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

Are you mothering me? Even-

[Hank lifts his arm off his eyes to stare, disbelieving, at Connor's reflection in the rearview mirror. He'd feel better, he thinks, if Connor were yelling at him. Or even giving him the cold shoulder, like he kind of thought Connor was doing. For a second, he thinks he'd feel better if Connor suggested going to the nearest town and leaving Hank there, but he's glad Connor seemingly isn't even considering that, he's glad, and he closes his eyes and slides his arm back down over his face. He slides it down a little too far; when he speaks again his voice is muffled.]

Better if you do it, anyway, since you're on board now.

[He finds his phone and holds it out in the general direction he remembers Connor being.]

Only app on the second page. And then, uh, the usb drive in the bag under my legs, front pocket. 's an adapter in there too.

[He lifts his legs up so Connor can reach the bag, bracing his feet on the passenger side window instead of the door. The app is for reading and writing code, although he hasn't tried to use it yet. He knows any chance of giving Connor the ability to block Cyberlife's calls, say no to giving their damn reports, is kind of pathetically small. He doesn't need to open the thing up in the coding app and see it.]

Dave said, uh... There might be a whole separate thing to write before that one will even work, something that'll make your system recognize you as owner or whatever, I don't know, he seemed kinda freaked and I didn't want to push my luck, so I didn't ask. Maybe you can... I don't know, figure something out, or tell me it's a stupid idea that'll never work, or- fuck, I don't know.

[If he’s stuck on this terrible joyride with you and Sumo, Hank, Connor is going to make sure you take care of yourself. It’s not like the man has the best track record when it comes to his health. The fact that he stunned him, dug around in his insides, then kidnapped him is reason enough to allow him that much; that’s Connor’s logic.

Hank would feel Connor’s fingers brushing against his own as the android reaches over to take the offered phone. He looks at it, flipping through the app — basic coding principles, from what it looks like. His browline twists up in a question, parsing what Hank is telling him.]

You want to force my independence from Cyberlife through... secondhand coding?

[He’s not sure what to think about that — it sounds invasive, blindly trusting someone else’s code to apply neatly and without issue to his own.

Connor sets the phone aside and reaches forward to dig for the USB in the bag. He pushes one of Hank’s legs aside in an idle manner, thoughtlessly. While he rustles around:]

Do you trust this program? Dave’s never worked on an RK800 before; we don’t know how well it’ll integrate if we try.

I wouldn't-

[Hank's voice sounds a little strangled. His arm flops down to his side and he frowns at the ceiling, taking deep breaths.]

I wouldn't have forced it on you, Connor. I promise I, I wouldn't, I just-

I don't know. I just wanted to do something.

[Hank's voice has gone quiet at that last and he grips the edge of the seat under him, keeps not looking at Connor.]

He didn't even get to write it, anyway. Things happened too fast. That's why I was gonna- I wasn't, uh, going to force it though, I just-

Fuck, um, could you reach under my seat, should be some uh, soup under there. Might feel better if I eat something.

[Connor gives up on the USB for now, then, if he’s going to be delegated to getting Hank’s soup from under the seat. Connor has to reach even more, given that he’s in the backseat, and it’s something of an effort, all limbs, as he twists his body and his hands search for their prize.

He speaks during all of this.]

You mean similar to how you wouldn’t have forcibly frozen all my limbs and removed my tracker?

[Faintly dry, that.]

...it’s not a bad idea in theory. The application of something that would tell my internal programming to treat Cyberlife as unwelcome and invasive.

[Ah, his fingers curl around what he assumes is a can or container of soup. He pushes back, trying to straighten, the soup clutched in one hand.]

But the issue is time.

[There it is. It's still weird, though, Connor is weird, all cooperation where Hank would have been all anger. But maybe he doesn't know much about Connor, still, except for how the guy keeps putting him off with weird responses. At least Hank got sarcasm, for a second. It's the least of what he ought to get, but it's something.]

That's different. That tracker's your body, and it shouldn't have even been there in the first place. A program-

[That would be changing Connor's mind. His soul, maybe. But the only point he's made, he knows, is that that would have been worse, not that he wouldn't have done it. Hank swallows and looks over to reach out for the soup.]

You mean you couldn't just- I don't know, write something up at superspeed?

I could try. But just because I’m an android doesn’t mean that I’m immune from making mistakes. Testing would still be preferable, and we don’t have the time for that, as I said.

[He’s quiet for a moment. There’s something about Connor being Connor that disallows him to ignore contradictions. Hypocrisy, he’d call it, if he was feeling particularly harsh. It’s how he’s been built; it’s part of his personality, to sniff out inconsistencies and toss them under the limelight. So then, to bring the conversation back around:]

‘But I'd do it again. I'd do worse, if I had to, if that's what it took to give you a life.’ [Remember those words, Hank? Connor looks at him evenly.] Lieutenant, you had me incapacitated and threw me into the backseat of your car despite my protests. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you wouldn’t have run a program through my system without my permission as well?

[The soup is taken. Connor pushes himself up from the ground again, settling again into the backseat.

He says all this, of course, and maybe should be angry about it. Is obviously still a little put-off; but Hank is Hank. Connor will not argue this so far to negate the fact that he called him a good man earlier. He still believes that, despite everything.]

I wouldn’t-

[Hank closes his eyes again, for a minute. He needs a drink suddenly, desperately. What he has is soup. He starts shifting around, pulling himself into the passenger seat. That gives him long enough that, when he’s done, he can stand to talk.]

Still want to drive?

...Yes.

[That would be for the best. Give Hank time to rest, time to pull himself out of the thick mire that is exhaustion threatening to overcome him. The subject seems to be dropped, the point made, and Connor hesitates only for a second before exiting the backseat, closing the door behind him.

He joins Hank in the front, behind the wheel, only second later. He turns over the engine, and it comes to stuttering to life like an animal awakening from slumber.]

Eat. Then sleep. I'll wake you if I require something.

[Hank opens his mouth to reply, then just nods. He forgot spoons too and it’s gross cold but he does feel a little less shitty afterward, and he throws the can at his feet and leans his head against the window and tries to think of nothing. Fifteen minutes later he’s given up and is fucking around on his phone, although there’s fuckall he can do on it-when it’s disconnected from the outside world like it is. He’d feel really fucking stupid, though, if he did all this and then got caught because he forgot all the ways the cops can track his phone, so he leaves it the way it is. Thirty minutes after that, he’s asleep.

It’s not a deep sleep. He blinks awake at turns and noises and bumps on the road, and after about the fourth or fifth time he squints at the clock and decides that’s enough of a nap to keep him going for a while]

Want me to take over so you can work on, uh, coding?

[He rubs his fingers against his eyes and then peers out the windshield at any street signs.]

Where we headed?

Edited (typos) 2018-08-10 16:09 (UTC)

No. Not yet.

[It's nighttime proper now. It's the sort of road that seems to stretch out into the darkness, never ending, small and badly lit. The kind that's indicative of being out in the middle of nowhere, where you can drive too fast without anyone caring at your own risk -- but Connor drives at that perfect in-between speed, not too quick and not too slow for this sort of weather, his LED adding a faintly ephemeral glow to the interior of the car.

He glances over briefly to Hank. He still wouldn't consider the man remotely rested enough.]

The nearest small town. 10.8 miles from where we are currently. To find a place to suffiently recover from... all that's transpired, and to realign our focus from there. You thought to bring money, didn't you?

[Hank bends to pull one of the stacks of bills out of the bag and wave it in answer before putting it back and settling in, muttering to himself.]

‘Realign our focus,’ what does that even...

Wait, recover? That, uh, stunner thing didn’t do anything else to you, did it?

[The stack of bills is reassuring, though it seems to drive home the point that he feels like a criminal on the run. The twist of irony doesn't even begin to escape him.]

It means I want time to think on how to proceed, and we can afford to stop constantly moving for a short period of time to achieve this.

[Androids don't get tired, but those deviating must experience some strange heaviness in their bodies, a weariness that can't be quantified as anything measured, he thinks. Connor's world has just been turned upside-down, and it continues to move past them in a blur -- it would be nice to feel, for a moment, like it isn't tilting on its axis.]

As for recovering... I meant, mostly, for you. I'm functioning as normally as the term can be applied to me.

[Hank opens his mouth to reply, and then doesn't. He sits back. He waits. Whatever Connor wants to do is what they do.

Once Connor's chosen a place to stay Hank takes some money and heads to the nearest couple stores. He doesn't realize he might not have thought this all the way through until he comes back and doesn't know what room Connor's in. Asking the desk clerk where he went might draw attention, and besides, he doesn't really want to. He just searches out the car, leaning against its hood and pulling a bottle of whiskey out of his bag of goodies. Connor will probably come looking for him eventually; until then he'll just be here leaning back, every now and then taking swigs and making faces at the taste.]

[Some people would describe this particular out-of-the-way motel as quaint. Others would care to call it run-down, instead. What matters the most, however, is that it’s discreet, has vacancies, and is detached enough from the goings-on of the city that Connor, as an android, garners only the fewest amount of suspicious glances. It’s only two floors tall, with a too-large parking lot at its center. Their room is on the second floor, and Connor waits for Hank to come back. He hasn’t yet.

He watches the slow-ticking clock on the wall, gauging the time. He hadn’t tried to stop the man when he departed, knowing that Hank could take care of himself, though concern is not something so easily beaten back — most especially given the situation that they’re in, the constant feeling of shadows at their heels, that quiet dread of simply running away from something far from where they are now. A city miles and miles and miles departed.

The hand of the clock crosses a threshold, a point where Connor no longer wishes to simply stand and stare at it. He exits the room, and on the railing that encompasses the whole outer part of the motel’s upper floor, he leans against the rickety metal to look down.

He sees Hank, and a minute later, he’s approaching him. Connor’s removed his jacket, left only with his white dress shirt; the tie’s still missing, too, still lying uselessly across Hank’s backseat.]

Lieutenant. What are doing?

[like, hello??? come inside??]

Waiting for you. Didn't know what room you were in.

[Hank says it distractedly, focusing more on looking Connor over and trying to decide about sizes. He looks thoughtful for a second before he decides to try out the simplest item first, reaching back into his bag and pulling out a pair of large, reflective aviator sunglasses. He starts to move to put them on Connor himself but stops, sunglasses out, his hand about a foot from Connor's face.

The last time, after all, that he touched Connor, it didn't go so well for the guy. Maybe he's lost the right to. Hank's lips twitch into a tight, split second smile before he takes another drink, still holding the glasses up.]

[Connor blinks as the glasses approach his face, and the gesture washes away anything he was going to say regarding finding his room. He doesn't lean away, and he likely wouldn't have done much more than stand there if Hank did put the sunglasses on him, but-

His eyes cast over to the bottle, and he frowns. But a hand, almost automatically, does reach up to take the sunglasses. He turns it over to the reflective side, and sees his own face staring back.]

Am I expected to wear these?

[The qualifies as a strange purchase.]

Well. Unless you want to make some weird modern art with em, but they kinda lose something as a disguise that way.

[Hank decides to wait on the rest. Better hold off until Connor figures out how to wrap his mind around the concept of sunglasses.]

[Slowly, experimentally, he puts them on. He looks at Hank, temporarily transforming into one of Those People who wear their sunglasses at night.]

I'm not certain how well this qualifies as a disguise.

[Hank can't help but smile, huff a little noise that might want to become laughter someday, when it grows up, so he folds his arms over his chest and looks down at them, instead.]

I don't know, I'd look at you and think 'pretentious FBI asshole' before I thought 'android'.

[He tilts his head, hearing the joke in that statement, yet taking it semi-seriously all the same.]

First impressions lose their relevancy the moment my LED is noticed, if it's the appearance of android that we're trying to avoid. It would have to be covered with some kind of [B E A N I E] headwear.

What, think I forgot about your headlight?

[Hank tries to set the bottle down on the car hood, moves quick to intercept when the bottle starts sliding, and digs in his bag one handed, instead. When he brings the fedora out he frowns at the way it's kind of squashed in the bag, but shrugs and offers that too, brim up.]

Might have to tilt it a little, but it should work. I thought it'd go with your whole uh, business casual thing you got going there.

[Connor eyes the fedora with about the same amount of scrutiny that he gave the sunglasses. But he takes the item, putting it neatly on his head, and skews it just enough to hide his LED. A stray stand of brown hair curls out from beneath the brim, though.

Look at him, Hank. Look at this android. Is this really less conspicuous.]

Admittedly this isn’t what I would’ve chose to blend in.

[Hank's lips twitch again.]

No, you look like a totally different person. If anyone recognizes you it's definitely not going to be for what we don't want em to.

[He points at Connor's chest for emphasis, again stopping about a foot short of actually touching him.]

Come on, I'll show you the rest inside.

[He takes another drink, walking over to wait by the steps for Connor to head up, ready to follow him a few steps behind.]

Edited 2018-08-10 22:41 (UTC)

[Connor follows, until it’s his turn to lead, and it isn’t until they’re partway up the steps does he think that he should remove the sunglasses — the lack of light is bothersome in the nighttime.

(Hank is acting strange, but this is a particular difficult baseline to judge him by. It’s a stressful situation that they’re both in, and the man is tired and likely emotionally exhausted; but his gut feeling tells him that it’s something else, the way he looks at him, almost ashamed.)

He’ll wait until they’re inside before he says anything on the matter, though. To their room they go, and Connor opens the door, shutting it once they’re in.

It’s about as nice of a room as one might expect for this place. Which isn’t really all that great, but livable.]

Our room isn’t anything luxurious, but I figure that’s the least of our concerns at the moment.

Yeah. Whatever you want's fine.

[Hank goes around to the other side of the bed, dropping the bag by a pillow and petting Sumo's head. It helps, like it always does, and Sumo gives out a quiet hoof noise once Hank's done. Hank looks for a spot at the head of the bed that's not taken up by dog, finds none, and settles on the floor, setting the bottle between his knees and wrapping his hands around it.]

's more in there.

[The thing on top's a short sleeved button up, bright floral print, probably even louder unfolded than it is in the bag. He's still not sure about this messing with Connor through clothes thing, but the whiskey's been helping him go through with it anyway. It's nice to at least pretend the two of them are cool, for a minute. And he honestly is looking forward to a future where he's convinced Connor to regularly wear even half of that shit.]

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