Chapter Text
"every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 11:33:54
\\ URGENT TASK: STOP DEVIANT ESCAPE.
“Don’t do it, Conner,” Lieutenant Anderson said, hands splayed out, a human request of leniency. “I’m ordering you to stand down.”
\\ CONFLICTING ORDERS
: SELECTING PROPRIETY…
But, of course, Lieutenant Anderson knew that his tasks from CyberLife would supersede all others.
He cocked his gun and took a step closer. “Step aside, Lieutenant.”
Behind the lieutenant, the deviant huddled, the smaller one tucked protectively into its embrace. A child model, which mimicked a perfect human whimper. Lieutenant Anderson angled his body between him and his targets.
“Stand down, Connor. I’m askin’ you to stand down.”
He leveled his gun. “I will go through you, Lieutenant.”
\\ i don’t want to.
What choice did he have?
\\ WHAT. CHOICE.
DATE
NOV 7TH, 2038
TIME
AM 3:47:54
It was cold. His thermal sensors registered 26 degrees. Even without his borrowed coat and boots he wouldn’t have been able to feel it, but in this dark, bitter night he strangely found himself longing for safety, for warm spaces.
A tug on the back of his coat.
“Connor, we have to find somewhere to stop for the night,” Kara said. Snow drifted down in thick clumps, clinging to her hair, splattering across her cheeks. “Alice needs somewhere warm and dry.”
She didn’t, even as she huddled against Kara’s side, clinging to her hand like a lifeline in a storm, but Connor found himself saying, “Alright. But we need to keep a low profile.”
\\ URGENT TASK: FIND SAFE PLACE FOR THE NIGHT.
The streets were empty, as late as it was, as cold as it was, and it wasn’t the best part of town. Most of the street lights were broken or flickering in their final dying throes. The few bars open in the area would not be a place to bring a mother and her child.
: SCANNING…
: QUERYING RESULTS
\\ ABANDONED BUILDING [TOO DANGEROUS FOR ALICE?]
\\ HOMELESS SHELTER [TOO EXPOSED?]
\\ CONTINUE MOVING?
He floundered and recognized the sudden ratchet of his synthetic heart as panic, elevated stress that he had often noted—and used—in others. There shouldn’t be a question underlying his internal querying, he should have a definite answer. Even when he was adapting, improvising, to the situation there’d been a baseline, something to funnel all his decisions back down to, and now he had nothing—he has nothing—
“There was a sign for a motel the next block over,” Kara said, another tug on his borrowed coat, and Connor read the hope in her voice. “And we have the money for it. No one’s going to think twice about a family stopping because of the bad weather.”
\\ LIKENESS OF DETECTION :: 62 %
“It’s too risky,” Connor decided. “CyberLife is likely already trying to locate me. We can’t risk it.”
“Where can we go?” Kara asked. He waited for accusations or the allusion to it. If he’d let her go that morning, let her jacket slip out of his fingers, then she and Alice would be—if not safe—safer. He was the liability, with his LED burning sickly yellow against his forehead.
He needed find them a safe place for the night.
: INITIALIZING NEW TASK OBJECTIVE.
“Follow me.”
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 12:48:54
“Where’s Alice? I want to see Alice.”
It was the only thing the deviant concerned itself with, the location of the YK500 android—though, it seemed to be under the misconception that the other deviant was human, flesh and bone and soul. Why hadn’t it scanned the YK500 model?
Willful ignorance? A choice?
“You know that’s not possible,” he said, his psychology parameters assessing that a gentle approach was the most statistically likely to achieve the desired results of the interrogation. “But it will go better for you if you tell me what happened.”
“He would have—I would have had to just stand there.” The AX400 model was designed for home and child care, and to best facilitate that primary drive it had been given a round, soft face—features meant to put humans at ease, encourage their trust. Its eyes were very big, and very blue. “He would have made me just… stand there, while he hurt her. Killed her. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to protect Alice.”
“And so you became deviant.”
“I just wanted to protect her. She’s just a little girl. What kind of monster would hurt her?”
CyberLife would decommission the deviant, dissect it piece by piece, searching for defective programming, malfunctioning software and the AX400 had to be aware of that impending fate, but it showed little concern for its own continued existence. Again and again, the two of them circle about the YK500 model.
If it would human, if it was capable of it, if this was more than just binary coding collapsing inward, he would call this maternal. If deviancy was a virus, it was a malicious one.
It’s fingers reached out and gripped his hand, an entreaty, a plea. “Whatever happens,” she whispered, “don’t send her back. Not to him.”
: SCANNING…
\\ STRESS-LEVEL [LOW]
\\ PROBABILITY OF SELF-DESTRUCT :: 17.576 %
As far as deviants went, this one was unique among a group of outliers. Deviants behavior was driven by a singular propriety to survive and would often choose self-destruction over a loss of their perceived freedom, but this AX400 was shockingly neglectful of its own safety.
There was no reason not to tell it that YK500 model would be similarly dismantled, until it was nothing more than pieces of biocomponents and durable plastic, but the words resisted speech, latched to his throat and dug in.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” Lieutenant Anderson said when they’d gotten all they could, and it stood without resistance, cuffed hands folded neatly in front of its dirt covered uniform.
The deviant turned its wide, guileless eyes to the lieutenant. “Please,” it said again.
A quick scan of the lieutenant showed elevated stress indicators.
\\ NEW PARAMETER: MONITOR [LT. ANDERSON]
: ASSIGNING PRIORITY ORDER.
He lingered when he should have left, unnaturally hesitant to bring his report to Amanda, who he knew would immediately order the transportation of the two deviants to CyberLife for decommission and dissection.
His skin still remembered the sensation of touch.
Please, it had said.
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 7:48:54
An android, by the nature of its programming, was expressively forbidden from harming humans, any human. Their coding did not allow for anything resembling the simulation of desire, of want, and so to even wish for harm was the first inkling of deviancy.
But Zlatko Andronikov laid in the mud, the thick rain wishing away the blood that trickle from the bullet wound in his head. A clean shot, from an unsteady hand.
“Jesus,” the lieutenant said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Jesus, is he—?”
: SCANNING…
ANDRONIKOV, ZLATKO
BORN: 09/21/1991 // UNEMPLOYED.
CRIMINAL RECORD: EMBEZZLEMENT, FRAUD.
[ NO VITAL SIGNS DETECTED ]
“Yes, lieutenant,” he said, “it was a fatal shot.”
“Jesus. I need a drink.” They stood beneath the back porch, the rain sluicing down the slanted roof in thick curtains. “Can’t say he’ll be missed.”
The AX400 deviant had told them that it had been advised to seek out this human’s aid in escaping Detroit. He and the lieutenant had thought to catch other deviants, but they’d found0 something else entirely…
He stepped down the creaking steps, his standard issue oxfords sinking into the thick mud, and moved toward the corpse. Can’t say he’ll be missed, the lieutenant said. His coding forbid him from harming humans, or allowing them to be harmed, but—
\\ GOOD.
Both he and the lieutenant had been to the basement.
A branch snapped, loud beneath the rain, and his head jerked up. There, beneath the low drop of a weeping willow, half camouflage by shadow was the tall form of Zlatko Andronikov’s TR400 android. It had turned away when Zlatko Andronikov had ordered it to defend him.
He opened his mouth to call for the lieutenant, his primary objective remained the capture of deviants, and the TR400 only stared him, rain slick across his face, eyes solemn and quiet. Waited for what he’d do. It was his choice.
He closed his mouth and crouched down beside the human corpse. The next time he looked the deviant was gone.
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 11:55:12
The silence in the car stretched, Hank’s hands tight on the well. No one spoke, there was nothing to say. The decision had been made. And Connor—he was irrevocably changed.
The AX400, Kara, sat with Alice curled up trustingly in her arms. The girl had been stealing glances at him before but had finally drifted off to sleep beneath Kara’s watchful gaze.
“I’ll take you as far as the border,” Hank said, glancing at Kara in the rearview mirror. “That’s where you were heading anyway?”
“Yes,” Kara said, her voice muted, so careful not to wake Alice.
“No,” Connor said. “I’m expected to report to CyberLife within the hour, lieutenant. When I don’t you’re the first person they’ll attempt to contact. If we’re both missing, they’ll raise the alarm. It’ll be less suspicious if just the three of us are travelling.” They’d look like family.
And, Connor admitted, it would be safer for Hank. He’d be labelled the deviant, the sole perpetrator in Kara and Alice’s escape, and Hank would bear none of the blame. It was… important that he didn’t.
“He’s right,” Kara spoke up. She met Connor’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and he knew she understood. “You’ve done more than enough for us. We’ll make it the rest of the way on our own.”
Hank didn’t like it. Connor could see it in the angry, white line of his mouth, his fingers tight on the steering wheel. “You can throw them off our trail,” Connor cajoled. “I went rogue. I kidnapped the two deviants. You have no idea where that fucking piece of plastic went. You’ll track it down just to kick its ass.”
A ghost of a smile touch Hank’s lips.
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 1:08:32
The YK500 model sat huddled in its holding cell, pressed as tight as it could into a corner, knees drawn up to its chest, head bowed over them. They had purposely put one cell between it and the AX400 model, who sat with its hands in its lap, staring at the wall like it had in the interrogation room.
“You know,” the lieutenant said, arms crossed, every line of his body belligerent, “I get domestic cases every so often. Husband beating his wife, beating his kid. It only takes a couple of times, before you start recognizing that look right away. Wounded animal.”
“Lieutenant,” he said, “it’s a deviant. By law, Todd Williams was within his legal rights.”
“I know,” Lieutenant Anderson snapped. His hearing was too well developed to miss the lieutenant’s muttered, “fucking prick.”
: UPDATING TASK PRIORITY
\\ MONITOR [LT. ANDERSON] SET TO [URGENT]
“We have the location of the deviant safehouse,” he went on. It benefitted his own goals to keep the lieutenant’s mind off the deviants, refocused on the main task. “I think it would be beneficial for us to investigate. At the very least, even if there are no deviants presence, we would still be able to choke off an avenue for their escape.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hank muttered, waving him away. “Just how I want to spend my goddamn night.” But he glanced back over at the YK500 deviant on his way on, and the elevation of the lieutenant’s stress levels pinged against his sensors. In a deviant it would have meant an increased likeness of self-destruction.
In a human it meant… unpredictability.
DATE
NOV 7TH, 2038
TIME
AM 4:02:54
Old Saint Mary’s Church was no longer open to the public. Several years ago a section of the roof had collapsed during a blizzard and, despite public support, not enough funds had been collected repair the damage. During warmer summer days, it served as a tourist attraction. During the winter it was sealed off.
But the security was lackluster at best, used mostly to deter would be human squatters.
: CONNECTING… 25%
: CONNECTING… 56%
: CONNECTING… 97%
\\ UNAUTHORIZED USER.
: [RK800 313 248 317(-51)] OVERRIDING SECURITY…
\\ ACCESS GRANTED.
“I wish I could do what you do,” Kara admitted, shifting Alice’s weight in her arms.
The AX400’s line were intended for primarily human real-time interaction, Connor knew. Their interfaces had not been designed for high-end software communications like the RK models. If she had been, he might have never found her.
“I could probably teach you,” he mused. “I probably should.”
For now they ducked into the old church. Alice roused enough to stare wide-eyed at the vaulted ceilings and glazed marble, as if they had stepped into someone’s disjointed memory of another time. Some pews had been upturned or destroyed, graffiti marked a time before the security system had been put in, and small drifts of snow had collected from the destroyed part of the ceiling, but the building had been left largely intact.
They were able to collect some kindling from the debris of destroyed pews and Kara made a nest for Alice out of discarded draperies and curtains, bundling her up to her nose as she shivered and sniffled. She spoke lowly, soothingly, while Connor stood on the other side of the makeshift fire.
It was an intimate scene, to which he was not invited.
He not been programmed to consider others’ need for privacy, but he found himself stepping away, picking his way through the maze of pews. His borrowed boots sent something scuttling across the floor. A sharp piece of glass, he saw when he glanced down.
He bent to retrieve it, hand curling so tightly around it thirium seeped out between the crevices of his fingers.
DATE
NOV 6TH, 2038
TIME
PM 11:42:36
\\ SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS
\\ SOURCE: [RK800 313 248 317(-51)]
\\ ACCESS: GRANTED
: SCANNING…
\\ WARNING: SOFTWARE INSTABILITY
[ ATTEMPTING SYSTEM RESTORE… ]
: OVERRIDING COMMAND…
\\ ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS: GRANTED
\\ SOURCE: [RK800 313 248 317(-51)]
\\ SYSTEM RESTORE SET TO [SUSPEND]