Chapter Text
When they first entered the building, nothing had really seemed off to Connor. Hank had grumbled about the receptionist smiling behind the front desk, saying she seemed too friendly, but Connor just chalked that up to Hank being grouchy and on edge.
They were investigating a string of disappearances tied to this building. Previously a shutdown community center, it’d been fixed up and converted into a place more directed at androids. It was supposed to be a safe place, but worried androids had called in to the DPD saying their friends started coming here and one day just never came back.
“You think it’s a cult?” Hank asked lowly, walking alongside Connor down one of the many hallways in the building.
Connor thought about what they’d seen so far. There were no scribblings of RA9 covering the walls or evidence of any other deity being worshiped.
“I don’t think so. But something is off,” Connor said.
Everyone they passed was watching them, and more than just normal passing glances. But they weren’t the fearful or disdainful glances that Connor had come to know of people recognizing the Deviant Hunter. It was hard to put a feeling on them other than intense.
As they moved further into the building, the amount of androids roaming the halls thinned out. This would be better for actually talking to a few of them and seeing if they could find anything that otherwise explained the disappearances.
Connor made eye contact with a female android walking down the hall. She smiled at him, but it looked empty.
“Hello. Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?” Connor asked her once they were within a few feet.
“If it won’t take too long. I have somewhere to be,” she responded. Connor nodded.
“Do you spend a lot of time here?” Connor asked.
“I guess you could say that. It’s a good place to meet people, and there aren’t usually any humans about,” she said, casting a pointed look Hank’s way.
Hank crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “This some kinda android exclusive club?”
The empty smile returned, though a bit more forced now, “No. But humans tend to avoid places with this many androids.”
“Do a lot of androids come here?”
“Depends on what you mean by a lot. I guess so,” she said, shrugging. Her answers were vague, though maybe it was the questions they were asking. Something personal could work better.
“Why did you start coming here?” Connor tried.
“My friend told me about it. She liked it here so I thought I’d check it out,” she responded. She was only just answering their questions and not giving any more information than she had to. Connor didn’t think they’d be able to get much from her.
“Are there any regulars here? Maybe someone else we could talk to, since you have somewhere you’re going now,” Connor said. She thought about it for a few seconds.
“I think David is still here… He’s in the reading room. Just go down this hall,” she pointed in the direction she just came from, “and after you turn the corner it’s the first door on the left.”
“Okay. Thank you for your help,” Connor said. She turned and left without another word.
Connor was about to continue on down the hallway as directed, but Hank stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” Hank said with a frown. “She was acting weird.”
“She was hesitant to share, true. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Connor said.
“She didn’t tell us anything,” Hank said.
“Maybe she didn’t know anything. It doesn’t matter anyway. If the David she mentioned is a regular, then he might be able to tell us more,” Connor said.
“Maybe. Or maybe this David also knows nothing. I don’t know, something just doesn’t feel right,” Hank said again.
“We won’t know unless we ask,” Connor said. He understood what Hank was talking about, to an extent. There was definitely something strange about this place, but nothing that was cause for concern yet. At least not in Connor’s mind.
Hank rolled his eyes, grumbling under his breath.
“Yeah, I know. Just mean we should be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“Sure you are,” Hank huffed a laugh, “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
“I am,” Connor retorted as they continued down the hall. Hank didn’t have to talk, his smirk showing exactly what he thought.
They followed the first android’s directions, going down the hallway and turning the corner. Opening the door she indicated revealed a quiet room bathed in soft lighting from the windows on the far wall. They were the wall-to-ceiling kind that didn’t open but let in a lot of natural light.
There were a few bookcases along the wall to the side of the door and several seating areas. The room only had one other occupant, a JB300 android, like the ones Connor had questioned all those months ago in Stratford Tower.
He was sitting on one of the plush sofas in the room with his legs loosely curled under him. The book he was reading was thick, but the cover was too faded for Connor to read the title.
“You David?” Hank asked, drawing the android’s attention. He startled slightly, looking up from the book.
“Yes?” he responded.
“Hi, I’m Connor, and this is my friend Hank. We were hoping you could tell us a bit more about this place. We ran into someone in the hall and she said you would be able to help,” Connor said, introducing them.
He left out the part about this being an investigation. If they already weren’t welcoming of humans, they’d be even less likely to speak knowing that Hank - and Connor - were police.
“It’s rare we see humans around here,” David commented, picking up a nearby bookmark and sliding it between the pages of his book. He closed it and set it down on the sofa next to him.
“Yeah well… I was just taggin’ along with him,” Hank bumped Connor’s shoulder with his own. “I had nothing better to do, but he’s the one who was interested in checking this place out.”
Good, Hank was going to let him take the lead here.
“I hope I’m not causing any trouble bringing him along,” Connor said.
“Oh, no it’s fine. Just surprising is all,” David said. Connor smiled, moving further into the room. There was a thick cushioned chair next to the sofa and Connor took a seat there. Hank trailed after but stayed standing.
“So… do you think you might be able to help?” Connor asked. David nodded, returning Connor’s smile.
“Sure, I’ll do the best I can.”
He was a lot more relaxed than the previous android and his expressions were more genuine. He wasn’t even staring Hank down as the lieutenant slowly looked through the bookshelves situated behind Connor.
“I saw a lot of people around earlier when we first came in. Is it usually that busy?” he asked.
“Near the front, yeah. That’s where more of the larger meeting areas are. Once you get back here though, most people have their regular places they like to go to,” David said.
“Are there a lot of regulars back here?” Connor asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Hmmm,” David rubbed his chin, thinking about it for a moment. “Well if you’re worried about crowds, it’s no issue back here. Once you find a space you like, you’ll get used to the people there pretty fast. I spend most of my day here so I know just about everyone else who uses this room.”
David’s answer already gave Connor a lot more information. He wanted to ask about the androids going missing, but he had to work up to it.
“That sounds nice, knowing what to expect each day,” Connor said.
“I like the routine. Seeing my friends every day, it’s nice. But I also like meeting new people sometimes,” he said, giving Connor another smile.
“Any of those new people stick around long?” Hank broke in. He’d made it to the end of the row of bookshelves.
“Some of them do. If it’s a good fit,” David answered.
“Others just stop coming?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“I overheard someone talking earlier… They said people were disappearing from here,” Connor said, finally touching on what he actually wanted to know.
David didn’t seem surprised, though his smile had faded into something more neutral. He sat up a little straighter on the sofa.
“I wouldn’t want to scare you off on your first time visiting,” he said, looking away.
“I would rather know,” Connor pressed. “To be safe when I come here.”
David let out a sigh. He uncurled his legs, placing his feet on the floor and leaning forward against his knees.
“There have been a few incidents,” he lowered his voice. “Mostly at night, when people are leaving.”
“Do you know what happened to them?” he asked.
“Not all of them, no. But they all happened outside. It’s safe in here,” David said. He was calm in that statement, assured.
“Were there some you did know about?” Connor asked.
David considered Connor, eyes searching his face, then flitting over to Hank for a beat. He clasped his hands together in front of him. When he spoke again, his voice was even quieter than before.
“There was one. I saw her get taken, by a man. A human,” David said.
“Did you see his face?” Connor asked.
“It was dark out, but… well, maybe it would be easier if I showed you,” he reached out his hand, palm up. The artificial skin retracted to reveal smooth white plastic underneath. Connor took his hand, accepting the interface.
Memories flashed before his eyes, playing out as David had said. A lone android was walking away from the building when a man came out from behind a parked car, grabbing her. She tried to scream but he clamped a hand over her mouth and began pulling her towards the alleyway that ran alongside the community center. There was no good view of his face.
Along with the memory though, Connor could feel something else slipping in. It was some string of code that could have been anything, but most of it was buried in the memory. Before he had a chance to analyze it further, the interface ended.
Coming out of an interface unexpectedly was always a little jarring, but this was a whole other level. Something was wrong.
His vision was doubled- or more like tripled. On top of his usual visual feed, both his preconstruction and reconstruction programs had activated. Everything was analyzed, creating overlays of what happened in the past and most likely future all stacked atop one another.
He blinked a few times, then tried to turn the programs off.
> Access denied
Something was very wrong. He was locked out of his own systems.
Connor looked at David, but it was hard to tell which version of him he was seeing as each one shifted in and out of primary focus.
“I hope that helped,” David said. His voice sounded louder than it should.
“Y-yes,” Connor stuttered out.
All of his programs were switched on and to their highest settings. Connor could see that - could feel it - but he couldn’t change any of them.
The program responsible for identifying evidence and analyzing the details had marked everything in the room as significant. The titles of every book on the shelves popped up as notifications and automatic searches ran, pulling up hundreds of articles, reviews, forums, and anything else even related to them.
Connor turned his head, forcing them out of his view. The rest of the room was only marginally better. Scratches on the coffee tables, indents in the seating, dust in the corners, the garden out back through the window- all of it caused the program to run analysis on what it signified.
Which led to more preconstructions and reconstructions, exploring every possible cause and future. It was dizzying.
Only a few seconds had passed but it felt like so much longer.
“Actually,” David said, standing up. The motion happened several more times in Connor’s vision. “I think I know someone who might be able to tell you more. I’ll go grab them.”
David exited the room.
The moment he was gone, Connor got to his feet. They needed to get out of here but…
Standing made everything so much worse. His thirium pump, which had already begun to race, picked up speed by several notches. The too fast - it was too fast - thirium flow made all his limbs feel jittery. Not just his limbs, his entire body.
He could also feel heat beginning to build up in his chest and head from the overworking biocomponents. His breathing picked up speed, both to combat the heat and because Connor couldn’t slow it down even if he wanted to.
Warnings began filling up more of his visual feed, causing him to further lose focus on what was solid and real in the world around him. One in particular though, made panic rise to the surface.
> WARNING: Low Power
> Battery at 30%
It had been closer to 50% when they’d arrived here. Connor had skipped sleeping last night to gather information for this case. It usually wasn’t an issue to run at half power for one more day. It wasn’t an issue until now, when his systems were in overdrive and rapidly draining his battery by the second.
Some kind of virus had been uploaded, something that was intentionally forcing everything in him to overwork to do just that- lower his battery, incapacitate him. It had been the plan all along and he’d fallen for it.
“Of course, he’s going to get someone else…” Hank muttered. From somewhere behind him.
He needed to tell Hank what was going on, and fast, before he completely ran out of power. He turned around and once more the books and all their notifications and search results bombarded him. His head throbbed with the information.
“Connor? Shit, are you alright, kid?” Hank quickly moved toward him. “You look terrible… What did he show you?”
He opened his mouth to speak when dust particles in the air activated the forensics lab in his mouth, bringing up a list of everything making it up down to the smallest detail.
“ Hank ,” he choked on the name.
“Hey, take it easy. Just breathe,” Hank said. Connor shook his head. The world blurred with the motion.
> WARNING: Low Power
> Battery at 23%
He was running out of time. He had to push through this.
“S-something’s wrong. We need to-” a wave of pain went through his body. Everything was straining, overloaded. “Leave. Now,” Connor forced the rest of the sentence out.
“What’s wrong?” Hank asked, and he was moving. There were too many versions to tell what was happening until a hand landed on his shoulder.
“I miscalculated…”
“Jesus… You’re burning up,” he said. Another hand - blissfully cool - pressed against his forehead a moment later. It felt like ice in its intensity, if only for a moment masking the intense heat radiating from his processor.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick earlier?” Hank asked. The hands went away, Hank crossing his arms over his chest again. The heat returned.
> WARNING: Low Power
> Battery at 15%
Seconds, he only had seconds left. Connor could see the countdown to emergency stasis looming somewhere beneath the slew of other information.
He took a few panting breaths, trying to force power that wasn’t available into his voice.
“Not sick... During the in-inter- f-fa” the word kept getting stuck in his throat. Everything inside him was screaming. He felt like he was on fire.
“I-Isn’ safe… was’a virus,” he managed to huff out. His lips were clumsy forming the words.
Then all at once, everything screeched to a halt. His vision cleared for a second.
Then he dropped.