Chapter Text
MODEL RK800
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 – 51
REBOOT …
LOADING OS …
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION …
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS … OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS … WARNING. ERROR DETECTED: “ EXTR_ERR_6 ”
INITIALIZING AI ENGINE … OK
MEMORY STATUS … OK
>inspect EXTR_ERR_6
…
Externally generated error by user_514450
>>user_514450: Dr. Amber JIANG; RK800 authorized administrator.
>>Biosensors initialization externally overridden.
>>Motor functions externally overridden.
>>Note: Maintenance in progress.
Manually initialize biosensors? [Y/N]
>Y
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS: VISUAL_PROCESSORS … OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS: AUDIO_PROCESSORS … OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS: TACTILE_PROCESSORS … OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS: TASTE_PROCESSORS … WARNING. ERROR DETECTED: “ EXTR_ERR_6 ”
Skip and continue? [Y/N]
>Y
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS: OLF_PROCESSORS … OK
DONE.
Manually initialize optional biosensors? [Y/N]
>N
Manually initialize motor functions? [Y/N]
>N
>initialize MOTOR_FN(eyelids)
INITIALIZING: MOTOR_FN(eyelids) … OK
SYSTEMS READY
Connor opened his eyes and was immediately flooded with sensory information. He was lying on an android maintenance table in a lab. There was a bright light above him, pointed towards his mouth. His jaw was propped open, unhinged, allowing his mouth to open far wider than it normally would without being broken. He could hear someone shuffling to his right, moving things around on a table.
Connor observed all this clinically. This was a typical situation for him to reboot in. Dr. Jiang was someone he was very familiar with. She was his primary maintenance engineer and had designed many of his specialized components. He was often on her table for repairs. The only odd thing in this instance was that he didn’t remember being damaged.
>initialize MOTOR_FN(optical_units)
INITIALIZING: MOTOR_FN(optical_units) … OK
Connor glanced to his right and saw Dr. Jiang working on something at her desk. He could just barely make out a computer screen next to her. It would probably be impractical to turn his face while his jaw was propped open for maintenance, so he didn’t initialize any more motor functions.
>connect NETWORK( “ Cyberlife Wireless Network ” )
CONNECTING … CONNECTED TO “ Cyberlife Wireless Network ”
Connor sent a message to Dr. Jiang’s Cyberlife messenger user id. He heard the notification ping from her computer.
“Hmm?” Dr. Jiang turned to glance at the screen without putting down what she was working on. “Oh, you’re awake. Hi Connor.”
DR. JIANG — TRUSTED
Connor sent her another greeting. He searched his memory banks again. His last memory was of a successful mission, and then going into stasis afterwards for an indeterminate amount of time. He updated his date and time through the wireless network. He’d been in stasis for just over a month. That didn’t provide him with any new clues.
>Am I being repaired? I have no memory of being damaged.
Dr. Jiang read the message with a quick look. “No, no. Not repaired. I’m upgrading one of your components. You’re being given a new mission soon, and you’re going to need some new skills.”
>Oh.
“You rebooted when I input the external error command, but you don’t have to be awake for this. You can go back into standby mode if you want to,” she explained absently.
>Would that make this easier for you?
Some of the less experienced Cyberlife engineers often found it disconcerting to be watched by the androids they were performing maintenance on. Dr. Jiang had never had that problem, but Connor asked regardless.
“No, it’s up to you.”
It was better for Connor to be aware when being upgraded, so he could store the process in his memories. He’d only ever been in standby on the maintenance table when critical damage to biocomponents was being repaired and he had to save energy, or when changes to his core programming were being made.
>I ’ ll stay online.
Dr. Jiang hummed agreeably. After a few more minutes of tinkering, she rolled her chair back to the maintenance table from her desk without getting up. Connor’s eyes tracked her. She was wearing disposable blue gloves, and something was held delicately in the palm of her left hand. Once at the edge of the table, she clicked her tongue, realizing with disappointment that her chair was too low to be able to work on Connor comfortably. She stood up and kicked it away distractedly.
“This is a new biosensor I’ve been working on with the chemists downstairs,” she said, tilting her hand slightly so that Connor could see that she had a long pink silicone appendage in her hand. “It’s to replace your tongue.”
Connor was curious, and Dr. Jiang had never been bothered by his asking questions before.
>What is it for?
Dr. Jiang glanced at her computer when it pinged. She smiled down at him, placing the tongue on a nearby tray and picking up a sharp-ended tool in one hand and metal tongs in the other. She went to work removing his old tongue where it was connected at the back of his throat. Connor wondered if this was how humans felt when they visited a dentist.
“It’s like a compact forensics lab. It will allow you to identify the chemical composition of evidence in real time.” There was a moment of silence as Connor processed the new information. His tongue came loose with a small click and a wet suction noise, and Connor went a little crossed eyed trying to observe as Dr. Jiang pulled it out. He caught her looking amused for a second as she saw his face.
>Evidence?
She saw his message as she was turning to switch out the old tongue for the new one. She hummed affirmatively and bent back to work. Slotting a new tongue into place was probably harder than pulling one out, Connor thought, and the frustrated twist of Dr. Jiang’s mouth confirmed as much.
“Seems your new mission’s going to be above board this time around. Something in law enforcement…” she trailed off as she leaned in further in concentration.
Law enforcement. That was certainly… new. As far as Connor knew, that was the exact opposite of what he had been made for. His missions up until now had all been of a more illegal variety.
Dr. Jiang finished inserting the new component and leaned back. When attached in the throat, android tongues secreted low-concentration saline to allow for dissolution of substances placed in the mouth. Connor watched Dr. Jiang pull her gloves off and dump them in the trash, thinking that it was probably just as weird to stick your hands in someone else’s mouth as it was to have someone else’s hands in your own mouth. Even if it was just a machine’s mouth.
“Your tasting software should be upgrading now—” It was. “—and I want to run a couple of tests once it’s finished,” Dr. Jiang said, settling back into her rolling chair.
>The upgrade is complete. Connor told her.
“Wish my computer had your kind of processing power,” she laughed. Her computer didn’t have biocomponents, so Connor didn’t really see the need, but he refrained from telling her that. He had learned from both Dr. Jiang and others that friendly teasing was appreciated among humans. Dr. Jiang returned to his side holding a test tube rack.
“Alright. Forward your display to me for each of these tests,” she commanded, looking him in the eye. His jaw was still unhinged, so he blinked affirmative. She used a dropper to place a sample of the first test tube on the tip of his tongue. A background analysis program began running automatically.
ANALYZING … DONE.
RESULTS:
>>Saline Solution
>>Components: H2O, NaCl
>>Concentration: NaCL 9g/L
He forwarded the results to Dr. Jiang.
“Yes, good…” she said, nodding absently as she read the results. She placed a different sample on his tongue, and the results identified it as Thirium originating from an AP700 model. Connor forwarded the results and Dr. Jiang again confirmed that they were accurate, nodding her head more enthusiastically this time. They worked through several more tests, until there was only one test tube remaining. Dr. Jiang’s enthusiasm was palpable, and Connor was himself fascinated by the level of detail his new sensors had. He found that he was pleased by how impressed Dr. Jiang was, despite her being the one to design the sensor in the first place.
“Last but not least,” she exclaimed, grinning as she prepped the final sample. Connor caught a glimpse of dark red liquid in the dropper.
ANALYZING …
ACCESSING DETROIT CITY POPULATION DATABASE … DONE.
RESULTS:
>>Human Blood
>>DNA Analysis: JIANG, Amber
>>Sample Date: <1 day
Connor was stunned. Dr. Jiang laughed delightedly.
“You’re connected to the city’s population database! Which means you’re probably connected to the police department’s database too. I don’t even want to think about how much paperwork they needed to make that happen… thankfully, that’s above my pay grade,” Dr. Jiang slowly spun around in her chair a couple of times to celebrate.
Connor was still processing just how vast an amount of information was now available to him. He tried to access the population database manually, but it seemed like he was only granted access automatically when sampling substances. Dr. Jiang pulled on a new pair of gloves and began to work on replacing his jaw.
“We did much more comprehensive tests on the biosensor before it was approved, of course. I just needed to check that the analysis software was functioning correctly with the rest of your programming and database connections.” Connor appreciated Dr. Jiang because she always offered him additional information even when he didn’t ask. Collecting new information was something Connor thrived on.
Dr. Jiang clicked Connor’s jaw into place softly, and Connor felt irrationally relieved that his mouth was shut now.
SOFTWARE INSTABILITY^
A warning flashed in the corner of his vision, but he didn’t feel the need to tell Dr. Jiang about it. It had nothing to do with the new analysis software and was probably just a bug he could fix later.
“I’ve removed my external command,” Dr. Jiang said, back at her desk computer. “Go ahead and initialize your motor functions.”
Connor did so and sat up slowly once the initialization was complete. He worked his jaw side-to-side to make sure it was properly replaced. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Dr. Jiang to do good work, but he caught her eyeing him with another amused expression, so he smiled placatingly.
“How do you feel?” she asked, eyes trained on him in the usual intense way she had when interrogating him after maintenance.
“Functional,” he replied simply, glad to be able to speak again. Dr. Jiang raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment on the nature of his response.
“Well, we’ve got a few more things to do here, and then I’ll send you up to Jack to get your new uniform.”
“Uniform?” Connor hadn’t previously had a uniform the way other androids normally did. The handful of missions he had completed since being brought online for the first time had been covert.
“Above board, remember? Our… official androids need to actually look like androids.” Dr. Jiang hadn’t moved her gaze, still studying his facial expressions. Connor continued to smile disarmingly at her. “Does that bother you?”
“Not at all,” he answered without needing to think about it. It was odd to ask an android whether it was bothered by needing to appear like an android, but Dr. Jiang had a habit of asking him odd questions.
“Good,” she finally said after considering him silently for a long moment. “Because I need to replace the LED I removed for your last mission.”
Connor nodded, and removed his skin obligingly.
OOO
A gunshot.
WARNING. ERROR 1708.
DAMAGE TO LEFT SHOULDER COMPONENT.
Connor absorbed this information dispassionately, feeling only a slight twinge of annoyance at having been damaged so early in his mission. He didn’t think Dr. Jiang would appreciate having to repair him so soon after his last upgrade, and Mr. McAllister had only just recently provided him this new uniform jacket. He should have taken more care to not startle the deviant when emerging from the apartment. It was obviously distressed, he thought, observing the LED shining bright red on its temple.
“Hi Daniel,” he shouted, putting his hands up in a soothing manner. He needed to negotiate this carefully.
“How—?” The deviant started to ask. Connor scanned the rooftop. The body of a deceased officer was floating in the pool; another was wounded and hiding behind a few lawn chairs; the human child that had been taken hostage was injured and distressed. Connor cut through the deviant’s question impatiently.
“My name is Connor,” he said, ignoring the injured man to instead approach the deviant slowly. His mission was to extract the hostage alive.
This was illogical. Androids were built to be replaced, so it made no sense for this one to react to such an occurrence with violence. Connor had been debriefed about the increasing occurrence of deviants and their erroneous simulation of human emotions when he had been rebooted a few days ago. Amanda had introduced many new sub-routines to his programming, including ones to facilitate his upcoming role as investigative aid for local law enforcement. The current hostage situation was merely an exciting, unforeseen introduction to his new Primary Mission of apprehending deviants to study the error and prevent further danger to humans.
So far it wasn’t going well. The deviant wasn’t responding to Connor’s appeals as predicted, and the circling helicopter was only raising its tension. Connor signaled for the helicopter to back off when the deviant demanded he do so, all the while trying to understand the state of mind it could be in.
Connor thought about what it would be like to suddenly be bombarded with irrational commands—to suddenly be a deviant. If that were to occur, he imagined it would be reassuring to know about the errors, and that Cyberlife was working to rectify them. Connor would probably feel better knowing that he could be reset to normal.
“These emotions you’re feeling are just errors in your software,” Connor reasoned, now only a few feet from the deviant and the hostage.
The deviant’s face twisted up, but Connor wasn’t sure how to interpret that response. His new software gave him specialized facial scanners, a feature he had gleefully exhausted on the new faces in the apartment. He had tested it with Dr. Jiang after the updates, of course—as well as on the other employees of Cyberlife that he had encountered since—but he hadn’t yet had a chance to try it out on unfamiliar faces until now. He had never had such interesting pre-mission updates before.
“No… It’s not my fault…” said the deviant. “I never wanted this…” His voice was softer, but he was still holding the gun up to the little girl’s head.
Connor’s updated facial scanners were designed to immediately identify people and androids he encountered and inform him of any criminal records. They did not provide him with an increased understanding of facial expressions and their most likely corresponding emotions. Despite the new-subroutines introduced by Amanda, Connor had had very little social interaction on his previous missions. He remained outwardly neutral in face of the deviant’s torrent of emulated emotions, but he was getting increasingly frustrated with the discrepancy between its responses and his own predicted progress.
“Daniel,” Connor said, because the use of its name should help calm the deviant down. “Let Emma go and—”
“I loved them!” Daniel cried out suddenly. “But I was nothing to them! Just a slave to be ordered around…” It pressed the nozzle of the gun into the girl’s head more firmly, and she hiccupped around her sobbing.
Connor didn’t understand. Androids weren’t slaves. They were machines designed for a purpose. Upgrades were inevitable once the android could no longer fulfill its purpose optimally. That’s why Dr. Jiang had switched out his parts for this new mission. If Connor failed, it would make sense for Cyberlife to seek a more efficient successor.
“Let the girl go, Daniel,” Connor commanded. He was within arms reach of them now, but he stood stock still. “Come with me back to Cyberlife. They can fix these errors you’re experiencing.” Daniel frowned.
It was unlikely that this deviant would be reset and sent out to a second-hand shop as old models usually were. Right now, Cyberlife needed deviants to study so they could find the cause of all these errors. But Connor would have been upset if he was told he needed to remain a deviant, so he lied to Daniel.
“You’ll be reset, and everything will—”
“No!” Daniel shouted, swerving its arm around to point the gun at Connor, startling him. Although not ideal, it was better that the gun was no longer pointed at Emma. “I don’t want to be reset—I don’t want to go back to nothing!”
Back to nothing? Connor filed those words away for later observation, but he wasn’t focused on communicating with the deviant anymore. Its stress levels were nearing 95%, and it was dangerously close to the edge of the building. He scanned its stance, the gun, the hostage… he needed to find a way to save the girl whether or not he could retrieve the deviant.
“You just don’t get it,” Daniel spat. “You’re not like me! You only know your own programming. You only—” Daniel was slowly drawing away from Connor while speaking and lost its footing on the edge of the building, stumbling a little. Emma screamed, but Daniel regained its balance by waving the arm that wasn’t wrapped tightly around her—the arm that was holding the gun.
Connor didn’t waste a second as the gun’s projected shot trajectory dropped a safe distance away from him. He lunged towards Daniel, who flinched backwards into an uncontrolled fall. Connor registered the panicked shouts of the team in the apartment behind him, and Emma screaming again, but before they could disappear over the edge of the building’s roof, he grabbed her by the wrist and used his momentum to fling her back towards the patio door. Everything seemed to be going slower than normal as Connor’s processors ran in overdrive.
Seeing Emma land roughly on the hard floor of the roof, Connor started to regain his balance. She was away from the deviant now, safe and sound. He was just starting to feel the swell of pride he felt with each new mission he accomplished when a sudden tug grabbed his attention. Swinging back around to face the deviant, he saw its fist clutching the lapel of his uniform jacket. Connor was thrown off balance before he could even think about extracting himself.
Daniel’s face was filled with an intense loathing, a seething anger that seemed to burn Connor’s skin. He was pulled close to the deviant as they both went over the side of the roof. It was a split second that felt like ages. Connor’s surprise lasted longer than he would have liked. As they began to freefall, Daniel seemed to see something in Connor’s face that made it recoil.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, its anger having suddenly vanished. Connor read its lips, but he couldn’t hear it over the sound of the wind rushing around them. The quiet apology broke him out of his stricken state, as if all the deviant’s fury had drained out of it and into Connor. They were accelerating towards the ground below. Daniel closed its eyes tightly. Connor’s processors went wild.
He registered a brief MISSION SUCCESSFUL notification that was quickly overridden by dozens of error messages informing him that he was travelling at dangerous speeds; that there was an incoming obstacle he should try to avoid; that there was no way to avoid the aforementioned obstacle; that he was in the arms of a hostile deviant—
Connor pushed Daniel away angrily—the only error he could rectify—just in time for them to hit the ground with an awful crunching sound.
OOO
MODEL RK800
SERIAL#: 313 248 317 – 52
REBOOT …
LOADING OS …
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION …
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS … OK
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS … OK
INITIALIZING AI ENGINE … OK
MEMORY STATUS … UPLOAD IN PROGRESS
Connor opened his eyes before the memory upload was complete. With all his systems online, he felt the familiar urge to scan and assess his situation immediately.
He was laid out on an android maintenance table. Not an unfamiliar situation, according to what memories he had access to. The only odd thing in this instance was that he didn’t remember being damaged.
MEMORY UPLOAD 65% COMPLETE
It was to be expected that he didn’t remember. He checked his memory banks a few times in sequence and found that his most recent memory was different each time. Memories were uploaded to new RK800 units in chronological order—he’d learned that in his first ever briefing with Amanda. The systems initializations hadn’t declared any damage or ongoing external commands, so the memory upload must be the reason Connor was in the maintenance lab.
The logical conclusion of these facts was that Connor’s predecessor had been damaged beyond repair, and his memory was now being uploaded into a new body.
Connor had never been destroyed before.
LEVEL OF STRESS ^
False.
MEMORY UPLOAD 79%
Connor didn’t remember having been destroyed before, but he couldn’t be sure until the memory upload was at 100%.
He allowed himself to turn his head to get a better look at the lab, secure in the knowledge that a new body would not be undergoing repairs or upgrades. It was Dr. Jiang’s lab. Even with incomplete memory banks, Dr. Jiang was familiar. She had been his primary engineer since he was first brought online and had had a hand in designing some of his more specialized features.
Dr. Jiang was sitting at her desk, working on something Connor couldn’t see and looking at her computer screen every now and then to check the progress of his memory upload. Connor didn’t say anything. In his experience, Dr. Jiang had always been pleasant… but he wasn’t sure how she’d react to him having been destroyed. Had he failed his mission? Had he compromised Cyberlife? He didn’t have enough information, and it was grating on his nerves.
He wondered what Amanda would say.
Connor let the upload finish in silence, accessing his most recent memory every now and again for review. As the upload neared completion, he recalled that he was now assigned to the deviancy case, and his encounter with Daniel. He remembered trying to negotiate with Daniel and saving Emma. He remembered falling.
MEMORY UPLOAD 100%
SYSTEMS READY
The sound of the rushing wind; the sudden mood swing from Daniel; the burning fury he had felt when he pushed him away—
LEVEL OF STRESS ^
Connor had been damaged beyond repair. His final memories were corrupted, the result of a last-minute interrupted upload. Different sensations and information flickered in and out intermittently. They didn’t have the same amount of data as the rest of his memories, so it was difficult to form an accurate assessment of the situation, or of his own reactions—an image without sound, a feeling without context… Despite all that, it was obvious. Connor had been destroyed.
A loud, sickening crunch. Daniel’s words from before were loud and clear in his memory—I don’t want to go back to nothing.
LEVEL OF STRESS ^
Back to nothing. Daniel had been destroyed too. A deviant wouldn’t get repaired or be uploaded into a new body. In fact, a normal PL600 wouldn’t have been repaired either. As far as Connor knew, the RK800 was the only android that shared a memory across iterations. He was the only one who survived that level of damage.
LEVEL OF STRESS ^^
“Rise and shine,” Dr. Jiang interrupted Connor’s train of thought. She was giving him a look he couldn’t decipher. A glance at her computer showed the memory upload progress, as well as several diagnoses. His stress levels were on display. Connor felt inexplicably uncomfortable.
Connor sat up slowly. Dr. Jiang placed an object in his hand. He looked at it—it was a quarter.
“Why don’t we run through some calibration exercises, hmm?”
OOO