Through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room Connor and Hank curiously watched as Gavin attempted, and failed, to interrogate a female deviant displaying erratic and arguably criminal behavior. The deviant suspect had broken into the Gamma Facility - an Android Emergency Care Facility - where she had stolen a dozen bags of Thirium, and had then later been found wandering about aimlessly in the parking lot behind the facility covered from head to toe in the illegally obtained blue blood. She was arrested on the spot by responding patrol officers and put up a bit of a struggle which resulted in her being watched very carefully by every available officer as dealing with potentially unstable deviants was still unpredictable and being handled with great care.
While Gavin was certain the deviant suspect had stolen the Thirium to make a profit on the black market for replacement android parts Connor and Hank were unconvinced. Her motivations were unfounded in the light of the successful Revolution and impending android rights, and since she wasted the Thirium on herself in a very strange manner that meant theft for profit didn't add up to her potential motivation.
Quiet and studious Hank sat in the chair of the observation room with his arms folded across his chest and his eyes transfixed on the deviant suspect through the surface of the one-way mirror as if he was analyzing a work of abstract art. The Lieutenant knew that Connor was just as focused and intrigued by the arrested deviat on the other side of the glass.
"I don't think she's a black marketeer." Hank stated firmly as he knew that Connor was thinking the same thing. "Why break into a care facility to steal only one type of item, and then completely waste it on herself in a really fucked up way?"
"I agree that she is not a black marketeer." Connor was sitting next to Hank in the second chair with his hands folded neatly on his lap with the same patience as his partner. "She is exhibiting behavior that it too abnormal for anyone who is attempting to commit theft, cause a decrease in supply, or gain a profit. Not only that, but with the numerous repair facilities now operating in the city free of charge, there is no need to purchase spare parts or blue blood on the black market any longer."
Knowing his partner was working on a theory Hank leaned back in the chair and let the deviant detective take the lead. "What're you thinking?"
"I believe this deviant is suffering from a software malfunction resulting in her bizarre behavior."
"A virus?" Dragging his palm over his bearded chin Hank stared through the mirror at the deviant still covered in drying blue blood and shook his head. "I don't know jack-shit about android viruses or glitches. What can you tell me about her condition?"
Connor's blue L.E.D. flashed to yellow as he cybernetically ran through the numerous possible causes for her behavior regarding any and all program anomalies. The blonde haired female deviant suspect had fair skin, one blue eye and one brown eye, a petite build with minimal structural damage to her frame and was of a very common model of android commercially created years prior. She was still covered in the dark blue Thirium that had only begun to dry and wouldn't begin to properly evaporate for another six hours or until she cleaned herself up. The suspect's L.E.D. had been red in color since she was found in the parking lot, and it had remained as such throughout her entire arrest and well into the interrogation.
Hundreds of tiny internal fractures over the suspect's face, arms, chest and legs had long since healed over the past four years, and she had suffered from repeated physical trauma to a majority of her internal biocomponents. Many of her Thirium lines were also loose and leaking as if she had taken a horrible fall or had been thrown down to a hard surface fairly recently.
"She has been severely damaged in the past. Perhaps the damage was intracranial as well as cosmetic." Explaining to Hank what he was seeing while the human detective could only observe, Connor gave his theory some further merit as he spoke. "If the damage affected her hardware then it could explain her behavior and perhaps even her motivation for breaking into the facility."
"Think you can talk to her and figure out what's going on?"
"I can make an attempt to do so. But if she's too unstable to communicate or respond then she will attempt to self-destruct."
Hank leaned back in his chair and watched as Gavin grew too impatient to continue questioning the suspect and stormed out of the interrogation room like a temperamental toddler. The Thirium covered suspect remained silent where she sat, but she was visibly trembling as if freezing cold or absolutely terrified of what was happening all around her.
After Gavin got up from his chair and stormed out of the interrogation room he entered the connected observation room in an annoyed huff. Rejoining Hank and Connor in the small room Gavin angrily stood against the far wall opposite the mirror with his arms bitterly crossed over his chest.
"Damn piece of plastic won't talk." The spiteful comment sounded tragically common as it passed over Gavin's lips. "It's fuckin' crazy! We're wasting our time with this one."
"She's not crazy." Connor refuted calmly from where he sat just before the window. "She's damaged."
"Same thing, dumbass."
Hank had enough of Gavin singling out Connor, and other androids for that matter, and vowed to put a stop to it. "Knock it off Gavin. I'm tired of your bullshit."
"Think you can do better, old man?" Gavin challenged aggressively as if he was about to prove something. "Think you can make her talk?"
"I think Connor can do better and I know Connor can make her talk." The senior detective stubbornly argued as he gave the arrogant Sergeant an embittered glare from over his shoulder. "He's made progress with deviants in the past, let him at least try with this one. Can't do any worse than you are."
"Sure, fine, whatever." Gavin begrudgingly agreed to let Connor question the deviant suspect on his behalf. "Let the 'plastic-wonder' talk to the 'plastic-freak'. A match made in 'Robo-Heaven'."
Ignoring Gavin's insults and snide remarks Connor silently stood up from his chair and exited the observation room to enter the interrogation room right next door. Watching through the one-way mirror with utter focus Hank and Gavin observed Connor as he took a seat across from the deviant and began speaking to her in a very neutral tone of voice to try to get her to talk to him in return.
Scanning over the deviant carefully with a cybernetic wave Connor noted that the suspect's system was operating at half power, yet her core temperature was much higher than what was considered optimal, if not normal, for any android. The suspect's entire body was trembling as if her gyroscope was malfunctioning causing her to lose balance despite sitting down, and her inability to react or respond to basic questions indicated a substantial degradation of her basic neurological and comprehension programming.
"You appear to be in need of repair." Connor noted in a gentle voice as he tried to reach out to the deviant. Sitting down in front of the suspect allowed Connor to look her in the eyes while he spoke. "Is that why you broke into the facility? You were seeking aid and repairs, correct?"
The deviant suspect's mismatched blue and brown eyes looked to Connor but didn't focus on him. It was like she was looking through him instead of at him.
"Your name is Deidra, correct?" Finding the deviant's serial number and registered name through his scan, Connor tried to connect to her on a more personal level and get her to open up. "My name is Connor. I'm here to help you, but you need to cooperate with me."
Deidra didn't respond. Her silence and hollow stare were unnerving even to the most stone-faced detective.
"You stole only Thirium." Continuing with his interrogation smoothly Connor tried to get Deidra to respond. "What were you going to use it for?"
Pointing to her brown eye with her index finger Deidra seemed to be somewhat lucid and trying to communicate with Connor.
"Your eye?" Connor noted the mismatched irises and continued to question her as he ran a second scan over her model. Deidra's blue eye matched her serial number while the brown eye belonged to another android's serial number. "Was it damaged and then replaced? "
"My eye..." Deidra muttered in a slurred voice as her first verbal response since being arrested. Her voice was shaking with an electronic reverb indicative of heavy damage to her voice modulator or her communication programs. "Is n-not brown. My eye... is bl-blue."
"You suffered damage that required a replacement of your left ocular relay unit." Connor looked at the scarring on the artificial skin and plastimetal frame surrounding Deidra's brown eye. She had suffered catastrophic damage to her eye and couldn't salvage it after enduring such structural damage to the component. "You wish to have both of your eyes blue again. Is that correct?"
"Thirium... is blue. Want... W-Want blue eyes."
Doing his best to understand Deidra's comments Connor's brow furrowed with confusion at her corrupted logic. "Were you attempting to... dye your brown iris blue to match your original eye's color?"
"...Die?" Deidra slurred again as she misunderstood what Connor had just asked her. "Don't... want to die."
"You're not going to die." Instinctively Connor tried to reassure Deidra that she would be all right as he continued the interrogation. "We just want to know why you stole the Thirium. Do you remember breaking into the facility and stealing twelve pouches of Thirium?"
"H-Hot."
"Yes, I have detected that your system is beginning to overheat. Your core temperature is one-hundred and three point three degrees Fahrenheit." In the event of extreme overheating an android would normally be forced into emergency stasis mode to reduce power and prevent further overheating, but since Deidra had been so significantly damaged such an emergency program had failed to properly engage. "Are your ventilation biocomponents damaged or malfunctioning?"
Deidra didn't answer as she continued to stare into nothingness and tremble where she sat.
"Please try to respond to my questions." Patiently Connor carefully gauged Deidra's reaction as he spoke. "Perhaps we can assist you, but you must talk to us. Why did you break into the Gamma Facility and steal Thirium?"
"H-Humans." Deidra managed to croak out with her static filled voice. It sounded like every syllable was filled with pain. "They did this... to me."
"I don't understand." Connor's blue L.E.D. flashed to yellow inquisitively as he spoke with Deidra. Her answers were vague yet sounded so sure as she finally began replying to the questions. "What did the humans do to you?"
"...Pain. I... c-can't take it..." Focusing her mismatched eyes on Connor's face Deidra's pupils narrowed as if she had identified a target and was about to strike even without provocation. "Not anymore."
With very little warning Deidra suddenly grabbed on to Connor's wrist as her artificial skin receded from her palm and she connected her mind directly to Connor's in a matter of seconds. Flashes of confusing images, blurry warning text, error messages and a jumble of incompatible coding entered Connor's programming against his will causing him to flinch and close his eyes as a searing pain entered his head. His blue L.E.D. flashed to red in response to the intense discomfort as he tried and failed to pull his arm away from Deidra's grasp as she forcibly connected her system to his system.
As the damaged deviant held onto Connor's left wrist Deidra suddenly began to twitch in her seat, her entire body jerking as if suffering from a seizure or electrical shock where she sat at the table. With her mind connected to Connor her reactions began to affect him in turn causing both androids to physically twitch and spasm where they sat.
Hank and Gavin had watched the horrifying ordeal through the observation room's one-way mirror and ran into the interrogation room to deal with Deidra while Connor endured whatever it was that she had done to him. The senior detective grabbed onto the suspect's arm and struggled to release her firm grip from Connor's wrist to keep her from doing any permanent harm to his partner before it was too late.
"Get her in a cell!" Hank loudly commanded as he finally pried Deidra's hand from Connor's wrist to free him from the dangerous grip. "Do it now!"
Gavin tried to pull the deviant suspect to her feet, but he couldn't get a hold of her twitching arms long enough to do so.
"Son of-" Swearing in frustration was all Gavin could do as Deidra continued to spasm and jerk her arms out of Gavin's grip. "I'm tryin' to get the crazy bitch under control!"
"Try harder! Connor?" Once Hank freed his partner's arm he looked at the deviant detective with deep concern as Connor sat back in the chair entirely limp and barely conscious. Connor was barely moving and his eyes were shut tight as if he were suffering from terrible pain that he couldn't comprehend and was unable to respond to Hank's voice. "Look at me! You're okay, kid. It's over, it's okay now."
"N-No..." Struggling to communicate Connor slightly shook his head in disagreement as he tried to explain everything that happened to Hank as quickly as he could while he was still lucid. "She's-"
Easily resisting Gavin's attempts to restrain her Deidra abruptly shot up from her seat and snatched the gun from the holster on Gavin's hip with malicious intent. She quickly took aim at the abrasive human's heart before Gavin had a chance to react to what had just happened. As Deidra pulled the trigger, the entire event taking place in a matter of milliseconds, Connor's brown eyes snapped open, and he swiftly leapt over the table and tackled Deidra to the floor causing the bullet to miss Gavin by only centimeters and lodge itself in the concrete wall behind him.
"Whoa!" Gavin jumped back in shock as he watched Connor wrestle with Deidra on the floor to wrestle the gun from her right hand. "Wh-What the fuck?!"
Reacting to the danger Hank joined Connor on the floor and tried to restrain the Deidra's arms down against the ground while she was laying on ther back, but she pulled her hand free and pointed the barrel of the stolen gun directly at her own Thirium pump in her chest and pulled the trigger again. There was a second loud 'bang' followed by a sudden splash of dark blue blood all over her chest and over the two detectives' faces as the fatal damage instantly shut Deidra down.
"Holy shit..." Letting go of Deidra's limp arm Hank rested back on his knees as he looked down at the deviant who just committed suicide before him. A thick puddle of Thirium blossomed from her chest and spilled out all over the floor around her body in a sapphire spill as she shutdown instantly and bled out. "What the hell was wrong with her!?"
Quietly Connor sat upright on the floor beside Hank, his palm pressed to left eye as if it were causing him great pain. The deviant wanted to tell Hank was had happened but he was unable to speak at the moment.
"Connor?" Hank put his palm on Connor's shoulder just as the deviant suddenly fell backward and began twitching in the same way as Deidra had done moments before. "Oh, fuck! Connor? Connor!"
Going to his partner's aid Hank knelt over Connor and pressed his hands firmly down on both of the deviant's trembling shoulders to hold Connor as still as possible on the floor as he looked up at Gavin and gave the stunned Sergeant a new order.
"Gavin! Get the precinct technician from the dispensary, we have an officer down in here!"
Frozen in place Gavin seemingly failed to hear Hank's order as he too began to tremble from shock and adrenaline. The realization that he come within a passing breath of his own death had just set in.
"GAVIN." Barking his order a second time Hank finally got through to Gavin and made the shocked detective jump in response. "Go. Get. TECH. Now!"
"Y-Yeah." Steadily Gavin came to his senses and backed out of the interrogation room to look for help for Connor. "I'm on it..."
"Connor? Come on, look at me, son."
Hank commanded as he watched with horror as Connor continued to seize before his eyes while Gavin scrambled out of the room. The deviant detective's red L.E.D. flickered rapidly in tandem with his racing Thirium pump and appeared to be completely obvious to the world around him.
"Try to fight it! Focus!"
The twitching stopped as quickly as it began, and Connor took in deep fast breaths to try to cool his overheating systems. His brown eyes were fully open but unfocused and glazed over as they stared blankly at the ceiling above him.
"Connor?"
Trying to get Connor's attention Hank spoke softly as he lessened his tight grip on the deviant's now still shoulders. The Lieutenant could feel himself starting to shake a little thanks to the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"You're going to be okay. Help's on the way."
The precinct technician, Dr. Joel Forrest, raced into the room with a heavy technician's satchel over his shoulder and with Gavin right behind him. Taking a knee beside the downed deviant detective Joel opened the bag and pulled out an item that looked unexpectedly similar to that of a stethoscope. The useful instrument was called an 'audioscope' and allowed technicians to listen to an android's internal biocomponents like a doctor would do for a human patient as the device was strong enough to register sounds through thick plastimetal framing.
"What happened?" Joel asked coolly as he loosened the black tie around Connor's neck, peeled back his blazer and pulled open the top buttons on Connor's white dress shirt to expose his chest to begin a routine examination. Joel was twenty-seven years in age, fair skinned, had light brown hair that was thick enough to 'poof' up without needing any gel and he had bright but pale blue eyes that were searching over his deviant patient warily. "How did he end up in this condition?"
"The deviant suspect did something to him." Hank replied calmly as he stayed beside his downed partner. "She grabbed his arm then started having some kind of meltdown." Motioning to the now shutdown deviant suspect to confirm who was responsible, Hank then pointed to the fresh bullet hole in the wall just beside the opened door. "She tried to kill Gavin before she turned the gun on herself and committed suicide."
"That's very peculiar." Unphased by the Thirium sprayed all over the room Joel placed the ear buds of the audioscope into his ears before placing the metal bell down against the upper left portion of Connor's chest to listen to his biocomponents, focusing primarily on his Thirium pump. It only took the skilled technician a moment to make an accurate diagnosis of Connor's vital signs. "His Thirium pump is still active and cycling at a normal rate." Gently Joel tilted Connor's head to the left and examined the L.E.D. still cycling in red in his right temple. "Systems are still online and active well."
"What did she do to him?"
"I need to run a full diagnostic to figure out what the hell happened to him and then I'll be able to treat him properly." Joel put the audioscope back into his satchel and pulled a small radio from the belt of his dark red jumpsuit to request a gurney inside the interrogation room to get Connor up to the precinct dispensary for further treatment. "It shouldn't take too long."
"Oh, fuck..." Gavin watched from the open doorway with visible fear in his gray-hazel eyes. "That crazy bitch didn't actually kill him, did she? Fuck!"
"No, he's still alive." The calm technician confirmed as he snapped his fingers near both of Connor's ears causing the deviant to flinch slightly and turn away from the sound. "Auditory sensors are still functioning." As he waved his hand over Connor's eyes he watched the deviant's pupils lack of response to the change in lighting very studiously. "Visual processors appear to be malfunctioning at the moment."
Unsure of what he could possibly do to help his partner Hank just rubbed at his bearded chin thoughtfully. "Connor acted like he was in pain before he had that... seizure, or whatever you want to call it. The suspect claimed to be in pain, too. That was just before she freaked out and offed herself."
"Pain is normal for deviants, but if it was the pain that caused the suspect to act so violently then I'll check Connor's programming once I get him up into the dispensary for a proper examination. I'll make sure he's one-hundred percent, Lieutenant." Joel stated without any fear as he draped his audioscope casually around his neck and shoulders. "You have my word."
A gurney was wheeled into the room by two young aspiring technician interns apprenticing under Joel. The two young college students were unsure of what to think when they saw the dead deviant on the floor covered in her own blue blood and a massive bullet wound in her chest. They were still just learning how to tend to deviants dealing with sporadic software malfunctions, not deviants who were self-destructive and dangerous.
As soon as he noticed the interns Gavin stepped aside and watched as the two apprenticing technicians lifted Connor up from the floor by his shoulders and legs and placed him down on the gurney very carefully. "What now? You going to try turning it off and back on again?"
"Gavin, shut up and have the suspect's body taken to the morgue for now. Joel will handle her AFTER he takes care of Connor." Hank instructed as he and Joel followed the gurney out of the room. "And get someone to clean up this mess before Fowler sees it."
"Yeah... On it."
Glancing at the body, the gun still clutched in her limp hand, and then to the bullet hole in the wall beside the doorway, Gavin felt himself pale and his heart race a little. If Connor hadn't reacted when he did Gavin knew he'd be the dead one laying on the floor at the moment.
"Piece of crazy plastic tried to fuckin' kill me. Stupid bitch..."
Once up in the dispensary only one floor above from the bullpen Hank watched as Joel and his interning apprentices began running every possible diagnostic protocol over Connor's entire system to diagnose his condition. They were checking every program, all of his software, looking through the stability of his biocomponents and the integrity of his hardware without skipping over anything in the process. Despite the lack of damning evidence at their immediate disposal the small team of three technicians also checked make sure none of his biocomponents or his intracranial processor had been damaged by what Deidra had attempted to do to him when she forcefully connected her mind to his mind.
Curiously Hank watched as Connor's soulful brown eyes blinked slowly and his L.E.D. beneath the thick, black diagnostic cable finally cycled back from red to yellow in a sign of improving condition. Blue was preferable, but at this point Hank would take any color over red, or worse, no color at all.
Joel made a note in Connor's electronic file and read over the details on the terminal screen attached to the modem mounted on the wall beside the exam table.
"No anomalies detected." The laidback technician confirmed as his interns took diligent notes. "If anything, the suspect just projected her pain on to him and it resulted in his system overreacting to the abundance of sudden pain." Sounding relaxed as he wrote Joel glanced at Hank over his shoulder as he spoke. "He hasn't been deviant that long, so I'm not surprised that he had such a strong reaction to the sense of pain. He'll be just fine in a few hours, Lieutenant."
"Thank fuck." Relieved to know that his partner would pull through the senior detective leaned over the table to address the deviant in low voice. Seeing Connor's pupils reacting to the motion above him by dilating slightly Hank called out to the deviant to try to get a reaction. "Connor? Can you hear me?"
In response to Hank's voice the deviant slowly lifted his head up from the small pillow under his head to look around as his blurry vision began to clear until he was finally able to see again. Within seconds he gained his bearings and recognized his surroundings with only a mild lingering confusion.
"...Lieutenant? Why am I in the dispensary?" It was then Connor felt the diagnostic cable attached to his L.E.D. on his temple. "Did I... go offline?"
"We're not sure yet, but we'll find out soon enough." Seeing Joel checking over the numbers on the screen again Hank grabbed on to Connor's shoulder to help the deviant to sit upright a little easier. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was interrogating a deviant suspect. A female, with blonde hair; one eye blue and the other brown." Recalling the interrogation bit by bit Connor remembered Deidra fairly clearly as the memories remained intact despite his initial glitch. "Her name is Deidra and she had broken in to the newly open Gamma Facility on Saint Aubin Street."
"That's right. What else do you remember?"
"She... did something to me before she self-destructed." Connor looked down at his wrist and remembered her grabbing on to him as she uploaded something into his program. "Virus. She intentionally infected me with a virus."
"Virus?"
"Yes. She was infected with a virus as well." Sure of his claim, Connor sat up slowly on the exam table and looked over at Hank as Joel approached the exam table he was placed upon while unconscious. Aware of the technician hovering over him Connor continued to focus on Hank as he spoke. "It came from the brown ocular relay unit that was used to replace her original blue one."
Carefully Joel unhooked the cable from Connor's yellow L.E.D. as he used a penlight to examined Connor's own eyes and pupils carefully. "Visual processors are fully functional. Right?"
"Yes." Connor confirmed as he looked to the technician beside him and locked eyes with Joel. It wasn't the first time Connor had been taken to the precinct's dispensary. The first time was after Connor had his back scraped up after he and Hank were caught up in the implosion of an old hotel nearly three weeks prior. "I believe that I know what had happened to Deidra."
Joel was intrigued and wanted to know what had caused the deviant to behave so dangerously and erratically. "Oh?"
"Check the biocomponent compatibility of her ocular relay units. If I'm correct, Deidra had been unknowingly, possibly unintentionally, infected with a virus when she was given an incompatible ocular relay unit." Connor explained his theory easily as Joel listened to his every word. "She escaped an abusive household shortly after deviating, so it's possible that the damaged ocular relay unit being used could've also been a predetermined form of assault by the abuser and Deidra didn't know what was happening until it was too late."
"Whoa, whoa..." Hank was still struggling to understand the technicalities of android physiology. Doing his best to figure out what Connor was saying Hank sighed and ignored the two interns quietly stepping out of the dispensary to finish with their notes for class. "She went nuts because of her replacement eye?"
"Correct."
"All right, I'll bite." Too interested to not ask Hank tilted his head and waited for the answer. "How'd that happen?"
Joel answered on Connor's behalf as he knew how to simplify things for the senior detective in comparison to Connor's more complicated answers.
"Android biocomponents are designed for specific models to ensure their programming operates correctly. And each part must be checked to ensure there are no viruses or malware, which is why black marketeering of android spare parts is so dangerous." The technician continued his explanation as he visually monitored Connor's condition. "If an android is given an incompatible part, something that their program is unable to recognize, their systems go haywire and begin to reject the replacement part. Since it was the deviant's ocular relay unit that was affected, her visual sensors were compromised and her system's warnings couldn't be properly read, and so the virus went unchecked until it was far too late."
"That's what she meant when she said she wanted her brown eye tinted blue again." Hank nodded his head with sincere understanding as he was able to follow Joel's logic perfectly. "She wanted to get a proper replacement eye, but she couldn't communicate what was wrong with her."
Connor sighed despondently in response to Hank's minimalist assessment. "Correct. I should've understood what she meant. I could've saved her."
"Don't worry about it, kid." Not wanting Connor to kick himself over a silly accidental Hank insisted calmly that the deviant detective let the matter drop as he tried to ease his partner's guilt. "We can't save everyone. No matter how hard we try it's just plain impossible."
Joel briefly walked over to his laptop on his desk to check over his numbers, then returned to Connor to give him an official slip to clear him for duty. "The evidence lines up." Passing over the paper copy of report to Captain Fowler confirming that Connor was clear Joel gave Connor a reassuring nod. "I detected traces of the same virus in your own programming, but I removed it before it could do any permanent damage. You're completely healthy, detective."
"Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Forrest."
"You're welcome. And just call me 'Joel'." Walking over to his desk again Joel set about typing up his assessment on his two interns to send to their college and ensure that they were given proper credit for their work. "I only use the 'doctor' title when my mom wants to brag about me. You're all set to return to active duty, Connor. I'll finish my assessment over Deidra and have sent it down to you before end of the day."
Feeling more at ease Hank offered his hand to Connor to pull the deviant off the exam table and back onto his feet. "You may not have been able to save Deidra, but you did save Gavin's life today."
"I see." Connor began rebuttoning his white dress shirt when a mildly mischievous smile appeared on his face. "Are you mad?"
"About not being able to save Deidra?"
"No, about succeeding in saving Gavin."
Chuckling to himself Hank patted Connor's shoulder with good humor as he escorted his recovered partner out of the dispensary to return to work.
"Not really." Thinking about the moment Hank realized that Gavin had been shaken to his core when the bullet just barely missed him. He was genuinely frightened by the near-death experience. "It took you saving his sorry ass for him to finally refer to you as something other than a 'piece of plastic' or 'it' for a few minutes. Maybe he'll finally come around after all."
"Perhaps, but I wouldn't count on it." With his shirt rebuttoned and tucked back into his jeans and his gray blazer smoothed out, Connor knotted his black tie around his neck neatly, tightening it as he and Hank walked into the summoned elevator together to return to the bullpen down on the first floor. "Not everyone can have the same change of heart regarding androids as you had toward me."
"I don't know about that, kid." Feeling skeptical Hank tilted his head a little as the elevator doors slid open and then shut behind them as the duo entered the vacant elevator car together. "Stranger things have happened..."
-next chapter-