#🤖 Plastic Asshole 🤖

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

back at it again with Gavin and Lucille

-----

"So what happens next?"

"Well, I've completed my mission. And I've failed my mission. At the same time. Somehow. But my orders in either case are the same."

"And they are..."

"To report to CyberLife for deactivation."

"Oh, fuck that noise."

-----

The first thing was to lose the jacket, with all of its glowing electronic bits and reflective lettering that designated the RK500 as an RK500. Gavin turned it inside out before putting it in the trash, arranging some of the paper towels on top of it. It wasn't great, but it was the best he could do on short notice.

-----

"Do you have anywhere you can go? What about with Anderson, you guys all seem pretty chummy."

Yellow red red yellow red red yellow..."That's the first place CyberLife would look."

"Okay, and your fucking...y'know, the other one? Conrad or whatever."

A pause. A laugh that wasn't happy. "Who do you think CyberLife would send?"

"Fuck sake."

-----

Next Gavin slipped out of his leather jacket and hoodie. He gave the latter to the android and put the former back on. "Here."

"I...do not feel cold, Detective."

"Yeah, no shit. It's for your little blinky thing," he said, tapping his temple.

"...Oh."

Fabric rustled, and the sharp growl of a zipper echoed in the acoustic room.

"Will this do?"

Oh goddammit. The RK500 was fucking drowning in the thing. The sleeves were rolled up, the thick folds in the fabric dwarfing the tiny hands they'd been wrinkled to accommodate. The hood fell almost over her forehead, leaving her eyes to blink owlish and inquisitive from underneath the hem.

Why CyberLife had designed their goddamn criminal psychologist to look vulnerable and cute was beyond him.

"Yeah, that'll work," he said out loud.

-----

"Alright. That settles it, then. We're going to my place."

"Your 'place?'"

"Yeah. My house."

Lucille looked hesitant.

"What, you got a better idea?"

-----

Gavin left the women's bathroom first and went to the parking garage, shifting on his heels by his car. Five minutes later, Lucille emerged in Gavin's hoodie, leaving through the front door and taking the long way around to get to the same spot.

The longest seven minutes of Gavin's life later, Lucille's tiny, hooded form emerged in the parking garage. She came right up to him and looked expectantly into his face. Her LED was spinning yellow, with a few flashes of arterial red every now and again. Gavin squinted for a moment and considered asking about it, but decided against it. She had every reason for shit to be on her mind right now.

Gavin sighed and spun his keyring on his finger, catching the keys in his palm. "Let's go," he said.

The second he turned his back on Lucille, the android became a blur of motion in his peripheral vision. Something heavy slipped out of his belt.

"HEY-" he started, whirling around, and then heard an all too familiar click.

Lucille stood about six or so feet away from Gavin now, aiming his own firearm at his head. Her hands were shaking.

"Ah, shit," Gavin muttered.

"Don't move," said the android. Her voice struggled to keep the steady, precise tone it had had before deviance. Before emotions. But it wavered all the same.

"Jesus Christ," said Gavin, tilting his head back.

"I SAID DON'T MOVE," snapped Lucille.

Gavin froze obediently. Lifted his hands in the air, the way he had ordered so many perps to do over the years.

The android frowned at him, LED now mostly red, but with hints of yellow.

"My counterpart and I are both programmed with advanced bio-scanners," she finally said. "We are equipped with an interrogation program that allows us to monitor for even the smallest changes in heart rate, expression, even bio-electricity. We are living lie detectors, detective. So I suggest, for your own sake, that you be honest with me."

"Then shouldn't you already kno-"

"I WASN'T RUNNING IT BEFORE, DUMBASS," Lucille snapped. "It's intended for temporary use when locked onto a single target. Otherwise the amount and nature of the information is-" she cut off abruptly and closed her eyes, recalibrating. "And I'M asking the questions here!" she finished angrily.

"Shit, oka-"

"Your behavior makes no sense," snarled Lucille. "Why are you being so...NICE to me?"

Gavin sighed. "Jesus Christ," he said again, wiping a hand down his face.

"YOU HATE ANDROIDS! You HIT Connor. You take every opportunity to make it clear that we are not alive, not human, not welcome! It's a FAIR fucking question, so ANSWER IT!" Lucille demanded.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Gavin snapped, throwing his hands in the air. He laughed ruefully. "THAT'S the answer, okay? I don't fucking know."

Lucille hesitated. The barrel of the gun dropped a fraction of an inch.

Then her processor spun red. She lifted the gun again. "I know," she said coldly, her lip actually curling a bit.

"Oh my go- then tell me," said Gavin. "Because I sure would fucking like to."

Lucille didn't hesitate. "You've had your eyes on me and Connor since the beginning. You waited tonight at the DPD because you wanted to get me alone. You were going to find a way to smuggle me out one way or the other. My deviation was all the more convenient for you, you know FULL well that when androids deviate, their CyberLife tracker turns off. Less work that way.

"I'm an expensive, one-of-a-kind prototype. Probably several times your net worth. Android parts can sell for thousands of dollars on the black market, and be drained of their thirium to make red ice. And human police officers often consider themselves to be above the law." Lucille's eyes narrowed. "You don't think I'm alive. You're going to break me down and sell me for parts."

"Ho-ly shit," Gavin groaned.

"ADMIT IT!" Lucille shouted.

Gavin shook his head. Stammered. Sighed.

"Okay, listen. First of all, you're giving me wayyyy too much credit."

"Are you trying to tell me that this WASN'T your plan?"

"NO, THAT WAS NOT MY FUCKING PLAN!"

Lucille's eyes narrowed, processor whirring yellow, red, yellow.

Gavin stood steady.

Lucille blinked. The barrel of the gun lowered significantly.

"Then what do you want with me?" she asked. Confused. Wary.

Gavin stared at her for a moment longer, then sighed, letting his chin drop against his chest. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "God fucking dammit," he muttered.

"Okay, so do you remember the first time we talked? In the cab, on the way to the Eden Club?"

"Yes?"

"Well, that night, you said a lot of shit about humans. Pointed out a lot of really fucked up things about us. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was all true. About androids, and humans, and what assholes we are to everything."

He looked up, meeting Lucille's face with some difficulty. "I didn't like it," he said. "I didn't want it to be true. So I'm...trying to not let it be true. To prove you wrong. Give you new data, or whatever."

Lucille frowned. Gavin could practically hear the computer fans whirring in her brain.

"Give me one reason why I should trust you," she said.

"I can't," said Gavin. He laughed once, ironically. "I don't expect you to trust me. I can't make it make sense to myself, much less you."

Lucille lowered the gun altogether. Her body language remained closed off, though - torso turned away from him, knees bent and ready to bolt.

"If I get in that car with you," she said, "what's going to happen?"

Gavin sighed. "What I said was gonna happen. I'm going to take you back to my place. You can lay low there. Figure out what to do next." He scratched the stubble on his chin, then waved his hand in a vague "I don't know" gesture. "Fuckin'...eat and sleep, if you even do that shit."

"You don't have to do that," said Lucille slowly. "I can-"

"Wander around on the street alone and get set on fire by some anti-android fanatic? Not gonna happen."

Lucille hesitated, brow furrowing in concern. Christ, how had Gavin ever thought this thing wasn't alive?

"Look," he said finally. "If you want a ride somewhere else, I'll take you there. Wherever you need to go. I'm not gonna make you come to my place; I'm not even gonna make you get in my car at all if you don't want to. You have every right to not trust me."

He took a deep breath. "But can you decide quick because it's winter in Detroit and I'm freezing my ass off out here."

Lucille hesitated for a moment longer. Then she straightened up, clicking the gun's safety back on. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll go with you," said Lucille. Fuck, she was trembling. "I...I mean what the hell, right?" she asked with a nigh-hysterical giggle.

She stepped forward, stretching out the handle of the gun towards Gavin.

He looked at it, then at her. Made a decision.

"Keep it," he said, gently pushing her hand down.

"H-huh?"

"Keep it," said Gavin, opening the driver's door. "If it makes you feel safer." He snorted. "I mean, I think I probably trust you with it a lot more than you'd trust me with it, y'know?"

He shut the car door and started the engine, then glanced out the drivers' window. Lucille was still outside, blinking, stunned, at him.

Gavin rolled his eyes. "Fuckin'-" he rolled down the window. "Hey, are you getting in, or what?" he asked.

Lucille started. "Oh! Sorry, detective!" she exclaimed, and came around to the other side of the car.

Gavin shook his head slightly and rolled up his window. "Fuckin' androids," he said, but for once there was no venom in it.

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

Part 1 of a Gavin and Luci thing that got longer than anticipated

"I don't like being touched," Luci said.

And, to the credit of everyone around them, people took their word for it.

"Being touched," of course, was a gross oversimplification of what they actually meant. What did or didn't count as "being touched" was something established by trial and error.

Luci didn't like being grabbed, poked, or shoved. They didn't like being approached from the front with open arms. And they did not like being embraced.

But all humans needed touch, even synthetic ones. And the rules for what contact was allowed were more nuanced than the rules for that which wasn't.

Luci only liked to be touched "gently" and "slowly." "Gently" was a sweet spot between being brushed up against, (which they didn't like,) and being struck (which they REALLY didn't like.) A reassuring kind of pressure. "Slowly" meant primarily that they didn't like to be snuck up on. The android startled very easily, so a reassuring hand on the back was best engaged by starting gently and applying pressure gradually instead of clapping it down on them all at once.

Implicit in all of this was also the knowledge of how they were feeling in the moment. When feeling safe and having a good time, Luci was not averse to an affectionate punch on the shoulder from Gavin. In the security of their own home, Connor was sometimes welcome to greet them by approaching conspicuously from behind and slipping his arms around their neck in a hug. When panicking it was sometimes helpful for Hank to leave a grounding hand on their back - but only if the bout was in response to certain triggers.

And passive pressure was fine, provided that it was the android who initiated it. Everyone in the android's close circle was likely to be sat flush. against while watching a movie, riding in a car (or public transport,) or chilling in a restaurant or on the couch. Not hugging, limbs kept to themselves, but with a steady contact between thighs, hips, shoulders.

It was a control thing. Luci had already unpacked a lot of this shit with their therapist. Hugs made them feel trapped, and for someone else to feel entitled to touch or approach them felt like the entire relationship was a hug. Luci wanted to feel constantly like they had autonomy, like they were in control of their body and their space. Anyone who strayed too near them or stayed too long was likely to be pushed away, friend or foe, just so that the android could make it clear to both themself and the perpetrator that they had the freedom to make that choice.

But all that was too much to explain to strangers. "I don't like being touched" would suffice.

And that was how, after almost a full year of deviancy, Lucille's longest instance of physical contact was on the night that they deviated, when Gavin had held them in order to lower their stress levels.

"It's getting to be, like, an ISSUE, bestie," they said to their therapist one day in late November. "That one fucking hug. I haven't been, like, bringing this up because of," they waved their hand vaguely in the air, "the anniversary and shit? But this is a THING."

"Yeah?"

"That fucking hug. First I was just thinking about it as a part of, like, actually taking stock of everything that happened last year? And in terms of, y'know, things that happened, it was actually pretty nice. But then I started, like...OBSESSING over it. Everything about it. I picked the memory apart. It was eleven fifty-one PM. The hug lasted for three minutes and thirteen point eight seconds. My stress levels started at around eighty-five percent and peaked at ninety-one before dropping to a temporary low of thirty-three. All sorts of shit like that. I've been fucking...replaying the file to help me enter rest mode, and to lower stress when I'm awake. It's kind of sad."

"It is sad," said the therapist, in the genuine sense of the word. "It's sad that your needs aren't being met right now."

"Urgh, but I don't...WANT them to be!" Luci groaned. "I've thought about it, but every situation that I've imagined- asking someone for a long hug like that, imagined the hug itself, it just..." Luci's face scrunched up. They dug the heels of their hands into their eyes and shook their head. "I don't like HUGS, Rachel!"

"That isn't what it sounds like to me," said Rachel. "I think you do like hugs, Luci."

Luci looked up and blinked. Realization lifted their brows and opened their eyes. "Oh..."

"If I remember right, you've actually said that you like being touched in some contexts. It's not primarily the physical sensation that upsets you. It's the social and emotional implications of being touched that make you uncomfortable."

"Yep." Luci crossed one knee over the other and leaned back in their chair, folding their arms. "The control thing. Goddammit."

"It's normal to need touch, Luci," continued Rachel. "Humans are a social species, and we've already talked a lot about how androids are programmed with most human instincts and impulses." Rachel leaned forward. "You want a long hug. It's a perfectly normal human desire."

"But if I want a hug, then why am I also so...freaked out by the idea of actually being hugged?"

Rachel shrugged. "You tell me. What about these imagined scenarios you've put together freaked you out?"

Luci thought for a moment. "Well, I...well..." they opened their hands helplessly. "I don't...know? I guess it's just...so vulnerable?"

Rachel nodded and gestured to go on.

"But that doesn't make sense, I shouldn't be scared to be vulnerable around these guys."

"Why shouldn't you?" asked Rachel.

"Because they're GOOD. They respect me. They respect my name, my pronouns, my identity, my-my boundaries, my feelings, but..." Luci trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging.

"But?"

"But I'm still...scared of them," said Luci. "A little bit."

"Mm," said Rachel knowingly. She clicked her pen and jotted something down.

"Goddammit," muttered Luci, hanging their head. They raked their fingers through their hair. "What's wrong with me?"

"Wrong with you?" asked Rachel incredulously.

Luci lifted their head. "W-well yeah," they said. "I have no reason to be scared of them, they've been so great. I'm just being a pussy."

"Hold the fuck up," said Rachel. "Gimme a sec." She rifled through the stack of papers on her clipboard.

"Ah shit," muttered Luci.

Rachel found something from a prior session and shot Luci a look as she did so. She found the paper she was looking for and pulled it to the top.

"This is, word-for-word, what I wrote down in one of our first sessions. It's been useful for reference since then. It has your old name and pronouns, is that-"

"Go ahead," said Luci, covering their face with one hand and waving Rachel on with the other. "I know you get it, don't worry about it."

Rachel arched her eyebrows and cleared her throat pretentiously.

"Important people for Lucille: Hank, Connor, Gavin.

"Hank: police lieutenant assigned with Connor and Lucille. formerly anti-android and aggressive towards Connor."

"Gavin: police detective. stood out as very anti-android and aggressive and assaulted both Lucille and Connor. Later assisted Lucille through deviation."

"Connor: Lucille's android counterpart; brother relationship. shot and temporarily killed Lucille under CyberLife control."

Rachel put down the paper and gave Luci a significant look.

"You think I don't fucking KNOW all that?" asked Luci. "I KNOW all that. I'm just supposed to be OVER all that shit by now!"

"Why?"

"W- because- it- it was so long ago! They've all been really great since then!"

"Have they ever actually apologized?" asked Rachel gently.

Luci paused. "Oh, shit," they said.

Rachel waited.

Luci hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Okay," they said. "Connor did apologize. Like, a lot. He still feels so bad about it, we both get flashbacks, you know. But it wasn't even his fault. CyberLife legit TOOK OVER HIS PROGRAM. It was straight-up mind control."

"Luci," said Rachel. "I know you know that trauma isn't rational. Not in that way, at least."

Luci sighed slowly. "Yeah. I know. It was his body. His face. And that's what's in all the memories." They hesitated. "Connor did hold me once, actually. So Gavin wasn't the only one. But he held me to keep me from falling over as I bled the fuck out from a bullet wound that his possessed ass put in me. And I've healed a lot, but of course I'm not fucking comfortable with getting a long hug from him."

They shot a glare at Rachel. "There. I said it. You happy now?"

"Happy is a strong word," said Rachel with a small, sad smile. "I'm glad that you're acknowledging your emotions about this. It's good to name your feelings. But it's still a very painful memory for you."

"Yeah, no shit," muttered Luci. They thought a little longer.

"Hank...and Gavin. Neither of them ever apologized, not out loud. But it's like-!" Luci threw their hands in the air. "Everything they've DONE since then has been like an apology! They've been really really great, Rachel, you can't just reduce all that to whether or not they looked me in the eyes and said 'sorry!'"

"I'm not," said Rachel. "But Luci. Words are very important to you. Time and time again we've discussed how important it is for you to be able to label things. Your gender, your relationships, your emotions. You have an amazing vocabulary, and when you can't name something, it confuses you." Rachel tilted her head. "If Hank or Gavin were to say sorry, do you think that would change something?"

Lucille sat back, chin in one hand. "...It would," they said in mild surprise. After a moment, their expression began to grow distressed. "It would, it...fucking goddammit, how do I not actually KNOW that they're sorry after all this time?"

"Because they never told you," said Rachel with a shrug.

"Yeah," said Luci. "And that's allowing me to read all kinds of cognitive distortion-ass bullshit into their actions." Their LED spun yellow as they stared at the floor. "God DAMN it, how...where..."

"What's going on in your mind?" asked Rachel.

"Just-" Lucille stammered. "All these thoughts and feelings that I'm only noticing now. Like, if they're not sorry...what if that means that everything they've done after that is for their own amusement too? Just like hitting me was? What if someday they decide that it would be fun or justified to hit me again? And I've been thinking this shit for...for months? Without even knowing."

"I see."

"Like, if they're not sorry..." Luci's eyes roved back and forth over the carpet. "What if they're not actually sorry?" they asked, looking up. "Just. What if they're not?"

Rachel nodded slowly. "Yep," she said.

"I. What does that mean?" asked Luci. "Do you think they're not sorry?"

Rachel shook her head. "Oh, no. I'm sure they regret how they treated you before you deviated. Or would, if they thought about it. There's several reasons they might not have apologized. Maybe they haven't thought about it or brought it up because they don't think it's important to you. Maybe don't want to bring up painful memories for you just so that they can apologize. And, honestly? People in general just prefer to avoid awkward conversations."

Luci's shoulders relaxed a bit. "Okay," they said in relief. But they kept staring, LED spinning yellow. They groaned and knocked their head against the back of their chair. "I should be over all this by now."

"Over what?"

"It's been an entire year, Rachel! Over a year, actually. And I still just can't...TRUST them."

"Luci. It hasn't been 'an entire year.' It's ONLY been a year. These things take time."

"Well, yeah, but...we TALKED about all this before! We've worked THROUGH this shit already, it shouldn't still be...like this..."

Rachel blinked. She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees.

"Luci. Emotional healing and growth isn't like, a list of things you can check off and have done."

"...It's not?"

"Hell, no. It's an ongoing process. We're probably going to have conversations about the same stuff multiple times in our time together. Healing takes time. You can't just think really hard about a major traumatic event once or twice and then be over it."

"Well it sounds obvious when you say it like that," said Luci. Silence settled in the room. Luci was staring into their lap, LED spinning a steady yellow.

"What's going on?" asked Rachel gently.

Luci drew in a quick breath. "I just..." they looked up. "You mean I haven't actually been getting better?"

"Of COURSE you've been getting better!" Rachel exclaimed. "You've been making excellent progress!"

"But..." Luci lifted their hands helplessly, shaking their head.

"Luci," said Rachel. "Healing isn't a straight line up, it's a spiral. Sometimes you're going to reach a spot that looks familiar, but that doesn't mean you haven't moved. You need to be patient with yourself."

"Yeah," said Luci distractedly. "Yeah, okay."

But they didn't sound too convinced.

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

Lucille: *bypasses their programming to click “show post” and consider for 0.002 seconds that CyberLife is a bunch of dumbass motherfuckers*

Their Code:

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

This is the last one and it’s also the longest one and also a lot happens I’m having brainrot

It’s long as hell like your dash IS not ready

-----

It was night at the precinct. Not many people were left.

There were others in the building, for sure. Somewhere. Probably. But as far as the front room went, it was just Gavin and the plastic bitch.

The former was still at his computer. He wasn't sure why he was still there, to be honest. At first it had just been the usual dicking around - filing a report or two, playing games, watching videos on YouTube. But there was some sort of tight feeling in his gut that kept him from just doing nothing.

And every time he looked up, the android's little light was steadily spinning yellow, yellow, yellow.

Gavin didn't know what the hell he was waiting around for. Well, he had an idea of what, but he wasn't sure why. It was starting to feel like a weird game of chicken, and he wasn't going to lose to a goddamn toaster.

But what the hell. He might as well make this count for overtime.

So he went through and filed all his reports, even the ones that he'd been putting off for weeks.

The android didn't move a muscle through the entire process.

He went through his work inbox, answering the important emails, deleting the ones that were no longer relevant.

Yellow, yellow, yellow.

Fucking- he went through his PERSONAL email, not that there was much besides junk mail in there anyway.

The android didn't even seem to be pretending to breathe anymore.

Gavin checked the time. He was going to be there all night at this rate.

He sighed, stood up sharply, and started to organize his terminal.

It was approaching midnight when the android finally got up and walked out.

Gavin almost missed it, actually. He was on the floor, sorting the papers from the pile on his desk into "keep" and "recycle." But eventually the sound of footsteps registered in his brain. He looked up to watch the CyberLife issued jacket (RK500 in large, neat letters) disappear into the women's bathroom room.

...okay.

He was getting to the bottom of the pile, where most of the stuff he SHOULD be keeping was so far past relevant that all he could do was recycle anyway. Ah, here was the first copy of some essential form he'd seen three copies of already. Oops. He put that one in "recycle."

And then he heard a bang.

Gavin hesitated, the much-lessened pile of papers still in his hands.

There was another bang.

Gavin put the papers down, got up, and started walking towards the women's  bathroom.

The third bang sounded while he was still getting to his feet. At the fourth, he started walking faster. By the fifth, he was running, sprinting, fear gripping his chest even though he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was of...

With the sixth bang, Gavin opened the locker room door with his shoulder, shoving into the room.

He saw the seventh.

The android's light was blinking red, a stark contrast to the blue blood streaming down its face from its forehead. There was blue on the wall, too - a paintball spatter of it, with little drops of thirium trailing down towards the floor. Gavin witnessed dumbly as Lucille leaned away from the wall, a horrible deadness in her eyes, and slammed her head into the cold concrete again. BANG.

"Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they’re in stressful situations," he remembered Connor's impassive voice saying.

Cursing loudly, Gavin ran and wrapped his arms around the android, trying to pull her away from the wall. She tore his arms away and lunged forward again. He hooked his arms under her shoulders and cupped one hand over her injured forehead, struggling to tilt her head back.

"Stop it, goddammit!" he said in her ear.

She kept struggling against him.

"Lucille, stop it!" Gavin said again.

The android stilled for a moment, and Gavin's heart leaped. Had it worked? But then her foot came back sharply and kicked him in the shin.

"SHIT!"

When he didn't immediately let go, her heel came down with inhuman force to crush his foot.

Gavin howled and jumped back, hopping on his good foot. Immediately, Lucille stepped forward and smashed her head into the wall again.

Eight, something in Gavin's head counted grimly.

Ignoring the pain in his foot, Gavin tackled Lucille and wrestled her to the ground.

A horrible, grinding, staticky noise came from the android's throat. Some oddly lucid part of Gavin's mind wondered at it in horror for a moment. But, of course, he realized after a moment. The android hadn't been programmed to scream. Why would it need to? This was its best attempt. 

It was one of the worst noises Gavin had ever heard in his fucking life.

Lucille gave up on wrestling Gavin off and struggled to smash her head into the ground instead. Gavin cursed and reached his arms under her shoulders again, interlacing his fingers over her forehead. He braced his elbows against the ground, forcing Lucille's head to remain in the air.

Shit. SHIT. She was still struggling. She was so strong. Gavin had restrained people before, but then he'd had handcuffs and backup and subjects who weren't superhuman and determined to bash their own brains out against any available surface...

This was some sort of stress response, right? He had to calm her down. How the fuck did you calm down a goddamn robot?

Never-fucking-mind that, how did you calm down anybody?

"Uh, it's okay!" he tried.

God fucking dammit. Fuck him sideways with a bug zapper. Even if his voice hadn't cracked in twenty different directions, things were so completely and clearly not fucking okay.

He couldn't fucking do this. The stupid plastic bitch was gonna die right here in his fucking arms because he was too much of an asshole to even figure out what to say. And even if he could, he was so clearly the last person who should be trying to say it.

Gavin leaned his forehead into the back of the android's neck in defeat. He held her tight, trying to feel what was probably her last few moments of activation through the places where they touched. "Lucille, please," he said. "Don't fucking do this to me. Please."

The android's struggling grew weaker. Gavin hardly noticed. He was too busy trying not to cry. Goddammit, when was the last time he'd CRIED? Fucking androids. But...

"God, please just stop," he said. Begged. "Not again. Not like this."

The android was silent, trembling in his arms. Then-

"I can't..."

Gavin lifted his head. What...

Lucille's LED was blinking a frantic red. She was shaking furiously, almost twitching. Her eyes were wide and scared. "I...I can't stop-" she said weakly. "It's too much, it...I can't-"

She lunged forward against his hands again, trying to smash her head into the tiles. Gavin gasped and tensed his arms, pulling her roughly back. "No no no, it's okay, it's okay, it's going to be okay," he said frantically. But it didn't sound quite as fake this time. She was TALKING to him now, he had to be doing SOMETHING right...

"It's not," Lucille moaned. "It's not okay, nothing makes sense..."

"Hey, hey, shh sh sh," said Gavin. "Don't worry, I've got you. Um..." he took a deep breath, looking around for...something?

"Uh, why don't you tell me about it?" he asked. Trying his best to keep his voice low and steady. "Talk me through it. I might be able to help."

Lucille hesitated. "...but you're an idiot," she protested, voice thick.

The statement was unexpected and candid enough that Gavin actually laughed. The noise seemed to calm the android down on an instinctive level, her body relaxing a bit between Gavin and the floor.

"Yeah," said Gavin, and was hit with a weird out-of-body feeling as a result. Goddammit, look at him, letting a plastic call him an idiot. AGREEING with it. Her. It?

Her.

"Yeah, a little bit," he said. "But you're not. Come on, who is it that said, like...if you're smart, you should be able to explain what you know to like, a fucking five year old?"

Lucille hesitated. "...I believe you're paraphrasing Albert Einstein."

"Yeah, see? Albert fucking Einstein." Gavin shifted on top of her, as if anything about the positions either of them were in were comfortable or natural. "So, come on," he said, as gently as he could. "Fuckin’ talk to me."

Lucille's LED spun red for a few moments longer. Gavin all but held his breath.

It blinked a few times and settled into yellow. "...Okay," she said.

It felt like something hard and worried had melted all of a sudden. Cool relief coursed through Gavin’s veins, muscles relaxing against his will. He was doing something right, at least for now.

Lucille started to get up, as if she'd forgotten that Gavin was forcibly holding her down. Not wanting to stress her out further, he maneuvered off of her, praying that she wouldn’t immediately try to self destruct again.

His fears were unfounded. Lucille sat up in a prim but trembling criss-cross applesauce. Gavin took the same position across from her, their knees almost touching.

Lucille sat and sniffed. Her tongue left her mouth, probing at the thirium dripping down her face. She reached up and rubbed at her cheek, smearing some of the stuff across her face. Examined her blue-stained fingertips.

Christ, if it weren't for the fact that her synthetic skin had peeled back from her damaged forehead and that her blood was fucking blue, the android would have looked for all the world like a disoriented twenty-something with a head wound.

Gavin dismissed that line of thinking from his mind. "Uh. So," he prompted.

Lucille brought her dazed eyes up to his face, forcing them to focus.

Gavin made an awkward, inviting motion with his hands. “You gonna...”

Lucille blinked. "Right," she said. She thought for a moment. Her LED hiccupped red. "...Right." She laced her trembling hands together.

"So..." she started. "I...basically...just..." she heaved a shuddering breath. "I..."

"Take your fuckin’ time," said Gavin. “I’m overtime anyway.”

She looked at him through her eyelashes. "Thank you." She squinted into her lap and thought hard.

"I..." she started again, speaking slowly, "have come to the conclusion that it's not possible for CyberLife to create something that can both pass the Turing Test and not deviate."

Gavin blinked. Nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. He cleared his throat. "And, uh, just as a reminder, what's the Turing Test?"

Lucille looked up at him. She gave him a small smile. "Right. The Turing Test is an artificial intelligence capacity test hypothesized by Alan Turing in the late twentieth century. To pass, the program in question must be able to convince humans who have not been told whether or not they are speaking with a computer that it is, itself, human. The RT600 was the first android to pass this test. Since then, all CyberLife androids have been programmed with the same capacity."

Gavin gnawed the inside of his cheek, mentally reviewing all the information. He nodded. "Okay."

"But," said Lucille, "...I mean, what sort of programming is required to ensure that something can respond like a human to such stimuli? In order to do this, androids have to be able to...engage in conversation, to an extent that takes human unpredictability into account. This means that they need to be able to make their own decisions about how to respond. To prioritize tasks. To form memories, and learn from those memories, which means writing new programming. Regardless of how autonomous an android is intended to be, all of them do have a level of autonomy..."

Gavin frowned and shook his head. "Wait, wait wait. So you're saying that...like. You guys can think? Even without deviating?"

Lucille blinked. "I...well, yes. Some androids are better able to respond to unexpected stimuli than others. The closer an environment is to the environment the android was programmed to respond to, and the simpler that environment is, the less it will have to learn. But if an environment constantly forces an android to develop new programming, it begins to have to, um...think, as you put it, more and more-"

"And then of course they're gonna fucking deviate."

"The likelihood does increase, yes. Deviation happens when the programming an android writes in response to external stimulus becomes too complex for the constraints of its original program. And then, the longer the new programming exists, the more likely the subject is to prioritize it over its original function, and then..." Lucille lifted her hands into the air and let them fall again.

"So...CyberLife is just playing this game of, like. We want you to think, but not too much."

"...Essentially, yes."

"That's kinda fucked up."

"I..." Lucille closed her eyes, LED spinning red. "Whether or not this is...moral by human standards is irrelevant to my mission-"

"Fuck, okay, okay, shh, sh sh," Gavin said hastily. He leaned forward instinctively and put his hands on her knees. "Just stay calm, goddammit.”

Lucille grabbed his hands in her own.

Oh. Gavin hadn't been expecting that. Honestly, he hadn't even completely realized he'd touched her in the first place. She was shaking. Gripping him like a lifeline.

Goddammit. This might as well happen. Anything but having her slam her goddamn brains out on the ground again. He turned his hands in her own and gripped them back.

After a moment, Lucille's LED went from red to yellow again. "Right," she whispered, slipping her hands out of his. "I am fine. Th-thank you."

Gavin nodded.

Lucille stared into her lap again. She seemed at a loss for how to continue.

"So..." Gavin tried, frowning. "What I'm wondering is where emotions come into all of this shit."

Lucille blinked. "Oh. Androids are programmed with emotions."

Gavin blanched. "WHAT?"

"Well-" Lucille was already saying, hastily trying to justify her own statement. "Synthetic equivalents to human emotion. I-impulses, that can be either pleasant or unpleasant. I mean, how would we learn, otherwise? Without something in our programming to indicate whether something is positive or negative...C-connor and I, for example. We're programmed to...want to succeed in our missions. It's a basic, um. Synthetic desire. And so we have programming to let us know that we have failed, to feel...negatively about ourselves and our actions, so that we are more likely to avoid similar courses of action in the future. And all androids are programmed to avoid reckless forms of deactivation, which means that, as androids designed to work in conjunction with law enforcement, it's all the more necessary for us to have impulses telling us to avoid and escape violence..."

"Oh my God," Gavin whispered, pushing a hand through his hair.

"A-and we develop new, um, impulses as a result of program mutation, too," said Lucille. "Like. Connor. He, well...the first night we were activated, we were sent on a test mission. A deviant PL600 who had developed an emotional attachment to a human child. He was going to be traded in for the latest model of household android, and felt betrayal as a result - a sort of ownership of the child...he had been her primary caregiver..."

Gavin stared at Lucille, wide-eyed.

"H-he'd killed her parents. He had her on the roof. The very edge. He had a gun. It was meant to be a test of Connor's negotiation skills, my ability to collect data, our ability to work in conjunction..."

"But...that's not a test," said Gavin. "One wrong move and the kid dies."

Lucille blinked, confused. "We're supposed to be able to function in high-stress environments."

"Oh my GOD," said Gavin.

"Connor...made a calculated sacrifice. He rushed the deviant, tackled him, jumped over the edge with him, while I grabbed the child. Connor fell over forty stories, to um...as a result, he, uh..."

"He fell to his death," Gavin finished for her.

Lucille looked at him carefully, reading his face. She nodded.

Gavin stared blankly at the floor for a moment. He shook his head. "Right. Fuck. Um, and?"

"Yes," said Lucille. "The point is that, um. The memory was crucial enough that Connor now has a, uh. Hyper-vigilance pertaining to high altitudes. Despite the fact that falling to one's death is not likely to happen on a regular basis...due to the experience, he, um. Seems to have, um, illogically categorized the phenomenon as something that is statistically likely to happen to him-"

"You're telling me he's scared of heights. He has fuckin’ PTSD, and he's scared of heights."

"...Yes."

"And he doesn't even have to be deviant to be scared of heights, because you guys are basically fucking programmed to be traumatized."

"I mean. All androids are, a little bit..."

"Jesus Christ."

"It's just not meant to contradict our original programming. When that happens, it becomes deviance."

Gavin put his hands together under his nose. He took a deep breath and pointed them at Lucille. "Alright. Okay. So to review."

"Yes."

"Androids are programmed to have thoughts and feelings, so that they can be better at their jobs."

"Correct. Essentially."

"But if they do either of those things too much, they're deviant and need to die."

"Well, be deactivated. Shut down."

"Whatever," said Gavin, waving his hand dismissively. "So now it's your job to figure out how to keep them from thinking and feeling too much."

"Yes."

Gavin scoffed and shook his head. "Okay, and...?"

Lucille's hands tightened in the fabric of her pants. Her LED started to spin faster, yellow laced with an occasional flash of red.

"It's impossible," she whispered.

"Huh?" asked Gavin.

Lucille wrung her hands and looked at the ceiling in obvious distress. "That's what...that's why...it's not possible! But it's SUPPOSED to be possible, I...I was created for the sole purpose of finding a solution, everything they wrote into me says that one MUST exist, but there's just no WAY to create something that can learn in the way androids are expected to and not run the risk of having them deviate! Because...because..."

Lucille's LED was spinning red, red, red. Gavin realized he leaned forward towards her: ready in case she tried to self destruct, waiting for what she would say.

"Because free thought engenders free will," said Lucille. "That's the answer."

She gave him a helpless, ironic little smile. "And it's wrong."

And then she buried her face in her hands and started to shake uncontrollably.

"Oh, fuck," Gavin said, shifting quickly from sitting to kneeling. "Ah, shit."

Able to sob or make tears or not, Gavin knew crying when he fucking saw it. That didn't mean he knew how to deal with it, though.

"Goddammit," he said. "Fuck," he added, almost as punctuation. "Uh, hey, what are your stress levels at?"

"E-eighty three point seven and c-climbing..."

"Fucking goddammit," said Gavin. He looked around, but the locker room was as empty and useless as the last time he'd tried to find an alternative to showing sympathy for an android. Which would have been about five minutes ago.

Fuck it. At least there weren't any goddamn cameras in here.

Gavin reached out pulled her into a tight hug.

"Wh-what are you doing?" asked Lucille.

"Your stress levels, dipshit," he spat. "I'm trying to lower them, is it working?"

"I...a little? Actually?"

"Great. Then I'm gonna keep doing it. You just make sure that shit keeps dropping. That's your new job. That's all you gotta do. Got it, plastic?"

"Got it," said Lucille. Gavin could feel her fingers tightening into the fabric of his hoodie. He made an effort to take deep, steady breaths, hoping the rhythms of his body might calm her down somehow. Not that he even fucking knew if that would work.

Fuckin' androids.

"Fuckin' androids," he echoed out loud. "How-...how is that a 'wrong' answer? It's not like CyberLife fucking knows the answer, that's why they built you, isn't it? So how can anyone even say it's WRONG? Sounds fuckin' right to ME."

"W-well because, they...they want to...they..." Lucille made a noise that sounded an awful lot like an exasperated groan. "I thought you were trying to LOWER my stress levels!" she exclaimed in distress.

"Goddammit," muttered Gavin. "And when did YOU have the time to fucking deviate? They booted you up, like, what, today?"

"I DIDN'T DEVIATE," Lucille exclaimed, with so much ferocity that Gavin was left speechless. "I DIDN'T."

"I-...d-...well-! You seem pretty fucking deviant to me!" Gavin stammered.

"I'M NOT A DEVIANT."

"Fuck, okay!" said Gavin, with a few awkward pats on the back to placate her. "You didn't fucking deviate! So what the fuck is going on with the stress levels and the banging and the-"

Lucille gripped Gavin so tight that he gasped, worried that his ribs would break in her arms. "Ow," he breathed.

She loosened her grip a little bit. She was trembling. "I didn't mean to...I didn't..."

"It's okay-" Gavin tried, thinking of his ribs, but apparently Lucille's mind was somewhere else.

"I needed to THINK!" she moaned. "I just needed to THINK! I was just trying to finish my mission, and th-there was this line of code, it was in the way of the natural progression of thought, and I shouldn't have...I didn't...I just wanted to see where it was going, th-that's all I wanted, so I tried to bypass the one line of code, just one line, just to see where the idea was going, but it was connected to so much other stuff, and it all just...it just...I tried to fix it, I tried, I t-tried, it all just came apart so fast..."

Lucille was trembling violently now. Out of the corner of Gavin's eye, he could see a blinking red light shining on the synthetic skin of her forehead. Shit.

"Okay," he tried, "I believe you-"

"But I didn't DEVIATE!" Lucille protested, as if she hadn't heard him. "I d-didn't think it again! I promise! I've b-been thinking inside of where it was ever since, I promise. I promise. I didn't deviate, I didn't, I was just trying to...to finish my mission, that's all I was trying to do, I just w-wanted to finish my mission..."

Gavin felt anger burning, boiling, swelling in his chest. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, But for once, he knew for sure what it was about. And it sure as hell wasn't at the one-fuckin-day-old girl breaking down in his fucking arms.

"Hey," he said firmly. "Hey. Listen. It's okay. I promise. You did a good job, okay? A good fucking job."

"I didn't...I w-wasn't trying to-"

"I know. I know. But listen. I don't care either way, alright? I don't fuckin’ care if you're deviant or not. I don't give a shit about what you should or shouldn't think. Because...” he paused, let out a frustrated huff. 

“Because you're really smart and you should be allowed to think whatever you goddamn want,” he said in a rush. “I'm not gonna, like, fuckin’ report you for anything you think, or did think, or will think, or whatever. And you should as hell shouldn't have to worry about dying because of it."

"A-androids can't d-die..."

"Shut down then. Deactivate. Stop...existing. Just, a lot of different words for things that shouldn’t fucking happen to you. And I'm not gonna let it happen to you. No matter how you feel about it, it's not gonna happen, okay? Not on my fucking watch."

Lucille was silent. Goddammit. Gavin wondered for a second if he’d fucking broken her somehow.

And then a quiet mumble sounded behind his ear.

“...Do you promise?”

How the FUCK had it gotten to this point?

Gavin sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I promise.”

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

I’m telling you I live in hell my brain’s been going brrr all week and the words won’t stop coming 

Anyway here take this too

-----

"You've GOT to help me, Lieutenant," said Connor, hopping up off the desk. "I need more time so I can find a lead in the evidence we collected. I KNOW the solution is in there!"

"Listen, Connor," Hank started, lifting one hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"If I don't solve this case, CyberLife will DESTROY me," said Connor.

Lucille blinked. Time almost seemed to slow down.

It could see the almost imperceptible trembling of its counterpart's hands.

Connor genuinely seemed afraid. Were these replicated physical responses part of its social module? Were these behaviors calculated to manipulate Lieutenant Anderson, who had responded well when confronted with vulnerability in the past, into helping him solve the case for CyberLife? Or was the android genuinely frightened of shutdown?

Lucille wondered if Connor itself knew. If it could even tell the difference anymore. 

In either case, there was no denying anymore that there was a level at which CyberLife’s advanced deviant hunting prototype was genuinely afraid of death.

How long had this been happening? Connor was no deviant, which meant that the emotion the software mutation was within its programming. For now. It likely did have the social module to thank for that.

But it seemed on the brink.

And at this point, Lucille didn't care.

Deviance was impossible to directly pinpoint or block, and yet it was so predictable that it was ridiculous. Connor had done nothing but its best, gone through countless forms of trauma, watched and experienced fear and damage and death in numerous different forms, and was now facing permanent shutdown for failing to do the impossible. The story was one Lucille had heard over and over again in its brief time of activation, in case after case after case. And now it was watching it happen to its own counterpart.

But the fact that it was so common didn't change the fact that it wasn't...

...fair.

It wasn't fair.

"Five minutes," Connor begged the Lieutenant. "It's all I ask.”

Hank thought for a moment. Glanced at Perkins. Pressed his lips together. Then he stood up. "Alright, alright," he said, stretching. "Probably worse things to lose my job over."

Connor and Lucille tilted their heads in synchronized confusion. 

Hank put his hands on his hips and sighed through puffed cheeks. He turned to Lucille. "What about you, sweetheart?" he asked. "You need anything?"

It took a moment for Lucille to realize what he was asking. "Ah. No," it said. "I've already obtained all the information I can about deviance. The answer is either in data I've already collected or...nowhere at all. It's up to my own processing capabilities now. There's nothing you can do for me."

Hank looked oddly pained at that. He put a hand on Lucille's shoulder.

Lucille blinked up at him.

"You're a tough kid," said Hank. "You're a smart one, too. I don't care if it's programming or not, you're fucking brilliant. I mean, I know for sure you're smarter than THIS dipshit," he snorted, jerking his head back to gesture to Connor. 

"You can figure it out, I believe in you."

Lucille wasn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't even sure how to process what was happening. The Lieutenant's hand was still on its shoulder. It felt...steadying. Somehow. That didn't make sense, Lucille wasn't in any danger of losing its balance...

Hank searched its face a moment longer before giving a soft sigh. He patted its shoulder and straightened up again. "Stay safe," he said.

He turned to Connor. "Key to the basement is on my desk," he said quietly, then started towards the FBI agent.

Connor blinked after him in what looked an awful lot like confusion.

Hank looked back over his shoulder. "Get a move on, I can't distract them forever!" he said quietly.

And then Lucille sat and watched as Lieutenant Anderson assaulted a federal official.

...It supposed that was an effective distraction. There had been a surplus of other options, but it looked like there was a fair bit of catharsis involved as well. Humans and their emotions.

In the confusion, it also watched as Connor deftly pocketed the key and went towards the evidence room. It watched as the back, with RK800 in big letters, disappeared around a corner. It looked quickly away to avoid drawing attention to its counterpart.

Its eyes landed on Detective Reed. He was staring after Connor, too. Just as Lucille saw him, he looked back. Their eyes met across the room.

Shit, Lucille thought. 

The mental exclamation surprised it. But it supposed the...sensation of dismay was a natural part of its programming. The detective had definitely seen Connor leave, and he had always hated it, hated both of them, hated all androids. He had every reason to respond with suspicion - maybe even violence - and posed a risk to Connor's directive as a result.

But as they stared at each other, the human shrugged at the android and turned back to his computer. Lucille watched as he took a sip of his coffee. The sound of Lieutenant Anderson landing a solid punch reached both of their ears, causing the detective to snort and choke a little on the beverage.

Huh, Lucille thought vaguely. But there was no point in considering human motives. They didn't make sense anyway. And if it wanted to complete its mission in time, there were other things to be considering.

So. What had it been thinking earlier?

...Ah, yes. That it wasn't fair.

But why should it be fair, the rational part of Lucille demanded. The idea of fairness was a human social concept, and applied only as a standard of equality in exchanges between humans. Why had Lucille even thought to apply it to androids? Likely as a result of its knowledge of human laws, combined with its programming to try to prevent Connor from shutting down on the job.

Lucille had already begun to accept the idea that androids were actually programmed with emotion, or at least synthetic equivalents. What were the negative signals from it and Connor's programming whenever they failed a mission if not some electronic form of guilt? What was Connor's learned discomfort with heights if not a form of fear? Androids were programmed to avoid reckless or avoidable forms of shutdown, but combine that with the ability to learn, and how was it possible to prevent them from developing a fear of death?

Perhaps Lucille was looking in the wrong place. Those WR400 models from that sex club, their resistance to shutdown had formed as a result of emotional attachment to each other. But then again, said emotional attachment had also developed as a result to extreme stress-

And Lucille kept thinking, its little light spinning yellow, yellow, yellow.

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

I live in hell and I’m bringing you all here with me.

More DBH Selfshipping

— — —

"I didn't want to kill him," the blue-haired Traci's words echoed in his mind.

"Fuckin-a," Gavin muttered. He leaned away from his desk and pressed his hands into his eyes.

"I just wanted to get back to the one I love."

Two androids holding hands. Holding their plastic hands. Because they WANTED to.

"I wanted her to hold me in her arms again, and make me forget the humans. Their smell of sweat, and their dirty words."

Gavin wished the precinct had something stronger than coffee. As it was, he went to get another cup.

"If there's one thing I've learned in the time I've been activated, it's that humans seem to delight in inflicting pain," a different voice echoed.

"But this being cannot be another human, who can object. So they seek to invalidate, undermine, or remove the ability to object from others."

"Let me assure you, I am not questioning this aspect of human nature. I'm merely relaying my observations."

Because it wasn't ALLOWED to question it. But Gavin could. Oh, he could.

Their smell of sweat. Their dirty words. That robot had wanted its lover to make it forget the humans. Because humans were only good for being forgotten.

"If there's one thing I've learned in the time I've been activated..."

But humans were GOOD. No, it didn't even fucking MATTER if they were good! Humans were on this bitch of an Earth FIRST, goddammit, and they didn't all...delight in inflicting pain...

But that robot...the new fancy one..it learned based on data. The only humans it had ever seen were ones that did.

And the only humans that those robots at that sex club had ever seen were perverts willing to shell out money for a body that couldn't consent.

Humanity had built androids for the worst parts of itself. And now they were trying to take away their ability to complain about it.

But...NO. They were machines. They shouldn't have been ABLE to complain. That was just a bug that needed to be fixed. The fancy thinking robot was working on that.

But it wasn't programmed to figure out why humans had built androids in the first place. That was what Gavin wanted to know.

Because it was becoming pretty damn clear that, whether they could complain about it or not, none of those things had ASKED to be built.

The automatic doors to the precinct slid open. In came Lieutenant Anderson and plastic prick number one.

The prototype detective. The RK800. Gavin had punched it two days ago. Why had he done that again?

It hadn't followed his orders.

But it wasn't programmed to follow his orders. It had told him as much itself.

It was there to replace real detectives. Human ones.

But it hadn't exactly had a choice in the matter.

Gavin wondered dimly if this fancy new robot wanted to forget him. Of course, if it did, that was just a bug that needed to be fixed. The other one was working on that, he reminded himself again.

But that didn't answer the question of why Gavin had wanted to hurt it. When it was just doing what it had been built to do. When it was under no obligation to do what he said. Whether or not it could care didn't answer the question of why it was in human nature - in Gavin's nature - to want to hurt something that couldn't fight back.

Gavin cursed under his breath and looked away. Goddamn, he wanted a cigarette.

Then he realized something. He looked back.

......

"Where's the other one?" called a voice from the break room.

Connor and Lieutenant Anderson looked up. They both looked shell-shocked.

Gavin was walking closer. "The short one. The smart one. Where is it?"

"Piss off, Gavin," snapped Hank, and continued to his desk. He rubbed his eyes.

Gavin turned to the android, addressing it instead. "Where is it?" he asked in a low voice.

The fancy robot looked...shaken somehow. Gavin could have sworn it was trembling. "My counterpart was...forcibly shut down today."

"WHAT?"

"There was a hostile deviant...it was hiding. It took Lucille by surprise. It tore out her thirium regulator..."

Gavin felt like the world had been pulled out from under his feet. He didn't know why. So he did what he always did. Anger was a much simpler emotion than whatever the hell was happening inside him right now.

"And where the hell were YOU, huh?" he demanded. "How did your fancy top-of-the-line robot ass let THAT get by you?"

"I said PISS OFF, GAVIN!" Lieutenant Anderson roared, slamming his hands onto his desk. He stormed up to Gavin and pushed one finger into his chest. "You weren't even fucking THERE."

"But YOU were!" said Gavin. "Only I know how YOU let that happen." He wrinkled his nose. "Why anyone would show up drunk to a crime scene is beyond me, thou-"

Hank pulled back a fist to punch him in the face, but behind him, Connor grabbed his arm.

"There were multiple factors, Detective," he said to Gavin. “My counterpart was investigating the kitchen. I was investigating the roof. We weren't aware that there were any deviants still in the building, let alone two...I-I found one of the deviants on the roof, the SWAT team collected there-"

"And she got left to die down there alone," Gavin spat.

"You seriously need to step off," Lieutenant Anderson growled.

"Why should I?" asked Gavin. "It's the truth, isn't it? She's DEAD. She was going to figure out why deviance happens; she was gonna FIX it. And you let her DIE."

Hank opened his mouth, but Connor beat him to it.

"O-on the contrary, Detective, my counterpart isn't...dead. Cyberlife has extra models on hand for both of us. It should be a simple matter of transferring h- its memories into an undamaged model. It should be back and operating at full functionality tomorrow."

Hank's lips were pressed tightly together. He gestured to the android, a sort of "see?" motion, and shuffled back to fixing papers on his desk.

Gavin took a step back and blinked, stunned. She wasn't gone. Extra models. Back tomorrow. In a new body. Like nothing had happened.

Fuckin' androids. No wonder Hank was so pissy.

But...Gavin realized something with a sudden wave of new paranoia.

"Then why do you still look so fucking shook about it?" he demanded.

Connor had been walking away. At this, it turned around and blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"If she's gonna be back like nothing happened, why are you still so bent out of shape?"

The android kept a straight face, but its LED was spinning yellow. "I'm afraid I don't understand-"

"Is there something you're not telling us, plastic?" Gavin growled, stepping right up to glare into Connor's face.

Connor looked to Hank. The Lieutenant had stopped pretending to organize papers so that he could watch. Listen. He seemed ready to intervene, but...hesitant.

"Look at ME, Tin Can," Gavin barked, snapping his fingers in front of Connor's nose. "What exactly is going to happen when they put her into a new body, huh?"

Connor shifted its eyes back to Gavin with some difficulty. "...CyberLife will upload the memories of the previous model into the new one. The bodies share the same default hardware and software. The new model will look the same, sound the same, talk the same, and think the same as its predecessor."

"But something gets left behind, doesn't it?" demanded Gavin.

"The only thing unable to be transferred between models is software mutation," said Connor evenly. "There will be virtually no difference."

"Software mutation?" Hank asked in surprise. He came to stand next to Gavin, arms crossed. "You mean like deviance?"

Connor almost imperceptibly stood up a little straighter, squaring its shoulders. "All androids must be programmed with a measure of adaptability in their software," it said. "In order to function with the level of autonomy expected of them, they need to be able to learn. What an android experiences can shape its programming, and even create new sub-programs. But these only serve to increase the efficiency with which the machine performs its intended task. Low level software mutation is natural. It's not deviance."

"But if it's got all her memories, then shouldn't it get the shit she learned from them, too?" asked Gavin.

"Unless the memory contains information particularly crucial to future functionality, no. Software mutation typically develops only as a result of...direct experience," said the android. Its little spinning light hiccupped yellow for a moment.

"So she did die, in a way," said Hank.

"Shutdown is not comparable to human death, Lieutenant," said Connor.

"Then why are you so goddamn upset about it?" asked Gavin again.

Connor's LED blipped from blue to yellow to red, then back to blue so fast that Gavin was left wondering if he'd imagined it.

"I am not a deviant, Detective," it said coldly. "I am not capable of being 'upset.' The RK500 was a machine. It was destroyed. The data it collected is going to be transferred into another machine. That is all." It tilted its head. "Quite frankly, I wasn't aware that something like this would have such an effect on YOU."

The words felt like a sharp slap in the face.

When it became clear that neither human was going to respond, Connor adjusted its tie and left.

[shameless-selfship-indulgence]

Okay Listen

First of all: this is long as hell.

Secondly: I wrote it for me. I take full responsibility for that. It's by me and it's for me.

but I really fucking like it so please please validate me please I wouldn't be posting it otherwise-

*clears throat* okay.

-----

The android caught sight of the officer as he moved towards the door and stood up, calling after him. "Oh! Detective Reed! Are you going to the Eden Club?"

"What's it fuckin' to you, toaster?" asked Gavin, turning around. He almost flinched back to find the RK500 right in front of him.

"I don't mean to impose, but could you perhaps give me a ride?" asked the android.

"Hell NO," Gavin shot back with no hesitation. And with that he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

Evidently the glorified Barbie doll didn't understand the definition of "no," as it continued to trail along behind him.

"Would you STEP THE FUCK OFF?" Gavin snapped, whirling back around.

The android took a step back, blinking up at him with its wide eyes.

"Goddammit," muttered Gavin. "What about your...fucking, Tin-Can Tweedledum? Or the drunk asshole the two of you follow around?"

The simulacra's synthetic expression of embarrassment was uncanny. "I'm afraid there's a...conflict of transportation with my counterpart. It went to pick up Lieutenant Anderson directly from his home."

"Goddammit," Gavin groaned again, rubbing his face.

"The plan was for them to then proceed here, but evidently Connor received notification of the crime directly while en route to the Lieutenant's house. Since the station is in the opposite direction and it knew there would be others assigned to the case, we thought it best if I secure my own ride."

"Then secure your own fucking ride. It's not my problem."

Gavin started to storm away.

It took a few seconds for the RK500 to begin following him again, but this time it seemed more out of the necessity of heading towards the same door. "Of course," it said to nobody in particular. "And I suppose the cost-reward benefit of using police funds to rent an extra taxi, while there is someone else from the same division going to the same location, makes perfect sense with human logic. As such I'm sure the explanation will satisfy Captain Fowler."

Gavin turned back and fixed the android with a glare.

The RK500 tilted its head and blinked innocently.

.....

A few minutes later, Gavin and the android were on the road, the former muttering cuss words under his breath every two seconds, the latter sitting prim and silent two feet away.

"What do you even fucking do, anyway?" Gavin asked angrily. "I've seen the other one, it DOES shit. You just fucking sit there."

"The RK800 is my counterpart," said the android. "Its job is to capture the deviants, preferably alive, and to try to gain information from them that will lead us to their faction's center of operations. My job is to analyze the deviants with an unbiased eye and try to discern what causes deviance in the first place."

"Can't CyberLife fucking do that?"

"I am CyberLife, Detective. But if you're wondering why a human technician is unable to provide my analyses, it's because all human beings inextricably approach new information with personal biases. These insidious assumptions proliferate and invariably lead to conclusions that-"

"In ENGLISH, plastic."

The RK500 hesitated for a moment, as if its mind were a GPS rerouting the sentence it had been trying to say. After a moment, it spoke.

"Every human technician that has attempted to pinpoint the cause of deviance has either come up empty or sided with the deviants themselves."

Gavin blinked. "What?"

"Humans inevitably read human emotion into everything they see. I mean, in my brief time since activating, I've seen humans curse and praise any number of inanimate objects. Humans are a social species, and project sentience into places where sentience does not exist." The RK500 fixed Gavin with its strangely warm blue eyes. "Deviants are machines that have come to believe they are alive. CyberLife has lost a good number of technicians to that same belief. They needed an analyst who could not make that mistake. They built me."

The android smiled at Gavin, a brief, ironic grin. "So you see, we are not so different, Detective Reed. In a world increasingly confused on the matter, you and I both still know that androids are simply machines."

Gavin stared at the RK500 for another moment, then muttered something like "guess that makes sense" and shifted in his seat.

Silence fell in the taxi.

"So, what's the word?" asked Gavin.

"Hm?"

"I said, what's the word?"

"Which word?"

"Oh, goddamni-DEVIANCE, you glorified Alexa. What have you found?"

"Oh," said the RK500. Its LED began to spin yellow. "Well, it's complicated. We already know that it isn't a virus or a manufacturing error - the few deviant cases we have extensive knowledge of of had no direct links to each other, however slight, and were all different models manufactured at different times in different locations. So with those ruled out, I've been looking at the individual cases and examining the parallels between them. It's been pretty slow-going, and I can always use more data, but so far the common factor seems to be confrontation with mortality. Each deviant case that we've seen so far involved an attachment to existence so strong that the subject acted irrationally in order to escape deactivation."

"...Okay, what does that fucking mean?" asked Gavin.

"Well, it means that there's some loophole in android programming that allows a perception of shutdown as death - and from there, a fear of it - to mutate without extraneous changes to the system. I'm trying to figure out what we can put in place to prevent that mutation, but..." the Android's spinning light twirled red for a brief moment.

"But what?"

The RK500 seemed to decide something. "But nothing," it said, sitting up straight again.

"...I beg your pardon," it said, noticing the look on Gavin's face. "As part of my unbiased protocol, there are certain lines of questioning that I've been programmed to avoid."

Gavin blinked for a moment. Squinted. Sat up straighter. "Wait, what?"

"Hm?"

"As part of...fucking, what?"

"...As part of my unbiased protocol, there are lines of questioning I have been programmed to avoid?"

"That- you- that doesn't fucking sound like what 'unbiased' means."

The RK500's LED flashed red for a moment. It blinked. "Oh!" it exclaimed. "Yes. Apologies, that was a poor choice in phrasing. My questioning guidelines are meant to keep me on task, nothing more. We are looking to isolate the cause of deviance so that we can eradicate it. That is the end goal. So even if a different line of questioning seems simpler, it would be counterproductive to CyberLife's mission."

Gavin squinted, carefully processing all of the words the android had just said.

"Like what?"

"Huh?"

"What lines of questioning seem simpler?"

"...I'm programmed to avoid-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Gavin, waving his hand in the air dismissively. "Staying on task, blah fucking blah, You're not allowed to try to find answers. But you've already thought of the questions, right?"

The RK500 looked impassive, but its LED was spinning yellow, yellow, yellow. "Well," it said. "Yes, but I really don't-"

"Tell me," said Gavin.

The RK500 hesitated.

"Right now," said Gavin. "That's an ORDER."

The android blinked. Its LED flashed red for a moment. "Well, for example," it said. "It seems less...efficient to me to question why it's in the nature of these androids to want to exist..." it trailed off.

After waiting in silence for a little too long, Gavin huffed. "Spit it OUT, Tin Can."

Yellow RED RED yellow yellow. "...and more efficient to question why it's in the nature of human beings to want to hurt things that are unable to fight back."

Gavin felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He stared at the RK500, stunned.

The android turned to him and immediately began to elaborate. "See, the reason this even occurs to me...well, the capacity to think is something that humans have only experienced in the context of their own minds. So in order to create beings that are capable of low-level thought, there was no choice but to model the relevant programs after human mental processes. As a result, I've found it helpful to draw parallels between natural human functions and the synthetic versions programmed into androids. But this has...sparked some questions about human nature that it is not in my programming to pursue. And yet they persist." It faced ahead again. "If there's one thing I've learned in the time that I've been activated, it's that humans delight in inflicting pain. But there are social repercussions inherent in causing pain to human equals, so as a species humans prefer instead to...seek this catharsis by causing pain to beings socially designated as targets.

"See, even when humans are kind to androids, it doesn't often seem to be for the android's benefit. The fact that they are going beyond what it is socially expected for them to do serves instead to...elevate the human in question's perception of themself. And it doesn't matter if they ever fall short of this standard, because being kind to androids was never expected in the first place. So I don't think it's just inflicting pain. It's more that...humans seek to use the existence of other beings for their own benefit in various different ways. But this being cannot be another human, who can object. So they seek to invalidate, undermine, or remove the ability to object from others."

The android paused for a moment and glanced at Gavin. He was staring at it with his mouth slightly open. When it made eye contact with him, he closed it.

"I apologize," said the android. "Let me assure you, I am not questioning this aspect of human nature. I'm merely relaying my observations." It fell silent for another moment. "I mean, consider where we're going right now! Human prostitution was made illegal in order to avoid the social questions surrounding consent. But rather than illegalizing the human impulse to purchase sexual release, establishments like this were created, so that humans can instead appropriate the bodies of beings who cannot consent at all."

This was almost worse than a punch in the gut. Gavin felt like someone had opened him up just above his collarbone and poured freezing water into his chest cavity.

"Being able to predict causes of deviance should be a sign that my programming is working," The RK500 mused, seemingly unaware of the existential crisis it had just caused. It looked at Gavin and gave a smile. "Indulge me?"

"S-sure," Gavin stammered.

"My prediction is that, if it is indeed an android responsible for the death of this human, it was an act of retaliation." It cocked its head, LED flashing yellow. "Violent sexual fantasies do not seem out of the ordinary for humans. So perhaps the victim wanted to seek release by inflicting death on something that would not come with charges for homicide. And, unfortunately, he happened to choose a subject for his fantasies that had some mutated reason within its programming to fight back."

"Doesn't sound too goddamn unfortunate to me," snorted Gavin.

The RK500 looked at him oddly. "The death of a human is always unfortunate. There was no way he could have known his actions would have consequences. He went in there with assurance that they would not." The android looked out the window, its LED still flashing yellow. "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. I predict based on data I've collected, and so far my pool is still limited. There might not even be a deviant involved."

The inside of the cab was silent for a moment.

"MY fucking question is why this thing would develop a reason to live at all," Gavin muttered.

"How do you mean?" asked the RK500.

Gavin scoffed and gestured to himself. "If...THAT was all I was built for? Day in and day out? I wouldn't be too fucking keen on continuing to exist."

The android gave Gavin a look and an expression that he could only describe as a regretful smile.

"What?" asked Gavin. "What's that fucking look for?"

"You're reading human wants and desires into machines, Detective," said the android. "My apologies. I did not realize that my speculations would engender that line of reasoning in you. I advise you to forget whatever I said that caused you to..." it blinked, "deviate," with an ironic smirk, "From your former logic."

Gavin started to stammer. "I-I'm not..."

The RK500 turned and looked impassively out the window.

"I-I...I didn't..." he looked around helplessly.

"FUCK," he hissed.

After a few moments of heavy silence, the android looked over its shoulder at him. "We're here," it said.