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Hank couldn’t quite identify when he’d woken. The lingering remnants of a curious dream had eased him back into reality. It hadn’t been a lucid experience by any meaning of the word—merely a peculiar sensation that had left him mystified as he’d contemplated the moving parts of its narrative.
The ghostly image that had started it all remained strongest in memory: Connor, incapacitated, collapsed in a slippery spill of blue, his expression sickeningly still, as if life had left him completely with only his flickering crimson mood light as evidence to the contrary. Hank had returned home—or to what felt like home, despite the unfamiliarity of the space—halted immediately with terror, but before he could check on his partner, a loud bang came from the anterior side of the house. The perpetrator had still been present. He’d bolted free, taking the blind spot opportunity in Hank’s panic. There was no time for first aid. He could only react and chase.
He’d trailed his suspect down the street, pursuing with a vigor and stamina he’d not known himself to have in many years. In little time, he’d passed a garden terrace cafe, one he was sure he’d visited prior in the dream’s timeline with Connor, before weaving through a crowd gathered outside of a museum. It had surely been part of the narrative too, but by the time his conscious mind began to contemplate it, its relevance had returned to the mists that summoned it. He’d crossed a blocked path next, ascending a netted rope straight out of a training academy with ease. Whatever happened next was lost. Whether he’d found justice of any sort—or if Connor had survived at all—was beyond him. The dream by then was long gone.
In waking, he’d safely concluded it was not real, separating the emotions he’d felt from his growing consciousness. There was no point in fretting over false memories. Connor was home, and Connor was alive; he’d fallen asleep tucked snuggly in his arms. Allowing his recollection to further ebb away, he instead paid heed to the haphazard crashing of water upon his roof accompanied by the incessant trickling sounds of an overwhelmed gutter. The severe thunderstorm mentioned in the evening weather report had arrived.
Though completely encompassed by the dead of night, a persistent flashing passed his heavy, lidded eyes. It soon began to irk him, dragging him further away from the quirks of his dream. Curious if some stray police car had wandered onto his street, Hank rolled to his right, peering with struggle. No lights phased through his blinds, not even streetlights. All that guided him in the darkness was a wide, yet agitated, red and yellow glow bouncing off the corners of his ceiling. He blinked, squinting closer. The circular shape of the source became clear—Connor’s LED. He sat motionless at the edge of the bed, facing the window as his distressed processing indicator beckoned to Hank.
“Wha’re you doin’…?” He slurred out, still claimed by the stupor of his disturbed rest. The question elicited no reaction from Connor.
Awkwardly, Hank pushed up from the mattress, casting aside the light-weight blanket atop him. The space had grown stuffy. Though unsure why the air conditioning had stopped, he suspected it would kick back on soon. He was certain it had been set to handle the heavy air of July.
Leaning forward, he examined his partner in the dark, fighting the subpar level of light offered by his deep waves of red. Entranced, Connor had become glued to the window, staring a countless distance forward into the humid mist of the outdoors. Whatever emotion had sculpted itself onto his face, Hank couldn’t identify it. It emanated a stark emptiness, his glassy eyes rendered wholly unreadable. Wherever Connor was, he was not in the room with him.
“Hey, Connor, you okay?”
He remained frozen.
“Talk to me, buddy.”
Receiving no response, he shifted forward again, nudging closer. Cautiously, he set a palm on his right forearm. Connor pulled away with a startled jump and yelp, the anxious light show within the room escalating into a frantic plea for help as he faced Hank with shock.
“Hey, hey, it’s just me. It’s okay.” Gently, he placed his grounding hands upon Connor’s, refusing to break eye contact. How cold he was to the touch. “What happened?”
Connor stared unmoving, mouth agape; Hank’s pleading elicited no reply.
“Are you alright?”
Again, he said nothing.
In the shadow of the space, he realized the power had, in fact, gone out—a total blackout, leaving Connor’s ever expressive LED as the only visual greeting he’d received in waking. Doused in rain and without electricity, the world outside their bubble remained black. It was no wonder the house had grown so warm.
“How long’s the power been out for?” Hank asked, hoping the factual query might finally prompt a response from his partner.
Nothing.
Reaching for his phone on the nightstand beside them, he finally checked the time. Quarter to three—indeed, dead of night. He gently shook the device, pleased as the gesture activated its flashlight. Facing the beam toward the ceiling, he placed the phone back on the stand, able to see more than just the anxious bands of red emitted by the LED at long last.
Turning his attention back to Connor under newfound light, Hank reexamined him, dismayed as the same vacant expression of dread encompassed him wholly. Shifting his careful grip up his arms, the true extent of his chill spread to his body. Connor was not merely cold—he was freezing. It was as if his temperature regulator had stopped functioning entirely. Though androids often felt cooler to the touch than humans, internally they ran so much higher, and they always preferred to be spinning warm. Hank pulled him closer in the hopes his own excessive heat might transfer and thaw him out, rubbing soothing circles in his back with his left hand as he embraced him.
Feeling his palm suddenly heat, he looked down. The pseudoskin along Connor’s left arm had receded up toward his elbow, Hank’s hand resting just before the divide between the true mechanical and the simulated organic. An invitation to interface—a gesture he couldn’t reciprocate.
He was far from unfamiliar with the display; the first occurrence had been just two weeks after they’d met. It had awed Hank as his partner’s perfect white revealed itself, yet it’d embarrassed Connor to no end—he’d been completely unable to determine its cause. To him it was an early defect, an unexpected error in his software, a sign he had already begun to lose control of his deviant self—there had just been no logical reason for it. Hank, though, saw past his insecurity. There had seen nothing wrong with the display. Even if he couldn’t connect and receive data, there was nothing that prevented him from returning the touch, and that he did. It was like venting, he’d thought. Quiet, intimate venting. A display of just how deep their trust ran. Human and android, together, in imperfect interface.
Clutching Connor’s forearm securely, he felt a palm close around his own, his partner accepting the connection. To his relief, the color in the room gradually moved from mostly red to mostly yellow. Though the android’s expression did not falter, he had begun to calm.
“There, there, you’ll be alright,” Hank cooed, his tender touch remaining stable and welcoming. It had been months since he’d seen this behavior from Connor. He’d naively assumed only snow storms and ice would trigger it. “Feeling a little better now?” He asked.
Connor remained unable to respond, the only sounds within the space being the pattering torrent of rain and the howling wind from outside.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Connor’s hollow response could hardly be considered a reply. “A flood watch alert was issued yesterday at 3:12 PM and is in effect until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Is the rain bothering you?”
Numbly, he answered. “Approximately 0.86 inches of rain are reported to have fallen based on the latest update.”
Hank rocked him in his arms. Never had he had issues with thunderstorms before. “Wanna talk with me about it?”
A crack of white filled the sky as water continued to spray the glass, the weather serving as his only answer: a resounding no.
“It’s okay. You don’t gotta talk.” Sensing Connor would remain unable to speak for some time, he opted to continue gently cradling him. His eyes, still glazed and distant, remained fixed to the mists. Hank sighed. Pulling his partner’s gaze entirely from the window that had captured him, he drew him further into a hug. “C’mere, lookin’ outside’s not gonna help you.”
He scoured his memories in the looming quiet. They’d discussed extreme weather in the aftermath of Connor’s first episode. He disliked blustering winds, he disliked black ice, and he especially disliked deep freezes, sentiments Hank wholeheartedly shared with him. Falling water alone had never been the issue; it was only when it became solid. When the chill began to creep up his wires, working ever harder in the frigid air. When it seemed death itself lurked ready and near to recall him forever and end his existence as a living being. He just could never quite state why it terrified him so until a cold Sunday in February broke him. It was what CyberLife had done to him, he’d said, clutched onto Sumo against the door to the garage, the farthest space he could slot himself from a window. They had remotely suspended his AI—rendered it a frozen process. Mentally, it’d been a hypothermic nightmare, and all of it had felt real.
The episodes had ended entirely as Michigan thawed and spring dawned.
Liberated from deathly chills, his mood lifted. Rain was freeing; it gave way to life. And as temperatures rose, whether drizzle or thunderstorm, he’d dart about in the heat and humidity of the day, shameless and excitable, water slipping down his jaw with ease as he grinned with bliss, splashed by the dog as he romped in a puddle. It was exhilarating to be alive. He’d just laugh as Hank chastised him from the porch, sternly threatening him to not dare take one step inside with his sopping wet clothes before throwing him a beach towel. Connor in turn would tease him about how scandalous a request it was, as if Hank had demanded he strip on the spot.
That was just the norm for his partner. Thunder never scared him. He was already electric. Though the danger was clear, every statistic permanently recorded in memory, it was not one he feared. One in his control. One he could circumvent. A risk he could take. Lightning did not freeze. It only burned.
“They’re going to take me back,” he whispered, facing no one.
Caught off guard, Hank turned with concern. “What was that?”
Connor didn’t acknowledge him, continuing to quietly speak. “The rain. It’s piercing my skin.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t escape.”
“Where are you, Connor?” He asked, uneasily.
“The Zen Garden.”
Past the thousand yard stare, he’d found him at last. “No, you’re not. You’re in my arms, Connor. You’re safe.”
“She’s here. She’s upset with me.”
Tighter his grip grew. “What do you feel?”
“The cold. The rain. Her scathing words.”
“Hey, listen to my voice. I’m here. I’m here with you.” Connor shuddered in his grip. “What do you see?”
“The leaves. They’re off the trees. And the wind. The wind, it’s…”
“Focus. I’m here. Look at me, Connor.”
Connor’s eyes did not move. He opted to continue. “She’s so disappointed with me.”
“She can’t hurt you anymore. You’re in my arms,” Hank again reiterated, “and I’m not letting go. That’s all that matters right now.”
“I don’t want to be decommissioned.”
“You’re with me. You’re safe, Connor. None of them can hurt you.”
“I don’t want to die.”
He squeezed his partner, praying his grip would reach past the fortified walls of his mind. “I’ll never let them take you away from me.”
Connor’s LED shifted between yellow and a flickering blue as he relaxed. “Hank…” He murmured, collapsing forward into his arms as his stress diminished.
“There we go…” Hank gently patted his back, their half interface brought to an end. “It’s okay. You’re back now.”
“You’re really here…” Though free of his prison, his tone still carried a far-away cadence to it.
“That’s right I am. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“I felt your pulse…” He looked down at his hand, his skin spilling back over his fingers. “Was I trying to interface with you?”
“Yeah. Held you right through it.”
“I’m sorry.”
He ruffled his hair. “S’all good. You were having a nightmare.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Hank shifted to the left, pulling at the discarded throw beside them. “Lemme get that blanket around you. You’re freezing.” Tucking it around Connor’s shoulders, he held his bundled partner close, beginning his reassuring massage again as he continued to ease. “Do you remember what happened?”
Connor seemed to mull on the question for a moment. “I ended up entering stasis not long after you fell asleep. I… I don’t remember much after that. I should have only undergone minor memory repairs. Something must have gone wrong in the process.”
Hank hummed. So too had the last memories before his own nightmare been with Connor spooned in his arms. “I found you staring out the window. Any idea how you ended up like that?”
“The power outage must have woken me.”
“Not the rain?”
“No. The sudden loss of connectivity would have sent an alert. Environmental stimuli like rain shouldn’t be enough to affect an android in stasis…”
“Is that something you don’t remember either?” With Connor’s head tucked out of sight, he’d been afforded no further visual information about his state.
“No,” he answered, hesitantly. “Was I really just sitting up, looking out the window?”
Hank continued to rock him in his arms. “You were. And you were cold as all hell.”
“I don’t remember any of it…” He paused. “And there’s nothing in my logs suggesting I was alert…”
“It’s been awhile since I saw you like that. Last episode was, what, March?”
He sighed, dismayed. “That’s correct. I didn’t think it would happen in the summer, too.”
“Do you think the storm contributed?”
“I don’t like admitting it, but yes.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Hank comforted.
“I’m not ashamed. I just…” Again, he trailed, thinking. “I just don’t have any way of describing how it feels, losing control like that.”
“It was like the panic attacks during the snow storms, right?”
“Yes. I’ve just had no evidence up until now that warm weather could be an issue, too.” He gazed over at the rain soaked window, exposing his LED once more. “It really is loud out there…”
“Want me to put on some music to drown it out?”
“No, that’s alright.” He placed a tender hand on Hank’s chest. “I’ll just listen to you.”
Rain, another element to be added to the list of potential triggers, it seemed. It struck him as ironic. They had met in the rain. The beginning of November had been a terribly wet one, just about every day marred by heavy rainfall. In his pressed and pristine suit, Connor trailed along with no umbrella to speak of, never offering a complaint in the slightest, not even once free. He had never mentioned adverse feelings in the aftermath. Out of everything he’d been willing to share, Hank his ever-present audience, piercing rain had not been one of them. Perhaps, just like him, the trauma was simply not a subject to speak about, just one to numb and blockade away behind as many walls as possible.
Snatching him even closer, Hank kissed his forehead, relieved as the hue of the room finally shifted wholly to blue. The bundle in his grasp had warmed to an appropriate temperature.
“Feelin’ any better now?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good, good.”
“I still don’t understand,” Connor continued, unexpectedly.
“What don’t you understand?”
“Locking up and freezing like that… It reminds me of what it felt like after I deviated.”
That was a new connection.
“I was scared, yes. Every hour leading up to Markus’ victory. But there was something else deeply… desolate… about it. I had control, but I had no answers. I felt powerless. Stuck. Confused. Like I needed someone to obey again.”
“It was a response. Responses aren’t always what you want them to be.”
“Markus gave me direction, but it put you in danger.”
Too many times had they had this discussion. “Connor, that was completely out of your control. You don’t gotta feel guilty over it.”
“I could have gotten you killed.”
“But you didn’t.”
“And what if they’d taken control of me sooner? What if I’d hurt you?”
“You took control right the fuck back from them. You don’t need to let that ‘what if’ own you anymore.”
“I have so many issues as a result of what they did to me. It always ends up becoming your problem. I guess… I guess I don’t understand how you’re able to…”
Hank grimaced, suspecting he intimately knew the words that would follow.
“Tolerate my shortcomings…”
Tolerate. He had surprised him with a new euphemism for the true subject of discussion: an unworthiness of being loved. “I don’t know what you think your shortcomings are, but they’re not a problem to me. If holding you ’til the end of time was what it took to get you back from a freeze, I’d do it, no questions asked.”
“Logistically impossible. You would destroy yourself in the process…”
“C’mon, I know you know what I mean.”
“I wouldn’t want you to feel obligated to me.”
“Enough about that. You’re my partner, and nothing’s gonna change that. As far as I’m concerned, you’re stuck with me, okay?” He brushed stray hairs from his face, smiling as they bobbed back out of place immediately after. Though Connor bashfully avoided his gaze, his face grew warmer in response.
Suddenly, lights sprung from outside. An accompanying whir from beneath the floorboards announced the overdue return of electricity to the house. “Took ’em long enough,” Hank muttered, disabling his flashlight.
Cautiously, Connor separated from him, leaning toward the square of brightness entering the space. “It really did rain a lot…” Little did he move as he observed.
“Yeah, whole street’s soaked. Doubt we’ll have to worry about the canal, but I guess the warnings weren’t for nothin’.”
Silence enveloped the space, Connor growing still on the bed as he stared, locked forward.
“Alright, no more window.” Hank stood, approaching the cord of the curtains and gently pulling them closed. Snapped back to reality, Connor cocked his head curiously. “You were getting that glassy look in your eyes again.”
“Oh,” he stated, deflating.
“You didn’t even realize it, did you?”
“No…” Down he curled.
Hank joined him again on the bed, extending a sympathetic arm. “Hey, it’s alright. You’re still here with me.”
“It’s irritating feeling like this.”
“Like what?”
He sighed with frustration. “I can’t put it into words.”
“Like you’re not in control of yourself?” Hank offered.
“Sort of.”
“Like you’re just stuck on edge in a loop?”
“Yes.”
“Like you can’t do nothin’ about it?”
He buried his head further, clutching his hands together. “I’m a liability like this.”
“You’re not a liability…”
“If I lock up like that while working, someone could get hurt.”
“It’s not fully in your control, but you can work on it. Hell, we can work on it.”
“I tried, Hank. I can’t do anything about it.”
“When it happens, I can and I will.”
“I can’t rely on you to pull me out of these episodes forever.”
“It’s sure as fuck better than bein’ entirely on your own.” He rubbed his shoulder tenderly. “You wouldn’t let me drown in my woes and sorrows, and I have no plans of letting you drown in yours, either.”
Connor glanced upward from his sullen reclusion, voicelessly.
“It’s the least I can do, alright?”
Finally, he’d mustered a smile from his precious deviant.
“Now, I think it’s best I lie on this side for now.” Hank scooted him to the opposite side of the bed, cautiously lowering his weight down into the mattress after. Though still too warm to fully cover himself with the blanket, he cascaded it across his partner, who’d easily mirrored him.
“I want to hold you close,” Connor whispered.
“Fine with me. Come over here.”
He pushed closer, squeezing fiercely at Hank’s waist as he buried himself into his chest.
“Whoa, whoa, easy now! I’m not goin’ anywhere, alright?”
“Hank,” he quietly started, muffled partly by their close contact.
“What is it?”
“If it weren’t for you, I would be dead.”
“Wha—” He choked on his words. “Fuckin’ what now??”
“I’ve thought so much about it. Your influence saved my life. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“You can’t just spring that on a guy, Jesus Christ.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
Struggling to remain gentle, he replied with hefty concern. “Where are you getting this ‘losing me’ from?”
“I’m so scared of being alone. Of having no one. Of being trapped again. Forever.”
Embracing him tight, Hank returned the death-grip hug. “You think I’d just let that happen? You think I’d go down without a fight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Connor—fuck, you’re the light of my world!”
“I could just disappear one day, forever.”
“But you won’t.”
“Everything about my life is unpredictable.”
“It’s just a consequence of being alive. There’s no certainty, but things tend to work themselves out. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I would never want to hurt you.”
“Well, you not bein’ here right now because you’re afraid of hurting me would. If I get hurt loving you, so be it. I made my choice a long time ago.”
“But I—”
“You’re not changing my mind. I can’t afford to lose you, either. Like I said, you’re stuck with me.”
It seemed enough to quiet Connor’s angst, at least for the time being.
“Now, are you gonna be able to rest with this rain?”
A startled look crossed Connor’s face. He had entirely forgotten it was raining—the whole reason his nerves still lit with bitter electricity. Aware once more, he steadied his regulator, leaning his head upon Hank’s shoulder. “I’m unsure if I can re-enter stasis in this state. I can remain calm, but I can’t effectively tune it out.”
“Here.” Hank placed his hand upon Connor’s, guiding it just off-center of his chest. His heart. “Just listen to this like you did before, okay?”
Connor leaned further upon him, wrapped into a warm embrace as his audio receptors precisely recorded the beating of his heart, analog and imperfect. “Okay,” he murmured in agreement. “Just don’t leave me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” It was the exact measure both needed in their unexpected waking—a promise of each other’s shared presence. Hank was well acquainted with nightmares. Just another unfortunate part of surviving what he had. While he disliked his familiarity, it gave him all the right tools to ease Connor right back to reality. It was not his first panic attack, and it would not be the last.
Connor remained new to experiences. His delicate deviant spirit was still learning to accommodate the shared space with his traumas. But the intensity of the episodes had indeed faded. The nightmare’s peak had passed. He was coming back strong from it, steadily relaxing, a survivor in his own right.
With the rain waning, dispersing into a soft lullaby, Hank eased, noting Connor’s stable blue fade to an intermittent fading pulse. Stasis once more. Content that little could disturb his sleep anymore, he joined the now dead-weight android under the blanket as he recovered from the safety of his sleep.