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RK800 ↴ connor ([info]unlikelyevents) wrote in [info]valloic,
@ 2020-07-16 00:50:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:!: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: connor, ₴ inactive: dahj asha

DAHJ & CONNOR
Plus, it was just good to have the company.

WHAT: it's strange not understanding what you are.
WHERE: their apartment (Connor says she can share it as long as she needs, androids be androiding.)
WHEN: July 12th.
WARNINGS: tbd.
STATUS: Completed



Maeve had helped Connor answer a few questions about himself that he hadn't known he even wanted to ask. Before that Markus had filled in even more blanks. So Connor knew what it was like to feel alone, to feel naive about your own design and be at the mercy of others to learn more. They had been kind to him in the process, and he wanted to do the same for Dahj.

Plus, it was just good to have the company.

He hadn't really understood how empty his apartment had been before her arrival. Only once he was sharing it with someone else had Connor begun to think he should maybe throw some decorations up, get some paintings or something. Art made him miss Markus terribly, and he'd largely shied away from it here in Vallo for that reason. But she was so full of life, so colorful in her own way, and creative in ways he hadn't predicted, and it reminded him of Markus too in all of the best ways. It didn't ache anymore when he thought back. Dahj was helping with that and she didn't even realize it.

As he waited, he sat on the couch scanning local art listings when his HUD became alight with current objectives.

[Loading known objectives.]
[Primary Objective: HELP DAHJ FEEL SAFE
SC Objective: MAKE A KEEP A FRIEND]
[ACCEPT?]

[YES]

He and Maeve were the last of their kind here, and Dahj was in good company with them. Connor was going to make sure of it.


CODE BY TESSISAMESS

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[info]dahj
2020-07-16 02:04 pm UTC (link)
Dahj had left the apartment with the intention of registering belatedly and then using the registration money to buy groceries and clothes. Whatever she didn’t use could be saved. But out in the city, she quickly lost her nerve. The city was just advanced enough to remind her of the attacks in Boston and San Francisco. From her periphery, she strained the capabilities of her senses expecting the Romulans to come back for her and finish the job.

Again.

It would be better if she didn’t register: just make it that much harder to be found. Just in case. Besides, if she was a machine did she really need to eat or sleep? As an experiment, Dahj had purposefully attempted to go without both since her arrival. It wasn’t comfortable. She was hungry and exhausted. But in reality? She found that she could. If she had to.

When she returned to the apartment, Dahj offered Connor a smile. Her creation was truly a feat of engineering because she looked tired. Did she subconsciously mimic human frailty or did her feet drag as she walked as part of her design? Her eyes were developing bags under them (as much as her youthful face could) and she joined Connor, not so much sitting purposefully on the couch but almost letting herself fall into place with a small oof. Mimic or function?

“What’re you doing?” she asked. Dahj didn’t want to talk about the failed attempt to register. Maybe she could get a job that paid under the table instead.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-18 06:50 am UTC (link)
He'd heard her come in, was completely aware of her presence, and was capable of multitasking by design, but instead closed the search on his HUD and looked at her. His LED shifted from a flickering gold back to a soft blue, and Connor smiled without realizing it. He was designed to mimic humans too, but for the past few months he'd largely gained his own mannerisms and features.

Smiling at a beautiful woman was all him, nothing Cyberlife had programmed into him, not in this context. It was genuine.

"I was looking at local art listings," Connor told her easily. He didn't feel the need to hide much from her, which was telling. He sometimes kept the humans in his life at arms length in a way, but other androids were easier to trust, and Dahj made him feel safe.

Connor motioned to the blank walls in the living room area. "It's a bit bland. I'd never noticed," he admitted. "I'm all ears if you've got any suggestions too, by the way. Art isn't really an area of expertise for me, so I'm largely learning as I go with it whenever it comes up."

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[info]dahj
2020-07-18 02:30 pm UTC (link)
“Is that what you were thinking about?” Dahj didn’t know exactly what the changing color at his temple meant but it was her best guess. Without thinking, she reached to touch him there and trace the small circle at his temple with her finger. She liked the light there but couldn’t exactly say what it was she found so pleasing about it.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think art is an area of expertise to most people.” Her eyes lit up when she spoke and her smile was slightly so mischievous. Dahj looked around the apartment. Her eyes lingered on the shape and structure a little longer than she would have normally paid it any mind. Unlike him she did not have an LED to signal the nature of what she was thinking. “What about some house plants?”

She’d grown up with plants in the house. Plants she knew about, though there probably wasn’t the same level of variety on Vallo. Just one single, lonely planet. Dahj had gone to school on another world. Interstellar travel was a normal part of life for her.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-22 05:08 am UTC (link)
"It was," Connor answered easily enough. There was no need to lie to her, he'd realized that pretty early on.

She seemed so at ease right now, so happy with the chosen subject, and he made a mental note of it--added art and plants to the list of things that made Dahj smile. He kept lists on most everyone, but this one had become more important to him lately for reasons he wasn't willing to question quite yet. His HUD lit up.

[Loading known objectives.]
[Primary Objective: HELP DAHJ FEEL SAFE
SC Objective: KEEP HER SMILING ]
[ACCEPT?]

[YES]

"What kinds of plants would you suggest? Where I'm from most of them were grown artificially. We didn't have a lot of open nature anymore," he told her. And it was a little sad now that he thought about it, especially considering the woods that surrounded Vallo in areas. The android had been built for a world that was cold and concrete and metal, and Dahj, while still an android, had been designed for a world filled with life. Part of him was envious of that, but most of him was grateful she'd had that experience back home.

His own smile softened a bit as he waited for her answer, trusting her input.

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[info]dahj
2020-07-22 05:39 am UTC (link)
"Well, that depends on if you have a green thumb." At first question did prompt happiness. There had always been plants in her house growing up, the greenhouse, her father's laboratory. She had every intention of launching into a discussion of various succulents, starting with a delightful anecdote when...

"My father—"

She stopped, caught on the sentence and her face fell. Her father was a xenobotanist. Was it that her father didn't exist or that her father had been a liar? Had she been adopted? How would that have worked? Was she an android designed to age?

"...We could go to the library later and research plants," she offered quietly. "I don't know anything about the flora of this planet. Much of it looks similar to Earth."

She was quiet for a moment, and clasped her hands in her lap, folding in on herself just a little.

"I don't know if my dad is real or not. Sort of like me, I guess. I have memories of growing up, of being a child. He was a xenobotanist."

Orchidaceae Dahj oncidium.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-22 07:39 am UTC (link)
He considered showing her how he could modify his skin to have a literal green thumb just to be silly, but as she continued he paused. Because there was emotion there. He could read her stress levels when she spoke of her father, of her life. And he'd never had a father, but Hank had briefly filled that role for him during a time when he hadn't even known he needed it filled.

Connor frowned when she did, LED a worried gold as he watched her.

"Whether he was real or not, your memories are no less valuable," Connor assured her. "They're still yours, and there's nothing wrong with remembering them fondly."

He paused for a moment, tempted to reach for her hands with his, but holding his arm out instead towards her. He let the skin deactivate up towards his wrist so that the white of his chassis showed through, and told her, "I have access to anything searchable on the Vallo internet network. Where I'm from, androids can share information through a touch based interface. If you'd like, we can try?"

And his HUD was alight with a new prompt:

['dahj' //PATH UNLOCKED: NeUtRaL?^^]

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[info]dahj
2020-07-22 03:38 pm UTC (link)
Jean-Luc had said the same, that her memories were beautiful. Dahj still hadn't emotionally processed the fact that her memories might be little more than a story and it was hard for her to accept them when she didn't know why.

When the skin pulled away from his hand, Dahj was jolted out of her own thoughts with a tiny gasp. Startled, she looked between his hand and face. "Does that hurt?"

She was successfully distracted, and for the moment Dahj would much rather have focused on him than herself. She looked to her own hand but knew she wasn't designed that way. Her cuts had been healed by the same technology used on humans.

"I'm not sure if I work that way," she said. "I don't know how I work."

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-23 10:27 am UTC (link)
He was surprised by her question, until he paused to think about it. Of course this would seem painful to her--she'd been built with skin that was physical, no projected. His own skin was an illusion, because having it more organic would make repairs more difficult and expensive for Cyberlife. It was always about making things more convenient for Cyberlife.

And he tried not to let his smile falter a bit at the thought of them, but it did anyway. Because for a moment he worried she was afraid of him by the reaction.

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY^^^]

Connor wiped the warning prompts away from his HUD and focused on her again. "No," he answered. "It doesn't hurt. I can't feel it." He activated his skin around his hand again and let it fall away at to his side.

He really was the only one of his kind here after all, wasn't he?

"Maeve has a tablet that may give you some insight," Connor explained carefully, trying not to sound disappointed she couldn't interface, or forceful in his suggestion that she explore her own coding. He knew it might not be something she wanted to do. "I think you're probably closer to the kind of android she is. She can probably help more than I can."

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[info]dahj
2020-07-24 02:18 am UTC (link)
"May I?"

Dahj reached for his hand and took it gently between hers. Connor and Maeve could both do amazing things. The only thing extraordinary Dahj felt she'd done was kill assassins with a blackout bag over her head. She would have preferred Maeve's ability to see code, or Connor's ability to interface with technology.

She focused on the way his hand felt. Dahj felt skin. She didn't feel the white chassis underneath that had been temporarily exposed. "It's a localized holographic projection."

She wasn't afraid, she was curious.

She was familiar with holodeck technology, and pleasantly surprised to see similar tech, familiar tech, elsewhere. ...Connor wasn't just technology, though. He was more than that. She could hear his heartbeat. Even with the LED display at his temple, she wouldn't have assumed android meeting him.

"Can you change your appearance?" A beat. "Did you choose your appearance?"

She smiled, hestitating only because she worried the questions were too personal. But she wanted to know more about him.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-25 10:49 am UTC (link)
He was honestly surprised when she took his hand--not because he didn't enjoy it, but because he'd thought she was repulsed by the fact that he could deactivate his skin in a way that didn't compare well to her own make up. And so few people had ever touched him kindly, let alone other androids. He'd met three that had touched him like he was a friend and not the enemy.

Connor blinked as he tilted his head to glance down and watch their hands where she touched him. "Correct," he replied about the projection comment. He'd never thought of it that way, but it truly was.

He looked back up to watch the expression on her face, reading her stress levels. She didn't seem afraid at all. This, again, surprised him.

"Yes," he answered quietly. He could change it, but he rarely did. Cyberlife had ingrained the need to remain in the image they'd forced so deeply that even now whenever his hair became a bit messed up he was met with the almost compulsive need to fix it immediately. "I did not choose my initial design," he explained, but I have made a few modifications over time."

He reached over to pull his sleeve up to show her the symbol on his arm that Ronan had given him advice with. "Where I'm from, when my people rose up against their human oppressors, this was the symbol chosen to represent the fight. I wanted...I needed to modify something about myself just for me," Connor explained. "But I haven't...there are things I might change, but I haven't. I was designed to be aesthetically pleasing for infiltration purposes to integrate seamlessly with the humans I worked for and with."

Connor paused for a brief moment, then let his hair take on a slight curl just to show her what was possible.

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[info]dahj
2020-07-25 02:53 pm UTC (link)
Dahj much preferred to talk about Connor than she did herself. He seemed to know so much more about his world and the place he had and wanted to have in it. Human oppressors. Rose up. His story may not have much happier than her own, but she did envy him for the clarity that he had.

"Aesthetically pleasing, huh?" she teased. "So you're saying you know you're cute." Her lips pressed in to try and keep herself from grinning, or worse, blushing, and she nodded her head a little as the teasing continued non-verbally. "I see how it is."

She did smile when he changed his hair just slightly but did not reach out to touch the curls. She wanted to. For science, obviously. It was then she realized she had still been holding his hand. Dahj let it go slowly, almost reluctantly.

"I like it," she said. "The hair and the tattoo."

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-29 08:11 am UTC (link)
"That's not what I--" Connor fell quiet, because it basically was what he'd said, wasn't it? Even if he was repeating what he'd been told by his creators, what would literally be in the product manual if he'd been sold like any other model. But he hadn't been. He'd been a classified prototype with features most androids never had.

He opened his mouth to explain that when he noticed the blush in her cheeks. Which was such an interesting detail. Her design had really been incredibly thoughtful, and he found his own applications constantly confused by it, unable to read her like another android. Her stress responses were far more human than anything.

As she let go of his hand--a move he nearly stopped her in--he realized all at once what her stress responses might mean. And, fascinatingly enough, that his own stress data reflected something similar. It was terrifying to him given how quickly he'd lost anyone else he got close to like this, but it was also so clearly there now he couldn't ignore it. And he didn't want to.

['dahj' //PATH UNLOCKED: Lover?^]

He blinked away the prompt on his HUD. "That tattoo was already there," Connor explained with a slight smile of his own. "But if you like the hair, maybe I'll keep it too..."

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[info]dahj
2020-07-29 02:18 pm UTC (link)
"But do you like the hair?" Dahj deflected. Because she did like it. Maybe more than was probably appropriate. Her eyes lingered at the top of his head just a few seconds too long. "I think your opinion might be the one that matters."

Though she still managed to keep herself from reaching up and touching him inappropriately, Dahj did offer her hand, palm toward him and fingers up. Now that the matter of his appearance was settled...

"...I know it might not work," she said, her tone was already apologetic in case it didn't, "but can we try interfacing like you mentioned?"

She really didn't know what would happen when he touched her. It was exciting in a way that verged on foolish. What if she couldn't control the level or type of data she shared with him? What if it didn't work at all? Would he be disappointed in her? What if...

But Dahj had never knowingly been in the presence of another android. It wasn't just wanting to know more about what she could do, she wanted to know what they could do.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-30 07:21 am UTC (link)
"I honestly haven't given much thought to my hair lately," Connor explained quietly, frowning a little bit as he thought about it. "Back home, I had to keep it perfect. Cyberlife dictated my appearance be immaculate as I was their property, represented them, but that's not the case anymore.

Connor glanced down at her hand though, his smile returning.

He brought his hand up, taking hers gently, his fingertips resting against her wrist without pulling his skin back quite yet. "Do you have control of your code at all? Can you see your internal programming? I know that seems like an invasive question, and I'm sorry if it's offensive or frustrating if you can't, but part of interfacing is dropping any possible firewalls to let me in..."

"It's a lot of trust to ask for, and I won't be insulted if you're not ready to give it."

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[info]dahj
2020-07-30 08:06 am UTC (link)
Dahj frowned. The idea of being property hadn't even occurred to her. The idea that anyone could think of either of them like that was— something she honestly hadn't considered. Not with as advanced and independent as they were.

Something to consider when Connor was not holding her hand.

"No, it's okay. I'm not sure what level of control I have of my code, this is still really new to me. I'm not conscious of it. It's more like, when I've needed to do something, I suddenly found that I could, like subconscious control? It feels more like instinct."

Dahj frowned, thinking. "The first time I was attacked, the people who came after me said something like 'she's activating'. It just felt like suddenly I just knew what to do."

Her eyes focused on Connor's face and she smiled. Maybe he just brought that reaction out of her. "I want to try."

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-30 08:27 am UTC (link)
"Alright," Connor replied, his LED flickering to gold as he concentrated. But it didn't work like it had with Markus or any of the others, and he wasn't sure if that was because she really was build that differently or just because...maybe more contact would help.

He leaned forward, resting his forehead gently against hers, closing his eyes as he tried again, opening his codes for her. He gave her access to most of his surface applications--she wouldn't see the prompts on his HUD, but she'd be able to read his vital statistics, the real time feedback on his sensory biocomponents. She might even be able to feel how safe he felt near her.

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[info]dahj
2020-07-30 10:59 am UTC (link)
Dahj felt his forehead against hers and the tension in her shoulders melted. Her eyes closed. She wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling. It wasn’t lightning this time. More like a door slowly coming into focus. She knew, she felt, Connor was on the other side. She only had to feel for the handle, and when she did, and she felt a sort of click or start of a real meaningful connection

Her communicator buzzed.

No, not the primitive one that worked on the Vallo internal networks. Her device from back home. Interfacing would have to wait. Dahj was getting a communication from home.

She broke contact and pulled out a small disc like device, and a holographic display of a non-threatening middle aged woman’s face projected from her hand. Something that should have been impossible.

“Mom!” Dahj said. Perhaps if she hadn’t been programmed with such a realistic emotional bond, Dahj would have realized how unlikely this all was.

“Honey,” said the interface, “are you doing okay? You look tired.”

“Mom, I need to you to talk to Soji—“

“Soji is fine, sweetheart.”

“I need you to tell her I’m okay and that I’m here—“

“Have you been eating? When is the last time you slept?”

“And Jean-Luc Picard. If you could send him a message for me—“

“Honey. I think you need rest.”

And Dahj shut down on the spot, slumped over. The connection with her mom cut out at the same time Dahj appeared to be placed in a deep slumber, indicates by the slow, relaxed rhythm of her breathing. Dahj May have been able to let down her firewall, but she hadn’t accounted for her mom.

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[info]unlikelyevents
2020-07-30 11:15 am UTC (link)
At first he was confused, startled even when she pulled back, because he'd started to feel something there in the connection. But the skin reactivated on his hand and wrist the moment she moved away excitedly for the device, and he tried his best to not see it as rejection. Because she seemed so happy, so comforted, that how could he make this about himself?

But then she said that word--mom--a word he didn't understand the same way she did. It simply didn't compute because the only female figure in his life that might fit that role had been horrible to him, and while he knew objectively that not all mothers were like that, it was still a foreign concept to him.

Nothing could have prepared him for her shutting down though, his LED a swirl of a worried red as he caught her in his arms easily. For a moment Connor just sat there holding her, and then he did a search, looked at her story--her source material--and he understood.

How was he supposed to explain to her later that her mother wasn't even real? Didn't she already...

He decided it could wait.

He picked her up effortlessly, carrying her into the guest room that had become her room with care. When he her down on the bed it was with gentle arms despite the violent nature of his own creation, a moment that defied Cyberlife's original plans entirely. And when he pulled a blanket up over her it was with emotional consideration that hadn't accounted for either. He was so much more than Cyberlife had ever been capable of creating.

When he leaned down to place a swift, gentle kiss against Dahj's forehead it was entirely Connor, no previously written programs dictating his actions. He considered staying there with her to make sure she was alright, but his room was just down the hall if she woke up startled. So he stood and pulled away, turning to leave the room, working through his own confused thoughts on the entire conversation and their nearly successful interfacing attempt.

The android glanced down at his hand, the one he had tried it with, and smiled a bit before turning towards his own room.

And his LED was a soft, relaxed blue for now.

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