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To be perfectly honest, she's still on the fence about the whole android thing: she’s not like Gavin Reed who absolutely loathes them, and she’s not like Mack Wilson who ever since being rescued by the prototype detective has nothing but high praise for them. She’s sort of always just been in the middle in the sense that if she minds her business and they mind theirs, then she doesn’t have to think about them. Only the social climate is rapidly changing in Detroit and the dirty word is ‘deviant’ and the city seems to be crawling with them. The DPD’s always worked with androids; like every other establishment in the city they have android janitors and receptionists, with the unique addition of police units- but now instead of looking at them as machines, she’s starting to wonder if they should be seen as something different. Something more. Someone alive.
Central precinct has three ST300s at the front as receptionists, and a human security staff to oversee them. They’ve been there for five years now and Tina’s really never bothered to pay attention to them. One of them, the one that sits closest to Gary’s post, always says good morning to her, every morning, and Tina’s always figured it’s some sort of social programming. Last Spring when she found some lost kid and reunited him with his mother, the woman had given Tina a bouquet as a token of her gratitude. Not really knowing what to do with them, she’d given the flowers to the ST300 and told it to put the flowers in a vase. Flowers belonged at reception anyway; better to be admired by the public than to wilt away on Tina’s desk inside the bullpen. Ever since then, ever since the bouquet of flowers, the ST300 never fails to greet her daily.
It’s a fucking nightmare and she can usually tolerate Gavin’s brashness and vulgarity but not today. She’s gritting her teeth and powering through cramps, and there’s a gaping void in her chest because a case went south and it had been her knocking on the door and telling a parent their kid totaled their car and wasn’t coming home. She can hear her mother’s sigh in her head, her ‘I told you you’re wasting your talent there, you should be a doctor like your cousin’ as if a doctor didn’t also have to tell parents their kid wasn’t coming home when something went south.
“Officer Chen?” The ST300 is at her desk, holding out a cup of coffee. “Your stress levels are incredibly high. You should take a moment to eat and drink something.”
“Uhhh thanks?” She accepts the coffee and the android goes back out to reception.
Her neighbour is the lovechild of Kate Bush and Stevie Nicks, and Tina admires her absolute rejection of social expectations and maybe even envies it a little.
“Teeny!” She greets with a gasp. “I have a present for you! I know your birthday was two weeks ago but I’ve been bathing her in moonlight and making sure her aura was glowing before giving her to you.”
“What, you’ve magicked me a girlfriend Tessie is that it?”
“Oh no no, you can’t force love onto a person.” She seems mortified Tina even suggested it, and her expression makes her laugh loudly in the hallway. “Don’t you vanish into your apartment yet! Hold tight!” She slips back into her home, all shawls and fluttery layers and the scent of herbs, before emerging with a sweet blooming cactus. “Here you are! Happy birthday!”
“Oh my god that’s so fucking cute.” Tina looks at the small plant cupped in her palms. “Fuck Tessie this is adorable , thank you!”
“I knew you’d love her!” She gives a little bounce as she claps her hands excitedly. “Keep her at work. Your desk is lonely.”
“How would you know that?” Tina narrows her eyes suspiciously as her neighbour shrugs.
“Vibes.”
If she’s being honest, she doesn’t trust herself with greenery- even the desert kind. The cute little cactus sits at her desk for all of a week before she’s fretting over it. Can’t water it too much or it drowns and rots, can’t not water it or it dries out. She doesn’t trust her very human brain to remember the proper schedule to maintain a cactus and so she figures that an android certainly won’t forget. And flowers belong at reception anyway, where the public can admire them. The ST300 smiles brightly when she hands her the cactus and promises to take very good care of it. It’s then that Tina realises she has freckles dusted across the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks and that they crinkle when she smiles and she’s very very cute.
There’s a revolution underway, right here in Detroit, and she’s caught in the thick of it. The safety of Detroit’s citizens falls to the DPD, and it’s up to them to uphold the peace. But it doesn’t sit right, doesn’t feel right, to see the androids being rounded up. To see shipping containers converted into temporary recycling plants to deactivate and dismantle them one by one like some morbid de-assembly line. They look very real, they sound very real, and they seem to feel very very scared. When the order reaches the DPD, there’s a conundrum: all androids are to be turned over for immediate destruction, but without the android police units there’s not enough police presence to get the job done. And the police are still working with the prototype detective. Captain Fowler compromises and says the police units stay, the prototype goes back to CyberLife, and the rest of the androids get turned over for destruction.
She considers herself a by-the-book kind of officer but she’s fucking noping out of this one. No thank you. No siree. Anyone who knows her would say ‘impulsive’ is at the bottom of the list of words to describe Tina Chen, but the situation calls for it.
“We have to go.” She grabs the ST300 by the wrist. “Come on.”
“My shift isn’t finished, I-” Her LED flickers red as the other two androids look over at them. “I can’t leave.”
“You can, and you will.” Tina tries to tug her but she stands firm. “You have to come with me or they’re going to take you away to be destroyed.” The panic is rising in her throat and she fights to keep it down. “I heard the captain, you have to leave. Now .”
“Officer Chen, my place is-”
“You’ll die! I don’t want you to die!” Tina nearly shouts, and the android’s LED turns a bright solid red, so red it looks like it’s burning. She winces, her hands trembling as if she’s fighting something, wrestling with herself, before she freezes and opens her eyes again.
“I don’t- where will we go?” She hadn’t really thought that far ahead but Tina just tightens her grip on her wrist and runs. She can hear the FBI prick, can hear the Lieutenant swear at him and the sound of a sudden scuffle, and she runs . She runs until they’re in the carpark, and then she’s shoving the android into her car and then she’s nearly dropping the key before shoving it in, turning it, and driving off. She’s highkey panicking now but the thought of her being taken away, of not hearing her good mornings or seeing her brights smiles or receiving her little plant update photos on her phone overrides all the panic. Tina brings her to the apartment building, making the perilous climb up the fire escape which is more hazard than escape, and then she’s knocking rapidly, near pounding on her neighbours window.
“Tessie I need you to hide her please I’m begging you you can’t let them find her they’ll take her away and-” her neighbour just holds out her hand to the android before shooing Tina away and Tina nearly collapses in relief as she heads back down the fire escape and vows silently to buy her neighbour whatever the fuck she wants in return.
The revolution happens and the androids win. It’s not some Skynet horror story that leads to the genocide of humans. It’s actually the complete opposite and despite humans treating them like garbage, they want to be a part of society alongside them. It’s an odd but not unwelcome turn of events. Tina’s glad she chose their side because really, when she thinks about it, they’re living sentient beings. They’re not just machines, they’re alive. They experience fear and sadness and happiness and joy too. They experience a sense of accomplishment when they take their post again and are told they did a good job. They experience a sense of pride when the little cactus produces another bloom. They experience a sense of relief and camaraderie when a human officer addresses them by their chosen name, like a human instead of a model number like a machine.
“Good morning Officer Chen.”
“Good morning Stephanie.” Tina smiles. “How’s Eddie doing today?” She gestures at the echinopsis cacti, and the android smiles.
“Ready to take on the day.”