Chapter Text
The harsh white lights in the Cognito Inc.’s meeting room buzzed like they were seconds away from sparking an electrical fire — which, honestly, would’ve improved morale. With JR and Rand trapped in Shadow Robe Prison after the “multiverse incident” no one was legally allowed to acknowledge, Reagan Ridley had inherited command by default.
And, well with the praise of the Shadow Robes.
Lucky her.
She stabbed the projector remote with the precision of someone ready to jam it into a carotid artery. The screen snapped to life, bathing the room in the neon glow of three spinning logos: TikTok. Temu. SHEIN.
A pie-chart omen of societal collapse.
Reagan took a long sip of her coffee —battery acid with crumpled notes of despair— and said, “Alright, degenerates. Emergency briefing.”
Everyone straightened. Even Myc’s lights pulsed with intrigue.
Reagan pointed at the screen like it had personally insulted her life’s work, which, it did.
“We’ve got a problem.”
No one reacted. They were used to her opening every meeting like that.
She continued anyway. “Chinese-run apps are overtaking our influence on the American populace. And I don’t mean a minor dip, I mean—” She clicked the remote again. The chart behind her nose-dived so steeply it practically whistled. “We’re losing control faster than Glenn loses hair follicles every time he yells at HR.”
Glenn bristled. “That’s a medical condition!”
“Yeah, it’s called stress-induced patriotic aneurysm,” André muttered.
Myc’s tendrils curled in mild disgust at the graph. “Facebook is for dying-out bonebags who aren’t even worth preserving as vampires or replacing with clones.”
Reagan pointed at him with the remote. “Exactly. The entire boomer to zoomer population is migrating to TikTok, and I refuse to let a foreign power out-brainwash us. That’s our job.”
Glenn slammed a fist on the table. “This is an act of war! America should be controlled by Americans!”
“Didn’t you say last week we should replace half the population with obedient robot clones?” Gigi asked, scrolling her phone under the table.
“That’s different,” Glenn snapped. “Robots are American if they serve the flag.”
Reagan gave him a single, judgmental blink, then moved on. “Point is: Instagram’s down. Facebook’s down. Google’s slipping. Even YouTube Kids is losing ground.”
A collective gasp. That was the algorithmic equivalent of losing to a bowl of unseasoned, boiled chicken.
Gigi finally looked up from her screen, horrified. “But—I need those apps. TikTok is how I manufacture emergent celebrity trends. Temu gives me dirt-cheap subliminal messaging devices. SHEIN produces disposable fashion at the exact pollution rate Cognito requires to maintain its decreasing public morale.” She threw an arm over her face. “I can’t go back to Macy’s. I won’t.”
Reagan pinched her nose. “This isn’t about your retail trauma. This is about the integrity of American manipulation—”
Glenn cut her off and pointed at André. “We need to get these Chinese apps out of our territory. Damnit André, get your people under control!”
André stared at him, blinking like he was processing lag. “…My people?”
“You know,” Glenn said confidently. “East side of the world. The quadrant with the noodles.”
“Glenn,” André said slowly, “I’m Korean.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You fucking patriot, that is NOT what you said.”
Gigi groaned. Myc did a tendril facepalm that rattled everyone’s eardrums. Brett, bless his soul, raised his hand like they were in an elementary school assembly.
“Guys!!” Brett said brightly. “We can stop the foreign influence if we work together! Like a family! The gang--!!”
Every head turned toward him in a unified motion.
“SHUT UP, BRETT,” the group chorused.
Brett wilted like a dejected puppy, probably reminiscent of his childhood.
Reagan slammed her thumb on the remote again, and the lights flickered like even they were tired of this meeting.
“Enough! We’re going undercover. Each of you is creating a new-user account on one of these apps. We gather intel, analyze their manipulation tactics, then tear them apart from the inside. No excuses.”
Gigi whined. Glenn saluted. Myc oozed quiet disdain. André’s head slammed down onto the table, clearly two seconds away from chemically overdosing again.
But Brett?
Brett perked up with hope he absolutely should not have.
Reagan sipped her coffee, dead-eyed.
“Congratulations. You’re all becoming influencers.”
Reagan barely got the words “You’re dismissed” out before the team scattered like roaches fleeing a floodlight. Glenn stomped off ranting about communism, Gigi immediately opened TikTok to “emotionally prepare,” André drifted toward the lab to do something illegal, and Myc slithered away muttering, “Jackasses, all of you.”
Brett lingered like a golden retriever who sensed danger but couldn’t identify the knife.
Reagan didn’t bother acknowledging him.
Reagan kicked her office door shut behind her with a force that implied she considered breaking the hinges a reasonable expense. She dropped her coffee on the desk, the mug’s chipped ceramic clinking against metal. The click of her drawer sliding open echoed like the start of something catastrophic.
Inside was a pharmacy’s worth of bottles.
Prescription labels. Warning stickers. One container marked “DO NOT INGEST WITH ALCOHOL UNLESS YOU’RE READY TO SEE GOD” in Sharpie—her handwriting.
She dumped three bottles into her mug without blinking.
The pills hit the coffee like hailstones.
Then she uncapped her flask.
Poured.
And poured.
And poured.
The coffee fizzed like it was actively protesting.
Reagan lifted the mug.
That’s when Brett appeared.
He didn’t knock—he never did—but this time he froze in the doorway like he’d just walked in on a homicide in progress.
“REAGAN??”
His voice cracked so hard it hit a new octave.
He sprinted to her desk and slapped the mug out of her hand like he was saving a hostage. It sloshed across the desk, sizzling.
His eyes went wide, his face blanched, and before she even registered the sound, he was sprinting across the room. He slapped the mug out of her hands so violently it skidded across the floor, leaving a chemical trail behind it.
He stared at her like she’d just detonated a nuke.
“That wasn’t a drink,” he managed, voice cracking. “That was—Reagan, that was something the Geneva Convention would ban.”
Reagan didn’t even flinch. She just pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It’s a coping mechanism. And, plus, we control the Geneva Convention.”
“AND? It’s still a suicide cocktail,” he shot back, scooping up the mug before she could reclaim it. He lifted it over his head, stretching to keep it out of reach even as her robot arms unfurled behind her like irritated serpents. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself! You matter! And your organs matter! And your continued existence matters!”
Her jaw twitched. “Suck my dick why don’t you?” The Ron-shaped bruise on her psyche throbbed. “And I am not spiraling.”
“You put narcotics in Folgers,” he countered. “Folgers, Reagan. That alone is a cry for help.”
They devolved into a rapid-fire argument, the kind forged in years of near-death missions and shared trauma. Brett lectured with frantic mother-hen intensity; Reagan insisted she could out-engineer organ failure; Brett threatened to call HR; Reagan dryly reminded him she was above HR.
Eventually, breathless and out of ideas, Brett fumbled for his phone.
“Okay—okay, hold on. I saw something on TikTok about emotional regulation for… people like you.”
“People like me,” she repeated flatly. “Fan-fucking-tastic.”
He ignored the scathing tone and typed furiously, searching for something—anything—that might help. The algorithm understood immediately. A gothic influencer popped up, chirping about “inner healing for girlies who punch their friends,” and “the benefit of crystals,” (not meth).
Reagan didn’t give the video three seconds.
The nearest robot arm shot forward from behind her back and nailed Brett in the chest with a metal-packed punch that launched him off his feet. Papers scattered as he hit the floor, gasping like a fish dropped onto a dock.
He lay there wheezing, one hand clutching his sternum. “Okay,” he breathed. “Noted. Your learning style is… very kinesthetic.”
Reagan stepped over him, plucked the mug out of his limp grip, and walked toward the door with the weary determination of someone fully prepared to ruin her life without witnesses. The door slammed behind her.
Brett didn’t get up right away. The floor felt safer. Softer. Less confusing than whatever emotional wildfire Reagan had just left smoldering in her wake.
His phone was still in his hand, screen cracked but functioning. TikTok continued playing, completely ignorant of the mayhem it had caused.
A new video popped up.
“How to make up with your partner after a big fight!”
Brett blinked up at the screen.
“Oh! Maybe this can help Reagan and Me patch things up…” He clicked on it without thinking.
Then another video came next.
Then another.
Tips for dealing with emotionally guarded loved ones. Communication styles for difficult relationships. Signs you care more than you realize. Why certain arguments feel worse when you "secretly value someone more deeply than you admit."
He stared, slack-jawed, his expression slowly hollowing out into something dazed and eerily calm.
TikTok had found its mark.
He kept scrolling.
Soulmates. Conflicted affection. Physical comfort as apology. Advice columns about “that one person you’d go to war for and don’t know why.”
His pupils dilated like frat initiation was happening through the screen.
Somewhere between the tenth and fifteenth video, he whispered to himself—softly, reverently, with the horrified awe of a man discovering gravity for the first time:
“…I understand everything now.”
He didn’t.
Not even close.
But TikTok kept feeding him more.
___________________________________
The next day wasn’t ANY easier than the last.
Reagan’s mug hit the table with a crack sharp enough to make half the team jump. It smelled like industrial-strength coffee mixed with pure spite. Her robot arm twitched twice—the kind of twitch that meant she’d already had a morning.
“Alright, idiots,” she said. “What did you all learn about Chinese-run social media platforms?”
Immediately, Gigi’s hand shot up. Her eyes were red, bloodshot, and she looked like she’d been awake for thirty hours straight doomscrolling fashion hauls.
“I learned,” Gigi began, voice trembling with a mix of fear and enlightenment, “that Temu’s algorithm is sentient. Sentient and ANGRY. I clicked on one purse, ONE, and suddenly it knew every insecurity I’ve ever had. It showed me a duffel bag that said ‘FOR BLOATY GIRLS WHO CAN’T PACK RIGHT.’ Reagan, I didn’t even SAY that out loud!”
Reagan blinked. “…Okay. Don’t anthropomorphize the algorithm, Gigi. It feeds on that.”
But Gigi grabbed her by the shoulders dramatically.
“I SWEAR IT BREATHED.”
Reagan shoved her off. “Fantastic. Who’s next?”
Glenn slapped a hand onto the table, patriotic fury radiating like a Chernobyl sunburst. The other hand discreetly dabbed at something leaking from the blowhole on his neck.
“I’ll tell you what I learned,” he growled. “Them Chinese apps ain’t right. I ordered a tactical flashlight off Temu and it—” He gestured at the oozing sludge. “It tried to burrow into my respiratory tract. That’s some biological warfare right there.”
Reagan stared, horrified. “Why did you put it IN your blowhole?”
“It SAID it was ergonomic!”
A wet glorp slid down his collar.
“Christ—okay—Myc?”
Myc spread his tendrils grandly. “I learned nothing. I transcended.”
He spun slowly to show off the sheer amount of gaudy, low-quality, neon-printed clothing plastered across his body. Crop top, knockoff anime jacket, glitter jeans—he looked like a 14-year-old’s Pinterest board that had melted in the sun.
“Fast fashion is the TRUE high,” he explained. “Seventy-nine items for nineteen dollars! My self-worth has never been lower and I’ve never felt better.”
Reagan pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did you BUY ALL THAT?”
“They were recommended to me. Repeatedly. Aggressively. I think TikTok believes I’m a divorced Midwestern mom experiencing a psychotic break.”
“Honestly?” she muttered, “not far off.”
“HEY,” Myc snapped. Then, after a beat: “…Okay, maybe a little.”
“Andre,” she sighed, “please, PLEASE tell me you didn’t get radicalized by skincare TikTok.”
Andre, bouncing frantically, practically yelled before he finished:
“I got SCAMMED.”
Everyone braced.
“I tried to buy microdosed ketamine off TikTok shop—don’t look at me like that, it was in an AD—and it turned out to be powdered drywall. Drywall, Reagan.”
“And you snorted it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Look, my sinuses have never been smoother.”
Reagan looked to the ceiling for strength.
“But THEN,” Andre continued proudly, “I went on the dark web to buy instant ramen, and THAT actually came. So don’t worry, I’m not helpless.”
“…Why was ramen the backup to ketamine?”
“I dunno. Comfort?”
Reagan massaged her temples so hard she risked imprinting her skull.
“And Brett,” she said finally. “Please—PLEASE—tell me you actually researched these platforms.”
Brett sat up a little straighter, earnest as a golden retriever applying for a tax audit position.
“I did! Kind of! I followed the assignment. But I want to show you my findings later. Privately.”
Reagan raised a brow. “Why privately?”
He swallowed. “Just trust me on this.”
Considering the alternative was more blowhole ooze and fast-fashion-induced identity crises, she nodded. “…Fine. Later.”
She inhaled deeply, tapping a button to pull up holographic charts beside her.
“In the meantime, these,” she said, pointing to the visuals, “are MY findings. REAL data. Actual analysis. Alpha-Beta and I mapped the cross-platform recommendation loops, back-end behavioral tracking, and neural imprinting pathways.”
Alpha-Beta’s face flickered onto the screen.
“I did most of the work. Just saying.”
Reagan threw a stapler at the projector; he dodged.
“The takeaway,” she continued, “is that these apps are beating us at our own game. Their predictive modeling is evolving faster than Cognito’s current infrastructure. You all need to CLEAR your minds”—her eyes passed over Glenn’s ooze, Gigi’s trembling hands, Myc’s glitter jeans, Andre’s sobriety-induced eye twitching—“and START. OVER.”
A grumbling chorus rose.
Myc rolled all twelve of his eyes. “Ugh. This is about your breakup, isn’t it? The one where you vaporized Ron’s brain so he could ‘live a healthy life with normal people’? Shoved the stick even deeper up your—”
SMACK.
Gigi slapped him so hard a sequined scarf fell off.
“Dude,” she warned, “not the time.”
Reagan’s robot arm clicked threateningly. “Anyone ELSE want to comment on my personal life?”
Silence.
“Thought so,” she said. “Meeting dismissed.”
She stomped out, coffee mug trembling slightly in her grip.
The team stared after her.
Glenn wiped his blowhole again. “So… we all think she’s losing it, right?”
Brett, still clutching his phone, whispered, “Guys… does anyone know what it means when TikTok asks if you’re ‘ready to heal your attachment wounds’?”
Andre patted his shoulder. “It means you’re about to get targeted ads for Scientology.”