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Connor is at the front, he’s leading the group down the streets of a quiet neighbourhood. The occasional car passes by, the people inside giving them somewhat pitying glances but none of the RKs look up.
Their dress shoes squeak when they move off of the crumbling sidewalk and onto the wet streets. Rain pours down soaking them, and their Cyberlife uniforms cling to their bodies like glue. Sixty is in the middle. He steps into the puddles ignoring the way the cold makes him shiver. His first taste of the outside world is jarring. The April evening is quiet, though not as quiet as the Cyberlife building he was trapped in for so long. Instead, the world around him seems to whisper. A whisper is louder than silence. Sixty decides that he prefers it.
RK900 walks at the back of the line, he monitors the neighbourhood silently. There is the occasional sound of a dog barking in the distance as well as the sound of plastic trash cans falling over in the wind. RK900’s height allows him to see far out in front of him, he counts the street signs, though he trusts that Connor knows his way around.
The three androids are like ducklings, all wandering in a straight line.
They arrive at an older one-story building, Hank’s house they presume. Connor stands at the front just as he had earlier, he raises his fist to the door letting out a few quiet knocks. Quiet shuffling is heard followed by a muffled curse. Connor smiles knowingly.
The door creaks open halfway and a man with scraggly grey hair peeks his head out slightly. His eyes light up at the sight of Connor, Hank opens the door fully. Hank then stares blankly at the trio. Connor stands on the front step. Sixty’s standing at the side with RK900 standing at the lowest step. Hank decides that they all look like kicked puppies, soaked to the bone and each with their own version of Connor’s big eyes.
One part of Hank wants to yell out so that all the neighbourhood can hear his confused frustration, but another part of Hank knows better than to leave the group alone in the rain. His imagination supplies the image of them all standing in a box labelled ‘give us a home’. Hank then develops a habit of taking in strays.
He opens the door wide then steps to the side, Hank watches them remove their shoes at the porch. A polite gesture, one that he was sure wouldn’t last.
“Thank you,” Connor says, the other two murmur their thanks as well. Hank only shrugs in response.
As it turns out taking in some strays was a big mistake. A horrible decision, really.
Weeks later Hank is pushing a grocery cart down the produce section. He ignores the way one of the wheels squeaks loudly, he tries even harder to ignore the way the twin androids argued.
“I should be the one to ride inside it! You probably already did because you’ve been with Hank longer. So let me!” Sixty doesn’t talk much unless it’s to complain or monologue.
During the first week, Hank had been hesitant to be around Sixty at all, the android quite literally held Hank at gunpoint not too long ago. But after learning of Sixty’s abandonment issues Hank decided to let the androids' weirdness slide. Sixty was the most dramatic of the three, he had a habit of turning any normal conversation into an hour-long monologue about why he is the best RK.
“You don’t need to have your way all the time! Let me sit in the cart!” Connor bites back.
“Hank is the one pushing the cart so if anyone is to decide, it should be him.” Thankfully Nines speaks up before the twins could get into a brawl.
RK900 didn’t mind going by the nickname ‘Nines’. The nickname was more for Hank’s sake than anything since it was much less of a mouthful. Nines took the longest to warm up to Hank. The android was the most mature of the three, he played the oldest brother role well and his overprotective side didn’t go unnoticed by Hank. A part of him respected the android even more for that. Being protective was a good trait.
“I ain’t pushing you guys. Get the fuck outta the cart and start actually helping.” Hank says.
He turns to point out Nines as a good example only to pause. The RK900 had wandered off. Hank raises his hand to pinch at the top of his nose, a frustrated habit that he had adopted recently.
Five minutes later Nines came back with a handful of coupons. 60% off Wheat Cereal. Buy two egg cartons and get the third for free! Fruit Punch half off! Thirium 20% discount. Now Connor and Sixty were interested as well. The three proceeded to fight over the shitty paper coupons. The urge to yell out arose in Hank once again, he held it back. Barely.
Just when Hank was starting to get used to the group of childish androids in his home, something happened.
“Oh shit.”
The sound of Nines swearing made Hank freeze, the RK hardly ever swore, he always valued professionalism above all else. To hear Nines swear meant that something was horribly wrong.
“I’m not telling him! It’s your fault anyway!”
Sixty and Connor’s voices sounded exactly the same. But the shrill accusing tone was something that only Sixty could pull off perfectly.
“It was your fault too!”
“Actually, I think we all had a hand in this. But perhaps it is best if you were to tell him, Connor.” Nines says.
Hank can hear shuffling from the laundry room followed by more nervous chatter. Then finally Connor appears in the living room, standing in front of Hank with his arms hidden behind his back, no doubt to hide his nervous twitching hands.
“We broke your washing machine.”
A beat of silence.
“What?!”
Hank was glad that laundromats even exist nowadays, thanks to some hipsters probably. Searching under couch cushions and in old drawers, he finds several bits of old change. Enough for two loads of laundry.
The four make their way across the neighbourhood, each holding either a basket of clothing or a container of laundry detergent. It was both a punishment and a solution.
Keeping the RKs occupied while the laundry was being washed was harder than it seemed. The three were built ready for the world but realistically they were only online for what? Two months? Not very long that’s for sure. In Hank’s mind, they were a group of immature teenagers. Hank’s opinion of them only grew after seeing what they did for entertainment at the laundromat.
Connor had managed to figure out how to pull out the coin dispenser. Instead of stealing the coins, he proceeded to try and upgrade the laundry machine. Hank had no idea where he found the tools but he didn’t care, just as long as he was occupied and not in Hank’s hair.
Meanwhile, Sixty was wandering up and down the aisles looking for things to sample. The RK had managed to sample three different brands of laundry detergent (one of them being Hank’s), a soda spill, some mud, and an old juice box left from a random child. His sampling only continued. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank could see 60 crouching to the floor. God, please don’t be something gross! Hank frantically repeated in his head. With the same morbid curiosity of watching a crime scene, Hank watches. A mysterious pink puddle, Fuckin’ great! Hank supposed it was slightly less gross than sampling blood. But still. Ew.
And thankfully Nines seemed to be as usual the most mature of the three. He sat on the bench next to Hank reading some old outdated phone book that he had spotted when they walked in, a few pages were missing but RK900 didn’t seem to care.
Having been around the androids for a couple of months now Hank knew a lot about the group of strays, more specifically their taste in TV.
Connor enjoyed watching nature documentaries. It wasn’t all that surprising considering that even before he was deviant, Connor admitted he liked dogs or any animal it seemed.
RK900 liked to watch crime shows. Ones with shitty acting, bad special effects, and awkward dialogue. The android loved to pick apart the shows bit by bit. Nines claimed that watching the show wasn’t for entertainment purposes but rather for him to gain more insight into human unpredictability. Yeah, human unpredictability my ass. Thought Hank.
Then finally that left Sixty. The weirdo enjoyed soap operas and reality TV. Hank could deal with crime shows, and he’ll even watch boring-ass nature docs but there was no way that Hank could stand reality TV for longer than ten minutes. This was partly why Hank let the three continue their fight for the TV remote. He prayed to whatever god was out there that Nines would win the fight, he was Cyberlife’s best and also the only RK with half decent taste.
Apparently, Hank spoke too soon. Connor rose triumphantly up from the couch with the tv remote clutched in one hand, but before he could switch it to a nature doc about zebras Hank dove in grabbing it from his hand. Connor seemed surprised, his pre-construction program hadn’t even considered Hank.
Said man switched the channel to sports. Hank liked basketball, too bad so sad for the three RKs. Hank sunk to his spot on the couch and leaned back with a content sigh. The others grumbled slightly but otherwise got comfy. Nines sitting on his left, Connor on his right. And Sixty sitting on the floor with his back leaning against Hank’s legs.
Hank never thought that he would ever have any more kids. But shit, here he was sitting with three of his sons. The strays quite literally showed up on his doorstep, but Hank was grateful.