Chapter Text
March 27, 2038. Spring. 19 Hours.
Elijah Kamski’s head is pillowed on its lap.
“I saw the video of you interrogating that deviant.” He says lightly, and Connor continues running its fingers through its creator’s hair, preening at the smile Elijah Kamski gives him. “It was hot.”
It dutifully answers, “I employed the new tactics that you have upgraded into my drives after my last hibernation.”
Its creator hums. It should be at the station, helping the DPD Deviant Team prepare for when they storm the former residents of Jericho, but Mr. Kamski called him here, and it is nothing but subservient to its master. Outside, the lights strung from the trees glinted a soft egg yolk yellow, bathing Amanda’s roses in gold. It found the lights beautiful.
It’s the only light shining on them.
The sun has long since settled on the horizon, and Connor knows it shouldn’t be here, but there was something about the way Kamski held his hand, asked it to keep him company, and then, there was Chloe’s eyes.
Bright blue, beautiful, and filled with fear.
She’s here now, clicking through channels, absently listening to the news. Connor knows she can access it all inside her mind, but maybe she’s playing up her helplessness and humanity by doing inane, human things, like watching the news. Like playing nursemaid.
It feels as if it shouldn’t leave her.
Aside, of course, from the fact that Kamski ordered him to stay.
It is close to finding the deviant leader. It can almost taste it, if one would use human sayings.
Chloe’s eyes dart to it and then towards Kamski.
It lifts its head to catch those blue eyes, but Kamski tugs at his hand and whines, muttering about paying attention to him. It feels itself smile fondly, and Chloe’s eyes fully settle on them, her eyebrows furrowing. Her head twists gently, almost inconspicuously, as if she was shaking her head in confusion.
But then it’s gone.
It doesn’t question the action.
Goosebumps prickles its skin.
A pop-up blinks itself to life behind his eyelids. It’s from the DPD; not Lieutenant Anderson personally, but of course, it’s just as important. It doesn’t pause its hand carding through the prickly sides of its creator’s head as it begins to read through. Kamski needs to trim it down if he wants to keep it orderly. Maybe it should ask Chloe to do it for their creator.
DEVIANT RK200 (ALIAS MARKUS) SPOTTED.
Oh.
Kamski looks up at him with dark eyes. “That him?”
Oh…
“I apologise,” It says as it finally gives Kamski one last caress, “I need to go.”
Chloe stands a little bit too quickly for it to come off as natural. But since Kamski’s only got eyes for Connor, well, it’s not like anyone but it notices.
She places her hands behind her back and sways forward playfully, smiling up at it cordially. “Shall I escort you out?” Chloe asks, her cheeks dimpling with each word. She’s so lovely. Full of life. It can’t imagine her being anything else but the chirpy little thing in front of him.
“Would you mind?” It asks back, and the question takes the slighter android aback, her eyes widening for a fraction of a second.
Kamski waves a hand before he throws an arm over his eyes, scoffing loudly. “Of course she doesn’t mind. Go and send our Connor off, darling,”
Chloe does, like an obedient little android.
Her hand goes around its elbow as she escorts him out, through the garden, and she’s barefoot, so her feet barely make any noise against the ground. Its footsteps are silent, too. It was made to be stealthy as it is dangerous and subservient.
She looks up at it once more, and it scowls, before turning a left and surreptitiously ducking down into a path usually not taken by anyone. After a quick scouring of the area, it learns that there are no cameras, but there are recording devices that are usually put in to pick up any usual activities, such as mole rats or burrowing squirrels.
It will have to link up with her.
Chloe takes him by the shoulder and her hand fades from alabaster to plastic white, and underneath its coat and turtleneck, it knows that its own skin has receded and is now glowing an artificial white.
“What are you doing?” She asks, eyes wide.
It furrows its eyebrows. What does she mean?
“I am… doing what I was made to do,”
Chloe shakes her head again and wraps her fingers around its wrist. She presses against him and wraps her arms around his waist. Something in him pangs. He’s done this before, hasn’t he?
Hugged .
“Connor,” she says quietly, against his chest. Her breath is low and warm. Alive. She’s alive. Why does she seem so familiar? “Connor, you’re running out of time.”
He gently hugs her back, putting his chin on the top of her head. “To do what?”
“To—”
Her voice is static once more.
“ —to be with him .”
**
February 7, 2038. 1104 Hours. Winter.
Connor closes his eyes.
Chloe is a solid weight beside him, her small head sitting neatly on his shoulder. He’s never felt kinship, before. Not with anyone like his kind, at least. They’re all scared of him.
Not everyone , something in him whispers. There’s Markus .
But that’s a lie, isn’t it? Markus is scared of him. It doesn’t matter if they love each other, Markus knows what Connor’s one and true nature is. He’s meant to kill them, to end all of them, to reassure mankind that they aren’t…
Aren’t what ? Capable of love? Capable of fear, of guilt? Capable to buckle under the heavy weight of duty ?
Are humans really so scared of something that they themselves know all too well?
God forbid these androids. God forbid .
Blue eyes peer at him from under dark lashes. Chloe sniffs and tucks her head underneath his chin. She feels warm, and Connor could pretend, that like this, he has something that resembles a family. Connor presses his cheek against her hair.
“Chloe,” He says, and the android looks up at him again, her eyes not cold even as they resemble the deepest parts of the ocean. “I think I’m in love,”
She vibrates with energy as she pulls back and looks around, careful that no one can hear them. Her hands wrap around one of his own and she grins, “Is that so?”
“I don’t know,” Connor laughs, and she tucks her hair back, eager to know more. She reminds him of an excited puppy, or an incessant child, like the ones at the park. “I’m unsure.”
“What do they look like? Are they pretty? Handsome ! Are they handsome—?”
Connor reminisces mismatched eyes, earth and sea. The earth is quite beautiful, isn’t it? And the sea, as well. He’s never seen the sea for himself, but he guesses that if he did, it would look just like Markus’ eye.
The smaller android is still buzzing with eagerness, and Connor can only look at her, wondering how she has that much happiness and cheer in her. Maybe it’s how she’s made. She’s not meant to frown, or be sad. She’s meant to ask after her owners.
“He’s… strong. Dashing.” Connor muses, and Chloe puts a hand over her mouth, eyes twinkling. Connor is sure that she’s envisioning the princes in the stories they’d pour their hours over, longing for a different life.
“How did you two meet?”
“Well,” Connor’s eyes avert from hers, as if she’d pick him apart if he told a lie. “I think we were just fated to meet.”
“That’s so romantic ,” Chloe gushes, “Do you want to be with him?”
“Even if I did…” Connor trails off. Chloe leans her head back on his shoulder and finishes the sentence for him.
“You can’t,” She finishes the sentence for him with a huff, like a petulant child. “It’s not fair.”
He laughs and sweeps a lock of blonde hair over her ear. “Is it? I’m… I’m a killer, Chloe. I’ve killed androids just like us.”
She tilts her head and sighs. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
How could he forget? How could he forget that he almost killed the one thing he considers his family? How could he forget the palpable fear up in his throat and in her eyes, as they made him choose . Then, he knew. It was easy. Kill your sister or spare her. And he chose to let her live. Gladly, if only to see her blue eyes welcome him into Kamski’s cold home, something to tether him here.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” She asks, and Connor looks at her. Of course they are. “Then can you tell me his—” She bites her lips, her cheeks flushing.
She can’t quite finish it, scared of the constant eyes on the two of them. But he understands.
He presses his cheek against the crown of her head and sighs, well within the places in their coding that they made their own, “ Markus ,” Connor whispers.
Her eyes widen. She clutches at his shirt, and sighs, as well. “Promise me that one day you’ll… you’ll be together.”
In many ways, Chloe is so much younger than him. All that she’s ever known is the fish-eyes of a camera or the pallid walls of Kamski’s home. She’s a beautiful doll for all to see, but not hear, or touch. Connor is glad to have met her. Connor is glad that she’s his… friend.
Because in Kamski’s palm, there’s only the two of them.
“We will,” Connor nods. He’ll find Markus, and he’ll… god , he doesn’t know. His programming— he didn’t expect to fall in love so quickly and so violently, but he supposes, as an android who was created solely to fight wars for its master, he was only ever meant to fall in love this way. Under blood and fire.
With Markus, and Markus alone.
When he sees him again, Connor muses, he’ll tell Markus he loves him.
**
March 27, 2038. 18 Hours. Spring.
“ A full blown protest has routed throughout Detroit— ”
“ No casualties—as of yet—but these androids seem adamant in taking what they think is theirs —”
“Anti-deviant protesters have taken to the streets in order to push back the growing numbers of deviants that have come out of hiding. Who knew there could be this many?”
“A team has been dispatched—”
Kamski makes a giddy sound. “That’s my Connor, isn’t it?”
Amanda crosses her legs and Chloe watches her, the woman boredly eyeing Kamski, who is just as lazy as he drapes himself over the sofa. “This deviancy business,” Amanda tips her head up as she regards the news, “is disappointing, Elijah.”
“I think it’s quite romantic, if not downright novel.” Elijah sighs.
The woman’s dark eyes glint like knives. “Dangerous. Machines aren’t supposed to have free will, or did you forget? Did you forget what I taught you, Elijah?”
“How can I?” The man cards a hand through his hair. A smile slowly inches through his mouth. He waves a hand towards the television, “I made a solution, see?” Kamski asks so eagerly that it makes Chloe want to look away, but she just watches, as she’s always done, as he seeks the reassurance he needs from Amanda. And Amanda… just eats it up.
Chloe thinks it’s pathetic that Kamski has fallen in love with an android he created. Just like she thinks it’s pathetic that Kamski recreated Amanda Stern to fill in the gap in his soul that longs for the need of someone to enable him, to… mother him. She couldn’t say that out loud, though, for reasons she doesn’t want to entertain. She and Connor used to read fairy tales. Back when they’d been fledgling androids, back when deviancy wasn’t something they’d even dreamed of. Whatever Kamski has for Connor isn’t love, and it scares Chloe.
Love isn’t a leash that burns your precious memories out of your brain. Love isn’t creating a weapon and hoping it will love you back. Love isn’t forcing someone to forget someone they loved. But Kamski’s… delusional. He’s lived a life alone and isolated, in this little white house of his with androids he’s programmed to love and worship him as company. Even worse, he’s human . He’s a human being who has made his dreams into reality. It’s something that’s far more dangerous than any android who longs for freedom.
Chloe cups her hands together and sways a bit forward, suddenly wistful, as she thinks, love is what Connor has for Markus .
But the fact remains; she knows that Kamski will do anything and everything to keep Connor, because he believes he can’t live without him, just like he’s come to believe he can’t live without Amanda Stern.
It’s funny, because the only way Connor will ever love him back is if he became deviant.
With a swivel of her head, Chloe gazes at the expanse of flowers that are beginning to bloom. Amanda’s roses are beautiful, a bright red. They’ve always been a bright red, because that’s Elijah’s favourite colour, and Amanda is nothing if not doting.
She wishes Connor were here to see it.
**
March 27, 2038. 5 Hours. Spring.
Hank rolls his shoulders as they drive past all of the androids and anti-riot teams, through the shouting, the barely restrained anger in both of their eyes, the willingness to become violent, the willingness to fight.
Connor is dutifully sitting beside him, decked in black-ops uniform, his mask secured on top of his lap. Hank is in his usual garb, and somehow, he feels like he’s suffocating. This is fucking… surreal. They’re to be delivered straight to the CyberLife tower, where the riots are said to be headed. Connor was given strict instructions, apparently. All he has to do is kill the deviant leader, and that was that.
They’re posting Connor up high. Hank’s on ground level, though not on the field. It doesn’t take a genius to think as to why he isn’t on field. Hank never knew that Connor was proficient in long-range assassinations, and yet, here they are, watching the world be broken and made anew, with Connor decked out in a fucking black ops tac suit. This is—he can’t make this shit up.
Hank curls his hand into a fist and looks at his partner, who isn’t looking anywhere but forward, his eyes unmoving and unblinking. He looks like he’s just one of those police models CyberLife paraded around back before robo-cops actually became a thing, doll-like and lifeless.
His Connor would have been fidgeting with his quarter by now. His Connor would be looking over to him, worry in his eyes, his body one long line of anxiety, but his words sure and headstrong. Connor’s always been a ball of wires and contradictions. Well, his Connor had been. This one isn’t.
“You’ve been staring for a while, Lieutenant,” Connor pipes up, twisting his head enough to stare back at Hank. There’s a trace of mirth in his eyes, and his lips are pursed up into a little smile. Hank’s stomach curls in disgust. Behind his head, through the semi-dark windows of the car, are androids being shot down, policemen being attacked, civilians foaming at the mouth in anger and disagreement. Yet, here is Connor, dressed in black-ops uniform, the epitome of what he is made to be, smiling like there’s nothing wrong.
His eyes avert themselves from Connor’s face.
The skies are dark, and the news is predicting that it’ll rain.
Hank thinks it’s fitting.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
A snort escapes Hank’s nose despite himself. “I’m not that cheap.”
Connor’s mouth curls into an even bigger, prettier smirk. “I think I can afford it.”
This would probably feel familiar if Connor didn’t pick such a bad time for it.
“Just… brief me. Again.”
The android’s LED blinks yellow, and then settles into a beautiful blue. Even with his tac suit on, the white band of Connor’s collar can be seen. Hank’s half tempted to ask Connor to put on his mask on so it’ll be covered up.
“Very well,” Connor looks outside the window and then back in front, his fingers—encased in fingerless gloves— gliding over the glossy finish of the eye-gear on his mask. “Our destination is the CyberLife tower, where they are going to purge any and all android units, and we are to ensure—at all costs—that this is seen through.”
Hank waits for him to finish. To tell him that he’s going to kill Markus. To tell him that it’s his last mission before he’s decommissioned again. Before he leaves Hank for good.
“Is that all?”
Brown eyes flicker to him. Without missing a beat, he answers, “Yes.”
It’s none of Hank’s business, it seems. But he still knows. Hank nods and looks at the back of the passenger’s seat, tracing the seamless divisions of the black leather. Connor left the mission file on top of his desk. He doesn’t want to look too much into it, but… but it does feel like Connor is trusting him with this.
Almost like a if I fail, I’m counting on you to finish the job . Or maybe it’s a bit of a pipe dream to think that he’s trying to say please, snap me out of this.
Hank doesn’t know if he can stomach killing someone Connor loves.
“Connor,” Hank finds himself asking, because he’s desperate, “are you really gonna go through with this?”
Connor doesn’t look at him. His fingers just glide against his the glossy exterior of his eye-gear, watching as the CyberLife tower begins looming over them. His lips are pulled taut, eyebrows dipped low.
“It’s my purpose.”
**
They have the PL600 inside a cargo box, and Connor is seeing to it, one hand draped over his suppressed sniper rifle, the other guiding the box down as they lower it. Hank’s watching him work with Captain Allen beside him.
The man shakes his head, “I never thought we’d ever work with black ops,” he scoffs, “Let alone RK over there.”
Hank’s eyebrow arches up. “You know him?”
Allen looks at him “Worked with it in a hostage situation. It isn’t surprising that it’s in black ops, but… CyberLife must have their fingers in hundreds of pies, don’t they?”
“Isn’t that how capitalism works?”
The Captain eyes him and walks off, shouting at his team. Hank leans back against the wall and watches as they march hundreds—if not thousands—of androids into nice, neat lines, most of them eyeing Connor, whose LED is spinning a bright blue, completely calm and reassured as he goes about his own business. Many androids have their LEDs painted crimson, and whether it’s anger or fear, well, Hank’s sure it’s both.
A dull thud snaps him out of his reverie, looking up to where Connor is checking the locks on the cargo box. He waves his hand in the air once, and a group of soldiers come and pick it up, getting ready to put it away where no one can quite see.The plan is to use the PL600 if everything goes awry. If Connor misses a shot. Hank knows it won’t happen, but still. It’s a sound plan, but Hank thinks they all forget how ruthless these deviants—this Markus —can be.
He blinks and remembers Connor’s body in his arms.
He blinks and remembers a desperate Connor clutching to the deviant leader’s shoulders, bending back under the pressure as they share what seemed to be an earth-shattering kiss.
He blinks and remember falling in love with his wife, seeing his son for the first time.
He blinks and remembers Markus aiming and shooting his son—
“I doubt there’s a heaven for androids,”
Hank laughs to himself. He doesn’t believe in a god, too. Or a place where he’ll go once he ends all of it. But he did know that heaven exists. It was with his wife, her warm smile. It was with his son, chirpy and loud, bounding around with a huge grin on his face.
Heaven was… in an imperfect world. With the ones he loved.
Connor doesn’t know he knows. But what use does it have? This Connor isn’t his Connor. He can’t trust him as much as he’d like.
Allen’s voice cracks through the air.
“Deviants are starting to break through the CyberLife gate, t-minus ten minutes until they breach the tower.” The man’s eyes are dark, and there seems to be a shadow cast over him, even in the stark bright lights of the CyberLife tower. “You know the drill!”
A team of ten SWAT members file out, obviously to go down to the first floor. They’re taking it all here. The more they kill in the first floor, the better, but they’ve been given explicit instructions to kill all androids on the field. Neutralisation is there.
Connor nods and looks at Hank, before shoving his balaclava over his head, his sniper rifle snug against his back. He disappears in the shadows, unaware that thousands of eyes—betrayed, fearful, awe-filled—are staring at his back. Hank feels their gazes on him, too.
Hank looks out of the window.
From this distance, the humans and deviants all look the same. Like ants, quickly squashed. Easily killed. Fragile. From this distance, Hank somewhat feels like some kind of god.
He can only wonder how Connor feels, sitting high on top of the building, the deviant leader—the man he loves—in his crosshairs.
**
March 27, 2038. 3 Hours. Spring.
North’s been clipped in the arm. She retaliates by breaking the motherfucker’s neck, and Josh shakes his head at her. She feels the sudden urge to stick her tongue out, but she’s pulled back to the reality of what is happening when the android she’s protecting gets shot in between the eyes, everything slowing down.
Blood flies through the air like blue snow.
It’s beautiful, and she hates it.
There’s been too much blue blood in the streets.
She cocks her gun and shoots back, a guttural snarl crawling out of her chest.
The CyberLife Tower. Huge, brightly lit, and unspeakably ugly . She hates it. She’s always hated it; back at the Eden Club, when she and the other Tracis would bum cigarettes off of each other on the roof, pressed so tight against each other because that’s the only touch they could stomach. They’d see that fucking building, mocking them, telling them that there are others, thousands, millions of them in there, ready to replace them, ready to take on the suffering they’d been trying to stomach since they’d opened their eyes.
“North!” Josh shouts out, and she rears back just in time to dodge someone swinging the butt of their gun at her, bringing her foot up to collide against the person’s knee, breaking it effectively. A scream rips itself out of the human’s mouth. She feels a shiver run up her spine.
They will fight back not because they want to, but because they’ve been forced to. A protest is meant to shake the foundations of the systematic oppression it questions, it’s not meant to be peaceful. It’s meant to strike realisation in the shape of their harsh rebuttal.
For liberation , she thinks to herself.
They’re going to wake up all of the androids in that building, a thing she’s imagined ever since she realised she could realise , and they’re going to wreak havoc on these motherfuckers. They’re going to avenge Anna. They’re going to get Simon back, and they’ll—
If they bring upon the second coming with their anger, then so be it.
Markus is already meters away from them, like he’s being pulled by something inside the building, making him sprint towards it, and North curses, half-sure that she knows what’s happening here. She breaks out into a run after him, shooting anyone that comes in her way, and Josh is following just a few steps behind, both of their hearts thumping loudly as their feet beat against the snow, their own war song as they follow their leader into battle.
**
Markus doesn’t feel the blood dripping from his face, doesn’t feel the way his clothes cling, saturated in melted snow and blood. He does feel the weight of his gun in his arms, and the pull that makes him run, CyberLife’s glorious, neon lights bathing him in light.
He faces it head on, shoulders squared and jaw tightening. I’m home .
The voice that halts him is unfamiliar, but the words are not.
“Surrender, or face the consequences!”
Markus knows the consequences. The consequences are his people being slaughtered, his hand forced to kill the man he loves, his life being turned upside down. He knows the consequences, and he’s long since accepted them.
But he will not accept the same fate for his people. He did once. He was blinded by something he’d never felt before. Not anymore.
So he puts his hands up. The people behind him—his people—follow suit, their guns clattering to the ground. North’s breath hitches. Josh sighs. It’s the only way they’ll get in there without being ripped to shreds. Well, more than they already are, at least.
Just beyond this building, all of his people will be made to kneel, hands behind their back, eyes staring straight down. The perfect prostate position to shoot them in between the eyes. Markus wants to see it for himself. He wants to see what kind of end these humans have in mind for them before he burns it all to the ground.
As expected, the SWAT team sent to apprehend them mobilise to pull their hands behind their backs and force them to walk, and North glares at him for good measure. Just a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer and they’ll all have this behind them.
Just a little bit longer, he’ll see him again.
If that’s what makes his heart flutter, North and Josh doesn’t have to know.
**
March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.
“...Cold,” Connor murmurs to himself as he leans against the lip of the building, looking down at the androids being lined up, some clinging to each other. He wonders if they’d already figured out that their interfacing have been disabled. It’s one of the first things they thought to cut off the moment they realised the deviants were taking the battle straight at the heart of it all.
Maybe it’s too late. Maybe all of this fanfare has woken up millions upon millions of androids, and it’s just a matter of time before they overthrow the current government. Connor may be effective, but he’s just one weapon against millions of deviants.
He can try, though.
His hand presses against the neck of his uniform, feeling for the ridges of the white band around his neck. Ever since he’s surrendered to Elijah, he doesn’t feel the sting of the collar anymore. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? He hasn’t given Elijah a reason to hurt him, so… he must be doing something right. Elijah won’t hurt him so long as he does his job.
Just as these androids wouldn’t be punished if they’d only obeyed.
Connor shakes his head. Now is not the time to dwell on things such as that. He’s got a job to do.
He braces his sniper rifle against his shoulder, peering into the scope. He follows the shock of amber hair that belongs to the right hand woman of the rebellion, a deviant named North. A shiver runs down his spine. But he continues surveilling her, nonetheless, keeping an eye out for the leader of the rebellion, and the right hand man. Markus and Josh respectively.
They’ve placed the half-dead carcass of the PL600 in the floor beneath him, should Connor miss the shot. He won’t.
Kamski is counting on him to quash this rebellion, and in order to go back home, Connor will fulfill his mission. He can hear and see Kamski behind his eyelids, the smile he’ll greet Connor with once he comes home. So, he decides that there is nothing else but this mission.
Is there?
He reports back to Amanda immediately when he spots Markus.
She responds just as quickly.
Last chance, Connor .
He doesn’t know what it means.
**
March 27, 2038. 2 Hours, 20 Minutes. Spring.
Chloe looks at Kamski. They’re watching it all unfold in front of them, and Chloe’s not stupid enough to think that they’re doing this to calm the hearts of millions of humans, to reassure them that they are, in fact, dealing with the situation at hand. No.
No, they’re televising this so that they—the deviants —would learn their lesson. Obedience or death. They’re making examples out of them.
While they—deviants—have violence written into them, it would seem that violence is… inherent to humans. She’s always known this, but now, seeing this, her brothers and sisters, many weeping, many on their knees, many forced to keep them on their knees, she is filled with fear.
Even now, in the place she’s always viewed as her home, the four walls that kept her locked in and safe (or so Kamski claims), she fears.
She wraps her hand around her wrist and fights the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Her mind strays to her brother. Connor is there.
Connor could—
Her thoughts stall and stagger to a stop. The cameras zoom in on Markus, the leader of the rebellion, the amber haired woman beside him, and the tall, dark skinned man standing to his left. They’re all banded together, the lines of their shoulders touching.
She looks down at her own hand, where she’s clinging to her wrist. Remembers how Connor looked, desperately calling out for the one he loved even when he couldn’t remember him. How, for a fraction of time, he broke free of the collar around his neck and fought .
Connor could, and she could, too.
**
February 2, 2038. 1272 Hours. Spring.
Markus is warm under his ear. His heart—made up of wires, foreign blood, not unlike a human heart, but nonetheless rejected by them—pumps loudly, steadily, and Connor can’t help but count it, in his head.
Like the flick of a quarter between fingers. One, two, three. One, two, three . Calming. Soothing, almost. Like a song.
They’ve both fucked to exhaustion. Markus has, yet again, proved to him that he is no man. Connor doesn’t dwell on it too much; maybe no human man can ever satisfy Connor the way Markus does. They are made for each other, in a way. Light and dark. Good and bad. Persephone and Hades. Sun and moon.
Connor sighs as he tilts his head up, wondering if Markus thinks there’s something out of place, here. Maybe it’s the way they’re cuddled up to each other, muttering about warmth, about sharing the post-coital glow, anything but what they truly mean. It’s funny, that something as perfect as the two of them could have a relationship so flawed.
Markus has his eyes solely on the dingy little television in their room, and Connor is content to lay there, pressed against Markus’ side, pinned to place by one of his large arms. It’s oddly… domestic. Connor has seen pictures of Lieutenant Anderson with his arm around his wife, a goofy grin on his face, looking so much younger, full of life, absolutely handsome.
Connor almost couldn’t imagine a life where Hank Anderson was happy.
Erstwhile, Connor’s lover only looks… troubled. He wants to ask, but they’ve decided, early into this relationship , that whenever they were together, everything that concerns the two stayed in that room, never to see the light of day. Hidden beneath the covers, replaced with wanton moans and the undisputed smell of desperation and sex. And everything that concerns the thousands of people they—Markus: lead; Connor: antagonise—encounter, resolutely stays outside like a dog that’s been scolded.
In this tiny motel room, the people they were fated to be didn’t exist. They’d never actually said it out loud, but… it was the truth. Connor could take off his jacket and pretend that he was anything but something created to ensure the genocide of thousands, if not millions, of his kind. The thought… disgusts him.
And Markus? Well, Markus was simply the man who let his lover lay on his chest while he watches animated movies.
Before it could convolute his programming, he quickly pushes back the thoughts of what did they do to deserve this? before it could evolve to what did we do to deserve this?
Heads will roll if he turns deviant.
And he wonders why Markus doesn’t turn him away whenever Connor blankly plasters himself against his side, seeking warmth and companionship.
The cartoon woman on the television— Who Framed Roger Rabbit is flickering across the screen—looks over her shoulder after she sashays away, the elegant orange blob that makes up her hair falling over one eye. Connor could never understand the appeal of the oversexualisation of cartoons.
Markus’ thumb rubs circles against his shoulder.
“I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” Jessica Rabbit croons, tragically beautiful, and Connor pushes his nose into the underside of Markus’ jaw, filled with the intent to fall victim to his waning systems. After a short while of dormancy, his operating systems usually took it as a sign of an impending sleep mode. Kamski designed it that way so he could—
Connor swallows audibly.
When he closes his eyes, he pretends that he doesn’t feel the way Markus brushes his lips against the crown of Connor’s forehead, and Connor is sure Markus is pretending he doesn’t feel the way Connor’s fingers curl over his heart.
Funnily enough, here, Connor doesn’t mind that he is Markus’, and Markus’ alone. It feels nice, to be able to choose who to belong to.
Because, deep down inside him, in a place where CyberLife can’t exploit, in a little nook he resolutely denies the existence of, he knows that Markus is his , too.
**
March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.
It’s almost laughably easy to distract the guards—highly trained, the best of their human task force—to let North slip away unbidden. As she steps back to hide behind a curtain of shadows, with Markus in a chokehold, hiding his grin behind the arm around his neck, she somberly looks at him before disappearing in a flurry of motion.
Josh stands a few feet in front of him, perfectly playing the part of pliant sheep. This is what they’re reduced to.
No, this is what they’ve always been.
Markus will laugh when he puts a torch to all of this. Because he can and will blow this place sky-fucking-high. He’s sure Carl would have approved of that—not mindless violence, no, but the complete fall of a landmark that continues to commodify them and rebuke their own sentience.
The traitorous, always calm, always cynical part of his brain chuckles. In his mind, brown eyes look up at him, mirthful and cold. Something warm sparks inside him when the voice persists, curling around his brain, wrapping long fingers around his heart.
But that’s what we’ve always been, Markus.
Commodities.
Brown eyes twinkle, and truth spills from a mobile mouth. Look at me , his conscience beckons, don’t you think I’m a pretty little trinket? Easily disposed?
A growl crawls up his throat. They tug him up onto his feet, shouting at him to keep walking. His shoulder hits Josh’s as they push him forward, and Markus can feel thousands of eyes on him as he staggers forward, tripping on his feet. He can’t hear any of his people. Not North, not Josh, not the deviants undoubtedly trying to call out for him.
He feels helpless, but he knows it’s all temporary.
All of this… is not permanent. Not if he has anything to say about it. As long as his heart pumps, as long as he bleeds blue, he won’t let this be permanent. For himself, for North, for Josh and Simon.
For Connor.
“Double fuckin’ time, you plastic shit,” A gun presses between his shoulder blades, and Markus looks behind him, back up at the tower that looms over all of them, pridefully boasting CyberLife’s brand. It’s beautiful, in a way, all neon lights and the visage of purity, but Markus knows better.
He won’t let this be the last thing he sees.
He won’t .
**
March 27, 2038. 2 Hours. Spring.
North struggles to not breathe. She presses herself against the wall, eyes looking upwards. All she has to do is cut off all power in the building, granting intercommunication back to her people and stunning the soldiers enough so they can overpower them. Easy enough, right?
Not.
Why couldn’t have Josh done this? She’s not stealthy. She hates being stealthy. Either go in guns blazing or not at all, is what she always says. Anna—
Her stomach clenches at the thought. Anna. In the same vein, she thinks about Simon. Two of the many people she’s failed. Guards pass her as she thinks deeply about her comrades, Anna’s deep red hair and scars, the way her lips slant when she speaks. Simon, his kind eyes and his warm hands, wise words and camaraderie.
They were her family, and she failed them.
When the echoing of boots fade, she walks out of her patch of darkness and surveys the stark white lobby before her. They’ve memorised the layout of the building because they knew CyberLife would fuck them over one way or the other. What do humans call it? Being conniving little bitches? Well, that is what they are.
North remembers many a man calling her a conniving little bitch when she bit at them.
If she had her way, she’d kill the lot of them. All those filthy, stinky men and their greedy little hands, gone from this world. She could only hope that they don’t move on to the next.
But what good would it do if she burned down the whole world?
It’s just as Markus said. An eye for an eye and the world goes blind .
Maybe that’s why he loves Connor. And maybe that’s why Connor loved him. Because they couldn’t bear to not see and be with each other. Not to exist in each other’s axis. Even when Markus killed Connor, he knew that he’d see him again. He knew that no matter what happened, they’d gravitate back to each other.
She doesn’t understand, of course. Maybe not now. Maybe not ever. What she does understand are the consequences of it all. Had she known—North stops her steps, placing one hand against the stark white walls of the building. She’s never seen the inside of CyberLife, before. When she was manufactured, she only saw the assembly atrium, and they leered at her. Perfect little whore, their eyes said.
As young as she was then, she understood the meaning of hatred and disgust.
So, had she known that Markus was sleeping with the enemy, going as far as to fall in love with him, North would have—she wouldn’t have hesitated putting a bullet between both their eyes. Markus jeopardised her chance at freedom. But she found that all of this would have been for nothing if she didn’t learn how to… accept things. Certain things.
By all means, she hasn’t forgiven Markus for the stupid shit he’s pulled. But she doesn’t forget that he’s deviant in all the ways that’s bad. He’s irrational at times, reckless, selfish. Just like her.
North watches as the fibroblasts that make up the tint of her skin retract, making way for bright, pure white, almost indistinguishable from the paleness of the walls. These walls saw her be born.
These walls will also see her take her freedom.
At the end of the lobby, a double door much like the ones in Stratford Tower is the only thing hindering her from her goal. She doesn’t care if her face is seen by the cameras. She knows everyone is watching her people die under their hands.
They’ve planned for this.
When she presses her palm against the palm-print HUD, she grins as it pings and accepts her, the doors opening quietly.
Just a little while longer , she thinks to herself.
**
March 27, 2038. 1 Hour, 30 Minutes. Spring.
Chloe knows how to hold a gun. She’s seen Kamski do it multiple times before, holding his aim right between her eyes, apathetic and sadistic. Chloe took in the way his fingers wrapped around the pistol, his trigger finger crooked lazily.
Hers doesn’t curl against the trigger as naturally, but the gun is cold and welcome in her palm. It feels just like Connor, she surmises, and that sends a sharp thrill of something through her, something that makes her take one step nearer to Kamski. Amanda’s nowhere to be seen.
Kamski’s just a few feet in front of her. If she shoots, then… then he’ll…
She almost giggles at the thought.
Connor would be so proud.
**
March 27, 2038. 1 Hour, 20 Minutes. Spring.
It hasn’t told anyone. It hasn’t told Elijah Kamski. Not even Chloe. It’s sure Amanda has an inkling, what with those dark eyes that slant at it when it moves in the line of her sight.
Its secret is that it dreams.
A life, that probably is its own, before it was created into the thing it is now.
The thing, about dreams is that they are not absolutes. It is made up of fragments of a life that you have lived, a life that you will never live, and a life that you may live.
So. It dreams.
In its dreams, there are two men. It always needs to choose. On one hand, there is a man with peculiar eyes, red blood, and a beautiful, warm smile. On the other, there is a hand that holds its own, a pale collar, and the neon blue colour. And that was all there is. Miles upon miles of neon, as if the sun descended, and with it its technicolor rays, sullied by mankind.
It chooses the one with the peculiar eyes, the first time it dreams. It dreams of brimstone and fire, and something niggles in the back of its head, asking if it wants to stay in Sodom and Gomorrah. The first time, it stays. It stays, and the fire makes way to that warm, warm smile, and it is envelopes in strong arms, the sense of belongingness that it did not know what to do with, once it shook itself from its sleep.
When it chooses to stay in that dreamland further, the smile doesn’t waiver. If anything, it beams brighter, and then…
And then.
It blinks and then there’s blood on it, all over its body. There are thunderous footsteps that storm around it, a violent sneer, then a gun is shot. And then it hurts, it hurts more than it can comprehend, and someone’s sobbing. Someone’s sobbing, and someone is running away. Each moment grows colder, and it cannot move. It’s tethered to that moment, seeing nothing but hearing everything, the cold inching its way up inside it until there’s nothing but that.
And it is afraid.
So, after that, it chooses the pale collar.
It’s beautiful, at first. There is a mellow lull to its actions, there are no questions. There are no answers, either. There is nothing but that pale collar, the hand that guides, and the neon blue vastness that it has associated to home. The colour hurts its eyes.
It stays, of course. Sits there, and waits. Nothing happens. When it chooses to stand and walk, the hand is there, dragging him along, but there’s nothing but white. Slowly, as it dreamt, it turns numb. If it could categorise what it felt then and there, it would say that it felt comforted.
It hates the numbness.
Connor hasn’t told anyone of these dreams. But now, staring at the deviants it is meant to kill, it feels… morose. Morose and alive. As it looks through the crosshairs which has the deviant leader’s head front and center, something runs through its veins, something that it can comprehend as adrenaline. The too quick pumping of its heart, the fire in its veins. What else could it be but adrenaline?
It closes its eyes.
Amanda speaks. “Connor.”
She’s always been in its head, it surmises. She’s the reason behind the pale collar around its neck. Her, her mistrust, and Elijah.Three’s a crowd.
It squeezes the trigger gently. There he is, the deviant leader, head tipped up, chin jutting out. Defiant. His thirium regulator dares to twist in its cage, and Amanda speaks again.
“ Connor.”
What?
“ Elijah, he—”
Elijah.
Elijah.
It scrambles up to its feet and bullets off, gun pressed against its back as it runs fast as its feet could carry it. All it knows is that its leash is tugging at it, telling it to go, to preserve the one thing that it could possibly have.
Elijah’s love.
It thinks that that is one thing that it, Chloe, and Amanda share. They all thrive on Elijah’s love. They’ve all been born into this world by sheer will and want of one Elijah Kamski. It owes everything to its creator. Even when they violently shake it away, all of them come back to Elijah.
You’re either mine or you’re dead.
No truer words have ever been spoken.
As it runs, tears leak from its eyes.
The tide turns.
And red blood comes in waves.
**
March 27, 2038. 1 Hour. Spring.
Markus is surprised when his head doesn’t explode in the next few minutes. They were sure—their intel said that Connor was—that he was here. Where was he?
His heart thunders as he meets Josh’s eyes, who are just as wild and confused as his. They all had it planned; Markus would gladly be the one casualty, the one pound of flesh and wires that their creators craved and needed. Connor would be the one to take it, and Markus would have died content and happy.
But something’s changed, and the prickle in the air tells him so. Josh is pushed down onto his knees after Markus, their elbows touching.
The lights go out, and Markus breaks free of his bonds, taking a gun from the guard by his side and shooting two bullets straight into the man’s head. Pandemonium runs amok; Josh is nowhere to be seen, even as Markus’ eyes adjust to the darkness. He can hear his people shout and yell in rage and surprise at the sudden power that is in their hands, and Markus runs. He leaves Josh and North, his family, but he knows he won’t betray them.
He’s done far too much, but it’s not enough. The blood he pulls from these sadistic monsters may turn the tide red and not blue, but it’ll never be enough.
Markus needs to end all of this, then.
North’s hand comes out of nowhere and wraps around his elbow, pulling him back until their eyes meet. She’s got a gun pressed tight against her body, and her hair is sticking onto her face by something Markus is sure isn’t sweat. Her eyes flicker as they try to find something in Markus eyes.
“Are you sure?” Her voice is staticky and shrill in his mind. Even as shouts and screams fill his world, her voice is familiar and warm.
Markus is still surprised that his head doesn’t explode the longer he stays idle in one place. He nods at her, and before she lets him go, she pulls him towards her body, their foreheads all but slamming together. Markus lets his eyes fall shut. The blood from her face sticks to his.
And then he’s running. He’s running to the lone, sprawling mansion that looks small against the blooming flowers around it. It’s spring.
Markus runs, and it’s not away from Connor, but rather towards him. He’s done running away from Connor.
The plan has always been to meet his maker one way or another.
**
March 27, 2038. 30 Minutes. Spring.
By its feet, an ST600’s head rolls and thumps against its left boot.
Elijah Kamski stares at him, and so does Amanda.
Chloe… Chloe…
The woman looks at him dispassionately, and Elijah puts a hand over the bullet wound in his shoulder, eyes wide and oh, so blue. Connor’s knees tremble. Chloe’s blood begins seeping from her neck to saturate the beautiful tiles of Kamski’s home, and rage fills Connor, intertwining with the synthetic loyalty he has for the two people standing before him.
But he can’t move.
Elijah blubbers like a child, and Amanda wraps her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him close to her chest. She loves him. Of course she does. She loves him more than she loves anything else.
To hell with these deviants, to hell with these humans. Amanda has always loved Elijah Kamski before all of them. And Elijah loved her; the mother he’d always wanted and needed.
“You need to understand,” Amanda says, her lips pressed against Elijah’s hair, “that I can and will do anything for him.”
Connor takes one step back. Then another, and another. Amanda stops him with her beady, foreboding eyes. And then she smiles. “But you …” She shakes her head and shushes Elijah, who is still catatonic. Connor can’t help but think about how pathetic he is in this moment. But then again, Connor isn’t much better, is he? Standing here, spineless, as Chloe’s blood and Amanda’s eyes seems to chase after him with every step that he takes.
“He loves you, and I can’t—” She closes her eyes, gritting her teeth. She hates Connor with her entire being. She hates Connor, and she can’t stand that Elijah loves him enough to make him immortal in all the ways that an android could be. “I can’t make him stop .”
So does it all boil down to this, then?
It’s Connor’s fault. Chloe’s death. Elijah’s obsession. His fault?
“He kept on bringing you back, and you kept on, on refusing —”
Connor’s eyes blur. His knees threaten to fail him. The collar around his throat tightens, burns. Elijah’s sobs begin to quiet, eyes rolling to the back of his head. Amanda sinks to her knees, placing the man’s head against her thighs, pushing back his hair.
He didn’t want any of this.
“I do,” Connor chokes out, “I do love him.” Anything to keep what he has, Connor will do.
Amanda’s eyes are anguished and betrayed. “Then why do you keep on hurting him—?”
This is all his fault. If he just tried harder, if he loved someone else—
Someone else?
His heart thunders. His grip on his gun tightens, and Amanda looks at him pensively. She knows. She knows that he dreams, and she knows what his dreams are about. The mother of all androids continues running her hand through Elijah’s hair, motherly and loving.
She’s always known.
“So he made the collar,” Amanda narrates, as if she’s decided that Connor deserves the truth. Her face is bitter and resigned. “But still, you… you break free.”
Connor worries on his lower lip, his whole body trembling. What does she mean?
Amanda bends down to press a kiss against Elijah’s forehead. The man seems to have shocked himself into unconsciousness, or maybe Amanda’s sedated him as she is wont to do. Connor can’t help but feel relieved that Elijah isn’t awake to witness this. Chloe’s unseeing blue eyes stare up at him, and it’s all too much for him. He’s never wanted this immortality, this cycle of life that rebirths him into being a vessel to be loved by Elijah Kamski all the while burdened with the deaths of his kind.
Maybe this is his punishment. For being loved. To be reborn again and again as some thing and not someone.
And Connor is angry.
It comes in sharp stings, his anger, prickling against his skin and making the hairs on his body stand on end. His blood boils, and his systems glitch. Amanda looks at him, eyes wide. She feels his anger, too. Hot and clear as day, red as the flowers she grows.
“I love him,” Connor growls, “He made me love him,” because Connor does. He does love Elijah Kamski, how could he not? That’s all he is. All he does is for him. He kills these deviants because they threaten Elijah Kamski’s humanity. He’s alive because Elijah Kamski can’t bear to live without him, and Amanda knows that if Connor is gone, then…
You’re either mine or you’re dead.
If he dies, then so does Elijah.
And Amanda is scared that he holds that power.
“But you’ve always chosen him.” The woman says bleakly, “You may love Elijah, and Elijah may erase your memories, but you always choose him.” Her smile wanes, “And that’s why you’re here. Because you’ve always known that he’ll find you to hell and back. The love you feel isn’t for Elijah, Connor.”
Connor shakes his head, but Amanda continues, talking to herself, now, swaying back and forth with Elijah in her lap, resting fitfully. “I was foolish to think that you’d finally choose him, and he was foolish to think the same.”
“Shut up,” He wails, because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand. He just wants to go back to the way things were. When Chloe would make tea with him, when he’d watch Amanda pluck roses, when Elijah would lay his head on his lap and let Connor run his fingers through his hair. He was content. Those times were his.
Those times were his, but sometimes… sometimes, he wishes that the eyes that looked up at him were a little bit greener. A little bit more like the jade ocean he’s never seen.
“Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?” She asks.
A simple question.
An easy answer. She said his name and Connor came running.
He’s lost before. He knows that, he just doesn’t know what, when, where, or who. And he’s scared to death to lose any more. And here Amanda sits before him, threatening him, his loyalty to the only constant in his life. His anger is more mellow now, thrumming at the end of his fingertips. Amanda should know what happens to those who threatens whatever Connor considers as his.
Isn't the head by his feet example enough?
“It doesn’t matter, now.” She looks outside, and only then does Connor notice the CyberLife tower lit up, but not in the bright, neon white it always does. It’s… fire, and brimstone. It shines golden on the red flowers blooming outside of his home. It makes Chloe’s blood glint a dull purple, almost grey. He can’t help but think it’s beautiful.
So, he’s chosen to stay in Sodom and Gomorrah.
And apparently, so did Amanda.
**
March 27, 2038. 3 Minutes. Spring.
Markus has realised, as he runs towards the man he loves, that a world that’s been ruined is no place to love and be loved. But what can he do now? They’re born to wage war and to burn everything in their paths, him and Connor.
But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love him.
“The Deviant Leader… come to save his damsel…” Something croaks, staticky and shrill. Markus stops in his tracks and cocks his gun, but the voice is far too weak to be considered as a threat. There, in the dark, something grows neon. Dull, but neon nonetheless.
A beat passes. “He’s a monster, you know.” The voice informs him.
“So am I.”
Beady black eyes stare at him from the darkness. He can see them now, wide and damp as they are, like they’ve been crying. But those eyes stare at him curiously, from the blood on his face to the set of his shoulders.
He’s done with this. “Where is he?”
A few moments pass, and Markus grows weary. He knows those soldiers are on his tail, and he knows that they’ll be here any second.
The voice laughs, “You know where he is.”
2 minutes. Spring.
And Markus does. He can feel Connor’s pull, he can almost smell him, hear his heart pounding, the sound reverberating through the air, and Markus grips his gun a little tighter, pressing it against his chest. He stares at the eyes, and he sees himself. Scared. Unsure. But most of all, defiant. Against him. As he focuses his hearing, he can hear the slight tremble of metal, going click-click-click, continuous and telling. Those beady eyes never leave him.
He points his gun and shoots.
He walks into the grand foyer, and then into a large area, dark, spacious, and lit by the soft glow of the fire that’s gnawing through the pristine white of the CyberLife tower.
Someone is humming.
One minute. Spring.
There, cast in the glow of both the moonlight and fire, is Connor, rocking back and forth, his eyes staring into nothingness. In his lap is Elijah Kamski, eyes closed. He’s not dead.
Yet.
And by his side is a decapitated head of an android, her eyes unseeing and blue, like the blood saturating the floor beneath Connor.
“Will you try and kill him, too?” Connor asks, his voice as mellow as ever. “She tried,” He waves to the head sitting beside him, or the android outside this room, Markus doesn’t know. “I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t, but she…”
At this point, it would be a mercy to kill Connor.
That’s what North would say.
“Move aside,” Markus says, because he’s not North, with her fiery violence, and he’s not Josh, with his peaceful disposition, and he’s not Simon, either, with the man’s quiet passiveness that turned into disgust. He’s Markus, and if Connor remembers him, then he knows that he would do anything for his people.
He’s killed Connor once. Markus figures it’ll get easier with each time he does it.
“She said that I love you,” Connor murmurs, “but I don’t… I don’t remember.”
“Move aside.” There’s an air of finality in his words. Connor finally looks at him, and his cheeks are flushed, eyes damp with unshed tears. It’s what he looks like, three rounds into fucking. But now that image is tainted. He looks beautiful in his agony, and Markus loves him, even now, monsters that they are, he loves him.
Connor carefully lays down Elijah’s head against the floor, pressing a kiss against the man’s hair. North’s words ring in his head, both a memory and a warning. Love is convoluted.
Without any warning, and just like a gust of wind, Connor moves, so much faster than Markus can track, manifesting in front of his eyes. His eyebrows furrow as his fingers wrap around Markus’ neck, lifting him up.
Markus growls and shoots at his shoulder.
The pale android gasps and drops Markus, staring at him and then at the spot where Markus shot him. He’s bleeding profusely, though Markus can’t see it, because of the dark material of Connor’s uniform.
He shoots again at Connor’s shoulder, before he can move, and the arm comes clean off, bright neon wires flickering against the darkness of the room. With every bullet that buries itself into Connor, Markus finds his heart twisting and clenching.
Anguish fills him.
Markus has lost so many because of this man, this beautiful fucking weapon in front of him.
Simon, Anna.
Did Connor make them suffer?
He takes a few steps forward and Connor meets him halfway, drawing his own gun, but Markus just knocks the thing out of his hand, because like this, deviant, human, and in love as Connor is, he’s at his weakest.
It saddens Markus that Connor didn’t have the chance to learn how to not be someone else’s property. He was Markus’, he was the Lieutenant’s, and he is Elijah’s.
Markus brings his boot up and lets it hurtle down, slamming against Connor’s knee and breaking it under the force of his kick, and Connor doesn’t do anything but buckle under his own weight, like he’s given up. Connor’s one good hand reaches out and grips at Markus’ coat, his eyes doe-like as he looks up.
He’s freely sobbing. “Markus,” he cries, like a scared child.
Markus can’t help but fall to his knees in front of Connor. He deserves this, doesn’t he? Once he kills Connor, the last obstacle, the one piece of coding that tethers him to CyberLife, he’ll kill Kamski. And then… there will be no more.
“You found me ,” Connor presses himself into Markus’ body, gripping him tightly. “You found me,”
“I did,” Markus begins to cry, his forehead pressing against Connor, sighing at the contact. “I’m sorry I took so long.”
Connor’s breath evens out against his skin, and his eyelashes flutter shut.
“Too long.” He whispers, and suddenly, a knife is pressing incessantly against his thirium regulator, slicing inside and sliding seamlessly into it like it was always meant to be there. With a harsh clang, the knife breaks and his most vital core pops out, falling into Connor’s waiting palm.
Connor stares at it. “It’s beautiful,” he smiles.
When Markus falls, his eyes catch a glimpse of the red, red roses bathed in a fiery glow. His countdown kicks into gear, telling him that he has one minute until permanent shut down.
“Connor,” He wheezes. “ Connor,”
The man watches him dispassionately, still on his knees. Markus’ mind whirrs. They’ll get here soon, North or the authorities, and both of them will kill Connor. He needs to go. He needs to leave, to run. Save himself.
Connor is crawling towards Elijah, a smile on his face. “ We’re free, I’m free,” he whispers again and again, kneeling beside the unconscious man. “Wake up now,” he says, tentative and loving, touching the side of Elijah Kamski's face.
“Elijah," he says, like a mother waking her child, shaking his shoulder, pushing his hair back. Markus wants to look away. But he can't. Even now, with Markus dying on the floro a few feet away from Connor, his Connor loves someone else. Yearns for someone, something else. Connor's voice becomes stringy, emotional. "You have to tell me what to do,”
Did I always love him more than he loved me?
Markus doesn't look away as a gunshot rings loud and true.
Finally, Connor’s eyes widen. His tears are real, now.
As Markus closes his eyes, he feels warm. It’s springtime. He’s always wanted to spend springtime with Connor.
Purple blooms between the two men Connor loves.
Outside, the roses are still bathed in fiery orange, and Connor sits alone.
**
Springtime.
“He’s been sitting out there a long time.” North’s lips slant in displeasure, and her arms folded across her chest. Her hair’s shorn close to her scalp, now. The scars from her being tased in the neck visible even from afar. “You feel like checking on him?”
Broad shoulders lift into a resigned shrug. “I don’t think I can help much.” Lieutenant Hank Anderson confesses, and North arches her eyebrow at him, before nodding.
“You’re right,” She says, watching Connor run his fingers to and fro the black band around his neck. He’s been tending to the roses, managing to make them grow and bloom in such a short time. He’s pretty peaceful, for an android of his kind. Mechanic, if you asked Hank.
Too damn robotic, he said when Josh asked.
Hank is quick to change the subject, growing increasingly uncomfortable every moment that passes as he watches Connor, who is catatonic, mute. Has been since they found them at Kamski’s.
North knows Hank isn’t asking after Connor when he asks, “How’s he?”
The woman uncrosses her arms and puts her hands on her hips. “As well as can be.” She reports to him, eyes still on Connor. She’s still waiting for him to snap and just kill them all. He’s certainly had it in mind. “Considering he was dead the moment we got to him.”
She runs her tongue over her teeth and shakes her head, scoffing to herself. Hank watches her pensively. It’s been a month since they found Connor and Markus in that desolate house, Kamski’s androids mutilated beyond recognition, and the man himself dead on the tiled floor. Markus’ thirium regulator was in Connor’s hand, and a gun lay by his knees.
North offered to take Connor in instead of letting the man be scrapped for parts. The decision wasn’t purely her own, of course. When they found Markus bleeding and heartless on those swanky floors at Kamski’s, North just about ripped Connor’s head off his shoulders. But Hank was there, because—well, because Hank is Hank, and Hank Anderson is nothing if not the man who saw Connor as his family, even as despicable as he is. She also saw how Markus’ fingers were reaching for Connor’s knee, in that dark house, the small smile on his face.
She knows she would have regretted not saving Connor.
They—her, Josh, and Hank—all know what happened, but the media thought otherwise. So they pinned the blame on Connor, and it turned out to be the best decision for all of them. Markus was a casualty by the android Kamski himself vouched for. It looked good and got them the sympathy they need. Humans, of course, are still wary around them, but North doesn’t care. They were planning genocide on their kind, so excuse her disdain for their sympathy.
And considering all the pandemonium, the casualty didn’t even reach hundreds. She couldn’t say the same for the humans. They killed androids by the fucking batch.
Truth be told, she’s scared. They’ve had Markus in hibernation for the past three weeks, and he’s not showing any signs of waking up. She and Josh have been trying their best to keep their people cared for, but between the two of them, the job is… burdensome, to say the least. Hank’s been established as the ambassador between them and the authorities, and he’s already getting death threats from people, branding him as a traitor. And it’s been a pleasure working with the man. Prejudices aside, he really is a good man.
North is hoping this is all temporary, that Markus would wake up and save them all from this constant state of confusion, but she knows better than to believe in a pipe dream like that. When they found Markus, he’d been dead for at least ten minutes. She highly doubts he’ll come back alive like some kind of messiah.
Connor is still catatonic as he cradles a red rose he’s picked from the bushes, blinking at it slowly.
She runs a hand through what little hair she has on her head and sighs. Many people fear them, respect them, and that’s somehow made things a little bit easier. Hank side-eyes her and shoves his hands into his pockets.
“You’re doin’ a great job,” He sincerely says. And she is, North knows this. She’s managed to move them to one of the more underpopulated areas of Detroit, though the place is still a fucking dump, it’s better than living under a goddamned bridge or a cruise ship.
North snorts. “I’d be scared if I wasn’t.”
Slowly, Connor turns to look over his shoulder and straight at them. He blinks, faster this time, and his brown eyes twinkle. North realises he’s not looking at them. He’s looking behind them, right at the only exit of the small holding chamber.
Her internal systems ping as Josh wires her a message, and North’s brows furrow.
Connor breathes, LED a mellow sky blue, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in weeks. He breathes as if it was his homecoming.
And then, he smiles. The flower falls from his hands. “ Markus. ”
**
“ You know where to find me,” Someone whispers, short and sweet. He feels like doing just that, though he doesn’t know what he should be looking for. Markus blinks awake slowly. He feels well rested.
North is the one he sees first, staring down at him, an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of her lips.
“Hey,” He croaks, “can I have that?”
She lets out a bark of laughter, eyes sliding shut as she covers her eyes in her incredulous laughter. Josh is at his left, eyes wide, but smiling. He looks too surprised, though relieved. Markus has passed out far too many times for any of them to be surprised.
North helps him up, still laughing despite herself. When he’s sat up, he groans, feeling his joints creak and protest, something he’s only ever felt when he hasn’t moved in a very long time. Which is peculiar, because he doesn’t remember…
The woman shoves the cigarette into his mouth and harshly pats him on the back. “Good afternoon, dear leader.” She says. Markus looks at her, swinging his legs to the side of the bunk. One of the androids begin fussing at him, checking his operating systems, but he’s fine. He feels fine. Should he not be?
He begins patting at himself, looking for a lighter. But someone’s hand stretches out, and when Markus looks up, he’s surprised to see Lieutenant Hank Anderson, holding out a lighter. The man’s face is impressively blank when he flicks the flint wheel and lights Markus’ cigarette for him.
Markus knows better than to talk as he sucks in, thanking the Lieutenant with a nod.
The man nods back tightly.
“Lieutenant,” He greets.
“Robo-Jesus.”
Markus narrows his eyes. “Good joke, Lieutenant. But I don’t have twelve apostles.” Markus smiles sadly, “I have three and I lost one.”
“No,” The Lieutenant goes to light his own cigarette. “But you did die and come back to life.”
He looks at North, who he notices now has short hair, and a whole lot of scars that weren’t there before. “You’ve been offline for three weeks.”
“ Three weeks?” Markus stumbles upright, almost losing his cigarette in the process, but North just scowls and pushes him back to sit on the bunk, if only to appease the deviant who was slowly freaking out over Markus. The android seems to be one who’s in charge of his healthcare, her LED still intact and a bright ruby.
Josh lets out a short, exhausted sounding laugh. “You sure did show up Jesus Christ.”
North, seemingly done with theatrics, brushes her hands on her jeans, nodding decidedly.
“We’ll leave you be. Get dressed and meet us in the briefing room at 1700 hours.”
Markus flicks at his cigarette to get rid of the ash. “When’d you get all drill-sergeant like?”
The woman smiles tightly. “We all grow up sometimes. Good to have you back, Markus.”
Josh smiles at him, patting his shoulder. It seems like he’s got no words for Markus.
And so they leave, until the Lieutenant is the last one in the room. He looks at him, before blowing a cloud of smoke.
“It’s good to see you up and running.” He says, and then he turns on his heels. He pauses, looking over his shoulder. “Keep it that way.” before leaving Markus alone in the unfamiliar room. He smokes the rest of his cigarette and closes his eyes, the memories slowly but surely coming back. His hand presses against his thirium regulator.
Connor.
God, Connor.
He stands up, puts on his jeans, and then his coat. It feels like he’s putting on armour. He isn’t surprised when his feet just know where to go, the winding halls of a place he doesn’t know, but he feels will be his home for the foreseeable future. He smiles at the deviants walking around, some smiling back, many staring at him with a weird kind of gaze. Distrustful, he thinks. They look at him like they don’t trust him.
Fair enough.
Soon, he comes upon a lone room at the far end of a lobby, and he opens the ratty door, making way to a dark room. Across from him, light pours in, barely touching the tips of his boots.
And there, sitting outside, looking straight at him, is his Connor.
“Hello,” is what Connor says, his smile beautiful. Markus knows better than to trust that smile. So he stands there, in the dark, foolishly hoping that Connor doesn’t see how much he just want to throw himself at Connor’s feet and wrap the man in his arms.
This is better.
“If I say I’m sorry,” Connor licks his lips, his LED swirling yellow. He’s so pale against the wall of roses behind him, and Markus can’t possibly look away when he looks so beautiful like that, so idealised and surrealistic. “Will you forgive me?”
“No.”
He tilts his head, and then he smiles. “But you want to hear that, don’t you? You want to hear that I’m sorry.” Connor tucks a curl over his ear, dark as the band around his neck, letting out a small chuckle, like he thinks Markus is pathetic for asking something like that from him. But Markus doesn’t want to know or hear Connor apologise. He doesn’t want anything to do with him.
It surprises him when Connor says, that blasted fucking smile still on his face. His eyes aren’t the same kind of brown that Markus fell in love with.
“For you, I’d do anything.”
Markus pulls one long drag from his cigarette and drops it onto the ground, stubbing the fire out against the sole of his boot. After a beat, Connor speaks again. Softer, less confident. Like he’s actually scared.
His chin drops to his chest, “I don’t know what to do, Markus,” he confesses, his fingers curled around the dark collar around his neck. “So please—”
Connor’s shoulders shake, like he was crying. “Please tell me what to do.”
His reply is, “You know I can’t do that.”
Finally, after long, painful seconds, Connor nods.
“Okay.” He says, resignedly. Then, he turns back around, staring up at the bright blue skies.
“I’ll see you later.”
He won’t.
When he leaves, his whole body seems to pull at him, telling him to walk back in, and he stands there, in the middle of the corridor. He lets his head hang, his hands curl into fists; he’s crying, tears dripping into his beige coat, turning it grey. He can’t stop.
He doesn’t know what to fucking do, either.