SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-eight ━ finding the limits

Making note of the location showing up in the corner of the security footage, Mia clicked the final buttons, shutting off the security network and wiping it clean in the process. That's one more thing to add to the list of things that love can make you do, Mia thought to herself, exiting the safety of the control room.

Connor lowered his gaze down from the fire alarm's flashes. If his red LED were to be believed, his processing unit was uncomfortably crowded, on the very edge of overheating on him, yet he would argue then that there was nothing he could do about it. Someone had triggered off the fire alarm and, according to his interface pop up keeping track of the crew member list, he only had two more men to worry about neutralizing beforr they made it off the ship and compromised his mission.

The involvement of the fire alarm forced him to add another process to his compiling list, thus seeing before his eyes a 3D rendition of the ship's map, re-routing him on the fastest way to the nearest emergency boat. There were four of them across the freighter and Connor only hoped he would have just a pinch of luck in getting to the right one in time, especially now that the security system had been shut off, most likely by Mia, he hoped. The thought of her tightened his right hand around the pistol and spurred him on, moving the '2 Threats Remaining' message to the center of his interface view.

The moment he reached the first evacuation boat, he realized luck was indeed on his side. The two remaining crew members of the Euryalus were there, struggling to make sense of the mechanism supposed to be engaged to deploy the boats and drop them onto the waves below. They made eye contact and Connor's scanners overwrote his processing unit's priorities of keeping him from overheating, outlining instead in red the axe held by one of the men and the anger levels detected from everything about his expression to his posture.

The average human reaction time was eight times slower than the reaction time embedded into androids. Even with his processing unit overheating, Connor snapped his arm forward and shot the armed man before he even had the chance to fully lift the axe. He dropped to the floor and Connor moved the barrel to the still standing man, individual whose hands flew up once his back met the wall behind, a physical attempt to show that he had no intention of reaching for the weapon himself.

"Connor!" A much too familiar voice shouted over the whimpered begging of the man and though his arm remained outstretched without an attempt to immediately shoot, Connor was unable to back out of the scanning already commenced. Raul Castro, he identified the man, as he had every single person he shot in the past twenty minutes before storing them away in a file dedicated to the whole operation. Thirty-nine years old, he continued the profiling though he could now see Mia was there besides him, coming from his left into his field of vision. His eyes remained trained on the target, Divorced. Two children he lost custody of. Multiple charges of assault, driving under the influence and destruction of private and public property.

Connor closed the case by squeezing the trigger and much to his dismay, seeing Mia flinch at the gunshot sound marking a quick death for Raul Castro, he remained stuck in the combat protocol, 'Threats Remaining' warning flashing before his eyes while he tried to look down at her. His arm was unwilling to lower the gun and his hand remained petrified, wrapped around the weapon, and just to prove his worries, a prompt covered his field of vision, warning him the processing unit failed to run a self-diagnosis due to excessive overheating.

There he was, paralyzed into standing still while Mia worked her way past the momentary startle to get hold of his arm and look up at him. Her left hand wrapped around his wrist, then gently trailed to his hand, but even with her warm skin caressing him, the most he could get out of his hand was a shiver.