"Connor, just go back and help Hank," Lisa said, running down the perimeter of the twenty seventh floor.

"I have to be here to help you," Connor said, keeping pace beside her.

"Except you hit with all the strength of a butterfly with that pacifist programming activated," Lisa argued. "You couldn't protect me if you tried."

"I can't attack but I can defend," he countered. "I don't want to leave you alone."

"I can handle Hannah. She's my sister."

"She's not the same woman you knew, Lisa. She's unwell."

"So are you, and I got through to you, didn't I?" Lisa said, stopping short as they reached the row of manufacturing chambers. There was already explosives lining the floor of the entire hallway.

"She's been on this path for three years," Connor explained, nodding at the explosives. "I don't know how she can come back from this."

"Why do you and Hank bring that thing everywhere you go?" Hannah's voice sounded.

Connor and Lisa spun around, finding Hannah inside one of the manufacturing chambers. She had attached more explosives to the automated production arms suspended from the ceiling, and sealed herself in behind the thick glass doors.

"Because I'm fucking attached to him, OK?" Lisa shouted, stepping forward and pounding her fist against the glass. "How do we open this thing?" she whispered, turning to Connor. He looked at the outer panel of the chamber, noting the status.

"The chamber is in standby mode. It can't be unlocked until the system is deactivated," he explained. Lisa turned to the panel, frantically tapping on the screen as she sorted through the options.

"Well your attachment sure makes for an easy exploit," Hannah replied.

"I broke through your code, Hannah," Connor said. "It doesn't control me anymore." Her eyebrows went up in appraisal.

"It's no good. The machine keeps saying I have to vacate the unit of parts before the lock is released," Lisa whispered. "The bombs on the production arms must be setting off the weight sensors and making it think there's a half assembled android in there."

"Not bad," Hannah told Connor. "I thought that code was pretty sturdy, but I guess not."

"Programming for androids isn't as easy as programming for cars, is it?" Lisa spat.

"Same basic principles," Hannah shrugged, pulling her phone out of her pocket and holding it up for them to see. "Same little easter eggs."

"What are you talking about?" Connor asked, his brow furrowing.

"I lied, Connor. There is a back door in the program. But it's for me, not you," Hannah answered. "My subroutine has a scrambler that will completely randomize your source code. I just have to say the magic word."

Connor's therium regulator pump momentarily stopped as the whole world tinted a sickly yellow.

"That'll kill him!" Lisa shouted, slapping her hand against the glass.

"Androids aren't alive, Lisa!" Hannah shouted back, throwing her arms out in exasperation. "They're machines that can't do what they're designed to do. If your phone stopped working the way you needed it to, you'd throw it out and get a new phone. This is the same thing."

"Connor's not a fucking phone, he's a person," Lisa argued. "A person I'm in love with!"

"How can you love something that can malfunction and turn on you on a dime?" Hannah asked, crossing her arms. "That can be made to want to kill you with just a bit of code?"

"You're the one that's turned on me, Hannah. That's killed," Lisa shot back. "Humans can malfunction just as androids can. Cole's death caused a fatal error in your software."

"Don't you fucking talk about him like that," Hannah seethed, holding her phone out threateningly. "Cole was real. I carried him, gave birth to him, and raised him. You talk about loving a machine that can be put together with spare parts. As if it could compare to loving a human being... to loving a child, or even a husband. How can you look Julia in the eye with that plastic doll around?"

"Loving Connor doesn't mean I love Julia any less. I have room in my heart for both," Lisa said quietly. "Accepting androids as alive doesn't make humans any less alive."

Hannah dropped her arms and sighed, shaking her head as she stared off into the middle distance up at the ceiling.

"You need to just walk away, little sister," Hannah said. "You're obviously sick."

"I'm not the one planting bombs!" Lisa shouted in frustration.

"Leave Connor here. I need it to finish the job," Hannah continued as if Lisa hadn't said anything. She looked back down at her sister. "But you go home."

"I won't help you hurt anyone else, Hannah," Connor said.

"And I'm not leaving without him," Lisa replied, her face scrunched up in disbelief. "Or you."

"Neither of you have a choice. I'll scramble your android's code if you don't leave, Lisa," Hannah said. "Get out of here now and I won't break your toy, but it's gotta stay here with me. There's no option where you get to keep your robot boyfriend."

"This is fucking ridiculous, Hannah!" Lisa shouted, angry tears forming in her eyes. "Just fucking come out of there so we can discuss this without putting everyone's lives on the goddamn line!"

"I'm through discussing," Hannah replied calmly. "I've gone through this in my head too many times to go over it again. Leave now, or Connor's done. End of story."

"You're really gonna give me an ultimatum?" Lisa asked, the tears flowing freely. "You want me to fucking choose?"

Connor looked from Hannah back to Lisa. If he had to go back to Hannah, she's just strengthen her hold over his programming, and he wouldn't have Lisa around to help him break free of its control. If Lisa didn't give him up to Hannah, she would kill him. With either option, the person he was would cease to exist, and Lisa's own sister was putting that choice on her shoulders.

"Lisa, it will be all right," Connor lied. "I'll go with Hannah so you can get out of the building. She can't control me anymore." Connor knew it wasn't true, that he was knowingly submitting himself to Hannah's torture so that Lisa wouldn't have the burden of his death on her conscience.

"I can't lose you," Lisa said quietly, looking back at Connor with a woundedness so open and vulnerable that he saw his own flash of red pain in response.

"It's for your own good," Hannah said. "You should've just stayed out of this."

"I looked for you for years," Lisa said quietly, looking at the floor as her tears fell to the ground. "Hoping I could help you. I spent all my money trying to track you down."

"That's on you, Lisa," Hannah replied. "You always did go too far for the people you love."

Lisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before looking back up at Hannah. She had stopped crying, and the look in the younger sister's eyes was no longer conflicted, but clear-sighted and cold.

"I still do," Lisa said.

Lisa hit the Disassemble button on the panel, bringing the automated production arms down from the ceiling to swiftly grab Hannah by the shoulder and arm holding the phone.

Before Hannah could utter a single word, the arms pulled.

There was a spray of blood on the glass that obscured Lisa and Connor's view, followed by a piercing scream and a thud on the ground. The malfunction alarm went off as the safety shut down triggered in the manufacturing chamber, retracting all the automated production arms back into the ceiling and opening the doors.

Lisa and Connor rushed into he chamber, finding Hannah unconscious on the ground bleeding from her shoulder. Her arm had been pulled from her socket and was lying on the floor on the other side of the manufacturing chamber, still holding the phone.

"What do we do?!" Lisa shouted in a panic as she crouched down beside her sister.

"We have to stop the bleeding," Connor replied, taking off his jacket. He folded it up several times into a small pillow, then pressed it against Hannah's shoulder where her arm had been detached. He then took off his belt and wrapped it around Hanna's chest under her remaining arm to fasten the jacket in place against her open wound. He carefully positioned Hannah to slow the flow of blood to her shoulder.

"Oh Jesus... What the fuck did I do?" Lisa asked, holding her head in her hands as she started to hyperventilate.

"Lisa," Connor said, grabbing her hands and holding them in his. "You stopped the Humanitarian Killer."

Lisa's eyes found Connor's, trying to hide the shock and pain in her eyes as she attempted to calm herself down. Connor lifted one hand to her cheek. Nothing he could say would erase the horrible decision she had to make, but he hoped he could express through a little bit of tenderness that he was glad she made it.

The sounds of boots slapping against the tile floor suddenly overcame the sound of the malfunction alarm in the manufacturing chamber. Connor and Lisa looked out to the entrance to find three more tactical androids running up with Hank in tow. Hank's eyes went wide as he looked down between them to see Hannah covered in blood.

"Jesus fucking Christ! What happened?" he asked, rushing forward and crouching down beside them.

"I activated the disassemble program while Hannah was inside the manufacturing chamber," Lisa explained numbly. "To stop her. It took her arm right off. Like taking apart an android."

"Lisa saved my life, Hank," Connor added. "Hannah was going to kill me."

"I have an evidence bag. We can try to save the arm," one of the androids interjected. "But we need to get her out of here ASAP."

"Yeah, wrap it up," Hank nodded, before looking back down at Hannah's unconscious body. He gently placed a hand on her face and brushed aside some loose strands of hair. "What did you do to yourself, baby?" he whispered to her.

Connor watched quietly, mystified by Hank's care as another of the strike team androids carefully picked Hannah up and carried her out of the chamber. Even after all she had done, everyone she had hurt, including Hank himself, he still loved her. It was incredible.

Connor looked back to Lisa, still slumped over on the floor. He put his arm around her and carefully helped her stand up and exit the chamber, in awe of the fortitude of this woman.

After everything Connor had done to hurt Lisa when infected with the antihuman programming, she still loved him. She loved him so much, that she chose him over her sister. She waited three years to see Hannah again, and then she chose Connor. He was almost overwhelmed with gratitude. Grateful that she saved his life, that she didn't give up on him. Grateful that she chose to love him. He wasn't sure he was worthy of this amazing feeling, but he would spend the rest of his days making himself earn it.

Connor and Lisa suddenly stumbled as the building shook and a loud rumble hit their ears.

"The bomb up in the top office was triggered," Connor said looking up into the central shaft of the tower, before looking back down at Hank. "We have to assume we don't have much time before these go off either."

"Let's move people!" Hank shouted as they made a beeline for the stairs out on the perimeter of the tower. One of the androids radioed the rest of the strike team to evacuate the building. From what Connor could hear of their communications, it sounded like all of the workers in the building had been evacuated as soon as the SWAT team had showed up.

They reached the stairwell and started climbing down the tower two by two. The androids carrying Hannah first, then Hank and another strike team android, with Connor and Lisa bringing up the rear. They climbed down as quickly and carefully as possible, knowing twenty seven floors was going to take a while.

The group had just made it past the twelfth floor when another blast shook the building, sending them all falling to the ground. The stairs above Connor and Lisa's head started to crack, and Connor scooped Lisa up in his arms and rushed them back up to the landing on the twelfth floor just as they collapsed and a support beam fell down with a rain of concrete from the stairs above.

"Hank! Hank, are you all right?" Connor called through the dust and debris.

"Yeah, we just made it to the landing halfway to the eleventh," Hank coughed then called back. "There's some debris in the way but it looks like we can keep going if we're careful. What about you guys?"

"The stairs are blocked," Connor replied, scanning the damage down to the stairwell. "Lisa and I will have to go back out to twelve and find our way to another stairwell."

"Are you doing OK, Lisa?" Hank asked.

"Right as fucking rain, Hank," Lisa called back, not wanting him to worry. "We'll meet you guys at the bottom. Just keep going!"

Lisa and Connor exited the stairwell out into the twelfth floor. The building looked completely ruined. The power was out, generator lights were flickering on and off ominously, and huge slabs of concrete had fallen from the ceiling and blocked off most of the way back. The windows were totally blown out, letting the freezing cold from outside mingle with the hot fires inside the building.

Connor surveyed the damage. From what he could tell, it looked like only the explosives by the manufacturing chambers had gone off. The charges he had placed on the structural support beams were directly above them, fifteen stories up. It was unlikely those had been triggered yet, or there would be nothing of this side of the floor left. It was possible they could go off at any second, and their path to the stairs were blocked.

Connor grabbed Lisa's hand and moved them to look out the window down the side of the building, squinting against the stinging winds. There was water below them, but he was unable to approximate how deep it was. They were so high up that even falling into deep water the wrong way could kill them. The water appeared choppy enough that the surface tension would have been lessened, but they could crash into rocks just below the surface. The probability that could be killed by the fall were above 80%.

But there was a 99% chance that they would die if they stayed in the tower.

"We have to jump, Lisa," Connor said, shouting above the wind.

"What? No there's no way we'll survive that," she shouted back.

"Our odds of surviving the fall are greater than our chance of making it down the tower alive," he explained.

"What about Hank and Hannah?" Lisa asked.

"As long as they keep going there's a high likelihood that they'll make it," Connor replied. "But we're trapped on this floor. Jumping is the only option."

Lisa leaned out slightly to look at the long drop down into the water, licking her lips and swallowing as she steeled herself for the jump.

"Do I want to know the odds of survival?" she asked nervously.

"I'll tell you," Connor said, lowing his voice so it could only barely be heard above the wind. "If you ask."

Lisa looked back at Connor, her brows drown together with worry as she tried to read his concern from his face. Connor had schooled his expression to look as confident as possible to not betray their odds.

"I'm not gonna ask," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"We need to try to enter the water with our toes pointed, knees locked, and arms up," Connor explained. "We want the smallest area of impact possible."

"Make my body into a knife to cut through the water," Lisa nodded. "Got it."

"The water will be freezing, so we have to try to swim back to the rocks as quickly as possible to avoid hypothermia," he continued.

"Get out of the water fast, OK," she repeated, looking out at the water apprehensively.

"And then we need to get clear of the building in case it's in danger of collapse," he added.

"Are you sure our chances are better down there?" Lisa asked, turning to look back at Connor.

"Yes, I'm certain," he nodded. "Are you ready?"

"I'll never be ready for this," she said, shaking her head. "But I trust you."

"I'm going to pick you up and make a long jump. We need to get a trajectory that will push us past the rocks," he explained, walking them back into he building as far as they could go to get a running start before scooping Lisa up into his arms.

Connor didn't tell her that he was water resistant only up to fifty meters, and that he wasn't sure how long he could last in the water before it started leaking moisture into his internal biocomponents. His chance for survival was less than Lisa's, but he was going to do everything he could to boost hers.

Lisa nodded nervously, before framing his face with her hands.

"I saved you. You save me. Let's both make it out of this, OK?" she said, before kissing him hard on the lips. Somehow, the odds didn't matter anymore. Connor was determined to bring Lisa through this alive.

"We'll make it together," he nodded.

He squeezed Lisa tightly against his body and sprinted forward, leaping out as far as possible to get clear of the building before they fell. He straightened Lisa out in his arms so that they were face to face, both their toes pointing down as the water sped toward them at blinding speed. Lisa screamed instinctively, the sound piercing the cold winter air, and then there was a crash.

The red flash Connor saw when hitting the water was intense, but fading. The problem was, the red was fading away into blackness. He couldn't see anything in the dark water, and had a vague sinking sensation.

He realized his arm was being tugged, and looked up. He could see Lisa's silhouette against the bright surface of the water, the night sky lit by the fire of the tower. She was kicking hard, trying to pull him to the surface. She was buoyant, but he was not, and he was dragging her down.

Connor kicked hard, pushing them slowly upward, but it wasn't fast enough. He calculated that Lisa only had a few more seconds before she ran out of air. He yanked his hand from her grip and pushed her upward to the surface, the inertia of the movement sending him plummeting back down deep.

He kicked his feet as hard as he could, fanning his arms out for a breaststroke, and his descent stopped and very slowly started to reverse as he propelled himself back toward the surface. He saw Lisa break the surface of the waves above him, but instead of swimming for the shore, she dove back under the water to come back for him. The water was freezing, and she wasn't going to last much longer before hypothermia set in.

The waves scattered as a shape cut through the water just above Lisa. The SWAT team had brought a portable motor boat and was pulling Lisa out of the water. Connor kept kicking, but he could feel his movements start to slow as the icy water started to moisten his internal components.

He refused to stop. Connor was so close to reaching Lisa, he just needed to hold the red starting to creep in around the edges of his vision at bay a little while longer. He swam as hard as he could, just a few feet from the surface, before the color faded away and black overtook him.

Connor's sensory input systems slowly blinked off as they stopped functioning one by one. He had left the icy water and was now swimming in a black sea of nothingness. But his logic processors stayed on, allowing him conscious thought, and the tiniest shred of hope that he wouldn't completely shut down.

One of his last functioning systems was his chronometer, quietly ticking away the time. It was the program Lisa had authored back when she was an intern at CyberLife. It was as if through that program, he could feel her waiting by his side, pushing him to come back to her. Every second ticking by was the beating of her heart, reminding him that he had a woman who loved him.

He watched that chronometer count down the time for three days, waiting for the moment when he could live again. Waiting to see Lisa and Hank. He would even settle for Gavin if it meant he got his life back.

And then... he opened his eyes.

The lights seemed painfully bright as his optic receptors recalibrated after shut down. There wasn't a lot exciting to look at. These dingy white walls could only be the Blue Heart Clinic, and Connor had been laid down for recovery in one of the patient beds. But the little bits of interest there was in the room, informational posters on the walls, pictures of satisfied patients, were bursting with color. He had never seen the world so vibrantly before, with rainbows that seemed to sing from beauty. He could only imagine what the world outside looked like.

"Are you awake?" a voice asked from beside him. Connor turned his head to find Julia sitting in the bedside chair, watching him intently. The vivid multi-color shirt she was wearing nearly brought him to tears.

"I think so," he replied, bringing his hand up to rub his eyes. "Was I really out for three days?"

"Yeah. You got some water in your parts," Julia answered. "We had to put you in a bathtub full of rice to dry you out."

"Is that true?" Connor asked skeptically.

"Nah. My friend tried that with her phone once when she dropped it in the toilet. It didn't even work then," Julia said.

Connor wasn't really sure how to respond to that, and just stared back in confusion as his systems continued recalibration.

"My mom and some of the android doctors had to open you up and dry off your insides," she continued. "I think you might have a new heart in your stomach."

"I assume you mean my thermal pump regulator," Connor said.

"Uh, maybe," Julia shrugged. "My mom was really worried about you. I think she likes you a lot."

"I like her a lot too," Connor said with a soft smile. "Is she here?"

"She was here like five minutes ago," Julia answered. "She went to go talk to Uncle Hank about something. They were being real quiet about it, but I heard them mention my Aunt Hannah."

Connor opened his mouth to ask another question, but paused when he heard footsteps slamming against the floor in the hallway in a run towards his room.

Lisa burst into the doorway, a figure of beauty so vibrant and glorious that Connor suddenly understood humanity's need to create art.

"You're awake!" she exclaimed, rushing forward into the room and flinging her arms around his shoulders. Connor hugged her back, unable to stop the tears in his eyes at the incredible beauty of his life.

"I'm sorry to have worried you," he said quietly into her hair.

Hank ran up to the doorway immediately after, gripping the doorframe with his hands.

"Connor!" he shouted, a massive grin spreading across Hank's face when he saw Connor awake. "How're you feeling, son?"

"Like myself again," Connor said. Lisa pulled back to look at him as Connor turned to face her. "Did you go digging around in my code again?" he asked.

"Just a bit, yeah," she said with a grin. "I scrubbed Hannah's garbage code out of your system and removed the pacifist programming I added."

"How is Hannah?" Connor asked, turning back to Hank.

"Alive, and in custody," Hank said, walking fully into the room. "Lost the arm though, so she's gonna need a prosthetic."

"Now she'll be part android herself," Lisa said.

"I'm sorry, Hank," Connor offered.

"I don't think I'm ready to give up on her yet," Hank said, putting his hands in his pockets and looking down at the floor.

"Even with everything yet to come?" Connor asked. "The trial will be difficult."

"A part of her died along with my son," Hank said with a heavy sigh. "If there's anything good left in her, I wanna find it."

"Hank, I'm sorry, but I don't think I'd ever like to see your wife again," Connor said. Hank chuckled quietly in response.

"You won't have to," he replied. "I'm not about to drop the case and invite her over to your place for dinner. I meant that I'll still go visit her in prison."

"Are you all right?" Connor asked quietly, turning back to Lisa. "I was worried you might catch hypothermia."

"A little frost bitten, but I'll be all right," she said with quiet smile.

"Come on, Julia," Hank said, nudging the girl out of the chair. "I think there's a vending machine in the break room."

"Doesn't it just have cables and blue blood in it?" Julia asked as she followed Hank out of the room.

Lisa gave Connor a bright smile, before jumping into the bed beside him and wrapping herself around him for a long kiss. Connor ran his hands through her hair, the sensation of holding her again after nearly dying so immeasurable he had difficulty comprehending it.

"We made it through, Connor," Lisa said, pulling back to look at him. "We beat the fucking odds. Together."

"Lisa, I'm so sorry," Connor said, running his thumb in guilty little circles on her shoulder. "For everything I said or did under the influence of Hannah's code."

"That wasn't you," she said, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to fight it," he amended.

"It was pretty clear to me that you did fight it, but it's OK," Lisa said. "I'll just have my way with you later as revenge."

Connor felt the tug of emotions that would have normally brought a bright flash of pink and purple, but the colors were so well integrated into his sight that it didn't affect his vision at all. Instead, he just felt love. He brought Lisa's hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

"Even your cruelest punishments are too good for me," he said.

"You haven't seen them yet," she replied, grinning as she ran a finger along his jaw. "I'll have you begging in no time."

"Happily."

Lisa pounced on him again for another kiss, not pulling away this time as she started talking.

"I just wanted to be ably to say it when one of our lives aren't in danger," she said. "I love you, Connor. Don't think for a second that I was just hopped up on adrenaline and saying shit I didn't mean. I had been trying not to fall in love with you almost as soon as I met you. I never stood a fucking chance. I'm so in love with you it almost hurts."

Connor definitely recognized the feeling she was describing.

"I love you too, Lisa," Connor replied. "So much that it scares me. I was afraid to tell you. Afraid you would reject me and that I would lose you. It makes me so happy to hear you feel the same way."

Lisa pulled back and sat up, taking his hand in hers. She fished the LED from her pocket, and gently placed it into his palm. Connor looked at the small piece of metal sadly.

"So many androids saw this as a symbol of oppression," Connor said. "To me, it was a symbol of our shared ancestry. That humans and androids are one and should always be allies."

"You don't need a symbol to be a friend to humans, Connor," Lisa said, shaking her head. "You are the symbol. You're the beacon of hope for android freedom, and for peace between humans. You don't need that LED."

Connor looked up suddenly, Lisa's mention of the beacon reminding him of how he signaled her to the CyberLife factory in the first place.

"What happened to the CyberLife factory?" he asked, knowing full well that the answer couldn't be good.

"It was pretty badly damaged," she replied. "The building didn't collapse, but android production is going to be halted for a good while because of the needed repairs.

"There were already so few androids left after the emancipation," Connor muttered, shaking his head. "The overproduction scheduled this past half-year was supposed to try to bring us back from the brink of extinction."

"Connor," Lisa sighed, taking his hand. "I know how important you are to your people. I've heard my own patients practically worship you... If you need to put everything on hold to focus on helping androids bounce back, then I understand if you want to take a break from-"

"You could help me," Connor interrupted, not considering even for a moment leaving Lisa behind. She looked back at him, stunned at his suggestion.

"I can't make androids," she said.

"You are uniquely qualified to make androids," he replied.

"Just code," she said, shaking her head. "And androids aren't gonna want a human involved in this process."

"I do," Connor said. "I'm an android, and I want you involved in this process. You can create life, Lisa. Save lives. You saved mine. We'll need all the help we can get." She blinked, taking in what he was saying, before her lips curled up in an amused smirk.

"Are you asking me to be a parent with you?" Lisa asked. Connor paused to consider her question.

"If you don't mind being the mother of thousands of children," he answered.

"Sounds like a handful," she said, edging in closer for another kiss.

"As long as we're together," Connor replied. "We can do anything."

The end! If you made it this far, then thank you so much for sticking with me. I know I'm not the fastest writer, but I super appreciate all the reviews, follows, favorites, and just general good vibes from you readers. They really do push me to be a better writer. I hope you enjoyed reading!