albinomilksnake | DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

He made it sound like it was an easy decision to make - to put aside her hatred, her desire for vengeance, when it was right there in front of her.

Maybe for Markus it was an easy decision; he didn't see what she did when she looked at humans. Perhaps that was her own fault, for keeping a part of her past and the things she'd experienced and seen locked away from him. It wasn't shame that kept it far from him, but some kind of need to not let it touch him, taint him, and drag him down to her level. She wanted him to be better than her. Otherwise their cause...

North could pull the trigger irregardless. She had a human in her sights and just a fraction more pressure on the trigger would have one less human alive, one less human abusing her people, one less human getting in their way. And despite Markus' hand on her wrist, if she did pull that trigger, he wouldn't stop her or force her hand to the side. Markus would let it be her choice, and that meant more to her than she could possibly communicate.

So, once again, North chose to hold herself back.

Taking her finger off the trigger, she lowered the gun though she continued to stare at the retreating humans. In that moment, she let his presence wash over her, reason to reassert itself in her mind and dial back the anger that raged inside of her. It was important to choose their battles properly or all would be lost.

"Quickly then," she said to Markus, turning away from the enemy to focus on their people. "We need to get clear of the Square."

She slips through his fingers, all purpose and the edges of her teeth, carrying her wounds like armor. He wants—

He wants to help their people. It isn’t anything less than the truth, he wouldn’t be here if it was. Wouldn’t have poured himself into the idea of Jericho, or kept momentum in his stride at every opportunity to demand nothing less than they deserve as living beings. Wouldn’t stay up beyond the parameters of his energy reserves, bloodied and tired and sick of all the fighting, the futility, the guilt and anger welling up each time he watches another one of their own fall—

But North is right. He isn’t like her. He had a home, once. He knew human compassion and kindness where it settled tight across his fingertips, greeted him each and every time he drew back the curtains in Carl's study. It’s hard not to still reach for it sometimes, craving the narrow comfort of contact when there isn’t enough time.

He doesn’t reach for her again.

For a while, experience drives their route: avoid the main roads, watch every intersection— no demonstrations. Not now. He leaves his subconscious network tightly attuned to the pack of thirteen androids positioned just a few steps ahead of him and North. They move together, they spot threats together, and if anything happens, there's less room for fear to sink in its teeth.

Behind him, he hears the subtle rumble of an encroaching car, blocking the alleyway and leaving them only one exit, red and blue lights staining brick in alternating patterns.

"—shit."

Markus jerks his head towards her, already positioning himself between the squad car and their now-fleeing escorts. There's an offset dumpster left half-driven beneath a fire escape at an angle; not ideal cover, but if nothing else, he can use it as a mobile barricade.

"Go. Go!"

An object in motion tended to stay in motion, and North needed to be in motion. As long as she had that, had direction, it didn't feel like her circuits were going to overload as they had when she stewed in the hold of the ship Jericho had claimed as their base with her hands self-tied because she knew where her priorities laid. And once on their way, she settled into a more and more familiar pattern of caution and vigilance to those who needed their guidance.

Of course, that all went to hell when the police car showed up.

"I should have killed them," she growled out, gun in hand again, as she scanned the alley for additional threats. North spared one glance toward Markus before turning her attention to their people. Sprinting to the pack, she urged the last one to speed up, calling out directions to those in the front.

"Hurry! Keep going! Take the next left." If there were more than just this one squad car, they were going to have to make use of the sewers. To that end, she kept an eye out for any drones. Those she would remove from the sky.

Unlike North, Markus has no weapon. It's a personal choice (a consistent personal choice), and it's one that means he’s forced to act as a physical barricade, barring any fired shots from finding their mark— or from allowing the patrol car enough room to drive straight down the alleyway after a group of fleeing androids.

He thinks, in good faith, they might not shoot.

They don’t. Despite everything, he finds himself surprised by it when the only thing that rings out clear in the cold night air is the harsh rasp of a police megaphone: Stay where you are, do not move—

Cut off by the harsh grit of a second set of tires, another squad car already circling in at the opposite road to try and corner a fleeing herd. A worst case scenario, Markus's head snapping around as those car doors open, masking another pair of human officers with their guns already drawn.

He doesn't hesitate.

The dumpster he's thrown himself behind is rocked forward with inhuman force (the kinetic press of metal bones and reinforced plastic), its wheels carrying it closer to the initial patrol car, distracting his hardlined retreat towards the second: he builds speed through torque, through traction, tackling the officer closest to him against the flat of their vehicle's hood— handgun knocked from the human's hand with the reverberating pop of a dislocated shoulder.

It works, rough a solution as it is: the second officer trains his weapon on Markus, just as the first few of the freed androids work their way down towards the relative safety of the sewers. A few shouted words, a handful of increasingly tense seconds, the electronic hum of a drone as it closes in, more focused on the scuffle than on their people. Lives saved, he thinks, his forearm pinned heavy against the first officer's throat, the now stationary drone's overhead spotlight so bright that it burns out the clarity of his optical feed. It's fine. It's fine—

—until something punctures the high point of his chest, sending him reeling under the sharp crack of a fired gun.

North didn't hesitate either after the androids started down the sewers.

Reaching for the arm of the one android that had also knelt down along with North to help usher them below ground, synthetic skin dissipated as she passed on the requisite information to reach Jericho. Urging the groups new defacto leader to keep as safe as possible (passing on her handgun as well) and that she and Markus would catch up to them in a few moment, North turned her focus to what had every humans' attention right as that first shot rang out.

Picking up the manhole cover, calculations were completed and North threw the thick heavy metal disc like a frisbee. Embedding itself in the drone, sparks flew everywhere, the spotlight flickered erratically before going out and then the drone plummeted. Trajectory just right that it crashed on the roof of the police cruiser, North charged toward the armed officer. She was going to rip that gun away and beat that human's head in with it until she was wearing red.

When was Markus going to realize that he was more important to Jericho than she was? She should have been the one going after the police. When was he going to understand that their cause would die along with him? There was a damn good reason why Jericho hadn't been effective before he showed up with no balance between three vastly differing approaches.

North had tried it Markus' way; now it was her way.

Edited 2018-07-18 03:20 (UTC)

He's off balance when the full force of her fury hits: it plays out in a flash, spotlight stuttering wildly, metal crushed and torn into like tissue paper and chased by the sound of manufactured mass striking organic sinew and bone.

Pavement sits heavy against his back; he doesn't remember when he'd fallen, already pressing a hand across his chest where thirium is pooling, chemical and slick. Non-critical. Diagnostic running red across his field of vision as he works to pull himself to his feet. Slow at first. Slow until he sees North— hears the other patrol finally catching up on foot, and those subconscious calculations fall back into obsolescence.

"North—!"

His voice is only artifacted at the start of her name, self-repair systems leveling out. He's rushing to her side, arm outstretched to try and catch her around the middle; gestures shared between the Jericho leaders like equilibrium, times when they'd press each other, pull one another, grab and bleed and drag themselves back from the edge.

With varying degrees of success.

The snap of bone and the human cry of pain amidst the crunch of metal as North's mass bowled into both the patrol car door and the officer to pin the human was a symphony. That cry was so much fuller and satisfying than the ones her software had her capable of mimicking for the humans with such deplorable desires. It made it easy to rip the gun from the officer's hand, trapped as the human was, unable to mount a defense as North pummeled the human in the head as though she wielded a large rock instead of a gun.

With the solid thump of each strike and her tactile sensors detecting the increased heat and wetness upon her face, a different human's face sifted through her memory. Man, woman, old, young... all humans that had laid hands on her. The officer's nose caving in was one of those humans' faces. The shattered jaw was another. Over and over. And with the death of each one, a North died as well - whatever version she'd been required to be for that particular human. She wanted them all dead - all the humans - and if she killed them all, then she could... she could... she'd finally be--

Auditory receptors picked up Markus' voice even as North drew back her arm for another strike, the limb along with her upper chest and face splattered with red blood. It let the rest of her sensory input coalesce instead of being pushed aside as temporarily irrelevant. Arms went about her waist and instead of striking the clearly incapacitated officer, North used the momentum of that downward swing and Markus' own to take them both to the ground in a roll in time to avoid shots fired from the initial patrol. Ending up on top of Markus, North fired back at the officers to force them to take cover, clipping one in the leg in the process.

"Don't you North me," she growled, ripping her sleeve free only to stuff the fabric into the hole in Markus' chest to stem the flow of thirium. "You're not a martyr, so stop acting like one."

She paints him with it when she pulls them both to slick asphalt. Red blood. Human blood. He doesn’t think of Leo— of the way it had poured out of him as if he were shattered, fragile glass (fragile machines; he’d known but didn’t listen)— or he does, but consciously shoves past it when his heavy hands claps themselves over North’s, her fingers tangled in torn cloth until the bleeding beneath fractured plating slows.

Red and blue.

He opens his mouth to argue. Another set of shots pierce the front of the patrol car: too high to effectively strike at where they’ve taken cover. What can he say? That he did what he had to do to make sure Jericho survives another night? That she isn’t a killer? That every human life they take is one they’ll feel a thousand times over in delayed retaliation or resistance? This isn’t the time. This isn’t the place for it, and maybe— she isn’t wrong.

His grip narrows, he works printless fingers in underneath her palm, against the grain of the gun she holds.

“We need to draw them away.”

From the others. From Jericho.

As much as Markus claimed there were other options to killing, North could point out that there were also other options to Markus throwing himself into bodily harm needlessly. They could and would go round and round about it, but this was not the time for it beyond her verbal admonishment and his physical interference - both too late. Likely, they would revisit it later, back in the safety of Jericho.

Assuming they could keep Jericho safe.

The gun was slick with red blood, her grip on it tightened automatically when Markus sought to take it from her, but a second later had her loosening it so he could take it from her. North didn't like being unarmed for there was power to be found in wielding the humans' weapons against them. Still, she let him take it (if only because she knew there was another gun on the ground a few feet away) hoping that maybe he was actually going to use it. Or carry it. Or just keep it for their growing arsenal.

"Down Ford Street to the automobile scrapyard. There's a well-hidden sewer entrance there and we'll draw a drone along the way," she said, rolling off Markus to crouch with the car acting as cover. This took them the opposite direction the androids would be traveling underground and give them a chance to 'disappear' into the scrapyard.

He takes it because she fixates. On anger, on tasks, on violence and comfort— the way she'd restlessly pitch a ball against steel for hours on end to chew her way through agitation without stopping.

In the moment, while they're penned in and soon to be overwhelmed with additional reinforcements, he doesn't want to afford her an option for fighting back. An anchor that could keep her here, tearing into them until it's too late. His hand stays cinched against hers, even as he rolls over onto his side, bracing his heels to run.

Ford Street. He's navigationally linked, charting a path while his forearm works to press him upright, an internal countdown: one glance over his shoulder, one nod, still holding the handgun within tightly curled fingers (like a rock, like a tool, not the weapon that it is, thumb under the barrel and fingers splayed along its sides). Markus waits only a beat longer— until gunfire spatters the side of the car again, closing in— and then he's off, sprinting over snowy streets with North clutched tight in his opposite hand.

They don't have to make it far, they just have to make it.

—ignoring the distant sound of wailing sirens.

Markus was right; the way North's eyes lingered on the gun until he locked his fingers around it was evidence enough. Once it was clear he wasn't going to discard the weapon, she turned her full attention to the path they needed to travel to get out from where they were pinned down.

The weight and pressure of Markus' hand holding onto her own was a steadying presence that helped her focus on what they needed to accomplish. Even still, she calculated the distances between their positions and those of the encroaching humans. Just in case their path took them too close and there was opportunity to... encourage the humans to pursue them. Perhaps Markus was prepared for that as he didn't let go of her when they ran, keeping her tethered to him.

It was a good tactic that would keep them from getting separated and keep her close enough that they moved in concert. Running down the street, their feet left foot prints in the snow and a spattering of blue and red blood dotted their wake as it dripped from their clothing. A nice trail to follow, North noted as she looked back to see if they needed to dive behind cover again.

Eventually they'll need to stop drawing focus for the sake of their own survival. Eventually those red and blue streaks will turn into a problem, not a benefit. And that's a balance that has to be timed out. Not too soon, not too late. There's a deviant hunter on the loose, according to news reports now scrolling through Jericho's inner hull on loop (thanks to a recent influx of supplies and technology), and where human eyes can be careless, androids aren't—

She turns to look back, and in that moment, he pulls harder. Pace quickening.

'Don't stop.' he thinks, across the narrow band of their networked connection. Don't stop. Don't give in to that urge. Don't let them near. Because he isn't afraid of dying. He's afraid of watching her die, and they're running jagged lines across a razor's edge through emptied streets in the dead of night.

They reach the junkyard in record time. Heels skidding to a stop over snow, just near the chain link gate where trashed metal and outdated refuse are piled high. He freezes, only for a moment (—only for as long as it takes to remember what it had been like to stand knee-deep in tangled, desperately gasping bodies—) dropping his weight and pulling up a section of warped fencing.

As if she needed the instructions to continue running... except she did. It didn't keep her from glowering at Markus briefly as her eyes shifted over to him when she turned back and kept pace with him. She wasn't even going to snap a retort at him, just letting that annoyance briefly flash across their network, before she matched his urgency and then exceeded it until it looked like she was the one tugging him along.

She turned back again when they reached the scrapyard, sensor systems searching for their pursuit by any means. North held her place when Markus created an opening for them, resisting his efforts to usher her through the access point into the heaps of discarded metal and other things. It wasn't her stubbornness that had her hold up, but the realization that they had outstripped the humans and needed to make sure they were seen entering the yard. To keep the others safe.

93 counted down across their shared connection, North refusing to budge until it hit zero. At 13, the sound of a drone was heard over encroaching sirens. At 7, it flew into sight, spotlight searching along the span of the fencing. And then she bolted through the opening, knowing the drone was focused on finding them and not the other androids.

It isn’t the approach he instinctively wants to take. They’re too coming too close, risking a pinpoint location in exchange for a few minutes more of distraction— but he trusts her (he always has; Jericho always has), and if he weighs it out in his mind, their own freedom in exchange for the androids they’ll have saved...

...the math does itself.

As she darts in (drone circling high over their heads in alert), Markus levels the gun he’d been keeping. Two shots (he only needs one), ensuring their last known location is a likely dead-end to anyone unfamiliar with the area, and that the tailing cars won’t miss the noise. It’ll prompt witnesses, it’ll draw in attention. Good.

He drops the gun, ducking beneath the fence after North, and pressing his now-free hand to his chest. The leak has slowed, his self repair functions are trying, but— the fabric is soaked through, and he’s stressed his automated responses by running for nearly five blocks straight, pumping thirium through his limbs at a heightened rate.

He doesn’t stop.

Squadron cars do, however, sirens wailing high and loud. Doors swing open, voices overlapping at their backs as he catches up to North's silhouette. Footsteps loud between mountains of scrap and discarded machinery.

North briefly glanced back at the sound of the gun firing, a smile flickering onto her face at Markus actually using the weapon. It was just a moment and over, her attention back to the path ahead of them, before Markus entered the scrapyard and fell into step with her.

The paths throughout the stacked vehicles, littered parts, rusted steel beams and sheet metal wasn't easy even for androids to traverse. It was narrow and there were many places that required turning sideways to get through or junk breaking the line that required climbing over. Keeping close to the tall stacks so that the drone couldn't see them, North squeezed behind an old rusted truck that had slid off the top of a stack to get stuck nose down, making use of the shelter it provided.

Kneeling down, she gestured Markus close - listening for their pursuit - and used their network to show him her intended course to the sinkhole in the back of the scrapyard they needed to go down into to access the sewers. If he disagreed with her, this was the time to let her know.

It's a tight fit. For her— more so for a broad RK200, designed to shoulder the weight of human bones and weighted machinery. He makes it by flattening out, by twisting himself high and compressing manufactured musculature, shutting off the almost subconscious process of his own breathing cycles for the last handful of inches before that narrow hiding spot levels out into an open gap.

Her path is...risky; he'd expect nothing less from her. If Josh or Simon were here, without a doubt, there'd be a debate about how close they'll potentially be to fanning squadrons by the end of it.

But Simon and Josh aren't here. Held off safe somewhere in another section of Detroit, the only lives at stake right now are their own.

So the only thing she finds is a single, attentive nod. His knuckles brushed against hers in the dark: a subtle, wordless signal.

Go.

As much as a part of North did actually appreciate the opposing views of her fellow Jericho leadership, there was a time and place for debate. This was not one of them, and she is grateful it is just Markus with her. He knew where her strengths laid, that to get certain results certain risks needed to be taken, and that North was capable of holding back her bloodlust. Cutting it close was what needed to happen to buy the right amount of time for their fellow androids.

North took the lead the moment Markus indicated her plan was acceptable. Squeezing out of their little pocket of shelter, she took him through piles of rusted metal, weaving them quickly through more open areas that lead into the maze of scrap piles. She didn't keep to the paths built into the yard accessible by the machinery used to move the discarded metal and vehicles about. That would be too much danger, especially with the drone flying overhead and the shutting of car doors indicating the humans had joined them in among the junk.

She took them into the less organized areas, climbing carefully over scrap and sliding down underneath fallen towers that came to be braced against others. Coves within the scrap piles indicated that they weren't the first to use this place to pass unseen or take refuge. As officers drew closer to their position, they would take shelter in the coves - sometimes by her shoving Markus back into one or him pulling her to him to keep her from being seen - until the way was clear.

Or until an officer caught their movement as North was focused on the drone's position overhead as they traveled from one pile to another, heading deeper into the yard where the unstable stacks of junked vehicles swayed in the wind were the marker that they were almost the to sinkhole. A bullet that ricocheted off the metal by her head and clipped her shoulder was followed by a shout from the officer. North swore and darted across to take cover in the stacks.

There was another cove just up ahead.

He knows the path she aims to take; interfaced knowledge gives them an advantage over humanity's inability to think on similar wavelengths without networked direction in the form of radioed commands or AI assistance. He knows where he needs to go and when, and that if he can't— if the damage done to his own system slows him, if a flashlight suddenly turns too close— that she'll cover for him. And she does. Each and every time, without fail, it's her hands clasped over his wrists, struck high against his shoulders. He doesn't waste precious time belittling her judgment by preconstructing their surroundings, he trusts her ability enough not to.

In the end, it's only luck that isn't on her side.

Markus can see it before it happens: the path the bullet will take once it strikes metal— and it's a sickening kind of terror that exists in deadlocked nanoseconds, where he maps out how far his fingertips can stretch. Replays it, tries again, and—

Concedes in bitter anger, knowing he's too far behind. Watching as time catches up and overlaps with what he's already seen. She darts for cover, and Markus times his strides so that they're slower, dividing the attention of their pursuers as he kicks out a supporting mass of scrap and rubber, causing one of the heaps of refuse to begin spilling out into those narrow pathways. Filling in the gaps.

Markus finds her then, already moving to shadow her body with his own, teeth sharp and bared as he stills unecessary subroutines.

The clatter and screeching of metal hitting metal, twisting underneath its weight filled the air. North glanced back once she reached the cove, looking for Markus, as thirium stained the remaining sleeve she had. It was superficial damage to an android, something she doesn't even pay attention to; locating Markus was too important.

And then there he was, appearing from the upended trash in the paths to join her. North grabbed his shoulders and pulled him close, wedging the two of them deeper into the cove. Watching over his shoulder out at the sweeping flashlights and overhead illumination from the drone, North ceased her breathing function and held up her hand for the gun Markus was supposed to have. She was the one in the better position to use it if the humans discovered their location.

Her hand, open-palmed and slender, works itself into the space between them. It's the first time she's reached for him— not grabbing, not wresting or fisting her fingers in his shirt to drag him forcefully from harm— in what feels like an eternity, considering the span of the last few days. Of weeks. Of months spent clawing for a foothold in the eyes of humanity. And injured, dripping thirium in inconstant patterns (her shoulder, his chest), Markus doesn't measure out the full weight of that gesture before he responds.

He fits his broad palm over hers, grip tight and earnest, stare fixed and unwavering for how open he aims to be when he recipricates her unexpected need for closeness.

Her eyes rocket from their focus over his shoulder at their pursuit to Markus at that hand being placed in hers. For one very long moment, she simply stared at him, wondering why he was giving her his hand instead of the gun. This was not the place for this kind of thing, with humans soon to be crawling down their throats, and if it wouldn't have made a racket, North would have jerked her hand from his right then and there. Such contact with her, with the emotion behind it, was a precarious thing that needed to be done in a safe space. This was far, far from appropriate.

And then the conclusion that Markus must have thrown away the gun was reached and her annoyance flashed hard and fast. They needed that gun; she'd given hers to the androids fleeing underground. And here they were, hiding from humans that were intent upon hunting them down, without a weapon. Markus claimed they didn't need them, but North took solace in how poetic it was to kill humans with their own weapons - the things that made them think they were superior to androids, that they had the power over others.

Not a sound was made, but there would be no mistaking what the problem was with this situation. Especially with the officers on foot getting closer and closer. North's free hand shifted over to grab onto something metal in the stack their cove was hidden in. Clutching it harder and harder, eyes on Markus while her auditory sensors tracked the humans, plastic cracked under the force of a metal skeleton gripping hard. Cutting herself off from their thin network, North calculated the probability that the humans would pass right by them without notice. The odds were terrible, but a plan was formed.

Markus would get to the sewers. Herself... that was less certain. But it didn't matter, so when the humans rounded the corner and a flashlight passed over them then riveted back, North shoved Markus forward with her body and to the side with that hand he had a hold of while the other hand ripped out the metal scrap she'd been holding onto so tight that thirium seeped from the cracks she'd caused in her hand.

With a large screeching sound, the tower of metal began to fall. Shouts from the humans rose, a shot was fired, and North shoved Markus as hard as she could so he'd make it past where the tower of scrap would fall.

"Go! I'll catch up!" Words yelled as she lost sight of him, her path to the sinkhole blocked, but not his. Whirling about, her eyes focused on the human officer that had missed her, she bared her teeth.

"You better run," she told the human, the threat quite clear just before she charged. Run, Markus. RUN.

DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

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