Note: There is a part in this chapter where Henri plays two songs on the piano. Here are the songs for reference and context:
watch?v=NKi6A-N_Elg (first song that gets interrupted)
watch?v=DYFF73txMIA (she plays second and in its entirety)
"Henri," Connor was still watching her clasp the small device in her hand. "You're going to have to explain to me what your plan is with the EMP."
"Well," Henri had her attention focused on a freight truck idling behind the tower. "Elijah whipped it up as fast as he could; he basically jury-rigged the thing. It can only be triggered manually via this switch," she tapped a tiny black button on the cylinder's top side. "And it only has three charges in it, so let's hope that's enough."
She reached out to grab Connor's hand, "What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm showing you what we're looking for in there," Connor's projected skin faded to reveal his white shell underneath, but Henri's never changed. "That's how you probed Ralph without us noticing."
Henri stared down at her unchanging fingers, "That's part of it, but I won't be able to keep my skin on when I'm hit with the EMP."
Connor curiously raised his brow at her, "Tell me what I need to do."
"Keep a fifteen-foot distance from me whenever I set off the EMP," she pointed over at the truck. "I can see five androids outside the receiving dock. I'll run over to them and set it off before they notice me. You need to follow after me and hack open the door. There's a service elevator at the end of that corridor which you will also need to override. I'll take the elevator down alone first and clear out the storage area before you come after me. Again, hack the storage and security systems once you're down there. From there we grab the device and then hurry on out."
"Got it," Connor swiftly nodded.
"You need to be careful," Henri scoped the entrance out one more time. "You have to keep that fifteen-foot distance or else we fail. And after approximately two minutes of my initial exposure to the EMP, I will be disoriented and confused." Henri pulled out a compact syringe from inside her coat. "With or without my machine brain, I'm a dangerous person, Connor. You're going to have to sedate me and carry me out. You also must stab me in the side of the neck; I need the drug to enter my bloodstream."
"This plan is very complicated, Henri," Connor looked anxiously at the needle. "How were you going to be able to use the EMP without my assistance?"
"I was going to improvise," she pushed the syringe into his hand. "This needs to go exactly as I've planned."
"You can count on me," Connor glanced at the large truck. "I'm ready when you are."
Using the EMP was Henri's last resort, but Connor's presence didn't make it possible for her to go about the heist any other way. She ran up behind and down beside the freight truck to get a better angle on her targets. The five androids were clumped together in a group, conveniently standing within a fifteen-foot range of each other. Once she activated the EMP, it would temporarily shut down their systems. The EMP wasn't intended to cause damage and the androids wouldn't notice what had happened. They would likely notice a lapse in time, but they wouldn't see or hear a thing.
Henri turned back to check on Connor's position. Connor consistently kept a distance of sixteen feet from Henri.
Connor's LED flashed yellow and he could hear Henri speaking to him inside his own mind, "I'm going to set it off. Be prepared, I'm going to move quickly. After I set this off, time won't be on my side."
She pressed the button. The EMP didn't make a dramatic statement when it was activated. The device let out a fast, quiet whine and at first, it appeared to Connor that nothing at all happened. But when Henri turned back to check Connor's position once more, he saw the effects of the EMP take place on her. Her right eye had lost all of its colour and he watched the world reflect back on it's dark, glossy surface. He could see her pale flesh retract from her black hands; this transformation continued up the back of her neck. When he turned his head to examine the stationary androids, he saw that their illusionary skin faded as well.
Henri bolted towards the door at a breakneck pace. Connor was impressed that she still moved so swiftly after her exposure to the EMP, but then again, her talents were still a mystery to him.
"Hurry," Henri was trembling all over; she had to remember what she needed to do before it was too late.
Connor placed his hand on the door's electric panel and turned the locking mechanism off.
Henri pushed the door open ahead of him, "I'll go first. Wait until I get to the elevator."
He observed her swiftly moving down the corridor, checking the few corners it contained.
"Come on," she waved him over from the end of the hall.
Henri stepped in the lift, "Send me down and follow after me immediately. It should only take me a few seconds to disable the guards down there."
Connor sent the elevator downward and he anxiously awaited it's return. When he finally arrived on sub-level 30 he scanned the area in search of Henri. When he found her she was perched on top of a body; a human body. Her face was drenched in sweat and her trembling had evolved into convulsions.
"Get the thing!" she snarled at him, spit coming from her mouth.
Connor knew it was now or never in regards to him injecting her with the sedative. He jabbed her in the side of the neck with the needle and she crumpled onto the floor beside the body. He scanned the dead man's body to run a quick diagnostic. The damaged she inflicted on him was extensive: left cuboid and navicular broken, left femur broken, right ulna and radius broken, six broken ribs, punctures to both lungs, five vertebrae broken in his neck. Connor was stunned that she'd done an incredible amount of destruction to a human in such a short period of time.
He found the device they were searching for, just as Henri had shown him. Connor disrupted Cyberlife's security systems and ran a loop through the CCTV cameras. He deleted any traces of them being there, but he figured it was a futile gesture at this point. Henri killed a man and there was no way around that fact. Cyberlife would definitely suspect something had happened that night.
Much to Hank's surprise, Connor thought it was best to bring Henri's unconscious body to Hank's home, "What the hell did you two do?"
Connor was precise in his placement of Henri on Hank's couch; he didn't want to cause her unnecessary stress, "She needs someone to look after her and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer for our return."
"That didn't answer my question, Connor," Hank's tone was becoming sharp. "What the hell did you two do?"
"We successfully acquired the device she needs to download the software fragments from our deceased androids," Connor glanced at Henri who had returned to her usual appearance. "She had devised a plan; unfortunately, it did not go exactly as discussed."
"What do you mean?" Hank frowned at Connor; he was tired of being a man of questions.
"I don't know the details of the event, but-" Connor crinkled his forehead thinking about the dead man. "Henri killed a human male, but I am not certain why. My theory is it was an accident."
"Jesus Christ, Connor," Hank threw his arms up. "You're fucking kidding me. Accident?"
"It is complicated," Connor pulled his eyebrows together. "I am hoping she can provide an explanation when she awakens."
"Connor, she killed a man," Hank replied in aggression. "What the fuck are we supposed to do about that?"
"I am doubtful she will be suspected as the killer," Connor explained calmly. "We left behind no evidence of our presence, besides the body."
Hank's bitter tones caused Henri to rouse from her state of slumber, "What's happening?" Her vision was blurred and her head was spinning. The feeling was similar to the times she woke up after her many surgeries.
"Henri," Connor crouched next to her by the sofa. "Your plan worked, but..."
"But," she gripped her head in an attempt to relieve her dizziness.
"You ended up killing a human, Henri," Connor spoke this softly, trying not to alarm her. "Can you tell us what happened?"
"Connor," she lifted her sorrowful face to meet Hank's scowl. "I can't remember anything after I set the EMP off."
Hank squinted at them, "EMP?"
"It's a long story," Connor sighed.
Henri sat alone in her favourite booth at the Red River Bar. She inspected the falling dust that would settle on the liquid surface of her flat beer. She with her forlorn expression had been sitting there, unblinking, for the past two hours.
"Can I join you?" Connor spoke as she peered up at him.
"Yes," she abruptly replied. "Of course."
"How do you feel?" Connor examined her slouched posture.
"I feel fine, actually," she turned her face to him. "I just wish I could remember what happened. It feels so uncomfortable to forget something. Just like you or any other androids, I never forget a thing. I guess you wouldn't know what that feels like, though, huh?."
"No," Connor was distraught that he couldn't relate to her on this. "I'm afraid not."
"Don't worry about it," she sighed into her drink. "By the way, thanks for explaining everything to Hank."
"I still don't think he understood me," Connor took notice of her stagnant beverage. "But he's just happy that the two of us are safe."
Henri slid her glass underneath her nose and whiffed at it, "I need a fresh drink." she lifted her head to regard the emptiness of the place. "Wednesday night blues."
"Pardon?" Connor leaned forward.
"Drinking on a Wednesday night isn't a popular sport, that's all." she peered around the place once more. "Sefu!" she shouted at the bartender. "Can I get a fresh drink, this one has gone off."
The bartender titled Sefu brought another drink her way.
"Sefu," she stopped him before he walked away. "Mind if I play something?" Henri nodded towards an alluring grand piano tucked away in the bar's corner.
"Knock yourself out," Sefu gave her a fanciful bow. "But maybe something uplifting this time."
Connor curled up the edges of his mouth, "You play the piano?"
"Is that really a surprise?" Henri stood up, drink in hand. "You could play it too if you wanted. It's not like I ever had to learn to play. I wouldn't call it an accomplishment of any kind."
"Oh," Connor knew she wasn't wrong, but he had no personal desires to do so. "But you choose to play. Do you enjoy it?'
"Yeah," she smirked in response. "I always wanted to when I was a child, but my life didn't turn out that way. It feels so strange as an adult now; never even needing to learn it. That's something I miss about being human. I miss learning how to do something. It's not as satisfying when it's what you were made to do."
"I tried to explain that to Hank once," Connor walked behind Henri as she neared the lustrous piano. "But he dismissed my feelings."
"What is important," she perched herself on the stool in front of the piano. "Is that whatever you do, you do it because you feel like it. That's a luxury I've never really had, but I've always wanted it. And I guess I do have it in small ways. Like this," she softly relaxed her fingertips on the piano's keys and began to play.
She only got half a minute into playing before Sefu started yelling at her, "I said something uplifting," and he threw his fists to the sky.
Connor rested his hand on her shoulder, "He is right, your playing does sound very sullen."
"Okay," Henri lifted her hands and they fell gingerly back on the keys.
Sefu let out a chortle "You know I like that one!"
Connor surveyed her blissfully shifting her fingers up and down the keys as she played the song. He had heard this song before.
She finished and smiled into Connor's eyes. It made him feel something indescribable. It was a feeling he knew he couldn't put into words. Or maybe, it was simply wonderful? Almost fantastic.
"That was a beautiful song," Connor spoke after a long silence; after a comfortable silence.
"It's a sad song," Henri stared over at Sefu who was smirking while polishing the bar top. "But I don't think Sefu cares about that. He just likes the way it sounds."
"I enjoyed it," Connor examined her untroubled expression. She looked so peaceful; he had never seen her like this before. "It's as lovely as yourself."
"Really?" she chuckled at him. "That's nice of you to say. It isn't one of my favourites, but it's fun to play nonetheless.
"I'm glad you're capable of having fun," he could see the cracks in her shell. The cracks in the person she pretended to be.
Henri pushed herself out from the piano stool, "I'm going to go back to the hotel now. I will see you tomorrow at the station."
"I'll be there," and he watched her leave.
Connor and Henri met Hank at the morgue that morning of the torrential blizzard. Hank could recall a time from his youth when it got this cold out. It was -24 degrees Fahrenheit and it wasn't getting any warmer. Hank was experiencing a plethora of shitty days, but could he really complain? He considered what Henri had to go through every day. The woman must be a saint to never complain about being someone's slave. If Hank only knew who these disturbed people were, these people who forced a young girl to commit murder, he would smash their skulls in. If only he knew.
"Hank," Henri snapped her fingers at him. "Are you listening?"
"Yeah," he was brought out of his trance by her. "I got ya."
"Can I have the device," she held out her hand to him.
"Yeah," he reached into his bag and pulled out the external drive. It contained a port which could be plugged directly into the android of choice.
Connor pivoted his body to look at the diener, "Open it up please."
The diener tugged on the long drawer that held the corpse of android number one: the prostitute.
Henri tilted the android's body and plugged the hard drive into the back of its head, "Fingers crossed," she said flatly.
Henri rested one hand on the android and the other on the hard drive, "Beyond reactivation," she murmured to herself as she strove to connect the pair.
"Is it working?" Connor asked after a minute.
"I'm not positive," Henri removed her hands from the android and device. "I did what I could, but I'm afraid there wasn't much left intact. Let's try the next one."
Connor called the diener back over and she opened up the next drawer. This one contained the remains of a GJ500, the android who killed the prostitute and then shot himself. It was his dying words that steered them in the direction of Markus.
Henri exhaled and plugged the GJ500 in, "I won't presume this guy has any more in him than she did." she repeated the steps of placing one hand on the android and the other on the hard drive.
Hank scrutinized Henri's pained expression, "Hey, you okay?"
"Yes," she responded and let go of the two. "He had sustained significantly more damage than she had. I barely got a thing."
The last android was Michael. Henri knew Michael wasn't truly dead; he simply no longer wanted to exist. She couldn't blame him. After all, she had many life experiences that made her wish she was dead. Henri had thought about killing herself on multiple occasions, like the night Connor had found her. She could never manage to do it though, for she felt she was bound to the mortal coil on a tether. A tether that beckoned her to Khatri.
She placed her hand on Michael's forehead, "Third one's the charm," she whispered to herself again.
"Anything?" Hank asked.
"Everything," she responded. "He was afraid. He tried to hide himself away from the world. He was constantly fighting the virus inside of him. His willpower against it was extraordinary, but it only lasted so long." her jaw dropped and she gaped at Connor.
Connor raised his eyebrows at her, "What is it?"
"He was terrified of you," she disconnected the hard drive from Michael. "But it wasn't just him. This virus is afraid of you, Connor. It doesn't want you near it. It isn't clear why, though."
Hank scrunched up his face, "Fear? This thing feels fear?"
"It isn't any different than you or I, Hank," Henri was still evaluating the information she got from Michael. "All evidence points to this virus being self-aware, so there's no reason it can't also understand fear."
"Connor's still an android," Hank reasoned. "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that it would be afraid of someone it could control."
"I wonder if that is it," she turned to Connor. "What if it can't control you and it knows it can't, so it's afraid of you?"
"We'll need more androids," Kamski spoke this while examining the group's findings on his tabletop computer.
Jensen Polanski was also there, "If we have enough information, we might be able to locate the virus's point of origin."
Hank gaped down at the glass table, but the letters and numbers were gibberish to him, "How many more? We can't just pull androids out of our assess."
"A few dozen," Jensen answered Hank. "We need enough subjects to cross-check all of their programs in order to pinpoint a specific location."
"So you have no idea how these ones were infected?" Hank, the man of questions but never answers, pondered.
"They were infected by other androids," Jensen nudged Kamski away from the table to get a better view of its contents. "We need to search for other commonalities."
"So," Hank thought up a better question. "You mean, like an android they all met?"
"Possibly," Jensen was pleased by Hank's awareness. "Even if we only find these commonalities in a few of them, that should suffice. It will give us a potential starting zone."
"What about stopping this thing entirely?" Hank was under the impression that defeating this virus was the original reason the two were brought together.
Kamski let out a sound of amusement, "If only it was that simple, Lieutenant. We must find its point of origin in order to terminate this ungodly menace."
Henri interjected as she glared at Kamski's arrogant smirk, "One of them was infected by an android named Hollis who lives in Cyberlife Tower. I suspect they may be involved in the spreading of this virus. As well, this virus seems to express great fear towards Connor for unknown reasons."
"Is it really unknown?" Kamski stared at Connor the way a hungry lion might look at a wild gazelle. "I surmise that Connor is immune to this virus's reaches. It has no power over you, so it fears you."
"Why would he be immune?" Henri questioned.
"Because Connor is a special boy," Kamski continued to leer at Connor. "I have all of his original software and programs in my possession; I could find nothing that would determine his immunity."
"So basically, you have no clue," Henri said coldly.
"Only way to know," Kamski stepped closer to Connor. "Is to try."
Hank shoved himself in front of Kamski and barked at him, "No fucking way! I'm not letting my partner risk his life for your fucking theories."
"Only a suggestion," Kamski raised his hands defensively and backed away from Hank. "It's the only way we will ever know."
Henri rested her hands on the glass and bent in Kamski's direction, "Then we will never know. You're not forcing him to be probed by some infected android, Elijah."
Jensen frowned at the group's bickering, "Henrietta is right, Elijah. Connor is crucial to the investigation of this case, so we aren't risking him on one of your hunches."
Connor was glad Henri and Hank came to his defence, "I will have to agree with my partners. The risk is too great."
Kamski folded his arms and shrugged at Henri, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. How disappointing."
Jensen huffed at Kamski's response, "It is beside the point now. What matters is that you three acquire more samples for us to study."
Hank rejoined the discussion, "Like I said, we can't pull them out of our assess."
Henri thought about the warehouse full of bodies, "When I encountered that ST300 she showed me a memory. The memory consisted of her being in a warehouse full of dead androids. Maybe this warehouse is somewhere in Detroit? Unfortunately, I only saw the interior of the building, so I doubt that helps us."
Jensen suspiciously squinted at Henri, "Do these two know?" he pointed at Hank and Connor.
"It was inevitable," Henri shamefully replied. "I didn't intend for it to be this way, but it's too late for that now. If anything, this just makes our lives easier."
"Okay," Jensen let out a slow and long breath. "What does the interior of this warehouse look like?"
"White walls, seven cement pillars that I could see, and the roof was angled at a twenty-two-degree angle with glass windows." Henri could recollect the exact state of the place. "Besides the dead bodies, it was in fairly good condition; likely recently abandoned."
Hank bobbed his head at her, "Impressive memory."
"I'm a robot, Hank," she stated flatly. "I remember everything."
"Should be enough info to put together a search party," claimed Hank.
Kamski leered at the adorable group of detective friends, "You better get a move on it then. Time is certainly of the essence."