November 10th, 2038
AM 07:33:16
Captain Allen didn't strike you as a man for decorating, and for that, you were correct.
What scarce personal items were in his office didn't amount to much in quantity...but you guessed if certain medals, awards, or pictures were important enough for him to frame and hang, they must've meant a great deal to him.
His wife and daughter in a family photo; the only picture he was smiling in. Him and Chris in full flak jackets, helmets, and aviators – Chris with a big, stupid grin on his face. The Marauders lined up with a DPD emblem backdrop, just as intense as they were in the briefing room.
"An interesting group of people under your charge, that's for sure."
He didn't respond.
Your thumbs spun around each other, waiting for him to say something. He'd asked you to shut the door behind you and take a seat, but he'd been on his terminal responding to e-mails. So you sat there, observing – soaking in the awkward silence.
A large picture caught your attention; one that spanned across the three chairs pushed against the left wall. It was huge-
"Never gets any less frustrating..." The scowl on his face deepened, "Having two first names as a first and last name. Do you know how many times a day I get called Allen instead of David?"
"I think I speak for most when I say it's hard to imagine anyone calling you anything but Captain Allen, sir."
He huffed, "That's good, I guess...Hold on. Old Marine buddy just sent me a link to a broadcast."
He rotated the screen to show you CTN TV paused, with Michael Brinkley's face painted on the transparent monitor.
"Following the android crisis and the neutralization of all military androids, American forces in the Arctic have been forced to withdraw, leaving the way clear for the Russian army.
But according to some sources, the Russian forces also seem mysteriously to have withdrawn. The Kremlin has made no comment for the moment but it is quite possible that the Russian army has been confronted with a similar crisis among its own androids.
The Chairman of the United Nations, Douglas Cornwell, has called for the organization of an international conference on the status of the Arctic. In any case, the danger of a third World War seems to have been ruled out...for the moment."
He hit a key with a defining "click," and leaned back in his chair.
"Amateurs..."
He clasped his hands over his stomach, and laced his fingers. Studied you with eyes that'd seen too much for one lifetime, and then nodded to the large picture you'd been looking at.
"My old battalion from Operation Urgent Fury."
It was a picture of him and eleven other soldiers, all loaded up with full Marine equipment. Some were women, some were men. They came from all ethnic backgrounds, proving to be a fairly diverse group.
A few of them had big, happy smiles on their faces; others were arrogant. One didn't bother to smile, much like Allen – one of two not kneeling in a pose with the butt of his rifle on the ground. He was standing off to the side, arms behind his back and sunglasses on his head, a raggedy shemagh around his neck.
"Notice anything weird about them?" He asked, a forlorn expression on his face, "Something that might...stick out?"
You squinted.
The only thing that seemed abnormal was a lone male stretched out along the bottom, laying on his side. He had his head propped up on his elbow, one leg folded to make him look as if he was purposefully laying in a "paint me like one of your French girls," pose.
"I'm sorry, I might be missing it."
"It's a simple question, Officer. Do you see anything out of place, or not?"
You started to get anxious, fingers digging at the ends of the armrests.
"No, sir."
"So you'd say everyone looks about the same?"
"No...I just mean you all look like soldiers out in the field, you know?"
"Yeah..." He huffed with a short smirk, "Yeah, I do."
He pulled himself closer to his desk by grabbing the edge, propping his elbows up and folding his hands.
"See, the reason you can't find any differences between my old squaddies and I is because there aren't any." His gaze narrowed, "Other than the fact that I'm the only human in that picture."
Your hands tightened as you realized what he was implying.
"Our composition never changed the fact that we were getting shot at side by side. Or the pain they felt when one of their comrades did take a bullet. Or even when they got shot holding down an evac zone for the wounded."
His forearms fell, taking on a pained look when he scanned the portrait.
"But...Pain is a..." Your brows creased, "Pain is a fear response, and only deviants feel fear..."
"Which is why this conversation will never leave this room. Do you understand me?"
You gulped, "Yes, sir."
"Good. I'm gonna keep this nice and short, then."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armrests; and with a flick of his wrist, he continued.
"I know who you are, and no matter how many questions Miller asks? I don't answer." He heaved a heavy sigh, rubbing his chin again, "He knows my old 'job' came with a certain level of security clearance, and let's just say I have a long standing with CyberLife since half my trainees were androids."
"...Do war machines really need trained?"
"Humanizing. Assimilation." His brows folded in a tense arch, "Thing about deviancy is...well, we didn't have a name for it back then. Chalked it up to mechanical failures and software discrepancies caused by the wear and tear of war. Myrmidons were experimental. Prototypes. Started with the RK100."
He cleared his throat, shifting in what seemed to be a nervous tick, "Then it kept going. Had a few that looked just like Markus, the RK200. Then the 300. 400. And so on."
He let out a soft chuckle, "So imagine my surprise when an RK800 shows up and displays signs of deviancy...But that's not your biggest problem nowadays, is it?"
You looked to the side, "You'll have to be a little more specific, sir."
"Okay. Well, your biggest problem is that Miller isn't the only one asking questions, anymore."
You sniffed, your chin dropping. You focused on your thumbs paddling around each other, fingers tangled and nails digging at the skin above your knuckles.
"You're talking about Agent Perkins?" You mumbled.
"Yeah, I am. If I can recognize deviancy in one of our own, Perkins sure as hell can." He ran a hand down his face, your attention snapping to him, "Nearly cost me my career. Almost got court marshaled for protecting my squad...they were good kids."
His elbows planted themselves on the edge of his desk, his chin resting on a meshed fist of his own. He held out a hand to stop your interjection.
"Like I said, we didn't have a name for what was happening back when androids were first being put into military service. People say deviancy just started a few months ago, but in reality, it's been going on for years...First one to crack was Marco, our engineer...that clown laying in the sand."
He pointed his saddened gaze to the android in the picture, and you followed suit.
"He was...is, a militarized version of the WM500. Went MIA just before all this started."
Your fidgeting stopped, and the chair whined from your shifting weight. The tensing of your muscles and the adjusting of your rigid lines for posture as the strings from the puppeteer were pulled taught, leaving you locked in place.
"On February 5th, 2038, the first DCPD case file was opened on 'deviants.'"
You repeated Elijah's pointed lesson in the chronology of your failure to free them.
"A term derived from an incident at CyberLife after a WM500 maintenance android went missing. It'd been tasked with server optimization."
"The last straw was when one of them committed suicide. She wrote a note and everything."
Allen's continued reminiscing tore you back to the picture, sweat beading along your hairline.
"That's when I knew it was something more than just defective programming." There was a solemn growl underneath the memory; one filled with almost as much regret as your thoughts, "I learned that we were doing this to them, and there was more to it than what the men in the Ivory Tower were telling us. We were just their fucking field test."
You jumped at his heightened anger – the snap to his words that had his eyes ignited and his tongue bit.
It took all you had to ask your question.
"So what did you do?"
"I stopped participating." The absence of his hesitation to answer the question was intimidating, just the same.
"Stopped...participating?"
"I stopped priming them like tools, and started training them for what they really were. Fresh soldiers with all the resources at their disposal, but without the means to fully grasp it...Then Perkins showed up, and I was put under investigation."
He shifted forward, elbows dropping to his lap as he shook his head with a cocky grin, "We were always at each other's throats...If I'm being honest, I was more than happy to get deployed just to get away from him. He had this...creepy obsession with being the best at everything. Except, I was a Marine, and he was FBI. There were obvious blurred lines and red tape around the whole thing."
Then that cocky grin was pointed at you, and a daring look decorated the pair of bracing eyes strung above it, "But if your medical record is any indication, you don't stray from a challenge. Some friendly advice? Tell Connor to get the hell out of dodge. Make sure that trail of yours is crystal-clean, because if there's any tracks left, Perkins will find them."
Captain Allen unlocked something behind his desk, a metal click leading the hollow sliding of an aluminum cabinet drawer. A heavy clank beat the inside, and he retrieved a gun.
Your gun.
And then he slid it on the desk with a clip next to it.
"T-thank you..."
You didn't look him in the face as you shakily reached for them, the clip in one hand – an empty firearm in the other.
It wasn't the first time you'd found yourself disarmed and reequipped by someone who had to clean up your mess. Wasn't the first time you'd been silently instructed to get your shit together and stop fucking up.
"Don't thank me. I didn't issue this warning for you. Or Hank. Or anyone but Connor."
Your brows pinched, and you shoved the clip in.
"I saw that look in his eyes, back at the Stratford Tower. I've seen it so many times before and it makes me sick."
You pulled the hammer back, sighing in relief at the protective weight that came with a fully-loaded pistol.
"I also have a hard time believing you didn't know your husband was shipping off guinea pigs to an African warzone just to see how much they could take before they broke."
Your eyes narrowed, "You really think I had anything to do with that?"
"Don't."
"I-"
"I don't know what made you change your mind and write Revised Article 9, but I do know that instead of fighting for it, you ran and hid."
Your teeth snapped shut, and he threw an arm to the side – pointing at the picture that was his version of the snapshot on Connor's desk. A piece of paper with a printed image of you, Connor, Hank, Chris, even Gavin – a visualized memory that held more words than could ever be written.
"You see them? They didn't have that choice, and neither do these androids getting dropped off to be thrown in the scrap heap."
His nostrils flared before he regained his composure, and you leaned back in your chair.
"I know this isn't what you wanted, or how you meant for this to get out, but it's here – and if you die, or let Perkins take you down..."
The two of you shared a moment. One of an intense gaze – a stare that shared mutual understanding.
"That's it. Game over. Mission failed."
He put a hand on his knee. An elbow on his desk. A finger in your face, and took to a voice that issued an order with practiced authority and stature.
"Now go out there, and figure out how to put a stop to all this."
You looked at your gun. Shoved it in the holster and locked it. Rose out of your seat with a wordless nod, fighting the urge to hug yourself.
"Dismissed."
You turned your back to him, hovering next to the chair. Raised your chin so that it leveled with the clear opening of his door, eyeing a stream of bustling officers just on the other side.
"I'm done hiding."
You looked over your shoulder, but he was lost in the picture on the wall.
"I'll get it done."
"I hope so..." His eyes flickered to you for a split second before returning to his computer, sliding his chair forward, "...Or we're all fucked."
Your eyes fluttered with a sigh, brows raising and falling as you reached for the door's handle. You guided it so that it shut gently behind you, and you were lost in the river of overworked bodies that flooded the hall.
"Do you know how it started?"
"'Probably with one model, a copy error...a zero instead of a one...'"
Elijah had huffed, and huffed, until your "house" was blown down.
"'No doubt a human error...'"
You'd written Revised Article 9. You'd left it to the discretion of CyberLife to keep hidden after they'd redacted it into oblivion.
"'A war is coming...Wrought by an idea, delivered by a raven.'"
It was him.
It'd been him all along.
The Raven who delivered a linear code drawn from a non-linear system scripted from deep inside you.
Marco may have been the person to release it from CyberLife, sure.
But it was Elijah who'd given him that capability. Had inlaid something so deep inside the Philosopher's Stone as a test of natural selection, allowing only the fittest to survive and "wake up."
At least, that was your hypothesis. You usually weren't wrong about those things.
And as you left that office, you saw a different kind of hound patrolling the station; cell phone in hand, ignoring the greeting from two stationed police officers.
"Good morning, Special Agent Perkins."
Nothing.
He didn't even bother to look at them as he clicked his phone shut, tucking it away in the inner lining of his jacket.
And when the Jackal spotted his prey – you, standing guiltily outside the office of his former foe...
He smiled. Took his phone out again. Began tapping on the screen. Turned the corner, and trotted up the stairs to Fowler's office.
"'As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk...'"
You'd left clean tracks, and he had a trail.
A capital offense within the Law for the Wolves.
"'...The law runneth forward and back.'"
You found Gavin sunk in his chair with his fist holding his chin up as he "foamed at the mouth." Chris, with the small of his back leaned on Gavin's desk; arms crossed. Connor, sitting across from Hank, and the grizzled old man with his hands curled tight in front of his keyboard.
All of them watched the FBI agent from a safe distance before spotting you, delivering a unified nod.
There was no room for Jackals, here.
"'For the strength of the pack is the wolf...'"
Not unless the Jackal came to devise a capital offense of his own.
"'...And the strength of the wolf is the pack.'"
Behind the Scenes
(Links on AO3)
CTN TV Broadcast
Castle R6 Quote
Jackal R6 Quote
Law for the Wolves (Law of the Jungle)