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albinomilksnake2018-06-13 03:48 am
undeviated) wrote in albinomilksnake2018-06-13 03:48 am
DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST
Pick your poison:
Markus | Connor
( Josh | Gavin Reed )
Connor default is Machine Connor— but I can throw down a nice Connor if that's more your jam, just let me know what your preferences are if you have them
no subject
[ a term, used by author joseph heller. a paradoxical situation from which an individual could not escape, because of contradictory rules. their existence, right now, is a catch-22. markus cannot be seen, because he will be killed. markus must be seen, because their people will be killed. the struggle to determine the safest course of action swells in simon's throat, straining his regulator with something paralytic. terror, maybe. something he's put aside time and time again, because his loyalty to markus overcomes all else.
he's always been loyal - it's caused him suffering before. ]
This is ours.
[ there is pressure at his temple, his systems warning him that he will be damaged if he does not stop the source. an old, easily-ignored rule that flickers briefly through his mind: androids are to be identified by their uniform and the LED on their temple, no deviations from official design is allowed. no modifications.
he feels the LED at his temple give, with a soft crunch that twists in his stomach. he's had it for... for a long time, blinking softly - a connection between his appearance and his origins. without it, it truly is hard to be distinguished from a natural-born human. it tears clear of his cranial casing, and simon lifts a hand to brush his fingertips over the space where it was, while his synthetic skin seals over it, like an old scar gone bone-white and nearly invisible. there's no way that he can explain the sense of loss to markus.
it's one more thing he keeps to himself. ] Sit down.
[ voice soft, he drops that same hand to the space besides him, pressing his back to the boxes stacked on dais. gesturing for markus, in all his impatience and strength, to rest for a moment more. for him. they're tucked back in the shadows, far enough from windows that no errant eye can see them. it's quiet, the snow's heavy. this is the least he can do, for their leader. ]
no subject
[Murmured low beneath false breath, eyes lidded, he remembers perfectly the yellowing of those pages. Carl sitting at his table, grumbling absently about the latest rezoning of Detroit's suburban sprawl. What it would do to the people that lived there. How Elijah had been in the right when he got out— ]
'The way upward and the way downward is one and the same.'
[Simon shifts, and Markus watches without moving. That he wants to take the invitation, dig himself down into the silence, stop the grating of metal and plastic and slickness beneath his skin where damage still sings along his sensors, is an urge that even he can't deny. His heart feels empty. He can hear it, where the networked voices of his people have gone silent. Whether it's to distance or death, it's hard to say.
But that's the crux of it now.
Now, he thinks of that phrase heralded by Heller. Paints it into the boundaries of their situation, visible and locked in through numberless calculations. His focus sliding away from the two of them, drifting towards the bigger picture with each passing second. A plan is forming. An idea. A technicality.
The way upward and the way downward is one and the same.]
There's no such thing as a no-win scenario.
[Left hand tucked in against his side, Markus pulls away from that corner. Paces forward towards a wall that's only been half-marked with graffiti, picking through leftover paint cans and scraps of cloth.] All I need is a message.
no subject
in markus's wake, he half-stumbles down the stairs to the floor that stretched between them. a steady, quiet gait that he refuses to pick up. it feels like a funeral march, more than the act of joining their leader's side. ]
Winning doesn't matter much, to the dead.
[ markus won't sit, that informs simon enough of what must be done. it thunders in his throat and his temples, it shakes his wounded interior and vibrates the malfunctioning peripherals of his eyes. he's in worse shape than he thought, and markus can't be in any better condition. self-repair or not, there's only so far it will carry him. he bends down and rifles absently through cloth, drawing up enough white, gauzy material to serve as a flag.
something that would flutter well. it's pretty enough. ] We've all told you how important you are, Markus. Before you came to us, we had no direction, no purpose. You brought us a vision like sunlight, [ quietly, he drapes the length of cloth around the other android's shoulders, tucks the ends so that they hung like a vestment across the smears of blue blood on markus's clothes. ] We didn't have a chance without you. We won't have a chance without you.
[ it's tender, the way that he rests his hand on marksus's face. the whole one, synthetic skin bleeding back to expose the white of his casing. ]
Markus, you've always been the message.
[ markus, who speaks from the heart. markus, who took the LED from his temple moments earlier, and thus does not receive the warning that simon is about to overload his system for the second time that night. pressing his wounded hand through the bullet holes in markus's coat and shirt to touch the exposed wiring through his synthetic skin. fitting the thumb of his whole hand under markus's chin. for a moment, he burns electric blue, from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his eyes, reaching for that beautiful connection they all feel for markus.
it's there, in simon's processes as he hits markus's consciousness where it's still vulnerable: an acceptance of a weight that he'll never be rid of. the greatest sin, committed in the name of love. ]
no subject
That this isn’t over.
But there's softness encircling his shoulders, and he finds himself bending to it without question. Sorry for that inability to play both roles at the same time.]
Simon, I—
[He can see it just before it happens, in a way. Preprogrammed premonition, a gift from his creator designed as a bulwark against harm. Trajectory played out in perceived lines that creep towards damage he should be guarding. But he's not a machine, no, he's not governed by stiffened probabilities. He was raised by human hands, as a son, as a friend. He trusts Simon. Why wouldn't he?
So Markus bears into it. The hand at his jawline heavy with how he rests his head, the pressure across his collarbone leading down, mismatched eyes only lidding when his gaze slips lower.
Closer.
Something in his chest jolts abruptly without warning. His heart stops, its processes diminishing protectively to a near non-functioning state. This time, when his eyes roll back and his world goes dark, he knows exactly whose fingers buried themselves in his chest. The hand settled kindly across his cheek, white and blue, sweetness laced like poison.
Choking on that affection, for all the good it does him.]
no subject
it's time to go.
( it's the second time he carries markus, steals him away like a thief, like a traitor. simon drags him to the freightyard, markus unconscious and barely-processing, spread across his back the way one might carry a rucksack full of everything valuable in the world to them. he puts them onto a railcar, tucked cautiously behind secured boxes. the freight is en route to chicago, he knows the manifest - he's always minded the escape routes, after all. the sewer system, the waterways, the bus lines, the trains. )
by the time he dips his fingers into markus, to spur his body to begin waking once more, they're well on their way out of detroit. the train clattering and quaking, jolting across the tracks at a speed swift enough to scatter them to pieces should they fall from it. he doesn't know what to expect, when he rouses markus. ( yes, in fact. he does. he knows, he's just lying to himself. ) and he holds himself in place, as he pulls his hands free from the other android, urging him to wake up. any longer, and there may be lasting damage. he's there, on his knees besides markus's hip, hands limp in his lap. ]
-- I can explain.
[ he says it, and knows that there's no way he can explain any of this ]
no subject
Upright. Get upright now.
Something at the fringes of his vision flickers red from the exertion he's flexing, warning him of his damaged status. Reminding him to submit himself for repairs as soon as possible, and it's the most mechanically imprisoned— the most inhuman he's felt in such a long time. His balance is uneven; the train shifts along its track as it begins veering along a diverging path towards the south.
He jams his fingers into the emergency release hatch before Simon can protest. Pulls until it gives and the door slides open to the sound of howling wind. He can't see the city lights. He can't see any of it anymore. A blanket of stark white snow. Wiped clean like a hand across slate.]
You can explain?
[He trusted him. He cared for him.
All the hatred and the misery people were capable of, that he knows. But this? Intimate betrayal by definition is something he's only ever read about. A concept without a face. Now it's molded from striking blue, pale gold. There's no pretense or pause preceding it: Markus twists on his heel, fingers fisted in Simon's coat as he yanks him to his feet. Slams him so hard against the compartment wall that for a moment the whole car seems to tremble. Hope was learned. Patience was learned. Kindness and understanding and empathy.
Anger, though. Anger he's always had.]
You dragged me away from Jericho, you— [Corrupted memory. That ragged shock that'd cut it all short. He'd heard voices.] North, Josh, did you do it to them, too? Did you leave them behind to die?
no subject
he doesn't fight back; there's nothing to fight, right now. markus is angry, and his anger is right.
simon keeps his hands where they can be seen, and doesn't go reaching for markus's skin. he rests them along the material of his coat, though. trembling, because this wasn't an easy choice. he thought it would have been easy, to save markus, to leave everything behind and commit to a method of survival that had served him well for a very long time. it's not. none of this was easy, and it's the reason why simon volunteered for it. ]
I promised them.
[ behind markus's back, the three of them had come together and promised. ]
You did so much for us, without asking. This is what we decided to do for you -- North and Josh. And me.
[ if the worst should come to pass, north had grimaced, you need to protect him. ]
You'd never have left Detroit willingly.
no subject
And then he exhales.
Drops his head, bowing it low into the empty space above the crook of the other android's neck as his hand withdraws— curlse into a trembling fist— only to collapse listlessly against Simon's shoulder.
What can he say? That he wished he'd been told?
He knows why Simon made that choice. Why Jericho made that choice. He knows. If he’d stopped to sit, in the church. If he’d listened, each time Simon had strained to reach him. Distress pinned in his throat, he knows.
But Simon doesn’t understand.
Off of his toes, Markus lowers Simon to the ground like water slipping through cupped hands: his forehead is still tipped against the wall, his eyes shut when his hold relaxes...and adapts. When he lifts his fingers, slowly threading them through Simon’s own to pull them up between them. Palms cinched together, hands flush. False skin peeling away the way that embers burn through paper until something beneath the surface of their housing wells under purposeful pressure. Thirium blue shining along the lip of their joined contours.
Warm hands rise up— human hands on Simon's forearms— knotted joints woven tight with affection. Mottled light piercing the windows of Carl's study, highlighting splashes of color.
'What do you think?' He asks, and Simon flexes his mouth without meaning to. He can almost see something there, hiding between built-up layers of paint. He tilts his head.
Just before a bullet snaps through his skull.
Hell. Described in Alighieri's words, curled around naked exoskeletons and beating hearts where they lie prostrate and undefended. Hand over hand, broken and slick with rain as Simon pulls himself across lifeless limbs still writhing in desperation. Tears into them, staining his fingers dull blue. The click click click of their broken jaws, voiceless. He doesn't listen when he devours what little life they have left, feeding himself instead.
He wades through water. Through darkness and decay and leaded paint and the cloying smell of rot. Slips somewhere along the way, fracturing his side— but the hands that pull him up are soft and broken. Half-hidden in shadow, split apart at the seams. He knows how to fix the damage; it's not a matter of selflessness when he clasps them tight between his own and begins the long work of smoothing down mechanical bones.
Simon does it again, and again, and again. Because he knows how. Because it's right, and each time he pulls back something stays with him. The people of Jericho all echoing in his mind as they subconsciously reach out, filling a place in him he never knew he had to give. Their lives all woven under his skin, etched into the gaps between metal and blood, like nothing else he's ever known.
And now— silence. Empty, agonizing silence. That’s what he shares more than anything else.
He can't feel them anymore.]
no subject
when he breaks down, it is visceral.
the way markus takes his hands shouldn't be what causes his resolve to falter, nor the electric impulses that ripple through his body -- urging his regulator to function, his processes to speed up and slow down, his mind to spread itself out automatically, a net to catch what pours from markus. for a moment, he feels the world as it surges to life, to color. vibrancy he's never seen before, with his out-dated hardware slowly replaced over time for newer, better pieces. injuries taken care of, some he swears he can still feel -- parts can be replaced, leaving no trace, but the memories remain.
markus and all that devours him tears a path through him. ]
Markus, st-- [ stop, his being chokes, seizes. he cannot comprehend the magnitude of it, computing everything at the maximum speed he's able to. he feels himself warm, feels it rise in his throat ( is this what it feels like, to be ill? ), feels it push against his ears while the world goes soundless and every ache in his body begins to spark. the weight at markus carries is so much for even an RK-class model. it overwhelms a PL-class. ] Oh god.
[ it comes to an end, but the experience lingers. like he's lived it. he doesn't know what markus gleaned in response, doesn't know if his system could even reply in kind, it was so overwhelmed. something inside of him burns, and he can feel liquid on his face -- thirium bleeding from his nose as he blinks, rapid and shuddering where markus has pressed against him. burned his way inside of him.
what he's done is tear markus from a hive, full of life. what can he say to that? ( nothing. there are no words for such trauma, and none that could come from simon. all there is, is the way he fits his hands along the back of markus's neck, curls his fingers along the curve of his skull and presses him close as he dabs at the blue blood that drips from his nose. ) ]
no subject
All that lingers afterwards is a— sensation. A concept. Shared breathing, shared heat. He feels thirium drip from his nose, but his face is dry.
He had no right to ask Simon to bear it. To carry a part of Markus inside of him beneath splintered plastic, when the only path ahead of them is the first step off of a tall, tall cliff. He'd taken it anyway. Taken, not asked. And maybe in that hollow gap, that's where guilt should build its nest.
But it's only a pang. A drop of remorse in an ocean of relief at the feeling of closeness that chases the parting of their bared fingertips.
He knows in that moment, holding Simon's trembling inhales against his chest, he isn't sorry.
Markus presses forward. Down into the curve of Simon's shattered hand where it rests across the back of his head. He exhales, profile tucking in against cloth rather than the frigid compartment wall. Arm sinking low, curling around Simon's spine in the narrow gap of a few inches. Not a delicate touch (he's never been exceedingly gentle) only steady, only secure. The only promise he's ever known how to give.
From there, the fingers of his opposite hand— freed from their interconnection— skirt beneath the hem of Simon's shirt, iridescent lines chasing the wake of his path upwards. Higher. Higher.]
I'm sorry, Simon.
[Murmured softly when he finds it. The worst of the damage that Simon had been hiding— the only statistical data that had transferred during their alignment. Sinks his fingers in until he finds resistance. It's not returning the favor. It isn't getting even. That phrasing would imply a balance struck from retaliation.
And what they do, they do for love.]
no subject
( he isn't sorry, for doing this to markus. it means markus will live, and he would hurt him a thousand times if it meant he'd live a thousand more years. )
the entire thing feels like a dream, now. jericho. their march. their losses and defeat. he'd carried markus out of detroit like a thief in the night, working his wounded body to his limit and past that, running on simulated adrenaline and the promise he'd intended to keep. the one that put them on this train, the one that put markus silent and angry in his arms, the one that left north and josh to their own fate and their own ends and means. he's guilty of that. just as he's guilty of the way he sags into markus's hold, the way he draws his own comfort and pleasure in it. maybe that, most of all, for taking what belongs to their people and, even for a moment, having it as solely his own.
he feels the fingers, wandering, too late. ]
Markus, ḑ̕o̕ņ͡͝'̨́ţ̀ -- [ his voice fractures, as markus finds the wounds he's hidden away from him. the pitch becomes tinny and metallic, as his system lights up into something blinding and loud, a firecracker of an overload that rips through him in microseconds. peripheral senses drift first, then radial, then his core stutters and slows and drops him immediately into standby. eyes fluttering shut, chin dropping to his chest, sagging into markus's hands and markus's arms and against markus's chest. because there is no other option but to be drawn in by him. ]
no subject
Overheated processes slow, still, cool. And for a few beats longer, Markus leaves Jericho's origin there, draped against him. Only a few beats. Only what few, thin seconds he allows himself.
Tattered cloth is brushed aside. Designed for healing beyond the physical, for managing the most fragile machine, as Carl was fond of saying, he perches himself at Simon's side where he's laid the other android out across the floor. It takes an hour and a half. Analyzing, estimating, reaching underneath his own paneled musculature and repeating the process in turn. There are redundancies in his system that other android models lack. A handful of vital systems designed to run automatically should the worst happen— like it did once before. Most of them won't work here: the PL600 is technologically obsolete in the eyes of its makers, and given its purpose as a common use machine, wasn't designed with customization in mind.
But Markus is his creator's heritage.
The bullet still lodged between steel ribs is plucked out, the rupture it left behind stopped with a replacement length of jacketed tubing from his own right arm (it turns the grip in his right hand sluggish; a fair compromise), broken casing pressed flush enough to not snap where it no longer properly connects just beneath the jut of Simon's collarbone. Thirium shines slick across the floor, discoloring them both, but it'll disappear in time. Evidence that won't lead to their trail where human eyes fall short.
By the time the train comes to a halt, Markus's systems are in flux. They're running out of blood.
He gathers Simon in his arms, cradles his legs with the curve of his wrist rather than risking a slip of his diminished hold. The snowfall's receded to a reasonable downpour, Markus's boots sinking in up to his shins when he steps off the platform at the far edge of the train's industrial stop. It's quiet; warehouses that had been stocked by androids turned ghostly still where half of the workforce has been put on standby until something nationwide gives.
If nothing else, it ensures they won't be seen.
Between stacked plywood and crates of stale machinery, down in cast shadows, that's where he sets Simon. Slips his thumb along the masked panel at his neck, entering the appropriate configuration for cancelling induced hibernation.]
no subject
one eye opens. the other one flutters, sluggish and damaged worse than he'd previously thought. he has to consciously bypass his own processes to open it, and the world swims in and out of depth and clarity as a result. markus is close enough to him that, even in the dim light and the deep shadows, he can make out the brightness of his eyes. ]
Where are we?
[ time operates. location does not. it is a deeply non-essential function for a housekeeper, who should never leave the home save to take a pre-approved path to and from the educational facilities where the children attended class, and anywhere else permitted to by one's owner. the thought jars him, and his knee jumps erratically. simon gets his heel under the angle of his hip and pushes himself up, into a sitting position, his hands scrabbling at what he can use to gain himself traction: the box alongside him, and markus's stained jacket. did they disembark at the end of the line, in chicago? had markus carried him off at a stop before that?
hold.
assess.
there is something foreign inside of him. functional, but not a regulated part. not even the 3D printed parts that they had used to repair him, after he had painstakingly limped back to jericho following the incident at the stratford tower. no, simon always knew he was a patchwork man -- but this, this is something else entirely, and it leads him to snap his head, looking at markus with something sharp. something momentarily, desperately angry. it melts fast, turning tremulous and unhappy. he puts aside his feelings, and moves forward with quiet difficulty. ]
If we're in Chicago, all the better. Help me up, we need to get to the warehouses.
no subject
[Simon was respected. When he spoke, the people of Jericho — Markus included— listened. Whether they agreed or not, whether the conversation continued or ended, they listened. A constant that had existed long before Markus stumbled blindly into their world, and one that had persisted throughout its every successive growing pain: the influx of Detroit's unwanted, afraid, and battered, the androids that had met with Markus in darkened corridors— but first, before (and maybe above) all else, their hands had slid across the worn knuckles of a diligent PL600. He was level, where North was emboldened; objective, where Josh was wholly invested; close, when Markus had to be unattainably distant.
He'd earned his regard. All of it.
But they’re not a ship full of souls anymore. They’re two, undivided, on the last hinges of functionality. And Markus knows how to be stubborn. How to turn his eyes cold and edge his voice. His palm finds the center of Simon’s chest, and it holds.]
There’s not enough time. I’m more mobile, and I know how to track where I’m going.
[Sound pressure, against the straining of Simon's posture and balance, pressing back into those deep shadows. His free hand (with its damaged, latent grip) slides under the hold Simon keeps at the hem of his coat. Defensive. Protective.
Resolute.]
I need you to trust me.
no subject
markus hardens himself, his hand flat and firm against the center of simon's chest. he's trying to protect him. ]
Don't you dare.
[ they're not the words he wants to say, but they're the words that escape him - unbidden and hot.
his wrist pushes up against the hand on his chest, shoving at it in order to give himself the room to gather his momentum, to gather his legs underneath him and stubbornly, silently, claw his way upright and onto his feet. something strains in his hips, new against old. it allows him to stand over markus, even for a moment, something twisting on his features, swallowed by the control simon exacts over himself. his shoulder square, hands clenching and unclenching idly. they tremble, and not because he's scared. ]
Don't you dare start asking for what's always been yours, [ the trust and faith he had placed in markus had been implicitly given since the day that'd met. his hand spreads, flat against the center of his chest where markus's hand had been; the other sweeps out, gesturing to the world beyond the small corner they've hidden themselves in. the biting chill of the chicago winter, flickering just beyond the stacked crates. snow drifts, building up and blowing away in rapid succession. ]
I will not stay behind. Not this time, Markus.
no subject
The way Markus finds himself looking up now. Still settled on his knees like a static figure in one of Carl's studies— resting only for as long as it takes his own regulator to catch dully in his chest on its next beat— and then not. There's no restraint in it anymore, in the subtle arc of his features (designed, crafted, intended, purposeful) as they tighten drastically, no diplomacy left when blunt force slips out against every ingrained process.]
I didn’t get a choice. Nobody asked me what I thought before they decided I was the only thing that mattered.
[Which isn’t true. He knows it isn’t true. Momentum is transferable; inspiration is a conductive charge, not a fixed point. If vision were all that he had that no one else did, it’d only have been Markus out there, standing in the streets with his fist in the air, demanding the right to breathe.
He’s up on his feet. Close. Too close. Too vivid and quiet and adamant all at once. Not an inch left between them and far too much breath trapped along the back of his throat.]
I am not gonna lose you too.
[Somewhere along the way, the automated path of his own logic shifted, as quick as it had when Leo’s fingers curled in against his collar. No warning, no conscious effort, only peripheral awareness after the fact. He isn’t asking Simon to stay.
He’s asking him to live.]
no subject
[ none of them disagreed with one another; markus was too important to allow to die, and the three of them had undoubtedly conspired behind his back, hadn't asked him about his wishes - because they knew them, they know he'd disagree and then he'd know and if the worst came to pass... and it did. and now they were here, semi-conscious and freezing to death just outside of chicago, wounded and bleeding out and hurting one another further because they cared so deeply. ]
I was the one who proposed it. The FBI will be following us, undoubtedly. You're too high-profile for them to tear their attention away from, which means North and Josh will be able to gather our people and get them out of Detroit as well. It was my idea, Markus.
[ he says it, for north and josh's sake. as though he had swept them up in the most wild and drastic idea he'd ever given voice to, when really all it was was a fancy way of saying "i'll run away, and take markus with me". that's all it was, one more way of saving his life and salvaging what was left of their movement. the FBI would follow them, and they'd run. hide. plot, whenever they could. simon has not given up on the movement, but he can't deny that part of him is ready to run, to keep running. even though he knows that markus will not run forever. he'll barely run now.
it's in the way he moves, dark and slow. he's always been a creature of fluidity, adaptability. barring his ungainly, painful crash landing into the center of jericho, he had always been graceful, powerful. the benefit of a superior chassis and advanced limb structure, maybe. maybe he just had the mind for it, like everything else. markus moves to his feet, and simon finds his back hitting the chill of the metal container behind him, shoulders shoving towards his ears, trying to back his way into a corner. his hands rise, fingers curling outward, as though ready to push markus back.
he won't be knocked out again, he's ready this time. but markus only speaks to him, and despite that simon doesn't need to breathe, he feels the wind knocked out of him. the shudder of his heart, too hopeful and too wanting for both of their own good. ]
I'm not going anywhere without you, [ he soothes, he tries to. the flat of his hand pressing to markus's shoulder. slowly, very slowly. ] We go together, or not at all. And considering that "not at all" isn't an option for us...
press x to do that thing where Markus just stops talking and hones in on contact instead
(Androids don't dream; it's when he wakes that he has to bury the thought that he might someday be the last one left standing.)
And now, between them, they have two hours' worth of Blue Blood left coursing through insulated veins. Possibly two and a half, if the weather continues to keep their exposed circulatory systems sluggish. Five hours before the FBI realizes in their networked sweeps that something must have slipped past. Seven, before Cyberlife puts another deviant hunter on the case.
'I'm not going anywhere without you', Simon insists even as he fits himself back into those warehouse walls. Reaches and recedes all in the same beat, as though whatever ground Markus presses forward to cover, Simon has to rush to reconstruct just as quickly. A sudden difference of inches where there weren't any left to give. Coolant-suffused breath running high across cut cheekbones— across dead air. Simon, who runs. Even from this. From him.
He steps forward. Steps, not leans. Plants one boot between the weathered outlines of Simon's own and lets the pressure of Simon's palm stiffly settle beside tacky bullet holes, where they could easily find purchase. Unguarded now. There's ozone in the air. The scent of high humidity that precedes a storm. Seek shelter, thrums a distant warning attached to his networked awareness. Seek shelter.
His stare is piercing and certain, he doesn’t blink. He reaches up (not accurately, the way that Cyberlife had intended for its machines, a mix of feeling and purpose guiding the tips of his fingers as they chart their way over muscular tension), bare hand dragging Simon’s fingers over the gouges in his chest. Rests them at the paneling that protects his regulator, tangible even through the thin layers of his shirt.
Pressure. That's all it is. Demanding that something either well up, or run cold.
Together, or not at all.]
1/2
for a moment, he fears markus has already reached that point. he goes so still, so silent. the fear of losing him drives through his alloy ribs, an electrical impulse lances through his heart. but markus is only in motion, chasing him down those last, precious few inches before simon has run out of ground, and he is pinned between the containers behind him and markus before him. he opens his mouth: markus, we can't stay here settled on his tongue, ready to be said. ready to be used as a barricade between them. he can't be so selfish, after all. one can only love a people's savior in silence, or run the risk of reducing him to mortal.
he swallows it, as markus guides his hand to where he can just barely feel the flutter of his regulator, his heart. instead, he says: ] Okay.
[ one finger is trapped in the hole in his shirt, as they curl through the material. he doesn't try to get away, not now.
he'll follow markus's lead, without question. this is how he will keep him safe. again, he breathes: ] Okay.
[ quietly, his free hand finds markus's, fingers wrapping around his, squeezing briefly. ]
We'll talk after. I promise. But, we have to go. [ soft, insistent as his forehead drops to the line of markus's shoulder, curling into his space with a heavy heart. they'll die, if they do not go. he doesn't want to die, he doesn't want markus to die. they do this together, or not at all. ] We have to ---
2/2
[ north's voice is thunder - like the sound of her stolen gun as it barks, shattering the knee of the armor-clad soldier that thinks the broad of his forearm across her throat is enough to stop her in her tracks. like the rest of their people, breathing is merely a formality - a crafted response, formed for human comfort. north refuses to breathe, just to spite them all. she hears the human that has her pinned yell out, and as his spine bows in pain, she brings her gun up to the soft flesh under his chin and fires. blood splatters across the bridge of her nose, she can taste it in her mouth.
around her, androids are running. the car that had torn through the fence smoking and whining under bulletfire, allowing for momentary cover as their people ascend broken concrete and torn steel fencing, fleeing into the streets even as the tattered remnants of jericho call for them to board the pair of transport trucks stolen from detroit's gridlocked highways. this way! here! she can hear them calling, as she rolls the body off of hers and feels the rush of something in her head. bad memories, something she needs to shake off. ]
Josh!
[ she roars across the chaos, picking herself up as she wipes blood from her eyes with the back of her hand. ]
Josh, sound off!
[ the truck they had used to break through the barricade is in flames, their people are scrambling - unorganized, panicked.
she stops to haul someone to their feet, wrenching them up by the back of their neck, the crook of their arm and she points for the trucks with their open bays and the multitude of arms gesturing, reaching. go, she knows she yells, but the sudden explosion flattens her, fire and pressure shoving her backwards and onto the ground, sliding her across the snow-and-ice heavy asphalt. the gun skitters from her grasp, and she scrubs at her face again. her hands coming away slick and blue, errors at the corners of her eyes warning her about possible head trauma. assess. assess. ]
Josh, [ one last time she screams his name, her knuckles biting into the ground as she leverages herself to her feet. ] We're leaving, where the hell are you!
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He braces his hands against the body of a rifle, willing his grip to stay sure (more than he's sure it will stay), regulatory system running hot with fear as his heartbeat rabbits within its housing to compensate. Beyond compacted wreckage and labyrinthine barricades, the only thing he can make out is smoke overhead, its unfurling belly lit by flames that climb higher by the second.
He tries. He tries to buck off the soldier that's wrenching armored weight down over his hold, but he doesn't know how. North, Simon, even, he's seen them defy their programming time and time again. His own emulation is unconvincing: his elbows lock, maybe in the wrong place, or at the wrong angle. He doesn't know. Maybe it isn't a matter of purpose, but a driving desperation he lacks.
He pushes, harder, the upturned rifle stock catching him in the chin when it comes back down with force and he tastes— electricity. The sensors in his right leg are damaged. His face feels wet. Their people are leaving, and that's good, he thinks, if they get farther than him.
And then he hears her. Or he thinks he does.]
North!
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she runs through him, and knows it's akin to being hit by a motorcycle. the android figure was plastic over steel, and she has been solidifying herself since the day they began taking on wounded, printing replacement parts with their stolen machines. little by little, making herself into something that was more than what humans had thought she should be. when she hits the soldier, his armor cracks and he lets out a woof of pain so dense that she knows she's broken his collarbone and his ribs. as she digs her heels in to stop her momentum, it parks her directly over josh. ]
Don't you remember what I said! "What do you do when they get you on your back?"
[ she'd drilled it, one day. standing over a handful of deviant androids who hadn't believed in sitting around, idle. they'd wanted to better themselves, they'd wanted to be able to fight back and fight back well. hadn't wanted to take whatever treatment they had received sitting down, ever again. the question: what do you do when they get you on your back?.
the answer: don't let them get you on your back!
north reaches down and gathers josh's hand into hers, hooks herself under him and shoves, drags, hauls him up and onto his feet, even as she's taking stock of his condition. lean on me, she calls silently, her mind drifting into his as she shoulders his weight and takes it off of his wounded leg. across the field, she bellows for the trucks to leave. proceed on, don't stop for anything, they'll catch up - she promises. she promises them, because she can't leave josh behind. she won't, he'll die and she will not ever allow any of them to die.
they sent markus away, asked simon to shoulder that particular burden, because they were determined not to let any of it die. it would die, if he did. they'd lost the momentum necessary to spread their people's belief beyond their leader. it fell to her and josh now, to keep whatever was left safe. to defend it. to fight back. ]
Move, Josh! [ she snaps it, and hauls forward like an ox on a yolk, shoving her weight to counterbalance his as she half-drags him across the yard towards the smoking wreckage of the truck they had driven straight into the detainment camp, bulletfire splattering across the ground around them. she can feel the bite of something rip through her side, and bares her teeth against the warning display that splinters her vision. it's distracting, she'll be fine. ] We're going for the alley, there's a secondary route.
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[Thank you— You shouldn't have come back for me— I'm glad you're here— Let go of me and run—
A dry tangle of sentiments he seems to choke on as she pulls him upright, her grip so secure that the dull shaking in his forearms seems to steady in response, heavy arm tucked around her shoulders.
He cuts himself off at the same time she barks at him to move, and he does. One foot in front of the other, angle offset and awkward for how he can't sense accuracy with every other step. In that moment he isn't thinking about Markus or Simon, he isn't drawing relief from the idea that they might have escaped before the FBI tightened their grip on the harbor and its byways: the air is too thick with smoke, North's hold is too strong, he's slowing her down, the alley's too far.
His fingers tighten in the layered fabric of her coat.]
I'm with you.
[Mechanized calculations: he isn't able to gauge his weight distribution when it connects with the ground, but he can, by narrowing his subroutines, predict an appropriate angle and synchronize his movements with it. Take the pressure off of her and speed up their pace in the process.
It isn't much, he knows, but— ]
Go.
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it means she can focus on josh.
north drops his weight, clutching his wrist in her hand as she lunged up and over the shallow embankment and braces her feet against the hastily-constructed cement barrier. she hauls on him, fighting to bring his damaged legs to heel, to haul him up and over the barricade and back into her arms. she tips him over her shoulder again and dives into motion, moving as fast as she can go towards the alley that she'd scouted long before she'd lead the charge to break open the detainment camp. there's a manhole cover, already loosened and sitting aside, to be used as a backup escape, and she moves towards it. ]
Get on the ladder.
[ behind her, she can hear voices. soldiers trying to locate them through the smoke wafting from the burning wreckage from the truck. she drops josh again, and doubles back, kicking snow over the thirium trails they've left behind. scattering evidence of their passing to the wind as best as she can. she comes back, tearing trash down in her wake to further hide her footprints, and slides towards the ladder, reaching for his hands. ]
I'll lower you down, brace yourself. You're gonna' drop hard.
[ there's no avoiding it, they have to go.]
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He can ignore it.
Noise detection in that subterranean space is limited, but there's no mistaking a low, bassy hum that seems to rumble through the air just overhead. A helicopter, maybe. Or the revving engine of a militarized vehicle— Josh isn't familiar enough with army equipment to tell the difference.
His shoulders pull tighter with tension, syllables stressed:]
North, you need to hurry!
[He thinks, shifting his weight more towards his uninjured leg, that if it comes down to it, he could catch her.
Or try to.]
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I can't believe we're gonna write smash here but these androids can't be stopped
S M A S H
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