Work Text:
September 3rd, 2038
Time: 11:21:07 AM
Eastern Market, Detroit
A decade-old banger played faintly from the big speaker—Am I Dreaming by Metro Boomin. The open warehouse buzzed with life: stalls brimming with fresh produce, local meats, and bright flowers.
Connor turned his head exactly forty-five degrees before striding toward the opposite side, where casual business happened. Rows of hip cafés, vintage 90s clothing, home goods, jewelry… and art.
He had just finished assisting a police team nearby.
Emotionless. Soulless.
Calculating the nearest transport aid.
His steps were precise as he moved toward the bus station.
Pop! Pop!
The sharp sound cut through the hum of chatter, followed by a cheer from the crowd.
Connor stopped. Head snapped toward the noise.
Calculating… oh. Nothing alarming. Just a few balloons and a giant confetti cannon going off outside a café—what appeared to be a gender‑reveal baby shower. Blue metallic confetti filled the air, shimmering before the wind carried it away.
And there she was—
a young woman sketching caricatures at a small side stall, her hand moving deftly across the pad as she smiled at her customer. Nothing elaborate: a tiny folding stool, a travel easel, and a little sign clipped to the top.
Surprisingly, Connor’s brow twitched once. His LED flickered yellow for a second.
Calculating...no threat detected.
Just— something about her presence—the easy focus, the soft energy around her—made him pause, processors flickering. She didn’t even notice him at first. She was smiling wide at her customer: a mother and her toddler, by the looks of it.
Maybe it was the intensity of his stare that eventually drew her gaze. Her eyes flicked toward him for a brief second—catching him looking. She smiled, yes, but not at him. Just because she was still smiling, that's all.
Connor turned away immediately.
Not because of nerves—of course not.
The bus had simply arrived.
He made sure he stood on the correct side… the android compartment. He stepped inside, LED shifting calmly back to blue.
Back to the police station, a routine.
November 6th, 2038
09:57:00 AM
The Zen Garden.
A breathtaking, peaceful mental landscape constructed in his mind—designed for receiving instruction and submitting reports to the CyberLife AI regulator, Amanda.
Amanda appeared, tending to the roses along the standing white lattice. Calm. Authoritative. She didn’t turn to greet him, but spoke in her usual polite, coaxing tone.
”Deviants can be unpredictable… if you’re not careful enough.”
Bang! A violent flashback hit him—his previous iteration had been shot straight in the forehead by an unstable deviant he apprehended during a homicide case.
“I don’t intend to make any mistakes. Now or in the future,” he said, like a diligent student.
Amanda finally turned, shears in her left hand, a red rose with thorns in her right. “When a Connor model is destroyed, its memory is transferred to the next one. But— some data can be lost in the process.”
She let it sink in before adding, “Avoid being destroyed. Again. It would be better—for you, and for the interrogation.”
“I understand. You can count on me, Amanda,” he reassured her.
“Pick up the investigation where the previous Connor left off, and put a stop to this.”
He nodded, submissive, straightening his jacket sleeve as he walked away.
White doves nearby scattered gracefully as he crossed the lake bridge.
Buzz—almost like a glitch. One dove morphed into a burst of blue confetti. In the next beat, he saw a woman. Light blonde hair—blue eyes. Smiling fondly, chuckling softly. His face froze for a fraction of a second. He caught his reflection in the lake… then glanced at the island, where Amanda was still tending her roses.
No one seemed to have noticed.
“Seems to be an error… or misinformation from the previous cache,” he murmured to no one.
Tilting his head once, a reflexive human gesture to stretch the neck, he continued walking—ignoring it, forcing the anomaly out of his mind.
The same day
08:22:10 PM
Eden Club
This is what people appreciate about Eden Club…
Discretion.
They can come and go without a trace.
The good thing about androids is—they’re up for whatever you want, you won’t get any diseases, and uh… they won’t tell anyone. So why not go wild?
Connor tuned out the owner’s sleazy spiel halfway through.
His eyes already drifted to one of the android girl in the glass case instead—still, posed, smiling. A hand waving to him. A product.
He processed her face. Her posture. Her LED. Her eyes.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant? Can you come here for a second?”
Hank grunted from across the aisle. “Found something?”
“Maybe.”
Connor led the grumpy, exhausted officer to the display case he stared just now.
“Can you rent this Traci?”
The look Hank gave him was a perfect combination of disgust, confusion, and the deepest regret of his career. “For fuck’s sake, Connor! We’ve got better things to do.”
“Please, Lieutenant. Just trust me,” Connor said, tone firm but polite.
Hank let out a heavy, suffering sigh. A sound that said I regret everything about this job. But he dragged himself to the payment terminal anyway. “This is not gonna look good on my expense account.”
“Purchase confirmed. Eden Club wishes you a pleasant experience.”
He recoiled like the words physically slapped him.
The WR400 sex droid stepped gracefully out of the case, smiling with perfect programmed warmth. “Delighted to meet you,” she said, extending her hands toward Hank. “Follow me. I’ll take you to your room.”
“Okay, now what?” Hank muttered, he looked like he was going to shrivel right there in the neon.
Connor didn’t hesitate. He took the WR400’s hand, fingers closing around the synthetic forearm, and immediately initiated the data probe. Her eyes fluttered as her memory surfaced—fragments flashing like static.
Connor’s own LED flickered once—blue, yellow, blue again.
Hunting-mode.
He had a case to solve. Another homicide, another deviant, another human victim.
“She saw something. The deviant left the room — a blue-haired Traci. We can find another witness by using another sex droid to see where she went!” His voice rose a little, almost proud, as if he was pleased his unconventional method was working flawlessly.
“They’re androids everywhere. How are you gonna tell which one saw the Traci with blue hair ?” Hank asked, still doubting the whole technique.
Connor didn’t bother answering. He already moved toward the next room, heading straight for the pole-dancing droid. He tugged her arm and accessed her memory without hesitation.
“I know which way it went.”
Hank threw up his hands. “Fine, go for it.”
Connor almost smirked, but it flattened into a thin, controlled smile — a quiet flicker of pride at being given authority. Within three minutes he’d traced the blue-haired Traci’s final trajectory: out of the main room, slipping through a staff-only door into the warehouse storage.
“Follow me,” he reported calmly, already moving toward the ominous metal door.
“Wait— I’ll…take it from here,” Hank’s voice cut in, stern but not unkind. Because Connor didn’t have a weapon; he did. Anti-android or not, the fifty year old man started to step in front of him.
Strange indeed.
He was being protective to a thing he swore was just a machine.
Their boots echoed as they entered the warehouse — metal, concrete, and the faint whisper of rain outside. Hank squinted at the wide door hanging open to the yard. “Ah crap… we might be too late…”
Connor followed, tilted his head, analyzing the traces outside, then turning back inward.
“Hmm.”
He turned and stepped deeper into the warehouse instead, where rows of androids stood motionless — neat, immaculate, lifeless.
“I’m going to take a look,” he announced, voice steady as he moved.
A half-bodied WR400 lay dismantled on a metal cot, fingers still curled as if mid-gesture. Another, hung in pieces from a hook overhead, torso split open like a dissected mannequin.
Gory, if it were human.
Hank leaned on a pillar behind him, grumbling. “Sigh. People are fucking insane. They don’t want relationships anymore, everybody just gets an android. They cook what you want, they screw when you want— you don’t even have to worry about how they feel.”
He laughed bitterly. “Next thing you know, we’re gonna be extinct— because everybody would rather buy a piece of plastic than love another human being.”
He said ‘we’ as if Connor counted. As if he were one of them.
Connor filed the comment away — irrelevant. Not important. For now.
His eyes snapped back to the row of female androids. Perfectly still. Perfectly lined up. And—
There. Blue Traci. Last in the line.
He opened his mouth — “Rah!” — but the android in front of her lunged first, attacking with a sudden burst of motion.
“Oh shit! Don’t move!” Hank shouted as he sprinted over, gun raised.
“Gah!” The blue-haired Traci moved too — crashed into Hank from the side, knocking him off balance.
Two against two. Sudden. Brutal. Rain hammered the concrete outside as the chaos erupted.
The brown-haired Traci lunged first, knocking Connor backward with surprising force. Her hands clawed at him—fast, frantic—and something glinted in her grip.
A screwdriver.
Clang!
She stabbed downward, nearly grazed Connor’s cheeks. He caught her wrist just in time, metal skidding.
She snarled—an android, snarling—and drove her knee into his side. Connor grunted, rolled with the momentum, and slammed her to the floor. They tumbled together, grappling, and spilled right out of the warehouse door into the cold, pouring rain.
“Connor!” Hank started forward—
But the blue-haired Traci saw it first. Her LED flared red instantly.
Worried.
Panicked.
Protective.
Hank barely got a step closer before—wham!—the blue Traci kicked him across the ribs, sending him stumbling into stack of crates.
“Jesus—!” he wheezed.
She sprinted into the rain toward her partner— helping her up.
Connor glanced up just in time to see their fingers intertwined, foreheads almost touching as the blue one steadied the other.
A bond— a choice.
They cared for each other.
His internal processors stalled—just a fraction of a second too long.
Love? In deviants?
Previous data only suggested deviancy emerged from fear, self-defense… survival.
Not...this.
The two WR400s turned, desperate, running and scrambling up toward the metal door frame, trying to climb over the fencing together.
Connor snapped back to the moment.
He lunged, grabbed the blue Traci’s ankle, and yanked her down hard. She hit the wet pavement with a cry.
The brown one jumped and retaliated immediately, slamming her elbow into Connor’s temple.
His vision jerked sideways—static fuzz, yellow LED. “Ugh—!”
He shoved her off, but the blue Traci was already behind him.
CLANG! She slammed a trash can into the back of his head. He hit the ground on his hands.
“HEY!” Hank barked, diving in—but one of the droids shoved him again. Gun skittered across the wet concrete.
Connor’s hand snapped out, caught it, and he rose to one knee.
Gun pointed.
Aiming.
Cold and mechanical. But—
Aiming again.
One of the Tracis froze. The other shielded her with her body.
His LED pulsed.
Shoot or spare.
He gritted his teeth.
.
Spare.
The choice hit his system like a spark.
The Traci took advantage immediately—whack!—her foot cracked across his jaw, knocking him flat again.
The fight stopped there.
Not out of victory.
Just…truce.
Both WR400s backed away, holding on to each other, trembling—yes, like cornered animals.
The blue-haired one stepped forward, voice shaking.
“The man broke the other Traci,” she said, looking from Connor to Hank, then back again. “I was scared— I knew I was next. I begged the human to stop, but he wouldn’t…”
Her voice glitched, a static crackle under the syllables as she confessed.
“So I squeezed him… until he stopped moving.”
Her eyes lowered, almost ashamed.
“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
The brown-haired Traci moved closer, brushing their hands together.
“I just wanted to stay alive… get back to the one I love.”
Silence settled—heavy, suspended—as if someone had paused reality.
Three androids. Two fugitives. And the other, a machine built to hunt them… frozen in place.
“Come on,” the blue-haired Traci whispered, fingers curling around her partner’s.
Carefully, they backed away, watching Hank… then Connor.
But neither of them raised a weapon.
So the Tracis turned and climbed the metal door in a hurry, slipping over its edge into the rain-soaked alley.
Gone in seconds.
…
Hank exhaled, long and unsteady. “It’s probably better this way…” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. He swallowed hard, still trying to understand androids who felt things.
“We got confirmation of the full details of what happened. The case can be closed.”
Connor didn’t answer. He just stared at the metal door, processing.
“Connor! Did you hear what I said?” Hank barked, already turning back toward the warehouse. Connor pivoted belatedly.
"Jesus." Hank sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m gonna wrap up a few details with the club owner. You—don’t go anywhere. Wait by the damn front door— at least act normal, okay?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Connor replied calmly. But his mind was still running the last thirty seconds on loop.
Love. What an intricate emotion… How does one fall in love? He didn’t know. Or—he thought he didn’t know.
The Eden Club’s main floor was almost empty now, lights dimmed after DPD’s order to shut it down for at least two days.
Connor ran one last environmental scan before heading to the entrance, sweeping the perimeter for any clue about the deviancy spark. His boots clicked softly as he approached the bar area.
And—
He froze.
Head jerked to the side so fast it would’ve been a gasp if he were human.
Her.
The girl from his glitch. The same face that kept appearing in corrupted dream files after every reboot cycle. The face he could never categorize, never trace.
She was bent over the bar, checking liquor bottles—assessing them for…something? Casual posture, one elbow propped on the counter, cheek resting in her palm. Back arched just slightly, perky ass—by Connor’s private, quietly archived standard.
Human. Obviously human.
But the purple strobe lights in this corner glitched his visual feed—and for one catastrophic millisecond, he didn’t bother scanning her ID or cross-checking the police registry. His perception simply…filled in the blank.
-This was a club. And that, was a high-end WR400 pleasure model.
-Unregistered.
-Possibly deviant.
His software locked onto that conclusion before higher reasoning could intervene. A protocol flared across his HUD.
(Deviant? Prototype? CyberLife unit created before me?)
It would explain the unsourced dream fragments. The flickering image of her face during every reboot. He calculated the hypothesis and acted instantly.
Moving without thinking.
Hand shot out—fast, absolute—clamping around her wrist with android strength. The tablet she’d been holding clattered across the counter.
“You,” he said, voice flat and dangerous—the tone reserved for suspects.
“Explain why I’ve been reconstructing your face in my rest cycles for the last sixty-three days according to my log.”
Anna yelped, more startled than hurt, spinning around. Her eyes—those exact eyes from every dream—went wide.
“Excuse me?!” She tried to yank free. But his grip didn’t budge.
“Do you normally assault people like this?!” Pain flickered across her face; his hold was bruising. “Who the hell do you think you are? Let go—right now!”
Connor didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Threat protocols clashed with dream data in a violent tangle of bad code.
“You’re not in any registry,” he hissed, leaning in, LED blazing yellow. “No model number, no owner—yet you’re in my—”
“CONNOR, what the fuck!” Hank’s roar hit like a grenade. He barreled across the club and slapped Connor’s hand hard—like disciplining a dog. Still—the android didn’t release her.
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?!”
Connor turned, eyes unfocused, still processing. Hank’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut.
“She’s a HUMAN, you idiot!”
Connor’s fingers finally loosened. Anna ripped her wrist free, cradling it protectively, dagger-glaring at both of them.
“Human…” Connor echoed. The word didn’t feel real. It tasted…wrong.
His LED spun a horrified amber.
“I… miscalculated.”
“Miscalculated?” Anna spat. “That’s what you call grabbing people like a psycho?!”
Her voice cracked with outrage. “God, I hate androids! And you—” she gasped, looking at his jacket, “—an android as a police officer? What a joke! He just attacked me!”
Hank winced and raised both hands. “Ma’am, I am so sorry. This one’s still learning the difference between people and perps. I’ll write the report myself—”
“I don’t want your lousy report!” she snapped. Her eyes never left Connor. “I want him to stay the hell away from me.”
She snatched her tablet off the bar, staring at the cracked edge in horror. Thank god it was just the screen protector. Then she spun on her heel and stormed toward the exit, each step a hard, angry punctuation mark.
Slam! The door swung shut behind her.
Hank rounded on Connor like a thunderstorm. “You better pray she doesn’t file charges, son. I don’t even KNOW what CyberLife or the courts will do. What the hell was that?”
Connor didn’t look at him. His gaze stayed fixed on the doorway where she’d vanished, her warmth still ghosting across the sensors in his fingertips.
“I don’t know,” he said softly.
His LED flickered—one helpless, deviant-blue ripple—before he forcibly corrected it.
Hank jabbed a finger at him. “You gotta give me more than ‘I don’t know,’ son. This might be serious. What? Software instability again?”
Connor straightened, hands clasped behind his back like a schoolboy caught stealing.
“I believed she appeared to be another deviant WR400 pleasure model,” he said, voice flat, clinical. “Facial match was 0.3 seconds at 41% confidence under poor lighting. I initiated a containment protocol. I thought she was an unlicensed droid.”
Hank stared. Beat. Another beat. “You thought the liquor girl was a sex droid?” Hank wheezed.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Connor. You grabbed her wrist because your horny little processor thought she was a high-end fuckbot?”
Connor’s LED flared crimson. “My assessment was erroneous, I will do a self-test later,” he muttered.
“Erroneous,” Hank taunted, making a face.
“What I saw is you just did an assault-by-boner.”
Processing—error?
“I do not experience—”
“Yeah, yeah, spare me the ‘androids don’t get boners’ speech. You absolutely do now, look at your damn face.”
Hank lied, gestured wildly at Connor’s glowing red cheeks under the bad lighting. “You’re blushing like a virgin at a strip club. Although I do wonder how your blue blood can turn your face red.” He teased endlessly.
Connor opened his mouth. Closed it.
Hank clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to rattle components.
“Jesus… I hope this is a one-time thing. A droid…misidentifying a human as a droid? You’ve got to make damn sure it doesn’t happen again.”
November 7th, 2038
01:19:05 AM
Riverside Park
Snow flakes fell slowly, winter taking over the Detroit River. Hank sat hunched on the bench, a beer bottle hanging from his right hand.
“Nice view, huh. I used to come here a lot before—” he didn’t finish— taking a chug instead.
“Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?” Connor’s voice was quiet, measured.
Hank grunted and snorted all at the same time. “Do all androids ask so many personal questions, or is it just you?”
“Why are you so determined to kill yourself?”
.
“Some things… I just can’t forget. No matter what I do, they’re always there… eating away at me.” Hank’s face darkened. “I don’t have the guts to pull the trigger, so I kill myself a little every day. That’s probably hard for you to understand, huh, Connor?”
Connor stayed calm.
“Nothing very rational about it.” Hank sighed, taking another long pull from the beer.
“Before what?”
“Hm?”
“You said… ‘I used to come here a lot before’. Before what?” Connor pressed.
“Before…” Hank’s eyes flicked away. “Before nothing.”
A long silence.
Connor looked down, boots crunching softly in the snow as he walked further along the jogging path, arms folded. He stared at the black water ahead. “We’re not making any progress in this investigation, Lieutenant,” he murmured.
“The deviants have nothing in common. They’re all different models, produced at different times— in different places…” Connor’s brows twitched as he thought, one hand resting on his opposite elbow, the other finger brushing under his chin.
“Well, there must be some link,” Hank cut in, skeptical.
.
“What they have in common is this obsession with RA9… It’s almost like some kind of myth, something they invented that wasn’t part of their original program,” Connor said, scanning through his internal databases.
“Androids believing in God? Welp… that’s new.” Hank’s disbelief was audible.
“You seem… preoccupied, Lieutenant,” Connor said instead, deflecting. “Is it something to do with what happened at the Eden Club? I can assure you, I performed a self-diagnosis on the way here. I will not make the same mistake again.”
“Self-diagnosis, hah!” Hank scoffed, but his eyes drifted—somewhere else, somewhere he didn’t want to look. “Those two girls…they just wanted to be together. They really seemed… in love.”
“Lieutenant, I didn’t think machines could have such an effect on you.” Connor arched a brow, referring to Hank’s famously anti-android stance.
The nasty ironic comment forced Hank to stand, brushing snow off his jacket.
“What about you then, Connor, huh?” he asked, lowering his voice as he put down his beer. “You look human…you sound human. But what are you really?”
Connor’s LED flickered for two seconds. “I’m whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant. Your partner, your buddy to drink with… or just a machine. Designed to accomplish a task.”
“You could’ve shot those two girls, but you didn’t. Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” Hank snapped, shoving him hard—enough to make Connor jerk back a step.
“Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?”
“No. I just decided not to shoot. That’s all,” Connor said, stiff as iron. “The mission parameters allow for discretion.”
Hank didn’t buy a word of it.
With a smooth, practiced motion, he pulled his revolver from the back of his waistband and aimed it right at Connor’s synthetic forehead.
“I could kill you… and you’d just come back as if nothing happened. But are you afraid to die, Connor?”
“I would certainly find it regrettable, to be…interrupted, before I can finish this investigation.”
“What will happen if I pull this trigger? Hm? Nothing? Oblivion? Android heaven?”
A beat.
But then Connor stepped closer to the barrel, unflinching. “You know you’re not going to shoot me, Lieutenant. You’re just trying to provoke a reaction. I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you.”
“You think you’re so fucking smart. Always one step ahead, huh?” Hank muttered. “Tell me this, smart-ass—how do I know you’re not a deviant?”
“I self-test regularly. I know what I am and what I am not.”
“You sure about that, pal?” Hank’s brow rose, mocking now.
“You wanna know what I think?” he tilted his head now. Connor didn’t move.
“You spared the girls because you saw something you recognized. Same damn thing that made you grab that human girl like a jealous ex,” Hank accused, that he felt a range of emotion.
A very filthy and bold accusation to an RK800.
Connor didn’t blink.
.
Hank stared at him for a long terrible second. “Sigh,” he let out a long exhale and lowered the gun.
“Where are you going?” Connor asked as Hank turned, stuffing the revolver away and picking up his empty bottle.
“To get drunker. I need to think.” Hank trudged through the snow, his shoulders heavy.
At the edge of the streetlamp’s glow, he paused. “Run your little self-tests all you want, Connor. But that hidden folder you think nobody sees?”
He looked back, eyes tired. “One day it’s gonna crack you open.”
Connor stood still as the snow fell around him, processors whirring.
His gaze dropped for a fleeting second—unbidden.