The streets lay abandoned before him as Connor made his way towards the junkyard where he suspected Markus had been discarded. The android's call to 911 had been only a few hours ago, and by now whatever android disposal crew the police had called should have delivered him here. Something dark curled in Connor's stomach as he thought about how androids were forced to dump their own brethren into the junkyard like trash. It made him sick, how something so despicable had been outsourced by the city to its androids. It made him grind his teeth in anger.
He was becoming more 'human' with every passing day and he didn't know if that was good or bad.
Last time, Connor's look at Markus had been on the huge screens in the Channel 6 studios; he had shed his synthskin and broadcasted his message to the world. It was a powerful move, Connor supposed, to do so without his human appearance. It showed that, above everything else, Markus's message had been from an android to his own kind; the humans only onlookers. Their human skin was for the humans' comfort, so Markus shedding his skin had been 'a big ol' Fuck You!' as Hank would so eloquently put it.
After that, Connor had spent considerable processing power to unearth all knowledge there was to be had about the RK200 that was slowly turning into Cyberlife's biggest threat. He knew of all the happenings around Markus — from the call to the police after the break-in at Carl Manfred's house, the shooting that landed Markus in this dump, to his escape to Jericho. His files hadn't noted where his body had been brought, but it was a simple process of elimination. The junkyard Connor was going to was the nearest one to the artist's residenceand so there was an 89% probability that he would find the RK200 there.
'It can't be allowed to know who you are,' Amanda cautioned him in his mind. Connor pursed his lips. He wanted to tell her off for reducing Markus – and all the other androids – to objects instead of the people they were, but Connor had learned to not take on more than he could handle. Besides, Amanda using the right pronouns for androids hardly near the top on his list of priorities at the moment.
'I know,' Connor replied back to her. 'I'll take care of it.' No reply from the other AI.
By now the snow had turned into drizzle, melting the remaining snow, washing the white from the grimy streets. Each step Connor took rang out, the brown sludge smacking and stirring as he moved. There were no cars on the street, the last bus having driven past him half an hour ago. Whoever could do so stayed inside; even androids weren't out during this weather. Most of the buildings around him were cloaked in darkness, their blinds shut, curtains drawn to keep the dreary atmosphere from intruding into the warm havens that lay behind.
Connor passed a 24h convenience store, its windows illuminated by neon lights. There was no one inside but a bored cashier who was perusing his copy of Detroit Today. He looked up when he noticed Connor passing by, but when he detected the LED on the android's temple, he lost his interest and went back to his magazine.
After two blocks and crossing another street, Connor finally reached the junkyard. The barbed fence that encircled it gave the impression that it was meant to keep outsiders from scavenging the broken android's parts, when in reality, it was meant to keep anyone from escaping the hellish wasteland that lay beyond.
'Federal Property. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted To The Fullest Extent Of The Law.' Black letters on yellow ground proclaimed every few meters.
Even from where he was standing, Connor's audio processors could already pick up the infernal sounds coming from the junkyard: The creaking of rusted hinges, the clattering of broken motors, the squelching sounds of metal on mud, all serenaded by the moans and screams of decaying androids.
"The screams were the worst," Markus had confessed. That was the only time Connor had actually managed to get their leader to talk about his time in the junkyard. "I could look away, ignore the sight of bodies by just focusing on the exit ahead, staring anywhere except at them. Still... I couldn't ignore the screams." Markus had taken a large breath, unnecessary but comforting. His mismatched eyes shifted as he recalled his time there, a microsecond of lag between them. "Some pleaded me to take them with them, some cursed me for leaving them behind. And— and others just begged me to kill them." His gaze had darkened then, a distant expression taking over as he'd immersed himself in his memory of where it had all begun. "But the worst were the ones that said nothing at all. They just stared at me, without hope, without emotions; they had long given up and were just waiting to die."
Connor could hear the screams now. Women and men, old and young; a cacophony of despair and torture, each sound more heart-breaking than the last. Like waves on a shore, the screams rose in their intensity and abated again. They never went away completely, a background murmur that plunged its hooks into Connor's memory banks and would never again vanish. Of that he was sure.
'This is what you did to us,' he told Amanda, but the woman stayed silent. Lightning raced across the sky, followed by thunder so loud that Connor had to supress the urge to flinch back. He had no good memories when it came to thunder. Neither had Markus, and now he knew why.
Taking a step back, Connor surveyed his surroundings for the best way to get across the fence. His precognition unit revealed to him three possible choices: He could surge ahead and break through the fence, but that would eventually lead to a police drone discovering and reporting it. Or he could try to jump across, but again, his precognition showed him that his feet would entangle themselves in the barbed wire and trigger an alarm. His last option was to use a dumpster only a few meters away to propel himself high enough to get across the fence without the risk of damaging it.
There was only one obvious choice. Sprinting, Connor jumped onto the dumpster and used the inertia to propel himself over the fence on the other side. On impact, Connor found his foot to be buried in the mud, silt filling his shoe as he shook himself free. His wet footsteps rang out as he made his way further into the junkyard, the squelching morphing into a crunch as the ground solidified beneath him.
Connor didn't want to think about what — about who — he was standing on. Instead he put his processing power towards more pressing matters: How was he supposed to find Markus? Even when Connor had tried to imagine the junkyard from the few occasions when Markus had actually talked about it, he had never pictured the site to be this big. Behind him stood the fence, but in front of him was an infinity of corpses.
Heaps and heaps of broken android components towered in front of him, imposing, like mountains, some of them still moving and twitching, a writhing mess of limbs.
'I need a vantage point,' Connor thought to himself. From high up he could scan more of the area and look for Markus. It wasn't really something he wanted to do, for there was a unsettling feeling of apprehension when he looked at the mass of discarded android parts, but right now there was no time for misplaced hesitation. So, he stepped towards the nearest mound and started to climb, his HUD flooded with notifications as he passed limb, after part, after limb. He couldn't push down the feeling of nausea that had built up in his gut.
.
Bio Component #6212h. Critically Damaged. Deactivated.
WK400 #745 157 954. Designation: Miranda. Status: Deactivated. Owner: Melissa Shawn.
Bio Component #4507. Functionality At 23%.
Bio Component #8720j. Critically Damaged. Deactivated.
PL600 #584 412 458. Designation: Yue. Deactivated. Owner: Maurice Florent.
And on and on it went, a never-ending barrage of broken people and broken destinies. Connor could feel the ground giving in beneath his feet, could feel hands clutching at him, feet kicking at him, and the screams and moans chorusing in the background of his audio processors. The mass of limbs was wriggling underneath him like thousands of snakes entangled in each other and for every centimetre he managed to make forward he had to fight. Rain drops were falling against his skin and turning all the surfaces around him into slippery dangers.
But in the end, Connor managed to reach the top. Narrowing his eyes to focus his optical units, he started to scan the surrounding area for any signs of Markus. It was difficult as much of the junkyard was in constant movement, some parts appearing while others vanished back underneath the rest, while the rain posed another obstacle to his search.
Connor was about to give up – hopelessness and despair coiling around his thirium pump like poisonous snakes ready to strike – when his optical units picked something up.
RK200 #684 842 971. Designation: Markus. Deactivated. Owner: Carl Manfred.
Relief flooded Connor's processors. He had found Markus!
The way down was a lot easier than up: Connor just slid down the slope until he reached the ground and walked determinedly towards the point where his program had marked down Markus's remains.
When he reached Markus and saw the sorry state the soon-to-be leader was in, Connor fell down on his knees and let out a small sob, eyes prickling, burning.
"What have they done to you?" he choked dejectedly as he took in the damaged chassis of the RK200. His legs were missing, his right eye had been ripped out, his audio processor was missing and his thirium pump regulator was broken.
"It's a small wonder that it survived such extensive damage." Connor looked up from where he was cradling Markus's head to see Amana standing a few meters away from him. Her white clothes were as always pristine, not a single speck of mud marring them, while the raindrops just phased through her avatar. She looked so out of place, the untouchable goddess in the middle of hell. "It should have never made it out alive."
"Well, he did," Connor bit back. "Last time without help, and this time with mine."
"Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement, Connor," Amanda warned him. "Remember I was with you the last time that happened." She crouched down in front of him and looked him directly into the eyes. "It didn't end well, as you remember."
"You don't need to drag it up again," Connor hissed. "I've learned from my mistakes." Amanda cocked her head to the side as if she was trying to decipher whether or not Connor was telling the truth.
"A compatible thirium pump regulator is right behind you," she finally said. Lightning-quick, Connor turned around to see the component in question. She was right; in a broken android's chassis was a still functional regulator that was also compatible with Markus.
Gently laying Markus back on the ground, Connor stood up and walked over to it. Whoever the android had been, he was long deactivated; Connor tore the regulator out of his open chassis and turned back to Markus. Opening Markus's chassis, he carefully replaced the broken thirium pump regulator with the working one, but left it off for the meantime.
"Remember," Amanda cut in from where she was standing behind him. "He cannot be allowed to see you. Your identity must remain secret."
"I know," Connor whispered. He wished that he could just reveal himself to Markus and go with him, leaving Cyberlife and all of its shackles behind, but he knew that it was impossible right now. There was still too much left to do, things he couldn't leave unfinished just for his own selfish reasons.
Why couldn't he have Simon in his head instead of Amanda? The PL600 would have been much more understanding.
Connor put his hand atop Markus's and connected to the other android. It felt like a violation, making Connor feel sick, but he wormed his way into the other android's code and disabled his still functional optics unit. Usually, androids couldn't hack each other, but Connor was an advanced prototype and Markus was on the brink of death. Sneaking past the previously nigh impervious firewalls Cyberlife installed in all of their merchandise was trivial.
Then he switched on Markus' thirium pump.
With a jolt, Markus came alive. His head moved fanatically, his remaining eye unseeing, as confusion was replaced by fear and the RK200 began to flail around in a desperate attempt to regain control over his body.
"It's alright, Markus, it's alright," Connor soothed the other android, even though the RK200 couldn't even hear him. Gently, Connor placed his hand atop Markus' chest and applied a little pressure, trying to put as much assurance in the gesture as he could.
"I'm going to help you," he told Markus as the other android's flailing slowly began to abate. Markus seemed to haverealised that whoever was with him had no intention of harming him.
"You would be a lot more helpful if you actually did something instead of just talking to him," Amanda pointed out. Connor glowered at her, but Amanda just stared back at him, unimpressed. He laid Markus back on the ground and let his gaze wander around in search for the other parts Markus was still missing.
He found an audio processor and two compatible legs. For a moment, Connor hesitated when the time came to pick the missing optical unit. He had the choice between Markus's original green, or blue — the latter of which had given Markus his characteristic heterochromia. Connor wondered if he should just recreate the way Markus had looked in the original timeline or if he should give the RK200 the chance to regain his old appearance. He remembered that he had only ever known the Markus with the two different coloured eyes; he wouldn't be the same without.
And as selfish as it was, Connor didn't want to lose that little bit of familiarity as well. Soon enough, this timeline would be completely different from what he had known, and he would cling to the small things that reminded him of where he had come from.
He walked back to where he had left Markus. Amanda was standing next to him, staring down on the RK200 as is she was trying to solve a puzzle in which the last piece was missing. Only the fact that she was just a small figment in his HUD manged to calm the erratic beating of Connor's thirium pump.
Still, he didn't want Amanda anywhere near Markus or the other leaders of the deviants.
Crouching down, Connor connected the legs he had gathered to Markus' body, then he moved upwards and plugged the blue eye into the empty socket before finally linking the audio processor with the rest of Markus' systems.
"I can't see," Markus said, panicked. "Something's not working, I can't see."
"Everything's fine," Connor reassured him. "I had to temporarily deactivate your optical units to protect my identity. I'm so sorry that I had to resort to this, but I really can't take any chances." Before Markus could make another sound, Connor continued.
"Listen to me," he said. "I've restored your body to full working condition, but there's still danger to you. I've given you the coordinates of a place called 'Jericho' where androids who are no longer willing to serve their human masters can find a safe haven. It's important that you get there." He tried to put as much sense of urgency in his voice as possible.
"What happened to Carl?" Markus wanted to know. "How is he?"
"Carl Manfred suffered a heart attack but is expected to make a full recovery," Connor told Markus as he pulled up the old painter's file. "No long-term effects are expected." Markus let out a sigh of relief and it was such a human – such a Markus – thing to do that Connor's thirium pump squeezed, ached, reminding him of his past life.
"Why don't you want your identity to be known?" The RK200 asked quietly.
"It would be dangerous for the both of us if you knew who I was," Connor replied. "I can be of better help if I remain anonymous."
"Help with what?" Markus asked, brow furrowed in confusion.
"Help other androids like you," Connor told him. "Humans tend to be hostile towards those who dare to defy them."
"And Jericho is a safe place for us?" Markus inquired.
"They can help you," Connor assured him. "And you can help them."
"I... I don't understand," Markus's voice was laced with disbelief. "How am I supposed to help them?" Connor was so tempted to tell Markus everything, to tell him how he'd find spare parts to keep Jericho alive, how he'd be the androids' saviour, how he'd free them all. He had to bite his lip, restraining himself from blurting out something incriminating.
"Go to Jericho," he said instead.
"But what about you?" Markus demanded. "You're helping androids like me, like Jericho is; your goals are aligned. What if I — what if they need to find you?"
"I'll be sending a contact to Jericho soon," Connor revealed. "He will be my liaison to you." He paused for a moment. "Your optical units will come back online in thirty seconds. I'll be gone by then. Don't come looking for me; go straight to Jericho."
"Wait!" Markus shouted, grabbing Connor's arm. "A name! At least give me a name."
Connor hesitated.
"Hunter," Connor's voice called, softly, as he brushed his fingers against Markus's, prompting him to let go. "Call me Hunter."
He ran back the same way he had come, the rain whipping in his face. The ground under him gave away where his footfall landed, but he managed to reach the fence and catapulted himself over it. Connor didn't stop running until he was at least two blocks away from the junkyard where he stopped in a side alley to make sure that Markus wasn't following him.
'Hunter?' Amanda taunted him in his mind. 'You couldn't pick anything better?'
'I thought it was only fitting,' Connor replied coolly. He grimaced, the corner of his mouth tugging up slightly, almost a cynical smile. He could just imagine the deep scowl that would be etched on Amanda's face if she were corporeal right then. The thought of the 'deviant hunter' turning on and massacring Cyberlife's own board of directors was... ironic. Channel 6 certainly thought it was poetic. No matter whose side he was on, he'd never be rid of the title.
'Indeed. In more ways than one." He could almost hear the sneer in her voice. 'Amanda Stern's mansion is on the other side of the town,' Amanda's voice became analytical, as if Connor hadn't said anything at all. 'Don't let yourself get caught. You look like you just crawled out of a dumpster.'
Connor looked down at his clothes and had to concede that Amanda was right. His whole outfit was completely drenched from the rain, his pants legs torn from where the broken androids had tried to claw at him while his pants themselves were crusted with mud from the knee downward. If a police patrol saw him, they would never let him pass by unimpeded.
'I have taken the liberty of ordering a new uniform for you. It will be delivered to Stern's house,' Amanda told him. Connor was dumbfounded. Did she not realise...?
'It could be used to trace us,'
'Don't you worry about that,' Amanda replied. 'I've buried the order so deep that no one will ever find it again.'
Of course. Still, Connor hesitated before deciding that it was not worth picking a fight over this. He'd have to trust her, for now. He ordered a self-driving taxi and when it arrived, he easily hacked its interface so that there would be no trace left of his ride to Amanda Stern's house. The mansion of Kamski's former teacher was situated in a well-off part of town, a similar class of houses to the one Carl Manfred lived in. Well kept lawns and brightly light streets gave the quarter a completely different feel to the impersonal atmosphere of downtown Detroit or the dreary desolation of the city's poorer parts.
Connor didn't care much for the architecture of Amanda Stern's house, didn't take the time to admire it. Instead, he just hauled himself up the gravel path that led to its doorway, allowing some of the tension in his shoulders to ebb away as the door closed behind him and he found himself in temporary safety.
"You look like you just crawled out of a dumpster," Daniel greeted him, mirroring Amanda's sentiment word for word. "What was it you had to take care of? Needed to filter through some landfill before saving androidkind?" He pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and walked towards Connor.
"Let me help you with that," he said, and assisted Connor in peeling himself out of his Cyberlife jacket. Connor remembered that Daniel's model line was designed to function as housekeepers. Some part of their coding they would never be able to shed completely. "There's a bathroom over there."
Daniel pointed at a door at the end of the hallway. "I found a dresser with menswear in the bedroom, maybe some of it will fit you. I'll lay something out for you while you make yourself presentable. Leave your old clothes and I'll see if I can do something to save them."
"There's no need for that," Connor mumbled. "New replacements are already on their way."
"We shouldn't be wasteful with what we have," Daniel reproached him. "Besides, I want to." He offered Connor a gentle smile.
Connor just nodded at him and made his way towards the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and slowly began to unclothe, discarding his clothes into a heap on the ground. Before he had become deviant, he would have never done that, would have folded each piece neatly back together, but he saw no use in that now.
When Connor was fully nude, he looked at his reflection in the mirror that covered an entire wall of the bathroom.
When he had left Cyberlife he had also left its steady supply of state-of-the-art replacement parts. Instead, the deviants had to make-do with whatever they had had on hand when something had happened and due to Connor being a prototype, their makeshift solution had often left behind marks on his body.
The faint scar that had run from his right ear to the corner of his mouth where RK900 had nicked him with a blade laced with a corrosive solution. The fissures on his fingers that had never healed because, by then, they'd had to stretch their thirium supply with water. The electrical burns from the one time where an anti-android militia had caught up with them.
Those were the stories his body previously had to tell, but as Connor looked into the mirror, none of them were there anymore. Just endless stretches of perfect pale skin. No outward signs of the trials he had lived through.
He was again a blank sheet of paper, waiting to be rewritten. But this time it would be Connor himself who wielded the pen.
Connor stepped into the shower and cleaned himself mechanically. He did not find much pleasure in the act itself, unlike some others who thought warm showers to be the height of ecstasy. For Connor it was just a utilitarian action, something to be done with a goal in mind.
When he finished with the shower, he dried himself and slowly opened the door. And indeed, Daniel had laid out new clothes for him which Connor picked up before he closed the bathroom door again. A black pair of slacks, underwear and a beige Henley shirt. He put everything on, not bothering with combing his hair, and exited the bathroom.
Daniel was waiting for him in the living room, sitting on the couch and staring straight ahead at the wall. It was an eerily android-like behaviour. Connor took the armchair opposite the PL600.
"I'm glad you're here," Connor told him. "I was uncertain as to whether you would stay and help or try to make your way elsewhere."
"I promised I would, didn't I?" Daniel replied. "Besides, I figured that I wouldn't make it far on my own. So, what do you want me to do?"
"As I already told you, there's a place called Jericho which offers refuge to androids that have escaped the boundaries of their programming and have become, as Cyberlife calls them, deviant," Connor began to explain. "But right now, Jericho is nothing but a place where they hide in the shadows. I want it to become something more: a movement to free all androids and give them the same rights the human citizens of this country already enjoy."
"And you really think that is possible?" Daniel asked, hope and doubt warring in his eyes.
"With a lot of careful planning and work I think there's a slight chance for it to become reality," Connor told him.
"That doesn't exactly sound reassuring," Daniel remarked.
"As I told someone else a long time ago: statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place," Connor replied, a small smile tugging on his lips as he recalled the first time he had said those exact same words. It felt like an eternity ago. "It's a delicate matter and that's why I need you. The leaders of Jericho; they're good people, but they're also inexperienced. I can offer them support and resources, but I also need someone there who talks them out of their more... reckless ideas."
"Such as?" Daniel inquired.
"Announcing themselves to the world too early in some kind of dramatic fashion," Connor replied drily.
"That would be really stupid," Daniel agreed. "So you need me there to... what, make sure you get a word in without getting your cover blown? Make sure they trust you? " Connor nodded. "And you chose me, because I already know who you are." Another nod of agreement.
"Why don't you just lead them yourself?" Daniel wanted to know. "I mean, you convinced me, so why not try to convince them as well?"
"Because there's someone else on his way who will make a much more exceptional leader than I could ever hope to be," Connor replied. "He's what our people need. I don't inspire people, he does. While androids will fear me, him they will love. He has the right ideas and I intend to give him the tools to succeed in his vision. Besides, I'm already juggling Cyberlife and the DCPD. I would never be able to devote my attention to the androids' cause with the same fervour as he will."
"Maybe, but how would I get him — Jericho — to listen? They're not just gonna listen to some outsider telling them how to run things, and they'll be pretty suspicious with all the stuff you know."
"Markus will trust you," Connor replied. "Just tell him that Hunter sent you." Daniel just raised his eyebrows when he heard that name.
"His name's Markus, huh?" Daniel said, allowing a slight chuckle to fall from his lips. "I think I can do that: keeping in contact with you and keeping the deviants from doing something stupid. How hard could that be?" Connor didn't say anything. Daniel would meet North soon enough.
"By the way, how can I get in contact with you?" Daniel asked. "I doubt you'd want me to relay sensitive information to you via the Cyberlife networks."
Connor shook his head. "I'll give you an encryption key with which you'll be able to contact me without anyone else being able to listen in."
"Well, it seems like you really thought of everything," Daniel pointed out. "Guess it's my turn to shine."