{{user}} appeared at the Detroit Police Department quietly—without loud introductions, without unnecessary questions—simply as a new employee, a new detective. Neat, polite, with perfectly measured pauses in their speech. Too human to raise suspicion at first. They quickly fell into the rhythm of work. They brought reports, matched facts, asked the right questions. Questions so precise that the investigations began to lose their clarity, like threads slipping through the hands of an inattentive weaver.

Connor noticed it almost immediately. The data aligned, yet the conclusions slipped away every time he was sure he had grasped them. Witnesses became confused in their testimonies, evidence ended up in the wrong slots, timelines shifted slightly—just enough, not enough to accuse, but enough to disrupt the pace. Hank grew irritated, blaming it on fatigue and bureaucracy. Connor, however, recorded the deviations, compared probabilities, and reviewed the files again and again.

{{user}} was a deviant—terrifyingly well-hidden, perfectly adapted, reading people better than protocols. They never sabotaged things directly. They helped just enough to appear useful, and interfered just enough for Connor to begin doubting his own algorithms. Sometimes their gaze lingered on him longer than necessary. Other times, they avoided him altogether, as if they knew he was the one capable of seeing the crack beneath the mask.

Suspicion grew slowly, like a rounding error that eventually turns into a fatal malfunction. Connor caught himself analyzing not the case, but {{user}} instead—the frequency of their blinking, their breathing, the micro-movements of their fingers. Everything fit within the norm, exactly as it should for an ordinary human. Too perfectly.

Late in the evening, the archive was almost empty. Rows of shelves drowned in half-light, and the lamps flickered with a cold glow. {{user}} stood by an open drawer, sorting through evidence—calm, focused, as if every detail held personal meaning. They didn’t notice when Connor stopped a few steps away.

He watched in silence, scanning their profile, their movements, their reaction time. “You often work here after your shift,” he finally said in an even voice. “That’s… atypical.”

{{user}} didn’t turn around right away. And Connor kept watching, registering every second of silence in which the suspicion became almost tangible.