dualisooc | TDM 001. WELCOME TO THE CITY

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!tdm

TDM 001. WELCOME TO THE CITY

» 01. WELCOME WAGON

Wow, what a bunch of new faces! The city of Dualis hasn't seen anything like this in a long time, and they've seen some pretty crazy things. Chances are you're seeing some pretty crazy things, too, unless you're used to a lot of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis, and welcome to your first monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, then the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right?

» 02. A BUG IN THE CODE

Remember how the Head mentioned that whole plague thing? Well, don't worry, this isn't that.

It is, however, a really, really terrible flu circulating through the residents of Dualis. Symptoms include fever, chills, vomiting, hallucinations and even in some cases seizures. Bad news, all around. Luckily, this is something the Head knows how to deal with! Time for vaccinations, everyone~

The vaccination process is pretty straightforward: just head to your local clinic and get innoculated! You'll be in and out in less than ten minutes, MedDualis is pretty efficient that way. There isn't even a copay. The MedDroids will tell you, however, that there might be some minor side effects** to watch out for, including physical reactions and odd dreams, but don't worry--those will wear off within forty-eight hours. Nothing to concern yourself about! Of course, if that worries you, you could always run the risk of getting the flu--or passing it on to your loved ones...

**Possible side effects include: Gender or sex change, positive or negative size change, appearance alterations, shared dreams, and mild telepathic links, among others. Please contact your local MedDroid if these symptoms become too severe, or other side effects such as death occur.

» 03. TANSTAAFL

Well, you're settling in just fine, and the basic accommodations and amenities are okay, but maybe you've got a hankering to see that new VR Film: SHARKS IN SPACE 85: BLACK HOLE SHARK DO DO DO DO DO DO DO. Or maybe you want some sweet new duds to wear around town, or even just an actual slab of steak. Sorry, those cost extra, pal, which means it's time for...

JOB HUNTING.

Fortunately, Dualis makes this pretty easy! There's a job fair on this week, down at the Central Hub! Plug your certifications and skills into any of the EmployMe terminals in the Dualis Central Hub, and the computer will auto-generate a currently open job that it feels you'd be best suited for. No resume writing or lengthy application process required! Of course, whether or not this job sounds like the right job for you is another matter...but hey, how could an AI with millions of years of learning be wrong? Time to get started, or try and switch waivers with another unhappy new employee--but be warned, some unforeseen consequences may occur if you try swapping identities with someone else...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

01. break ice, plunge into freezing water beneath

Connor did, upon arrival, try to rationally explain that he is an android, and though there might be something like DNA in certain of his biocomponents, it is not actually DNA and he might not be the best candidate for whatever this is supposed to be. It was met with entirely deaf ears.

And so here he sits, at what was sold to him as a 'networking event', but what looks like an interrogation if only the suspects interrogated back. Helpfully, he's holding a piece of paper in front of him with such things as...

"If you were a celebrity, describe your signature fragrance."

He manages to ask this with a straight face and a perfectly affable tone of voice. But the LED on his right temple is going in quick little yellow circles.

--

03. entry position, 36 years experience req'd

It's not lack of money that makes Connor march his way into the job fair bright and early a couple of days after arrival - it's curiosity. He asked himself what it is people - other people, he has to remind himself of his own personhood sometimes in little ways like this - do with their lives, and the first answer he thought of was that they work. He's never had a job before. (Some might argue that he absolutely has had a job - he was a detective. Connor would argue that he was more like a piece of--

"Roomba technician."

--a piece of equipment.)

"It seems like these terminals came programmed with a sense of irony," he says, half to himself...but also sort of to his neighbour at the terminal over.

Irony or self-hatred, or ironic self-hatred.

Hank's already gone through the whole process of integrating himself into his work. He's back on beat patrol, but as usual, Hank's not satisfied with just that. Which is a vast improvement from his emotional complacency that Connor saw reach its eventual breaking point. Where he'd gone from refusing to go to crime scenes to demanding to Fowler that they need more time and that they were almost there.

It's all that growth that, when he overhears what job is recommended, he immediately is ready to snipe the damn program.

"What the fuck are they thinking? Fuckin' at least make you a fuckin' secretary or somethin'. Fuck this thing."

He doesn't buy it. Connor deserves better. To Hank he was very much a cop, and while he would like Connor the chance to choose his job he'd also like him to have a job that wasn't fuckin' slapping more robots into workable servitude. Jesus Christ.

"You gonna let it pick that for ya?"

A week ago, Hank would have been calling him a Roomba, or at the very least not batting an eyelid at the joke. It's a profound difference Connor doesn't actually want to dwell on much. He'd rather get to know this version of Hank, the one that is out in the morning working the beat and getting defensive on his behalf.

"I would be better at secretarial work." He steps back to let the next person use the terminal, frowning at the words on his slip of paper. "This is like expecting you to be a optician just because you're a human with eyes."

He's a little better at breaking machines than fixing them - besides, most machines don't have the simple modular components androids were built with.

"I don't see any employees." But then he looks directly at Hank, the ghost of a grin touching his eyes. "Officer, I'd like to register an official complaint."

Edited (I remember how to game tag, honest) 2019-07-09 07:08 (UTC)

It's probably a godsend for Connor, too, because it means Hank has to be in a uniform for some of the day and not just in his usual choice of technicolor failure shirts that look like 70s movie openings sound. "I think you can probably get away with resetting it somehow. Look, Connor-" Hank steps up to him and puts his hands on his shoulders.

"I know you didn't have a job before. It was labor, it wasn't a job." It was slavery. "But you do have skills that you like to use, and like any asshole out of college you're allowed to use them like internship experience and say, 'Hey, I can do this'."

Hank still would absolutely call this fucker a roomba, though. Except with no animosity in mind.

"I'll go tell 'em you fucked it up. And I'll enjoy it 'cause I'll get to tell 'em you fucked it up." He gives his shoulders a friendly, teasing jostle. It's always funny how stiff and sturdy this fuckin' twink is when he puts his hands on him.

Connor's used to seeing Hank's odd shirts - he can look at them and pinpoint exactly which colours clash and where he's seen the patterns before (usually in wallpaper), and they all feel uniquely Hank. So it actually feels a little wrong seeing him in uniform, like gyroscopic sensors just slightly misaligned.

His brain helpfully informs him that the last time Hank grabbed him, it was to hug him. The time before that was to threaten him. This is neither.

"I know," he says, making it casual. Good-natured. He isn't angry about this. Not in the way he thinks North or Markus would be. More like... "It's irritating. I have skills that could be put to better use than fixing cleaning equipment."

He's on the verge of correcting his partner - no, not his partner, not anymore. His friend - when he realises that was teasing. He did not break the terminal.

"I'll join you," he says, barely shifting under the light shoving motion of Hank's shoulders. "We can convince them I'm utterly incompetent with machinery and should be reassessed immediately."

Hank's amused by his stiff friendly plank of a partner, and he doesn't care if he isn't technically his partner here, he's the guy that Hank chose as his partner. Even if he climbs the ranks, even if they try to pair him up with someone else, Connor is his partner. Every word of this case will be shared with him, somehow. He'll want that clarity with him.

"Come on, Connor." He slings his arm around his shoulders to lead him towards some overseeing worker. He's so glad to see him that the poor android is just going to have to bear the weight of a broad, heavy-set drunkard's affections until he gets worn out with them. Good thing the prototype model RK800 came in the sturdy build.

"Come on, tell me some of your skills you actually like using. Leaving out the whole tasting things bit. I could see you ending up as a food quality tester if you weren't careful and God hates me more than I thought."

Hank's arm slings round his shoulders, jamming Connor in against his side a little, while he's dragged a very drunk and resistant Hank in this position before, he's not used to just walking like this. Hank doesn't need the support this time - it's just an affectionate, very human gesture. Should he wrap his arm around him? Is Hank expecting that?

He's still got a few processes dedicated to this as the rest focus on the question.

"I like being a detective." Simple. But that's what he was programmed to do. What does he like about it? "I like solving problems - the clues might be vague or difficult to make sense of, but they're there and they fit together somehow, even if nobody can work it out."

It occurs to him that he only really likes that satisfying feeling because that was programmed into him too.

"I like learning about people," he offers, a little more tentatively. "I'd like to be able to learn about them when they're alive, too."

... He wraps an arm around Hank's back. Not holding him up or really holding him, just. There. And it's fine. The world doesn't immediately end.

"Well, they give us entry-level positions when we come in. I'm just a fuckin' low-level patrolman at the moment. Crowd control and traffic pretty much. But it's not homicide so I'm gonna at least start out with real people." And not all of them human.

He notices that thin arm come up behind his back and just rest there, like it needed to situate itself perfectly on in the space or there'd be a mismatch that'd trigger a Spielburgian trap of some sort. He gives his partner's shoulders an encouraging squeeze at the gesture.

"If it interests you and makes you happy and you're good at it, you're allowed to say so. You can want things for yourself. Fuck the police." He knows it's a dumb joke, but he'll just live with it happily now that he's made it.

He gives Connor a genuine smile, a touch off-kilter, before loosening his hold and heading over to one of the people running the machines, fussing with the jacket to his uniform. The problem with putting on weight? it means that nothing fits quite right, even when it's tailored to do so.

Edited 2019-07-10 13:02 (UTC)

"So you're telling me that with enough time I'll be promoted from lowly Roomba technician to the king of the vacuum cleaners?" he jokes, voice on the slightly droll side of normal. "That could be interesting."

He doesn't understand Hank's reference and has no Internet access here to find out (there is no Internet in this world, not the one in their world), but he does understand the tone of voice people use when they're making a reference. It's a very specific kind of tone, he's learned. And he understands the meaning anyway. So...

"Yeah. That." Fuck the police, indeed.

...Beat.

"Aren't you the police?"

"Connor, if you become a roomba technician I'm going to quit and become a proctologist." He wouldn't, actually, but the message is basically that he expects more of Connor. And really, Hank should stop and explain more. He knows he better get back to that 'fuck the police' one 'cause there are fifty different ways that could go wrong.

But in the meantime he goes to sweet talk the assistance officer available. Hank can be as coarse as a hedgehog or he can be a friendly soft bear when he needs to be, that big warm sort of guy people want to listen to and talk to. That's what he calls on, and within half a minute he's coming back to Connor.

"You're good for another go."

Then back to the subject at hand.

"'Fuck the police' is an anti-authoritarian resistance slogan. I'm being a douchebag and using it ironically."

"I wasn't seriously suggesting..." He trails off. Deviating did make it easier to pick up certain nuances in human speech, but more than anything else it was getting used to Hank's own quirks and figures of speech as they worked together that helped. Piecing Hank together like a puzzle in himself. Now those figures of speech mostly roll off Connor and let him pick up the meaning behind them. Broadly speaking, Hank does not want him fixing Roombas.

It's interesting too just how many different faces humans can put on when they need to. Connor has his interrogation mode (not literally a mode, but still), but apart from that he feels like he's only ever just one kind of Connor. Hank seems to flip a switch on the way over to the attendant and become an entirely different kind of person. The kind of person people want to help, confide in even.

Maybe Connor can learn that too.

"That was easy," is all he remarks about it when Hank returns, though. "So let's try it again."

As he approaches another terminal to start re-entering...maybe not exactly the same answers, he says to Hank, "I could have guessed the last part."

Did he just call Hank a douchebag? Maybe.

"Shut the fuck up." Hank says, grinning and with the words dripping with a sort of sweetness that makes it synonymous with I'm happy to have you here.

But he waits as Connor puts in new suggestions, crossing his arms to keep himself from drumming his hands and fidgeting. He'd been whining to enough people about Connor, worrying how the android would get along without him. It's a more relevant fear than most people would think.

As much as he wishes Connor wasn't wrapped up in this mess, he'd rather he be with someone that would keep him in a safe situation.

"I should show you around. Try to find some live music or somethin'." It's been an interest of his anyway, wanting to look into a case that he really probably shouldn't be investigating but is anyway. Might as well get more quality time in with Connor while he's grotesquely misusing his time.

He glances sidelong at Hank with a grin. He hears that meaning in Hank's tone - it's louder than the words. Another thing humans are very good at, that he came to appreciate more the longer he was assigned to the DPD. And then with a renewed understanding after he deviated, because, as it turns out, deviants are very good at it too.

He answers the questions again - job experience, height, weight, number of wisdom teeth, time spent in education, preference - cats or dogs, several other questions of varying levels of relevance to jobseeking. (Short but intensive, tall, surprisingly heavy, four pseudo-enamel objects attached to his jaw that could perform the function of teeth if he wanted them to, none, dogs) He's tapping away at the screen, face set in concentration.

"I'd like that," he says without breaking pace. "I've never had the free time before, come to think about it."

'Come to think about it', as if he hasn't been very aware that he's gone from having his entire days planned out for him in lists literally before his very eyes of objectives nested in order to priority and timescale to having his vision obstructed with...nothing. Nothing except...

"Secretary," he announces, and his photographic memory allows him to pinpoint the precise moment irony really did strike, "for, ah, Munster, Fogle and Winterbottom... Magical purging and cleansing, sacrifice provision and ritual site purification."

He blinks several times.

"Maybe I should go back to the Roombas."

(Not really.)

"Oh no, I absolutely want to see this Munster, Fogle, and Winterbottom. If it's not owned by a guy named 'Eddie' I'm gonna be sorely disappointed."

If the guy's name is Eddie he'll just fucking fling himself through a window. He's met fucking X-men and heard references to Gotham fucking city. Hank's not a nerd by a reach, unless sports fan and music elitist counts, but he knows enough to know that this isn't right.

He is, admittedly, disappointed that the result wasn't police. But he also realizes that Connor needs a chance to do something for himself. Even if, technically, this isn't for himself. But he has a more important focus than that.

"What sort of place would you like to go to? You gotta have thought of something."

He can't help being a little sad he didn't get police along with Hank. Sad is an oddly heavy, stiff sort of feeling, like his thirium got somehow denser in his body. But it's only for a moment. They still live in the same place, Connor is in no danger of deactivation now even though he's not got a mission of any kind, and it's already clear Hank isn't going to discard him now that they're not beholden to one another. That thought of the alternative is actually a sad one, and he decides not to have it anymore.

As if it's that simple. His LED goes yellow, just for a moment.

"I'll keep you posted," he says, and this time pockets the paper without any more complaint. Besides, magic? Ritual? This sounds impossible, but the mere fact that it's here and Hank has made no comment about it, along with some of the other things he's already seen, take it from impossible to downright probable.

"In Detroit I did." His voice is thoughtful. "I've been to the TV tower but I've never watched TV. I noticed you watch basketball - I thought maybe I could start there. I was going to ask you if I could walk Sumo sometimes.

"But now I have a job at a firm that says it deals in magic. We could spend a year exploring just this city and not understand half of it. So honestly, right now I want to get started."

It sounds like he's turning Hank down, but, "I want to start with what you think is most interesting about it."

... But actually, he's just turning the question back round on Hank.

Knowing what stress can do to an android makes the yellow change meaning for Hank. There's no case, no pressing situation, and then there's that flash of yellow. That tiny sign of stress. Hank reaches out without thinking about it, a squint in his expression as he rubs his thumb over the LED on Connor's temple, feels it as a hard ring in Connor's skin. But it seems to be back to normal, a pale blue reflecting against his knuckle, so he withdraws.

"They have TV and internet here." Hank comments, leaning in. "They're also editing and censoring a lot of the internet and television. No divergent opinions. They have robots to enforce it- they're not like you. They're not intelligent enough to go deviant except in the fuckin' sci-fi 'autopilot gone wrong' way." As if their world hadn't progressed to the point that the probabilities of 'science fiction' were very real. The evidence of which stands before him.

But the warning is important. What they say is being watched.

"Well, they do have games here. Music." He'd heard about speakeasies and the like. Places people could go to speak more freely. He might be a cop, but he's not above having a good time.

"The most interesting thing is probably the people, I'll be honest. Give me all the shit available in the world, fuckin' cybernetic modifications out the wa-fuckin'-zoo, and I'd rather sit on a bench and watch aliens and mutants walk past any day. So I'll take you somewhere where we can watch and maybe meet some things that aren't human or are your type of android."

Connor | Detroit: Become Human | OTA

03. Assuming that they've already reunited for the sake of not being repetitive later

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1 :)

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