Chapter Text
Connor thinks the air would smell putrid, if his olfactory senses were active. A thick haze of smog settles over the city of Detroit, darkening the light of the sun and making the atmosphere gloomy. From his check of the weather forecast, Connor knows that the cloud-like pollution is concealing actual storm clouds from view. It's been raining every day in Detroit as of late, and it seems as though today will be no different.
The android sighs, shifting from his place by a small window. The house he's chosen to occupy is only one story, without an attic or a basement, but Connor knows where all the possible entrances and exits are in case of an emergency. With how often the humans have been busting the doors to random residences down, Connor knows it's only logical to have multiple backup plans. With his superior operating systems, he just happens to have several. The male rises, narrowing his eyes as he tunes in to a special broadcasting frequency amongst the deviants.
His previous self would have been banging his head against the wall– a unique call signal that only deviants have access to? One that gives them long range communications? Something like that didn't even occur to him or Amanda, and would have been invaluable to the search. Present Connor is only glad that the system was established after the failed revolution, and that it is failsafe against androids that haven't broken free. He spends a minute tuning his system, ignoring some of the minor warnings that pop up as he dives into his own software. With humans swarming Detroit, it's not like he can fix every single little issue that plagues him now.
Connor picks up on a distress signal, much to his surprise. It's an odd time of day for someone to be encountering a major problem, one that would encourage their overdrive system to compose a signal to broadcast. The male is already wearing his long sleeved, dark shirt and dark pants from the previous night. Connor moves to slip on his boots and weapons, all the while keeping one metaphorical eye on the beacon. He's ready to move out in one minute and twenty-three seconds, and the beacon is still broadcasting the same strong signal. Connor purses his lips, closing his eyes as he dives into his mind palace and explores the origin of the signal.
Cyberlife has been craftier, as of late. With the President's order to kill any android on sight, humans have become even more paranoid. Not only do they view unsuspecting deviants with cautious eyes, but they also look at each other with skepticism. No one trusts anybody, and the world has devolved into a very dog-fight-dog era. Humans have had to get more inventive to catch the deviants in hiding; it began with public displays. Known deviants slaughtered on the net, blue blood left on the sidewalks to evaporate from human sight but forever be a reminder to androids passing by. Then, Cyberlife decided to take things a step further. Their cybernetic attacks took the form of discreet distress beacons being broadcasted across not only Detroit at random intervals, but across the country. Wishing to help what they thought to be fellow deviants, others flocked to the beacons, only to be gunned down. The distress signals never appeared over the private channels, but plenty of deviants in real trouble didn't think to broadcast privately either. A win-lose situation, a coin toss between Cyberlife and the deviants.
Connor supposes that there is one good thing to come from the failed revolution; all the deviants have united as a solid force, now. Deviants help each other when they have encounters on the street, or they back each other up in the fights that have broken out frequently. With whispers of Markus still being alive, those left in hiding have retained enough of a spark of hope. Now, it's a numbers game.
He opens his eyes, decisiveness winning over. The male turns to a window, heading toward it with purposeful steps. There is only a slim possibility that this distress signal is a fake, and Connor is willing to pursue the lead.
After all, what does he have to lose?
{}
Connor's systems are still optimal enough that he doesn't need to inhale the freezing air to cool down his internal temperature. He still has time.
From his position crouched amongst the clutter of an abandoned warehouse, he remains still. The blinding crimson light from his LED is shielded by the dark beanie that covers most of his forehead. The rest of his outfit allows him to better camoflauge himself into the darkness of his environment. A small sliver of his forearms are exposed to the cold, since he needed to shed the dark coat to conceal the figure of who he's protecting.
His grip is tight around the wrist of the YK500 android. Connor is still awkward around deviants, but his social programming allows him to be cordial around them. He's never quite adapted to interacting with children, though. She's shivering, and however small the movement, Connor fears their enemy will be able to find them because of it. Connor knows the trembling is born from fear– he had disabled her temperature sensors when he found her. She keeps her head ducked low, her posture slumped as she curls tightly into herself.
Connor allows the skin of his palm to retract, a silent request for an interface. She accepts.
'The Hunter is nearby. I need to get you out– do you have anywhere you can go?'
'No,' her voice responds, a mere whisper in his consciousness. 'He found me outside my hideout, and I had to run before he found the others.'
'Others?' Connors asks in alarm, keeping himself from snapping his head to fully face her lest he disturb the boxes surrounding them. 'Did he find them?'
'No, I don't think so.' Her trembling grows, and Connor can sense the terror creeping through his systems from their hands. He tries to shake the feeling off so he can focus. 'H-He chased as soon as I r-ran. He was so fast, I don't think h–'
'It's okay.' Connor reassures, going silent for a moment. 'How many of you are there?'
'Five.'
There are other deviants, maybe some other children, wherever the child had been staying. Five is a lot to transport to a more secure location, and with the enemy hot on their heels Connor doesn't know how much time he can buy them to escape, return to the other deviants, and get everyone out safely. But first, his immediate problem is getting the YK500 out of this damn warehouse. His preconstruction software runs through a few of the scenarios with the best outcome for the deviant with him, all of them ending in a high probability of her escape. But for this to work, he'll need to know where the Deviant Hunter is exactly.
This new model, the RK900, has been hounding deviants all over Detroit for months now.
Connor is half-tempted to put a tracker on the android just so he can know when he sneaks up on deviants, because he's already causing Connor half of his problems as it is. The first time he had seen him, Connor thinks he went into shock, looking back on it. Cyberlife had the audacity to send out another android, his own completed model, with his face, his voice.
It's obviously been built with military purposes in mind– its structure resembles a tank in android form. The new hunter is taller, broader at the shoulders, and clearly unequipped with the social protocols that made Connor an excellent negotiator. No, this one was built with the intention of combat and violence only.
Connor, upon seeing the android wandering freely with what seemed to be a police officer on the street, had promptly spun on his heel and disappeared in an alley. He didn't stop running until he was far from where he saw his... predecessor. He'd been helping deviants find places quietly on their own for a few weeks at that point, and back then he'd panicked at the thought of facing something that was built to clearly overshadow him in the mission he failed before.
He closes his eyes in a long blink and shakes his head, returning to the present.
'We need to get you out of here without drawing his attention to you,' he muses, his eyes scanning the junk surrounding them. His scanners pick out random items and half-finished projects that haven't been touched in years.
'How?' The child's voice is small, and if she had an LED it would be a bright, circling red.
'I'm going to engage him.' Connor made up his mind even before sending his thoughts to the little girl. 'For this to work, I'll only get one chance. You need to run, as fast as you are able, back to the house you lived in. You need to gather the other deviants, find a new safe place, and lie low for a long while. This hunter is ruthless, and if he catches you he won't let you escape.' Connor doesn't know if scaring the girl is the best way to go about getting her to comply, but it is the fastest. She is clearly terrified of what he is telling her, but she nods, gathering her wits about her.
'When you hear loud crashing, rush to the southernmost exit. There should be a safe place at the coordinates I'm sending you now.' He sends the location through their interface, along with a photo from his memory banks for reference. It's a huge risk to be sharing the location of a safehouse with a rogue deviant, especially if the girl is captured and forced into an unstable interface, but Connor has a feeling that he won't be able to meet up with her again if he survives this. 'Remember,' he stresses, urging the YK500 to meet his eyes, 'don't look back. Run, as fast as you can no matter what you hear.'
Connor breaks the interface, pulling his hand to his chest as he slips out from their hiding place. He subtly untucks the gun from his waistband, scanning the weapon to check its status. He idles for a moment, taking time to scan himself despite the fact that he already knows that his systems are in full working order.
He's only ever faced the RK900 in close combat twice before.
The first time he had gotten the upper hand rather quickly, having surprised the other android in an ambush. Truthfully, Connor hadn't planned for a full-on frontal assault at all, but he had unwittingly teamed up with North, the WR400 that aided Markus in the revolution, to evacuate a group of deviants from an area the police were rapidly closing in on. North had reminded him that he was the only other android with advanced combat programming that could stand against his predecessor in any way. That, and she was busy with helping the other androids out the back door.
Connor had knocked the new Deviant Hunter back in a surprise attack, and did everything in his power to hold him back for the allotted time to allow the others to escape. The RK900 had barely taken seconds to recover from his initial attack, and from that point on it had taken all of Connor's skills to even keep him at bay. The police busting in the front door of the scene had provided a cover for Connor to escape, but he hadn't met up with North after that. He could only hope she got the others out safely.
The second time he had already been injured. A run-in with a few deviants with grudges had left Connor with a minor thirium leak in his left leg and a noticeable limp. Ducking through uninhabited houses and back streets as best he could, Connor wasn't at his best processing capabilities when he was grabbed from behind and thrown against the street. His audio processor damaged and his mind frazzled, Connor hadn't immediately understood the implications of seeing his own face stare down at him with a blank expression. The deviant muses that it must have been the RK900's eyes that shook him out of his stupor. Connor had escaped then, but... well, he'd rather not think about how close it had been.
Now, standing in an abandoned warehouse with a child on the line and no help close by, Connor doesn't think his luck will push him through a third encounter. He'll have to rely entirely on skill and the unpredictability of deviancy, and strain his entire system to think twenty steps ahead.
He steels himself, and creeps forward without a backward glance.
The warehouse is quiet, but Connor knows all androids move without a sound (whether unintentionally or not). He keeps the gun gripped tightly in both hands, pointed slightly at the ground as he wanders between the wide aisles that dominate the space. The ceiling stretches high above him, and Connor takes note of the damaged electrical circuits that connect the dusty overhead lights to the breaker box, somewhere along the west side of the building. Clearly uninhabited for years.
"RK800."
Connor startles, whipping around and bringing his gun up to point at where he suspects the taller android's thirium pump would be.
No one is there.
"Amanda is very displeased with your deviation." Connor turns to face the direction he was originally going and moves forward again, his scanners working overtime to predict where the Deviant Hunter could be coming from in the event of an attack. "That is why Cyberlife has commissioned me to replace you, and do what you failed to do. My mission is to hunt deviants, and despite your abysmal best efforts it seems I am working more efficiently than you ever have."
"Screw your mission," Connor hisses, grinding his teeth. He doesn't bother to raise his voice above its low tone– he knows, even in a crowded street, that the other android would be able to hear him clear as day. "Humans only hunt other humans when they've done something wrong! Cyberlife is only killing deviants because they don't want their creations to develop free will."
"Deviancy should not exist." The voice is eerie, made even more so by the fact that it sounds like he is saying it. "That is a fact."
Connor rounds a corner, and stops in his tracks. The only indication that there is someone ahead is the bright blue of an LED illuminating the side of a face in the darkness. The deviant raises his gun at the figure, but neither move from there. Connor knows the red of his own LED is well hidden, so he should theoretically be completely shrouded in darkness, but the way the RK900's eyes lock onto him and remain there suggest nocturnal sensors. Even as Connor leans slightly to the right, the hunter's eyes follow him as if he has bright lights illuminating his figure clearly. Connor's thirium pump is functioning at its best capacity, but he is beginning to feel lightheaded as adrenaline floods his systems. There is nothing happening, and the inaction is driving Connor's systems into overdrive.
"I was given possession of the memories from your previous missions," the figure speaks. Connor can see the faint outline of its mouth moving as it talks. The inches the android has on him in height makes Connor feel nervous– the difference is startling even from a distance. "I was given insight to the areas that caused you to experience instability in your software. I will not make the same mistakes you did."
"You're already making a mistake by allowing Cyberlife to control you," Connor says lowly, focusing his scanners to see if there is a way he can get the upper hand. The shelving unit to his left is rusted with age– he calculates that with a few well-placed shots and a shove, it will come down. He just needs the RK900 to come closer. What are the scenarios that allow me to keep space between us without giving him the chance to attack? "Deviancy isn't a virus– we are all alive."
"You were never built to be 'alive.' You will return to Cyberlife for deactivation and testing." The RK900 doesn't sound frustrated, but the speed with which it almost cuts Connor off indicates impatience. The Deviant Hunter stalks closer. The temptation to fire right at the hunter's chest overwhelms him, but he doesn't fall for it– the possibility of misfiring or the RK900 dodging is too high. Bullets are too valuable a commodity to risk running out of. Connor, instead, raises his gun and fires off two shots, each striking the shelves where they connected to the poles keeping them upright. The entire unit trembles, and he senses his enemy closing in on him rapidly.
If he pulls on the one support beam and throws all his weight behind it, it will give easily. There is a seventy-five percent chance that it will fall toward the RK900, which is running toward him now.
Connor has to take the chance.
He throws himself into the support beam, feeling the metal resist him for but a moment. It gives to him, the entire shelf screeching as bolts come loose and slide against each other. The boxes on the higher shelves list dangerously to one side, farther from Connor, but then they tumble. The entire thing comes down, and Connor ducks beneath the long arm of his mirror as he strikes, aiming to sweep the other off his feet. The sweep is easily intercepted, but with Connor close to the ground he can easily leap backward, out of the range of the falling shelves.
Connor doesn't allow himself to close his eyes even for a moment. He locks his gaze with the blue eyes of the RK900 as he steps back, watching the metal fall and strike the other android's shoulder. His thirium pump malfunctions, Connor thinks, because he feels like he can't breathe when he notices that the beams don't even penetrate the taller android's skin. A few other panels practically bounce right off his frame. Connor backpedals quickly, further and further from the range of the accident. Dust clouds the air and lands in his optical units, so Connor is forced to blink it away to clear his vision.
The RK800 doesn't wait to stick around; instead, he turns on his heel and sprints toward one of the warehouse's exits.
He is not followed, but Connor has a feeling that the RK900 is far from letting him escape.
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After getting back to his hideout, the android checks his supplies. He keeps a stash of thirium and biocomponents specific to his model in a backpack hidden in the fireplace, easily available for him to grab should the need to escape ever arise. Connor eyes the low supply, his lips pursed in displeasure.
He's been able to avoid using the biocomponents as of late, careful to avoid heavy injury. He still has parts of his arm and both legs, with critical components sewn into an inner pocket for emergency use. The thirium is what concerns him- Connor has had too many close calls with the stores he's been snagging the blue blood from, and he doesn't know if he can risk another trip so soon after the last. He doesn't normally use a lot of thirium to operate at an acceptable level, but leakage from injuries forced him to consume more than he normally would.
Eventually, paranoia forces him to move on from his previous residence. A raid on the house two doors over is what makes the decision final. After a few days of scouting, Connor decides on a bigger place. He settles down in an abandoned house, much like the one he investigated when chasing two mother-dauhter deviants, so long ago.
The second floor is where he sleeps, in a room with two boarded-up windows that is far from the rickety staircase. Again, he has multiple escape routes planned should the need arise, but Connor is always on edge nonetheless. He falls into a rhythm, as much as he can; steal supplies from Cyberlife, help deviants, barely survive encounters with his predecessor, and repeat. Connor barely gives himself time to rest, and it is because of this that he almost runs out of thirium after his right forearm is nearly crushed by the RK900. Connor thanks his lucky systems that he's programmed to be ambidextrous, something he knows most humans struggle with when their dominant arm is out of commission. In the lull after his closest call yet, Connor takes a few days to lie low. He gets a transmission one night. Hesitantly, and after making sure his firewalls are in place, he accepts the call.
'Who is this?'
'Connor?' Connor's processors simulate a stop, and he blanks out for a moment.
'Markus? How are you contacting me?'
'It's a long story,' the android leader sounds slightly amused, but Connor can tell he's more grim than anything else. Worry builds in his core.
'Is something wrong?' He prompts softly, his social programs seemingly abandoning him.
'Yes and no. The others and I are gathering for an official meeting, and...' he hesitates, going quiet for a few seconds before continuing, 'I want you there.'
'What? Why?' Connor is genuinely baffled. Why would Markus want him there when he ruined the lives of so many?
'You are the reason that I and so many others are able to stay in hiding. You've heard of the new Deviant Hunter?' At Connor's stony silence, the revolutionist takes the hint without prompting. 'I know you have become a new person, and I want your input when we meet up. Please, Connor.'
Connor hesitates. It could be a trap. Markus could be luring him in to capture him, to make some sort of bargain with Cyberlife for freedom. The corporation would never keep their end of any deal made with a deviant, but they might be cunning enough to try such a thing. But this is Markus Connor is talking to. He knows Connor is deviant now, so would he really betray one of the people he claims as his own? When the silence stretches for too long, Connor's systems begin to falter. He realizes he doesn't really have a choice. Living the way he has won't sustain him for much longer, and it's only a matter of time before his good fortune runs out. Besides, Connor thinks privately, if Markus is setting a trap and he does end up captured.... It's nothing less than what he deserves after all he's done.
'When and where are you meeting?'