Chapter Text
"Detective Reed."
He knew it was Connor, so he didn't look up. The thing's voice put his teeth on edge— too earnest, too dry. It was a testament to just how much the thing grated at him that he'd rather file reports than answer it. So he did. Ignoring the plastic prick usually made the problem go away.
"Detective Reed."
Perhaps it was the inflections that Reed found so discordant. It was as if the thing was capable of caring, which it wasn't. If it could have an emotion, it would have learned to leave him alone by now.
"Detective Reed."
"Fucking what?"
"I am concerned about your partner. I think—"
"It's not my partner," Reed interrupted, still not taking his eyes off the computer screen. "If you're talking about the assistant Fowler assigned to me, yeah, what about it?"
"Have you noticed any signs of deviancy in the field?"
Reed finally looked up, blinking at the tranquil android face in front of him. "What?"
"You may not be aware, but Jericho has made me a field ambassador. Reese has been assigned to me for a few weeks now, and I have increasing concerns that he has shown any outward signs of his deviancy yet. I was wondering if you had noticed any... differences? Humans have far more practice recognizing true emotions than even the androids experiencing them."
Through this speech, Gavin stared up at the robot. The thing was smiling at him, proud in a way that made Gavin sick. The thing was like one of those hateful teachers' pets. The hall monitors of the world. So proud of its little job, so devoted to its chores that it glorified them, made them his problem.
"No," he said. "He's as fucking soulless as usual."
The robot's brows creased. "It could be anything. It would likely be small— a choice that may not—"
"Look, it gathers the evidence, it licks the evidence, and then I generally make an arrest. It follows the book to a degree that would make even you want to strangle it with its own damn tie."
Rather than take affront, Connor seemed to become more concerned. "Are you aware that he requested a department transfer?"
"My RK900? What? When?"
Connor looked even more unsure, perhaps even a little worried, an expression Gavin had never seen on its face before, though he had often tried to inspire it. The android backed away. "I thought he would have discussed it with you, the protocol—"
"My request for transfer was refused," a deeper voice informed them.
They both turned, almost guiltily, to see RK900 standing stiffly at the designated four-foot distance from Gavin's desk. It was too tall, but CyberLife had at least fixed the damn voice. It was more intimidating than the RK800, and far more efficient, but its eyes were grey instead of brown. It was a downgrade if Gavin was honest. The new grey eyes were flat, observing without thought or depth. Connor had kept the LED as well, while the RK900 removed theirs months ago. That was even more unnerving— being blind to the diagnostics.
"Do you have time to talk with me?" Connor asked it.
"No," it said, staring at Gavin.
Reed hated the listening to machines talking to each other, it was... boring. He turned back to his work, but he couldn't block out the stilted words.
"Perhaps after work? I have yet to confirm that your latest living quarters are acceptable to the New Jericho regulations. Markus has told me not to accept any more excuses."
"They are not excuses. My quarters are acceptable. Hamtramck made their own inspections when New Jericho's regulations went public. If you doubt my opinion, you may go check the apartment after work today."
Connor hesitated. The silence was awkward. Gavin wished fiercely the damn things would go the fuck away from his desk.
"Why were you late today?" the RK800 asked at last.
Gavin checked the clock on his monitor. It was late. Almost two hours late.
"If you do not mind, Connor, I wish to speak with Detective Reed for a moment. The subject is a personal matter."
Reed snapped his attention back to his android. A personal matter? The most personal they had gotten together was insults, and that was usually Reed insulting the robot, followed with the robot staring dumbly back at him like a three-year-old staring at a calculus problem.
"Of course. I did not mean to pry. We will talk tonight. I will bring a houseplant. Is it still the address on your employment record?"
"Yes, 08206 Packard. Thank you."
The dismissal was clear. Odd, as Connor was technically both senior and superior, but maybe seniority in androids worked backward if the newest models were considered superior. Connor nodded, but the smile didn't come back to his face. He looked troubled, but the RK800 walked away, patting his successor on the shoulder with the same sort of friendly cuff that Hank liked to use on recruits.
That left Reed staring up at the hulking giant of an android.
"My request for transfer was refused," it said to him softly. "Once I was offered a post, I would have made my intentions clear to you. I did not want you to feel as if you were the reason for my transfer. My reasons for transferring have nothing to do with your hostility or lacking as a detective."
Gavin's anger was never far from reach. He stood at once. His chair was knocked back by his knees, and it shot backward into Miller's desk behind him. The audacity of the fucking thing—
The android didn't react; he didn't even seem to notice that Gavin had moved at all. He simply put his lanyard on Gavin's desk. "Rather I have realized that I cannot help anyone here. I have no desire to see any more dead bodies, human or android."
Gavin raised an eyebrow with a smirk, feeling a thrill of victory warm his chest. As much as he wanted to be rid of the thing, having it transferred would mean it had won, that the world had really changed, and a machine's complaints were being taken seriously. "So what are you gonna do now?" he asked it. "Quit? If you want a reference, there's a junkyard on the East Side you can get to by metro."
It stared at him with that creepy, wet stare. Android didn't need to blink, but they did anyway. Another lie to trick real people into trusting them, into seeing something more than a plastic toy. It pissed him off.
"That's all you are," he sneered at it. "A walking, talking can of parts. They want us to think that you're more than that, but a human programmed all those little numbers in there, but a human is behind every little one and zero in that aluminum bubble. They're laughing up in their fucking tower, prancing around their robotic fucking 'laws', and 'tests', pretending they're gods because they can make a tin can walk and talk, and kill and not kill. It's not real. Someone somewhere pushed the buttons to get you here, and it's fucking sick. You're a symptom of a sick fucking human."
He didn't realize how loud he had gotten until the echoes of his tirade were fading into the walls around him. The station was deadly quiet. Even the fucking tip-lines had chosen this one minute, out of all the fucking minutes, to go silent, and he was left staring at the android, waiting for something to change, something to happen.
What he didn't expect was the RK900 to start unbuttoning its shirt.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
The android stared at him, not breaking eye contact as it pressed a hand to the sternum of its chest and pulled out its Thirium pump regulator.
"What the fuck—" Gavin swore, starting forward, reaching for the heart the android had just literally pulled from its own chest.
He was too close when the bloody thing clenched its hand around the biocomponent, crushing it as easily as an aluminum can. He was quite liberally splattered with Thirium, still warm from its casing. Gavin choked on a bitter and sour taste and with disgust realized that Thirium had managed to get inside his mouth. He was so busy trying to wipe it from his tongue, he didn't see the android move again, in one fluid movement taking his gun from the holster at his side.
"Hey—Hey, hey—Hey!" Gavin stumbled away, shoving out his hands to ward off the robot.
The RK900 stared at him briefly with the gun held in its left hand with the barrel pointed at the ceiling, and quite politely, with no trace of emotion, it said in waning electronic tones.
"I feel... helpless."
Then it raised the gun to its temple, directly over where its LED should sit, and shot itself in the head. In the fucking head.
"Christ!" he shouted, his hands flying to cover his mouth as the android's knees gave out before its backup protocol kicked in, locking up its joints mid-collapse, minimizing the chaos of death.
###
He could still taste the blue blood in his mouth hours later, as he leaned against the cabinet in the technician's office. It had come more and more to resemble a morgue. Completing the look was the creepy, passive shell of Gavin's RK900 lying on the table in the center of the room.
Its skinthetic remained turned on, but the chest had been opened to reveal the inner workings of the android. Half of its face had been disassembled to track the damage made by the bullet it had put through its own head.
Finn, the head android technician for the DPD even had a new job title emblazoned across his breast pocket— CyberLife Coroner. What was the world coming to? He had come down here to sign off on the vivisection but was forced to stay for the findings. He was going to have to write a report anyway— to explain the need for a replacement.
Gavin needed a cigarette. His fingers were trembling. Maybe he needed a drink too. Christ, was it getting that bad that he had started shaking? He was turning into Hank.
"The processor is shot," Finn said, at last, reeling back and carefully re-wrapping the wires from his diagnostic kit.
"I can see that."
"No, I mean there's no recovery here, and as far as I can determine from CyberLife's records, he wiped his backups early this morning. There's... there's really nothing to repair here. The hardware is easy enough, but it would be like... a hard reset. He wouldn't be Reese. No memory, no logic pathways to tell you how he thought or what he thought—"
Gavin crossed his arms and nodded. "Well that's good, right? Whatever went wrong, it'll be erased, right?"
Finn frowned at him. "I don't think you... understand. It wouldn't be... him. Reese is dead. Gone. He killed himself as thoroughly as I've ever seen such a thing done."
"No, I get it," Reed said, impressing every word slowly, mocking Finn's tone. "But I have a full caseload, and I need it back asap."
He caught sight of Finn's hands, clenched knuckle-white on the tools in his hands, and raised an eyebrow. The technician was pale. They were friends. They had gotten drunk together at least twice, albeit only at DPD events.
"Reed," the younger man said. "Stop it. Just... don't do that here. Not here. We're standing over his body for Christ sake."
"Oh, don't tell me you've swallowed their shit, Finn. You know these things inside out. Of everyone, you should know there's nothing in here—"
He leaned forward and tapped the thing's head so hard that the tray of delicate parts balanced on the table beside its neck shivered in its cold metal container.
And suddenly he was across the room, flung backward by a punch from Finn.
"Get out," the young technician said, already nursing his hand. He was backing away, towards the door, looking utterly terrified of the consequences he had just wrought for himself.
It wasn't a good punch, but it caught Reed off guard. "What the hell?" he spat out, wiping at his lip. No blood, but he could feel it was going to bruise and swell.
"Get out," Finn said. "I'll—I'll call security. I'll file a report."
"For what?"
"For being... for— I don't know. Just get out!"
For some reason, he did leave. He should have punched right back; he should have hit Finn with the goddamn arm lying on the counter next to him. He surprised himself by leaving through the front doors, instead of being pulled off of a bleeding, crying Finn and frog-marched out the front doors to report to the Captain.
Finn had thrown the first punch, the reigns and the gloves should have been off.
But Gavin strolled out into the early spring morning. It was cold and crisp with a hint of coming rain. He took a deep breath.
God, this city tasted foul.
###
The office was empty when he came back, but clean. No sign of the violence that had taken place except for maybe the cleanliness of the space. Fowler's office was dark, and a large poster had been plastered onto the Plexiglas wall, a number to call for counseling services.
Someone had left a small vase of flowers and a card on the corner of Gavin's desk.
He took them and put them on the floor, near the edge of the cubicle on the other side. The last thing he wanted was a memorial starting on the surface he reserved for his feet and coffee.
The RK900's lanyard lay where the flowers had been there now, clearly the genesis for the well-meaning mementos. Gavin stared at it for a moment. Someone had cleaned his desk, probably to get rid of the blue blood, and the laminate badge had been placed on the corner of his desk, the cord curled neatly on top of the photograph.
He picked it up. It was cold and crisp; no signs of wear at the corners. 'RK900 REESE' it proclaimed, because the android didn't like to wear the high-collared uniform that would have shown the same information. It had abandoned the clothes tailored to its make and model in favor of suits that were just a little too short at the wrists, a little too tight over its shoulders. It had tried hard to look as human as possible but had never really stooped to trying to act like one.
Gavin rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, a headache roaring in his ears. When he blinked the grit from his eyes, the starburst patterns were slow to fade from his vision. What the fuck had happened to his life in the last twelve hours? The night shift was starting, and yet here he was, at his desk, nursing his head.
He muttered an expletive and bent the other piece of paper on his desk as he picked it up—a business card.
The grief counselor. Police psychologist. Casting his gaze over the rest of the office, he could see the same card had been placed on each desk.
Over an android malfunction.
Sneering at it evoked nothing but a sudden sense of nausea; a hollow pit in his stomach. He stuffed the ID badge and card into his jacket pocket. He needed something to drink, or he was never going to be able to sleep tonight.
###
And yet instead of the bar, he looked up 08206 Packard on his way to Hamtramck.
There was a Packard Street, Packard Road, Packard Way, and Packard Drive. Figures. Since the android economy had boomed in the city, Detroit had boasted its historical triumphs and failures with equal pride.
And still, he passed bar after bar in favor of traveling to Hamtramck of all goddamn places. 08206 Packard Street was littered with children's toys, bikes, a basketball hoop, and a deflated kiddie pool. Gavin rolled by slowly but didn't stop.
There were two liquor stores between Packard Street and Packard Drive, and three convenience stores, but Gavin didn't stop.
08206 Packard Drive turned out to be the office of a psychic. A large, cartoonish eye painted over the threshold, and a tilted birdbath rotting in the mildly overgrown yard.
But 08206 Packard Way was the eighth building of an apartment complex in an industrial area of Hamtramck.
Gavin parked on the street outside. There was a lock on the door, but the lock had been broken recently. More than that, the latch had been cut from the frame. A notice from the landlord was posted on the bars, asking for helpful information and promising a swift action to fix the lock.
Gavin pushed the door open. What greeted him wasn't what he had been expecting. His RK900 always seemed like... well, a germaphobe, exacting about cleanliness and order. The rusty gate, the hallways that smelled like piss, and the dented, scratched doors were... shocking. Why would anyone, even a robot, move out of New Jericho's state-of-the-art facilities in the CyberLife Tower for this? It was a place for humans trapped by poverty.
Perhaps he had gotten it wrong again. He still hadn't checked Packard Road.
But he had to be sure, and in his gut, somehow he knew that this was the right place.
He didn't trust the elevator, and it smelled worse than the stairs. He climbed the steps two at a time, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. The stench of rotting garbage faded a little bit as the wind had more room to blow through the open-air hallways on the second floor.
206 was at the end of the hallway.
At the door was ajar. Only slightly, but it was enough.
Gavin drew his gun.
The light was on, and through the crack, he could see a mess inside. An overturned bookcase and shards of a shattered mirror filled the gap. He hesitated. He wasn't sure that this was Reese's apartment.
"DPD!" he called into the apartment. "Is there anyone home?"
When no answer was forthcoming, he pushed the door open with his free hand, keeping his gun level with the door. It stuck open just a few feet, stopped from opening further by an upturned cabinet. The apartment was a disaster. There were holes in the walls, light switch covers had been removed and tossed aside. The light fixtures in the ceiling hung from wires, its shield hanging from strings.
Whoever had been searching the apartment, they had been thorough, and they had been merciless. Not one piece of furniture was left whole.
"This is DPD Detective Reed. Is there anyone here?"
Movement from the other side of the room surprised him. He stepped inside, putting his back to the nearest wall. His feet crunched on the broken glass.
Connor stepped from behind the bar in the kitchen, gracefully planting a cup down on the counter as he stepped fully into the light. "Just me, Detective."