George Ezra – Did You Hear the Rain?
Connor opened his eyes, in the backseat of Hank's car. They had arrived at the home of Elijah Kamski at some point while he had been making his report to CyberLife. Taylor was sitting on the hood of the car, legs crossed in front of her, watching the lieutenant pace back and forth on the phone.
The blonde was strumming her fingers against her knee and glancing between Hank and the house in the distance. Her stress levels were currently at 47% and rising. Connor opened the door and stepped out of the car just as Hank ended the call. "Is everything okay, Lieutenant?"
"Chris was on patrol last night. He was attacked by a bunch of deviants. He said he was saved by Markus himself," Hank told them as he slid the phone back into his pocket. Taylor's fingers immediately stilled, her eyes widening.
"Is Chris okay?" She asked, nervous. Hank glanced over at her and nodded.
"Yeah, he's in shock but he's alive." Taylor looked relieved. She slid off the hood of the car and followed the two of them toward the house, a few steps behind, shoving her hands in her pockets.
"Kamski left CyberLife ten years ago. Why do you want to meet him?" Even Connor seemed uncertain of their motives for being here.
"He created the first android to pass the Turing test. And he's the founder of CyberLife. Anybody can tell us about deviants, it's him." Hank responded as they approached the door. He reached out to ring the doorbell, but Connor couldn't help but notice Taylor shifting on her feet behind them.
The door suddenly opened. A blonde android stood in the doorway, staring out at them attentively, but no one said anything. Connor was staring at the android in confusion, but he turned to stare at Taylor now, at their identical faces.
Nearly identical, he amended. Taylor had a small bump in her nose, her chin was slightly pointier. The android looked like a version of Taylor that had the imperfections smoothed over. And the eyes were all wrong. The android's eyes were a solid blue.
"Hi, uh. I'm, er, Lieutenant Anderson, Detroit Police Department." Hank was the first of them to recover, though he was still staring at the android in front of them with unease. "We're here to see Elijah Kamski."
"Please come in," the android smiled and opened the door wider so that they could enter. Hank led the way in the foyer. Taylor hung back near the door, as though they might change their minds and leave at any second. "I'll let Elijah know you're here, but please, make yourselves comfortable."
She left, no reaction to her doppelganger at all. Connor turned toward the blonde, who was staring up at the portrait of Elijah, still silent. Hank didn't have any qualms about asking. "What the fuck is going on with that thing? It looks just like you."
Taylor turned her eyes away from Elijah's likeness to look at Hank. "My stepfather, the current CEO of CyberLife, was one of the first major backers of Elijah's projects. Chloe was designed to look like me."
"Isn't Chloe the name of the character you played on that kid show?" Hank asked, his voice tinged with a stunned disbelief. Taylor just nodded. "Christ." Hank muttered, sinking into one of the chairs on the far side of the room to wait.
"Do you know Elijah Kamski?" Connor asked her.
"We've met," she said distantly. "I haven't seen him since he left CyberLife." Her fingers starting strumming against her thigh again as she glanced around the room, waiting. "Not in person, anyway."
"So, you're about to meet your maker, Connor. How does it feel?" Hank asked, breaking the pregnant silence that had fallen over them a moment later. Connor turned away from the photograph he'd been looking at, of Elijah and a woman who looked like Amanda, and walked over to join the lieutenant.
"It doesn't raise any existential questions if that's what you mean," he replied as he took the other empty seat. Taylor looked satisfied with her spot by the exit, glancing between the door where they had entered and the one in which the android had left every few seconds, as though still considering just walking out.
"Sometimes I wish I could meet my creator face to face. I'd have a couple of things I'd wanna tell him," Hank said. This finally pulled the blonde's attention back to them, and she considered Hank, her brows drawing downward and her mouth pinching into a frown.
"Elijah will see you now," Chloe had reappeared, and they all turned toward her as she announced this. Hank and Connor both rose from their chairs and walked over to meet her, Taylor reluctantly following.
They arrived in a large room housing an indoor pool. Elijah Kamski was doing laps, paying them absolutely no mind. Two more Chloe's in swimsuits were on the edge of the pool, their heads together, talking.
"Mister Kamski?" Hank called, trying to get Elijah's attention.
"Just a moment, please," Elijah responded. He was apparently determined to finish his laps. Connor glanced back at Taylor, who had tucked herself in behind the two of them, but she was staring at the floor, her face completely neutral.
Elijah finally exited the pool. The Chloe that had led them in helped him into his robe. He made his way toward them, fixing his hair, seeming to make a great show of it all. Hank, once again, spoke first. "I'm Lieutenant Anderson. This is Connor. I think you know Taylor?"
"Taylor." Elijah smiled wide, showing his teeth as he stepped forward. Connor heard Taylor suck in a breath as she stepped around him. She extended her hand and Elijah took it, turning it over and pressing his lips against her knuckles. "It's been a long time."
"You kept all of them?" Her voice was soft as she asked the question. She was looking at Elijah, their blue eyes locked, as he rose to full height again, still holding her fingers in his.
"I negotiated for all of the RT600 and ST200 models when I sold the company." He agreed, sounding bored. Taylor tugged her hand free and he smiled, still considering her. "Should I have left them with your stepfather? Anthony did want to keep them."
"You've done me a favor, then," she said, gritting her teeth. Elijah took another step toward her and she stepped back, forgetting that Connor was still standing behind her. Her shoulder bumped against his and he placed his hand against the middle of her back to steady her.
"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" Elijah asked, his eyes shifting between the three of them, suddenly remembering the others in the room.
"Sir, we're investigating deviants. I know you left CyberLife years ago, but I was hoping you'd be able to tell us something we don't know," Hank explained.
"Deviants," Elijah glanced back over at Taylor, his gaze lingering on Connor's hand still resting on her back. "Fascinating, aren't they? Perfect beings with infinite intelligence, and now they have free will. Machines are so superior to us, confrontation was inevitable. Humanity's greatest achievement threatens to be its downfall. Isn't it ironic?"
"We need to understand how androids become deviants. Do you know anything that could help us?" Connor asked, finally lowering his hand back to his side. Elijah's eyes flickered to the android's face, considering him now.
"All ideas are viruses that spread like epidemics. Is the desire to be free a contagious disease?" He asked neutrally.
"Listen, we didn't come here to talk philosophy. The machines you created may be planning a revolution," Hank said, drawing the focus back to him. It was easy to see the lieutenant's patience was quickly wearing thin. "Either you can tell us something that'll be helpful, or we'll be on our way."
"Revolution," Elijah repeated, fixing his eyes on Taylor's face, the smallest smirk turning his lips up. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
She sputtered, but before she could say anything in response, he turned toward Connor. "What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?"
"It's not about me, Mr. Kamski." Connor responded immediately. "All I want is to solve this case."
"Well that's what you're programmed to say," Elijah conceded with a small shrug, "But you... What do you really want?"
"What I want is not important." Connor answered after a beat of silence, just long enough to make Taylor turn her head to look at him. Connor kept his head turned forward, facing Elijah, not meeting her gaze.
"Chloe?" The android, which had been standing behind him silently, walked forward. "I'm sure you're familiar with the Turing test. More a formality, simple question of algorithms and computing capacity."
Elijah positioned Chloe across from the three and stepped around her. "What interests me is whether machines are capable of empathy. I call it the Kamski test. It's very simple, you'll see."
He touched Chloe's chin, tilting her head. "Magnificent, isn't it? One of the first intelligent models developed by CyberLife. Young and beautiful forever. A flower that will never wither."
Taylor was watching, her eyes widened in horror, as Elijah stroked his finger's down the android's face. Connor could feel her stress levels, steadily rising, see her hands start to tremble at her sides.
"But what is it really? Piece of plastic imitating a human? Or a living being," he walked to the table behind him, opening the drawer and pulling out a gun, "with a soul?"
Elijah raised his hands to show he meant no harm to any of them. Then he touched Chloe's shoulder, making her kneel down on the floor. "It's up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor."
Elijah walked back over to them and placed the gun in Connor's hand, training it on Chloe's head. There was a smile in his eyes as he said, "Destroy this machine and I'll tell you all I know." He shrugged, looking over Connor's arm and into Taylor's horrified face as he said, "Or spare it, if you feel it's alive, but you'll leave here without having learnt anything from me."
"Elijah—" Taylor began, but Elijah shook his head, holding up his hand to stop whatever she was about to say.
"Okay, I think we're done here. Come on, Connor. Let's go. Sorry to get you outta your pool." Hank was over this too and was turning to head for the door.
"What's more important to you, Connor? Your investigation, or the life of this android?" Elijah pressed. Connor's hand hadn't moved, the gun still trained perfectly on Chloe's forehead. His LED was a glowing red circle. Chloe stared back at him, impassive, indifferent to his decision.
But it wasn't Chloe he saw; it was Taylor's face staring up at him. The longer he stared, the more differences he could see between the android and the human. Every single line of Taylor's face that he had memorized was overlapped on the android in front of him.
He imagined pulling the trigger, the light leaving its eyes, blue blood covering everything. He remembered the blood on Taylor's face at the Eden club. He lowered the gun.
"Fascinating," Elijah said as he accepted the gun from Connor. "CyberLife's last chance to save humanity... is itself a deviant."
"I'm," Connor began, still staring at Chloe. "I'm not a deviant."
Elijah dismissed Chloe and replaced the gun in the drawer. Taylor reached out and touched Connor's arm. "You preferred to spare a machine rather than accomplish your mission. You saw a living being in this android. You showed empathy."
He turned away from them, facing the window. The snow stretched on as far as the eye could see. "A war is coming. You'll have to choose your side – will you betray your own people or stand up against your creators?"
Taylor tugged on his arm, gently, trying to pull him toward the door. "What could be worse than having to choose between two evils?"
Connor finally moved his feet, trailing Taylor as she joined Hank near the door.
"Let's get outta here," the lieutenant said. Taylor nodded, right on his heels as they walked out.
"By the way," Elijah began, making Connor hesitate once more before he walked out. "I always leave an emergency exit in my programs. You never know."
Taylor and Hank were waiting for him to catch up. When they were closer to the car, a safe distance from the house, Hank asked him, "Why didn't you shoot?"
"I just saw that girl's eyes... and I couldn't, that's all." Connor answered, uncertain. He glanced at Taylor, and glanced away just as quickly, his LED flickering between red and yellow.
"You're always saying you would do anything to accomplish your mission. That was our chance to learn something and you let it go," Hank pressed, giving the android a skeptical look.
"Yeah, I know what I should have done! I told you I couldn't. I'm sorry, okay?" His LED flickered red again.
"Well, maybe you did the right thing," Hank said offhandedly as he walked around the car. Connor blinked at him, unsure he had heard correctly.
"Connor," Taylor placed a hand against his arm again, peering up into his face. She was glancing between his eyes and his LED, still pulsing a steady yellow. "Are you alright?"
He scanned her face. Her stress levels were still reading quite high, though they were falling, but she was focused on him. Her eyebrows were furrowed with concern. As she looked up at him, all he could think of was the impassive Chloe and the gun in his hand.
"I'm okay," he said, though his LED flickered red again at the image. She looked unconvinced, her eyes narrowing. For a beat, she just stared at him, and then she slid her arms around his middle and pulled him into a hug.
Connor nearly stumbled as Taylor tugged him forward, burying her face into his chest. He hesitated, then placed his arms around her shoulders and squeezing her gently.
"Thank you for not shooting," she whispered, so softly he could barely hear it, even with his android senses. He heard Hank groan from where he was standing by the driver's side door.
"If you two start making out, I'm leaving you here at the creeper's house." The car door slammed a second later, and Connor felt the gentle vibrations of Taylor's laughter against his chest. The tickling sensation was a warmth that spread through him, a candle flame igniting into a bonfire.
She pulled away, still smiling, her cheeks rosy. "Come on, it wouldn't be the first time he left us behind." Taylor ducked into the car, leaving Connor to follow.