Partners [Path Unlocked 🔓]

Chapter 13 - The Crime Scene

Hank entered the bathroom a few minutes after Connor to find the man crouched down, one knee propped up and the other folded neatly under himself, before the title wall on the far side of the cramped room. Far above him, chipped lettering marred the once glimmering - now smudged and filthied - surface of the smooth wall, gouged into the sleek material with jagged cuts that looked as though they'd been dealt with a blunt knife over a series of time, deep in some places and shallow in others where the blade had been repeatedly slashed into the unyielding ceramic.

The words read The secret lies in the Apple of Eden in a bold, straight lined font that an android alone could've crafted, the text even coming up under the name Cyberlife Sans as Hank scanned the scene and filed the piece of information away for later in the form of a mental screencap of sorts - Forwarding the image directly to Fowler with a sharp blink and a single yellow spin of his LED.

What had Connor's attention however, seemed not to be the ominous encryption above but rather something on the floor below, the detective's gaze fixed intently to the floor boards as he drew a finger over the thick coat of dust masking the ebony wood and made a soft hum of concentration. The detective's chocolate brown eyes drifted sideways to where a small footstool of sorts lay knocked over on the floor, the small piece of furniture crafted from splintering oak and shaped into elaborate curls at the base of its artistically twisting legs. The man placed a hand atop the thing to draw it up an inch then let it drop back to its previous place upon the ground with a noisy thunk, as if trying to determined the exact angle at which it fell to begin with.

"Detective." Hank addressed stoically, thinking it wise to make Connor aware of his presence lest he startle the man and accidentally catch a rogue bullet himself like the unfortunate bird whose dark blood yet stained the synthetic skin of the android's hands.

"Hey, Robocop." Detective Anderson greeted in return, still startling slightly at the abrupt noise but recovering quickly to cast a quick glance up to the robot, his coffee eyes drifting to the machine's dirtied hands before dropping to the floor once more after a brief moment, lower lip finding its way between his teeth as his long fingers twisted into the fraying sleeve of his jacket. "Thanks for, you know, um." The man tried but trailed off to leave the words incomplete in favor of merely groaning exasperatedly instead - So much more informative.

"I mean, I'm glad you didn't just leave it there." Connor finally concluded awkwardly carefully keeping his eyes fixed intently to the fallen footstool as if he were in the middle of a blind date with it and had already realized it was his destined soulmate the moment it ordered a disgusting atrocity birthed of a violent hate fucking between a stale piece of bread and a half-rotten pineapple.

"My apologies if you were made uncomfortable, Detective Anderson." Hank replied stiffly, placing his hands in their usual position behind his back in what could easily be excused as a shot at professionalism but was more likely an attempt at hiding the crimson stain upon them from his companion's view if he were being completely honest. "I do not mean to upset you." The android added with a touch of sincerity to his usually cold tones, considering the fact that most humans tended to be a bit unsettled by witnessing someone break an animal's neck.

"You did the right thing." Connor reassured softly, dropping his gaze back to the floor as his internal body temperature ticked up in the corner of Hank's vision, stress levels at its side. "I'm Mister Trigger Happy." The man shifted the blame with a dry snort, coffee eyes glaring with unabashed disgust at where his slim fingers still wrapped over the handle of the gun that had dealt the unwanted damage. So the man had figured out what fate had befallen the bird... Of course he had. He was the best detective Detroit had to offer after all.