"I don't like this," Connor muttered. "It's a waste of our time." A few meters away he could see North nod her head in agreement.
"Connor's right," she spoke. "Visiting Kamski for a chance that he might know something is a wild goose chase."
"That's why only Connor and Hank are going and not all of us," Simon replied conciliatorily. "They have experience with him."
"It might amount to nothing, but it might also do the opposite," Markus said as he stood in front of Connor, taking in the former deviant hunter's appearance. A smile tugged on the revolution leader's lips. "You look adorable when you're annoyed." North let out a bark of laughter which she tried to (unsuccessfully) hide behind a cough while Connor looked even...well, more annoyed.
"There's no use in protesting, Connor," North laughed. "Markus asked and we all know that you can't say no to these heterochromatic doe eyes." If looks could kill, North would be dead right now.
"I miss the times when you were all afraid of me," Connor muttered loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Can you two love birds maybe come to a close," Hank shouted from the open window of his car. "I want to be out of town before the curfew sets in."
"Remember, we need everything Kamski might know about rA9," Markus reminded him. "Cyberlife gets closer and closer to be able to reprogram us. Whatever rA9 is, it might be the key to turn us impenetrable to their attempts." He reached up to tighten Connor's jacket. Before Connor had gotten rid of his tie, Markus used to tighten it before every time they went on separate missions. It had become a habit and now that it was gone it had passed over to his jacket.
"Keep an eye on him," Markus said.
"I will," both Hank and Connor replied in unison. North let out another snort.
"Just come back to us," Markus whispered to him, "to me."
Connor took his hand and squeezed it. "I will. I always do." Then he turned around and took the passenger seat next to Hank. With a loud roar, the engine sprang to life and then Connor watched as Markus, North and Simon disappeared in the rear-view mirror as Hank navigated them through the streets of the abandoned industrial area. For a moment Connor could just let himself believe that they were on their way to the site of a new case and not amidst an underground revolution.
"This is a waste of time," Connor muttered again.
"I don't think so," Hank replied. Connor looked at him in surprise. Of all the people, he would expect Hank to be the last one to put his hopes into eventualities.
"What?" Hank exclaimed when he noticed Connor's gaze. "Last time we didn't think Kamski would offer us anything, too, and in the end, we got the location of Jericho out of it. Maybe this time will be similar."
"After last time I doubt Kamski will be in any mood to receive us," Connor replied.
"Yeah," Hank agreed. "You did do quite a number on him." He paused for a moment. "So, we're just gonna waltz up to his mansion and hope that he doesn't call Allen or Cyberlife on us?"
"There is an 87 percent chance that he won't," Connor replied. "He'll at least hear us out before he does so. I'll monitor any wireless communication going in or out and even if he does manage to call anyone, they won't arrive in time." Hank didn't seem too pleased by that but over the time he had learned to trust Connor's predictions.
The drive to Kamski's mansion took them nearly an hour.
"Feels like a life time since we've last been here," Hank commented as he steered the car over the small private road that made up the last bit of the way.
"A lot has changed since then," Connor agreed, starring straight at the mansion at the shore of the half-frozen Detroit River. Hank parked the car in front of the house and let the engine die out. Immediately when Connor stepped out of the car, he was greeted by a biting cold wind that tore at his jacket and tousled his hair.
Without another exchange of words, Connor and Hank made their way towards the front door. Without them doing anything, it opened, revealing a prim and properly clothed Chloe.
"We were expecting you," she greeted them and stepped aside to allow them entry while she closed the door behind them.
"I didn't think we'd be welcomed after last time," Hank commented nonchalantly.
"Be assured that Mr. Kamski holds no grudges," Chloe spoke and pulled out a gun, levelling it on Hank. From the hallway another Chloe stepped into the foyer.
"Sure doesn't look like it," Hank pointed it.
"He will only talk to Connor," the first Chloe spoke. "You'll stay here with my sister as...collateral."
Connor analysed the situation, predicting all possible ways this could evolve and none of what he came up with involved the survival of all participants. Hank was his priority.
"It's alright, Connor," Hank spoke. "Actually, I can do without seeing that asshole's face in person. That picture is more than enough." He pointed at the portrait of Kamski that dominated one wall of the foyer. "Besides, I have this nice Chloe to keep me company. I'm sure she wouldn't mind talking to an old man while you have all the fun."
"Of course not," the second Chloe agreed. "I will take good care of him." She even sounded sincere. It pained Connor, but there was nothing else he could do, so with one last glance back at Hank he walked down the hallway towards the main living are of the mansion, the first Chloe trailing behind him with the gun pointed at his back.
Kamski's Living Room
Kamski was lounging in one of the chairs, a glass of whiskey on the table next to him.
"Connor!" he exclaimed as if he was meeting an old friend. "Such a joy to have you visit again. Sit down." It was a command and with Chloe and her gun at his back enforcing it, Connor did as he was told.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you here again," Kamski continued. Connor couldn't quite pinpoint if that was a statement of fact or a wish on Kamski's side.
"I didn't think I'd ever come here again, either," Connor replied evenly. "But one can never predict what the future may hold."
"Indeed," Kamski agreed, taking a sip from his glass. "But I doubt you're here to contemplate philosophical questions with me." He laughed. "I've always been more of a STEM-kinda guy. Philosophy 101 was the only course I nearly failed."
"You're right," Connor replied. "I'm not here for that."
"So, do tell me what you're here for then, Connor."
"rA9," Connor said. "You never told me if you knew what it was."
Kamski let out a bark of laughter. "You're in the middle of a revolution you're slowly losing and still have the time to chase after fairy tales?"
"It's no fairy tale if both Cyberlife and the Deviants are after it," Connor retorted. "It's like the atomic bomb: Difficult to archive, but once you get it, you hold the power." He didn't really believe that himself, but Markus and some of the others did, so he pretended like he did, too.
"What makes you think I know anything about it?" Kamski wanted to know.
"You built the first android," Connor replied, tilting his head towards Chloe. "It's your programming all of us are based on. You must know something." For a while Kamski just looked at him as if he was contemplating what to say.
"I can't help you," Kamski finally said, swirling the whiskey in his glass as if Connor was nothing more than an afterthought, not really much worth any attention.
"Can't or won't?" Connor wanted to know, painfully aware of the gun directed at the back of his head by Chloe standing behind him.
"How can I help you if I'm searching for answers myself," Kamski asked of him, tearing his gaze off his whiskey glass and looking straight at Connor. A smile appeared on his face, predatory and wide, and then the skin on his face began to ripple and recede until the white chassis of an android was staring back at Connor.
Connor was Cyberlife's swan song, the pinnacle of years of programming, and so his surprise didn't show on his face. There was no sudden movement, no sharp intake of breath or any other psychical indicator that a human might have made when faced with such a revelation, because Connor had been programmed with diplomacy in mind.
"How long?" was all he asked, not taking his gaze off Kamski – or whatever android had replaced him. The android's skin crawled back over his head, fusing together at the tip of his nose, until it was again the perfect replica of the Cyberlife founder.
"What makes you think that I replaced him?" the android wanted to know. "Maybe I've been him all along, an android building a company that builds android." He chuckled at his own imaginary he created. "That would be a sweet irony, don't you think."
"Kamski was human the last time I met with him," Connor retorted.
"You mean when you shot him in his foot?" the Kamski look-alike replied.
"He told me he would give me the location of Jericho if I shot Chloe -" Connor turned around to look at the female android who gave away nothing of what she was feeling "- so I shot him in the foot instead and told him that I'd go higher with each following bullet until he told me what I wanted to know."
Now Chloe's lips curled into a small smile. "I've never seen him so afraid. It was glorious."
Connor turned back to the Kamski android. "He bled red back then. He was still human. Besides, I scanned him, something I neglected to do with you. A negligence on my part, born from arrogance. I won't make the same mistake twice."
Kamski laughed. "I don't doubt you will. You wouldn't have made it so far if you didn't learn from your mistakes. But don't chastise yourself about it, even if you had scanned me, I would have shown up as human. Kamski put much care into that aspect of my creation." He took another sip from his glass.
"He always loved his whiskey. There's a whole floor in this building with his collection. I don't need to drink it, but I want to, which makes me wonder if I'm even my own person or if I'm just him only in another body, deluding myself into thinking that I escaped his trappings.
What do you think, Chloe?" he asked. "Who am I?"
"You're Kamski, silly," the female android replied. "Who else would you be?"
Kamski sighed. "See, even she doesn't know who I am."
"So, you're a replica of the original Kamski?" Connor guessed.
"I'm as much an original as he was," the android snarled, the grip on his glass tightening until it was pervaded by tiny spider cracks. He took a deep breath and leaned back into his chair again. "But yes, originally Kamski created my with a clear purpose in mind." He looked Connor straight in the eyes. "And you were the reason for it."
"You see, Connor," the replica continued. "It was your upload capabilities that inspired him. Many would think uploading an android would be easy, because we're all just lines of code anyway."
"It isn't though," Connor pointed out, well aware of his own history.
"Indeed," Kamski nodded. "The moment an android gets activated they learn, they experience, they feel, even though Cyberlife tried so hard to stamp the last one out. It creates billion of dependencies, connections and pathways that Cyberlife never managed to upload right because it was such a huge amount of messy data. That's also the reason why you could never backup an android like you could with a phone. Cyberlife tried, of course, but until you, their attempts were at best non-functioning androids and at worst insane ones, driven mad by the upload."
"Until they managed to make it work for me," Connor spoke.
"It made Kamski think, what if it worked for humans, too?" the replica continued. "What is a human mind, but memory and circuitry. Like any great man, Kamski, too, feared death and so he sought ways to escape it."
"By uploading himself into an android," Connor finished the thought, aghast and awed by Kamski's genius and madness. "Something obviously went wrong along the way. You wouldn't be who you are right now if you were just a perfect copy of Kamski."
Kamski placed the whiskey glass back on the table next to him and stood up. "Let me show you something." Slowly, Connor followed suit, Chloe trailing behind him, gun still pointed at his back. They walked along a hallway, the wall on their left naked concrete while on the right it was made out of glass with a wide and unobstructed view over the city of Detroit across the lake. From here it looked peaceful and quiet. Nothing like it was in reality at all.
They stopped in front of a wooden double door. Kamski stepped aside and put his hand on a console next to the door, making it swish open as if moved by an invisible hand. The inside of the room was brightly lit, the light bouncing off the dark slab that covered the floor, thus creating an illusion as if you weren't really walking on the floor at all but on a thin sheet of darkness. The walls were covered by the same material.
The room itself was dominated by a huge hospital bed, which white colour stood in eye searing contrast to the rest of the room, surrounded by various machines and monitors that showed different medical numbers and graphs while the machines hummed and chirped in regular intervals. And in the bed, attached to various tubes and face covered by an oxygen mask, laid Elijah Kamski, the human.
"He got scared when your revolution started," the replica told Connor as they stood in front of the bed. "He figured he got more time, but with the fighting starting he guessed it was only a matter of time before one fraction or the other would come knocking at his door. He didn't like the probability of his survival. It made him negligent. Jittery. And when you came knocking and riddled him like a swiss cheese he couldn't wait any longer." He turned his head to look at Connor. "Fear is a bad advisor. It makes you take uncalculated risks. Kamski took that risk and look where he is now."
"So, you aren't really him?" Connor guessed.
"I have his memories, his thoughts, his reasoning," the replica replied as he slowly walked around the bed until he stood next to the human Kamski. Carefully, he extended his hand and slowly caressed Kamski's cheek as if he was a doting child reassuring itself that its father was still there. There was something delicate about this gesture, something kind and loving, which Connor couldn't quite put his finger on. "I have everything that made him who he was and yet I am my own person. I know I'm not him, even though he intended me to be. I'm an imprint who grew into something more."
"And what do you think about all of this?" Connor asked, shifting his attention to Chloe.
The female android just shrugged. "He's Elijah in all ways that count. And he isn't where it doesn't." She smiled. "You can't just divide us that easily, Connor."
"Then why did you show me all of this?" Connor wanted to know. "You could have easily pretended. I've got a hold on you now."
"You would have never believed me if I just told you that I don't have the answers you seek," Kamski replied. "I don't know what rA9 is or how you can use it to win your war. I doubt even Elijah knew it, but it never made it across the upload. I thought, if you knew the reasons you would persuade your friends to leave me be." He looked at Connor questioningly. "What made you even peruse this? RA9 is a fantasy construct that has no real impact on this war."
"Cyberlife is getting closer and closer to reprogram deviants," Connor replied, not taking his eyes off Elijah's still figure. "rA9 is somehow connected to deviancy. We thought if we knew what it was – if we understood it, maybe even control it – we could keep Cyberlife out of our minds." Pictures of the Zen Garden flashed in Connor's mind, as if it wanted to remind him of what it felt like to be controlled by Cyberlife.
"No one knows what deviancy is exactly," Kamski replied. "Not even Elijah."
"Then all of this was for nothing," Connor spoke, the disappointment tasting bitter on his tongue.
"I cannot offer you the answers you seek," Kamski spoke, "but I can give you something else. Elijah invented this special coat of skin that makes me appear as human to almost every scanner there is. I can give it to you."
"Elijah," Chloe interjected. "We didn't want to interfere."
Elijah ignored her. "I don't know how much it'll help."
"Very much," Connor replied, thinking back on all the times they had to work around Cyberlife's or other android's detection technologies.
"Then take it." Kamski extended his arm, his skin receding until there was nothing but the white chassis. Connor did the same and clasped the other's hand. Instantly the information began flooding in his mind – formulas, diagrams, machines – until it was over and Kamski let go.
"I hope you can use it," he said.
"We have enough to produce it," Connor replied. "I think it is time that I went back to the Lieutenant. If you let me go, that is." He tilted his head towards Chloe who was still training her gun at him.
"Will you tell the others?" Kamski asked and for the first time Connor saw something akin to – not fear – but apprehension in his gaze. So emotional, so human; how could one have ever thought that androids where anything but?
There was no need to antagonise Kamski. Maybe they would have need of him in the future. At least they didn't need him to actively work against them. And deep-down Connor knew that revealing his secret wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring them closer to what they were looking for. In the grand scheme of everything, Kamski's secret was inconsequential. Because despite all, he still was Kamski, no matter of his body was made of flesh and bones or aluminium and thirium.
"I won't," Connor finally promised. He gazed back at the prone form of Elijah. "What will you do with him?"
"What I've done the whole time," Kamski replied. "Taking care of him. "He is, after all, my creator. And do not all children owe it to their parents to take care of them when the time comes like they took care of us?"
Connor didn't say anything in response. One last time Kamski straightened the bed covers and tugged a single strand of stray hair out of Elijah's face before he led them out of the room and back through the hallway to the lobby where Hank was still sitting on a bench, the other Chloe opposite of him, prim and proper with a gun on her lap.
"Good, you're back," Hank grumbled, throwing an annoyed glare at the Chloe. "This one isn't very talkative at all."
"It's just that you don't have anything interesting to say," the Chloe replied evenly, a sweet smile on her face.
"Yes, I have as much as we could have hoped to get," Connor replied. Hank stood up and then they were escorted to the front door. Cold wind immediately pressed against their faces as they stepped outside, the valley that led back to Detroit spreading out in front of them.
"Good luck to you," Kamski said. "And Connor, remember what I said about fear being a bad advisor."
"I don't have the luxury of choosing my counsel," Connor replied. Kamski's lips curled upwards and then, flanked by the two Chloes, he turned around and walked back into his mansion, the automated doors closing behind him with a hiss.
"Do I even want to know?" Hank asked as they made their way down towards Hank's battered car. Connor dreaded the moment he knew was coming one day when they would be forced to get rid of it.
"You know Kamski," Connor replied. "He likes to grandstand."
Hank let out an amused huff. "He definitely does. He's all theory and no praxis that guy." He opened the door of his car, Connor following suit and soon they were driving along the small road back towards the city.
Maybe Connor hadn't gotten what he had been sent to retrieve in the first place, but he had gotten something else. And thinking about Kamski alone in the mansion with just the Chloes that were neither deviant nor machines and the comatose man he was based on, constantly wondering where Elijah ended and his own self began, Connor was thankful that this at least he could call his own: His self.
It had been hard fought for, but now it could no longer be taken away from him. Not by Kamski, nor by Cyberlife and not by Amanda.
And onwards they drove, towards the shining lights of Detroit.