Work Text:
Tuesday, 21st of February 2040 - The basement of the aquarium - 08:05 AM.
***
Connor attempted to crawl away to one of the boxes, to hide behind one of them, but Olivia wouldn’t let him. Connor felt like he couldn’t breathe, not only because of being out of the water, but also because of Olivia’s boot pushing down on his neck.
“S-stop…” he whispered.
The whip came down again; he had been ordered to count how many whip slashes he was receiving. It was hard to find his voice, but he managed.
“T—twenty nine…” he whispered once again. He couldn’t say it any louder, it hurt so badly.
He gasped a lung full of air as the whip came down on his back and shoulders one last time. He felt his lungs cramp up but forced his voice to tell them the last number.
***
“T—t—thirty…” he jumped out of his skin when he heard the whip come down one more time, but not on his back or shoulders. It came down right next to him. He shuddered at the sound.
The boot that had been on his neck withdrew and he felt his synthetic skin melt over his neck, shoulders and back. There wasn’t a single trace of whip marks to be seen. He curled in on himself to make himself as small as possible. He sobbed quietly as Olivia finally stopped her recording on her phone.
“I want you to repeat it one more time, android.” Bruce said, out of breath. “What did you do wrong and what rule did you disobey?”
Connor answered instantly. “I… I will not touch… hurt or talk back to you… I—I’m sorry…” he started sobbing louder.
><><
“We’ve had enough of you.”
That scared Connor more then anything. What did he mean by that? “I—” he attempted to say.
“Boys.” 2 strong and muscled men suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Take him to that place. You know which one I mean.”
Connor was panicking. Where were they going to take him? What were they going to do to him now? Hadn’t he had enough of a punishment already? When the 2 men grabbed him forcibly by the shoulders, he winced in pain. A small whimper escaped his lips. The 2 men dragged him outside the basement. Before the door got closed, he could hear one more thing from Bruce and Olivia.
“We’ll enjoy watching this footage again later, right Bruce? And the one that’s going to be recorded in that room?”
“Absolutely.”
The 2 men were dragging him just enough off from the ground to make sure his back is not being dragged across the floor. It’s a small mercy. They’re dragging him to a long hallway. At the end of it, there was a single heavy-duty door. It was already open when they arrived, Connor could tell.
Connor was not facing the room when they entered. His first impression was that it was dark and cold. It was empty and by the looks of it, very small. The pushed him against the back wall, which was a few small meters away from the entrance. It made him scream for a second, before he caught himself and bit down another scream as his arms were pinned against the wall with tight handcuffs above his head. The end of his tail just reached the floor.
“You made Bruce and Olivia enough money to get them both an early retirement.” 1 of the 2 men said.
“They obviously had enough of you, so… This’ll be your death bed android.” the other man said shortly after.
“…What?” Connor whimpered. “But… Can’t you just… let me go?” he pleaded.
The 2 men decided they had enough of him as well and left without another word. The door closed behind them and the android heard a key turn in the lock.
No water. No light. Not able to move without a hint of pain. Connor has never felt so alone until this moment. Tears were burning in his eyes. He didn’t hesitate to let them go free and mark his cheeks.
His Captain, Chris, Markus and Reed were here. They were most likely going to rescue him today. Hank was here too. What was he going to do in order to see Connor again? Was he going to give hell to the aquarium, until it burned down in flames? Was he going to beat up everyone that got in his way, in order to find Connor?
Either of those 2, he was fine with.
He had been outside of the water before for 2 hours maximum. 2 hours without being able to breathe had been agonizing. His lungs had been on fire. After 1 year, he still didn’t know how long he could survive outside of the water. He hoped they would find him in time.
He hoped Hank would find him in time.
Tuesday, 21st of February 2040 - The aquarium - 09:15 AM.
(1 hour and 15 minutes passed by, since Connor was locked up.)
When Reed and Chris looked inside the tank, they saw no one there. They both looked at each other in puzzlement, before knocking on the glass a few times. They were both thinking the same thing: Was he in his cave maybe?
After 10 seconds of knocking on the glass, no one came out of the cave. Reed became desperate.
“CONNOR!” Gavin shouted.
“Jeez—”
“HELLO?!”
“Gavin, please don’t shout. He’s not in there. He must be somewhere else. We must contact Hank and the other the news. As soon as possible.”
“Fuck!” Gavin shouted once again, kicking the underside of the glass. Chris did not move to stop him, instead contacting Hank and the others there was a huge problem.
“Anderson, this is Miller. Over.”
“Miller, this is Anderson. What is it? Over.”
“Connor is not in his tank. Please contact J.Fowler and D.Hill they need to keep a lookout for anyone suspicious and a locked door or cell and I’ll do the same with the other teams. I repeat. Connor is not in his tank. Contact Jeffrey and Darren they need to keep a lookout for anyone suspicious and a locked door or cell. Over.”
Hank was quiet and so were Chris and Gavin. All 3 of them, no matter how far apart they were at the moment, could feel the tension in the air. Something bad was going to happen.
Tuesday, 21st of February 2040 - The aquarium - 11:30 AM.
(3 hours and 25 minutes passed by, since Connor was locked up.)
Hank was going back and forth between shouting at people to hurry up with the search and going through the entire building looking for any clues or keys.
They found a heavy duty, sound-proof door at the end of a long hallway. When Hank saw it, he knew instinctively, that was where Connor was. He had knocked quiet loudly on the door for 10 minutes straight without a single answer. He didn’t know if Connor could hear him, if Connor wasn’t even in there, or if he was already…
They had arrested Bruce and Olivia. That was it though; they hadn’t found anyone else. Darren and some of his precinct officers had gone to the precinct to get the Turners in cuffs and locked up in an interrogation room per request by Captain Fowler. Hank was surprised when he had gotten the information. They didn’t need to interrogate them, they could go straight to jail with what… a life sentence? He was put off by Jeffrey when he had told him he wanted to hear a sincere apology from their sorry mouths.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, he wanted to search the entire building yet again to find a key. Even though he had looked literally everywhere for far too many attempts to be able to count.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned around and was faced with the deviant leader, Markus.
“Hank, you’re overexerting yourself. You’ve been going at it for 2 hours and 15 minutes. We’ll keep searching, you just take a quick break.”
The Lieutenant walked towards the entrance of the aquarium to keep searching. He can’t afford to waste any time.
Tuesday, 21st of February 2040 - Connor’s Tank - 13:30 PM.
(5 hours and 25 minutes passed by, since Connor was locked up.)
They had found the key. There were 2 security guards that had, somehow, blended in with the rest of the officers from Darren’s team and the key to the heavy duty door was one of the necklaces one of them had around his neck.
Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Captain Jeffrey Fowler, Detective Gavin Reed, Officer Chris Miller and Deviant Leader Markus had gathered together within no more then 10 seconds at the locked door. They still weren’t sure if Connor was in there, but he had to be. They had looked everywhere.
Hank put the key in the key hole and turned. The door made a heavy click sound and it opened automatically. It was dark; it took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness inside the small room.
The Lieutenant didn’t hear the shocked inhales of Markus and Gavin. He didn’t hear the swears from Fowler and he didn’t hear Chris at all. What he did hear was his own heart beating out of his chest, emotion gone from his face. He had to process the sight before him while ignoring the knot in his stomach and throat.
Connor was stretched out against the wall, arms above his head, tail just reaching the floor. Completely and utterly dried out. His lips were cracked, dry and little to no red color; his skin had no hint of pink in it, just white and the tiniest hint of a warm grey; his eyes were closed, but they looked horrified and terrified somehow…
He wanted to slump and fall on the ground and scream all day long. He didn’t do that, he instead casually walked over to the cuffs and unlocked them. He caught Connor gently. He brought them both slowly down onto the ground. Hank held Connor in his arms, on his lap. All he could do was stare. Stare at his closed, somehow terrified eyes. Stare at his cracked lips and his porcelain white skin.
In Hank’s eyes, nothing had color anymore. Connor’s lips didn’t have any color, his skin didn’t have any color, his LED didn’t have any color.
The most colorless thing of all was what Hank’s life had become right now.