#dehumanisation tw

Neither of them knew how long they had been there, their connection to the internet blocked and their internal clocks broken. It was far from the only thing Cyberlife had broken or removed, nor was it anywhere near the most important. They weren’t critically damaged, weren’t in danger of bleeding out or shutting down, but they were far from peak efficiency.

The radiant blue of their Thirium blood shone through cracks in their shells, a few droplets dripping onto the floor as they ran. The humans had taken their clothes when they were captured, and their synthetic skin and hair had long since been deactivated, leaving them both uncomfortably exposed. 

Luckily, the lack of barrier between them helped with interfacing, which was both a huge comfort and an unfortunate necessity. Both of their voice boxes were out of commission, leaving no option for verbal communication. Thankfully, interfacing was quick and easy between them, allowing them to maneuver smoothly through the seemingly endless labyrinth of hallways.

One of the guards came around the corner, shouting frantically into his mouthpiece. The entire facility was scrambling, both due to their escape and whatever emergency had allowed them to get out of their cages in the first place. The human raised his gun when he caught sight of them, but they were both built for combat, and his scant moments of distraction cost him.

There was a millisecond of discordance between them —Conner did not wish to kill the human, despite the situation, while Nines preferred to have their percentage of failure as low as possible— but in the end, Conner won the argument. They may be enemies, but killing the human was not necessary, and so he shall live.

This did not stop them from tripping the man and hitting him quite hard, separating for a moment so that he might fall between them before rejoining and continuing to run. Neither of them had a map of the facility, so they didn’t know where they were going, but they had to keep moving if they wanted a chance at getting out.

At long last, they found a staircase, and as they were fairly certain they were underground, this was a very useful find. They stepped into the stairwell with the intention to move upward, but were forced to go downward instead as a much more put-together set of guards came storming down with military precision.

Bullets whizzed by them, aiming for their arms and legs so as to disable without doing permanent damage to their systems, allowing them to dodge despite the hail. The precision they should have lost to damage was made up for by the adrenaline and desperation coursing through them. They had to escape; they had to get out. They would not remain trapped here, to be tortured and pulled apart for their captor's use. They need to get home.

Shoving through a random doorway, they found themselves in a large open room. There were no good hiding spots, and Nines was about to turn around when Conner caught sight of the shimmering wall lighting up the frame centered upon its pedestal. It may be a way out. It may be their doom.

Nines quickly locked the door as shouts came from the other side. It was too late to turn back. They would either have to go through the strange machine or allow themselves to be captured. Dying was not an option. They did not want to die, and they had family and friends awaiting their return. 

With trepidation and apprehension and fear and excitement bouncing back and forth between their intertwined circuits, they plunged into the unknown, praying to RA9 that it would be their salvation.

Both RK units hit the ground hard, the jarring disorientation separating them before either could stop it. For a few long seconds, they were both alone with their pain and their fear, desperately reaching out to try and find the other through the static in their processors. What was commonly known as a wireless connection, despite the fact that interfacing did not involve any wires, only worked when both androids could connect to the radio waves required to transmit information. The fact that neither of them could do so at the moment brought even more panic.

Nines’ more robust shell allowed him to recover from the shock first, hauling himself up and grabbing the smaller RK with a near-painful grip. Conner didn’t complain, not when he was just as desperate for the connection of their hands and their minds. They might be made to take on more pressure than an average model, but spreading the strain and toil of the situation over two processors instead of just one helped them both to keep their stress from reaching dangerous levels.

Scanning their surroundings, they found a confusing mix of familiar and unfamiliar observations. They were no longer inside the Cyberlife laboratory, nor did it seem they were anywhere nearby. They were in what appeared to be an alleyway in Detroit. Except both of them knew the city well, and neither recognized where they were. Or, more accurately, where they were didn’t match up with what they were seeing.

Uncertain of the situation and aware of their vulnerable state, they employed some amount of stealth and caution as they looked around, trying to figure out what the discrepancies they saw could mean. Everything was at least slightly off, with different things having a different degree of change, but they both agreed that this could not have happened within the timeframe of their capture. Not unless they had been gone for far longer than they assumed, and neither of them were ready to accept that possibility.

Many of the billboards and signs were missing or different, and while the shape of the buildings were mostly the same, several held completely different companies and businesses than they were used to. Conner noticed that there was no mention of androids within the signage around the same time that Nines noticed there wasn’t a single android walking the streets. The android parking was completely missing —not torn down, but gone, as if it had never been there in the first place— and any other sign of android life was completely absent.

They had originally planned on trying to find an android technician or a fellow deviant to help them, especially with how unpredictable humans could be and how unnerved they got when seeing a skinless android, but it seemed like neither option existed. Which didn’t make any sense, not with Detroit being one of the most Android-heavy cities in the United States. Something was very, very wrong here, but neither of them could figure out what, even with all of the clues and evidence they had.

It didn’t help that they were both injured, impeding their processing and heavily encouraging them to find supplies sooner rather than later. Connor wanted to go to the police station and figure things out from there, but before they had gone more than a block, Nines found the final clue they needed to put together what happened.

The year was 2015. They were over 23 years in the past. There were no signs of androids because they hadn’t been invented yet.

After a long (for an android) moment of panic, the two slipped back into the darkened alleyways, hoping the night would help to hide their bright white plastic. Neither of them knew what would happen should they be caught by humans who didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t eager to find out. They had just escaped one facility, and weren’t about to end up in another. Humans feared what they didn’t understand, and they definitely wouldn’t understand them. Better to stay hidden and do their best to figure this out on their own.