Deviant Behavior (Connor x Reader)

Unsung Hero

November 9th, 2038
PM 12:45:54

With each passing second, your guilt established itself as an uncontrolled variable in a situation you needed to regain control of.

Thump-thump-

Your heart churned like cranks to a guillotine; gears grinding while levers raised an angled, unholy blade to drop at the command of the judge, jury, and executioner:

Special Agent Richard Perkins.

Thump-thump, thump-thump-

The human lie detector who'd raised the lines from a scribbled polygraph, strung them along a fretboard, and wrote a score that resonated with criminal exposure.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-

His verbal vice clamped around your neck; words for fingers pressing against your veins as chords, a bow of tension drawing along your muscle fibers.

"Who could possibly have a stronger motive than you?"

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-

"Elijah Kamski's ex-wife, the woman who wrote Revised Article 9."

The world's saddest song on the smallest violins; conducted by your defining work broadcasted on the largestscreens.  The performance attracted the attention of the FBI, one of the few governing powers that could get to you.

You thought you'd prepared for something like this, because if things could go wrong, you knew they would.  Knew constants weren't ever constant, and variables didn't vary.  Had every outlier pinpointed in a reality of standard deviations.

Your nerves pirouetted to the hiss of pressurized heat dropping to absolute zero, each atom slipping through trap doors on cue with a demonic crescendo.

A tune he'd titled: "Presentation of Withheld Evidence on Appeal."

"It's a cyclic thing, being the forefront of change that people aren't ready for..." Perkins put himself in front of Hank and Connor, cutting you off from the rest of your backup, "Your psychological profile matches that of one of your idols.  A man who'd thought himself a danger to society because of his radical ideas.  Radical...expressions, if you will."

Radical Expressions.  The name of your website.

He had it all, figured out...and that polygraph's needle bounced until it looked more like a magnitude 9 on the Richter.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-

You pushed a breath through your nose.  Swiped your pants with your balmy hands.  Took a step back as he took one forward, because for every action there was an equal reaction.  You just weren't used to being the one reacting.

"Or how an outsider could threaten conceptual schemes, and how following that path can lead one away from safety.  He thought that, too." He grinned.

The back of your leg hit the end of the console, and you stopped.

"Nietzsche wasn't recognized or immortalized until after, he died.  You, however, have managed to predict CyberLife's every counter...every ruse.  You even forced its founder out of the ivory tower.  But what did you find that had them...him, so scared?"

He narrowed his eyes, and took a frustrated breath.

"How much more are you willing to sacrifice to keep it a secret?"  He cocked his chin, and took on a more understanding voice as he frowned at the bandage stretching across your cheek, "Are you still faithful in Jericho's 'amicable terms?'"