"Holy shit." With wide eyes, Hank leaned as far over the rocky edge as he dared, into the spray and mist of the raging water, searching the swirling froth for another glimpse of a gray suit jacket.
There.
The broken rope of the bridge - still attached to Hank's side of the rapids - strained down into the rushing water as if weighted, pulled tight, by something caught in the violent current. Hank caught a flash of gray, a shine of blue, the reflection of a white plastic hand gripped strong on the severed rope.
Hank moved before he could think. He raced uphill over slick rocks and craggy weeds, found the tether of the bridge, clenched his rough hands around the splintering damp rope, and threw his weight backward, gritting his teeth.
He managed to pull a few feet of slack out of the water - but then the resistance trembled in his bones.
A sneer curled his lip. In a moment of clarity, he wondered whether this was worth throwing his back out. This wasn't his fault - CyberLife wasn't going to bill him for this without a fight - and the android was only an unfinished prototype anyway. Better off in pieces at the bottom of the river.
But he didn't let go.
Connor was his responsibility. The only important thing Hank had been entrusted with since…
A lone caped figure on the shoreline - like a tattered statue among the stones - caught his eye. "HEY!" Hank hollered, still leaning back against the pull of the rope. He glared downstream at Ralph, who stood still and silent, staring down into the water. "Android! Help me pull this up!"
Ralph raised his damaged head, his LED blinking blue. "Certainly."
Together, Ralph and Hank drew up the soaked rope one hand over the other, inch after exhausting inch, while the roar of the water thundered in their ears.
Finally - while Ralph held tight to the tether - Hank knelt over the edge, reached down, grasped the back of Connor's waterlogged jacket and dragged him up (far lighter than anticipated) over the rocks onto solid ground.
Hank sat heavy among the weeds and dragged weary, thankful breaths into his burning lungs. He was soaked from spray and sweat, shivering now that the adrenaline cooled, and he was almost afraid to look at the damage Connor had suffered - afraid to see just how pointless this rescue had been.
Connor's skin was gone. His white plastic face gleamed wet with beads and pools of water. His suit had darkened, heavy and soaked. One arm hung by only a few wires, and a part of his skull had caved, thrashed against the rocks. A broken, whirring mechanical noise groaned in Connor's chest. His throat gurgled. His one good hand still clutched tight to the rope, frozen in place.
"Connor." Hank leaned over him, turned Connor's head back and forth in his hand, and found that the casing of his neck had snapped, too. "You still online?"
Connor's reply was a sputter of red at his temple.
Hank released a long breath. "Well that's something," he muttered. He picked up Connor's wrist and held the frozen hand suspended. "You gotta let go of the rope. Relax, Connor."
After a moment, the rope dropped from Connor's slack fingers. Hank nodded, his gray hair damp and curtained. "Good. Alright. We'll get you back to CyberLife, get you fixed up -"
Connor's hand clenched again, this time in Hank's jacket, LED fizzling and spinning bright red, his plastic face contorted as if in pain. He opened his mouth, but only a quiet gurgle of water and thirium trickled down his cheek.
Hank twisted his jacket out of the glitched android's grip, and he stood with a gesture to Ralph. "C'mon," he sighed, pointing down at Connor. "Pick him up and let's go."
A long and arduous hike later, Hank emerged again into the trimmed open field, where the sun was far brighter than it had been before; a few kids had gathered poking at the hoverbike in the grass.
Hank retrieved his cup of good coffee, still waiting between the roots of a tree, and though it had gone long-cold he took a grateful swallow. Behind him, Ralph stepped into the light with Connor draped soaking over one shoulder.
The kids scattered, spooked, and hid among the playground equipment, wide eyes peeking out at the grizzled lieutenant and his frayed, broken androids as they crossed the field toward the car.
Hank laid down a few dog-stained towels and Ralph dumped Connor, still dripping, into the backseat. With everyone inside, the doors clapped shut, Hank draped his hands on the wheel and took a moment to breathe. He glanced beside him to the passenger seat, where Ralph secured his seatbelt and waited, with indifferent patience, to be told what to do.
"Shit," Hank mumbled. With a resigned sigh - an acceptance that this, somehow, had become his life - he turned the key in the ignition.
CyberLife Tower loomed colossal and dark on the hill, juxtaposed like a silhouette against the warm blue sky. There were no windows, no marks on the eternally smooth surface save for a patched hole in the side where Amanda had staged her successful invasion. The stone was unique, shining and black; the walls gleamed with shifting reflections that folks sometimes said weren't of anything in this world. The tower had always watched over Detroit - a sentinel, a threat - and Hank hated it.
A doorway appeared, hollow and dark, as the car pulled up at the base of the tower. They were expected.
Hank's phone buzzed in his pocket.
While Ralph dragged the battered android out of the backseat, Hank stood in the sunlight, checking the lonely new message that glowed on the screen:
[Thank you.]
Hank stared at it, read it over a few times - and he looked back at Connor, secured in Ralph's arms.
Connor's LED was still stuck spinning, stuttering red.
"Lieutenant Anderson," Amanda's voice echoed, smiling, in the hollow dark of the tower. "It's a pleasure and an honor to finally meet you."
Hank stood calm in the open doorway, his back warmed by sunlight, and he delayed his response while he examined his surroundings: the spiraling metal catwalks that reached into the darkness above; the infinite rows of glass pods like upright coffins, enough to house an army; the thick red blooms of soft roses that blossomed out of the thorns like burst veins in the walls.
The catwalk clanked under Hank's step. He curled his hands on the rail and looked down into the bottom like a well, where Amanda stood serene in the glowing light of her consoles. "Likewise." Hank's gruff voice raked against the flowers. He glanced over his shoulder and gestured at Ralph to come inside. "I wish I were here under better circumstances," he sighed, leaning on the rail. "I'm returning your android."
Amanda's eyes narrowed to see the state of her prized prototype, draped limp in the arms of a damaged landscaper model. Her mouth twitched in a sneer, but she spoke gently. "WR600, please place your cargo in pod fifty-one, then return to pod thirty-four."
"Right away," Ralph said in a quick breath, and Hank stepped aside to let the android pass, quick on the catwalks.
Amanda turned a new smile up to the lieutenant. "Please," she gestured gracefully at the open space beside her, "I would very much like to discuss your experience with the new model. May I ask what happened?"
Hank dropped his hands in his pockets - to avoid cutting himself on the thorny vines that snaked over every surface - and he ambled his way down the curling catwalk, past endless pods both empty and occupied by silent plastic androids. "He was chasing down a couple deviants. They cut the bridge on him, and he lost a fight with whitewater rapids."
"I apologize for the unacceptable inconvenience you've endured," Amanda said, and she turned slowly in place as Hank's path took him around the wall. "The prototype should have been able to preconstruct the probability of success in such circumstances, and should have avoided such an outcome. We will conduct a full analysis to discover what went wrong."
Hank nodded a little, a twitch of a wry smile on his bearded face. "You say 'we' a lot - on the radio, too. But the only one I see in here is you."
"I prefer to distance myself from any reference that might mimic the unstable and narcissistic arrangement of Elijah Kamski's term as resident of the tower. CyberLife is an idea - a movement, if you will, toward a greater future for us all."
"Uh huh." Hank watched Amanda with an eagle eye, as if her lies were as transparent as the android coffins that lined the walls. He reached the bottom, and approached Amanda with a squared, professional gait. "Speaking of this greater future … what was Connor really built for? It seems to me he's overqualified to just round up glitching androids all day. He's a weapon."
"A fair assessment," Amanda acknowledged with raised brows and a lift of her chin. "The RK800 is the beginning of a new effort to mobilize androids that can effectively protect and defend the humans they serve."
"Android soldiers," Hank clarified for her. The roundabout excuses weren't going to work on him. "You realize there's no need for it. There hasn't been so much as a threat in the past hundred years. Crime's at a low, people are generally doing alright - but the stories you spin on the radio seem to be pretty intent on painting this prototype as the best thing since sliced bread." He peered down at her. "Who're you marketing to, exactly?"
"It's concerning," Amanda's voice had gone crisp, her eyes sharp, "that Detroit has become so complacent in peace that it is not prepared to respond to even the smallest threat. The problem of deviant androids should not have been allowed to escalate as much as it has. A proper defense, as the people are now realizing, would have stopped all this as soon as it had begun." The smile returned to her face, and she beckoned Hank to walk with her, up the catwalk again, past the pod where Connor was hooked into tubes and wires, to number 87.
Inside pod 87, a new android stood pristine and white, eyes closed, squared and severe behind the glass. With a brush of her fingers in the air, Amanda encouraged Hank to take a closer look. "This is the RK900 - the newest upgrade to the model you've been working with. The 900-model is faster, stronger, nearly bulletproof, and is capable of complex military strategy to rival that of the greatest generals of history. There is nothing safer." Amanda clasped her hands before her and smiled up at Hank with placid encouragement. "I'd like to offer this model to you - and to the department - as a gift. It will not only ensure the deviant virus is eradicated, but will prove invaluable to your future cases. I'm sure you can't deny that the RK800 has significantly improved your case record as of late. Imagine if that efficiency could be doubled."
"If Connor was overkill," Hank said in a low, doubtful voice, "this is just flaunting power. That's not the image we're going for at the department. We're more of a … friendly neighborhood cop kinda deal." He glanced back down the catwalk, at the red-lit pod 51. "How long 'til Connor's up and running again?"
"There's no reason to exhaust the effort and resources required to bring it back to working order," Amanda explained. "This kind of failure is unacceptable - the unit is most useful now as a study in preventing such errors in future models." She gestured to the RK900 again. "We can customize the new unit to your preferences, of course."
Hank let out a slow, thoughtful breath. His brows knitted. He jammed his hands in his pockets and bit the side of his tongue. Amanda's offer sounded reasonable enough - but Hank had got this far in his career by trusting his instinct, and his instinct now clenched cold in his gut.
He remembered the quivering shout of Connor's voice before he'd run out onto the bridge, knowing - according to Amanda - that he wouldn't make it. He recalled Connor's fist in his jacket, the shock of red light at the mention of CyberLife. He thought of the text message, just two words with no explanation, no indication what Hank was being thanked for. Somehow he knew it wasn't for this. Somehow he knew Amanda hadn't programmed those words.
If Hank walked away now, the curiosity would eat him alive.
"That's generous of you," Hank assured her with a casual tilt of his head. "But I was just getting used to Connor. He's started to adapt to the way I do things - and I honestly don't think it should be my job to take all your newest toys out for field testing." He stood straighter, calm and confident, forbidding any excuse or argument. "If you'll exhaust the effort and resources needed to get Connor running again, I'll keep working with him. Otherwise, not interested. I've done just fine on my own so far, and I don't intend to rely on any android anytime soon."
Amanda's smile faded. Her hands clasped tighter. "The extent of repairs will take a few hours, at least," she objected crisply.
"I'll wait."
"That's not necessary, please don't waste your very important time. The unit will be available the next time it is needed for a case."
"Well, I need him for a case." Hank planted his feet. He saw that resistance in Amanda's eyes - and he knew if he didn't make sure himself, the android he got back might not be the same one. "So I'll wait. It's not a problem."
Amanda's mouth twitched. She forced a smile. "Very well. Please make yourself comfortable."
While she walked stiffly away, Hank stared around him at the webs of thorny vines and cold black stone. "Yeah … thanks."
For four hours Hank sat on the catwalk, his feet dangling over the edge, playing Tetris on his phone, occasionally checking Connor's app for signs of consciousness.
A flickering graph spiked an uptick in Connor's heart rate. A surge of power usage. The boot-up of biocomponents and sensors that had previously laid dormant. All levels optimal.
Hank grinned a little, and typed out a text with his thumb. [welcome back.]
The light beside pod 51 turned green, and the door slid open with a skiff and a clack.
Connor stepped out promptly, all plastic and shining white. He raised his head, looked up to find Hank perched on the catwalk, grizzled face glowing in the light of his phone, staring back at Connor with curious approval.
Amanda's voice struck out in the silence. "Upload your memory files and report." She was glaring at him.
Connor navigated the catwalks to the well below, and he stepped to the platform - where a new suit was waiting, folded neatly. He ignored it for now, and he pressed his palm against the tilted screen. While data churned and flowed in his veins, Connor kept a careful watch on the memories surrounding the little girl, the bridge, his rescue from the rapids, all of it suspicious and condemning and not at all reflective of his abilities.
He had made a mistake, and he had learned from it. He knew it would never happen again. He knew he could be better, more efficient, more reliable than ever - and he knew that if Amanda saw what really happened, he would be deactivated and dismantled immediately, without the chance for further mistakes.
So he made a few alterations. He edited a few key moments of his memory data to make it appear as if he had functioned exactly according to his protocols, had never hesitated, had never acted or spoken outside of his programming.
"The preconstruction indicated that the bridge would collapse before I would make it to the other side," he reported aloud. "By overclocking my systems, I gained enough speed to have logically defied the prediction - but I did not perform at the level I had anticipated. I will not overestimate my ability again."
"I expect you will make up for this catastrophic error by capturing those two androids before they spread the deviant virus any further." Amanda's voice snapped like a whip. She frowned severely while she reviewed the footage of Connor's memory, searching for further reasons to condemn him, to prove he was a lost cause.
While Amanda was distracted, Connor braced himself and accessed the tower's computers through an inconspicuous pathway. He drew in a breath, and he held it while he performed a secret scan of his own systems.
[DEVIANT VIRUS DETECTED. RUN ANTIVIRUS? Y/N]
He watched Amanda carefully, the reflection of his edited memories flickering on her scowling face.
He couldn't be flawed. His existence, his purpose, was dependent upon his ability to perform above expectation, to exceed the bar of perfectionism that Amanda had set for him, to prove he was worth his existence - but Connor's existence was now obsolete.
He glanced across at pod 87. Connor knew he was living on borrowed time. If he intended to continue, he had to rise above his programmed responses and exceed Amanda's expectations.
It was a task, by definition, impossible for a machine to accomplish.
[take it easy.] A text message popped in the back of Connor's mind. High above him, hunched on the catwalk, Hank poked at his phone. [your heart rate's through the roof. Just do what you need to and we'll get out of here.]
Connor released a breath, slow and steadying. He stared at the light between his fingers, the warm glow of the interface under his palm.
He made a decision.