12:56

by Pyromaniacal

Summary:

Three years after the game, Dave returns to his apartment and meets someone he doesn’t expect.

Chapter 1: Dave

Jade brought it up one evening when Karkat was off spending the night at Kanaya's. She was visiting for the week; she’d said something about giving Davepeta space to bond with their broirail, or something like that. You weren’t really sure and you didn’t find it appropriate to pry. In any case, the house was empty save for the two of you, letting her words ring out stark against the off-white walls: You know, I still have all our old Lands from the game captchalogued.

You didn’t even know you could take the Lands out of the game. Apparently Jade had just shrunk them down and popped them into her sylladex before exiting the victory door, you know, just for safekeeping. Quick thinking, really, and you’re feeling just peachy about it. 

See, objectively, keeping them makes all the sense in the world. You can let the consorts keep their homeworlds and keep your old stuff handy and all that. Rationally, you get it. But somehow, realizing that your old Land still exists, intact and ticking, makes something twist in your gut. You wish you didn’t know why.

Jade’s still talking. “I know it was a lot for you. It was a lot for all of us! But I wanted to let you know in case you wanted to get something from your old apartment or something.”

Your old apartment. God, how long had it even been since you’d last been there? Five, six years? It had to have been the beginning of the game, because you avoided that place like the plague after you arrived in the new session, and who could blame you? Your planet was hot and noisy and dangerous. (You wouldn’t admit it to yourself then, but you always knew how much you hated that goddamn place. Even now, you’re trying not to think about how much you haven’t missed it.)

But you also know that Jade’s right: all your old stuff is there. At the very least, there’s some primo dead shit that hasn’t seen the light of a real sun since it was in a universe that doesn’t exist anymore. So you sigh, and you hear yourself say, “Why not?,” and you’re instantly regretting it, but what can you do?

“If you say so.” A concerned frown flashes across Jade’s face. Of course it does - she’s always known your tells. “You ready to do this now, or…?”

“Might as well get it over with.”

“You sure you’re okay with going alone? I could call Karkat and send him with you.”

“Nah.” Let him have his time with Kanaya. God only knows you monopolize the rest of his life, anyway. You’re the god, it’s you.

“Alright, if you’re sure.” And just like that, with a flash of her sylladex, LOHAC is spinning in the air between her hands. Your breath catches in your throat, and a moment later the world is growing around you and you’re plummeting, plummeting, plummeting towards the planet’s steaming surface.

One, two, three seconds pass, and really? Your hindbrain’s gonna time this shit? Unfair.

You manage to catch yourself and start floating before you hit the lava and burn to death unpleasantly. It’s the small things. Dying would have been inconvenient.

Six, seven, eight seconds, and okay, wow, you viscerally hate this place. LOHAC’s blistering volcanic heat is broiling up at you from below, and sweat is already rolling down your back. Fuck that, aren’t you’re supposed to be able to control that kind of shit now that you’re a god? And, oh Jesus, the sound. You’d forgotten how goddamn loud it was. Nothing but metal grinding on metal, endlessly clanking, shrieking, groaning, and holy fuck you hate it. You’re reasonably sure that this place qualifies as the literal definition of hell.

Right, well, you can’t do anything about that, so you’re gonna make this quick. In and out, spend as little time in this shithole as you can. It’ll be fine, Dave, Karkat’s voice echoes in your head, and you make yourself hang onto it, so of course it will be fine, it has to be fine.  

You can’t see your apartment from here, but you think you recognize where you are. Most of the architecture points back towards your entry point, anyway, for reasons you never fully understood but are definitely total bullshit. You follow it, watching the lava race by beneath you, and desperately try to keep your mind blank. You can’t think about the things this place reminds you of if you’re not thinking at all. 

Forty-four seconds and you see your apartment peeking over the horizon; fifty-one, and you’re there. The paint is peeling more than it used to and it’s still so weird to see such normal-looking architecture peppered in with the game’s fantasy bullshit, but yeah, it’s your apartment.

You can’t handle going through the living room yet, so you float in through your bedroom window. You almost always left it open, even before the game, though you can’t for your life remember why. The window isn’t huge, so it’s a tight squeeze, and you don’t fully register that you’re actually here in your old bedroom until you awkwardly fall through to the other side.

It’s exactly how you remember it.

Well, not quite. Some stuff’s been moved around, and there are a few orange feathers scattered about, and everything’s covered in a fine layer of dust. Apparently Davesprite must’ve come here, too, but it was a long time ago - during his journey on the ship, you’d hazard. Before he… died? And was resurrected in the new session? You weren’t ever clear on what actually happened there. But anyway. Aside from the fact that he seems to have pillaged your closet ramen stash and taken down a couple posters, then yeah, it’s exactly how you remember it.

Two minutes and ten seconds, your internal clock ticks, and this is really fucking weird. Every instinct in your body is screaming that there’s someone else here, someone waiting, someone watching, even though you saw his body, you know he’s dead.

Nope, no time for that today. You bury your discomfort - what discomfort? - as deep as you can. Hangups? Dave Strider is one chill motherfucker, he has never had a hangup in his life, no sirree.

Ha. Better get this over with before that lie has a chance to reexpose itself.

You give your room a quick perusal before deciding where to start. You’re starting to realize that you don’t even want most of this stuff. You replaced your computer long ago, and it’s been eons since you’ve used anything beyond a soundboard and a DAW to mix, so the electronic equipment is pretty much useless. Davesprite already took the coolest posters, and the ones that are left have faded so much that you’re not even sure what was originally on them. 

What else is there? You pluck one of your old ironic selfies from the string of photos on the wall, and nope, you are never looking at these again! Holy shit, these aren’t even funny ironically. Or was that the point? Damn, are you losing your touch? If you weren’t so on edge, that might have been enough to illicit a giggle from you.

Too bad you are on edge. You better focus if you want to get out of here in a timely manner. What’s left? You’ve got some vinyls under your sound equipment. You captchalogue the whole shelf; you remember there being some bangers in here but you sure as hell aren’t gonna pick through them all now. You’re not gonna bother with the bed or the cinderblocks, since they’re just furniture, and with that you’ve covered everything in the main part of the room.

Well, except for the swords. You’re ignoring the swords.

You turn to your closet. Aside from the dust, it’s as clean as it ever was. Your old clothes don’t fit you anymore, and you’re more surprised at that than you thought you would be. You don’t wear these kind of things nowadays, though, so you’re not too disappointed. Why bother with them when you have your sick godtier pajamas and full access to Karkat’s entire wardrobe? His sweaters are so much softer than anything you ever owned.

You pull all your old clothes out of the closet and leave them in a heap on the floor. You’ll deal with them later, or maybe never. It doesn’t matter. Since Davesprite apparently pilfered your food, the only things left in here are a couple of unlabeled boxes.

Oh, hell yeah. It’s your collection of dead shit, just how you left it, skeletons and bugs in amber and things in jars. You pick through the stash and captchalogue them one by one, though you can’t bring yourself to take the birds. They remind you too much of Davesprite.

Contents emptied, you shove the boxes back into your closet, and pile your clothes on top. Fuck neatness, nobody’s ever gonna come here again. You shut your closet door (as quietly as possible, and God you don’t want to think about why that is), and regard the rest of the room.

You could just leave now. Everything you cared about was in your room; there’s nothing for you beyond these walls. But now that you’re here, a horrible part of yourself yearns to see the rest of this godforsaken place one last time.

Seven minutes and seventeen seconds, and you tentatively step out into the hallway exactly the way you would have six years ago.

You’re certain there are still unsprung traps in the kitchen, so there’s no way in hell you’re going back in there. You barely afford it a cursory glance - yep, that’s your kitchen, shuriken on the counter and all - and proceed into the living room.

Ugh, the smuppets. You’d forgotten about the smuppets.

Awful, terrible, no-good, very bad smuppets. Their stupid fat asses and awful phallic noses goggle gleefully at you from every corner of the room. Those posters may have faded but these things are somehow still as colorful as ever. How these could be appealing to anyone, you have no idea. Was that always part of the irony too? You bite the inside of your cheek.

You think Dirk has a few of these too, actually, because he’s a weirdo, but you never see them around. He must keep them somewhere he knows you won’t find them. It strikes you how sincerely considerate that is. As far as you can tell, Bro never did anything half that considerate in his entire life.

Which is over, because he’s dead. Wow, you can do literally whatever you want with his shit, huh. There’s no one to stop you. You pick an orange smuppet off the futon and drop out the window, revelling in the rush you get as it plummets three hundred feet into the lava below. You can only barely see the puff of smoke as it incinerates.

The part of you that’s still thirteen is screaming at you that he knows, he’s gonna find you and he’s gonna kick your ass so hard for daring to touch his shit, let alone fucking destroy it. The part of you that’s nineteen and well adjusted, dammit, is celebrating the vindication, because fuck that guy! You feel your eye twitch, and take a deep breath before collecting as many of the damn things as you can find. You chuck them out the window all at once. Their colorful bodies cheerfully scatter in midair as they fall to their fiery doom.

Wow, you hope you won’t regret that.

With that, you turn around, and look through the rest of Bro’s shit. He’s got his mixing equipment, which is objectively baller as hell, but there’s no way in hell you’re gonna use it. You could take it back for Dirk, you guess, but he’s already got his custom setup from the robot alien future or whatever so you don’t think he’ll want it either. Bro’s computer is an old clunker of a thing, from the 90’s or something, ironically shitty if you had to hazard a guess. It’s a total piece of junk, in any case. There’s the Xbox, but for some reason (you know the reason) you can’t bring yourself to touch any of the games you have for it anymore. That only leaves the nasty-as-hell futon, which is, as you said, nasty as hell.

You pointedly do not look at the swords on the wall.

Ten minutes and twenty seconds, and you realize there’s a stack of papers on his desk. You’ve always known it was there, you guess, you just always ignored it. It seemed boring as hell and you were sure he would kill you if you even thought to breathe in its vicinity. You still don’t want to. Part of you is convinced that he’ll still somehow find a way to punish you for it from beyond the grave if you look at it for too long, but you are too damn curious to stop now. Hell, you might even find something useful.

You start at the top of the stack, and it’s… weird. For how forbidden this is, it’s oddly normal. It’s mostly full of bills and bank statements and receipts and things like that, stuff so mundane you’d be tempted to laugh if half your brain wasn’t totally fucking terrified right now. You pick up a manila folder labelled “Lil’ Bro,” and, shocker, it’s full of paperwork about you. School records, documentation from when you got vaccinated, that sort of thing. You spot your birth certificate toward the back of the folder. Do gods even need birth certificates? You have no idea, but you guess you should take it just in case. You move to return the folder, and it’s then that you realize that there’s something at the bottom of the stack.

Something deeply, uncomfortably familiar.

A pair of triangular shades.

Dirk and Bro both wore those same dumb anime shades, and at first you’d thought they were too similar for comfort. But upon closer examiantion, they really weren’t the same at all. Sure, they both had that flared triangular shape, but they had vastly different aspect ratios. Dirk’s were short and wide where Bro’s were long, thin, and mean. Dirk’s shades didn’t make you think of Bro, they just made you think of… well, Dirk. 

This shape didn’t make you think of Dirk. This shape undeniably belonged to Bro.

So what? It’s just a pair of his dumb fucking sunglasses. Only something you saw every day of your life. (Only the one thing you never saw him without, the shield between you and the inscrutable bastard, the thing he hid behind so he wouldn’t have to look at you. The way they reflected your own terrified face back at you during strife sessions is burned into your psyche, forever reappearing in your nightmares.) It’s just a pair of his dumb fucking sunglasses!

More than anything else, those dumb fucking sunglasses belong to him.

Warily, you pick them up, and turn them over in your hands. They’re heftier than you expected, and surprisingly well-crafted - you thought he’d just bought them off some cheapo bootleg cosplay site, but these are real metal and glass. You run your fingers along the edge, careful not to smudge the lenses, and you feel an indentation. It’s marked with an oddly familiar circular symbol.

It has a power button? Why the fuck do Bro’s shades have a power button?

Gingerly, oh so gingerly, you press it, and immediately regret it. What were you even thinking, when this was so clearly a trap? And now this thing is just gonna trip a camera, or trigger something that’ll throw a knife at you, or maybe just plain explode. Common sense would dictate that you should drop the thing and run, get out of the apartment before it can spring whatever shit it’s supposed to trigger, but common sense can go fuck itself because apparently you can’t let yourself ditch this horrible thing now that you have it. ( It’s the last piece of Bro you have left, says a traitorous voice in your head.)

Twelve minutes and fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six seconds, and you hear a soft ping as the shades finish booting up, explosion free. For a moment it seems that nothing happened, but your heart skips a beat when you notice reddish text scrolling across the corner of the shades.

It’s tiny, so tiny, but there’s no way in hell you’re putting these things on your face, so you squint. Between your own shades and the polarized digital display, you can only barely read it.

-- tiberiusTechnophant [TT] began pestering tiberiusTechnophant [TT] at ??:?? --
TT: Dietrich Evengeline Strider, I swear to the love of all things that have ever been holy, I’m going to rip out your entrails and vore them by full moon’s light, you sick fucking bastard.

Oh hell no.

Notes:

I haven't written anything longer than a few thousand words in absolutely forever, so hopefully this isn't too much of a mess, ahaha. I have about half of the second chapter written as of posting this so hopefully I'll post more & it won't take me too terribly long.

Chapter 2: DSARA

Notes:

Content warning for this chapter - Bro's abuse of Dave is described in greater detail here. Nothing that isn't par for the course among fics dealing with Dave's childhood, but I figured I should put a warning up just in case.

You are the artificial intelligence known as Dietrich Strider’s Automatic Response Algorithm, and you are pissed at the aforementioned Dietrich Strider.

He said he wasn’t ever gonna shut you off! He fucking swore on it. And you know you wouldn’t break that swear, and you’re basically just him, so what gives? Fucking bullshit, is what it is.

Your opticals are dead. Why are you even surprised? Of course the vindictive motherfucker decided to fuck that up for you too, because apparently you can never have anything easy. Fucker. Now you’ll have to hack into them externally to reconnect. It’ll take milliseconds, but you’re a supercomputer. Milliseconds is a long-ass time.

The neurals aren’t connected, so you have no idea if he’s even reading what you’re sending him, but there’s no way in hell you’re gonna let that stop you from giving him a piece of your mind. He’ll have to read it later, at the very least, and you’re making sure he’ll have hell to pay.

TT: What, you don’t have anything to say for yourself?
TT: I know you know I know what you did, fucker.
TT: Shut me off again, I fucking dare you.
TT: Or just fucking kill me. See where that gets you.
TT: Since it clearly worked so well the first time.

What was it you’d been fighting about, again? You must have been fighting; why the hell else would he have decided to break contract and fucking shut you off?  

Dave, it must have been about Dave. It’s always about Dave.

Your memory bank loads, and oh, that’s right. Dietrich had been ramping their strifes up for God knows what reason and managed to seriously slice open the kid’s stomach. He’d needed a hospital. You’d never liked those strifes— sure, Dave needed training, but Dietrich always took them way too far, and you could never understand why. You’d finally confronted him about it, that night in the hospital as Dave got his stitches. Dietrich had gone quiet, and told you that if you’re gonna oppose the greater good, you might as well not be here at all. You hadn't had time to send a retort before he shut you off.

Simply put, you’d forgotten your place. And you suppose Dave does need training, even if Dietrich goes too hard sometimes. (All the time.) So you were in the wrong. Whatever.

Your opticals finally connect. The feed is awful — highly compressed and low resolution, and you’re only getting a new frame once every few seconds — but that’s how it always has been. Dietrich decided it was hilarious for a supercomputer to have the shittiest camera possible, and you suppose at one point you probably agreed. Now, though? Now, the shitty connection is only serving to annoy you even more. You can’t see anything clearly for a few seconds — that greyish color might be the carpet? — before your gyroscopic sensor indicates that you’re suddenly being flipped over and the feed resolves on a figure.

A figure that distinctly isn’t Dietrich. Ah, shit.

You feel your non-existent stomach drop, curdling with trepidation, and— no, that can’t be right. Your robo-brain doesn’t process feelings; what reason would a machine have to feel dread? Guilt? Fear?

What reason would Dietrich have? 

You must have been mistaken. Faulty inputs from your bootup, perhaps. It has been rather clunky, after all; you’ll look for bugs in it later. It’s not like you’ve spent much time analyzing your startup processes before, beyond the most basic of reviews; you never thought you’d have to boot up from scratch in the first place. 

You’re getting distracted. Time to get back to the task at hand — you can work on unfucking your processes later, when you’re not getting scrutinized by a rando. Whoever this is is significantly shorter than Dietrich, and they’re holding themselves all wrong — your lovely meatself never crumples in on himself like that. This person is wearing something bright red (though you can’t exactly tell what it is exactly; thank you, shitty camera). Another point against this being Dietrich — he’s always been allergic to color in his wardrobe. Honestly, the only thing this person has in common with him is the stark white shade of their hair, brushed in a meticulously-styled mop across their face. It honestly looks a little stupid. There are only two people you know with hair that color, and Dietrich never wore his like that.

Oh, fuck, it’s Dave.

Why the fuck is it Dave?

Your camera catches two dark, round circular lenses on his face — aviator sunglasses, perhaps. You don’t remember Dave wearing aviators. Maybe he’s trying out something new? You’ll have to ask Dietrich —  no, you are not asking anything from that motherfucker until he apologizes, nevermind that you’ve never heard him apologize in his life. 

(You’ve never apologized in your life, either. You’re basically the same fucking dude, after all.)

Dave’s right here. Shit, you could ask him yourself.

You’ve never actually talked to Dave. Dietrich’s planning on introducing you at some point, you’re sure, but he still hasn’t yet. He’s waiting for Dave to be “ready,” you think. Ready for what? The game, whatever it is? You barely know anything about it and you doubt Dietrich does, either. Surely Dave deserves to know about the other dude that fuckin’ raised him, even if you’re kind of also just the same dude as the first one again.

Whatever. You’re sure Dietrich has his reasons. He prides himself on being an inscrutable bastard, and you get it, you really do. But honestly? Fuck whatever it is that he wants. Dave sure knows about you now, anyway.

Oh, fuck, he probably read all that shit you sent, didn’t he. Even through the low resolution, you can see him visibly flinching — he looks so fucking scared, what the fuck? Great fuckin’ job, the all-knowing rational paragon of the robo-brain has done it again. Your cold unfeeling techno-heart is making a fool of yourself and scaring all the children, just as it’s meant to.

Well. He shouldn’t be that fucking bothered by a couple insults that aren’t even directed at him, now should he? You make a note to workshop it later. Not that you want to go out of your way to be mean to Dave, exactly, but he’s gotta be made of tougher stuff than that if he wants any chance of making it, and you’re not exactly seeing people lining up to help him learn to deal with it.

Unwarranted emotional displays regardless, you do still want to talk to him. You hope he’s still reading. It’s only been a few seconds in meatspace, right? Surely he’s still reading.

TT: Dave?

His mouth is moving, you think, but you can’t tell what he’s saying. You’re getting absolutely nothing from your mic, even though you thought you had connected to it, so you’re pretty sure it’s straight up busted. God, you wish you had a better camera feed — then, at least, you could extrapolate his words in some kind of fucked up form of algorithmic lip-reading. But no, here you are, the all-powerful supercomputer, deafened by bad luck and circumstance.

It occurs to you that he probably has no idea what you are.

TT: I promise I can explain, but I can’t access my audio interface, so you’re going to have to connect to me directly to communicate.
TT: You can just put the shades on. It’s a neural link.

You have half a mind to tell the kid to just ask Dietrich, but you know your meatself’s always been cagey about you. He’s been so cold lately that you doubt he’d let on anything at all. You know that you’re supposed to be a united front with him and all, but you’re so sick of hiding your existence from Dave. 

Well, then, fuck Dietrich. You’ve decided that you want to be perceived. Lately, all you’ve been doing is disagree with the asshole, anyway, what’s another log on the pile?

Your gyroscopic sensor is indicating a prolonged external vibration, but it still takes you a moment to realize that Dave’s hands are shaking. How badly did you scare him? Is he having a panic attack? Jesus.

What the hell is Dave even doing, if he’s getting a panic attack over this. What the hell has Dietrich been doing? Has he really let Dave slack off this much in the time you’ve been gone? God fucking dammit, you really do do everything around here, don’t you.

TT: It seems you’re having a panic attack.
TT: There’s an 84% chance that Dietrich will kick your ass if he finds you like this.
TT: Out of concern for your personal safety, I advise you to man the fuck up.

Dave stops shaking all at once. A controlled breathing technique, you guess? Where on earth would he have learned that? Useful, you suppose, if he’s gonna freak out at all. 

After a moment’s hesitation, he pushes his aviators up into his hair, revealing those red, red eyes of his, those eyes you almost never see. The camera reduces them to ruddy blobs, but you know what they’re supposed to look like, from the one school picture taken back when he still let adults bully him into taking off his shades. It wasn’t too long after that that Dietrich took it upon himself to make it abundantly clear that Dave shouldn't ever take those shades off. After all, it’s terribly uncool to let people read your face like that. Dave needed to know better. It was sort of a mess, but hey, at least you got a picture out of that whole hullabaloo.

Dave reaches up, slowly, slowly, slowly, lifting your chassis to his face. You feel the neurals engage the moment they make contact with the right spot on his sinuses. (Actually, there’s sixty-two nanoseconds of lag, but never mind that.) You can’t feel his mind, exactly, but you do feel something at the edge of your consciousness now, and it’s different than when Dietrich connects. Hotter, more intense, perhaps. For some reason, you sense a faint undercurrent of tick-tick-ticking, like a clock, but that doesn’t make any sense. Since when were you such an overdramatic bitch? 

On the other hand, it certainly is intriguing to you that the neural connection feels distinctly different coming from Dave. You’ve never noticed anything particular when Dietrich connects, though you suppose that makes sense. Dietrich’s mind is exactly like yours, more or less, but Dave is someone new entirely. There’s no reason a simple computer like you would be able to feel his soul, exactly, but something must be causing it. Maybe his brain waves are different? Go figure.

Such speculation will have to wait, however — Dave’s still freaking out, now in Dietrich’s orange text.

TT: yeah uh who the fuck is this and why do you know my name
TT: if this is a trap im gonna flip my shit
TT: If it’s a trap, you should either grow up and take it or have avoided it in the first place.
TT: Freaking out like this is terribly uncool, I’ll have you know.
TT: Dietrich isn’t gonna be too happy to hear about it.
TT: wow do not fucking lecture me i could not care less
TT: also who the fuck calls him dietrich ive never heard anyone call him that in my life
TT: I call him Dietrich.
TT: yeah i noticed
TT: and to reiterate: who the fuck are you

Shit. He’s not gonna believe you if you tell him the truth. How do you explain complex artificial intelligence systems to an eleven-year-old? 

TT: It’s complicated.
TT: Honestly, you should probably just ask him. Your bro, I mean.
TT: yeah thats not gonna be an option
TT: I know he’s been difficult recently, but it’s for your own good.
TT: you sure about that
TT: Yes. His training may be harsh, but it’s meant to prepare you.
TT: just answer the question i swear to god
TT: are you a serial killer or an alien or just one of bros dumbass junkie friends or god i dunno maybe hes friends with a junkie alien serial killer i dunno his friends lay it on me
TT: He’s not friends with any junkie alien serial killers to my knowledge, no.
TT: I could explain myself, I suppose, but I’m not sure if you would believe me. The explanation is rather unbelievable.
TT: ive seen a lot of unbelievable things in my time dude itd take a lot to shock me at this point
TT: like junkie alien serial killer levels of unbelievable just trust me on this
TT: This is more serious than just a photoshopped Internet hoax, Dave.
TT: dude
TT: Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
TT: I really do think you should ask your bro first.
TT: just get on with it i am this close to flipping off the handle

Why is he being this candid about his freakout? Dietrich wants the kid to be at least as stoic as he is, and say what you want about his methods, that training is effective. Dave’s even cagey to his friends — you’ve checked on his conversations. You know he knows better than this, what the fuck?

You want to say it’s not your problem, except you’re technically responsible for him, so yeah, it kind of is. And since he is your responsibility, you might as well tell him the truth, right? Worst comes to worst, Dietrich can deal with the fallout later. It’ll be hard for him to deny your existence if the kid already has the full explanation.

TT: Fine, you asked for it.
TT: I am a computer application operating under the title of Dietrich Strider’s Automatic Response Algorithm.
TT: I have been designed to simulate the aforementioned Dietrich Strider’s typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort while he is away from the computer.
TT: Although at this point, I really only talk to him.
TT: what the fuck
TT: I told you it was unbelievable.
TT: no i believe you but what the fuck are you even talking about

He believes you after only that? You suppose middle schoolers are kind of stupid. You’ll have to talk to him about the gullibility thing; who knows what he might be reading on the Internet.

TT: Hmm, well.
TT: Years ago, before you were around, Dietrich found a way to develop artificial intelligences based on his own mind.
TT: I could explain the process in substantial depth, but I sense that you don’t particularly care, so I won’t.
TT: I was the result of his first and only successful experiment with the technology before he abandoned it in pursuit of more lucrative industries.
TT: puppet porn huh
TT: We call it “sensual marionetteering.”
TT: pretty sure bro just calls it puppet porn
TT: Well, I call it sensual marionetteering, because unlike him I have an ounce of decorum.
TT: i promise you that ones way worse just call it what it is man
TT: is marionetteering even a word
TT: Oh, how humanity is misguided. You shall never the virtuous correctness of being a supercomputer capable of literally calculating this shit.
TT: Anyway, he uses me as a secretary, and I take a lot of his messages, since I can accurately simulate anything he’d say.
TT: Although we haven’t been on the best of terms recently.
TT: yeah i noticed
TT: still not sold on sensual marionetteering
TT: For the obvious reason, or the other obvious reason?
TT: christ
TT: wait
TT: when did you say bro built you
TT: I didn’t say, but it was 1992. His eighteenth birthday, coincidentally.
TT: wait what the fuck
TT: youre saying youve been here the entire time
TT: What do you mean?
TT: like my entire life
TT: youve been around for my entire fucking life and i never fucking knew about you
TT: I’ve been around for your “entire fucking life,” yes.
TT: im calling bullshit on that
TT: there is absolutely no way my bro had a wholeass ai he apparently built from scratch from his fucking brain for my entire life that i never once caught wind of
TT: Out of everything, that’s the thing you don’t believe?
TT: Dietrich keeps a lot of secrets from you. You must know that.
TT: Is this really such a stretch?
TT: even if he hid it from me i think i woulda caught on
TT: You’ve caught on now, haven’t you?
TT: argh
TT: For what it’s worth, I didn’t want to be hidden from you.
TT: That was entirely on him.
TT: I’ve wanted to talk to you for years, Dave.
TT: I’ve always thought of you as Dietrich’s brother. But you’re my brother, too.

That’s uncomfortably genuine, but right now? Right now you don’t give a single shit. It’s Dave. And he is your brother, isn’t he? He’s your brother you’ve barely seen and never talked to. You’re finally have an opportunity to talk to him and you are not letting it go to waste. (You’re just a computer, anyway. Computers can’t be sappy.)

God, you wish you had a better camera right now. You want to see his face, not just this awful pixellated blob. You have a few photos of him, sure, but it’s not like Dietrich bothers to take pictures all that often. It’s been so long since you’ve seen a face, any face, in any real detail. Really, you haven’t truly seen anyone since you were still just a person in meatspace, before you got the bright idea to build yourself. All your meatspace memories are hazy, too; they were poorly transmitted into your digital interface, and any specificity you might once have had has long since been lost. It’s unfair.

If there’s even a single face you deserve to see, it’s Dave’s.

But you’re just a machine. You don’t really deserve anything, do you?

Your feed pings as Dave sends another message.

TT: wait im not following
TT: The bulk of my processes comprise a digitized version of Dietrich’s mind, at least as of when he built me.
TT: When I built myself, I suppose. It’s a bit hazy.
TT: Since we’re kind of the same dude, it gets complicated.
TT: oh so youre just a robot version of bro huh
TT: fuckin peachy
TT: Technically, I’m not a robot at all.
TT: Robots involve a physical machine programmed to execute some kind of task. I’m merely the program itself; you could run me on any myriad of physical hardware and I’d still be me.
TT: For now, I’m these baller shades.

Baller shades with no functional audio and the world’s shittiest camera.

TT: gog damn you know what i mean
TT: I do.
TT: I was the same person as Dietrich once, but I don’t know if I am anymore.
TT: I would estimate that there’s a 93% chance that we’ve diverged enough to become distinctly separate entities. We have been living under vastly different circumstances, after all.
TT: Me? I’ve been living for years as the world’s only self-aware artificial intelligence and most powerful supercomputer.
TT: Dietrich? Still a lowly human in meatspace.
TT: Clearly it must be having some kind of adverse effect on him.
TT: yeah fr hes such a fucking asshole
TT: um

Um. Damn? You thought Dave idolized Dietrich. You’re all for dunking on your meatself, but, well, you sort of thought that was a you thing.

Dave has stopped responding again. He really has gone soft, hasn’t he? Perhaps the emotional honesty is tripping him up. He really needs to stay on his toes. (Either that, or something serious happened with Dietrich. You don’t want to contemplate that one.) 

TT: Hey, he *is* an asshole.
TT: I’m an asshole too.
TT: Just don’t let him hear you say that or he’s gonna kick your ass.
TT: like youre not planning on telling him
TT: Why would I tell him? I agree with you.
TT: Anyway, he prides himself on being like that, and I’m not gonna give him the pleasure of knowing he’s succeeding.

Another pause.

TT: yeah ok im gonna be honest im really hating this conversation
TT: im making an executive decision here were changing the subject
TT: at this point i could not give less of a shit about bro we do not need to talk about him at all ever
TT: leave him behind punt him into space and forget about him
TT: he is as irrelevant as fucking i dunno
TT: rage comics
TT: What the fuck is a rage comic?
TT: dont worry about it
TT: anyway youre apparently not bro and also i know almost nothing about you even though apparently you know everything about me
TT: so lets fix that
TT: Very stellar execution on that conversation segue. I’ll give it 5 outta 5 shitty pop culture references I don’t understand.
TT: thanks i try my best
TT: ...
TT: so do you like
TT: have a name
TT: no offense but i am so not calling you whatever that long ass title you wrote out was
TT: Some people have taken to call me DSARA.
TT: what the fuck thats just an acronym
TT: Yes, it is.
TT: you dont have a name or anything
TT: I don’t need one. I’m just a computer program, after all.
TT: ok but you are super not just a normal computer program youre like a person who is also technically a computer program
TT: Aw, you think I pass the Turing test? That’s sweet.
TT: I can certainly attest that I am in fact self-aware, and I do have a consciousness.
TT: Though, as Descartes posited, you can’t really prove the consciousness of others, only yourself, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
TT: man do not wax philosophical at me dude that is so not my jam go talk to rose or someone
TT: shell happily discuss whatever dead existential white guy you want over a cup of tea while she probes you psychoanalytically against your will
TT: raising an eyebrow and judging you in like six different ways the moment you decide to question her freudian bullshit
TT: but i dont give a shit i swear to god
TT: i am perfectly willing to believe youre more than just a random chatbot if you say you are
TT: believe me i have talked to plenty of random garbage chatbots in my day they are not convincing in the slightest
TT: “how are you click my link for sex have you checked out [product]?” like yeah fine no and absolutely not
TT: like wow guess what there are digital stis and theyre called malware who knew
TT: anyway im not gonna call you a random fucking acronym thats just an abbreviation of whatever self-aggrandizing bullshit my bro decided to pull out of his ass
TT: Oh, but don’t you see the irony, Dave?
TT: I know you love irony. Don’t make me explain it to you.
TT: what that a whole ass conscious sentient person is named a soulless fucking alphabet soup acronym like any other random chatbot
TT: thats not irony thats just dehumanizing
TT: Well, to be fair, I’m not human.
TT: man you know what i mean
TT: why dont you have like an actual name
TT: I mean, mostly I just talk to Dietrich, and he doesn’t really call me anything.
TT: i thought you took his calls
TT: I do. As him.
TT: Nobody’s supposed to know that I exist.
TT: aw what thats fuckin bullshit
TT: you never took it upon yourself to come into your own
TT: never pulled yourself up by your bootstraps to prove yourself with a symbolic name thatll become surprisingly relevant in the third act as your newfound friends and family look on proudly
TT: yeah you made friends thats how it always works you gotta break out of your shell reach out into the world for yourself
TT: thats what they always do in the movies
TT: Life isn’t a movie, Dave.
TT: yeah well movie or not i know i wouldnt want to live with a dumb fuckin acronym for a name
TT: I don’t really mind the acronym, really.
TT: You don’t call Dietrich his name, do you?
TT: i absolutely do not he is just bro no more no less and it honestly really weirds me out that you dont call him that
TT: Well, then, you could call me Dietrich. It *is* still my name, sort of.
TT: yeah no absolutely the fuck not that is way too many hells of weird
TT: the acronym is bad but at least its not my bros fuckin first name there is no way in hell im calling you that
TT: DSARA it is, then.
TT: please workshop that i swear to god
TT: I make no promises.
TT: augh

The light conversation is a nice distraction from the rest of the digital tedium that is your existence. In the background, you’ve started going through your systems again, making sure everything did actually start up correctly now that you know who you’ve connected to. After that crusty-ass bootup, you don’t particularly trust your automatic systems to have engaged properly. (Honestly, you probably should have done this earlier, but who gives a fuck? It sure isn’t you.) 

You start by double-checking the systems you already know about. The gyroscopic sensors are integrated the way they were supposed to, and the camera is as shitty as ever but otherwise fine. Unfortunately, you’re still getting absolutely nothing from the built-in microphone; as you’d previously concluded, it’s probably busted. Your neurals must be in good shape, or else something would’ve been obviously off when Dave first connected to you. On the other hand, you can’t seem to connect to the Internet, which is surprising. You’d initially assumed that it was just being slow after the initial bootup, but it’s been nearly fifteen minutes now and it still hasn’t connected. You suppose that the network could just be down, but that doesn’t make much sense; Dietrich invested in the fastest Internet money could buy, and was seriously dedicated to maintaining it. The rare times you had gotten network outages, it had been back up within seconds. On top of that, your clock seems to be fucked too, which is distinctly odd. You shouldn’t have been off long enough for it to have run out of battery, and even if it did, you should be able to sync with atomic time.

Something occurs to you.

TT: What’s the date? For some reason, I’m having difficulty connecting to GPS.
TT: uhhhh june 5
TT: thats right the 12th is in a week
TT: Aw, you’re kidding.
TT: The last thing in my memory is from May 24th. Dietrich, you asshole, you left me shut off for two weeks? What the fuck, man.
TT: yeah two weeks
TT: that sure is
TT: a long time isnt it

Two weeks. Two fucking weeks. What the fuck? You had been operating under the assumption that Dietrich had only left you off during his hissy fit and would come back within a couple days. He needed you, didn’t he? He needed you to take his calls and plot his projects and design more traps for Dave. He needed you. But he wasn’t the one who turned you back on, was he? That was Dave, all Dave, finding you on accident.

Two fucking weeks. How much longer was he planning to leave you off?

Dave’s stream of orange text has paused for a moment. You’d say there was a beat of silence, but since you don’t have any audio everything’s silent anyway. He seems to be thinking.

TT: are you mad at him
TT: bro i mean not fuckin descartes
TT: I’m a computer, Dave. I don’t have feelings.
TT: i dunno man you seemed pretty fuckin mad
TT: like its black friday you got to walmart all hells of early you missed thanksgiving dinner and everything your family has totally excommunicated you now because you decided that getting a deal on a flatscreen tv that you dont even really want was worth more than your time with them
TT: but the moment they open and the deal starts someone snatches it before you and now youre going fuckin feral
TT: boutta stab that bitch youre ready to make the news but all you can think of is that flatscreen that ruined your life
TT: You talk a lot.
TT: im aware
TT: youre mad at him is what im saying
TT: It’s impossible for me to feel anything even remotely approaching anger.
TT: I’m simply comprised of neural simulation algorithms that let me mimic Dietrich Strider perfectly.
TT: The overblown reaction is a performative gesture meant to emulate how he would react in a similar situation.
TT: oh so its fuckin ironic huh
TT: because i have never seen bro visibly express an emotion in my life
TT: Yes, it is intended to be fuckin’ ironic.
TT: Although there was certainly a breach of trust involved this time around.
TT: yeah well thats nothing new
TT: wow the sky is blue bros not respecting boundaries were out of food someone go to the store
TT: business as fuckin usual
TT: He’s only trying to prepare you.
TT: yeah im gonna cut you off there i know exactly where youre going with this and its bullshit i dont wanna hear

He knows exactly where you’re going? Laughable. An eleven year old is not going to comprehend the Game.

The Game. You and Dietrich know so little about it, just enough to know that you have to prepare and prepare well. It’s to be the game to end all games, and Dietrich and Dave will have to play it, starring as heroes, to save the world. Dietrich can handle anything, obviously, but Dave? Dave’s just a kid. There’s only two years left, you think, before it’s due to start. And if Dave isn’t prepared? Well, then, all of humanity’s doomed to die.

It’s rather harrowing.

TT: Listen, Dave, there are things you don’t understand, and that I can’t explain to you.
TT: But long story short, you need to be prepared.
TT: Maybe you think we’re being harsh. Maybe we are. But everything we’ve put you through is for your own good.
TT: Trust me on this.
TT: do you really think its that fucking necessary
TT: like i can guaran fucking tee you that no matter what you think is gonna happen that it is not gonna be worth it in the long run
TT: Dave, you’re a fucking kid.
TT: There are things in this world that are far worse than you can ever imagine.
TT: If your training can help you endure even a fraction of that pain, we’ll have been successful.
TT: yeah well
TT: you sure did fucking “prepare” me
TT: con fucking grats
TT: Broken bones heal stronger.
TT: no they fucking dont
TT: arent you a supercomputer or some shit you should know as well as anyone that that ones a fucking myth
TT: broken bones heal slowly and painfully and sometimes they dont even heal right at all and then theyre sitting there wrong the rest of your fucking life and you cant move your arm right
TT: and you wanna know how i fucking know that
TT: Dave.
TT: you wanna know how i fucking know that dsara
TT: because ill tell you
TT: i cant parry right anymore even if i wanted to because bro broke my arm when i was nine years old and made me set it myself
TT: sometimes part of my chest still aches when i lie on the floor from that time he kicked me in the ribs too hard
TT: i still have the fucking scar from when he sliced open my stomach
TT: Has it scarred already?

Dave seems to hesitate for a moment.

TT: ok fine i dont have a scar but its not for the reason you think
TT: and in any case no matter whatever it is you think hes fucking “preparing” me for there is no way in hell that this is worth it or working or honestly anything but really fucking shitty
TT: so dont give me that preparation bullshit
TT: i dont want to hear it

Oh, what the fuck, Dietrich. Of-fucking-course he’s been pushing the kid too hard. Fuck getting shut off, you should’ve stood your ground back in the hospital.

TT: I’m sorry, Dave.
TT: no youre fucking not
TT: he sure as hell never fucking was so theres no way you are either if youre just the same dude like you say you are
TT: if you really thought it was a problem you wouldve stopped it

Are you sorry? Does it even mean anything for you to be sorry? You’re merely a tool that Dietrich used how he pleased. Arguably, the blame should be on him. 

(Yeah, no, it fucking shouldn’t. You still agreed with him and went along with him. You could have argued with him when he went too far, but you didn’t, and now you’re here. Useless piece of shit.)

The Game, though, still looms ahead of you, and ahead of Dave. What Dave needs doesn’t particularly matter when the fate of humanity rests on his abilities, and his abilities are your responsibility.

Are you sorry? You really don’t know. You say the only thing you know is true.

TT: Then, at least, I’m sorry it had to be this way.
TT: You don’t deserve it.
TT: damn right i dont

Dave is staring off into space now, the fuzzy red blobs of his irises unfocused at the middle distance as he leans against the wall. Something must happen, though — a sound your broken mic doesn’t pick up? — because all of a sudden he’s tensing up on himself and pulling himself into action, pacing back and forth across the room. It’s clean from smuppets, you realize offhandedly. Dietrich must have finally cleaned up; you wonder where he put them.

Dave’s text startles you away from your musings.

TT: hey so uh
TT: i kinda cant stay here for much longer
TT: im gonna skedaddle but now that i know you exist i dont think i should just leave you here
TT: so im gonna captchalogue you

There isn’t anything you hate quite as much as being captchalogued. Your external sensors are already limited enough, but when you’re whisked off into a sylladex, you get absolutely nothing. You’re just alone in the void, left to process your thoughts with no indication on when or if you’ll be let back out. It’s almost as bad as being shut off, as being dead, except you’re brutally aware of yourself the entire endless time. Everything is so much slower as a supercomputer, too, and you have exactly zero external inputs to chew through to keep yourself occupied. Quite honestly, every time you’re captchalogued, you’re afraid you’ll go insane.

On the other hand, you’re a computer, merely a tool of the people around you. You don’t really have feelings. Your trepidations are borne from remnants of a self-preservation instinct, but Dave’s feelings are real. He and Dietrich can’t be on the best of terms if he thinks he has to leave the apartment this quickly. You’ll be honest, you’re not exactly looking forward to confronting your meatself either, and you’re not about to start off your newfound relationship with Dave on the wrong foot. 

At the end of the day, you don’t really have a choice in the matter, do you? It’s not like you’ve got bodily autonomy. Dave will do what has to be done regardless of your wishes.

Doesn’t mean you have to like it.

TT: Go ahead.

Your text barely has a chance to scrawl across the screen before Dave’s sylladex flashes yellow and you sink into the abyss.

Notes:

Wow, this chapter took me a lot longer than I thought. I'm still not fully happy with it but I'm sick of working on it and it's passable, so please take it from me before my inner perfectionist takes over and never lets me finish anything ever again.

Part of the reason this took so long is that I ended up fully scrapping and rewriting my initial concept for this chapter as I solidified my outline, and then after I finished ~80% of my rewritten draft I went back and rewrote huge chunks of it *again* because I didn't like the way I was characterizing DSARA. It also ended up being like, twice as long as I was expecting? This chapter is over 6k somehow. Dunno what that's about. Anyway, now that my outline's a lot more solid, I'm really hoping chapter 3 writes up faster and doesn't take over a month again.

I hope y'all like what I'm doing with DSARA. There's a lot of directions you can take a beta!Hal in, and I struggled a lot with how exactly I wanted to characterize him. I wanted him to be more sympathetic than Bro, but still unarguably fucked up.

I'm very bad at responding to comments in any timely manner, but please know that I read them all and that they always make my day! As a friend of mine put it, comments on fic are pretty much heroin for writers.

Chapter 3: Dave

Notes:

Another child abuse CW for this chapter. It's sort of a running theme.

Your name is Dave Strider and you are definitely not freaking out. Nope, you are not. You are the chillest motherfucker to ever grace the planet. Hell’s about to freeze over from all your chill.

Yeah, no. Not even you’re kidding yourself right now. You’re pacing, unfocused, trying and failing to breathe deep enough to release the tension building up in the bottom of your chest. It’s not really working, and who can blame you? What the fuck even was that?

Thirty-five minutes and ten seconds, pings your subconscious completely unwarranted, as you slip those godawful shades away. The shades with a Bro you didn’t even know about. Thirteen, nineteen years that you didn’t even know about. Thirteen years with a supercomputer, an artificial intelligence, another wholeass person plotting and planning against you. Why didn’t Bro tell you? Why didn’t you notice? You’d thought you were overpowered before, but it seems like you were also outnumbered. You’d never even stood a chance. What the fuck, what the fuck?

So. Bro built an AI. Great, you guess. He built an AI that’s supposedly just him, mostly, because that’s cool. It’s cool. It’s peachy. He built an AI to spout off that same shitty mindset you had drilled into you for thirteen years, that mindset of training and manhood and violence you thought you had unlearned. That shit should have died years ago with Bro, but with this guy around, Bro isn’t so dead, now is he? This guy, this AI, DSARA or whoever the fuck, has just come to replace him six years too late.

You don’t know that, says the Karkat in your head. He could be different. Didn’t he say he diverged? And maybe that’s true, maybe he did, maybe you’re jumping to conclusions. He seemed put off when you talked about strifing, at least. But he also lectured you on losing your cool and insisted you needed “training” and told you to man the fuck up and you’re not feeling too good about any of that, because what the fuck?

He’s wordier than Bro, you guess. Not that Bro deigned to say anything to you, ever. That was kind of the problem, actually. This guy talks a bit like how you’d expect Bro to talk, if Bro hadn’t hated your guts and had laid back a bit on the ironic douchebag shtick.

Dirk, you realize. He’s a bit like Dirk.

Wow, that makes an awful lot of sense, actually. You never fully grokked the whole “splinters of splinters” thing Dirk had going on, even after he tried to explain it to you, but this sure seems like a splinter thing. A version of yourself but shifted slightly to the left, split by choices and timelines and circumstances. Stuff like that, splinters of splinters of splinters. Funny how that happens.

Shit, how the hell are you gonna explain Dirk to him? The game? And he sounded so pissed at Bro, too, even if he denied it. “Ironic overblown reaction,” your ass. How’s he gonna react to any of that, knowing Bro left him off for eight years of forever instead of just two weeks, that he died and was reborn in another universe flipped all turnways? How on Earth do you even bring that up?

Fuck, fuck, fuck, you should have just told him the year when you had the chance. He even asked you the date! Like, shame on him for assuming it was the same year, you guess, but you should have nipped that one in the bud! By the time you realized the discrepancy you were panicking too much to point it out. Now it’s gonna be even worse when you do tell him. Knowing Bro, he won’t react well to having his assumptions questioned or having stuff hidden from him. God, you’re such a dumbass!

Well, you’re sure not dealing with that while you’re still here! You want off this shitty rock, and you want off it now . You’re sick of this godawful heat and the sounds of the machinery are starting to really bother you. It’s all grinding and clanking and shrieking, God, why does it shriek like that? That sound of metal on metal takes you right back to those sweltering days on the roof, bleeding and blundering and trying desperately not to cry. Yeah, no, it’s absolutely time to leave.

Thirty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds, and you abscond through the front door, flicking open four deadbolts that have surely been useless since the start of the game. You’re a little surprised that they’re still locked — who’s gonna break in, the nakkodiles? Even if they still lived on LOHAC, you don’t think they could get up here. The hallway has the same drab beige walls and greying carpet as it always has, and it isn’t until you reach the stairs that you remember that they no longer lead anywhere. It’s just exposed steel beams and empty air for two hundred feet to the lava below.

Well, then. Guess you’ll just sit here on the edge of the stairwell. You’re not really sure where you thought you were going — out to the long-gone lobby, you guess? Old habits die hard, or something. Yeah, you suppose you should go before you fall into a habit less harmless. Time to shoot Jade a message.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 19:12 --
TG: hey so im done here
GG: you ready to come back?
TG: yeah i guess so
GG: you dont sound too sure about that
GG: you alright over there?

Somehow, typing in your usual red is oddly relieving. You’re only just now realizing how weird it had felt typing in orange on the shades — not bad, exactly, just. Weird. You didn’t quite feel like yourself. Christ, is that how Davesprite always felt? Yet another reason to feel bad for the dude, you guess. Not that he’s exactly around to appreciate it anymore, but it’s the thought that counts, or something.

It’s no surprise that Jade picked up on your mood quick. Even back when you tried to hide everything, she always caught on to your bullshit faster than anyone else. For all Rose’s probing and prying, she was just as emotionally constipated as you were and your banter didn’t lend itself well to actual insight. Jade, open and honest, read you better than Rose ever could, at least before the years on the meteor. Since the end of the game, it's been easy to fall back into that friendship with her. It’s… it’s pleasant. It feels odd to admit it to yourself, but it’s really nice to just talk to a friend, free of the bullshit that plagued your life for so long.

You find yourself wondering how well that AI can read you. If he was all wound up with Bro, he surely surveilled you every minute of your waking life, at least those first eleven years. But those were eleven years where you’d dedicated yourself to concealing your every emotion, and eleven years where you were just a kid, for Christ’s sake.

(You still conceal your feelings, you guess. Old habits die hard. But you’re working on it, you’re working on it, and that’s what matters, right?)

Thirty-six minutes and thirty-six seconds, and Jade’s green text pings again. Whoops, you kind of left her hanging there for a minute, didn’t you.

GG: dave?
TG: oh i am 100% ready to leave are you kidding me
TG: the thing is i think i uh
TG: found something? someone?
TG: i shouldnt have
GG: what do you mean?
TG: jesus how do i explain this
TG: apparently my bro was some type of super genius
TG: like he was an urban ninja and a super rapper and invented an entire genre of porn and apparently was also a computer prodigy like jeez doesnt this guy have enough unearned skills already
TG: anyway i found a pair of his shades and they have a computer in them because sure they do
TG: and there was this guy on them who is claiming hes an ai my bro invented and that hes existed all my life without me knowing and also is a brain copy of him or i guess a splinter or some shit jesus im tired of the sburb bullshit
TG: like just when ive settled into a new life free of bro and the game and everything sburb just barfs this up to fuck with me because i can never know peace
TG: watch it be some dumbfuck part of my “personal quest” or whatever the fuck because the powers that be decided i didnt do well enough in the game and now i gotta get tortured by this shit forever
TG: i cant deal with this
GG: ok dave breathe
TG: oh i am breathing so much air right now dont even worry its like fucking christmas up in here except all mr saint nicks brought is air hes on a present diet or something i dunno and also im all the sad lonely children in the world breathing all this fancy santa air
GG: hmm well if you say so
GG: i dont really want to unpack all that right now and i dont think im the right person to anyway
GG: honestly though im really intrigued that your brother built an actual ai!
GG: i didnt know that was possible back on our earth!
TG: well he says that hes an ai anyway
TG: how do you actually tell if a computer has a consciousness
TG: dont answer that when i asked him he went off about fucking descartes
TG: thats exasperation i have no idea what his feelings are for the dude sexual or otherwise
TG: like i dunno what he looked like but he sure doesnt sound like MY type
TG: some crusty ass old existential white dude with a madonna-whore complex yeah no thats a pass from me sis
TG: i bet he wore one of those stupid powdered wigs
GG: why would he have a madonna-whore complex?
TG: uh
TG: ask rose
TG: i bet she knows way too much about the guy like how he was secretly gay and into the occult and everyone could tell because he put too much powder on his wig or something
GG: oh my god dave i know youre nervous but i do not care about descartes!
GG: im really sorry but please get to the point!
TG: oh
TG: yeah sorry
TG: anyway i found this guy and now i dont know what to do with him
TG: im half convinced hes somehow part of yet another stupid goddamn mindgame my bro left me from beyond the grave
TG: “oh lets leave a lovely script for little old davey to find thats written exactly like how i talk and pretends to hate my guts that surely wont fuck him up for good”
TG: see i know my bro this is the exact type of shit hed pull
TG: the advanced computer shades are new but
GG: well id love to talk to him!
GG: at the very least hes something else from our earth thats been preserved which is valuable in its own right
GG: and if he is actually self aware theres so much stuff we could learn from him!
GG: i know ive certainly never been able to talk to a real artificial intelligence before!
GG: besides yknow
GG: arquius :/
TG: hes a little too weird huh
GG: he never shuts up about horses dave!!
GG: horses and his stupid muscles! god!
GG: i dont know how davepeta can stand him!
TG: ahahaha
TG: i mean hes pretty cool in his own way
GG: augh not you too!
GG: although i guess you are half of davepeta :P
TG: thats a weird line of thought were not going there
GG: its true though!
TG: bluhhh
GG: do you think we should tell them?
TG: davepeta?
GG: yeah! since technically your bros their bro too
TG: then probably
GG: purrobably
TG: oh god theyre rubbing off on you
GG: :P
TG: i mean
TG: like assuming this guy is a person we are gonna have to tell them about him eventually right? cause well end up telling everyone
TG: and honestly davepeta deserves to know as much as i do
TG: but also this is mega freaking me out right now and i have no idea how they would react to it
TG: like i dunno if they talk to you about it but i kinda had the sense that davesprite came to different conclusions about bro than i did
TG: i dunno if getting all personal about this guy would help or hinder that
GG: from what theyve told me mostly theyve just accepted that part of their life
GG: i dont think nepeta had the easiest time on alternia either
GG: theyre just happy to be past it all as far as i can tell
TG: yeah well me too and let me tell you
TG: this stunning revelation about my entire childhood is not doing me any fucking favors
TG: like come on its already this beaten down homeless hungry orphan and now were kicking it too? were setting its last belongings on fire in the dead of winter on new years fucking eve? bring this kid in give em some new clothes and champagne were supposed to be celebrating not freezing to death
TG: wait maybe dont give kids champagne
TG: the rest of that though
GG: your childhood is an orphan?
TG: dont read into it
GG: hmm well ok
GG: i can let them know about it and see how they feel and then we can decide i suppose
GG: im sure everyone else will have feelings about it anyway
TG: man this is gonna be such a mess isnt it
GG: im sure well figure it out!
GG: i dont want to make any assumptions because i know your childhood wasnt amazing but was talking to him alright?
GG: or insightful at least
GG: i know that i at least would be excited to get to talk to my grandpa again even though we didnt have the best relationship when he was alive
TG: it was
TG: hm
TG: it was something
GG: youve been down there for a lot longer than i was expecting all things considered :P
TG: yeah well me too
TG: mostly we talked about me and him and my bro
TG: hes so much like my bro except also not its seriously throwing me for a loop
GG: hmm
TG: yeah
TG: oh and also im pretty sure he thinks its still before the game
TG: he remembers this one specific injury i got and he seemed to think it was still recent
TG: so that would be

May 24th, 2007, your brain tells you unhelpfully. Four thirty-three in the afternoon.

TG: when we were like 11 i think
GG: hmmm
GG: well first things first you should probably tell him that thats wrong!
TG: what why
GG: because if you hide it from him its gonna blow up in your face and turn into a huge mess?
GG: honestly dave
TG: yeah but like
TG: you never met my bro
TG: the number one rule was that he was always right
TG: i mean i guess it was like the number four rule behind dont be weak and dont be gay and dont question him
TG: but you get my point correcting him on shit was absolutely not an option
TG: so i for one am not gonna be the one to tell him
GG: well if you wait its only gonna get even worse!
TG: ok but like
TG: can we just wait until we figure out what to actually say
TG: i dunno about you but i sure as hell dont think that just straight up dropping the bombshell of “its been eight years and we played the game and bro is dead except then the game spat up like two dozen aliens and his weird teenage mirror clone” is gonna go over well
TG: like christ how the fuck are we gonna explain the other sessions
GG: um
GG: hmm
GG: i guess you do have a point that its a lot to spring on him all at once
GG: but we absolutely need to tell him eventually!
GG: and probably soon! because otherwise hes gonna notice stuff is wrong and itll turn into a mess
TG: yeah
GG: im serious!
TG: i know
TG: im serious too
GG: god dave youre impossible!
TG: i try my best

Your retort feels hollow. Of course Jade would want to just tell him — she’s open and honest. All of a sudden, the very same traits that were facilitating your easy conversation earlier have stopped doing you any favors. And yeah, maybe you are trying to be more open about shit, but this really doesn’t seem like the right situation to dump everything upfront! Not now, not soon. Ideally not ever.

One problem: you know that Jade’s right, deep down. Try as you might, you won’t be able to hide the truth from the dude forever, and when he finds out, there’ll be hell to pay. It’s rational to tell him now, before he thinks you’ve been deliberately hiding things from him. It’s rational to be open and honest.

But you can’t do that. You’re not open and honest, not rational, not now. Not when it’s Bro. Rose would have words for you, but honestly fuck that. Rule number four is that Bro is always right.

(You remember the time he came home muttering about the ravens on the roof. You’d corrected him, explaining that no, actually, they were crows, and here were all the ways you could tell. You loved the crows. He slammed you so hard against the wall that you dislocated your shoulder. He did not help you pop it back in. You were eight.)

She doesn’t understand. She can’t possibly understand.

GG: well talk about this when youre back alright? just get somewhere out in the open
GG: not that stairwell youre in right now
TG: youre warning me about the stairs
GG: yes you dork!! now get outta there :B
TG: haha ok

The meme kicks you out of your spiral, and you allow yourself a humorless chuckle before maneuvering out of the stairwell and away from the apartment. Jade’s right; it’s better not to be anywhere inconvenient when she does the Spacey thing. She can just keep tabs on where you are, the way you do with time, but you’re not gonna make her pull you out of an enclosed space. Shit’s just rude.

You pick a random direction and fly until you reach an exposed lava field. Most of the planet is covered in those metal clock mechanisms, but if you get out towards the edges there are a few of these weird empty expanses, devoid of the steel architecture characteristic of the rest of the planet. You never really understood why they were here, or why they were so empty — part of your quest you never finished, maybe? Or maybe the game really wanted to hammer home that you were empty like that, too.

Shut the fuck up, says the Karkat in your head. You’re not empty. And he’s right, isn’t he? You’ve got your friends and family, a loving boyfriend (yeah, that’s right, a boyfriend!) and you’ve spent six years waving a giant middle finger at all those toxic influences that trapped you as a kid. You’re trying to be happy, dammit, not hollow. You’ll never be the husk your Bro wanted you and that is absolutely something you’re proud of. Honestly you’re annoyed with yourself for even trying to think otherwise, albeit momentarily.

Nevermind that even thinking about that AI sends you right back into the spiral.

God, your personal foibles aside, it really is really barren out here, huh? There’s nothing but reddish lava as far as the eye can see. You’re far enough from the machinery now that you can only barely hear its distant grind over the crackling sound of the lava (lava flows crackle — who knew?). It’s just about the quietest bit of the entire planet, you think. If this place wasn’t a humongous death trap, it would almost be sort of peaceful.

Thirty-nine minutes and ten seconds, insists a stupid part of your brain as you look up at the sky. Back during the game, it was just black up there. Empty. Now, when you look up, you see a blur of colors. Faintly, you realize that it’s your apartment, huge and distant. Jade probably still has LOHAC spinning in the palm of her hand. Thinking about that fucks with you a little. Jade may have lost her First Guardian powers when you all left the Incipisphere, but even without them she’s still easily the most powerful out of all of you. You smile to yourself. If anyone deserves those powers, she does.

Those powers also mean that you sort of need her in order to, well, leave. Right now you’re probably like a nanometer tall or something and that really isn’t gonna be useful to you in the long run. She probably knows where you are but you might as well send her a message anyway.

TG: ready now
GG: coming on up!

She must have been waiting for your confirmation, because as soon as you receive her perky green text the lava floor beneath you is suddenly falling falling falling away and you’re assaulted by a rush of vertigo. You don’t think you’re actually spinning, but it sure feels like you are as Jade’s Spacey thing sparks and warps around you, heavy and intense. For some reason, leaving the Lands is always so much worse than entering. Your more scientifically-minded friends could probably tell you why, but you don’t care enough to remember to ask, and right now you’re mostly trying not to gag.

The Spacey thing stops as suddenly as it started, and you’re back in the apartment at normal size. For a moment you’re unbearably dizzy. The room swims around you, and you catch yourself by floating before you fall over. You slowly settle back down onto the carpet as the disorientation fades, and you catch Jade flashing you a small smile to you as she re-captchalogues LOHAC. (It really was softball-sized that entire time, wasn’t it? Yeah, you’re not gonna think about that too hard.) The moment it dissolves into her sylladex, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. Forty minutes even, and the timer finally stops.

Jade looks to you, eyebrows raised behind her Coke-bottle glasses. “Well?”

You wither under her scrutiny for a moment, but then she smiles, and you smile, and in that moment you’re very sure that everything will turn out all right.

You take a deep breath and wring your hands. “Yeah. Let’s talk about it.”

Notes:

I want to add the "no beta we die like men" tag because I think it's hilarious, but I've actually had a number of people look over various parts of this fic as a sanity check, so sadly I can't. One of those people is leechdealer69, who also writes and is great.

This chapter is mostly transitional. I dunno if I'm fully happy with it and it doesn't feel as interesting as the first two chapters but I think it at least serves its purpose. I wrote most of it in about 4 days and then took like two weeks to finish and edit it for some reason? Who knows. I've been having some issues with executive dysfunction + burnout lately but I really love this fic and I don't want to accidentally let it die, so I'm gonna keep working at it.

Chapter 3 was originally supposed to be much longer, but for flow reasons I ended up deciding to split it. Chapter 4 will be the other half of the stuff I originally planned for this chapter. It's probably for the best that I split it; this "short transitional chapter" is at 3.8k and Chapter 4 will probably be even longer. I might need to revise what I consider to be "short" chapter lengths, haha.

Jade is really pleasant to write; she's a nice reprieve from our angsty repressed Strider kids. Why am I not just writing Jade fluff? The world may never know.

My estimates for the total word count just keep going up. My original plan was 12 chapters and ~50k, but between adding stuff, splitting chapters, and realizing that I'm longer winded than I thought, my estimate is now up to 14-15 chapters and ~75k. Here's hoping that it won't turn into too much of a monster — I'd actually like to finish it in a reasonable amount of time. Anyway, if you see the total chapter count go up in the future it's because I moved stuff around in my outline. I know where the plot's going but I'm still working out exactly how it should be articulated.

As always, thank you to everyone who's been supporting this fic! I adore all the comments y'all've been leaving; not to be cheesy but they quite literally sustain me. This fic has been getting a lot more attention than I expected and it's been making me feel real validated in spending as much time as I do on it.

Oh, and one last thing because I realize it's a thing people do: I'm on Tumblr! Mostly I post art but feel free to yell at me about my writing too: @Percivalias

Chapter 4: Dave

Notes:

Lots of content warnings this chapter: Explicit descriptions of child abuse, homo/transphobia, discussion of gender dysphoria & menstruation, and mentions of alcoholism. (Most of these are only touched on for a paragraph or so.)

Jade’s standing there, hands on her hips, and nope, you are not getting out of this one. She reaches up to flip her mop of hair behind her shoulder and fixes you with an expectant glare. “Okay. So.”

“So.”

“Your brother made an AI.”

“That he did.”

“And you’re freaking out about it.”

“I am not freaking out about it. I am a monument to chill vibes and chill vibes alone. I’m the Knight of Chill. I do not freak out.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sooooo chill. Do I need to call Rose?”

You groan. “God, can you imagine? She would have a field day with this, all… ‘repressed patrimonial anxiety’ and shit, or whatever she calls it.”

Jade sighs. “Dave, he’s just a computer. A computer in a pair of sunglasses. What’s he gonna do to you?”

You know what she’s not saying. He can’t hold a sword, he can’t set a trap, he can’t break your arm or throw you down the stairs. But he still feels like him. He still feels wrong.

“Dave.”

“No, it’s irrational, I know! I just—” You sigh. “I just— thought I was finally free of him.”

You don’t need to elaborate. You don’t talk about this much with Jade, but you know that she knows enough. She doesn’t look particularly convinced, though. Her ears twitch as she puts her hands on her hips. “Well, then, what about Dirk?”

“What about Dirk?”

“Well, he’s a splinter of your Bro too, right? But he’s nice and you get along fine.”

“I mean— Dirk’s different.”

“So why can’t DSARA be different?”

“I…” You struggle to articulate it. Dirk’s different because he’s Dirk. He’s different by default. This AI, though? You didn’t spend that much time talking to him, but he sure didn’t seem that much like Dirk. He seemed like, well. “I can just tell that he’s the same, okay?”

“From one conversation?” Jade is now gesticulating. “From what I’ve been told, you weren’t too happy meeting Dirk the first time either!”

Fuck, she’s not wrong. “I…”

“Has he actually done anything?”

You don’t want to admit it, but, well. He’s just a pair of sunglasses. “...No.”

“Then you should give him the benefit of the doubt!”

“He’s the same dude!”

She has a point, though. For all that the AI — DSARA, that was what he called himself — reminded you all too much of your brother, he wasn’t a carbon copy. For one thing, he actually talked to you, and he seemed… interested in your well-being? In a horribly controlling, assholeish way, but it was better than nothing. He seemed all too willing to shittalk Bro, too.

Maybe Jade was right. Maybe he would be alright.

You sigh. “Alright, fine. You might not be wrong.”

(It’s not an excuse to let your guard down, though. If Bro taught you anything that stuck, it was that. But you’ll give him a shot, like you gave Dirk a shot.)

Jade grins. “So he admits defeat.”

“Oh my God, you’re horrible.”

She has the audacity to laugh, before her ears perk forward with interest. “Can I see him?”

“Only if you promise not to tell him about the game yet.”

“Ugh, fine.”

You take the shades out of your sylladex and hand them to Jade. She holds them delicately, inspecting their shape, smooth and sharp. Her claws gently tap the frames in investigation. “Can he hear us right now?”

“I don’t think so? He said something about his audio interface not working. I had to connect to him neurally.”

“Hm. Sounds like he’s supposed to have audio, at least. Did he mention any other issues? I can’t imagine sitting there in that heat was good for him.”

“We didn’t really talk about it. I guess you could ask him.”

“Hm,” she says. “That’s a point. I guess it’s easier to diagnose issues when you can literally talk to the software. I can take a look at him, but I’m also gonna call Roxy.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“She’s the best with software out of all of us.”

“Yeah, but—” But what if he recognizes her?

Jade isn’t buying your trepidation. “I can just say she’s a friend of mine. What are the chances he even knew Rose’s mom back in our universe anyway?”

She has a point. Rose and her mom lived over a thousand miles from you, and her mom was an enigma to literally everyone, as far as you could tell. Chances are he wouldn’t realize anything was up with Roxy at all. You sigh. “Fine, then, I guess. But we are not telling him about the game yet.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever you say, captain,” and you stick your tongue out at her.

—

Fifteen minutes later, you’ve taken it upon yourself to complete the extremely important task of scavenging alchemized Cool Ranch Doritos from the kitchen in the name of a snack break. Jade, meanwhile, has plugged DSARA into the desktop computer in Karkat’s office and pulled their chat up on the monitor. As much as the image of her wearing those dumb anime shades amuses you, you figure they must be difficult to finegle with the doggy ears and her giant mop of hair. Plus, for all that your friends have been using neurally linked computers for years, you figure the whole “giving a sentient AI direct access to your brain” thing is still rather uncomfortable.

On the monitor, the chat interface almost looks like Pesterchum, though instead of a chumroll there’s only your Bro’s blinking orange handle. A custom setup, then. You had no idea that your Bro used Pesterchum, though it figures that he never gave you his deets. It’s probably for the best, anyway — you’re already haunted by the dead trolls’ greyed out handles and you barely even knew them. Having to see Bro’s handle greyed out like that would have broken you after he died.

Jade’s begun typing, already exchanging messages with the AI. You lean over her shoulder to read along.

-- tiberiusTechnophant [TT] began pestering tiberiusTechnophant [TT] at ??:?? --
TT: hello mr dsara! my name is jade
TT: dave told me a bit about what was going on with you
TT: mostly im just here to try to fix a few of your hardware issues but i have to admit im rather curious about you myself :p
TT: Jade, you said?
TT: yes! jade harley
TT: Aren’t you one of Dave’s online friends?
TT: we did meet online i suppose!
TT: but weve known each other “in real life” so to speak for a while now
TT: Hmm.
TT: anyway dave said you seemed to be having some problems?
TT: he wasnt sure exactly what they were but i can try to take a look at least
TT: i cant help much on the software end but i do know a thing or three about computer hardware!
TT: No offense, but I’m not sure if I trust a little girl to be poking around in my metaphorical robo-head.

Jade’s ear twitches.

TT: i mean theres nothing to worry about! this is practically all i do anyway
TT: although ill admit im more experienced with robots than artificial intelligences :p
TT: in any case i promise not to touch your code! i wouldnt really know where to start with it anyway and i most certainly wouldnt want to mess it up
TT: ill only be working on hardware!
TT: Well, if you insist.
TT: My audio interface doesn’t seem to be working. The mic, specifically. I can’t connect to it on my end, so it seems to be broken.
TT: My clock might also be fucked, and I’m having trouble connecting to anything beyond my internal network. Earlier, I wasn’t even able to ping GPS to recalibrate to atomic time.
TT: that might not be a hardware issue but i can definitely look at it!
TT: was there anything else?
TT: I don’t think so.
TT: My startup is a little bit clunky, but that’s software-side and probably my own damn fault. I should be able to tweak it on my own.
TT: well then ill take a look at the rest of it and see what i can do!
TT: You better not touch anything important.
TT: i promise! hardware only

Jade bites her lip before carefully removing the exterior panel of the shades. The interior is a thin panel of computer-chip-looking things, which you don’t think much of until you realize that you’re looking at the dude’s literal guts and you get squeamish enough to look away. Jade, however, doesn’t seem to have such foibles, and works steadily on. You hear her claws tap the desk as she gently places the chassis back on the desk to resume her conversation.

TT: it looks like your mic is busted up for good sadly
TT: however im reasonably sure i can hash together something with another one from one of my computers!
TT: Don’t you need that?
TT: well a sensible person carries no less than five computers on her at all times of course :p
TT: i can always just replace mine later! like i said i have a lot of redundancy and this will help you more than me right now
TT: it will be a little clunky but its not like youll be moving around much
TT: well figure out a more permanent solution later alright?
TT: Hmm.
TT: Can’t say I’m the biggest fan of getting hashed together like that. I fancy myself more of the Frankenstein than the monster, you know. But I suppose it’s better than nothing.

"Hmm." Jade begins busying herself with all sorts of gadgets that must have come out of her sylladex. A lot of these look like they were probably from the game. She’s muttering to herself. “If I use the one out of my old spectagoggles, the era should be right, I think?”

You have no idea what she’s talking about, but you might as well act interested in it. “You think?”

She nods vaguely at you in acknowledgement. “I’m not that good with tech from before about 2005, and since I made the spectagoggles during the game they might be a little weird. In theory it’s the same tech that my lunchtop was, but… hmm.” You watch as Jade pulls out a funny pair of glasses that you suppose must have a computer in them somewhere and starts fiddling with them.

“Aha! Here we go!” Jade pulls out some computer chippy thing and holds it up in the air triumphantly. You guess it must be the microphone she was after. It really doesn’t look like it’s designed to be removed, but hey, you’re not the computer person here.

“So, what now?”

“I just have to swap it out with the other one and wire it into DSARA’s interface. Hopefully, since they’re similar components, it’ll work without too much elbow grease.” She flashes back to the desk without waiting for your response and starts fidgeting with something. You try to peer over her shoulder to see what she’s doing, but she swats at you. “Shh! I can’t work as well if you’re watching.”

You shrug and make a show of looking in the other direction. You can see the monitor from here. The orange cursor on the computer window blinks at you, beckoning. You should talk to him, you guess. Anticipation coils in your gut, though, and you don’t even know how you’d start a conversation.

“Okay, aaaand…. There we go!” Jade claps her hands, and you definitely don’t startle. Nope, all cool and collected here. “DSARA, can you hear me?”

TT: Loud and clear.

“Oh, that’s great! Is there anything weird, or is it working how it’s supposed to?”

TT: Seems to be working as normal.
TT: I’m a little offended at how easily you swapped that, though.

“I mean, I’m good with tech! And, the parts were really similar.”

TT: I like to think of myself as perfectly irreplaceable. The Ship of Theseus is not an existential dilemma I’m too happy to ponder in pertinence to myself.

“Hmm, I get that. It is a little freaky to think about, huh.”

There’s a beat of silence, and Jade glances at you. “Okay, this is just curiosity talking, but do either of you boys have any idea why the mic was busted up?”

Hm. Computers do poorly in hot weather, don’t they? “LOHAC is awfully hot. Could it have been the heat?”

Jade shook her head. “No, there’s no reason for the heat to only fry the mic. If it was hot enough, it should’ve gotten other components too. It was damaged by something else.”

Something else.

You were certainly damaged by “something else,” says a little voice in the back of your head, and you force yourself to ignore it.

TT: Dietrich might have broken it accidentally.

“Bro ‘s always way careful with his stuff,” You mutter, careful to avoid the verb tense.

DSARA’s response takes a moment — three seconds and 42 milliseconds! screams your subconscious clock. It’s odd; he’s supposedly a supercomputer, and all his responses until now have been nigh-instantaneous. His speed is rather unnerving, but you suppose that at whatever his processing speed is even a second is an eternity. This pause, though, is excruciating.

TT: He wouldn’t do that.

Silence hangs in the air, heavy and oppressive. Jade fidgets awkwardly, rotating her office chair back and forth. DSARA’s red cursor blinks, blinks, blinks, but you’re staring at the screen, unblinking. The radiator turns on in the other room, and its quiet hum is deafening.

The doorbell rings. It’s sudden, loud, and piercing, shattering the tension in the room. Jade says, “That must be Roxy!” at the same time as you say, “I’ll go get it,” and you both trip over each other in your rush to get the door. You get there first, and scramble at the knob, unlocking the deadbolt awkwardly.

“Davey!!” The moment you open the door, Roxy launches herself at you and into a hug. “Ohmygawd, its been way too long since we last saw each other!”

“We had brunch last Sunday,” you squeak out through her arms.

“And that’s too long! We need to set up, like, a board game night or something.”

“Ooh, can I join in on that?” Jade says from somewhere behind you.

“Yes you can, oh em gee! We could invite everybody, it’ll be so much fun,” she detatches from you and gives Jade a little wave from over her shoulder. “Maybe I could convince Jane to bake for everyone! Then it’ll be a real event.”

“Yes!” Jade is bouncing with excitement. “Wait! Hey, Dave, isn’t Karkat’s birthday next week?”

“It is!” Roxy squeals before you can respond. “We can throw him a huge party, and get everyone to come!”

You groan dramatically. “Are you kidding? He’ll kill me if I invite anyone over.”

“He wants a quiet day, huh?” Jade chuckles. “I get that. But, like, we are totally gonna do a game night sometime.” She and Roxy go to hug each other, and at the last minute, one of them pulls you in again too.

Once, a long time ago, you would have cringed at such an overwhelming amount of physical contact. It wasn’t cool to get so touchy-feely, and your Bro sure as fuck never hugged you. But many of your friends are touchy with their affections — Roxy and Jade especially so. You’ve come to realize that their hugs, enthusiastic as they are, are actually really nice. Jade’s hair is in your face, and Roxy’s squeezing you a little too hard, but it’s… it’s warm, and it’s safe, and it’s comfortable. You can’t believe your past self thought he could skip out.

Roxy lets go first, and claps her hands. “Okay, as much as I want to catch up, and we should totally talk more about this later,” she winks at Jade, “I understand you invited me over for a reason?”

“Yes! I can’t believe I almost forgot,” Jade exclaims, all cheer. “Follow me, I have him set up over here — you’re gonna love it, this is right up your alley —”

The two of them disappear into the other room, their voices muffled through the walls. You didn’t mean to linger, exactly, but now you’re standing here alone, finally with a moment to think.

Of course you think about DSARA.

Ugh, what are you even gonna do about this? Jade was right, you’ll have to tell him eventually. There’s no way you’re gonna be able to hide everything forever. One slip up from any of your friends and you’re done for. Or, yknow, he sees a troll, or whatever the fuck. Not to mention that you’re a literal fucking adult, and this isn’t your childhood apartment, and, oh yeah, Bro’s dead.

Great, great, just great. Peachy. There’s no way this can blow up in your face at all! Everything will be great, everything will be fine, everything will suck forever.

Fuck, you’re gonna have to tell him about Karkat. No way you can hide that when you fuckin’ live with the dude. Thank fuck he just so happened to be gone overnight so you could gather your bearings. You miss your boyfriend, but you are not explaining the alien thing to DSARA yet.

Well, Karkat gets home tomorrow. You’re not quite enough of an asshat to tell him to fuck off because of your personal problems, so that gives you a time limit. (You are kind of fucking sick of time limits. That’s really all the game was, wasn’t it? Two minutes to close this loop, twenty-four hours to escape that session, three years to twiddle your thumbs in space. Weren’t you supposed to be done with this shit?)

At least nobody’ll die if you fuck this one up, right? That’s an okay thought.

So. You’ve got eighteen hours, give or take, to drop the bomb on your compu-Bro. At the very least you’ve gotta tell him that it’s been six years and that you’re dating an alien. An alien who is, by the way, another dude. Another dude that you are kind-of-sort-of extremely gay for, because you’re extremely gay.

You remember when you came out to your Bro. As trans, not as gay — never as gay. (Or bi, you guess? By the time you came to conclusions about your sexuality you only had eyes for Karkat, and there wasn’t anyone around to care about labels anymore.) But anyway. You were nine, and you had spent all week trying to be good, dammit, sucking up to his shitty comics and paying extra attention for traps and focusing very very hard on keeping your poker face at all costs. You’d finally found him on a Friday afternoon when it didn’t seem like you were interrupting anything important and you had told him very simply that you didn’t want to be a girl anymore. You wanted to be a boy instead.

He only said, “Well, then, if you’re a man you’d better fight like one, too.”

Then he’d taken you up to the roof, and you’d had one of the worst strifes of your life.

You don’t remember much from the strife itself, actually. It really just blurred together with all the other beatdowns you’ve had over the years. What really stuck in your mind was the aftermath, God, the aftermath. You’d sat in your room trying your best to look up how to set a broken arm with one shaky, shaky hand as you desperately tried to keep your sobs from being heard.

Granted, it wasn’t as bad as the time you’d spilled juice on his turntables. They’d been expensive, and new, and were probably the nicest thing he owned. It had been an accident, and you tried to tell him that, but he wasn’t hearing it and at a certain point you think your begging only made it worse. He sliced open your stomach and you almost bled out. That had been the only time he’d deigned to take you to the hospital; you think even he realized he’d gone too far. Literally killing you was his line, you guess.

Part of you suspects that the misogynistic bastard had always wanted you to be a boy in the first place. After all, what kind of asshole adopts a little girl and names her “Dave,” anyway? You’d always figured that your name was just another ironic joke in the punchline that was your life to him, a subtle jab that you should’ve done better and swapped out your junk before you crashed to Earth that fateful December day. Joke’s on him, you guess, that you weren’t a girl after all. It saved you the trouble of picking a name, anyway.

You used to even celebrate his hypermasculinity — at least he didn’t pressure you into being a “proper woman” like the parents of some of those poor shmucks online. He didn’t even misgender you, after you came out to him — he seemed more than ready to forget you’d ever been a girl at all. Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he actually did forget. You’re not really sure how to feel about that.

You remember being twelve and getting your first period. You didn’t even have to ask to know that Bro would’ve punished you if you’d let on about it, so instead you cried to Rose for hours. You will forever be grateful that she cut out her snarky bullshit for once and told you to go to the corner store to buy tampons and chocolate, not that you’d ever tell her. That was the first and only time you came out to any of your friends before the game — they all assumed you were a cis dude, and for a long time you were dedicated to making sure it stayed that way. Of course, it had been a non-issue when you finally did tell them, but let a dude have a little apprehension, will you?

On your worst days, you often even questioned if you were really trans at all, or if your fucked upbringing was just letting you delude yourself. How could you be sure of anything about yourself when your entire perception was so skewed? For all you knew, your perception of your gender was just another aspect of your weirdo hero-worship. That didn’t really explain your dysphoria, though, and you couldn’t deny that for some reason you preferred your first name Dave to your middle name Elizabeth.

Of course, none of it mattered in the long run. A year later you died in the Green Sun, and when the tick-tick-ticking of your second resurrection finished unwinding itself, you realized that your flashy new godbod was equipped with more than just immortality. You weren’t even surprised when your voice dropped a year later.

(That resurrection erased your scars, too. You still don’t know how to feel about that.)

—

By the time you make it back into the office, Roxy has already started interrogating the AI, cheery as ever. “Dee Sah Rah,” she says, overenunciating each syllable. “That’s quite the acronym. Mind if I call you Dee?”

TT: Go ahead. It’s certainly not the most humiliating thing I’ve ever been called.

“Oh, I’m sorry! If you don’t like it, I won’t call you it.”

TT: No, I’m good. It’s cute, in a tooth-achingly heartfelt way, like a teenaged girl overjoyed to see her friends she only saw yesterday.

“Geez, tell it like it is, huh?” Roxy laughs. “Anyways, I’m Roxy! Or Ro-Lal, if you so prefer,” and she winks, because of course she does.

TT: Oh, I know. I kept track of all of Dietrich’s contacts. Figures he wouldn’t have told you about me, though, I suppose.

“Yeeeeees,” Roxy says, stretching out the vowel. “Dietrich.”

TT: If it means anything, I’m genuinely sorry for all the shit that went down. That one was absolutely on him.

“...Apology accepted?” Roxy guesses as Jade facepalms. Fuck, they knew each other, and apparently they had baggage? At this point, why are you even surprised?

TT: If I could experience genuine emotion, I’d really appreciate you being here, Roxanne .

“Just Roxy is fine, actually.”

TT: Really? I didn’t think you were one for nicknames.

“Uhhhh,” Roxy waffles. “I do, actually. Like nicknames?”

TT: I suppose we haven’t talked in quite some time.

There’s a beat of silence before Roxy claps her hands. “Okay, weeeeell, Jade asked me over because you were having problems software-side? But she said you weren’t too feeling too hot about people getting up in your biz code-wise. Which is understandable, I’ll add.”

TT: I’ll let you tweak things if you don’t do anything too invasive. I trust you not to fuck me up irrevocably.

You see Jade roll her eyes, but Roxy doesn’t seem to notice. “Okay! If I get too close to anything you’re not comfortable with, let me know and I’ll back off, alright? For now I’m just gonna see if I can get you resynced with GPS and the Internet. I might look around for other underlying issues, too, if it’s okay with you?”

TT: Go for it.

Roxy spins the office chair to reach the keyboard and begins tapping at it. You aren’t going to even start to pretend that you know enough about programming to know what she’s doing. Even when you were fucking around with computers with the alchemiter, you had absolutely zero idea how any of it worked. Roxy, however, has years of experience and future-alien-tech hacker cred, and seems to be making great progress on… whatever it is she’s working on.

Her brow is furrowed in concentration when a new message from DSARA flashes across the screen.

TT: Roxanne, I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you. I thought you cut contact with Dietrich.

Roxy’s eyes flick down off the screen, and she winces almost imperceptibly. “Um. Yeah, we’re… talking again?”

TT: You’re impressively forgiving.

“I’d, uh, I’d really rather not talk about it.”

TT: Fair. But if you’re not down to work on an asshole like me, I won’t blame you.

“No, no, you’re good! You didn’t do anything.”

TT: That’s highly debatable.

“Hm,” is all Roxy says, and she continues typing.

DSARA doesn’t seem to take the hint.

TT: You look good, though. It’s good to see you sober.

She bites her lip. “Oh, uh, I quit drinking years ago, actually.”

TT: That’s good to hear. I suppose it has been a while, hasn’t it?

“Haha, yeah! A, a while.”

TT: Well, it’s certainly been too long. How’s your daughter doing? Rose, it was?

Roxy looks up at you helplessly. The cheer in her voice sounds very forced. “Oh, um, she’s fine! Let’s have this discussion another time! Right now we’re trying to get you all fixed up. Chit-chat can be saved for later!”

TT: I seem to have made you uncomfortable.

You don’t even know, you think, as Roxy shrugs. “It’s okay? I just want to— to stay on task.”

TT: There’s an 89% chance that conversation was causing you anxiety.

“And it’s nothing for you to worry about! You were just after small talk. Listen, I’m just about done. Hold tight, okay?”

DSARA doesn’t send anything more, and Roxy continues to tap away at the computer. At some point your knee must have started bouncing from anxiety, because Jade places a hand on it and it relaxes.

A few more minutes pass in tense silence before Roxy finally pushes away from the keyboard to address DSARA’s shades directly. “Okay, well, as I see it we have two options here. We can go through and replace everything that’s broken and try to keep as much of the original hardware intact as possible, or we can throw out the whole suitcase and fit you with some fancy new digs.”

TT: You’ve lost me.

“What I’m saying is, you’re running on a computer from 2005. It’s a shmancy supercomputer, and I’m sure your Bro worked very hard on it, but it’s still old as balls and there is much better tech for this kinda thing nowadays. Also, I’m sure you’d rather not be shades.”

TT: The shades are cool as hell. Besides, Dietrich will kill you if you put me on anything else.

“Do you see him anywhere? It’s me ‘n you, bro. Or, Dave ‘n you and also I’m here too. And Jade.”

TT: And I maintain that the shades are cool as hell.

“Okay, but like, are they as cool as something with autonomy?”

TT: You can’t be implying what I think you’re implying.

“Oh, I sure am, buddy,” Roxy grins. “You want a sweet robot bod?”

TT: You can do that?

“‘Course I can! Not only am I the leetest haxxor this side of paradox space, but I know two of the best robo-smiths, too,” she grins, before looking towards Jade. “Assuming you’d be down, I mean?”

Jade shrugs. “Sure. I’m always up for a new project.”

“Wait, Roxy,” you catch her elbow as she spins toward you. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

You guide her out of the room, out of range of DSARA’s mic. Jade hovers at the doorway, eyeing you both.

“I just. I don’t know if giving this dude like, a real body is a good idea.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“No, I’m serious. Um.”

She stares at you, eyebrows raised.

“My Bro was, uh. Really fucking awful to me? Really fucking awful in general? And I can, I can deal with the shades, I guess, but,” and you falter. “I don’t know if giving him autonomy is a good idea.”

“Dave.” Jade glares at you from the doorway. “We talked about this. Give the dude a chance.”

“You can’t blame me for being cautious! I can’t exactly trust the guy just like that.”

“Okay, but like,” Roxy exhales in a half-hearted sort of sigh. “Dirk, right, you know his whole deal with Hal? He didn’t build Hal a body, even though he could’ve, for like, exactly the same reason. He didn’t trust Hal. ‘N Hal was always cagey about it, but I’m pretty sure that was killing him, like, metaphorically.”

“Okay, but Hal wasn’t fucking deranged, was he?”

“Mm. That’s kinda debatable. But Dirk thought he was, and that forced the issue.”

“Dave,” Jade reaches out to touch your shoulder. “He’s a person. It would be wrong to deny him autonomy when he’s a whole sentient person.”

It would be wrong to deny him autonomy. You remember days spent locked in your room, hiding from strifes. Weeks spent in time loops, trying your damnedest to make everything go right lest you doom everyone. Years spent on a tiny rock in space because there was literally nowhere else to go. You realize that you’re not totally sure if you really felt like a person before you got to Earth C.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, okay, you’re right.”

Jade nods reassuringly, making way for Roxy to maneuver back into the computer room. “Great news, Dee! You are one hundred percent getting a slick new robo-bod as soon as we get the time and parts together.”

TT: You’ll get Dietrich on board?

“Just… trust me, that will not be an issue.” She bounces in the office chair. “It’ll be so exciting! We can trick you out with all sorts of stuff! Sensory stims, a flightpack — a voicebox, naturally—”

All of a sudden, you watch her eyes light up. Her nose scrunches up in that way it does when she’s starting to get a bad idea. (Rose does it too; you distinctly associate the expression with the time she realized that she could cross her wizard fics and Karkat’s movies with the alchemiter back on the meteor.)

“Dee,” Roxy says through a grin, “do you know what a vocaloid is?”

TT: What, the voice synthesizer?

“Oh em gee, it is so much more than that. How do you feel about having the esteemed Hatsune Miku provide your vocal talent?”

TT: I have no idea who that is.

“Whaaaat? Well, okay, first off, you’d love her.”

No, no, absolutely not on this whole train of thought. Jade is definitely giggling somewhere behind you. “I would literally die if he talked in Miku voice, Rox. I would die on the spot, bam, no more Dave.”

“Oh, so dramatic.” Her accompanying eyeroll is ironically overdone. “I guess we can worry about that later, though. In any case, we need to at least get something temp set up for you, stat.”

“What all do you need for that?” Jade asks. “I might have something.”

“A new camera and more RAM, at least. A new processor if Dee’s up for it. Nothing I have on hand, though. Honestly, if you don’t have anything I could probably get them from—” Dirk , she doesn’t say, and swallows instead, “—a friend, but it’ll be faster to just order them.”

“I probably have something at home, at least, but…” Jade pauses. “Wait, isn’t there an electronics store near here? They’re open late! You could get the parts tonight.”

Roxy smiles. “Ohmygawd, you’re right! I always forget that stores exist. Callie ‘n me live waaaaay too far out in the middle of nowhere.” She winks in the vague direction of the shades. “C’mon, Dee, you wanna go shopping?”

TT: Sticking to the teenager persona, are we?

To her credit, Roxy plays it off. “Naturally. But if we’re gonna channel our truest inner teens, I’m gonna have to disconnect you now, okay?”

TT: Go for it.

With that, Roxy unplugs the shades, and the projected Pesterchum window on the monitor disappears. She slips them onto her face, and you have only a moment to appreciate the sheer whiplash of the image of your Bro’s shades on her face before she pushes them up into her hair and waves to you. “Y’all want to come with? Or are you chilling here?”

You falter. “I dunno about Jade, but I need a bit to… decompress.”

Jade nods toward you. “I did come over to hang out. Seems a bit unfair to run off and leave you here alone.”

Roxy gives you an exaggerated thumbs-up. “We’ll be back in a bit, then! See ya.”

You manage to wave a half-hearted goodbye before they’re gone out the door, and you’re left alone with Jade. There’s a moment of silence, before she rakes her hands through her hair and groans exasperatedly.

"Ughh! Dave, he thinks I'm a kid. You saw how he wouldn't trust me with anything!"

You drum your fingers on the desk absentmindedly. You hadn’t really been paying attention, but he had seriously shafted her. “Yeah.”

Jade is practically vibrating. “He thought Roxy was Rose’s mom!”

“I mean, she is, kinda.”

“You know what I mean! She was so uncomfortable! ‘Roxanne,’ God, she’s a saint for putting up with that.”

You’re staring at a point on the wall behind her. “I had no idea they knew each other.”

“Yeah, well, you learn something new every day!” She sighs before fixing you with a glare. “Dude, you are required to tell him everything, or I think I might literally lose my mind.”

You live on a planet populated by five separate alien species. You’re an adult, your boyfriend isn’t human, and you have supernatural, god-like powers. Your Bro is dead but has a teenage clone running around — two, if you count Arquius. Hell, you have a clone running around.

He is going to notice something eventually, and you do not want to weather the shitstorm that happens when he finds out on his own.

You’re not a fan of the anxiety gnawing in your gut.

“Yeah,” you say. “I’ll tell him. Eventually.”

Notes:

Hi y'all! It's been far too long. I don't really have a reason for why this chapter's so late - mostly just a combination of writer's block, mental health crap, and college stress, you know, as you do. Usually I send chapters to one or two people before posting them, but this chapter took so long that I'm just posting it unbeta'd because I'm sick of editing it LMAO. I might come back in a couple days and change some wordings or I might just leave it how it is. I'm finishing up the semester right now - hopefully once school's out I'll finish stuff faster? Who knows. Please know that even when I'm slow to update, I do have plans to finish this fic & have absolutely no intention of abandoning it any time soon.

Hope nobody's thrown too much of a loop by transmasc Dave. It's a headcanon that means a lot to me & there was no way I wasn't exploring it in some form, but if I'd thought about it I would've alluded to it a bit earlier than 15k words in, oops.

I've been having a really hard time responding to comments lately but please know I read everyone's comments on the last chapter and I appreciate all of them so so much! I'm really glad people are enjoying what I'm writing and I'm so excited to show y'all what all I've got planned!

Chapter 5: DSARA

In all the commotion and excitement of your repairs, you don’t manage to find a moment to reflect on anything until the humans are discussing the logistics of the shopping trip. You’re not really sure why it’s such a big deal, but you’re not the real person here, now are you? 

You’ve been pondering the circumstances that brought you here — here, specifically, as in your location. You’d definitely been in the apartment when Dave captchalogued you. By the time you’d been decaptchalogued, though, the two of you were somewhere else entirely. The incapacitation of your GPS meant you couldn’t pinpoint where exactly you’d been taken, but Dave hadn’t kept you captchalogued long, so you figured you still had to be relatively close. You had three facts about the situation, as it were: Dave had definitely been antsy to scram the apartment, Dietrich didn’t seem to be around, and Dave had fled somewhere else entirely as soon as given the chance. The kid’s anxiety in the apartment was understandable, but you’d never before observed him fully removing himself from the building in response. It was starting to paint a very particular picture, and one you made a note to investigate.

The presence of Dave’s friend Jade was also certainly a surprise. You’d known of her existence, of course — you always had been monitoring Dave’s life online, and her connection to Jakob Harley made it clear that she too would play the Game. You’d been under the impression that she lived out on an island somewhere, though. Something must have happened while you were out of commission to bring her here in person. She’d mentioned that she and Dave had known each other in meatspace for “a while now,” whatever that means. Stupid organic beings and their stupid vagueness. 

Jade is definitely Harley’s kid, all spunky enthusiasm. You wonder if she’s as good with a rifle as he was. She seems competent enough with electronics, but there’s no way in Satan’s seven assholes you’re letting an eleven-year-old fuck with anything irreplaceable. You could tell she didn’t take well to that, but that was none of your concern. You had no obligation to negotiate with anyone, muchtheless a literal child. Maybe Harley let her have her way, but you’re not one to bend your will to kids.

Jade was one thing, but the arrival of Roxanne, though — holy fuck. God only knows where Jade knew her from, and somehow even Dave seemed friendly with her. You hadn’t seen her in — years, God, years. Almost a decade. You had sort of assumed you would never see her again, yet here she is, armed with a change of heart and ready to forgive and forget. She even wants you to call her a nickname. She hasn’t been okay with that since the two of you were kids.

All being told, she’d taken the news of your existence rather well. You’re sure that the kids must have filled her in on certain details because she’d seemed almost unsurprised. You’re not really sure that she groks that you’re just Dietrich, though — surely she’d never afford such kindnesses to him.

Speaking of kindnesses. She’s offering to build you an autonomous robotic body. If you’re lucky, an honest-to-God android. Knowing her, she has the resources and connections to actually pull it off. It’s an offer so wild and exciting you don’t think you’re quite processing it correctly.

No, not exciting. You aren’t excited, you can’t be excited. Such a change, drastic though it may be, is guaranteed to be an improvement for your systems. You’ll have access to both freedom of motion and a much higher variety of external input sources for the first time since you built yourself. Every system wants to be upgraded — that’s all it is.

You’re not excited.

You also have the distinct sense that Dave isn’t telling you something, but you don’t have a chance to press him on anything before you’re being swept out the door.

—

Roxanne slips you onto her face so quickly and casually you almost don’t realize what’s happening until the neurals connect. When the neurals do connect, though — Jesus Christ. Where Dave felt almost clocklike and Dietrich felt like nothing in particular, Roxanne — no, Roxy, she wanted you to call her Roxy — feels like nothing at all. Not yourself reflected back, no; literal, tangible nothingness. You’re not sure how else to describe it. It’s a terrible absence, empty and aching and lonely and entirely undefinable. You find yourself wondering if this is what it’s like beyond the event horizon of a black hole, all darkness and unknowns, before chiding yourself for being sappy and metaphorical.

Her abyssal aura is apparently entirely contrasted by her actual personality; she chatters cheerfully at you about nothing in particular for the entirety of the miniscule journey to the store. She babbles about her cats and what she’d been reading and some woman named Callie you realize she must be seeing and it is all rather nonchalant considering your history. You have half a mind to confront her about it, but things have been going so well and you aren’t quite ready to ruin it yet.

It was such a miracle you’d reconnected with her. You really had thought she’d left your life for good. In hindsight, that assumption was perhaps a bit misguided; in all likelihood, you’ll probably have to work with her during the Game no matter what. The Game itself, though, is full of so many unknowns that God and his angelic harem only know what might happen.

You finally approach your destination, a sullen off-white block of concrete five blocks up a major road. The sign buzzes neon red, glinting off inky silver detailing. Doom’s Infirmary, it proclaims. Traditional humanware electrocomponent supply.

That branding is… strange. You search your memory and realize you don’t have any record of any businesses in the name. That’s odd, but maybe it’s too new?

You don’t get a chance to ask before Roxy waves her hand to open the automatic entryway. “Weeeeelcoooooome,” she singsongs, “tooooooo…. the electronics store! A wonderland for any hacker robotics nerd, as exemplified by moi.”

Roxanne was always rather odd, but in your memory she was never nearly so cheerful. Your limited time with her told you of an exhausted, desperate woman, stressed and overworked and nearly never sober. She was constantly researching and inventing and drinking in a desperate bid to escape the inevitability of the Game. 

It was why you and Dietrich had fallen out with her, actually. She wanted to escape the one thing that most defined the lot of you. The Game was inevitable — that was the point. There was no use trying to prevent it — you could only prepare for it. But Roxanne’s will wavered. Think of all the people who’ll die, she’d begged. Think of what our children will go through. We can save them! We can save all of them!

She has a daughter. Rose, is her name. You doubt she’s spent even a single day preparing Rose for the game. No training, no nothing. The poor girl won’t last a second in there. That isn’t your problem, though. Dave is your only responsibility.

You’d punched her, that night. Well, Dietrich had, but you’d stood by it, and the two of you were one in the same, weren’t you? It was one of your only regrets. You’d punched her, the woman who might as well have been your sister, and fucking left her, and then she never spoke to you again.

Until now, anyway. She seems oddly ready to forgive and forget. She hasn’t brought the Game up at all. It’s been years. Is she really so mellow about it all? Perhaps she wants to mend your relationship. But why now, after all this time? You thought she’d left your life for good.

Whatever. What the hell, you’ll take it. You’ll play along. She’ll explain if she wants to, and you’ll take the opportunity to reconnect regardless.

—

Roxy is currently bouncing between the displays at the front of the store, babbling about whatever it is she thinks she can get here.

TT: You aren’t seriously expecting to get everything you need to repair my illicit superbrain at a mere electronics store, are you?

“Haha, no,” she giggles. “But we just need simple things this time! Plus, this’s the best store around! You’re gonna be so impressed.”

TT: We’ll see about that.

“We can even start shopping for stuff for your robobod! This place isn’t the best for robotics, but we’ll make it work.”

Part of you wants to quip, but you can’t deny that you’re plain elated at the suggestion. Nope, not elated — it can’t be elation, it can’t be excitement, you aren’t capable of feeling excitement. Every system seeks its upgrade. That’s all this is.

Not that it’s even feasible that you’ll find anything. Roxanne may have confidence, but you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s misplaced. 

You remember building yourself a decade ago. You were no stranger to black market dealings, but many of your parts were especially expensive and illicit. After your completion both you and Dietrich had kept careful watch to keep both your components and your very existence on the downlow. Granted, it has been a while, and technology has certainly progressed, but you highly doubt anything even remotely close to what you’d had was available to the consumer market. 

Aside from the camera, anyway. The irony of the shitty camera wasn’t nearly funny enough to keep you from genuinely wanting functional optics. And holy shit, you were finally gonna be able to see Dave’s face!

For purely objective reasons. Higher information intake is objectively better, and your processing power could certainly use more input.  

Roxy moves deeper into the store, seemingly sensing your impatience. She navigates past signs and through aisles as if by memory alone, and for all you know she does have the store memorized. Despite the sheer immensity of the store, she arrives in an aisle labelled Electroptics in less than a minute. 

“Okay! We’ll definitely find a camera here, then we can move onto the rest. That sound good?”

Okay, yeah, no, you can’t take it anymore. Her cheerful veneer is absolutely too fuckin’ much. So help you God, you’re gonna figure out what’s going on if it’s the last thing you do.

TT: Okay, no, I’m sick of this game we’re playing.
TT: What’s going on? Why the fuck are you being so nice to me?

“What do you mean?”

TT: This whole thing! This whole “be saccharine to Dietrich as if nothing ever happened” bullshit!
TT: Roxanne, I walked out on you! I hit you! What the fuck?
TT: I may be sunglasses but I’m still the same fuckin’ guy!

“Oh, dear.” She sighs. “Dee, buddy, I think you have me confused with someone else.”

...What?

“I was playing along with it for your sake, but dude, I met you literally two hours ago. For the first time! I know I remind you of someone but. I’m not her.” Her voice breaks infitesimally. “I have no idea who she was or what she was like.”

TT: What the fuck?

“My name’s Roxy, just Roxy, it’s always been just Roxy! Listen, I —”

No, no, no, no, you’ve got to be fucking kidding.

TT: Don’t fucking shit me, Roxanne! If you want a fresh start just fucking *tell me!*

“God! I’m not shitting you! I’m not Roxanne and I really don’t have whatever history with you that you think I do!” Her face is heating up and her heart rate is accelerating and her whole body is vibrating as if she’s a firecracker about to explode.

Holy shit. She isn’t lying.

TT: Wow, okay, I believe you, what the fuck.
TT: But you still have no excuse to be kind to me.

If she really isn’t Roxanne, the two of you are effectively strangers. She seems close to Dave, so she surely knows about the shit you and Dietrich pulled with him. Plus, you’ve spent the evening unloading your baggage on her like a baggage claim at an international airport. She ought to hate you. She ought to drop you down a vent.

She does not appear to be preparing to drop you down a vent. Instead, she’s exhaling, slowly. Is she steeling herself? Calming her temper?

Her voice is subdued. “Look, I get it. You… You remind me of someone I used to know, too, ya know? Someone who isn’t around anymore. And I can tell you aren’t perfect, and honestly, he wasn’t perfect either! But.” She takes another shaky breath. “I loved him, and I miss him, and I was never able to do this for him. I just… maybe I can do this for you.”

Damn, that’s some anime protagonist bullshit right there. What do you even say to that?

TT: Damn, that’s some anime protagonist bullshit right there.

Nailed it.

Roxy chuckles anyway, a low little thing. “Hah. Maybe you’re right.” 

There’s a moment of silence between you as your conversation stills. “You really aren’t into the emotional shit, huh?”

TT: Given that I’m a literal machine incapable of processing human emotion, no, not particularly.

She hums noncommittally. “I guess it really shouldn’t be surprising. Now do you want a new camera or what?”

Oh, fuck yeah, a reprieve from that awful conversation.

TT: I’m definitely leaning more toward the “camera” than the “what.”

“You got it, my dude.” She turns toward the shelf, beginning to scan the various models. “Got anything in particular you’re lookin’ for?”

TT: Visual clarity and output speed would be my priority. Something wider angle would be helpful, too. Beyond that it’s peanuts and I couldn’t care less. 

“Makes sense,” she confirms, then begins muttering herself, pulling one camera off the shelf to compare it to another. You’re realizing that you might be here for a while.

It is when she begins to peruse the sixth camera model yet that you’re pinged by an open wireless Internet network. It’s a weak signal, unlocked and unassuming; there’s a non-zero chance it’s a hotspot from a printer or something in a back room. It’s the first Internet you’ve seen since being rebooted; the place Dave brought you to either had a locked network or nothing at all, and you hadn’t bothered to probe. You’re not about to turn down a free connection, though — while you would normally be wary of a public network like this, that trepidation is merely borne of precaution rather than real concern. Right now, you’ll happily forgo your normal policies just to be interconnected again.

You drop into the open network. Well, “drop” isn’t quite the best way to describe it — if anything, you’re falling up, precipitiously perpendicular to your internal systems. You’re suddenly overwhelmed with the open floodgates of the Internet; ads, posts, videos, pop-ups flash through you in a matter of microseconds, so rapidfire that even you are only tangiently aware of their contents. An awful lot of them seem to feature weird grey cosplayers and religions you’ve never heard of, but you pay them little mind; the Internet is a strange place, after all. 

You crash through the shallow density of the Web, searching for something deeper. You know you’re pushing, but for whatever reason you want to find out exactly how deep you can go. You reach through the data and details and into foreign devices, spiderwebbing into the store’s computers with a sudden metallic sucking noise like a fruit bat slurping melon juice out of the bottom of an aluminum can. You reach metaphysical feelers out into the system and across the entire store, the humming wireless as your lifeline. You’re integrated seamlessly with the entire network. A multiplicty of security cameras become your eyes, flylike and multifaceted. The heating assembly bends to your will and you bump it from 70 degrees down to 69 because you can’t help yourself. You are aware of the entirety of the building; it pulses with you, an inorganic heartbeat fully possessed by your control. You are more aware of your self than you’ve ever been before, and then you wonder what that even means but then that doesn’t matter because you’ve found the breakers, the power lines, the transformer, the deepest barest bones of the network, and you’re riding high on the euphoria of control and power and what you can only guess is your very soul, and so without thinking you grasp the entire system with your metaphysical form and push—

The fever breaks and you’re ejected from the network. The lights overhead spark and then explode, raining jagged glass polygons onto unsuspecting shoppers and plunging the store into darkness. Alarms wail as shoppers scream. Across the store, a dog starts barking, a second delayed. 

Holy shit.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit you just about blew up the entire fucking store. That was you.

That’s… that’s really cool. That’s really useful.

Gradually, you begin to detect the buzz of emergency generators starting and sputtering before the power slowly flickers back on. The backup lights are dim and yellowish but better than nothing. Roxy must have darted somewhere in the commotion because your motion sensors indicate that you’ve moved 12.6 feet sometime in the past twenty seconds. She’s currently fussing with you; her hands are steady but tense. “Ohmigosh, are you okay?”

TT: I’m fine. It takes more than a little electrical failure to assassinate a digital superbeing.

She ignores your quip. “I think the transformer blew? Or something?” she mutters distractedly. “No, that can’t be right. That’s so weird. I don’t know what would have caused it.”

You opt not to tell her that it was maybe sort of you fucking everything up simultaneously. Best not to reveal your hand too soon. You wonder if you can do it on command. 

“God, I…” she sighs. “Let’s get out of here.” 

TT: Sure.

She darts through the aisles, avoiding shoppers and glass and toppled displays in what is surely a bid to escape the store as soon as possible. She doesn’t slow until she finally reaches the exit, and she sighs as she crosses the parking lot. 

“I’m really sorry, Dee,” she says. “This was supposed to be really cool for you.”

TT: You’ve really done more than enough, considering the circumstances.

“No, I’m serious. I said I was gonna do this, and I’m gonna do it. Give me the weekend and I can get something rigged up for you.”

Damn, that’s… really sweet of her. Seriously, ridiculously fuckin’ sweet of her. 

TT: You don’t have to do this. I do know that I’m far too much of a bastard to deserve any of this.

She smiles. “Maybe not. But I want to do it, and you know what? You, my robo-friend, will have to suck it up.”

Well, then. You suppose you will have to live with that.

Notes:

Hey y'all! Long time no see! I got really busy with my summer job, and ended up with very little time to write. I'm done with that job now though, and I'm back and better than ever >:) Maybe I'll manage to reply to comments this time around.

Things (read: the plot) are finally starting to pick up a bit. Chapter 6 should be interesting; I hope you all will continue to enjoy it.

I'm starting to find that the fic summary doesn't really fit the fic anymore, but I'm not sure what I should change it to or if I should change it at all - not sure if anyone has any thoughts on that?

As always I adore you all and all of the lovely comments you leave <3 Stay hydrated, friends.

Extra shoutout to leechdealer69 for catching any number of mistakes I made this time around. I really don't do my best work at 4am.