albinomilksnake | DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

Pick your poison:
Markus | Connor

( Josh | Gavin Reed )

~~I'd probably play other DBH characters anyway lbr so if you want someone else, just ask~~

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

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[It's comforting in the same way that being handed a gun at the top of the Stratford Tower was: no immediate promises, not really. But maybe if he somehow comes back from this, something will be waiting for him on the other side. The thought is a keen, high feeling wedged between two more primary systems - the timer as it winds down and the constant effort of his body to regulate, to understand and to record the sensation of failure under Markus's fingers. There are so many components to be modified or replaced for him to be functional, but maybe that will happen. Maybe then there is a list of other things that can happen too.

BASE PLATFORM RESTORE FAILED. RE-INITIALIZING...░▒▓

▓̱̲̼̌̃͗ͯ̅ͫ̇͘͡ ̨ͬ̏ͪ̿͏͈͎̫▓̧̪̣̭̉̆̄̃̇ͅͅ ̴̦̭ͪ̍̋͑͡▓̨̹̞̯͔̽͐̄̽̓̓́̚ͅ ̗̥͇͌͒̏ͨ̕▓̧̤̜̤͉͊̔̐͋ͤ͋̂́̕͞ͅ▓̨͂̉͆ͮͨ҉̗͔̮̼̖̖ ̵̞̖͓̹̱̳̼̂̋̓̽̇͛ͩ͘͡▓̟̤̓͑͜▓͇̹͆͆̏ͪ͊̃͛ͧ̀̕▓̶̫͍͍̥̏̊ͭͩͣ͗͐̔͟ ̸̲̗̘̦̜͊̄̄̓̓̋

▓̳͉͍̘͑̌̐͌͂̑̈̑͊̿̓̓̌̃ͣ̀▓̢̨̖̲͔̮̘̣͍̙̗̗̒̂ͮ̓́̚͢ ̶͊ͮͦ̿ͯ̽ͥ̐̚̚҉̡̻̠̣͙͈̠̖͎̭͙̗̮̘͇͘▓̸̧̟͕̺̹ͤ̓́̑ͥͮ͛ͫͭ͒͐̉̓̀ͫ̍̀́̕ͅ ̸̡̌͑̂̈́͛̓͒ͣͫ͏̮͍͕̲͙̮̮̺̘͍̥͖͢▓̢̨̡͈̩̹͎̗͚̘̫͓̦͚̺͎͉̩̻̲̲ͯ̇ͩ̊͌͐̽ͨ̀͂͠ ̶̢͓͙͙̰̤͍̝̬͔̙̪̭̭̙̝̟͒ͮ́̑̍̆̄̽̆ͪ̒́̌̚̚̚͟ͅ▓̧̲̱̤̹̙̦̻͉͙̳̪̤͙͍̟ͣ͒͐̈͒͘͜͡ͅ ̧̢͍̪̮̹̜ͬ̆̑̇ͬ̑͌͑̆̀͝▓̡̞̬͎̣̝̺̲͇̞̥͎̼͎͖͚̙̎ͨ̐̐ͪͫ͒ͦͪ̓̃͑ͧͤ̅̀͊̀͞͝▓̴̧̧͍̥̹̱͕͈̩͈̖͚̘̘̌͂ͫ̒͐̎ͯͣ͛ͩ͑̽͊̅ͪ̕͢▓̨̛̘͔̤̣̈́̌̍̄͠ ̸̮̬̫̪̠̳͕̲̳͕̞̐ͧ̓̃̂̓̏̈́̆̐̓̓͑ͩͦ̐̒͑̚̕͟͝▓̡̗̥͇̥̺̙̿͂͋̆͋̃͂̊̎̋ͣ̋͡▓̴̷̟̯͉͙͚̜̻̲͋̆̉ͫ́͒̋ͭ̀̆̓̐́ͯ̀̀͝▓̷̧͇̩̣͇̥̻̖͚̜̝̱͔̻̅ͦ̊̈ͩ͆͑ͥͦ͗̾͗͋̓̀ͤͬ ̵̧̤̲͖̹̤͚̘̻̮̎́ͫͦ͗̿ͪ̄̽͐̋͛͆̇͢͢͡▓̵̭͕̩̣̞͚̤̤̺̗͎̥̰̥͙̻̜̞̿ͥ̂̍͑͛ͤͯͬ̈́̌́̕ͅ

...

...SYSTEM REBOOT SUCCESSFUL WITH: 9 ERRORS

WOULD YOU LIKE TO RUN A SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC FOR VITAL REPAIRS? Y/N

One of the acoustical ceiling tiles above him has slipped from its frame. It hangs off center now. He stares with one eye at the gap, blinking repeatedly as his mind works to make sense of it in combination with the blindness in his left eye. The diagnostic report runs up the inside of his vision, pinging and failing to receive ping backs across a half dozen vital systems. His vertebrate column casing is damaged. Or there is a gap between it and the signals firing to it. He feels his limbs and can't operate them, but he knows that they're there and that seems like--

He can't tell what, just that it is. The word improvement doesn't occur to him.

Simon blinks at the ceiling.]

Hello? Where are we?

['Five blocks north of the DPD’s central precinct—' Markus repeats patiently, the distance so negligible this time that he can hear the subtle whir of some internal mechanism as it finishes its stuttering reboot, just behind the blue-streaked curve of Simon's left ear. It hums beneath his hand, the same way that the deeper notes of Simon's projected audio bury themselves in subtle, palpable rhythms. It's a gauge, a method of measuring what components have recovered, and which ones are still struggling.

Simon glances up, lashes working to clear his vision in the eye that's managed to bypass thinned conductive charges, and Markus (gently, more the edge of his thumb than the heavy press of his fingers) pulls his attention back downwards, leveling out the other android's stare.]

Hold still, please.

[Show me your arm please, Carl.

Alleviate the pressure. Distract from the damage and the pain. Smile. On the days that he can't move, carry him. Change out the dirty water in the study. Keep his hands occupied.

Priorities from a lifetime ago, but he still remembers— beneath the fighting and the violence and the erratic patterns of human behavior— exactly how much pressure to use. How to tilt his head and keep himself from blinking too fast or too often, stare fixed only on his work. His fingertips turn pale, thirium blue almost blinding in an otherwise unlit space, prompting the synthetic skin covering the left side of Simon's face to peel back along graceful seams. PL600 models don't have mind palaces, their networked features are— limited, but the jutting outline of a similar panel stands out near the high point of Simon's cheekbone. Familiar enough that he knows where to press to divorce its locking mechanisms, detaching it from inner housings with a cool, clean click. Peeling it away (leaving behind a static blue crater of raw circuitry and wiring) and finding no resistance from dented metal in the process.

Which means the damage must be deeper.]

[As far as direction goes, that one's easy to follow. There's a kind of comfort in attending to it: turning his attention from the room to his internal platforms, following the line of programming down. BASE ROUTINES > BEHAVIORAL ANALYTICS > E_SUBROUTINES > TR_PATH > ARE YOU SURE YOU WOULD LIKE TO DISABLE: [2.EMP_MOTION]? Y/N.

He stops blinking, loitering there in the mangled frame of his intranetwork.

It's fine. Even the parts of it that ping uselessly against malfunctioning neural routes are a kind of comforting because he recognizes that they're meant to go somewhere, to do something. The lack of functionality can worry him later, but for now it falls in tandem with his scrambled sensitivity readings. Both are displaced. Markus is touching his face; he knows because he can see some shape of the motion in his functioning eye. But the feels is dispersed, jumping from what must be malfunctioning receptor pads to the nearest functioning substitutes, disseminating the contact into a dozen unconnected points. His neck, his shoulder, the tips of his fingers. He can see the blue hot therium glow, hear the click of being opened, but doesn't feel anything but fractal hum that follows.]

How does it look?

[There's a 91.2% probability that the answer is Not Good. Which-- fair. That's more or less what he'd been going for.]

So far so good.

[In a sense. That the bullet didn't snap directly upwards into the most vital and vulnerable parts of Simon's memory storage is a miracle. Without it, there is no coming back: what defines an android— especially a deviant— is the narrow compartment where memories and data are housed just at the dead center of their forehead. It can be replaced, like anything else, but what returns is only mechanical. A different life. A different being, if it eventually chooses to deviate from its own programming.

It's one of the reasons why Jericho wouldn't replicate those key parts. It'd only be unfairly reanimating a broken body.

He realizes he's pursing his lips, jawline tense, teeth tightly set. Forces himself to exhale, slow and steady, letting his browline go sharp instead as he dips his fingers into that cranial cavity, tracing the path of blackened wiring, the caked-on layers of spilled thirium, long since dried and leaving behind only a dusty residue.]

I just need to make sure—

[There. There, embedded high and impacted roughly, he can make out the shape of something foreign against Simon's internal array. Has to check by dropping his chin, unwilling to risk shifting his hand too quickly and potentially causing further damage to necessary components.

He rests his fingertips against its angles, squares off his grip.]

['That's too bad,' he thinks, but doesn't say because it isn't true. Not really. And it definitely isn't what you say to the persom who went through so much trouble to save you, to keep you safe, who has their fingers high inside the interior of your cranial structure. But he really does think it: quietly tries to recall the angle he'd held the gun, the stress his systems had been under at the point which he'd pulled the trigger. As Markus's fingertips slide across the deformed slug in his skull plate, Simon makes a series of mental notes so that the next time-- if there is one-- he won't miss.]

Component repair is probably more important than taking out the debris. The bullet.

[He says it mildly to the shape of Markus's coat collar. He's still blind on his left side, so he can't see it as Markus ducks to look inside him, the angle of his fingers as they hook under the plastic and alloy frame of his distended cheek plate. But he can imagine the look on Markus's face, a fragmented processor constructing itself a hybrid out of a half dozen carefully logged earlier instances. In his mind, Markus looks serious. Not concerned, not exactly, but attentive. Fixed.

That's fine. It's something.]

You're probably right.

[Markus could be convincing. He had a way of selling concepts and ideas that made people listen against even their own predilections. But when he agrees with Simon this time, it's flat. Distracted for how much he's focusing on doing exactly what he doesn't need to, expression not all that far off from the image Simon's already constructed in his mind.

Because logic is what drives machines. It defines their movements, their needs, their every last pattern of behavior and priority. Deviancy didn't always come as a choice, but it came with a choice: to break away from an internal system of rules and regulation and value more than just cold competency. To value themselves, to value others—

The way he values the components underneath his fingers. The idea that Simon, beyond his own recovery, shouldn't be forced to perpetually house the thing that had almost destroyed him.

(Simon, who'd led Jericho for years. He'd earned the respect of their people, long, long before Markus had stumbled blindly into their world. He deserved better.)

The first attempt at wrenching it free ends with the sharp snap of plastic fingers clicking together against empty air. Too much strength, not enough leverage to counter how violently the metal framework has been dented. He reaches up with his other hand, tucking Simon's jaw in against his palm without asking. Catches the lip of the bullet, twisting first, against his hold and the grip he's keeping on Simon and—

It snaps free with a thin, vacuous noise.

Markus releases Simon entirely in that moment, directly pressing aside the other android's fingers to place the bullet down into the center of his hand. Something to keep, something to throw away: a waypoint, a victory, a piece of metal— defined only by his own needs and expectations. Things Markus isn't about to dictate.

He picks up the optical fibers. Plucks out the burned components, secures a new length of cording, internally measuring out exactly how much he'll need. It hisses faintly when it connects, carrying new life in the form of a subtle charge. The plating he replaces, along with the attached eye and iris. Clears away the dust. The Blue Blood. The cracked plastic. Smooths it down with the edge of his thumb, slowly coaxing nanoskin back into place.

For now, it'll have to be enough.]

You should be seeing a slight improvement. How's it feel?

['You're probably right,' he says, then keeps doing exactly what he's doing. Simon can feel it - the shift of plastic and metal somewhere even if his sensory feedback can't quite match where and how. He can hear it. The small flex of knuckles against raw wiring and half melted connection points. He can taste something acrid and smoke. Why is that - a secondary feedback routine built for meal preparation - still running?, he wonders. Because you haven't shut it down yet, he tells himself.

The yellow light of his LED rotates, flickering to bright red. And he can see that out ofnhis peripheral vision even as Markus turns his face and touches his jaw and draws him in so he can dig deeper into him. Blink, blink goes the red light. For a flickering moment, he can feel himself resenting something. The hand in his face maybe. Or his face that's left. Or maybe just because it bothers him.

He doesn't want it to. Doesn't want being told he's right and then being ignored to grate on some tightly wound line in him. It shouldn't. It does. It's good he can't engage his limbs because he might push away.

Instead Simon files that sharpened sensation away. He mentally logs it. Breaks it into pieces of data that are not feelings until they're as forgettable as anything else. He hangs heavy in Markus's bracing hand and-- Pop.

He'll keep the malformed slug. Of course he will.

Occular recording flashes back online with a raw white frame, then stutters. He closes his right eye to compensate as the left retracts and dilatesin turn. Click, whirr, goes something in his own head. He couldnt uncurl his fingers from around the bullet even if he wanted to. He eye rolls in its socket, then straightens. He blinks twice and sees he'sclose enough to Markus's coat collar that he can make out the stitching.]

Uncomfortable. But better. I'll probably survive.

You will. [Markus reiterates (unnecessarily), the hand that had only just passed off what remained of the removed bullet rising to settle heavy across Simon’s shoulder, reaching to ease perceived pain in the way he always did. He doesn’t smile. He hasn’t— in a long time, but his mouth flexes just at the corner in a way that’s expressive enough. Affectionate enough.

He doesn’t see the red. Simon’s face is turned slightly, the slickened oil-black fading from his eye as occular nanomesh realigns itself beneath the surface, but Markus is on his left, obscured. ]

North and Josh, they’ll be relieved to see you again.

[’Markus, I want to be here. Remind me if I forget.’

He picks up another component. Another length of repair wiring. Presses down on one of the paneled joints at Simon’s shoulder, letting it scroll back to reveal another damaged intersection. Arm function. Spinal control. Non critical.

Like his vision, or the buried slug, another comfort.]

I’m only sorry it’s taken this long to get you back.

[He doesn’t know what’s been done to him, not exactly: damage tells a story that’s only half-complete. The deepened gouge marks in Simon’s chest, only one bullet, a collection of ruined motor functions. Torture, collateral damage, heavy-handed analysis— could have been anything. Simon could have died. Or, flickers a grim thought as Markus twists a section of wiring between his fingers, threading it together, maybe he did. The gunshot had struck high, impacted with crucial junctions. It's possible.

His fingertips twist harder. He isn't looking when he adds, his voice low and sincere:]

I didn’t want this for you.

Well that's good to know.

[It's a joke, a narrow raw edge of humor as his sensory unit quietly recalibrates around the new visual feedback. While Markus opens the seam at his shoulder - and he can feel that, pe thinks he can, though it might just be hos processing filling in the logic and translating the sensation feedback scattered around his sensors and routing that information more sensibly based off the visual data -, Simon takes in the dim, dusty room. His head doesn't move, but his eyes do: sliding quietly back and forth to study the piles of crates, the narrow streak of moonlight on the far wall, a spidering up a wall and across the ceiling. The structural integrity of the building is unusually compromised given its age and wear.

Part of 'they're losing', he thinks. Part of why the FBI is leaving. Had whatever caused it been a change to the plan as well?

Simom blinks slowly. He can feel the slug in his palm now, which means Markus has reconnected some of the damaged wiring leading from his spinal column. He turns his wrist. He rotates his fist. He opens his fingers and lets the bullet fall into his lap instead of putting it in his pocket like he'd meant to. Wrong order of operations, he thinks. Close enough.]

Where's everyone else?

[Markus confesses, Simon deflects, and it's good in its own way. Feels familiar and forgotten, lost somewhere between straightforward speeches and endless discussions about a future that stretches out only as far as the edges of their fingertips.

He hears the soft sound of metal striking hardwood flooring beneath them as Simon unmistakably drops the flattened slug, his own hands still busy wrapping wires with a thin strip of electrical tape as a temporary patch. It'll last the next few hours at least. They can peel Markus's efforts away and resolder it once they reach Jericho— the new Jericho— in a couple of hours.]

Splitting up was part of the plan. We couldn't risk them narrowing down their focus, so North and the rest of her team are working to cause a distraction. Prove to the humans that it isn't worth trying to stick it out.

[In terms of appealing targets, they were it: two androids on foot, one of them recognizable to anyone that's kept an eye on Detroit's downfall, the other key evidence in a case that the United States Government was now frantically committed to solving.] She'll be back soon.

[Simon's shoulder panel clicks softly under his fingers, coaxed into resealing itself in spite of its surrounding chassis damage. Stubborn pressure. Markus's trademark.]

Josh is with Jericho. He— couldn't run this one.

[He doesn't know if that's really what he meant. Or not all of it. He wants to know the rest of it, like how suddenly there are circumstances where North can be proving to the humans that retreat is in their best interests.

But he can admit to being distracted by the small symphony of technical data feeding directly under his fingertips now as Markus reseals the crooked shoulder plate. A hundred blinking diagnostic errors ping back and revert to rerunning for resolving damage, logging one after another: green, green, green, connection not detected, connection not detected, green, connected not detected-----

Simom shifts, a full body flex. His hand comes up automatically to touch his own face, blinking rapidly at the feel of his own fingertips against his skin and the deadzones where no contact registers on his face, just his fingers feeling some ragged anonymous edge that might belong to anyone.

It's just for a second though. Then his hand falls away.]

If they're out there being a distraction, we should probably get moving. I think we can go now.

[He can mostly feel all this fingers and toes now because-- Simon turns his face to him. Looks at him directly instead of just edges of Markus's face or fingertios in his rigid peripheral vision.

(Androids don't look tired. Repairs willing, they can look the same forever. But he looks it anyway.)]

Markus-- [Thank you, he could say. Instead Simon touches his arm, squeezes with some modicum of strength to prove he has it.]

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DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

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