['Wouldn't that be nice?' Simon asks, and Markus's head snaps up, expression twisted in a way that's all too transparent. Too close to something that only Lucy had ever seen, buried hidden in his chest away from the eyes of everyone he's ever cared for, farther away from Jericho and the androids that looked at him like he was full of nothing but light and hope.
And he's tried. He did try. Reconfigured his bones to be what they wanted or needed, if there ever was any difference. Only North came close to mapping out its shadow— maybe Simon, now, too, depending on how much his system could effectively process in those few febrile seconds before his system threatened to collapse.
(—there are hands on his wrists. Still slick from the residue left behind from warming snow, slow to melt over inorganic composition. Something guttural and urgent dragging at him, echoing the sensation of contact where it shouldn't be, and the only words he attunes to it are the soft, bitter sound of Simon's vocal projections—)
He can't smooth out the wrinkles in his brow line. The shadows they press down over his mismatched eyes, too sharp, too focused. So he drops his face instead, letting the high collar of his coat obscure what he can't bring himself to hide.]
I see it. [Markus exhales, responding to earlier instruction, tucking his chin low and fixating on the visible broadness of the PL600's base frame where metal rests exposed against backlit circuitry and displaced, brilliant wiring. Older methods. Dated methods. They'd been implemented before Cyberlife had pinpointed a better system of socket management.] Simon, I'm gonna need you to hold still as much as possible.
Can you turn off your sensor readings for this area? [A minor process. One that doesn't always work once an android's already sustained damage, and possibly a function that isn't supported in a line that was designed for minimal physical impact.]
no subject
And he's tried. He did try. Reconfigured his bones to be what they wanted or needed, if there ever was any difference. Only North came close to mapping out its shadow— maybe Simon, now, too, depending on how much his system could effectively process in those few febrile seconds before his system threatened to collapse.
(—there are hands on his wrists. Still slick from the residue left behind from warming snow, slow to melt over inorganic composition. Something guttural and urgent dragging at him, echoing the sensation of contact where it shouldn't be, and the only words he attunes to it are the soft, bitter sound of Simon's vocal projections—)
He can't smooth out the wrinkles in his brow line. The shadows they press down over his mismatched eyes, too sharp, too focused. So he drops his face instead, letting the high collar of his coat obscure what he can't bring himself to hide.]
I see it. [Markus exhales, responding to earlier instruction, tucking his chin low and fixating on the visible broadness of the PL600's base frame where metal rests exposed against backlit circuitry and displaced, brilliant wiring. Older methods. Dated methods. They'd been implemented before Cyberlife had pinpointed a better system of socket management.] Simon, I'm gonna need you to hold still as much as possible.
Can you turn off your sensor readings for this area? [A minor process. One that doesn't always work once an android's already sustained damage, and possibly a function that isn't supported in a line that was designed for minimal physical impact.]