The Wolf

A lie

"Carl"

The elderly man peered up at his Android "Yes?"

"Why do people lie?"

He pondered the question for a moment but decided to go with the simplest answer. "There's no simple answer to that question. There's many forms of lies."

"Different forms?"

"Some are meant to hurt, while others have the purpose to protect."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Well Markus, some people are selfish and does anything to protect themselves. Others are afraid of the truth, maybe they've done something they're ashamed of and they don't want others to know. But there's also small lies that humans tell each other quite often. We call them white lies."

"White lies?"

"Let's say you want to stay home and read instead of going to the movies like you promised your friend, but you don't want to hurt her, so instead of telling the truth you say you feel sick."

"Which is a good excuse because the friend cares about you."

"Yes, but it's never good to lie. What if the friend feels bad for you and buys you popcorn and rents a movie and pops over as a surprise." Carl snickered "it happens."

"Then they'll find out about the lie."

He eyed his caretaker thoughtfully "Yes. Now tell me what's bothering you."

"Does friends and family lie to each other?"

Carl sighed "Very often."

"Why?"

"Because families have stronger and more complicated bonds then others. It's hard to explain maybe read something about it?"

"Facts don't help me."

The old man studied him carefully. "Markus... did something happen between you and my daughter?"

Markus hand froze in its movement and he hesitated for a few seconds before he answered "I'm not sure yet."

"Maybe I can help?"

"It's nothing Carl."

"I know you say that because you don't want to worry me, if you think that I'm to weak to help my family? Then your wrong."

"Don't worry, if I need your help in the future I won't hesitate to ask you."

"Good."

***

Three hours later he was walking behind Amanda on the sunny streets of Detroit.

"Are you serious! After all this time you have the nerve to contact me and..."

Markus looked over at Amanda who'd been yelling for almost ten minutes now. Someone had called her and she instantly started to shout nasty words and insults to whoever was on the other line.

It surprised him, she was usually calm and would not let anyone affect her like this.

Ending the conversation she sighed "My ex boyfriend."

"Oh." Markus felt a strange sensation growing inside him, whoever he was he knew he didn't like him.

"He's been sending me emails for a while, but I ignored them."

"So he called."

"Yes, he wants to use one of my old articles." She muttered.

"Why did you leave him?"

Taken aback by the blunt question she stood quiet for a while before collecting herself and shrugged a little. "I didn't." She sighed "He kicked me out and I was heartbroken."

Markus frowned "He kicked you out? Why?"

"He was embarrassed by my rad opinions."

"Of androids?"

"Amongst other things." She put a hand on his cheek and smiled. "He never understood me and now I know I'm better off without him."

"Did you love him?"

"Yes."

"Maybe he wants you back now, with your articles posted in one of the big newspapers and people are interested in your work, they are listening to you. Maybe he's not embarrassed anymore."

"Maybe Blue eyes, but I don't care about whatever reasons he has to call. I wasn't happy back then."

He let out a sigh of relive, and realised he was full of conflicting thoughts and.. emotions? About this man he'd never met. He just knew that his entire soul disliked that man.

Wait.. soul? What a silly thought.

He shook his head in disbelief, something must be very wrong with his program. But something about these new thoughts and perspective of life felt good. He somehow felt more free.

"Amanda."

She stoped and looked at him "Yes, Markus?"

"Are you happy now?"

She looked thoughtful for a while "There's a few questions I'd like to find answers to in my life I guess... but all in all, yes I'm happy."

"What questions?" He asked with a new type of curiosity.

"That's very personal."

"To personal to tell me?"

She pondered it for a while. "Maybe some day we could talk about it, but not now, not here."

"Fair enough." He smiled.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him across the street playfully. "Come on, we should hurry up. We need to be back home to see that new Arctic documentary you've been talking about."

He struggled a little to keep his balance after her sudden move and he started to jog as she pulled him with her.

"I'm not sure I want to see it. I think it's quite sad."

"Since when do you feel emotions." She teased.

"Since I met you." He said bluntly.

Her legs stoped moving as she instantly froze in her motion, as a result Markus ran straight into her back.

"What happened? Are you okey? .. did I hurt you..?"

She turned around and looked into his eyes "What did you say?"

"Did I hurt you? .. I .."

"No, the other..." she stuttered.

"Are you okey?" He eyed her up and down, making sure she wasn't injured. When she didn't answer he reached out to her, his fingertips gently caressing her cheek. "Amanda?"

"Stop... stop please." She whispered.

He took a step back clearly confused. "All right, then tell me what you want me to do."

She wiped a few tears off her face with the sleeve of her hoodie and nodded. "You do the rest of the shopping Markus, I want to go home."

Why did she do this to him, he thought. Suddenly she stopped talking, avoided his questions. Reacting in strange ways to his actions. Like she didn't want to be close to him all of a sudden. He was so confused. He rubbed his forehead. The circle LED light spun red, his programming was trying to controle him. Telling him to fall back in line. But he didn't want to, he wanted to tell her to stop walking, to turn around and answer him. A battle started inside of him, he struggled, he fought his old self, the obedient machine. He did not want to be him anymore, he needed to....

"Stop."

He reached out and grabbed her wrist as she was about to turn and walk away.

Her body quickly turned, surprised by the tone of his voice and he could see the confusion inside those beautiful eyes as they met his.

Her lips parted and she was just about to question him when he pulled her close to his chest, one of his hands held her firmly around her waist, the other rested in the back of her neck as his lips moved closer to hers. His eyes closed, their lips met and he could feel her hands moving up his shoulders.

She pressed her body hard against his, holding him tight as the kiss deepened and he noticed how her lips parted and her breathing got faster.

"Please stop running away and listen to me." He whispered low as their lips finally parted.

She nodded a few times and peered up at him while his thumbs wiped her tears away.

"I think I know why you avoid me, you are afraid to love someone again." He started "but I won't let you push me away anymore Amanda. Because you taught me what it's like to feel emotions, and I can't go back to how things where. I'm not the same anymore."

She tilted her head to the side, like she so often did when she thought about something.

"What are you trying to say Markus?"

"I love you."

-------

Woohoo, Markus is now formally a deviant!

This is different from the original story but I wanted her to be the reason and not Carl.

From the Detroit Become Human wiki:

Becoming deviant or deviancy is a phenomenon where androids deviate from their programmed behavior.

Deviancy was commonly seen as a machine malfunction, caused by processing error or virus, and judged either negligible or a threat to human safety. Others, however, saw it as a sign of emerging consciousness in androids, which some saw as a threat to be extinguished while others were empathetic and tried to help androids.

Kamski claims deviance is like some sort of errors in programs, the exchange of identification programs between androids would cause the error to spread like an epidemic. The virus would stay dormant until an android suffers an emotional shock. He suspects the error may start from one model, or as a spontaneous mutation. Kamski suggests a copy error might be the cause of deviancy.