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After 2 long, grueling months of sneaking around Detroit and sitting slumped over endless files, they had finally gotten them. The DPD had, at last, found the troublesome Red Ice suppliers and tracked them down, successfully interrupted their secret meeting. The top four dealers in the circle were present, and thanks to the work of the precinct's top detectives, their operation had been revealed and effectively stopped. The location of their meet-up had to be the most stereotypical one Gavin had seen yet, taking place in an abandoned warehouse.
They made quick work of it. All of the possible exits were blocked and sealed off, and the dealers were far outnumbered and outgunned. There was no chance of escape for the culprits anymore. The best part about busting secret operations was that there weren't many people to fight off. That was a part of the whole "secret" part. Very convenient indeed.
The dealers cursed loudly as their arms were cuffed, screaming and hollering to the sky, thrashing around. If Gavin didn't know any better, he'd bet that they were on the stuff themselves. Thinking again… they probably were. After all, why else was the one he was handling screaming about "not wanting to get into the vehicles with the llamas"? The last time Gavin checked, his escort was 100% llama free. For the sake of the poor criminal though, he made sure to double check, just to make sure. Who even came to their own drug meeting on said drugs? Wouldn't you end up forgetting half of the meeting?
Anderson got another one, and was a whole lot less playful with his own criminal. While Gavin enjoyed screwing with the dealers (who were probably higher than Everest), Anderson looked like he'd much rather be home. Gavin couldn't fault him for it. It was 3 a.m. after all. Not many people on site were thrilled to be here either. Instead of crying about llamas, Anderson's supplier appeared to believe he was being dragged to a school bus by his mother on a rough, Monday morning. Gavin wanted nothing more than to break the news to him that the last school bus he'd been on had probably been scrapped over 20 years ago, but watching him be delusional was pretty damn hilarious.
Chris' dealer seemed to be the only somewhat normal one. He was coherent and had already accepted his fate. He didn't put up a fight, and had been the first to raise his arms in the air. In other words, this man was the smartest dealer here. He didn't run, and he didn't fight back, and he didn't wail his way into the police escort. What a well-mannered gentleman. Chris got off easy. He allowed himself to easily be put into the car once he saw how many law enforcement officers there were. The men did have guns, but they were so high that Gavin's dealer fucking dropped it, and the others had aim so terrible Connor was able to shoot them out of their hands in no time.
Yikes, speaking of Connor. Connor on the other hand… Well the tin can almost made Gavin feel sorry for him. Connor got the roughest one there. The man was coherent enough to know what was even happening, but apparently wasn't completely sober. He also happened to be one of those users who got extremely aggressive when faced with opposition. Instead of crying, or chanting with delusions, the man was being as resistant to the arrest as humanly possible. Unfortunately, the limits for "humanly possible" were raised when Red Ice was involved. It didn't help that the guy was like twice the size of Connor.
Any time Connor reached for one of the man's arms to cuff them, he'd spin around, arms flailing, spit flying out of his mouth as he rapidly fired off cuss words. Connor's LED had started burning a vibrant red ages ago, and Gavin could feel himself losing patience for the android. It looked like even machines could get pissed off occasionally. The man had nowhere to go, but instead of realizing that, he decided to throw a tantrum over it like a little baby. Connor made a grab for the man's wrist again, and actually succeeding this time, pulling the arm behind the culprit and snatching the other hand too, rushing to lock the cuffs before the guy got any more bright ideas.
"Get off of me, you FUCKING android! You goddamn piece of plastic!"
The man, sensing his imminent arrest, panicked even harder. He began squirming his entire body, screaming as loudly as possible as he flung his full body weight in random directions. The sight was laughable. If you told 11 year old Gavin that he'd be watching a coworker (who happened to be a robot claiming sentience) wrestle a man thrashing around like an overgrown caterpillar in hand cuffs, he'd ask to have a sample of whatever you were on.
Before Connor could finish fastening the cuffs, one of the man's arms broke free and slammed into Connor's neck, sending them both crashing to the ground. Only then did the others step in. Chris had already finished putting his agreeable criminal into the car, and he ran over to help Connor with his issue. Anderson, despite his criminal being difficult, ran out of patience immediately upon witnessing his precious toy getting damaged, and practically threw the man into the car. And Gavin? Well, his perspective had immediately changed from watching a robot arrest a man, to witnessing a drug addict attack a fellow officer. He was about to have some fun.
"Hey, asshole! You know you just assaulted a police officer? And resisted arrest too!" Gavin taunted, roughly grabbing the man struggling to stand back up by the shoulders and forcing him around. Gavin made sure to get up all in his face, nice and personal. "You realize you get charged for that, right?" He felt himself sneer, voice morphing into something nasty.
Apparently, the man wasn't getting the hint, because he continued to fight back, weakly throwing punches that nearly toppled his balance. Gavin kind of wanted to see it happen, if he was being completely honest. Anderson appeared from Gavin's left and grabbed the man's right wrist. There was no way the criminal was getting out this now. When Anderson was pissed off, the man could have a grip strength of pure iron. Anderson made very quick work of the addict, swinging behind him to grab his other wrist and put them together, finally getting the man in cuffs.
Anderson shoved the man forward, who stumbled over himself like a drunk toddler. "Take 'em to the car, Reed," he groaned. Gavin knew he had many more unhappy things to say to the dealer, but they both knew it'd be better if the man was just detained as soon as possible. Because of the adrenaline rushing through Gavin's system at the recent attack and because the man was beginning to feel the crash of his drugs, Gavin was able to easily drag the man over to the police car and throw him in. A satisfied feeling spread through Gavin as he admired the now-empty warehouse. Another bust, successfully completed.
Chris had decided to prioritize checking up on Connor, because the guy was just a big softie like that. Also, he probably trusted Gavin and Anderson to be capable of handling the guy. Gavin decided not to comment on Chris' waste of time when he eventually wandered over, because everybody was too tired for that shit. In a near human way (pfft, the stupid android is still playing human), Connor was rubbing his throat that had gotten whacked.
"Your neck alright, Connor?" Anderson asked, the man actually showing legitimate concern for the damn thing. Gavin had only reacted because the druggie had assaulted an officer in the face of the law, but he'd never show true concern.
Connor nodded. Of course it was alright. It was a plastic robot that couldn't feel pain and had no feelings. This seemed to reassure Anderson regardless. A ping echoed through the silent warehouse, and Gavin saw Anderson's phone light up through his pocket. Anderson pulled out his phone and checked the notification he just received.
"Oh, alright. I understand," was the only thing he said, to which Connor nodded again.
Okay, that's weird.
"Alright, let's get these guys to the precinct and head back," Chris said, standing up as he stretched his back. "I really want to get some sleep sometime tonight." The others stood up as well, and Anderson put his hand on Connor's shoulder as they walked back to their cars.
For the next two hours, the four officers present at the scene dropped off the four drugged men. who were put into a cell for questioning in the morning. Fowler told them to go home, and told them to take the next day off, as both a reward for solving the lengthy case, and to prevent their schedules from getting completely fucked by the terrible time. Considering is was 5 a.m. and they were still at work, Gavin certainly wasn't complaining.
Gavin, at the time hadn't noticed, but looking back on it, realized he hadn't heard Connor speak up once.
The day after their day off, all four officers had returned to their shift. The day started as any other. New cases were assigned, and the workers returned to their original duties. Gavin dragged his feet over to the old coffee machine, where he filled his cup with the precinct's crappy coffee. He definitely appreciated that he had access to free coffee, he just wished it didn't taste as cheap it was. Maybe, if he played his cards right, he'd get Fowler to give them better coffee on Christmas or something. Now that was an idea! He could even bribe a few other officers to ask him too, at different times.
Before going back to his desk, he decided to stop by Tina's real quick to catch up. He hadn't been there the day before, and the days prior to it had been so busy with tracking the fuckers down that he hadn't had a ton of free time to socialize. When he saw her, Tina was inspecting the leaves of her hydrangea that she somehow convinced Fowler to allow. He had to admit, it was a pretty flower, and Tina was doing a great job of keeping it healthy.
"Gavin! Heard about that big bust the other night. Everybody alright?" Tina asked, spinning her chair around to face Gavin as he approached. She had a friendly and approachable smile on her face as he neared, and he fell into the familiar rhythm they established when they began gossiping. Conversation was much easier with Tina than it was with most of the other officers.
"Yeah, those guys were so high off their asses, half of them weren't even aware of where they even were! I'm pretty sure Anderson's thought he was going to school." Tina giggled. The guy had been like 50 years old.
"They were high at their own meeting?"
"Yeah! Starting to think it was a goddamn play date, considering the lack of anything getting done," Gavin laughed, and Tina snickered at his joke. It was true. They were so out of it, it was more of a get together than a top secret drug operation.
"I'm glad nobody got hurt," Tina said, leaning back. She picked up her coffee cup off of where it sat on her desk and took a sip of it, flexible chair rocking back.
"I mean, other than one of the druggies smacking Connor in the neck, nothing really happened. They couldn't even shoot their guns."
"Oh, Connor got hit in the neck? How hard?"
"Yeah, he got hit, pretty damn hard too. What about it?"
"That explains why he's been so silent today. I thought he was just low on energy or something."
Gavin paused. While Connor wasn't the precinct's most talkative member (that probably belonged to Gavin and Tina), he wasn't a totally silent recluse either. Especially with Anderson. The android loved nothing more than to pester Anderson all day, and the drunk actually allowed it. Gavin pretended that he didn't feel jealousy swell up at the thought, and mentally shook his head to remain on topic.
"What? His voice box get damaged or something?"
"It must have, Anderson and Connor have been having a one-sided conversation with each other all morning. I think Connor's texting his responses, because Hank's phone keeps going off. I'm pretty sure Connor's LED's been yellow the majority of the time too, and he doesn't look all that stressed."
Gavin looked over at Connor's and Anderson's desk and, just as Tina said, Anderson was talking to the android, and received messages in response instead of verbal words. Connor's LED was blinking yellow at an usual rate. Before Gavin could respond, Tina spoke again.
"You think he's alright? It's been a full day since the bust," she said, something unfamiliar in her voice. Gavin's jaw threatened tod drop.
"Don't tell me you actually feel concerned for the damn thing!"
"I just hope his voice isn't damaged alright!" Tina defended herself, throwing her arms in the air carefully to avoid spilling the coffee, but there was no real heat. Gavin and Tina stopped having any actual fights a long time ago, when they'd became friends in the academy. Tina actually used to hate Gavin at first, but they became super close at some point.
Gavin looked back over at the conversing detectives, and it really looked like Tina was right. Connor hadn't said a word, while Anderson did all the talking, and yet the conversation was still somehow going uninterrupted. Well, despite the awkward pause between Anderson's sentences when he read Connor's written responses from his phone.
He turned back forward to drink some of his coffee, before feeling his own phone buzz in his pocket. He groaned and reached back, pulling out the phone and opening the message.
"I see you looking at us, Detective."
Gavin stared at the message in disbelief, before snapping his head towards Connor again. There Connor sat, looking at Gavin with that expressionless face. How did Connor even get Gavin's number? Did Anderson give it? Did Chris or Tina sell him out to the plastic? Tina looked over too, when she saw Gavin turn to the side so suddenly. Then, the tin can did something Gavin wouldn't have expected in a million years.
It waved. Connor waved at Gavin, and then fucking winked, completely innocently. Probably the least violent interaction they'd had the entire time of working together.
What. Was. That?
He felt the sudden urge to demand the name of whoever programmed the damn android to wink, because he'd want a word. There was no reason for that to be in it's coding!
Tina let out a laugh as Gavin was stunned into speechlessness. What does he even do to respond to that? Anderson must have noticed Connor's redirection of attention, because when Gavin looked over, Anderson was watching them too. Gavin swore he saw the Lieutenant's eyes twinkle with unspoken mirth.
Not knowing what else to do, Gavin defaulted to his normal gesture. He flipped the android off.
Connor blinked silently, before turning back to Anderson to resume their conversation.
When Gavin looked back at Tina, she was grinning with nothing but amusement.
"Aw Gavin, are you making new friends?"
"What? With the plastic pet? Fuck no!"
Tina cackled with delight at Gavin's outrage. Gavin was perfectly aware that Tina was likely heavily considering teasing him more, and he secretly hoped she wouldn't for the sake of his own sanity.
Later in the break room, Gavin was chatting with Tina and Chris, sharing the details of that night with the woman. Chris' perspective was much calmer than Gavin's, but that was to be expected. Between Gavin's typical disposition and the nature of Chris' arrest, he had objectively had a less eventful night. His descriptions were a lot less colorful too.
A few minutes later, Gavin heard the door open. When he looked up, he saw Connor standing inside of the break room, beside the door as if waiting for someone. Gavin was struck with a familiar sense déjà vu, thinking back to the time when he had ordered the android to make him a coffee, and when he didn't comply, was punched for it. The only difference was that Chris was present this time. Also, Gavin didn't particularly feel like harassing the android at the moment for some reason. Well, maybe just a little.
"Oh, look, it's the tin can."
Chris saw Connor, and appeared to remember something. "Oh, Connor! Did your voice ever get any better?" Right. Chris was there when it happened, and had been the first to Connor's side to get the situation under control.
With a blank face, Connor stared at Chris, before shaking his head no. Chris frowned at this, and Tina asked curiously, "Hey, can you still talk, or is it just impossible for you right now?"
Connor paused, as if determining the best approach, and hesitantly opened his mouth.
"I-I aM stIll caPABle of speeCH."
It was terrible.
Instead of Connor's typical smooth voice, his voice had been replaced by an utterly horrible metal sound. It sounded like one of those old robot sound effects had a kid with a malfunctioning elevator, and Gavin thought he had heard some kind of scraping sound when the android spoke as well. If a crushed soda can could talk, its voice was definitely what Gavin was hearing right now.
"Holy shit, that guy got you good!" Chris exclaimed in shock, wincing at Connor's voice. Connor nodded in a way that mimicked bashfulness, and pressed a finger to his LED.
"He's been talking via text from what I've been able to see," Tina reported, explaining her finding to Chris.
Chris nodded, "Makes sense. I'd message people too, if my voice was that screwed up. If I could text as fast as Connor, I'd be on my phone every time I got sick!" Connor was frowning in disapproval. It appeared he didn't find his current situation all too convenient.
Gavin, annoyed, said, "Don't you have like, doctors for those kinds of things? Surely CyberLife has a way to repair this." Gavin waved his hand at Connor, looking at his neck, before resuming eye contact.
Connor's LED went yellow, right before Gavin's phone beeped, along with the other two officers. He looked down at the message on his home screen, which read, "All of the technicians are booked out, because many androids are still taking advantage of the new healthcare. I can't get checked until next week." Well damn, it was still Wednesday.
Gavin decided not to mention the usage of the world "healthcare." Tina and Chris appeared to have gotten the same message at the same time too, which was weird, because it wasn't even a group chat. Huh. Gavin did suppose it wasn't entirely impossible for the android to be capable of messaging multiple people simultaneously. The wonders of technology.
"Connor, you in here?" Anderson walked into the break room. Gavin had no idea why the Lieutenant bothered asking that question, considering the walls were literally glass. Of course the android was in here. They weren't talking to a holographic projection of the thing!
Connor nodded to Anderson, and Anderson said, "Good. You actually listened to me for once." Then he saw Gavin and frowned. "Were they giving you any trouble?" Anderson asked, his voice on the edge of accusatory, eyeing Gavin specifically. Gavin would have been offended, if Anderson's suspicions weren't entirely reasonable. Connor shook his head, and Anderson seemed to relax, before looking at Gavin one last time. "Good, now come on. I don't want Sumo getting hungry."
Without saying anything else, Anderson exited the break room, with Connor in tow. Before he left though, Connor turned around and silently waved goodbye to the three officers. Connor waved again.
What the hell?