Lorde - Flicker

Taylor trailed Connor and Hank into the small house, glancing around at the multitude of police officers that were standing around. Some of them she vaguely recognized from the station, others she hadn't met, but mostly she was wondering why there were so many on scene. There was a middle-aged woman standing in the living room on the right, wringing her hands nervously as she spoke to a pair of officers, frowning.

"Call came in about an hour ago," Chris stepped forward, and she gave him a small wave. In the kitchen she spotted a young boy who looked to be on the edge of puberty, possibly twelve or thirteen. He was also speaking to a police officer and had noticeable bruises along his arms and neck.

"What happened?" Hank asked, surveying the scene as well.

"The mother called the police, said the family android had gone crazy and attacked her son. It was choking him when she came into the room, so she grabbed the lamp off the table and hit the android until it let go." Chris explained.

Taylor glanced over at the boy again and found that his dark eyes were fixed on her as well. He smiled at her, and she got the sudden feeling of a cold finger sliding down her spine. She shifted to Hank's other side and turned her attention back to Chris.

"Where's the android?" Hank said next, also looking over at the kid in the kitchen. If he noticed her sudden discomfort, he didn't comment on it.

"It hid in the closet in the kid's room. Still there." Chris shrugged, looking over his shoulder toward the narrow hallway that must have led toward the bedrooms.

"Alright, we'll take it from here, Chris." The two nodded to each other before Chris moved away, resuming his post while Hank moved deeper into the house. When he noticed Connor and Taylor following him, however, he snapped, "What is this, follow the leader? Find something to do! Christ."

"Do you have any theories about the deviant, Taylor?" Connor followed the Lieutenant with his eyes as he walked away, looking like a kicked puppy. Taylor tried not to smile as he turned to look at her instead, awaiting her response.

"Hard to say without knowing the circumstances. The deviant is still here, and so is the kid." She turned her head to look back toward the kitchen, where the boy had been a moment before, but he had disappeared. She blinked.

"We should question them." Connor agreed, nodding.

"You're Taylor Kolbeck." The blonde jumped as the voice came from behind her. She turned the other way, finding the boy standing on her other side. He was still smiling up at her, standing just a couple of inches away. She took an automatic step back, bumping into Connor, who placed his hand on her back to steady her.

"Y-Yes. I am." She should have stepped away from Connor, but she didn't. She was staring into the boy's eyes, transfixed, and the presence of the android beside her was comforting. He didn't lower his hand either; perhaps he could detect her stress levels rising. She attempted a smile. "What's your name?"

"Andrew." His eyes were brown, but nothing like Connor's. They were dark enough to almost blend into his pupils, like twin pieces of coal that shifted between her and the android, still smiling. A perfectly normal adolescent boy. Why was her heart pounding in her ears?

"Can you tell us what happened with the android, Andrew?" Connor's voice came from somewhere just over her head. She really was standing too close. She shifted her body slightly away, Andrew's eyes following the movement.

"Sure. I was in my room playing with Tyler. Our android. Cops and robbers." He paused, almost as if for dramatic effect, glancing between the two of them with his eyebrows raised. When they didn't react, he continued, "We play all the time, but Tyler got real mad. He grabbed me and started to shake me. Then he started to choke me. I tried to pull him off, but he was too strong. I thought I was gonna die, but my mom came in and Tyler let me go and ran in the closet."

"Thank you, Andrew." Taylor glanced up at Connor, but his eyes were fixed on the boy, his LED swirling yellow. "Why don't you go back to the kitchen, we'll come get you if we have questions."

Andrew appeared put out for a moment at their reaction, but he reached in his pocket and pulled out his phone, smiling up at her again. "Can I have a picture?"

"Oh, um," she swallowed nervously again, glancing at the phone before saying, "Maybe later, okay? I'm working right now."

He frowned as he shoved the device back in his pocket and stalked back toward the kitchen. Taylor released a breath and finally took a full step away from Connor. Connor blinked a few times, his LED fading back to blue. "What's wrong?"

She glanced over at Andrew, still watching the two of them from his spot beside the refrigerator. She spoke softly as she asked, "Did anything seem off to you about that kid?"

"Off?" Connor repeated, his LED flashing yellow again.

"Never mind." Taylor shook her head. She was being paranoid. The kid was probably in shock from nearly being choked to death by his android.

"Why do you think the deviant attacked him?" Connor asked, tilting his head slightly, his eyes still fixed on her face.

"I don't know." She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, and then glanced around the house. Hank was standing in the living room, talking to the mother. "Do you want to look around a bit or should we go see the deviant?"

Connor also looked over at the lieutenant, considering. "There is not likely to be much physical evidence anywhere but the child's room. We will go there." Taylor nodded and made to walk forward, but Connor held his arm out. "Stay behind me."

"Fine," she sighed, waiting for him to head down the hallway before following. There was an officer standing at the end, outside of a doorway and looking quite bored. She recognized him as Ben, he had been present on her first scene. He nodded at them as they passed into the room.

Another officer was inside the room, guarding the closet. The lamp Chris had told them about was laying on the floor, on its side, somehow still intact. The thirium was still fresh enough that even Taylor could make out the blue smear along the side. Oppressive silence blanketed the room, not even a shuffle from the closet. Apart from the lamp, there were only a few discarded toys and the usual mess you would expect from an adolescent boy's room.

Connor knelt by the lamp, sticking his fingers in the blue blood and bringing them to his lips. Taylor was suddenly grateful that Hank was still preoccupied with the mother back in the living room. She could hear his indignant shouting in her head. "AP700 model, recently purchased."

He rattled off the serial number, but she tuned him out. A domestic android, and brand new from CyberLife. Deviant. "Do you see anything else, Connor?"

Connor stood, glancing around the room, his LED still flickering yellow. His voice was still soft when he said, "There are other traces of thirium in the room."

"Wait, what?" Taylor looked at the blue blood on the lamp and the few drops on the hardwood floor between it and the closet door. "Even I can still see this blood."

"There are older stains in other places throughout the room." Connor was glancing along the floor as if following the trail of blood with his eyes, his LED flickering. Yellow. Red. Yellow. Taylor's stomach did an odd flip, the queasiness of the morning coming back full force.

"Let's… let's get the deviant out of the closet." She said. Connor met gazes with her again and nodded, his LED finally fading back to blue. The officer guarding the door had been watching their progress uneasily, but he stepped out of the way as Connor approached. Taylor hung back enough so that Connor wouldn't scold her again, waiting with bated breath as he reached for the doorknob.

The door swung outward. Nothing happened. Connor moved forward slowly, glancing around in the small closet, finally spotting the solid ring of red peeking out from the corner between the hanging coats.

The AP700, Tyler, was huddled into a ball in the far corner of the small space, cowering. Taylor stepped closer, her breath hitching as she caught full view of the deviant android. The left side of his face was splattered with thirium, his dark black hair plastered against his forehead.

"Step out of the closet." Connor said to the android. Taylor glanced at him, then back at the cowering deviant, before stepping forward herself.

"We aren't going to hurt you." She said softly, squatting down so that she wasn't towering over him anymore. "I want to help. We just want to know what happened."

The deviant moved forward suddenly, and Connor grabbed her arm, hauling her backwards. The officer still standing to the side pulled his gun and trained it on the android, who froze in the doorway of the closet. The room went still for a heartbeat. Taylor was staring at the AP700 in abject horror, but not because she thought he had tried to attack her.

Tyler had marks along every visible part of his body. Alternating burns and cuts, exposed wires showing in his left arm. He glanced over at the gun but didn't react with fear, instead turned back to look at Taylor, jaw quivering. "You can h-help."

"What happened to you?" Taylor could hear the emotion in her own voice and tried to swallow over the lump building in her throat. His left eye was twitching slightly from damage caused by the lamp. She doubted if he could still see out of it.

"Please." The deviant begged, his hand clenched on the doorframe as he swayed. The room was tense. Connor moved to step forward, but Taylor reached out and held him back, shaking her head slightly.

"Tell me what happened." She said again, eyeing the blue blood on his arms, the pieces falling into place even as she asked. The blood was too new. She was thinking back to Carlos Ortiz and his android. But Ortiz had been high on red ice.

"He tortured me." The android said, his eyes wide. "He said I would last longer than the others. I was a newer model. He asked what would happen if he set me on fire. I was afraid."

"Cuff it." Taylor jumped as Hank's voice cut through the quiet that had settled over the room. She wasn't sure when he had arrived in the doorway, but it must have been long enough. The officer in the room lowered his weapon and stepped forward, pulling out his handcuffs.

"He was defending himself," Taylor said quietly. Hank froze for a moment, then turned to glare at her.

"It's a machine." He growled. Taylor glared back, tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes. She hated herself for crying, but it had been a shitty day and the deviant didn't even resist as the officer tightened the cuffs around his wrists, face still a mask of abject terror.

"He's a victim." She retaliated. They stared each other down, no one in the room moving for a few moments, before Hank turned toward the officer still holding the deviant.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Take it in." They moved toward the door, but Taylor moved first, pushing past them and stomping out of the room without looking back.