Hank knew something was up when Connor didn’t come back home. He really knew something was wrong when Nines showed up to work and neither Connor or Gavin were there. After his shift ended he found himself driving to Kamski’s house. He pounded on the door, frustrated that something was going on and he as a weak human would not be able to help. The same Chloe that had greeted him last time was there, opening the door with a smile and a confused expression. “I need to speak with Kamski. That new police model has gone nuts and I think he killed Connor.”
She looked even more confused as she guided him in. “I don’t think that’s possible Lieutenant Anderson.” They took a different route, Hank looking around as they went down some stairs. He was surprised to see a picture of Gavin Reed of all people with an arm around Elijah’s shoulders. They were both smiling and the smaller man had yanked the taller to his height in the picture. They entered a room filled with different parts and a computer with a three screen setup.
He expected Kamski to be one of the people sitting behind the computer, what he did not expect was to see Nines standing just behind him and pointing at something on a screen. “What the fuck’s he doing here?” Both of them looked up with surprised expressions as Chloe answered.
“Well that’s what I meant by I don’t think it’s possible. You see Lieutenant Anderson, Nines has been here for over a month. Elijah borrowed him for a special job for Cyberlife. Gavin should have been notified his partner would be unavailable.”
Nines stood up to his full height and strolled over to Hank, Elijah just pushed up his glasses and watched them with an interested expression. “Why are you so surprised I’m here Anderson?”
Hank rolled his shoulders back and glared up at the RK900, “Because you did something to Gavin and I think you killed Connor! They’re both missing! They had an argument and you rushed after Reed, then when Connor decided to walk home he went missing!” He poked the android in the chest as Chloe and Kamski watched on. “I need to find out where Connor’s back ups are so we can figure out what the fuck happened!”
Nines just looked at him confused before turning back to Kamski. “I’ve been here the whole time. Aside from trips to Cyberlife I haven’t left this house. Anderson I-” He paused, the LED turning yellow as his face turned into a neutral expression. “Someone is running around in one of my backups? Elijah, I thought I was the only RK900.”
The man stood up and gave a shrug, Hank was surprised how different the man looked with his glasses on and his hair pulled back in a ponytail. “They were supposed to be empty back ups, incase you were to get damaged on the field. I remember Gavin demanding you be just as protected as Connor after your arm was ripped off.” He then turned to Hank, those blue eyes slightly worried. “What happened to Gavin? Why do you think he’s still alive if your so sure Connor is dead?”
Hank pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I don’t know, call it a gut feeling but that bastard is still alive. That clone or whatever of Nines seems too possessive to just kill him, but the way he kept looking at Connor? I know that kid, if he were alive he would have found a way back home. So look, we need to get him activated or whatever the fuck it is you do when he gets himself killed and then we can find Gavin and put a bullet in that fuck’s brain.”
Nine’s LED was red, Chloe had walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “So there’s an imposter running around in my body, who has kidnapped Gavin and killed Connor? I’m going to put a bullet through his head myself.”
Chloe reached over and brushed her fingers against Elijah’s arm, a small motion that make him turn towards her. Hank could see his posture relax slightly. She let go of Nines and walked up next to Hank. “We should go to Cyberlife and wake up Connor. That way his memory can be accessed and we can solve this problem.”
Connor knew he should trust Nines, even though the RK900 was made to replace him. He just couldn’t stop the irrational thought that Nines could not be trusted. Something in the other android’s gaze made him want to run away, what really bothered him was that he didn’t always feel as he did about Nines. It seemed as if Nines had become colder, more machine than anything. Hank usually brushed off his concerns but not after the latest argument Gavin and him had. It felt like the two of them were always at each other, that had never changed though.
Occasionally like today he let his emotions get away from him. Hank pulled him aside after Gavin turned and stormed out of the precinct. “Look kid, I know you have a weird thing going on with Nines, and usually I don’t give a shit but the way he looked at you-” He trailed off, eyes watching Nines out of the corner of his eyes. The android had slid out after Gavin. “I really think something’s up. Cyberlife still has backups and stores your memory, right?”
“That is correct. Though I’m not quite sure what workplace hostilities have to do with my Cyberlife replacements.” Hank just shook his head in response. “But just to err on the side of caution I will upload my memory at the end of every work day as well. Would that satisfy you Hank?”
He gave a shrug, still looking where Gavin and Nines had left. “Yeah I suppose so. It’s not that I think Reed would shoot you or anything but I don’t trust the way Nines was looking at you.”
Connor closed his eyes for a moment, LED turning yellow as he sent the data through the link. “He did appear unusually hostile today. I have uploaded everything up to this conversation. Should I become irreparably damaged and unable to upload myself to the Cyberlife cloud I should be able to restart from here.”
Hank just nodded and went back to his work, Connor joining him after a moment’s hesitation. When their shift ended Connor waved off Hank’s insistence on joining him in the drive home and turned to walk, he had planned on visiting Jericho and seeing how Markus and the others were adapting. A voice broke him from his thoughts and he turned to see Nines leaning against a wall and looking out at him.
“Connor, come with me. We should talk.” The other android didn’t give Connor a chance before he grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down the alleyway. “There seems to be some unpleasantness between you and Gavin.”
“I will admit the detective does not like my presence, but we normally don’t let our disagreements affect our work. Today was just- a minor setback that does not reflect our usual interactions.” Connor tried to pull back from Nines, but this android was built to be stronger and faster than him. It sent a shock of fear through him to realize he couldn’t pull away. No matter where Nines was taking him Connor would not be able to fight against him. “Where are we going Nines?”
The newer model turned and cold gray eyes glinted in the fading light. “Where no one will bother us Connor. Come along.” Connor tried to pull away but it was useless, Nines just kept the grip on his wrist and pulled him further in. They walked along an unknown path until Nines reached a door and opened it. Connor quickly uploaded his memory to the Cyberlife cloud. He wanted to be able to solve this if Nines did destroy this body. “I want you to leave Gavin alone, and I will make sure you stay away from him. He’s mine.”
It was some sort of abandoned building, Connor caught a glimpse of a basement door as he was pulled further in. “Nines?” He felt himself start to panic as Nines threw him down to the floor. “What are you doing Nines?” He rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a punch thrown by the stronger android.
“Getting rid of a problem.”
“What do you mean?” Connor climbed up to his feet, quickly uploading his memory to Cyberlife again. He felt really worried now. Nines was not acting his usual self at all. Yes the RK900 was colder then his own self, but never downright hostile. The newer model didn’t say anything, just lunged at Connor to attack again. Connor quickly dodged to the side, the blow just glancing his arm as he raised them to block and protect his face. He countered with his own hit, but Nines just grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. Connor turned it into a roll and tried to dodge again. This time he wasn’t able to and he could feel the chassis of his arm crack under the pure strength in the punch. Thankfully while it was cracked it was still usable. He kept uploading his memory every few seconds, scared that Nines would destroy this body. Scared that he would wake up at Cyberlife with no memory of what happened, of how he died. “What did you do to Gavin? Something’s happened to him?”
“He is none of your concern.” Nines grabbed Connor by the throat and slammed him against a wall. Connor knew he didn’t need to breathe, but he still found himself struggling and scratching at Nines hand. He tried to kick the stronger model but they were useless. He could feel his chassis start to crack and his LED turned red as he realized he was going to die, going to be destroyed right here. “You are a problem I intent to remove Connor. I won’t let you bother him anymore.”
“And then what? What good will killing me achieve Nines? Do you think it would make Gavin care about you? That it would make him love you?” The grip tightened and he could feel the cracks starting to form. He clawed at Nines, struggling against all the error messages that popped up in his field of vision. He didn’t want to die. He felt scared, so scared of having his neck snapped by someone he was supposed to trust. So instead he went limp. waiting for Nines to loosen his grip before lunging forward and trying to claw at him. Unfortunately it didn’t work, or at least not the way Connor had hoped it would. He only snapped the fabric of Nine’s shirt, staining it with droplets of blue blood. He wondered for a moment if it was his or if he had drawn blood from Nines while clawing at his hand. Either way it wouldn’t matter. Nines just released him for a moment and slammed him back against the wall. More errors popped up in his field of vision. It felt like his world was surrounded by error message after error message. He tried to get Nines to let go of him, he kicked as hard as he could, dragged his fingernails across the hand hold him. Part of him knew there would at least be some damage to Nine’s synthetic skin and that gave him some satisfaction.
“Tell me Nines, what did you do to Gavin?” Even without the need to air in his lungs, he felt himself struggling to get the words out. “Where is he? I know you did something to him? Did you bring him here as well?” He stopped speaking when Nines placed a hole in the wall next to his head. Back ups available or not the idea of this slow death tortured him. He didn’t know if he should be thankful or scared when Nines threw him down on the ground again. He just kept brushing away the error messages, trying to crawl out of the way of Nine’s kicks. His vision went black after a well placed kick to his regulator pump.
The next thing Connor could remember was waking up in Cyberlife with Chloe, Hank, and Elijah Kamski standing over him.
*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
Gavin woke up in an unfamiliar room. He sat up slowly, noticing he was lying in a bed. The next thing he noticed was the lack of windows. He was probably somewhere underground then. He climbed off the bed when he noticed another thing, one that made his blood freeze. He had a chain around his ankle. Closing his eyes for a moment he tried to remember the last thing that happened before waking up. He had been at the DPD, arguing with Connor as usual. Gavin pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remember more. He had been arguing with Connor, and then- then he left to go home? No, that wasn’t right.
Footsteps echoed around him from above, good, he could hear people. He climbed up on top of the bed and tried to reach the ceiling. He had to jump to slap the ceiling with his hand. The footsteps paused before continuing. They were no longer above him but going towards the front of the room, then they were in front of the door. Stairs then, Gavin decided as he jumped down from the bed and lifted his fists. He wondered who would jump him by the DPD, who would just chain him to a bed instead of just killing him or tying him to a chair.
The door clicked and then swung open. Gavin dropped his fists as he laughed. “Nines you scared me for a moment! You found who kidnapped me then? Good you can help me get this stupid fucking chain off.” He turned to pick up the chain and stopped when he took another look at his partner, the partner who made no move to free him. “Nines, help me break these chains.” There was blue blood over the androids hands and he had a tear in his jacket. “Are you hurt? Can you tell me who took me?” Gavin started to feel fear bubbling in his chest as Nines just stood there stoically. Icy gray eyes just watched the human holding the chain and trying to pull it away from the bed.
“Everything will be alright Detective.” He watched Gavin give a sigh of relief before holding up the chain. Nines walked in and closed the door behind him, locking it just in case. “He won’t bother you anymore.”
Gavin looked up at Nines as the android stopped in front of him. “Who? What do you mean?”
A hand covered in blue blood raised up to cup Gavin’s cheek. He tightened his grip as the human flinched away. “Connor won’t be an issue anymore Gavin.”
“Nines. What did you do?” Those deep grey eyes looked up with just a touch of fear hiding in them. Nines just gave a smile and placed the hand not holding Gavin’s face on his shoulder. “I need you to tell me, what did you do?”
Nines leaned down to kiss Gavin, holding the struggling human in place before standing up straight again. “I got rid of the problem Gavin, he won’t be bothering you anymore.”
Gavin pushed uselessly against him. “What the fuck! I don’t know what you’re trying but we-”
He was cut off with a shout, “I’m trying to help! You had a problem and I got rid of it!” Nines knew his LED was red right then. He took a few breaths to cool down his processors before speaking again. “Nothing will come between us any longer.” It amused him, how he could see the exact instant his human realized what position he was in. At the same time, he felt saddened. His human should be glad, he protected him, all he wanted to do was keep his frail human safe from the outside world. Gavin shouldn’t fear him, no not him.
Nines grabbed Gavin by the face again, staring at him and the fear in his eyes before letting go and turning away. “You locked me up.” Gavin sounded so surprised. “You locked me up and- and what? Killed Connor? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have an error in your system or something?” Nines ignored him, walking towards the door and opening it.
“I’ll come back later. You’ll see eventually that I did this for your own protection.”
Gavin fell back on the bed when the door closed behind Nines. He put his head in his hands and wondered if this was how he would die. Locked away by an android who- what loved him? Was obsessed? He wondered how he would get away. How do you escape a jailer who never slept, who didn’t need food or water? How could he outsmart Cyber Life’s finest?
I was waiting for the night bus at 1am the other night, eating fries, when a dude, high as fuck, tried to harass me. It took several “I don’t want to talk to you, please go away” for him to finally move, but I think it helped that another man was giving him the death stare and clicking his tongue at him. He then checked I was okay and whether I knew the guy or not. Good dude.
Shout out also the man who silently switched places with me on another night bus to be a buffer between me and a guy who had threatened me. Thank you
Men: this here? This here is what you need to be doing as allies. The men who harass and insult women are not likely to take our complaints about it seriously. But you, another man, they will listen to.
I was pumping gas at like 10 PM one night, and these bunch of drunk guys came walking up to the gas station, and one of them yelled over to me if I wanted to see his dick. His friend says to him, “You don’t have anything she wants to see.” and apologized. It was pretty awesome.
this is all we want from men. to recognize the wrongs done by other men, and acknowledge it. not give us shitass defense like, “not all men do that”
Rook's Writing 