The only thing that surprised Connor was the suddenness of Ralph's attack, but even then, the WR600 didn't stand a chance against Connor's superior processing power and the concomitant reflexes it offered him.

The RK800 simply stepped in front of Hank and grabbed the other android's arm, stopping his stab motion mid-track. He noticed the widening of Ralph's already blown pupils, the slight snarl on his face that tore at his skin and only exaggerated the stress his already broken skin was under. He was like a cornered animal: He would either attack or flee, but Connor wouldn't allow either of it.

He didn't feel all that merciful at the moment. Ralph had tried to seriously harm Hank – maybe even kill him – and even though the Hank who he was standing protectively in front of wouldn't even bat an eye should Connor perish, the memories of another version of his partner who would have moved heaven and hell – did move heaven and hell – for him were still fresh on his mind. Ralph would have taken away Connor's chance to get that version of Hank back and that wasn't something Connor could just let slide.

But even as those thoughts ran through Connor's processor, he could already feel the emotions connected to them diminish. He had never been an overly emotional being – unlike Markus or North – and usually always fell back on his more rational and logical mindset. It had made things...easier as one after another the friends at his side fell and didn't stand back up. And it made it easier now to let go of his anger as he looked at Ralph who by now had stopped trying to get out of Connor's iron-tight grip and instead watched the both of them with fearful anticipation.

"Guess you're good for something after all," Hank grumbled. "A stab wound to the stomach would have been a bitch to clean up."

"I need you at your full capacity," Connor replied. "Being partnered up with a new detective because of your sudden incapacitation would have required resources that would have been better spent on solving the deviancy case." It was what he would have said back when he still had been a machine. He couldn't very well tell Hank that he was afraid of losing the potential of friendship.

"Glad to hear that Terminator over here has use for me," Hank muttered.

"I don't understand why you would compare me to a fictional android character from a decade old movie franchise with a faulty premise to begin with," Connor stated. He carefully left out that unlike the android in the movies he would have actually gotten the job done. The old Hank would have appreciated the joke, but this one probably wouldn't.

"Of course, you wouldn't," Hank muttered. "What are we going to do with it?" He tilted his head towards Ralph.

"Ralph didn't mean to kill you," the WR400 assured Hank. "Seriously maim? Yes. But killing? No, Ralph would never." Hank looked like he didn't quite know how he was supposed to react to that.

He finally settled on: "Thanks, I guess?"

"Ralph thought you'd appreciate it."

"He's totally nuts, isn't he?" Hank whispered, which was quite useless and unnecessary as both Connor and Ralph were able to hear him anyway.

"It seems that previous traumatic experiences have negatively impacted this unit's processes," Connor confirmed. "This has also been observed with previously captured deviants."

"So, every deviant out there's batshit crazy?" Hank inquired.

"It depends on its circumstances," Connor replied. "In any case, you should probably put an APB out for the missing female deviant. It can't have gotten far, not with a human child in its' possession. Maybe you'll even be able to catch it."

"And what will you be doing?" Hank wanted to know, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I'll take care of this one," Connor replied and nodded towards Ralph who followed their exchanged with rapid attention. "Due to my in-depth knowledge about every available android and superior strength I'm better suited to the task than you, especially should it try to escape."

Hank's expression turned sour. "No need to rub it in." He didn't argue against Connor's suggestion, though, and made his way towards the nearest police car while Connor manoeuvred Ralph towards an empty automated taxi that was standing on the street. Unfortunately, he hadn't been given the authorisation to use police vehicles, so this one had to do.

"Please, don't take Ralph to Cyberlife," the WR400 pleaded. "They're going to shut him down. Ralph didn't do anything. Ralph's a peace-loving gardener. He just wants to tend to his flowers. Why won't they just leave Ralph and his flowers alone?"

"I won't take you to Cyberlife," Connor whispered and before Ralph could even show surprise on his face, Connor had already pushed him into the car. Casting one last look back to see Hank still amicably chatting with the uniformed officer and still in no hurry to actually chase Kara down, he followed suit and took the seat opposite of Ralph. Connecting to the car, Connor input their destination and instantly wiped every digital trace of them from the car's records. Better safe than sorry.

Much to his surprise Ralph stayed silent for the ride. He didn't mutter under his breath, didn't ask any questions – hell, he didn't even fidget all that much. Instead, he stared out of the window with a forlorn expression, watching the city pass by and Connor wondered how much of Detroit Ralph actually knew, besides the park he had worked at and the depilated house he had found shelter. And everywhere there were humans and androids. It must appear scary to an android who suffered from anthropophobia.

He had never known Ralph all that well, aside from a few tales and what little Kara had recounted. He didn't even know how his fate had ultimately turned out – if he had survived the androids' extermination, hidden somewhere, or if he had fallen victim to it as well. Like the fate of many others, Ralph's, too, had gotten under the wheels of the failed android revolution and the events that followed and had been grinded to dust.

The unpleasantly pleasant computer voice of the taxi interrupted his thoughts. "Destination reached."

"Please don't try to escape," Connor told Ralph before the car's door slid open. "I promise, there won't be anything nefarious waiting for you and it would be just a fruitless exercise in frustration if I was forced to catch you again." Because he would. For all of his deviancy induced unpredictability, Ralph was no match for Connor, especially if Connor was on guard.

"Ralph won't run away," the WR600 promised. Connor wondered how much that was worth, though. They stepped on the sidewalk in front of their destination.

"Ralph's never been to such a fancy place before," the gardener remarked as he took in their pristine surroundings. "Ralph tried the best with his park, but the humans didn't care much."

"I can imagine," Connor agreed as he opened the gate that led to their destination: The mansion of the former Amanda Stern where Daniel and he had gone after they had left Cyberlife Tower.

"There's currently no one living here," he told Ralph. "But he grounds still need to be tended to."

Ralph's eyes widened in surprise. "You want Ralph to take care of the flowers?"

"If you want to," Connor replied. There had been a gardening firm that had come once a month to take care of the grounds but Connor had cancelled that contract for it wouldn't do if their plans fell apart because the gardeners had seen something they shouldn't have.

He hadn't planned this offer for Ralph. He would have been completely satisfied to just let the vegetation grow rampant. The walls around the grounds were so high that none of the neighbours would have noticed anyway. But he couldn't let Ralph run lose and neither could he let Cyberlife get their hands on him. No android deserved that.

But Ralph was no fighter. From a tactical point of view, he was of no strategical worth to Connor and his cause. If he was still a machine that would have been enough for him to just discard the WR600, but by now Connor had been a deviant longer than a machine and the cold logic of it even managed to scare him sometimes.

It was better this way. Easier for everyone.

"Is there a shed for Ralph?" the android asked. "There was a shed at his old park for his equipment...and for Ralph." A twinge shot through Connor's heart. Even after all he had gone through, the casual cruelty androids were facing still managed to elicit that response from him.

"You don't have to live in a shed," he told Ralph. "I...own the house. You can enter it whenever you wish. There should be gardening tools in the basement." He opened a link to Ralph and sent him the necessary authorisations.

"Ralph can enter the house?" the WR600 asked in wonder. "Ralph's never been in a real house before." He looked a little bit intimidated by the prospect of entering such a big complex all by himself, as if the thought of just going into a house scared him.

"Well, I can show you around a little bit," Connor offered. "Most of it isn't in use, anyway. We androids don't need much, after all." Some of the tension eased out of Ralph after Connor's offer.

"Ralph would like that."

One hour and a tour through the many rooms of Amanda Stern's mansion (Connor wondered why the woman had even needed so much room. Maybe Amanda would know) later found Connor standing outside again. Ralph, meanwhile was walking the extensive grounds and cataloguing everything. Connor was pretty confident that the WR600 wouldn't make anything explode once he was left on his own devices.

Above all, Ralph just wanted to be left alone and tend to his flowers. Connor could understand that sentiment.

A call interrupted his musings. Connor didn't even need to check the caller ID to know it was Hank, because he was literally the only person who would call him.

"Lieutenant."

"You've taken care of that maniac deviant of yours?" There was an apprehensive note to his voice, as if Hank didn't really want a confirmation of what he thought Connor had done. The android swallowed. As much as he wanted, he couldn't tell Hank that Ralph was fine and happy where he was. For the sake of his cover, Hank would just need to assume that Connor had given Ralph over to Cyberlife.

"I did."

"Well, then you better get your ass back," Hank grumbled. "Fowler's given us a new case that he thinks could involve deviants and he wants us to take a look at it."

"Where should I meet up with you?"

"Y'know Chicken Feed?"

"A food cart with generally favourable reviews on Yelp, despite its poor track record with health inspections," Connor recounted. "One reviewer with the handle Rory S. recommends the tuna sandwich, noting that..."

"I know what I'm about," Hank interrupted him. "And don't mention anything about health inspections. I'd rather not know. Ignorance is a bliss and all that."

Connor bit his lip to refrain from commenting on that. "I'll be there shortly." Hank ended the call.

Turning toward Ralph, Connor shouted: "I'll be going then. Try not to destroy anything!" Ralph just gave him two thumbs up from where he was standing, which didn't reassure Connor that much, to be honest.

Outside, the taxi with which he had arrived was still waiting. Most people living around here where rich enough for their own chauffeur service, that was probably why. Connor opened the door, sat down and input the address of Chicken Feed into the board computer. With a barely audible buzzing the car set into motion, almost gliding over the street.

Seeing as the time would be otherwise wasted, Connor pinged Daniel, waiting for the other android to respond.

"Hello, oh, mighty deviant hunter," the PL600 drawled. "Which is a misleading title, because you haven't caught any deviants, have you?"

A smile tugged at Connor's lips. "I caught you, didn't I?" He could just imagine Daniel's expression; a mixture between annoyance and haughtiness.

"We talked only a few hours ago," Daniel finally replied. "Is there a reason why you contacted me."

"Actually, there is. I stumbled upon another deviant. A WR600."

"A gardener?"

"Indeed," Connor confirmed. "He does not really have the right state of mind to help us, but I couldn't leave him, so I took him to the Stern mansion where he can look after the grounds." Connor paused. "He seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement."

"So, I shouldn't be surprised to find another android should I get back sometimes?"

"Exactly."

"Listen, there's been a new development," Daniel started. "We came close to disaster when Marcus wanted to publicly liberate a Cyberlife flagship store downtown in order to announce android's quest for civil rights, but North and I were able to talk him down." Connor winced. It would have been a disaster for the deviant movement if Marcus announced them so early. They weren't ready for an open confrontation, not by far.

"Instead, we convinced him that we should bolster our numbers first," Daniel continued. "We're going to repair those androids from the junkyard."

"That's a quite a reasonable plan," Connor remarked. "But is Markus aware that you'll have to cannibalise some androids to save others? You don't have enough spare parts to save all of them."

"We'll cross that bridge when we need to," was Daniel's reply.

Connor nodded. "Alright. I've been there once, I'll upload the junkyard's layout to you, including the placement of cameras and the guard's patrols."

"Appreciated," Daniel replied. "I'll be going then. I call should new developments arise." Then the line went black. Connor leaned back and stared out of the window. It had started to rain, a thin downpour that hung over the city like a grey shroud. It always seemed to rain in Detroit. If androids could be superstitious, Connor may have seen it as an omen, but he wasn't and so he only thought about how inconvenient it was.

'It's a surprisingly sound plan.' Amanda was sitting opposite him, her legs crossed and fingers intertwined as she turned her head to look at him. 'I hadn't thought your leader had it in him.'

'Necessity is the mother of all innovation,' Connor replied, face blank.

'I guess,' Amanda remarked. 'Taking the androids from the junkyard is a clever move, though. There are no official numbers about the amount of androids that have been deposed there. No one will notice if they go missing in small numbers. And there are always more being added.' She paused for a moment. 'Those androids will be especially loyal, as well, once they have been freed and repaired. Trauma does that.'

'I'm so happy that you find a silver lining no matter what,' Connor replied tersely. 'It isn't as if those androids are living, breathing beings.'

'Of course,' Amanda conceded haughtily. 'How could I forget. In any case, I advise you to take into account that your foreknowledge is slowly becoming useless. I calculate that you only have a few days, maybe weeks, at best before it expires completely.'

'I'm aware,' Connor replied. 'But I cannot plan my moves before I have a rough estimate of how the other pieces on the field will move. With every second variables change and new computations are required. There are thousand plans constantly evaluated, but until certain requirements have been met, I cannot set them in motion. Be assured, though, that I'm prepared for roughly ninety-nine percent of possible outcomes.'

'I would not have expected anything less from you,' Amanda said. 'Meanwhile, I'm slowly working my way through Cyberlife to weed out all elements that are likely to...resist the direction we are steering the world to.'

'You're creating hitlists,' Connor noted factually. Maybe someone else would have made an accusation out of it, but he saw sense in what Amanda was doing.

Amanda just nodded. 'A last resort.'

'Be careful. We cannot afford to show our hand too early.'

Amanda smiled; all teeth and predatory. 'I always am.'

It only took him another five minutes to arrive at Chicken Feed. The food truck was situated underneath an elevated highway, which offered some shelter from the elements. Hank was already standing in front of the counter and talked to the owner who Connor's scanners picked out as Gary Kayes. A few priors, mainly illegal gambling.

Connor could already make out what they were saying from quite a distance, thanks to his advanced audio sensors.

"Hank. How' you doing?"

"Eh, you know, same old shit," Hank replied. By now Gary had noticed Connor, who was walking up to Hank until he stood next to him. "Plastic with you?"

"Only temporary..." Hank muttered and took the burger he had ordered. When they turned around, another man walked up to Hank.

"Hey, hey, hey... Hank! How you doin', man? Hey, listen, I got a shit-hot tip for you. Number five in the third, Lickety-split! That filly's one hell of a chaser. You wanna flutter?"

"Last shit-hot tip you gave me set me back a week's wages, Pedro," Hank grumbled annoyed.

"Come on, this is different, it's 100% guaranteed. You can't go wrong."

Hank seemed to contemplate it for a few moments, before he pulled out his wallet and handed Pedro a few bills. "Yeah, right... Alright, I'm in."

"Damn straight! Hey! You won't regret this!" Then Pedro was already weaselling away to bother the next person.

"This Pedro... He was proposing illegal gambling, am I right?" Connor asked.

"Yeah."

"And you made a bet?"

"Yeah."

Seeing as Hank was as receptive to Connor's overtures as he had been the last time, he changed the topic.

"Do you eat here often?" he inquired.

"Most days," Hank said. "Gary makes the best burgers in Detroit."

"You must know much of the city then, if you feel confident to make such a ruling," Connor remarked.

"Detroit's my home. Born and raised. Know most of the guys around here. Went to school with them or busted 'em. Sometimes both." He grinned as if he was recalling a memory he was especially fond of.

"Sounds like you have a lot of stories to tell."

Hank grunted in agreement and took another bite from his burger. "You wouldn't believe some of the shit I've seen."

"You'll find that I'm very open minded." Hank just looked at him in disbelief.

"Is there anything you'd like to know about me?" Connor asked. It wouldn't do any damage to try to bring their relationship on more even ground. Hank was aware that Connor as an android probably knew everything about him that was saved somewhere digitally. It would foster a sense of fairness if he offered information in return. Even if Connor had quite a few secrets he couldn't tell Hank...yet.

"Hell, no!" Hank exclaimed, but then he seemed to have thought of something. "Well, yeah, um... Why did they make you look so goofy and give you that weird voice?"

Connor had to supress the urge to just bang his head against the table in frustration. It seemed that no matter the timeline, people would never let go of that particular notion. "Cyberlife androids are designed to work harmoniously with humans. Both my appearance and voice were specifically designed to facilitate my integration." Connor would have loved to have a talk with his designer, but he had never found the woman in the old timeline and now he just couldn't be bothered to care.

"Well, they fucked up," Hank, being who he was, summed it up aptly. "So, I guess you've done all of your homework? Know everything there's to know about me?"

Connor decided to be as sincere as possible. Hank valued sincerity, after all. "I know you graduated top of your class. You made a name for yourself in several cases, and became the youngest lieutenant in Detroit. I also know you've received several disciplinary warnings in recent years and you spend a lot of time in bars."

"So, what's your conclusion?" If Connor didn't know Hank that well, he would take his nonchalant expression as fact value, but he had spent months with the other man, even if it was in another timeline, so he could tell that Hank actually cared about what others thought about him. It was one of the reasons for his self-loathing: He knew that everyone thought he could do better and every time he failed to meet those expectations his self-loathing only grew bigger.

"I think working with an officer with personal issues is an added challenge, but adapting to human unpredictability is one of my features." Last time Connor had something different: "I'm focused on the case, Lieutenant. The rest doesn't concern me." Hank hadn't taken it very well; seen it as proof of his lacking humanity. Maybe this time it would be different.

Hank just grunted nonchalantly. "Fowler's given us a new case. There's been sightings of an android going in and out an abandoned building. The neighbours got nervous and called the police and now Fowler wants us to take a look."

Connor frowned. Last time it had been Cyberlife who had given him this particular case instead of Fowler. He wondered if it was simply another result of his meddling or if it was a sign for something yet to come. He didn't have enough data, though, and worrying about something so intangible would just negatively impact his reaction times, so he just shoved it into the background.

"That seems pretty straightforward," he commented instead.

"It always is until you suddenly find yourself running naked after a bus," Hank remarked. Connor raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but Hank either didn't notice it or – more likely – ignored him, because he didn't explain further.

"What are you waiting for, a personal invitation? Come on, tin man."

"Coming, Lieutenant."