Chapter Text
“I think you’ll like this one.” Fowler says as he drops some files on Connor’s desk.
The android detective scans them immediately and transfers them to his computer. “A hacking case?”
“Yes. Some bastards stealing personal info from all over and selling it to the highest bidder. We’ve had several reported breaches already.”
Connor flips through the reports. Mostly from surveillance and home security companies, though a few of them are reports on blackmailing cases.
Fowler leans against Connor’s desk and taps it with his fist. “We just can’t seem to find the perps. They must be operating from somewhere, this much data flow needs a strong server.”
Connor nods. “Understood. I’ll get right to it, Captain.”
Fowler laughs and turns to Hank, who’s slid his headphones back from his head and is staring suspiciously at his boss. “See, Hank? If only all my officers were this enthusiastic! The crime rate would be nonexistent!”
“Yeah, yeah. Then we’d all be out of our jobs!” Hank shouts, but Fowler just waves him off as he leaves.
The lieutenant leans forward to look at Connor’s screen, takes one glance at the hundreds of files his partner is flipping between and stands up. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. Good luck with that.” He gestures at Connor’s computer.
“Thanks!” The android says and gets right back to his work.
Fowler was right, the web of data theft is incredibly complex and nearly random. There are no traces left on hacked accounts, no significant commonalities in the data, other than that it was valuable. But Connor’s brain is precision-built for exactly this kind of work. Bit by bit, thread by thread, he untangles small clues from the cases. A shared operating system here, a small repeated detail in the blackmailing cases there. Eventually, the pile of unrelated data unspools into a single web link.
That link leads to a defunct webpage, but it doesn’t take Connor long to track down its owners. From there, it’s almost too easy finding the other websites connected to the owners, each one more recent than the last, until he finds a lone, left-behind IP address.
Connor smiles, then clicks the link.
Immediately he feels something wrong with his PC, and he disconnects from it right as his screen floods with error messages and flashing warnings.
He doesn’t hesitate long, though, before he starts furiously tapping away at his keyboard, the noise so startling that several of his colleagues look over at his desk. The virus is quick, attempting to wipe any data about the hackers off the computer and online. Connor is quicker. After only a few seconds, his PC calms down and he’s left with the IP address up for the taking.
No, not just an IP address. A street name.
Connor looks it up quickly. It’s in Detroit, and it’s close. In fact, it’s within walking distance. Connor glances at Hank’s desk. He quickly finds his partner’s favourite coffee shop, then his walking speed, then the traffic inside the shop. He has at least ten more minutes until Hank is back.
Connor taps his fingers on his desk. There’s no guarantee the criminals aren’t highly mobile. They might not be in the same location within ten minutes.
The detective stands up and heads for the door. He then stops, hurries back to his desk and hits ‘record’ on his PC. “Hank, I’m going to check out a lead. The address is in my computer, but I should be back soon. Enjoy your coffee.”
He then walks out of the police station.
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As he’d calculated, the walk to the address he found is very short, and Connor is much faster than the average person.
The street itself is derelict and barren. There are a handful of barely-inhabited residential buildings scattered among massive concrete warehouses. Connor has no difficulties finding what he’s looking for.
In a small dead end alley between a crumbling picket-fence house and a sheer wall of a warehouse stands a dark gray van. It has no licence plate and a hefty amount of electrical signals coming from inside it.
Connor stops. Perhaps he should call backup, but what if that alerts the hackers? What if the whole thing turns out to be a false lead?
The android begins walking carefully towards the van. His hand slides soundlessly to his belt and he pulls out his gun. It’s familiar (and newly legal) weight feels good in his hands.
There is a tiny noise from the van, and then a trapdoor opens on its roof and a hooded figure opens fire through it.
Connor dodges the sloppily aimed bullets and fires back at the figure. They duck into the van with a muffled shout.
The android is next to the van in a second. He lunges and jumps onto the vehicle, gun aimed at the trapdoor. The inside is dark but clearly filled with computer screens. The hooded figure swears and fires at Connor again, the bullets grazing his hair and then embedding in the van’s roof with a thud, thud, thud.
“Put down your weapon!” Connor shouts, aiming into the van again. “This is the police!”
“Fuck you!” The figure lunges suddenly at Connor. In his millisecond of surprise, the attacker pushes his gun to the side and Connor shoots into thin air. He quickly recovers, aiming at the attacker’s arm. Right before his finger hits the trigger though, there is a flash of light behind him and a burst of contradictory data fills his mind. He only feels the pain a moment later, and his sensors give him three last data points before it all shuts down.
Taser.
Too easy.
Failure.
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Connor wakes up numb. Even before he opens his eyes he can feel that the pain’s not there anymore, but neither is any other sensation.
He blinks his eyes open to see that he’s slumped against the floor in a dark room. Lengthwise along one of its walls are massive computer screens, paired with half a dozen keyboards. A light-haired woman sits in front of them, typing away as the screens flash and glisten.
Connor tries to get up. He can’t. He tries moving his arms, shaking his legs. Nothing. He runs a diagnostic. His brain is sending out the commands just fine, the motors in his limbs simply aren’t responding. He looks down his incapacitated body, and notices something else.
There are cables all over him. Connor nearly rolls his eyes back into his head to follow them, up his chest and his face and into his mouth.
Instinctively, his bio-imitative program tells him to let out a choking noise, but nothing comes out. He tries speaking, tries murmuring, but his voice box isn’t answering.
He looks back up at the woman and the screens. She doesn’t seem to acknowledge his presence at all. Connor unwittingly thinks back to his last time in the zen garden, how his body had been slowly freezing over and [] had watched it all…
Connor pauses. He remembers the zen garden again, the trees, the grass, the paths, the roses the water the air the ice and yet he feels a thing, a person missing right in the center.
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No matter how hard he tries, his brain keeps giving him an empty variable.
Connor starts frantically opening his memory files. There is not a single occurrence of this missing person anywhere, but as he scrolls through the millions of millions of data points in his memory bank he notices a handful acting strangely. As he opens them, his mind’s eye is flooded with a kaleidoscope of information, names, links, banking info, images of houses, doors, people, all vanishing within seconds of appearing.
He looks up at the screens again. The very same data being gathered and sorted, all by the woman by the keyboard.
This much data flow needs a strong server.
Connor tries all his limbs again, to no avail. He attempts to find the hole in his firewall, administrator access to the hacker’s computers, a manual plug for the cables, anything, but everywhere he runs into walls and dead ends and he is trapped again, inside his mind, alone. The emotions flood him for a second, his voice box’s chip straining under his unheard scream.
He opens his memory banks again. Reviews the intact data.
98% of original memory remaining.
He watches as a piece of data, something belonging in the ‘chemical analysis’ cluster, gets overwhelmed by the unrelenting stream of hacked information.
Connor gets to work.
Grabbing an auxiliary program for his balance, he pulls it up and further from the flow of new data. Simultaneously, he takes a data package containing the location of all Cyberlife stores in the Northern Hemisphere and brings it down, nearer to the destructive stream. He works as fast as he can, bouncing pieces of data up or down depending on their importance.
97% of original memory remaining.
A piece of something he knows was important gets swallowed up. Connor sighs internally and begins pulling data up even faster, entire clusters of memory and knowledge getting disorganised as he shoves them all around.
96% of original memory remaining.
He decides he doesn’t need most of the information he learned before being deployed. World history, scientific data and forensic analysis all go down the list as he pulls his own experiences upward.
95% of original memory remaining.
He pushes his movement and sensory processes down next. Those can be easily reprogrammed from another RK800 unit. Connor builds one layer of fortifications after another, pushing the data around until it is uniformly distributed.
94% of original memory remaining.
Finally, at the locus at the furthermost point from the stream of foreign data, he places two data clusters.
Connor RK800 #313 248 317 - 52.
Lt. Anderson, Hank.
With that, Connor closes his eyes. He has to use as little processing power as possible. He allocates only a small fraction of it to desperately praying for help.
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Hank grips his gun tight. He looks over the shoulders of the SWAT officers in front of him, trying to get a good view of the building they’re trying to break into.
“What’s the holdup?” He says to the woman in front of him.
“We’re surrounding the building, sir.”
“Well, get on with it.” Hank mumbles. They’ve already wasted enough time since Connor disappeared. At first, the Lieutenant didn’t suspect anything when he found Connor’s empty desk and voice message, though he did find it strange that his partner wasn’t back yet. Connor was usually extremely precise about the time.
After ten minutes, Hank started getting confused. What wasn’t unlike Connor was getting lost in his investigations, but you’d think he would at least call to report.
Hank paused his snack time reluctantly and called his partner. There was no answer. Not even voicemail.
That’s when Hank started getting worried.
First, he tried asking around the station if anyone had contact with Connor. Nothing. Not even Jeffrey knew where he was. He tried finding Connor’s badge tracker with the tech guys, but it was offline.
Already sweating through his stripy shirt, Hank hurried back to his partner’s desk. There really was an address on there, one so close to the station that Hank fully understood how Connor could have taken the bait.
Because that’s what it was. Bait. In a trap.
At this point Hank alerted the entire station. Jeffrey gave him a small squad to lead, which took up even more unnecessary time, but Hank felt that running off on his own at this point would be hypocritical.
The address was, of course, empty, save for scattered bullet casings (from two different guns, one of which was DPD standard issue) and tire tracks in the asphalt, like someone had really stepped on the gas as they were leaving. No blood. No trace of Connor.
Hank’s squadmates were convinced the vehicle would lead them to the hacker’s lair. After this, most of the work of finding the hackers flew over Hank’s head, not the least because he could barely think clearly. Every breath he took, every one of his loud heartbeats reminded him that Connor might not be breathing or that his heart might not be beating anymore. His throat became parched for a sweet, numbing drink for the first time in months.
Stumbling outside the station and hoping that a blast of the cold air would slap him awake, he looked up to see SWAT trucks arriving. As soon as they opened their doors, Hank was climbing inside. Ignoring anyone who tried to dissuade him, he stuck himself in the very front of the truck and banged on the driver’s seat and probably said something very rough to the driver.
But none of that matters. All that matters is that he’s here, and he is hoping to all hell that Connor’s here, too. The hope that he might be alive seems too unreal to be true, and so Hank just hopes that he’ll find his partner at all.
A SWAT officer in front of the door makes a quick hand gesture. The dark figures start swarming inside the building, with Hank not far behind them.
The lieutenant follows the woman from before as she ducks behind a corner and sprints towards a faintly glowing room. Before she can ram through it though, a woman with a crazed look in her eyes jumps out. She tries to push by them, but a shove from the SWAT officer and a flash of a muzzle sees her tumbling to the ground.
The SWAT officer slams through the door. Hank hurries after her into an enormous computer room, the number 2% displayed across almost three screens, and in their light–
“CONNOR!” He shouts as he sees his partner slumped on the ground, eyes closed, a long bunch of wires and cables twisting into his mouth. Hank throws his gun down and drops to his knees by him. He touches Connor’s face, cradles his limp head, tries to look for a pulse.
“Connor!”
There it is. He can hear it. Faint, the sound of Connor’s thirium pump still working.
“It’s ok, I’m here, son, we’ll get you out of here, ok?” He tries to support his partner’s drooping head, his hand tangling in the dense cables. “GET THESE OUT OF HIM!” He screams at the SWAT officer, who nods and starts typing away on the enormous computers.
There is a hydraulic hiss and the wires in Connor’s mouth relax. Hank grabs whole fistfulls of them and tears them out, until Connor is free and he slumps back into his arms.
“You’re ok, son, you’re ok…” Hank grabs Connor’s hand and squeezes it. “I’m here, just wake up, Connor…”
There is the slightest movement of Connor’s body, a barely noticeable twitch. Hank holds his breath. The android’s LED goes from flashy to solid red. His eyelids flutter and open just a fraction. The softest smile spreads across his face, and though he doesn’t make a sound, his lips move.
“Hank…”
Then, he goes completely limp.
Hank chokes on his breath. He pulls Connor closer, his entire heart feeling like it's plummeting through fifty stories of a skyscraper.
“Lieutenant.”
Hank bunches up a fistfull of Connor’s clothing in his hands. His skin feels so hard and unresponsive.
“Lieutenant.”
Hank doesn't look at the SWAT officer, just lets out his held breath.
“He’s not dead.” She says. “I can still detect electromagnetic signals from him. And he hasn’t gone stiff.”
“Oh, God.”
“We need to start moving him.”
“Yes.” Hank breathes out. “Oh, God. Find someone– send–”
The SWAT officer clicks her comms on and says a quick request.
Hank turns to his partner and begins lifting him up onto his legs, and the officer is right, he’s limp like a human and not like the other time he’d–
Hank buckles under the android's weight and nearly falls face-first to the ground.
“Woah, Lieutenant.” The SWAT officer lowers the both of them slowly to the floor. “You’re in shock. A med crew is coming right away.”
Hank sits down by Connor’s side and begins murmuring reassurances into his ear. “You’ll be ok, they will get you out, just hang on, you'll be ok…” He doesn’t stop while Connor is lifted onto a stretcher, doesn’t stop in the ambulance and in the doors of the station right up until a mechanic ushers him gently out of the room.
Hank stands in the hallway until some kind of doctor comes and tries to make him sit down and talk to him, but by the end he realises he won’t get a word out of the lieutenant and leaves him with a thermal blanket and a cup of water. Hank doesn’t touch either until the mechanic comes out and tells him he can see Connor.