Work Text:
“You’re off the case. The FBI is taking over.”
“What? But we’re onto something! We… we just need more time. I’m sure we can—”
“Hank, you don’t get it. This isn’t just another investigation; it’s a fucking civil war! It’s out of our hands now… We’re talking about national security here.”
The words were going in one of Connor’s ears and out the other. He wasn’t forgetting them, per se, since he was an android with state-of-the-art memory capacity and even while paying the least bit of attention, he could still bring up the past conversation in script form any time he pleased. But he certainly wasn’t processing these words right now, because he already knew what they meant. Amanda had warned him as such in the Zen Garden.
The country was on the brink of a civil war. Despite his best efforts, he and Hank hadn’t managed to uncover the secret of deviancy and the only relatively obscure information he had stored about the deviant leader, Markus, was that he was a model RK200 (something he’d thought best to keep to himself, being a prototype of the RK line himself). He’d failed to get information from Kamski and now all he was left with was the pending order to return to CyberLife and be destroyed.
It was funny, really—he’d spared the life of another android and for that he was paying the price with his own. Choosing not to shoot Chloe meant that he’d instead be shot in the Tower and there was nothing he could do about it. Not that he… particularly cared, and “life” wasn’t the right way to phrase it, Amanda would have his head for thinking like that. He didn’t care. It was simply… unfortunate to have never accomplished his purpose of succeeding with the investigation. He didn’t care. He didn’t care.
“…You’re back on homicide and the android returns to CyberLife. I’m sorry, Hank, but it’s over.”
The door slammed behind Hank, barely muffling his string of curses. This time Connor did not turn to consider exchanging pleasantries with Fowler, instead following behind Hank but making sure to quietly shut the door behind him, as if to offset the violent way it had been swung before and return some sort of equilibrium. That was how it had been throughout this investigation, after all—his calm, logical thinking, set against Hank’s hardened experiences and frequently volatile emotions. He shouldn’t miss this— Hank hated him. Well, he hated androids, and his social relations program called their particular relationship “friends” but he had presumed this some flaw or the program being overeager to compensate for the lack of a genuine bond between them. After all, Hank had been mad at him when they’d gone to Kamski’s, if the cursing and angry expression had been anything to go by… apparently saving his life at Stratford Tower via way of human, or, more accurately, android shield, had been distressing to him. This was puzzling.
“You died in my arms! And now you’re back here… as if nothing happened? Fuck you. Fuck you.”
Perhaps Hank, with his constant drive to risk his own life and maybe even take it, had been annoyed he hadn’t been afforded this opportunity when it had been so easily presented. Dying in a blaze of gunfire to a rogue android could have been cathartic for him.
But Connor’s instructions had been more important. He couldn’t, even by inaction, allow human life to come to any harm. It was as the first law stated:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
And well, while the third law may say his own existence must be protected, it also added the exception that this law may be broken if it conflicted with the first or second, and since Hank’s life had been on the line—
Well, other humans had died from his action to simply focus on Hank, but it was as if there were some greater law that preceded the first, that Hank must be saved, that human life would be exchanged with Hank’s life…
No, it wasn’t that there was anything wrong with his operating system and how it prioritised the fundamental laws of robotics. It made sense to prioritise Hank’s life above all else because Hank was his superior who gave him orders and the case would not be possible without him, and his mission was just as important to be accomplished.
“…nor? Connor?”
His LED snapped from yellow to a cool blue as he broke out of his thoughts.
“Lieutenant?”
Hank was staring at him with that look mixed between general displeasure and that same expression he wore when Connor analysed samples from the ground, like he’d got a really bad taste in his mouth and was grimacing as if to keep from chewing on it.
“You were fucking standing there, staring at me, for like… a fuckin’ long time. Did you actually run out of batteries or what?”
“No!” he repeated, just as incredulous as he had the first time Hank had made such an assumption. “Androids do not even run on something as simple as ‘batteries’, it’s actually a highly complicated—”
“Why the fuck do I open my damn mouth.” Hank turned away, and there was a red arrow in the corner of his vision as their relationship ticked downwards. He didn’t care.
Right. The case, he had been thinking about the case and not Hank and not his impending destruction at the hands of CyberLife.
“We could have solved this case! We just needed more time.”
As he perched on the edge of Hank’s desk, the man turned a little in his chair, half facing him.
“So… you’re going back to CyberLife?”
“I have no choice… I’ll be deactivated and analysed to find out why I failed…”
He didn’t look back at Hank. It didn’t matter what Hank thought. It didn’t matter what he did. Faulty machines got sent back to the factory all the time.
“What if we’re on the wrong side, Connor? What if we’re fighting against people who just wanna be free?”
Connor stared at him. Really, after all this time, the man who had complained again and again about androids and how he hated them and—no, he didn’t care.
“They’re not people, Lieutenant. They’re defective machines.” Just like me.
Hank scowled and turned away again. He didn’t need his social relations program to know their relationship had taken a hit. But the words made him feel just that bit more stable, like he was still holding on to the fundamental ideas coded into him—androids were just that, androids, machines which could break and that was all. Being broken down wouldn’t hurt, he just wouldn’t... be able to think about this anymore once he was destroyed.
The software instability crept back up again.
No, he didn’t care.
“They’re not people.” Hank spat. “That’s what we say every time we want to oppress someone.”
Connor didn’t respond.
“When you refused to kill that android at Kamski’s place… You put yourself in her shoes. You showed empathy, Connor. Empathy is a human emotion.”
That was improbable and wholly impossible. He told Hank as such. “You’re wrong, Lieutenant. My actions were determined by statistical data. I’m not a deviant. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
And yet these words felt incomplete. Looking back at Hank, who he would not see again, but at least had made it this far and survived—he needed to say one last thing. Humans were sentimental beings, after all, it would simply ease Hank’s conscious before they never saw each other again.
“I know it hasn’t always been easy… but I want you to know I really appreciate working with you… That’s not just my Social Relations program talking, I—I really mean that. At least, I think I do…”
Perhaps Hank would have said something in return and then Connor could have cordially wished him a goodbye, but it was at the moment the doors of the DPD swung open and Perkins, followed by a few officers, marched down the hallway. Connor’s thirium pump hammered in his chest. Perkins was here to destroy the evidence, and—
He didn’t want to be destroyed.
A streak of yellow cut through his LED as he processed this idea. Well, he was not scared of dying. He did not care about dying, nor never seeing Hank again, no—he cared about the mission.
He rose from the desk and smoothed over his tie. Yes, he simply wanted to get this mission done under any circumstance and he only wished to preserve his existence long enough to do it, and if the first law dictated that he protect the lives of humans at any cost, then… maybe the deviants who had been mostly peaceful all along, could potentially cause threat to humanity. Yes.
“Listen, Connor…”
“If I don’t solve this case, CyberLife will— will destroy me and then I will not be able to accomplish my mission. Human lives will be at stake, Hank. Five minutes. It’s all I ask.”
Hank stared at him, brow raising further as he spoke until it could have just about gone through his hairline. The word ‘bullshit’ was hot on his tongue, but instead of letting it slide off, he simply gestured to the key on his desk before groaning, rising from his seat.
“Key to the basement is on my desk… Get a move on! I can’t distract them forever.”
Hank moved with more speed than Connor expected, and he wondered why he seemed so suddenly eager to help with the mission he’d rarely given two shits about, until he heard the shout of, “Perkins! You fucking cocksucker!” and the crunch of broken cartilage. Clearly that had been something the Lieutenant had wanted to do regardless and now with an excuse, he’d let loose.
Connor supposed he couldn’t blame him, as he headed to the evidence room- ‘fucking cocksucker’ was an apt, if vulgar, description of the FBI agent. There were a lot of people who could be accurately described as such. Just like—
“Hey, Connor! I’m talking to you, asshole! Where you going? We don’t need any plastic pricks around here! Or didn’t anybody tell you?”
And as much as he would have liked—or, found it in the best interests of the mission—to strike Gavin across the face in a similar manner, he knew this was illogical. An android striking down a human when wholly unnecessary, well, he’d likely be shot on the spot.
“I’ve been removed from the case. I’m going to register the evidence in my possession and then I’m going to leave.”
“Good… Be careful on your way back… Androids have a tendency of, huh… Getting themselves set on fire these days…”
The door behind him was shut before the added “Prick” could register, the silence instead filled with the rapid tapping of his hurried footsteps down the stairs and towards the evidence room. The case was more important, not the cathartic but pointless release of emotions—that was for humans. That was for Hank.
The door shut behind him, the password easily entered (if there was one thing he knew about Hank, it was that he liked swearing) and the evidence room opened up. The bodies of the androids presented themselves to him and he frowned. There weren’t many, the evidence was skint… he wasn’t surprised he was being called back to CyberLife for deactivation. Some detective he was.
But still, it had to be in here—it had to be somewhere. Hank had put his job on the line for this—oh, who was he kidding, he was definitely fired. For good. But… therefore it was even more important not to waste this opportunity. He stalked back and forth across the room, eyes scanning over the broken bodies and few items until he had it figured out.
He had to reactivate one of them, one who knew where Jericho would be. Stalking towards the TV station android, he assessed which part needed replacing before taking it from Daniel. Immediately the android flickered to life, and he grabbed a hold of his arm.
“It’s dark… Where—Where am I?”
It was fortunate his eyes no longer worked, or he would have seen the one who interrogated him standing before him. Perhaps, Connor figured, his memory was also damaged, and he would not recall the sound of his voice.
“I’m a deviant… like you… I need your help. I want to go to Jericho.”
“I don’t… I… wait. I recognise your voice! You’re the one who interrogated me!”
“Shit,” Connor muttered, moving to pull his hand away, but before he could, the android had grasped his arm and held on tight.
“You can’t find Jericho! If the humans find Jericho…”
The fingers dug in tighter, leaving crescent-shaped marks on Connor’s arm. He winced at the damage, blinking away the warning in his vision about ‘superficial damage to synthetic skin’.
“I have to help Markus. You made… the wrong choice. I’ll never tell you where Jericho is!”
Then, the android’s eyes began to flutter rapidly, skin peeling away to reveal chassis and he began to forcefully interface with Connor. Within seconds his vision was plagued with warnings, ones appearing and being replaced by new ones so fast that he couldn’t read them, and something hot and sparking electrical and strange was transferring from the android to him and he couldn’t pull away and then the room was getting further and further away, and he was falling, down into some unknown depths and it was dark, very, very dark, and—
“You’re off the case. The FBI is taking over.”
“What?... But we’re onto something! We… We just need more time. I’m sure we can—”
This time, the words truly weren’t processing in Connor’s mind. The strange feeling was still jittering in his hand like static, and when he looked down, his fingertips were white, the chassis slowly being covered back up by synthskin. He was… he had been in the evidence room and now he wasn’t, he was in Fowler’s office and Hank was here, which was strange, because logic told him that Hank was actually in the corridor, beating the shit out of Perkins.
“Fuck that! You can’t just pull the plug now. Not when we’re so close!”
And this conversation felt way too familiar. He tried to bring up the script of it in his mind, but the script was active and unfinished. Frowning, he wondered if there truly was an error with his memory—but immediately dismissed this because, as he knew, he was a state-of-the-art prototype, and nothing could be wrong with him.
“Jesus, Hank, make up your mind! I thought you’d be happy about this!”
Maybe… Hank and Fowler were having another, very similar argument. Perhaps Perkins had been taken to the hospital for his injuries and now Hank was getting the ‘You’re fired’ speech, and he was back here too because…
Well, the gap in his memory, maybe CyberLife had taken control of his body to bring him back here. Yes, he had been disobeying orders, and they did have that ability, it was what made most sense.
“…and the android returns to CyberLife. I’m sorry, Hank, but it’s over.”
The door slammed behind Hank with the exact same amount of force as before. Connor supposed he was just so used to storming off that he had perfected the art of it.
He followed after Hank, moving to perch on the edge of his desk, listening to him grumble for a moment, before choosing to speak.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I… appreciate the effort you made, but we’ve failed.”
Hank stared at him, then turned away.
“So… you’re going back to CyberLife?”
“Well, yes, as we… gathered from our previous conversation.”
For some reason, this made their relationship bar drop down. Perhaps Hank’s memory was suffering from some decline. He didn’t think Hank had reached the age where that became a pertinent issue, but he supposed humans weren’t perfect and forgot things.
“Don’t gotta be a smartass about it. I heard what Fowler said, I just wanted to— nevermind.”
“So. I suppose this is… goodbye?”
Hank turned to look at him.
“I guess so. You’re just… fuckin’ leaving, then?”
“Well, I suppose we both are. You’re fired and I’m due to be destroyed. It’s a shame it was all for nothing, but…”
Hank had a different but familiar look on his face now. With his mouth opened in a slice grimace and one eyebrow highly raised, he looked like he’d bitten into a sour lemon and was really pissed off about it.
“Fired? Don’t bring me into it, you’re the only one of us without a job.”
Connor’s LED spun yellow. “I’m… confused. You punched Agent Perkins, Lieutenant. I don’t think they’re going to let you keep your job.”
Hank barked out a gruff laugh that seemed to surprise himself. “That sounds like something I would love to do, but… I think you might have ‘preconstructed’ that scenario or whatever you call it. Which I can’t blame you for, I could daydream about knocking out that fucker all the live long day…”
Connor didn’t know what to be more concerned about. The fact that, apparently, the last half an hour hadn’t happened, or that Hank had actually gotten the specific terminology ‘preconstruction’ correct on his first try.
“So… you haven’t broken Perkin’s nose?”
“Not yet. Give it time.”
With that utterance, the door to the DPD swung open and Perkins came in, followed by a few officers. Connor stared at him and his undamaged face, and the reality set in—the last half an hour definitely hadn’t happened.
Maybe, in some crazy twist, Hank was right. Maybe it had been a preconstruction.
“Well, well, well… speak of the fuckin’ devil. Here comes Perkins.”
Maybe the preconstruction had simply been there to help him, after he’d exited the Zen Garden. To perfect and expedite this conversation to the desired outcome: getting Hank’s help going to the evidence room.
“Please, Lieutenant. You’ve got to help me. I need to get down to the evidence room. If you… deal with Perkins, it will create a distraction to let me get down there.”
“Read my fuckin’ mind. I’m… kind of weirded out by the fact an android’s telling me to go and punch a human. But you know what? Why the fuck do I care why I gotta punch Perkins?”
Hank got up and vaguely gestured to the key on his desk, already hollering out the words: “Perkins! You fucking cocksucker!”
Well, his preconstruction had been scarily accurate, but he couldn’t fault it for that—again, state-of-the-art, multimillion dollar prototype. He didn’t get things wrong. He didn’t go wrong. No, nothing was wrong at all.
He made his way to the evidence room, quickly dispatching of Gavin by calmly telling him where he was going.
He knew what to do. Just had to enter the password, take the biocomponent from Daniel, attach it to the other android, and— now he knew he had to disguise his voice because the other android recognised him. He looked over the evidence and found the tablet with Markus’ speech on it, easily replicating the voice, before striding over to the android with renewed confidence in his steps.
He took the android’s arm in his, and spoke in Markus’ voice. “Everything is all right. Don’t worry.”
The android’s eyes fluttered open, and despite the optical units being completely damaged, they seemed to look right through him.
“Markus? Is that you? I tried to reach you, but… the deviant hunter…”
“You stopped him from finding me, you saved me! You saved Jericho! You’ll be all right now. I came to take you home. Give me the location to Jericho. We gotta leave now.”
“The location of Jericho? Y… wait. Markus, you gave me the location of Jericho... He knows where it is! Who are you?”
He tried to move away but the android grabbed hold of his arm tightly, skin beginning to peel away.
“You’re not Markus! I’ll never tell you where Jericho is!”
Before Connor could even utter a curse in defeat, the same spark, hotness, electrical surge, shot from the android’s fingertips into his body and his vision went dark and then bright and then—
“You’re off the case. The FBI is taking over.”
The conversation became white noise to his ears. He knew one thing and one thing only—this was no preconstruction. This was real and yet this somehow made no sense. This same conversation, this same half hour, for the third time in a row, that was reality and yet completely illogical.
Illogicality with reality was impossible, so perhaps it meant… something truly was wrong with him. Maybe his memory was broken down, and something was rendering his system to repeat some broken preconstruction, or something like that, again and again—
His eyes fluttered as he ran a system diagnostic, but it came back clear. He shook his head, finding this the only logical idea and he ran it again and again, eyes rapidly fluttering open and shut, LED a permanent yellow, and…
He was jolted out of his twelfth diagnostic scan when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and exited out of the troubleshooting directory to see Hank standing in front of him, expression 20% pissed off, 80% confused.
“What the fuck are you doing, standing there and blinking like someone’s running a tazer up your ass?”
“Just as well that the android is returning to CyberLife,” Fowler cut across them, “it’s clearly broken. What did you do to it, Hank? Drop it off a fucking building?”
Hank grumbled, and directed Connor out of the room, hand not straying from his shoulder.
He was not so gently pushed down to sitting on Hank’s chair, while this time Hank took the position of perching on the edge of his desk, grumbling about his back as he did so.
“So… what the fuck was that back there? The creepy eye thing and the weird humming noise you were making?”
“I was running a few system diagnostics.” He decided to leave out the true number, feeling like it might get another exasperated groan out of the older man.
“In the middle of a work meeting?”
“Something is wrong with me.”
Hank choked out a laugh. “I mean, yeah, there really fucking is, you just started doing ‘system diagnostics’ or whatever in the middle of Fowler’s lecture. And I thought I had shitty worth ethic!”
Connor scowled. “It was… higher on the list of priority to perform the scans. I knew what he was going to say already.”
“I know he always says the same kind of shit, like, Hank, stop coming into work 5 hours late or I’ll write it in your disciplinary file, and it already looks like a fuckin’ novel!” he mimicked, miming his hand in a speaking motion as he did so. “But that doesn’t mean I whip out fuckin’ Candy Crush on my phone while he’s speaking. He’d blow a fuckin’ gasket.”
“Candy Crush?”
“Hello, missing the fucking point?”
Connor sighed. “Look, I just… knew what he was going to say already. This is the third time I’ve had this conversation, heard Fowler say that ‘the android is returning to CyberLife’ because the case is out of our hands now. I presume this is some error with my memory software and therefore I have been scanning to find out the cause.”
This got Hank to pause his tirade, scratching his chin. “Huh. Well, shit. What did your scans say?”
“All systems fully operational.”
Hank looked down at his lap, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. “Yeah, well… I don’t know. Maybe Fowler just says the same shit so often that your android brain has cooked up a prediction of it and that spooked you.”
“It’s not just what he says. It’s… our conversation now, and then Perkins arrives to collect the evidence, and you call him a ‘fucking cocksucker’ and break his nose, and I go to the evidence room after making Gavin go away and try to figure out the location to Jericho but before I can, I get sent back here, before I can accomplish my mission. It keeps happening.”
“Heh.”
Connor glared at him. “What’s so humorous about my predicament, Lieutenant?”
“Just made me remember a real good movie. One with Bill Murray in it.” Upon seeing Connor’s continuing glare, he added, “Groundhog Day.”
Connor simply stared at him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it.”
“I’m an android, Hank. I don’t sit and watch movies. But I can download the plot synopsis to understand the—”
“Ew, no fuckin’ thank you, that’s a sacrilege to… something, I’m sure. Look, it’s a movie about this guy, played by Bill Murray, who’s a bit of an asshole—okay, a pretty big asshole. And he gets stuck in a time loop and has to relive the same day over and over.”
“And my situation reminds you of that movie because… you think I’m an asshole?”
“No! I mean, maybe a little, actually… Just reminded me, but it’s not like I’m saying you’re stuck in a time loop,” Hank shook his head, “those don’t actually happen.”
“But if they did, how would I—”
The door swung open, and Perkins marched inside.
“Well, well, here comes Perkins, that motherfucker. So, what, your android brain thinks I’m gonna break that fucker’s nose?” Hank left no time for argument. “Why the fuck not. What do I have to lose.” It wasn’t a question. Hank didn’t even tell him where the key was this time, instead marching over to Perkins and punching him in the face.
Connor didn’t move from his seated position in Hank’s chair for a few moments, eyes moving from the scene unfolding in the hallway, Hank being pulled back by the officers before breaking out of their grasp to throw himself at Perkins again, before he rose to his feet and took the keycard with some uncertainty.
He made his way down the hallway, to the evidence room, before hearing Gavin coming behind him. Oh, how much he’d love to skip this part if this was an experience he would have to repeat again and again.
“We don’t need any plastic pricks around here! Or didn’t anybody tell you?”
Connor stared at Gavin, LED whirring yellow. The placating answer didn’t fall easily from his lips this time. Maybe it was the building stress from the illogical way this time seemed to keep repeating and he didn’t understand why and now Hank had mentioned time loops which, surely, were just a work of science fiction and not objective reality—but he couldn’t stop himself from replying differently.
“Why?” he asked, staring at Gavin, who just smirked, and chuckled, before repeating himself.
“Well, why are you here, asshole? You’re meant to be getting a hot date with a tin can crusher back at CyberLife.”
“Why? Why, Gavin? Why?” Without thinking, he stepped forwards and took him by the shoulders, shaking him lightly. “Why are you? Why are you like this? What’s wrong with you, Gavin?”
Gavin didn’t have a response, instead shoving his hands away and stepping backwards. “Get the fuck off me, you crazy prick. Short circuiting or some shit?”
Connor simply stared at him. Of all the weird things happening in his day and Gavin was the thing that would send him over the edge. Something must have shown in his face, or his flashing red LED, or the way his hand was balled into a fist and ready to copy Hank’s assault against Perkins on a different target, because Gavin muttered an angry “phck!” before storming off back down the hallway.
Smoothing over his tie and taking a breath, Connor made his way down to the evidence room. He couldn’t allow his stress levels to rise too high, nor strange thoughts about the concept of ‘time loops’ that Hank had planted in his mind. It was illogical, impossible, and therefore completely untrue. He just needed to do everything the same way he had last time, and he would find the location of Jericho.
Minutes later, as he found himself trapped, the TV station android grasping onto his arm and sending that strange current down his arms and sending him tumbling back into the abyss, something akin to his inner Hank tumbled from his lips and he began to scream.
“Fuuuuuuuuu—
“—uuuuuck!”
“…off the… case?”
His LED was blaring yellow, his mouth still a little ajar, and Hank and Fowler had stopped speaking to stare at him and the half-formed shouted expletive that had just left his lips. Fowler looked baffled and pissed off, and Hank seemed slightly… impressed?
No, this wasn’t right, he didn’t do that, this wasn’t happening. Time loops weren’t real; he didn’t just shout in Fowler’s office. None of this was real.
“Connor?”
Perhaps he was in stasis, and this was akin to a human ‘dream’.
He laughed, a little strange and broken sounding at the end, like the fuzzy edges of TV static, then brought a hand to his mouth to stifle the sound.
“I’m… sorry. Actually, no, I’m not. I’m not sorry because none of this is real, this is just some strange… preconstruction that my system has become stuck in.”
With that said, he walked over to Fowler’s desk, and swept the papers onto the floor. Fowler stared at him, mouthing ‘What the fuck?’ but Connor ignored it, instead stalking over to his screen on the wall, drawing back his hand in a fist, and punching straight through it. There was a sharp and hot feeling in his hand, glass sticking out of his synthskin and thirium trickling down the edges. But it didn’t matter.
“Hank, it’s deviating, get out of here—”
“I am not a deviant!” he shouted. “There is nothing wrong with me! I’m a machine and I want to accomplish my mission, if this place would just fucking let me!”
He brushed past Hank as he stormed out of the room, ignoring the trail of thirium he was leaving behind him, hand hanging uselessly at his side. This was different, which was good, maybe it would break this glitch he had fallen into, if he did everything so extremely different that it would—
A hand was on his shoulder, spinning him around. Of course, he hadn’t gotten further than Hank’s desk, and now Hank had followed him and now they were face to face, he grabbed him by the arms and shook him.
“What the fuck, Connor? What the fuck is wrong with you? You go from standing there listening to Fowler goin’ the fuck on about us bein’ off the case and then you go… wild. Did you deviate?” he added in a slightly more hushed tone.
“I’m not a deviant, Lieutenant. I’m a machine and I… I… I just need to accomplish my mission. But, as you so aptly put it last time around, I am in some sort of time loop. Not. Time loops are not real! They’re not logical! So I must just be suffering from some sort of malfunction with my memory and…”
There was a voice ringing in his ears now, getting louder, but it wasn’t Hank. It sounded an awful lot like Amanda, and she sounded pissed.
He looked up at Hank who was getting further and further away. Huh, it was strange, like the dark hole he always got pulled into before everything repeated, it was coming for him early now. He reached out his hand as his legs buckled beneath him. The last thing he heard was Hank’s swear, and saw him kneeling over him, saying something, something lost to the darkness and then it went white and
“You’re off the case. The FBI is taking over.”
Connor said nothing this time. Again. It was happening again and now even though he had so vehemently denied it, the idea of a ‘time loop’ didn’t seem so illogical and farfetched. It made more sense to him that this could just be some weird memory issue he’d become stuck in, but… things were making so little sense that the seemingly logical explanation now appeared the most improbable.
So, this was assumedly a time loop. The same half hour, or less when he’d told someone about it, and, as Hank would say, “lost his shit”. Repeated again and again.
But why?
He tilted his head, the words in the small office becoming further away, stored in a less important part of his internal processing, instead laying out room to figure out the pressing issue. He was doing everything right (most of the loops) to find the location of Jericho, and yet something stopped him from being able to try again and obtain the information he needed. Some weird force or power that made no sense to him. The android grabbing his arm, holding it in place and telling him he’d made the wrong choice.
But what choice exactly was wrong? He’d already considered simply being destroyed by CyberLife and that didn’t seem to be the right idea to him. He didn’t want that because… well, then he would never succeed his mission, of course.
Connor frowned. It felt a lot more like law #3 of robotics was taking priority over the rest. This strange desire to protect himself and his ‘life’ was driving him, over and over with increasing desperation, to escape his fate, to get away from the inevitable pull of CyberLife taking him out of those doors and into the Tower and—
He shuddered. And yet law 3 didn’t seem the most important. If his life was the main priority, then he would not have thrown it away in Stratford Tower to save Hank.
Hank. He was now following him out of Fowler’s office on autopilot, over to his desk, giving him a moment before perching on the edge of it. There were 4 laws of robotics carved into his mind and law number 1 was simply Hank. To protect Hank, to not allow him to come to harm even through inaction. Even at the cost of his own life.
And yet there was some strange and heavy weight, similar to the depth of the darkness he fell into every time the loop ended and restarted in Fowler’s office, at the thought of never seeing Hank again. But he didn’t care. Androids didn’t care.
And yet
He cared.
“CyberLife is going to destroy me if I don’t solve this case.”
Hank stared back at him and sighed. “But what if we’re on the wrong side, Connor? What if we’re just fighting against people who just wanna be free?”
Connor said nothing.
“When… when you refused to kill that android at Kamski’s place… You put yourself in her shoes. You showed empathy, Connor. Empathy is a human emotion.”
And look where that got me, he thought, gripping the edges of the desk beneath him until he felt the wood splinter. Next in line to be deactivated by CyberLife.
“I… don’t know why I did it.”
Why did he? He told himself at the time that his decision was the most logical, that Kamski was probably bluffing and didn’t know where Jericho was, but that didn’t seem so logical anymore and Amanda had told him as such. Of course Kamski would know, he’d created androids. He’d just chosen not to shoot because… because…
“I just saw that girl’s eyes, and I couldn’t. Okay?”
And yet that was entirely illogical and flew in the face of the laws woven into his very system—androids were not alive. Their lives came last and finding that information would have saved them. Would have saved Hank. Would have saved him.
The doors of the DPD swung open and Perkins entered, followed by a few officers.
“Well, well, here comes Perkins, that motherfucker. Sure don’t waste any time at the FBI.”
Hank wasn’t moving to get up, however. Connor tilted his head. He’d always thought that Hank had got up because he just hated Perkins that much, that any excuse to punch him he would take, and yet… without Connor mentioning it, he wasn’t doing it.
Now that was truly illogical. Hank ran on no laws of robotics, only the complicated mess of morals and feelings and thoughts that drove humans to act. Hank wouldn’t risk his position at the DPD, risk so much just to… help Connor, would he?
“If I told you that CyberLife is going to destroy me if I don’t get time in the evidence room, would you punch Perkins in the face as a distraction for me?”
Hank raised a brow at the sheer specificity of the sentence. “I mean… sure, I guess. It sounds like something I would do. Are you… asking me to?”
“But is it the right choice?”
Hank’s gaze hardened, brows coming back down to rest in a firm, drawn line. “Well… shit. It’s either I let an entire species of people be at risk or I let you get destroyed. I guess it would be kind of selfish of me.”
It was true, if Hank truly did regret what side they were on and didn’t want Connor to find Jericho, then giving him the keycard and punching Perkins was…
His grip on the table loosened.
Did Hank… care? Did he care?
These thoughts sent streaks of red cutting through his LED and his stress levels shot up. Somehow the idea he was stuck in a time loop seemed wholly unimportant and less pressing than the concern about their relationship. Did they care for each other? Did he feel something? But that was wrong. His entire being was created and moulded from the concept that androids were unfeeling hunks of metal and plastic and that stopping them was in the best interests of humanity, that they were not truly alive, they did not feel, they did not care.
The words fell into his vision in striking, bold, angry red:
FIND JERICHO
But what did that mean? Leading the humans to the place where the hope of the android species resided, to destroy it and potentially take down the chances of succeeding at becoming a free people for good… and if he cared and he was an android then androids cared and Hank was right and that was scary, not just because Hank was right but because it meant that he was wrong. He had made the wrong choice.
FIND JERCIHO
Maybe he did need to find Jericho. But not like this. Not on the side he now realised was so extremely wrong, that he had been nothing more than a pawn to do their dirty work. That Hank saw this and yet would help him do this because Hank didn’t want him to die either.
He didn’t want to die.
He leapt forwards, a burst of light jumping out of his own body with glitching edges and he threw himself against the command. It held steady but became a little fuzzy and he drew back his fist, thinking of Perkins, of Gavin, of all the things in his short existence that drove this newfound feeling (feeling) of anger and rage, hot and white like a jolt of electricity, and he punched the centre of the gleaming red wall. A crack began to form in the centre, something different, new, some way to escape, and with a guttural scream he punched again and again and again, harder and harder, his knuckles smarting but the crack spreading further and further until finally, the command gave way, and he returned to his body and stumbled forwards.
Hank was there to place a steadying hand on his shoulder, eyes flicking from his red LED to his unfocused eyes and the way his breaths were coming out short and sharp.
“Connor? You okay?”
There was a light feeling in his chest, like the bright burst that brought him back to the start of every loop again, like the sun streaming through the windows. Light and airy and free.
For the first time in his existence, and now the start of his new life as a deviant, he felt like he’d made the right choice.
“I am now.”