SEQUENTIAL ━ Connor // RK800 ✔️

twenty-eight ━ finding the limits

"We're safe now," she muttered and if his combat protocol could just disengage already, Connor would have perhaps come close again to crying. That was simply how moving it was to him to know that she knew exactly what he needed to hear in that moment. "I'm safe," Mia continued.

Her soft-spoken words were challenging his protocol through direct contradiction, yet it so seemed to him that his circuitry would sooner completely melt down than let go of this state he had wanted to seek relief into before. Connor was unafraid to admit he was wrong to want his sensitivity turned down low and his processing unit prioritizing efficiency over everything else, and not entirely simply because his overheating was uncomfortable, but rather because he scared Mia just then and he couldn't as much as even attempt to reassure her or apologize.

His vision became spotty, and though he could no longer tell, Mia was reading the signs of overheating, something she didn't think an RK800 would ever be brought to experience, given the top market technology implemented on him. But there he was, rapid blinking, head flinching to the side, synthetic skin glitching out in random spots across his face and, she imagined, across his body too.

There was no hesitation within Mia when it came to quickly ripping the winter hat off his head and throwing it away. It was cold in the hallway. That cold had been their sole worry when packing for this trip. Never could she have predicted she'd need to unzip Connor's jacket and look around for the nearest window to open to let more cold in to make sure his condition stabilizes a little from the very edge he threaded now to a shutdown sequence.

The sight of his LED convinced her to esste no time in backing him up to the wall and using all her strength to get him into sitting down and thus use one less background activity to clog up his processing unit.

Only once his flinching stopped did she return to verbal reassurance. "I'm alright," Mia knelt next to him and picked up his left hand, fixing two of his fingers to her left wrist, right over her pulse.

It was the desire to actually take in this evidence that Mia provided which finally disabled Connor's combat protocol. The transition, should he dare attempt comparison as a way of describing it, was like ears kept underwater suddenly emerged to the surface; he was the ears and the air were the emotions the combat protocol kept muted in the background.

"I'm sorry," Connor's voice trembled.

"You did what had to be done," she raised her left hand to brush through his hair. His processes were slowly returning to normal and Connor hardly found it difficult to realize that Mia assumed he was sorry for what he had done. "They were horrible people. And you knew they were a threat. You were programmed to be capable of carrying out eventual combat missions," she said, and he couldn't help but sigh out a breath he didn't really need. She's wording out every reason she thought about, Connor noted to himself, discovering this to be yet another proof that he had not scared her only then, with the gun, but throughout this whole thing.

It occured to him then — was he really any better than a deviant if he was so violent?

"You have nothing to apologize for, you hear me?" Mia continued, some desperation making it through in her voice. She knew guilt too well to wish it on the person she loved most, and as long as she believed it with all her heart, there was no lie in anythint she told him just then. "You've done nothing wrong." Love certainly redefines the limits to belief and faith, she thought to herself, seeking in his eyes some sign that he was following her.