November 11, 2038

Andy stood at the entrance of Pirates' Cove at multiple points in time. She stood there as a child, in overalls and the pixie cut her mother chopped into her hair after one too many camping trips gone awry. She stood there as a preteen, with her camera phone facing back on her and the French braid her friends gave her the night before. She stood there now as an adult, red boots digging into inches of snow and jacket zipped tight over her chest.

She could almost see the once bustling crowds if she squinted, and feel herself shrinking to the height of her twelve year old image. It was even easier to picture herself running down the path with her father in tow.

That was all they were, though - images of another time.

"Andy?"

Hank and Connor had passed her on their way into the park, and now they turned to see why she'd stopped. Hank had called out to her, and Connor was just as concerned.

She wouldn't address either of their unspoken questions. Digging her hands further into the pockets of her jacket, she marched through the snow toward them, reassuring them with a simple, "I'm here."

They walked through the park, past rubble and abandoned structures. At a corner of the road was a building called the tavern. Its many windows were shattered, and the double doors leading inside were half hanging off their hinges. Ben stood in the middle of the room as a group of his officers took photos and dusted various surfaces for fingerprints.

He nodded to the new faces and said, "Hey, Hank. Andy."

Hank returned the greeting as he stepped over a plank of wood that appeared to be from the ceiling. "What's the situation?"

Gesturing around him, Ben answered, "Well, we got evidence of a break-in. Someone turned the power to the park back on and Detroit Electricity called us about it - that's how we found Andronikov's car in the first place."

"Where is it?" Hank asked.

"We've already taken it in, but it was parked a few yards down the road."

Making a note to visit the garage after this, Hank continued, "Who owns this property now?"

"Some corporation out in Chicago bought it a couple months ago. They're planning renovation."

"So that's a dead end," Hank muttered. He looked over the room, which contained a bare table, a few broken chairs, and soot in an otherwise empty fireplace. This was a break-in at best, and had Andronikov's name not been attached to the file, Hank wouldn't even be there. Shaking his head, he complained, "You know, I'm gettin' real sick of crime scenes that don't have any dead guys."

Andy was passing by him when she offered, "We could probably pull a corpse out of the river if it'll make you feel better."

Hank shot her a look that was only half scolding. Behind them, Connor had knelt to his knees by the doorway, and was inspecting faint rings of footsteps. "Were there androids still here?" He asked Ben.

The lieutenant with CSI nodded. "Yeah. Apparently the former owners left everything behind."

Everything. This caught Andy's attention, and she turned, asking, "So the park androids just froze over?" Unsure of what response was sufficient, Ben shrugged. Andy's anger at the thought of dozens of androids shutting down one by one then shifted to confusion - they hadn't seen any androids. "So where the hell are they?"

If this was a question that had crossed Ben's mind, he had not yet come to any kind of conclusion. "Stolen? Recycled? Beats me."

Connor quickly disagreed, and when Hank noticed the furrowed brows, he asked, "What is it?"

There was no reply right away, and Connor caught Andy's eye as he stood to his feet. She seemed to be in a similar train of thought as him, which only spurred him on. He turned to take the few steps out of the tavern and Hank watched him leave, raising a hand toward the door. When Andy immediately followed the android outside, Hank let out a bewildered noise. "It's like I'm working with children," He muttered in Ben's direction before he, too, left the tavern.

Just off the curb of the sidewalk, Connor stood in the snow, examining his surroundings. Almost everything was intact, but his eyes had been designed to notice the little things. There were distinctly shaped spots across the ground, where shelter from awnings or half destroyed buildings kept the snow from covering them up. The carousel in the middle of the park had small buds of ice forming at the edges of its lights and inanimate animals, different from the longer trails frozen elsewhere. These were all signs of recent movement from things long-since frozen.

He finally shared his observation to the detectives catching up to him. "Those androids weren't taken."

"How do you know?" Hank pushed for more as he stepped off the sidewalk and let his feet drop to the lower ground.

Connor pointed to the spots nearby. "There are footprints in the building, and in the snow. Those androids reactivated and started moving recently."

Having claimed the other side of Connor, Andy spoke up, adding to his theory, "Dealers don't come to places like this for looting. The androids might not be functioning. They may have lost their thirium after sitting for so long. No resources. It's bad for business."

"Okay, so the androids started moving," Hank conceded, "Then what, they turned the power on and started breaking into the buildings?"

They already had some inclination as to the cause of the latter. Andy was the one to speak up, "Someone left with Andronikov's car and then wound up here. They stirred up the park droids."

Connor began to get lost in his thoughts, going over the evidence. Looking in through the doorway of the tavern, he could recreate the moment in his mind. "A fire was burning in the shop."

"Someone was looking for warmth. Then this wasn't another android?" Andy concluded.

They didn't know who stole Andronikov's car, and that was the problem. Had it been another dealer or buyer, stumbling onto the scene of a murder and taking off with what treasures they could? Was it Nick Weaver himself, and had he tried to use the car to hide from police?

Connor suspected it was none of those things. There was a particular deviant in the mix of this story that he wasn't sure they'd see again, and she had plenty of reason to find Andronikov, take his car, and seek out warmth. He looked up to Hank, knowing this would pique his interest. "It's the child from the motel," He claimed.

Hank recognized his words immediately. Of all the cases he'd been chasing, the housekeeper with a child android who'd been conveniently left out of the report was the most unique one. "No...," Hank murmured in surprise.

Turning to explain himself to Andy, Connor said, "The AX400 you mentioned when we first met - the one owned by Todd Williams. It had a child with it. We've already crossed paths once before."

"The ones you chased across the highway?" She asked, her eyes widening. He didn't specify this was in the case in his mention of the deviants, but Andy was clever, and she was fast learning to read him like an open book.

He gave an affirmative nod. Hank's own wheels were spinning, now, too. "Andronikov's androids would protect her if she freed them from his basement," He theorized.

Andy picked up where he left off, "And then they took the car and ended up here. They broke into a building to keep the kid warm."

"The androids reactivated to see what was going on," Connor started, looking back to the middle of the park, where the classic child's ride stood, "They turned on the carousel."

Scoffed, Hank asked, "They started up the rides just to play with some kid?"

It made sense enough to Andy. "They're park androids. They were just doing their job," She remarked, "So where are they now?"

Hank sighed, knowing where this was headed. "I'll call Richards and get everyone to start searching for a group of androids," Rolling his eyes, he added, "Another group of androids."

He walked away, leaving Connor and Andy to stand outside together. Connor took the time to watch her. She was quiet and calm, and in the eyes of a stranger, she would appear fine. He was no stranger by now, however, and the absence of a smirk and a bounce of her heels told him more than any words could.

"Are you all right, Detective?" The question surprised her. At her confusion, he elaborated, "When we arrived, you seemed distracted. Has something upset you?"

Her body language relaxed, and she offered a small, bashful smile. "It's just nostalgia," She admitted, "My dad and I used to come here every summer."

It was a more personal answer than he expected, and it caught him off guard. He didn't know what to say to that, as he didn't know the context of her nostalgia - were they good memories? Was she on bad terms with her family? These were all questions he suspected one would ask someone, but it all felt a little too real for him - instead he looked into her file, something he didn't think he'd be doing again after their initial meeting.

Scott Hope had a file of his own in the DPD database, though it wasn't a criminal record or employee details. It was a case file for an unsolved murder in 2022, when Andy was thirteen.

"Oh." Connor's LED went through an unstable cycle, and he heavily relied on the social protocols installed into his mind to walk him through the rest of this emotional encounter. "Your actions have indicated that being here is stressful to you. If you'd like to leave, I can walk you back to the car."

Andy was watching him as he processed the information and decided on his next move. Narrowing coy eyes, she prolonged her response, picking up on the tension in his body as he waited for her to speak. She gathered he was feeling awkward, and she knew this shouldn't have been the case. He was equipped to handle hostage negotiations - a little melancholy couldn't have been that difficult. The difference, she suspected, was that he had no emotional investment in the criminals he spoke to.

She finally curled her lips into a smirk and asked, "You offering to escort me to a safe space, Doc?"

Of course that was the time she chose to return to jest. Despite the thought, he felt his nerves ebb away under her gaze. Regardless of his efficiency at soothing her, the gesture of trying at all seemed to help. He would remember that. He smiled at her, the expression betraying his otherwise serious tone, "Maybe not if you keep teasing me."

He started to pull away from her, but she was quick to reach out. Grabbing his arm, she laughed, declaring, "I'll stop!"

He rose a skeptical brow. "I find that hard to believe," He denied, although he had turned back to face her. He took a step toward the entrance and waited for her to join him before he escorted her down the path, as per his offer.

"Yeah, I wasn't buying it either," She chuckled, arm hooked around his elbow as she followed him out of the park.


They sat in Hank's car as they waited for the lieutenant to return. Connor had taken up his place in the backseat, watching CSI move about in the park. In the passenger's seat was Andy, looking through the windshield at the road ahead. The street bore tire treads from police vehicles but was otherwise smooth and untouched. Any footsteps that would have shown the trail of deviants had long been covered and obscured.

That didn't mean they were without options. She called Connor's name and he jerked away from the window. "Yes?"

"How far do you suppose an AX400 could get on foot out here?" Andy asked.

Connor frowned, thinking it a fruitless topic. "Android systems produce enough heat to withstand this climate. If it left the morning after the power was turned on, it could be in another city."

"What about with a child?" He stopped at that. She waved a hand around, musing, "That cuts down travel by at least half. And going three miles an hour at most, taking into consideration the fatigue and whether the kid's eaten..."

Leaning to his side to see the road through the windshield as well, he started doing the math far faster than she could. He went over a map of the local area, searching for any landmark of note. "There are a handful of properties just outside Detroit they could have reached," He explained.

She pushed for more information. "Know anything about any of them? Records or foreclosures?"

He started to shake his head, "There are no foreclosures, and none of the owners have-" There were no foreclosures, no, but there was a record. He didn't realize he went silent as he went through the alarmingly relevant file.

When he fell quiet, Andy twisted in her seat to face him. "You still in there, Robo Cop?"

He returned to the living, excited to bring her the news. "There was an incident last year with a deviant trying to cross the border. It was linked back to a farm not far from here."

It was easy for her to meet his enthusiasm with her own. Her eyes went wide and she wore a faint smile, claiming, "That's the one, then." Hank was approaching the car, so Andy waited impatiently. He lowered into the driver's seat, and the second his door was shut, she informed him, "New plan. Connor's got the address."

Hank paused, unable to find an explanation on her face. He looked to Connor, who offered nothing but an agreeable nod. With a loud sigh, Hank turned around to start the car, muttering, "I left you two alone for five minutes..."


The Chapman Farm was a sizable property. A long, empty driveway ran from the curb and around the house to the back of the lot. The home itself was a two-story ranch with a large attic. The wide front porch sported a wooden awning, columns at the corner of the porch railing bearing its weight.

Hank parked at the start of the driveway. They peered out at the property and watched for movement before climbing out of the car. "This better be worth it, Connor," Hank exclaimed over the roof of his Oldsmobile before shaking his arms, "Too damn cold for this."

Andy waved a hand toward him, defending, "He was just doing what I asked."

This didn't help. Hank aimed an accusatory stare in Connor's direction, muttering, "Oh trust me. I'm well aware."

Walking up the steps to the front door, Hank rapped his knuckles against the wood. When no answer came, Andy walked to the edge of the porch and leaned over the railing, looking toward the end of the driveway. From where she stood, she could make out a shed and a few gardening tools on the ground against its walls. She took off down the steps and as she turned the corner, Hank pointed to her.

"Hey, don't do anything without a warrant," He warned.

She spun on her heels, walking backward. "I'm just checking the backyard!" She argued with a casual shrug.

He waved her off and made his way back to his car, letting her off on her own. Connor stood in place a minute longer, staring at the front door. He was as reluctant as Andy was to let this go, but he would go to the car and wait with Hank.

There was another building behind the house she hadn't seen previously. The greenhouse was off to the side, double doors shut but transparent walls revealing nothing out of the ordinary. A small chicken wire fence was constructed nearby, and obvious tire tracks led all the way to the front of it. Andy wagered they missed whoever it was by no less than an hour. She tried the shed doors, which were locked, before moving on to the back door of the house and knocking.

Again, no answer.

She was about to give up and retreat when she spotted movement through the blinds in one of the glass panes. "Hey, open up! Detroit PD!" She exclaimed. Whoever it was scurried at her voice, so she lifted a fist and banged it against the door. "Open this door or I kick it down - you choose!"

She was pretty sure this was covered by the anything in Hank's warning not to do anything, but she was confident she wouldn't have to fulfill the threat. All she knew was that she wasn't leaving this farm empty-handed without trying everything she could.

The door slowly opened and she came face to face with a nervous man she assumed was Adam Chapman, the son of the homeowner. He wasn't much younger than her, though he looked barely into his twenties, and he stood just a few inches taller.

She held out her badge to him, and greeted, "Detective Andy Hope."

He was looking everywhere but her as he stepped back and allowed her inside. Andy entered the home, her hand remaining near the gun at her waistband. The back door led into the kitchen, and she took a quick glance around the room before returning her focus onto the man.

"What's your name?"

He pushed the door shut and almost whispered out his reply. "Adam Chapman."

She was not going to ease up on him just yet. "There a reason you didn't answer when my partner was knocking?" She asked him.

"I-" He inhaled a deep breath, trying to calm himself, "I was sleeping."

She stared. He was struggling not to fidget under the attention, his back hunched and his weight shifting between his feet. He was about to break under pressure, and she suspected only half of it was from her presence. "Do you live with anyone?"

"My mom. Rose," He confirmed.

"You or your mom see anything out of the ordinary lately, Adam?"

He was quick to shake his head at the question, but his tone betrayed the lie. "N- No. Nothing."

"Good," She replied, letting him relax for now, "Mind if I have a look around?"

"I- I don't-" He started to refuse, but stopped himself. Whether he decided it was futile to fight her or that he wanted this to all be over with, she wasn't sure. Shoulders dropping, he nodded, "Go ahead."

At his permission, she started a slow, careful lap around the living room. A closet under the staircase had a window built into the door, but the lights inside were off and she was already on shaky ground legally, so Andy left it be. She looked over counters and passed by the furniture, seeing everything clean and in its place. She looked out one of the windows at the front of the house. Both men she arrived with were waiting with little patience; Connor was pacing back and forth in front of Hank's car as Hank himself leaned against the hood.

She turned to face Adam, and stopped when she noted the door at the end of the stairs. A light shone from underneath it, faint and white. Nodding toward it, she asked, "What room is that?"

The tension in his body told her she was on the right track. He inched away from her, the back of his legs bumping against the couch. "The laundry room - I was doing laundry," He explained.

Aside from the glow, there was no sign of any activity coming out of the laundry room. "Funny, I don't hear it," She commented.

"It's real quiet."

"Yeah? What kind of set is it?" She grinned at him, taking on a chuckle and a casual tone. "I just moved into a new place. I've got about one appliance right now."

"Uh, it's..." He tried to laugh, but it was strained and quiet. "I don't think it's in production anymore."

She hummed, a noise somewhere between acknowledgement and deep thought. After a long pause, she told him, "Adam, I'm going to need you to open that door."

"I- Wh-"

She cut him off, getting straight to the point, "There's no getting out of this now. You can cooperate with me and let this end as quickly as possible or I can come back with a warrant. You choose."

It took no time at all for him to cave. He started to tremble, waving a hand toward the laundry room and looking to her with pleading eyes. "I didn't want them here. The androids, they-" He insisted before he retreated in on himself. Everything was collapsing around him in that moment, and so he turned away from her, reaching for his head, "I told her this would happen! I told her!"

As thrilled as she was to have a break in the case, she felt his anxiety and she needed him calm. She approached with an extended hand, cooing, "Sit down. Sit down. Breathe." She ushered him to sit on the couch behind him, and he did as he was told. She knelt in front of him, looking him in the eyes. She waited for his breathing to return to normal before she whispered, "How many are in there?"

"Two. Just... just two," He mumbled, averting his gaze.

"Were there more?"

"Yes."

"Are they dangerous?"

He turned back to her, panicked and incredulous, his voice raised. "They're androids."

She rose her hand, speaking low but firm, "Calm down. It's going to be all right." He inhaled, and she started to stand to her feet. "I'm going to go in that room and you're going to stay right here, you understand?" She asked, to which he replied with a shaky nod.

She drew her weapon and turned away, closing in on the laundry room door. She opened it slowly, leaning to the side of the doorway with her gun held in front of her.

An android sat on a bench by the far wall, past hanging sheets and the counters along the sides. He held another android in his arms, her head resting in the bend of his elbow. Thirium lined her jaw, far too much to leave any doubt as to her wellbeing. His own head was ducked down toward hers, and he caressed one of her arms. His LED was a bright yellow, circling into red.

Andy entered, and the sound drew his attention from the dead android. His movement was slow and dazed, and an endless streak of tears stained his cheeks.

The sight stopped Andy in her tracks.

His eyes trailed down to the gun in her hands, and then to the android. "We just wanted to be left alone. To be together," He whispered. His head lowered until his forehead pressed against hers, and he squeezed her shoulders, trying and failing to bring her even closer. "That's all we wanted," He choked.

It was shattering for Andy to realize her face had been twisted into sympathy and heartbreak. Unable to watch any longer, she looked away and saw the obsessive scribbling of ra9 on the wall to her right.

"Let me say goodbye." She jolted, and found him staring at her again. It was the face a dying man: he had all but given up on resistance or escape, having nothing left but the bare minimum of hope that he could at least be granted this. "Please."

Her throat was dry. She hadn't noticed it before, but she opened her mouth to speak and couldn't make a sound. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, trying again. "As much time as you need," She told him.

There was no sign he'd heard her at first, but finally he cast his eyes down and confessed, "There will never be enough."

She took slow steps out of the room. Stepping into the living room, she shut the door and met Adam's eyes. He was afraid, and a little confused. She felt much the same.

"Andy?"

They both jumped when Hank's voice pierced the tense silence between them. Andy rushed across the room to the kitchen, Adam trying to plead her for mercy but unable to find the words. From over the sink, she could see her detective companions walking around in the backyard. She took a brief moment - a single second - to straighten her back, lift her chin, and adopt a mask of normalcy. She reached for the back door and pulled it open, catching their attention.

With Hank and Connor now staring up at her, it felt like time stood still. The mourning android one room away flashed before her eyes, and she almost broke her act then and there. Keeping her cool, she offered them a shrug. "Turns out he was just sleeping," She turned to look at Adam with a very pointed expression she hid from the others, "Thanks for the cooperation, Adam. Take care, all right?"

He wasn't prepared for the pretense, but managed an agreeable nod. She wouldn't allow him any time to arouse suspicion, leaving the ranch and shutting the door behind her.

As she approached Hank, he glowered, "Why the hell didn't you come get me?"

She maintained her facade of innocence, arguing, "I wanted to assess the situation first."

"And?" He urged.

She began to walk down the driveway, passing him by as she replied, "There's nothing here."

Annoyed, Hank muttered to himself as he followed her. Connor remained where he'd been, taking one final look at the ranch house. Something wasn't right.

Beside Andy, Hank began, "If you're hiding something-"

"I'm not-"

He glared at her interjection, continuing, "If you are... you better know what you're doing."

"I got it," She complained, waving him off. A second later, she mumbled, "But I'm not hiding anything."


At the precinct, Hank went to investigate Andronikov's car in the garage, and Andy returned to her desk at the SID office. She had work of her own to do, hunting down a list of names and locations given to the DPD by Jason. The locations had already been ceased, and a few of the people were apprehended, but the rest were still on the loose in the city.

She put her tablet down on the desk and wheeled her chair closer to the corner where her terminal sat. The screen lit up, and immediately her eyes landed on the paused video of Markus' speech from Stratford Tower. She'd left it open since it first aired, unable to bring herself to delete it.

This message is the hope of a people. It rang through her mind more and more, especially when faced with a desperate deviant. It was getting hard now to ignore her personal beliefs, and she was starting to feel like she was getting pulled at both ends.

The door to the office opened and she quickly closed the video. Connor stepped inside, noting the absence of other officers. "Is Lieutenant Richards here? I was hoping to discuss Andronikov's androids."

She shook her head and answered, "He's running the search party for those park androids." When his face fell, she joked, "I'm not here for decoration, you know."

He shot her a small smile, faintly apologetic. "I wanted to speak to the androids."

"No can do. Tech's been inspecting them one by one and sending them down to the evidence room," She replied. Standing, she moved to the front of the room where Richards' desk sat. "I can get you the reports they've made so far."

Connor followed her and waited at the other side of the desk. As she flipped through the folders on Richards' table, Connor watched her. What happened at the farm was a heavy blow to their investigation, and Connor was begrudgingly trying to accept it - so why was she handling it so much better than him?

"I've been thinking about the Chapman farm," He remarked, keeping a close eye on her reactions.

She was smooth, a quirk of her brows accompanying her response. "That's not surprising."

She pulled a folder from the stack and held it out to him. "It's a shame you didn't find anything," He started, taking the folder and looking her in the eye, "I was certain you were onto something."

It was an intense stare, and he hoped it implied far more than the simple, literal meaning of his words. He knew something was amiss, knew she wasn't being honest with them. She was hiding something, and he was not oblivious.

She understood it, and her reaction came and went in an instant, though he caught it nonetheless. Her confident veneer had faltered, and even in the short amount of time it happened, he could read the insecurity.

But it was just an instant, and she collected herself even faster, returning his silent statement with one of her own. She made her decision, and she was not going back. She was stubborn and stoic, and if he looked hard enough, she was self-righteous.

"We can't all be advanced prototypes," She joked, despite a missing smile and playful tone.

He could push, if he really wanted to. He could tell Hank to send officers around to the farm. He could report this to CyberLife. There were half a dozen ways he could bypass her and discover whatever the Chapman farm was hiding. They would all come down on her. She would face serious consequences after an intense internal investigation. Her badge would be on the line.

She was not the only one living in a gray area. He had his own track record of sudden, abrupt acts of mercy that would jeopardize his wellbeing should superior authority find out, and he was keenly aware of that similarity. Maybe it's for the best, Hank had once said about Connor's display of sympathy. Maybe this was for the best, too.

"I suppose not," He murmured, turning his expression into a thankful smile, "Thank you for the reports."

He turned to leave and had just landed his hand on the door handle when she called out to him. Was she giving in, telling him what she found at the farm? It was all the more confusing for him to look back with a hint of concern on her behalf. The exchange between them was heavy, neither of them moving to speak right away.

Almost faint enough to go by unnoticed, he shook his head, pleading. Don't tell me.

Her brows bunched together, a question in her eyes. Quietly, she told him, "Thanks for the safe space."

He smiled at her, soft and reassuring. "Anytime, Detective Hope."