—

Hank's House

"Nice to be back home, I guess," Hank said haphazardly as they returned back home.

Connor wasn't convinced. At all. "Hank, there is something wrong."

"Yeah, there is," Hank admitted. "Yeah, it's shit. Yeah, sorry it turned out this way." He glanced toward Kara and Alice.

Connor watched his menu again. It only had two options available? "Agree or disagree?"

"This is where things get tricky, Connor. I'm sorry it wasn't all perfect, but hey, I'm glad there's another chance you can correct your screw up," Hank insisted. "It's not over because you're not a machine, Connor."

Machine?

"What do you mean it's not over?" Kara was listening as well. "What is going on, Hank?"

"Uh? Glad to have met ya, but you never had a chance to change me to homecooked meals from those burgers," Hank said to her. "Because." Hank glanced at Connor. "I can't taste it."

Connor shook his head. Another new set of instructions.

-Accept

-Reject

"My menu is back to the way it had been before." Connor didn't want to believe it. "You are human, you have taste, otherwise you would have had some kind of cooking." Accept. "Which means, you aren't really here."

"There you go. It was a nice place. A nice dream, but you can do better. Or worse. Either way, this is over. I did my part with Kamski," Hank said to him. "This time, he was the good guy, so don't go out there and start killing out of frustration."

Out there. His menu changed again.

-What happened?

-What did Kamski want?

-How is RA9 involved?

-Tell Hank how much he means to me

Four. Four dialogues. "I am still in the Detroit: Become Human game. Why am I still in the Detroit: Become Human game?"

"What do you mean you are in the game still?" Kara asked. "Connor?"

Connor looked at his choices again. He couldn't ignore them. "What happened?"

"Kamski gave you a simple menu of humanity, even when you were machine for a reason," Hank said. "You aren't saving the world, knowing options before they happened. Kamski worked with variables he already knew. What's that mean, Connor?"

His menu changed again.

-I played Detroit: Become Human and won

-I played Detroit: Become Human and lost

"There is no reason I would be here replaying a game I have already won." Connor didn't know how to feel about what he had to say. "I played Detroit: Become Human and lost."

"Go to your menu screen," Hank said. "Look at the different paths in the game. The way you took, it's lit up in red. Good luck, Connor."

—

Connor looked up all the red parts. All the dastardly red paths he took as a machine. Kara had stopped talking, probably trying to process what Hank was trying to say too.

"I achieved almost all missions." He chased down the deviant that stabbed his owner. He tried to chase down the pigeon feeder, but he luckily lost him and saved Hank instead. In the broadcast building, he shot the deviant that went crazy.

Then, came the harder parts. Connor spared the Tracies, and he spared the android at Kamski's. He had feelings, but he couldn't explain where it came from. He wanted to get rid of the strange errors.

He found Jericho, and he found North. Markus had not been there, he had been replaced by North. As much as he felt something, he was just too programmed.

He stayed a machine. He tried to . . . "I'm sorry. You tried to stop me."

"Technically at the time, I did. Didn't change your strategy, but 'it wasn't your mission to kill me'," Hank said to him. "You walked off. I had hoped you'd cool off, you'd change somehow."

Connor cared about Hank, but he was determined to accomplish his mission. He let the pigeon feeding android go because he needed to save Hank. He didn't have that kind of compassion for North. Only, some. She was lying there, already beaten and basically asking for death. She wouldn't rise again.

But then? "I should be dead." Connor looked toward Hank. "I was being deactivated."

"You were being sent to Cyberlife, to be deactivated," Hank said. "Fortunately, you had someone following you that still had enough authority to pull you away."

Kamski. Time to select another choice. "What did Kamski want?"

"Cyberlife held you so tight to being machine, he needed a different way to wake you up. He called me up, I came down, and knowing how the revolution failed? He wanted to try something else, and I figured, shit, it couldn't hurt to take another shot at it. If he could get you to stop being machine, it'd be worth it."

Stop being machine. Connor looked this time at Kara. It was planned. Kara looked quite confused too. He glanced toward Alice. Both of them. He turned his attention back to Hank. "You put them in here too?"

"Kamski thought you seemed softer about . . . Cole," Hank said. "See, when he got you, he read your memories."

"Which is how he made all kinds of different paths I could see, he knew the traits of everyone already." Now that made so much more sense. He wasn't hypothesizing from a huge source of data. He was going through the different options Connor had once seen before him, and set up a scenario for it.

Connor leaned back against the wall.

"I told him he was nuts, you made friends with me and that's what made you softer," Hank insisted, "but he had someone with him that wanted you to be nicer to Kara anyhow, so he put her in here."

"Ken?" Kara asked. "Connor, what's he mean?"

Ken? "He's evil, Hank."

"Point being, he brought Kara and Alice to you. He egged you on because he was testing how good you were, and you pissed him off. I know the feeling. This world isn't going to let them live in Canada for long and they lost someone else that was helping to watch them," Hank explained. "It was programmed in the game too. Check out her path, it's in red too."

"I already did that." Connor already did that.

"When you wake up, you'll be restored with your memories. You'll still have your game functions running in serious situations, until Kamski gets rid of them," Hank insisted.

Yep, that made sense. His menu freedom was not given back. Instead he only had two options left to choose out of the four. From the way the last option was phrased, Connor already guessed this wasn't going to be easy. "How is RA9 involved? If Markus and I really was able to change androids with our touch, then we were RA9? Kara and Alice were only used to wake me up." No, something else. "No Luther." Hmm.

"Yeah. I hate to put it in these words, but I have to," Hank said. "I can't keep them, Connor. They are too close to the department. Kamski could make some excuse about donating you easily, and they'd accept it. After all, you took down the head androids and never wavered from Cyberlife. But Kara and Alice? The world out there isn't the same anymore since the revolution. Sorry, Connor, they are a pink slip for me and a death sentence to themselves."

I could stay, but I promised Kara I wouldn't abandon them. Hank had to abandon them. They would be walking into a world that was different, and that knew about deviantry and won.

"Are we getting sent away?" Alice asked Kara, looking up at her. "Kara?"

Only one option left. "Even as a machine, you became a friend, Hank."

"I know. Kamski showed me all the options, I've seen the full playthrough," Hank said. "Every bit. They were options you didn't take or make happen, so don't worry the way things could have been. You didn't take those options. Good or bad. It's time to begin new options."

Connor's screen changed again. Only one option was open now.

-Exit

—

Elijah Kamski's Home

When Connor woke up, he also saw Alice and Kara. He saw Hank over by a tablet.

"Welcome to hell," Hank greeted him. "World is shit for you now, so don't let your hard-edged detective skills go by the wayside for a second or you are all dead." He moved away from the tablet. He looked toward Alice and Kara. "You two take care, and you better be as good as you were inside that game. Listen to Connor. He's no Luther, but no matter how hard it is, he's your best chance of survival."

Then he left.

Connor stared at Alice and Kara as his memories came back. His real memories. Taking Hank's advice, he tried not to get bogged down in wallow and pity. He had to stay sharp.

Hank came back in with Kamski and . . . Ken.

"Welcome back to reality. It's a little different than you left it," Kamski told Connor. He scanned something over him. "You are now a gift to the police department of Detroit, 100% guaranteed to never go deviant. Don't actually go there, but against Cyberlife checks that warning will appear."

Connor watched Alice start to hold Kara tighter. "I need a minute to explain what is happening to them."

"They already know. At least Kara does." Ken approached her slowly. "Remember me now?"

Connor watched her expression for fear or hatred. None? He watched as they embraced.

"Ken!" She clearly did remember him. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, me too," he said while she hugged him. "The world's changed too much, I can't bring you home yet." He glared at Connor. "I have to let this ****er watch you for awhile."

"I have a little girl now to watch." Kara didn't seem surprised with the foul mouth at all as she brought Kara closer. "Alice, this remarkable man here is Ken."

"I'm not remarkable, you are." Ken gave Alice a small hug too and then let them both go to look at Connor. "As for you? **** you, you had better take very good care of Kara. If you don't, even if you succeed with Markus, I will bug Elijah until he deactivates you for good."

"A better answer to the question of who RA9 is?" Kamski said to Connor, "is Kara. Times 9. You see, after Ken had to eventually tell the truth, we went over all the little bugs and processes. Trying to duplicate it, learn from it, figure it out. Meanwhile, in exchange for studying, and for the sake of being smart, we made more than one of her."

RA9.

"Kara number 9 doesn't sound as nice," Kamski told Connor. "It's too obvious as well, so Ken just got rid of the KA in it."

"You are uploading her memory into different androids?" Connor couldn't believe it. He just . . .

"The world didn't respond well to androids the way they were presented. Markus had some problems with his unit, and I made him the same as you. He was restricted to four options at times," Kamski explained. "If you are going to prove anything to the rest of the world, to save any kind of androids still out there? Then you need Kara. She is your proof."

"How am I any kind of proof?" Kara asked. "I'm the ninth of, of, what exactly?"

"Ken has multiple bodies of you, and he is uploading your memory when something happens to one," Connor told her. "I know. That's what Cyberlife did to me."

"When something happened?" Kara asked.

"I have only two on reserve left for you, Connor, Cyberlife has the rest," Kamski told him. "Kara originally had nine. She is on her ninth."

"She gets no more after this," Ken warned Connor. "I have to leave her to you, for her best chance of survival."

"Humanity has seen one side of the androids," Kamski admitted to Connor. "It's time to show them the other side. The video where Kara was born."

"Right." Right, they were right. There was nothing more emotional, nothing more endearing or 'humane' than Kara in that video. Being afraid. Being pieced in and out of existence. Agreeing to anything to continue to survive. She was no threat in that video, humanity was the threat.

Ken was the threat, and he had been convinced. He even apparently found Kara's serial number and made sure he bought her. The anger I felt in him, it's about leaving Kara with me. Connor sensed more in his processors though, he had ill intentions. No, it wasn't ill. There was something else. He knows I can protect them, but there is also something else. Jealousy he can't achieve that too? No, that wasn't it, either. "I only needed a small amount of data on Kara, I witnessed the rest to become deviant." So, why show him all the different paths with her? It made sense before, she was the only one with the touch to free the androids.

That made no sense now, he or Markus could also do it.

"Ken's insistence," Kamski said.

Hank came toward Connor. "Yeah, that bitty thing I told you about talking later. Just save it for later, Connor."

Fine. Hank wouldn't steer him wrong.

"First off, no one is at Jericho anymore," Kamski said. "I had Markus connect with an old friend so much, he thought of him as a father. Your best bet to find him is going to be somewhere Carl liked, that isn't in America."

Yeah. Connor went with Kamski and Hank as they walked away, leave Kara and Ken to talk with Alice.

"I can't get you everything. I am retired, my reach is minimal, but I do have a decent amount of money so I was able to fix some things ahead of time." Kamski gave Connor several cards, as well as a small briefcase, and a phone. "You can get around with these special reserved cards, I've filled them up for you. They won't question people who are getting reservations straight through my will. I have given digital compliance to access my accounts. Anything you would use for instant access, use the phone for it. This phone is compatible with you. Use it as a medium to trick people around you. Use the printer if you need to make new cards, it's compatible with you too. The tablet you've seen is also compatible with you. It can speak directly with you. Both of them are in the briefcase. In the worst case scenario, you will show up with the identity of a gift to the Detroit police."

Connor didn't say anything at first. Then? "This is no longer a Detroit mission."

"Got that, this is crazy shit not fit for a human," Hank agreed with Connor. "I can't run all over the world with you."

Right. Connor wasn't just leaving Michigan. To reach out in a new way, they would need to go global. America's revolution may have changed things, but there were other countries. Places androids didn't even go. They would have to go into places that Kara and Alice shouldn't have to go to survive. The darkest, dankest, most foul-

"Even if your papers won't work, everything still will because you will be with me through main areas," Kamski revealed. "Walking up to a motel for 50 dollars in a shady area is not what you will be doing. You'll be staying at luxury hotels. Money or escort will be your most often used proof."

Wait? Connor watched as someone came over with a suit next to him.

"When you leave to explore, you'll have completely different outfits, different ID's, different everything," Kamski insisted. "When you are done, you clean up any evidence you left, and come back."

Connor was still processing it.

"You got it right," Hank told Connor. "You and Kara are Kamski's little guest spies."

"I am not an android, I am not in charge of making the plans," Kamski told Connor. "I will just go to whichever country we have to go to. Alice will stay with me so she is always safe. You and Kara must find whatever you androids need to attain freedom. Markus. Broadcast stations. Befriending new androids. I have places, know friends in most modern countries, and I should be able to have legitimate excuses to visit wherever you need."

Why? "You want androids to be freed?"

"I want you to . . ." Kamski fidgeted his hands around. "Live the best you can. As egotistical as it sounds, you were created by me. What kind of creator doesn't want to see their work shine on? When I saw that video of Kara? I felt indescribable. Not like a god, but . . ." He held his hands out. "Magic. Wonder. Things I haven't felt since I was a child, a miracle happened. That miracle is being squashed out of existence though."

Connor got a strong sense from him. He really did want to help. If they were going to have to get different kinds of help across the world, then he would need it too.

"Do you remember what I said about the long game, Connor?"

Connor turned to look at Hank. "Yes. Reaching Markus' group wasn't it." It was the real world and all of this. There was no manual, only him and his own instincts. "I am on my own."

"You aren't on your own," Kamski reminded him. "You have Kara and Alice."

As company, yes, but he would have no one to really help until he got Markus. Until then, he was in charge of watching over them.

"Time will tell," Kamski said to him. "You have a guest bedroom beside Kara and Alice here. Do not show yourself outside in Detroit. I believe you'll want to find Markus first, but the plans are up to you. I only created, I'm not as smart as an android itself."

"Markus." As soon as possible. "Do you know where he'll be?"

"Carl left America, he was afraid of Markus getting hurt. I can visit my dear friend whenever I need to. I can give him a call."

Fast, it felt fast.

"Take a night," Hank recommended. "Process some things. Enjoy some of that blue blood crap, and recharge. Talk to Kara and Alice. Then, decide."

Good idea. "Give me a night to think about things. Where is my assigned room?"