November 12th, 2038 - 7 AM

"Jesus! It's fuckin' cold!" Hank hollered as he stepped out of the car and pulled his coat tighter around his neck. The old cop slammed the driver's side door shut as his partner looped around the front and handed him the coffee he'd demanded when Connor woke him an hour ago but almost left at home. The boy offered him a soft smile to sympathize and he reached for it with a half mumbled "thanks" as he started for the corner.

"Remind me again why we had to be here so goddamn early?" he whined while cradling the warm paper cup between both hands.

"The search warrant was pushed through early this morning, after Officer Miller reported suspicious activity in the middle of the night," he explained as he followed him to the end of the building, where Reed was already standing and waiting for them. Hank stopped as they conversed, turned and looked him in the eye.

"Last I heard, it'd be another day or so 'till he cared enough to clear it. So what made him change his mind?"

The smug grin on Connor's face told him all he needed to know, and if he was being honest, he admired the kid for his tenacity.

"Once I told Captain Fowler that I believed Damien was the one who forged Rupert's ID, he was pretty insistent that we get in there before the evidence disappeared."

The hazel-eyed punk turned and looked over his shoulder when he heard their voices and flashed them a vicious smirk that made Hank's lip curl.

"Reed," he hissed the greeting through gritted teeth.

"Morning, Lieutenant!" he replied with a vivacious, intentionally annoying, shit-eating grin. "So good to see your smilin' face this early in the day."

Hank didn't bother to hide his disgust, groaned and shot him a dirty look before he turned his attention across the street to the closed doors of the armored SWAT van parked out front. They'd have to get through their briefing before they could get in to search the shop.

"Where's Viv?" he asked when he realized she wasn't present.

"She has a doctor's appointment around nine, so she'll be in when she's done with that," Reed responded, bullshit aside.

Hank's brow lowered and crinkled between his eyes. "She okay?"

"She's fine," he replied, shrugging off his concern, "Just a check-up after bein' headbutted by a spook, I guess."

Hank nodded and sipped his coffee as officers in riot gear poured out the back of the vehicle and positioned themselves strategically around the building at the front and side entrances.

"You been here all night?"

"Fuck, no!" Gavin chortled as a laugh rolled out of him. "I had Chris take over bout ten PM, and came back around five."

"Anything interesting happen?"

Reed took a big gulp of his coffee, tucked it carefully into the crook of his elbow as he crossed his arms, and shook his head. "Not since I came back- Chris said they had an unmarked van pull in 'bout midnight, and it looked like they were loading shit into the back, but it was too dark to get a good look at 'em," he explained with a pop of his brows. "So if they were hiding anything-"

"It's probably long gone by now," Hank finished with a disappointed sigh. "Damnit."

The side door cracked open like a walnut as the officers fired a breaching round that splintered the wooden door and blew out the lock. The sound of half-barked commands and ice crunching beneath their boots paused their conversation just long enough for Connor to get a word in.

"I told you it'd be too late," he criticized.

Gavin bristled. "Well, y'know, what-"

"Hey, hey, it's too early for that shit!" Anderson threw a hand up in Reed's face and pushed him back, hoping he'd shut up, then turned back to Connor to remind him. "Unfortunately, this was as fast as we could get 'em to sign off on a warrant. Guess hiding deviants just isn't high enough on their list of priorities to justify pushing it through in a few hours."

"Well, that and, you didn't have any evidence there was even anything goin' on here, other than a hunch," Gavin snorted, askance.

"I did question the Android running the shop yesterday," Connor corrected, averting his eyes as the hotheaded Detective's head snapped around, "So I'd prefer to call it an educated guess."

More like informed, but neither of them needed to know he had a source.

A moment later Captain Allen emerged from the front door, pulled down his face mask, lifted his goggles and whistled to them from across the road.

"Alright, boys," Detective Reed exhaled, rolled his eyes and threaded one thumb into the waistband of his pants to shift the weight of the gun holster on his hip. "Time to find out whether or not this was a big fat waste of our time."

The three crossed the street and entered the pawn shop, Connor a few comfortable steps behind Hank (who had given Gavin a wide berth out of habit), though when the man stopped to talk to Captain Allen he continued past them and followed Detective Reed up the stairs behind the counter to the right. Halfway up, the corridor turned at a ninety-degree angle to the left and led up to a very small room with two wide windows- on the wall directly across from (and to the right of) the stairs, where two armed police officers stood watch in opposite corners.

The room was small, no more than one hundred and twenty square feet. It just large enough to accommodate a small dining table covered in a thin layer of dust with a chair on either side, and a few floating shelves on the walls. Thin, moth-eaten drapes obscured the view from the windows, but did very little to block out the blinding rays of the early morning light.

But aside from this, there wasn't any sign that biological life had spent any time in this room for a long time. No dishes, no food, no garbage, not even a coat over the radiator in the corner.

"Doesn't look like anyone's been up here in a while," Reed observed as he opened the empty cabinets.

Connor stepped into the room and swiped two fingers through the gritty grey dust on the table and pressed them to the tip of his tongue to analyze the contents; behind him, Hank had trudged up the stairs with a pre-emptive look of disgust when he realized what Connor was doing, but breathed easier when he didn't see blood.

Until Connor's expression signaled alarm.

"What is it?" he asked, gesturing toward his hand with his chin.

"This is gunpowder."

Gavin clenched his teeth and flexed his jaw as he exchanged a nervous glance with the Lieutenant. It was weird for them to be on the same page for once instead of arguing, but instincts never lied. Where there was gunpowder, there were weapons- bombs, guns, it didn't really matter what kind. Either way, the prospect of armed deviants set them on edge, and they didn't waste any time snooping through the cabinetry while Connor gave the table another once-over.

As he ran his fingertips over the tabletop they snagged gently on the dents and scratches in the surface (fall damage that had been inflicted by sharp pieces of metal), and paused on the spoiled spots in the finish from cleaning solvent used to strip carbon build-up from metal. All of this seemed to point toward the presence of firearms, but where were they? Could that be what they'd moved during the night?

When his hand curled over the edge and slipped under the table, he found the irrefutable proof he'd been looking for- a sidearm held in place by industrial-strength magnets screwed into the frame of the dining table.

"Got one," he called out with a frown and a slight grunt as he removed the gun and set the 1911 on the table with a rude clank, pointing it away from the other people in the room. Both men were stunned- Anderson grimaced and let out a nervous "You gotta be kidding me," under his breath as he placed one hand over his mouth and stroked it down over his beard, but Reed laughed in a way that was uncomfortable and telling.

"Oh, greeeeeeat, just what we fuckin' need!"

"Search everything," Connor instructed as Hank reached for the books on one of the floating shelves and flipped them open one at a time, "There could be more hidden."

"Connor-"

The android's head snapped up and his brown eyes settled on Hank as he sighed and held up a snub-nose .357 revolver tucked into a cutout in a book.

"Yeah, and I gotta glock nineteen over here," Gavin chimed in as he reached into the top drawer of the kitchen cabinets on the far wall.

Connor's metaphorical stomach dropped as he wondered why they were finding so many weapons. Worse yet was another question he wished he didn't have to ask: was this what Kate had been trying to warn him about when she told him to "take a closer look"? Did she know what was here? No, he denounced the thought as quickly as it had formed. It had to be a coincidence. She wasn't the type to condone violence in any form to send a message, so there had to be something more here… something he was missing.

As Hank and Gavin searched the last corners of the room that made logical sense, he leaned closer to the wall, placed one ear against it, and knocked.

Solid.

Another foot to the left and he knocked again.

Muffled.

He went around the perimeter of the room and repeated this every foot or two looking for empty spots in the wall between the studs, where the sound wasn't muffled by the fiberglass insulation, but found nothing in any of them.

Frustrated, he turned hard on heel but stopped abruptly when his foot came down with a hollow clop in the floorboards beneath the area rug. He blinked, tapped his foot again just to be certain, then lifted the corner of the carpet and removed a few unsecure planks to reveal a stash of blue blood, another gun, a digital camera containing images of several androids (including the AX400 that had evaded him on the highway), and a handful of half-finished false ID's.

"Bingo," he murmured with a triumphant grin.

"What's this?" Hank asked as Connor handed him the papers and the camera.

"It looks like we've found our forger," he declared as the Lieutenant sifted through the evidence with a grin, Gavin peering over out of the corners of his eyes with a nonchalant squint.

"Well, Connor," the old man slapped a hand over his shoulder in approval, "You were right. This place was a front for illegal activity involving deviants."

"It was a lot more than that," he mused as he set the last of the guns on the table, then went down the line and ejected the magazines, cleared the chambered rounds, and set each firearm back down on the table with slides locked back and ejection ports and empty cylinders facing up. "Even for a paranoid shop owner, this is a lot of guns… so what do you think they were doing with this many of them…?" he asked as Hank reached for the Springfield forty-five he'd found last.

"I don't know, and I don't like it," he muttered as he turned the weapon over in his hands, then looked up to meet his gaze. "But what I really wanna know is how they got ahold of these. No one in their right mind would sell a gun to a skinjob."

"CSI's will be able to tell you where they came from once they run the serial numbers through the registry," Reed reminded as he pulled out his phone and dialed the number for the station, "But let's get 'em down here first to process the scene."

In spite of their momentary victory, something was still amiss. What if there were more? What if this was just what had been left behind? Whatever they'd moved during the night, they'd been quick to relocate only after the police had come sniffing around, which meant they had something to hide.

Connor took one more close sweep of the room, this time looking for footprints or blood trails; a few moments after adjusting his visual spectrum, several overlapping patterns highlighted in his field of vision, but more notably, two trails tracking mud laced with fine metal shavings. Curious, the android tilted his head and followed them down the stairs, through the store, and out the back door where Officer Miller had observed the deviants loading the van in the middle of the night. Though the slush puddle near the doorway had ruined any opportunity at finding footprints, he was lucky enough to find frozen tread tracks in the gravel near the sidewalk further up, which gave him just enough information to run a search on the type of vehicle they were looking for.

"You find anything else?" Hank asked as he leaned in the doorway behind him.

"I found muddy footprints laced with steel shavings leading to tire tracks in the alley, and was able to narrow down the make and model of the van to about three different commercial models," he summarized. "If we show them to Officer Miller, he may be able to identify the van he saw last night."

"That's good work, Connor," he complimented as he glanced back into the building at the chatting swat officers. "I think we've done all we can for now, we just gotta wait for the registry on those firearms to come back so we can follow up with whoever they belonged to."

"But it's only eight AM," Connor insisted with a pleading look, "What do we do in the meantime?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm goin' home and goin' back to bed," Gavin answered from behind them and bumped shoulders with Hank as he passed, and waved on his way to the street. "Gimme a call when y'got something worth my time."

"Good luck sleeping through your caffeinated high," Hank retorted on instinct, though he couldn't lie to himself. Even he was feeling a nap right about now.

November 12, 2038 - 1 PM

The rest of the morning into the early afternoon was nothing short of an excruciating waste of his time.

On their way back to the precinct, Hank stopped in at the diner near Cadillac Square to grab breakfast and catch up on sports coverage from the night before. Though discouraged to again be sitting around accomplishing nothing (which, he was learning, humans seemed to do a lot of), they had a nice, long conversation about basketball over Hank's Monte Cristo and two cups of coffee, and Connor came out of the conversation with a newfound appreciation for the statistics and strategy involved in the game.

But when they returned to the precinct two hours later, they realized it had only been long enough for the investigators to finish labeling and photographing the evidence; they hadn't even made it back to the lab to start processing.

Hank went straight for his chair, leaned back and propped his feet up on one side of his desk and demanded that Connor "wake him when they had something" before falling asleep under a newspaper. It was a small miracle to the Android that the man passed out so fast after drinking three cups of coffee that morning, but he supposed if he really needed the sleep, he'd let him have it.

In the three hours that followed, Connor desperately looked for ways to keep himself entertained. Even though he'd already been through them once before, he poured through nearly three hundred files on deviants that had been reported missing by their owners- cross-checking dates, model numbers, anything he could have overlooked. But when the research yielded no new information after forty-five minutes, he swiped Hank's key card and let himself into the evidence locker to try and make sense of the encryption of Rupert's journal. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Full of solid paragraphs of numbers and letters in no coherent order printed over circular, triangular, square, and hexagonal maze drawings. He tried analyzing the data with the few encryption patterns he'd been programmed to recognize, but without a wider database to work from, it would have taken him hours to piece together the key on his own.

When he came to that conclusion after another hour, he decided to try to get some more information out their suspect, but to his dismay (although he was not at all surprised) he was no more helpful than he had been the day before. If anything he was more rude, knowing what awaited him once they realized they no longer needed him; Connor couldn't blame him for holding out though, when it was all he had left to keep them from wiping him back to a blank slate.

But when he had finished all of that and there was still no word on the status of their case, Connor decided to take a trip to the crime lab and find out what was taking them so long. And, as it turned out, all they needed was a little kick in the ass in the form of an Android hovering over their shoulders while they worked to make them uncomfortable enough to put a rush on the evidence for their case, just to get him out of their hair.

It was one in the afternoon by the time Crime Scene finished processing the evidence and running the serial numbers through the national database. And although it hadn't been what Connor would have considered a "productive" afternoon, he returned to Hank's desk and dropped the file with a loud slap that startled him from his sleep.

Hank jumped up in his office chair with a half yelled "SHIT," and scattered the paper all over his desk and onto the floor as Connor beamed down at him with a triumphant grin.

"Enjoy your nap?" he teased as Hank glared up at him and pressed his fingers into his eyes. "Maybe next time they'll let me bring you a cot."

The man groaned, sat upright and reached for his now cold, half-full cup of coffee from three hours ago. "Where've you been?" he asked as he peered into the cup with a dissatisfied frown.

"Conversing with the men in crime scene," he replied as Hank stood, and continued his train of thought as he followed him to the break room. "They taught me some very interesting things about how certain strains of bacteria have the ability to inhibit or facilitate the rate of biological decay." His tone of voice as he explained was almost too enthusiastic for a topic so morbid.

"You learned somethin'?" Hank chuckled as he dumped the old coffee down the drain, rinsed out the ceramic mug, and poured himself a new cup. "Shit, I thought you knew everything."

"Many things, but not everything," he admitted, and at this Hank grinned and quietly laughed, but Connor blinked in confusion. "What's so funny?"

"Ah, nothin'," he replied as he added a bit of cream into his cup just to take the bitter edge off. "So what've you got for me-"

"ANDERSON!"

Special Agent Lenore shouted his name from down the hall as she power-walked her way to the break room and dropped a file half an inch thick down on one of the tables with a sharp snap. Hank jumped and shrieked, nearly spilling his freshly poured drink.

"Can you two stop doin' that!?"

"We have a problem," she insisted as she opened the manila folder and flipped the pages over to a large list of serial numbers about thirty lines long. "A big one."

Hank put down the mug and placed both hands on his hips in loose fists as he moved to stand beside her and Connor, looking over her shoulder at the file. "What's this?"

"Those serial numbers from the weapons you found this morning…? Came back as the property of the US military," she stated, the words dropping heavy like lead. "They're stolen government property."

"You've gotta be kidding…" he murmured in disbelief. The lieutenant's eyes widened and he furrowed his brow as he leaned down to get a closer look at the findings, dragging one fingertip down the page to skim the text.

"Oh, it gets worse," she assured as she flipped a few pages ahead and shoved the folder into his hands so he could read the report. "The weapons you found, along with dozens of others, were reported missing several weeks ago from the Detroit Light Guard armory, where they should have been safely stored under lock and key, and multiple layers of security."

"Which means whoever stole them had to have had someone on the inside," he finished with a nauseated frown. "So what you're saying is, there are even deviants among military personnel?"

"It's the most likely possibility," Connor rationalized. "Who else would help them gain access to firearms and have the access codes to open the armory?"

Viv held her hands up, shrugged, and shook her head, helpless. "Well, it doesn't matter how they got ahold of them, we don't have enough time to find out," she sighed as she scooped all the papers back into the folder and tucked it into the crook of her arm. "The FBI has taken over this investigation, which means we only have a few hours until my boss swoops down on this office, repossesses all the evidence we've gathered, and kicks us off the case. So if we're gonna figure out where our suspects went, we have to do it now."

Connor blinked hard, squinted and tilted his head in confusion. "But- how?" he asked honestly. "We don't have any other leads."

"Not yet," she replied with a mischievous grin and nodded over her shoulder for them to follow. "Come with me."

The two men looked at each other in confusion, but before Connor could ask Hank shrugged and started after her toward the interrogation room.

Viv stopped at the dead end by the bathroom door and placed her palm on the wall behind the potted plant in the right corner. As soon as she made contact the digital camouflage of the scanner vanished and a bright, horizontal light swept under her hand. The security device beeped in confirmation with an automated response of "identity confirmed", and five locks clicked open in succession before a hidden door swung open into the staircase corridor behind the wall.

Both men were surprised- Hank was more upset that he had forgotten that there had once been a door there, but Connor was thrilled. He'd discovered the hidden staircase while waiting for Hank the first day they met and had wondered what was down in the basement that was so secret they had to hide the entrance, but now he was about to find out.

"Fifteen goddamn years on the force, and no one ever bothered to tell me about this!?" Hank bellowed as Viv entered ahead of them with a quiet laugh. "Has this been here the whole time!?"

"Yes and no," she replied as she descended the staircase on the toes of her heels, careful not to stab a stiletto through the gaps in the metal grating. "The basement has been here since the precinct was built, but it's only been part of Cybercrimes for about seven years."

"Cybercrimes?" he scoffed, letting one heavy step after another rattle the staircase as he turned at the halfway landing. "That's a little out of my jur-is-…diction…"

Hank's voice trailed off as he froze on the bottom step, staring into the room pale-faced as if he had just seen a ghost. "Hoooooly shit…" he whispered to himself as Connor stopped behind him.

"Hank, are you alright?" he asked, inspecting his face as he pushed past, but as soon as he looked into the room his eyes grew wide and his brow hardened.

The cellar was straight out of cyberpunk fiction- concrete floors under server racks behind panes of glass in temperature-controlled casings lined the left and right walls running the length and width of the entire precinct office and its adjoining rooms. Between the support columns six rows deep were touch-screen smart tables seating five PX900 androids at a time, staring dead-eyed into their setups of four ceiling-mounted floating monitors and navigating code by use of eye gestures and hand movements. To Hank it was unnatural and disquieting. Connor wasn't bothered by the working androids, but he sure wasn't expecting to see this face (her face) outside of their meetings. His throat clenched and he reached up to stroke away the tightness as he stepped closer to examine one of them, which he'd never seen outside of a photograph.

Connor was surprised to find that aside from when they had first met in the station, Kate hadn't changed her appearance much at all to protect her identity. But no matter how subtle the changes were on the outside, the difference between Illuminate and her "sister" androids was still unmistakable. She was animated, lively, passionate, paranoid, and opinionated- and although some attributes of her base programming had remained, like the ability to hyperfocus on a task, she was as close to human-passing as an android could possibly be without being human. But these Androids were on the complete opposite side of the spectrum: behind the blank stares of these machines, there was nothing but the job.

"Connor!"

The boy flinched as Hank barked at him from across the room and was hit by a twinge of disappointment when the android didn't even acknowledge his departure. It was like night and day. He wasn't sure he'd ever find a better example of such a drastic shift in personality between a stable android and a deviant of the same model.

"Alright, Viv," the old cop exhaled as he eyed them with a nervous shift from a safe distance and stuffed his hands in his front pockets. "What're we doin' here?"

"Relax, Anderson, they're not gonna kill you," she teased at his discomfort, but when he didn't reciprocate her humor, the smile drained from her eyes.

"Just tell us why you brought us down here," he tried again, his voice flat and insisting. "The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can leave."

Vivienne was starting to wonder about Hank. His dislike for Androids ran deeper than assimilated racism or bandwagon hatred, and the way he looked at them (especially Connor) was complicated. There was intangible conflict behind thinly veiled anger, like he'd been personally victimized a long time ago and was unwilling to change his mind in spite of learning he was wrong about them. She could see him trying to change, but he was just too damn stubborn to let go of the anger.

Her eyes shifted toward the boy standing behind him and a quiet smile turned up at the corners of her mouth. It wasn't something she could help him overcome, it was going to take a lot more than heartfelt speech and some encouraging words to change his perception of them. It was going to take a friend, it was going to take family.

"This is why we're here," she started as she lifted a hand and placed it onto the shoulder of the android working beside her. "She's a PX900- the first generation of Android investigators, our Cybercrimes angels, our anonymous protectors… or, as I like to call them, Firewall."

The android stopped what it was doing, refocused its eyes and looked up at her. "Do you need something, Special Agent Lenore?"

"As a matter of fact, I do- I need you to cross-check some information for me," she explained, then turned to Connor. "Was Chris able to identify the model of the van?"

"Yes," he answered with a nod. "It was a '26 white Ford Transit-250, no plates."

"Can you search the video surveillance footage for a van matching that description, on the night of November 10th into the 11th, from eleven PM to two AM, within a two mile radius of the following location?" she requested, gesturing to him to relay the information.

"The nearest cross-streets are Woodward and Watson, mid-town."

"Those parameters may cause this search to take longer than expected, would you still like to proceed?"

"Yes, run it," Viv confirmed, but the android persisted.

"This action does not fall within the criteria agreed upon between Cyberlife and the Detroit City Police Department for Cybercrimes case-related-"

"Federal override, nine-seven-nine-three-five," she interrupted before it could finish its thought, and the ring on its temple blinked rapidly as it reconfigured.

"Reason?"

"Ancillary investigations in pursuit of the whereabouts of the Cyber-Activist Illuminate."

Connor's face wrinkled in confusion behind the android as he shook his head. "But that's not-"

"Connor, sweetie," Viv warned through gritted teeth and a big, fabricated smile. "Just let Auntie Viv do the talking, would you?"

It took him a second to realize where she was going with this. Connor's brows shot up in a moment of clarity and lowered as he mouthed the word "Ooohh…" so she knew he understood, then shifted his attention back to the android.

She sat up straight and flattened her palms against the table, then spread her fingers in preparation. As the security database overlay flooded her field of vision, her eyes twitched softly to scroll through the list of cameras assigned to midtown. Within thirty seconds she had pulled up windows for about forty different cameras in the specified area, and arranged them on the desktop monitors so she could view all of them at once. Her green eyes stopped twitching as the last popup moved into place, and she blinked to overlay an image of the van in the corner of her vision.

"Ready to begin," she confirmed as she opened up her recognition software and loaded the algorithm needed to find the van.

"Execute search," she commanded.

"Searching…"

Three hours worth of footage sped by in half a minute, and he watched her work with awed reverence. The first scan tagged each vehicle that was white and noted the timestamps, then rewound the footage and stacked the windows on top of each other next to the picture she'd brought up for reference and scanned the white vehicles for Vans. Once she'd narrowed down the search from about thirty vehicles down to seven, she weeded out any of the vans that weren't manufactured by Ford, which brought the total down to three.

He couldn't believe how quickly she was able to process information, Connor could hardly keep up. The amount of computing capacity necessary to execute a search so complex, let alone process it so quickly, made him twitchy just thinking about it, but he also found himself realizing something he hadn't considered before.

If all PX900s were created equal, and Illuminate had applied this sort of hyper-focus to her research when she'd first deviated, it was very likely she would have burned through the entirety of the world's history in just under a couple of weeks, perhaps even a day for the history of the United States alone. Considering her broadcasts had started more than a year ago, it was fair to assume it had been even longer since she'd deviated, which meant she'd been left to a ravenous hunger for the truth for at least a year, unyielding in her pursuit- with the kind of knowledge and dedication that could cripple nations.

And they were built to run, to never rest, from the moment they opened their eyes until the last of their processors burnt out.

A marveled breath escaped him as the scale of her potential knowledge hit him full force. Just how much of the world's knowledge had she consumed by now?

"Vehicle identified," she announced as she enlarged the viewing window of the feed showing a white van matching the description, pulling out of the back alley of the pawn shop.

"Good work, twenty-seven," Viv praised with a soft pat on the shoulder and a big grin. "Now trace its path across town until it stops, and get me the address."

"Analyzing…"

Hank had been standing there with his mouth agape while the android conducted its search, but managed to catch the words he was after when he realized how annoyed he was that DCPD had been keeping this from them.

"So lemme get this straight," he gestured with his hand before moving it to rub across the lines on his forehead with his thumb and forefingers. "These androids have been down here this whole time, and we've had to solve our cases the old fashioned way!?"

"These androids have been commissioned specifically for the Cybercrimes division," Connor explained in reply to his protests. "To use them for anything unrelated to Cybercrimes related cases is a breach of contract between DCPD and Cyberlife."

Viv shrugged and tossed a few stray bangs out of her face with a laugh. "Luckily I am Cybercrimes, so I have special privileges," she bragged as she tapped one nail against the FBI badge on her hip, then added as an afterthought, "Besides… if Androids started doing all your work for you, you'd be out of a job."

Hank squinted to hide the racist remarks that jumped into the back of his mind, but the twitch in his eye screamed.

"That's precisely why it was worked into the contract," Connor jumped in before he could retort. "These machines weren't meant to eliminate human jobs, but to create an opportunity for improvement in handling cases relating to the growing Cybercrime epidemic."

"Why, because humans couldn't handle it?" he sneered at the assumed implication.

"Well, yes and no," he started, casting a flustered gaze away from the lieutenant. "A small department of humans alone couldn't handle the volume of cases that were pouring in, and they were relying on outdated technology to pursue hackers that were developing new code by the day. What they needed was a network of artificially intelligent systems capable of learning, adapting, and evolving to stay ahead of the curve, which requires an enormous amount of computing power that even the most intelligent human mind is incapable of matching."

"Well, then if these cyber criminals are so smart, then why didn't you just hire them instead of creating new jobs and filling them with androids?"

Viv crossed her arms, leaned against the edge of the desk and eyed him. "Because they're criminals, Hank," she responded in a condescending tone. "They're not looking to go clean, they're looking for their next big score. It would be a terrible idea to bring them in on the Federal side."

Hank groaned and lifted a hand to scratch at the side of his head, a little embarrassed that he'd suggested it. "Yeah, I suppose you're right about that…"

"Using these androids to catch cyber criminals is really no different than using a hammer to drive a nail," Connor assured, just as the PX900 interrupted.

"Route traced, location found."

Connor sighed in relief when Hank turned to focus on the location marker pulsing on the map, hovering over an old manufacturing warehouse by the waterfront.

"The abandoned GM factory?" The tone of his voice peaked as he puffed a "Huh," under his breath. "Well, I'll be damned…"

"That's why I found metal shavings in the mud tracks," he reasoned as Hank pulled out his phone and took down the address.

"Let's get a move on," he encouraged as he turned and started for the stairs. "There's not much time."

"Would you like me to forward you the GPS coordinates?" the android asked as Lenore followed them.

"That would be very helpful, dear, thank you! You can return to your work now," she replied over her shoulder as she ascended the stairs as fast as she was able.

Hank was already charging toward the front door, but made sure to reach around Reed's desk as he passed and gave the back of his chair a good smack.

"EY!" he shrieked as he jumped and dropped his phone mid-text.

"Grab your shit, we've got a lead."

"You ain't my supervisor!" he shot back with an angry middle finger and a defiant glare.

"No, but I am," Viv reminded as she gave him a soft pop on the back of the head with an open palm.

The man with the black eye and the broken nose let out a loud whine and shot her a sideways glare, but she didn't apologize for snapping him into attention.

"Let's go, we're moving out."

"But I thought the FBI was taking over the case?" he asked as he grabbed his gun out of his desk and tucked it into the holster under his coat.

"Not yet they're not," she replied, her determination breathing life into the fire of Reed's enthusiasm. His wicked grin said it all, but he couldn't hold back his excitement.

"Now that's what I'm talkin' about, let's go kick some tin can ass."

November 12, 2038 - 1:30 PM

Hank's Cutlass screeched to a halt parallel to Gavin's Charger to form a blockade outside the empty building, and all four front-side doors popped open one after the other. Vivienne glanced the site and took point distributing orders as they filed out and chambered a round in each of their weapons.

"Reed, take the north entrance," she instructed, pointing toward the back of the building. "Connor, check the east. Hank, take the west-"

But while she was speaking, two deviants with armalite rifles kicked open the door of the catwalk balcony, ready to open fire.

"LENORE, GET DOWN!"

Without warning, Hank lunged to drag her into cover behind his car.

The loud popping of semi-automatic rifles exploded into a cacophony of ricocheting bullets, piercing metal, and shattering glass.

Gavin bolted behind his squad car to take cover and Connor launched himself over the hood of the Lieutenant's car, but didn't quite make it before taking a bullet to the back of his thigh. He hit the ground hard with a surprised grunt, but ignored the thirium-stained wound in his leg for the time being since it hadn't hit any critical biocomponents.

From behind his car, Detective Reed scrambled behind the front wheels to obstruct their line of fire and attempted to peek up over the hood to get a line of sight but doubled over hard when a stray bullet grazed his cheek.

"Damnit!" he yelped as he cupped one hand over the cut and shuffled around to the back side of the car.

"Reed! Are you alright!?" Viv yelled over the noise, cringing to shield her face with her arm as the window above her shattered on impact and showered her in shards of glass.

"Never better, thanks for asking!" he shot back sarcastically as he peered around the back, and watched four deviants exit the building and sprint away from the back of the warehouse toward the river.

"Shit-" he cursed under his breath as he turned to yell back to her. "V! They're gettin' away!"

"Just let them go!" she ordered over the ruckus, "We're pinned down! Don't risk it, it's not worth your life!"

"Aw, that's sweet of you to care!" he laughed with an arrogant grin as he crawled back toward the front of the car but stopped at the passenger side door, gripped the handle, and clenched his teeth.

Concern settled in when she saw the white knuckle grip. "Reed, what are you doing?"

"I'm about to do somethin' stupid, so watch my back!"

"What? No, don't-!"

It was a horrible idea and he knew it, but Gavin didn't listen; he snapped his wrist back, popped the handle, and swung the door open as several intentional bullets hit the ground beside him. The man's heart leaped into his throat and he gritted his teeth and turned away, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart in his ears.

It didn't take Connor long to deduce his plan, but unless the situation changed there was a high probability that Detective Reed would die just trying to get into the car without help. For a moment time stood still as he preconstructed the best possible solution. The angle from where the hostiles were firing gave Viv, Hank, and himself much better cover than Gavin, who was practically in their direct line of fire just hiding where he was. If he were to make it without being shot, he'd need their help; but if any of them were to rise up for even a split second, they'd become an easy target, which meant they wouldn't be able to provide cover fire.

A quick scan of the area showed several things that could be thrown, but most of the items were either too far away or too small to even make them lean out of the way, except for a few old metal barrels about fifteen feet away from the backside of the car. If he were fast enough, he could pick one up and launch it onto the balcony to throw them off-balance temporarily, but he'd need an opening.

"Detective Reed!" He shouted across the yard.

"What the fuck do you want!?" his voice cracked but barely carried around the door and over the sound of gunfire, making him sound further away than he actually was.

"I can give you a short opening, just wait for them to stop firing!"

He took his silence as understanding and continued counting the number of shots fired. Even if they were using forty round magazines, they'd have to reload sooner or later, and when they did…

The pattern slowed until it finally stopped, and as soon as it did Connor sprinted from cover. Hank watched in horror as he skidded to a stop in the gravel, placed one hand on top and slipped the other under to lift the barrel, and grimaced when he realized it wasn't quite empty.

"Connor, no, WAIT-"

There was some liquid in the bottom from the last rainfall, making it much heavier than he had anticipated, but he summoned all of his strength, lifted with his core, and pitched it with a yell at the panicking deviants on the catwalk. All they could do was watch.

Reed's eyes flared and he mumbled a "Jesus," under his breath as it hit the railing with a shrill ringing and knocked both gunmen to the floor as it flipped, dousing them in a wave of rainwater.

Gavin launched himself through the passenger side door and Connor bolted for the Charger and climbed into the seat behind him while Hank and Viv knelt behind the car and popped off a few shots to provide cover fire.

"Now, go GO!" he yelled, smacking the dash as Gavin slammed the car into reverse, cranked wheel and whipped the tail around to line up with the alley.

"Hey! I didn't say you could tag along!" he opposed with an angry shove. As he leaned out of the way, Connor's eyes locked wide onto one of the deviants as it stood up and raised its rifle to target the vehicle again, but before Hank could take the shot it pulled the trigger one last time.

"Just drive-"

A bullet ripped through the windshield and burrowed into Reed's shoulder before he could get the words out, and the man screamed in pain as he jammed his foot down on the gas and ripped up the side alley, swerving through the open door of another building a few hundred feet ahead.

Connor braced himself as he oversteered out of the way of a forklift and a pile of empty pallets, then wove his way through the rest of the machinery as fast as he could manage with one arm. Off in the distance, in the overhead scaffolding, he spotted their targets- two male, two female, one of whom was Damien and his friend from the pawn shop. They'd never catch them at this rate, but they might be able to slow them down.

"Give me your gun," he demanded as he rolled down the cracked passenger side window and leaned out with his upper body, but dropped back into his seat with all of his weight as the vehicle swerved.

"Are you outta your fuckin' mind!?" Reed chortled as he narrowly drifted around a supporting column in the middle of the building, then shot across a narrow alley separating one building from the next. "I ain't handin' my piece over to a goddamn Android!"

"Just trust me!" he insisted, turning to give him a serious look as he held out his hand and waited.

After a few moments of internal struggle, Gavin cursed to himself, groaned in pain as he reached around his hip with his bad arm to grab the gun, then slapped it into his hand with an exhausted grunt.

"Now get me closer."

"Naw, really? I just thought we'd just go for a leisurely drive and get a nice view of them skippin' town!" he snapped back as Connor climbed out the window, propped one hip on the doorframe, and braced himself with his left hand grasping the support bar inside on the ceiling.

He squinted as the wind whipped loose strands of hair in and out of his line of sight, and his coat and tie flapped in the wind as he stretched his arm out in front of him. It wasn't helping that he could barely see them through the darkness, but he watched for movement, lined up the shot and fired, successfully nailing one of the men in the leg and the other in the shoulder before Gavin jerked the car a little too hard and knocked him off balance.

His hands hit the roof hard and he almost followed with his head but managed to stop just an inch from the metal; he was lucky he'd taken his finger off the trigger or he would have shot himself in the face.

"Hold it steady!" he shouted in frustration through the window as he struggled to find his balance again, bit this time one of the deviants turned and fired back. Unlike her deviant friends, she was a pretty good shot.

"Oh, shit-"

Connor ducked back into the car as a bullet whistled past his ear and into one of the back tires. It exploded with a violent pop, dragging the car hard to the right and throwing them into an uncontrolled spin. Gavin hit the brake hard and overcorrected the wheel until they came to a complete stop, then punched the throttle and banked a hard right at the end of the building, but came face to face with a dead end closing in fast.

"SHIT-"

The man's bad arm yanked up on the emergency brake in a panic, and the car power-slid to a stop just a few feet from the water's edge, the exposed rim catching in the wood and tearing up the docking in large splinters. Without missing a beat, Connor exited the car and trotted to the edge of the dock, just in time to watch their suspects drop into an idling flat-bottomed aluminum motor-boat and jet off down the Detroit River. He couldn't believe they'd lost them again.

"REED!" Vivienne's voice crackled over the radio as he glared at the fleeing boat, held his shoulder and grimaced at the pain shooting up and down his arm. As amped as he'd been during the chase, he was starting to look pale and sick from all the spinning and the blood loss. "What happened? Are you two okay?"

Connor rounded the front of the car to the driver's side, peered in through the window and sighed at the crimson liquid running down his arm. "Let me take over," he offered, holding the door open so he could get out. "You've lost a lot of blood, and you look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine," he snarled through bared teeth, like a cornered animal.

"You need an ambulance," he argued but threw up his hands in resignation as the brunette instead reached for the CV radio to answer Viv's call.

"We lost 'em on the river," he replied, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel to avoid having to look at the protesting android. "My tire's blown, so we ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon."

"That's fine, just stay where you are, we'll call for backup."

Reed leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment, and immediately felt like he was spinning. Gavin's lip curled. Connor was right about the blood loss.

"And call an ambulance," he added after a tired pause, "I've got a bullet in my shoulder and it hurts like hell."

"Shit," she cursed under her breath as she dropped the radio and glanced at Hank, who kicked at the stones on the ground as he did the same.

"Can't believe they gave us the slip again."

"It's not the end of the world," she assured as she glanced up at the two dead androids on the balcony, then to the massive rolling doors of the warehouse as she started toward the external staircase leading up to the balcony. "As long as we find what we came here for, this wasn't a wasted trip."

"Yeah… let's crack open that door and see what we find."

The woman climbed the stairs as he wrestled with the lock, but as she approached the lifeless bodies she held her breath. Even though she knew that if Axl been on that balcony she would have recognized him right away, her heart still skipped a beat at the thought that one day, she might find him face down at a crime scene.

Viv nudged the deviants with the toe of her shoe and rolled them over to get a better look- an MP500 and a WB400. A long, heavy breath rushed out of her in relief as she bent down to remove the rifles from their hands and set them aside.

A loud clanging echoed through the empty warehouse as Hank threw the door open below, but as she turned inside and peered over the ledge behind her, Viv's eyes went wide- tables, chairs, lamps, makeshift beds, and two large crates filled to the brim with straw and lethal force stared back at her from their side of the otherwise empty warehouse. Although their deviants had flown the coop, they'd left everything in their nest behind.

"Jackpot!" he announced as he reached into one of the crates and pulled out a pump-action shotgun and another AR. "Least we caught em' off guard before they could run off with them this time."

"But what if there are other stashes?" Viv questioned in a troubled tone. "If they were smart enough to get their hands on them in the first place, who's saying they weren't also smart enough to spread them out?"

His stomach knotted as he considered the question, then set the shotgun down on one of the tables as her phone started to ring.

"It's my boss," she groaned when she saw Perkins' name light up on the caller ID.

"Right on time," he commented as he dug a few more weapons out of the crate and laid them next to the twelve gauge. "I'll call it in, start gettin' this mess cleaned up. You do what you have to."

Viv gave him a look that was genuinely grateful and threw him a "Thanks, Hank" as she turned back outside and lifted the phone to her ear.

A faint smile tugged into one of Connor's cheeks, but he smothered it before Reed had the chance to notice. As Gavin stood and moved from the driver's side, the android's left hand moved over the slide of the gun in his right and grasped it loosely as he debated giving it back while he was still delirious and pissed off.

"I'll take that back now," he popped his brows as he held out his hand and waited for him to comply, but instead of heeding his demand Connor tucked the weapon into the waistband of his pants behind his back for safe keeping.

"I'm just going to hold onto this for now, until you're a little more psychologically stable," he rationalized as he walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk to rummage around for a tire jack.

"Oh, for the love of-" Reed's eyes and nose flared, and he stopped, turned, and rolled his eyes as hard as they would allow him. "If I was gonna shoot'cha, I would've done it already!"

"Oh, I know," Connor replied as he dropped the trunk door shut. "And if I recall, it weren't for Hank, you might have already succeeded," he reminded the flustered detective. "Now please, get in the car and rest until help arrives."

Gavin didn't have a comeback prepared and he was in too much pain to continue to argue. So instead of trying he growled, climbed into the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut without looking at him.

Connor set the scissor jack down next to the car and leaned the spare against it as he squatted next to the back tire on the passenger side, and glanced into the side mirror at Reed, who apparently would have rather been sulking than resting.

"You know, Detective, you've been accumulating quite a number of injuries lately," he teased as he felt around under the frame of the car for the sturdiest spot to place the jack, "For the sake of your well being, I would advise against taking anymore bullets or elbows to the face."

"Meh meh meh myeh myeh, Detective Reed," he cracked in a high, mocking pitch as he tossed an empty water bottle out the window at him, just narrowly missing his head as Connor ducked out of the way.

"Littering is a fineable offense-"

"Kiss my ass."