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

[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?

[Hank sighs, looks out at the traffic, and realizes that he's still not angry. He can still feel Connor's guts - his wires, sensors, tubes - the way they'd felt brushing against his hands, but maybe that's not the whole reason. Shock, maybe. Do kidnappers go into shock? That'd be fucking funny.]

A police lieutenant who's making off with some pretty expensive equipment. You're a felony, probably, at least, not that the length of the jailtime really matters when the guy going in is a cop. But who gives a shit about the lieutenant. What about the... the equipment? Cops'll return it to its legal owners, and they'll... stick another tracker in and send you back out into the world to keep kicking the asses of all those poor bastards who only ever wanted to be safe? You think that's how it's going to go down?

[Connor’s quiet for a moment, digging into a certain swath of subroutines made to negotiate. A change in tactics, since the last thing he wishes to do is answer the Lieutenant in a sincere way. To admit that no, he’d be lucky if he had a tracker stuck back in him at all. They’d take one look at the Code 4 errors swimming around in his head and shut him down.]

And how many more line items are you going to add to your long list of misconducts, Hank? Just another felony for the road? Are you really going to throw your career away from an RK800 who doesn’t even want to be here? There’s no going back after this. You and I both know that this is more than just a case of you stealing “equipment” — if Cyberlife finds me, accesses my memories, see what kind of errors are compiling in my head, it isn’t just equipment you’ve stolen. You’re running off with evidence relating to an on-going case. That you’ve been working. How’s that going to look on your file?

[He pauses, wondering if those words were sharp enough to hook into Hank’s mind. To pull this sudden bout of morality out of alignment.]

…We can turn back now. We’re not that far; go back to your house, put the tracker back in, and then keep working on the case. We weren’t out of time yet.

[Hank actually laughs. It's different from the laughing he'd been doing just - what, shit, earlier this evening? It's not really a laugh, more breath than anything else.]

Fuck, Connor. I guess you didn't find out dick from my file. My career? My fucking- That's what you're going with?

[His laugh turns into a giggle and he takes a couple fast, unsteady breaths, swallows, takes an unnecessary turn, in case Connor's tracking the direction of the car by feel. He takes a couple more breaths, slower now, and swallows again.]

I thought your big fancy brain was all in your head, I only took out your tracker, didn't I? Didn't fuck up any of those brand new prototype processors? You really think my career's not just as fucking- as fucked up as I am?

[Connor knew it was a long shot, but he still frowns deeply from beneath this damn blanket when it doesn't land. But his bargaining chips are limited, and frustration boils up again.

Somehow, this time, he manages to partially tamp it down.]

Then what am I supposed to appeal to? Tell me, Lieutenant. There aren't very many choices for me to pick from. [Haphazard left turn here, he notes, but he can't trust that Hank isn't taking a convoluted path towards wherever they're going.] If you're throwing it all away because of me then you're making a mistake. I'm not-

[He's not, he's not. He's not what?]

-willing to be responsible for anything that happens to you.

I threw it away a long time ago, Connor.

[Hank glances at Connor in his rearview mirror, then wonders why. It's not like he can see Connor's face under that blanket. No one right now can see Connor's face.]

But what's left of it- God, you want me to just, what, go into work while you're being inspected, broken down, some nut's going through your code line by line to find out what went so wrong and you want me to, what? Go home and feed my fucking dog? Do you have any fucking idea what you're asking me to do?

[For a moment he just focuses on the road. The only thing that matters right now is getting out of Detroit - not over the border, that's too hard to pull off, just out of Detroit. His route needs to be roundabout but it also needs to be quick. Hank keeps taking random turns while he tries to think clearly enough to plan it all out.]

I used to think- [He takes a breath.] I used to think I was a real tough guy, you know? Wasn't like no one could touch me but I was always a big guy, and after academy? Fuck, I think I coulda torn the world apart, if I wanted to. But I-

You don't know what you're asking. It's nuts that you're even trying to, what, look out for me? You do know you've been fucking kidnapped by me, the guy whose terrible fate you're not willing to be responsible for? But either way, it- God, it doesn't matter, either way there's nothing there to look out for. If you're going to be plotting your daring escape you'd better do it for some other reason. You're barking up the wrong tree if you think there's any point in me turning around and going back home for me.

[The frown doesn’t leave his face. How is it that Hank runs circles around his reasoning? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Is he just flailing to reach for arguments, for points of contention, weak as they are, because he’s too scared to really face what’s happening now? Happening so quickly, faster than this car is moving, diverging down a path where the scenery blurs past, so much he can’t fathom the sudden change.

His reply to that is accordingly weak. His logic and rationale is disintegrating with a lack of arguments that don't revolve around pure emotion.]

Then do it for me. You didn’t give me a choice. You think you’re going to force pure deviancy into my code, by removing my tracker and hiding me away from Cyberlife?

No.

[Hank's reply is quiet. He looks out the windshield, slowing down a little when he notices the falling snow.]

We still don't know what causes deviancy anyway. Well, we kinda do. But somehow I don't think self defense is gonna do it for you. If I tried to, I don't know, threaten you- [That's a wacky scenario right now, isn't it.] -and you fought back, you'd just be following your orders. And if Cyberlife - or whoever you were telling me about, who you make those reports to - if they tried to dump all your code right now, I think you'd probably just let them.

I don't know, Connor. At least this way I'll know whether you're even alive. That's something, isn't it?

You’re making me out into something I’m not, Hank. I’m a machine.

[The android sent by Cyberlife. Designed to accomplish a task, a mission. What a half-hearted declaration that was, though, and he can’t even bring himself to finish the statement of, I’m not alive.]

You can’t restrict my motor functions forever. It isn’t feasible for you to move a prototype unit from location to location. Someone will eventually notice.

Edited 2018-08-08 19:40 (UTC)

You're a machine, you're evidence - I know, Connor. I know all that. What I don't know is how fucked up you've gotta be to call yourself 'evidence in an ongoing investigation' cause of errors that are just- that just mean you don't want to kill innocent people, fucking Christ.

I guess I can't tell you what you are, but I can tell you what I see. I can tell you what you convinced me you were, back when you were trying so fucking hard to get me to like you.

A persnickety little shit, vain, always has to be right - driven, focused, stubborn as hell, kind - a goddamn handful in the field, and off it - off it, a good man, when you forget to be... Whatever else it is you are. A machine, I guess. Under the circuits and the, the code, there's a good man, and if keeping him alive and, uh - and in my life, I guess - for a little while longer is all I can do, then why shouldn't I do it? What does it matter if it's 'feasible'?

[He's quiet. He doesn't know what to do with that compliment couched in little complaints. It feels too big for him to carry, like pieces of it are going to slip away if he doesn't process it as succinctly as he can.

A good man. Hadn't he called Hank that earlier... today? Was it only today?]

Trying to adhere to what I was designed to do is the only thing I know. Do you know what it feels like? You forcibly taking all of that away?

[He remembers "waking up" for the first time. The first day of his activation. His consciousness blossoming not on the physical plane, but in the Zen Garden, and Amanda was the first face to greet him. Told him of his name, his designation, his purpose. Repeat them to me, Connor. And he did, inherently understanding at the time it was all he needed to know, all he needed to do — just to be satisfied with prescribing to his set purpose. Why wouldn’t he?

Strange, unquantifiable, how that memory now feels like a shade of a thing. A phantom in his code, haunting every action he takes.]

[Hank's quiet for a while.]

This is what I was thinking about, you know. When you told me I was, uh - better than I thought I was.

[Their thoughts are, for a second, on the same track.]

About pulling your insides out and forcing you somewhere you don't wanna go.

No, I don't know what it's like. But I'm sorry. For what it's worth. Connor, I am sorry.

Edited (code AGAIN) 2018-08-08 20:33 (UTC)

[He's run out of things to say. Arguments to make, reasoning, cloying negotiations, even that initial flare of anger has lost its drive to make him cry afoul of everything that's happening. It's replaced instead by a hollowing resignation, still lined with trepidation buzzing in his defunct body.

And so he doesn't say anything for a long time. Connor only takes in the noise of the car driving along the road, the occasional feel of Sumo shifting next to him.]

...Where are you taking us?

[He doesn't expect much of an answer, but he asks out of an innate need to know when faced with uncertainty.]

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