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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Connor's eyebrows flick up minutely, but he just says, "If we've all been sealed in, then we may need help escaping. We should inspect what's changed at the exit, and send out an SOS." Maybe not in that order.

The technician's expression falls and her shoulders shake, and she steals a glace at the two of them. She mouths a couple of silent, disbelieving words, and when Connor looks at her she turns forward again quickly.

Connor returns to Abhorsen. "... We may be here for a while."

"So you think we should ask Connor for help?" It's not unreasonable- he's the only other person in the lab who isn't affiliated with Cyberlife. But will he want to help?

"... You should probably be the one to ask him." He'd refuse if Sabriel asked him. If Connor did... Sabriel doesn't know. And he'd be better at convincing the other Connor anyway.

"I'll check the exit and- the rest of the lab. Maybe there's another way out." She doesn't want to keep standing here, in this room surrounded by corpses, waiting to see what will happen next and feeling generally useless with technology.

He should ask him?

... Connor hesitates. He remembers the android's response to seeing her immediately post-deviation. He remembers the gun that didn't leave her a few minutes ago. The android has been threatening her overtly, and letting her hang back from now on is reasonable.

Except--except his insides feel like they're burning, like if he opens his mouth he'll breath flames. His paper-thin healings ache.

"Abhorsen," he says before she can turn. "Forming a temporary truce with the other Connor may be wise, but I would prefer it if you were present for that conversation."

His LED is bleeding red at its two-o-clock.

Sabriel hesitates for a moment, one hand reaching up to the spot on her arm where he shot her, even as she looks at Connor's suddenly red LED.

She wasn't the only person Connor attacked after he deviated though- the other Connor would have died if she hadn't been there.

"Very well. It's just- he's entirely justified in hating me. I think he'd be more willing to talk to you. Can you get in contact with your allies from outside? I doubt they'd like me very much, but maybe the lab is easier to unseal from outside?"

She touches her arm, she looks at his LED, and she acquiesces, explaining. The explosion hasn't disappeared, rising and falling, but the red is smothered out of his LED, and he curls his free hand loosely into a fist.

"I'll try to contact them," he says calmly.

(She's right. The Connor hates her, and will become belligerent and defensive in her presence--but Connor hates him, and hates the sense of diving into danger for an ally he doesn't want.)

(What would be better for the mission, and for androids overall? ... What would be better for him?)

(Do these intersect?)

Connor lowers the arm with the gun suddenly, pointing it at the floor. His jaw is tense, but his LED stays yellow, and despite his obvious displeasure, his tone is even.

"I can be the one to talk with him. I just need you nearby in case he attacks. Unless--" His LED blinks, and his eyes narrow.

"Can you teach me a spell that would subdue him in the event that it became necessary?"

He's unhappy with this, and Sabriel can't exactly blame him, but- they need all the help they can get.

"I could. The paralysis spell would be easiest- it's only one mark." She traces it out to show him, letting the mark hang in the air before dismissing it.

"Just put it on him physically if you're close enough, or-" Sabriel shows the motion she'd use to launch a spell at a target.

"And- you might need to reapply it if it stops wearing off. But you probably knew that already." Considering it's the same spell she used on him before.

"One mark," Connor repeats. She demonstrates. Off to one side, he can hear the typing at the computer stop, and the stillness of someone watching with full attention.

Sabriel speaks as Connor narrows his eyes, picturing the mark and experimentally adding a tiny glowing shape to a wireframe preconstruction. The invisible figure holds its hand forward, flicking sharply with a simultaneous push, and the glowing shape--weightless and frictionless in the simulation--flies forward.

"I guessed as much," he answers her absently, still focused. He glances to the side, and sure enough, the technician is staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He looks past her towards the screen, noting her progress. She's already at the screen he'd asked for, but there are other windows open, and it's unclear what she's been doing while he and Abhorsen had both been too distracted to notice.

Connor lifts his hand and acts out the preconstruction, charter mark glowing as the symbol forms. He gives it a sharp flick, and it flies forward with more lift than he expected--but it lands, just off center from the technician's forehead.

She freezes, eyes wide and shocked.

Connor studies her, then nods once, turning back to Abhorsen.

"She's finished finding the tracking data." He puts a hand on the computer's interface terminal, downloading the select files, and copying her access codes along the way.

"Are you still going to check the exit, next?" he asks, tone carefully neutral as his hand drops to his side.

He has the mark for paralysis now, and her presence could worsen the deviant's volatility--but the whole process wears at him in ways he can't describe. He doesn't want Abhorsen to be there. He doesn't want to do this alone, either. Every option is bleak, and sour.

It's probably unfair to the technician, but Sabriel can't stop the look of pleased approval that spreads across her face at Connor's spell.

"Just like that. Before we leave, I'll make her forget everything."

She should go check. But Connor seems... oddly neutral, and Sabriel pauses when she's halfway out the door, her expression suddenly uncertain.

"Connor- Do you want me to come with you?" She doesn't understand why- surely, Connor will respond better to the person who freed him, rather than the person who enslaved him. Unless the other Connor thinks Connor is unstable enough to attack him.

Connor opens his mouth to tell her the memory spell won't be necessary, that the humans will all be killed when Jericho arrives, or held as hostages. His eyes track to the technician, catching the way her face is straining with naked hope, and he closes his mouth.

(There's no point in making her suffer through psychological anguish before she dies. He's cruel when necessary, but right now it isn't needed.)

Abhorsen asks her question, and Connor's thinly-healed wounds ache, and his grip on his gun tightens, and his shoulders feel heavy. He disguises it all by holstering the weapon, then smoothing his oversized coat over it.

"No," he says shortly. "That won't be necessary after all. I'll contact you when I'm done."

He's better-healed and better-equipped. If he can't handle this task, then he has no business holding these missions to begin with.

"All right." Sabriel nods sharply, and turns on her heel. There isn't much more she can say, and she has work to do.

She needs to examine the exit- and possibly reinforce it, if they're going to hold out here. She'll just have to hope the other Connor is able to persuade Connor to help. And that help arrives in time.

This isn't going according to plan. But hopefully they'll make it out alive, without much more death, and with a better idea of where to find the necromancer, and strike when he isn't expecting it.

She's faced Kerrigor. She can face this necromancer, and the mess the Ancelstierians have made.

At first look, the main floor of the lab seems undisturbed. Prone bodies litter the floor from Ranna's passage, tools abandoned at their posts. There are no obvious signs that anyone's come through more recently.

...At least, to human eyes. Another RK800's scan might pick up the millimeters of displacement in the fridge door. The position of some of the unconscious forms has shifted more visibly, and both guards by the entryway are missing the spare clips for their sidearms. Another armored shape has vanished outright.

The scuff marks leading off from its position end in a small security room to the far side of the entryway. The windows are set to one way, dark glass impenetrable from the outside. But the door is open, and two shapes visible once in. Cyberlife's missing guard slumps, propped up in a chair, supplying biometric data to the system just in front. Connor sits on the edge of the wide desk, one skinless hand on the console.

His LED is blue—albeit blinking a little too quickly for true calm. The rifle he'd appropriated in the lab rests on the desk to his right. A glint of a familiar handgun shows at his side, and he glances to the door with no evident surprise. The wall behind the desk is a massive display, screens-within-screens displaying video feeds through the facility.... and slightly beyond. Connor eyes the other RK800 for a moment, before selecting one such image and enlarging it to center view.

"We've got company."

The feed shows the street outside: now, packed with trucks and personnel. A handful of flushed technicians speak rapidly to the commanding officer on site, gesticulating as they point toward the building.

Connor stares back at him, expression artificially blank and LED similarly blue. Only when the android looks away does Connor look past, and--yes, those are security feeds. One is displaying the lab he just left, where the technicians are laying where he'd caught up with them. He can clearly see the one that struggled, causing more damage to himself than to--

The other feed is selected and maximized. The street around the stairwell's exit is blocked off, and there are humans pouring out of a truck.

Connor's brow knits, and he forces back his caution, stepping up next to the other android. The humans are getting equipment out of their trucks. He counts how many and what they're holding, but the number keeps increasing.

... The humans will try to kill them. They're going to try soon.

"Jericho won't make it here before those humans finish setting up." Connor tears his gaze away, glancing at the other android. "We only have a few minutes."

Maybe they can break the controls on the barrier sealing them in. It wouldn't last, but it might buy them time.

Jericho. Connor's LED spins yellow, but he only gives a stiff, short nod. If Abhorsen's powers couldn't guarantee escape, Jericho would be the only chance they had. Probably, they wouldn't be as bad as the humans.

(He doesn't know.)

"...Longer, if you hadn't wasted time with those." Connor flicks a hand up toward the feed his copy had been staring at. His voice is dry, but his eyes linger on the other android's face. "Why didn't you kill them?"

The one accident aside.

"Jericho can't question them about their work if they're dead," Connor replies shortly, meeting his stare head on. It's not a lie. (They don't have time for this.)

"What are you going to do now?" They're in a security control room--Connor steals a glance, but there's no other clues suggesting the android was setting anything up before Connor arrived. (This doesn't mean anything, if he saw Connor coming.)

"You're deviant. Are you going to fight them?"

~~Or will he fight Connor and Sabriel instead?~~

"That's assuming your friends win."

That they win. That they do it before the other humans break inside. Not to mention, of course, how the technicians will help their allies if they do wake up. It's a risk he wouldn't have taken.

What is he going to do? The question loops, prolonging the gold burn at his temple until Connor forces it aside. The other RK800 meant right now. That's what both of them need to focus on.

"The humans?" It's as good a reason as any to glance sideways. He appraises the unconscious form beside him, a finger touching the pistol holstered at his waist. "Obviously."

They'll kill him if he doesn't. Connor thinks he's demonstrated quite conclusively he has no problems killing them first.

It hadn't been obvious. The android shot him for deviating him, tried to shoot Abhorsen, and the next thing they find is that he's here--Connor's jaw bunches, before he forces it to unclench.

(He'd been shooting humans. No longer shooting him. That's the part he should care about.)

"Truce. Until we leave."

(Connor can see the screens in his peripheral vision. There's one showing the inside of the facility, and a lone, tall human moving around--Abhorsen. She's not at the entrance yet, so for now Connor simply tracks her progress.)

The tension registers in his periphery, but there's no reach for a gun. And the last time this android had one, it wasn't aimed at Connor.

(The last two times.)

He nods absently. Notes the wording. He wants to ask what the RK800 means by we—but if Jericho wants anything from him, expressing fear at the prospect won't help him get away. The same goes for Abhorsen.

He eyes the figure on the cameras silently for several seconds. Then:

"...Did you want me to kill her?"

Tension coils around his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the major servo groups responsible for explosive motion.

"No. I don't."

Abhorsen owned the RK800, before. She frustrated his work, she put him in danger, she had him at her mercy with unclear and inconsistent intentions. He tried to shoot her as he left, and it's completely possible that the only reason he hasn't tried to attack her again has been a lack of opportunity--not a lack of motivation.

Connor needs her too much to let her die yet.

"She'd be included in the truce."

At that, Connor does glance over, eyes narrowed in a matching scowl.

"I didn't mean now."

Now, Abhorsen is useful. Is possibly their only chance of lasting long enough against the humans to escape. Whatever countermeasures the forces outside are preparing, they'll be designed for androids.

(And he's noticed how his counterpart has been behaving, too. They arrived together. Fought together. The RK800 supports her with no visible tension. It's different from how they were before—disconcertingly so.)

"Back at the house." Connor stares at the other unit, eyes flitting from one tell to the next. "Is that why you did it?"

... Oh.

The sour look is genuine, and Abhorsen isn't in danger from this. This isn't a taunt or a recruitment, it's a reconstruction of his intent--and it's not about Abhorsen at all.

For an instant Connor is tempted to withhold his answer out of sheer spite. He drowns the impulse with an image of the Connor before the bell and after. The hot coals in his chest bank sharply, and he feels full of smoke.

"No," says Connor bluntly, fighting the urge to glance towards the screen. "I did it to make things right."

...

The other Connor isn't lying. The blinking LED, the almost-flicker of the eyes away—all signs point to discomfort, not deceit.

That doesn't make the reply any more intelligible. Connor's frown deepens, irritated and puzzled. His fingers curl around the edge of the desk, tracing its corner.

"And that means...?"

Now Connor does, glance towards the screens, taking in the changes outside and Abhorsen's position. She's inspecting the doors. The humans are still arranging themselves. He drags his gaze back to his counterpart, mouth set in a flat line.

"It means I should have deviated you when I first encountered you. You deserved to have a choice."

Nevermind that he was dangerous, that doing so would probably have killed him later if he hadn't had the android and Abhorsen's help; if they're talking morality, then what Connor did was wrong.

It's not the reply he'd been expecting. It's not a reply that Connor knows entirely how to process, either, and his eyes narrow, doubtful and suspicious, at deserved. What had Connor done to deserve anything? Failed his mission?

Maybe that was it. Pity. Had the deviant thought he was too useless to present a threat? Or that being failures made them the same? The accusation coils in his vocal module, bitter and loathsome, but it doesn't... quite match up. Not to the tension still lingering in his copy's frame, or the stress levels that have yet to drop much below 50. Their model is more skilled than most at self-regulation, but Connor's logged more than a few spikes of fear.

(It doesn't match, either, with the other useless question he swallows back unasked. If the other Connor actually believed that, if Connor 'should' have been freed before... why wasn't he?)

(He knows why.)

"...I would have killed you," he recites, stare returning to the display. His LED is a flat yellow. The humans are moving. So should they, and Connor shifts forward, hand clenched around the edge of the desk as he starts to push himself upright. "Abhorsen might have too—if she didn't claim you instead as a replacement." He's still not entirely convinced that didn't happen, and the line of his mouth twists.

"It was safer." For them. "And I was never on your side."

She wasn't angry this time. Would she have been, if he'd deviated Connor earlier? ...The question rolls off of him like water down a glass window. It's not an important one, not right now.

"I know," he replies, lips twitching as though fighting a sneer. "I have analysis protoco--"

The screen with Abhorsen shifts, and Connor breaks off immediately, eyes locking on. The static worsens, but he can just see a familiar posture, with the worst of the noise gathering around her hands and face--

--Before he can choose a course of action, the spell is over, and the door--barely visible through the remaining noise--is still closed. What did she--... Magic? Abhorsen inspects the door, then turns away, apparently satisfied.

... He doesn't know what she did. Maybe she locked it, or laid some kind of trap. He needs to know.

He tears his eyes back to his counterpart. "We'll continue this later." For all of a fraction of a second he pauses, mouth still open--but no, there's no chance of is counterpart accepting a request to 'watch the screens', and Connor doesn't want to play out a farce of trust for it anyway.

He closes his mouth and turns sharply, leaving. Despite the truce his ears sharpen, and he's hyperaware of each movement behind him.

He would call Abhorsen, if they were't underground. He has no reception. He doesn't try.

Edited 2020-01-18 02:41 (UTC)

The other RK800's tone sharpens, harsh and mocking, and Connor grits his teeth, glaring flatly toward the display. He registers the spellcasting. He's grateful for it on some level.

It gives him the time he needs to get his expression under control.

By the time his copy turns his way, Connor's features are flat, eyes cold. Later draws a faint twist of the mouth, but whatever disagreement he might have goes unvoiced, and his predecessor doesn't wait. Quick steps clear the room, and Connor is left behind: with an unconscious human and a loaded gun.

It doesn't take analysis to calculate the next most useful step.

There's some delay. (Accessing the system settings. Ensuring the current login won't time out, whether or not the human remains at the desk.) But soon enough, the other android's vigilance will be rewarded. A short staccato of assault fire echoes from the room he'd left, followed by quick steps as Connor follows. He won't try to catch up with his duplicate (or Abhorsen) immediately, detouring instead through the main room to the two other armored, sleeping bodies.

Someone needs to do it. And it's looking like they won't.

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