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[Text]

This is Hank Anderson, and I recently got my promotion so it's now Det. Hank Anderson. Which is why I wanted to make this announcement.

[Hank still wants to research into the missing people and initiate his vague plan to devalue the iterations. Right now the public see them as a protective force for good. Hank wants the people to see other fucking people as their reliable protective force. That in the many variations of temperaments and personalities and creative resolutions to conflict, they can find their safety.]

I have a case that could use some assistance from some specialized outsiders. If you could come to me and lay out your experience and training, I would like to offer you temporary deputy work in helping solve this case.

Necessary qualifications include:
-Combat against armed opponents
-Negotiation and Interrogation
-Ability to secure an area until CSI arrives (cursory crime scene analysis a bonus)

Due to Dualis's policy on providing payment through credit, if you would want rewards we would have to attach a name to your activities. However if you'd want to work off-record [which is as close to anonymously as he can get] we could come to some sort of arrangement such as donated payment.

I'll be at the cat cafe to conduct interviews 4:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon for the next week. You can show up when it's convenient to talk. Sounds like a fucking weird place for it, yes, it'll make more sense when you're there.

I've also arranged for donated goods to be offered when people come in and might find themselves in a state of disrepair or any nicer version of saying fucked the hell up. New clothes, medical things like crutches for people with chronic conditions, sanitary supplies like soap and toothbrushes, things of that nature. So if you want to donate something to the people coming in there's a donation box in the dormitory's lower entryway and they'll be taken to the temple.

[Action]

Like he promises, Hank's waiting around at the cat cafe whenever someone shows up. Usually reading a book, sometimes bored, sometimes deeply into it. Right by his side though? A mammoth green cat, purring and resting her head against his arm. She's twitching her tail to and fro.

Hank is pretty sure he'll be able to tell if someone is bullshitting their credentials and whether they'll do intentional harm with their new role. It's hard to do background checks when different universes are involved, but he thinks he's figured out a way to beat the system without having to use any of the department's lie detectors.

Note: Plotting post here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Connor shows up pretty late to the cat cafe - closer to 18:00. He took a rare day off, so he's not in uniform; actually, he's in one of Hank's most disgustingly garish shirts over a T-shirt with a very stupid visual pun on it that he only bought because it took him a second to understand and when he did he felt slightly satisfied about it. It wasn't very funny. But he bought it anyway.

On the way in, though the staff don't ask him if he wants anything because they're used to his refusals by now, he orders a hot chocolate. With marshmallows and cream, the girl asks? Sure, he says.

He sits down by Hank, and within a few seconds there's a two-tailed, no-eyed cat in his lap.

"It doesn't make any more sense yet." Though the big green cat has never paid any attention to him before, or he it.

"Yeah. I can't fuckin' make heads or tails of it, but I'm not gonna push it yet 'cause I don't want to lose credibility. Is that the cat you told me about?"

He's pleased as he watches Connor grab a hot chocolate. At least he's figured out one thing he likes. The pun is a little ridiculous and Connor looks so slight in one of his big shirts he can't help but be charmed. It might as well be a jacket on him.

Actually it makes him look 1980s retro, now that he thinks about it.

Hank pats the mammoth cat next to him. "Got a few people interested. Hoping I can make this work. I figure that those guys will lay low with the city cracking down. I don't expect too many problems."

"Lying." Says the cat, before lifting its paw to lick it.

"Problems dealing with them... Not problems problems. I know I'm always expecting those." Oh, right. He leans across the table to give Connor a quick kiss before his chocolate gets here. He's still in the gross stage of the relationship, despite their recent trauma.

"The one that adopted me, right." It seems happy in the cafe and Connor still has nerves about keeping an organic animal alive and healthy, so he's decided it's best to leave it here. He visits to read and listen to CDs, the cat follows him like a tiny shadow, they're both happy.

He's so startled by the big cat that he's distracted while Hank kisses him - then recovers just as Hank draws back and chases him forward to kiss him properly. Then he draws back to stare at the animal.

"The cat talks," he says dumbly, everything else momentarily leaving his mind.

"Yeah. It does. That's the only word it knows."

Hank leans back in his chair, scratching his fingers along its head. "Some of the people I know that can help us out don't want people to know their real name. They go by a fuckin' stage persona as a vigilante. I'm not a big fan of vigilantes, but I know I'd rather have 'em than the iterations.

"I also wanna protect their identities. So I'm bringin' 'em here and seeing if they'll be on the level with me. Go ahead, lie to it. Not a little lie or a sarcastic lie, an important lie."

OK, the cat knows when people are lying.

For a split-second, he wonders why the police can’t adopt it.

He leans back in his own chair, eyebrows raised as Hank describes people who have literally been taken away from their families and entire lives and are completely anonymous to the majority of the city...and yet still want to hide their identities. It feels totally pointless to Connor, but then, he has one single name, has never integrated into a normal human society and his one family is right across the table. Why should he care about adopting a persona?

“Maybe it can’t tell when I’m lying,” he says, then briefly looks away to accept a giant mug of hot chocolate virtually brimming over with half-melted marshmallows, thanking the waitress with a perfunctory grin. Not entirely sure what to do yet with this entirely-too-big cup and what turns out to be kind of a sticky, slimy white substance on top, he leaves it on the table for a moment.

“Do you ever find that when somebody tells you to say ‘anything’, you immediately can’t think of anything to say?” Because he’ll absolutely try lying, sure, but about what?

Maybe about something he needs to confirm to himself.

"I still want to be a detective."

The last word is barely out of his mouth before the cat announces its own one word in a deeply unpleasant sort of raspy voice, barely even looking at him.

"I want to help - and I like consulting on cases," he adds hurriedly, to silence from the cat, "but I don't want the one thing I was made to do anymore. I'm a little bit scared about that, honestly."

Then he finally lifts the hot chocolate to his mouth. He only finally got the upgrades he's been saving up for today - it's going to be weird, to say the least.

Oh.

That was a bigger lie than he'd expected.

Realistically he knew they couldn't be partners again because they were lovers. That was just a no-go. And it makes sense. Connor wasn't made to be a detective, he was made to hunt his own kind. There's a difference, certainly, in the point between a detective and what Connor was. But Hank hadn't seen him as that. He'd eventually seen him as a guy that wanted to do the right thing.

It's probably better that the band-aid be ripped off, but it hits him hard enough that he stays quiet. He can't really offer any advice to the gentle confession that he's scared, because those angry voices start antagonizing him in his brain. He came here and you forced him to be something that you didn't want him to be. Things like, He was suffering unhappily the whole time you were just happy to find someone to feel good with again, you should be fuckin' ashamed.

It was only three fuckin' days. That's the worst part. It's true, they'd been partners for such a brief interval and he'd been so sick of people for so long that he'd just... well, even before there was love there, there was just some sense of happiness that there was a cop that knew right from wrong. Not all detectives were Gavin Reeds now. A few could be Connors.

Well... it's not like it fucking matters. Neither of them are cops back home anyway. At least Connor's gonna get a head start on what to do with himself. Hank's probably going to be some dipshit giving interviews and... he doesn't know, beyond that.

"What are you gonna do?"

Is what he finally asks out loud, even if it means climbing a mountain of his own uncertain bullshit to get there.

He can almost feel Hank's disappointment even without the interface connection between them, and he tries to act like he doesn't by taking a drink. It reminds him a little bit of the Baileys Hank once had him try, only the alcoholic bite isn't there behind it and it's much sweeter. Not quite the fizzy radioactive drink Hank had in their room before - it doesn't quite cross over into too sweet.

And swallowing it is even stranger because he can feel the heat leaving his mouth and going down his throat.

It takes Hank a long while to say anything, and Connor has no idea what's going on in his mind in that time. What happened only a couple weeks ago has made Connor think of Hank's brain as having something in it akin to an Amanda - a separate presence needling his mind. Of course, he knows what it really is: an illness, some kind of imbalance in the brain as sure as if he had a gaping wound in his side. But it strangely helps his understanding to call it Hank's very own Amanda.

"I don't want to leave Dualis PD," he explains. "I was hoping I could help you out with this, then try to get into crisis negotiation. I could consult on some cases as well," he goes on hurriedly. "I have the skills, it would be a waste not to use them at all.

"But I was made to be a detective and then used as a deviant hunter. I don't... It's..."

He doesn't know how to explain it. He pets the cat in his lap with one hand and swirls his drink in the other. "It feels complicated."

"No, no... I get it." Hank raises his hand in a placating gesture. "You weren't a detective, not really. Not in the beginning, at least. To me a detective is somebody that finds people that benefit from the pain or misfortune of others. They've fucked someone over, fucked a lot of people over, and they gotta be put out of commission by whatever punishment needs to happen."

He lets his hand rest on the table again.

"You weren't that until I saw you let those girls go. Until you didn't shoot that girl at Kamski's place or you told me you didn't want civil war. That's what made you a detective. The shit they programmed into you just made you a fuckin' android Gestapo, and you needed out of that. The time you spent as a detective is from the choices you made yourself."

A hard word to apply to what Connor was, but not inaccurate.

"I think being a negotiator looks good on you. Even if it doesn't always work, you're good at empathy, Connor. You can see where people are coming from."

He glumly adds. "As for your abilities... there's something I'm worried about. You recorded everything. I think we need to figure out how to store your memories here, at least that recording of that night. Any of the doubles we ran into. Because the Head is erasing them all."

He has some stuff on his old cell phone from Detroit. He'd been keeping stuff away from Dualisnet by storing it on that. But it strikes him, also, that protecting Connor's mind is far more important than any selfish thoughts he just had.

Edited 2019-11-06 00:43 (UTC)

He winces a little at the word Gestapo; it's not inaccurate, he doesn't dispute it, but he glances around all the same like somebody might be listening to them. Nobody is listening at all, though, no one except the green cat purring at Hank's elbow. He's not going to self-flagellate and think he deserves to have all of Dualis know exactly what he was and treat him accordingly.

"I keep thinking about the hostage situation they activated me for," he says, "and what I could have done different, what else could happened, how I could have helped him. Then I realised I liked thinking about it - and it wasn't just him, it was other situations, too. During that Premium Foods uprising, I was listening to the negotiator listing all the things I'd do if I was him." He grins. "It was kinda fun."

Connor's vaguely discovered daydreaming. Sort of.

As for his own memories...

"I can't even erase data from my own head," he tells Hank sceptically. "But I can try to make a backup of the visual and audio data all the same. We don't have anything that could take all my sensory data about it, it's just too much.

"What data has the Head been erasing so far?"

"I actually recommended they go to you for negotiation. When Squall talked to me. I didn't figure they did, but I put your name out there." He'd seen Connor interrogate, he knew he was good at it. And when he notices Connor's nervousness, he shakes his head.

"Don't worry, between the cats asking for attention, coffee machines, and people talking it's always good to come in here and be ignored. I can't really do anything involving EMPs to hide my conversations so I just rely on fuckin' background noise."

Then he rubs his eye.

"Anything and everything about the doubles. In fact all the reports people made about the attacks are gone. No statements were saved. I have some information on my phone, a couple of videos, and what you have, but that's it."

"I didn't hear anything from anybody. I can't blame them, they've never seen me do anything like that and it's a delicate situation. They've only got our word for it that I've got the programming."

He actually likes that. He's being treated exactly like any other person would be in a new city, with no qualifications and just a willingness to prove themselves.

"I know nobody's listening." He takes another drink, slowly. "It used to be that knowing something like that would make me put it out of my mind, but I'm nervous anyway." Little irrationalities are just part of being a thinking, feeling being. He's used to a lot of the little quirks of his emotions by now, but some of them keep getting to him at the strangest times, and in the strangest ways.

"I'll go into standby tonight and see what I can do, OK?" And with that, he leans back, still petting the cat kneading his legs insistently - he's used to that by now, she does it every time - and sips his drink.

"So, Detective." He manages to keep his face perfectly straight. "I heard you were conducting interviews for deputies, and I think I might have some of the skills you need."

"Ah, come on. A grocery store uprising where the primary weapons of threat were the items you perform maintenance duties on? You would have been fuckin' perfect." Hank teases, but appreciates Connor's desire to earn the position rather than be given it. It's very honorable of him; something Hank's always deeply admired about him, from the moment he first saw signs of it.

He also gets being nervous.

Since the Heart invited them to their little show and tell, he's been a little worried not just for them, but for all the people there. He's always taken those measures to have background noise on whenever he talked about the Head. He's turned on music, discussed his information in low tones, tried to keep his back to place where he'd hide cameras.

But knowing that they're downloading memories too? Maybe it's just a matter of time. Maybe it'll never be enough.

That's beside the point. The cases are something he can do something with now. "Luckily I know your resume, too." Hank straightens himself up. "Alright. So you wanna hear about how there's some crazy bitch who's selling drugs and fucking up people who upset her?"

He snorts at the memory. They looked ridiculous and cleaning all the guacamole and tomato sauce (he assumes, though he had to admit he didn't check) off and detaching the various "add-ons" wasn't fun, but it's such a stupid thing to have happened that he can't help finding it a little funny. Just a little.

Androids fought to be equal, and now that Connor knows what that means, he wants it, more than anything. Even if he never gets to do anything more fitting his skills than direct traffic and fix Roombas, what he has, he earned. He would like to be trusted with more. But if he isn't, he'll accept that gladly.

Not that Dualis is the best place to discover equality. Connor tries to act normal whenever he can, not to attract attention, and he's already trying to figure out how to download his own memories so it doesn't attract any attention.

"Right." For now, though, he concentrates on Hank. "The Red Ice I found. That's related to this case?"

It was a week or two ago. He'd been doing a routine check on an impounded car and had been pretty damn surprised to detect the drug in trace quantities in the trunk. He's never seen another android, never seen thirium. But right there in front of him was a drug made of the stuff. He reported it, but Connor's a traffic cop, and despite offering to explain what the drug actually was he was dismissed. After that, he assumed vice would contact him if they needed him. They didn't.

Until this, that is.

"Yeah. I think so." Hank says with a tired nod. Damned Red Ice. A little bit of it everywhere, peddled to every lonely human from the blood of androids.

"We had a guy that was trafficking stolen goods, being followed by someone in the property department. The property department guy had an important meeting to go to, and the fuckin' perp ends up one of the killings. People thought he was a part of the North family, that's what they were looking into. His entire stock was stolen. And in that stock? A couple of gallons of thirium."

People don't often go missing or stay dead in this place. And these people are.

Which is a danger in itself. He doesn't know if she knows how to keep the Head from bringing people back, or if this was supposed to be a case where they did come back fearing her, or if she knew that people weren't coming back and was taking advantage of it. There are a lot of questions that could be also be answered by finding her.

But it's a thought that he shares by putting his hand over Connor's and tapping it. An unspoken request to share the idea.

His eyebrows go up at the words 'couple of gallons'. He's been casually trying to find out if thirium even exists here and he's never come up with anything - but he doesn't have that many connections here yet. More accurately, he has close to none. Maybe he should have been looking at the local drug dealers and not just the chemistry labs. If he ever loses a large amount of thirium, he'd need more - rather like a blood transfusion - but he's been trying not to think too much about it, given that there's nothing at all he can do about it.

But now here's a couple of gallons of it, being used for Red Ice.

He shakes off the irritation and, as Hank's hand taps his, he lets the skin slip away over his hand so their connection can open.

He gently wraps his fingers around Connor's, rubbing his hand with his thumb, on the outside they're just a couple having a private moment. Something sweet to be smiled at.

He gingerly gives him the thought. He has a suspicion, because most of the people at the department didn't remember the incident, he thinks they might have shut down during the black-out. The ones that don't remember at all are the ones that have already been replaced. Then he recalls Loki's theory, that the black-out released the things before they were done. He'd like the sound of it. That led him to the idea the Heart might have caused the black-out.

And that doesn't make him feel warm. It makes him feel cold and angry, that they treated them like idiots to manipulate loyalty. To present themselves as a safe place when people probably would have listened if they'd said the truth and not spent their time on masks and performance. But that's beside the point.

People aren't supposed to be dying and staying dead. They are. And these are definitely humans. So there's a lot more to find out than a drug bust. Maybe the Head is breaking down in its old age. Who knows.

He's going to look into it, but he wants Connor to be careful. Be very careful, because he can't stand the idea of losing him right now.

Connor's gaze goes a little distant, although to anybody watching, he's just completely taken by Hank. And maybe that's a little true. Mostly, though, he's processing, taking thoughts from Hank and passing them back almost as quickly.

It's true, the guys in the department, none of the ones he's talked to, remember a thing about that night. They all swear nothing happened, they recount normal nights at home or on patrol or whatever they were supposed to be doing. Normal. Connor hadn't been able to make any sense of it, but... The whole police department? All of them? Doubles?

His gaze narrows in on Hank's properly now, frowning. It's not inconceivable that they started with the police - authority figures - but if they have the whole department, they must have more. There's no way of telling just how many. The only people they know for absolutely certain aren't doubles are the ones whose doubles they've already killed.

...Or simply all the people whose clones aren't completed yet. The ones in the dormitories, the ones only staying for one year.

Do you think one year is about the time it would take them to finish one of those clones?

He's not sure if he's asking too much, but, realising they might stick out a little if they aren't seen to be talking to each other at all, he says out loud at the same time, "I could talk to some of the team on the case about Red Ice - the chemical side." Hank knows everything else probably better than Connor.

"And maybe I could get permission to take the thirium once the case is done. Just in case."

It wouldn't surprise me. It gets easier to read what Connor's thinking or feeling as time goes on. He's getting used to it. I thought a year was a pretty short period of time for a plague experiment lasting possibly centuries.

But what the hell do they even know about what the head actually wants? Not too much. He doesn't know how they'll get home without it, or if it's even worked out how to do that. Why would it need to if it's just replacing people? There are people that have went to different universes though. Some more than once.

But then, out loud. "I think we could get away with just checking it out of the evidence room. There's no need for it after. I get the feeling it won't have to be there for a lengthy trial."

I can probably stop trying to explain away why they might have brought me for a DNA sampling exercise. Because he'd tried that, in good faith. Wanting to believe this was just a year out from his life, almost painless, maybe even a good thing. Both for him and Hank.

And he still thinks that in some ways, so far, it has been. And it's enraging to realise it was all built on lies, on a plan to create copies of them and discard them as soon as they weren't needed anymore. And they've both survived too much to let this take them down.

Hank can feel all of this, knows everything he's thinking right now - it's been an unexpected source of pride to see Hank improve at this steadily since they started using the implant, even if the circumstances were the worse they could be.

"I'd appreciate it. I don't need thirium unless I lose too much of it, but you never know."

Especially now.

"Whatever you need me to do with this case, though, I'm available. Just let me know."

The people who died without coming back, he thinks - has Hank seen any bodies personally? Is there any way to know if they're real people or duplicates?

Hank doesn't respond to that with a thought or spoken words, just a sad smile. Yeah, it makes a lot more sense now. And while it's nice to have a chance to breathe, to fall in love, to start growing instead of miring himself in all the bad habits that he'd condemned himself to.

They're here because someone wanted to copy them. That's it. But they've had a few good moments, and he wants to hang onto those.

What happened with your double? he thinks, putting his other hand over Connor's, holding it warmly with both.

"I did see the bodies." That part he can say out loud. They didn't seem like robots. "They just weren't coming back. But I'll try to get you in to the coroner to take a look."

Edited 2019-11-17 23:14 (UTC)

He's glad to sense that Hank feels the same way he does - that ultimately, there are things to have enjoyed about being here, even if they can't forget the reasons or just dismiss them. He doesn't want to taint this, Hank's hands both curling around his on the table as Connor brings up his other hand to cover Hank's in turn.

Hank's question automatically conjures the memory. It was quick and clean. Knowing exactly what he was looking at and expecting it, he'd shot it through the head as soon as he'd seen it. Its blood was thirium, and though it had a lot of the same metal components as Hank's double, there had been a genuine attempt going on around that to reverse engineer Connor. So it looked like.

"I don't know how much I'll see that the coroner didn't, but I'll have a look." What he doesn't say aloud is that if the bodies are completed doubles, Connor might not realise with just a visual check. He didn't even realise Hank's double was artificial until they both got a closer look, let alone the entire completed police department.

What do we do about them? The police officers, their colleagues. Act normal? Like we don't know what they are?

He wonders, with a sick jolt, if they know what they are.

He doesn't know what to do. He's seen them get jittery without caffeine. He's seen them show off pictures of their kids. He wants to at least try to still treat them like people, even if it means at some point they might have to run.

He just nods at the spoken words, though. It's so damn hard to tell. He doesn't think all the people in the department are even doubles. It's a complicated situation. He doesn't even know for sure yet.

Maybe we should start stashing some things somewhere, just in case. I'll look around for places when I'm investigating the case. There's gotta be a time when our memories catch up with us, though.

He licks his lips, and looks down at their warmly clasped hands. The emotion he feels from the sight, the love there, the urge to protect? That's all very real.

If I'm right, this means the Heart probably caused the black-out to prove a point. And that's going to have the full force of the department after them because the Head will want that. And if they catch them, they're all going to eventually find out about that meeting.
And all those fucking kids they invited.

Those are the images flashing through Connor's head as well - interacting with and watching a department of people who he had no reason to ever believe weren't human. And if they don't know what they are - even if they do - what makes them less than real people? Who is Connor to say that they're not real?

Good idea. Not that the idea of being a fugitive...again, sort of...appeals to him any, but this time - he won't be alone. And things feel more hopeful for that. (The very fact that things feel at all like anything helps) He strokes Hank's hand with a thumb, watching both their conjoined hands like he can see the data transfer going on if he watches closely enough.

They didn't listen to anything either of us told them, he thinks, and he can't help the contempt slipping into his thoughts about the Heart now. All their lives at risk, and the Head all the more on the lookout - possibly for everybody who showed up for that meeting as well.

At this stage, Connor doesn't see that they have much choice. If they turn the Heart in to save the people in the dormitory, all it does is extend their own lives a few more months before the Head gets rid of them anyway. Work with the Heart and what chance do they have before the reckless behaviour of almost everybody involved kills them all?

What do you think? The thought almost tentatively passes between them.

I'm not gonna pledge any loyalties, that's for damn sure. I'll work with people I know I can count on and that's it. He exhales. There are woods around. There's mines. There's secret spaces to stash away. If these drug dealers can stay out of iteration vision, if the Heart can, then they can, too. If they have to run, they'll run.

It's a desperate sort of situation.

"Is this what it was like before?" Hank asks out loud, finally. Meaning that ship, the attack of the federal agents, the subversive planning. It was just days of action, an aggravated, overquick situation.

Connor's only told him so much about how it was.

He can live with that. No allegiances. The only loyalty he needs to have here is to Hank - and ow long has that been the case, anyway? That Hank is the only person he can really rely on? Living rough doesn't put him off either - he'll do it if he has to, even if what he's seen of it hasn't always been…

"Jericho?" he says softly, even though he knows that's what Hank means. "I didn't stay there long, but it was rough. They had to steal parts and thirium they needed - and so many of the androids there were injured they still never had enough.

"I'm surprised as many of them survived the invasion as they did. A group of us fought some off and jumped overboard, and we helped who we could, but most of them weren't equipped for fighting or surviving anything."

And this was just androids - androids don't need any of the basic things humans need for survival, most of which were missing on Jericho. Even the simple things a human might take for granted like being warm and dry just weren't available there. A place like Jericho is only good for a being who can't feel cold, or discomfort.

A group of androids could hide anywhere they wanted. Here, hiding organics, it's going to be a lot more difficult.

He tilts his head back, mouth pursed in thought. "Maybe that's how Markus drew people to him at first. He thought for himself, he came up with ideas to let them make their own lives better."

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