Chapter Text
Connor straightened his tie, eyes looking forward, glued to the door of the elevator, calm, cold and almost bored.
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This wasn’t his first case, far from it. He was the youngest Lieutenant in Detroit, after all, with only 35 years. He had had his fair share of cases, an closed them all, worked at them until every, single, small detail was making sense and forming a whole.
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The doors slid open and Connor walked into a cacophony of sounds, lights and smells. He didn’t even flinch.
There were bird seeds on the floor, broken glass and dirt. Connor let his eyes wander over the mess, his mind immediately recognizing the signs of a struggle, adding the information to what he already knew. First there was a struggle. Which led to a murder.
He liked his thoughts organized - at least the ones he could control - especially if they were related to a case, which most of them were. He worked faster if everything was neat and ordered, and he wouldn’t allow anything to slow him down when it came to work.
A heavily armed member of the SWAT team, currently bustling through the large apartment, turned his head towards Connor as the latter approached. Connor saw the other’s mouth twitch, his voice take on a hint of annoyance as he muttered “Lieutenant Anderson’s here” into his radio. But even if he hadn’t, Connor knew neither this man nor all other officers swarming the place, were glad to see him. Most weren’t. He was known as the “metal man” after all, or more often as the “Android Human”. The man who acted more like an emotionless machine than a living being, working all day and night, not talking to anybody, not eating, not sleeping, not caring.
It was a rather new nickname. He hadn’t always been known as..that.
But he also hadn’t always been the man he was now.
Connor shook his head, grimacing. Straying thoughts. That always happened at this time of the year. Unavoidable, but nonetheless unacceptable. He needed to focus. He needed to concentrate. He needed to work.
Connor let his eyes wander over the floor, the walls, towards the people in the back, the crying girl, being questioned by an officer, her father holding onto her tightly, the body of her mother beside them on the ground, covered by a black sheet. They wouldn’t be leaving soon, the building was on lockdown until the android was found and caught. Connor felt something in him twitch at the thought of the girl having to sit next to her dead mother for hours. But there was no time for that now, no time to feel sorry for her. He was only here to solve this case, nothing less, nothing more. And that he would do.
Connor stepped forward. He had to talk to Captain Collins first, get all the information they already had. But then his foot collided with something soft, lightly, something that shouldn’t have caught his attention. Something unimportant.
But somehow, Connor got distracted. He was really losing control of himself today, that was not something he usually allowed himself to do. But the small, weak sound from down on the ground made his head turn, his eyes, having been fixed on Captain Collins, wandering down to find a small, yellow bird, flapping helplessly on the ground, one wing dragging on the behind it. He had almsot stepped on it, and now the bird was trying to flee, to fly, to run. But it was weak and injured, it’s yellow feather sticking in all directions.
An American Goldfinch. Connor had no trouble identifying it. He made sure to cram as much knowledge into his head as he could, after all, no matter how trivial or unrelated it was to his work. The more he knew, the higher was the chance that he would be able to act right, no matter the situation.
It was just a bird, already injured, not important. But somehow, for some reason, Connor found himself stretching his hand towards it, picking it up and placing it in the remnants of its broken cage. He was getting soft. Too soft. He couldn’t wait for that one day to pass, so all of this, all the wandering thoughts and surges of distracting feelings would stop. He had no time for it.
Connor threw one last look at the Finch, unsure of why he had done what he had, before he turned and strode towards Collins. And Collins..well, like always, he ignored him. Connor wasn’t liked amongst his colleagues and even less amongst people from other precincts, from other divisions. At least his colleagues tried to be polite, not wanting to be rude to their superior, or just in general, to somebody who worked in the same room as they did.
But Ben Collins was Connor’s superior and didn’t even work in the same building as the latter. No need to be polite. No need to hide how much he despised Connor’s presence.
“Have you searched the fire escapes?”
“Yes, sir. Nobody there!”
Collins was hunched over a large screen, displaying a map of the entire building, turning and moving it.
‘So they think the culprit is still here…’ Connor thought, looking at the pad himself. There were many possibilities of escape. So why would Collins assume that the culprit was still in the building?
“The chances of the culprit still staying here, looking at how there are only a few places they could hide without being discovered, are pretty low,” Connor said, his voice as cool and calm as always, earning him a scowl from Collins. “I assume you have information that makes it clear that the culprit couldn’t leave the building, am I correct?”
Collins sighed and finally turned around. He was smaller than Connor but always tried his all to look down on the other.
“It’s a fucking android,” Collins growled. “It killed the mother, tried to attack the father, but he activated the alarm. The thing bolted, but no way it could leave.”
Of course not. All escapes would have been either inaccessible for androids, or too full of other humans. It couldn’t have left without being noticed or even caught.
“Now stop pestering me and do your damn job, I need to get out of here before the smell gets even worse.”
Connor only nodded and turned towards the living room. The girl was still crying, her father stroking her hair with one hand while the other held her close. Connor swallowed, hoping it would push down the sudden sharp stab in his chest.
He really hated this time of year. He would never let himself get affected by things like that at any other time. Connor walked past them and the officer still talking to them, soothing them with words that wouldn’t bring their lost mother, lost wife back, and entered the bedroom of the parents.
Clean. Tidy. But Connor could see past the facade, he always could. Pictures on the walls, all only showing three family members. Pictures on the bedside tables, all only showing the daughter, the mother, the father.One, single picture inside the bedside table, hidden in a book, worn and fading, showing four people. Mother, Father, daughter, son.
So they had a son.
One side of the bed, warm, crumpled, used. The side with the hidden picture in the bedside table. The side smelling the same way, flowers and something sweet, as the perfume bottle on the dresser. Sticker on the bottle reading “Happy Birthday, darling - Todd”. So the mother's side.
One side of the bed, cold, too neat, to unused.
So the father didn’t sleep in the same bed as his wife anymore. She hid a picture of their son from him.
They were falling apart after losing their son.
Connor turned and left the room. There was nothing more he needed to see here.
The girl's room was small and messy. A laptop, open and turned on, sat on the ground in front of a large beanbag. Connor picked it up, looking through the open programmes, the open sides in the internet browser. A web version of a text messaging system caught his eye.
‘Hey, come to my room, I wanna show you something.’
Sent by an android. The small ‘PL600 #501 743 923’ at the bottom right of the text bubble told as much.
So the android lured the daughter into his room. But what for?
Connor left the girl's room, hurrying towards the only other room left, the all too familiar need for more knowledge burning in his usually empty chest. This was what drove him forward. This was what made him feel alive.
The other room, the androids room was...unexpected. Fir of all, the Android having a room at all was not something it required. Connor knew as much, even though androids where the one subject he tried to avoid. But he still learned about them, learned enough to do his job. He wouldn’t risk failing just because of a...It didn’t matter. Connor pulled himself back to the present. He should have gotten a coffee on the way here, maybe that would have helped him focus. This was really starting to become extremely annoying.
Stepping into the room, Connor looked at all the furniture, all the things, all the clothes. It looked like a teenage boy’s room.
This was the son’s room. So why was the android using it now?
Connor took another step, his foot colliding with something hard, something metal. A knife.
Connor picked it up, looking at it from all sides. Clean, very clean, not even the smudges of human fingers. But there, only a drop, only a shimmer of red blood.
It started to make sense. Slowly but surely everything was coming together.
He only had one thing left to do, one thing and he would know what happened one thing and he would be a step closer to finding the culprit and finishing his job.
Connor crossed the living room, walking toward the girl and father, still sitting on the couch next to the large, terrace door, a light breeze moving the curtains behind them.
“Excuse me, but I have a few questions about what happened.”
The girl sobbed louder, hiding her face in her father’s chest, while the father gave Connor a piercing glare.
“We already told your colleagues enough, didn’t we? The damn thing suddenly shot my wife and then tried to kill me!”
“And it didn’t attack your daughter?”
The girl hiccuped, clutching her father's shirt tighter.
“No!” the man was angry now, tears still streaming down his face, but his features contorted his upper lip curling. “It didn’t have time to hurt Alice, but she just saw her mother...Claire...Oh, god, Claire...She just...Claire was shot in front of her, could you leave us two alone!”
Connor kneeled down in front of the girl. He wasn’t good with people. He really wasn’t. Taking a deep breath, he tried to smile at her, his lips twitching lightly at the motion. He was really, really bad with people.
“Hey..Alice, right? Did the android hurt you in any way?”
Connor wasn’t surprised when the father lashed out at him, again.
“I just told you, she is unharmed!”
“Then please, Mr. Williams, explain to me, how did your daughter sustain the light cut on her neck?”
“I..I…”
“Was it from the knife, the android held to her throat? The knife still lying in its room?”, Connor waited for the words to sink in. For the father to know that it was too late to keep lying. “Just tell me the truth and we will find it before it can harm anybody else.”
And then, the man broke, clutching his daughter tighter too him. To Connor’s surprise, it was the girl who spoke up next, her sobs had quieted down while the two men had been talking.
“He...he didn’t mean it, I’m sure..”
Connor raised an eyebrow. “He?”
“Simon”, the girl looked towards the android’s room, before her wet eyes looked back at Connor. “He...dad got him after..after the other Simon...went..away.”
“My son..died in a car crash”, Todd said, stroking his daughter's hair. “He...after he...Well, I didn’t know what to do. And then I..saw this android. It just..looked so much like him, almost the same, just..older. A bit older.”
“Mom..wasn’t happy about the new Simon…”
“And then..well...I got it home. Told it to behave like my son. Put on his..clothes...live in his room...It...It seemed like such a good idea..but..my wife thought I’ve gone mad.”
Connor nodded. That confirmed his theory. An android to replace their child, Connor couldn’t believe it. Everything in him cringed at that thought, making him sick. There was nothing that could replace a lost brother, a lost son. Especially not a piece of plastic with a human face.
“Mom was..angry at Simon. And at dad..”
“We fought a lot and..slowly I...well, I saw my mistake. I couldn’t bring Simon back, I was just making it worse..so we...decided to get rid of it.”
That explained why the android suddenly lashed out. It heard the conversation.
“Next thing I see is that thing, holding a knife to my Alice’s throat...and I...everythign after that is a blur…” Todd swallowed as he planted a kiss on his daughter's head, his eyes wandering over to the covered body of his wife. “I..I got my gun out of the drawer I keep it in..my wife was..talking to it I think..? It..didn’t notice the gun at first...It mumbled something..i...I don’t know, it was all so much..”
Connor sighed. He hated talking to witnesses. So unreliable, not remembering, not noticing, sometimes even remembering wrong. It really interfered with his work.
“He..He asked me to come to his room...He...he grabbed..he….I….He said...He was...saying that he wouldn’t go alone,” Alice’s voice was quiet and shaking. “He said he wouldn’t be thrown away..without...without taking me with him..”
“Oh god, why did I bring that thing in here!? Alice, I’m so sorry,” Todd clung harder to his daughter, who pushed out of his grasp, curling in on herself. Connor cleared his throat.
“Mr. Williams, please focus. What happened next?”
“The Android...it..saw Claire going for the panic button and...it just...lunged at me.. I had no time and..it just shot her, with my gun!” Todd was slowly growing hysteric, his breath coming in sharp, fast gasps. “I don’t know..I..how..I reached the panic button while it just..froze and looked at my..my Claire..And it ran. That’s...that’s all..I...please find it, I can’t lose my daughter too!”
“Thank you, Mr. Williams, you were very helpful.”
Connor got up and turned to the body of the mother. He knew what had happened up until the murder, he knew why the android suddenly had malfunctioned and attacked. Now he only had to learn what happened afterwards, where it had run.
Kneeling next to the covered body, Connor peeled back the sheet, ignoring the cry and loud sobs of the girl coming from behind him as she saw her mother. There was a bullet to her head, clean, precise. It wanted to stop her as fast as possible.
But...where could it have run to after that? Connor stood up again, covering the woman back up as he did, turning his head as he looked around the room. There was nothing apart from the people running through it, the father and daughter crying on the sofa and the curtains moving in the wind.
Connor froze.
Why was the terrace door open?
“Captain Collins!” Connor called out. “Did anybody check the roof deck?”
He had been stupid, so very, very stupid to not notice this sooner. He was so stupid to call out, to loudly ask if the terrace was clear.
A hand suddenly shot out between the curtain, trough the now fully open door, grabbing the daughter by the scruff of her neck and pulling her outside. The girl screamed loudly as her father tried to hold onto her, but failed, as all heads snapped toward the source of the sound.
Connor was the first to move, the first to get over the shock of what had suddenly happened. He ran, pushing past two frozen members of the SWAT team, who were both staring at the ajar door and out into the night. He shouldn’t have run out there first. But this day wasn’t Connor’s day, this day everything seemed to go wrong, to be out of his control. And so he was the first one out, the first one standing on the small terrace so high, so very high above the ground. Connor swallowed back nausea at the thought, not paying attention enough to see the weapon pointed at him until a bullet grazed his arm. Connor hissed.
“GO AWAY!” the android screamed, standing on the railing that surrounded the terrace, the crying and kicking girl held firmly to his side, a gun in his other hand, pointed at her head both of them only millimetres away from a 70 story high drop.
Connor pressed a hand to his bleeding arm and grit his teeth. He had to concentrate. He had to succeed.
“I can’t do that, Simon!” he shouted back. He had worked as a negotiator before, long, long ago. Before he had joined Homicide, before...No, he couldn’t think of that now, he had to focus, he had to remember what he had learned back then. Use their name. Sympathise with them. The safety of the hostage is the highest priority. “But I am here to help you!”
“Oh, so you want to help me?!” the android laughed. “I know there is no way out anymore, I just want to finish what I’ve started!”
“There is no need to do that!” Connor tried to inch closer, moving his stiff legs towards the ledge. “Just listen to me, we can find a way out of here!”
Footsteps and whispered commands came from behind Connor, followed by a shouted: “Damn, Anderson, what are you doing!?”
Collins didn’t trust Connor, that much was clear. But it didn’t help Connor’s shaking knees to hear it from the man at a moment like this.
“Simon, listen to me..!”
“No, you listen to me!” Simon waved the hand holding the gun, staring straight at Connor. “Look at me! Look what they did to me!”
Connor already knew. The faded shirt, the ripped jeans, all too small, all having belonged to somebody else. The hair, spikey and black at the tips. One earring. All things Connor had seen before, on the crumpled, old picture, hidden in the mother’s bedside table.
“They got me to replace him! Forced me to be him!” the android fired another shot, this time into the group of officers behind Connor. Connor ignored the yelp of pain behind him. He couldn’t be thinking about anybody else, about anything else right now.
“And I did what they asked of me! I did it for 4 years! For 4 , fucking years!!” Simon’s breathing was erratic, his LED glowing red, red, red. “And then, you know what they wanted to do after I did everything for them for 4 years?!”
“I know Simon, I know that they wanted to dispose of you!” Connor shouted, taking another few steps forward. If he could get close enough..maybe he could grab the girl. maybe he could save her if his words failed. “But killing Alice isn’t going to help you!”
“Oh, I know it won’t!” Simons smiled. “But they wanted to throw me away, they were ready to kill somebody who was their child for them, who behaved exactly the way they wanted.”
Simon lowered the gun.
“So I thought..if they are ready to lose one child, why not both?”
And then he closed his eyes, and started to fall, letting his body tip backwards, the girl still pressed to his side.
Connor ran. He could still get her, he could still grab her, he could still save her. He threw himself at the railing, he stretched out his hand, he could still...Connor froze, feeling utter dread, utter, horrible, sickening dread fill his entire body. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t act, he couldn’t breathe, his eyes fixed on the ground so far down below. He barely saw the small hand stretching out to him before, almost touching his fingers before falling farther down, down, down. He barely saw the two bodies hit the floor with a sound he could hear even up here. He barely saw the father race towards the railing, let out a wail of pure agony as he was restrained by two officers before he could plunge himself after his daughter.
Connor only stood there, frozen, feeling sick, feeling too much, an aching, black hole inside his chest instead of the calming nothing it was usually filled with.
And then he turned around and left.
There was nothing he could do here anymore.
This would be the first case he wouldn’t be able to close successfully.
He had failed.