✓ Skin Deep ↠ Connor | D:BH

Chapter Five: Stripper Connor

I watch Connor stare at a stripper android in a tube, looking at him seductively. A pang of...hurt? Jealousy? Definitely not.

"See something you like?" I ask him.

He shakes his head. "Of course not. Let's go."

We walk into a room of about ten more pleasure androids, a few on stripper poles instead of in tubes. I stop, gawking at a well-endowed man spinning around the rod, eyeing me flirtatiously. Waving awkwardly, I stumble forward, not taking my eyes off of him. Except, all I can think about is Connor on a pole with a large...add on.

"See something you like?" Connor throws my words back at me. He has an unusual expression on his face, but I can't decipher it. Maybe there's just an error in his code so his face is acting funny.

"Not really. I mean, no," I correct, following behind him. My heart beats fast as I enter the room, but it's not from the dead body in the room.

Gavin approaches Connor and I. "If I get you in bed, I'm ordering a Traci to join in," he says, grinning like he has said the best idea ever.

"I don't think either one would want to...procreate...with you, with how small your penis is."

I snort, choking on air, coughing for a good minute.

"How would you know it's small? Does your prototype have X-Ray vision or something?"

Connor shakes his head. "No. I have access to your physical for the precinct. It's below average. There's surgeries you can do."

"Oh my God, stop Connor. I'm literally going to die," I huff out, leaning over in laughter.

"You aren't dying," Connor says, his eyebrow going up in confusion.

I grin. "It's a figure of speech. Let's get back to the case. You done here, Gavin?"

Gavin looks at Connor with clear intentions of probably murder, but huffs and leaves the room. I go to work photographing the room. When I'm finished, I return to Hank for notes.

"Think you can read the android's memory? Maybe you can see what happened," Hank says to Connor, who is leaning over a beat up android.

"I can try." The skin from his hand disappears as he attempts to connect to the Traci. Frustrated, he turns to us. "The only way to access its memory is to reactivate it."

"Think you can do it?"

"It's badly damaged. If I can, it'll only be for a minute, maybe less. I        just hope it's long enough to learn something." He exposes her stomach, messing with her wires. Her eyes spring open in fear, shying away from Connor.

"Calm down...everything's all right. All we want is to know what happened," Connor tries to soothe.

"Is he...is he dead?" she asks, looking around, scared out of her mind.

Connor nods. "Tell me what happened."

"He started...hitting me...again...and again. I begged him to stop, but                he wouldn't."

Something inside of me makes me want to hug the android.

"Were you alone in the room? Was there anyone else with you?"

"He wanted to play with two girls. That's what he said, there were                two of us."

"What model was the other android? Did it look like you?" Connor asks frantically, but before Traci can reply, her eyes go dim. She's gone.

"So, there was another android. This happened over an hour ago, it's probably long        gone," Hank says, his gaze still on the deactivated android. I look over at the dead man, having the urge to strangle him myself.