"Connor! Connor, are you okay?"

The timbre and urgency of Hank's voice, the tightness of his grip on Connor's arm, denoted concern... concern for him, for his well-being... a detail that Connor's analytical subroutines noted and automatically processed, feeding the resulting analysis into further subroutines that governed social interaction and relationship-building.

But to Connor that analysis, and its repercussions, were of secondary interest. His primary focus was on what had just happened with the deviant. It had taken its own life rather than be captured and interrogated. This was a major update to his previous analysis of the deviants and their motivations - that they considered themselves to be alive, and yet were willing to give up that life to protect their comrades - and his human integration subroutines translated the enormity of that realisation into external indicators of shock.

"I tried to stop it but... I was too late," he told Hank, vocal subroutines colouring his voice with regret, his visual perception still focusing on the deviant, its throat laid open, thirium pooling in a glistening blue puddle.

Hank turned, the movement drawing Connor's attention, sensory input automatically registering the downturn of Hank's mouth, the change in his focus. Connor followed his gaze to see bodies lining the corridor; five in total, four of them armed police. Connor's relationship profile for Hank updated to reflect that Hank had run to check on him first, before acknowledging his fallen colleagues. Footsteps sounded, booted feet approaching at a run, and two armoured police officers entered the corridor and took up flanking positions on either side of the door, their weapons raised.

Hank's face creased in a frown of disgust. "Cavalry's here," he noted sourly, waving a dismissive hand at the late arrivals. He started to turn back to the deviant, but before Connor could do the same Hank stopped suddenly, grabbing Connor's arm and pulling it towards him.

"Hey, you're hurt!"

Connor looked down at his left arm, still held firmly in Hank's grip. The deviant's bullet had sliced a wide but shallow groove through his clothing and the synthetic outer shell beneath. The exposed circuitry flickered fitfully – there was some minor localised damage to processor function – and the material of his jacket sleeve was stained blue with thirium.

"The damage is minor," he stated calmly, layering his voice with reassurance. "My functionality is not impaired." He would get the damage repaired and patched when they returned to the precinct.

"Your functionality..." the tone of Hank's voice indicated incredulity... and anger? He released Connor's arm with more force than was necessary, the slight push turning Connor's torso towards him.

"Hey, what the hell?!" The anger was unmistakeable now and Connor's sensors immediately detected the minute blanching of the skin on Hank's face and neck. He grabbed hold of Connor's lapels and jerked his jacket open, staring at his chest with an aghast expression. Connor looked down at himself; his shirt was wet with thirium, the bright blue stain was what had caught Hank's attention. An automatic analysis of the volume of liquid soaked into the fabric was fed into his diagnostic subroutine and his damage assessment recalculated and verified. The quantity of thirium lost was relatively minor and could be easily replenished back at the precinct. His shirt gaped open nearly to his waist, exposing the still-visible thirium pump regulator. In his haste to pursue the deviant, he had not taken the time to readjust his skin projection.

"The fuck is this?! What the fuck happened to you?!" Facial analysis detected concern, anger and... disgust.

"The deviant attacked me." Connor touched a finger lightly to his chest, restoring the skin projection over the thirium pump regulator. "Unfortunately he was able to remove my thirium pump regulator, causing a criticial failure which would have resulted in shutdown had I not been able to..."

Hank shook his head impatiently. "English!"

Connor tilted his head in a not-quite nod. "My apologies, Lieutenant. The deviant removed a vital biocomponent that regulates my thirium pump – my heart, if you will. My systems cannot function without this component and its loss results in complete shutdown in approximately 105 seconds."

Hank grimaced. "Complete shutdown? You mean you'd... die..?"

"Effectively, yes." Connor modulated his voice to be calming and reassuring. "I was able to retrieve the component, however, and re-insert it, thereby restoring normal system function." Facial expression subroutines within his social interaction programming made the corners of his mouth turn down. "Unfortunately the time it took for me to do so allowed the deviant to escape. I am sorry. I should have been faster."

Hank stepped back abruptly, letting go of Connor's jacket. He was still displaying signs of anger but also... concern. He was angry at Connor, but not because he had let the deviant escape...

Hank was still staring at Connor's chest, a frown on his face. The thirium pump regulator was now hidden beneath the smooth, unblemished skin projection... but the spatters of thirium were still visible, a circle-shaped smear of bright blue marking out where the component lay. Connor readjusted his shirt as much as was possible – the deviant had ripped it open, snapping the buttons from their stitching – and straightened the lapels of his jacket. He would need replacements for both items.

"Anything else?"

He looked up to find Hank watching him closely, anger still visible in the tightness of his features.

"I'm sorry?"

"Is there anything else you're not telling me?" he demanded gruffly. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Concern. Hank was concerned for him. "I am not hurt, Lieutenant. I do not feel pain."

"Fuck's sake, Connor!" Hank flailed an arm in frustration, his hands curling into fists.

Being reassured as to Connor's android physiology had not allayed Hank's concern, so Connor changed tack. He held out his left hand, palm up, letting Hank see the break in the skin casing, the blue glisten of thirium. He turned his hand over, noting the tightening of Hank's lips as he saw the corresponding damage on the back of the hand.

"The deviant used a knife to pin me to the counter," Connor explained calmly.

"Jesus!" Hank growled. "The hell for..?"

Connor tilted his head consideringly. "To delay me further, I expect... to give him time to escape, make it more difficult for me to retrieve the biocomponent."

Hank looked over at the deactivated deviant.

"Pretty fucking determined to get away... even desperate..." he mused.

"And quite unlike what we've seen so far," Connor agreed, lowering his hand. "In the previous cases we've dealt with, deviants seem to have reacted out of a sense of... injustice, or self-preservation, and have often remained at the scene following the crime."

He looked at the deviant thoughtfully, his behavioural analysis programmes running through thousands of permutations of motivation and reasoning. "Yet this deviant's life was not in danger when he failed to raise the alarm, nor do we have any indication that he had been unfairly treated. Yet he chose to aid in the attack on the tower and, once discovered, was willing to kill to escape... and to die to protect the other deviants."

Hank scrubbed a hand over his face. "What a fucking mess," he grumbled. "Come on, we've done all we can here and we need to get back to the precinct and get you fixed up."

"The damage is minimal, Lieutenant," Connor reassured him. "I am able to function normally."

"Fuck's sake, Connor, you nearly died." Hank's anger flared again, his voice rising to a shout.

Connor regarded him calmly, processing and analysing what seemed to be inappropriate emotional responses to someone Hank supposedly considered just a machine.

"I can't die, Lieutenant. I'm not alive."

Fin