dualismail | (no subject)

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detroit: become human: connor

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🏠︎ Connor | F5 R01
✉ connor@dualislink

🕪 "This is Connor. You can leave a message for me after the beep and I'll be in touch."

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“It’s OK, don’t worry about it.” She smiles gently, an offer of reassurance. “We try to keep the bugs outta the bar, but it’s not a hundred percent, y’know? Can’t be too careful.” Plus there’s the fact that some of the bar patrons are replacements, and there’s no telling if any of them might be spies for the Head.

Nick takes a deep breath and slowly exhales before continuing with her explanation. “When Marie came to me to recruit me, she’d read the file on me, and she knew what I could do. And I was just so pissed off - this ain’t the first time I’ve ended up somewhere like this, and the last time, I was supposed to go home with - with this kid I met.” Her expression pinches, pained at the memory. “Tim. He was like a brother to me, y’know? And when I woke up here instead of with him, I just - I wanted out. And then I found out the thing that brought me here was gonna kill me instead of letting me go. Choosin’ to join up seemed real obvious at the time.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “You’re right, though. You’re all right - I said this to Hank, too. We don’t got good leadership. I sure as hell don’t know how to be a leader, but I know what we’ve got right now isn’t working. That’s why we need your help - especially you, Connor. You’ve been through this kinda thing before, so you have a better idea than any of us how to make this work.”

"I should know better." He's been worrying about this as much as anybody else for months. Acting as normal as possible so that when he does talk about sensitive matters the slightest odd tics or quirks, him hiding what he's doing or saying from any surveillance. Feeling like even the normal act is something anybody can see right through. And maybe they couldn't - until he went and mentioned the Heart right in the open.

"I'm sorry," he says, and it's soft and a little awkward - the surest possible indicator that he truly means it. It's not what his programming tells him is best to say. "If...I ended up somewhere else and Hank wasn't there, I honestly don't know what I'd do."

In fact, he grimaces and quickly changes tack, not even lingering on the thought for too long.

"I can't help unless they listen." It's quite the statement of the obvious. "When we met, we were talking in circles. They need to sit down and really talk to people, not just stand around in masks talking at us.

"We need to talk in a different setting." He leans on his crutch, frowning down at his busted leg without really seeing it. "Like equals. Or we won't get anywhere."

He looks up at Nick. "Do you know anything about them? Marie. Mello."

"It's OK." She forces a small, sad smile. "I've been doin' this world-hopping thing for a while now. I've seen people come and go - I should've expected something like this to happen. I guess ... it just felt like I was finally done, y'know?"

She shrugs. There's nothing she can do about it at this point. Better to focus on what she can do something about - keeping people alive.

"I know a little bit," she answers, with a nod. "They're both pretty tight-lipped about almost everything, but I can tell you what I know. You know about World War Two, right? Marie's from a place where the Nazis won that, and they continued taking over parts of the entire world, killing everyone they didn't like, all that horrible shit. She's from what used to be Canada, her whole family's a bunch of freedom fighters, so she grew up fighting Nazi shitheads, smuggling people out to Russia, which is apparently one of the only places that's still not under Nazi control. She wasn't a leader, but she's got some experience."

As for the other half of the pair: "Mello is ... kind of a huge asshole, as I'm sure you noticed. Funny thing is, he was actually on the same ship as me before we ended up here. Ship as in space ship, running from the ship's fascist Creators that wanted the ship back to use for slave labor - it was a ship that was alive, by the way. But we didn't talk much, he kept to himself most of the time. I know where he's from, he used to work with the Mafia, but I have a feeling it was more bossing them around than anything. Apparently there's some mass-murdering dictator type tracking down and killing anyone who's a criminal of any kind, or just someone he doesn't like. So I get where they're both coming from, but they're both not very good at this, and they don't like anyone challenging their so-called 'authority'."

Nick's information doesn't give him anything he didn't already expect - that Marie and Mello have been through this before, that they know how to fight an oppressive regine. In fact-

"Sounds like they've been doing this for so long they have no idea how to do anything else. Or how to do it any other way."

And that's a problem.

"It gives them both the perfect experience, but they can't disconnect from it for long enough to listen to anybody else. Or see how this regime is different from the ones they've been in."

Connor wonders if this is how he'll end up someday as well if he can't get out of this - if he can't get out of the cycle of one totalitarian state after another.

"A living space ship," he echoes, shaking his head. "I want to be fascinated by all of the different dimensions and people I hear about, but it's a little difficult when so many of them have nothing but stories of dictatorships and slavery."

He thinks if he got the chance, he'd be excited to learn something about living space ships.

“Makes sense,” she says, nodding agreement with Connor’s assessment. “It’s easy to get stuck with only what you know. But they still need some kinda wakeup call, ‘cause what they’ve been doin’ ain’t gonna cut it.”

Nick presses a finger to her lips, signaling to Connor the need for caution again as she flips the EMP switch off. She then reaches for the tool kit she’d borrowed for possible use in repairing Connor’s knee.

“Navi was OK - that’s what we called the ship. Those bastards didn’t even bother giving the ships a proper name, just called ‘em ‘Navigator.’ So we shortened it to Navi. Lotta people spent a lot of time yelling at Navi, but shit wasn’t their fault. Navi was as lost as the rest of us. Just trying to find their way home.”

Not unlike the people here, like Connor and herself, who’ve been snatched here against their will. Nick selects a few tools to start with and sighs.

“Well, you ready to let me take a stab at makin’ your knee all better?”

He feels the odd sensation coming over him from the EMP, and nods. It's a feeling he might liken to the hair standing up on the back of his neck, were he human.

"Right." He stands, fluidly despite it being one-legged, and quickly pulls his pants down and off with zero shame. He could have pulled his pant leg up, but that's more awkward. Easier to just get the fabric completely out of the way.

"I know that as an AI, I could be put into an advanced enough ship like that. And Navi could probably be put into my body, and it shouldn't make any difference to us." He flexes his knee, or tries to, but it's a jerky movement that feels like it's scraping along shards of broken components. The two wounds gape, dark and grotesque. "But I guess it really affects how organics treat us all the same. I look human. I'm much easier to treat with respect for some people.

"Would you rather my skin stay on or come off?" he asks, glancing up from the knee. "I can switch it on and off, I mean. I don't have to peel it or anything."

...He's not helping.

Nick's seen enough weird shit in the past few years that Connor's sudden de-pantsing and offer to switch his skin off just earns him a light laugh of amusement. It also helps that he's not a creep, so it all comes across as genuinely helpful.

"Let's go with off for now," she says, and sits down on the floor so she can work on his knee at a better view. She frowns faintly as she gives the damage a thorough visual inspection.

"Navi wasn't AI - they were grown, like test tube babies? Except they're space ships. But you'd kinda get into the ship if you were on it, I guess - everyone got these weird symbols on their hands, mine faded when I ended up here, and Navi had one too." She taps at the center of her forehead to indicate where that symbol was located. "Navi didn't really talk, but we had this - mental link? I think that's what you'd call it, basically Navi talked to us all telepathically. Everyone on the ship also had a partner, and you could talk to your partner that way, too. Navi said they were powered by the energy made by good partnerships - which I guess ain't the weirdest thing. The assholes in Hadriel were powered by emotions. At least Navi didn't do shit like bury us alive to scare us."

He nods, and the skin on his leg seems to flicker before it vanishes entirely. The affect of skin was already a little shaky in that area - cutting out in the area of the bullet holes before reactivating in sporadic bursts - but it did a passable job of hiding the damage. Now, it's very visible - the bullet had gone through what would be the kneecap of a human, but on Connor is much more complex machinery. Then it had burst out the back of his leg with a much larger exit wound.

The leg feels exposed - more so than he feels with his pants off - and it feels odd looking at the dark hole in the front of his leg, feeling the shards of polymer and occasional bit of wiring hanging out of the back, so he's grateful for Nick talking while she sits next to it.

"Huh." He leans back in the chair, tries not to stair at Nick so intently while she examines the leg. "I'm used to people being able to talk into my mind, but I can imagine it must be difficult when you're not used to it."

He decides not to ask about the buried alive part, or the general torment. It's probably not easy to talk about. But he can't help his face twisting at the mention of it all the same.

"Could you read each other's minds, or just send and receive messages?"

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