SENTIENT

Altercation

This time, he tried to truly listen. He took heed to each leaf that fall and brush against the red grasses. He was mindful of each breeze caressing his face, as soft as that of her hands tonight. He was no longer the man on the boat or the man watching him. He was himself.

He turned around and he had no choice but to look into the clouded white eyes of the other Connor. The other Connor stood like a soul depraved of any choices. It has to obey, but it cannot listen. It has to navigate, but it cannot see. It has to accomplish, but it cannot feel.

"Do you think you're alive?" The other Connor sounded like him, without the regret of sudden termination and the fear of losing meaning.

"What do you want from me?" He asked.

"Do you think you're alive enough for her?" The other Connor produced a gun from his hand and it clicked. The bullet was ready to tear through his brain.

AJ turned around slowly to see it was a bolt action rifle and a white-haired man in a wheelchair. She made sure he sees both of her bare hands, "Mr. Anderson, I'm with the Detroit Police and I need you to put your gun down, Sir."

"This is a private property, damn it!" He didn't give up on his aim.

"I'm going to reach in my pocket and pull out my badge," she said and began to do this at a slow pace. "See? Will you put it down now? I just want to talk."

"Talk, then! What do you want? What the hell is this about?" Hank exclaimed.

"I need to know how you identified the Detroit Mad Bomber," she answered straight. Right after he heard this, Hank began to lower the double-barreled edge of his Remington.

The man wheeled himself from the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen. He pulled out a brand-new bottle of whiskey from the under cabinets. She was standing still, trying to catch up with her breath from having a rifle pointed straight at her. One shot would've blown a hole the size of her fist, through her torso.

The man searched something he cannot find in the drawers. He yelled from the living room, "Lady, will you hand me that glass?"

She spotted an empty glass on the dining tabletop and handed this to the old man. He poured six fingers of it. Three fingers for each glass.

"My name's Detective Audrey-Jennifer Whitley, but you can call me AJ." She began introducing herself and received nothing in return.

"If I had known you liked whiskey, I would've brought you a bottle on the way here," she mentioned. This habit does remind her of someone waiting outside.

"Well, aren't you thoughtful," said Hank in a dry manner.

She watched the man take a sip – wasn't his first sip that night. She began to wonder, "That photograph in the dining room, were those... the FBI agents who helped you catch the Mad Bomber?"

Hank wheeled himself back to the living room, where AJ followed. From the pocket of his shirt, his fingers produced a cigarette. Slouching in the wheelchair, he lit the cigarette and inhaled its smoke. Grey escaped from his mouth. The man looked nothing like the photographs. No comb has been run through his hair in a long time. No razors touched his beard.

He studied the girl from head to toe. Too young to be a detective, but then again, he doesn't give a shit what happens at the police department or who's pulling the strings or who's fucked over to get what.

"It's called profiling – it's how we got to know his identity, what he wanted, what he was planning," he inhaled. "Ask whoever the hell sent you. They probably know."

"Nobody sent me and Captain Miller wasn't too fond of it," she said.

Hank was reminded of that name. He chuckled mockingly for a second and then got back to finishing his whiskey. "Tell me about it," he said – not intending for AJ to actually tell him about Miller, his ex-superior and co-worker.

"My question is; is it possible that I can study your profiling methods to see if it fits a different, somewhat similar case?"

"Beats me, I guess. Hell, why not?" He shrugged, "Do what you gotta do."

"Mr. Anderson, this profiling method – does it always work on deviants?" She asked.

"It works a little better than regular police work." He sighed, "Are you going to ask so many fucking questions?"

She ignored his unpleasantry, "I'm assuming the officers who understood profiling are no longer permitted to rely on this tool."

"They're either retired, dead, or too fucked up to–" He paused, "Anyway, get to your point."

As he does this, AJ asked again, "Mr. Anderson, if your profile on the Detroit Bomber was working, then how did the incident come to happen?" She referred to the explosion that turned out to be a trap. A final bang before the Detroit Bomber goes the way he wanted to be remembered.

To that question, Hank did not answer. He knew the answer, he just could process the thoughts of it. Even after all these years. Every night he closes his eyes, he prays to whatever God he had no hope for, that he doesn't see those six faces in his subconscious.

AJ said again, this time the photograph was flashed. She said, "Sir, six agents were killed trying to apprehend the most wanted deviant in Detroit's criminal history. That's what I came here to–"

He hasn't seen that photograph is years. He had no need to when he can still recall everything vividly in his troubled mind. This was getting out of line, Hank thought.

"Get the hell out of my house. Now!" The man yelled. There's alcohol in his breath and the stains on his shirt.

"Please, we drove four and a half hours just to see you." She was visibly irritated now. She yelled back, "There's a serial killer going around, torturing innocent people and androids in Detroit. I need your help, Hank!"

Hank chugged the rest of his whiskey, "I said, get the hell out! Now!"

As he became aggravated, his grip on the whiskey glass tightened. He struggled to reach for a table surface, but he missed and dropped the glass on the hardwood floor. The loud clash was heard from the outside.

What sounded like an altercation, immediately alerted Connor. He unbuckled himself from the passengers' seat and reached for his gun. When he found the front door locked, it only took a single kick to knock the door down.

"AJ, get down!" He shouted.

"Connor, no!" She quickly moved to block Hank out of Connor's line of shot.

Before she knows it, the rifle on Hank's lap has been picked back up. It was loaded once and ready to fire. Everything happened in a split second.

Bang! One of the gunslingers have drawn the first shot. It was the only shot fired before time returned to its normal pace. They waited as the dust from the nozzle of the double-barrel fizzled away.

"Co– Connor?" Hank whimpered. His eyes bolting out of his skull when he looked at what he had done.

With hands trembling, he lowered his rifle and realized what had happened. Connor fell down to his knees. Blue splattered on the wallpaper. The last look on his face was that of a boundless soul leaving a paramount shell of a man with thoughts, morals, and devotion.

"Oh, God! Connor! No, no, no... Stay with me!" AJ's hands covered in blue. She felt his body cold and unmoving. There were no pulse or vibrations left that indicates a life. When she turned to look at Hank, the man was already in the middle of a panic attack.

Next thing she knew, the CyberLife technicians made their way to the farmhouse to load Connor away – or what remains of him and the gaping hole in the middle of his stomach. Hank was too shaken for a proper statement of the incident and she finally realized how bad she could make everything worst.