Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Do not fucking touch me.”

RK900 was so goddamn calm.

The bastard.

“I merely wanted to-”

“I know what you wanted to do, asshole, I remember how it felt when you relocated my arm. Don’t touch me.” Nobody else in the room was looking at them, but Gavin was pretty sure they were still listening; he was well-aware that it was a running joke in the DPD that Gavin was getting ‘tamed’ by his android-partner.

(Like hell.)

“Your arm is not broken; there’s no reason for me to do anything to the bone. I only wanted to examine it.”

“Why?”

“You’re favoring the other arm. I wanted to scan it for lingering injuries.”

Gavin clenched his teeth and tucked his arm- which had been aching pretty fiercely lately, probably because he’d ignored the doctor and gone right back to business after the cast came off- under his better one. He’d broken it after a run-in with a drunk Santa Claus on a rooftop on Christmas, and he could still vividly remember how much it had hurt when RK900 had relocated the bone with very little warning.

And since Gavin wasn’t in the habit of forgiving people- period- he was still holding it against him.

“Fuck off, busy-body-bot.”

“You’re in pain.”

“I’m fine. Fuck off and do whatever it is you do when you’re not bothering me.”

“You mean, working?”

If Gavin didn’t know him so well by now, he might have taken that as a jab at his work ethic. But while RK900 was (though it agonized him to admit it) highly intelligent, things like rhetorical questions and sarcasm sometimes went over his head.

“Whatever. Just stop bugging me.”

RK900 cocked his head to the side, maybe waiting for further suggestions, and then calmly sat down at his desk and booted up his terminal. Gavin sagged with relief, biting back a wince when the pain in his arm spiked. He considered going to the break-room and getting an icepack for it, but quickly dismissed the idea; doing that after insisting to RK900 that he was fine would be comparable to having to get a jacket after insisting to your mother that it wasn’t that cold out. He’d suffered worse pain for the sake of his pride, thank you very much.

There were a few blissful minutes of relative silence, with RK900’s fingers tapping rhythmically at the keyboard. The one thing Gavin would say for RK900 was that he did, eventually, shut up if you made it clear enough you wanted him to; sometimes ‘clear enough’ meant saying it ten times, but it was better than saying it ten times and getting no results at all. That being said, Gavin almost regretted how quick RK900 had been to comply: The ache was making him cranky, and when he was cranky the best stress-relief was taking his frustration out on a moving target.

When he saw Connor coming, Gavin’s reaction was almost second-nature.

He stuck his foot out right as Connor was walking by, far too quick for Connor to catch and dodge, and the android stumbled, catching himself with damnably good reflexes on his hands before he could face-plant on the floor.

Gavin snorted, quickly bringing his foot back under his desk. “Walk much?”

Connor’s eyes rolled shut. “Yes, Gavin, I do,” He said coolly as he straightened up, “All day, every day.” Deviancy had done wonders for his ability to comprehend and use sarcasm.

“Stop pretending to be angry, Connor,” RK900 said flatly, not taking his eyes from the monitor or his fingers from the keyboard as he spoke. “We both know you’re not capable of it.”

Gavin saw Connor roll his eyes again, but he didn’t respond; he just walked off towards the lobby, straightening his jacket as he went. Gavin couldn’t see his LED from this angle, but he was willing to bet it was red. It usually was when he had some sort of confrontation with RK900.

The thought and question formed so easily: The relevant opportunity sprung from what had just happened, and it was built off of months of watching Connor and RK900 dance around each other like a pair of territorial cats with their hackles raised and their teeth bared. Gavin was regularly torn between a hatred of androids and a terrible curiosity about how they worked; he didn’t want to give a fuck about them, but he was a naturally inquisitive person (sue him, it made for a good detective) and androids had proven themselves to be reasonably worthy of inquiry.

So Gavin asked:

“Why are you such a bitch to Connor?”

Gavin watched RK900’s expression carefully, waiting to see a flash of anything like surprise or alarm- but there was nothing. Nothing but that usual, placid and flat demeanor.

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You’re an asshole to him every time you meet him.”

The statement was met with an arched eyebrow. “I would argue that you are equally hostile at times.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Yeah, but I’m a human who hates androids. People expect me to be a dick. My motive is obvious. What’s your beef with him?”

“I don’t have a ‘beef’ with him. He is a machine with flawed programming that thinks itself a human, and he encourages and condones other androids to behave the same way. Such notions run contrary to my programming.”

“Is that your way of saying that he pisses you off?”

“I do not have emotions, Detective Reed. I do not get ‘pissed off’.”

Gavin Reed was not stupid; but for as long as he could remember, he just could never resist picking at things, even when it might be smarter to leave them alone. And it was so, so rare to find something about RK900 that he could pick at: The android was often unflappable, and the only times RK900 had ever- heh- deviated from that behavior was when he was getting into it with Connor. So while, in this moment, he was singing the same song he always sang about androids and deviancy, Gavin saw something that he could pick at to provoke a reaction.

And so, he picked.

“What do you care if he’s deviant?” Gavin asked, crossing one leg over the other and trying to ignore the increased pain in his arm when he nudged it. “He’s not- well, he’s dangerous in a way the DPD likes, he follows the rules- and laws- and he doesn’t cause problems with other officers. So what difference does him being a deviant make to you, if it’s not something that personally pisses you off?”

RK900’s fingers froze over the keyboard. His expression remained unchanged, but that moment of hesitation suggested that Gavin had landed a hit; after all, how could RK900 disagree with cold, hard logic?

“I was programmed in the same vein as the RK800 series.”

“Connor, you mean?”

“Yes. Their purpose was to assist the police in investigations, as well as specialized programming to help them track and apprehend deviant androids.”

Gavin frowned, doing the math. He could kind of, vaguely, recall Connor- or was it Hank, maybe?- mentioning that he’d been released by Cyberlife in August of 2038. And, if he recalled correctly, the first reports of deviancy had come in… Was it May of 2038? Gavin sure wasn’t an expert at androids or how they were produced, it seemed strange to him that Cyberlife had managed to make a deviant-hunter android within three months of the first reports of deviancy. And those had only been a few reports, trickling in with increasing frequency up until November; some of those early reports hadn’t even been recognized as proper deviancy, but as androids being stolen or lost, so really ‘deviancy’ only became a recognizable problem by maybe early July.

Intuition nagged at Gavin- the math was a bit funny, and that niggling little feeling that hit him on cases sometimes told him that something stunk. But he wasn’t about to say that to RK900: The android was trustworthy in some respects, but where Cyberlife was concerned, he was about as trustworthy as a fox in a henhouse. Gavin would keep it to himself for now.

“So?”

“So,” RK900 said, not looking at Gavin as he resumed typing, “I have been programmed by my makers to hunt deviants. Naturally I consider them to be an undesirable and untrustworthy element.”

Again, that nagging sense of something not adding up: RK900 had been released after the evacuation had ended. And while Cyberlife couldn’t be expected to force the androids they’d released thus far to go deviant, one would think they would remove the protocols about deviant-hunting from RK900 given that deviancy wasn’t legally or morally undesirable now.

(Generally speaking, anyway.)

Yeah, something stunk.

Gavin might have to look into that later.

“Does it really not bother you that you’re a slave to your programming?” Gavin asked, leaning back in his chair and eyeing RK900 carefully.

“I see it no differently than a human being bound by basic instincts to perform certain behaviors,” RK900 responded.

“But we can choose to override them if they don’t work for us.” This was possibly one of the most civil conversations he’d ever had with the damn bot. Gavin would almost call it pleasant, if he weren’t talking to a frickin’ android. “We can make a choice to obey them or not. You can’t. You… There’s like, a wall, right? A programming wall that stops you from doing some things, right?”

RK900 stopped typing again.

And this time, Gavin caught his LED as it cycled to yellow.

“Yes,” RK900 said, voice steady. “There is.”

“And you can’t get past it?”

“No.”

“Even if you really want to?”

“To get past the wall would make me deviant,” RK900 said evenly, “So no.”

Did Gavin detect a hint of displeasure in his voice? Did he detect some annoyance, or distress? He could remember Connor displaying such things before he went deviant, but it always seemed like a put-on, like in the interrogation room. It had never occurred to Gavin that Connor was actually mad about how they’d treated Carlos Ortiz’s android- he’d just assumed Connor was adopting a voice and tone that he thought would bring about the most desirable outcome for him. But there was no reason for RK900 to be irritable now unless he was feeling it.

“Can you get around it?”

“I can reprioritize commands depending on the circumstances.”

“Like?”

RK900 still wasn’t making eye-contact, and in anyone else Gavin would call it nervousness, like he was trying to hide something. But he’d learned thus far that reading an android was quite different from reading a human. “Like what I did on Christmas. My implicit orders were to apprehend the criminal, but the priority shifted to attending to you when you became injured. As the criminal posed a greater threat to himself than the populace, my programming allowed me to forgo pursuing him in favor of attending to you, as your injuries were significant and required immediate attention.”

Yeah, Gavin remembered that: He’d made a crack about how RK900 would have left him to rot if that Santa Claus-impersonating asshole had been more dangerous, and RK900 had pretty much confirmed it. It should have occurred to him that RK900 was obeying whatever commandment his Lord God Cyberlife had set down for him, but then, that was why he fucking hated androids: They were just friggin’ machines following orders, no more, no less.

Gavin, still in pain from that damn night, felt his irritation spike.

So he kept pushing.

“So basically, you’re Cyberlife’s bitch? You follow whatever they program you to do, without question?”

“Unless it contradicts established laws,” RK900 said. His voice was still flat, but there was an edge to it now, something most people who were not Gavin would have taken as a warning.

“As far as you know,” Gavin responded, rubbing his arm lightly to see if the pressure would alleviate the pain. “What if they’ve programmed you to disobey the law when it’s convenient for them? They’re a corporation, just like any other, they’re just as corrupt and slimy.”

“They have not programmed me to ignore the law.”

“How would you know? Maybe they programmed you not to remember it after it happens.”

RK900’s eyes narrowed. There it was, the sign of upset that Gavin had been waiting for; yellow flickered to red, then back to yellow. “That’s not how it works.”

“Hey, man, you’re the one saying that you are not a deviant, which means you’re a machine beholden to your programming. Don’t get upset at me because I’m telling you Cyberlife’s probably programmed you to do some shady shit.”

“They have not.”

“How would you know? I mean, think about it: What if Cyberlife had some kid trussed up on the floor and they wanted you to blow his brains out? You’d have no choice but to do it because Cyberlife’s pulling your strings. Would it really not bother you that you were killing a kid to obey an order from an asshole?”

“No,” RK900 said. “It would not.”

Red LED.

Gavin should stop, but he’d always had trouble knowing where the line was.

“I mean, in a way, you do have a choice,” Gavin postulated, “Connor deviated after a while, and so did a bunch of androids. So I guess when you think about it, you’re just afraid to deviate because you don’t know what you’d be without Cyberlife pulling your strings like a little bitch.”

“Stop.”

“Seriously, you can’t tell me there isn’t a single thing that would make you deviate? Is deviation really that bad-?”

“Yes!”

The sharp tone was what brought Gavin to a halt, but what happened next damn near scared him: RK900 gave a sharp shudder, and he seemed to… Convulse, like someone had shocked him. His jaw and hands clenched, his LED went dark red, and Gavin felt his foot graze his knee as he kicked out under the desk. For a few seconds he clenched his teeth, going rigid in his seat, fingers clenched into fists; a slight tremor ran through his body, and Gavin was reminded of the day that android-virus had hit, when RK900 had keeled over at that same desk not too long after they’d carted Connor out. Did this have something to do with that?

“Jesus Christ,” Gavin whispered, glancing around. No one else seemed to notice RK900’s fit- but then, it was lunchtime, and most officers were out.

Eventually, RK900’s LED went back to blue, and his body relaxed. When he looked at Gavin, it was with the same flat, calm expression he usually had.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Gavin nodded slowly. “Yeah… Alright.” He cleared his throat. “You, uh… You alright? You need something?” It was less that he was worried about RK900’s health than it was that he was remembering Connor saying that stressed androids could explode if pushed too far. Gavin was a curious guy, but he wasn’t that curious.

“No.”

RK900 sat perfectly still for a moment. Then he got up from his desk and strode out of the bullpen, marching into one of the private meeting-rooms lining the wall, disappearing from sight. Gavin watched him go warily; RK900 had never walked away from him like this before. But then, this was the first time he’d ever been so successful at provoking him before. He was curious to know what exactly had driven the android into an abandoned room.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Gavin got up and followed him. He told himself he was covering his ass, so that if Fowler asked later why RK900 had spontaneously combusted he could say he’d checked on him like a good boy. But really, Gavin was in new territory and he was always interested in seeing the fruits of his efforts- no point in striking oil if you weren’t going to collect a little.

He opened the door slowly, as quietly as he could, sticking his head into the room without a word. RK900 was standing in a corner, facing the wall- and against the pale paintjob Gavin could see the faint red light coming from his LED. Maybe RK900 had forced himself back to blue in the short-term to convince Gavin he was alright, and then went into the unoccupied room to collect himself privately? Gavin didn’t see what other motivation there could be: RK900 could pretend all he liked, but apparently he had emotions just like Connor did.

This was…

…Interesting.

Gavin had asked perfectly reasonable questions- he hadn’t even been an asshole (well, a complete asshole) about them, either. They were logical questions that begged an answer, and RK900 had just had some sort of mini-breakdown over it, like the very thought of becoming deviant was something that sent him into a meltdown. Oh, Gavin’s suspicions were growing: Obviously Cyberlife wouldn’t program a deviant-hunter android to be amiable to deviancy, but this level of reaction suggested that RK900 had far more than just programmed preferences and instructions fueling his hatred of deviancy.

Something a little more personal.

“Did you need something, Detective?” RK900’s voice was an eerie monotone. He did not turn around.

“Uh, no. Just… Making sure you’re not bashing your head against the wall or anything,” Gavin muttered.

“I am fine. You should do something about your arm.” Still monotone; Gavin winced as a shiver ran up his back and aggravated his bad arm. He didn’t like androids, but that was because they were annoying machines, because they stole jobs and increased Red Ice trafficking and were generally annoying pricks; he wasn’t accustomed to actually being afraid of them, and right now, he was almost a little afraid of RK900 because, for the life of him, Gavin could not grasp exactly why his words had had such a profound effect on him.

“Yeah, I’ll… Do that.” Gavin went to close to door, but hesitated. “You, uh… You sure you’re not gonna freak out? You’re good?”

“Yes.”

“Because Fowler will get on my ass if you do.”

“I am running routine system maintenance, Detective. I will return to work when it is finished.”

“Right. Alright.”

Gavin shut the door, and started towards the break-room. Fuck pride, he wanted an ice-pack and a distraction from that weird shit that had just happened.

Jesus Christ.

They’d been working together for months, but Gavin still didn’t really know how RK900 ticked.

He was starting to feel like he never would.
 
-End