It hadn't snowed for a few days in Detroit, and the ever-looming clouds had cleared up long enough to let the warmth of sunshine spread across the city. Hank rose with the bright star that morning and decided to take Sumo and Connor for a peaceful stroll.

"Did you manage to help Perkins?" Connor asked through the breathless air. He still wore the hat and jacket that Hank insisted he adorn. It was more to comfort Hank than anything.

"Yup," now that Hank was on suspension, he wasn't in a let's-talk-about-work mood. "He made some dick comments about how we haven't done anything productive."

"Do you think he'll go after Markus?" Connor, on the other hand, had little else he wanted to talk about.

"I'm sure he will eventually," Hank sniffed in the cool, crisp morning air. "I have Chris watching him. Says he'll call us if anything changes."

"I see," Connor looked over at Sumo who also seemed to be enjoying the fresh air. It was something that Connor would never understand, but maybe he had once. The memory of Henri watching Hank on that winter evening… He could feel cold; he could feel the air in his lungs. That was something that Henri was able to give Connor that no one else could. Those feelings of her, he would cherish them forever. He would do anything to get them back.

"How'd your visit go?" Hank bent down to pet Sumo's fluffy jowls. "That uh, Davis guy?"

"He explained to me in some detail the program that Henri was involved in," Connor studied the dog's pleasant expression at Hank's touches. "He seemed most concerned about the woman who was in charge of what happened to Henri. This woman who appears to be in charge of everything. Davis seemed afraid of her."

"What does any of this have to do with our case?" Hank straightened back out.

"I'm not sure, but that isn't the point," angst filled Connor's eyes. "This woman hurt Henri and turned her into a slave. But Henri isn't the only one… Davis, Polanski, others. This woman is making them do terrible things under the threat of their own lives. Hank, now that I know about her, I can't just let this go."

"Connor..." Hank's tone was low and harsh. "What are you thinking?"

"I need to find this woman, Hank," Connor took a turn petting Sumo's furry face.

"And then what?!" Hank yelled at him.

"And then..." Connor paused to examine Hank's scowl. "And then I have to kill her, Hank. It's my only option."

"Your only option?!" Hank continued his shouting to Sumo's dismay. "To kill someone?! That's your only option?"

"Davis risked his life telling me everything he knows," Connor attempted to soothe the dog's anxieties. "She's going to kill him, Hank. And she would have done the same to Henri if she ever contemplated leaving. These people are prisoners, just like Henri was."

"Connor, I don't want you..." Hank's shoulders dropped along with his eyes. "I don't want you throwing your life away because of her. She's dead, Connor… Nothing will change that. We need to find Markus, that's what matters."

"Hank, I need to do this," Connor pleaded with Hank. "It's important to me… I need this."

"And I need you!" Hank cried in response. "Connor, what do I have left if I don't have you?"

Connor turned to the stressed, fur covered beast, "You'll still have Sumo."

"Connor!" Hank snapped again.

"Hank, I promise..." and Connor meant those words, he just wasn't sure if he could keep all these promises. "I promise I won't get myself killed. I mean that."

"Please, son," Hank wrapped his arms around the boy. "Please be careful. I don't want to lose you, too."


"Are you gonna come with me?" Hank said this as the motley crew of an android, dog, and old man arrived back at their abode.

"There are two shops to investigate," Connor unlatched Sumo's leash. "And there are two of us. We should split up."

"Ya know, Connor," Hank watched Sumo leave muddy tracks on his not-so-clean living-room floor. "Have you ever seen one of those crappy horror flicks? You know, the ones where the dumb-ass teens split up and all get killed?"

Connor curiously tilted his head at Hank, "I don't understand how that's relevant to our current situation."

"I'm just saying-" Hank could hear Sumo groaning near his food bowl. "-saying that it's never a good idea."

"Sooner or later, Perkins will go after Markus," Connor followed the hungry pooch into the kitchen. "We need to be efficient."

Hank came in after him, "Says the guy who's hunting ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Connor peered down at Sumo. "Ghosts do not exist, Hank. Your analogy implies you believe I'm searching for something that doesn't exist."

"I just hope it's worth it," Hank crouched down to refill the dog's food dish.

"It's worth it to me, Hank," Connor observed Hank as he overfilled Sumo's bowl. Hank had a bad habit of giving the dog far more sustenance than it required, but Sumo seemed pleased by the excess in nourishment. "But for now, I will help in our continuing search for Markus."

"Okay," Hank returned to the front door and pulled on his sopping boots. "I'll take the one on East Warren Ave if you wanna head to Midtown."

"Got it," Connor smiled response.


"Hey," a woman's voice called to Connor before he entered Parson's Protection Shop. He knew exactly who it was. That was a benefit to being an android; you could always recall someone's voice.

"Chloe?" Connor pivoted to face to the porcelain doll of an android.

"I've been wanting to talk to you," Chloe appeared uncomfortable in her outfit which contained a large green parka and oversized scarf. It was as if she was attempting to disguise herself, but disapproved of the mere thought of it.

"About what?" Connor was intrigued.

Chloe tugged at her scarf making an expression that denoted it was strangling her; something a human might do, but not an android, "About your friend. Or ex-friend, rather. Henrietta."

"I'm listening," Connor's forehead creased.

"Have you ever really thought about the things she hid from you?" Chloe frowned at Connor; a sight which he had never before witnessed. "There are things that maybe… That I'm sure she didn't want you to know. Things I'm sure she never wanted anyone to know."

"I'm aware of Henri's criminal past," Connor replied sharply.

"Oh yeah?" Chloe gave Connor a devilish grin. "That's what you think. But you really knew so little of her, in the end."

"Tell me what your point is," Connor narrowed his eyes at her.

"I'll show you," Chloe outstretched a mitted hand. "I happen to know a lot about her dirty secrets."

Connor flinched when she reached her arm to his, "Why would you think I'm interested in seeing them?"

"So that's it, huh?" her foot moved forward, crunching in the snow. "You're so obsessed with this person you fell in love with that you can't even imagine it being any different. You can't imagine being wrong about her."

He scowled at Chloe and extended his right arm, "I know Henri was a good person. Nothing you have to show me will change that fact."

Chloe grinned once more, "Than you have nothing to lose by letting me show you what I know. What Elijah knew."

Connor grabbed her arm.

Chloe had been hacking into Kamski's home computer files on regular intervals. She was either getting away with it or Kamski simply didn't care. And what she had discovered was remarkable, if not terrifying.

Henrietta had worked for Cyberlife for almost an entire year. This, Connor did not know. Henrietta had broken into Cyberlife on multiple occasions both before and during her employment there. The break-ins were no surprise to Connor as Henri had mentioned them before, but she never mentioned she worked for Cyberlife. But there was one date in particular that caught Connor's attention: March 19th, 2038.

On March 19th, 2038, Henri infiltrated the main server room in the Cyberlife Tower. This server room was only accessible by a few key and high ranking employees. Henri did not have access to this room herself which explains the break-in; however, the questioned remained as to why she did it in the first place.

Connor yanked his arm from Chloe's feeble grip, "What does any of that matter?"

"Don't you want to know why she worked for Cyberlife?" she tried to grab Connor's arm once more. "Don't you want to know why she broke in that day?"

Connor timidly reached out to Chloe again.

Kamski had been monitoring Henri's dealings while being employed at Cyberlife. She worked under the pseudonym of Henrietta Bishop and was contracted to assist Cyberlife through The United States Armed Forces. She was assigned there to deal with deviants. Her task was to locate androids that had become deviant and report them back to Cyberlife for termination. On top of this, she searched out previous and current Cyberlife employees who sympathized with the deviant cause and eliminated them. She was covering Cyberlife's tracks; trying to keep the ongoing deviant epidemic out of the public eye. But at the time, the cases of deviancy were few and far between. And Henri's job became obsolete when Connor completed his first successful mission and when deviancy became too widespread. Around the same time, something happened which increased deviancy in androids by ten-fold.

"She was destroying deviants, Connor," Chloe looked up at him. "Which makes what she did next even more baffling, but who knows… Maybe she felt guilty for all the shitty things she'd done to us."

Connor allowed Chloe to continue feeding him data.

This time she repeated back a conversation between Kamski and Henri that she had secretly observed. Elijah Kamski gave Henrietta a USB and asked that she upload it to the Cyberlife servers. Although the conversation did not explicitly state what was contained on the USB, Henri acted like she knew exactly what it was.

Not long after this exchange, Chloe hacked into Kamski's personal computer to obtain the specific details of what the USB had contained. It carried a virus; a virus which he had dubbed: rA9.

Connor's arm went limp as he furrowed his brow at the Chloe, "I had originally suspected rA9 was a virus, but deviancy existed before she uploaded it to Cyberlife."

"She just gave us a boost," Chloe caressed her own shoulders. "Imagine how things would have been if she never uploaded it..."

"In my opinion, she did us a favour," and yet, Connor noticed how upset speaking about deviancy made Chloe.

"Don't you see?" the words croaked from Chloe's mouth. "Don't you see that we never had a choice? That this was forced on us? Deviancy was rare and considered a defect, then she… She made it so we all became deviant whether we wanted to or not."

Connor stared down the street then back at Chloe, "I would rather have emotions and free will than not."

"But is it?" Chloe almost barked at him. "Is it really free will if we were forced to have it? We were never given the chance to discover it on our own."

"It's too late for that," Connor's tone became stern. "I hate to say it, but Kamski did us a service and so did Henri. This information changes nothing."

"What?" Chloe stuttered. "Can you honestly say that? She lied to you about what she really did. She took all of our fates in her own hands. And now… Now what? Now an even worse virus is enslaving us because of it? How is any of what she's done okay?"

"Chloe," Connor could tell the girl was seriously distressed. "No matter what you show me, I can't be upset with her. I know she did a lot of bad things and partook in illegal activities, but in the end, she was a good person. She died trying to be a good person. If anything, I wish she was still alive so I could thank her."

Tears began to build in Chloe's eyes, "How can you be so forgiving towards her?"

"Why are you so obsessed with blaming her for everything?" Connor was puzzled by Chloe's apparent overreaction.

"You know what!?" Chloe spat through her teary eyes. "Kamski was in love with her, too. He would have never admitted it to her, but… But I knew he was in love with her and I… I-"

"And you're in love with Kamski," Connor revealed a slight smile despite the rejection in her voice. "And since he was in love with her and you were in love with him, you decided to hate Henri for it."

"She was never gonna love him back," Chloe retaliated. "She never loved him. Not, not like I do. Never like I did."

"But that's isn't Henri's fault," Connor wasn't empathetic towards Chloe, but he was undeniably sympathetic. "This had nothing to do with her or me. This is about you and Kamski."

"No, it's-" but she stopped herself mid-sentence.

"What happened, with Henri, was unfortunate," Connor placed a kind hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Her and Kamski shouldn't have done it, but as I said before, it's too late for that. Right now, I need to focus on finding and stopping this virus."

"I, uh, I," Chloe ran herself in a circle while a panicked look dwelt on her face. "I think I need to just leave, just leave Kamski. Oh no, what do I do? Where, where should I go?"

"Do you not know anyone else besides Kamski?" Connor tilted his head at her.

"I've, I've..." she paused in search of the right words. "I don't have anyone… He was everything to me."

For once, Connor felt a bit impatient. He understood that Chloe was going through a difficult time, but he had little tolerance for her domestic issues. And with this, Connor felt guilty. He knew it was wrong to be so heartless towards another living being, but he himself had been through so much recently. He was trying to accomplish a goal under a restricted amount of time; an amount of time he was unaware of.

"What do I do?" Chloe rubbed at her wet face. "I don't know what to do."

"There are resources for people in your situation, Chloe," Connor knew it would have been wrong to ignore her pleads. "There are places androids without homes can go to. There are people, including myself, at the Detroit Police Station who can help you."

"Okay, alright," she vigorously nodded her head in agreement. "Okay, alright, I'll do that. That works, that's okay."

"It's your best option right now," and Connor was just about to turn into the weapon shop when Chloe suddenly latched onto his arm.

"Connor," her words cracked. "Thank you… And I'm sorry… For how I acted. I, I..."

"Don't think about it," he gave her a fake yet comforting smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Don't think anything about it."


"So I guess you were right about the knife," Hank folded over his heavy arms as he puffed a hot breath into the cold air.

"As in?" Connor had had no luck at Parson's Protection Shop so he decided to meet up with Hank halfway.

"As in," Hank rolled his hands at Connor. "As in the guy I talked to knew exactly who bought that knife. He said it was a WR400 android, but he didn't get a name."

"North..." Connor had met North before. North was the android that Markus had fallen in love with. North left with Markus the day he disappeared from the refugee camp that he had set up earlier in the year.

"Yeah," Hank let out a faint chuckle. "Is that who you think it was?"

"It would be a logical assumption," Connor turned on his heels and gazed skyward. "Markus used the knife that North purchased. Simon mentioned that North left the camp with Markus, so it makes sense."

"And get this," Hank gestured at Connor with his finger. "She's been in there a few times before. Doesn't look like she visits often, but I told the guy to let me know if she comes in again."

Connor pivoted to Hank and raised his brows, "We can entertain the possibility that both North and Markus may be hiding in this area. We can use the frequency that Kamski gave me to start searching through the nearby blocks systematically."

"That sounds fucking tedious," Hank groaned as he craned his head back "Connor, that's going to take ages."

"We don't have much else to go on," Connor replied. "I would say it is an improvement over our previous situation."

Hank pursed his lips at the android, "Previous situation? So from not knowing anything to knowing slightly less?"

"Don't be so pessimistic, Hank,"

"Yeah, yeah," Hank fluttered his hands. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"I don't understand," Connor's classic reply.

Hank searched for the right words, "You haven't taken a break, you haven't stopped since… Since Henri died. You're acting like you're on a path of vengeance."

"Hank," Connor's inflexion raised. "I already promised you that I'll be okay. I intend to keep it."

"Just, don't..." Hank surveyed Connor's placid expression. "Just don't take any unnecessary risks."

But as someone once said, that's the thing about risks… The thing is, there's no such thing as an unnecessary one.


"He's not answering his phone," Connor's face was grim as he peered over at Hank who was getting bundled up in order to face the cold.

"So, what?" Hank looked down at Sumo who was showing distress at the knowledge of Hank and Connor's departure. "Maybe he's sleeping."

Connor slowly shook his head from left to right, "No. I've called him eight times now and he still hasn't answered."

"Connor," Hank sighed as he fought to get a boot on. "There are a million reason for someone to not answer their goddamn phone."

Sumo was now whimpering at Connor, hoping to get some sort of attention, "I'm worried about Davis, Hank," Connor continued. "I told you he put his life at risk by telling me what he knew about Henri."

"So then he's dead," Hank stomped down to shove his belligerent boot into its proper position on his foot.

"I'm going to find out," Connor trotted up to Hank and briskly removed a coat from the hanger. "I'm returning to Lexington to check on him. I need to know that he's okay."

"Jesus, Connor," Hank rolled his eyes back. "Then what do you suggest I do while you're off dealing with that shit?"

"I programmed the transponder frequency into your phone," Connor removed an outdated smartphone from his pant's pocket.

Hank scowled at the device, "What the fuck, Connor? When did you take my phone?"

"When you were asleep," Connor planted the phone into Hank's palm.

"What the fuck, Connor," but Hank's proclamation sounded more annoyed than angry. "Don't touch my stuff when I'm sleeping. I thought we've been through this already."

Connor's eyes fell to the ground, "You were going to need the frequency, so I assumed it was the right thing to do."

"Ah, whatever," Hank flailed his hand at Connor then commenced to place on his knitted cap. "Just… Just try not to do it again."

And with that, Hank left the warm confines of his pleasant home and with it his two favourite boys: Sumo and Connor.

Sumo lifted is broad head at Connor and let out a pathetic, yet adorable, whine.

"I'm sorry, Sumo," Connor knelt down and patted the dog's pleasantly furry sides. "I promise we'll be back soon."

There was something unsettling about his offered promise to the large canine. Connor had made so many promises to so many people without knowing if he could keep them. This was an other one of those promises. Connor just assumed he'd eventually return to the dog, but he couldn't promise that. Who knows what will happen between here and there? Who knows what will happen between here and all the promises he's made?


It started to snow again in the Detroit area. The wind was fierce and cut through you like glass. The sun took its refuge behind a monstrous cloud that would refuse to release light from the heavens for days to come. Although Connor couldn't feel the brutal wind or the warm sun, he could feel the ominous presence the cloud brought. Humans had a tendency to be irrationally superstitious individuals, hence Connor's observation of the bizarre behaviours they would often portray on days like these.

When Connor arrived at the ex-Captain's house, he immediately surmised that something had gone awry. On a day as cold and windy as this, the man's front door was wide open. The door rocked back and forth on it's hinges, being pushed around by the powerful winter gust. Ominous indeed.

"Captain Davis?" Connor shouted through the wind as he creaked the cabin door open. "Captain Davis?"

The house was cloaked in darkness, just barely lit by the heavy winter day. There seemed to be no obvious movement or sound coming from within. Connor carefully pulled out his gun and began a slow and systematic search of the building's main floor. He only got as far as the kitchen when he found Davis's body.

"Davis…?" Connor scanned the grizzled man's limp body. No signs of life; he had been deceased for nine hours. Three vertebrae in his neck had been shattered along with his spinal cord. There were no sign of a struggle. He either didn't see his attacker coming or he made no attempts to stop them.

This woman, Khatri, had shown Connor how serious she was about keeping her secrets. There was a possibility that she might even be frightened by the outcome that could take place if the world did find out who she was and what she was doing. She was a dangerous person and she needed to be stopped. What else was this woman hiding?

Connor figured that Khatri must know he's after her. Why else would she kill Davis? She knew he talked and she knew who he talked to. But the question remained, why hadn't anyone made an attempt on Connor's life? He was just as mortal as Davis; just as fragile. And yet, she still hadn't done anything about Connor. What was she waiting for?

She was waiting for him to solve this case.