Chapter Text
“It showed all the signs of deviancy: cognitive instability, unpredictable behavior, and the emulation of human emotions. It was even afraid to die. The model was clearly defective.”
-Connor, ‘Waiting For Hank…’
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Floor 61
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Floor 62
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Floor 63
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Inside an elevator car, a metallic clink resonated off the walls, sounding out of time with each beep the computer made as the car passed a floor.
- Hostage situation
- “A deviant PL600 model is holding 9 yr old Emma Phillips over the precipice of their balcony, 70 floors up.”
- The deviant has killed: JOHN PHILLIPS - Responding Officer ANTONY DECKART, P.D
- The deviant has wounded: MORDECAI WILSON, P.D (Status: Unknown)
- “The PL600 is becoming increasingly erratic and unstable.”
-Secure the hostage with no unnecessary loss of life.
-Speak with Cpt. David Allen
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Floor 64
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Floor 65
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An RK800 android, a detective prototype of the ‘Connor’ series, was the sole occupant of the elevator car. He was calibrating his fine motor capacities with a quarter, flicking it into the air, then rolling it across his life-like knuckles with perfect precision. He was one of a kind, a hand-crafted prototype designed to push the boundaries of machine learning and research the extent to which an AI could replace human intelligence. Connor had showed extraordinary promise in test trials, demonstrating an uncanny ability to emulate empathy and integrate with a variety of personalities. It was only by his performance that the DPD begrudgingly agreed to deploy him in an official capacity.
This was Connor's first field assignment.
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Floor 66
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Floor 67
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Floor 68
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Connor’s mission was to diffuse this hostage situation as quickly and efficiently as possible, minimizing the amount of lives lost. He was the perfect negotiator; strong, charismatic, sympathetic, incorruptible. The scene left no room for failure, and neither did Connor’s careful programming.
I will not fail.
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Floor 69
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Floor 70
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The stainless steel doors slid open on floor 70, the Phillip’s apartment. Connor pocketed his coin.
"Negotiator on site. I repeat, negotiator on site.” There was a guard by the door who signaled into his radio and disappeared around the corner at the end of the hall. Connor could just make out the pained sobbing of a woman from further within the apartment.
-Speak with Cpt. David Allen
With his mission highlighted before him, Connor was to proceed directly to the captain for instructions. Tragically, Connor noted, Connor was given less than a bare-bones background for this investigation, not instructed to do much more than Speak with Cpt. Allen. If this Captain offered no useful information, Connor would be forced to waste precious time in solving the case before even stepping onto the balcony. Wasted time was time that Emma Phillips did not have.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 48%
Connor would just have to trust the Captain until then.
The hall was short and dimly lit, and Connor stepped over shards of glass and puddled water that he deduced came from the shattered aquarium to his left, which was emitting a low blue light. Half the glass was on the floor, and the other half held back the rest of the water and clueless fish from meeting the same end. Connor almost moved on, but he spied a colorful, twitching mass on the ground, and moved in to investigate.
It was a Dwarf Gourami, a colorful Indian river fish. It fluttered around on the floor, gasping and dying. Connor should have continued on. The family fish did not pertain to the mission.
-Speak with Cpt. Allen
This does not pertain to the mission.
But Connor grasped the small, writhing fish and deposited him into the tank anyway, and he watched it swim away, almost unhindered by its close encounter with death.
My mission is to rescue the hostage and incapacitate or eliminate the deviant, with no unnecessary loss of life.
Software Instability: ^
Connor did his best to ignore the new notification; he didn’t want to think of the implications of it until he completed his mission.
“Stop! Please, I-I can't leave her! Let me go!” The same woman from earlier (Identify: Caroline Phillips) was getting dragged away from the crime scene by a SWAT agent, right into Connor’s path. She grabbed his shoulders in her desperation. “Please, dear God, save her! You-You have to save my baby, please!”
Connor only stared. Neither she nor her emotional state pertained to his mission, and was only hindering it at the moment, but he could do nothing about her without touching her. He was not permitted to do so. Suddenly, the woman pulled back, her face a cross of horror, fear, and confusion when she found his Cyberlife standard triangle and armband on his suit jacket that marked him as an inhuman.
“You...y-you’re sending an...android?” Caroline stuttered. “A-an android?”
“Ma'am, we need to go.” The SWAT agent took her arm and lead the struggling woman to the doors. Her protests followed her out.
“No! No, you can't do that! Why aren’t you sending a real person?" She demanded. "It'll kill her! Don’t let that thing near her!"
I will not fail.
Connor rounded the corner and spotted the captain (Identify: Cpt. David Allen) in the bedroom, shouting distinctly into his cellphone.
“Why are we wasting time? That piece of shit could jump from the rooftop any goddamn second! Just send me a goddamn human being!” The Captain hissed through his teeth. “If this little girl dies, it’s on you and your bureaucratic ass, got?”
He was seething, and he shoved his phone in his pocket before he broke it in his death grip. Connor didn’t want to set him off. There was no telling what he would do. Connor stayed back until the captain loosened the fist in his hand, leaning tiredly over a monitor set up on the desk behind him, which was surveying, presumably, Emma and the deviant. The camera was too far from the center scene to really distinguish what it was.
Connor approached him, then, and introduced himself in as neutral a tone as he could generate. “Captain Allen, sir? My name is Connor, I’m the android sent by Cyberlife. I'm here as a negotiator.”
The only indication the captain had heard him was a brief glance back. He continued to stare straight at the monitor, but when the captain started speaking it was directed at Connor. “Took you damn long enough. This thing’s armed and volatile, and every officer we've sent out there has gotten shot to hell. We'd have gotten it by now, but it's holding the girl over the side of the building. We try to make a move, they're both dead. It’s gonna be your job to make sure that doesn’t happen. Got it?”
None of this was new information to Connor. It was exactly what he had been told before being dispatched for this mission, and it wasn’t a lot to work with. Time was of the essence.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 48%
“Yes. Sir, do you know the name of the deviant?” Connor asked.
"No, I haven't got the slightest idea. Why the hell does that matter?”
It was like trying to wrench information out of a child, but Connor was sure he showed no outward aggravation. He'd been trained better than to snap.
“I need information to determine how to best approach the situation. If I can establish a connection with it, the deviant will be more likely to trust me, sir,” Connor explained, tentatively. The captain had to know something about the delicate and information-sensitive situation, so he tried another question. “To your knowledge, has the deviant experienced any kind of an ‘emotional shock’ recently? Anything that would trigger the outburst that lead to his deviation?”
Captain Allen then whirled around on him faster than Connor could prepare for, and got into Connor’s face with a piercing glare. Connor flinched back as he began to spit. “Listen, I don't give a fuck what you are, and I don't give a fuck about who sent you! I don't have time for your shit, and neither does she. None of your fucking questions are gonna get that girl off that balcony. So, if you can't take care of this fucking situation, you plastic piece of shit, I'll do it myself,” He snapped. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, snapping orders and questions at the unfortunate agents in his path.
Connor blinked after him and wanted to place where he could've gone wrong in the conversation.
There was no time for that, he needed information before everyone reached their breaking point.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 48%
He’d better get started, then.
Connor first examined the empty gun case in front of the closet. There was no way for the deviant to have gotten a firearm otherwise, and it had to have been with the family long enough to know where the gun was kept.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 51%
Connor then located a dim room with childish purple décor and entered, determining it had to be Emma’s. Judging by the music that was left blaring through headphones discarded on the ground, she must not have heard Daniel shoot her father; easy to catch off-guard and take hostage.
A tablet on the child’s desk was left open to a home video, and Connor saw Emma hanging off of a PL600 android, referring to him as Daniel.
Finally, a name.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 61%
Connor stepped into the main room, which was awash with S.W.A.T agents all crowded strategically around the balcony door. Off to the side was the body of John Phillips- a tall, white, stocky man with an everyman face, shot three times in the chest with his own gun.
Surrounding John's body was a halo of broken glass from the shattered television and glass coffee table, and drying blood had seeped into the carpet beneath him. It was clear to Connor that John had to have had something directly to do with the outburst. Something emotionally damaging, enough to make Daniel, who had been with the family for a long time, snap and kill his owner.
There was a distinct lack of thirium- the blood of androids, that powered their biocomponents -which told Connor that the trigger wasn't violent. John had no weapon, and sported no bruising anywhere. it could have been something John said while the android was in the vicinity, or something he did that the android saw or heard.
I wonder...
Discarded in the corner of the living room, a few feet from the body, Connor spotted a blood-spattered tablet. He picked it up (and didn't worry about prints, because androids had none) and it opened to the last screen it was on before shutting down.
“Your order for an AP700 android has been placed. Cyberlife thanks you for your purchase.”
There it is.
The android found out that he was going to be replaced, and he snapped. He killed John and took Emma Phillips hostage when he realized that Caroline Phillips had called the police.
-Probability of SUCCESS: 72%
Connor had more than enough information, but he did one more comb through for anything else he could use.
He skimmed the news coverage of the situation to get a better visual overview of the environment he'd be working in. At the end of it all, Connor was pushing a 74% chance of success, and it was as good as he was going to get, so he maneuvered his way past the crowd of agents and slid open the terrace door. Connor stepped from the kitchen onto the balcony.
A bullet tore through his arm, splattering hot thirium on the glass behind him.
It was like a stab with a hot knife, and Connor reeled back with the force and the pain. Connor hissed through clenched teeth. Not too loud, though.
As far as everyone else in the world was concerned, androids couldn’t feel pain. They shouldn’t feel pain, at least.
-DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO Upper_Arm = Minor
-Thirium_Levels: 98% v
Connor couldn’t allow the deviant to know he could feel pain either, or he would be at a serious disadvantage. Thankfully, Connor had had more than enough practice concealing pain, and he faltered no more than his slip of the tongue.
“Stay back! Don’t come any closer, or I’ll jump!” Daniel, the deviant, shouted across the terrace, and had his gun leveled at Connor’s head. He kept a firm grip on a terrified Emma Phillips, who was trying not to squirm around too much out of fear of falling.
“Please, please no!" Emma pleaded through sobs. "Please, please, I'm sorry, please don't-”
Daniel positioned the gun back at her head, and she stilled, shaking with the force of swallowed tears and fear.
“Hello Daniel. My name is Connor. I'm an android,” Connor’s voice was steady, with a neutral tone. A conversation starter.
“Ho-how do you know my name? Who told you my name?” Daniel bellowed.
“I know a lot, Daniel. I was brought here to help you out." Connor took a step forward. "We'll get through this together, okay?”
"No! You can't help me! How could you possibly help me?" Daniel screamed back.
A calm, placating approach would be most effective. Attempting to aggravate or threaten the deviant would only further endanger the hostage.
I will not fail.
A S.W.A.T helicopter came sweeping through the air, flipping deck chairs across the balcony and creating a strong gust of wind. Connor’s injury radiated heat from his self-healing protocol manually soldering the split thirium lines. Nothing major had been hit, so he shouldn't need more than minor repairs, but it burned like fire.
“I know you're angry, Daniel. You have every right to be!” Connor continued, raising his voice even louder so he'd be heard above the propellers. “All I need is for you to trust me! Can you trust me?”
“Why would I trust you? I can't trust anyone!" Daniel shouted back over the roar of the wind. "I don't need your help, I just want for all of this to stop!”
From stepping out onto the terrace, Connor had been inching his way towards Daniel and Emma. He side-stepped the furniture that got blown into his path, and didn’t remove his eyes from the suspect until he spared a glance to the left and took in the sprawled body of an officer right out of his way
Officer Wilson.
He does not pertain to the mission.
The officer was collapsed on the ground, still as death, and if Connor weren’t an android he would have assumed he was dead. He didn’t need a state-of-the-art scanner to see the blood pooled under him or the hole in his arm. But that same scanner enabled Connor to detect his sluggish heart rate. He was still alive, if only just.
No unnecessary loss of life.
Connor knelt down next the officer, arm throbbing with a red-hot ache, and could just barely see him breathing. If he could appeal to this deviant’s emotions, Officer Wilson had a chance of survival.
"What are you doing?" Daniel demanded.
Connor looked back up, and offered him the truth. “He’s losing blood. If we don’t treat him he’s going to bleed out. You can stop this, Daniel!” he said, hoping to achieve an empathetic response. If this deviant was going to pretend to be a human, Connor would treat him like a human. "If you would let the paramedics-
“No! I don't care if he dies. Humans don't care if we die, so why should we care if they do?” Daniel countered. "Humans don't care about us! we're just things to them! Do you understand that? If I killed you right now, no one would care!"
Connor ignored his ramblings. Of course androids were 'things'; that's all they'd ever been. Connor wondered, fleetingly, if he’d even be able to get through to the deviant at this stage. His hatred of humans went deep, which was unusual for such a new deviant.
I will not fail.
“I’m going to apply a tourniquet,” Connor informed him cautiously, and moved to shift the officer’s arm.
A bullet exploded what felt like millimeters away from Connor’s hand, and he tried to suppress a violent flinch backwards. The heat of the bullet stung his knuckles.
“Don’t touch him! If you touch him, I'll kill you! See if any of your precious humans will try to save your life,” Daniel bellowed. Connor, however, didn’t believe him. He was a bit threatened by the thought of his first field-operative body being killed, but not because he was afraid of death itself. The consequences of his death were of greater concern.
In any case, there was no way Daniel would discard his only hope for salvation by shooting him now. Daniel didn’t want to die; if he didn’t care either way he would have launched himself off the roof by now.
“I don't have a life to save, Daniel!” Connor called back, turning his attention back to Officer Wilson.
Connor stripped off his tie with a sharp twinge in his left arm, and tied it tightly above the officer's bullet wound.
As expected, Daniel did not shoot. He watched as Connor stood once more and continued to make his way towards the two on the edge.
“There's no easy way out of this, Daniel. I'm sorry, but this is too serious," Connor stated. "But tell me, do you really want your last actions to be the death of a child? A child who loved you?"
"That-!" Daniel faltered, and Connor saw him shudder as he sobbed through his clenched teeth. "That doesn't matter! She doesn't love me! None of them loved me! I was just a thing! An object! Nobody...nobody ever cared about me...so why should I? Why should I care? She means nothing to me!"
Then Daniel, still with a tight grip on Emma, swung her over the side of the building and let her dangle from one hand.
Emma shrieked in unbridled terror, trying her best to keep still, but her violent sobs shook her body.
"Please! Please, Daniel no no no! Please! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry please-" Emma begged, grasping at Daniel's arms.
Connor almost made his move right then, but then Daniel jerked her back over. Back to how they began, except Connor was much closer this time.
"You're not sorry! You don't care! I was nothing to you!" Daniel shouted. Then he suddenly released a loud, frustrated groan, and waved his gun aimlessly around his head. “I'm sick of this helicopter! I'm sick of it! Get it out of here, get it out!”
Connor almost thanked him for that. The helicopter was doing nothing but stirring up wind and increasing the noise level. It would be easier to placate the deviant with it gone. Connor raised his good arm over his head and signaled for the helicopter to vacate, and it moved out soon after. There was only the whistling wind and the splashing pool water that filled the air afterward.
He shuffled closer, and Daniel tensed. Right now, if anything were to happen, Connor would be within reaching distance to stop it.
“This is your last chance, Daniel,” Connor implored. He wasn’t desperate, but he was so close. “This is the end of the line. You're out of options, so I need you to listen to me, and let Emma go."
Daniel knew it, but he couldn’t accept it. He may have had the trump card in this negotiation, but Connor knew that he had no other card to play. He had nothing to offer, no way to make a deal. The moment he stepped off that ledge in either direction, he was going to die.
“I-I...I need a car. If-If anyone tries anything, I'll kill her!” Daniel tried. "I'll release her outside of the city! No-no funny business!"
“You know we can't do that, Daniel. No matter what you do, we both know how this is going to end! You need to put the gun down, and let Emma go. Now.”
A mistake.
A stupid mistake.
He had been so careful.
“I’ve spent my whole life taking orders from others." The deviant’s grip on his gun tightened, as did his hold on Emma, and, with a grim finality, stated, "Never again. Never again! I'm taking my life into my own hands!"
Daniel leaned backward, and Emma screamed.
I will not fail.
Connor sprinted and grabbed for Emma’s hand, holding strong. His momentum carried him forward, flinging the girl onto the roof and sending both Connor and Daniel careening over the edge. His shot arm burst with hot pain.
The hostage was safe and, in the end, no lives were lost.
Connor closed his eyes, and he waited.
-Mission: Successful
-Software Instability: v
Connor opened his eyes to sunlight and a warm breeze, and he couldn’t help but tense up.
The Zen Garden
His Mind Palace, so it's called: the place he goes to within his 'mind' to deliver and receive mission updates to and from Cyberlife via his handler program, Amanda, and to receive discipline from her when needed. More often than not, it is the latter.
Connor knows that it will be the latter today. He may have accomplished his mission and saved the hostage, but at the cost of his first field-operative body. His first mission resulting in his termination? Not to mention the detours he took on his way to the hostage, such as saving the fish and the officer. He would be shocked if he weren’t punished for it. He deserved it.
Amanda would ask him about those, and she would dislike his answer. She always does.
Connor kept his back as stiff and straight as a steel rod, and strode purposefully toward the center of the garden- A circle surrounded by a clear, flat river, and Connor crossed the river by way of one of the many bridges that spoked out from it. Protruding into the skyline was a white spire topped with a canopy that fanned out like a blooming flower. Reaching up the sides were white trellises that were always choked by the thorny, blood-red roses that Amanda liked to trim.
Though Connor knew he wasn't late (Amanda valued punctuality, and Connor has been late before) he found her already there upon his approach. Her avatar was of a thin black woman, hair done up in a complex wrap, and clothed in white robes accented with Cyberlife Blue.
Her back was turned (if Connor were deviant, he would describe the knowledge of her not watching his movements as relief) while she tended to her roses. He came to stand several feet behind her, and knew better than to speak as he assumed his usual position of respect; he dropped to his knees, kept his spine straight, clasped his hands low behind his back, and bowed his head.
For several seconds, Amanda didn’t say anything.
When she did speak, her voice was deceptively nonchalant, and had the air of a show host in a silent theater, moments before the curtains are pulled from the stage. “Congratulations, Connor. Your first mission was a success, as expected of you. Not perfect by any means, oh no, but a success.” Connor remained silent. Amanda set down her clippers on a table beside the trellis she was working on, and Connor allowed his shoulders to slacken imperceptibly. Hopefully not enough for Amanda to notice, but she saw everything.
“There are just a few...kinks I’d like to work out in your methods,” Amanda continued. She turned around and stood in front of him. She wasn't a tall woman, but to Connor she made an imposing figure, standing over him. “Do you understand what you did wrong?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Connor said.
“Describe your mistakes to me.”
Connor ensured his breath didn’t shake and complied.
“My first mistake was...the fish. I picked it up and put it back into the tank, though it was not part of my mission objectives,” Connor recited, not moving a single muscle other than his mouth. “My second mistake w-”
Amanda yanked up his head by the chin and slapped him.
The slap stung like a raw blister, but Amanda didn’t like weakness. His head snapped to the side, and he jerked it back forward, facing Amanda directly and making sure to keep his eyes lower than hers. As much as she hated weakness, she also hated being challenged.
“Let’s go one at a time, why don’t we? I want to touch on everything individually,” She said like a school teacher tutoring a child. The implication of her words was almost enough to make him shake.
“Yes, ma'am.”
She began to circle him like a panther, and continued to speak. “So, this fish. A Dwarf Gourami; not exactly an endangered species. It was nonessential to the mission, entirely out of your way, and you wasted 4 precious seconds on a fish that could have been used to save the life of the girl. Why?”
It took Connor an immense physical effort not to brace himself.
“I was following my programming and expanding the application of my primary mission directive. My instructions stipulated that not lives were to be lost, and I...extended the definition of life to the fish.”
Amanda then punched him in the side of the head, and Connor’s vision was white far a couple seconds as a hammer started to break out of his skull. He almost toppled over, but he found his balance again before he could.
“What you’re telling me, RK800, is that your instructions stipulated a very specific mission objective, and you decided to change your directive in order to-”
“No!" He didn't stop himself in time. Connor began to swiftly deny her. "O-Of course not, ma'am, I-”
Her fist connected with his jaw this time, and his head jerked right. He bit his tongue hard enough to draw thirium and he felt his tooth crack.
“Did you...interrupt me?” Amanda hissed.
“No, ma’am! No, I-I didn’t mean-”
She kicked him in the chest, connecting with his thirium pump. His words were forced out of his mouth in a throaty cross of a cough and a gasp. Connor fought to keep his balance, but his knees were struggling to hold him. His chest stuttered in and out as he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Well, Connor, I’m afraid we may have to extend our lessons a bit for today. You seem to be lacking in the correct social protocols.” Her tone was light, but the words grated on Connor’s audio components like a serrated knife.
She swung again and split the skin on his head, denting his skull plate slightly, and he fell over.
Weakness.
Connor couldn’t help but cough and sputter, and Amanda sent a kick upside his head. His jaw and head snapped up and chomped down once again on his tongue in an explosion of blood. His chest and head pounded miserably. He couldn’t breathe. His optical units wouldn't calibrate, and blurred his vision like a smeared painting. Thirium leaked out of his mouth like drool. He curled in on himself on his side, shaking, as a blow landed on his knee. Surely it broke, because Connor saw stars and dark spots for a few brief moments.
He was seeing double, and Amanda kicked him onto his back, glaring down at his quivering, bleeding face.
“You’re a disappointment, Connor. You’re weak,” She spat.
Thirium ran out of his nose, and Connor lay shivering on the ground as his body throbbed. He choked on thirium gathering in his mouth from his tongue and broken tooth, spasming without being able to expel it. He could barely move his head.
“Get up,” Amanda hissed. “I said get up you piece of shit!” She kicked his side, and the pain rolled through him.
Weakness.
Disappointment
Shaking, Connor rolled himself over and collapsed when his arms couldn’t hold his weight for long. He spat a mixture of thirium and lubricant saliva onto the ground and pushed himself up again, his arms almost vibrating with the effort. The knee Amanda hit was hurting badly, and he tried to shift his weight onto his left one instead. He knew he would be forced to kneel on his broken one regardless.
Finally, finally, Connor straightened himself out and tried to assume the same position as before, grasping his hands behind his back, almost screaming as he pressed himself onto his bruised and broken knee. Huffing, choking on sobs and blue blood, and quaking with pain, he bowed his head once more.
He watched thirium and a clear fluid trickle onto the pristine white floor, mixing. More clear fluid fell as Connor lurched with another swallowed sob, and he identified it as saline solution from his optical units.
He was crying.
Weakness
Disappointment
Weak
Weak
“Now, Connor, describe your second mistake.”
Connor couldn’t stop the next sob from bursting out of his mouth.
Weakness.