Re-entering the DPD was a bit like stepping into organized chaos. Officers entering and leaving the building in a steady cycle while chatting loudly, phones ringing and the petulant screaming of a twenty-something girl high on red ice being led towards the coding cells, all melting together into an earsplitting cacophony that momentarily deafened Connor's still highly sensitive auditory sensors, nearly downing his mind in data.
His LED circled in a pulsing red, his stress levels climbing, as he blindly followed Hank across the busy bullpen towards their desks.
The human threw his jacket over the back of his chair, grabbed his empty mug and headed straight for the break room without giving his partner another glance, leaving Connor to gratefully sink down into the seat behind his own bare desk.
He took a deep if unnecessary breath and deactivated all external sensors except for his sight to calm his overworked processors.
Slowly he reactivated them one by one, giving his subroutines enough time to work through each new wave of sensory input. Stress levels down to being only slightly elevated, he focused back on the world around him.
These were the kind of times where he missed the numbing effect of his machine state quite fiercely. His orders had always prevented him from being overwhelmed by irrelevant data and thereby endangering his mission.
He sighed silently, hoping to learn to deal with those issues by himself.
Interfacing with the terminal, he proceeded to look up any new information before continuing his draft report on the case. Curiously he read the CSI report of Kamski's house, noting a comment stating that all tech analysts were too busy with Cyberlife tower to investigate Kamski's servers right now.
He had just made a note of possibly taking a look later, when an incoming report grabbed his attention.
A patrol had questioned the staff of Detroit's private airport, quickly finding out about a private jet bearing Cyberlife's logo illegally leaving the runway in the early morning hours, heading south.
Apparently a generous amount had been paid to turn all inquisitive eyes away, but rumours told of Crestwood having been seen entering the plane at fast pace, snapping rudely at the pilot.
With a disappointed sigh he leaned back in his chair, spinning his coin on one fingertip to keep his mind from being overwhelmed by all the noise surrounding him.
Beside him Hank dropped into his seat with a weary sigh, a mug of fresh coffee clutched between his fingers. Seeing the lit up terminal screen he shot an enquiring look at Connor, who promptly brought him up to date on the new reports.
"Well, that's one possible suspect out of our reach. I bet Jeffrey is gonna love that."
He put his mug down with more force than necessary, coffee splattering onto old notes. "Shit!"
A loud call of "Hank, Connor! My office!" sounded from behind them and with a wry chuckle Hank got up from his chair.
"Speak of the devil," he mumbled before leading the way to Captain Fowler's office.
The Captain looked utterly done with that day's events, leaning heavily on his desk and massaging away a headache as Hank and Connor sat down.
"Getting anything useful out of those panicking sheep at Cyberlife has been hell, let me tell ya. And a missing CEO and head of R 'n D did not make that any easier."
He leaned back, sending both of them a weary look. "Three guesses as to who should have sent us the deactivation codes to the Cyberlife facility?"
Hank cursed.
"Yeah. So our techs have been busy trying to break the lockdown on that damn tower the whole day. They're hopeful about getting it done sometime before tomorrow."
"What does that have to do with us?" Hank asked with a confused frown.
"It concerns you, because I want both of you on the team entering the tower tomorrow. I know you have that other thing to worry about, but I've got higher ups on my back to get a clear report about whatever went down there yesterday. As I don't want to be accused of human bias later, I'm sending both of you."
Getting grim nods in return, he continued, "Now get your asses out of here and rest up. I need both of you sharp and ready tomorrow at 8 a.m. over at Cyberlife."
Captain Fowler looked dismissively down at his terminal but Connor stayed behind even as Hank went ahead.
"Captain Fowler? May I loan one of the transportable charging kits? I don't have access to my own booth at Cyberlife anymore and-"
With an impatient grunt the other waved him off mid word,"Yeah, yeah. Take whatever you need. It's not as if they're in use right now."
With a last grateful nod, the android followed his partner from the office.
"What now, kid?"
"Now, I will go check in the evidence from our case and retrieve the charging equipment. You could head to the car, if you like."
Connor turned to the right, only for Hank to follow after him.
"I'll come with ya. Haven't seen that dick Reed yet. Chances are, he's around here somewhere."
Remembering their last violent encounter, Connor's shoulders tensed as he led the way to the stairs.
Entering the short hallway leading to evidence and storage rooms, he stopped short upon seeing detective Reed leaving the stairway.
Hastily he threw up a thin mask of placid politeness to hide his agitation, forcing his LED back to a peaceful blue.
The detective looked horrible.
Bone weary, rumpled and with one eye swollen shut he made a not very impressive figure.
As Reed noticed him, he blanched in what looked like terror, shaking fingers reaching for his gun holster only to stop short upon seeing Hank.
He headed past them in panicked strides, shoulders drawn in and gaze averted.
Sneering words.
Shouted accusations.
A drawn gun pointed straight at his head.
Conflicting priorities.
Don't ever hurt humans.
Do not fail your mission.
A co-worker.
A threat.
No time.
No choice but to defend himself.
A short fight with an obvious end.
End the threat, Connor!
Do not ever hurt a human!
The desperate decision to keep the man alive despite his orders…
Hank chuckled in incredulous mirth, shaking his head.
"Damn, what happened to spook that asshole into silence?"
Noticing Connor's empty face and the now forcefully red LED at his temple, his mirth turned into concern.
"Connor? Hey kid, talk to me. What happened?"
Drawing in a static laden breath, the android answered in a carefully neutral voice, "He passed me as I was heading towards the evidence room to find out the location of Jericho. Our short talk seemed to have left him suspicious, because he followed after me. We had a fight after he threatened to shoot me. The fight did not last long and I only barely managed to avoid killing him."
Connor shifted nervously before adding, "My orders stated that nothing was allowed to stop me from fulfilling my mission. But- as much as I dislike the detective, nothing gave me the right to kill him. So I decided to knock him unconscious instead."
Hank cursed and patted Connor's shoulder comfortingly. He could guess how much the android disliked the cold mindset of those days.
"Seeing him afraid like that… I don't know what to think about that, Hank. I don't want humans to be afraid of me."
His voice was quiet and shaky.
"Come on, kid," Hank pushed his partner gently onwards, "let's get this done and get out of here. This day has been long enough."
When they finally pulled up to Hank's house, an unusual kind of tiredness had taken hold of Connor. All the ups and downs of the last few days threatened to fill his short term memory and made his processors sluggish, thus slowing his reflexes so much that he nearly missed the car key that was carelessly thrown in his direction.
While Hank went ahead to unlock the door, the android retrieved the charging cable from the trunk, before slowly following behind.
A cheerfully barking Sumo nearly crashed into them, running circles around their legs in his enthusiasm.
"Alright, alright ya great lump. Get off. Sumo! Damn dog!"
Hank cursed fondly as he tried to get out of his shoes without being bowled over. Connor smiled tiredly as he got nearly the same treatment, crouching down to pet the huge dog.
Impulsively he hid his face in the soft fur and turned all other sensors down except for touch. Warm comfort slowly calmed his overworked system, as he quietly drifted, his mind finally silent.
When he came back to awareness, he was sitting with his back against the wall, hugging the happily panting St. Bernard like a child would hug a giant teddy bear. The background noise of a running microwave and Hank's content humming told him that the human was making dinner and one look showed the charging cable already plugged into a socket laying on the floor in front of the empty couch.
Next to him on the ground lay a bundle of clothing.
"Welcome back, kid. Go change and make yourself at home. Your charging thing should be set up and ready." Hank's voice floated over from the kitchen, where the microwave finished with a soft 'ping'.
Shuffling out from underneath the dog, Connor proceeded to follow his partner's advice and began to take off his uniform, ignoring the curses from the kitchen. Pulling on the loaned clothing, he found himself wearing an old police hoody and pyjama pants, both hanging loosely on his small frame.
He wandered over to the couch, where he placed his carefully folded uniform on the low table and sat down on the couch.
So this is what home felt like?
Relaxing back into the soft pillows, a tiny smile lit up his face.
As unprepared as his system had been for dealing with his deviancy, it was no wonder that he felt overwhelmed by the events of the last three days.
Technically he could stay active for multiple weeks at a time without pause, but that was only while his programming was focused by his old orders.
Now, unassisted and thrown from one extreme emotion into the next, he felt his RAM modules becoming buried in waves of unsorted data, his neutral circuits feeling tender. Emotions and memories were tumbling over each other without connection or cause.
The enforced standby of the charging process would hopefully help clear his mind.
Picking up the charging cable he opened a port at the back of his neck before informing Hank, "I will be entering standby for a few hours to charge. Don't be alarmed when my breathing simulation stops."
Without waiting for a reply, he plugged in the cable and activated the charging procedure.
Charging port activated. Standby necessary for system cleanup.
Estimated time: 6 h
Initiate standby? Y/N
The world turned dark and silent. Finally.
After he had finished his dinner and changed out of his work clothes, Hank headed for the couch to watch TV.
Sitting down on the opposite end of the sleeping android, he had to tamp down an uncomfortable wave of uncanny valley at seeing his otherwise lively and fidgeting partner this lifeless.
Not breathing and LED barely lit up in a faded yellow, eyes open but unseeing and with the charging cable sticking straight out of a white port at the back of his neck, he bore more resemblance to a machine than he ever had before.
Averting his morbidly curious gaze, he focused on pushing Connor's neatly folded clothing further to the side to make room for his feet.
As his fingers brushed the uniform jacket, he felt the strange sensation of plastic crinkling beneath the cloth and - sending a fast look to check that the other was still out - carefully reached into one of the pockets.
Out came a police issue evidence bag containing a familiar slim red poetry book. Hank frowned, thinking back to the evidence room, but could not remember seeing Connor put the book next to Kamski's phone.
Had his partner been a human, he would have put it down to forgetfulness. But Connor wasn't human and shaken though he might have been, Hank doubted the other simply forgot.
Thoughtfully he turned the bag over in his hands.
Hank knew that the last few days hadn't been easy on the android. Hell, both of them could have used a few days vacation at this point. But work waited for no man, so to work they went.
He had the vague suspicion that Connor had only agreed to continue working at the DPD because he had nowhere else to go, and wouldn't know a break if it bit him in the ass.
Huffing a wry chuckle, he looked fondly at the sleeping android, before turning his gaze back down to the book.
Connor had always been unconventional in his investigative measures and more than willing to bend or break the rules to further his goals, but stealing evidence seemed strange even under that light. Hank remembered Connor being surprisingly interested in every detail concerning Kimble, but had chosen to see it as him being thorough, or maybe the android version of having a hunch.
But now he wondered if there wasn't more going on here, than Connor was willing to share.
Coming to a decision, he placed the book openly on top of the stack of clothing. That would leave it up to the android, but signal clearly that Hank knew and couldn't be fooled.
Nodding one last time, he leaned back on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table and focused on the TV screen.