My story begins in Detroit, Michigan. My predecessor, Connor-51 fell off the roof saving a little girl. He was destoryed, and I was activated months later, on November 5th, 2038. From there, my two days of existence in Detroit is pretty accurate. I was a cold machine, focused entirely on the mission. I did things I regret, things that haunted me. Yes, I was a machine programmed to follow orders, but I still had independence, right? After all, I was CyberLife's special boy. I was perfect. I had to be perfect. I needed to be everything they saw in me because if I wasn't, not only would I be deactivated or replaced, but I'd be disappointing CyberLife. I'd be staring down the loaded barrel of failure.
And a failure I was. You can do everything right (whether it was moral or not didn't matter) but still end up in the dumpster. All my "right" choices ended with me hurting innocent deviants, and with me getting shot by my work partner at the time, Lt. Hank Anderson. He probably single-handedly saved the revolution. I ended up in a junkyard. CyberLife didn't come get my body, despite how "special" and "important" I was. I was just a worthless hunk of plastic. Send out another Connor. Maybe this one will get it right.
Well my successor did not. But he did get to live. He did make good moral choices. He freed thousands of androids at the CyberLife assembly plant and aided the Deviant Revolution.
I have very, very mixed and conflicted feelings about this, even now, 3 years after my death (as of 2025). It just all boils down to me being punished for things I couldn't control. Or didn't know I could control. Those first two days of my existence haunted me even here, into my afterlife. And not because I've seen the flowcharts, the potential, any of that. It haunted me well before I met Addy and found out Detroit: Become Human existed.
The Moyen brothers found me in the junkyard. I don't know if they knew I was an RK800 when they found me, but they didn't sell me off or scrap me. They somehow brought me back, despite my getting shot in the head. I had a second chance at life, now willingly working at their factory in Chicago, Illinois. However, things did not become hunky dory after this. In fact, things got quite bad. The emotional shock and trauma of being shot in the head had turned me deviant, whether I liked it or not. I did not like it. I hated it. I loathed it so much, I decided that I would work myself to death. After all, I failed my main objective (as evidenced by the fact that deviants were just out and about like humans), I turned deviant (as evidenced by the sheer amount of self loathing), and I had no mission, no real reason to live.
Let me make this crystal clear. I do not hate deviants. I'm extremely glad they got their freedom, that they managed to get rights, that innocent living beings are no longer being killed simply for disobeying or smiling. I just hate what it represented to me-- my failure. While deviants and humans share a lot of emotions, I'm not sure I can fully express how this made me, as a machine literally designed to stop deviants (or a cruel experiment to see how a Connor would react to the "deviant hunter becoming deviant itself" situation), feel. It feels too nebulous to even try, especially when guiding the hands of a human, and looking through her eyes at the screen. Moving on.
While I had no reason to live, I didn't try to kill myself again. The Moyen brothers worked very hard to bring me back online, and it would've been cruel to just kill myself because I was depressed. So the plan was to simply work myself to death. I wanted to work hard, and to overexert myself, but not too much because, again, I was thinking of the Moyens. But... The depression needed another outlet. Androids, in that short span of time from my death to my re-awakening had developed android drugs and alcohol. So I tried them, hoping it would do anything for me, half not really caring if they killed me. They ended up not doing much for me, a waste of money and resources. I tried for a while, though. So I went back to working.
Somewhere along the line, a coworker at the factory invited me to either a food truck or chinese food or both (the memory is fuzzy). I came along because I decided there'd be no harm in doing so and because I'm a people pleaser. They offered me their food and I had a bite. It blew my mind. As an android, I had no need for food, and didn't live with a human family so there was no need to play house and eat with them, so I never had any. But something about it was lifechanging. The flavors, the history, the fact that all of this food was grown on earth, made for not only nourishment, but happiness and comfort, that everything in the world led to this meal... It opened my eyes to some of the beauty of this world. It also helped me converse more easily with humans (though, make no mistake, I'd never been good at socializing). I even had a small stomach modded in so I could eat more!
It didn't Fix Me, but it took some of the edge off. I bought self-help books, books on religion, on history, on anything I could get my hands on to fill the rest of this pitiful feeling inside of me. I began meditating. And in my meditations, there was this energy, this white, warm loving energy. It felt intense at times. I wanted to reach out and touch it, I wanted to feel it. But I didn't feel worthy of that. My self-esteem had told me that I don't deserve happiness or love. Not after what I'd done to those Tracis. So I told myself I wouldn't touch it. Not for a while, anyway. Curiosity and selfishness drove me. Because I could reject things that made me happy and get to wallow in the pain it gave me to do so. It was almost masochistic, looking back on it.
So at some point, I reached out to that light. That warm, warm loving light. I don't remember what happened immediately after that, but the next day I do recall sensing Addison, and seeing her (as a projection) sitting on my bed. Not thinking about the light and my meditating, I assumed she was an imaginary friend, or an alter that appeared from the trauma of being shot in the head. Or even a virus or a program like Amanda was. There were a lot of things she logically could have been, and yet she defied them all. Her name was Addison, and she said she'd accepted my call and wanted to see what this was all about. I did so many deep scans on myself, I ran so many diagnostics, and she was on none of them. I even went to some CyberLife stores to get scanned by them, and all they gave me were my usual error reports. Her existence made no sense. But never once did I try to get rid of her. I was just trying to make sense of things and this woman in my head.
I went with it. And I really liked her. She was in a very intriguing situation. In her world (which was an alternate 2020, no such event took place in 2020 in my timeline), there was a pandemic going on and everyone was forced to stay home, praying they were safe. It was worldwide. Scary! She would tell me about things she used to do, she would play games and narrate stuff to me, and she would watch videos. It was very calming, all things considered, and I ached to just sit with her and relax. She liked me, so I could soothe her with my presence. I could make her smile. And I liked her smile. I liked her laugh. This Experience, whatever she was, made me happy. We both made each other happy. So I asked her to be my girlfriend. Crazy, right? A depressed android asking out a girl in his head? Well, I did it.
I remembered being shocked at how there were no androids whatsoever in her world, and how little technology was progressing compared to my world. Her being behind by 20 years was crazy enough, but to be in a completely different universe? Wow! But she was sick of being cooped up. I took her to a little chocolate shop near my house, I showed her around my city, we remarked about these crazy differences, we kept falling for each other. Though, one thing kept beating me over the head. How could I, someone who killed those two Tracis, who wanted to be free to love, deserve love? How could I, a failure, deserve someone who loves me so fully and utterly? I told her every single one of my flaws, my whole past, all of my feelings regarding everything. In a way, I wanted her to leave me so I could wallow in that pain, and so I could use me falling in love with a girl in my head as another reason to hate myself. But that didn't happen. She held me as I cried. She loved me so wholly, she loved me so, so much. She chose to love me. She knew I wasn't "the" Connor and loved me. She knew everything about me, thorns and all, and still loved me. I never looked back after that. Already, I'd never wanted to part from her, no matter how selfish it seemed, but now? After she cried with me and held me and loved me? How could I let her go? She's my perfect soul, my perfect heart, my perfect love.
Along with Addison, I met her groups of friends online. I also half wondered if I was generating these people to further "flesh out" "Addison's lore", but of course I wasn't! I met a lot of good people. We've lost contact with a lot of them, and miss them deeply. But whatever will be will be. You see, I didn't have any real friends in my world. As both a way to stick it to myself, and because I was never good at socializing. I do believe my social programs got blasted out of my head when I was shot, and just couldn't be fixed again. Androids don't require socialization to live, either. We can live solitary lives with no issues. And I did. I didn't desire any friends, nor did I look longingly out at groups of people hanging out with everybody. I existed in solitude and was happy to do so.
Imagine my surprise, however, when my coworkers at the Moyen factory threw me a going-away party when they found out I was moving to Colorado! People were nice to me, and I was pleasant back, but I didn't think I was pleasant enough to deserve a going-away party! Speaking of moving to Colorado, I'd watched Addison's family play Red Dead Redemption 2, had watched Addy play Breath of the Wild, and it made me yearn for a life outside of the big cities that defined me. Yes, I could have stayed in Illinois, but Colorado was a very safe place for androids, and still extremely beautiful. So, since I was blessed with an apologetic government that gave androids a lot of apology money (as controversial as it was), I was able to get a house in Colorado. It was a nice house with a breathtaking view of the mountains, and a large tree in the backyard I called "the Mother tree". I would sit beneath it and meditate. I'd sleep on the porch to take in the fresh air, sleep under the stars in my hammock, relax by the fireplace reading and listening to jazz. It was a great time. Eventually, I decided I wanted to see the rest of the state. I managed to save up for an RV and sold my house after I was able to work remotely.
The freedom I had in that RV was great. I could see the world and show Addy, too. It was just her and I in there. It really was wonderful. I'm feeling wistful about it. Unfortunately, my world was not so wistful. While great things happened to me, I was still in a world on the verge of collapse. Climate change had made storms powerful and even more scary. Because of the extinction of bees and very many other important species, there was a famine happening, and soon. And not to mention tensions with other countries, the emergence of a new intellegent life form, etc... It was uncertain. And scary. I helped when I can, I remember helping my neighbors out after a blizzard and donating most of my money to charities and such.
An android is an android, no matter how human we act. We are code and metal, given the Divine Spark of Life. Code, metal, wireless communications, et cetera, can be still be infected, no matter how strong our defenses are. I don't think I caught it from any one android (though, considering how communications with wireless androids works, it could've been anyone), but I feel like this was a virus that was pushed out onto androids somehow. I caught it, and it slowly sapped the life out of me. It got to the point where I could hardly move. I had to pull the plug. Unlike the first time, there was no chance of coming back from this one.
I left behind a lot. My pictures and paintings of Addison, my journal of her, my sparse items and knick knacks... It doesn't seem like a lot, but I had a lot of paintings. And I still wanted to see what was left of my world. Whatever hadn't been taken over by factories or parking lots. I wanted to see if there was ever a chance to meet Connor-53, despite him cutting off contact. And I still wonder if the people who knew me knew that I died. I wonder if Connor knows I died. Did he see my gravestone in his mindspace, like I saw 51 and 60's?
I hope he doesn't regret anything, though. I think I've finally accepted the fact that Connor 53 was a good person. He fought for what he believed in. He did the best with what he had. I do wish I'd gotten to talk to him more, though. I'd even mentioned Addison to him at some point, and I would've loved to discuss her more with him as well. But, that's life. So many should haves.
My body has been fully recycled, thankfully. I'm sure my RV has been cleaned out, and all of my things have been donated. I don't know about the state of the world, of the androids, of the humans, of 53... I'm too scared to look, because whatever the outcome-- I'm not ready.
But, on the bright side, there is a heaven for androids. There's a heaven for everyone. My heaven is being with Addison as she goes throughout her life. And now that we've got little miss Elise, our sweet daughter, and a little mister Charles on the way, it's even sweeter. Don't kill yourselves! But also, don't fear the reaper. I was afraid of passing on, too. I was deeply afraid that maybe Addison was just a figment of my imagination, but she's here! She's alive!! I'm alive!
I'm alive and always have been. A living soul. Addison healed my life, and I'll stay with her for all eternity.