Chapter 4: Out of Mind

March 14th, 20XX

PM 12:13:46, 47,48…

Emma-


The second time around in the interrogation room was better than the last. The moment I sat down at the table, Hank pulled out a key and unhooked the cuffs from my wrist. Then, the older officer sat down, slumped in his own seat while Connor stood ramrod straight at his side. It was a little awkward, but the air wasn't suffocating so I was grateful for the change of pace.

"Okay," I broke the silence. "Where do we start?"

Hank leaned back in his seat, looking unbothered but his eyes were sharp. "State your name for the record."

"Emma Abigail Wilson."

"Age?"

"Twenty eight."

Connor and Hank shared a look. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my temper in check.

"Where were you born, Emma?"

"Chicago," I answered honestly.

We went back and forth for a while regarding general details. Then, Hank interlocked his fingers and gazed at me somberly. "Do you know where you're at, Emma?"

It felt like a rhetorical question. "The Chicago police station…?"

The silence that followed made me feel like I was a fifth grader asking a stupid question in class all over again. I couldn't understand how I was wrong, though.

"Honey," Hank sighed, dropping his head. "You're not in Chicago. You're in Detroit, Michigan."

A moment passed, then another. But I still couldn't understand what he was saying. "What do you mean… I'm in Detroit? I was just in Chicago at the hospital literally not even a day ago. Did… Did they move me without saying when they put me under?" No, that didn't make sense either. I didn't sign any legal papers mentioning moving to different hospitals, and Chicago was a city with advanced enough medical technology and personnel that they wouldn't have just sent me over to Michigan.

Hank glanced at me, and I realized he pitied me. The idea didn't sit well with me. Connor stared at me, and when I looked at him for too long, his eyes flickered away towards the ground.

"You said the last memory you had was with a doctor," Connor took control of the conversation. "Tell us more."

"I…" I cleared my throat and tried to get my thoughts back together. "I was seeing this doctor for about a month or two when I started feeling numb and sick. I developed a condition where my body was atrophying, and it was also affecting my baby. They told me that if I went through with giving birth without treatment, I would die and my son most likely wouldn't make it."

Hank sucked in a sharp breath and I ignored it. "He put me on these pills that he said would slow the process of the disease, and would help with treatment. The last time I saw him was supposed to be my last day of treatment, actually."

"What was the doctor's name?"

"Adam," I licked my lips. "Adam Muller."

Connor pulled back, his brows furrowed before he looked off to the side. "No… just a dead end…" I heard him murmur to himself and wondered what he meant.

"It just doesn't make any sense…" I pushed my palm against my forehead. "How long was I out for? Why was I taken out of the hospital? And why can't I remember anything?" I felt so lost. I pinched myself just to make sure I wasn't dreaming and hissed in pain. Connor's head snapped up a little at the sound while I smoothed out the tingling skin.

A sudden epiphany shot through me. "What's the date today?"

Connor bit his lip. "March 14."

I felt a cold jab in my stomach. My last treatment had happened March 12th, so at least there wasn't a huge gap in time. It still didn't explain how I ended up in Michigan, locked up in the police department.

"I'm guessing…" My fingers ran through my scalp, the fingernails digging a little too hard into the skin. "There's more, isn't there?"

The police lieutenant couldn't meet my eyes.

"Emma," He said. "Have you noticed anything… different about your body?"

I swallowed thickly, unwilling to confront the one reality I didn't know how to cope with. Instead of acknowledging it, I'd shoved it away, knowing that thinking about it only opened a whole can of worms. I almost hated Hank for bringing it back up.

"My baby…" I heaved, crumpling forward. It felt like someone was ripping my heart in two. "Where is my baby?"

Hands gripped my shoulders, firm yet comforting. "Emma," Connor said. "Focus on the sound of my voice." I did, focusing on the inflection and tenor of his words. Gripping his fingers, I looked up at him pleadingly.

"I need to know," I begged. "Did my baby make it? Is he okay? Maybe… maybe he's still at the hospital." With my husband, while he waited around for me.

"Maybe," was all Hank could say in reply. It had to be. If it wasn't… I wasn't sure what I would do anymore.

I tried my best to shake off the impending sense of dread and did what I did best to cope under stress: rationalizing and figuring out the next step.

"Can you contact them for me?" I pleaded. I gave them my husband's cell phone number, and Connor promised he'd "try". It wasn't enough to satisfy me, but he genuinely seemed like he wanted to help.

"We'll look into the hospital you said you visited and find out why you ended up here," He said, walking back to Hank's side while he stood up. "You'll have to stay in the cell for now while we try to find out information."

My shoulders slumped forward. I hated that damn cell so much. But I relented. "Okay... okay."


March 14th, 2039

PM 1:15:32, 33, 34…

Connor-


"Why did you lie to her?"

The RK800 model glanced up at his partner, who leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. Clearly, he was unhappy with acting dishonestly with their suspect, just as much as Connor was. Under normal circumstances with suspects, lies and deceit were normal forms of obtaining information. It was very different when it was apparent the suspect was an unusual, sympathetic case.

"Her stress levels were already too high," Connor explained, readjusting his collar. "If I told her everything, she could have destroyed herself."

Hank frowned while Connor gathered all the files pertaining to their current case, including what he managed to dig up on Emma Wilson, the hospital she remembered visiting, and the previous evidence they had from the transit station incident. Normally, they would have finished the case by now and ran it by Fowler before jumping on the next one. But, it was tricky business when it involved a deviant android: based on Markus' instructions and the legal stipulations from the police department, they had to approach the case very carefully.

Connor had seen his fair share of complicated cases through his new job. The more deviant cases he saw, the more he started understanding what Hank described as a "moral gray" area. Though the deviants would commit a crime, their justification was enough to sow doubt and sympathy past his programming: self-defense being the main factor with their suspects. There had been a huge drop in deviant cases since the migration to New Jericho so the two mainly worked on cases involving red ice dealings or homicide, but whenever one came in on Fowler's desk, they were the first pick out of all the officers.

They would deal with the androids as fair as possible before sending them to a hold in New Jericho, where Markus himself would assess their situation. The android leader held a lot of sympathy for their cases, and with so few of them in number since the extermination camps, Connor could see why he handled each suspect with care. As a deviant who had been directly influenced by Markus to carve his own path in life, he owed it to him to follow through on his requests.

"She's not gonna be happy when she finds out the truth," The lieutenant continued.

"No," Connor agreed. "She won't. But at least right now, she's alive and not a danger to herself or anyone else."

Hank didn't say anything to that as he settled into his own seat, rolling up towards his computer screen.

"You've changed a lot since the first day I met you," He said after a few moments of silence. Connor stopped in the middle of his report to look at his partner. "You're definitely a lot more human, and you at least seem to care." Connor raised his eyebrows before realizing Hank was just teasing him.

It'd been difficult, adjusting to his previous life after becoming deviant. Months ago, after Hank was properly screened after helping Connor by decking Perkins in the face as a distraction, Connor had felt so lost on where to go in life. With no directive in his programming and no one to define his goals, he had pitifully stumbled around, only spending time at Hank's house and managing the space before the older detective invited him into his house as a permanent resident. And when the government had passed the Android Equal Opportunity Act, Hank brought home the news that Fowler approved his new position as an official detective, with all the paperwork and freedoms that came with it. Connor ducked his head when Hank relayed him the information, spying the way his eyes glossed over with a wet sheen, and Connor didn't miss the way his chest had tightened, his processors working a little harder to cool off the rising heat of... emotion, for lack of a better term. Everything was all still very new to him.

"Do you think I made the right decision?" Connor asked in a rare moment of self-consciousness.

"I don't know, but," Hank jostled his shoulder in affection. "You did what you thought was right. We'll see how this turns out later."

Connor nodded, and the two fell back into their work. His thoughts drifted back to their new suspect, who was obviously emotionally compromised and yet internalized a lot of her feelings. He saw how her stress would skyrocket at times during their interrogation, and then drop back down when she deflected or changed the subject. She was avoiding coming to terms with her present reality, and Connor knew if he had pointed out the LED blinking red on her temple, it could've truly broken her. He would tell her when the time was right.

He hoped he could truly help her, if not for his job then for her own sake.


Notes: It's fun to write from Connor's perspective, since he's rational yet it feels like there's always this blockade compared to Emma who's so open with her own emotions. The story will switch between Emma's and Connor's perspective every once in a while :)

See you guys next week!