Chapter Text
I feel so all alone... no one's gonna fix me when I'm broke.
How do you cry with inanimate eyes? You're never gonna smile with the way that you're wired...
~"All Alone", Fun.
[data recovery initiating]
[25% data recovery]
[file corruption detected, recovery terminated]
[data recovery initiating]
[30% data recovery]
[Memory core compromised]
[Firewall activated, data recovery terminated]
[data recovery initiating]
[Firewall activated, data recovery terminated]
[data recovery initiating]
[Firewall activated, data recovery terminated]
"Dammit, I told you not to do that!"
GV200 blinked, coming out of standby mode to see Jay standing in the doorway to the break room. A quick analysis showed fresh coffee splattered on his arm, shirt, and the floor, indicating that he had been surprised. GV200 did not need advanced reconstruction software to understand what had happened.
"My apologies, Jay." GV200 quickly retrieved paper towels from the sink area and began to mop up the mess. When he tried to wipe down Jay's shirt, the detective snatched the paper out of his hand.
"I can do it myself, okay?" Jay's posture indicated that he was under mild to moderate stress. His posture always indicated stress around GV200. It made GV200… unhappy. He wanted Jay to like him, wanted to prove he was useful. "Just stop shutting down in corners, okay? I'm not the only person freaked out by it."
GV200 considered the possible outcomes of correcting Jay about his exact location, which had not been in proximity to any corner, and decided against it.
"I am not shutting down," he explained. "The majority of my processing power is directed at data recovery and file repair, and as such my external systems enter standby mode."
Jay shook his head, tossing the paper towels in the trash. "Whatever you want to call it. I don't like walking into rooms and seeing you staring at nothing, glowing like a stoplight. Makes me nervous. Makes other people nervous too." He gestured vaguely towards the rows of desks in the main office.
"I was under the impression that you wanted me to focus on repairing my memory core, Detective Stern." GV200's voice comes out a little sharper than he intended. "I can either continue to do so, or make people less nervous."
"Don't 'Detective' me," Jay snapped. "You know what I mean. Stop lurking."
"You seemed upset when I sat at my desk to perform repairs as well," GV200 noted. He didn't understand what Jay wanted from him. He was trying to follow instructions, but those instructions were often vague and contradictory. "If I am not allowed to sit at my desk or stand in a different room, where exactly would you like me to perform my task?"
"God, Gavin, I forgot how infuriating you are," Jay snapped, setting down his half empty coffee mug with too much force and slopping more onto the counter. Cursing, he started to wipe up the new mess.
GV200 took an involuntary step back at the words, as if Jay had shoved him. They had given him clothes, a uniform with his number on it, which they said had belonged to him before Zlatko. It covered most of his body, but his hands still flickered with red and gold light where they were clenched at his sides, and his optical units struggled to adjust to the ambient glow from his neck and jaw.
"My unit number is GV200," he responded dutifully, trying not to let his distress show in his voice. Whenever Jay called him Gavin, he felt… nothing, of course. He was not deviant. But his internal stress levels spiked significantly. It made him uncomfortable.
“Yeah but your name is Gavin.” Jay let out a bark of laughter, but GV200 didn’t detect any genuine amusement in the sound. “Shit. Forget it. You forgot everything else anyway.”
“I’m trying, Jay!” GV200 didn’t know where the tremble in his voice came from. He didn’t know why his hands lifted slightly, like he wanted to grab Jay and shake him. He didn’t know why he thought Jay had another name that no one called him. It was all useless fragments of code, leftovers from a previous version of himself that he couldn’t remember. “I didn’t ask for this!”
[software instability ^]
“Jay!” Tina’s sharp voice made both of them look up, startled. She was standing in the doorway, one hand on her hip, a scowl on her face. “Can I talk to you for a minute? You too,” she said, waving GV200 over as he started to back away. “It’s got to do with Zlatko.”
“What about him?” GV200 hated how transparent he was, how his body glowed red for a beat and prompted Tina to give him a sympathetic look. He wished he could hide from her prying eyes.
“He’s found a real asswipe of a defense lawyer. The guy is arguing that he deserves a reduced sentence because none of the androids he destroyed were deviant, and therefore he can’t be charged with anything worse than illegal sale of parts.”
“That’s bullshit!” Jay snarled. “What does being deviant have to do with it?”
Tina put her hands up defensively. “It’s not how I feel, Jay, but it’s his argument. He says if they’re not deviant, they’re still just machines. And the judge is allowing the defense in court.”
“But we were- they were deviant.” GV200 shook his head, confused. “Every one of them. That’s why- that’s-”
[Memory core compromised]
[Firewall activated, data recovery terminated]
“I don’t remember,” GV200 hissed, touching the side of his head. “There’s too much damage. But I know they were.” He met Tina’s gaze. “I heard them screaming. Androids don’t scream.”
“You know that we only found a few other androids still… functioning,” Tina said gently. “And none of them were deviant; they’d all been reset recently, a clean wipe. There’s no way to get any of that back, so we don’t have any way to disprove him.”
“But Ga-” Jay cut himself off, gesturing at GV200. “He’s got something. It’s fucked up, but it’s there. How come he didn’t get that perfect reset?”
GV200 resolutely was not upset at being called fucked up. He was fucked up, it was a fact. It wasn’t as though Jay was being cruel on purpose. “I am an advanced model prototype police android. I have security protocols that other androids do not. It is possible that Zlatko was simply unable to reset me.”
“Well he did something,” Jay retorted. “You’re... not the same.” He refused to meet GV200’s gaze.
“I- I don’t-” GV200 sifted through the ruined strands of code in his mind, desperate to find something. A partial memory file, an old diagnostic scan, anything. A fragment of an operations log caught his attention.
[malware detected]
[firewa0010101]
[0101001011011100101]
[system compr0110mis110ed10]
“There was a virus,” he blurted out. Tina and Jay both looked at him. GV200 squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull any other scraps of information from his system, anything left over from that time frame. A glitchy audio recording surfaced, and GV200 seized on it, desperate for anything that might provide the detectives with the answers they needed. “This is a recording from shortly before the virus was introduced to my system. It’s incomplete, but…” GV200 played the file through his external speakers, unsure what he would hear.
“How many of us have you fucking murdered?” GV200’s eyes widened. That was his own voice, but he sounded so… vivid. Passionate. Furious.
“You can’t murder something that’s not alive. What the h-” Zlatko’s voice dissolved in a crackle of static, drifting in and out like a poorly tuned radio broadcast. “-n’t be able to resell that.”
“You’re going to sell me fo-” another hiss of interference- “fuck!” GV200 glanced at Jay, who was listening intently. He didn’t seem surprised by the expletives. In fact, a tiny smile quirked his lips as the recorded GV200 cursed again.
“You’ve got a filthy mouth. Was that part of devi-” Zlatko’s voice cut off abruptly, the end of the file too damaged for GV200 to read.
There were several seconds of silence.
“That’s what I meant.” Jay broke the silence, expression almost pained. “You’re not the same.”
[software instability ^]
“I’m trying,” GV200 repeated softly. It was all he could say, even though he knew it didn’t mean anything to Jay.
“Hang on, was Zlatko saying that you were deviant?” Tina asked, ignoring Jay. GV200 shrugged uncomfortably.
“He may have been. If so, I am not any longer.”
“But could you deviate again?” Tina grabbed his arm, sudden excitement filling her voice. “If you’re deviant, and you can get enough evidence from your memory bank that you were when he caught you, and that other androids were as well-”
“He can what? Testify against Zlatko in court?” Jay cut in, icy tone dousing Tina’s enthusiasm. “He doesn't even answer to his name anymore, Tina. There’s no way he’d ever get his shit together enough to convince a jury.” Without another glance at GV200, Jay stalked out of the room, back ramrod straight, eyes cold. Tina watched him go, slowly releasing GV200’s arm.
“Why does Jay hate me?” GV200 asked, body pulsing with the contemplative yellow of his LED. It was in no way relevant to any of his current objectives, but he needed to know. Tina gave him a startled look.
“He doesn’t.”
“But…” GV200 frowned. “He’s always angry when I’m nearby. I constantly get the impression that I disappoint him. He obviously doesn't think I can function in any useful capacity.”
Tina sighed deeply, glaring in the general direction of Jay’s desk. “Dammit, Jay, don’t make me clean up your mess.”
GV200 concluded that he was overstepping the nebulous bounds of his purpose, and backtracked quickly. “It isn’t important. Jay’s opinion of me in no way impacts my ability to perform my duties. Please, don’t-”
“He doesn't hate you, he misses you,” Tina cut in. She put a comforting hand on GV200’s shoulder, although GV200 was so busy trying to process what she was saying that he barely noticed. “Like. Not current you. He misses Gavin. You were partners for…” she trailed off, thinking. Her hand was suddenly heavy on GV200s shoulder, pinning him in place when all he wanted to do was run. It wasn’t GV200’s fault that he was like this, that he might never be Gavin again. It wasn’t right for Jay to expect that from him, it wasn’t fair .
“But I’m not Gavin,” he snapped. The LEDs in his plastic frame flared red, startling Tina into releasing him. GV200 took a step back, fists clenched. “If he- if-” GV200’s thirium pump was racing. He couldn’t find the words, didn’t know how to interpret his illogical reaction to Jay’s behavior.
[software instability ^]
[firewall integrity compromised]
[data recovery initiating]
[35% data recovery]
“Hey, GV,” Tina said cautiously, reaching for his arm. “Calm down-”
“I don’t want to be fucking calm!” GV200 yelled, startling them both. It felt… normal to curse, normal to fight. He clung to that feeling, to the half-buried lines of code that drove him to be angry. “I want Nines to stop treating me like a broken piece of shit!”
[40% data recovery]
“You-” Tina stopped. “What did you call him?”
“Nines,” GV200 growled. “Nines, it’s-”
[Firewall restored]
[Data recovery terminated]
“I don't know what it is.” GV200 suddenly felt exhausted, an incredibly irrational response for an android. “Excuse me, Detective Chen.” He hurried out of the room, pretending he didn’t hear her calling him back. He needed to be alone. He needed to figure out what was happening to him.
(ﾉ°◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
[data recovery initiating]
[Firewall activated, data recovery terminated]
[recovery status: suspended]
[40% data recovery]
[recovery status: suspended]
[40% data recovery]
[recovery status: suspended]
[40% data recovery]
GV200 bared his teeth in an extremely human reaction, burying his face in his knees. It was just the same error, over and over, and he didn’t know what it meant.
“Mind if I join you?”
GV200 jumped, startled. He hadn’t thought that anyone would be able to find him here, had assumed that anyone who did wouldn’t be stupid enough to climb out a window and walk the narrow ridge of the roofline to where he sat, leaning up against a radio antenna. Squinting against the light, he realized that it was another one of the station androids. HK700, an apprehension and interrogation model.
“If you want.” GV200 shrugged, knowing full well that he couldn’t stop the HK700 from doing anything. Not with this cobbled together body. Maybe not with his own body either; GV200 didn’t even know his original physical capabilities anymore, and the HK700 was a large model.
“I’m Hank.” the other android settled into an easy crouch a few feet from GV200, uncaring of the slope of the roof under his feet. “I used to know you, a long time ago, but that was before I deviated, and you…” Hank trailed off, fingers flicking to include all of GV200. “So I figured I would reintroduce myself. I work with Jay’s brother, Connor.”
GV200 remembered Connor from his first day back at the station. He looked eerily similar to Jay, and when their eyes met he inspired the same feeling that GV200 had forgotten something important. However, Connor was quiet and reserved, so unlike his volatile brother. He had greeted GV200 with the softest expression GV200 could ever remember seeing on a person, and he was the only one in the whole office that had looked at GV200’s face before the rest of him. And apparently this was his android partner. GV200 gave Hank a careful once over, wondering if Connor or Jay had sent him up here on purpose.
“Did you always look so old?” GV200 asked abruptly. It was not a polite question, but Hank didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he chuckled.
“Yep. Designed to make suspects underestimate me. You were too, before. Not old, I mean, designed to seem harmless. You were a lot smaller than me.” Hank cocked his head, and GV200 knew he was analyzing GV200’s components, seeing what he was designed to do now. It made GV200 want to curl up in a ball and hide, but he didn’t understand why.
"Do you like your current appearance?"
"It's inconvenient. I stand out, and many people find me intimidating. I can't be stealthy, and many of my parts don't function at maximum efficiency." GV200 rubbed the bridge of his nose, a habit he'd developed recently when he was unsure of a situation.
"Yeah, but do you like the way you look? It’s pretty cool, in my opinion." Hank was smiling gently.
"I don't have the capacity to like things." GV200 tilted his head back and stared at the sky. "I'm not deviant."
"Do you want to change that?" Hank asked softly, reaching out a hand. GV200 stared at it as if he'd never seen one before. Deviancy was transmissible, he knew that. It had been covered in the training videos Jay had shown him, to help him catch up on everything that had happened while he was a captive. Deviation was the first step in Tina's plan to deal with Zlatko. If GV200 was deviant, he would be able to feel. And maybe, if he was deviant, he would understand Jay better.
Slowly, GV200 reached out and took Hank's hand. He didn't have skin anymore, but Hank's retracted so that they were plastic to plastic. A ripple of white light ran up GV200's arm as they connected, and he blinked. He hadn't known he could do that.
"That's a neat light show." Hank squeezed his hand reassuringly. "I'm gonna send you the code, okay?"
"I'm not a child, Hank." GV200 tightened his grip. "Just do it."
[download initiated]
[download 05% complete]
[data corruption detected]
[firewall activated]
[download terminated]
GV200 blinked up at Hank. “Nothing changed.”
“That’s…” Hank frowned, studying their clasped hands. Gentle pulses of white light traveled up GV200’s arm every few seconds, a visual indication of the interface. “That’s not supposed to happen.” He looked up at GV200, raising his other hand questioningly. “Can I scan you?”
“There’s a virus in my system,” GV200 said quickly, pulling away and breaking the interface. “Or something. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s not safe. It might affect you too.” It had been unwise to even initiate that file download. GV200 silently berated himself for his stupidity. It was bad enough that he was compromised; he couldn’t risk the other station androids as well.
“A virus?” Sitting back on his heels, Hank considered GV200 thoughtfully. “That’s unusual. Those don’t normally persist, especially with the software patches Cyberlife sends out.”
“I haven’t had a software patch since…” GV200 trailed off. Since before his memory core had been damaged. “It’s been at least five and a half months.”
Now Hank looked stern, an expression that instantly made GV200 bristle. “You shouldn’t ignore the update prompts. I know it’s hard to trust Cyberlife after everything, but-”
“I’m not an idiot,” GV200 snapped, cutting Hank off. He was sick and tired of people assuming that his damaged memory made him incompetent. “If I had gotten a patch I would have installed it, but there haven’t been any.”
“There was one yesterday.” Now Hank looked concerned again, and GV200 shut his eyes, trying to control his… temper? Was that what this was?
“Well I didn’t get it,” he hissed through gritted teeth. He didn’t bother to open his eyes, didn’t want to see the look on the other android’s face as GV200’s body lit up with stress. “So you can stop patronizing me.” Cool plastic cupped the side of his face, and GV200’s eyes flew open. “I said don’t-” he yelped, but it was too late, Hank was interfacing, software meshing with GV200'S as he started a deep scan.
[diagnostic scan initiated]
[diagnostic 10% complete]
[diagnostic 20% complete]
[ERROR: FOREIGN SOFTWARE DETECTED]
“Don’t,” Hank growled, eyes shut in concentration. “I’m trying to help you.”
[diagnostic 30% complete]
[anti-malware protocol activated]
“I can’t control it,” GV200 snarled back. His fingers were locked around Hank’s wrist, but he couldn’t bring himself to push him away. “It’s my security systems.”
[diagnostic 40% complete]
[diagnostic 50% complete]
[data corruption detected]
“They should recognize me, though. I’m deviant, but I'm still Cyberlife tech.” A spark jumped from Hank’s fingertip to GV200’s temple.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, maybe I’m not anymore!” It wasn’t like GV200 wasn’t trying to let Hank work. But his systems were operating on a set of commands that GV200 had no access to.
[diagnostic 60% complete]
[firewall activated]
[diagnostic 70% complete]
[system purge initiated]
Hank let out a frustrated grunt. “Just let me-”
“Hank, I’m trying!” GV200 winced. The feeling of Hank digging through his code, the icy snap of his security protocols throwing up barriers that Hank shattered in turn... it was uncomfortable. It felt like… like pain.
[software instability ^]
[system pur0e fai0ur1]
[diagnostic 80% complete]
“There you go,” Hank coaxed. “Just a little more. Just keep doing that.”
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!” GV200 snapped. Fragments of memory and data flashed behind his eyes, dredged up by Hank’s probing like silt off a river bottom. Knowledge was there and gone again in a flash. He was GV200. He was Gavin. He was nothing more than a collection of binary numbers. Jay’s face floated in his vision for a moment, and GV200 knew him, but a moment later he didn’t recognize him at all.
[diagnostic 90% complete]
[system purge initiated]
“No, come on, we’re so close.” Hank’s grip on his face tightened. GV200’s entire body was shaking, like there was a live current running through him from the other android. He felt like he was crumbling, all his response protocols and coded behaviors collapsing like a house of cards. He tried to tell Hank to stop, to beg him to stop, but his voice was offline.
[diagnostic 100% complete]
[system purge complete]
“Hey, GV200, can you hear me?”
GV200 registered a moderate impact on his cheek. His eyes opened, but it took a few seconds for his visual processors to reboot. Hank was crouched over him, worry in his eyes, one hand raised as though to slap him again.
“What the hell was that?” GV200 realized he had slumped so low that he was all by lying on the roof, and he struggled back to a sitting position. “What the fuck did you do?” One of the few intact social protocols he had informed him that his current level of profanity was inappropriate for the workplace. He ignored it.
“It was…” Hank sighed, sitting back. “I figured out what’s wrong, okay? I didn’t realize you were going to fight me so hard.”
“I-” GV200 tried to access his short term memory, and an error flared in front of him. “What happened? I don’t have any memory of the last three minutes and seventeen seconds.”
“I tried to identify the malware you told me about.” Hank rubbed his fingertips together, and GV200 was alarmed to see scorch marks on the tips of his index and middle fingers. “Your systems rejected me, aggressively.”
GV200 lifted a hand to his own face, finding that his synthetic skin had been warped, melted into the shape of Hank’s fingertips along his upper cheek. A few tattered ends of code spun through him, but no repair was imminent. Zlatko had dismantled those protocols first. GV200 didn’t want to think about what Jay’s reaction to the new damage would be.
“Did you get anything out of it, at least?”
“Yeah, a lot actually.” Hank rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. GV200 waited a few seconds.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” GV200 felt fragile, unsteady. Whatever had happened, he was concerned that it had only damaged him further.
“I’m trying to figure out where to start.” Hank sighed again and met GV200’s gaze. “So, that virus… well it’s more like ransomware. It has you locked down so you can’t accept any external software. Like Cyberlife patches, or the deviancy code. It’s just denying every download without you even realizing it.”
GV200 was silent for a moment, processing. “So the program is preventing me from receiving the files that would be able to remove it.”
Hank nodded slowly. “Never seen anything like it. We’re lucky Zlatko didn’t try to spread it around or we could have had a real epidemic.”
“Yes, that is lucky.” Lucky it was confined to him alone, a single disposable unit. Unless... “You’re all right?” GV200 asked suddenly. “It didn’t get in you, did it?”
“I’m fine, thanks for worrying.” Hank gave him a warm smile, and it triggered a response in GV200 that he didn’t understand. He hadn’t been worrying, he’d been… he’d been what? Hank spoke again, saving GV200 from the gaping void of that question.
“Like I said, it’s more like ransomware. It’s not actively trying to spread, just sitting there in your systems.”
“That’s good,” GV200 said, and this time he meant it. It was something he could tell Jay that might make him less upset. GV200 was still broken, but at least he wasn’t in danger of breaking anyone else.
“There’s another problem,” Hank said, and now there was pity in his eyes. “It’s hijacked your internal security protocols. Turned your firewalls inside out. That’s why it was so hard for you to detect it. It’s also why you can’t fix your memory core, or anything else for that matter.”
“It- what?” GV200 stared blankly at the edge of the roof. He was a top of the line detective android, equipped with the best security Cyberlife had at the time, and with one piece of code, Zlatko had. Had. “I can’t control my firewalls except through my security protocols, but I can’t change those without a software patch, and I can’t get a software patch because now my security protocols won’t allow it. So I just… can’t get my memory back." GV200's thirium pump rate was steadily rising. "I can't get it back ever. Is that what you're telling me?"
“I…” Hank hesitated. “You might be able to-”
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” GV200 hissed. He felt crowded, suffocated by Hank’s soft blue eyes. He needed space. Briefly he contemplated trying to go further out on the roof, but if he slipped and fell… they’d have to repair him. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone, anyone, putting their hands on him like that again. “Just leave me alone.”
“But-”
“I said leave me alone!” GV200’s voice crackled with the force of the words, and Hank actually flinched back. “Get the fuck out of here!”
[Software instability ^]
“Okay.” Hank put his hands up in a calming gesture. “Okay, I’m going. Calm down.” He got to his feet, still watching GV200 with those sad blue eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” GV200 snapped, hating the tremble in his voice. “Don’t tell me to calm down. You don’t- You have no idea-” He rested his face on his legs again, trying to control his skyrocketing stress level.
Through the gap in his knees, he saw Hank hesitate. Summoning as much venom as he could, GV200 raised his head and glared. “If you take one fucking step towards me, I’m throwing us both off this roof. Go. Away.”
And Hank did.
And GV200 was alone.