Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Why didn’t you shoot?”

He’d been expecting the question, repeatedly asking himself the same thing, but hearing the question from Hank as they stepped back out into the snowstorm still made Connor stiffen. His head shook, as if trying to clear whatever coding had caused him to make such a mistake, but to no avail. He hadn’t shot the Chloe. He’d prioritized his own feelings over his mission.

No. Not feelings. As an android he was incapable of feeling anything, much less concern for another android. He’d hesitated, and he’d made the wrong call. But it wasn’t because of any feeling, because he couldn’t experience feelings.

But if that was true, what had stayed his hand?

Connor spun to face Hank. “I just saw that girl’s eyes… and I couldn’t. That’s all.” His arms spread in frustration – no, frustration was an emotional response – and he tried to turn away from Hank again. This place, this conversation, it was too much to process. His analysis of the situation was off, his processors felt overloaded, and his thoughts were erratic, crowding his clear thought. His mission should have been his top priority, and yet he was letting himself be distracted from discovering what he could about the deviant androids.

As if responding to his thoughts, Hank noted, “you’re always saying you would do anything to accomplish your mission.” That was true, of course. He was designed to hunt down deviant androids at all costs, and had put himself in danger repeatedly to get his results. Nothing else mattered except for his mission.

And yet, it had. And the more he analyzed his actions and motives, the more he noticed it wasn’t just an isolated incident. He’d saved Hank on the roof early on in their partnership and let a deviant escape. He hadn’t shot the Traci at the Eden Club. At the broadcasting station, he’d chosen to kill the attacking deviant rather than allow it to kill the humans in the room, even when it would have benefitted the mission to capture the deviant alive. When examined, it was a troubling series of events.

“That was our chance to learn something, and you let it go.”

Something white-hot flickered through Connor’s system, making him snap back at the Lieutenant, “Yeah, I know what I should’ve done! I told you I couldn’t.” He drew closer, pausing briefly before adding, “I’m sorry, okay?” Hank levelled him with a considering stare that did little to alleviate whatever this malfunction in his system was. It was like a ball of heat and pressure at his core, making him tense up and lash out due to his own failure to do what the mission demanded. His muddled feelings – his internal analysis processes - led him to a great deal of shame and regret.

Shame? Regret? He should be capable of noting neither, simply the knowledge of success or failure should have been enough. What was happening to him?

He was afraid. Of himself, of what he was capable of, of what he was becoming. He shouldn’t be, he shouldn’t be able to feel fear, but he did. “You showed empathy.” Kamski had said as much after his test, and try as he might to deny it, Connor couldn’t refute the evidence entirely. No android should have been capable of such a thing, least of all a machine designed specifically to contest whatever malfunction in android code that was causing deviancy, and yet by Kamski’s standards he had done just that.

Connor fidgeted slightly, awaiting Hank’s response. Finally the silence was broken, but what was said left him more puzzled than before. “Maybe you did the right thing.” What? He was failing his mission, he’d passed up data that would have helped them both in the investigation. How could this be the right thing? Hank stepped past him on his way back to the car without elaborating, leaving Connor staring after him, lost and uncomprehending.

He became, almost without noticing, a little warmer at Hank’s praise of his actions. The Lieutenant didn’t often offer such affirmations, and hearing Hank place trust in his choice alleviated some of the burden of his conflicting thoughts. But just as quickly Connor found himself confused once again. Why would Hank praise his actions, the actions of a deviant? Hank had an intense dislike of androids to begin with, and had been working alongside him to hunt down deviants. Was Hank advocating support of deviant androids, and if so, what did that mean for Connor’s mission? How could Hank sound so certain about what the “right thing” was, when Connor himself, for all his processing and analyzing, was left so conflicted?

Kamski’s words rung in his memory replay. “CyberLife’s last chance to save humanity… is itself a deviant.” But… but he wasn’t a deviant. He’d responded as such to Kamski, though the man hadn’t seemed to believe him. Deviants were misguided and violent, and delusional in their beliefs, and he was none of those things. Their feelings were just glitches in a code, some sort of bug or virus or malfunction that produced the simulation of emotion where there truly was none. If that was true, then his own feelings - thoughts and outputs, not feelings - could not truly exist. He wasn’t a deviant. He couldn’t be.

His eyes tracked Hank on his passage to the vehicle, only looking away once the Lieutenant had shut the car door behind him and waited for Connor to join him. Before doing so, Connor gave Kamski’s residence one last glance, trying to settle the variable and unstable thoughts plaguing him.

He wasn’t a deviant. Kamski’s analysis had been false; he was incapable of empathy - then why hadn’t he shot the Chloe- and he would not fail in his task. He would prove it to Kamski, and to CyberLife, and to whoever else doubted his commitment to his mission.

Resolve firm, he moved to meet Hank in the car.