@gaby

[vns]

[ this was supposed to be one of Gaby's days off. in fact, she's not in the safehouse when the message comes in. ]

Turns out that we're missing two new faces around the safehouse.

I'd play a guessing game as to why I wasn't told, but I don't care. These two faces apparently murdered two people that night.

I don't know who they are, but I do know that they're locked up. Any guesses as to what's going to happen to them?

Genuine question. Because I don't know.

Oh, and because some of you think you can do whatever the hell you want around here: don't think the way out for them is a jail break. Don't even fucking try it. And no, Morningstar isn't in the business of breaking people out of jail, because that would be stupid.

[ she's a little angry. no. a lot. but mostly she doesn't know how to handle this one. ]

Look. You know something? Tell me. You won't be "in trouble."

Comments

[cyberlife]

(on any other day, his guilt would be assuaged by markus' words or at least put on hold until he got somewhere private where he could lament over his choices alone — there's too much of it now, he can't shake the fact that he brought so much pain and suffering down on the heads of he innocent. it was a grave mistake and one he shouldn't have been forced to make.

but that's what bothers him the most. kamski confirmed his deviancy and his own software instabilities should've been enough pressure, he should've been able to break free of it on his own without markus' help, having known all along that's the direction he was heading in. it was an inevitability and he still turned his back on the wide open door he was walking towards. amanda in his ear offering icy encouragement that frightened him into doing what he was told to do, her grip on the back of his neck tight. well after he still bent a knee to her, the plan all along. would he now, if she were here?

is she, in a way? programmed into him? was the emergency exit even viable, or did it just force her into dormancy?)

I understand, Markus, but I... didn't want this to be about me. (his voice is thick with emotion he can't swallow, taking a step back until he feels his heel bump the couch.) It isn't. I may have made a choice to change, but I was never in control of myself. This is about our people.

(you're one of those people, his mind supplies, but connor's loose fists cinch tighter.

the amount of information markus has received is surely weighing on him. he can tell he's tired of the combat, sick with remorse at the lives they've lost getting to the end of their battle, worried about the war ahead. they still have so much to do with so little time to do it in, this being just the beginning of a much larger campaign that'll span the entire north american continent and, eventually, the world. installing android leaders beside humans, facing the hate they're certain to garner, in the grand scheme of things this may have seemed like a grand leap forward but in actuality was a small step in the right direction.

many more will die, many more will be subject to the same abuses they were, many more will be used against them the way he was used against markus.)

You know what to do moving forward now, you have information that can save the people of Jericho and win the hearts of the humans in your timeline. I thought the butterfly effect from something like this would affect our world negatively, which is another reason why I was so hesitant to tell you — but now I realize this could be a massive gain.

... No one has to die. That's the bottom line. If you return to 2038 and retain your memories, get rid of me before I find Jericho or move everyone before it's too late.

[saviorexe]

[Connor steps away from him as if he’s been pushed, and Markus thinks he might have departed further if not for the couch acting as a barrier behind him. His boyfriend might be able to perceive what ails Markus in tangible measurements — tired, stressed, worry lines created at his brow upon thinking of a war still unfought — but the same applies in the reverse. Markus, in all of his deep perceptions of people, would have to be blind to not read the person closest to him. And in Connor he perceives anxiety and guilt; he can feel the weight of emotion cocooning each word that slips past his lips, harried and hurried, yet it still does very little to quell the surge of disbelief that rises in his stomach when the other android makes his point.

—get rid of me before I find Jericho—]

Get rid of you? [He echoes, eyes searching Connor’s face, as if trying to understand why he would think such a thing remotely viable.] If I retain my memories of this place, why on earth do you think I’d be able to do that?

[It’d be like carving his own heart out from his chest.

Markus steps forward to close a portion of the space between them, unknowingly mirroring his actions of the night in which he had met Connor for the first time, in a future that has yet to come to pass.]

And if I move us, who’s to say you wouldn’t still find me? [Connor is ferociously clever, almost intimidatingly smart. He doesn’t give himself enough credit, Markus believes, by thinking it’d be so simple. It wouldn’t. There are too many variables, too many unknowns, branching paths that flow outwards towards realities he couldn’t comprehend — the butterfly effect’s full influence, making this advice just as uncertain as doing nothing differently.]

Nor would I just leave you in CyberLife’s hands, if you don’t think you could wake up on your own. [Is that what the meant? Forever caught in the thrall of the corporation that treated him like a leashed hound? I may have made a choice to change, but I was never in control of myself.] You can’t ask this of me.