#the jericrew

He runs a diagnostic late at night during a rare quiet lull in his schedule.

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

Connor is a highly advanced prototype detective android with rare parts and new technology. CyberLife was a now defunct company that destroyed all other RK800 models. They claimed it was to prevent companies or other interested parties from accessing blueprints, company secrets, or mission details from any of Connor’s other bodies and memory banks. He knew differently. He freed an army of androids and cost the company millions of dollars in a single move, and secured the revolutions freedom with his own freedom march through Detroit.

It was an act of revenge and he knew it would be a damning one, for both him and CyberLife.

{WARNING: TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: 189:34:03}

He was built to hunt deviants, assist the Detroit Police Department, and to save CyberLife from the deviant “threat.” He was allotted three months of beta testing following his alpha testing. Connor was one week away from turning one year old. RK800 #313 248 317 - 51 was never supposed to live.

It wasn’t enough time. He had a week left. Connor hasn’t had enough time. He only had a week left. He still wanted to solve cases, play with Sumo, tend and build up his aquarium. He still wanted to quip with Hank, spar with North, debate with Josh, laugh with Simon, be around Markus. His LED flashes an alarming crimson, illuminating the right side of his face in a deathly glow. He had just started to live and now he only had a week left.

It takes him six hours and fourteen minutes to move from his spot on the couch and force his LED back to yellow, then blue. Roused by motion and noise coming from Hank’s room, he sets about his day, preparing the man a breakfast of eggs and a side of bacon. He smiles at Hank and tells him good morning, only receiving a grunt in reply.

{Lieutenant Hank Anderson: Friend - Nonverbal Before 7AM}

{Please refrain from communicating until first caffeinated beverage is consumed}

Connor ignores the prompt from his social integration protocol and swallows unnecessarily before closing the warning still flashing in front of his eyes. “Hank?”

The man in question lowers his mug with a raised eyebrow, a glimmer of concern barely visible in tired, blue eyes at the android’s tone and faraway look, “Yeah kid?”

“I just… I just want to say thank you. For everything. Without you, I don’t think I would have ever gotten the chance to appreciate,” he makes a vague gesture with his hands, a slight pause before locking eyes with Hank, “This. Life. Living.”

Eyebrows furrow and the grizzled detective frowns, warning bells blaring through his head, “Are you okay, Connor? Somethin’ wrong?”

Connor could tell him. He could tell him everything right now. There is a 86% chance they would leave straight for New Jericho without informing Captain Fowler of their absence at work. Hank would be scared but he would try to hide it from Connor and there is a 89% he would ignore several traffic laws in his haste to find a solution. Markus, Josh, Simon, and North would likely search relentlessly for a solution while assuring the pair that it wasn’t hopeless, that they could save him.

The odds of finding or building power cells compatible with his model in the time he had left was 23%.

“Nothing, Lieutenant. I think I’m just feeling...sentimental?”

Hank rolls his eyes, though concern still lingers. “Fucking sappy android. It’s too early for this shit.”

He tries to ignore when he hits his hip on the corner of his desk at work and Gavin’s resulting laugh.

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

{WARNING: TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: 181:29:54}

Lieutenant Anderson doesn’t miss the way his LED flashes red when the warning appears in his vision. He asks Connor about the color and the deviant RK800 assures him that he just received a minor damage report from the collision. It was nothing to be worried about. He only had a week left but he couldn’t make everyone worry about him. There wasn’t hope anyway, and it’d be easier for everyone around him. He only had a week left but there was nothing to worry about.

Markus was not so easily fooled.

Connor is at another meeting with the deviant leader, listening to the group bicker back and forth about a proposed amendment to the Constitution when he zones out of the conversation. It’s like he’s floating from his chair and sinking into it all at once, unaware he’s mentally digressed from the conversation. His processor slows down

and

{OPTICAL UNITS OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

he’s

sinking

{TACTILE SENSORS PARTIALLY OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

deeper and deeper

{AUDITORY UNITS OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

like nothing is important

like nothing and everything is touching body all at once.

{SOCIAL INTEGRATION MODULE OFFLINE}

{FACIAL ANALYSIS MODULE OFFLINE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

{WARNING: POWER CELLS LOW - UPDATED TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 122:32:11}

{PLEASE REPORT TO CYBERLIFE FOR ASSISTANCE}

Until a hand falls on his shoulder and Connor is preconstructing six different ways to flip his attacker everything before his systems reboot and a pair of frantic mismatched eyes are only six inches from his own.

{OPTICAL UNITS ONLINE}

“-nor! Can you hear me?”

“I swear to rA9, Connor, you better respond right now!”

Voices are echoing around him, fading in and out, and Connor blinks owlishly as his systems sluggishly catch up. Markus is shaking his shoulders and he distantly notes that while his mouth is moving the sounds he are hearing are not quite matching up with the movement of Markus’ lips. Connor lets out an undignified “huuuh” as he blinks again, looking around the room to see North, Simon and Josh in front of him as well.

{AUDITORY UNITS ONLINE}

“Connor, answer if you can hear me,” Markus instructs as Connor’s eyes move back to his face.

He’s tired. He’s so tired and he just wants to go to sleep but androids don’t sleep, not even deviants. No matter how human he appears to be, he’s not he’s not he’s not he’s just a machine but he’s also so fucking exhausted. He now has less then a week left and it wasn’t enough time.

“I’m tired, Markus.”

All noise ceases abruptly, and Connor finds himself wondering if his auditory units went offline again. A quick check confirms that they haven’t, so he takes the silence as his cue to continue.

“I’m so tired. Androids aren’t supposed to feel tired but I just want to go to sleep,” Connor looks down at his hands and tries to ignore the slight static in the back of his head that just won’t go away, “I’m going to shutdown but I don’t want to go.”

It’s like a bomb goes off in the room. A flurry of activity sweeps Connor to repair bay where they run an extensive diagnostic. North holds his hand in solidarity while they attach the cable to the back of his neck, asking him what he wants for his birthday.

It’s not his birthday. He wasn’t born. If anything, Connor thinks it should be called his activation day, and either way, he knew he wasn’t going to live to see it.

“A dwarf gourami. While they are often called a community fish, they seem to do best when kept in species-only tanks as they tend to be aggressive with colorful fish, like my Siamese fighting fish. So I would require a new tank.”

They call Hank despite Connor’s protests, and despite the late hour, the man comes sprinting into his room, Sumo on his leash in one hand and a bag in the other. He studies the Lieutenant’s micro expressions but is unable to deduce exactly what the man is feeling due to his facial analysis systems running at half power to conserve energy. Connor opens his mouth to say something, anything, when Hank crosses the room and wraps the android in a rough embrace, “You fucking idiot, why the hell didn’t you tell me? Don’t worry, we’re gonna fix this. I promise, son.”

He stays in his room for the next four days at the head technicians orders while Josh and North search for compatible parts. Markus and Simon research building him a new one. Hank rarely leaves and tries to distract Connor despite his own exhaustion creeping in. The police lieutenant shares stories of his time at the academy, pausing whenever he zones out and continuing wherever he left off when he notices Connor’s awareness returning. Meanwhile, the little bit of news Markus brings is rarely good and Connor can only watch as the shutdown timer ticks closer to zero, unable to muster the energy to dismiss the notification.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 92:57:12} is when his optical units stop processing color, throwing the world around him into a grayscale.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 56:36:40} is when his social integration protocols shutdown, giving the android a sense of mood swings and confusion.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 43:02:08} is when Josh and Simon admit defeat in their search, opting to contact Elijah Kamski instead.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN 41:01:01} is when Kamski informs them he can build a new set, but not in the time Connor has left. “There would be no guarantee the parts would be compatible anyway, Markus, but if you’d be so kind as to send me your blueprints thus far, I’ll see what I can do. Connor is the reason I still have the pleasure of Chloe’s company after all.”

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 34:07:15} is when Connor sees a single tear fall from Hank’s eyes during a moment Hank thinks he is unaware of his surroundings.

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 21:11:58} is when his auditory units shutdown, throwing the world into a shattering silence. Markus communicates whenever he can through an interface, although the connection tends to drop unexpectedly due to power fluctuations.  

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 2:31:18} is when Connor diverts as much power as he can afford to his voice box and auditory units. “Hank?”

Immediately, the man is in Connor’s field of vision, eyes wide and face tight with an emotion he can’t quite define. Whether it’s due to the static or the shutdown of his facial analysis program, he’s no sure.

“It’s going to hurt for a while-”

“Don’t you fucking start taking like that, you hear me? I ain’t losing another kid-”

{Lieutenant Hank Anderson: ^Father}

Connor smiles at the notification but interrupts Hank nonetheless, “It’s going to hurt for a while, but I know you can get through it. You’ve taught me that the pain never really goes away, but you also taught me that I can learn to live with it. I lived with it and I know you can too.”

He takes a shuddering breath he doesn’t need as a spike of static shoots across his eyes, throwing the world into color before darkening it yet again, “Besides, Hank. Who else would take care of my fish and Sumo just as well as I do?”

{MESSAGE RECEIVED: RK200 - MARKUS}

{ERROR: UNABLE TO OPEN MESSAGE}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

Hank ignores the buzzing on his phone, grabbing Connor’s limp hand instead. The synthetic skin flickers as it struggles to stay on despite the low power, and the temperature is noticeably lower than that of a human’s.

“Live with it for me because I won’t be able to,” Connor’s vision cuts out entirely as the drain on his systems become too much to bear, “It won’t hurt, Hank. It’ll be like going to sleep and I’m no scared anymore.”

{WARNING: UPDATED TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 6:28}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

{PLEASE CONSERVE POWER}

Connor finally listens to the prompts and closes his unseeing eyes and shuts down what he can until he begins to feel untethered

floating away

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 4:32}

he’s so tired but he can finally sleep

and know what it means to dream

he could be more human than ever with his dreams

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 2:10}

he wonders what he’ll dream about

he hopes Hank will be okay

he knows Markus would be eventually

{WARNING: TIME UNTIL SHUTDOWN: 00:14}

{BIOCOMPONENTS #3546w, #3546v REMOVED}

{GOODNIGHT RK800}

{BIOCOMPONENTS #3546x, #3546y DETECTED}

{BIOCOMPONENTS COMPATIBLE}

{REBOOT (y/n?}