bindsthedead

PSL

There was a time when Sabriel might have been eager to see the inside of Cyberlife Tower. Her class had been to Detroit when she was thirteen, and they'd toured an android factory- or the part of it they showed to tourists, at least- and visited museums and art galleries and all the sorts of things Young Ladies ought to see, but weren't available in the small town of Wyverley, or in Bain.

But Sabriel wasn't here for a school trip. Recent events in Ancelstierre meant that with the sudden loss of all android soldiers meant that soldiers from the entirely human garrison at the Wall had been transferred elsewhere- which meant fewer soldiers watching the border, on top of the losses from Kerrigor's attack, and a necromancer had slipped across, making his way to the largest city that was close enough to the Wall that magic still worked- one that seemed rather different than how she remembered it.

But what was occupying most of her attention was the Cyberlife representative in front of her. Sabriel listened politely as the woman spoke about malfunctioning machines and simulated emotions and how things that weren't alive couldn't die, so why would a necromancer- and from the woman's voice it was clear she didn't believe such things were real- want with deactivated androids?

Sabriel stood up and shook the woman's hand, telling her she'd been very helpful without meaning a word of it, and headed out the office before pausing.

She sensed something ominously familiar- Death, and a recent one at that. She turned another corner, following the sensation as a hound tracked a scent, half-expecting someone to spot her, to see her in her armor and bells (security had made her check her sword at the front desk) and tell her she wasn't allowed to be here.

But no one came, and no one living was in the laboratory she went into- just a dead- (deactivated?) android on a table-or its head and torso at least, with panels on its chest removed to reveal tubes and biocomponents, and Sabriel felt she'd stepped into a morgue and found an autopsied body.

Sabriel was seized by a sudden impulse. If androids weren't alive, then she'd simply waste some time, but if they were... well, she'd have a source of information she could interrogate as she would any Dead spirit. And unlike the representative she'd just spoken to, she could force it to answer honestly and completely.

Decision made, Sabriel undid the straps and drew Saraneth from the bandolier. This far from the Wall, stepping into Death took a deliberate effort, but soon Sabriel was in the First precinct and she cast around with her senses, trying to feel out the spirit of the android- if it had one, it couldn't have gone beyond the First Gate, and probably shouldn't be that far into the the First Precinct.

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"No," Sabriel agrees, already reaching back into the Charter for the first marks of the memory spell, as Craven watches curiously. "You didn't."

"You're making the right choice- when all is said and done, you'll be a very rich young lady."

Craven's grinning, his nerves apparently soothed by his relief at being healed- and his belief that Sabriel has accepted his bargain, even as Sabriel's spell takes shape in her hands- a circle of magic, marks of memory and forgetting twisting around each other, forming a circlet of marks just the right size to fit around a man's head- and with a single, quick motion, Sabriel places it on Craven's, watching as his expression goes unfocused before she lets herself scowl.

"No one visited you. You were alone this entire time."

"No one visited me," Craven repeats, slurring the words slightly, like he's had a little too much to drink, "I was alone this whole time."

"When the nurses didn't come, you fell asleep," Sabriel adds, reaching back into the Charter for the simplest, easiest sleep spell she knows. She doesn't need Craven's sleep to be dreamless, or revitalizing, or full of pleasant dreams or nightmares, or to be especially deep or long- all she needs is for him to fall asleep long enough for them to leave the room.

"When the nurses didn't come, I fell asleep." Craven agrees as the marks from the first spell slip into his head, and Sabriel flings the sleep spell at his face.

Sabriel doesn't speak as Craven's eyes close and his breath evens out- instead, mouthing we'll talk outside before she swings the door open, motioning for both of them to follow her- and giving Connor- the one that's hers- a deeply apologetic look.

The healing is a surprise. The act that follows? Not at all. Connor watches, expression utterly impassive, as Abhorsen wills the marks into existence. He catalogs the shape and function of her spell, and logs to memory the short excuse that she provides.

It's much more useful, certainly, than acknowledging his predecessor's stare.

Does the deviant expect him to interfere? Or does it believe it can gain information? In either case, it will be disappointed. Connor knows no more than the other unit. One hand moves across his body, straightening a displaced sleeve. It doesn't take Abhorsen long to finish, and he meets her look with rote acknowledgement. Connor pauses only a moment on his way out the door—to turn the IV's flow back on.

Connor watches the spell, and his face tightens as he sees it take effect. That's all it took to modify a human's memories. How much would it take to change an android's? How much effort is this, really, and what stops her from erasing memories at her convenience?

Nothing. As they walk out, Connor runs a superficial scan of his own memories. There are no recent gaps, nothing that can't be explained by loss during transfers.

This isn't as reassuring as it could be. He resolves to scan again more thoroughly later.

---

Connor is the last to leave, and he closes the door carefully behind him. Almost as soon as he lets go, a harried voice carries over to them.

"Oh--who are you all?"

The source--a nurse in rumbled scrubs, with shadows under her eyes that suggest double shifts--is slowing a few feet away, carrying a tray of IV bags and pills.

"Relatives," Sabriel answers after a split second, "We heard our cousin was sick, but he was asleep when we arrived- and my brothers said it would be best to let him sleep." It's a lie, but hopefully the nurse is too tired to really question it.

"Oh- really, that's too bad. I didn't think Mr. Craven was expecting any visitors."

"It was supposed to be a surprise." Sabriel says, trying very hard to look sorrowful and mostly succeeding. Pretend she tells herself, Pretend both of the Connors are your brothers, and that you're actually concerned about Craven

"Oh, really. Well, I'll tell him his cousins stopped by, and-"

"Actually, we were hoping to come by a little later, when he's had some rest, and we want it to be a surprise then," Sabriel interrupts. "So maybe you shouldn't tell him, it wouldn't be a surprise if you did."

Edited 2019-11-24 04:06 (UTC)

From one disaster to the next. Connor rolls his eyes, stepping forward.

"We'll be by tomorrow," he declares. "Or the day after if we get held up. What are your hours?"

"Oh," her eyes turn to him, blinking as she refocuses on the request. "Ten AM to eight PM usually—but there's a rest hour in the middle of the day. And we're shortstaffed, so—you really should call..."

She trails off as he brushes past her. The less they linger here, the better. "We'll do that," Connor dismisses briskly. The stairs aren't far away.

Connor follows the others, feeling the nurse's eyes on their backs as he goes.

"Do you need the number?" She calls. "It's on the website, but sometimes that page is down."

Connor pauses long enough to turn, smiling gently back at her. "I have the number saved, but thank you."

"Oh..." She seemed to be thinking it over.

Connor took the chance to disappear into the stairwell after his companions, and the door closed behind them. Connor's smile vanished like a light switched off.

Once the door is shut, and it's clear they're alone, Sabriel lets out a long, shuddering breath, feeling the tension ease out of her shoulders.

"Thank you," she says to Connor, pure relief making her smile a bit, "Hopefully in a day or two they'll still be busy and have forgotten all about us."

There are other things they need to talk about- like what their plans are now, or that while Connor hadn't betrayed her, he'd made a mistake and should have told her about evidence pointing to Cyberlife- but those are conversations best had when they're out of the hospital, with far less risk of being overheard.

The annoyed expression has vanished when Connor glances back to Abhorsen... along with any signs of feeling at all. He regards her smile with a flat, blank stare, before nodding and turning back to the stairs.

"Hopefully."

There's no inflection to the echo. Hopefully, they wouldn't be discovered. Hopefully, no one here would interfere. Abhorsen's mission had enough obstacles to its completion.

(He hadn't wanted to become one. He'd tried so hard not to want anything at all.)

...She'll deal with it, presumably. Once they're outside. For now, Connor's only objective is getting there. He moves forward, eyes on the steps.

Connor says nothing, taking up the rear of the small procession. It means he's in a perfect position to watch the others, but neither of them say anything else, and they seem willing enough to leave whatever's on the horizon for after they've left the hospital.

Their footsteps fill the stairwell, and without anyone to buoy the conversation on, it dies.

No humans pay attention as they leave. They're effectively invisible, lost in the crowds of tragedies and near misses playing out all around them. No one has any reason to think they might've been torturing one of their own only minutes ago.

They slip out of the building. They walk.

"I'm calling a cab," Connor says quietly, before the silence has had time to break. He's still hanging back, and a series of metrics play out on the edge of his vision, trying to calculate how the confrontation between them will go. (Trying to know how he wants it to fall.)

Sabriel doesn't speak until everyone's piled into the cab. Then she turns back, facing Connor. When she speaks, its slowly, every word carefully considered before she says it.

"Connor- first, I want you to know that while it's clear you erred in assuming Cyberlife wasn't involved- I don't believe you were deliberately sabotaging me- you made a mistake, but you can learn from that, and improve. But I need to know- what did Craven tell you while I was out of the room?"

Connor waits. Enters the cab, takes his seat, meets Abhorsen's eyes as she turns back. His LED is steady blue, face empty of expression.

He doesn't even twitch at her transparent lie.

"He said you should take his offer. That it was stupid of you to even hesitate."

Connor had agreed. But Craven hadn't asked for his opinion, and certainly there isn't any point to offering it now.

"I see- did he tell you anything else, anything at all? Even if it seemed irrelevant, I'd like to know." They hadn't got much from Craven, aside from confirmation that yes, the necromancer had been working for Cyberlife. But perhaps Craven let something slip in front of Connor.

Who's looking even blanker than usual. Sabriel almost wishes he'd sneer at her. It would mean he was all right, at least.

"Did he... do anything to you? Threaten you?"

"He shared his low opinion of our model series."

Their model series. Connor specifically. He'd said Connor was useless. He'd told him where to go to get that fixed.

"...And, no."

What would be the point of threats? Tampering was a more reasonable concern, but Craven hadn't had the time. Not that Abhorsen knows that. Or that she'd have any reason to believe what he said.

He's hiding something, Sabriel realizes. He's hiding something, she's just not sure what.

"Connor- Cyberlife doesn't deserve you. You've been- a great help, even if we haven't always gotten along. I want to trust you but please- be honest with me. Did he do anything to you? Give you any orders?"

There's no hostility in her questions, just a great deal of concern. She wants to trust Connor, wants to believe he's on her side. But if Craven had some kind of influence over him, and Cyberlife is still helping the necromancer... that's a problem.

"Appealing to his better nature is useless. He's not a deviant, and he doesn't care about trust."

Connor cuts in to the conversation like an ax. He holds Sabriel's gaze steadily, sliding a brief, unreadable look towards his counterpart.

"... It would be better to take everything he says with a grain of salt from now on. So long as Cyberlife could still have possibly tampered with his security and authority settings, you should be cautious."

Cyberlife doesn't deserve him? A twitch finally breaks the placid stillness across Connor's face: eyes narrowing in polite disbelief. Abhorsen has always enjoyed her pretense of kindness far too much. But this is rapidly becoming absurd.

He'd failed Cyberlife. Just like he'd failed her, and Connor is almost grateful when the deviant cuts in. As transparent as its maneuvering might be, at least it doesn't act like he's stupid.

Be honest. He waits a beat, but whatever Abhorsen thinks of his duplicate's advice, she doesn't change the order.

"He told me to provide my serial number. Then, to retrieve a tablet for his use." Connor's LED blinks: blue, blue, blue.

"I didn't."

"So you're capable of disobeying them, if necessary." That's a slim strand of hope to cling to, but it's something.

She just needs to keep him away from Cyberlife.

"Did he modify any of your settings in any way? Give you any additional instructions? If so, would it be possible to override them?" She's not going to throw Connor away- or let Cyberlife have him- not if she can help it.

Connor manages (barely) not to interrupt. He still bristles at Abhorsen's insinuation.

"His order contradicted my instructions." The words are clipped and brittle. Connor isn't deviant. He doesn't disobey. If he could, she wouldn't be able to drag this out of him, piece by humiliating piece.

"I said already. He didn't do anything. But I—" Connor stutters, stalls, [BE HONEST] flaring up across his view. The light at his temple switches: yellow.

"I have to report back."

It's thrown so suddenly into the open that it takes Connor a beat to digest the weight of it. It lasts approximately 0.2 seconds.

"Report back," Connor repeats. "... Report what back? And where?"

The questions are short, and by themselves fail to capture to magnitude of how much attention Connor has turned his way. He's twisted in his seat, his eyes are locked on, and his LED is blinking quickly. He's like a predator that's found its prey, and can't quite haul himself into a good position to crouch for an attack.

As Connor says he needs to report back, Sabriel freezes, even as the other Connor jumps in, asking questions that Sabriel would also like answers to.

"Connor," Sabriel says, looking visibly shaken, "Answer his questions."

So Cyberlife had been using Connor against her- or tried to. He'd apparently ignored the order to bring Craven a tablet, and she's sure that telling her about reporting back hadn't been part of Cyberlife's plan. He seemed to actually need to obey her, rather than just pretend to, which meant that perhaps...

"And you don't report back to Cyberlife- that's an order. In fact, I'm ordering you to disregard any orders Craven gave you." Will that be enough? Hopefully.

Connor's eyes flick sideways: to the deviant, gaze sharp and coiled to attack. He looks back to Abhorsen: frozen and wide-eyed, snapping out instructions as if she could make the world fall into line. [Conflicting Orders...] scrolls again across his view, and Connor sits, stiff and rigid as he logs the new objectives.

...There's only one he can accomplish now.

He turns to the deviant. "Report myself." The words are clipped, expression blank. "To a Cyberlife field lab. Craven said I was malfunctioning."

"Of course you are," Connor mutters, glancing her way. It won't be enough--but one step at a time.

"When, and which lab?"

Flat loathing locks in Connor's throat, and he glares back... but doesn't argue. Under the circumstances, how could he?

"Once we return to the city." Tension settles in his spine and shoulders, yellow light blinking more rapidly even as the location queues. Connor glances to his owner. "Abhorsen—it's with Jericho."

He's requesting confirmation. (Asking, in the hope that she'll deny it.)

She hadn't wanted to get involved.

"He's not malfuncioning," Sabriel mutters, but she shakes her head.

"I suppose it doesn't matter- you're not going to go there anyway, are you?" If she was able to overrule Craven's orders, that is. If she wasn't... They're going back to the house, where Saraneth is. Perhaps magic can accomplish what carefully worded orders won't.

He is malfunctioning. Connor knows that—if nothing else, for the brittle ache of relief as his duplicate is overruled. Her reasoning is sparse, but the threat at least comes through clearly: it doesn't matter, because he won't be allowed to leave.

Connor hadn't expected anything different. In some ways, that's almost a relief as well—to know even that much.

For now, his orders are to answer questions. He looks back to the other RK800, waiting for the next prompt.

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