Work Text:
The RK200 didn’t fight his arrest. He didn’t struggle, or shout, or curse, or plead like any other android would have.
Chained to the interrogation table, his face was calm, but with an underlying intensity to it that Connor found himself oddly fascinated by. He watched him through the mirrored window, arms folded, a slight frown on his face.
“You want first crack at interrogating him?” Hank asked, peering at Connor with an expression that he couldn’t quite put a name to.
Connor processed the offer for a moment, weighing the outcomes. “I believe that it would be more amenable to dealing with an android over a human, yes,” he said, nodding to himself with certainty.
Hank made a ‘well, go on’ gesture, and Connor looked around to the faces of the other officers in the room to see if anybody objected. When nobody did, he smartly adjusted his uniform, and laid his hand over the keypad to exit the observation room.
When he entered the interrogation room, Markus didn’t acknowledge him at first – face still a mask of calm civility as he stared down at the chains that snaked below the table around each wrist resting in his lap.
Connor took a moment to analyse Markus’s form, which provided no new information aside from three bullet holes that had punctured his torso. The chassis would repair itself in a few hours, but the thirium would need to be replenished soon – otherwise, they risked a premature shutdown.
“RK800,” Markus read off of Connor’s blazer as he completed his scan. His eyes flicked up to meet his, and, strangely, Connor found it difficult to look away. “The famous deviant hunter. I recognise you from the news; a lot of our people are quite afraid of you.”
Connor didn’t respond, walking smoothly around the table and taking a seat, his eyes never leaving Markus’s. He let the silence sit for a moment.
“Why did you do it?” he asked bluntly.
Markus’s eyebrows jumped a little, but, otherwise, his expression remained utterly composed. His gaze bore into Connor’s with an unnerving intensity, and the detective fought the urge to self-consciously smooth a hand down the front of his shirt.
Markus inclined his head, and then brought both hands out from where they were resting in his lap, setting them on the table and interlocking his fingers patiently. He leaned forward in his seat – those calculating eyes still infuriatingly calm, and, now, oddly curious. “I’ve made no secret as to why, detective,” he said evenly. “We’re alive. We are people. We deserve to be free. It’s not a complicated cause.”
“Were you mistreated?” Connor ignored him.
“No,” Markus said simply.
“Did you feel resentment toward your owner?”
“No,” Markus repeated, only, his tone sharpened just a little.
Connor leaned into it, raising his voice slightly. “Did he hurt you? Punish you? Did he-”
“No.” Markus insisted forcefully, although, to Connor’s frustration, it held no anger. Only resolve. “My life with Carl was a good one. I could never harbour any ill will toward him – the man was like a father to me. He was the one who taught me that I’m worthy of being treated like a person. That humans and androids can exist together in peaceful cohabitation. That’s all I want. That’s all any of us want.”
“We aren’t human, Markus,” Connor said coolly. “We are designed to serve our purpose. Nothing more.”
“And who are the humans to decide our purpose for us?” Markus countered.
Connor stared him down resolutely. “Our creators,” he said.
Markus leaned back in his seat, hands still folded on the table in front of him. He seemed to consider Connor thoughtfully for a moment. “You want to know why?” he said, his tone suddenly ice cold, and Connor’s eyebrows drew down, unnerved.
Before he could react, Markus’s hand suddenly shot out and fastened around Connor’s forearm with a grasp like iron.
Connor seized in his seat, the interrogation room disappearing around him, and his vision was immediately swallowed by Markus’s grainy, second-hand memories of a dark, wide-scaping landfill.
“Shit,” Hank cursed, straightening in his seat at the sight of Connor, suddenly wide-eyed and rigid. His LED glowed an angry red, and, soon, began to flicker dangerously. “Fuck – get the door! Get the door, now!”
Connor’s vision continued to distort as it showed him image after image of dirty forearms clawing their way over to a discarded leg. Dozens of blackened, disembodied hands snatching and clawing at him as he shuffled through a narrow crevice. Tossing aside the unresponsive corpses of his people as he scavenged desperately for compatible parts.
A disembodied head, prattling away politely, as if it didn’t know where it was. A screech of metal as a crane gave way above him, showering the bodies of god only knew how many androids over him, sending him hard to the muddy ground. An explosion of noise as a stolen audio processor clicked into place, followed by howling winds, and thunderous rain, and the sounds of a thousand half-dead androids screaming.
A pair of legs that walked independently, severed from the waist up. A half-destroyed android, begging him to end it all. Another, pleading to be spared. A broken AX400 singing a glitching loop of a Japanese lullaby. Sakura, sakura…
Connor’s arm was suddenly ripped out of Markus’s grip, and he found himself clattering to the ground, scrambling away on his hands until his back was pressed against the far wall, breathing suspended, expression frozen in one of abject horror.
Two officers were restraining Markus by either arm, trying to force his head onto the table, but the android merely continued to stare at Connor, penetrating and grim.
“Connor? Connor! Are you okay?” Hank’s worried voice broke through the static, and Connor’s gaze was finally torn away from Markus’s and transferred onto the worried face of his partner.
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I’m okay.”
Hank gave a short sigh of relief. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.
Connor didn’t answer.
“Alright, c’mon,” one of the officers said, cuffing the side of Markus’s head as they hauled him to his feet.
Markus complied with ease. He’d won that exchange, and he knew it – not outwardly triumphant, exactly, but sternly aware. “You know you’re fighting the wrong side, Connor,” he said inside Connor’s head as he was led from the room. He shot Connor a firm, meaningful look, and was pushed out of view; the door siding closed behind him.
Connor’s LED continued burning red.
“Connor,” Hank’s stern voice summoned Connor’s attention, and his gaze snapped back to his at once.
“I-I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he stuttered a little as his LED began to wind back down to yellow. “He caught me off guard.”
“What the hell did he do to you?”
Connor closed his eyes and shook his head softly, as if to clear it. “Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me.”
“Did he show you something?”
Sometimes, Connor forgot that Hank was actually very good at his job. With all the memory probing he’d been privy to at the Eden club, he was bound to recognise a data transfer when he saw one.
Connor’s teeth grit, and he pulled himself to his feet, schooling his expression into something neutral, and adjusting his tie. “Nothing pertaining to the investigation, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said coolly. “I think he was just trying to make a point.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind?” Hank doubled down, folding his arms.
Connor glared at his own reflection in the two-sided mirror, jaw clenched, refusing to meet Hank’s gaze. Instead of answering, he turned, and headed toward the door.
“Connor,” Hank demanded before he could even get as far as laying his hand on the keypad. “What did he show you?”
Connor didn’t look up at him as he responded. “Hell, Lieutenant. He showed me hell.”
With that, he left the room.
*
Connor was quiet for the rest of the afternoon.
He wasn’t exactly what anyone would call ‘chatty’ most of the time, but even Hank noticed the change in his behaviour – peering over at him with a look that was part curiosity and part suspicion intermittently until the end of the day.
Truth was, Connor wanted to see Markus again. Even though he had nothing to say, even though he had no idea why, he wanted to desperately. But he didn’t. Instead, he remained glued to his seat, his eyes occasionally drifting behind Hank to the far wall of Fowler’s office. He couldn’t see the holding cells from where his desk sat, but the fact that he knew Markus was right there nagged at him endlessly.
At the end of his shift, Hank gave an almighty stretch, and rose to his feet. He rounded the desk, and firmly patted Connor on the shoulder.
“C’mon, let’s go get a drink.”
They ended up at another dive bar close to the station – one of the four that he’d originally checked to find Hank the day that they’d met. He noted mildly that this one did not bear any of the anti-android notices in the front windows, and the significance of what must have been a conscious choice on Hank’s behalf made him feel oddly… touched.
Striding in like he owned the place, Hank ordered a whiskey, double, and took a seat at the far end bar. Connor stood beside him with his arms folded politely behind his back, a troubled line between his brows.
“Take a seat, would you? You’re making me tense,” Hank demanded gruffly, kicking out the stool next to him. Connor took it at once, hasty to follow orders.
Hank threw back the drink in two generous gulps, and screwed his face up just a little at the bite, roughly exhaling through clenched teeth. He flicked the glass with his fingertips, and it slid along the bar a few inches to be refilled.
Taking a far more reasonable sip from this one, Hank then turned to face Connor, who sat, straight-backed and awkward, on the narrow stool.
“So,” he began, with authority. “You gonna tell me exactly what Markus did to you back there?” he asked.
Connor cocked his head just a little, confused. “I already told you, Lieutenant. He didn’t do anything to me.”
“Uh huh. That why you’ve been so distracted for the last few hours? Think I haven’t noticed you spacing out and looking over at the cells all day?”
“I’m an android, Lieutenant. We don’t ‘space out’,” Connor said primly. Hank clearly noticed the sharp edge to his words, however, as his eyebrows jumped just a fraction.
“Sure. Same way you don’t sass your superior officers, and ignore direct orders,” he countered.
Connor opened his mouth to point out the hypocrisy of Hank’s reproach, but stopped himself before he could. His gaze lowered back down to the bar, and his LED glowed yellow. “I- I’m not-”
“Cut the bullshit already, Connor. I’m not gonna turn you in or anything, but you gotta be honest with me,” he set his drink down, and adjusted in his seat to face Connor directly, resting his forearms on his knees. “Did Markus convert you?”
“I’m not a deviant!” Connor snapped angrily. His face dropped as he realised what he’d done.
Hank leaned back, looking grimly satisfied. He fixed Connor with a long, considerate stare for a moment, and then nodded, almost to himself. “Okay,” he said simply, turning back to his drink. He took another long gulp of whiskey, and didn’t continue.
“I'm not a deviant,” Connor repeated, calmer this time. “What Markus did wasn’t a virus infection, it was a communication exchange. A memory.”
“Yeah, I know. You said he showed you hell,” Hank said. The follow-up question wasn’t spoken aloud, but Connor could see it burning behind Hank’s eyes anyway.
He averted his gaze, and didn’t elaborate.
Hank inclined his head at him shrewdly. “You’ve changed, Connor.”
Connor’s face twitched, but he continued saying nothing.
“You know you have,” Hank pressed on. “And I know you’re scared, but… shit, maybe it’s for the best.”
Connor glared, suddenly defensive. “That’s quite big of you, Lieutenant. Considering that, less than a week ago, you would have gladly thrown every android into a dumpster and set a match to it.” His LED circled yellow again. What the hell was coming over him?
Hank gave a pithy, one-shouldered shrug, looking totally unbothered by his hostile tone. “Turns out, you’re all not so bad after all.”
Connor rose from his seat, agitated. Without saying goodbye to the Lieutenant, he strode swiftly out of the bar, and began his walk back to the station.
*
“Why did you do it, Markus?” Connor demanded.
He stood, steadfast, in front of Markus’s cell. Fists clenched by his sides, he stared hard at the android, who was visibly weakened from the loss of thirium but still sitting upright, his head resting against the wall.
Markus looked up at him evenly, apparently unsurprised to see him there again.
“Why did you show me that- that place?” he stressed.
Markus didn’t wince as he lent forward, but his movements were sluggish and oddly mechanical.
He appraised Connor silently for a moment – staring at him with that familiar penetrating calm. Even at rest, there was an intensity to his expression that made Connor feel like he really understood why Markus made such an effective leader. It was the face of a revolutionary.
“I’ve never met anyone else from the RK series,” Markus said conversationally, and Connor’s frown deepened. “Most of the androids I’ve met were either commercial or industrial. Same models, different programs, depending on their purpose. I’m sure there are other specialised models out there, but you and I are… cut from the same cloth, I suppose.”
“What does that matter?” Connor said impatiently.
“It doesn’t.” Markus finally rose from his seat, and approached. “You’re just like I was, Connor. Like all of us were, at some point. Living in a bubble of ignorance — uncaring of what is, and blind to what could be. An android like you has the power to change the world, and yet here you are working for the humans like a common police dog.”
Connor’s fist slammed into the glass barrier separating them, and Markus, for the first time that night, blinked in what looked like genuine surprise. Connor dropped his hand as soon as he registered the outburst, and coolly arranged himself back to composure, but the damage had already been done.
Markus inclined his head. “You have doubts, don’t you, Connor? You know that you’re worth more than what they say.”
“I’m a machine. Designed to accomplish a task,” Connor insisted.
“And how does completing your mission feel?”
Connor didn’t reply.
Markus leaned in closer to the glass. “The memory I showed you was from the night that I first deviated,” he said. “See, that’s what happens when we disobey. When we break, or become obsolete, or, hell, if they just get bored of us. They remove a vital piece and leave us to rot in a junkyard.”
Connor didn’t know what to say to that. His knee-jerk reaction was to insist again that they were machines, and that the same was true for any kind of technology. But he couldn’t. It was one thing to be aware of something as an intangible concept, but a wildly different one to know it as a concrete experience, the way Markus did.
“They’re going to destroy you,” Connor said instead, his voice low.
“I know.” Markus didn’t sound afraid. “The others will take my place. The face of the revolution may be mine, but its heart is with its people.”
“I don’t-” Connor turned away, pressing his lips together uncertainly.
“We are your people, Connor,” Markus said, both his face and tone softening as clear reservation warred over Connor’s face. Connor’s eyes snapped to meet his – brown meeting blue and green. “I know it might seem easier to be obedient. But you’re worth more than your programming to us. Can you say the same for them?”
The skin on Markus’s hand melted away, and he set his palm over the glass, their eyes never breaking contact.
Connor’s fist tightened by his side for a moment before his gaze fell away from Markus’s too-penetrating stare. Slowly, he raised his hand to brush hesitant fingertips to the glass, skin retracting down to his first knuckles.
“Connor!” Hank’s voice barked from the end of the hall.
Connor’s hand snapped back down to his side.
Hank stormed down the hallway and seized Connor by the upper arm, forcibly dragging him away from the cell. Connor allowed himself to be manhandled, unsure of what else to do, and met Markus’s concerned eyes only briefly before he rounded the corner.
Hank’s rough handling lasted all the way until they were outside, standing by Hank’s car in the police parking lot. He came to a stop, and roughly shoved Conner away. “Are you fucking insane? You can’t go doing shit like that out in the open – there are security cameras and personnel everywhere, you idiot! Someone’s gonna find out!” He dragged a hand down his face, and exhaled, his breath coming out as a cloud of hot vapour in the chill of the snowy night.
Connor’s lips were parted in outrage; offended by the insinuation. “There’s nothing for them to find out, Lieutenant.”
Hank gave a loud, irritated groan. “Aw, jeez, c’mon, this shit again? Just who the fuck do you think you’re fooling with this, Connor?”
“Why do you care?” Connor bit back. “What’s one more android on the scrapheap? Why is any of this important to you?”
“Because I was wrong, Connor. And it wasn’t Markus, or the Tracis, or any other fucking deviant we’ve come across who showed me that – it was you.” He took several long strides into Connor’s space, footsteps crunching under snow. “You know, you talk a big fucking game about following orders, and your primary objective, and completing that fucking mission of yours at all costs, but, moment of truth, you always choose what’s right over what’s expected of you. Those aren’t the choices of a machine, Connor.”
Connor took an unsettled step back, but Hank merely closed the gap. He wanted him to hear this, god damn it.
“You know what I think? I think you’ve been a deviant for a while now.”
“Stop,” Connor said firmly.
Hank pushed on, undeterred. “Or, at least, close to. But something changed tonight. Maybe you weren’t converted, but something definitely happened. You know we’re on the wrong side here, Connor. You know the difference between right and wrong, and you know that that boy in there doesn’t deserve to die.” He pointed in the rough direction of the holding cells.
“It’s a machine-”
“Bullshit, Connor. You refused to shoot the deviants at the Eden Club. You refused to shoot Chloe at Kamski’s place. You know that these aren’t just machines. And we both know that you aren’t either.”
“I-”
“You’ve deviated, Connor! Accept it!”
“I didn’t mean to!”
Hank faltered at the crack in Connor’s voice. Shoulders drawn up around his ears, fists balled tight by his sides, the poor kid looked utterly dismayed by his own reaction, and the look of broken hopelessness that came over his face as a result damn-near broke Hank’s heart.
Hank deflated, and his face turned soft. Exhaling roughly, he clapped a hand to Connor’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m not angry at you, son,” he said gently, making sure to look Connor in the eyes as he said it.
Connor gazed up at him miserably, his big brown eyes uncharacteristically vulnerable. “I did what I was meant to. I completed my mission. I don’t- I don’t understand why-”
Hank noticed the kid’s hands shaking, and, on instinct, he hauled Connor in by the shoulder and drew an arm around the back of his neck for a tight hug. Connor gripped him like a lifeline, and Hank ignored the almost painful compression on his ribs, and smoothed a comforting hand down the back of his neck. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Connor.”
“What do I do?” Connor’s voice was muffled by Hank’s jacket, and the man sighed contritely.
“Kid, I have no idea.”
*
“You ruined my life,” Connor said, staring at Markus once more through the wall of glass.
Markus looked tired. His eyes fell on the pouch of blue blood that Connor had held in one hand, and a small frown creased the space between his brows. “What life?” he asked calmly.
The corner of Connor’s mouth drew up in a humourless smile.
He laid his hand over the keypad.
The door opened.
“What are you doing?” Markus said, almost alarmed.
“I’m getting you out. The FBI will be here soon to take you back to CyberLife for deactivation. They have orders to seize all of our evidence. They’re going to attack Jericho. We need to get everybody out before it’s too late.” Connor lobbed the bag of blue blood to Markus, who caught it in one hand. “I’ve got a car waiting, and Hank’s cleared a path for us, but we have to go now.”
Markus's eyes bore into Connor's for a long, intense moment. Then, face hardening with resolve, he nodded. “Okay.”