Disclaimer: I do not own Detroit: Become Human
Rating: T
Words: 5293
Warnings: canonical levels of language, mentions of past torture and injuries
Notes: Hello all! It feels nice to get back writing in this series again. I have a lot of ideas that I can't wait to share with you all. Take a read and leave a review to let me know what you think if you can. Please enjoy!
Chapter: 2) Lunch Scheming and Deeper Matters
Saturday, November 26, 2039
Nines was tired.
Well, beyond tired, if he were to be honest.
Although he had been mostly repaired and had gone to a consultation appointment yesterday for a new arm, he felt like he was functioning at five percent capacity. The operational percent of eighty-five that was displaying on his HUD had to have been a lie, an error. Because his line and model number were rare—the RKs only had three models in existence, Markus being literally one of a kind, and the 900 model number's schematics being locked up to the public by CyberLife employees that had fleed—his new arm was basically going to have to be made from scratch. (The compatible arm he was using now was a modified AP700 arm that was gutted with some RK800 pieces which was then tweaked to be able to register with Nines' RK900 body.)
He shook out his hand, feeling phantom pain. Squeezing that cast iron skillet using the fraken-arm had not been the best idea, whether he had done so unconsciously or not. The arm was not meant to be used with his strength in mind.
Nines knew the basics of his makeup, and using that information plus some of Connor's schematics, the technicians had been able to start on his new proper arms. That was something to look forward to. He hated feeling off balance, in more ways than one.
Downside, however, was that it was going to take at least another two weeks to complete. A whole two weeks. As such, he was going to be out of an arm for that length of time, which meant that he could not work in the field like he used to.
And that meant that he was stuck on desk duty, of all things.
It felt more of a punishment rather than an ease-in back to work. Although he did not mind the clerical side of the job, being stuck doing only that and not being permitted to do field work was incredibly irritating. He was made to be active and in the middle of the action, not cooped up in a building. He thanked Connor all the time for freeing him from CyberLife and was glad that he was not a slave to the military like he had been made to be, but for the love of rA9, he needed to be active.
He could say with ninety-seven percent certainty that he could apprehend a criminal with one arm perfectly fine.
HR did not believe so, though.
So here he was, back at work and working on a backlog of reports that he needed to do (that he knew he was going to complete quickly; thank you android processing). He looked around his desk. There was a black and white monochromatic cluster of "Get Well Soon!" balloons tied to the corner of his desk making their home next to the propped-up cards that welcomed him. He had read through them, some handmade and some store-bought. It didn't matter the artistic quality, he appreciated them all the same. Connor had not written one, seeing as how he had been with him since they all had rescued him. That was fine with Nines. He would rather be with Connor in person that receive a card from him. He would always want to be with Connor, and at that thought, he hid his face slightly to hide the faintest of blushes coloring his face.
The cards left at his desk were from Gavin (surprisingly not surprising), Tina, Chris, Mitchel, Hank, Pamela (always thoughtful), Ben and Captain Fowler. And, of course, he could not forget the massive bag of his favorite thirium gummies that had been leaning against the corkboard he used for his pictures. Seeing what his coworkers had left on his desk made strings of warm code zip through his systems.
His lips quirked upward. It is nice to be around people that care so much. Something to get used to, but pleasant, nonetheless.
And then of course, the good cheer was diminished by more incidents coming through his terminal. Specifically three new ones that fit the modus operandi of the crucifixion killer. It aggravated him that this case had been going on for months with no end in sight. It was disgusting, how the killer tortured these poor people. Crucifixion was a slow, painful death, meant to cause humiliation and torture the victim. From what they had gathered thus far, the killer enjoyed putting the victims up on such a public display, showing them off either in the process of their last breaths or having already died. Such a public aspect meant that the killer wanted his actions to be seen, wanted the public to know about them. They wanted to send a message. One that the DPD had not figured out yet. The three new incident reports made the victim count rise to fifteen. Ten androids and five humans. He wanted to be out there, investigating the scene, but he was stuck inside the DPD. He could feel his stress levels rising just thinking about it.
It made his jaw clench and the itch to bite through something was getting high.
"You're gonna melt your gears if you keep thinking that hard."
Nines turned his attention from his screen to Gavin, whose desk was across from his. The man was leaning back in his chair, flipping through information documents on his tablet. A chirp sounded from the detective's terminal, indicating he had also received the new incident reports of the crucifixion case. He waited for Gavin to read the new information and watched as he let out a chain of rather colorful swears. (Truly, it impressed him how creative his profanity could get.)
"Do you see now why I am 'thinking that hard'?" Nines popped four gummies in his mouth, already feeling the itch to stress eat.
Gavin slid the tablet on his desk and rubbed the back of his neck. Nines could feel the sympathetic tension in his own neck right in the thick cables that went from his jaw to his clavicle. "Fucking A, man! It's like every time we go even one step forward, this bastard kills more people and we're sent four steps back. The hell are we doing wrong?"
Nines sighed, rubbing the port of his empty shoulder through his white long-sleeve button-up, "I wish that I knew. If we knew, then we would have solved this already. Though, it might be more of a 'what are they doing right' than 'what are we doing wrong.'"
"I hate it either way."
"I know. I do as well."
They conversed about the new details that had come up with these new victims. Two new androids and one new human. None of the fifteen victims had anything in common other than that they had all disappeared after the android revolution. The first few androids had been reported missing right after, then a human, then more and more people kept disappearing until the crucifixions began. Then even more people were disappearing. None of them were the usual victim profiles to look at—none were homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts, abuse victims, or the like. They had been average people that had, seemingly, been plucked from their everyday lives. The same was true with these new three victims.
The two androids had been reported missing since the beginning of October. Twins that had their own place of residence that they shared with their human friend. Their human friend had been the other victim. This person had disappeared about a week or so after the twins had gone missing. For them to have all known each other and ended up being killed in the same way indicated that, despite the gap in times of their disappearances, they had all been taken by the same killer.
Which meant that there just had to be some similarity that all three of them shared.
None of the previous twelve victims had known each other, so that discounted having to know the fellow victims to be a prerequisite. The lengths in time between the victims going missing and the time of their deaths did not match either. The earliest time between disappearance and death was, at minimum, a week. Any time after that varied. One victim had been gone three weeks, while another was unaccounted for six months.
Nines' mental exhaustion was catching up with him. He could feel his shadow at his feet, stretching on the floor like a thin curtain, wanting to take shape into the baseness of his person: his hound. He willed it to go away and return to the normal shadows the lights of the bullpen cast. Perhaps I should have taken up the offer to stay home for a few more days...
"I need a break," he said as he stood up. He felt that if he kept looking at the victim's faces and injuries that his optics were going to destroy themselves. There was still so much more to go through as more and more details about it were coming through his terminal. "I am going to the breakroom for fifteen minutes. Do you want me to bring you back anything?"
For some reason, Gavin stood up straight in his chair, glancing to the breakroom with snap-quick eyes. "No!" he nearly shouted. He cleared his throat then said in a more appropriate level, "No, not at all. I don't need anything, tinman. Why do you think I need anything?"
Nines' brows furrowed, taking in his partner. Clearly he was bothered by something, having gone from irritated but collected to shifty. Did he want to know the weirdness going on inside Gavin's brain? Not at the moment, no. He had neither the mental energy nor the processing power to make that into an objective. He let it slide. For now. "Okay," came the slow response. "If that is what you wish."
"Yep! Totally fine!" he yelled.
All Nines could do was shake his head, grabbing his empty mug he had drained of thirium earlier. He would refill it with warm, android-grade cocoa from the coffeemaker. (They had a human-safe one and an android-safe one due to one too many near poisonings on either side.)
Before walking off, he told Gavin, "Please forward Connor and the Lieutenant what we have received while I am gone.
"Already doing it!"
"I have such a weird partner," he muttered, walking away.
They may have been partners, but even an advanced android like himself could not understand the mind of one Gavin Reed.
"No!"
Pamela and Ben startled hearing Gavin's loud alert. In the designated quiet room attached through the breakroom (1), they had been sharing space as their lunch periods overlapped, talking about this and that. (More like scheming about a certain operation, to be specific.) Both of them pressed themselves against the wall by the opening and peeked around the corner. They saw Nines and Gavin talking for less than thirty seconds before Nines turned away.
Turned away and began walking towards them.
"Oh shit, oh shit!" Pam whisper yelled as she dove back to the table she had been sitting at. Ben had done the same. Over lunch, they had been discussing plans for Operation Helping Hand. She had settled on Team Nines just like Ben, so they were writing ideas of things that Nines liked and places they thought he would enjoy going to. That, however, had grown difficult as they were unsure of what he liked other than thirium gummies, friendly harassing Gavin, Connor (of course), and monster stuff. The guy was private for the most part, and they had only found out tidbits about him either through Connor, Hank, or Gavin, or through him just dropping bombs on them out of the blue.
Like, they hadn't known the guy liked metalworking art as a hobby! How would they have guessed that?! (2)
Ben had been suggesting date places that both Connor and Nines would enjoy when they heard Gavin earlier. All the evidence of their brainstorming was on the table amidst their lunches. Incredibly incriminating.
"Put some hustle into it, Pam! He's comin'!" Ben said, trying his best to clear the table.
"I am, I am! Hurry, he's going to be in—oh, hi, Nines!"
Pam stood up straight with a big grin plastered on her face. In her periphery, she could see that Ben had heavily slumped on the table, resting his head in his propped-up hand. None of the papers were in sight. "Hey there, Nines. What's going on?"
She watched Nines look at her, to Ben, and then back to her. And then once more to Ben for good measure. He didn't say anything for ten seconds before closing his eyes, sighing. He opened them once more. "Hello…Is there something wrong? You both are rather…stiff, if I may."
"Stiff? Us?" she gestured a hand to herself and Ben. "Oh, no way. We're not stiff. Ben here needed to stretch out something in his back, and I needed to work out the kink in one of the servos in mine." For added effect, she stretched, leaning back, until she heard and felt a satisfying clink-thunk of something popping back into place.
"If I enter rest mode for fifteen minutes, are you going to be acting strangely? Need I leave?"
Next to her, Ben said, "Not at all, bud. You go ahead and don't mind us."
Even though it was probably less than three seconds, it felt like a mini eternity before the android answered. "…Of course." They watched him lay on the old couch that was in the corner and close his eyes. Pam knew that Nines hadn't entered stasis—his LED was a bright blue, not the slow blinking of a soft blue—but that didn't mean they could continue to talk about their plans willie-nillie. There was no doubt that Nines would hear what was said even if they whispered.
Pam looked at Nines as he entered a simple low power mode. As androids, they could enter a state where they could reserve power without entering a deeper state of stasis. And did Nines look like he needed it. She had been worried about him—still was worried—ever since she had received that email late Thursday night. Nines had been one of the first people—the other being Connor—to talk to her like an actual person when she first deviated, taking time to talk with her when he could. He always spoke to her softly, like anything louder would have scared her away, Which, to be honest, probably would have happened what with a combination of her anxiety (deviancy made everything so new and hard!) and his rather intimidating appearance. He had been awkward talking to her at first, which she hadn't really noticed back then due to her own awkward newness as a deviant. But despite that, he always offered a kind word and a welcomed silence.
Despite the obvious missing arm, she could tell he was not up to his regular speed. Regular thirium intake since being rescued may have helped a lot, but he was still paler than his usual complexion. High stress and inner damage could tax an android's synthskin. That had only happened to her once post revolution in a situation that she would have rather not talked about. He was slower, now. When he thought no one was looking, she had seen him closing his eyes whenever he could and leaning against walls and doors, trying to act casually. Seeing him like this now, it made her ache inside knowing what he had been through and how they had all almost lost him.
If she were to be very honest, she thought he shouldn't have even come to work so soon. Androids may have a quicker recovery time than their human friends, but torture was torture and that affected anyone to a high degree.
"Is he…" Ben whispered as low as he could, "you know, asleep?"
She shook her head. "No. We androids can enter a low power mode that isn't as deep as stasis. If I were to compare it to a human, stasis is a full deep sleep while rest mode is like a doze. From my understanding at least." She smiled, "Never experienced the human half personally."
Ben nodded, looking to Nines for another handful of seconds. "Right, right. Let's…let's leave him be," he gestured his head towards the door.
He didn't have to tell her twice.
Ben pulled himself out of the stretch he had been in that had covered their notes and other papers while Pam packed up the rest of their lunches—easy in that all she had left was half a thirium cream pastry while Ben had just had half a sandwich leftover. Once that was done, in a non-hurried pace as not to alert Nines with the sounds of a speedy clean up, they scurried as normally as they could out of the quiet room, out of the breakroom, and into the hall.
Once they were in the louder, bigger area, they let out sighs of relief.
In the clear, Ben let out a disbelieving laugh. "I can't believe we didn't get caught! I thought for sure he was going to keep asking us questions to figure out what was going on." When the older man—and there would be hell if he caught her thinking of him as old—got nervous or excitable, his voice got a little nasally, which she found endearing. Humans were so strange. But, that was something she liked about her human friends. Friends? Coworkers?
Both.
Still having about twenty minutes left on their lunch breaks, they started walking down one of the hallways that would take them to a windowed balcony; a nice place to take in the city. It would be cold, but that was fine with Pam. She nodded at what Ben said to let him know that she was listening, mouth full of another bite of her pastry. Her fingers would be sticky, but that just meant she could lick them clean of the sweetness when she would be done.
They turned a corner which led them to a hall which had the balcony at its end. The balcony wasn't all that special. It was mostly used for housing one of the large air conditioning and heating units that hadn't been updated in rA9 knows how many years. But, many people who worked here used it as a nice place to downsize. Outside, though away from the public. It was just the two of them in this area as most other officers liked to get food while they were out and about. Ben stopped, which made her look at him in question.
He sighed. Crossing his arms and still gripping his lunch bag she had given back to him, he said, "You know, I'm just as happy as everyone else that Nines is back. But…"
The last of her pastry was in her mouth, so she hummed in question.
"Jesus, Pam," he rubbed his gray mustache down in a nervous motion, "he looks awful. He shouldn't even be back at work in my opinion! I mean, I wasn't with the others when they went to get him back, but I got the details from Fowler and what they did to him…that's not right. I'm a cop. An old one at that. I've seen some shit over the years, but outright torture like that, especially to one of our own…It gets to you."
It was times like these that reminded Pam that Ben had quite a number of years on her, both in physical age and life experiences. He'd been "around the block" as Lieutenant Anderson would say. Life was new to her all things considered, so seeing such a caring man like Ben so weary like this made her sad.
She reached out a hand to lay on his shoulder in solidarity.
He used his free hand to pat that hand before she retracted it. "Thanks. I just…I've lost a few good friends on the force over the years. Hank and Jeffrey, too. You all," here she knew he meant androids, "just started livin' life to the fullest for the very first time. New existence and all that. I would hate to see that snuffed out because some asshole decided he doesn't like that you're metal and wires or wants to help people that want to see you all out of the picture for existing. And I don't think I'm the only one who works here that thinks that either."
Her voice box must have been malfunctioning because it became difficult to speak all of a sudden. She cleared it twice before she could actually say something. "Way to get all sappy on me there," her smile was fragile, yet appreciative. Not mentioned was that she was feeling all of that sappiness, too. "Nines is back—damaged, but back—and that's something on the positive side. We have to focus on that, yeah?"
"Right. You're right."
"Of course I'm right," she puffed out her chest as she began to walk towards their original destination once more. "Nines is back with us; he just needs time to recover. Connor is here as well, and the two of them back to work means that we have Operation Helping Hands to keep us occupied."
When they got to the door that opened to the balcony, Ben held open the door for her to enter first. The gust of cold air rushing into the warmed building made him shiver more so than her. The weight and thickness of her braids helped to keep her head warm (versus Ben who was started to wane in the hair department, if she was to be honest). "And that is what's getting me through this week. Free entertainment and the possibility of a nice sum of money. That, and conspiring has been fun thus far!"
"Ha! Same," she snorted. "While we're here, you wanna go throw crumbs on the jerk offs who keep bothering the hotdog guy to make the birds attack them?"
"I got a whole backup bag of crackers. 'Course I do."
The last few days had been an utter whirlwind of hecticness to Hank.
Prepping for the holiday then turning into one of his friends being kidnapped, then having to rescue said friend, rush that friend to the hospital, and make sure that friend plus his other friend were okay—well, his blood pressure wasn't really the definition of low because of all of it. Still not all the way back down if he was to be honest.
He was driving back to the precinct with Connor after investigating a triple homicide. Three more for the crucifixion case.
The sun had set a little under an hour ago, so the only sources of light were the few streetlights and the headlights of his car and the few that were passing him on the other side of the road. They were on a less travelled road which had its infrastructure ignored for a long time. Busted streetlights that were never bothered to be replaced, bumpy road full of potholes, the works. In other words, it was dark.
All but a cycling red light coming from the passenger side.
He stole a glance at his partner who was sitting next to him. The man was slightly turned away from Hank and more towards the window, one arm around his middle in a loose curl while the other held onto his arm. Hank couldn't see his face, but his disco light was too bright of a red for there anything to be but wrong. And wrong it was. Not to mention how reserved he had been since rescuing Nines.
Connor had been quiet ever since they had arrived on the crime scene. Not that he blamed him. This case was one of the uglier ones Hank had seen in his career, and he was sure this was the ugliest Connor had seen in his shorter one. It had been two androids and one human, all put on for display on crosses for everyone to see. They had been found by a homeless man who had taken a shortcut through the park that led to a secluded hilly area. The poor guy had been nearly scared half to death seeing the victims. The humans had suffocated to death, confirmed by Connor, upon their crosses, while one of the main thirium lines of the android had been severed, leaving her to bleed blue all over the wood of the cross and the white of the snow.
What was even more disturbing was the additional bit of evidence that had been left this time unlike the others. One specifically for the DPD to find.
"Keeping silent ain't gonna make it go away," Hank said quietly in the space between them.
He saw Connor's LED blip yellow but then immediately go back to a solid red. The android said nothing.
They pulled up to a single stoplight, the red glow of the light a match to the red inside the car. The darkness that the broken streetlights failed to illuminate made everything brighter. Not a good kind of brighter, though. He could have attributed some of the darkness to Connor's shadows, but he was only fifty percent sure they were lining the inside of the car. The light turned green, and he was able to turn and keep going. "I'm not gonna make you talk—Lord knows I'd be the last person preaching about that—but this part of the job, it's not something that's going to go away. This case has changed and you know it."
It was a solid minute before Connor responded. "What do you want me to say, Lieutenant?" his voice was hard, his usual slight rasp more prominent in the lowness of his tone. Dangerous, but not to Hank. Never to Hank. But…dangerous to himself? Not in an immediate physical way.
Back to being called Lieutenant, huh? Can't fool this old man. Whether you like it or not, I'm not going to let you fester with this.
"I don't want you to say anything specific. But I know you, Con. Shit like that, it's bothering you. It'd bother anybody, human or android. Investigative model or not. Hell, it creeped me out to see that spelled right out there in blood like some kind of horror movie scene!"
"And don't you think I know that!" Connor unexpectedly snapped at him. Next to him, the glass of the window cracked sharp, but Connor didn't even notice. Hank immediately pulled over the car off the road and parked it on the shoulder. He looked at Connor only to see his friend looking at him with an awful expression on his face. His brown eyes shimmered with unshed, angry tears while his mouth was twisted in a frown. His LED shone the brightest crimson it had for the entire night, even more so than the traffic light they had passed just a bit ago. His face was colored blue with frustration. Connor sucked in a quick, shaky breath. "I'm sorry. H-How…How am I supposed to react when I come to a crime scene…only to find my name and model written in blood from the killer theirself?"
Amongst the red and blue blood that had colored the snow—more red than blue as the blue had just begun to start disappearing—had been a strip of cardboard being weighed down by one of the victims' shoes. On it, purple with the two kinds of blood, had been written something that chilled Hank upon seeing it.
'COME FIND ME CONNOR RK800. YOU'VE BEEN TAKING TOO LONG. I WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU.'
Hank didn't know what to say. What could he say? The quiet between them grated on him, but that could have also been due to a few tendrils of darkness shuddering from the bottoms of the windows on Connor's side of the car. Connor did not say anything to break the quiet, and this time it was because he physically could not rather than emotion blocking them. His jaw was locking again. Hank watched him wrench it from side to side and up and down as best as he could to try and get it unlocked. In the meantime, he reached out a hand a laid it on his shoulder.
"…You don't have to react in any expected way. This shit isn't in some kind of handbook for dummies. A cruel and twisted fuck is going around murdering people for some reason we don't know—."
"It's because of me," Connor cut in, having finally gotten his jaw working again. "The killer said I have been 'taking too long,' implying t-that they have had me on their mind since the beginning."
Hank used the hand that was on his shoulder to lightly swat him upside the back of his head. Ignoring the 'ow' that he knew was only muttered because of one of those automatic social relations thingies, he chided him, "If your next words are along the lines of 'this is my fault', I'm going to actually hit you on the head for real. Maybe it'll knock some sense into that thousand-dollar brain of yours."
"Million dollars," came the automatic mumble.
"Same thing, smart ass. My point is that you can't take responsibility for the actions of someone else, especially someone going around murdering people for shits and giggles. That. Is. Not. Your. Fault." He punctuated every word with a poke on the chest. "You hear me?"
All the energy seemed to be sucked out of the poor guy. He lightly brushed away Hank's hand with a limb that looked to be made of lead. "How can it not be when these people are getting killed because the killer wants me?"
"It's not."
Connor was quiet once more, having turned to face the window.
Hank knew the conversation wasn't going to make any progress, so he started the car back up and continued the drive home. More streetlights lit the dark of the evening. Lonely road turned into neighborhood streets as houses greeted them on either side of the road. Finally. They couldn't have gotten back home sooner.
Connor got out of the car without a word, trudging towards the front door with the key in his hand. (Hank had given him a copy the second week he had moved in with him.) Hank didn't know what to tell him other than it wasn't his fault. He was upset that this case suddenly got so personal in a messed-up way, angry that the killer was not only murdering people but targeting his friend and partner, and frustrated with himself that he didn't know how to help him right now.
"Fuck," he groaned, wiping a hand down his face. The air against his skin was cold and he couldn't get to his bed soon enough. As he got out of the car, he got a text alert from his phone.
Saturday, Nov 26
Ben Collins
7:19 PM – Me n Pam came up with a few ideas that I think you're gonna like
Leaning over the open driver's side door, he looked at Connor who was already entering the house with the enthusiasm of a zombie. Even Sumo, who he could hear excitedly woofing at the man, did not seem to help. His LED stayed red even going inside the house. Hank rubbed his forehead. He looked back down at his phone.
Me
7:20 PM – I think we're gonna need those ideas sooner than later
Published: 4/21/22
A/N: I promise I did not mean to make this as angsty as it was. But, hey, it wouldn't be me if I didn't lol
A/N 2: If you like my stuff, you can catch me over on twitter el_rey_ciervo! And if you like my fics, I am much more active on my AO3 (archiveofourown . org) ElReyCiervo than here on FF. I also post more over there than on here because of content ratings.
(1) I know the DPD breakroom in game is a wide-open space that doesn't have a door, but for Reasons, I stuck an attached quiet room in there. For a police department as fancy as the one in game, I think they can afford a quiet space for their workers.
(2) I have this headcanon that Nines, in trying to find things he likes and ways to express himself, enjoys working with metal. It's solid and tough enough that it won't crumble in his hands like paper or clay would, though pliable enough with his enhanced strength.
