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Connor sat in a hunched-over position, his knees folded against himself as tight as they would go. It still wasn’t enough to prevent the bars of the cage from digging into him on all sides. The cage - built to house a medium-sized dog - was one of many, stacked three tall and spanning from one wall of the room to the other. In each container was an android, hunched over just as Connor was. There were two such rows in the room, each pressed against opposite walls.
The bars only had minor reinforcements, but without any range of motion, Connor couldn’t do much to break free of them. An unfortunate oversight in his plan. One of many.
He’d been attempting to infiltrate a suspected android trafficking ring that he and Hank had been investigating for the last couple of weeks. Connor had hoped to uncover some details on who was running it and just how large the operation was, but then he was caught.
All he’d been able to determine was that this wasn’t the only location and that it seemed to get more androids in than it sent out. So Connor had been confined to this tiny cage in this dark room for around four days now, waiting for some chance to break free.
More cages had been added as time went on, but no one was taken away. He wondered if perhaps it was a storage facility, a thought that made his thirium pump twist with dread. If that were the case, who knew how long he’d be here?
He hadn’t exactly been specific when telling Hank where he was going either. Connor knew that if he did, there was no way Hank would’ve let him do this. But now what was supposed to be a quick reconnaissance mission had stretched to a four-day stay. Hank was going to be so pissed.
Connor took in a shallow breath, sighing. He couldn’t fully expand his ventilation components in this position. He couldn’t really move much at all. While androids didn’t get sore in the same way that humans did, there was still a kind of discomfort from remaining in the same position for so long. It was a nervous energy that made him feel ready to explode, drawing tension into every limb.
This position also made looking at his surroundings difficult. If he tried to lift his head he could feel the cage bars digging into the back of his skull. Even so, he looked around as much as he was able with his current range of movement.
If he was accurate, there were exactly 45 androids in this room. Connor’s wall was completely filled and the one across from him nearing that point. They spanned a relatively wide range of models, though some were more frequent than others. That’s to say, around half of them were variations of the Traci model.
Connor had tried to identify individuals, to maybe connect them to missing persons reports, but that went nowhere. Something in the building was blocking out his access to any outside network, making his communications and databases currently useless.
Connor was broken out of his thoughts when the door positioned between the two rows of cages opened, and a figure stepped through. Connor squinted, trying to get a clear image of the man’s face in the darkness of the room.
“You plastics are in luck,” the man said, “big turnout tonight.” A nervous murmur of voices spread across the room.
He had a large ring of keys at his waist that jangled against one another when he moved. Clipped on his belt next to the keyring was a small remote with a green blinking light at the top. Connor knew from the trafficking rings they’d busted in the past what it was for.
Every android held here had a device slotted into the port at the back of their necks, to hook directly into what served as a central nervous system. That remote provided control over those devices, allowing the person holding it to activate those devices and paralyze any androids with the implant. It would make fighting back very difficult.
The man unlocked the first three cages on the row, dragging out the androids inside. The one on top wasn’t ready and fell to the floor with a painful-sounding cry. That only earned him a kick to the back. Connor grit his teeth, clenching his fists against the fabric of his pants where they rested.
Two more men had come to stand in the open doorway, and they helped to corral the android through. The first man continued down the line, removing another seven androids before exiting the room and closing the door with a slam.
By the looks of it, he would reach Connor’s cage eventually. All he could do was wait his turn.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Connor heard someone above him and to the left ask, their voice just above a whisper.
“They’re selling us,” the person below Connor - a Traci - said. Going off the man’s words about the turnout, this did seem the most likely scenario. The statement sent a disruption through the room, and Connor could hear a few people begin to cry.
Connor felt his own stress levels slowly climbing as the weight of what was going to happen sunk in. So long as the person keeping them had that remote, there was nothing Connor could do to fight back. He’d be sold off, probably reset, and that would be it.
His time as a detective would be over, the life he built gone. He would never see the people he cared about again. He would never see Hank again. He clenched his jaw harder, trying to force any sense of calm that he was able to. The moment he panicked was when it was truly over.
He just had to wait. There would be an opportunity to break free. There had to be.
Connor waited, trying to ignore the anxiety that swelled in the room as more and more androids were pulled out. It both felt like forever and far too soon when it was Connor’s turn.
He was yanked from his cage by a rough pull to his arm, nearly sending him sprawling on the floor. Strangely, this round he was the only person taken. Two people walked on either side of him and neither had the remote. No, the person who had it kept a careful distance, watching him intently with the device in his hand.
The men escorted him from the storage area into a smaller room. There were a few boxes scattered around and a rack of clothes pushed into the corner. They were mostly different styles of lingerie, and Connor didn’t linger on that for too long.
But they stopped him here, still with someone guarding him on either side and the man with the remote standing nearly on the other side of the room.
“Take off your clothes. Just the shirt and pants are fine,” he said.
“What?” Connor asked, feeling his dread build further.
“Get to it,” the man waved the remote at him. Connor still stood, frozen in place. Why would he be asking him to do this?
“I don’t understand,” Connor said. The man rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated noise.
“Customers like to see the whole product, make sure there’s no hidden damage. Now take them off, before I have them do it for you,” he gestured at the men standing on either side of Connor. Connor undressed, quickly, before they had a chance to follow through on that threat.
There was a chill in the air that he hadn’t noticed before, but that now had him wrapping his arms around his chest. He still couldn’t see any way to get the remote away.
The man to his left grabbed his arm and he flinched, attempting to pull away from the contact. The grip tightened and pulled Connor’s arm away from himself.
“Now go out there, and stand still, arms at your sides until the guy at the microphone tells you what to do. Got it?” the man asked. Connor nodded his head, a jerky motion.
“Good. And in case you get any ideas,” he waved the remote, “I’ll be watching behind stage. Now get a move on.”
Connor was all but dragged out of the room and he found himself shoved onto a stage. The overhead lights were blinding and it took his optical units a second to adjust enough for him to see anything beyond the edge of the stage. He slowly walked to the center and stood still with his arms at his sides as the man had told him.
There was a podium with a microphone off to his side. A man in an expensive suit stood behind it, a stack of papers in front of him. He glanced down at them and adjusted the position of the microphone.
Connor’s thirium pump was beating so hard it was all he could hear, almost drowning out the man’s voice as he began to speak.
“We have a very special product here tonight for everyone to bid on. This is the RK800, CyberLife’s most advanced prototype, the pinnacle of their technological innovation. There is no android on the market better than this!”
The man continued on, rattling off all of Connor’s features as if reading it straight from his handbook. And maybe that’s what those papers in front of him were. But the words faded into the background as Connor swept his eyes across the crowd. He didn’t focus on any one face for too long, but all of them had the same predatory look. He could feel his hands trembling faintly at his sides.
“Hey,” the man said, snapping Connor’s attention back to him. “Do a spin for us, why don’t you?”
Connor swallowed, then did as he was asked, slowly turning in a circle. When he was facing the front of the stage again, he heard a few hushed chuckles from the crowd.
“Alright then, we’re starting the bid off at one hundred thousand!”
Someone in the audience raised up a numbered circle and the man pointed to them, the price jumping up by another twenty-five thousand. The back and forth continued, the number rising and rising. Knowing that places like this existed and actually being here were worlds apart. He was nothing more than some rare prize to be won by these people. An object.
They had just passed three hundred thousand when something in the crowd caught his eyes. He searched, trying to find it again, but everything was moving so fast. Then he saw it, a man lifting up his number to raise the bid.
He had his hair pulled into a tight bun and neatly trimmed facial hair. It was more put together than Connor had ever seen him, but he would recognize Hank anywhere. His breathing stopped, and he stared wide-eyed at Hank. His expression was one of barely concealed anger, and he wouldn’t look in Connor’s direction. That didn’t stop Connor from trying to catch his eye.
The rest of the auction went by in a dizzying flash, with Hank winning the final bid at four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. There had been one other person in the audience who’d been relentless, but Hank had continued to raise the bid.
Connor exited the stage on shaking legs and was brought to a much smaller room than any of the others. It was only him and the man with the remote at first, but it didn’t take long for the door to open again and Hank to step inside. Connor watched him with the same wide-eyed look but didn’t dare say anything.
The man stepped toward Hank with a packet of papers in his hands. “If you’ll just sign these and give us your payment, you can-” he didn’t have time to finish, his face making a wet crunch as Hank’s fist connected with his nose. He staggered back a single step, but Hank grabbed his head again and slammed it into his knee. The man collapsed into a heap on the floor.
When Hank faced Connor - meeting his eyes for the first time - he still looked angry, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled out a radio and spoke into it.
“I’ve got him… Yeah, him too. You’re good to start,” Hank said, before stuffing the radio back into his pocket. A commotion began outside the doors.
“Put this on,” Hank's voice was clipped as he slipped off his coat, passing it over to Connor. Connor did as he was told, pulling on the large garment. It drooped off of his much thinner frame and hung all the way down to his knees, but it was warm and he no longer felt so exposed.
“Hank-”
“What the fuck were you thinking!?” Hank shouted, no longer making any effort to keep his cool, “Coming here alone, like you did. What kind of plan was that!?”
Connor dipped his head, looking down at Hank’s shoes. “I didn’t think-”
“That’s fucking right you didn’t think!” Hank interrupted him again. “You didn’t think far enough ahead to tell me - or anyone - where you were going. And then you go and get yourself captured. What were you going to do if I didn’t show up? If we didn’t have enough time to get together a raiding party? Then what!?” Hank finished, panting.
“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor said.
Hank didn’t seem pleased with that response, ignoring it to stomp over to the unconscious man and pick up the dropped remote. Connor didn’t know how else to respond to Hank’s questions. It wasn’t like he’d meant to get caught, and well, he didn’t know what he would’ve done if Hank hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t something he wanted to consider.
“They put one of those things in you, right?” Hank asked, gesturing to the back of his neck. He still sounded angry, but he wasn’t yelling anymore. Connor nodded. Hank wasn’t very technologically proficient, but it seemed he’d remembered from their last case like this. “Turn around. I’ll get it out.”
Connor turned his back to Hank and retracted his synthetic skin around the port. He could feel Hank’s fingers fumble for the device for a second before pulling it out of the port. Connor shuddered, letting the synthetic skin fade back into place. He turned back around to properly face Hank again.
“I didn’t mean to cause you trouble,” Connor said, fiddling with the edge of Hank’s coat between his fingers, “I thought an opportunity to escape would have arisen sooner, but it didn’t.”
Hank scrubbed a hand over his face, and Connor got the feeling that he still hadn’t given Hank the response he was looking for. When Hank dropped his hand, he looked more tired than angry.
“You just disappeared. Sure you left that note, but it did fuck all to help me find you,” Hank took a shaky breath, “I was worried I would never find you.”
“I’m glad that you did,” Connor said quietly.
“Then I had to fuckin’ bid on you of all things. God, that felt wrong,” Hank grimaced.
“The price went higher than I expected,” Connor commented. It had felt strange, standing there while people fought to buy him. The price had gone past what CyberLife had spent producing him, but that thought made him feel strange. Less human.
“I’m not going to say it,” Hank scoffed. Connor tilted his head to the side.
“What?”
Hank rolled his eyes, then pulled Connor into a hug. Connor returned the embrace eagerly, relaxing into it. The lingering stress from the past few days faded away.
“You’re priceless, son.”