Chapter Text
Hank grumbled to himself as he took one last look around the cordoned-off alley. A dead human sat slumped against the dinghy wall of an old burnt-out pizzeria. The man was maybe in his mid-twenties, and judging by the textbooks and art supplies spilling out of a ripped ‘College for Creative Studies’ backpack at the front of the alley, still in college. Someone shot him once in the gut and once in the neck.
“Damn,” Hank muttered, looking around the scene again. “You'd think sending your kid to an art school is safe."
Connor looked up from the blood he was examining. "Actually, Collin Delany's parents did not support his decision to attend art school and they haven't spoken in two years. He was independently paying his way by working as a nude model."
Williams, the officer first on the scene, shook his head. "Always creeps me out, how much the government knows about us."
Personally, Hank agreed; professionally, he appreciated how much easier tracking people down had become since his rookie days. However, "That was more specific than usual, Connor." He said.
"Delany's social media accounts aren't private," Connor explained. "It wasn't hard to find."
If Hank still had a social media account, he would seriously consider deleting it. Lucky for him, he did it years ago. "Now that we're all reminded how easy it is to stalk someone in the metaverse, let's get back to work," Hank said, raising his voice slightly for the benefit of the eavesdropping officers.
"Wasn't I doing that, Lieutenant Anderson?" Connor asked, mild confusion crossing his face.
"Never change, Connor," Hank said.
His partner shrugged, still looking faintly baffled as he returned his attention to the blood. He'd been staring at it for a remarkably long time (for Connor, anyway). The victim was shot in the gut, and there were plenty of spatters of blood that Connor had not taken the time to stare at like they personally offended him. Who knew, maybe the kid finally found something that his fancy reconstruction program couldn't explain. That seemed like something that he would take personally.
Hank figured he might as well say something about it. "That's blood, not the perp: you can't intimidate it into confessing anything."
"Yes, Lieutenant Anderson," Connor agreed. "But based on the most likely sequence of events, it cannot be Mr. Delany's blood."
Hank surveyed the substantial (though reasonable, given the dead man's wounds) amount of blood around them. "You sure about that?" He squinted at Connor suspiciously. "You didn't sample it while I wasn't looking, did you?"
"No, Lieutenant," Connor said, shaking his head.
Hank would bet—well, not much but maybe five dollars—that his partner rolled his eyes too. "Then what makes you so sure?" Hank asked.
"The blood spots are circular, indicating they fell from a stationary person standing here," Connor indicated where he stood, "Cast-off blood spatter this far from the source should have a marked, elliptical appearance," Connor said.
Williams shuddered. "Man, you're gonna give me nightmares about being back in the academy if you keep talking like that." He jokingly complained.
Hank snorted at the officer's melodrama. Admittedly, Connor did occasionally sound like he was taking explanations directly from a textbook. A benefit of having near-instantaneous access to and comprehension of virtually every text ever written on forensic investigation.
“Well shoot,” Hank said, raising a hand to wave over one of the people climbing out of the forensic van that had just finally arrived at the scene. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
Connor crouched next to the blood again. “I was deciding whether or not to sample it.”
“Connor, no,” Hank groaned, running a hand down his face. If only the van arrived just a minute earlier, he could have avoided this. “Come on, forensics just got here, their going to be fucking pissed if they don’t get to do their thing.”
His partner looked down at the blood in an altogether too wistful way, his LED cycled yellow once. “Yes, Lieutenant,” He relented.
“And next thing you’ll know, their department head will write another snippy letter about—wait, what?”
Connor stood, wiping his hands on his pants even though he hadn’t touched anything. “It’s unlikely the perpetrator is still in the area; a real-time analysis is only nominally more beneficial in this case.” He looked just a little sad about this fact.
Hank grinned and clapped his partner on the shoulder. At the same time, he signaled vigorously for a forensic field officer to join them, adding “Someone get their ass over here before Connor changes his mind and does your jobs for you!” for good measure.
“You know what, kid,” Hank said, turning back to his slightly putout partner. “I think you’re actually starting to learn stuff. Good job.”
Connor grinned and looked away at the praise.
Perhaps most shocking about Connor’s surprise decision to not sample any evidence at the Delany crime scene (they’d successfully caught the murderer the next day. The art student was killed in a drug exchange gone bad. Because dealing was apparently the other way he was paying his way through school) was that he stuck with it. Hank and he had investigated just over half a dozen scenes since then, and Connor either didn’t even suggest it or else let Hank talk him out of licking anything disgusting. He’d still eaten dirt a couple times to prove a suspect’s shoes had in fact walked in the dirt that was used to partially bury her victim, but Hank took that as a win too since no bodily fluids were involved and—hey—he probably ate dirt when he was less than two years old too.
But if there was anything Hank’s life over the last 5 years had taught him, it was that all good things came to an end. He just wished Connor had licked something less disgusting.
They were called to investigate a rape and homicide. The scene itself was brutal and graphic enough that Hank actually realized that if his partner were a human with barely a year on the job, Hank might have asked him to wait this one out with the officer on guard outside the little home’s front door, or at the very least kept a close eye on him. But Connor was an android who physically couldn’t get sick or lightheaded no matter how brutally someone was murdered and, despite officially having feelings, somehow managed to avoid responding emotionally to more than 95% of what they saw. Privately, Hank thought that the last fact was actually a little worrisome, but saying as much smelt far too much like the soot-darkened kettle calling the lightly used pot black. Besides, the guy expressed plenty of emotions outside of work, especially around animals.
Hank’s frankly appalling, and Connor’s possibly-maybe-just-slightly-concerning connection to their emotions aside, the fact that Connor never seemed bothered by what he saw at a scene, coupled with the fact that he seemed to finally be giving up on licking everything, meant Hank was not paying as much attention to him as perhaps he should have.
Hank was looking through what had probably once been the contents of the woman’s old-fashioned purse, since dumped out and riffled through by her murderer, who must have been looking for something other than money because Hank found both her credit cards and a small wad of cash. Connor walked away to investigate some other interesting clues and was now talking to a forensic technician who, miracle of miracles, managed to arrive on the scene before the detectives. Hank was only peripherally aware of what the two were discussing, his mind trying to recall if there was anything people carried around in purses that was missing here.
“I’m betting it's semen.” Said the technician. Really, that statement alone should have set off warning bells but Hank was trying to remember what his ex-wife used to insist were purse essentials.
“That correlates with the rest of the evidence.” Connor agreed. “The perpetrator most likely then used the fabric to clean his hands after eviscerating his victim. The fabric is highly contaminated with blood and intestinal contents.”
“And?” The technician asked. “Vanessa said you can differentiate mixed samples.”
That got Hank’s attention. He climbed to his feet and turned to face the pair. They were looking down at the woman’s discarded underwear, already labeled with a glowing holomarker. The fabric was crusted with dark material that was probably drying blood but, given what Connor just said, also definitely not. Connor’s LED was still a calm blue, so hopefully, he hadn’t actually sampled anything yet.
“Hey,” Hank snapped at them.
“Yes, Lieutenant?” Connor answered, turning his head to look at him.
Hank was pretty sure he saw the nameless technician roll his eyes.
He jabbed a finger at his partner. “What is forensic’s job?” He demanded.
“In part, to run samples collected from crime scenes,” Connor stated. He’d gotten rather good at answering that particular question.
Hank pointed at the technician next, a short man with black curls held back under a hair net. “So take your samples and get to it. That’s not Connor’s job.”
“Oh, I’ve already got my samples.” The nameless man answered nonchalantly. He waved down at the underwear. “This one’s gonna be an absolute bitch to process. It takes hours to separate out contaminants.”
The technician turned back to Connor. “Come on, I’ve heard you can do this in seconds. I probably won’t have results back until tomorrow.”
Connor looked down, his LED cycling for half a second before his gaze returned to Hank. “Given the excessively violent nature of this crime, apprehending the perpetrator as quickly as possible is of utmost importance.”
Which Hank couldn’t really argue with. He glared at the technician, who looked far too at ease. “So you’d better run that sample back to the lab and get working on it.”
“Or the android can do it.” He shrugged, giving no indicator that he was even considering leaving and actually working.
Hank gritted his teeth at the casual othering of his partner but didn’t get to respond to it because Connor was already reaching out his fingers for a sample. “Damn it, Connor,” He complained, looking away as he swiped his fingers through the mess.
He looked back a moment later and kind of wished he hadn’t. Normally, Connor just licked a little bit of whatever he was sampling off his index and middle fingers. This time, he put both fingers up to the second knuckle into his mouth. It was far more disconcerting than when he just licked the sample. His LED flashed yellow once, before settling into the typical pale blue cycle as Connor’s face relaxed into a vaguely unfocused expression.
Hank glared at the technician, who was watching Connor with uncomfortable fascination. “How about you get back to your actual job so we can get back to ours.” He grumbled, making no effort to make it sound like a suggestion.
The technician shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Hank’s glare. “I’m curious.”
Hank waited next to Connor. He could have left to wrap up the actual scene investigation so they could get out of there—which he really wanted to do—but he wasn’t about to leave his partner alone to be gawked at. He glared at a couple of other people who glanced at Connor’s way too for good measure. They had the decency to look away and get about whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.
Nearly a minute had passed now and the pale light was still whirling away. Worry chewed at the back of Hank’s mind. Connor usually had an answer in just a few seconds, fast enough that Hank sometimes missed that he did it. Could his analyzing software and crap glitch if it tried doing too much?
“Connor?” He asked.
Connor gave no response, but a few seconds later, his LED flashed white several times. He pulled his hand out of his mouth and stood up to look at Hank. “My apologies, Lieutenant, that took longer than I expected.”
Hank huffed.
“The killer is a 43-year-old man named Emmanuel Hodgkins. He has two counts of animal cruelty on his record and did not show up for work today.” Connor relayed, pulling a tissue from his blazer’s pocket and wiping off his fingers.
“Well then, let’s go find the bastard,” Hank said.
Later, back in Hank’s car, and after Connor washed his hands several times, Connor grabbed Hank’s bottle and poured water into his mouth without touching the bottle’s lip. Some part of Hank’s mind was glad about that last bit because otherwise, he probably would have just trashed the whole bottle, knowing what Connor’s mouth touched. Mostly though, he was just baffled by what the kid could possibly be doing.
Connor swished the water in his mouth several times before popping open his door and spitting the water out.
Hank cocked an eyebrow.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Connor said, closing the door and fastening his seat belt. “A small amount of debris from the sample was still in my mouth and the continuing analysis was bothersome.” He explained as though it were the most natural thing in the world to have stuck in one’s mouth.
Hank groaned. “Ew, Connor. You’re gonna make me sick.”
“Sorry,” Connor repeated softly, pulling out his quarter and rubbing it between his fingers.
Hank pinched his eyes shut for a moment before looking over at the passenger side. If Connor, slouched slightly in the seat and eyes locked on the coin sliding between his fingers, wasn’t the epitome of a kicked puppy, Hank wasn’t sure what was. “What?” He asked, working to sound less irritated (because he really wasn’t, it was just a fairly habitual tone).
“I disappointed you.”
“I’ll get over it,” Hank assured, surprised that Connor was bothered by it this time when he pretty routinely did things that Hank disapproved of—like chasing suspects through traffic.
“But I don’t want to disappoint you.” Connor insisted.
“Hey,” Hank said, reaching out to grab Connor’s shoulder. “The only person who disappointed me today was that forensics ass. Got it?”
Connor nodded. “Got it.”
“Now, let’s go catch this asshole.”