Androids weren't supposed to feel exhausted, but that was the only way Markus could describe his current condition. His processor seemed as though it was running at half speed, and a weight was settled thoroughly in his chest. He felt as though his ventilation program was stuttering, failing.
Grief, he realized. He was grieving. It was only now, as he rode in the autonomous taxi back to New Jericho, that he had slowed down enough to acknowledge it. Since Connor had died, he had busied himself with logistics. Besides his normal leadership duties, he had taken it upon himself to prepare a proper farewell ceremony. Between that and consoling Lieutenant Anderson, he hadn't had time to slow down. But, now he was alone with his thoughts.
A rogue tear escaped and rolled down his cheek.
Markus pressed his head to the side window, ignoring how it bumped and jostled with every imperfection in the road, and watched Detroit glide by as though nothing was wrong. No one could see him like this. He had to be strong.
By all accounts, Connor's death shouldn't have had much of an effect on him. He had seen so many of his people die, gunned down right before his eyes during the revolution.
But this was different.
While the revolution was taking place, he had steeled himself to the reality that many of them would die standing up for themselves. It was a bitter truth, but one he had grown to accept. He grieved for each and every person that lost their lives for their freedom, but had ultimately made peace with it.
But now, the revolution was over. While there was still hate and bigotry to combat, the last year had been relatively peaceful. His people no longer lived in fear. They were pursuing lives, getting jobs. More and more of them were venturing out of New Jericho to experience the world for themselves. Slowly but surely, they were thriving.
But Connor had still died.
Markus knew that police work came with risks. He also knew that there was no way he would have been able to convince Connor to choose a less hostile profession. Connor loved being a detective. He loved working with the Lieutenant. He loved the life he had chosen.
And that made it so much more painful that it was over.
A few more tears fell from Markus's eyes. He told himself that it shouldn't hurt this much, as though that would make it stop. The tears kept coming. He pulled away from the window, letting his face fall into his hands. In the privacy of the taxi, for once out of the public eye, he let himself break down into heart wrenching sobs.
He had been close to Connor. He'd needed to be. Connor had needed his support, his compassion, his understanding. It had evolved into one of the closest friendships he had known, a brotherhood even.
Most androids, when they deviated, accepted their newfound lives readily. There was always a period of confusion and adjustment, but it was usually relatively minor.
Connor, on the other hand, had taken deviancy hard. It was in direct conflict with his original programming. He was constantly at war with himself, doubting, regretting, readjusting. Emotions were both natural and foreign to him. He felt deeply, but had difficulty understanding. Lieutenant Anderson had been a godsend, able to navigate the tangled web that was Connor in ways Markus could only begin to dream of.
Then, there was the whole 'deviant hunter' issue. While their people had grown to trust him, many had held Connor's days as a machine against him. There had even been assasination attempts, not that Markus knew about them until well after the fact. Connor had told him that he 'didn't want to bother him with something so trivial'.
Maybe that was part of what hurt so badly.
Connor held such little regard for his own life. He had seen himself as expendable, unimportant, somehow deserving of the hatred being the deviant hunter had brought him. As much as he had grown to love his life, as much as those who cared about him tried to show him differently, he still had little drive to preserve it. Markus hated it.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Markus took a deep, stuttering breath, trying to steady his systems. He was nearing New Jericho. He had to collect himself before he arrived. At least once he was there, he had a plethora of things that required his attention. Things to distract himself with.
But the thought of doing anything besides entering rest mode right now seemed daunting.
Markus sighed, dabbing at his eyes to remove any trace of saline from his face. He was grateful that, as an android, his eyes wouldn't be puffy or bloodshot from his breakdown. Maybe he could take a break. Heaven knows it had been ages since he had. He would go into rest mode, and everything would be better when he woke up, he lied to himself.
The taxi pulled up to New Jericho.
The various lawsuits and legal action after the revolution had nearly bankrupted CyberLife. They had stayed afloat, just barely, by altering their business practice to manufacture biocomponents and thirium for the android population. Even so, CyberLife tower had been awarded to the androids in reparations, and had become the site of New Jericho. What was once a dominating and foreboding presence of a capitalist corporation, was now a sanctuary for androids everywhere.
Stepping out of the taxi, Markus paid his fare and made his way into the lobby of the building, intent on making his way to his private quarters and resting for the remainder of the night. He should have known that his plan wouldn't come to fruition.
"Markus!" A familiar voice called to him.
Part of him wanted to keep walking, pretend he didn't hear the summons, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. He turned to the owner of the voice as he made his way towards him. "Simon, is everything alright?"
"I'm not sure," the other android admitted, slowing to a stop before the devient leader. "It's kinda hard to explain, but I could use your help down in the lab."
It was probably something with his latest project. In all honesty, Markus should have been interested in any new developments with it, it was amazing work. Simon had been tackling the issue of android reproduction. What he had designed was nothing short of incredible.
He had made a child body, completely customizable, that would be able to upload code from two or more "parent" androids. From there, it would develop and mature for a few years before the consciousness would be transferred into an adult body. It was honestly groundbreaking.
But Markus couldn't care less right now.
"Simon, can this wait?" He asked, not trying to mask the exhaustion in his voice.
His friend gave him a sad smile. "I'm sorry, but I don't think it can."
Markus pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew Simon wouldn't be bothering him if it wasn't important. "Alright, lead the way."
They made their way down to the lab. It was once part of CyberLife's R&D department, but Simon had made short work of repurposing the equipment for his own uses. It was a large room, larger than Simon really needed, but he had made good use of the space. The child prototype hung on a manufacturing clamp near the front of the room, looking small and unassuming for the work of genius that it was.
Much to Markus's surprise, Simon led him beyond the child body to the far back of the room.
There was a line of former CyberLife computers along the wall. Monitors and servers that had been used for various projects by the company. Most of them had been sorted through already. All important data cataloged and put to use where applicable.
Simon reached towards one of the monitors, switching it on. "It's this one here," he said. "It started acting strange suddenly. Giving off error messages."
Markus frowned. "I thought that server was empty," he said. They had been confused by it when they had found it. Clearly it had been meant for something, but no one could figure out what. They had concluded it was among the things CyberLife had destroyed upon losing the tower.
"It was empty," Simon insisted. "But it isn't anymore. There's something on it, something big, and it's giving off errors."
Markus leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. Bits of code were flashing by, the monitor pulsed on and off. The words data corruption imminent accompanied with a warning beep and countdown timer flashing intermittently.
"What the hell?" Markus questioned. Whatever was there, it was too large for the server to handle. They would need to act fast to save...whatever this was. "Do you have any idea what it is?" he asked.
"No," Simon admitted. "I have no idea."
"Have you tried transferring it to another server?" If they had more time, they could review the data properly. They didn't even know if this was anything important.
"I tried, but it just gave me another error. It said the other server was incompatible."
It was a dumb idea, Markus knew that, but he just wanted to solve the problem as quick as possible so he could rest. Before Simon could utter a word of protest, he deactivated the skin on his hand and interfaced with the computer.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what he found.
Clips of memories and jumbled waves of emotion flooded Markus's system. Intense, chaotic, familiar. He drew his hand back sharply as though he had been bitten, taking in a quick breath from surprise.
"Markus!" Concern was evident in Simon's voice. "What the hell were you thinking? Are you ok?"
Markus stared at the screen instead of answering his friend's question. No, he wasn't ok. He was in shock. There was no way he had found what he had just found.
Simon grabbed at his hand, inspecting it for damage. He glanced down, the touch having broken his trance, and realized he had yet to reactivate his synthetic skin. Markus willed it to reform over his hand. "I'm ok, Simon," he insisted. "I was just startled."
"That was incredibly stupid, Markus" Simon scolded, releasing his hand once he was sure it hadn's suffered any injury. "That is a CyberLife computer. Any number of things could have been on it. It could have been a virus, or malware. It could have-"
"It's Connor," Markus interrupted him.
"It… What?" Simon stuttered to a halt.
Markus couldn't stop the smile from forming on his face, saline pooled in his eyes again, this time not from grief. "It's Connor," he reiterated. "It's Connor's consciousness on that server."
"What?" Simon said again. "That's not possible. Connor is… well…" He didn't need to say it. They both knew.
Markus turned back to the computer. "I don't know how…" he trailed off, pondering before he realized. "His memory upload. That has to be it."
Simon turned to the computer too. "Right, he said that he could upload his memories to a different body if he was ever killed. It must have been designed to go to a server first."
"This server," he couldn't keep the excitement from his voice. "This is Connor's server. Connor is alive!"
The warning flashed across the screen again and Markus's elation fell.
"It must not be meant for long term storage," Simon concluded, leaning over to get a closer look at the monitor. He tried both the mouse and keyboard allegedly attached to the system, but neither prompted a response. Evidently Connor's program was overloading it too heavily. The two androids felt a heaviness settle upon them as they watched the count down timer tick away.
"We don't have a body for him. CyberLife destroyed the rest of them right after the revolution," Markus realized.
"I could repair his," Simon suggested half-heartedly. They both knew he didn't have the time.
Markus turned away, his ventilation program stuttering once again. This wasn't right, wasn't fair. They had found Connor only to lose him again. There had to be something they could do besides watch his life tick away second by second. There had to be something. Even if it was just a stop-gap. Something to give them more time...
His eyes fell on the child body.
"Simon?" Markus asked, a thoughtful twinge to his voice.
He noticed the change in tone and looked up at the devient leader, then followed his line of sight. It only took him a moment to piece together what he was thinking.
"It could work," he admitted slowly, voice barely above a whisper. "I'd need to do a couple of tweaks, but it could work."
Markus turned to him. A hopeful determination spreading through his entire frame. "Do it."
"It may not work," Simon warned, already moving towards the empty form. "The body hasn't been tested and this isn't exactly what I designed it for."
"It's the best chance we have," Markus insisted, following behind to assist in any way possible. "If it doesn't work, at least we tried."
Simon moved to the computer beside the form, ready to make the necessary edits to the software. "There is always a chance," he continued, turning back to Markus briefly to make sure he knew the gravity of the risks associated with something like this. "There's a chance that whatever we upload won't be Connor."
Markus frowned. "What do you mean? That's Connor in there, I know it is."
"I'm not denying that," Simon said with a shake of his head. "But the body is designed to grow a new consciousness, not take on one that is already formed. There could be… complications. Whoever wakes up could be Connor, but… not Connor. We don't entirely know the limitations of his memory upload. He may not even be deviant."
Markus took a steadying breath. "It's our only chance," he said, trying to remain calm. "If he's different… well he'll still be one of our people. At the very least, this can serve as a test run for your work."
Simon nodded, convinced that Markus was adequately prepared for the multitude of things that could go wrong. It admittedly didn't take much to alter the code to take on the full consciousness. The original program had been based off of Connor's own memory upload system as it was. It should be viable.
"Alright," he said after making the appropriate adjustments. "We're ready to give this a try."
