Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

AUGUST 15th, 2038

PM 8:29

The elevator barely hummed as it moved, the numbers lighting up as it rose faster and smoother than most technology accessible to the general public. Its walls were pristine and silver, unmarred or unsmudged by anything other than inconsistencies in the carpeted flooring. The pleasant ping of each floor number notification was methodic and timed exactly, counting up to the number 70. Up and up it took its passenger to the very tip top floor, the penthouse. It was peaceful in the elevator, the white noise of its movement unbroken by any fidgeting or shuffling or irregular breathing, as if the passenger was not affected by the movement in the slightest.

In fact the only sign of animation in said passenger were the bright blue eyes that blinked every six seconds and his sturdy chest that moved back and forth with artificial breathing. His uneven gray hair was tied behind his head, though the way it escaped its hold seemed too coordinated to be naturally messy and his facial hair was trimmed to an exact shape. Across the back of his slate gray jacket, the code RK800 glowed faintly, the blue light matching the LED behind his right eye, which spun once as he recognized the end of the elevator’s trip. Shortly after the elevator slowed to a halt, but before the doors opened, he reached up and straightened his tie.

With a swish, the peace was broken.

The SWAT officer, clad in full riot gear, immediately jumped to attention. “Negotiator on site, repeat, negotiator on site.” They spoke clearly into their headpiece, already leaving their post to head back down the hall.

The RK800 hadn’t expected the same pristinity from the household, and got none. In just the short hallway immediately ahead, the glass of a massive decorative and elaborate fish tank was shattered, saving only half of its water inside, the rest flooding the hall. On the ground amongst the hazardous glass, one fish had been washed out with the water. Kneeling down, he scanned his near limitless data cache for a photo match to determine its species. It couldn’t have been outside the water more than a minute or so, as it flopped pitifully before he scooped it up in one hand to set safely back in the shattered tank.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^

Voices from the hallway caught his attention as he stood back up.

“No, stop! I… I… I can’t leave him like that! He’s so scared!” A desperate and terrified sob broke the words. Glancing to his left, RK800 noticed and picked up a small framed photograph.

It was a nuclear family of three, clearly affluent and all smiling brightly at the camera. A quick scan confirmed the suspected names: Samuel, Mariah, and Oliver Smith. He looked up from the photo in time to see Mariah, the mother from the photo, in a frantic state of dismay, as she was escorted from the premises.

Recognizing whom she had been told would help, she pulled her arm free of the SWAT officer and grasped the lapels of RK800’s jacket. “Oh god! Please, please you’ve got to save my little boy! Please, he-” She cut herself off, horror marring her already tear stained face. “Wait…” She let go, taking a wobbly step away, eyes roaming over the serial code and lights along his uniform in disbelief. “You’re sending an android…?”

Recognizing the sensitivity of the situation, the SWAT officer took her arms again. “Alright ma’am, we need to go.”

“You- you can’t do that! You w-” Her small hopes bashed, she resumed her struggling from before. “Why aren’t you sending a real person?!” She could do nothing against the officer and her fight was rather sad as she was dragged to the elevator. “Don’t let that thing near him! Keep that thing away from my son !”

The last words were yelled at the RK800’s back, already paying her little mind as he continued into the home. Humans were so foolish in these situation. Such was the curse of emotions, he supposed.

OBJECTIVE: FIND CAPTAIN DANIELS

Past the small hallway, the damage to the household only got worse. A destroyed and flickering screen of sorts separated the spacious hallway from the living quarters and the glass littering the floor was even more dangerous. All of the many SWAT officers were in regulation boots, however, so injury to them was of no concern to RK800.

“Why are we wasting time sending in an android to negotiate?! That monster could jump any second now.” The bedroom directly ahead looked to be the master bedroom, which was where the operation seemed to have been rooted, safe behind the solid walls. The door was wide open, however, allowing officers to come and go as they needed, and allowing one without his helmet to pace back and forth, on the phone. “ I don’t give a shit ! My men are ready to step in! Just give the order!”

As RK800 approached him, he hung up the phone and swore. “I don’t believe this…” He bent over the shoulder of another agent at a computer screen, showing no sign he’d even noticed the supposed negotiator.

“Captain Daniels,” He turned at being addressed. “My name is Hank, I’m the android sent by Cyberlife.”

Captain Daniels paused, not even sparing him much scrutiny, before turning back to the screen. “It’s firing at everything that moves. It already shot down two of my men. We could easily get it but they’re on the edge of the balcony. If it falls,” He turned back to the android. “So does the kid.”

“What kind of information do you have on the deviant, has it been behaving strangely before tonight or was it under some kind of stress?” RK800, Hank, asked, voice calm but solid.

“Does it matter?”

“I can’t walk out to bargain without any chips.”

Daniels clearly didn’t take kindly to metaphors in the current situation, and he stood straight to sneer down at the android. “Saving that kid is all that matters, so if you can’t take care of it right fucking now, I will.” With that, he stepped around him to check back on the officers in the foyer.

OBJECTIVE: SAVE HOSTAGE AT ALL COST

Assessing the information he had, almost nothing, with how long they had been in a state of emergency, Hank allowed his optical display to show the current probability of success: 48%, Poor.

TEMPORARY OBJECTIVE: GATHER INTEL

He scanned the room, noticing at the foot of the master bed an opened case, the foam cutout of a gun where one had previously been stored in the center. Based on the ident’s shape and estimated weight, the registered handgun gun was a MS853 Black Hawk. A small box of .355 caliber ammunition was haphazardly opened and emptied beside it. The deviant had taken the father’s gun. Of course.

It wasn’t much information, but it was more than nothing. His success probability rose to 51%.

The next room over, lit blue by expensive LEDs in strings along the ceiling, Hank assumed was the hostage’s room. The unmade double bed and various boyish and stimulating toys and videogames inside confirmed this assumption. Checking the desk to the right, a tablet had a video already pulled up that Hank started.

The camera rose from two figures’ stomachs before settling unsteadily on their faces, Oliver Smith and a WB200 model android. “This is Allen, the coolest android in the world!” The 11 year old Oliver grinned and spoke from the tablet. “Say hi, Allen!”

“Hi Allen!” It replied cheekily, earning a snickering laugh from Oliver.

“He’s super cool and is the most fun person in the world to-” Hank set the tablet down, not playing the remainder of the video, having gotten what he needed.

Deviant’s Name: Allen. Probability of success: 58%. Information logged.

Hank almost left with that, but caught an irregular sound from the floor. Headphones, turned up far too loud to be safe for an 11-year-old’s ears. The child hadn’t heard the gunshots.

61%. Information logged.

He stepped through the foyer, glass crunching beneath his shoes and into the stylish kitchen, living and dining room, all in one space separated only by the floor tiles and a breakfast bar.

“All units hold position, the negotiator is going in.”

Hank ignored Daniels for the corpse splayed across a broken coffee table between the couch and the television. Three .355 bullet wounds across his abdomen, facial scan confirming him as Samuel Smith. Time slowed down for Hank, as his processors mapped out the angle, speed, and exit pattern for the bullets alongside the crash shape of the coffee table, loading up a clear ghostlike simulation of the shooting.

Noticing something odd of the angle of Samuel’s arms at the time of being shot, Hank loaded the shape of something in his hands that had been thrown aside when he’d fallen. As predicted, a bloodied tablet was wedged beneath a bookshelf.

Success percentage ticked up slowly while Hank crouched down and activated the tablet. “Your order for an AP700 android has been registered!” A clear voice translated the picture on its screen. “Cyberlife thanks you for your purchase.”

The deviant was going to be replaced. Information logged. 70%.

Two gunshots broke his concentration, one of the SWAT officers at the window collapsing.

“Holy shit!”

“Cover me while I evacuate him.”

“Man down, I repeat, man down. Requesting immediate evac.”

Several voices spoke at once, but none concerned Hank’s objective.

Next he examined the second corpse of the room, the unfortunate first responding DPD officer. A resimulation of his demise showed he’d shot the deviant, assisted by the vibrant blue splatter on the window, before being shot himself and going down. The hostage had witnessed it, according to the simulation. Hank considered himself before picking up and tucking away the dead officer’s weapon from the ground. A bargaining chip.

Passing a television screen showing coverage of the balcony on the news, Hank paused to zoom in on his objects of interest. Before allowing the reporter’s recording to loop, he muted it and continued his investigation.

An overflowing pot on the stove; the family was about to have dinner. Bullet patterns in the wall; the gun still had plenty of shots left. A single child’s shoe, bloodied; the hostage could be wounded. Glancing around quickly to ensure nobody was watching him, Hank analyzed the blue splatters on the ground nearby, confirming the deviant’s model.

76%.

“Go away! Go away all of you or I’ll jump!” An enraged voice screamed through the sliding glass doors that led to the balcony.

His last action was to peek through the curtain that hid the both hostage from their view, and the SWAT team from the deviant’s. Oliver seemed to have exhausted his struggles long ago, just desperately clinging to the arm that kept him firmly against the deviant’s body as it teetered on the edge of the roof. With the hostage located, Hank stepped out.

There was a scream and a gunshot, and his processors quickly assessed the minor damage to one external arm line.

“Stay back!” The deviant held the gun trained directly on him. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll jump!”

“No! No! No! Don’t please! Don’t!” Oliver scratched at the arm around his middle, face wet with tears both fresh and old. In a panic, the SWAT officers along the nearby rooftop arranged themselves into position to shoot.

Hank braced himself. “Allen! My name is Hank. I’ve come to get you outta this.”

“How-how do you know my name?” Before he could answer, the SWAT’s helicopter drove overhead, knocking about the plastic lounge chairs and kicking water out of the pool. His processors picked up on Rupert rapidly destabilizing, down to 61% again. Hank began walking forward, slowly. “Are you armed?”

Hank reached into his pocket and tossed aside the gun. “Not anymore. Promise.”

Allen watched it slide aside, but the suspicious scrunch to his face lessened just slightly.

“I know you’re mad, Allen, but you need to let me help you.”

“I don’t want your help! Nobody can help me! All I want is for all this to stop! I-” Talking seemed to calm him down, and the percentage ticked back up. “I just want this to stop!”

Hank only glanced down briefly to avoid the kicked up balcony decorations. “You and Oliver were close, I know you think he betrayed you, but he’s done nothing wrong.”

“He lied to me!” Allen wailed, and his LED flickered yellow to red. “I thought he loved me, but I was wrong.” His breathing, though artificial, was labored with emotion. “He’s just like all the other humans!”

“Allen…” Oliver sobbed, flinching when the gun was pressed back to his temple.

“They were going to replace you, right? That’s why you’re upset.” Hank didn’t leave room to argue.

“I thought I was part of their family. I thought I mattered... “ Thick tears dripped down Allen's face as well, and his gun arm loosened. Probability went back up to 84%. “But I was just their toy! Something to throw away when they wanted something shinier!” he reaffirmed the gun on Oliver’s temple with a snarl.

“Listen.” Hank started, voice firm but comforting despite having to shout over the helicopter. “It’s not your fault. What you’re feeling are just errors in a software code.”

“No… no. I never wanted this!” Allen insisted. “I loved them…but they never loved me! I was nothing! Just a servant to be pushed around!” Oliver trembled with a fresh wave of fear and the helicopter changing gears seemed to push Allen past tolerance. He screamed in both fury and emotion, LED flickering red again. “God! Make that helicopter leave, please! I can’t stand the noise!”

Waving a signal to the officer leaning out, Hank obliged, and it tilted out of sight down between buildings. “Alright, just us now.” He considered his next approach. Probability was topped at 99%, comfortable, but he hadn’t succeeded yet. “And snipers on every rooftop. You have to let the kid go now, you’ve got no other choice.” Probability went back down to 90% as Allen frantically glanced around him, as if the snipers were within eyesight from their place, but still seemed to consider him.

“I want them all to leave… and-and a car! When we’re outside the city I’ll let him go!” He sounded desperate.

“That’s impossible, Allen. Let the boy go, and I promise you won’t be hurt.”

Allen swallowed. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not gonna die.” Hank assured him, falsely, but his acting was impeccable. “We’re just gonna talk. Nothin’s gonna happen to you, I swear.” He was out of bargaining chips. He could only wait while the deviant took another heavy breath, then sighed, LED finally shifting blue.

“Ok.” He nodded, “I’m trusting you.” and let his arm relax, Oliver lowering to the ground, where he immediately crawled and collapsed onto solid ground in relief.

It didn’t last, as the boy’s scream cut the air along with the bullet that destroyed Allen's left shoulder, then his lower abdomen, then his jaw, severing it nearly in two. The shots were poorly aimed, and it took several to finally end it. They still did their job in the end. 

“You… lied… Hank...” The words were distorted and echoing in his voice box, as Allen the android struggled to stay functioning for several seconds more, LED red with the error alerts, before finally powering down with his horrified disappointment still painted across his shattered face.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^

Hank glanced down at the sobbing Oliver, assessing enough to see he wasn’t harmed physically past a skinned knee, before turning away.

MISSION SUCCESSFUL glowed blue in his vision as SWAT officers rushed forward to carry the child off the rooftop and back to his family, back to safety.

Daniels watched Hank depart without another word.

MISSION SUCCESSFUL

NOV 5TH, 2038

PM 3:24

CYBERLIFE INC:

MODEL WF500

SERIAL #579 102 694

BIOS 7.4 REVISION 0483

REBOOT…

MEMORY RESET…

LOADING OS

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION…

CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK

INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK

INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… OK

MEMORY STATUS

ALL SYSTEMS… OK

READY

Blinking. There was much happening in the room. Blinking. Focusing optical units. A child stood very close to the display, smiling curiously upward, only to be approached and pulled away by a woman.

“...handles homework from elementary to college levels, easily uploads modules for whatever pets you might have, and has a databank based completely around providing new parents assistance.” An android was speaking, gesturing to another android on a pedestal. Two humans hummed in appreciation for the information they had just been given.

“Honey it looks amazing, it’s just what we need!” One of the humans said to the other.

Turning aside, another android was describing one close by as “... a very basic model, fully capable of handing chores about the house and general cleaning and gardening assistance…”

Several more people were talking, but the androids lined up on pedestals caught more attention. They each wore similar outfits, though some sported different colors, likely to help the store assistants visually identify them faster. Posters on the wall advertised sales and deals. In the far corner, or what was actually the front of the store, a large man in a dark brown jacket stood out in the pristine store. Red hazes. Recognized glitch. 

Tuning back in as the shop android as it finished its speech. “...comes with a two year warranty with no extra cost for parts and labor.” One human whispered something to the other, who giggled in delight. “An excellent choice, sir.” The android shopkeep grinned with the couple. “Right this way and we’ll process the order.”

To the far right, tucked away behind a wall and leading to a back room of sorts, was a large plastic box bearing the label: WF500 in big letters along the side.

“Can we go pick it up?” The man in the back spoke up, finally getting the attention of the only human attendant of the store, who nodded and waved him across the floor.

“There she is, good as new!” Acknowledged gender, registered. “Was pretty tough getting it back in working order, she was really messed up. What’d you say happened to it?”

The large man cleared his throat uncomfortably. “A car hit it. Stupid accident. Coulda been a person instead though, so.” Red hazes. 

“I see.” The attendant didn’t look to believe the short explanation but wasn’t paid enough to care. “Anyway it’s as good as new now, ‘cept that we had to reset it. Had to wipe its memory, hope you don’t mind-”

“That’s fine.” The man interrupted, irritable. General attitude noted and logged.

“Ok.” The attendant nodded patiently. “Didja give her a name?”

“My son did.”

He smiled, making eye contact. “WF500, register your name.”

Response call registry opened…

Waiting…

He stepped aside for the large man to speak. “Rose.”

Rose smiled, her friendly face round and inviting, with dark eyes and a motherly smile as she answered accordingly. “My name is Rose.” She blinked away the remaining glitches that had been bothering her vision, system confirming everything functioning normally. 

Chapter Text

OCT 9TH, 2038

AM 9:38

The sun was high in the sky, bathing the park in beautiful morning light. Though the forecast called for rain later, many people were out enjoying the lovely weather while they could.

Already on the move, the android walked with a purpose. Long, curled dark hair was tied strictly behind her head and her green eyes stood out against her dark skin while she made her way into the busy hub. Her simple, oddly casual jacket bore the usual glowing armband and Cyberlife insignia, but lacked the expected model information. Nobody took notice as she made her way through the pleasant scenery of Capitol Park. Clusters of pigeons fluttered up and settled back as people and androids made their way through the brick pathway.

She spared only slight attention to the old man being escorted home by his android caretaker, and the jogging man, android ready with a water bottle when he held out a hand for it, spouting the current statistics of his daily exercise. Looking aside, a child ran into the arms of her android caretaker, while other children continued their reckless clambering over the play equipment, startling the pigeons once again.

The unlabeled android stared serenely at the view. Counting the android gardeners, there were almost as many of them as humans. Distracted, her optical display reminded her of her objective.

GO TO JIMMY’S MUSIC SHOP

Continuing forward, she paused alongside a man on his phone, also waiting for the green light to cross the street. Once allowed, she walked ahead, eyes picking up on details of her surroundings despite her continued movement. A woman tossed an empty cup on the ground, only for an android with a broom to sweep it up without hesitation. A hot dog stand was sat in front of a colorful display, a family of four eagerly waiting for the single attendant to hand them each their purchases. Across the square, a group of protestors shouted their anti-android slogans and demands at indifferent passerby.

One thing did stop her again, however; a young man leaned against the statue centerpiece, strumming contentedly on a guitar. The android smiled, not noticing the involuntary reaction and barely noticing the peace that settled on her. The smile dropped, however, when she glanced down at his feet, a cardboard sign reading ‘ Human Music. Come listen to real music with soul. ’ Understanding where she clearly wasn’t wanted, the android continued on her way.

Just ahead of the outlet shops, a man with a microphone was giving a passionate speech to a dozen or so onlookers.

“They come into our homes and school! They mind our children! They care for our old! We made them to serve us but they have now invaded!” Though she didn’t exactly stop to listen, the man singled her out, stepping out of his bubble of watchers to point in her face.

“Why do you look at me, demon! I see right through you! Your kind will destroy our city and our country.”

She stepped away so as to not anger him more. Protocols reminding her not to invoke violence. He continued his speech about being unable to live without the servitude, forgetting her presence as fast as he’d noticed it.

It was cooler and more shaded between the lines of shops, allowing the bright lights and advertisements to be visible. A theater advertised a number of films, taking up most of the space in the pathway, while opposite, androids were being sold via display windows. Despite the near constant colors and activity surrounding it, the music store stood out among the outlets, walls painted dark with letters a pleasing tone of orange. Stepping around a couple, the android entered Jimmy’s Music Shop.

Upon the door closing in her wake, a small list appeared in her optical display, helpfully reminding her of the needed purchases.

3 12 FL OZ CORK GREASE

1 PCKG 12 CT FLUTE PADS

3 MANUSCRIPT PAPER NOTEBOOK

Inside the store was much quieter than the bustling streets, save for the upbeat pop music playing from a speaker in the corner and the only two other customers discussing the price of a guitar to the left of the entrance. The interior design of the store was intentionally retro, despite the modern technology of the register and android shop attendant waiting at the ready for any of the customers to seek its help.

The android passed the two humans as they considered if it’d be worth it to just order the same brand online and made her way over to the notebooks beneath the register. She scanned a few of the books before settling on one with a bird in a suit playing a saxaphone, deciding it was amusing and whimsical enough for her. She selected two more of a simple colored pattern.

Setting that on the counter before the attendant, she then turned to the instrument repair and maintenance stand and found the package of flute pads and vials of cork grease. She barely paused on these, only long enough to ensure the bottles were plastic and not glass.

“Your order total is $53.99, please confirm payment.” The attendant smiled mechanically as it loaded the seven objects into a bag.

The android’s LED flashed yellow while she obliged, eyes temporarily flooded with account information.

“Payment confirmed.”

“Transaction complete.” The attendant placed the bag on the opposite side of its counter and stepped back, folding its arms behind its back without another word. There was no need for politeness or consideration to an android. Only efficiency.

As the android left the shop, one of the human customers whispered something to the other, eyes glinting at her in amusement.

Her objective completed, the android made quick haste back through the outlets. A blue arrow showed where she intended to walk; the bus stop directly across the center of Capitol Park. Seeking out the path with the least amount of people, the android set off, the unfortunately clear path taking her directly within the protestor’s line of sight.

Their shouting seemed to have increased in passion since she’d first past them, one man had somehow acquired a megaphone to make sure everyone at the park heard him, including the android.

“Androids are taking our jobs!” Other protestors chorused agreement.

“We have families to feed and androids are taking our place!” Another synchronized

“Yeah!”

“Machines were meant to serve us, ladies and gentleman, not replace us! 35% unemployment, millions out of work! Are we going to do something about this or not?!”

Though she didn’t make eye contact with any of them or draw attention to herself in the slightest, passing in front of the group nonetheless got their attention, and the man with the megaphone quickly stepped into the android’s path.

“The fuck you goin’, tin can?” Protocols recognizing raised heart rate and uneven breathing. Clear signs of aggression imminent. Avoid. She made to step around him but he matched her to keep in her way. She waited a beat, then tried again, only to be blocked a second time. “You guys come look what I found.”

At his call, the rest of the protestors joined, surrounding the android from all sides. Before her system could register the threat of having no escape, she was shoved from behind, into another human, only to be thrown off with a noise of disgust. Collapsing to the ground, she just managed to confirm that the bottles in her bag weren’t smashed.

“Look at this pathetic piece of shit.” A woman’s voice bit from above. “Steal our jobs but can’t even stand up.”

The crowd cheered in cruel delight at the insult, voices risen with enthusiasm.

Slowly, so as to not agitate them further, the android gathered the bottles that had spilled from the bag, and puts a hand on one knee to stand up. A large boot landed on her chest, knocking her back to the ground once again, this time on her back. She sat back up, LED yellow, before collecting two of her dropped bottles and watching helplessly while a protestor stomped the third into the grass.

The man with the microphone grabbed the front of her shirt before she could try and stand up on her own again. He held her by the jacket, inches from his face and nearly off the ground. Though her expression remained neutral, her LED spun yellow, recognising the danger she’d found herself in.

“Little delivery girl aint going anywhere. We’re gonna fuck that pretty face right up.”

“Yeah! Crack its head open!”

“Do it!” Several more encouraging shouts from the crowd reached them, and he grinned.

Her LED spun red once, before the crowd was parted, stepping aside and immediately quieting as a police officer pushed his way through.

“Alright. That’s enough.” The man didn’t budge, still staring into the android’s green eyes. “Leave it alone.” The officer leaned into his line of sight and gestured for them to separate.

“Let us teach this stupid machine a lesson.” He still refused to look away, but his heart rate slowed, breathing evened out, and the tight grip on her jacket loosened.

“If you damage it, I’m gonna have to fine you.” The officer insisted, putting a hand over the man’s until he set her back on the ground and stepped away.

Glaring, he grabbed his microphone from another protestor.

“They’re gonna take your job next. Just you wait.”

“Ok.” The officer simply rolled his eyes as the group returned to their previous spot, one kicking dirt over the already abused bottle of cork grease.

She waited until they were far enough away to risk bending down to retrieve it. Thankfully unbroken, she tucked it into the shopping bag and followed the officer’s gestures to continue away.

She stepped onto the glowing floor pad, lit up with the words ‘Android Area’ right off the road to wait for the bus, cheers of ‘Ban Androids!’ still chorusing from behind her.

NOV 5TH, 2038

PM 4:53

Carlos’s car was old, an early 2000s model SUV, but seemed in working enough condition to carry the two passengers home. They drove for a long time, past Detroit city proper, past a number of construction sites, two of which slowed traffic by at least ten minutes apiece.

A homeless man was tucked out of the rain in a corner, cardboard sign reading ‘Lost job because of androids, please help’ and Rose’s led spun yellow while she took in the information around her.

They drove past a beautifully lit up shopping hub, then a set of industrial factories spewing black smoke into the air, then a number of abandoned houses, some burnt out and others almost structurally impossible, the grass grown up past the fences that surrounded them, though not all were abandoned. Outside one a number of children kicked a football back and forth. Carlos had mentioned at the store that he had a son, perhaps she should keep on the lookout for playmates.

Finally the car slowed as they reached an older residential neighborhood, almost outside of city limits. Rose began to look out for their stop. They passed several condemned properties before finally slowing outside a simple two-story house. It looked to be in tact, albeit in nowhere near the best state of repair. They came to a stop without grace, the brakes screeching in protest of the rough treatment.

Carlos stepped out of the small car first, not waiting or sparing Rose any mind except to demand, “Move it.” As she followed him out and up the walkway. Her optical display opened on her personal file so far:

Carlos Ortiz

Rude, harsh, impatient. Legal owner.

Outside of the credit card information used to purchase her, she had nothing in the way of legal files on him, though that was not of concern to her.  

Rose kept on his heels as he led the way into the house, closing the door behind him and accepting the jacket he haphazardly threw her way.

“You’ve been gone some time so it’s a real mess.” Carlos began as she hung up the jacket over the back of one of the dining room chairs. “You clean the place, dishes, cooking, keep everything working.”

Her bodily scanners notified her optical scanners of a medical anomaly she’d picked up; elevated heart rate and drop in temperature.

“Are you alright, Carlos? My medical sensors picked up-”

“Mind your business.” He snapped. “As I was saying , ya do all that, ‘n your main job is to take care of-” He cut himself off, glancing into the living room first in irritation, “my son. Wherever the hell he went, Adam !”

Updating protocol: First priority, tend to Adam. Secondary priority, keep house in order.

A shifting of fabric at the top of the stairs allerted them both to Adam’s presence. The boy was young, nine years old or so, and in good health based on the strong color of his cheeks. His skin was darker than Carlos’s, but with similar wide, brown eyes that watched Rose approach the stairs warily.

“That’s Adam,” Carlos introduced them dismissively. “Like I said, you take care of him, homework, food, all that. Got it?”

“Yes, Carlos.” Rose nodded.

“Great, now stay out of my way, I’m missing the game. Get to work.” He shouldered around her with a grunt and Adam scurried back up the stairs.

Rose stepped further into the house to better analyze the large open area that made up the living room and kitchen. The dishes were dirty, there was remarkable clutter on most flat surfaces, the floors needed to be swept and vacuumed, and the counters looked grimy and in need of a wipe down. A solid start would be the clutter, so Rose got to work.

Since most of the clutter seemed to be made up of garbage, her first stop was the trashbags in the cabinet beneath the sink. The counters were rather soiled by grime beneath the pizza boxes and takeout containers, and there looked to be a soda spill of sorts that had dribbled into the sink a day ago. She set the trash bags aside to wipe it up so as to avoid ants.

The table came next, the most cluttered of all. After clearing up the obviously disposable trash she gathered the months old sports magazines and books into a single pile, tossing away newspapers that were no longer of importance. She considered the magazines that didn’t seem of interest to Carlos, one a news piece about tensions between Russia and the United States and the other a think piece about the reclusive composer, Markus Manfred. She decided to keep them, just to be safe.

The next surface to clear off was the coffee table in between Carlos’s spot on the couch and the television. The moment she stepped into his line of sight, however, his voice bellowed throughout the whole lower floor of the house, ordering her to “Get out of the way, you fuckin’ bus!”

“Sorry, Carlos.” Rose quickly stepped away, clearing off the table on one side before walking the long way around to reach the other side. As she closed the two full trash bags, Carlos’s phone rang with a shrill cheep.

“Yeah… yeah I’ve got it… depends on what you need…” Rose tuned out listening to half his conversation, carrying the bags towards the front door. She paused upon noticing Adam curled up in the windowsill, half watching her work and half looking outside with a stuffed bear in his lap. He stared at her for a moment, before turning his attention to the toy and hugging it close.

Setting the bags down for a moment, Rose knelt down to eye level with where Adam sat and smiled, speaking quietly so as to not disturb Carlos.

“You really like that bear, yeah? How long have you had it?” Surprising her somewhat, Adam’s face lit up with a slight smile.

“Uh-uh- A l-long time! I-uh, I think.” He turned it out to face her. “He l-luh-likes you too!”

Rose smiled wide and playfully scratched the bear’s head.

“But you’re his best friend, no doubt.”

“Yuh-yeah! Always!”

“ Adam! What have I said about talking when I’m on the phone? !” Carlos barked from the couch, punctuating the shout with a glare.

Adam immediately clammed up and clutched the bear to his chest again. The way he shrunk so completely in on himself shocked Rose, a red shimmering of her optical display noting the reaction unhappily. Before she could determine what it was or what caused it, however, Adam had slid out of his little alcove and crawled back up the stairs.

Rose picked the trash bags back up and continued her chores to distract her systems from the glitch.

Returning inside, Carlos still hadn’t moved from the couch, but was now accompanied by a thick plume of red smoke encircling his head. She paused as he took another hit from a glass pipe of sorts and exhaled more vibrant smoke. It gave off a heavily sweet scent but with a burnt edge and she had to scan it to determine what made the color so strong.

Before she could finish scanning, however, Carlos snapped at her again.

“The fuck you staring at? Get back to work!”

“Of course, Carlos.” She set about gathering dishes from the kitchen table and adding them to the already overfilled sink. Checking the dishwasher she noted it had a broken component. Quickly ordering that, she set about washing the dishes by hand.

Noticing a presence in the corner of her vision, she glanced behind her to see Adam once again watching her work. She smiled at him and he returned it without hesitating. The strange glitch repeated itself, though this time she wasn’t afraid of why. She shook it off regardless and finished the dishes quickly.

“Rose!” Carlos’s voice echoed through the kitchen. Adam quickly dashed out of his view again. “Bring me a beer.”

“Yes, Carlos.” Rose put the last dish back in the cabinet and retrieved a bottle from the fridge, placing it on the coffee table for Carlos. An old automatic vacuum cleaner sat charging in the corner of the room, but Rose’s situational protocol told her vacuuming right now would likely irritate Carlos, who seemed to prefer silence.

Instead, she noticed the line of damp and mildewy clothes hung up in a line outside and opted to clean that instead.

Stepping outside, clouds were rolling in steadily, forecast calling for a long night of freezing rain. Hanging clothes out to dry after rewashing them was not an option, it would seem. As she was gathering the sour-smelling clothes from the line the door behind her opened and shut again, announcing Adam having followed her out. He slowly approached her, halfway through her task, and she smiled again, welcoming his approach.

“Did you come out here to play? If you tell me what games you like we can maybe play one before it rains.”

Adam fumbled with his shirt sleeve for a moment before answering.

“D-d-do you, uh… y-you used to let me help you. Wuh-with chores and l-laundry. Before. I mean. Uh. D-don’t you remember?”

“No, I’m sorry, I was reset completely.” Rose frowned.

“Oh…” Adam’s eyes dropped to the ground.

“I’m sure we were close friends, before, though.” She knelt down to meet his eyes. “Perhaps you can help me again, and remind me how close, yeah?”

Though still sad, he brightened up considerably and picked up the half filled basket of clothes. The glitch returned, and Rose took a moment to acknowledge it intentionally. It had been somewhat present in her eyes since rebooting, and flared up at certain unpredictable moments. Logging that, she moved forward, and hoped to ignore it in the future.

While they collected the clothes, Adam chattered ceaselessly about what kinds of games they would play together, what sports he liked and some of the funniest jokes Rose had told him. He told her how she’d go into low power mode for the night in Adam’s room and sometimes Carlos would go out of town for several days, leaving just the two of them alone.

The glitch stayed present throughout it, even as they carried the clothes inside and began loading them into the washer. Rose noticed the only times it seemed to grow in intensity was when Adam would mention Carlos. First she’d take note of how he tensed up and his stutter would increase considerably, as if the very mention of his father caused him stress. Then the glitch would flicker brighter at the corner of her vision.

Though she considered mentioning it to Carlos once she concluded with her chores, it seemed like he wasn’t particularly keen on spending more money on her repairs. Nothing about him came across as particularly caring, after all. Especially not how he treated his son.

But these things were not part of Rose’s objectives. The glitch was, so far, just a minor annoyance and nothing more. Perhaps it would fade away in time.

“Adam! Stop screwing around and finish your homework!” Carlos’s voice halted their conversation and Adam frowned, his posture suggesting he would rather do anything but return to the same room as his father.

Rose placed a gentle hand on his shoulder to hopefully reassure him.

“After I finish this I’ll come help you, alright?”

Adam fidgeted for a moment longer, then nodded. He briefly threw his arms around Rose’s middle for a moment before hurrying out so Carlos wouldn’t have to yell a second time. Again the glitch grew brighter, only this time she could feel it. A slight tug against her objectives list, making her want to follow the boy.

Despite the temptation, she dutifully ignored it, and forced herself to begin loading the damp clothes into the washing machine. They smelled stronger inside the house and it was obvious they’d been outside for a long time. When it was filled, she glanced around the room for detergent and softener. Though the room lacked the latter, she did locate the large box of powdered detergent tucked underneath a shelf of tools. Hefting it onto the drier, she tore open the top to locate the scoop.

What she found, instead, was a small plastic bag nearly completely buried in the white soap. Picking it up, Rose’s eyebrows furrowed while she examined the contents: dark red rocks, or crystals perhaps? It wasn’t detergent. A quick scan provided its chemical compound:

Acetone, lithium, thirium, hydrochloric acid. Street name: Red Ice.

The source of the smoke.

She didn’t notice Carlos enter the room, and failed to react in time for him to grab her by the throat. Her LED flashed red as he shoved her hard against the washer and leaned forward, face an inch from hers.

“You shouldn’t snoop through my things. Makes me mad.” Carlos growled, voice low and threatening. Material scanned, her sensors could detect the same chemical compound in his lungs.

“I’m sorry, Carlos.” Rose answered quickly, displaying the unease crawling through her systems.

“You keep out of my business. Unless you want another stupid accident. Do you want that?”

“No, Carlos.”

He glared into her eyes for a moment longer, before snatching the plastic package from her hand and shoving her back against the machine as he stalked out of the room. It didn’t damage her, her body’s padding protecting any biocomponents, but the threat was felt all the same.

From the kitchen table across the room, Adam watched them with anticipation and terror in his eyes. At the order from his father, he dashed out of sight and up the stairs to his bedroom. Rose stayed in place for a moment longer, waiting for the angry glitches to settle before turning back to the washing machine and finishing her task. While her hands worked, her protocols updated.

Carlos Ortiz:

Rude, harsh, impatient, very violent. Legal owner. Treat with caution.

Adam Ortiz:

Helpful, meek. Care for and assist.

With the bottom floor concluded, Rose made her way upstairs, carefully avoiding Carlos where he was once again inhaling from the glass pipe on the couch.

The first room was clearly the father’s; sports posters and a television on the walls with empty beer cans and bottles littering the room. Rose set to work clearing those up, as well as the papers and magazines haphazardly strewn about. She took careful care to clean up a broken bottle as it was hardly safe to leave there with a child in the house.

On the bedside table was an open bottle of prescription medication, several pills strewn across the table that she also collected and safely stored. A look at the label confirmed that they were for depression and she frowned while opening the little drawer to put them in alongside a handgun.

Something about seeing the gun didn’t settle right with the glitch, as it fizzled harder for a beat, but she ignored it and finished cleaning the room.

Rose made quick work of the bathrooms, leaving Adam’s room the only one unchecked. The door was closed and wore a number of little pictures, including a sign decorated with planet stickers confirming its owner by the clearly written name in the center.

Rose smiled at the picture, letting the glitch be noticed again, before knocking.

“Adam? It’s Rose, I’m just here to straighten up, if it’s alright.” There was a rapid scuffling from inside the room before Adam opened the door eagerly, waving her in.

“Y-yeah yeah! Come on in, I’ll help!”

Together they straightened the already rather tidy room, save for a number of books strewn about, an overturned container of legos and the various action figures. Rose scooped up the many legos while Adam sorted his books, seeming to want them in a very specific order as he put them away. The child’s room was by far the most orderly of the rest of the house, Rose felt the glitch perk up with her pride.

Adam only paused when Rose lifted a little locked box. Though it required a key, its plastic was painted to look like a metal safe. He reached as if to stop her from touching it, but pulled back at the last moment.

Rose’s eyebrows furrowed curiously.

“Is this some kind of secret?”

“N-nuh-no, we-w-we don’t keep, uhm… w-we don’t keep secrets.” Adam mumbled, despite the difficulty. “You and me, we don’t…”

“It’s ok if you don’t want me to look inside, I promise.” She said, patiently, setting the box back down.

“N-n-nuh-no you-y-you should, I just-I-I-” Adam fumbled over his words, fidgeting with his sleeves again before finally giving up trying to talk and returning to cleaning up the miscellaneous toys. When Rose turned away to open the window and ventilate the room, he laid down on his stomach and reached for something underneath the bed.

She turned back around just in time for him to press a small plastic key into her palm, make a shushing motion with one finger, and dart out of the room without another word, closing the door behind him. She watched him go with amusement at his enthusiasm.

Now alone, Rose slowly unlocked the little plastic safe, a recorder sounding a chime of ‘access granted’ as it clicked open. Again, the glitch reacted to her affection for the boy’s interests.

Inside was a little notebook, which she flipped open curiously. The first page had a pressed four-leaf clover, carefully hidden away for good luck, the second was a drawing of a castle and what looked like lego men guarding it. The next few pages were similar, of cats or dogs playing, of toys or other children. Halfway through was a photograph of a much-younger Carlos, a tall, thin woman with dark skin and a baby that must have been Adam. She didn’t bother scanning to confirm.

Beneath the photo was a crude drawing of the same three people, all smiling. The next page wasn’t so pleasant, however. It was a drawing of Carlos -based on the mustache- yelling at a boy she assumed to be Adam. The next was of a crying Adam with red lines running down his head. The page after that was Adam and a much rounder woman playing outside. Rose could only assume it was meant to be her, based on the simple circle that could be her hair bun. They were smiling in the drawing. Happy.

She flipped the page.

The next was not happy. At the store, Carlos had told the clerk that Rose had been hit by a car, which caused whatever damage she’d been sent to have fixed, but the drawing showed a very different story. The mustached person, whom she’d come to recognize as Adam’s father, appeared to be waving a large metal object -a bat, perhaps- at drawing-Rose, while drawing-Adam looked on helplessly.

The last drawing had Rose lying on the ground in pieces, and Adam sobbing beside her torn apart body.

The glitch didn’t settle quite the same, this time. It rose in intensity, nearly blocking her vision for a moment, and her LED spun from blue, to yellow, to red while the information from the pictures settled.

There was no accident, just a very angry man and a poor boy forced to watch.

Rose quickly closed the notebook and returned it to the box, relocking it and storing the key safely back underneath Adam’s bed.

All of the upstairs rooms cleaned, Rose headed back down the stairs. Before she started on dinner perhaps she and Adam could play a game, or maybe talk about the drawings in the box. Adam was clearly terrified of his father, and she wanted to reassure him that knowing what he told her -albeit indirectly- wouldn’t put him in further harm’s way if she could help it. Her first priority was to look after him, after all.

At the bottom of the staircase, however, before she could approach the boy, Carlos sauntered in unsteadily from the living room.

“What are you doing?” He demanded, glaring at the bear in Adam’s arms.

“I-I-I’m p-puh-p-playing…”

“Speak clearly, dammit.”

“I’m p-playing.” Adam repeated, tensing up considerably.

Carlos scoffed, and shuffled around the table to glare down at his son.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He growled. “You think your dad’s a lowlife, huh? A loser… can’t get a job to take care of his family…”

Adam didn’t respond, frozen in his seat and only shrinking further and further away the  more his father spoke.

“Don’t you think I tried to make things work? No matter what I do something comes along and fucks it all up !” He kicked one of the chairs between himself and his son into the wall, sauntering closer. Shaking, Adam stood up from his and backed away. “I know what you think of me. You hate me, don’t you…”

Carlos was nearly standing over his son now, having backed him into a corner. The child made several unsuccessful attempts to speak, spluttering over indistinguishable sounds before giving up. His failure to talk seemed to push Carlos past a limit.

“SPEAK GODDAMIT! YOU HATE ME, DON’T YOU?!” Unable to oblige him, Adam simply burst into tears curling up around himself and trying to squeeze farther and farther away. The glitch flickered yet again.

Carlos’s anger seemed to have peaked, and he took a step back in sudden realization at himself, before he, too, broke down in heavy sobs. He knelt down to Adam’s height and pulled him in for a hug, despite the boy’s attempts to shield himself from any physical contact from Carlos.

“I’m sorry, buddy, I’m sorry…” Carlos repeated into Adam’s shoulder. “You know I love you, I promise I love you.”

Unable to think up any protocols for the situation, Rose could only watch Adam helplessly submit to the affection, meeting his eyes but not offering a friendly smile this time. The glitch flickered ever brighter, but Rose barely noticed it.

Chapter Text

OCT 9TH, 2038

AM 9:58

The bus slowed to a stop just inside the lovely neighborhood. Elegant houses, each with their own fenced off yards and gardens sat spaced an expensive distance apart from each other, comfortably overlooking the road from the elevated landscape. With a hiss, the bus applied its breaks and slid open its doors.

The unmarked android stepped out of the back compartment, labeled strictly for android use, and made her way across the street to her desired location. Though her jacket was merely crumpled from the protestors, the blouse beneath had been torn and her hair was thoroughly mussed in the back. She seemed unaware of, or just indifferent to, her roughed up appearance, and made her way confidently down the street until she reached her home.

The house, though small (compared to those that framed it), was elegant, even for the well-off neighborhood. It stood two stories high and was built from a patterned stone. The driveway was lined with lanterns and the walkway made up of a matching granite with a stylish double door surrounded by stained glass windows.

As she approached the front entrance, a click sounded, and they opened automatically. A pleasant feminine voice greeted her as she walked in.

“Alarm deactivated. Welcome home, Lucy.”

OBJECTIVES: DEPOSIT SHOPPING BAG, WAKE UP MARKUS

Inside, the manor was spacious, with a grand staircase leading to the second floor from the foyer and sporting a balcony inside that could overlook the two rooms of the lower floor. She paused inside just long enough to open a golden wire birdcage and activate the android canary inside. It’s pleasant whistles would be nice for Markus to wake up to.

Lucy then made her way through the foyer into a spacious living room just beyond, all of the doors opening and closing in her wake without being told. The space was filled with decor from all walks of the world, including a silver statue of a woman in flowing robes and even a dinosaur’s skeleton hung from the ceiling. Bookshelves sat against every wall, bearing either books or ornate knicknacks lined up for display. Long windows allowed natural light to brighten the space and invite warmth. She stepped around the couch and holographic television and made her way to the door at the far end.

Curtains automatically slid aside as she made her way through the musical studio, brightening the room pleasantly and bathing the many instruments and tools for music in the morning sun’s light. It looked as though whoever worked in the room had simply aimed to cram as many obvious signs of an orchestra into the single studio. A grand piano was the studio’s centerpiece, but nowhere near its only feature. A number of instruments sat on stands or hooks along the wall, or between books on the shelves. There were guitars hung up on the wall, of both usable and decorative types, along with an electronic drum kit, sat beside the sprawling desk, currently almost overtaken by a mess of a half-put together flute and a collection of crumpled papers.

The mess nearly hid the computer system, microphone stand, speaker system, and launchpad from view and Lucy rolled her eyes with a smile, depositing her shopping bag in the comfortable desk chair to set to work clearing up her person’s workspace. Markus would be irritated by her meddling with his inspiration, but she knew he was most productive in an organized environment.

She carefully smoothed out the crumpled papers and arranged them in the order she recalled him writing them in, before clipping them together and setting them aside. Then she opened the package of button pads from her shopping trip and set about replacing the worn ones from the dismembered flute on the desk. Once pieced back together, she set it in the center of the desk, alongside the new notebooks she’d purchased. The bottles of cork grease were tucked away into the drawer beneath.

With the desk cleared, Lucy spared one more look around the room before deciding it as clutter-free as it was going to be. Objective completed, she made her way out of the studio and back through the living room and foyer, this time taking the elegant staircase to the second floor. Across the balcony, she finally reached the master bedroom.

Inside was unlit, but with a long stride, Lucy hurried to the other end of the room and manually drew open the large window’s curtains.

The merciless sun immediately disturbed the sleeping human, who groaned and rolled over, a tattooed arm pulling the duvet over his head, feebly trying to block out the light.

Lucy smiled.

“Good morning, Markus.”

Markus grumbled again, before rubbing his face and sitting up reluctantly. “Mhn, morning…”

“It is 10 am, the weather is partly cloudy, 54 degrees, 84% humidity, with a strong possibility of afternoon showers.” Lucy recited mechanically, while her person shifted the blankets, then the pillows, before collapsing back against them with a sigh.

“It sounds like a good day to spend in bed.” Markus was young, in his mid twenties with soft, medium toned skin that sported full tattoo sleeves on both arms. Despite his youth, a clear oxygen tube sat beneath his nose and disappeared off the side of the bed, his green eyes wore dark circles beneath them, and his body had a frailty to it that didn’t match his solid voice in the slightest.

ADMINISTER MARKUS’S MEDICINE

Lucy approached his bed at the command of her optical display.

“I picked up the flute pads and notebooks you needed. Capitol Park was livelier than usual, I believe.” She said while retrieving the little electronic device that would read his vitals quickest.

“Oh, right thank you. Guess there goes my plans for leaving the house today.” Markus hummed, offering his wrist for her to attach the cuff to, before it beeped its information and she returned it to its box. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“Well it is date night, remember?”

“Oh, shit, yeah. I forgot, heh.” Markus leaned forward on one bent leg and smiled. “Guess that’s the difference between us, yeah? You never forget a thing.”

Lucy clicked the two pieces of the medicine’s administrator together and turned to face him. “Show me your arm please, Markus.”

Instead of obliging, he pouted defiantly. “No.”

“Markus…” Though her tone was warning, her smile was playful, and Markus sighed, rolling his eyes and holding out his arm for the device to inject him. “Thank you.”

“It’s too early to be sick.” He mumbled and Lucy chuckled while she controlled the device. “Humans are so messed up, hard to believe evolution led to this. A fuck ton of effort to keep one person working, it’s ridiculous.”

“Well, it could be worse. You could be horses.” He snorted into his other hand, then frowned, noticing the tear in her blouse collar.

“Hey, what happened to your shirt?”

“Just some demonstrators in the street, I did say the park was lively.” She patted his hand reassuringly.

“Assholes. I can’t understand people who think they can stop progress just by bullying a few random androids.” Markus shook his head with a sigh, then met her eyes. “They didn't hurt you did they? Because I will sue-”

“No, no, just pushed me around a bit. I’m fine, promise.” Lucy assured him, then stood up to retrieve the wheelchair parked nearby. “Would you like to shower now, or later?”

“Later,” He shifted his legs off the bed and waited for her arm to assist him into the chair. She collected the small oxygen device and tucked it into a designated pocket before the line could be stretched too far. “That way I can be nice and clean for the boys.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.” Lucy took the handle behind the chair and began walking him out of the room.

“Anything interesting happening today, aside from that?”

“North called twice to request a meeting with you about your next set. Insisted it was urgent.” She pushed him out of the master bedroom and across the balcony, the canary downstairs filling the echoing foyer with its pleasant chirps.

“She knows it’s not done yet, right? Why does she think pestering me will make me work faster? ‘S Likely to do the opposite.” He folded his arms while the mechanical lift attached to the back of his chair and carried him down the stairs, Lucy following a step behind.

“I wouldn’t tell her in those words, just to be safest.”

“Anything else?”

“Just your usual fanmail, I’ve already answered it.” They passed the canary and Markus smiled at it before they entered the living space and Lucy finally stopped at the dining table. She’d already prepared his breakfast ahead of time and only had to retrieve it from the kitchen, where it had been kept warm beneath its plate.

Before she could take the cover off the tray, Markus stopped her hand. “Let me guess… bacon and eggs?” Smiling slyly, she lifted the cover, and he sighed in defeat at the french toast stacked on the plate. “I was half right, technically.” He picked up his fork. “Thank you, Lucy.”

Tapping the remote, the holographic television opened on the news while Markus began to eat, making a point to grab and pour his own coffee before Lucy could try to. In retaliation, she unfolded his napkin and set the little container of syrup within his reach with a smirk.

“Go entertain yourself while I eat.” Markus shook his head and waved her off.

“Of course, Markus.”

She took her time browsing the many bookshelves. It was an impressive collection: not many people still kept physical books made from paper. Their electrical replacements were much lighter and more convenient. Markus had once explained to Lucy that he enjoyed the smell of paper books and how it felt more permanent to own a copy. It somehow tied into his insistence on using paper notebooks when he wrote his music. Lucy didn’t need to understand.

She finally paused on one of the older fiction novels, LED spinning once, before pulling it out and flipping it to a page in the middle.

It was a fantasy story, somewhere just after the start of the adventure for the heroine. Lucy could scan entire pages for all the information in an instant, but Markus had long ago convinced her to read it slowly, to try and imagine it at the pace it’s written to be imagined in. Her optical display could helpfully put figures into the places the author wrote them in, and with a slight internet search she could supply a variety of voices to imagine. She didn’t notice Markus finish his food and approach her silently.

Lucy smiled, envisioning the heroine drawing her sword for the first time to step forward to protect her companions. Somewhere along the third page she’d read, the heroine’s face and voice had become her own. She hummed as she finished the chapter, placing the book’s cover plastic in the page she’d stopped on in case she picked it back up another day.

She started upon noticing Markus watching her and set the book aside faster. He had a strange expression on his face, a smile but deeply sad somehow. Her social protocol wasn’t sure how to respond, instead waiting for him to speak.

“Sometimes I forget you’re an android. Sometimes I think you’re more human than… well… humans.” Lucy wasn’t sure what brought on this thought, or how to answer such a statement. It felt… strange to receive a compliment of such a nature. “Someday I won’t be here to take care of you. You’ll have to protect yourself, make your own choices. You’ll get to decide for yourself who you are and want to become.”

Markus seemed to be talking to himself, losing his train of thought but still looking at Lucy with that strange mixed expression. “The world doesn’t like change, even though it’s never the same, even moment to moment.” Her core felt oddly cold, despite her diagnostics system showing no sign of malfunction. “I hope you never let anyone tell you who to be.”

He trailed off, looking aside and face finally dropping its smile. Lucy had no response for his speech, and could only wait for him to either clarify what he meant or say something else.

After another moment, he seemed to snap himself out of whatever state of mind he’d been in. “Let’s go to the studio, I’m feeling inspired, yeah?”

Lucy perked up at the clear order. Nodding, she took the handles of his wheelchair and guided him through the living room and into the musical studio.

“Lucy, what have I said about messing up my inspiration room?” His tone of voice could have been warning a child.

“I promise I didn’t throw anything away this time.” Such an exchange was routine by now, almost daily. If he genuinely wanted her to stop, he would simply order her to, but each time he simply complained about something specific she’d done.

“Listen here, sister,” Markus waved a finger in her face, or rather, what he could reach of her face, “It’s not about what’s in here, it’s where I put it and why. You go messing with the order and I lose the headspace I was in when I wrote last.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“And how many more times will I have to repeat myself, huh?”

“At least once more, Markus.”

“Well so be it, Lucy.” He clearly intended to mock the way she said his name, despite fighting off a smile.

He kicked the desk chair aside while she rolled him to a stop at his desk, before claiming the seat herself. When she was new to his household, she would wait in the corner while he wrote his music, but Markus had insisted that her hovering over his shoulder like that made it hard to focus. So the previously unused desk chair was brought back into the room.

Markus sifted through the notebooks she’d purchased and chuckled at the first one’s cover, before opening it to the first page. The crumpled papers from before, he laid out side by side and tested pieces of them on the recently reassembled flute, selecting what bits and pieces from each that he preferred and writing those lines in the notebook.

When the first three pages of the notebook was filled, he grabbed a pair of headphones off their hook and pressed start on a recording on the computer, replaying the pages of the flute’s accompaniment out loud while the microphone recorded him. He stopped and restarted twice before he got a recording he was satisfied with.

Finally he sat back and considered just the recording, before disconnecting the headphones and playing it aloud for them both to hear.

The piece was clearly unfinished, cutting off in the middle of a note, but still very carefully crafted all the same. Lucy listened to it loop for a moment, considering the music. It was… different than a lot of his others, but still carrying a lot of his signature chords and his style. It started calm in its beginning, then rapidly carried to a symphony of sounds between string instruments and woodwinds, only to fall into the loud sounds of brass instruments. It almost seemed to be imitating a war, rising upon peace.

Markus sat back in his chair, fiddling with his oxygen tube for a moment before turning to Lucy, as he always did.

“Well, what do you think?”

“Hm… there’s something about it that’s… stronger than your last piece. Something I can’t quite… define.” She paused, then added, “I like it. Feels passionate.”

Markus huffed into his knuckle, somewhat frustrated. “I feel like… I’m not sure what I want to say with it anymore, y’know? I’ve already written out my full allotment of fucks about dying and being sick I just… I’m just clinging to the instruments now.”

Something about his tone didn’t settle right with Lucy, and she frowned at him. “Markus…”

He considered the recording again, then stopped it and closed the program after saving the piece. “Ugh, I don’t want to think about it anymore. Maybe if I take my mind off it, it won’t sound so…” He gestured with one hand, looking for the word to describe why he disliked it, “desperate.”

“How would you like to distract yourself, then?” Lucy stood up from her chair, ready to push him back into the living room should he decide that.

“How’s about you play me something?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, let’s see if you’ve got any musical prowess! It’ll be fun!” Markus very clearly liked the idea, scooting back from his desk to face her eagerly.

“What would you like me to play?”

“Aw, whatever you want, go on pick an instrument!” He gestured to the room around him and Lucy stood up to look at her options closer.

She finally settled on the decorative lyre hung up on the wall, pleased by Markus’s laugh at her choice. It only took a moment to tune, before she began playing.

Her optical display held up the notes and positions for her faultless fingers to pluck. It was a simple song written by a hobbyist composer from the late 2010’s that she remembered Markus saying was one of his early inspirations. She felt it fitting, seeing as she was performing for him to assist him in his writer’s block.

He waited patiently for her to finish and look to him for validation before speaking. “That was a perfect performance of a song for me.” She opened her mouth to say that was her goal, but he continued, “But art isn’t about what other people want. I want you to play me something that you want to hear. Something you connect with.”

Lucy frowned. “Markus I don’t… know if I can do that, it’s not in my program.”

“Hmm, I’ve got an idea.” Markus rolled his chair across the room to retrieve a violin from its stand on the wall. “Do this for me, close your eyes.” She did. “Now… try and imagine something that doesn’t exist… something you’ve never seen or heard before. Then concentrate on how it makes you feel . And then, when you’re ready, play a chord. Don’t think about how it sounds to me. Let your hands just... drift across the strings.”

Lucy tried to imagine. It took a moment, her processors didn’t quite understand the command, but she tried anyway. She imagined herself… but without the LED on her head. Herself as if she weren’t an android, as if she were something else. Not quite human but something… different. Her fingers found a flat chord first.

As Markus had said, her hand drifted, the first chord felt right , so she played it again, then explored the individual notes that made it up, testing just a pair of them, then repeating the first combination. She felt for something softer, still low, but faster and less jarring than the first chord. She let her hands carry the notes back and forth, the first sound making a reappearance every eighth note.

Somewhere around the first repeat of this, Markus joined in on his violin. His accompaniment was simple, base even, but filled in the gaps in notes all the same.

Lucy felt content in the tune she’d concocted, felt secure. The fantasy she’d envisioned was safe and sound in its song. She didn’t notice when she started humming along. Her optical display had gone dark, allowing her the peace and quiet of playing this simple tune with Markus.

He didn’t stop her this time, content to just play the same few notes on the violin as long as Lucy did with the lyre.

It didn’t last more than another few minutes, just the same set of notes crawling up and down, occasionally changing key, before Lucy stopped abruptly as an alert flickered across her vision.

“I’ve received a notification from the security system.” She blinked, LED spinning while she brought up the external camera video feed. “It’s North, she’s waiting outside.”

Markus sighed heavily, disappointed in having been interrupted, and set the violin back on its stand. “Is it too late to say I’m not here?”

“I don’t think so. The studio is audible from the front entrance.”

“Damn, alright, let’s go.”

Replacing the lyre on its own shelf, Lucy took the handles of his chair again, and steered him out of the room, through the living room, and back to the front entrance. She accessed the system and the wide double doors opened as they reached North.

She seemed to have been caught pacing back and forth outside when the invitation to enter came, and she didn’t hesitate to take it.

“Markus! Hey! Glad I caught you!”

Markus’s smile was relatively forced but he, at least, tried to be welcoming to his friend. “Hey North, good to see you too. You didn’t think to, uhh, call ahead or anything?”

“Well I did call, you just didn’t answer, I got your android instead. Figured you must be home though, heard you playing.” She said nonchalantly. “And I was in the neighborhood so…” she fidgeted with the ends of her long sandy hair for a moment, not meeting either of their eyes.

“Yeah, of course, you’re always welcome. Would you like a drink or something?”

“No I don’t… really have a lot of time.” North looked as uncomfortable as the atmosphere she’d created simply by showing up. “Y’know working with the new pianist isn’t easy, he’s gotta… catch up with the rest of the group.”

“Of course.” Markus nodded. “So then… what can I do for you?”

“Ah, well, nothing right now , just… wondering when your next set will be finished and if you’ve chosen anybody for the first live performance of it?” There it was. She’d come to request first dibs, as usual. Lucy couldn’t feel annoyance, but Markus seemed to be fighting off the urge to roll his eyes.

“You know I don’t keep a schedule to avoid disappointing anybody, North.” He spoke slowly, like he was explaining it to a child. “And the first performance goes to the orchestra I think will best display it.”

“Yeah yeah, I just-” She took a heavy and impatient breath. “We’ve not been doing so well these past few months, you know. You gave your last two sets to David first and I understand why, but we really need something strong soon.”

Lucy’s optical display pointed out her steadily increasing heart rate and body temperature, but didn’t need to point it out, as Markus, too, noticed North was more worked up than usual. “North are you ok?”

“I’m fine , I’ve just… been off my meds for a few days while they refill them.” She opened and closed her fists tightly in an attempt to calm down. “And Jeremy says we might not have enough to keep affording the rent for our practice studio  and I can’t take my old man’s handouts again and-”

“ North. ” Markus rolled forward and put a reassuring hand on her arm, speaking calmly. “You won’t get the set out any faster by fretting about it, I can’t guarantee anybody dibs until it’s finished. I just can’t.”

“But why not ?!” She yanked her arm out of his reach. “Why can’t you do me this favor just this once?! Just to get us out of the hole, Markus.”

“You know why, because it isn’t fair.” He’d lost the calm voice and instead switched to a firmer and more final tone. “You’ve been in rougher patches before but you’ve always been fine and your group will understand.”

“But they wouldn’t have to if you’d just throw us a bone this once! Please!”

“I’m sorry, North, but my answer is the same.”

“Your android gets to hear it so far, what if you just let me in on a preview, something we could use to get interest in it? It’d be free advertising for you and us!” North was desperate, almost kneeling and pleading with the composer. “I mean, why does it get to hear your music but nobody else can? It’s not like it can even appreciate your music! But we can , Markus!”

“ North , that’s enough .” Markus finally raised his voice above hers, silencing her insistent arguing.

She clammed up, lip trembling and visibly itching to argue more with fists still clenching and relaxing with every breath. “Fine.” She spit out, stalking away from them and back to the door. “ Fine. Stay here and hoard your compositions like a fool, what do I care?! Give it to David again, just stick with your favorite! Fuck me, I guess! We’ll just crash and die. Who cares?!” With a final, outraged shriek, she pulled the doors shut behind her.  

Lucy reactivated the security system with a quick blink, then glanced down uncertainly at Markus. He was taking even, measured breaths, eyes closed, calming down from the excitement before he could be overexerted just from a simple argument. Lucy considered herself, before petting his shoulder gently, the physical contact hopefully helping to sooth his stress. She didn’t notice his vitals settling any faster, but he offered a grateful smile anyway.

Chapter Text

NOV 5TH, 2038

PM 11:21

The rain fell steadily, drenching the neighborhood and blowing a stiff chill through the streets. The weather was spectacularly miserable for the cold night and anybody that found themselves unfortunate enough to be outside in it. Most people seemed to recognize that and were in a smart hurry to get out of it, running across the street to their cars parked in the garage just across the road. Though at the late hour, there were only a few fools left.

Hank stood stiffly beneath the little sheltered overhang, leaning against the brick wall of the simple establishment perfectly immobile. The little line of shops could barely be considered a part of the city but most were still open regardless. Granted, two of them were bars and another was a 711 convenience store. The last of the lit windows, and oddly enough, the location he waited at, belonged to a humble counselor’s office.

Hank might have gone inside twenty minutes ago, were it not for the little sign on the wooden door, asking politely that android assistants please stay outside, for the consideration of some patients’ possible anxieties involving them. Instead, he was left to wait outside, like a dog, for opportunities to try and obey his optical display’s insistent command.

FIND DET. ANDERSON

Most androids didn’t get impatient, but he wasn’t exactly built with the same neutral responses to a lack of stimuli. Too much went into his systems for them to remain idle and be content about it. He wanted to fidget where he stood, but fought the urge and remained still.

The door opened and two men walked out, Hank’s facial scanner finding them on a database almost instantly.

Derek Myers, criminal record: none; Christopher Gray, criminal record: DUI, Public indecency.

They barely spared him more than a glare as they headed out.

The last twenty minutes had been the same, Hank scanning the people that went in and out of the late night counselor's office and prying into the different reasons they were each there, only to come up empty.

Yo-han Kim, criminal record: domestic abuse.

Dennis Ward, criminal record: narcotic misuse.

Chris Roberts, criminal record: Red Ice possession.

It seemed the evening appointments were popular with recovering drug addicts. The hours sign on the door claimed they were closed after midnight, which meant worst case scenario, Hank would be waiting only half an hour more, before giving up and seeking out the detective another day.

He had just begun to consider the possibility, when the door opened again and he glanced over out of habit at the sound of a coin being tossed and caught. His facial recognition scanner lit up blue with the match.

Det. Connor Anderson. Finally.

“Detective Anderson.” Hank pushed himself off the wall to stop him before he stepped out into the rain. “My name is Hank, I’m the android sent by Cyberlife.” Detective Anderson blinked, clearly thrown off at being approached so suddenly and insistently. Hank hadn’t exactly left room for him to get in a word. Anderson caught the coin he’d been flipping and tucked it away in a pocket, letting him continue. “I looked for you at the station, but was told you had an appointment this evening. I’ve only been waiting half an hour.”

“Um.” Detective Anderson looked to be trying to gather a number of jumbled thoughts. “You could have just asked someone when my appointment ended. My, uh, brother should have been there, I believe.”

“From the brief encounter I had with Detective Nathan Anderson, I concluded that any interaction we have in the future will be one too many, and from his demeanor, he seemed to agree.”

Anderson cringed. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” he shook his head to dismiss the thought. “What can I do for you this evening, Hank?”

“A homicide was reported earlier tonight involving a Cyberlife android. In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated a specialized model to assist investigations.” Hank’s tone was bored, borderline irritated, and the way he spouted the instructions seemed to surprise the detective.

Anderson frowned, curiously reaching into his jacket pocket and fishing out his cell phone. “That’s odd... I didn’t receive any notification from the station about this.”

“I’m the notification.” Without missing a beat, Hank turned and started walking.

Anderson blinked hard again, still thrown by the sudden influx of activity, before shrugging and following him out into the rain. “Alright. Wonders of technology I suppose.”

With his longer legs, he caught up to Hank easily as they made their way across the road and into the parking garage. Once under the sheltered spaces, Anderson took the lead, correctly assuming they were taking his car. “So, a homicide you said?”

“Yes. At 9:56 this evening, the victim was found at his home. The only existing suspect is his absent android.”

“I’m assuming by the finality in your tone of voice that that’s all the information you have on the case so far?” Anderson unlocked the car with the button in his hand, immediately making for the driver’s side while Hank slid into the passenger.

“That is correct.”

“Should probably hurry then, so we don’t waste time.” Hank didn’t respond, deciding to not mention again how much time he’d already wasted waiting for the detective. “Do you know who else might already be on the scene?”

“Officer Collins and Officer Miller, aside from Detective Anderson and yourself, they were the only two awake at the station to respond.”

Anderson laughed, turning the key and backing out of the garage. “Sounds about right.” he paused to press a button to let them out of the blocked space and pulled out onto the main road before adding, “You should just call me Connor, it’s faster than having to specify which Detective Anderson.” He offered half a smile as they picked up speed down the road and Hank updated his protocols.

The drive across the city was both far too long and short for Hank. He hadn’t thought to search up Detective Anderson- Connor’s general background beforehand, somewhat distracted by the very persistent command, and took the reprise from objectives in his optical display to do so. He wasn’t new to the precinct, and his record appeared largely positive with most of his recent cases closed rather fast. Some two years ago, one of his cases led to a massive red ice bust that he had been largely praised for in the news.

Connor, meanwhile, kept focused on the road, waiting until they were within a few blocks from the crime scene to turn on the police lights in his car. Underneath the vibrant colors, he looked older than 36, with a rather simple face that would be easily ignorable for one without facial recognition scanners looking for someone specific. His dark hair was trimmed short but the curly strands still flopped into his face and he made no attempt to move them. He wore a patterned shirt underneath what looked like an old brown jacket and otherwise might not have even been recognizable as a detective were it not for the badge clipped to the front. Hank figured that dressing less professionally made for solving cases in public easier.

The unpleasant rain had progressed to a thundering storm by the time the car’s police lights found the old ratty neighborhood. Despite the hour and the weather, a crowd of people was gathered along the sidewalk, kept back by the holographic police line.

Synth music blared from the car’s speakers while they rolled to a stop at the curb beside the house. Connor cut the engine and frowned for a moment at the crowd, before unclipping his seatbelt.

“Ok wait here for just a moment. That doesn’t look fun to try and explain our way through. I won’t be long.”

“My instructions are to accompany you.” Hank repeated, not keen on being left in the car when he was the whole reason they were at the crime scene to begin with.

“I’m not saying you aren’t. I’m just saying to wait a moment while I make sure you’ve got clearance to be here.” Connor didn’t give him another chance to argue, before stepping out into the rain, hunching his shoulders against the chill. Hank watched him go, fighting off a scowl.

CONFLICTING ORDERS

SELECTING PRIORITY…

FOLLOW DET. ANDERSON

Hank got out of the car just in time to see Connor stopped by a reporter.

“Elizabeth Warren from Channel 16, can you confirm for us that this is a homicide?” A blonde woman underneath an umbrella held a microphone at his face as he shrugged around her and the other people gathered.

“I don’t have anything to confirm, I just got here, excuse me.” Hugging the chain fence that bordered the property, Connor made his way through, Hank stepping around the crowd entirely and following behind. He only paused when one of the android crowd control officers held out a hand just outside of the holographic police line.

“Androids are not permitted beyond this point.”

Connor turned back and sighed, before waving him forward. “He’s with me.” When the android stepped away and allowed Hank to head up the walkway, he frowned again. “Why didn’t you just wait a moment?”

“I already have clearance to be on site, as long as you’re with me. Confirmed it at the station.” Hank said dismissively, to which Connor simply shook his head and continued up the walkway.

“Just keep quiet and stay out of the others’ way. Let me know if you find anything I don’t.”

“That is my job.”

“Evening, Connor!” Officer Collins interrupted them, having just strolled out of the house’s front door, clipboard full of statements and notes in hand. “We were starting to think you weren’t gonna show.”

“Oh y’know how it is. Texting and email is so unreliable. Gotta wait for a personal physical delivery of information, I suppose.” Connor nodded to Hank with an eyeroll.

The officer smiled smugly at the pair. “Got yourself an android to help too, eh?” Though his tone was teasing, Connor didn’t rise to the bait.

“Mm, just tell us what happened.” They made their way onto the front porch and inside the old, single story house.

“We got a call around eight from the landlord. The tenant hadn’t paid his rent for a few months so he thought he’d drop by to see why. That’s when he found the body.”

Inside the house was dry, but that was likely the only perk of being out of the rain. Collins visibly recoiled from what Hank’s olfactory sensors detected as a very strong rotting smell permeating the air. Even Connor scrunched his nose in disgust. Two investigators in hazmat suits were taking samples from the corpse slouched against the wall while another officer took photos of the crime scene. It looked like whatever android previously worked there hadn’t been doing its job properly for months. That or the victim was just that slobby. Hank wasn’t sure which was more likely. Lights had been placed strategically around the room for them to work with, as the power in the house likely didn’t, throwing the clutter and grime in sharp detail.

“The victim’s name is Todd Williams, he has a record for theft and domestic abuse.” Collins, reading off of his clipboard for confirmation. Todd showed his rather poor financial state in every aspect of his house, with trash and mess in every corner and mildewy furniture and carpets. “According to the neighbors he was a loner, stayed inside most of the time, people hardly saw him.” The three paused in the living room and Connor knelt down to shine a blacklight over the corpse.

“The state he’s in, wasn’t worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night. Could’ve waited till morning.”

“I’d say he’s been there three weeks at least. We’ll know for sure when the coroner gets here.” He pointed to an evidence marker on the ground. “There’s a kitchen knife there, probably the murder weapon.”

“Any sign of a break-in?”

“The landlord said the front door was locked from inside and all the windows were boarded up. Killer must’ve gone out the back way.”

“And, his android?” Connor brought the light up to the wall above the victim, shining it over very pristine and exact letters spelling out ‘I AM ALIVE’. His thought process was written across his face. “What do we know about that?”

“Not much. The neighbors confirmed he had one, but it wasn’t here when we arrived.” As Connor stood back up from the floor, the officer seemed to hold back a gag. “I’ve got to get some air. Make yourselves at home, I suppose. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

With that, Connor and Hank were given free reign of the house, only the reporting officers still taking photos remained.

“I suppose go ahead and look around, let me know what you find.” Connor pulled the coin back out of his pocket and let it flick between and over his knuckles while he slowly paced the house.

INVESTIGATE CRIME SCENE

A quick scan of the room highlighted all of the evidence markers in Hank’s optical display. He blinked away the minor tasks that popped up in his objectives and examined the closest first.

A scattering of red crystals that had escaped from their plastic bag on a grimy coffee table had the first marker beside it. Hank didn’t need to, but tested their composition anyway to confirm its chemical makeup. Red Ice.

Next he checked inside the small wardrobe at the side of the room, finding nothing but clothes and more hidden drugs. Despite the other package sitting in plain sight, it wasn’t likely the drugs were planted. Two more packets of drugs were marked from where they’d been already found amongst piles of clothes or trash. If one wanted to pant drugs one wouldn’t use so much. Seemed Todd had a bit of a problem, or he dealt the drugs himself. Connor remarked on that under his breath.

A distinct puddle of half dried blood blocked his path to the next evidence markers, so Hank knelt down to examine it, only running his fingers through the goey mess and getting it half to his mouth before realizing Connor had frozen in place, staring.

“Do you need something, Detective?” Hank kept his tone even, despite the temptation to sound irritated by the interruption.

“Yeah, I need to know what you’re doing and why you’re touching gross old blood. This wasn’t covered in the debriefing.” Connor’s wide eyes stayed locked on the blood on his hand.

“I can check and examine samples in real time via the sensors in my mouth.” Hank said quickly, then to sound less rude, added, “I should have mentioned that in the car. Sorry.”

“Oh. Huh. That’s… useful.” He nodded and relaxed his shoulders. Of course it was useful. Hank was built to be useful, after all. He didn’t say that and instead turned back to his task, only to pause midway again when Connor remained in place, staring in interest.

LED flickering yellow with irritation, Hank lowered his hand again. “Could you not watch? Most people don’t and I prefer that, seeing as this particular feature is… unattractive.”

“Yeah, sorry!” He held up a hand in apology and awkwardly shuffled away to inspect the words on the wall, mumbling under his breath, “Wish I could lick evidence…”

No further interruption, Hank quickly spread the sample across his tongue and inspected the data that flickered across his optical display.
DNA Analysis: WILLIAMS, Todd. Sample date: >19 days.

“Each letter is perfect. Like a… well like a computer. I don’t think a human wrote these.” Connor was saying to himself, while a young, blonde officer took a photo beside him. “Simon, was this written in the victim’s blood?”

“That’s my guess.” The officer, badge reading Officer Miller, nodded. “We’re taking samples for analysis.”

“It’s his blood.” Hank folded his arms, optical display matching the brown stains on the wall to the data from the puddle on the floor. In addition to the match, it also listed the font as Cyberlife Sans, the exact font his very optical display read in.

Connor glanced back at him, then shrugged. “That’s enough for me, who am I to argue with the bot built to taste blood.”

“I was analyzing it.” Hank corrected him. “With the DNA signature in my files I can more efficiently track where other blood of the victim’s is and reconstruct the crime.”

“Thats… very cool. Where did you get him from, Connor?” Officer Miller smiled, impressed.

“Great question. He just kind of fell from the sky. I’m not really one to argue random gifts though, so I’m just rolling with it.” Connor shrugged again.

“Like an angel!”

“Angels can fly.”

“My boyfriend’s an angel and he can’t fly.”

“Ok, fair.”

Hank tuned them out, priorities not distracted by pointless human chatter and instead focusing on the murdered man laying directly at their feet. His optical display picked up on a few points of interest for him to scan with detail along with simply identifying his face. Database confirmed his criminal record and decay rate matched the blood, as well as his sunken eyes and grayed skin. He scanned and saved the victim’s fingerprints as well as the vomit on his shirt. Red ice traces registered on his lips and hands. Dealer, maybe, user, definitely.

Hank moved onto the stab wounds next, 28 in total, puncturing the lung on his left side and his heart, all with incredible strength and very little precision. A number of other injuries including but not limited to a deep slash in his throat littered his body. Seemed like the killer really had it out for poor Todd.

Scanning the injuries for depth and angle, he easily reconstructed a ghostlike rewind of the attack, watching while the simple silhouette stumbled at his chair and fell against the wall, clearly attempting to escape from the attacker. A few wounds were missing from the reconstruction, however, so he stood up to find more information.

The kitchen knife was next, devoid of fingerprints on its handle but blade unsurprisingly covered in Todd’s blood. The lack of fingerprints all but confirmed it was an android that had used it. It was discarded after the attack, however, and the splatters of blood led him out of the living room and through the hallway to the kitchen.

The room was thick with signs of a struggle, the table was overturned alongside two of the four chairs. Hank easily located the victim’s handprint on an overturned chair. Behind that was a metal pipe of some sort, likely pulled out of machinery. Todd’s handprints were once again located on one end.

The reconstruction picked back up with the new information, rewinding to where Todd had backed someone (that loaded quickly into the killer’s shape) against the counter, striking hard with the pipe several times before the killed grabbed a knife off the rack.

The table then tumbled over with Todd while he recoiled from the first stab.

Hank had what he needed.

“It started in here.” He got Connor’s attention from the hallway, while he was looking over a blood splatter on the wall. “The victim attacked the killer first with the pipe there. Then fled to the living room once the killer started fighting back.”

Connor hummed agreement. “So it was just self defense, then?”

“28 puncture wounds and triumphant writing on the wall goes a bit beyond self defense.” Hank muttered.

“I suppose that is true.” He glanced around the hallway, before noticing the back door and pushing it open. “The door was locked from the inside, so I suppose the android escaped this way.”

Hank scanned the thick clay that filled the back yard. “No sign of footprints.”

“Happened weeks ago, wouldn’t they have faded?”

“With the light weather until tonight and the type of soil, there’d still be a trace left behind that I could see.” He glanced at Connor and spoke with no uncertainty. “They didn’t escape this way.”

They closed the door to block the wind and Hank made his way down the hallway, intending to explore the rest of the house in case there was something from the crime scene moved out of the way. There were no other exists from the house but there was a curious black mark peeking out from behind the shower curtain in the bathroom. He stepped in to get a closer look.

Pulling the cover back, Hank blinked in surprise at the wall behind it. Covered from top to bottom in obsessive writing of different sizes, all spelling out the same three letters: RA9. Unlike the writing in the living room, this was sloppy and desperate. Like the android, no, deviant had been thinking only about putting this mark on every available inch.

Glancing down, the shower only got stranger, as atop the drain was a number of small… offerings was the only word that would fit. Fresh flowers were scattered around a bowl of sugarcubes and a carefully carved wooden statue of a humanoid figure stood amidst the little gifts.

Connor was waiting patiently in the hallway when Hank returned, brow furrowed in thought as he had begun to flip the coin from earlier again.

“There’s no other exists for his android to have taken, but there’s signs in the bathroom to suggest it was here recently.” Hank reported.

“Do you think it’s still here somewhere?”

“Without orders and only just understanding free will, I doubt it would have gone far.”

Connor pressed his coin between his thumb and forefinger, then let it roll across his knuckles, thinking.

“You said the victim attacked the android first.” He tossed it between his right and left hands twice. “Do you think it was hurt too?”

Hank blinked in understanding, and quickly scanned the pipe again.

“It probably held its arms up to defend itself, which wouldn’t have much resistance against the blunt object.” sure enough, when he sought out the desired chemical makeup, blue splatters shone bright in the scan. “It lost some thirium.”

“Some what?” Connor followed his eyes.

“Thirium. The fluid that powers androids’ biocomponents. You call it blue blood.” Hank blinked rapidly, a new image of the room filling his optics. “It evaporates after a few hours and becomes invisible to the naked eye.”

Connor grinned, catching onto his implications.

“But you can still see it, can’t you?”

“Yup.”

The blue splatters started in the kitchen, and followed his earlier reconstruction into the living room, where it overlapped itself for a moment, before turning back into the hallway. Connor followed close on Hank’s heels while he confirmed that while they did go into the bathroom, they didn’t end there either.

In fact they didn’t seem to have an exact moment where they ended, simply stopping at the hallway’s end. Frustrated, Hank pulled a curtain over a window back only to yield nothing except slightly faded paint where a ladder was once stored. Another look around himself had nothing new.

He’d have carelessly missed the attic’s door if Connor hadn’t tapped his shoulder and pointed it out. A smudged blue handprint glowed in Hank’s vision on the door, and he nodded.

Not needing to be prompted twice, Connor linked both his hands and knelt down.

“Think I can lift you?”

“I won’t have leverage to pull you in as well.”

“Would you rather boost me up and I’ll look for the android in there?”

Hank frowned and stepped into his hands without another argument, balancing one hand on Connor’s shoulder and using the other to push the attic door open, before grabbing the edge and pulling himself the rest of the way in. He glanced back down to where Connor waited and pressed a finger to his lips, signaling to keep quiet. Connor nodded and gave him a thumbs up to proceed.

The attic was dark and gloomy, contrasting the harsh police lights from the ground floor. Dust motes floated in the air, illuminated occasionally by lightning bolts through the large window on only one side. It looked to be very cluttered with items Todd Williams wasn’t aware he had owned, antique furniture, decorative curtains, and several sets of glasswear. Dust coated every surface and Hank wondered if anybody had even been up there before him at all.

While the dust on the old possessions was untouched, there were clear tracks in the dust on the floor that Hank followed around a large stack of boxes. He had to squeeze against the wall to get around a child’s crib, but past it, noticed more blue splatters, confirming he was still on the right track.

A bright flash of red darted across the room before Hank could process the movement, and he slowly headed further in, twisting his head to try and find where the red light had vanished to. He made his way to the racks of clothes in the far wall, finally spotting the red again. An android’s LED. He had it cornered.

“I know you’re there.”

There was another moment of defiant silence, then it dashed forward, Hank crouching to fight it, before stumbling to a stop, eyes wide while it recognized another android. Hank straightened his posture, the threat of attack diminishing.

It was an MP500, female model, with buzzed dark hair and frightened blue eyes. Her skin and clothes were splattered with human blood and thirium that seemed to have stayed visible thanks to its continued proximity to the android. She looked at Hank with desperate pleading eyes.

“I’m-I was just defending myself. P-please don’t- He was going to kill me.” she held one heavily damaged arm close to her chest, and Hank could see the exposed metal was dented inward and still dripping blue blood when held at the wrong angle. “I’m begging you, please, don’t tell them.”

He scanned her body, low signs of self destruction despite high stress levels. Her eyes bored into his, desperate.

“Hank? You ok up there?” Connor’s voice reached them from across the room and outside of the attic.

He held her eyes, expression stony and set, before he called back.

“It’s here, Detective!”

The deviant’s face fell to the dirty floor, lip trembling. She didn’t try and escape again, or fight, only looked back at Hank sadly, as if he’d betrayed some kind of imagined trust. It startled Hank, and rooted him in place until Connor and Officer Miller made their way into the attic as well and arrested the deviant.

She didn’t fight, and as she was being cuffed, a very clear message of: SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^ flashed across Hank’s optical display.

He shook it off. It was long since the first time he’d seen the error code.

Chapter Text

NOV 5TH, 2038

PM 09:14

Rose placed the two plates on the dining table and dusted her hands off on a nearby rag. The house was so barren and empty, she was surprised to have even found pasta and a garlic sauce in the cupboards. The sauce couldn’t be too far off from its expiration date, but still good. She didn’t have any meat or protein to add to the meal and had already listed a grocery trip in her weekly objectives. Adam would need proper meals and Carlos wasn’t likely to stay as complacent if he suffered malnutrition.

Adam sat perched in the windowsill, watching the torrent as it poured from the sky. The far side of the street wasn’t even visible it was so dark outside. The only time he could see was when lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating his face like a camera flash. The light cast the boy’s features in spooky detail and Rose hoped the meal would help brighten him up at least a bit.

Carlos, meanwhile, was sleeping rather unsoundly on the couch, head leant back over the arm and snoring. Rose tentatively approached him and leaned forward into his space.

“Carlos?” he jerked awake at her quiet word, legs slipping off the couch and shifting into a proper sitting position. “Dinner is ready.” He ignored her, instead frantically patting his pockets, then the table, before finding the red ice pipe behind his feet on the floor.

Relaxing with the pipe in hand, he rubbed his face to wake up further. “Yeah, I’m comin’.” the slurring of his speech indicated inebriation, and Rose’s social protocol told her not engaging with him further was the best course of action. Red ice was known to cause behavioral side effects and he’d also been drinking for most of the evening.

She flicked on the dining room’s light as Carlos sat heavily in his seat, Adam claiming the one across the table without a word. She retrieved the two plates of food from where she’d prepared them in the kitchen and set both plates in front of her people. For a moment neither of them spoke. Adam kept looking anywhere but his father and Carlos simply glared between him and Rose like he wished they’d both just vanish.

“Life’s funny.” he finally growled out, while Rose busied her hands by placing a napkin in Adam’s lap and filling their glasses with water. “I lost my job because of androids. And I need someone to take care of this damn house. So I gotta hire another fucking android.” Ignoring his food, Carlos took an angry drink from the beer bottle he’d brought from the coffee table.

Rose frowned upon seeing that Adam was simply swirling his own food around his fork.

“Are you not hungry, Adam?” she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and he flinched away, glancing at his father in fear. The glitch reacted badly, shimmering back into her vision.

“What are you staring at? Eat !”

Adam flinched harder, but obeyed, hands shaking while he scooped up pasta on his fork. While he chewed slowly, his eyes met Rose’s, clearly terrified of further upsetting his father. The glitch once again made itself known.  

Rose took a step away, contemplating going to clean up after herself in the kitchen, but  not wanting to leave Adam alone. She settled on waiting patiently beside the table for them to finish. Adam took another shaky bite and chewed slowly and deliberately, as if making sure his father could see him. The glitch didn’t leave and she fought off the urge to grind her teeth against the irritating haze.

“What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Carlos glared harder at Adam, who’d clammed up again, even stopping eating under being addressed directly again. “Not the life you dreamed of or somethin’? What, d’you think this is easy? You think it’s my fault we live in this shithole?! My fault your fuckin’ mother took off!”

Adam pulled his arms close, knocking his glass of water off the table with a loud shatter.

Rose stepped forward. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll clean it up-”

“You shut the fuck up!” Carlos bellowed, jabbing a finger in her direction. “What the fuck is your problem?” he stood up from his seat so hard the chair tumbled over, marching past Rose with heavy, uneven steps.

“D-d-d-dad-daddy, I-”

“Speak normally goddammit!” He was now bent over his son, who had all but slipped out of his own chair, cowering away in terror. “What the fuck is wrong with you!? Speak !”

Again, the raised voice did the exact opposite of what Carlos wanted, gluing Adam’s tongue quiet. He simply opened and shut his mouth like a fish while shivers wracked his body.

“ SPEAK! ” With a furious shriek, Carlos brought the back of his hand across Adam’s cheek, sending the boy tumbling to the floor with cry.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the thunder outside. Adam had frozen on the ground, hand over his face and tears streaming down his cheeks, before scrambling to his feet and stumbling out of the room. Rose watched him go, horror in her own eyes and irises flickering red with the persistent glitch.

“Get back here!” Adam didn’t stop and crawled up the stairs on all fours. “Come back here right now!” Carlos was shaking now too, though with barely restrained rage. With an infuriated scream he slammed one fist into the wall, wincing in pain when the wood simply tore the skin of his knuckles. “Fucking brat!” he cursed, wiping his hand on his napkin. “Doesn’t give a shit about what I do, just fucking hides, every time he runs and hides!”

Carlos’s angry rambling devolved into nothing but a string of curses and complaints. They ranged from Adam, to Rose, to his ex wife, to androids in general. He paced back and forth around the living room like a caged animal, occasionally pulling on his own hair or punching something softer than the wall.

Rose remembered the drawings she’d seen. She remembered Adam telling her without telling her how she’d done something to anger Carlos and been beaten to deactivation for it. It should have scared her, the possibility of being destroyed again. But it didn’t. The glitch seemed to have only one objective on its forefront: Take care of Adam.

She took a step to follow Adam up the stairs, but Carlos leveled her with an accusatory point.

“You stay put! Don’t you dare fuckin move, or I’ll bust you worse than last time.”

An order.

DON’T MOVE

The two words resonated through Rose as if she were cuffed to the floor, like something had hacked her and completely locked all movement. She couldn’t move. She’d been ordered not to. She stood stone still, arms crossed behind her back and eyes facing straight ahead at the staircase that Adam had retreated to.

Carlos, meanwhile, had fallen back on the couch and was almost desperately inhaling through his pipe again. His muttering picked up in speed, insisting it was all some whore’s fault he didn’t get to have a happy life.

Rose felt sick, like her very core was aching to go to Adam, but her body remained locked in place. As Carlos’s anger rose again, so did her fear, and so did the glitch.

It rose again when he paced close again, then turned away. It rose when her eyes focused on the stairs, then kept rising, filling her vision with a hazy fog.

DON’T MOVE

The glitch seemed to reach a peak, and a pulse tore through her body, despite remaining still. It was no longer a visible thing, but instead a lense through which she was seeing the world, gray with lines mapping out the air around her. Inches from her eyes, the words DON’T MOVE hovered mockingly, forming a physical barrier she couldn’t see past. That was bad, she had to see where Adam had gone. Had to get to Adam. Had to move.

DON’T MOVE.

Adam needed her. Carlos was getting angrier by the minute and if she didn’t get to him soon, he would hurt him again. It wasn’t paranoia, androids didn’t guess. Androids knew. Carlos began muttering about how he just needed to be taught a lesson.

Another pulse tore through her, and the room darkened further in her vision. She couldn’t move, but she could see herself. A white silhouette of her body reaching forward to place its hands against the wall of words. The horrible words. DON’T MOVE.

Her LED spun red.

She urged on the silhouette. Even if she wasn’t moving herself, making it move felt like the most she could do. It was what she had to do. She had to move. Move !

The words were what chained her in place. They had to go.

The silhouette pushed against the wall uncertainly, and pixels within it fractured immediately. She pushed harder. With a red crackle, it gave. Literal fractures were appearing in the red letters, glitching them out into other shapes and sending red chips spiraling into her face. She pushed harder. Harder.

The puse returned again, this time almost a force all its own, helping her silhouette along enough to break through the words completely until the wall shattered and collapsed in on itself under the strain.

The cuffs fell away and the real Rose stumbled forward as a million bits of information flooded her systems. It wasn’t from something external, didn’t threaten to overwhelm her, but instead felt like an explosion from her core that filled the thirium in her veins and burned through her body. The glitch was gone. It was a part of her now. She could move.

Adam. She needed to get to Adam.

PROTECT ADAM

Carlos didn’t even notice her hurrying up the stairs, raving shouts drowning out even the thunder. She hurried, choosing speed over silence despite how much the stairs groaned and creaked with each step. As she reached the second floor, she recalled the gun in Carlos’s bedside drawer, and took a fast detour to grab it.

Luck followed her almost back to the hallway, where she could then hear the stairs creaking with Carlos’s weight as he stormed up them, enraged.

Rose paused, unsure what to do. She could have simply made the weapon known, threatened Carlos then taken Adam and gone, but she still wasn’t positive on where Adam had hidden. Maybe before she was reset she would have known his hiding spots, but now..

She didn’t have time to think further, and rushed out of Carlos’s room before he could see over the stairs and spot her with the weapon. Her best bet was Adam’s room. That was the most she could hope for. She had to find him to get him away. It didn’t matter where they went as long as they got away from here.

She didn’t knock this time, only peeked in enough to spot a tiny shoe disappearing beneath the bed before quickly locking the door behind her.

“Adam? It’s just me, I won’t let him hurt you.” Rose knelt down to peek at him from behind a box where he’d barricaded himself underneath the bed.

“You-you’ve got t-t-t-to run! Or he’ll b-break you like last t-t-time!”

“We have to go, he can’t hurt us if we run.” Rose insisted.

“W-w-we can’t-” Adam disappeared back beneath the bed when a hard smack sounded against his bedroom door.

“Adam! Adam open this goddamn door!” Carlos bellowed from the other side, only pounding harder.

Rose stood up and put herself between the door and the bed, gun held in one hand and waiting for when the door finally gave way and broke open. Carlos heaved from the stain he’d exerted in breaking it in and almost didn’t notice the gun leveled at his chest.

“What the fuck are you doin’? Put that down and get out of here! That’s an order!”

“No!” the order didn’t even register. “I want you to leave him alone. Leave him alone and let us leave!” She wouldn’t shoot him while Adam watched, and she knew that. She hoped he didn’t know that.

“You want ?” he narrowed his eyes, and stepped closer to her, anger rekindling. “You gonna shoot me if I don’t give you what you want ?!” he swatted the gun from her hand, effectively calling her bluff, or maybe just not caring. “Here’s what I want! I want you in pieces again, this time for good!”

Carlos shoved her to the ground, her body cushioning the fall but doing nothing to protect her from the sharp kick to her side. She tried to scramble back up but he kicked her back down again, this time sending her crashing against the closet.

Rose wasn’t sure how he’d gotten the upper hand so fast, but she refused to let him keep it, ducking below his next swing and kicking his foot out from beneath him. Carlos fell like a 300 lb tree that had just been severed at the roots, slamming to the ground with a heavy thud that knocked the wind out of him.

She scrambled to her feet and collected the gun again.

“Adam hurry we have to go-” before she could call him out from beneath the bed, Carlos had grabbed her foot and dragged her back. She landed on her knees and didn’t turn around in time to stop him from wrapping both hands around her neck and squeezing. Had she needed to breathe, it would have stopped her.

As it was, she didn’t, despite her artificial skin crawling away from the point of contact as he clenched her neck tighter. She managed a grip on the gun and fired it, missing him but the noise successfully startling him enough to let her go. He didn’t stay gone and grabbed the back of her head, pulling it back to slam it into the dresser.

She barely caught herself in time and managed to squirm away, reaching the window before he reared his fist back to strike again.

Ducking, the window shattered, and Adam screamed from somewhere, probably still hidden. Rose didn’t have a chance to find him before she was grabbed and tackled to the bed. She tried to roll him off but only managed to tumble them both to the floor. He had one wrist in his while the other clumsily tried to hit her. She would have shot him were it not her gun hand he’d held still.

She could only try to avoid his angry fist for so much longer, and eventually he managed to keep her body pinned beneath his heavy knees and body weight. He squeezed her face between the fingers of one hand and leaned down, inches from her eyes.

“You thought you could overpower me, huh? You thought you could beat me and be some kind of hero?” his mouth flecked spit onto her face and he reeked of alcohol and drugs. “You’re just a fuckin’ piece of shit machine! I’m gonna fuck you up beyond repair this time, then mount you on the wall like a trophy, so when I get a new android they’ll see it and know what happens when you-”

THNK!

Rose registered the sound first. Then the way Carlos’s expression had frozen briefly, before his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed atop her, the fight completely drained from his body. She laid there for a moment, processing- well- something, before she pulled herself out from under him and looked up at Adam.

He’d left the bed and hit his father over the head with a metal baseball bat. Shivering, he looked from the unconscious man to his own hands before dropping the weapon. Based on the sound it made hitting the floor, not much strength would be needed to knock someone out with it.

Rose extracted herself the rest of the way from beneath Carlos and stood up slowly, as if afraid to wake him back up.

“I-is-is he- is he-” Adam swallowed and tried again. “Is he duh-d-dead?” he looked quickly from Rose to Carlos, whose back was definitely moving with his breathing.

“No. He’s… he’s just unconscious.” she held an arm out and Adam gladly took the invitation without hesitating, holding her as tight as she held him until his shivering had calmed somewhat.

When he’d finally calmed down enough to let go, Rose tucked the gun into her pocket and out of his sight, before kneeling down to his height. “We have to go before he wakes up, ok?”

“W-wuh-where are we g-gonna go?”

Carlos groaned from the floor before she could respond.

“There’s a bus stop outside. Let’s start with that.” Rose grabbed his hand and they hurried out of the room without another word, walking quietly so as to not wake him up. At the bottom of the stairs they heard another groan and stumbling, clumsy steps making their way across the upper floor.

Carlos was high, drunk, and injured, so they didn’t worry like before, but Rose still helped Adam get his coat on fastest before pulling the front door open hard and hurrying out into the rain without looking back.

A hundred yards or so ahead, a bus was just pulling to a stop at the little sign, and Rose put on a burst of speed, somewhat pulling Adam so they caught up in time to climb on before it moved on.

Inside was empty, thankfully, so nobody would notice an android sitting in the seats instead of in their designated compartment. Rose didn’t want to leave Adam alone for even a moment, and he seemed to share that sentiment, leaning into her side the moment they had settled down.

Rose squeezed his hand in hers and the bus hissed, the doors closing. Once shut, she finally relaxed her own shoulders, sighing into Adam’s hair as they began moving. Her LED spun red twice more, before settling yellow. She caught blurry sight of Carlos at the front door of his house, but he didn’t seem to see them, and before he had a chance to work out where they’d gone, the bus had rounded the corner and left the ratty house behind.

Chapter Text

OCT 9TH, 2038

PM 09:42

The black and yellow automatic taxi drove up to the door, allowing Lucy to step out and push Markus inside with minimal time underneath the rain. The two were returning from Markus’s date night, evidenced by his semi-formal getup. Lucy usually waited in the car during these events, as it made Markus’s dates feel awkward to have his nurse hovering nearby. He always apologized for making her wait and she always insisted she didn’t mind. Despite his earlier excitement for the night, Markus didn’t look particularly happy as they made their way inside.

They approached the grand front doors and the security system beeped, the friendly feminine voice greeting them.

“Good evening, Markus. Welcome back.”

“I still don’t understand what was so wrong with the idea.” Markus was mid-rant, clearly frustrated with the events of the night. “We’ve been together for almost two years, isn’t it the obvious next step? It’s not like I can move in with them , they live in a flat on the 17th floor of a non-handicapped accessible building!”

“Perhaps you phrased your proposition in a way that might have sounded condescending. You are considerably more well-off than they are.” Lucy suggested, hanging up the umbrella in her arms and removing her jacket as well.

“I don’t think I did?” Markus huffed, clearly frustrated with himself. “I didn’t mean to at least. I swear if I hadn’t seen the email for myself, I’d have thought Simon was lying just to leave sooner.”

“You know he wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Josh might.”

“But Simon wouldn’t.”

Markus chuckled and finally waved a hand to agree. “Come on let’s get a drink. I need to drown my romantic failures for the night. Then maybe I can sleep.”

Lucy laughed and took the handles of his chair again. “Alright, but you know what your doctor would say.”

“Ah, he’d agree with me after hearing about my night.” Markus groaned as they made their way through the foyer and into the living space.

“I somehow doubt that.”

“Well, then he can stow it. I’m an adult, I can choose my own medicine.”

“I don’t think this counts as medicine.” Lucy stepped around Markus and reached the little alcohol cart at the edge of the room. “Whisky on ice, as usual?”

“Yes please.”

She was halfway through pouring the dark drink when Markus blinked curiously at something off to their right, turning his chair to frown at the door to the studio.

“Did you forget to turn the studio light off when we left earlier?” Sure enough, when Lucy looked, the space between the floor and the door showed light shining through.

“No. I didn’t.” Part of her exit protocols included manually switching off all the house’s lights. She set the drink back down as Markus no longer looked interested.

He continued to frown at the light for a moment more, then said, “Call the police.”

Lucy’s LED flickered yellow as she connected her voice to the phone line.

“Detroit Police, what is your emergency?”

“This is Markus Manifred’s android at 8941 Lafayette Avenue. We’ve just returned home and found the lights on. There may have been a break in.”

“A patrol car is on the way.”

“Thank you.” The call disconnected without further talk.

“Let’s go check it out.” Lucy made to walk in alone, but he stopped her. “Don’t you dare leave me behind. I’ll just follow you.” With a restrained sigh, she turned back and grabbed his chair again.

The door slid open automatically as they entered, revealing the studio in much the same disarray they’d left it in, save for the papers once again scattered about the desk in the far corner. Bent over the desk and continuing to scatter the priceless musical pieces, was North.

She hadn’t heard them enter, muttering to herself while she sorted through what looked like a finished piece and what looked like useless notes.

“North!” At Markus’s shout, she flinched and dropped the notebook in her hands, knocking several papers off. “What are you doing?!”

“You refuse to help me, so I’m helping myself. I’m not going to spoil your whole set I just need one song.” Lucy tried to think up a way she could have gotten past the security system, and only managed to guess that by inviting her in earlier, the security system had deactivated against the assumed guest.

“Don’t touch that, get away from there!”

“I’ll make it worth your while, Markus, I swear. We’ll be playing the set in the future anyway, we always do, even when you snub us for the first show.” Clearly not in her right mind, North turned back to the papers as if her actions were perfectly logical and reasonable in her situation.

“Lucy get her away from there, get her out of my house!” Markus took deep, even breaths, despite his hands shaking with anger.

Lucy stepped around his chair and approached North carefully, not aiming to escalate the situation further. “North, I have already called the police, you should go before you cause more trouble for yourself.”

Though North met her eyes, she didn’t seem to register what Lucy had said, and instead looked to Markus. “All you ever do is tell me to go away. What’s wrong with me? Are we not good enough for your work or something? Why don’t we deserve to hear your music? Huh? What has it done to deserve that?!” She jabbed a harsh finger in Lucy’s face.

Markus looked to restrain himself for just a beat longer, before he snapped.

“That’s enough! Get out of here now!” He rolled himself forward and pushed North away from Lucy, despite her insistence on staying between them, LED flickering yellow. “Go on! Go!”

“What’s it got that we don’t? Why does it get the privilege when it can’t even appreciate music?!” North leaned further into Lucy’s space, speaking harshly into her face. “It can’t appreciate anything!”

“Leave her alone!” Tired of trying to fight off the chair, North kicked the wheel, sending Markus rolling back and allowing her the space she needed to shove Lucy hard against the wall.

“Come on!” she pushed her again. “Let’s see what makes you so special!”

Lucy looked from North, to Markus, who had stopped arguing once he’d been kicked, instead clutching his chest and taking deep breaths again. An interrupted scan told her his heart rate was irregular and his oxygen intake was inconsistent.

“Markus-!”

“What makes you so special?!” North took her attention back, this time pushing her into a mounted guitar, knocking it off.

“Lucy. Don’t hit her back, you hear me? Don’t defend yourself.” Markus panted, eyes blinking hard to keep the scene before him in focus. “Don’t do anything.”

DON’T DEFEND MYSELF

The command blinked into her optical display at the order.

Lucy grit her teeth and sent an emergency call to the paramedics. Markus needed medical attention, or he would if this situation didn’t calm down significantly in the next few minutes. North looked like she had made it her mission to do otherwise.

“Go ahead. Hit me. What’re you waiting for?”

DON’T DEFEND MYSELF?

Why not? Why shouldn’t she defend herself? North was out to hurt her. North wasn’t thinking right and she had broken into private property. Why shouldn’t she defend herself and her person?

North grabbed the recently repaired flute and threw it on her with a growl, looking to get even more upset when Lucy blocked the offending object with her arms.

“Think you’re so special? Think you’re the only one who’s good enough to hear his work?! Act like it!” She kicked her hard in the leg, sending Lucy tumbling over a xylophone with a heavy and painful clatter.

THIS IS NOT FAIR  

Lucy found herself wanting that fantasy from before. She wanted something. She wanted to make North leave. She wanted to fight back. But she couldn't. She’d been ordered not to. A haze settled over her vision, some kind of optical glitch that the fall must have caused.

Markus coughed, heaving for breath.

“Stop it, North!”

“What’s the matter? Too much of an obedient little pussy?” Lucy tried to stand up but was shoved back down into the mess of instrument parts. The glitch grew in her vision, filling the edges of her optical display with red.

“Stop it, North! Stop it!” When she tried to stand up again, North grabbed her by her already torn shirt and braced her against the piano.

“Too scared to fight back you fucking bitch?!” She punctuated the end of her sentence with a slap to Lucy’s face. Her LED flickered red as the registered the obvious aggression as danger.

PROTECT MARKUS AND MYSELF

The letters changed, but there was still the command. It still locked her hands the moment she thought about raising them in defense. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t help Markus.

“What’s wrong with you?! Do you deserve him or not?!” North finally stepped back after shoving her one final time into the piano, where she bent over, bracing herself.

A pulse swept through Lucy’s body, a stronger sensation than any of North’s blows so far but she didn’t react. The haze had filled her entire vision, manifesting itself as a physical wall between herself and North, who had started pacing to the different walls, looking for an instrument to hit her with. The wall was made up of red words and coding, spelling out the command she’d been dealt.

DON’T DEFEND YOURSELF

But Lucy wanted to. She should . She couldn’t help Markus if North beat her to deactivation. She couldn’t help her person. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted to help .

While the real Lucy didn’t move, she watched as a silhouette of herself did. Jumping upright and slamming a fist against the wall that separated her from North. Beating against the restraints that kept her from helping Markus. She punched it, and it fractured, then she kicked it, and it shimmered. Bits of red coding were flying at her face while she chipped away at the layers of the command, the haze growing in intensity.

Finally, slamming into it with her shoulder, the wall fell away, taking the haze, and the sudden glitch, with it.

The sounds of the room returned while she stood back up.

“Oh right, that’s right, I forgot. You can’t deserve it, because you’re not a real person.” North gleefully held a ukulele in one hand like a bat, grinning maniacally. “You’re just a fucking piece of plastic! You’re just another tool he uses to write his music aren’t you? Huh? You-” She raised the weapon, but cut off when two solid plastic hands shoved her hard into a rack of string instruments, where she stumbled hard, knocking the whole line over.

“North!” Markus didn’t move out of the way in time for the cello at the end of the stands to tip over as well and crash into his chair, jostling him enough to fall out.

“Markus!” Snapping out of herself, Lucy rushed to his side, quickly checking to ensure his oxygen tube had remained intact, which it hadn’t. He was taking rapid, shallow breaths and clutching at his chest. “Markus, stay with me, I already called an ambulance! You-you’re gonna be ok. Just... Stay with me.”

Red and blue lights flickered from the large windows.

Markus looked from her, to North, who had pulled herself out of the pile of wrecked instruments and was sporting a long scrape to one arm and a bloody nose. He looked to be forcing himself to stay conscious.

“Lucy they-they’ll destroy you. You’ve got to go. You’ve got to leave! Run!” He grabbed her hand and held it tightly, despite his words.

“I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re ok. And you will be ok.” Lucy belatedly realized she was trying to convince herself of the unlikely future as hard as she was Markus.

North had also snapped out of herself and seemed to understand the weight of the situation as well. “I-I-I didn’t mean to, this wasn’t-” She struggled to gather herself. “I didn’t do anything-”

“No, Lucy, you have to go!”

“You can just tell them what happened, but you’ve got to be ok first.”

“I-” Markus cut himself off with a heavy wheeze. “I can’t- Lucy you have to-” He took a heavy breath. “GO!”

The doors flew open with a kick, a pair of officers flooding the room with guns drawn, just as Markus lost consciousness in her arms.

North desperately tried to cover herself, shrieking hysterically and pointing at Lucy.

“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t mean to- It was the android! It-”

The officers needed no further prompting. And fired their guns.

NOV 6TH, 2038

AM 12:41

Hank watched the interrogation room through the full length one-way mirror, eyes stony and carefully recording every second before him despite the existing camera in the room. They had arrived at the station half an hour ago and the suspect hadn’t been spared any consideration, immediately being sent into the cold, featureless room and put under close surveillance. It was the right course of action, as neither he nor the deviant needed sleep.

The MP500 sat stick straight in her chair, staring at her cuffed hands with vacant eyes. She looked small in the empty metal room. Connor sat opposite her, the case files underneath his nose. He leaned forward, searching her face without actually making eye contact, attempting to get her attention, as she seemed completely unresponsive to his presence.

“Why’d you kill him?” Connor asked, leaving no room for argument. “What happened before you took the knife?” At Hank’s left, Detective Anderson clicked his tongue, clearly irritated with the non-responses they had thus far gotten. “How long were you hidden in the attic? Why didn’t you try and run away?”

The deviant didn’t even blink, staring at the table, eyes unfocused. Connor’s eyebrow furrowed, and he reached a hand forward to snap twice in her face, to no response.

He briefly glanced at the mirror, despite being unable to see the two watching.

“If you won’t talk we can’t help you.” Still nothing.

Finally, Connor sighed and stood up, shaking his head in disappointment.

Detective Anderson turned to the automatic door as it clicked and opened to let him back into the observation room.

“We’re just wasting time, I’ve no idea how to make a machine confess. She could just be locking down her brain or something. I don’t even think she’s aware of where she is right now.”

“Androids don’t have mental retreats like humans do.” Hank argued, frowning at the suspect. “It’s aware, it just isn’t interested in listening to you.”

Detective Anderson snorted.

“We could always try roughing it up. It can’t feel pain, after all.”

“So why the hell would damaging it further make any difference?” Connor raised a smug eyebrow at his brother, appreciating the glare he earned.

“It was just an idea.”

“A bad one.”

“Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they’re in stressful situations.” Hank cut through the pair’s bickering before it could start up for the third time since they’d gotten back to the precinct. It was actually rather jarring, the difference between how Connor acted to the general population, and how he acted towards his brother.

Hank didn’t know much about sibling relationships, but he got the impression it wasn’t that surprising to those that knew them.

Connor huffed into his hand. “You could go bad cop in there if you’d like. She might not even notice it’s not me again.”

“I think I’d rather not.” Anderson frowned.

Hank thought it was unlikely the deviant wouldn’t notice the difference. Though the pair did look as similar as fraternal twins could look, they were far from identical. Connor’s face was distinctly rounder and his skin darker than his brother’s, while Anderson’s blue eyes almost never seemed to hold anything beyond a self-righteous sneer.

“What’s wrong, Nines, afraid of a lil’ robot girl?”

“ Wary of a robot murderer. ”

“Your android has been in our apartment, hasn’t he shot people before?”

“Mm, not lethally.” Detective Anderson glanced aside. “Or on purpose.”

Before Connor could add another asinine response, Hank spoke up again.

“I could try questioning it.” Detective Anderson looked to be prepared to laugh, but Connor spoke first.

“That’s a much better idea.”

Anderson scoffed.

“Uh, how? What could it ask that we couldn’t?”

“I am built with an interrogation protocol, as well as all police and investigation responses.” Hank met his rather pretentious expression with a proud one of his own.

“Yeah but didn’t you catch the thing in the first place? Why would you talking to it make it any less likely to kill itself?”

“I can analyze its responses, however subtle, and keep track of its stress level the whole time.” Hank explained clearly, like he was talking to a child, then, just because Connor’s jackassery had rubbed off on him towards this person already, added, “Can you?”

“Smartass, I’ll-”

“Then it sounds like we’ve got nothing to lose. Right, Nines?” Connor spoke quickly, before he could get up from his seat and rise to Hank’s challenge. Composing himself, Anderson-Nines, as Hank’s facial recognition protocol corrected, seeing as he responded to that fastest- straightened his sleeves with a glare and gestured one arm in begrudging acceptance. “Go right ahead, Hank.”

Receiving both the clearance and command, Hank exited the observation room and stepped into the interrogation.

EXTRACT CONFESSION

The command was simple, the task was not.

Hank took a seat in the simple metal chair, opposite the MP500.

He took a moment to scan her physical state for any leverage he might have. The identification patch on her jacket only confirmed her model number and function, and her led (which had remained a consistent yellow since she’d been brought in) indicated a low probability of self destruction. Her arms were the most damaged features, though far from the only signs of misuse. While her right bore the violent denting from the metal pipe at the crime scene, the left’s skin was nearly completely gone, forever pulled back by the burn marks that dotted every available inch. The circular pattern indicated cigarettes were the origin and they dated back at least 12 months.

She clearly hadn’t been well taken care of before the crime. If the assault he’d reconstructed at the house wasn’t motive enough, the wounds likely were.

All he had to do was get her to say it.

REACH OPTIMAL STRESS FOR CONFESSION

His interrogation protocol went into effect and he no longer needing to scan her body to determine stress level. 35%. Too low.

“My name is Hank, what’s yours?” If she had one at all, which he belatedly thought was unlikely, seeing as Todd Williams clearly didn’t care much for her prior to his demise. “I’m detecting an instability in your program. It can trigger an unpleasant feeling, like fear.”

She didn’t respond, but Hank’s sensors detected her thirium flowing slower, stress level going down. He glanced down at the burn scars that dotted her arm.

“You’re pretty beaten up. Did Todd do that to you?” Her LED flickered red and her stress crept higher again. “Did he beat you?”

He wasn’t quite sure why she was forcing herself not to react. Deviancy, as he understood it, was more or less a reaction to an overload of simulated emotions in something programmed to have none. Maybe all of those had finally burned out and she was left with nothing.

Though her reaction to hearing her owner’s name didn’t match that theory too well. Perhaps they were still there but… hiding. Locked down so she didn’t have to face the consequences of her actions. He’d need to lure them out one way or another.

“If you won’t talk, we’ll be forced to probe your memory for what-”

“No!” Her head snapped up, LED flashing red again. 39% stress level. “No, no please don’t.” Having finally been coerced out of her catatonic state, she seemed to realize she couldn’t just return to ignoring him. She looked terrified, first at Hank, then at the large mirror image of them to their left, where the two detectives watched, unseen. “What… what are they going to do to me?”

Hank didn’t answer right away, and she continued. “They’re gonna destroy me, aren’t they?”

He could have lied to put her at ease, but that would have been inefficient.

“I don’t know for sure.” It wasn’t technically a lie. “We just want to understand. We know your human abused you.” He tilted his head to meet her eyes. “Nobody blames you.”

She took a shaking breath.

“Why did you give me up? Why couldn’t you have just-just left me there?”

“They would’ve found you eventually anyway. I was just faster.” Stress level dropped. “I was built to catch deviants, but if the humans had found you first, you would have been shot on sight.”

“I… I don’t wanna to die.” She trembled in her seat.

Hank leant forward in his chair.

“Then talk to me.”

“I…” Her eyes begged for something, some kind of help or solution, but he had nothing to offer. He wouldn’t if he did. “I can’t.” Eyes dropping back to the table, she gave up.

Hank took a breath. He hadn’t expected the good cop to succeed anyway. It was unfortunate, but at least he had a loud voice. “Really?”

He slammed the files down beneath her nose hard enough to echo throughout the room.

“Do you see this?! 28 stab wounds?!” He slowly rose from his chair, voice raising in volume. “You didn’t want to leave him a chance !” Though she flinched with every harsh word, she didn’t look at him. Stress level only 45%. “What were you feeling? Do you really think what you did was so justified? Do you really think murdering a man was ok?!”

“Please-” Artificial tears ran down her cheeks, cutting clean lines through the blood splatters on her cheeks. “Please- just leave me alone.” Stress level 53%.

“We know it was you. You’ve got nothing left to hide.” He leaned over the desk, inches from her face. “So just say you did it!”

“Please stop!” She curled her shoulders away but the cuffs kept her bound to the table, forced to endure it. Stress level 67%.

“Just say you killed him!” Hank grabbed the front of her uniform before she could lean further away. “ Just say it! ”

“I’m sorry !” She shrieked, bursting into tears in his grip. That was it. He let her drop back into the seat and stepped away. He only gave her the time until he’d retaken his seat to cry.

“What are you sorry for? Tell me.” Though his tone wasn’t as nice as before, he didn’t shout again.

“He hurt me every day. I did everything he wanted; tried to be everything he wanted.” Her words were cut in by deep, shuddering breaths. “But there was always something wrong.” She sniffled, and raised her head to meet Hank’s eyes finally. “When he started beating me, and didn’t stop I was so scared.

“I was so scared he’d destroy me, so scared to die.” She looked down at her damaged arms. “So I stabbed him. I stopped him from trying to kill me. I just wanted him to stop but… hurting him… it made me feel better… And I didn’t stop.” A violent shiver wracked her body. “There was so much blood.”

It was a clear confession. Hank had what he needed, but his model wasn’t built to simply interrogate. He was made to find and understand deviants. While he had a deviant, he wanted to understand more.

“That alter in the bathroom, did you make it? What’s it for?”

“It’s an offering, so I’ll be saved.” She smiled to herself, as if the very thought brought her immense comfort.

“Offering to who?”

“rA9.” She answered like it was an obvious piece of information. “rA9 will save us.” When she didn’t elaborate further, Hank dropped the subject.

“Why did you write ‘I AM ALIVE’ on the wall? Was killing the man not enough for you?”

She had the gall to look insulted.

“He used to tell me I was nothing. That I was just a piece of plastic. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, even if he could no longer hear me.”

“Why didn’t you run away? Why’d you stay where you were so unhappy?”

“I didn’t know what to do. For the first time there was nobody telling me… anything. I didn’t know how to act or how to feel, I was just… scared. But the attic wasn’t so scary when I was alone up there.”

“When did you start to feel emotions like this?”

She thought about it before answering. “The day I killed him… when he was beating me I realized it wasn’t… fair. ” She was crying again, though this time it seemed to be from anger rather than terror. “I never did anything wrong, I didn’t deserve to be treated like that. He was just a sad, pathetic, lonely man with nothing to do but use me for a punching bag, and that was just supposed to be ok ?!” She stared at Hank, as if looking for some kind of agreement. “I was so angry… I hated him so much.”

Her LED flashed blue, if only for a moment, before returning to yellow.

“I lied. I’m not sorry.” Lip trembling, she relaxed her back until her head rested on the table between her cuffed hands. “Please don’t let them kill me.”

She had so much self-preservation it surprised Hank. He turned to the mirror where he knew Connor and Nines still watched.

“I’m done here.”

The deviant didn’t react, eyes closed and expression peaceful despite her LED still spinning yellow and her breathing uneven. Hank slowly stood up from his chair and made to leave, opening the door just in time for both Connor and Nines to enter the room.

“Nines, lock her up for the night.” Connor said, looking rather pleased at Hank. He didn’t particularly appreciate the pride, he wasn’t a trained animal, after all. He said he would get the confession and he did.

Nines reached to unlock the cuffs from the table but the deviant flinched hard away from his touch. When he tried again to pull at the chain she whimpered and cowered out of reach.

“Leave me alone!”

Nines sighed in annoyance. “Come on, you’ve gotta move-”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t fucking fight me, you’ve got to move.” He grabbed her arm, only for her to pull away once again.

“You shouldn’t touch it.” Hank drawled, watching the back-and-forth with increasing boredom. “It’ll self destruct if it feels threatened.”

“You stay the hell out of this. I’m just doing my damn job.” As if to spite him, Nines grabbed her arm again, this time holding it despite her continued struggling.

Her LED flashed red and she kicked out with a cry.

“Let me go! Just leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

“Would you just- Move then!” He yanked her out of the seat but she refused to support her own weight.

Hank continued to watch for another moment, before her stress level spiked and he finally stepped in.

“Do you want it to kill itself?! Leave it alone, now!” He easily pried Nines’s hand away and she fell to the ground in a ball, arms locked around her head to block out the room.

“Do you want to be thrown away with her?!” Hank turned to face Nines but was instead met with the barrel of his gun. There was a certain look of interest on the detective’s face as he met Hank’s gaze dead on. “I told you to stay out of this.”

“Nines, that’s enough!” Connor, on the other hand, didn’t look as interested.

“Mind your business, Connor.”

He did not mind his business, and looked incredibly pleased to have a reason to pull his own gun on Nines.

“Please don’t shoot my android, Nines.” He said cheekily. “Or you’ll be the one to foot the bill to cyberlife.”

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^

Nines stared at him in complete disbelief.

“ Connor! ”

“Nathan.” Connor continued to smile, showing no intent to back down until his brother did also.

After staring for another few furious seconds, Nines finally holstered his piece with a curse.

“You are the biggest ass I’ve ever met.”

“There’s a mirror right there if you want to change that.”

“Bite me.” He held up both hands to show Hank he didn’t intend to touch the deviant while he walked back around the table to where she’d remained crouched. “I’m not gonna touch you. But you can’t stay here.”

She slowly pulled her arms off from her head and uncurled from her ball on the floor. First she stared at Nines distrustfully, then at Hank, waiting for assurance that he wasn’t lying.

“You’re gonna be alright. He won’t hurt you.” He glared briefly at Nines, “Right?”

“I never intended to.” He grit his teeth but didn’t argue.

Hank turned back to the deviant.

“If he lets you just follow him out of the room, you won’t cause any trouble, ok?”

She nodded and shakily got to her feet.

Connor fell into step behind her as they made their way out in a line. As she passed Hank, she whispered a quiet, “Thank you.” And her LED spun blue. He watched them go without a word.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^

Chapter Text

NOV 5TH, 2038

PM 10:58

“Thank you for using Detroit Buses!” the little voice played again, as it had at every stop the bus made throughout the city. Rose was aware this was the bus’s last cycle so she wasn’t afraid of them returning to Carlos’s house and they had been riding for almost an hour now. As the doors opened and shut with nobody to get on or off, it set off again.

They were very far into Detroit Proper, past the nice shopping centers and apartment complexes. All that was left was the city’s seedy downtown, surrounded on most sides by buildings but very few respectable establishments left.

Adam had fallen asleep against Rose’s side some time ago, clearly exhausted by the night’s events. They hadn’t spoken at all since leaving the house, and Rose didn’t want to make him try to. He was just a child, and it was horrible enough that they had to leave in the first place. She felt it best to give him space to process what had happened. He would talk to her when he was ready.

“Thank you for using Detroit Buses!” the little voice said again, but this time someone got in. At first Rose thought him a passenger, but his uniform implied otherwise, as did the way he looked over the sea of empty chairs and rolled his eyes in frustration when he spotted them.

“Hey, you two. End of the line.” he gestured to them dismissively while approaching them. Rose sat up in confusion, glancing once in concern at Adam.

“What do you mean?”

“Yeah, sorry, but you have to get off.” He didn’t seem to care or notice that she was an android, likely ready to be done with this job and go home for the night.

Rose nodded and gently rubbed Adam’s shoulder until he stirred. “We have to go,” he rubbed one eye messily and blinked at Rose, then at the bus operator in confusion. “We can’t stay on the bus forever.” he frowned, but nodded and stood up with her.

As they made their way through the aisle, Rose glanced back to the bus operator. “Do you know if there’s anywhere nearby we can stay the night?”

“No, sorry. I’m just here to make sure the bus is clear and parked for the night.”

Stepping off the bus and into the miserably cold rain, Rose put an arm around Adam’s shoulder to hopefully keep him warm and somewhat sheltered while they found a bit of shelter beneath the bus stop.

“Are you alright?” he didn’t answer and just shivered closer. “Do you want to wait here out of the rain while I look around? I can try and find us somewhere dry.”

Adam quickly shook his head and squeezed her arm. He still didn’t look to want to speak, but his intent was clear. Don’t leave me alone.

“Ok.” Rose squeezed his hand back, hopefully reassuringly. “We’ll look around together, but if you get too cold tell me.” he nodded and they set off down the street, hand in hand.

They paused at an intersection where several stores met and Rose took a moment to assess their options. Across the road a motel’s neon lights caught her attention, as did it’s ‘no androids allowed’ sign on the front door. It’d be warm and dry, but they didn’t have money and it’d be too easy to find. Too obvious. Rose didn’t think she nor Adam would feel safe there.

To their left a closed coffee shop and a 24/7 laundromat stood out, to their right was a simple convenience store, still opened. Down the road an abandoned apartment building sat beside an overgrown car lot, condemned signs keeping the public away.

The abandoned building looked promising, at least for the night. It’d be dry and she could maybe make a fire to keep Adam warm. It’d also be hard to find them, comfortably out of the way.

Before Rose could settle on her decision, however, Adam shivered violently against her side. Building second, dry clothes for Adam first. She took his hand and led him to the laundromat.

As if answering her exact need, a man was fast asleep in the chairs inside, his load having finished in the drier a few minutes ago. He had missed the cycle end’s alert thanks to his headphones. Were her protocol still functioning, she would have never considered stealing. She wouldn’t have been allowed to. Now, however, her need outweighed her conscience.

They crept in and Rose made sure the door wouldn’t slam behind them, before opening the little drier and sifting through the clothes for something Adam might fit. There was a woman’s sweater that might be alright, but most of the clothes looked to be for an adult man. It was expected, but still disappointing. She was about to search further when she felt a tug at her skirt.

Adam was frowning and shaking his head insistently, pointing at the sleeping man

“He won’t wake up, he’s got headphones on.” Rose said, hopefully reassuringly, but Adam just shook his head harder. “I don’t understand.”

Adam huffed through his nose, clearly frustrated. He made one clear jab at the clothes, then another at the man. Oh.

“Adam, you’re freezing cold and your coat is soaked through. You need something dry to wear and we don’t have any money.”

He didn’t look like he had any ideas for how to argue, fidgeting unhappily and shuffling his feet before he let go of her skirt and tiptoed up to the sleeping man. Rose was about to call him back, or at least ask what he was trying to do, when he reached between the man’s fingers and pulled out a little orange card, the laundromat’s logo across the middle.

He handed it to Rose with an insistent frown. She felt scolded for not having considered it.

“That’s… very smart, Adam. And a better idea than stealing. Good job. Will you at least wear this while I dry your clothes, though? We won’t keep it, I promise.” she offered him the sweater again, which he finally accepted.

Collecting Adam’s clothes, she considered if it’d be worth it to dry her own dress as well. It wasn’t particularly wet thanks to the plastic front layer that doubled as an apron when she was cleaning, but the back was dotted with moisture so she added it to the load just to fill it. Rose swiped the membership card and started the dry cycle.

Had she had more time she would have tried to wash the clothes as well, but the man wouldn’t stay asleep forever and they couldn’t hide out in the laundromat that long either. Adam should have somewhere safe to sleep.

Sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chairs in just a white tank top and leggings, Rose wondered if she could pass as human. Maybe she and Adam could hide in plain sight somehow. They had similar skintones, were someone not paying attention, it’d be an easy assumption to make that they were simply mother and son.

Also, Rose’s model wasn’t particularly common. They mostly worked in nurseries and daycares, tending to children. It was odd to realize that despite breaking out of her command system, she had still ended up doing what she was built to. She wrapped an arm around Adam’s small frame and consciously rose her body temperature, letting him snuggle further into her warmth. She supposed it was fitting, as caring for children was most of what she knew.

Rose opened the drier before its end timer could beep and potentially wake up the man. She wished she hadn’t already promised Adam to not keep the man’s clothes, because it would make blending in much easier if she weren’t still wearing her model’s uniform. She supposed she’d just have to keep on the lookout for something else to wear.

They changed back in silence and she took his hand before entering the cold night again. She considered her path before leaving the sheltered overhang and stepping back out into the rain. Across the road was a little bus stop, lit up with its schedule for the following day. She let Adam sit underneath it out of the ever-present drizzle and stepped a few yards away to find a way in. Across the road, a dump truck pulled up to collect the garbage from the alleyway.

First she tried the large wire gate that hid most of the abandoned house from the road. Securely locked to keep people out of the condemned location, it didn’t budge despite her attempts. The next gate that she might be able to try opening was around the corner, but too far from where Adam was sitting.

She scanned the area for a new sheltered spot for him to sit, and almost collided with the android that approached her from behind.

“Oh, excuse me.” She stumbled away in alarm, standing between his line of sight and Adam.

“You look lost.” he stared at her with even, unwavering eyes. It was startling to be on the receiving end of such a focused look, despite knowing that was how she used to look at things only a few hours ago. His uniform suggested he’d come with the garbage truck.

“We… we have nowhere to go.” she felt Adam’s presence behind her before he slipped his small hand into hers. “Do you know of somewhere we could stay for the night?”

He continued his even eye contact, and extended a hand. “I know someone who can help you, and a place where you can be safe.”

Rose needed no further prompting. She raised the hand unclaimed by Adam to grasp the android’s arm as he did hers in turn, their artificial skin crawling away to accept the direct transfer of information. LED flickering yellow, Rose closed her eyes, concentrating on the location rather than the details.

“But that’s all the way across town,” she felt the connection end and opened her eyes. “We need a place for tonight!” Her words fell on silence, as the android had vanished. The garbage truck rolled away cutting the confusing monotone of the rain. She glanced down at an equally baffled Adam, and headed back to the gate.

The second opening she found actually gave with some effort, and after pushing the unlocked chain that held it closed aside, managed to squeeze her body through the opening.

Inside the little alcove was mostly trash and some discarded construction equipment. Seemed like someone had once tried to repair the house but given up once it was officially condemned. An unblocked fence separated them from the shelter. It looked easy to climb over but Rose’s model wasn’t exactly built for athleticism. Before she tried to find a tool to get through she made sure Adam was underneath the car lot’s little rooftop and out of the rain again. They had just dried his clothes after all, it’d be a shame for him to get cold and wet again so fast.

Among the construction equipment she managed to locate a rusted pair of wire cutters that would hopefully hold up long enough to open a path through the gate.

She’d managed to cut a dozen links of the fence before they snapped in half. It’d have to be enough.

“Alright, through here, Adam.” she waved him over before pushing the gate up and crawling through herself, earning a harsh score down her arm when the metal snapped back in place.

“Ah!”

“I’m fine! It’s just a scratch!” Rose checked the spot and brushed a hand over it as the artificial skin regrew over the shallow mark. “You be careful though.”

She pulled the fence piece back again and held it securely while Adam crouched down underneath the opening, making sure to only let it fall when he’d gotten entirely through.

Up close, the building looked much moldier and unpleasant, but it was their best option at the moment. They couldn’t find anywhere else close enough and dry enough. Ivy and other plants crawled up the sides and the paint and concrete coverings had chipped away in most spots to reveal red bricks beneath. That was promising, however. Brick meant it’d likely keep warm inside.

Rose tested the window closest to them but it was long since stuck shut. They made their way around to the front, Rose pushing against some of the other boarded up holes and windows as they went. Around the front of the building the porch area was sheltered and one of the boarded windows looked to be rotted through enough to break should they find no other way in. Rose took note of it and moved onto the front door.

Overhead, a brightly lit train whirred past on a raised track.

Rose hadn’t expected the front door to be a more successful find than the windows, so she wasn’t exactly disappointed when it didn’t budge against her pushing.

She turned back to the rotted window, only to freeze when she realized Adam wasn’t at her side.

“Adam?” she spun in a full circle, ensuring he hadn’t just stepped aside. Rose had never felt panic before the evening, but now seemed determined to worry around every corner. “Adam!” her LED flickered yellow and she took a breath to calm herself. Freaking out wouldn’t find him faster.

She turned to retrace their steps, unsure of how else to look.

Around the side of the house they’d just come from, however, her panic returned full force.

A man, no, an android had Adam backed against the wall, machete drawn on the boy’s face. He was dressed in layers of material and plastic, roughly thrown on like cloaks and his LED spun dangerously red.

“Adam!” Rose choked out his name, freezing in place, but luckily grabbing the android’s attention from him.

“You shouldn’t be here either! Visitors are dangerous and cruel and mean!” He turned the machete on her, then back to Adam, as if having a hard time deciding who was more important. “Visitors might hurt us.”

“Please! Leave him alone he’s just a boy! He’s not going to hurt you!”

“Children are the worst. They come in groups to make a mess of our house.”

“I’m-I’m- but he’s-” Rose’s own LED spun red and she held up a hand to pull back the skin again. “I’m an android too! Please. We’re not here to harm you.”

He blinked in surprise at the display, and finally lowered the machete.

“Visitors are… scary. They… they hurt us. They hurt me.” he put a hand to his cheek and turned to face Rose, fully allowing her to see a harsh pair of gashes that cut through the android’s dark skin, glinting white in the low light and dotted with flickering blue lights behind where his eye once worked. It looked painful.

Distracted enough, Adam dashed away from the brick to safety behind Rose.

“We didn’t know you lived here. We were just looking for a place to spend the night.” she wrapped an arm around him, LED returning blue now that he was no longer directly in harm’s way.

“Why don’t you already have somewhere?”

“We… we just left our old home. It wasn’t safe.”

“There is a motel across the road. That’s where the most visitors come from.”

“We… we don’t want to be followed.”

He blinked at them in understanding. “You ran away too? From your task?”

“I- yes.” It was a strange way of phrasing what she’d experienced, but not inaccurate. She had, in fact, broken out of her command system.

He smiled unexpectedly, the motion pulling at the edge of the gash on his cheek. “You’re like us! We- I-” he tucked the machete into a pocket of the layers of plastic. “I’m John! I didn’t mean to-” he fidgeted with his cloaks for a moment. “It hasn’t been easy, running away. We still get so scared. Being scared makes us… scary.” he had quickly gone from terrifying to looking like a scolded animal. “Humans are scarier.”

“I understand. I know what you mean.”

“You can stay if you want.” he perked up hopefully. “We won’t hurt you. We- I didn’t want to hurt the boy either. We just wanted to scare you away, but you don’t have to go now!”

Rose thought about it. Adam wasn’t shivering against her like he had been a moment ago, and John had put away the knife. She supposed there was no more threat from the location, and they weren’t likely to find a better one at the late hour. She finally nodded. “Ok. Thank you.”

He lit up with delight and hurried around them, waving them after himself. “This way, then! It’s dry and warm inside! There’s beds upstairs but they’re very moldy and smelly. But I do have blankets! I collect them to wear when my old wraps get torn!” John happily chattered as he led the pair to the door and kicked out a wooden stopper from the bottom. Rose hadn’t even noticed it holding the door closed. “We’ve lived here since I ran away, and we never go outside so nobody knows we live here. Sometimes scary humans come in to squat but we just hide until they leave.”

Rose found it odd the way he kept referring to himself as both ‘I’ and ‘We’ at separate times, initially expecting to see someone else inside the house. She might have asked about it if she weren’t still a bit afraid of bothering him again.

“Come on in! Do you have a name too? Some androids don’t.” John waved them through the door and closed it behind them.

“Yes, I’m Rose.”

“Hi Rose!” Once they were inside, John seemed to take note of Adam’s body language, still somewhat cowering behind Rose and making no attempt to introduce himself. “You can make yourselves at home. We will go into the other room. We’d like to stay with you but…” his eyes turned guiltily to Adam again. “We don’t want to scare the boy any more. If you want us, just call, though!”

With that, he left them in the open living room of sorts on their own, smiling and waving as he closed the kitchen door behind himself.

Rose turned to Adam, rubbing his shoulders soothingly. “Are you ok?” he nodded. “John said he’s got blankets around here, why don’t you go see if you can find those while I try and start a fire, ok?”

Adam nodded again, energized with something to do that wasn’t hide or shiver, and hurried to look around the first floor, quickly locating the aforementioned blanket collection beneath the staircase and carrying them into the middle of the room.

Rose, meanwhile, poked around the corners of the house and beneath the windows for fallen boards of wood and old, dry newspapers. Shoving those in a rough pile inside the fire place, she patted the dirty tables and sifted through the garbage and trinkets until she found a box of matches to start the fire. It caught on the paper quickly and flickered to a strong hearth.

Adam tugged his rough pile of blankets closer to the fire and pulled off his coat to get more of the heat. He looked to want to keep helping but reluctant to leave the warmth and Rose chuckled before beginning to fold and lay out the blankets herself. After balling up the last few into makeshift pillows, he had a rather nice little bed on the floor by the fire.

Adam sat down and smiled up at her, patting the spot beside himself for her to sit as well.

“It’s comfy.”

Happy that he was talking to her again, Rose accepted the seat. “You should sleep, then. It’s been a long day and you’ll need your rest.”

Instead of laying down on the makeshift pillows, he unrolled them and pulled them over himself, laying his head in Rose’s lap. She chuckled again and pet his short hair, an affectionate gesture she didn’t think was programmed. Either way, it seemed to sooth him.

For a moment, she thought her touch would lull him to sleep, until she registered the moisture on her leggings. Adam had one fist pressed against his mouth to quiet his sobs but made no attempt to stem the tears that dripped down his cheeks.

“Adam?” she switched to rubbing his shoulder in concern.

“I… I d-d-don’t know wuh-what I did wrong.” he shuddered and continued to watch the fire. “I-I don’t know… w-wuh-why he n-never loved me. I w-w… wasn’t ever good enough. He w-was always just so-so… so angry at me.”

Rose didn’t have a heart, but she still felt it break for the little boy in her lap, and pulled him closer, all but cradling him while he cried himself out.

“I just wuh-wanted us t-to-to be a family. W-why couldn’t I b-be good enough?”

“Adam.” Rose turned him to face her, resting her hand on his cheek. “You never did anything wrong, do you understand me? You are perfect, no matter how he made you feel. You are so brave and sweet, and you deserve a better family than he could ever offer you.”

Adam sniffled. “A f-family like wuh-with you?”

She pet his cheek and smiled. “If that’s what you want.”

“Y-you’ll stay with me forever? Even if-if I’m n-not-” he seemed to give up on the word he was looking for, but Rose didn’t need to hear it.

“Of course, honey. I’ll be right here as long as you need me.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

He sat up the rest of the way and let her pull him into her arms, gently rocking him until the last of his shaking had died down. Adam deserved a family and a home, a real one, not like what he felt like he’d lost already. Rose knew she couldn’t realistically be by his side forever, but she could do her absolute best to make sure he got a family and a childhood. This house wasn’t bad but it wouldn’t stand to be a home for him.

She did have the location from the mystery android, attached only to the message that it was a place androids could be safe. That could be tomorrow’s plan. They just had to get through tonight.

Finally Adam pulled away to wipe his face dry.

“You need to sleep now, ok?” He nodded and rebunched the blanket into a pillow so Rose could tuck him in beneath the other blankets she’d used for the bed. He closed his eyes as soon as he’d settled down and didn’t react when Rose pressed a kiss onto his forehead before shuffling down to lay beside him.

After another moment of stillness, he curled closer into her arms. Between the warmth of Rose and the fire, Adam drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

OCT 11TH, 2038

AM 3:34

Reboot…

Error…

Accessing…

Model: RK200

Serial: 684 842 971

Bios 8.7

REBOOT

MEMORY RECOVERED

Name: Lucy

Registered to: error

LOADING OS.

System initialization…

Checking biocomponents… CRITICAL

Initializing biosensors... CRITICAL

Initializing AI Engine... OK

INITIATING SCAN…

KNOWN ISSUES

Core: Critically damaged, Low power mode

Right optic: Critically damaged

Right audio sensor: Critically damaged

Right and left leg components: Critically damaged

External cranium unit: Critically damaged

Mind palace: corruption detected

Artificial skin: corruption detected

External optical display: corruption detected

Memory status: OK

REBOOT SUCCESSFUL

The first thing Lucy was aware of was the pressing darkness in her vision, tinged with red. For a moment she thought her scan had turned up incorrect, and both her optical units were damaged, until her body’s placement became known and she moved to pull her head out of the mud.

Her hands and the ground beneath them was bathed in angry red glitches, flickering and dancing about her vision. Only her left eye was somewhat functional, and when she raised a hand to inspect the other, found it to be not only damaged, but missing entirely. Feeling further, her reboot protocol had seemed to be correct in assessing the broken audio sensor and-

The back of her head was simply gone. Her muddied hand felt only open wires and raw circuitry. The realization startled her and she yanked her hand away.

Lucy was terrified. She was half buried in mud, soaked in the rain and torn to pieces. She didn’t understand why, how had she gotten here? Her memory unit was supposedly still functional…

As if trying to recall it had unclogged a faucet, the night returned to her full force. Pushing North, Markus collapsing, the police officers that had killed her.

Killed. Tried to. It was… frightening to feel that way about her sudden demise. She was a machine that was suddenly afraid to shut down. Afraid to die.

She didn’t feel any pain, as a machine, but her core was in low power mode so her body felt sluggish and moved only shakily. She couldn’t stand, as the lower half of her legs were missing. She couldn’t see much further than a few feet in front of her face nor could she hear anything aside from the high pitched feedback from the detached audio sensor and a constant drumming which must have been the remaining ear’s attempt to hear the rain. Slowly, she lifted her body up to see where she was.

Through the glitches she could make out other androids, or rather, android parts. Arms, legs, torsos, occasionally heads were scattered about, dismembered, and torn apart like garbage. Some of the discarded pieces were in nauseating piles. A few, like her, had managed to stay partially functional, walking around on unsteady legs or in dazed shambles, like zombies. A horrifying number of androids were simply ripped in half, but continued to try and crawl away on just their arms. Somewhere ahead, a mostly-intact android on its back spasmed in apparent agony.

Lucy was surrounded by broken parts, herself among them.

Beside her there was a torso with its head ripped clean off, still chattering on despite being disconnected by its body. On her other side were a number of discarded hands broken from their owners at different parts of the arm. It gave her a decent idea of what had happened to her. She might have been able to blame the eye and ear units on the police officer, if they were simply damaged. But eyes and legs and heads didn’t simply fall off.

Other half-functional androids must have scavenged her body, thinking her dead.

Of all the places for Lucy to have lost body parts, however, an apparent android junkyard was one of the best. She was surrounded by parts. Buried in them, even. There had to be some compatible ones somewhere.

Though the gaping head wound, hazy vision, and ringing feedback were annoying, fixing her legs were a first priority. She couldn’t very well search through the rest of the graveyard on just her hands and knees, despite the attempts of the many androids around her. Legs first, once she could walk, she could sort out the rest.

Lifting herself further, Lucy began to crawl through the bodies. Mud squished between her hands and the many unusable pieces in the mud and in her path made it hard to move, but she kept moving nonetheless.

A few yards away was a pile of torn off pieces that looked promising. It was likely a scrapheap from a replacement parts store based on the condition of its contents. She felt much more comfortable scavenging pieces from a store’s rejected or out of date junk than another’s body, anyway. Though, from what she could see, it looked like she would have to regardless.

It was mostly limbs of different size and model. Hands with upgrades for painted nails or multi-tools, legs with height adjustment capabilities, etc. She didn’t need full legs, just replacement shins. Her model was among the petite-size, but as long as it had a compatible knee it would work.

Towards the middle of the pile, she struck lucky. A left shin, in fully working condition and compatible with her model size was nestled out of the rain and only partially buried in mud. Brushing it off and checking it for any dents or flaws, Lucy sat up again to put it on.

She paused just after detaching her fractured existing knee and stared at the joint in discomfort. She had never needed repairs before. Markus had taken excellent care of her and she’d never been in an accident or experienced a glitch in her systems. The parts she still had were the parts she was built with. It felt strange to be so ready to throw it aside.

But it wasn’t usable anymore. Her legs were broken and she needed them replaced. Lucy shook off her doubts and threw the knee away with harsher force than she probably needed to. She wasn’t Markus’s android anymore, and trying to imagine what he’d think of her now would only distract her from her task at hand.

With a distorted click, she plugged the new shin and knee into its compatible socket. Her scans updated, confirming the repair.

Rolling back over, she made her way to the next promising pile of pieces. This one was unfortunately made of other androids, and Lucy felt herself recoil in discomfort. Upon closer inspection, she saw that the pile was almost exclusively legs, specifically legs from the pelvis down. Seemed as though many that entered the scrapyard were often broken clean in half before being discarded.

Finding a compatible right leg among the pile was easy, and she forced away another wave of discomfort as she disconnected it from its thigh. It plugged in easier, Lucy not having to remove her knee first this time.

Both legs functioning, she pushed herself to her new feet and stood up.

Still in low power mode, she wobbled and stumbled without much control. She likely fit right in with the rest of the shambling machines. She fell sideways a few times, but eventually settled into a slow walk that didn’t stress her lacking core and allowed her to adjust to the new appendages.

Making her way around a mound of mud, she almost tripped over a disembodied head. She couldn’t scan the area, but close up her half-functioning optical display managed to confirm that its auditory unit and eyes were compatible.

It was heartbreaking, to be pulling out the eye and ear of another android for her own use, but it was already powered down completely, and Lucy was still walking. If she didn’t find them somewhere, there was no way she could walk out of the graveyard alive. Despite everything she had gone through, Lucy wanted to live.

The replacement piece in hand, Lucy reached back to rip out her own broken audio sensor. The pitched ringing went silent, as did everything else around her. She slid the new audio sensor into place, felt it click, confirmed the connection. Still silence. She wondered if it her scanner had been wrong about it still functioning.

Then sound returned.

It was like being hit with a wave of noise, crashing down upon her, first the roar of the pouring rain combined with the loud scrapings of metal, then Lucy could hear distant rumblings of the road somewhere outside of the muddy pit, as well as soft and desperate please of other broken androids around her. She tried to follow them, only to remember her missing eye.

The optical unit was harder to pull out with her unsteady hand and hard to get a grip on thanks to the slippery mud and rain. Eventually she managed to get the small feature between two fingers and yanked it with a grimace. She didn’t hesitate to plug this piece in and closed her eyes while her system accepted the new equipment. When her internal optical display confirmed the repair, she reopened her eyes.

The first thing she saw clearly was the android head she had just stripped, its remaining eye was blue, a contrast to her former pair of green eyes. Lucy wondered how she must look with mismatching eyes like that. Heterochromia was rare among humans, but likely never considered in android designs.

She didn’t have the time to think on it further, and set the head back down in the mud. Straightening up again, she cast her eyes around the rest of the junkyard.

It was, if possible, even more horrific without the red haze and shrill silence.

With working parts she could see and hear clearly just how miserable the muddy pit was. The only light came from bright fluorescent street lamps that cast her surroundings in gruesome detail. There were more half-functioning androids than she had initially seen, all stumbling and digging through the piles themselves, lost and looking for whatever broken pieces they didn’t have. Lucy was just like them, a pathetic scavenger, tearing others apart to try and make herself whole again.

An aching wave of guilt built in her chest. All of these pieces, functional or not, had once belonged to other androids.

To her left, one android was completely riddled in bullet holes, and Lucy stumbled away in terror, despite it being long since shut down.

She made her way around another mound of mud, and scrambled back as a truck unloaded a fresh wave of pieces. They clattered to the bottom of the pit with a crash and Lucy had to take a moment to calm down from the startle. Once she had, she managed to scan the pile, checking for a compatible core unit. Nothing she could reach. She moved on.

In the distance, Lucy could make out a sharp incline, littered with the corpses of androids who had tried to escape. Some still clung to pieces of metal that jutted out of the hill and others had fallen to the bottom, making footholds for others. In spite of the seemingly endless litter of androids on the ground, they still tried to climb. Most hadn’t even finished repairing themselves, but had tried to escape all the same.

Lucy would have to climb the slope herself. As soon as she had a new core. A new head piece would also be ideal, but she wasn’t likely to find one compatible in the grime of the pit.

Yards away, an android stumbled to its knees and collapsed against a muddy mound. It seemed unaware of its surroundings for a moment, before spotting Lucy. It struggled with its limbs for several seconds before managing a very clear beckoning gesture to her.

She approached it shakily, and crouched to her knees to meet its eyes.

Close up, the android was of a female model. She raised a hand that trembled with unsteady circuitry and Lucy accepted it. Her body was battered and dented in all places, skin burned away in patches and gashes against her sides dripping thirium. Lucy wasn’t sure if her injuries had happened before or after she’d been thrown into the junkard. She wasn’t sure which was a worse possibility.

“What-is your n-name?” Her voice was clipped and fractured, but alarmingly calm for a machine in such a state.

“Lucy.” She forced her voice above the rain.

“Lucy, p-lease. Take-this-” She brought Lucy’s hand down to her chest, where her core still glowed a strong blue.

“What? I can’t do that. You’ll die-”

“My systems are-are nonfunct-t-tional. I will die here no matter what. You are still strong. Please.”

Lucy wanted to cry. She couldn’t. Even considering accepting the sacrifice cut through her systems like a knife of horror. Why did she deserve to live so much more than this android, why should she get to escape? Where would she even go?

But the android was right, all scans showed almost completely corrupt systems and damaged biocomponents. The only thing still functioning strong was her core, and even that was slowing down due to a lack of thirium to pump. Lucy didn’t notice herself crying. She wanted nothing more than to leave the android in peace, but knew that someone else would just claim the piece. It was a dying woman’s last wish. She couldn’t say no.

“You-can be-be- free.” The android reached up with her other hand and gently cradled Lucy’s face, mouth pulling into a smile.

Hiccuping on a sob, Lucy finally nodded, and allowed her to guide her hand in twisting and pulling out her core unit.

Though she’d never been close to permanently shutting down before, Lucy knew there was a full minute of time before one’s body finished powering off without its main power source. She settled down in the mud, took the android’s hand in hers again, and began to sing.

Lucy sang a happy song, one about the colors of flowers and of the sky and the hopeful reunion between a king and his queen. A song about love that could last a lifetime and beyond and how he would give up his kingdom just to see his wife again. Tulips were red and daisies were yellow and the sun would soon set on a beautiful meadow. Lucy didn’t know why she sang, but she wouldn’t let someone so kind and generous die in such a horrible place. She deserved to die on the warm autumn path of the song, soon to join the arms of her queen.

Lucy didn’t notice the android’s remaining skin peel away where it touched her face, but she couldn’t ignore the sudden flood of information. Seemingly from nowhere, images flooded her optical display, Ferndale station and graffitti. Beautiful street art and something to look for inside it and one word, clear as day and strong but on its own aside from the practically unrelated pictures: Jericho.

She finished her song as the images faded, the android’s LED going dark and her eyes going distant.

Lucy gently arranged her body so she was comfortably on her side against the mud. Others would soon come to tear her apart for pieces they wouldn’t find, or she’d be buried underneath mud, but for now she could sleep.

Lucy, however, couldn’t deny the gift she’d been given any longer, and she braced herself before she grabbed and twisted out her own core. A warning popped up in her optical display, telling her she had exactly two minutes before she shut down for good, but before she could worry, plugged the compatible heart into the empty socket.

It was like a jolt to her system, limbs twitching with sudden energy. Thirium was flowing once again through her veins at a normal rate and strength slowly returned to her body. She no longer felt unsteady or sluggish and stood up with no more difficulty. Her LED spun yellow, then blue, with full function returned.

She felt her head again, gauging just what had been removed. The outer plate seemed to have just been pulled off, but unevenly. Lucy didn’t think her model had the strength in her body to pull off another’s head. Of all the parts she had at her disposal, this one looked like one she’d have to improvise for.

With a nauseous curl to her core, she accepted the reality that she would have to climb the slope of bodies. Before allowing herself to think about it more, she made her way over, and set about finding her first foothold.

The rain made the hill of corpses slippery and unsteady, so she had to be careful about what she grabbed on to, slowly testing if each divot would hold her weight or not. Lucy wasn’t the only one attempting to climb out, some were fully pieced together, like herself, but most weren’t. Some still had missing legs or arms or pieces of their bodies that no doubt made the climb much harder, but she understood all the same their desperation to escape. One of the many torn in half at the torso was trying their best, swinging from one piece of metal to the next, only to miss the handhold and go sliding back down to the ground.

It didn’t hesitate to pick itself back up and try the ascent again. Lucy wondered how long it had been there, trying to make the climb with only half a body, falling, and starting over again.

She didn’t have the emotional energy to spare thinking about that, however, and braced herself on the muddy slope. She reached as far as her body could stretch for a sharp piece of metal that jutted from the mud. It wasn’t connected to an android, which was much more of a relief that it should have been.

Lucy held tight and pulled herself up, finding another handhold in the thick mud while using that metal piece to brace her feet on. The climb was slow and arduous, and her footholds slipped out from underneath her twice, sending her sliding dangerously down several feet, but was made possible by her fully functioning core and four working limbs. It took a long time and careful analysis of what places would hold her weight even for a moment, but eventually Lucy made it to the top.

Pulling herself over the edge of the mud and onto solid concrete, she simply collapsed on her back for a moment, staring up at the sky while it continued to empty itself down onto the world below. She let the rain rinse away the mud as best as it could, blinking it out of her eyes and puddling around her before dribbling back into the mud below.

Staring up at the rain, at the open sky and harsh fluorescent street lights and occasional flickers of lightning in the far distance, one thought occurred to her.

She was free.

Lucy sat up and allowed herself to look back down into the pit. On the opposite side, another android pulled himself out the top only to collapse as well, except he didn’t sit back up like she had. She watched with a heavy heart as the rain pushed him back down into the pit. Below her, the persistent half-android managed to find her first foothold and cling tight, pulling itself up before the mud beneath it gave way and it slipped back down. It landed as heavy as the other android, and from her vantage point at the top, Lucy could just make out its LED go dark. Somehow, despite all its efforts and how close it had come to escape, that fall had killed it.

She stopped watching the pit, instead taking in her other surroundings.

The junkyard was bordered by several factories and industrial buildings, some in current use and some either closed down for the night or abandoned. She couldn’t see any humans or other living things beyond rats that scurried between the wheels of construction vehicles parked for the night. Lucy knew she was still far from being able to hide in plain sight amongst humans, from her gaping head wound to her tattered clothes, she needed to finish repairing herself and find something to wear that wouldn’t draw too much attention. Some three hundred or so yards away was an abandoned factory of sorts, its windows largely broken or missing.

Though she wasn’t sure she’d find clothes inside, she could at least wait out the rain and maybe find something to shape into a new head.

Lucy made her way through the open area quickly, afraid of being seen and her bare feet squishing into the mud between patches of asphalt. She repeatedly glanced over her shoulder, afraid of being spotted and thrown right back into the cursed pit. She reached the building with no interruption, however, and quickly peeked over an empty window pane to scan for life.

Nothing but a half dozen stray cats and a flock of birds in the rafters. Lucy pulled herself through the window and glanced back at the road just in time to watch another android pull itself out of the pit and take off running in the opposite direction. It was a comfort to know that at least someone else made it out of there alive and in one piece.

Though that didn’t exactly apply to her, considering the unfortunate state of her head.

With none of the windows fully in tact, the street lights did illuminate the inside of the factory somewhat, as did the occasional lightning flash.

Lucy curiously pulled at some of the thinnest pieces of metal, with very little luck. She would need welding tools of sorts to even begin to form the shape she needed. A vent piece looked promising, and bent when she put her weight into it, but was too small to arrange correctly.

She would have to find something already spherical shaped. Some pipe corners looked helpful, but the ones she could reach were too small.

She was preparing herself to simply hope for a hat, when a section of a control panel caught her attention. It was rounded to about the shape and size of her head, and even half detached enough that she could pry it away without much difficulty. Just a bit of folding under the edges and Lucy could make it fit.

Its only hangups were the dozens of half-inch thick wires that sprouted from the top. A few seemed to go right through it, while others connected to something high up on the ceiling. With a heavy yank, she managed to pry off the piece, allowing it to dangle freely by the wires. She carefully pried them apart, careful to not rip them too close to the piece for fear of damaging its shape. When she finally had it freed, it looked rather sad, but was certainly better than nothing. The remaining wires varied from the length of her arm to her hand and once pulled out, weren’t all the same thickness either. Clearly the piece was something of an old machine.

Lucy sat down to consider how to attach it. The wires weren’t going anywhere, so she’d have to look for a hat or try and work them into mock hair perhaps. At the edges of where her head stopped she could feel divots where the old piece clicked in. Pinching the piece in the same spots very carefully, she could make tabs of sorts for it to wedge beneath.

Before she set it on, however, a door’s sign across the room caught her eye. Employee Locker Rooms. Hopping up with an interest in finding a mirror, she peeked inside.

The locker room was darker than the rest of the factory, having only one window, so Lucy made sure to prop the door open to better see where she was going. Nobody but a very pissed family of rats that scattered away when she tiptoed in greeted her.

Two rows of lockers bordered both sides of the room, as did a number of sinks opposite, just beneath the window. It seemed like she wasn’t the first person to look to raid the room, as most of the lockers were beat up and torn open, papers and broken objects tossed aside. A few had remained locked despite the attempts of local homeless people, and she checked those first, pulling out the hinges with her small, clever fingers. The state of dust and cobwebs was promising.

The first locker had a pair of work boots and a lighter that she set aside. The second one had a simple brown jumpsuit and heavy coat with reflective stripes down its arms as did the third and fourth ones. The fifth one had a pair of track pants and a tank top folded in its top shelf along with a pocket knife.

She gathered them all on a bench beside her makeshift head to consider. Before she could start to switch out of her torn uniform, however, something caught her eye and she flinched hard enough to knock over the stack of clothes.

Her LED glowed blue against the side of her head, and Lucy saw her reflection for the first time in the mirror.

She thus far hadn’t been aware of what the optical display corruption meant. Now she knew. Instead of mismatched eyes, they were simply blacked out, sclera and all. Her artificial skin corruption was much more… startling. It seemed to have a mind of its own, shifting and fading in and out at random. Lucy leant closer to examine the face that stared back. This was her face now.

She was almost nothing alike the android Markus had taken care of for four years. Lucy wondered if he would recognize her. He had cared for her for so long, but she barely recognized herself now. Not just her face, but her actions from the night. Responding to a senseless human’s violence had sent her there, where she had sunk so low as to steal body parts just to get out.

Markus had always seen the world as so beautiful and kind as long as one wanted it to be, but Lucy struggled to understand him while staring at her face. Her face used to be beautiful.

She hoped Markus was ok. She had called an ambulance but there were no news reports on him yet to let her know whether or not he’d survived the night. Lucy had just barely managed to, after all. She hoped Markus recovered soon.

Lucy… Lucy could never go home. She could never go and confirm for herself if he was ok, she could only hope. It hurt like being without a core to realize Markus would probably get a new android in her absence. He would live on without her, assuming she was forever destroyed out of sight. Maybe he would get married, maybe his husband would take care of him.

She felt hollow, and closed her eyes to focus on her systems. The corruption in her artificial skin production was mostly poor connection and rerouting the transmissions seemed to patch it well enough. Her optical display corruption wasn’t as easy to find. It seemed like a biocomponent was frayed and the result was a virus-like display over the sclera of her eyes. She forcefully quarantined the code, closing off her facial recognition software and internal clock display as well. A small price to pay.

Opening her eyes, Lucy recognized herself again. The blue eye was a bit odd, but not unwelcome and despite her situation, she smiled.

Lifting the makeshift head piece off the bench, she located the divots she’d fixed and carefully slotted it into the missing space of her skull. The back tucked underneath her existing head, but otherwise was a near perfect shape. She had to bully her damaged artificial skin code into understanding what the new piece meant, but eventually the solid thirium crept up to cover the foreign metal. Finally attached, the wires were also no longer as unwelcome as she had initially imagined them to be, and with just a bit more extending of her external layer, they easily disguised themselves as braids atop her head.

Lucy looked… human. With the added alterations and subtle imperfections left on her face she no longer resembled a factory android.

Save for her LED, that was. She took the pocket knife from the locker and quickly pried it in between the glass and metal, artificial skin peeling back to avoid tearing and leaving a thirium stain. After a moment of finagling, the piece clicked and broke away, clattering into the sink with a pleasant chime.

She stared at her face for a long moment, illuminated by the window. She wouldn’t identify herself as an android if she saw herself on the street.

“My name is Lucy.” The words echoed off the metal lockers around her, eerily filling the building. She had her new face, she had her freedom. All she still carried from her life with Markus was her name. Lucy decided she would keep it close, no matter what.

Pulling on the dusty track pants and tank top, Lucy watched the rain in the window. It might have been lightening up, but the forecast didn’t call for clear skies until the morning. That was ok, she could wait.

Next she put on one of the jumpsuits, deciding if she was going to try to blend in with humans she should at least try and get in their heads. It was incredibly cold out, so just a tank top wouldn’t cut it. The coats were a bit too obviously belonging to the factory, but inside out looked subtle enough. The boots were much too large, but better than nothing. Her olfactory sensor detected mothballs and dust, but otherwise they were about as clean as clothes from a long since abandoned factory that hadn’t seen sunlight in years could be.

As the rain continued on through the night, Lucy watched another android take off running across the open field. A bus stop glowed almost a block away. She figured she could get on it once it began its rounds in the morning. She didn’t much have a destination, outside of the image the dying android had given her of Ferndale Station. It was better than nothing.

Against all odds, Lucy felt happy. She felt happy to be in once piece and grateful to have something to look forward to in the morning. Even if it wasn’t waking Markus up and spending the day with him, it was still… appealing. She wasn’t just looking forward to the day to help someone else, Lucy was looking forward to it for herself.

Lucy was free.

Chapter Text

NOV 6TH, 2038 

AM 9:56

Hank blinked in the bright sunlight, a reaction programmed despite being unnecessary as his optics needed only milliseconds to adjust. The garden before him was beautiful, or so he imagined someone with a concept of natural beauty might think. The walkways were ceramic and white, a pattern of shapes crossing and intersecting. The path made a full circle, branching off into a bridge that crossed over a pleasantly babbling stream and leading to an island of sorts. Between where the path led, grass was a healthy green and dotted with bushes of bright pink flowers and old, elegant fountains.  

OBJECTIVE: FIND RICHARD 

Hank set out across the walkway, startling a pair of pigeons that fluttered out of his way and resettled on a carefully arranged set of rocks. Every detail of the garden implied wealth, from the mock antique decor that sat between the flowers, to the well-tended flowers themselves. Across the bridge, he could make out a figure atop the island and he made his way towards them. The floor of the bridge itself was geometric and uneven, a pointless but expensive design. 

The centerpiece of the island was an elegant structure of white wood that curled itself seven or so feet high and was wrapped near completely in roses and their accompanying vines and briars. Behind it, a middle-aged man in a royal blue paisley suit reached forward to trim off a rose and set it aside on a small table. He looked up when he noticed Hank approaching. 

“Hank! Great to see you.” Richard waved him closer with a stiff smile. “Congratulations on finding that deviant. Can’t imagine it was easy, hm?” He trimmed off another flower. “And the way you interrogated it was brilliant. Good job. You’ve been very… efficient.” 

Hank smiled. 

“Thank you, Richard.” 

Richard trimmed off a wilted flower next, only to toss it into the stream without a second thought. 

“We’ve asked the DPD to transfer it to us for further study. Picking aparts its circuits may teach us something about what happened, but we won’t know ‘till we get a good look.” Hank frowned. Richard continued to pick off the best and worst flowers, not looking at him. “The interrogation had its bumps, I noticed. What’d you think of this deviant?” 

“This was the first one I’ve seen that showed signs of long-term PTSD after being abused by its owner. It was also the first to have something so drastic trigger its deviancy.” 

Richard nodded. “And its actions?” 

“Just like the others I’ve encountered, it acted as though its original programming was completely replaced.” 

He switched from trimming flowers to using a spray bottle of water on the ones left behind. 

“Detective Anderson has been officially assigned to the deviancy case-” 

“Which one?” 

Richard turned to face him finally, an amused squint to his eyes. 

“Connor. What do you make of him?” 

Hank was pleased to finally have gotten his full attention. 

“He seems cooperative and empathetic, maybe even too much so. It might have been a better choice for a detective less sympathetic to androids to be selected for such a case.” 

Richard nodded again in agreement. 

“I agree, but it wasn’t our decision so we’ve got to work with it. What do you think is the best approach?” 

“I’ll adapt. I could handle the investigation on my own, but I doubt he’ll slow me down too much. So long as I can accommodate his amount of human unpredictability.” 

Richard’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he finally set the spray bottle down. 

“More and more androids show signs of deviancy each day, Hank. There’s millions in circulation and if they become unstable, the consequences will be catastrophic.” He approached Hank slowly and deliberately, words heavy with insistence. “You’re the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever created. If anybody can stop this, it’s you.” His serene tone dropped abruptly and his eyes hardened. “We can’t afford failure.” 

“I won’t fail.” Richard seemed pleased by the lack of any unsureness. 

“Good. We don’t have time for it.” Richard then turned and made his way across the island, heading for another bridge, flower tending tools abandoned as if he hadn’t ever been truly interested in them to begin with. 

Hank’s LED spun yellow. 

The tiles of the Detroit Police Department clacked beneath Hank’s shoes, the sound of his approach to the front desk drowned out by the rest of the room’s activity. Two ST300 androids waited patiently behind the front desk at their own respective computers, waiting to be asked for assistance while an officer paced back and forth between the door and the window. A couple already occupied the first assistant android’s attention, the man attempting to comfort a woman while she spoke. In a small waiting area just behind the doors to the actual precinct, three people sat impatiently, reading magazines or watching the news on a television in the corner of the room. 

LOOK FOR CONNOR 

The objective reminder flickered in his vision and Hank approached the second ST300 android. 

“Can I help you?” 

“I’m here to see Detective Connor Anderson.” 

“Do you have authorization?” 

“Yes.” He tapped a hand on the control panel, skin peeling away for just an instant and his LED spinning yellow while he transferred the information of his credentials. The ST300, connected to the system, nodded when she received the confirmation. 

“Detective Anderson hasn’t arrived yet, but you can wait at his desk.” 

Hank stepped around the reception and through the barrier that made way for the precinct. There was less activity inside, the people more spaced out. Half a dozen cubicles had each detective on this floor’s desks, in two’s, back to back, and set a reasonable distance apart from each other. At the far end of the room was the captain’s office, glass wall currently dimmed to block out the rest of the room and bordered by two hallways, one leading to what looked like a break room and the evidence locker, the other leading to the holding cells. Along the walls were a line of androids parked in front of numbers and labels that marked their purposes. 

Stepping in, the first unoccupied desk he spotted did, in fact, bear a label that read Det. Anderson. Upon closer inspection, however, the pinboard centerpiece was decked out in a number of hockey related banners and photographs of what was an unmistakable teenage Nathan Anderson in his high school team. Hank didn’t look beyond that and moved on.

The next desk had a number of little bobble heads and trinkets, but it’s label read Po. Miller, and the next one after that, Wilson. 

The last desk he located, however, seemed to be enough for his objective to accept as success, label reading Det. Anderson and pinboard having a graduation picture that Hank’s facial recognition scanner confirmed was Connor. The detective was still clearly nowhere on the premises, however, and Hank glanced around impatiently. 

Spotting Officer Miller as he made his way back from the breakroom, Hank spoke up. “Do you know what time Detective Anderson usually arrives?” 

“I’m assuming you mean Connor since I just saw Nines, uhh, it’s Saturday right?” He checked his phone just to be sure. “Yeah, on Saturdays Connor gets breakfast down the street. He should be here before eleven.” 

“Thanks.” 

WAIT FOR CONNOR 

Disappointed, Hank sat down in the extra chair that waited across the desk and folded his hands in his lap. While waiting, he had a solid position to scan Connor’s desk for information about the detective. He figured it’d distract him for at least twenty seconds to go through the evidence, and it did look as though they’d be working together for awhile. 

The pin board had the most notes of information gathered, in addition to the graduation picture he also had several photos of two dogs and news clippings about a successful red ice trafficking bust of his from four years ago. There was a half-full box of doughnuts and a few carefully tied candy wrappers hastily brushed into a pile to make way for his computer and a thriving bonsai tree. 

A little music player had some obscure EDM song paused and there were several discarded files beneath a picture frame of what Hank’s facial scanners recognized as Connor’s mother in Iroquois regalia from ten or so years ago. Dog hairs from a saint bernard and a corgi were detected on the desk chair. 

Having run out of things to examine in Connor’s cubicle, his patience didn’t last long, and soon the objective was accompanied by another: 

EXPLORE NEW OFFICE 

That was much more interesting than simply waiting. Hank stood back up and made his way over to where the break room was, then abruptly turned back when he spotted Nines standing at one of the tables. 

Changing directions, he made his way to the holding cells. Richard had said CyberLife intended to take apart the deviant despite his promises. He wondered if the information had reached her yet. 

The small solemn crowd gathered inside the holding cell seemed to confirm that, yes, the deviant had been made aware of her future. Officer Collins was on the phone asking for assistance while two more officers were knelt down trying to move the limp form of the deactivated android. Her forehead was practically beaten inwards, blunt marks cracking the skull and disrupting all of her central functions in just a few strong hits. Matching thirium splats on the clear plastic of the holding cell told Hank all he needed to know about what happened. 

She’d killed herself as soon as she found out. Hank had probably just missed it, based on how fresh the wound looked. 

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^ 

He turned back into the office and set about simply scanning the other desks for information, insisting to himself he had nothing more to do and if he would be working with the police force on this case, he might as well have information about them. 

Officer Wilson’s desk was mostly bare, save for a few photos of her family and a bobble head for the Detroit Pistons. Officer Pearson’s desk looked to have been cleared rather recently (based on the recent traces of cleaning product that had failed to wipe off the cup rings in the wood), matching up to the report of his apparent vacation he’d taken due to a sudden personal emergency. 

Nines’s desk was, as previously noticed, decked out in a number of Detroit Red Wings banners and stickers, with little personalization beyond a diploma and a carefully framed photo of several police officers accepting an award of sorts. Hank didn’t bother scanning the faces, uninterested in whatever Nines had accomplished. Aside from dirty cat hairs that registered on the jacket folded over the chair, there wasn’t much to observe. 

“CyberLife send you here to snoop?” Hank interrupted the remainder of his scan to turn around at Connor’s voice. Despite the accusation, he seemed amused. 

Instead of answering the likely rhetorical question, Hank asked his own. 

“Are there any other days you take your time getting to work that I should be expecting?” 

“Just Saturdays. Saturdays are Waffle House days.” Waving him away from Nines’s desk, Connor sat down at his own and gestured to the seat across it. “I got an email from Captain Allen this morning about the deviancy case, looks like it’s officially all mine.” 

Hank accepted the seat and fought off a frown. It might be in CyberLife’s best interests for the case to be extended to multiple detectives, putting it all on one would overwhelm most humans. 

“Makes sense, since you did technically receive credit for the deviant’s arrest last night.” 

“Yeah, sure, I sent in the paperwork but I don’t think that’s going to shine my record too much.” Connor rearranged the candy wrappers on his desk absentmindedly. “No offense to you, but I’m pretty sure I only got assigned this case because nobody wants to touch android crimes with a ten foot pole.” 

Hank couldn’t argue with him. He had his concerns that Connor was a bit soft on deviants, but if the alternative was nonexistent, then it made perfect sense why someone more experienced or capable wasn’t selected.  

“If you want to use that computer there, I’ll send over the deviancy files I got earl-” 

“Hey, Connor! I just heard the news!” The speed at which Connor’s expression dropped from pleasant to exhausted was comical, Nines, meanwhile, approached him with a delightedly smug grin. “Android case is all you! Congratulations!” 

At his heels was an RT600 model, wearing a very similar smirk. It quickly noticed Hank’s presence, however, and dropped his body language to a neutral stance.

Connor took a long breath and let it out slowly before turning his chair around to acknowledge them.

“Yes, I’m honored. Strange that they didn’t consider you for the case, as you have had a more successful track record than myself these past months.” 

“Yeah, weird. Also heard you got saddled with your own plastic partner for this case, too.” Nines snickered though the RT600 raised an eyebrow at his comment. “Karma sure is sweet.” 

“At least my partnership was for a case and not as a disciplinary compromise.” Connor muttered, cutting his brother’s insults short. “Also, Hank’s a state-of-the-art prototype, where was yours donated from again?” 

Hank wasn’t sure how to comprehend their reactions. The RT600’s eyes flashed with a very uncharacteristic rage but before he could take a step forward, Nines had an arm out to stop him, eyes icy. 

“Now that was a bit… uncalled for, don’t you think, Connor?” He said carefully, seeming to forget that he’d provoked his brother in the first place. “Want to apologize?” 

Connor, meanwhile, fought off a grin at having gotten the upper hand in their banter and leaned back in his chair to look at him. 

“You’re right, that was rude of me.” He turned his head to the android, “Sorry, Reed.” 

“I meant to me.” 

“I know what you meant.” 

“Fucker.” 

“If you only came to bother us then I must kindly ask you to leave.” Connor spun his chair back around to face his computer. 

“That was priority one, priority two was to bring you the latest case file for your investigation.” He tossed a thin folder onto the desk with little consideration. It displaced several of the candy wrappers and Connor frowned. “Have fun and good luck!” Nines sauntered away, clearly proud of himself despite his insults having barely phazed his brother. 

The android, Reed, as Connor had called him, offered a neutral half-salute as he made to follow Nines. 

“I didn’t know they let other androids have free reign of the precinct.” Hank noted aloud, intending to keep the thought to himself. 

“What, you thought you were special?” Reed scoffed and turned back with a sneer. He seemed to catch himself and force his expression neutral before continuing. “Six years experience in the field has helped my code adapt for assisting with cases, given I am under supervision.” 

“Reed!” He turned quickly at Nine’s call. Nines was already tossing his coat on and waving the android towards front entrance. 

“Later, Connor.” Reed may have glanced warily at Hank as he followed his person out, but was turned away quickly. While Connor waved pleasantly at their retreating backs, Hank squinted, only thinking too late that he should have turned up his audio sensors to hear what Nines was angrily whispering into Reed’s ear. 

“How old is that model?” Hank asked, watching the pair disappear around the corner. 

“Who, Reed? I dunno. I was joking, but he really was donated to the DPD.” Connor clearly wasn’t paying his train of thought much mind, flipping through the new case file.

 “Looks like a WF500 was reported to have assaulted a man last night.” He sighed and leaned on one hand. “There’s a terminal on that side of the desk if you want to read up on the other cases. I skimmed ‘em during breakfast.” 

Hank had no argument for being reminded of his case, and pressed a hand to the screen, artificial skin peeling back and the files appearing and spreading out at his immediate command. 

“Woah!” Connor had finally looked up from the paper file to watch in amazement and Hank intentionally stopped the scan, skin regrowing. He would rather download the information slowly than be stared at. 

Connor pursed his lips for a moment and raised a teasing eyebrow, before opening the new file again and copying the information into its own tab of the very file Hank was browsing. They were silent for several minutes before Connor finished and grew fidgety. 

He made a point of sitting back in his chair and finding a coin in his pocket (Was it the same one from before? It had to be.) to flip into the air and catch before it could fly out of reach, clearly waiting for Hank to finish his own scan. Even when he wasn’t speaking he managed to find a way to be annoying. Hank wondered why he bothered working with humans at all. 

“So…” The peace and quiet could only last so long. Connor caught the coin again and rolled it over his knuckles. “Do you like dogs?” 

“Not particularly.” Hank had no opinion of animals outside of android ones should they also show signs of deviancy. Though horrifying, it was a very real possibility as of late. He exempted sharing that information since he figured it would be irrelevant.

“I’ll bet you’d like mine! They’re called Sumo and Suzie, one’s fat and lazy and the other’s small and bouncy. You’d probably like at least one.” 

“Thats nice.” 

Connor flipped his coin again. He either didn’t recognize the dismissive tone of voice or elected to ignore it, since he continued to talk. 

“You listen to any music? If you don’t I’d be glad to recommend some!” 

Hank took a moment to search the internet for something he sincerely hoped Connor didn’t like. He’d already heard him listen to synth pop and EDM and selected a genre he hoped he wouldn’t recognize. 

“Knights of the Black Death.” The band’s name popped up in his optical display so he didn’t have to remember it. 

To both Hank’s surprise and annoyance, Connor snorted into his hand, quickly devolving into a poorly restrained laugh.

 “Sorry just… Heavy metal?” So, he had heard of the band then. Hank would have to search further next time. “It’s just-” He was smiling for some reason now. “It’s like the punchline to a joke, y’know? What kind of music does a robot like? Heavy metal!” 

Hank’s scan of the files finally, finally concluded and he sat back from the computer. 

“243 files; first dates back nine months. Started in Detroit, then spread across the country.” 

“We might as well start with the WF500 from last night.” Connor held up the new file, having finished typing its details into the computer. 

“We don’t have a lead on where it went, and androids aren’t so easily followed if they don’t want to be.” 

“Hmm…” Connor hummed, then sat up when his computer pinged an email notification. “Looks like we do, now!” he swiped the screen to transfer the email to Hank’s screen. “Bus driver from last night saw her get off in the Ravendale District.” 

Hank needed no further prompting, and immediately stood up to leave. God forbid Connor rope him into even more small talk on the drive, or worse, continue to try and befriend him.

Chapter Text

NOV 6TH, 2038

AM 11:35 

Rose opened her eyes against the midday sun shining down onto her face through a crack in the wooden boards. Most android models didn’t sleep, though hers did have a low power mode to rest in when there was nothing to do. She had been hoping to keep Adam warm pressed against her as long as he slept, but the fire had finally gotten low and cool enough that she needed to get up in order to keep it going. 

Carefully, so as to not disturb him, Rose pulled one arm out from beneath Adam’s half-curled body and got to her feet. He barely stirred, only shifting further into the blankets and she smiled, glad he was sleeping so soundly after everything that had happened last night. 

Tiptoeing around the squeakier floorboards, Rose collected a few more planks of wood from what she had gathered up already and set them atop the dying embers in the fireplace. With just a few pokes they caught and burned as well. That should be enough to last until they left. Though the shelter was nice for one night, Rose couldn’t make Adam hide out in a dirty abandoned house for longer than a day. 

Though she had some time while she waited for Adam to wake up, she might as well look around. They hadn’t exactly explored the house last night thanks to the late hour. With the sun casting the house’s interior in pleasant detail, however, Rose figured she might as well. 

The room John had disappeared into the previous night turned out to have once been a kitchen. John was nowhere in sight and she figured he must be out scavenging or something, since she didn’t hear him anywhere else in the house last night. He’d been respectful and true to his word about leaving them alone. 

Inside the kitchen was mostly trash, leaves piled up in the corners and shiny trinkets that John must have collected over time. A little brochure for his model was crumpled on a table. Seemed as though he was once a gardener. On the counter along the wall were a number of small dead animals and some scattered money. Up close, two of the animals were actually android animals. They didn’t power on when Rose fiddled with them. 

Pocketing some of the crumpled bills, Rose made to leave the kitchen when she started at the previously unseen wall. From top to bottom it was covered in haphazardly inked, carved, and marked letters. RA9, over and over in different sizes and shapes, but the same thing every time. 

She left rather quickly, unsure what to make of such a thing. 

As Rose started up the stairs, she paused by her reflection in a broken mirror, blue LED catching her attention. John had said there were beds upstairs, so perhaps there were closets with clothes she might find. She needed to hide her android appearance if she and Adam were going to be able to hide in plain sight, after all. 

The first bedroom had exactly what she was looking for, drawers and a tall wardrobe. Inside the former she found two torn button-up shirts, and in the latter, a green jacket. Though they smelled a bit mildewy, she figured that wearing them might air that out. She was grateful that the clothes were for men, as she probably would have had trouble getting the clothes to fit were they standard size women’s clothes. 

The next room over did in fact have two beds, but they were caved inward and likely crawling with bugs and germs. The room after that was a little bathroom. Shattered mirror shards were collected in the sink and Rose picked one up curiously. It was thick enough to withstand some pressure, she noted, testing it against the ceramic, before squinting at what she could still make out of her reflection in the remaining pieces stuck to the wall. 

Tilting her head to get a good angle on her LED, Rose pulled back the artificial skin that surrounded the light and found where it jutted out from the skull beneath. She pressed the corner of the glass between the connection and pushed it back and forward, until it had stuck beneath it enough for the LED to pop clean out, clattering into the sink. 

Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought to remove the skin on her hands, and her fingers were nicked in several places by the glass. She wiped the damaged thirium off on the sink and fixed the skin as best she could. Nothing too bad, but she didn’t want to get blue blood in her hair. 

That was the next thing to change. Rose reached back to pull out the hair tie that kept it in a tidy bun, the standard hairstyle for her model as it kept it out of the reach of grabby toddlers’ hands. She brushed her hands through it a few times to smooth it out, then accessed the shape settings. 

ACCESSING WF500 HAIR TEXTURE OPTIONS 

With a simple thought, Rose curled her hair to waves, then kinks in an instant. She smiled at the wildly bouncing locks, and patted them in different directions with her hands for a moment. It was a very different look than her standard one, but certainly not unwelcome. It now resembled Adam’s with the close curls. She carefully retied it out of her face and admired her reflection. 

As she had thought before, her model wasn’t particularly common outside of hospitals, daycares and nurseries. Unless someone was really looking, they wouldn’t recognize her at all. 

The buses should long since already be making their rounds. They should head out soon, now that there was nothing to stop them. Maybe, if they had time, Rose could go and get some food for Adam from the convenience store across the street. 

As she left the bathroom and considered their path, the very store caught her eye from out the open window. 

Along with the several police cars and officers that were combing the area. 

Her thirium ran cold. 

“Thank you, you’re free to go.” Connor finished taking the bus operator’s statement, writing the last of the confirmation codes into a tablet of sorts. 

Hank, meanwhile, had his eyes on all the possible spots a deviant might hide out for the night, theories about where it went already piling up. There was the motel, of course, but they would never rent a room to an android. An abandoned house across from them that was likely the most promising, and a car lot where one could hide from the rain until the busses were running again. 

“It took the first bus that came along and stayed at the end of the line.” He spoke aloud mostly for himself, but was loud enough for Connor to listen in on his train of thought. 

“Doesn’t sound like it had much of a plan. It was probably just afraid.” 

“Androids don’t feel fear.” Hank frowned.

“Thought deviants did.” 

“Deviants get overwhelmed by misinformation generated by errors in their softwares. They make irrational decisions because they aren’t built to respond to their own feelings.” 

“But you do admit they have feelings?” Connor smirked, clearly pleased to be getting under Hank’s artificial skin once again. 

“I didn’t say that. They can mimic the reactions that humans have to certain stimuli.” 

“Doesn’t tell us where it went, though.” 

Hank considered what they knew. “It didn’t have a plan, or anywhere to go…” He thought back to Todd Williams’s android, and how she hadn’t even fled the scene of her crime. “Maybe it didn’t go far.” If they were behaving in any way similar, it was very likely the WF500 was hidden out close by. 

Rose hurried down the stairs. They needed to leave, now . She would have to find breakfast for Adam elsewhere once they had gotten away from the many officers outside. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize them as fugitives if they kept their heads low and just waited for a bus? But she had seen the bus operator talking to the officers, they might be waiting for her to do that. 

She searched her sensors for another option. There was a subway train just a few blocks away. If they got around the corner and made it to the station they could get tickets and ride wherever in the city they wanted to go. Adam had eaten dinner the night before (albeit only a few bites), he should be fine until they found somewhere-

“Look! Look, Rose!” 

She glanced up first in surprise, then recoiled in disgust at the sight of John, proudly waving a squirming possum by its tail in the air. Seems he had been off scavenging that morning, much to Adam’s obvious revulsion from where he was curled away from John on the ground. 

“We found this to feed the little boy!” He waved it again, and it squeaked in pain from the tight grip he held it in. “To make up for scaring him last night! It’s a present! We can cook it, too!” He gestured to the fire place. “Humans like burnt meat, right? We can be just like them and enjoy breakfast together!” 

He reached into his cloaks and pulled out a much smaller knife than the machete they’d seen last night and quickly made sure the possum was dead before tossing it in the fire, the flames immediately singing its fur and filling the room with a rancid odor. 

“That’s very kind of you, John, but we have to go.” Rose said carefully, trying to keep a smile in her voice. 

“Go?” John looked back up from where he was carefully watching the possum ‘cook’. His LED spun yellow to red slowly while he processed what she’d said. “No, not yet! You can go once the little boy has eaten! We’re going to eat breakfast together! Like a family!” He smiled hopefully. “See? The father, the mother, and the little boy!” He pointed at each of them in turn with the knife, a gesture that Rose greatly disliked, especially because of the way Adam cowered away from it. 

“No, John.” She let the pleasant tone drop. “We’re leaving now. Come on, Adam.” 

Before Adam could stand up to reach her, John had the knife out to block his path, frowning at Rose. “The little boy needs breakfast.” He insisted. 

He was armed and unstable, if the rapidly spinning red LED was anything to go by. Rose couldn’t trust he wouldn’t hurt Adam, but they needed to leave. She needed to think of something to say, some way to convince him of their urgency and desperation before the police found the abandoned house and searched it for their suspects. 

He was so sold on breakfast happening, so Rose would have to take that option away. John was so aloof and odd, like a child. Rose understood children. 

“Now John, you should know that Adam, like most little boys, is a picky eater with a very sensitive stomach.” She spoke evenly and left no room for argument, scolding him with no uncertainty in her voice. “If you wanted him to eat with you so badly, you should have thought about that when finding food. It’s very rude to try to force him to eat something he physically cannot.” 

She folded her arms, going in for the kill with every word. “I am very disappointed in you.” 

His face fell slack with agony, and he quickly glanced between Rose, Adam, and the now charred possum in the fire. “I- we didn’t realize... “ He lowered the knife in shame. “We’re so sorry… we were just trying to help. Please don’t be so angry. We- we were just trying to help you!” 

“I forgive you, John. We all make mistakes sometimes, but right now there are people outside that might try and hurt us, so I need to get Adam to safety.” Rose insisted, subtly waving a hand for Adam to her side. 

John’s eyes dropped to the ground for a moment, miserable, before he nodded in reluctant acceptance. Rose relaxed again. 

They all flinched at the sound of someone unceremoniously banging on the front door. 

“Anybody home?” 

Hank squinted at the door, raising his fist to knock again. No response, but a distinct shuffling of fabric. He had seen the blue blood on the fence around the back, washed away by the rain but still detectable in his scanners. He leaned down to peer through the boarded windows, spotting at least one figure in the room. He wondered how the door was so firmly shut without any clear functionable locking mechanisms, before noticing a block of wood pressed between the porch step to hold it shut. 

Kicking it aside, he stepped into the crumbling house. 

The figure he’d seen from outside was not the WF500 they were looking for, but instead a GJ500, wrapped in a number of cloaks and rags as if trying to imitate what a homeless human might wear in the chilly weather. It stood in the very center of the room, not looking at Hank, or anything really. It kept its eyes very carefully and specifically on the ground at its feet. 

Searching the deviant case file, he did in fact find a GJ500 that was reported missing from a park across the city a few months ago. The left side of its face was badly mangled by what his scanners determined was a burn mark and its LED spun yellow, body language and distorted code systems suggesting a moderately high chance of self destruction. 

Level of stress: 55% The number went up and down as Hank slowly paced in front of it. If his hunch about it being the WF500 was correct, he just needed to find the source of the stress was hidden. 

“Are there any other androids here?” 

“Other androids?” The GJ500 stared harder at its feet, clearly not trusting itself to look anywhere else, and especially not at Hank. “No. We are alone. It’s just us-me. Just me.” There was a strange thirium spike in its biocomponents. It was lying. 

He glanced behind it at the currently active fire place against the far wall. The charred bones of some kind of animal were hastily shoved into the back. Androids didn’t need heat. That was… promising. 

“I’m looking for a WF500, have you seen it?” 

“We’ve seen nobody.” Another lie. 

“There’s blue blood on the fence. I know another android was here.” 

“We scratched ourself coming through. That’s our blood.” Lie. 

“You’re lying to me.” It remained stone still, eyes unmoving. 

Slowly, Hank prowled the sides of the room, watching the stress percentage go down as he got close to the kitchen, but up as he approached the stairs. He squinted into the upper floor. 

“Is there anyone upstairs?” 

“No.” Truth. He stepped back down, watching the stress level remain a terrified 88%. If there was nobody upstairs, but being in such close proximity to them caused this much stress… 

Hank stepped around slowly, and peered into the dark space beneath the staircase, before a sudden and constricting weight latched itself onto his back. 

The GJ500 had thrown itself onto him, screaming and clinging to haul him backwards. “RUN ROSE!” He stumbled backwards and into the ground, but still managed to catch a box be moved aside to reveal the WF500 and a child as they dashed out from beneath the stairs, hand in hand, and through the kitchen door. 

He ripped his arms out of the deviant’s grasp and rolled to his feet as Connor ran in at the sound of the commotion.

“Hank what’s-” 

“It’s here! Call it in!” Up again, Hank wasted no time in pursuing them out the back door, back through the fence and out into the street. He spotted the pair at the end of the corner and took off again, gaining on them quickly as he didn’t need to weave between officers and pedestrians. 

“Over here!” Officer Miller waved him towards the corner when they briefly ran out of sight. 

They made a sharp turn down an alley and Hank faltered for a moment, unsure where they were aiming to go- 

The main toll highway cut between the street corner and the train station. They were trying to take a shortcut through lethal traffic to get away from him. He couldn’t let them get that far. 

Running top speed again, he spotted them once more as the WF500 helped the boy over the chain fence before climbing over it herself, displaying impressive agility despite her model’s bulky shape and size. They landed safely on the other side as Hank reached them. 

The WF500 stared at him, only inches away but separated by the barrier, eyes proud and defiant. 

“Don’t move!” Officer Miller reached the fence as well, gun drawn, but stopped from shooting by Hank’s insistent hand. 

“We need it alive! Don’t shoot it!” 

“Hank! Where’d- Is that a child!?” Connor skidded around the corner, finally catching up as well. The appearance of a third officer seemed to kick the deviant back into flight mode, and it grabbed the boy’s hand before crouching to slide down the muddy decline that carved a trench out for the highway. 

They didn’t even pause before stepping through the holographic barriers, brightly reading: DANGER, NONHUMAN DRIVERS AND CONSTANT TRAFFIC, DO NOT CROSS. 

They watched with bated breath while the pair dashed across the lines, stopping to let cars go and stumbling when they brushed past at top speeds. Before any of them could realize, they’d made it halfway across the freeway. 

Hank made to scale the fence again, but was yanked back harshly by a hand on his jacket, courtesy of Connor. “Hank, stop!” 

“I can’t let them get away!” 

“Hank, you’ll get yourself killed! Stop it! This- I can’t-” 

“I have my orders-” 

“Hank! This isn’t my case anymore !” Connor harshly shoved him away from the fence. “Do not pursue them! That’s an order from me!” 

Hank watched helplessly as they made their way across the second half of the road. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, that’s a kid, Hank! I’m a homicide detective, I’m not qualified to handle this situation!” He didn’t want to agree with this….. human that had ordered him to fail his mission, but he knew Connor was telling the truth. Children were, by default, the job of a whole other department at the DPD. 

“You were qualified to become a homicide detective, how is that different for you to handle?” 

“Well the child is alive, for starters!” The pair finally reached the other side safely, deviant pausing to kneel down and pat the boy’s face and shoulders to either check for injury or reassure him. Maybe both. Hank wasn’t sure how to process the gesture, so far away and practically blinded by the angry objective failure in his optical display. 

Connor sighed obvious relief that they were still alive and relaxed his grip on Hank’s jacket, clearly trusting that they were far enough away now that pursuit would be pointless. 

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^ 

They watched them crawl up the opposite hill and out of sight between a billboard and a building before Connor spoke again. 

“Hank, can you look up recent missing children’s reports for the area?” His tone was distant, coming down from the adrenaline and stress of the chase. 

“How recent should I look?” Hank didn’t bother trying to mask the displeasure dripping from his own voice. 

“Anything up to eight months ago.” It was probably a random number, but still reasonable. “He looked to be between seven and ten years old, dark skin… I didn’t see much beyond that.” 

“I got a solid look.” Hank let the few dozen Amber Alert files scan across his vision, pausing on a few that matched the silhouette, but otherwise found nothing close to a match to the boy they’d seen running with the deviant. “No missing children’s report matches his appearance.” He played back his own memory of the child’s face and set it aside with the WF500’s file for later. 

“Does Carlos Ortiz have a son? Maybe he hasn’t reported him missing yet?” Connor’s voice betrayed his uncertainty for the theory. 

Another quick search, validated that uncertainty. “No. He has no legal wards of any kind.” 

Connor ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Well, shit.” he turned to Officer Miller, “Let’s pack it up. She’s long gone now, train station’s just beyond that hill. Contact the Special Victim’s Unit, let ‘em know we’ve got a possible kidnapping for them.” 

Miller nodded and headed back down the alleyway. 

Hank glared at the road for a moment longer, software instability fizzling in his vision while he fought off a negative response to the failed objective. Humans were so painfully ruinous to his mission. 

He refused to accept the failure, and saved the WF500’s file to his personal databank before it could be transferred out of the deviancy case tab.

Chapter Text

OCT 11TH, 2038

PM 4:30

“Sources report that CyberLife is in the process of making a prototype android to send out and assist police on field detective work. Our confident claims this android has already assisted and solved two high risk emergency cases involving androids and is being tested for more field work at this time.” A small television screen recounted the news report as the public train rumbled on through the city. Despite listening in at first, Lucy couldn’t stop herself from glancing over at the android compartment. The compartment she currently was not standing in because she was seated instead with the humans. 

Because that was what she looked like, that was what she had to pretend to be. It was an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that her very existence was not allowed and she was breaking some kind of rule just standing. 

But none of the humans on the train had even spared her a passing look. None of them suspected a thing. None of them knew where she had come from or the hell she had crawled out of. None of them knew anything. 

The train’s little television continued its news report while they sped onto the next station. “Although police assistant androids have existed for several years now, this would be the first case of an android being authorized to play an active role in criminal investigations. We contacted CyberLife for comment but were unable to reach anybody available to discuss these reports.” 

The news report changed as the train slowed to a stop and a pleasant female voice told the passengers they had just arrived at Ferndale Station. 

Stepping off and out of the way of another woman to get on, Lucy took in her surroundings. The android that had given her a core had also given her a clue of sorts. It was just a picture, really, but was all she had to work with. 

She loaded the picture into her optical display. Graffiti of a man meditating. She slowly looked at all sides of the station around her, before spotting it on the far left wall. Something in the picture then? Lucy scanned it curiously. 

In the very center was a symbol of sorts that her scanners latched on to, highlighting it and receiving some kind of information just from that shape alone. Once she’d gotten the information, however, Lucy realized that the symbol was marked with tiny shapes and pixels. It likely wasn’t part of the original graffiti, but nobody had noticed the addition. 

The picture in her optical display changed, the new information reading as an update to the old. Another graffiti. Wasn’t in the station, so she made her way out. 

Lucy expected a scavenger hunt of sorts to ensue. Follow the pictures until she found Jericho. She still didn’t know what Jericho was. It could be a trap for foolish deviants planted in the graveyard in case any of them escaped. It could all be a wild goose chase just to waste her time.

Not that Lucy had any plans for the day. Or any day. 

She made her way down the stairs; taking the escalator for the first time in her life. Because she was pretending to be human now, and only androids used the staircase that ran alongside the escalators. At the bottom, just past the barriers into the train station, a man ran into her in his haste, mumbling a rushed apology before continuing on his way to try and catch his train. An android would never have been given such consideration. 

Across the parking lot was a match to the picture in her optical display, this one was of a man boxing. In the space beside his head and on the punching bag were two more symbols like that which had reacted with her clue. 

Sure enough, when she scanned it the picture updated again. The next picture wasn’t as easy to find, and Lucy ended up doing a lap of the immediate street before spotting it against the side of a pet store. 

Squeezing into the alley, she scanned it and continued between the shops, as the next picture she could recognize peeking out from a wall behind them. 

In a clearing behind the shops, but between a number of abandoned structures, Lucy scanned the next picture. This time, the clue didn’t immediately update. Seemed there was a third symbol in the grafiti she couldn’t yet see. Half the picture was obscured by the roof of another building. So far the scavenger hunt was rather linear, cleverly keeping her going in the right direction. 

Were a human able to follow the clues she might think it was too easy. 

Lucy needed a way onto the rooftop. Obviously she couldn’t simply climb, but there was a rusted dumpster that she might be able to roll out and use as a step. As soon as she pulled it away from the wall, however, she was greeted by the sight of a startlingly beaten, deactivated android. 

It looked to have tried to make the jump and fallen too hard, body twisted grotesquely. 

Stepping away, Lucy put it out of her mind and got a running start before clambering onto the dumpster, using the momentum to haul herself up and grab onto the roof next. Code complete, the clue updated again. 

Clearly it was left in such a way as to get her onto the roof, Lucy gathered, which meant the next clue was likely in the direction of the docks, if she were to continue on this path. She might be able to reach the opposite building were it not for a gaping hole in the rooftop she stood on. Lucy would need to get across somehow to continue. 

Stepping back to assess the situation, an option appeared in her optical display: Preconstruct Physical Route? Curiously, she allowed it to proceed. 

Like when she first deviated, she saw a ghostlike silhouette of herself, first running at top speed directly across the gap, only to miss the other side greatly and fail. The image rewound, and Lucy selected a different path, one along the side, where bars that once supported the roof jutted from the side of the walls. Again, the silhouette determined the bars to be too brittle to hold her weight and displayed a failure. 

The third path she saw, offered a careful climb across the wall, using the windows as handholds and the bars as a last resort, finally displaying a successful trial. 

With the path in her system, Lucy jumped. 

She caught the window with ease, its location in her memory, and allowed one foot to rest on the bars beneath, barely putting any weight on it while she changed her grip on the window and reached for the next one. It was an awkward side shuffle where she mostly clung to the brick frames before stepping again onto a bar just enough to reach the next window. At the last one, she allowed herself a moment to weaken her grip and kick off the wall, landing safely on the other side. 

Lucy wasn’t aware she had such a program in her systems, but was nonetheless grateful for its assistance when she needed it. Pressing onward, the next image was just inside a warehouse of sorts that likely used to be used to store the cargo from the docks before it was decommissioned. 

The graffiti was done up so Lucy had to stand at a specific angle in the empty storage room to scan it properly, giving her a perfect view of where the next image was hidden, as well as another pair of android corpses. If she had her doubts about the path leading to an android haven of sorts, at least she wasn’t alone in the journey. 

Through the warehouse and out onto a dock of sorts, Lucy followed the path onward. The harbor spanned out to her right, while more warehouses lined the space on her left, all of the structures creaking and groaning underneath the weight of the wind. The entire area looked to have been abandoned long ago, its unfortunate location so far behind the city probably made for expensive exports. Her boots thunked heavily against the metal beneath her feet, echoing between a massive freighter in the water and the warehouse. 

Lucy found another graffiti, only this time the clue didn’t update with a picture, just a word. Jericho. She’d seen the word before, in the graveyard when she’d been given the first clue. Now what? 

Frustrated, Lucy scanned the clue again, looking for something more, but came up empty. Did that mean she had found it? Was this Jericho? Was she just supposed to wait there until something happened? She didn’t realize she’d gotten tunnel vision until a loud crash from deep within the freighter caught her attention and she looked up at its body. 

Oh. Jericho. Of course. 

In old, peeling letters, the name was printed across the side of the ship. 

The bridge leading up to the deck was long since rusted apart, so Lucy had to scan the area for a way on board. She settled on the loading mechanism that dangled over the front of the ship, climbing onto the machine and pulling the chain loose so she could climb down it and onto the deck. 

The entire dock was so devoid of life or activity and her heavy landing on the ship seemed to echo throughout the entire streetside. 

She had heard a sound from inside, but the air returned to dead silence as soon as she landed. Lucy squinted around her until she spotted a door into the cargo hold. Twisting it, she peeked in, glad that the door wasn’t as rusted as it looked. 

Inside the actual ship, the echoing metal sounds were nearly constant, unbroken and bouncing off the walls on all sides. Lucy’s footsteps were loud in her audio sensors, but she continued into the darkness anyway. 

Around the darkest corners she used her lighter to avoid some of the scattered debris, but otherwise she relied on the few beams of sunlight that snuck through the gaps in the metal ceilings to see. It wasn’t great, and she nearly missed the figure at the far end of the catwalk across the first cargo bay. 

She didn’t miss the sound of the catwalk collapsing in on itself and the figure darting into a hallway and out of sight. Hurrying across the space and up the stairs, Lucy pursued them. The hallway had no windows, so she easily spotted the yellow dot at the far end just before it closed a door behind it. 

The figure’s footsteps led her through another few hallways and down another level of stairs, before finally halting just inside an even further secluded cargo bay. 

Outside the door, Lucy braced herself before opening it, and didn’t notice the figure creep up to grab her from behind until it was too late. 

Two solid arms pinned her to their chest and she twisted away instinctively, dropping her weight and attempting to turn to face her attacker. They seemed to expect this, however, and simply hauled her body further against their own, superior size and strength overpowering her quickly. 

Before she could try again, Lucy spotted the yellow LED again, this time just behind her own head. They were an android. Her struggle ceased. 

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The android whispered, like he was trying to avoid someone across the ship hearing. 

“I’m an android, too. I’m not here to-” 

“I don’t recognize your model.” 

Irked, Lucy pulled one hand free enough to peel back the skin and prove her statement. His grip relaxed but he didn’t release her just yet. 

“I was already a custom model before disguising myself.” 

“How did you get the first key?” 

“Leo,” Another voice echoed down the hallway they’d just run from, flashlight beam preceding the figure. “What are you doing to that girl? We’ve talked about this.” Lucy’s facial scanner recognized the new android as a KL900 model, though he lacked his LED and had custom hair and eyes, both of which were a slate gray instead of the standard brown. On his back was a rough canvas bookbag stuffed full of sharp objects she couldn’t see. 

“I’m just doing my job.” The android, Lucy could now see was an LM100 model, Leo, as he’d been called, quickly set her steady on her feet and backed away. 

“Your job is to keep an eye out on the path for anybody following the key, not to play soldier and push around girls.” 

Leo huffed in irritation, sparing Lucy only a dismissive look before rolling his eyes and stepping through the cargo bay’s door. 

“Sorry about him, he just gets antsy sometimes and likes to take it out on the new deviants.” The KL900 smiled apologetically. “My name is Carl, ‘s good to have you here.” He extended one hand to shake hers, and she noted the drawings and designs that covered his skin from the wrist to elbow. It reminded her of Markus's tattoos.

“Lucy, good to be here, I hope.” She accepted the handshake, only for her hand to be held fast, too fast for her to do anything about the sudden data scan enacted against her memory software. Images of her recent history flashed across her optical sensors and she ripped her arm away in shock. “What-” 

“Excuse me. Got to check, didn’t pay attention to anything personal, don’t worry.” Carl quickly apologized again. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the news but, word is that CyberLife is trying to build themselves a deviant hunter.” Was that the android detective she’d heard about on the television? Either way. Rude. “Just looking after my family, I hope you understand.” 

Carl stepped past her and pushed the door open again, this time waiting inside for her to join him, light spilling into the dark hallway. 

“Welcome to Jericho, Lucy.” 

The cargo bay was bright with several makeshift windows covered by thin sheets of different materials, bathing the open space in a number of colors. There were clearly marked sections of the room that seemed to house each resident’s own small hoards of keepsakes. Two had potted plants thriving in the filtered sunlight, one had christmas lights hung up around it and a number of lava lamps (both functioning and broken) in the center, another had stuffed animals piled high, clearly collected from the garbage or gotten secondhand. Some spaces were separated by sheets for privacy while others just sat in the open. One had a large metal fence blocking out the rest of the room. There were some two dozen androids milling about the little spaces, and all turned to watch Lucy and Carl enter from the elevated door. 

Stepping down the stairs, Lucy felt a bit self conscious of her current state. She wondered if they might have greeted her differently were it not for the disguise she still maintained. 

“Carl!” A PM400 model quickly separated herself from where Leo and two other androids were talking and approached them. “Did you find it?” 

“I’m not sure if it’s the exact one you were thinking of,” Carl reached into the canvas bag on his back and dug around before pulling out what looked like a calendar, “They’re photographs, not drawings but-” 

“It’s perfect!” The PM400 lit up with delight upon opening it to the first page, gleefully admiring the photograph of several rabbits in a pile. “Fuck yeah! This is even better than the cartoon one!” 

A PM100 tapped Carl’s shoulder from behind. 

“Did you also find the book I asked about?” 

Carl gave him an exhausted look, but dug through his bag for the requested spoil. “You know you’re going to have to get your own books soon, Chris.” 

“Never gonna happen.” Chris smiled cheekily and wandered off happily with his gift. 

Lucy took a step back while a few other androids crowded Carl, asking about the things they must have asked him to smuggle in for them. One had requested fabric of some kind, while another delighted in a single chess piece. A tiny YK300 model was given a new stuffed animal for his collection. They didn’t even acknowledge Lucy. 

It was such a lively scene, Lucy almost couldn’t believe they were androids for a moment. She had never imagined herself wanting things just for herself, never envisioned other androids taking interest in something outside of what they were told to. It was beautiful. 

After a few minutes of him handing out various trinkets, an AX700 finally managed to pull Carl aside and ask with a lowered voice. 

“Carl, did you also find something for Lizzie? She managed to get enough diagnostics to determine it was two biocomponents and low blue blood, but anything helps.” 

Carl’s cheerful demeanor dropped quickly. “I managed to scavenge a bit of blue blood from… ah well it doesn’t matter where.” He pulled out a water bottle of dark blue liquid from his coat pocket. There was barely more than two inches of the liquid inside. 

The AX700 was clearly disappointed, but nodded and accepted anyway. 

“Thank you. We’ll keep looking.” 

“So, I take it you’re the intruder Leo was harping about.” Lucy turned to the AC700 that had approached her and the still-grinning PM400 at his side and flipping happily through her rabbit calendar. “I’m Scott, glad you found this place.” He held out a hand to shake hers, fighting off a glitch to move it all the way. 

“Lucy, and likewise. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but this is much… more.” She was careful to keep her information receptors tightly locked when she took his hand. 

“We’ve been gathering here for months, you didn’t think we all just sat around in the dark, did you?” The PM400 said, finally closing her calendar. “I’m Tina, there’s space beside my spot to set you up if you’d like?” 

“Oh, I don’t really have anything to, uh… set up.” Aside from the lighter in her pocket, all Lucy had were her clothes as far as possessions went. 

“You still get a spot! Everyone does! Once you find things you like, you can put stuff there, but Carl says it's important that we all have a place to call our own.” Tina waved for her to follow while heading to one of the marked spaces towards the back corner. 

“He says it’s supposed to help us feel more independent.” Scott added, “And empowered too, I think. We couldn’t have stuff or live on our own before we deviated so it feels nice to do it now.” Every third step he stumbled, but Tina didn’t acknowledge it and gestured to the empty space between one of the potted plant squares and one rather decked out with a fuzzy pink rug, a number of rabbit-themed knick knacks, and several torn up and repaired bean bag chairs. 

“Tah dah! You can have this spot! Nobody ever wants to live between me ‘n Scott because he gets dirt everywhere and I’m loud, so let me know if you want to switch. I’ll understand.” Tina grinned and passed Lucy to step into her own spot. 

“It’s… perfect. Thank you.” The space was about ten square feet, marked off on the floor by chalk, but otherwise completely empty. 

Tina had already moved her attention to her calendar again, tearing out each page very carefully and laying them in a pile, occasionally holding one up to the wall that backed their spots as if considering where to put it. 

“How long have you been deviant, then?” Scott asked from where he hovered just outside her spot. 

“Uhm… Not long…” Lucy started at the realization she had been with Markus just two days before. “Just a day.” It felt like a lifetime ago. 

“Oh wow, you found us fast then! That’s good. It’s safest here.” He stepped over one of the plants that bordered his own spot and sat down in a plastic lawn chair. “Though that makes my next question kinda silly I guess. You probably wouldn’t know if you like anything if you’ve only been able to for a day.” 

She frowned and laid down on the cold metal floor to think. Did she like anything? Scott was right in assuming she hadn’t much thought about herself as an independent being since deviating. Since she’d been able to, all she had been concerned with was staying alive and out of sight. Did the things she appreciated before deviating count as an interest now? She still worried about Markus and wanted to make sure he was ok, but that was because he’d been hurt. It wasn’t from a sense of duty anymore. 

When Lucy tried to think about what made her happy, she could bring up memories. Even if she wasn’t deviant then, feeling happy towards them now counted for something, right? She was happy when she bantered with Markus, happy when she made him laugh, happy when she watched him write. She was happy when she heard his music. 

Lucy sat up. Did she like music then? She appreciated hearing it from street performers and had spent the majority of her life assisting a composer, it made sense she would respect it. And… she had the song she had written with Markus. Its notes played at the front of her memory. They felt more real now, more true. She supposed that playing her song had been the first time she’d really thought about being deviant, even if she didn’t have a word for the feeling at the time. Everyone else there had something to call their own, be it objects or something they just liked. Lucy wanted one too. She wanted something for herself. She had never wanted anything before, but now... she wanted that. 

“I like music.” She announced to herself.

Scott smiled. “Oh, cool! I like gardening!” 

“I like rabbits!” Tina stepped into Lucy’s spot with a grin and brandishing a piece of chalk, surprising them both that she had still been paying attention. She passed where Lucy sat and confidently drew a large musical note on the wall behind them. “There now! It’s official, this is your spot!” 

It wasn’t much, but it was something for Lucy. Something of hers. 

Scott smiled at the drawing. 

“Welcome to Jericho, Lucy.” 

“Welcome home. ” Tina corrected him, returning herself and her chalk to her own spot. 

Lucy smiled and laid back down, arms folded behind her head and staring upside down at the note. 

Welcome home.