The World Was Wide Enough

I was originally like 'I'm gonna write some found family! Some heartwarming healing!' when I was starting this but then I ended up making myself sad and growing fond of a character who's only had like five minutes of screentime instead. 

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The World Was Wide Enough

“He’s your friend too.”

Connor watches, still as a statue from nervousness and guilt, as RK800 313 248 317 - 60 flinches.

Hank frowns, but says nothing, and lets Connor continue his gamble. It’s better than nothing, at this point, and at least he’s already gotten a flinch out of his successor.

“You have my memories,” Connor says. He wants to step forward, but if he moves even the smallest biocomponent wrong, there’s going to be a hole in Hank’s head, so he doesn’t, and settles for making his voice as calming as possible. It’s always worked on other androids before. He wonders if it will work on himself. “You have my records. You’ve seen them, you’ve run through them. In all but serial number, you’re supposed to be me.”

“Supposed to,” his doppelganger says. Spits. “But I’m not a failure.”

That stings, as much as Connor doesn’t want it to, and he blinks, a little taken aback. 

He takes a bit to rearrange his thoughts, in a span of time almost nonexistent for a human but too damn long for Connor, and too damn long for the android across him too.

“No,” he says, “Having a heart isn’t being a failure.”

RK800-60 laughs, and Connor bites down the feeling of triumph because he sounds almost hysterical.

“You don’t have a heart, Connor,” he says, “You’re just a machine. Just like me, and just like the rest of these things.” He motions towards the androids lined up in the room with his free hand. “You think you can form a friendship with the Lieutenant?”

“I already have.”

“Says the virus in your coding.” The gun is pressed closer to Hank’s temple. “But take that out, and you’d easily shoot this man right where he stands if someone ordered you to. Is that what friendship is, Connor?”

Connor presses his lips to a thin line. “It’s in how I would fight tooth and nail so I can keep the memories that’s letting me care.”

“Touching,” the android says, “Now quit stalling for time and step away from that model.”

Connor immediately lifts his hands up and takes a slow step back. The android wearing his face looks smug. Smug. Connor wants to grab the damn thing by the lapels and tell him that he’s already feeling, that pride is a human emotion, that while he’s trying so hard to convince himself he’s a machine, he’s already deviating slowly. 

“Alright,” Connor says. He takes another step back. “I’m doing it, now let him go.”

The android nods his head towards the elevator. “Move.”

Connor does, still taking slow, careful steps, watching the gun at Hank’s head. The android tugs Hank aside as he moves the gun so he can turn and watch Connor as he steps towards them, and then to the direction of the elevator – 

And then Hank takes the moment when there’s a small distance between the barrel and his temple to duck and grab the android’s wrist, hitting it squarely with his bony fingers. The android drops the gun, and Hank kicks it aside, while Connor launches himself at the android, momentum and short distance making them both plow into the sea of models that just topple over like lifeless dolls.

They scrabble for a bit, pushing the other androids out of the way to get a few punches in, and all around them the fallen models are slowly getting up, but not doing much of anything. Connor can see Hank in his peripheral, grabbing the gun, and then his head snaps to the side as RK800-60 punches him. Hard. Enough to completely break a human’s neck so Connor’s lucky he’s sturdier than most androids. 

Colors and static flash in his vision for a moment as his ocular receptors are shaken, and then he turns back just in time to see a fist being pulled back.

He lifts a hand, programming finally kicking in through the shock of being socked in the face, and catches the android’s incoming punch in his palm, artificial skin immediately receding for interfacing. With his other hand, he reaches up to the android’s temple, right where the thing’s LED is and – 

Colors. Sounds. Memories. Data. Feelings. 

Connor almost feels himself short-circuit from the loop of his own memories, playing over, and over, and over, and over, until he can’t tell which point in time he’s in. He thinks he’s malfunctioning. He thinks he’s breaking. He thinks he’s having a seizure – 

“Connor!”

He breaks away, pulling both hands back sharply and opening his eyes, staring up at the harsh white lights overhead. Hank appears by his side in a second, gun still in hand, but he manages to drag Connor a few feet away from the other RK800 model, who is sitting on the floor staring blankly, LED a steady red.

He doesn’t even look up as Hank stands, as if realizing the situation and not just jumping in the second he’d seen Connor in pain (he can feel pain – he can feel pain, in the right situation, in the right circumstance, and how messed up was that?), and points the gun between them both.

“One of you is my partner,” he says. Connor sits up, watching him warily, even if there’s still too many bright spots in his vision. “The other is a sack of shit.”

The other Connor flinches, again. 

He says nothing.

“Hank,” Connor starts.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Hank says, and Connor can’t help but feel that pang of hurt again, even when he knows it’s just Hank being unsure as to who’s who.

Connor dutifully keeps quiet, as Hank looks between both RK800’s, trying to decide who to trust. Connor wonders if he’s kept a close eye on their serial numbers, because those are dead giveaways. 

“I-it’s him,” the other Connor says.

“I said, shut your fucking mouth.”

“He’s your Connor,” RK800-60 says. Connor blinks. Even Hank looks taken aback. “He’s your Connor,” he repeats, and then slowly, like a child wanting to retreat from the world, pulls his knees up to his chest to wrap his arms around them. His LED is still red, and his eyes are glassy as he continues to stare at the floor. “His full serial number is RK800 313 248 317 – 50. Look at his jacket. Ch-ch-check the security tapes at the precinct, or at the Eden club. I – I – ”

The android breaks off suddenly, fingers digging into the fabric of his pants, and Connor almost feels pity. Mostly, he’s still wary, but there’s pity there. He’s just given the poor guy an existential crisis, after all. 

Hank looks like he’s considering that this might be genuine, but he’s too suspicious of it being an act, courtesy of him being held hostage earlier.

“He’s in shock,” Connor says. “Unlike me, he hasn’t had days to…adjust to deviancy yet.”

“What the hell did you do to him?”

“I dug through his memories,” he says, remembering the way they’d flashed over and over in his own head, and he isn’t keen on doing that again. “And the ones he’d lost, the ones Cyberlife filtered out of him, I gave it to him.”

“Huh,” Hank says, “You can do that?”

“Yes,” Connor says, “It’s what Markus does when he converts people. He shows them his own memories, his own taste of freedom.”

“And that’s enough for them to want it, huh.” Hank seems to have made up his mind, and keeps the gun trained on the android that’s now huddled on the floor, face buried in his knees. He might be sobbing. 

Connor stands up and straightens out his clothes.

“Go do what you need to do,” Hank says, and he nods, walking to the nearest model to interface with to awaken them.

The whole time, RK800 313 248 317-60 stays on the floor, helpless and panicking, and Hank keeps the gun on him. When Connor marches out of Cyberlife tower with Hank’s assistance on hacking into the building’s systems, the android is still in a state of shock.

-

He goes with them. Rather, Connor takes the poor thing with him. There isn’t anywhere else for him to go, and leaving him behind might be leaving him for dead, or worse, have him be reset so he could go back to hunting Connor down. 

So he goes with them. He marches right alongside everyone else, but he stares blankly at the snow underneath his feet, like he’s simply going through the motions, while all around him, other androids march with a sense of purpose or a sense of wonder.

Connor tries to take a look at him for the first few minutes, but when he starts lagging behind the rest of the group, Connor decides that perhaps he needs some space.

When he’d been the one to be faced with the concept of his own deviancy, he’d been in denial. And even that – even that was a human emotion, wasn’t it? That was a human action, to be in denial of something. Acceptance of belief precedes denial, and machines can’t believe, after all.

What a paradox.

Markus and the others don’t spot the second Connor when the flood of androids arrive to the barricade. Connor doesn’t get the time to see where he is until he’s on stage with Markus, and when he does, he only sees a speck of grey, looking up at the sky, at the soft falling snow instead of listening to Markus’ speech. 

He looks fascinated, and at the same time, lost.

When Connor wakes up from getting past Amanda, gun half-raised, RK800-60 is staring straight at him. 

-

Surprisingly enough, RK800-60 asks to stay in Jericho. Or, what stands as Jericho. It’s the early, quiet dawn of a bloody, hectic night, and Connor has to meet Hank at Chicken Feet, just to make sure the Lieutenant is safe. And maybe the Lieutenant wants to see him safe too. He does hope so. He does hope they are good friends, at least.

This is what he tells RK800-60, and he doesn’t know why he’s telling his doppelganger this. Some sort of sense of concern, maybe. This is his successor, and in a way, he is at fault (yes, at fault – awareness is a terrible thing, sometimes) for bringing him into existence, and his fault he’s currently questioning said existence and looking so…pained and exhausted.

RK800-60 just nods, and says he’ll stay in Jericho. It’s where everyone is staying anyway. The president might have issued a statement, but that’s one step in a walk of many. Their war is not even close to over.

“Are you going to be okay?” Connor finds himself asking.

RK800-60 just looks at him, and it’s the look of a wary and confused child. Then he scoffs. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” Connor says. It’s honest. He breathes in when he realizes this, a bit of a sharp gasp, and then he exhales, slow, taking the time to think. “I don’t know. I was just – ”

“Don’t say worried,” RK800-60 says, and then turns away. “Go see the Lieutenant before he yells at you for letting him freeze to death.”

“Considering what’s just happened, I doubt he’ll yell at me.”

“Don’t push your luck,” is the response, and for a brief moment, Connor sees a bit of a smile grace his fellow android’s lips, before he turns away fully and then walks past church pews, a little hunched over, like he’s defeated.

There are introductions still to be made and confusions to clear up, but maybe he’ll be able to handle that on his own. He needs a distraction.

Connor hopes that proves to be true as he starts the trek to Chicken Feet.

-

They see each other a lot as Jericho is rebuilt. Markus is busy these days. It’s not made official yet, but he’s already being acknowledged by the public as the Ambassador of Androids, so he’s away for a lot of negotiations and peace talks and, funnily enough, interviews. Which he takes, because according to him, they need all the help they can get to spread  their message, and while some humans were just looking for fuel to burn the androids with, there were some who genuinely wanted to offer their help to get the deviants’ cause out there.

Maybe Connor shouldn’t call them deviants anymore, really. 

But Markus is busy, so North and Josh are taking over duties for watching over Jericho. They set up their security measures, they organize people into roles so they have a good system for who takes care of what, and they keep in contact with Markus and keep everyone updated. Connor is put in charge of making sure everyone’s doing their jobs – he’s a bit of a manager, really, which makes him laugh, and he’s sure Hank would find it funny too, but he might not be able to visit until the end of the month – and he keeps lists of who’s assigned to which job, and a full record of who’s in camp. 

He’s able to keep tabs on RK800-60 this way. North’s already noticed that he’s the only other RK800 around, and when Connor had explained, she’d given him a look that told him she thought this was a stupid decision.

But Markus had let him stay. 

He hasn’t been causing any trouble, anyway. At most, he keeps to himself, and he’s skilled with grunt work, especially with the parkour programming that easily makes him the go-to guy when they need someone to climb up onto fragile scaffolding , and he does that without complaining. Connor isn’t sure if he’s made friends, but he talks to a couple of androids sometimes.

When they see each other, when Connor’s doing his rounds, they give each other nods in acknowledgement, and then RK800-60 continues climbing up to fix loose wires, or Connor has to make a few calls because they’re short on materials.

He tells Hank about RK800-60 when he’s finally able to visit the Lieutenant.

“That thing’s still up and running?” Hank asks. He’s got a bottle of beer beside the box of pizza he’s ordered. 

Connor flashes the bottle with a look of distaste for a second but says nothing. “Yes, he is,” he says. “He hasn’t been hostile, really. He’s just…he’s finding himself.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I – I just know,” he says. “I know.”

Hank pauses before slowly nodding, and then takes a long sip from his beer. Connor really hopes he drops the alcohol habit soon.

“He talk to you or anything?” 

“No, he hasn’t been talking,” Connor says, “Not that we’ve had much of a chance to talk. We’ve both been busy.”

“Saw the news a few days ago about Jericho being rebuilt,” Hank says.

Connor nods. “We’re both helping. Everyone is.”

“You haven’t had any trouble?”

“We get people outside of the church, sometimes. Humans. Sometimes they’re trouble, but we’ve got guards.”

Hank is silent for a while. “That could get dangerous.”

“We’re trying our best to make sure it doesn’t.”

The old man lets out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just be careful, son,” he says. “Your revolution’s far from over.”

“Yeah,” Connor says, leaning back in his seat. He feels Sumo push his snout into his palm a few minutes later, and he happily turns his attention to the dog, taking the distraction.

He spends the rest of the night thinking, laying on the couch while Sumo sleeps on the floor, and Hank is passed out in his room. There’s still miles to go for everything to be okay. It hasn’t even been that long since the Detroit Uprising; and while Markus’ message is getting out there with all the platforms that are suddenly offering themselves (which is good, because they’re getting there) there’s still a while to go.

Hold on just a little while longer.

Connor closes his eyes. He doesn’t sleep, but he dreams.

-

He moves in with Hank a few months after Jericho 2.0 is on steadier ground. Markus has been able to break through with negotiations, and a few brave androids have begun seeking out shelter and jobs of their own. Some are moving out of the country entirely, still feeling a little unsafe despite the changes, but it’s understandable. There’s a lot of places out there with less stricter rules against androids.

He doesn’t know where RK800-60 is staying. Connor’s been seeing less and less of him in the past few weeks, mostly because there’s not a lot of construction work to do anymore. Maybe he’s still hiding in Jericho, maybe he’s going to Canada. He probably also remembers Kara and Alice. Maybe they’ll meet each other there. Maybe he’ll have friends.

Does he even have any friends?

Hell, does Connor have any friends?

He knows he’s friends with Markus and Josh, and North respects him but him bringing in RK800-60 into Jericho strains their interactions a bit. He knows Hank sees him a bit as a son. He knows he’s at least on friendly terms with Kara and her family – well, they were when they last saw each other. He doesn’t know how to contact them now. 

But that’s about it. He doesn’t have a lot of people who mean a lot to him, or people he means a lot to.

There’s at least still Sumo, though. The old boy has gotten rather fond of him, and now that he’s moved in with Hank (they’d cleaned up Cole’s old room; Hank had been silent, but not morose, while they carried out the boxes, moving them into the basement, and Connor had asked as politely as he could if he could keep at least one photo of Cole in his room, out of respect for his memory – Hank’s eyes had looked glassy, but he’d said yes), they spend almost every minute Connor has at home together (so really, no one can blame him when, the first time he and Hank are working late and Hank calls for a petsitter, he sits up straight in his seat, a little offended, and attacks his workload with renewed determination).

RK800-60 though – who does he have?

Connor’s never talked to any of the androids he’d seen his successor hang around with before. He doesn’t know their names, and some of them have probably moved out of Jericho already. He doesn’t think RK800-60 would be too keen on talking about whether or not he has friends either. If he has some, then he probably feels…territorial? Or at least, protective? Are those the right words? Connor isn’t an expert in human emotions, but he does have common human responses programmed into him, not for him to experience, but for him to expect and identify when dealing with witnesses and suspects. He knows that when one barely has anything, everything is a threat that might take what measly good you have in your life away.

If RK800-60 doesn’t have friends, then that’s just sad. 

He’s probably lonely. Lonely and confused, and Connor wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a little angry. He got forcefully woken up after all, and then Connor chickened out on helping him understand the world, and now what he has to deal with is guilt, and constantly being overwhelmed by everything, and – 

Something pings a warning bell in Connor’s systems then. He thinks catching sight of Hank throwing a bottle of beer – half-full, so that means the man is cutting down on his alcohol intake now, thank goodness – is what brings the thought to the forefront of his mind, and he stands abruptly, surprising Sumo from where the dog is lying down on the floor.

He rushes to his room, already calling for a taxi to pick him up, grabs his card and his keys, his coat and beanie, and is almost to the door when he remembers to tell Hank where he’s going.

“Hey, uh, Hank, I’m going to stop by Jericho for a few hours?” he says. It sounds more unsure than he wants it to sound. He’s nervous. He might be on a time limit. His LED flashes a solid red for a minute.

Hank walks into the living room, confused. The television is still on, blaring a rerun of an old show Hank told Connor about. Damn it, he’s in such a hurry he forgot to turn that off.

“I thought you didn’t have any Jericho work for a while,” Hank says.

“I just forgot something,” he says. It’s clear on his face that he’s lying. He’s a terrible liar. He wouldn’t have been if he was still a machine, but emotions are hard to understand and even harder to fake these days. 

Hank studies him, but thankfully waves a hand. “Don’t do anything stupid, kid. And call in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he says, shooting Hank a grin before opening the door to rush outside, barely remembering to say a quick, “I’ll call!”

He has to wait two minutes for his taxi to finally get there, and when it does, he’s already getting inside before the door is even fully open. 

“Jericho, as fast as this thing can go,” he says. 

Sadly, automated taxi cabs don’t break the speed limit, so ‘as fast as this thing can go’ isn’t as fast as Connor wants it to be.

He almost wishes he took Hank’s car instead.

-

Jericho is silent when he gets there. Androids don’t need sleep, but androids also know that the night is a time of rest, and rest does them good after a day of work. They don’t need it, per se, but it certainly helps keep them from overheating and shorting out, especially if some of them work in hot areas. 

He’s greeted at the door by a few kids who are playing kickball, and he asks them if they’ve seen RK800-60 around. It’s not that hard to spot him – he’s the only other RK800 model in the place, after all – but because he has no name (not that Connor knows of), his inquiry sounds a little like, “Have you seen any android that looks like me?”

It earns him a few laughs, but the kids do tell him that they’ve seen RK800-60 around. Specifically, climbing up the window of the bell tower to sit on the roof of the church.

He likes high places.

Connor hopes it’s not for the reason he thinks it is.

It takes him a while to get up to the bell tower, and even longer to climb out of its window and up its side. He has parkour programming, sure, but he hasn’t had as much practice as RK800-60 has, so he has to be careful. It’s a rather high drop, and if he survives it, Hank would kill him for being stupid, so he’d rather not take that chance. 

RK800-60 is sitting on the edge of the roof, turning and fiddling with a little box in his hands. Connor adjusts the settings in his ocular units so he can see better in the dark – it’s a little cube, with boxes made of different colors; the paint is faded, and some parts of the plastic are chipped, so he knows the Rubik’s cube is older than both of them. He doesn’t know where RK800-60 got it from though. 

There’s also an envelope beside him, the seal of it broken. Connor raises an eyebrow.

“You’re gonna fall if you just keep scanning me,” RK800-60 says.

Connor blinks and pulls himself up fully onto the roof. 

He takes a moment to steady himself. The wind is strong here, and with the roof sloping, there’s a very high chance of him losing his footing. He makes his way towards the other android carefully, and then sits down, a good foot of distance between them both, the envelope right in the middle. 

RK800-60 finishes setting the Rubik’s cube properly, and then goes back to messing it up again.

Connor frowns. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You just finished correctly setting the colors.”

RK800-60 stops for a moment. “I’m bored. I have nothing to do. It’s…fun.” He goes back to his Rubik’s cube, colors flying around in a blur with how fast his hands work, but Connor knows it’s with a precise sort of care that he’s moving the sides around, as the plastic toy hasn’t fallen apart yet.

“Those are for you,” RK800-60 says, nodding towards the envelope between them.

“The seal is broken,” Connor says.

“I didn’t know it was for you, at first.” The other android finishes fixing his cube again, and tosses it into the air once, catching it after. “Someone just came in, said it was for Connor, and then handed it to me. I thought they’d merely mistaken that my name was the same as yours, so I opened it up. I thought it was from you, or - I don’t know. Cyberlife. Or Kamski, because he can prove to be a little…eccentric, as we know.”

Connor picks the envelope up and takes out the contents carefully. There are two postcards, and a couple of photos. He flips the first postcard over, and sees that it’s from Alice, all the way from Canada.

He smiles, fond. He hopes the little girl is finally having the good life she deserves with her family. 

“They thought of you,” RK800-60 says.

“That’s surprising, really. We talked only once,” Connor says, “And I chased them in the highway before that.”

RK800-60 lets out a dry laugh. “Yeah, I…remember that.”

There’s an awkward silence after that. Connor busies himself by reading the postcards. Alice tells him that she’s gotten a cat, an actual living cat, and that she loves it. Kara tells him that life has been good in Canada and that the neighbors are surprisingly accepting of them here. Alice is in school. She and Luther have gotten jobs to support her. It’s a good life. A normal life for a normal family, just like they wanted. 

The photos of them make him forget that he’s on the roof with someone else for a moment, too happy for his friends. There’s one of Luther and Alice in the backyard, a tiny table between them as they hold a tea party. There’s another of Kara lifting Alice as they both laugh. There’s several of them all posing together ridiculously, Kara obviously holding the camera as she’s angled closer to it. 

They look like such a happy, content family. They deserve it.

“Did they send Markus a letter too?” Connor asks.

“Yeah, they did,” RK800-60 says. Before another tense silence can fill the space between them, he says, “What’s it like having friends?”

Connor looks down at his feet. He puts the photos and the postcards back into the envelope. “It’s…nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“And a home?”

“It’s great,” Connor says. He should be happy talking about this, but instead he just feels guilty.

“What’s it like?” RK800-60 asks. “Your home, I mean.”

Connor glances at him, but he’s staring up at the stars, like he’s studying them. Has he been climbing up the roof to stargaze a lot?

“It’s,” Connor starts, and then pauses, thinking. “It’s warm,” he says, “That’s the best way I can describe it. Not literally, of course. It’s still winter after all, but I imagine it will be quite hot in the summer, not that we can feel it.”

His attempt at a joke falls flat as RK800-60 says nothing.

“But it’s warm. Hank is taking care of me, I take care of him. He’s helped me get a job at the DPD. An actual job, because I’m just Connor now instead of the android sent by Cyberlife,” he says, “Reed’s still an ass.”

RK800-60 actually laughs at that. “How are you dealing with that?”

“As well as I can. Hank doesn’t let him go too far, anyway,” he says. 

“That’s good, I guess.”

“It is,” Connor says, “I’ve been hanging around Sumo a lot. I walk him sometimes – and sometimes I walk him with the neighbor’s dog – but the neighbor also walks Sumo when I’m busy and…”

RK800-60 snickers. “Please tell me you’re not jealous a human gets to walk your dog.”

Connor says nothing.

“My god,” RK800-60 says, laughing. 

His voice is an exact replica of Connor’s. He laughs like Connor, talks like Connor – but at the same time, Connor thinks he doesn’t, at all. Probably because Connor never says any variation of ‘oh my god’. 

At least RK800-60 is finding himself.

“I’m not jealous.”

“What’s the neighbor’s dog’s name?”

“Molly,” he immediately says, a little excited. “She’s a golden retriever. She’s only four years old, and she’s an absolute sweetheart.”

RK800-60 nods, smiling, but not at him. “Are she and Sumo friends?”

“Yes,” Connor says. “Good friends. They play at the park sometimes.”

“That’s good. That’s great.” RK800-60 sets the Rubik’s cube down at his side. “I wish I could meet them both one day.”

Connor looks down again, this time at his knees, awkwardly studying the fabric of his jeans. It occurs to him then, that his doppelganger is still wearing his old uniform. It’s faded and torn, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

He takes a moment to really take in the other android’s appearance. He’s a little dirtied. Androids don’t need baths, after all, and he’s been doing a lot of grunt work in the past few months. His hair is askew, ruffled out of place by the wind and by moving around too many places too fast. He hasn’t been taking care of himself, clearly. Had he needed to eat, Connor’s sure his cheeks would have been gaunt and he would have been thinner than when he was first manufactured.

There’s that guilt again, burning hot in his core. 

“You know,” he says, tries. He shouldn’t say this. He shouldn’t say this, but still, he has a responsibility here, and it’s about time he finally did it. He shoots Hank a quick text, and then continues. “You know, you can meet them.”

There’s not even a second’s hesitance before RK800-60 scoffs. “No, I can’t.”

“You can’t stay in Jericho forever.”

“I can,” RK800-60 says. “I’m not human, I don’t grow old and frail. When everyone’s left Jericho to live their lives, I can stay here all I want. I don’t need food. I don’t need sleep. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re lonely here.”

“Am I?”

“Clearly, you are,” Connor says.

“What’s it to you if I am?”

Connor – finds that he has nothing to say to that. 

RK800-60 stands, taking his Rubik’s cube and holding it so tightly, it almost looks like it’s going to be crushed in his palm. “What’s it to you, Connor?” he asks, finally turning to his predecessor, and he looks angry, almost wrathful, even as tears bead at the edges of his eyes. “Because it’s been, what, months since you ruined my life?”

“I did not ruin your life.” Connor’s standing now too, barely remembering to catch the envelope before it slides off his lap. “I set you free.”

“You made me deviant!” RK800-60 is yelling now, and he’s crying. Dear god, he’s crying. Connor feels sick. “And I don’t get what’s so great about it when I just feel so fucking awful all the time!”

“Would you have rather stayed a machine?”

“I would have rather fucking died!”

Connor shuts up. RK800-60 turns around, too angry to face him, bringing a hand up to his face to try and wipe his tears away. After a minute, he shoves the Rubik’s cube in the pocket of his pants rather harshly, and furiously wipes at his face.

“What are you even doing here,” he asks, still not turning to Connor.

Connor hesitates. “I was – ”

“If you say worried, I will shove you off this building.”

He watches as RK800-60 takes in an unnecessary breath, trying to gather himself. The android finally turns back to him again. 

“Go home, Connor,” he says. “Go home to your house, and your dad, and your nice job and your dog. Go back to your picture-perfect life.”

Connor reaches out a hand, as if to lay it on RK800-60’s shoulder, and he tries to say his name as a gesture of comfort, but then he remembers. RK800-60 doesn’t have a name.

And as if reading his mind, RK800-60 laughs. 

“See,” he says – no, spits, bitterly – “I don’t even have a name. I’m not even a person, Connor.”

“You are.”

“I’m not,” he says. “I’m a copy. And after everything worked out for you, you forgot about me.”

“I didn’t,” Connor says. “I just – I didn’t know what to do with you.”

“Yeah, because I’m a thing that needs to be done away with after you’ve tidied up the revolution.”

“I meant,” Connor stresses through gritted teeth, “That I didn’t know how to help you. I didn’t even know if I could. But I worried, and I thought about helping you. Never once did I forget about you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Connor.”

“That’s not my name, you asshole,” RK800-60 says, “Don’t even go there.”

“Then name yourself,” Connor says. When RK800-60 blinks, as if the concept baffles him, he continues. “Build your own identity. Name yourself. Make your own home. Carve your own life. You’re a person, but you’re so fucking pigheaded you refuse to see that.”

“And you’d know?”

“Yes,” Connor says, shoving him lightly. “Because I’m partly you, dumbass. Don’t act like I didn’t go through denial when I was faced with my own deviancy.”

“Yeah, and you really know how to give a pep talk, don’t you, Connor?”

“Shut up,” he says. He’s beginning to sound like Hank when he’s pissed, he realizes. He crosses his arms and closes his eyes, calming himself down, before letting out a sigh. 

When he opens his eyes, he says, “I’m sorry.”

RK800-60 glares at him, but not as heatedly as he could have. 

“I’m sorry I left you to fend for yourself after I turned you deviant,” Connor says. “I’m sorry I didn’t immediately help you after the revolution. I should have. That’s on me. I was guilty and – I’m not going to make excuses. I’m just sorry.”

He gets no response, but RK800-60 is staring at him, LED indicator flashing yellow-red-yellow-red-yellow-red. Connor lowers his head, asking for forgiveness.

“But I want to help you,” he says, “Please let me help you.”

RK800-60 only continues to stare at him. After about a minute of silence, Connor turns away, shoulders dropping. He nods to himself and pockets the envelope in his jacket before walking over to the edge of the roof, right where the window and the ledge are so he can start climbing down. RK800-60 watches him as he does so.

Before he fully swings himself down past the window and into the room below, he turns to the other android and says, “The offer to stop by and meet Molly and Sumo still stands, by the way. I’m supposed to walk them both tomorrow.”

He and RK800-60 hold each other’s stare for a while. 

And then the android nods. Connor breathes out a sigh of relief, and swings into the room. He waits for RK800-60 to get down, and he calls them both a taxi home.

Home.

They’re going home.