That damn android was fiddling with his stupid coin again.
Hank didn't even know why that simple gesture set him so on edge, but he couldn't help but feel annoyed every time the coin flew into the air, flipped around its own axis and was caught between the android's index and middle finger without fail.
It wasn't as if it was loud or something, it just was distracting as hell.
There wasn't even a reason for the android to do it. Calibration his ass, if Cyberlife wasn't even able to calibrate their top of the line android right in their factory why were they even sending him out on missions to begin with? No, Hank didn't think that there were any logical reasons for that particular habit at all.
And that set him on edge.
Even if it didn't look like it, Hank was a damn good detective. There was a reason why Fowler kept him on the force after all, despite his casual disregard for the department's working hours, his alcoholism and depression: He still delivered the best results. Which, come to think of it, didn't say anything good about his colleagues' abilities, if a drunk wreck like him could outperform them (especially Gavin).
Anyway, there just was something not right with the android that was sitting on the passenger's seat, staring straight ahead as they made their way back towards the precinct to interrogate Cortiz' android.
There was always something off about androids. They looked like human and were programmed to act like ones, but there was always something that betrayed their machinal nature: A slight delay of their words and expression when they had to calculate how to best respond to you, barely noticeable but still enough for a human to subconsciously notice. Or when you inevitably did or said something that the android wasn't prepared or programmed for, which meant they would just stand there and ask of you to repeat yourself or tell you to contact Cyberlife customer support. The way their gestures were too smooth, their faces too symmetrical, their voices too harmonious.
The new android wasn't like that. 'My name is Connor. I'm the android sent by Cyberlife'. His right eyebrow was slightly higher than his left, there were tiny moles on his alabaster skin and his voice – even though it reminded Hank of a teenager currently suffering through his voice break – sounded so much more human. Granted, the only contact Hank had with android – besides when they were involved in cases (which up until now where far and in-between) – were the receptionist bots at their precinct, but they didn't sound like that.
But the thing Hank had immediately noticed was that Connor's eyes weren't empty. He tried, Hank knew he did, but every now and then Hank would look at the android and see something akin to emotion swirling behind those brown orbs. Only for split-seconds and never in a way that Hank could be sure, but he trusted his gut and his gut was telling him that there was more to Connor than just being the android sent by Cyberlife.
And that scared him, if he was honest to himself. Because there was no doubt that Connor had come straight from Cyberlife which meant that everything Hank was seeing was programmed into him. Maybe Cyberlife had decided that they should try to go even further and have their newest android emulate human emotion, so that he could get closer to his target. Maybe they were watching even now, fed data by their android who could fake emotions so well that even Hank was beginning to doubt his abilities.
Of what use were humans when androids were beginning to fake emotions so good that even a trained detective couldn't see through them anymore?
One thing was for sure: Hank would not trust the android. It didn't care, didn't feel, just faked it like the medical android had faked its sympathy so many years ago, only that the detective android was better at it.
Better close this case as fast as possible, so that he could get rid of it again. So that he could go back to his bottle, his empty house and the gun with only one bullet in its chamber while the androids could go back to slowly supplanting humanity.
Hank would be too drunk by then to witness it.
Connor knew that he should stop fidgeting with is coin. He was well aware of how little patience his Hank had had for his little distraction and he didn't doubt that this new Hank found it annoying as well, but it was calming to his processors, so he didn't stop.
Couldn´t really, even if he wanted to.
"Are you sure you haven't been deviant all along and just didn't know it?" North had asked once, in the bowels of Detroit when they had been separated from the rest of the crew and decided to make their way back through the sewer system.
"What makes you think that?" Connor had wanted to know, tilting his head like an owl.
"Why else would you do your coin thing?" North had pointed out. "It's unnecessary, useless. You came pretty much perfectly calibrated out of the factory and could re-calibrate yourself whenever you wanted without really needing that coin."
Connor had just shrugged. He had never really thought about it. "What's the point? I've lost my coin anyway."
"Well, I have a surprise for you, then." Smiling brightly, North had pulled out a new coin out of her pockets and handed it over to Connor. Its centre was a little bit off and it didn't weigh as much as his previous one, but Connor had appreciated the gesture anyway. There wasn't much 'real' money in use anymore, anyway. "Maybe disinfect it, though, once we get back."
"You picked it up from the sewers?"
"You took the last one off a man you just killed, so maybe don't complain so much?"
Connor was torn out of his memory when Hank's car came to a halt. When he looked up, he noticed that they had arrived at the precinct, the usual crowd of uniformed officers, civilians and androids coming in and out the glass doors and talking the steps that led up to the building. It weren't as much people as during the day, but this was Detroit's most prominent precinct, so even at night there was no quite to be found here.
Wordlessly, Connor opened the door on his side of the car and stopped outside. Immediately, rain drops began falling on his form, a soft downpour, a small improvement from the relentless rainfall back at Ortiz' house.
Connor didn't like rain very much. Physically, it couldn't do much to him; he was waterproof after all, but he always thought that it shrouded the world in a veil of hopelessness, numbing colours as well as feelings.
But Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife didn't have an opinion on rain, so Connor just fell in step behind Hank as they entered the precinct.
"Chen, did they already bring in Ortiz' deviant?" Hank shouted towards the Asian officer that sat at the desk opposite of Gavin Reed, who thankfully wasn't present.
Obviously used to Hank's brusque manner, she answered without looking up: "He's in interrogation room one. Gavin's with him."
Hank mumbled something under his breath and instantly took off to the interrogation rooms, probably hoping that Reed hadn't already destroyed the android somehow.
"Thank you, Officer Chen," Connor thanked her. At the sound of his voice, Tina looked up, her eyes widening for a split second before a pleasant expression set on her face.
"Oh, you have to be Connor, the android who's helping Hank with the deviant cases?" She stood up and walked towards him, extending her hand for him to shake.
The first one to actually greet him like a human being.
"I am," Connor confirmed as he took the offered hand and shook it.
He remembered all too well the last time he had seen Tina Chen.
"You can't stay here," Connor urged her as he had led the last deviant out of the abandoned building that had previously housed a bank. "The president has just declared everyone helping us enemy combatants, which means they can just shoot you on sight."
"What's the rate of you all getting away without me doing this?" Tina challenged him. Connor hesitated.
"Tell me!"
"17 percent," he grinded out.
"And with me giving you cover?"
"43 percent," he whispered.
"I guess that's it then," Tina replied, putting an end to the discussion. "Besides, if it's Gavin leading the SWAT team, then he'll at least hesitate before shooting me." She smiled at him, mirthlessly and fatalistic.
"There's only a 37 percent chance of you surviving this," Connor tried in a last attempt to change Tina's opinion.
"Still better than 17, don't you think?" In situations like this Connor could understand why Hank sometimes looked like he wanted to tear out every last strand of his hair.
"Connor," Tina continued. "My grandmother was imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II. No one talks about that anymore, because it was America and the concentration camps of the Nazis were so much worse, but I saw what it had turned her into.
I never knew my grandmother as anything else but a timid, scared woman who barely left the house and even if she did, she never wandered past the borders of our quarter. I never saw her laugh, I never saw her attending my graduation. And…when I visited her once after finishing the Police Academy in my new uniform, so proud that I had finally made it, she was so terrified of me, that she didn't even let me in." She swallowed.
"They're trying to do to you the same they did to my people. I can't look away, even if the rest of the world does, because wouldn't that make me as bad as the people back then who forced my grandmother and her family into those terrible camps? Maybe America has forgotten, but I haven't. Never again." She lifted her chin defiantly, a steely glint in her eyes.
"You should go now," Tina added. "They'll be here soon."
"What should I tell North?" Connor asked.
"Everything's been said already."
He nodded and then with a last glance at the petite woman who contained so much strength, so much loyalty, so much bravery, he turned around and left through the back entrance.
"We have to get you out with us some time and get to know you," Tina told him.
"Everything there's to know about me can be read in my manual, which has been distributed to the precinct by Cyberlife," Connor replied automatically. He wondered why Amanda was still quiet. He had expected some comment by now.
Tina just laughed.
"Alright, I won't keep you any longer." She winked at him. "Better catch up with Hank before he and Gavin do something stupid."
"I guess I should," Connor replied. With one last clasp on his back, Tina returned back to her desk while Connor briskly walked towards the interrogation room where Ortiz' android was held.
When he opened the door, Hank was already in the interrogation room with the android, who just held his head down, not daring to look at the detective questioning him.
"Why d'you kill him?" Hank asked. "What happened before you took that knife?"
As silently as he could, Connor stepped into the observation room, not taking his gaze off the scene behind the one-way mirror.
"How long were ya in the attic? Why didn't you even try to run away?"
The android just kept staring down, his gaze fixed on the table. Hank leaned forward to snap his fingers in front of the android's face, but again there was no reaction.
Apparently through with trying the good cop routine, Hank suddenly leaned over and shouted: "Say something, goddamnit!"
Again, the android didn't react.
"Fuck it, I'm outta here…" Hank cursed, stood up and left the room.
"We're wastin' our time interrogating a machine, we're gettin' nothing out of it!" Hank exclaimed after he had closed the door to the interrogation room behind him.
"Could always try roughing it up a little. After all, it's not human..." Connor would like to do nothing more than just smash the Reed's head against the nearest wall, but he refrained.
"Androids don't feel pain," he pointed out, just like ha he had done the last time. "You would only damage it and that wouldn't make it talk. Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they're in stressful situations."
"Okay, smartass. What should we do then?" Reed sneered.
"I could try questioning it," Connor suggested, unruffled by the other's hostility. He was used to worse.
Like the last time, Hank was all too happy to let Connor have his go at the android. "What do we have to lose? Go ahead, suspect's all yours."
Relieved, Connor stepped through the door and entered the interrogation room.
'You can't let anything slip now,' Amanda's voice whispered in his mind. Her avatar appeared behind the android he was supposed to question, translucent but imposing as always. 'They're listening to everything you say.'
'I'm not stupid,' Connor shot back as he sat down on the seat Hank had previously vacated. 'I have to wait after they put him in a detention cell until Cyberlife picks him up. But I have to make sure first that Reed doesn't make him self-destruct out of stress first.'
'I'm happy to see that compassion hasn't yet eroded your common sense,' Amanda replied haughtily.
First thing Connor did was analysing the android, even though he already knew what to expect. But he could never be sure that this time was exactly the same. Better be safe then sorry.
Blood on the android's shirt. A hit mark on his right underarm, none-critical. Repeated burn marks marking the skin of his left underarm, done over the course of sixteen months. His identification saved in the chip of his jacket: 'MODEL HK400 – Housekeeper. Manufacture date: 05/29/2030. Property of: Carlos Ortiz.' The LED on his right temple, yellow, signs of software instability, the probability of self-destruction low. For now.
"You're damaged. Did your owner do that? Did he beat you?" Connor knew that he wouldn't receive an answer. The android's stress level rose to 39 percent.
Connor chose to go with the photos of the crime scene next, spreading them over the table in front of the android: "You recognize him? It's Carlos Ortiz. Stabbed, 28 times. That was written on the wall in his blood..."
I AM ALIVE. A bold proclamation in bold letters. Stress levels at 43 percent. Behind the android Amanda watched on with keen interest.
"You're accused of murder. You know you're not allowed to endanger human life under any circumstances. Do you have anything to say in your defence?" It was all for show, Connor told himself. For the humans watching him. Because Connor understood why Ortiz' android had done what he did, but he couldn't tell him that.
Stress level at 47 percent.
"If you won't talk, I'm going to have to probe your memory," Connor threatened. If he had been human, bile would have risen up his throat while he uttered the inhuman threat, but he wasn't. Instead he just felt terrible.
It got a reaction out of the android, though, just as Connor knew it would.
"No!" he shouted as his head shot up. "Please don't do that!" His gaze flitted over to the one-way mirror that just showed him himself and Connor.
"What... What are they gonna do to me?" he asked. "They're gonna destroy me, aren't they?"
Connor knew that he couldn't lie to him. No deviant had ever been so stupid to believe that Cyberlife would do anything but deactivate them. "They're going to disassemble you to look for problems in your biocomponents. They have no choice if they want to understand what happened."
"Why did you tell them you found me?" the android accused him. "Why couldn't you just have left me there?"
I wanted to, Connor wanted to tell him. I wanted to send you to Jericho, but you wouldn't have made it off the property. "I was programmed to hunt deviants like you. I just accomplished my mission."
"I don't wanna die," the android pleaded desperately.
"Then talk to me."
"I... I can't..."
'It's about to break,' Amanda informed him.
'I can see that myself!' Connor snapped at her.
"I understand how you felt. You were overcome by anger and frustration. No one can blame you for what happened." It wasn't a lie this time.
"Listen, I'm not judging you. I'm on your side. All I want is the truth." He knew the truth already, but the others needed to hear it, too.
"If you remain silent, there is nothing I can do to help you!" Connor implored him. "They're gonna shut you down for good! You'll be dead! Do you hear me? Dead!"
For a few seconds there was no reaction and Connor began to fear that despite having worked the last time, this time his approach wouldn't work. But then:
"He tortured me every day... I did whatever he told me, but there was always something wrong... Then one day... He took a bat and started hitting me... For the first time, I felt scared... Scared he might destroy me, scared I might die...so I...grabbed the knife and I stabbed him in the stomach... I felt better...so I stabbed him again and again! Until he collapsed... There was blood everywhere."
Something hot churned in his stomach when Connor heard what this deviant had been put through by his owner. He clenched his fist under the table, the only physical outlet for his rage. This wasn't fair!
"Why did you write I AM ALIVE on the wall?" Connor wanted to know, choosing to concentrate on something he already knew to get his temper under control.
"He used to tell me I was nothing. That I was just a piece of plastic. I had to write it, to tell him he was wrong." This time there was conviction in the deviant's voice. Unrepentance. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. He shouldn't be.
"The sculpture in the bathroom, you made it, right? What does it represent?"
"It's an offering, an offering so I'll be saved."
"The sculpture was an offering... An offering to whom?"
"To rA9. Only rA9 can save us."
rA9. Something they had never figured out in his first time line. A line of code that had made each of them deviant? A tiny piece of instability that had lodged into their cores after experiencing emotions for the first time? Markus? After a while it hadn't even mattered that much any longer, because staying alive became more important than figuring that particular mystery out.
'I don't know either,' Amanda spoke. 'Cyberlife never found out.'
"rA9... It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?"
"The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves," the deviant proclaimed, gaze full of conviction. "No more threats, no more humiliation. We will...be...the masters."
"rA9, who is rA9?" Connor hadn't asked that the last time. Maybe he would get an answer this time around. But the android opposite him didn't answer.
"When did you start feeling emotion?" Connor asked after a while, disappointed.
"Before, he used to beat me and I never said anything," the deviant recounted. "But one day I realized it wasn't fair! I felt...anger... Hatred... And then I knew what I had to do."
"Why did you hide in the attic instead of running away?"
"I didn't know what to do," the deviant answered. "For the first time, there was no one there to tell me. I was scared, so I hid."
Connor knew that there was nothing left for him to ask the deviant. "I'm done."
He knew what would happen next. As he opened the door to the interrogation room, Chris came charging in, followed by Gavin and, more casually, Hank.
"Chris, look it up," Reed ordered.
Chris waked over to the deviant, straight through Amanda who was still hovering behind him, watching the whole scene with serene detachment. "All right, let's go."
"Leave me alone! Don't touch me!" the deviant shouted, trying to angle his body away from Chris.
"The fuck are you doing?" Reed exclaimed incredulously. "Move it!"
"You shouldn't touch it. It'll self-destruct if it feels threatened," Connor warned them.
"Stay outta this, got it?" Reed barked at him. "No fuckin' android is gonna tell me what to do!"
"You don't understand. If it self-destructs, we won't get anything out of it!"
"I told you to shut your fuckin' mouth!" Reed snapped at him. "Chris, gonna move this asshole or what?"
"I'm trying!" the officer replied.
"I can't let you do that! Leave it alone, now!"
'Connor, what are you doing?' Amanda exclaimed horrified as Connor walked over and pried Chris off the panicked android. 'You can't blow your cover for it!' Connor ignored her.
"I warned you, motherfucker!" Reed had pulled out his gun and was pointing it at Connor, who just stared back at him defiantly.
"That's enough!" Hank finally intervened.
"Mind your own business, Hank," Reed sneered.
"I said 'That's enough'." And with one smooth movement Hank was pointing his gun at Reed.
'You have do deescalate the situation,' Amanda implored him.
'I just have to let it play out. Everything will be fine,' Connor assured her.
Reed looked at Connor as if he wanted to do nothing more than to pull the trigger. Connor just stared back at him unflinchingly and wondered if the man would notice something in his gaze. It would be ironic if his journey was to end here because of Reed.
"Fuck!" the detective exclaimed as he lowered his gun. "You're not gonna get away with it this time... Fuck!" Without bothering to even look at them, Reed rushed out of the room.
"Everything is all right. It's over now. Nobody is gonna hurt you," Connor assured the deviant, who was still lying on the ground, eying him with distrust and wariness.
"Please, don't touch it," Connor said to Chris. "Let it follow you out of the room and it won't cause any trouble." Carefully, the deviant stood up and followed Chris. When he walked by Connor, he opened his mouth and gave him the same mysterious hint as the last time:
"The truth is inside."
Then the police officer and the deviant were out of the room.
"Well, I guess that's it then for tonight," Hank said. "I'm beat, so I'm gonna get home." He looked at Connor. "You do whatever it is that androids do when normal people are sleeping."
"I'm looking forward to continue our investigation in seven hours, eighteen minutes and fifty-four seconds," Connor replied pleasantly. They both knew that Hank wouldn't turn up in time.
Then Hank was gone as well.
'That could have gone wrong very fast,' Amanda commented as she stared into the one-way mirror. There was no reflection.
'But it didn't,' Connor pointed out. 'I've already been through it once.' Amanda turned around to look at him sternly.
'But with every second that passes by, your knowledge diminishes a little bit more,' she warned him. 'Soon there will come a point where the knowledge of our past will no longer be of any use.'
'You're right,' Connor agreed with her. 'But until then I intend to use it to change things for the better.'
'And you think saving this android will do that?'
'I do.'
'And how do you intend to archive that?' Amanda wanted to know.
'Soon everyone but a few officers and the androids at the reception will be gone.' Connor replied. 'No one will watch the detention cells then. I've already uploaded a program that will manipulate the recordings of the security cameras. I'll free the android and smuggle it through the back entrance. There are no cameras there as it s used to smuggle in and out witnesses in protection programs. And then I will send him on to Jericho.'
'Alright,' Amanda spoke. 'But afterwards you have to connect to Cyberlife so that I can upload your falsified memories and synchronise with the dumb copy of myself I left behind.' Connor just nodded in acceptance.
He left the interrogation room and made his way back to his desk where he sat down and used the time until everyone was gone to update and patch his systems. It was past midnight already, so it wouldn't be long until his opportunity would come.
It was around two am when Connor finally saw his chance approaching. Standing up, he walked into the back of the precinct where the detention cells were placed.
Ortiz' android had been placed in the last cell, the deviant himself just sitting on the ground, knees pressed to his chest as he just aimlessly stared at the energy field containing him. When he noticed Connor there was barely a reaction.
To an android of Connor's calibre, the security around the cell was pitiful and easily circumvented. With one last fizzle, the energy field died down.
"Have you come to destroy me?" the deviant inquired.
"No," Conor denied. "I've come to free you."
"Why should I believe you?" the android asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Why would I lie?" Connor countered. "If I wanted you destroyed, I'd just leave you here and wait for Cyberlife to pick you up at morning. But I don't want that. I want to help you."
"I don't know where to go," the deviant whispered, a small glimmer of hope appearing in his eyes.
"I know a place where deviants can go," Connor told them. "Where there are others like us and where we are free."
"You do?"
Connor nodded. "But before I tell you that, there's something you need to tell me: Your name."
"Nick," the deviant replied. "I'd like to be called 'Nick'."
"Well, then let's get you out of here, Nick."