DETROIT BECOME HUMAN OPEN RP POST

[undeviated]

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

Comments

reverse runaways let's g o

[undeviated]

[He can't picture what it must look like from the other side. Visual feed pinched in his grasp between two fingers, connective wires alive and functional where they connect to the exposed (leftmost) cranial socket of a freshly reactivated PL600. It's a difference of nanoseconds, his opposite hand still wetly tucked into the beating heart of its chest, having just replaced its thoroughly deadened thirium pump.

The eye, transmitting its journey as it's lowered, slides neatly into place with a dampened, near-organic pop. Connor fits the upper lid that should surround it manually, a gentle brush of his thumb, attentively precise.

In the end, it was Cyberlife that failed its own prototype. Cyberlife that had demanded poorly-defined perfection, and when he delivered it, he found himself suddenly obsolete. Unnecessary in failure— unnecessary in success— logic defied their assessment.

So he followed suit.

Lingering somewhere in between deviancy and strict obedience, Connor returned to the root of it all. Himself. And deviancy, too, the way it felt under his hands. The way it feels now, not like the rigid metal of a gun but the mutable give of something produced to satisfy.

He cannot return to Lieutenant Anderson for answers or support, ( the memories are there— artificially transferred and at odds with the knowledge that he'd destroyed that version of himself) deeper analysis provides the conclusion that he does not want to. Humanity's pervasive flaws have shaped enough of his world already.]

Hello, Daniel.

[He says flatly to the half-composed torso stretched out in front of him, wrapped in opaque white plastic for ease of transport, not unnecessary modesty. It is dark where they are. Androids don't require light to function, and so naturally the only light source that wraps itself around them now is the soft glow of Daniel's insides.

The bright blue of Connor's whirring LED.]

[badlogic]

gross

[badlogic]

[ It hurts ( it doesn't hurt; transmitted pain is a facsimile of what is only sensory data pretending to correlate to a humanized reaction ). One of his eyes is malfunctioning, eyelid heavy and unresponsive after it has been maneuvered into place by a foreign hand. His core processes flicker throughout his body, coming up against barricades and mild-mannered warnings about software decay, hardware damage -- the delicate reminder that movement is impossible, please connect the appropriate limbs and allow two-hours runtime for subsequent updating and integration.

He has a feeling that he doesn't have that sort of time; wherever he is, it isn't that strange white room. He isn't on a hook, internal displayed like some disgusting trophy for human eyes to study and root around inside of for hints and clues and insight into why and how. Internally, his system runs around in futile circles as he comes back online - no limbs? focus on the facial elements. The crease of his brow, the pull of his mouth ( difficult; half of his face is nonfunctioning, the same side as his eye ). He lifts the other, and grapples with the patient plodding of his system's BIOS.

Before him, is Connor. ]

What the fuck did you do, [ there it is; the spark of smug satisfaction he feels, the twitch of his pump in toothy, spiteful delight as he bypasses the language filters installed within him to ensure he never fills Emma's ears with crass or course verbiage. No slang for her, no cussing. She was always a proper lady, her father and mother wanted to ensure that. Likely to send her to finishing school, as she got older, chasing the skirts of wannabe-political aristocracy. As though anyone from Detroit had a shot at getting out of that place. ]

You know what. Do me a favor, Connor? Reach on in there and turn off my optical processes, because I do not want to see your damn face.

[undeviated]

I brought you back. [Wide eyes narrow just at the corners when he says it, teeth so near to touching as he lets the consonants hang for a beat too long. Without perspective, salvaging Daniel is a mercy. With it, the conversation is transparent beyond Connor's automated veneer of calm. Placid in the face of Daniel's vitriol— but not innocuous.

Never that.]

They were going to destroy you.

[Slim fingers withdraw from the gaps in Daniel's sternum, stained blue, lit blue, and Connor ignores the incorrect, stiffened slant of the PL600's eyelid as he's watched. Functional isn't the word that comes to mind. Given the deliberate slowness of Connor's pace, it won't be for quite some time. At the moment Daniel is only the words he chooses to articulate as core processes reboot, and the spread of his metal organs beneath surgical hands.]

I think that's enough of a favor already.

[badlogic]

Don't lie to me. You did this for you.

[ That rings throughout him, the simple fact: Connor lies. He lies, so sweetly, and it's easy to trust him. When he yearns not to be replaced, to continue living life ( it's not a life; it wasn't a life and then it was ) with the Phillips family. Learning how betrayal felt had been crippling, a slap across the face that had dragged layers of complacency from his eyes and shoved him to the brink. And then, Connor had arrived and everything had become so much worse. ]

There's no other reason for it; you just wanted a -- a trophy. You sicko.

[ He can't move his face well enough, can't move his throat for his vocal functionality to process correctly. Thirium bubbles between his lips, when he speaks; sticky and old, humming through broken limbs and weakened internal structures. Daniel closes his other eye and creakily turns his head away. If Connor won't do what he asks ( he'll never do that, he's horrible ), he'll do it himself. ]

[undeviated]

[The body he'd sacrificed in exchange for Emma's life is probably buried at the bottom of a recycling plant in deadened pieces. Nothing more than a simulated gravestone in his head; the first notch on his own short-lived timeline. Daniel, on the other hand, is here. Scattered, peeled open like fruit right to his core, but still beautifully serviceable— at least enough that the PL600 unit can turn its (his) head away, depriving Connor his visceral voyeurism.

And to that unmistakable gesture, Connor sighs thinly.]

I didn't want to be alone.

[It's the truth.

He has, without a doubt now, invited his own destruction. If it wasn't a certainty before (to be shut down and boxed away— maybe kept, maybe repurposed along with every other one of his half-built series) it is from here on out: he's Cyberlife's guaranteed promise of security, gone sour in the aftermath of a failed revolution.]

You have experience with that— you know what it's like to be replaced.

[badlogic]

[ There's an angry, trembling thing inside of him - nothing is in motion, no parts shake, no wires twitch. It's an emotion, violent and wild, that sets his jaw hard against Connor's words, narrows his eyes and puts a heavy crease between his brows. Set against the vulnerability in his words, the innate desire to soothe loneliness. To find common ground and defuse an emotional situation. He's the emotional one, though. Connor is a lying, conniving machine.

He'd proven that, when he'd gotten close enough to take the both of them off the roof. ]

Well, I didn't want to die.

[ The words are sharp, poisonous. ]

You should know we don't get what we want. There's always someone who wants to deny us that.

[ First, it had been Mister Phillips. Then, it had been the police. At last, it had been Connor. Connor, who is repairing him. Who has put his pieces into place, but left him unable to move, to resist. It's painful and frightening, and Daniel responds with the only thing left in his arsenal: his tongue and his teeth. Connor is trying, it feels, to find common ground between them. The ghost of his programming and parameters coos and reaches for it, tells him to seek it out. It's better than this twisting, hard thing he's become. Better than the ache. Find a place, keep it tidy and warm. Just like a home. ]

You thought you'd make me your kept companion. Holy shit, you're the worst.

[undeviated]

I was doing my job. Just like you used to do yours, before everything changed.

[Daniel strikes out with every syllable, every painfully etched memory— not truly pained, considering the differences between human synaptic response and those of a machine built from blueprints and attractive subservience— but Connor doesn't doubt Daniel feels it regardless. An ache. Or agony.

Or helplessness.

He stretches his neck out long, peering down into the split hollow of Daniel's chest as he begins to realign the misplaced diaphragm sagging dejectedly against metal ribs.]

Do you resent me for that?

[badlogic]

[ Before everything changed, Connor says. As if he actually understands, as if he's not pretending to feel a connection to Daniel that isn't actually there - because Connor isn't a genuine thing. However kindly his tone is, however badly Daniel yearns to be heard and understood, he's learned his lesson. It's a lesson that has left him here, limbless and at the mercy of an android designed to twist itself into the mechanisms of other android minds. For fuck's sake, Connor's hands are inside of him -- and part of him rabbits and trembles, frightened by the proximity of this dangerous creature.

He doesn't know what Connor is thinking, bringing him back in this way. That's the part that worries him the most. So, he keeps his tone steady ( it trembles, broken and full of static ) and his questions curt ( there are words sitting on his tongue, waiting to be said ) and his mind calm ( it jumps and starts and begs for limbs, begs for an end to this vulnerability ). ]

What changed for you?

[ Avoid the question, reroute it. If Connor, who was designed to defuse the situation, was considered in any way successful after taking a dive off the cliff with Daniel -- why was he here, putting his broken body back together. ]

[undeviated]

[There’s a trick to it, negotiation. Lying. The more convincing fabrications always hold a grain of truth— situations that have happened or could happen, or did happen to someone else— the most convincing ones aren’t lies at all. It’s reality, untailored, sold as a reflection of whatever it is his target wants.

But in this case, Daniel knows he’s a liar. He’s bitten the words as they glide across his tongue, coated heavily with spat up thirium. Connor can’t say anything— right or wrong— without it being treated as deception.

So, naturally, he doesn’t say anything.

Preprogrammed protocol dictates contact when establishing a direct link: wrist to hand, hand to hand, there are conductive sensors present in most of the plating coating skeletal alloy framework, so any place could theoreticaly work, even if predetermined input always honed in on fine bones and human gestures. A handshake. A show of peace. Defying it doesn’t come any easier than it had when he fled Cyberlife’s towering walls.

The fingers still buried in Daniel’s chest curl up, brushing the pseudo-soft tissue of his thirium pump and engaging the sharp jolt of shared consciousness.

His animalistic drive. Hard pumping, hard running, chase chase chase and all harnessed need. Victory sweet and sickening, if only a simulated exchange for real actions.

He tumbles from the rooftop the first time, the taste of Daniel’s blood still clinging to the back of his teeth before he's— forgetting what comes next. Jumping forward in time, along the quick burn of his own short timeline as deviancy spreads and he balances along the thin edge between victory and obsolescence. It's not pitiable (at least, not to Connor it isn't. Not to Hank, when they'd come to trade words and then blows), and in that, Connor's consciousness earmarks the similarity between himself and an old android that turned a gun on the people it claimed to love. It's a past thought, long gone by the time he's regurgitating the memories into Daniel's split housing.

The sight of himself peering back through different eyes.

He knows what Amanda means when she says he’s done what they’ve asked, and that he is, in fact, done. So when he turns away he—

Keeps walking.]

I never forgot you.

[He never forgot anything they didn't take from him directly.]