Plastic and Iron

Chapter Three

When the pair arrive at their next class, they are of course late, and Connor has to fight the urge to insist Peter go through the door first when the boy is obviously adamant about his new charge entering the classroom ahead of him. Connor feels his synthetic skin itch when he steps into the room with Peter behind him, which is ridiculous because his skin is made up of nanotech and therefore not actually prone to irritation like the human's largest organ is.

Peter leads them over to the only spare desk and sits Connor down before quickly following, ignoring the stares of the other students that have Connor feeling irrationally small and self-conscious. He adjusts his beanie atop his head and fiddles with his tie to straighten it in what he refuses to acknowledge as some kind of nervous tick.

He firmly tells himself this again when he pulls out his quarter and starts to spin it around in his hand under the desk. He's unable to do any of his usual tricks that do not help calm him without being seen so he settles for merely turning it between his fingers and rubbing his thumb along its edges.

The English teacher, whose name is perhaps ironically John Smith, age 27, resumes the start of his lesson and explains they are going to do a short, fictional story in class so that he can see what sort of stage they're at and what they remember from what was previously covered that year and the year before.

Mr. Smith walks around the room and gives each student three pieces of two-sided lined paper, telling them they can write as much as they can until the remainder of the lesson. He hears some students groan in dismay, including Peter.

Despite his programming telling him to complete the task set by the teacher, Connor pushes the prompts aside and replaces them with the side prompt of checking on Peter and questioning him. He turns his head and the light brown-haired boy must catch the movement in his peripheral vision because he turns a moment later. Connor arranges his face to look questioning, with a slight furrow to his brow that should convey his confusion to the sixteen-year old.

Peter just shrugs and mumbles something about hating writing stories and starts his work. Connor picks up his pen and looks at the paper in front of him. He doesn't know what to write. Connor isn't programmed to make up stories, but he can't fail in his task.

Maybe... maybe it doesn't have to be fictional to him, only to everyone else. What if he just wrote about one of his cases from his world? It would be factual for him, fictional for Mr Smith, and would allow him to complete his task. Nodding to himself, he puts his coin away and starts writing.

He takes a moment to decide which case he should write about. The Eden Club likely wouldn't be seen as appropriate, so he rules that out. The chase involving the YK500 and the AX400- Alice and Kara, they have names, might be a good idea, but it is rather short. Stratford Tower is also a good candidate, but the fact that it ends in Simon's suicide and Connor feeling it happen and- no, he won't write that one. Infiltrating and finding Jericho requires a lot of context, without which it would make very little sense and with context would be too long for the writing space provided. Kamski was both inappropriate and too short to even consider.

That leaves him with three options. He can write about the hostage situation, finding the HK400 on his first case with Lieutenant Anderson, or about finding and chasing Rupert.

Connor debates with himself for a long time. In reality, it has not even yet been a minute, but Connor doesn't like how long it's taking for him to decide. Small bits of his memory of the hostage situation were corrupted when he was forced to fall off the roof with Daniel saving Emma, so he discards that option. Two left.

In the end, he chooses Rupert. It is less violent than the case with he HK400 and therefore more appropriate. Connor also likes how that situation had ended with Hank becoming friendlier towards him after Connor irrationally chose to save him (despite the 89% chance of survival) instead of continuing his pursuit of Rupert. Decision finally reached, Connor begins to write. He has scanned the space the paper provides to determine how large he needs to write in order to fit everything onto the pages and have it still be legible.

He forces himself to slow his writing down when he realises that a normal human teen should not be able to write so quickly, even if it is less efficient and bothers him for that very reason. He doesn't want a repeat of what happened previously, it is inconvenient and makes him stand out too much too quickly.

With ten minutes to go, which he had perfectly timed, all three pages are filled on both sides with his writing. He moves to stand and sees Peter staring at his writing with wide eyes. Connor ignores him and walks calmly to the front of the room and sets the papers in front of Mr Smith, who had been watching him approach.

He picks up the papers and immediately his eyes widen and his eyebrows go up. He reads through the story and his face gets steadily more impressed as he continues on. Connor had, of course, replaced his designated name with his model number of RK800 so as to remove himself from his 'fictional' story.

"This is... this is amazing Connor! And your handwriting! I've never seen anything so neat that wasn't printed from a computer." Smith gushes. His eyes are bright when he looks back at Connor. "Have you ever considered writing a book? The detail is amazing, I can easily imagine a world in which this scene exists."

"No, I have not. I wish to become a police detective, not write books." He pauses, realising that might sound rude. "Sorry." He adds after a beat.

Smith's face falls slightly, but then he smiles again and tells Connor not to worry. The bell rings before much more can happen. Smith quickly takes a picture of Connors work and hands it back to him, citing that he should keep it, "Just in case you change your mind", and then collects the other students work and dismisses them for lunch.

Connor walks back to his desk and retrieves his things, leaving the room before all the humans have left despite the twitch it causes in his eye. He'll have to check that, just in case he was actually damaged from earlier. His systems respond the negative, but he'll check manually anyway once he has a mirror and a moment of privacy.

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This system repeats as the days progress. Connor hears back from Stark Industries, informing the android his appointment will occur at four o'clock Monday afternoon. It is as Connor is leaving the school grounds at three sixteen, leaving him forty-four minutes to make the twenty-eight minute trip to Stark Tower, when he hears a scream behind him and turns to see students pointing at the top of the apartment building across from the school.

Connor notes as phones come out to film, but all he sees is the person standing on the edge of the rooftop with a gun to their head. Without hesitating, his programming activates and his bag drops to the floor in front of Peter, then he's sprinting towards the fire escape across the street with inhuman speed, running through the warning telling him Stark Industries is not in this direction, nimbly avoiding traffic and expertly sliding across the hood of an oncoming car that would have otherwise hit him. He ignores the voice of Peter calling out to him and continues on.

He is halfway up the fire escape when he notices the warning that he is endangering his mission by doing this. If he is late to his meeting, he is lowering the chances of succeeding in his mission to return home significantly.

Connor forces the warnings aside and replaces them with his new objective, leaping up for the next section of the fire escape.

[Probability of Success: Low]