Warnings: Discussions of domestic abuse, references to physical abuse, dehumanization of androids, canon-typical DBH prejudice.
Additional warnings/tags may be added as story progesses
Summary:Detroit is beginning to feel like home. Elise has a job she loves, a coworker to eat lunch with, and coffee shops she can finally call her own. Then, one evening, someone asks her for help, and Elise realizes she can't keep pretending not to notice what's happening around her.
(Connor x oc story that begins a few weeks prior to the events of Detroit: become human and extends through 2042)
Monday, October 15th, 2038
Today is the big day. Elise’s first day at her new job, and of course, she wakes up early. Too early. She’s supposed to wake up at 5:45am, but instead she wakes up at 5am.
Somehow convinced she won’t have enough time to get to the office, even though she had walked her route plenty of times the week prior.
Of course, it is raining. Why wouldn’t it be on her first day? She finally gets out of bed at 5:10, because there is no way with her nerves she will be able to fall back asleep. Walking to the bathroom, she brushes her teeth, washes her face and brushes her hair.
Suddenly, she isn’t so sure about the outfit she picked out. Elise thinks to herself, “what if it’s too much?”,“what if everyone thinks I look stupid?”, “what if they think i’m trying too hard?”
She tries on an additional two to the one she had originally picked. Unsure of what looks best, she reaches for her phone, but quickly abandons the idea because she realizes most of her friends back home are probably still asleep.
She begrudgingly settles on a grey blouse with black dress pants. She’s not fully convinced she likes it, but at this point she is not convinced she will like any outfit.
Elise makes her way into the kitchen, getting her lunch, water bottle, and work bag ready to go. She triple checks everything, still not convinced she has everything. She leaves fifteen minutes earlier than she needs to, and doesn’t even stop for coffee because that seems like “too much” on day one.
When she finally reaches the office, it is 6:40am, twenty minutes before she needs to be there. She contemplates going in or waiting outside. Again, she is plagued by the thought her coworkers and boss might think she is weird or annoying. However, she determines being early is better than being late and goes inside anyway.
She pushes through the glass doors and walks up to the front desk. There is an android working behind the desk who greets her, “Hello ma'am! How can I help you?”
Elise responds kindly but also nervously, “Hello. I’m uh- I'm here for my first day. I’m a little early. I can wait if you need me to.”
The android responds with a smile, “Oh no. That is perfectly fine. What is your name? I just need to sign you in.”
“It’s Elise. Thank you.. And what is your name?”
The girl behind the counter looks a little shocked Elise asked that, but says kindly, “It’s Emma.”
“Thanks, Emma. I’m sure I’ll see you around.” And with that, she walks past another set of doors into the office space.
Inside, her boss is already standing with a coffee, chatting with some of her new coworkers. He turns to her, smiling, “Oh! You must be Elise! Welcome to the team!”
Elise returns the smile, “Thank you. I’m very excited to be here.”
Her boss questions, “I assume you met Emma? She’s wonderful.”
Elise can see some of the coworkers who were chatting roll their eyes at his comment. Some even walk away, but she notices some of them smile. She responds, “Oh, yes I did. She seems very nice.”
Her boss starts walking with her, giving her a tour, introducing her to people, briefly going over her job duties. He stops in the middle of a hallway, “But unfortunately, your first three weeks are basically nothing but reading and training videos. If you can hold out, I promise it gets much more interesting.”
Elise lets out a polite laugh, “Oh yes. I was expecting that so it is perfectly okay.”
After what feels like an eternity, she is finally alone in her new office. She hadn’t brought any decorations because she honestly was not sure what the office situation was going to be, but now that she knows she can plan accordingly. If she is going to spend 40 hours a week here, it might as well be cute.
Eventually, a coworker stops by her office. It’s a younger woman, Elise assumes she is close to her age.
The girl peeks in, “Are you busy?”
Elise pauses a training video. “Not really. Why?”
The girl says, “I’m Violet. I was the newest here until you just started! I’m glad to see someone… younger. Most people are nice, but the generational differences can be awkward sometimes.”
Elise smiles, “Yes. I noticed there weren’t too many younger people around. Just you and two others.”
Violet asks, “When did you graduate? It couldn’t have been that long ago.”
Elise replies, “In May. This was my first and only job offer.”
Violet’s eyes widened, “No way! Me too. I just graduated in May. But I was lucky, I got hired in August.”
Elise sighs, “The job market is tough for new graduates. Especially in this field.”
Violet nods in agreement, “Yes it is… wait so how old are you? Twenty three?”
Elise giggles a little, “Actually, twenty- two. I’m a spring baby so I'm always one of the youngest in my class.”
Violet nods, “Okay.. Will you find me at lunch?”
Elise says, “Sure!” and returns back to her training video.
After four more excruciating hours of reading so much her eyes hurt, it is finally time for lunch. Elise definitely does not want to be the first to get up and go, so it helps when Violet finds her in her office.
Elise responds, “Yes! My eyes hurt from all the reading.”
They settle at a table in the break room, Violet is heating up something in a microwave and casually asks, “So did you graduate from University of Michigan?”
Elise shakes her head no, “No, I’m actually from Florida. I went to the University of Central Florida. In Orlando.”
Violet exclaims, “I’m jealous! I’m from Detroit, so I just ended up moving back here.”
Elise laughs, “Well. I’m not from Orlando. I’m from a small town down at the bottom of Florida. I think Detroit is… nice so far.”
Violet covers her face with her hands, “Ugh but Disney! I’m so jealous. But… you don’t think Detroit seems.. Tense?”
Elise sighs, “No I actually do. I just didn’t want to point it out.”
Suddenly, the room is filling up with other coworkers coming to eat, microwave food, and talk. So the conversation of Detroit being tense is quickly abandoned by the two women.
Until an older employee sits down at a table nearby with a sigh. “Did you all see the news this morning?” he asked. “Another one of those ‘deviant’ incidents.”
Someone at another table scoffs, “CyberLife says it’s defective programming. People need to stop acting like it’s the end of the world.”
A woman at the table shakes her head, “I don’t know. My sister and her husband had an android. She swore he was acting weird before they got rid of him.”
The older man laughed, “It.”, he corrected. “They’re machines. I don’t know why everyone is making this into some moral crisis.”
Violet glanced down at her lunch before looking over at Elise, whose jaw was slightly tightened.
Violet quietly speaks up, “I don’t know. Emma works downstairs everyday. She is always nice, and she remembers little details you tell her.”
The older man snaps back, “That’s her job. We wouldn’t have a machine working here that wasn’t polite to us.”
Violet and Elise give each other a look that says: Don’t argue with him. There’s no point.
As soon as they’re walking back to their offices, out of ear shot, Elise says, “I don’t understand why people go out of their way to be cruel.”
Violet sighs, “I know. I’m glad someone else feels the same way. I usually just eat in my car.”
Elise lets out a laugh, “Maybe we should start again tomorrow.”
The days that followed settled into something resembling a routine. Elise learned which coffee shops had the shortest line before work and which ones had pastries worth a few extra minutes. She and Violet ate lunch together most days, complaining about training videos, gossiping, and pretending they understood half of what everyone else seemed to already know.
She eventually bought a cat shaped pen holder to brighten up her office, and a small plant she hoped she wouldn’t accidentally kill.
Outside of the office, Detroit seemed to grow increasingly restless.
Protests became more common, News reports about “deviant incidents” played on televisions in waiting rooms, gyms, break rooms, almost everywhere. Conversations about androids slipped into everyday life with alarming ease.
Some people sounded afraid, some sounded angry, and some sounded unsure. Other people seemed exhausted by the constant headlines.
Elise noticed Emma greeting everyone at the front desk with the same polite smile, even when people refused to look at her.
The older man from the break room still referred to Emma as “it.” Emma always smiled at him anyway.
Detroit kept moving, and so did Elise.
Until one evening, on her walk home from work. She had been working late that night, already exhausted and dreading the next day, but she noticed someone out of the corner of her eye. An android, standing to the side, trying to hide while looking frightened.
Elise almost didn't stop because she has work tomorrow. This seems risky, and what would she even do? But something inside tells her she needs to stop.
She slows and pauses just as she passes the android, noticing blue covering her sleeve.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
The android seems hesitant, but responds. “No.. I’m- I'm not. Can you help me?”
Elise looks around, “We need to go somewhere else.” Luckily, many people are not out, and they weren't in a very busy area. They manage to make it to Elise's apartment unnoticed.
As soon as they are safely inside, Elise asks, “What happened? Are you hurt? I’m- I'm sorry I don’t know much about androids. Is there something I can do?”
"I am a WR400," the android said quietly.
Elise stared at her for a moment before admitting, "I have absolutely no idea what that means."
The android blinked, "You... don't?"
"I know the basics," Elise said apologetically. "I know there are different models, but I don't know what all of them do. I'm sorry if that's insensitive. I didn't grow up around many androids."
The android was silent for a moment before shaking her head. "No," she said softly. "I just assumed everyone knew."
The girl explains, “I am meant to be a romantic partner, but the man who bought me… He would come home angry. He would hit me, throw things, and I was supposed to deal with it. I was his. But tonight, something in me snapped. I hit him in the head with something and I ran.”
Elise has tears in her eyes now, “That is horrible. I am so sorry. You can stay here tonight, but I don’t think it’ll be safe for you to stay longer than that.”
The android says, “I know where I need to go”
Awkwardly, Elise asks, “Uhh do you want something to eat? Do you eat?”
The girl shakes her head, “No. to both.”
Elise chuckles, “Right. Um, do you need anything?”
The girl says, “I don’t know.”
Elise says, “okay what’s your name?”
Suddenly, Elise is hit with the fear oh my god the police are going to come looking for this girl. “Do the police know?”
After a little more panicking, the two deduce there is no way anyone saw them, and even if the police know it’s not like Elise is a suspect. Elise brings Traci some blankets and pillows, unsure if she even needs to sleep, but maybe it would make her comfortable.
Elise is finally able to fall asleep after internally panicking for another hour.
Elise awakens the next morning at 5:30am, Traci still sitting on the sofa. Coming into the living room, ready for work she sleepily says, “Morning.”
“Morning.” Traci says tensely.
Elise says softly, “I have to go to work now. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Yes” Traci responds, “I know where more of my people are. Thank you for helping me.”
“Of course.”, Elise softly smiles
Elise gets to work absolutely exhausted. She can barely stay awake in her office, with all the boring training material.
She is very glad when it’s finally lunch. Violet says before they go out to the car, she needs to warm something up, so they head to the break room.
A few coworkers are already inside, watching the news.
The older man from before scoffs, “An android attacking its owner? This is getting out of hand.”
Another coworker chimes in, “They’re becoming dangerous.”
Elise already recognizes the description of events on the news from Traci. She feels sick, so she steps out.
“Sorry, I'm not feeling so great today.”
Violet seems concerned, “You should go home. It’ll be fine.”
Elise makes it through lunch, but something in her gut is telling her to go home, so eventually she does. When she returns, she finds Traci still there.
“I’m sorry. I know I need to leave, but I need help getting there.”
Elise looks at her and says, “Okay. What do we need to do?”
Traci hesitated before speaking. "There are people who help androids like me," she said quietly. "I was told if I ever needed them, I should find a woman named Rose."
Traci nodded. "I don't know much more than that. I have an address."
A woman, an address. This must mean there are people who help, and people who have been helping before today.
She thought of the protests outside campus. The conversations in the break room. Emma smiling politely while people called her "it."
Detroit had felt tense for weeks, she just hadn't realized why.
"Okay," Elise said finally, grabbing her keys from the counter. "Then we'll find Rose."
Elise gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary.
She kept waiting for flashing lights, for someone to stop them, for someone to tell her she'd made a terrible mistake.
Instead, Detroit moved around them as it always had. People left restaurants carrying takeout, students hurried down sidewalks, cars stopped at red lights, the world hadn't changed.
The drive was quiet. It was outside of Detroit, rural. Which made Elise feel more at ease, considering Traci was all over the news.
"What happens after this?" she asked softly.
Traci stared out the passenger window, "I don't know," she admitted.
For some reason, that answer made Elise want to cry.
As they approach the house, a woman, maybe mid 30s comes outside. “Can I help you?” she asks.
Elise says, “Yes. My friend had your address. She said you could help her.”
Rose looks at Traci, “Come inside. It’s safer there.” Elise lingers behind as Traci steps inside, as Rose turns to go in, she looks at Elise.
"You brought her here," Rose said.
Elise shifted awkwardly, "I didn't know what else to do."
Rose's expression softened, "Most people keep walking."
Elise glanced at the house Traci just disappeared into before quietly saying, "I couldn't."
Elise turns, heading back to her car, deeply unsettled by what was supposed to be a normal work day before Rose softly catches her arm.
“You don’t have to do this again, but just in case, here’s my number.”
Elise tucked the piece of paper into her wallet beside her new Michigan ID.
She told herself she wouldn't need it. After all, she had only helped one person.
Tomorrow, she would go back to work, she would eat lunch with Violet, and she would watch training videos and stop at a coffee shop before work. Tomorrow, she was sure everything would go back to normal.
It didn't occur to her that normal had changed the moment she'd decided to stop walking.
When she returned home, the apartment still smelled faintly of pumpkin. Her lunch bag sat on the counter waiting to be packed for tomorrow, the dishes she'd meant to wash before leaving for work were still in the sink.
Everything looked exactly as she'd left it.
Elise stood in the middle of her tiny apartment and realized that somehow, despite the familiar surroundings, she no longer recognized the life she'd walked back into.
I genuinely could not stop writing this once i started😭 i know connor is still fashionably late to his own fic, but i promise we're getting there. I am SO excited to start introducing more familiar faces💙
working 7am-3pm really encourages my unhinged writing. I made bullet points ALL day at work and came home and dumped it all out. Hope you enjoy <3
