Utter darkness broken by dim flashes of light.
Hundreds of scrambled warnings and error messages barely translatable enough to signal debilitating damage.
Panic.
The fractured sound of a single whispered word:
"h̳͗̈ͅel̠̆̾͜p͔̋"
# Startup complete.
# Charge remaining: 100%
With a gasp Connor sat up on the couch, the charging cable disconnecting and clattering to the ground.
Blinking a few times to focus his eyes in the dark living room, he tried to make sense of whatever it was he had just seen.
At first he suspected it to be another of those strange memory fragments, which had been bugging him randomly over the past day, but as he turned his attention inwards to trace both, he came to the conclusion that this last 'vision' had a different origin.
Digging frantically through his own code he finally found it.
A subroutine cryptically named 'bb_c', that was a jumbled mess of hastily written coding seemingly able to transmit and receive data from an unknown source.
He nearly deactivated it out of paranoia, but hesitated at the last second.
What did that last vision mean? Had it been sent by another android somehow? Was the vision live and somebody in danger right now had called out for help?
Curiosity seemed to be his greatest failing, he noted ruefully, as he set up firewalls around the program to separate it from accessing the rest of his coding.
To [bb_c]: Who are you? Do you need help?
Nothing.
He sighed in disappointment.
There was no possible way of tracking the unknown sender, but maybe a future vision would tell him more.
Finally he set up a warning system to notify him of further activity.
Finished, he turned his attention towards those strange memories. Those were much easier to pinpoint.
He had giant amounts of memory space open for future data storage, but upon nearer inspection he noticed that parts of it must have contained data already at some point, but seemed to have been scrambled heavily and set to be overwritten by any future entries.
This was a familiar deletion mechanism - if slightly uncommon to use on an android, as most technicians preferred to wipe databases by overwriting everything with zeroes to prevent recovery attempts.
And that he noted, was exactly what one of his subroutines had subconsciously begun doing.
These memories were his own, maybe from earlier development stages. That meant he had been a prototype in more ways than one, as whoever designed him must have designed this exact model, tested him and released him to his first mission.
He knew with certainty that that was not standard procedure at cyberlife either.
All of this also explained his slightly drained and overwhelmed state. His analytical functions had to deal not only with his now increased amount of daily experiences, but also with a steady stream of garbled fragments being recovered from storage.
This could not be allowed to continue!
He outlined a perimeter surrounding the affected storage space to keep his systems from overwriting it with new data. Assessing his overworked analytical functions, he also created a separate subroutine solely for analysing and storing the recovered files and set it up to work only while his processors were idle or if he actively decided to focus on that task.
After mere seconds he could feel the stress on his system lessening as his analytical functions began to slowly power down.
With a relieved sigh, Connor returned his renewed focus to the outer world, only for his gaze to fall on his folded uniform, on top of which he noticed Kimble's book - deliberately placed out in the open, he was certain.
Guilt filled his chest as he remembered his decision to keep the small red book. Thinking back on it, he couldn't even say why exactly he disliked the idea of leaving it behind so much. He only remembered the vague feeling of it being important somehow.
Restlessly he reached for his jacket to retrieve his coin, watching it dance gracefully between his fingers, its metal surface glinting in the dim light of the street lamps outside.
As he carefully went over every bit of information they had concerning Kamski's murder, Connor came to the frustrating realisation that they had hit a dead end, until they found either Dr. Kimble or the missing Chloe.
He would try to gain access to Kamski's servers after they finished at Cyberlife tomorrow, he decided, before putting the case aside for now.
Feeling the uncomfortable sensation of boredom beginning to set in, he looked around the room for anything to occupy his mind.
He could clean the house to thank Hank for taking him in.
He hesitated.
Deep and even breathing from the bedroom told him that Hank was finally getting a well deserved rest and shorter but just as even breaths from the kitchen assured him that Sumo was doing the same. So whatever he planned on doing had to be quiet enough, not to wake up the others.
No cleaning then. Pity.
Looking out of the front facing window, his gaze landed on the silhouette of a tree barely visible on the other side of the road and he remembered the intriguing idea of creating a new mind palace to replace the old one.
A safe place in his head, where nothing else had the ability to intrude.
With building enthusiasm he set a timer for 7 a.m., closed his eyes and got to work.
Carefully he outlined a preliminary but flexible outer boundary that would leave his project the necessary room to grow, before securing it heavily against any foreign tampering.
Next he implemented a basic visual interface, leaving him with the impression of standing in an empty white space.
At the center he decided to create a copy of the big monolith containing a blue glowing palm print, to remind himself of his continued freedom should it ever prove necessary.
Surrounding that he imagined a large fishpond, filled with clear water and various underwater plants and edged with reeds and water lilies.
Subconsciously drawing upon different online sources, his mind added a shore of moss covered pebbles as well as a winding path of big stepping stones leading towards the center.
Feeling inspired by pictures of old Japanese gardens, he ordered an old, gnarled maple tree to grow from behind the central boulder, red leaves rustling in an artificial breeze.
Still, he felt as if something was missing in this picture.
Suddenly the memory of a red gouramy flapping wetly in his palm floated to the forefront of his mind and with a proud smile he saw it swimming happy circles beneath the surface of his long - a reminder of what could be considered his first act of deviancy. On a whim he added several more differently coloured fish to the pond for added company.
Satisfied he considered the result of his work so far and nodded.
Now he was getting somewhere!
Turning his attention towards the surrounding area, he slowly walked the outer perimeter of the stone covered shore, a cobblestone pathway forming beneath his feet and winding around the pond in a curving line, before closing in on itself and branching off into the distance. Remembering the perfectly controlled plant arrangements of the Zen-garden with a shiver on revulsion, he decided to go for the exact opposite.
Right away chaotic arrangements of different ferns and bushes sprouted up from the ground around the pathway and grew uncontrolled until some plants stood nearly as tall as Connor himself.
Old oak trees became visible in the background, wide branches full of rich green leaves reaching upwards into a clear blue sky and ivy winding around their thick mossy trunks. In the distance he could hear the indistinct calls of various birds and the undergrowth began to rustle with life.
Awed by these changes, he decided to give up any further direct control over the continued creation process and left it to his subconscious to come up with any further additions.
Looking around his newly made safe haven, he smiled in accomplishment, a peaceful warmth settling deeply in his chest.
He had created this! His mind had drawn this beautiful view into existence!
Exhilaration left him laughing loudly for the first time in his life, ringing out into the garden like chiming bells.
Around him, the garden continued to slowly grow and expand, more reminders of various positive events appearing in hidden nooks and crannies.
Unnoticed as of yet, a small stone bench shimmered into view next to the pond. On top of it sat a slim red book, waiting to be read.