Blue As Heaven

Chapter 2

The day went over way too fast, and in  the evening, Nines and Connor had barely made any progress. It was frustrating, even for them, who weren't actually supposed to even have feelings. Analyzing the same small pieces of evidence again and again, where was that supposed to lead them? Hour for hour, they worked on. Hank watched them for a while before he left for the evening, and faster than both of them had noticed, the day faded to noon, to evening and to night at last. Nines wasn't easy to be distracted, but Connor caught him a few times when he looked up and tried to watch what Gavin was doing. At this point, it wasn't even healthy anymore, and connor was truly worried about his brother. But he knew he couldn't say something about it, Nines would only brush it off as nothing.
"see you tomorrow, tincans" gavin shouted at them when he left, his voice made nines flinch. Connor could have sworn that he saw a light blue blush on nines cheeks, but he worried that the flinching wasn't just his positive surprise. "good night!" nines called after him, but he was too late and Gavin already was out the door and didn't seem hear him. Or he just ignored him, he liked to do that as well.
"do you want to-"
"continue? NO." Nines LED went bright red. "I mean, why? We have been staring at these reports and these pictures for the past day, and we found nothing. There's just no use, we can't help. We're just useless plastic that should have been disposed off long ago" it wasn't his own words, all of this were things that had been said to him. At last, Noone would Programm an android to be self conscious, right? So he must have taken this from someone else, someone who hates Androids, who's in direct contact with nines. "did Gavin say that to you?"
"he didn't say it to you too?"
Nines wiped off his artificial tears and sighed. Maybe he was more similar to a human than he would have wished for...
"we can continue now. I'm fine"
Connor only answered with a small nod before turning to the files again.

In a different part of Detroit, Gavin woke up sitting on a hard chair with his hands in handcuffs, and a blindfold over his eyes. He felt like his head was about to burst, and honest to himself, the last time he had a headache that bad, he had a hangover and didn't even remember the last three days. It didn't happen again, did it? Why would he be handcuffed if he only got drunk, especially, why would he be handcuffed in a room smelling like sweat and dirt and... Something other he couldn't quite define? Gavin tried to fight against his headache, trying to find the last thing he could remember. Working in the police department... Typing... Endless typing. Coffee. Break. Typing again. "If that's the last thing I ever experienced, that's a sad ending " he sighed quietly. He had to remember something, at least how he got here....
Evening. Shutting off his laptop. Saying good night to the tincans. No. He didn't say good night. He said bye, not good night. Someone said good night, but who? Connor? No... Connor said good morning. Nines. Why didn't he say it back to him? He wanted to...
In his memory, he went out the door of the police station, and everything went black. No memories from here.
The sharp, slightly metallic smell in the room he was in fought itself into his brain. He knew it. Somewhere, he had smelled it before... But where? It felt somewhat familiar, almost like he could trust it... But didn't he trust Noone?
"he's awake" quiet voices pulled Gavin back out of the world of his memories. He focused on locating who was with him, and where. In this moment he regretted that he let himself get behind on his workout routine: being fit would have only helped him in this situation.
"Good evening detective Reed" a voice right in front of him greeted him. Gavin tried to answer, but soon noticed his whole body was paralyzed and he could move nothing but his eyes. He was wrong, workout wouldn't have helped.
"don't worry about it, you're not paralyzed forever. You see, it's just more practical if you're not running from me" a quiet chuckle came from the voice. It was a female Voice, she sounded young... No older than maybe 20 or 25 years.
"you have been chosen to be the newest experiment in my collection, sadly the first few failed... And I had to get rid of them.
Don't be scared, you're not gonna feel a thing... But I'm going to describe exactly what I am doing."
She took off his blindfold and looked at him, her red-brown hair was braided and laid over her shoulder from the back.
" and of course I'm going to let you watch."
Gavin tried to let out a growl, spit at her, even yell... But nothing came out.
" I am going to cut off right here..." she motioned over his right shoulder, down over his rips almost to his waist. "and here" he tapped onto his chest, over his heart. "don't worry, I am not going to kill you. I don't plan on. But, if the experient fails, I may be forced to get rid of you. Mainly.... I want to see how someone who's known for hating Androids, copes with becoming one. At least partially." the last thing Gavin saw before he passed out again was her pulling up a giant syringe with what he thought to be a tranquilizer. On the edge of his consciousness, drifting between dream and memory, he remembered what he knew that smell from that he felt familiar with: it was the smell of thirium. The smell of Nines.