Chapter Text
Electricity crackled through the cables, in a Frankenstein-esque way, the bodies violently jolted at the contact of stinging currents. The aggressive hum of the machines at work made the room vibrate like a deep bass on full volume with concert speakers. This certainly never happened before.
Glass shudders and machines scream as the process reached its peak, the adrenaline pumping fear of failure hung thick in the air.
A thick cord popped free from its placement on the ceiling tiles and rained sparks to the equipment below, showering the Android body in a haze of orange.
“No !” Valstad cries
Then, everything stilled.
Whether through fear or impulse, Father shot past the paralyzed doctor and flung open the door. He could feel the static cling hang heavily in the room, his disheveled hair rose. If the poor man wasn’t going through Hell, he would’ve laughed at his spiked hair.
With a gingerly hand Father delicately cupped the cheek of the motionless Android, the cool plastic contrasted to his hot touch, like Heaven and Hell colliding together. In a hesitant featherlight whisper, he called their name but to his despair, there was no response. Just agonizing stillness.
His eyes stung with wetness as he called again to no avail. He shook their shoulder, hoping that they were merely sleeping. Again he called out as he let loose his tears as he realized that what he had was gone. Forever.
With a mournful wail, Father buried his head in the crook of the child’s neck, his left arm supported their back while his free arm pulled his child closer in attempt to cradle them.
The sounds broke Valstad free of her stupor with a shake of her head, as if startled. She bit her lip as she contemplated how to approach the mourning man about her payment. As much as she didn’t want to beat the downed man, Valstad didn’t want him to think he was off the hook for the Transferral being a failure. Besides, she had more experiments and customers to attend.
“Sir?” She took cautious steps out the room and to the table, her steely eyes boring down with a seriousness, like a god judging a guilty soul: seeing all their flaws, weaknesses and humanity.
For a moment, Valstad saw the man for what he was: human. A creature of mistakes and turmoil, scrabbling at the feet of the those with a higher power to strike a deal to better their position in life.
Humanity should know better than to strike deals with demons.
—
Garbled static hissed through the walkie talkie, sharing codes of 10-23 and 10-76. Occasional replies through the radio broke Captain Allen’s concentration. He reread the report.
Hours ago, there was a report of a missing child from the Children's Hospital of Michigan: A (y/a) (y/r) (y/g) leukemia patient. The report was made at 2:29 AM after an Android nurse found them missing, who the culprit was easy to figure out to to security footage and eye witnesses. How exactly he got through without security stopping him rather pissed him off with how easy the man was able to get away .
After searching the area for hours, the culprits vehicle was found parked inside a half demolished parking garage on the outskirts of the city. The detectives found tracks in the snowy sludge that were no doubt his, along with wheel prints that were from the hospital gurney. They lead to an abandoned CyberLife warehouse. This would have been an easy arrest and recovery of the child, until Officer Fernandez found 2020 GMC Savanna 250 parked at the back of the warehouse.
It matched the description of a wanted felon’s car.
This escalated the severity of the situation.
The wanted felon Laura Valstad had a warrant for her arrest. For Illegal Human and Animal Experimentation, Fake Identity, Fraud, Tax Evasion, Extortion, Embezzlement and a whole lot more.
The first crime was enough to involve the FBI to investigate.
And that lead to him being here . He and a handful of his comrades were sent out to back the local police in case the situation called for reinforcements.
Calls of his name over the radio ripped his attention to the walkie talkie, he replied to the questioning caller.
“What do we have?”
A pause of silence before the croaky voice of Officer Fernandez came through “I have a visual inside the warehouse. (y/r) male and white female inside, alongside an Android. A YK500 model. I don’t think there’s any-“
Fernandez went deadly silent.
“Officer? Fernandez? Do you copy? Fernandez!”
Then, gunshots.
—
“Sir, there’s still a talk of your payment. Because of the unfortunate failure of the Transfer, I’d lower the cost to about $9,000.” Valstad stated with emotion as if she were reciting the Pythagorean Theorem. She was losing patience rapidly.
Father half sobbed half scoffed at her bluntness. He wanted to lash back, spit profanities and attack, like a cornered animal he would do whatever he could to ward the enemy away. But, in his haste to fight, he gave in despite his instincts screaming at him to fight or flee. He solemnly nodded, as if he felt like he was selling his soul away. He had lost.
“I’ll have your payment ready as soon as possible, I’ll have it in by the end of the week.” But that apparently didn’t please the doctor, for she snapped.
“I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THE PAYMENT TO COME IN LATER! I’M TO LEAVE ON A PLANE TO NEW YORK BY TOMORROW! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU RUINING MY PLANS LOSING POTENTIAL CLIENTS BECAUSE OF YOU!” The plan bit wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t know that now, did he?
Father sunk down on himself, as if trying to disappear, his bottom lip quivered as he choked back a frightened yelp, hands trembling.
“I-I’ll get it in! Before tomorrow!” He tried, Valstad nodded as if to make sure he got the message she gripped his lower jaw and brought him close to her face, eyes laced with fury
“Be here at 10:00 AM sharp! And if you’re a minute late, I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you!” She seethed, Father nodded vigorously though his hurriedness did not match his dead eyes.
With an unceremonious shove Valstad releases the man. He does not move far, settling between the tables between the two motionless bodies. His hands resting on both their heads, as if he didn’t know which one to mourn over. The failed experiment or the sickly dead body.
“I will see you tomorrow. Good day”
CRACK!
“OFFICER DOWN! SHOTS HAVE BEEN FIRED!!”
But today wasn’t going to be a good day.