SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

seventeen ━ when in doubt, test

"That's it," Mia sighed out, allowing herself a moment to close her eyes and tame her rapid heartbeat.

"What is?" Connor turned around, as far as he could without yanking the laptop from her hands by the connecting wires in doing so. "Is the test over? Wasn't it too short?"

"I got everything I needed out of it." Mia walked to him and presented him with the laptop's screen, "Your data is readable and cohesive, Connor. Nothing changed in your software." With his hands now holding the laptop up, she was able to reach around back and unploug his wires from his connection port on the back of his neck. "You are not a deviant. Every system you have is responding according to your programming."

He looked between Mia and her laptop, suddenly aware that this was perhaps worse to him than if it turned out he was a deviant. At least through deviancy, he could have explained everything away under a software malfunction. What was he supposed to make of his urges now? Of his curiosities and newfound desires? How could he even begin to explain things like the way he was struggling to keep his synthetic skin active underneath Mia's warm touch, because he had decided he enjoyed her warmth as close to him as possible.

"Your systems are not experiencing any malfunction," she spoke as if she had heard the wave of conflict roaring inside his processing unit through the cables she unpluged from him. "Everything is operating and processing as it has always been, and now you have data confirming it for you."

"But...," Connor mumbled, able to stir his voice synthesiser into cooperating with him now that Mia stepped out of his personal space to wrap the wires into a neat circular shape. "The emotions I registered..."

"The high stress may have taken away more from your self-awareness than we have given it credit for initially," Mia found the explanation now that she saw the returned data from the test too. "Machines believe what they are told. You've been processing data through moments of high stress, therefore some of the data read may have been interpreted wrong. It could be a case of hypochondria translated to androids. Though I have never seen a system overload manifesting this way before, it's not entirely unbelievable that you'd react differently to other androids, especially since you've got so much new technology implemented on you."

Turning towards her back to store the cables away, Mia found it much easier with the relief of the test backing her up to forget about the panic, about how strangely humane Connor had acted and how, for just a moment, she too was scared he might have gotten the virus. With all that put behind them, she could not only talk, but finally lean into her play pretend that, just for now, things were looking to return back to normal, "For example, I believe the conflict between your mission's requirements and the law has caused you an additional, and unexpected stress, thus creating this feeling you've described as 'unpleasant'. If we were to solve that, I believe your supposed software instability would be gone too."

"Can we solve that?"

"In theory, yes. I should be able to conditionate the no gun law into a bracket that can be ignored so long as the mission you're allocated to requires the usage of a gun for successful complition."

"Isn't that illegal?" Connor balanced the laptop down on the edge of the sink and stared to the side, at the gun left in its holster, a weapon he had intentionally not put back on himself when he dressed himself up again. The test's results have not managed to make him forget the blood and he doubted anything other than a full factory reset ever will.

"Not really. Elijah and I have already noted into the project plan that once we get you approved for working into police stations, he should also find a way to exclude you from the law, in order for all RK800's to be able to do their job properly and without interruptions." Mia's shoulders dropped, "The problem for us right now is that your law related functions are stored in the part of your code I do not have access to. It's in the base code Elijah created for you and I cannot edit that without his access key and specific approval, so the update will have to wait until we get to his house."