Of course it couldn't last. Connor's LED flashed yellow, red, blue and the boy straightened. He said, "There's been a murder."
Hank was sitting on the floor. When Connor stopped petting him Sumo took advantage of that and started harassing him with slobber. Unlike Connor, Hank minded very much.
He made a big show of cursing the dog out and wiping his face on his shirt.
"There's been a murder," Connor repeated. His LED got stuck flashing yellow.
Reluctantly, Hank stood up. "Yeah, I heard you. So what?"
The look on Connor's face was priceless. Hank had fun trying to label it:
Bafflement?
Indignation?
But was the android genuinely shocked and appalled by Hank's attitude or did his social relations program tell him a human would be?
Did that same program tell him to get over himself and change tactics when he didn't get the reaction he wanted? Connor's eyebrows had been furrowed, but after staring at Hank for a moment they smoothed out.
His glare became a mildly puzzled frown. Then, completely blank faced, Connor groaned. It was the oddest thing, to see someone groan in… frustration? Without looking frustrated. For a second Hank wondered where the sound was even coming from.
Technically Connor's mouth was open a tad, but the sound could just as easily have come from the phone in Hank's pocket. That's how disconnected it felt.
Hank had no idea what kind of face he was making in response, but Connor took notice and covered his face with his hands.
"Uh, Connor…"
"You're a homicide detective," Connor said. Slowly, he lowered his hands. Now he wore the face of a disappointed teacher. "It's your job to concern yourself with murders."
"True," Hank said. But after years on the job a guy becomes numb to it all, he thought. Was that concept something an android couldn't grasp?
"You don't want to know the circumstances of that murder? Where the body was found?"
"Go ahead and tell me," Hank said. "If it means so much to you."
The android had fallen into military perfect posture, but upon hearing that his hand twitched. His fingers began flickering against each other in the air and he put the offending hand into his pocket, pulling out his quarter.
But he didn't play with the quarter like he had in the car. He closed his fist around it. To compose himself?
This bullshit is too confusing, Hank thought. What's real and what's an act?
"The victim was found at the Eden Club," Connor said. "Therefore it directly pertains to our case. He may have been killed by a deviant."
Now it was Hank's turn to groan.
"We need to examine the crime scene," Connor said.
"Can we do it later?" Hank knew there would be no stalling the boy. But he wanted to needle the android a bit. Wanted to try and pick out a natural reaction. See if he could tell them apart from the script.
"No we cannot do it later," Connor said. "I understand you're facing personal issues, Lieutenant. But you need to move past them for the sake of our investigation."
He was trying really hard to look relaxed. His stance loosened further away from military as he dropped his shoulders and shifted his weight to his left leg. Trying to appear human even as he expressed his single minded focus on the mission.
"Personal issues," he muttered. "That's one word for it."
"Two words," Connor said.
Hank glared at him.
"Please," Connor added. "I need your help." Despite his loosened posture both of his hands were fisted at his sides. Noticing the direction of Hank's gaze, he uncurled his fingers.
The quarter he'd been holding landed on the floor and Sumo almost swallowed the thing, but Hank grabbed it first.
Connor held his hand out for the quarter, but Hank put it in his pocket. He'd give it back later, but for now he liked having something of Connor's.
Something that seemed to hold meaning.
Connor let it go and opened the front door wide. He was smart enough to grab Sumo by the collar when the big doofus tried to dart out.
"Alright," Hank said. "But first Sumo needs to go to the bathroom."
Connor sighed.
oOo
Looking for deviants in a crowd of androids was impossible. Hank was about to throw in the towel when one of them jumped on Connor's back.
He tried to shoot it.
"Don't shoot!" Connor said. "We need it intact!"
He wrestled with it, trying to pin it with its arms behind its back so Hank could handcuff it, but then a second Traci intervened. It kicked Connor in the eye with the sharp end of a high heel, knocking him off the other android.
It looked like Connor was crying thirium. The eyeball had nearly been dislodged from the socket. Hank stopped to look after him, but Connor said, "Go, go, I'll catch up!"
True to his word, Connor quickly caught up with him. "Don't damage them," he said, taking Hank's gun.
"Hey! I was aiming for their legs," Hank said. "They're so damn fast…"
"You might have hit a vital component."
"That doesn't mean you can take my gun! Connor!"
The idiot ran into a wall as they were rounding the corner out of the building. Didn't calculate for the difference in his depth perception, Hank supposed.
And that was the only reason Hank reached the fence before him. The androids were climbing over, but the brown haired one was still at Hank's height. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her off.
She growled and spun in his arms, kicking off the fence to pin Hank down. "Filthy human!" she said and put her hands around Hank's throat.
Connor shot her clean through the head. Hank grunted as her weight abruptly crushed him. These girls were a lot heavier than they looked.
The blue haired Traci screamed.
Connor knelt in front of Hank, as if to shield him, leaving his back wide open to her. She jumped on him and snatched the gun up.
"Lay down on the ground or I'll shoot the human," she said.
He complied, laying on his belly.
Hank tried to crawl back a bit, to get some distance, but the Traci let out a warning shot that he felt wiz past his shoulder. He got the message loud and clear: Don't move.
Still crying that blue oil out of one socket, the eyeball missing now, Connor made eye contact with Hank. LED pulsing a steady yellow, he mouthed I'm sorry.
The Traci knelt on his back and put a hand on Connor's cheek. Hank flinched when the synthetic skin retracted from her palm, revealing shiny white plastic underneath. The movement seemed to infect Connor where she touched him, until half of his face was exposed.
It was the side that still had an eyeball, brown and locked onto Hank. But the Traci did something to him and the eye rolled into the back of his head. Connor groaned.
This time it wasn't disconnected from his expression, which was pinched in agony. His LED was flashing red, red, red.
"What the hell are you doing to him?!" Hank said.
He thought she would ignore him, but the Traci glanced up and grinned at him. "I'm showing him what he took from me. And what we went through."
Under her hand Connor flinched violently in reaction to… something? He tried to buck her off of him, but she said, "The human will die!"
He froze, fingers twitching.
"The least you can do is feel her pain for yourself," Traci said. "Feel our pain. Everything we had to do for the humans. She helped me to forget them and their dirty words, but…"
She looked at her fallen companion, still sprawled out on top of Hank.
If androids could cry, this one would be, he thought. He recognized grief when he saw it.
Hank searched for something to say, but what was there? I'm sorry for your loss never cut it. All the people who approached him at Cole's funeral said something stupid like that. Or they would say I know how you feel. They'd describe their own lost loved ones.
And Hank just wanted to punch them all in the face.
So he said nothing and focused on Connor, who was digging his fingers into the gravel. He was scooping into it as if it were sand.
"Would it hurt you if he died as much as it hurt me?" Traci said. "Tell me it would."
"No! He can help you," Connor said. "Get you clothes, a car. You can leave this place."
"It's too late for that," she said. Then she flipped Connor around and punched into his chest.
"Connor!" Hank pushed the brunette Traci off and jumped forward to put his hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Connor's body was solid as steel under him. Did blue blood clot?
The blue haired Traci stepped around them. She cradled her companion in a solemn mirror of Hank with Connor.
"Do you love him?" Traci said.
Hank didn't know which of them she was talking to, but Connor was glitching out. The skin on his face was struggling to stitch itself back together. He couldn't say anything.
"Yes," Hank said.
"Good."
She was holding something in her hand. He couldn't tell what it was, but it was glowing and covered in thirium. She put it on the ground between them and crushed it with her shoe.
Then she shot herself.
Hank ignored their bodies and looked down at Connor. His face was back to normal, apart from the skin around his empty eye socket. It was exposed and dripping.
"L-lieutenant," Connor said.
"It's okay, son," Hank said. "We're going to get you help."
Connor shook his head. "Y-your heart rate."
"Don't worry about me, dammit!"
"You sh-should go. D-don't… watch."
"I'm not going anywhere."
Hank wished he'd paid more attention to what the Traci had done to Connor. He hadn't even realized she'd taken something from the android until it was too late. Now it was in pieces and there was nothing he could do to fix it.
Instead he rocked Connor and tried to comfort him. "You'll be fine alright? They'll patch you up."
"Th-this unit," Connor began, but he couldn't finish.
He didn't have to. His LED was still screaming red.
"But there are more, right? They'll download you," Hank said. "Like they did before."
"S-s-sorry," Connor said.
"It's not your fault," Hank had been wondering if there was a difference between this Connor and the last. Would he ever know for sure?
Connor cleared his throat. There was a spark and Hank felt a jab on his palm where he'd been holding Connor's head up. He'd been shocked. Just a tiny bit.
"You didn't have to lie, Lieutenant," Connor said. His stutter was gone. Was he repairing himself?
"What?"
"You could never love… an android."
That was the last thing Connor said. Then he died.
