[Start the song if you want to]

The only decently relaxing place Dallon could think of was the bridge over a river that had drained a few years prior. The snow beginning to stick to the ground had started to pile up on the bench and the railing to prevent anyone else from tumbling into the concrete ditch.

Almost an hour had passed, and Brendon had yet to overcome the rush of new information and emotions he'd received from the deviant. Human were so much more complex than it'd thought, it was a miracle they continued to live without spontaneously combusting from overload. And that was an android, who hadn't been deviant for as long as most humans. 

"How're you doing?" Lieutenant Weekes spoke up quietly from the bench. He'd watched Brendon stare into the ditch the entire time.

"How do you do it," it whispered into the silence, "how do you cope? W-with the loneliness, and the fear? It's constant. It won't cycle out of my system. Why won't it cycle out of my system, Lieutenant?"

"It's just life, Brendon. Feelings come, and feelings go. You're just overloaded right now, they'll pass. They always do. Just give it time." He hoped they would, at least. Dallon prayed deviance wouldn't take hold of the one android he'd actually began to tolerate. Still, he kept a finger hovering over the trigger of the small handgun in the holster strapped around his waist. Because there was still only one way to put an end to a deviant.

The LED had yet to fade back to the original blue. "I saw Jericho again too. It must have some important connections to the deviants. I've seen it twice now."

"That place is everywhere, tin can. Do you have any idea how famous that name is? Even if it did mean something, it would be impossible to find, especially when all the deviants we find are dead, are on the verge of it, or refuse to talk."

"I wasn't going to kill him. One of the officers did. I wanted to get more information from a deviant that appeared to play a crucial part in that crime, but the opportunity is gone now. I believe... I believe I failed to complete the mission, Lieutenant."

"It's a nice view isn't it? If you look over the railing on the other side, you can kinda see the city. I like to see the all the lights turn on as the sun sets." Dallon pointed ahead of him, trying to steer the conversation away in hopes it would help. "Y'know, I used to come here a helluva lot with..." He trailed off and his hand dropped to his side.

"With?"

"Nothin'. Forget about it."

Brendon rested its chin on the bar. The software stability fluctuated from the sudden burst of cold, but stabilized quickly. "Can I ask you a personal question, Lieutenant?"

"If it'll help you calm down, I don't give a shit. Shane can open the fridge on his own so we don't need to be home for a while."

"I sense you're not telling the whole story of the end of your relationship with Detective Taylor," he said, eliciting a loud groan from Dallon, "I would like to know the full details."

He sighed. "That's a story for another time, yeah? If all your personal questions are like that, shut your trap. I don't want to hear it. I've cried enough today."

Brendon noticed Dallon was becoming increasingly upset, even though it'd only asked one question. "You said you used to come here a lot with someone or something. Elaborate?"

"Oh my god, with nobody! Just drop it, okay! I don't want to talk about Taylor, not now, not ever. You know what anger feels like. That's how I feel. Stop talking about her!"

Brendon nodded. It'd gone right back to square one with the Lieutenant; anger and hostility instead of the trust and comfort from the night prior, all because of 2 questions and no answers. "We're getting nowhere in this investigation."

"You can say that again."

"The deviants have nothing in common, there's no connection between any of them! They're different models, produced at different times in different places. There has to be some correlation, but there's nothing."

"Well, think harder. You were designed to do this shit, so do it." Dallon huffed. He kicked a baseball sized chunk of snow to the ground and watched it collapse into the rest of the white. From a quick scan, Brendon could tell something was bothering him. His cold blue eyes kept drifting off to the city in front of them, his shoulders were hunched, and when he wasn't looking at Detroit he was staring at his shoes.

"You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant. Is something wrong?"

"Back at the CyberLife production building or whatever the hell it is," he avoided eye contact, continuing to toy lightly with the trigger, "you didn't kill that deviant, even though you shouldn't known that was the only action that made logical sense. We all told you to, but you didn't. Why?"

Brendon scrambled for an answer that wasn't what had actually run through its mind in that moment. "I was trying to extract as much data as I could before he was killed. I succeeded. That's why I refused to kill him."

"And what did it say to you? It said something to you, but I was too far away to hear it. Was it bargaining with you, or what?"

Again, it struggled to find an appropriate answer, but it worried taking too much time would only encourage suspicion. "He told me I didn't have to kill him. I had a choice, that I was alive. I blocked it out, and that's when I downloaded his memory and received all the emotions he possessed."

"Are you?" He pushed off the bench with his free hand, taking a few steps forward. Brendon turned around to face him.

"Am I what?"

"Alive. Are you alive, Brendon?"

"I am a machine, Lieutenant. The emotions I am experiencing are only in my system because they were transferred over from a deviant."

"You didn't kill it," he pulled the gun out of his pocket and aimed the barrel at its chest, "you felt empathy for it, didn't you? You were afraid for it, and that's why you didn't kill it."

"I didn't kill him because I had a job to do. I needed his memory to gain the information I needed to continue with the case and get to the root of this issue."

"You look human, you sound human, but what are you really? Because you're sure as hell not a human." His hand shook from both the cold and the overwhelming sense of fear coursing through his veins.

Brendon had managed to stay calm, even though the LED had returned back to red. "I'm whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant. Your partner, something to keep you warm at night, or just a machine, designed to accomplish a task.

"You could've killed it," Dallon's voice gained volume as well as concern and anger, "you could've prevented it from hurting anyone else, but you didn't. What the fuck got into your program?"

"I just decided not to shoot, that's all. I told you before, and I'll tell you again if it reduces your stress levels by any number."

"I could kill you," Dallon seethed, and the gun shook even more as his nerves flooded with fear, "and you'd come back in a day or whatever like nothing had ever happened. But are you afraid to die?"

"I would certainly find it regrettable to have the investigation stalled at this point in time, but death is not a topic of concern as I will return as myself in another body."

"What would happen if I pulled this trigger right now, hm? Nothing? Oblivion? Android Heaven? Tell me; how do I know you're not a deviant?"

Brendon stared down the barrel of the gun as it leveled out and the snowfall slowed. "I self-test regularly. I know what I am, and what I am not. Trust me, Lieutenant. I'm far from our perception of a deviant."

With tears pooling in his eyes, Dallon let the gun fall to his side, hanging loosely in his grip. Brendon's system stabilized again, and the LED turned back to blue. It felt oddly relieved his partner had decided against shooting.

"I'm sorry."

Before Brendon could fully process the scene unfolding in front of it, 3 bullets had shot through its chest, the final one burying itself between its eyes.