NYC: Become Human

RK700's life and exploits in New York City. Writing and art by @cryptid-jack.

[cryptid-jack]

I don’t usually do a lot of edits, but I got it in my head to make one of Seven from my DBH fic “NYC: Become Human”. Seven is an RK700 model, an alpha prototype that came before Connor who was decommissioned but deviated and escaped before he could be deactivated. He leaves Detroit for New York City and sets up in an abandoned, 20′s era speakeasy down by the waterfront with his own little found family of fellow deviants.

[cryptid-jack]

Interest peaked, Seven detoured into what proved to be a small man-made cave, its entrance only just high enough to allow a dinghy or similarly small craft past, and even then, only if the passengers ducked. There was a wide, cement ledge in front of the door that the android hauled himself up onto, and as he sat for a moment and took in his surroundings, Seven noted that the ledge turned into a narrow foot path at the far wall and lead out of the cave, no doubt extending all the way down to the ladder he’d spied.

An illustration for chapter five of my DBH fic, “NYC: Become Human”! Pay no attention that it’s been exactly two years since I first published this fic…

[nycbecomehuman]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Summary    Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

[cryptid-jack]

NYC: Become Human playlist

A playlist featuring Sleeping Wolf, Foster The People, Barns Courtney, and others

So I made a playlist for RK700 from my NCY: Become Human fic if anyone is looking for something to listen to. Mostly rock/alt/punk/emo(?) XD

[dbhisamood-board]

Hello! I made this moodboard for wonderful @joliemariella. Send love to this wonderful RK700 named Seven!

I take moodboard requests c;

[cryptid-jack]

A rough test for an idea I’ve had on the brain for awhile featuring my trash son RK700 (Seven). Boy that feel when you realize that the tech looking brush you used isn’t actually round. wth 8′D Gonna have to make shapes from scratch next time I guess lol.

Generally Seven sticks to hard candy to keep the taste of blood out of his mouth, but sometimes it’s easier to steal a pack of cigarettes off a guy than a bag of candy, lol. He’s a bit of a wicked little shit compared to his younger brothers 800 and 900 X’D

Read Seven’s story here

[cryptid-jack]

“Plenty of people are willing to bleed for the people they love; but some of them… some of them hemorrhage.“

My DBH oc, RK700 (Seven) being dramatic. He goes through a lot carving out a place for himself and the group of people he comes to consider his family. Power comes at a cost, after all.

Read his story here

[cryptid-jack]

Why do I let RK700 commit these crimes against fashion? I dunno, man, I just… like to draw him… in weird shit (also fancy suits). Listen, he’s a homeless trash goblin that can bench press a small sedan when the need arises and he looks better in those yoga pants than you anyways, so just let him have them.

Read about RK700 here

And because I put a lot of effort into this shit, dammit here he is without the shirt XD

[nycbecomehuman]

I swear I haven’t forgotten this story. Seven’s on his way back, I promise! Here’s some art to tide you over in the meantime haha.

[cryptid-jack]

I don’t know what painting is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Took my sketch of my DBH oc, Seven (RK700) and played around with a more painterly style and a bunch of brushes. I don’t even know, man, coloring is a goddamn struggle. Might come back and mess about with it more later.

[nycbecomehuman]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Summary    Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

Chapter 4! This contains parts 10-12 already posted on this blog for easy access. I will continue to post individual parts here on the blog before putting them together into a single chapter to post on AO3! Call it a bonus for following here too, haha.

[cryptid-jack]

Post revolution, Seven’s wardrobe is 50% eye searing bullshit, 40% hoodies, and 10% sunglasses (even though he’s not wearing any here I’m tired fight me.)

Read about RK700 here!

[nycbecomehuman]

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

( < Back to part 1 / < Back to part 11 )

Part 12 - Quest

Magic, Seven decided, was absolutely fascinating. It was all about making the impossible happen right in front of people’s eyes with nothing but a little sleight of hand and some clever misdirection. At its core, he observed to Todd at one point, it was essentially lying with style, and the old man had laughed out loud, unable to deny the truth of the statement.

Seven was so interested in learning this new, peculiar skill set, in fact, that he nearly gave away his synthetic nature to his mentor with the sheer speed at which he picked up trick after trick. It wasn’t until Todd made a comment about what talent he had for it that the android thought to check himself, and intentionally fumbled things on occasion from there on out for the sake of maintaining his cover. Humans, he had to remind himself, had to gain skill through repetition, though the number of repetitions depended on the individual.

When not installed with a program to fulfill a function, androids also had to learn this way, though it generally took far less time; and it took Seven even less time than the average android thanks to the highly advanced learning software he’d come outfitted with. His powerful scanners allowed him to map and mimic Todd’s deft hand movements with ease once he began to grasp what was misdirection and what was the actual motion needed to carry off the trick.

Four hours later, Todd had shown Seven almost every card related trick he knew at least once, and they’d decided to take a break so the android could teach him a few coin tricks before the bus pulled into a station to refuel.

Seven blinked in surprise, having barely noticed the passing of the time thanks to the distraction his companion had provided, and Todd chuckled. The man patted him on the arm and said “Best get out and stretch our legs while we can, huh?”

The android didn't actually need to stretch his legs, of course, but he knew it would look strange if he didn't considering everyone else was already eagerly filing off the bus to do just that. “Yeah,” he agreed and flashed the man a half-smile before grabbing up his bag and following the example of the other passengers.

“We'll be taking off again in about twenty minutes, so don’t go far,” the bus driver informed everyone as they disembarked, and Seven set himself a fifteen minute timer as a reminder, just to be safe.

As he stepped off and to one side, Seven stretched, subtly mimicking the stiff but relieved movements of the humans around him. It wasn't an action he actually needed, but the android had to admit that, after sitting for several hours in a cramped space, being able to stand at his full height and move freely did feel good. An absence of pain or discomfort, he realized, was not the same as actually being comfortable.

Mulling over this revelation, Seven glanced back and saw Todd, Tonya, and their grandson, Jake, step off the bus and make a beeline for the nearby bathrooms. The old man winked at him as they passed and the android quirked a brow, a smile tugging at his lips as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose to better shield his eyes from the sun overhead. Noting that the general flow of the passengers around him seemed to all be heading for either the bathrooms or the convenience store attached to the gas station, Seven opted to head into the latter. He hadn't planned to buy anything, but when the android happened across a small end-cap full of travel games that included decks of cards, he immediately plucked one up, pleased by the find. He looked around for a few minutes longer before he eventually grew bored and made his purchase before meandering back outside.

He didn't get far before someone near at hand said, “You're that nice boy letting my husband talk his ear off, aren't you?”

Seven glanced around to see Tonya leaning against the wall of the convenience store next to a bench, on which her grandson sat, still playing on his phone. She smiled at him and the android took it as an invitation to join her. Considering the growing intensity of the sun overhead, Seven readily stepped into the shade of the building to lean casually against the roughly textured wall next to her.

“Yeah,” he said, then offered her a hand and said, “I'm John. Tonya, right?”

“That's me,” the woman said with a bright smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle in a way Seven was surprised to find himself thinking of as endearing. “ This is Jake,” she continued as she reached over to ruffle her grandson's hair to get his attention. “And Jake's phone,” the elderly woman added dryly when it took the boy several seconds to pry his eyes from the screen long enough to glance up at ‘John’ and bob his head in silent greeting.

“Pleasure,” Seven mused.

Tonya gave him a smile that appeared more than a little exasperated by her male travel companions and a sympathetic huff of amusement escaped the android. “I hope my husband hasn't been pestering you too much,” she said after a moment.

“Nah,” Seven answered immediately with a careless shrug and a crooked half-smile. “I'm learning a lot, actually,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hard candy, unwrapping it as he continued, “Fun way to pass the time.”

“Well, you don't be afraid to tell him to leave you alone for a bit if you need some quiet,” the woman said, waving off his polite offer of a candy. She seemed about to say more when her phone rang unexpectedly in her purse, making the woman jump slightly. She dug through her bag and emerged with an older model phone and glanced at the screen. “Oh, excuse me, I need to take this,” Tonya said with a sigh, then stepped away and answered.

Left mostly alone with Jake, Seven observed him surreptitiously from behind the cover of his sunglasses for lack of anything better to do. The boy's brow was furrowed in frustration as he fought his way through a level that appeared to be giving him a good deal of trouble as he kept missing a particularly hard to reach platform.

“He taught you how to pickpocket people yet?” Jake asked out of the blue as he restarted the level again, making Seven's brows shoot up.

He turned to face the boy, wondering if Jake had caught him watching, or if this was just his own attempt at starting a conversation. “No,” Seven replied, amused by the implication. “Does he know how?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “He took a guy's wallet without him ever noticing when he was rude to Grandma, once. Stole his subway pass so he had to go back and buy another one and wound up missing his train.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep,” the boy said. “Pretty sure he used to be a street performer or a carni or something,” he continued after a moment, then frowned and added, “He never talks about it, though. Just says he'll tell me when I'm older.”

“Huh,” Seven said, intrigued as he rolled his candy over his tongue in a thoughtful fashion.

A moment of quiet passed between them as Jake's full attention returned to his game, only for the boy to heave a sigh of disgust when he died yet again. “I hate platformers,” he grumbled with a grimace.

“Why not play something else, then?” the android suggested, surprised the boy had stuck with it as long as he had.

Jake sighed again and pulled one headphone from his ear and finally looked up at Seven, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I really like the story,” he admitted. “Maybe I'll just look up a playthrough or something...”

Seven sucked on his piece of candy for a moment, considering the unhappy child for a moment, then came to a decision. “Want me to try,” he asked, extending a hand in silent request for his phone.

Jake looked up at him, seeming surprised by the offer. The boy hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up to him. “You any good?” he asked Seven as the android accepted the phone, then came around to sit next to him on the bench.

“Dunno, let’s find out,” the android mused as he started up the game again.

The first portion of the level was easy, he'd watched Jake play through it several times, after all, so mapping the easiest route was simple. Once he passed the point the boy had been stuck on, however, it didn't get any more difficult; his predictive programming and quick reflexes were more than a match.

“Have you played this before?” Jake asked, surprise and awe clear in his voice. Seven glanced at him out of the corner of his eye to see that the boy had leaned in close for a better look.

“No,” Seven replied after a moment, realizing that lying and saying he had might land him in trouble if Jake tried to engage him on the actual plot of the game. “Just got to watch you play through a few times is all.”

“Yeah, but not this bit,” Jake pointed out. His tone wasn't suspicious, though, only admiring, so unlike with Todd's card tricks, he decided not to fake a mistake.

“Just know my way around a platformer, I guess,” the android remarked casually as he finished the level and passed the phone back to the boy just as his grandfather returned.

“What are you boys up to?” Todd asked pleasantly. “Trouble?”

“John beat the level I've been stuck on for half an hour in like... thirty seconds without dying once,” Jake replied, seeming both excited and exasperated by this fact.

“He's got clever fingers, this guy, better keep an eye on him,” Todd remarked with a laugh as he stretched absently and grinned down at his grandson.

Seven gave the old man a canny look over his sunglasses then said, “I'm told you used to pickpocket people. Doesn't that make you the one we ought to keep an eye on?”

Todd's grin widened and he held up his hands. “Hey, I've reformed since my wayward youth, cross my heart and hope to die,” he said with a wink as he drew an x over his heart with a finger.

The android glanced over at Jake who only shrugged and looked doubtful. A smile tugged at Seven's mouth and he turned back to Todd and asked, “You going to teach me how to pickpocket too? We've still got hours to go yet on that bus.”

The old man's smile went sly and he shrugged. “Who says I haven't already taught you?”

Seven's brow furrowed but the other man just looked skyward, as though to admire the clouds drifting overhead, an expression of pure innocence on his wrinkled face. After a moment's consideration, however, the android understood; Todd had been teaching him sleight of hand tricks with cards all morning, how to slip in and out of people's pockets and use gestures to distract them while he did...

Pickpocketing, he thought, really was just a magic trick done with ill-intent.

The android glanced back at the man again and caught him watching his face for the moment of realization. When he saw it, he flashed a brief smile. A snort of amusement escaped Seven, and a moment later, his internal alarm went off, alerting him that it'd been 15 minutes since they first disembarked.

“Bus'll be leaving in about five,” he remarked casually after pretending to look at his phone.

“Sooner than that,” Tonya said as she approached once more, apparently done with her phone call. “We should head back.”

Seven glanced around and noted that the other passengers were indeed making their way back to the bus after having spotted the driver waving people in, clearly impatient to get on the road. He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed up his bag, but was brought up short before he got more than a step by Jake.

“Hey, uh-” the boy looked uncomfortable, forcing himself to talk despite his apparent shyness; Seven's game playing prowess had apparently broken the ice enough for him to try. “Do you... do you want to play some more when we get back on the bus?” he asked, holding his phone up towards the man with a hopeful air that didn’t quite mesh with his doubtful expression; as if he expected Seven to turn him down on principal.

The android looked down at the boy, surprised by the request, then glanced back at his grandparents, who seemed equally surprised. Seeing no objection from them, and having none himself, he looked back at Jake and said, “Yeah, alright, why not?”

A smile broke out across the boy's face and he hurried forward to catch up with his grandparents. “Grandma you should switch seats with John, okay? We're gonna play my game!”

Tonya chuckled and ruffled his hair fondly, “Alright, but you don't impose on him and make him play the whole thing if he doesn't want to, okay?”

“Alright,” the boy said and grimaced as they boarded, Seven bringing up the rear with a bemused smile on his face. The fact that his performing a simple feat like playing a game brought such great joy to the child was a novelty he'd never experienced before. That it seemed to please his grandparents as well was even more interesting. Jake had been almost silent the entire trip, however, so Seven could only assume they were concerned for the boy, and seeing him excited about something brought them relief in some quarter.

Once the necessary seats had been traded and the bus was on its way, Jake passed Seven one of his wireless earbuds so he could hear the game as he played, then handed over his phone. After a brief conference they opted to start a new game so the android could also get the benefit of the full story, and having nothing better to do, Seven agreed.

The game was easy for the renegade android, though he did make an point to die at least occasionally, just to keep from looking inhumanly good at a game he'd claimed to never played before. The story was interesting, he had to admit; then again, his standards were pretty low. He was aware of stories and pop culture, but he’d never truly experienced any of them before. Jake’s game was his first true encounter.

As he blew through levels and watched cutscenes while the distance between himself and Detroit grew wider, Seven found himself thinking absently on humanity’s obsession with storytelling. It was, many claimed, one of the things that truly set mankind apart from the beasts. The android knew there were other, more scientifically important traits that set humanity apart from their fellow fauna on the planet, but their obsession with stories was peculiar to them alone. Most stories were lies and exaggerations, after all, infrequently based in fact; pieces-parts of others narratives taken and reassembled in an infinite variety of ways, then given new names and new characters before that story too was taken apart and recycled into yet another on down the years and a thousand generations to the present day.

Humans were weird, Seven thought, but he couldn’t deny that they were interesting in the vast array of ways they had engineered to entertain and communicate with one another. They’d taken a purely oral medium and made up symbols and agreed on sounds that those symbols made so they could capture their stories in stone, then vellum or crude paper that curled into scrolls until they figured the whole ‘book’ thing out. Pictures had been added somewhere along the line, and things got on that way for a long while until humans learned how to capture light and they’d made the pictures move. Sound was added, and gradually they’d transitioned to the digital age and stories had become interactive, like the one in his hands that the little boy leaning heavily against his shoulder for a better look was so enraptured by.

Stories were how some people left a lingering mark on the world, it seemed, whether it be fiction or biography.

What would his story be, Seven wondered as he completed the final level of Jake’s game and watched one last cutscene. The hero had come to the end of his quest; defeated his enemies and overcome many trials with the help of the allies he’d gathered and befriended along the way. It hadn’t been a true story, obviously, but Seven could recognize the many interchangeable parts of stories past that had been woven together to make it. Any one of them could have had roots in reality.

Magical quests to conquer a great and monolithic evil weren’t the stuff of reality, but people, ordinary people, standing up against tyranny were. People coming together for comfort and support to help one another in times of crisis were. People finding love amidst chaos were… Maybe happy endings were too.

Seven frowned at the thought. No, that was a little too far, but the rest of it… finding people to stand and fight with, maybe someone to love… maybe that was achievable. It wasn’t an ending, but it seemed as good a kind of happiness as the android, new to all this as he was, could imagine.

Too bad he had no idea how to go about getting any of those things.

[cryptid-jack]

“Hello, hello, hello, hello (hello, hello, hello, hello) It’s a motherfucking pleasure No pressure, but would you like to blow my mind And move too fast and plan our perfect lives together? Holy, holy, holy, holy (holy shit), you mean to tell me, tell me, tell- You’re tough to love when you don’t love yourself, well- Welcome to the family”

Watsky wrote the soundtrack to Seven’s life, I’ve decided XD So many of his songs really suit my poor RK700, heh.

I’ll probably do more with this later, but for now, here’s the sketch! [close up under the cut]

Keep reading

[nycbecomehuman]

A sketch I did of Seven (RK700) I figured I’d post separate over here.

See the rest of the boys here.

[nycbecomehuman]

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

( < Back to part 1 / < Back to part 10 )

Part 11 - Fooler

Seven stared at the old man for a moment, processors working overtime to make sense of what he'd just seen. Since his active scan hadn't been running, however, he couldn't, leaving the man's actions a total mystery to the android.

“Yes,” he said emphatically, turning slightly in his seat so he could get a better look, and the man's face lit up in a broad smile at the android's enthusiasm.

“Magic fan, huh?” he asked with a chuckle as he shuffled the cards with dramatic flair, making them arc and flow between his hands in a way Seven was quite certain should have been impossible.

“I've never seen it before,” the android answered honestly as he scanned the man's movements. His systems informed him that though it did look impossible, the movement of the cards really was just practiced hand movements and physics like anything else, no matter how flashy. The fact that a human was able to do such a thing impressed Seven deeply, though.

The cards settled into a neat stack in the palm of the man's hand and he used the other to lower the tray on the back of the seat in front of him. “What, at all?” he asked with a surprised quirk of a brow as he put the cards down on the tray, then gestured for Seven to cut the deck.

Realizing belatedly how odd his statement sounded to a human, Seven quickly recovered as he reached over and plucked up the top half of the deck and placed it to the right of the original stack. “Up close, I mean.”

“Ah,” the man said and smiled, allowing Seven to relax internally as he picked the deck up again and shuffled it deftly, then spread them out in a fan. “Here, pick a card,” he said. “You memorize it, but don't show me, then put it back in the deck.”

Curious, Seven did as he was told, and plucked the seven of diamonds from the proffered cards, then returned it to a new place in the deck.

The man made a show of shuffling the deck again, the contemplative movements of his hands reminding Seven of his own coin exercises. “My name's Todd,” he said as the cards flowed. “How about you?”

Seven opened his mouth automatically to answer... and then stopped when none came. He tried again, but his system turned up nothing, leaving the android to furrow his brow and attempt to stifle the panic rising within him.

What was his name?

He'd known some of his memory files had been corrupted in his escape from CyberLife, but the fact that all knowledge of the name he'd gone by since activation months before was gone had only just hit him.

His pause did not go unnoticed, though when Todd looked up at him and saw the furrow of his brown, his mistook the expression for one of reluctance to divulge his identity rather than the identity crisis it actually was. “Hey, don't worry about it,” he said quickly, hands going still as he flashed the younger man a reassuring smile. “I didn't mean to pry, we all have times in our lives when we're trying to leave something behind,” he mused quietly.

Seven met his eyes and it seemed to the android that maybe the old man was speaking from experience. “Yeah,” he answered eventually, “Something like that.” His mouth twisted wryly and Seven let his previous panic at the sudden gap in his knowledge go. What did it matter if he didn't remember the name CyberLife had given him? If anything, it was a bit of a relief, one less claim they had over his existence as a free android. He could be anyone he wanted...

“Well, for the sake of conversation, I'm gonna call you 'John', if that's alright,” Todd said. “Nice common name, John; and better than 'hey you' by a long shot.”

A rueful smile tugged at Seven's mouth and he nodded, then glanced at the woman and child across the aisle from him. “Your wife?” he asked politely and Todd glanced up, then nodded.

“Yep, that's Tonya and our grandson, Jake,” the man explained. The android might have introduced himself, but the woman had relaxed back into her seat shortly after the bus departed the station, and to all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. The boy, Jake, was playing some sort of game on his phone, headphones in his ears, effectively blocking out the world around him.

Seven filed away the potential of acquiring headphones himself for later consideration. He didn't like the idea of blocking out the world around him, considering the world was demonstrably trying to kill him, but on the other hand, people said all sorts of things when they thought you couldn't hear them...

Todd finished shuffling the deck of cards and Seven turned the full of his attention back to the man as he produced a card and asked, “Is this your card?”

The android blinked as he regarded the queen of hearts. “No,” he replied, arching one brow at the old man.

“Oh,” Todd said with a frown as he turned the card around so he could look at it, then returned it to his deck and began patting himself down. “I must have- ah!” he slipped his fingers into the breast pocket of his jacket and came up with the seven of diamonds. “How about this one, then,” he asked with a knowing smile.

Seven's eyebrows shot up and he couldn't restrain the smile that overtook his features at the revelation, frustrating though he found it that the man had somehow pulled the wool over his eyes with the trick. “Yeah,” he said and took the card from Todd, looking at it front and back, though there were no special markings on it that even his scanning program could pick up. “I looked away,” he accused the man, though there was no venom in his words, just amusement and intrigue as he passed the card back.

“I didn't tell you to do that, now did I?” Todd countered, and Seven had to agree. Looking over at Tonya had been of his own volition, after all. “Care to see it again?” the old man asked, voice lightly teasing.

Eaten up by the mystery of it, and having nothing better to do anyways, Seven nodded and watched carefully. This time Todd pulled the card out of a different pocket, and though the android could tell he must be disguising the movement of the card with his hands, he simply couldn't pin down the how of it.

“One more time,” he insisted, much to the old man's amusement. While he shuffled, Seven fished in his pocket and produced a hard candy, which he popped into his mouth to mask the taste of blood that was starting to get to him once more. When he shoved the wrapper back into his pocket, his fingers brushed the quarter from the diner that morning, and he brought it out. Hoping that a little calibration would help him spot the trick to Todd's 'magic', Seven rolled the coin expertly across his knuckles even as he picked a card from the proffered deck.

It didn't help, though, and just to add insult to injury, Todd didn't pull the card out of his own jacket, but from the pocket of Seven's own hoodie. The pinnacle of human technology defeated, the android sagged back in his seat and ceased his quarter's movement across his knuckles, switching instead to flicking it back and forth between his palms.

“Alright you win, I can't figure it out,” Seven said, heaving a sigh as he looked sidelong at the man over the rim of his sunglasses.

Todd grinned in a way that could only be described as 'cheeky', though his eyes were on the quarter as it jumped between Seven's hands despite his not actually throwing it. “How about a trade?” the old man suggested after a minute's consideration. The android arched a brow in silent question at his seatmate and Todd continued, “You teach me those coin tricks of yours, and I'll teach you a few card tricks.”

Seven caught the coin in his right hand and blinked as he considered. “Alright,” he said after a moment with a lopsided smile. “You sure, though? I thought magicians never reveal their secrets?”

The old man waved off his concern as he laid the deck down on the tray in front of him. “Oh my magician days are well behind me,” he mused. “Might as well pass it on to the next generation.” Seven shrugged one shoulder and turned in his seat some again so he'd be better able to watch Todd's demonstration. “It'll probably be easier without the gloves,” the man pointed out.

The android glanced down at the thin cotton gloves he was still wearing and thought fast. “I'll deal. I'm uh... bit of a germaphobe,” he lied.

“Ah,” Todd replied with a nod and let it go at that, for which Seven was grateful. “And the sunglasses inside?” he asked, hint of amusement in his voice.

“Sensitive eyes,” the android answered with another shrug and a rueful smile. That, at least, was true.

“Very Corey Hart, I'm sure the ladies love it.”

“Who?”

The old man grimaced then huffed a laugh. “Musician from the 80s, did a song about wearing sunglasses at night that was all the rage. Look it up sometime, you might like it,” he said, then motioned Seven in closer and said, “Alright, now pay attention and I’ll show you the basics...”

[nycbecomehuman]

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

( < Back to part 1 / Back to part 9 )

Part 10 - Aisle

When he reached the station, Seven didn't re-enter the building, but made straight for the platform outside to wait for his bus, which was due to arrive any time. It was a sunny morning, so he took refuge from the overbearing light on a shaded bench to watch as other travelers came and went.

His bus pulled up not long after, and once it had disgorged its passengers and refueled, it opened its doors to the next set, who were already lining up to board.

Seven hung back for a minute so he wasn't the first one on, giving him a chance to scope out the crush of humanity around him. They were a varied bunch that came in all ages, builds, and temperaments, though to a one, none of them seemed particularly happy to be where they were. A universal truth of public transport, it seemed, was that no one particularly enjoyed it.

The wait was short, though not short enough for the android's liking, considering he was actively on the run from one of the most powerful private interest groups in the world. Detroit was a huge city, though, and he'd taken care to cover his tracks as he'd crossed it, trying to account for every move CyberLife might make in its attempt to track him down. Still, he felt infinitely better once he'd finally boarded the bus and slid into his designated seat towards the back along one of the aisles.

It was a large bus, with three seats to either side of the narrow aisle down which more and more people continued to squeeze as they sought out their own places. The back section, as with normal city buses, had been set aside for android storage, though there were only a few occupying the cabin by the time the bulk of the human passengers had boarded. Looking at them made Seven feel vaguely uncomfortable for reasons he didn't subject to closer scrutiny before someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him look up and around.

“Sorry, mind if I squeeze past you?” asked an older man sporting a grizzled beard and a bit of a stoop. The hand he used to gesture to the empty seat between Seven and another passenger that had boarded earlier than him was weathered and on the knobby side, indicating significant age on his part. His eyes, though, did not appear at all dimmed by the years when they met the android’s, a polite half-smile lingering under his mustache.

“Yeah, of course,” Seven replied and immediately rose to his feet, newly adjusted programming making the movement a little less graceful than it might have been normally, forcing him to reach out and grab the overhead rail to steady himself as he did so. At six-foot-two, Seven practically towered over the withered old man as he sidled past and settled into his spot with a grunt of effort and then a sigh of relief.

“Do you want your neck pillow, dear?”

The android twisted a little to look back down the aisle as a woman that looked nearly as old as the man approached, a child in front of her, offering extra support with their shoulder which she gripped with fine-boned hands.

“Nah, you keep it, I'm good,” the man said as he settled himself.

“You're sure?” she asked as she arrived at the adjacent row of seats and let the child, a boy no more than ten by Seven's estimation, take the center before making herself comfortable in the aisle seat opposite his.

“Keep it, dear,” the man insisted.

Seven blinked once as the conversation played out beneath his nose. When it finally died down, he bent at the waist, and asked the old man the question his human integration protocols told him was expected of him in such a situation. “You wanna switch places?”

The man blinked up at him, then smiled and said, “Nah, that's alright, you keep the aisle.” He gave him a brief up-and-down, then added, “There's a lot more of you to stretch out than there is of me, so you'll be glad of the leg room by the time we're underway.”

Considering that Seven wasn't actually capable of feeling physical discomfort from a lack of room due to his being an android, he tried one more time, “You sure?”

“Positive,” the man said, then waved for Seven to sit. “Nice of you to offer though; thank you.”

Knowing there wasn't much else he could do without exposing the fact that he wasn’t human, Seven sat once more and shoved his backpack under the seat in front of him, then made himself 'comfortable'.

To his left, the elderly woman, who he assumed was his own seating companion's wife, spoke quietly to the child apparently under their care. A brief assessment of the scan he'd taken of the boy's face automatically on his approach, compared and contrasted with the two old peoples', revealed a number of similarities indicative of a shared lineage separated by one, perhaps two, generations. A grandson, or great grandson most likely. Whatever the relationship, though, how wan and tired the boy looked would be plain to anyone, not just androids with built in scanners and extremely advanced behavioral assessment programs built in.

Whatever his trouble was, Seven didn't give it more than a cursory thought since it had nothing to do with him, and no impact on his own trials and tribulations, which were still very much ongoing. Rather than waste valuable downtime as the bus pulled away from the station, the android closed his eyes and feigned sleep while he let his processors mull over his plan for once he arrived in New York, turning it this way and that as he updated his mission statement with the latest bullet points.

Bullet point five: Find a place of residence

Easier said than done considering his limited funds. Even a motel would be out of question past more than a few nights, and he loathed the idea of spending money on such a thing, especially since he didn't need more than a couple of hours of 'sleep' a night. Technically speaking, like all androids, he didn't need to sleep at all, but going into standby mode for a couple of hours a day did minimize both hardware and software errors by affording his subsystems time to run their maintenance protocols unhindered. Not doing so for three or more nights in a row tended to lead to bugs and other glitches in his more complicated operations, and many more days than that meant the same for even his basic systems.

So, a place to lay low where he could safely shut down for at least a couple of hours at a time was definitely a necessity. It'd be nice to have a place to really call his own too, of course...

Seven gave himself a mental shake and reoriented himself on his more immediate problems. Long term plans had to wait until he had at least some sense of security in the fact that CyberLife couldn't find him at literally any moment. The fact that he wanted something like that for himself was a bit of a revelation, but then, being his own person was new, too. Who knew what he'd be wanting next...

Reorienting himself on the task at hand, the android reviewed what he knew of New York City and decided that one of the warehouse districts would likely serve him best, or an abandoned building in the worse parts of town if he could find one not already occupied.

That decided, Seven realized there wasn't much else he could plan for, leaving the future a dark, amorphous unknown that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't like not knowing what was coming, and it occurred to him for the first time that this was how humans always felt, possibly even worse considering they didn't have the kind of predicative software he did, though he supposed their imagination served as a good enough stand in for that.

For a moment, he almost felt nostalgic for the old days when his only concern had been following orders and accomplishing his mission. Life had been so much simpler just twenty-four hours earlier, though the second the thought crossed his mind, Seven immediately balked. Yes, things had been easier, but he'd had no actual say in anything at all, and the moment he hadn't met his creator's standards they sent him off to be destroyed...

And then there was the fact that he'd single handedly driven almost a dozen deviants, lost individuals new to free will and totally alone in the world, to their deaths just because they were different. They'd only wanted to be left in peace to live their lives without interference, something to which Seven could now relate on a visceral level that made the regret for his past actions all the sharper.

Beside him, the old man shifted subtly and after a minute of rummaging in his own bag, there came the sound of a cardboard box being opened. Behind his sunglasses, the android cracked an eye open to see what his fellow passenger was doing, paranoia making him immediately suspicious.

Rather than a weapon or anything else potentially dangerous, the man had pulled out a small, well worn box of playing cards, which he began to shuffle with a deft hand. As Seven watched, the other man plucked one card in particular from the deck, looked at it briefly, then flicked his wrist and... made it disappear.

The android blinked, and without meaning to, turned to look more closely at his traveling companion, who immediately noticed his shift in attention and grinned up at him. The old man flicked his wrist again and the card reappeared. “Wanna see a card trick?” he asked, grin widening.

(TBC)

((Thanks for reading, guys, reblogs are always appreciated to help get this out to more people too! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!

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[nycbecomehuman]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Summary    Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

Chapter 3! This contains parts 7-9 already posted on this blog for easy access. I will continue to post individual parts here on the blog before putting them together into a single chapter to post on AO3! Call it a bonus for following here too, haha.