The red of Connor's LED had finally gone away. Now it spun steady on an uneasy yellow.
Hank took his quarter away. "I can't drive straight with that thing flying around."
"Where are we going?" Connor sat with his arms crossed, eyes on his knees. Sullen as any disillusioned teenager.
"Figured we'd go back to the station," Hank said. "Re-read the deviant files. Re-group, I dunno."
"I have a photographic memory," Connor said.
"Well I don't," Hank huffed. "You got somewhere else you'd rather be?"
"I suppose not."
Hank smirked. "That's what I thought."
When his phone rang he answered without much thought. "Anderson."
It was Fowler. "Where are you?"
"Driving, on my way to the station."
"Is the android with you?" Fowler said.
Hank glanced at Connor, who was listening intently. No doubt able to hear Fowler's side of the conversation.
"Yeah, Connor's with me."
"Take it back to Cyberlife," Fowler said. "There's a recall."
The light ahead of them, which had been red, turned green. But Hank let the car idle.
"What, on all the androids or just the prototypes?"
Impatient drivers honked behind them. "Hank, you should-"
"Yeah on all of them," Fowler said. "Whatever virus or faulty code is going around is spreading. Did you hear about the mall?"
"Which mall? What happened?" Hank finally drove the car forward, but he quickly pulled into the nearest parking lot he could find.
"We're having a briefing soon," Fowler said. "Drop the android off and get back here and I'll fill you in with everyone else."
"But what about my case?" Hank said. "If I had more time-"
"I thought you'd be happy to be done with it?" Fowler said. "You put up such a stink-"
"But that was-"
"I don't have time to argue with you, Anderson," Fowler said. "We're short staffed as it is."
"The police androids have already been taken?"
"And left to burn with the rest of 'em." Fowler said it so nonchalantly that at first the words themselves didn't entirely register.
"Left to burn?!" Hank shouted. "They can't do that!"
"What's the problem?" Fowler sounded genuinely confused. Hank wished they were talking in person, so he could slap the cluelessness out of him.
Then there was shouting in the background.
"I gotta go," Fowler said, and hung up.
"But- wait, fuck!" Hank rolled down his window and made as if to throw it, but Connor grabbed his arm.
"Don't be rash," he said.
"I'm fucking pissed!" Hank said.
"I can see that." By contrast, Connor was irritatingly calm. His LED turned blue.
"The fuck is wrong with you?!" Hank said. "You don't give a fuck? Stupid hunk of plastic to the end."
Hank unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his car door. Where exactly he planned to go, he didn't know. He just felt like storming off.
But Connor still had a firm grip on his arm. "I've had an epiphany," he said.
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"What if Kamski did it on purpose?" Connor said.
"What, made a virus?"
"No a virus," Connor said. "But what if he programmed our code with the potential for... A mimicry of free will?"
"Like a benevolent god?" Hank rolled his eyes.
"Not a god," Connor said. "Certainly not benevolent. I think maybe he was just bored."
"What good does that do us?" Hank yanked his arm free. "They're going to burn you all like trash."
Connor leaned toward Hank, his baby brown eyes wide and hopeful. "Do you think I'm a person, Hank?"
"Of course I do!"
"What makes me a person?"
"You just are!" Hank huffed. "I don't know, you just feel like one."
Connor shook his head. "I can't move forward with that."
"What are you talking about?"
Connor sighed. "Nevermind. I'll turn myself in."
And he unbuckled his seatbelt.
Now Hank was grabbing at him. "What?! No."
With no effort at all Connor removed Hank's grip and stepped out of the car.
Hank scrambled after him. "The fuck is wrong with you?!"
Connor's LED continued to spin a serene blue. "There are two possibilities, Hank. And one has a higher probability than the other, so my choice is clear."
"Just wait a minute!" Hank was already out of breath, struggling to keep up with Connor's confident strides through the snow.
"Amanda would be disappointed," Connor said. "That I even considered the other idea. It's silly. Fanciful, even. Selfish."
"What's selfish?" Hank said. "Wanting to be a person? Wanting to live?!"
"Precisely," Connor said. "And thinking that my mission was anything more than a field test."
"Okay, you've lost me," Hank said. "Would you slow down?!"
Abruptly, Connor stopped walking. For just a split second his LED blinked red, but then it turned back to blue.
"Don't you see?" Connor said. "I'm a prototype. I was built to fail!"
"I don't see a damn thing," Hank said. "Why would they build you to fail?"
"I'm sure they hoped I would succeed," Connor said. "It would have been very convenient for them."
He reached for his collar, as if to adjust his tie, but the tie was at home with the rest of his uniform.
In that moment Connor was just a guy standing in the snow, severely underdressed for the weather in his plaid shirt.
When he glanced down at himself he looked put out.
"Then what was the point?" Hank said.
"Like any field test, the point is to gather data," Connor said. "So that they can improve on the project."
Hank huffed. "Then what's the project?"
Connor smiled and it was the saddest thing Hank had ever seen. It was a self deprecating, humorless smile.
"It is not my privilege to know," Connor said. "But I'm confident my data will be useful. They'll destroy me, but I'll be reborn in the new model. Improved and successful. Useful."
"That's horseshit!" Hank said. "New model? What new model? Didn't you hear all the androids are being destroyed?"
Connor was unphased. "Yes, the current models are being recalled," he said. "We've malfunctioned. But CyberLife will address the problem and-"
Hank was tired of arguing with this idiot. He tackled him.
Connor actually laughed as they went down. And he wrapped his arms around Hank, as if to shield him, so that they landed in an awkward sort of hug half barried in the snow.
"I know I wasn't supposed to," Connor said. "But I really enjoyed our time together. I swear I'm not programmed to say that."
Then Hank was blubbering like a sentimental old fool.
Connor stared at him as he cried, LED spinning through all three colors. "Hank," he said. "Hank, please. It's not-"
"How am I supposed to talk you into believing your a person?" Hank said. "How can I talk you out of throwing your life away?"
And the LED settled on yellow as Connor's eyebrows furrowed. "It's not a life."
"What if it is?" Hank insisted. "Even if the chances are, well, what did you say? About probability?"
"There's a slim chance that I could be a real person, Hank," Connor said. "It's more likely that I've simply been compromised. Infected by-"
Hank rolled off of Connor and yanked him up. "So what?!"
Connor blinked. "So what?"
"Yeah! So what if you are infected?" Hank said. "So what if it's a virus?"
"Well-"
"Don't you like Sumo? Huh? My dog loved you," Hank said. "He'll be disappointed if I come home without you."
"Of course I like Sumo. But-"
"And doesn't that feeling count for something?" Hank said. "You liking Sumo? Even though you weren't programmed to like anything in particular?"
"In a certain sense, I decided to like Sumo before I even met him," Connor said, looking sheepish. "Because I thought it would help us get along. Which would help us work together better. For the good of the mission, I strategically spoiled your dog."
Hank grinned and threw up his hands. "So what!"
Connor laughed. "So what," he echoed. "Alright."
"Alright?" Hank put his hands on Connor's shoulders. "You won't turn yourself in?"
"I won't." Connor gave him his most charming smile yet.
And then he frowned. "Wait, but then what should I do?"
Hank ruffled his hair. "Whatever you want, son."
"It's never occured to me to want anything," Connor said. "Though I did experiment once. I think I wanted to want. But it didn't work."
Hank didn't know what to make of that vague little tidbit. Before he could think on it, someone revved an engine on the street beside them.
The car drove past well over the speed limit, so it must have been manually operated, like Hank's.
It brought him back to their surroundings.
"First things first," Hank said. "We're getting out of Detroit."
"Alright," Connor said.
"And we're getting you a hat," Hank said. "Plus a coat. Jesus. You need to pretend to get cold, from now on."
"Understood," Connor said. "Hey Hank?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
Hank put his arm around Connor's shoulders while they walked back to the car. "We make quite the pair, eh? Who'd have thought."
Then they drove home together in companionable silence.
