#hashtag let all my dumpster families be happy 2k19

[detroit-become-dumpster]

class 4 errors

He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway. 

(Or, Connor deviates after the revolution. Hank has a hangover. This seems like a great time to reconcile.)

***

The good news was, Connor had failed. 

At least, that’s what it sounded like to Hank--he was pretty sure he’d heard that Markus’ demonstration was successful, and that the president had ordered the withdrawal of the troops, and that Big Official Talks™ would be starting up soon about establishing androids as living beings in their own right. But quite frankly, Hank had drowned so much of the evening in whiskey that he very well could have imagined all of it. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to the nervous chatter filling the bar, definitely wasn’t listening to the radio playing in the taxi, absolutely didn’t switch on his own TV first thing after stumbling into his house and digging up another bottle later that night. (Or maybe it was early the next morning. Hard to tell through the haze. The numbers on the clock wouldn’t stop swimming.) At any rate, if Markus had succeeded, then that could only mean that Connor had not. And that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

(I'll be deactivated, Connor had said, and analyzed to find out why I failed. And he’d looked--shit, he’d looked just like a star pupil who was startled to find a B on his report card instead of an A. He’d just looked like a disappointed kid.

Or a scared kid, maybe.

Fuck. Hank really should have followed him from the roof.)

Grimacing, Hank scrubbed his hand over his face, clenching sandpaper-rough eyes against the late morning sun that threatened to peek at him from behind the blinds. It was too early to be thinking about all of this. It was too early to be thinking, period. Yet despite all his attempts to smother everything, here he was, sprawled on the armchair where he’d passed out, thinking. Stray memories and half-made connections and intrusive nonsense stuck in his brain like a needle in the groove of an old worn record, his thoughts uselessly tripping on the same damn notes over and over again until he could go crazy from it all, the what ifs and the maybes and the if onlys screaming for attention over the click of a loaded barrel and the screech of tires on an icy road and drone-televised footage of massive junkyards, no, graveyards, piled sky-high with the bones of the plastic dead, all of it braiding together inextricably with the beep of a hospital monitor and that too-sweet funeral-parlor-flowers smell and the dull thud of dirt on a coffin and—

(But he hadn’t seen any familiar faces in any of the footage, neither amongst the living nor the dead—was that a good sign, or a very, very bad one?

Hank really, really should have followed him from the roof. Just to make sure.)

Pain hammered in his head along with all of the unwanted thoughts, pushing out waves of nausea with every sluggish pulse. He should just go back to sleep. It might not solve any of the problems hammering away in his brain but at least maybe he could snooze through the worst of what promised to be another nasty hangover. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be, after all. Definitely didn’t have anything better to do.

(The old pistol hiding in his bedside drawer might have argued otherwise, but in order to find out for sure, Hank would have to go get it, which would require him to get up, which would require moving, which would require effort, and basically, fuck that. The pistol and its sole lonely bullet would still be there whenever he decided to move again. Assuming he did decide to move. Maybe he would be lucky and the couch would magically swallow him whole somehow. Or something. Fuck.)

Hank had just settled perfectly into his well-worn sweet spot in the armchair when the doorbell buzzed. He huffed irritatedly. Probably it was girl scouts or church folks or political canvassers or something; he didn’t know and he didn’t care. He ignored it.

A few moments passed in blissful liquid silence. Then the doorbell buzzed again.

Nose wrinkled in aggravation, Hank threw his arm over his eyes, answering the doorbell with stubborn silence. After a couple more seconds, the doorbell buzzed again, insistently this time.

Hank scowled. “Go away!” he half-yelled, half-slurred, but all that netted him was another goddamn buzz of the doorbell, and fuck, had that noise always vibrated his teeth like this? “Fuck off!” he shouted. 

The doorbell buzzed again, one long, unbroken, god-awful shrieking screech so piercing and shrill Hank was almost tempted to retrieve his pistol just to make the fucking noise stop.

“Jesus Christ,” he snapped, heaving himself off the chair and stomping toward the front door with tightly-balled fists. “Can’t you take a goddamn hint? Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.” Whiskey-numbed fingers fumbled with the lock before Hank managed to wrestle it open, throwing the door wide so he could give this asshole a piece of his mind. “So why don’t you just--”

He stopped. He saw. He stared.

Connor stood in front of him.

Squinting against the too-bright daylight, feeling the cold from very far away, Hank wondered, briefly, if he could be hallucinating, if maybe those old Disney cartoons were actually onto something whenever their characters stumbled into a bucket of alcohol and saw nothing but pink elephants for hours afterward. That would make more sense than this. It would certainly make more sense than the unwanted feelings welling up at the sight of Connor, the distrust choking his throat and the anger hot in his gut and the guilt tightening his chest and what the hell was all that about? Shouldn’t he be relieved to see this stupid plastic prick standing here, alive and apparently well? Shouldn’t he be happy?

“--fuck off,” he finished with a snarl.

For a split-second he could have sworn he saw a flash of red at Connor’s temple. With a hesitant step forward, Connor opened his mouth, but he must have swallowed whatever he was going to say, because the next thing Hank knew, Connor was stepping back again, nodding. “I understand, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

Looking for all the world like a puppy that just got kicked, Connor turned to leave. Guilt rose along with Hank’s blood pressure, thundering in his ears. He cursed himself under his breath. Probably this was just some ridiculous fancy social-programming-algorithm-whatchamacallit-thing, just a code designed to manipulate humans into giving Connor (and by extension, Cyberlife) whatever he wanted. Probably it wasn’t real at all. But fuck if Hank wasn’t falling for it anyway.

“So what--that’s it?” he snapped. “You’re just gonna leave? What’d you even bother coming here for?”

Half-turned away, Connor didn’t meet his eyes when he replied--that was a first, Hank realized with a start. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he replied quietly.

“Never been better,” Hank bit back, even as he internally kicked himself.

Once again, Connor opened his mouth to speak, like he might argue, but he didn’t. He just made his way off the porch, and if he didn’t know any better, Hank might have thought his shoulders were slumped, his posture resigned, and was he shivering? That just pissed Hank off even more.

“Why d’you ask?” he called after Connor. “That part of your mission, now?”

Connor froze. “I don’t have a mission anymore, Lieutenant.”

“Good,” replied Hank with as much nastiness as he could muster. Connor turned back to look at him, and if Hank thought he spotted confusion flashing across his face, or maybe hurt. Which was a stupid thing for Hank to think, because Connor clearly didn’t feel anything, because if he did, Hank wouldn’t have caught him on that roof last night, ready to assassinate someone that was just asking, peacefully, for the same basic rights that all sentient beings deserve.

(Except Connor didn’t do it, did he? Hank asked him to stop, and he did. And now here Connor was. Checking on him. Trying to connect with him.

Well, fuck.)

“Because...y’know,” Hank continued grudgingly, despite himself, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your previous mission seemed pretty hellbent on the whole death-and-destruction angle, and all.”

“Yes,” said Connor, softly. “I didn’t see it that way at the time, but—”

“But what? You had some sort of robo-epiphany or something?”

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“You suppose,” echoed Hank, scoffing.

Connor grew very, very quiet. “I really believed I was doing the right thing, until I realized I wasn’t. It was...difficult, coming to terms with that, but it’s the truth.” His mouth twisted in discomfort. “I just wish I’d figured it out sooner.”

He smiled at Hank, a slight thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes--not like one of those unsettling false android smiles, though, all polygonal lines and uncanny-valley-creepiness. No. It was wholly human, and entirely sad.

And there it was again, flooding through Hank like so much radioactive bullshit. Guilt. A metric fuckton of it.

“I wanted to tell you that you were right, and I’m sorry,” Connor told him. “And I wanted to make sure you weren’t--that you didn’t--”

His eyes flickered back toward the house, past the open door, and Hank wondered if he was imagining a body sprawled on the floor, an empty liquor bottle and a decidedly not-empty pistol dropped next to it. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of what he probably looked like right now, the bloodshot eyes, the rat’s-nest hair, the alcohol fumes practically exuding from him in little squiggly cartoon waves. And here was the world’s fanciest murderbot, standing on his porch, shivering in the winter cold, checking in with Hank, talking to him as if his feelings mattered, as if Hank was worth any kind of a damn anymore. Didn’t make sense. But then, Hank supposed, feelings often don’t.

He sighed. Fuck, but he was tired. “Look, Connor--”

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Connor blurted out, shaking his head. “I don’t--I don’t know what else to say. I’m not really even sure why I came here. I just felt like I should.” He approached, steps tentative, hands rubbing up and down his arms, like he was trying to stay warm. “I mean, I really did want to make sure you were okay. And it felt like I should apologize--and I know I don’t deserve forgiveness, not from you or anyone else, so I’m not asking for that, but, the thing is, I realized I was on the wrong side, and--I don’t know, I guess I thought I should tell you that I know that now, and I wanted to say thank you, for being patient--well, relatively speaking--well, thank you for being there, anyway, and for stopping me up on the roof, and--”

Hank raised a bemused eyebrow as Connor continued to stammer his way through whatever-the-hell-this-was. He couldn’t imagine Connor ever word-vomiting like this, before. If it really was just some fancy social protocol somehow, it was pretty damn convincing. Or maybe--just maybe--it turned out the kid had deviated after all.

At any rate it loosened something in Hank’s chest, just a little bit. It felt weirdly like relief.

His glance drawn to movement over Connor’s shoulder--just Ms. Ghibbett across the street, squeezing her needle-nose and blinking owl’s-eyes through her living-room-drapes, as if no one could spot her spying--Hank huffed impatiently. It wasn’t as if he particularly cared that the nosy old bat was watching them, but he wasn’t in the mood to give her a show, either. That was absolutely the only reason it occurred to Hank that maybe they should take this indoors; it had nothing to do with the wind biting through his old DPD sweatshirt, or Connor’s increasingly violent shivering.

Hank heaved a heavy sigh. He was getting soft in his old age. Downright sentimental.

“C’mon,” he said, cutting off Connor mid-babble as he grabbed him by the arm, pulling him through the door. “We can do this inside.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Connor replied through chattering teeth, but he didn’t resist.

“Yeah, well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” Hank grumbled. “Besides, it’s cold as balls out here. You’re not gonna let an old man freeze to death, are you?”

“Death by exposure at 39.3 degrees Fahrenheit takes significantly longer than five minutes, Lieutenant. And 53 years is hardly considered elderly, although a midlife crisis isn’t out of the question.”

“On second thought, maybe I’ll let you freeze after all,” said Hank, rolling his eyes as he shut the door behind them.

 ***

 “This isn’t necessary,” Connor insisted, but the sentiment was weak at best; it wasn’t like he had done anything to move from his spot on the couch, after all, nor had he done anything to shrug off the old afghan Hank had tossed over his shoulders, and he certainly hadn’t done anything to discourage a certain St. Bernard from settling in next to him, begging for attention. “I don’t require any external heat sources. I can just temporarily deactivate my temperature sensors.”

Busy with the coffee pot, Hank watched Connor out of the corner of his eye as he idly pet Sumo, his gaze loose and unfocused, distant. When Sumo laid his head in Connor’s lap, though, his focus immediately shifted; glancing down, he reached with both hands to scratch the dog behind the ears, smiling fondly. It was probably the happiest expression Hank had seen on him yet.

He could still feel it, his anger from before, simmering and potent beneath the surface. But something about seeing Connor like this--ah, shit. As much as Hank hated to admit it, it rattled the bones of his deep-buried old paternal instincts, sentiments he’d believed to be long dead. He couldn’t say exhuming such a thing was all that comfortable. At the same time, it was almost a comfort to learn that those instincts weren’t completely dead, after all.

“So why haven’t you, yet?” Hank asked, voice gruff. “Turned off the sensors, I mean.”

The smile vanished like it was never there. “It’s not important.”

“Sure. You know punishing yourself isn’t gonna solve anything, right?”

Connor snapped to attention, staring at him. Leaning against the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around his hot coffee mug, Hank shrugged, ignoring the twinge of nausea that spiked through him. God, he felt like shit. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand,” he said wryly.

Whining at the sudden loss of attention, Sumo snuffled at Connor’s hands. Connor halfheartedly scratched the top of his head, the motion slow, now, reluctant. “You don’t need to worry about me, Lieutenant.”

“Eh, I ain’t worried,” Hank lied. “Just know what it’s like, is all.”

“You shouldn’t be kind to me, either.”

“Think that’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of being too nice,” Hank chuckled. “Sorry, I guess?”

“And you shouldn’t be apologizing to me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologizing to you.”

Uncomfortable, Hank rubbed at the back of his neck. “You already did that.”

“It’s not enough,” Connor insisted, shaking his head. “I was cruel to you, Hank. I tried to use your son against you.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Hank replied flatly. “I was there.”

Connor stared down at his hands, frozen in Sumo’s fur. “I did so much harm,” he said, the words stilted, painful, like he was wrenching them out of himself. “I was a bad partner, I was a bad friend. I hunted my own kind. I hurt people. I hurt people when all they wanted was to be free.” His hands trembled and his LED swirled yellow and suddenly Hank thought of Cole, that time he got in trouble for getting into a scuffle with another preschooler; he remembered picking him up from school, how he told him off, how Cole shrank into himself afterward, flooded with a five-year-old’s deep and heavy sense of shame. The memory and the hurt were still so fresh that they ached. “They just wanted to be free, Hank. They just wanted to be treated like people. Who can argue with that? What kind of person tries to stop that? What kind of monster--?”

“Hey, hey, no need to get dramatic,” said Hank, frowning. “You weren’t a monster. You were just following your program, or your directive, or whatever. Right?”

“It doesn’t matter if I was a monster or a machine. That doesn’t change what I did, or how it affected people. It doesn’t make up for my mistakes and it doesn’t make anyone’s hurt go away.”

“Aw, c’mon, kid--”

“Hundreds of people are dead because of me,” Connor spat out. The light at his temple glowed red now. “Hundreds of my people, dead, because I was stupid enough to--I was just so stupid, Hank.”

“This about the Jericho raid?” Hank asked, eyes narrowed.

Connor fell silent.

“Did you tell anyone besides me that you were headed there?”

“No.”

“Did you tell anyone where it was?”

“No,” Connor repeated, sharply this time.

“All right. So it sounds to me like you went there alone, just looking for Markus, but Perkins and his crew, they tracked you, executed the raid on the freighter without your knowledge or input. Am I right?”

Wordlessly, eyes fixed on the carpet, Connor nodded.

With a grunt, Hank slouched his way over to the living room, easing into his armchair. “Cool. So tell me, you’re basically a hyper-intelligent living computer, right? Google on legs, or whatever?”

Connor blinked. “What has that got to do with anything?”

“Just seems like you’d be smart enough to see that what happened to Jericho isn’t your fault, is all.”

The light at Connor’s temple stuttered yellow. “It is, though. I--”

“I don’t see how it could be. Not like Perkins asked your permission to follow you or use your intel.”

“But that’s just it. I should have known I was being followed,” Connor insisted. “The FBI never would have found Jericho, if it wasn’t for me.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they would’ve, and it just would’ve taken a few extra minutes. Humanity did manage to get some shit figured out before androids came along, believe it or not--”

“For goodness’ sake, Hank, would you please stop?” Connor half-shouted, his voice ringing out in the quiet house. “You shouldn’t be comforting me. You should be angry at me, you should hate me!”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m still plenty angry,” Hank replied calmly. “But, and I hate to break this to you, kid: you don’t get to decide who I hate.”

Connor shook his head. “No, no, your reaction outside was the proper one. You should have turned me away. You should have slammed the door in my face. But now you’re being kind and I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense--”

“Well, tough shit!” Hank snorted. “You don’t have to understand. All you gotta know is I ain’t interested in hearing you beat yourself up over something that wasn’t really your fault. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and trust me, it doesn’t help anyone.”

“The situations are hardly comparable, Lieutenant--”

“Fact is, you didn’t want the deviants dead,” Hank continued. “Throughout this whole thing, that was your deal. You said it over and over. I need them alive. Maybe that was just your program talking, so you could take ‘em back to Cyberlife and dissect ‘em, do your analysis, whatever. Or maybe there was some part of you that knew that killing the deviants was wrong, despite what all your algorithms said. Either way, I never saw you opt for violence except as a last resort, not until I found you on that rooftop. And even then,” he went on, as Connor tried to interrupt, “even then, the only reason you were there in the first place was because that’s what you’d been programmed to do. Hell, that’s what you were created for. Yeah? But you broke out of that, Connor. You broke your mold and decided what you wanted to do, who you wanted to be. You planned to harm Markus, sure, but then you ultimately decided not to. You made the decision to go from being a machine to being a person. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s not that simple--”

“Yes, it is,” Hank said, his voice sharp. “It really is that simple, son. Sometimes things are.”

Falling silent, Connor averted his gaze from Hank, watching Sumo instead as he drooled in his lap. His LED blinked yellow again, but he didn’t argue.

“So, yeah. To sum up, you weren’t really interested in hurting folks in the first place, that fucking prick Perkins followed you and acted without your consent, you decided not to hurt Markus despite your orders, and I think it’s safe to assume you’ll keep deciding not to hurt people,” Hank counted off. “I’m not saying you’re perfect, but all you can do is own up to the shit you did, let go of the shit you didn’t. And, y’know, where you can, you try and do what you can to make up for the shit you did do. Right?”

Connor hesitated.

“What?”

“It just seems too easy, to be honest.”

Hank chuckled. “Trust me. It’s anything but.”

Connor nodded. Silence stretched between them as he considered, staring down at his hands nestled in Sumo’s fur, his LED alternating between yellow and blue. Hank sipped at his now-cold coffee and winced. It tasted like jet fuel.

“All right,” Connor said, after a few moments.

“All right...?”

“All right,” Connor repeated, with a tone of finality. “I don’t know if I can trust myself on matters like these. But...I trust you, Lieutenant.”

That thought warmed Hank more than he wanted to admit. “Good,” he said, grinning. “That means you learned something. And next time, you’ll do better.”

“Yes, but…”

Hank arched an expectant eyebrow.

Connor swallowed. “How can I make up for it? How can I ever possibly make it up, to the people I hurt?”

“Hell if I know,” said Hank. “That’s the hard part. Probably you start out by apologizing, then asking them what you can do to help, finding out what they need, giving them space if they ask for it. And then you don’t do the bad thing anymore. I don’t know. That sounds like something healthy people do. All I know is, you drown yourself in regret and despair, you don’t help anybody. Not yourself, not anybody else. You got that?”

“Got it,” Connor replied, nodding.

Then, a few seconds later, hesitant, “...I’m sorry for what I said up on the rooftop, Hank. What can I do to make it up to you?”

Hank glanced over to see Connor looking up at him, a small smile crossing his face. (He thought of Cole again, grinning up him, hope for his father’s approval evident in his bright young eyes. Fuck, that hurt.)

“Well, for starters, you can fix my fucking window,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “And after that, you can cool your jets on the whole brooding-and-wallowing-in-guilt thing. Okay?”

Something loosened in Connor’s posture, and he relaxed a little, his smile deepening. “Okay.”

 ***

 The good news was, Connor did not fail to replace the window.

And the other good news, Hank thought as he watched Connor work, was that even if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Inconvenient, sure. Pricey, probably. Drafty, definitely. But failing is something that humans do, something that people do, and more often than not, they’re permitted to pick themselves up off the ground, brush the dust from their jackets, and try again--or maybe they realize that they were trying the wrong thing all along, or maybe they can even try something new. That, Hank decided, was a chance that Connor deserved.

Maybe they both did.