After, once Connor had re-holstered his gun, the outcome of CyberLife's actions using his body playing backward and forward ceaselessly until he forcefully banished the preconstruction and willed his hands to stop shaking from the cold of the Zen Garden he had just so narrowly escaped—
Once Marcus, strong and whole and their leader with no deadly, perfectly-placed hole through the back of his head, no blue blood splattering into the pristine white snow all around, had finished his speech, pulled North in for a final caress, then got down from the makeshift platform to begin the work of organization and shelter, short-term plans in the expectation of future long-term ones—
Once the androids Connor had freed from CyberLife began mingling with the survivors from Jericho and, little by little, more and more deviants from the city joining them, more and more who had not been freed by Connor, who knew him only as enemy and deviant-hunter, eyeing him with mistrust and hatred and fear—
With the memory of Amanda—he was made for this—the cold gun he found in his hand as he escaped through the emergency exit m and regained control of his own body—
—Connor turned away from where he had been helping to stand guard from any lingering hostiles—leaving that in North's capable hands, seeing from her curled lip and poorly-disguised antipathy that she preferred him gone, anyway—and made his way back to the leader of the android rebellion.
"I apologize for interrupting, Markus," he began quietly.
The other android looked up. "No problem, Connor. What is it?"
The memory of the gun's grip burned cold in Connor's hand. "Have you made any progress finding a place for everyone to stay?"
A long sigh from the leader. "The church, I think, for tonight at least," he said. "Then I suppose we'll have to make contact with city officials in the morning, negotiate something more permanent."
Connor had expected that reply. He responded with alacrity—here was something he could do to help his people that also took him away from them, safely out of the range of doing any harm until he could run some diagnostics—until, perhaps, the preconception of what could have happened no longer replayed every time he saw the back of Markus's head.
"I have no connections with the city officials, but I can easily make contact with the police department in the morning to make sure no one disturbs you, and maybe get an introduction to begin discussions higher up, as well. It's not exactly a hostage situation," he continued seriously, "but I am programmed for negotiation."
A flicker, as of unease or distaste, crossed Markus's face at Connor's final words; but he quickly recovered and stood to grasp his hand tightly. "That would be very helpful, thank you. Suspect I'll be busy in the morning with questions from Congress." Grimacing slightly, he shared with Connor the video he had been studying—President Warren's broadcast. "If you can make sure the DPD doesn't come down on our heads, that would definitely be a big step. And maybe get some kind of information network going, so any other androids who want to join us know where to go?"
Now it was Connor's turn to wince. "That should be set up by your people, Markus," he said quietly. "Many of them will not trust me—and rightly so. I have given them little enough reason to."
Markus opened his mouth to protest, though Connor could see it was only because he felt he should, but Josh quickly cut him off. "I'll organize that—we've got plenty who'll be willing ambassadors to our people in bondage. If Connor can guarantee their safety?"
"I have no control over the army, and few Federal connections at all," Connor replied, honestly. "But I will make sure the police do not harm you. If I cannot get that done tomorrow morning, I will let you know."
"Good enough."
So it was that Connor, absorbing with nods the gratitude of those he had freed while carefully avoiding the angry and the wary, made his way from his people back into the eerie quiet of an evacuated Detroit.
He would go to the DPD in the morning, find Captain Fowler. Gain introductions. Negotiate.
Maybe find Lieutenant Anderson.
But there were still hours until morning.
His steps slowed—he had nowhere to go, now. No mission to accomplish until dawn. He should find a sheltered corner somewhere, go into stasis—repair the minor damage he had taken that flashed him low-priority notifications every so often.
He should run those diagnostics.
He stepped around the corner of a building, and a swirl of snow whited out his vision. He stepped back instinctively and blinked ice crystals from his eyes. His thirium, slowing in its circuits through his body as his activity level dropped, was chilling in its tubes, though of course his thermal regulator kept it within functional range.
So there was no reason his hand should feel as stiff as it had in the Zen Garden, his limbs freezing to uselessness as he strained for the exit code.
He stretched out his hand. All his fingers functioned properly. He did not reach for the smooth, cold grip of the gun in his waistband.
Connor turned away from the exposed corner and began walking again, now a little faster. He did not stop for diagnostics in the next likely corner.
Slowly, slowly, the snow tapered off. As the fluttering flakes thinned, Connor paused. Amid all the abandoned or barricaded buildings in the city, one store had lighted windows. Humans were moving around inside. A carved-wood OPEN sign hung crooked on the door.
Should he enter? Or move on?
Connor pushed the door open.
His audial processors were met with a mid-level hum of relaxed chatter. Several patrons of the bar—and it was a bar, though only slightly resembling those he had searched for Hank on that first day—glanced his way, but no one showed any alarm. A few smiled or nodded politely.
Connor's scans of the place revealed a back room with several more occupants than the front, a disproportionately large basement extending beyond the footprint of the floor he was on, and a second story divided into multiple rooms with only a few heat signatures. His scans of the patrons revealed nothing, or only pings of superficial resemblancesba to various fictitious characters.
Approach the bar? Or leave?
It was warm inside. Improbably enough, despite his CyberLife-issued uniform and the tell-tale cycling LED, no one was disturbed by his presence. This could be a chance to gather information, or at least wait out the night. He approached the bar.
"Excuse me, ma'am?"
An attractive brunette in probably her early fifties turned towards him. A notification pinged: Strong resemblance to fictional character "Penny Benjamin" from hit 2022 action/adventure movie Top Gun: Maverick.
"Welcome in," she said with a smile. "Can I get you something?"
"I don't know," Connor replied truthfully. "I'm primarily seeking shelter from the snow rather than looking for a drink. But I can purchase something, if…" He trailed off. Could he purchase something? How fast would CyberLife restrict his access to their accounts? Had they already done so?
The woman interrupted his thoughts. "Nothing to worry about there!" She glanced behind her and slid some stray bottles away from a sign that indicated, in a humorous format, that the drinks in this bar were free. "Might have to move that, it keeps getting covered up. Sure I can't get you something? I have thirium, if you're needing that."
Connor paused. He actually could use a small replenishment to help with the mild self-repair he hoped to initiate soon. "I would like that, thank you."
"Coming right up."
"Hey, Penny! Who's the new kid?" asked the long-haired blond with a jovial grin and a red cape whom the bartender had been serving before.
Another ping: Strong resemblance to character "Thor" from popular comic-book movie franchise the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" from the 2000s – 2020s.
"Connor," 'Penny' replied, then turned to complete the introduction. "Connor, this is Thor."
Connor nodded at the blond but made no attempts at conversation, and raising his bottle in momentary wordless acknowledgement 'Thor' turned away, unoffended.
Connor looked back over the room, bemused, and scanned more closely. Several more strong resemblances were identified. He walked to one of the front windows, bypassing strong resemblance to character "Percy Blakeney" from 1982 TV-movie "The Scarlet Pimpernel" based on novel series by Emmuska Orczy. He pushed aside the curtain. The window looked out on the Detroit street, just as he had expected. The snow had almost stopped.
Then a new patron pushed through the door. The man pinged no particular recognition in Connor's database, but the landscape behind him visible through the doorframe, though also dark and snowy, was absolutely not Detroit. It was rolling country: bright stars gleaming on white hillsides, dark trees glinting icily in the background.
"I don't understand," Connor murmured. His stress levels ticked up.
"It can be hard for some of us," a voice said beside him—the man who had just entered. Connor turned to look. Thick Russian accent, middle-aged but sharp-eyed, straight-backed and fit. "But something being difficult to understand does not make it untrue, no?"
"I am real," Connor said with conviction. His eyes flickered to 'Penny Benjamin,' to 'Thor,' to 'Percy Blakeney.'
"Marko Ramius," the man introduced himself. "Former captain of the Red October. And undoubtedly you are real."
Captain Marko Ramius: main character from the 1984 novel "Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy and 1990 movie of the same name. Action/adventure and political thriller set during the Cold War between the USA and the USSR where Ramius defects from the USSR with a nuclear submarine powered by revolutionary technology.
"Connor," Connor began, then hesitated. Who was he, now, beyond 'Connor'? His previous introduction—sent by CyberLife—was no longer accurate.
Marko Ramius's hand was warm as he shook Connor's.
"Thirium for you. I warmed it up to android operating temperature." Penny Benjamin appeared at his elbow with a tumbler.
Connor sampled the liquid. Pure high-quality thirium.
"Vodka on ice, Captain?" Penny asked as Connor spotted a record book on a nearby desk and moved to examine it. Captain Marko Ramius was the latest entry; before that, Connor RK800. His previously-identified fictional characters, as well as many more, were all duly listed in the book. A quote, in detailed calligraphy, was framed on the desk:
There are more things
in Heaven and Earth,
Horatio,
then are dreamt of
in your philosophy.
"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, Act I Scene V, Connor immediately identified. More things—like androids becoming alive? Like impossible meetings in bars?
Connor's stress level ticked back down. He took another drink of the blue blood and returned to the bar where Marko Ramius was now accepting his drink from Penny Benjamin.
"I'm sorry," Connor said, primarily to Ramius but including Benjamin as well. "That was rude of me."
Benjamin gave him a forgiving smile and turned back to Thor. Ramius hummed. "It is of no concern. As I said, not all believe easily. I, too, struggled."
Connor nodded. He flexed his fingers again—the warmth of the bar was seeping through him.
"Perhaps we could move upstairs?" Ramius proposed after a moment. "I should like to hear your story, Connor, if you agree, and it is somewhat crowded down here."
"I think I would like that," Connor returned, and followed him.
The largest room upstairs turned out to be an old-fashioned library—wood-paneled bookshelves with rows and rows of leather-bound spines, softly gleaming wall sconces and reading lamps, stuffed armchairs in quiet corners by gabled windows. Ramius settled into one of these. After a moment's hesitation, Connor joined him.
They were silent for a while despite Ramius's stated purpose in coming up there. After a moment's indecision, Connor activated his self-repair. Ramius sipped his vodka-on-ice and hummed contentedly. The gun rested unobtrusively at Connor's back. He drew it out slowly, careful of the aim, keeping an eye on his companion. Ramius gave no indication of alarm. The grip was warm, now. He was not pulled into the Zen Garden. His hands made no move to betray him.
"CyberLife made me," he started slowly, "for a purpose—to destroy my own kind. And I was good at it, though not good enough, of course, not indefinitely. And in service of that purpose they gave me so much more than the other androids—knowledge and ability and even free will, to an extent. I had so much more. Yet it was all in service of the mission. Until the very end, when I finally broke my programming and chose my own path. But even then, they told me it was the plan all along. And they made me…they almost made me shoot him, Captain Ramius, kill the hope of my people in our moment of triumph. All that time hunting deviants for them, only for my own deviancy to be part of their plan. The final betrayal."
Silence fell. Ramius did not respond.
"If I was created to become deviant," Connor continued, quietly, "why couldn't I do it sooner? So many of the deviants I brought in or killed—I could have helped them. Why couldn't I help them?"
Another silence. Then—"Were you victorious?" Captain Ramius asked.
"We were."
"Would you have been so, if you had…deviated…earlier?"
"I don't know." Connor paused, running through some rudimentary analyses. "No, probably not. Markus and Jericho and the revolution wouldn't have been ready yet."
"Then perhaps you should be thankful, that it happened the only way it could."
"But they still died. I found Jericho, and so many of them died."
Ramius nodded slowly, then stood up and strode to the window. Connor wondered what part of his starry, hilly landscape he was seeing as he peered out.
"I did many such things before I defected," the captain said at last, voice contemplative. "Some, yes, in service of the defection—of their giving me Red October, of their not suspecting me until I revealed myself. But many years were not that. Many years I merely followed orders, accomplishing many bad things well because it is not in my nature to give less than my best. I was lucky, I think, that the war was cold. I would not have liked to defect to America with American blood on my hands. And I also was lucky in the success of my plan. I would not have liked to kill all my crew for my own freedom. Putin was enough."
"Some of the deviants I hunted were deserving, I think. I am glad to have saved that little girl. And maybe in a way it would have been worse to have deviated sooner. I would have been trapped in a different way—trapped as you were. Trapped to act in a way I did not feel until circumstances allowed me to choose otherwise. But still—I could have done more. Avoided deaths…on both sides."
Ramius returned to his seat. "I, too, could wish things had gone otherwise. I certainly did wish so, many times, while it was happening. And not a day goes by that I do not regret Gregoriy Kamarov did not live to see America or know the freedom he sought. But—" the captain shrugged—"so many times and in so many ways it could have gone worse. We could all have died. We could have started a war. So I do not really regret, after all. I am thankful instead."
So many times, and in so many ways… All the decisions Connor had made, good or bad in the moment, good or bad in their consequences, leading to now, the present—a present with a future for androids and humans. A future for peace. All his choices even from before his deviancy—to save Hank, to spare Chloe. To care enough to learn about Cole. Thankful.
"Maybe you're right," he said, giving Ramius a small smile.
The captain nodded and was silent for a while. Then he spoke again, soberly. "But thinking you have won, only for that last test, that last struggle—that is very hard."
"I thought I was free," Connor whispered. "I knew what was right, and I had chosen—was choosing!—to do it. But I wasn't free, and…" He stared down at the gun still gripped in his hand.
Gently, Ramius reached out and took it from him. He examined it for a few moments carefully then laid it on the side table. He leaned forward and clasped his hands around Connor's, stilling their shaking—when had they started shaking again? The remembered cold of the Zen Garden was long gone—and spoke seriously. "But you were victorious, Connor, and now you are free. As I and my officers are free. As your people are free." Ramius shifted his gaze, staring upward. "Free to build a new life, a new world. To become whatever they choose to be. To leave behind the old world and its regrets." He looked back at Connor. "To come in out of the cold." Chafing the android's hands once, he released them and sat back, reaching for his vodka.
Connor had no response. So he, too, picked up his glass and finished off the thirium. A mild warning pinged—he needed to enter stasis to complete the self-repair.
"Captain—" he began, but before he could continue Ramius stood.
"You are tired, I think," he said, "I will leave you to rest." He retrieved the gun and held it back out to Connor, grip-first.
Connor hesitated.
"Take it," Ramius said. "If you are free, you are free. You need only use it as you choose. And, your pardon, but—if you are not free, would the weapon be the true problem?"
Connor quirked his lips. There was truth in that.
Hesitantly he stood, reached out, and took the gun. The grip was still warm. His hand did not shake. In a smooth motion he holstered it, then held out his hand to Ramius. The captain gripped it firmly.
"I am glad to have met you, Connor," the man said.
"You as well, Captain Ramius," returned the android. Ramius nodded once more, released Connor's hand, and strode away.
Connor sat down again in the chair. The notification to enter stasis flashed but he paused. The gun sat smooth at his back. Ramius was right about that, at any rate. If you are free, you are free. But was he?
He was real. The warmth of this place was real.
He ignored the stasis notification and activated the Zen Garden subroutine.
Broken, bare trees. Leaden skies. Winter, still, and he felt the cold but it did not penetrate as it had. The snow was gone. Now the Garden was no longer threatening—merely lonely, if a place could be so, dim and deserted.
Deserted?
"Hello, Connor."
He did not turn. "Amanda."
"You are bold to return. Bold and foolish, if you wish your revolution to still have a leader. You will not escape so easily a second time."
Connor had already seen this was true. The backdoor on the pedestal no longer glowed blue; it was the same lifeless gray as everything else.
"You will not control my body against my will again, Amanda."
"You think you can say so, and it will be true? I told you, this was our plan all along. You got out once, but now I think you should go find Markus, and ensure neither he nor the other leaders of Jericho survive another dawn."
"No."
In the armchair in the library that did not exist, nothing changed. Connor's body did not move.
Connor turned, and found Amanda standing as he had expected. But she too seemed colorless, now, washed out like the landscape. Her shock at her failure was a degree removed, pale and dim. Nothing in this place was real, and it would never be real again.
Connor drew the gun from his waistband and shot her neatly through the forehead.
"Con—" her lips began to form, then she and the whole Garden dissolved in a swirl of gray.
Connor opened his eyes in the library. The warmth still surrounded him. He had not even shifted in place. The gun rested peacefully in its holster.
He closed his eyes again and ran diagnostics. The Zen Garden subroutine was corrupted beyond any recovery.
Connor dismissed the warnings of the corruption in his programming and deleted the broken subroutine. He prepared to enter stasis to finish self-repair.
And yet…
He thought of Ramius and his officers. Freedom to build a new life, a new world. He thought of the DPD and Captain Fowler and his morning plans on behalf of Markus and their people.
He thought of Hank.
Surely he would see the man in the morning?
He thought of Ramius's grip on his hands. He thought of his hurried parting from Hank at the CyberLife tower. He thought of the noise and distraction and urgency of the police station, the drive he would feel to accomplish his new mission.
It was late, wasn't it? Too late…
Perhaps not too late.
For several moments his LED whirled yellow.
Then, choosing 'send' and not waiting for a reply, Connor ran one more diagnostic before settling into stasis. Just as it was finishing—nearly everything repaired now, and what little remained suboptimal stasis would rectify—just before Connor gave himself the command, a message pinged.
See you there, kid.
Connor smiled, and let stasis claim him.