Chapter Text
NOV 20TH, 2039
AM 09:34:17
Two days after the attack on the DPD graduation, Markus found himself in the HQ dining area, a room with large windows framed in blue-gold drapes and a shiny, oak table arranged over an azure carpet. The high-backed chairs were purely aesthetic—androids didn't need to eat, after all—but they were comfortable enough that Markus didn't have any reservations about coming down from his second-floor office for a nice change of scenery.
He twirled his silver fountain pen, absently, through paint-flecked fingers, unable to focus on the proposals and documents scattered in front of him.
His mind was racing too much for that, the events of the past week playing on repeat in his head.
Someone had attacked the ceremony with the intention to kill him. Someone had gone out of their way to rig the building to explode and cloak the explosives from an android whose inner workings were allegedly the peak of surveillance technology. Someone had targeted a pro-android politician days earlier and killed an android instead.
There was no proof that any of those incidents were connected and yet Markus couldn't help but feel that something bigger was at work; something that would dismantle all they had built if they weren't careful.
Two steps forward, three steps back, Carl used to say.
Markus sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes, the steady pounding in his temple disconcertingly similar to a human headache. When he opened them again, the proposals were no clearer than they were thirty minutes ago. He pulled from the bottom of the pile an apology letter from the DPD, running his finger along its black-blue holographic edge and recalling a jacket of the same color scheme.
Connor.
The image of the RK800 in pieces, buried under stone and metal, flickered before his eyes, his memory relay reacting to the surge of emotion. It had been his fault–he should have made Connor go ahead of him with Alexa. He should have known that he was hurt. He should have–
'Enough, Markus,' Carl's voice was as clear in his head when he uttered first uttered the phrase eight months ago in his study, stopping Markus' self-reproaching spiral in its tracks. Markus remembered him rolling his eyes good-naturedly, then, his smile bright and indulgent as he continued, 'You can't blame yourself for everything. It's just going to eat you up inside.'
If it weren't for the fact that Markus had seen him the other day on a video check-in, pale and lifeless in his bed, he would've thought his father was next to him and not just an audio recording of a previous conversation.
Carl was right, of course—he always was—but seeing Connor in the cot of the CyberLife Warehouse, his smooth face as metallic and empty as the sterile room they placed him into had made him feel so incredibly guilty.
And when he connected to his neural network...Connor's emotions were complicated, intricate, little things, locked behind a wall of ones and zeroes that would have unnerved Markus if he wasn't absolutely certain that Connor was deviant.
For the briefest millisecond, though, as he was pulling away, there was a spark of something, bright and searing and violent, almost, in its intensity, as the skin regrew over his fingertips.
He set the paper aside and tried with renewed vigor to focus on his actual job, but the detective kept tugging at his thoughts, insistent and relentless, his half-formed smile playing on a loop in his mind. He shook his head again.
"The answer's going to be no, by the way."
Markus' head shot up from the latest proposal from City Hall—something about the registration of all androids in Detroit—and blinked slowly, North's lithe figure gradually coming into focus in the doorway. Behind her stood Simon and Josh, and all were clothed in their pajamas.
"North! What are you guys doing up? I thought weekends were for sleeping in."
"They are," North agreed, slinking into the dining room with an easy roll of her eyes. She settled across from him, her legs kicked up over the armrests, "So, explain to me why you're up at asscrack o'clock in here doing paperwork when you could be in your studio painting daisies or playing the piano or, I don't know, communing with rA9."
A smirk curled across her lips at Josh's scandalized gasp and Markus shook his head fondly before lifting his hands, brown skin speckled with green, white, and blue paint, "I did paint for a while, actually. Just not for too long. There's so much to do and–"
"–And you can do all of this on Monday," Simon chided gently, pulling all the papers out of his reach, "Besides, we have bigger things to deal with than City Hall."
"Things like hitmen and bodyguards," North clarified, the softness of her doe-shaped eyes belayed by their fierce gleam, "And in this case, both are equally as dangerous. I don't think Connor should be the one protecting you. Case closed."
"That fast?" Markus raised an eyebrow, his amusement and frustration translating into a tired smile, "And here I thought this was a democracy."
Simon snorted, his lips curling, "Maybe in the beginning. We're more like a monarchy now. A dictatorship, really."
"Well, that doesn't concern me at all," Markus remarked dryly and Simon's smile was sympathetic.
"A benevolent dictatorship." He amended.
"Actually, if we're being completely accurate, New Jericho is run by an aristocracy," Josh rubbed his chin, thoughtful, "Which is food for thought when you get the chance to think about it. I mean, you'd think we were a democracy or somethi–"
"Anyway. Types of leadership aside," North's voice rose and she leveled all of them an annoyed scowl, "We can't seriously be considering letting Connor into New Jericho."
"Why not?" Markus questioned, "We all agreed that I needed to be protected and we all agreed that humans here aren't the best idea."
"And you think Connor is a step up from that?" North scoffed, "He's killed just as many of us in the first two months of his life as the humans did during the revolution. There are people here who are terrified of him."
"That wasn't him. He was still a machine then."
"Yeah? Was he still a machine when he pointed a loaded gun at you on stage last year?"
Markus laced his fingers together, choosing his words carefully, "We still don't know what happened. And it's not like he pulled the trigger. I'm still here, aren't I?"
"But he could have, Markus," Josh insisted, surprising Markus with his conviction, "And where would we have been then?"
"I–"
"Believe me when I say I'm not agreeing with North for the fun of it. rA9 knows how terrible her decisions are."
"Hey!"
"But you should ask yourself—and I mean really ask yourself and weigh the consequences of this decision—if we can trust Connor. Like it or not, he's dangerous. Being deviant doesn't change that."
North twirled a lock of her hair, a pleased tilt to her lips placed there by Josh's rare accordance, "And there's always the possibility of CyberLife still pulling his strings. We could be giving them access to everything here. To you."
"I know. I know." Markus pinched the bridge of his nose. His 'not-headache' was returning with a vengeance.
Stress Levels: 47%^^
"Just," North's eyes softened considerably, no doubt sensing his rising stress levels in that peculiar way of hers, "Think it over."
"I will."
She flashed him a disarming smile and got up, followed closely behind by Josh who patted his shoulder on his way. Soon, only he and Simon remained at the large, oak table.
"What about you, Si?" He turned to his companion, chin in hand as he smiled wearily, "What do you think?"
Simon raised one fine blonde eyebrow. "Me?"
"Yeah," he felt his smile falter as he adopted a more serious tone, "I understand if you don't want him here."
"I think..." Simon's LED spun yellow, a thoughtful look crossing his face and relaxing his features, "I think that Connor is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma behind unbreakable firewalls. But...he doesn't have bad intentions."
Simon shook his head as if waking from a brief reverie. He gave a self-deprecating chuckle that Markus hated to hear come from him, "Don't get me wrong. Connor...Connor terrifies me. But I get the feeling he's as scared of me as I am of him."
He rose from his chair, gathering the government papers into a tidy stack, "Whatever decision you make, I'll stand by it. Like I always have."
He grasped his shoulder and squeezed gently, before leaving Markus to his own thoughts on the matter. Without his friends, their endearingly suffocating presence gone with them, the room felt even bigger than usual, the weight of his decision crushing him. He picked up the DPD apology letter again.
Excluding the fiasco that was the Graduation Ceremony, the last time Markus had properly seen and spoken with Connor was after his speech to the newly freed CyberLife androids in front of terminated Recall Center Nº5.
Thinking about it now, maybe he should have reached out earlier. Connor was part of Jericho too, at the end of the day; he'd saved them all and overcame impossible odds to do it.
He remembered that the former deviant hunter had gone concerningly quiet afterward, arms crossed as they were escorted back to the church with permission from the president. The snow was falling harder then, dusting his dark brown hair and CyberLife jacket with a thin coat of white but he seemed unconcerned with his appearance.
He seemed unconcerned with everything really, eyes distant as they entered their temporary base.
"Is he–Does he seem okay to you?" Markus asked North, watching as he slipped through the crowd with a grace that seemed impossible to match–even for androids.
"Who cares?" was North's curt reply as she grabbed his arm and tugged him toward where the injured were being taken care of, "We need to talk. Now."
It was only after when Markus was finally able to pull away from the injured and finish his debriefing with Josh and North (where he learned of Connor's attempted assassination) that he looked for the android and found him in the same corner he had occupied hours earlier.
He made his way to him, reminiscing about the previous time he had found Connor huddled alone.
He had suggested a suicide mission to CyberLife then and Markus had readily agreed, desperate for anything that would tip the scale in their favor despite the high possibility that Connor wouldn't return alive.
"Are you okay?" He asked now, watching as the other man blinked slowly at him. Despite everything that had happened in the past couple of hours, his LED remained a calm azure and his voice was firm when he replied, "Yes, I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Markus persisted, not quite believing him, "It's okay if you're not."
Large, dark brown eyes stared back at him, detached, and Markus couldn't help but feel that Connor was scanning him, analyzing everything from his opposing optical units to the thirium stained robes he wore.
"I assure you I'm fine, Markus." Connor tilted his head, the slight motion reminding Markus of a puppy, "What about you? You've been shot."
"So have you." Markus gestured to his shoulder and Connor barely spared it a glance, "What happened?"
"An unforeseen event," Connor replied evenly. Evasively. "Ballistic trauma procured in the right shoulder. No major thirium leaks or damaged biocomponents detected."
He smoothed down his jacket even though it was free of wrinkles and Markus caught himself wondering what happened to his tie.
"Will you be okay?" He finally asked, sensing a lull in the conversation
Connor's brown eyes snapped back to attention, expression morphing into one of polite confusion.
"I see no reason why I wouldn't be."
"I mean–After this. Do you have somewhere to go?"
Why did you try to shoot me?
Why did you stop?
"I–"
Connor stopped, eyes going glass-like as his LED whirled yellow before turning blue once more.
"Everything all right?"
"Yes," Connor replied, though he sounded significantly less certain this time, "I apologize but it seems like my presence is requested elsewhere."
"I–Okay," Markus faltered, "Will I see you again?"
Connor froze such potent hesitation written on his face that he could have passed for a real human had it not been for the glowing circle on the side of his temple.
"It's probably best if you didn't."
And he left like he had never been there in the first place.
∆∆∆
Calling... RK800, Serial #: 313 248 317 - 51
"Hello. Connor speaking."
"Connor? It's Markus. Do you think that you could come down to New Jericho? We need to talk."