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[VIDEO]

[Hank's looking a little more haggard than usual when he makes this post. He's tired and fucking wore out from a long stretch of just being perpetually pissed and sad. And goddammit, he wants his hope back, but it's been sliding.]

[He's still fuckin' trying, though.]

[He positions the phone so it's showing an old-timeyish looking Detective's office. We're talking he went for the Sam Spade aesthetic. He plants himself in a desk seat.]

So, I know I just fuckin' talked about getting a promotion. But I had some things go wrong with my last case. [Some big things. People kept going missing, for one.] Connor got assaulted by a decorated officer. And while he's getting what's due uh... I don't know. I figured it'd be better if I got him out of there while he was recovering emotionally. And this fuckin' job would require less walking.

[Those are his excuses? Real reason number one? Connor can't understand all those extra languages at the moment. Real reason number two? Being in the middle of the police station when his year runs up doesn't sound like the best plan. And for some people? Seems like it's not taking a year.]

[He sure as shit would like to stop losing fucking friends. Thanks.]

[Hank turns himself in his chair.] This is my new private detective's office. So now I get to take pictures for paranoid fuckin' people looking for reasons for divorce. I'm really goddamn excited about that. [He smears his hand down his face, then scratches his beard.]

But uh. It was time I said good-bye to the job. [He'd always said this was his last chance to be a cop, and here it is. But damn if the heaviness of that loss isn't weighing on him too.]

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I don't know how to tell him that. [He hasn't said anything about dying yet. Connor's visibly frustrated the whole language can't just appear in his brain perfectly useable.] That's what I was going for with "if the Head didn't want you here, you'd know about it".

[Or rather, Connor's ungrammatical version of that.]

Depends how petty it is. He wasn't doing any real harm, maybe it just wants to...show him how much power it has. It doesn't do any good if nobody understands the gesture, though.

[Frowning, he turns back to Tidus.]

Did you ask to the Head about the chips? When you talked?

[ Hank's immediate response is about as useless to be expected, and what Connor voices isn't anything he can respond to either when the guy switches over languages. He doesn't bother to disrupt, sitting back in the chair, letting the small exchange happen until he can understand anything.

But there's something...about it. Tidus watches Connor speaking to Hank, his brow dipping quizzically. Watching Connor already when he turns back to him, the stilted change in his language from just a moment before. ]

No no, that's not it. I asked about something personal after I got here. Then I was asking about the same thing on the network. [ Being subtle about it now probably doesn't matter, but whatever, right? He's answering the most important part. ]

That's what I mean, right? It's being petty, like you were saying. [ A pause, and though there's more he wants to say, Tidus glances over to Hank, pointing a finger to the ground before himself over to the older guy's direction. ]

...were you sayin' that to Hank, or me?

[ Because Connor was definitely looking at Hank when he said it, and despite the hope of what he thinks just happened, he's not going to get excited. Yet. ]

Wait, can you understand me now? [He motions between himself and Tidus. Before adding, to Connor-]

Nick thinks that we're just here for a while so the Head can fuck with us. Research. He could clone us for the moment we show up, he doesn't need to wait a full year. Not like we were told before. Apparently the assholes at the Heart had been sitting on that little tidbit.

[His fondness hasn't grown for them, and he just doesn't have enough sympathy for them in death. They put their lives at risk, and keep dicing up information.]

[The explanation from Nick makes a lot of sense, and Connor's nodding wryly along even as he turns to stare at Tidus...then back to Hank.]

He under-- You understood?

[Everything Tidus is saying to him is having to come through Hank's mind, Connor saving the words and cross-referencing the translation through what he already recognises from the grammar and vocabulary, making extrapolations and candidate lists, and already creating ways to test them out.]

We don't think this is because you. Because ofyou. The Head is... The Head is the Head.

[And the Head's going to do what it wants - often to the very people of the city it was created to look after. He's almost talking to himself as much as Hank - and Tidus, since it seems like he might understand them now.]

Somehow it doesn't surprise me. Technologically, it shouldn't take the same length of time to create everybody. Reverse-engineering Markus and I, or EDI, shouldn't take the same length of time as recreating an adult human body from scratch. The time length was always arbitrary. It makes sense.

And the only reason it has is... Right. Pettiness. Cruelty. Research.

[Connor sounds clinical, but that tone's hiding a lot. It's a little more apparently in the downward twist of his mouth, the bleak look wavering over his expression before schooling it again.]

[ There's a flash nod, first to Hank and then Connor, as the question of understanding gets presented by both. And he doesn't so mind as the pair speak between each other, enjoying the relief that comes from just...understanding at all, like a breath he didn't know he was holding. That discomfort in his limbs loosening, or his place in this seat, in this room, not as conflicting.

Even if he still probably is the odd one out here between two detective types. He listens anyway, the subject by itself one void of any relief. But typically Dualis. ]

Didn't clones of people who weren't here long get loose during that blackout? Wouldn't that mean some of 'em are just...sitting around? Waiting 'til the Head sends them out?

[ He's not sure if he's had that blackout fiasco clear, but when he thought about it once, that detail stuck with him. Then he wonders if he shouldn't have spoken up, but goes on regardless. ]

The Head can take our memories and figure us out in our worlds, but what about what we'd do here? If it gave us leeway with our powers? What are we gonna do then? That goes with the idea of researching us, right? Seeing what we do? [ He's looking between the pair of them. ]

And bringing in people who know each other...

[ He doesn't stop suddenly, but he pauses soon after, eyes widening as he realises what he's about to put forward to maybe the two people he doesn't want to share it with. He looks away, rubbing at the back of his head. ]

I've, uhh, just been thinking a lot since the warehouse attack. [ Maybe too much. Probably. But he does pick his gaze back up to look at Hank. ]

Tell him if he needs me to say anything so he gets it. Tell him thanks for talking to me. [ And because it's not enough to say just to Hank alone, Tidus turns to Connor. ]

Thanks.

Yeah, I think that's about right.

He could be getting something out of us just being confused. [Hank pauses, grateful Tidus can understand him again, but guesses that he should at least inform him of his own thing.]

I think I don't need to translate now. I installed a mod a few months ago, something simple that'd let me and him communicate without talking. [Without bugs interfering and conversations having to be veiled.]

Turned out useful, so I kept upgrading it. Right now, if I'm beside him and my chip's still workin', he can understand. We just figured that out.

[Hopefully his chip keeps fuckin' working or he'll be up shit creek.] Maybe Lorna can help disable the Head's control over the chips. So we can keep the translation somehow but not have to deal with his shit.

[Connor grins lopsidedly at Tidus.] It's no problem. Besides, if Hank's not here I still need to be able to understand people. This helps.

[Maybe not directly - only Tidus speaks this language, as far as he's been able to tell; he's never heard it from anyone else - but it's giving the translation software he's trying to develop here a workout.]

It shouldn't just break and then fix itself - this sounds like something the Head's doing on purpose. You're right - maybe just to see what we'll do without the help.

[His expression tightens just a little at Tidus's aborted statement - about people who know each other.]

It's not...unlikely the Head brought Hank and I here just to observe our behaviour with one another. Or the way we interact with the city at large in comparison with people who come here by themselves. Maybe because of what it knew about us back in Detroit.

I wonder if there's actually a purpose to it, or if the Head's just bored. I'm an AI too - I've wondered before what I'd do if I was created in stationary servers, given control over an entire city state and left to my own devices. Left alone for a long time. What I would be like.

I hope not like this.

[ Well that makes things a lot easier, doesn't it? Tidus isn't sure what Hank means by a mod, but he doesn't pursue the subject. It's helping them out, so good thing whatever it is.

Far more important to Tidus is the remark Connor makes about him about being an AI. He speaks quickly, a little adamantly. ]

Hey, the Head's just a bastard. It can bring people back and make clones, but destroying lives is what it goes with? [ He throws back a hand dismissively. ] Fleshy people can be crazy too. There was a guy back in my world who wanted to save it by destroying it.

[ His voice drones to share that, then returns to normal. ]

You're not like that. Hank better have better taste than that!

[ And that hand thrown before gestures towards Hank fondly, a little exaggerated, but Tidus's expression turning optimistic to go with it, reassuring. Sure, he might not know the guy, but was the Head ever someone like Connor? He doubted it. Tidus doubted the Head was anything other than a bastard from the start, but maybe he was biased. ]

I think it wants to scare us. The Head isn't hiding that it's swapping us around; people disappear a couple of days, then they reappear? It's not waiting the year. It's gotta know people talk. [ He gives a small, slow shake of his head. ]

Maybe it's boredom, I dunno... but it brings people who know each other... it knows what people mean to us, and it knows it can take them away and get a reaction. I came with someone close to me, and there were three years between us -- I was from her past.

[ Because briefly, he understands that may be confusing, even if Hank's helping Connor anyway to understand him. ]

That wasn't an accident. It knew our memories. It's done it to other people too; waiting or not waiting until it takes people -- people we care about. [ His head dips. ] All of this... it's sick.

Oh I woulda killed myself to keep from putting up with him, or killed him. [Hank says flatly, addressing two subjects there that are painfully true. But then he just gives Connor a tight and quick smile that's an almost apology for what they both know had been a very real option, if Connor hadn't been experiencing that instability. In fact, he did exactly that with Connor's double.]

The Head is a scientist. He's made by scientists. I've heard all these fucking psycho horror stories about animal testing, fucked up shit. I won't get into it, but imagine the desire to learn at the expense of something's physical well-being given to something that sees itself above even the creatures belonging to other universes.

I guess the more he learns, the more he feels that it's his created right to do whatever the fuck he wants.

[And Hank just wants to put it down.]

There are flesh and blood people like that. I don't think it's an AI thing. I think it's just a sick asshole thing.

[But then, he doesn't know if Tidus knows yet, the fucking file he was given was huge and he dumped it at Ricks in the hopes a technical expert would have a look at it and make some assessments.]

You're right, though. It doesn't take a year. Turns out the Heart had been hiding that it pretty much can duplicate us immediately. A year is just the max that anyone lasts before he gets bored with us.

Which means I got about four months at most.

[Hank gets a slightly quelling look at the reference to killing either one of them, but Connor's quick to wave off the reassurances.]

I don't mean any AI is immediately capable of this. I just mean that the Head's been here for maybe centuries. It's basically alone. All its experience is apparently with treating organic life like tools, and that's what it was programmed to do. Hundreds of years, all alone, forced to see all life as a science experiment.

I was programmed to see myself and all my own people as tools. Even humans were just...part of a mission.

[He looks a little helpless, like he's not getting his thoughts across like he wants to.]

I don't know. Just thinking out loud.

[Hank's saying a lot of alarming things today, it turns out - his comment about having four months left... That's alarming too. Not because Connor didn't realise - oh, he did.]

I wonder what happens when the year is up. How many of the original versions of the clones here knew exactly what was going to happen to them before it did? How many of them died fighting, and how many of them had no idea until the Iterations were right there in front of them.

[ No killing would be good here.

The correction, or explanation, leaves Tidus with a puzzling expression accompanied by a tight mouth, an unsure way of thinking clouding his features. He gets it, kinda, though it's not usually anything he thinks about too deeply. Was there anything about looking into the past that could help the present? But that didn't seem to be what Connor was musing.

But he would prefer it that line of open thought to the imagery that Connor's next conjures. He's speaking about a past gone, but something about the last part hits with Tidus, and the present. His frown deepening before he lets out a disgusted sound. ]

Thinking about that isn't going to help us any. Whether they knew it was coming or not, they suffered. They're gone. [ He doesn't look at either of them as he speaks, but his words are forceful in their point. Letting them sit in the air for a moment before he lifts his head, turning to Hank first. ]

You don't have four months. You've got four months if you're lucky, and your life isn't worth that gamble. We should be thinking about how to move everyone out of the dorm and somewhere safe as soon as they get here, 'cause we're dead the second the Head decides we are.

[ He shakes his head, spreading out his hands in a sweeping motion. ]

We shouldn't even be using it. We're an easy target every time we go there!

I know, Tidus. I know.

[He's aware of it every day. That he could get jumped on his way home from work. Hell, that he's at this job rather than the one that would keep him surrounded by iterations. And yeah, he does very well know that it could come at him.]

There's a fence around the city. I asked Loki to go check it out, don't know what he's found out yet. It might be a more permanent escape than the underground. From the sound of the quarantine, at least to some extent, the Head can't follow us out.

Problem is, this locks us out of seeing if some of us can go home. I mean... one of our greatest civil rights leaders is in this city? Fuckin' legendary scientists. Major world-changing figures that this thing has stolen. So I gotta keep trying here as long as I can.

[He's gotta have a talk with Connor to see that, if Hank 'disappears' or whatever, if he can keep Markus safe.]

God I wish we fucking knew what's under the dorms.

[He's in desperate, desperate need of a win.]

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