Connor leaned over the damaged PL600, one arm folded over his chest and a finger idly tapping at his lips.
"And this is all we need?" Hank spoke from the other side of the metal table, "just some dumbass regulator thing?"
He could tell that Hank was starting to get a little aggravated over the situation, having been sat in this room for almost an hour and a half whilst Connor worked at trying to get the android in good enough order for it to maintain a conversation. Connor knew that Hank was starting to feel a little useless when it came to technology, and the RK800 was no stranger to pointing this out to him.
Connor stood straight, "most, if not all androids are equipped with enough knowledge of their biocomponents to be able to fix another of their kind. I'm positive I've made no mistakes, so placing the regulator in now should boot it back up."
Hank frowned and made his way to Connor side, taking the cold, blue regulator from his hands. He spun it between his fingers before his spoke.
"You're back to calling the androids it, Connor. Is that on purpose?"
He wasn't quite sure how to respond, so he hastily took the thirium regulator back from Hanks' hand and shoved it into the sternum cavity of the legless android.
With a gasp that was entirely unnecessary for a robot, the PL600 sat up bolt straight and swung a terrified fist in Hanks direction. Connor swiftly raised an arm and deflected the blow, before clamping his hands around the broken androids' wrists and staring him dead in the eye.
"I need information," he pressed.
The wild eyes of the bot flickered between him and Hank, and when he spoke his voice was stripped, garbled and full of static.
"I d-died, d-didn't I?" The PL600 said, "That g-girl, sh-she was hurt. I w-wanted to help h-her... One of the men, h-he looked like…"
Connor didn't understand why most androids on the brink of deactivation referred to such a thing as dying. If reanimating this PL600 was an indication of what could be done, the PL600 should have known that deactivation is only a temporary state until someone with the correct knowledge can transfer their memory, or repair their body. Unless of course, the memory banks were irreversibly damaged. Death was a human word, a biological concept, and something that androids could just never experience in the same way.
The damaged androids' optics rolled back into his head for a moment, and his voice slowed down to a near stop. Connor found he had to support the bot's weight under his arms as it lost strength. His voice began to speed back up though, and his eyes returned to being frantic.
"Who a-are you? Where a-am I?"
"My name is Connor, I am with the Detroit Police Department. I am investigating a kidnapping, possible homicide. You were at the scene. Can you tell me what you saw?"
The PL600 nodded meekly, though it could have been just a twitch. Regardless, it began to speak.
"I was in th-the shad-d-dows," he stuttered, and his eyes moved to stare at the ceiling, "They d-didn't see m-me at first. I had a knife. She w-was unc-c-conscious. Bleeding. I thought I c-could…"
He then suddenly twisted his body to face Connor, reached up with a hand and took a fistful of his suit jacket. Connor didn't move but saw Hank shifting uncomfortably off to the side.
"I st-stabbed one," the PL600 hissed, fist tightening with an audible whirr. A movement that would normally be silent on a working android, "and he t-turned to me, and he... He look-k-ked like me."
"Another PL600?" Connor asked, shifting the way he elevated the androids torso off of the table.
The PL600's optics faded for a few moments, and his skinless jaw clattered together a few times.
"No," he said quietly, and his eyes became frantic again. The fist that had gathered up some of Connors suit fell open, falling to the table, "n-no, it wore m-my face. B-But it-t-t w-wasn't m-me-e-e..."
Aware that time was running out, Connor barked one final question to the android as it began to shut down.
"Did you see where they took her?"
Twitching, the damaged robot gave a static-laden cough, and raised his eyes with great effort to stare at Connor, his voice was almost singsong, "one o-of them s-said… t-t-o, the g-g-golden c-c-coast-t-t-t… the gold-d-den c-c-coast-t-t-t she g-goes…""
The PL600's voice stuttered to a halt, and what awareness that was left in its eyes all but disappeared, leaving an empty husk hanging limply in Connors' arms. He dropped it unceremoniously onto the table, much to Hanks chagrin.
Connor sighed and turned to face Hank, who merely raised an eyebrow at him.
"What did you take from that, Lieutenant?"
The raised eyebrow quickly turned into a furrowed frown, obviously not a fan of being spoken to like he was the one lacking decades of experience.
"She's somewhere in Gold Coast, South East of the city."
Connor nodded and turned to face the fully deactivated android. His expression was contorted and frozen into one of confusion and forlorn longing. Connor surmised that the deviant android was afraid of deactivation. Though deviant himself, he still struggled with that concept. Why be afraid of something that doesn't hurt at all? He could understand a humans fear of the same thing - they were squishy, malleable, pink and weak, after all.
He looked up at Hank, "correct."
"What about this… lookalike business," Hank questioned, leaning on the metal table that had been used as a makeshift surgical space for Connor to work, "not an android? If they looked the same, that's all the kidnapper could have been, right?"
That's something Connor had been silently processing in the back of his memory banks since the PL600 had said it. It was more than obvious that this 'person' must have been an android.
"The PL600 may have been mistaken during its moment of distress," Connor suggested, "it is known that panicked androids can start to hear, see and imagine things that are not really there due to overheating. He most likely, due to his unstable code, panicked and assumed that the other PL600 he was seeing was in fact, not a copy of himself."
"Sort of like an out of body experience?"
Connor nodded, "I believe so. But that does throw some more questions into the mix."
With a nod, Hank showed that he understood, "like why would an android kidnap someone who worked so fuckin' hard to set them free."
Slipping his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers, Connor mused for a short while. Hank mumbled something about a report and wandered out of the evidence room, returning to his desk where, as Connor assumed, he continued to type excruciatingly slow.
Now stood on his own, Connor took a few moments to scour the information he had saved on the woman who had been kidnapped.
"Nora White," he said aloud to himself, "why such a brutal attack, and why so sudden?"
These extremists had plenty of opportunities over the years to do a similar thing to this woman. She had been at the height of her campaigning during the final year of university when she was twenty-two. Why wait until the android movement had won to take action against her? To change the Government's mind at a crucial turning point? Taking a single woman and keeping her hidden somewhere unknown wasn't necessarily something the white house would pick up on, so why do it? What worth was her life to a movement that had already succeeded and no longer needed her persuasion?
Connors' eyes drifted down to the deactivated PL600 that lay dormant on the metal table. He had seemed so panicked, filled with such fear that it was obvious the emotion was real.
This was something else that was new to Connor - the understanding the emotions weren't all fabricated. That it was entirely possible for an android to harbour real feelings, emotions and opinions on specific subjects. Connor knew this all too well, of course, since he went against his core programming, against Amanda, in order to do what he felt was right.
Was it so hard to believe that a fear of death was something that an android could experience?
Connors' first assignment and cost him his body. The rogue android on the roof of the apartment complex had felt a deep betrayal from his owners over being replaced, and whilst Connor had managed to save the human girl, he had paid the price for his actions. But it didn't hurt. He wasn't scared. He was just doing his job.
Then, his thoughts turned to the basement of CyberLife, where he was confronted with a machine copy of himself, threatening to end Hanks life. To kill him.
He felt fear, then. He felt the pull of selfishness. He chose to save Hank before completing the mission at hand - and it was all based on what he felt was right. He didn't want Hank to die, Hank was a friend to him. He cared for the human, and the human cared back.
Connor slowly removed his hands from his pockets and took a deep, unneeded breath.
There were humans out there who were fearing for Nora, fearing for her well-being. Just as he was for his partner. He needed to do what was right, by them, by his mission, and by her.
He left the evidence room, striding towards Hank with purpose.
"Hank," he called, and the older man swivelled around in his chair, surprised at Connor using his first name rather than his title, "we're leaving for the Gold Coast. Now."
"Connor, I still need to write up-"
Connor hooked a hand under the man's arm and hoisted him out of his seat.
"What the fuck, let me go!"
"There will be time to write reports later," Connor barked, steering the man toward the entrance to the DPD, "we've got a victim to find."