Partners [Path Unlocked 🔓]

Epilogue

Hank brushed his fingers lightly over the paper pasted across the thick wooden door, smoothing back the corner of the flyer where the cold November wind had torn it from its hold to flap noisily in the breeze - A breeze he could feel lashing harshly against his temperature sensors and blowing his synthetic hair so that his ponytail whipped wildly in the wind, letting him know this place was real. The android's digits trailed across the words "Android's Welcome" scrawled in a flowy print, handwritten and wavering in their imperfection and beneath that in three different colors, the subtitle "You Are Alive!" each word in a script that was nearly identical but just slightly different in a touch that was so subtle it would likely only be noticed by the machine.

Letting his fingers fall away from the handcrafted sign, the android pushed open the door it was stuck to and let the near smothering smell of coffee and cigarette smoke wash over him as he entered the dimly lit room beyond and cast his gaze over the crowd until his searching eyes finally fell on what he was looking for. Hank went forward silently, weaving carefully through the crowd made up of a few people standing around the area, talking quietly among themselves so that only a few snippets and whispers of their hushed words drifted into the mechanical man's audio processors as he moved through them.

"Did you hear that club owner got arrested?" A girl whispered eagerly to another woman leaned across the table to hear her hissed words.

"Yeah, I heard that guy was stupid enough to let an android go through some old footage and the thing recorded him drugging some kid." The girl's companion whispered back, sounding just as eager to play into the gossip and gesturing vaguely as she spoke, precariously tipping the mug of coffee she held as she moved her hand sporadically and letting a few drops slosh from the brim in her excitement.

"Dude!" The first girl snapped sharply, recoiling from her leaned in position to pull back from her friend. "You can't call them things! They have rights now!" The woman hissed scoldingly, slowly leaning back in to continue her conversation but Hank had no interest in them or anyone else between him and his goal.

The android approached the back corner of the room, a small, shadowy alcove he'd stood in once before, knowing that he would find what he was looking for there out of the crowd. A small circular table with tall bar stools set alongside it existed there and atop one a man sat, leaning against the table with his elbows propped into the oak and his head turned toward where a small television played nearby. The woman on screen was eagerly relaying a story about the events that had transpired the night before, telling of how a massive hoard of androids had poured forth from Cyberlife Tower and stood with the revolting deviants until the troops had been called.

President Warren had announced that androids were a new life form.

The man twirled a cigarette between his fingers as his coffee eyes stayed trained on the wavering images as they flickered over the screen, tapping the small roll of paper gently against the table and spinning it over his digits in an endless flurry of restless motion. His lithe fingers slid over the soft material of the cigarette as he toyed with it, coming to rest at the tip where he tapped the pad of his index finger against the top of the thing before flicking it back into his tormentous grip.

"Need a light?" Hank questioned abruptly, slipping a large hand into the depths of his pocket until his digits hit cold metal and he pulled the thing out, spinning it over his digits to flick open the top and bring forth a flame.

Connor startled a bit at the robot's voice but recovered relatively quickly, turning towards the android with a pleased smile brushing gently across his features. The man's chocolate orbs fell on the lighter clasped between the android's fingers and softened a fraction, something warm flickering through his gaze as he drew his eyes up to meet Hank's. "You fixed it." The man noted warmly, voice quiet and a touch of disbelief flitting about his gentle tones as Hank shifted his weight to his other foot and offered a stiff nod, finding himself de-armed by the human's sincere reaction and uncertain he trusted his voice entirely at the moment.