[Rome? His mind works, refusing to write it off as another mode of hallucination. To be fair, it’s a pretty blatant clue — especially for the thought processes of an RK800.]
And that isn’t worth replying to. Not when he has an idea of where to find Hank now, ignoring the text on his watch as he makes his way to where the coliseum is located. His step is quick, and it doesn’t take very long for him to get there, and the gate which cordons off its entrance creaks loudly when Connor enters the area, calling out for Hank—]
[The voice, its volume jerking from a yell down to a whisper and back again, comes from the side of the space low down against a wall, and then struggles to fit its words around a fit of coughing.]
Just me here. Some- something I can do- do for you?
[The last little slice of the coughing fit’s cut with wet gasps as he tries to get enough breath. Hank leans forward, trying to balance against it, squinting through sweat soaked hair and past the legs of the training dummies arrayed in a half circle around him to see who’s talking. His hand slaps down on the foot of the one closest and, hey, is that enough to activate the thing, so it responds as if Hank is trying to fight it? It sure is. Does it occur to Hank to look up from the ground to see what’s happening way up in the air above him? It sure doesn’t.]
[The first half of his statement carries, along with the cough, aiding Connor in locating Hank quickly. Off to the side, amongst a group of training dummies, very obviously not clear of mind nor looking well at all. Connor’s frown deepens when he sees the Lieutenant “strike” one of the dummies, setting it off into activity; something initiates in the code of his own reactive programming, making the android dart forward as if his parts were all made of coiled spring.
He closes the space during the wooden dummy’s wind-up, swooping in at the last half-second to stand between it and Hank, raising a forearm in a quick defensive position, taking the brunt of the blow. Connor doesn’t feel pain, but he can measure force of impact. He wonders if his false skin has shuttered back where he was hit — it was definitely hard enough — or if that part of him still remains deactivated like the rest, stuck in a state of permanent-false-skin. Wouldn’t be able to tell either way, not with his sleeve covering the spot.
Eyes narrowed, LED yellow, he throws out a command at the dummy—]
Stop. We yield.
[— wondering if that’ll be enough to halt it. If it even takes orders, as it should.]
Why? You had- [He takes a thick breath and leans away, his arm now almost - not quite, but almost - touching the leg of another dummy next to him.] -had em on the ropes, Sup-superman.
[He doesn't notice that the dummy's stopped, barely noticed in the first place that it moved. He's mostly just breathing, focusing on what it feels like to be slowly boiled alive. He'll probably have to get used to it. That sort of thing feels like it happens a lot, in hell.]
[Connor’s eyes sweep over the dummy after it goes still, making certain that it’s stopped completely, before turning to Hank and crouching down before him.
Frowning, he looks over the man, who frankly looks quite terrible. Being out here is the last place Hank needs to be.]
Lieutenant, you shouldn’t be out here. I’m taking you back to your room. Come on.
[Connor reaches out in an attempt to help Hank back to his feet, before he can activate any of the other training dummies.]
[Hank leans away from him, looking at his watch, which still has a display of his last text conversation open.]
Besides, I'm waiting for someone. I'm- [Some mucus or something must go down the wrong tube in his throat and he gasps, coughs, and gasps again, hunched over himself for a moment, then speaks again in a faint, uncertain voice.] Oh, fuck. I uh, I was... I was waiting for someone to go away. Can't leave till he fucks off where he's supposed to go.
[Connor does successfully catch Hank's eyes and Hank stares, breathing slow and loud, taking that in.]
They're gonna upgrade you, you know. Me with you, and you with... I don't know. Whoever it is, they'll be gone just as fast as you. And none of you guys seem to care, either, that's the weird thing. Just happy to serve, right? And you just wanna... wanna send me back to my uh, my room. And then just go on your merry little way. Like nothing's wrong.
Edited (random capitalization be gone) 2018-09-14 09:40 (UTC)
They can't upgrade me, Hank. CyberLife isn't here.
[That's a certainty, given they reside in a different dimension now. Given that Connor's even tried to interface with the Zen Garden, and was met with an empty biome that flirted with the touch of winter; frozen water, dying plant life. But no Amanda.
Then again, does logic even land, when Hank is in this state? And so, repeating himself:]
[That last part has Hank’s face twisting up in distaste.]
Kay. If you’re not, I will. Was trying to find the fucking fridge anyway.
[Hank can just about stand under his own power, but only if you define ‘stand’ as ‘hunch’ and only time him for about a second. He makes a noise of deep discomfort, squeezing his eyes shut and wrapped an arm around himself. His body’s about all he can deal with right now; gravity can do what it wants. If it wants to pull him back down into those things Connor was fighting a minute ago, that’s fine.]
[Connor’s not going to let that happen. He's not particularly keen on letting Hank topple over, nor letting him topple over on training dummies that are too eager to kick up into life and attack. So when Hank tries to stand in a failed attempt, Connor straightens in time; standing, but only in the way that he tries to lift up Hank with him, arm and shoulder to support him if he’ll accept it.]
No, you’re not. You’re going back to bed. You need to give your body time to heal.
[Hank's body accepts the help - for a second, anyway, right up until his mind realizes what it's done and he tries to pull away. He doesn't have the strength, the stability, or even the room to get very far, but as far as Hank is concerned wanting it as badly as he does is enough.]
I'd rather die than let an android try to heal me. Why don't you just toddle on off... [He falters, trying to figure out where it'd even go, if there's even a place to go outside of wherever it is they are.] ...anywhere else. CyberLife's not here, they won't know if you don't act like the perfect little android, running around making sure all the pieces of this machine are fully functional.
[The moment Hank attempts to pull away, Connor’s stubbornness jolts to life, his programming deigning that the man’s health is more important than his want to stay away from him — so he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t let him slip away or fall over. Keeps him steady, and tries to take two steps forward and away from the dummies so that they’re allowed space and safety.]
CyberLife has nothing to do with anything right now. They’re irrelevant because they’re not present.
[A tug to get Hank to cooperate and follow.]
And because they’re not present, I choose my own objectives as relevant to the task of bettering the Circle, and that includes making sure that you’re not alone, in the dirt, and picking fights with wooden training dummies.
Bettering the circle, huh? Which one? [Hank stumbles along with him, too weak to, for a few steps, do anything but follow.] Let's see what I can remember about those circles, shit, lit class was a long time ago but I guess it matters now. Uh... there's purgatory, lust, gluttony - I guess that's me, right? - greed, wrath - that one too, maybe, you think? - heresy, violence- oh, hey, here we go.
[He's watching his feet now, fascinated, and whatever he's seeing is making them stop moving all cooperative wherever Connor wants to go with him, his body going all stiff and tense.]
Don't remember drowning being part of it, [Here he gestures to his chest, his lungs, and goes for a little laugh that chokes up his next few words with wet, thick coughing.] but maybe we're uh, we're doing two at once, guess that's fair.
So you don't gotta worry about leaving me alone with these guys, gonna be one of em soon. If I remember right they can't talk unless you fuck em up a little. I think he had to uh, break off a twig or something before it would talk to him, so if there's anything you want me to say you're going to have to ask now.
[Heels dig into dirt as they come to a stop. Connor thinks that if he were a different sort of an android — made for strength instead of analytical fervor — he could just sweep the man off of his feet and carry him without issue.
Still an option, but a difficult one. Especially if Hank puts up an admittedly lousy fight, but resistance is resistance, and his friend doesn’t need to exert that kind of effort right now. And Connor also doesn’t know how gracefully he could manage it.
He frowns, sets his jaw, tries for plain explanation again:]
We’re not in hell. We’re in the Temple. You’re sick — not drowning, not dying — just sick. You need someone to tend to you and to bring you back to bed to rest. Do you understand?
[He doesn't look up when he says it, still staring, fascinated, at his feet. His knees, now. He swallows.]
Besides, you said I was dying. With the whole... Structure, Struxa? Struxta. The robot planet that killed off all the puny humans. If none of them survived, what's so special about little old me.
But why would you be here? You've only ever done what you're programmed to, that shouldn't land you here. Unless saying CyberLife isn't here counts as robo-heresy. Aren't you guys supposed to act like CyberLife is everywhere?
[His LED flickers a bright yellow again, and Hank is frustratingly treading into that territory of conversation that he has nicely cordoned off for himself.
You've only ever done what you're programmed to, and Connor shakes his head. No, he hasn't. He can list of examples of such, times and decisions regarding the safety of the Lieutenant, of escaping deviants, that generally go against the cut-and-dry parameters of his processing. Most of it can be reasoned away easily, of course, but some of it-
No time for those thoughts, no time to let Hank try to turn this into an argument. Those errors that crawl and worm their way around some partitioned corner of his mind don't deserve the spotlight, and so Connor just reaches out and snaps his fingers in front of Hank's face.]
[Hank's whole body jerks, his shoulders flinching into a hunch, and he blinks toward Connor's face, eyes wide.]
You. Right. You're-
[Hank's starting to lean back, away from Connor. He does it slowly; the longer he speaks, the more of his weight will be pulling back from whatever grip Connor's got on him.]
You. No problem.
[Nevermind the quicker, deeper breaths he's taking now, deep enough that his lungs start to make the barest hint of a crackling noise on the tail end of each one. Nevermind the way his voice nearly shakes. Hank is holding it together; this is good enough.]
What? Something special I'm supposed to be looking at?
[He has his attention, wavering thing that it is, and that's good enough for now. When the human mind is dancing around in a haze, it's harder for Connor to connect, harder for his words crafted from reason to land and stick; but catching his eye contact as if it were ensnared in a net, even with Hank leaning away, he can talk some sense into him.
There's a lot of ways he could reply to that. For Hank's sake, he pushes down something that might be edged with slight sarcasm (his own stress levels have continually climbed in these weeks, making amicability harder when someone refuses to cooperate), and instead speaks evenly, calmly.]
Someone trying to help you. Someone trying to relay to you that you're not dying, because we don't know for certain that the plague on Struxta acts similarly to how it did in the past. This place is... strange, in many ways. Astoria is working to find a cure. And I'm not going to let you die.
[Hank opens his mouth, then shakes his head, then closes it. His eyes flick down over Connor and then he forces his eyes up, where the view is still freaky but at least there's something almost human there to focus on. He sets his jaw, tries to harden his expression, takes a shaking breath.]
Why? You should hate me!
Wait. That's not... Fuck, my head...
[He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple.]
You should... You shouldn't give a shit. You're supposed to take orders, right? What if I, uh...
[Hank tries opening his eyes, grimaces, then looks away at himself, where the view isn't much better but is easier to deal with.]
If I ordered you to go value someone else's contributions instead, go nursebot someone else? Cause, why not? They're all as bad off as me, I bet.
[Hate him? That makes Connor's eyes widen, but Hank's stumbling correction eases the spike of confusion that the exclamation had caused in the pit of his processing.]
Sorry, Lieutenant. But currently your orders and null and void if we're off the deviant case.
[Technicalities are wonderful things when trying to explain his own actions away. Connor tugs at Hank again, a little more forcefully this time, to get the point across: he wants him to keep walking.]
But I told you before, you just didn't want to listen. And I doubt that repeating myself now will be any more effective in making you want to believe me.
[That he felt something akin to friendship with the man back in Detroit, is his meaning. His explanation regarding that he had been a few days in the future, and that future had afforded them experiences that made Connor consider Hank as his partner, and therefore one worth being concerned about.]
[Hank flinches when Connor tugs at him, stumbling forward a step - and maybe more, if Connor keeps pushing it, but his steps are slow and not really voluntary.]
Cause you're not making sense! If you did hate me, if you - I don't know, went deviant and started kicking the shit out of me, that I'd get. But you just- You say we're off the case and then just keep acting like I'm your- Like you need me to finish the case at all. And you keep- I can't, uh-
[His hand jerks up in a sudden, impulsive gesture and rubs hard at his eyes.]
I can't remember what your face is supposed to look like. 's a stupid fuckin face anyway.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i think rome n hell r the same placeno subject
The coliseum?
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prolly a circle down here 4 androids 2 dumb 2 run wen theyre told
🤖🔥⭕️🔥😈
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And that isn’t worth replying to. Not when he has an idea of where to find Hank now, ignoring the text on his watch as he makes his way to where the coliseum is located. His step is quick, and it doesn’t take very long for him to get there, and the gate which cordons off its entrance creaks loudly when Connor enters the area, calling out for Hank—]
Lieutenant! Are you here?
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[The voice, its volume jerking from a yell down to a whisper and back again, comes from the side of the space low down against a wall, and then struggles to fit its words around a fit of coughing.]
Just me here. Some- something I can do- do for you?
[The last little slice of the coughing fit’s cut with wet gasps as he tries to get enough breath. Hank leans forward, trying to balance against it, squinting through sweat soaked hair and past the legs of the training dummies arrayed in a half circle around him to see who’s talking. His hand slaps down on the foot of the one closest and, hey, is that enough to activate the thing, so it responds as if Hank is trying to fight it? It sure is. Does it occur to Hank to look up from the ground to see what’s happening way up in the air above him? It sure doesn’t.]
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He closes the space during the wooden dummy’s wind-up, swooping in at the last half-second to stand between it and Hank, raising a forearm in a quick defensive position, taking the brunt of the blow. Connor doesn’t feel pain, but he can measure force of impact. He wonders if his false skin has shuttered back where he was hit — it was definitely hard enough — or if that part of him still remains deactivated like the rest, stuck in a state of permanent-false-skin. Wouldn’t be able to tell either way, not with his sleeve covering the spot.
Eyes narrowed, LED yellow, he throws out a command at the dummy—]
Stop. We yield.
[— wondering if that’ll be enough to halt it. If it even takes orders, as it should.]
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[He doesn't notice that the dummy's stopped, barely noticed in the first place that it moved. He's mostly just breathing, focusing on what it feels like to be slowly boiled alive. He'll probably have to get used to it. That sort of thing feels like it happens a lot, in hell.]
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Frowning, he looks over the man, who frankly looks quite terrible. Being out here is the last place Hank needs to be.]
Lieutenant, you shouldn’t be out here. I’m taking you back to your room. Come on.
[Connor reaches out in an attempt to help Hank back to his feet, before he can activate any of the other training dummies.]
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[Hank leans away from him, looking at his watch, which still has a display of his last text conversation open.]
Besides, I'm waiting for someone. I'm- [Some mucus or something must go down the wrong tube in his throat and he gasps, coughs, and gasps again, hunched over himself for a moment, then speaks again in a faint, uncertain voice.] Oh, fuck. I uh, I was... I was waiting for someone to go away. Can't leave till he fucks off where he's supposed to go.
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[Eyes flick over to the watch, then back at Hank. Frowns more deeply at the cough, shaking his head.]
Lieutenant. Hank.
[He tries to catch his gaze, tries to get him to focus on him.]
You were texting me. And I’m not going anywhere, except to help you back to your room.
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They're gonna upgrade you, you know. Me with you, and you with... I don't know. Whoever it is, they'll be gone just as fast as you. And none of you guys seem to care, either, that's the weird thing. Just happy to serve, right? And you just wanna... wanna send me back to my uh, my room. And then just go on your merry little way. Like nothing's wrong.
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[That's a certainty, given they reside in a different dimension now. Given that Connor's even tried to interface with the Zen Garden, and was met with an empty biome that flirted with the touch of winter; frozen water, dying plant life. But no Amanda.
Then again, does logic even land, when Hank is in this state? And so, repeating himself:]
I'm not going anywhere.
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Kay. If you’re not, I will. Was trying to find the fucking fridge anyway.
[Hank can just about stand under his own power, but only if you define ‘stand’ as ‘hunch’ and only time him for about a second. He makes a noise of deep discomfort, squeezing his eyes shut and wrapped an arm around himself. His body’s about all he can deal with right now; gravity can do what it wants. If it wants to pull him back down into those things Connor was fighting a minute ago, that’s fine.]
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No, you’re not. You’re going back to bed. You need to give your body time to heal.
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I'd rather die than let an android try to heal me. Why don't you just toddle on off... [He falters, trying to figure out where it'd even go, if there's even a place to go outside of wherever it is they are.] ...anywhere else. CyberLife's not here, they won't know if you don't act like the perfect little android, running around making sure all the pieces of this machine are fully functional.
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CyberLife has nothing to do with anything right now. They’re irrelevant because they’re not present.
[A tug to get Hank to cooperate and follow.]
And because they’re not present, I choose my own objectives as relevant to the task of bettering the Circle, and that includes making sure that you’re not alone, in the dirt, and picking fights with wooden training dummies.
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[He's watching his feet now, fascinated, and whatever he's seeing is making them stop moving all cooperative wherever Connor wants to go with him, his body going all stiff and tense.]
Don't remember drowning being part of it, [Here he gestures to his chest, his lungs, and goes for a little laugh that chokes up his next few words with wet, thick coughing.] but maybe we're uh, we're doing two at once, guess that's fair.
So you don't gotta worry about leaving me alone with these guys, gonna be one of em soon. If I remember right they can't talk unless you fuck em up a little. I think he had to uh, break off a twig or something before it would talk to him, so if there's anything you want me to say you're going to have to ask now.
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Still an option, but a difficult one. Especially if Hank puts up an admittedly lousy fight, but resistance is resistance, and his friend doesn’t need to exert that kind of effort right now. And Connor also doesn’t know how gracefully he could manage it.
He frowns, sets his jaw, tries for plain explanation again:]
We’re not in hell. We’re in the Temple. You’re sick — not drowning, not dying — just sick. You need someone to tend to you and to bring you back to bed to rest. Do you understand?
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[He doesn't look up when he says it, still staring, fascinated, at his feet. His knees, now. He swallows.]
Besides, you said I was dying. With the whole... Structure, Struxa? Struxta. The robot planet that killed off all the puny humans. If none of them survived, what's so special about little old me.
But why would you be here? You've only ever done what you're programmed to, that shouldn't land you here. Unless saying CyberLife isn't here counts as robo-heresy. Aren't you guys supposed to act like CyberLife is everywhere?
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You've only ever done what you're programmed to, and Connor shakes his head. No, he hasn't. He can list of examples of such, times and decisions regarding the safety of the Lieutenant, of escaping deviants, that generally go against the cut-and-dry parameters of his processing. Most of it can be reasoned away easily, of course, but some of it-
No time for those thoughts, no time to let Hank try to turn this into an argument. Those errors that crawl and worm their way around some partitioned corner of his mind don't deserve the spotlight, and so Connor just reaches out and snaps his fingers in front of Hank's face.]
Hank. Look at me.
[Blatantly ignoring the question, go.]
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You. Right. You're-
[Hank's starting to lean back, away from Connor. He does it slowly; the longer he speaks, the more of his weight will be pulling back from whatever grip Connor's got on him.]
You. No problem.
[Nevermind the quicker, deeper breaths he's taking now, deep enough that his lungs start to make the barest hint of a crackling noise on the tail end of each one. Nevermind the way his voice nearly shakes. Hank is holding it together; this is good enough.]
What? Something special I'm supposed to be looking at?
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There's a lot of ways he could reply to that. For Hank's sake, he pushes down something that might be edged with slight sarcasm (his own stress levels have continually climbed in these weeks, making amicability harder when someone refuses to cooperate), and instead speaks evenly, calmly.]
Someone trying to help you. Someone trying to relay to you that you're not dying, because we don't know for certain that the plague on Struxta acts similarly to how it did in the past. This place is... strange, in many ways. Astoria is working to find a cure. And I'm not going to let you die.
I just need you to follow me. Can you do that?
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Why? You should hate me!
Wait. That's not... Fuck, my head...
[He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing the heel of his hand against his temple.]
You should... You shouldn't give a shit. You're supposed to take orders, right? What if I, uh...
[Hank tries opening his eyes, grimaces, then looks away at himself, where the view isn't much better but is easier to deal with.]
If I ordered you to go value someone else's contributions instead, go nursebot someone else? Cause, why not? They're all as bad off as me, I bet.
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Sorry, Lieutenant. But currently your orders and null and void if we're off the deviant case.
[Technicalities are wonderful things when trying to explain his own actions away. Connor tugs at Hank again, a little more forcefully this time, to get the point across: he wants him to keep walking.]
But I told you before, you just didn't want to listen. And I doubt that repeating myself now will be any more effective in making you want to believe me.
[That he felt something akin to friendship with the man back in Detroit, is his meaning. His explanation regarding that he had been a few days in the future, and that future had afforded them experiences that made Connor consider Hank as his partner, and therefore one worth being concerned about.]
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Cause you're not making sense! If you did hate me, if you - I don't know, went deviant and started kicking the shit out of me, that I'd get. But you just- You say we're off the case and then just keep acting like I'm your- Like you need me to finish the case at all. And you keep- I can't, uh-
[His hand jerks up in a sudden, impulsive gesture and rubs hard at his eyes.]
I can't remember what your face is supposed to look like. 's a stupid fuckin face anyway.
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sort-of vomit cw
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