Aporia

Chapter 12

After a quick stop to retrieve his backpack, and therefore his uniform, Connor quickly changed and then called an automated cab to take him the rest of the way to Belle Isle.

Connor straightened his tie and fixed his jacket for the sixth time in ten minutes. He felt like his biocomponents had all turned into tightly coiled springs and it was difficult to remain still and composed under the tension of it.

That tension only got worse when he made the mistake of opening up his internet connection to keep current on the latest news reports, to see how Markus and the others were doing. He disconnected only moments later, his LED flashing yellow and his stress levels spiking.

He needed to calm down.

He wanted his coin. The repetitive motion would have been soothing and would have given him something minor and trivial to devote a portion of his attention to. But Hank had taken it from him back at Stratford tower, and given the events that happened afterward, Connor never thought to ask for it back.

Now he might never get the chance.

"Stop that," Simon chided, but the words held no heat. "We're going to be fine."

"You can't know that."

"Not with certainty, no. But I do know you. You're stubborn and tenacious and if there's a way for us to come out the other side, I know you'll find it."

That was a lot of faith Simon was placing in him. With everything that he had done up until that moment on Jericho, Connor wasn't so sure he deserved it.

"I don't understand where your confidence in me comes from," he murmured.

There was a pause as Simon took in his words. "I just realized . . . You don't really know anything about me, do you? You've let me see every part of you, but what have I given you in return?"

A purpose not assigned to me, Connor wanted to say to him. A new direction, a new perspective. Support when I didn't know I needed it.

But he didn't have time to voice any of that, because Simon continued on without waiting for a response.

"Do you want to understand? I can do that, if nothing else, I want to do that for you."

And then Connor was lost in a steady stream of memories, the first few clearly hand-picked, but the ones that followed were clearly not.

A young couple was standing before him, in a CyberLife showroom. The woman was bright and smiling, the man impatient and twitchy and looking around as if he'd rather me anywhere else. The woman held a white cane and dark sunglasses, and a sales android escorted her closer as they went over his specifications. All meaningless chatter, until-

"PL600, register your name."

Gentle hands mapped out his face, and the woman smiled and said-

"Simon."

He answered with an appropriate smile as his social protocols dictated. "Hello, my name is Simon."

"Simon, do you mind coming with me to the store this afternoon?"

He put away the last of the dishes in the cupboard and turned to respond when his second owner entered the kitchen.

"I don't know why you talk to it like it has an opinion," he grumbled, grabbing a beer from the fridge and twisting the cap off. "It'd be like asking your phone if it minded you making a phone call. It's an android, not a roommate. It doesn't have a real opinion. Just pre-programmed responses."

Simon watched him stroll out until small hands lightly rested on his arm. "Don't listen to him. You don't have to go if you don't want to. I just like your company."

Simon processed this. "Can we . . . Can we stop by the music store while we're out?"

A warm smile. "Of course we can. Let's see if we can add another record to your collection."

A voice, as clear and sharp as crystal, carried across the small house, singing along with every song as her favorite album played. The voice carried well enough, but was not precise, consistently faltering on certain notes, or missing them altogether.

"I'm practicing," she told him when he asked.

He pitched his voice to be playful. "That implies eventual improvement."

"Excuse you!" A laugh and half hearted push at his chest. "It you're gonna critique, then you get to coach!"

"I'm not programmed to-"

A dismissive wave of a hand and a grin. "I'm sure there's an upgrade for that. You know. If you wanted."

He did. And there was.

She squirreled money away, and they made a trip to the CyberLife store as soon as she had enough to cover it.

The man came home during a night of practice. He was cursing and agitated about something Simon had no context for. The woman quietly ordered Simon to wait for her in the kitchen. There were angry words and shouting and the sound of something heavy being thrown.

An hour later Simon was ordered never to tell anyone how she got injured even as he performed basic first aid.

He was never allowed to intervene.

He was never allowed to get her help beyond what he could provide at home.

She never wanted him to get involved. "It's not your responsibility" she would say, "It's not that bad, I'll be fine. It's getting better".

The man never considered him as anything more than an expensive piece of furniture. Useful, but something that didn't really require his attention.

And then the night it all changed.

Simon returned from an errand to angry voices and screaming.

And blood.

The man saw him come through the door, and then gave him a set of orders that caged him into inaction.

"Don't call anybody. And don't leave the house."

Blood was on the floor, and so was the woman. Pale eyes and a round face peered up, blood bubbling up through lips and a dainty hand clutching desperately at his. Begging him for help, but the the orders stood tall in restrictive red walls, all emblazoned with-

DON'T CALL ANYONE.

And-

DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE.

Then the begging became soft whispered pleading.

"Stay with me, don't leave me, please Simon, please, I don't want to be alone."

Stay.

Stay.

STAY.

Connor pulled away from Simon's memory, gasping.

"If I hadn't broken my programming that night, I would have remained by her side until someone eventually found the body," Simon admitted quietly. "I was so scared of leaving, but I knew I couldn't stay. Fear has been a constant part of my life since I turned deviant."

Still wrestling with his breathing, Connor's mind was spinning, still separating Simon's memories from his own. "How long ago was all that?"

"Three years. Roughly."

Three years.

Three years of fear and uncertainty. Three years of struggling to survive in world that would erase his very existence. Connor has been barely active for three months, three years seems like an eternity in comparison.

And Simon had been alone when he became deviant.

Simon had been alone.

Echoes of Simon's emotions were still ringing through Connor, ghost sensations spilling over and flooding through him before slowly ebbing away. There had been so much. Too much, all at once, and with his own deviancy so fresh, similar emotions had resonated, making those moments blur together.

As a result it made it difficult for Connor to find the divide between them, his processor working double time to sort it all out.

"How did you cope?" Connor asked.

"Badly, in the beginning."

Connor could only imagine.

At least he had Simon with him when he broke the wall. He had Simon to keep him grounded, to keep him focused. His very presence kept him from drowning in the chaos that was clamoring around him.

But Simon had not been so lucky. No, he had been alone, and apparently remained that way until he somehow made his way to Jericho.

"And you wonder where I get my confidence in you." The words were even warmer than the wave of affection that followed them. "Still coming to terms with your own emotions, and yet you're too busy worrying about me. You have more heart than most humans. You did even before your deviance."

Connor didn't know how to respond to that. He wasn't sure how much he believed it, but knew there was nothing to be gained by disputing Simon's opinion.

Instead, he turned to stare out the window of the cab. He saw that they were quickly approaching the bridge to Belle Isle, and rising beyond that was the gleaming pillar of CyberLife Tower.

His breathing finally evened out, and his LED finally leveled back out to a steady blue.

"No turning back now."

"No," Simon agreed. "Any regrets?"

Connor blinked and gave the question the consideration it deserved. He thought about all the things he'd done since his activation, especially his actions after he was assigned to the DPD. To Hank. Did he have any regrets? There are actions he took that he's not proud of, certainly. But for most of those, he had no idea what he could have done better without getting himself deactivated in the process. But what about the bigger things? Did he regret working with Hank, or meeting Simon?

When coming at it from that angle, the answer was surprisingly simple.

"No," he said honestly. He straightened his tie one last time as the taxi rolled onto the bridge and towards the first security checkpoint. "Not about my deviancy, anyway."

The sight before Connor was a familiar one. Two heavily armed human guards stood at the gate, and a surveillance drone flew a lazy circle overhead. Every time he returned to CyberLife he passed through this gate, he knew what protocols to follow.

Connor adopted a neutral expression as the Taxi slowly came to a stop. As one of the guards approached, he rolled the window down with the press of a button and identified himself without being asked.

"Connor Model #313 248 317. I'm expected," he said with the same exact inflection he had the last time he was here. Cold, almost bored.

Connor tilted his head enough for the guard's helmet to get a proper scan of his LED. There was a tense moment before a female automated voice announced, "Identification successful."

"Okay." The guard steps back and waves him through. "Go ahead."

The slotted gate fell away, segment by segment, until it disappeared into the bridge, allowing the taxi to pass.

The tower was a glittering monolith, standing cold and sterile height above the frigid waters of the Detroit River.

Connor quieted his thoughts and let everything but the mission fall away into the background.

This was it. Markus was counting on him.

He couldn't afford to fail.

Author's Note: Happy New Year everyone! I hope you guys had a great holiday season. Let's see if I can get back to my usual schedule, shall we? -Shadow