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"I'm starting to think you're losing on purpose."
"You know I wouldn't."
Connor sends Markus an unimpressed look, glancing at the standing chess pieces. The white king is held up in a dovetail mate at the corner of the board. And while Connor certainly hasn't been on a winning streak playing chess with Markus, it doesn't mean that he knows exactly what 'mistakes' the other makes. Downloading every rule and move is practically nothing compared to Markus' ability from experience. They take to set up the board again, placing the pieces in their respective places.
When the leader made his first move, Connor followed soon after. The two rapidly move and take pieces before a thought comes across Connor's HUD. It gets lost in the sea of lines of code that's dedicated to the game, but he catches it anyway.
Amanda had a chess board
He blinks and suddenly his king is in a smothered mate.
"You're distracted," Markus simply states.
Yes, he was.
It's been almost a year (Eleven months, two weeks, four days, twenty hours, eight minutes...) since Markus demonstrated that androids were alive to humans. Almost a year since he was very close to putting a bullet through Markus’ head that very same night.
The weather is getting colder. He idly wonders about Amanda.
They lock in a stalemate.
"Is something wrong?"
Oh, right. He hasn't even answered Markus.
"Just." The board is set up again. "Thinking."
"It takes a lot to get you stumped. What are you thinking about?"
He's tempted to tell Markus about her from the night of his demonstration, but he'd already justified them as regaining control from his prime directives from CyberLife, not Amanda. Which wasn't the full truth, but he wasn't exactly lying either. (It's a lie of omission, his systems automatically reply). With winter coming back, he finds his mind drifting back towards the garden more and more lately.
"The night of your demonstration."
As much as he doesn't want to think about the snowstorm in his mind palace, it's becoming inevitable with the changing seasons.
It seems to pique Markus' interest. "Is this about almost killing me?" He blinks and pauses in playing the game. His timer is ticking down. "Connor..."
Markus doesn't really care about his facial movements when he speaks, always in a hard stare that says everything will be fine as long as you stand with me, but occasionally he does make an effort to smile or lift his eyebrows for the sake of the people around him. It makes Connor wince right now.
"It wasn't your fault that night. It was all CyberLife, not you. The important thing is that you won that night. You chose not to shoot and you continue to greatly benefit Jericho. Some say you're the fifth leader."
They had a similar conversation before, right after North had accused him of planning a double crossing (He can't help but think that she was right, even if he was just CyberLife's pawn at right before then). He skirted around what happened with Amanda that night around Jericho's leaders, but ultimately found solace in Hank, who didn't quite understand what he was talking about, but comforted Connor anyway.
Later, when Hank was asleep, he entered the Zen Garden at Amanda's insistence, half planning to hear her out, half planning to tear her from his mind palace to erase her once and for all.
He wasn't thinking right when he did so, but he knew that if anything were to go wrong, he had a probably working bail out system and he could lock away the program like he did previously. The storm had calmed somewhat–probably to try to set up the correct scenario to tempt him back into her arms–yet Connor couldn't bother himself about his surroundings. All he cared about was that Amanda was showing herself and the seething anger he felt. He was angry that she was so ready to take everything from him. She took over his body to use as a puppet to do her bidding, she took his deviancy and nearly his soon to be love–and being the most advanced android in terms of body and AI, there would have been little to nothing to stop her.
He went right up to her and slapped her for it.
It was rather weak for his model, but it shook Amanda enough that she had to take a step back. He felt her worm her way into his mind to get a glimpse of his irrationality, to plan out her next move, to get him on her side.
But the next thing she said was just above the wind, with an epiphany written all over her face.
“I don't want to die…”
He froze (Though thankfully not from the storm around him), anger snuffing out into… exhaustion? Empathy? Guilt? He still couldn't get a good read on his feelings yet. She looks at him with fear, like she expected him to follow through with deleting her. A small whispering in his mind told him that this was just her manipulating him again.
He disregards that thought.
She's just as much of a victim as he is. She, like himself, has been unwillingly puppeted by CyberLife.
“You can't stay here.”
Amanda’s expression melts into a pained understanding.
The day after, Hank and Connor agreed to have that part of him removed, and since they couldn't trust CyberLife, they went to Kamski's (Nearly equally as untrustworthy), who gladly took her newly deviated AI from his head for his own safe keeping.
"I didn't tell you the whole truth about what happened," he starts, staring down at Markus' king in check to avoid Markus himself. "My mind palace was developed differently than others. It had a separate AI that acted as my handler. She... pulled me into my mind palace to trap me there during your speech. She said that my deviancy was planned, and that it was only a matter of time until CyberLife took over." He sighs (As much as he could sigh through his ventilation system), looking up again. "The weather is just reminding me about then."
Markus' brows pull together, "If you think it changes anything about your work, it doesn't. Like I said; the important thing is that you won against them. What else are you thinking about?" Markus, curse your intuition.
The timer goes off and, technically, Connor wins. Neither make a move to set up the board again.
"I think... I want it back."
He was only really about a year old, emotions were still new to him (His first ever being a bubbling mix of dread, fear, and confusion), but he immediately understood the hurt Amanda sent him when he betrayed her.
"It was… The garden, it was my sanctuary, even with my handler living in it. It was a core part of my mind palace before I had it removed to prevent a repeat of the night of the demonstration. Now… Now I just feel empty without it," he continues.
"Ah," Markus smiles, "You want to rebuild it, without your… handler."
"Yes," he breathes, relieved that he and his boyfriend are on the same page.
The other puts his hand up, letting the skin recede into white chassis.
"I can help. There shouldn't be that much of a difference between our models."
(He was designed specifically to hunt and kill his own people, each system and program expertly tailored to do so. He was the most advanced android in that regard, and there was no telling what it would do to an RK200. How bad would letting him in be, knowing that Markus is the very thing his systems once yearned to destroy?
He's selfish. He is so very selfish for wanting Markus himself in his mind. In the very same mind that would've stopped at nothing to kill him.
Is it a bad idea? Yes. Yes it is. But he doesn't trust any other android the same way.)
"Six iterations between us," he lets out a small chuckle, "I see no problem there."
Markus settles his uncovered hand beside the board, giving the option but not forcing him.
He's not thankful enough for Markus picking up his hints. Saying and knowing exactly how he feels has been. Difficult. Lately.
"Are you sure?" (Why is he asking? He was the one to set this conversation up.) "My system could recognize you as a threat." Whenever he probed, he was always treated as one. Not to mention, his intrusion prevention system is better than other models. He doesn't even think Markus could've forced deviancy out of him because of it.
"Not if you let me in. Interfacing can be a two way road."
...Right. North told him about her short relationship with Markus, and, somewhat more embarrassing, about interfacing. She described it as intimate, but he wonders how much of that is true to someone like him. (A hound made to hunt his own kind, he's not quite sure himself how he was able to get this close to the deviant leader). He places his hand next to Markus', not touching yet.
"...Have you interfaced before?"
"Yes," he immediately defends, "In the CyberLife Tower, I had to. To deviate the androids there."
"But have you interfaced with someone before?" He gently takes Connor's hand, interlacing their fingers and sending in a questioning prompt in the corner of Connor's HUD. "Allowed someone in to see the real you?"
Oh, rA9, he cannot do that. Too many bad memories. Too many deaths that he doesn't want to revisit.
"Just the garden," he slowly says, retracting his skin and connecting himself to Markus. He looks up from their hands in time to see the question in Markus' eyes. Markus doesn't ask anything, but he does send out reassurance just on the edge of the connection.
He accepts the prompt and allows Markus in.
He half expected him to start prodding at his programs and memories, but Markus stays close to Connor's drawn path towards the hole that once was the Zen Garden program, sending out comforting and soft signals the whole way there. He tugs Markus to the darker corners of his systems, brushing past his previous lives and their subsequent endings. He feels Markus linger at his databases where he keeps the heavily (And often repeatedly,) organized safe keeps of the people of Detroit.
'Your systems are very complex.'
He mentally stops.
'Is that a compliment?'
'Very much so.'
Admiration filters through the interface and Connor sends back a positive response. He continues again.
'..Thank you. You might enjoy the garden.'
'Mind telling me more?'
'It was my handler program,' he starts, 'Amanda, the woman I keep mentioning, is... was my handler. She lived in the Zen Garden which was kept in my mind palace. It was beautiful once, full of flowers, fish and birds. When I left it, it was in the middle of a storm. She was very angry with me.' He pulled Markus to the empty hole, still feeling the drag he usually felt when he neared the program, even though it wasn't even there anymore.
Usually, androids do dream in a sense. During standby an android retreats into their mind palace to perform system checks, go over memories, organize information, schedule certain events for later in the day, and more. After Markus had a nightmare one night, he found that most deviants go over multiple memories, pieces of each forming into the big picture of a type of fever dream for the android and allowing the basics of their coding to run in the background. Connor hadn't gotten that luxury. When he falls asleep, all he's met with is the nothingness of his own mind. Pair that with the approaching cold, and it felt like being trapped in the stifling snowstorm all over again.
‘I believe I remember the basic coding.’ He can feel Markus' curiosity at both his inner workings and the emptiness of his mind palace. He reluctantly lets go of Markus to retrieve one of the many scans he did right after the demonstration. It included everything the source code from the Zen Garden had, including a copy of Amanda's AI. He removes it from his System Scans folder, bringing it back to Markus, who takes his interest away from his empty mind palace to greet him.
‘Here. If we're going to rebuild it, then you need the source code.’
‘Thank you.’ He takes the folder and peaks at it, humming. ‘This is… quite a bit of code.’
‘Yes,’ Connor agrees, ‘But nothing we can't handle.’
There's a gentle press of contentment, ‘No wonder it left such a crater inside of your mind palace.’
Markus opens the source code, laying it in front of them.
‘What are we changing?’
Connor guides him to Amanda's AI, deleting the bulk of her code in front of him.
‘Anything involving Amanda.’
Markus mentally nods, and ever the romantic, immediately gravitates towards the flowers that were edited by her while he takes to wiping the remains of Amanda’s fake memories that made up her previous personality. He'll need to replace the code with something that he could use instead of leaving it empty. Thankfully, Markus comes back with a bundle of code, placing it into the blank pages that once held her. Connor looks over it with Markus turning back to the source code to pick out the few lines of flora that was put in by Amanda.
One of the first lines says “globalvr:bloomSyst;floraDataset” and he curiously looks at Markus.
He must have felt his gaze because Markus comments, ‘Humans perceive flowers as their own language. They would send messages in the form of banquets to reveal each other's emotions. I've noticed that the actual garden itself was affected by the AI, so I changed it to become influenced by you instead.’
It's a simple code that takes in certain states of his biocomponents and the key words from his own thoughts, and applies it to match similar human symptoms of emotion. It doesn't affect the garden like he thought it would, though. It pulls from an index of flower species and their connected meanings, prompting them to bloom when he enters the garden and giving him a quicker way to identify his feelings without having to clumsily stumble through explaining it to someone like before. Thinking that he can do what he wants without facing repercussions from CyberLife anymore, will display a strelitzia for example.
He sends out appreciation for Markus before editing some of it to take out roses and its related color variants. He then fits in a few more lines, tweaking the bloom animation if he ever sees them (While he does have a “spawn point”, he can will himself to appear anywhere), improving certain graphic designs to match the rest of the environment and to get rid of any inevitable lag. He'll edit the code further when he enters the garden, but he leaves it like that for now.
Quickly checking over the base code of the garden (The simple skeleton of the program, originally finished by CyberLife, heavily edited by both Connor and Amanda alike), he goes over to fill in the hole, weaving in the edges the flower code to his mind palace to get it started.
Markus hands him new code as he works, and he notices how he has also tinkered with the layout of the environment, though he ultimately leaves it be with only a glance over the code itself. He leaves the designs to Markus, trusting him to tune it to Connor's own artistic interests. As more and more pieces of his mind are connected, he feels less scattered, less… blank.
He doesn't feel like he's in a vacuum of space anymore.
Some deleted lines needed padding so that everything would fit properly and Connor ends up creating a whole new day and night cycle that would change based on the time of day in the real world. Markus comes up by him, adding on more code. He catches “globalvr:settNight;particleSyst,pFlakes” before turning his attention to Markus himself fiddling with his code. He can feel him just on the edge of where his consciousness is focused right now, becoming an itch in his systems that he cannot scratch, pleasantly reacting to the occasional automatic system check regarding him as a welcomed invader and easily keeping up with his superior processing power despite being an older model.
He watches as Markus decides the random speeds and directions of the “flakes”, the timer they run on prompts the both appearance and disappearance of them. He feels… warm. If he was in the real world, he probably couldn't keep a smile off of his face.
He feels overwhelmingly content with Markus here.
Azure bluets would be blooming, he thinks now that he has that database connected.
He takes to the weather conditions, making it take on a similar system of the day and night cycle script. It would look at the predicted weather from online sources, and both visual takes from Connor's opticals and the sensation of the weather that he could physically feel, to apply it to the virtual world. And since this is Connor's sanctuary, he makes it so that snowstorms and anything below thirty Fahrenheit would not be present within it. Just cold enough to snow, not cold enough to suffocate him. Satisfied, he connects it to his system, slotting it right where it needs to be.
‘...There's a graveyard script here.’
Ah. That.
He divides most of his attention to focus on Markus, who's poking the script with uncertainty. ‘It was to remind me of my mistakes… I think. I wasn't supposed to die on any of my missions, and a tombstone would remind me of that. Or Amanda would.’
‘Did it… work?’
He hums. Amanda telling him that his previous body was destroyed, and being careless like that would have dire consequences in the future had a greater effect than a slab with his name on it.
But he also kept coming back to the graveyard to acknowledge his previous life. Not that it did anything other than reminding him of falling several stories in the air with an off-putting sense of accomplishment from a Mission success and the negative feedback from his handler because dying, especially while on a mission, was frowned upon. It's time and money wasted to activate another body and send him to where he needs to go.
‘I have only died once outside of the CyberLife Tower. I'd say it was effective.’
He pauses as sympathy washes over him.
‘I regarded my own grave as a sight to mourn,’ he adds, ‘I didn't know it at the time, but it was mourning.’
‘Mourning a past life that you would never get back?’
Right. Markus too has died before. The leader has a much different view of dying than him, though.
‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘I do not have any sort of connection to the child I have saved, nor to the SWAT captain that I had previously interacted with, but he did. It could be said that Connor fifty-one kicked started my road to deviancy. If he had never saved that fish…’
He trails off to recall the memory of Connor fifty-one analyzing the dwarf gourami and gently dropping it back into the bullet hole filled tank. Markus nudges him to continue.
‘I do not have the same software instabilities as my previous life. Those are wiped upon reactivation to keep me from making decisions under extreme emotional stress. Unfortunately for them, I keep the memories and if I do not die, then I do not lose instability.’
‘The line between deviant and machine seems to be very blurry for you… And you were made that way?’
Markus hands him the graveyard script, untouched. Connor adds it without changing anything. There's nothing wrong with it. It was one of the only things that Amanda never gave a thought to. It was for him.
‘Blending in with humans meant that my more… machine-like ways were supposed to be ignored. Everytime I went out, I gained instability in my software, which made me more human compared to everyone else. If I gained too much then my handler was supposed to let my keepers know, and then I would be.. killed.’
He thinks for a second more. ‘Whenever I was given the choice, I never chose to tell Amanda about the true quantity of my instabilities.’
‘If it's anything, I’m glad you didn't.’ He feels Markus smile and there's a rush of grateful, content, love, before he comes up to the leader to examine the few missing pieces of his mind palace (And to ignore the figurative feeling of a blush creeping on his face).
There's the CyberLife report program sitting near him, waiting. It was a part of Amanda's program, though not touched by her, to act as the road between him and CyberLife. He could change it to a few things that would have more use than updates of where he is and what's happening to him to a server that's offline at the abandoned CyberLife Tower. He could pair the reporting system to one of DPD’s servers, or maybe even Jericho’s.
Connor closes it for now, only adjusting the “rules” that he had to follow during the reports. He’ll change it later, depending on what he wants to connect it to the most. Setting that in, he goes over to see what Markus is manipulating.
‘Can you connect this to your memory core?’ He asks.
globalvr:avaModel;(set=[“Player”][“Players”])
He looks a little further and finds multiple model references removed, probably so that he has the choice to bring in who he chooses into his mind palace. He mentally reaches out for his operating system’s memory, drawing a line from there to this script. When the connection is secured, the models are updated. There's a subsection for Markus- his avatar wearing the same clothing he remembers seeing him in today. He hums to himself. So that's what the connection was for.
‘Do you have a preference for the type of animals?’
The birds and fish usually went unseen, just out of his view, singing their usual songs and rippling the water, just under the surface.
‘Not exactly. Maybe not koi?’
He says it more as a question but he suspects that Markus picks up on his …apprehension? Anxiety?
Oleander flowers, though they don't bloom in the winter.
…Caution while he discusses Amanda’s interests. Like she'll appear again.
‘Of course.’ His boyfriend sends out a comforting tingle of compersion, to which he leans into.
Markus opens himself up some more, taking out copies of songs that he'd play on the piano and translating the musical notes into something his system could read. Connor helps by tuning the songs into a similar key and tempo that would come from real birds.
He enjoyed the pretty spots on the (Honestly low-poly) koi fish when the light source hit the water just right. They were vibrant and they lazily swam without a care in their virtual world. The closest he could ever get to them was when he and Amanda occasionally rode over the water in the boat. He wants something like that. The spot pattern, how he could see them when they were close to the surface, their peaceful nature.
He briefly connects to the Internet to do a wide search in just a few seconds, judging large, speckled, and generally calm fish. He goes through trouts, madtom, stingray, eels, and other species that fit his query.
None of them really caught his eye until he came across a genus of sharks, to which he picked the most interesting one.
They're small for sharks but big for tropical fish. They're pretty to look at and harmless to people.
He gets started on making a model based on multiple reference images.
It wasn't a particularly vibrant fish, nor would most even live in somewhere like his garden, but it was different from koi fish. Koi aren't usually predators while sharks are. The sharks are long too, whereas koi are shorter. They're brown while the koi are brighter.
Not a particularly riveting choice, but it's not koi.
Markus comes over to his chosen fish, apparently done with giving the birds new songs to sing.
He directs the leader to the reference images, ‘Will this be okay?’
‘It is not my mind palace, Connor. If you enter the garden and don't like it, then you're more than welcome to change a few things.’
He feels Markus lean into him, enveloping him in warm and fuzzy feelings as he works on the model.
‘A houndshark, huh?’
‘Don’t look too much into it,’ he snorts, sending back reciprocating feelings and briefly closing the channel to essentially create a “hug”. ‘They're nice to look at.’
Markus tweaks a part of the model, just the shape of its first dorsal fin, as if he thinks it would bother him. He encourages him to help more, and Markus gets to changing the color hexes. He divides his attention to start a script that decides the sharks’ attitude and behavior towards the “players”. From there, a supporting script would vary the size, shape and color of those that spawn. Markus catches on and creates several base variants of the shark models.
Done with that and piecing it in with the other sets of code, he feels for the very last thing to add. It's the emergency exit left by Kamski.
He shakes off the non-existent shivers to weave it in with the rest of his code, suturing the remaining holes closed, and completing his mind palace.
He takes a mental step back, Markus soon following suit.
Relaxing, he sighs and stops his CPU from automatically turning the familiar garden system online.
He feels whole again.
He can finally dream.
He latches onto Markus' consciousness, forcing his mind palace online and dragging Markus into the garden at the same time.
He's met with a cool breeze, the rustling of tree branches, the running of water, and a weight in his palm. Slowly, he opens his eyes to the stars and slow falling snowflakes.
The garden no longer takes on the image of a traditional zen garden, instead it's more similar to a wetland. Where the white geometric path was, there was frosted over grass, thinned where he was supposed to walk and thicker and taller grasses are pushed nearer to the path’s invisible walls. Beyond the path had soft rushes, northern sweet-grass and cattails where the land dips into small bodies of water. Overhead are a generous mix of white willows, dura heat river birches, black ashes, and dogwood trees that aren't in bloom. At the edges of the world and in-between the trees, are small cliff edges that occasionally have slow waterfalls that feed into the wetland.
The weight in his hand squeezes, causing Connor to look at his boyfriend, who is brightly smiling. Markus is in the thick button placket sweater that he weirdly planned to wear to bed, and Connor himself was still in his dress shirt that he has yet to take off.
“I knew you'd make it beautiful here,” Connor says while being tugged to the trail that rounds the middle by Markus. They pass by the single grave, but Connor has his eyes on Markus.
Markus grins, “I thought you'd like it.”
The grass, stiffened by the weather, crunches under him. Even though the Zen Garden was packed with multiple contrasting trees at the world's edge, it felt even fuller here. Enough so that he had to brush away one of the willows’ dangling branches when he walked under it. Markus runs his unoccupied hand through the tall grasses, and Connor thinks he spots an emperor dragonfly in the distance. From where he's walking, he can see the emergency exit, untouched by the fauna around it. Gentle splashes pull his attention to the middle pond, where a rich brown dorsal fin recedes into the water. The steady chirping of unseen grasshoppers is a far cry away from the Zen Garden.
Now on the opposite side of the world, Connor spares Markus a glance before stepping on the dew covered wood bridge. Like the one on the opposite side, it has a walnut color that ends up desaturated from the snowy night and looks well-worn, but secure. The bridge arches to the middle structure; a similarly wooden gazebo that's held hovering over the water with visible supports. It's hexagonal with fences on every side except for one, which is an entrance that leads down to a pier that's much closer to the water. Hanging on the fence, the roof, and sitting on the floor are where Connor finds all of the flowers. It's crowded, and probably can't hold more than four people, but it becomes a sort of comfort when he feels Markus press against him.
Peonies, sweet peas, alstroemeria and many more have already bloomed, and when he brushes his fingers on a soft petal, he almost immediately looks away from the information box that comes up in his vision. He instead walks over to the pier, and the noise from stepping on it startles some of the sharks away. He stays there for a minute, watching the snowflakes dissolve in the swaying lake and the fins from the sharks dip up and down while converging into a few social groups.
He lets himself a small smile, toeing off his shoes and sitting on the edge with his feet in the water. He doesn't technically get “wet” (It feels like the concept of wet, and not the actual feeling), but taking off his shoes is just a habit from the real world. Markus stands by him to join him in stargazing.
Connor looks past the falling snow, admiring the bright and vibrant stars that compliment the waning moon. Detroit can never look anything like this. There's too much light pollution from giant corporate company advertisements to cherish the night sky in the real world. Not to mention the clouds that seem to always be covering the sky, day and night.
But here in his personal sanctuary, the stars make the frosted grass glitter into all sorts of colors. The moon reflects in the pond’s gentle waves from their swinging legs, and curious hound sharks slowly circle them. One comes right up to them, poking their nose out of the water before skittering away with their friends.
Markus finally sits next to him, dipping his feet into the water as well. A comforting hand is placed on top of his.
“Thank you,” he quietly says, as if afraid to break the peace he feels. (For giving me a chance. For letting me in. For everything. Goes unsaid but understood.)
“Anytime, Connor. I mean it.” (And he does.)
He turns away from the sky to lovingly smile at his boyfriend, turning his hand to gently squeeze the other's. I love you.
He gets a squeeze in response.
I love you too.