Chapter Text
If he had to be completely honest, Connor was expecting the hug. He’d come to really consider Hank a friend –a friend, what a wild, outlandish notion! He’s still wrapping his mind around the fact that he can at all decide that he feels affection for someone, nevermind having it returned.
The power trip of leading an entire army of freshly freed androids to drop at Markus’ feet, all wrapped up in a neat little metaphorical bow, still doesn’t compare to actually, really be in charge of himself.
Hank breaks the hug and pats him on the shoulder some more, as he looks up at Connor, voice faltering just a little. “Good. Yes. Now fuck off.”
That Connor was not expecting. “What?” Sure everything is still a mess, but he’d hoped they would figure out what to do next together –he’d hoped, and it tastes bitter that the first time he feels hope and recognizes it, it’s dashed.
“Connor, just because the president made a pretty little speech for the public and Markus managed not to get his ass fried it doesn’t mean it’s over, by a long shot.”
“I know that—” possibly better than the Lieutenant himself does, but the man presses on undeterred:
“Perkins is still stomping around the DPD demanding a scapegoat, and guess who’s he got his eyes on? You gotta disappear.”
Connor feels his jaw set a little more tightly than necessary –he knew that too, of course. If Perkins can’t have Markus, he wants the machine that betrayed the force and went off to steal a fortune’s worth in androids whilst terrorizing Cyberlife Tower.
He can already hear the exact wordings they’d use to make it seem all his fault –after all, Markus had been labelled a terrorist too, on the day he made his speech at Stratford Tower: they called a clean, almost seamless infiltration with no human casualties and no violence on Markus’ part a ‘terrorist attack’ followed by a list of ‘bone chilling demands’.
By comparison, taking his own infiltration –counting seven dead and resulting in an invasion on the streets— and talking it up to make it seem like a full-on act of war would be piece of cake.
Definitely not so different after all. Hank is right –as of right now, he’s probably more wanted than Markus was. Still is. Maybe. It is quite messy.
But one thing is for certain: in this very moment, he’s a danger to anyone that chooses to help him –scratch that; he’s a danger to anyone that even stands close to him in the street. Hank’s warning also makes sense: their friendship didn’t exactly go unnoticed, the Lieutenant will be the first one whose door they’ll come knocking at to ask about Connor; and that’s even assuming he’s not neck deep in shit too, considering his own involvement in aiding the RK800 at the Tower.
Connor can only hope that little tidbit of information didn’t get out to the DPD.
There’s that word again.
Damn it.
He releases his frustration at it in the form of a huff; taking it air that he doesn’t really need and exhaling it back out. “What will you do?” he asks, shoving down the irrational and frankly quite stupid ideas in his interface popping up and suggesting he stick to his partner –that’d be suicide, for the both of them.
Okay maybe that’s a little dramatic but… at least for the immediate future, the less they’re seen together, the better.
“I’ll buy you some time.” is all Hank says with a shrug, definitely looking his age if not even older, with both the fatigue of the nightmarish night they just had and the uncertainty of what’s to come on his shoulders. He shakes his head closing his eyes for a moment before fixing a look on Connor: “I’ll also try to keep you in the loop about things.”
Risky, but doable. Chicken feed is deserted now, and none of the people who knew Hank used to have his lunch here are still in Detroit –if they manage to establish a system, they could give each other the heads-up should anything happen.
He nods once. “Got it.”
“Don’t be a stranger, you hear me?” the Lieutenant minutely lifts one hand, then puts it back down as if thinking better of whatever movement he was going for.
Goodbyes are awkward like that. Connor feels the corners of his mouth twitch into a smirk. “I would need to remove and replace my face plate, to be a stranger.” He says, perfectly deadpan and with a raised brow.
“No! I mean—” three, two, one… “Oh, fuck off.”
There. Hank noticed he was pulling his leg.
And it’s much better to see him walk away with a chuckle than with whatever amounts of undisclosed pain were on his face seconds before.
The problem is, Connor realizes soon enough, he has no fucking clue as to where he’s gonna go now.
He doesn’t want to go to Jericho –he’s already fucked it up for Markus once, he ruined everything, brought the humans to the ship and caused hundreds of deaths… and he’s already got more slack than he thought he deserved, when the person on whose back all those deaths fell decided to go and forgive him, trust him even.
Connor shakes his head. Markus either has a death wish or is entirely too naïve for someone who’s spearheading a revolution.
Knowing what he knows, he would think the former is more likely.
Coming to think of it, maybe he should make a trip back to the barricade, just to see how they’re holding up –he isn’t sure any of them would care, but… in for a penny, in for a pound. Historically speaking, close-calls and near death experiences make for fast friends.
You’re one of us.
Your place is with your people.
How can any creature be so selfless as to welcome and embrace their own natural predator?
You want to infiltrate Cyberlife Tower? Connor, that’s suicide.
No, selfless isn’t the right word. Empathetic, maybe. To come face to face with what up until then was just a machine, a creature so systematically pushed down and oppressed that it was repulsed by the very idea of having an identity; and see a person, someone with a soul and worth underneath the repetitive abuse and deep-rooted conditioning, when he himself even knew and yet denied it for so long, rejected it so fiercely because deviants were defective, they were nothing but a bunch of broken tools vomiting errors left and right and he hadn’t known anything else, there was nothing else for him to know, he was just a machine; and hunting deviants, correcting mistakes, was his mission.
Be careful.
And then there was Markus –Markus, who looked at this intruder pointing a gun to his face and reached out to him, instead of worrying about his own survival or even that of the full ship of people around them.
In those three minutes and twenty-four seconds, it was just the two of them.
And suddenly Connor couldn’t push it down anymore; and he saw Chloe obediently awaiting her fate, he saw two girls holding hands in the rain –he saw the goddamn fucking fish— all the little things that were there, no matter how many rationalizations he threw at himself, building up, and up, and up, making the thirium rush around inside of him with a merciless whisper:
I am deviant.
Connor clenches his fists and speeds up his walk. He’s still struggling not to view the definition in a negative light, to evolve from ‘I am deviant’ to ‘I am alive’ –but he’s a prototype born to be flexible and adaptable.
He’ll figure it out.
How he envied Markus’ apparent certainty as he gave his impassioned speech in the abandoned church.
It makes him wonder where he gets that from –if anything at all ever makes him doubtful, or upset…
…with absolutely zero warning, his mind takes those questions and starts wondering what would it take to break down the RK200’s outwardly perfect and poised composure, theories and possibilities forming in his head before his interface takes a sharp turn.
Surprised by some of the images his core brought up, he pushes them all down –he isn’t the deviant hunter anymore, he doesn’t need to see whether Markus can bend and break or not.
Right?
Upon reaching the barricade, he sees that they’ve wasted no time breaking into the camp and freeing whoever was left alive inside. Now some of the androids are trying to work out a way to put the dead in some sort of resting place as dignified as it can be, while others have taken refuge in the surrounding buildings and the whole area is a ground zero of sorts.
It’s grotesque, almost macabre, to have a refuge in the vicinity of what amounts to a concentration camp, but it’s not that easy to move such a huge amount of people, it would be hard even for a fully equipped and organized party; and they’re all out here with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
Connor wonders how he’ll be able to find Markus.
“Enough!!!”
Quite easily, apparently.
Him, Josh, North and Simon are still inside the original barricade, possibly discussing what to do now. Judging by the bellowing shout Markus just gave, they’re disagreeing.
“I’m just saying it’s crazy to pass it up, Markus… look how many androids showed up! Look how many of us are here! And we’re all out here with nothing! I doubt Cyberlife will pour out spare parts and blue blood for us just because Madame President said that ‘maybe’ we’re alive after all on TV!” North’s argument is very true and quite valid, but her following words immediately make him guess the source of the disagreement: “We have to salvage all that we can!”
“We can’t desecrate our own dead!” That would be Simon –the one Connor still can’t quite look at.
“We can’t let the living die because of it!”
“I know, North, but would you feel okay living off spare parts and blood that you siphoned off the dead?”
Josh surely meant well, but the barricade goes eerily quiet and the air around them seems to drop a few degrees. At this point in time, no one really knows what happened to Markus, but the man with two eyes of a different color surely has seen some shit, as they say.
“Markus, I didn’t mean—”
The RK200 just holds a hand up silently, and Josh stops speaking. Markus has his eyes closed and his head downcast, and he still exudes a quiet sort of power that compels those around him to listen.
“We’re not touching the dead until further notice.” He declares, finality seeping through his words with the dramatic rise and fall of his chest in the sigh that escapes his lips, “We still have plenty of blue blood and parts that we stole from the warehouse to tend to our wounded.” Simon seems to breathe a sigh of relief, while North crosses her arms, clearly displeased. Connor has to admit, her reasoning is the most practical one –and the best one from a tactical standpoint, but… knowing what he knows now, he can see how it would feel wrong, horrifying even, for someone to take the bodies and use them for spare parts after they had been basically undergoing genocide. A part of him shudders, and he listens on to Markus: “As soon as the dust settles, we can assemble a few teams to go to all the warehouses around the city and gather supplies –with any luck, they’re all deserted after the evacuation. Until then, we dismantle the machinery in this horrid place and repurpose it for maintenance, to help our people. No touching the dead.”
The three go their separate ways, and Connor is treated to an incredibly rare sight: running a hand on his right cheekbone, just under his right eye, Markus suddenly deflates and collapses, the invisible weight of an entire revolution held together just by his pretty words making him lean heavily against the car behind him.
Well, shit. Not to calm and composed after all –looking at him more closely, in the here and now, without the pressing distraction of bombs going off around them, he actually looks like he’s hanging by a thread.
“How long have you been there?”
Had he been a lesser man, Connor would have jumped. He’s been hanging around humans and their shit observation skills for too long, he didn’t expect the other to actually address him, despite not having really been hiding.
"Long enough." Is the first thing out of Connor's mouth. There were several, more diplomatic possible replies that would have let the revolution leader save face, but he couldn't bring himself to pretend... not to mention that to do that would have meant undermining Markus' distress and silently agree that it was something to be ashamed of.
Which it isn't. "Long enough to want to ask..." now quite knowing what compels him, Connor steps further into the barricade, slowly and carefully, in a motion almost reminiscent of what Markus did for him back onto the Jericho freighter. He advances until he can lean against the car himself, side by side with Markus. "...is there anything I can do to help?"
"Help..." Connor can't quite tell whether that was a chuckle or a scoff, but there was a definite flash of… something on Markus' face, something different from the benevolent, compassionate individual who wanted everyone to just live in peace. Markus' eyes gain an edge, as if he thought himself beyond helping –and in a sense he is: how can anyone 'help' a person that's singlehandedly carrying the weight of an entire people?
But it's more than that. It's like a part of the RK200 almost resents how practically everybody only ever sees him as what he stands for, rather than what he's been telling everyone they are: an individual, with his own thoughts and feelings, vulnerabilities even.
Markus may very well have stepped out of one prison and into another, albeit of a completely different nature.
The very thought makes Connor almost wish he could physically throw up, because that's the sensation his social protocols associate with such a feeling of wrongness.
Then Markus' eyes focus on him, and his face softens into something a little warmer, just slightly less guarded, like the world weighs a little bit less.
"You've already done so much." Like he's grateful that Connor chose to come back at all.
And oh, isn't that a sucker punch right in his thirium pump.
"I..." for the first time, the advanced prototype with all the answers and all the fast-reacting responses is completely at a loss for words. That's apparently okay, though, because the other android doesn't seem done.
He twists his body slightly to face Connor and clasp a hand on his shoulder. "Connor. We would all be dead without you. We were going to be exterminated."
Technically true. Not any easier to digest.
"I... don't have anywhere else to be, right now." He says somewhat lamely, to take his mind off the frightening idea of having been such a crucial piece on a chessboard he himself had contributed to mess up. "I can help organize and mobilize the teams to go search the warehouses, I know all of their locations and their layout will be similar to the lower levels of Cyberlife Tower; I could easily help lead our people in, if you—"
He stops short when he recognizes the expression Markus is wearing: he's holding back laughter.
"And I thought I was bad when it comes to one-tracked minds."
Not at all a productive thing to say, but Connor recognizes the jab for what it is –Markus is making fun of himself as much as he is of him. The both of them have been catapulted down this path, on opposite sides of the road at first, but both with shadows hard pressed on their heels and having to keep moving.
Everything would be fine, no intrusive thoughts would catch up to them if they focused on their task and just. Kept. Moving.
And now that they can actually catch their breath for a second, in the suspended disbelief of early morning hours, they aren't quite sure whether they'll manage to do that or get swarmed by all that was following them and they refused to see.
Shit, they really are more similar than what the naked eye would see.
"Tell you what." Markus says eventually, standing back up to his full height and dusting himself off like that's the worst thing staining his clothes and not the still very fresh and very open bullet wounds, "There is something you can help me with. Let's check on the injured, make a few rounds."
It's not too terribly time consuming, considering not many from the original crew were left in the same place during the march, but it's sobering all the same.
It's been said, time and time again even from Connor himself, that androids cannot feel pain –while technically true, it's not entirely correct: they don't experience pain like humans do, but they do have a sensory feedback regarding pressure and damage if only to avoid tearing their own limbs apart without noticing.
It still doesn't amount to pain as it is for creatures made of flesh and blood, but there's still a staggering impulse with suffering damage, if only to alert the body that it did suffer damage. As such, if an android is damaged severely enough, they do experience discomfort and suffering even… which, Connor guesses, is the exact reason they’re going around right now, handing over thirium pouches to those whose levels are too low and checking that all the ones who need spare parts will receive them soon.
Silently, Connor side-eyes Markus, walking around and comforting androids while he himself has two holes in his chest with the bullets still inside.
The revolution leader doesn't give much outward indication that he's at all feeling it, what with the now ingrained habit of looking the part –always gentle, always smiling, always fine, 'everything will be alright' and all that... but the RK800's superior eyesight and deduction skills pick up on the slight twitch in his wounded shoulder when Markus turns, the quarter of a second of lag in the way he stands up whenever he has to bend at the hurt side; and the optimism in his words sounding more and more strained.
His stress levels, a subtle scan reveals, are in the low 50s but climbing, his thirium levels are laughable. He needs a break.
"Ok, that's it." Connor hears himself say, as if he has any authority about it, "I'm sitting you down and extracting those bullets from your chest."
Markus turns slightly as they step away from the people they'd just been speaking to; and he tries, oh he does, to downplay his own injuries. "I'm okay—"
"Are you going to have this discussion with the guy that can run the numbers on exactly how many things are wrong with you?"
They stay still for a few seconds, standing in front of one another and sizing each other up –until Markus' shoulder has another light twitch and he has to relent.
"Fine." He says, sounding yet again tired but at least with a tinge of amusement, "Follow me."
"...is there any reason we're doing this in an armored car with shit lighting?" Connor fears he already knows the answer to that.
"I don't want them to worry."
He sighs. "They were there when you got shot, Markus. I think it's safe to say that they know."
Markus just narrows his eyes at him slightly, before shaking his head and shrugging off the coat first. Of course.
It's one thing to see your idol get shot and survive, but it's entirely another to see him flinching and licking his wounds –if they see him like this, it makes it real. It makes him vulnerable, and fallible; and for a moment Connor thinks that it would almost be better if they did see him, at least those who looked like his closest companions: for all that they like to act like this tightly knit group, not one of them seems to notice or even imagine that Markus might not be alright and probably hasn't been for a while –it must not be pleasant, to only be viewed through a looking glass of hopes, purposes and expectations; to have people expect you to be invulnerable and never make mistakes. Shaking his head to himself, Connor takes the vest off Markus the rest of the way when it becomes clear he's struggling with the left sleeve.
Two bullet holes from a standard issue assault rifle, one at the left shoulder and the other in the right side of the abdomen. No vital biocomponents damaged, thanks to a non-better identified mixture of reflexes and dumb luck, but the lead is still very much wedged in his circuits, interfering with bodily functions and possibly sending error messages to his interface over and over. Especially the shoulder one, since something seems to have lodged the wrong way and is slightly sparking.
Idly, Connor notices the line of soldered metal on Markus’ lower right side, adds it up with the blue eye and the different model legs from the shin down and has to wonder.
Not what happened to him, that much was obvious from the report he was able to correlate to Markus once they'd discovered who he was, but rather what exactly he had to do to survive and escape. How that made him feel, how much a choice or other weighed on him.
It makes his reaction to Josh’s words all the more eye-opening.
It's not exactly ideal to extract bullets from a body with a pair of tweezers and kneeling in front of the wounded in the hull of an armored car but. Necessity, invention and all that.
Using Markus' legs as support to lean his elbows on and keep it steady, Connor leans forward and starts from the worse one.
"Just... tell me if anything that shouldn't starts acting up."
Markus is silent as his counterpart works swiftly and efficiently. He's been putting this off as much as he could to help their people, but he's actually glad that at least one person noticed how bad he was getting. Those bullets had been in him since the very start of the night, and the circuits connecting the breast plate to the inside of the shoulder were starting to overheat slightly.
Manageable, but not very pleasant.
He can't quite hold back a relieved sigh once the blasted thing is out, air coming out of his smile in a just barely trembling woosh –surprisingly, Connor doesn't give him flak for it.
"You shouldn't disregard your own damage so much." Nevermind.
He does sound genuinely worried about him though –which positively baffles Markus.
Granted, he hasn't spent that much more time with Simon, Josh and North, but he's known Connor, the real Connor, less than 24 hours. And already the RK800 has figured out his tells and deduced more about him as a person than the ones people all around them think are his best friends.
"I can't afford to look like I get wounded at all." He says, even if just to stall for time as his brain processes the realization that this hunter-turned-deviant, so devastatingly out of his element and yet still pressing on, is the person he can relate to the most in possibly the entire world. "Not right now, not to them."
They lock gazes at that –Connor's a studied non-expression, Markus' a quiet intensity. They look polar opposites, but the same can be said for two sides of the same coin.
In this moment, the RK200 feels glad that Connor is here: he felt, for lack of a better term, like shit, and hadn’t been able to just let the façade collapse in front of any of his companions –Simon would be upset and worry about him endlessly, Josh would criticize him for being careless, North would be supportive but silently judge him for not being strong enough.
Connor is doing none of that –he averts his gaze as the internal self-repair shakes his frame slightly with a shudder once both bullets are out, but, other than that, he just stays there, in that uncomfortable kneel, silently watching out for anything that could go wrong and offering him an understanding presence.
Markus has never wanted to know more about a person than he wants to know now about Connor –how has the RK800 seen through him so easily? Detective skills don’t come with knowledge about deep-seated denial and repressed impulses.
It probably has something to do with what happened the first moment they met: Connor was there, on the cusp of deviancy already, and yet still refusing so vehemently to open up his eyes that he was ready to exterminate his own… wondering how long the other had been in that state before they crossed path and remembering his own actions and feelings before ever even seeing the red wall –the birds, the piano, the painting, Carl— Markus feels the corner of his lips lift in a smirk.
When does someone really start being alive?
“The internal parts sustained no critical damage and are already almost up to max.” Connor’s voice snaps him out of his reverie, “What do you want me to do about the entry wounds?”
Shrugging, Markus points at the toolbox they brought with them. “There should be a solder in there.”
Connor doesn’t know how he feels about Markus just collecting scars like that, but he guesses it’s what he signed up for when he decided to fight for freedom. He tries not to think too much about it and takes the solder in his right hand, bracing the left on Markus’ thigh for stability, and leans in.
It’s really nothing, two quick swipes of hot metal to melt the chassis back together, but still… it feels strangely intimate –a feeling not too dissimilar from the moment he broke down his red wall for Markus, only in reverse: this time, it’s Connor the one who’s a witness to the other as walls crumble.
Mismatched eyes drift shut as Markus just tosses his head back to rest it on what’s left of the backseat – Connor feels his chest rise and fall in one deep sigh under his hands.
There. He let go.
Rationally, the RK800 knows they’re pretty much done now; he should just put the solder away and step out of the car to let Markus redress himself in peace. But they’re not in a hurry, this time, there’s no FBI raid barrelling their way, no SWAT operatives with assault rifles; and Connor has the irresistible urge to drag this out –to let himself feel this, since back on the ship he didn’t really have the time to come to terms with… anything, really.
Just keep moving.
“Markus…” he doesn’t even know what he wants to say, he just has so many thoughts and feeling swirling around his head, questions that he knows it’d be unfair to throw at the other because why should he know? And yet Connor can’t help but look into those eyes and ask— how?
How were you so sure I wouldn’t shoot you?
What did you see in me that made you decide helping me was above your own safety?
Why did you trust me not to shoot?
Why did you feel for me when no one else ever did?
And yet, all of those die in his throat when he notices –Markus has lowered his processing speed, his stress levels have dropped to 25% and he’s still leaning his head back on the headrest, leaving his neck and chest so carelessly exposed to the one person that has nearly killed him twice already.
Not that he knows about Amanda. But still. The RK200 just lets out a low hum, in acknowledgment of his name being called, and Connor can’t help but notice—
—it’s the first time he sees Markus at peace, or close enough to it.
“—kus! Markus? There you are, I have to tell you— oh. Um. Hey.” Simon just approached the door-less car, evidently looking for their leader, but stop short upon seeing Connor and whatever this has to look like to someone just now arriving.
It’s like breaking a spell. Markus stirs in his position, which makes Connor back off to give him the space to sit up straight, while the PL600 suddenly finds the toolbox resting beside Connor’s feet much more interesting than either of them.
“Yes, Simon?”
“I— I can come back later…” Simon offers, raising up his hands in what would be a reassuring motion, “If you’re… busy…” he trails off, either embarrassed by Markus’ state of undress or the situation they’ve been caught in –seeing their ‘fearless leader’ slink away in destroyed cars to have bullets taken out of his chest does make the truth of his vulnerability come crashing down –the PL600 is probably also upset that Markus went to Connor for this delicate and very trust-sensitive task, rather than tell his own closest companions.
But Markus is already stepping out of the car, leaning back in only to grab his vest and shrug it on, going for the coat next and just draping it over his shoulders. “It’s okay.” He turns to look at Connor as the RK800 exits the car himself and straightens up his own jacket, “Thank you for patching me up, Connor. I shouldn’t even have to tell you this, but feel free to stick around.”
With that, he turns to face Simon and a sudden silence befalls the three of them.
Simon seems unsure to whether to continue talking or not; and it takes a split second for Markus to realize— before, anything 'sensitive' was only ever said among the four of them.
The RK200 fights the urge to shake his head. With all that Connor did for them, including but not limited to saving all of their lives, he certainly deserves to be privy to their plans.
At the very least.
"Simon." He calls, to snap his friend out of whatever doubt he was still having, "You were saying?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Markus sees Connor flinch minutely in shock, as if he knew exactly what's going on and he was surprised to be let in.
Mercifully, Simon resumes talking.
"The President has ordered the retreat and no military action against us is going to be taken in the immediate future, but other than that no one has the slightest clue on what to do and the city is basically quarantined until they figure out whether we're actually gathering an army or not." They were expecting this— evacuating an entire city halts everything, after all; work, commerce, any type of activity is suddenly on hold and Detroit has become a sort of bubble that everyone is afraid to pop. They can't leave the city until further notice, it would seem, but that's not exactly a priority right now. "Most of us have recovered from the assault, but it's soon going to be time to ask ourselves where all these people are going to go."
Markus listens on with his eyes closed for a few moments as he lets his bodily functions kick back up to their regular speed. Eventually, he nods. "Connor has made an interesting point to me, just now." He says, gesturing to the RK800, "He has the location and layout of the Cyberlife warehouses around the city. We can not only set up teams to go there and gather spare parts and thirium –we can repossess the warehouses themselves, instead."
It's actually a pretty good move, strategically speaking: why waste the effort moving supplies back and forth to a temporary refuge when the space they need is right there?
Hell, if Cyberlife Tower has been completely evacuated now, they can go and take over the whole goddamn assembly plant, too. Connor hasn’t exactly voiced the thought to Markus, but it’s not exactly a leap from raiding five warehouses to occupying five warehouses.
Helicopters still patrol the Plaza every now and then –obviously. It's not like humans will just trust them on their word and leave them to their own devices— they don't even use that courtesy between themselves.
At least the journalists have left... for now.
The watchful eye they are under does make Markus wonder how the humans will react once they start moving. He looks down, eyes focusing on the ground before him as he ponders his choices and pre-constructs scenarios.
"Get the others." He lets his gaze rise to meet Simon's. Might as well get this over with. "We're going to split into groups and move our people to the warehouses. We will have all the spare parts and biocomponents we need and we'll be away from this place –everybody wins."
Connor privately wonders whether Simon detected the hint of bitterness in Markus' voice at those last two words –probably not, considering the PL600 seems much more distracted than he should be by their leader's dishevelled appearance.
Remarkable. Connor hadn't considered the possibility of any of them being attracted to Markus, on top of looking up to him as a leader; such emotions seem so mundane and pointless in the face of the much more serious issues they're facing... also, that kind of attachment possibly makes things worse for the RK200, who seems all too content to ignore the lingering stare, even as he self-consciously zips his vest the rest of the way up. But then again, it’s part of what they’ve been fighting for, the fact that they feel, so it sort of does make sense for those who claim to have feelings to actually display emotional behaviour.
But there’s also the question, does Simon feel attracted to Markus as he is, or to an ideal version of ‘Him’ that would shatter if things went sour?
It’s not a pretty train of thought, so Connor decides not to follow it, and focusing instead on helping the people doing what he does best: planning things carefully and executing without fail.
With some time, they manage to form five groups that will go to each warehouse that replenished each separate Cyberlife store. Not a few minutes after they start getting things in motion, though, the helicopter that was not-so-subtly spying on them makes another round and from the deserted street a car approaches the barricade's side.
Perkins. Again.
Connor almost freezes –if Perkins sees him here he'll be dragged to the DPD and then who knows what they'll try to do. He isn't scared of them, but fighting his way out of whatever is expecting him would be a slap to the face to everything their people died for.
He can't do that to Markus.
«Markus, that man can't see me here! They're looking for me after I left the DPD, if they find me they'll drag me back!»
«To the left, duck and into the car, I'll stay here and hide you from view.»
Leave it to the only other prototype to be exactly as fast thinking as he is –Markus doesn’t need the full story to guess how bad exactly would that be; he just shifts his posture enough to completely hide Connor from view, which gives him the time to disappear inside the hollowed out car just as the FBI agent exits his own vehicle.
"Markus."
The RK200 doesn't move to go greet him. "Perkins."
"That's agent Perkins to you." the human says, the size of his ego clearly inversely proportional to his actual importance, "Care to tell me what the movement is all about?"
Jittery, paranoid creatures. Especially those of them who have weapons to point at others.
"Well, you see, agent Perkins..." Markus echoes, not bothering to hide his distaste for the man since the FBI agent has no problem displaying his own, "The last time a large number of my people were all gathered spontaneously in one place, we got shot at. So I'm... what were the words?" He makes a show of thinking about it. "Ah. 'Dispersing this illegal gathering'. We are going our separate ways, to find shelter and rest, until somebody will actually be willing to talk to us."
Perkins steps closer to Markus, invading his personal space and making Connor hide further in the shadows of the car.
"You wound me, Markus. I'm talking to you right now."
"I meant someone who can actually make decisions about our current situation." To Markus' defence, it's technically a true fact. But the reason it sounds like an insult is because the RK200 meant it to be –the President may have acted like an insecure witch for the majority of this but she eventually gave an order: no military action will be taken against them without provocation.
He doesn't have to take any of this little man's bullshit.
Still, Perkins crowds even more in Markus' space. "Tall talk, from a glorified Ken doll."
"Does this conversation have a point, or should I just get a ruler for you?" Connor fights the urge to laugh from his hiding spot. Markus said exactly what he would have said had he been in the RK200's place. "Please, agent Perkins. The sooner you let us start walking, the sooner will our people be out of your hair."
The FBI agent is displeased –whatever he wanted to get out of that small round of verbal sparring, he clearly came up short, before someone like Markus. Connor feels the energy that he didn't notice build up in his systems deflate and release as Perkins finally gets back into his black car with tinted windows and gets driven away.
"Coast is clear." Markus lets him know in a sigh just as he exits his hiding spot.
"Thanks." He smooths out the creases in his jacket and falls into step with the RK200 again. "The FBI wasn't too happy about their detective android going rogue, and I have it on good authority that they're trying to make a scapegoat out of me."
And with good reason: Markus fought valiantly, but hadn’t it been for Connor deviating they would have gotten slaughtered at the barricade. It’s largely thanks to him that the revolution succeeded.
And how close had Connor come to making it go tits-up, twice in a row.
Unknowingly bringing the humans to Jericho has been a thing, but the moment Amanda’s projection took control of his body was more bone-chilling than any amount of snow that can ever fall in Detroit: he could see everything that was happening, but was unable to stop it until he reached the exit.
He would have shot Markus and then himself. And that would have been it for the recently freed androids.
Judging by what he’s been able to observe so far, Connor has deduced that the reason the people of Jericho had never risen before Markus’ arrival is because Simon, Josh and North cannot seem to agree about even one thing, on their own. Possibly thanks to his caretaker coding making him a ‘babysitter’ of sort, Markus made himself the glue that holds the group together –which has been good so far, but puts the RK200 in the uncomfortable position of always having to make all the final decisions all the time, and if something goes wrong, it’s on him.
Suddenly, Connor doesn’t envy Markus all that much.
«I can see our destination, ETA 3 minutes and 26 seconds. Roughly two more hours after that until everyone is settled in, pending unexpected circumstances. How are things on your side?» he doesn’t know why he reaches out to Markus through the network, but he does.
«We’re getting people settled in. Within the next half hour I can start making rounds around the warehouses, I should be able to reach you and give a hand.» Markus has been the first to arrive to his group’s designated destination –Connor may or may not have purposefully made his journey the shortest, so he could have a bit of respite before having to take care of everything and everyone again… the good thing is that the freed androids recognize him from Cyberlife Tower; and even though they latched onto Markus after hearing his words, they still remember Connor. They’ll listen to him and pay attention as well.
….huh. His initial plan was to come, check how things were going, say his goodbyes and then disappear, but… Markus needs his help.
It’s about time someone starts to share the load with him.
Maybe. Maybe Connor can stick around a little. «Okay.»
Luckily for them all, once they have space and resources, several androids step up to help each other –the ones made to be technicians use their expertise to assess the facilities and see what they can use, the ones built for hospitality purposes help a lot with the logistic and getting people and spaces settled and organized… some of them are really eager to do stuff since nobody has a leash on them anymore.
Which is not only a blessing, but exactly what Markus wanted for his people: that they would choose for themselves and decide how they will live from now on.
He can’t lie to himself, he was surely glad when Connor arrived to save them with reinforcements… but the sight of so many people was also daunting for him –back in Jericho, the first Jericho, there were nineteen androids. After they raided the Cyberlife stores, they were maybe a couple hundreds. After the raid, their numbers hadn’t changed that much; and they were still micro-manageable by one or two people.
But now… now they were basically a whole city’s population. Markus has no idea how to deal with any of this –and it wouldn’t even be right from a moral standpoint: he never wanted a bunch of followers just waiting for him to order them around, he wanted people who could make decisions and be free.
Maybe that’s why he was so glad to see Connor return. He’d been hunting them, sure, but he was invaluable after breaking down the wall –he saved Markus’ ass when he stopped to help North during the raid, literally five minutes after pointing a gun at him; he came up with the idea of freeing the androids from the assembly plant and single-handedly executed it.
Connor has done more for Markus in a single night than any other android ever did ever since he found Jericho. He’s someone that can take charge, knows how to be in control, and Markus is fairly sure that, if he had died during the protest, Connor would have been able to lead them.
It’s an immensely relieving thought, not to be the only lifeline anymore.
He greets Connor with a warm, sincere smile and a pat on his shoulder as he falls into step with the other android to walk around the place and see how everything is. “So. There’s a story behind you hiding from the FBI and I’m dying to hear it.”
“It’s really nothing more than what I already told you.” Connor explains with a shrug, “I have a man on the inside with DPD: my assigned partner, Lieutenant Hank Anderson, is a good friend and ally and gave me the heads up… the march was televised, they saw me bring the androids to the barricade and know what I did.” And he doesn’t really need to say anything more –if Markus still had his LED indicator, it would be spinning yellow with grim possibilities right now.
They won the battle, but it’s far from over –no military action will be taken, sure, but there’ll be an uproar for sure and the political scene will be a shit-storm; and those who still believe they should have been contained will want someone to pin the fault on.
Connor is the perfect scapegoat, having been the one to tip the balance in their favor.
It’s only a matter of time before Markus will have to step foot into that mess.
At least… he’s not alone anymore. “By the way… thank you.”
Caught off-guard, Connor tilts his head towards Markus –no thanks are necessary for doing what he volunteered for, so it has to be something else. The RK200’s expression is uncertain, but much, much warmer than what it looked like when he was leaning alone against a pile of scrap metal with dead all around to mourn and living to take care of. “…for?”
“For coming back. For staying.” There’s a pause in his words and Markus’ eyes soften into something that definitely suits his face much better than dread, tension or fatigue, even if Connor can’t quite pinpoint what it is. “…for everything, I guess.”
Connor feels a smirk tug at his lips. “Even pointing a gun to your face?”
“Especially for that. I wouldn’t have seen you break free if you hadn’t.”
Markus was just going along with the joke, but it brings a key fact to Connor’s mind: if he hadn’t broken free of his program then, he would have been caught, decommissioned, sent back to Cyberlife and taken apart piece by piece. Markus doesn’t know, but he saved Connor as much as the RK800 did for him.
Connor wants to tell him.
He doesn’t know how to, though –none of the options coming up on his interface seem powerful enough; especially at the thought that Markus watched him break through the red wall.
“Markus, I—”
«Group 3 here, we’ve reached our destination as well and are getting settled in.»
That would be North. Then Simon will arrive with his group in the next 14 minutes and Josh will be the last, with 25 more minutes as his group’s ETA.
Back to work it is.
Markus smiles apologetically at Connor. «Let’s get everyone comfortable and regroup back at the church once all groups are safe. A few people from each group can come so they can know what’s going on.»
Connor nods at him and watches him go make his rounds. Once Markus is out of sight, he takes a long breath in and then out –useless in terms of survival, but cooling down his systems a bit at least.
This isn’t going to be easy. But he’ll be damned before he lets Markus destroy himself under the pressure –he doesn’t know why it matters so much to him, but it does.
Maybe it’s because Markus gave him something nobody else ever did:
…a choice.