SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

five ━ not alive, not dead

Bright lights switched on above her from a pillar she hadn't even noticed.

"Jesus," sounded the same voice that spoke with her on the phone, from somewhere further inside. A light turned on and she noticed a security cabin there. With a bit of squinting and a whole lot of shielding her eyes from the bright light above, Mia made out the silhouette of the old man as he made it out of that cabin. "Miss... Wilkins?"

"Yes," Mia almost didn't let him finish wording out her name. "Please, can you open the gate?"

"Heard the tugging on the gate and thought them raccoons were back," the old man went back inside his little cabin to press on the unlocking button. Mia felt the gate give in beneath her grip and she finally managed to open it, rushing inside the yard. "And we called this expert on keeping raccoons away. Cost us a damn fortune...," he kept on talking, walking back outside at a snail's pace.

"Where is he?" Mia stopped the man before he could take the last step out of his cabin. She didn't want to imagine how she looked in that moment. Given the night she had, that run couldn't have possibly made her look better either.

She looked at him with expecting eyes, but it took him a moment to understand what she was asking him about really. "You mean your android?" His fair eyebrows furrowed downwards.

"Yes, where is he?" Her patience was gone and Mia was on the verge of doing things with her hands she truly shouldn't consider — it wasn't proper to grab an old man for just not being as fast as one wants him to be. Instead of giving in to her desperation, she crossed her arms over her chest and dug her nails as far into her own upper arms as she could endure the pain.

"Right over there," the old man pointed in a vague direction leading further in the junkyard. "We have a labeled pile for the new arrivals."

"Thank you," Mia was promptly out of his way and looking at the direction he had pointed into. It had just occured to her — the damage to Connor must have been substantial if he had to shut down; and he had to have shut down, otherwise he wouldn't have winded up there.

"Wait," he held her back with a call. "You still gotta pay before you take him."

All out of patience, once she had to turn back around towards the man, she marched herself into his little cabin, even if she had to push past him. She identified the little palm scanner on his desk for processing transaction and without a second thought pressed her right hand down on it, keeping her eyes fixed on the old man until the tablet margin lit up green. Without any more stalling, Mia ran out of the cabin and towards the direction she was pointed in before.

The labels for the piles helped, but it felt a century had passed before she found one plaque with 'New Arrivals' written on it.

Her eyes raised from the letters only momentarily, but as soon as she did, she could no longer feel her heart in her chest. It was a small death to her, striking out of the blue, falling onto her head like a hammer.

Years of working together translated into instant recognition and to see Connor torn into, lifeless and still, covered in blue and staring ahead with eyes emptied of everything that made him himself, was more painful than ripping her own eyes out, there and then. She wished she could do it and not have the image of him gone burned into her mind; she feared it was too late to spare herself the ache in her chest, too late to spare herself the scar on her thoughts.