Partners - Reed900 series

Paper II

Nines blames himself for not noticing earlier they have company. He is down by the loading dock, supposedly to review his reconstructions of the criminals' supply route. They used this abandoned factory for at least a few weeks and after combing through hours of traffic footage he was able to link a nondescript grey van to this location. The van went to this location at least three times in the past three weeks, yet just like the criminals themselves it had vanished when the factory showed up in the DPD's line of interest. To the RK900 the chances of there being a leak inside the force are high, yet that is something the human officers have trouble admitting to. It is simply human nature: every man has his flaws, some just have worse flaws then others. And despite being designed to be the perfect hunter, a ruthless killing machine, Nines has his flaws too.

Gavin Reed is one of his flaws. Or rather, his fascination with the human. Right now, the detective is upstairs in the former break room of the factory, working his wonderful brain to try and make sense of their current case. Nines watched him for a few minutes, something he always likes to do when they are at a crime scene. Detective Reed has a lot of flaws, most of them having to do with his rather brash personality and a slight tendency to self-destruct. The way he goes about doing his job certainly isn't one of those flaws. He may be rude, foul-mouthed and headstrong, he is a great detective. He puts the job first, often above his own well-being.

It is something Nines noticed early on in their partnership. It marveled him at first, because humans tend to be bad at ignoring their basic needs; yet here was detective Reed, going without proper nutrition and sufficient sleep just because he fixates on a case. The detective is pretty resilient, though his limits are not as high as he thinks they are. That's where Nines comes in, gradually implementing a more healthy nutrition schedule into their work hours to improve the optimal working conditions for their partnership. In time it also improved their personal relationship and that is something that occupies the android's processors more than he cares to admit. A recent development is that his partner shows up in spontaneous pre-constructions that have literally nothing to do with casework; they are mainly domestic in nature, confusing and alluring at the same time.

Instead of running his reconstruction of the supply route at the crime scene, Nines sees the outlined figure of his partner scooping up the not-so-tiny-anymore kitten from the floor. He cradles the white cat against his chest with one hand, curling the fingers of the other on top of her head, scratching lightly. The outline of Gavin steps closer towards Nines, eyeing something that is in the android's hand. His pre-construction self lifts his hand, presenting Gavin with a wooden spoon. His partner opens his mouth readily, tasting the food presented to him.

There are two intruders. One human, one android. The android is a male AP700 with light skin and blond hair; a domestic model from some years back. He doesn't have a criminal record, though he does have a link with the DPD because he worked for the company that cleans the offices after hours. The human has a criminal record, with possession of Red Ice listed as most recent, along with two different gun charges. This one might be armed, warns the alert that pops up in the periphery of Nines' vision.

His programming offers him multiple ways to take out the AP700, the word 'deviant' flashing in red in the alerts. There is nothing for the human, except the basic police procedures for apprehending a suspect. Harming a human in the line of his work is only permitted within very strict parameters and the same goes for androids nowadays. The programming CyberLife equipped him with doesn't care about that and is still trying to root out all deviants. He removes the abhorrent pop ups, a routine gesture by now.

Nines sends a message to the detective's phone and steps out in the sight of the intruders. "Halt! Detroit Police!"

They clearly thought that every police officer disappeared along with the holographic tape that previously closed the factory off for curious onlookers. The AP700's LED immediately flashes red, showing his distress. Those domestic models aren't made to handle this kind of stressful environments; the android clearly chose the wrong profession. The human is less impressed. He is indeed armed, pulling a handgun from the back of his pants. It's an old FN FNS-9 compact semi auto pistol for which he doesn't have a permit. He fires immediately, holding the gun in one hand and not aiming properly. The bullet buries itself in a concrete pillar behind Nines, he didn't even have to dodge it.