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He eyed the android in front of him with utter disgust. The machine was covered head to toe in mud and soil, clothes drenched and a stench coming from it that made him want to bring even more distance in between them. Who had let the machine back into the precinct like this, was beyond him.
Not that he was any more thrilled by the Idea that Elijah Kamski himself had insisted that the RK900 helped out on cases. It wasn’t hired, like Connor.
But for once, Gavin and Connor agreed on one thing.
They did not like the RK900.
“The fuck are you doing here, dipshit?” Gavin snarled at the android whose only real distinction from Connor were the steel blue eyes.
“The presence of this unit was requested by Captain Fowler.” The android replied with a calmness to it that irked Gavin in all the wrong ways.
He hadn’t seen what happened but the talk around the precinct was that the machine had chased a suspect and crashed into a pile of garbage after the ground under it gave way. The detected was sure he would not have recovered from that laughing fit anytime soon.
It was almost a shame that he hadn’t seen it.
“Like this?” He asked, voice taking on an amused tone. He would love to see Fowler lose his shit over the android standing in his office looking like something a cat dragged through the rain pipe. But as amusing as that would have been, he did not look forward to Fowlers horrible mood afterwards.
“This unit remains functional.” The Android replied with the same calm and monotone voice. “Minor repairs will have to be made.”
“You need a fucking shower, prick.” Gavin grimaced. Gavin could tolerate a lot of stenches, but something about this was worse than the smell of an obese man that couldn’t clean his private parts anymore.
It was bad enough that he was willing to lend the android a set of clothing, even. Which would prove to be an issue, the RK900 was almost a head taller than him.
Another reason to hate the thing.
“Although a shower would be beneficial to remove the filth off this unit, there is no-“
Gavin snarled loudly and stomped towards the locker rooms, gestured for the android to follow him. “Just take a fucking shower! This is disgusting!”
“As you wish detective.” Gavin only shook his head as the android headed for the shower rooms.
He returned to his desk to file the report on the suspect he interrogated earlier and went about his business.
About an hour later he noticed Fowler walk around the area. It wasn’t a rare sight, yet whenever he did that something was off.
“Reed, did you see the RK900? It was supposed to be in my office an hour ago.” The captain asked him as he passed his desk.
Gavin shrugged. The thing should have been done ages ago. “Was filthy, took a shower. No idea where it is.”
The man eyed him with suspicion and Gavin sighed at him. “Fine! I’ll look.”
Reluctant he got up and stomped back to the locker room. Nothing had changed, there was no running shower in the shower room either, but there was the sound of dripping water. Fed up, he prepared to yell at the android for being stupid like it was, but stopped short at the sight of the thing trying to clean its clothes by hand.
Butt naked.
Gavin’s gaze shifted over the android’s body, not interested in particular, but somewhat curious. It looked way too perfect. Sculpted, like a statue.
His gaze got caught at the thing’s crotch.
More like a doll. He couldn’t stifle his laugh then. “You got nothing there!”
The android barely reacted to his comment and continued to run the bar of soap over the stains in the white jacket. The rest of its clothes were piled into another sink, soaking in soapy water. The thing knew how to handwash. That was an interesting discovery.
“As androids do not reproduce like humans, there is no need for such components to exist in models that are not intended for sexual intercourse.” The androids voice stayed calm and collected, not once looking up or giving the impression of being unsettled by Gavin’s remark.
“Why the fuck are you still in here Tin Can?” The detected asked instead and crossed his arms.
“This unit does not have a spare set of clothing. You ignored that statement by talking over it.”
Gavin leaned against the doorframe and rolled his eyes. “So, what, you gonna wear wet clothing?”
“There is no other option available.”
“Did no one give you a spare set?”
“This was not a necessity until now.”
The detective felt a spark of rage at that. He knew they had given Connor the standard set of DPD issued hoodie and sweatpants, as well as the DPD Jacket. Why wasn’t that done for the RK900?
“Stay here.” Gavin growled and turned to open his locker and get the standard issue replacement clothing he hadn’t touched in years. It had been quite a while since he needed that.
They were folded and in a plastic back, freshly washed some two years ago probably. He grabbed the back and slammed the locker shut, then walked back to the android.
“Wear this. I want that back the second your clothing is clean and dry, got that tin can? And Fowler wants to talk to you.”
“Of course, Detective.”
The android finally turned to accept the bag and Gavin almost jumped back. The steel blue eyes looked as if someone had poured glowstick fluid into them. He wanted to deny the pang of concern that filled him, but couldn’t quite manage. This looked concerning after all. Was something wrong? Was it his fault for sending the android to shower?
Fuck he couldn’t cover the repair costs of that damn thing!
“The fuck happened to your eyes?”
“Due prolonged exposure to the chemicals in the substance used to clean this unit, the optical units have sustained damage.”
Gavin cursed. “Shit… you can still see, right?”
“The optical units are currently glitched into the night vision setting, which makes it impossible to see in a bright environment. However, the unit is able to navigate by using other sensors. This is a mere inconvenience.”
The detective held back a sigh of relief. “Good then change already.”
“Of course, Detective Reed.
Gavin turned, waited for the android to walk past him and then followed him out of the room and back into the bullpen. He did draw attention, most likely to the slightly too small clothing and the drenched hair. Gavin almost didn’t give a damn. But there was still the small pang of guilt.
He should have listened to the android. But how the hell was he supposed to know that the thing had sensitive eyes and no spare clothing.
He trudged back to his desk and frowned at the muffled noises coming from Fowler’s office. The captain was giving the android a lecture for whatever reason. It had caught the suspect in the end, scared the shit out of the man, but apart from that the RK900 had done what had been asked of it.
Something about this didn’t sit right with him. The RK900 had been assigned to him specifically. Even when Gavin didn’t want anything to do with it, officially it was his android. And Fowler getting mad at it without reason was somehow even worse than the discovery of the fact that the machine was damaged.
But the android didn’t react and only calmly nodded at whatever Fowler had been saying. A few more officers had noticed the new addition to the station getting chewed out on the first day, and Gavin felt strangely protective of the machine now.
It wasn’t deviant. It had no feelings. It probably didn’t even care and would have marched out of the shower room butt naked.
But it hadn’t. He hadn’t.
Was he aware of social norms? Or did he simply want to clean the clothes first? Snarling he but turned back to his terminal and stared at the blank screen.
His eyes darted up immediately when he heard the door to Fowlers office open and shut. The android went straight back to the locker room, most likely to continue cleaning the filthy outfit. He didn’t bother following this time, more worried about the report and his shift ending in ten minutes. He needed to pick Emma up from her friend’s place and somehow ship up dinner for the girl.
She would complain if he brought pizza again.
When the clock finally struck five, he sent his report, packed up his things and went to the locker room to get his bag and noticed the RK900 still in the shower room.
“Hey Prick, you still in there?” he muttered into his locker.
“Dude to the damage to the optical unit it cannot be certain that the stains are removed.”
Gavin scoffed and slammed the locker shut. “Never heard of a laundromat, huh?”
“As many humans are uncomfortable in the presence of an android and would likely resolve to violence if made aware of a damaged unit, this is an unwise course of action.”
“You scared of being attacked?”
The android shook his head. “In the current state it is more likely to potentially harm a human being if they would attack as the strength cannot be calculated properly.”
The detective grimaced and opened his bag to drag a plastic bag out. It was of some clothing store Emma had insisted on buying a shirt at, and he had used it to pack the frozen pizzas yesterday. He shoved the bag into the android’s hands and snarled.
“Fine. Pack it up, you can wash it at my place.”
“As you wish.”
The android didn’t hesitate to pack the dripping wet clothing into the bag and follow Gavin out the precinct in his squelching wet shoes. The detective cringed at the sound.
All of that wasn’t that bad, until they stepped out into the bright late evening sun of early February and the android stumbled backwards into the face of the precinct, dropped the bag and covered his eyes with a barely suppressed grunt.
Gavin frowned at the sight, somewhat concerned about it now. “…shit.” He muttered. “This is like the bastards shining flashlights into your night-vision binoculars, huh…?”
When the android didn’t respond Gavin walked back to him and picked up the bag. “Keep your eyes closed, I’ll guide you to the car.”
The frown on the machine’s face was almost hilarious. Gavin almost forgot that this was an android. And with its eyes closed, there wasn’t any big difference to Connor. Maybe the different height, but that was about it.
After a bit of a hassle to get the machine to the car, he wondered why the thing hadn’t protested. Connor would have argued him to the ground. He wondered if there really was a difference in personality, or if the RK900 was just always going to be like this.
Once in the car he wondered what to do. The main reason he had left that android with his brother was because of Emma. The girl’s fear of androids still sat deep and he didn’t want to force her to get over it. She needed to come around on her own.
The drive was spent in silence, Emma was in a good mood when she entered Gavin’s car and only frowned slightly at the android in the passenger’s seat.
“…That’s not Connor.”
“It’s that RK900 that my brother insisted on keeping.”
The glance in the rear mirror told him that her frown had turned sour.
“Is he staying with us?”
“Only for today.”
Emma huffed and crossed her arms, made sure to glare at him whenever he stole a glance at her. “I am locking my door tonight! Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you when that thing attacks you!”
Gavin rolled his eyes and drove back into town to get a spare set of clothing for the android and some decent food for dinner. Once they were in his apartment, Emma ran for her room and immediately locked her door.
He handed the android the paper bag with the clothes nodded down to the living room. “You take the couch.”
Silently the machine walked into the general direction of the living room, but ran into the wall where the hallway forked. He stumbled back, then stood there for several seconds, unmoving. LED a bright red.
“…. Shit did you get hurt or what?”
“The optical unit has shut down and caused a malfunction to the scanners and radars.”
“So, you’re blind now.”
“Affirmative.”
“…You sure you don’t need a technician? I can call one.”
“It is a minor malfunction and will correct itself as soon as this Unit has finished cycling through the code. A silent and dark place would be ideal for that.”
“Fine.” Gavin brought the android into the living room, practically shoved it onto the couch and pulled the curtains shut.
He left the thing to its own devices then, put the dirty clothes into the washing machine and started to make dinner. He kept glancing down the hall to look at the android that was still sitting on the couch as if someone shoved a stick up its ass. Even an hour later when he was done with preparing dinner and called Emma to eat.
The girl tiptoed into the kitchen, glancing back into the living room until she was sitting out od immediate sight and poked her food with her fork.
“Please get rid of it.” She muttered silently, eyes fixed on her plate as she poked through a potato.
“I can’t just get rid of it. It’s working at the precinct.”
“…. It’s scary. Put it outside.”
The detective sighed and shook his head. “It’s not gonna do anything.”
The girl’s light-colored eyes fixed him in disbelief. “How can you know that?”
“Kiddo, if it was dangerous, my brother wouldn’t have assigned it to me.”
Emma put her fork down and crossed her arms. “Daniel wasn’t dangerous in the beginning either.”
“This isn’t exactly a good comparison.”
“—And,” Emma added, “Daniel was a PL600. A household android… just imagine what an RK900 could do…”
“It… He won’t do anything, Emma. He’s got some malfunction, he can’t see.”
“They still got radars and- “
The older of the two closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “I know you’re scared. I know I can’t convince you to have it stay here. But that’s how it has to be for tonight. You can sleep in my room and I lock the door.”
“Princess still needs to use the- “
“Do you really thing an android would attack a fucking cat?”
Emma glared at him and held her hand out, palm up. “You swore. Five dollars.”
He snarled at her and dug out his wallet, about to hand her the five dollar bill, but yanked it away when she tried to grasp it. “Leave the android alone, and I give you the five dollars.”
She hesitated, arm up in the air, idling. “Fine.” She relented. “Does it even have a name?”
“Fuck if I know… I think it does. I forgot.”
“Another five.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
“That makes fifteen.”
He huffed at her. “What do we do when I stop having money for food because I swear too much?”
“I will call child services and you will be punished for your crimes.” She smirked at him.
He lifted an eyebrow and handed her the ten dollars, which she stuffed into the jar on the counter behind her. She held it up triumphantly and shook it a bit.
“Look at that, Gavin! We could invite the whole station for dinner in a fancy restaurant with this!”
“We can also use it to buy you school supplies and new clothing.”
“Or fancy pizza.”
“Or that.”
She grinned at him and set that jar back down before she finished her dinner and put the plate into the sink. “Oh, I did an art project with the Roomba, by the way.”
“Did you put more rhinestones on it?” He put his plate into the sink, not bothering to wash the dishes.
“No, I let it run through paint and over paper.”
The man fought an internal crisis as that. “Please tell me you got nothing on the carpet-“
“I did it in the bathroom, dummy.”
“Thank fu-“
“HA!” She smirked at him.
He held his hands up in defense. “I didn’t say it!”
“But you wanted to.”
“But I didn’t.” He insisted, took a rag and wiped the table. “Do your homework, okay?”
She nodded and headed back to her room. Gavin could see her peek into the living room and stop. “Gavin?... The LED is red.” She muttered, inched closer to the room. “…I think it’s overheating.”
“Fuck.” He hissed under his breath as he threw the towel into the sink and headed for the living room. “Shit… the thing said it was fine. What do I do?”
The girl looked up at him and shrugged, carefully took her hand away from the neck of the android. It hadn’t reacted to her touch at all.
“You need to call a cyberlife employee and try to cool it down until they can come fetch it.”
He crossed his arms. “Yeah no, I am not letting some cyberlife asshat poke around an android that isn’t supposed to be released to the general public.”
Emma sighed, headed for the kitchen and came back with a bowl filled with ice cubes and a towel. “This might work?”
“The fuck’s even gonna happen if it overheats?”
“It’s gonna burn.” She shrugged, grabbed a handful of ice cubes and snarled when they all slipped out of her fingers.
Gavin shook her head, hauled the android off the couch and dragged it into the bathroom. He dumped it in the shower, yanked it’s clothing off and turned on the faucet.
There was not immediate reaction but after a few minutes the LED cycled into yellow and Gavin was left wondering what to do now. He had no idea about androids. But the thing was obviously having some sort of major malfunction.
“So, Miss future-android-technician, what are we gonna do?”
“Keep it there and lock the door.”
“…You do know that that’s illegal now, right?”
“Darn.” She cursed.
And so, Gavin altered between the bath and living room, watching movies with Emma until her bedtime, and then he sat on the floor in the bathroom, watching the unresponsive android.
He hadn’t bothered to dry it off even after shutting off the faucet and just watched the slumped form sprawled like a bag of sand. LED still yellow.
It wasn’t until early in the morning when Gavin had dozed off, that the android started moving again, and Gavin almost screamed when two bright blue eyes focused on him the moment he opened his eyes again.
“Jesus! Fuck! Don’t ever do that again!”
“Don’t do what again, Detective Reed?”
“Scare the fucking shit out of me!”
The RK900 frowned, then noticed it was undressed and looked around the room to find the discarded tracksuit in a corner of the room.
“It seems that you have detected the malfunction and acted accordingly. My database suggest that I thank you for it.”
Gavin blinked in shock, did a double take and replayed the sentence in his memory. “I.” he muttered.
“Pardon?”
“You said ‘I’.”
The expression on the pale face was almost funny, but Gavin was too tired to care about that.
“This was not supposed to happen.”
“Well it fucking did. Put some fucking clothes on I’m freezing just looking at you.”
“Of course, Detective.”
Gavin watched the android rise to its full height and dress in the sweater and sweatpants again.
“Hey, uhm… what was your name again?”
The RK900 turned around to face him, eyed him with an expression Gavin couldn’t place. “The designation for this Unit is Cory. If you wish to change it, please register-“
“No. Keep it. It fits.” The human muttered and used the edge of the sink to pull himself up to his feet with a grunt. Spending the night on the tiled bathroom floor wasn’t fun anyone’s body. “Kind of takes the edge away. This big scary android with a cute name.”
“Due to lack of pop culture databases in this unit, the reference is lost.”
Gavin rolled his eyes, then shrugged. “Whatever.” He picked up the bowl form the floor and poured the melted ice into the drain, then watched the android again.
“Hey, Cory?”
“Yes?”
“….Your eyes… are they okay again?”
He nodded, something almost close to a smile on his lips. It was gone as fast as it came and Gavin wasn’t sure if he had imaged it. “Affirmative. The malfunction has corrected itself. The unit might require additional calibrating done by a technician.”
A sigh escaped the detective. “…do they do that a lot?... Act up I mean?”
“This unit cannot actively control the different vision settings as they are automatically activated when changes in the environment are detected.”
“Jesus that sounds annoying as fuck.”
This time Gavin had definitely seen a smile cross the android’s features.
“This may be an accurate description of the situation. It is rather stressful on the processors and can cause overheating.”
Gavin smirked, left the bathroom and gestured for the android to follow. After a bot of rummaging in several drawers he found a pair of bright blue and green aviator shades and handed them to the android. “…Maybe this helps.”
“Sunglasses?”
The human started laughing for a reason unknown to the android when he put on the sunglasses.
“Fuck that looks so dumb on you. Keep them, it’s hilarious.”
“As you wish detective.”