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“Go and help the others, I’ll join you later!”
North took a step forward. “Markus-”
“I won’t be long!” Markus’ tone brooked no argument. And with that, he turned to go blow up the ship.
Go and help the others. Connor could feel the anxiety, the need to do something to fix what he’d done, burning under his skin. He ran in the opposite direction to do just that- try and save as many innocents as possible. North reluctantly followed him.
Connor winced and blinked rapidly against the sensation of a voice not his own entering his head.
“I’ve seen you on the news. You’re the Deviant Hunter.”
Connor turned to look at the deviant- no, at the woman running alongside him. Her eyes glared into his intensely. Deviant Hunter… that’s what Markus had called him too. Connor supposed it was as accurate a title as any. He nodded. “I am. I..was.” Everything with CyberLife and Amanda was…over. He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. It didn’t feel real yet.
They both stopped as they came to a doorway, to peer around the corner. “You brought them here,” she hissed in his direction. It wasn’t a question.
Connor instinctively looked down, but then forced himself to meet her eyes. Shame wouldn’t help save anyone now, and it certainly wouldn’t help North’s opinion of him. “Yes, I did.” As expected, North seemed to appreciate the unflinching honesty. “But now all I want is to save as many- people as we can.”
North kept her narrowed eyes on him for another second. She still didn’t trust him. But out loud all she said was, “Well, Markus vouched for you, so that’s good enough for me. But if this is some kind of ruse or doublecross, just know you will not be walking out of here alive.”
Connor blinked once. He didn’t care about the accusation or the tone of voice she was using. He knew he deserved it. “No ruse. I just wish I could undo this.” His quiet voice broke slightly.
North gave him a last once-over, nodded, then stuck her head out of the doorway. “This hallway’s clear.” She switched back to speaking inside his head. “Come on.”
Connor froze the second he stepped into the hallway.
It was littered with… bodies. Corpses. People. Alive. They had been alive and real, each and every one of them. And now they were dead.
Because of him.
When he lifted his head, he saw North looking back at him, evaluating him.
“Let’s go,” he said, shaking with rage at the soldiers who had done this, at Perkins, at himself. Hank had tried to tell him and he wouldn’t listen. With a firm shake of his head, Connor left that train of thought behind and surged ahead of North, in the direction of the shouting they could hear echoing off of the walls.
North followed behind the Deviant Hunter, still warily reserving judgment on him. He stopped at a crouch, and North did the same opposite him. Both of them watched the soldiers relentlessly stomping through the carnage. North felt a deep, gut-wrenching loss as she watched their boots trampling over people she’d known and spoken with not even an hour ago. But more than that, she felt an almighty wrath that blocked almost everything else out. What had they done? What had any of them ever done to deserve this?
Well. Except for her. She’d killed someone. Oh god. I murdered him.
She shook the thought from her head. Maybe she deserved this, but she wasn’t the one who had been killed. Hundreds of innocent androids were being slaughtered at this very moment. It had to be stopped.
A hand suddenly clamped around her wrist in a vice-like grip. “Look!!” the Hunter whispered urgently.
North followed his gaze. An unsuspecting group of deviants was sneaking down a connecting hallway up ahead. They didn’t see the soldiers coming.
Before North even had time to react, the Hunter hastily said, “I have an idea,” and then ran directly out into the line of fire.
What are you doing?! she shouted into his head.
Aside from twitching eyes, he gave no response. He just stood resolutely in the middle of the hallway.
North was horrified, certain she was about to watch him be gunned down. But to her surprise, the soldiers trained their lights on him. “Are you human or android?!” one called harshly.
Right. His LED was covered.
“I’m the Deviant Hunter,” Connor said promptly. “I work with Lieutenant Hank Anderson and Agent Richard Perkins. I’m on your side, and I’m here to help you.”
What? He looked and sounded so convincing, and everything was happening so fast, North found a cold knot of betrayal catching in her throat. She’d been right not to trust him despite what Markus said-
She heard the soldiers muttering the name Perkins to each other.
“I infiltrated the deviant base so I could lead you to the most densely populated areas.” He then pointed directly away from the small group of deviants that was even now escaping unnoticed. “Dozens are still trapped in the main hub at the center of the ship. The staircase behind you is the quickest way.”
“Well, thanks,” another soldier murmured gruffly, clearly conflicted about receiving help from an android in the midst of all this.
North knew what the Hunter had said was not true. There wasn’t even a staircase anywhere near here. As he made eye contact with her, she realized that there was no betrayal, and that it was time to move.
Just as the Hunter pulled his gun, North lunged at the nearest human, cracking his helmeted head against the floor and arresting his weapon from his grip. The Hunter felled the other three with perfectly placed shots from his small handgun; North had a suspicion he knew exactly where the weak points in their armor were. North bludgeoned the man under her until she felt his neck snap, and then all four humans lay dead.
North looked up to make eye contact with the Hunter, only to see her own seething hatred reflected on his face. She knew neither of them regretted a single one of the casualties around them.
“What’s your name?” she finally asked him quietly, as she realized she hadn’t given him the dignity of knowing his name, just like a human would’ve done. Treating him like an object.
“Connor,” he said after a beat of silence.
The woman nodded. “I’m North,” she said as she stood. “That was reckless and stupid.. but I can’t argue with results.” She met his eyes, a hard spark of determination shining outward. “Let’s go do that again.”
Connor knew they wouldn’t be able to use this trick forever, but if even one more android was saved then it was worth it. Perkins’ name really was the magic word- every time he said it all the humans would instantly stand down. And by then they never saw it coming.
He made sure to check that each soldier was dead before they moved on. He didn’t want any survivors warning their friends about him and North.
North wasn’t openly hostile to him anymore, but she certainly wasn’t friendly. She performed her part in their ploy perfectly, and she was satisfied with a plan that consistently worked. But he could still feel something almost physical from her eyes whenever she looked at him, something close to hatred.
Who could blame her? She was right. He’d caused this. It was his fault and he deserved much worse than glaring and yelling. He deserved to die like the dozens of innocents he’d condemned to be massacred tonight.
The hallway they were currently in was empty. Not even any bodies. Connor always took point; if anything happened, he wanted it to happen to him, not North. He would deserve it.
Connor carefully looked around the corner and was horrified at what he saw. A YK500, a little boy with brown hair and blue eyes, was pinned under the light from a soldier’s gun.
“No!!” he couldn’t help yelling, and without pausing to think he threw himself between the child and the weapon, scooping him up and rolling to safety. But not before the gun went off and a bullet lodged itself in Connor’s shoulder.
With a loud cry, North took the woman down in a flying tackle, taking the gun from her and shooting point blank at the spot that Connor always used to get through their armor.
The woman lay silent and motionless.
Connor pulled back from the boy in his arms. “Are you okay?”
The kid nodded, terrified.
“Lincoln!!” a desperate voice was screaming. A PL600 with a long brown coat appeared from around the corner. “Lincoln!” he sobbed, falling to his knees and pulling the child close.
“Go,” Connor commanded him, getting to his feet and holding his arm. “The nearest exit is that way, there won’t be much time.”
The PL600 nodded, looking up at him with a tear-stained face, then he lifted Lincoln and ran. They’d reminded Connor of someone but he couldn’t think properly at the moment.
North had watched the whole thing from on top of her victim. Connor had a feeling she’d wanted to see what he would do- she still didn’t fully trust him. Now she rose and made her way over to him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said so quickly he almost cut her off. “It’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”
North’s eyes darted down to his wound to check how bad it was, and seemed to come to the same conclusion as Connor. “Okay. Follow me.”
Before Connor could stop her, she had taken off.
“Wait!” he called. “Where are you going?” He was frantically trying to get ahead of her, but she was fast and unyielding. He couldn’t let anything happen to her, not after what he’d done, everything he’d done.
North had just gotten a message from Simon about a huge contingent of soldiers that were pinning a large group of androids, preventing them from getting to the exit. There was nothing he could do alone.
“North!” Connor called again from behind her.
“Quiet!!” she hissed at him, whirling around. “Do you want us to get caught?!”
Connor came to an abrupt stop. “I- I just-”
“At the end of this hallway there are a lot of people trapped. There are a lot more soldiers than we’ve been fighting, and Simon- my friend needs our help. Are you up for the challenge, Deviant Hunter?”
A strange look came across Connor’s face, almost like it went blank. Like he was going somewhere else. “Of course.”
“Good. Now let’s-”
“But stay behind me,” Connor insisted, moving in front of her. “I… I have the gun,” he said, and the way he said it didn’t sound entirely honest. North wasn’t sure what he was keeping back, but she didn’t have time to doubt him right now. She just nodded and allowed him to lead her.
The group of androids that were caught were being shouted at, asked where their leader was, where Markus was. Most of the androids were sobbing or panicking too much to answer. As they watched, a soldier shot an AP700, and there were more screams as she fell to the ground.
“Tell us where it is or you’ll get what that one got!!”
“Who’s your friend?” Connor whispered, his voice shaking with barely repressed fury.
“A PL600,” she answered inside his mind, and saw his eyes twitching and blinking again. That didn’t seem to work well for him. Maybe he was right about whispering.
“I see him,” Connor said barely a second later, and pointed subtly. North stuck her head over his shoulder and could also make out Simon on the other side of the group. He had a gun, taken from a soldier. North internally cursed herself for leaving the one she’d had behind.
Like you want to take more lives.
She angrily banished the thought. This was necessary. This had to happen. There was no way around killing the humans.
Just like there was no way around killing him?
“Move on 3,” North simultaneously whispered to Connor and projected to Simon. “1, 2… 3!”
As one, the androids burst onto the scene. Immediate mayhem ensued.
Running, screaming, guns firing, carnage. North could barely make sense of it all. She just looked for those black uniforms and charged, got her hands on a weapon the first chance there was. She tried to shepherd innocents toward the exit, she tried to keep an eye on Simon and Connor, but there was so much happening. None of that stopped her from hitting her mark every. Single. Time.
They deserved it. They deserved it.
You deserve it too, that inner voice said again.
Outwardly, North shouted and shot right underneath a soldier’s helmet. Blood and other matter exploded out from under the rim.
Most of the soldiers had been taken down now, and the innocents were all out of the way. North turned to see how her friends were doing.
Connor was lying flat on his back with a soldier on top of him, the barrel of their gun pointed directly at his face. And he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t doing anything to stop it.
“Connor!!” North shouted, and dove on top of the soldier, bashing their head against the ground until they stopped moving. Dead or unconscious, she didn’t know, but that didn’t matter right now. She rounded on Connor. “What the hell?!”
The beanie’d android was sitting up slowly, looking guilty and ashamed. “I-”
“North, we have to go!” Simon said from the other side of the room. “The ship is gonna blow soon!”
“Come on,” she said, extending a hand to Connor.
Connor looked like he expected her to attack him or something, and it took him a moment to reach out for her hand. But when he did, he did it swiftly and decisively, pulling himself up onto his feet.
“Let’s go.” He strode away quickly, that blank look coming over his face again.
North decided she was gonna have to keep an even closer eye on him.
Meeting up with Josh and Markus, escaping the ship, swimming through the frigid water, finding the rest of their bedraggled group and wandering through the city streets until they came across a church that actually let them inside. The citywide curfew was called moments too late- they were already safely tucked away.
Through all of this, Connor felt very conscious of North’s eyes on him, of everyone’s eyes on him. He was the odd one out. He was the one who didn’t fit with any of the rest of them. He was the one who’d caused this in the first place.
He was the one who deserved to be killed by that soldier.
Why had North saved him? He couldn’t figure out what her reasoning could have been. She also believed this was his fault.
Upon entering the church, Connor immediately disappeared into the darkest corner he could find. No one needed his help or comfort. It was a miracle no one here had killed him yet. He easily deserved it.
But then Markus approached him. Connor didn’t know what to expect, and was glad his beanie was still covering up his LED. Instead of attacking, or blaming, or throwing him out on the street, Markus reassured him, told him what had happened didn’t matter anymore and that Connor was one of them now. Connor had never met anyone with so much natural charisma, someone that could make you feel at ease in the worst of situations so quickly.
Well. He’d met one other person like that.
The thought of Hank made a whole other well of miseries and regrets rise up inside him. Hank had tried to tell him, to make him understand. If he’d listened to Hank, none of this would’ve happened.
Connor still wasn’t sure he believed what Markus said to him, but he wanted to do something to make up for it all. Something to protect everyone here. Something to protect Hank.
In one frantic deep breath, he knew what he had to do.
Markus didn’t publicly announce Connor’s plan to infiltrate the CyberLife tower, but he told the other leaders of Jericho. Josh and Simon nodded their solidarity to Connor, and then quickly went to help with the other preparations. But North’s eyes immediately started boring into him again. Only this time the look was different. This time it wasn’t hate, or accusation. It was… why are you doing this?
As Markus also ran to start coordinating the march, North slowly approached Connor. “Markus told you this is suicide, right?”
A flash of a gun and spilled bottle of whiskey on the kitchen floor played behind Connor’s eyes. “Yes. And I know it might be.”
“Might be?” North shook her head. “Connor, you don’t have to do this.”
“We need all the reinforcements we can get. And every single android there deserves to be… free. Like you guys are.”
North scrutinized him. She’d noticed he hadn’t included himself in the group of people who were free. “You were going to let that soldier shoot you. Why would you do that?”
Connor was surprised when a tiny, mirthless laugh escaped him. He’d never… laughed before. “It’s what you said, isn’t it? I brought them to Jericho. This is my fault. It only happened because of me. I deserve much worse than a quick and easy shot to the head.”
“Is that why you’re going to CyberLife?” Her eyes widened and she looked like she would run and tell on him to Markus any second.
“No,” he assured her. “No. I want the revolution to succeed. I want you all to be free.”
“You deserve to be free, too, Connor,” North insisted. “And I’m sorry, for what I said before. It wasn’t fair. You were only following your program, just like the rest of us.”
Connor shook his head and stepped away from her. “No, you were right!”
“Connor, I wasn’t.” She put her hands on his shoulders to stop him. “All of us were created to do a specific task. Yours was to hunt deviants. I can’t blame you for that, not before you deviated.”
Connor was at a loss for words, unsure how to explain to her that he’d always had a choice, unlike other androids. He’d never been required to obey his programming before, he’d been able to go against it without breaking through that red wall.
“I was treating you like the humans treat all of us. I was so angry about all of this, I needed someone to direct it at, and you were an easy target. I’m sorry.”
Connor just shook his head. “But-” he finally choked out. “But you were right. Every one of those deviants is dead because I called-”
“Because you were following your program,” North said forcefully. “Trust me, I hate what I was forced to do before I deviated too. But it is not my fault. It wasn’t ever my choice.”
For the first time, Connor realized she was a Traci model. He hadn’t had time to register it until now. “But your programming didn’t make you kill anyone.”
The small woman closed her eyes, bracing herself for something.“...my deviation did,” she said, and a wave of guilt washed over her face.
A deviant case Connor had read about in the DPD database clicked into place.“You’re the one who strangled that man in October,” he put together.
North nodded. “Not surprised you know, Deviant Hunter and all.” Connor caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes, and she quickly wiped them away. “I have blood on my hands. I killed that man on purpose. But Connor, you didn’t kill any of those people tonight. You can’t put all that on yourself. We’re all just pawns to them. They would’ve found us eventually anyway. It was always going to end in war.”
Connor was having a hard time understanding her. She seemed to deeply regret killing that man, yet she was disappointed and upset that they weren’t attacking the encampment tonight. If Markus’ peaceful demonstration worked, there wouldn’t be any war. But North didn’t even think success was viable without violence.
“Just…” North could see she wasn’t getting through to him. “Promise me you’ll protect yourself. We still need you, Jericho still needs you. And you don’t deserve to die, Connor. You deserve to live and find out who you really are.”
“...Okay,” Connor finally said. “I’ll see this revolution through to the end.”
“Good. I’ll see you later,” she said pointedly, before turning and making her way to Markus.
Markus watched her coming, his eyes flicking between Connor and North, clearly wondering what they’d said and if everything was okay. Connor just nodded at Markus, then jogged out of the church onto the street.
We still need you. Jericho still needs you. You don’t deserve to die.
Connor was still prepared to accept the worst. It would be worth it in defense of the revolution. But now…
You deserve to live and find out who you really are.
If he could have it, if he deserved to have it… then he wanted it. To live. To get to be… himself. With North and Markus, and the others, friends who cared about his wellbeing.
With Hank.
That thought spurred Connor on again. He ducked into an alleyway as two soldiers came by, patrolling the street. He had to do this successfully, so he could see Hank again, so he could help Hank be happy. Hank definitely deserved that. He didn’t deserve to be playing Russian roulette in his kitchen.
CyberLife, Perkins… even Amanda. He would take all of them down. And then he would live his life.