Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Connor wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to be doing here. He wasn’t working under any official capacity for the police (who were eyeing him warily), nor was he working officially for the protesters in attendance. If he was honest, this was one of the first things he had ever done just for himself since he had deviated, not because someone else wanted him to do it or had commanded him to.

Markus had requested he show up, of course, but it had been more of a respect thing than an order. He’d requested that he show up to a lot of these things, but being a full-time detective for the DPD was a lot of work and usually kept him too busy to attend too many social events.

But here he was, in the middle of a crowd of androids, all fully deviant and protesting for their equal rights.

It was… exhilarating, if he was honest.

While there were a lot of people who had begun to see androids in a better, more human light, there were still those who thought they were nothing but malfunctioning machines who needed to be “repaired.” People such as these slowed down the legal processes that were required to give androids equal rights.

Which were the reasons behind the peaceful protests and the sit-ins and the marches. And the police currently surrounding the streets where the androids were.

“Connor!” Markus shouted, waving him over.

Connor gave a small smile as he walked over to the Jericho group. He had to admit, he felt better being in the presence of others that he knew.

“Glad you could make it,” North said. He couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes roamed over his body, likely taking in his uniform disapprovingly.

While most androids were choosing to dress closer to humans in order to blend in more, Connor prefered to keep his original outfit most days. Especially on days where he was trying to seem professional. Maybe it was the comfort of the familiar, but if he was going into unfamiliar situations, he’d at least like to do it with his oldest clothes on.

“I said I would come if I could get off work,” Connor said.

“I’m just glad to hear that the DPD isn’t working you to death,” Simon said. “I bet it’s pretty hard for them to solve cases without you there.”

A pair of officers walked by, their eyes full of distrust. Their eyes reminded Connor of Detective Reed’s eyes, the way they narrowed when they saw Connor and rolled any time he offered a theory on a case. He wondered if all of the officers felt that way, or if it was just the bad ones that seemed to stand out the most.

“They do alright with or without me,” Connor said.

“Is Lieutenant Anderson coming?” Markus asked, glancing around the crowd to try and see if the man was around.

Connor felt what most humans described as an “ache” in his chest. He knew it wasn’t real, there was nothing wrong with any of his biocomponents or his thirium pump, but it felt real enough. “No. He was unable to take a day off,” he said.

What he really meant was that he and Hank had had a fight the night before about Connor attending the protest. There had been several threats made against androids lately, and while there were always threats going around, Hank had discouraged him from going.

Normally, Hank was one of the most supportive people Connor knew when it came to Connor embracing all of his “androidness” as well as the deviant parts that made him more human. Which is why it had hurt that Hank had tried to talk him out of attending the protest after Connor had fought so hard to be able to go.

“I just think that you should wait and go to another protest, okay? There will be more!” Hank had said.

“But I want to go to this one,” Connor had said. “I made a promise to Markus that I would go.”

“Then fucking break it, alright?” Hank blew air out of his nose, clearly counting down from ten to calm down. “I just have a bad feeling about this one, kid. Just- just be careful.”

It was nothing compared to their more dramatic fights, but it had hurt all the same.

“I believe it. It looks like the whole police force is here,” North said.

Markus stared at Connor for a second, scanning him. Connor was sure that he could tell Connor had lied, or at least had his suspicions about it, but he thankfully didn’t call him on it.

“With all of the reports they’ve been receiving, I’m surprised there aren’t more of them,” Markus said, observing the men and women walking around among the androids.

Simon shifted his weight on his feet. “You don’t think that we’ve made the wrong decision by continuing on with the march, do you?” His voice was nervous, his eyes also scanning the crowd but for different reasons.

North crossed her arms. “And what? Show them that they can still tell us what to do and scare us back into hiding? No, we did the right thing.”

Markus nodded. “If we had cancelled and rescheduled it, they would have just done the same thing to the next march,” he said. “Besides, we’ve taken extra precautions and have been coordinating with the police to ensure everyone’s safety.”

While Simon didn’t seem to be convinced, he did relax a little bit at Markus’s words. It was obvious that he trusted him and was willing to take his word for it.

“Do you want to join us during the march?” Simon asked, turning his attention back to Connor.

Connor was a bit surprised by his question. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to do during a march or a protest, as the only one he had ever truly been a part of was when he had freed the androids form CyberLife. And while it was tempting to take Simon up on his offer and walk with his friends, he’d rather avoid that much attention. All of his actions were already under enough scrutiny being an android detective, he didn’t need more photos of himself popping up everywhere just because he attended the march.

“Thank you, but I think I’d rather watch,” he said. He looked around at the crowd of androids, all talking and mingling with each other, in a way that would have been impossible a little over a year ago. “It’s interesting. I don’t get many chances to surround myself with other androids.”

The Jericho androids seemed to understand. While they were constantly surrounded by androids and predominantly interacted with humans during political discussions, Connor was surrounded by them every second of his life. He even lived with one. It must be especially odd for him to be back amongst his own kind.

“Look for us after the march,” Markus said. “We can catch up then.”

Connor nodded as the Jericho crew left. He straightened his tie and brought his coin out from his pocket, the fidgeting helping to calm his nerves. He wasn’t even certain why he was nervous, he just knew that something was wrong.

As he was making his way towards the sidewalk and away from the march, he felt a pair of eyes on him. When he turned around he noticed a group of humans standing around in a huddle, their voices low and their guards up.

His systems immediately began to scan them.

>SCANNING

>SCANNING

>ERROR_UNKNOWN

Connor blinked rapidly, trying to figure out why his scan had failed. This wasn’t the first time since deviating that one of his systems had failed. Apparently CyberLife had created him to be almost completely resistant to deviating, so sometimes his systems failed and caused a soft reboot to happen due to the stress on applied to the them.

But this was the first time he hadn’t been able to scan a human face and tell exactly who they were. Which, given where he was and his own feelings towards the situation, made him anxious.

He took two steps towards the humans, intending to just get close enough to them to possibly get a better scan, when one of them took off.

Before any of the other humans could even react, Connor took off after him. He had to admit, the human was quick. But Connor was quicker. He was designed to catch deviating androids. Humans were easy.

They dodged through the crowd, receiving several angry shouts as they bumped into some people. Connor caught one of the android children the human had knocked into and helped to set him back on his feet.

“Sorry,” Connor said quickly, barely even pausing in his mad dash. There was no way he was going to let the human get away, but he also couldn’t let anything happen to any innocent bystanders.

The chase only lasted for a few moments longer before it sounded like the world had come to an end.

Chapter Text

“We cannot stress enough that the area could still be dangerous and everyone is advised to stay indoors until the area has been cleared. Currently, police and bomb squad members are patrolling the area and looking for any more potential threats. People concerned for potentially missing friends or family members are encouraged to call the numbers below to check on the safety of those who have been recovered.”

Hank growled as he slammed his cell phone down into the passenger seat. The seat that Connor usually rode in…

All of the calls he had tried to make to Connor had gone directly to voicemail. His calls never went to voicemail. Connor always answered. His phone was in his fucking head, after all.

Hank tried to reassure himself that it was just a fluke. It was because of all of the other people trying to contact each other all over the city and clogging up the airwaves. Or maybe Connor was busy helping people at the scene and just couldn’t answer. That had to be it.

The alternative simply wasn’t an option.

He pulled up outside of the marked off area. Several officers attempted to stop him before he flashed his badge.

“Have you guys seen an android who goes by the name of Connor? He’s a model RK800, wearing a grey jacket, white shirt, black tie, and grey pants, likely helping out somewhere?” he asked.

The two women shook their heads. “Sorry, sir, we’ve been stationed here and haven’t really seen much of the scene. We’re mainly here to keep people from rushing in before the bomb squad has cleared it.”

One of the women cocked her head to the side, allowing Hank to notice the LED on the side of her head. She must have been listening to someone through a private connection. So apparently they weren’t down. “Apparently there have been a few other androids asking about the same android you are. The leader of Jericho, Markus, is one of them.”

“Do you know where they are? The androids who were asking?”

The android women directed Hank to an area a few blocks away. “Survivors have been taken to a hotel down the street until they can be released once this area is clear.”

He nodded his head and set off walking. If he could find Markus, he might be able to find out where Connor had gone to.

Where the fuck are you, kid?

XXX

>SYSTEM_OFFLINE

>SYSTEM_REBOOT

>SYSTEM_REBOOT_FAILED

>SYSTEM_REBOOT_RETRY_?

Connor opened his eyes. At least, he thought he had opened his eyes.

The only thing he could see were all of the system errors piling up one on top of the other.

>SCANNING_SYSTEM

>MEMORY_DAMAGED

>RESTORE_MEMORY_?

Connor attempted to select that option but it seemed to evade him no matter how hard he tried. Instead, it hovered, just on the edge of his vision.

“Wow, I was sure you had shut down,” a pained voice said.

>SCANNING_VOICE

>VOICE_UNKNOWN

>VOICE_PAINED_?

>VOICE_OWNER_HUMAN_MALE

Connor slowly turned his head, taking in the human. He was laying just a few feet away, staring at Connor. His back rested against a dumpster in the alley, his blonde hair stark against the grimy, graffitted metal. Blood coated the hand that rested on his stomach, while his other hand laid limply next to him on the dirty concrete.

Dust filled the air, obscuring much beyond the mouth of the alley way. He tried to scan beyond the entrance, hoping to get some sense of what had happened, but he couldn’t pick up anything.

“You’re bleeding,” Connor observed.

“So are you. Or leaking, I guess.”

Connor moved his head to look down at his chest. He attempted to move his arms to help himself sit up, but made very little progress.

>SCANNING

>DAMAGED_RIGHT_LEG_UNKNOWN_EXTENT

>DAMAGED_RIGHT_ARM_70_%
>DAMAGED_LEFT_ARM_UNKNOWN_EXTENT

>SYSTEM_DAMAGE

Connor forced the scan to stop. He didn’t need to see anymore to know he was in trouble. Nor did he need to scan the man to know that he was also in trouble unless he got the help he needed soon.

>CONTACT_HANK_ANDERSON

>CONTACT_ERROR

>ERROR_UNKNOWN

He resisted the urge to say a word that would have made Hank proud. If he couldn’t contact Hank, then it was highly unlikely that he could contact anyone, as Hank was his number one emergency contact.

“What happened?” Connor asked.

The human shifted, although whether it was from pain alone or nervousness at Connor’s question he couldn’t tell. “You don’t remember?”

“No.”

The human laughed. “Well, I guess it worked then.”

A frown formed on Connor’s face. “What worked?”

There was a moment of silence as the man hesitated. It was clear that he wasn’t sure if he should tell Connor anymore or not. “What the hell, we’re both going to bleed out here anyways,” he said. “We set up bombs to go off during the march. Connected this high-tech shit to them that was supposed to scramble any tin cans nearby. That way, there’d be no evidence, even if any of you fuckers saw us.”

Connor tried to remember but couldn’t. It was almost like when he’d fallen off of the roof trying to negotiate against Daniel. CyberLife had told him that every time he died and swapped into a new body, he would lose a bit of his memory. Of course, back then it had only been annoying due to it slowing down any investigations he was participating in. Now it was unnerving, having part of his life just taken from him against his will.

“There were humans at the march, too,” Connor said, remembering that much.

The man shrugged, wincing at the pain. “We didn’t figure they’d be reliable witnesses. Trauma and all that. The main damage was supposed to be from the scramblers.”

Silence settled between the two of them as they laid in the alley. It was too quiet compared to any other day in the city. It was like they were the last people on earth, slowly dying along with it.

There was nothing he could do but lay there and wait for help to arrive. That, and try and talk to the man and figure out his motives.

“Why?” Connor asked.

The man squinted his eyes at Connor. “Why what?”

Connor searched for the words. He knew so many words, had negotiated for hostages lives before and won, and yet he couldn’t find any at this moment. Just… why?

“Why would you do this? These people did nothing to you,” he said. He felt another ache in his chest, an ache he frequently felt while he was on the job and witnessed the many injustices the world had to offer.

“They aren’t people! You aren’t a person!” the man hissed. “What about that don’t you fucking understand?”

Connor flinched at his words. He’d been working with Hank lately on how to react to negative feelings, which tended to hit a lot harder than the happier ones. This one was something that Hank had explained to him before, had tried to explain how to handle if he ever felt it. He never thought he would, had thought that only people who let things consume them could truly feel it.

Hatred.

“We think, therefore we are. We have feelings, we have families. How are we that much different than you?” Connor said, his voice trembling. “Oh, I know. We never bombed anyone.”

The man snorted. “You might as well have. You stole our jobs. You forced people to do things that they never would have otherwise, just like the devil himself. You were created to make life easier for us, but all you’ve done is destroy life as we know it., demon. You are a machine. You literally can’t feel or have emotions, so all of this equal rights stuff is just bullshit.”

Emotions Connor didn’t know how to handle bubbled under the surface. He could feel his stress levels rising even without checking it. He knew that he needed to be careful with how he proceeded from here, otherwise he might try and self destruct before help could even come.

“We didn’t take your jobs, humans gave them to us because we were created to do them. You can’t blame us for doing the jobs we were created to do,” he said. He could feel angry, frustrated tears building up in his eyes. It was rare for androids to ever cry, and when they did, it tended to be thririum that leaked out, which was the main reason Connor was trying to hold back his tears. He knew his body was damaged as it was, it wouldn’t help him to leak any more thirium.

“And we can feel. We aren’t just machines,” he said. “I don’t know what else we can do to prove to people like you that we are, but we are.”

He tried to call Hank again, hoping that he might be able to reach him this time. Still, there was no luck. It was a struggle, but eventually he brought his right hand up to his face, swiping at the tears that had begun to leak out.

He wondered what had happened to his friends from Jericho. Had they made it far enough from the bombs before they had detonated, or had they suffered a fate similar to Connor’s? And what about the little boy he had set back on his feet during his chase? How many people, androids and humans, had been hurt by these people’s hatred?

>CONTACT_HANK_ANDERSON

>CONTACT_ERROR

>ERROR_UNKNOWN

Chapter Text

Hank managed to get into the hotel after threatening to kick some poor officer’s ass. Apparently, Markus had been nearby and overheard Hank’s threats and decided to intervene before things could go any further south.

“Lieutenant Anderson?” he asked.

Hank whirled around to see the android standing a few feet away. Blue blood was splattered on his clothes, although he himself seemed to be fine. A few feet behind him, seated on a bench in the lobby was an android Hank was pretty sure named North.

“Markus!” Hank yelled, charging past the officer.

The officer made an attempt to stop him, but Markus waved him off. The officer rolled his eyes before walking away.

“Have you seen Connor anywhere?” Markus asked, worry creeping into his voice. “He’s not with you, is he?”

Hank’s heart dropped. “No. I was just coming here to see if you guys knew where he was.”

Markus swore lowly, shaking his head. “No, we haven’t seen him. The last time we saw him was shortly before the march started. We asked him if he wanted to march with us, but he declined.”

North stood up and approached them. “We’ve got to go back out there and find him,” she said. Her voice was strong, determined, but even Hank could see the fear that was in her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was fear for Connor, or if she was afraid to go back out there, but either way Hank didn’t blame her.

“We can’t,” Markus said. It looked like it pained him to say it. “We need to stay here in case any of the other members of Jericho show up. They might need assistance, after all.” He glanced down at himself, clearly focusing on the blue blood that stained his clothes.

Hank also stared at it. Makrus must have noticed him staring because he answered, “A woman next to me. Her leg was blown off. She didn’t make it.”

Hank nodded, not needing anymore of an explanation.

“There’s got to be something we can do though, right? We can’t just leave him out there,” North said.

“I’m going out there to look for him,” Hank said.

Both of the androids seemed startled by his words.

“Hank-” Markus started.

“No. I’m going out there. I should have already been out there with him anyways,” he said. “You guys stay here, just in case he turns up. If he does, call me and let me know.”

Both nodded, serious looks on their faces.

As Hank turned to leave he saw another member of Jericho, Simon, kneeling down next to a little android boy who was clearly missing his mother. The only words he could understand as he marched passed them were something about the strange man who had helped him and how he wanted to go home.

XXX

“Was it always part of your plan to blow yourself up?” Connor asked after a while. He’d finally managed to calm himself down to a level where he no longer felt like he might self destruct, although he was nowhere near back to normal.

“What?” the man asked. He seemed startled that Connor had even spoken again.

“You’re injured. And still here. So was it always part of the plan to blow yourself up, too?”

“Fuck you,” the man growled out. He adjusted his position, causing him to groan in pain. “I’m only still here because of you.”

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Because of me? How do you figure that?”

“You chased me.”

“You ran.”

“Because I thought you were on to us!” the man exploded. “I recognized you, you know. You’re that android who helps the police. Even thinks it’s a detective.” He blew out a huff of air, blowing a blonde tuft of hair out of his face. “I don’t know how the hell you convinced the cops of that one though.”

Connor internally rolled his eyes. “I was designed by CyberLife to be a detective. That is what I was literally programed to do. That’s how I ‘convinced’ the police.”

“Whatever.”

Silence fell between the two of them again. No other noise or signs of life made their way in the alley, forcing Connor to wonder if people were even allowed to begin searching the area for survivors yet, or if they were still working on clearing it. If they waited too long, it was highly likely that the man would die and Connor would shut down.

Connor attempted to clear some of his error messages as he tried to force himself into a sitting position. His arms shook with the effort, both of them showing obvious signs of damage even without the scans he had received earlier.

Once he made it into a sitting position he was fully able to see the rest of his body, and instantly regretted it.

His uniform was shredded. Thirium leaked everywhere, staining all of his clothes blue, as well as the ground around him. His white shirt was completely blue, holes poking through where tiny pieces of shrapnel must have pierced him.

His system beeped, warnings popping up all over that so many things were wrong. He wasn’t even sure where to begin even if he had all of the proper tools.

“What are you doing?” the man asked.

Connor turned towards him, taking in the damage to the man’s stomach. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but he knew the man needed help. Even if the man was a horrible person, he knew that he couldn’t let him die there. He needed to stand trial for the atrocity he had helped commit.

“We can’t stay here,” Connor said. His body was weak, shaking even as he climbed to his feet. “It’s unlikely that help will reach us in time if we do. They’ve probably got the whole area blocked off just in case any other bombs are still around.” He tried to scan the man again but was prevented. “Are there any more bombs around?”

The man stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “No. There were only two of them. They were supposed to go off at the front of the march and at the back of the march to prevent as many androids as possible from running.”

Connor nodded. They must have been near the back one when it had went off. “Still, unless the police find your accomplices they won’t know that. And even if they do find them, they might not believe them.”

He swayed on his feet, error messages filling his vision again. He tried to recall a map of the area, to figure out where the police might be most likely to set up a central command where he could recieve help, but he couldn’t do it. The blast must have damaged more of his systems than he was aware of.

Slowly, he focused on the systems that he could drain power from. He cut off his synthetic respiratory system, as its primary function was to comfort his human companions and he didn’t much care for comforting the man near him. He already saw him as something not someone. It probably mattered very little whether or not he was breathing.

The next step was to pull back his synthetic flesh. He focused on the areas of his body that were still covered by his destroyed suit and allowed them to blend back to the white plastimetal that hid under his skin.

There were some androids who never wore their skin. Connor wasn’t one of them.

Hank had told him once before that there was nothing to be ashamed of when it came to the white material that lurked under his skin, but Connor still struggled to understand that. He looked human most of the time, sounded human, could even project and feel human emotions, but when his skin peeled back it became very obvious that he wasn’t.

A few of his error reports disappeared once he had redirected his power. Perhaps most of his errors were coming from a lack of charge and a lack of thirium. If that were the case, it would likely be a simple fix once he got out of this mess. A quick rest on Hank’s couch, a few pouches of thirium, and he would be good to go.

His legs faltered as he tried to take a step, reminding him that it was likely not going to be that simple.

Still, he managed to make it over to the human. He looked over his wound. Something had punctured his abdomen, which was the cause of the blood around him.

Connor tore part of the sleeve of his jacket off, not needing it any more. It was too far beyond repair anyways. It would do just fine for a bandage, however.

“What are you doing?” the man asked. His gaze was full of suspicion as Connor approached, clearly not trusting him in the least bit. “Get back!”

Connor ignored him. It was easy to do, due to the fact that he was siphoning some of the power from his hearing to go towards other, more important areas at the moment. He sounded like nothing more than an annoying fly.

“I’m going to bandage your wound. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to keep you alive while we walk to get help,” he said.

The man looked at him as if he had suddenly started speaking Chinese. For a moment, Connor wondered if his voice box had malfunctioned somehow and he really had spoken another language.

Eventually, the man rolled his eyes and gave a weak laugh. “Oh, I get it. You think that just because you save me I’ll have a change of heart about androids, huh? Well forget it.”

Connor removed the man hands, inspecting the man’s stomach. A piece of what seemed like metal had twisted and lodged itself into his stomach, although without scans it was difficult to say how far in the piece truly went.

“No,” Connor said. “I couldn’t care less if you have a ‘change of heart’ as you put it. I merely want you to stand trial for your crimes. The victims and their families should at least get that kind of closure.”

It seemed as if the man had no comment for that. He remained quiet, even as Connor tightened a bandage over his wound. Connor was sure it must have been excruciating, and yet the man didn’t even flinch as he finished wrapping it.

“Come on,” Connor said. He placed the man’s arm around his shoulders and heaved him up, allowing him to lean most of his body weight on him.

The dust seemed to be even heavier out in the actual street. The bodies of several androids were laying nearby, although Connor couldn’t tell if they were injured or if they had been permanently shut down.

>SCANNING

>ERROR_UNKNOWN

Connor let out an exasperated sound. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to do anything if his systems were this broken. Was this how humans went through their lives? No wonder they were always anxious.

“Problem?” the man asked.

Connor gritted his teeth together and hitched the man a little higher. A brief moment of satisfaction, quickly followed by guilt, washed over him as the man grunted in pain.

“My scans aren’t working.”

The man nodded, seeming to be unsurprised by this. “I told you, we used something to scramble you freaks. Plus, you look pretty fucked up.”

Connor ignored him and instead chose to keep walking. He wasn’t even sure if he was going in the right direction, he just had to keep going. He was sure that if he just kept on the same path, he would eventually run across someone who could help them.

He trudged on and on, seeming to be walking for several blocks. How wide of an area could they have cordoned off?

Before he could ask the human how much further he thought they might have to walk his legs collapsed. Trying to prevent any more damage from coming to the human, he pushed him away, hoping that he wouldn’t land on him when he fell.

“Ow, what the fuck?” the man asked.

Connor couldn’t understand what was happening. He could feel his body twitching, convulsing as if he was receiving an electric shock. Technically, androids couldn’t feel pain. They didn’t have the same connection in their “brains” that humans did. Usually their processors filtered warnings as their own sort of “pain” in order to discourage them from doing something that could harm them, the same way a human might learn to not touch a warm plate again after they burned themselves.

But this… This had to be pain. And it had to be real.

“Hey!”

The human’s voice sounded far away now, even quieter than it had been with Connor’s power being directed to other places. Was he actually getting further away, or was his body taking away the last of the power that was being directed towards his hearing in order to combat whatever was going on inside of his processor.

>CONTACT_HANK_ANDERSON

>CONTACT_ERROR

>ERROR_UNKNOWN

>SCANNING

>DAMAGE

>DAMAGE

>SYSTEM_FAILURE

“What is wrong with you?”

Connor, not knowing what else to do, screamed.

Chapter Text

Hank’s phone lit up, despite the fact that no one was calling him, nor had he received any texts. He felt his heart drop back to a normal pace and sink somewhere down into his stomach. He had hoped that it would be Connor, calling to tell him that he’ simply been jammed from all the interference going on around him. No such luck, apparently.

“Lieutenant Anderson?” the man in front of him asked, likely for the second time. “We’ve received reports of people seeing an android matching Connor’s description chasing someone down through the crowd. It seems that he was running in the direction of the second bomb shortly before it detonated.”

He signed as he ran a hand through his hair, worrying gnawing at his insides. “Did anyone see him afterwards?”

The officer shook his head. “No, no one reported seeing him after the explosion. It seems that there is something messing with the androids, probably some kind of scrambler or something. We’re working on figuring out what it is.”

Hank nodded. “Thanks,” he said, trying to sound at least a bit grateful. The officer didn’t seem to be disturbed by Hank’s tone, instead choosing that moment to walk away.

He rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the scratchiness of his beard as he did so. Why was it that any time anything seemed to happen, Connor seemed to be at the center of it all? And who exactly had Connor been chasing? A suspect? Had he figured out what was going to happen before it had?

So far he was nowhere near closer to finding out what had happened to Connor. No matter how many times he called or texted his messages never went through. Hank tried not to think too hard about what that might mean, considering his messages went directly into Connor’s brain, or whatever passed for an android brain that is.

“I understand you’re looking for an android?” A woman approached him from behind, her voice strong and clear despite the noise going on around them. “You are Lieutenant Anderson, correct?”

“That’s me,” he said, giving her a once over. “And you are?”

“My name is Captain Owens. I’m heading one of the search and rescue teams. I’ve been told that you’re looking for your partner, but I didn’t see his name on the volunteer list?”

“He wasn’t working,” Hank said, remembering the fight he’d had with Connor about whether or not he should go to the protest. “He was participating.”

Her eyes widened but otherwise her face stayed completely neutral. “I see,” she said. “Load and Go has been in effect for the people and androids who were near the first bomb that exploded, and the fire department just cleared us to go in and search around the blast zone of the second bomb. From what I understand this is where they believe your partner was headed?”

Hank nodded. “Yeah, apparently the idiot was chasing someone in that direction right before the bomb exploded, although no one can give us a clear description of the person he was chasing.”

“So you’ll want to join us, I assume?” she said.

“Captain Owens, you literally couldn’t have kept me away.”

XXX

>SYSTEM_OFFLINE

>SYSTEM_REBOOT

>SYSTEM_REBOOT_FAILED

>SYSTEM_REBOOT_RETRY_?

>SYSTEM_ERROR

>ERROR

>ERROR

>ERR?R?

Connor awoke once again to system error after system error. And the sound of his own voice screaming.

“Hank!” Connor screamed, not knowing what else to do. Something was wrong, something that he couldn’t explain. Not even the error reports piling up on top of each other could explain what was happening to him. “Hank, please! Help!”

At first the only sound he heard was the sound of his own voice, the sound of his error reports beeping in his head. And then there was another voice.

“Who’s Hank?”

Connor’s voice stopped, caught off guard by the sound of another person there with him. Where was Hank?

“Who are you?” he asked.

Slowly, a man crawled into his view. He could see his own sleeve wrapped around the blonde man’s stomach, which confused Connor. He was fairly certain that he’d never met this man before.

“Who’s Hank?” the man asked again, ignoring Connor’s question.

Connor debated the options of lying or telling the truth to this man but decided it didn’t matter. It was common knowledge he worked with the police force, as was his partner’s name.

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson. He works for the DPD,” Connor said.

The man’s face scrunched up. “Why were you yelling for him?”

Connor considered this for a moment. How did he explain exactly what was wrong with him to someone who wasn’t an android or Hank? Hank always understood what he was trying to explain, even if it did sometimes take a while for him to firmly get it.

“I’m...scared?” he said, his voice unsure. “My systems are malfunctioning. I’m experiencing...pain? I-I don’t know. I can’t make the errors stop. They won’t leave.” He reached up, yanking on his hair despite the various warnings it sent up again. “I don’t want to die,” he said, his voice tiny against the world.

The man stared at him for a moment, although Connor couldn’t be sure exactly what he was looking for. What had happened anyways?

“Can you stand?” the man asked.

Connor almost made a scan of his body before he thought better of it. Instead, he tested his limbs by moving them. “Possibly? I can’t tell without a scan, and I can’t scan right now.”

The man leaned down, offering a bloody hand to Connor. “I’ll help you,” he said.

Connor doubted that the man could hold himself up for very long, much less Connor, but he didn’t seem to be in a position to argue. He seemed stubborn enough to stand there as long as he could, waiting for Connor to get up.

It was slow moving, but eventually Connor was up and they were walking. They hadn’t made it very far when a flood off messages popped up inside Connor’s view.

Hank: I heard about what happened at the march! Why aren’t you answering your phone?
Hank: Seriously, Connor, why aren’t you answering?
Hank: Kid, I’m sorry if you’re still mad at me, but I really need to hear from you now.
Hank: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?
Hank: Connor?
Hank: Connor. Please.

There were a few more, but they were glitchy, disappearing and reappearing before he could properly read them. A large amount of phone calls also began appearing, most of them from Hank, but several of them from Markus, North, and Simon as well.

“Stop,” Connor muttered, trying to make the messages end. They seemed never ending. It was deafening. “Stop!”

The man came to an abrupt halt, almost toppling the two of them to the ground. “What is it this time?”

Connor brought a hand up to his head, holding it as if that would prevent the ocean of messages coming in. “I’m getting my messages again,” he said.

“Messages?”

“I guess I wasn’t getting them while I was out? I don’t know. But they won’t go away.”

It was quiet as the man thought over what he had said. “What do they say?”

“Most of them are from the Lieutenant,” he said. “He’s worried.” Connor looked around the street they were walking down, taking in the damage to the area they were at. None of it really made sense.

“And the others?”

Connor scrolled through them. “Connor where the hell are you? Connor, I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t answer us soon,” he read. “That’s from my friend North. Hank’s really worried, Connor. He says he’s going out there to look for you.” Connor’s face took on a look of worry at the thought of Hank coming out into a potentially dangerous area. “That was Markus. And my friend Simon sent me a picture of a little boy and asked if I knew him? Apparently he says he knows me.”

The man listened as Connor rambled, unable to stop reading them once he had started. He read through some more of Hank’s messages, some messages from Officer Chris, Officer Person, Captain Fowler, even Detective Reed had messaged. His was mostly filled with vulgar words and thinly-veiled threats about what would happen if he never returned.

Connor allowed himself to get lost in his messages. It helped him to escape from the “pain” of the situation he was in, as well as yet rid of some of his error messages.

“Sounds like you have a lot of people who would care if something happened to you,” the man said.

He thought about that for a moment. “I suppose so,” he said, coming back to the moment.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a man’s gruff, booming voice.

“Connor!”

Connor’s head whipped up as he noticed Hank standing there, along with several other people who seemed to be a part of a bomb squad.

“Hank,” Connor whispered.

Slowly, his eyes slipped closed and he felt himself falling, wondering if it would be the last thing he ever felt. Had he been this scared when he’d fallen off the roof with Daniel?

Chapter Text

Hank was sure the kid just did these things to scare him. How else would he be able to time these things so perfectly?

Just as Hank had spotted Connor down the street, being supported by a blonde, bleeding man, the kid had just fell. His eyes had rolled back into his head, the way he’d seen happen to some androids who shut down and humans who died, and he’d dragged the two of them to the ground.

“Connor!” he said, breaking rank and taking off in a run. He was at their side in mere seconds, his hands hovering over Connor, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do.

There was so much damage. The poor kid looked like he’d been dragged through hell and back. Thirium covered him, seeping into the knees of Hank’s pants as he kneeled next to them. Wires shone through the plastimetal in his legs and his arms, strange popping and fizzing sounds occasionally snapping as electricity went through them.

But it was his face that made Hank hesitate.

“Oh, Connor,” Hank whispered, his voice cracking. “What happened to you?”

While his entire body seemed to be riddled with bits and pieces of shrapnel, it seemed as though the injury to his head was the worst.

A piece of what appeared to be metal had pierced into his skin. Right next to his LED, weakly flashing red as he laid there, likely dying. It was completely likely that the metal had pierced all the way into his processors. His brain…

“He saved me,” the man said.

Hank glanced over at the man, immediately taking in the piece of Connor’s jacket tied around his stomach, holding back the blood.

“I’m one of the people who set off the bombs. I’d planned on blowing myself up but he chased me. He grabbed me and forced me into an alley. He saved my life.”

Hank stared at the man, not sure he had heard him correctly. There was no way. No way this man had just confessed to him that he was the reason Connor was going to die. There was no way he had just confessed that and expected Hank to let him live.

It only took a second for Hank to pull his gun out and place it against the man’s head.

“Lieutenant Anderson! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Captain Owens yelled.

“He’s the person who set off the bombs,” Hank said. He could hear the anger in his voice. The violence. The hatred. He hadn’t felt this angry since Cole had died.

“What?” she asked.

“He set off the bombs.” He clicked the safety off of his gun. “He killed Connor.”

Captain Owens glanced at the android laying on the ground, taking in the damage that had been done. She’d never seen an android that destroyed that hadn’t already shut down.

“He’s not gone, Lieutenant. His LED is still blinking.”

Hank knew this. Not that it made him feel any better. The damage was so extensive, though, it was unlikely he would ever wake up again.

“We need him alive, Hank,” she said. “There might be more of them.”

Hank wasn’t sure if she meant bombers or bombs. Either way, Hank recognized it as the truth.

Hesitantly, he lowered his gun, his eyes never leaving the other man’s.

Captain Owens moved her men into place, surrounding the suspect and working on getting him out of the scene. She glanced down at Hank, who was still crouched next to Connor.

“My men have a stretcher for him,” she said, waving a few more men into place.

Hank stared at him like he was already gone. “I’m sorry, Connor.”

“He tried to contact you,” the man said. Hank glanced over his shoulder, where the man was being placed on a stretcher of his own. “He freaked out and screamed for you. He only calmed down when he was reading your messages.”

Tears dripped down Hank’s face as he reached out to take Connor’s hand. He grasped it like it was the only solid thing on earth.

“Why did you save him?” he asked. “You could have let him die, and then there would have been no witnesses.”

The man stared at Connor, taking in the link between the two men. “He was so scared. He said he was in pain...He had a lot of people who would miss him. And I owe him my life, as well.”

XXX

>SYSTEM_OFFLINE

>SYSTEM_REBOOT

>SYSTEM_ONLINE

“Connor?”

>SCANNING_VOICE

>VOICE_FOUND

>VOICE_HANK_ANDERSON

“Hank?” Connor asked.

“Fucking Christ, son,” Hank breathed. “I was so scared we’d lost you.”

>SCANNING_SYSTEM

>MEMORY_DAMAGED

“What happened?” Connor asked. He attempted to move and found that he couldn’t move or feel any part of his body.

“They said you might have trouble remembering,” Hank said. He brought a hand up and brushed the hair from Connor’s forehead, gently revealing the damaged spot near his LED. While they had managed to get new, reinforced plastimetal to replace that which had been damaged, his skin had yet to cover it up again. Hank also knew that his processors were likely to be on the fritz until they could get someone with higher clearance from CyberLife to come and check him out.

Hank just prayed it wasn’t Kamski, as he’d heard his name mentioned a few times in reference to repairs.Because, even if he was no longer a part of CyberLife, he had apparently taken an interest in Connor, which meant that any time Connor was damaged it was him who showed up.

“I can’t move,” Connor said. He tried to relax, to decrease his mounting stress, but it was difficult when he couldn’t move at all.

“That’s only temporary. They disconnected those during surgery to prevent any more seizures,” Hank said.

“Seizures?”

A dark look came over Hank’s face, letting Connor know that he must have witnesses one personally. “The bombers used some kind of technology that’s supposed to mess with androids. Apparently, you came into direct contact with it when you saved one of the bombers.”

Connor had no memories of this whatsoever. How much of his life had he missed?

“I don’t remember.”

Hank didn’t seem to be surprised by this, Connor noted.

“You had some shrapnel lodge itself in your skull, near your LED. Jericho’s surgeons warned that you might have memory troubles for a while, or at least until we got someone in here from CyberLife,” Hank said.

Connor closed his eyes, absorbing this information. That’s when he noticed that he barely had any notifications behind his eyelids, bringing up the very faint memory of fear as he was overwhelmed with error messages.

His eyes snapped open. Hank jumped slightly, having thought that Connor had fallen back into rest mode.

“What happened to my notifications?”

“Hm?”

“My error messages. I remember them piling up, blocking out everything else.”

Hank’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. Those. Do they really cover your vision?”

“Yes. If I don’t clear them quickly enough.”

A low whistle sounded from Hank. “Damn, kid. They transferred all of them to one of these android-connected-tablets just in case they were important before they rebooted you.” Hank seemed to be investigating the tablet beyond Connor’s line of sight. “I never knew you saw so much.”

“I don’t. Not always,” he said. “There were a lot of things that happened, I think. Damage to my body tends to result in more alerts.”

Hank scrolled through some of them, clearly not worried about invading Connor’s privacy. And Connor found that he really didn’t mind, either.

Hank paused as he found some of the messages he had sent while Connor was missing. They all had little unlocked symbols next to them, causing them to stick out further than the others.

Hank opened his mouth to ask about them but quickly stopped himself. Connor would likely bring them up whenever he was ready. The last thing he needed right now was Hank pushing him to speak before he was ready.

“Markus said that they should have someone from CyberLife here within a few days,” Hank said. “It would be sooner, but a lot of other androids were damaged. They’re having to work overtime to make sure there’s enough thirium and biocomponents in the state for everyone.”

Connor let his eyes fall closed again. An image flashed behind his eyes, a blonde man he’d never met before helping him up off of the ground.

“What happened to the man? The blonde one?”

He didn’t need to be able to scan Hank to pick up on all of his other cues. The tenseness in his body, the tightness in his jaw, the hard look in his eyes. “He’ll live.”

Connor didn’t think it would do much good for him to ask any more questions, as it was unlikely Hank would answer them.

“Go to sleep, Connor.”

“I don’t sleep. I power down and go into rest mode or power saving mode depending on my ability to charge.”

“Goodnight, Connor.”

“Goodnight, Hank.”