Jack's made a slight alteration to the paper sign tacked to the door in the form of a single, red-inked word -ABSOLUTELY No Androids. I'm waiting outside with my umbrella held because it's another day living in Detroit and the weather is abysmal. At least there's some thunder overhead, and the occasional white flash of lightening brightening the night sky -it feels a little less colourless during a storm. A car pulls over, and Hank steps out, slamming the door behind him.

"You're late."

"I had plans," Hank grumbles back. "What the fuck are we doing here?" He squints at the building to discern what it is, I can pinpoint the exact moment he realises it's a bar because his scowl drops. "Huh, I've had worse calls."

Connor blinks its eyes open beside me, awakened by the sound of Hank's voice -my voice is insignificant. It hasn't heard the sound of my voice since the diner, we're not on speaking terms right now.

"How was dinner?" Hank asks me.

"How did-"

"Must've been special," he says. "You actually changed outfits."

I changed shirts, same ripped jeans but with a cropped white tank top and my age-old black leather jacket. Still, I might add, tastefully monochromatic. Hank's wearing a floral orange button-down. "I didn't eat," I recount, turning to the front door. "Connor almost arrested me."

"Nothing new then?"

I bang my fist against the door.

Hank cranes his neck to peek inside. "Lights are off," he says. "Looks like it's closed."

"Not for me."

The door opens a second later and Jack steps out with a hand shielding his face from the rain, the same dark t-shirt, the same light jeans. If I was anyone else I might've hugged him. "Sam!"

I chuckle softly and lower my umbrella. "Hey."

"Jesus, I thought they got you."

"They did," Hank says drily, stepping forwards.

Jack's smile drops like it has a weight to it. He looks at Hank, then Connor, and finally me, with each new face his eyes dim darker and darker as he recreates our situation. He's sharp as hell, he catches on in an instant. "Sam," he utters, and there's so much behind it.

"Can we come in?" Hank asks.

I nod at him, and he nods back. "Alright." He pulls open the door and gestures us inside. He doesn't tear his gaze from mine, not even when the tempting opportunity arises to glare at Connor as it walks by -I wouldn't have been able to resist. Jack leads us to the bar and switches the overhead lights on as he goes -the round tables are covered in black sheets, the glasses are all stacked neatly behind the bar. It smells like polish and floor cleaner and dust. Everything once alive about the place is gone. "You're not...closing, are you?"

Jack gives me a sympathetic look.

My heart drops. "No...Jack…"

"My choice," he assures me. "I'm gonna...move on...get something bigger."

"It was me, wasn't it?"

"No." But he glances left quickly; he's lying. I didn't think I could feel worse tonight. He looks at Hank next. "Listen," he says in a low voice. "I don't know what she told you, but that stuff in the basement was mine."

Hank give him a wry smile. "That's cute. But Sam's been doing a little more than keeping a few androids."

Jack's shoulders deflate.

"Don't." I reach over and take his hand, he curls his fingers around mine. My hands are always cold but Jack's are rough and warm. "Jack just owns the bar," I tell Hank. "I kept my things in the basement."

"I don't give a damn," Hank tells me. "We here for a reason or what?"

I nod quickly and turn back to Jack. "Is there anything left downstairs?"

Jack blinks in surprise. "N-no," he stammers. "Cops came, cleared it all out."

"The table?"

"The table? I think it's still there. Why would they take the table?"

I smile and let him go. I turn to Hank but he gathers no meaning from our exchange. "You wanna know what rA9 is?" I ask, folding my arms over my chest. "You wanna know what kinda childhood I had?"

The glint in my eyes drains him of his initial confidence. "Lead the way," he mutters.

I take them down the stairs to the basement and hit the switch by the stairs. The single lightbulb flickers to life as it always has -maybe a little dimmer than before, but just as yellow, just as cheery.

I wait.

Tap tap tap.

The familiar shadow darting along the wall as the little yellow moth emerges from its hibernation to throw itself at the light again. Home. You can't scrub away the smell of oil or burned plastic, you can't clean the dust from the red bricks or the stains from the concrete floor. Sure enough, in the centre of the room is my steel table. The rest of the room is bare, but it doesn't matter. I shrug off my leather jacket and drop it by the stairs, hurrying to the edge of the table.

"There's nothing here."

I smile at Hank over my shoulder. "Exactly, it looks that way." I activate my glove with a simple flick of my wrist, and put my hand flat on the table top. A blue glowing edge appears traced around my hand. I remove my hand to a blue tracing of a keyboard and a small dialogue box.

Password:

"Where's the computer?" Hank walks up beside me and stops when he sees the markings on the table.

"This is the computer," I say excitedly. "I've had it built into the table." I type a twelve digit code, and I don't bother hiding my motions because my fingers move over the table in a blur. If Hank can memorise the code from that, he deserves to know it. One by one, other blue boxes appear on the table, each listing different information, some writing themselves in real time, others flashing diagrams and maps -and a single box with a progression bar at forty nine percent. All of it a cool blue tone, like Connor's LED, it's an aesthetically pleasing shade, we've adapted it everywhere.

"Ten years ago," I start. "My father finished his final android design -a set of blueprints and instructions, each line encoded differently from the last. The first half of it took me months to decipher fully."

Hank places both hands against the edge of the table and watches the screens flash. "An android?" he asks. "That's it?"

"Not just an android."

I type in a series of commands, a screen covered in tiny little diagrams appears -tiny, but still readable. You can pick out numbers, arrows and percentages. "This is a regular android, the schematics of the HK400 model we apprehended." I open a second screen, double the size of the first, this one entirely unreadable spaghetti. "This," I say. "Is our favourite android detective. Also, Cyberlife's most advanced model to date."

Connor scans the diagram, entirely enraptured by it. I'm not sure anyone's showed it an x-ray of itself before.

"Jesus," Hank utters under his breath. He's got a hand on his jaw as he squints at the literary version of the machine standing beside him.

I pause for effect. "And this...this is my father's android."

"Holy shit."

It takes up the entire table and it's nothing but blue light, the symbols so compressed that only the occasional dark pinpoint of spacing is visible. "You'd have to magnify it by half a million," I say. "To even begin to read it."

Hank can't speak. Finally, I think I've translated just how unlike other androids my father's designs are.

I glance at him. "This is half of it."

"Half of what?"

"Half the schematic. It's double this size."

Hank stares at me, trying to comprehend it.

I lean forwards on the table, my arms outstretched to either side. Our faces are ghostly and dim, washed out in the blue glow from below. "This encryption has taken me months of comparing existing android schematics," I say again. "Each more complex than the last. Some of it comes with automatic calculation, but the rest need physical scans. A little bit of this code is in every android, hidden deep deep in slowly mutating software. I found...that the later models show higher comparisons."

"English?" Hank sighs wearily.

"I'm getting closer," I say. "Or...someone else is."

It's English, but Hank still doesn't catch on. He points at the one thing he recognises, the slowly moving progression bar now at fifty percent. "What's that?"

I pinch closed the other screens and enlarge this one with a finger at each corner. "This is why we're fucked," I tell him in the plainest English I can, I even slipped some of his own dialect in. "A few months ago I tried accessing the other half of my father's plans. Even before encrypting them I could still access them. But...they were gone."

"Gone?"

I miss his eye and nod.

"Run that by me again," he utters. "Did you lose them?"

I shake my head.

"Did you delete them?"

"No...I was hacked."

Hank actually laughs before he can catch himself.

I frown at him. "I know," I snap. "Real funny. My father's plans for a killer robot are out there somewhere, but the hacker was hacked."

"You can't trace it back, or somethin?"

I widen my eyes sardonically. "What a great idea," I mock. "Gee, wish I'd thought of that." Without another word I enlarge the progress bar again. I would've had it traced by now if I didn't need a stronger computer with higher processing speeds -the hacker left less than a crumb of evidence behind. Still, I can work with a crumb, especially with a police precinct's process control room at my disposal. "It was a professional," I conclude. "Someone knew who I was, knew my skills."

"Someone smarter than you?"

"Someone one step ahead," I correct him. "They made the first move. But, like you said, I chase better than an android."

Hank nods to himself. "But...what does this have to do with your childhood?"

I'd forgotten I'd said that. I straighten my posture again. "This is it," I say simply. "All my dad ever did was design rA9. He said the name came to him in a dream, when he was already half-way through. He was...obsessed with this." I clear my throat and open the progress bar again. "When this is done, I'll have the exact location of the hack, and I'll get the schematics. Most likely, the hacker hasn't been able to work out every line of encryption yet."

"So...rA9 is some kinda super robot," Hank utters to himself.

I nod.

"And your dad hid his plans before being arrested, and uh-" Hank struggles to speak for a moment. "Chris found him," he says eventually. "Really messed that kid up...but what does this have to do with deviants?"

"I have theories."

"How many?"

"Right now? Three."

Hank gestures at me to go on.

"The first is that rA9 is some divine power that spoke to my father -an AI professor at the University of Colbridge- in a dream to design it a vessel, and somehow, every android in existence has a hotline to it."

I can't believe I got through the entire thing with a straight face.

"Tell me they get better," Hank warns.

"Well, the second is that the mutations occurring in deviants are actually advancing them, changing them slowly into what you see here, and rA9 is the name of one or more of these mutations."

"Okay." Hank gives me a slow nod of approval. "Better, I like science. And the last one?"

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. "Uh, the last one is that...the hacker has decoded my father's plans, and has built -or is in the process of building- rA9. And it's...talking to the deviants." I absently tap my thumbs against the edge of the table. "Up until recently I was convinced it was the second theory," I say in a quiet voice. "But hearing the deviants talk about rA9 like it's an actual being, a saviour…" My words die off themselves. I struggle to meet Hank's eye again. "I think it might be the third one."

"They can't build it without both halves, right?"

I shrug and nod.

"So." Hank widens his eyes at me like the answers painstakingly obvious. "Delete this half."

"Delete?" Safe to say I never considered it. We're standing before a masterpiece, a world-changing invention of astronomical proportions. The rA9 is the future of androids, maybe all intelligent life on earth. But instead of all that, I say, "This is my dad's life work." Automatic regeneration. Synthetic structure to a cellular level -the world's strongest microscopes couldn't differentiate between a human cell, and an extraction of rA9's. And all of this embedded in the first half of the possibilities.

"Your dad was crazy," Hank warns. "And he built a goddamn monster."

I square my jaw. "People who don't understand it will call it a monster," I cut back. "But my dad was a genius."

Hank pauses to read something in my face, something that curls his snarl in distaste. "You get these plans back, what are you gonna do?"

I say nothing, but it's enough.

"From one nutcase to another, huh?" Hank realises in a low voice. He steps away from the table but his eyes remain locked on mine. "Now I know why you call yourself Ghost." He doesn't know anything about me -or my dad. By the stairs again and in the shadows, his grey eyes are hollow and dim, mine are bright blue, flooded in the light of the table and glowing from the inside out.

"Your dad didn't die," he mutters. "But you did."

I lift my chin, gaze at him from under my lashes. "I know."

"You're better than that," he says in a softer voice. "Sam-"

"You don't know me. We aren't friends, and I sure as hell am not your daughter."

And it's a matter of little dispute, so Hank leaves without another word. The table is still the brightest thing in this dark, dark room, and it draws the moth to it. It crawls down the surface of the schematics, a black triangular shadow against the blue, barring tiny portions of the code as it scurries along. I slam my hand on it. The table flickers off at the mistaken command, and the room is only darker still. I wipe the moth from the palm of my hand and let the lifeless body fall by my feet.

The white ash tree shades the small clearing with clusters of deep purple leaves. The trunk of the tree is rich brownish grey. On the northern side of the trunk, looking out to the twinkling skyline and Ambassador bridge as a distant blur stretching across the Detroit River, a wide expanse of blue-grey water, are markings carved into the wood by a clumsy hand.

I trace the indent with the tip of my finger. The night is clear and cool around me, all clouds of rain long behind. "Do you have to follow me everywhere?" I ask quietly.

Rustling of clothing as Connor straightens behind me. It's keeping a considerate distance. "Hank has signed off for the evening," it replies. "I have no further assignment."

I smile slightly. "I've never been an assignment before-" I glance at it "-I feel like I should apologise." But I won't, because I never have before.

"What is this place?" it asks me

I face the tree again. "This was mine."

Connor steps closer, crunching clusters of browning leaves beneath its heel. It scans the carving beneath my hand. I gradually lower my fingers to reveal it in its entirety. SM.

"I was so afraid of heights," I say. "Every day I'd climb a little bit higher. I was terrified, but I thought, if I just reached the top...my fear would go away...and I'd be able to climb every tree in Detroit."

"Did you ever reach the top?" it asks, lifting its gaze to the head of the tree buried deep in the leaves, forty feet at least.

"No, I never even got close." I close my hand into a fist and push against the tree gently. "But the last time I tried...I fell."

Connor understands, of course it does, it's the only intelligent thing in this city. "The accident," it says. "A report filed from ten years ago."

I try to smile at it, but the thing comes out thin and injured. "You thought I faked my death?" I ask quietly. "Connor, I was twelve, I'm flattered if you thought I was capable of that."

"Your father?"

I press my lips together and nod. "He was, um, always so busy. When I say rA9 was his life's work, I mean it. Having a daughter is a serious time commitment, nothing but an interference. I've been told...ghosts are much easier to keep around."

Connor gazes back at me, I wish I knew what it was thinking, what evaluations it was drawing.

I smile again, despite everything. I place my hand on the carving again. "I used to be different. I remember having friends, being liked. I remember not being so rough." I scrunch my eyes and shake my head. "I think I do," I correct myself. "I have no proof, but I feel it. I feel like something did die. I feel like I wasn't always like this." But it's easier to live as a ghost, my dad was right about everything. I exhale a sigh and step away from the tree. "You understand, don't you?" I ask it. "You have to complete your mission, no matter what."

Connor inclines its head in a nod, but it's not as ardent as I thought it'd be.

"What about you?"

"Me?"

I nod slightly. "Hunting down other androids, seeing them destroy themselves over and over-" I look away "-I wonder what that's like."

"Deviants are completely irrational, it makes it difficult to anticipate their behaviour."

"I hope Cyberlife...gives you a raise or something," I say. "This has been hell."

It studies the tree closely to appear preoccupied. "I do not receive compensation," it says casually.

"Then, I wonder what's keeping you here." I'm only half joking. "If you could feel, like the others seem to…"

"They don't really feel."

"So, neither do you," I rationalise with a nod. "Then none of this bothers you, at all."

"No," it agrees. "Of course not."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"If I died, what would your response be?"

Connor blinks in astonishment.

"You saved Hank," I say again, for the third time today. "I almost think...you shouldn't have. You put him first, rescuing lives non-imperative to the mission."

"I have no excuse," it says apologetically.

I wasn't asking for an excuse. I'm just trying to understand. I scuff the toe of my shoe into a dried-up pile of leaves and mud clumps. Maybe I need to rephrase my question. "If he died, what would your response be?"

"I...would find it very regrettable."

I nod and lift my chin again, but then-

"If you died, Sam, it would be the same."

"Would it bother you?"

It looks at the tree, processor spinning, decision making. It curbs me again, surprises me -it always seems to do that. "To a greater extent."

"Because of the mission?" I ask slowly, to clarify.

But to my dismay, it hesitates. "Of course," it replies, a second too late.

My death has never bothered anyone before. "Even though I might be interfering?" I joke.

"I can make over four trillion calculations a second, I can handle a little interference."

It's just a machine, it doesn't know -but in any other circumstance, and I was talking to anyone else, that might've been something of a flirt. I decide to save us both the awkwardness and not mention it. Despite being designed to be sociable and to work well with humans, it seems to have a little difficulty putting it into practice. Or, maybe, it's just joking again. It's developing quite the knack for humour.

For the first time, I don't mind not knowing. "There's nothing more important than the mission," I say quietly. "If it kills us, so be it. We don't have another purpose, right?"

"That's why you were stealing from androids," it realises suddenly. "That's why you adopted Ghost."

"I needed the money for my work. Buying androids, running scans to decipher my dad's code."

"You're...an intriguing character."

I smile at the notion. "I'm not as bad as you thought?"

"You are more conflicted than I anticipated," it admits, and it's not a wholehearted agreement but I'll take it. Maybe the ordeal of being known isn't as dreadful as I thought. I could talk more, tell Connor about my past, listen to its soft replies, sample what being forgiven feels like. I could do that for a while. But it blinks suddenly with an incoming report and I have to let the gentle reverie go.

"Where?" I ask.

"Downtown," it says after a moment. "We should inform Lieutenant Anderson."

"I don't have his number."

"I've already checked Jimmy's Bar," it tells me. "I assume he's gone home for the evening. I have his address."

"Perfect." I nudge its arm lightly. "Let's go pay him a visit, he'll love it."

The taxi ride is silent yet comfortable. It's a driver-less car manned by an automatic system. Coming through the radio is a blues rock ballad, something that Jack would have wafting through his place. I don't know a single word, but I play the beat on my lap like it runs through my veins. Something glints beside me, Connor rolls a coin over its knuckles in alternating directions and the silver edges glint with the passing street lamps. It tosses the coin from its left hand to its right, catching it swiftly and flicking it with the back of its thumb. Then, before my own eyes, the coin streaks through the air as straight as an arrow and it catches it between two fingers.

And throughout all of it, it doesn't tear its eyes from the road ahead.

"Can I try?"

It awakens with a few rapid blinks and looks at me in mild surprise, like it momentarily forgot I was there. It offers me the coin.

"I can do this." I flick it up with my thumb and catch it on the descent with the same hand. I return the coin and Connor repeats my trick eight times in a row without error. I hold my hand out for it again. "My mom taught me one," I say, closing my fingers around the coin. I brandish it between us, showing it off, twisting from side to side. "A normal quarter coin."

"US currency, 1994 issue."

"A normal coin," I say again, louder this time. "Now, watch it carefully."

I place it in the centre of my palm and tighten my fist around it. I discreetly manipulate the coin between two fingers and when I reopen my fingers it's obscured from view. I look up at Connor and fixate on a point by its ear. I frown quizzically and reach forwards and emerge with the coin.

"I don't understand," Connor says. "Is this supposed to be a trick?"

I deflate a little and hand the coin back. "It's a magic trick," I explain. "It's meant to look like I found the coin in your ear."

"But that's physically impossible."

"Well...yeah," I admit. "But it's fun."

Connor doesn't move, LED spinning. Then, it looks at me again, and without a hint of anything in its unsmiling expression, it tentatively shows me its empty palms and leans closer to pull the coin from my ear, much cleaner than I ever could

I can't help but smile. "You're a natural," I tell it. "Android magicians...this android uprising is really happening, huh?"

The street itself is further from the centre of the city than I'd ever been, and the houses dotting it are a flat-roofed, bungalow-ranch style that was prevalent in the eighties. Stepping out of the cab is like stepping into the past, fifty years prior. The houses are run down but still standing the test of time. In fifty years of progress, architects have traded durability for style, but nanocrystal windows and hydroceramics can't hold a candle to the honest durability of solid brick houses.

The porch light is on, and a yellow glow shines from the window by the door through the slats of old-fashioned vertical blinds The pavement is wet and glowing from a bout of rain that picked up during the taxi ride. And now, as it always is, the streets of Detroit are draped in a curtain of slow rain. I don't bother with the umbrella this time, just dig my hands deep into my jacket pockets and move from foot to foot to battle the chill.

Connor knocks on the front door. "Lieutenant Anderson?"

We stand in wait for a few seconds.

"Maybe he's sleeping?"

"It's not even eight pm yet." Connor side-eyes me. "The probability of that is low."

I frown. "When do humans normally sleep?"

Connor rings the doorbell out for an extensive period of time. "Anybody home?" it calls over the obnoxious buzzing, and I have to admit that no one could sleep through that.

"You're sure he's home?" I ask instead.

Connor nods at the driveway, Hank's forest green Cutless Supreme is sitting dormant on the asphalt.

"Fair enough," I concede. "Should we ring the bell again?"

But Connor has abandoned all faith in that buzzer and instead moves to the closest window and peeps through the blinds. I push the doorbell in again. "Lieutenant! If you don't open the door we'll find another way in-"

Connor disappears around the right side of the house, through a narrow opening leading towards the backyard. A few seconds later it yells again- "Lieutenant Anderson?" -followed by the crash of a window breaking.

I freeze for a full second. "Connor," I warn. "I was joking. What the hell did you do?" I jog around the house and sure enough the second window I come to is reduced to an empty wooden frame with shards of glass scattered below, half-hidden in the grass. Connor is on the other side of the wall, lying amidst more shards of broken glass, propping itself up by its elbows. "What are you doing in there?" I move my gaze up a few inches, and, barred behind the legs of a round wooden table, the figure of someone lying on their back. "Get the door," I mutter.

Connor nods and rises to its feet. I follow it from the outside to the front door again, and a moment later the door opens to an eerily silent Connor standing behind it.

"I could've picked the lock." I brush a few sparkling particles of glass from its shoulder. "Are you okay?"

It loses its footing for a second, and glances at something bumping against its leg fighting to get out. My spinal reflex takes over -I jump back outside. "N-nice doggy," I tremble. "Good little dog."

Little isn't exactly the right word, the thing is almost thirty inches and stands waist-high A giant Saint Bernard with red white and brown fur and heavy drooling jowls. It noses at Connor's leg who looks only slightly less terrified than I do. "It's alright," it assures, gingerly patting its head. "His name is Sumo, I think he's friendly."

I hurry inside but that dog follows the movement of my legs with its snuffling. Inside, the house reeks of old pizza, coffee, beer, and something sharp and alcoholic like gasoline. The culprit is scattered all over the living room and kitchen table; open pizza boxes splotched with grease, styrofoam cups of soda on benches, and a puddle of brown foul-smelling alcohol spilled over the grey kitchen tiles. A half-empty bottle of whisky is still leaking over the floor, a few inches from Hank's limp outstretched hand.

"He's alive," Connor assures me. "He's just unconscious."

But I don't respond, because I've just caught sight of the other object lying in the puddle of whisky. "Fuck me." I make my way over and take the gun in my hand. The handle is still warm. "I'm gonna kill him," I utter a promise. "I'm gonna fucking kill him!" An alarming sentiment to hear from a crazy girl with a gun.

Connor tentatively takes a knee beside Hank. "Lieutenant?" it asks politely, tapping the side of his face a few times. Hank grumbles under his breath and turns his face. "Wake up, Lieutenant!" Connor orders.

Hank cracks his eyes open but his pupils are so blown and nothing but unfocused blackness.

Connor looks up at me in question but I can't muster anything but a scowl in return -which inspires it with an idea. It slaps him hard across the face with a whack so sharp that I feel the burning sting of it. "It's me, Connor!"

Hank splutters and tries to blink the haze from his eyes. I flick my hand out and my black glove quickly materialises. I rub my pointer and middle finger together until it generates a live charge of tiny blue electrical coils.

Connor shifts back on its heels to allow me room.

A light voltage, barely a sting.

I hover my fingers, narrowly avoiding a brown stain on the front of his grey t-shirt.

Hank lurches forward with an anguished yell, both hands flying to the ghost of the shock on his chest I might've miscalculated how light that voltage was. But a moment later, he falls on his back again, blinking up at us with eyes slowly clearing. "Sam?" he slurs. "Connor? The fuck are you doin' here?"

I get to my feet, wiping my fingers clean of grease and alcohol. "He's in no state to go anywhere," I mutter. "We're wasting our time."

"I can't investigate if he doesn't," Connor replies.

Of all the human detectives in all of Detroit, my fate had to be tied to this catastrophe. I resign with a sigh and kneel again. "Fine. Help me get him up."

Connor and I seize one arm each and pull the Lieutenant to his feet, he's heavier than he looks, and while drunk has the bone density of a jellyfish. It's like dragging a bag of wet, booze-smelling sand. "We're going to sober you up for your own safety," Connor announces in a clear voice.

"Hey!" Hank whines. "Leave me alone, you fuckin' androids!"

"I have to warn you-" Connor catches my eye over the top of his bowed head "-this may be unpleasant."

It's being a little presumptuous; but if I can help it, I'll make good on its promise and make it as unpleasant as I can.

Hank turns his head to glare at Connor properly, but his glare loses some of its effectiveness while his head lolls. "Get the fuck out of my house!"

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I need you." We start for the nearest, and only hallway leading out from the kitchen. Connor and I seem to be having the same idea, searching for the bathroom. "Thank you in advance for your cooperation."

"Get the fuck outta here!" He can barely walk, Connor and I have one of his arms around our shoulders and are sporting him up by the middle of his back. "Sumo!" Hank slurs. "Attack!" The dog languidly raises its head from its curled up position on the living room carpet, Hank sends it a watery smile. "Good dog."

By some miracle we make it to the bathroom door without falling. Connor props Hank up against the wall stomach-first while it opens the door for us. "Fuck," Hank coughs. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"We don't have much time," Connor tells me. "We have to investigate the crime scene while it's still recent."

I grit my teeth, hard. "Leave it to me."

Connor follows my lead in taking up the Lieutenant again and forcing him through the bathroom door, not without difficulty as he decides now is a great time to rebel -he grabs the door frame and struggles against us. "I'm not goin' anywhere," he declares.

I splay my fingers in front of his face, running the electricity again.

His hand flies from the door like it burns him.

We drag him through a bathroom of mint paint and mustard-tiling, a combination that would make anyone nauseous. A round mirror hangs above a scum-stained porcelain sink, and on the mirror more tagline post-it notes, these one hand written but just as spiteful.

I'm not grumpy, I just don't like you

And some obvious ironic ones.

Keep smiling

Today will be fabulous

"Give me a moment," I mutter.

"What are you going to do?"

I look over at the small porcelain tub propped up against the back wall. "Trust me," I reply. "I've done this before."

Connor nods and helps me sit the Lieutenant on the edge of the tub. Then, it leaves the room and pulls the door closed to grant him some privacy and preserve what little dignity he has left.

Hank rolls his head back to stare up at me. "The fuck are you doing here, Sam?" he specifies. "You're not a plastic, instruction-following asshole."

I shove him into the tub. "Sometimes I think Connor's more decent than either of us."

The tub is comically undersized and Hank's legs hang over the side. "Not my daughter," he remembers with a strangely fond smile. And his smile doesn't budge when he looks up at me again. "It'd be bad fuckin' luck to have you as a daughter, I might blow my brains out too."

I hate that he gets to me, but he does. For a second, maybe two, I can't speak. So, instead, I reach over and turn on the cold water full blast. For a full minute I just watch him squirm and wail.

"Turn it off!" he roars. "Turn it off!"

I lean back on my heels and fold my arms over my chest. The door opens behind me, Connor walks in to make sure I'm not gutting the Lieutenant with the level of noise he's making, to be fair to it, the thought did cross my mind. I turn the water off.

His messy grey hair now slick against his scalp and his short beard dripping, he looks like a soaked mutt. He blinks up at us suddenly and his expression changes, the fog clearing finally. "What the fuck are you two doing here?" And this time it's a real inquiry.

"A homicide was reported 43 minutes ago," Connor replies. "I couldn't find you at Jimmy's bar, so we came to see if you were at home."

"And you had to bring her?"

"Whether you like it or not, I'm a part of this now," I say. "Looks like we're both shit out of luck."

"Can't you two just leave me alone." He tries to stand, but sways almost immediately and I catch him before he can fall backwards. I set him on the rim of the bath again.

"Unfortunately, I cannot," Connor replies. "I've been programmed to investigate this case and I can't do it without you.

Without Hank, Connor fails its objective and will probably be sent back to Cyberlife to be disassembled, and I get arrested and spend the rest of my short life behind bars before my inevitable end. We're both betting everything we have on a single, fucked-up horse without a hope in the world. "I don't give a shit about your goddamn case!" Hank declares.

"Listen, Lieutenant, you're not yourself. You should-"

"-Beat it!" Hank yells at it. "You hear me?! Get the hell outta here!"

I'm going to kill him, then myself, just to get out of this goddamn bathroom. "This isn't just about you," I say instead. "You're so full of shit."

Hank turns his scowls on me. "Fuck. You."

I look to Connor because none of my following solutions are particularly painless. Fortunately, one of us in the room can't feel blinding anger. "I understand," Connor says in a light, almost teasing voice. "It probably wasn't interesting anyway." It taps my arm and nods its head at the door. I get the memo, turn on my heel and start to leave. "A man found dead in a sex club downtown," it continues casually. "Guess they'll have to solve the case without us."

I give it a scornful look but keep my mouth shut. "You didn't tell me it was a sex club," I utter off the side.

Hank has a vastly different response. "You know, probably wouldn't do me any harm to get some air." Obviously. Hank grabs at his stomach and works on steadying himself. "There're some clothes in the bedroom there."

Connor nods amicably. "I'll go get them." Social module...the RK800 is adapting to Hank's personality, but I have to admit it's not such a repulsive shade on Connor. I wait in the hall, leaning against the wall with my arms folded while Connor disappears into a dimly lit bedroom. A moment later, it calls out again "What would you like to wear?"

But Hank's migrated to the toilet bowl by the tub and is clutching at it with white-stretched knuckles. "Whatever," he mutters back, obviously a little too preoccupied to care.

Connor emerges with a streaky white and blue button down thrown over its arm. A relief from the spectrum of colour that Hank usually wears. Then, Hank starts heaving over the toilet. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Connor asks slowly, depositing the shirt by the sink and watching Hank with a confused frown.

"Yeah…" Hank splutters into the toilet. "Yeah...wonderful...Just a...Give me five minutes, okay?"

And it seems almost begrudging to leave him. "Sure," it says after a moment, but as it leaves it continues to glance back at Hank in concern. It pulls the door closed just as the vomiting starts.

I kick off from the wall and return to the kitchen. I find a sponge at the bottom of an empty sink, needlessly empty as the benches around it are stacked high with dirty plates. I retrieve the half-empty bottle of Black Lamb scotch whisky and set it on the kitchen table. I start mopping up the puddle, moving back and forth between the floor and the sink as I ring out the whisky.

Connor studies a stack of records on a living room dresser.

Eventually it joins me at the table, and picks up the gun to turn it over a few times. "What were you doing with the gun?" it questions.

"Russian roulette!" Hank calls back through the door, his voice much steadier now. "Wanted to see how long I could last...Must've collapsed before I found out."

It checks the bullets remaining in the cylinder. "You were lucky," Connor comments. "The next shot would have killed you."

I drop the sponge into the sink and dig my fingers into the edge.

This isn't just about you.

We have a job to do, we can die after.

The moment it's finished we can shoot ourselves in the head, and someone we love can get their own head fucked in when they turn on the news the next day.

"You seemed to know exactly what to do in this situation."

I glance at Connor standing by the table.

"I never minded," I say absently. "It meant he got some sleep. But I had to take care of him after."

Connor doesn't have to ask, which I'm grateful for. It reaches for something upturned on the table, a silver frame and stand.

Curiosity gets the better of me and I walk over to see the underside of it. It's a little boy, messy dark-blonde hair, familiar down-turned blue-grey eyes, younger than ten. "Connor...who is he?"

It doesn't reply right away.

I feel like I already know.

"Cole Anderson," it says softly.

Hank has a son.

The house is small, from what I can tell there's only one bedroom. And there's no evidence anywhere of a kid living here. The gun, the whisky, the playing with death...I don't need Connor's physical simulation software to recreate anything. It makes sense now. The understanding is short lived, the guilt floods in quickly, and its slow and heavy like lead paint in my gut. "Maybe...I was a little cruel."

Connor returns the photograph.

"I was just angry," I continue in a voice barely above a whisper. "Angry because I was almost too slow, again."

"Sam," it says gently, a hand on my shoulder keeping me steady. "Maybe you should go back to the motel, get some rest. Hank and I can handle this one."

I swear I feel my cold dead heart flutter in my chest. For so long it's been so still, barely beating, almost nonexistent locked away deep inside. But I look at Connor and suddenly I feel something. At least, I think I do, but it's gone as swiftly as it came so I don't think I'll ever know for sure. "No." I straighten and work on leveling my voice. "I'm seeing this through. I'll finish what he started, even if it-" I catch myself and swallow my words past the lump in my throat of all the words I've been fighting down. One day, I'll suffocate on them, and then it really will be the end.

Something bumps against my leg. I look and find Sumo nosing at the back of my knee making little whiny noises in between its snuffly intakes of breath. I tense immediately, but I fight the urge to run. "What's...it doing?"

"Studies have shown that dogs sense human emotions," Connor says, nodding at it. "He knows you're in distress."

I blink in surprise. "They can do that?" I bite my lip and slowly fall to my knees in front of him. "Hey," I whisper. "Um, Sumo. I'm not gonna hurt you, so you don't hurt me. Deal?"

He licks his nose in agreement.

I manage a smile. "You're okay, aren't you?" I tentatively reach out my hand and Sumo happily nuzzles and licks the inside of my palm. I let out a soft giggle. "Hey, baby, aren't you sweet?"

He sits up on his hind legs and props itself up on my shoulders to be at eye-level. I reach around his head and scrunch his ears.

"He likes you."

"I don't know why," I laugh as Sumo licks the side of my face. "Every dog I've met despises me on sight."

He barks and slobbers my face again.

The door to the bathroom opens suddenly and Hank steps out into the hall. "Told you," he says, eyes glinting. "They can smell bad voodoo a mile away."

I get to my feet slowly and my smile slips, and then fails all together.

He cleaned up surprisingly well, looking more like his normal self, if a little pallid in the face. He stands before us for a moment, awaiting our approval. Connor's mouth quirks in a slight smile. But I merely wipe my face dry of dog spit.

"Be a good dog, Sumo," Hank tells him. "I won't be long." He tilts his head at Connor in question. "You wanna drive?"

"I'll meet you there." They both look at me in surprise. "I'll take a cab," I say quietly. "Sex club downtown?"

"Eden club."

I make a face at Connor. "Sounds great." Then, I pat Sumo once more on the head and turn to go.

"Sam, wait-"

I don't let Hank finish, I walk out into the dark and the rain again.

:) Very long chapter, brain hurty. Enjoy xx