we’re ready to make you one of us.

[headandhand]

WHO: Open to all Dualizens
WHAT: When Roboclones Attack
WHERE: Anywhere in the city!
WHEN: The night of Oct. 19
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable! And if you happen to end up dead by roboclone, please fill out the death form!

It’s an ordinary night in Dualis, until it suddenly becomes a very dark and stormy night in Dualis. There hasn’t been a single day of unpleasant weather since any of you arrived, but soon after the sun begins to sink behind the city’s skyscrapers and the neon lights intensify for the night, storm clouds begin to gather overhead and unleash a cacophony of thunder, a deluge of rain, and brilliant spikes of lightning arcing across the sky.

It’s a violent storm, to be sure, but surely severe weather is no challenge in such a technologically advanced city as Dualis, right? As long as you stay indoors, you can keep safe and dry until the storm passes.

Except … less than an hour after the storm begins, the power all across the city goes completely out. All buildings are dark except for the illumination cast by lightning across brick and steel and glass. All electronics - including phones - are dead, all biometric locks are disabled, and no attempts to call, text, or reach the internet or the network succeed. Eerily, the streets are silent and empty.

Under normal circumstances, such a widespread blackout would merely be odd and inconvenient, but tonight, circumstances are anything but normal. About half an hour after the blackout begins, something approaches you, wherever you are. In the dark, you’ll be able to make out that its shape is humanoid, but maybe its motions are jerky and mechanical. As it draws closer and you get a better look, by candlelight or flashlight or flash of lightning, you recognize the face staring back at you.

That face is your own.

The face, like the rest of the body, is likely some degree of incomplete, an incongruous jigsaw of metal and flesh, but it’s definitely yours. And this machine doppelganger’s mission is soon made apparent as it launches a targeted attack on you:

It’s here to kill you.

After nearly four hours, the storm subsides and the power is restored and the city falls back into its normal rhythm. Will you survive until then?

May the odds be ever in your favor, friends.

Comments

[notalive]

Having thrown his arm around Hank lets Connor's fingers brush his throat, where his pulse is pounding hard, and he tries to use that, to breathe deep and let that sink in. Let it sink in that Hank is alive, heart hammering in his chest, breathing so that his chest expands and contracts against Connor's own.

This, he realises, is true irrationality. He thought he knew it already, but never like this. It must be what going insane feels like. To realise you have a worst fear and then see it and sense it and know it to be true, even as some part of you knows it's not.

And Hank can feel every jagged tangle of it.

Because Hank is alive, thoughts and memories passing through their connections in rough bursts. The data itself is comforting, the steady stream and presence in his mind settling over him like something thick and warm - even if the content of the data helps him understand with a miserable jolt that he's not the only one suffering in that moment from irrationality.

His chest is still convulsing in erratic bursts, the water - tears, he recognises them as tears - still pouring down his face, but he does manage, with an effort, to shut down the forensics suite completely, cutting off the erroneous information causing the constant stream of errors and cascades of irrational thinking.

Humans don't get to do this. As Hank speaks aloud, putting the fact of his illness out into the space between them, Connor wishes humans did get to do this, that he could somehow give this ability to Hank and let him do the same: just switch off whatever it is that's troubling him while he isolates it and repairs it. But Hank can't do that, and Connor can't give him the ability to. All Connor can do is be the presence Hank just was for him.

They don't need words to communicate - it clearly crosses Connor's mind through the connection that Hank'll get used to this. And, without thinking about it, Connor's own sensory data - all is quiet out in the hallway. The guilt already blooming within him for not being there when Hank needed him too. That he'd never have let that clone kill him, Hank can count on that.

He doesn't let go of Hank, but the embrace relaxes some - he's not clutching onto Hank like a lifeline anymore.

[sociallychallenged]

How bewildering it is to feel that just... just stop. Hank's muddy mind stutters over the neat realigning Connor does. His ability to just change how he's thinking about Hank. It's miraculous, and it's painful because suddenly he realizes that he's the one faltering lamely.

The reassurance that Connor would have protected him is strange. He realizes then that he'd never even considered it. That he wouldn't have wanted Connor to have to shoot that thing. It felt like his job to do. But maybe he wouldn't have shot it, maybe he would have done a very tricky Connor thing of some sort.

Fuck, he doesn't even know.

"It's okay, I promise." He says it like Connor still needs consoling. He doesn't. He knows it. But he's trying as if he does. But the tears are still wet on his cheeks and those words need to count for somthing.

"You-"

Hnn. He's trying to talk again. He grunts next to his ear. He doesn't know how to describe it. So he thinks back to an incident, one just a year and a half before in Hank's perception. Hank was deep in his depression. There's a party at the office, they're handing out gifts. Every desk has several but Hank's. Hank is working, but there's a moment where he looks up and around and realizes it, in full. He's alone now, he's really alone.

Chris notices at some point, ends up taking one of his gifts over to Hank. It's just some candy, but he puts it on Hank's desk.

I'm watching my figure, he says, gives him a smile, walks off.

No one there hates him, not really, they just ignor him now and Hank was trying like hell to look like he didn't care- he didn't, until that moment. Until Chris briefly caught him. That's just how things were now, in Hank's mind, no one would notice him and no one would notice the day he came in too late. People noticing hurts.

Then there's Connor, who refused to leave even when Hank yelled for him to. And he tries to focus on how those moments of kindness Connor spent on him, who abandoned his missions briefly because he thought Hank's life was more important than Cyberlife agenda, what those meant to him. He thinks about how he'd lost faith in people that, thanks to Connor, he found a new purpose in trying to give them freedom. A cause he can finally believe in that's not just words. But even as he's thinking that and purposefully trying to draw Connor's mind to the reasons that his partner made him want to live, a dark, angry thing, a fog or a cloud or a shadow stretching across the brightness he'd attached to it tries to snuff out the affection in sharp grinding static.

Those other feelings. You let him down, so he'll leave. Not while he's listening, not now! He deserves better than you. You ruin everything you touch now. You're like that virus that wipes people out, an energy sapping leper to be avoided. Fuck off, fuck off... I'm trying to show him. I'm trying to- You're careless, he'll see how much. He's perfect! What the hell are you, even!?

Hank tries to start disentangling their hands. That. That was the anger he saw in that things face. He doesn't want it rooting around in Connor's mind. He was trying to explain something important and necessary. Not this.

[notalive]

It’s not perfectly fixed, not yet. But he’s completely detached part of his programming to at least make it easier to function until he can fix the problem entirely in standby. It feels like cheating, but the very fact that part of his brain is so fixated on the scientific facts in front of it that it’s destroying another part of his brain’s entire ability to function is a handicap. He’s just ridding himself of a handicap.

And that lets him focus again on Hank, on the memories he’s receiving of time in Detroit, maybe before Connor even existed, when Hank was deep in depression and even the last remnants of friendly human contact were drawing away from him. Connor lifts his head from buried in Hank’s shoulder to press their foreheads together instead as he tries to do the same thing Hank just tried to do for him: remind him he’s there, that he won't leave, that everything’s fine and things have changed and they’ll keep changing and if Connor has anything to do with it, it can only be for the better.

But instead of helping, something clouds over Hank’s mind almost perceptibly, like flipping a switch and activating a new series of programming. Some part of Hank’s own mind turns on him, triggering lines of thinking that resemble reality enough to be convincing, but a warped version of it. It’s fitting that Hank thinks of a virus - because it’s the only thing Connor has to compare this to; not Hank himself, but whatever it is happening inside him, spreading through his brain and corrupting it. He’s reminded oddly of his last visit to the Zen Garden, the cold wracking his virtual body as Amanda tried to wrest control of his real one.

Hank tries to take his hand away, but for a moment, Connor holds all the more tightly, doesn't let Hank hide from him. Only a moment, long enough to try to push through all of that darkness just for an instant. To let him know he's there. That if Connor could fix this like he can himself he would in an instant. Then he lets go, if Hank wants.

One hand still between them, he cradles Hank to him by the back of the head with his other hand.

"I get why you did it." His eyes still feel like there's acid in them, but he can breathe again. He can speak, albeit softly, unsteadily.

"I get it," he repeats, hand rubbing the back of Hank's neck, trying to be comforting in some way. He's never been able to stay angry for long, anyway, let alone with Hank.

[sociallychallenged]

He's surprised that Connor hangs on, that he doesn't recoil from the harsh thoughts that run through Hank's hateful brain. But he lets Connor keep his hand, struggle weakening with the tightness in Connor's grip, and stands there as Connor promises that he gets it. He doesn't know if it's getting why he shot his double, or getting why he had the temptation with that gun, but as long as he gets something.

But similarly to Connor his sense of duty can save him, quiet those harsh ponderings, so he tries to push the doubts about himself back for the certainties he has of this place. He clears the distress out of his throat.

"We gotta get out there." He sounds miserable in the face of truth. "I don't know why I'd be a special case."

And in fact it already doesn't sound like a special case. Hank can hear yelling on a different floor. There is a loud flash out on the street that shines in their window briefly. Something bigger is going on, and something horribly quieter, too.

But Hank does put his free arm around Connor, though, hugging him tightly to him like he's worried his own mind will cost him this.

[notalive]

He doesn't know if he'll ever understand why Hank bought or kept that gun. But shooting the clone so quickly? He understands, or thinks he does, albeit maybe in a simplistic fashion. He shot something with his own face, staring at him in the kind of hateful fashion Hank sees himself. Maybe the temptation to shoot such a thing as if it might excise your own hateful thoughts is just that strong.

"Wait." His voice is gentle, he hopes, but it's still firm. "People here are tough, they'll be fine without you for ten minutes."

He wants Hank to... He doesn't know. Calm down? He suspects they're going to have to split up at some point - and he doesn't want Hank to be there when his own clone pops up, if it does. If Hank felt like this on some normal night, he doesn't know what he'd do. Take him to bed, maybe, lie with him and talk to him, talk at him if necessary, take his mind off it.

Whatever he'd do, they don't have time for him to do it.

"Come here and sit with me," he says, and tugs Hank back into the main room, where he gently nudges him to sit down on the bed before sitting next him, watching him with still-wet eyes and a torn expression. They're still connected, and all Connor can do is tell him, not with words, but with an idea, that he's not alone. He's wanted. Nothing he's telling himself is true.

"I wish I could fix this," he whispers into the oppressive quiet.

[sociallychallenged]

Hank lets himself be guided out of the bathroom. This isn't how he wanted to first use this connection. He was hoping it would be for something better, more positive. But he'll use it for something productive and patch himself together.

But he uses his free hand finally to wipe at Connor's cheeks.

"Look it's on fuckin'... me to fix. And I used to be pretty well put together. Went through a fuckin' divorce, did a lotta shit. Held it all together. It just got shitty when I stopped seeing good in the world.

"I can't fix it now. Fixing it means letting someone dig around in my head and helping me sort it all out, and I don't wanna put that on you and I sure as shit don't trust anyone here to."

He leans their heads together then, swallowing thickly. He'll listen to that assurance. He's not alone. Right now. No, he's not alone. He's not alone.

"It's not your job to fix this but I guess if you're gonna be with me it's somethin' you gotta know is there. I figured you'd already seen the worst of it- I didn't think about how you deviating might change how you could handle it."

[notalive]

"I saw it," he says aloud, leaning into Hank and pulling his partner in to lean heavily on Connor himself in turn. "I knew it. I just didn't feel it till now."

He felt something before. Vague consternation. A total lack of understanding. A sense of duty. But nothing like this, not then. He wasn't capable of this. Now it feels like something's grabbed his innards and wrenched them around violently.

"I know it's not my job to fix. I don't know how, I don't know what to do." He sounds miserable in admitting that he just can't make this go away, no matter how much he'd like. "But I want to be here. I don't want you to deal with this by yourself anymore."

He's using the words I want over and over, trying in the only way he can think of to really drive it home that Connor doesn't feel any obligation to this - unless it counts that,

"I need you to be OK. I know you're not and it--it hurts." It actually hurts. This is what pain is.

[sociallychallenged]

"Everyone just seemed to want me to 'get over it'. But that's what it's like. It hurts. It hurts all the damn time... Or it did."

It doesn't so much anymore. But that survivor's guilt has become a powerful monster, blossoming into other forms of guilt, stretching and reaching, planting its roots firmly in his brain.

Even the idea that Connor can understand the 'hurt' is condemning because it makes Hank feel good to find that maybe, on some small level, he understands. Even if he doesn't want Connor to actually feel that.

"Okay, I'm not dealing with it by myself. I have you. I got it." He repeats it out loud. He doesn't have it. But if he says it enough, he just might at some point.

[notalive]

"You've got me," Connor repeats. "Not just right now--" because he felt that little protest from deep inside Hank's brain-- "whenever you need me. Always."

His throat still feels like it's blocked up with something, but the deeply unpleasant feeling throughout his body is almost fascinating now that they're sat here quietly. He's felt negative feelings before - annoyance, frustration, embarrassment - but this isn't any of those, it isn't just something uncomfortable that his brain doesn't like. It's a full body sensation, juddering in his thirium pump, churning in his systems, clogging up his throat.

The churning turns into an almost physical ache, like a real wound, whenever he realises that Hank probably feels like this a lot more of the time and so much worse.

"I know I don't understand this very well," he says out loud, slowly releasing Hank's hand so he can finally pull Hank close with both arms around him. The blue light thrown around the room from thirium in his joints fades as his skin reappears, leaving only the thrumming yellow light of his LED. "But I want to. If you'll let me."

[sociallychallenged]

HANK🠵 LOVE

He might catch it a moment before he lets go. A little hope there as Connor tells him that he wants to understand. As he promises that he'll always be there for whatever Hank needs, which is so much more than he's ever been given. Yeah, sure, his wife might have given him wedding vows, but 'I will try to understand you' means so much more.

He hugs Connor to him, tightly.

"I'm shit at explaining stuff. But I'll try to open up, alright? And not just use that fucking mod for it. I want to try and use that for something... I don't know... not so depressing."

He pulls back enough to gesture helplessly into the air.

"Are you okay?" He turns it around again, taking Connor's face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs along the streaks on his cheeks.

[notalive]

He feels that little glimmer of something positive, one of the last things to filter through their connection before he severs it, and it gives Connor that tiny bit of hope in turn that there is something he can do, even if it's not much - or at least, even if it doesn't feel like much.

"We can use it for both," he reassures Hank, pulling him in tightly in turn and leaning their heads together. He wants to use it for anything and everything, the good and the bad, whatever will help them both. If this helps Hank share what he's going through, Connor'll take it.

Then Hank withdraws.

"Me?" Somehow he can't remember the exact feeling of the pain. Like his brain has cast it out, or like it wasn't something concrete that could be saved to memory. "I'm OK now.

"I just...part of me was convinced it was you that was dead. It still is, but I just deactivated it. I'll go into standby and fix it later, but..."

He looks down, then back up.

"It felt like the world was ending."

[sociallychallenged]

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what it feels like when someone you love dies."

He rubs his thumbs along his cheeks, wishing he had more time. That it wasn't the eerie dark of an empty city and he could stop and explain both that this is why he hurt, really try to commit to his memory that Connor would hurt without him, try to do something more productive with it.

Instead he just stares at him for now, rubbing away those streaks the previous tears had left.

"We'll work this out, okay?" And then he moves his hands from Connor's face to holding his fingers again, this time pressing kisses to his knuckles and whole-heartedly ignoring his own fucked up body out in the hall. "We gotta go take care of this. I'm still alive. I'm gonna come back here alive."

[notalive]

The misery still on his face is clear as he looks at Hank. He's felt this kind of overwhelming emotion before, but it was always good. Excitement. Determination. Love. Negative emotions like irritation and fear and dread, they've always been brief and died out quickly. This feels like it's going to consume him.

"OK," he whispers, watching Hank kiss his knuckles and trying to will back the happiness that motion should bring welling up in him. It works, a little - maybe what a balm over a wound feels like. "We'll both be fine."

And then, because he knows he has to say it and not particularly because he wants to, "You need to take the gun. I can take care of myself without one, you know I can."

He's always done that. And he needs to trust that Hank isn't going to turn that gun on himself the first chance he gets - after all, it's been in their room this whole time. The whole four months Hank's been here, maybe, so has that gun. And Hank's still here.

[sociallychallenged]

"I have my automatic." And then Hank can't help but smile at the morbid joke he's about to make, a saddish sort of thing but he has to do it because it's ridiculous. "You can't play roulette with an automatic."

He had his service weapon when he was brought over. But as it turns out, he's still too much of a coward to pull a trigger with absolute certainty. Which at least stopped him from discovering people rezzed early.

"So you take it. It'd be better in your hands. Like I said. Protecting you instead of something I got to fuckin' hurt me."

[notalive]

He twitches at the joke, a nervous little movement, and the grin he attempts is half a grimace. Instead of trying to hold up the awkward expression, he leans forward to kiss Hank, remind himself one more time that he's alive, they're both alive, and they'll get through this night and this year because he refuses to believe there's an alternative.

"OK," he concedes, murmuring it against Hank's warm mouth. "I'll take it.

"You go," he tells him again, though this time without the need behind it, the desperation. "I'll take care of the body. Try and call it in."

Although if the noises he's hearing around their room are any indication, the department's got its hands full.

"We'll get more done if we split up."