Accident Prone - Becoming Human

Burning Ambitions

Bitter, angry and confused Connor had remained quiet and indifferent throughout the afternoon and the evening as he returned to the house to reside in his bedroom for the rest of the night. A strange sense of loss and misplacement had fallen over the deviant for the first time since the night of the Revolution, and had resulted in a very humanoid bout of depression. Finding a place amongst the people of Jericho was out of the question due to his history as the infamous 'Deviant Hunter', and having betrayed CyberLife to save innocent deviant lives had left Connor without a place to go as he had been crudely mislabeled as a traitor one way or the other.

At least, that's how it seemed until Connor found Hank standing along in the street in the aftermath of the Revolution. Hank proven to be a presence that felt as though he had been waiting for the newly discovered deviant to find him - to reunite with him, and much to Connor's surprise take him back home to be safe. Now that feeling of security and a sense of belonging had suddenly vanished in the wake of Connor's most recent programming anomaly. A sense of dread and a sense of impending doom was now weighing over Connor's mind and smothered his heart as he began to fear his own mortality.

Too many emotions were developing the deviant's heart while too many questions and too many thoughts were racing through the deviant's head.

What if the glitch returned and it couldn't be repaired?

What if his biocomponents begin to fail and no replacement parts are available?

What if another software update destroyed his processors leaving him an empty husk of the deviant he had once been?

What if Connor reverted to being a cold, heartless machine?

What if after Connor's death there was no one to remember him, nothing about him to be remembered?

He'd always be the infamous 'Deviant Hunter' who betrayed CyberLife on the night of the Revolution. His name would be marred with infamy and righteous mistrust long after his death, and Connor knew that the hatred he had incurred was as solid as it was painful.

A pitiful outcast who had taken in as family by a lonely detective...

Laying on his side with his back to the closed bedroom door, Connor closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into rest mode as he mentally began cycling through all of his past misgivings, mistakes and failures. As each dark and tragic memory flowed through his mind with vivid detail, his own self worth continued to plummet as tears fell from his closed eyes running down his face in heavy streams.

The dreams that followed were nightmares that no one could seem to wake him from.

As was often his personal dreamscape, Connor found himself in the midst of the remodeled Zen Garden within the heart of his Mind Palace. Wandering about aimlessly the confused and emotionally distraught deviant soon found himself standing in the center of the garden beside the trestle of yellow roses growing toward the endless sky. As per usual, Lucas waited for Connor to join him at the small chessboard a few yards away down the long, marble bridge to play a game of chess beneath the yellow blossoms growing all around them.

Normally Connor was happy to have dreams where he could communicate with his late brother, but on that night he didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to be alone.

In his mind he deserved to be alone.

Remaining by the trestle Connor refused to join his little brother for a game of chess. Sitting down on the alabaster white surface of the marble pillar beneath his feet, Connor stared down at his reflection in the surface of the pond and for a moment he didn't recognize his own face. There was something different about his facade, something... missing.