"So, it showed up, at your house, in a police car, then after you told it nothing was up, it still insisted on doing a full search of the house? Ha, only police officers in the movies do that kind of thing," Reid exclaims, as we cruise around in our patrol vehicle.
In the passenger's seat, I scarf down the takeout order of falafel Reid had discreetly picked up for me during his break. I'd accidentally slept in after everything that'd happened last night, so there wasn't any time for breakfast when I woke up. Luckily, Reid had secured me this very filling early lunch.
"Well, with everything going on, the fact that Connor showed up in a bona fide police cruiser and not by public transit was not the first thing on my mind. But yeah, I have noticed that androids almost always use either the bus system, or taxis-"
"CyberLife has sponsorship deals with both Detroit Taxi, and the Automatic Bus Company of Detroit. That's why all the androids are automatically set to use them unless otherwise ordered," Reid explains, "I'm just curious as to how it got ahold of a police car. I don't think our androids have access to the cruisers-"
"Calling all units, we have multiple deviant androids sighting in Camden, androids are potentially armed and dangerous. Calling all units-"
As the voice on the radio repeats itself, I turn to Reid, "We're close to Camden, wanna chip in?"
Reid rolls his eyes, "We're also Mental Health Crisis Intervention. You know the other cops don't like it when we try and jump in on 'real' police work."
"What we do is real police work, we are real police officers. No matter what those dipshits say, we went through the academy like everyone else, and we're just as important to the force as they are," I rebut, throwing down my fork and crossing my arms.
Reid glances over at me and my stubborn expression, before pouting in defeat, "You're gonna get us killed one day, I swear."
"Hey, if I wasn't at least a little bit of a bitch, I wouldn't be a 'real' police officer, now would I?" I retort, my tongue dry and stinging with sarcasm.
We both chuckle, as Reid turns on the sirens, making a sharp left towards the crime scene.
By the time we get there, police cruisers have lined the streets, officers walking up and down the block. The rain from yesterday afternoon has started up again, stronger this time, with streams of water pouring from shop awnings. An abandoned house, enclosed in a deteriorating chain link fence, is surrounded by police. Reid and I are barely out of the car when we two figures burst out of the house, a woman in a heavy gray down coat, and a small girl in a purple jacket, her hair in a ponytail. Are those really our "armed and dangerous" deviant androids?
Not far behind them, Connor comes running out, chasing after the androids, following them into an alley and out of our view.
"Holy shit, guess we got here just in time," Reid remarks, as we hurry over towards the house.
The first police personnel who notices us is Detective Collins, a pudgy man in his late forties with a slight scratch in his voice.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Detective Collins asks, as he looks up from the clipboard in his hand.
"The radio said 'calling all units'," I inform him.
Collins rolls his eyes, "Well, there isn't anything you can really do here. Hank's android's chasing the two deviants, and we've got one more inside armed with a kitchen knife. We're just waiting for the android personnel to arrive to deactivate it."
I raise an eyebrow, "You're waiting for the android cops? Why not send in someone now, there's at least ten of us already on the scene-"
"That thing in there is dangerous. You wanna risk a human life just to get rid of some android? Just sit down, and wait for the androids to take care of the androids. Ha, better one of them than one of us, right?"
I shake my head, "I don't care if the androids are more disposable than us, I'm not waiting around for them to do our job for us. I'm going in."
I duck under Detective Collins' shoulder, also dodging Reid's hand as I get down to go under the hole in the fence to the house. Collins looks over at Reid, who doesn't give him anything more than a defeated shrug.
Checking to make sure my gun is loaded, I keep it in my holster as I approach the abandoned house. Steering clear of any windows, keeping my back against the wall, I knock several times on the door.
"Open up! Detroit police!" I call out.
No response. I take out my gun, giving myself a moment to breathe, before kicking the door in. I scan the area. It's a disheveled living room, possibly once a bed and breakfast, from the lobby desk that's been pushed off to the side, and the decaying arcade machine sitting in the corner. A small dining table sits by the fireplace, with the table set, and the fireplace running. Did the androids do this? But they don't need heat, nor do they need to eat.
I nearly flinch when the android darts out from the kitchen, charging right for me with a knife.
"Freeze!" I command, gun trained on it.
To my surprise, the android stops in its tracks, perhaps it recognizes that my gun could kill it long before its knife would get anywhere close to me. It's cloaked in some kind of sheet, masking the city worker android uniform underneath. But its most prominent feature is the unmistakable scar on the left side of its face, several deep gashes that trail up from its lip all the way to the upper forehead, exposing the blue blood and circuitry underneath.
It's movements are frantic and jittery, with sudden fidgeting of the arms and twitches in the head.
I keep my voice slow and calm, "I just want to talk."
"You're a human...humans are bad...they want to hurt Ralph…" its speech comes out in short bursts, almost to the rhythm of its blinking red LED.
How do I approach this? After all, I'm trained to work with people, not androids. And Ralph has a clear bias against humans, so that's already working against me. But I look at its scar again, Connor mentioned that while normal androids don't feel pain, deviants do, and this android is clearly deviant. Maybe deviant androids feel more than just pain? Huh, the scar though, something about it is familiar.
"Yes, I am a human. But I'm not going to hurt you," I slowly lower my gun, taking a step backwards before placing it on the floor. Keeping my hands in the air, I back away from the gun, "see?"
To most other officers, this is a ballsy move to say the least, if not a death sentence. But in my experience, this has been an almost surefire method of establishing trust, with other humans, at least. It diffuses a lot of the tension, taking weapons out of the picture.
Ralph seems stunned at this gesture, looking down at my weapon on the floor.
"Now, can you do that too? Please?" I plead.
After only a few seconds, Ralph puts down the knife, and kicks it into a corner. My heart nearly collapses in relief, although I do my best not to outwardly show it.
"How did you end up here, Ralph?"
"Ralph ran away...he was attacked one day...by humans like you. How does Ralph know you're not going to hurt him like the others?" Ralph's tone is accusatory, its anger giving its speech a defined clarity.
Strange, androids like Connor were built to think logically, or at least rationally. Without my gun, Ralph is much bigger and taller than I am, and if it tried to rush me, I would only have a very slim time frame to go for the weapon. An android thinking with logic would be able to recognize this almost immediately, but Ralph isn't thinking logically, it's thinking emotionally.
I slowly shake my head, "Ralph, I just want to know what happened here. You said you were hurt by humans? What happened?"
The twitching in Ralph's head becomes more apparent, as it grits its teeth, "It...it was all a blur...Ralph was doing nightly maintenance work, when...the men in the park...they...they…"
Ralph clutches his head, as if in pain, and he raises his voice, "Ralph hates them all!"
I keep a headstrong stance, "Ralph, you don't have to tell me anymore if it's too painful for you. Why don't you stop, and take a breath?"
Ralph comes to a relative stillness, as it looks more in my direction, "Take a...take a breath?"
"Yes, it might sound a little ridiculous, but just follow along. We can do it together, okay?"
Standing up straight, feet together, I raise my arms at a slow and steady pace to direct Ralph, "Deep breath in…"
There's a split second of hesitation, but Ralph follows along, sucking in air from its mouth, even following the hand gestures to an extent. I do have to wonder how effective deep breathing is for androids, after all they don't need to breathe the way humans do.
"And deep breath out."
We both exhale in unison, the air leaving my lungs at the same time it leaves Ralph's...I'm not sure. Circuitry?
"How do you feel now, Ralph?"
Ralph still fidgets with its hands, but other than that it's become much more calm, "So many humans still outside...it scares Ralph...but Ralph is feeling better...he is...surprisingly soothed by the exercise."
Several cops burst in, along with Connor and Hank. Before Ralph can react three cops have tackled it to the ground, restraining and handcuffing it. Connor is the first to confront me.
"Officer McMaghnuis, what the hell were you thinking?!" while it still has that robotic, authoritative tone, its speech is a lot less controlled, "Disobeying orders, engaging an armed deviant alone, and then surrendering your weapon to it?!"
"I had the situation under control, I was able to get the android to disarm itself, and I was trying to get it into a more calm mental state-"
"Your methods are sloppy and reckless, and I question how someone so disregardful of police protocol is still a police officer-"
"Woah, woah! Now from my account, I think she did a good job."
The two of us turn to find Hank interjecting, arms crossed as he watches us from a short distance. As Ralph is carted out by the officers, Hank walks over to the knife that'd been shoved into the corner.
"She got the android to give up its weapon, using her own gun as leverage, then tried talking it down. I'll bet, if we'd given her more time, she would have convinced the android to come out peacefully. That was the end goal, wasn't it, Emma?"
A bit surprised, I nod, "Yes, yeah, that was the goal."
Hank then turns to Connor, "And what kind of hypocrite are you, coming down on her for disobeying orders? Hell, just now you disobeyed my orders to chase those two androids along the highway, you've disobeyed my orders more times than I can count."
"She was needlessly putting her life at risk, Lieutenant, she could have been killed-"
Hank smirks, "And that's what this is really about, isn't it, Connor?"
Connor is caught off-guard by this, its eyes widening, and its posture shifts backwards, like someone gave it a light push. But it snaps out of it within seconds, clenching its fists and hardening its stance.
"I don't know what you're referring to, Lieutenant."
Hank's little smirk morphs into a full-toothed grin, "You're a lying piece of shit, you know that Connor?"
This angers Connor, but even as its eyebrows lower in a hard arch, and its eyes narrow into little slits, it still maintains some of its cool, "Lieutenant Anderson, if you're insinuating that I feel human emotion, of any sort, you are sorely mistaken."
And with that, Connor storms out of the abandoned house, leaving Hank and I to ourselves.
I turn to Hank, "You don't really believe Connor did all that because-"
"I'm not sure what to believe. You think I know the first thing about androids?" Hank retorts, but then he pauses for a moment, and his expression lifts, "But...if Connor were a flesh and blood human, I wouldn't have a doubt in my mind."
Raising an eyebrow, I put my hands on my hips, "And what would you think, if Connor were human?"
"Oh, that he has a crush on you. Plain as day," Hank chuckles, but the smile quickly fades away, "but...as that prick has pointed out many times, androids don't feel jack shit. So why it's acting like that...well, your guess is as good as mine."
"Hey, I'm no android expert either, that's more Reid's thing. He'd know way more about this than me, he'd probably be able to name the exact software malfunction and everything."
Hank gives a skeptical shrug, "Eh...maybe we're thinking too deep into it. Maybe the answer is a lot simpler than we realize."
Author's Notes:
ShadowOfSans: Well, I'm always open to talking if you change your mind. I just don't want to go further into it since this is a public forum. And I'm curious if other people feel like the wait is too long, over the years once a week has worked for me best since I have multiple days to go over the chapter to make edits and correct any mistakes but I'd love to hear feedback from other readers to see if they'd like more frequent updates
starelight: Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Connor will slowly get more human-like moments as the story goes on
Savage Kill: If you noticed in the beginning, Emma had that exact problem, which is why Reid had to buy her breakfast :)
Edges05: Leo doesn't really care about anyone's needs but his own, and this isn't the last time we'll be seeing the basement. And Connor is quite adorable :)
