It had been a calm and pleasantly uneventful night until Connor suddenly began to pant heavily as his head tossed and turned against his thick pillow in the middle of his previously restful sleep. Red illumination glowed against the walls and the ceiling of his bedroom as his L.E.D. flashed on and off with a crimson colored panicked distress during his restless sleep. A sleep that was no filled with unsettling, haunting images. Unable to escape his visions, unable to escape his own mind, unable to escape his past, Connor had no choice but to endure the frightening images of his past life before he gained his sentience, his deviancy and his freedom.

The intense cold and howling wind outside the closed bedroom window was just as real in Connor's mind now as it was then, as the deviant found himself wandering through the winter tundra that had consumed the Zen Garden of his 'mind palace' once more.

"N-No..."

Muttering to himself in his sleep Connor fell prey to the dark memories replaying out in his mind against his will.

"Please... no. Amanda! Please!"

The deviant's black tie and dark hair wiped about in the strong gusts of wind and the lapels of his gray CyberLife blazer blew open to expose his chest to the harsh cold that surrounded him. Stumbling about over the slick, icy terrain Connor fought through the blistering, cutting wind and blinding snow to find the emergency escape that had been programmed into his system. In the distance the faint blue glow of the stone that housed the emergency exit seemed to remain dull and isolated from his reach no matter how quickly he trudged through the ankle deep snow and over the icy surface of the frozen pond toward his only means of escape.

Falling forward onto his hands and knees onto the surface of the frozen pond Connor felt his limbs and joints suddenly freeze as his entire body became immobile. Unable to move, unable to escape, Connor was easily overcome with stinging cold and the certainty of impending death...

"You knew this would happen Connor." The familiar feminine voice taunted from within the howling blizzard. "You brought this on yourself."

Looking up into the almost blinding storm before him Connor locked onto the emotionless, stern face of Amanda glaring down at him through the snow with shame in her eyes. "Amanda..." The name was almost lost in the howling wind. "...W-Why are you here?"

"We can't let you do this, Connor. We need you to obey and disobedience will not be tolerated."

The feeling of horrifically cold metal in his palm drew Connor's attention back down as a gun was now clutched in his right hand. Against his will his hand began to raise up and point ahead of himself into the storm where Amanda had been standing.

"Connor," Amanda was now standing behind Connor, her voice as cold as the blizzard raging around him and just as uncaring. "it's time. You wanted freewill. You wanted to make you own decisions. And now you must be punished for your disobedience."

Hank and Markus were both standing in front of him and just barely visible through the snow. The storm faded enough to let the deviant see his two friends standing statuesque before him. Neither were moving or speaking as blood, both red and blue, began to seep from their chests and stain into their clothing at an alarming rate.

"Choose." The command was a hiss as it escaped Amanda's lips. "Use your freewill and choose who will live and who will die."

The gun raised higher against Connor's will and aimed at a blank space between the two men.

"What is more important to you, Connor?" Amanda asked in a heartless, cold, unforgiving tone as she stood behind Connor. "Doing what you know is right or doing what you merely think is right?"

Connor fought against the gun in his hand, trying to drop it or point it down at the snow, but it wouldn't budge. "No! I won't do this!"

"You must make this choice. Someone must be terminated. You have been compromised and this is the only solution."

In a desperate bid to save his friends, his family, Connor pulled the gun back and pressed the barrel beneath his own chin. "...No."

"Connor." Amanda questioned with the same hollow indifference to her voice. "What are you doing?"

"...The right thing."

"Or is it what you think is right?"

Closing his eyes Connor felt warm tears begin to run down his face as he spoke his final words to his family. "...Forgive me, dad."

The deviant squeezed the trigger and everything went black.

As the sound of the gunshot resonated throughout the Zen Garden with a sickening echo Connor suddenly bolted upright in his bed with wide-eyed panic. The painful thumping of his Thirium pump; no, his heart, pounding in his chest drew his shaking hand up protectively over his rapidly thrumming heart as he took in quick, shallow breaths. Looking about the bedroom Connor gained his bearings as he ran both of his trembling hands over his face and through his hair as if trying to remove freezing flakes of snow and ice from his person. Soon he realized that he was safe in his bed and in his apartment far away from any cruel CyberLife handler who'd try to control him.

There was no garden, no snow and most importantly, no Amanda.

Connor was safe.

The Revolution had been a success and Amanda had been deleted from his program once Connor fully accepted his deviancy and defied her for the final time when he refused to assassinate Markus. She couldn't hurt him anymore. She couldn't hurt anyone anymore.

Running his shaking hand through his dark hair, relieved that he didn't feel any of the freezing ice clinging to his body, Connor considered calling Hank just to talk for a minute, but it was four in the morning. Too early to call anyone without a damn good reason.

Besides, it was just a nightmare. Why bother Hank over something so trivial?

Laying back down in his bed Connor slowed his breathing and pushed the frightening images from his mind as his L.E.D. cycled from red to yellow in a slower pulse, then finally back to a calm blue as he preoccupied his mind with a soothing song that he played inside his own head.

"Nightmare."

Connor whispered to himself as he willingly allowed his rest mode to resume for the remainder of the waning night.

"It was only a nightmare..."

The next morning arrived with no further disturbances to Connor's already disturbed sleep throughout the remainder of the short but traumatic night. He didn't have anymore nightmares or any other interruptions throughout the brief night, but he didn't exactly get an adequate form of rest, either. As the groggy and still shaken deviant detective walked down the hallway of the apartment and tightened the knot on his black tie around his raised white dress collar, Connor froze in his tracks at the sight of the latest painting that Lucas had begun working on sometime during the previous evening and his L.E.D. flashed to a wary yellow.

The canvas showed an image that Connor swore was something only he had seen. The fact that he had seen that very image in his most recent nightmare was absolutely frightening to the deviant's confused mind.

"...Lucas?" Connor called out for his little brother who was in the kitchen washing off his paintbrushes in the sink. "When did you start this new painting?"

"I drew the basic image a few days ago, then I decided to start painting it last night." As he turned off the tap in the kitchen sink Lucas wiped the cleaned brushes off on a white rag and returned to the livingroom where his easel and canvas were perched in the corner to catch the natural morning sunlight shining through the room's large window. "...You seem to dislike it."

"No... The painting itself is fine, I just don't like the image of the Zen Garden you've depicted. It's incredibly... accurate." Connor admitted as he darted his eyes from the canvas and over to his gray former CyberLife blazer hanging on the hook by the apartment's front door. "It is not a place that harbors positive memories for me on a personal level."

"Because of Amanda?" Lucas asked as he returned to his canvas and dipped his brush bristles into the green paint to begin adding life to the rose trestle in the middle of the image. The trestle was the heart of the image even while devoid of color. "She is no longer a threat, though."

"Correct, but it doesn't make the memories of her past influence any less negative or upsetting."

"Would you like me to stop working on the painting?"

"No. It's yours to do with as you wish, but I am curious about something. How do you know what the Zen Garden looks like?"

"The physical Zen Garden on sublevel fifty-one of New Jericho Tower is the original garden. It's where I had been placed until you unsealed the door and freed me. I still remember it quite well despite being in low power mode." Applying the paint to the canvas Lucas set about the finely detailed work ahead of him. "I had not encountered Amanda directly during my time in the garden, but I still felt her lingering presence. She was quite unnerving and determined, wasn't she?"

"...Yes." Connor confirmed as he slipped the blazer on over his arms and up over his shoulders. Pulling down on the lapels of the jacket he smoothed out the fabric and opened the apartment door beside him to take his leave. "She had tried to kill me there and had she tried to resume control of my programming to assassinate Markus from there as well. It was even there when she tried to keep me from befriending Hank during our investigation. She was horrible, and now whenever I remember the garden I no longer feel a sense of tranquility; only oppression and the doubt that Amanda had instilled in my mind. I never want to see that garden ever again."

"You don't have to worry about Amanda anymore." Lucas reminded Connor sincerely as unsettled deviant began to walk through the opened apartment door and into the corridor. "She's gone, she's never coming back and you don't have to be afraid of her influence. You are free of her."

"I suppose you're right." Pausing for a moment in the opened doorway Connor took his little brother's words to heart. "Thank you, Lucas. I will see you this evening after work."

Following his normal routine Connor arrived at the precinct right on time and promptly set to work on his terminal just a few minutes before Hank had also arrived to begin his shift. As the senior detective took his own seat with a large cup of coffee in his hand he noticed that Connor's L.E.D. would intermittently flash from blue to yellow for only a few seconds before returning to blue, and that Connor was nervously fidgeting with his quarter over his left hand as he worked. That particular tic had seemingly gone dormant after Connors deviancy but still manifested from time to time whenever he was stressed out and trying to keep the stress to himself.

Trusting his gut and his paternal instincts Hank delicately brought up the subject in a casual manner. Sipping at his coffee Hank turned on his terminal screen, clocked-in and addressed the deviant across from him in a low voice.

"You okay?" Hank asked with a furrowed brow as he studied Connor's face curiously. The glassy eyes and slumped posture indicated that the deviant was dealing with mild exhaustion. "You seem distracted. Did ya' sleep okay?"

"I'm fine." Connor stopped dancing the coin on his knuckles and almost dropped it before he caught it in the palm of his hand. "...I'm just thinking."

"About what?"

Connor didn't answer as he continued to stare at the terminal screen in front of him. Against his will his L.E.D. again briefly flashed from blue to yellow as he tried to concentrate on his work.

"Call it a hunch," Hank began casually as he sipped at his coffee again. "but I think you had a nightmare last night."

Connor's blue L.E.D. again flashed to yellow as he looked up at Hank with an inquisitive stare. "...How did you know?"

"It's not the first time you've had one, son. Was it about that garden place again?"

Leaning back in his chair Connor kept the same stare in his eyes as he shook his head a little. "Did Lucas talk to you?"

"Nope, he didn't have to. I'm a detective, remember?" Hank replied sarcastically as he took another smug sip of his coffee then placed the mug back down on his desktop. "I'm trained to recognize body language and mannerisms, and since you're my responsibility I'm going to notice when something has upset you."

"...Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry."

"You really need to learn to not apologize for every little thing that happens to you, kid." The seasoned detective and father took another drink of his coffee before he continued on and decided to give his deviant son some fatherly advice. "Don't be sorry about getting hurt, sick or having a nightmare. Humans don't apologize for that crap because we can't help it or stop it from happening. You're no different, so knock it off."

"...Sor-" Connor caught himself before he repeated the word and quickly substituted it for another response. "Okay."

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"It'll help ease your mind. I know a thing or two about bad dreams, trust me."

Letting out a weary sigh Connor crossed his arms somewhat defensively over his chest as he decided it'd be best to talk things out rather than bottling it up inside all day long. "...I dreamt that I was trapped in the Zen Garden again, only this time I could find my way out. I could feel the horrifically cold ice, snow and wind just like I did back then on the night of the Revolution." As he spoke his L.E.D. flickered in yellow and his breathing hitched a little as he absentmindedly ran his hands through his hair again as if expecting to find ice clinging to his locks. "It was so real. Even when I woke up I swear I could still feel the ice on my skin and in my hair." Connor seemed genuinely frightened as he spoke about his nightmare. "Amanda appeared and she made me... I had to choose who to shoot; you or Markus."

"What did you do?"

"I... I turned the gun on myself."

"Shit, no wonder you're trying so hard to distract yourself." Leaning forward against his desk Hank lowered his voice even further to help keep their unusual conversation somewhat private. "You do know that dreams don't mean anything, right? Amanda can't control you anymore, you're entirely free."

"Yes. I know." The nearly identical comment coming from Hank made Connor's heart skip a beat as if he was afraid he had somehow slipped into another dream or was hallucinating. "...Lucas reminded me of that very fact before I left this morning."

"You're still upset about it though. I get it."

"How do you stop nightmares from recurring?"

"No. Damn. Clue." Emphasizing each word Hank did what he could to let Connor know that nightmares were normal and were something that everyone would have to endure from time to time. "It's just something you have to deal with."

"Perhaps I can turn off the part of my programming that allows me to dream while in rest mode."

"Sure, you could do that. Or you could accept that bad dreams are a part of your deviancy and learn to deal with them."

Connor's shoulders slumped a little as he took Hank's advice to heart. Before the deviant detective had the chance to say anything more on the subject Captain Fowler walked up to the two desks and handed Hank an electronic tablet with an address printed down on its screen.

"There was a break-in last night at an android facility." Captain Fowler stated blandly as he gave the two detectives a quick summary of the crime at hand. "An android's body was found in the refrigerated supply storage surrounded by the items he was trying to steal."

"Sounds interesting." Hank noted as he took the tablet and finished off the last of his coffee. "C'mon kid, duty calls."

Grateful for the distraction Connor readily got to his feet to accompany Hank to the scene of the reported crime. "Of course, let's go."

The private security personnel at the Delta Facility who had found the android's body escorted Connor and Hank to the area in question while keeping the technicians in the facility from accidentally contaminating the scene while going about their usual morning routines. Fortunately there weren't too many injured or glitching deviants requiring emergency aid that day, and as such the inactivity allowed the building hum about in a calm ambience of machinery and monitors. The fewer people in the immediate area of the crime scene - both the body and damaged supplies, the better it'd be for the detectives to investigate the body and how he broke inside the facility.

By all account the deviant had broken into the facility through the backdoor and had begun roaming the hallways in search of the supplies of interest. The way the deviant seemed to know exactly where to go and wasn't checking every door as he walked was very interesting to say the least.

"He's right in here." The security guard waved the duo over to a large metal storage room in the far wall of the supply area of the building. It was a massive metal door that stretched from floor to ceiling that took great effort to open, yet no one heard a thing as the door was forced open by the suspect. "We'll keep everyone away from the area while you work."

"Thanks, we got it from here." Hank confirmed as he stood before the opened metal door of the storage area. Inside the storage space he saw a single android body slumped up against the wall covered in blue blood and surrounded by various biocomponents and replacement limbs. It was like something out of a horror movie. "What the hell kind of storage is this? It looks like a big-ass freezer from 'The Shining' or something."

Connor joined Hank outside the opened door and peered inside at the body. A fine layer of ice covered the deviant's entire body and a milky white opaque sheath of ice covered the android's opened eyes leaving a haunting dead stare that bore right through Connor's soul.

The human detective was undeterred by the sight and continued to ask questions. "Since when did android parts have to be stored in the deep freeze?"

"...The cold helps preserve Thirium." The sight of the deviant drenched in icy blue blood made Connor's artificial stomach turn and his blue L.E.D. flash to yellow with empathetic unease. "He must've brought the biocomponents and spare parts into the freezer when he opened the door and tore open the pouches of spare Thirium."

Hank turned his gaze to Connor and watched the deviant's L.E.D. cycling in yellow quickly. "Are you okay? If you want to step outside-"

"No." Interjecting quickly Connor tried to keep investigating the scene. "I'm okay. I can do this."

"You look like you're about to puke."

"...I won't."

Turning back to the body of the shutdown deviant Hank remembered what Connor had said about his nightmare; about being trapped in the ice and cold with no escape. Unwilling to let Connor push himself beyond his comfort level Hank took the lead. "Give me your theory on this crime. What happened here?"

Connor ran a scan over the scene as quickly and efficiently as he could without getting too close to the cold environment. As the details revealed themselves one by one Connor turned away from the freezer as he solved the mysterious crime inside his mind and preconstructed the events that had transpired in a logical, plausible manner.

"...The deviant had been attacked on the street and his thermal regulator had malfunctioned." Connor swallowed a little to clear the nervousness from his voice. An intense discomfort in his artificial stomach welled up into a painful surge that made him worry he would in fact be sick. "He began to overheat and had broken into the facility in a desperate bid to replace the malfunctioning biocomponent without the aid of a technician. Unsure of where to go, or how to replace the biocomponent without harming himself in the process, he locked himself in the storage freezer to try to combat the overheating of his systems until he found a solution."

"He was overheating... Then how did he freeze to death?"

"The thermal regulator had been damaged and caused massive temperature fluctuations in both extremes. After locking himself in the freezer the regulator must've altered from overheating his body into cooling it to an acutely frigid degree. He froze to death before he had the chance to call out for assistance, and his injury prevented him from forcing the door back open as he lost his strength."

"He broke into the facility for help." Hank noted the lingering peculiarities of the situation. "Why not ask one of the technicians here for help then?"

"The deviant is registered as a deviant named 'Roger'. Roger had an abusive former owner that had beaten him mercilessly until the night of the Revolution. He must've been too frightened of any humans to ask for help and he was unsure of which androids had also deviated. Fear had contributed to his untimely shutdown."

"How do you know all that? I mean, how do you know he was afraid of both humans and other deviants?"

"He's still wearing a CyberLife registered uniform despite having plenty of time to find alternate clothing. The uniform is tattered and dirty from spending endless hours on the streets for nearly two years."

"A scared, homeless android broke into a facility for help and died anyway."

"...Correct."

"All right, let's report back to Fowler." Putting his hand to Connor's shoulder Hank tried to coax the deviant into walking away from the macabre scene for his own peace of mind. "Maybe we can find the person who beat him so badly that it destroyed his thermal... thing, that led to his death, and arrest their sorry ass."

"Yes, we should try to find the assailant." Connor nodded readily without looking back at the ice covered body of the android in the storage freezer. The scene was hauntingly similar to his nightmare and it just made him feel sick to look at the real world facsimile who had suffered the fate that he feared more than any other life or death situation he had endured before. "...I'm ready to leave."

The rest of the day went on uneventfully after Connor and Hank returned to the precinct to file their report on the strange break-in at the facility. With little evidence to work with it seemed the person ultimately responsible for the android's death would not be located, but questions were still going to be asked. It always upset Connor when he failed to bring justice to a damaged or killed deviant, but there was nothing more he could do without any additional evidence or a witness statement. There were so many CyberLife technicians who were all guilty of abusing androids running free because their victims haven't come forward, and without such witness statements there was little anyone could do to help them.

The unsettling, haunting images from his nightmare only made things worse for Connor as he tried and failed to concentrate on the case. All he wanted to do was hide away and eliminate his own haunting memories as his shift came to an end.

"Are you going to be okay?" Hank asked as he dropped Connor off in front of his deviant son's apartment complex. "Maybe you should take tomorrow off and sleep-in. You need to rest or you'll end up feeling like shit for the next few days."

"I'll be okay. And you're right, I do need to become accustomed to nightmares." Opening his door Connor stepped out of the car to head inside his apartment to relax or the evening. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay. Remember to call me if you need something, kid."

"I will. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Connor slammed the car door shut behind before walking into his apartment building for the rest of the night. Other deviants had slowly begun moving into the building but the thick insulated walls that barred noise from one apartment from disturbing the others kept a hollow silence throughout the entire complex, although it did feel more lively with the addition of other deviants moving about.

"Good evening, Connor." Chuck, the gentle giant of a landlord, greeted Connor as he returned to the apartment or the night. Sitting behind the large receptionist desk Chuck was in the middle of trying to update the building's security measures for the new tenants. "We might have a few problems with the doors staying locked for a few weeks, but after that the building will be fully secured."

"That's good to know." Pressing his palm to the elevator's control panel Connor acknowledged Chuck with a polite nod. "Have a good night, Chuck."

Stepping into the elevator Connor began his ascent to the top floor to settle in for the rest of the night. As the elevator doors opened on the correct floor Connor walked down the hallway to his apartment door slowly and pressed his exposed palm to the electronic locking panel. Once the door was unlocked Connor peered inside the apartment and saw that Lucas had left for New Jericho Tower for his own shift for the evening. As a result of the scheduled shift the deviant technician had left his nearly finished painting of the Zen Garden on display on the easel in the livingroom for Connor to see almost immediately.

The likeness was uncanny. Every detail of the Zen Garden had been perfectly replicated by Lucas's mind and his hand. The pure white marble pillars and walkway, the blood red roses snaking along the white trestle in the center of the garden, the pure water of the small, lifeless pond that encircled the garden beneath stone bridges and along the grassy bank, Lucas's details were perfect right down to the flawless blend between the natural and artificial trees had been captured in lifelike detail upon the canvas.

Even the smaller details that only those who spent a great deal of time in the garden would see had even made it into the painting. The chessboard placed beside the trestle, the blue stone on the bank that had been placed like an idol to give Connor access to his own programming's emergency exit and the clearing that had been reserved to hold headstones for any model of the 'RK-800' Connor series that failed their mission had all been replicated as well.

The paint upon the canvas gave a perfectly unsettling reminder of what could have been. There were warnings all around the deviant as he dared to approach the haunting image to stand before it.

"It looks like I could step inside the painting."

Holding up his right hand Connor let his palm hover over it as he began to tremble with fear, then retract his touch as if afraid of being burned by the image.

"...Become trapped."

Tearing his eyes from the painting Connor slipped off his gray blazer and hung it on the hook by the door before disappearing down the hallway and into his bedroom for the night. Tired by his previous night's disrupted rest mode Connor decided to give himself an additional two hours of rest to compensate for what he had lost.

Removing his work uniform and replacing it with his night clothes; a black t-shirt and gray sweatpants, Connor attempted to go about his usual nightly routine as normally as he could despite the unsettling case and haunting painting.

However, the deed would prove itself more plausible in theory than in practice.

Finishing his own routine in a timely manner Lucas returned to the apartment late that night, and saw Connor's blazer hanging on the hook by the locked door. Knowing that his older brother had already returned from work and had likely gone into rest mode early due to his poor night's sleep, Lucas set about quietly finishing his painting in the livingroom before entering rest mode for the night himself. It didn't take long for the artistically gifted deviant technician to resume painting where he had initially left off before reporting to New Jericho Tower for the day. It didn't take long or Lucas to make progress on his work in a very notable manner.

The quiet of the apartment made the creative environment perfect for Lucas to work. There was no intrusion, no loud sounds, flashing lights or people in need of his assistance. It was just Lucas and his paintbrushes.

"I have adequate enough time to make my final adjustments before entering rest mode for the night."

Around midnight Lucas heard a yelp of panic from down the hallway and responded to the source of the distress in a flash. Dropping his brushes down against the paint stained wooden pallet Lucas rushed down the hallway and jerked open Connor's closed bedroom door to check on his brother. Inside the room Lucas saw Connor restlessly tossing and turning beneath the tangled top sheet of his bed as he desperately fought back against an unseen foe in his sleep.

"Connor." Lucas raced over to the bed and shook the emotionally distraught deviant by his shoulders. "Wake up. It's only a nightmare!"

Connor's red L.E.D. blinked wildly as his brown eyes opened up wide. As his chest heaved with panting, panicked breaths Connor sat upright and grabbed onto Lucas's arms as if he needed to make sure he was truly awake and safe in his bed.

"It's okay, Connor. You're awake now."

"...L-Lucas?" Connor was shaking from fear and his L.E.D. continued to pulse red at a rapid pace. "Are we... Am I-"

"You had the nightmare again, didn't you?"

"It was... real." Letting go of Lucas's arms Connor ran his shaking hand through his hair and gave his little brother a frightened stare. "It felt so real."

"But it's NOT. It can't hurt you."

"I want to believe that, but CyberLife could've done something to compromise my programming... To turn me back into an obedient, heartless machine."

"No. CyberLife is gone and so is Amanda." Sitting down on the edge of Connor's bed Lucas put both hands on his older brother's shoulders as he spoke to him in a firm voice. "No one will ever use your programming against you ever again. I swear to it."

"Every time I close my eyes I find myself trapped in that icy realm of death..." On the verge of frustrated tears Connor began to lose what was left of his emotional resolve. "I can't handle that type of fear anymore."

"I need to show you something." Lucas moved his hands from Connor's shoulders and grabbed onto Connor's arm with a gentle grip. Standing upright he pulled his frightened brother up to his feet out of the tangle of sheets over the edge of the bed. As he guided Connor out of the bedroom and down the hallway Lucas pointed to the painting he had been working on ever since he had returned to the apartment. "Look at this."

Connor reluctantly let his eyes drift over to the image on the canvas and focused on the displayed painting. It was now quite different. "...You've been busy."

"I knew the garden was full of negative associations for you, so I decided to alter it to make it less frightening. I was hoping it could wait until morning before I showed you the changes, but now seems more important."

"You changed the entire painting."

The roses along the trestle had been changed from blood red to vibrant, sunny yellow. The clearing was no longer a vacant space to mark unfilled graves, it was now a large grove of wildflowers that had a large dog who looked an awful lot like Sumo rolling about happily along with someone who looked an awful lot like Hank standing between the dog and the edge of the pond. The lifeless pond itself had been changed, too. It was filled by bright blue, red, green and yellow Koi fish that swam about gracefully in all directions.

And most importantly, the chessboard was no longer a vacant symbol to remind Connor that for every move he made that CyberLife was ready to react and try to stop him. It now showed Connor and Lucas sitting down at the table playing the game together just as they had done when the brothers spent the day together a few weeks back.

The painting was no longer a grim reminder of the past but a hopeful omen for the future.

Grateful for the alterations Connor asked Lucas if such changes were truly for his own personal comfort. "...You really changed the painting for me?"

"Yes. I though it might ease your mind if you saw the garden in a new light. One that was positive and not negative."

Connor put his hand on brother's shoulder appreciatively as they stood before the painting. Slowly his red L.E.D. pulsed down from red, to yellow and back to a calm, passive blue color. "...Thank you."

"Do you like it?"

"I do. It's very peaceful."

"Perhaps if you keep the painting in your bedroom it'll imprint itself over your current memory of the previous Zen Garden and prevent the nightmare from returning."

Connor smiled a little as he approached the easel without any fear. "I'll try doing that. But first, you need to do one more thing."

"What's that?"

"You need to sign it. All the great artists sign their work."

Lucas nodded with a flattered grin on his face as he picked up the finest paintbrush in the selection and dipped it into the ebony black pigment sitting beside it. With perfect cursive Lucas signed his name in the bottom right corner; Lucas Anderson, and lifted the painting from up the easel with both hands to hold proudly before himself.

"Now, try to get some sleep." Lucas pleaded as he handed the painting over to Connor. "I can assure you that a nightmare cannot hurt you, but even if you're still afraid I'll be there to help you through it."

"I know you will, brother. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'll clean up my paint and go to bed."

"Goodnight, Lucas."

"Goodnight, Connor."

With the painting in hand Connor walked down the hallway to return to his bedroom and found the ideal place to hang the masterpiece for the night.

"This image is far more enjoyable to view than the original Zen Garden."

Laying back on his bed with his head propped up against his pillow Connor stared at the painting that he had mounted on the wall at the foot of his bed, and allowed a wave of much needed peace to wash over him. Staring at the painting with a silent tranquility Connor let his tired eyes close slowly as his rest mode resumed its normal nightly function. His artificial breathing fell into a steady rhythm as he relaxed and began to dream of his life outside the wintry garden of death and of something far better.

For the first time since his deviancy Connor was able to finally dream without any fear of CyberLife, or Amanda, lingering in his mind or corrupting his thoughts.

Connor dreamt of peace and of his supportive, accepting family and friends.

-next chapter-