Chapter Text
Early in the 21st Century, THE LALONDE CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labour, in the hazardous exploration and colonisation of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on Earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.
Rain beats against the windscreen of your car as Kanaya flies you between the skyscrapers, you’ve no shame in admitting that she’s the better driver of the two of you. The windows inside the car are starting to fog, steamed up by the heat from your warmer blooded body. You wipe the sleeve of your coat against the passenger window as a neon advertisement for CocaCola slides past your view.
On the console between you and Kanaya the screen flickers with an alert of an incoming message. You reach forward and hit the button to accept the call. It connects, and Terezi appears on the screen, her tight teal edged suit arching high up on her neck.
“Officer Vantas, Maryam.” she greets you both.
“We’re already en route if that’s what you were calling about Terezi.” you tell her.
“No, I know that. Other officers have hit the locations that the suspect was rumoured to be at and found nothing, so it’s likely that the mysterious Bro will be at the hotel that you’re headed to. I’m sending backup your way but I don’t want you to wait, just keep sharp.” she orders you, her voice businesslike.
“Got it. Thanks.” you nod, adrenaline rising in your blood. The whole LAPD has been after the criminal known only has Bro for longer than you’ve even been on the force. He’s a genius bioengineer and hacker, the few things that he can’t make himself he strongarms other people into making for him and has left a considerable body trail behind him. Not only does he make unlicensed replicants but he also willingly extends the lifespan of older, dangerous nexus models and brings them under his command. He’s rumoured to have taken control of the bodies of replicants and used them to assassinate people and some even talk about him killing people and replacing them with replicant copies. You doubt it’s all true of course but one way or another the guy is the biggest killer on the planet and finally you have a lead on him and it looks like it’ll be you and Kanaya who bring him in. This guy won’t stay a ghost forever.
Kanaya lands carefully in an alleyway around the corner from the old derelict hotel and looks across at you with a serious expression on her face.
“Be careful.” she warns, drawing her gun. She much prefers her chainsaw as you do with your sickles but neither of them is long range and you need that for this job. You draw your own firearm, and with a nod the pair of you get out of the car. The rain drenches you almost immediately and though you don’t like how it limits your vision you can appreciate that it also obscures other people’s view of you.
You gesture towards the building and you and Kanaya jog towards it and duck under the awning of the hotel. Boards cover the windows but one door is clearly still in use and you can see a handprint on the glass. Kanaya pulls a scanner out and runs it over the handprint. In the pale blue light of the screen, her face pulls into an expression of displeasure and she turns it around to show you: no fingerprints and whatever palm print might have been there is covered with fingerless gloves. Bro’s MO.
The door is locked but not much keeps a determined rainbow drinker out and so Kanaya easily shoulders the door open to the groaning protest of the lock. You shut it behind you and the pair of you slink into the dark building. All of the lights are out and only blue neon light seeping in from the buildings across the way shows you where you’re going. You both creep up the stairs, sweeping the place room by room as you follow the path through the place that is relatively free of dust and mould. The trail leads you to the penthouse suite, the highest floor there is.
The door is ajar.
Kanaya leads and pushes the door carefully open. Inside the room is a mess, puppets of all sorts litter every surface. Everything from plush dolls to marionettes and mannequins. Swords are scattered across a pool table with a dismembered leg.
You jerk your head to the right and the pair of you walk that way. You are greeted by a disused kitchen, the refrigerator door hangs open revealing swords inside and shuriken are embedded in the walls. More puppets sit on counters and one is stuffed in a blender, you resist the urge to turn it on.
The next room beckons, the long table suggests that it was once a dining room but replicant parts and machinery litter the entire table. On a pillar on the far side of the room is a statue. A bright orange teenage boy clad only in a t-shirt and bandages crouches there, his arm bracing on the pillar the only thing protecting his modesty in that pose. From his back sprout large orange wings and the blade of a sword. Sunglasses are placed on his face, and you get the feeling that the statue is watching you somehow.
At the end of the table in front of the statue is an array of computers and you can hear their whirring from here, someone was using them and recently too. Kanaya is investigating some replicant parts, so you quietly walk to the computers, maybe you can find some kind of lead there. You turn your back on the statue and lean down to look at the screens.
The screen shows building layouts and computer code, you can’t help but notice the address for it. It’s the main building for the Lalonde Corporation, the manufacturer of all replicants. Does Bro have some plan to infiltrate them?
The light on the screen and the table around it blots out. You whirl around to see the statue’s wings spread and you get half a second to think ‘not a statue’ before the orange winged boy leaps at you and smashes you bodily into the computers with a feral hiss. He wrenches your gun from your hand and hits you in the face twice with it. The pair of you falls to the floor as a gunshot rings out, no doubt from Kanaya. You try to hold him off of you with one hand and reach for your sickle with the other, but it’s hard. His wings beat at you angrily and he’s trying to get his own weapon too, a sword jammed through his chest that he evidently intends to jam through yours. His other hand is clawing at your arm leaving hot lines of pain in his wake.
You hear the rev of a chainsaw, and the boy’s face contorts in pain. You feel his lower half hit your legs and his upper half falls away easily when you pitch him to the side. You skid backwards as he gapes at you, orange blood flowing from his severed midsection.
“Thanks.” you croak out and Kanaya hauls you to your feet.
“I think whatever stealth we had is probably blown. We should continue quickly.” Kanaya says, dusting you down.
“Yeah, after you.” you say and your partner and moirail heads out through the next door. That turns out to be a hallway which leads to a storage room, a bathroom, and a workshop. One last door beckons at the end of the corridor though it’s so dark down there you almost don’t see it. You click your torch on and hold it and your gun ahead of you as you walk towards it. Kanaya opens the door and you both rush through it.
It’s a dark and unlit bedroom but you freeze when the beam of your torch lands on a figure with his back to you.
“Don’t move!” you yell at him and he doesn’t, not even a flinch. Kanaya’s torch shines on him too. He’s taller than you, slender with tan skin and white-blonde hair.
“Put your hands in the air!” Kanaya orders and he does, fluidly raising them fully above him but staying stock still otherwise.
“Turn around.” you command. He obeys, hands still in the air. His eyes are covered by the same sunglasses as the orange winged replicant out there and between that and his strange behaviour you’re pretty sure the guy isn’t human.
“What are you doing here?” you ask but he just stares at you silently.
“Who are you?” you try but still no answer. His hands are still in the air.
“I say we arrest him.” Kanaya suggests and you pull your handcuffs free. The only part of this level of the building that you haven’t searched yet is the stairs leading to the roof.
“Put your hands behind your back, I’m going to handcuff you. Okay?” you tell him, walking close. He puts his hands behind his back immediately.
“Okay.” he echoes, his voice a little rough.
“He speaks. What’s your name?” you ask as you cuff him.
“Dave.” he replies.
“Dave what?” you ask, turning him around not that he puts up any resistance. He offers you no answer.
“Are those your computers out there?” you try.
“No.” he answers.
“Do you know who they belong to?” you continue.
“Bro.” Dave tells you impassively.
“Do you know where he is?” Kanaya asks.
“No.” he replies.
You frown and reach up to take his sunglasses off, he doesn’t fight you but he blinks at the harsh light of your torch. His eyes are red, human eyes don’t come in that colour as far as you know. You put them in your coat and take him by the arm.
“Come with me, let’s go to the roof, Kan.” you say to her and steer the willing replicant out of the room.
Bro is nowhere in the hotel or on the roof, wherever he got to he’s long gone. Ten minutes later backup comes and takes the bisected replicant away and starts bagging all of the evidence, you get the computers sent straight to Sollux. The replicant sits obediently on a sofa cleared of puppets and watches you as you drag a chair up across the coffee table between you. An assistant brings you the Voight-Kampff machine from your car, and you set it up on a few stacks of books. You can’t retire the guy or bring him in until you prove he’s a replicant, it seems pretty cut and dry to you but protocol is protocol.
The machine unfurls as you switch it on, the arm of it bringing the eye scanner level to Dave’s eye. The bellows on the machine pump, looking for human pheromones. That part of the test is far more accurate when it’s a troll like you conducting the test, for that reason there are very few human blade runners left hunting replicants. Kanaya leans over the back of your chair and watches.
“Please look here.” you say, pointing at the eye scanner and Dave does so. The machine zeroes in on his eye and starts to measure the contraction of his pupil.
“I need you to stay still. I’m going to ask you some questions and I want you to give your honest answer. They’re just hypothetical but they are timed. Do you understand?” you ask, you’ve given this speech a hundred times before. Plenty of replicants think they can fool the test but to your knowledge none ever have.
“I understand.” Dave replies distantly.
“It’s your birthday, someone gives you a calfskin wallet. What do you do?” you ask, not needing to look at the book to know this question.
“I’d keep it.” Dave answers flatly, the machine detects no emotional response. Replicants are close to human but their responses are programmed, biomechanical engineering at its finest but it can’t make a soul, it can’t give empathy. Your test looks for empathetic responses and emotional reasoning.
“Why?” you press.
“It’s not getting any deader.” he says.
“You’re watching television. Suddenly you realise there’s a wasp crawling on your arm, what do you do?” you ask.
“Stay still.” Dave answers.
“You wouldn’t squash it?” you ask curiously.
“No.” Dave says.
That’s interesting. Passive but interesting, you decide to push it.
“You could trap it under a glass, pin it down. You could pull off its wings.” you suggest and on your screen his pupil contracts, an emotional response to cruelty. His face is still impassive.
“No.” is all he says.
That was a human response, what the hell? You need to keep testing.
“Describe, in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.” you say, moving on.
Dave’s mouth opens but no sound comes out, his brow furrows slightly and your screen goes wild with the natural human emotional reactions in his eyes. What is going on here? He’s reacting human to your test but his answers are either missing or weird, you have no idea if he’s human or not.
“You find a child with a broken arm on the street, you bring him back here to fix it for him. He’s crying.” you say as you skip ahead in the book to a question you don’t use a lot.
“I wouldn’t bring him here.” Dave tells you, his answer all wrong but his biological response correct. Is Bro making replicants that can fool your tests?
“Why not?” you ask but he doesn’t reply.
Kanaya slides her hand onto your shoulder and squeezes.
“You have a sister. You’re children and playing in the street, a truck comes along and she pushes you out of the way to safety. She is hit and killed. How do you feel?” Kanaya asks.
Dave’s mouth opens and his eyes go wide. He gasps in a jagged breath and it comes back out in a choked noise, your screen shows a blown up image of his eye and you watch as it floods with clear tears that spill out over his cheeks. You’ve never seen a replicant cry who wasn’t mortally wounded and even then only once. Dave licks his lips and bites his teeth into his bottom lip as he shakes.
“Guilty.” he says finally.
“It- it should have been me. I should have protected her.” he adds shakily.
You lean forward and switch off the machine. Dave is either the strangest human you’ve ever seen or a prototype for a terrifying new strain of replicant that can fool the test. You need to get him back to Sollux and John to see if they can analyse him on a molecular level. Those tests will be conclusive but they’re hardly portable and replicants don’t let you take them in for those kinds of tests.
“I’ll call ahead.” Kanaya says softly and leaves you to pack up your machine. You fold its parts down and watch as Dave twists to dry his face on his shoulders, still silent.
“Are you human?” you ask but he neither looks at you nor says anything. You pack up the last of the machine and pick it up, it’s portable but it weighs a hell of a lot.
“Come with me, Dave.” you say and guide him to his feet. Kanaya appears in the doorway, her gun still in hand and she follows you as you lead Dave out to your car. She’s ready to shoot him if he decides to suddenly gain some initiative to escape but he does no such thing. Not even as you throw your machine in the trunk of the car and buckle Dave into the back. You keep your weapon at hand, but Dave is still and silent, if he didn’t blink and breathe you wouldn’t even know he was alive.
You arrive back at the LAPD headquarters and you know that you and Kanaya will have to report to Terezi sooner or later but you want to be able to give her some answers about your prisoner. He’s either a witness, a suspect or evidence and you really like to keep those things separate. Thankfully there is one person that can help you.
Shouldering open the door to his office you immediately catch sight of technobiologist John Egbert. You’ve known this asshole since you were teenagers first enrolled in the police academy and he had the gall to grow up to be about two foot taller and broader than you and then to decide to chuck in the police work for this nerd crap. Though, in fairness, he’s a real prodigy when it comes to tracking down replicant tech. If you ever have questions about the identity of a replicant or where anything was made he can help you out. The number of times you’ve brought him trace evidence and he’s turned you out a solid lead are astounding.
“Hello officer shouty, who’s your new friend?” John asks chirpily, stretching his arms above his head so that his back flexes distractingly. Stupid muscle bound Egbert.
“We found him at the hotel, he was the only one there and truth be told we’re not sure if he’s replicant or human.” Kanaya explains.
“What, you forgot how to run a Voight-Kampff test? Though I gotta point out that if he let you bring him in I’m pretty sure he’s human.” John laughs.
“I know how to do the test, he came up inconclusive. His responses are all over the place from too human to not at all but most of the time it’s like he’s not even there. If he’s a fake it’s like all he can do is fool the test and not much else. I need you to tell me.” you explain and push Dave towards him.
“Huh, okay.” John says, grabbing a pair of gloves from his desk and snapping them on.
John walks up to Dave and gently cups his face in both hands, turning his head this way and that to look at him. He hums thoughtfully, tilting Dave’s head and running his fingers through his hair. He curiously plucks an almost white hair from his head and walks away to place it in a machine which accepts it and starts whirring and beeping.
“Open up.” John says, squeezing Dave’s cheeks and Dave unquestioningly opens his mouth. John swabs the inside of his cheek and then places that in a different machine.
“He said his name was Dave.” you offer.
“Got a last name?” John asks, peering at Dave’s fingertips.
“He wouldn’t give one.” Kanaya answers for you.
“Hm. How old are you, Dave?” John asks, but Dave remains silent and still.
“Where were you born?” John tries again but no answer.
“What’s your first memory?” he asks to yet more silence.
“This is weird.” John finally says.
One of his machines beeps and John walks over to it, reading the paper that it prints out.
“That’s what I thought. His hair is synthetic.” John says as he reads.
“Like a replicant?” Kanaya asks.
“No, they grow their hair like humans do. This is synthetic like implants, it’s almost like doll’s hair. It’s literally plastic, which is weird because even rich old guys who lose their hair and get hair implants get it with real hair. I don’t know who would go to this much effort but then use something so fake.” John says, handing the paper to Kanaya who reads it over as well.
“There were lots of dolls at the place. Mannequins, puppets, that kind of… thing.” you say, trailing off when you see Dave tense at the word puppet. Another human response.
The second machine beeps and John returns to it to pluck the printed paper from that one. He taps his chin with his thumb and frowns.
“Well?” you prompt.
“Most replicants have common DNA, they’re stitched together from lots of parts genetically speaking, and though there is lots of variation it’s not too hard to find common themes if you know what to look for. It’s not foolproof yet which is why it’s not a standard test, but his DNA is not matching any of the known replicant DNA at all.” John explains.
“So he’s human.” you conclude.
“If he is then I’d love to know the explanation for why he’s got all of these elements in his system that he shouldn’t have. The kind of stuff we saw in early replicants back when they still had old school mechanical parts.” John mutters and hands over that result to Kanaya too.
“That doesn’t make any sense, those replicants aren’t even around anymore, and they were easy to spot. A child could tell them apart. He’s able to fool the Voight-Kampff test, if he’s a replicant he must be incredibly advanced.” Kanaya protests.
John says nothing but instead reaches out and feels around Dave’s head again, peering into his eyes and running his fingers over his skin. John freezes and his eyes widen. From your place behind Dave you watch as John pushes some of Dave’s hair out of the way and picks at his skin, peeling back a square flap of it and revealing clean metal beneath and a circular jack about the size of a pen tip. John walks around him and stares open-mouthed at the mechanical part. Dave has obligingly lowered his head down to let John look at it.
“Get Sollux in here now.” John whispers.
You turn and rush down the hall, bursting into Sollux’s office so fast that the door bangs off of the wall. Your friend jumps and spills coffee on himself before fixing you with a furious glare.
“Wow fuck right off officer douchelord.” Sollux hisses angrily.
“You need to see this, be a fussy prick later!” you gasp and grab him, dragging him down the hall to John’s room. Sollux swears the whole way but when you pull him into John’s office and he sees the open port on the back of Dave’s neck his protests melt away.
“Holy shit, is that a biowire port?” Sollux breathes in wonder, walking close to Dave and pushing his glasses up his nose as he leans in to look at it.
“That’s what I wanted you to tell me, I’ve never seen them in a person before. Only on Alternian tech.” John replies.
“Well damn, it is a biowire port. This is all kinds of illegal, not that I thought you could get it to work on humans anyway. Who is this guy?” Sollux asks, looking back at you.
“We’ve got no clue, all we know is he says his name is Dave. His DNA reads human but he’s got weird mechanical stuff in his system, he foxed the Voight-Kampff, and his hair is plastic. I still don’t know if he’s a human or a replicant.” you tell him.
“I have an idea. John, check his body, I’m going to get a biowire and my computer.” Sollux says and disappears out of the door.
Obligingly John pulls Dave’s shirt up as far as he can with Dave’s hands still being cuffed behind his back. Your breath catches in your chest as a network of scars is revealed to you. They arc up his spine and unfurl over his ribs like a branching tree. Others seem random, slices into his flesh that in some places are no more than a paler line and in others warp and bite at the flesh around the incision. Now that you’re looking for it you can see the same faint lines over his fingers and hands. Someone cut him up like a science project and you can’t think of any reason why someone would make a replicant only to dissect them and keep them alive after.
Sollux appears again and whips a biowire out of a plastic sheath, plugging one end into his Alternian spec laptop and the other into the back of Dave’s neck. Dave gasps softly and his eyes slide shut. Sollux and John stare at the screen as it shows them something no doubt complex.
“He’s not a replicant, but he’s not human either. Or not anymore he’s not.” John says eventually.
“What does that mean?” Kanaya asks.
“He’s a cyborg, human with artificial parts.” Sollux answers distractedly.
“Like Tavros?” you ask, thinking of your friend with the metal legs.
“No, way more advanced. Biotech, mechanical shit and a goddamn neural network in his head. His brain has literally been hacked. I’ve never seen work like this. He’s got all kinds of programming in here but right now he’s on idle mode, which explains why he’s so compliant. I’m gonna do what I can to try to move the programming aside but it’ll take time.” Sollux says with wide-eyed wonder.
You and Kanaya are more or less kicked out at that point and you at least have the forethought to leave the keys to the handcuffs with them. The pair of you trudge your way to Terezi’s office and Kanaya fills her in on your mission, the evidence that you collected, the replicant she killed, Bro’s absence and the cyborg in the offices downstairs.
Terezi leans back in her chair, her fingers drumming on her cane.
“It seems like this Dave is a victim. Hopefully Egbert and Captor can bring him around enough to talk to us but I have to say that I don’t like the idea of this Bro person walking around with the technology to hack the brains of humans. One way or another he knew that we were coming.” Terezi says seriously.
“You think Bro has someone on the inside?” you ask in alarm.
“Possibly, or given this most recent development he may be inside somebody.” Terezi says grimly. She rests her cane on her desk and she plucks a scrap of paper from her desk and begins to fold it as she talks.
“I’m giving you two full authorization to pursue this on your own. Report only to me. Everything Egbert and Captor find will be top-level security clearance, reported only to you two and me. If this Dave is able to help then all the better, but treat him with caution. We need to catch Bro. I’ll report to everyone else that this operation was a bust, the two of you get out there and start following leads secretly. Dismissed.” Terezi says. She sets a small red origami bird down on the table and looks back up at the two of you as if asking why you’re still here.
You both excuse yourselves and walk out of the building, when Sollux and John have anything they’ll call you. As for now you need to think and let the rest of the evidence come in. You stuff your hands in your coat pockets and look up at Kanaya.
“Takeout ramen at mine?” you offer.
“That sounds great.” she says tiredly and smiles at you, her fangs peeking out as she does.
An hour later you’re sat on your sofa eating ramen out of a takeaway bowl with your feet on the coffee table. Kanaya eats more daintily than you do but it’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you eat. You know you’re supposed to enjoy the food but your mind is on the cyborg. Even the word is unfamiliar to you. Tavros had fake legs but he was just a guy with prosthetics, not some new type of being.
“I can’t imagine how it must feel to have your mind hacked.” Kanaya says, evidently her thoughts had been on work too.
“Do you think there’s someone in there?” you ask her.
“I’m not sure if I want there to be or not. The idea of being aware and trapped in your own head is horrifying to say the least.” Kanaya says and plucks a noodle from her bowl.
You think of Dave, handcuffed on the sofa. Of the way his tan skin was far too clean, cleaner than anything else in that place. Of how Bro cut into him and made him something else, replaced his hair with synthetic platinum blonde. He flinched at the word puppet and cried when Kanaya asked him a purely hypothetical question about a dead sister.
You’re pretty sure there is someone in there but you wonder if he wants to remember the things that he must know. A terrible feeling settles around your shoulder like a heavy overcoat, he was a toy, a doll. You drink your soup and try not to think about it too much.
When Kanaya leaves you lean out of the window and smoke. She always tells you off when you do it, she says that it’ll kill you but you’re a mutant and who knows how long you’ll live for anyway. Besides you started years ago when you were a new detective and not even a blade runner yet, you thought it made you look cool and intimidating. Now you think it’s stupid, but you’re addicted and it’s hard to quit and you don’t care enough to try too hard anyway.
When you sleep you dream of a man with puppet strings through his limbs and a blank stare.