Accident Prone - Becoming Human

Insomnia

Despite having an entirely restful day and no complications from his exposure to the rat poison the previous day, Connor found himself unable to sleep and unable to shut off his mind as he tried to enter rest mode as scheduled. Folding his hands together neatly over his chest the restless deviant stared up at the blank ceiling of his bedroom then traced the walls visually until his eyes fell on the painting hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed as he sought something, anything, to focus on and stop his racing thoughts. The vibrant colors and incredible details that Lucas had captured with his paintbrush on the canvas were impressive, even by android standards.

As he stared at the painting Connor tried to manually activate his rest mode again but the program seemed unable to boot or simply refused to do so. Growing frustrated Connor sat upright on his bed and note the late night hour (or was it the early morning hour?) on his chronometer and decided to get up to do something more productive with his time.

Moving silently out of his bedroom without disturbing Sumo, who enviously had fallen into a deep sleep at the foot of the bed, Connor walked down the hallway and eyed the numerous books Hank had collected over the years that lined the bookshelf in the livingroom. Checking through the various titles he eyes became transfixed on one book entitled: "The Hound of the Baskervilles". It was one of the books that Connor had noted Hank reading six times within the three years that they've known each other and decided to read it at least once for himself.

Sitting down in the middle of the couch Connor opened the worn out leather book and began to read the story one yellowed page at a time. Losing track of time as he read the story he was only aware of the sun just beginning to rise as Sumo walked down the hallway and nosed at Connor's left arm to get the deviant's attention.

Looking down at Sumo's face and wagging tail the deviant just nodded and marked his page. "Okay, outside."

Closing the book for a moment Connor left it on the couch cushion next to where he had been sitting as he made his way to the kitchen and opened the backdoor for Sumo. The dog proceeded to go about his business in the backyard Connor while filled up the young dog's bowls with food and water, then decided to make a healthy breakfast for Hank in turn.

Hank himself awoke two hours later and was bombarded with the smell of fresh citrus and scrambled eggs wafting down the hallway and into his bedroom despite the door being shut. As he reached the end of the hallway the groggy senior detective spotted Connor already dressed in his uniform for the day and reading quietly on the couch. "You're awake early, even by your own freaky early-bird standards. What's the occasion?"

"I was restless." Connor replied as he looked over his shoulder toward Hank without hesitations. "Did I wake you?"

"Nope. Damn alarm did."

"I took the liberty of preparing a moderate breakfast for you. It'd be wise to consume more calories in the morning so you don't have to rely so heavily on coffee in the afternoon or evening to keep you alert."

"Yeah, sure. Let me wake up in the shower first." Turning around to enter the bathroom Hank stretched out his shoulders a little while running his right hand through his messy locks of gray hair dismissively. "I hate the morning..."

"Take your time." Resuming the story Connor didn't mind Hank going about his own morning routine slowly. "I'm not in any rush."

While their shift went about as usual Connor proceeded to run a self diagnostic on his program that initiated rest mode but there were no errors to be found. As the day passed on rather uneventfully, the only cases that the duo had been assigned were a few domestic abuses against deviants and one distraught man claiming that the hospital used an android to 'murder' his terminally ill wife after she succumbed to her illness, the two detectives were bored to the brink of insanity as their shift mercifully came to an end right on time.