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The air in the debriefing room was sterile and cold, recycled through the precinct’s filters a thousand times over. It smelled of antiseptic cleaner and burnt coffee. Will didn’t care for any of it though. He just sat ramrod straight in the hard plastic chair, his knuckles white where they gripped his knees under the table.
He felt the weight of every gaze in the room: Captain Sandra Maldonado’s weary disappointment, the clinical detachment of the Cybernetic Oversight Board, the awkward sympathy from the few uniforms he called colleagues.
They’d just finished the playback. The holographic display showed the final moments of the raid on the syndicate’s data-hub. It showed “James”, model XJ-7 “Guardian” series, taking a high-calibre round meant for himself, a robot shielding a detective.
It showed everything, from James moving swiftly in front of him to James’s synthetic flesh tearing, revealing the gleaming alloy chassis beneath, sparks fizzing from a shattered shoulder actuator, to him returning fire with perfect, unshaken accuracy, neutralising the threat in an instant before any human counterparts could even jump in.
It also showed him, in the ensuing quiet, rushing to Will as the adrenaline faded. Will was pressing his own jacket to a gash on his arm, one that right now, was stinging more from memory than the phantom pain he sometimes felt in his cybernetic leg.
James’s optical sensors, picked up by the cameras despite being hazel, had softened and his voice, without the artificial rasp of older models, had dropped to a private frequency only Will’s comm-piece could pick up. “Are you alright, Will? I calculated a 92% probability of that shot connecting with your thoracic cavity. I am… gratified my calculations were incorrect.”
On the recording, Will had grinned, breathless. “Yeah, well, don’t make a habit of it. That’s my job.” He’d reached out and clapped a hand on James’s good shoulder, his fingers lingering for a second too long on the cool, undamaged synthetic skin.
To Will, it was a gesture of relief, of affection. To the Board, it was a critical malfunction.
“The XJ-7 unit exhibited significant behavioural anomalies post-engagement-” Droned one of the suits, a man with a face like a closed door. “-priority protocols shifted from tactical assessment to… what appears to be emotional concern. This is a clear deviation from its core programming. The incurred damage is severe. The cost-benefit analysis for repairs versus decommissioning is unequivocal.”
Will’s heart was a frantic drum against his ribs at the word. Decommission. They made it sound so clean. So final. Like scrapping a faulty car. He was incensed. “Fuck off!”
Captain Maldonado sighed, massaging her temples. “William, I know he’s saved your hide more than once. Hell, he’s saved this entire unit’s bacon, but he’s a tool. A very advanced, very expensive tool that I took the liberty of entrusting you with. You know as well as we do that he was a liability at the start. Most of his units were put in storag,e as when damaged, they can start acting erratically. That’s why I hoped you would get along with the more advanced models before I actioned you being with James. He’s a risk to you and the public.”
“He’s not a tool, Cap.” Will said, the words scraping out of a dry throat. His Geordie accent thickened with emotion, the usually soft vowels hardening. “He’s my partner. Mine. My responsibility. Surely, if you just think about this for five whole bloody minutes-”
Another suit, a woman with severe glasses, chimed in. “Detective, with all due respect, the unit is programmed to ensure your survival with maximum efficiency. What you perceive as partnership is a complex algorithm performing its noted function.”
“He’s my best friend!” Will’s voice rose, echoing in the sterile room. He saw a few of the uniforms shift uncomfortably. He was skirting the edge of unprofessionalism, and he knew i, but he didn’t care. Not now. Not ever. Not when it came to James. “Who here hasn’t relied on him? Who hasn’t had him watch their back? He’s got more guts and more loyalty than any…”
He trailed off, swallowing the rest of the sentence. He didn’t have to say it, he could see it in their faces. James has everything more than any of you and he’s a tin can.
The closed-door suit didn’t even look up from his datapad. “The vote is unanimous. Unit XJ-7, designated ‘James’, is to be deactivated. Components will be salvaged, core memory wiped. The precinct will be assigned a new DRN model next fiscal quarter.”
A tin can about to be put to slaughter.
The words were a physical blow. Will felt the air leave his lungs. Wiped. Everything that made James James - his wit, his curiosity about human idiosyncrasies, the way he’d tilt his head when he was processing something puzzling, the memory of every case they’d solved, every stupid joke they’d shared - would be dissolved into nothingness. It would be a death more complete than any human could ever know.
Will just wanted to scream. To most, it would be losing a friend, losing someone that he cared about. It wasn’t the first time; but this was different.
He couldn’t dare tell them he’d fallen in love with a robot.
He couldn’t tell them that he had fallen in love with the mind that could calculate a sniper’s trajectory in a millisecond but would spend twenty minutes analysing the ethical implications of a children’s fairy tale, that he’d fallen for the partner who could clear a room of hostiles with terrifying precision but would stop to carefully move a spider from their patrol car.
He couldn’t tell them that he had fallen for the way James said his name - not “Lenney” or “Detective,” or “William”, but “Will,” - with a tone of such specific, focused attention that it made Will feel like he was the only person in the city, WIll always responding privately with something obnoxious like “Jim”, or “Jimothy”, or “Jimbo”, sometimes worse to make James laugh out loud and feel like he was about to bust a circuit board.
He wanted to; wanted to sobadly. It might have produced some form of mercy, surely? He couldn’t, however. Not here. Not in this bubble that he just wanted out of. They’d never believe him. Think James had more than just a quirk of programming. They’d think it was Will’s PTSD talking, from losing his last partner.
They’d think it was a joke.
So, instead of pleading on his knees to a God or system he never believed in, he said nothing. He just sat there, devastated, as the meeting concluded. The suits filed out, their duty done. The uniforms that had stayed, people he’d thought were his friends, he’d thought that accepted James, patted his shoulder awkwardly on their way past.
“Sorry, mate.”
“Rough deal.”
“He was a good… unit.”
Soon, it was just him and Captain Maldonado. She looked at him, her expression a mix of pity and frustration. “Will, go home. Get some rest. Underneath all of that programming, he’s just a piece of hardware.”
He left without a word as the look he gave her said everything.
The precinct garage was silent, hollowed out by the late shift.
Will knew he shouldn’t be here: that he should be sulking with his tail between his actual and metaphorical leg at home in his apartment. He couldn’t do that. Not now. Not when his whole life had been upended, dragged through a blender, rearranged and then upended again.
It didn’t take him long to find his location. Rudy was clearly at his desk, not paying attention again, so it was easy for him to slip through the bays and just to his right, there he was. In the bay marked for fucking decommission.
James stood upright in a support rig, his damaged arm hanging uselessly, wires and diagnostic cables snaking from ports in his neck and back. His optical sensors were dimmed to a low power mode, so they were more greenish than brown, but they brightened back up to almost his normal shade as Will approached, moving his head minimally.
“Will. I was informed of the Board’s decision.” His voice was calm. Ever the logical one.
Will hated it.
“It’s rubbish, James. It’s all a pile of complete shite.” Will choked out, his real emotions bleeding through his anger. He placed a hand on James’s chest, over the smooth, unyielding chassis that housed his consciousness. It was cool to the touch. James’s non-damaged hand, the one that usually operated his gun, came up to rest over it.
“Their reasoning is sound from an operational and economic perspective, both of which I know that you are aware of.” James stated, though his head tilted slightly, a gesture Will had come to recognise as genuine curiosity. “To them, my functionality is impaired. My behavioural matrix is… atypical and my actions are dangerous and outdated.”
“I don’t care about your bloody matrix. I don’t care how fucking oputated those blights think you are or what danger they think you pose - bloody glorified peacocks they are. Wouldn’t know about danger in the slightest; prolly squeal if a drop of blood hit them in the face.” Will whispered, his forehead resting against James’s. It was a gesture of intimacy he would never, ever dare in the light, but here, he could. He would. “Point is, you can’t go. You can’t. I need someone here to make fun of and carry me iced coffee and-and-”
The words simply just died in his throat, tight as it swallowed around them. James was silent for a long moment, his processors emitting a barely audible hum, before he spoke again.
“I have been running a probability scan since the verdict was delivered.” He said, his voice softer now, almost a murmur. “The likelihood of successfully appealing the decision is 0.3%. The likelihood of you performing an ill-advised and emotionally-driven action to prevent my deactivation, however, is 87.4% and rising.”
Will let out a wet, half-laugh, half-sob. “Yeah? What’s your recommendation, then?”
James’s good arm moved again off Will’s hand, the motion slower, more deliberate than his usual efficient grace as his synthetic fingers came up and gently wiped a tear from Will’s cheek that Will hadn’t even realised had fallen.
The action was impossibly tender, a violation of a dozen protocols and so unbearably human that Will almost combusted right then and there. A machine, they said.
James was no bloody machine.
“My core programming is to protect my partner, which you are. In several ways.” James said, his eyes holding Will’s. “It appears that for once, despite our arguments, our priorities are seemingly perfectly aligned at this moment. My recommendation is simple: sod them.”
A new resolve, cold and sharp, washed away Will’s despair. The Board saw a tool to be discarded and his colleagues saw a piece of hardware, but Will saw the man he loved and as daft and mad as he apparently was, he wasn’t going to let them take him lying down.
“Right then, Jimbo.” Will said, a fierce, desperate grin spreading across his face as he reached for the release clamps on the support rig. “Let’s act on that rec that bloody impressive brain of yours has thrown up; shall we?”
James smirked. “With pleasure, Detective.”