Chapter Text
Connor and King fall in love at first sight.
They go visit the dog’s foster family on Sunday: Brad and Stefanie, who live in a house in Corktown with a wide-open backyard, fringed with firs like it’s a little Christmas tree farm. Markus and Brad watch from the back porch as Connor gambols in the snow with the dog, who’s not quite fully grown but no longer a puppy.
It’s a beautiful creature, the Malinois: all purposeful movements and boundless energy, its bright white teeth flashing in its dark face. It looks at Connor like he hung the moon, its dark eyes bright, and they play together with reckless abandon. Once King gets too eager and snags Connor’s wrist in his teeth; Markus winces, but Connor looks at his suddenly thirium-slick hand and starts laughing, like it’s endearing to be mauled.
“That’s so funny, I wouldn’t think he’d like an android this much,” Brad says. “I thought dogs might be wary of you guys, since you don’t smell, you know? Dogs are all about smells.”
To Markus’s finely tuned nose, Connor does have a smell. He smells like the laundry detergent they use, and the leather polish he uses to keep his holsters in perfect shape, and gunpowder from the time he spends down at the range, keeping his rifle skills in check.
But he agrees, “Yeah, it is funny.”
Connor is sitting in the snow now, laughing as King licks his face.
“He needs a lot of exercise,” Brad says. “A ton of training and mental stimulation.”
“Connor can definitely provide the mental stimulation,” Markus says.
Connor had spent all Saturday evening downloading dog training modules, dog training books, thousands of hours of video of protection training competitions and manuals on how to handle a Malinois.
“What about exercise? Where do you guys live?”
“An apartment downtown.”
“If you guys really want to get a dog of this caliber, you might think about moving to a house,” Brad says. “One with a decent yard.”
Markus considers this, and finds he actually likes the idea. It might be nice to get out of the city. He wanted to live in the downtown East Side to feel closer to his constituents, but city living is so isolated that he doesn’t even know their neighbors inside their apartment building, much less anyone on their block. He’s buddies with the guy who runs the deli at the end of the street, although he only goes in there to pick up food for Hank or Leo.
Connor is walking with King, now, making him heel at his side. “He’s so smart!” he shouts joyfully.
“You’re still bleeding,” Markus shouts back at him.
Brad laughs. “We really did want an officer to adopt him,” he says. “And I like you guys a lot. I mean, I have to talk to my wife, but we’ll move forward with you if you want him.”
“Hey, that’s awesome.” Markus reaches out to shake his hand. “I think I’d be sleeping on the couch if I said no.”
Brad grins. “You guys are quite the power couple, huh?”
“Are we?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, he’s the big hero right now, isn’t he? Taking down that dirty cop by himself? Stef and I were glued to the TV all night, we couldn’t believe it. That takes some serious stones, what he did.”
“Connor’s definitely got stones,” Markus says, smiling.
/
They say goodbye to Brad, who tells them he’ll talk to his wife and let them know later on in the week, then hop on the highway and start driving upstate toward Leo’s rehab center.
Markus watches the road as the car zooms along. On either side of them, the snowy landscape melts into the sky, which is thickly white with cloud cover and threatening.
“So... Brad wants to give us the dog,” he says.
“Really?” Connor says, looking over at him hopefully. “He told you that?”
“Yeah, but he said that we’re probably going to have to move to the suburbs if we take him, and I agree.”
Connor nods, looking disappointed. “You’re right,” he says. “I like our apartment, though.”
“I was thinking we could buy a house,” Markus suggests.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, why not? We have all this disposable income and nothing to do with it. If we had a house, we could remodel it, make it more android-oriented. I like our apartment too, but it’s Gulf War era human shit. Like, the kitchen is huge, and we barely use it. We could get a mini fridge to keep stuff for human guests, and turn the kitchen into a downstairs office, or something. I could have a room to paint in.”
“I like the idea of an android-friendly house,” Connor says.
“Yeah?” Markus glances over at him. “It’s up to you. You actually make more money than I do, right now.”
“What about the book deal you got last year?”
“I donated all of my advance, remember?”
“Get another book deal,” Connor suggests, “and keep it to cover the deposit, this time.”
Markus chuckles. “Okay.”
“This is very human of us,” Connor says, meeting Markus’s eyes with his dark ones. “I didn’t even have a home before. I just went back to an empty room at CyberLife every night.”
Markus reaches over and settles his hand on Connor’s thigh. “That wasn’t a room, Connor, I’ve seen your memories. That was a broom closet.”
“Yes, it was more of a closet.”
“It was like a pneumatic tube.”
“I was a machine, I didn’t mind,” he protests.
Markus smiles at him. “Hey, you have any thoughts on what to do about Jericho?”
“The insurance company is working with FBI to collect as much of the money back as they can, but I think they’ll just strip Grant and Chloe’s accounts. I wrote in my report that I wasn’t able to trace the funds, which is technically true, if not in the spirit of the truth.”
“I mean long-term,” Markus says. “Like, you’re saying if we get lucky, maybe they get to keep the fifty thousand they already got... that’s not that much, considering how much infrastructure North says they need. I want to create some kind of tax program, but I can’t figure out a way to get humans to agree to subsidize an android settlement any more than they already are.”
Connor considers this for a moment. “You should galvanize the rest of the androids,” he says. “You should have a big rally like you used to, and a fundraiser. Our people still hang on your every word, Markus, they all feel like they owe you something. You should capitalize on that.”
Markus nods. “You don’t think I’d be wasting goodwill? The Jericho androids are a fraction of our overall population.”
“No,” Connor says simply. “An extremely large majority of androids support Jericho’s existence, even if they don’t want to live there, and they like knowing it’s an option for them. You know that. And stop being modest, please. You’re still as influential as you ever were.”
“Yeah,” Markus says, and sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I think I’ve just been letting day-to-day politics get to me.”
Connor winks at him. “I’m your cheerleader.”
“My cheerleader, huh?”
Connor’s LED turns yellow for a brief moment, and then he starts clapping rhythmically. “Be, aggressive. B-E aggressive.”
Markus laughs.
“You may be good at football, you may be good at track, but when it comes to basketball, you better watch your back!” Connor’s brow knits. “That’s not a very good cheer, is it? It’s basically admitting that your opponent beats you in several other sports.”
“How many of these did you just download?”
“Two hundred. We’re the best, our team’s too cool, we’ve got the class to rock this school —“
Markus leans across the seats and pulls Connor in by the collar of his shirt, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his lips.
“You’re trying to shut me up,” Connor accuses in a low, soft voice.
“Uh-huh.”
/
Leo’s room is nice. He has an entire suite to himself, and it’s got a wide bay window overlooking the hydroponic greenhouses in the courtyard.
They drop off the plant they brought him, then follow him back downstairs through sunny yellow hallways with holographic posters on the walls about how to perform CPR and how to administer Narcan.
Down in the visitor’s room, there’s a nurse sitting in the corner reading a magazine, and a few families at tables visiting with patients. At one table next to the window is an older woman sitting across from a girl who’s probably her daughter, crying silently as she talks to her. Markus averts his eyes from them.
“So,” Leo says, once they’ve all sat down at a polished, Lemon Pledge-smelling wood table that has chess and checkerboards piled on the corner of it. He leans over and pulls a chess board to himself. “You guys had a busy week.”
Connor starts helping him set the pieces up.
“Oh, yeah,” Markus says with a chuckle.
Leo glances up at Connor. “I saw you on the news yesterday.”
Connor looks embarrassed. He had made a kind of disastrous appearance on Channel 16’s Saturday morning show, Chris and Katy In The Morning. He tried his absolute best, but police department PR isn’t really what he’s designed for. Plus, the anchors knew absolutely nothing about androids, and the generally upbeat tone of the show went completely at odds with everything they were asking him about.
Luckily, public support is extremely high for Connor right now. Detroit as a whole came to his defense and delighted in dunking on the anchors for their insensitivity; the interview quickly became a local meme. Markus saw a post this morning that had a shot of Connor grimacing with the caption, “When getting shot in the head is less painful than being interviewed by Chris and Katy.”
“Did you really confront that guy alone?” Leo says, looking as morbidly curious as everyone else has about the incident. “Just like, pow? Walked in and blew him away?”
“I was alone,” Connor confirms, and that’s all he says. He has an evasive look, like he doesn’t really want to talk about it.
Leo nods and moves a pawn forward, beginning their match. “Markus,” he says, “how’s your thing with the crime bill going?”
Markus rests his elbow on the table and his chin against his fist. “Not great,” he says.
“Nah?”
“Nah. I’m getting screwed.”
“How so?”
“I tried to put Lloyd on the spot, and it backfired. He turned it around on me, I have to find the money in the budget for the Tasers myself.”
“How much is it?” Leo says.
Connor moves his rook forward and glances up. “Checkmate.”
“The fuck,” Leo says, laughing. “I only made four moves!”
“They were all bad moves.”
“Alright, alright. Let’s start over, I just woke up.”
Let him win one, Markus says to Connor.
Connor side-eyes him and says, That’s condescending, he won’t like it.
He can’t possibly beat you. You can make millions of calculations a second.
He has human ingenuity.
So do you.
Alright, I’ll let him win one.
“It’s gonna be about a million dollars for Tasers and training just in Detroit,” Markus says. “And about six million for the whole state.”
Leo nods, eyeing the chess board. He looks up at Connor, who stares back at him impassively, then moves a pawn. “A million for Detroit? That’s honestly not that much… what if I just gave you the money?”
Markus doesn’t quite process this at first. “What?”
Leo flicks his gaze to Markus. “What if I just give you the money,” he repeats slowly, like Markus is hard of hearing. “Or give it to the police department, whatever.”
“Leo, you can’t just give away a million dollars, that’s crazy.”
“Is it? Do you even know how much Dad’s paintings have gone up in value since he died?”
“Yeah, I know they’ve appreciated, but…”
Leo moves a knight. “The last one I sold, how much do you think it went for?”
“Check,” Connor says.
Leo blinks at him. “Fucking… seriously?”
“You can get out of it,” Connor adds helpfully.
He stares at the board. “Uhh…”
“How much?” Markus interrupts. “Five hundred grand?”
Leo gestures upward with his thumb.
“Seven fifty?”
Leo shakes his head and gestures again.
“A million? Two million?”
“Try five,” Leo says, smiling wearily.
Markus is dumbstruck with disbelief for a moment. “Five? You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not. And I’m doing literally nothing with the money, besides paying for rehab... and drugs when I'm not in rehab,” he says, with a sort of guilty little laugh.
Markus does his best not to look pained.
“I mean, he left me the house and all his shit, what else do I need? I think, like, considering cops killed you, Dad would appreciate money going to making them a little less lethal. And considering that it was my fault, it’s probably the least I can do.”
Markus feels a rush of warm, familial affection toward him, and a little sadness, too. Carl has been dead for years, and Leo is still desperate to please him, desperate to cleanse himself of his guilt. “Thanks, man,” he says. "That would be incredible. Seriously, that's going to save lives."
Leo shrugs, seeming self-consciously pleased in the wake of Markus’s gratitude.
Connor moves a piece, then glances between them. “Checkmate,” he says apologetically.
Leo laughs. “Son of a bitch...”
APRIL 20, 2041
Markus claps his gloved hands against his jeans, shaking the snow off of them. “Are your cold sensors going off?”
Connor nods. He has his own hands stuffed into the pockets of his giant puffy parka. “Since we got out of the car.”
“It’s what, negative seven?”
“That’s what I’m getting.”
They’re standing at the edge of town, which is really just a cluster of about ten buildings with a dirt road winding through it. On their right, a snowy forest stretches up over the hills until they meet mountain, and on the right lies a glimmering snowy lake. It all reminds Markus of movies about the Wild West, except instead of saloons and general stores, it’s buildings for processing immigrants and housing biocomponents.
“You nervous?” Connor says.
“About what?”
“Seeing North again.”
“No,” Markus says honestly.
“Good, because I think I see them,” Connor says, pointing.
Markus turns and sees a big orange Sno-Cat bumping along in the snow that’s packed over the dirt road. It rolls to a stop a few feet from them, and North hops out, followed by a beaming Chloe.
“Hi!” Chloe says, and she darts through the snow to hug Connor, who accepts her with open arms and lifts her off her feet.
Markus turns to North, laughing. “I feel a little rejected,” he says.
North smiles at him, and it’s like the clouds parting — like they never fought in the first place. “They’re cute, though.”
“Yeah.”
Connor and Chloe separate and turn to them, looking happy.
“Are we giving them the big tour?” Chloe says.
“Yeah, definitely,” North says. “Let’s show Markus what all this money he brought in is paying for.”
After about a month of investigating, the FBI managed to put it together on their own that the ST200 Chloe had donated most of her share of the embezzled money to Jericho. They had no legal recourse for recovering the funds, so the state of Michigan just formally requested that Jericho pay restitution to Amtrust Insurance in the form of $25,000. Ordinarily, since the embezzled money had been spent months prior, trying to come up this with would bankrupted them. But since the legislature’s winter session ended, Markus and Simon have spent every free moment fundraising for Jericho. That’s why he’s here today, to dedicate the John GJ500 Memorial Medical Clinic: paid for by donations from androids across America (and a little from sympathetic humans, too).
Markus and North fall into step with each other up ahead, while Chloe and Connor walk a ways behind them, talking cheerfully to each other.
“That’s the shelter,” North says, pointing it out as they pass by. “We’ve added thirty beds so far this month. And that’s the fire station next to it…”
“It all looks great,” Markus says. The buildings are well-built, made of sturdy brick and nice to look at.
“Yeah,” North says, sounding proud. “We’ve added ten houses along the main road, too. And we’ve started bringing in a few Russian and Chinese androids.”
“I heard about that. What are they like?”
“Uh, the Russians are a little weird,” North says, and he laughs. “But they’re nice. Just not very chatty? And the Chinese are just like us, really. Actually, they do better out here because of how they’re constructed. Some of them are really interested in our blue blood, though, which is…”
“Suspicious.”
“Exactly. I have a guy here who used to work at DoD, and he’s checking out all of them, just in case we have some corporate espionage going on.” North tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “China claims they stopped android production, but they definitely haven’t. I’ve heard that directly from Chinese androids, that their factories are still open.”
“Huh,” Markus says, squinting against the bright sun. “That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not,” North says. “Maybe if you make it to Congress, you can do something about that.”
Markus laughs. “Eventually. In the meantime, I’ll talk to the president about it.”
North smiles at him, her dark eyes twinkling. “So how are you and Connor?”
“We’re really good,” Markus says. “We just closed escrow on our new house, so we started remodeling it.”
“How’s that going?”
“Connor’s painting everything really weird colors, I gave up on trying to stop him.”
North laughs.
“The house is great though, we’re doing a lot of cool things with it. What else... oh, we adopted a dog.”
Hank, who now lives five minutes away from them, is dogsitting King while they’re in Alaska. King and Sumo get along alright. King likes to race in circles around poor Sumo, barking his head off while Hank glares at Connor, who always says, “That’s his way of being friendly!”
Markus doesn’t mention their engagement, although she can probably put two and two together from the matching LED implants tattooed around their ring fingers, glowing eternally silver even when their synthetic skin is disabled.
“God, you’re so domesticated,” North says, almost like she can’t believe it.
“We can’t all be rugged frontiersmen.”
She smiles and nudges him with an elbow.
“I really am proud of you, by the way,” he adds. “You’ve done a great job here.”
North glances down, smiling wryly. They’re quiet for a moment as they crunch through the snow.
“That’s the church,” she says, pointing to her right.
Markus glances up. It’s a small wooden building with no outside markers of faith on it. A little sign out front says, FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.
The Old Testament. Carl was an atheist, but Markus came pre-installed with a deep knowledge of the world's religions, in case his owner had a change of heart while he was dying and wanted some theological comfort. “Is it non-denominational?” he says.
“Yeah. They come with all kinds of beliefs. Only a few are Christian or Jewish… usually androids who had nice owners, so they took on their beliefs. Some of them still talk about RA9.” Amusement creeps into her voice, and she adds, “You’ll hate this, but a few of them really do think you’re Jesus.”
Markus groans. “Tell me none of them are coming to my talk tonight.”
“Are you kidding? They’ll be in the front row.”
“So how are you and Chloe?”
“Mmm, nice segue,” North says, then turns and looks over her shoulder at Chloe, her eyes twinkling. “We’re good. I’m happy.”
He slings an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her. “Good.”
They fall quiet again. Markus lets himself relax for the first time in a while, just taking in the wonderful, wild landscape around him, the crystal-clear skies and the rocky majesty of the mountains that pierce them.