Independent Puppets

Episode 13: Up in Flames [Part 1]

"Her time of execution is in your hands." Said Conrad, both of his own hands still remaining firm in the positions they were in: the left one holding the end of his gun against the side of Jenna's head, with the right forearm holding her in place around the chest area. "You can either surrender now and I can convince Elijah and his men to delay it, or you can carry on with this foolishness and she'll die right now." There was so much tension in the air at this present moment that if you attempted it, you'd be perfectly capable of slicing through it with a knife.

"Are you okay, Jenna?" Connor called back across the distance of 15 feet between them.

"Oh yeah, yeah, fair to middling, mate." She nodded her head and gave this reply shakily, trying to smile - and succeeding by 50% - despite the intense fear playing out in her mind which was making her legs tremble.

"I'll get us both out of this, I promise. Just try to stay calm." The one who was telekinetic additionally told her, before then addressing the RK900, "If I surrender, how do I know you won't kill her right now anyway? How can I be sure of your word?"

"The answer to that is simple: my word is all you've got to go on right now, so there are no alternatives for you to concern yourself with or to rely on, and also, I'll do whatever is necessary to accomplish my task of neutralising you. It's up to you whether or not that involves this human girl's blood staining the walls in the next few seconds; I've noticed you've formed a friendship with her, and as a result of that I very much doubt you'd want to be responsible for causing an unnecessary mess."

"Basically, the second coming of Jesus here is doing this for the same reason behind why he and Kamski took me from the club building: using me as some kind of bargaining chip so that you'll do whatever they want." The female herself told him, the snarkiness in her tone being anything but unclear. During these moments just now when the 2 males were conversing, she was still surprised at how identical both of their voices were to the other, feeling as if you'd be completely unable to tell them apart if your eyes were closed. 

"Enough of this - it's time for the conversation to end and for your decision to begin, Connor!" The one in the predominantly white jacket suddenly yelled to his counterpart whose jacket was grey; evidently, he was gradually growing tired of the lack of co operation on the latter's part. "I've already told you the 2 options you have, and now what you also have is 10 seconds to make your choice."

Jenna displayed a look of panic in her contracted irises, ever-so-slightly-open lower jaw and raised eyebrows, showing her face in the direction which allowed the RK800 to get a full, clear view of this expression. 4 full seconds ticked by in which Connor began to weigh up every single one out of all the numerous possible outcomes as well as those already mentioned by Conrad, whether he did as he was told or he continued his pursuit of taking down CyberLife like he intended in the plan, but these seconds were interrupted as a proximity scan showed him that there was another android nearby, approaching from behind the taller one out of the pair of males, and it was only right at the last moment when the latter also picked up on its presence. 

3 bullets were fired through the air, making Jenna yelp in startlement as they did so because of the loud sounds they emanated - in the last couple of minutes, she'd heard a few other gunshots because of the chaos ensuing thanks to Connor, but these 3 were closer to her, which made the noise even more booming - with one of them hitting the back of Conrad's left shoulder, the second one coming into contact with the same side of his right upper leg and the last one ended up right in the middle of his back. The force of their impacts caused his grip around the human's torso to fractionally loosen, while at the same time both of them turned around to see who'd caused this and the shorter of the RK-models leaned a little bit to the side to get a look, too.