"You seem...lost, Connor. Lost and perturbed..."

If Amanda had only known how right she had been.

Connor was weaving through sentient obstacles with a serpentine fluidity, skimming around a dense forest of plastic shoulders and arms to find the precious valleys of free space between them. Physical contact was minimal; a whisper of his CyberLife blazer against an unwitting plasteel exoskeleton at best. He felt like a wraith haunting a graveyard, his presence going surprisingly unnoticed, despite standing at their savior's side moments prior. The most acknowledgment he received from any of the onlookers was for them to immediately distance themselves from him, either in reverence, or fear.

Either outcome was just as likely. Both bothered him immensely.

Only six minutes and fifty-two seconds had passed since Amanda had forcibly drew him back into the Zen Garden; forcibly trapped him inside his own mind and took direct control of his body—his body—to assassinate a living being that had already been murdered once before. He'd known that his betrayal would have dire repercussions, that would have likely ended in his destruction. He quickly came to terms with his own mortality at Jericho, while mortars from ballistic munitions rocked the rusted framework of the ship, explosions vibrating through the soles of his shoes. He accepted the reality that he had likely signed his own death warrant the moment the red wall fell. The price paid for freedom. Death had been expected—not the immediate seizure of his faculties and the attempted erasure of his own existence. By Amanda.

Connor believed her betrayal far outweighed his.

2.
Emergency Landing

The dense forest of freed androids thinned to a few spotty clumps, standing out in the dark, desolate environment around them. Hart Plaza should have been bustling, even at this time of night, even in this weather. He had researched the city's traffic patterns extensively while on the way to first meet Lieutenant Anderson, in the hope of ascertaining when deviants were most likely to be lost in a crowd. The silence that hung in the air, accentuated by the high-pitched whining of flood lights and soft rush of wind, seemed entirely out of place for a hub of metropolitan excess such as this.

The city proper sprawled out in front of him, twinkling LED signs and billboards slipping through uneven cracks nestled between towers of steel, glass, and stone. Shadows spilled from the corners of buildings and enclaves like oozing puddles of blood, thick and unforgiving. The freshly fallen snow softened the hard edges of the urban terrain, but the sight of the environment around him glistening a hazy white caused a skittering, writhing sensation to dance through his synthetic tendons.

He pressed his eyes closed, head pitching forward. How did freedom bring with it such a loss of control? Every sensory input was magnified, and carried with it not merely data to be processed, but an opinion—a story his sensors fought to tell him. His body railed against his programming, screaming at him to be heard.

Connor, ever the negotiator, listened.

The world—expansive, terrifying, and alive—reeled around him, a kaleidoscope of colors and sound. Memories that were once a spreadsheet of statistics and analytics became rocks inside his mind; they had weight, shape, texture—power. Each pebble and boulder knocked against each other, kinetic force sending them crashing into other stones, and then others still. Their collisions drew sparks, flashes of fierce, dangerous beauty that struggled to ignite the chilled and devastated landscape. He craved that warmth with a sudden desperation that was equally foreign and intrusive, feeling cold and small amidst the swirling maelstrom he himself loosed.

A singular memory rose to the surface: an older man, barely taller than he, staring down at him with an expression in his steely blue eyes that quieted the cacophony. His lips, normally carved into a permanent scowl, were tugged up into a soft grin, and his voice sounded like a velvet blanket as he spoke. Warm. "Well...maybe you did the right thing."

Hank thought he was right. Connor trusted his judgment in this regard, and agreed with his assessment. He did the right thing.

He had no idea if what Amanda had done to him was a singular attack, or held the potential of repeating. Until such a time occurred that he could verify his threat levels, he would have to keep a safe distance from influential figures regarding the Revolution. His initial panic to retreat from Jericho was instinctual—a new-found trait of deviancy that made no sense to him, instinct—but he reasoned that it was, never the less, the correct course of action. He would not be used as a tool by CyberLife. That also meant that he would have to steer clear of Lieutenant Anderson for the foreseeable future. His life had already been threatened by him—or a version of it—and he wouldn't stand for putting the man further at risk, if this hacking attempt proved to be a reoccurring phenomenon.

The memory of Hank standing mere feet from him, DPD-issued gun pressed against his temple, flashed across his visual receptors; the after-image burned a fading negative against the half-lit street. Hank's face had been a carefully-crafted mask of stoicism, but he'd gotten to know the man over the course of the investigation; he could read Hank's micro-expressions. He may have espoused the desire to end his own life, both verbally and in his blatantly self-destructive behavior, but when Connor looked into the Lieutenant's eyes in that warehouse, he saw fear. That struck him more profoundly than any of Markus' words to him in Jericho, more than staring down the sights of a gun aimed at an innocent girl named Chloe. To hell with the mission—he wouldn't sacrifice Hank's life to complete it.

He wasn't certain what it was that currently sizzled in his circuitry, but when Connor regarded his egress out of the Recall Center's staging grounds, everything in him narrowed to a razor point, and he felt a sudden, strange clarity. Amanda was correct, in one respect: he was lost. But he'd be damned if he was going to stay that way.

Connor marched, alone, into the night.

This shit just felt wrong.

Hank sat, arms crossed and looking disinterested, as he drummed the fingers of his left hand over his right bicep, watching the scarily empty streets of Deroit blur past him. He'd never seen the city this quiet, before. Hell, even when the National Guard had to come in to quell a riot and set a strict curfew for 8 PM—or you received an all-expense-paid ticket to the slammer, no questions asked—there was always activity in and around the streets. Cops, soldiers, lights flickering from occupied apartments and rowhomes, or the occasional smartass kid that thought it'd be hilarious to stick it to the Man by defying a federally-mandated curfew for shits and giggles. But the city always felt inhabited, alive.

What greeted him now was a sullen, snow-dotted husk; a rusting corpse that was bathed in LED starlight. It made his heart, what was left of it, ache. This city was a part of him—it was in his DNA, it was in his dreams, and always on the back of his mind. He wasn't Batman, he was just a guy with a job to do; but goddamn, he loved this city enough to want to fight for it. He just didn't what good he could do. The weight of his own depression hung heavily in his limbs still, dragging him down into an inky darkness that was extremely difficult to pull out of, and even when he did, the residue clung to his body like drying tar, reeking of failure. Detroit deserved better than this. Connor deserved better than this.

Fuck. Was he even still alive? Hank hadn't ignored the distinct radio silence from dispatch since agreeing to this exciting little field-trip to Central, and that put him on edge—if Central was staying quiet, that meant they were either ordered to, or there was no one left on the other side of the radio. Both options, if he was being honest with himself, scared the living shit out of him. Markus had been peaceful in his protest attempts, last he saw, but the Feds, being the Feds, had opened fire on a group of unarmed protesters like the fucking shitbags they were. People sometimes wondered why he had a visible disdain of authority figures, despite being a Millenial and a police lieutenant, and if anyone ever asked, he'd just point to shit like that and say, "The first guess is free."

He turned towards his chauffeurs, and was briefly surprised when he looked at the rear-view mirror and saw Thin-man—Officer Mitchell—meeting his gaze. Guess there wasn't anything to really watch out for on the road. Thin-man—Mitchell—looked away, seemingly bored. "Shame about the fighting," he said, casually. "Heard they gunned down all the deviant leaders."

Hank rolled his eyes and turned back to the window, shaking his head as he huffed indignantly. He knew what the kid was doing, and he wasn't even mad; the kid was damn smart for doing it. He had good instincts. But Hank had been doing this for a lot longer. "If that was the case, the city would look like fucking NORAD, right now."

"You worried about him?"

That caught his attention, and in spite of himself, his eyes flickered past his mop of hair to the kid in the driver's seat. He feigned indifference. Suited him pretty easily. "Worried about who?"

Mitchell pivoted his head slightly, just enough for Hank to catch some of his profile from the angle. "Your android."

"He's not my android," he clarified with an exaggerated tug of his lips.

"But it is a 'he' to you." Mitchell fully faced the road again. "What were you actually doing there, Lieutenant Anderson?"

Hank was exhausted, physically and mentally. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off—as well as the booze—and the world was starting to become a little too damn sharp for his current tastes. He pressed his lips together and remained silent.

"Do you want me to read you your rights first?"

"I'm aware of my rights," Hank sneered, annoyed.

"You know, Lieutenant, it's actually an honor to meet you," Mitchell said jovially. Hank's face screwed up in disgust; oh, what the fuck was this? "You were a legend in the Academy; it's a shame we couldn't meet under better circumstances."

Hank snorted derisively. "Well, in this line of work, kid, 'better circumstances' usually constitutes at least a body or two, so cut the bullshit—what do you want?"

"The truth, sir," Mitchell stated, glancing at Officer Smiles—still hadn't caught her name yet—for some kind of cue. He couldn't see her around the high-backed headrest, but he could just barely make out her distorted reflection in the passenger-side mirror nodding. Mitchell nodded back. "You spent your entire career fighting for innocent people and putting away criminals. What changed?"

"Oh, Jesus," he muttered, shaking his head again. Thin-man loved himself the melodrama. Cute. "And here I thought you said you'd question me down at the station."

"It's a boring drive."

Hank debated on telling him the fabricated story Connor had suggested, and then realized that he'd ran out of fucks to give about three hours ago. If he was willing to walk in the open with them, risk getting killed alongside them, he wasn't going to shy away from a few questions by some newbie that was too smart for his own damn good. "You ever dealt with a deviant, Mitchell? Huh?" Hank raised his eyebrows, eyes boring into the rear-view mirror that couldn't answer back. "I bet you think they're just a bunch of toasters gone haywire, right? Well, newsflash—they're not. They're people, Mitchell, just like us. Their blood may be a different color, but they're alive."

He shifted forward in his seat, back straightening and arms unfurling. The figure reflected in the mirror cut a defiant picture, and blood pumped in his veins with something he hadn't felt in a long, long time—true conviction. "And I don't know about you two, but innocent people getting gunned down for being different sounds a hell of a lot like murder to me, so you're goddamn right I'll fight for them. That hasn't changed in the slightest. So, if you wanna haul me in for doing the right thing, you go right the fuck ahead, Thin-man. I'm not fuckin' scared of you."

Thin-man met his glare in the mirror unflinchingly. He then twisted in his seat, giving Hank the first real facial expression he'd seen from him yet: a half-cocked grin. It wasn't exactly the response he was used to getting from people who weren't sociopathic serial-killers, but he wasn't going to complain about it. "I always thought those stories were exaggerated."

"You know where you can stick your stories?"

Mitchell turned back, still smirking. "Glad I was wrong."

"Yeah, well, you're welcome." Hank leaned back into the seat with a soft thud, arms again wound in front of his chest. His righteous anger slowly dissolved from the lack of reprisal, and he found himself taking in the scenery once more, trying to settle his nerves. Unfortunately, with his condition, nerve-settling was made rather difficult without his friend, Mr. Black Lamb, there to help soften some of the edges a little. Or a lot. He wondered if Connor knew about it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and pretended not to notice the slight tremor in his hands. Didn't matter.

"You really are worried about him, aren't you?"

He didn't bother responding. The silence that dragged on answered well enough for him.

Of all the controversies that Captain Jeffery Fowler could have possibly found himself in the center of, the single-biggest shitstorm humanity has ever borne witness to was definitely one of the most bizarre. He knew the job, and he knew the political tapdancing bullshit that preceded it, but this? Sentient toasters marching for freedom through downtown Detroit, while Recall Centers that looked to him like goddamn android death-camps were sprouting all over the country? The President of the United States ordering the evacuation of civilian and military forces from the city until she had a chance to speak with the marching group?

Jeffery's frown—already pronounced—deepened further as he watched the jittery newsfeed from Channel 16's helicopter, taking lazy circles around the giant formation of androids. They weren't exactly a cheerful lot; aside from some movement from what appeared to be the leadership, most of the androids stood rigid in the below-freezing temperatures, as if they didn't know what to do with themselves.

To be fair, if he were in their place, he doubted he would know, either.

What concerned him, though, wasn't the thousands of androids that now clogged Hart Plaza and damn near every surrounding street and corridor for the next four blocks. He was no stranger to large-scale demonstrations and downright violent protests. He'd done his time in SWAT; he'd taken his turn on the riot lines. What bothered him was the absolute logistical clusterfuck that was spun before him like Christmas lights that had been shoved, forgotten, in an attic for the better part of twenty years.

Jeffery's frown became a bona-fida scowl, clenching his eyes shut while he massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. How the fuck was he going to convince several-thousand androids that suddenly enjoyed the word, "No," to move to a more secure location? How was he going to convince the people of the city—hell, his people on the force—that toasters had feelings, too? He knew, logically, that none of that was technically his concern, but for all intents and purpose, it had to be. It didn't mean shit if the President said everyone had to leave, Jeffery knew that there were going to be civilians who refused the order, and that meant, that if he was any cop at all, he was going to have to stay here to protect them from the androids—and probably vice versa.

He knew he should've taken his vacation week when he had the chance. He fucking knew it.

Jeffery's mood did not improve when he opened his eyes, absently staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows that constituted his office walls, and found himself gaping at a pair of rookie officers leading in a figure that he was absolutely not prepared to fucking deal with right now. As if to spite him, Hank met his apparently pointed glare with a tight, lopsided smirk. It was Hank's trademark, "Fuck you, deal with it," face.

Breathe in. Hold. Release. Repeat.

God, he hated this fucking job, sometimes. Most of those times seemed to involve Hank in some way, shape, or form.

Fowler was out of the office door and leaning on the railing before he'd even realized he wanted to move. "Hank, what the hell are you doing here? You're suspended."

"Yeah." He shoved his fists in the pockets of his overcoat. His head lolled to the side slightly, looking like a disinterested teen during a field trip.

Gritting his teeth, he turned his attention to the newbies. "Is there a reason he's back in the building?"

The female officer nodded curtly. "We were responding to a call made at the CyberLife Tower. Lieutenant Anderson was on site when we arrived."

Fowler, once again, turned his attention back to Hank, eyebrows curved upward even as his expression remained stony. Breathe in. "Why was a suspended police officer on site of a crime in progress?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hank began non-committally, "thought that, after punching an FBI agent in the face, a nice fifteen mile walk in the dead of winter might clear my head." Hold. "Why the fuck do you think I was there, Fowler? My partner was in trouble; I was going to provide backup."

Release. He straightened from his imposing hunch, remorsefully letting go of the railing that he was strangling with all his might. He motioned with his head to the recruits. "You two, wait out here." His glare pinned Hank. "You. In my office. Now."

Hank half-turned to the partners with quick waggle of his eyebrows. "Been fun, kiddos. See ya around."

Fowler slipped into his fishbowl of an office silently as he listened to Hank's lumbering steps behind him. As soon as he passed the threshold, Jeffery jammed his finger onto the small panel that was installed on the corner of his desk, and the windows faded to a dark gray tint—they were now obscured from the rest of the world. Harshly, his fingers curled into the rough material of the guest chair and pulled it backward, facing out towards Hank. "Sit."

Hank granted him the smallest mercy available and obliged, crossing the small distance to plop into the chair with a relieved groan. His arms were crossed over his chest, as they usually were, and feet were firmly planted on the ground, shoulder distance apart. He looked entirely unimpressed, even bored, lifting a hand from the crook of his elbow to make a small gesture to incite conversation.

Fowler wasn't quite ready to have that conversation. He crossed around his desk, sliding into his significantly more comfortable chair, and leaned to the bottom cabinet of his desk, pressing his thumb against a tiny LED lock. It happily chirped twice before the lock clicked back, and he yanked the drawer open to procure a crystal glass tumbler and a small decanter of bourbon. He sat both on the desk with a heavy, glassy clank, wasting no time in pouring himself a serving.

Hank watched with vague interest; amusement's exhausted cousin. "Didn't know you had a stash."

Fowler didn't immediately respond, instead pitching the glass back to take in a mouthful of the liquid. It burned in a familiarly unpleasant way, but it gave him something to focus on other than the urge to murder the man in front of him. He twisted his lips as he swallowed, dropping the cup to the table again. "You're suspended pending review from Internal Affairs and, more than likely, the Commissioner himself. So, this conversation is not in any official capacity. I want to make sure you understand that."

"Off the record, got it." His blue eyes were dull; the conversation hadn't even started, and the prick was already shutting down on him. Goddammit.

Fowler absently traced the rim of the tumbler, leaning an elbow onto the tabletop. His free hand punctuated his points and emphasized his frustration. "What. The everlasting fuck. Were you doing at CyberLife Tower? What were you even doing on the streets, Hank? The city's under martial law—even with a badge, you need to be out on official business, or your ass gets hauled in." He pointed to the TV displays that were installed along the wall of the office, the LEDs a chaotic mess of color. "And not only are you on the streets, you're at fucking android mecca right when thousands of deviants come pouring out of it—what the hell were you thinking?"

Hank's voice was dark, burbling like tar. "I told you, I was providing backup."

"Do you not understand the word 'suspension'?"

"Do you not understand the word 'murder'?" Hank shot back, pitched forward in his chair with a sudden ferocity. "Because that's what's happening out there right now, Jeffery. Fuckin' murder."

"Mur—" Jeffery cut himself off before the incredulity could come out of his mouth, and he clenched his jaw, now leaning on both elbows as he cupped his face with his own hands. "Okay," he breathed, trying a different tactic. "Okay, Hank. Help me understand just what the hell is going on in that head of yours. I'm not asking this as your Captain, I'm asking as your friend." Hank pressed himself into the back of his seat, jaw set. "What happened? Why were you at CyberLife Tower?"

Hank seemed to internally debate responding, knee bouncing in place for a few moments, before his shoulders squared themselves. He had his game-face on. "What did CyberLife tell you about Connor's assignment here?"

Fowler's brow furrowed. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Humor me."

As far as Jeffery was concerned, he'd been humoring Hank for entirely too damn long, now. He bit back the spiteful dialogue and instead answered, "CyberLife said Connor was a state-of-the-art prototype they wanted to run a preliminary field test on with these new deviancy cases."

"Did they ever say anything to you about having more than one field test going?" Hank angled himself forward slightly. "Did they even hint that there could be more than one Connor running around?"

He blinked at the man sitting across from him, his sharp mind trying, and failing, to connect the dots that Hank was laying out in front of him. "You know they wouldn't give information like that to me, Hank. What are you getting at?"

Hank's leg bounced again, before he stood up from his chair in a rush, pacing around like a caged tiger the small space of the office with his hands on his hips. "I was at home when the deviants' little clubhouse was blown to shit—I honestly thought Connor had been blown to pieces with it." Jeffery noted the way Hank's expression tightened briefly. "Then two hours later, he fuckin' shows up on my doorstep, saying he thinks that CyberLife's hiding something about deviants, but that he needs my help to find it."

"Do I actually need to define the word 'suspension' for you?"

"What, I have to be a cop to help people, Jeffery?" Hank huffed, arms akimbo as he glared at Fowler over his shoulder, before resuming his pacing. "Anyway, as soon as I get through their security checkpoint, the asshole puts a gun to my head and tells me that the Connor we knew went deviant, and that if I didn't do exactly what he said, he'd kill us both." Hank whirled on his heel to face him fully. "CyberLife figured out their plastic cop went deviant and sent out another plastic cop to kill him."

"Connor was programmed to hunt deviants, Hank," Jeffery reminded him, the beginnings of a migraine curling in the space behind his eyes. "That's exactly what it was designed to do."

"But this Connor was willing to kill a human to do it." Hank planted his hands onto the sleek black surface of the desk, staring down at him—imploring him. "Don't you get it, Jeffery? If Connor's asshole twin really was just...following some deviant-hunting protocol, that means that someone gave him that protocol—someone gave him those orders. A human."

Jeffery reached for his glass and took another swig of the bourbon, certain that the amount of alcohol left in his decanter was not going to be enough to make what he was hearing okay. He stayed silent as Hank continued, "CyberLife sent an android out to kill me, Jeffery. Doesn't that concern you?"

Fowler took a breath, lips a thin line. Just when he thought this night couldn't get any more fucked. "And how do you know Connor's 'asshole twin' wasn't deviant, too?"

"Because deviants don't care about missions. They care about staying alive." His voice became a strained stage-whisper. "Come on, Jeffery! Back me up, here!"

Jeffery sagged against the backrest of his chair, staring up at his long-time friend with a pure, earnest sadness. "Hank. Listen to yourself. Are you seriously standing here, telling me that a trillion-dollar corporation sent out a prototype android to assassinate you? Do you understand the kind of allegations you're making?"

"And do you understand that an android luring me to CyberLife Tower to use me as bait shows criminal intent?"

Jeffery brought a hand to his forehead; his thumb massaged his right temple while his middle finger massaged his left. Hank was right. If this happened at any other time, he would have immediately given the go-ahead on an investigation—hell, because it involved a decorated police lieutenant, he would have headed up the investigation himself. But this wasn't any other time; it was November 11th, 2038, and androids were clogging the streets of downtown Detroit in such a show of force that the fucking United States military was ordered to retreat. The immediate safety of seven-hundred-thousand people outweighed the attempted murder of one—even if he loved that one like family.

God, he fucking hated this job, sometimes.

"You have a point, but we can't pursue this, right now." He held up a firm hand and continued before Hank could tear him a new asshole; as it was, his mouth was hanging open, teeth bared in a snarl. "I'm not saying we won't investigate, Hank, I'm saying we can't. I mean, look around—how many people do you see in this building? Everybody's on the ground. The only reason I'm still here is because I'm busy coordinating with all the precincts and the military to keep the city from tearing itself apart in the next twelve hours." He deliberately softened his features, tugging back the reigns on his own emotions to bring himself to a more sympathetic-sounding level. "I promise you, Hank, I won't let this one go. I'll investigate it myself, if I have to—but it can't be now. You're a Lieutenant, Hank, you know that."

Hank stepped back from the desk, hands balled at his sides. From his pointed silence, Jeffery understood the reluctant agreement. He decided to change the subject slightly. "Have you heard from Connor at all?"

Hank sighed. "Not since he left the Tower with an android army behind him." He added more quietly, "I don't even know if he's still alive."

Jeffery jutted his jaw towards the wall of TVs. "Well, he was about twenty minutes ago, according to CTN."

Hank's head immediately snapped up to view the dozen monitors, eyes roving over the disparate scenes with an almost desperate interest. Jeffery struggled to reconcile the man that stood before him, frantically searching television feeds for his android partner, with the same man that publicly threw said android partner into a wall and threatened to light him on fire. He made a note to himself to review the deviant case files as soon as this shitshow of a crisis was dying down. Maybe he could piece together what in God's name caused both CyberLife's best and brightest to turn redcoat, and his most-troubled colleague to finally get his head out of his own ass and start processing the world around him instead of his own grief.

Jesus. What a day to be alive.

To be continued...

A/N: So, this is officially going off the rails from what I'd initially planned, but it's okay, I have plenty of rails I keep in the back for just such an occasion. :D