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The car ride in the Lieutenant's Oldsmobile to the crime scene was sufficiently awkward. Hank had insisted that Elodie take the front seat in lieu of Connor, which had sent Elodie's nerves into a haywire. She hadn't been in a car with an actual driver in years, and so she spent the entire ride with her body pressed against the side of the car and her feet wedged against the floor in a vain attempted to brace her body against the possibility of an accident. This had caused instant offense with Hank, who'd launched into a rant that had ended with threatening to make her hitchhike the rest of the way. To make things worse, Connor had attempted to lull the tension in the car by listing off all of the facts it had managed to learn about Hank during the day.

Elodie hadn't put the pieces of the puzzle together, too frazzled by her experience with Gavin Reed to do more than to let the android know that she was leaving for the day. It was only whilst sitting in the car that she realised the desk Connor had been pouring over was Hank's. Much to the horror of both Elodie and the lieutenant, the android had begun to quickly rattle off the items it had analyzed for information. Hank remained completely silent until Connor broached the topic of his dog which Connor had discovered by analyzing the hairs on Hank's coat.

" It's a Saint Bernard, right lieutenant? I was unable to acquire the dog's name but if you would allow me th—"

"Silence! Silence! I need silence." 

Elodie hadn't realised until that moment that he was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were bright white. Connor obliged, and the interior of the car fell into an uneasy quiet.

After a minute or so, Connor spoke again.

"Would it be ok if you were to play some Knights of the Black Death? I really enjoy their music. They make a lot of interesting sounds and noises."

Hank sighed in resignation, rolling his eyes. Without another word, he fiddled with the car's stereo. Moments later, the car filled with the sound of aggressive heavy metal. Elodie clenched her jaw, resigning herself to endure the cacophony for the sake of peace.

Ten minutes later and they were pulling onto a street filled with news vans. Despite the sleet of rain, a crowd of people were gathered outside one of the houses, the front yard of which had been fenced off with yellow tape. The bright light from one of the vans illuminated the house in  stark white, harsh shadows thrown on the weatherboard, the silhouettes of police standing guard.

"You two shouldn't even be allowed into an active crime scene." Hank muttered, looking with a grimace to the squat house. "Wait here."

"But lieutenan—" Elodie began. Hank opened his car door, slamming it shut and silencing her. She watched as his looming figure began to weave through the crowd, all but shoving those loitering aside. She sighed under her breath before glancing over her shoulder. Connor met her gaze.

"We have conflicting orders."

"Indeed." Elodie replied, chewing on the inside of her cheek. 

She sighed, now more exasperated, as she looked back towards the house. She didn't want to follow the detective, she was more than happy to stay in the comfort of the warm car. But the longer that she felt the eyes of the android behind her, she more she felt a niggling at the back of her mind.

With a grimace, she opened the passenger door and slid outside, pulling the hood of her windbreaker up to shield her from the rain before she followed after the lieutenant. She glanced over her shoulder to see that the android was in pursuit too, waiting for him to catch up before moving to the police tape.

"No androids." The policeman standing guard said in a stern voice, his eyes fixed on Connor as he spoke. Slowly, he shifted his gaze to Elodie. "Or civilians."

"They're with me." A voice from behind him called. Hank was waiting beneath the awning in front of the door, shaking droplets of water from his grey hair. He exhaled with obvious annoyance as the pair approached him, shaking his head. "Not a fan of listening, huh?"

Connor was already ducking past Hank.

"I have orders to investigate this crime scene."

"Just don't get in my way, alright?" Hank muttered. Elodie moved to follow but Hank held out a hand. "Hang on. It's pretty gnarly in there. I think maybe you oughta think twice about barging in with the rest of us. Dunno what kinda constitution you got, but if it's anything less than steely, you're shit outta luck."

"Whatever reason you're trying to prevent me from entering, whether it be my profession or my gender or what have you lieutenant, I can assure you tha—" Elodie began.

"I got told there's a beat cop out the back vomiting his guts into the garden, alright? It's got nothing to do with whatever diatribe you're abouta launch into. But suit yourself, if you think you can handle it."

He grimaced, before turning and heading into the house. Elodie lowered the hood of her windbreaker, quickly running a hand against the top of her head to smooth her hair in an attempt to soothe herself. His comment had rattled her, already the scent inside was wafting out towards her. Aware of the eyes of spectators on the street, she swallowed her misgivings and followed after the lieutenant.

The smell hit her like a freight train. Elodie staggered backwards into the doorframe behind her as she clutched her forehead, her other hand clamping itself to her nose. A stabbing pain erupted in her skull, like a needle poking into the spongy tissue of her brain, and she felt the world beginning to spin as she struggled to gain her footing. From the periphery of her mind, she could hear Hank saying something, a remark that sounded wholly unsympathetic, but his words were lost in the darkness of her closed eyelids. She felt a presence standing over her. She clenched her throat against the nausea, forcing herself out of her head and back into the present.

Connor stood in front of her. Slowly, the android raised a faded looking handkerchief upwards, holding it towards her.

"Miss Kamski, it appears that the scent from the deceased has overwhelmed you. I took the liberty of finding something that might dampen the smell and make it easier for you to aid in the investigation."

"Aid in the investigation." Hank muttered nearby. 

Elodie glanced past Connor for a moment to rest on the lieutenant. He was mid-conversation with one of a portly plain-clothed officer with a handlebar moustache. Elodie lowered her hands to quickly take the fabric and wrap it around the lower half of her face, tying it in place firmly. 

The fabric had certainly seen better days and smelled vaguely of mildew, but at least cut a barrier from the rancid stench. Elodie nodded toward Connor in approval, and the android smiled.

"Glad to be of assistance. I am going to analyse the crime scene in order to ascertain what has happened here and apprehend the possible deviant in question."

And with that, Connor turned on his heel, beginning to look around the crime scene. Elodie finally let her eyes traverse the interior of the house.

To say it was a mess was an understatement, it was basically a pit. Elodie had never quite seen anything like it, from the rotten food and piles of garbage strewn about to the damp and rot leaking down from the ceiling and flowering in the floorboards below. 

The body was where her eyes rested next. A large man, his skin grey with death, a round torso littered with vicious stab wounds. She flinched at the sight, surprised that she found the sight of him sickening. When it came to visual stimuli, Elodie considered herself desensitised, but there was something about the way the man's eyes hung open in death that unnerved her.  Above him were big white letters, written in Cyberlife Sans, the words 'I AM ALIVE'. A shiver run up her spine.

"So, what do you think?" 

Elodie almost jumped as she noticed the lieutenant's eyes on her. She straightened up, clasping her hands behind her.

"About the body?"

"About your boy."

Hank raised his head to gesture towards Connor. Elodie followed his gaze. Connor was, at that moment, bent down to analyse a smear of blood on the floor. She could see the android ticking over the information in its brain. Then the android swiped two of its fingers on the smear and dipped its fingers into its mouth. 

"Jesus fucking Christ, Connor!"

Connor turned its head to towards Hank. 

"I'm creating a blood sample and running it against the DPD database." It paused, looking back towards its fingers. "Carlos Ortiz. Born October 27, 2008. Height five foot six and a weight of two hundred and eighty six pounds. Ortiz has a criminal record of theft and aggravated assault."

"Yeah, real fuckin' impressive. That was disgusting." Hank said, turning back to face Elodie. "You programmed it to do that?"

"On the battlefield, being able to take samples is a necessity for possible post-war judicial trials." Elodie muttered, feeling defensive. 

Hank narrowed his eyes. From the corner of her vision, Elodie watched as Connor moved from the living room and towards the back of the house.

"What do you mean 'on the battlefield'?"

"I mean that the Connor android is multipurpose." She muttered, averting her gaze.

"Multipurpose or not so purpose built? Isn't this thing meant to hunt deviants?"

"Connor hunts deviants, yes."

"But was he made to hunt deviants?"

"Does it matter?" Her tone was cold and sharp. "He's the closest thing that your department has to a solution. The Detroit Police Department is a joke. Your captain was barely helpful. I was accosted by some plain clothed detective when I was there earlier. And, I mean, apparently you're the best man for the job yet I had to drag you out of a bar. This is ludicrous."

"So Cyberlife forced an android that's purpose isn't even to hunt deviants onto the DPD because, what, it felt like it? Is this some kind of sick experiment? Well I hate to tell you sweetheart, but I don't think licking the crime scene clean's gonna crack the case."

Elodie bristled. She'd never been criticised so brazenly when it came to her work. It wasn't as though she was never questioned, but Elodie had simply stopped lending credence to the opinions of those who were not her brother. She'd never have thought the words of a layperson would affect her, but Hank questioning her integrity had formed an itch of irritation.

"You know nothing about my work ethic, or the effectiveness of RK800. Frankly, I resent the fact you're even here to begin with. I'm sure the android could do perfectly well without you, since you seem to be spending all the time in the world haranguing me instead of doing your job."

"Are you tryna insult me, kid? You expect me to put up with this crap? You marched into that bar tonight, the both of you, dragged me out into the pouring rain for this? I bet that thing doesn't even know what it's doing. It's trampling all over my fuckin' crime scene and I got you having a goddamn conniption just walking in here. My bet's that it's gonna fuck everything up, then I'm gonna have to field a mountain of paperwork just to clean up after the mess you tw—"

The sound of a throat clearing broke Hank's rant. Connor was standing beside the two of them, a small smile resting on its lips.

"Yeah? What is it?" Hank demanded.

"Well," Connor began. Elodie was sure the android was puffing its chest out with pride as it spoke. "I believe I have solved the case."

"Y—" Hank stopped short, a smirk appearing on his face. He looked to Elodie, and she realised he was searching for reassurance. Hank shook his head incredulously. "You've solved the case? This case? The one we arrived at five minutes ago?"

Elodie reached into her pocket and pulled out her pen and notepad, warped with damp. She flipped open to the first page, which already had a few notes scribbled down from earlier in the day in her crowded penmanship. Hank threw his hands in the air at the sight of Elodie's poised pen.

"Wait, are you being serious?! You're gonna believe this crap?"

"Go on RK800." Elodie prompted, ignoring Hank. 

She felt the need to prove a point now, but internally, she was just as shocked as Hank was. They'd barely been at the crime scene, and she was sure that Connor couldn't have done more than a cursory sweep. Was the technology really that efficient?

"It began in the kitchen." Connor said, beginning to move towards the direction of it's words. Elodie and Hank almost knocked into each other as they followed, Elodie's pen beginning to track across the paper. 

"Ortiz attacked the android, with the bat on the ground to our left."

"Anyone coulda told you that." Hank replied with an eyeroll.

The android gestured to the side to the black metal baseball bat. Elodie frowned, as she spied it from the corner of her eye. She nodded slowly.

"Go on."

"The android was backed into a corner. Using one of the knives on the kitchen wall, the android then stabbed the victim." Connor said, towards the knives. It then turned, and pointed to the way the trio had came. "The victim fled to the living room, after which the deviant continued to aggress upon the victim until he stumbled backwards into his final resting place. The deviant then murdered the victim by stabbing him. The victim suffered a total number of 28 stab wounds."

Elodie swallowed, pursing her lips behind the cloth mask. 

"And you gathered this entirely from your reconstruction features?"

Connor nodded. Despite herself, she found herself smiling behind the shield of material, pride swelling in her chest. She glanced to Hank, who had remained silent during the rest of the explanation. He was looking down at something on the kitchen bench.

Hank picked up a digital magazine, waving it in Connor's face.

"What about this 'android sex' business? Know anything about that, smart ass?"

"It doesn't pertain to the investigation." Connor replied impassively.

"Lieutenant, is that really necessary?"

Hank placed the magazine down, waving a hand. 

"Can't have any fun these days, huh?" He looked back towards the android, his annoyance clear as day on his face. "Fine, it's not such a crazy theory. But it doesn't mean crap without the suspect, smartass. Where's the deviant?"

"I was arriving at that." Connor replied. Elodie wondered if she was imagining the hint of impatience in the android's tone. "But there was something I wanted to show you first, Miss Kamski."

Elodie followed after Connor with Hank in tow as the android led them down the hallway that branched off from the kitchen. A door that led off to the right was ajar, and the android pushed it open, allowing Elodie to move past into a cramped bathroom. White tiles stained yellow, a flickering light bulb hanging from a thin wire. Connor gestured towards the shower cubicle, covered by a thin plastic curtain. She drew the curtains aside, feeling her heart leap in her chest.

Hundreds and hundreds of letters had been carved into the porcelain of the tile, all reading the same phrase. ra9. Elodie's gut clenched. Again she felt the ghost of something forgotten, a chill down the length of her spine. Her instincts were trying to tell her something that her mind was rejecting. No, she was just perturbed. It was natural to be perturbed. None of this was regular.

Her eyes travelled down the wall to trace the form of a crudely carved wooden statuette, an elongated figure with a round head and sharp shoulders. Something about the figure also felt  familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on where she had seen it before. She hurriedly began to sketch the figure.

"What is this?" 

"I am unsure. I thought perhaps you could lend some insight."

"I don't know." Elodie admitted, embarrassed at how lost she felt as she looked down at the word now printed on her notepad. "Could it be some kind of code?"

Before Connor could answer, there was a creak from the floorboards above, dust sifting from the ceiling. Something had moved. 

The android darted out from the bathroom, pushing past Hank and into the corridor outside. It looked up at the ceiling, before disappearing out of view. Hank grumbled under his breath as he poked his head out of the door. Stowing away her notepad, Elodie followed him with caution.

"Hey! Don't disrupt the crime scene!" Hank barked, but it was too late, Connor was already carrying over one of the strewn dining room chairs. "Ah, why do I even bother?"

Connor took a step onto the chair, craning it's arms upwards to shift the door open. As it began to hoist itself through the shaft above, Elodie reached out a hand, grabbing the calf of the android.

"Apologies lieutenant, this is necessary to the investigation."

"Wait," she said, looking up at Connor. It paused, meeting her eye. "Let me come with you."

"This some kind of a joke? Now's not the time to play hide and seek in the fuckin' attic."

Elodie shot him a look over her shoulder. 

"Gotta make sure that my plastic toy doesn't go haywire when unsupervised, right?"

Hank rolled his eyes but said nothing in response.

After Connor had pulled itself into the attic above, Elodie followed after, reaching up a hand for Connor to pull her up. She squinted against the gloom as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the loft, shivering instinctively. With less insulation, the upper level was barely protected from the icy temperature of the rain outside. Elodie hugged her arms to her chest as she looked around.

She jumped slightly at the sight of a shadow, the shape of a human head, covered by a white sheet obscuring the path. Connor glanced to her before swiping it out of the way, revealing a mannequin. Elodie breathed a small sigh of relief, nodding.

"Would you like to go back down, Miss Kamski?"

Elodie shook her head, not wanting to give Hank the satisfaction. 

"No. It's fine. Go on, RK800."

Connor nodded, and began to move forward. Behind the curtain of the sheet was a maze of furniture, stacked high and threading a thin path throughout the attic. Elodie paced behind Connor, carefully manoeuvring herself to avoid brushing against a stray lampshade and a tower of boxes. As the pair turned a corner, her foot caught on a snag in the floorboards, and Elodie careened forwards into Connor. The android turned deftly, catching her just short of colliding with its body, steadying its hands against her shoulders. 

"Sorry." She muttered in a low voice as the android let her go.

"It's no problem Miss Kamski. I have added the fact that you are clumsy to your profile."

"Great." Elodie muttered under her breath. "Excellent data collection, I suppose."

They were nearing the back of the attic, the path clearing as they approached the singular light source, a window that allowed moonlight to stream down and illuminate. Elodie looked up through the grimy pane. The moon was almost full, and the rain clouds that had been heavy earlier in the evening had began to clear. Rain still fell against the glass, now a patter. She breathed a soft sigh, overtaken with emotion. She hadn't been out this late in so long. It felt like in the space of a single day, her entire world had shifted out of place. It filled her with equal parts foreboding and intrigue.

"Miss Kamski." Connor said suddenly, it's voice tight. "I have found the deviant."

Her eyes fell to the android, following its line of sight. Through a crack in the furniture, she saw the deviant, it's blood splattered face, it's dark and fearful eyes.

In that moment she was struck with an undeniable sense that something was horribly wrong, and a heavy sense of dread tore through her being, pulling her insides down with it.

"I was just defending myself." The deviant said suddenly. "He was going to kill me. I'm begging you. Don't tell them."

'Wait' was what she wanted to say, but all at once she found herself petrified, her limbs set like stone, every muscle in her body frozen at the highest point of tension. From her open lips, her breath left, in murmured exhalation. A whimper. She willed her body into motion, to vocalise the dread burning inside of her, but once an episode took hold, she became a mere spectator at the mercy of her body.

Connor looked towards her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw it's LED wheel suddenly spinning orange. The deviant suddenly took a step forward, opening its mouth. Before it spoke again, Connor called out, it's voice booming through the attic.

"It's here, lieutenant!"

The deviant's eyes flickered from Connor to her, and it lurched forward. 

Connor's body was suddenly in front of hers, pushing her out of the way. With her body frozen, she went into freefall, sprawling onto the floorboards of the attic and setting off a plume of dust in her wake. Her back skittered into an empty wooden shelf and it begins to rock forward. Adrenaline spiked as she realised the piece of furniture was going to collapse on top of her and suddenly Elodie was back in control of her body, reaching her arms up as the frame tilted on its axis, catching the beams of wood with shaking hands. Instantly her arms were aching, her heart hammering in her chest. Elodie gasped.

When she looked up, the deviant was holding a gun to the android's forehead. Connor had it's hands raised as the deviant's thumb swiped at the safety. It wasn't maliciousness that moment that Elodie saw in the deviant's eyes but fear. Survival.

"I was just defending myself." It repeated. From the other side of the attic was the sound of someone grunting as they pulled themselves up into the loft.

"What the fuck's going on, you two?"

The deviant's eyes widened. It's finger moved towards the trigger. Elodie's heart leapt.

"Wait!" 

It was too late. The sound of the bullet ripped through the attic, bouncing off the walls. Elodie's ears rung with a high pitched wail. Connor collapsed to its knees, blue blood spilling from the exit wound in the back of its head, before falling to the floor. It rolled onto its side, slumping lifelessly.

Her eyes flickered back to the deviant. It looked as though it didn't understand what it had done. Suddenly it locked eyes with her and she felt sure that this is the end, that it would point the gun at her next and end her life. There was no mechanical resurrection for her, only the emptiness of nothing. She squeezed her eyes closed, bracing for the inevitable.

When she opened them next, it was because Hank had shaken her. The shelf has been steadied, lifted from her hands. The lieutenant's hand was on her shoulder, his mouth moving rapidly, but her ears still rung from the shock of the gunshot. He pulled her upwards, and when he drew his hands away, they were stained with blue. She was stained with blue.

"We need to get out of here. Come on."

As she moved to follow after him, dazed and faint, she looked over her shoulder. The deviant was crumpled beside Connor, a matching hole in its head. She shivered, but not from the cold.