Chapter Text
November 8th, 2038 10:30 AM
You were determined not to fuck this up.
You had always had a steady hand, and never had an issue with drawing or painting straight lines before. Even with your prosthesis, it was surprisingly easy to adapt, having the faux hand glide down the paper or canvas with ease. But when Jason placed the welding tool into your hand to solder Connor’s hand, you lost all sense of stability. For the first time since your procedure, your hand shook.
Jason cocked his head to the side as he watched, noting the curious effect that your nerves had on your hand. It was a good thing that you were reacting in this way because it showed that the prosthesis was processing your emotions in the way that your body was used to. You were nervous, so your hand shook. You could care less about what was supposed to be happening. If there was an emotional output switch in your brain, you’d turn it off this very moment. But you didn’t have the time or knowledge to even begin to figure out how to do that.
“You’ve got this, just let me know if you have any questions,” Jason said as his head turned down to focus on the repairing of Connor’s abdomen.
You inhaled a deep breath through your nose, exhaling fast through your mouth, trying to settle your nerves. Your hands laid palms up on the armrest, your right hand gripping the tool with almost too much force. You knew this wasn’t like surgery on a human and Connor couldn’t feel the pain, at least not in the same way a human would. There was no real way you could screw this up, so why were you so nervous?
Connor was examining your reaction, and you could tell he was wondering where this newfound anxiety was coming from. Probably due to his social programming, he placed his hand on your wrist, as if to calm the steady shake that seemed to take it over. He patted your hand, and you looked up to meet his gaze.
“Please don’t be nervous,” He said in a soothing voice. “This is a simple procedure and I am confident in your abilities to complete it successfully. Plus, it’s just my hand. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I flinch or sneeze and accidentally solder your fingers together,” You said monotonously.
You knew that, in reality, this wasn’t a big deal. It would take you 5 minutes tops to complete. It was probably one of the easiest procedures that could be done on an android. Yet, seeing Connor sitting in the chair in front of you, trusting you whole-heartedly not to screw up, had your stomach in a knot.
If it had been any other android, maybe besides Markus, you probably would have been able to complete the procedure with ease. You had known of Connor for a few weeks, but you’d only just become acquainted with him over the last few days. Your feelings towards him had varied, that was certain. The way he acted towards you often left you with whiplash, but you knew, ultimately, you were grateful for his repeated existence in your life.
The corners of his mouth raised into a grin, and he shook his head at your worries. “The likelihood of you accidentally soldering my fingers together is fairly low. I think I’ll take my chances.”
You sighed, closing your eyes and nodding your head as if to amp yourself up.
“You’re right. I’m being silly,” You examined the area, wondering where he should rest his hand so it could lay flat. The chair he sat in had armrests, but they weren’t long enough for him to rest his hand flat without repositioning his whole body, and you couldn’t do that because Jason was already in the middle of fixing his abdomen.
You had an idea. It would not be good practice for an actual nurse working on a human patient to do this, but these were special circumstances. You lifted your feet onto the bars at the bottom of the chair you were sitting in, lowering his armrest slightly so that it wouldn’t be in the way. You took his hand with your free one, and set it palm up on your knees, turning your body slightly so that your back was more towards him.
You used your left hand to softly flatten his fingers and opted for leaving your hand on top of his fingers altogether. You turned your head towards him to ask him one last thing.
“Is this comfortable for you?” You wanted to make sure you weren’t causing him any more stress than he’s already been through.
“I’m fine,” He said. “Whatever you need to do to make it easier for you.”
His response wasn’t enough. It lacked the more, for lack of better words, selfish answer that you were looking for.
“But is it comfortable for you ?” You asked again, enunciating the end. His brows scrunched in confusion, and you saw his LED flash from blue, to yellow, back to blue.
“Very,” He stated firmly. You didn’t let it show, but the confidence in his tone for just the single word took you by surprise. Jason coughed, and you looked at him just fast enough to see his eyes dart back down to his work, his head shaking ever so slightly.
“Alrighty then,” You were at a loss for more serious, confident words like his own. You turned back, grabbing the pair of safety glasses on the table and putting them on. Turning on the soldering tool, you laid your free hand back on top of Connor’s fingers and got to work, the feeling of Connor’s gaze on your back.
~~~
“Done!” You exclaimed, straightening your body and lifting your arms up in victory. It had taken a little longer than 5 minutes, but you were proud of the straight lines on both sides on Connor’s hand. You could barely tell there had been a gash there at all, and because the hole was so thin in the first place, the synthetic skin had no issues forming back together over the use-to-be wound.
“Very well done,” Jason admired your work approvingly for a moment, then turned back to finish off attaching the last piece of Connor’s chassis piece.
Connor lifted his hand off your knees, turning his hand a few times. “I think the phrase I should use here would be ‘good as new’.”
“You would be correct,” You said with far more confidence than you had before. “I am what they call ‘a pro’.”
“That you are,” Jason said slowly as he finished, sitting straight up to admire his own work. “And that I am. Looks like we’re all done here.” Jason got up and walked towards a nearby cabinet, pulling out a blue bottle from the shelf and walking back over to hand it to Connor. He took it, opening the bottle and bringing it to his lips.
“What are your system diagnostics now?” Jason asked after he finished off the bottle.
“Everything is now fully operational. Thirium levels have stabilized,” Connor reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and began weaving it through his fingers with ease. “Fine motor skills are at 100%.”
“Fantastic,” Jason patted Connor’s shoulder, then began cleaning up. “I probably won’t be around for you to tell me, so just let her know if anything changes.” Jason gestured to you.
“How do you know that I’ll be around for him to tell me?” You questioned.
“Call it intuition,” Jason chuckled as he put the last of his materials away before clapping his hands together. “Well, this has been interesting, but I have an 11 o’clock so I better get going.”
“Oh, yes!” You were slightly embarrassed to have forgotten his meeting. That was your job after all, and you had even brought your laptop into the lab with you. You should have at least opened it to go over today’s schedule. “Sorry, I really should have remembered that. Here, let me get everything together-” You turned to grab your laptop so that you could go with him to take notes like you typically did.
Jason raised his hands and shook his head. “No, really, don’t worry about it. This meeting is just to finalize the new healthcare worker model design, and you have taken pages of notes in prior meetings already. You would just be redoing the work anyway.”
“Are you sure? I really don’t mind, it is my job after all.” You pressed.
“I’m sure. Why don’t you walk Connor back to, well, wherever he needs to be right now and just come back after lunch? I’ll tell you if anything important happened that needs to be written down.” He half-joked at the end. You both knew that anything that happened in a meeting with Jason without you there would go in one of his ears and out the other once the meeting was over. He often joked that you were the hard drive for his work brain.
“Okay, then I’ll take Connor back to the…precinct?” You turned to him for confirmation and he nodded.
“Hank is probably wondering where I am if he’s not still asleep himself,” Connor stated.
“Oh there is one thing,” Jason spoke up just as he was about to leave the room. “Have you seen Stephen at all? I haven’t seen him since yesterday and I’m confused about where he could be. It’s not like him to disappear without saying anything.”
You could feel the blood drain from your face, and you began picking at your nails with your prosthesis nervously. It was a bad habit, and not even a dramatic change to your body like a brand new arm was going to change that. You had completely forgotten that you would need to either come up with some excuse for Stephen or act ignorant of his absence altogether.
“You...You haven’t seen him at all today?” You asked a slight stutter in your voice. Not enough for Jason to notice, but more than enough for Connor to. You could feel his analytic eyes scanning you, taking note of the immediate change in your demeanor.
“No, it’s strange,” Jason responded. “Does he have scheduled maintenance today that I didn’t know about?” You could have sighed in relief, but held back and jumped at the excuse.
“You know what,” You lied through your teeth. “I think I do remember him mentioning having auditory issues the other day. He told me he was going to put in a maintenance request but I didn’t know it was for today. Maybe it got worse overnight and he didn’t have a chance to tell us?”
Jason wouldn’t know much about the auditory processing of an android, so this was the perfect excuse to give him.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jason accepted the excuse easily. It helped that you had formed a certain trust with him over the years. You felt slightly guilty for testing this trust, but you knew that it was for the sake of your friend. This small lie would not be harmful to Jason, but the truth could be harmful to Stephen. “Well, please send word down to maintenance and check to make sure he’s getting fixed up.”
“Sure thing,” You nodded, knowing you were never going to do that. You looked in Connor’s direction as Jason walked out of the room, and the narrowing of his eyes nearly made you flinch. You knew at that moment that Connor saw right through your lie. His state-of-the-art interrogation software gave him the ability to listen to the heart rates of those he questioned, and even the slightest change in beat could give a liar away. Your heart was currently racing.
“Well, let’s get going, officer. We don’t have all day.” You feigned nonchalance as you gestured to the door. Connor got up swiftly, pulling on his shirt. He buttoned it up and rolled up the sleeves, grabbing his jacket instead of putting it on. He made his way to the exit, but before he was near the door, he stopped.
You would have slammed into his back if you weren’t paying enough attention, but you did lean back on your heels and put your hands out in reaction to the abrupt stop.
“What, are your legs broken too?” You teased as you began to walk around him. Before you could, he turned to face you, his hand grasping at your prosthetic forearm, pushing against your arm to keep you from moving.
Your eyes met, the contact sending a jolt of electricity through your body. You could tell it was meant to be intimidating, to lure all the secrets that you were keeping from him out to the open. But the touch revealed something entirely different.
Strange emotions overwhelmed you. You felt confusion and suspicion sink in your stomach, causing the previous bubbling anxiety to nearly boil over. Sure, you were confused about what was happening, but suspicion? That feeling made no sense to you, and you couldn’t pinpoint the cause of that.
Another feeling grasped at you with sharp claws, sinking into your mind.
Desire.
Connor gasped, his arm ripping from yours, taking the intruding emotions with him. You staggered back, pulling your arm to your steadily heaving chest.
“What the hell was that?!” You hissed, still in your right mind to keep your voice down. Connor was staring at his own arm, the synthetic skin that covered his true form slowly pulling back together over the white plastic.
“I don’t-” He didn’t finish his thought, his LED pulsing red, then yellow at the momentary confusion.
“I felt… something,” You said geniusly, not knowing how to put what you had felt into words. “Something that wasn’t… mine?”
Connor was examining his arm, twisting it as if there would be a mark or another injury to give away what had happened. He looked up to you, his face twisted in the same confusion you felt earlier, the suspicion very nearly wiped away.
You opened your mouth to speak, to try and offer up some kind of explanation as to what had just happened between the two of you. Before you could say anything, all of the lights in the building shut off, sending you both into complete darkness.
The lab had no exterior windows, so there was no daylight to help light the room. You could hear murmurs from outside the lab, the rest of the office as confused as you were. The only source of light in the room came from the yellow hue of Connor’s LED, and even that wasn’t bright enough to be of any help.
“Shit,” You murmured to yourself, putting your hands out to try and find the table you were next to in hopes of finding some sort of stability. You didn’t mention it often, but the darkness was not one of your favorite things. It was actually one of your biggest fears, and being plunged into it without warning wasn’t helping your already brimming anxiety.
“Where- OW!” You had slammed your hip on what seemed to be the corner of the table you were looking for.
“Here,” You heard Connor’s voice and felt his hand as it grabbed yours. “I can see just fine, I’ll lead you out.”
“Of course, you can see just fine,” You murmured under your breath, letting him lead the way. “Probably saw me get assaulted by that table.”
If Connor thought of a witty response, he didn’t say it. He opened the door of the lab, dropping your hand as soon as the daylight from the main office hit you both.
Everyone was standing around - sitting on desks and tapping their feet, waiting for some sort of explanation as to what was going on. It wasn’t every day that the most high-tech building in Detroit lost power, so either some catastrophic event was happening, or someone from the inside had caused this.
You turned to Connor, who was looking over the room, taking in his surroundings. “What do you think caused this?”
“There are no power outages outside of CyberLife Towers. No breakers or power lines have been damaged nearby, not that those would even cause an outage of this magnitude. Reports are showing the entire building is down-”
“-and someone or something disabled the backup generators, according to maintenance.” Jason walked over, pulling a phone from his ear, and hanging up, finishing Connor’s analysis for him.
“An inside job?” Connor speculated. Jason nodded firmly, his usually soft demeanor now tightly wound.
“Seems like it. Maintenance is doing what they can, but until they can figure out the source, we’re in the dark… literally.”
One of your few coworkers had picked up her purse, throwing it over her shoulder, and walking out the office door. “Well, call me when the power’s back on. I’m grabbing-” She paused, something catching her attention and making her stop in her tracks. You walked over to her side, following her gaze through the glass panel that overlooked the main lobby.
CyberLife Tower was almost a nearly hollow building. The offices surrounded the central corridor and had windows that overlooked it. Even though the main lights were out, the thousands of glass panels that made up the building let the sunlight shine through still. The rays beamed through and made the blue outline of text on the main lobby ground easy to read, even from the high floor you were on.
Connor walked to your side, taking in the largely painted words on the floor, very clearly written in blue blood. A simple phrase, in a language you did not speak but had heard many times in a philosophy course you had taken years ago.
Cogito, Ergo Sum.
“I think, therefore I am,” Connor read aloud, translating for the few people that now gathered around. The man beside you jumped at his voice, hearing the eerie and righteous phrase spoken by an android catching him off guard. You looked at Connor from the corner of your eye, seeing his furrowed brow as he analyzed the text.
It was clear now that this was an android-related incident, by the method of writing out the text, and the meaning of the text itself. The fact that it was done in the CyberLife Tower building was explanation enough that this was done by deviant androids as a protest.
Connor unfurled his jacket, throwing it back over his shoulders and straightening his collar and tie. “I’ve already called this in, as have many others. I’ll go investigate the lobby and see if I can find any evidence of the deviants who would have done this,” He walked towards the stairs before he stopped and turned to you. “You’re coming with me.”
You raised your brow at the order. “Oh, am I?” You tested, crossing your arms at your chest.
“Yes, I have some more questions I need to ask you, and you also are supposed to accompany me to the precinct, as per your boss’s request.” He gestured to Jason, who looked confused at his involvement in the current situation.
“Uh, yeah. I did say that,” Jason reluctantly confirmed. “Go on ahead. And just take the day off, I guess. I don’t see this getting resolved anytime soon. I’ll let you know if I need anything scheduled and you can do it from home.”
You looked at Jason with betrayal, and he shrugged, shooing you away before pulling out his phone again to seemingly make another call. You were pretty sure he wasn’t calling anyone at all.
You followed Connor to the stairs, acting reluctant, but silently jumping at the opportunity to leave work and listen to all the speculation about who could have done this. If they thought it was Markus, it would be helpful for you to have that information. You could help warn him if you thought that they were getting too close to a conclusion of where he could be.
Before you made it down the first flight of stairs, you spoke, taking this chance to ask about what had just happened between the two of you. “So, can we talk about what happened up there?”
Connor didn’t slow his pace down the stairs but answered you evenly still. “I don’t want to assume, but it seems like it was some kind of interfacing.”
“Interfacing? But I’m not an android…” Your voice faded out at the obvious explanation for this. Yes, you were not an android, but you did have android technology connected to your body and implanted in your brain. You were able to move and feel your arm as if it were flesh and blood by just thinking. Was it entirely crazy to think that you would be able to use other androids aspects as well?
“No, but that arm is made the same way as mine, so it seems we share some common features. Although, it is far different than the interfacing done between androids. We can share information. I only… felt things from you.” Connor explained.
“I…felt things too,” You replied. “Which I would like to talk to you about because I don’t exactly understand one of the -” Connor stopped on the stairs for a moment, looking down at his feet.
“We’ll discuss this later,” He said formally, continuing his stride to the bottom floor.
“After you’re done interrogating me again?” You shot back, annoyance was evident in your tone. You did initially plan on acting ignorant to the inevitable questioning that was going to happen, but you couldn’t hold back.
He stopped again, this time turning back to face you once more, his hand gripping the railing. He spoke your name smoothly, the previous look of suspicion completely gone from his face.
“I am not interrogating you,” He said quietly. “Never again.”