"No," Markus disagrees, too quick to be purely placating. His voice swimming somewhere in between softened anger and well-worn sympathy. "Connor turned up before the FBI even arrived. He wanted me alive, they wanted me dead."

Which meant that whatever information Simon had given him, Connor hadn't shared it. A difference of objectives, and one Cyberlife wouldn't ignore. Markus had overheard the comm chatter, unmistakable, even while swept up in the full breadth of that piercing chaos. If Simon glimpsed that much of his own memory (he must have, Markus realizes, falling back on the potency of their synthesis), then that truth might at least make it bearable.

Bearable.

As if there's a simple way to swallow down the crystal-clear memory of Lucy clinging tightly to his arms, gunfire eclipsing desperate calls for help from androids so new into not just deviancy, but their own lives. All they'd dared to do— all they'd ever dared to do— was ask for the right to exist.

"You were injured and alone, and he capitalized on that. He manipulated you, Simon."

His hand, still wound in Simon's taxed grip, unwinds itself. Rises, resting just above the open puncture wound marring the center of Simon's chest. It isn't idle, and it isn't reassuring. It's sincere.

"I don't blame you for what happened."