Roleplay

@PastelWitch27

Bio for Andrew here.
Also I lied and started watching a play-through of Detroit: Become Human.

Sorry it's a bit long. Andrew's got a lot of things to do + setting up the scene and stuff.
I was thinking [yc] can be one of the cops at the protest and then get shot by a random protester with a gun. Everybody scrams after shots are fired?

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Andrew had just finished up work. His nearest deadline was over a week away, so he hadn’t been too busy. Unfortunately, he was still exhausted. Working with “Spot,” a cheetah-inspired drone and utility robot they were working on, was tiring on its own. He’d pushed for a later build date, but his coworkers had decided that the simulations they’d already done were fine.

Well, when Spot crashed face-first into their hacksaw table, he just had to say “I told you so.”

He couldn't say he was excited for the daily trip back home. He had to walk two blocks to the metro station; he could just get a car, but parking wasn't fun, at least in the downtown area where he worked, so he just rode the bus every day. Walking was good for him, anyway.

Well, except when you had to walk through a protest against your own company. Legally, they had to be at least twenty feet away, but Andrew thought it should be more; they got to harass anyone who didn't sneak out the garage.

At least it was only a small crowd.
Actually, wait, they weren't protesting Opedia. It seemed they were just protesting androids in the police force in general. (Those models were made by a variety of companies, but Opedia was the most well-known, especially here in Detroit.) Lucky. He didn't even work in that department.

He walked further from the safety of the company lobby, hoping he could skirt around the commotion, but he was too curious for his own good. He wanted to hear what the speaker with a megaphone had to say. After listening for a bit, he distinguished that it was just arguments he'd already heard before.

That was, of course, when the cops showed up. The protest must have just started, then.

Oh, golly gee, the irony. They'd sent a squad of tk700s to deal with the protesters; their human squad leader was going to be super happy when he realized what the protest they were dealing with was about.

Bio for Daniel here

Daniel was a TK700 model; designed and programmed to be a dispensable officer for the Police Force. He was the same as every other Daniel model; nothing special. When he was dispatched to a protest near Opedia's headquarters he thought nothing of it - another protest against the use of androids in 'human jobs', a protest against androids 'stealing human work'. It was always the same. Daniel joined the rest of his squad in an organised, formal line as was the plan. They would have to deal with the protesters quickly to avoid journalists getting too involved.

Daniel's eyes were trained on their leader, a tall man speaking through a megaphone and demanding... equal rights for androids. A glitch formed in Daniel's programming. Equal rights? Androids weren't people, just machines. He could feel his processors running, the LED on his temple flashing yellow although thankfully hidden by his riot-grade helmet.

An order came through his transmitter which shocked him back into the real world; the order was to move out - try to move the protesters and force them to retreat.
No. Violence.

Daniel formed with his squad and they moved forward; the protesters were androids as well which generated an odd feeling in Daniel's core. Guilt?. He pressed forward, shouting commands for the deviants to step back or the human squad behind them would be forced to open fire. Being disposable meant being cannon-fodder for gunfire. It didn't matter if Daniel was broken, he was easily replaced. They moved further still, pushed back by the protesters who threw glass bottles and screamed for equality, they screamed and the TK700's for being slaves and Daniels could see a few of them hesitate as if persuaded.

His LED flashed yellow again. He assumed this would be something akin to confusion, but he didn't understand what that meant. He wasn't designed to think. Daniel heard a gunshot and watched a fellow TK700 fall to the ground; blue blood spilling from the riot gear. The LED flashed red.

Fear. Fear. Fear. FEAR. ... run

Daniel stumbled and watched the protesters begin to fire into the android squad; as the human SWAT team fired back. A sudden crack in Daniel's left shoulder threw him to the ground and his visual sensors began to overload, his body hitting the ground in a slump as another impact hit him in the leg. Warnings flashes up all over Daniel's vision; red and threatening. The words 'Stop the Protesters' still above all the vital signs. Daniel felt his core thrum with panic - with fear - and he clawed at the words before his systems shut down.

Chaos ensued once the police force and SWAT teams had arrived. Andrew decided he best stay near the lobby. It was too dangerous to try to get around the protesters and androids. He might be mistaken as one of them.

He jumped when the shooting started. Barely able to move, he ran into the lobby and got away from the glass door. His peers were doing the same, some even ushering the androids to take a break from their welcome stations in order to find cover.

Finally, everything seemed to die down.

Andrew took a few deep breaths. He just had to make it to the bus, right? The SWAT teams and protestors were both long gone by the time he emerged from the lobby. Well, the ones still alive had left, that it. The injured victims were being ushered away. And anyone dead, well, they were left for a more properly suited investigative and cleanup crew.

Andrew picked his way around the carnage. Luckily, protests didn’t usually get this bad. He was trying not to look; he would throw up if he thought too much about it. Fortunately, he didn’t have the same problem looking at the discarded androids.

Most were damaged beyond repair, which was probably why they’d been left to go to a dump. Andrew noticed one of the Daniel models, however, that didn’t seem too bad. It would be a shame to see thousands of dollars going to waste.

Well, this is going to be a pain to get home...

[Just so I’m not literally writing forever, this will be a bit vague/skippy...]

Eventually, Andrew called his sister and she picked him up and drove him home. He hoped them arguing hadn’t brought too much attention to the whole “am I kind of stealing evidence? Yes. But what does one android matter” thing. When he got to home, he was so excited that he forgot how tired he was and set to work.

He only got halfway done fixing the android, despite working through the night. Though, he’d never actually worked on androids before, so much of the time was spent fixing his own mistakes.

Eventually, after a couple afternoons, he managed to fix the last broken shoulder piece. God I hope the memory is in tact. I won’t be able to bootleg the code for one of these models... He initiated the startup and stepped back. The android’s leg would still need fixing, but at least all it’s “vitals” were back in working order.

Daniel's internal systems seemed to jolt him awake, as if he was struck by a sudden volt of electricity. His audio sensors kicked in first, he could hear the humming of machine's and the beeping of a nearby computer. Slowly, his visual indicators began to work as well; at first only display error messages and static, but slowly his began to see the room his was in, it wasn't anything he recognised. His internal memory seemed hazy when he tried to replay his most recent events.

"Where am I?" he asked, his voice sounding more robotic than normal. The flashing red signs in his UI only warned his about missing components. His vitals were green. He attempted to move but found his limbs were rather stuck, almost like they weren't responding to his orders.

Daniel looked around and spotted a male human looking at him expectantly. "Who are you?" he asked, unsure why he was interested in the first place. The standard blue bar at the top of his vision was gone, as where his commands and no matter how far he dug into his coding he couldn't seem to retrieve them. He had never paid it much attention before but he was becoming aware of the odd thrum that his core pulsed to, the way he could feel his bio-components whirred into life and how his fingers seemed to feel... cold. He was aware that his body, made of plastic and metal, was beginning to feel more than he had ever experienced before - like the warmth of the lights and the breeze that seemed to blow through sporadically.

Once his processors kicked in and Daniel felt more functional he began to try and recall his memory but when he tried it felt like a thousand volts of electricity coursed through his head and he involuntarily let out a small scream, mainly due to shock as androids shouldn't be able to feel pain. So then, what was this new sensation? Small notifications appeared in his vision and slowly he began to move his fingers followed by the rest of his hands, then arms however whenever he tried to move his legs error message would flash into his vision and that horrifying jolt of electricity would bust through his circuits.

"What happened to me?"

Andrew watched with excitement as the android whirred back to life. Wow. He'd actually fixed it? Well, his work was spotty, but maybe now that it was back to "life" the android could do a self-diagnostic and fix everything he'd messed up on.

Oh, and it's leg... It would still need a couple parts-- parts that Andrew didn't have at the moment-- but it could probably still hop around if it really wanted to.

Andrew's hands began to fiddle with the nearest tool, a small wrench he had left on one of the various tables. Something about the android was off, but he couldn't place it.

He jumped when Daniel screamed softly. Was it in pain? Could androids feel pain?

"Just hold still," the engineer grumbled. "I'm Andrew. You're Daniel, right? This is my workshop." (Basement.) "You were at the protest. You got shot in your shoulder and your leg. Thought no one would really mind if I fixed you back up; wasn't too much damage, after all."

That probably didn't answer his last question, but Andrew didn't really know that Daniel had gone against his programming just seconds before getting shot and shutting down.

"Do you know what parts you need for your leg? I-I can go get them." He hadn't expected that the leg would need fixing right away.

Daniel's scanners were still offline so he couldn't run a check on the human in front of him. Andrew? He didn't know an Andrew. Was he an Opedia tech? "Yes. I am TK700 1.8275.9 aka 'Daniel'" he said un-blinking. All Daniel models had short brown hair and dark blue eyes; they weren't designed to be 'pretty' so he had no other remarkable features.

Daniel's processors kicked in again as he tried to think about his leg, "I've been shot?" he asked, trying to go back through his logs to find a memory recording that would make some sense of this. He attempted to run a diagnosis as Andrew suggested although even trying to run the simplest commands were somewhat taxing to his processors.

The diagnosis screen came back with a list of components he would apparently need for his leg and he read them off for Andrew. There was a moment of silence at which point Daniel realised something very, very important... "Andrew... What is my current objective? I believe some of my internal circuitry must be failing as my primary functions aren't appearing..." This felt odd. He had never not had an objective before, what was he supposed to do? Daniel tried running more internal tests but most of them came back negative.

He supposed, he may as well just rest here until his body is back in working order. Andrew seemed nice enough although since his scanners were broken he couldn't check his criminal history. "I am... cold?" he said as his fingers splayed out and touched some of the cool metal framework around him. "Such a strange sensation..."

It sounded like the parts shouldn’t be too bad. There was a mechanic shop nearby that sold old android parts, and they should carry (hopefully all of) what Daniel needed.

Andrew laughed. “You’re not usually cold? I could go get a coat from upstairs if you’d like.”

Wait. Were androids supposed to be cold?

Andrew didn’t really wait for an answer to his offer before he added. “Um, I’ll go get the parts,” and darted out of the workshop. He was hoping his hasty exit wouldn’t be too noticeable. He pulled out his phone and typed out Signs of deviancy. into the google search bar. The results that popped up weren’t exactly encouraging.

Well, it’s okay. It’s all fine. It hasn’t acted violent yet, so it might just be a weird defect?

He decided to fetch a coat anyway, tossing it to Daniel from the door of the workshop. “It’s my size. If it doesn’t fit you could... wear it as a blanket?”

Daniel nodded as Andrew seemed nice enough to provide him with something to cover himself with, it seemed to work and his internal temperature sensors flashed green for a second signalling everything was normal. He watched the man flit around slightly haphazardly and found himself smiling; although he had no idea why.

He had never smiled before.

"Thank you" he responded, feeling the coats fabric with a new and sudden fascination. His primary sensitivity sensors must be way over the standard limit as he could feel the difference between the lining and the cool metal of the zipper. Once Andrew left Daniel found himself lost, he closed his eyes, trying to run further self_scans to help his current situation.

He didn't particularly want to reboot, it would probably fry his motherboard. Daniel placed a hand to his chest, where his core was, and tried to understand what he was meant to do. Logically, he knew he should return to the police station.

It appears bright and blue like all his other commands and Daniel felt a tension alleviate from his plastic shoulders. This odd behaviour still made him wary - he had hunted Deviants in his time in the Force but he was positive he wasn't one - there was no violent compulsiveness and he hadn't technically disobeyed anyone. No, he wasn't deviant.

Daniel attempted to remove himself from Andrews workbench and crumpled to the floor as his broken leg sparked with electronic damage. His primary task suddenly glitches, the words changing and Daniel felt a sensation he would later call fear wash over his body.

It didn’t take long for Andrew to catch the bus and walk over to the small mechanic shop he knew of. However, it was a bit harder to convince the cashier (who was fortunately human) to actually sell him the parts for a tk700, which supposedly to be sold to police only. Suffice to say, he didn’t really have authorization for buying one or have any reason to need parts for one.

Luckily, he was still wearing his work shirt. The man behind the counter eventually took pity and sold him the parts, joking about how he must have broken something at work. Andrew didn’t exactly say that that wasn’t the case, but it wasn’t.

“Could I also get some thirium?” Andrew asked. The old cashier sighed and added a pint to his bag. Andrew paid and left. He had already taken enough time as it was.

He returned to his workshop and noticed Daniel missing from the workbench. “Daniel?” He couldn’t have gotten far, right? His leg is- Oh. He notices the android slumped on the ground just next to the workbench.

He approached the android, holding the bag up. “Got the stuff. How are you feeling?” he asked.

Daniel's inner clock was broken and he was unsure how long he had been laying on the floor until Andrew came home. The errors in his vision were still flashing; including a new one that read; STRESS LEVEL: 51%. Daniel felt his face scowl; only Deviants exhibit similar feelings to human stress.

When Andrew came home Daniel felt his core give him a slight shock as it beat irregularly and out of it's predestined rhythm. "I-I don't know how to answer that question" he said, genuinely unsure of how to respond. "I do not feel." he added, to reassure himself more than the man hovering over him. Daniel looked down at his leg and wondered how Andrew had the skills and knowledge to fix such a thing.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, despite the triggering red warning that flashed violently. "You could have left me and Opedia would have dealt with me". The idea of being disassembled and deactivate made Daniel's processors act over 150% of their normal capacity. This feeling was very familiar... Daniel attempted to access his memory as Andrew helped him back onto the work bench.

Andrew's eyes flickered closed as he was finally able to go through the last few days; watching the standard procedures he went through every day until the protest happened. He saw how the the other officer androids were gunned down and he himself was hit - that's were the playback ended in a fit of static and white noise causing Daniel to jolt - his limbs jerking awkwardly as he snapped his eyes open - STRESS LEVELS: 68% Andrew looked at the man currently trying to fix his leg and several thousand thoughts ran through his head.