November 7, 2038

Captain Jeffrey Fowler sat against the edge of his desk, looking between the two people in front of him. Lieutenant Richards waited in a guest chair and maintained a relaxed demeanor, elbows on the armrests. Behind him stood Andy with arms crossed, weight shifting from one foot to the other.

The two had spent the rest of the night prior discussing a plan to close in on Nick Weaver. With what evidence CSI gathered from the crime scene and the behavior of the one deviant they found in the home, Richards believed Weaver was responsible for Andronikov's missing androids. If they could find Weaver's cache, they would likely find any number of deviants to investigate for Hank's case. Armed with this, they arrived to work early the next morning to speak with Fowler, who sat quietly as they went over every last detail.

"And what do you think about this idea?" Fowler asked Andy.

She shrugged. "I took the red ice gig for a reason. If this can help Anderson and close out the task force's case, I don't see why we shouldn't do it."

As the man responsible for the precinct, Fowler could see plenty of reasons not to do it. The time and resources alone would have to be approved by the Chief - not to mention they'd need an android. That being said, deviants were fast becoming one of Detroit's biggest problems, and red ice already was. Fowler didn't want to admit he saw both turning into widescale federal cases if he didn't put a stop to them soon.

He nodded and said, "All right, then we'll get the necessary warrants and... find us an android."

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation, and Fowler waved the man into his office. Chris Miller stepped inside and spoke to the captain. "There was a break-in at the Cyberlife Warehouses, Sir."

As if things couldn't get worse. "Jesus Christ! Just what we need," Fowler yelled, pushing himself up to his feet. He waved toward Andy as he moved around his desk, ordering, "Hope, get out there with Hank. This might be deviants, this might be red ice - who the fuck can tell the difference these days?"


By the time Hank reached the CyberLife warehouses with Andy and Connor, Ben had already brought in his team to tape off the area. They centered around the entrance of the warehouses, near the control room and the loading bay. Crates sat under the bay, their lids removed and their contents missing. A busted drone was several yards away, pieces of it scattered across the asphalt.

The moment they left Hank's car, Connor was off on his own. Hank and Andy watched him kneel over the drone as they approached the loading bay. Ben stood nearby and met them halfway when he spotted them. "Hey, Hank. Good to see you, Andy."

Andy nodded to him, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "You too."

"So what have we got?" Hank asked as he looked past Ben's shoulder.

Ben turned and gestured to the crates behind him, "Not much, aside from a busted drone, a screwdriver in the server, and a missing android."

Andy walked up to the boxes, leaning forward to look inside each of them. Many had indentions in the foam to hold various replacement parts, namely arms and legs. A few appeared to once contain bags of thirium. She looked toward him with a small, surprised chuckle. "Just the one?"

"Oh, there were more, but there was one on patrol last night. Security said he heard it call but when he got there, it was gone. Everything looked normal so he went back to his station," Ben explained.

It didn't make sense. Next to androids, CyberLife was known for its rigid security systems. They had a private guard, top of the line cameras, and alarm systems Hank likely didn't know existed. "How'd they even get this far without being caught?"

Ben pointed to the line of shipping containers on the other side of the lot. "Probably from the overhead. They jumped container to container until they landed here."

Hank frowned. "And no one heard that shit?"

There was a pause from Ben, who didn't know what to say. "It was raining?" He offered with an uncertain shrug.

"What about the control room?" Andy questioned, rejoining them.

"Two guards were posted. They said they heard a crash and then the power went out. They didn't see a thing until they noticed one of the moving trucks driving off the lot."

With an annoyed scoff, Hank asked, "You mean to tell me these guys got away without ever being seen? By anybody?"

Ben nodded and said, "They knew where they were going and how they were doing it - whoever they were, they were prepared."

As Connor approached the group, Andy looked to him. The drone had long since lost what power remained, and the ends of wires peaked out from the bottom of its wings. "How was the drone destroyed?" She asked him.

Hank and Ben turned to Connor, who answered, "It was ripped apart. They caught it in their hands and used brute force." Nodding toward the shipping containers, he added, "They jumped down on top of it from up there."

"All right," Hank started before nodding to the CSI officer in front of him, "Thanks, Ben."

With the initial briefing finished, he headed for the control room. Andy ran to catch up to him and Connor wasn't far behind. "This was definitely not dealers. They'd take the thirium and the androids, not replacement parts," Andy suggested.

Hank pulled the door to the control room open, replying, "Yeah, I doubt they'd do it this well, either."

The control room was intact for the most part, save for the screwdriver stuck inside a broken server to the left of the room. In front of the large windows facing the entrance was the operation desk, where two employees nervously sat. At the far end of the room was another employee, pacing back and forth behind two officers blocking his path.

A third officer was taking photos of the server, and Hank paused to watch her for a moment. "Bet that's gonna take CyberLife a couple days," He commented, eying the shards of glass and metal on the floor.

From the other side of the room, the anxious employee finally stopped. He faced them and yelled over the officers' shoulders, "It'd only take me a few hours if your thugs let me near the servers!"

Hank grimaced. Whoever the young man was, he wasn't in the mood to deal with him. Looking to Andy, the lieutenant muttered, "Take care of that, will ya?"

"Yup." Andy pulled a hand from her pocket and slapped it to Connor's arm, telling him, "Come with me."

Connor wasn't sure why she requested it, but he followed after her regardless. "I'm with you, Detective."

The two walked up the CyberLife tech. Andy nodded to the officers standing in front of him, and they backed away, allowing her to speak to him in peace. "What's your name?" She asked him.

He let out a heavy sigh and crossed his arms, but answered, "Jim Whitman."

Andy grinned as if he hadn't made it obvious he found her presence offensive. "Well, Jim, the time it takes for us to finish this investigation directly correlates to how cooperative CyberLife decides to be. You getting on that server anytime soon is entirely up to you."

"I'm just a maintenance technician. I wasn't even here last night," He argued.

Pointing a thumb over her shoulder to the two guards at the desk, she told him, "Pretty sure you've got more clearance than they do."

She was right, and Jim's clenched jaw told her as much. "What do you want?"

Before she answered, Connor did. "We want the security footage from last night," He said. While he easily could have accessed that information on his own, whether CyberLife would be willing to share it with the Detroit police was another matter.

Jim shook his head. "I'm not at liberty to hand that out," He told them, a deep furrow setting in his brow.

That wasn't enough to stop Andy, who quirked an annoyingly smug brow as she pulled her phone from her pocket. "Then I guess you should call someone who is before I do-" She paused to look up at Jim and shake her phone for emphasis, "And heads up? Mine will have a gavel and flowy black robe."

"CyberLife sent me to help the police on cases like this one, Mister Whitman. You won't be reprimanded for following my request," Connor assured the man.

Glancing between them, Jim grew more and more tense. With a detective staring him down and a CyberLife prototype backing her up, he found himself with little choice. He started to fidget, until finally rolling his eyes and caving on the demand. "Fine, I'll call the office."

Andy slipped her phone into her pocket and turned away. "Nice work," She whispered to the android beside her.

Connor looked down at her. He could distinctly make out a faint bounce to her step and a new brightness to her eyes since they arrived at the scene. It was an energy that was either overwhelming or infectious depending on who it was aimed at, and he almost smiled before he cut off the thought and followed Andy to meet with Hank.

"...And then we saw the truck taking off," One of the employees said, wrapping up his account of the previous night's events.

Hank stood in front of them, equal parts unimpressed and skeptical. "Did you see who was driving?" He asked.

The employee shook his head. "It was dark, and- and it happened so fast."

Andy spoke up, asking them, "Are there trackers in the moving trucks?"

"Normally, but they disabled it in the one they took," The other employee answered.

Hank sighed and turned his back toward them. "Of course they did," He muttered under his breath.

A few feet away, Jim Whitman approached them while hanging up his phone, catching the attention of the detectives. "We'll send you all the footage from last night," He then gestured to the server in the corner, "Now can I please do my job?"


After they returned to the precinct, Connor went straight to his desk to open the footage from CyberLife. Hank and Andy let him work as they went to the kitchen. Andy poured a cup of coffee for herself before joining Hank against the opposite side of the column he stood beside. He'd been watching Connor at the desk, thinking about the past few days, when Andy spoke.

"What's he doing?"

Hank glanced to her and said, "Watching the security footage that CyberLife tech sent over."

Her brows went up in mild surprise, and it was only partly because of how hot her coffee was. "That's hours of footage."

"And Connor's an android," Hank remarked, holding up his own cup as he snorted. "Convenient."

At this, she went quiet. She stared at Hank and went through a very similar thought process he just had. It'd been a long time since she saw Hank - it was before the accident. Richards warned her a few years prior that he'd let himself go a little, so the drinking and the beard and the gruffer attitude didn't surprise her. When she squinted, she could even see the old lieutenant in there somewhere. What really threw her for a loop was what appeared to be a growing affection for the android detective sitting in the bullpen.

Sighing, Hank tilted to his head to meet her stare. It was annoyed and impatient, and she was pretty sure she could see a bit of nerves. Maybe he didn't want her thinking too much about the state of him.

"What?"

Andy wouldn't share her thoughts today. Instead she shrugged and looked back to Connor. "Just thinking."

Hank paused a moment, taking in a deep, frustrated breath. "Don't suppose you want to share?" He asked, his tone flat and void of any actual curiosity.

Bringing her cup to her lips, Andy spoke into her coffee, "You seem friendly with your new partner."

He scoffed. "We're just working a case," He dismissed, not willing to talk about the roller coaster that had been his partnership yet.

"You're working pretty amicably, is all I'm sayin'," She replied with a coy smirk.

"Shut up."

The conversation ended there, as Connor stepped around the divider by his desk and called out, "Lieutenant. I found something." When they moved from the kitchen, he lead them to his desk as he started, "The deviants mostly managed to avoid detection until they neared the control room."

He sat down at his desk, and they came up behind him a moment later. On the screen of his terminal was a paused section of security footage from the warehouse, facing out to the loading bay.

"You said they were deviants, though, so you know for sure?" Andy asked.

He turned his head to look up at her, and she almost chuckled at the speed of his movement and the wide eyes. She'd daresay he was excited, and if she had to describe it, she'd compare his expression to one of a puppy. No wonder Hank was getting attached.

"I do," Connor replied, moving the footage along the timeline.

There were four deviants. Three were filling empty bags with the contents of the crates, and the fourth was drawing in on the patrol android who watched them work. He grabbed the arm of the android and without doing much more than that, the android reeled in a sudden confusion. The apparent leader pulled away and climbed over the ledge of the platform, opening a larger crate that Andy remembered having full android-shaped indentions.

Connor changed the scene to another camera. This one was positioned inside the control room, and it was on a slow rotation to span the width of the room. It only gave them brief glimpses, but it was more than enough. The leader sneaked into the room, crouched and careful not to alert the employees no more than twenty feet away. He grabbed the closest tool he could find - a screwdriver - and plunged it into the servers. That was the end of the footage altogether.

Hank nudged him in the shoulder and pointed at the terminal, saying, "Rewind that."

Andy put her cup on the desk and placed a hand down, leaning forward to get a closer look of the footage. The proximity to Connor had him lean back in his chair, but she was unaware of his movements as she stared at the paused screen of an android she'd never seen before.

"What model is he?" She asked, examining the unique features. Was it just the quality of the video, or did he have two different colored eyes?

Connor adjusted his chair further away from the desk and said, "It's a unique model. There's none like it on the market."

Andy looked to him, and finally realized what he was doing. She straightened and went for her coffee while asking, "Can you look into what android this is with CyberLife?"

"I could try to, yes," Connor replied, relaxing a bit.

"Anderson! Hope!" The three of them turned to see Fowler standing in the doorway of his office. He nodded to Connor, adding, "And bring the android."

The sight of Richards already standing in the office told Andy all she needed. "This is gonna be fun," She mumbled. Connor glanced to her, finding her tone not at all believable.


"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Connor understood why now.

They finished going over Richards' plan to stop Weaver. If not executed perfectly, it would no doubt backfire on the department. Connor recognized a dozen different ways it could fail, but he also knew the circumstances and the skill level of the officers in the room with him. They stood just as big a chance at succeeding, and if they did, it would have been the break he sorely needed. It would also put Andy in a risky position, which he believed is where most of Hank's opposition was rooted.

Fowler looked to be in less of a mood to argue with anyone than Hank looked to be willing to entertain the idea. "Does this look like a comedy club to you?" He asked before pointing to Richards, "And need I remind you that you're not Detective Hope's handler anymore? You gave up that authority when you left the task force."

"Left the task force? That's not how I remember it," Hank yelled back.

"You really wanna go there with me right now, Hank?" Fowler asked. He glared at the man in front of him, biting, "Because I can sure as hell tell you how I remember it."

It was like an old, deep wound they both harbored was getting pulled at, and Andy was glad she stationed herself as close to the door as she could. Richards cleared his throat, holding up a hand to cut the argument off where it was and get everyone back on track. "Nick Weaver was on the phone with Andronikov the night he was killed, and we know Weaver sends off defect androids to his suppliers," He began.

Hank angrily spat back, "Great, go arrest the piece of shit!"

Andy wasn't sure why she was choosing then to step in, but she did. "I know where he lives, not where he keeps his supply," She defended her squad lieutenant.

"If we arrest him now, we're not getting any other information out of him," Richards explained in a calm but stern voice he usually saved for panicking victims or fresh recruits. "We need to know what we're dealing with, and that's only going to happen if we send her in on one last job."

"You mean send her out to the damn wolves," Hank argued.

Now it was Andy's turn to feel slighted. "I've been out with the wolves for five years," She complained with an irritated scowl.

He turned to face her, a retort at the ready. "Yeah and you end up covering my kitchen floor in blood."

"She's not your daughter, Hank!"

The office went silent. Andy looked down at her feet, wishing she could just phase through the glass walls behind her and leave. Hank turned to Fowler, who had stood from his desk to emphasize the severity of his outburst. The two men glared at each other, not as coworkers but as old friends, each of them thoroughly fed up with the other.

Fowler slammed a hand down on his desk. He pushed his chair away as he moved around to stand in front of everyone. "I don't know when this turned into a goddamn family sitcom for you people, but for everyone else, this is a precinct with two related problems on its hands and one person who can put herself in the middle of it without everything immediately going to shit," He scolded, waving an open hand toward Andy.

He took in a breath and exhaled, attempting to calm himself and finish only the third most annoying meeting of his day. "Richards and Hope have decided on this plan, so it's what we're doing. Now get the hell out of my office."

He retreated to his desk as the group shuffled out into the bullpen. Richards was fast after a still angry Hank who was marching toward his own desk.

"I can't believe this shit."

"Hank-"

Hank stopped, rounding on Richards. He pointed at the SID lieutenant, towering over him. "You were supposed to watch over her, Harvey. If they find out who she is-"

"That's gonna happen anyway, Hank!" Richards yelled.

From where Andy and Connor stood at the edge of the scene, Andy now counted herself one of the actual few to witness Richards raise his voice like that. She very quickly decided that she very much did not like it.

Richards didn't care for it either, and he cleared his throat so he could try to lighten the mood. "And who knows? It's going to take us a few days to get all the warrants, and Weaver's guys might not even sell him out so maybe you'll have it figured out by then," He said, closing in on Hank to lean forward and tell him, "I know you're concerned. Just trust me, all right?"

When Hank didn't respond, Richards knew this was up to Andy and time. He nodded to her as he walked away, leaving her and Connor with the fuming man.

"When you said your middle name was stupid, you really went for it," Hank commented with a shake of his head and a brief glance in Andy's direction.

Now it was her turn to handle him, so she sighed and moved away from Connor to stand near Hank. "Weaver trusts me. Obviously one of his contacts do too or we wouldn't have found Andronikov in the first place. No one is more suited to find these androids than I am. That doesn't sound stupid to me," She explained.

Hank rolled his eyes and turned away, picking his coffee up from his desk.

She moved closer, urging him to admit he was overreacting. "You brought me onto that task force for a reason, Hank. You trained me yourself. I'm good," She stressed before getting an idea. Turning to face Connor, she crossed her arms beside Hank and asked, "Why don't we see what the doc thinks?"

Her words caught both men's attention. Hank looked back, and Connor soon found their gazes landing square on him. Even as an android, he felt his body tense up and his social programming go into overdrive.

His eyes shifted to Hank. Dark circles, furrowed brows, slight scowl. Signs of exhaustion, frustration. Prolonged eye contact. He's pleading?

He moved on to Andy next. Crossed arms, relaxed shoulders, chin upward. Lips pursed, holding her breath. Trying to look more confident than she is.

Connor had not been a sympathetic partner.

It had still only been a week since he worked alone. But Hank Anderson - and Andrea Hope - were different. Somewhere in his programming, through the deviant hunting and the CyberLife loyalties, was a desire for them to like him. Weighing that against everything else was proving to be a challenge more difficult than he would be willing to admit.

"I think Detective Hope seems competent at her job," He started on shaky ground, and he had to ignore Hank's less than favorable reaction of turning away, as though scolding himself for expecting any different. "Depending on how many androids Andronikov was storing in his basement, we could be presented with a database of deviants to investigate should this plan prove successful."

At this comment, Hank pointed to him and said, "Should. Should this plan prove successful. That right there, Connor, is what this whole argument's about."

"The probability of the detective dying on this job is only slightly higher than if she were undercover normally," Connor attempted to argue. Immediately after having said it, he realized it may not have been the best choice.

Hank confirmed this with a roll of his eyes and a snort. "Slightly."

Beside him, Andy's eyes seemed to glaze over. She was no longer looking at Connor and instead staring off into space. Finally she broke her silence, saying, "This is the first week I've been in the precinct in five years."

Hank's expression was unreadable to Connor. The lieutenant turned to face her, perhaps scanning her in a similar way to what Connor had done moments earlier.

"If I could bring Spades in? Really get the last big dealer in Detroit off the streets?" She turned toward Hank and shrugged. "Then I'm done. No more undercover. Back to working in an office with windows and not hiding my badge in a sink. Back to doing what I did today."

Connor's memory drifted to the warehouse, when she was investigating a crime scene and talking to witnesses. He thought to the excitement he saw on her face. It was pleasant. Nothing like how she was holding herself now.

"I'm tired, Hank. This is my ticket out," She confessed.

Glancing to Hank, Connor noted the struggle going on in the man's mind. "Shit...," He sighed out. "Why didn't you just say that to begin with? We can talk to Fowler, get you transferred-"

"I'm not looking for a transfer. I just want to feel like a damn cop again," Andy interrupted.

There was an extended pause between the group as Hank gave the idea a chance in his head. Much like with him and Fowler, there was a wound getting tugged on here, too, and Hank was not the kind of man to address those problems. Before he could spiral too deeply, he nodded. "Then let's get this asshole off the streets."

They no doubt had forgotten about his presence by now, but Connor watched them both. He took a small step forward, interrupting their moment to say, "I would like to be the android you take with you."

Once again, their attentions landed on him. If they were going to keep doing that, he was going to have to tune his social programming.

"What, really?" Andy asked, surprised. He nodded, and she continued, "Is CyberLife cool with that?"

"CyberLife designed me to hunt deviants. That's what I'm doing," He answered. It was true. Technically.

After a moment, she shrugged. "All right. I'll see what Richards thinks," She replied, reaching across his desk for her coffee.

Nothing more was said as she left the bullpen, going into SID's office. Hank stared at Connor, who was attempting to pretend he didn't notice. The lieutenant turned and took slow steps forward, stopping beside him. "You keep an eye on her."

Connor looked to Hank, and nodded. "I promise you I will, Lieutenant."

Hank leaned back, eying the android with a puzzled expression. He finally broke into a faint nod, and slapped Connor's arm before walking away.


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