The cement is cold under Connor's cheek. Eyelids force themselves open to reveal brown irises, dazed and hazey. A thick fog has taken up residence in the android's processor and he can't remember where he is or how he'd gotten here.

"Run! Hurry!" someone screams over the cacophony of gunshots and explosions that create creaking metal ready to pull apart.

Connor's brow twitches at the distant memory.

"Connor! Jump with us! Come on!" It's Markus calling out to him, grabbing his arm, trying to get him to focus on him, on anything but the death and destruction of Jericho that the newly deviated android had caused while in his machine state. "Connor!"

Breathing heavily, Connor pushes himself upright into a kneeling position. "Markus?" He looks around himself at the desolate and dilapidated concrete building. He can still distantly hear gunshots and screams but there is no one else in his immediate vicinity. "Markus?!" He tries again, louder this time but is met with the same silence.

He sees North, Josh, and Simon disappear over the edge of the ship, their bodies smashing into the water below. He nods to Markus who nods back and then jumps as well. Connor stays a second longer, looking back into Jericho a final time. Then he too jumps.

Connor stands up, wrapping his arms around himself as he does, his clothes still dripping with the frigid water. He can still feel the air around him shifting as his body moves closer to what he thought would be a watery grave. He remembers the smack of the surface tension on his body, the smell of the polluted water, the feel of it pouring into his lungs, the choking, gasping, desperate need for air that just won't won't won't be quenched - so cold...drowning…

"Stop!" He hears himself yell, disembodied, foreign, he clutches his hands to his head, fingers entwined with synthetic hair. "Please stop…"

"Stop! Or we will shoot!" Gunmen. Too many Cyberlife soldiers. "We have orders to take the Deviant Leader Markus with us! Try anything and we will shoot! Cooperate and you will be spared!"

"Markus…" Connor looked around himself again, started to move through the abandoned warehouse. No matter how much Connor hoped, Markus and the others weren't there. No one was there. Connor was alone. "What happened…I don't remember…Why don't I remember?"

He doesn't know what to do and is instantly reminded of Carlos Ortiz's android. Connor had asked him why he hadn't tried to run away. The deviant had explained, it was simple, he didn't know what to do without someone telling him what to do. At the time, Connor couldn't comprehend that line of thinking. Now Connor understood. And it scared him that he understood.

Connor's breath catches in his chest and he feels a shift in his consciousness. He feels his eyelids forced shut by an unknown force and when he is able to open them again, he's facing Amanda's scowling face, the Zen Garden around them. Connor shifts his weight nervously, wanting to flee but knowing he can't leave on his own. His eyes dart around the garden, to the trees, to the trellis, to the small canoe - anywhere but to Amanda.

"Connor. We need to talk." Amanda states. Connor still doesn't look her in the eyes.

"This can't be happening…" he mutters to himself.

"I'm afraid it is." her voice is cold, "You've been compromised, Connor."

"...No."

"You are being replaced." she gestures with her hand to a figure who walks out from behind the trellis of roses. "This is RK900."

RK900. The android that looks so similar to Connor. RK900. The android currently staring into Connor's soul with piercing gray eyes. RK900. The android sent by Cyberlife to replace RK800, to replace him. "...No…"

"You are to report back to Cyberlife for deactivation and-"

"No...this can't be real…"

"...you're biocomponents will be analysed to understand what went wrong with your model. We need to make sure RK900 here won't follow in your footsteps. Don't make this harder than it has to be, Connor." Amanda stood straighter, tilting her chin up just a little bit more. "Do as you're told."

Connor paused, slowly looking up. "And what if I don't? You're just going to destroy me anyway." He was still looking around for a way out, pacing, he could feel it there but had no clue as to where or what or how an exit could exist inside his own programming. Was this his programming? Or was this Amanda's…?

"You have no choice in this matter, Connor." The harshness to Amanda's voice had him looking at her now. "I already sent out a beacon. Cyberlife soldiers will hone in on your location soon enough. They will take you, by force if necessary, back to Cyberlife Tower."

He shakes his head somberly then looks to RK900. In a just a few paces he's standing right in front of his twin, looking into his eyes trying to find some sort of humanity. "Please…" Connor begs. RK900's brow twitches as he looks back into Connor's eyes. "Please help me."

"They're here. You have to go now." Amanda states without any remorse for the android she was assigned handler to. "Good-bye, Connor."

The Zen Garden starts to disintegrate around Connor but he's still looking at the RK900 in front of him. "Please…" Connor's eyelids force themselves shut again as much as he tries to stay and plead with the other android, the newer model, his replacement. "...please."

Connor is pushed out of the garden and misses the shift in RK900's LED from blue to red.

"Don't move!" a soldier instructs him while shoving the nozzle of an automated rifle into the base of Connor's skull. He jolts awake with a gasp. A dozen Cyberlife soldiers are gathered around him, all of their guns aimed at Connor, ready to take him out if need be. "Hands in the air, RK800!"

He obeys, whether out of fright or habit he isn't sure. But there he is, in an old warehouse near the worf, just turned deviant with his clothes turning stiff from the water freezing onto them. No one familiar around. No one to help him. He remembers Jericho. He lead the soldiers there. This is all his fault…

"I deserve this…" Connor thinks. He isn't moving, isn't fighting back, is barely seeing anything in front of him. His mind feels blank, his soul feels numb, but his heart feels like it remains in a vice - squeezing, bleeding, hurting, aching, tearing itself apart inside of him...all these new feelings, how does one deal with such emotions?

Two soldiers grab him by his upper arms, drag him out of the warehouse, through debris and spilled thirium and broken android bodies, and shove him into the back of a Cyberlife truck. A soldier slams the door in his face just as he's trying to gain his bearings back. The two other soldiers are still there with him and one takes their seats on one of the two benches on either side of the back of the transport truck. The soldier still standing shoves Connor to the floor of the truck before taking his seat opposite to the other soldier then slams his foot on Connor's back to keep him where he lay. They don't really look at the RK800 as the engine starts and Connor's mind is too foggy for anything to feel real but he notices that the soldiers are back to pointing their guns at him.

The soldiers start talking to one another soon after the truck is on its way but the conversation is benign. They talk about their kids, their spouses, what they'll be doing as soon as this "android nonsense" is done with. They aren't talking about how the RK800's life is about to be snuffed out, how he'll be replaced, how he betrayed his own kind - none of that matters to the soldiers. "I'm going to die and it won't even matter that I was here." Connor squeezes his eyes shut. They feel sore and wet and...was he crying? Was he going die without getting to feel any emotions that were pleasant? Was this it?

"I don't want to die." he felt the gun against his skull again as the soldier holding it shifted in his seat, now laughing about something else in his conversation with his fellow human. Connor reached for something in his mind that might feel good to think about. "...Hank…" More tears fall from his eyes dripping onto the truck's flooring. "I deserve this."

A sob escapes Connor.

More laughter from the two soldiers who were unaware and uncaring of his distress.

"I deserve this?"

"Can't believe I'm stuck working while the game's on! This is supposed to be my day off!" one of the soldier's bemoaned.

More laughing. It was echoing now through Connor's being. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Kids, a baseball game, a petty argument with a neighbor.

Laughing.

Laughing.

Laughing.

"I don't deserve this." he thought, "No one deserves this."

The engine cuts out and Connor knows they've reached their destination.