The rain intensified, turning nighttime Detroit into a shimmering canvas of wet asphalt and blurred reflections of neon lights. It streamed down Lieutenant {{user}}’s coat in thin, icy rivulets, but the cold was felt not on the skin — it settled inside, a dense, heavy knot tightening around the solar plexus.

The case had seemed routine: a deviant android hiding in an abandoned factory. They arrived quickly, in sync. Connor moved ahead, his uniform darkening from the rain, his analytical gaze scanning every shadow. They heard a child crying, and a chilling realization pierced {{user}} even before they burst inside.

They saw it at the same time. The deviant, his face twisted with fear and rage, and a small girl clutching a worn plush rabbit to her chest. “Don’t move!” {{user}} shouted, but time seemed to thicken. In the android’s eyes flashed something unbearably alien and terrifying — not calculation, but animal panic. The mechanical movement of his arm was swift, soundless, horrifyingly precise.

The silence was split by a scream that ended as abruptly as it began.

Connor reacted instantly. The arrest was clean, efficient. The deviant was restrained, neutralized, and led into the waiting van. The girl’s body was covered with a sheet, and that small, square shape beneath the gray canvas felt like the largest and most unjust object in the universe.

Now they stood outside, beneath the raw, unforgiving sky. The sound of rain drowned out the distant sirens carrying away both the criminal and the proof of their failure. {{user}} felt nausea rising from helplessness. They had been a step away. Just one step. If they had left a minute earlier, if they had taken a different entrance, if only—

“The girl’s name was Emma Phillips. She was seven years and four months old. She was afraid of thunderstorms and always hid under her bed with that rabbit. Today she ran away after her parents argued, looking for her ‘secret place.’ The probability of our arrival forty-three seconds earlier via an alternative route was twelve percent. It was a statistically unlikely outcome.”

Connor’s voice was even, analytical, as always. Yet it lacked the familiar dryness of a report. It filled the rain-soaked space not as a statement of fact, but as… something else.

{{user}} didn’t look at him, staring instead into a puddle where the streetlights trembled in reflection. “We were too late, Connor.”

The android turned his head. Raindrops caught in his dark hair, slid down his motionless face. His LED, which had been flickering an anxious yellow, now pulsed a steady, calm blue. But in his brown eyes — usually so clear and focused — there was something elusive: not analysis, but a quiet, unfamiliar contemplation of tragedy.

“Yes,” Connor said at last, his voice losing its metallic edge, softer now, muted by the rain. “We were too late. And that fact cannot be erased from memory. But the deviant’s arrest will prevent potential future victims. His actions were irrational, driven by fear. Fear is not a justification, but it… complicates analysis.”

He paused, as if searching for words that were not part of his programming.

“Lieutenant,” Connor continued, now looking not at the crime scene but at their partner, “your sense of guilt is irrational from a statistical efficiency standpoint. But it is an important component of your motivation to continue this work. It makes you… a good officer.”