#clearly i want connor whump and i guess gavin gets to be here too

[greenvertumna]

If you asked him, Detective Gavin Reed would say he’d well earned the next twenty-four hours of blissful peace-and-quiet he planned to spend sequestered in his apartment until his next shift. It was pushing 11pm, he’d spent the last three hours staring at a terminal screen, and he had a backlog of about ten shows he wanted to catch up on at home. He was going to eat, shower, and fall asleep in front of his TV if it was the last thing he did.

He’d just pulled up in front of a 24-hour convenience store on his way home when the call came in on the scanner. Noise complaint. Originating from the park a block over from his place. He knew it. Had been invited to a few late-night get togethers there, himself. Knew the kind of people who were likely involved.

There was no reason to get himself involved. This was something for the bottom-of-the-totem-pole late-shift rookies to handle. God knows he’d done his fair share of obnoxious milk runs in his time. Except.

Except that he knew his neighbors. Blue collar, dispossessed, and who only held cops about two steps above androids in esteem. If alcohol was flowing, and it would be, they’d be loud and rowdy and these days, itching for a fight.

It wasn’t Gavin’s business. He’d earned this night off. He barely liked his neighbors.

Huffing through his nose, he reached for his police scanner and told the dispatcher he’d check it out.

——-**________________________

Based on the complaint (a noise complaint, remember?), Gavin had rolled up expecting thumping music and a giant crowd of bodies. Instead what he could see from his car were about ten individuals, all chatting and laughing loudly enough that their noise echoed from the tall buildings that corralled them on all sides.

When he slammed his car door shut behind him, it echoed just the same.

There were three people crowding a bench at the edge of the park, and one recognized Gavin just as Gavin recognized him.

“Detective Reed!” his neighbor—Terrence, Gavin thought he was called. Or Terry maybe—called to him. “What brings you here?”

“You know damn fucking well what brings me,” Gavin answered, strolling up casually. He’d come to avoid conflict, but he wanted to get this shit done as fast as he could. “DPD has had noise complaints for this little party you’re having,” he informed Terry. “Time to wrap it up.”

Terry tilted his head back in a laugh. “Fuck ‘em!” he declared boldly. “C’mon man, it’s Saturday night!”

Gavin turned his attention to the larger group of partiers, farther away from the street. They were gathered in a knot of activity, bustling around each other, cheering as if they were watching a football game. Something niggled at Gavin’s awareness.

“What’s that?” Gavin asked, stepping towards them.

Terry and his group groaned and made various noises of protest. “Let them have their fun while they can,” one of Terry’s friends suggested, sucking on a cigarette. “Might be their last chance to let loose.”

As Gavin approached, he realized what he was seeing. Six or seven people, surrounding a figure lying prone in the grass of the park. Gavin could make out a slim male figure before the group began kicking at it again.

“Hey! Hey!” Gavin yelled, cutting through the group like an arrow. He grasped at the figure they were laying into, managing to grab a handful of silky fabric and heavily heaved the man to his feet. He saw two well-dressed feet, though one was twisted backwards in horrifying injury. The crowd around him booed as he pushed their victim up against a nearby tree trunk to keep him upright.

It was then that Gavin realized. He wasn’t man-handling some poor victim of an assault, but a being of plastic and programming. The spinning red LED belied the bedraggled figure. It was an android, heavy in Gavin’s hold.

Not just any android, Gavin realized, as he got a better look at the thing. It was Connor. Anderson’s plastic pet.

Gavin blinked at it in disbelief. He had seen this thing in action by now, and he knew there was no reason that a drunken group of humans would have been able to overpower it. There was no reason for it to be hanging heavily between Gavin and the bare bark of a tree, its head dangling weakly like some mere mortal. It must have allowed itself to be brought here, though Gavin couldn’t imagine why.

“Jesus,” Gavin mumbled at the android, supporting it back against the bare tree of the park. Terrence, or Terry, or whoever was still chattering in his ear, a bunch of insensate nonsense.

Gavin sized the android up critically. One of its legs was twisted around, its foot faced the wrong direction. Its clothes were a mess, which was unlike it—Gavin had noticed it preferred to look put together—and several fingers on each hand were bent out of shape. Its face was bleeding plastic white through the illusion of skin, underneath the blue stain of Thirium. One of its eyes had formed an electric blue cataract, and hell if Gavin knew what the fuck that meant. This highly specialized android prototype was meant to be cutting edge in both investigation and combat, and for some reason it had allowed a group of drunken humans to beat it within an inch of its life. Had made Gavin responsible for keeping it alive now.

“You stupid fuck,” Gavin growled absently as he looked at it, still holding the android up with one hand. And the android, mindless of its mangled fingers, reached one hand up to clasp weakly at Gavin’s wrist. It looked up at Gavin, warm brown eyes from beneath a fall of limp brown hair.

Gavin had never cared for androids. Give ‘em all a bullet in the head, as far as he was concerned. But he’d never understood the people that liked torturing them. That liked pulling them apart the way psychopaths did with their sister’s Barbies, before finally turning their torture to puppies and kittens and other things that couldn’t fight back. Maybe that was the feeling he had in his chest as he looked at Connor now.

“Alright,” Gavin said loudly, feeling a million miles away. “Clear everyone out, before I have to call this in.”

Terry guffawed in his ear, as if this was the funniest thing he’d heard in his life. Fucking drunks.

Gavin turned to him, eyes narrowed. “Did you hear me? I said get these motherfuckers out of here! Do you want to spend the night in handcuffs?”

Terry gaped, but one of his companions picked up the slack. “For what?” she asked. “We didn’t do nothin’. They’re just…things! We didn’t do nothing they didn’t deserve!”

Gavin narrowed his glare on her. “This thing is property of the Detroit Police, dipshit. So do as I say, and get everyone out of here.”

For a moment they stared at each other. Then, wide-eyed, but with a curt, terrified nod, the woman turned away from him and started rounding up her friends. This included Terry, luckily enough.

Gavin turned his attention back to Connor. “Fuck,” he grumbled. So much for a quiet night, it wasn’t like he could leave the thing like this. “Can you walk?” Gavin asked it urgently. It was still leaning against him with an enormous amount of weight. He glanced back at his car, before maneuvering himself under the android's arm and taking most of its weight on his shoulders. “Fuck,” he repeated under the strain, “come on, you waste of space.” He elbowed Connor into motion, and together, the two of them began a shambling stagger in the direction of Gavin’s car.