Chapter Two
Motel 6

He couldn't wait to get home. Seriously. He just wanted the day to end already. He had just enough time to run to his car to grab a spare shirt – because fuck he kept forgetting he didn't have one in his locker – to change out of his bloody one and then all hell broke loose. It wasn't that there was more crime going around. It was just that ever since the android revolution, anything regarding the damned things, like assault and deactivation, had to be handled like a real crime. Which meant more paperwork to be done and more leg work for the officers to do. And they were stretched thin as is before the revolution. It was really showing now, especially since the people that ducked out of town had yet to return back to Detroit. Not many officers left the city but just enough to put a strain on the rest of them. It had been nearly a year and Gavin had hoped that they would've recovered by now. If not recovered then adjusted and caught up with the work load. Which, of course, was not the reality they were facing.

Instead, they were overworked and now Gavin had to deal with his own android following him around like a fucking puppy. Was this how Anderson felt when Connor first came into the precinct? Boy, did he not envy him at all.

Gavin was currently typing away at his desk, trying to get all the paperwork he had to do caught up. God he hated paper work. When he took a moment to let his eyes glance around the precinct, he saw multiple of his coworkers bringing in people for various reasons. Mostly crimes to be locked up but there were some who had to give statements or were reporting things they didn't like. At least he didn't have to deal with the influx of pedestrians. That wouldn't end well.

His eyes danced over towards where Hank and Connor were working. Connor was facing the same way that he was, towards Fowler's office but his 'partner' had its back to him. He scoffed. Of course the bucket of bolts wasn't doing anything. They were no good for anything!

What was odd though was that Connor looked rather…stiff? Uncomfortable? Could androids even feel uncomfortable? Hank would argue yes, since he jumped on the band wagon that they had feelings and shit like that. Gavin, he still wasn't convinced. He grumbled as he turned his attention back to his report. At least the thing wasn't pestering him. That was a relief.

He didn't look back up from his screen until he heard a loud commotion coming from the holding cells. He pushed his chair back so he could get a better look. It looked like the guy he brought in earlier was being escorted somewhere. And he was giving the officer one hell of a time. He scoffed, at least it wasn't his problem anymore. But then he watched as the perp bent forward only to throw his head back to whack the officer's head with his own. The officer let go and stumbled backwards, the perp starting to make a run for it.

"Hey!" Gavin yelled as he bolted from his chair to cut him off. It helped that he basically had to pass his desk if he wanted to make it out of the building. "Fucker!" He yelled as he tackled him into the wall. Gavin grabbed onto his arm, twisting it painfully so the guy would stop fighting as he held him against the wall.

"Ow, ow, ow! That fucking hurts!"

"Yeah well so does a head to nose, call us even" He grumbled as he peeled him away from the wall as the officer came up to them. It was officer Tina Chen, someone he talked to quite a bit on breaks. "Hey Chen, smooth escort."

"Shut up Reed," She snapped as she tended to her nose. At least it wasn't bleeding like his was earlier. But her eyes were still watering from what he could tell. "Thanks for catching him."

Gavin nodded his head, still holding the guy in place despite his attempts to pull away. "Eh, any excuse to tackle someone," he smirked as she moved to grab at him again. "You sure you got him this time? Hate to see him get loose again," he joked.

If looks could kill, the one she shot him would've put him six feet under right then and there. "Fuck you Reed. I got him," she reassured the detective, causing him to back off as she continued to escort him away.

"Love you too Chen!" He chirped at her as she walked away, flipping him the bird. Gavin stayed where he was, watching with his eyes just to make sure the guy didn't try anything funny with Tina. He waited until they both were out of eyeshot before turning back to his desk.

And it was standing right there behind him. He jumped upon seeing it, hand reflexively going to his gun. "Jesus fuck!" He had to take a calming breath to settle his heart. He didn't like people sneaking up on him.

"Your reaction time was impressive, Detective Reed," it tried to compliment. But Gavin knew that wasn't the end of the sentence. 'For a human,' surely it wanted to say. He glared at it, rolling his shoulder slightly as he moved to get back to his work station. When he sat down and moved to go about typing his report again, he saw the thing's LED blue light reflecting on his screen.

"Don't you have work to do?" He went back to his report, trying to remember where he was before he had to smoosh a guy like a bug against the wall.

"It would easier for me to assist you if I were to have a work station."

Gavin grit his teeth together. "Then go fucking ask for one. The fuck you want me to do?"

There was a moment's pause. "I was told you would be able to place me."

He scrubbed at his face with frustration. Of course Fowler would say that. Of fucking course! He quickly looked around, trying to spy an empty desk so Gavin wouldn't have to be next to this thing. The only one that he could see was the desk that was adjacent to his own. He growled as he gestured angrily to the one in front of him. "Just fucking take that one and leave me alone."

The android moved to sit in front of Gavin. The detective stared back at his report, seeing the thing pull its skin back over his hand to reveal the white under casing and place it on the table's surface. That had been disturbing to see. Things shouldn't be able to just make their skin go away whenever they wanted to. It wasn't normal, damn it! It didn't take long before it was up and running for it to begin working. Gavin huffed under his breath. At least it was leaving him alone again. The thing creeped the fuck out of him. It started tapping away at the keyboard faster than his eyes could follow so Gavin looked away back to his report. His head would start to hurt if he kept watching.

Speaking of which, his head was already starting to hurt. Whether it was from all the noise around him, that sudden rush of excitement from tackling a perp, or from his stress levels, he didn't know. He rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger until he saw white spots. He then dropped his hand, sifting through the top drawer of his desk for his pill bottle. It took some digging, and some profanities, before he found it. Once he popped the lid off, he noticed that he only had five left. He let out a small sigh, he didn't really want to go back to the doctor to tell him that the headaches weren't getting any better. He did not want to have that conversation again. He pulled one out, capping the rest and threw it back in the drawer. Oh well, he'll deal with that later. He popped the pill into his mouth and chased it down with the coffee that was sitting at his desk. The cold coffee that was sitting there since this morning. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Cold coffee was the worse.

"Everything alright, Detective?" The thing asked from in front of him.

"Fucking peachy," he snapped, setting the coffee back where it had sat all morning.

The android was silent for a moment. "Ergotamine or Ergomar is used to combat the early symptoms of migraines. Perhaps you should take a break."

Gavin glared at the android. "The fuck you know what I'm taking?" He demanded. Had the damned thing go through his desk? When did it even have the time to do so?

"I scanned the label on the pill bottle as you brought it out. It seems you are running low on the medication, perhaps – "

"Shut up," Gavin said.

" – you should contact your doctor for a refill," it finished the sentence anyway. Gavin gritted his teeth. This was not going to help him. He pointedly ignored the thing to try and get back to work on his report. Somehow, he could just feel that thing's eyes still on him. He tried to ignore it as long as he could. Until he finally glanced over just to confirm his feeling.

He was right. It was staring at him. With cold, analytical eyes. "What?" He snapped.

"I am making sure that your vitals don't indicate that you're suffering from adverse side effects that can happen when taking Ergomar." It was so nonchalant about it. Like it wasn't a big deal that it was just sitting there and scanning him.

Gavin felt uncomfortable. Violated somehow. He couldn't hide from this thing could he? God that was fucking creepy. "Stop fucking scanning me!" He demanded.

"I apologize Detective Reed but that is not a function I can turn off." Well that didn't make him feel better.

"Then fucking look somewhere else!" God this thing was insufferable. "Fucking androids, I know the damned side effects I've been on these things long enough…" he grumbled under his breath as he tried to, once again, focus on his report.

He was just about done at this point. Paperwork, so much fucking paperwork. When would it end? When he was dead, for sure. "Detective," he heard the android speak up suddenly.

"Fucking what!? What is it now!?" This thing was really getting on his last nerves. Right then, he got an email notification pop up on his screen. 'Huh?" He hummed as he opened it, seeing a new case given to him by Fowler. He shuffled to get the tablet out of his desk to download the file for the road but his 'partner' was already standing at his side.

"I already have the file downloaded so we can head out to the scene immediately." Well that…that was actually pretty convenient. Instead, Gavin simply grabbed his keys and wallet to drive them over to the crime scene.

It had started to debrief him on the case file as soon as they had started driving off to the location. Apparently someone had reported a dumpster fire behind a motel. Once it was put out, it was discovered that three androids were torched inside it. It was marked as a homicide and so there they were, standing at the crime scene of three dead androids. Gavin couldn't believe it, that his life had dissolved into this. Maybe he should just retire now. Call it good. Then he wouldn't have to worry about cases like this anymore. Where he had to care as to what happened to plastics.

Too bad he loved the job too much.

The crime scene hadn't been touched except for the officers going around taking pictures and marking the different items they considered evidence. The area around the dumpster had been marked off with holographic police tape. While at most crime scenes the atmosphere was never really good or pleasant, it was particularly gloomy. Three of the five officers there at the scene were androids, from the blue arm bands that marked them as such on their uniforms. Much like the arm bands that Connor and RK900 had. They all were without their LEDs so that was the only real identifier that they had. And all of them were wearing somber expressions as they looked around the crime scene.

The two humans were the ones that were going about the crime scene while the androids were just standing around, not doing anything but looking at the carnage from different angles. Gavin walked through the holographic tape with his 'partner' on his heels. He reached into his jacket's side pocket on the inside for his notepad to start taking notes. He pulled the pen from it's spiral spine and flipped it open to a blank page. "What's the damage?" He asked the android closest to him. It didn't respond. He scoffed a bit. "Alright, seriously, cry over it later. We've got a crime scene to process so get fucking moving!" He demanded to the android, that seemed to come back to its senses. It shot him a dirty look that Gavin ignored before he moved to look inside of the dumpster.

"Seeing a dead body has caused their stress levels to rise," it said from behind him.

"They aren't dead bodies," Gavin stated bluntly. He noticed a particular smell about the air close to the dumpster. It might be accelerant. He jotted that down.

"I detect traces of an accelerant used."

Well that confirmed that hunch. He took a peek inside the dumpster. He didn't know why he was expecting it to be easier to look at than human remains but that's what he thought. The androids inside were torched black, the casings melted in some places to show the ruined biocomponents on the inside. It almost looked like the insides of a person were just exposed to the elements. Talk about disturbing. He looked over to it to see it touching the side of the dumpster with two fingers before placing them in his mouth.

"The fuck are you doing!? Don't contaminate the crime scene!" Gavin as he grabbed it's arm to pull its fingers from its mouth.

It stared at him with an unbothered expression. "I am taking a sample of the accelerant. I can run analysis of evidence on sight."

That was fucking disgusting. Gavin reeled back from grabbing the thing's arm, like it could somehow analyze him from touching its arm. "Ugh, if you're gonna do it, do it the fuck away from me then." He turned back to examining and jotting notes down of things he noticed in the dumpster. There were scratch marks on one end of the dumpster. Now while dumpsters were typically scratched to all hell, it looks like this one was recently distributed so it was fairly clean looking for a place that held trash. The paint was scratched off, and at such an angle that would imply something scratched it while being put in. It's possible that the androids did it while being dumped.

"Kerosene."

That stopped his train of thought. "What?"

"The accelerant. It's kerosene."

Now that was an odd one. He wrote that down before rubbing the back of his head. Not many people used kerosene these days. There was no need. Kerosene was used in oil lamps and such. It wasn't that hard to come by, by any means but it something that few people still used. Typically people in older homes. Or older people who were fond of it. "Do they use it here at the motel?"

"I see no orders of the chemical in their delivery manifests."

Well that ruled that out. " Any homes or buildings nearby that are older?"

"There is one abandoned building however it was an office previously in the process of being torn down."

There went that idea too. Gavin continued to look around the dumpster, hoping that maybe one of the android hate groups would've left their tag. Nothing aside from the usual graffiti. He looked down at the ground, seeing the occasional cigarette butt but not much else. "Someone come tag these and get them processed. One of them might be the perp's." He ordered as he continued to look around. An officer came over to do just that. Gavin paid them no mind.

He then took a step back to get a better look at the dumpster in front of him. He then looked down the back of the building, seeing a flickering light indicating where the back door of the joint was. Then he looked back to the street, seeing the distance between the two places. His eyes glanced over the RK900 unit that was just…standing by the dumpster with its eyes darting around. Why was it just standing around? Wasn't it supposed to help him? Fuck this thing.

"The fuck you standing around for? You gonna help or not?" He said as he tapped his foot impatiently.

It looked right at him. "You instructed me to stay out of the way."

Well fuck, he had said that hadn't he? He grumbled to himself. "Just make yourself useful and doing something, dipshit." It then started to move around the scene freely.

They both wandered around the scene, analyzing and taking not of every and anything they thought would be important. Gavin was at a loss, rubbing the back of his neck as he rolled it from side to side. "And nobody heard anything?"

"Correct."

"Saw anything?"

"The residents questioned claimed they did not see anything out of the ordinary."

"Out of the ordinary? What's ordinary around here?"

"Complaints logged have been around 'rowdy teenagers causing ruckus, tires squealing in the middle of the night, glass and metal being smashed together,' among other things."

Gavin bit the corner of his lip in thought, shifting from foot to foot. "Did anybody hear anything like that before the fire was reported?"

"I'll have some officers ask around."

Gavin nodded his head, hopefully that could get the ball rolling. He looked over to the dumpster again. He pondered a thought before putting his notebook away and walked over to it, placing his hands on the lip of it. He started to push and pull it to see how easy it was to move. "This is a lil' too close to the street isn't it? They keep them closer to the back doors so they don't have to walk so far," he noted. It was fairly difficult but he could move the dumpster by himself. He stopped pushing and pulling at it before he got down on his hands and knees, looking under the thing. "What about surveillance?"

"Nothing with a good enough angle. However, it would appear that a car was parked on the street for approximately twenty three minutes before it pulled away from the site."

Well that could just be anything. But it was still something to pay attention to. He got up back on his feet to see it walking down towards the flickering light. "The hell you going?"

"To investigate something." Where did that smart ass remark come from? Gavin grumbled as he moved to follow the android. He was about two steps behind him before it stopped abruptly and stuck its arm out to stop him.

"What?"

It nodded it's head down to a puddle. "Kerosene." So it would appear that someone managed to spill a bunch while they were dousing the dumpster. Maybe they had multiple canisters. It's possible that someone even got a bit on themselves as well. Gavin looked at how far the puddle was from where the dumpster was moved. "After analyzing the scene, I've concluded that the perps dragged the androids down to the original location of the dumpster and moved it after one of them spilt the accelerant onto the ground. It's possible they got a bit on themselves as well."

That…was quite impressive actually. "How many perps we talking?"

"At least two, whoever it couldn't be more than four. The car caught on surveillance could only seat four people."

"Anything else?"

It shook his head. "Not with the current evidence available to us. I suggest we go back to report our findings to Captain Fowler and review the evidence some more."

Gavin shrugged, checking his phone for the time. "Yeah, you can go ahead and do that, I'm off the clock now," he turned on his heel and started to walk back towards the street.

He was stopped by the android grabbing onto his arm above his elbow. He tried to pull away but it held strong. "It is currently 4:48 pm. You're still on the clock."

Gavin punched the thing in its chest to get it to let him go. "Let me go, asshole!" he demanded. His hand was hurting now but he didn't really care. He just wanted to be let go. He felt his heart rate start to pick up the longer it held him.

Instead of letting him go, it spun him around to grab both of his arms. "Detective Reed – "It tried but Gavin just struggled even harder. His breaths were coming out in short, quick breaths.

He put his hands on its chest and pushed with all his might. "Let me go!" He panted bringing his foot up placing it against to help him get leverage.

"You're going to hurt yourself," it tried to warn before Gavin just slammed his head forward to bash it in the nose. It finally let him go. While his pride and ego would say it was because of the blow, he knew it was actually because he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

He stumbled back a few steps as he was finally let go, a hand on his chest as he tried to make the pain he felt there go away. He did as best as he could to take deep calming breaths but he was just too riled up to calm down right now. He felt it place a hand on his back. Before he could even think he raised his fist up and punched it right in the jaw. His hand screamed at him in pain but at least it was distracting him from the pain in his chest. "Don't touch me. Don't ever fucking touch me," He yelled at it, still panting as he turned on his heel and briskly walked away, leaving it behind.

Software Instability ^^^

Thank you for reading chapter two of Blue Blood, Blue Eyes. I hope you enjoyed it. It was definitely a little challenging to write. I've got big plans for these two so don't worry, it''ll pick up quickly in regards to action. And sorry for the cheesy title. I couldn't think of something better. Any and all feedback helps feed my muse and lets me know that you guy like what I'm doing. Let me know what you think!

If you'd like to keep up with my progress and updates, check out my tumblr: pennameab

See you guys soon with the next chapter!