Partners - Reed900 series

Observations

Connor carefully sticks a thumbtack in the corners of the picture, leaning back to admire his handiwork. The picture of RK900 and detective Reed holding the baby they delivered on the side of the road a couple of weeks back hangs neatly next to the picture of himself and RK.

Each desk in the bullpen is fitted with a screen divider on one corner, both giving the occupant of the desk some privacy and quiet, as well as doubling as a personal message board. Lieutenant Anderson's board is a collection of notes, old tickets to games of the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Lions and a single picture of his late son Cole. Connor uses his for pictures - one of him, Hank and Sumo, several of the Saint Bernard alone and a second copy of the picture of him and RK.

The first two months RK900's board had been bare. 'I don't need to write down notes,' his ever practical successor told Connor when asked why he had nothing pinned on his board. He let it slide, until he couldn't stand looking at the bare desk any longer; whenever the android was away for a case, the desk looked like it didn't belong to anybody. That didn't feel right.

Connor prompted his fellow detective to at least personalise his board somewhat. RK900 repeated a version of his earlier argument, truthfully stating that every picture he wished to look at was readily available for viewing within his head. A second argument was that his partner, detective Reed, also didn't decorate his desk - if you didn't count empty coffee cups and discarded cereal bar wrappers.

Connor knew how much his successor was trying to be a seamless addition to their partnership. Emphasis on trying, because where the RK800 models were designed to integrate with human society, no such goals were kept in mind when programming RK900's parameters. The last masterpiece of CyberLife was designated to nip the newly started android revolution in the bud and make the RK800 model obsolete. Afterwards, the RK900 models would be deployed as soldiers, for instance in the Arctic conflict. The military was their initial purpose after all; the android revolution merely forced CyberLife to rush the development of the RK900 model.

Luckily, things went differently. There was only one RK900, as a prototype he was even more unique than Connor.

Connor felt oddly protective of RK900 ever since he was re-activated by Markus and his troupe. Connor was present, watching the android that was meant to kill him come to life again. His main objective of bringing down the android revolution and its key figures was disabled before re-activation, leaving the choice of a new objective to RK900 himself. Choosing turned out to be rather difficult for the new android, his programming specifically designed to withstand deviancy and strictly follow orders.

One of his first choices was not even a real choice: RK900 merely aired his preference to go home with Connor instead of staying at CyberLife Tower, the home to the very movement RK900 was originally meant to take down. He never really explained to Connor why he didn't want to stay there, but it was easy to see the tension in his body during his time at the tower.

Luckily, Hank was easily persuaded to open his home to a second android, saying they didn't drink his beer anyway. Not that RK900 stayed very long: after he started working for the DPD he only came home for the weekends. During the week he prefered staying at the precinct, in the storage room where the DPD androids were housed before the revolution. The only furniture in the room was a table and two chairs, next to several stasis pods. It was a grey, bare room without windows. Connor hated that he stayed there, yet he was also of a mind to let RK900 make his own choices.

Connor might not always understand why RK900 did things or why he went a certain way about them, yet he always tried to be supportive. 'Like a true big brother,' Hank said recently, leaving Connor to ponder about the remark for the rest of the evening. He guessed the way he felt about his successor was similar to the way one might feel about a sibling. He had heard officer Miller talk about his younger brother a couple of times: proud when he graduated from college and annoyed when the young man spent the first weeks after graduation hopping from party to party instead of doing job interviews.