A tense silence hung over Hank and Connor despite the police officer's death metal booming from the speakers all around them. This was what living an oxymoron was like, Connor supposed. Bass reverberated through his chassis like a jackhammer while the harsh vocals of angry men waxed poetic about the injustices of life and the inevitable end that would avail all of them sooner or later. Still, there was a haunting melancholy in each syllable, a yearning so warm and earnest that Connor couldn't help but wonder what those people had been feeling when they wrote their songs – what people were supposed to be feeling when they listened to another human's deepest anguish laid bare so brutally.

"You feel what you feel, whether you want to or not," Hank had told him, the time Connor asked him how he was supposed to react to his music. "There're no fucking rules about it. Some people get aggressive, some start to cry and... yeah. I just wish that they'd still make music like that today."

"Hence the lack of music released past 2025?" Connor had asked for clarification. Hank had just looked at him and raised an eyebrow as if to say 'Wasn't that obvious?' — an expression he wore often, especially near the beginning of their partnership when Connor didn't get his jokes or something flew way over his head — and had told him to get in the car.

And now, as Connor looked out of the window and watched the dilapidated buildings of Detroit's abandoned suburbs pass by, he still hadn't quite figured out how he felt about the music the Lieutenant was listening to.

Yet, even though the volume of the music would render any attempt at talking pointless — the windows vibrated slightly with every drop of the bass — there was only silence between the two occupants of the car. It was stifling. Connor couldn't conjure up a single word in any of the 231 languages programmed into his base code that described the disconnect, the feeling of isolation that came with seeing Hank out of his periphery. A Hank that didn't recognise him.

Hank was holding on the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles nearly white from the excessive force he was using while he refused to look at anything but the street ahead. His mouth was pressed into a thin line while his shoulders were fraught with tension as if he was expecting something to happen.

As if he was expecting Connor to do something.

The reminder of the Lieutenant's lack of trust in him still hurt, even though the pain was more muted, now that Connor had had time to adjust to the human's antagonistic attitude. He had to supress the urge to pull out his coin and start flipping it, because he knew how much it had annoyed Hank even after they had become friends. This version of the Lieutenant would probably react even more negatively to it.

So, Connor just folded his hands in his lap and tried not to stare too much at Hank while they drove towards Carlos Ortiz's house. It was difficult; the Hank Connor had last seen was only half – a year older than this version, yet there were so many differences between them. Not just in appearance (That had even gotten worse over the time; being a fugitive tended to do that to you), but in the way they held themselves and in the aura that surrounded them.

The old Hank had found peace — had made peace with his failures as a husband, the death of his child, and the subsequent spiral into depression and alcoholism that followed. Not in the sense that he had found happiness, but more that he had closed those chapters of his life so that they would no longer destructively spill over into his present. But the Hank next to him lacked that emotional development; all the anger, the despair, and the hate still hung around him like an angry thundercloud, ready to lash out at any given moment.

Connor's throat clammed up. He wanted to... speak, to tell Hank everything about him, comfort him over his inner torment, to shake him by the shoulders so he could just wake up and remember Connor. But he didn't. Because right now he was neither the person the Lieutenant needed or wanted. Because Hank'd never remember...

As a matter of fact, to Hank Anderson he wasn't a person at all.

'My name is Connor Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife.'

He kept his eyes forward, avoiding Hank's suspicious, tense glances and opted to focus on the grey, decrepit houses that passed him by.

This part of Detroit had been hit especially hard by the successive economic crises that had swept over the city ever since the housing market crash of 2008. While Cyberlife could boast that it employed thousands of people and that its money helped the city of Detroit to slowly get back on its feet, the people here had never seen a single benefit. Patching streets, replacing street lights, and renovating schools around here brought neither publicity nor political capital, so the city's administration never bothered, instead spending its money on bigger, shinier things like fancy new buildings downtown or new underground lines in the affluent suburbs. All to surround the crown jewel of Detroit, the most valuable company in the world: Cyberlife.

The people here never stood a chance. The poor, disorganised, without a voice; they were ignored. Until their problems spread like a fungus and became too large to turn a blind eye to.

Like, when someone got murdered. No ignoring that one.

"What do we know about the crime?" Hank interrupted Connor's train of thought. He had lowered the volume of the radio so he could be heard. Not that it was necessary; Connor's audio processors were more than capable of filtering out the Lieutenant's voice. Still, the human brain wasn't and humans tended to project their own inadequacies onto others.

The old Connor would have pointed that out, but the old Connor had been stupid, naïve, and it had taken drenching his hands in blood (Both red and blue) for that to change.

"The victim's name is Carlos Ortiz," Connor supplied, pulling up the records from his memory. "He was born on October 27th, 2008. He has a criminal record for theft and aggravated assault and has been committed to several psychiatric clinics between 2033 and 2036. He is also allegedly addicted to Red Ice, but the police never found anything on his person."

"A real model citizen then," Hank muttered. "How did he die?"

"This information has yet to be added to the preliminary report; the coroner still hasn't gotten to the scene," Connor replied. Hank just harrumphed.

By now, it had started to rain. Big drops fell from the sky, bursting against the windshield in a constant barrage as if they, too, didn't want to be out in the cold during that dreary night. Should Connor touch the car's windows, he would feel the slight vibration of the rain falling against it, too insignificant for a human to notice. But Connor would.

The rain blurred their surroundings into nearly indistinguishable shapes, as if they were driving through a painting, broad strokes of the artist's brush melding everything together into undulating, hazy streaks of dark blues, black and yellow. Every now and then, a car would pass them by on the other side of the road, its headlights appearing out of the darkness like cats' eyes on prey, searching for the slightest movement, before they vanished again, swallowed by the twilight behind them.

Detroit had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and yet it felt like there was just the two of them in their car, driving to a destination unknown.

But this state of in-between was yet interrupted when they rounded the corner and reached the street where Carlos Ortiz lived – or had lived – and the blue and red lights of the police cars parked in front of his house cut through the semi-darkness like knives. Curious onlookers had already gathered in front of the police cordon, craning their necks in order to catch a glimpse of whatever was going on inside. Floodlights had been erected by the police to illuminate even the smallest corner of the property while countless officers were milling around.

It was a stark contrast: The clean lights, the well-kept uniforms and the shiny police cars around the broken-down house, whose every flaw seemed only to be highlighted by the glaring lights. No mark, no scar could be kept hidden, every flaw was laid bare.

And all the while, the rain kept falling, turning the ground into brownish mud, sticking to every surface it could cling to.

If Ortiz had been killed by another human, then he wouldn't have received such attention from Detroit's finest. It would have been one overworked detective who would have stamped it as a fight over drugs or money between junkies and his name would be forgotten to the world within the day, gone to the winds of poverty.

But being supposedly killed by an android? That garnered Ortiz more attention in death than he had ever received alive.

Slowly, Hank drove by the crime scene and parked the car across the street. When the car came to a halt, he turned around to face Connor and lifted his finger in a lecturing gesture.

"You wait here," he told the android. "I won't be long."

"Whatever you say, Lieutenant," Connor replied, the same as he had the first time. Hank just looked at him as if he wanted to do nothing more than to throw him out of the car and into the next dumpster.

"Fucking A…" he mumbled as he turned around, opened the car's door and exited the vehicle. "Whatever I say." Connor didn't even pretend to at least wait a few seconds before he, too, left the car and followed Hank onto the crime scene.

"Joss Douglas for Channel 16." Connor heard the all-too-familiar voice over the pouring rain. "Can you confirm that this is a homicide?" Connor had never known the man personally, but in the old timeline, Joss had been one of the few reporters that had tried to convey the android's point of view to his audience, even as the atmosphere had turned more and more hostile. He had been afraid of the androids, that had always been evident, but his personal ethics hadn't allowed him to paint them as evil incarnate as many other media outlets had. For that he was basically the only journalist Connor could stand.

"I'm not confirming anything," Hank replied grumpily. He ignored the reporter and continued onwards. Connor attempted to follow him, but the moment he moved to enter the premises, a police officer blocked his way.

"Androids are not allowed past this point," the young officer told him. There was no emotional inflection in his voice; he might as well be talking to a toaster – a machine, which Connor was in his, and nearly every other human's, mind.

"It's with me," Hank called from up front. Again, it stung, but by now Connor was used to being seen as an object rather than a living being. The officer stepped aside and let Connor through, who caught up to the Lieutenant in a few steps.

"What part of 'stay in the car' didn't you understand?"

"Your order contradicted my instructions, Lieutenant," Connor replied.

"You don't talk, you don't touch anything and you stay outta my way, got it?" Hank snapped.

"Got it."

"Evening Hank," another detective called from the veranda. Ben Collins was the name Connor's interface supplied him with. He wasn't of importance. " We were starting to think you weren't gonna show…." As he spoke the man made his way towards the two of them.

"Yeah, that was the plan until this asshole found me," Hank replied, tilting his head towards Connor. Collins stared at him with curiosity all over his face.

"So... you got yourself an android, huh?" he asked as he turned around and walked back towards the house, obviously expecting Hank and Connor to follow him.

"Oh, very funny," Hank retorted. "Just tell me what happened."

"We had a call around eight from the landlord," Collins started. "The tenant hadn't paid his rent for a few months, so he thought he'd drop by, see what was going on... That's when he found the body."

They followed Collins into the house. It was exactly like Connor remembered it: Dilapidated, dirty and trashed. It was a ruin, not a house and it definitely had never been a home. Some windows were nailed shut with wooden boards, the wallpaper was peeling off the wall all over the room, and the pitiful pieces of furniture, that weren't even enough to fill the whole room, would fit more into a postapocalyptic hellscape than in a house.

"Jesus, that smell!" Hank exclaimed. Connor supposed that the odour hanging in the air must smell rather unpleasant to a human. After all, it contained many things human tended to find disgusting. His sensors picked up traces of rotten food, sweat, faeces, mould, Red Ice Dust, and, of course, the characteristic stench of decay.

"Was even worse before we opened the windows," Collins commented offhandedly.

They came to a halt in front of Ortiz's corpse. Knowing what he knew now, Connor could say that the man was a disgusting specimen of humanity. His skin was bloated and pale, his hair greasy and unkempt, his beard full of food crumbs. His clothing was stained with all kind of liquids and, of course, there were the twenty-eight stab wounds in his chest area, but even without them Ortiz would have been gag-inducing.

"According to the neighbours, he was kind of a loner," Collins continued.

'No kidding,' Connor thought, but he kept it to himself. Androids weren't supposed to be sarcastic.

"Stayed inside most of the time, they hardly ever saw him.

"State he's in, wasn't worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night," Hank grumbled as he kneeled down and took a closer look at the corpse. "Could've waited 'til morning."

"I'd say he's been there for a good three weeks," Collins replied, unperturbed by Hank's abrasive attitude. "We'll know more when the coroner gets here. There's a kitchen knife over here –" he pointed into the direction of the kitchen, "– probably the murder weapon."

Connor tuned out their conversation. He knew what was coming next and dedicated only a small subroutine to the task of keeping up with what was happening around him while he put his main processor power towards finding a solution for how he should save the HK400. He did kill a human, but it had been self-defence.

He needed the police to leave the place, so that he could come back later and hopefully convince the other android, who Connor knew was hiding in the attic, that he was a friend and send him off to somewhere safe.

'Perhaps we could implement our Plan E early, use him to gather—' Amanda whispered into his mind.

'No. It's too early for that,' Connor interrupted. 'We can't change too much this early. It would just open up another front we would have to fight.'

'You're right, it would be another front,' Amanda agreed. 'But not for us, but for Cyberlife and the US government. Just think about it.' Connor shut her out, but Amanda had already reached her goal; She had gotten her word in and the idea was already milling about in his mind.

It didn't matter, though, because Connor couldn't do anything drastic with a squad of cops watching his every move. The best way forward was to make them think that the perpetrator of the crime was no longer here. Last time, it had been Connor's deductions and analysis that had led them to finding the HK400, so if those were just a little… off, then the other android would go free and Connor could give him the help he needed.

Their investigation started. Connor knew that he needed to be careful in his attempt to divert the detectives' attention away from the true culprit. If he suddenly started to commit easily avoidable mistakes, the humans would notice, especially after he had been practically advertised as Cyberlife's most advanced model up to date.

So, Connor did as he had the first time and found the hints that had led him to the HK400 the first time. Only that the facts he relayed to Hank were skewed, just a little, so that the conclusions Hank would arrive to wasn't entirely representative of what really happened. But what Connor hadn't accounted for, what he had so easily dismissed out of hand in his arrogance, was that Hank had been, and still was, a prodigal detective. When Connor tried to nudge him towards one direction, Hank would piece the evidence together another way and arrive at the conclusions Connor tried so desperately to steer him away from.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion while being damned to be just an onlooker. Connor couldn't react, couldn't steer Hank away from his correct recreation of the events, not without drawing suspicion onto himself.

"The killer's still here," Hank finally said —'Shit,' Connor swore under his breath — breaking the tense silence that smothered them. "No footprints leading away from the house — they won't have been washed away, not in this soil — and there's no way he coulda jumped across the roofs of the houses; too far apart, and nobody's reported any disturbances coming from above..." He paused; his arms still crossed as he scratched his beard and murmured under his breath.

Hank paced around, letting his eyes wander before they settled on a hatch in the ceiling. "Maybe he didn't jump across a roof, but..." He pointed up to at the hatch, then raised his voice just enough for the other officers to hear. "It's up there. C'mon Connor, help me out here."

Connor knew what he would find in the attic – or rather who he would find. He didn't want to go up there, didn't want to look at yet another face of someone he had failed in his past life. The weight on his mind, on his conscience, made Connor's mouth feel dry but it was too late. Even though there were many negative things you could say about Hank Anderson, him being an incompetent detective was not one of them. Connor had tried to derail the investigation, but the Lieutenant had looked past the warped analyses instead and pieced everything together. Connor's mind whirled with preconstructions, but he couldn't quite find one which resulted in him being able to find an escape route for the android above... Wait! Just there, if he'd just s—

"Connor! You going to quit standin' around, or what?" Hank's harsh voice jolted Connor out of his internal processes.

"Sorry lieutenant, I was just running through all the possible scenarios I may encounter once I go up into the attic, and prepared my systems accordingly." The lie flowed easily over Connor's tongue. It was easy, he supposed, because humans were slow. Slow enough to fool. Amanda wouldn't have been so easy to lie to, nor would most Cyberlife technicians and, of course, Elijah Kamski. But none of them were here, so Hank just nodded and beckoned for him to continue. "It might be for the best if I went alone."

"The hell I'm gonna let you go up there alone,"

"We don't know the deviant's physical or mental state," Connor replied. "Deviants are unpredictable. We'd be seen as a threat, and it would react to us accordingly." Hank looked unconvinced. "If something were to happen to me, Cyberlife will just send a new model while you, lieutenant, cannot be replaced so easily." Hank brows furrowed in distaste. Connor knew from the old timeline that the older detective disliked being reminded of Connor's inhumanness. For all purposes, Connor looked and acted like a human, so every time a reminder crept up that he wasn't, his mood instantly soured.

It was the reason why so many humans mistrusted and even mistreated their androids. They were fooled into thinking that they were interacting and creating bonds with living, feeling beings, so when they were reminded that androids (at least, those that hadn't turned deviant) were just facsimiles, on an instinctive level they felt betrayed and threatened and lashed out. It wasn't rational, like many parts of humanity were; some left over from their ancestors who had to fight against Neanderthals and other humanoid looking species before they finally prevailed.

"Besides," Connor added. "I don't need a flashlight to see in the dark, so I have a better chance at sneaking up on the deviant undetected."

"Fine," Hank grumbled, finally conceding to Connor's superior logic. "But don't expect me to come saving you if anything happens."

"Understood," Connor nodded. If he was human, he would probably have taken a deep breath to steady himself. With one swift gesture he lifted himself up and hoisted himself over the ledge into the attic.

It was exactly as the video files on his memory banks had recorded it the first time. What little light managed to reach into the room from the open hatch illuminated the shapes of countless broken pieces of furniture that were carelessly piled up all over the space, some covered by dirty sheets. It seemed to represent the very essence of the person that had lived in the house: Broken, uncared for, covered to hide the decay.

Connor made his way deeper into the attic, wading between the piles of trash, threading carefully through the curtain as not to alert the HK400 to his presence – a futile endeavour, he knew, because the opening of the hatch had all but betrayed their presence already – but he couldn't help himself. Part of him would always be a detective; a hunter.

He knew where he would find the HK400, but even if he didn't have that foreknowledge, he could still pick up the other android's heat signature amidst the cold surrounding of the attic. He was cowering behind a still mostly-intact shelf, trying to make himself as small as possible. It might have worked if a human had come after him, but Connor was no human.

And the HK400 seemed to have realised that. Before the RK800 could reach him, the other android jumped out from his hiding place, but he did not attack Connor. No, instead he just stood there as if all will to fight had left him.

"Please," the android pleaded with Connor.

Before Connor could reply, the dust, the drops of moisture, the air currents stilled and time ground to a slow crawl. The HK400 suddenly halted in his very movement, an expression of terror and fear etched onto his face while he held his hands in a defensive position in front of him, his mouth still half-open as if to continue speaking.

"Connor," Amanda spoke. In the middle of the messy attic her avatar appeared even more out of place than it had been on the street in front of the police department. She seemed to shine from within, an otherworldly glow to her presence as if she was an angel while she hovered just a little bit – just millimetres – over the ground as if it wasn't worthy to be tread upon by her. "You have to help him escape. We can't risk the DPD getting their hands on any information regarding Jericho."

"You sped up the simulation," Connor deduced.

Amanda nodded. "I overclocked your processors, so that for every second out there we could have thirty in here. We should hasten, though, before they overheat and melt. Hurry, Connor." It was jarring for Connor that Amanda still had so much control over his functions, but now was not the time to confront that.

"No. We can't just let him go," he mused, hesitant. "There're too many variables." Blue splatters on glass. The rhythmic thud of flesh hitting an unmovable barrier. Manic eyes staring at him, unblinking.

"You seem to forget how important this whole operation is," Amanda replied. "Capture him and the FBI can find Jericho. We can't allow that to happen." She walked over towards the HK400 and looked at him as if she was looking at piece on her chessboard. "You were designed to deviate. You would have a considerable amount of leeway, even with your unusual behaviour." She turned back towards him. "Besides, you can use him. He'd make a fine addition to Jericho's army, don't you think?"

Logically, Connor knew that Amanda was right, in a sense. He should reinforce Jericho, keeping any possible leads from the DPD's hands, show deviants the way to safety. Markus had shown him that there was a place for kindness and warmth in this world, no matter how bleak and hopeless the situation may appear. But logic and emotion were two different kinds of beasts, and logic won out. Connor wanted, ached to let the HK400 go, his biocomponents itching with compulsion, but he knew that a small change would have consequences beyond his control. He couldn't risk Hank's trust in his abilities or motivations. He couldn't risk his reputation as the Deviant Hunter so early on. He couldn't risk losing control. Perhaps, had Hank not pieced together the android was up here, Connor could have left him be...

The Markus Connor had known – and the one he knew now - wouldn't be so cruel as to even consider capturing the android. He would have conviction and idealism and would proudly shoulder all the consequences his actions brought with them. But Markus wasn't here; Connor was, and the RK800 had to make do with what the world threw at him.

"Sorry, Amanda," he whispered as he looked at the HK400. "I can't. I'll think of something but right now, we have to take him in."

"I'll trust you on this, for now," Amanda sneered, resigned. "Just make sure you fix this." And before Connor could say anything to that, she had vanished as fast as she had appeared. The simulation lapsed and suddenly time was running again.

"I just want to live."

Connor opened his mouth. He wanted to tell the HK400 that he was sorry; that he would save him, that nothing bad would happen to him, that he was on his side. But the words coming out of his mouth were different and Connor hated himself for it.

"It's here, Lieutenant."