Chapter Text
White. Snow. Cold.
Everything was so horribly cold. The rain slamming down on his shoulders, soaking through the thick jacket, the white shirt and his shoes. He had been standing here for way too long already without any results. There wasn’t enough lying around to pin point anything. He had found the scrap of a rose colored frill, most likely belonging to a dress. But he android in front of him was unclothed, skin deactivated, dark eyes staring into nothing.
Female, dead for approximately seven hours. Memory and main processor brutally shot out of her head with a shotgun. There was no saving it, there was no way to access her memory. There was nothing to go by. And he was greatly disturbed, not just by the torn apart parts, but by what had done that.
He felt sick. Emotion. He concluded. One he couldn’t name. Hank probably had an answer, but Hank was busy talking to Ben while both of them tried to piece together what had happened. He hadn’t gotten and further than they had.
Fowler had suggested taking time off. Connor had refused. He was fine. He needed work to distract himself from the annoying memories that kept jabbing at him every time he had nothing to do. Everyone at the Precinct treated him differently. Even Gavin had ignored him most of the time.
When he had returned to work three weeks ago, he had found a book on his desk, with a small note attached to it. The note told him that whoever had given it to him, was glad that he was back. The handwriting hadn’t yet revealed a match. He lacked samples from most people at the precinct as no one really wrote on paper anymore these days. And he couldn’t really go around asking everyone for a sample of their handwriting.
Hank had insisted that it wasn’t from him. Connor had known that because Hanks handwriting was different. He still didn’t know who had gone out of their way to find a paperback version of Asimov’s I, Robot. He found it to be a strange but kind gesture and had made it an effort to figure out who had given it to him.
He had gotten very close to figure out who it had been, when they had received the call for the current investigation.
And now he had been standing in the cold rain for almost two hours. Scanning the area once more revealed nothing of interesting and walking around hadn’t gotten him anywhere else either.
The body had been dragged here after it had been shot, as the extremely low thirium levels suggested. Presumably transported here by a car. That car was long gone and there was no telling where it went. The rain had washed away traces of thirium that could have been found on the road, fingerprints, foot prints. Nothing to give them any hints on who had dragged the woman to the side of the road and left her there to rot.
Not even the gun was found anywhere.
She had been discarded like a piece of junk, a heap of trash. Tossed out at the road after being killed. Connor hadn’t yet seen a murder like that in person. Although he knew of such cases through his database. However, those cases related to human victims. An android killed in such a way was new.
There were no witnesses, except for the poor guy who had found it in the morning, after his dog had escaped from the leash and barked like an idiot, as the man had explained after the police had arrived. Connor hadn’t gotten his name, too busy figuring out what had happened to the woman. He would get the name later on in the report.
He crouched down, there was nothing left to analyze. The gun was commonly used, impossible to trace an individual owner without finding the actual shotgun. The small holes that dotted the remains of the android fitted the caliber he had been shot with just weeks ago. It could have been coincidence, but he filed it away anyway.
A theory was better than nothing. Had Cyberlife hired someone to get rid of him? Or was it unrelated? Had they assumed wrong? So far no one had really made any progress on his case either. If Cyberlife was involved it certainly wasn’t directly. He hadn’t expected anything else. They knew well how to hide their agendas.
He shook his head. Getting distracted was happening often these days. It wasn’t pleasant. Normal, as Hank had reassured. He didn’t like it.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder and he jumped. “Easy.” Hank sighed. “Got anything?”
“The shotgun could have been the same...” Connor muttered silently. “Although that is a wild guess. Everyone could own a shotgun with the same specifics.”
He knew Hank didn’t like what he was implying. “Could turn out to be a serial killer.” Hank grunted as he crouched down and took another look at the android, hinting at a similar case a month ago.
“Serial killers tend to use the same methods. This android only has the damage to the head. She wasn’t tied, from the looks of it. This seems to have been a quick death, whereas the other murder had involved severe forms or emotional torture.” Connor explained as he accessed the file data. “As the memory probing revealed…”
Hank grumbled something incomprehensible. The memory probe had spiraled him down into agony he had never experienced before. It had taken several hours before he was able to process the horrible amount of information that had flooded him in the few seconds he was connected. Hank had whacked the side of his head for it.
He had been worried. Connor had refrained from getting this close to other androids since then and hoped he could keep it that way. With this case it was easy. There was nothing to see.
Hank grunted and got up, using Connor’s shoulder to help him. “We’ll look into it when we’re back at the precinct. I’m freezing my ass off.”
Connor nodded, about as eager to leave the pouring rain. There was nothing more to file away here. They couldn’t even identify the model, as her thirium had been corrupted with so many other substances that Connor wasn’t sure if she had really died from the headshot. Her biocomponents were in working order, however. Suggesting that the headshot had been the cause of death. When he turned to follow Hank he saw something inside the head of the android. He hadn’t seen it before, despite examining it several times.
As he came closer he noticed writing on the casing that made up most of the head. Carefully etched letters into the metal, tiny. Invisible to the human eye. How had he missed this? Six letters spelling ‘Beware’. Connor wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was it a warning?
Hank honked once from the car, impatiently gestured for him to hurry up. Connor couldn’t shake the feeling that he had missed more, but the body would be taken to the precinct anyway. He could look into it there.
He slipped on a layer of mud just in front of the car, gracelessly crashed into the ground and slammed his head into the side of Hanks car with the sound to match. He blinked in surprise and confusion, unsure why he had slipped in the first place.
“Jesus!” hank shouted from the car and was at his side in an instant. “The hell was that!?”
Connor, about as annoyed at the situation as Hank, slowly stood and grimaced at his now filthy clothing. “I appear to have slipped, Lieutenant.”
“I saw that.” Han rolls his eyes. “You sure that was all?”
Connor nodded firmly. “I did not scan the surrounding area as I was trying to piece together information.”
Hank dismissively waved his hand and inspected his car. There was a small dent visible and he squinted at Connor in annoyance.
“Sorry.”
The older man sighed deeply and shook his head. “Get in the car already.”
In the warmth of the car, Connor realized he had felt cold too. It seemed to be a constant reminder of the attack. Every time snow hit his face, or a gust of wind tore at his clothing.
“So, what were you thinking about that made you oblivious to your surroundings?” Hank asked after a few minutes of silence.
“I found a word etched into the inside of her head. Beware.”
Hank lifted an eyebrow, turned up the heater and navigated the car down the road. “Could be nothing. Could be a warning. Could be a joke. A trap.”
“The letters were too accurate to have been written by a human, although they appear to have been written in a hurry. Perhaps another android who witnessed the murder.”
“And they didn’t call the police?” Hank wondered aloud.
“They could have been a target too. I found a piece of clothing at the site. It appears to have been from a dress.”
Hank eyed him for a short moment. “I saw that too. You think the one who wrote this wore the dress?”
Connor nodded. “It could be a start.”
Hank scoffed as he pulled into the parking lot at the precinct. “You do know how many pink dresses are out there, right?”
“This particular color is hard to come by, according to my database. A person wearing a dress with frills sticks out and the fabric itself is of very high quality. It appears to be custom made.”
The older man snarled, opened the door and climbed out of the car. “Please tell me you didn’t put that thing in your mouth.”
Connor gave him a tiny smirk before he replied, “I cross referenced it with other data on fabrics.”
“Cool. Now if you could just figure out where that dress was sold and to whom, we’d solve this case by noon.”
“That is the problem. The dress was sold in a store called The Silver Thread. It went out of business about a month ago after the owners androids were stolen. Her name is Megan Ferguson. She lives in Ferndale, according to my database.”
Hank lifted his eyebrows, pushed open the doors and entered the significantly warmer station. “So we have a lead.”
Connor followed him through the building, to their desks and through a set of double doors where the lockers were. “The store would have a record of purchases somewhere as the dresses are custom made.”
“And we need a warrant to look through that.” Hank grumbled, half buried inside his locker in search of dry clothing.
He emerged with a set of clothing, obviously issued by the DPD and cursed as he stepped out of his shoes. Meanwhile Connor had walked to the other row of lockers, already remotely opening it before he stood in front of it. Hank had complained about that at some point. How it would make his life easier if he could do that too.
“We could just ask nicely.” Connor half joked as he filed through the set of spare clothing he kept in the locker.
Past experiences had taught him to keep at least one set of spare clothing ready. The sheer amount of rain that seemed to pour down on them at every investigation seemed above average, and he had come to hate the sensation of wet clothing. Not to mention the cold. That was also something he loathed now.
“Maybe we could find her androids.”
“Didn’t know asking got us anywhere these day. I like your optimism.”
“Thank you Lieutenant.” Connor replied in the most obnoxious voice he could muster.
“Fuck you.”
Connor smiled to himself and buttoned the dry shirt. This felt significantly better.
“So the androids stayed with her after the revolution?” Hank asked after a moment.
“The report stated that the two androids chose to stay with her. They are custom YK500 models.”
“The kid ones, right?”
“Correct.”
“And someone just stole them?” Hank muttered more to himself. He pulled on a fresh pair of socks and slipped on a pair of old white sneakers before he collected the wet clothing and looked for the nearest heater.
“According to the report, Mrs. Ferguson was taking them along on a trip to a fabric store. They disappeared from sight shortly after.”
Hank scoffed, leaned against the door frame to wait for his partner. “Maybe they just turned deviant and ran.”
“She stated that they had been deviant before the revolution and she kept them regardless. Apparently they were treated like her children.”
Connor saw Hank flinch at his words and suddenly wasn’t sure anymore if he should have shared that detail.
“What if they got tired of it?”
Connor shrugged. “We could question her personally. I have her address.”
“Fine. But I’m getting a coffee, and finish that before we go out there again.”
Connor nodded and both left the locker room. Hank made a beeline for the break room to get a coffee, while Connor sat down and pulled up the case files to transfer his collected data. He was curious about this case.
The dress had to be worn by someone who bought it at least a month ago. Was it a coincidence?