Connor knocked on the front door, shuffling the jacket he had folded over his arm. He had been forced to take it off. Androids were being shot left and right. He looked around, hoping no one saw him here. The door opened. Mrs. Miller had obviously not been expecting him. She looked defensive.
"Please, can I see Chris?"
"Connor?" Chris happened in the living room just then. He reached around his wife and grabbed Connor's arm, pulling him into the house. "What are you doing here? There are soldiers everywhere."
"I'm sorry, I have nowhere else to go. Please." He looked between the couple, wondering where Damian was. He pulled his jacket closer to him.
"You're always welcome here, Connor."
Chris motioned for him to sit, gaining him a warning glare from his wife. It was illegal to harbor androids right now. Connor was risking their safety doing this. He hated himself for it, but it was just one of the many things he had discovered he hated himself for in the past few hours. Connor sat heavily, dropping his head into his hands. He didn't care much if Chris saw him acting strange right now.
"Are you okay?"
Connor shook his head. "Some are good and others aren't. What makes some of them kill their owners and others stand in the road and protest peacefully while their friends die around them?"
And where did he fall on that scale? Was he good for obeying orders or bad for being violent? Was he a murderer for killing androids? What did it mean to be alive?
"Criminologists have been trying to figure that one out for a lot longer than androids have existed, buddy. Don't expect to figure it out in a month, alright?"
Connor looked up. He searched Miller's face, trying to understand something that logically wasn't there. Miller just looked sad and concerned. Concerned for Connor. That was a strange thought.
"Do you think they're alive?"
Miller's face darkened immediately. "Yes. I think they're alive. And I think they mean to be free."
Connor hadn't thought about what he was asking. Miller was still on leave from the day at Capitol Park when he had come face to face with Markus himself. He was probably still traumatized from that. He had almost been shot from what the report had said.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you distress."
"You know my partner shot at them without a second thought that night?" Miller continued despite himself. "I bet I would have done the same."
Chris' wife was standing in the doorway leading to the hall, but crying from the other room pulled her out of sight.
"I could've died that night. I probably would have if I had shot at them, too. I just couldn't stop thinking about how happy you looked when you held Damian... You looked human. How could I just shoot into a crowd of androids knowing that they might have been just like you?"
Connor felt his stress raise. There was no consistency in the data he was getting now. CyberLife had only ever told him he wasn't truly alive. Why were people trying to convince him he was alive now? He wrapped his arms around himself for no reason.
"That's what Hank was saying, too. Before..." He let himself trail off. He didn't want to think about Hank. How many times had he had to duck into an alley and just breathe from thinking about Hank? He tried to block out the memories, scrubbing his eyes as if somehow that would get rid of the memories.
"I heard he was hospitalized." Miller mentioned. "They said it was just a bad concussion and bruising."
"No." Connor didn't understand why his voice got so quiet when he was emotional. It seemed like it should be the opposite. It wasn't on purpose, but he didn't try and correct it either. He didn't care enough. "He has retrograde amnesia. He doesn't even know who I am." Connor gave a humorless laugh. "Yesterday he was telling me I was alive, today he treated me like trash."
