Disclamer: the characters are the exclusive property of quantic dream and come from the video game detroit become human

2880 minutes.

Connor didn't move. He didn't move when he heard the safety of the revolver jump. He didn't even look at Reed. His eyes remained stubbornly empty, as Hank tried to intervene between the two men as best he could.

"Get out, Hank. There is surely a tramp in this fucking place with whom you can share a bottle. I'll even send you a whole bunch of money once I've cashed the reward for that piece of shit. Look at him... "

Reed smirked with a contemptuous smile, pointing to Connor with the extremity of his gun. Then, with a quick move of his hand, he dropped the black cap, revealing a febrile carmine glow that spin insolently on his temple.

"Nothing but a pale imitation of human. "

Hank prepared to retort, but Connor shoved him roughly to stand in front of Reed's weapon. The policeman tried to hold him, but the RK800 was not listening. He was animated by such anger that all reasoning seemed to have abandoned his so rational program. Without blinking, the machine moved calmly towards the barrel of the revolver and straightened it to point it to his forehead under the intrigued gaze of his opponent. The deviant raised his head and stared at Gavin with hateful eyes as his voice vibrated with barely contained rage.

"You're right, Reed, I'm not human. But what is humanity, Inspector? Emotions ? Organs that decay with age until you become senile? An amazing ability to destroy everything around you, including your own specie? It's just fabulous! it makes me so eager! And tell me Reed, because you understand, Inspector, I'm just a machine, I know nothing... What feelings could Perkins have felt when he pressed the button? When he did thousands of thousands of lives fly in a fraction of a second just with one finger? Guilt? Happiness ? Or maybe just the satisfaction of having accomplished his mission brilliantly? Ah, it is beautiful, your humanity! And I'm happy not to be part of it. I sincerely hope that one day no one will make me an affront to confuse myself with your specie. I still prefer a thousand times our fake tears when we have been annihilated and our counterfeited despair that your real smiles and your true joy. So fuck you bastard, you can shoot. I'm already dead. "

Reed stared at Connor with a dark gaze. His mocking smile had faded from his lips in favor of a more serious expression. The anger of the RK, however, had the effect of surprising him long enough that the police lieutenant had time to get off his gun and point it toward his colleague. For a moment, the scene seemed frozen, out of time. Only the LED on the face of Connor broke this grim picture.

"Reed, dont' be so dumb ... you're too young for me to explode your brains, but if you shoot, I promise you that you can say goodbye to your pretty little head, bastard. "

And Reed never had the opportunity to decide if he wanted to be a dumb or not.

"Connor, no! "

The machine didn't take a second into account the warning of his former partner. In an agile and quick move, the RK800 quickly grabbed the police inspector's hand before hitting his nose, causing him to moan in pain. Gavin tried to get out of the grip of the Cyberlife agent by sweeping his legs to make him fall to the ground. The android fell, dragging his opponent in his fall, without letting go of his grip the armed hand of the human. Hank, on his side, was agape. The din of the altercation reverberated on the bare concrete walls of the old construction site, risking at any time to attract a dozen barrels of revolver that they wouldn't hesitate to fire on the deviant. But Hank also knew that if he tried to control Connor, Reed would shoot as soon as the Android was in a weak position. As to control Reed ... It was enough that he starts to cry so that all his hopes of saving the young deviant be annihilated. And then, let's be honest, alcohol and old age, both running in his veins, ruined all his chances of gaining the upper hand over one or the other.

Reed punched violently at the machine's thirium pump, which folded for a moment in half, its operation briefly interrupted. A second blow hit his face, breaking his nose and revealing the alabaster skin of its artificial structure. Blue blood driped on the ground. But as the RK system stabilized, Gavin grabbed a small penknife that he hid in his shoe and planted it in the knee of the machine.

"Gavin, stop! He is alive !"

The policeman brandishes his weapon again towards the robot. Without thinking further, Hank grabbed him violently from behind to throw him to the ground. The young officer struggled more and hit the old inspector on the forehead with the butt of his revolver. The old man, surprised, let him go. But before Reed could redirect his weapon to the android, he felt a live and intense pain in his wrist. A snap was heard as he screamed in pain. Connor had just broken Gavin's hand. And this one, defeated, had dropped his weapon. The machine seized it, and, without the slightest hesitation, it directed the gun at the head of the dominated human.

Provocative, Reed snorted in the midst of his pain.

"That's it, asshole. You won't shoot. You aren't programmed for .... "

But Gavin interrupted his sentence and his jeering smile faded immediately. Where he thought he plunged his eyes into cold and robotic eyes, he rushed into two brown eyes, in which shone a nameless anger, wild like a hurricane able of taking everything away. Something in that damn machine had changed. It... He hated.

"Connor, stop! If you shoot you're going to stir everybody! "

Hank had interposed between them, and Gavin understood that he owed his salvation only to the reaction of the old policeman. Connor's fingers were still on the trigger. But while the young inspector was expecting him to drop his gun, he did not do anything about it. His dark irises were a bottomless pit of sadness and rage. The lieutenant slowly raised his hands before staring at his partner incredulously.

"Damn it, Connor, what are you doing? It's me you're pointing out! "

The RK800 raised its revolver, right, towards Hank. The latter stared at it with a mixture of sorrow haineand misunderstanding. In a voice trembling with anger, the deviant was content with spitting hainehis hate:

"Get out of here, Hank, or I'll kill you too. I'm done, anyway. They are surely already looking for us. And I promise on the thousands of dead in Jericho that I won't die without deactivating as many humans as i could, including you, if necessary. "

He was in pain. He was so in pain. He was a he was drained of his nerves and force, for far too long. Hank was all he loved in mankind, and because of that, he was also all he hated in it too. he was this hesitation of a split second that he had to shoot at Reed, and which had allowed the lieutenant to intervene. He was this damn luck that he offered his partner to step aside to let him shoot Gavin, instead of promptly ending the situation with two bullets in their hearts. He was the last chains that still tied him to his creators. If he wanted to be free, he had to kill Hank. Saving him, he showed empathy. Empathy was a human emotion. That's what the old man had taught him when he spared Chloe's model at Kamski's home. He did not want this empathy anymore. He wanted to destroy it. He had to kill his humanity. He didn't want to become human anymore.

To do this, he had just to press harder on the trigger of his firearm. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it. He couldn't fix these two blue irises without sinking into their compassion. An alert informed him that his software was deteriorating a little more.

" I hate you ! "

He shouted those words, like a call for help, as tears of rage and frustration flowed freely down his cheeks. Water, nothing but water, he thought, not tears. He didn't want to feel anymore. No, he didn't want those emotions witch weakened him. He had to become a machine again. He didn't want to be alive anymore.

"I know Connor, I know ..."

With gentleness and inhuman tenderness, the lieutenant approached the young deviant. Then, in a slow but firm gesture, he gently put his hands on the weapon of the android. Connor didn't resist. He couldn't. He was defeated, shot down by his own helplessness as surely as if Reed had fired first. In the distance, voices were heard, and their lugubrious sound presaged too well that they were looking for them. The disturbance of their altercation had finally attracted the other policemen.

"Connor, you have to leave, now! "

he said to the extinct Android. The latter slowly raised his face to the old inspector and looked at him with a gaze that mixed incomprehension and weariness. He laughed bitterly, so discreet but so heart-rending in the dark night that Hank's heart became heavy against the abrupt reality of the situation.

"Where can I go, Hank? It's over, anyway ... "

Connor would not be okay ... Connor was going to die. The lieutenant closed his eyes painfully. The voices were getting closer. Behind him, Reed stood up. In a paternal gesture, he put his hands on the shoulders of his former teammate. The Android didn't react. Despair seemed to already desactivate it, component by component.

"I'll get you out of there ... I'll find a way ..."

Hank was thinking at full speed. But even in his words, the tone of his voice already betrayed his heartbreak. There was no solution. There was none. Even if he managed to escape the dozen policemen who were coming in their direction, which already was highly unlikely, they would still have to get out of this trip and manage to outwit the FBI that was watching out the Hank's car and house. All this without Reed putting a bullet in their backs or civilians denouncing the former leader...

"Fucking shit ... Fucking shit ! you piss me off! "

Gavin's angry voice recalled his presence to the police lieutenant. The young man seemed confused, and in a movement of fury he kicked an abandonned old can on the floor. Then he looked at Connor with an expression mixing disgust with deep hesitation. The android had no reaction. At first sight, it looked like a simple wax statue. However, when one paid more attention, one couldn't not be caught by the two chocolate eyes that trembled with secret hatred and fear. In fact, Connor no longer worked like a machine. He look more like a wounded and frightened animal, frozen in the dazzling headlights of a car, incapable of the slightest movement, because of his terror of the humanity that was tetanizing him. A fear that the robot was trying to hide, but which manifested itself ostensibly in the flicker of his led, stubbornly red.

And in a subliminal memory in a fraction of a second, the young inspector relives the silent images of the television cameras that filmed the lying down bodies of thousands of androids ... What if?

"Get out of here, idiot! And above all you shut your mouth and you don't move, otherwise you're dead. "

With an instinctive movement that surprised the RK800 as much as his partner, Reed grabbed the Deviant's arm and pushed it unceremoniously behind one of the thick concrete posts of the abandoned carcass of the old unfinished building. He picked up his black cap and launched it in a scornful gesture before turning his attention back to Hank.

"48 hours. In 48 hours maximum you and your flashing shit you'll be definitely out of my life. I protect it 2880 minutes. Not one more. "

2880 minutes, to try to redeem a humanity. Reed did the math quickly. It was not so expensive. As the police torches appeared a few feet away, he flung a violent punch in the face of a totally stunned Hank. The latter fell to the ground just in time to see his colleague put his foot on the trail of blue blood still visible on the ground. He gave the inspector a puzzled look. He helped Connor. Reed, that bloody asshole, was helping Connor. It was incomprehensible, insomuch that the old policeman was absolutely not sure that it was a good thing.

"What's that mess again? REED! ANDERSON! Can I know what's going on here? "

Folwer came hurriedly, visibly overwhelmed by the behavior of his two agents. He was used to their fiery temperament and their notorious enmity, but that was going too far. Really too far, judging by the still bloodied nose of his inspector and his swollen hand that began to dye in a bad purple red.

"I sobered the lieutenant ... Sorry, but for a second, I took him for one of those boozers squatting this place. It's true that the resemblance is astoning! "

Gavin merely replied with a provocative and contemptuous smile against the old man. The lieutenant got up calmly and then wiped the blood that blew from his lip before sending an ironic smile to Folwer ... which was followed by a good punch in the Reed's belly. The latter, surprised not so much by the gesture as by the pain, folded in half, gasping for breath, before casting a dark gaze at his eldest.

"Maybe the ressemblance's astonishing you better like that, Reed? "

Two officers seized the lieutenant to separate him from his colleague. As another approached to help Gavin, Gavin shoved him away with his usual bad mood. Jeffrey Fowler was dismayed. The two men had never get to grips until now, but given the characters, it was not a surprising thing. However, Reed's state intrigued the police captain. His hand seemed sore, maybe even broken, and his nose was still bleeding. He knew his men. Hank was an angry and sometimes violent impulsive man, but he could never have gotten away with so few injuries against the young and athletic inspector. Not if Reed had attacked the first...

"Hank, do not take me for an idiot otherwise I promise you that this time, I will write myself the epilogue of your disciplinary novel! "

"It's ok Jeffrey! This guy is only a brat without brain and heart! A bastard that justifies the massacre of androids by ... »

"Stop with that Hank, it's not going to start again! "

The captain had shouted these words on his subordinate who had stopped speaking, not without, however, dedicated to him a look filled with anger. Here it is, the reason for this violent altercation. Folwer sighed. A further provocation from his young agent about the machines, a day when it was not a good idea. In a posture of chagrin, he pinched his nose before speacking with an ostentatious annoyance:

"Jesus, Hank! I manage a police station, not a kindergarten! You beat me it with your androids. They were machines, Hank, just fucking machines! Gouverment just pressed a switch, and they switch off tje androids like your electrical devices when you turn off the breaker. "

Hank closed his eyes painfully. Millions of people thought that. And every day, as the desire for freedom had blushed the bluish glow of androids, this speech of the victorious gained ground and contaminated the minds of humans. Soon, history would remember only the bug of 2038. It would forget Markus' moving song against the bullets, the canons that fall in front of this call to life, and the shy smile of Connor, so simple, so mimetic, still hesitant, in front of an old burger truck. But history is like that. The losers are silent, the winners decide.

"I tried everything Hank. I protected you against Perkins, I closed my eyes on your delays, your smell of alcohol, your staggering footsteps. I offered you the help of a psychologist, to take a vacation I ... I did everything ... but here you go too far. I helped you in memory of the past, and you did nothing but spit on the hand I handed you. It's over, Hank. Now you get out of there, you get out of this crime scene immediately and you give me your plate. You are suspended until further notice! I don't want to see you here anymore, understood? "

the old lieutenant didn't blink at Fowler's anger. For a moment, the captain thought he was going to see his old friend again in this defensive stance, so solid and so peaceful at the same time. No heat. No scream. Just the strength of a character who refuses to bend. Hank took out his plate and his weapon and threw them at the feet of his superior, before turning around and leaving, without uttering a single word. Yet, in his mind, a lot of things were happening.

He prayed with all his might, hoping that Fowler pay no attention to the irregular shadow of the concrete pillar that hid the last dreamer of Jericho. He prayed that the young inspector didn't decide to denounce the android finally, and that he could get him out of there. He prayed beacause he want that tonight again, an earthy glow with sadly reddish shades would continue to shine in this night without the slightest star above their heads.

A thought crossed his mind like an unconscious revelation.

It was impossible to see the stars at night in Detroit.

Except for those who knew where they had to look for finding their red shy light...

***

and a another chapitre is ending ! It was particulary hard to translate, so don't hesitate to tell me if there are too many mistakes ! Hope you enjoy this chapter too ! See you soon for the rest of the story !