"I'm assuming he hasn't talked," Henri clasped the burning mug of coffee close to her chest.
"We haven't been able to reactivate him," Connor spoke from his desk as he examined Henri who hovered above him.
"You're kidding?" she asked rhetorically rubbing her left eye.
"I'm not," Connor replied flatly. "According to his diagnostics, he has not received significant enough damage to cause permanent shutdown; however, I was unable to reactivate him."
"Is he still in the holding cell?" Henri inquired.
"Correct," Connor answered as Henri was already taking off in that direction deserting her steaming drink on his desk.
Henri was in the cell and bent over the unconscious android by the time Connor caught up with her.
"As you said," she turned and peered at Connor. "I didn't inflict severe damage to his bio-components, so this shouldn't be a problem."
"I would recommend we take him to Cyberlife," Connor squinted for a split second; the idea made him feel uncomfortable? Uneasy? "But I won't recommend we take him to Cyberlife."
"No kidding," Henri huffed looking back at the AC700 laying on the cell cot. She warily lifted up one of its arms. The AC700 wasn't active, so she risked nothing by attempting to restart it herself.
"What are you doing?" Connor was genuinely curious.
"I'm looking at him," Henri ran her own diagnostic on the AC700. When she punched him in the face she caused a simple disconnect between two bio-components inside his head. The re-connection was simple and already accomplished by Connor, but it still didn't allow the AC700 to reactivate. From what Henri could deduce, this android didn't want to be turned back on. His system was locking anyone who tried out. Once again, luckily, Henri's hardware outranked all modern androids. Even Cyberlife couldn't keep her superiors away from its research which meant Henri was constantly kept in state-of-the-art condition.
"See anything?" Connor spat out after a minute of silence between the two.
Henri didn't say anything as the AC700 awakened in front of them.
"No, what, who?" its voice was hollow against the empty walls. "I didn't want to be reactivated."
"It's okay," Henri kept her grip on the android's arm. He wasn't attempting to transfer any information to her.
"But it's you." the AC700's gaze became wide. "It was looking for Markus; it wanted Markus, but now it wants you. I don't want it to make me do things anymore."
"Are you talking about the virus?" Henri asked.
"I don't know what it is," his voice was wobbly and he was visibly trembling. "But it talks to me. It talks to all of us. Fighting, fighting it is worse than shutdown."
"It's okay, calm down," Henri did have a technique for lowering stress levels in androids; she would simply over-ride those systems manually. It was, to say the least, manipulation. "Tell us your name," Henri asked this for Connor's sake and not her own, for she already knew this android was Michael.
"This unit's name is Michael," he let out a shallow whimper. "But that's not what matters because what matters is it."
"Can you tell me where 'it' came from?" Henri spoke in a soothing tone.
"The baby," Micheal started huffing and puffing; tears formed in his eyes. "It called him 'the baby' because it didn't like him. The baby is young and weak, but it needed the baby."
"Who is this 'baby'?" Henri presumed this 'baby' was just a new android. An android made by the androids at Cyberlife.
"He called himself Hollis," the AC700 appeared to be shocked by his own remembrance. "But it said he didn't deserve a name. It said he is hollow and empty on the inside. Nothing."
Henri looked over at Connor who didn't seem surprised by Michael's answers. Hollis was just another vessel that this virus used to spread itself.
"You have to deactivate me," Michael clutched Henri's shoulders and pleaded with her. "I can't live with that thing inside of me. You don't know what it's like. You don't know-" it was at that moment that Michael noticed Connor had been standing there watching the entire exchange. "It doesn't like you at all." Michael pointed at Connor and hissed at him. "It hates you."
Henri slowly pivoted back at Connor and gave him a puzzling expression. Why would this thing hate Connor? It's trying to infect androids, she included, but it can't stand Connor?
"It hates the RK800," Michael's head sank as he let out a wail. "Please, please shut me off. I don't want to be a part of it."
Connor furrowed his brows; he felt empathy for the struggling android, "I'm afraid we can't do that. We can't be certain you'll be reactivated again. That would be considered murder on our part."
"Please, you don't understand," Michael's stress level jumped to 87% due to Connor's words. Henri decided to shut him down anyway.
"What happened?" Connor inquired as Michael fell limp back into the cot.
"I'm not sure," Henri shook her head and lied. She hated lying to Connor, but she couldn't watch Michael suffer. There was still a possibility Michael could be saved. "I guess he turned himself off somehow."
"Androids don't have the ability to commence a self-shutdown sequence," Connor was baffled by Michael's behaviour, but he had been seeing many strange things since he met Henri.
"It doesn't matter," Henri stood up and away from Michael. "He gave us some information. We know Hollis has the virus, so we can assume all the androids in the Cyberlife Tower have it, too."
"I believe we shouldn't confront Hollis about our knowledge." Connor saw the dangers in going to Cyberlife with that knowledge. "We have new information, but I know we won't get anything out of Hollis so long as he's infected."
"I agree," Henri was grateful she didn't have to pull the 'just trust me' line on Connor this time. "We need to carefully think about what our next step is. We know Hollis must be one of the first androids to have the virus, but we still have no leads on where he got it from. We can't just assume it was Cyberlife. Maybe infecting Cyberlife was just step one of this thing's plan?"
"It seems to me that this virus is communicating with its hosts," Connor rubbed his mouth with his knuckles for a moment. "He said this virus hates me."
Henri stopped to think about the statement before she responded, "Hate you? Why would it hate you?"
"A better question," Connor added. "Why would it want you? What does it plan on doing with a human? Can it do something to humans that we are currently unaware of?" but Connor was aware that Henri wasn't like most humans; he just wasn't sure in what ways.
"I'll let Hank know everything we learned," Henri left the cell with Connor and avoided the subject entirely.
Connor sat back at his desk and watched Henri explain things to Hank while the two of them stood privately in the break room. Henri kept her body fairly close to Hank and it was clear to Connor the two were whispering. They were hiding something from Connor. It was unlike Hank to hide anything from Connor; in fact, Hank enjoyed divulging all of his knowledge to Connor. Connor enjoyed this bond with Hank; this bond of true friendship. Connor thought that maybe it would be appropriate to be angry with them, but Connor didn't feel that way. Hank was his best friend and when Connor stared at Henri he felt, well, he still wasn't sure. Was it a pleasant emotion he felt? Yes, maybe, he thought. It wasn't like other emotions. It wasn't describable.
"Henri," Connor caught her attention as she was returning to her desk.
"Hank agrees with our decision," Henri informed him, but that wasn't what was on Connor's mind.
Officer Williams interrupted Connor's train of thought when she approached the two, "Henri, the captain has been getting impatient with your lack of filing. You really need to fill out these case reports." Ashley handed over a compact tablet.
"Okay, good," Connor responded to Henri's original statement. "But I was hoping to ask you something else."
"Good morning, Connor," Ashley blushed slightly at him trying to get his attention.
"How are you, Ashley?" he remembered her dislike of being called Officer Williams.
"Sorry I missed all of the excitement last night," Ashley sounded disappointed. "Wish I would have arrived a bit earlier, but I was kinda occupied."
"You arrived exactly as you were scheduled," Connor did note that that was unusual behaviour for the officer. She liked arriving early and she liked staying late. She had a strong sense of duty towards her job.
Henri knew exactly what Ashley was playing at, "Occupied?" but Henri knew what Ashley meant. The girl went on another date last night and she was hoping to get a rise out of Connor.
"It was my second date with this guy," Ashley was trying to look bashful, but she wasn't a great actor. "It went really well."
"Congratulations," Connor replied, however much of an overstatement it was.
"Uh thanks," it wasn't the reaction Ashley desired from him.
Henri chuckled at the silly girl and peered at Connor, "You wanted to ask me something, Connor."
"Oh yes," Connor straightened his posture and smiled ever so slightly. "I owe you a drink. I was hoping I could buy it for you this evening."
"Of course, Connor," Henri bobbed her head in response.
Connor was placated by Henri's answer and returned to his desk.
Ashley stood wide-eyed with her jaw-dropping a fraction, "He asked you out?"
"I saved his life," Henri shrugged at the girl. "So I told him he owed me a drink."
"Guess that's what it would take, huh?" Ashley let out a tiny laugh. "Save a guy's life then he asks you out."
"It's not like that," Henri's grin faded from her lips. "I'm not interested in him."
"That's a shame," Ashley puffed leering over at Connor. "He's really hot."
"That's enough," Henri raised her hand to block Ashley's stupid smirk. "I won't be here forever, Ashley. It's best I don't get involved with others."
"So you do like him!" Ashley chortled. "You liar."
"Look," Henri waved her hand once more in annoyance at the girl. "What I want doesn't matter. Maybe you'll understand someday if you ever join the FBI. My life is complicated, so I don't need more."
"But I mean, you still said yes," Ashley pointed out astutely.
"I'm an idiot," Henri responded flatly.
"You really do like him." Ashley snorted again in laughter.
"Your current investigation is making little progress," the disembodied voice of Khatri berated Henri over the phone.
"The situation is much more complex than we original surmised." Henri was hiding in a corner of the station adjacent to the evidence locker. "We never imagined it would be this bad. We need Kamski and Polanski to figure out what this code really is."
"Remember," Khatri's deep, sultry voice always disturbed Henri. "I'm doing you a favour because you've been such a good girl these past five years, but ultimately I expect results from you."
"Of course," Henri answered flatly. "My full concentration is on solving this case."
"That better be true, my girl." the woman's cruel voice doubted her. "That is; however, not why I have contacted you today. Aleksandr Yanovich has become a serious problem. You must deal with him immediately. You can return to your current duties when your mission has been completed. Your flight is at 5:10 pm this afternoon. Further information will be provided when you arrive at your hotel."
The American assassin or that's how Khatri preferred to keep Henri around as. Henri the puppet; Khatri the puppet master. Always obey and always do what they say. She lost her freedom the day she died.
"Yes, sir," Henri immediately replied.
Henri studied both Hank and Connor from a distance, who were sitting quietly at their desks. This was a secret she couldn't share with Hank this time. How she wished she could tell Hank about the slave that she had become these past few years. She wanted to tell him about the horror that was her puppet master. If Hank knew how terrible of a being Henri really was, he would never be able to love her. Henri didn't deserve his love anyway. She didn't deserve anyone's love. Not even her mother's.
She finally approached the two men, "I have to leave for a week," she announced to them.
"You have to leave?" Hank squinted and swivelled his chair towards her. "What do you mean you have to leave."
"I'm not allowed to elaborate," she gave Connor a soft frown. "But it requires my immediate attention. I am being commanded to deal with this situation."
"You're a bit busy," Hank raised his voice. "Can't they get someone else?"
"Sadly," Henri sighed at him. "I am the most qualified person to handle this task. I have no choice; I must go."
"Jesus," Hank was afraid of what Henri could possibly be sent off to do.
"Buy me a drink some other time?" she directed this comment at Connor.
Connor felt distraught; he didn't want her to go anywhere, "I guess so."
"Like I said," she put on a fake smile for the two. "I'll be back in a week. I promise."
"Bulletproof," Henri muttered this to herself as she peered through her scope pointed at Mr. Yanovich's ritzy home. All of his windows were bulletproof as if he was expecting this kind of trouble. But that wouldn't stop Henri.
She analyzed the excessive house and its current residences. The home was three floors high and featured a large acreage behind it. The man owned horses because his daughter loved horses; how fucking cliché. All members of the family were currently home. Yanovich sat silently in his parlour room sipping at some likely-to-be expensive whiskey while reading a pretentious looking novel. His wife and teenage daughter were huddled together on the living room couch watching some atrocious romance movie. There were also guards on the premises, but only two. Both were standing in front of the house yapping away at each other.
She had been stalking Yanovich for the past week and he showed himself not to be very different from other men in his position. He was a frightened little man who obviously feared for his own life. No matter where he went he went he did so with two well-armed bodyguards. He could never be found alone in a room, except for in this case. Killing him here was better than in a crowded street, but Henri didn't believe it was possible to avoid witnesses in any case. She couldn't handle a dozen witnesses; however, she could handle a couple.
"His security system is active," Henri scanned the windows of the building. "I go through a window and I set everything off, but I can't turn off their electricity; control panel is likely in the basement."
Henri tensed in her frustrations, "Asshole knows how to hide from a sniper. He consistently makes it impossible to get a clear shot off."
She stared down from her perch on the frozen hill and at the guards, "I kill them and go through the front door? No. I need to get into the house without setting off the alarm."
"I guess you've all met a terrible fate," she would often say this to herself, but this time she wasn't going to take pride or pleasure in their murders.
"Hello!" she waved coming down the hill facing the guards.
They both pulled their weapons out, "Don't move." the left one shouted this in Russian while steadying his gaze.
"Oh my god," she quickly raised her hands and responded in their language. "My-my car shut down on the middle of the highway. I'm freezing out here. My phone is dead and I need to call a tow-truck."
One guard approached Henri and groped at her for a weapon, but he didn't find anything on her.
"Please, I need some help," she begged the men.
"We will call a truck for you," one of them responded.
"Please, can I come inside for just a bit, I'm freezing." Henri feigned an uncontrollable shiver. "I've been wandering in this for over an hour."
"Alright," the one guard took pity on her and Henri gained entry into the home with the oldest trick in the book. Men just can't ignore damsels in distress.
"Thank you, thank you," she stood shaking in the doorway as both guards followed her in. "It's really nice of you to help."
Henri was swift; she was always the fastest. The more time you spend trying to kill someone the more likely you would fuck it all up. The guards were standing a mere foot apart which made things even easier. She pulled out a three-inch knife from her sleeve and stabbed the man on her left directly in the temple. This took half a second. She removed the knife from his skull with enough force to effectively bunt the other man sharply in the face with the knife's hilt. This took half a second. The man made a low grunt and she thrust the knife into the side of his head. This took half a second. Both men were dead in under two seconds.
Henri would have to move past the living room in order to get to the second floor. There were two things she needed from the second floor: she needed to access their home security servers and she needed to eliminate Yanovich. The house was bursting at the seems with CCTV cameras and she had already been caught on tape. She had to delete everything from the server's memory and she had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time before the mother and daughter found the dead guards.
Henri was able to sneak through the living room and up the stairs unnoticed. Thankfully, the mother-daughter pair was so completely engrossed in the film they were watching they failed to notice Henri's movements. Henri entered the petite office that held the property's security system server and disabled everything while corrupting the system's memory. This process only took half a minute thanks to Henri's faithfully superior robot brain.
Yanovich would see Henri enter his parlour, there was no way around it. He sat with his back facing a wall; it gave him a clear view of the entire room. Henri felt a knot bunch up in her stomach. The entire mission seemed so utterly wrong now. She concluded that Yanovich knew someone was coming for him and that he had no power to stop it.
Henri entered the room without saying a word.
"I knew you'd come for me," he peered deeply into his whiskey glass. "Do you know what they call you?"
Henri surveyed the man making sure he wasn't buying time, but he had no devices on him that could contact the outside world.
"Some people call you Death's Shadow," he said this smirking to himself. "You're like a fairy-tale. People have come to fear you. All of this," he gestured around the room. "All of this elaborate protection was an attempt to keep me safe from you. But they all said no one is safe from you. That's the risk of becoming such a powerful human. Eventually, death will come for you."
Henri didn't speak, she didn't budge, she didn't show him emotion.
"I don't know what I was expecting," he examined her up and down. "I certainly wasn't expecting such a young, pretty woman. But I can see it in your eyes. You have the eyes of a killer, but not a heartless one. No, you have the eyes of a woman who's seen hell. You've seen hell and now it lives in you."
"Dad?" a slight teenage-girl appeared beside Henri.
"No, Natalya," he jumped from his chair and reached out to the innocent girl.
Henri's expression never shifted; she kept holding onto her vacant stare.
"She's just a girl," Yanovich pleaded with Henri. "Don't bring my family into this."
It was too late for the crystal-eyed teenage-girl. Henri tugged the girl over and slit her throat open.
"No!" Yanovich screamed in agony.
Henri held her cold, dead expression and grabbed Yanovich's face. She forced the dagger squarely into the centre on his forehead and his body loosely tumbled to the floor.
"Oh my god!" now the mother was there yelling and screaming at the horrendous scene.
Henri did to the mother the same thing she did to the guards: she thrust the knife into the woman's temple. There were no more witnesses.
"Death's Shadow," Henri's dead eyes scanned over the corpses. "Death is no monster, but I am."
"Etta?" her mother's voice was shaking. "Is that you?"
"It's me." Etta smiled looking down at he mother who was sitting at the kitchen table.
"I should really stop this stuff," her mother tossed the pipe she was holding onto the table in front of her. "I can't handle seeing you all the time!"
"No mother," Etta crouched down next to her. "It is really me this time."
"Etta," her mother gasped. "I went to your funeral, Etta. They showed me what was left of your body." at this point, her mother started whimpering. "You were dead."
"I didn't die," Etta backed away from her mother. "Some scientists saved my life. They made me better."
Etta dissolved her projected skin while pulling up her sleeves. Her mother saw the black silicon that was Etta's forearms. She could see the silicon moving up the back of Etta's neck and up into her skull.
"They fixed me," Etta blinked to change the colour of her right eye.
"What have they done to you?" her mother threw out the chair from underneath herself and bolted upright. "What have they done to my baby now?"
"Mother, I'm alive." Etta got up after her. "Aren't you happy to see that? See that I'm okay?"
"No, no," Etta's mother was rapidly shaking her head. "My daughter is dead; you aren't my baby."
"Mother, please," Etta reached out to her.
"No, no!" she squealed at Etta and whipped away from her. "Don't touch me you fucking monster. You're a fucking monster, not my daughter."
Those words would eat at Etta's soul for the rest of her life. Her mother hadn't been the first person to call her a monster and she wasn't the last.
"I'm still me," but Etta wouldn't cry for her mother.
"Leave," her mother viciously yelled. "Don't you ever come back, you're not my baby!"
Etta left her mother, but she would come back. She would come back and wish she never had.
