finalflight | PSL; [It's bigger than us, it's bigger than everything]

Elijah Kamski.

[Who better than the mind behind the creation of androids themselves? Reclusive, but no doubt would be enlightening if they could pin down an interview.]

We’ve spoken about it before. Why not see it through? We need the lead.

Fuck, you don't aim low, do you?

[He thinks about it. He'd ordinarily never even think of talking to someone like that, even if he wanted to. Kamski's on that level of rich that he really can't be bothered with the little ants scurrying around below, even - ordinarily - if Hank wanted to ask him about official police business. But for this? Yeah, he might poke his head out of whatever fancy hidey hole he's got for himself for this.]

What the hell, I need something to do anyway. How about you keep going over that code while I do some digging, see if I can't get a face to face?

Of course, Lieutenant.

[A succinct nod, the faintest smile — anything gone afoul of Connor’s mood from the night before has obviously been rewound to factory reset. He goes back to looking at his screen, but then-]

Barring the “boredom”, are you feeling more clear-headed today?

[That’s his way of checking how he’s feeling, honestly. Even if he looks like death warmed over, mentality is another beast altogether different.]

[Hank’s hand, reaching for his phone to start trying to dig up Kamski, hesitates. He’s hung over, tired, and depending on a whole bunch of shit Connor’s safety may or may not rest squarely on him. He looks at Connor, grimaces, then looks away, muttering his answer.]

No promises.

[This is why he came in early, right here. Drinking might be his first choice but the next best way to deal with thinking about shit is to work. So he puts his phone up to his ear and he works. Well, he chats. He smiles. He asks how people’s kids are doing. The notes he’s keeping on the screen in front of him are the only things keeping him social, up until they don’t anymore and he tosses his phone on the desk, where it slides over his desk and near Connor’s.]

God, if I have to be nice for one more second I’m going to scream.

[He listens, because of course he does. Connor does his own work in the meanwhile, trying to find something strange in this code meant to twist up an android’s personality modules and make them into someone “loving” and affectionate. But he can find nothing; it’s complicated, yet the application is as straightforward as one might expect. It should work just fine.

On paper, at least.

He catches sight of Hank’s phone sliding into his periphery, and says-]

But take comfort in the fact that you can manage to be nice.

[That’s a little joke, the tiniest bit cheeky, but he purposefully gives Hank no time to reply.]

Any luck?

[Hank snorts.]

Low bar. But yeah, think I got his address, and I tracked down who I need to talk to to get us an invite. I hope you know what you want to ask - these kinds of guys usually don’t stay talkative long, and I barely even understand what we need to know to crack all this.

I have an array of questions I’d like to ask. The difficulty is often sorting them into order of priority.

[Don’t worry, Hank. He has you covered there.]

Besides, I’m sure the deviant issue is as much of an interest to him as it is to both of us.

Well, why don’t you tell me your questions? I can help you prioritize, and maybe after that I’ll be ready to - [Ugh] - start up the schmoozing again so we can get in to ask them.

[Well, without missing so much as a beat, he lists them.]

The cause of deviancy in the general sense, which can be broken down into the following: if the environment in which the android resided or worked in has an affect. If model or manufacture date has any bearing, as well. If he has any idea if the core coding and programming of newer models after his departure from Cyberlife has changed, and how. If his own work had ever considered the possibility of androids going rogue, and thus how to deal with it.

And, naturally, if he’s willing to look at the code Dave’s provided us, to see if there’s a trigger embedded within that I just... can’t see.

Alright.

[Hank leans forward, rubbing the heel of a hand against his temple and thinking.]

So, we've gotta consider not just what we need to know, but what he'll tell us. If he knows anything about why androids, uh... why they go bad, why hasn't he said anything? He's got to know this deviancy thing is kind of a big deal, even if he's gone total hermit, so he's had plenty of time to step forward if he wanted to. If he knows anything worth asking about, convincing him to tell might take more time and luck than we'll have. My vote goes to prioritizing the other stuff, the questions that come at this whole thing from an angle Kamski might have less personal stake in.

Not that we know what he has a stake in either, the only thing I think the guy's interviews ever revealed about him was that he's kind of an arrogant dick. But then uh, hey, maybe that's just my viewer's bias talking.

His demeanor should not be a problem. I’m designed to interact harmoniously with all types of personalities, remember? It’s part of being adaptable.

[That’s something Connor wholehearted believes, and to be fair, it is how Cyberlife intended him to be. Though he does have his own quirks he’s mostly oblivious to, at least when it comes to interviews and interrogations, it’s as he says.]

But I agree with you. We don’t want to sound accusing in this particular instance. But if he is holding back information, it would be in our interest to judge through questioning if this is the case, regardless.

[Hank holds a hand, palm up, in front of his chest, and moves it downward, like he's a gameshow host presenting himself. Take it in, Connor: exhibit A, Hank's primary counterargument, presented with a brief tight smile.]

Design can't account for everything. If the guy doesn't like your harmonious interacting we'll back off, alright? I still say we should start with something else - whether he ever programmed some kind of failsafe, maybe. But if we try for the deviancy question and look like we're losing him, we ask him about Dave's code instead. Alright? I'd rather have a lead on one of our little questions than a big fat nothing on our big one.

[Connor’s a bit like a bloodhound that always wants to sniff out any sort of question that might be hiding or otherwise normally difficult to uncover. The subtlety of backing off instead of putting more pressure on Kamski if he knows something — assuming he even does — is one that he doesn’t immediately default to. This is made obvious by the downward turn of his lips, but he’s otherwise unmoving as Hank gestures at him.]

...All right. If you say so, Lieutenant. We’ll focus something ancillary, and then move on to the code itself.

[(But maybe he’ll sneak in a more prodding question or two when the time comes.)]

[Hank grunts, looks Connor over assessingly, then reaches forward with a sigh to grab his phone.]

Back to it. Tell me if you think of anything in the meantime, alright?

Of course.

[Small talk flits between them now and again, but Connor leaves Hank to his work, and he focuses mostly on his own.

It isn’t very long before they manage to track down Kamski. It’s deathly cold out, the snowfall having settled and making the land strangely pristine, oddly picturesque. Connor glances over at Hank as they pull up to Kamski’s address as noted in the files, feeling some strange twinge of uncertainty wrought by... nothing in particular. Just a strange feeling, like before them sits something promising, yet possessing still the danger of calculated risk.]

So this is it?

[This is it. And ‘this’ does not go at all like Hank expected. They don’t even get to ask the guy about Dave’s code; the deviant question doesn’t turn Kamski off so much as send him spinning off into weird directions, monologuing villain kind of directions, and after it’s over Hank sits in his car a second before actually turning it on, mostly just glad they’re away from the guy.]

[He llooks at Connor. He has to ask.]

So. Do good little androids tend to get in trouble for things like this?

[He’s hardly in the mood for flippancy, barely even willing to expend the energy to process conversation, too busy spinning this new, unpleasant experience in his mind. Kamski, and all his philosophizing. Kamski, and the look he would give Connor, assessing, knowing. Kamski, and the cold press of a gun in his hand, the eyes of the android named Chloe staring up at him, waiting for him to decide whether or not her existence would continue based on his own whim. Uncertainty wrapped up in every atom of his being, and he just couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t.

(The mention of an emergency exit, dogging Connor’s steps as he left.)]

I don’t know. [A safe answer, applied to absolutely everything that’s happened. He feels shaken, useless in having wasted time and opportunity.]

I don’t know what to do from here.

[Amanda won’t like it. Another lead, gone. More excuses, piling up.]

We’ll-

[They’ll what? Kamski did most of the early work on his own, and anyone still at Cyberlife wouldn’t have sent Connor if they knew anything useful. They’re fresh out of androids to interview. He starts the car, glancing at Connor with a frown as he pulls away.]

We’ll go over everything again, see if there’s something we missed. And look, you did good, alright? That guy was a fucking nutjob, you don’t play along with that.

[He shakes his head, and then pulls his gaze away from the blanketing snow all around them to meet Hank's. It's difficult to not view emotion there, something moulded to look like an awful mix of concern and the faintest, faintest mote of alarm.]

I didn't do good, Hank. We've come away with nothing, and I'm proving more and more that I'm not-

[Words sticking, as if the very core of him hates to say it, is almost afraid to say it. But they tumble out regardless.]

That I keep failing at all the tasks set in front of me.

[Hank glances at Connor a couple more times as he drives, not just frowning now but looking outright worried.]

You’re not god, Connor. You can’t just magic up a lead out of nothing. I’d like to see any of those lazy fuckers you report to come down here and do better.

[He frowns, shifting in his seat. Pressing his back against it, as if defiant against something intangible and impossible to pin down.]

There was a lead, Hank. I simply chose not to follow it.

[How many times now? How many deviants he's let escape, how much information slipping away just as quickly? To say that there was no lead is a lie; it was there, waiting him patiently behind the trigger of a gun.]

Because that would have made you a monster.

[Hank realizes, with a little jolt of fear, that he’s driving faster than he thought he was. He eases up on the gas, takes a breath, and then he lets himself go on, his voice calmer but still sure and determined.]

Is that what you think you’re failing at, Connor? At being a fucking monster? Because I’m not sure I could work with the kind of guy who’d follow through on a lead like that.

[Connor had barely noticed the increase in speed himself, and it's only when Hank eases up on the gas does he seem to become more cognizant of the outside world. Again, the car feels like its own little dimension, a secondhand confessional for the second time.]

No. No, but you know why this is problematic, Lieutenant.

[For so many reasons. Because they're getting nowhere, and the DPD will see it, Cyberlife will see it, will question it, and for some reason decisions that should have been easy to make in the past, just months ago, now become all tangled up inside of him, forming knots in his processing and making it harder to commit to the mission at hand.]

This is not how I'm supposed to function. As a machine unable to perform its most basic mission. This isn't- [A pause, poignant in the air.] Maybe there's something wrong with me.

[Hank lets that sit for a second, hearing the word they’re both thinking, the word neither of them is risking saying out loud. But that word doesn’t matter- not to Hank, anyway. Maybe it’s time to admit to himself now that it doesn’t. Maybe deviant only matters so far as it makes him push up his schedule. Dave had said he needed more time.]

If you didn’t - hypothetically. If you didn’t have a junkyard hanging over your head. If you didn’t have to worry about getting trashed the first time you twitched wrong. Would you still think that? That you’re built wrong just for acting like a decent fucking person?

I don't-

[It feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down, and feeling the world shift under your feet. Like taking that jump is going to be the last thing you ever know, and how in the world is he not supposed to feel afraid with that word just dancing in the air between them?

He takes a figurative step back.]

It doesn't matter. I can't change what's happened at this point. There's technically still a lead in my pocket, we'll just have to find a better way to apply it.

[The USB. He can cling to the hope of that.]

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let me know if connor would say something before the timeskip and i can edit

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