Puma POV

"Lia! I'm fucking tired of you putting your life in danger! That's two fucking times today that I'm aware of! Anything else you did I should know?!" Dad yelled in my face as we were standing outside his car, which was parked right next to my house.

God, I feel like a kid again. I thought as I remembered Dad yelling at me when I was in trouble. But I wasn't a little kid anymore.

"Dad stop! I said I'm sorry! I'm keeping my promise. I'm staying home for three days. There. We're all good now?" I asked.

"Almost." Dad growled as he turned to Connor, who was trying not to notice us and played with his coin. "You. I'm trusting you to take care of her and make sure she stays at home. No flirting or fucking included. Got it?"

Connor blinked twice and put his coin away. "Of course, lieutenant."

"Alright. You two head on home. Text me if you need anything."

"Right. Thanks, Dad." I said as we walked towards the house. "Goodnight," I mumbled over my shoulder.

"Goodnight, Lia." I heard Dad from behind me followed by a car door opening. Connor closely followed me.

I unlocked the door as stepped in as my dog, Hunter, jumped onto my shoulders in greeting.

"Hey, Hunter! Guess what? I'm grounded! More time with you! And look who I brought?" I pointed to Connor. Hunter quickly jumped onto him, taking the Android by surprise. "Hunter down," I commanded, smacking his ear. He obeyed and went to his dark blue bean bag chair, his sleeping spot.

"It's alright, Detective Puma," Connor said, attempting to smile as he brushed himself off. I laughed softly as we walked further into the house, passing the living room, and going into the kitchen. Connor walked over to play with Hunter.

"Artemis!" I shouted. Expecting no answer, I picked a bag of treats off the counter. I shook the bag of treats making a 'pspsps' noise. Connor seemed interested in what I was doing.

I must look ridiculous doing this. Don't fail me, Artie.

I heard a small "meawr!" followed by soft footsteps. Soon, my light-grey cat, Artemis, walked over to me and tilted her head. I have her a treat which she gratefully accepted.

"So, this is my house. You're welcome to look around since you'll be staying for a while here." I gestured around my house to Connor. He thanked me and walked off upstairs to my bedroom and guest rooms.

Well, this is going to be a fun three days. I thought to myself with a smirk.

***

It was dark. Cold. I heard something fall as someone yelled.

"What are you waiting for?! Chase it!" It was my dad. We were back at the suspect's place again. I ran after him, being cautious of my surroundings. I smashed myself into a wall but kicked off with my leg to chase the deviant. He knocked over a shelf and I hopped over it. The emergency exit slammed in my face yet again as I busted it open and chased the deviant on the roof. I jumped over dark red piping of some sort and fell to the ground as I jumped off the roof back into the Urban Farms of Detroit fields again. I quickly ran to catch up to the deviant, jumping on a bus that had something like a bunch of haystacks over it. Jumping onto the roof, I ran around a greenhouse and ran to the edge of the roof to jump through a window. There was some sort of plants being grown, and the room was humid and pretty dark. I saw a lot of gardening androids waiting in place for instructions. I recognized the model. One of the models was Ralph, the android at the abandoned house. He gave me a quick wave before returning to stillness.

He had been a gardening android. I thought as I kept running after the deviant.

I shook it off and chased after the deviant. He slid under a closing door, so I ran for the other exit. My eyes met a beautiful lavender field as I climbed up a ladder. The deviant was so close, yet so far. Dodging people left and right, I took the same shortcut I did and ran past the cornfields. Automatically, I slipped out my gun and yelled out,

"Stop right there!" I yelled. The deviant pushed me over the railing as I grasped for anything to hold on. Two hands caught me, and I looked up to see Connor, holding my hands in his. But something was off about him. He seemed angry, and there was a look of disgrace in his eyes.

"Wake up!" He yelled out sharply and let go of my hands quickly.

"Connor!" I yelled out as I sat upright on my bed. I was sweaty, and my heart was racing. I was about to lay back down as I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs.

Did I really yell out his name? I thought with embarrassment. The door flung wide open as I saw Connor's pitch black silhouette in the doorway. The light in the hallway was on so I couldn't make out his facial features.

"Is everything alright, Detective?" I heard him ask.

"Y-yeah." I stuttered as I fell onto my bed. I couldn't help but let my breath quiver.

Please don't let him scan me so he knows everything is the opposite of okay.

"Your heart rate is at 182 and your breathing is uneven. Were you having a bad dream?" He seemed to read my mind.

Fuck.

"Ugh, no," I said quietly, covering my face with my hands.

"Detective, there is no point in lying. I know when you are telling the truth or hiding something." Connor closed the door carefully and walked towards me to sit at the foot of my bed.

"Yeah. Alright, alright. Have it your way." I let my hands fall from my face. "I had a nightmare about what happened today. It's nothing really. You should go back to... doing whatever you were doing."

(A/N: Have it your way! Me, heavily engaged in a book: only at burger king?)

"Hank's orders stated: You. I'm trusting you to take care of her and make sure she stays at home. No flirting or fucking included. Got it? You were having a nightmare, and my orders say I'm supposed to be taking care of you. Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's really nothing." I shook my head in objection, sitting up. "It just seemed so real. Fuck... I could've really died a couple of hours ago there." I tucked my legs in front of me and put my forearms on my knees, letting my forehead rest on them. I felt tears coming to my eyes, but I didn't care to stop them. I looked up at Connor. "You saved my life."

"Your chances of survival were at 89%. But I figured it would be best if I were to save you." Connor stated.

"Of course." I let out an exasperated sigh. "Why am I even talking to you? Dad was right. You really only care about your investigation." I shook my head.

How could I have been so stupid to talk about feelings to a machine?

"Detective, I'm sorry if you were mistaken. I care about your life too-"

"Get out. Just get out." I cut him off and pointed to the door, not caring if I was being rude.

"Detective, please, allow me to explain myself." He looked desperate. I drew a breath and laid down on my left side.

"Like I was saying, I'm sorry if you misunderstood me. What I was trying to say was- I don't really know how to explain it. There's something special about you, Detective. Something so important I had to ignore my mission."

"So what you're trying to say is that I'm more important than your mission?" I asked.

"Correct." I heard more footsteps. Connor had knelt down, putting his forearms on the bed and lowering his head to be at face level with me. "I'm not programmed to say things like this, but I care a lot about you."

I nodded. After a couple of seconds, I moved to the far right edge of my bed and pat the left side. "Take your shoes off. I'm gonna tell you about my nightmare then."

Connor's POV

I was stunned for a second, before removing my shoes and carefully laying down next to her, facing the ceiling. I folded my hands and put them on the center of my chest, bending my feet to prop them up.

"So, it started like any dream. I didn't realize I was in one until I heard Dad yell "what are you waiting for?! Chase it!" or something among the lines. I didn't see you until the very end of my nightmare." Puma drew a quivering breath. "The deviant ran out and I ran after him. Retracing my steps as I did a couple of hours ago. You were there with me, so no need to explain that to you. This time, I wasn't running on adrenaline and I could see everything happening, like what color the floor was and how a window was shaped. Things like that. Everything was normal up until the very end of it. The deviant pushed me off the roof, but this time, instead of me clinging onto the railing, you caught both of my hands. But you seemed different. There was hatred in your eyes. Something seemed off about you. Then you sharply yelled at me to wake up and forcefully lifted your hands up, removing them from my grasp, making me drop me to the ground. That's when I shot up in bed and realized I'd yelled out your name. That's it." She turned to her side and looked at me. "Do you reckon my dream was showing me what emotions you would've been feeling?"

"I don't know. I don't feel emotions. I can't answer that." I was still looking up at the ceiling. "I can stay with you if you want. It's currently two forty-three in the morning, and you've only had one and twenty-five minutes of sleep, Detective Puma. You should rest."

"Thank you." I heard her say. There was silence for a minute and fifty-four seconds until she spoke up again.

"Connor?"

"Yes, Detective Puma?" I responded immediately.

"Just call me Puma."

"Got it," I said, making a mental note in mind. "Puma, may I ask you a personal question?" I wasn't sure about addressing her casually, but she seemed to enjoy it.

"Depends."

"Alright. Why did you give yourself that nickname?"

"Oh, um." Puma gave a small laugh. "It's a pretty peculiar story, to say the least. I have always wanted a cat. So Dad and I once went to the shelter and bought a shorthair light orangeish cat with a black ear. She looked really cute by the way. But the problem was, it was really big, like around two feet long. We were promised it was just a big cat and there was nothing wrong with it, so we bought her. And, there was nothing wrong with her two years later but she started to grow really big and looked a little alarming. We took her to the vet with my dad and figured out, that this entire time we unknowingly had a puma in our house for almost three years." I let out a laugh. "But, unfortunately, Dad wasn't too happy so we had to release her into the wild. Then, it was the summer in high school, I was starting tenth grade, I was out with Dad and-" she abruptly cut herself off. "With my Dad." She said cautiously before continuing. "We went on a small trip to LA because there were campgrounds opening up, and the two of us wanted to go. So, on our third day there, I was hiking with Dad, and we encountered a bear. It was crazy, I'll never forget this day. After the bear spotted us, he started walking toward us to devour us- and you wouldn't believe it. There was a wild android puma that jumped out of a bush to save the two of us. She killed the bear. It was crazy, because Dad mistook the mountain lion for a real one, and he shot her in her front paw. When the scene was over, the Puma walked up to us and I saw the unmistaken black ear that our cougar had. But she was an android. Basically it was the weirdest thing ever. We had to take it to CyberLife with Dad for repairs, but nobody knew whose it was because the company didn't remember making a puma android. After looking thoroughly through the files, it was confirmed that they didn't make the android. Dad and I had to take her to Elijah Kamski, the founder of CyberLife. He managed to save the puma. After me explaining the situation to him, Kamski told us that someone out there that took our puma and performed an operation on her and transformed it into an android. Just a crazy discovery I'd never thought about. Anyway, kids at my school jokingly called me a cat, because I told them an android cougar had saved me from possible death and was a pet of mine before she because an android. They laughed at me and tagged me as Puma, saying I looked like one. I liked the name and it sort of grew on me. Just a reminder that death may just be around the corner. You believe me, don't you?" She turned to me. I checked her scanners.

Puma is telling the truth.

"Of course I do," I stated, sliding my feet down. I remembered a couple of photos I saw downstairs in the living room. It was a family photo. Puma was in her teenage years, wearing a goth outfit and not looking directly into the camera, but somewhere to the side. There was Hank, along with a woman and a little boy. There were many more pictures of Puma and the little boy, and Puma with another guy. "May I ask you another personal question, Puma?"

"As I said, depends."

"Who was the boy in your family pictures downstairs? His name was Cole Anderson." I'd known I said the wrong thing when I felt Puma freeze up. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"It's fine..." Puma said, with strong sleepiness in her voice. She pushed herself closer to me and cuddled up at my side. It was my turn to freeze as I felt my pump regulator speeding up.

"Puma..." I whispered in a slight shock. I didn't hear an answer, so I looked over to see her soundlessly sleeping next to me. I gave a sigh and stared up at the ceiling. Not being able to sleep, I slightly moved closer to her. Puma stirred in her sleep and crept her hand over my chest and secured me in a hug. I felt scared to breathe in case I would scare her away. After waiting a while I carefully twisted to my right to hug her as well, resting my chin on the top of her head. If there was something I didn't want is for this moment to end. I closed my eyes and decided to visit Amanda.

It was raining when I opened my eyes. I had an umbrella in my hand. I spotted Amanda in the distance and walked over to her.

"Hello, Amanda," I said in greeting.

"Connor. I've been expecting you. Would you mind a little walk?" I bowed my head as I opened the black umbrella and opened it next to her. As we started roaming the zen garden, I felt my own professional normal self coming back. Who I was supposed to be.

"That deviant seemed to be an intriguing case," she stated. I looked at her in question. "Pity you didn't manage to capture it." She looked at me.

Amanda: v

"Deviants are completely irrational, which makes it difficult to anticipate their behavior. But... I should have been more effective." I tried to explain.

"Did you manage to learn anything?" She asked.

"It was fascinated by birds. We've seen deviants interested in other lifeforms like... insects, or pets. But nothing like this."

"What else?"

"The walls of the apartment were covered in drawings of labyrinths and other symbols. Like the other deviants, it seemed obsessed with rA9. Puma also found its diary, but it was encrypted. It may take weeks to decipher."

"You came very close to capturing that deviant... How is your relationship with the Lieutenant developing?"

And Puma. I thought to myself but remembered what had happened yesterday.

"It's improving. Ever since I saved his daughter's life on the roof, he's been grateful, even if he's expressing it in his own way. I'm coming to know him better, and he's growing accustomed to my appearance."

"And Lia?" She asked, forcing Puma's name out.

"Puma is liking my presence, she's really growing on me. I don't think it will be as challenging to work with her, even if she has personal issues from her past."

"Let me remind you that the detective and lieutenant are not important to your investigation."

"I understand."

"Well, it doesn't seem that you understand since she's luring you in to... cuddle with you," she said the word with difficulty. I looked away from her.

Amanda: v

"We don't have much time. Deviancy continues to spread and it's only a matter of time before the media finds out about it. We need to stop this, whatever it takes."

"I will solve this investigation, Amanda," I reassured her. "I won't disappoint you," I added as I saw the unconvinced look on her face. She gave me a nod and walked away, leaving me under my umbrella over the bridge.

A/N: This was really long so I had to split it into two parts :P

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