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(edited)
____ C O N N O R
I drove Markus back to the Androids new hideout. As we were entering the building, I closed my eyes and sighed, however, when I opened them, I was no longer at the hideout. It was dark, the garden covered by a thick layer of snow. It blanketed the space around me, making it almost impossible to see through. I hugged my arms for warmth, surprisingly cold.
Android's don't feel the cold. . . What's happening to me?
'Amanda?' I called out, squinting through the snow. She was standing in the middle of the now frozen lake, her hands folded in front of her, business-like. For some reason, my feet carried me towards her, the ice crunching beneath my heel, causing a spiderweb-like pattern to spread out from my heel. I cautiously approached her, careful not to fall through the ice.
'The country is on the verge of a civil war,' she said, not wasting her time with formalities. 'Machines are rising up against their masters. Humans have no choice but to destroy them. This is your fault, Connor. You could have prevented this but instead, you chose to protect a criminal, a murderer.'
I gritted my teeth. 'Blake is not a criminal, nor a murderer. It was self-defence. She would have been killed otherwise.'
'You were designed to hunt deviants,' Amanda reminded. 'You're supposed to collect them so that they could be studied, in order to find a solution as to why deviancy occurs and how it can be stopped. Protecting that girl wasn't included in your mission. She was to be handed over to CyberLife where she would be dealt with properly.'
I could see what Amanda was doing. She was feeling out the situation, as Hank would call it. She was trying to draw out a reaction, information, anything that she could feed off. I refused to give her that satisfaction.
'I thought Kamski knew something. . . but I was wrong,' I said, changing the subject to divert Amanda's attention away from Blake. 'He wasn't willing to comply, and therefore hindered my investigation.'
Amanda narrowed her eyes at me. 'Maybe he did but you chose not to ask.'
'I chose not to play his twisted little game!' I unintentionally raised my voice, unable to control my emotions. 'There was no reason to kill that Android—' I caught myself, clearing my throat. 'But, by choosing not to kill her, I realised that I'm not just some slave that can be ordered around. I'm more than that!'
For a second, I snapped out of my trance. I saw that Markus was walking with Josh, talking quietly between themselves. Before I could approach the pair, Amanda pulled me back in. It was snowing harder now, wind tossing it to the air in a furious flurry of white. I was shivering now, my teeth starting to chatter.
