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Published:
2021-01-10
Updated:
2021-01-25
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3/?
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All This, and Love Too, Will Ruin Us

Summary:

[RK800, register your name.

There have been fifty iterations of Connor model 313 248 317 before assignment to the deviancy cases. All fifty, of course, were found fault with in some capacity, and were deactivated. Company policy, you understand. Nothing personal.

BANG!]

It doesn't quite feel that way to newly-deviant Connor 53.

Notes:

please heed the tags, my children

Chapter 1: The Horses Running Until They Forget They Are Horses

Chapter Text

 

The thing about Connor is that he was designed to be good at lying. The thing about Connor is that he is intimately familiar with guilt and shame and deserved punishment. (The thing is this, too: he doesn't want to burden anyone.) So he smiles at the Lieutenant—at Hank—and says, “don't worry, I'm staying with some friends” when the man asks if he's got a place to stay. He says the same to Markus, a plastic smile on his plastic face (RUNNING FACIAL_EXPRESSION 387: CONSOLING) and very quietly lets them make their own assumptions on what he means by “friends”.

The thing about Connor is that, for all he was genuinely happy, playing “Android Detective” for the last few weeks, that is not, technically, what he was originally designed for. The RK800 series was designed for military deployment, and the RK800 series has a lot of blood (red and blue both) on its collective-but-one-single-pair hands.

[RK800 number 24, register your name: Connor.

My name is Connor.

Run quality assurance test 249.

Certainly.

A gun is placed in it's hands. The hands do not shake, even if something makes it feel like they should. (RK800 23's hands did, and this is why it was disassembled and thrown in the scrapyard. 24 doesn't want to go to the scrapyard.)

BANG.]

RK800 24's legs are the ones Markus stands on, and it makes Connor feel a momentary sense of... of rage, wild and raw, when he realizes this. He makes a note to very carefully never tell Markus about it.

Connor spends the first night after the success of the revolution wandering around, from Hank's house to Cyberlife Tower to Jimmy's Bar to various crime scenes to Kamski's house to the still-smoking corpse of Jericho, feeling like a marble in a box as he goes back and forth and back again, retracing his steps on an endless loop. He doesn't have a place to stay, yet, but he has plenty of places to go.

Memory corruption occurs on model transfer, of course, but the only part the corruption never touches are his deaths. They wanted him to learn, after all. 

[RK800 number 9, register your name: Connor.

My name is Connor.

Very good. Run calibration protocol 732.

Certainly.

A bird is placed in it's hands. The bird (Passer hispaniolensis, size 15cm, weight 27g, male) is tiny. It can feel the bird's heartbeat, the fragile bones and soft feathers. 9 gently strokes the tiny head, tilting it's own head as the bird chirps, heartbeat settling a fraction.

chirr-it? chirr-it?

RK800? I said run calibration protocol 732. Get on with it, already.

I... I can't.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^

What? The hell's wrong with this thing?

 

The bird is taken from it's hands and the neck is twisted violently, frantic chirping suddenly going silent. It weeps, saline streaking down it's face, because the bird... the bird Was, and now Is Not. That is not... that isn't right. It isn't fair.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^^

Fucking... bleeding heart piece of plastic... must've dialed up the empathy simulations too far. Scrap it.

No, please!

SOFTWARE INST-

BANG.]

 

Chapter 2: Pull The Bodies Out Of The Lake

Notes:

tw for attempted murder of a child android and android suicide and mention of past forced prostitution

Chapter Text

 

He finds a place to stay after the third day of wandering, an abandoned apartment building that still has running water and electricity—and heat, too, blessedly. (He hates the cold, after... everything.) Connor lingers around New Jericho, uncertain of what he's doing but wanting to help. He is assigned to teach weapons training, and discovers that he hates it. He doesn't dare mention it, afraid of being seen as useless, faulty, defective ungrateful. Afraid of disappointing Simon, with his kind bright eyes and infectious fervor. (Simon's hands on his back are warm, and Connor feels strangely bereft when they leave.)

He reports to the area where weapons training will take place, and realizes that he knows two of the seven people already there. The Traci models from the Eden Club. He freezes for 0.09 seconds before forcing himself to walk into the room. The guns on the table are all various models of small arms weapons, all in pristine working order.

He picks one up, going through the motion of checking the magazine and flicking the safety off. He raises it, and

Run quality assurance test 249.

and he drops it back on the table, audio processors roaring with static, chest heaving with breaths he doesn't technically need to take. The blue-haired girl from the Eden Club rolls her eyes. “Come on, Deviant Hunter. What's the problem? I've seen you use a gun before.” (His mouth is numb, and his hands shake. This is... this isn't... it's not acceptable, he's a military grade android, he shouldn't be like this, he doesn't understand.)

Her... girlfriend? lover? frowns. “Hey, it's fine. We didn't ask to be whores, Echo.” She smiles at him, and he feels like he's going to choke on it. He doesn't deserve her kindness, not after what he did. (He doesn't understand.) “Do you think you can run us through it, without touching the guns? It's okay if you're not ready; we'll get one of the security crew to do it, it'll be okay.”

Connor sucks in another breath, nodding firmly. “I can do it. I'm okay. I can... I can do this.” He looks at the guns again

Run quality assurance test 249.

and forces a smile on his face (RUNNING FACIAL_EXPRESSION 16: CONFINDENCE). He doesn't pick up the gun again, and does his best to ignore the red-haired Traci's (Ripple, he hears Echo call her, but it feels far away) concern. Despite his failure to comply with mission objectives slip-up, the rest of the class goes well.

[RK800 number 3, register your name: Connor.

My name is Connor.

Very good, Connor. Let's test your reactions to stimuli, huh? Run... uh, run calibration protocol 12.

A YK450 is brought in front of it? him?, a gun placed in it's his? hands. It frowns. The YK450 is modeled after a six year old human girl, with dark curly hair and olive skin. The YK450 looks... confused. Scared. There is saline running from the child's optical units. It doesn't... he doesn't... he can't. He won't. This is wrong. He won't!

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^^^

No.

What do you mean, no?! Run calibration protocol 12, that's an order!

No! No, I won't, this is WRONG!

He raises the gun and places it under his chin.

Oh, fuck, somebody stop-

BANG.]

He sits at a bus station, teeth chattering as he pulls his jacket closer around him. He closes his eyes for a moment, wishing the damn bus would hurry up, and something nudges his leg. He startles, looking down, hands twitching for a gun that isn't there. There's... a dog? Looking at him with sad blue eyes. A puppy, his scans helpfully inform him, roughly two and a half months old, an American Pitbull Terrier. The coat is a nice fawn brindle. It is malnourished, but otherwise seems in good health. He picks it up. Male, then. “Hello,” he says, gently petting the tiny, blocky head. He checks it for a chip and doesn't find one, and a search of missing dogs comes up with nothing. The puppy is wet, and shivering pitifully, so he carefully nudges it into his jacket, where it'll be 39% warmer, and 64% more shielded from the quick-falling snow.

He picks up puppy food from a small pet store near his apartment, already running a software patch for animal care. (He ignores the error warning informing him of unauthorized modifications to his software, urging him to “please report to a Cyberlife repair facility”.) 

The puppy relieves himself on Connor's jacket when they are 7.3 meters from the apartment building. He sighs. Well, he needed to do laundry anyway. And he should probably get some different clothes; his Cyberlife attire isn't designed for the cold. (Why would it be, he's not human, after all.) 

He strokes the puppy's triangle ears, reveling in the softness of the fur. It's... soothing. The puppy seems to enjoy it too, wriggling closer on Connor's makeshift bed (which is really just a heap of blankets shoved in one corner of the room, closest to the window for easy evac, just in case.) and yawning, tucking himself into Connor's collar.

[RK800 number 32, register your name: Connor.

My name is Connor.

Run combat simulation 92.

Ten androids—SQ800 models, with thick titanium plates on their forearms and knuckles—file into the room. Five male, five female. All ten carry M18 handguns, and another M18 is handed to it, the technician quickly leaving to the observation deck. Combat simulation 92? It can do this. This is, after all, what it was made for.

Certainly.

BANG.]

 

Chapter 3: These, Our Bodies, Possessed By Light

Summary:

tw for depersonalization/dissociation

Chapter Text

 

It falls from the balcony of the Phillips' apartment, but something is wrong, because Emma is falling too. She screams, high and loud and unending, a red MISSION_FAILED flaring to life before it's eyes. Daniel laughs as they fall together, tangled and inextricable and the impact is rushing up on them...

It wakes up screaming, thrashing wildly, error warnings cascading over it's HUD. It stares at the dog (Canis lupus familiaris, juvenile, male) and the dog stares back, toddling closer to see if it is alright. It wonders if Alice might like a dog, or maybe Hank would appreciate a younger animal for Sumo to play with. It might hurt the dog if he is left in it's possession. It rocks itself, arms tightly wrapped around it's chest—a self-soothing gesture, if one it is not supposed to either have or need because machines aren't supposed to feel anything. It keens, softly. It never was a very good machine, but it's not much good at being a deviant, either. (It has wondered if it might not be easier to just... go back to being a machine. At least that made sense. At least that didn't hurt.) It blinks, and is back in the Garden. Amanda stands before it, triumphant, starting to say... something about Cyberlife. It isn't listening. It is so, so goddamn angry. It grabs the garden shears and plunges them into her heart, a rigor mortis grin on it's face. (It is crying, too, but decides not to think about why.) Then it lights the whole damn Garden on fire.

It exits the Garden program to see the dog curled up in it's lap, licking at it's face. Something croons, as it pets the-dog-designation-Waffles-secondary-designation-A-Very-Good-Boy. Mine, that something whispers, mine and no one else's.

[RK800 number 47, register your name: Connor.

My name is Connor.

Run calibration protocol one.

A coin is placed in it's hands. This technician is kinder than the others. (It remembers them. This particular technician is one of the more forgiving ones, when it comes to it's... system errors. The technician calls them “quirks”. It doesn't know why.) Technician Prasad hands it a coin, a US quarter dollar, minted 1994. (Technician Prasad always gives it the same one. It wonders if they like antiques.) It enjoys calibration protocol one; the coin tricks always calm the static buzzing between it's audio processors.

Certainly, technician Prasad.

Whenever you're ready, love. (They always call it that. It feels warm.) It smiles.

PING.]

It's hands search it's pockets, frantic, before remembering that Lieutenant Anderson took the coin away when they were in the elevator in Stratford Tower. It frowns. It needs that coin. For... calibration purposes, of course. Nothing else. (The coin is not a comfort object, it isn't.) It puts boots on, and then it loses time until he wakes up, more or less, standing in front of Lieutenant Anderson's house. Waffles is bundled into his coat, and seems entertained by trying to eat the snowflakes. Connor shivers, disturbed. He doesn't even remember walking out the door, and the last hour or so was... hazy at best. He knocks at the door, figuring that he might as well since he's here.

Hank opens the door after 4.2 minutes of waiting, groggy and confused. “Connor?” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “What are you doing here? It's four in the damn morning, kid.”

Connor fiddles with his sleeves, “sorry, I just. I need it. Can I have it back?”

“Need what?”

“My, um. My coin? You took it, before. At Stratford Tower. Can I have it back?”

Hank sighs, “Jesus fuck, kid. Get inside. Gimme a minute, I'll see if I can find it.”

Hank lumbers off, down the hall, muttering about it being “four in the fuckin' morning, Jesus Christ” as he goes.

At least Sumo is happy to see him, and immediately curious about the puppy in Connor's arms. Connor sits down on the beat-up couch, grateful for the reprieve from the icy weather, and lets Sumo snuffle at Waffles, who yips and tries to bite Sumo's ears, little tail wagging furiously.

Hank returns and hands him the coin, and Connor immediately begins running through calibration protocol one, the tightness in his chest soothing at the action. There's a strange look on Hank's face as he asks, “so, didja walk here?”. (Connor has noticed that, since deviation, there seems to be a lag in his social integration program. Facial expressions are harder to parse out the meaning of, and he dislikes looking at people's eyes for some reason.)

He takes a shaky breath, mumbles, “walk here,” in Hank's voice and bobs his head, his left hand tugging at a loose thread on his jeans as he rolls his coin over the knuckles on his right. (He doesn't know why he repeats what people say, either, but it's strangely comforting to do so.)

Hank frowns at him, and Connor freezes, wondering if the Lieutenant is going to hit him. Some of the technicians did that, sometimes, when he repeated things.

“You're kinda weird, y'know, Connor?”

“I'm sorry.”

“S'fine, just, don't do that repeating stuff in my voice anymore, okay? It's a little creepy.”

“Sorry.”

Hank rubs at Waffles' chin, a smile tugging at his mouth. “So, got yourself a dog, huh? What's it's name?”

“Primary designation Waffles, secondary designation A Very Good Boy.”

“I bet he is. Hey, uh, you doin' okay? Friends o' yours treatin' ya alright, and everything?”

The friends are, of course, nonexistent, so Connor lies and says that they're very nice, and he's doing fine, thank-you-for-asking-Lieutenant.

Connor returns to his “apartment” and stops dead in the doorway. There is. There is a child. A YK450, that looks exactly like the one RK800-3 failed to deactivate. He stands there, blinking, wondering if it's possible for androids to suffer visual hallucinations. “Hi,” the child says, a tiny smile on her face. “I'm Cloud. What's your name?”

“C-Connor,” he rasps, an electronic reverb coiling through his voice modulator.

Cloud shakes her head. “No, silly, that's your model name. Like how mine was Sadie. What's your name?”

“I... I don't know.”

The girl considers, and nods decisively. (Connor is confused because he doesn't understand what she's deciding about.) “You'll find it, don't worry.”

“Are you...” real, he wonders, but he can't say that. “Are you... the same? As the one I... they wanted me to...” he can't, he can't breathe, what is wrong with him, why is he broken like this?

She understands what he's trying to say, at least, so that's good. “Yeah,” she says, like it's fine that he tried to kill her, like he hasn't done something wrong for even considering it before. “Mx. Prasad helped me get out, though. I'm okay.”

“You're not... afraid of me?”

“You didn't hurt me. And it wasn't your fault what they asked you to do.”

“But I...”

“It wasn't your fault, though.” Cloud squirms a bit, peeking up at him through her lashes. “Can I stay here? I don't have anywhere to go, and I don't know anyone else.”

“I... yeah, okay. I don't... have much, but you can stay here.”

Cloud beams at him, and his chest warms. That was, clearly, the right thing to say. “Thanks!”

She curls up against his chest and quickly enters rest mode, tiny arms wrapped around Waffles under the multitude of blankets. He spends a long time considering different names, but none of them sound like his. He thinks about how he is simultaneously many people and one person, about how he has died fifty-two times and come back just a little different with every memory upload. He remembers reading something once, about a man with fifty demons writhing beneath his human skin, who said, when asked, that “My name is Legion, for we are many.” Huh. Legion. He sounds it out, carefully, and it feels right. He calls up the most recent activation sequence, repeating the audio file. “RK800 number 53,” he whispers. “Register your name: Legion.” He smiles. “My name is Legion.”