Connor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
notalive) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
dualislogs2019-12-03 09:19 am
notalive) wrote in dualislogs2019-12-03 09:19 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
WHO: Connor, Hank, OTA
WHAT: Connor's blood is valuable to the mob. They pay him a visit.
WHERE: Some side street somewhere, a small hospital
WHEN: Dec 2., evening
WARNINGS: Gun violence, regular violence, drug references, Hank's mouth probably
"Connor!"
Connor had looked up from where he was in the middle of filing his tickets for the day to catch sight of one of the department's top detectives approaching at a jog. Collins is disarming - friendly to everyone, but not too much. Enough to put anybody at ease, but never smarmy, never annoying. Connor likes him - he seems like somebody who's put in a lot of hard work to get where he is, and the more Connor's existed as a deviant, awkwardly aware of being programmed for success in this job, the more he's come to respect that.
"Detective Collins." They're not friendly enough that Connor can drop the rank and use first names, even though no one has much choice with Connor: he has no surname, and apparently 'Officer Connor' makes him sound like he's doing an elementary school visit. "Do you need something? I'm about to clock out."
"Shit, really?" Collins had grimaced. "I was gonna ask you earlier and I couldn't find you."
But Connor'd had time, and it's not like he gets tired, so he volunteered. Another drug bust on Hank's case - all the evidence had been cleared except the car itself and it was getting impounded later that night. They needed it checked before then for traces of narcotics - "You're the only one who can check for that Red Ice shit you told me about, right?"
That's how Connor ends up still on the clock at 21:00, hopping off a bus in a part of town he doesn't spend too much time in to find some soon-to-be-impounded car. He finds it soon enough - Collins gave him the key and all - but a quick scan of the inside tells him there's nothing. Well, almost nothing - there's old weed in the glove box. But nothing from this case, none of the chemical compounds Hank's filled him in on, definitely no Red Ice. A car involved in a drug bust is going to have traces of drugs in it - maybe not visible to the human eye, but to Connor? If there had been drugs in this car within the past six weeks, he'd know about it.
He's emerging from the car, frowning to himself, when he notices the previously empty street isn't empty anymore. People are walking down from both ends of the road - two from one side, three from the other and another one stopped at the mouth of the small alleyway fifty feet from Connor. They arrived at the same time, and they're going to converge on him within a minute. It's a narrow road, there's nowhere else to go.
Quickly, efficiently, biting down a hunch that he'll hate himself for having only if it turns out to be wrong, he opens the driver side door and reaches in, jamming the key in the ignition and turning it as he ignores the yellow light of his LED filling the dark vehicle. Nothing. Battery's dead.
All androids have the ability to speed their processing units up to such immense speeds that time virtually stops around them, and this is what Connor does to calculate an escape route. Assume at least three of the six are armed. The car's dead. Connor is entirely unarmed. In his current position, in the centre of the narrow road, his best defence is that in order to shoot him, they risk missing and shooting one another. They have to be careful too.
If they're planning to kill him, they've got about a 67% chance of successfully doing it. He's worked with worse.
Less than a second's visualisation and calculation later, Connor twists on his heel and dashes forwards - with the open car door somewhat shielding him in the back, at the group of three. Two of them immediately draw guns - shots ring out, deafening as they echo about the narrow street. Connor can't dodge bullets - but he's fast enough to get out of the way of the human hands moving the guns behind the bullets, so it looks like he dodges them.
First human disarmed as Connor reaches under the gun and twists them by the wrist - he yanks them forward by the arm so he can use their body as a shield from the other one, then as a battering ram to hit both the other humans at once--
--ERROR--
--a bullet passes through his right knee, a lucky shot that sends Connor sprawling, yellow LED immediately red. It makes the thirium spattered on the ground seem to glow purple.
They're shouting at each other. Nothing of any consequence, he ignores it.
There's no pain, androids don't feel it, and Connor doesn't have to look to know that the handgun he knocked flying is seven feet to his right. He plants his left foot on the asphalt, pivots, dives - and something very solid slams into his left temple hard enough that for one nerve-jangling instant, his vision in one eye blacks out before his optical unit recalibrates itself. Steel-toed boot, is the conclusion of the impact assessment in the half second before Connor crashes to the ground, rolls--
The gun's gone, skittering off across the road as someone kicks it.
Their chances just went up to somewhere in the high 90s.
a/ OTA
Connor's felt fear before. He's felt anger. But in that instant, they burst into something white hot that refuses to be put down like this. Not like this, not at all. Ignoring the error messages cascading with every forced movement of his near-ruined knee, he twists his legs under him and makes one last desperate charge directly at the nearest of his attackers.
But he's not sure what could save him now.
b/ OTA
He remembers something he told Markus once, the leader of the android revolution. Statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place. And take place they just did, because Connor is alive. Limping, his optic nerve unstable behind the socket and compensating furiously, but he's alive. He stops in a back door of the police station - he doesn't want to talk to anyone right now, not like this, not with the suspicions he has. But he needs to stash his uniform and he needs what's still in the evidence locker.
"Don't ask," he tells the alarmed-looking patrol cop manning the locker, and that gets him a plastic water bottle filled with glowing thirium.
And he's out on the street, winter, no jacket, in just his button-up shirt and tie, limping, fluorescent blue splatters on his pants and face, LED cycling red, carrying a bottle of something that looks downright radioactive. He knows he's attracting attention, but he doesn't have much option right now.
Hospital. He needs to get to a hospital. A small one.
c/ Closed to Hank
He has scabs. His thirium has clotted around his temple, where the steel toe split his chassis open, trying to hold the wound closed. He actually smiled when he realised it - the mods he got really worked - and apparently his tongue had bled too when he bit it on one of the impacts, because the nurse stitching his head had recoiled from the blue stains on his teeth.
The hospital hadn't known what to do with him until he told them he'd heal like a human. So…they're treating him like a human. They can't fix his knee, but he can already feel his insides slowly, at a glacial pace, fixing themselves. They stitch and bandage it, then give him crutches and strict instructions he already plans to ignore.
Then they ask if he has someone who can take him home. That brings the worst part of this crashing in - Hank's going to have to see him like this. And he has to explain what happened, and his hunch.
He uses a hospital phone to call - his own is gone, and he has a vague memory of dropping it at the scene. It's probably been destroyed by now.
"Hank?"
WHAT: Connor's blood is valuable to the mob. They pay him a visit.
WHERE: Some side street somewhere, a small hospital
WHEN: Dec 2., evening
WARNINGS: Gun violence, regular violence, drug references, Hank's mouth probably
"Connor!"
Connor had looked up from where he was in the middle of filing his tickets for the day to catch sight of one of the department's top detectives approaching at a jog. Collins is disarming - friendly to everyone, but not too much. Enough to put anybody at ease, but never smarmy, never annoying. Connor likes him - he seems like somebody who's put in a lot of hard work to get where he is, and the more Connor's existed as a deviant, awkwardly aware of being programmed for success in this job, the more he's come to respect that.
"Detective Collins." They're not friendly enough that Connor can drop the rank and use first names, even though no one has much choice with Connor: he has no surname, and apparently 'Officer Connor' makes him sound like he's doing an elementary school visit. "Do you need something? I'm about to clock out."
"Shit, really?" Collins had grimaced. "I was gonna ask you earlier and I couldn't find you."
But Connor'd had time, and it's not like he gets tired, so he volunteered. Another drug bust on Hank's case - all the evidence had been cleared except the car itself and it was getting impounded later that night. They needed it checked before then for traces of narcotics - "You're the only one who can check for that Red Ice shit you told me about, right?"
That's how Connor ends up still on the clock at 21:00, hopping off a bus in a part of town he doesn't spend too much time in to find some soon-to-be-impounded car. He finds it soon enough - Collins gave him the key and all - but a quick scan of the inside tells him there's nothing. Well, almost nothing - there's old weed in the glove box. But nothing from this case, none of the chemical compounds Hank's filled him in on, definitely no Red Ice. A car involved in a drug bust is going to have traces of drugs in it - maybe not visible to the human eye, but to Connor? If there had been drugs in this car within the past six weeks, he'd know about it.
He's emerging from the car, frowning to himself, when he notices the previously empty street isn't empty anymore. People are walking down from both ends of the road - two from one side, three from the other and another one stopped at the mouth of the small alleyway fifty feet from Connor. They arrived at the same time, and they're going to converge on him within a minute. It's a narrow road, there's nowhere else to go.
Quickly, efficiently, biting down a hunch that he'll hate himself for having only if it turns out to be wrong, he opens the driver side door and reaches in, jamming the key in the ignition and turning it as he ignores the yellow light of his LED filling the dark vehicle. Nothing. Battery's dead.
All androids have the ability to speed their processing units up to such immense speeds that time virtually stops around them, and this is what Connor does to calculate an escape route. Assume at least three of the six are armed. The car's dead. Connor is entirely unarmed. In his current position, in the centre of the narrow road, his best defence is that in order to shoot him, they risk missing and shooting one another. They have to be careful too.
If they're planning to kill him, they've got about a 67% chance of successfully doing it. He's worked with worse.
Less than a second's visualisation and calculation later, Connor twists on his heel and dashes forwards - with the open car door somewhat shielding him in the back, at the group of three. Two of them immediately draw guns - shots ring out, deafening as they echo about the narrow street. Connor can't dodge bullets - but he's fast enough to get out of the way of the human hands moving the guns behind the bullets, so it looks like he dodges them.
First human disarmed as Connor reaches under the gun and twists them by the wrist - he yanks them forward by the arm so he can use their body as a shield from the other one, then as a battering ram to hit both the other humans at once--
--ERROR--
--a bullet passes through his right knee, a lucky shot that sends Connor sprawling, yellow LED immediately red. It makes the thirium spattered on the ground seem to glow purple.
They're shouting at each other. Nothing of any consequence, he ignores it.
There's no pain, androids don't feel it, and Connor doesn't have to look to know that the handgun he knocked flying is seven feet to his right. He plants his left foot on the asphalt, pivots, dives - and something very solid slams into his left temple hard enough that for one nerve-jangling instant, his vision in one eye blacks out before his optical unit recalibrates itself. Steel-toed boot, is the conclusion of the impact assessment in the half second before Connor crashes to the ground, rolls--
The gun's gone, skittering off across the road as someone kicks it.
Their chances just went up to somewhere in the high 90s.
a/ OTA
Connor's felt fear before. He's felt anger. But in that instant, they burst into something white hot that refuses to be put down like this. Not like this, not at all. Ignoring the error messages cascading with every forced movement of his near-ruined knee, he twists his legs under him and makes one last desperate charge directly at the nearest of his attackers.
But he's not sure what could save him now.
b/ OTA
He remembers something he told Markus once, the leader of the android revolution. Statistically speaking, there's always a chance for unlikely events to take place. And take place they just did, because Connor is alive. Limping, his optic nerve unstable behind the socket and compensating furiously, but he's alive. He stops in a back door of the police station - he doesn't want to talk to anyone right now, not like this, not with the suspicions he has. But he needs to stash his uniform and he needs what's still in the evidence locker.
"Don't ask," he tells the alarmed-looking patrol cop manning the locker, and that gets him a plastic water bottle filled with glowing thirium.
And he's out on the street, winter, no jacket, in just his button-up shirt and tie, limping, fluorescent blue splatters on his pants and face, LED cycling red, carrying a bottle of something that looks downright radioactive. He knows he's attracting attention, but he doesn't have much option right now.
Hospital. He needs to get to a hospital. A small one.
c/ Closed to Hank
He has scabs. His thirium has clotted around his temple, where the steel toe split his chassis open, trying to hold the wound closed. He actually smiled when he realised it - the mods he got really worked - and apparently his tongue had bled too when he bit it on one of the impacts, because the nurse stitching his head had recoiled from the blue stains on his teeth.
The hospital hadn't known what to do with him until he told them he'd heal like a human. So…they're treating him like a human. They can't fix his knee, but he can already feel his insides slowly, at a glacial pace, fixing themselves. They stitch and bandage it, then give him crutches and strict instructions he already plans to ignore.
Then they ask if he has someone who can take him home. That brings the worst part of this crashing in - Hank's going to have to see him like this. And he has to explain what happened, and his hunch.
He uses a hospital phone to call - his own is gone, and he has a vague memory of dropping it at the scene. It's probably been destroyed by now.
"Hank?"
no subject
He's already been in Dualis for more than half of his existence; he should be used to this by now, but his programming still overrides his experience sometimes, and his programming tells him this is all nonsense.
But he has learned to ignore his programming. His attackers see her too, and as one of them immediately raises their weapon, Connor calls, "Watch out--"
(Fluorescent blue thirium, his blood, peppers the ground; he's bitten his tongue.)
But he needn't have bothered. He doesn't see what happens - maybe later he can review the footage - but the bullets are going towards her...and then hit the shooter instead. They're wearing all black that hides everything from facial features to figure, and though Connor doesn't see blood, they buckle to their knees, then onto their front.
Another second, and two more of them rise into the air and slam back down with matching dull thuds on the asphalt. The clang of metal - a gun, one of those boots that might have just dented Connor's skull? Hard to say - has barely faded when the sound of running footsteps echoes from the alleyway nearby; one of the group has lost their nerve.
"Hey-- Hey!" one of the two men still there and still standing yells after them. "Fucking--"
"Yeah? I got a suggestion for you," the other addresses the woman, approaching one of his faintly stirring comrades and shoving at him with his foot. Even to Connor, who's dropped back to one knee and trying to regroup, it sounds like bluster. Bravado. He's afraid. Even as he opens his jacket and pulls out some kind of alien gun the size of his forearm, he's afraid. "Fuck off and mind your own business. We're just getting back what we're owed."
Connor's not so out of it that he doesn't immediately stare at the guy in utter confusion. But then he glances up, at his totally unexpected backup - she can defend herself even from bullets, but against anything? It would, after all, be safer for her to leave in case she gets hurt.
But he hopes to whatever god or ra9 or whatever the hell exists out there that she doesn't.
no subject
The gun isn't something she recognizes. That's a problem. Lorna's a confident woman. Borders on cocky sometimes actually. Still, she's not in a rush to make a potentially deadly mistake. If she doesn't immediately recognize the weapon that means she can't guarantee what it'll fire. It's the kind of fast risk assessment that comes from being hunted. When she's in a clear state of mind she knows how to make the choice that will result in the safest outcome.
Too bad safest outcome doesn't necessarily mean least destructive outcome. She takes a quick glance around, a few seconds to see what options she has. The guy lifts the weapon, noticeably shaking while doing so, and tries to give her the most menacing expression he can. Not that impressive of a look if someone were to ask her to rate it.
"Leave now. Final warning." There's a dumpster nearby. Perks of being hidden off in a side street. The street's narrow. Another perk.
"Never been good at listening to warnings." Mist dances around her fingers again and then she yanks her hands towards herself with a concentrated effort. At first he doesn't notice what she's done. It all happens too fast. The dumpster comes rushing towards him, it slams into him, pushing him just as he fires the weapon, it grazes her arm (nothing serious, but enough to sting) and then crushing him into the nearby wall. Well, hopefully there wasn't too much force behind that.
no subject
He's no more threat to anybody standing here than he was kneeling. In fact, at least kneeling had his good leg curled up beneath him - more momentum to take off from if he needed. But in place of rage - because anger never sticks around very long for Connor, and he's been distracted right out of it - there's clarity right now. If he's to die, he'll do it standing up.
But then a dumpster comes flying out of nowhere just as the terrified and very stupid human tries to shoot, and the sound as that dumpster hits the wall is that of metal on flesh on brick - not a very nice one, but not so bad that someone will have to hose him off the sidewalk.
He cares more about that unknown someone, honestly.
"If you wanted money..." He might actually have given it before things got this far. Or at least, he would have offered and hoped to see an opening.
Forget that - no. He steps forward to get the remaining two's attention, dragging one leg.
"No, you didn't want money." He kneels down in front of the one who's risen to his knees - or rather, crashes down clumsily - and lifts the man's downturned head with a fist in his jacket, his voice strong and clear. "Why me? Or why here?"
This particular man's companion manages to get to his feet, but all he does is lift his hands in a universal symbol of 'I come in peace' - except all he's doing is leaving in peace, staggering off into the adjoining alleyway and out of sight.
The guy Connor's got hold of doesn't look at Connor. He's not afraid of Connor. He's looking past Connor's shoulder, where he knows that woman must still be floating. Maybe she does something, says something Connor's too focused to pay attention to. Maybe that's why the guy finally says, a little dazedly, "That shit," and nods at Connor's...left temple. Connor lifts his free hand to touch, and it comes away wet. Blue.
"We had two fucking gallons of it - do you know how much that's worth?"
"About two million duos, if you're using the most efficient method to synthesise the Red Ice and the street value is what I think it is," Connor responds immediately, not even realising in the moment that the question was entirely rhetorical. But he goes on, the answer dawning on him, "But you don't have those two gallons anymore, because they're in police lock-up."
He pushes the man away from him and stands. He feels... He feels something, and it's not good, it's ugly and glutinous inside him.
"If you don't want them to kill you, let me take you in," he says because he has to say it, but the tone of his voice is ugly too, acidic, like it should sear his throat to speak with it.
"Fuck you," the guy spits - literally spits blood and a tooth to the ground, then staggers up and, with one last baleful look at Connor's saviour, limps away.
Connor's silent until the sound of footsteps withdraw, tense, expecting at any second that one of those people is going to change their minds and finish him off. But that's an irrational thought. Sometimes he likes having those, but right now he doesn't.
"Are you OK?" he asks, without turning around. It's odd how small his voice sounds now, overwhelmed by the dark silence of the alley without the commotion that was filling it.
no subject
Intimidation is something she's good at. A tiny part of her always gets a tiny kick out of it. Lorna's not a large woman. She's more lithe than muscular and her bright green hair doesn't exactly scream threatening. Still, she carries herself with confidence and she knows how to play the game. Using her powers she pulls out a small military knife that she usually keeps on the strap of her black pants and casually just starts flipping it up and down with her powers. Green mist swirls around the blade as it goes up and down while she watches to see if the man will offer Connor the information he's looking for freely. If he doesn't she's more than prepared to see how close she could get the knife before she stops it.
Luckily the guy does cough up the information. Unluckily for him the information actually just annoys her more. Had he seriously just suggested the attack was just over someone's blood to make...drugs? Is it really as stupid as that? She blinks as she watches the guy spit and then stagger off and a boiling bit of anger bubbles inside. It doesn't matter to her that the blood is blue, at least not right now. All that matters to her is how fucked up it seems to jump someone as a group in a side street over nothing. Humans really were shit no matter where they were.
With a flick of her writs she sends the knife out towards the guy as he withdraws, stopping it just shy of his back. It's not worth it. The decision is last minute but it's one that comes with her not being as emotionally involved. She moves a finger to bring the knife back and then tucks it back into the strap on her pants. Nobody needs to be killed today, though a part of her thinks someone will probably end up regretting having just let them go.
"Pretty sure I should be asking you that," she gives him a wry smirk as she shrugs a shoulder. "Don't worry about me, I've had a lot worse. Basically a paper-cut." Bleeding a bit more than a paper-cut but it's not that bad.
no subject
"I…" In that second, he feels truly like he's been ripped in half. The emotional, thinking part of him, the part of him that's horrified and sickened by everything from the weakness in his leg to the smell of thirium to the worthless, slimy feeling sticking up his thirium pump, blocking his circulation. The machine side of him, the part that stops him losing his composure then and there, the part that preconstructed the fight and kept him moving and fighting and standing when he was sure he was about to die.
He always thought they were one and the same. But right now they don't feel like it at all.
Machine Connor has dignity. Machine Connor is built to handle a crisis.
But he's just Connor.
No, that's not how it works.
"Thank you," he manages, voice sounding so distant it could be someone else's entirely. "I'm…I'm lucky you were here."
And now he turns, looking up at the woman wreathed in green fog. It's true, she doesn't look injured at all, and the weight of relief is almost crushing.
"There's almost a gallon and a half of thirium in my body," he says, trying to… He doesn't know. Make sense of things? They don't need to make sense.
But they do.
"I was just a spare container," and on the last words, an acidic feeling rises in his throat, corrupting the sounds.
no subject
"Couldn't just look away," which is the truth. It's simple, but she's never been able to turn away from a situation that looks like an underdog situation. She rolls her shoulders as she lands completely on the ground and checks him over. He definitely doesn't look like he's doing that well.
"Not sure what thirium is," she admits with a half shrug. But she gets the impression he's not really able to focus on everything that just happened. Not that she can blame him after all that.
"So, they were just after you for that? For something in your body?" That just makes the entire thing even more fucked. "Look...should you get to a doctor or...." something else? She's not really sure what to ask here.