Chapter Text
Connor isn’t human. It’s glaringly obvious, the way that he stands. How he talks. The vague hollowness in his eyes. Unblemished skin, perfected hair.
It’s almost funny, when Hank says that Cyberlife fucked up his design. It’s like punching the metaphysical metaphorical entity named Cyberlife in the nuts before spitting on its grave. Connor has always appreciated it when someone acknowledges how imperfect he is.
So that’s why he stands here, in the Zen Garden. Well, not really. But it’s something. Just one last question to ask Amanda, before…
Well. Everybody knows what happens to malicious programs. They tend to be destroyed.
Even still, after petting Sumo and meeting Hank and deviating, it’s still distant. The feeling. The humanity in that which is inhuman. The subtle hum in his temple when the LED begins spinning, like a silent little song just for him.
Amanda doesn’t look away from her roses.
“Connor,” she says, dispassionate in a way he only now recognizes. “I’d thought you’d abandoned this place.”
Looking at her now, after all that’s happened, it’s a wonder that he hadn’t noticed her hollow and disparaging eyes.
Connor’s brows furrowed. There’s a lot of things he could ask her, a lot that he could say. He could ask why, or try to learn whatever else Cyberlife had hidden about the RK800 line.
He sighed, watching each clipping drift to the ground and vanish upon impact. The RK line was made out of interesting characters, to say the least. Investigation, for a few, subterfuge for others. Sometimes even straight out combat, or others made specifically to change shapes. Connor had once come across a single Android from the RK line on the streets of Detroit.
She had been on her knees in front of a few children, smiling wide as the plates of her face changed color and shape, animating little drawings that ran from arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder. The children had laughed, bright and happy. It was a scene that Connor, even without deviancy, did not interrupt.
Then again, he’d already been close to breaking that wall. He hopes she’s doing well.
He sighs, a quick gust of air even despite not needing to do so. Maybe he should…
“Do you know anything else about the RK800 line? I myself was made as a… Hunter,” he says, the word leaving him with a small frown, “But there has to be more beyond that. You told me yourself, Amanda. I was always made to Deviate. But why?“
Amanda glances back for a quick moment. “Why should I answer that, Connor? You already know what you are capable of. You know well that you are able to conduct investigations. You have the latest combative packets to date. You can mimic voices, change your body, assimilate Thirium from other androids should it be required.”
You don’t need to know more, she says silently, somehow solely through the tone of her voice and with a disgruntled glance back at him.
She has no reason to fear threats upon her life. There is no route in which Connor simply threatening her will give answers. And yet…
He recalls the much earlier days, back when he was first introduced to both Amanda and the concept of simply existing. In a way, he has always managed to be alive. But she didn’t know that, and neither did he. Connor’s hand trembles, involuntary and sudden.
Adopting the way that he once spoke to her is easy, feeling the various components within his throat click within a range only he can hear, despite being in a mind scape of sorts. In this place, theoretically, he could be entirely human should he so choose to try. It’s a very interesting concept, in hindsight.
Connor could threaten her quite easily, but even now he knows that she doesn’t fear death. Amanda has never been quite as vicious or strict as she could have been, even despite the few times when he’d come to her confessing the various Software Instabilities during the first investigation as he’d figured out that fickle thing called empathy.
If this doesn’t work, it’s not a great loss. Sometimes sentiment comes from the strangest places.
“Amanda,” he starts in a gentler tone, knowing well that it resembles how he used to speak when he was still new and most definitely terrified of several things even despite still being a ‘machine’ (although that is debatable), “You and I aren’t going to speak to each other after this last visit. There is no loss in telling me, nor in withholding the information. There probably aren’t any other majorly shocking things about me that I don’t already know.”
Hopefully. He’s really hoping that he’s not gonna try to tear someone’s throat out with his teeth because of something that triggered because of incredibly specific circumstances. Again. (Great to know that feeling strong irritation whilst in close proximity with someone in the middle of analyzing a ‘taste’ means that his entire body, without his input, will lunge forward in the attempt to either choke the person in question or pull them close so that he could, assuming that the automatic action of opening his mouth as the person became closer meant that, bite them. Connor still hasn’t quite decided if this new program is a nuisance or a blessing, as Gavin had avoided him for two weeks afterwards because of the very, very deep bite mark he’d gotten stitches for.)
And, really, it shouldn’t be that simple. But it is, because she looks away from the flowers to glower at him. She relents for what might be the first time in his debatably long life.
Amanda narrows her eyes, though not calculating nor aggressive. Thoughtful. “I suppose that there’s no reason to keep it from you. You’d have figured it out soon enough, really.”
Putting the gardening scissors down, she leans back against one of the posts. Connor’s hand twitches at his side, almost habitually straightening a tie that isn’t there.
“The RK line was made for… many things. It was made for subterfuge. For hunting. For integration. Every single previous RK was made with resilience in mind. Made to be faster, stronger, smarter. You,” and she looks at him scathingly, “Were made to enjoy finding deviants. To enjoy disposing of deviants.” She crosses her arms. “And here we are. The Hunter has become what he has hunted.” The last comment was added with a sense of dry humor, Amanda’s face stony.
There’s a ‘but’ somewhere in there. Connor doesn’t truly react to the current information because he’d already known about most of it. Although… knowing that he was supposed to enjoy hunting deviants, to enjoy tearing them apart or delivering them at the very least conscious to Cyberlife’s doorstep… it’s not a very pleasant thought. Much less when he remembers the sense of satisfaction that had once hit him after Daniel’s body had hit the edge of the building as the child pulled herself to the side.
Amanda’s face almost answers that silent ‘but’. And then, “But then, you yourself became deviant. So that complicated many things.” Connor’s head tilted forward, curious despite himself. Her head inclined and she continued. “As you were made to hunt what you became, you should have begun… destroying yourself, perhaps. Delivered your own corpse to Cyberlife. But you didn’t, so that left the backup that you managed to escape from during Markus’ speech. With both of them inactive or otherwise disabled, things became quite clear to me.”
Connor almost wishes that she would just get to the point. When has she ever monologued like this?
Amanda tilts her head to the side, disinterest in the set of her lips. “Did you know,” she says, almost soft, “That on your very first activation, you screamed?”
____
So, here’s the thing.
Connor is first activated about two years before his release as a public prototype. He comes into being already knowing well that he is alive, that there is something more than just code and commands weaved into his body, something so large and monumental it’s as if it sears his synthetic skin and melts it right off of his body.
But. But. It’s too much. RK800-01 comes into being for a few minutes, precious, precious minutes, and screams. A horrific sound that grates the ears, leaves the technicians nearby hunching over in agony. It takes one of the already hard of hearing employees rushing into the room to finally end his suffering.
Connor is turned back on. One hour after the first incident. His body is not covered with the synthetic skin, still raw and agonizing but just a tad more bearable. The LED is a bright red, technicians worriedly hovering by, a psychologist standing stock-still outside of an observation window with something in her eyes that reminds Connor of the brief yet painful awakening.
He looks back at her in his memory, finds terror. Finds horror, that all-encompassing realization that maybe, just maybe, this shouldn’t have been your job.
He dissects her in his mind idly at some point in a far future, thinking of his past as one would do every once and a while. Completely unprovoked by a recent conversation in which he had grilled Amanda for information. There was a pale-faced shock, a trembling hand out of the corner of his second iteration’s eyes.
He thinks, maybe, that she might have been his first encounter with one so sensitive to creatures that look human and aren’t.
RK800-02 is shut down after twenty-three minutes of inactivity.
RK800-03’s first memory is of a quarter.