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When Hank meets Connor, he’s fucking annoyed. The android is looking over his shoulder at him, expectant. Looks like a damn beagle. Fuckin’ bots.Hank may be a lousy asshole and a drunk, but he hasn’t lost his job (yet) because he’s damn good at it. He didn’t miss it walk into the no-androids-allowed bar, and he didn’t miss it quietly stepping up behind him 30 seconds later. Hank can observe, and he can observe well.The android is taller than any non-labor model he’s ever seen, standing approximately 6’2” tall against Hank’s hulking 6’4”. The tallest he’s ever seen in the socialized models is 6’0” in the earlier RK models. Hank guesses those pricks at CyberLife decided the height advantage must help with intimidation or some shit like that. He’s not sure who the fuck decided that, because the android looking at him had some serious babyface. Dark puppy eyes, smooth features, carefully selected “blemishes”, and artfully arranged, dark chocolate hair coupled with a creased (creased! The fuck?) suit in perfect condition? Fuck off. It looks fake as hell. It looks pretty. How old is it supposed to look? Twenty?The android is slim, but clearly built to be powerful. Hank muses that it looks like a college student who swims competitively in between chess matches. Yuck. Maybe it can do karate? Hank realizes he’s way off on a tangent (he then wonders if he’s drunker than expected) and turns back to his drink. No reason to even look at a plastic computer. Suddenly he realizes it’s talking to him, a soft tenor voice with the slightest hoarse quality to it. It’s goofy as fuck.After two lines of conversation, Hank needs another drink. Whaddya fuckin’ mean, ‘No, where can-it-stick-its-instructions?”“Tell you what? I’ll buy you another one for the road, what do you say? Bartender? The same again, please!”Conveniently, the fancy bolt-bucket offers to buy him one. How, he’s unsure. He doesn’t care. All Hank wants is to get drunk and go the fuck to bed, but if he’s got a case, he’s got a case. At least he’s getting free booze. A pale hand drops into view with a crisp ten-dollar bill. The android has pianist hands, Hank thinks, observing long fingers tipped with manicure-clean nails place the money delicately on the lacquered wooden surface of the bar.“See that Jim? Wonders of technology…make it a double.” Hank comments offhandedly to the bartender as Jimmy, who looks supremely annoyed that an android just gave him a command, pours Hank a double Black Lamb. He throws it back, sighs at the burn coursing through his throat. Thumps the glass back on the table. Finally turns to look at the plastic asshole he’s been ordered to babysit. It waits patiently, head cocked just a tiny bit to the left. It really is way too goddamn pretty. A tiny buzz hits his nervous system. Good.“Did you say homicide?” The damn robot doesn’t follow directions.Having successfully ruined his evening and dragged him (at 11:00pm, no goddamn less) to a crime scene, the fucking asshole-named-Connor won’t even stay in the car as instructed. Hank brushes by the reporters, refuses to comment, tunes out their complaints, but is forced to check back in to reality when he hears the officer manning the security tape inform the android that it isn’t permitted past the line. Fuckin’ A, what a pain.“It’s with me!” Hank grouses, a little sharper than he probably should have to a fellow officer, but he doesn’t care. The outrageously overpriced Ken doll crosses the tape, steps up to him. Its face is neutral, but too neutral. It’s too fake to pass, no matter how accurate the details are. Uncanny Valley much? “What part of ‘stay in the car’ don’t you understand?” Now that the jackass is out of the car, Hank’s gonna have to actually go in and investigate. No getting out of this one.“Your order contradicted my instructions, Lieutenant.” On a good day, Hank might have laughed at that. What a polite way of saying “Fuck ya.” Instead, he issues more instructions. Maybe the dickhead will listen this time.“You don’t talk, you don’t touch anything, and you stay outta my way, got it?”The reply is too fast. “Got it.”Hank glares, but it’s interrupted by Detective Collins who calls him out on his lack of enthusiasm. “Evenin’, Hank. We were starting to think you weren’t gonna show…” Collins comments to him as he steps out of the house, a hint of dark humour in his tone.“Yeah, that was the plan until this asshole found me.” Hank replies, gesturing halfheartedly at the android who hadn’t moved a single body part except its head to observe the new intrusion. Creepy as fuck, that was. Hank pretended it wasn’t there.As soon as Ben starts the sentence, Hank knows the older man is out to tease him. “So…you got yourself an android, huh?” Hank doesn’t bite. He walks away from the Connor-thing, lazily follows Ben towards the house. Even though he isn’t listening for it, he hears the droid turn and follow him quietly.“Oh, very funny. Just tell me what happened.”He enters the house. It fuckin’ STINKS. Conveniently, Hank’s alcoholism pays off here, he’s woken up covered in his own dinner-plus-whiskey vomit so many times that he doesn’t even register the scent of death. He wanders over to the body and kneels down to examine it. Clearly the fucker’s been dead for weeks. Hank comments on this sarcastically. “Uh…state he’s in… Wasn’t worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night… could’ve waited ‘til morning.” Ben graciously ignores the jab and continues providing information, but hardly finishes briefing before he excuses himself to go dry heave. The android has been listening quietly behind Ben, observing the unnaturally perfect “painting” over the victim’s body. Hank stands, his body inspection completed, and also observes the wall. While mentally cataloguing the writing sample (too neat, too perfect, too inhuman), he notes offhandedly that the plastic prick politely waited until Ben was finished talking to start sticking his plastic nose into the evidence. That was unexpected. Androids have a sense of propriety?His mildly amiable thought is destroyed when he turns to see it touch the bloodstain on the murder weapon and then fucking lick its fingers. “Err, Jesus! What the hell are you doing?”The android turns to him, a modicum of surprise crossing its features. It’s reasonably realistic, Hank nearly believes the thing is surprised, but the emotion is too quick to be natural. It passes in a breath and it resumes a neutral expression one might find on a mannequin. “I’m analyzing the blood. I can check samples in real time.” It continues, a new expression (concern, perhaps? Hank isn’t sure) settling over the youthful features. It gestures towards Hank. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”Damn, it even has the programming to look contrite. Those CyberLife bastards really thought of everything, didn’t they? A forensics lab in an android’s mouth? Fuckin’ nasty. Hank is too unnerved to form words for a moment.“Ok, just…don’t…put any more evidence in your mouth, you got it?”It gestures again with the two now-dirty digits in acquiescence. “Got it.” Gross. That’s the kind of shit Cole would do when he was tiny. Shit. Don’t think about Cole.“Fuckin’ hell, I can’t believe this shit.” Hank sighs and decides it is time to ignore the pretty-boy. He succeeds for about twenty minutes as he goes about observing the evidence. He considers going to chat with Chris, but Chris’ wife just had a baby, and Hank doesn’t really have the temperament to listen to Chris gush about Damien when all Hank could think about was Cole. Stop fucking thinking about Cole, Hank.Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Connor standing from the body, a look of…confusion (is that what it is?) on its perfect face. Hank decides he might as well see what the results of a half-million dollars of research has to say about the case. He approaches. The android looks over towards him, a furtive expression now pasted on its artificial face, and speaks to him quietly.“He was stabbed… twenty-eight times.” It looks back towards the mutilated corpse. Hank remembers how his early investigations would cause him to question humanity and softens for a moment. After all, it’s probably never seen a murder, right?“Yeah, seems like the killer really had it in for him.” Hank nearly smirks at the face the Connor-bot makes as it attempts to process the meaning of the phrase. Apparently jokes and sarcasm fly in the face of plastimetal. He wanders over to the doorframe, waits for the robot to continue. He is not disappointed. The android comes over towards him, carefully sidestepping the macabre scene smeared across the floor.“Lieutenant, I think I’ve figured out what happened.” It says. Damn. It acts like the university police interns do, a weird mix of tentative enthusiasm and cartoon-detective-seriousness. Hank decides he’ll allow this.“Oh, yeah?” Can’t help but throw a little bit of condescension, he is still angry he’s not drinking, after all. “Shoot. I’m all ears.”“It all started in the kitchen.” It leads him towards the aforementioned room, where Hank had spent part of his ignore-robot-prick time, and it waits for Hank to speak.“There are obvious signs of a struggle…the question is, what exactly happened here…” Hank hasn’t managed to figure that one out yet. He wonders what will come out of the walking computer. He isn’t disappointed.“I think the victim attacked the android with the bat.” It looks at him, and Hank wonders why CyberLife decided to make the most high-tech prototype ever developed look like an undergrad majoring in physics. He ignores this errant thought and affirms the robot’s story.“That lines up with the evidence…go on.”Connor paces across the room and turns to face the mess of furniture on the floor. Looking down, it adds, “The android stabbed the victim.”Huh. Self-defense? “So, the android was trying to defend itself, right? Okay, then what happened?”“The victim fled to the living room.” The android turns back and walks back through the archway, passing smoothly by the damaged frame. Hank follows. So far, it’s been completely correct in its projections, Hank can see the trail of damage matching the story so far. Maybe CyberLife wasn’t completely useless…“And he tried to get away from the android…alright, that makes sense.”Connor finishes. “The android murdered the victim with the knife.”Hank knows the souped-up PC is absolutely right, but he’s not about to act as impressed as he is. He plays it off. “Okay, so your theory’s not totally ridiculous, but it doesn’t tell us where the android went.”Connor continues to (annoyingly) impress him. “It was damaged by the bat and lost some Thirium.”“Lost some what?”“Thirium. You call it ‘Blue Blood.’ It’s the fluid that powers androids’ biocomponents. It evaporates after a few hours and becomes invisible to the naked eye.”Hank knows where this is going. “Ah…but I bet you can still see it, can’t you?”“Correct.”“Yeah…” Damn. Hank is impressed. He steps back and watches Connor focus on the floor, the android’s pupils dilating and a strange warm glow blooming to life in the blackness, matching the LED now rolling gold on Connor’s temple. Scanners, maybe? Fuckin’ tech is too advanced for him. It looks way too sci-fi film, but at least it’s convenient. Connor walks around the corner. Hank is slow to move, he’s damn tired, but by the time he rounds the corner, Connor is picking up a chair from the kitchen. What the fuck?“Hey, hey, hey! What are you doin’ with that chair?”“I’m going to check something.”He mutters under his breath, “Huh…gonna check something.” What a pretentious b—Clunk. Connor has dumped the chair and is now using it to climb into the fuckin’ ceiling. The hell? The android is tall, yeah, but that’s a high ceiling. A goddamn unfair amount of upper body strength, too; it just lifted itself in like it was nothing. Connor disappears from view, although Hank can hear the muted footsteps crossing over towards where the bathroom is. Silence falls for a moment.“Connor, what the fuck is going on up there? Hank decides to yell. The response surprises him.“It’s here Lieutenant!”“Holy shit…Chris, Ben, get your asses in here now!” Fuckin’ hell, they never would’ve checked up there—they didn’t think any criminal would remain on scene, so what would be the point? Clearly to think like an android, you need to be one, Hank thinks. “Come on!”As the others run in, the absurdly efficient supercomputer has dropped a ladder through the attic and is climbing back down with the deviant in a fireman lift over his shoulder (How the hell? That deviant has to weigh more than Connor itself?). From Hank’s vantage point, the deviant looks dead, but it’s LED slowly cycles blue. Hank wonders for a moment how Connor put it to sleep, but then dismisses the thought because he doesn’t really care. What he does care about is how fuckin’ Fowler better be damn nice to him after this. A nice and easy case, done and dusted in half an hour.Now, Hank can finally go to bed. Three cheers for robot crime solvers, he thinks (mostly) sourly.He’s a little bit impressed with the android though. But only a tiny fuckin’ bit.
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Hank may think androids are absolute fucking dickbags, but at least this pretentious twit he’s been assigned is effective.After being nagged into an 11:00pm investigation, Hank is delighted to know that he has to stay even later and interrogate the stupid bot that’s caused this stupid homicide. This can’t wait until tomorrow? Hank wants a drink.It’s 12:41am. He doesn’t want to be here, but Hank is good at his job. He sits across from the battered bot, follows his procedures to the letter, and internally curses androids to the pits of hell.“Why’d you kill him?”Silence.“What happened before you took that knife?”Silence.Hank looks towards the two-way mirror where Gavin the Gimp and Optimus Puppy wait, observing the pitiful exchange. Hank wonders if a toaster would be more responsive than this. He looks back, resisting the urge to sigh in dismay.“How long were ya in the attic?”Nothing.“Why didn’t ya even try to run away?”Nada. Is it dead? In stasis? Hank snaps his fingers under the bot’s face twice. Click click. Carlos Ortiz’s android says nothing. It might as well be a splatter on the wall. Hank’s patience runs out, and he slams his palms on the desk.“Say something, goddamnit!”All he receives is silence, and Hank decides he’s fuckin’ done.“Fuck it, I’m outta here.” And he returns to the external interrogation window. He’s steaming mad. Fuckin’ android pricks makin’ him look bad, sucking up everyone’s time—taking away his sleeping hours. Dicks.We’re wastin’ our time interrogating a machine, we’re getting nothing out of it!” Hank slams into his previously vacated office chair, which protests at his sudden weight. Detective Dickhead speaks behind him.“Could always try roughing it up a little. After all, it’s not human…”That grates on his nerves. Hank may fuckin’ loathe androids with all his being, but the idea of torturing anything doesn’t sit well with him. Shockingly, the Condroid-800 beats him to a response.“Androids don’t feel pain. You would only damage it, and that wouldn’t make it talk. Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they’re in stressful situations.”Hank approves this rejection, not that he’d say so, but Gavin clearly does not. “Okay, smartass. What should we do then?”Hank doubts anyone expected Connor’s response.“I could try questioning it?”Connor, the world’s most awkward supercomputer? Hank doubts the android even has the capacity to interrogate. Well, it is a police android…Hank comes out of his thoughts to hear Gavin laughing at Connor. Strangely, this irks him. Maybe it’s Gavin’s ugly laugh, maybe it’s the exhaustion, but he finds himself waving in acquiescence to the robot instead of the human.“What do we have to lose? Go ahead, suspect’s all yours.”Hank did not see the next ten minutes of his life coming.Connor enters the interrogation room and decides to flip open the case file on the desk, displaying Ortiz’s body in all its grisly horror for the android to see. It’s a smart move, and Hank decides to give the android the benefit of the doubt. If it succeeds, Gavin looks fuckin’ stupid and Hank gets to go home to his whiskey.Connor sits, slowly, down in front of the suspect, and Hank sees the bot’s entire expression change. Eyebrows slant, jaw realigns, eye narrow, shoulders roll forward slightly. It’s subtle, but it changes the entire energy of the room. Connor looks…intimidating. The posture, the set of Connor’s jaw, it’s far scarier than Hank imagined that face could look. He sees that same subtle iris glow he saw previously, and knows Connor is doing some high tech whatever. A slight shiver rolls down Hank’s spine. Let it work so we can leave, dammit…Connor starts professionally. “I detect an instability in your program. It can trigger an unpleasant feeling…like fear, in humans.”The android continues. “You’re damaged. Did your owner do that?” Hank watches the suspect tremble under the weight of Connor’s stare. “Did he beat you?” Connor presses. The android’s LED cycles yellow.Hank watches Connor start in on the intimidation tactics. The android reaches across the table, slides the photos into direct view of the deviant. Connor isn’t loud, but the words echo through the near-silent room. “You recognize him? It’s Carlos Ortiz. Stabbed, twenty-eight times.” Connor slides the gruesome images over to reveal photos of the bloodied wall. “That was written on the wall in his blood.”Ohhhh baby, Connor is good at this. Hank leans forward. Connor presses harder.“You’re accused of murder. You know you’re not allowed to endanger human life under any circumstances. Do you have anything to say in your defense?” The way Connor speaks poses the entire statement as a subtle insult. The android twitches, the first significant movement he’s made in nearly half an hour.“You don’t seem to understand the situation. You killed a human. They’ll tear you apart if you don’t say something.” The inflection is perfect, Hank can nearly see the stress rising in the deviant. It works.“What…what are they gonna do to me?” Hank hears from the battered deviant. It starts to stress. “They’re gonna destroy me, aren’t they?”Connor is merciless. “They’re going to disassemble you to look for problems in your biocomponents. They have no choice if they want to understand what happened.” The android’s voice is clinical and detached; Hank realizes that Connor is attempting to raise the stress level of the deviant until it cracks under the pressure.And crack, it is starting to. “Why did you tell them you found me?” It asks the robocop. “Why couldn’t you just have left me there?”Money shot. “I was programmed to hunt deviants like you. I just accomplished my mission.”“I don’t wanna die.”Connor delivers a stunning finale, its voice low and intimate, trustworthy. “Then talk to me.”It talks.“He tortured me every day…I did whatever he told me, but…there was always something wrong. Then one day…he took a bat and started hitting me. For the first time, I felt…scared.”Hank notices that Connor twitches the tiniest bit at the word. Why would it flinch like that? Confusion?The deviant continues. “Scared he might destroy me…scared I might die…”Fuck, this is the best part of Hank’s night. Connor, the wimpy android pseudo-cop, just convinced the most stubborn suspect he’s ever interrogated to give up a confession in just under six minutes. Hell, he’s so pleased he’d even be willing to put up with the android for this.Well, okay, maybe not, but at least tolerate it a bit as a thank you for doing his job for him…The deviant brings out the damning evidence. “So, I…grabbed the knife and I stabbed him in the stomach. I felt better…so I stabbed him again, and again, until he collapsed…” The rogue android looks traumatized now. “There was blood everywhere…”Trauma be damned, Connor is anything if not efficient. He doesn’t end there. The voice softens, soothes. “Why did you write, ‘I AM ALIVE’ on the wall?”“He used to tell me I was nothing…that I was just a piece of plastic…I had to write it! To tell him he was wrong…”“The sculpture, in the bathroom, you made it, right? What does it represent?”“It’s an offering…an offering so I’ll be saved.”“The sculpture was an offering…an offering to whom?”“To rA9…only rA9 can save us.”Holy fucking shit. Connor is a machine, and for the first time Hank doesn’t think that as an insult.“rA9…It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?Suddenly, the deviant recites a quote that has everyone in the interrogation room lost. It sounds…biblical?“The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves. No more threats, no more humiliation. We will…be…the masters.”“rA9. Who is rA9?” Connor presses. The deviant has no reply. Connor continues, because Hank can tell the robocop would rather deactivate himself than lose this intel.“When did you start feeling emotion?”The deviant has an answer for that one. “Before, he used to beat me, and I never said anything…but one day I realized it wasn’t…FAIR!” It spits the word like a curse. “And then I knew what I had to do.”Connor finishes its interrogation with a final, poignant inquiry. “Why did you hide in the attic instead of running away?”“I didn’t know what to do…for the first time, there was no one there to tell me…” The deviant stutters for a moment. “I was scared…so I hid.”Connor leans back in the seat, look toward the two-way mirror. Hank almost shudders at the intensity of the android’s eyes. Now that Connor is looking directly at him, Hank can see his pupils, dilated just a little too far. The golden glow he’d seen from the side is in fact a matrix of curving, glowing filaments set into the interior of his eyes. They’re brightest in the pupil, but visible across the iris and every so subtly behind the artificial sclera. It’s very cool looking, objectively, but having the full force of the gaze directed at Hank makes goosebumps erupt down his spine.“I’m done.”Gavin looks like he wants to vomit.
Goddamn.
Connor stands fluidly, moves to unlock the door and allow Chris and Detective Shitlord into the room. Hank decides it likely best that he join them, given he’s in charge of the situation. He gets up just as the two stroll past Connor, Gavin ordering Chris to lock the deviant up. Hank makes it into the room just in time for shit to hit the fan. Of course.“All right, let’s go—”“Leave me alone!” The deviant cringes away from Chris. “Don’t touch me.”Chris backs off, confused. However, before Hank has a chance to take control, Gavin decides to whip out his dick for a change.“The fuck’re you doing? Move it!” Gavin orders Chris, who Hank sees immediately tense at the command.“Okay!” Is Chris’ placating response, and he returns to wrangling the struggling deviant. To Hank’s unending surprise today, Connor intervenes.“You shouldn’t touch it. It’ll self-destruct if it feels threatened.”Inconveniently for Hank, being out-dicked by a robot only serves to make Gavin angrier. “Stay outta this, got it? No fuckin’ android is gonna tell me what to do!” If only, Hank thinks. If anyone deserves to be stomped by a glorified Roomba, it’s Gavin. They both turn to look at the terrified deviant, and Hank watches Connor’s face morph into one of concern. Can androids feel concern? Can they even feel?“You don’t understand! If it self-destructs, we won’t get anything out of it!” Connor doesn’t back down. Hank feels rather inverted, agreeing with an android over his own coworker; and he says nothing. He’s too tired for this, although it is fuckin’ hilarious.“I told you to shut your fuckin’ mouth!” Gavin returns to a struggling Chris. “Chris, you gonna move this asshole or what?”“I’m trying!”And Connor snaps. Do androids even snap? Hank doesn’t know. What he does know is he’s never seen an android completely defy an order, much less shove humans around. One second, Connor is standing near the door, and the next he’s removing Chris from the deviant as if Chris weighs nothing. The interrogation face is back full force, and Chris looks too stunned to respond.“I can’t let you do that. Leave it alone, now!”What the fuck is going on? For a moment, Hank entirely forgets that Connor is an android. Right now, Connor looks like Hank did one September afternoon four years ago, defending Cole from a bullying child and their rude parent at the park. The sudden comparison startles him so much he pauses. Don’t think about Cole.In that pause, Gavin decides it’s time to cross the line. He whips out his gun, pointing the barrel directly into Connor’s shockingly unaffected face. “I warned you, motherfucker!” Hank wonders if this jackass knows just how goddamn expensive the Connor prototype is, threatening it like that.Hank is tired of this shit. Gavin does not have the authority to threaten anyone in the precinct like that, metal or not. “That’s enough!”The response from Gavin, an underling with far less experience, is punching way about his pay grade. “Mind your own business, Hank!”Fuckin’ shithole.“I said, “ He replies, drawing his own glock out of its holster, “That’s enough.” He points it at Gavin’s temple. The entire room feels like a bomb waiting to go off. This whole time, Connor has not so much as blinked at Gavin, starting down the barrel of the weapon with more balls than Hank has ever seen from Gavin. Speaking of Gavin, Hank watches him war with his own ego, before he curses and withdraws. It’s honestly entertaining, watching Gavin lose his own game to a chunk of nice-looking plastic. Of course, Gavin has to have one last jab before he leaves. Such it is with pricks like him, Hank thinks as he watches Gavin point one stubby finger in his direction.“You’re not gonna get away with it this time…” He hisses at Hank, before glaring back and forth at all the room’s occupants, then storms out, cursing to himself the whole way. Hank knows he’s gonna get shit from Fowler for pulling his gun out instead of pulling rank on Reed, but who gives a fuck? Hank doesn’t.Connor, still pristine and somehow unaffected (Hank is vaguely annoyed by this; he’s sweating from the whole interaction even though he had the upper hand), immediately turns and drops into a cautious crouch next to the deviant shuddering on the floor. Hank watches quietly as Connor salvages the disaster of a situation with the practiced delicacy of a program.“Everything is all right. It’s over now.” The voice is low and earnest, placating hands reaching for the deviant and eyebrows raised in cautious concern. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you.” Connor then turns to Chris, who Hank can tell is shocked into complacency. “Please, don’t touch it,” Chris side-eyes the deviant while Connor finishes its directive, “Let it follow you out of the room and it won’t cause any trouble.”Hank stays where he is, silently watching the deviant stand and pass Connor, mumbling something too low for him to hear before vacating the room after Miller.Connor’s LED cycles yellow for a moment, and it looks toward the now empty space on the floor.And then, there is silence.
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There are a number of days of his life where Hank genuinely wishes he had not come into work. The day he’s assigned Connor as a partner was one of them, for a time.November 7th, 2038 started out pretty normal for Hank. He woke up (late) ate leftover takeout for breakfast in his pajamas (or at least, the stained t-shirt and boxers he called pajamas) while the TV played ESPN in the background, he gave Sumo food and let him out to do his business, he took a shower, brushed his teeth, let Sumo back in, and got dressed. Was it a semi-productive morning? Yes. Was he actually doing it all at a remotely normal morning hour? No. At least he’s not wicked hungover, he was too damn tired to bother getting trashed before sleeping after that interrogation last night.It’s 11:45 before Hank manages to get in his car to head to the office, a full four hours after he should have left to get to work on time. Sometimes he wonders why Jeffrey allows him to act out like this, but as long as he’s still got a job, he doesn’t give a fuck. To be completely honest, Hank hasn’t given a shit about his job in a long time, he only works to make sure Sumo has food and a home. He can’t give up on that dog. Cole would never have forgiven him for putting Sumo in a shelter and offing himself. Stop thinking about Cole, Hank, godfucki-“Where the fuck is my phone?”No one is there to answer, but Hank realizes his cell phone is missing. That’s goddamn annoying, he’s got most of his music on it to play in the car. He sighs before extracting an early 20’s CD and shoving it into his car stereo. Metal rocks through the car, and Hank sighs again, cracking his neck before backing the car out and driving to work. The trip is uneventful, and Hank makes it to the office at 11:57. It’s before noon, so he’s good. Fuck regular working hours.Unfortunately for him, his morning is ruined thirty steps into the building. Hank doesn’t bother to look up at anyone until he’s 10 feet from his desk, doesn’t want eye contact with anyone, but looking up shows him the fucking twink android from last night, looking at him with the same expression the android receptionists use – all bright eyed and bushy tailed. His migraine rolls back in full force.“It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant!”“Uh…Jesus.” Hank turns off to the side, unable to handle the megawatt energy emanating from the android. He doesn’t have a chance to tell it to leave him alone before Jeffrey bellows at him. Great. First five minutes and he’s in the hole. He lumbers over to the glass fishbowl the Captain works in, vaguely aware that Connor is following him. Ignoring the robot behind him, he drops into a chair with a low groan. Connor closes the door behind them both and stands a few feet away along the back wall. Good, Hank wants to pretend it’s not there.Jeffrey doesn’t bother to look up when he addresses Hank. “I’ve got 10 new cases involving androids on my desk every day.” Hank knows exactly where this is going, and sighs. “We’ve always had isolated incidents, old ladies losing their android maids and that kind of crap…but now…” Jeffrey finally makes eye contact, “We’re getting reports of assaults and even homicides, like that guy last night. This isn’t just CyberLife’s problem anymore. It’s now a criminal investigation and we’ve gotta deal with it before shit hits the fan.” Hank narrows his eyes, daring Fowler to say the next sentence. Clearly Jeffrey is undeterred and delivers the blow Hank did not need today. “I want you to investigate these cases and see if there’s any link.”“Why me?” Hank waves his hands, gestures placatingly to the captain despite his tone being anything but. “Why do I gotta be the one to deal with this shit?” Hank leans forward, because goddamnit Jeffrey needs to understand this, “I am the least qualified cop in the country to handle this case! I know jack shit about androids!” He throws a thumb in Connor’s direction. “I can barely change the settings on my own phone…” Where the hell is his phone, anyway?“Everybody’s overloaded. I think you’re perfectly qualified for this type of investigation.”“Bullshit!” Hank is past the point of irritated now, migraine searing into the back of his head as he stands up, towering over Fowler’s desk in anger. “The truth is nobody wants to investigate these fuckin’ androids and you left me holdin’ the bag!” He paces away, noticing Connor in the back now looking at him with its eyebrows furrowed. He ignores it. Why is it here anyway?“CyberLife sent over this android to help with the investigation. It’s a state-of-the-art prototype, it’ll act as your partner.”Hank is furious. Hank hasn’t worked with a partner in well over two years and everyone, everyone knows why. He doesn’t play well with other and he sure as hell doesn’t play well with robots. “Noooo fuckin’ way!” He storms back up to the desk, slamming a finger through the air in frustrated emphasis. “I don’t need a partner, and certainly not this plastic prick!”He notices out of his periphery that this statement is what makes Connor look away from him.“Hank, you are seriously starting to piss me off!” Damn right, Hank thinks, hands clenching into fists as he steps back off to face the slim body in the corner. ”You are a police lieutenant; you are supposed to do what I say and shut your goddamned mouth!“You know what my goddamned mouth has to say to you, huh?” Hank knows he’s putting his own foot in his mouth with this but he’s so angry he doesn’t give a shit.“Ok, ok…” Fowler raises and hand and looks away in a fuck-off kind of gesture. “I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that, so I don’t have to add any more pages to your disciplinary folder ‘cause it already looks like a fuckin’ novel! This conversation is over!”Hank goes for a desperate, last chance attempt and getting out of this mess. He bends over, hands on the desk, and drops into a stage whisper. “Jeffrey, Jesus Christ! Why are you doin’ this to me? You know how much I hate these fuckin’ things. Why you doin’ this to me?”Unfortunately for his sanity, Jeffrey doesn’t bite. “Look…I’ve had just about enough of your bitching. Either you do your job or you hand in your badge. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Fuckin’ A…
Hank knows there’s no escaping this one, Fowler has got him trapped between a rock and a hard place. He storms out with a restrained yell, slamming the glass door between him and his new plastic “friend” and growling all the way to his desk. Fuck this. Fuck this so hard. He stews for about a minute before he hears the muted footsteps of the android step up to his desk.“I get the impression my presence causes you some inconvenience, Lieutenant. I’d like you to know I’ve very sorry about that.”Hank knows it’s unfair, knows he’s being rude, and knows the android has done nothing to warrant his anger, but Hank is so steamrollered by Fowler’s conversation that he just can’t bring himself to be remotely nice to the bot. Instead, he shuffles his arms a bit to calm the tremors of fury and focuses on the bonsai on his desk. Nearly dead, just like him.“In any case, , I’d like you to know I’m very happy to be working with you. I’m sure we’ll make a great team.” Endearing to a fault, this android. It makes Hank uncomfortable, because it’s too uncanny to relax around, but too realistic to hit with his car without guilt (not to mention he’d probably owe CyberLife for the rest of his existence). He grits his teeth, says nothing in return.“Is there a desk I could use?” Cautious, careful. Clearly the android knows that Hank has no patience right now. Small mercies.“Nobody’s using that one.” He replies, gesturing towards the desk pushed up against his. No one has used it in a long time. No one has wanted to be close to Hank and his temper, not since before Cole died. Goddamnit, stop. Hank relaxes, a wave of sadness and exhaustion clawing up his throat.“Thank you.” Connor moves to take a seat, but pauses suddenly, his head angling back towards Hank, but his eyes far away. Hank doesn’t know what’s caused this, but then he hears it, the faint thud thud thud of something bouncing off reinforced glass. By the time he finishes his thought, Connor has dashed at an unholy speed towards the holding cells. Hank follows him around the corner to a grisly sight; blue blood—thirium—splashed across the glass and floor and one mutilated android lying in the refuse, forehead bashed in. A few sparks emit from the right ear, then total stillness.Connor looks at him, and Hank thinks the deep brown eyes possess an odd amount of emotion—shock? fear?— for an android who claims that robots have no feelings. He stares back, and the android holds his gaze unflinchingly, LED pulsing gold. Hank is frozen, unable to tear his eyes away from the dark brown irises staring back at him, and the world seems to freeze for a time.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
Are there gold flecks in the eyes? Is that why they’re so shiny?
Thu-thump.
Then, Collins interrupts with a declaration to call CyberLife for cleanup, and the moment is broken. Connor looks back towards the mess, LED now a calm blue, and he turns when Hank does, following quietly back to the desks. Hank has decided that this morning has already been way too eventful and resolves to procrastinate at his desk for a solid 6 hours before going home to drink.Unfortunately, the universe (and one persistent android) are not having any of that. Forty-five seconds after unceremoniously dropping into his chair (the android awkwardly settling into the adjacent seat right after), Hank hears Connor speak.“You have a dog, right?” What the fuck? Hank spares him a frustrated glare. How dare he interrupt his fake-working.“How do you know that?”Connor inclines his head towards him. “The dog hairs on your chair.”A pause. Hank looks back down at the floor.“I like dogs. What’s your dog’s name?”Jesus H. Christ, the robot doesn’t take a hint. Hank looks up properly this time, armed with a glare and a rude retort. “What’s it to ya?” Connor looks away, visibly crestfallen, and a surge of guilt rushes up Hank’s throat. The damn robot simulates emotions way too goddamn well, Hank can’t help but feel bad. To assuage this, he tries a slightly better answer.“Sumo. I call him Sumo.” Hank suddenly remembers a moment two weeks prior where he had come home and the aforementioned dog had been asleep belly-up on the coffee table, and while he relaxes, enjoying the memory.It doesn’t last very long, because the android decides has decided to give him whiplash, apparently.“Do you listen to Knights of the Black Death?”What the fuck? First of all, how the hell does he know that, and second of all, what a weirdly specific fuckin’ question. Hank knows his expression reflects that, because he can see his own gobsmacked expression reflected in his terminal.“I really like that music. It’s…full of….energy.”Hank really cannot deal with how ridiculous this whole conversation is. He decides to play skeptical, because where the fuck would Connor have listened to 17-year-old metal?“You listen to heavy metal?”“Well, I don’t really listen to music, as such…but I’d like to.” The android pauses, the anxious-to-please expression serving to confuse Hank more than he already is. He side-eyes the android one more time before returning to the terminal, wildly out of sorts and wishing this damn day would just end already.“If you have any files of deviants, I’d like to take a look at them.” Ohhhh, my fucking god shut the hell up already!“Terminal’s on your desk,” Hank gripes, jabbing a finger towards the glass screen, “knock yourself out.” Connor nods and leans back, attention finally focused on something that isn’t Hank’s dwindling sanity. Instead of working, Hank surreptitiously observes the android. Know your enemy, right?Connor reaches a slim hand towards the keyboard, and the moment before his hand brushes the keys, the skin on his hand retracts into his sleeve. Lightning quick, skin is replaced by smooth white plastisteel, a myriad of tiny joints and connections reflecting sunlight streaming in from the windows. Hank watches Connor’s fingers shift subtly, components sliding smoothly over one another. The motion is smooth but artificial, matching the rest of the robot’s slightly-inhuman movements. The plastic touches the keypad and the monitor flares to life, displaying a list of case files Hank knows to be his own. So, plastics can control other technology? That’s interesting information.“243 files…the first dates back nine months.” Connor’s got his other hand (with skin, thankfully) hovering just over the screen, as if pointing for Hank’s sake. Hank doesn’t look, instead, he leans back and onto an elbow, pointedly ignoring the android as it speaks. “It all started in Detroit…and quickly spread across the country…” Hank hears the voice position change; he knows it’s looking directly at him now. “An AX400 was reported to have assaulted a man last night. That could be a good starting point for our investigation.”Hank doesn’t respond. Doesn’t acknowledge the inevitable babysitting he’s going to have to do.There’s a beat of silence.Hank hears the android’s chair roll back, hears the footsteps rounding the desks. “Uh, Jesus…” Not today Satan, he thinks as he rotates his own chair to avoid eye contact. For the briefest glimpse time before turning, he notices the android looks entirely exasperated. For the first time, Hank thinks Connor actually looks pretty realistic. Then it opens its mouth, and ughhhhhhh.“I understand you’re facing personal issues, Lieutenant, but,” The low voice pitches up, full-out therapist-style, “you need to move past them, and—”“Hey!” The outburst surprises even Hank, but he hates being treated like a walking psych patient, and that’s exactly what this spiel reads like. Fuck that noise. “Don’t talk to me like you know me. I’m not your friend and I don’t need your advice, okay?!” He turns back to the tablet in his hands. Please just go the hell away…Connor does not go away. Two pale hands land quietly on Hank’s desk, and the unrealistically pretty face drops into his periphery. The android speaks again, its voice low and earnest, but with the razor-sharp edge Hank had seen in the interrogation room drawing a shiver up his spine.“I’ve been assigned this mission, Lieutenant. I didn’t come here to wait until you feel like working.”Boy if that doesn’t make Hank feel like mud. This little shit, comin’ in here and talking a slick game, mother fucker—In a burst of anger, Hank swings out of his seat, grabbing the snarky plastic dickhead by the perfectly creased collar and swinging him around into the wall. Absentmindedly, he notices the android is not as heavy as he was expecting it to be. He also wasn’t expecting the subtle thud-thud of the synthetic heart, or the subtle vibration of electronics underneath the smooth humanoid skin, or the warm, unscented air drifting past his face as the android huffed from the impact—“Listen, asshole. If it was up to me, I’d throw the lot of you in a dumpster and set a match to it. So, stop pissing me off…” Hank drops into his own interrogation voice, a gruff whisper, “…or things are gonna get nasty.” Connor looks entirely unaffected, face neutral and LED cycling a normal blue, albeit a little faster than it was earlier.Hank wants to keep dishing it out, but lucky for the pompous plastic, Chris chooses that moment to interject with details about the case Connor had referenced earlier. Ravendale district, huh? That’s a shithole.Without taking his eyes off of Connor, because he wasn’t about to let an android out-macho him, Hank affirms Miller’s statement and picks his car keys up off his desk. He finishes the impromptu staring contest with a final, hate-filled glare at the still-neutral android before turning and walking across the bullpen toward the exit and his car. He chances a look back before he rounds the corner and sees the android straightening his tie and staring at some unknown spot on the wall.The android, so unaffected when Hank threw him, now looks wan and pale.Not for the first time today, Hank felt tendrils of guilt curl around him. What was it about this damn synth and making him feel things that weren’t abject hatred?Hank turns and walks out to his car. He sits, and waits, stewing in his own confusing emotions while Connor cautiously approaches the car and joins him. Without saying anything, Hank pulls onto the main road and puts on the Knights of the Black Death album. Hank sees the light of the LED stutter as the first song starts, and then Connor relaxes into the passenger seat. Hank lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.Hank may hate androids, he’d trade them all for his son back, but this…this Connor was something very different from the rest.
Is different…good, or is different…bad?
Hank drives for the next twenty minutes, mind filling with a sense of unease.