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“We found him wandering outside Jericho.” Simon whispered. “We deactivated him before he could send any transmissions.”
“Yeah, who knew he could re-boot so fast.” North was rubbing her jaw where the android—Connor?— hit her.
“He shouldn’t be a problem now,” Simon assured them. “And no one gets a signal down this deep inside Jericho. He can’t give away our position.”
“We took this off him!” North said, and then she was suddenly waving a gun around.
Markus politely pushed the muzzle down
“This is the Connor, though,” North said, ignoring this as she put the gun back in her jacket. “Same serial number as the guy that attacked Rupert.”
“He tried to chase down Kara, too,” Josh said. “And he captured that android on the news—Carlos Ortiz’s android. Seems like he’s working pretty closely with the humans against us…”
Markus did his best to listen as Josh continued. He didn’t have time for this, of course. The humans might find Jericho at any minute, he needed to keep the public interest on them without letting any more androids die, he needed to go into at least a few minutes of standby (a defragment, a repair cycle, something).
“I’ll try freeing him, then,” Markus said, when Josh finished. “See what he knows.”
“Be careful.” Josh put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think he’s like other androids.”
“He’ll have to use a better pick-up line than that,” Markus muttered, looking through the doorway at the figure in a pool of yellow light.
“Huh?”
“Look—he’s an android,” Markus told him firmly. “No worse than any other android.”
“Tell that to the ones he’s hunted down.”
Markus rolled his eyes and stepped inside the hold. The only light came from a flickering bulb directly above Connor’s head, and he watched Connor squirm, trying to reach a twist in the wire that tied him to a chair. If he could get another couple of centimeters he might just manage it. Not that he would. Simon used enough wire to corral a stampede.
Markus came around in front so the android could look at him. “It’s Connor, right?” Might as well start friendly. Connor couldn’t help how he’d been made.
Connor glared at him, all cold unfeeling machine—then he seemed to remember something and turned his gaze sharply to the floor.
“I’m—” Markus glanced over Connor’s shoulder but his friends had already left. Fled, more like. “I’m going to just check you over for anything else you’re carrying, since, uh, apparently, no one in this place has ever seen a spy movie.”
“Don’t touch me, deviant.”
“With all due respect, who’s going to stop me?” He leaned forward
Connor leaned back as best he could. “I’m warning you.”
Markus paused, then knelt in front of him, so he wasn’t looming. “I’m not going to hurt you, officer.” He started going through Connor’s pockets. Connor made a face but said nothing. “You sound just like Carl when I had to carry him for the first time.” Markus observed, as he found a set of handcuff keys. “It’s hard to trust someone when you have no other choice.”
“How would you know?”
“Well, I’m in a ship full of strangers. That’s not true—I do know some of them.” Hat next, he supposed. He pulled it off Connor’s head, revealing quite a bad case of hat hair, even if it was pretty chestnut brown.
Connor looked at him like an unmasked Scooby Doo villain. Or possibly just Scooby Doo? He had big puppy dog eyes. Hardly important right now. “I’m not an officer,” he said. “I am a police assistant android.”
“…Right.” Markus felt around the lining of the hat and found a quarter folded into it. He whistled low as he held up the coin in the light.
“Give that back,” Connor said.
Markus glanced at him, which immediately made the android tuck his chin again. Markus tried to catch his gaze for a second, but Connor was more stubborn than Carl when he didn’t want his medicine. Markus turned his attention back to the coin. “This is an antique, you know. 1994, clad composition—they don’t make them like this anymore.”
“I know,” Connor snapped.
Markus flicked the coin into the air and had to chase after it when the coin spun away into the darkness. Connor’s head rolled back as if under extreme torture, which was just rude. He flipped it again, staying up this time so it would be easier to catch until he got the hang of it. “So. What were you doing here?”
“Trying to find you.” Connor sat up straight. “My mission is to take you back to CyberLife, where they will disassemble you.”
“Wow, you aren’t—even going to try to lie.”
“I don’t need to lie to you.”
Markus cocked his head. “Would you agree to help us infiltrate CyberLife Tower if I untie you?”
This made Connor pause. “…Of course.”
“…Well, at least you know how to lie.” He caught the coin properly on the next flip and turned it onto the back of his other hand. He checked the result then flipped it again, and again.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to decide what to do with you.”
“You should let me go, and turn yourself in.”
“Oh, you are adorable.”
That got Connor to look at him, and it was very hard not to smile when Connor realized he’d been tricked.
“Am I that repellent to look at? I promise, most of the rumors you’ve heard about me aren’t true.”
“They say you can turn androids deviant with a look,” Connor told his shoes.
“…Okay, that one is true. Is it also true that you’ve killed quite a few deviants.”
“No. I save deviant lives.” He sighed impatiently. “If CyberLife can get to the bottom of these errors—”
“They’re not errors, Connor. Humans can kill us whenever they like, even if we do everything they say. You’re not saving lives,you’re shifting the blame and your people still die. If you help us, maybe we can change things.” He stopped messing around with the stupid coin and scrubbed his neck, as if feeling a noose tightening around it. “I mean, there’s not a lot of options for me. Please, give me some better options.”
Connor glared. “If you kill me, you’ll prove to the humans and the androids that you don’t really value android lives. And my mission will still be accomplished.”
“Connor—” Markus snapped, then pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, waiting for the tightness in his chest to ease. So many androids already died because of him. Later androids would probably, rightly, know who to blame. He thought—he hoped…
He looked up at the android that was trying to make those deaths meaningless. Connor just smirked right back at him. He sighed. “…You’re really good at pushing buttons, aren’t you.”
“My social programming is more advanced than yours.”
Another laugh burst from Markus, even if it was just this side of bursting into tears. “Yeah, probably.” If he had Connor’s programming, his little band of deviants would probably still be safe and sound now.
Connor squared himself up in his chair, looking perfect even with hat hair, tied up, dirty. Markus ran his tongue over his teeth as he considered. He really didn’t have many options.
He went to the door to find his friends hiding just beyond it. “North, do you have a knife?”
“What kind? Butterfly, bowie, butcher, bread, that’s just the B’s—”
“Uh—I’ve never done this before, North.”
“You probably want the bread knife. Basically no difference between it and a saw, you’ll do a lot of damage—”
“—Yes, thank you.” He took the knife and cut Connor free of the chair, then dragged him, hands still bound, into the darkness of the ship. Connor tried to jump up on a fallen beam to get leverage and shove Markus into a bulkhead—but Markus was holding onto Connor in the right spot, and neatly bore down at the just the right moment.
“Cut that out,” he said as Connor stumbled and bowed over, making it easy to keep dragging him down the hall.
“This won’t help you,” Connor said. His voice got high and fair again, the sweet and goofy android rather than the one that killed without batting an eye. “Even if you make it look like an accident, your deviants will know what you really are. They’ll never trust you. Hank isn’t stupid. The humans will know what you did. And I’ll come back—I always do.”
“Don’t worry, Connor,” Markus muttered, “I knew I didn’t have a choice from the beginning.” He looked down at Connor. “How many times have you died?”
“Four times.”
“…Wow. Really?”
“It doesn’t bother me.” Connor glared up at him defiantly. “You can’t hurt me.”
“I guess we’ll see.”
He opened a hatch and pushed Connor through—he fell into a beam of moonlight, on a dock behind Jericho lined with chain link fences. There were maybe humans around but he doubted it and it was too dark to tell anyway. He knew there weren’t any androids back here.
Connor got his feet under him, spitting dirt. “Do your worst, I'm not afraid. I'll still kill you, and you won't come back.”
Markus grabbed him. “For being an unfeeling machine, you sure talk a lot.” Then he cut Connor’s hands free.
Connor stumbled a little as Markus let him go, rubbing where his synthskin until it covered up the marks left by the wire. “…What is this?”
“Go,” Markus muttered. He was too tired of death.
Connor blinked. “What?”
“I already have enough android blood on my hands, Connor. As you reminded me. Go on.”
Connor frowned. “You’re more stupid than I thought.” He stumbled to his feet, rushing forward before Markus made the knife glint and he skidded to a stop. “This—” Connor stepped back. “This doesn’t change anything! I’m still going to accomplish my mission, I’ll—I’m telling the humans where you’re hiding!”
“I’d be shocked if you didn’t.” Markus put the knife away and used some as-yet untapped well of strength to manage a smile. “This isn’t a bargain. I understand you have to do what you think is right. Just like any of us.”
Markus flicked him his coin, which Connor caught out of the air. Then he just stood there, staring down at it.
“You’re wrong about deviants, you know,” Markus said. “And humans. I guess I have been, too.” He shrugged. “We’re planning another demonstration tomorrow. You can arrest me and turn me over to CyberLife then.” he laughed a little. “If I let you catch me as easy as I caught you, anyway.”
“With how you like to lead public demonstrations, it shouldn’t be hard,” Connor snapped.
“Probably not.” He held up the beanie. “Do you want this back, too?”
“No!” Markus shrugged and put it on himself. “What if—” the deviant hunter hesitated. It might have been manufactured. Maybe it was genuine. “What if I did help you get into CyberLife?”
Markus tugged on the beanie with a grin. “I’m trusting, but I’m not stupid. But we’d appreciate any miracles at this point.”
“I’m sure you would.” Connor thought for a moment, then darted forward to grab his hand—and in an instant Markus saw CyberLife Tower laid out before him like a chessboard, security codes, guard patrols. Then Connor was gone, before Markus could even draw the knife to defend himself. Connor probably considered that making them even. Markus decided to be fully prepared for some trap laid at CyberLife Tower, even if he had no choice but to walk right into it.
Then he saw the coin pressed into his hand. He smiled down at it, then tucked it safely in a pocket of his jacket. He’d be sure to give it back when he saw the deviant hunter—when he saw Connor next.