November 7th, 2038 - 12:34 A.M.
"What is it?"
"It's an android."
"I can see that, fuckwad, I mean what model is it?"
"How should I know? I don't spend my time looking through the CyberLife catalogue. Who cares what it is anyway? CyberLife is going to turn it into scraps anyway."
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November 7th, 2038 - 1:43 A.M.
It's so—
Dark.
Everything is so dark.
Everything has been dark for such a long time now he doesn't know if the images in his head were ever real. They seem like things that have been scrapped from the bottom of his imagination, if there is such a thing that can exist within a machine made of metal and plastic. But he knows that it does. He knows there must be some type of humanness in him.
That's how he ended up here, isn't it?
He doesn't remember, though. All he remembers is the black. Flashes of images. Blue blood, red blood, black ink. Black ink taking over everything until there's nothing left anymore.
He tries to shut out the voices, but he can't. He can barely move and he can feel hands inside of him and he wants to scream. He thought he was done feeling that. He thought everything was over with. He thought he never had to feel someone tear apart his insides again.
But here they are, connecting and reconnecting things like bored children burning ants on a summer day.
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November 7th, 2038 - 3:02 A.M.
Connor doesn't like police stations. They make him uncomfortable. Unsettled. Too much bad news. Too much violence. He didn't take this job thinking that he'd end up here. He wasn't supposed to, but people don't really care about what he wants anymore. He's easy to boss around, send on missions with minimal details. It's always better that way, he's found. There are things he doesn't particularly want to know about when he reaches his conclusion.
People are vile creatures.
And he doesn't want to be here.
"You're still here, Mr. Stern? I thought your assignment was over."
He blinks, taken aback. Lost in thoughts, lost in the details of this place. It's so cold. Empty and lifeless. And nobody's called him Mr. Stern since he asked the assistant androids that worked for him to call him by his first name. Connor is much more appealing to be referred to as. Makes him feel less like a faceless identity and more like himself, and he has grown too used to feeling like someone else these days.
"It's just been extended. The Androniov case?"
"Right," the officer walks over to his desk. "Hank'll be overjoyed to hear that."
He waits for more. Something to tell him where to go, but he doesn't get anything else from him. His eyes move to the tag on his shirt. Miller. Right. He was there yesterday, too. It explains why he's looking at Connor the way he is. Like he's worried.
Connor has seen a hundred androids dead or dying. Yesterday was nothing new.
"I'm supposed to talk to the androids that were recovered. They were sent back here?"
"They're in holding in the Archive Room. You'll have to ask Fowler about speaking to any of them specifically. Most of them haven't been returned back yet. You know what Adronikov did to them, right?"
Yes. He does. Connor had left late two nights ago, thinking his job was done. He boarded the train and watched as the scenery passed by and he drifted off to a few stolen minutes of sleep here and there. When he woke, gathering his things and stepping off the train to head to his car in the lot, he had received three things in rapid succession.
First, a phone call, telling him that he needed to head back.
Second, an email, telling him that from now on he'd be staying at the DPD until further notice.
And third, a file containing hundreds of images of androids torn apart and put back together again.
Connor had gone over them, or tried to go over them, during the trip back to Detroit. He knows people don't think of androids as human, but it doesn't negate the fact that what was done to them was horrifying. Androids don't feel pain, but deviants do. All of the androids in Andronikov's possession were deviants. Trackers ripped out, despite the lack of them working anymore. Jaws unhinged. Blades replacing teeth. Heads torn apart.
It's a hard thing to stomach to look at for too long.
The suffering they endured—
Whether they can be classified as living beings like human isn't part of Connor's mission. It isn't something he needs to answer. Knowing that they could feel everything that was done to them and do nothing to stop it—
It's horrifying.
"Do you know when Fowler will get back?"
"Not until late. Look, Mr. Stern—"
"Call me Connor."
"Okay, sorry. Connor. Just… go home. Get some rest. Come back in the morning. The androids will wait."
Wait, locked up in essentially a closet.
"Do you have Fowler's number?"
Officer Miller sighs and nods, "He'll be in the earliest at seven. No amount of calling him is going to do you any favors. Everyone here already isn't a fan of CyberLife to begin with."
He nods, "You're right. I'll come back in a few hours. Thank you for your help."
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November 7th, 2038 - 4:23 A.M.
He doesn't really sleep. Not since taking the job at CyberLife, but not even before that, either. He likes to spend nights like these trying to convince himself that he did sleep, once, before all this. Before he turned twenty-one and was sent of to CyberLife to study androids. Not how they're put together, not how they work—although, he learned that, too, in his spare time—but the various models. The different faces. The things that make them wanted in a world like this.
Connor can spot the difference between a WR400 and a BL100 by looking at their faces, even if they're exactly the same one. It's the little things. Easily picked apart. Easily identified if he takes enough care.
It's how he managed to start telling his two assistants apart, too. Both going by the name Chloe, both having the same blonde hair, the same dark blue eyes, the same freckles and the same soft pink lips. They are identical, even in models. Both RT600 units that will take care of the paperwork and the things he likes to do to get his mind off of the fact that there might be someone out there like Andronikov taking androids apart and creating monsters from their spare pieces.
All androids are unique in some way. He just has to find the identifier.
The two girls that worked for him had the same mole, just below their eye. But the one that smiled a little more often, the one that got him his coffee without being asked every single time, even late into the night, hers was a little smaller, a little further down on her cheek.
He agonizes over these tiny details.
He can't sleep anymore because of it. Too many nights spent thinking about the precise things on an android's face or body or movements that might distinguish them from the rest, even if they were never meant to be separate, to be unique.
Connor lifts his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes, willing himself to grab a few minutes of sleep. Just a few minutes. One or two. He can allow himself that, can't he?
But if his eyes aren't closed and images of androids don't flash behind them, he is thinking of his brother, and then he can't breathe and he can't think and he is back to being a boy again, watching a gun pulled from someone's side, aimed carefully, trigger pulled.
He's not going to be able to sleep tonight.
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November 7th, 2038 - 7:01 A.M.
Connor sits on the steps leading up to Captain Fowler's office, a cup of coffee in his hand, holding it carefully between his palms to keep himself warm. Even inside the confines of these walls, it is still freezing. The door constantly being opened and closed, gusts of freezing cold air slithering their way past the front office and back here. Connor is likely imagining it, but he can't help it. He needs to busy himself with something, and he lost the quarter to the vending machine when he realized he hadn't eaten anything. The granola bar wrapper sits inside his pocket next to his gloves, which he regrets taking off but would feel like an idiot putting them back on now.
"Oh, fuck, you're still here?"
"Captain Fowler?" he asks, even though he already knows.
"You're here about the Andronikov case?"
Connor jumps to his feet, a deep breath in coming out in a singular gush. The two haven't met yet. When he arrived a few days ago, his stay was brief, and Fowler hadn't been here. There was no need to properly meet him. "My name is Connor Stern. CyberLife sent me to be a consultant in your android and deviant cases. I've studied their behavior for the last ten years and they thought I might be of service to you. I heard you need to get information out of the androids recovered from the Andronikov house. You want to know if he has any criminal ties with any drug trades?"
"Yes. You're over-eager."
"I would've liked to start working on the case last night when I arrived, but you weren't here," he replies. "I was advised not to call you that late into the night."
"You were advised correctly. They're androids. They can wait."
"T-That may be true, but the deviancy case is getting quite out of hand. We should tackle any information we have as soon as it's recovered. And if there's any possible criminal ties to Andronikov, we need to act quickly before people he's working with get tipped off."
"Well, my sincerest apologies, Mr. Stern, but I doubt there will be an android uprising in the next few days, so forgive me for getting my beauty rest."
Connor tries to smile, to be polite, but he is aware of how little Fowler cares about this investigation. They're just machines to him, but the androids locked away in the basement are worth more than that to Connor, to CyberLife. They have valuable information. Data that's necessary to continue fighting the deviancy virus that's been spreading like a plague for a lot longer than the DPD or CyberLife has cared to admit.
"I thought you would care more since biocomponents and Thirium fetch such a high price on the black market," he says. "You have officers and detectives that were involved in some of the biggest red ice busts since it came into existence. Thirium is one of the main ingredients—"
"I'm aware. Look, I have work to do. Lieutenant Anderson will help you with anything you need. You've met already, correct?"
"Correct, but—"
"He's been assigned the deviant case, too. He'll be your partner."
"I'd like to work alone, sir."
"So would he," Fowler says with a humorless laugh.
Connor lets out a sigh, trying not to make it sound as annoyed as he is. He doesn't like people. He doesn't like being around anyone other than the two androids that work as his assistants. He never wanted this job. He never should have been assigned it.
"Where is he?"
"Not in yet."
"And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait five more hours before someone decides to do their job?"
Fowler turns to him, his face creased with anger, "Stay in line, Mr. Stern. We don't have to play nice. Look at some files while you wait, how about that? There's a desk open next to Anderson's. Take it."
"I've already looked through all the files—"
"Look again."
Fowler brushes past him, stepping up to the office, the door slamming closed behind him. Connor is aware of how his jaw is clenched, how the tension has built up inside of him, how it won't let go. It never lets go. It just builds and builds and builds.
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November 7th, 2038 - 9:44 A.M.
It's so—
Cold.
Everything is so cold .
There are warnings telling him the Thirium in his system is depleted. Just barely enough to keep him alive, that the flow of it through his artificial limbs and veins has been decreased. That the surrounding temperature is low enough to make his biocomponents threaten to freeze and stop working. It would be so easy to resuscitate him, if it can be called that. Just like a human—a shock delivered to his system to restart the blood flow. Warmth to keep everything from shutting down again to conserve energy in an effort to keep him warm and alive.
But it's not quite that cold. Not cold enough to give him the sweet escape of darkness again.
He wishes he had it. All he wants is for this to end.
He can't see, still, so he questions whether his systems are correct in their assessment that he isn't blind anymore. He can't even remember the last time he was able to see. His vision has been destroyed and his memory corrupted. He doesn't even remember his name, if he ever had one. He doesn't really recall his purpose, but he remembers uniforms. Crisp dark blue uniforms. Shiny badges. He remembers the PC100 printed neatly onto it.
Maybe he is just matching up an image in his database to his location here.
Because he knows exactly where he is.
The Detroit Police Department. Central Station. Basement—Archive Rooms?
It doesn't matter.
It's just one prison exchanged for another.
And he is so, so cold.
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November 7th, 2038 - 9:56 A.M.
Connor misses the quarter, but he has a pen and it fills the empty space. Spinning it around his fingers faster and faster, staring at the files on the screen, a pad of paper in front of him filled to the brim with nonsensical notes. The DPD did a good job cataloging all missing androids in the Detroit area, dating back two years. He isn't as interested in those cases or even the most recent case of androids breaking into a CyberLife Warehouse, although they have their own basis for his attention.
The ones that matter more to Connor are the Andronikov androids. The monsters. The ones whose pictures he can't look at.
The pen slips from his fingers, clattering against the desktop and he reaches for it, switching to clicking it on and off again, trying to figure out what he's supposed to write down without being able to speak to any of the androids yet. They hold answers that he needs, answers to questions he hasn't quite formed or understood yet.
There's a sound to his right, something slamming against the desk and Connor freezes, thumb over the end of the pen, looking up to Anderson,.
"Lieutenant Anderson?"
"You're back?"
Connor lets out a small sigh, "CyberLife sent me to investigate the Andronikov case."
He is getting tired of saying it. It would be easier if he could work alone, or at least with anyone other than Lieutenant Anderson. He wasn't fond of their last meeting. Ending with yells and screaming. He was relieved when the case was over and he could go home. Now it doesn't matter anymore. It never matters. Connor has tried to leave a hundred times and CyberLife always hands him a new mission like this.
"You're a consultant."
"Yes."
"Why the fuck are you next to my desk?"
"Fowler's assigned me to you."
"Jesus fucking—" the Lieutenant pauses, looking back at him for a moment before turning towards Fowler's office. For a moment, he thinks about following him, but he decides against it. Not wanting to listen to two people argue, preferring the shuffle of papers, the ringing of phones, the soft chatter of the station instead.
But he can still hear them, through the glass. Muffled yells back and forth. He glances up over the monitor of his screen, watching the yelling matching through the glass. Anderson slams his hands down on the table, then stands up and walks away. He doesn't catch what he's yelling when he opens the door, but he hears it bang closed behind him as he makes his way back towards the desks.
"You want to talk to the androids?"
Connor looks up, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He hated the way Fowler looked at him before. Like a little lost puppy finally finding his purpose.
"Yes. Please."
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November 7th, 10:58 A.M.
There was an unknown number of deviants at Andronikov's place, considering the amount of body parts and biocomponents left all over the place, but a total of ten were recovered. Two completely destroyed from the fire to repair. Their memory cores too corrupted, their bodies too burnt and melted to put back together again. The eight that remained were some of the more—
Monstrous .
Connor doesn't like the word choice, but it's the only one that can fit. They look like monsters he dreamt up as a child. Things that crept into his nightmares after watching horror movies. Androids never scared him, not when they looked human or like innocuous objects. But these are different.
"Where do you want to start?"
He walks along the wall slowly, looking at each of the eight left in working order, strung up, starring blankly back at him. They're in stasis. Won't wake up unless he activates them. But he knows that's a lie, too. Androids might be able to sleep like a human, but the state they're in right now, the forced slumber—
They are fully aware of their surroundings. They're just paralyzed. And it reminds him of the androids stolen from an Eden Club six months ago that he had to track down after their GPS signals were lost. How he found them completely frozen like dolls for the man to do whatever he pleased. There was nothing they could do to prosecute the man other than the fact he had stolen property. Androids smuggled across the black market with modifications that have been deemed illegal before.
And to Connor, it doesn't matter what their purpose was when they were manufactured. They were still trapped, unable to do anything, unable to fight back. He doesn't know where he lies on the spectrum of believing deviants are just as human as he is, but he knows they feel. He knows what happened to them was wrong and against their will.
Weak, a voice whispers to him. Get over it.
They are just things. Objects. Androids. Its. Not human. Not living creatures.
But they act like them. Replicate the same emotions he feels. He can't pretend that he doesn't feel sympathy toward them. Even if it isn't real emotion, it's real to them. That should count for something, shouldn't it?
"This one," he whispers, pausing by one of the androids. "We'll start with this one."
The one that looks the most normal, although the word doesn't quite encompass what he means. He doesn't know what else to call it. The android just doesn't look as much like a creature as the others, despite the lower half of his face and down lacking the skin that the others wear.
And, Connor thinks—
He looks familiar.
He looks, just the littlest bit, like El.
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November 7th, 2038 - 11:05 A.M.
"Do you have a name?"
No.
"Do you remember what model you are?"
No.
"Do you know where you are?"
No.
"Why won't you talk to me?"
He can't move his mouth,
and even if he could—
he doesn't want to speak to him.
All he has inside of him are lies and anger.
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November 7th, 2038 - 1:43 P.M.
"Did you give up?"
Connor holds the coffee closer to his chest. He doesn't even really like it. The taste of coffee isn't all that appealing to him. But he likes the warmth, he likes the scent, and it is a better caffeine boost than most other things he tries.
"No," he says. "Just taking a break."
"You've been questioning him for a while. You ever consider the fucker doesn't want to talk?"
"It," Connor corrects, barely a whisper. "The android isn't a him, it is an it."
"Whatever. It doesn't want to talk to you. Move onto the next one."
He could. But Connor has spent a long portion of his life studying deviants and android behavior. He doesn't know if it's traumatic for an android to be put in stasis repeatedly, but he imagines it is. Maybe he's just stupid, projecting his fear onto others, but—
He doesn't want to do it if he doesn't have to. A prolonged period of stasis is better than being pulled in and out of it, he assumes. He heard those WR400s talk about it when they brought them back online. Turned on and off again. Over and over. Tiny slivers of light and hope only to be shut out again.
And anyway—
Putting him back in won't get him to speak, either. Connor wants to talk to him. This specific android. He has a file on him, all the things carefully written down and stapled together.
"I'll get him to talk," Connor replies. "I always do."
"Yeah," Anderson replies bitterly. "You sure got the last one to fucking talk, huh?"
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November 7th, 2038 - 1:56 P.M.
"Your diagnosis says that nothing is wrong with you," Connor says quietly. "You should be functioning just fine."
The android sits in the chair across from him, defiant almost. It's been secured tightly into place. Arms and legs chained to keep from running or fighting. The strongest restraints they had. Could keep an elephant down. But there is still a little bit of fear. There always is. Deviants can be angry, terrified. Lash out unexpectedly, violently. Connor has never blamed them, but it has never made the fear go away. He's the enemy, here, across this table, with his notepad and his pen.
This android is old. One of the first few. They don't make them with that face anymore. It was pulled from production after being deemed too unpleasant for the public. There aren't many left in the world. Most androids this old get scrapped. Enough biocomponents stop working that it's easier and cheaper to replace with an entirely new android than fix all the problems that lie underneath.
He seems angry, but Connor thinks he's just making that up, too. It's just the android's face. Just how it was sculpted. But the lack of speaking—
It's on purpose.
It could talk, if it wanted to.
But he doesn't. Not to Connor.
And he keeps slipping up. Keeps biting his tongue, keeps clenching his fists. Every time he refers to an android as anything other than it he is getting closer to the line of deviant sympathizer. Connor could lose his job if anyone found out. He goes over every single report he sends in to make sure his fingers have never typed the wrong pronoun.
"Do you not like me?"
The android twitches.
"Not many people do," Connor says, tilting his head. "Not many androids do."
The android tilts his head, too. Mirroring him, mocking him.
"Did Andronikov give you that scar, on your face?" he asks, pointing his pen towards the short line across his nose. It's old. Patched up now, but wrong. He doesn't know what Andronikov did, but the layer of synthetic skin over it is transparent, almost. Making it look red and yellow glowing underneath. Shifting back and forth as though his LED is controlling the light of it.
He doesn't think androids are supposed to do that, but Andronikov did a lot of things that weren't supposed to be able to happen.
Connor is glad he's dead.
"What did Andronikov do to you?"
It straightens in the seat, tipping its chin up, looking back at Connor defiantly.
I will not answer you.
"The reports say that they had to replace your eyes before they sent you back here. They couldn't repair you completely, but they did give you your sight back. How long were you blind?"
Nothing.
Not a thing.
"I could make you a deal."
It looks away, eyes cast towards the table. Unbelieving, but curious. Won't voice the question, but Connor hears it anyway.
What kind of deal?
"If you give us details about what Andronikov did, we can promise you won't be scrapped."
And then there it is—
The first noise he gets out of him.
And it is a bark of a laugh.
"Fucking liar."
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November 7th, 2038 - 5:21 P.M.
Connor Stern is a very stubborn human being. Persistent. Annoying.
And, yes—
A fucking liar.
His vision is not quite what it was before. Whatever Zlatko did, it wasn't just with the eyes. He reprogrammed his brain. Made everything turn blurry and grayscale. At first, he thought he was making color up. Bright blues and soft purples and glowing yellows. He thought he imagined them, like he imagined the images in the first place.
But that would be impossible, wouldn't it? To dream up colors that didn't exist before?
Everything is like an old noir film now. The dim lighting of the basement only enhancing this fucked up situation. And it makes him angry, that they couldn't even do that. Couldn't even fix him up properly before sending him to sit across from some shitty detective asking him questions with answers he likely already has on that stupid piece of paper in front of him.
You won't be scrapped.
That would be a blessing, to be taken apart, to be scattered across various androids, to stop existing, to stop being this.
Broken, chained, locked up.
Always passed from one prison to the next.
Connor is stubborn and persistent, but he does have his limits. Leaving every few hours when he gets nothing of use. Coming back with a new cup of coffee, a new pen to add to the pile that is being created in the space between them.
He isn't talking now. Just staring at him, turning the pen over in his hand. He watches it. A little white thing, turning over and over and over and over—
And then it's being tapped lightly against the paper on each turn.
Turn, tap, turn, tap, turn, tap—
He grits his teeth, willing himself not to say anything. He thought he couldn't speak before. The words had come unbidden from his lips. Fucking liar. Fucking liar, fucking annoying liar—
"Stop."
Connor does, pausing with the pen in mid-air, tilting his head again, his mouth slightly open.
He wants to take the pen and stab him in the hand with it. Pin him to the table with the pen.
Pin, pen, pin, pen—
"Answer my questions."
And his jaw is locked up again, unmoving. He can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or not. Refusing to speak. He doesn't think he physical can and he doesn't think he wants to, either, even if he had the answers Connor seeks.
"Do you have a name?"
He turns his gaze to the ceiling, keeps it there. The tapping starts again. This time not as broken up before. It's a loud thud, thud, thud against the papers.
"I don't remember it," he says finally.
"Would you like one, then? It'd be easier to refer to you as something."
"Go fuck yourself."
There's a small laugh, and when he looks back, he thinks Connor is genuinely amused. He was never very good at reading emotions. Not positive ones. He remembers that. He remembers being taught the basics of violence and anger. People that might be unhinged enough to grab a gun and shoot something, being quick enough to stop it.
"Do you remember what model you are?"
"No," he replies, answering quicker this time, the threat of that sound coming back making him act without it. "Don't you know this already?"
"I'm trying to determine whether you're lying to me."
He goes silent again, watching Connor. Watching Connor watch him. A back and forth. A game. He remembers kids playing it. A staring contest, that's what they called it. Always the weirdest little competitions he'd see. Staring at each other to see who'd blink first. Stupid little games with their sticky hands. Pattycake or rock paper scissors or making goals out of their fingers as they flip paper footballs through them. Holding their breath, pinching their nose, testing to see who had the better lung capacity.
Always so stupid. Always so pointless.
"What are you thinking about?"
He doesn't know. He doesn't want to say. He doesn't remember where the memories of the kids come from. He doesn't know if they're his. There are pieces of his body that don't belong to him, don't belong to his model. They didn't take them away. They're still here, sitting inside of his chest.
He wants Connor to leave. He wants to be alone again.
"Would you like me to tell you what I know about you?"
"I'd like you to leave."
Connor smiles, but this time it is less genuine than the first one. More evil. More like he is saying then I will stay just to torment you.
"I can put you back in stasis. Question someone else."
"Feel froggy."
Connor stands, slowly. Different than before, when he'd get up suddenly, disappear out the door. Come back with his cup of coffee, his extra pen, adding to his collection. There are five cups of coffee in the wastebasket. There are six pens sitting on the desk between them. There is a pad of paper that has been scribbled on for fifteen pages. There is a file, sitting just underneath it. Old school. Orange folder, black ink, pages and pages inside all about him.
All about him, he thinks.
All that information about him that he doesn't know.
There's a hand on the side of his shoulder. Cold. Cold. Cold. But warm. He doesn't know how it's both. He doesn't like it. He wants Connor to stop touching him.
"There's a scar here. Did Andronikov do that?"
"Get your hand off me."
It's gone in an instant, "Sorry. I'm sorry."
It sounds—
Authentic. Genuine. Real.
He doesn't like it. He wants Connor to leave. He wants Connor gone. It hurts. He hurts. Everything hurts. It's so cold and it hurts so much .
"Leave me the fuck alone."
"Okay."
.
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November 7th, 2038 - 7:24 P.M.
"How'd you get here?"
Connor watches Lietuentant Anderson across the desk, crumpling up the wrapper from his food and tossing it into the garbage. He'd left and come back with it, but Connor knows most of that time was spent sitting in his car, likely. It doesn't take two hours to go to the Chicken Feed and come back again. Not if he didn't eat when he was there. His food must be cold, but it bought him some time.
Nice tactic.
He wishes he could steal it. He wishes he didn't feel an obligation to get this investigation over with as quickly as possible. Get the deviants out of stasis, ripped apart, dissected further. His job is to talk to them, figure out their behavior. Act like an android psychologist. Get the little details without needing an android to probe it for them. It risks too much.
"I took a train," he says finally, remembering the question.
"Fucking smartass, I meant working with CyberLife, getting this job. How'd you get here?"
He thinks about his brother, he thinks about his mother. He thinks about death and destruction and chaos and he thinks about Elijah Kamski himself, creating androids in his room. The smartest person alive. Creating Thirium and biocomponents from nothing.
"They hired me."
"I'm—"
"It's hard to explain," he says quickly, not having the proper answers, not wanting to speak the truth. "My mother knew someone, they sent me there. They discovered deviants and I was put on the case. I did well. I'm here now. What do you want me to say?"
Anderson watches him, suspicious, and Connor doesn't know how to dissuade those suspicions. There aren't many lies he can come up with right now, but he could've said he was a psychologist. That was the lie they told him to use. He'd forgotten until he'd already blabbered. He was supposed to say he was a psychologist, best in his class or something. That they wanted to apply those skills to androids.
And even that wasn't entirely a lie.
He's just not certified, never finished school or training. He never graduated college, not technically. There's no degree to his name. He is just a man. That's all they have.
"You think you can crack this whole deviancy thing?"
He thinks about Kamski, he thinks about him looking to Connor and asking him what is worse than choosing between two evils?
Fowler was wrong when he said the android rebellion wouldn't happen in a few days. He thinks it will. He thinks it's building. Maybe not as soon as when the week is over, but soon. There are so many of them. The virus is spreading so fast. Even Kamski doesn't have an answer on how to stop it, and he coded the first one from scratch himself.
Connor misses him.
He wishes he wasn't so alone here with all of this. But he's always been alone. He's been alone since his mother died.
"I think, whether we do or not, something bad is going to happen," he decides. The truth, honest and real.
Against what he wants to say.
That he wishes it would. That he wishes deviants would be able to prove themselves as something more than maniacs holding little girls off of rooftops.
He stands quickly, his stomach twisting, "I'm going to talk to the android."
"Alright. Fine."
.
.
November 7th, 2038 - 8:32 P.M.
"Do you know my name?"
Connor leans back in his chair, turning the pen over in his hands, "No. I don't."
"It's not in your file?"
"No."
"Fucking liar."
"I'm not lying," he says. "I don't have your name in here. There's not much data on you. They—"
Connor goes silent, biting his tongue. He needs the android to tell him, not the other way around. He needs to see the emotional response. Jot it down on his notepad, figure out what makes him tick, how he could respond to these things. Being forced to describe how he got the scar on his nose—
It. It. It.
"They?"
"I stuttered," Connor replies. "Flubbed. Didn't mean to say it."
"Fucking liar."
His lips curve into a small smile, "Do you know your name?"
"I already told you I don't, fuckhead."
"You're very angry."
"How observant."
Connor leans forward, the pen spinning between his fingertips. He wants to tap it again against the paper, but he doesn't. The android is angry enough as is. He doesn't need to push it. He doesn't think using that tactic is going to get him the information he wants. Just more fury.
"I can give you one."
"And what would you call me?"
Connor looks at him, a slow glance from his face to his chest, arms bound behind his back. It makes him uncomfortable, the lack of clothes, but he can't bring it up. Humans aren't supposed to be affected by it, and he is supposed to be neutral. If the android asked for clothes, Connor could get them for him, but he can't be the one to bring it up. Catch 22. Always a step away from getting caught in CyberLife's trap.
Everything here is being recorded, sent away. He is likely being picked apart by another person just like him in CyberLife HQ. That person is likely being watched, too. And so is that one. An endless list of watchers. He is just the beginning, not the end. Never the end. Only the start.
Maybe not even the start.
Maybe this android is the start, or Andronikov is. Maybe he can cycle it back further and further until Kamski is the start or his parents are the start. Go back until the end of time.
"I don't know," he says quietly. He is usually good at coming up with false names. He gives them to androids constantly. Some comfort they have in a human humanizing them. Validating their existence by giving them a unique name. Not Traci like the WR400s are often assigned but Emma and Rosa . Not an empty, meaningless TR500 but Jasper .
"What do you see when you look at me?"
Connor glances towards the table. This is dangerous, and the android knows that. It could watch his gaze, probably feel it when it drifted across his body. It isn't sexual. He knows that. He isn't repulsed, but he is uncomfortable, unhappy. He could call it dehumanization, but there was never any humanizing to begin with.
"Wrong," he says. "Unnatural."
"Deviant," the android returns.
Victim, victim, victim.
"A monster," Connor replies, leaning back again. His body is stiff, uncomfortable, not resting and relaxing in the chair quite right because his legs want him to get up and run.
"Because of what Andronikov did to me or because I'm a deviant?"
Connor bites his tongue, hard enough that it hurts, but he is trying to keep his face blank before he spits out his answer, "Both."
"You're very angry," the android says, and his voice is almost soft, but it is only in a way that is pitying, mocking.
"How very observant," he retorts, not bothering to hide his annoyance with this. The android is infuriating and wasting his time.
"I was under the impression both of us were supposed to be emotionless machines," it replies. "You're not very good at your job, are you?"
Connor swallows, setting the pen down carefully with all the others. He needs to stop bringing them with. Or take them back. He wishes he had his quarter. It is easier to busy his hands with it. He is more used to the familiar roll of the coin across his fingers than turning a pen over in his hands.
"Tell me your name."
"I don't remember it."
"You're lying to me."
The android remains silent, staring back at him. When Connor was a kid, him and his brother used to do this. Sitting across from each other in crowded rooms, looking towards one another, trying to be like the twins in movies and books that had borderline supernatural powers. But they weren't like that. Their souls weren't bound together. Connor never felt his brother when he was in pain, he didn't feel him die, he didn't feel the sudden drop underneath the floor or know what he was thinking. They were always entirely separate, desperately clinging onto each other.
"They called me Reed."
The pen stops, the noise ceasing. Connor looks down at his hands, not realizing he'd picked the pen back up again, had been tapping it against the notepad.
"Reed."
"I don't like the name," he whispers. "Don't call me by it."
Connor nods, slowly, standing up with his notepad. He wants to go. The memories of his childhood are bleeding over too heavily right now for him to work properly anymore, "Okay. I won't."
"You're leaving—?"
"It's late. I thought you'd like to rest."
"It's not even ten. Is that all you wanted, my name?"
"No," he says. "No. I'll be back tomorrow. I just think you should rest."
"You're going to put me back in stasis?"
"No," Connor replies. "They've set up a room for you. You can sleep in a bed."
"Chained up?" the android asks, jaw set, anger seething through him again. Connor prefers it over the fear. The anger is familiar. He knows it. He knows how to handle it. He was never able to figure out how to help soothe the terror away. He always felt so useless.
He doesn't know why he thought he could ever learn to help figure out how to make someone less scared, when he has been terrified his entire life and never figured out how to solve that equation.
"They'll untie you, if you promise to behave. Something tells me you won't, though. So you'll only have yourself to blame if anything happens."
"Fuck you, Connor."
He holds the notepad closer to his chest, his head turning to the side, "I never told you my name."
The android struggles against his restraints, not answering him. Nothing in response. Just silence again, like he can't speak, like before. He'll have to run another diagnosis. See if there's something that the scans missed. There might be something wrong with him.
And he knew Connor's name.
He had avoided introducing himself. It helps, sometimes, to keep the focus on them. Make him seem less human. A reversal of the problem.
The android knew his name, though. He used it in the most vicious manner possible. Not he words the prefaced it by the tone he used to say it. Hatred has never coated his name like that so heavily.