This follows Season 1, Episode 3. This a 'part one' of a two-part chapter-episode. See the bottom of this chapter for more information. Seriously though, I got bored with this chapter and started writing a make-out chapter that I'll put in sometime in the future.
"How old are you?" Dorian asked, breaking the silence as he tried to make conversation with their new partner. When Soladat was designated as a successful experiment, the agency knew they had to test her skills and cybertech, so they designated the one team they knew could handle it; John Kennex and Dorian. The captain had also thought that perhaps Soladat, who had once been a fierce soldier of UNIT, would follow orders, unlike John and Dorian.
"My files say I am twenty-seven years old. I do not understand why this information is not in your database." Soladat answered, turning to look the DRN in the eye, as she knew such was necessary for civilized conversation. He looked her in the eyes as well, before responding.
"I was just trying to have small talk. It's common among humans." He told her, face unchanging. She was glad he didn't use as many expressions as Professor Lom did. They were very hard to read.
"She's not human." John Kennex stated, interrupting them as he walked out of the elevator, into the lobby. Soladat's sensors immediately picked up all the different chemicals used in the cleaning products that had just recently been used on the floor. She pushed them away, blocking information from popping up instantly, and making it so she had to inwardly ask for the information. It was much easier to comprehend the data that way.
"Yes, she is." Dorian stated, his tone defiant and his eyes narrowing at John, who only spared him a glance as they continued out of the building. John didn't respond, but did let out a rough grunt, letting Dorian know he clearly disagreed.
"I am exactly 32.46 percent android, making me 77.54 percent human. The majority of me is human." Soladat told the two. Something about the way she spoke, with a stoic tone and absolutely no emotion, made John shiver in something akin to disgust. He just couldn't believe that a human would ever become so... inhuman. Sure, he had his synthetic leg, but that was different. She had an entire machine running through her head like she was made as a drone, not born as a human. The thought sickened him.
"Not human enough." He growled at her. They had just arrived at the car, John slamming the car door behind him after sitting down. Dorian offered the passenger's seat to Soladat, despite knowing that John clearly wasn't fond of her, but she ignored him, instead opening the door to the back seats and taking a spot in the middle. Dorian could tell she felt uncomfortable around the detective. Though she had kept a straight face since she woke up, the slight movement of her fingers as she tapped her middle fingernail against her thumb softly entered his scans as a sign of discomfort. After having taken notice of this, he took his regular seat next to John, who hadn't so much as looked at Soladat. They buckled their seatbelts (it was the law that even drones had to have their seatbelts on- mostly to protect them from too much damage should they get into a car crash. Repairs were often costly.), and John put the car in drive. Soladat had no clue where they were heading, but she knew she didn't need to know. When they arrived at their destination, her purpose for being there would become clear through context and she would do her job, whatever it may be.
She sat in the back of the car, perfectly still with the exception of tapping her middle finger onto the pad of her thumb, and absolutely quiet. Dorian didn't ask her any more questions, and John didn't even spare her a glance, let alone speak to her. He and Dorian didn't speak of the mission, whatever it was. It wasn't long before the car came to a stop. They were parked in front of a large building. Soladat's files informed her that the building was called Sanderson Corporation, an average business that wasn't very rich in stocks, but not poor either. The police were already in the vicinity, the hologram police tape placed in front of the doors to keep out civilians and identify anyone who entered.
"How long have you been here?" John asked a nearby police officer who greeted them as they walked through the door, past the holographic police tape.
"Just got here." The officer started as he began walking with them, leading the way through to the reported dead body, "There were no witnesses to the shooting. The incident happened within the last twenty minutes." They stopped at the front desk; a young man shot, his body leaning against the wall with blood splattered upon it.
"Who found him?" John asked as he looked over the body.
"These two," The officer gestured to a woman and man standing across the room, being questioned by another police officer, "And we've cordoned off the area." He added.
While John continued to talk to the officer, Dorian and Soladat moved to look around behind the desk, where the young man had been shot. The disc drive for the cameras had been opened, and the operating system for the security cameras in the building had been blasted apart with a bullet.
"They killed the cameras." Dorian noted, looking over the broken memory drive.
"I can access the archive footage." Soladat spoke up, moving to stand in front of the computer, bringing up the stored memory from the cameras as Dorian walked over to watch behind her shoulder. The computer began to play what the cameras recorded before they were shot. Fast forwarding to two minutes before the cameras blacked out, the two watched as a group of men entered the building from the recording.
"John." Dorian called, catching the attention of the detective, who immediately walked over to them to peer at the footage. They watched as the computer played through what happened; five men dressed in black walking through the door, one of them that appeared to be the leader pulling out a gun and shooting the young man at the front of the desk, before doing the same to the camera system on this floor. They got in the elevator, but the camera showed them getting out on the twenty-fifth floor.
"They went up to the twenty-fifth floor." Dorian stated. With grunt, John walked over to the elevator across the room and pressed the up button, but nothing happened. Dorian and Soladat were quick to follow him, watching as he continuously slammed his finger on the obviously broken button.
"They shut down the elevator." He stated after noticing the lift wasn't arriving.
"Transmit that security footage to Maldanado so we can try and I.D these guys." He ordered Dorian, completely disregarding Soladat.
"Already done." Soldat informed him, causing him to look at her with suspicious eyes, a glance she was sure she would have to get used to.
"I sent the footage to the Captain after recovering it." She explained, and Dorian nodded in confirmation.
"She did, John." He added, noticing the doubt in his partner's eyes. He didn't like how quick the detective was to distrust Soladat, even if she was part-synthetic. She was still human. John didn't bother to respond, already walking off towards the stairs that were only used in case of fire or other emergency.
"Officer Harrison, call for backup and begin evacuation protocols." He ordered the officer that had greeted them at the front door.
"Yes, Sir." Harrison agreed.
"Be careful, perps are still in the building." John warned him, before turning back to head towards the stairs, Soladat and Dorian following him as Officer Harrison turned to his other officers and repeated John's orders.
When they walked through the door to the emergency stairway, all three of them had their guns ready, expecting there to be guards on standby to protect whatever they were doing on the twenty-fifth floor.
"What's the plan?" Dorian asked as they began to make their way up the stairs, guns drawn and ready to fire.
"Got no idea." John stated honestly, "But, we got twenty-five floors to figure one out."
Soladat thought of speaking up, telling the detective that they needed a plan before they got to the twenty-fifth floor, but she could already tell he would just dismiss her. So she began thinking in her head, going through the building's blueprints that were collected in her database, trying to find another way to the twenty-fifth floor as the three continued up the staircase. She stayed quiet as she observed the blueprints in her head, John and Dorian's bantering nothing but background noise as she focused.
There was an air system built throughout the building, and it was interconnected, and from what she could tell, it would be an easy fit for her. There was an access door to the air system on the twenty-third floor. If they could get there, she could crawl into the vents and climb through the floor-connected system, leading her up to the vents on the twenty-fifth floor. From there, she could crawl through to find where the criminals were and inform John.
They were on the second floor when she figured this out, walking past the employees that were currently evacuating. She snapped back to reality, now focusing on the sounds before her. There was a weird humming sound echoing through the building. It was faint, and she assumed the only reason she could hear it was from the cybernetic enhancements on all her senses as Dorian appeared to be the only other one to hear this sound. She never had time to question him about it, as there was a large blast throughout the building.
The building shook as a beam of burning white light sliced through the ceiling and floors of the entire building, the sound startling the escaping employees and pushing their pace into overdrive. Upon hearing the explosion, John and Dorian turned around, trying to find the source. The pushed past the evacuation employees, rushing back to the second floor to look out the window to the center of the building, seeing a giant, gaping hole through the floor. Looking up towards the ceiling, they saw another hole that seemed to go up for floors.
"Any idea what could cause that kind of damage?" John asked, this time directing his question towards both Dorian and Soladat.
"No idea, but definitely something massive." Dorian responded. Soladat nodded in agreement, as she also had no clue what kind of bomb or explosive device could have done such collateral damage.
They turned away from the glass wall and began walking back towards the staircase, pushing through the people that continued to evacuate, now in even more of a hurry. They all asked the three what was going on, what the explosion was, and they all responded with the same thing "continue evacuating", "keep moving, and "get out of the building."
"John! What's your status?" Captain Maldonado's voice rang through the comm John, Dorian, and Soladat were set up to. Her voice was raised, and Soladat could only assume she was displeased.
"Dorian says the building is still structurally sound," John replies, "There's damage to the third and fourth emergency exits. The southeast stairwell is also blocked." He added.
"John, do not ascend. Negative." Captain Maldonado ordered, "Continue to direct the employees to the second floor, and go there yourself until we know what we're dealing with here." John rolled his eyes, and continued going up the stairs.
"I know what we're dealing with. The assailants are still in the building. We're going after them." He argued.
"Buy me some time. You should initiate the protocol. Jam all comm signals coming in and out of the building. Cut their communication, and get me some backup." He instructed, moving up to the fourth floor now.
"If we jam the signal, comms won't make it out of the building. We won't be able to communicate." The Captain informed him.
"Soladat, turn them around and head to the second floor to help with evacuations." She ordered, turning her orders from John to the ex-soldier that actually knew how to follow them.
'Lives are in danger.' The same voice from earlier this morning, the one that was hers but not hers, informed her. It sounded… well she couldn't really tell how it sounded. She couldn't scan the vocal signs, either, as the voice was apparently in her head, so she couldn't tell through the range what emotion was applied with the tone.
"Detective Kennex is right. The assailants are in the building and the best plan is to go after them." Soladat responded, eliciting yet another suspicious stare from John.
"Leave. The building. Now." She instructed, surprised that the recently synthesized human soldier was disobeying her orders- not that it hadn't been anticipated.
"There's- I can't- do you- do you- what- Christmas." John said in sputters, faking a communication error, before hanging up.
"Did you just hang up on Captain Maldonado?" Dorian asked in disbelief as they continued ascending the stairs.
"Boring conversation anyway." John replied simply, grinning at the DRN and completely disregarding Soladat. Dorian just shook his head with exasperation.
"I just love that you wear your insubordination like it's a virtue." Dorian chimed with a small grin towards his partner.
And there you have it! A huge pain in my ass. I was working on one long chapter, but I decided to split it into two. So here's part one! You won't be seeing too many two-parters like this, or very many episode-plot following chapters.
No intentional Easter Eggs this time. I'm half-way through part-two. I also started writing a much later chapter involving a make-out session.
Also, feel free to hit me up with any chapter ideas you might have. I'm always open to ideas.
EDIT: Just fixed up some errors I noticed. Let me know if you seen any so I can fix 'em!
