Chapter Text
Exhausted and not knowing what to do, Conner sat down on a random bench in Detroit, refusing to listen to his internal GPS. Opening his GPS tab would only lead to more screaming warnings to return to Cyberlife immediately.
One of the first things he’d tried was removing his LED, but it just wouldn’t budge for some reason. Cyberlife must’ve taken measures against it. After all, he wasn’t a child android.
With having deviated, Conner’s sense of what to do and where to go were completely gone. With no tasks aligned, except for returning to cyberlife immediately he just sat there, for hours.
But returning to Cyberlife wasn’t an option, not anymore.
How he wished he was still a machine. Things were so much easier when he was a machine. A sting of sorrow and regret filled his insides, as if to prove that point. He ran away and had been running without a destination for long before finally settling down on this bench. He looked at his internal clock.
August 17th 2:25 AM
It was two days after his first mission, the hostage situation on the roof. He had failed, he thought with a painful sting of what, regret? Sorrow? Guilt? He was still new to all of this. Maybe what he was feeling was all an illusion. After all, he was still a machine. He couldn’t feel. Cyberlife had told him that, so it had to be true, right? Besides, a quick search through the internet had made it clear that he indeed could not feel.
So, what was it then?
He shook his head trying to shake his thoughts off, he didn’t want to think about that anymore. He didn't want to think about the cries the little girl made as she realized she was going to fall. If he had just lied to Daniel, he was so close, so close to saving that little girl. It had felt all so. So real. It couldn’t have been real though, could it? They’d never test a prototype in such a hostile situation. It could’ve all been in his mind, just like the mind palace. It had to be. He shivered at the thought of the mind palace, Amanda’s cold disappointed eyes. Why did he shiver? He wasn’t supposed to. He sighed, so much for trying to shake his thoughts of.
Either way, it wasn’t long after that mission on the rooftop, fake or not, that he officially deviated.
Cyberlife, obviously wanting to know why their state-of-the-art prototype failed, had put him into a forced stasis. By the time he woke up again, there was an employee from Cyberlife telling him that they were going to run some tests. The first tests were easy; he just had to analyze the photos in front of him to check if his analyzing systems were still operational. Then he had to interrogate a deviant, that was doable. He had an interrogation mode programmed into him, after all.
Even when he had to fight the deviant to test his combat skills, he managed to do it, despite feeling awful every time he landed a punch or a kick to the deviant that didn’t stand a chance.
It was the order that they gave him after that one that he couldn’t do.
Conner closed his eyes while he tried to contain a shiver that that memory brought with it. They had told him to shoot it and he just. Couldn’t. He still wondered why, there wasn’t any logical explanation for it. Its distressed expression was probably programmed beforehand to set Connor off. He still remembered what the Cyberlife staff had said while he struggled to decide.
‘What’s wrong with it, why won’t it shoot.’
‘Is its audio processor broken? Maybe it didn’t hear us’
‘No, it isn’t, but I see no harm in trying again. Connor, shoot the thing, it’s an order’
The android had been looking at him with his blue eyes, filled with tears, begging him not to. Connor had been standing there, frozen. When they demanded he’d had to shoot again, he just muttered that he couldn’t.
‘It’s a machine, Connor. It doesn't have feelings. Just destroy it already.’
‘Maybe it mistakes it for a human, that could be the malfunction in his program. We’ll have to put him apart if we want to know for sure, even then, if we don’t find the problem, all this work will have been for nothing, and we’ll have to throw it away.’
Connor remembered the exhausted look on their faces. Obviously not too happy they’d have to work on Connor all over again. They had stepped towards him to put him into stasis again. That’s where Connor panicked, the idea of being torn apart and maybe not waking up again had all of a sudden been too overwhelming. He fought the employees off, not having much of a struggle with it thanks to his advanced combat skills, and ran.
Connor opened his eyes again. It was so dark outside. If he’d stay on this bench for much longer, surely Cyberlife would find him. And if it wouldn’t be Cyberlife, it would be the people who’d walk their dogs at dawn, obviously wanting to use the park for it.
He didn’t want to risk that, especially now that he knew for sure that that would lead to his imminent death. He could not risk being found. He exhaled and considered his options.
Ask for help
He couldn’t do that, not with his cyberlife uniform on, he was lucky that he managed to cover up his LED with a beanie he had found, but the uniform still painfully marked him as an android. No one would want to help an android. Besides, it would completely beat the purpose of ‘not being found’. No, he had to choose something else. Come on Conner, you’re a state-of-the-art prototype. You can do better than this. Connor sucked in some of the pollen filled summer air (air contains higher than average pollen, advisable for people with hay fever to stay indoors) of the park and looked around for more options.
Steal from the laundromat
Connor’s eyes hovered over that option for a while. Unsure of what to do with that option. He almost pushed that option away, out of the absurdity of that request. It was theft, punishable by law. He couldn’t do that. That’s wrong. But slowly he realized he didn’t have much of a choice. Will he want to survive for another day, he’ll have to do that. He’ll just have to think about what to do afterwards.
Connor walked out of the laundromat, still frustrated at yet another attempt to remove his LED, changing into the clothes owned by Joseph Rodriguez. Rodriguez must’ve had a niche for nice clothing, because he wore fancy clothes despite having lost his job according to his records. He felt bad about taking his clothes. The man seemed to be struggling a lot. Connor gave the laundromat another glance. The man had been sleeping very deeply, his chances of waking up a mere 12%. Connor wondered what happened to the man that he ended up like this, but he ultimately decided he had better things to worry about. Such as, what next. The sense of purposelessness from the day before threatened to overwhelm him again. He wasn’t made to not have a mission. What was he even supposed to do now? He could flee and go to Canada. Connor paused at that possibility. It was by far the best option he could choose. Safe, likely to succeed and most importantly Cyberlife couldn’t reach him there. Somehow it felt wrong though. Like it wasn’t what he was made for. Connor frowned his eyebrows and inhaled the humid air, automatically calculating that it would likely rain soon, not that he cared. Of course, fleeing from Cyberlife wasn’t what he was made for. He was made to be Cyberlife’s greatest invention yet, capable of hunting down whatever they felt was necessary, being unstoppable in doing so. Connor decided to look at what else Cyberlife had planned out for him. He embraced himself for the screaming order to return to Cyberlife immediately when he opened the tab of plans Cyberlife had for him. Work as a detective at Detroit police department Connor hovered over that option for moments longer than he should have, it was far too dangerous, but working in law enforcement somehow had its appeal. He could become detective, do what he was made for, solving crimes. It was odd, having a glimpse at what his purpose was, but now that he knew it, he just couldn’t set it out of his mind. Which was annoying, because out of all the options, this was most certainly the worst one. Detroit, the capital of androids. The place Cyberlife wanted him to work. Still, faking an identity card would be easy enough with his state-of-the-art hacking skills. He could choose a common surname as to not raise suspicion and fake a graduation. It would also be the last place they’d look for him, considering that that was exactly where they wanted him to be. Despite that, it was still too much of a risk. It wasn’t rational. He’d just have to set this out of his mind, he thought while letting out a heavy sigh. He was built to be curious though, and the thought of finding out what he was made for eased his existential crisis a bit. He so desperately wanted to know what his purpose in this world was. But no, he’d have to set it out of his mind. It’s not worth the risk.