His vision was fuzzy when Hank regained consciousness. He blinked, trying to bring the figure hovering over him into focus. The back of his head hurt like a bitch. Someone was talking, but it sounded like he was under water.
Hank closed his eyes again tightly, trying to will the dizziness away. When he opened his eyes again, some of the blurriness had cleared. Markus loomed over him, concern clear in his features. "Lieutenant Anderson?" He asked, seeing him finally lucid.
"Fucking hell," Hank groaned. He moved to get up, the deviant leader guiding him into a sitting position. His hand moved to the back of his aching head. He felt a wetness under his fingertips.
"You have a mild concussion," Markus informed him. His hand stayed on his shoulder, stabilizing him. "And a laceration on the back of your head. Neither appear to be life threatening, but you should see a doctor."
"Right..." His brain was trying to catch up with everything that had happened. He blinked a few times, bringing the android in and out of focus. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"You called me," Markus answered. "The line went dead suddenly and I couldn't get ahold of you again so I came right over. I hope you don't mind that I let myself in. The door was unlocked and there was no response when I rang the bell."
Hank groaned, rubbing a hand over his face to clear some of the fogginess. "At least you didn't break my damn window." He blinked a couple of times, eyes roaming over the room trying to piece together what had happened. They settled on the broken bits of ceramic on the floor. What were those doing there?
"Lieutenant Anderson," Markus said, attempting to get his attention. He listened, but his eyes stayed trained on the shattered pieces. "On the phone, you said there was something wrong with Connor?" He prompted.
room spun again. He remembered coming home, remembered stopping the kid from putting a bullet in his skull. He had to help Connor.
"Lieutenant," Markus steadied him as he nearly fell forward. "Where is he? Where is Connor?"
It was the mug. The clarity of that insignificant detail seemed to sober his foggy mind. The broken ceramic on his floor was from the mug he had given Connor to use with his paints. The mug that had been on the coffee table. In the living room with Connor. With Connor, who was now missing.
"Fuck."
"I'm going to get you to a doctor," Markus's expression was one of concern and his voice echoed the sentiment.
"No, no, I'm fine," Hank groaned out. "Fucking… We need to find Connor." The kid had warned him. He told him not to let his guard down, that Amanda could take control at any moment. He hadn't expected it to be so soon. Connor had one request and he'd already fucked it up.
"What happened?" Markus asked, right to the point.
Hank got to his feet shakily, with Markus assisting. "CyberLife," he told him. "Those bastards put some kind of program in Connor's head. It's controlling him."
The deviant leader looked almost spooked. "Amanda?" He clarified.
"Yeah," he gave him a funny look. "How the hell do you know about her?"
Markus helped him to sit on the bed. "I saw a memory of her in Connor's mind once when we interfaced," he explained. "But I thought she wasn't there anymore. I thought he overrode the program."
"He thought so too," Hank told him. "Don't know how, but apparently she's back. She's back and being one hell of a bitch."
Markus frowned and Hank could tell he was connecting the dots. "Amanda is back, and Connor is gone. She took full control of his program, didn't she?"
"Yeah," Hank sighed. "Don't know any other reason for the kid to knock me out."
"I'll need to alert New Jericho," Markus said. It sounded as though even the thought was painful. "They will need to be wary. In case CyberLife tries something."
They needed to know not to trust Connor. A message in direct opposition to what Markus had been preaching. A promise that Hank had already broken.
A warning that Connor was dangerous.
Connor had been right.
"Ok, yeah. You do that," he agreed. "But what's next? There's gotta be a way to fix this." Even if Connor was right, he wouldn't regret stopping the kid from killing himself. There had to be another way.
"Connor escaped Amanda before, didn't he?" Markus questioned.
"Yeah, he did." Hank rubbed at his head. He was glad that the bleeding appeared to have stopped. "Connor said there was an emergency exit, but apparently the bitch was fucking with it. He was pretty sure it wasn't going to work again."
Markus sighed, disheartened. "I suppose that would have been too simple."
"Nothing is ever simple," Hank lamented in agreement.
The deviant leader sat on the bed, crossing his arms in contemplation. "We will need a plan," he said at last. "Just locating Connor won't be enough. We need to know what we're going to do if we're going to avoid hurting him."
"I'm open to suggestions," Hank groaned out. He let his head fall into one of his hands as the pain in his temple spiked.
"First thing first, we need to get you to a doctor," Markus decided.
"I'm fine," he argued. "Not the first concussion I've had."
He could practically hear the android's frown. "You don't build up an immunity to concussions, Lieutenant."
"No," Hank agreed, "but I know when they're a problem. I'm fine, I just need some painkillers."
He could tell at a glance that he didn't agree, but chose not to argue. That was proof enough for Hank that his injury wasn't life threatening. At his grumbled request, Markus stepped out of the room to retrieve the bottle of Tylenol.
Hank waited for him to return, eyes falling on the broken mug again. He knew he would need to clean that up, but didn't have the energy to care at the moment. They needed a plan. He had to think. But the pain in his skull was making that frustratingly difficult.
A glass of water crossed into his line of vision. He looked at the android and accepted both it and the painkillers he was offering.
"You look miserable," Markus commented. "Are you sure you shouldn't see a doctor?"
Hank swallowed the pills effortlessly. "I'll be fine," he insisted. "We've got better things to worry about. Have you talked to your people?"
"I have," he confirmed. "I sent Josh a message while I was in the kitchen. New Jericho knows to keep an eye out for him. I made sure they know it's not Connor in control."
"Good, good." The last thing they needed was people hating him for this when it was all over. He was already on shaky ground, he didn't want it to get any worse. It was sure to look bad whatever way it went, but Markus certainly had a way of maintaining image. He hoped it would work, hoped they wouldn't blame the victim for the crime.
"Alright," Markus said, his tone serious. "We need a plan, so let's start with what we know. The A.I. Amanda is controlling Connor. Do we know what she wants?"
"Connor said she was upset we were investigating CyberLife," he told him. "Wanted him to sabotage shit."
"Ok, that's far from a good thing, but it's a start. If we know what she is after, it narrows the search." Markus crossed his arms, pacing as he thought. Hank couldn't help but marvel at how human the action was. It still made him dizzy.
"Finding him is only half the battle if even that," Hank frowned. "How are we supposed to fight the bitch if she's in his head?"
"I don't know yet," Markus admitted. "I honestly have never seen anything like this before."
"Fuck. Just one more goddamn way the kid had to be special," Hank groaned.
"He does keep throwing us for a loop, doesn't he."
Couldn't the kid have anything standard? Something that they knew how to deal with? "What about the emergency exit?" He suggested. "Could we fix it somehow?"
"Not without knowing how it was destroyed," Markus told him. "For all we know, it was scrubbed from his system entirely."
"What about rewriting it?" Hank rubbed at his temple. The painkillers had just started taking effect and a blissful numbness was spreading across his forehead. "Kamski made the damn thing. Couldn't we just, I don't know, upload a new one?"
Markus stopped his pacing. "That… actually has merit." He looked over at Hank. "Elijah made Amanda, he may have some idea how to stop her."
Finally. Fuckin finally, a lead. "Alright, I'm not coming up with anything better. Give me five minutes to get cleaned up and we'll head over."
Markus nodded. Hank didn't miss how some tension seemed to leave the android's form now that they had an idea, tentative as it was. He headed to the bathroom. Even if he didn't much care for Elijah Kamski, it was rude to show up on someone's doorstep unannounced, covered in blood.