Borders [DBH]

2880 minutes

"I know Connor, I know ..."

With gentleness and inhuman tenderness, the lieutenant approached the young deviant. Then, in a slow but firm gesture, he gently put his hands on the weapon of the android. Connor didn't resist. He couldn't. He was defeated, shot down by his own helplessness as surely as if Reed had fired first. In the distance, voices were heard, and their lugubrious sound presaged too well that they were looking for them. The disturbance of their altercation had finally attracted the other policemen.

"Connor, you have to leave, now! "

he said to the extinct Android. The latter slowly raised his face to the old inspector and looked at him with a gaze that mixed incomprehension and weariness. He laughed bitterly, so discreet but so heart-rending in the dark night that Hank's heart became heavy against the abrupt reality of the situation.

"Where can I go, Hank? It's over, anyway ... "

Connor would not be okay ... Connor was going to die. The lieutenant closed his eyes painfully. The voices were getting closer. Behind him, Reed stood up. In a paternal gesture, he put his hands on the shoulders of his former teammate. The Android didn't react. Despair seemed to already desactivate it, component by component.

"I'll get you out of there ... I'll find a way ..."

Hank was thinking at full speed. But even in his words, the tone of his voice already betrayed his heartbreak. There was no solution. There was none. Even if he managed to escape the dozen policemen who were coming in their direction, which already was highly unlikely, they would still have to get out of this trip and manage to outwit the FBI that was watching out the Hank's car and house. All this without Reed putting a bullet in their backs or civilians denouncing the former leader...

"Fucking shit ... Fucking shit ! you piss me off! "

Gavin's angry voice recalled his presence to the police lieutenant. The young man seemed confused, and in a movement of fury he kicked an abandonned old can on the floor. Then he looked at Connor with an expression mixing disgust with deep hesitation. The android had no reaction. At first sight, it looked like a simple wax statue. However, when one paid more attention, one couldn't not be caught by the two chocolate eyes that trembled with secret hatred and fear. In fact, Connor no longer worked like a machine. He look more like a wounded and frightened animal, frozen in the dazzling headlights of a car, incapable of the slightest movement, because of his terror of the humanity that was tetanizing him. A fear that the robot was trying to hide, but which manifested itself ostensibly in the flicker of his led, stubbornly red.

And in a subliminal memory in a fraction of a second, the young inspector relives the silent images of the television cameras that filmed the lying down bodies of thousands of androids ... What if?

"Get out of here, idiot! And above all you shut your mouth and you don't move, otherwise you're dead. "

With an instinctive movement that surprised the RK800 as much as his partner, Reed grabbed the Deviant's arm and pushed it unceremoniously behind one of the thick concrete posts of the abandoned carcass of the old unfinished building. He picked up his black cap and launched it in a scornful gesture before turning his attention back to Hank.

"48 hours. In 48 hours maximum you and your flashing shit you'll be definitely out of my life. I protect it 2880 minutes. Not one more. "

2880 minutes, to try to redeem a humanity. Reed did the math quickly. It was not so expensive. As the police torches appeared a few feet away, he flung a violent punch in the face of a totally stunned Hank. The latter fell to the ground just in time to see his colleague put his foot on the trail of blue blood still visible on the ground. He gave the inspector a puzzled look. He helped Connor. Reed, that bloody asshole, was helping Connor. It was incomprehensible, insomuch that the old policeman was absolutely not sure that it was a good thing.