[He used to take shop class. Middle school, later grades, right at the age where kids started to think they knew just about everything and also were officially allowed to handle sharp objects on their own. His teacher— Mr. Whisson— was missing every ounce of flesh from the middle finger back to the start of his wrist, always telling the same tired story about how he lost it fooling around with a bandsaw. Most of the other kids bought it— Gavin, on the other hand, had seen the old deployment photos on his desk. Hand in one. Half a hand in the others.
Unless bandsaws were in use out in the desert, he was full of shit.
Eventually. One day, working on a bread box (of all fucking things), Gavin got lazy. Slipped and let his sleeve get tangled up in the feed, and the mechanical pressure that pulled on his arm was enough to have him wailing in tears. He didn’t break anything, didn’t lose anything, but after that day? Some part of his brain found it easier to buy into the bulk of Mr. Whisson’s anecdote.
His mind goes there again, at that inhuman pressure on his wrist under industrial fingers, and Reed instinctively chokes out a sound that’s all high tension, fury bleeding into his features. He pulls back. Reaches high to try and wrench its fingers loose, paper cup tumbling to the ground.]
What the sh— get off me!
I don’t need a goddamn handler!
[With Anderson gone and his robot pet destroyed and deactivated, did that make him the Police Commissioner’s new problem child? Is that what this is really about?
—No. No. He was always good at his job. Better than anyone else on their team. And bullshit that this thing thinks it can gauge his workflow process. That a handful of minutes spent establishing exactly which one of them is in charge is wasting time.
He tells himself, next chance he gets, he’s pushing this thing out in front of a moving car.]
no subject
Unless bandsaws were in use out in the desert, he was full of shit.
Eventually. One day, working on a bread box (of all fucking things), Gavin got lazy. Slipped and let his sleeve get tangled up in the feed, and the mechanical pressure that pulled on his arm was enough to have him wailing in tears. He didn’t break anything, didn’t lose anything, but after that day? Some part of his brain found it easier to buy into the bulk of Mr. Whisson’s anecdote.
His mind goes there again, at that inhuman pressure on his wrist under industrial fingers, and Reed instinctively chokes out a sound that’s all high tension, fury bleeding into his features. He pulls back. Reaches high to try and wrench its fingers loose, paper cup tumbling to the ground.]
What the sh— get off me!
I don’t need a goddamn handler!
[With Anderson gone and his robot pet destroyed and deactivated, did that make him the Police Commissioner’s new problem child? Is that what this is really about?
—No. No. He was always good at his job. Better than anyone else on their team. And bullshit that this thing thinks it can gauge his workflow process. That a handful of minutes spent establishing exactly which one of them is in charge is wasting time.
He tells himself, next chance he gets, he’s pushing this thing out in front of a moving car.]