Chapter Text
|| Impulse’s Stress: Rising: 27%
Impulse wasn’t avoiding people. Would someone avoiding people be having a game day with their friends? No, they would not.
“There you are! We were waiting forever,” Zedaph complained.
“Yeah, my bad, I was—” taking the long way around Bdubs— “finishing up my farm. Shall we go?”
Tango snorted. “Oh of course, our bad for holding you up.”
They left Hermitcraft laughing, and Impulse could almost forget about the whole thing. Almost, because they had to wait for Skizz at the edges of the Hub, and Impulse’s hand drifted to the crack in his jaw.
It wasn’t odd to see Players with scars. Player Code allowed cosmetic things like scars to linger or vanish depending on their wants. Player androids though, they were Code and Crafted, and fixing up a scar like that was a harder, more expensive task. It made a handy excuse for keeping it.
“Hey!” Skizz tumbled out of the crowd. “We really need to get better at this meeting up thing.”
“We didn’t have any issues, that sounds like a you problem,” Impulse stuffed his hands in his pockets. Skizz giggled and scooped up Zedaph and Tango for a tight hug.
“Yeah Skizz, it’s not like we live on a private server or anything!”
“Exactly! Why are you taking so long with your invite?”
“Jerks!” Skizz set them down and clasped hands with Impulse in lieu of a hug. “It’s good to see you again, it’s been a bit, huh?”
“Yeah, sorry. Third Life left us behind on plans,” Impulse said. His eyes landed on the tattoo on Skizz’s jaw, exactly the same as the crack on his. A show of solidarity, Skizz said. Impulse was glad for his support. He couldn’t put into words how amazing it was for someone to have his back over the whole thing, even after…
“Then we should get going! I found this awesome new game server, come on!” Skizz secured his grip and hauled Impulse through the Hub. Tango and Zedaph shouted and chased after them. Impulse and Skizz wove around as chaotically as they could, just to make it harder on them. Impulse didn’t know where the server was, but he did know where Tango was. Androids were hooked directly to the comm network and Tango was his best buddy. It was easy to poke the network and find TT200: Designation Tango, Tango Tek, lagging behind. And where Tango was, Zedaph wasn’t far.
Or that was how it usually went. Zedaph darted out of an alleyway. In the split second before the collision, Impulse automatically dropped into Processing mode. The world seemed to slow and fade into grays and blacks. If Impulse did nothing, Zedaph would knock him over. If Impulse let go or pulled back on Skizz, Zedaph would run into Skizz. Impulse dropped from Processing and braced.
“Ow!” Skizz complained. He skidded to a halt, making Impulse nearly run into him, while Zedaph bounced right off Skizz and nearly knocked someone else over.
“Whoops!” Zedaph laughed. “Teaches you to run off and leave us behind!”
“More like leave me behind!” Tango said from Zedaph’s comm.
“Now now, you had a very vital role in this operation! That you agreed to, by the way, so no complaining!”
“Yeah yeah, hurry up slacker, I get you. Hey guys! Crazy—” Tango jogged up. “—to meet you here.”
“You faked us out!” Impulse blurted. Of course, seeing Tango meant Tango could see him, and if he looked at a map and made some calculations while sending Zedaph on a shortcut… then ambush.
Tango adjusted his red-tinted glasses. “Yep. Just serving my position as GPS.”
“And what a lovely GPS you were! Where’s this game, Skizz?” Zedaph asked.
“Uh… oh, just over there! I totally took us on this chase and didn’t lose track of where we were going, nope.” Skizz led them over while they snickered at him.
“‘Lethal Company’? Skizz, what is this?” Impulse asked.
“Fun! You’re on a team collecting scrap and avoiding monsters, it’ll be great!”
“Oh boy, monsters!” Tango said. “Is this like, whoever gets the most wins, or…?”
“No no, it’s cooperative, I think.”
“He thinks.”
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Impulse said.
“Hey!”
The waiting room was packed. The four of them had to link arms just to stay together.
“How long is it going to take to get a game?” Tango asked quietly.
“I got us a reservation. We’re 60B.” Skizz looked worried. There were only two doors, on either side of the receptionist behind glass, one of which was the plain iron of employees only.
“I think the lobbies are in there.” Zedaph gestured to a fancy door. “Which means there’s more than can fit in here. I think we’ll be fine.”
“This place sure is popular…” Impulse said.
“It’s a new game. That doesn’t mean anything.” Tango shrugged.
Every couple minutes, a group would leave the fancy door and another would be called in by the receptionist. Impulse recognized the receptionist. That was his face.
Not anymore, the eyebrows weren’t nocked nor were the ears pierced, the hair was buzzed and almost-gray blonde, none of the teeth were fangs, and of course, the jaw was unscarred. But it was his once. And the body, big and solid, perfect for carving out mines and tanking damage from sly mobs, was even more his.
|| Impulse’s Stress: Rising: 38%
|| Thirium Pump: Anomaly Detected.
Impulse tentatively reached out through the comm network, the world flicking into familiar black and gray, “clicking” on the profile before him.
|| Model: SV300: Designation N/A. Serial: 9834573. Status: Online. Active. Working. Non-Player. Owner: Nerfeye. ERROR: You do not have permissions.
|| Impulse’s stress: Rising: 44%
Impulse jerked back into the real world. He tried to get his thirium pump under control.
Using androids had been falling out of use for years, fueled by the debate of ethics with the majority of androids being deviants and Players. Androids manufactured for work had their design changed, so the Player ones wouldn’t be mistaken for non-Players, but the androids already built who hadn’t deviated into Player status were left unchanged, assuming they would at some point. It’d been a long time since Impulse had seen a non-Player one, and he could have gone without it being an SV model.
I was like that once, Impulse thought. How many people still see me like that?
The second thought startled him. He’d been a Player and renowned member of Hermitcraft for years.
“You good?”
“Hm?” Impulse took his hand away from his scar and blinked into Skizz’s blue eyes. Tango and Zedaph were playing a game about finding more people wearing their signature colors than the other. “I’m fine.”
Skizz’s eyes narrowed. Impulse cursed to himself as his stress levels ticked up a few more percents. Skizz always knew when he lied. It was why he had to warn him about his betrayal outside of Third Life after all, so Skizz wouldn’t ruin the plan—
“I’m fine,” Impulse insisted. His eyes flicked to the SV300 and Skizz noticed.
“Oh. Yeah, if that’s weird for me, I don’t even know what it feels like for you.”
Impulse nodded. They were called in before he had to say anything, an employee, with horns in their skin not unlike Zedaph’s, who escorted a group out waiting to take them in.
Behind the fancy door, the hallway stretched in both directions and probably wrapped around the sides. A door was set in every other block. Tango began muttering about lag and processing power and other game-running related stats. Impulse smiled. If Tango was braver, he’d probably be questioning the employees and suggesting they cut down a bit.
The employee led them into Lobby 3. Impulse felt his LED flicker. Tango was the only one who seemed to notice, because his did the same and he looked around just like Impulse.
The lobby was mostly black, with a few items and a table. The set-up before the game started. The employee turned around to address them.
“Welcome to Lethal Company! Before we get started—” they did a double take at Impulse and Tango. Skizz pointedly cleared his throat.
“Deviant androids have been a common part of society for fifteen years, homie.”
The employee shook their head. “Right, sorry. I’ve been on single player for a while.”
Sure you have. Impulse felt bad for thinking that, but the employee lingered longer than necessary on him. He pursed his lips and stared at the table and its devices, hoping his hair hid his LED well enough.
The employee started again. “Welcome to Lethal Company! Before we get started, we have some rules to go over.”
They were standard rules. No hacking, no purposefully glitching the game, no smuggling things in your inventory, no purposeful harm to each other or the employees. There was one at the end that made Impulse raise his eyebrows.
“And finally, if you see a glitch, contact support—slash support or slash s on your comm—and inform them of the nature, location, and situation of the glitch, if you can. We’re having trouble with one that copies random assets of the game, so if you encounter it, use one of these.” The employee held up one of the devices. It was a bright orange metal stick with a black handle on one end and a prong sticking out of the other. A bold black button and a green and red switch were in the middle, opposite of a screen divided into four blocks
“This is a Glitch Stick. Whatever the copied asset is, just press the prong here against it, make sure the Stick is on, and press the button as rapidly as you can. Using it on a functioning asset may cause more glitches or even a crash, so only use it if you know for sure. DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, use it on a Player. You’ll be fine if it’s an accident and you only hit the button a couple times, but any more than that and we’ll have to bring the Admins in to untangle your code from the trash bin and you have to pay a fine. They only have four charges each, to prevent abuse, so use them wisely. And that’s everything, are there any questions?”
All four of them stared at the unfazed employee.
“There’s a major glitch and you haven’t closed down to debug?” Tango demanded.
The employee shrugged. “We’re really popular. Our server’s Admins are working on the problem right now. I think the activity is helping them isolate it?”
“Or maybe there’s too much activity and the system can’t handle it?” Tango’s red and mismatched eyes narrowed.
The employee shrugged again. “I just work here. Don’t get mad at me. I can hook you up with the manager though.”
|| Tango’s Stress: Rising: 42%
Impulse nudged at him in the network.
|| From SV300: Designation Impulse: Calm down.
|| From TT200: Designation Tango, Tango Tek: Yeah, yeah, sorry man.
“It’s fine. I guess if they’re looking into it…”
“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve played a buggy game,” Zedaph said brightly. “Goodness, no game on Hermitcraft goes smoothly the first few dozen times!”
The employee’s eyes widened at the name drop and they looked at Zedaph with realization.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Tango, creator of many a minigame, muttered.
“If you don’t want to stick them, you don’t have to. It’s just better for the experience if you have the option.” The employee passed them out. The handle was warm with charge and shifted to fit his hand. He hefted the weight of it. It was both comforting and worrying. He put it in his inventory, unsure if he wanted to use it.
“It says here you have a reservation for one game?”
“That’s correct,” Skizz said.
“Perfect. One game is three rounds, so you should be in there for about an hour. Now.” They cleared their throat and straightened up. “Welcome new employees to the Company. Your job is to explore abandoned moon facilities for scrap. You have three days to fill a quota but be warned! The facilities may have been taken over by hostile native life. Pressing the bestiary button on your comm in a five block radius of the creatures will give you information on them, but only if you’re willing to go that close. The terminals can give you other information and you can input commands into them. A clipboard will give you those instructions once inside. You can only visit one moon a day, so choose wisely. You will be revived after each round, but for a fee if your body is not recovered. If you all die, you lose everything you gathered that day. Your ship will leave at midnight, regardless if you are alive, and that is also a loss of money. Failure to fill your quota and drop it off at the Company is losing the whole game. Ready for your first mission?”
The four of them gave a disjointed chorus of agreements, from “yeah, sure,” to “yessir!” with various amounts of saluting involved.
“Make the Company proud.” The employee left. The lobby loaded into the game; the inside of a cramped spaceship. On one wall were tiny bunks and a locker shelf; taking up most of the front next to the bunks were two bulky computers. Two small screens above one said “Profit Quota: 0/130” and “Deadline: 3 days”. Across from the locker shelf was a rack of different colored suits with gas masks. The back was a closed heavy door.
“Alright! Let’s go!” Skizz cheered, wearing a green suit and all but his eyes hidden behind the mask.
“Geez, not a lot of room, huh?” Tango surveyed the spaceship. His tinted sunglasses, an item and not a feature of his skin, were gone with their rest of their inventories now. “We’re getting to know each other real well in here, if you know what I mean.”
|| Impulse’s Stress: Lowering: 30%
Impulse laughed. The gas mask felt a little weird, cosmetic but solid, adding a layer of reality to the game. He didn’t think it would get in the way. It felt really weird to have his inventory shrunk to four though. “I’ll say. There are only three bunks.”
“Ooo, someone’s sleeping on the floor?” Zedaph said. “Not it!”
“Not it!” Impulse and Skizz chorused.
“No—oh come on!”
“You’re pretty small, you can probably fit in the locker there,” Impulse said. Tango gave him a disgruntled look.
“Yeah, no thanks. I’ll sneak into Zed’s bed or something.”
“You can get in my bed any day,” Zedaph joked. Skizz laughed along with them before getting serious.
“Okay, we gotta figure this out.” Skizz picked up the clipboard, flipped through two pages, and put it down. “We don’t need that.”
Impulse looked in the locker. It was empty, perfect for storing their scrap, and poked through the suits. There were four colors, and tugging the yellow one revealed they were not limited one to one.
“Hey guys, how do I look?”
“Nice.” Tango looked at the suits. Grumbling, he switched his from yellow to orange. “Zed, Skizz, the options are green or pajamas.”
“I’ll keep my pajamas, thank you,” Zed said. “They match me best.”
“Hey! Blue’s my color, gimme,” Skizz said.
“Well green certainly isn’t mine! And these have yellow on them!”
“You can both be pajama wearing weirdos,” Impulse suggested.
“Oh, but then they’re doubling up, and that’s just tacky. They gotta fight it out,” Tango said.
A round of pick, iron, lava later, Skizz ended up with the pajamas. Zedaph sighed dramatically and took the green one.
“We can share,” Impulse offered.
“Thank you, but it is probably better not to get mixed up with each other, huh?” Zedaph inspected his new color. “It’s not half-bad. For a hazmat suit. I’ll live.”
“We should probably stop goofing off.” Tango took his turn poking at the terminals. “I found the moons. Which one do we go to?”
They crowded around.
“I don’t like the sound of Experimentation. That sounds like all sorts of nasty things waiting to jump us,” Tango said.
“Oh yeah. Maybe Assurance?” Impulse said.
“Mm, sounds like it’s trying too hard,” Skizz said.
“Oh, and Vow doesn’t?” Zedaph said. “I say we try one of the harder ones, just to see. Look, Offense isn’t trying to cover up! It’s being perfectly honest with us.”
“I like the sound of Vow,” Impulse said quietly.
“Vow sounds good to me,” Skizz declared.
“Oh, very well. Tango?”
“Vow it is.” After a couple false starts, he input the correct command. “You did notice Assurance has the lower hazard level though, right?”
The three exchanged looks.
“It’s an adventure?” Zedaph suggested.
“Pfft, we’re newbies! We’re going to fail whatever moon we try!” Impulse declared.
“Your faith is astounding,” Zedaph said dryly. “But Vow we go!”
I hope this vow goes better than the last one.
|| Impulse’s Stress: Rising: 35%