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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Any answer Connor might have given to the question is forestalled by Abhorsen's next words—and steps. The line of his mouth flattens, expression coldly disdainful.

"So you'll waste your magic on that? Your attention? And if the army does break in here, you'll personally make sure they can't recover this one?"

Is Abhorsen willing to kill the human once they—once it becomes a threat?

"I don't think so." The rifle nudges up slightly, then jerks to the side. "Get out of the way."

"You're right." She hates it, but he's right- it's too much of a risk, and she may not have the energy to spare if things go poorly.

Sabriel doesn't move for a moment. Then, reluctantly, she steps aside and braces herself for the sensation she knows will happen.

He tracks her withdrawal. Once she's clear, he doesn't hesitate. The assault rifle comes up, a quick burst of fire and the sting of recoil—and the body on the floor twitches in staccato rhythm. Connor watches as it goes still, finger feathering over the trigger lightly before he lowers his gun.

Finally, he turns back to Abhorsen. "Now—what did you want?"

Sabriel wants to say 'for you to stop killing people.' She wants to ask him if he's all right. Instead, she takes a deep breath and steps away from the growing pool of blood at her feet. When she speaks, her voice is carefully, deliberately calm.

"We need to check the rest of the lab and make sure there are no more Cyberlife employees or guards further in, and no hidden exits." She knows what Connor will do them if there are more humans in the lab. What she might need to do if any of them are armed. Even if it's necessary, she hates it.

"We do," he agrees. If the stillness of the camera feeds was any sign, most of the employees had fled before the door was sealed, but there could be techs still hiding in the labs. Or guards, traversing the known blind spots. Why Abhorsen is prioritizing this despite her squeamishness is another question, and he studies her careful calm.

"...You're suggesting we explore together."

There's a faint stress on the we.

"It's safer that way, in case we run into any surprises. Either of us could stop a guard, but with two of us- we're less likely to get injured." Thus saving her the energy of having to heal herself or Connor.

"Besides, you'll understand anything we find better than I will."

And some small, selfish part of Sabriel knows that this way, she won't have to kill anyone herself. Not yet at least. Not until she faces the necromancer.

It is safer that way. Assuming he could trust her, which he can't. Still, if she plans to attack him with her magic, she could do it just as easily from around a corner as from by his side.

Connor wonders: would she count his double's presence as a deterrence or support?

"...Fine." He turns, thumb tapping an irritated rhythm on the grip of his gun. There are two long halls leading out from the main room that they have yet to go through; Connor appraises both and then starts for the passage on the left. "This way."

Sabriel follows close behind him- and then stops at a half-open door. She can see an android hanging in an assembly rig in the room beyond, skinless and limbless- utterly motionless, but not dead.

Sabriel freezes and looks at the frozen android- and then swings the door open further. There are no humans in the room- but three more androids in assembly rigs, all with their skin and limbs removed, motionless but alive.

She wants to do something to help them- she remembers the instructions Connor gave her to get him out of the assembly rig, but- Connor's still making his way down the hall. They need to make sure there are no more staff in the lab before they try to help anyone here.

Connor's eyes flick briefly to the side as they pass the door, but he doesn't slow. The room is little more than a storage chamber, with no space for any humans to hide. They'll have much better odds of finding opposition further in.

Not that the human already at his back isn't stressful enough. Connor tightens his grip on the rifle, resisting the urge to turn. He can hear Abhorsen's footsteps. He can't see her face, or watch the motions of her hands. He glances up as they pass a camera, pinging silently for access, but there's a blanket of static jamming all the wireless signals in range. Deadening his senses—humming, empty and silent in the back of his head.

The next room is larger. An array of workbenches line the walls, with two glass-walled cubicles in the center of the room. Connor scans the structure, noting the embedded wires of a faraday cage—and the corpses littering the floor inside. These androids were left with most of their limbs, but their skin is frozen in a sluggish, transparent glitch, bodies crumpled at odd angles. Some chassis are still twitching spasmodically, and a single LED blinks: red, red, red beside a pair of vacant eyes.

Connor circles the structure, attention sliding from point to point as he categorizes the data. Some kind of weapons testing, clearly, but no source of the damage is visible inside the cells. More worrying is the partly open door—a likely sign of someone retrieving their device in a hurry.

No one had exited this area, had they? Not on the cameras, not that he'd seen. Connor turns to Abhorsen.

"Someone was here recently." He switches his scans, checking for trace signs of thirium. There's enough smeared and spattered through the lab to make the effort useless. "We may need to—"

A faint crash echoes from a door at the far end. Connor lifts his rifle, attention fixed on the disturbance.

Sabriel snaps to alert, trying desperately to ignore the slow, lingering spasms of the last android's death, and the sensation of recent death in the room, even as she's drawn to the dying android like iron drawn to a magnet.

She can't save him, she realizes as she kneels over the android. All she can offer him is a quick death. She doesn't even need Ranna.

Sabriel whistles, low and sweet, but something about the sound isn't something that should come from human lips. It lingers in the air after she's done, and the android stills, the red LED going out as Sabriel closes his eyes.

"Travel without regret. Do not look back."

Then Sabriel gets to her feet, stepping between Connor and the door.

"I should go in front of you. If they were testing anti-android weapons, whatever it is might not work on humans." It didn't seem to damage the androids physically- some sort of magnetic weapon, perhaps? Sabriel really doesn't know enough to say for sure.

Abhorsen steps in his way, and Connor stills, eyes narrowing. Her assumptions about the risk aren't wrong—an electromagnetic attack would be consistent with the damage done in the glass cells, and pass over a human with no effect. Of course, if whoever took the device is lying in wait behind that door...

...they might very well be listening.

Connor sighs. "Don't be ridiculous." The sneer drags at his voice, harsh and mocking. It's a contrast to his neutral expression—and the nod he offers, one hand lifting from his weapon to wave Abhorsen towards the door. He continues aloud: "You don't even have a weapon. I'll go first."

Quietly, he steps to the side, raising his rifle to aim past her. He won't have a line of fire on much, this far from the doorway. But if Cyberlife wastes their attack, he should be able to follow.

Sabriel catches the contrast between Connor's words and actions, and nods wordlessly, fingers sketching out the first marks of a spell- a bolt of magical power that should break any technology near where it lands, and seriously damage anything it hits.

"Well maybe if you let me have a gun," She adds just a little sulkily as she moves in front of him, one hand holding her spell ready, the other grabbing the handle and swinging the door open- only to see something flying towards her- and Sabriel reacts on instinct, flinging the spell at whatever it is and screaming the activating mark.

Whatever it is, it bursts into bits of wire, burnt plastic, and bits of metal, as Sabriel finds herself suddenly charged by a screaming figure with a stun gun in hand, and Sabriel tackles her, grappling with the other woman and trying to force the stun gun out of her hands.

There's a prickle of nausea. A moment of sickening, vivid dread. And then the device shatters, pieces scattering across the floor, and the inductive surge vanishes. Connor shakes his head, flushing the blur of static from his visual feed—and raises his rifle, aiming carefully and firing into the tangled forms.

Three bullets punch through the woman's lab coat, cutting through her shoulders and side. She collapses to the ground with a cry of pain: not a clean kill, but certainly she won't be getting back up. Connor moves forward, stopping only long enough to kick the stun gun in her hand out of reach before he steps through the gap to check the room beyond.

Sabriel scrambles back, away from the dying woman, watching and feeling her last moments with horror- the gasps for air a blood fills her lungs and pools on the floor. Even though Sabriel knows that this woman had a role in the deaths of those androids, might have been willing to kill her, and certainly was willing to kill Connor- all she feels is something cold and hollow, a recognition that however unpleasant this was, it was necessary- even if she suspected she'd always hate that it was.

When Sabriel looks up, and takes in the screens full of notes and blueprints, and the half- assembled things on workbenches, even she can see that this is where whatever had killed the androids in the other room had been designed and made. Then her gaze falls to Connor.

"Connor, whatever that was- it didn't hurt you?" He doesn't look hurt, but none of those dead androids had any obvious injuries.

No other humans. Not obviously, and Connor takes care scanning the workspace: first from a distance, and then pacing the room's length. It's only once he's checked thoroughly for other threats that he turns his focus to the contents of the tables—and Abhorsen's words.

"No." He shakes his head. He isn't damaged. Thanks, he grudgingly (and privately) admits, to her. Depending on the range of the device, he might have been able to survive its use. But his odds of coming through unscathed were... low.

He doesn't say as much aloud. The biggest danger from Abhorsen has never been that she might let him die, and she hardly needs more reason to think she gets to lay some kind of claim. Still, after a moment of silent examination, Connor does speak.

"It was an EMP." His eyes flick over, checking for comprehension. Not finding any, he continues. "They destroy all electronics—software especially—within range."

Edited 2020-01-27 21:36 (UTC)

"But leaves humans untouched- a perfect weapon against androids." They wouldn't need to worry about androids turning it against them like they would with guns or bombs.

"They must have been testing it on the androids in the other room." And by all appearances, it was a runaway success. Sabriel looks back at the corpse of the woman. She must have been involved in testing the weapons- in murdering those androids. She wasn't an innocent bystander.

It doesn't completely erase Sabriel's unease with her death, but it helps a little.

"Connor- thank you for helping me in that fight." Even if he didn't want to shoot her, he could have waited for her to get shocked before intervening. Or simply left her to her own devices.

Connor hums a noncommittal note to her assessment. While he's never seen a device like that before, EMP technology is hardly new. He places a hand on the terminal, skin drawing back to browse its contents as Abhorsen continues.

She makes as little sense as usual. It's almost reassuring, to know that deviancy hasn't brought him closer to her point of view, and he rolls his eyes in answer.

"I killed a human who would have killed me. Five minutes ago you were begging me not to."

Is it that much different, when she perceives a risk herself? Or is she just hoping to flatter his ego?

"He wasn't an immediate threat to either of us. She was." There hadn't been a question of perhaps avoiding loss of life, just of survival.

Not that she expected Connor to understand- he didn't have a death-sense, or see anything wrong with taking life. Neither Connor does. And apparently most humans aren't bothered by it either, given what she's seen since her return to Ancelstierre.

There's another door beside the one they entered through- one that leads back to the hallway.

Connor's eyebrows float up, but he doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he finishes sifting through the database, skin crawling back across his hand as he disconnects.

"They were miniaturizing the technology here." It could almost be a nonsequitur—except for the hand that flicks back toward the crumpled body on the floor, and the shattered grenade she'd tried deploying. "There might be other devices in the facility. Or with the soldiers outside."

He looks to Abhorsen, smiling tightly as he moves past her for the door. "If you needed any other reason to overcome your squeamishness."

"So I should- stay in front of you and k-" Sabriel chokes on the word, but presses on- "Kill any humans that don't immediately surrender."

She hates it. But it's probably what's necessary, and she won't always have one of the Connors around when it is.

Sabriel wishes she could talk to her father- he fought necromancers and other sorcerers, he must have killed them- how could he make himself do it?

"Even if it's dangerous- it's still technology, so it's easily breakable with magic. And we have two mages among us."

Surrender? Connor snorts. "You say that like we could trust them if they did."

Still, he doubts he'll get anything better from her—and as long as she takes care of the devices, he should be able to deal with the rest. Honestly, he'll be surprised if she kills anything herself. She flinches just trying to say the word.

Magic can break technology. They have two mages. His mouth flattens, eyes flicking sideways as he checks the next room down the hall. (An empty closet.) Has she taught the other Connor that trick, then? It seems unlikely that she would have prioritized it before coming here.

"Why aren't you with my predecessor?" Connor frowns. Distributing the magic users would make sense, except— "You didn't know about the EMPs until just now."

"He told me to look for any other exits, so I could seal them." And she'd wanted to get away from the corpses- there had to be some rooms here that weren't tainted by death- from their actions, or those of the previous occupants.

"I'll warn him about the EMPs once I'm sure there are no other exits, and show him the spell I used- although anything sufficiently powerful should break them." It's not like Connor has any reason to linger near the door, and the range of those devices can't be that large, can it?

"Hopefully the two of us will be enough." She doubts Connor would accept baptism if she offered it, and- would it even be a good use of time and energy?

He told her to. Connor's eyes flick sideways, filing away that point of data with the rest. None of it's enough for a conclusion. But nothing he's learned, from her or his copy, seems to support his first assumptions either. Why they would be working together. What she might have done, to be so sure.

Abhorsen can't be trusted. He doesn't need more proof of that. It's still... frustrating, not knowing.

Almost as frustrating as her reminder: just how dependent he is on the both of their goodwill. Connor's mouth flattens, LED swimming a brittle gold.

"We'll see, won't we?"

The next door down is closed—but by the windows at the side, it leads into a larger lab. Connor lags a beat, then jerks his weapon forward: gesturing Abhorsen to step into the space first.

There are no humans inside, which is something of a relief. But there are more more androids, hanging in rows on assembly rigs, motionless but alive. There's another android on the labratory table- limbs and skin removed, her abdominal plating opened to reveal the glowing blue biocomponents within.

She turns as Sabriel walks in, and her expression is full of hope.

"Are you why the humans ran away? Did Markus come to save us? I almost- I thought we'd all die in here."

Sabriel's not entirely sure what to say. Markus is- the leader of Jericho. Does the android not realize she's human? Should she correct her, or just try to keep her calm so she can talk to her?

Sabriel offers a reassuring smile. She doesn't need to lie, just... not mention some things.

"Jericho's sending help," Sabriel assures her, "But we need to hold out until then. Do you know how many exits there are? Or where they put your arms and legs?"

Edited 2020-01-31 02:06 (UTC)

No alarms. No attacks. Connor waits for a count of two, then steps into the room. His attention is drawn to the row of assembly rigs along the side, and he circles inward, inspecting them slowly. It takes long seconds to drag his eyes—and memories—away.

Not that the room's centerpiece is any less familiar. In circumstance, at least. He's quite certain he never wore a look like that. Despite the deluded optimism in its gaze, this AP700's face is tight with pain, and he scans the chassis, cataloging which organs have been hollowed out.

"I don't—I woke up here..."

The words trail off, and he becomes aware of the stare now locked on his expression. No—his face.

"Connor?"

Hope, not fear. It knows his predecessor. Connor's expression doesn't change, but apparently it doesn't have to—the other android blinks furiously, face slackening with relieved tears.

"I'm sure you don't... I was at the tower."

...Oh.

"You're here to get us out again?"

Connor stares down at the vivisected torso, mouth pressing flat. The tower. It's his predecessor the AP700 wants, his predecessor it's asking for—but it's entirely possible after all that this android has seen him, as well.

It would have passed his corpse on its way out the door.

"...of course." He curves his lips upward. Carefully uncurls the fingers half-clenched to fists at his side.

"We need to deal with the humans first. How many were in this room?"

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