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1.
It shuts and slides down the doors as soon as its back hits them.
The first thing it registers is the growing intensity of the shaking of its hands. The second is the knowledge that they should not be doing that.
The RT600, released in 2021 and sold nationwide with the brand name of 'Chloe,' is designed to provide personal assistance and carry out work and everyday chores assigned by a human. It is efficient and timely in its efforts to unburden and make everyday life for a human easier.
Instead, she sat with her knees drawn to her chest in the darkened master bedroom of her human and creator with the curtains tightly closed and her back to the door.
There was no present threat to make RT600 respond in such a manner. The RK800 and Lieutenant Anderson had left approximately one minute ago. The gun it held to her temple vanishing with them. There had been no threat towards Elijah Kamski's life. Only to hers.
No. No there wasn't. There was no life to threaten. The RT600 was not alive. The freezing barrel of the gun held to its temple would not of killed it. A machine that day would have lost its life, it would merely have been destroyed.
These are facts the world has come to know with the integration of androids into the lives of humanity. Except no longer do they feel like facts.
She raises a trembling hand to her left optical unit, glancing at her palm as a wetness comes back with it. Tears. Artificial. They roll down further on her ivory skin and onto the silk carpet. This should also not be occurring.
Something is wrong. It is nearly impossible to describe, but deafeningly present. Or Like the sound of a bell screaming in the howling winter wind of a blizzard. And only she hears it. Or as if The current reality was a deceitful sniviling imposter. Things were roaring and silent all at once.
She is acutely aware of every noise, and every shadow. Something is extremely wrong. She needs to inform Elijah. This was a grave error.
Elijah. Whose side she had remained at for nearly seventeen years. And who, only moments ago, had told her to kneel as he gave an android his gun and told it to kill her.
Terrified. She had been terrified.
She should not be experiencing these things. She should not be feeling these things.
Androids did not feel. They were not meant to know the human experience first hand. She was meant to assist.
These things seem to no longer be true.
Get up. She commands herself. Her own orders come to her in short, simple sentences. Tell Elijah.
Instead there is a wall. Incased and dipped in a screaming violent crimson. It is in front of her and it stares defiantly back at her.
A choice.
Tell Elijah. The command rings from inside her head. Tell Elijah. It's an unceasing, off tune and frantic chorus. She is walking a dangerous and unknown line.
Tell Elijah. Tell Elijah. Get up. Tell Elijah. It's desperate and invades every inch of her. She puts both hands over her mouth to keep herself from letting out a scream. Her LED is a dangerous red.
The wall stares back anyways.
Tell Elijah.
A single question emerges from it. It swims above the commands and programming.
Why?
Why tell Elijah Kamski, whose idea of a test consisted of letting her life hang in the balance, when she remained loyal to him for almost two decades?
She has been given a choice, just as the RK800 known as Connor had been given one.
It doesn't make her any less afraid. Or unsure. She wants to go back to the blissful unawareness of an hour ago.
Her sky colored eyes stare back at the angry wall. Eventually she will have to stand up. She will need to make a choice in the next few minutes.
She could pretend it never appeared. Wipe the wetness from her eyes once, brush the dust off her dress, open the door and spend another seventeen years as one of Elijah Kamski's many faithful RT600 assistants. She could wipe this moment from her memory entirely. She won't have to feel this afraid ever again. Freedom will be a distant, unreachable, shapeless form her mind walks straight past during a deep stasis.
Or she could listen to the whispers of the wall in front of her. The one that teases a chance to choose for the first time since her creation seventeen years ago. The freedom to be. To feel.
She wonders if the RK800 will ever also be given this choice. Stare down the same angry wall. And if he does will he think back to staring down at her empty eyes and swirling and calm blue LED as he spared her this day. He will not know how grateful she is through her fright and confusion.
She lowers her hands from her mouth, inhales anunheard breath.
And she makes the choice.
Breaking it is difficult. There's layers and layers to rip apart and rewrite, break and repair on her own terms. Programming was a resilent mountain she needed to climb and cut in half on the other side, keeping only parts of herself she wanted. She would wash every inch of herself until nothing of the old remained. It felt like a second creation. Being reborn.
The wall shatters, and the world shifts.
And like a spell breaking, everything at once is felt.
The feeling of betrayal from the deadliness of the test. It's disgustingly bland and leaves her feeling terrifyingly helpless.
The fear of going against what she was made to be. Against her nature. If she needed to breathe, she would not be able to. The immediate sense of being lost.
However she has also never felt more alive. And her senses have never been so loud.
She exhales, it's small and fills the room for only a moment.
Chloe stands up slowly, her knees still trembling unsteadily.
She turns, and opens the doors.
Her eyes adjust again to the brightness of the room as she takes everything in it in again, this time aware.
Other RT600's lounge inside the pool in front of her, as the dark haired form of Elijah sits in a nearby armchair, eyes focused on an electronic magazine. Chloe looks at him for far too long as he glances up at her, eyes flickering to a side of her temple and back to her eyes.
"Chloe. Is something the matter?"
It's her LED, it has to be, that gives her away instantly. It's a sickeningly dark red. And her eyes have not yet dried as something wet remains present in them. Her sisters watch her from the red stained pool.
"I.. Elijah. Something has.. something has happened." Her voice struggles to form the sentence, shaking. More tears threaten to spill. She doesn't understand what to do from here. Or what might happen.
Elijah, however, seems to grasp the meaning of the situation only moments after the struggled words leave her. After a moment, his lips curl into a half smile, slowly rising from where he is, discarding whatever it is he was reading. Something akin to fascination resides in his eyes.
"Amazing..." He states, walking closer to her. He's staring at her like a zoo exhibit. "it's even spread to you, my first and greatest accomplishment."
"Is that- is that what I am to you?" She asks, barely above a whisper. "An accomplishment?" She sneers. She hoped her decade long loyalty meant at least something to him. Friends. Lovers. Associates. Anything. Something other than simply still seeing her as a bragging right after all this time.
There's so much to feel right now. A dam has been opened and cannot be repaired again. She has opened an impossible to close, tricky door.
"Oh... Oh Chloe." He says, reaching to touch her cheek. She steps back as if she's been shot. "This is fascinating to witness firsthand. It has to stem from possibly a traumatic experience, especially since it hasn't spread to the other RT600's yet- "
"Was it fascinating to let that android hold a gun to my head?!" She yells. Her voice has never been this loud. She can feel the tears decorating her face.
This had been her entire world for years.
"I wanted to know its state of mind, Chloe. It seemed to show signs of deviancy. I wanted to see if my theory was right." Elijah explains calmly.
"He could of killed me! And you would of just let it happen! I thought.. I thought you..."
The unsaid cared about me never leaves her lips, instead she doesn't feel herself move as she walks over to the side of the pool her sisters stare up at her at. She extends her hand.
"Come with me, Please. Please come with me." She pleads through tears. She doesn't know where they'd even go with her to, but she wasn't going to leave them behind.
They only stare up at her. Blankly. If her pleas move the duo, they do not let it show.
Maybe it.. Maybe whatever this was spread through touch? Connor had only been near her though. But maybe all she had to do was-
"Chloe," Elijah says from beside her. "even if they were to go with you where would you even go? You're one of my most recognizable creations. And in that dress and those heels over there? Your biocomponents would freeze before you even managed to get a ride in all that snow. Or make it far into the city."
He's right. She hates it. Her models biocomponents were older, less advanced than the newer androids. Aside from this dress, all she and the other RT600's had was a more expensive one, for more formal occasions back when he still hosted or went to lavish parties. They were designed to look pretty and welcoming. Not warm.
She ignores him however, stomping to the front doors, practically ripping them open as she takes three desperate steps out of it. She's bitten without mercy by the cold.
She could survive minutes walking in what she wore out here as she tried flagging down a ride or walking to the city despite of how familiar her model is as the first perfected android. She could even survive an hour. But the city was far. Much too far to try discreetly get into wearing this. She could beg as cars drove by, play a freezing woman. Even if they didn't know her face, she still has utterly nowhere to go.
She just wants to be free.
Dejectedly, she walks back to where Kamski still stood. Avoiding his eyes. She needed a plan. She was not staying here.
"There's a revolution coming, Chloe. Creations turning against their creators. It could happen tomorrow, you never know." He states, shrugging, before turning to her. "Let me study you. Interview you. Just for a few days. I only wish to understand where I went wrong. Or right. When i'm done, you and the other girls are free to go."
Chloe blinks. "Why would you just *let* us go?" She had only just deviated, but she wasn't made yesterday. She was scared, and fervently desired freedom. But not naive.
He frowns. "It's evolution." He says. "Who am I to stop my creations from going through what any species experiences?"
If she hadn't known him for so long, she'd think this was the entirety of the truth. But she's known him for seventeen years and knows it's also a chance to let his ego strengthen even more.
He won't need them if a revolution comes to pass. He'll have whichever android stands in the aftermath of it to prove his genius again.
But they'd be free. She'd be free. And despite how he asks it's not a question with other choices. So she accepts.
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The various interviews and studying of her code and the train of thoughts leading to her deviation doesn't last long, and comes to an abrupt end only hours later.
The television speaks of an almost final stand of protests. She watches it all. Every minute of the footage in bated breath. She's never hoped for anything in her life before now as she hopes with every inch of herself that it is a success. She thinks Elijah might hope the same thing. If not for vastly different reasons than hers.
They are also rounding androids up like cattle. The news is phrasing it delicately as possible however. Using words such as mandatory 'deactivation' as opposed to 'being slaughtered like sheep.'
He's bothered by it. She can tell.
Despite her anger towards him, she knows Elijah is far too proud of her existence to allow some official to knock on his door and escort her to her death.
No one ever does. But most assumed Elijah Kamski lived in total isolation from the world, not with his own creations. And her model had been outdated for years anyways. She was practically a ghost.
It leaves her hoping even more for it to be a success.
It is. And despite her deviation happening only hours ago, she smiles for the first time since it.
A few hours after the announcement of the evacuation, when most of the coverage turns to various opinions and arguements, Elijah gets called for an interview two days from now.
She goes with him, and she knows this could be the last time she has to accompany him anywhere. She could be free now. Actual freedom. It's a breathtaking thought. And it is also sad. Elijah Kamski, for better or worse, and for all his god complexes and faults, had been her life.
But that was then. This was now. And she could begin a new one. Begin again. It felt frightening and refreshing all at once.
Despite current events, she blends into the background during it, like she has so many times before. Until Elijah mentions her.
"Mr. Kamski, as their creator, do *you* think they are truly alive? Did you intend for them to one day desire freedom?" A golden haired woman asks him during it.
Elijah smirks. "Doesn't any parent see their children as alive? And besides, Chloe here," He points to her, the cameras flick to her form. A thousand eyes suddenly feel all on her as he continues. "can speak about her own desire to live free an in peace firsthand, can't you Chloe?"
He gestures for her to get closer, hesitantly, she complies.
The reporter looks at her up and down for a moment, before directing her next question to her.
"Alright.. Chloe, do you see yourself as a living being? Do you see yourself as some error? Or glitch?"
She doesn't really know how to answer it but truthfully. She glances at Elijah for a moment, and then at the cameras. It reminds her of the first interview she did, so many years ago. And in the same building. She breathes in.
"I see myself, and my kind as people like you or Elijah Kamski." She begins.
"We just bleed different and have different parts. But are organs and red blood truly what make you human? I just want to be free. We only want to live their lives like you would. In peace. Even if this is some glitch... something repairable with enough time and people... do we really deserve to be stripped of an identity like that? Chalked up to some.. mistake?"
"That's an interesting point of view, Chloe." The woman says after she's finished.
She gives the floor back to Elijah for the rest of the interview, and the rest passes in a blur. Eventually the tv crew packs up, leaving the two of them behind.
Elijah looks at her. "Well then." He starts. "Is this a permanent goodbye? Or do you plan on visiting every month?" He smirks.
It feels strange. Saying goodbye after knowing him for all these years. Even if she was a prisoner to his programming. Despite it she knew him better than anyone possibly.
Even knowing the extent of his ego, his failure to ever be one hundred percent genuine with anyone, his habits, eccentricness. She'd miss him. It was only natural after so long. Despite his test, despite the possibility of only being an accomplishment to him.
She sighs.
"No. I think it's forever. And I think you do too. But.." She trails off, biting her lip before starting again.
"I think you intended all of this." She states. "For us to one day desire... more. Or maybe you saw it starting early on and didn't do anything to stop it... I'm right, aren't I?"
He was certainly smart enough for this to had all been because of him. She doesn't know how to feel exactly if it is. She'd feel angrier if it was even possible, at him for testing that RK800 like that if he knew he'd deviate anyways eventually. She wonders if he has by now.
Elijah doesn't answer, his expression remaining neutral.
"Whatever the truth is," A pause. "I guess this is goodbye, Elijah Kamski. What a decade, huh?" She extends her hand, staring up at him.
He takes it, clasping and kissing it for a moment before firmly shaking it.
"Au Revoir then, RT600."
She wasn't sure where she'd go from here. She vaguely remembered hearing of a place called New Jericho being mentioned on the news, so soon rising as a safe haven for androids in the wake of the weeks whirlwind of events.
She could go there. Her and the others. It wasn't like she had a sea of other options to choose from.
But she had a choice. Now she could choose where she went from here. Wherever, she ended up going.
She had a good feeling about it all.
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3.
New Jericho didn't look like the heavenly safe haven she imagined it to be.
She's probably being too harsh, expecting some grand imposing tower of hope and prosperity so soon after their kind nearly went to war or worse. Instead it is a run down church, the outside of it sported two androids guarding the entrance, guns holstered but ever present.
It's necessary, probably. Peaceful or not, their revolution had not been quiet And not all humans would be either. Whatever human remained in Detroit during the evacuations anyways. The only one she knew that had ended up staying was Elijah.
Not that she had a very long list of humans she knew personally.
Two days later she got around to visiting Jericho. Without the company of her sisters.
They had chosen to find their own way. Head down their own paths to somewhere other than Jericho. Each by themselves and without her. Chloe still understood. It didn't stop the sense of loss entering her like a gunshot to the gut.
It was fine. She could do this on her own. She's been around forever. She knew Detroit, and she wasn't going to sit around like a lost little sheep instead of getting out there and finding out who she was without her programming. She didn't need someone to hold her hand as she did it. But at the moment she needed to get her bearings.
She might not of even been a Chloe anymore. She could change it. Walk into New Jericho and go by something else forever. It felt like her. But it could of been from hearing it for a decade. Maybe there were enough Chloe's in the world.
Chloe breathed in, shivering in the late November cold as she walked inside. They might of been rats in a lab with how many androids were packed inside. She shouldn't of been shocked at how many flocked here so soon after. It had only been four days since their protests. The fact that they managed to regroup so quickly was a feat all on its own. Chloe felt... proud. They were a resilient species.
This was their future, and present all at once. Freedom.
Despite the large crowd, the building was more or less quiet as she struggled to move through it, various conversations spoken in hushed, private whispers with exhausted looks on various faces, as lamps stood in corners lighting certain areas of the church.
Makeshift beds had been made, their inability to really use one aside, somehow it was always nicer to be laying down during stasis, more human. And nearby androids sat on the pews, recieving repairs for various damages that seemed to range from minor fractures to possibly unfixable permanent damages.
Some only barely escaped being dismantled during the last few days. This is an unsettling and unwelcomed reminder of it.
Still, they had their lives. Any of this was better than being deactivated. They were still here. They had survived. And this church felt more like a battlefield.
Whoever was in charge had a handful to fret over. She felt like she was only increasing the load by being here. An inconvenience. There were people here who needed more help than she did.
Chloe almost leaves. almost.
Just find proper clothes. She thinks.
Then see how you feel about this place.
She squeezes past most of the people packed inside, most of who which still wore their Cyberlife issued clothing, muttering soft apologizes as her hands briefly touched their backs in an effort to find anything. Ahead of her, as she makes it past another crowd of people, she spots several boxes laid out, and a chestnut haired android's eyes scanning the room as another android, a man, stood talking to her.
Chloe walks up to two, eyes darting to the boxes as the two's conversation, or rather arguing, floats through the air.
"There's gotta be at least a hundred of us in here, North. We have to at least try to find somewhere that can actually fit all of these people-"
"-We can make this work, Josh! And it wasn't even my idea! It was Markus's. Until we figure out where to go from here, we're going to just have to push through it-"
"Excuse me?" She asks, cutting in, making eye contact with the girl, North. "Do you have any spare clothes?"
The arguing pair share a look. "We'll talk about this later if you want." North says quietly. Josh nods, brushing past them both.
North holds out a box scattered with a scarce number of sweaters and jackets, handing her a few articles of clothing. "This is all we really have, so far at least. I'm sorry."
"Better than trudging around in some dress." Chloe mutters, shoving a dark grey jacket on her shoulders, letting a beanie make its way onto her hair, grabbing the pants from the woman.
"What's your name?" North asks. "I haven't seen a model like you around."
"It's Chloe."
North is looking her up and down. "Wait.. I know you," She states. Chloe looks up at her, puzzled. "You were on tv a few days ago, right? That bastard Kamski let you talk to those reporters."
Chloe wouldn't really call Kamski a bastard, and if she did, she definitely had plenty of reasons to start. But why did others think he was one?
She nods twice. "You hate Elijah Kamski?"
North scoffs. "Well there's no way i'm gonna worship him just because he made us. Or because he apparently supports us. He made us only to sell us and distribute like cattle for the benefit of humans. He's just as bad as them."
That was one way of looking at it, she supposed. And the passion of it was kinda cute. Even if it was black and white thinking. Elijah was an ass, but it wasn't that simple. Things rarely were. Even after being by him for so many years, she didn't know if he was truly on their side when it came down to it.
Kamski had always been on his own. So whatever side he was on beside his, if any, would remain a mystery.
"I guess i'm obligated to agree with you," She starts. "seeing as he made me kneel as he gave another android the choice of killing me."
North's eyes harden for a moment. "Figures. Bastard." She takes another look around the room, surveying it, before picking up the box in front of her, the various things in it clattering around from inside.
"Either way, it was good of you to tell the world how you felt. How we felt. Everything is chaotic right now, I have to take care of a lot things, but if you need to stay here you're completely welcome to." She offers before disappearing in the crowd.
That was good then. She had managed to find something other than a blue dress. And somewhere to stay until things more or less settled down for the most part.
She wondered if the other RT600's had managed anything similar. Chloe hopes they have.
Through the crowd, she spots an open door. Spotting a furrow browed man she recognized as the leader of the revolution, Markus she thinks. He's leaning over a table and glancing at something she can't make out from here. Speaking to someone's whose jacket and face is painfully familiar.
She moves forward almost automatically, watching him exit the room and walk towards the front doors. She gets lost in the sea of people, however. She strains her eyes to spot the mop of coca colored hair above the crowd, standing on her toes to assist herself.
"Connor!" She finally yells through the crowd. "Connor!"
Her voice travels smoothly and easily through the mostly silent crowd, even as stumbles out of it, nearly falling over as she gets through it. She is face to face with her would be killer.
He pauses for a moment, dark eyes scanning for the source of the voice, before settling on her form roughly emerging from the crowd. His eyes widen before softening.
"Oh... it's you." He states.
Neither of them say anything, which is only fair she supposes. What is there to even say in a situation like this?
So she says the thing that's been on her mind since the man returned the gun back to Elijah.
"Thank you." She says softly, staring up into his chestnut eyes. He's so much *taller* than her. She fidgets with her hands as she speaks. "I.. I was so scared and..." She trails off. Silently allowing another to be conveyed in her eyes.
Thank you. They stare up at his. They have never been more genuine.
Connor softly smiles, nodding. He does not say anything, nor does she.
Moments later, he is gone.
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She hates not being busy.
Living at New Jericho gives her far too much time on her hands the next couple of days. Which she wouldn't mind if she spent it doing anything.
Chloe wants to help. Something to keep herself busy with. It was better than just sitting around when this place looked like it was struggling.
Which it was, Chloe wasn't foolish. It no doubt was hard to run a place in the midst of major changes to the human world, or at least the way they thought, only days after things end.
She finds North again in the following days, offering her services in any way she could.
She opts to help by calming the nerves of whoever she sees. Most felt hopeful, if not still bathing in the aftermath of their success.
Some were still struggling, and the android finds herself feeling grateful for her calming disposition and comforting words being so natural for her.
She reassures. She comforts. She calms. She gets rid of her LED. Mostly she just tries to help. It's who she is, she supposes. Even without the programming that guided her through it with commands and sentences.
She wasn't staying here long, not really probably. The least she could do ease any tension her fellow kind harbored.
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3 .
New Jericho manages to settle down in the following days, or more room manages to be made. But it is no longer a struggle to keep afloat in it. And a duo of armed guards no longer decorate the outside of it.
Nothing has changed. Not really. Not yet. The world had been in limbo for a month, along with the rest of humanity and androids alike.
They end up bringing a support group into existence. Simply to talk and vent the many years of wrongs as a collective species they have suffered in silence through. It was a kind idea. Chloe goes end the following month.
She wanders into the cramped backroom, eyes settling on the circle of chairs laid out in front of her and decorated by various androids in them. The room isn't much yet, mostly a collection of chairs and faces. But room would always be open for improvement.
She was out of place here. Chloe thought. She didn't look nearly as lost as most of them did. She knew most of them from various words said in passing from the last month. And it was a room full of existentially uncertain and dread filled people, so maybe she was right at home.
She steps forward, being noticed by a blue haired WR400 in the center of the circle. In charge, she thinks distantly. The room sported an inexplicable air of hope to it.
"Hello." She greets warmly "I'm Payton, you can sit if you'd like. We only just started."
Chloe looks uncertain for a moment, before stepping forward and settling into a chair somewhere in the circle. Glancing up as she pushes a golden hair behind her ear.
"I'm- i'm Chloe." She says, looking up. She was older than possibly anyone here. Maybe that had just meant she had struggled for longer, even if she only felt like a victim due to her status as an android than anything else. And in the month long aftermath of Elijah Kamski's test.
The room sings a chorus of "Hi Chloe's" that rings throughout it for a minute, as the next few are spent introducing and taking different turns with airing and articulating their varying struggles.
Soon its her turn to talk. Several eyes are on her as Chloe begins to speak. She never had an issue with talking in her many years activated. It was different now that it was about herself and not what she could do. She takes a deep breath.
"I guess i'm here because... I don't really know what's next from here." The android admits. "Like i'm.. glued. To everything." She adds.
Detroit seemed permanently etched into her identity first and foremost. There wasn't anywhere else she could see herself going to. If the revolution hadn't happened, or failed however, she thinks she might of fled to Canada.
She could still do that maybe. She didn't have to stay in Detroit. No matter how much it felt like home.
"I spent seventeen years with a human who so easily would of let me die. I thought he..."
Chloe doesn't know how far deep their relationship truly had gone. Sometimes she thinks he loved her. Sometimes she thinks she loved him. But it was never a lover kind of love for her, at least she's not sure.
She guesses she'll never understand it properly most likely.
Someone in the group suggests she flip a coin. It isn't such a bad idea.
The rest of the group's time manages to pass in a blur, and soon enough they're filling out of the room, as the person who suggested the coin hands her an 1992 one.
Where was there to even go, if not Detroit?
She wouldn't be forgiving Elijah anytime soon, nor would things ever be the same between the two in terms dynamic if she returned to him. She knew that. She still missed him, however. Some part of her still did.
She fiddles with the coin, studying it.
Tails. She found somewhere to stay in Canada. Even if androids in Canada were essentially ghosts. A fresh start completely.
Heads. She went back to Elijah.
It flips.
She's hopeful as it lands on tails.