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Dec 5, 2038 PM 4:56:26
As the sun sank over an overcast Detroit, the riverside park glowed with blue LEDs and golden candlelight. More pinpricks of light streamed into the throng, filtered through a circle of guards as they trickled toward a stage.
Connor stood at the barrier's southernmost point, his LED circling a steady amber rhythm. A sudden gust sent his oversized coat and purple paisley tie aflutter, and behind him, the crowd of androids huddled over their flames with nervous gasps and titters. He grasped his tie to his chest and made eye contact with the next android in line. With a flash of yellow, they sent Connor the event password, and he nodded to let them in.
So far, everything had gone smoothly. Every android requesting entry to the event had successfully given the password. Due to the citywide evacuation, there were few humans around to disturb the event, and so far, there had just been a few humans quietly observing to the side of the android crowd—including a couple of journalists and TV crews—and a handful of hecklers too cowardly to stick around once a guard approached them.
There had only been a couple hitches in their pre-event planning. One had been a pair of nervous human families wondering what androids were doing in their apartment building. Connor had explained that he was securing the area for a memorial speech Markus would be leading the following evening, but that just made the families more frightened and confused.
"If the event is in the park, what do you need our building for?"
"Your building provides the best view of the venue. From here, we can watch for any disturbances and-"
"Disturbances? What kind of disturbances?"
They only calmed down once Hank reassured them. Connor, meanwhile, wondered if it was simple anti-android bias that kept the humans from trusting him, or if he'd simply lost his touch after becoming a deviant.
The other complication was the guard who went missing a couple nights ago. Naturally, Connor found her absence conspicuous, but there hadn't been time to dig deeper, and it wasn't worth postponing the whole event.
Still, Connor thought the event was going about as well as he could have hoped for. While he took passwords, he regularly pinged his guards, including a group stationed at high points around the park, who both watched the crowd and protected potential sniper spots. Each one responded, reporting no change. There was one, however, who he could not ping.
"How's it looking, Hank?" Connor murmured into his phone connection.
"Fucking cold, same as before," Hank sighed. His voice sounded muffled, as though his mouth was full.
Connor resisted the urge to glance at the high-rise abutting the park, where he knew Hank stood on the leftmost balcony of the tenth floor. It was the same building Hank had helped scout the night before.
"But do you see anything?"
"No," Hank drawled.
"Okay. Just stay focused."
"I am focused."
"It sounds like you're eating."
"So what if I am? I can focus and eat."
"If you're distracted, you're more likely to miss something."
"Jesus, Connor, unclench your sphincter, will ya?" Rustling and crunching came over the line. "This place has security spilling out its ass. You'll pounce on any intruder before I even know they're there."
Connor adjusted his tone into a more ingratiating register.
"Humans approach problems differently, notice different things. I'm relying on you to see what I can't, Hank."
Hank scoffed and muttered something Connor couldn't make out, but the crunching stopped.
"Whatever you say."
Just then, flashing red and blue lights drew Connor's attention. A DPD car pulled up near the gathering, and out stepped two officers, surveying the scene as they walked over to the group of humans.
"Someone must have called in," Hank said. "Wilson and Collins again?"
"Yes," Connor said. Even from this distance and in this lighting, he could see the dark circles under their eyes.
"Poor bastards," Hank said.
Officer Collins looked over and gave Connor a small nod. There were very few police still in Detroit, and Connor suspected Collins and Wilson were the only two officers working his old precinct since the revolution and subsequent evacuation. Connor had come across the officers a couple times in the past month while dealing with clashes between androids and humans. Likely, once Hank's suspension ended, he'd work alongside them once again.
By this time, the incoming stream of androids had thinned to a trickle. Though deviant, they retained their innate punctuality; almost all of them had arrived at four fifty on the dot. At four fifty-nine, Markus messaged him.
"Can we start?"
Connor affirmed. The moment their clocks ticked to five, Markus's magnified voice rang out across the park for android and human alike to hear.
"Thank you all for joining me this evening," Markus began. "I wanted to honor all the androids we've lost to the police, to the military, to abusive owners."
In his peripheral vision, Connor saw guards on either side turn their heads, clap along with the crowd, or murmur about how nice the sunset looked. He ignored these distractions until someone approached the android on his left.
"Here, I thought you might want one," a feminine android said, handing the guard a candle.
Connor raised his eyebrows when they exchanged a kiss. He knew humans kissed, of course, but it had never occurred to him that an android might want to.
Even so, the sight magnified the feeling that had nagged him all evening. There was guilt of course, there always was, and it throbbed each time Markus referenced police and military brutality that Connor had abetted—but there was something else too, helplessness mixed with yearning. It wasn't the kiss he wanted; it was the easy intimacy evident in even their simplest gestures. At best, his reception among the other androids was friendly, but distant. At worst, it was positively icy.
"Eyes forward," he barked at the guard.
The couple kissed again, murmuring "see you later" before the woman left. The guard shot Connor a glare, intensified by the candlelight shining under his face, before facing forward again.
Connor set his jaw as he resumed scanning. If anything, he felt worse now. He told himself he didn't need to be friends with Jericho to fulfill his duty to them. He wouldn't let anything happen to them. He couldn't. Not after everything he'd done.
Soon after the sun had completely set, turning the sky navy, Connor sent another round of pings. This time, instead of unanimous response, there was silence from every android in the high rise.
"Hank?"
No response. There was likely some benign network interference, but still, this warranted investigation. Connor stepped from the line, and the other guards shifted sideways to fill the gap.
He jogged through a thicket separating the park from the high-rise. When the front of the building came into view, he saw two androids lying on the pavement in front of the door. He drew his sidearm, ran over to kneel beside them, retracted the skin from his hand, and attempted to interface with them.
No response. His visual scan confirmed not only that they had shut down, but that all their data had been wiped. There would be no hope of reactivation.
Connor reeled, his processes shuttering as panic rose in him. He missed something. How could he miss something?
He forced himself to think. He looked through the glass doors into the building's lobby and saw darkness. Wiped androids, no response from Hank, power outage in the building...it was all consistent with an electromagnetic pulse.
He suddenly recalled snow. Snow, a breeze, the lapping of the river. Nothing, he'd once said to Hank near the bridge. There'd be nothing.
It surprised Connor how much effort it took to quell his fear and send messages to Markus and the rest of the guards. When he got no response, he tried again, but there was still silence. He ran a self-diagnostic, and everything came back normal, deviancy aside. A network issue, then. Maybe a coincidence...or maybe someone was intercepting his messages.
He stood and turned back, intending to fetch backup, but just then, he heard a metallic clang around the corner. He bounded back to the wall and pressed himself into it. Listening carefully, he quietly sidestepped until he reached the corner, then swiveled, gun raised. No one was there.
A service entrance, however, caught his attention. He cracked it open and saw pitch black inside. He opened the door just a little wider, leaned in, and heard the patter of footsteps ascending a stairwell. As he slipped inside and eased the door shut, the lights flickered on and shone a weak light as the building's backup generator activated.
He had just reached the first landing when he looked up, saw a flash of movement several floors above him, then heard a door open and shut. The footsteps soon melted into the building's ambient noise.
Connor abandoned stealth as he flew up the stairs three at a time, rounding corners in an instant. He heard a bang when he was about halfway up, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Once he neared the source of the noise, his steps went quiet once more.
Connor stepped out into a beige hallway. He looked right and left, then noticed faint light pouring into the hallway from an apartment door to his left. Half of a destroyed door swung out from the doorfram; the rest lay in pieces on the carpet.
As he approached this apartment, he heard metallic clinks. He stepped carefully over the torn wood and was hit with the smell of weeks-old garbage. Ahead of him and slightly to the right, there was an open sliding glass door, its handle broken off. Chill wind gusted through the apartment. The blinds swayed, then settled, revealing to Connor an android.
He wore a Cyberlife jacket, but Connor didn't recognize the design. The android was kneeling over a partially assembled sniper rifle, and the clicks of parts sliding together punctuated the echoes of Markus's voice. Connor tried scanning the android, but as expected, he got no response from any database. Even so, he recognized the android's build and his neatly groomed head of brown hair.
"Turn around and put your hands where I can see them," Connor barked.
The other android gently set down the rifle and stood with smooth, precise, perfect motion. When the android turned around, Connor suppressed an expression of surprise that threatened to show on his face.
This android looked like Connor, which wasn't surprising. However, the narrow blue eyes, the uniform...this was a different model altogether. RK-900. Connor always knew he would have a successor someday; he just had no idea it would happen so soon.
The blue eyes appraised him, contrasted by the spinning yellow at his temple. Thirium coursed through Connor's body, readying him to react to any sudden motion. But instead of attacking or running, the other android relaxed his posture and softened his expression, twisted it into something pitiful.
"I'm just doing my job," the RK-900 said. "I don't want to be here any more than you do."
Connor was taken aback but forced his demeanor to stay intimidating.
"Did you kill the androids stationed in this building?"
"I disabled them, yes."
"Why?"
"My orders were to eliminate Markus. They were in my way."
Blind anger surged in Connor. He mourned his guards, of course, but he also recognized himself in this android, and he hated it, hated what he was once was.
"Who ordered?" Connor barked.
"I cannot say."
Connor realized his lip had curled. He forced his face to relax.
"Step away from the rifle. Slowly."
The other android obeyed with a creased brow.
"I don't know why I'm saying this, but..." the RK-900 paused and looked down, "for some reason, I don't want you to shoot me."
"You've been ordered not to be shot," Connor deadpanned.
"No, it's not just that," he said. He raised his eyes, now mere feet away from Connor, who found himself simultaneously drawn into and repelled by those eyes. "I don't...I don't want to die. I-I don't even know what that means. I don't want to die. I don't want to die!"
Blue eyes, and Connor's gun pointed exactly between them, his finger brushing the trigger. The gentle lapping of water, the soft glow of snow, the heady scent of chlorine.
Connor only hesitated a moment. Only the most observant of humans would have been able to spot the moment his concentration broke. The RK-900, however, saw right through him.
He pounced. Connor pulled the trigger, but the other android had already wrenched his wrist up, sending the bullet through the ceiling. The blast echoed through the building, and with one deft motion, the android grasped the gun, planted a foot on Connor's hip, pushed him to the ground, pointed the gun, pulled the trigger.
Click.
Both androids looked down. There on the floor lay the magazine, which Connor had just managed to release as he was disarmed. The RK-900 darted down, but Connor kicked it, sending the magazine skidding over the balcony, then over the edge.
Connor's victory was short-lived. Before the magazine hit the ground, the RK-900 straddled him, pinning him to the floor. Connor jabbed, and though his fists connected, leaving white splotches with each hit, the other android didn't flinch or even slow down. Undaunted, he tore through the buttons of Connor's shirt and grasped at his chest.
The Stratford Tower break room flashed across Connor's mind. How casually he had removed the thirium pump regulator from that broadcast android. A cheap intimidation tactic. And then, how suffocating it had felt when the deviant turned the torture back on him.
He might die here.
"Fuck...no...Hank!" he gasped as he thrashed against the RK-900'S grip, succeeding only in slowing him down somewhat.
In a desperate final effort, Connor splayed his hand over the other android's face and established a link. He downloaded a slew of data in the moment before the RK-900 shut him out and wrenched Connor's wrist away from his face.
The other android used his knees to pin down Connor's arms, completely immobilizing him. A sickening thrill of static rolled through Connor's body as the RK-900 twisted his thirium pump regulator and lifted it out. Error messages washed over Connor's awareness, driving out all other thought, threatening imminent shutdown. Without the regulator, his thirium flow was alternately anemic and overwhelming. He tried speaking, but no words came out.
Then, a resounding crack exploded through the apartment. Through his haze, Connor felt a splash of hot liquid on his face before the android collapsed on top of him.
"Connor? Connor!"
Hank stepped into the room. Connor could only whisper his partner's name in return, but that was enough to make Hank's posture collapse with relief. Then, with a hearty grunt, Hank pushed the other android off Connor, exclaiming when he saw the carnage.
"Jesus," he said, panting slightly, "are you gonna be okay?"
Connor wordlessly fumbled for the regulator that had fallen out of the RK-900's grip. Hank retrieved it and placed it in Connor's hand. With an effort, Connor pushed the regulator back into place, the error messages clearing in a single dizzying moment. A rush of network traffic took its place, overwhelming him with a backlog of pings from his guards and frantic messages from Markus and his inner circle. The park was now quiet, and a child cried downstairs.
"Here, can you get up?" Hank asked, offering a hand. Connor took it, despite needing no help to get up. "What the hell happened?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," Connor said as he smoothed his hair, trying to force his tone to stay matter-of-fact.
"Hey," Hank said, softening his voice and putting his hand on Connor's shoulder, "you sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine, Hank," he said as he buttoned his shirt back up and squared his shoulders. Hank lifted an eyebrow and scoffed.
"Well, are those other androids okay now?"
Connor's face wrenched.
"They're gone, Hank."
Hank's brows bunched together. His mouth opened and closed, and he shifted from foot to foot.
"What do you mean 'gone'? Can't Jericho just fix them?"
Connor answered shakily, as if speaking too loudly or quickly would burst the dam holding back his dismay.
"I saw pervasive damage to their circuits and wiring. Their memories have been erased, their electronic components destroyed. We will not be able to repair them."
"Shit," Hank breathed. He pressed his lips together thoughtfully and tapped his foot, keeping his eyes on Connor. "Did it have anything to do with that power outage?"
"Based on the evidence, I believe an electromagnetic pulse caused both the androids' destruction and the power outage."
Hank nodded.
"Yeah, that makes sense..." he murmured. He took a deep breath. "Jesus...so was this Cyberlife? Those fuckers sure aren't going down without a fight."
"They're the most likely culprit" Connor said, looking down at the RK-900. "I didn't even know about this model, so it's unlikely to be in wide use outside of Cyberlife."
Hank followed Connor's gaze and cocked an eyebrow.
"So what, this guy is you, but better? Well...not better, I didn't mean it like that..."
"Yes, he is. Faster, stronger, more dextrous. He would have killed me if you hadn't stopped him."
Connor knelt to examine his twin. Hank had shot him through the side of his head...and right through his memory component. To confirm, Connor opened the head, ignoring Hank's disgusted hiss. The inside was a mess of thirium and shattered electronics. The memory card was in pieces.
"I don't want to sound ungrateful, but..." Connor pointed into the carnage. "That was our evidence."
"What, his data was in there?"
"Yes."
Hank snorted.
"Fine. Guess I won't save your ass next time."
"Luckily, I managed to download some of his data before you shot him. We can at least review that, see if it tells us anything."
At the sound of voices coming up the stairwell, Connor and Hank turned their heads.
"Sounds like Officers Wilson and Collins," Connor said.
Hank gave Connor a sidelong glance and shrugged.
"Guess that's our cue to go."
Without another word, the pair slipped down a staircase at the other end of the hallway. The door shut behind them, too quiet for the police officers to hear.