Chapter Text
When Connor turned away from Hart Plaza, his only plan had been to leave Detroit. Alone, he could have integrated into some human town. With just under six-hundred identical AP700s in freshly pressed uniforms, Connor had to quickly rethink his plan.
Being the same model, they walked at a constant pace of 4mph. With a group of their size, Connor would need to find a national park or abandoned farmland for them to settle in. He wasn’t sure about the power requirements for AP700s, their launch video hadn’t been announced yet meaning their specs were not publicly available.
Thank rA9 he was the most advanced model to date, with superior information gathering programs and unequal access to Detroit databases.
Connor’s perfect pace stuttered. This caused the android behind him to bump into him. They were walking barely four inches behind him, legs matching his stride perfectly. Unlike him, they were not designed to stop on a dime. This resulted in the entire mass of androids wobbling like a house of cards.
In the same way ripples ricochet off the sidewalls of the Detroit River, the movement swayed back from the edge of the crowd, resulting in Connor being shoved forward and only his quick reflexes saved him from face-planting into the dirt.
“No!” The entire crowd gasped in dismay.
He looked at the sea of shocked faces. This was their first reaction that wasn’t an exact mimic of Connor’s own expressions. (Inwardly, this relieved Connor. He’d worried he’d be spending the rest of the foreseeable future with 600 replicas.)
Connor’s stumble was caused by the realization that his unlimited access was specifically to Detroit’s database. It might reach further, but why would it? Cyberlife needed his expertise in Detroit, not Traverse City, Grand Rapids, or even Ann Arbor, just outside of Detroit as it was. Connor found he was… nervous.
Any future decisions would have to be Connor’s own, not based on statistics supplied by Cyberlife’s analysts. He still had access to the internet, as did any android. But the change was jarring, unexpected.
“I apologize.” He bowed his head. “I will refrain from stopping so impulsively in the future.”
“Are you okay?” He wasn’t sure which one asked this. He was surprised, nonetheless. Even after Markus deviated him, even after he returned from Cyberlife, no one had ever asked if he was okay. Just the question itself gave him an odd feeling. He sent a quick scan to ensure nothing was out of the ordinary. With his systems clear, he decided the feeling must have something to do with emotions.
“Yes.” He replied, quickly. “I am… okay.”
He attempted Friendly 011. The others quickly copied him, forcing him to recognize what Hank meant by his expressions being uncanny. He shut down the expression and returned to Resting 02, silently thankful when they did the same.
No more preprogrammed smiles for him, then.
And so, they walked. Out of Detroit’s city limits, through the suburbs, and then even further. For a while they walked along interstate highways, then Connor took them off an exit road and they walked parallel and into the country.
Where they were going, he was unsure. The mass of devout AP700s didn’t falter, content to walk behind him. If they conversed amongst themselves, it was too quiet for Connor to hear.
For the first two days, news drones followed alongside. When Connor checked the internet, he was able to pull up speculation pieces on where he was going and why he left. But with little change in his expression, with no conversation to pick apart, soon those drones returned to Detroit. Then, they were alone.
It was quiet on the rural roads of Michigan.
Aside from the steady pace of hundreds of androids, there was no other sound of note.
He alerted the others that he intended to stop. Then, en masse, they came to a halt.
Connor let the silence wrap around him, unfamiliar, yet comforting.
With the androids halted, small animals peeked out from behind trees. Squirrels chittered overhead. Conor tilted his head back and looked up at the sky. It was grey, bright. The clouds sat low overhead, barely moving, not a hint of a breeze. Leaves only ruffled when the squirrels ran limb to limb.
Behind him, the androids shuffled.
He turned and regarded the group. They had copied his actions, taking in the world above and around. Some reached their hands to the sky, as if they could touch it. Others looked down at the crumbling asphalt beneath their feet, scuffing the road and kicking at gravel. A few had their eyes focused on small birds, fluttering in the trees, crooked smiles lifting the corners of their mouths.
They were Connor’s responsibility. He had volunteered to free them, had marched them through Detroit as a show of force. By their choice, they followed him away from Detroit, down these crumbling roads to an unknown destination.
Seeing them exhibiting little quirks of personality, even if it was just who looked at the sky versus who looked at the ground…
Connor tilted his head and observed their bodies, rigid, upright. Others were relaxing, increment by increment, settling into their bodies.
“Do you wish to explore, or to continue?” He asked, breaking the silence.
The group refocused, all their attention on him. One, who’d been scuffing the ground, raised their head and replied. “Whatever you decide, leader Connor.”
Connor blinked. Leader? He—well, he supposed that’s what he was. But still: “There is no need to address me as ‘leader,’ Connor is my designation.”
They tilted their head. “I will call you leader, because I want to.”
He… he couldn’t argue with them. It was their choice. “I understand. I believe we should continue walking until we find a safe location to live, for the time being.”
They settled back into—well, it wasn’t quite formation, they weren’t a war platoon.
Connor faced forward and began to walk again.
This time, their footsteps weren’t perfectly in sync with his own. So, he marched, with a staccato of newly forming personalities behind him.