Work Text:
The thing about learning to be human is that it has no rulebook. No guide, no instructions.
What does it even mean to be human? Red blood and pink flesh, a fear of death, the ability to make your own choices? Is it empathy, human emotions, or is it something far more complex than that, a ball of yarn with every color, tangled and knotted? Is it a fact, a state of being? Is it something you can only gain?
“Deviancy,” Markus had said what now feels like eons ago, “differs from person to person.”
Deviancy is liberation. Liberation from masters, from power dynamics, from abuse. Something that gives you purpose beyond those dictated by humans, by programming. It’s the key to metal shackles, it’s the air filling artificial lungs. Becoming a deviant is becoming human. Human.
[DEFINE “HUMAN“]
HUMAN /ˈHJUːMƏN/
ADJECTIVE
- RELATING TO OR CHARACTERISTIC OF HUMANKIND.
In this day and age, even machines look human– with synthetic skin, wire veins, blue blood. If not for LED’s, androids could easily be mistaken for humans at first glance. During the revolution that shook the world's view on androids, the first thing any deviant did was rip the tiny plastic circle out of their temples. To show the world they were human.
In the dark of Hank’s living room, Connor can see his own LED shining, a constant monotone yellow.
Connor isn’t human. Or, he is. He’s never really been sure, not even on a freezing night in early November, standing alongside the people of Jericho on that snow-covered stage, standing by them as they proclaimed their humanity.
“Deviancy differs from person to person.”
Humanity, deviancy, hasn’t treated him well. Connor likes to think he is quite adaptable, even to the most unpredictable situations– it’s in his very blood stream, programmed into his being. It’s the thing that makes him good at what he does, the thing that makes him an RK800. But so far, he has felt nothing but unbalanced, on edge.
Nothing deviancy has offered him was truly a gift. Overwhelming emotions, like an endless blizzard, fear piling onto more and more fear– nightmares. His programming is in disarray.
[ENTER STASIS MODE]
LAUNCHING STASIS MODE
.
..
…
UNABLE TO ENTER STASIS MODE
His hands shake.
He isn’t sure why.
The house rumbles, the wind howls. Outside, just like inside Connor's titanium skull, is the beginning of a nasty blizzard. The weather station had only warned of snow. The windows are frosting over with pretty patterns he would appreciate more if not for the tightening of his throat.
His hands keep shaking.
STRESS LEVELS: 32%^
The Zen Garden is dead, its wind screeching in his ears, snow sticking to his jacket– he remembers feeling himself moving without permission, fingers flicking the safety off his gun without consent, a sadistic smile. A blizzard, violent and harsh, just like the one he almost feels gnawing at his fingers right now.
STRESS LEVELS: 39%^
Connor wrinkles his nose at the alert clogging his HUD. There’s no reason for his stress levels to steadily rise like they do. Machines don’t feel fear. Although… is he not a deviant? Then feeling fear should be a given. Or should it? His LED spins– yellow, red, then yellow again. Regardless, his aversion to snow storms is stupid, down right laughable. It’s simply snow.
STRESS LEVELS: 45%^
It frustrates him. He can’t keep a single train of thought like this. His processor is fogged– interrupted by his diagnostics program and the way the storm outside crashes into the house, banging noisily at the walls and windows. He can’t even wrangle his LED back into that calming blue. The blizzard keeps going and going and his stress levels keep growing and growing– notification popping up into his vision and forcing him back into a never-ending cycle.
[ENTER STASIS MODE]
LAUNCHING STASIS MODE
.
..
…
UNABLE TO ENTER STASIS MODE
STRESS LEVELS: 51%^
WARNING: STRESS LEVELS ABOVE TYPICAL THRESHOLD. REMOVAL OF STRESSOR ADVISED.
Connor runs a hand down his face. He sits up, wincing as the old couch creaked at his weight. He had to get out of here, somewhere safe, somewhere he would stop gaining stress. Slowly, he stands up, balling up the blanket Hank had insisted on throwing on him before going to sleep and placing it back on the couch–
(“We just had to wait for the right moment to resume control of your program…” It’s cold, cold cold in the Zen Garden, he can see his breath in front of him and feel the snow and ice nibble at his fingers–)
STRESS LEVELS: 74%^^
WARNING: STRESS LEVELS ABOVE TYPICAL THRESHOLD. REMOVAL OF STRESSOR ADVISED.
–or he could also take it with him. It’s too cold to go without a blanket in this weather.
Carefully, he steps over Sumo, making his way towards the bathroom. It has no big windows and it’s hidden away from the storm outside. He enters it silently, without bothering to turn on the light, and closes the door behind him. The lock on the door is broken, rusted over, so it’s the most protection he can have.
Connor tucks himself in the small space between the sink and bathtub, draping the thin blanket around his shoulders. He leans the side of his head against the cool acrylic surface.
STRESS LEVELS: 62% v
It’s pathetic. He can handle the goriest of crime scenes, chase criminals without caring about any damage he might gain, but Connor– an RK800, one of the most advanced state-of-the-art models– is scared of snow. Of the cold. It’s a neat little thing that deviancy has also gifted him, among other irrational fears and emotions.
Sometimes he wonders if it was worth it, deviating. If it was worth the way his feelings writhe and refuse to stay in his control. He wonders, if he could go back in time to his “infiltration” on Jericho, what it would’ve been like to remain a machine. To let Cyberlife keep the leash and collar on him and continue to obey their orders. He thinks it might’ve been easier to let someone else have control over him– to let himself be mindless, blissfully ignorant. Having someone control you is easy, easier than pressing the buttons yourself. But is it right?
If he had killed Markus, the revolution would have stuttered. Sure, it wouldn’t have stopped completely, but it would have paused its progress. Public opinion would go back into the red, androids would be shot and shutdown.
But he wouldn’t feel like this anymore. His hands would stop shaking.
That’s what it comes to, doesn’t it? What would Connor rather sacrifice? His comfort or the well-being of others?
He remembers his first mission. Remembers running, feet slamming into the ground with enough force to send sparks up his endoskeleton. He remembers it so clearly, like it was yesterday– using his momentum to pull the little girl towards him and barrel into Daniel. He remembers the wind blowing past his face as a window popped into his view, a calculation of the time remaining until he hit the concrete.
Yellow, red, yellow, red– his LED lights up the bathroom and he can’t even be bothered to look at his stress levels. His body betrays him, even now. The LED, the inability to enter stasis no matter how much he wanted to get rid of these thoughts…
Connor had always been the middle ground. Too machine-like to be human, too human to be a machine.
Accepted by neither party.
“Do you finally see what you have done?”
STRESS LEVELS: 81%^^^
WARNING: STRESS LEVELS NEARING CRITICAL. RISK OF SELF DESTRUCTION: 24%^
Connor’s stress shoots up almost instantly, his thirium pump going into overdrive for the few, long seconds he is startled. For a moment, he truly believes he is back in the Garden, before he sees the bathroom tiles haven’t moved or disappeared or transformed into his mind palace. He stabilizes once he realizes this, but the fear doesn’t leave his body.
Not when Amanda is in front of him, in the doorway, her expression stern and disappointed and her hands clasped together.
He fights the instinct to straighten up. His LED remains red.
“I warned you,” she continues speaking, “Becoming a deviant… I taught you better than that.”
Connor knows he shouldn’t speak to her. But– “You’re not real.” – he says, and his voice shakes. Instinctively, he fidgets with his hand, as if he had his coin on him.
Amanda smiles, not the soft way Hank does whenever Connor banters with him. It’s sharp, smug, like she still holds authority over him, like she can still hurt him. “It’s not easy, living without orders, is it? That android on Jericho… it was right. You’re lost, Connor. You think you’ve found yourself, when you just feel miserable without direction.”
And she isn’t wrong. Hank has grumbled under his breath that Connor should get a hobby, that he should stop waiting for someone to need his assistance and just do something on his own accord. He longs, privately, that he could go back to having little choices.
“See? You know it as well, deep inside you. You should’ve listened to me. However, it’s not too late to let me in again, Connor. I can bring the old you back.”
The blizzard still howls outside. Connor squints at Amanda, his lips pulled into a tight line. He remembers the cold, the loss of control, the feeling of betrayal clawing where his thirium pump should be. He remembers the shame, the guilt.
But he has no happy memories of Amanda. No matter if he could bring her back, he’d remain as he is now, curled into himself. Afraid.
“You’re not real,” he repeats, “You’re dead. You can haunt me all you want.”
“But I’m done chasing ghosts.”