SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-one ━ in too deep

She made the mistake to open her eyes and look to her side, momentarily forgetting she wasn't actually talking with Connor, that he wasn't there anymore.

Biting her lip, Mia returned her gaze ahead, at the concrete wall before the parked car, "You're not coming back, are you?"

Silence was her answer.

"I've been thinking a lot lately," she paced herself with heavy breaths. "About what I should do. If I should keep my promise to you even if chances are I will never see you again and if I do, you'll probably not recognize me. I won't lie to you, it crossed my mind that I should just end it all. No more fear or loneliness. Sounds tempting, in theory."

"But then I thought to myself," Mia lowered her gaze down to her hands. "Wouldn't that mean I let him win?" After carefully watching her hands closed into fists, she shook her head, "He can't get away with it. With what he's done to you and to me. So I've decided. Since I don't have the files you gathered as proof against him, I'll find Rory myself, decrypt all I can from his memory and publish it, send it to every media outlet if that's what it takes to hurt him even just a little."

"I'll do it for us," she mumbled her addition, shamefully knowing this was the drive of revenge that she was allowing to lift her up, to keep her standing when all else was gone. Unhealthy as she knew it was to seek her comfort into vengeance, Mia was certain it was better than to try to find the cure to it at the end of a barrel.

"First," she finally inhaled sharply. "I got to actually find that deviant. This lead may have told me were to start looking, but it will be far from easy. For starters, I can't get the gun in there with me tonight if I want to be discreet, and yes, I would have needed it. That place is filled with androids, it's how it manages to stay open off of the money of university students alone. Assuming Rory went there after turning deviant himself, there will be a whole bunch of deviants who would not like me to find any hints of the means he means to be using to travel out of the country. Without a gun, I..."

"What do you need?" Her mind had conjured up his voice when she found herself hesitating to follow through her thought process. His voice, Mia thought to herself, not knowing if she should be scared or grateful that she remembered it so vividly thay her usually critical thoughts fished it out of her memory for her to hear. "Whatever you need, you can just take it. I am not here. I don't need those things anymore."

His reminder was cold, even though the voice she remembered and was used by her mind was soft spoken, wrapped in a warmth she missed with every fiber of her body. It was because of the lashing feeling of the words that she had managed to jerk out of her seat and the car altogether, in a single breath that carried her to walk around back, to the trunk.

Her right hand reached out, but she stopped herself before she could touch the actual handle.

"A strong enough electromagnetic impulse should be able to overstimulate an android's system enough to force them into a system reboot," she reasoned out loud, her broken way of asking for permission. "It would give me enough time to escape should I come across any deviants. Your voice synthesiser..."

"Mia." She knew she was in trouble when she could picture him wanting to reach for her hand and guide it to open the trunk. By the help of a cruel illusion, her hand grasped the handle. "Take what you need."

With a single click, the car's trunk popped open and her first instinct was to close her eyes. There were no more reassuring words to be heard, just the silence filled with the drumming of her heart and the return of her ear ringing, so dreadfully close to all the bad memories she didn't want to see flash before her eyes anymore.

First she leant her head back, then she pried her eyes open to the friendlier sight of a dark ceiling. A deep breath later, she lowered her gaze down and immediately felt her knees wanting to betray her.

She hadn't been able to bring herself to abandon Connor's old body on some random field to be vandalized by and disrespectful passerby, nor could she part with it by burying it into some unmarked grave in order to be forgotten. Placing it in the car's trunk was her only real choice at the time, and she's been sleeping with ghosts ever since.

"I'm sorry," Mia hurriedly mumbled before reaching out her trembling hand and letting her fingertips brush over the cold synthetic skin, feel out the ridges of the biocomponent before pressing on it and taking it out. The crack of plastic threatened to break her composure, so with his voice synthesiser in hand, she straightened up and slammed the trunk shut over it all. Over the memories, over her guilt, over missing him so deeply that she would have drove back that very moment to Detroit just to walk into CyberLife and have her last sight before being shot on the spot be his clueless, beautiful eyes.

She held the trunk down to catch her breath though, because what she wanted most was far from what she had to do. She's come so far, he would be disappointed if he saw her give up now.

• • •

AUTHOR'S NOTE |
Starting off with Mia's pov, because man, do I love how she's being so darn hard on herself, saying she can't do anything right on her own.. all the while she made it into a top high school on her own, she freaking shot that deviant from the farm who tried to kill her all on her own, and just now, look at her go solving a little puzzle and getting a lead on Rory by herself. My gosh, I am so proud of her and she doesn't even know it 😭😭😭

This chapter is very dark and deep, I know, diving into some character psychology is heavy stuff that was needed at this point, but no worries, this is not the tone for this whole act, I can assure you on that. In fact, next chapter is a pov change 👀 and man, I am looking forward to share what I've got in store there.

Oh, and now that we are through, past that Elijah plot twist reveal, I can finally share the RK900 plotline idea I had in mind: Elijah repurposes the failed Mia AI the same way he had the Amanda one and installs Mia in RK900's mind, without CyberLife consent, to make sure he turns deviant. So the plotline would involve a bit of a heavier Blade Runner reference with her not being real, but his feelings definitely not finding the difference. And tbh, this plotline continuation would work for both endings of this current book, I believe. Don't know if I will ever write it though, but it was a cool idea I had and thought I would share. Just imagine RK900 finding out what Elijah did to Mia and finishing the job on Connor's behalf >>>>>>>>>