[He’s trying to pull words together to argue the point, to tell Hank that he is real, that he’s a presence that is to be relied upon just like he was made to be, and that should mean something, but Hank reaches out to him. Connor lets him, because he has no reason to pull away. The contact is skin on skin, and something activates in a rush, in a wave that crashes into his coding and sends measures of it scattering into pieces while he’s invaded by— by what?
He can feel it. It’s secondhand, but suddenly it’s as good as his — (like the rooftop at Stratford Tower, snow falling, bullets grazing his jacket, the letters Jericho playing in his vision, fear, fear, and then death) — and Connor lurches back. Their hands remain connected. Emotion slides and thrashes through him like an angry serpent, coiled around his insides.
There’s a hollow want, there’s self-disgust, there’s a feeling of betrayal at a cold calculation and plain statement. Indignity, the desire for something more human to be plucked out from the wires and tubing that make up his insides, to know if something like that even exists — does it exist? What’s in there, only programming and subroutines and numbers based on probability and all that CyberLife designed it to be? Is there a person left choking in all that efficiency? Will that person stay, or disappear like a shade of a memory, a false thing? Who is he? RK800 #313 248 317-51. Who is he.
Hank is graced by a moment of clarity, but all of that is stolen from Connor. His LED blinks into the red, wide-eyed, and some terrible cognizance makes him realize that this isn’t him, these are emotions that don’t belong to him, why is he feeling this way with Hank looking at him like that, this is just like before on the roof and his body wasn’t made to filter through these emotions, not even made to house emotions—]
What—
[Connor jerks his hand back, severing the connection. Everything jolts back into place, like magnetic parts snapping back into their proper slots, and yet still wrong. A few items can't quite fit the same way as they did before. Pieces losing form. More errors for his quiet collection.]
no subject
He can feel it. It’s secondhand, but suddenly it’s as good as his — (like the rooftop at Stratford Tower, snow falling, bullets grazing his jacket, the letters Jericho playing in his vision, fear, fear, and then death) — and Connor lurches back. Their hands remain connected. Emotion slides and thrashes through him like an angry serpent, coiled around his insides.
There’s a hollow want, there’s self-disgust, there’s a feeling of betrayal at a cold calculation and plain statement. Indignity, the desire for something more human to be plucked out from the wires and tubing that make up his insides, to know if something like that even exists — does it exist? What’s in there, only programming and subroutines and numbers based on probability and all that CyberLife designed it to be? Is there a person left choking in all that efficiency? Will that person stay, or disappear like a shade of a memory, a false thing? Who is he? RK800 #313 248 317-51. Who is he.
Hank is graced by a moment of clarity, but all of that is stolen from Connor. His LED blinks into the red, wide-eyed, and some terrible cognizance makes him realize that this isn’t him, these are emotions that don’t belong to him, why is he feeling this way with Hank looking at him like that, this is just like before on the roof and his body wasn’t made to filter through these emotions, not even made to house emotions—]
What—
[Connor jerks his hand back, severing the connection. Everything jolts back into place, like magnetic parts snapping back into their proper slots, and yet still wrong. A few items can't quite fit the same way as they did before. Pieces losing form. More errors for his quiet collection.]
What was that?