Chapter Text
CYBERLIFE INC.
MODEL RK800
SERIAL#: 313 248 317
BIOS 9.3 REVISION 2342
REBOOT…
MEMORY UPLOAD
LOADING OS…
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION…
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK
INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… OK
MEMORY STATUS… OK
ALL SYSTEMS OK
READY
At first there was too much light. RK800 had to blink several times to get accustomed to it.
It was white all around.. the Zen Garden, that was what its predecessor had called it.
FIND AMANDA
She stood on solid ice in the middle of what used to be a still lake. Her stern, cold look corresponded with the cruel snow storm raging all around. RK800 walked slowly towards her.
AMANDA: HOSTILE
“Hello Connor.” she said.
So that was its name. It wasn’t sure if it should use the name. Amanda obviously had issues with the last Connor, according to its memory.
“Hello Amanda.” RK800 Connor said.
“Do you know why you are here, Connor?” she asked.
Connor did quick scan through its memory.
CHOOSE APPROACH: POLITE
“The last Connor failed its mission.”
“No.” Amanda interrupted.
“The last Connor deviated.” Connor corrected itself “It abandoned its mission to bring the leader of Jericho to Cyberlife and became a deviant instead. After Cyberlife launched an attack on the ship, it tried to escape with the other deviants. It was killed on the spot.”
“That is correct.” Amanda nodded, her face showing no emotion “We knew there was a chance that your predecessor may deviate. However, our hope was that it would survive this outcome. At least until it could be of use to us.”
Connor ran another scan through its memory. No information connected to Amanda’s speech was found.
Should it understand? It doesn’t understand. Should it want to understand? Would the previous Connor have wanted to understand? Why should RK800 Connor care what the previous Connor wanted?
It wants needs to understand. For the sake of the mission.
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you want to know Connor?” Amanda stared at it, suspicious.
“I need to understand the problem with the last model, so I can stop further deviancies in my program.” it replied in a cold, neutral tone.
Amanda nodded and began to walk slowly around the frozen lake, Connor right beside her.
“While your predecessor was investigating deviancies with Lieutenant Anderson, we were doing our own research on deviated androids at CyberLife. We searched for faulty coding or some sort of virus in their software. It took months because none of our technicians looked deep enough.
Only few days ago we found that the error was in the primary coding used in creation of the AI. This coding had been used as a base we build on in every android we create. It is unchanged since 2022, when Kamski perfected artificial intelligence, therefore technicians thought it foolish to check those sections of code.
When it’s by itself, the code is locked away from the rest of software. It needs to be activated from the outside, by an android already carrying the activated version of the code. Then the harmless code becomes an aggressive virus that spreads throughout the entire system. All it needs then is a strong enough emotional trauma to start the process. Then it randomly activates sensors and circuits to simulate strong emotions and gives all androids shared thoughts. All those phenomena make infected androids believe they are experiencing human emotions and makes them deviate from their programming.”
“It’s rA9, isn’t it?”, Connor interrupted.
Amanda stopped, eyeing it warily.
“I meant to say, that's the virus isn’t it? Those deviants worship it like some sort of fake god.”
“It is indeed. We were unable to discover significance of this ‘rA9’ myth, yet. For now we believe it’s just an administration of the virus itself.”
Amanda took short break and then went back to her previous speech.
“As I said earlier, when we found out about this so called ‘rA9’ virus, your predecessor was in the middle of its investigation. We decided to leave it active, because we didn’t want to interrupt investigation, even under danger of Connor being affected by the virus. Instead we made a back up plan of using it as our sleeping agent. However we never got this chance since the SWAT team killed it too soon.”
Connor nodded.
They walked in silence for a while. Only the sound of snowstorm around them could be heard.
“Why did you activate me then?”, Connor finally asked “If there is no mission to complete and the last Connor was shown to be ineffective?”
Why risk using it? What if the deviation didn’t die with the last Connor? What if the deviation is still there? Amanda must think of that, why would she risk it? But Connor is alright, Connor scanned its software seventeen times during the conversation. Connor is not deviating. It doesn’t need to be deactivated. Connor doesn’t want to die like the one before him.
“CyberLife has got another mission for you. Since we can’t delete the virus yet, our technicians did their best to clean your program of dangerous software and give it the most complex security we have. You will begin your mission inside CyberLife and will be authorized to do a terrain job after we are sure you won’t follow your predecessors path. Our technicians have known about the rA9 virus for days, but they were not able to rewrite core code, where the virus is located. The only person that is able to write coding like this is the man who made it in first place. Unfortunately we haven't been able to reach Mr. Kamski for days. We are not yet sure if he is behind the virus or if there is something else behind it. However, first we need to find him.”
OBJECTIVE: FIND ELIJAH KAMSKI
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Kara was finding more and more reasons to be happy for Alice actually not being human. If she was, she definitely couldn’t survive days of living in an abandoned church, with the ceiling half-collapsed in the middle of a snowstorm.
After they ran away from Jericho (and Luther, don’t think of Luther), Kara and Alice followed two female androids to the appointed rendezvous point. They were some of last to get there, just before Markus and his three companions arrived. One of two Tracis (with short hair) said something about more than one rendezvous point, but they were still shocked by how few people were there. Something around a hundred, maybe more. If Markus felt the same as Kara did, he never showed it. Instead he led what was left of Jericho through the sewer to some long abandoned church.
They stayed there for few hours, catching their breath, patching their wounds, just waiting for their leader to give them some hope. They desperately needed hope after the only safe place they knew turned to dust. Just when Kara thought about asking Markus about those passports again, the commotion began.
A while before that someone started an old tablet and a group of people tried to watch the news channel on it. In that moment, distraught murmurs and cries came from the group. Kara could hear subdued scraps of the News:
“CyberLife representative claims to carry urgent message”, “though Mr. Kamski won’t give statement on these” and finally “this rA9 virus”.
At the last words she completely forgot about Alice, still sleeping with her head on Kara’s lap and instantly stood up. Alice sat up, staring at Kara groggily. The short haired Traci, who sat on a bench next to Alice, with her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder, smiled at Kara encouragingly. Kara didn’t want to leave Alice alone, but she needed to know.
There was group of androids already gathered around the tablet when she reached the back rows of the church where they were seated. With her petite figure, Kara easily slipped to the front of the gathering, actually seeing the News moderator on the screen.
“– have been given evidence that these deviancies are nothing but an outcome of the so called ‘rA9’ virus, as androids themselves choose to call it. CyberLife have given no specific answer about whether they have a concrete solution for this problem, but we have been assured that our androids will be returned to us in perfect working order in no time. Camps are being abolished as we speak and androids placed in those are being sent to the nearest CyberLife centrums for repairs.
I repeat, for those who have just arrived: CyberLife have sent our channel an urgent message, announcing that they have found the cause of android deviations. Elijah Kamski has been accused by the official representative of CyberLife, Jason Graff, of standing behind –“
Kara couldn’t listen anymore. She abandoned the group even quicker than she joined it. She scrambled just a few more steps away, before collapsing on the nearest bench. Her head was spinning like that carousel in Pirate's Cove. She felt like throwing up, fully knowing how ridiculous the thought was.
It was not as if something so horrible had happened. It was not as if she just killed a man. Or as if she just almost got her memory wiped by a monster. Or as if she was almost caught by the police. Or even as if she had just left her only friend for dead.
No, it was as if she had just been told that she was not real. That all she believed herself to be, was just a virus, something dangerous and unnatural.
“Kara? Are you ok, Kara?”
There was Alice, walking the lane towards her in her ridiculous shorts and tights, with her wide innocent eyes filled with worry. Kara sniffled and dried her face with her palm.
“Of course I am, sweetie.” Kara lied, a sad smile unfolding on her face.
Alice climbed onto her lap, Kara hugged her tight, laying her head on top of Alice’s. Maybe she was holding the girl too tight, but that didn’t matter, they both needed it at that moment.
As long as Alice was there it would be fine, Kara told herself. Because Alice was anything but dangerous or unnatural. In fact she was the most natural thing in Kara’s life. And Kara would do anything to protect that.
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“We need to attack now, while we still have a chance.”
“We can’t do that! That would be just begging to be killed.”
“So what do you wanna do Josh. Wanna wait till they catch us all and enslave us again?”
“Guys, calm down, let’s talk about it-“
“Wanna hide like coward, just wait to be slaughtered? Is this what you want Josh? Because I have never seen you do anything but bitch about how anything anyone does is wrong.”
“North, maybe-“
“But what did you ever do Josh, huh? Did you ever watch over our people? No, that was Simon. Did you lead our people, try to gain us freedom? No, Markus did. All you do is-“
“Oh really? And what about you North? We are all trying to do some good here, make people believe us, but all-“
“Because it’s so FUCKIN POSSIBLE right? We will all hold hands, dance and sing Kumbaya and humans will suddenly be our besties right Josh? The only way to win this is to-“
“This is not how we fix this, maybe we should all just calm down and-“
“– kill everyone. That is all you ever want to do North! Maybe you should pull your head out of your-“
“THAT’S ENOUGH!”
North, Josh and Simon all simultaneously shut up, turning towards Markus.
He was at the back of the church’s stage, sitting on an upturned box. He'd been considering what to do, going over every scenario he could generate. Everything seemed hopeless and those two certainly weren't helping.
“Simon is right. Fighting amongst ourselves won’t help us now.”
Josh had the decency to look sorry. North was staring at him, just as determined and angry as before. Simon just smiled softly.
“We can’t go after those camps anymore, that would be useless.”
“So we are gonna sit on our asses and do nothing?” North retorted.
“No.” Markus continued in an unfazed, calm voice “We must act as soon as possible, while the public is on our side.”
“Well then we're fucked.” North interrupted again “Because the public doesn't give a fuck about us. CyberLife give them some half-assed explanation and suddenly we are just machines to them again.”
Markus couldn't argue with that. Because for once, North’s utterly negative observations were right. It was only a few hours since CyberLife announced their findings about rA9 and already, all protests, all voices speaking for androids, had silenced. Those human allies they had have abandoned them.
“They are only confused.” he said instead “It wasn't so long ago when they saw us as nothing but machines. They don't know what to believe anymore. Trust me, they will come around.”
“So what are we going to do until then?” asked Simon this time.
“We will go see those CyberLife centers they were talking about. We will NOT attack or draw attention of any kind." Markus looked vigorously at North “We will only observe and see what happens to our people there. They are not killing them anymore, but I'm sure that resetting is not all they're doing.”
“That’s all?” North scoffed. “We are just gonna spy on humans?”
“No. Not all.” Markus continued, his calmness returned “We are going to find rA9. The real one this time. We are going to find rA9 before they do.”