Accident Prone - Becoming Human

A Deviant's Heart

Dancing the spare quarter he kept in his jean pocket over his left knuckles, Connor focused on honing his senses and sharpening his reflexes to the max before setting off on his potentially deadly mission. Connor hastily left the safety of the secured house just before midnight dressed in his dark leather jacket in favor of his usual gray blazer, and had the black wool beanie pulled over his head to hide his blue glowing L.E.D. from sight. Leaving a note for Hank to find on the kitchen table when the senior detective awoke the next morning, Connor slipped away under the cover of darkness to locate the Eastern Motel downtown in total secrecy.

Using the cold air and the pouring rain to his advantage, Connor managed to avoid being seen by any passersby as he trudged along the dark sidewalk on his unusual mission completely alone. Reaching his destination Connor pulled his hat down lower over his head and pulled the collar of his jacket up higher to hide his face as much as possible as he crossed over the large, relatively empty parking lot to get to the motel. Jogging up the exterior metal staircase to the second floor terrace Connor knocked on the fourth room's door and waited for an answer.

The door opened slightly, the chain on the other side of the door barring any unwanted intrusion, and saw North's frightened face peering through the doorway back at him. "Connor." She breathed with relief as she shut the door just enough to unfasten the chain on the door to unlock it. "Get in here, quick!"

Moving with absolute discretion Connor slipped into the motel room as North held the door open behind him before she slammed it shut and locked it once more. Connor's soulful brown eyes immediately fell on Markus laying in the middle of the single large bed against the wall of the hotel room and felt his Thirium pump skip a beat in his chest.

A massive blue stain of Thirium soaked through the fabric of a formerly white towel that had been pressed down against the bleeding wound in Markus's chest. Markus himself was breathing slowly in deep, labored breaths and seemed to be unconscious as he laid unnervingly still in the middle of the bed.

"Markus?" Connor rushed over to the bed and gently peeled back the bloodied towel to examine the catastrophic wound beneath. Blue blood seeped from the bullet hole in middle, left portion of Markus's chest. "Shit..."

The wound was sickeningly close to the deviant leader's heart and had caused significant damage to the plastimetal frame of his chest.

"He's lost a lot of Thirium." The deviant detective noted as he replaced the towel and pressed his his hand down against Markus's left cheek as he spoke to him in a firm voice. "Markus, can you hear me?"

The mismatched irises revealed themselves slowly as the wounded deviant leader regained consciousness and looked up with his blurry eyes at his ally leaning over him. "Connor..." A trickle of blue blood ran from the corner of Markus's mouth down along his chin and against the white pillow he was resting against. A weak cough escaped Markus's lips and caused the blood to speckle in a macabre manner over his chin. "...H-How'd you find us?"

"Josh sent Rose Chapman a coded text message and she relayed the message to Hank's phone for me to decipher." Connor carefully tore open the hole in Markus's already ruined shirt over the bullet wound to examine the horrific injury more closely. The bright white plastimetal frame outlined the injury from where Markus's artificial skin had receded from the trauma inflicted and showed the warped framing beneath. As Connor pressed his fingertips down around the wound Markus let out an audible gasp of pain and flinched from the pressure being applied. "I'm sorry about that. Can you tell me what happened?"

Markus swallowed the blue blood collecting in the back of his mouth as Connor used the corner of the towel to wipe away the trail running down his chin.