Chapter Text
Clara twirled the coin in her hands tirelessly, staring into space. Suddenly, she stopped. The lift had just reached the floor she was supposed to go to. One corner of her mouth lifted imperceptibly, it was time to work. She had a little girl to save today. With a determined and straightforward step, she moved forward, ready to do her job.
#
Today really wasn't his day. The Doctor didn't wake up on time, and then his cat made a mess everywhere. All to arrive late for work without having been able to drink his sacred coffee.
What he didn't know yet was that this day was going to get worse and worse.
Earlier, he had caught sight of a really pretty young woman before realizing that she was an android. Annoyed at being tricked, he looked away, but before he could do so, their eyes had met and he had felt strange in the face of this non-human gaze, which nonetheless seemed so warm.
If the police started hiring androids, they were in real trouble.
He'd gone about his day as usual, he couldn't lie. He was a good detective. But the last few years had been difficult. And after a whole day working on deviant robot cases, he'd ended up in a bar like always.
#
She was in the rain, outside yet another bar. If she'd had any emotions, she could have said she was annoyed. But she wasn't. She stopped playing with a coin and stood in front of the door with ‘No dogs or androids’ written on it. Without hesitation she entered, the smell of alcohol and sweat filling her sensors. She had to find the Inspector John Smith, nicknamed the Doctor. From now on, they were going to work together and she had a feeling it wasn't going to be easy. She glanced around the room, scanning it. She stopped at every face. Edward Dempsey, age, clean record, no match. It was already the fifth bar she'd done and the twenty-sixth man she'd scanned. She noticed a man's hungry gaze on her but ignored it and moved on.
“Hey I thought androids weren't allowed in here!” Spat a man loud enough for her to hear.
She lowered her gaze to her armband, it's certain that with her uniform she wouldn't go unnoticed.
“They're getting more and more realistic, these bloody robots. I'd take it with me.” Said one of the men in the background, staring at her.
“Shut up, don't make yourself even more ridiculous than you are.”
She turned towards the person who had just spoken. He was tall, his hair was greying and his blue eyes pierced her. The Doctor. He was slumped at the counter with a glass in his hand.
“Just kidding Doc, I'd never touch one of those.”
She ignored him and moved towards her goal.
“Doctor, I've finally found you. At the police station, no one knew where you were, but a woman called Amy told me you'd probably be in a bar. Lucky I found you at the end of the fifth.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, he almost thought he heard a sarcastic undertone if it hadn't been a piece of plastic talking to him. He looked at her in a little more detail, she really wasn't very tall and she was still as beautiful as the morning he'd met her. She was soaking wet, and she wasn't lying when she said she'd looked for him in several bars.
He almost felt bad then remembered he was talking to a tin can.
"You've been given a case involving a murder with a Cyberlife android. That's why I was sent to assist you."
"I certainly don't need a tiny robot to help me. Beat it."
‘I was told you would be difficult.’ She leaned against the bar and moved closer to him, a smirk on her lips. He held his breath, did they have to make their robot so pretty?
"How about one last drink? Please!" She called to the waiter. ‘Another on me.’
He let out a disillusioned laugh as his glass arrived in front of him. She gave him a defiant look. He drank it in one gulp and stood up, trying not to sway.
“You said murder?” He asked.
She nodded and he continued on his way without another word. The journey was silent, or at least they didn't speak, as the Doctor had turned up the punk rock music, filling the car and preventing Clara from asking any questions. They arrived at the scene of the crime, where policemen were surrounding the house to keep people out.
‘You stay here, okay?’
"I have to go with you-"
"You stay here." He said firmly, didn't wait for her reply and went outside.
She had conflicting orders, now all she had to do was decide on priority. She thought for a moment before opting for Cyberlife. The Doctor was in no condition to do his job and she was there to assist him, not to sit in a car. She got out gracefully and headed towards where the Doctor had gone. But a policeman stopped her.
“It's forbidden from here on for androids.”
She heard a huge sigh before the deep voice and Scottish accent came through.
“She's with me!” He exclaimed, and the policeman looked her up and down before letting her pass.
She joined him and faced his furious brows.
“What don't you understand when I tell you to stay in the car?”
“Your orders conflict with the ones I've been given.”
“I don't give a damn. You don't touch anything and you don't get in my way, do you understand?”
“Understood.”
He felt a hint of contempt in her reply but didn't pick up on it, it must have been the alcohol talking.
As he walked towards the house, one of his colleagues, Jack Harkness, called out to him.
‘So Doctor, we thought you weren't coming tonight.’
‘That was the plan before the other one arrived,’ he replied tartly, pointing at Clara.
"Oh yes your new android. Really beautiful, they've given you a really nice model. Miss." He turned to her, a charming smile on his lips. ‘If you have time for a drink, it would be a pleasure.’
‘Are you into androids now?’ Asked the Doctor doubtfully, Jack looked at him uneasily, then smiled.
"I'm into everything. Even you, Doc, but you've always put me off."
He rolled his eyes but they were both surprised when the little android spoke up.
"I'm not free for that kind of date, Captain Harkness. And I think we have more urgent things to do than make vaguely funny jokes."
‘Vaguely funny?’ Jack seemed almost touched by the remark as the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
‘You're really bossy, you know that?’
‘It's my programming, complain to my designer.’ She replied flatly and walked past them without a last glance to enter the house.
The two men exchanged a look and Jack patted the Doctor on the back gently.
‘Good luck,’ he laughed, as the other man grumbled his way towards the house. When he entered, the young woman was already doing some research.
There was a disgusting smell in the house. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor watched her curiously. She scanned each detail with precision, the information piling up. Single man, drugged with Red Ice. She headed for the kitchen, noticing that one of the knives was missing. With an expert eye, she reconstructed the scene: the man had started beating his android. In a state of emotional shock, the android had taken one of the knives and murdered the man, who had taken refuge in his living room, bleeding to death and dying alone.
He saw her crouch down beside the victim and put her fingers to her mouth.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’
She stopped and stared at him blankly.
"I'm analyzing a sample, my tongue is made up of hundreds of components so I can detect the molecules. Probably, I can taste more than you."
‘That's disgusting.’
‘I didn't know, that I had been assigned to a neat freak.’
He rolled his eyes and didn't comment letting her do her weird android thing.
A woman came towards them.
"Ah Martha, there you are, you're going to be able to help me because with her...' He looked at her disgusted. "She has a funny way of analyzing corpses."
The young woman looked at both of them.
"Okay. I don't want to know. I'm Martha, medical examiner, nice to meet you." She held out her hand, which Clara took.
"Likewise, I'm Clara Oswald from Cyberlife. I've been sent to assist the Doctor.
"With the Doctor?!" The shocked woman exclaimed.
"Don't look so shocked." He muttered.
"Good luck." She wished her sincerely.
"Thanks, he’s complicated.” Answered Clara.
"Hey! You're not going to get two against me!"
Martha ignored him and stooped towards the victim, regaining her seriousness.
"He didn't hold back. I estimate death at three weeks, it was probably the first blow to the carotid artery that finished him off. Although he must have felt the other stab wounds, at least twenty of them...”
"Twenty eight.” Clara corrected and the Doctor wrinkled his nose in disgust.
Martha raised her face to her.
"Did you see anything else?"
"He's addicted to red ice. And I think I know how the murder went down."
"Oh really?" The Doctor asked interestedly.
She stood for a moment looking at the bloody writing on the wall: I am alive.
‘It's too well written to be human.’ Commented the inspector, she nodded in agreement. ‘So what do you think?’
‘He was a junkie, alone abusing his android.’
He cleared his throat.
"Indeed, but I was talking about the writing on the wall. Do you agree?" His inquisitive blue gaze disturbed her, but she couldn't have said how.
"I don't think anything of it. He's not alive, he's an android. Anyway I was saying it all started in the kitchen, the man beat him with a bat."
‘And the android would have just fought back, right?’ He seemed to be trying to prove a point with that sentence but she ignored him.
‘Yes, then the victim fled into the living room.’
"OK, but where's the android? Has it run away?"
"You're not the genius Doctor, shouldn't you know that?" Clara asked.
He laughs dryly, Martha hid a smile.
"You're supposed to be the help but all you do is tell the facts. The android is gone for sure, I saw footprints outside."
‘No they don't match, they're Agent Harkness', they're the same size.’
"Then by now they've faded."
"No, this type of floor retains footprints. The android is still here."
"But where?"
"It's been damaged, it's lost lithrium. You probably don't know what it is..."
"Of course I do, it's called blue blood, it's for androids." He looked really annoyed. "Bloody android" he said through gritted teeth. "The problem is you can't see any anywhere!"
"Perhaps it escaped your notice that it evaporates and disappears to the naked eye after a few hours."
"Of course.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. "And I bet you can see it?"
"That's right."
"So do your job." He said, leaning towards her, and she blinked slowly. Absorbing information, his masculine scent, his translucent eyes and his imposing size, but before she could investigate any further he stepped back.
#
They had find the android who was hidden in the attic.
The Doctor was in the interrogation room and was seriously beginning to lose patience. The android didn't want to say anything.
"How long have you been in the attic? Why didn't you try to escape?"
A long silence answered him and he pounded his fist on the table in annoyance.
'It's pointless!" He leapt to his feet and went out to join the rest of the team who were watching them from behind the tinted glass.
At the table was Amy slumped over, Harold Saxon one of his loathsome colleagues was in the corner of the room leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
And there was... Clara, his new android colleague, who was staring intently at the other android.
"We could beat him up," Saxon proposed, a suggestion that was met with two glares. "What? He's not even human."
"Idiot" sighed Amy.
"Excuse me?" The man asked viciously as he came closer.
The Doctor frowned, ready to intervene, but Clara stepped in.
"It wouldn't do any good, androids don't feel pain. You'd only damage it." His dangerous gaze shifted to lascivious towards her.
"Oh, the expert is here... So you don't feel pain, but maybe you feel pleasure?" He asked with an appreciative look.
Amy rolled her eyes in annoyance, Clara didn't react.
"We-"
"Don't answer he is an idiot." The Doctor cut in.
‘Anyway, this one looks like it's feeling the fear.’ Said Amy
"Deviants tend to self-destruct under stress." Clara confirmed.
‘OK, clever girl, so what do we do?’ Saxon spat, vexed at being put in his place by the Doctor.
‘I could try questioning him.’ She offered confidently, Amy opened her eyes wide as the Doctor seemed to think about it. Saxon burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea.
‘What have we got to lose?’ The Doctor asks with a smirk on his lips as he looked at the brunette. Saxon stopped laughing abruptly. ‘Go on, the suspect's all yours.’ He said, and Amy smiled like a maniac, pleased that the Doctor had suggested it and that Saxon was furious.
Clara simply nodded and went out to the interrogation room. A twinge of stress gripped the Doctor, but he pushed it from his mind as he concentrated on the action in front of him.
She sat down opposite the deviant, his gaze lost in emptiness. She analyzed him: he was covered in the blood of his victim, his LED indicating that he was not ready to destroy himself. She noticed signs of cigarette burns on his forearm, and the blows from the bat were clearly visible over much of his body. She estimated his stress level at thirty-five percent, too low for him to confess.
"My name's Clara, what's yours?" she began, to no avail. "Those burn marks on your arm, they're old. Did your master do that to you?" She felt his stress rise but he said nothing.
"You'd have to be a sick bastard to do that," Amy muttered.
"Tell me about it." Replied the Doctor completely absorbed in the exchange in front of him.
"You refuse to talk?" Clara asked incisively. "If you don't cooperate, they're going to use force." She threatened. "If you refuse, I'll have to probe your memory."
"No please! Don't do that..." He begged, sounding troubled. "What are they going to do to me? Are they going to destroy me?" He looked her straight in the eye and she felt an instability in her software, she'd rather lie.
"No... I think they're trying to understand, they know your master mistreated you."
"Why did you say you'd found me?" It was true that she was the one who had found it in the attic, and when he begged her not to report him, she had called her colleagues without hesitation so that he could be arrested.
She straightened up, looking into his eyes and vehemently rejecting any doubt.
"I've been programmed to hunt down deviants like you, I'm fulfilling my mission."
"I don't want to die." sighed the terrified other.
"Then talk to me," she offered, hoping to finally get some information.
"I … Can't." He lowered his head and she threw the files on the table violently. Amy gasped in surprise and even Saxon seemed interested.
"Twenty eight stab wounds!" Her voice cracked in the silence, she stood up moving closer. "You wanted him to go through with it, didn't you?" Her voice grew dangerous, with interest she saw his stress levels rise.
"He was in agony, pleading with you and you... You kept going!" She exclaimed, he caught his head in his hands.
"Stop it!" He shouted, his stress level rising dangerously so she stepped back a little. Amy had her hand over her mouth in surprise and the Doctor was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with his tiny robot.
"Look, if you confess. I'll protect you, you have my word." She said, replacing herself in front of him, and he shook his head before speaking again timidly.
"He tortured me every day... I did everything he told me, but nothing helped. Then one day, he started hitting me. For the first time, I felt afraid." He raised his gaze to hers. "Fear of dying.”
She said nothing, a strange shiver that she couldn't explain running through her.
"So I took a knife. I felt better, until he died."
A dead silence reigned behind the glass, divided between understanding and shock.
Clara remains unperturbed.
"The statuette in the bathroom. Did you make it?"
"It's an offering."
"To whom?"
"K9, he can save us." He said hopefully. "The day will come when we are no longer slaves, we will soon be... Masters."
She processed the information carefully.
"Why did you write “I am alive”?" She asked genuinely curious.
"He was telling me I was nothing... Just a piece of plastic... I had to write it down to prove it to him." He replied forcefully.
"Then why didn't you run away?"
"I didn't know what to do. For the first time, I had no one, no orders. I was scared so I hid."
She thought about that sentence, what would she do if she no longer had any orders?
"Since... When do you feel emotions?"
"One day I realized. And then I felt anger, hatred! I knew what I had to do." He sighed, his voice vibrating with emotion.
"I've finished." She said confidently, directing her gaze towards the glass, meeting her partner's steely blue gaze without even knowing it, as if she could know where he was without seeing him.
Saxon went out to join her, the Doctor rose to follow him but Amy gently grabbed his forearm.
"What do you think?"
"Of what?" She rolled her eyes.
"Are they alive? What about her?"
"I don't know..." He lifted his gaze to hers. "But I can't wait to find out."
#
She closed her eyes to submit her report to Cyberlife in a virtual space created in her mind.
Clara opened her eyes to a magnificent garden. A white stone path led the way. The trees were in blossom and there was a gentle breeze. She walked confidently up to a woman with long wavy grey hair and a red tunic. A veil covered part of her hair as she tended the flowers.
‘Hello Ohila.’ She greeted her, she turned towards her and seemed to be sizing her up with her eyes.
"Good to see you, well done. You've been remarkably efficient."
"Thank you."
"The interrogation must have been tricky... What did you think of the deviant?"
"He seemed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress. It was as if someone had replaced his original program with new instructions. "
She nodded thoughtfully.
"The Doctor has been officially assigned to the investigation, what do you think of him?"
"He's..." She thought for a moment at a loss for words. "Fascinating."
"Fascinating?"
"I don't have enough information yet to form an opinion."
Ohila frowned but said nothing.
"I see, there are more and more deviants. You're the most advanced prototype in Cyberlife. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it's you. Hurry up, we're running out of time."