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

[He watches idly as Sumo draws near, investigating, only for the large dog to lay himself directly across Connor, as if he wasn’t even there at all. He sinks even deeper into the couch, the weight not so bothersome so much as the surprise of it, though he can’t say he really minds it. Not after a night like tonight.

He places a hand on Sumo’s head, scratching behind his ears. Hank has a point, of course, and there’s nothing to do but go over all the smallest details of what they know. If he can pluck out anything at all from his experiences that might tell them where to go from here. Maybe something stashed away in the evidence room—

Connor turns his head when Hank mentions leaving to go see Dave. While not unwise to follow up on this not-lead, he wonders at the suddenness of it.]

I can go with you. [His brow cinches. He can think and recall on the way over, surely.]

Yeah, I know.

[His hand moves closer to Connor, then hesitates. If this goes badly - or if it goes well, but Connor hates him afterward - this could be the last time they really talk. It could be the last time they do anything. His hand moves, tries to settle itself on the back of Connor's neck.]

But it's been a longer day for you than me. You should take a load off, make sure your circuits don't pop from stress, or something.

[If he's been allowed to cup the back of Connor's neck he'll squeeze a little, gently. If he hasn't he'll pat the back of the couch next to Connor's head.]

If you trust me, just... trust me when I say we'll figure this out. And trust that I know what I'm doing.

[The touch isn’t expected, not completely, but it is allowed. And it’s a grounding thing; coupled with Hank’s request to trust him, all he can do is nod.

Of course he trusts him.]

...all right. I’ll be here if you need me, but return as soon as you can. We can talk through what we know.

[He takes another unsuccessful, bracing breath. It's time to go, before his nerves get bad enough that all those advanced detecting functions break through Connor's funk to detect them.]

Yeah. We'll talk.

[So. He goes. He goes to get dogfood first, which feels fucking bizarre, but he needs time to call Dave's burner phone anyway. So he shops for dogfood, and he shops for soup. It's hard deciding whether to bring Sumo - he knows he shouldn't, that his presence will make them more recognizable, but calling someone to take care of him will let people know Hank's planning on going away, which will cost him precious time in which Hank is hoping Fowler will assume he just decided not to come in for a while. It happens sometimes. Hank kind of has the sense that some time soon even the dregs of Fowler's pity for him will drain away and that'll be it for Hank's job, but as long as that doesn't happen tomorrow it won't actually matter.

Dave has at least some of what he needs. After an angry lecture about getting impatient and practically getting beaten around the head with the fact that not everything he wanted is done, Hank gets the parts he needs and the lessons on how to use them. He even practices a little. Then he pulls the elbow length gloves off, and he drives home. Groceries go in the trunk. Most of the rest goes on the passenger seat. Some of it goes in his pocket.]

Hey, Connor. [It's easier to be steady now. That doesn't exactly surprise him. It always gets a little easier once shit kicks off.] How are you holding up?

Edited 2018-08-08 10:56 (UTC)

[By the time Hank’s returned home, Connor’s gotten up from the couch (somehow freeing himself from Sumo in a way a man can only guess), and has made his rounds of the living room several times. Going over cases in his mind, details, dialogue, something, anything to go on.

At some point he had stopped walking and the quarter came out — it chimes neatly in the air as Connor flips it and catches it, flips it and catches it, again and again until he hears and sees Hank, then pauses, clutching it in a palm.]

Welcome back, Lieutenant. I’m fine; I’ve just been going over cases in my head, as you suggested. Did you learn anything?

Maybe, a little. Not sure yet.

[He takes a couple steps closer, very aware of how close he has to be but not wanting to overdo it. He wants to ask Connor what he wants first, anyway, or come as close to it as he can. It's a risk, stupid to not just do this and go, but not even giving Connor a chance to do this willingly feels wrong.]

I'd like to hear what you came up with first, though. Anything?

[“A little” is better than what he has — nothing. “A little” is promising, and it makes Connor’s eyebrows slope upwards slightly as Hank draws near. There’s something serious about his expression, something that looks like consideration, and Connor wonders what it might be. What Dave might have told him.]

...No. Nothing that we haven’t gone over ourselves, a hundred times over. But why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned? Maybe something will connect.

[He tucks the quarter away in his pocket, ready to listen.]

[Hank takes a couple more steps.]

I gotta ask you something first, Connor.

[His heart's starting to beat a little harder. If it gets any worse he'll have to assume Connor can sense it somehow, the incoming adrenaline, and just move, just do what he has to do, but- not yet. Not just yet.]

Every time you start thinking we're not gonna crack this case, you freak out. Why is that?

[He knows, of course. But he wants Connor to say it.]

[His eyes remain on Hank’s, though when the question is asked, he looks a little surprised. Not sure what to make of it — not sure why that was relevant, not now when Hank has new information to share.

It’s his first instinct to shrink away from the question. To give the usual response of it being something born from his innate desire to complete the mission assigned to him. Because what good was a machine that couldn’t serve its purpose?

If anyone else asked, he would’ve said that much. But Hank deserves an answer that isn’t so wrapped up in detachment, that shines a little brighter with the truth at a distance.]

Because, Hank, if I don’t see this through to the end, I won’t— I won’t be your partner any more.

[He says it without really saying it.]

Why are you asking me this now?

[Hank taps at his thigh, sucking at his teeth, half-smiling. It's not a happy smile but maybe it's a satisfied one, morbidly amused. They might not have shit going for them right now, but Connor isn't in denial anymore. At least there's that.

He takes a couple steps closer, in arm's length of Connor now. He puts both his hands, casual, in his jacket pockets.]

Just wanted to make sure you knew.

[Before his heart can start beating any harder he whips one hand out, moving it to try and slap the thing slipped over his fingers onto Connor's middle. If it works - and god, fuck is he screwed if it doesn't work - all Connor's limbs should stop working.]

[There are warning signs, of course. Some instinctive sensor of his, tracking Hank’s heartbeat. The tension in the man’s shoulders, his brow, the faint underlying of strangeness in his tone of voice — all of it, to tell Connor that something isn’t right. That something else is happening and is going to happen. and maybe if this was any other man, he would’ve stepped back. Been wary.

But it’s too late. Hank presses a hand against his chest, and before confusion can even settle into Connor, there’s a terrible jolt of something shocking through his system. His vision statics, scrambles, his limbs go stiff before they go useless, his teeth grit, and utter alarm careens through his features. Before he can lose complete control of his body (what a terrifying notion, that something should just flash through him and then he’ll go useless, threaten to go into a soft reboot, he can feel it nipping at his heels), a hand lashes out and grips at Hank’s coat. Fingers digging in tightly against cloth, and he looks up at the man.

If you trust me, just... trust me when I say we'll figure this out. And trust that I know what I'm doing.

Why?]

Hank… what are you…wh-

[Even those words sound like a track that’s skipping, scratches on an old record. It’s the last of control he has left in him, before all of him goes useless, and Connor begins to crumple unceremoniously to the ground.]

[Hank makes a wordless noise, pained, and catches Connor and lowers him to the floor.]

I guess uh, might help you to know what's going on, huh?

[He fishes some tools out of his pockets. They make a metallic noise as he tosses them to the floor and, after a second's hesitation, he folds up his jacket and slips it beneath Connor's head.]

That's what Dave told me. About uh, that little thing on your chest there.

[He makes his hands work fast, before he has a chance to really think about it. He's got to work fast, anyway, in case Connor decides to send a distress signal or whatever, in case he decides to try to connect to Cyberlife. Hank's hands unbutton the bottom few buttons of Connor's shirt, brushing the material out of the way and touching Connor's middle in the way he's been taught, the way that's supposed to make Connor's skin slide back and his stomach open up.]

Used to work on androids that are too glitchy for a guy to repair em safely. Sends a signal straight into your thirium pump, transmits it through your blood. You should still be able to talk but uh, there wasn't time for me to learn much more than that about what it does. Just enough to use it.

[The tools clink against each other as he looks them over, briefly. They're small, they have to be small, so unless he's really fucked it up there should be a hole in Connor's stomach wide enough to fit them through.]

[He’s at Hank’s mercy, and there’s nothing to be done about the way he’s laid out on the ground, head propped up with care. Paradoxical to all that was happening, that gesture, as if knocking out the control over his limbs wasn’t something utterly jarring, distinctively frightening. He sees the ceiling of Hank’s house staring down at him, catches flashes of movement out of his periphery. Feels the man accessing his middle, the treacherous panel gone plastic-white, and sliding up to reveal his insides.

His LED flickers into the red, straining against the impulses that keep him caged in his own body. Tries to will his arms to move, his hands to clench, for him to sit up and demand that Hank stop, what was he doing-

Connor hears the clinking of tools. He can’t see them, and he can’t help the way the fear of the unknown absolutely threads through him.]

Use it… use it for what?!

[At least his jaw works, his mouth forms words with sharp edges, accusatory.]

Hey, hey. Hey.

[Hank's tone goes urgent and soft and he brushes his fingers over Connor's LED.]

It's okay. It's alright. Just, just your tracker, okay? That's it for now. Just your tracker.

[He takes the tool he needs and hesitates and makes himself stop hesitating, and then his fingers are in Connor's insides. It feels like a role reversal, he thinks, with distant surprise. It feels like surgery. He never expected this to feel like that and he never expected to be this freaked out about it.

But that's what the practice was for. He remembers what the tracker looks like. He remembers what signal the tool in his hand is going to give off when he finds it. He remembers how to brush aside all the bits he needs to reach through without putting them out of alignment.

Then he's sitting back with the tool on the ground and the tracker held between his fingers, and he doesn't remember how it got there. If Connor said something in the past thirty seconds, he probably didn't hear it. He tries to pay attention, to get his brain working, but his brain's pretty occupied with the thing between his fingers and the way his hands are shaking and with noticing the blood, where those spots of Connor's blood got to and wondering if he should clean them up.]

I know-

[He straightens out his voice, tries to breathe a little slower.]

I know trackers turn off in deviants, but- but you've always been weird, uh- But I can't, uh- I can't risk it. You get that, right? Risk, uh- uh, risk calculation.

[He barely registers the touch across his LED. It spins, mercilessly, as Hank works at him. Works in him.

Just his tracker? His tracker. It can’t be just his tracker, because that isn’t just a part to be pulled out and discarded; that little component, now caught between Hank’s fingers, represents the line that Connor could never cross, that perfectly-aligned wall that he could never shatter. The ledge he could never step off of, only moving backwards, ever backwards, because that wasn’t supposed to be who he was. It couldn’t be — he couldn’t be wrong, riddled with errors. He couldn’t become what he was meant to hunt, he couldn’t be brave enough to watch his own purpose slip away from him, and simply turn forward and keep moving. That tracker was Cyberlife’s chains around his neck, and Connor would only pull so hard against them. Never enough to make them snap.

But now Hank’s removed it, he can see and feel it missing, and suddenly Connor’s just an android wheeling in the wind.

It’s an ironic surge of hot emotion that blasts through him, indignant, angry, afraid. Disbelieving, his processing whirring in his mind, because suddenly the consequences of what’s just happened in less than a handful of minutes are branching out into a hundred different paths, too overwhelming to even consider.]

Risk calculation- Risk? I’m not a deviant, Hank! You can't do this to me!

[Stepping back into 50 layers of harsh denial is the only way he knows how to process this.]

I-

[Hank's eyes, wide, snap to Connor's face. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand.

Hank tries to tighten his expression. He tightens his jaw. He gets to his feet.]

What the hell were you just talking about, Connor? Cyberlife's not gonna greet you with a smile and a warm handshake the next time you talk to them. You really-

Fuck. Just- Give me a minute. I have to take care of this.

[He drags a chair over to a spot on the ceiling where the tiles sag. It's weird, that the chair's still exactly where it's supposed to be, that everything in here's not knocked over. That his house doesn't look like Ortiz's place. He's not like Ortiz. He's not-

Oh, there's Sumo, poking his head out from Hank's bedroom. It must have been Connor's tone of voice. The rest must not have been too loud. With careful, precise movements that do not quite feel connected to the rest of him, Hank tosses the tracker through the open spot at the edge of his ceiling tile and steps down from the chair. He does not look at the spot on the floor where Connor's body is.]

Hey, Sumo. You wanna go out while I pack? Yeah, that's a good boy, come on. Get it all out, okay? Long trip ahead of us.

[Hank ushers Sumo toward the door, looking out at him long enough to make sure he's not going to wander off before he walks back past Connor toward his bedroom.]

[If Hank thinks Connor is of the right mind to lie there, like a good, mindless little android, and be ignored, then he’ll be met with grand disappointment. Connor’s caught in the flow of this fearful frustration, Hank implying to him that he doesn’t understand, and no, it’s the Lieutenant that doesn’t understand— How can he? He’s not the one with something surgically removed from him, something that’s shifted his world from beneath his feet without knowing it would happen. He’s been pushed into the deep end, and Connor can feel the water rising up over his head while he sinks, the surface receding with each moment that passes.]

Is this what you were hiding from me? What you and Dave were conspiring about?

[If he could just strain a little harder, could he move? Could he force his damn Thirium pump to stop gushing stop-commands through his veins?]

No wonder you didn’t want to tell me!

[Hank's packing-- why? Where are they going? What long trip? Is he going to be hauled around like slack hardware, on the worst roadtrip of his very short life that he never signed up for?]

Edited 2018-08-08 15:26 (UTC)

[Hank's first thought is that neighbors might hear. They probably won't, but they might. His second thought is that, no, there's no fucking way that he's telling Connor that that's not all they were 'conspiring' about, that the very beginnings of a program that'd allow Connor to block incoming connections - from Cyberlife, other androids, anybody - are sitting on yet another usb drive on Hank's passenger seat. If he could just be angry, now that Connor's angry, that would make this easier. But it shouldn't be easy.

But it has to be. He has to get this done.

He walks back to the front door and closes it.]

I, uh...

[He tries again to force some anger past the distance in his mind, past that weird shaky feeling. It doesn't take.]

I don't know what to tell you, Connor. I'm not doing this out of some sick sense of...

[He pauses at the doorway to his room.]

I don't know, maybe it is sick. I don't know what to tell you. What do you want me to say?

[He drifts into his bedroom. If there's something else he meant to take, he can't remember what it is. He grabs a handful of the first clothes he touches, yanks the blanket off his bed, leaves his bedroom. He eyes Connor and tosses his clothes on the couch and throws the blanket on the floor, near enough to Connor that hopefully it won't be too hard to drag him onto it.]

[He’s searching for Hank to toss anger back at him, so they can skewer each other through with words and maybe that’ll make him feel better about what’s happening. Maybe anger can be a thick enough foundation that he won’t be able to look down and see all the ugly, complicated things beneath.

But it’s Hank’s strange calmness that defies all of this. He doesn’t know how to work around it — maybe his negotiating subroutines have fizzled out, too — and it’s like the blunt end of a weapon shattering his prodding, sharp-pointed intent.

Another effort exerted to move. It’s wasted. Some part of his mind, still running in the background, notes the blanket landing near to him. Wants to reach out and analyze the fiber count for no reason other than it’s ingrained in his programming. Processes that are automatic, easy to fall into. He remembers a time when that’s all he felt, neatly put together, each little thing compartmentalized in his mind. Now, in this moment, he feels like every part of himself has been unwound and spread out on the ground for Hank to look at, piece by piece by piece.]

I want you to tell me why.

[Why do this?]

[He thinks about it. He puts his hands under Connor's shoulders and drags him onto the blanket, goes to wipe Connor's blood off the floor with a napkin and he thinks about it.]

You should have done your research better on me, Connor. Or maybe- maybe there's only so much a file can tell you. It can't tell you what it's like to- to lose everything, and- and live through it. And then you-

[Hank straightens his voice out again, stands up, tosses the napkin into the sink and runs water over it. If anyone comes around with the ability to analyze thirium, they won't find enough to do shit all with. Or that's the hope.]

And I have reasons for what I do, you know? Might be shitty reasons, but they're mine.

[He goes back to Connor, shoves his clothes into a plastic bag, slips the bag over an arm, then pulls up the edges of the blanket and begins to drag it.]

There's a reason I didn't want to get involved. There's a reason I didn't want to- What would you even call it, Connor? Be your partner. There's a reason I didn't want to be your partner, or for you to be anything but that plastic fuck who shoves me around to places I don't want to go. I didn't even want you to be there, you even being near me makes me think of-

[He shoves the door open, dragging the blanket down it. Here they go to the car, might be a few bumps on the way.]

But that doesn't matter. That's not the part that matters.

[He has no choice to listen as the world slides past. As the view changes from Hank’s ceiling, to the doorframe, to the outside air, to the atmosphere far above, a different world of its own. The feeling of bumps and pebbles rolling along beneath the blanket. A breeze playing at his hair, its neatness long ago a lost cause.

Connor had done his research. Had poured over Hank’s file, every little detail, as a way to learn how to work better with the man, back when all he wanted to do was insult him, to turn away his help. Knows about Hank’s grief, and thusly knows better than to ever bring it up — than to ever talk about Cole, or his death. But to know, always, that this was the defining loss that everything his life pivoted around. The reason why he hated androids, why he drunk himself into a stupor, why he risked putting a bullet in his brain on his worse nights. Why his feet would always drag whenever Connor tried to motivate him to work a case with him.

He doesn’t know what to do with this slowly forming connection, the realization that Hank was about to lose something else if this case didn’t crack. That Connor himself would be sent back to Cyberlife and taken apart and deactivated and maybe thrown into a junkyard, eventually, pieces of himself strewn around with other hollow-eyed androids, and he’d be left to rot there for years to come. He had never correlated his own existence with something as poignant as Hank’s son. He had never thought he would’ve been so… so…

Needed, in that way.

Connor closes his eyes, and something seems to drain from him. Anger twists itself up and becomes sensation even harder to wield, just bramble in his processing, emotion making nothing work right — was this what all the others felt, he wonders, when he chased them across rooftops? When he scowled at them in a cold interrogation room?

They don’t really feel emotions, he had said to Hank once, they just get overwhelmed by irrational instructions, which can lead to unpredictable behavior.

Is that what this was? Irrational instructions firing off at every direction inside the confines of his brain? His voice suddenly sounds far-away.]

…then what does matter?

[Hank pulls open the car door, grabs the edges of the blanket and heaves, and gets Connor's head and shoulders onto the seat. Then he breathes for a second. Not a lot of time to rest here, despite the fact that Connor seems every bit as heavy as a real- as a flesh and blood person. This is the part someone could, theoretically, look outside and see. He pulls on the blanket again in one big movement and shoves it and its contents onto the back seat.]

Sumo.

[Hank looks at the dog, calls his name again, and pats the seat next to Connor. Sumo starts to trot over.

Hank takes a breath, wipes his forehead, kneels on the back seat and leans over to untie Connor's tie.]

I don't know, Connor. I'm not the one loyal to that hellhole that churns you guys out. You're gonna have to tell me.

[Hank gently slips the tie around Connor's head, around Connor's face and and over his eyes, and ties it. There can't be any chance that Connor will see anywhere they go.]

Edited (code) 2018-08-08 17:04 (UTC)

[There’s a dry sense of humor that has always existed in Connor, and it slices through all of his thoughts to inform him that this is just like a real kidnapping. As Hank loops the tie around his eyes, his eyelids shuttering against it, he wonders if Cyberlife will just send out another RK800 one day, assigned with unravelling the mystery of the missing android Connor and Lieutenant Anderson. If he’ll just be another supposed deviant case chucked into a long list of them.]

Loyal…

[The word slips out, sounding hollow. Is that what Hank thought? That he clung to Cyberlife out of loyalty? Cyberlife was all he knew. All he knew until he was set forth into the world and let it sink its claws into him, turning his core programming into fragmented pieces of what an RK800 was supposed to be.

His tone melds into indignity again.]

I should report you to Cyberlife for this.

[He can hear things rustling. Hears Hank calling for Sumo. Wonders how his hands can still feel tense, twitchy, when they’re just dead, limp things now.]

I can't stop you.

[Hank tugs on one side of the blanket until he gets enough free to throw it over Connor's body, covering it from anyone who might look in. Then he pats the seat again and Sumo hops up, sniffing at the blanket over Connor's face and settling in beside him. Sumo's no stranger to car trips.

Hank leaves the house's lights on. He locks the front door. This is probably the last he'll see of this house; for a second or two he sort of cares about that. Then he walks back to the car, taps the button that sends a signal to the other little transmitters installed across the outside of his car, and the whole thing's covered in the hologram of a normal, modern car.

And that's it. Hank hesitates for a second. Then he starts the car, and drives off.]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think would happen if you did? Just so I know what to expect.

[He can feel the weight of Sumo settle next to him, feel the lurch of the car beginning to move.

His reply is purposefully unhelpful.]

What do you think the proper response is to a police lieutenant who's disappearing into the wind with a "deviant" in tow?

[He sincerely hopes Hank hears those air quotes.]

What makes you think any of this is worth it?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject