SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

seventeen ━ when in doubt, test

He appreciated her faith in him, he even appreciated the reassurance she offered through her words just then, but Connor could not bring himself to muster an answer, not when he was certain it would have been leagues headed into the depths of negativity.

If he didn't know better, he would say he was nervous.

Nervous, Connor pondered, busying himself with dressing up once again while Mia set up everything they needed to run the test there. He used minimal movement to shrug his shirt on, simply for the sake of not straining his bandage so much that he ended up ruining all of the hard work Mia has put into it. His mind was however engaged in the idea of nervousness, because if he was to assume his own deviancy as a fact already, a counterproductive thing to getting ready for the test, but an option he believed in nonetheless, then he also had to assume that he was indeed experiencing a feeling of nervousness.

Identifying the root of the emotion proved to be much more difficult than expected though — was he worried about being confirmed as corrupted by the virus or was he worried that he was in fact not affected by it, meaning that he merely imagined all those symptoms of too well imitated human emotion? Was he instead nervous about watching Mia's reaction should the test come out positive? Or perhaps he was instead anxious about the possibility that her worst fears will turn out to be correct and after his reset, nothing will be the same anymore.

The idea of losing all the data he had gathered on Mia returned that uncomfortable sensation surrounding his Thirium pump him, however as soon as it made itself felt, he refused to allow it to grow any further. What was the alternative, after all? Remaining a possible deviant and endangering Mia? Out of the question, he decided.

The actual set up was not as complicated as it was for Mia to silently come to terms with the fact that, should the test come out as positive, it was her duty to reset him. No more justifications, no more delays. She had to put aside her heart for this one and only trust her mind.

"Connor," Mia looked up from the broken screen of her old laptop, holding it up on her left forearm. A bunch of twisted cables linked the laptop now to the back of Connor's head. "Please start recording this session under our official testing folders." The words spoken directly off of a protocol felt bitter on her tongue, but it did not stop her from saying them, nor swallowing in their wake. Her hands were sweaty while she readied herself to activate the terminal for the raw data collection. You wanted this Mia, she accused herself, well aware this was not even close to what she wished for. You wanted to go back to the lab work.

"Test 17.8.34, now recording," Connor answered mechanically, looking at Mia through the dusty and dirty mirror he had to face given the shortness of the cables they were using.

"State your model and full serial number, please."

"Model RK800, serial number 313 248 317 - 47."

"The test we are about to conduct will require you to methodically engage parts of your systems in answering a series of questions," Mia begun explaining. "It may seem similar to the Turing Test, however the goal here is to spot any inappropriate outputs in your raw data in the terminal. Unreadable or incoherent results would result in the test coming out as positive. Remember, this is not a test on processing capability, I am just looking to get a good read on everything your systems output, alright?" She watched Connor's nod and finally pressed enter to begin the data collection. "What is your given name?"