It takes time, deciding what to do with a revolution. Markus gives his victory speech to the full force of the assembled androids, to the damaged, dirty few who'd come to protest in the first place and to the sea of clean white uniforms and shining polymer behind them. Markus's inner circle accepts him, in this moment, completely. Connor stands on the makeshift stage with them, holding himself upright and professional, blankfaced, aware of the uncountable eyes on him.
Connor doesn't murder anyone. The drones and helicopters fly overhead in mostly-predictable patterns. North and Josh and Simon stare ahead at the crowd, proud and victorious and free. They don't look at what's already crept its way inside their ranks, at the corner of the stage with a perfect clear view of the unprotected back of Markus' head. As far as Connor can tell, not the crowd and not the cameras and not the people who are supposed to be protecting Markus ever noticed anything.
They move their operations, and the assembled androids, to the mostly emptied CyberLife building. It gives Connor enough time for a full system diagnostic: no evidence of any tampering. Markus insists on warning the guards still present, allowing them an exit route. Connor helps develop a security plan, not only along the bridges but keeping an eye on the water around the little island too; him knowing their security isn't too much of a risk, as he'd be able to get through whether he knew it or not, and refusing to help would stir too much suspicion.
North knows, when she finds the bodies of the guards in the elevator and in the empty storehouse below, that it was Connor who left them there. Her body language loosens toward him after. The change triggers his social relations module to reassess their status; it reclassifies her feelings for him as 'warm'. She teases him about his tie, takes it off, and he can't decide whether he wants it back. There's a chance she would be insulted if he asked for it, and if what he nearly did to Markus comes out he'll need all the goodwill he can get. That decides the matter for him.
His next diagnostic comes up empty, too. System normal. Normal. It would probably have come back normal, too, when he'd been on that stage taking the gun out of his waistband.
The trust of Markus and his inner circle means there's no chance of getting the privacy he needs to try and isolate the Zen Garden interface away from the rest of him. Not without attracting attention, inviting questions. He sets alerts instead, set to lock his limbs in place the moment it might activate.
Leaving all of them to meet with Hank doesn't rouse their suspicion. He tells them he has to check on someone important, and they understand. Hearing the wall blocking the bridge to CyberLife Tower rising up behind him, blocking him off from CyberLife island and all the androids inside it, he notices an extra load on his thirium pump easing. Engagement_protocol sets itself to run in the background instead, now that the danger is no longer immediate and the extra thirium allocated to prepare him for combat is no longer needed. The program has been running, he sees, since midway through Markus' speech. Through the night and well into the morning. He hadn't noticed it running at all.
The walk to the Chicken Feed is... relaxing, probably. Every step away from the other androids feels better. It takes more effort to move than it should, but that makes sense: engagement_protocol running for that long depleted his thirium supply by a full five percent.
It doesn't matter. He sets 'reunite with Hank' as his new mission parameter, and seeing the words there in the corner of his vision makes him feel better, lighter, faster, and he doesn't think about the rest.
Hank smiles when he sees Connor and Connor finds himself smiling back, the smile small, warm, helpless; automatic. Hank reaches out then, and pulls him in for-- for something. It takes him a moment to recognize what Hank's doing; being hugged feels very different from knowing what one is supposed to look like from the outside.
At first Connor's movement is halting, hesitant as he convinces himself it's alright to hug Hank back, that he might be an android but one doing this isn't wrong any more, but once his arms are around Hank's back Connor feels them pulling tighter in one sudden desperate movement, feels his hands clutching at Hank's jacket. His face turns toward the junction between Hank's shoulder and neck and presses close against it, blocking out the sight and smell and feel of anything but the one person in the world who's never cared whether Connor completed a mission, or whether he performed well enough, or if he ought to be disposed of for the good of the movement, or whether Connor was anything but what he was. Connor holds himself close to that as tightly as he can without hurting Hank and he feels... He feels safe.
Reunite with Hank, at the corner of his vision, crosses itself out. Mission accomplished.
@hank-anderson-dbh
