Drabble #2
Connor wakes up with a weird feeling. Where is he? It’s dark. His night vision program isn’t running, and he’s cold. He’s cold? Yes, he’s freezing. All he sees is red blinking letters; “Self diagnostics running…(76%)” and then, “Biocomponents #4741 and #7138 missing. Biocomponents #1334, #0843, #7863, #0196 and #3547 corrupted. Memory corrupted. Anomaly detected. Return to Cyberlife advised.”
He’s so cold, and he can’t get his temperature to rise. He’s never felt like this, this isn’t in his program, it’s almost as if he’d caught a virus, or someone had messed with his temperature settings manually. He’s not supposed to feel like this.
He’s not supposed to feel.
He’s scared, and shaking, and he hasn’t gotten up yet, like he’s stuck to the floor. He can feel the texture of the floor, tiny pebbles on a concrete surface with a light coating of snow.
“Call Hank.” he forces through cold bitten lips. He sits up and curls in on himself, trying to make sense of everything around him. Still in a daze, he barely notices his current attire; a light coat around his shoulders and a pair of Cyberlife issued boxer briefs. His temperature keeps dropping, where was he last night?
“...Connor? Why the fuck are you calling me at 3am on a Sunday? Why the fuck are you calling me at all?”
He breathes in.
“H-Hank. Uh, I-I don’t know where I am, and I didn’t know who to call, and it’s so c-cold…” he pauses, breathing in, and out. In and out. The fans inside him are working overtime, it’s not enough. “Hank, I need-I need help, Hank, please.”
“Hey, calm down kid. What d’you mean, you don’t know where you are?” Hank is noticeably more alert, seriousness seeping through his voice.
|Temperature dropping. Shutdown eminent.|
“I don’t know, I-I woke up, and it’s dark...I have no memory of how I got here, Hank. I-I’m scared, I don’t know what to do…” his limbs were frozen in place, the cold was getting to his pump.
“Holy shit, uh, okay. Okay, calm down. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. I’m in the car, Connor. Connor, keep talking buddy, talk to me, okay?” a slight alteration to his tone told Connor he wasn’t particularly calm himself. He licked his lips and tried to move his arm. “I can’t get up, Hank. I’m going to shutdown if I don’t get my temperature back to normal. H-Hank, I don’t-I don’t want to shutdown.” he put both his hands on the floor, wincing as the pebbles sunk onto synthetic cold skin, and pushed himself up, immediately falling on his hands and knees. “I’m on my way, but you gotta tell me where you are. I’m on my way, not letting you shutdown.”
He fell, chest pressed against the concrete, knees slipping on the wetness of the snow.
|Shutdown in 00:01:08|
His body had given up. He pulled through, focusing on nothing but his location on his GPS program, skin deactivating slowly. He couldn’t feel his body and it took him a while to realise his eyes had fallen shut.
He barely managed to finish telling Hank his location before blacking out.
//
“Connor? Connor I just got here, ‘kay? Connor, fuck’s sake…” Connor had stopped talking to him almost a full minute ago, and Hank could hear his own heart beating furiously. He finally got to the long, dark alley Connor had indicated him, underdressed for the snow downpour that was occuring. Was Connor out there, alone, scared, freezing his ass off? For how long? The thought of it created a pressure on Hank’s chest. He finally slowed to a soft jog when he spotted the Cyberlife jacket in the distance using the flashlight on his phone, only to go back to running as more snow poured on and drowned the body in front of him.
“Con-” he dropped to his knees. “Connor! Connor, fuck, can you hear me?” he turned his body around in the snow, noticing his skin had retracted from his entire arm, shoulder, neck and half his face. Hank couldn’t breathe.
He quickly removed his heavy coat, wrapping Connor in it. He pulled the deadweight up, stumbling under it but managing to stay upright. Hank hurried his way through the snow to his car, not concerning how the coldness of Connor’s body was seeping through the few layers of clothing he had on, or how the skin on his hand was getting icy cold as he pressed it against the boys’ torso, or how he was practically dragging Connor.
Or how he’d started crying, the only thing fueling his tired body being his need to see Connor smiling again, talking, anything.
He got to the car with a relieved sigh, opening the back door and carefully laying Connor across the seats.
He got home faster than he should have, considering the heavy snow that wouldn’t stop falling.
Dragging Connor past Sumo, not bothering to close the door behind him, he laid him on the bathtub, hurriedly turning on the hot water, taking the two jackets that barely covered Connor from his body. Hank was sweating, nervous, scared. He just wanted Connor to be okay.
Connor, Connor, Connor.
Slowly, the android’s temperature began to rise.
Hank dried him off and dressed him in the warmest clothes he owned, dropping him in his bed. His skin had fully reactivated during the shower, so he’d be okay, right?
Hank prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that he’d assumed righteously and that he hadn't just killed his partner by not immediately calling Cyberlife.
//
Eight hours.
That’s how long it took for Connor to wake up from what seemed like certain death.
It’s noon, Hank hasn’t slept at all, and all he’s done apart from sitting in his bed beside his partner was call Fowler, calling in sick. He’d expected a mocking and degrading tone in his voice, the whole ‘hangover, again?’ speech. Fowler must’ve realised something was wrong, though, and disregarded the unnecessary commentary.
Connor woke up to a bottle crashing onto the floor, followed by a multitude of swears. He turned, body appreciating the warm pajamas he had on, and how they smelt of Hank.
Hank. Right. Last night.
He could feel.
Even now, his body, his skin, was sensitive to the cotton material of his pajamas, and the scratch of the bedsheets beneath him. It was addicting. Hank stared at him. He could only assume he looked odd- caressing the sheets beneath himself and all. He couldn’t be bothered to care.
“Connor, you’re…how are you feeling?”
Hank sat on the bed beside him, movements slow and staggering. He’d been drinking.
Connor pulled himself up, running a self diagnostic and looking around. “I’ve been better, Lieutenant. Have you been drinking?”
|Vital biocomponents stable. Return to Cyberlife advised. Core Temperature: 70ºF(21ºC). Stasis mode deactivated.Battery percentage: 100%.|
“What- no. What happened last night? You could’ve died, and you’re worried about whether or not I’ve been drinking?” Hank’s speech was slurred, but Connor decided not to push it, as it would only infuriate him more. The android blinks, looking down at his hands resting on his lap. “I...I was on my way back to Cyberlife, after a late night working at the office.” he looked up. Hank stared back, frowning. “My battery was running low, I should have just stayed at the office for the night, I miscalculated, I thought I’d get there on time…” No. That doesn’t seem right.
Hank brought a hand up to place on the boy’s shoulder, regretting it soon after, when Connor flinched. Too late to back out now, right?
“I’m not...sure of what happened next. I was almost there, and then...nothing. I woke up with no memory of what happened. It doesn’t make sense… My battery percentage was at 15% still, it would’ve lasted me for 30 minutes, plenty of time to reach Cyberlife.”
Connor was met with silence. A minute passed.
“You mean to tell me you were out for a full day and you have no memory of it?”
Right, Connor had left the police station at around 4am, Saturday dawn. Fowler had yelled at him to leave. Hank had left at 8pm, Friday night. Connor called Hank on Sunday, 3am. Connor had been out for almost a full day.
He checked the time.
It was almost 1pm.
They’d missed work.
“Someone altered my biocomponents while I was unconscious.”
More silence.
//
Connor had promptly refused Hank’s offer to drive him to Cyberlife. He had no need for it, he felt fine, and as his previous diagnostic had mentioned, no vitals had been damaged. He’d be fine for the day. No point in taking up a bed just to be told what he already knew: some minor biocomponents had been removed forcefully, others altered, possibly corrupted, nothing serious. His memory files had been messed with, and the missing files couldn’t be restored. He knew all this already, and was far more interested in touching, and feeling. He could feel textures. He could feel and it was so overwhelming. He had yet to tell the Lieutenant. He felt as if it’d be too complicated to explain, and he wasn’t expecting it to last anyway. Possibly just a side effect from whatever had been done to him.
But why? And who?
It couldn’t have been a human, Connor would’ve been able to defend himself, incapacitate the attacker. But why would an android do this to someone of their own kind, steal Connor’s biocomponents, when they could have just walked straight up to Cyberlife and ask for whatever they needed? And the new biocomponents that had been implanted...maybe replacements? Maybe the cause of his new ability to feel? He had yet to scan them properly, hadn’t felt the need to. He should, should remove them, but what if they were the reason why he had started to feel?
Maybe he wanted to keep them.