk parted to the side as Santana passed by followed by Quinn; her legs pumped hastily to smack her booted feet against the pavement as she began to run just that much faster. The man in front of them wasn't particularly fast, but he was slender and winded through people easily.
Quinn began to pant as she gained on Santana, slowly passing her like it was nothing.
"What the hell?" she heard Santana exclaim in surprise from behind, but Quinn ignored her.
From several feet ahead Quinn saw the man turn into an alleyway, and she smiled. "Got you," she mumbled to herself. It was a rookie mistake, one that told Quinn this guy had probably never been in trouble with the law before. She skidded to a stop by the alleyway and rounded the corner to find him trying to climb a wire fence.
Quinn sped up on him and grabbed the back of his sweater with both hands, using her body weight to propel them both backwards. A surprise breath whistled from his throat when he was pulled back and Quinn used the momentum from their imbalance to slam him face first against the nearest brick wall.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" the man immediately cried. His hands braced obediently against the brick wall before Quinn could even wheeze out a warning. His feet parted, and he babbled out apologies as Quinn looked up, tossing her head back to remove a lock of hair from her face to better see Santana closing in on them.
Santana panted quietly as she stood off to the side, a pair of handcuffs dangling from two belt loops in her acid washed jeans.
"What are you, some Olympic sprinter?" Santana panted in shock.
"Sure," Quinn replied vaguely with a forced laugh. "Cuff him, will you?"
"What's your name?" Quinn asked tiredly. Interrogation rooms were never her favorite. A small, dark room with only one overbearing light, shadows along suspects' faces, nothing about it was appealing.
The man they had just caught had a small red, irritated patch across his cheek that rubbed a little too roughly against the brick wall Quinn had him against earlier. His arms were crossed over his chest in defiance, chin lifting as he turned his head just so to side-eye Quinn. "Kurt Hummel," he finally answered, voice soft and clipped.
Santana's eyes flicked over his designer outfit in judgement. "You don't look like you're from Lima Heights."
Kurt ran a hand through his hair, seeming to age in front of them as frown lines creased his face. "I'm not."
Santana shot Quinn a smug, told you so look.
"What were you doing there, then?" Quinn asked.
Kurt remained stiff-lipped, staring at the wall.
When no one said anything for a while, Quinn sighed. "Okay. You have two options here, Kurt. You can either confess to buying sex from a pleasure-model replicant named Blaine Anderson, then talk to our sketch artist to composite a picture so we can find him. Or you can be held here until you give us more information."
"You can't hold me here against my will when there's no evidence that I've done anything, honey," Kurt insisted. "Fifth amendment."
"Mundane laws don't apply to us, honey," Santana spat. "When a suspect is held under suspicion of receiving fellatio from a replicant, they can be held for as long as I want them to be." Her eyes narrowed as her lips pulled into a condescending grin. "Santana's Bill of Rights."
"We also have you on video," Quinn said with a shrug. "So, you know, stall all you want, but you did it and we have proof."
Kurt's eyes widened as they shifted from Santana to Quinn and back again. "You're bluffing."
"Try us."
They had both said it, and attempted to stifle matching grins at how similar they were.
Kurt's chin trembled, lips parting, suspended from each other for a long moment before he actually spoke. "Please don't tell my dad," he whispered.
Quinn's face remained impassive though inside she was practically sobbing with relief at the possibility of getting home at a decent hour tonight. "Just tell us what happened."
"I was just in the neighborhood, you know?"
It was probably a lie, but that wasn't Quinn's problem. She was only concerned with one isolated incident, and didn't question why Kurt was in Lima Heights to begin with. "Continue."
"And he-he was just there," Kurt explained. "I didn't know he was a replicant right away, but then I figured it out. I freaked, okay? Then he said all he knew how to do was…you know, so he was harmless, I figured. And then he said he had been separated from the others."
Quinn exchanged a grim glance with Santana. Separation wasn't good.
"I have never had the chance to have sex with a guy before."
"TMI," Santana complained.
"I just wanted to know what it was like. So, I gave the guy a few dollars, enough to put him up in a motel for a couple of days."
Quinn perked up at that tidbit of information. "What motel?"
"Motel 6, just something cheap," Kurt answered.
"Where is it?"
"A couple blocks down from Tyson Street."
The door to the interrogation room slammed open and Kurt jumped as Quinn and Santana turned around to find Sue standing there. "We're playing Wife Swap, ladies. Q, you're out and Puck's taking your place."
Quinn looked perplexed as she slowly stood from her seat. Sue stepped aside and Puck muscled through the doorway. He took one look at Kurt and frowned in exasperation. "How far did you get?" he whispered.
"Pretty far. Just make sure he talks to the sketch artist before he leaves," Quinn answered lowly in passing. She closed the door behind her to find Sue standing across the hallway with her arms folded. "There a reason you called me out of there?"
"Were you able to put the EPR test on a skin-job at Schuester's?"
Quinn instantly thought of Rachel. And this was the time she could admit to Sue that there was a replicant over there that she didn't include in her headcount, a replicant that wasn't going into outer space and, therefore, could be retired. "No." Quinn lied instead. "There were no active replicants there."
Quinn had instead decided that if anyone was going to retire the replicant that had boldly showed up at her apartment, it was going to her and her alone.
Sue nodded. "Then I want you to put the test on Blaine when he gets here."
"Okay."
"And find out his age. The other replicants will be the same age; they all came off the line at the same time."
Quinn clasped her hands behind her back to lean against the wall. Her lips quirked in incredulity as she regarded Sue. "Kill switch?"
The kill switch was what every replicant was created with. It was a vile in the circuit boards in their heads that was set to leak acid and fry their mainframes after four years of activity, effectively retiring them. It was meant to be a foolproof plan to ensure that the replicants didn't learn thoughts and actions that could be detrimental to human life with their superior strength and speed.
"From what I heard from eavesdropping, Blaine isn't a part of the pack anymore," Sue muttered. Her gaze was trained on one-way glass to watch Puck, Santana, and Kurt in the interrogation room. "An android with individuality is a dangerous thing, and it stinks of old age."
"You think they're close to their kill switch date?" It raised questions of Rachel and whether or not she was from the same line as the others and subsequently had the same kill switch date.
"I think if they are," Sue began carefully, "then they're going to be smarter and more cunning than I originally thought. They've probably been able to learn and build upon that knowledge. They may even learn emotions."
Quinn shot her a doubtful look.
"Hate, fear, anger, envy, love—"
"The day I see a replicant love I'll eat my hat," Quinn drawled with an eyeroll.
Sue's lips lifted into a lopsided grin. "You don't own a hat."
Quinn smirked. "Exactly."
Silence hung heavy between them for a long moment. Then Sue pushed off the wall and walked down the hallway. "Take a lunch break. I'm making Puckerman catch Blaine since he allowed Mercedes to so skillfully elude him."
Blaine was even smaller than Quinn had originally thought. He was soft spoken and bouncy with a blinding smile that was truthfully annoying. He was definitely a replicant, though, and had failed the EPR test miserably. Quinn stared at him for a long moment as he stared blankly back—nothing but a light show, indeed. "Where are the others?"
"I wouldn't know," Blaine answered in a flat voice devoid of emotion. "They left me."
His words weighed heavy in Quinn's mind. They—the replicants were starting to distinguish others from themselves, and me—they were starting to individualize. Replicants weren't created with the higher function to see themselves as individuals, and the fact that this one did made Quinn question his age. Quinn reached behind her, into the waistband of her jeans to feel the weight of her gun. "When did you last see them?"
They had impeccable inner clocks, so when Blaine spat out, "Three days, thirteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, ten seconds," she knew this to be accurate.
"Why are you all here?"
Blaine's face twitched faintly. "I don't know."
Quinn's eyes widened the barest hint. He had just lied to her. That was certainly a learned trait. "So, what—you just happened to kill a spaceship full of people and crash land on Earth? Did you hear it was a buyer's market and wanted to settle down?"
Blaine didn't respond, and Quinn sighed, "How old are you?"
"Three years, ten months, five days, twelve hours—"
"That's enough, Blaine. Thank you." Just as Sue had suspected, Quinn noted. They were dangerously close to their kill switch date, which meant that in almost four years they could have learned anything.
Which ultimately meant that it was time to end this. Replicants on Earth were illegal under penalty of retirement. Schuester knew this, and could kiss his million dollar investments goodbye. Quinn idly wondered yet again how old Rachel was, and if she was near her kill switch date as well.
Pushing the thought aside, Quinn stood quickly and pulled out her gun in one fluid motion. She trained it on Blaine and he jumped back in his seat with a slackened bottom jaw. "Tell me where they went."
Blaine's expression turned grim as he leapt from his seat. In a pair of handcuffs he lunged savagely head first across the table. Quinn took three measured steps back and fired just as many shots in his head. Blaine fell limp and unmoving to the ground. There was no thick, red blood dripping from his head to signify a human being. There was simply…nothing.
It was like unplugging a toaster oven.
Quinn clicked the safety on and placed her gun back into the waistband of her jeans. She swung her leg over Blaine at her feet and walked out of the interrogation room.
Sue was predictably waiting for her. "You couldn't get more out of him than that?"
"No," Quinn answered curtly. "Once he had lied to me, I was pretty much done with him."
"They can lie; they can separate themselves from the group—"
"They can be separated from the group," Quinn corrected. "The way Blaine had briefly described it, they left him. He was left to his own devices and did the only thing he really knew how to do."
"Turn tricks to get a motel room for a couple of nights." Sue smirked. "Pretty Woman ain't got nothing on this story." Her face turned somber as she recalled one piece of information. "They're almost four."
"And they're stealthy," Quinn added. "No one's called about a replicant losing their minds and killing everyone in a mall or something."
"Yet."
She nodded imperceptibly. "Yet."
Quinn sighed from a long day's work as she walked out of the elevator. She saw a small figure curled into a ball on her doorstep and her heart lurched at the sight. Hand twitching, it flew behind her to grab the handle of her gun. Her eyes narrowed as the figure began to stand up.
It was Rachel. Again.
Rachel stood to her full height in front of Quinn's door. The past day or so seemed to have aged her and she finally looked that twenty she had been talking about as she regarded Quinn evenly.
Neither one of them spoke a word to each other for a long moment. Truthfully, Quinn was in shock. She couldn't for the life of her figure out what the hell Rachel wanted from her and why she kept showing up at her apartment.
When it was clear Rachel wasn't going to say anything, Quinn walked forward, fully prepared to get inside her house and leave Rachel outside, or put a bullet through her head if she tried anything.
"Are you going to kill me?"
Quinn's spine straightened at the blunt question and the soft tone of voice it was spoken in. She jiggled her keys out of her coat pocket, glaring at Rachel for her audacity before opening the door. She grabbed Rachel by the arm and yanked her inside. The door closed behind them and Quinn slammed Rachel against it so hard that the China on her living room table shook audibly. Rachel didn't even bat an eye. "Don't you ever ask me a question like that on my doorstep again, do you hear me?" Quinn growled.
Rachel looked completely unrepentant, a touch defiant as she stared up at Quinn with wide eyes. "Are you?" she demanded.
Quinn pushed off of her. She stared at Rachel for a long moment. "Only humans can be killed. Replicants are retired." She then turned to walk away. "However, to answer your question: yes."
She walked through the living room and into the kitchen, shrugging out of her jacket and tossing it onto the kitchen table. Rachel stomped audibly behind her and into the kitchen as well, tears already welling in her eyes. She spotted the gun in the waistband of Quinn's jeans and quickly grabbed it.
"What the hell?" Quinn spun around as fast as she could, expecting the gun to be pointed at her.
But Rachel was pointing it at herself in a melodramatic way that made Quinn's heart race regardless.
"Do it," Rachel told her in a thick voice as her chin trembled. Her eyes were glistening once more to Quinn's astonishment.
Quinn dared to take a step closer. Once she had a second to think rationally she remembered that she always put her safety on when she wore her gun in the waistband of her jeans, and that this showdown wasn't all that serious.
But from the way Rachel was now crying, it was a serious matter to her, it seemed. "Rachel—"
"Do it!" Rachel shouted suddenly. Her chest heaved with a hiccup as tears slid down her cheek. Her hand shook around the gun and it slid through her air like a warm breeze. "What do I have to live for? Am I even alive?"
Feet quiet against the tiled floors of her kitchen, Quinn took measured steps toward Rachel. She was treating this like a suicide situation, which she didn't understand. But years of training sent her brain and body into autopilot and she found herself actually talking to Rachel like she was a person. But her words belied that sentiment.
"Am I, detective Fabray?" Rachel whispered.
"No," Quinn answered just as quietly. "No, you're not."
An anguished cry that Quinn would never forget crawled from Rachel's chest as she sunk to the floor. Her bangs covered her eyes as she stared down at the tiled floors she was crying real tears on. Quinn could see them clear as day on the floor; they were real. Rachel's shoulders sagged forward and the gun dropped to the floor, bare legs resting against cold tile.
Small sobs radiated off of Rachel as she wrapped her arms around her shaking frame. She looked up at Quinn with red-rimmed eyes, looking betrayed and hopeful all at once. "Can you hold me?" she whimpered.
Quinn swallowed heavily at the sight of her mark crumpled before her, asking to be held. Quinn didn't know what kind of world Rachel dwelled in—asking for the person who was going to kill you to hold you sounded ludicrous to Quinn's ears. Rachel should have been fighting back. Quinn could grudgingly admit that Rachel could easily overpower her and kill her, the only person as far as Rachel knew to know she was a replicant. It would be so easy for her, yet Rachel was here instead, on the floor looking broken as she stared up at Quinn. This was not what Quinn had signed up for.
Prior training of how to handle anxious and distressed people had Quinn kneeling down to be level with Rachel in an attempt to establish direct eye contact. Rachel cowered away from Quinn. "Please don't kill me," she whispered.
Quinn had never met a replicant that begged for its life in such a way. It was like a human facing the barrel of a gun and realizing that they had so much to live for, pleading for their life because they had a family and so many years left to live a fulfilling life.
"What am I?" Rachel asked in a meek voice and wide, wet eyes, expecting Quinn to have all the answers.
Jaw clenching at how much trust rested behind that question, Quinn looked away with a sigh. "I think you should go home," she declared with finality.
They both sat there for a moment longer as Rachel composed herself. She wiped her eyes with tiny sniffles of sadness and confusion, and Quinn eyed her wearily.
Then Rachel stood up, legs shaky like Bambi as she took a step forward. Quinn's eyes strayed to her gun laid forgotten on the floor. It would be so, so easy.
But it felt so inhumane.
She hopped up on her feet to find Rachel staring sorrowfully at her. "I'm truly sorry for imposing like this, detective Fabray," Rachel murmured. "It was very inconsiderate of me to burden you with my own problems, and—"
"Just stop," Quinn sighed, not wanting an apology for…this. Whatever this was.
"Are you going to kill me, detective?" Rachel asked again as if hoping that after all of this Quinn would change her mind.
"I'm a blade runner," was all Quinn said. "Replicants on Earth are illegal under penalty of retirement."
Rachel's breath hitched. "I see," she whispered mournfully. "Well, I know my way out, so…" When there seemed nothing left to be said, Rachel turned away and walked out of the kitchen.
The same click signaling Rachel's departure that was heard a day ago was heard again now and Quinn slumped back against the counter tiredly. She looked down at her unused gun and asked herself when the hell did she grow a conscious for replicants when she had just retired one a few hours prior. She bent down and swiped up her gun, ignoring the tears glistening on her floor.
There was absolutely no way she could tell Sue about this now, not that she ever planning to.