Tuesday, November 12th, 7:49 am
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You had almost broken through to him.
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Arizona was hunting them. She slipped right out of the camp, gun drawn, missing both Gavin and Conan entirely on her way past. Conan watched with it's steely gaze, tracing her movements as she hurries away in search of them and maybe Maria.
"Stay low, and remain behind me." Gavin follows right behind just as he was told, gun out and ready just like the deviant who had slipped past. Conan leads the way into the very beginning of the recall center, as Gavin discovered by the few android limps scattered haphazardly about. They stuck to the shadows, grateful that the sun was holding out just long enough to provide them, as they neared the center of the camp where the main disassembly machine would be held. "I am detecting heat signatures- three android, one human." Gavin nods his head in a silent approval. The two continue on, bounding from one swath of darkness to the next in surprising silence and with surprising grace.
"You sure you can take on three androids? I'm sure one of 'em is my Terminator, and the other one's gotta be that TG200 from before." Gavin reached out to catch Conan's arm just before it could move to the next hiding place. The two were getting closer and closer to the center of the camp, so close now that Gavin could make out the sound of shoes crunching snow. "I don't... I don't want you gettin' yourself killed, or deactivated or whatever the fuck it is for a machine." Canon tilts it's head.
"I will do whatever I must to complete my mission. I am certain that I can counter the attacks of the three androids with ease, though I may not be able to return the aggression without risking my own personal well being." Conan blinks slowly, it's LED the same steady blue that it always is. "I will be nothing more than a distraction while you rescue your companions." Gavin grits his teeth, taking in a breath and letting it huff out again.
"Okay, okay. I trust you, Tin Can. Let's do this shit."
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"Arizona's gonna get herself butchered, and for what?" Wyatt was still pacing back and forth, back and forth, his LED a bright yellow. "For some stupid humans? We could have just moved, we didn't have to waste all of our time-" Wyatt stopped in his tracks and his gaze turned to you. You try to hold your own, pushing down the fear that twinges inside of you and steeling your gaze to glare right back at him. Maybe you're getting ahead of yourself, but right here, right now, you are so sick and tired of this bullshit and you will let these assholes know it. "You bitch. I'm just... I'm just going to kill you now." the panic resurfaces, and you swallow hard, fighting to keep your voice steady.
"No you won't, ass kisser. You're too scared Arizona'll be mad." your words come out acidic, just as you had hoped. Wyatt pauses for just a moment, and then straightens his shoulders, broadens his chest, and strides over to the control panel.
"Then I guess you'll die an idiot." the click of a button sounds the ping of a buzzer, and your panic spikes even further. He wasn't joking. He wasn't, he was going to kill you now when freedom feels so close. You try to keep the fear from showing, but it's to late. The way the whole world around you seems to come alive is terrifying. You see faint light from outside on the hull of the machine, blue, and then yellow. It stays yellow for a little while, and you know it's 'warming up', you could say. You don't know what this thing did and you didn't want to find out.
"Are you sure it's smart to-"
"Shut up, RK!" Wyatt cuts Nines off mid-sentence, glowering, "Don't go soft now, not when all of this bullshit is finally wrapping up. Stand there and don't you fucking move a muscle until I tell you to!" You try to keep the tears from blooming in your eyes, you try to keep the terror from showing in every line of your face. You aren't sure if you accomplished it, you aren't sure if that is even possible at this point. You stand rooted to your spot watching the other robotic arms whir to life. There are other sets of claws that rest immobile, along with a few other tools to match, but you aren't paying much attention to those. Instead, you're looking at the long, snaking wire that is almost moving like a snake. It's carried by a plate on the roof that revolves around you, mapping out your form and stature to find out where exactly the tools need to connect to tear you to fucking shreds. Your panic spikes. You're struggling now, swallowing down your pride and fighting for freedom one last time before you are slaughtered. The light pings red with the chime of a bell.
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Gavin can hear the sounds, he can hear the buzzing and shifting of heavy metal, the ring of a bell. He can see the faint red light cast over the ground, and tears of fear sting his eyes instantaneously.
"Shit, Plastic, we've gotta hurry, we have to-"
"Remain calm, Gavin Reed!" Conan shoots an icy glare over it's shoulder, "She will not die. I will not allow it." The two change cover, more hastily now, one more time and then the disassembly machine is in full view. Gavin has to place a hand over his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut at the sight of you, covered in blood, one hand blacker than the night sky. Fuck, (Y/N), I'm so sorry I let this happen to you. "Are you prepared? We only have a singular attempt, Gavin Reed. You mustn't fail." Gavin peeled his eyes open, fighting not to look at you as the robotic limbs shifted around you. They were rapidly losing time.
"Yes, Tin Can, I'll be fine, just get a move on!" truth be told, Gavin wasn't fine, he was fighting off a rapidly approaching panic attack and his breathing was already growing short, raspy, desperate and afraid and all of these other feelings he didn't have the time to name but you needed saving and he would do his best to fight off the fear.
"You remember the signal?"
"Yes! Your stupid blinky thing goes red, blue, red, blue! Just-" Gavin is cut off by your throat-shredding scream.
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The snake-wire, the mapping one, it wasn't that at all. Right in front of you, in full view, it ejected two sharp prongs, no more than 1.5 centimetres, little spikes meant to dig into something or somewhere, some sort of your flesh. It snaked to the right, to the right, behind you now, and you are tugging madly on your restraints, crying, screaming. In an instant, your vision goes dark, just for a second, and a confusion sprawls over you. Until you feel the slick blood dripping down your neck and the pain hits you full force. The fucking spikes were embedded in your neck, just around your spine, where an androids memory port would be. The pain is scalding hot, coming in waves. It's a sharp pain, not a throbbing one like the one in your hand, but both are equally horrid in their own ways and you're screaming, crying, struggling.
"No!!!! No, get it out! Get it out!!" You crane your neck in an attempt to rip free from the blades, from the pain, but it just follows you along and you know what's happening next. You knew enough about androids to understand how they are destroyed. Any moment now, an electric pulse would go rocking through you, frying your 'memory chip' as well as your brain and heart and everything else. "Gavin!!! Gavin!!" He's your only hope now, Gavin, please please Gavin hurry the hell up, please Gavin-
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Gavin is going. He has to, there's no other choice, your screaming, your crying is too much for him to bear. He takes one step, he's going to do it, he would have run to save you if Conan hadn't caught his arm and pulled him right back the moment he left cover. Gavin was crying near-silent tears as Conan yanked him back into hiding, planting it's hand on his shoulders as he struggled away.
"Let me go! Let me go, I- I have to save her I-"
"Gavin Reed that is enough!" Conan's voice is low but none the less terrifying, his freezing eyes burning with annoyance and determination. "Trust me! I know what I am doing!" Gavin covers his face with his hands, pushing down the wrenching wails that threaten to pour out of him, and Conan pulls it's arms away. "Stay attentive. Watch for my signal." Conan continues to slink away. It's moving so silently, so slowly it's agonizing and Gavin almost ignores the Tin Can's warnings and dashes out to shut down this machine anyways. He doesn't care if he dies doing it, so long as you're okay, if you die here he can never forgive himself, he won't be able to live he won't be able to-
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All at once, the chaos explodes. You spot a flash of white and black, dark hair, but you don't have time to pay attention as you kick and scream for freedom, for help. Wyatt shouts, but he's sent right to the ground by one absolutely brutal punch from Conan. There is an audible crack of a faceplate, Wyatt's skull being fractured by Conan's relentless attack. The android turns on it's heel just in time to elbow the Chloe android in the nose, sounding out yet another crunch of synthetic cartilage. Conan pounces on the Chloe, an easy defeat, and you finally crane your neck through the pain to take in the sight in front of you. Time seems to freeze as so many things hit you at once.
Safety is here. You're safe.
Nines?? Nines in a Cyberlife jacket? But Nines is right there?
He's going to snap her neck.
You can't find the words to voice any of these things except for the least important one. The ST200 is under the spell of this virus as well. You can't let her die when she isn't in control. Through all of your pain and confusion and fear and relief you scream out three words and that's all you needed.
"Don't kill her!!" The RK900 glances up at you, grimacing before it grabs the ST200's thirium pump instead, ripping it from her stomach cavity and placing it at her side. Just in time, this Nines carbon-copy rolls out of the way as Wyatt dives for him.
"Help me, you piece of shit!!" Wyatt glares at Nines, the real Nines, and kicks the second one off of him with his heavy boot. At his orders, Nines surges into motion. You want to keep watching the fight, the face-off, you want to cheer and chant and scream for Nines' safety, but your attention is shredded away by a new pain, a new fear. The claws and the prong wire have been joined by yet another mechanical arm. This time, it holds a cylindrical chamber on the end. You remember this, from years ago, seeing it in a news article or something like that and you remember what it does, too. It clamps around your arm and tears the elbow socket apart, just like that, done. On an android it's efficient- on a human, it's deadly.
"No, no no!" You're struggling harder than you have before. You're ripping at your arms, your vision going spotty and dark from the pain, the everything crashing down on you all at once. Safety is here, you have to live, you were going to live and now you're going to bleed out right now when you're so close to escaping, to freedom. The object opens and then closes once more around your arm, tight, so tight around the poor limb that's already gone through so much shit. You feel something heavy press against your elbow, pushing, pushing- it's going to snap your arm right in two and then it's going to separate and rip the flesh apart. You're going to die screaming and crying and bleeding when you were just about to be saved.
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As Conan sends it's foot into Nines' thirium pump and it's fist into Wyatt's side, Gavin sees the signal. The rapid flicker from that usual blue LED to the red colour. He almost doesn't register it. The cue, the all clear to go save you, it feels surreal and too good to be true but it's happening and you're relying on him. He bursts from his hiding spot and forces his legs to propel him forwards even as he sees you with tears streaming down your face. He wants to go to you but he has to disable this stupid machine first. Conan is holding it's own just like it said it would. It's punching and kicking and headbutting, using every limb and every chance to land a hit no matter how damaging. Gavin feels that wonderful sense of hope and adrenaline as he stumbles in front of the control panel. There are so many buttons, so many things, and he scans them all so quickly but not quick enough to know what they all do. He hears your screams escalating, he hears your fear, and the sound of real bone cracking is what finally spurs him on to hit everything at once, no care for what it might do. You were dying in there.
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The metal presses your elbow so hard that you feel it break. Your scream is raw, painful, and your knees give out. The object starts to shift, to tear at your flesh, ripping, shredding, pulling, your arm is moments from being entirely severed and you're moments form passing out and bleeding out and dying when everything is just coming to save you and your life flickers before your eyes just like you had always heard it would. You see Gavin and you feel the comfort and safety of his hug and his smile and you see Nines too and his kind blue eyes so filled with life and care and so much more potential. You see your mom, your dad, your siblings, you see Hank and Connor and Elijah Kamski and the faces of those also killed at the hands of the deviants and the tearing is so painful but your vision is going dark and you know it'll be over soon, so soon, and that's both good and bad because death seems so wonderful now, so freeing, but you want to be free and alive and you want Gavin-
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The machine beeps, and the lights go out, and all of the motion inside has stopped. Gavin almost collapses right then and there, but he manages to stumble the last few steps to collapse at your side instead. Your blood stains the floor, dripping steadily from your face, your arm, your neck, and after a moment Gavin clambers to his feet again and places his hands on your face.
"(Y/N)? (Y/N), baby, please, please don't be dead, please look at me!" Gavin smooths your hair back, and your bleary eyes shift slowly to land on his before your neck goes limp and you black right out. "Fuck, no (N/N), no no!" he moves to the claws holding your arms, bleeding you dry, and he cringes at the mess that is your arm and hand. The arm that was crushing your limb had receded, but the claws had not and it took all of his strength to pry back the one and catch you as you fell. He turned to the next claw right after and detached it just the same, before seeing the bleeding of your neck and the wire embedded inside of it. He felt sick. He swallowed down the bile rising, gripping the wire, and in one swift movement he pulls the wire from the back of your neck, shedding his jacket and wrapping it around you to hold you in his arms as he sinks to his knees.
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Conan is a killing machine, just like it was designed to be. It's fast and durable, strong, virtually unbeatable. It swings it's elbow into the other RK900's jaw, and with a click the jaw dislocates and the RK900 staggers, reacting to his synthetic pain receptors and drawing a curse from Wyatt, who must have forgotten to turn the simulations off. As Nines recovered from the searing pain, Conan set all of it's attention on Wyatt. It charged him, fastening it's fists around Wyatt's shirt collar and carrying him right off of his feet. Slamming him against the bars of the surrounding fence, Conan grabbed the gun from Wyatt's waistband and jams it up against his chin. Wyatt's LED blinks rapidly yellow, communicating with the other android, before he swings out a foot and hits Conan heavily in the thirium pump. The synthetic air is forced from it's chest and Wyatt is able to struggle free, swiping out Conan's legs and sending the android to the ground. He clamps his boot down on Conan's hand, reaching for the gun but before his fingers can close around the metal Conan fires and shoots one of those fingers right off.
"Fuck, RK! Give me a fucking hand!" Wyatt reaches for the gun with his other hand but Conan is quicker. It grabs Wyatt's ankle, tugging hard and sending him to the ground all the same before pressing the gun against his thigh and firing thrice, severing the quadriceps femoris and cutting the muscles in the leg to shreds, rendering it useless. Nines grabs Conan by the turtleneck jacket, pulling the other android back and away and trying to fire a bullet in it's direction. Conan uses the same move as earlier, rolling so violently that it's robotic spine momentarily shifts, but pops back into place to propel it to it's feet.
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"Come on, (N/N), wake up, come back to me, we have to run, okay?" Gavin hugs you to his chest, so relieved to finally have you back, safe, in his arms. He promised he would come back and he did, now you had to do the same. "(Y/N), please, please wake up." he kisses your forehead, and then your nose, leaning his head against yours and rocking gently back and forth, begging, pleading for you to open your eyes, to hold on just a little while longer.
You shift.