Trailing a heavily damaged and malfunctioning deviant android to a modest motel in the heart of the city had placed Connor and Hank in a very dangerous situation. An clearly damaged deivant android referring to himself as 'Ralph' sported nasty scars along the left side of his face, his left eye totally destroyed. Ralph brandished a menacing hunting knife in his right hand as he tried to escape the detective duo who were trying to reason with him from the far end of the second floor of the building's exterior landing. Desperate, frightened and evidently scared the deviant android was proving himself to be a worrisome threat during the confrontation.

"Hello Ralph. My name is Connor." Connor raised his hands up slowly to show Ralph his gun before slipping it back into the holster stretched along his back and under his gray jacket. "I don't want to hurt you, Ralph. I want to help you."

"Ralph isn't crazy." The crazed deviant stated as he pointed the blade at Connor then at Hank who was standing at Connor's side. "Ralph knows humans want to hurt Ralph."

"No, he doesn't." Connor insisted as he subtly nodded to Hank to follow suit with his own gun and holster it slowly. "We just want to know why you're here and why you broke into that house. That's all."

"Ralph's house is gone. Demolished by humans." Ralph was referring to the abandoned house just down the block from the motel. A house that Connor and Hank had considered as a possible hideout for rogue deviants before the revolution, and it turns out they were right. "Ralph needs to find a home. Needs to get off the street."

"We can help." Hank slowly lowered his gun and placed it in the holster at his hip as Connor suggested. "Why don't you go to New Jericho Tower? It's a sanctuary for all androids in need of help."

"Ralph knows that humans will follow." The unstable deviant's head twitched in an unsettling manner as he glared at Hank with utter hatred in his damaged eyes. "Ralph will not let the humans find other androids. Ralph is smarter than that."

Hank lowered his voice as he addressed his partner discreetly. "Connor, this android is seriously damaged. I don't think we can reason with him this time."

"Agreed." Connor had tried and failed to scan Ralph's systems to identify the problem as the deviant android had suffered such extensive damage over a long period of time that it was impossible to identify the exact cause with direct interfacing. "We can't let him go, he might hurt someone out of a paranoid delusion."

"So what do we do?"

"Call Markus." Connor urged quietly as he kept his eyes on Ralph. "Maybe he can talk some sense into him."

Ralph wildly swung his sharp blade when he saw Hank make a move for his pocket. "Don't hurt Ralph! Ralph doesn't like pain..."

"I'm not going to hurt you." Hank replied calmly and made another move for his pocket. "I just want to call someone."

"Lie! You're lying to Ralph!"

"No, he's not." Connor watched Ralph's every movement carefully as he put himself between the deviant and Hank. "We want to-"

Ralph suddenly lunged at Hank but Connor was just as fast and responded with lightning quick reflexes to the incoming assault. Grabbing onto Ralph's wrist Connor held the lethal knife at bay and away from Hank as the human wisely backed off from the threat. The duo of deviant androids struggled for the knife and leaned heavily against the black railing that lined the second floor's exterior balcony of the motel.

Hank slowly drew his gun again ready to fire as soon as Connor was clear, but until then all he could do was watch and wait to see what happened.

"Let it go!" Connor demanded as he tried to keep the knife back, but Ralph's panic gave the deviant more determination to win than Connor. "We don't want to hurt you!"

The pressure being applied against the railing proved itself to be too much as the two deviant androids struggled for the weapon. The bolts securing the railing to the concrete balcony began to buckle and bend under the increasing pressure before finally giving way with a loud metallic 'creak' causing the two deviant androids to topple over the edge of the balcony, and down into the parking lot below.

"Shit! Connor!" Hank had made a dive to grab for Connor's hand but missed by just centimeters. Looking over the edge Hank eyed the two deviant androids laying motionless below and felt his heart skip a beat at the sight. "Oh fuck!" Scrambling back to his feet Hank raced down the balcony and rushed down the steps to reach the parking lot and subsequently get to his partner. "Connor?"

Connor was laying on his side curled around himself, his hands gripping desperately at his abdomen as he breathed through his clenched teeth in pain.

Miraculously, Ralph had already gotten to his feet and disappeared into the night by the time Hank reached the parking lot. Ralph left no trace of himself behind to be trailed as his vanished into the city.

"Connor," Hank knelt beside his partner and put his hand on the top of Connor's head as he spoke in a soft voice. "how bad are you hurt?"

"B-Bad." Connor stammered as he weakly rolled from his side and onto his back. His hands were still clutching at his abdomen but now Hank could see why as dark blue Thirium oozed around his fingers, and something shiny and metallic was jutting out of his torso. "...Very bad."

"Oh, fuck..."

Ralph's knife was fully embedded in the center of Connor's torso all the way up to its hilt. Thirium was leaking all around the stab wound in rhythmic gushes that synchronized with Connor's frantic heartbeat in his chest.

"I'll call for help." Hank stated as he made another grab for the phone in his pocket.

"N-No time." Connor wheezed as he used his shaking hands to pull open the front of his blue stained, formerly white, dress shirt, and scanned the resulting damage the blade had caused to his body. "The blade has i-impaired my secondary Th-Thireal artery. I will bleed to d-death in less than four m-minutes if the bleeding isn't stopped."

"Wh-" Hank felt his own blood suddenly run cold at Connor's words. Slipping off his coat Hank folded it up and tucked it beneath Connor's head to try to give his friend some form of comfort and support. "What do I have to do to save you? Talk me through this."

Connor forced the numerous red warnings from his visual sensors as he pressed his fingers to his red L.E.D. in his temple, causing the artificial skin over his abdomen to recede. "F-Find the impaired artery and t-tie it off."

"Tie it off? How?" Hank asked as he pushed down on the white plastimetal frame that was now exposed courtesy of the removal of the artificial skin, but the panel couldn't open because of the knife obstructing its movement. Taking a firm grip on the handle of the knife he gave Connor an uncertain glance and held his breath. "I have to pull out the knife to look inside, and you're going to bleed a lot. Are you sure about this?"

Connor nodded weakly. Tucking his arm under his head he peered down at his bloodied torso and held his breath as well. "Do it."

"Okay. Hold still." Using a precise, firm yank the knife was pulled from Connor's abdomen and the deviant android gasped in pain as his entire body jerked in response. "Sorry, sorry!" Hank put his hand down on Connor's chest to try and still the pained deviant android. "It's out. Now what?"

"O-Open the panel. Locate the leak."

Hank pressed down harder on the plastimetal frame causing it to unlock at last. Sliding the panel open Hank looked down inside Connor's bloody torso and saw a gush of Thirium leaking quickly from where the blade had made contact with the mentioned Thireal line.

"T-Two minutes." Connor wheezed as his countdown clock to imminent shutdown recalibrated after the knife was removed. "And counting."

"I see it, Connor." Hank reluctantly dipped his fingers into the collecting pool of blue Thirium and used his fingertips to isolate the damage as requested. "I think I can- Wait! There's something going on here..."

It wasn't the Thireal line that had been damaged, but the connecting point between the artery itself and the Thirium pump regulator. The knife had managed to wedge itself between the two points of contact severing them cleanly without actually causing damage to either the biocomponent or the Thirium line.

"Hang tight, son, I got ya'." Hank replaced the connection point at the end of the arterial line and secured it into the coupling at the bottom of the regulator. There was an audible 'click' as the connection was restored and the leak stopped immediately. "Got it."

Connor took in a deep breath as the countdown stopped with twenty-two seconds remaining. "The leak has been successfully s-stopped. Thirium volume down to sixty-four percent, but holding."

Hank sighed and sat down on the cold surface of the parking lot beside Connor. He rested his bloody hands over his knees as Thirium dripped from his fingertips, staining the already dark asphalt with darker spots of blue.

"We need to find this 'Ralph' deviant." Trying to collect his thoughts Hank brought up their escaped suspect. "He tried to kill you, Connor."

"No." Connor disagreed as his hand raised up from the ground and pressed against his abdomen to close the panel. "He wanted to kill you. The fact that the blade so cleanly severed a contact point instead of destroying a biocomponent means he wanted to disable me just long enough to escape. Not kill me."

"Oh, well, as long as he just wanted to kill me, then I guess we can just let him go!"

Connor gave the senior detective a bemused glance as he slowly lifted his head a little higher up from the coat tucked under his head as he rested on the ground. "Hank, he needs to be captured but," His voice had stabilized as his self-healing program began to disperse what Thirium remained his body evenly to the other biocomponents. "not because he harmed me, because he needs assistance. I think it'd be best to have Markus escort him to New Jericho to be repaired."

"Speaking of which," Hank pointed at Connor's bloodied torso. "there's an android facility two blocks East of here. Let's get you some fresh Thirium and cleaned up. We'll let Fowler know to put out an A.P.B. on Ralph. Hopefully, we can arrest him without any further incidents."

"I hope so." Connor reached out a hand to Hank who got to his feet quickly then pulled the deviant android up slowly behind him. Swaying a little on his feet Connor waited for his gyroscope to recalibrate before letting go of Hank's hand. "It would be unfortunate if Ralph were to be arrested and locked away instead of receiving the help he needs."

"Whoa, easy." Hank kept a hand on Connor's shoulder and held it in place. "Do you have the strength to walk to the car?"

"Yes, I can make it." Confirming the question with a subtle nod of the head Connor began taking slow, meticulous steps toward the car parked a few yards away. "Thank you, Hank."

"Yeah. No problem, kid."

...next story...