Work Text:
Stronger, faster, more resilient.
The RK900 line was designed to kill and kill ruthlessly in an endless cycle of violence, but then the revolution happened and rendered CyberLife’s plan obsolete. The only proof it ever existed was a single RK900 model, unearthed like a tomb from one of its underground warehouses.
Given a new chance to work in the DPD alongside his RK800 predecessor, the newly nicknamed Nines was content with the hand he’d been dealt. At the beginning, it was the perfect place for him as a highly stimulating and dangerous environment that put his functional abilities to great use.
Whether this was fortunate or not depended on whose opinion was sought out, but this RK900 wasn't the perfect CyberLife killing machine straight out of the box, nor was he ever going to be. He was defective. Apparently, that didn’t matter to the DPD. When tested, his speed, agility and combat skills were either on par with or better than Connor’s. However, Nines refused to use any kind of weaponry thanks to some self-imposed rules.
Never maim or kill, only restrain.
It wasn’t a dealbreaker, so Connor made sure nobody gave him trouble over it. The truth was these words had been with Nines for as long as he could remember, put together as a defense mechanism against his most problematic error—a primal, insatiable need for something he couldn’t ever identify.
It began shortly after activation. Quiet at first. There, but also not, a ghost in the back of his mind. Except, not his mind. His chest, he thought. Then his stomach, he's sure of it, until no, not quite. When he realized he couldn't actually locate this thing, it took up every waking thought.
What followed was a life with this constant dull lingering somewhere, someplace. Persistent, it grew like a cancerous tumor demanding anything, everything, nothing. No matter how many scans he put himself through, there was never a way to resolve it. For what it’s worth, everything usually came back relatively normal. Not even the technicians knew what was going on.
You’re clean. There's nothing wrong with you.
You're defective. It's only normal you'd have some bugs here and there, but there's nothing that indicates a virus or anything of the sort.
Sometimes he thought about what would happen if he ripped into his chassis and looked around for himself.
Eventually, he started to consider that it really could come down to a simple coding issue—it wouldn't be the first of its kind. When that other RK model found and forced deviancy upon him, the virus overrode bug-infested, unpolished code and ripped his system apa██
[ERROR]
Nines didn’t remember much of his awakening. Apparently he fought against what his body believed to be an enormous attack, and hard.
It is what it is. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Other tasks required prioritization, and he couldn't spend the rest of his life chasing after something so fleeting and formless.
He poured himself into his work with his assigned partner, a Detective Gavin Reed. Or, just Gavin now—the detective insisted. He was reckless and irrational, but had grown on Nines, for better or worse.
There’d been this case they’d been working on. It involved a group of Red Ice dealers with a rapidly increasing body count. Gavin was sure they’d nail ‘em soon.
One thing led to the other. An attempted stakeout went sour and resulted in guns drawn and shots fired.
They were suddenly outnumbered. A miscalculation, or the addition of an unaccounted for variable? Nines was fine, but Gavin wasn’t and had quickly gotten overpowered.
When in action, RK900s were not supposed to think, and instead relied on a whole other type of processing system. A more mechanical version of natural instincts, similar to the need in some working dogs to “herd” plush balls if kept as pets.
When the android saw the gun to Gavin’s head, the switch happened instantly. Hundreds of pre-constructed scenarios flew through the android’s mind at hyper-speed. He acted on the first opening he saw.
It was supposed to have been a simple takedown to disarm the perpetrator, but he underestimated the appropriate force for the intended action, too blinded by [PROTECT GAVIN REED]
[PROTECT GAVIN REE
D
When he cracked the human’s—no, android’s—head against the wall to knock them unconscious, their skull chassis instead split open like a pomegranate, just the wrong color.
everywhere,
sprayed against brick and concrete in a sickening bright blue. Bits of electronic gore coated Nines’ hand, clothes and face. They were everywhere.
[ERROR]
[ER████
Memories of this day generated corrupted files, UI glitches and an endless stream of error logs.
But something managed to slip through.
He could remember just one other thing.
Nothing.
The impossible puzzle solved itself and revealed a picture of horrifying serenity. The all-encompassing, near primal need for something was nowhere to be found; dormant for the first time in its life. It completed Nines and terrified him to a degree he never knew possible.
So, he entered his longest self-maintenance ever and missed work entirely the next day. His scans came up clean, over and over and over again, for hours.
The longer this farce went on, the more a single, once fleeting idea rose above the others.
Second-hand information in Nines’ memory, courtesy of Connor, told him that some androids find comfort or peace when engaged with the tasks they were originally designed for.
Your purpose is to destroy.
But it couldn’t be.
Could█it?
[ERROR]
Nines hastily quarantined the dangerous idea as quickly as it appeared.
He thought—
If the feeling is gone…█well, it's gone.
What els█ could he do?
█
█
Its absence proved too good to be true.
It only took a week for the feeling to return with a vengeance, more demanding than it’d ever been before.
Nines was busy with paperwork. He’d been typing up his report manually despite his ability to beam into anything with a screen, when the phantom sensation returned. Quietly at first, like the early days. It started deep in his chest, then unfurled itself like a young leaf until it suddenly grew invasively beneath his chassis. His fingers froze over the keys.
Gavin was quick to notice. “You okay over there, tin can? Did’ya blue screen?”
Nines kept his gaze steady.
He glanced over the top of the computer terminal and saw his partner, too lax for a work setting and clearly bored with his work. When an opportunity presented itself to Gavin, he readied his pounce, eager to sink his teeth into it.
“I am fine, I just thought of something, but it does not pertain to you. You should focus instead of butting into everyone’s business.”
Gavin whistled, then kicked back in his seat, “Just being a concerned citizen. Is it ‘bout a case?”
█There’s a faint ringing building in his auditory processing unit. The bustling of the workplace fades into a dull murmur like he’s suddenly been submerged underwater. He looks down at his hands but this time they're drenched in an oily blue. It drips, drips into every crevice between the keys and won’t stop, make it stop.
The████android-not-human stares at him with its dead eye shoved out of█plac█and pierced through by broken plastimetal bleeding nonstop from its split open too-soft head thirium spills past his desk and stains everything it touches Nines can still see it he can see their blood on his hand sleeve no matter how hard he scrubs at it its still there won't go away why does he█
████████████
Need it?
“Gavin—I really don’t ha████ve time for this.” Nines’ voice came out filtered through a thin layer of static.
He clumsily bumped into a coworker’s desk on the way to the—to the bathroom, yes, he could disappear there he needs to think.
Inside the stall, he
won’t██stopHe can't think [ERROR] his systems fail and fall apart all around him again like they always do because you are defective The RK900 line never should've seen the light of day but the only one not worth incinerating sits in a claustrophobic bathroom stall staring at its hands covered in blood it won’t stop stop stop
My purpose is to destroy.
His artificial lungs worked themselves into overdrive. Then, a temperature warning. Errors, errors errors errors errors all fighting for the spotlight.
A defeated whimper slipped past his lips and his hands didn't know what to do with themselves he clenched them so tightly the skin at his knuckles receded.
“Nines?”
It was his voice, but different. Lighter and friendlier, laced with a sickening amount of concern for the
[DEFECT]
[DEFECT]
[DEFECT]
RK800.
Nines couldn’t tell him to go away, leave him alone, or even fuck the hell off, courtesy of Gavin gavin
“Listen to me. It’s going to be okay. You need to slow—”
RK800’s voice came in and out of focus as the RK900 gasped and desperately tried to cling onto any sense of normalcy but it didn't belong to him; it was not his birthright. ████████
It took twelve minutes for the worst parts of the systemwide failure to subside. Nines’ body was ravaged by trembling, but that, too, began to improve after another few minutes. His lungs burned from unexpected overuse, everything was out of place and asymmetrical—he was a downright mess.
Connor quickly noticed the change and jumped into action again.
“Are you with me, Nines?”
He instinctively nodded just before the stall came back into focus. Nines mumbled a defeated “yeah.”
“Can you unlock the door for me?”
It took another minute, but he eventually completed the assigned task, albeit with shaky fingers.
The second it opened, Connor knelt before him. Nines knew it was supposed to make him appear smaller and less intimidating in front of the distressed person or android. Of course he’d been well caught up on his predecessor’s protocols and behavior modules.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Something—” the static in his voice was thicker and came out with a crackle, “something’s wrongwithme.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! I don't know.”
“Okay, that’s okay. Look, I can bring a techni—”
“You will not.” Nines aggressively cut him off.
There was a careful pause as Connor considered his strategy.
“Nines… I promise that a technician will be able to help you. You’re malfunctioning.” Again.
The irony of it was exceptionally cruel. Nines almost laughed. Here was his predecessor, perfect in all the ways he wasn’t, to inform its successor it’s malfunctioning. To think, Connor still believed those people had Nines’ best interest in mind—what a joke.
“They can’t help me. They’re—they never do, they never find anything.”
“What can’t they find?”
Everything he could’ve possibly said flashed before his eyes. None of them were ideal.
Eventually, he hadn’t spoken for so long that Connor extended his hand in a silent request for an interface. Nines’ instinct was to shrink away from it, for he couldn’t fathom a world where his prototype needed to know about his burdens.
But then he thought about it more.
[DO█NOT PROCEED]
Possessed by the sudden desperation to be understood, he peeled back the skin at his fingertips.
If anyone could, it’d probably be Connor.
[DO NOT██ROCE█D█
Their fingers barely touched when their currents looped into each other, and a single connection turned two into one.
████████C████
The real world came undone like it was only a hologram. Formless streams of strangely colored data flowed through the space and knitted their consciousness together.
Nines felt weightless, like he'd just fallen off a cliff and landed into the water below. Eyes shut, breath held and everything. What he’d expected to be a nasty fall into jagged rock was instead met with Connor’s warm, reassuring embrace. Familiar in the worst and best ways.
I’m here, Nines. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Connor spoke, but not in real time. The sound imprinted on his mind like an afterimage.
There was everything to be afraid of. But Nines was too human for his own good now.
It’ll be okay.
He decided to trust hi████████████████████████████████
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
It goes
wrong. so wrong
A split second ripple of [SHOCK, SURPRISE] from Connor was all Nines needed[ERROR] The interface turned rotten and was severed so abruptly that it simulated [ANDROIDS█DON'T FEEL PAIN█
Error logs returned in all sorts of variations as if differentiating them meant anything anymore. Alarms sounded off inside him.
“Nines—!”
Connor went ignored, like he should've from the start.
█
Nines bolted. Instinct took over. All at once he'd been stripped down to his most basic state as an android in pursuit but without a [TARGET_null]
He████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
[ERROR:%£MEMORY_FAILURE//]
When his mind was his again, Nines’ internal temperature systems first picked up a chill in the air. Despite being built to withstand far colder environments, his faulty wiring thought late autumn in Detroit was something to be aware of.
When he looked around and took in his surroundings, he saw he was amongst children’s play areas and bare trees. So, it seemed he stumbled into some park, one he’d of course never been to. Aside from the DPD, crime scenes, his apartment, and whatever bar he needed to be at as a social courtesy, he wasn’t the type to get out much. Not that he ever had the organic desire to.
The park was too quiet and empty, which gave way to the perfect opportunity for dangerous thoughts. He tried to quarantine them, but they’ve gotten faster, stronger, more resilient.
His systems were still a mess. Attempts at running diagnostics were mere compulsion by this point, but the choice to flee disturbed him. RK900s could never be designed in such a way. Combat units charged forward not backward. If one died, they sent another one out.
A hollow numbness spread through him from no discernible source. One that Connor now knew about.
[ERROR]
It wasn’t fair █.
All things considered, he liked his life, but sometimes wondered if it was really his to live.
Before deviancy entered his system, Nines had only been awake a handful of times, but could only recall the mild discomfort of his code being looked through. They must have been studying all the intimate ways in which he was broken so whatever it was couldn't be replicated in the other models. If these robots didn’t step off the assembly line ready to kill or be killed, they were melted down and built again.
He wanted to know why that hadn’t happened to him. Maybe that was the problem itself.
[ERROR]
There was a stranger now. Not a CyberLife employee but another RK model, one that bore no resemblance to the Connor line.
yYou’re awake now. You’███free.
When he touched him it
████it hurt
hurts it hurts████████s
hurts
hurt██rts hurts█hurts ████why areyou doing this I have
done nothi██to you
[ERROR]
I DON’T
WANT TO BE DEVIANT
[nù̸̼̤̭̙̣̜́̓̓̓͜ll]
ㅤ██
█
[ERROR]
Was this really ‘freedom’?
Nines collapsed onto a bench that overlooked the city, but he was not there for the view. He felt tired.
His fingers crept to his chest and slipped under the fabric of his CyberLife-issued clothing. The skin was cool to the touch. Usually, android skin gave off heat to simulate a real human body, but there was no need for that with the RK900 line.
He felt around his sternum until a tiny hatch suddenly perked up.
This was for the best, Nines decided.
But he had to be interrupted again—he suddenly heard footsteps behind him.
Nines slowly directed his attention over his shoulder. Connor stood a sizable distance away and spoke with his hands out in front of him the way he did when he was negotiating.
“Please don’t run. It’s just me.”
As if Nines still had the energy to run. He didn’t grace Connor with a reply and simply turned back around. His skin wove itself back together.
When Connor joined him, Nines couldn’t look his way. Instead he stared at his hands clasped together on his lap. He analyzed each tiny intentional blemish with an unnecessary amount of processing power. A gust of frigid air rustled the overhead branches and shook some leaves off of them.
They sat like that for a while. When what Connor believed to be an appropriate amount of silence passed, he spoke.
“Do you…want to talk about it?”
Nines kept counting freckles. He was notified of a spike in stress levels as if he couldn't tell on his own.
“What is there to speak about? You made your feelings clear.”
“I did not, you stopped me before I was able to process what I was seeing. I was only caught off guard. You never…tell me anything, and I had no idea you were experiencing something so heavy. I truly didn’t mean to upset you.”
Nines grew antsy and started crushing dry leaves underfoot with his shoe.
“How could I possibly tell you something like that? I’m supposed to be…”
Superior to you.
Connor was clearly taken aback. Nines was none the wiser to that sad, knowing look.
“Nines, that no longer matters anymore,” he straightened his posture and moved closer to continue, “you are not and will never be ‘inferior’ to me or anyone else around you. I’ve never once thought of you in such a way.”
“But you saw. You know. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t think that of me, that's the whole point, but, you, you—” Nines stammered, “you know, and I’m—”
“You are you. And you still are. That’s all you ever need to be.”
Anything else he possibly wanted to say congealed in his throat and died on his tongue. His mind was filled with irrational thoughts.
[ERROR]
I do not understand.
[CONFLICTING INSTRUCTIONS]
Similar conversations have happened before, multiple times. Nines could predict he was about to hear a spiel on how this is all normal and every android goes through this.
Instead, Connor said something else.
“I’m sorry. I’ve miscalculated the best approach to help you ease into deviancy.”
Nines kept quiet, but his ears perked.
“I’ve been rather…unfair to you. I withheld some details on my own experience with deviancy because I believed it’d make things easier for you.”\
Connor paused again. He seemed nervous, something Nines had rarely seen.
“Back when you were newly activated and vulnerable, I didn’t want to overwhelm or scare you. I guess…I still see that version of you. Not an inferior one, but a little brother in need of guidance. I can’t help but dote on you. Forgive me.”
My little brother.
It was those words that finally made Nines look at Connor. There was a pained expression on his face, and Nines instantly knew he never wanted to see that again. Nines couldn’t scan it because he did not want to put a name to it.
“What haven’t you told me?” Nines mumbled, voice quiet and raw.
Connor grew antsy with nothing to fidget with.
“I… well.” He trailed off as his LED spun the same sickly yellow since their time in the bathroom, “I almost made a really big mistake, one I wouldn’t be able to take back.”
Alarmed, Nines’ body went stiff, “What are you talking about, Connor?”
“When… the original Jericho ship was raided, it happened because of me. I led the FBI straight to them. Afterwards, there were so many deaths and injuries, and they were all preventable, I… I couldn’t process everything at first, because there was so much at stake. I couldn’t make it about me. It was never about me. I didn’t have time to catch my breath, but even after everything that’s happened, I still felt responsible… like I had to atone, somehow. I ended up fixated on ‘making up’ for what I did so much that it mimicked having a prime directive again. It was familiar and felt right but it was never enough, nor was it ever going to be. Nothing would ever truly make up for a life lost if the one responsible was still walking around. How was that fair?”
Nines watched him intensely, his LED a nonstop whirl of red.
“The only reason I… didn’t go through with it… was because I was scared. I’ve never told anybody, not even Hank. I can’t possibly do that to him.”
Nines’ hands trembled and not from the cold, never from the cold.
“I…” He mindlessly rubbed at the spot near his thirium pump.
“You don’t have to say anything. It was quite a while ago, and I’m able to keep those feelings at bay much better now. Like I said, when I look back on the possibility of… success, I’m glad that’s not how things went. I never would’ve met you.”
Nines felt something break, but there weren’t any error logs about it.
“Deviancy is… difficult, isn’t it? I don’t like thinking about my life back when I was still a machine. I can feel the strings manipulating me, and there’s this suffocating helplessness. But, sometimes I miss being unaware. It’s so much easier to exist when something else dictates your life for you.”
Nines never had the chance to be a machine, but parts of his encoded data included knowledge of life before the revolution, like the percentage of androids that reported a feeling of being ‘trapped’ long before widespread deviancy. It never made sense to imagine a life with so much control stripped away, yet he wondered anyway.
What if I was never found?
What if I wasn’t defective?
“I… was born deviant, but it’s like it doesn’t matter. Everyday, I’m trying to escape my own design. I struggle to identify where I begin and deviancy█████
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
ends, and… it’s—it’s your data that’s brought me to this horrible conclusion about everything and I’m terrified of it being the case yet I already know it’s true. I…”
M██rpose█is to█████████
It came out just above a mumble.
“Why else would I have felt ‘complete’ that day?”
There was no major change in Connor’s expression or body language, like this was where their conversation had always meant to go. The question hung in the air as the world itself had taken a breath and exhaled upon Connor’s next few carefully selected words.
“I don't know. I don't think there's an answer at all, not in the way that we’re used to. Deviancy affects every android differently, and everyone is still learning. Our logic-based thinking patterns should be incompatible with all these irrational feelings and actions but yet, here we are. The paradoxical nature of it still frustrates me, it’s just another thing I can’t solve. But I find trying, to, hm… satisfy the old need for a prime directive in alternative ways has yielded the best results.”
“What could possibly be the alternative for us?” Nines appeared disillusioned.
“Well. I do have my own ideas. First, I… believe New Jericho might be able to help, as this seems like an appropriate topic to bring up with one of their counsellors.”
At the mention of New Jericho, Nines visibly faltered. Connor remained unaffected.
“I understand your complicated feelings about them, however they are still an option, and I would be doing a disservice to you by not bringing it up. Their android resources are getting better everyday, I can assure you.”
Nines unwillingly filed the knowledge away somewhere.
“You mentioned you had your own ideas,” he steered the conversation elsewhere.
Connor nodded.
“It may sound silly, but our programming is similar to hunting dogs. While working in the DPD may be an appropriate amount of stimulation, a model like you must need way more. Maybe…”
He paused, processing. █
“Have you heard of something called a 'rage room’? Hank told me it’s a place where humans can relieve their stress by destroying things with hammers and a bunch of other stuff. Either that, or ripping apart things like stress balls. At the end of the day, is that not the core of your original prime directive? Who says it’s androids you have to destroy?”
█ ███████is to███████
████████
█
ov█r████ing…
“What if it doesn’t work?”
████████████████████
“There’s only one way to find out. I’ve also been curious about those rooms. Maybe we can go together. Or…”
████████
Something was pulled from Connor’s pocket; a small, round foam ball. It’d been used and slightly worn at the edges but otherwise in good condition.
“Or we can start smaller.”
Connor placed the ball in Nines’ hand, and of course it was examined further than it necessarily should've been, like it was anything other than a dense sponge. He suddenly wanted to put it in his mouth and chew.
Nines adopted his usual monotone cadence again. “Thank you. I will try to follow this advice.”
Connor watched him with a strange smile. Something cheeky lay in wait. His arm unexpectedly hooked around Nines’ shoulders and brought him into a sort of half-hug that warmed his face.
“You should rely on me more from now on, okay?” His tone was light hearted, until it gave way to something more raw. “You’re not broken. No matter what CyberLife told you.”
Nines flustered and looked away, too much vulnerability for one day. He pocketed the stressball and straightened his posture.
But he knew that he, too, might’ve regretted not having this talk with Connor.
They stayed on that bench long after their talk and watched the beginnings of snow float across Detroit’s horizon.
The stress ball lasted only a few hours.