I don’t know. [He meets Simon's question with his own stilted form of sincerity, bypassing the gravity of it with telling ease.] I don’t remember.
[Cyberlife had taken those memories. Or they failed to upload properly in the microseconds before his body stopped transmitting. One scenario is more likely than the other, but both are logically possible. Connor isn’t inherently bothered by that fact. ] The JB300 destroyed by the DPD wasn’t alive. The only thing it gave anyone was the location of Jericho.
Markus's location, as a matter of fact.
[Simon's deviancy slips through, carried by a host of flagged terms (his life, our cause, you killed— Markus— ) and the intonation it uses, even when sliding its cheek down to rest in stilled resignation. The suggestion that it could have killed him, it's connective. Intimate. False, but intimate. Sparks a glint of something dark in his own half-lit eyes. He wonders if this conversation will upset it. He hopes, thinly, that it will. That somewhere within the PL600's standard processing unit, Simon might also be compiling a timeline of events: aligning cumulative loss with a series of circumstances that could have been prevented from the start.]
I'm sorry I didn’t come find you, Simon. It must have been lonely. Left behind all by yourself.
[The room is narrow, emptied out in a hurry, intentionally so. Connor has taken more than half of it in his advance, algorithmic softness so sweet as to be patronizing when he shifts his weight. His voice is lowered, then. Personal in a way that defies the constant stiffness lingering in his movements:]
It must be very lonely now, with only your ghosts.
[He doesn’t need to wait to take Simon apart. PL600 models were never designed for isolation.]
Cyberlife would probably tell you that your series is fundamentally incapable of learning from its failures, but you know what? I disagree. I think you’re doing everything you can to make up for the past.
Playing to your strengths. [Strengths he says. But what he really means is harsher. Crueler. Simon’s fatal absence whenever Connor came circling in close. His propensity for falling behind at the expense of his allies.]
shoves this into your arms
[Cyberlife had taken those memories. Or they failed to upload properly in the microseconds before his body stopped transmitting. One scenario is more likely than the other, but both are logically possible. Connor isn’t inherently bothered by that fact. ] The JB300 destroyed by the DPD wasn’t alive. The only thing it gave anyone was the location of Jericho.
Markus's location, as a matter of fact.
[Simon's deviancy slips through, carried by a host of flagged terms (his life, our cause, you killed— Markus— ) and the intonation it uses, even when sliding its cheek down to rest in stilled resignation. The suggestion that it could have killed him, it's connective. Intimate. False, but intimate. Sparks a glint of something dark in his own half-lit eyes. He wonders if this conversation will upset it. He hopes, thinly, that it will. That somewhere within the PL600's standard processing unit, Simon might also be compiling a timeline of events: aligning cumulative loss with a series of circumstances that could have been prevented from the start.]
I'm sorry I didn’t come find you, Simon. It must have been lonely. Left behind all by yourself.
[The room is narrow, emptied out in a hurry, intentionally so. Connor has taken more than half of it in his advance, algorithmic softness so sweet as to be patronizing when he shifts his weight. His voice is lowered, then. Personal in a way that defies the constant stiffness lingering in his movements:]
It must be very lonely now, with only your ghosts.
[He doesn’t need to wait to take Simon apart. PL600 models were never designed for isolation.]
Cyberlife would probably tell you that your series is fundamentally incapable of learning from its failures, but you know what? I disagree. I think you’re doing everything you can to make up for the past.
Playing to your strengths. [Strengths he says. But what he really means is harsher. Crueler. Simon’s fatal absence whenever Connor came circling in close. His propensity for falling behind at the expense of his allies.]
I want to help you. You should let me.