[Open Post]

[missiondeterminant]

[Toplevels in the comments below! Canonmates, cross-canon, rp-canon, etc is all good.]

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[mamabot]

[ The fact that she asked him that at all is an indicator of how desperate she is. Kara knows, without a doubt, that Alice is her family, her daughter. That she loves this child like a human loves their own, maybe more because of the circumstances that brought them together. She would die for Alice in a heartbeat, but not without a fight. Alice trusts her, and Kara will do everything in her power not to let her down.

(It's the fear, by the way. That's why she hasn't reached out mentally for Alice.)

Knowing he's built for things like this, Kara is comfortable (for a given value of comfortable in this situation) following Connor. She sees their opening too, and nods when he answers.

Then they're off, crossing the street quickly and quietly. The relief of having come this far doesn't last long. There's the reflection of a flashlight beam in a storefront window not far from them, but it doesn't come closer. The soldiers don't seem to be looking this way.

She could ask Connor to please hurry, but she doesn't want to waste time herself. He's aware of the danger, right? So she says nothing, ready to follow as soon as he starts moving. ]

[missiondeterminant]

[He's glad she seems willing to let him take the lead on this, because it is indeed what he's built for; calculating odds, choosing the right actions to take, and focusing on his mission objective is not just natural but calming. It helps that Kara is clearly attentive and quick on the uptake, and he doesn't have to worry about her making unnecessary noise or otherwise causing problems.

He feels a jolt of nerves when the flashlight illuminates the window nearby, but he also quickly concludes it was just a random sweep and no one is really paying attention or had noticed them. They made it into the next alley and Connor looks up, finding the fire escape.

He glances at Kara and then back at the fire escape, leading the way up the structure until they reach the roof. There are only two helicopters, as far as he can tell, and neither is nearby so they're pretty safe to travel by rooftop for now, at least as long as Kara can make the jumps.

...Can she make the jumps? Surely she can, if the other models designed for mundane tasks can manage to do so.]

There's the church.

[It's still a few blocks away, of course, but visible with their vantage point. He can't see anyone entering or leaving it, which is equal parts good and bad; good in that there's no soldier activity, bad in that it doesn't look like there's deviant activity either.

He glances back at Kara to make sure she's ready and still on task, before taking off at a run across the roof in order to gather the momentum to jump. It's... Honestly a lot more frightening now that he's deviant, but there'a also a thrill that certainly wasn't there before, and he rolls on the impact before coming back up on his feet and turning to make sure Kara can follow.]

[mamabot]

[ She keeps following. The sight of the church is almost enough to make her start running, but her rational mind -- her programming, her base code, does she even really have a mind? -- keeps her focused on doing this as safely as possible.

It's... not something she's done before. Kara was designed for housework and babysitting, but she's certainly stronger than a human. More athletic too, enough to cross a busy freeway with a child in tow, and to fight off armed soldiers in the midst of the Jericho raid. There's a moment where she doubts this will work, but then she looks at the church and narrows her eyes in determination. Like hell is she giving up just because she's a robot maid. She's free to decide who she wants to be, and she's going to rescue her daughter.

Kara watches Connor make the jump, and when he lands safely, she mimics his running start and his trajectory. She's not as graceful on landing -- she manages to roll but ends up flat on her back for her trouble -- but she did it. As she stands, there's an amazed little smile on her face. She did it.

Looking at Connor, she nods firmly. ] I'm fine. Let's keep going.

[ She'll be a little better with every jump, but the exhilaration of freedom, of flying through the air from roof to roof, doesn't fade. ]

[missiondeterminant]

[He watches with some trepidation as she backs up to attempt the jump, ready to try to intervene if she doesn't make it all the way, but she lands and the look on her face makes him feel a sense of triumph for her. He imagines Hank making some comment about empathy and suddenly misses his friend a lot, but he shoves that thought--and the more positive empathetic one for Kara--aside for now. They need to focus.

He leads the way across several more rooftops, noting Kara's improvement, and it's a nice moments in the midst of everything else. He makes a mental note to himself to do this again sometime later when things calm down--if they ever do--because he thinks it might actually be fun, which is sort of a weird thing to realize.

And they've made it across to the other side of the church, which leads Connor to look for another fire escape down. It takes one more roof to find a building that has a suitable one, but then he leads the way back down to the ground.

The good news is that he doesn't see any soldiers, so they're probably in the clear for the moment. The bad news is that if there are no soldiers here, that's because they didn't see any reason to remain.

He really hopes that isn't because everyone in the church is dead.]

I think it's clear.

[Their path to the church, he means, and he tries to make it sound like a good thing instead of a potentially terrible one as he ignores an emotion that he thinks is dread.]

[mamabot]

[ Kara, meanwhile, is deeply familiar with dread. Walking through Zlatko's basement, freeing the androids he toyed with, thirium pounding through her body with every second that passed while she'd still been searching for Alice -- to say nothing of all that came before and after. Fear has driven her to make a lot of choices she regrets, but it has also moved her to action in the first place. Fear for someone else's life -- empathy -- set her free from the constraints of her programming.

(She doesn't remember the day she was "born" and how she'd been like this from the very beginning, and that's probably for the best. The dread that sat cold in her mind as she went dormant when put in a box to be sold... It's better to worry about Alice now, and to feel like she can actually make a difference if she tries.)

So she feels dread now too, but thinks nothing of it. The better part of the past few days was spent denying Alice's true nature, after all. This? It's easy as pie.

Barely sparing Connor a glance, she walks into the church, now big and silent and in pieces. It's the silence that bothers her, really upsets her. If she hadn't removed her LED, it'd blink red in the dim lighting. ]

Can you-- can you scan for people? Can you tell if anyone's alive?

[missiondeterminant]

Not like this.

[He could scan for heat signatures, for objects that break up the established pattern of their surroundings, for faces that come up in his databases. But the rubble of the church is too chaotic for his scanners to be able to determine anything from, and they're going to have to search for survivors by hand.

He really hopes they won't find anyone; that everyone somehow escaped, and so the church is just destroyed but empty and that's the reason for the silence. But he knows that's logically unlikely, and it's confirmed a moment later as he spots the first casualty.

It's an android he doesn't know--no surprise, he barely knows anyone--shot by the soldiers and still spilling thirium onto the floor even though their LED is dark. Connor stares down at them a moment before pulling himself out of the mess of emotions swirling around in his head, trying to refocus and stepping carefully around the body.]

Where was Alice when you saw her last?

[He addresses Kara quietly, but his voice still seems too loud in the somber place.]

[mamabot]

[ Staring at the mess of rubble and debris in fromt of them, Kara isn't sure she wants to find Alice here or not -- especially not when Connor finds a victim of the raid. Guilt fills her mind, mixing with the relief she feels at realizing it isn't Alice. She thinks that guilt is strange, hot and cold simultaneously. It makes her want to stay put and run away, laugh and cry, scream and stay quiet. ]

Uh-- [ It takes her a second to refocus her racing thoughts on the matter at hand. ] By the front pews. She got up to look at the altar. She only took a few steps when--

[ When the humans attacked.

She squeezes her eyes shut, feeling useless here; the best she can do is clean this place up. That's what she was built for. That, and taking care of children, and right now, it's all too likely she failed. ]

I shouldn't have let her go alone. [ Shouldn't have let her go at all. ]