Chapter Text
It's still dark out when Gavin Reed wakes up in his one bedroom apartment. He holds a staring contest with his alarm clock, as if the red, digital numbers might do something different for him this morning. After a half-hearted attempt to fall back asleep, he slinks out of bed and pulls himself through the machinations of a morning routine meant to keep him functional. There's an energy drink in the corner of his fridge that quickly disappears as he zips up his leather jacket and grabs his helmet. He steps out to where his motorcycle is in the cold, dark morning, taking a moment to adjust to the dim lighting. He has at least a good hour where he can ride before the rest of Detroit wakes up.
—
There's already a good amount of people at the central station by the time Gavin arrives. He walks briskly through the front lobby, easily passing through the security fence like he's done for so many years. The bullpen is abuzz with small talk, phone calls, coffee cups, the clanging of office drawers, the occasional scuffle of someone who won't go into holding easily. It's a cacophony of sound that the Detective Gavin Reed is maladjusted for. But, as soon as he can get to his desk and bite into his case files, the rest of the world will cease to exist.
A few officers walk by his desk, some of them greeting him, the others staying quiet.
Even after sheer amount of chaos, havoc, and destruction brought at its hand, artificial intelligence androids were still an all too integrated part of society. It proved too much to try and rid itself of the deeply embedded parasite that were the self proclaimed "deviant" androids. For Detroit, at the very least, the wounds caused by trying to pull out all of android integrated life was proving to be as destructive as letting the robots roam free. And that was without considering the manufactured emotional attachment to the things. No one in the city, if not the country, had gone without hearing the deviant leader's claim to be burdened with the same existential, human, crisis. It could for sure act with all the fervor and intensity in the world. It didn't even make it to the end of its own revolution.
Gavin found himself staring at the empty desk the RK800 android was given on the other side of the main walkway of his own. Even the android beat cops turned supposedly sentient had started collecting items to litter around their stations. The RK800's was impeccably sterile.
The RK800 was an artificial, prototype "detective" sent to the Detroit Police from CyberLife to help stop android deviation. "The best of the best," so they said. By the end, it was on the rebellion stage, front and center. The media had plastered it all over the news. Gavin feels a burning chill flash through his veins recalling the scene of the android on that pedestal, alone.
Gavin looks over the missing persons report from yesterday, trying to refocus his attention. A woman, Lana Parlon, hadn't been heard from by her girlfriend for a few days. The caller stressed that it was "highly unusual" for her and she was "incredibly worried." It was enough for a welfare check. He doesn't get much further in before he tunes in to the sound of calculated, even footsteps interspersed with a metered voice enter the bullpen. The artificial detective was out on field work with another officer. That seemed to be how it spent most of its time here, getting checked out and borrowed like a library book.
The android detective takes a moment to stop by Gavin's desk, but he swings his chair away from it, holding in his breath. He can feel himself tense up. Because of that piece of plastic acting up, he was picking glass out of his boots for far too long last afternoon. He can't deal with it right now. He has to think.
You can hold a human accountable for their mistakes.
Detective Reed had done so for many a fellow officer.
How do you hold a robot accountable for mistakes they make?
Is it even registered as a 'mistake?'
Do they feel bad?
Can they feel bad?
Were you in pain?
Gavin gets up, heading for the break room.
He mindlessly tries to pour an empty pot of coffee into his mug before making a new batch. He tries to distract himself by watching the coffee drip into the pot, but his mind is stuck on the issue the entire time. He has a few minutes before it would be finished.
Another officer enters the breakroom and he turns to see who it is. "Yo, Gavin." It's Tina. As far as colleagues go, the two would consider each other 'friends' but as she became more comfortable and adjusted with the changing social status of deviated androids, Gavin became more and more aloof and aggressive.
"Hmm." He responds. She follows his line of sight to the desks in the bullpen.
"It's too early for this. Please." Tina nudges Gavin out of the way of Detroit's finest, budget drip coffee.
Amongst the coffee cup shuffle, Gavin watches the artificial detective write out notes on a physical legal pad, with a pen, by hand. Meaningless.
Gavin heads back to his desk, the same missing persons report still on top. The broken, f*cking mirror comes back to the forefront of his mind. What even happened? He had to say as much to the Captain. He puts the file aside for now, pulling open the first of a batch that were a few dotted i's and crossed t's away from closing. It would be quick work.
But not quick enough to also keep tabs on the plastic the entire time. The plastic was at its desk, sitting there for some time, stilted and tense, getting up at odd intervals to no particular place at no particular pattern, disappearing around corners before it marches back. Gavin shakes his head, trying to refocus on the task at hand, the actual task at hand. His paperwork! Line by line, field by field. If he doesn't put in all his effort to paying attention he wasn't reading the words at all. He even throws in his earbuds, trying to distract his peripheral vision with steady, peripheral noise, but the sleek, grim attire the wore just out of the corner of his eye would never fade into the background.
All this, and his coffee went cold. Oh. Kay.
Gavin shifts around in his chair, never really settling down. If he didn't get his paperwork done it would hold him back, and that would really piss him off.
An officer heading out walks up to the desk across the bull pen from his asks the android detective if it could assist her. Of course it could. It always could. With machine-precision, it stands up, ready to follow the other officer out of the building. It takes one step forward-
"Wait." Sometimes, Gavin really questions himself. "It's my secondary right now and I need it for a case."
The other officer obliges, clearly annoyed but walks off without a complaint. The android is left to face him, the two looking at each now. Even as it does its best to hold its face blank, Gavin catches a slight twitch in its eyes. Surprise, maybe.
He was in the main bedroom, yesterday, taking notes on the disarray that was different than the the rest of the disarray when he heard glass shatter. He remembers the trigger for blind anger, but he didn't remember feeling particularly caught off guard. He was almost expecting… something. Gavin didn't normally have any issues with the prototype detective operating around a crime scene. Despite himself, it was good at collecting evidence with research and lab results at a breakneck turnaround, letting Gavin take on more work than would be possible otherwise. And it listened to him when Gavin told it not to draw out too many conclusions. I'm the detective here.
But recently?
The android that stands before Gavin is the visage of a white man, decorated with an LED on the side of its head, a CyberLife trademark ring that identifies androids as not human with its typical soft, blue glow. The majority of deviated androids had ditched the LED as soon as they could, trashing it with any CyberLife gear that used to be so prominent within the city. Even the RK800 had stashed its original CyberLife jacket somewhere in favor of blazers in a variety of dark, solid colors. But it had kept its LED.
Gavin watches its LED cycle with a steady yellow light in a slow, rhythmic pulse before pointing to his own temple. Another secret shiver passes over the android. "How long has it been yellow like that?" He asks.
It doesn't respond.
"Your LED."
Still, nothing.
If it wasn't going to speak, Gavin was going to have to pry its words out of every, miniscule, movement.
He does not have the time for that.
Gavin shoots up in a flash of irritation, yelling out, "Hey, tin can-" but gets interrupted before he can get much further.
Hank had gotten up too, wearing a stern look at his subordinate. This is still the bull pen, and this is almost a year after the revolution, but Gavin isn't one to acquiesce.
"If you want to help troubleshoot this damn thing, be my guest." Gavin snaps.
"The f*ck you talkin' about?" Hank retorts.
Gavin takes one step towards the Lieutenant, jabbing a finger into the android's chest. "If this thing hasn't been f*cking up your crime scenes, either you're not paying attention or it's actively sabotaging mine." Gavin takes in a breathe to spout something else off when something grabs his wrist. He whips his head back around to face the most unexpectedly, upset Connor he has ever witnessed.
"I do not intentionally sabotage crime scenes." If it could, it would have spit those words out.
Gavin was silent for a moment, watching the artificial android's face stuck in a contortion of anger it failed to hold back. Gavin feels himself speak. "Do you know what I do to my computer when it starts to fail me?" A beat passes. "I trash it for a new one."
The android loosens its grip, Gavin wrenching himself free and storming out for the back of the building before he can get reprimanded. Problems for later Gavin. The way Hank's chair shifts when he sits back down and the way Fowler's foot steps echo as he heads for his office door and the way the phones ring and the way the tens of officers and androids and citizens clamor about and -
The double doors crash as they close behind him. Gavin looks up, feeling his skin bristle up against the cold air. It's not much quieter outside, but without walls and a roof to contain it, the sound has somewhere to go.
A human can feel guilty for their mistakes.
A machine might not even realize what's happening until it's too late.
Giving it a face is just asking for trouble.
When Gavin goes back to the bull pen, there's a message waiting for him. Someone was found in an alleyway, first thought to be asleep but completely unresponsive.
Gavin takes a closer look at the notes and grits his teeth.
The body is specified to be that of an MJ100, some sort of service android. Androids don't injure and bruise the same way people do, and while he had come across more than few dilapidated, destroyed, decimated androids during the revolution, that didn't make up for the lack of experience in analyzing how they ended up that way.
From over his shoulder, he feels the RK800 cautiously approach, scanning the note in his hand. "An MJ100-series android, released by CyberLife to assist in caring for a wide range of pets from common household animals to more extravagant species." Gavin turns towards it as it continues. "The care ranges from daily feeding to euthanasia."
Wow.
The two detectives face each other, the bullpen having fallen back to organized chaos.
"Detective Reed," the plastic starts.
Gavin waits for it to continue.
"I want to apologize for earlier outburst. It was inappropriate of me," it meters out. The outburst is the least of Gavin's worries. And of course the plastic is ready with an excuse to cover its, or maybe CyberLife's, own ass. "It shouldn't happen again."
The lie of impossible perfection.
"I get the feeling I'm gonna be hearing more that bullcrap." Gavin snaps between his teeth. He still had one Captain-styled reprimand owed to him. But it did worry him. Turning his back on a few incidents now would be asking for disaster in the future. Maybe this machine was breaking down. It was a prototype, after all.
Connor's eye twitches with the most held back of held back winces feasible. Gavin's reminded of the first few times he's had to interact with it. Don't act like something you're not.
Gavin holds up the message. "They're waiting for me here. Why should I bring you?"
Another flash of a reaction passes over Connor's face, vanishing as quickly as it appears. The LED flashes. Are you nervous, thinks Gavin. It nods its head towards the paper. "It's a crime scene, primarily revolving around an android. Even with another PC200 or PM700 to assist you, there are capabilities I've been designed with that the standard police auxiliary models won't have." Flashing, flashing yellow. It looks down at the floor for a bit too long before looking back at Detective Reed. "It should be a straight forward scene. Declining to have me assist you would only add time to the entire process."
Gavin crosses his arms over his chest. "I have time," he lies.
"If it's not what it appears, then do you have the expertise to notice the details out of the ordinary?" Flashing, flashing, flashing yellow. Another beat passes between them. "I don't mean to undermine your -"
Gavin cuts it off. "I get it." Yellow, yellow, yellow. A voice plays out in his head: An android's LED can be as much an indication of mental struggle as it is of physical or computational strain. He grabs his jacket from the back of his chair, along with a few other necessary materials. He has half a mind to make the prototype detective carry them, but something in him stops him. "Let's go."
—
Connor watches the streets of Detroit pass it by in daylight. There's a coin in its hand, gripped within an inch of its value. Each hum of the autonomous vehicle taking it to the next crime scene closes the distance, both too slowly and too quickly for the android.
—
Detective Reed steps onto the scene, an officer coming over to debrief him. They're in a quiet part of town, more residential than anything. There's a park across the street and a few shops here and there. He scans the alley way they've all crammed themselves into, delicately placed in different patches of concrete and brick. There's a dumpster in the back, half empty, with a pile of trash bags piled to one side of the alley despite that.
He's tempted to bend down and swipe his finger across the ground to see if there's any dust. He glances at the crime scene indicator behind him at the entrance.
"It was like this when you all go here?" The detective asks.
It was.
He turns his head towards the bed of trash bags where an MJ100 android modeled after an adult, African-American woman is left. She's on her side, arms tucked in front of her chest as if she laid down to take a mid-nap in the sunlight. In an alley. Amidst the trash. He nudges a bag gently with his boot. It crinkles, but it feels soft and squishy. Maybe when the plastic detective is done licking a brick behind him, it'll take a nibble of whatever is in there. But he won't ask him to sample the trash. Gavin never does.
"This isn't a very busy area," the detective android starts out. "A passerby is said to have noticed the android earlier today, but," Gavin turns to see it standing at the entrance. "You can't see her standing here, looking in, much less walking by."
"There's got to be fingerprints left." Gavin turns back to the MJ100. "Right?" He frowns. She really looks like she's just…sleeping.
It really is a quiet corner of the city. Even with what must be more police activity than the area might see in a week, no one's hovered around to feed their curiosity. Aside from the standard fare of brick building alley ways, there wasn't much extra clutter. There wasn't any at all, actually. Detective Reed watches his artificial counterpart walk towards the MJ100 and kneel towards her head.
It began to examine the body, fussing over it with the careful and precise movements and mechanisms that Gavin was much more used to, not the erratic behavior that recently emerged. Still, as he pulls out his notebook, he keeps an eye on its LED. It was
yellow, yellow, yellow.
Red.
