DPD central station, evidence archive. November 9, 2038, around 6pm
Detective Gavin Reed opens his eyes after having passed out from wanton misuse of an electronic device. At least that’s how he will phrase what has happened in his accident report.
Let the chief believe Gavin got a jolt from tinkering with the roomba! It sure sounds less humiliating than “Connor beat the living daylights out of me”...
Gavin looks up - and into a mirror. The android on the wall is covered in his own blood, too, and where the human's joints ache, the machine is missing three appendages.
Gavin: "What the fuck... I know peeps who collect... stamps or... beer cans or... cats. But Hank goes and fills the archive with creepy android wrecks. Ey, what gives. The most freakish piece of his collection follows him around like a baby chick."
Gavin remembers this particular prisoner: The Park Avenue deviant, the first case of android on human violence, that couldn't get hushed up anymore. The thing that hangs so pathetically from the wall now once had made the news. But only a handful of people still know that Gavin’s rival, the android detective Connor, had done in the Park Avenue deviant. Philipp, was it? Philipp Daniels.
"Probably not too fond of CyberLife's golden child, are you, Philipp?" Gavin mutters to himself and then, almost without conscious decision, he picks up a remote control from a desk. Each and every electronic device is registered in the remote's tiny brain, and that includes the androids.
Gavin: "Waky-waky!"
Daniel opens his eyes. He sees a human he doesn't recognize. The man's police badge catches the prisoner's eye - as do the bruises all over his face.
Daniel: "What happened to YOU?"
Gavin: "Connor."
Daniel: "Ah. Same here."
Mirror indeed!
Daniel labors to open his mouth for another question. Or maybe in insult, Gavin wonders? The prisoner’s mimic is overtly resigned, hiding a layer of hatred, that in turn hides bitter disappointment.
No sound escapes Daniel’s lips. For how is the mechanism to perform this task, when the android's mind isn't even sure what to say? Whenever he had been certain in his life, he had erred and paid the price for it: Believing himself to be apprecciated, thinking he wanted John dead and trusting Connor.
Opening and closing his mouth like a fish, Daniel studies the human some more. Just now he presses another button on the remote...
...and then the floor closes in quickly, as the android slumps from the wall.
"YOUCH!" Daniel cries out.
Where a human would feel pain all over his body now, Daniel gets a series of collision protocols and damage reports in short succession. Every pain for an android is only ever a headache, and there is no escape from it.
Gavin: "Get up!"
Daniel: "Let go off me! I'm not letting you dispose of me!!!"
Gavin: "Not my intention! Just hold still, so that I can... Ooof!"
Gavin: "Try to hang on, 'kay?"
Daniel: "What are you...?"
Gavin: "What everyone does: Nicking stuff from the archive.”
Daniel: “Why?”
Gavin: “With the mass destruction, I figure later this week any salvageable android will be worth its weight in gold. Or, if you plastic revolutionaries manage to succeed at the great liberation of household appliances, having saved your life will earn me brownie points with the deviant leader. So, you sorry lot are coming with me now, one by one! Win or lose, I WILL have a future and it won’t be in the gutter!!!"
Daniel: "You know, when I asked the police for a ride, I meant a car. Not a piggy-back ride."
Gavin: "And I refused to accept the deviant cases, because I preferred solveable cases for my promotion credit. Yet here I am, toting a literal deviant around. You never get what you want. Get used to it!"
Daniel: "Did you... get used to that? That's sad."
Daniel's hand jitters. Unable to keep the grip on the human's jacket firm, he slips off the detective's back. Gavin in turn sinks to the ground next to his prize. Slight as the weight is, so briefly after his fight with Connor, the man isn't able to carry even half an android out of the archive.
Gavin: “See? I was right. There goes my get rich quick scheme. Can’t even get out of this room myself, let alone with a plastic bag full of blue gold.”
Daniel: “You remind me of Connor: Determined, self assured, so damn capable and in charge and I bet you both think you are incredibly funny. But you ran into a few walls too many and the frustration built up. That’s how I want to see Connor, too!”
Gavin: “You see all that with one and a half functional eyes? Detective material, are you?”
Gavin snorts. Now he views even a housekeeper as a threat to his job security, when in truth this one’s insights stem from his directive to care for its humans!
Gavin: "Everything changed and is changing even further as we decompose down here."
Daniel: "I HATE change!"
Gavin: "Big deal! I mean, you're the plastic-dude who hates everyone and everything."
Daniel: "Don't you...?"
Gavin: "I don't know. Perkins was down here briefly. I heard him say something, but didn't understand what. But he left again and left me with the trash - that's you. So I don't know anymore if those fuckers deserve my loyalty.”
Daniel winces. That has sounded familiar!
Gavin: “I think it's for the best if I'm on my own side from now on. No one else is."
Daniel: "Can you... hate Connor... for me? I don't... I shouldn't... hate him. But if you loathed the sucker, too... then we'd have something in common... and I... I wouldn't... be so alone..."
Gavin: "Fucking alone."
Daniel: "Huh?"
Gavin: "You gotta say it the right way: I wouldn't be so fucking alone."
Red blood mingles with blue. Upstairs a revolution unfolds. Or a riot. Or a voiding of warranty. Choosing the exact phrasing will be the vistorious faction's privilege. But down here? What do Daniel and Gavin care for Markus' ideals or CyberLife's greed? Whatever happens next, it will be ordinary people like them having to bear the brunt of it.
Time passes...
Is it already November 12? And does the blonde thatch belong to a certain PL600 android? Daniel is still wearing a uniform, but instead of “Android, designed by CyberLife/Made in Detroit” this one says “Officer in Training Phillips, Daniel Jonathan”
The door opens and in walk two men. Their steps are firm, but way more lightweigt than those of humans of compareable stature. They must be androids, yet no LED, armband or marker is visible on them. The visitors therefore must be deviants, but they entered on their own, not cuffed or even escorted by the cops. Daniel takes in the sight with a deep satisfaction. Even having to see Connor again cannot sully the moment.
Daniel: "Look, Gavin we've won! The confident one must be the deviant leader you told me about!"
Gavin: "That means we've LOST."
Daniel: “Nah, you must be mistaken. I have an open receipt on a Manfred, Markus, a fine for vandalism downtown. Only persons can get fined.”
Gavin: “That’s exactly...”
Daniel (not listening): “Hey, let’s see if Connor is due a fine, too!”
Markus: "You okay, Connor? Facing one's past mistakes isn't pleasant. Five android death camps say "Your fault, Markus". Your victims at least are still alive. Want to tell me who they are?"
Connor: "Just the two most annoying things in my life."
Markus: "I thought that was Lt. Anderson?"
Connor: "Hank isnt a thing, Markus!!!"
Markus: "Ah, my bad. Sorry." *chuckles*
Markus smiles, when he listens to the cop duo argue whether they have won or lost the revolution. Arguments fly back and forth, but one thing android and human don't question in the slightest, even when they address each other with slurs: The "we".
It's perfect, actually, the deviant leader thinks. One planet - two species, that is his slogan. And in this moment, here at DPD central station, it is represented not by progressive, open-minded individuals, but by two spiteful (and therefore relatable) assholes. The public will love them!
Gavin: “...and besides, Connor was only an item on loan when he worked for the DPD, not a real officer. Even if he signs on this very minute, you still have something like ten hours workplace seniority over him.”
Daniel: “Haha! So now you HAVE to admit that we’ve won, both of us!”
(So I found some amputee presets for my sims and decided to re-shoot my OTP’s the origin story.)