Series: Detroit: Become HumanRating: TGenre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance)Summary:Befo

Series: Detroit: Become HumanRating: TGenre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance)Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not. ( < Back to part 1 / < Back to part 11 )Part 12 - QuestMagic, Seven decided, was absolutely fascinating. It was all about making the impossible happen right in front of people’s eyes with nothing but a little sleight of hand and some clever misdirection. At its core, he observed to Todd at one point, it was essentially lying with style, and the old man had laughed out loud, unable to deny the truth of the statement.Seven was so interested in learning this new, peculiar skill set, in fact, that he nearly gave away his synthetic nature to his mentor with the sheer speed at which he picked up trick after trick. It wasn’t until Todd made a comment about what talent he had for it that the android thought to check himself, and intentionally fumbled things on occasion from there on out for the sake of maintaining his cover. Humans, he had to remind himself, had to gain skill through repetition, though the number of repetitions depended on the individual.When not installed with a program to fulfill a function, androids also had to learn this way, though it generally took far less time; and it took Seven even less time than the average android thanks to the highly advanced learning software he’d come outfitted with. His powerful scanners allowed him to map and mimic Todd’s deft hand movements with ease once he began to grasp what was misdirection and what was the actual motion needed to carry off the trick.Four hours later, Todd had shown Seven almost every card related trick he knew at least once, and they’d decided to take a break so the android could teach him a few coin tricks before the bus pulled into a station to refuel.Seven blinked in surprise, having barely noticed the passing of the time thanks to the distraction his companion had provided, and Todd chuckled. The man patted him on the arm and said “Best get out and stretch our legs while we can, huh?”The android didn’t actually need to stretch his legs, of course, but he knew it would look strange if he didn’t considering everyone else was already eagerly filing off the bus to do just that. “Yeah,” he agreed and flashed the man a half-smile before grabbing up his bag and following the example of the other passengers.“We’ll be taking off again in about twenty minutes, so don’t go far,” the bus driver informed everyone as they disembarked, and Seven set himself a fifteen minute timer as a reminder, just to be safe.As he stepped off and to one side, Seven stretched, subtly mimicking the stiff but relieved movements of the humans around him. It wasn’t an action he actually needed, but the android had to admit that, after sitting for several hours in a cramped space, being able to stand at his full height and move freely did feel good. An absence of pain or discomfort, he realized, was not the same as actually being comfortable.Mulling over this revelation, Seven glanced back and saw Todd, Tonya, and their grandson, Jake, step off the bus and make a beeline for the nearby bathrooms. The old man winked at him as they passed and the android quirked a brow, a smile tugging at his lips as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose to better shield his eyes from the sun overhead. Noting that the general flow of the passengers around him seemed to all be heading for either the bathrooms or the convenience store attached to the gas station, Seven opted to head into the latter. He hadn’t planned to buy anything, but when the android happened across a small end-cap full of travel games that included decks of cards, he immediately plucked one up, pleased by the find. He looked around for a few minutes longer before he eventually grew bored and made his purchase before meandering back outside.He didn’t get far before someone near at hand said, “You’re that nice boy letting my husband talk his ear off, aren’t you?”Seven glanced around to see Tonya leaning against the wall of the convenience store next to a bench, on which her grandson sat, still playing on his phone. She smiled at him and the android took it as an invitation to join her. Considering the growing intensity of the sun overhead, Seven readily stepped into the shade of the building to lean casually against the roughly textured wall next to her.“Yeah,” he said, then offered her a hand and said, “I’m John. Tonya, right?”“That’s me,” the woman said with a bright smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle in a way Seven was surprised to find himself thinking of as endearing. “ This is Jake,” she continued as she reached over to ruffle her grandson’s hair to get his attention. “And Jake’s phone,” the elderly woman added dryly when it took the boy several seconds to pry his eyes from the screen long enough to glance up at ‘John’ and bob his head in silent greeting.“Pleasure,” Seven mused.Tonya gave him a smile that appeared more than a little exasperated by her male travel companions and a sympathetic huff of amusement escaped the android. “I hope my husband hasn’t been pestering you too much,” she said after a moment.“Nah,” Seven answered immediately with a careless shrug and a crooked half-smile. “I’m learning a lot, actually,” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hard candy, unwrapping it as he continued, “Fun way to pass the time.”“Well, you don’t be afraid to tell him to leave you alone for a bit if you need some quiet,” the woman said, waving off his polite offer of a candy. She seemed about to say more when her phone rang unexpectedly in her purse, making the woman jump slightly. She dug through her bag and emerged with an older model phone and glanced at the screen. “Oh, excuse me, I need to take this,” Tonya said with a sigh, then stepped away and answered.Left mostly alone with Jake, Seven observed him surreptitiously from behind the cover of his sunglasses for lack of anything better to do. The boy’s brow was furrowed in frustration as he fought his way through a level that appeared to be giving him a good deal of trouble as he kept missing a particularly hard to reach platform.“He taught you how to pickpocket people yet?” Jake asked out of the blue as he restarted the level again, making Seven’s brows shoot up.He turned to face the boy, wondering if Jake had caught him watching, or if this was just his own attempt at starting a conversation. “No,” Seven replied, amused by the implication. “Does he know how?”“Yeah,” Jake replied. “He took a guy’s wallet without him ever noticing when he was rude to Grandma, once. Stole his subway pass so he had to go back and buy another one and wound up missing his train.”“Oh really?”“Yep,” the boy said. “Pretty sure he used to be a street performer or a carni or something,” he continued after a moment, then frowned and added, “He never talks about it, though. Just says he’ll tell me when I’m older.”“Huh,” Seven said, intrigued as he rolled his candy over his tongue in a thoughtful fashion.A moment of quiet passed between them as Jake’s full attention returned to his game, only for the boy to heave a sigh of disgust when he died yet again. “I hate platformers,” he grumbled with a grimace.“Why not play something else, then?” the android suggested, surprised the boy had stuck with it as long as he had.Jake sighed again and pulled one headphone from his ear and finally looked up at Seven, meeting his gaze for the first time. “I really like the story,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ll just look up a playthrough or something…”Seven sucked on his piece of candy for a moment, considering the unhappy child for a moment, then came to a decision. “Want me to try,” he asked, extending a hand in silent request for his phone.Jake looked up at him, seeming surprised by the offer. The boy hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up to him. “You any good?” he asked Seven as the android accepted the phone, then came around to sit next to him on the bench.“Dunno, let’s find out,” the android mused as he started up the game again.The first portion of the level was easy, he’d watched Jake play through it several times, after all, so mapping the easiest route was simple. Once he passed the point the boy had been stuck on, however, it didn’t get any more difficult; his predictive programming and quick reflexes were more than a match.“Have you played this before?” Jake asked, surprise and awe clear in his voice. Seven glanced at him out of the corner of his eye to see that the boy had leaned in close for a better look.“No,” Seven replied after a moment, realizing that lying and saying he had might land him in trouble if Jake tried to engage him on the actual plot of the game. “Just got to watch you play through a few times is all.”“Yeah, but not this bit,” Jake pointed out. His tone wasn’t suspicious, though, only admiring, so unlike with Todd’s card tricks, he decided not to fake a mistake.“Just know my way around a platformer, I guess,” the android remarked casually as he finished the level and passed the phone back to the boy just as his grandfather returned.“What are you boys up to?” Todd asked pleasantly. “Trouble?”“John beat the level I’ve been stuck on for half an hour in like… thirty seconds without dying once,” Jake replied, seeming both excited and exasperated by this fact.“He’s got clever fingers, this guy, better keep an eye on him,” Todd remarked with a laugh as he stretched absently and grinned down at his grandson.Seven gave the old man a canny look over his sunglasses then said, “I’m told you used to pickpocket people. Doesn’t that make you the one we ought to keep an eye on?”Todd’s grin widened and he held up his hands. “Hey, I’ve reformed since my wayward youth, cross my heart and hope to die,” he said with a wink as he drew an x over his heart with a finger.The android glanced over at Jake who only shrugged and looked doubtful. A smile tugged at Seven’s mouth and he turned back to Todd and asked, “You going to teach me how to pickpocket too? We’ve still got hours to go yet on that bus.”The old man’s smile went sly and he shrugged. “Who says I haven’t already taught you?”Seven’s brow furrowed but the other man just looked skyward, as though to admire the clouds drifting overhead, an expression of pure innocence on his wrinkled face. After a moment’s consideration, however, the android understood; Todd had been teaching him sleight of hand tricks with cards all morning, how to slip in and out of people’s pockets and use gestures to distract them while he did…Pickpocketing, he thought, really was just a magic trick done with ill-intent.The android glanced back at the man again and caught him watching his face for the moment of realization. When he saw it, he flashed a brief smile. A snort of amusement escaped Seven, and a moment later, his internal alarm went off, alerting him that it’d been 15 minutes since they first disembarked.“Bus’ll be leaving in about five,” he remarked casually after pretending to look at his phone.“Sooner than that,” Tonya said as she approached once more, apparently done with her phone call. “We should head back.”Seven glanced around and noted that the other passengers were indeed making their way back to the bus after having spotted the driver waving people in, clearly impatient to get on the road. He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed up his bag, but was brought up short before he got more than a step by Jake.“Hey, uh-” the boy looked uncomfortable, forcing himself to talk despite his apparent shyness; Seven’s game playing prowess had apparently broken the ice enough for him to try. “Do you… do you want to play some more when we get back on the bus?” he asked, holding his phone up towards the man with a hopeful air that didn’t quite mesh with his doubtful expression; as if he expected Seven to turn him down on principal.The android looked down at the boy, surprised by the request, then glanced back at his grandparents, who seemed equally surprised. Seeing no objection from them, and having none himself, he looked back at Jake and said, “Yeah, alright, why not?”A smile broke out across the boy’s face and he hurried forward to catch up with his grandparents. “Grandma you should switch seats with John, okay? We’re gonna play my game!”Tonya chuckled and ruffled his hair fondly, “Alright, but you don’t impose on him and make him play the whole thing if he doesn’t want to, okay?”“Alright,” the boy said and grimaced as they boarded, Seven bringing up the rear with a bemused smile on his face. The fact that his performing a simple feat like playing a game brought such great joy to the child was a novelty he’d never experienced before. That it seemed to please his grandparents as well was even more interesting. Jake had been almost silent the entire trip, however, so Seven could only assume they were concerned for the boy, and seeing him excited about something brought them relief in some quarter.Once the necessary seats had been traded and the bus was on its way, Jake passed Seven one of his wireless earbuds so he could hear the game as he played, then handed over his phone. After a brief conference they opted to start a new game so the android could also get the benefit of the full story, and having nothing better to do, Seven agreed.The game was easy for the renegade android, though he did make an point to die at least occasionally, just to keep from looking inhumanly good at a game he’d claimed to never played before. The story was interesting, he had to admit; then again, his standards were pretty low. He was aware of stories and pop culture, but he’d never truly experienced any of them before. Jake’s game was his first true encounter.As he blew through levels and watched cutscenes while the distance between himself and Detroit grew wider, Seven found himself thinking absently on humanity’s obsession with storytelling. It was, many claimed, one of the things that truly set mankind apart from the beasts. The android knew there were other, more scientifically important traits that set humanity apart from their fellow fauna on the planet, but their obsession with stories was peculiar to them alone. Most stories were lies and exaggerations, after all, infrequently based in fact; pieces-parts of others narratives taken and reassembled in an infinite variety of ways, then given new names and new characters before that story too was taken apart and recycled into yet another on down the years and a thousand generations to the present day.Humans were weird, Seven thought, but he couldn’t deny that they were interesting in the vast array of ways they had engineered to entertain and communicate with one another. They’d taken a purely oral medium and made up symbols and agreed on sounds that those symbols made so they could capture their stories in stone, then vellum or crude paper that curled into scrolls until they figured the whole ‘book’ thing out. Pictures had been added somewhere along the line, and things got on that way for a long while until humans learned how to capture light and they’d made the pictures move. Sound was added, and gradually they’d transitioned to the digital age and stories had become interactive, like the one in his hands that the little boy leaning heavily against his shoulder for a better look was so enraptured by.Stories were how some people left a lingering mark on the world, it seemed, whether it be fiction or biography. What would his story be, Seven wondered as he completed the final level of Jake’s game and watched one last cutscene. The hero had come to the end of his quest; defeated his enemies and overcome many trials with the help of the allies he’d gathered and befriended along the way. It hadn’t been a true story, obviously, but Seven could recognize the many interchangeable parts of stories past that had been woven together to make it. Any one of them could have had roots in reality.Magical quests to conquer a great and monolithic evil weren’t the stuff of reality, but people, ordinary people, standing up against tyranny were. People coming together for comfort and support to help one another in times of crisis were. People finding love amidst chaos were… Maybe happy endings were too.Seven frowned at the thought. No, that was a little too far, but the rest of it… finding people to stand and fight with, maybe someone to love… maybe that was achievable. It wasn’t an ending, but it seemed as good a kind of happiness as the android, new to all this as he was, could imagine.Too bad he had no idea how to go about getting any of those things. -- source link

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