Talking
to Hank
DATE
FEBRUARY 6, 2039
TIME
AM 01:03:10
“You moron. You
can identify people from photographs, but you can’t even identify a woman’s
feelings.” Hank took his last drink of scotch and set the empty glass on the
bar top. “Hmmh. Guess that makes you more human than I thought.”
Connor blinked
and tilted his head. “It’s not in my program to recognize feelings,
lieutenant.”
Hank looked at
him. “We both know you’re more than your program, Connor.”
Connor lowered
his gaze to his hands on the bar and began to fidget with a quarter, rolling it
over his knuckles.
“During the android
freedom movement, you fought against your creators. You showed empathy. You
spared Chloe. And you risked yourself to save me.” Hank motioned to the
bartender and then his glass. The bartender refilled it.
Connor held the
coin in one hand and glanced up at Hank.
The lieutenant’s
face hardened. “I know this is all new to you, but you do have the capacity to
feel, Connor. Or you wouldn’t have gone against your program back in November.
You’re free now, Connor. Free to feel.”
Connor stared
back at him. “I know I can feel,
Hank. I just…can’t identify what I’m feeling.” He looked down again, eyebrows
furrowed. “It doesn’t matter. She told me to leave.”
“Is that all?”
Connor stared for
a moment, replaying the memory. He gave a slight nod.
The corner of
Hank’s mouth pulled up into a smile. “She wants to see you again, son.”
“I don’t
understand, lieutenant.”
The lieutenant
turned on his stool toward the android. “Listen, Connor. Do you want to see her again?”
Connor thought
about Haley. The way her laugh sounded the night he made her laugh at the bar.
Her smile every time she said his name. And the way she looked up at him when their
hands had touched the night he helped her in the café.
“Up until now,
you’ve always gone to see her because she asked you to, right?”
Connor nodded.
“That’s right.”
Hank waited.
“Jesus, do I have to spell it all out for you?”
The bartender
snorted.
Connor blinked at
him.
“She wants you to
be with her…because you want to be.
Not because she asks. She needs to know how you feel about her.”
Connor stared at
the lieutenant for a moment, then gazed out the bar window. How he felt…?
He looked at his
own reflection in the glass and remembered the tears on Haley’s face after he
said he was just a machine. He knew he had upset her, but he couldn’t
understand why.
He looked down at
his hands and began fiddling with the quarter again. His emotions were not the
same as a human’s. How could he give her what she needed?
He had never felt
the way he did when he arrived at the café last night and found Haley missing.
Protecting her was not just a mission. He was actually scared he would lose
her…
And honestly, he
really had not wanted to push her away when she started pulling him toward her.
Connor thought
back to when Haley had commented on the feeling of his cool hand. He had
offered to turn up his heat sensitivity settings, but she had refused. “That’s what makes you, you.”
