Deviant Heart

Chapter 19: The First Intermission

As the days passed, more and more people came to the realization and

understanding that androids were alive, that they weren't just things or machines. President Warren declared androids would be given freedom, that they would be able to live side-by-side with humans.

Markus and the rest of Jericho were trying to get equal laws for androids, such as the right to vote, the right to jobs, the right to reproduce and the right to own land. It was going to take a lot of work, plus there were still humans that didn't care for androids or thought they weren't alive. When they had particularly nasty humans that absolutely refused to even see or meet with an android, Markus and Jericho asked Clara for help. She would act as the android's ambassador, attending meetings or talking to people that refused the others. She loved the androids and thought they deserved freedom, so she was more than happy to help Markus, her dear brother, gain that freedom for his people. Luckily her services weren't needed very often, which was good in their eyes as it meant that there were more people willing to listen to them and help than people that refused them altogether.

Connor became an official detective for the Detroit Police, working as Hank's partner. Clara worked with them at first, as it was safer for Connor to be with two humans, since there were still those that attacked androids indiscriminately. Hank and Clara showed Connor the ropes of the police department, because even though he had spent a week there when he was first assigned, it was always meant to be temporary, so he wasn't given a proper tour of the building and taught how things worked at the department. Once he got the hang of it, Connor and Hank were assigned back to homicide, as well as Clara, who was given her own cases to work on. With the increase of cases for both humans and androids, all three were quite busy.

Meanwhile, a new android was introduced to the DPD: RK900, the next model in the RK series. It was meant to replace Connor if he had succeeded in his mission in taking out the deviants. He had discovered the RK900 when he went back to the CyberLife tower to find more androids in need. His would-be-successor was in standby mode in a room by himself. He had never been fully activated and had never left the CyberLife tower. Connor set him free, and the RK900 started to follow Connor around, considering him his older brother. Seeing as he was also made to be a detective, he was allowed to join the DPD by Captain Fowler and became Gavin Reed's partner, much to the man's dismay. He didn't want to be named anything, so he went by his model number, RK900. As the months passed, he and Gavin got used to each other, and one day Gavin called him "Nines," claiming that saying "RK900" was too much of a mouthful. Ever since then, everyone has called him that.

Clara had started staying with her father after androids won their freedom. She gave her apartment to Markus to be used as a safe house for members of Jericho or other androids that needed a safe place. It gave her a chance to stay with her dad and help him recover. She and Leo also came to an understanding. Leo hated who he was when he was high on red ice, and wanted to stop. He asked Clara for help, as she had before offered to take him to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. He had refused at the time, not admitting that he had a problem. But now, he wanted to go. She gladly took him for the first few meetings and stayed in the parking lot or just outside the room as support. The two of them stayed with Carl and helped care for him, as well as Carl's new caregiver android, David. The three of them were finally a family, now that the anger and hate that had been building between them had been addressed and was in the process of being resolved, or at the very least, understood.

Between helping to care for her father, occasionally helping Markus, and her own cases at work, Clara and Connor were not able to spend as much time together as they would like. They were officially a couple, and would try to spend time together when they could. This usually consisted of watching a movie at Hank's house or getting a meal together on their work breaks. However the two of them are such workaholics that the lunch breaks rarely happened and were very short when they did. Their schedules conflicted so much that there were weeks at a time where they would only see each other in passing at the station. Both have expressed their gripes about being unable to spend much time together to Hank, who was getting increasingly close to shoving them in a room together and locking it just to give them alone time.

Time passed, and before any of them knew it, seven months had passed.