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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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.

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DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

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