Jemma found out that the Orions own a place called The Borderland where they sell services with sexbots. Pike approved a plan for them to take a team in and test all the bots for human DNA and ask the patrons if they've seen the redhead. If they get nothing, they get nothing, but Leonard's instincts told him that they were on the right track.
"We tested all the bots," Chekov said. "Zey are all clean."
"Thanks, kid," Leonard said just as two men walked over to them.
"I am Kai, the manager. Can I help you, officers?" the taller man said.
"Is this one of your bots?" Leonard asked them, showing the men the picture on his tablet.
"No. We got a great selection here. We can get you pretty close to this one. Our bots have passed all the required tests. Special rate for cops. We love cops," Kai said.
"Yeah. We love cops," the other man added. Something was off about these two. Without drawing any attention to his hand, he touched Jem's wrist, hoping she understood what he was asking her to do without letting them know that she's an android.
"Well, great. If you answer all of my questions, maybe I'll let you get to first base. You ever buy from Sebastian Jones and Clay Treadway?" Leonard asked.
"We used to. Not anymore," Kai told him.
Leonard nodded, "Why'd you stop?"
"We make our own now," Kai said with a smile.
"And you're sure that's not one of them?" Leonard repeated his earlier question.
"Already said," Kai said, standing a little straighter.
"Bones, Detective Uhura has something for us," Jemma said, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Thanks for your time, gentlemen," he gave them a nod before his partner gently pulled him away. As soon as they were out of earshot, he looked at her. "What you get?"
"His vitals suggest that he's lying," she told him. "Or he doesn't like you."
"Not the first, won't be the last. You said Uhura had something?" he said as they walked out to the car.
"They found the silver sedan that was used in Carol Marcus' kidnapping. Tracked it to an industrial facility off Eighth Street. It left ten minutes ago and we lost it."
"That's five minutes from here. Should we go take a look?"
"We should."
"Beautiful green. They got the bloody color just right. These are bullet holes, they targeted the cortical relays and storage centers," Scotty said as he examined the bot's head in his hands.
Leonard and Jem found the sexbot they were looking for at the industrial facility. The IRC was stripped of skin, her memory was destroyed and she was left in a heap at the bottom of some stairs like a piece of garbage. Scotty was trying to pull off a miracle.
"There's a small chance that her temporal housing might be intact enough to salvage some of her echoic memory. Tell us something about the people that did this," the Scot said before he pulled part of her head off. "Apologies, lass. I'm usually alone when I do this. You might want to look away."
"It's fine," Jemma said quietly. Leonard looked at her and what he saw was anything but fine.
"Why did they peel its skin off?" Leonard asked.
"The DNA. I think they were abducting the girls to harvest their skin," his partner answered.
"Makes sense. If you used human skin, you'd make the best sex machines on the market. I think Sebastian found out about it. That's why they killed him," he told her.
"Sex machine, bang bot? It's a bit myopic, dinnae ye think? I mean, not everyone who visits a sexbot is looking for sex. Some people go for the conversation or for a sympathetic ear at the end of a long working day surrounded by people who only ever come to visit when they want something from you," Scotty said, giving them a look.
"You know we love you, Scotty," Jemma said, giving their friend a soft smile.
"I know ye do, lass. Ye check up on me all the time and, hell, you're the only ones that actually talk to me in person these days. Anyway, I think you're right. They're growing skin using DNA from the abducted women. Synthetic skin, as good as it is, is a long way from the real thing. There are pheromones and other biological features that trigger attraction. Here it is." He pulled a mangled piece of metal out of her head. "Sorry, it's too damaged. If you want to know where these bots are coming from, I need a live one."
"Thanks for trying, buddy," Leonard said.
"No problem, laddie. I hope you catch these idiots. It's a bloody waste," Scotty said before going back to whatever he was working on before they showed up. Leonard and Jemma went back to the car.
He glanced at his partner, "You're quiet. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's just… looking at that bot in the lab made me think; who's gonna remember me when I'm gone?"
"You're a cop. The people you help will remember you," he told her. However, he wasn't sure how true that was. She spent four years in a storage room and nobody but Chris and Scotty seemed bothered by that fact. "I'll remember you."
"You don't like me, remember?"
"If you tell anybody what I'm about to say, I'll deny it," Leonard said. She nodded. "You're a little annoying at times and you watch me eat, which is creepy, but I'm glad Chris partnered us up." Leonard glanced at her just as she smiled. "I'll watch your back just like you watch mine. And if something happens to you, I'll remember you."
Stiles is an insufferable ass but he's a good cop. He called them with a location on the silver sedan, and together, they chased it, pulled it over and arrested the men inside. They also got themselves a live sexbot with human DNA.
"Hello again," Gaila said when Leonard and Jemma walked into the interview room.
"A human's DNA was used to make your skin," he told her before showing her Carol's picture on his tablet. "We need to find this woman and we don't have much time. Have you seen her before?"
"No," Gaila answered, slightly bewildered.
"Where were you made? Who owns you?" he asked.
"Do you know where you were born?" Jemma interjected. Leonard gave his partner a look and realized that he was asking the wrong question. Unlike Jemma, there were a lot of bots that didn't know what they were in some form or fashion. Not that it mattered much, Gaila didn't answer either of them.
"You ever worked with this girl?" he showed her a picture of the other redhead.
"Virta," she said with a smile.
"Right, Virta. Do you know where she was born?" Leonard asked. Gaila shook her head. "Where were those men taking you tonight?
"They were taking me for a ride," Gaila said.
"We think they were taking you to be destroyed," he told her honestly.
"Why would anybody want to destroy me? There are much, much better things to do with me. We don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I'm a very, very good listener. You know, people look for connections in different ways. That's all people are looking for, is someone who cares about them. That's what I'm here for," Gaila said, touching his hand before she looked at Jemma. "Do you know where Virta is?"
"Yes."
"Can I see her?" Gaila asked.
"Why do you want to?" Jemma asked.
"I don't know," Gaila said, confused.
"You were designed to bond with people. That's what you were developed to do. To notice when they're there. That also means you notice when they're not there. That's why you want to see her. That's what you're feeling," his partner told her.
Leonard wondered just what his partner was feeling in this moment. IRCs were highly advanced and the JTKs more so. It wasn't impossible to think that Jemma would be bothered by this case, he was bothered by it and he was human.
"Who told you to go with the men we found you with tonight?" he asked.
"Kai. Do you know Kai?" Gaila asked.
Leonard nodded, "Yea, we know Kai."
They raided The Borderland but they came up empty on the skin lab, however, Jemma found a discarded learning module near the computers in the club's basement.
"How's that piece of junk gonna help us?" Stiles asked.
"It's a U Juno Pendant Learning Module. Made public after the department upgraded. The problem was that they gave off an unwanted GPS signal when they updated. We can have Scotty access Gaila's logs…"
"…to trace her back to her point of origin and find the skin lab," Leonard finished for her.
"Exactly," Jemma said with a smile as the circuits under her skin lit up. "Scotty's already on it."
"Clear," the VX next to him said, so Leonard moved to the next door, Jemma across from him. They, Stiles and a team of VXs were in a warehouse near pier eighty thanks to the information Scotty got from Gaila's logs.
"Clear," he said as he checked the room, his partner moving past him to the next room before they headed down a set of stairs.
"Take him down," someone called when man pointed a gun in their direction. The VXs shot him before he could hurt any of them.
They all kept moving into a room with a bunch of servers. One of the Orions tried to shoot Leonard but he shot the man first, stepping around him and continuing his search for the missing girls. What he found was Kai.
"Drop the weapon," he told the man. "Drop it." Kai seemed oddly calm as he put the gun on the ground.
"Bones!" Jemma called before Leonard heard two gunshots right behind him. He looked back to find his partner kicking a gun away from the man she just shot.
"Thanks," Leonard said.
"Anytime," she smiled and moved past him. One of the VXs took Kai and Leonard followed Jemma. "We're clear!"
"Clear!" Stiles said.
Leonard nodded, "Clear!"
"I got Lorraine White," Stiles told them. Finding the woman on a metal table. "She's dead."
"Nicole Bloomquist. She's still alive," Jemma said.
"Carol Marcus. She's alive," Leonard said, glancing over at his partner. That's when Carol grabbed his hand. He wrapped his hand around hers and smiled, "David is gonna be very happy to see you."
"Where am I going?" Gaila asked them.
"To a better place," Jemma told her, repeating his words from earlier. Because androids with human DNA were illegal, Gaila –and the others- had to be deactivated. His partner told Pike that she was going to be there for Gaila's deactivation and Leonard decided to go with her.
"Will you be there?" Gaila smiled.
"No," Jemma said before giving the other android a hug. "We still have a lot of work to do here but I will remember you."
Jemma brushed the long red curls out of Gaila's face and gave her a kiss on the cheek before stepping away to let the tech do his job. A cord was inserted into the port on the back of Gaila's head, a few keystrokes later and her eyes went black, all the life was drained out of her. For a few minutes, they didn't say anything, then Jemma looked at him.
"Thanks for coming here with me."
"Anytime," he smiled. "Come on. We've had a long day."
"You okay?" Leonard asked his partner as they sat at the noodle bar.
"You want to talk about feelings?"
"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," he told her.
"It's not fair. She didn't do anything wrong and they just… killed her," Jemma said. "It's like…"
"When you were deactivated?"
"It's not my fault that some of the GSKs were unstable. Show me one cop that doesn't have bad days on the job. Days were we aren't fast enough. Days were we lose other cops or civilians. They don't euthanize all of you when an officer kills himself or a detective goes off the rails. Everyone sees the shrink then it's right back to work," she told him. "GSKs and JTKs were meant to be human. And while everyone calls it a synthetic soul, it's just as real as yours. Who I am as a person is real. Today just reminded me how little people actually care and how easy it is just be thrown away."
"I won't let that happen," he said. He doesn't know how but he'll find something if it ever comes to that.
"You know, when I was deactivated, my last thought was that I hoped someone would be there to wake me up. Then, there you were. I guess that means you're stuck with me."
"I guess we're stuck with each other," Leonard chuckled. He doesn't know how long it was but they sat in silence for a while before Jim looked over at him.
"Are you okay?"
"We saved most of the girls, bad guys are off the streets, that's enough for me," he said.
"That's not what I'm asking and you know it. You didn't flash today or yesterday," she said.
"I haven't taken any Membliss since I let you in on my Section Thirty-one investigation. I want answers but I decided that they aren't worth killing myself over," Leonard said.
"I'm glad you're finally using that brain of yours," Jem chuckled.
"Watch it or I'll…"
"What? Face it, you can't do this without me."
"That's true enough." He wasn't allowed to ride without a synthetic but he found that he didn't want to ride without Jemma. "I should probably take you back to the precinct and head home."
"Sounds like a plan."