"What. The fuck. Is that doing here?"

The words were spoken with a contempt that was almost palpable, each word slow and clipped, with a strange drop to an almost whisper at the word "fuck," like it was a word that wasn't natural for the speaker to say.

Connor tilted his head. "I am working here, Detective Reed."

Gavin Reed's eyes narrowed, and the man was almost vibrating with a barely-contained rage. But there was also something else in his eyes, a "blink-and-you-would-miss it" tremor of something else, enough to make Connor pause and analyze the other man.

[Clue: Slight widening of the eyes, with the whites showing around the irises.

Clue: Increased breathing, but shallow breaths; not the faster, heavier breaths associated with anger and rage.

Clue: Increased heart rate.

Clue: Loss of facial color due to constriction of capillaries, and a resulting vasodilation of central blood vessels to muscles.

Analysis: Gavin Reed was afraid.

Further Analysis: Gavin Reed was afraid of him.]

The shock of the results of his analysis was enough for his processors to cycle his LED yellow beyond the initial gathering of evidence.

The last time he had interacted with the detective, Detective Reed had trained a gun on him, and made it very clear exactly how much he hated Connor with his plans to deactivate him permanently. In response, Connor had disarmed and rendered him unconscious. It had been self-defense, and it made no sense at all to him why Gavin Reed would be displaying a fear response to him. Covering it with anger and bravado, yes. That was perfectly in line with the working profile he had of the detective. It being there in the first place, however, did not.

But he knew how to deal with fear - he had been programmed to, and for all his programming had not anticipated Gavin being afraid of him, he did know how to handle the emotion: make himself seem non-threatening and attempt to soothe. He wasn't sure if it was the best response, but he tended to fall back on his programming in uncertain situations.

Hank answered before he could. "Shut the fuck up, Gavin."

"What the fuck are you doing here? Weren't you fired, asshole?" Gavin shot back, his emotions switching now to anger, but now that Connor could see it, had analyzed Gavin and seen that he was afraid, the signs were still there - the way his eyes kept flicking back to Connor, and how he made sure Connor was in his line of sight.

It didn't make sense. Up until now, Gavin Reed had been aggressive and belligerent, almost relishing confrontation and asserting dominance. So why would he be afraid of him?

"Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. But god bless the good ol' union," Hank said, giving Gavin a shit-eating grin. "I've been reinstated."

"That explains you. Not the hunk of tin," Gavin said, visibly tensing.

Connor answered before Hank could. "I am now employed by the DPD."

Gavin looked like he'd been punched. "What the shit."

Chris winced. "Uh, yeah, shit, you missed the memo, man. You were out with the flu when the Captain told us about it. The city decided to-"

Gavin whirled around, finding a new target for his apparently emotional whirlwind, cutting Chris off before he could continue. "And none of you dipshits thought to tell me? Give me some fucking warning that this plastic fuck that attacked me was coming back?"

Connor tilted his head, still trying to analyze the detective, trying to get more information to figure out how best to proceed.

[Clue: "Give me some fucking warning that this plastic fuck..."

Analysis: The detective had a very strange relationship with the word "fuck."

Every other expletive, he would say it without missing a beat, like it was any other word. But for some reason he tripped over the word "fuck;" either hesitated or said it with too strong of an emphasis, like it wasn't natural to him and had been grafted on.

Clue: "...that attacked me was coming back?"

Analysis: Detective Reed had interpreted Connor's self defense in disarming him and rendering him unconscious as an attack.]

Connor frowned. "I didn't 'attack' you. You pulled a gun on me," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You were going to shoot me."

"Shut. The fuck. Up."

Connor contemplated whether or not he should follow Gavin's command, and elected to do as he always did: not.

"Detective, you may feel as if you were attacked, but you were not. You threatened me with damage and deactivation. 'Off the case, definitively' were your exact words. As you pointed a gun at me. I defended myself."

"What fucking right does a goddamn android have to raise a hand to a human? We built you little shits, and it was the worst fucking decision we've made as a species in a long fucking time."

Connor blinked. "Sentient creatures have the right to self-defense. I had a mission to accomplish and I was not going to let you stop me, not when time was of the essence."

Gavin laughed; it was an ugly sound. "'A mission to accomplish'? Yeah, and what was that mission, Connor?"

The way Gavin said his name was like a curse. An epitaph of the worst kind, like it dirtied his mouth to say it.

...He said Connor's name the same way he said "fuck."

Connor didn't quite know how to process that - neither that realization nor what Reed was throwing in his face.

"My mission-" he began, then closed his mouth with a snap as a wave of shame hit him.

That was the downside to emotions. He could suddenly understand why deviants - and as he thought this, his programming flashed "I am a deviant" in front of his eyes, and his shame somehow seemed to grow, shame at both what he had done and what he had become - acted as irrationally they did. Emotions threw everything that had been neatly ordered into chaos; made it so contradictory orders vied for priority in ways that made little to no logical sense.

And now Detective Reed suddenly seemed much more sure of himself, once he was on the offense - it was as if, as soon as he had discovered a weak spot, he knew what to do.

"Yeah, Connor," - there was his name again, sounding like "fuck" - "how'd that mission go, huh? 'Stop the deviants'? Yeah, you fucked that right up."

"I-" Connor began again, then realized he had no idea where he was going to go with the sentence at all.

Now Reed was closing in, pressing his advantage. He was shorter than Connor, but broader, and carried himself like someone who knew how to make himself intimidating. "You sneak into a restricted area, tamper with evidence, and then attack the police officer rightfully stopping you, the human police officer, then go and join the revolution once you find out where it is. Yup, that sure sounds like you were trying to 'accomplish your mission,'" he said mockingly. "Was it your plan all along, huh? I bet you were deviant way before anyone ever thought you were."

"I...I wasn't. I..." Connor began, suddenly feeling lost. In his head, unbidden, Kamski's words played back as a memory flashed before his eyes.

["Fascinating. Cyberlife's last chance to save humanity is itself a deviant."]

Had he been-? How long had he-? Had he-? When had he actually-?

"I-"

"Yeah, now is when you shut the fuck up, Gavin," Hank snarled, suddenly interposed between Connor and Gavin. Connor couldn't see Hank's face, but more importantly, he also couldn't see Detective Reed. Hank was taller and broader than Gavin was, blotting the man completely from Connor's view, and he felt a wave of something, of...gratitude roil over him towards Hank.

But he could still hear Gavin, and the mocking contempt in his voice. "Still protecting your little silicone pet, Anderson? Get to feel like the big man, protecting a damsel in distress?"

Hank laughed, the sound as derisive as anything Reed had just managed. "A damsel that kicked your ass, if I recall correctly. You had a gun on him and he still beat the shit out of you without breaking a sweat. Yeah, you're a tough guy. Fuck outta here. C'mon, Connor," Hank ended, and very pointedly turned his back on Reed. "We gotta go talk to the captain."

Hank started walking towards the captain's office, completely ignoring Reed. Connor quickly turned on his heel to follow, because that at least made sense - follow Hank. It was comfortable, it was familiar, and it made sense.

He didn't have to see Reed to know the man was sneering his next words. "Yeah, that's right, follow your master."

Connor's back straightened, and he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned, just enough to look at Reed, and whatever look he had on his face, or in his eyes, it was enough.

A sharp inhale of breath.

Widened eyes.

Constricted capillaries.

Fear.

Gavin Reed was afraid of him.

...And maybe, a part of him, some part of him that was new, that was deviant, whispered, that was OK.

Connor, without a word, turned back and followed after Hank.