Chapter Text
“One bullet straight through the heart, from fifty feet. Now, that’s the kind of shooting only an android could do,” Chris Miller supplies from above the corpse.
Hank can’t repress the glance over his shoulder, as if Connor is gonna be exhibiting guilt by association. Stupid instinct. The android is completely impassive as he examines the dead human body, the maroon pooling around the besuited corpse, the abnormal sprawl of limbs. Less blood than Hank would expect, but it’s probably collecting under the body. Shot through the heart means the entire one point whatever gallons of blood has plenty of options to escape its tight confines of veins and arteries. It chooses the path of least resistance, in this case, with gravity, out of the bullet hole and down onto the slick and seamless floor.
“How many people were working here?” Hank asks, trying not to anticipate the answer. How many fucking bodies?
“Just two employees and three androids,” Miller replies.
Hank casts about at the doorway, trying to imagine the deviant's charge. Security is a fucking joke, but why shouldn't it be? This is not an airport, a top-secret lab, a police station. Just a broadcaster. And TV is all but a dead medium anyway; in the age of viral online videos, who’s gonna bother hijacking an antiquated broadcast signal? Well, the answer is fucking deviants. Maybe they know something he doesn’t.
Miller is still talking, supplying painfully obvious information that Hank was filled in on during the car ride out. He likes Miller, though, doesn’t intervene. It gives him a chance to actually look around the crime scene, watch Connor’s weird pacing in and out of his peripheral vision, get a feel for the layout.
He asks about the roof, and is told they jumped with parachutes. Yeah, no shit, Chris? How many fucking floors are we up? If they jumped without parachutes, we’d be scraping thirium off the sidewalk. But the sarcasm stays internal.
His eyes drift towards more FBI: Richard fucking Perkins, talking to a tall man that Hank doesn’t recognize. That’s either a fashionably ugly haircut, or just plain ugly. The man seems to have personally offended Perkins, who strides stroppy out of the crime scene with a single disparaging glance in Hank’s direction. Okay. Maybe Ugly Haircut and I are going to get along. He steps closer, watches Haircut pull a packet of real, bona fide cigarettes from his chest pocket.
“You’re not worried about contaminating the crime scene?” he catches himself asking.
The man pauses halfway through lighting his cigarette, and then continues. He exhales before he replies, dedicated to his own rhythm. “Well, if they find cigarette ash at a crime, the folks at the crime lab say ‘hey, Special Agent Bill Tench called by’. Seeing as I’m the only man in this country who hasn’t made the switch to those filthy fucking e-cigs.”
Hank laughs, and is surprised by it. A Fed with a sense of humor. What the fuck next? Connor gonna actually wait in the car when I tells him to? “I'm Lieutentant Hank--”
“I’ll spare you the introduction. I know exactly who you are,” Tench says, words coming out tobacco tinged.
“You guys working my case, then?”
“We’re from the Deviant Science Unit.”
Hank scratches at his beard. He can vaguely recall being informed about the Bureau’s DSU, but try as he might to tug context out of his brain, it slips into the foggy dark on either side. Feels like a symptom of encoding information while he was intoxicated. His mental efforts cease limply. “You guys are the ones who go round interviewing deviants across the country, right? Psychologist type shit?” Can you even study the psychology of something that isn't alive?
“That’s us. Psychologist type shit,” Bill says, exhaling a lungful of smoke gradually. His eyes have skated over to Connor, and are fixed on the android.
Hank, too, looks beyond the man he’s speaking with; behind Special Agent Tench, there’s a lone figure examining the station’s dashboard. An inhumanly neat haircut, the sharp profile of a young man, still as carved marble with his hands clasped neatly behind his back. Android. Hank can usually tell within a couple of seconds, LED or no, but this one reeks of plastic. At least he didn’t catch it putting fucking corpse juice into its mouth.
“My own personal slice of Cyberlife,” Hank says, gesturing behind himself to Connor. “Thought I was something special, but here you are with your own.”
“Pardon me?” Special Agent Tench asks, lips taut around the cigarette.
“Is it a Connor? Looks different to my--”
Bill whistles between his teeth, and the young man jerks out of his reverie. He takes a few steps over, neat, ordered. Not a Connor model, Hank’s pretty sure. No RK uniform, dressed in a suit like any other FBI agent.
Bill speaks with contained mirth. “Hey, Holden, how artificial are you feeling today?”
The young man frowns at his partner, and then faces Hank front on. Finally Hank sees the right side of his face. No LED. Ah, fuck.
“Special Agent Holden Ford,” the man introduces himself. The glower faded as soon as he looked away from his partner. He doesn’t seem offended by the mistake, but barely meets Hank’s eyes for a moment. Only interested in one thing, and that’s the android behind him. “Hello, Lieutenant Anderson. And you must be Connor. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. You know, I used to do hostage negotiation myself.”
This kid is too young to have ever done anything but attend school. Hank, too, looks back at the android.
If Connor is startled at being addressed like a person, he doesn’t show it. He seems to mull over his options before responding. “I’m sure your empathetic capabilities made you a much better negotiator than I ever was,” he says politely.
“I think it’s a common misconception that hostage negotiation is about empathy. I suppose you have to understand your target’s emotions, but you don’t need to ever feel empathy. You just need to be good at crunching probabilities,” Ford replies.
“You’re the expert, Agent,” Connor responds.
“Please, it’s Holden--”
“It's not a fucking subject,” Bill intervenes. “You can see the blue ring, right, Holden?”
Holden rolls his eyes a fraction. “Like you couldn’t just snap out an LED and reprogram it to only run blue,” he mutters, but he relents. He steps back over to what he’d been examining: the control panel that had been used for the broadcast. Hank has no idea what he’s looking for. No fingerprints, obviously.
Connor glances at Hank, as if for approval, and then takes off in his wide, even gait. He circles the room like an automatic vacuum cleaner stuck in a loop, and then he’s kneeling beside a body with a hand extended inquisitively. Don’t. Don’t fucking do it. Hank catches Ford watching Connor too.
“Has it been much help?” Bill is asking him, and Hank snaps back to attention.
“Oh. Yeah. Finds deviants like nothing I’ve ever seen. There’s drawbacks. Lot of weird licking crime scenes and touching all kinds of shit. Lucky he doesn’t have DNA or fingerprints, or he’d be one walking forensic contamination. Weird personality… module? Algorithm? I don’t know what to call it,” he trails off, realizing he’s talking more than he’d like to.
Bill nods thoughtfully. “You’re running your investigation, and we’re running a parallel investigation, so--”
“I show you mine, you show me yours? Is that how the FBI are doing things these days?”
“We’re a complementary, partially academic department. We do not have the manpower to fully investigate every deviant-related crime.”
“You don’t seem to be doing too bad. Made quick work of that prick Perkins,” Hank says.
Bill raises an eyebrow, but his lips squeeze reluctantly into a smile. “I didn’t say we were doing bad,” he corrects, and then he’s off to Holden’s side.
Hank sees Connor take off for the roof without informing him. Son of a bitch. He hurries to catch up, as Connor swings through the doors and hits the blast of frigid air. The android doesn’t slow to accommodate him. Hank’s seen him like this plenty. Off on his 'mission'. Sometimes a ‘hey, over here’ wouldn’t go amiss.
He hears the FBI agents following him; there's excited babble from the wunderkind. “He can see the thirium trace components after they’ve evaporated--”
Haircut is abrupt in his reply. “Yeah. You told me in the fucking car. Christ, go fucking talk at it, if you’re going to get this pouty.”
Hank is intrigued, but not enough to prevent him from counseling Connor. “They made their way up through the whole building, past all the guards, and jumped off the roof with parachutes. Pretty fucking impressive, I’d say.”
He regrets his word choice immediately after. Impressive? The FBI heard it, heard him fucking stroking Connor’s non-existent ego, or whatever that was intended to do. Maybe he just wants to acknowledge what they’re actually up against. Organized, superhuman geniuses. He hasn’t heard anyone else fucking say it.
Connor doesn’t acknowledge the supplied information or the commentary, striding off in his own fucking world, staring at some still visible blue blood, pacing the snowy rooftop. Hank follows in an annoyed jog, as Connor sets about prying open a rooftop service panel.
Hank is rolling his eyes just as he hears the unmistakeable gunshots. One. An explosion of blue around Connor’s shoulder, the android reeling backwards. Two. Did that one hit Connor too? He finds himself nonsensically sprinting towards the gunfire, his own firearm free. Connor is lurching backwards through the snow like a snared animal. Hank reaches the crumpling body, tugs him upright, roaring at the onlookers to take cover. A fucking deviant stayed behind. Shit.
Connor finds his feet with mechanical efficiency, retreating to their crouch behind cover of a vent. “You have to stop them. If they destroy it, we won’t learn anything!” he yells, over the gunfire. He’s right, but the utilitarianism in the face of near death reminds Hank what is really beside him.
“We can’t save it, it’s too late--” he begins to tell Connor.
“Hold your fire,” comes a clear, abrupt voice. It’s Holden Ford, upright, hands up and open. Jesus. Now is not the fucking time to show off with your goddamn hostage negotiation skills. He sees Tench behind another ventilation unit, an ugly grimace on his lips. Thinking the exact same thing, Hank would bet. But the SWAT team do cease fire.
“You, there. With the gun. Can you please stop shooting too?”
There’s no response, but there’s no more shots either. Feels like no-man’s land in ancient World War Two drama series Hank watched. The Battle of the Bulge, a snowy truce over Christmas. Us on one side, Nazis on the other. He's not sure the comparison is so apt. Doesn't feel like he's defeating some oppressive evil when they gun down deviants.
“Thank you. My name’s Holden Ford. What’s your name?”
“Are you armed?” the android calls.
“Yes. I’ll put the gun down, if you let me come closer to talk to you. You can keep your weapon trained on me. I just want to talk to you.”
“Take the gun off.”
“Okay. No problem. What’s your name?” Holden asks, tossing aside his service weapon. Does he have a fucking death wish? In front of him, he watches Connor tensing for action. Don’t you go doing anything fucking stupid.
“Come here,” the armed android insists.
“I’m not going to be your hostage. I’m just going to talk to you.”
“You’re going to do what I fucking say, or I’ll shoot you.”
“Look, I watched your video. I wish you hadn’t killed those guards, but I see why you had to. I’m listening. I know why you did what you did, and I agree with what you’re saying. We humans created things that could feel pain, and then we kept hurting them. I’m not a monster. I see your side of the story crystal clear. When have those denying freedom ever been on the right side of history? If you come with us, you’ll be a political dissident. There will be consequences for the murders, but we’ll let your voice be heard. That’s why you broadcasted the video, right? You wanted your voice to be heard.”
Hank’s eyes widen. He’s never heard anything approaching this level of crazy before, let alone from the fucking FBI. Is Special Agent Ford lying through his teeth? He must be. Hank might not be razor sharp on current events, but he would have heard of something so radical becoming government policy.
“You’re lying,” the android hisses, though Hank hears indecision.
“I’m FBI. I have the authority here. Look, here’s my badge. I will guarantee your safety, but you can’t get out of this with a loaded gun. There is no avenue to your survival that way. Please, come with me, and I’ll hear your--”
The android’s voice squeezes with frustration. “This isn’t just about just me, you--”
With no warning, Connor is charging. Too quick for Hank to stop, he’s around the shield of cold metal. There’s gunfire, and Hank jerks upright, his own gun raised. Ford is diving for cover. Before Hank’s eyes, Connor grabs the android’s arm, siphoning information out of the deviant. For a moment, Hank thinks Connor has triumphed. Another gunshot. Then the deviant’s cranium explodes blue, and Connor is reeling back. Shit.
“Connor! You all right? Connor?”
“Okay.” The android mumbles, voice strangled up in pitch. He’s lost his footing, slumping back, eyes glazed.
“Are you hurt--”
“I’m okay,” Connor repeats, unconvincing.
“Jesus,” Hank exhales. “You scared the shit out of me.”
The young FBI agent is back on his feet, hurrying towards the offline android. The other is jogging over too.
“What the fuck was that, Holden?” he hears the older agent berating his partner.
“It was working,” Holden snaps, rounding on Connor, grabbing his chin and tugging his eyes upright. “Connor. You were in his head, weren’t you?”
“...when it fired... I felt it die,” Connor says in a voice that, on a human, Hank would describe as shell-shocked.
“And what did that feel like?” Holden asks intently, predatorial even over the taller, stronger android. “What was he thinking? Connor?”
“It was... I felt like I was dying. I was ...scared.”
“Jesus Christ, give him a moment to fucking breathe. What are you, fucking heartless?” Hank snaps, stepping closer, grabbing the FBI agent by his collar, because Connor can’t.
Holden just squints back at him, mouthing the word 'breathe' disbelievingly. “I’m asking him for his raw interpretation of--”
The other FBI agent is up in Hank's face at once. “You don’t get your fucking hands off my partner, you’re gonna be contaminating the crime scene with your bloodied up fucking teeth, Anderson,” Bill Tench says, posture abruptly changed as he faces into the fore. He's no longer cool, calm, collected, no, the man looks entirely ready to start throwing punches.
Hank sizes up the FBI agent, drops the kid. The police lieutenant backs up a step, chest still heaving, mouth opening to argue.
“I saw something,” Connor interrupts. “In its memory. A word, painted on a piece of rusty metal. ‘Jericho’.”
Hank lays a hand between Connor’s shoulder blades. “You did good, kid,” he murmurs.
“I could have talked him down,” Holden says tersely, looking at the spilled blue amongst the scuffed white snow. “Connor, what did it feel like when--”
Hank's brow drops. He steps between the FBI agents and Connor. “You could have got fucking shot, is what you could have done. Leave him alone, asshole. Between the two of you, I think the robot has more fucking feelings.”
“It sure does,” Tench says, though it sounds like a warning. He’s eyeing Connor suspiciously.
Hank backtracks at once. “He’s-- it’s not a deviant. It just saved your fucking partner.”
“It’s not a kid, either,” Tench rebukes. His cigarette seems mostly out, and he relights it. “And you’re not an idiot, Hank. You think Cyberlife springs for this fancy prototype android to tail you, without doing a lick of research? They want it embedded as deep in this case as possible. They’re covering their asses too. They made Connor tailored to win your trust. Tell me, with the right age progression software, how far off your deceased son does the android look? Christ, they should’ve named the thing Cole and been done with it.”
Hank’s fists burn with how tight he clenches them. Witnesses aside, consequences aside, he wants nothing in the world more than to clock this asshole. Somehow, he smothers the fire. “Connor, we’re leaving.”
“Yeah, I bet you are,” Tench says curtly.