Detroit: Reality Shift

Anomaly

The house that was at the center of the crime scene looked untouched from the outside. The only signs that something unfortunate had happened on the property were the few patrol cars and holographic crime scene tape that surrounded every side of the property. It was a rather tiny house. It was only a single story. The front of the house had one large window and the front door. Neatly-trimmed bushes were planted underneath that window as well. The lawn was also well kept, green and healthy. It looked as if this home had been ripped out of a high-end, "homes on the market" catalog. Once Moira parked her car along the side of the yard, she and Connor got out and made their way past the crime scene tape and inside, where the victim was still located.

The inside of the house was like the outside: neat, well-kept and organized to a painstakingly miniscule level. The living room was at the front of the house, while the kitchen could be seen in the back, since the house's layout had an open design. The living room had thick white carpet. The couch and two recliners that faced the holographic screen of a TV were all made of black leather. The kitchen had white tiles for a floor. The cabinets were an offset white and appliances shared the same silver tone amongst each other. The countertops were all black, just like the furniture in the living room. The right side of the living room was mostly wall, except for an opening which led into a hallway to the other rooms of the home.

There was only one officer in the living room. "If you two are looking for Hank, he's down the hall, last door on the left."

"Thank you." Moira said, entering the hallway with Connor following behind her.

As both Moira and Connor entered the room, their eyes locked onto the victim. Connor moved over to the deceased, kneeling to examine them more closely, but Moira pried her gaze from the victim and walked over to Hank, who was talking to another officer.

"Ah," Hank ceased his talk with the officer and started one with Moira. "About time you two got here."

"Yeah." Moira crossed her arms, keeping her voice lower than usual. "By the way, I appreciate you randomly dumping your partner onto me."

Hank shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about. You agreed to it."

"You didn't give me a chance to say yes or no."

"He didn't bother you that much, did he?"

Moira shook her head, looking over at Connor as he examined the victim's body. "He's...interesting. Very intellectual but has a tendency to be logical and blunt with his comments all the time."

"Yeah, that's Connor." Hank answered.

While Hank and Moira talked about this case, Connor kept on examining the victim. One scan was all he needed to gather all seeable evidence into his system. The victim was an android, a male AX400 model. As for his exact appearance and what he had been wearing, those were unidentifiable...since the android had been incinerated into a mesh of melted plastic skin with an untouched skeleton. The Thirium, also known as Blue Blood, had become so heated that it had melted through the android's skin and landed on the floor that it was now lying on top of. He need more info than this.

Moira and Hank had wrapped up discussing everything that was known about the crime scene, which was everything that had been in the file handed to them earlier.

Moira sighed and just for a moment looked over at Connor again. Her eyes stayed focused on him as she talked to Hank. "Uh...does your partner always do that?"

Hank looked over as well to see Connor removing his fingers from his mouth. The android had tasted the damn evidence. "Connor, not in front of the lady."

Connor stood up, looking at the mixture of Thirum and ash that was left on his middle and index fingers. The information that came back was something he never experienced before.

Hank noticed that something was not right with Connor. His partner just stood there, looking at his fingers. It was as if he had become a statue. Connor didn't even answer him. That was not like him at all, and that was enough for him to walk over and place a gentle hand on Connor's shoulder. "What's wrong, Connor. Talk to me."

"I...I wanted to analyze the ash and Thirium to figure out if it had been started by chemical means." The android turned around to face a slightly worried Hank and a very confused Moira. "But all I got back was an error."

"An error?" Hank asked in concern. "Have you ever had errors before?"

"No. Never."

"Do you know why you would get that type of message?" Moira asked.

Connor verbally ran through all the possibilities of how he could receive an error message. This way, he could have Hank and Moira think through this issue with their own perspectives and mindsets.

"I expected some chemical to be in the ashes on the android, so that is what I analyzed for first. When nothing came back, my software ran through every other possible way that a fire could have been started and had achieved enough heat to bring the Thirium past its boiling point so that it melted through the android's body. Maybe, I received an error when my programming couldn't retrieve an answer."

"So, what you're getting at is that the fire that killed the victim wasn't started with any kind of outside fuel sources?" Moira asked.

"Correct." Connor answered.

Now more confused, Hank asked his partner a peculiar question. "Does that mean that this android...self-combusted from the inside? Can they even get hot enough to boil their own blood?"

Connor thought on it for a moment. "It's possible. But for Thirium to boil and melt through an android's skin, it would have to be heated very rapidly since android skin was designed to be identical in function and characteristics to human skin. Thirium doesn't boil until it reaches a temperature of five hundred and thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit."

"A fire that was hot enough to bring the Thirium to a boil and melt the victim from the inside out. Poor bastard." Hank sighed as his mind tried block playing that type of mental image.

Connor's eyes narrowed and shifted as he kept on trying to find way it could be possible. Yet, with all the knowledge he had in him, it still didn't add up. But, it definitely happened. An anomaly.

"Here's another puzzling question." Moira spoke up. "How is that an android can own a home such as this? What do they do to get a source of income that is enough to buy this house and keep it in such well-kept state?"

"Good point." Hank said. "Looks like we'll have to dig into the home and property records for more information."

After the three of them looked throughout the whole house and all over the property, finding nothing in the process, they left the scene. Connor rode with Hank this time, while Moira drove off on her own. Moira had gone back to the department to look into several things for the case. Hank would catch up with her at the department later. Right now, he was going to grab something hot and greasy to eat.

As for Connor, he would go along with Hank. However, he had no need to eat. Instead, his need was to continue thinking about the error message he had received. It, for lack of a better term, concerned him.

A fire that could not have been possible had happened, killing an android from the inside out. The circumstances were abnormal. There was more to this case than all of them were seeing.