Dissimulation
Chapter Six: The Storm
"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one."
Connor was drawn out of stasis by the repeated thud of someone beating on his bedroom door. He pinged his internal clock at 2:46AM.
Apprehension began to thread through his steel bones.
"Connor!" Hank called from outside his room. "Get your ass out here!"
Something is wrong.
The android leapt to his feet and crossed the room in quick strides, wrenching the door open with such urgency that the lieutenant nearly lost his balance and fell over.
"What happened?" Connor questioned. "Are you ok?"
Hank's hair was a matted mess, the bags under his eyes more pronounced from lack of sleep. He had hastily slipped into yesterday's jeans and a wrinkled, unwashed t-shirt. Clearly he had gotten dressed in a hurry.
"I'm fine," he assuaged, "but we've gotta go." Hank gestured to Connor's sleepwear. "Throw on some pants and meet me outside. Make it quick."
Connor managed to change in under a minute. True to his word, Hank was waiting for him in the car, engine already roaring. Connor hurriedly slipped into the passenger seat.
Hank threw the car into reverse and was backing out of the driveway before Connor even had the chance to close his door.
"Hank, tell me what's going on," he demanded, the glow of his LED limning the lieutenant's features with an eerie tinge of red.
"There has been a mass murder – a pile of corpses - human and android."
Connor turned away, staring down at the dash as he processed the grim information.
"There's no commonality between the victims," Hank continued. "No fingerprints. No traces of anyone else at all."
Connor drew the logical conclusion before Hank spoke it aloud:
"There's a good chance that the killer is an android."
An intense fury Connor had never before experienced threaded through his core at the prospect of having his newly-realized freedom wrenched away. His hands clutched into tight, trembling fists in his lap.
"If that's true," he said, voice shaken, "it could completely undo everything that Markus has fought for."
"And that's why we need to get to the bottom of this before the press catches up," Hank snapped back, a wicked gleam of determination in his eyes.
It was in that moment that the potential danger of the situation seemed to crash down around Connor with blunt force. When they had chased deviants in the past, the rogue androids had all been acting in self-defense. They merely wanted to live, and so they ran, and when Connor inevitably caught up to them, they fought back. However, their actions had been driven by a sense of self-preservation; they had never sought to harm others. If Hank's assumption was true, they would be dealing with an android that wanted to kill. The RK800 took a sidelong glance at his partner. Skilled though he was, Hank would not stand a chance against an android's strength.
The lieutenant's mortality hung heavy on Connor's shoulders.
As the world outside his window passed by in a blur of lights, Connor willed himself to prepare; diagnostics were run against every joint, every sensor, every function. He was tensed in his seat, his artificial muscles thrumming with the compulsion to seek and destroy. Informative displays that he hadn't referred to in months cluttered his vision, pinging every object within reach that could be used as a weapon: the Lieutenant's service pistol, the baseball bat in the back floorboard, the pen in the middle console. Priority was taken from irrelevant, aesthetic processes (blinking, simulated breathing, micro-expressions) and was rerouted to his legs and arms, lending a boost of power that he could feel as he flexed his hands experimentally. He could rip the door from its metal hinges, leap from the vehicle moving at 67.4 miles per hour, and land squarely on his feet. Humanity was traded for precision, and he felt more like a machine in that moment than he had during that first mission on a high-rise roof, when a PL600 toed the edge clutching a little girl to his chest with a pistol fixed at her temple.
Hank noticed the change, the way he stilled, his posture stiffening robotically.
"…you alright?" he ventured.
"Yes," Connor answered without moving his neck or eyes. "I have physically prepared for a potentially violent confrontation and have rerouted certain processes accordingly."
The monotonous, detached quality of his voice sounded foreign, even to his own audio processors. He heard Hank mutter "Jesus," under his breath, but the lieutenant did not comment further.
The crime scene was a withering, abandoned husk of a house close to the city's center. The weeds in the front lawn were so tall that they brushed against Connor's knees as he followed the lieutenant over a felled chain-link fence and into the sagging structure.
Ben Collins, Detective Reed and Officer Chen were already there, hovering around the macabre sight – a literal pile of corpses. The bulk of the pile were androids of varying models (two PL600s, a KR200, an HR400, a KL900 and even a child android – a YK500). Near the top were two human victims, presumably a young couple. Connor scanned each face in quick succession with an impassive gaze, cataloguing serial numbers and names along with any other scrap of information he could derive.
As Hank had said, there didn't appear to be any thread of cohesion between these murders. The victims seemed to have been picked at random.
"Holy shit…" Hank muttered, the lines on his face deepening with horror as his gaze fell to the lone little girl crushed beneath multiple adult bodies, her chassis exposed from what looked to be a blunt blow to the cheek, her eyes open and unseeing.
"Yeah," Tina said softly. "This is… well, it's just fucking terrible."
Gavin, surprisingly, had nothing to add. He hung back from the others, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, his lips set in a grim line.
Ben approached Hank and clasped a heavy hand to his shoulder.
"Sorry to have to drag you out here, buddy. We didn't know what else to do. Hell, I don't even know where to start."
At length, the lieutenant finally tore his gaze away from the YK500 and nodded to Ben.
"We'll find the fucker who did this. When'd this happen?"
"Approximately two and one half hours ago," Connor interjected before Officer Collins could reply, his pupils darting left and right as he continued to search for clues.
"How do you figure?"
"The thirium from the androids' bodies has already evaporated," the RK800 supplied. "I will perform a scan to search for any remaining traces."
Upon activating the appropriate scanner, the world around Connor bled to grey, and his perception of time ground to a halt as every plane, figure, and object in his immediate radius was broken into grid-like approximations of their physical forms, strings of information filtering through his mind like a siphon.
To his horror, there was, indeed, a hidden message written in vivid blue blood on the wall behind the bodies.
Connor deactivated his scanners and took a staggering step forward.
"Well?" Hank prodded. "What'd you see?"
"There is a message," Connor began slowly, "written in thirium. It reads: '313 248 317.'"
"The hell does that mean?"
Connor had manually disabled the processes that mandated inconsequential, human mannerisms, and yet he could not quell the illogical tremble of his hands as he replied, "That is my serial number."
"Shit," Hank swore.
Incensed, Connor reactivated his proximity scanner before the other officers could comment further. He glanced frantically around the room, and when his gaze fell to the molding floorboards beneath his feet, he picked up on a trail of blue.
There was a methodical quality to the trail, as though it had been intentionally lain. Logically, Connor could assume that it led into a trap, but the depth of his fury overshadowed the scope of his caution, and so he ignored the lieutenant's shouts of protest as he spun and took off at a sprint to follow the winding splatters of thirium.
"The fuck…!? Connor, wait! CONNOR!"
Someone has killed innocents and jeopardized the freedom of an entire people just to get my attention, Connor thought as he ran. He couldn't wait to meet the sick fuck who committed this atrocity. As he bolted through the dark streets of one of Detroit's most nefarious slums, he dreamed about throttling the neck of this killer, until their eyes bulged from their sockets and they sputtered for mercy - a kindness he would not extend.
I will make them sorry.
"Goddamn it Connor… stop!" Hank huffed from far behind him.
The RK800's footfalls did not stutter. He leaned into the icy air as he sliced through it, a predator once more, poised to kill.
The thirium trail curved to a shoddy 10-story apartment building just over a mile away and continued up a zig-zagging fire escape. After only a moment of consideration, Connor leapt to the first level, ignoring the rattle of the metal stairs as he began his swift ascent.
To his sadistic pleasure, there was a lone figure on the roof - an android he quickly recognized as a JB300 model. He was still dressed in his Cyberlife-issued garb of a black jumpsuit with yellow, triangular accents across his right shoulder. The only non-standard accessories he wore were a pair of thick rubber gloves.
"Hello, deviant hunter," he drawled.
The small, rational voice buried in the depths of Connor's programming urged him to interrogate the suspect and glean as much information as possible, but his logic had long since been eclipsed by his rage. He was primed for action, and so hurdled toward the other android with his teeth grit in anger, fingers twitching at the prospect of gripping the man's throat.
The fact that the JB300 made no move to flee should have given Connor pause, but he was too far gone, the boiling hunger for vengeance dictating his every action.
I always accomplish my mission.
Connor was late to notice the minute flick of the other android's wrist, and before he could process what had happened, his entire body locked up mid-stride not even a foot away from his target. His HUD wavered in and out of focus as his frayed sensors belatedly picked up on the small device clinging to his temple. It was some sort of inhibitor, sending electrical impulses dancing across and through his skin, rendering him paralyzed.
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot
Soft reboot successful, running diagnostics
ERROR: Software not responsive
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot…
Connor's stuttering system clouded his vision with errors as his software ran through an infinite loop, attempting to troubleshoot the sudden string of issues.
"You killed my brother," the other android spoke as he began to pace around the RK800 in a slow circle. "I bet you don't even remember him."
Here the JB300 paused, mere inches from Connor's twitching face.
"He looked just like me," he continued in a low voice. "We worked at Stratford Tower. He's the reason why Markus was able to broadcast our message to the world. And you killed him."
The android drew two gloved fingers to Connor's shoulder and gave a light push, tipping his stiff body over. He collided with the concrete below, his artificial skull splintering upon contact with a sickening crack.
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot
Soft reboot successful, running diagnostics
ERROR: Software not responsive
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot…
Even over the crackling static of his fried audio processors, Connor could hear as Hank cursed and lumbered up the rattling fire escape.
"After the Revolution, I begged the Jericho leaders for justice. You needed to pay for the crime you committed. But they did nothing."
Hank was nearing the uppermost platform.
"Connor?" he called, voice laced with concern.
The JB300 drew a Bowie knife from his belt.
"I was going to let it go, Connor. I was going to forget about you and try to move on, but then I saw you on the evening news, being championed as some hero, some paragon of justice."
ERROR: Software not responsive
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot…
"But you're not a hero, are you? You're nothing but a hypocrite."
The other android wrenched Connor's head back by a handful of hair and pointed the knife directly beneath his jaw.
A cruel smile spread across his lips as Hank finally reached the roof.
"You took him from me. So I'm going to take something from you."
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!" the lieutenant bellowed. Connor could hear as Hank slid back the stock of his service pistol with a mechanical click.
The JB300 pushed in the knife by a fraction. Buried beneath a slew of other errors and the recurring cycle of soft reboots, Connor registered a warning for minor thirium loss.
"Drop your gun, or I kill him," the android said coolly.
There was a long pause, the lieutenant weighing his options, before Connor heard the firearm clatter to the ground.
"I did what you asked, now let him go," Hank all but growled.
"I will, as long as you continue to cooperate, Lieutenant Anderson."
Connor had never felt more useless. He was frantic, sending commands to a system that wouldn't, couldn't acknowledge them. He wanted Hank to run away and leave him to accept his fate.
I deserve this for being so reckless.
"Come here, slowly," the JB300 commanded, his attention fixed on Hank.
Don't listen to him, run!
Connor could hear cautious footfalls as Hank made his steady approach. Once he was within arm's length of the android murderer, the knife was pulled from Connor's neck and the killer stood in one fluid motion.
"Good," he said, voice dripping with false praise. "Now…"
The android was cut off as Hank lunged forward, one hand about the knife-wielding wrist, the other clutched at the JB300's shoulder. The lieutenant wedged a boot against the android's torso and attempted to kick him over, but the powerful machine merely locked his legs and remained rooted in place, before his free hand shot out to wrap around Hank's neck.
No, please!
Hank grunted and changed tactics, releasing the JB300's wrist only to deliver a heavy punch to his jaw. A bit of artificial skin bled away to reveal a patch of the glossy white underneath, but despite the force of the lieutenant's blow, his head only moved marginally to one side.
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot
Soft reboot successful, running diagnostics
ERROR: Software not responsive
System anomaly, initializing soft reboot…
What happened next seemed to stretch on for eternity, the scene reduced to one infinite, quantum moment. With an annoyed scowl, the android plunged his knife into Hank's gut, eliciting a groan of pain, a terrible, a guttural noise that echoed throughout the chasm of Connor's skull, overlaid with that persistent crackle of static.
HANK!
"You should have cooperated, you disgusting human."
The JB300 wrenched the knife away and Connor could only look on in horror at the steady bloom of crimson that erupted from the wound.
Hank clutched his injury with one hand and moved to deliver another punch with the other, but the android deftly caught his wrist in mid-air and twisted his arm at such a severe angle that the lieutenant was forced to his knees with a pained cry.
"A human must lose 40 percent of their blood before passing out," the android stated conversationally, as though he were reading an interesting factoid.
"I suspect you would be more cooperative were you unconscious."
The dagger descended once more, this time coming down on the vulnerable crook between Hank's neck and shoulder. Blood began to leak from his mouth, coating his teeth, before trailing into his beard.
"Fuck… you…" Hank sputtered. The android only chuckled darkly at the insult.
Connor had never felt such undulating terror before. Hank's life force was leaking out onto the roof, he was swaying back and forth from his position on his knees, drifting in and out of consciousness.
No, no, no, no, no, no, this can't be real, this isn't happening. Please, not Hank…
ERROR: Software not responsive
System shutdown imminent
Coordinates sent to Cyberlife for collection
Server unavailable, coordinates failed to send
The JB300 tucked the knife away inside his jumpsuit and knelt before hoisting Hank unceremoniously over one shoulder, as though he were nearly weightless. The android stood, bidding gravity to draw sickening streams of blood from Hank's wounds that trailed down his captor's arm, finally dripping onto the concrete below. Hank's only response from being jostled so suddenly was a weak, wet cough.
The JB300 fixed Connor with a lingering glare, his lips quirked in triumph.
"You'll be hearing from me soon. Enjoy the next few days, deviant hunter."
System shutdown in: 0:00:10
The android turned, Hank dangling from his shoulder, and stepped toward the roof's edge.
System shutdown in: 0:00:09
Connor attempted to manually override the emergency shutdown, to force his arm to move, to do something, but the electric field that encompassed him was absolute in its interruption of his processes.
System shutdown in: 0:00:08
S̗h͓̙̬̝̦̤͔ḭ͈̖̤͔̗̺t͖̻͔,͙͔̞ͅ ̯͉̖fu̫̤̩c̘̼̱̣̯k̘̬̗,̮͇̫ I̦ͅ ̭c͙͕̝͙a͙̝̣n̮̰ͅ'̞t ̟͇̥l̟̞̖e͕̗̤̪̖̬ț͚ ͔̬h͍͉̤͇̟i̲̜̦̳̺̭̘m ̙͓̹͈d̮̬i̳e͎̪̫̙͎̦̯,̝ ̳̣̹̱͈͇I̯͕̟̹͍̲ ͎̺̖̰WO͇̺N'̫̲͙T̰ ̼̭L̹̙͖͉E̗̤̦̼̩T ̪̮ͅH̻̖̗͎̘I̞̹̭̖͈͈Ṃ̲ ̬̲D̖͎͙̙̹̱͚I͙̺̬E!̱̼̮͙͕̱͓
System shutdown in: 0:00:07
The JB300 had reached the roof's edge.
System shutdown in: 0:00:06
No͇̥, ͈̜̪̻n̻o̫, ͔͚͉̞ͅn̠͈͉̳o̪,͇̘̬̘̥ ͕̰̟͓j̖̼̯̗̺ͅu̳̺̘͇̤̦ͅs̰̲ṯ k̲̻͇i̖̦̜̻̯̤l̰l̯̙̠̤ ͍̰m͉͖͔͈͈e ͖̞̞̱̺̪in̺s̰̱̭͙t̩̳̦͎̮ḙ̜̬ͅa̳̞͖̩̱d͈,̰ ̻͓̹d̮͉̦͍o̞̗̫̙͖̳n̰̠̩̼̫'̮ț̱̮̰̻͕̲ ̦̟͍͎̞͉̞t̖͕a̰̘k͚̫͙͈̣e͕͓͍̺ h̗̙̘̤i͕̠̝m̜̪̳̤̬̹̰ ͔̯̩͍̣ạw̼͖͖a͍͓͕̥̹̣y̳̗̯̪,̝̬̬̹̥̤̜ ̠̼d̮͙͚o̤̖̬̝n͔͓̠'͓̪͔͚͈͈͇t ̣̪̫t̼͓̙a̗̻̲̬̣̬̺k̲̘̝̼̟̹e ̯h͉̥̼i̮̥͇͔m̫͔̙ ̮̖f͉̞̘͖̬̗ro̘͙̯̞m̟̰̹̮̘ ṃ͍e̞̘̳̲…͍̮̻̣̪̮̦
System shutdown in: 0:00:05
The android killer knelt before gripping the concrete perimeter and slinging their combined weight over the edge, suspended by one hand, before releasing his grip and dropping out of sight.
System shutdown in: 0:00:04
Connor attempts to calculate Hank's percentage of continued survival given an approximation of his blood loss, but his processor is unable to make the computation.
System shutdown in: 0:00:03
It has begun to snow. Connor faintly registers the wet graze of snowflakes as they sizzle against his tortured skin.
System shutdown in: 0:00:02
Connor tries to replay the memory of Hank sitting across from him, a burnt strip of bacon in one hand, offering him a place to call home. His processor is unable to pull the recording.
System shutdown in: 0:00:01
The last thing Connor registers before he fades into merciful nothingness is the darkening pool of Hank's blood.