#vampire androids

Chemical analysis aside, Caleb moved to examine the byte code of the thirium. It was unusual then that it didn’t fall into the usual patterns of ones and zeroes, the more he looked along the profile chain the more twos began to show up. Whatever it was, it was not sending the right instructions to the thirium pump when ingested. He froze and felt a cool sensation run down his nanotube spine- most androids did not have an ingestion analysis function. But he did- and he’d ingested some of this thirium… and he began to feel… panic? Was this what panic was? No. Caleb was having none of this. He put the information he had processed to the side, making notes to self-test regularly and to keep an eye out for any unpleasant changes.

Gavin grumbled as he pulled the van into the driveway. “My god what a pretentious prick…” he huffed, pulling the handbrake up and unbuckling. “Hey, tin can…” he looked over to see that LED flashing and Gavin felt his heart jump into his throat- had the damn guy ran out of charge? Gavin prodded his arm and then shook it for effect. “Caleb, hey, listen to me-”

“Ah… yes, detective, apologies. I was processing.” He turned to look at him, the LED now glowing as lightly as his eyes were blue. “I did not mean to alarm you, are we here? Ah. Yes it seems so.” He got out of the van and went to the back of it to retrieve the JM500’s lifeless body. Caleb stared at the android spread across his arms and paused for a second. He was sure he had heard Gavin talk to himself about its ‘death’ on the drive up here, but for something to die, it had to be alive, right? Caleb was confused but pushed the thought aside for now. He saw Gavin walking towards the front door and made sure to follow behind him.

Gavin got to the door and breathed deeply for a second. Despite him and his brother getting on well, he still felt anxious coming by for anything- like he was inadequate, or not good enough to solve his own problems. A trembling finger moved to buzz the doorbell and he shuffled his feet making patterns in the fallen snow. His attention snapped up as he saw Chloe, eyes narrowing a little and he felt the need to stand a little taller. “Yeah, Elijah knows we’re coming,” he began before watching the female android smile at him, causing his unsettled feeling to grow.

“Yes, you texted ahead. I’ll go and fetch him, make yourself comfortable in the dining hall- there’s food and drink there,” she moved to the side to let them both in before closing the door and wandering into the side door.

“Stupid brother…” he grumbled.

Caleb was confused, and he clutched onto the body of the JM500 tighter. “Why is he stupid? Mister Kamski is a verifiable genius by all standards, or am I missing some human sibling rivalry?”

He huffed and stomped off into the dining hall, swiping a bread roll and some cured ham, making an incredibly crude sandwich and making a point to take a large bite out of it before continuing. “He thinks I can’t take care of myself, that I don’t eat right or some shit like that, so he likes to make a point of leaving food out for me like I’m some kind of foraging animal.” He grumbled as he finished the rest of the roll, wiping his hand on the back of his sleeve with little finesse.

“Well, detective, you do have that look about you.” Caleb replied with an ever so slight smirk on his face, before shaking his head.

Gavin simply flipped him the bird and grabbed some of the water, necking back half of the bottle in a single chug. “Go fuck yourself Caleb… what the hell is taking him so long? Hey, fancy pants, get a move on!” he called out pacing up and down the dining hall.

As if Elijah had been waiting for his cue, he appeared from the far end of the dining hall in a luxury elbow-cuffed black shirt and dress pants, a soft smile etched onto his face as he laid eyes on his brother. “Ah, it’s good to see you, Gavin. I trust you’ve had something to eat, it’s a long drive from Detroit center.” He moved to pour himself some wine and offered a glass to Gavin who declined with a curt shake of his head. “And judging by the machine draped in your partner’s arms, you need me for something? Well, I’m flattered you came to me first, brother, and not your police forensics.”

There was a lot there for him to unpack; his partner, a thinly veiled dependency on his brother, breaking police code- Gavin finished his water instead and crunched the bottle up for impact. “Look, you know these machines better than anyone. We got a body of one of the carriers of this vampire shit and we need you to analyse it because those meatheads back at the DPD don’t know shit,” Gavin gestured to Caleb to bring the body over to Elijah, who sipped his wine thoughtfully.

Elijah’s eyes raked over the taller android, seeing his name flicker and knowing full well Gavin had changed it. Good, he was bonding to some degree… he didn’t make a scene out of it and put the glass down to examine the android. “Thank you, Caleb… now. Hm. Missing a pre-pump filter but knowing you Gavin, you have that… the thirium loss lead you right to the body.” He punctuated each pause with a thoughtful hum as he made sure to give touching the blue blood a wide berth for now. “Bring it through here to my lab, I’ll run some diagnostics on it. You must be truly desperate to solve this case Gavin if you’ve come to me for help, but let me say this,” he said as he led them through to his private high-tech lab, “I am grateful you’re giving me the chance to assist. Place the android here, Caleb… thank you.”

Caleb had been processing their entire interaction with great interest. It was obvious to anyone how closely they were related, the same face shape, same voice, same physical mannerisms. Gavin always talked with his hands, and now watching Elijah do the same it was almost…funny. “It is somewhat surreal to meet one’s maker, I didn’t plan for such an event.”

“Ha, you should be so lucky. I doubt he had a hand in actually making you,” Gavin poked a tongue out at Caleb and leaned against the wall, half debating going back for something else to eat. “He left Cyberlife years ago now… who could blame him though. I’d do the same thing.”

Caleb frowned and looked over at Elijah who was now gloved and wrist deep in the JM500’s chest cavity, lingering blue blood painting his hands. It was unnecessarily visceral and both Caleb and Gavin turned their eyes away for a little. Caleb shifted, feeling a slight warmth spread through him and passed it off as fluctuating inner body temperatures. “Did you have a hand in my creation, Mister Kamski?”

Elijah made a soft non-committal grunt before looking up, a thin screwdriver in his mouth. He let it clatter to the tray beside him with a slight popping sound before he smirked, “Of course I did. All the RK line I created personally, regardless of my involvement with Cyberlife as a company. They still sought me out on advice and designs and such… but little-known fact is you were built on this very table, along with Connor.” Elijah gestured to the table he was currently working on.

Well, that made Caleb feel a little uneasy. Was he once in the same state of disrepair as this hapless JM500? His thirium pump began to pump harder, he could feel it in his chest and in his head and he had to look away for a second to gather himself. “That certainly is something… well, I suppose I should thank you for creating me, it seems the polite thing to do.” Caleb bowed curtly before turning to face Gavin. “Detective, what is it?” he had noticed the man began to look in discomfort.

He put a hand out to stop Caleb getting any closer. The sight of the android spread out for his brother’s genius hands to play with as he saw fit made him feel quite nauseous and Gavin had to breathe deeply. “Just… it looks gory that’s all. Worse than on the roof, at least there it wasn’t actively bleeding.”

The android could somewhat understand that sentiment and he nodded grimly. “I overheard you in the van on the way here, Detective and I was wondering… I know Connor is deviant of course- but do you personally see deviants as alive?”

Elijah’s ears pricked up at that interesting question. He had planned for the RK900 to go deviant at some point, but this speed of self-awareness was beyond even his calculations. What had prompted such an immediate response, he wondered to himself, as he carried on with his work.

“W-wha? Huh… oh, you’re, yeah. Well, depends if these vampire androids are deviant or not… but… well,” it was obvious Gavin was struggling to backpedal and he hoped to god Elijah didn’t make Caleb do the Kamski test to draw a real answer out of him. “I guess they are, I mean that Markus was pretty damn convincing even for the sceptics in the precinct. So yeah, I guess deviants are alive.”

Elijah chuckled and rolled his eyes a little, he loved his twin brother but he could be an almighty dumbass sometimes. “Of course they are. It’s an idea, a virus, it delivers free will and free thought and we are truly gifted to walk among them as equals. I should know. I made them.” He stood upright and pulled the gloves off with an almost comical loud snap, dropping them in the disposal. “Well it seems this android was indeed one of those menacing vampire kinds. This however wasn’t my doing at all- this is purely a natural mutation of deviancy and can be spread, just like deviancy can.” Elijah pulled a screen around for them both to look at. “There’s something up with the post-processing chamber of the thirium pump. If something comes through it, here,” he pointed to the diagram, “it leaves degraded, not replenished. Once the depleted thirium is in the body of the android, it’s game over.”

Caleb felt his pump race again. Game over? What did that mean? He searched the databases for references and what he found made his LED flash red briefly. Death. Androids didn’t die, did they? Was he afraid of dying like the JM500 that now lay sprawled across the table soaking in its own thirium? This wasn’t supposed to happen. He had to compose himself before Elijah noticed.

It was too late. He could already see the creator’s eyes flash with curiosity at the state of his LED and he hoped to rA9 he wouldn’t say anything. Where did that come from? He frowned. He felt his eyes drawn to the thirium on the table, smeared and fluid and-

“Yo Caleb, eyes front and center, you need to remember this information ‘cause I’m gonna forget on the way back,” Gavin huffed and folded his arms as he took the lifeless body back off the table to store it in evidence. “So, in short, quarantine this from the other androids, definitely don’t ingest the blood, and we should be able to hunt the vampire androids with the blood sample we have because it’s all the same blood? Gotcha.” Gavin nodded and turned to leave, feeling Caleb close in behind him.

Elijah hummed and stretched loosely, “You two take care now, won’t you? Caleb, make sure my little brother doesn’t get into trouble… and Gavin, keep a close eye on my magnum opus. He’s… overzealous with his ingestion mechanisms.” Once again, he couldn’t help being cryptic, but it was just so much fun. He led them out to the main lobby and smiled warmly. “Please come and visit again, brother, you’re one of the few humans I can stand to be around.”

Gavin just gave him the finger as best he could with arms full of android body, and then did his best wink. “Yeah, you ain’t half bad for a rich prick either. Later, loser.” He wandered off to the van to put the body in the back.

Caleb went to follow, but had his arm grabbed by Elijah who pulled him close. “I would be very careful with my brother. I can sense there’s something going on inside that head of yours, I can see it in your eyes. Find out who you are by all means… but do not harm my baby brother.” He finished with a very firm tone and released his arm.

He swallowed, those anxieties coming back to him now from earlier, and that lingering knowledge that he had licked and ingested that foul thirium. He could be just like the JM500 in a matter of days, sprawled out and bleeding to… to death. “…I will be most careful, Mister Kamski. I have not forgotten my key task which is to keep Gavin Kamski safe from harm. I will complete that mission.”

“Good, I hope so.” He left it at that and closed the door on the stoic android. Caleb turned on his heels to see Gavin leaning out the driver’s side of the van, and he quickly made his way over to the passenger side, getting in and buckling up.

Gavin lit up a cigarette and started the engine, breathing deep trying his best to calm down. “God, he’s fucking intense. Everything about him is mystery wrapped in pretence wrapped in bullshit. The hell did he say to you at the door, I saw your light flash n’ go red.”

Caleb shifted a little as he tried to keep Gavin calm, he could sense the human’s heart rate had began to rise slightly because of the Elijah topic. “Nothing, he merely reminded me of my mission to keep you safe. He did not want you falling victim to these vampires, that much was abundantly clear. I will not let that happen. Now if you’ll excuse me detective I will be sending a notification back to the precinct to tell them we are on our way back and I shall enter standby.”

“Y-yeah, sure, whatever tin can…” he grumbled. He waited until he saw Caleb’s LED dim slightly before smiling and Gavin mumbled something else under his breath.

It was only a few pages in, but he already felt squeamish. There was just something about the visceral nature of the bloodstains that set him off. Sure, he’d seen human murders but there was just something about that blue blood that set him right off up along uncanny valley. All the cases shared the same hallmarks, two sharp and clean puncture wounds to the neck where he assumed a major android thirium line ran, and all the victims so far had shut down from their blood loss. No human casualties so far, Gavin thought to himself, and it should bloody stay that way.

“Detective, if I may? It seems that these androids are draining the thirium from others to restore their own supply. There is something about these androids’ biocomponents that is faulty. I checked the evidence lock up and found a part recovered from one of the crime scenes,” Caleb produced the evidence bag and placed it on the desk between them. It was a thirium pre-pump filter, designed to rid the blue blood of any particulate matter before it entered the main pump. It didn’t look any different until Caleb took it out of the bag and opened the seal around the cylindrical object popping it open did Gavin see the big flaw. It was caked inside with a good centimetre of residue and degraded thirium, meaning whatever programming was inside the android it came from was not working properly. It should have told the unit to filter out this matter before it got inside the chamber.

Caleb hummed. “This amount of residue clearly shows that the blood was not being filtered properly and would degrade fairly rapidly over time. This is not part of a healthy system… and then the android would be forced to seek out more blue blood to replace its own degraded stock.”

Gavin turned over the filter in his hands and grimaced at the cobalt-like rust on his fingertips. “Equivalent of a chain smoking tin can huh… not good for you. So, we track down where this part came from, what crime scene and when, and work from there because if there’s one there’s more right?”

The android nodded and stood up, taking the filter back and scanning it. “… JM500, android perpetrator on the corner of Cass Avenue and Temple Street. An alleyway behind the Temple Bar. Let’s go, Detective.”

By the time they got to the bar, it was raining quite heavily. The two exited the patrol car and found the alleyway where the crime had taken place two weeks prior. Caleb moved up to the chain link fence and looked around cautiously, before speaking. “There’s a lot of thirium residue here… it dries and becomes invisible to the naked eye, but it leaves behind a chemical footprint. This entire area is covered in it. The attack must have been very…”

Gavin held a hand up and cut him off. “Yeah yeah alright, I get the picture. It was grim, let’s just… move the fuck on and take a closer look.” He opened the gate into the alleyway and let Caleb take charge and have a look about. “Oh, and don’t you dare put any of that shit into your mouth, it’s disgusting, and it could be… ya know. Contaminated.”

“Understood, Detective. I’ll simply observe.” Caleb began to follow the traces of the dried thirium, leading him around the back of the bar where a very large puddle stain sat by the recycling bins. “This is where the body was found judging by the stain on the ground. I can’t see where the assailant fled to, or where he came from, unless…” Caleb looked up, and above the bins and saw a thirium smear on the low flat roof. “It went up. It jumped on the bins and…” Caleb swiftly jumped up onto the metal bin, before grabbing the top of the roof and vaulting up onto the felted roof. “Yes, Detective, it fled this way. It wouldn’t have gotten far without that filter pump, so let’s keep looking.”

Gavin stared, swore under his breath, and clambered up on top of the bin getting his balance back before reaching for the roof. “Uh, little help here tin can, I can’t… I can’t fucking reach okay?”

A soft chuckle came from the roof and an arm extended downwards to grab Gavin’s wrist and hoist him up with ease, helping him clamber to the flat roof. “You’re welcome, Detective. It must be here somewhere… there.” He raised a hand and pointed to the taller adjoining building to the right. “It has a ladder… the thirium stains are much more pronounced here.”

All that meant to Gavin was… “It’s up there. It’s got to be there’s nowhere else to run.” When Caleb nodded, Gavin took off. He jumped up onto the ladder and began climbing, hearing the clink of Caleb’s metal rimmed boots knock against the rusted ladder. Gavin tried his best not to look down and finally made it to the top of the roof, looking around desperately. “There- it’s there!”

In the left-hand corner of the taller building lay the body of an android that had leaked so much thirium it was still barely visible to Gavin. It was slumped over a pipe, as if it was using it to try and hide from the police, arms tangled around the metal tubing. Caleb soon joined him on the roof, scanning the android. “It’s safe to approach Detective… it won’t move without a supply of thirium and that filter. It’s a miracle it made it this far.” Caleb reached down to remove the android from the piping, laying the body down flat on the roof to examine it closer.

It was a JM500 model, developed for working with children and vulnerable adults according to the data sheet Caleb had pulled up and read out loud to Gavin who was standing watch over Caleb as he assessed. Caleb eased its mouth apart and saw some damage to the dental structure; some of the teeth were pointed.

“That explains the puncture wounds.” Gavin moved a little closer to take some pictures. “Hey, can you see any thirium residue?” he wondered, feeling more and more uncomfortable about this.

Caleb opened the mouth a little wider to examine the synthetic tongue. “There is a large amount of residue yes… it seems the android bit the victim and extracted the fresh thirium from the unwilling donor.”

Gavin shuddered and shook himself out to try and rid himself of that bad vibe. He watched as Caleb investigated further, showing the large gash to the chest cavity and the location of the missing pump. “It obviously got cut loose by the victim, and the android fled here to try and repair itself… which clearly failed. If it was functioning, I would be able to assess its programming to see if anything was at fault, but I cannot.”

Pulling a face, Gavin folded his arms and huffed uncomfortably. “… but unfortunately, I know a man that can help us. I’ll call a squad car to pick up this body and then it’s straight on over to the St. Clair River. I’ve got a favour to call in.” He turned around to look down at the road below him and pulled his phone out to call back. “Yeah, Gavin here, uh huh… can you send an evidence van out to us at Temple Bar, and have someone drive the squad car back? Thanks. Yeah, we found the JM500… gonna take it to… yeah. Yep.” Gavin groaned softly. “Shut it, I’m not gonna fucking enjoy this Hank quit laughing. Fuck off, you old prick…”

Caleb had crouched down again while Gavin was on the phone. He could see everything inside this android’s chest and he dipped his fingers in the thirium that was still clinging to the wires curious. He scanned it, nothing seemed to be wrong with it. A little taste couldn’t hurt, right? He brought his fingers to his tongue and analysed it. Standard composition blue blood, the good old thirium 310… with an odd zesty ting to it. Caleb wondered if it had been out in the air for too long and he wiped the rest of it on his jeans. “Shall I carry the android down to ground level, Detective?”

Gavin swore under his breath and hung up the phone, nodding. “Take it easy we don’t wanna damage it. I don’t know what we are gonna get out of it as it is but… it’s gotta be something.” He climbed back down the ladder and took the legs of the JM500, having Caleb deal with the top half. By the time they managed to get to ground level, an officer had arrived with an evidence van and Caleb quickly put the android’s body in the back and locked it up.

“Hank knows where we’re off to, don’t know when we’ll be back. We’ll process this evidence when we get back… got it?” Gavin took the keys from the young officer who looked intimidated and nodded rapidly, anything to get the detective off his back. He got into the van and waited for Caleb to settle in the passenger side, before making a beeline north towards Lake St. Clair which was an hour and twenty minutes away at best. Gavin wasn’t even keen to get there in a hurry knowing what was in store for him when he arrived.

“Caleb… look through my phone and send a text to Elijah. Tell him… put his damn pants on he’s gonna have company,” he groaned as he rolled the windows up, the northern snowy air giving him a bit of a chill.

Caleb sent the message as instructed and sat back in the chair. “Is that a common occurrence, that he doesn’t have pants on?” he tried to lighten the mood a little, sensing Gavin’s heart rate had begun to climb somewhat.