Imagine Dragons - Believer

"I'm not sure I understand." Jake was looking between Alex and Connor with an expression that matched his statement. "I thought Elijah Kamski created androids? How is he an android?"

"Apparently he has perfected some technology which can transfer the human consciousness into an android." Alex said again, sighing. Connor frowned at this explanation.

"Perfected is a strong word. He has performed this procedure successfully twice, on himself and the neurosurgeon who assisted him in developing the technique." He corrected. Elijah had explained the process in detail. Almost all of it had gone over Alex's head. Some of it had even been lost on Connor. At the end of it, he simply sighed and said that Taylor would be alive, she would just be an android.

Alex, ever the practical one, had asked him what the risks would be. Elijah had told them bluntly that he had only had two successful cases, and that both of them had been done on uncomplicated, fairly healthy brains.

What are your options, really? That's what he'd said before he left. To Connor's ears, it had sounded exactly like, 'she's going to die anyway'. It was the pragmatic way of thinking, certainly, but Connor was emotionally invested. He couldn't imagine Taylor dying. If Elijah was the only chance she had left, he wouldn't allow his pride to get in the way.

"So we're just going to give up on Taylor getting better?" Jake had started to raise his voice. They were sitting in the 'Quiet Room', discussing this away from everyone else, and he was getting angry. The opposite of quiet.

Alex and Connor had discussed Elijah's proposition at length. The doctor came into the room and gave them the results of the MRI, saying that Taylor had an anoxic brain injury. She may not recover from it. It had sealed the decision for both of them to move forward with Elijah's plan.

"The doctors all agree that the prognosis isn't good," Alex said softly, trying to meet Jake's anger with calm. "Do you really want Taylor to be alive like this?"

"Why do you always think you know what's best for her?" Jake screamed back at him. A look of shock passed over Alex's face, but Jake was shaking in his anger now, and he wasn't finished. "You're always making the decisions for her, running her life, but you're not her real family, Alex!"

"Is that what you are, Jake?" While Jake was loud in his anger, Alex was quiet. Connor had never seen him angry, not like he was now, and even Jake seemed to falter. "Tell me, where have you been all these years?" Jake opened his mouth to speak, but Alex kept talking, not giving him the chance.

"When Taylor was struggling through PTSD in Los Angeles, refusing to eat, refusing to speak, having night terrors, where were you? Hanging out with your friends? Playing football? Because I don't remember you calling her one time."

"You took her away from us," Jake yelled back, jabbing a finger in his direction. Alex frowned.

"She begged me to take her away," he said, his voice still low. "She would have done anything to not have to stay in Detroit." He narrowed his eyes into a glare. "She was terrified, and you never noticed. Not even at the end."

"Please stop fighting." They all froze. Connor had forgotten that Hayley was in the room. She hadn't spoken since they sat down to explain Elijah's proposal. Alex had insisted that they invite both siblings, considering what they were talking about doing, but it had all gone sideways from there.

Now Alex and Jake were both silent. Jake's chest was still heaving, breathless in his rage, but he attempted to regain control of himself. Hayley was smaller than her sister, shorter, and the dark color she had dyed her hair made her appear paler. She frowned at Jake before she spoke again.

"If this procedure doesn't work, then Taylor will die." The words brought a stillness to the room. Jake fell back into his seat, looking decidedly off put. "I have the least right of any of us to say what Taylor would want. I just know that she loved me for the first five years of my life, and then she let me believe a lie for the rest of it because she thought that I would be better off."

She looked up then, her blue eyes bright with tears. Blue eyes just like Taylor's. "I don't think she would want us all to suffer because of her."

"So what," Jake began, but the fury had left his voice. He sounded resigned now. "We just try this and if she dies, oh well?"

"If she dies, she has peace." Hayley returned, determined. "Doesn't she deserve that?"

Once they decided to go ahead with it, there were semantics involved. Taylor had to be moved to Elijah's private facilities, along with the replicated android copy of her. The neurosurgeon turned android who had helped Elijah the first time had to be brought in to assist. Somehow, they had to keep this all quiet, when Taylor was a very famous celebrity.

Planning for the event took another week. In that time, Connor kept his vigil at her bedside, but still there was no change. He began to put all of his hope into this new plan, though the words that Hayley had said in the 'Quiet Room' continued to haunt him.

When he paired it with what Alex had said to him about Taylor's growing recklessness, about her pulling away and not caring about her life, it began to give him doubts. What if Hayley was right, and Taylor just wanted peace? Was it cruel to bring her back in such a way?

He knew how much she struggled with her anxiety. With fear. The day she had gone to the cemetery, then had a panic attack leaving the CyberLife tower, he had been so afraid for her. She had lived so much of her life that way. Maybe he was just being selfish.

He couldn't do it, though. He couldn't let her go. Not yet. He was staring at her now, perfectly still in the bed, her chest rising and falling at behest of the machine she was attached to, and he knew that if he was given the choice, he never would. In that way, she had been stronger than him.

"We're ready to move." Simon appeared in the doorway. He and Josh were helping with transport. Markus had been skeptical, at first, when Connor told him what was going to happen, but he came around once he learned that Taylor really didn't have any other chance.

The hospital thought that Taylor was being moved to a private facility to get care. One benefit of her being a celebrity was that people didn't ask a ton of prying questions, and they were used to famous people being eccentric. If the family wanted to move her to a super-rich private hospital to get care, so be it.

Therefore, the hospital staff helped to wheel Taylor downstairs to load her into the transport. They attached her to a portable ventilator, small enough that it fit on the stretcher, and wheeled her onward. When they arrived in the loading area for the ambulances, Connor found that the vehicle that Elijah had provided had been rigged to look very much like a medical transport.

Or maybe he had just bought a medical transport.

Whatever the case, none of the staff suspected a thing as they loaded the stretcher into the vehicle. Elijah had even made some fake paperwork for everyone to sign, so Simon handed it over to one of the nurses who had helped wheel Taylor down.

She only glanced at it for half a second before adding her signature. Josh got into the back with Taylor, and Alex joined him. Simon and Connor both got into the front, but Connor didn't feel his nerves start to ease off until they were driving away.

"That went well," Simon said from the driver's seat, huffing a small sigh of relief. Connor couldn't share in the sentiment. Not yet. He had a feeling he wouldn't be relaxing for days to come, until the whole thing was said and done.

Only the outcome would determine whether he could relax after that.

"I still don't understand why you're doing this." Connor was watching Elijah move around the room, checking over equipment. He didn't trust the man enough to leave him to his own devices, but he wasn't sure what most of this was for to begin with, so he supposed he was just watching for some sort of blatant betrayal.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Connor." Elijah gave him a sideways glance and a tight-lipped smile before he crouched down on the floor, nearly climbing inside one of the machines along the wall. He was shining a flashlight around the inner workings, slowly, looking at all of the connections.

Connor frowned at the response. He really wished people would stop quoting strange human phrases at him so he would stop having to puzzle out what they meant. Elijah stood again, a moment later, brushing dust off of his knees.

"You don't strike me as the generous type," he tried again. This time, Elijah didn't turn in his direction. He went back to the main console and started reading over the diagnostics on the screen.

"I'm not." He acknowledged after a moment.

"Then tell me why you're doing this. Do you just want more test subjects for your experiment?" Connor tracked Elijah as he went to the other side of the room now, removing a panel and crawling in just like he had a moment before, flashlight in hand. It was quiet while he worked, until he reappeared a few minutes later, returning to the console.

"I didn't intend to perform this procedure again, actually." Elijah said with a shrug, still not looking at him. "Can you imagine if someone like Anthony Jacobsen knew that he could become an android? Basically immortal? No, I've moved on."

Connor was surprised, though he tried not to show it. The Elijah Kamski he had met during his investigation hadn't shown much inclination toward a conscience.

"Why do you want to know so badly? Isn't it enough that I'm doing it?" Elijah asked as he crossed the room. The android replica of Taylor was laid out on the table, and Connor had to glance away. He knew that if this procedure was successful, that android would be the real Taylor. Right now, though, it was just the machine that Anthony had created, the thing that had terrified her. He would need to reconcile the two things eventually.

"Because Taylor is important to me." He said finally, staring at his hands. He thought of how Taylor moved her hands when she was anxious and wondered if she would still do it when she was an android. "She's the most important thing to me."

He looked up to find Elijah looking back at him, that wide and amused smile now on his face. His hands clenched into fists, but Elijah just turned away and continued to work as though the moment hadn't happened, letting it pass. He must have given Elijah something he was looking for, though, because after another few minutes he did speak.

"I feel like I owe it to her, I guess." Elijah's face had gone quite serious, more serious than Connor was used to seeing it. He was looking down at the android below him, frowning, until he reached out and made its synthetic skin disappear. The unremarkable white casing was easier for him to look at, and he kept working.

For a while, that was all the answer that Connor thought he was going to get. Elijah plugged the android into the console and worked in silence for a stretch of time. He must have been working himself up to what he wanted to say though, because after a while he started to talk again, his face still turned toward the screen.

"I told you she came to ask me questions," Elijah began. Connor started, because he had wanted to know but hadn't been able to think of a way to ask. "The truth is that she came to ask me if I had known, back then, if Anthony was the monster that he is. I didn't. Not exactly."

Elijah lifted his head to look at the android again, then ducked it and continued to work. Connor knew his LED had started to flicker amber. He eased his hands out of the fists he had formed and placed them on his knees.

"But that was only a half-truth. I had suspected. Anthony got away with what he did because he and Taylor were almost never in the same room together, but I saw them together when I was working on Chloe." Elijah's shoulders had tensed now, though his hands were still moving calmly across the screen. "You can't hide that kind of fear."

Connor felt his hands clenching again, but he tried to control himself. His LED was flickering red now. Angry. Elijah turned to look at him now, and when he noticed these things, that small bit of amusement returned.

"Go ahead, hate me if you want." He shrugged. "All I had was a suspicion, but I didn't say anything. When I found out later, well, I felt like an asshole. I kept the Chloe's as a way to protect Taylor, because I hadn't done anything to help her the first time."

"Elijah, Doctor Brown said to tell you the patient is ready." As though she had been summoned, Chloe appeared in the doorway. Connor couldn't help but flinch at the sight of her, and she glanced in his direction, her expression concerned.

"Thank you, Chloe. Will you tell him I'm almost ready?" Elijah smiled at her, and it was different from the usual amused and condescending smirks that Connor saw on his face. It almost looked genuine.

"Of course, Elijah." Chloe nodded and walked out again without further ado. Elijah watched her leave before he turned his attention back to Connor.

"To answer your question, Connor," he said finally, turning around to finish running his diagnostics, "I am doing this because I thought, in some way, I could make it up to her. What I did. Or rather, what I didn't do."

Connor supposed it was as good a reason as any.

"When she wakes up, the first time, you'll have to keep her calm." Elijah was sitting across from Connor and Alex. He was talking as if there was literally no outcome but a successful one, and Connor supposed he probably should be thinking the same thing. He was more worried about keeping his own stress levels under control.

"You both will have to keep her stress levels under manageable control until she can remember who she is. It's going to be very scary for her." Elijah glanced between them. Alex had gone pale, but he was nodding. Connor's LED was flickering a persistent yellow, but he nodded, too.

"What happens to," Alex hesitated, but he pushed on, making himself say it, "to Taylor's human body? When this is done?"

"Her human body is going to die." Elijah said it firmly, bordering on callous. So much so that Alex almost flinched. "There isn't another way to do this."

"Right." Alex nodded again, still looking a little shell shocked.

"Afterwards," Elijah continued, "We'll have to run some testing and calibrations. Make sure that Taylor has fully adjusted to her new body."

"What are the chances you will run into compatibility issues?" Connor asked. He wasn't sure how transferring a human consciousness to an android processing unit was supposed to work, but he did want to know if anything was likely to go wrong. Elijah smirked at him.

"Very low, actually. The android is, as you know, constructed to look and feel exactly like Taylor. Taylor's mind should not have any issues recognizing it as her own. If we can keep her calm." He emphasized the last point again, giving Connor a pointed look.

"Got it."

Elijah left the room, leaving Connor and Alex alone with the immobile Taylor android. Alex stared at it, his eyes wide, his face still pale. Connor had the inclination that he should do something to make him feel better, but he wasn't sure what, and he wasn't doing so well himself.

"What if she dies?" Alex said, quietly into the stillness around them, like he hadn't considered the possibility before this very moment. Connor had asked the same thing to Hank in the waiting room of the ER weeks ago, and he still didn't have an answer. Alex swallowed. "Guess it's too late to be having second thoughts."

They sat there in the silence, pressing in like a tomb, and Connor tried not to think of it that way in case the thought made it true. He hadn't invested much thought into what would happen if Taylor died because he couldn't imagine living without her. He wondered if Alex felt the same way, if that's why he'd agreed to this insane plan, or if humans were better at accepting loss.

Maybe it was just him.

The wait couldn't have been long, but it felt like an eternity. His deviancy had turned the concept of time into an abstract. His thoughts crowded the space, made the very concrete amount of minutes turn to a mire of quicksand of which he was sinking, never ending. Alex must have been feeling it too, because he was bouncing his knee impatiently as he waited, though he never moved his eyes from the android.

The android Taylor didn't have an LED built into it. Obviously because Anthony had been intending to substitute it for the real Taylor and the LED would have been a dead giveaway. Elijah had said there was no point in adding one now, Taylor didn't need it, but Connor would have loved to have something to look at right about now. It would have let him know when she was booting up.

As it was, he thought he imagined it, the first time she moved. He would have convinced himself that her fingers twitching was an illusion if Alex hadn't also jumped in his seat and leaned forward. They both stared, fixated, Alex holding his breath while they waited for her to move again.

When she did, it wasn't a small twitch of her fingers. She sat straight up on the table, taking a gasping breath into her artificial lungs. It was so sudden that Alex cursed and jumped backwards. Connor flinched as well, but he recovered much quicker, already moving forward.

"Taylor," he said, keeping his voice gentle. He needn't have bothered. It was like she didn't even hear him. Her blue eyes were wide, terrified, and she was looking around the room in mute horror. She scrambled backwards before he could reach for her, nearly falling off of the table.

"Taylor," he repeated, a little louder this time, trying to get her attention. This time, her head did snap around to his face, but there wasn't any recognition there. Just fear. Her chest was heaving, even though she didn't need to breathe. She wouldn't know that yet. If she would've had an LED, he knew that right now it would've been red. His certainly was.

"Taylor, look at me." This time it was Alex who spoke. He'd gotten up from his chair and come closer, right up to the table. Taylor did turn to look at him, her eyes still wide, a deer in the headlights. He didn't hesitate to reach for her, to put his hands on her face.

She was an android now, and her stress levels were near critical. She could have easily hurt him, but Alex didn't care.

"You're safe." He said, and she went very still. For a moment, Connor thought she was going to self-destruct. That they had failed, that it was over. "It's okay. Just breathe."

"A-Alex." She launched herself forward, so hard that she nearly knocked him down. He managed to keep his feet as she wrapped her arms around his middle, shaking, still terrified. "Alex, what's happening?"

"You're okay. Just calm down. It's okay," He said it, over and over, placing his arms around her in return. It took a moment for Connor to realize that he was crying, his shoulders shaking with hers, but he still kept repeating the words as he held her.

Alex didn't let her go until she stopped shaking. Or maybe it was after he stopped crying. It was hard to tell from the angle where Connor was standing, waiting very quietly, anxious. He wanted Taylor to turn around and look at him. To see him. To know him, like she hadn't a moment ago.

"What happened?" She asked again, staring at her hands, her brow creased. It was Taylor's expression, Taylor's face, Taylor's blue eyes.

"You're an android now," Connor said, hoping she would look up.

"How?" She asked, still staring down at her hands.

"Elijah Kamski," Connor said next, willing her to look at him. And she did. She lifted her head, her brow still furrowed. When their eyes met, the expression vanished. Her hands fell into her lap. Her eyes moved over his face, and he thought that this must be what dying felt like.

"Connor, I'm—" Whatever she was going to tell him, she didn't get the chance. A sob escaped him, then another, and he broke down. She blinked in surprise, then she reached for him. He fell into her arms without a word, burying his face against her shoulder. Her hand came up, her fingers running through his hair as she shushed him.

Connor knew that he was supposed to be the one comforting her, but he couldn't control himself. She was real, and she remembered him. She felt the same, in his arms. Her voice, murmuring against his ear, was the same. As he scanned her, reading her stress levels, he realized they had fallen lower than his own.

"Hate to interrupt," Connor finally pulled away at the sound of Elijah's voice. He had appeared in the doorway, smiling down at them. "I thought I should maybe disconnect Taylor from the equipment."

Connor had forgotten about the wires attached to her, but he supposed it was probably a good thing she hadn't managed to scoot off of the table and rip them all loose. Elijah came closer to the table, but Taylor hadn't even looked in his direction. Her blue eyes were still fixed on him, lined with concern.

"How are you feeling?" Elijah asked her, finally drawing her attention away. Taylor glanced down at her hands again, staying motionless as he disconnected her.

"Strange." She said after he was done, blinking up at him. He gave her an indulgent smile.

"You'll get used to it." She gave him a strange look, but he didn't elaborate. Didn't let her know that he knew from personal experience. "Do you remember what happened to you?"

There was a beat of silence. She looked down. Placed a hand over her chest. Then, she nodded and said quietly, "Yes."

"Well, I'm sure you've gathered it's been some time since then." Elijah continued on as though he hadn't noticed her reaction. "I'll let these two fill you in and let you process before we start testing you. What are your current stress levels?"

"23%." Taylor said, frowning. Connor could feel them rising after she said it, and he placed his hand over hers. "What do you mean by testing?"

"Well, we have to make sure your systems are operating at maximum capacity, so to speak." Elijah said, waving his hand dismissively. "In the meantime, try not to get stressed out? You need some adjustment time."

He left them again. Taylor watched him go, her expression perplexed, before she turned back to Alex. "How long has it been?"

"Weeks." He said. He had been watching her intently the whole time, his green eyes never leaving her face. "You went into cardiac arrest. You were on life support." His voice faltered. "You were unresponsive. The doctors said there was very little chance you would get better."

They stared at each other. Connor thought back to what Alex had said in the hospital room, about Taylor being reckless. He didn't think that Alex would bring it up now, when they were supposed to be keeping Taylor calm, but he knew he must be thinking of it.

"What happened, while I was out?" She asked, turning away, facing him instead. Maybe she knew, or at least suspected. Maybe she just didn't want to think about what she'd put Alex through.

"The Equal Rights Act passed." Connor said, because he knew she would want to know. Because he knew it would make her happy. And it did. A smile lit up her face, and it was the smile that he'd missed, bright and beautiful and happy.

"That's amazing!" She said. "Did Helping Humans try to repeal?"

"Actually," Alex said, drawing her attention back to him, "They didn't get a chance. Connor was able to prove that the android that attacked you and the one that tried to attack Markus were sent by Helping Humans. Their leaders were arrested and are awaiting trial. They've been quiet ever since."

"Of course he did," Taylor turned back to him with another smile, and he felt his thirium pump quickening. Only now, apparently, Taylor could feel it as well, because her smile widened. He swallowed. He was in trouble now. He just knew it.

"Speaking of trials," Connor said, keeping his voice smooth. Alex didn't notice his hesitation, at least. "Detective Reed managed to find more evidence during his excursion into CyberLife. He convicted your stepfather. He's also tried to appeal, but he's already been denied once."

The amusement had left her face. Her mouth dropped open, and she moved her hand to cover it. She took a few minutes to regain her composure, and Connor couldn't help but be amused at her reaction.

"I guess I owe Gavin, huh?" She said, lowering her hand.

"Just so you know," Alex began, cutting in. "Your brother was not very happy with me when I told him what we planned to do."

"Jake?" Taylor said in disbelief. Alex nodded.

"We got into a bit of a fight." He frowned but didn't go into any details. "Just try to go easy on him, when you see him."