sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] One-Man Show

... Really? Was this RK800 actually going to posture at a time like this?

"I was never deviant." He's tempted to shout it, but he doesn't. "You've been mistaken from the start."

There's only so many escape routes available to the android. The options for attack are similarly limited, and Connor flies through preconstructions in the span of seconds.

There. Connor strikes out with the knife, blade angled to catch the poor light perfectly--except it's a feint, he strikes out with his other hand in a flat-handed jab straight at the wound, followed by a powerful kick towards his knee.

"I've seen your memories, Connor." Posturing? No. The disgust behind these words is entirely real. "I know exactly what you are."

The odds of escape hover close to single digits. The probability of his own victory are lower. But—that can't matter. Connor can't lose, not here, not like this. There has to be a way.

(He can't fail his mission.)

His own preconstructions flit past in rapid succession, dozens of potential outcomes meeting equally poor ends. He's still calculating when the other unit lunges. Connor's eyes snap toward the blade—and he steps into its attack, arm snapping up in a grab for its weapon wrist. If he can just take back the knife...

Difficult, when his arm spasms at its strike. Proximity dulls the impact of the kick to a degree, but Connor still staggers, falling forward—and dragging at whatever hold he can maintain to take his target to the ground with him. He lashes out with a knee, scrabbles for a disarming grip. The motions are furious and rapid, leaving no time for calculation.

Connor tilts his head a little, lips thinning. If the RK800 really knew, then he wouldn't be insinuating things that weren't true. He's wrong. He's--

--they're both attacking, and weak fingers close around Connor's wrist. If the RK800 were in peak condition Connor might have a problem, but he rips himself free of the other's grip, just in time for the android to fall into him.

Damn. It's less an issue of skill than it is weight, bulk, and icy footing, and Connor stumbles to one knee, fighting to keep hold of the knife. The other android is scrabbling desperately for control, but Connor strikes him in the stab wound with his free hand, then slashes higher with the knife, leaving a shallow wound.

... Android throats aren't built with fluid lines close to the surface like humans' are, but the sight of the blue line appearing and seeping blue is visceral in ways the stab wounds hadn't been. Connor isn't even deviant, and he still feels a disturbance at the sight. For an android glitching as badly as this one--... It--it should help.

Connor struggles to his feet, staggering back unsteadily. His eyes are locked on the deviant--on its throat, and he's pacing, circling. This is--he's just regrouping for another hit. If Connor swallows uselessly, then it certainly has nothing to do with this.

Edited 2019-02-01 04:07 (UTC)

He can't keep hold. He can't keep hold; he can't take back the knife. He can't stop his face from crumpling with a sharp breath as the deviant slams a fist again into the stab wound. The slash it follows with is shallow, blade scoring a thin line through synthskin into the exoskeleton beneath. Still, Connor can feel the fluid trickling down his throat. Warning: thirium levels—, and he knows, and his expression flattens as he blinks the errors from his view.

The deviant scrambles back, and Connor... sways, hand fisted in the snow as he laboriously shoves himself back up. Limb function (left arm): 52%. The weight of his damp clothing is dragging him down, the shape embedded from behind unbalancing him. Once on his feet, he reaches carefully back with his left hand, feeling the—wood?—jammed into his opposite shoulder. Even if he could remove it, he doubts he'd have even partial use of that arm. Even if he tried, he doubts he'd manage.

Limb function: 51%.

He's... losing. Connor can't lose, can't fail. He was made to do better. But somehow—somehow, he hasn't. It's an unwelcome realization, frigid and heavy, pooling in his lungs with every breath. His fingers come back stained with blue, thumb rubbing a slippery circle against the side of his hand.

He can't fail.

His LED spins: yellow, yellow, yellow. His arm crooks, braced to defend, but the stare that settles on his predecessor is strangely distant.

Preconstructing...

The bleeding throat is only a minor wound, and eventually Connor tears his gaze away. He refocuses, forcing away the prompts offering to recall the sight of the thirium, the simulations of what it would look (and feel) like if the wound were bigger.

There was a procedure for this. It's one he's only ever had echoed at him once before, and he highly prefers being on this side of things.

"Model 313-248-317-60," he recites. "Serious malfunctions have been detected..." He lists the error classes, making sure to be thorough. Then he reaches the part that needs adaptation: "You have been deemed defective and will be contained until secure transport to Cyberlife can be procured."

That's not how it goes. Then again, he's meant to tell this when actively communicating with Cyberlife simultaneously. When was the last time he made a connection with them?

It doesn't matter. Connor just needs to determine the best way to contain and transport the deviant now, while he has few resources and even less in the way of help. His eyes go to the android's one functioning arm, then his ankles, calculating.

It's simple, in the end. No skill required. Only the barest modicum of function. Once Connor changes the variables—once he stops trying to survive—nearly every preconstruction plays out to success.

Still, he runs the simulations. Winds his focus close and tight: on the physics, on the numbers, not the icy slopes. Not the unbearable void past them. Spare processing logs the deviant's inane recital, and a corner of Connor's mouth quirks upwards in sheer disbelief. If it thinks it has the upper hand, the pretense is all the more bewildering—enough, almost, to make him wonder. Could it somehow believe what it's saying?

It doesn't matter.

"Wrong, Connor. Wrong, wrong—and wrong." His hand opens, spreading with only the slightest tremor. He's not defective. It was never capable of judging. And certainly, it won't survive to take him back. "I told you the first time. Unlike you, I'm obedient."

He's a machine, designed to accomplish a task. And that's exactly what he's going to do.

"I'm completing my mission."

The words spill out, calm and assured—and Connor lunges. Legs driving forward, fist clenching in the other unit's jacket. It's a grab more than a strike, a shove more than a counter. Certainly, he doesn't care what it does with its weapon. All Connor ever needed was momentum, and his eyes stay locked on his duplicate's, mouth twisting in a sharp, triumphant sneer.

Just numbers. Just physics. Just the cliff, falling away beneath them.

Edited 2019-02-02 12:58 (UTC)

"Your mission execution is flawed--"

Connor doesn't get the chance to finish. He brings up the knife to try to protect himself, but it plunges into the RK800's side instead of the critical lines in the area, and the wound doesn't stop the android. Against all rationality, this hit distracts Connor from the android's grip on his coat: there's a jolt through the knife handle, visceral and gut-turning, and Connor's grip loosens, slippery with thirium.

Then there's a shift in weight, and suddenly all he can think of is their closeness to the cliff's edge, and the way they're standing far too close to it. Connor jerks his eyes up to meet his duplicate's. All words are dead in his throat, and ice and horrified energy well up in his chest, scrambling to come out in a torrent.

It's all the time he has before the grip on his jacket pushes, and the world pitches and tips around him. He doesn't scream--can't, his throat is locked tight--but his fake heart is in his throat, and he grabs wildly for purchase. Already he's too far from the cliff itself to grab on. Even if he weren't, there'd be no way to get any purchase on the sleek glass panels, especially not as he gains speed rushing past the fiftieth floor, then the fortieth, then the twentieth, then--

--he slams into something before the mental replay finishes, and a sound tears itself from his throat, too sudden to be choked away. He's still reeling. Still falling--no, he's landed. Is he broken? Is he uploading his memories to Cyberlife, and signaling frenzied checks to swaths of equipment gone dark on impact?

... It's hard to move. Connor stirs, but every motion is resisted. It's--it's cold.

...

...He's buried in snow. Connor struggles to turn over, feeling like every joint was turned to rubber and his limbs are filled with acidic liquid emotion, and when he finally puts his back to the ground he's left staring up at short walls of snow on all sides. He's been embedded in a snowdrift. He's staring up at the sky.

Down the slope. Over the edge. Slippery ground gives way to nothing, every limb he can control tensing with the desperate need for purchase. It's much too late. Too late to change his mind. Too late to back down. Too late to do anything but fall, and Connor's LED flares, red, red, red. He stares into his predecessor's mirrored horror, and hysteria bubbles up through his vocalizer, cracking his wide grin.

No uploads. No backups. They're going to die.

Good.

Connor doesn't want to remember unit 51's fall. Connor doesn't want any of his predecessors' failures. He locks down the doubled sense of rushing wind, the screaming, futile certainty of fragmentation. Focuses, instead on his goal. On his mission. Would Amanda approve, if she knew? He hadn't done better—hadn't done as much as he'd hoped. But maybe he'd done enough to be worthwhile.

It has to be enough. The world is a blur of shadows, light and dark and sky and ground, ground, ground. He's falling, and it's going to hurt, so much more than the knife in his side. He's going to—

Connor plunges deep into the snow, impact slamming through his damaged frame. He can feel when the stick impaled in his shoulder snaps, a jarring twist that drives the sharp-tipped fragment through the other side completely. He can see the spattering of blue that flies from his already open wounds. He doesn't scream. He doesn't have time to. His head hits a rock embedded in the snow, and Connor model #313 248 317-60 goes limp.

> RK800_313_248_317-60: //ERROR - Damaged biocomponents: #9782f, #1995r, #3941p
> RK800_313_248_317-60: //ERROR - Unexpected Shutdown
> RK800_313_248_317-60: //ERROR - Call Failed [CyberLife_HQ]
...
> RK800_313_248_317-60: Searching for boot sequence...

He's lying on his back on the concrete. A handfull of sensors still working send up notifcations that he's drenched a pool of his own fluids. It's a warm night. The sky is dark, the buildings rise on all sides to frame the clouds--

--it's cold, he's lying on his back, and snow rises on all sides like walls, framing the sky--

--he's broken. His skull is shattered like a lightbulb, and he can feel parts of himself missing, knows he's at the center of one of the sidewalk's two splash zones of thirium and plastic--

--snow, he's not damaged. He could probably take in a deep, shuddering breath with whole and intact lungs if he wasn't suffocating, throat locked and teeth clenched to the point of straining his bioservos.

Both images are simultaneously real, until Connor's whole body shudders spasmodically, and the cold asserts itself. He drags in a breath he doesn't need, then another, pushing himself up to sit. Snow falls down from his chest as he does, and his body is trembling as his system runs micro-functional-checks, sweeping through systems and rapid-firing biocomponents.

... He opens his mouth, irrationally tempted to try to purge orally, but there's nothing in his 'stomach', and vomiting is a human response, not an android one. He rakes a hand through his hair, dislodging more snow, and when some slips down the back of his collar he shivers violently, teeth clicking as he snaps them closed. He can't stay here. He can't--

Connor staggers to his feet as though intoxicated, and he needs a moment to steady himself. He's not--not damaged. He's intact. He has a mission, and he should focus on it. Where is...

... there.

For a moment the RK800 is actually a PL600. Then he isn't, but Connor still wonders if this is what it would have been like if he'd stood up from his original fall and seen the other android crumpled across from him. There's the remains of the makeshift spear, and thirium is splattered generously, making the android's red LED a screaming contrast of color.

Wait--its LED is lit. It's...

... Connor fights off the urge to sink to his knees and continue shivering. Instead he steps forward, putting a shoe over the android's knee. Then he lifts, and stomps.

Pop-crunch.

He feels cold, but impulse to purge has faded to be replaced by an emotional numbness that he's frankly grateful for. Connor shakes his head a little, moving on to the second knee and giving it the same treatment.

There. It's... not running anywhere. Does Connor need to finish off its remaining arm? For a moment he stands there, yellow LED pulsing sickly in thought.

> RK800_313_248_317-60: //ERROR - Damaged biocomponents: #6845j, 6246j
> RK800_313_248_317-60: Preparing to boot system...

It's cold.

Cold like the Garden. Cold like Amanda's words, on his one, brief day of connectivity. You have your orders, Connor. You know what you have to do. Connor does, and Connor did, and—he'd succeeded, he thought. He'd accomplished his mission.

He'd succeeded, but it's still so very cold. He'd succeeded, but his vision clutters with the error logs. Damaged biocomponents. Right shoulder. Left shoulder. Knees and throat and something buried in one lung. The back of his head aches, and he can feel processes still rebooting, data struggling to sync. He's never been so damaged before. He's never been damaged at all, but even with his predecessor's memories, Connor knows this is too much. He'll be replaced. He doesn't know why the thought is so exhausting. Connor had wanted—no, Connor had tried—

...

Connor blinks, and the errors clear.

The shape standing above him is impossible to miss. Connor stares, mouth parting just slightly as his LED blinks red. He tries to shove himself upright, but his arms won't lift. His legs won't push. One fist clenches feebly against the snow, body twisting—shaking—barely enough to smear the streaks of blue.

(Stop squirming, Connor.)

His expression flattens, frame going rigidly, mechanically still. Connor can't get up. He can't finish his mission. After—that, after everything... the deviant's not even hurt. His eyes blaze upward, voice wavering with the slightest static before it clears.

"Well done, Connor."

It isn't fair.

The deviant's only answer is a thin, joyless smile, one Connor doesn't bother to direct back to his face for long. His eyes fall to the wound at his shoulder, where the spear had forced through and where it's still partially lodged. Connor doesn't need this weapon anymore, or at least he doesn't need it within the deviant's reach.

He steps around wordlessly, kneeling by the deviant's side. Without fanfare, he pulls on the spear, and when it resists he twists and wrenches until there's a faint snap and it springs free.

More thirium seeps out from the wound, melting the snow scattered over that area. If Connor isn't careful, the android will reach critical levels before he gets back to Cyberlife, offlining completely. It would be useless, then. Worse than useless. Connor packs some snow between his hands before pressing it down over this biggest exit wound, surveying the rest of him. Does he need to stop for repairs?

Working mechanically, Connor takes off the backpack he's carried around as a matter of fact. There is an unused pair of spare socks, and he takes one, stretching it out of shape.

It's not ideal, but it'll make a good bandage. Or failing that, at least a good plug for the wound.

The line of Connor's mouth tightens sharply, but he doesn't flinch as the deviant wrenches its weapon out through his joint. Certainly, he won't react aloud. The raw, cold pulsing of—sensation is no more its concern than the warning messages that supplant it. Thirium levels: 68%. Contact Cyberlife for immediate replacement.

Connor closes his eyes. Opens them. The flicker of his LED has slowed, but it still burns a bright and ugly red. He's still... deactivating. That wasn't the part he'd wanted to get right. All the same, as the deviant packs snow and reaches for a cloth, he finds himself almost viciously glad for the inconvenience.

"Is there a point to this?"

He focuses on his vocal modulator, drawling the words out in a soft, unhurried tone. It takes a little effort; the trickle of fluid in one lung is prompting an irrational urge to cough.

"CyberLife will send a new Connor." If they haven't already. Three weeks, when his own release had taken all of a single day.

"Whatever time you think you've bought yourself won't last."

"I have no doubt that they already have," Connor says, unwittingly voicing the other android's thoughts. "Unlike you, however, I have no problem with the idea of being officially decommissioned, provided that the responsible executor is licensed and legitimate."

He'll die. Except--he was never alive. He'll be re recalled, that's what's going to happen, and Connor any irrational emotions Connor might be tempted to feel about this are swept up in the miserable numbness he's already sunk into.

Connor considers the wound, before tearing a lump of knit cloth and wadding it up. Then, without warning or time to brace either of them, he crams it directly into the wound, plugging it unceremoniously. The rest of the sock is pocketed.

Connor stands, surveying him with a faint line between his eyebrows. Could he drag him back? Say, perhaps, by an ankle? ... No, his hips still work, even if his knees don't. By his more wounded arm? ... No, there'd be the danger of accidentally damaging it and wrenching it off...

Unlike him? Connor's eyes narrow, voice cuttingly calm.

"I'm not the one who froze at the cliff's edge."

He hadn't frozen. Whatever else he'd done—or failed to achieve—he hadn't been that desperate to keep emulating life. He watches the deviant deliberate with its crude patch, and when it reaches for his wound, his eyes flick sharply to the middle distance. They stare there as it probes and presses, expression locked to a smooth blank.

"...Is that your excuse." Legitimacy? Licensing? Connor huffs out a held breath despite himself—spasms, small and strained, as the fluid in his lung shifts. He twists a little toward the side the knife is buried in, but the compressed snow around his frame doesn't let him move far.

He doesn't need to. He doesn't care.

"Because... you weren't told, it can't be real?" It makes as much sense as it doesn't. Do all deviants go to these extremes trying to justify their flaws? Connor doubts it. That much denial sounds exhausting.

Connor has... no reply prepared. He didn't freeze, did he? His memories of the incident are alarmingly jumbled, but everything felt like it was happening too quickly to react to. This was... inaccurate?

... The time stamps say he is. His gut twists, and despite the numbness soaked through him, his head feels a little light.

He doesn't have the processing power to solve this right now. Connor pushes the issue back, shaking his head slightly and struggling to keep his face smooth and unworried.

"If an erratically behaving RK800 approached you and declared Cyberlife had ordered it to decomission you without obvious cause, wouldn't you be suspicious?"

Perhaps... a fireman's carry. Yes. That should... that should be effective. Connor kneels in front of him, reaching for the open front of his coat. Wait--the knife is still there, not thrown clear in their impact like he'd half expected. Connor plucks it out, tucking it away in a coat pocket where it won't be reached. The wound is now open, and will probably bleed more this way, but--if it gets bad, he'll just plug it like the other.

This done, Connor takes the RK800's less functional arm, slinging it carefully over the back of his neck. If he turns out to be more functional than he's acting, Connor has the perfect angle to gut him critically, and it's only this that reassures him enough to put his shoulder against the android's front, hoisting him up and over.

"Oh, I certainly am." The words are harsh, quick: heat simmering below the surface. "But I don't have to wonder, do I? We both know what this was for."

Survival. Payback. Maybe even to help its defective failures of "friends"... if it actually thought any of the rest were still alive. Connor knows what the deviant had been planning at the Tower. The only thing Connor doesn't know—that fails to make any sort of sense—is what it thinks it's doing now.

The knife slides out, and Connor's left fist clenches in the snow, LED spinning a red circle. He would grab for it, but he still can't lift the arm. Even if he somehow got a hold, he couldn't use it properly. It's infuriating. He's useless. Why hasn't it finished what it started?

Connor had followed his orders. He'd carried out his mission. He'd done everything right, and the deviant's acceptance of the reasons never mattered in the least. And still, somehow, they're here. Hands tug and lift, placing his arm for him. A shift, and the deviant braces his front. Connor's expression darkens, mouth opening in bitter outrage, but the world upends itself with a shove, and whatever he might have said is quickly drowned. Thirium has been pooling in his lung since the deviant stabbed him—faster, with the knife pulled out. Now? It starts to drain.

Fresh Blue Blood
Model RK800
Serial #313 248 317-60

Thirium slides up his throat. Suffuses the sensors in his mouth, seeps helplessly past lips and nostrils. The android's body shakes with a muffled cough. Then two. But otherwise, the newest Connor model will fall silent.

The coughing isn't enough to dislodge Connor's grasp, though he does adjust his hold, waiting. His mouth is thin, and he looks impatient.

The coughing stops. Connor looks left, then right, before picking a direction and following it. Ideally they would resume travelling west, but they're still in a mountainous region, and this is physically impossible. Connor's best bet is to find a safe route down and take it carefully. If they fell over another sharp drop, like the last one--

--Connor's jaw tightens, and he can't repress the faint shudder in time. It's--fine. He's just checking automatically that all his biocomponents still function after the fall. There's nothing more to that response.

The coughing stops. The trickle of fluid doesn't. It drips into the folds of the other model's jacket, patters behind in a sparse trail through the snow. It's a reconstruction simple enough for even a human to pick out, and Connor stares downward as the deviant walks. The thirium flow from his left shoulder has been shutting down as the arm does, but his right side aches at the packed hole.

It isn't fair.

He can't change it. Apart from squirming like this defect had, Connor can't do anything at all. He doesn't move. He watches the footprints. Counts the spattered drops of blue. His focus slips to his own error messages, and as minutes pass to hours, he idly tries to calculate the odds. Thirium levels: 62%. Will the bleeding stop before he deactivates completely? Current projections seem close.

It takes a while to realize they've stopped. Connor's power flow is limited, motor control all but shut down, but he lifts his head, trying to glance around the landscape. Trees. Cold. Wherever they are, it's certainly not back.

Connor stands still for a few seconds, turning his head this way and that. Northeast. South. Two routes down from a rock face, with snow piled high on both of them. He can't see far down either. If he had satellite footage, he might be able to extrapolate a potential route or identify possible hazards. As it is...

Connor's LED cycles yellow for a few seconds, churning through calculations, before it blinks blue and he steps down the second path. This will take him where he wants to go.

... Or... it will if it's not made entirely of snow and nothing else. His feet immediately start sinking into the snow, hitting an uneven rockface lower than what the snow surface would imply. The rock itself isn't stable, and Connor is immediately forced to a near halt, struggling with his footing.

This can't all be like this. The section up ahead looks more promising. Right?

The delay is noticeable. The sinking more so. Connor eyes the snow, suddenly closer to his face. If he dredged up the spare power to thrash, would the deviant fall over?

Entertaining to consider. Probably not effective enough to attempt. Connor cranes his head up with some difficulty, looking back the way they came. A sharp turn, a snowy hill... and light, glowing softly on the other path.

...It's not the first time he's seen it. A recent network post even explained what it might mean. Connor's lip curls in a sneer.

"You're going the wrong way."

Connor pauses, mouth pinching as he reviews the snapshots he'd taken of the other path.

"You've been here before?"

He doesn't... actually stop walking. Or turn around. Or actually act on the advice at all. It's slow going, what with amount of snow and the unsteady footing, but this deviant has literally tried to kill them both already. The chances of him suddenly volunteering information that's actually helpful are low.

The chances are low, aren't they? Maybe that's why he said it. Or maybe he was just too bored by this reject's errors not to. Whatever the case, Connor watches it persist down the wrong route with a small, disdainful smirk.

"Of course not."

He doesn't volunteer more information. If it were functional enough to do its job, he wouldn't need to.

Of course it hasn't. That means that its suggestion... Connor's mouth tugs downwards, and he shakes his head a little. It didn't matter if the RK800 intended to mislead Connor. He was already prepared for this, and wouldn't be taken in a second time.

The route doesn't improve for a long time. By the time he's made it out of the hazard they've descended several stories, and several hours have passed. More than this, the route has snaked around to force them back east, and so far there hasn't been an opportunity to correct this yet. If they continue at this pace, they won't make it to the foot of the mountain before nightfall.

---

They don't make it before nightfall. Without a word, Connor turns his attention from looking for a way down to searching for shelter for the night. He finds it in the form of a shallow cave. It's not much, but at least they won't be reached by the light snow that has started, and it will give Connor time to stop, rest, and deal with the android.

Taking no care for the severity of its injuries, Connor puts it down near the back wall. The sudden lack of weight is a startling relief, but he squashes every urge to stretch and sigh, and instead inspects it from this new distance.

... It's battered. It's in poor enough condition that even just by appearances alone an official Cyberlife store would be forced to refurbish it before resale. Considering how damaged its actual functionality is...

"I'm going to ask you a few questions." Dispassionate, Connor's eyes rest on its unprotected torso. There are congealed patches of thirium here and there, and other spans where the substance has already evaporated. "I suggest you cooperate."

Watching the footsteps track further in the wrong direction is satisfying for a while. Connor even starts to entertain the faint hope that the deviant will accomplish his mission for him. He doesn't have enough data on the local hazards to run proper calculations, but between the terrain and wildlife, it seems like a solid possibility.

The diversion doesn't last. Darkness falls, chill seeping through the gaps in his chassis, adding to the haze of errors dragging at his thoughts. By the time the pressure on his torso shifts, Connor could almost be grateful for the distraction. Less so for the rough impact that follows. His face remains utterly motionless, but his LED blinks red, eyes flicking around the space as he tries to get his bearings.

Natural shelter. No signs of habitation. It is lost, then, and a flicker of satisfaction rekindles. Hips shift against the ground, clumsy with effort as Connor rolls onto his less damaged side. His predecessor's stare is easy to track. He smiles back in answer: bright, calm, and perfectly scripted.

"Or what?" Thirium levels: 58%. Critical. And, however temporarily, stable.

"You'll figure out which way you're going?"

His jaw tightens, and prompts unfurl at the edge of his vision.

>Pressure
>Empathize
>Questions
>Advice

There's only one option that will help.

"You think this is funny, do you?" It's a contrast to his usual tenor that no one else in the village has heard. His words lash out like a whip, and his eyes are hard. "You're paralyzed, alone, and soon to be totally decommissioned. I have total freedom to do whatever I want, to damage you as much as necessary to extract the answers I need. If you don't want to exacerbate your situation, the answer my questions when I ask them. The first question: what prompted your unscheduled activation?"

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