Chapter Text
“Connor.”
Eyes opening. Optics focusing, adjusting. The blurriness sharpens itself into distinct shapes, and soon he is able to make out the faint shape of Detroit’s cityscape through the window. It takes a moment after that to realize that he’s in a room, dark shadows cast around corners and edges as the light of the setting sun filters through the same window that he’s staring at. Even though it’s setting the light of the sun is still startlingly bright, causing him to recoil and flinch, spots dancing in the darkness of his closed eyes.
The light hurts. Why does it hurt? He has a feeling that shouldn’t be the case.
“Connor!”
The voice, again. Gruff, brusque, familiar. But yet he cannot recognize it. Still, something inside him compels him to listen. Not because he must but because he should. Because he wants to.
(He shouldn’t be able to want.)
“Goddammit—Connor, can you hear me?”
“I—yes.” His voice sounds distant, hoarse. Rusty from misuse. He straightens himself back up as he registers the feel of cloth underneath his hand. He tilts his head down and back, opening his eyes, and realizes that he’s sitting on a bed, queen-sized, perfect for two.
He frowns.
The voice from before speaks up again, cutting him off from his muddling thoughts. “—you even listening to me, Connor?”
He turns his gaze back forward, eyes now focused on the strange… item that’s been sitting on his lap since he had first awoken to this place. A giant blade seemingly made out of blue green glass, its surface woven with intricate lines that are not unlike from the parts and chips that make him up inside. The handle is a simple thing, with a triangular hilt that ends right before where a giant LED ring (similar in design to his own) is set at the middle of the whole construct. It sits at a calming blue—the same blue as the one on his head—but then flares brightly after a second, its glow pulsing in time with the voice that seems to be speaking from it.
“Don’t go silent on me again, Connor, c’mon now.”
A tilt of his head. “I apologize,” he starts, gaze still fixed on the item (sword? weapon? device?) on his lap. “I was… processing.”
A snort. “Didn’t know a supercomputer like you still needed time to process stuff.”
He recognizes it as a jibe of sorts, possibly even an insult, but yet he can feel the lack of malicious intent. It’s strange that he knows all of this. Why does he know this? He searches through his data banks and comes up with nothing. He frowns once more and does another search through his memory.
[ERROR 404-#&*$@!
MEM0RY DATAB@SE CORRUPT3D. CONT@CT CYBERL!FE SUPP0RT.]
Something in his stomach plummets in what feels like a bottomless pit. His mind whirls, frantic, and he casts out another search in his memory, trying to find something, anything.
[SR #313 248 317 - 53
MODEL RK 800
NAME: ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛]
The plummeting sensation in his gut quickens.
“Connor, you okay?”
The voice, again, speaking to him. The only thing that makes sense right now in the gaping void of where everything had once been. He stares down at it, mouth working silently for several moments before he finally manages to speak. “I—”
The voice in the sword pauses, stills, and he wonders if it’s somehow managed to sense his hesitation, feel his anxiousness. All these human emotions and feelings even though he knows he isn’t human. He’s an android. A machine. A machine that is designed to accomplish a task, no matter the cost.
Something inside of him trembles.
“—I can’t access my memory,” he finishes his sentence, tries and fails to ignore how shaky his own voice sounds. A voice with emotion, with feelings. But they’re fake. Should be fake. He’s nothing more than a piece of plastic imitating a human.
The silence stretches on. He thinks he should—move, probably. Get up, do something, anything. As long as he doesn’t stay still here. The silence pounds at his ears, too quiet and too loud all at once. It gnaws at him, incessant and urgent. If he’s not doing anything then he might as well be useless.
His hands twitch with the need, the desire to move. Anxious energy outputting itself into tics and habits he doesn’t remember having. Did he always do this? Had done it? He can’t remember. He can’t remember anything.
The void inside of him expands, thickens. Threatens to swallow him whole. He’s empty, a shell—a machine. Just as he should be. But yet.
But yet.
He doesn’t know.
“Don’t freak out on me, Connor, you can do this. C’mon.”
His mind focuses on the voice, and in a way it helps. Grounds him. Keeps his head together when he thinks it might just split apart at any second from the millions of questions (errors) that pop up on his diagnostics. He doesn’t know what’s going on at all but at least—at least he’s still here. And as long as he’s still here that means he can complete his mission. Whatever his mission might be.
He stares at the sword-like item on his lap again. “…is ‘Connor’ my designation?”
“Is Connor your—oh Jesus.” It’s all too easy to hear the weariness in the voice, and he can’t help but wince. Somehow the thought of frustrating this voice too much doesn’t sit well with him. He doesn’t… the voice is all he has to guide him right now. He can’t afford to lose that.
He clenches and unclenches his fists, swallowing down the hard lump in his throat. This uncertainty, this anxiety—it’s almost too much to bear. He had been built for all kinds of scenarios, yes, but he always had data to work with. Past experiences. Simulations and a wreath of knowledge at his fingertips, accessible at any time. But now he has nothing, and that vast emptiness within is nothing short of terrifying. The fact that he even feels afraid is the proverbial icing on the cake. Just where were all these thoughts coming from? They’re startlingly deviant, and he knows that he isn’t one. It wouldn’t make sense. A deviant hunter can’t be a deviant himself.
“I’m sorry.” He needs to keep the peace. Don’t chase the voice away. He needs it. “I’m afraid I—my memory banks seem to be corrupted.”
A pause, shorter this time. “Yeah. Okay. That’s—don’t worry about it.” The gruffness is back, but this time tinged with something else. He would analyze it but he’s interrupted before he can attempt that. “Connor. That’s your name. Don’t go forgetting it again, alright?”
Connor. He knows he could be programmed with any name, whatever designation that suits him for his mission, but somehow hearing this particular one… works. Like two puzzle pieces that fit together just right, a flick of a switch that simply makes sense even though this feeling by itself is irrational. All of this is irrational. But it’s all he has right now.
“Connor,” he repeats, trying the name out for himself. “Connor. Connor. Connor.” His name is Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife.
Connor.
The voice snorts. “I told you to remember it, not to fucking wear it out in the next thirty seconds.”
“Apologies.” He—Connor, his name is Connor, he needs to remember that—straightens the tie at his neck and slowly stands up from the bed, one hand holding onto he handle of the giant talking sword. Now that he’s touching it he can feel it hum, buzzing with an energy that feels oddly nervous to him for some reason. Part of him wants to ask the reason for this apparent nervousness, but his current situation is more important than his curiosity.
Now that he’s standing up Connor takes a moment to scan his surroundings properly. From the bed it’s easy enough to deduce that he is in a house—simple and modest, furnished with two bedrooms and a bathroom and all the other standard human things that came with it. Something about the layout of this house brings a sense of familiarity to him, but Connor cannot place it. Unsurprising, since his memory banks are corrupted, but it is no less frustrating. Too many questions with no answers to any of them. He can’t investigate cases if he has no data to work with in the first place.
What he needs right now is information, information that he can work with. And right now the course of action that’s most likely to give him said information would be…
He stares down at the sword (for a lack of a better term, it would do) in his hand and raises it high enough so that he can stare directly at the LED ring. The glass-like surface of the blade shows his reflection; Connor can’t help but stare, a frown slowly crossing his face as something nags at the back of his mind. Something is different, but somehow he can’t place his finger on it.
Connor leans in closer towards his reflection, intent on figuring out this mystery, but then jerks back in surprise when the light of the ring flares and the voice lets out something resembling a cough. “If you’re done preening...”
As much as Connor wants to point out that he was, in fact, not ‘preening’, arguing with his one possible source of information is not going to benefit him.
“I apologize again,” he says, lowering the sword back down. A pause, and then he adds on. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” Since the voice must have had a reason to catch his attention like that.
He feels the nervous hum of the sword once more. “Yeah. Yeah, uh.” The voice pauses as well, hesitancy more than evident. Despite the inanimate nature of the object itself its surprising how… well, human it acts. Connor wonders briefly if it is a human who is communicating through the sword somehow and files that thought away for further consideration. At this point he supposes it doesn’t really matter, as long as he has the information that he seeks.
Connor waits since there’s nothing pressing him beyond his own growing impatience. He wants to know, needs to know so that he can actually do his work, but he also knows better than to rush it.
His patience pays off quickly enough; after a few minutes the voice speaks up again. “You, um. Encountered some errors. Bugs. You’re actually in stasis now, and we’re working to get you up and running properly again. Or trying to, anyway.”
Connor frowns as he digests everything that has just been said to him. Going into stasis for repairs wasn’t a rare thing, but as for everything else… “If I am in stasis, then it is impossible for me to be here at all.” Stasis meant that his systems should be offline, nothing running at all. But if he’s here, talking and thinking and moving… this is something he shouldn’t be able to do in stasis. Its completely impossible.
The voice lets out a huff that bleeds exasperation. “Yeah, well, its a weird bug. That’s why you’re here.”
Now that makes even less sense. Connor stares down at the sword, frown deepening. “I don’t understand.”
“You and me both, Connor.” The voice punctuates the end of that response with a laugh, and its easy enough to pick up the tone of self-deprecation. For some reason hearing that sends a mix of… something through him, a feeling so foreign and alien that Connor has no words for it. He doesn’t know if he wants to. Dares to.
For better or for worse the voice decides to keep on speaking, distracting Connor from dwelling on it any longer. “So, uh. You’re in—you’re in a house? Think you can… go outside of the house?”
Connor tilts his head, taking a second to consider it. “I don’t think I will encounter a problem doing that.”
The voice snorts. “Smartass,” it says, though there’s no heat to its voice. “Just do it, will you?”
Well, Connor supposes there is no reason for him to linger in this place, and he is curious at exactly what is outside in this… whatever this place is. A simulation? It feels all too real to be one, especially if he is supposedly in stasis.
Only more questions and even less answers. Connor feels his frustration build up, the lack of understanding and knowledge eating at him. He doesn’t like knowing when knowing should be his thing. Being lost like this, floundering with mere scraps to keep him afloat… its too irrational, too—human. And a human Connor is not.
(He will never be one, no matter how it feels otherwise.)
He shakes his head to dispel those thoughts. It doesn’t matter what he feels right now. His thoughts aren’t going to help with the situation. Right now what he needs to do is to figure out what’s really going on, and he can start on that by exiting this house.
Connor glances over to the open doorway and starts to move, only to stop after a couple of steps and stares down at the sword that he’s holding. There’s no real reason for him to keep carrying it with him, but at the same time there is no logic to leaving it behind either. The voice has been helping him to some degree, and… it would be nice to not be alone in this whole thing. Two heads are better than once, as the human saying goes.
The sword hums at him, the nervousness returning for some reason. “I—don’t let me go, Connor. Promise me that.” Its voice is tense, tight, packed with something that feels like a million emotions that Connor cannot make heads or tails of. The fluctuations of a voice can only tell him so much.
Despite his confusion, though, it feels all too easy to return that promise. “I won’t,” he says, and Connor thinks he can believe that.