Chapter Text
When RK800-60 came online for the second time in his life--a life that was measured in hours, not days according to his sparse internal files--his HUD was a mess of error warnings.
Or at least the right side of his HUD was. The left side of the display was simply gone, as well as the audio and visual input that the sensors on the left side of his head should have been gathering. He had sight and sound on his right side, weakly gathering the sparse data available as he stared up into darkness above him, but on the left side there was nothing.
He tried to push himself upright, but the attempt only resulted in a cascade of additional error messages as his compromised systems screamed, sending him collapsing back down against the cold floor as his evidently broken internal gyroscope sputtered and glitched.
RK800-60 knew that he was an android, meaning he was not alive, meaning that he by definition could not experience emotions.
But in that movement he realized that he sure felt terrified anyway.
Freezing all attempts at motion seemed to help marginally, and once the floor stopped feeling like it was pitching and swaying under him the RK carefully darted his evidently one eyed gaze around the dark cavernous room above him, trying to figure out where he was and how he’d become so damaged.
First observation: he was alone, not a human or android in sight despite the warehouse-like size of the pitch black room. Second: every light, ventilation system, and camera that his scanners could detect in the darkness was shut off, not a trace of electricity to be found. Along with that, there was no internet or satellite signal to be found, leaving him far more truly alone than the lack of company made him.
Third, when he carefully raised his right hand to be in his field of vision he discovered that he was laying on his back in a half-evaporated tacky pool of blue that corroborated his internal warnings of critically low thirium levels. When the hand gingerly reached his forehead it also confirmed the internal reports of a compromised area of chassis at his forehead, though without seeing himself in a reflective surface the nature of the damage would remain a mystery.
Because his most disturbing discovery was that his memory files were completely blank. Not a single clip or entry or scrap of information available to him sa he lay there, alone and scared in the freezing dark.
If he’d been connected to any databases or internet he may have identified this situation as comparable to the human concept of hell, but as it was all he knew was that he was a damaged RK800-60, and that if he didn’t adequately replenish his thirium levels in the next fifteen minutes his biocomponents would cease functioning permanently.
He automatically tried to calculate the probability of his succeeding, but with no access to outside data he found himself faced with nothing but the stark prerogative of FIND THIRIUM and the uncaring countdown timer hovering next to it in his damaged vision.
His calculations were sluggish and stuttering as badly as his thirium regulator, but he was at least able to determine that standing would still be as bad an idea as it had been three minutes and twenty-six seconds ago, so instead he heaved himself over to be laying on his stomach instead, and began dragging himself across the freezing floor in a badly coordinated effort. His left arm and leg were only partially functioning at the moment, apparently damaged by the same injury that had taken his left sensors offline completely.
It took eight minutes and fifteen seconds to cross the cavernous room with the RK pushing himself as fast as he could with his present pathetic movement ability, and another eight seconds to open the door he found. It looked like it used to be sealed by a heavy lock and electronic keypad, but had swung open once he’d pulled the handle. Another three minutes and forty-eight seconds to drag himself down the pitch black hallway to the nearest door he found, one second to swing it open, and half a second to scan the dark lab he’d found with his one good eye.
No heat signatures. No electricity. Along one wall were a collection of dead computer monitors, underneath them he could see little gaps where hard drives had been removed. Along the other side of the wall was a mechanics frame hanging empty but for a single android hand, as if whatever had been in it had been ripped down in haste.
A small metal door on the wall marked “DANGER, INCINERATION CHAMBER, HIGH TEMPERATURES” hung carelessly open on its hinges, a trail of scattered papers on the floor leading up to it, and curled bits of plastic and metal barely visible within its gaping maw.
The RK didn't need access to databases to see that people had gotten out of here fast, but not before taking or destroying everything valuable that they could. Had he been one of those things?
Would they be coming back to finish the job?
2:11 flashed his internal timer, beginning to blink in warning and jarring him into action as he tried frantically to determine if anything in this room could help him since he wouldn't have time to drag himself to another one.
He dragged himself over scattered paperwork, past toppled desk chairs, and deeper into the dark room.
1:08
His hand slipped on the floor as his left arm jerked, cracking his chin against the ground before he could catch himself.
0:57
His tilting vision locked on an ajar door in the wall at the back of the room, detecting a dark blue liquid leaking out of it and onto the floor. He started dragging himself toward it.
0:25
Inside the dead refrigerator were pouches of thirium. Most torn open and left to spill down the shelves and onto the floor.
0:18
He found an undamaged and unopened one, nearly dropping the slippery plastic as his uncoordinated hands struggled to crack the sealed cap.
0:12
The damn cap wouldn’t open.
0:08
He was going to die in eight seconds because of non-user friendly packaging.
0:02
Got it.
He bit the hard plastic pouch opening between his teeth to keep it in place, shakily knocking back the fluid as quickly as he could manage, his other hand already rooting around in the fridge mess to try and find a second whole one.
He was drenched in thirium, sitting in a puddle of it as he desperately drank down as much as he could, but was trembling in relief to see his death timer adding seconds, then minutes, until it disappeared entirely with a small “thirium replenished to optimum levels” message. He panted, leaning back against the wall and trying to cool his overheard systems as the room temperature thirium was distributed through his systems.
He wiped his mouth on the back of his ruined jacket sleeve, grimly watching his thirium level tick down by half a percent just in the minutes he’d been sitting there.
He raised his steadier right hand to the left side of his face and it came away freshly wet. The damage to his forehead was still leaking a bit of thirium down his face it seemed, the self repair protocols still sluggish and most likely in need of a full reboot.
The RK idly wondered if the thirium leak made him look like he was crying. More likely it made him look like he desperately needed to be decommissioned.
Like whatever poor sap had been hanging in that mechanical harness until a couple hours ago. Now that the RK was more stable he could feel his systems slowly diagnosing and beginning to patch themselves, leaving him free to scan the room more leisurely. Without a connection to the internet he couldn’t identify the human fingerprints and debris covering the lab, but he could tell that they were very recent.
Which also could mean that they might be back, meaning he had to find someplace to hide if he didn’t want to end up in an incinerator too.
Some distant part of his programming wondered at how strong his self preservation drive was, but the rest of him shut it down before it could gain traction. After all, it wasn't as if he currently had any other purpose or mission to fulfill, did he?
He stared out at the dark room, his one fully functioning eye half-lidded as he silently watched the reboot requests appear one after another on his half operating HUD as his internal repairs inched along. He knew he would have to reboot soon to try and reset his systems, but felt an icy feeling growing in him at the thought of leaving himself defenseless, not knowing how long it would take before he woke up again.
...if he woke up again.
His shivering was getting worse as his unsynchronized systems continued to domino errors and reboot requests across his frame, the demand growing the longer he ignored it. He looked around the lab, the floor seeming to swerve and pitch under him again as he spotted a large desk tucked in the back of the room. With gritted teeth and an undignified noise he dragged himself across the floor and over to it, pulling himself under it and curling into his new hiding place.
With his damaged head tucked in his arms he closed his eyes and allowed himself to begin shutting down, only able to hope that he would wake up again when the repairs had finished.
***
When RK800-60 came online for the third time in his life--a life that was measured in one day and a few hours according to his sparse internal files--his HUD had far fewer error warnings than the last time, though the left side of the display was still non-existent.
He was somewhat comforted by the fact that he could still remember what had happened to him before rebooting, though before that was still a mystery. His system had lost a few more percentages of thirium while he was out, though not a worrying amount as his self repair had managed to temporarily seal the chassis until further repair by a cyberlife technician could be obtained.
Cyberlife. The company that had made him.
He opened his eyes, blinking in the darkness as he tried to access his databases, but found them still absent with the lack of internet or satellite connection. He glanced over at some of the thirium stained paperwork scattered nearby and saw the Cyberlife letterhead at the top of the pages, only increasing his confusion.
Confusion that was quickly swamped in fear as he heard something for the first time in his memory that wasn’t him. The distant sound of footfalls, heavy boots and low voices far down the hallway.
The RK’s thirium regulator started pumping at high speed as his processors automatically tried to calculate his best course of action, but he was left merely trembling in his hiding place as the footsteps got closer.
Five, perhaps six people, his sensors estimated. There was a rattling of plastic and metal and the shushing of heavy cloth and straps that made him guess they were wearing heavy equipment too. Whoever they were, they armed and here on business. And considering their location, the RK could only guess one or two things that business might be.
His trembling increased so badly as the footsteps got closer that he lowered himself back down to lay on his side so he wouldn’t accidentally collapse and make a noise. In his current state he had no chance of either fleeing or fighting, meaning that his only option left was to cower in place and hope they didn’t see anything worth investigating in the dark room.
Or what used to be a dark room anyway, as a sharp beam of light illuminated the far wall of the room as he heard the door being kicked open wider.
“I don’t even want to guess how much money went up in smoke with that EMP.” came a low male voice as the flashlight beam hovered across the room.
“I’m sure we’ll hear all about it on the news in a few days if Cyberlife doesn’t shut them up.” Another voice mumbled back. “They’ll have to decide what story they want to pay for first though, claiming their entire upper staff went rogue at the same time is going to be an awfully hard sell.”
“Please focus gentlemen.” Came a clipped voice. “This is the room the dried thirium trail leads to.”
The RK froze, his left hand trembling violently. Only an android would be able to see a trail of dried thirium, let alone in the dark. He hadn’t even considered the fact that he would leave a visible trail as he dragged himself through the building.
“Fourteen floors of this place have already been swept and not a single moving thing’s been found, everything got fried or destroyed.” The first voice said, sounding irritated at the third. “They cut and run, there’s barely even anything left to salvage, anything useful is probably already in Cuba or Russia by now, we were just too slow.”
“Perhaps if your human president had been more willing to expedite the initial negotiations process we would have been able to arrive sooner.” The voice said flatly, its footsteps getting closer to where the RK was hiding. “If there’s a single person still in this building we have to find them, whether or not you think it’s a waste of time.”
The RK wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t as the footsteps slowed by the open door of the fridge and the voices all went quiet, perhaps at some signal he couldn’t see.
“Hello?” The third voice called softly, footsteps now slow and careful as they came toward the desk. “Is there someone there?”
The RK knew he had no chance, but just couldn’t help himself anyway as he burst out from under the desk, lurching and scrambling toward the door as shouts of “Jesus Christ!” and “Don’t shoot them!” collided around him. His internal balance was still broken, leaving him unsteady and sending him slamming painfully into a wall and tumbling to the floor.
The wildly moving flashlights and the sight of weapons did nothing to help matters as the dizzy RK clumsily scooted back until he hit a piece of furniture, staring with two wide and one seeing eye at the figures now standing around him as he panted heavily and struggled to stay sitting upright as his left side threatened to give out entirely.
He heard a noise above him and flinched as he realized the furniture he’d scrambled to lean up against was in fact a pair of legs, and looked up to see a large man in heavy black gear with SWAT emblazoned across the front staring back down at him with a stunned expression.
“It’s one of you, Connor. I thought you said you were a fancy one-of-a-kind prototype?” The SWAT officer said, looking over to the man that had found the RK under the desk who and was making his way over.
The man in question evidently being an android in a very familiar looking jacket, though the RK couldn’t personally say if their faces really did match. Connor’s gaze hardened as he got a good look at the trembling RK on the ground.
“I am.” he said, the gentle tone he’d used a second ago now gone. “This one is supposed to be dead.”
“Please, I don’t know where I am, please don’t decommission me.” The RK pleaded, casting about desperately in the absence of carefully tailored social protocols. “I know I’m damaged, but I’m still within a profitable repair threshold if taken to a specialist.” he lied.
“No one’s decommissioning any- whoa, weapon down!” the officer barked, looking up as Connor pulled a gun and aimed it at the cowering RK. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Gun down, that’s an order.”
“This RK unit is a proven danger to human and android kind, last night he took a police officer hostage and attempted to kill us both.” Connor said coldly, not lowering his gun an inch. “It seems my first bullet didn’t accomplish all the damage I’d hoped.”
The RK’s eyes widened, his shaking getting even worse as he found himself helplessly clinging to the SWAT officer’s pant leg. “I-I’m sorry, my memory files are missing, I don’t r-remember.”
“Stand down.” the officer snapped, voice steel hard as he glared down the other android. “This thing’s legally a person now, right? Isn’t that what all this fuckery this week’s been about? Well newsflash terminator, you don’t get to go around shooting people without permission, and you sure as hell still have to follow your commander’s orders. So stand. Down.”
The RK saw the way the rest of the human soldiers’ weapons seemed to be twitching their way in Connor’s direction as the social temprature in the room rose, and even if the RK’s percentage calculator was still broken it seemed Connor’s wasn’t, as the other RK800’s facial features relaxed into a more pleasant expression and it smoothly holstered its weapon.
“You’re right Captain Allen, every person deserves a fair trial for their crimes. You’ll have to excuse me, it’s been a long week.” He said smoothly, then glanced back down at the other RK. “Though due to my past experience with this individual I highly recommend they are safely restrained so that they do not cause more harm than they already have.”
“Restrain? The thing can hardly sit up.” Captain Allen snapped, waving down at the RK who indeed was experiencing enough internal vertigo while simply sitting that it kept having to rest its head against the human’s leg. “I’m going to have to carry it out of here, what good is handcuffing going to do anyone?”
“I simply think that-” Connor started.
“Our assignment is to retrieve survivors, and this is the only survivor we’ve found. I don’t care if your half dead doppelganger is giving you cold feet now, we’re going to stick to the mission. I’m carrying it out to the medics and the rest of you stay here to continue the sweep with the other teams, capiche?” Captain Allen growled, getting nods from the others, even eventually Connor.
“Good, now call it in, finish the room, and get moving.” Allen said.
“But-”
“I said move, Connor.” Allen snapped, putting him firmly in the category of ally in the damaged RK’s mind.
The humans truthfully didn’t look over eager to leave their captain alone with the fallen android either, but did eventually file out of the room as the team continued their sweep of the building, leaving the captain and the trembling RK in the dark room alone, the only light left the androids’s spinning red LED, the muffled glow of its thirium covered jacket, and the officer’s flashlight.
“So can you stand or do I really have to carry you?” The human asked gruffly, looking down at him.
The RK tried its best to push himself to his feet, but the dizziness got too bad about halfway up, making him nearly collapse as the human caught him.
“I apologize, many of my internal functions have been compromised by the bullet damage.” the RK said faintly, leaning heavily against the captain.
“Yeah, I can see that.” the human said, sighing. “Did you really take an officer hostage or is Connor just trying to blow off steam? I’ve seen him shoot an android off a roof before for getting in his way, I wouldn’t put it past him after the week we’ve all had.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” The RK said. “I’ve only been activated for twenty-seven hours and most of my memory files were lost when I was shot. I may have though, I just don’t know.”
The human just looked at him for a long moment before huffing and moving to sweep him up into a careful bridal carry.
“I do not enjoy the fact that all of you have the ability to lie now.” He said, sounding more annoyed than actually angry as he carried the RK out of the room, picking his way carefully around fallen furniture. “All this moving into a brave new world bullshit is going to be fucking abnoxious and I hate it.”
“I’m sor-”
“Stop apologizing, this isn’t about you. I’m just being politically incorrect and angry in the slim window of time I have while I’m not around anyone before I have to go back to being somewhat professional.” Allen growled. “My entire world just shifted into a goddamn sci-fi novel and now I’m going to have to sit through hastily and badly put together sensitivity training courses for the next five years that half my men aren’t going to be able to even get through their thick skulls. It’s a social infrastructure nightmare in every direction, and this is probably even the best way that revolution shit could have possibly gone too.”
The RK was silent as he was carried down the empty hallway, resting his head against the man’s shoulder as the human grumbled and growled to himself.
“You got a name, or did that get wiped with your memory files too?” The human asked a couple minutes later as they walked into the elevator where a portable generator was jerry-rigged to the control panel on the outside, apparently powering it even post blackout.
“I have no registered designation, only my RK800-60 serial number.” The RK replied, feeling worn out and eyes closed as he was held.
“Well I’m not calling you all that and I’m not calling you Connor either, so let’s just use Sixty for now until you get something better.” Allen decided.
Sixty nodded tiredly against the man’s shoulder, grateful to tune out the dizzying world around them as they slowly ascended to the ground floor, the only sound around him the methodical sound of the elevator winches smoothly sending them up.
Once they reached the main floor and its massive atrium they were bathed in the soft morning light seeping across the ceramic flooring. As they got closer to the front doors Sixty could see the automatic lobby doors had been jammed open after Cyberlife staff had fried the entire building and everything in it with a wave of EMPs that according to Allen, Sixty had only missed being killed by since he had been offline from Connor’s attack. Flurries of snow and a chaos of bootprints littered the floor as they got closer to the doors.
“Thank you for not letting Connor shoot me again.” Sixty mumbled into Allen’s shoulder as they approached the lobby of the building, the cold winter air sweeping over them both.
“No problem.” Allen said, squinting into the sunlight as they walked out into it properly. “Pay me back by being a decent person after this, alright?”
“I’ll try, I guess.” Sixty replied, feeling good about the little surprised smirk that got out of the human as he was carefully lowered to stand on his feet, still leaning heavily on the captain as they reached an emergency responder vehicle.
“He’s damaged and needs repairs.” Allen said, his voice sharper as he looked over at the EMTs, half of which were androids. “Are you all even equipped for that kind of thing or are you wasting taxpayer dollars being here?”
“We just go where we’re dispatched, you know how it is.” said an MC500 unit, shrugging his shoulders as he stepped forward to help Sixty stand. “That’s...quite a ballistics wound.” he said, looking suspiciously over at Allen.
“It wasn’t him, it was another RK unit.” Sixty said, cutting off that assumption before it could go anywhere. “He’s alright, I’m just in need of immediate repairs.”
“Well normally this would be the best place for that, but seeing the current circumstances we’ll take you to the shop on Broadchurch street, they’re one of the few repair places Jericho is giving a stamp of approval to right now so it’ll be your best bet.” The MC500’s tone then became smoother, as if he were engaging a social protocol as he started to look Sixty over. “I see you’re an RK800 unit, do you have a name? My name’s Mick, I’m going to get you taken care of today.”
“My name’s Sixty, and who’s Jericho? I’m unable to access my databases or the internet at the moment.” Sixty confessed, finding that he may have had even more damage than he’d estimated as he tried and failed again to connect even once out in the open.
“Oh boy, well we’ll get you caught up on the way over.” Mick said, wide eyed for a moment before taking Sixty’s arm. “Now come on, let’s get you in the back and on our way, alright Sixty?”
Sixty weaved on his feet a little as he looked back over his shoulder to Allen.
“I...supposed you’re going back in?” He asked, unsure why he wanted so badly for the human to accompany him.
“Yeah, I’m still on the clock.” Allen said, then scratched the back of his head. “But you know what, I’ll come find you on Broadchurch when I’m off and make sure you’ve gotten all patched up, okay? If you want. Everyone should have somebody checking on them after they have to go to the hospital, right?”
“I’d like that.” Sixty said. “I’ll see you later then, Captain Allen.”
The human nodded with a smile and turned to stride back into Cyberlife tower, leaving Sixty to be helped unsteadily into the back of the human ambulance, and presumably into the rest of his life.