Elijah Kamski had grown accustomed to life being a certain way. He was used to leisure, ease, luxury. He was used to being in control. In under a half an hour, his life had been threatened, his house had burned, and one of his Chloe's had been damaged.

He had watched any semblance of control he had crumble.

It was disorienting.

It had taken longer than any of them would have liked to get things squared away with the emergency responders, but to Elijah, it had all passed in a blur. It was now nearing midnight. He had gotten a hotel room not far away, a suite with a lounge area large enough for two couches to face one another and a bedroom off either side. It was comfortable, but he was having difficulty letting himself settle.

He should have known better than anyone what Cyberlife was capable of, what levels they were willing to stoop to. He had let his complacency distract him. Now, all he could do was try not to appear as shaken as he was.

Lieutenant Anderson exited one of the bathrooms, rubbing at his hair with a towel. He let out a slight groan as he sunk into the couch opposite him. He didn't try to make conversation, which Kamski was grateful for.

He knew there was still tension between him and the Lieutenant. It wasn't as though it was there without reason. Neither of them could say their previous meeting had gone well. Elijah preferred solitude. He had barely left his house in the past decade, choosing the company of his Chloe's over human interaction. Even among humans, police were very low on the list of types he enjoyed associating with, and he had let that color that interaction.

Still, he had to admit, he had a begrudging respect for the man. Lieutenant Anderson had taken control of the situation. Whether it was his years on the force, or it came naturally to him, he had kept a clear mind in the face of chaos. Even with what appeared to be a rather debilitating head wound. Elijah had no doubt things would have been much worse had the Lieutenant not been there.

Elijah stretched, then ran his fingers through his own damp hair. It was nice to be clean. The smell of smoke and toxic fumes hung in his nostrils as a haunting memory, but at least it no longer clung to him.

Chloe had been kind enough to get them all a change of clothes as well. Although he lamented that his air of mystery was likely completely shattered by the minion's pajama pants, Elijah was still grateful. He knew it was her idea of a joke. She was trying to lighten the mood and make him smile. It was endearing.

Besides, it wasn't as though he was alone. Lieutenant Anderson seemed far less intimidating with angry birds all over his legs.

Markus entered from the other bathroom, completing their odd trio sporting a set of Rainbow Dash.

Hank looked up as he entered, greeting him with a nod. "Didn't have you pegged as a 'brony'," he teased.

"A what?" Markus questioned, face contorting in confusion.

"And here I thought Carl had raised you right," he said with a shake of his head. "Never mind. It's not important."

Still looking a bit puzzled, Markus made his way to the couch with Hank and sat down. "Do we have any ideas on where to go from here?" He addressed Kamski. "From the sound of it, there wasn't much left of your lab. I'm assuming that includes your diagnostic bay."

Elijah nodded. He didn't want to think about how much of his house had burned down, but they had to take stock of their situation. If they could hold it together, so could he. "That's correct, even if it was intact, I wouldn't trust it not to short out considering the state of the rest of the house."

"Fuck," Hank groaned. "You said we needed that thing to get rid of that program, didn't you?"

Chloe entered the room from the hallway at that point. She and her sisters had gotten themselves coordinating pink sundresses that did nothing to match the severity of the situation. She smiled sweetly at Elijah as she handed him a sleek white laptop. He thanked her before she headed to the other room to check in on her damaged counterpart.

"Yes and no," Kamski said in answer to the Lieutenant's question. "All we really need to get rid of the Amanda program is the killswitch."

"Wasn't that also lost in the fire?" Markus asked.

The corner of Elijah's lips curled into a cocky smile. "Rule number one of code," he told them, waving the laptop proudly. "Always back up your work."

Markus leaned forward in his seat excitedly. "So we still have it. We still have the killswitch?"

Elijah nodded, opening the laptop to access his files. "We do," he confirmed. "That's the yes part of the yes or no. We still need a way to upload it to Connor."

Hank swore. "It's 2038, shouldn't we have a way to beam that crap right to his head or something?"

Elijah rolled his eyes. He had almost forgotten what it was like to converse with the technologically illiterate. He didn't have the energy to even begin explaining the multitude of reasons why that wouldn't work. "Ok, boomer," he retorted instead.

Hank was not particularly thrilled with that answer. "Fuck you!" He shouted. "I'm a millennial you piece of-"

"Alright," Markus interrupted, putting a hand on Hank's chest to keep him seated. "None of this is helping."

As much as Elijah enjoyed riling Lieutenant Anderson up, he was glad Markus was there to keep the peace. He was right, of course. This wasn't helping. Had his and the Chloe's lives not been in danger, he may have considered continuing to heckle the man, but he reasoned it wasn't worth it. Kamski sighed in resignation. "In theory, we could upload it to him with a standard zeta drive if we could access the port," he said, getting back to the point.

The Lieutenant sat back in his seat again, seeming to come to a silent agreement that the matter at hand was more important than their squabble. "Ok, so we just need to take him down long enough to plug that thing into him?"

He pursed his lips for a moment. "Technically."

"Alright, spit it out, there's a catch, isn't there."

Elijah looked up at the Lieutenant. He was perceptive, he'd give him that. "Yes," he admitted. "There is a catch. Without a diagnostic bay, we can't sort through his code, it would be a blanket wipe. With how integrated the Amanda program seems to be with his own… Well, it's likely it will delete most of Connor too."

"Oh, Fuck no!" Hank exclaimed. "No way in hell! We're not deleting the kid!"

Markus put a hand on the man again, his shoulder this time, keeping him from standing. He looked as concerned as the Lieutenant. "That can't be our only option," he insisted.

"Unless you have a diagnostic bay over in New Jericho, I'm not seeing any other choice," Elijah admitted. He felt for them, he really did. Connor seemed like a good man, a fascinating one at the very least, it was a shame that this had happened to him. But they couldn't very well let him run around doing CyberLife's dirty work.

Markus shook his head sadly. "We don't have one," he said. "It's on the list of things we are hoping to acquire. What about CyberLife tower? Surely there are diagnostic bays there."

"True," Elijah agreed. "But it's still private property. And even if we could get in, it's likely they were all put offline during the evacuation. Who knows what state they would be in."

Hank pinched the bridge of his nose. Kamski wondered if it was in irritation or if his head was still bothering him. "And that's assuming Connor hasn't already trashed the place," he groaned.

"I think we are alright on that front, at least," Markus supplied. Both men looked at him for clarification, so he continued. "I scanned him, back at the house. His battery was critically low. He'll need to recharge before he attempts that kind of infiltration."

"Well, damn," The Lieutenant said, shaking his head. "Who would've thought his insomnia would come in handy."

Markus nodded in agreement. "If he is in rest mode long enough to fully charge, we still have a few hours before he makes a move."

"So we probably still have our way to find him," Hank concluded. "But we need to figure out how to fix him. We aren't just fuckin deleting Connor. That's not an option."

Markus turned to Elijah. "What if the killswitch was uploaded by interfacing?"

He thought it over for a moment, considering the possibility. " It wouldn't be as precise as a diagnostic bay, but it would be possible to separate out the code with an interface. It would be risky though. There are likely security measures built into the Amanda program now. I doubt it would be too keen on getting deleted."

"But it is an option," Markus reasoned. "And without a diagnostic bay, it's the best one I can think of."

Hank's brow creased in concern as he frowned. "Doesn't he need to agree to do that though? I thought you couldn't force that hand thing."

Markus winced slightly, clearly uncomfortable. "It can be forced," he acknowledged. "It is generally considered rude, downright invasive if I'm being honest, but I don't really see a safer option at this point."

"You'll need to get close enough for physical contact," Elijah told him. He didn't really see a problem with the whole thing. They were taking this risk to save Connor after all. That was well worth a little invasion of privacy. "All in all, I suppose that's easier than trying to gain access to his driver port."

The Lieutenant still looked a bit uncomfortable, but had evidently arrived at the same conclusion Kamski had. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense," he turned to Markus. "I can help run distraction. I guess it'll be up to you and the girls to get that bitch out of his head."

Elijah's head snapped up from where he had been accessing the killswitch file on the laptop. "The girls? You don't mean the Chloes?"

The Lieutenant looked over at him. "Well I sure as hell wasn't talking about you."

He frowned, shaking his head. "The Chloes are not going. I don't want them anywhere near this."

Hank turned to him fully. "We need as much backup as we can get. You saw what Connor can do."

"Exactly!" Elijah countered. "He already damaged one of them. It's too dangerous. He could kill them."

"Oh, now you're worried Connor might kill one of them?" Hank scoffed.

"I always have their best interest in mind," he insisted.

"Right, that's what that 'Kamski test' was all about. Chloe's best interest?"

Elijah crossed his arms annoyed. "I had that situation entirely under control," he said indignantly. "You were the one who got in the way."

"Got in the way?" Hank was fully shouting at this point. "Of what, a fuckin bullet to that girl's head!?"

He stared the Lieutenant down, trying not to be intimidated by the man. "Of Connor deviating," he explained. "I was giving him an order to defy. He would have broken his code by refusing to shoot had you not given him a countering order."

"No," Hank told him, shaking his head, still clearly angry. "Connor would have shot, he said so himself. He would've killed that girl."

That… honestly surprised Elijah. He supposed it was possible that he misjudged the situation. Chloe certainly hadn't been happy with him after the confrontation. But he had been so certain. Connor had displayed many traits associated with early deviancy, he figured all it would take was a push. But the Lieutenant did seem to know Connor well. Maybe he had been wrong.

Not that he would admit to it though.

Elijah was spared coming up with a suitable response by Markus, once again, playing referee. "As… disturbing as all this is, we are off track again," he said. He turned to Elijah. "We will ask the Chloes if they wish to assist. If they do, we will be happy for their help." He turned back to Hank. "If not, we will respect that decision."

Hank still looked angry, but agreed after a few moments. Elijah wanted to argue, but figured it was a fair compromise. Besides, he wasn't about to tell the deviant leader that he didn't want the Chloes to decide for themselves.

"Alright," he said at last, turning back to the laptop. "I suppose all that's left is to reformat the killswitch then."

It really wouldn't take much. It was already made for compatibility with androids, he would really just need to change the file type to make it accessible with an interface. He figured he might as well tweak it a bit while he was at it, make it more efficient. "I'm going to add a sleeper code," he told Markus. "It will put Connor into stasis as soon as you initiate the interface. That should make things a bit easier."

"That's a good idea," Markus agreed, pleased they were back to troubleshooting the real problem at hand.

Hank had simmered down, but still looked agitated. "It's not gonna hurt him, right?"

"Of course not," Kamski assured him. "Just knock him out. Uploading the killswitch would be a lot harder if he is conscious and trying to break the interface." He turned back to Markus. "This won't be easy," he warned him. "You'll need to find Amanda's source code in order to get a clean wipe. And you'll need to isolate Connor's code. If you don't it will be the same as just uploading it. Connor will get deleted too."

"No pressure," Markus quipped humorlessly to himself with a tense smile. "I'm sure I can manage. My code is similar to his, I should be able to identify it without issue. I won't let Connor down."

Elijah nodded and put in a few more keystrokes before turning the laptop to him. "Ok then," he said, gesturing for Markus to obtain the file. "It's ready to go if you are."

He placed a skinless hand on the keyboard and accepted the key to the other android's salvation. Elijah couldn't help but muse to himself that Connor's fate was quite literally in Markus's hands.