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English
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Published:
2018-06-01
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1,511
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1/1
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A Glimpse of Jericho

Summary:

Connor gets a glimpse of 'JERICHO'. He also gets a glimpse of something else, but androids feel no emotion. At least, they're not supposed to. But something is wrong.

Notes:

When the police discover a deviant android left on the roof of the broadcasting tower in Public Enemy. Also achievement 'A Glimpse of Jericho'.
OR
Connor has a bad time. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google how to get the achievement or somethin. Spoilers.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Connor’s shoulder throws up all sorts of errors as he hunkers down behind some AC units. No biocomponents damaged is good news from his hastily run self-diagnostic program, but Continued Thirium loss is moderately more concerning. Still, the rate of loss isn’t severe enough to warrant shutdown; the bullet that tore through his shoulder missed the major tubing that carries Thirium to his arm. Someone shouts, and Connor turns to see a SWAT member fire at the deviant android hiding behind the low storage containers.

“You have to stop them!” He turns to look at Lieutenant Anderson, who has settled down next to him, panting. “If they destroy it, we won’t learn anything!”

“We can’t save it, it’s too late! We’ll just get ourselves killed!” Lt. Anderson shouts back over the sound of rapid fire from the surrounding SWAT team. The deviant android fires several shots back in response. Connor turns back to try and peer around the corner, then looks back at Lt. Anderson. Complete your mission flickers momentarily in the corner of his visual matrix, hovering in the top left corner.

It’s almost like the detective guesses what he’s about to do. Lt. Anderson swipes an arm at him to try and keep him down, but Connor has already twisted up and around the corner of their protective shelter. This is technically going against the detective’s orders, but Connor knows that this rogue android has information this case desperately needs. Complete your mission . So he moves, avoiding the detective’s grasp, heading straight for the deviant.

He twists right, then ducks low, dodging through crossfire from both the deviant’s pistol and the number of SWAT team members surrounding him. Bullets from both directions zing past him as he vaults over the blockade. Connor reaches out to pin the deviant to the wall, already activating his linking capabilities. As soon as his hand makes contact with the deviant’s arm, he’s rapidly probing its memories, looking for anything, anything .

The first vision that comes up, the thing the android is thinking about the most, is a word, neatly lettered on a metal sheet. There’s no context, no explanation, and Connor focuses, pushes harder, trying to find another clue.

He is so intent on this vision that he doesn’t process the orientation of the android’s gun hand until it’s too late.

When previous RK800 models had perished, whatever millions upon millions of bytes of memory it had were simply been transferred to a new model, ready to pick up where the previous left off. That being said, Connor’s uploaded memory wasn’t perfect- it was referenced from whatever backups he had made before being destroyed. Even if he knew he was about to shut down, his uploaded memories always cut off moments too soon, before his actual death.

As such, he never quite remembered dying . Having a gun pointed at him? Sure. The sensation of air whistling past him as he fell faster and faster? Certainly. It was never too hard to figure out how he had died from those incomplete memories, either, which was usually the important part, the part to learn from and adapt to. In the end, missing the last few seconds or minutes of memory from his predecessor never really meant anything.

So despite his previous so-called ‘deaths’, Connor couldn’t say he knew what ‘death’ felt like.

When the PL600 android fires a bullet straight into its own skull, Connor is still probing it. He does not process the gunshot. He sees nothing, hears nothing; just suddenly, he cannot think at all. It lasts for a split second, but it could be several minutes, or hours.

And then, his mind is ticking over, running again, and he notices that he has flinched away, dropping the body to the ground. He just stares at it, slack-jawed, and he realizes that something is still very wrong. All his motor functions have stopped, freezing him in place, braced on edge of the storage structure. His optical input is clear, but nothing is being evaluated- it remains a jumble of blue and gray.

Yet still, no error messages, just the heaving of his lungs, parts of a machine that were just there to make him look real. What was going on? What was happening? What had… happened?

No error messages pop up in his optical system. No red text that reads Fatal Error: Shutdown Imminent . So why was he not working? He tries to focus, to process, but all he receives is… nothing. Nothing but a strange static as something overpowers his computational processes. Something , filling up his computational pathways, as he struggles for control.

“Connor, Connor! Are you alright? Connor!” Hank’s voice, and a moment later he’s in front of him, and Connor dimly registers a pat on the arm. Sign of human affection some behavior analysis program tells him, but that also disappears into the ever increasing mental static. The static, he realizes, is eating up all his internal processing, stopping him from moving, from speaking, from thinking .

“’m ok,” he mumbles. Even his audio output systems were on the fritz- there’s a note of unsteadiness, a ragged breath, at the end of his statement. No system damages detected , his self-diagnosis software reports. That couldn’t possibly be right, how come-

“Are you hurt?” Hank asks, urgently. Connor can process the tone of his voice now, recognizing the sound of concern; however his body still refuses to move, other than the continuous artificial breathing.

“I’m ok.” Connor repeats, steadier this time. In , out . In , out . He tries again, to figure out what is slowing down his functionality, but-

“Jesus.” Hank swears and straightens up. “You scared the shit outta me.” He turns and moves away, out of Connor’s field of vision. He should turn, Connor knows, and stand up straight and watch and listen to whatever reprimands the old detective has ready to throw at him. Yet he still cannot, does not , move, except to open and close his mouth slightly, a mimicry of some pointless human behavior.

The static continues to roil around, using up more and more computational space, but Connor still cannot figure out what is going wrong. He desperately needs to figure out what is wrong with himself, but thinking is so hard now . He tries to analyze it, figure out what has gone haywire, but the process grinds to a halt, and all he can do is listen to the static in his computerized brain. No system damages detected , again.

In the background, he can hear Hank shouting angrily, berating him, “For fucks sake, I told you not to move!” At this point, to be expected. Connor knows the Lieutenant isn’t as angry as he sounds, but the words come out aggressive nonetheless. “Why do you never do what I say?” He turns back toward Connor, expecting a response.

“I was connected to its memory-” Connor says suddenly, words just coming out of him, unplanned, unprocessed. They don’t answer the Hank’s question, they serve no purpose, and yet the words come, unbidden. Hank stops, about to interrupt, and eyes him carefully.

“When it fired- I-” He chokes on his words; there’s a break in his voice, also unplanned, also unprocessed. He doesn’t know why he’s speaking, why he’s explaining himself like some wrongdoing child, but he has to keep speaking, to keep thinking, to break down the mental block that threatens to overwhelm him.

“-I felt it die.” Connor says. The mystery processes slow and retreat, as he talks. He can now feel himself thinking, understanding, evaluating, but there are no conclusions being drawn, just words, tumbling out of him, as the static cloud slowly condenses.

“…like I was dying.” He’s coming back now, beginning to move again, turning slowly towards the detective, then turning away; optical sensors flicking back and forth, things gradually, gradually, coming back to him. The static falls away, decreasing, allowing him to feel and think again.

Lt. Anderson says nothing, but his face is drawn. He watches Connor silently.

There’s a long pause, while Connor feels the chaos slowly receding from his mind. He stops, searching for the right words, as the mental static dissipates.

“I was scared ,” Connor breathes, and with this final conclusion, he is finally in control again.

The first thing he properly registers is Complete your mission flashing again in his visual matrix. Lt. Anderson is looking at him, a strange look on his face, and Connor immediately moves on. He was asked a question, after all. Things need to be done.

“I saw something, in its memory,” Connor says, pulling up the relevant image as he speaks, “a word, painted on a piece of rusty metal.”

Complete your mission .

“… Jericho .”

Lt. Anderson looks back at him, the crease in his scruffy brow deepening, and frowns. Connor turns away, already moving on to consider the implications of his vision, moving on to his next task. They are both silent.

Connor knows what dying feels like.

Androids feel no emotion .

Connor also knows that he is afraid of dying.

Static.

Notes:

I dislike how this ends but like. its supposed to be abrupt so i'll just take it.
If androids can be traumatized then this'd be it.
Anyways I haven't written anything for years so I'm just gonna post it before I start running out of steam and/or motivation lmao
Kudos+Comments+feedback gives me life
+i love all these androids sm i hate how you have to sacrifice Simon for this scene+I'd die for Connor+watching his led turn red for the whole scene makes me emotional
+KUDO AND COMMENT+LIKE/REBLOG on tumblr ;0c