• • •

"I spy with my little eye something...," Mia trailed off, leaning forward in her seat to get a good look at everything around their moving vehicle one last time before committing to her choice. "Red," she leant back in her seat and, having thrown the metaphorical ball in his courtyard, she moved her gaze to her left, towards Connor. His blue LED was blinking while he took his turn in looking out the windows of the self-driving car, scanning for anything and everything red that she might have chosen.

"The barn's roof, in the distance," he looked back at Mia just in time to spot the absolute radiance of victory flash joy across her features.

"Wrong," she almost sang along, noting down on the piece of paper in her lap another dash under her name. The score was pretty tight, though they've been playing this game of hers for the entirety of the time elapsed since they've left the CyberLife tower. Two hours and twelve minutes, Connor ruled out the vagueness. The score is now fifty-six to fifty-seven, for Mia.

"May I have another go?" He inquired. Though he's been skeptical about the use of her proposed game at first, failing to grasp the meaning to such a guess-reliant activity, Connor now understood this to be buy a way for Mia to avoid the human sentiments of annoyance and irritation which her kind often gained from staying silent and still for a very long time. It wasn't supposed to be a useful and efficient activity of the sort she has gotten him used to when working, it was just a human antic, which as per agreements, he should do well to learn from; the probability of needing to know of such games which relax humans on long journeys was low, but not low enough to rule this as totally irrelevant information.

It was a learning experience on the matter of his co-worker as well. He had no doubt he'd get to know more about her still now that they weren't confined to working in the CyberLife lab.

"Sure," she nodded along, finally prompting Connor to look back outside.

"A traffic sign," he presented his second guess and Mia's body language spoke her response before her lips could even part. Losing, even in such a childish setting, seemed to have an effect on her, meaning that after two hours and thirteen minutes now, Connor could add to his assessment of her the 'competitive' trait.

"Correct," she noted down a point for him as well. "Your turn."

The rules of the game, as presented to him, were that he had to choose a different object from outside the car and describe it to Mia using only the object's most prominent color, that being her only clue in trying to identify what he had seen. Of course, the highly confusing catchphrase was part of the rules as well, therefore he sighed after a moment of contemplation, "I spy with my little eye something green."

"It can't be grass again, you've already said that once-"

"And grass hairs do not count as separate objects, yes," Connor interrupted with a reiteration of the clarification to the rules he was given about an hour ago. "I am aware of that. It's not grass this time, I promise."

"Fine," Mia leant forward and started studying their changing surroundings.

"Take your time, this one's a little tricky."

"Don't get cocky with me, Connor," she sounded vaguely offended by his belittling of her, but her smile gave away the fact that his tease was not taken the wrong way. She wasn't a sensitive human in that sense, he discovered a while ago, which meant that little jokes and pokes were almost always welcome into their conversation and had a high probability to earn her smile.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Mia," the monotony of his voice stood out the most when followed by Mia's laugh. Just as his posture seemed out of place perfect when he sat next to her and her restless shifting between a proper posture and a hunched forward one.

He watched her with interest assessing in her own time their surroundings, furrowing her eyebrows downward every time she found a green object but had to subject it to doubt and weigh in whether or not it was likely for Connor to have picked it.

After a good minute of silence, she fell back in her seat with a sigh. "Alright, maybe this one's a little tricky."

"You haven't made a single guess yet," he noted, watching her frustration crease some wrinkles on the bridge of her nose.

"Because I don't want to give you free points over my bad guesses."

"How do you know they are bad guesses if you don't try them out?" Instantaneously, his innocent tonality earned himself a glare.

"Don't play mind tricks on me," Mia warned, shaking her head, giving into one of the habits Connor was all too familiar with by then - when nervous, she resorted to excessive hand gesturing. "I know what you're trying to do here. You see that I am struggling and looking at the wrong things, so you're trying to make me believe that my guesses would be correct so I can make a mistake and give you the lead in the game. Well, it's not going to work, so stop it."

"I am however not interested in winning at the moment, so...," Connor offered a counterargument though he was aware she was onto him already, something expected of her at this point. He could admit that she knew him well, given a good chunk of his programming was finessed through her input.

"Bullshit," Mia didn't miss a beat in calling him out, accentuating each syllable of the word. "Need I remind you I know your code inside out and there's not a single line in there that makes you inclined to take pity, nor be complacent enough to even consider letting me win?" Unintentionally, she pointed out exactly what he knew she would. "Your programming is clear on the fact that you would not deliberately lose either, so cut the crap 'cause you ain't fooling me with it."

"It was worth a try though," he lifted his chin but a few centimeters higher, resorting to a brief shrug.

"Just to get me all riled up over it?"

"Yes," he too answered fast, looking her right in the eye, with utmost seriousness.

Apparently honesty of that caliber was a quick route to making Mia look away in a fit of laughter. He found himself then considering with a certain degree of fondness the fact that humans were so strangely predictable in as many ways as they were chaotically the opposite.

A brief alarm ringing from her phone, abandoned somewhere in the narrow storage area between their seats interrupted Mia before she could resume the game.

"Time to message your father, I assume," Connor called this stage of their routine for what it was, watching with interest how she hurriedly retrieved her phone and opened the camera.

"You assume correctly," with just as much haste as the way she lifted her phone up came her reply. She leant closer over the space separating their seats and looked up at the screen, "Scoot closer."

Connor followed the command and also leant closer, letting his shoulder tap hers. He looked up at the camera, according to routine - this wasn't the first time Mia has made him take part in her daily update to her father, living a whole timezone away from her. In fact, it has been a daily occurrence ever since she was appointed management over the development of the RK800 series model, and Connor reckoned it would be a tradition of sorts that would continue during this field trial period as well.

Looking up at the screen of the phone, Connor was distracted by how brightly Mia smiled. Of course she did, he cleared the thought out. This picture is for her father, and according to analysis, she seems to have a good relationship with him.

A click later, Mia returned to her seat properly and so did Connor. "I swear he loves seeing you in these pictures, even if he doesn't outright say it," she studied the picture she took for a moment longer, thus leaving Connor some time to refresh his mind on what he deducted already about her father - he wasn't very fond of androids, though he failed to understand a reason as to why, given Mia seemed positively warmer than usual to them.

"Truck!" She exclaimed, dumbfounded by the detail she found in the picture and immediately turned around, looking behind at a clearly green truck driving decently close behind them. Her shock turned into a glare and before Connor could respond, he was met with a slap across his arm, albeit one he'd sooner describe in a formal report as a tap. "You freaking cheater!" Mia dropped back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You never mentioned I cannot look behind to find the object," Connor defended himself serenely.

"But how exactly am I supposed to look behind for objects without you noticing then? I am not an android, I can't do that, therefore, it's an unfair advantage."

"Which you should have considered before proposing the game. If this truly classifies as cheating, it should still not count as such, because you clearly won in the end regardless of my advantage," Connor reached over and tapped on the piece of paper in her lap with two digits. "Congratulations, Mia!"

Meeting his eyes clued her in on the faint appearance of a smile, denoting that he was emulating human 'playfulness'. It wasn't all that long ago that she queried him about his levels of sarcasm given how often he chose to tease her about things and challenge her in every he way he could. To that day, Mia still remembered his response word for word: "I am programmed to adapt to human behaviour unpredictability, because a harmonious connection is proved to enhance the efficiency in a workplace. Having ran a behavioural analysis on you, I have come to the conclusion that you require an android able to understand and to apply sarcasm and wit alike during conversations, simulating an extroverted individual. Hence what you would call 'teasing' is necessary to ensure a level of warmth between us, for the sake of our work environment's efficiency."

Through remembering that moment, Mia decided not to cut herself off from the relaxation which came with a smile. Connor's intelligence managed to surprise her each and every day since she took over the project. Sometimes, she even found herself falling for his illusion of humanity.

Just then was one of those rare times, with the side of her head leant on the back of her seat and her eyes overlooking that LED on his temple, focusing instead on the realism of the synthetic skin and hair.

"How do you feel about taking things to the next level with this trip?"

"I don't feel."

Like always, the illusion didn't last long. Mia moved her head to look back ahead. The town was starting to take shape somewhere in the distance and according to the street signs they were passing, they were almost at their destination. "You know what I mean, Connor. Are you expecting positive results out of this? Do you reckon there will be setbacks? I am asking for your educated opinion here."

"In that case, I believe you should manage your expectations more before we arrive."

The bluntness of his response chilled her. It was by no means a cold tonality he used, but the fact that he could see right through her enough to know that she was excited for quick progress now that they have finally been approve for field testing was awfully humiliating. "There's nothing wrong with being hopeful."

Hope is a human trait, Connor wished to remind her, however he held back, given he had just enough social intelligence to understand she did not appreciate his previous response, even if it was just a truthful answer to her question. He could have remained silent in return, of course, but he preferred to explain himself instead, "Data shows small towns are apprehensive towards androids, so there's a high probability my presence within the police station will not be taken to kindly."

"The police station and town hall both agreed to take part in this project, you know." The cadence of her speech made Connor consider that she was sounding a whole lot like she was rather hoping in all futility of the goal to convince him to be excited about this endeavour, than defend her own stance. "They are getting paid a small fortune to do this for us and it's in their contract that they should not hinder our progress. They will cooperate, they signed on that."

Connor nodded. They have just entered the town, a small thing whose tallest building was the church. From the first glance he could already tell this was nothing like the CyberLife tower he has grown to know so well. A cross stood taller in these parts than the quietly flapping flag atop the town hall. It was too early in the day for any shop to be opened yet and the streets, clean as they were, seemed abandoned to the morning dew and the gentle fog still getting dispelled by the rising sun.

"There is also a matter of positioning that affects our odds of immediate success and progress," Connor continued after a moment of taking in the place Mia will have to call her home for the next six months, as according to the trial timeline. "I am built to assist police stations in cities. Cities have a high criminality rate which I am designed to help lower. Towns like this do not have a high criminality rate, therefore the results we will be getting are going to be affected by an incompatibility of variables."

"Walk before you run," Mia responded absentmindedly. Upon looking her way, Connor was perplexed to meet her eyes held a certain degree of sadness as they started out the window and took in the town. Did she not like it? Did she associate it with an unpleasant memory? Had his words upset her rather than the scenery perhaps?

"What?" Instead of prying on things that did not concern him, Connor opted for showing confusion about her words.

That seemed to have drawn Mia's attention away from the town and back to him, however it did not fix the sadness in her eyes. It was not his job to fix it, but not knowing what had caused it in the first place disturbed him. He was supposed to be able to analyze and understand these things and if this were an interrogation, the information he's not seeing could have been crucial.

"Walk before you run," Mia repeated slower, gaining his full attention too. "You can't start running without learning how to walk first. We have to start small, and not because I doubt your capabilities. If it were only about your intelligence and potential to follow clues, reconstruct evidence and piece together a case, I would have vouched for you myself to get you sent to the station right in Detroit immediately. However, you must also be able, as per your file, to integrate in the workplace. We needed a compliant environment, free of major media attention, with a low stress rate on the criminality side in order to ensure your adaptability is the most efficient it can be. I know it is, but the company needs the data to support my claims before they authorise you to a more appropriate job for your programming."

"Walk before you run," Connor repeated quietly her saying.

"I have faith in you, even if your calculations so far do not," Mia added, having not heard him at all. Her mind was somewhere distant, rummaging a truth, Your human emulation fooled me. Surely it must be good enough to fool others too.

• • •

AUTHOR'S NOTE |
So it begins ✨️ this chapter may seem like a slow ending but it was a necessary one to set the town and build the scene. Plus it establishes soo well just how much empathy Mia holds for machines, though she should probably know better than to humanize them as much as she does.

Hope you enjoy! While I am still hella inspired, I will try to update as often as I can. Thank you!