SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

three ━ new priorities

• • •

"Good morning, Connor."

The moment the voice command brought him out of the self-induced standby mode, Connor was greeted by Mia's smile. She was stood right in front of him, her hand hovering somewhere near his head. Quickly assessing the situation, action which prompted the blue light of his LED to flicker, Connor realized that she was at the end of a process of fixing his hair. She always did say she admired the cleaness protocols of androids, Connor reminded himself.

"Good morning, Mia," he responded, sound which apparently prompted her to move her hand away and take a step back. He wasn't sure why he noted her reaction with an undertone of disappointment.

"It's a bit early to be going to the station. I was just hoping we could take some time to debrief your first day there before you have to go again," Mia gestured for him to follow out of the designated storage room and towards their new lab environment, even if it was yet to be fully set up. Several boxes hid away items that he knew would otherwise serve as their more natural environment. If Mia were to struggle to unpack and install all the appliances today, Connor assessed it would towards the better interest of the project for him to offer to help her.

"Of course," he followed her nonetheless to the small area of their temporary lab. "Though I doubt there is much to review in terms of data."

"That's what I was curious about," Mia went for a detour to retrieve her cup of coffee from the kitchen counter, before joining Connor in their lab area of their living room, where he had taken his usual seat.

He was glad CyberLife sent them chairs identical to the set they had gotten used to at the tower for so long. Routine is reliant on similarity and productivity suffers almost every time routine is broken.

"I have the full report," she sat in her own chair, across from him and pointed towards the screen of her computer, now besides them. "But it's way shorter than everything you've ever managed to give me before. What happened?"

Waiting for an answer now, eyes glued on Connor, Mia brought her still filled cup of coffee up to her lips. She smiled when she saw that he was still taking in their new setup, scanning until his eyes paused on the coin on the desk, near her keyboard. It was a coin he easilt recognized.

"I asked them to take everything from our lab at the tower," Mia explained as Connor picked up the coin.

Androids had no possessions or attachments to the material, but that coin was his by any means of definition. Mia herself made sure he would call it as such, given the fact that it also classified as a gift — a one year anniversary of the RK800 project — and as a tool to keep his systems active, with his computation power constantly stimulated.

Connor flicked the coin in the air, catching it between two of his fingers and letting it flip over his knuckles with nothing but gravity tugging on it. From there on, he allowed the numbers for the coin trajectory to run in the background while he answered with a sigh, looking at the screen, then finally back at Mia, "The report is short because there was nothing to report on. I profiled everyone in the police station who came in yesterday, but Officer Owens made sure I would not be able to do anything else."

"You're getting good at these coin tricks," Mia nodded towards his hands and the intricate dance of the coin that he dictated with the shortest, most efficient nudges. Distracted as she was by his reflexes and the perfection required of him to exhibit such dexterity, his words still concerned her, so she picked up her gaze and looked him in the eyes, "What do you mean he made sure?"

"He ordered me to remain seated in the reception hallway," Connor offered her the blunt truth.

"No, that can't be," Mia shook her head, her smile holding disbelief. "He can't do that."