Series: Detroit: Become HumanRating: TGenre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance)Summary: Befor

Series: Detroit: Become HumanRating: TGenre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance)Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. ( < Back to part 1 /< Back to part 6 )Part 7 - HumanSeven turned his head to the side to regard the circle of blue light at his temple for a moment before lifting a hand and brushing his fingertips across it. His outer skin retreated from around the disk, and though the android picked at it, his nails weren’t able to find good enough purchase to pry it loose.Turning back to his bag, Seven reached into the front pocket and retrieved the nail care kit he was now glad he had decided to keep. From within it, he produced a nail file that with a pointed tip meant to clean under a human’s nails, but which he now slid carefully beneath the edge of his LED. It took surprisingly little strength to pop it loose, his quick reflexes letting him catch it mid-air before it could land in the sink and slip down the drain.Seven rolled it speculatively around his palm with a fingertip as he considered the thing, then glanced up at the mirror again as his outer skin reactivated, leaving him looking completely… human. No one would be able to tell he was anything but that so long as he figured out a way to hide his hands and kept his shirt buttoned up.It was a thought that left him feeling a peculiar sense of loss, one that actually made him consider keeping the little LED, if only as a reminder of where he had come from.Good sense caught up to him a moment later and he immediately discarded the notion. There could be no clue that he was anything but human, not if he was going to survive very long in a world dominated by them.Seven packed up his things and settled his bag on his back once more before picking up the LED and casting it decisively into the toilet before he could have any second thoughts, then flushed. He watched as it circled the bowl a few times before disappearing out of sight, carried away by the flow of water. The android then took a moment to wash his hands, and left the bathroom.According to his internal clock, he’d only been in there a few minutes, which apparently wasn’t long enough for a bored convenience store clerk to notice his absence.Seven stepped back into the store proper, hands in his pockets to hide them from sight, though he hardly needed to bother considering the human clerk barely glanced up from behind the counter where he seemed to be watching some sort of reality show on a small tv next to the register.A quick look around the store revealed a short rack to one side bearing a variety of clothing, towards which Seven immediately headed. The android put his back to the clerk so he could use one hand to peruse the selection without revealing his true nature, and quickly picked out a hoodie bearing the logo of a local basketball team, a t-shirt with ‘Detroit’ emblazoned across it in bold letters, and a pair of black cotton gloves. It was a little early in the year for them, but the weather had been rainy enough that they shouldn’t look too out of place, and the clerk didn’t comment when he wore them up to the counter to check out and simply presented him with the tag to scan. While the man rang him up, a brightly colored bag of hard candy on one of the counter displays caught the android’s eye, and on impulse he bought that as well.Outside again at last, Seven took in a breath of the cool night air and stepped off to one side, out of sight of the store windows before dropping his bag and dragging his new hoodie on over his button up, figuring his new shirt could wait until later when he found somewhere else to change. The android pulled up the hood of his sweater and immediately felt the better for it, like he was that little bit less visible to the people around him. Practical as Seven’s purchases (well, most of them) had been, they’d burned through forty-seven dollars of his sixty-three dollars and fifty-seven cents, leaving him significantly lower on funds than he liked. There was an ATM outside of the convenience store; he’d seen it on his way in, though at the time he’d decided it’d be better to let it be. Now though, it occurred to Seven that this would be his last chance to make use of one. He had been afforded access to an expense account for necessary purchases to help smooth his investigation, and even in a company as technologically advanced as CyberLife the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly; especially after five pm. Seven considered the machine for a long minute, weighing the pros and cons before finally coming to a decision. He approached the machine and pulled off one glove, then placed his hand on the console. Accessing the expense account would leave a trail that could be traced back to this particular ATM, there was nothing the android could do about that without burning valuable time, but considering he was planning to leave the city anyways, it was worth the risk.The maximum amount he could withdraw was five-hundred dollars, so Seven did, and quickly stuffed the resulting stack of twenties into the bottom of his backpack, withholding only a few to keep in his pants pocket for easy access. It occurred to him as he zipped up his bag that he could probably spare the time to properly hack the actual machine so it would give him access to the considerable reservoir of cash it held, but after an uneasy moment, he decided against it. It was one thing to take money directly from CyberLife (they owed him as far as he was concerned), but it was something else entirely to steal from the ATM itself; it raised too many morality flags in his programming, and Seven found that those, at least, were a feature he had no inclination to ignore.Decision made, Seven walked away into the night, sunglasses on once more as he strode under the street lights, destination unknown.The android had reached the end of his bulleted mission list, though he did know that he’d need transport away from the vicinity of the ATM on the off chance that CyberLife was actively monitoring its banking channels for just such an access alert.A pickup truck hauling a flatbed trailer pulled up at a nearby intersection and stopped to wait for the light to change. The trailer looked to be carrying a pair of ATVs of some sort, covered by a tarp, and Seven knew he wasn’t going to find a better free ride if he searched for the rest of the night.Without hesitating, the android moved forward at a quick pace, keeping a close eye on the driver, who seemed distracted, fiddling with something in the passenger seat. When they bent over even further, Seven broke into a run and climbed onto the back of the trailer, then slipped beneath the tarp and between the ATVs to tuck himself out of sight.If he’d needed to breathe, he would have held his breath during that long, interminable moment between his stowing away and the truck accelerating away from the stoplight, but the surge of relief he got when it did was just the same. Now all he had to do was hope that the driver didn’t live somewhere close by.Seven was able to relax a little more when he felt the truck get on the freeway headed south, away from downtown Detroit and CyberLife tower. Hoping they’d be driving for awhile, the android wormed out of his backpack straps and dragged it around so he could carefully open it and root around inside. Though his hiding spot was quite sheltered, there was still a strong breeze that whipped up the tarp and tugged at his sweater, making Seven glad he’d kept his long sleeved button up on under his hoody after all.After finding what he was looking for, the android settled back, laying flat on his back with his pack under his head. He pushed his glasses up onto the crown of his head, no longer needing them in the dark confines under the tarp as he carefully unwrapped a hard candy and popped it into his mouth, then pocketed the wrapper.An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Seven as the super sweet faux-cherry flavor of the candy successfully overrode the taste of blood in his mouth, and the android’s eyelids fluttered shut in sheer bliss. It drew a smile, his first real smile as a deviant, to his face, and made the world just that little bit more bearable.After a moment spent relishing the treat, Seven’s eyes opened again and he stared up at the tarp overhead and wondered just what the hell he was going to do next.First instinct told him he should head straight for the Canadian border, but a number of counter arguments to the suggestion immediately occurred to him.He knew that trying to cross the border into Canada was a common choice for deviants, which meant CyberLife also knew this was a common choice for deviants.     (a) He himself was a deviant, ipso facto, CyberLife would immediately assume he might make a run for the border.Though he had heard rumors of there being people willing to smuggle deviant androids across the border, he had never actually identified any of them, so could not make use of their services now.The nearest and most accessible crossing point into Canada from Detroit was over water that was heavily patrolled on both sides, making the attempt to cross unaided an unacceptably high risk.So, Canada was a no-go, for now at the very least. Staying in Detroit was also not an option, which meant leaving the city altogether in hopes of blending in somewhere a new face wouldn’t turn any heads. That crossed any small communities off the list, but fortunately for Seven, the East coast was rife with large cities he could disappear into.The largest of which was New York.Could he do it? Calculations told him it was a ten hour drive (uninterrupted) from Detroit to New York City, and the likelihood that his current transport was going that far was slim to none, which meant finding an alternate route. Flying definitely wasn’t an option. Not only was it expensive (though technically within his budget), security would prove difficult, as would his lack of ID…A bus though, one of the long distance ones… that might just do the trick.Able to see no other reasonable options available, Seven settled on his plan and began to plot a course to the nearest Greyhound bus station.( On to part 8 > )((Sorry for the delay on this one, my sister and I went on a trip out of state, but I’m back now! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!If you really enjoyed it, consider buying me a ko-fi?)) -- source link

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