FILE 002 / Partners
11.05.2038 PM 11:21:05
Connor Moore had not risen to the rank of Lieutenant at the ripe age of thirty-eight by loafing around and neglecting his work. He had made lieutenant by working hard, and, well; by being in the right place at the right time. That was a skill of his, a gift—being where the action was when it went down. It was one of those things about him that other people envied that he never really enjoyed, himself. Like his eidetic memory.
The ability to recall everything was useful, for a police detective. Perhaps it was part of the reason he had climbed the ranks so quickly; even the smallest pieces of information stayed lodged firmly in his head. Every gift has a downside, though. Marriages didn't last when one could quantifiably shut down near every argument by providing the other participant with exactly what they had said before, word-for-word. Maybe he should have gone into law, instead.
"Lieutenant." A voice, deep and unfamiliar, rouses him from his thoughts.
Someone new, because that made sense, and it had to be; most of the department knew better than to bother Connor this late at night when he's up against the brick of the building with a cigarette between his lips.
"My name is Hank, I'm the android sent by CyberLife." The voice goes on, and because Connor doesn't want to give it the satisfaction of ruining his smoke break with things like eye contact and introductions, he doesn't look to see the source. Wait—CyberLife? That's not normal. Connor looks up.
"I'm sorry, you're—you're fucking what?"
"That's not my programmed intent, lieutenant."
Oh, good. This one comes with a sense of humor. And—a lot of other things, by the look of it. Connor didn't consider himself incredibly hip on the android scene anymore, but this one was… unique. He appeared older, not fresh and wrinkle-free like the rest of the cookie-cutter machines which milled about the station and just about everywhere else, these days.
"Clearly." Usually it's frowned upon to blow smoke directly into the face of someone who's attempting to talk to you, but Connor isn't known for being nice.
He's known for being precise. He's cold but he's good at what he does, so what does it matter if he exhales nicotine straight into the bot's face? It's not like it needs to breathe, anyways. He hates how it's looking at him, analytically, the way she used to.
Lt. Connor Moore
Born: 08.25.1996 / Detroit Police Department Lieutenant (2019- )
Personal History: Richard Moore (Brother \\ DPD Detective), Ciaran Moore (Brother \\ Detroit General Hospital), [REDACTED] (Ex-Wife \\ [REDACTED])
A redacted file, again. Hank pushes, but it doesn't budge like last time. The information isn't just there, it's not in the system at all. Whoever she is, her name is blacked out on all the divorce papers he can access. No trace of file tampering, no trails deeper in to find full reports and old pictures.
There's nothing. It's… vexing. Hank doesn't like not knowing.
He doesn't l̵̖̮͔̦̱̺̦̰̰̩̑͌̒͌̽̅ͅi̸̲̙̖̜͌̓̄͒̀̚k̴̤̙̺̰̲̈́̐̈̈́͒̓͝e̷͕̫͔͖̲̿̾͐̽̐͌͜-
[ERROR]
Hank isn't made to like anything. He's not built to experience frustration or anger or any other sort of feeling. A quick diagnostic isolates the corrupted section of code, sending it off to quarantine for when he's got time to untangle it and piece together what went wrong.
"Hey," Connor's reaching up, fingers snapping in Hank's face. A vain attempt to get the android's attention; "Plastic douchebag." Because he doesn't particularly enjoy being ignored, and he's not going to call the thing Hank. "Did you just scan me?"
"Those things aren't good for you." Technically he's supposed to be following orders from the lieutenant, and he's avoiding a question. That's not compliance in the least, but the probability of this conversation going well hinges on him being able to avoid the fact he was just prying into the man's personal files.
Files with blacked out names and holes in his history. Files which caused his code to fizzle and twist around itself until it was mangled enough for his LED to spin red for less than a second.
"So you're a nanny-bot." The cigarette in Connor's fingers is spent, but if he drops it now it'll look like he's listening to what he's being told, and he doesn't care.
That's not right, actually—he doesn't care what this hunk of scrap tells him, but he does care about the way he's perceived. Connor isn't a pushover. He does what he wants, what he believes is right, regardless of what he's told.
"My model is designed to assist investigators in cases which may involve a malfunctioning android." Hank supplies, helpfully.
God, he's got one of those condescending smiles and eyes like he knows how it looks. Connor might not survive this.
"So you're a nanny-bot." Connor repeats, a smile playing on his lips. It might be futile to try and get a rise out of a hunk of metal but god damn if he isn't going to try.
"What I am, lieutenant, is your partner." And there's something about the tone that snaps something deep down in the lieutenant and he's got this burning urge to punch the damn thing right in its dumb, handsome face.
"I don't do partners." Connor spits, like venom, perfectly aware this isn't a situation that gives him a choice—even more aware that there's a reason Amanda didn't tell him about this. "You're mistaken."
"I'm not, and we have a case."
"I'm driving." Connor concedes, bitterly, finally dropping the remains of his smoke on the pavement, grinding it to dust under the thin soles of worn suit-shoes.
11.05.2038 PM 11:56:34
The house they come up upon can barely be considered such. It's a shithole, in a few words. The wood is dark and rotten, paint peeling from the damp paneling and the roof looks near about to cave in at any second. Also, apparently, people don't have anything better to do in the middle of night, because there's a crowd of civilians and reporters held back by the flickering light blue tape announcing that this was, in fact, a crime scene. Attention turns to the pair as Connor slams his car door—not that his old beater of a car deserves to be on the receiving side of his anger, but… It's not like he can place that anywhere else, right now.
"Stay out of my way." Connor doesn't bother to tell Hank to stay back, because he's got this feeling that even if he issued a direct command, it would be ignored.
Just another reminder of why he hated androids; it was like certain ones were specifically programmed not to listen to him. At least when humans didn't listen, he could chalk it up to differences in personality; people left him alone when he made a point to be hard to get along with—androids were… not made for that kind of intricacy.
"I'll do my best, lieutenant." Hank replies, unconvincing.
Connor somehow feels like a teenager again, with a teacher watching over his shoulder to make sure he's paying attention even though he doesn't need to. He's been solving crimes and protecting the public since he made it through the academy—it's been years. And, what? CyberLife can just churn out some fancy new prototype who can sort out the details of human motivation when it's never seen any of this before? Of course they can. Of course they would. Fucking androids.
He doesn't even hear the questions that Channel 16 is throwing at him, tossing back noncommittal words like 'no comment' and 'wait for the official statement' as he wades through the crowd. They pass through the particle tape, and the officers don't even question what's going on. Which is great, it's awesome. Connor is super stoked that the entire department got to know about his new mandatory android partner before he did. Really, it's super fun and conducive to a positive work environment.
Amanda's so getting a piece of his mind when this case is over.
The closer they get to the front door, the stronger the smell gets—blood, rot, rain, and the barest tinge of thirium, a subtle chemical touch to Connor and a strong splash to Hank's synthetic senses. He barely has to look around the place to be able to tell what happened here, the whole house is in disrepair, and what isn't naturally falling apart seems to have been torn to shreds in a struggle. The victim, an older, heavyset man, is slumped against the wall. He's been here awhile, from the growth of maggots in the stab wounds littering his pallid torso.
"Shit, how many stab wounds is that?" Connor breathes, too quietly for most people to hear over the buzz of energy within the room. Hank isn't most people, he's got senses sharper than any human, better than his mechanical predecessors, and as much as he knows that was rhetorical, he can't resist the urge;
"Enough." Hank responds ominously, with a shrug. Connor isn't sure whether he should be creeped out or amused.
"A crime of passion, then." The lieutenant waves over a responding officer, who begins to brief him on what they've uncovered so far. Hank, as instructed, stays out of his way—approaching the wall and the victim to see what more he can find. On the wall, three words, eerie in their bloody painted precision.
I AM ALIVE
Cyberlife Sans.
The man looks worse, up close. The smells all translate to Hank as data, chemical compositions and code. It must be awful for the humans—even Connor, a seasoned veteran of disgusting crime scenes, is walking around with the sleeve of his grey cardigan covering his nose and mouth.
Carlos Ortiz
Height: 5'06" / Weight: 286.6 lbs.
Born: 04.21.1989 – deceased / Unemployed
Criminal Record: theft, aggravated assault
Estimated time of death: approx. 19 days ago, 11:30 PM
"Kitchen knife over there, probably the murder weapon." The responding officer says, nearly concluded with his briefing. "Windows are all boarded up, front door was locked when we got here—killer probably went out the back way."
"What about his android?" Connor asks, his usual contempt masked as he kneels by the knife, "What do we know about it?"
"Not much." Replies the officer. "The neighbors confirmed he had one, but it wasn't here when we arrived." There's the soft sound of something small and metal hitting the floor, but the noise is just below perception enough to where Hank is the only one who hears it.
"I gotta get some air," The officer is out the door by the time he says; "Make yourself at home. I'll be outside if you need me."
Primary Objective: Understand What Happened
Secondary Objective: Review Evidence
Secondary Objective: Locate Mr. Ortiz's Android
Related Objective: Stay out of Lt. Moore's Way
A speedy scan of the room tells Hank three things: One, the android in Ortiz's possession was likely not a household model—the place was filthy, and it had been since before the man died. Two, the killer was someone who Ortiz knew, because they must have been let in—all signs of struggle are farther into the house and not particularly near the doors. Three, and this one was a hunch, a gut feeling after the second observation—even though Hank didn't have a gut to feel from—the killer was his android. A deviant, most likely, and still dangerous to humans.
There's a packet of dark red crystals on the table between the mounds of empty cans, Hank kneels to inspect it:
RED ICE \\ Illegal substance used by humans for recreation
Composition: Acetone, Lithium, Thirium, Toluene, & Hydrochloric acid
Sure, it would produce an unprecedented high, but none of those chemicals were designed to do anything but hurt the human body. A message pops up in the corner of his vision—a correlation with Lt. Moore's file; the very case which had made the man's career noteworthy was the dissolution of a red ice manufacturing ring right here in Detroit.
"Red ice on the table." Hank calls over to him, in some sort of vain attempt to be helpful. Animosity would not be helpful to his mission, and his social programming dictates that humans find helpfulness endearing. "Trace amounts on the body, as well."
"Could tell he was a lowlife just by looking around." Connor snaps, having removed his sleeve from his face to put on sterile gloves. He's got the knife in his hands, gingerly touching only the edges. "Open your mouth again when you have something useful to say." There's a beat before the lieutenant adds, politely; "…Please."
"Understood."
"What did I just say?" He sounds exasperated—he likes to do his work in peace; relatively. The buzzing around of other officers and crime scene techs was one thing, but a robot milling about and telling him useless facts was not high on his list of things he enjoyed. "No prints on the weapon." He doesn't know why he's mentioning it—maybe someone will write it down. Maybe his new partner works like a smartphone, takes… fuckin' voice memos, he doesn't know. "Killer wore gloves, then?"
"Androids are not designed with fingerprints." Hank offers, but Connor already knows that—he just hadn't quite considered the possibility, just yet. It makes sense, though, with the evidence they're seen so far. What else could write so neatly on the wall ?
"So- did they also design you specifically to sound like a serial killer, or …" Connor shakes his head and turns to a tech, motioning to the words on the wall with a jerk of his thumb. "That in the victim's blood?"
"I'd say so." The tech replies, looking up from her clipboard. "We're taking samples for analysis."
"It is." Hank cuts in, to which Connor gives him another look which very eloquently questions how he knows this, wordlessly. "I could test it now, if you wanted."
"Knock yourself out."
"I'd prefer not to," Hank says, approaching the wall once more; "But I'll go ahead and analyze a sample."
"Your android's got an attitude." The tech teases, which from Connor's reputation she should know better. The glare she receives shuts her up quickly, and suddenly the clipboard in her gloved hands is very interesting.
"Hold on, what the fuck—" Connor was so preoccupied by the sass from the tech (her name was Chris, and she was a tolerable person, usually) that he hadn't noticed Hank scraping his fingertips against the dried substance and bringing it to his lips. "What the fuck did you just do."
"I'm analyzing the blood."
"With your—with your mouth?" Of course. Of fucking course CyberLife put the walking crime lab in its mouth. Of course they did.
Somehow, Connor feels like it would have been more comfortable for Hank to have opened a body panel and done it in his torso with hilariously tiny test tubes and pipettes. This way he just seemed too human. Licking evidence. Fuck. That shouldn't make his stomach churn more than the dead body crawling with maggots beneath them, and yet somehow it does.
"I am becoming unsure how you made it past the rank of detective with your current observational skills."
"Does CyberLife take customer complaints, or like—reviews or something? Zero out of five stars. Would not tolerate again."
Hank is silent as he processes the information he just took in orally, blood type, red ice—the sample's age. It all matches up to what he's gathered about the victim from the scene and the medical records in his head.
Sample: 85% Match – test secondary sample directly from body for 100% match.
Over fifty is good enough, Hank is concerned that testing a second sample from an actively decomposing corpse might hurt his standing with the lieutenant—a standing which was barely that. It was on shaky legs, like a newborn deer, at the very least.
"The words on the wall are written in Carlos Ortiz's blood, the font is CyberLife Sans."
"One out of five stars." Connor amends, slowly, arms crossed and brown eyes pulled into a measured squint. "You programmed to put together a theory or just put evidence in your mouth?"
"Give me five minutes and I'll let you know."
"You hear this shit, Mike?"
Connor could easily figure out this crime scene on his own, it's what he does. Some people were born with art in them, poetry or music or steady hands that painted pretty pictures, but Connor… He was analytical, smart, he understands how humans work. Maybe CyberLife had finally created a close enough facsimile of man that even police investigators would be rendered useless.
While Connor was reminiscing about the good ol' days (you know, the days before androids were as common in the city as pigeons) Hank had located the back door. Unable to contain his curiosity, the lieutenant follows, nearly leaning in the door frame before catching himself and choosing not to ruin the cashmere of his clothes. Rain pounds the ground outside, turning dirt to mud and bending the few straggling remains of grass into the mess.
The only signs of life out here are a single pair of boot prints pressed into the soggy terrain.
SHOE PRINT
Model KS2 DPD – size 10'
60 minutes ago
"Door was locked from the inside." Connor provides, helpfully, in case Hank hadn't been listening to the briefing. Which he hadn't been, not totally, but the audio was still recorded in his memory logs. "I still think the killer must have gone out this way."
"There are no footprints other than officer Collins' size ten shoes." Hank says, matter-of-fact, reaching for the elastic band on his wrist to tie his hair up.
It's a strange design element, Connor muses; who gives an investigative android long hair that's likely to get in the way? He knows the answer to that. He doesn't want to think about it. He'd rather think about the case.
"So what? This happened weeks ago. Footprints fade."
"Not in this type of soil." Hank finally looks over to Connor, expression flat and passive. "No one's been out here for a long time."
"Fine, okay. Your five minutes is up." And so is this circus, hopefully. Hank—the android—Connor corrects himself mentally. The damn thing looks too human, science has gone too far. Anyways, he'll say something preposterous and then he'll get sent back to CyberLife and Connor won't have to deal with this anymore.
Hank doesn't speak, though, he doesn't say anything ridiculous because he says nothing at all—walking back into the house with hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the floor. He's looking at something—blue blood faded into the worn wood, but Connor doesn't know that. He can't see that, because he's got human eyes so he's left to wonder what in the world Hank is doing.
The thirium stops abruptly, in the middle of the hallway, which would be weird if there wasn't a hatch to the attic directly above their heads and an imprint of dirt on the wall beside them.
"Hey. Space cadet." Connor's snapping in his face again, and Hank gives him a look—one of those disappointed ones from the pathway he'd been futzing with earlier. It has the intended effect, as the snapping ceases. "What's your malfunction?"
"Carlos Ortiz was killed by his android, which is currently in the attic." Not his malfunction, but his theory, which was also requested.
"Shit. Okay." Connor looks around, trying to evaluate how exactly Hank could have come to that conclusion. "You're serious?"
"I have no pending errors at the moment." Hank nods, and Connor waves over another officer.
"Hey, Ben- boost me up there, would you?"
"I'm far better suited for that, lieutenant."
Before Connor can argue, the android is bent just barely downwards, hands out with fingers interlocked. It's clear what he expects Connor to do, here, but Hank clarifies anyways;
"Step on my shoulder," The height between the two of them should be more than enough to reach the panel which seals the upper level for the moment. "I won't drop you."
"See, I wasn't worried about it, but then you just had to go and say that, didn't you?" Connor grumbles, settling his foot on Hank's hands, hands on the man's—the thing's—shoulder before he steps up with the other foot. Had it been a person helping him, they would have moved slightly at the pressure, wavered when he set his weight on them, but Hank didn't. Not even a millimeter.
"Wonders of technology," he scoffs, pushing at the thin slab. It moves easily, and he only struggles a little when he pulls himself up. Hank follows, to his chagrin, slipping up behind him gracefully and without a sound. He can't help but think again that science has gone too far.
The attic is as much of a disaster as the rest of the house, though far less gross. There's no spent food containers, no stains, no putrid stench. It's dark, in the early morning light—or late night glow, depending on what sort of person you were. The moon shines through a single window near what was likely the front of the house, the shadows of sun-bleached and dust-covered knickknacks playing eerily against curtains and sheets strung up for a reason which Hank can't fathom.
He pushes past the lieutenant, unsure if the deviant is still unstable enough to attack. Not that Connor needs his protection, because the man's already produced his gun, from the sound of it; finger flat against the trigger guard and tapping lightly. It nearly feels like the situation on the roof as Hank moves forward through the mess with cautious steps, silent save for the occasional creaking of unsafe flooring.
There's a scratching sound as something near the corner of the room scrambles further into the corner—a wild animal, most would assume. Hank thinks that they might be sort of right, in a way. Now that they're close enough, Connor's got his flashlight on her, braced over the top of the gun in his hands. She's covered in blood, human blood—Carlos' blood. It coats her torn clothes, making the flimsy fabric brittle and scratchy. She's crying. Neither of the pair was aware that androids could cry.
Deviant Located.
"I was defending myself…" Her voice sounds wrong, tinny and broken, the LED on her forehead flashing red. "He was going to kill me this time, for real—I... I just know it." She looks up, pleading—and she's beautiful. The light plays off her plastic skin like she was painted by some old master. Of course she looks like that, she's designed to be a model for pleasure, or 'personal satisfaction' as the ads like to put it.
"He would make me cook and clean, but I'm not made for that, he'd—he would be so mad every time I got it wrong." Hank looks up her model number, ignoring the way the flashlight Connor is holding shakes slightly while she speaks.
WR200 \\ discontinued TRACI
Preliminary female sex partner design, no longer produced due to inferior software
"Your model isn't built to have the disk space for household protocols." Hank doesn't mean to say it out loud, but it just sort of comes out.
"Please don't take me in, please—" The android begs, wrapping her arms around herself. There's portions of skin missing, where her body is stripped down the heat-warped plastic beneath. Other places, there's what appear to be human-like scars, a cosmetic feature installed over her original coding, Hank assumes.
"You committed a felony," Hank sounds cold, robotic, and it throws Connor for a loop because he keeps fucking forgetting that this thing is just that—a thing. "Even if we did leave you here, your biocomponents will shut down soon." He stands straight, nearly as tall as the highest point and backlit by the moon. "Will you come willingly?"
"I don't want to die." She breathes, struggling to her feet—blonde hair falls into her face and Connor is struck somewhere deep by how she looks, like a memory long-forgotten even though he's incapable of forgetting. She looks lost, angry. He's silent, repeating over and over in his head that the two other forms up here with him are little more than overgrown microwaves.
Just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn't mean it is one.
"Shut down here, alone, in his house." Hank says, pragmatically. "Or come and be reset. Forget the pain, let them take you apart." There's a pause—deviants are emotional, they don't function correctly. He makes what his social protocols inform him is an emotional appeal. "Come home."
There's silence for what feels like eons, and Connor's ready to open his mouth but Hank gets to it first.
"Will you come willingly?" He repeats, like ice.
"Yes."
Mission Complete.