Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Welcome, EVERMORE

May 8, 23:29:40

One by one, a salty band of freedom fighters gathered on the rooftop of their designated rendezvous point after several minutes of recon. They had been formulating a plan to defeat the ominous Corporation Corp. for far too long now. Up here, they could hear the wind as it brushed through the city, rivalled only by the chronic electronics that droned into the night. If not for the birds - who almost certainly worked for the bourgeoise, carrying out private conversations in public would've been far too easy.

“You think we’re ever going to find a solution to those things?”Huffed Mark, rolling his feet in place.For all the comedic value of his cybernetically enhanced ankles and his…foot thing, his kicks were not ones that you wanted to be on the receiving end of.

“I don’t know if we even have to." Jack scoffed and watched a small quartet fly by. Between the supersonic larynx rig cradling the back of his neck and his incredibly quick wit, he rarely needed a bite to back up his bark. "I mean, they’re everywhere and what have they done? If they were going to do something with the information they’ve collected, wouldn’t they have done it by now?”

"Maybe it's not what they've done that we need to be worried about." Gary, computer wizard and prolific inventor; the team's brains and weaponry-brawn had arrived. Always one for the dramatic, they had arrived by means of a drone, no less. "Maybe we need to be worrying about what they could be doing."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Right. Like that's any better,"

Mark nodded up at the latest arrival. “We in the clear?”

Gary nodded and steered the drone a bit further over the roof. “Of course we are. I don’t think I’d be here to report back to you if we weren’t. Ground floor is a bit busier than expected, but it’s primarily staff. There’s hardly anyone going in or out.” They stepped off onto solid ground and it drifted up to neatly clasp onto the shell of a backpack secured to their shoulders. “How’d the patrol go?”

“Pretty much as expected. Fewer T-5.12s at the building than expected, but there was one outside a retail store. I don't think it would respond to anything nearby though. Seemed to be an employee or something. not sure why a place like that would need a sort of bouncer, but it definitely looked like it had been tampered with.” Mark hopped up onto the ledge of the building right next to them and stretched his legs. "You?

Jack hummed as he recalled his notes. “I think there were only two I saw on patrol? Even then, it looked like they were meeting up with a Delta to help with something. Wouldn’t be surprised if something happened on the subway.”

Each essential role had been filled and bickering banter was never out of reach. There was nothing left for them to do but stick to the plan.

He hooked his thumbs into his pockets and watched the lights. “Remind me why this is such a big deal again? What’s even in there?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, man, c’mon. We’re a team, remember? We’re in this together. You can tell us,”

Gary laughed and shook their head. “No, no, I know you two. If I tell you what’s so important in there, one or both of you is going to try and find it. And then the whole mission’s gonna get messed up. All I’ll say is that they’re making something in there, that if it gets out? Life as we know it is over. The tech they have in there would absolutely eradicate any hope of things ever getting better. Hell, if that gets out, we might not even live to see tomorrow.”

“So, you’re saying that we have to become anime protagonists.” Jack grinned. “Sounds good to me,”

Mark puffed out his chest and crossed his arms. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I think it’s safe to say I’ve been one this whole time. But, y’know, there are shows with more than one hero. I guess one of those could be the one we’re living in, or whatever,”

“Uh-huh, sure, sure. You keep telling yourself that, Mr Anime Protagonist,” Jack got to his feet and stretched. “If we’re all done here, should we go home then?”

“Yeah, I mean I guess so.” Mark frowned. “Wait, actually, no I had a question. There was something in the underground garage area. You didn’t say anything about that.”

Gary's head tilted like a dog. “About what? If there was anything down there, it was probably something they were loading up to be shipped off. In which case we might need to move the schedule up a bit.”

“No, it didn’t look portable at all. It was like this huge…like…I don’t know it looked like a piece was missing, and then there was something in the middle that had these weird spikes or something? I almost want to say it looked like it was a containment system. If it was, then whatever it was containing wasn’t in there.” He shrugged. “Eh, whatever. It didn’t look to be any of their recent tech either. Probably got left there at some point and then nobody bothered to check if it was still there or not. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t used that entrance in a while. It's not exactly easy to miss. The T-5s down there looked like older models, but I wouldn't be able to tell you which one exactly. Doesn't really matter. I’ll race ya' home and then we'll find out later!’”

Patience was possibly their biggest weak spot. Then again, when the only thing you can do to pass the time is embrace the gravity of what is to come, time crawls by agonizingly slow. Be it fate or redemption.

“You’re gonna lose is what’s gonna happen,” Jack laughed and sprang to his feet. He didn't wait before tearing off across a neighbouring roof.

“I- wh- hey! No fair! We’re supposed to be going the same way!” Mark nearly tripped over his own feet as he sprinted after him.

Gary shook their head with a sigh and a smile. “Just don’t decide to just go to down some random alley in the dead of night to see if you can find some black market gaming consoles instead, alright?”

No response came from the roof racers.

“Alright?!”

“OKAY!!” the synchronized voice drifted back through the air.

Rooftop jumping at this speed was no easy feat. Even so, in times like these, sometimes dancing on the edge of no return is the only freedom you can really get. This in particular was possibly one of the easiest places to find that Corporation Corp. and any of the T-series bots really wouldn’t go. The mentality behind it was painfully obvious and heartlessly twisted, but once you got the hang of it, it was unbelievably fun, incredibly quick, and you got incredible views from it.

Especially if you were out running at twilight.

There were other places you could go, sure, other things you could do instead of risking your life at the price of faith. Faith in gravity, the wind, and your own appendages to carry you. But for anyone who knew the euphoria of thriving instead of just surviving in a dystopia like this, there was nothing quite like the feeling that came with this style of running free.

Trust was something else so rare here that describing it as scarce would give the illusion of it being more abundantly available than it was. The only ‘trust’ that existed here was the trust that the only one who you could guarantee to care about you was you. The very act of living itself, taking the time to perform self-care, was all an act of rebellion.

It’s funny to think that something so personal, so invisible to the world could be an act of rebellion.

Jack’s phone vibrated in his back pocket. He didn’t need to check it to know what it was.

Immediately, he made a sharp turn and stumbled onto a nearby flat roof, letting is feet carry him over to the rooftop door. Better a mildly bruised shoulder and collarbone than whatever injury would’ve resulted from toppling over the other side.

He stayed there for a moment, catching his breath.

Mark soon found his footing to stop and make his way over. He jumped up and hoisted himself over the ledge. “Everything okay?”

He chuckled into the wall and held up his phone. “You might wanna give Gary a call. We’re not gonna be home for a minute.”

“Oh hell yeah,” To no one’s surprise, Mark’s phone went off as well. “I swear, they must’ve made a deal with the devil to have this timing.” He rushed to unlock it and set it to speaker. “Y’ello?”

“Whatever stupid thing you’re thinking of doing, don’t do it.” Gary’s voice crackled over the speaker. “And if you insist on doing it, at least tell me what it is so I can bail you out.”

"Okay…? Number one, rude. We don’t always need to be bailed out.” Mark huffed a sound somewhere between annoyance and humour.

“However many times it’s happened, it’s that many more times than it should be.”

“I-..okay, fair point but two, who says it’s something stupid?”

“Mark. This is you and Jack we’re talking about. Name one time the two of you have tried to do something on your own and the two of you didn’t end up going completely unhinged.”

Now that was a bit harsh. Jack leaned against the doorway and pulled a face. “Unhinged is not the same as stupid. We’re not that reckless. We’re more careful than you are if you ask me. We just know how to have fun with it.” They didn’t seem to have a comeback on their tongue. “Either way, we’re going to be a bit late. One of my friends just texted saying they wanted to show us a cool new gadget they got and then we’re probably gonna pick up food from somewhere before we get home. You want anything?”

“Nothing I can think of right now, but I do have a message for your ‘friend’.”

“Shoot.” Jack flexed his larynx's speakers with a smile.

“I already have two loose cannons to clean up after. I would really prefer it if you weren’t constantly either being supplied with or finding new ammunition.”

A laugh hissed between Mark’s teeth. “Nah, we’re gonna be just fine. Honestly? I think you’re going to be just as excited about this as we are.”

“Is that so? Why don’t you just tell me what it is then?”

“Tell us what’s in that lab first,” Jack shot a quick response to his ‘friend’ and threw the white hood of his cloak over his head.

Crackling laughter harmonized with the distant buzzing of the signs and screens decorating every face of the city. “Just don’t get back too late. Tim and Sam worry when we all get here at different times.”

“Will do,” he hung up and quickly repocketed the device, adjusting the draped, black, hooded cloak around his shoulders. “You ready?”

“I’ve been waitin’ on you,”

Without warning, they both sprung into action, parkouring their way down to the street. They took an extra moment upon contact with the ground to make sure the coast was clear and they were both alright.

Check and check.

Now to outwit the city. At least that was a game that never got old.

Chapter Text

In the age of excessively advanced technology, travelling without being tracked is practically an impossibility. Memorizing as much of the map as possible was likely your best bet for any sort of privacy.

So long as you remember it correctly, that is.

“Are you sure this is the way?” Jack whispered, eyes darting from face to face, scanning their surroundings yet again.

Mark sighed. He made a face that looked like he was either trying to suppress a smile or force one. “I keep getting more sure every time you ask. You keep looking around, you’re gonna keep falling behind. And then either you’re going to have to find your way back, or I’m going to have to try and backtrack to find you again.”

None of what he had said seemed to reach him. He looked back, studying his friend for a moment then turning to study the city. Highlights on the soaring buildings of navy and mahogany danced in the piercing neon lights of countless street and shop signs, building aesthetics varying almost every other door. Teal and light blue were peppered in as accents to make night navigation a tad bit easier, the odd building opting for a sharp, fire red to try and catch attention in such a visually exhausting world. Colour psychology had been taken too far and became the latest victim of 'it's no longer special if you do it every day'. With every single building and business using the same methods to grab attention, it was just as indistinguishable as if they were all a drab grey and white, or even beige and brown. It was just significantly more painful to look at.

“Okay. Pause. C'mere.” He grabbed Jack’s hand and sped up their pace a little, leading him over to an alley. He didn't miss how Jack had flinched at the contact. “What’s going on with you? You’re way jumpier than you usually are. Is everything okay?” He wouldn’t stop surveying the place. “Jack?”

“I just feel like someone’s watching us,” he finally admitted. “It's worse than normal and I can't shake it. It's not the birds, not the T-5's...I already had a bad feeling about this but it's just been going downhill the farther we go.”

“If you had a bad feeling about this, why did you arrange to meet with them? We could've called it off, or waited another day or so.”

“No, it's not Evermore. I didn't start feeling like this until...20 minutes ago?”

"Okay...20 minutes ago, we ditched the rooftop path and stuck to the roads. If anything, I would've thought that being on solid ground would help with how you were feeling. If this isn't about your contact, then...what?"

Jack shifted his weight from foot to foot, wary unfocus settling in his features. “I don’t know, I just...you know when you’re holding a glowstick and you’re about to crack it and you can feel the resistance but you’re not putting enough force into it to actually break it?”

“That is a very specific example, but yes?”

“It…kinda feels like that? Like someone’s about to come up behind you and just…” he mimed the action. “Force you to snap it.”

Mark blinked a few times, not-so-subtly miming the action and trying to understand what he meant by that. "Honestly, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but I think I get where you're coming from. Either way, I'm sure that whatever it is, it's fine. You're not out here alone, remember? You've got me to watch your back. And sometimes your front.”

His attempt to lighten the mood fell flat.

Paranoia was one thing, something they both knew how to deal with, especially out walking with the intention of doing something not quite legal, but this seemed different somehow. “Any chance you know what made you feel like this?”

Jack shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. Mark took his glasses before they had the chance to fall to the ground. “No, but my eyes started hurting awhile ago and it’s been getting worse the further we go,”

“Your eyes hurt?”

“Well, I think it's just my prosthetic, actually.” the fingers of his right hand lingered against the edge of his socket and brow bone. “I think the other one’s just hurting either because of the range of it or because of some…bio…didn’t you say that your brain can’t differentiate between your eyes or something like that?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Mark offered him his glasses back. A note of concern crept up as Jack just stared at them. “If you call it off and go home we can. We don’t have to do this tonight.”

“No, I’m fine. I can do this. I’ll let you know if it gets too bad though.” Finally taking the lenses, he turned his face to the sky and scoured the clouds. From where they stood, the shadows cast by the edges of the buildings on either side of them gave clear definition to the frozen, inverted freefall of light above the rooftops. “How far away are we anyways?”

“Couple more blocks. We're practically there. If you wanna give your eyes a break, we can stick to the alleys and back streets. We might risk some suspicion if there’s anyone on the other side, but this may actually get us there quicker.”

Jack snorted and started down the rough, shadow-swallowed path. “If it’ll get us there faster, why didn’t you say that before?”

“What, are we on a time frame or something?” He had to jog for a few seconds to catch up. “If we are, thenyou probably should've mentioned it sooner.”

“Mark this city is fuckin’ huge. I’d rather not murder my legs for this.”

“You think this is murdering your legs?! Try walking hundred-thousand steps in a single day! That’s murdering your legs!”

“We already knew you were stupid. You didn’t have to go and try to prove it,”

“Oh, well, uh, you know what’s actually stupid?”

“Please, enlighten me. What could be more stupid than the lack of brains in your head?”

“Hurling insults at the person who has a map in his head!” He bolted around the corner and out onto an avenue without warning.

“Fu-cking-!”

Running down any of the smaller streets proved to be a bit of a challenge. Between bins, litter, and any variety of things that got left on the ground, there was more than enough that you could trip on if you weren’t careful. Even concrete jungles have their share of 'natural perils'. Where thorns, twigs, and potentially spiky bushes weren’t, there was scuffed metal. Sharp corners that hadn’t been filed down by hand or nature.Fences and steps and gates all waiting with bloodthirsty serration.

Luck seemed to be on their side at the moment. The streets were primarily empty and a lot of the shops were closed. The neon signs and ever-present electric walls displaying advertisements, news, or other media were more than enough to completely replace the need for street lights nearly everywhere you went. The city never slept, true, but that didn’t mean many took to the outdoors beyond transportation. Or for the obedient entertainment of rebellious youth.

It was one of the easiest ways to find out who was part of the Misfits community.

Always more carefree, seemingly more alive, they were the ones who owned the night. Which meant that aside from a few passing glances from staff, security bots who never left their post, or the odd still-pledged member of the public, they went nearly entirely unnoticed.

With the night came temporary freedom from the suffocating world this place turned into under the sun. Running down the middle of the concrete-asphalt blend, branching apart and darting back together, there was nothing left for them to dodge. They had looped back at some point and found their way to the main road again.

They could see the last streetcar that left the station they passed. Another wouldn’t be coming for a while and they passed the alley they were in earlier long before that.

Mark took the lead again, going up a few more intersections then making a sharp turn. Hehad been right. They really had been nearly there.

Still running high on euphoria, he darted out of view where the stone pavement turned smooth. His voice bounced off the walls less than a second later. Rounding the corner had slowed him but it wasn't enough to stop his trajectory. Hands scraped the ground as he scrambled to get away. Energy cannons blasted at the ground, accompanied by yelps when they landed too close.

“Oh, shitshitshit- Jack, run!”

He did. Jack ran towards where Mark had gone with his rig at the ready. He muttered grace for having knee pads under his pants and slid under the blasts, yelling at their attackers to 'go fuck yourselves' with his voice as his weapon. The sound waves took down the ones closest to him, but they seemed to have taken the entire blast.

There weren’t supposed to be any bots patrolling this area. Never mind T-5.12s. He and Evermore made triple sure of it when scheduling this. If any did sweep the space, the next nearby patrol wasn’t supposed to be due for at least another hour or two.

Several more shots screamed past his head. He managed to dodge them for the most part - the bots weren’t exactly known for their aiming - and threw his hood off as soon as he stood, gathering as big a breath as he could muster.

Mark was nowhere to be seen.

One of the T-5.12s were restraining a scrawny, young…cyborg?

They had to be.

Even through the struggle of brown hair and an oversized, dark green jacket, there was no way their appearance was organic.

He opened his mouth to howl at them.

Something dashed to the ground next to him, taking out two more bots in a small-scale explosion.

That was one of Gary’s new toys.

It had to be.

At least the gang was all here.

Attention turned back to the bots, he drew in as big a breath he could and roared.

“TOP OF THE EARLY MORNING TO YA’, LADDIES!”

The larynx whirred to caffeinated life in an instant. Green light flashed from around the speakers. You could very nearly see the air itself stagger under the pressure of the sound waves.

Four blew backwards, circuitry jumping and crumbling under the force. More swarmed at his sides. The ones that had been here had called for backup.

Two more rockets hit bullseye on either side of him.

His vision, he was quick enough to protect. His ears, he didn’t need to. If not for his own cybernetics, he likely would’ve suffered a lot more damage than just the jolt of alarm from how the explosions shook him.

Gary touched down a short distance in front, standing between the half-blinded fighter and the cybernetic wreck.

He blinked away light-burned unfocus and took in the scene around him.

For the most part, bots were either scorched, dismembered, or just taken out of commission. The ground had been shattered into debris where the first rocket had landed.

The person the bots had been holding was gone, but if the position of everything was any indication, they had taken care of the bots on their own.

One of them was split cleanly in two and its head was smashed in.

Cold panic crept over his face. “Where’s-”

“How the fuck did they know we were here?! Jesus,” Mark stumbled back into view. "Gary! Hey....fancy meeting you here!"

His shoes and the bottom of his pants were scuffed. He leaned against a pole, picking up his feet one by one to examine the soles, wrenching out metal, plastic, or any other debris that had managed to find itself impaled in the rubber. The pole was connected to a sign that spanned the width of the space, displaying a pale yellow backdrop with orange-yellow letters scrolling from left to right. CONNECTED, it read.

Jack’s shoulders dropped, hand to his forehead as he let out a wheezing breath of relief that trailed into a laugh. “Goddammit. You have to stop pulling shit like that.”

“Shit like what? I didn’t do anything.” He flicked the last bit of scrap away and bounced a few times to test the feel.

Gary, on the other hand, was far from nonchalant about the situation. “Are you two serious right now? What was the one thing I told you not to do when you decided to race home? No doubt Mark dragged you into this,” they shot him a glare and edged closer to standing between the two.

That didn’t quite sit right and it showed. Jack took a few steps forward, leaning around the inventor to try and read his friend. “Actually-”

“Yeah, well, what can I say?” Mark rolled his shoulder, pausing to flex his hand and shake it out. “I have such a magnetic personality that I guess even the bots couldn’t resist it!”

“Look, I’m not gonna try and go all mama bear on your ass, but you really gotta be careful. You’re lucky I showed up when I did.You could’ve seriously gotten hurt." They spun around to walk back to the main road. Jack had to scramble to get out of the way.

“But we didn’t,” Mark hurried over to Jack, taking his hand in reassurance as they followed.

Jack squeezed his hand in drawn-out morse code. ‘E-V-E-R-M-O-R-E?’

‘T-A-L-K-L-A-T-E-R’

“Did you at least get what you came for?” Gary cast a courtesy glance over their shoulder. “You came all this way and got ambushed. I would hope that you had something to show for it.”

“Nope. They didn’t even show.” Mark lied as smoothly as if it had been his first language. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a set-up. But it was through Viewtube, so unless someone got hacked at some point…”

They hummed, pausing for a moment. “It wouldn’t be impossible, but I doubt that’s the case. Viewtube’s got round-the-clock security. They had me pen-test at one point and the response times were ridiculously impressive. Less than a second and I already found myself facing off against an actual programmer who didn’t even know it was a test until after.”

Jack shot Mark a worried side glance. The light around his iris spun to life for long enough to make a complete rotation, the panels on his neck finally settling over the rig as it retracted. Luck had really been on their side tonight. They may have just won a battle, but they had just gotten their first real taste of just how deep the war ran.

Chapter Text

May 9, 2:13:54

The moment he set foot inside, Jack threw off his cloak, grabbed Mark's wrist and dragged him to the stairs. “You’re getting your hand dressed whether you like it or not.”

Gary fought back a snicker and followed.

They could see it in his eyes, scrambling to come up with some sort of excuse so he wouldn't have to deal with manoeuvring around the handicap of proper care for the next few days. “I appreciate the concern, but it’s just split knuckles. I’ll be fine.”

“You work with your hands all day, every day. They’re going to take longer to heal anyways, it’s going to bother you, and you’re going to complain.” Jack stepped behind him and steered him by his shoulders as they stepped out onto the middle floor. “Just shut up and deal with it, okay? I don’t care if you don’t think you need it. I don’t care if you claim to heal fast. Worst case scenario, you have a minor injury that is extra protected and clean and is at incredibly minimal risk of affecting your work.” He nudged open the door to his 'dorm' with his foot and pushed Mark inside. He nodded to the oversized beanbag that was too big to be called a chair. “Sit.”

“Okay, but I…” He watched Jack step inside and made a beeline for his bedroom, looking around at the decoration. “Why your room? Why not downstairs or the kitchen? You know, where the medicine cabinet is?”

Gary smirked, leaning against the doorframe with arms crossed loosely just below their chest. “I think he told you to sit down,”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He meandered over to the beanbag and flopped down on it, stretching out with a groan. Joints clicked and cracked against the fabric. “You just gonna stand there and laugh or do you have something you would like to contribute?”

“No, no, I’m just here to watch. The great and mighty Markiplier subdued over a split knuckle isn’t something you see every day,”

Mark was ready to spring out of the beanbag. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll see if I can subdue you before I split another-”

“Both of you shut it.”Jack re-emerged from the darkness, dragging the coffee table over and dropping the med kit on it.

He knelt on the floor, putting his hand out flat with an expectant glare. Mark sighed, dramatically rolling his eyes when he complied. He dropped into Jack’s open palm.

The three of them stayed in silence for a while, watching Jack work. There wasn’t much to do; a bit of shrapnel that needed to be picked out, a couple sprays of disinfectant - Jack's nose scrunched in a momentary smile at the familiar sound of Mark drawing in a sharp breath, an adhesive bandage and a bit of tape to top it off.

“You still have your compression gloves, right?”

Mark grumbled, his nose twitching. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll put ‘em on before I go to bed.”

“I meant just one to keep the tape from catching on the sheets, but I’m going to hold you to that now.” Mark groaned and let his head fall back. “You know you don’t have to push yourself. You don’t have to put yourself in positions where-”

He looked down over his own cheek. “You know I’m more than capable of looking after myself, right? I know when I need to take something for the pain or when something’s wrong-”

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you do. Or that you do it well. You always mess up the small stuff or you just outright refuse to. You push yourself until your body gets so inconvenienced that you don’t have a choice but to sit down and address things properly.” Jack shifted off his heels and leaned back on his hands. “What’s more is when one of us is hurt - hell, when Tim or Sam is hurt, you rush to help. So we know it’s not just that you can’t, you just don’t.” There was a heavier question following it that very intentionally went unspoken.

Mark didn’t seem too keen on addressing it either way. “Okay, okay, I get it.” He turned to Gary. “You’re quiet. You heading to bed?”

“Yes, actually. Chasing after you two is exhausting.” He flipped them off with his unbandaged hand. They laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t stay up too late,”

“We won’t,” Jack waited for the door to close and the footsteps to fade before he even dared to move again. He started packing up the kit, tense and expressionless.

“Something on your mind?”

“Why are you the only one who gets in trouble?” He paused and planted his palms against the surface of the table, spreading his fingers out.

Mark frowned, trying to read his expression in the dim. “What makes you say that?”

“Every single time something happens, they get upset with you. Maybe they’re joking, but the blame is directed at you. Even when they give us a lighthearted reminder to be safe or not to do something, they’re directed at you pretty much each and every time. I remember one time they outright yelled at you, saying that you need to stop dragging me into your mess. Why don't they ever get upset with me? Even when we both know I’m the one at fault for whatever it is, why do you always take the blame?”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Seriously? That's what you're upset about? That you don't get scolded? If you're that jealous, then-”

"Don't fucking joke about this!" This wasn't some bit. Jack was really, genuinely upset.

“Okay, okay. I won't." He thought for a moment, letting himself sink into the bead-filled plush. "You’re just better at getting away with things is all. That, or whatever you consider to be reckless is more in line with what they deem to be ‘safe’."

Jack moved the bag and sat down on the wood. "But even when we do the exact same thing, you're the one they go after."

"If you want the reputation so bad, just say the word and I'll throw you under the bus, but I think you might be overexaggerating this a bit.”

“I really don’t think I am.”

For someone who was usually so dedicated to compassion and joy - to the point that rather than frown lines, he had creases from smiling so much etched into his face, such a deadly serious tone wasn't something you'd expect to find in his file.

“Think about it. When was the last time I actually got any sort of repercussion more than just the verbal equivalent of a slap on the wrist? And even then, that’s only when I’ve gone and fucked off on my own, or when we’re all sittin’, playing games. They never actually get upset with me the way they do with you. They never actually give me a talking to, but you?” Jack shook his head and moved to the arm of the couch. Mark stared up at the ceiling in silence, dark brewing behind his eyes. “Something’s going on here. There has to be. Whatever it is, I’m clearly not meant to know about it. Otherwise, I’d be in the same boat as you with all of this.”

“If this is about earlier with the bots, they’re not blaming me for ratting us out. You know that, right? They’re just worried because they think I was too careless setting this up and almost got you hurt.” He was trying to be gentle. Really, he was.

“But why? Why am I the one getting a free pass? He does realize that I am more than capable of thinking for myself, right? You’re the only one who has a mod that directly affects how you take damage and it’s not even your whole body! It’s just your legs! You are at just as much risk as Gary and I are when we’re out fighting. And it’s not a matter of how many hits we can take because they keep putting themself on the frontlines, even in front of you, and as far as we know, they don’t even have any mods!’

Mark sat up, hands in front of him. “Woah, hey. Calm down, man. You’re getting way too worked up over this.”

“Maybe you’re not getting worked up enough! You couldn’t have known they were going to be there,”

“But I did know. I knew and I was right and you’re still the one who took the blame.” Jack huffed and walked over to the countertop, skimming through the cabinets. "I knew, which meant I could’ve done something about it,”

“Not necessarily,”

He set down a mug a little too harshly. Upset was chipping away at his voice’s stability. “I just…I don’t…how could I have known?”

“Intuition? I guess? I mean we’ve been doing this long enough. Makes sense that at least one of us would develop a sixth sense or something for when shit’s about to go off the rails.” Mark took a breath and paused. You could see the gears turning in his head. “It’s not your fault if that’s what you’re worried about. You didn’t do this on purpose.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

He opened his mouth to respond then shut it again. His eyes glistened and his hands curled into fists. He stared blankly at the wall.

Mark was on his feet now. “Hey, whatever you’re worried about, I’m sure it’s-”

“It’s not nothing, I-…Fuck, I know what I felt, okay?! There is absolutely no way I could’ve known that was going to happen, and more importantly, there was no way they should’ve been able to be there!” He wasn’t going to let this go and there didn’t seem to be a clear path to de-escalate the conversation. “We were careful, Mark. Honestly a bit more sure than usual-”

“I’m the one who usually organizes the meetups, but sure,”

“Yeah, that’s why I-” he took a deep breath and turned around. “They couldn’t have known that we were going to be there. I don’t need to know the layout of the city like you do to know that there shouldn’t have been any bots there. Never mind T-5’s. I mean, someone had to have sent them, right? Deltas are the ones who deal with public affairs, and then they have Betas as actual security, Epsilons are the ones who pretty much manage The System and all the electronics-” He took his glasses off, burying his face in his hands. “-I mean, there is absolutely no reason for any of the bots to have been there, right? Please tell me you would've said something if you knew anything. Please say you’d tell me if we got hacked or if someone sold us out and you knew about it?”

Mark was almost uncharacteristically gentle now. If that was even possible. “Of course I would, but can't you see that you're getting way more worked up than it's worth? That- That came out wrong.I mean that…you’re making a huge assumption here. It’s not exactly uncommon to find T-5’s just wandering the streets. Especially at night. There’s no real pattern to where they are or when they show up, they’re just kinda there. And you have to be ready for them.”

"Bullshit." He scoffed, braced against the countertop with both hands, head resting against the few cabinets sticking out from the wall. His voice was painfully bitter. “Why does it sound like you’re telling me to just suck it up and accept that things are more dangerous than we thought?”

“I didn’t know that you didn’t know. Really, I didn’t. I thought we all knew about it, to be honest. I thought you had already taken it into consideration when you planned this whole thing.”

“Well clearly, I didn’t, and you didn’t think to speak up about any of it other than just telling me to run.” Jack seemed hurt more than anything. More than scared or worried. “If they’re so common then why haven’t we run into them before? We have been far more reckless before and we have gotten away with far bigger things. Why is this only a thing now?”

Mark folded his arms and held his elbows. “Maybe we’re about to hit a stroke of luck so intense that the world had to balance things out, or...or something.” He didn’t seem to believe his own words. “Look, I’m not trying to invalidate what just happened. That’s not what I’m trying to do in the slightest. I’m just-”

“You’re just what? Just trying to protect me? Just brushing me aside because I’m the reckless one, right?" There was no doubt Jack's voice could be heard through the walls. "Never mind you being the one that always gets into trouble, I’m the liability here. Sound is the one thing you can’t really be sneaky with, and of course, that’s the one thing I just had to pick as my weapon of choice.”

“I just want to make sure you’re not beating yourself up about this,” Mark nearly whispered the words, pain scraping against his voice. “Yeah, you’re reckless, but so am I. And for the record, I don’t think that you’re a liability. You’re smart, you know what you’re doing, and I thought-”

“Look, I don’t- I don’t want to hear your excuses, okay?”

“Jack-”

“I think you should go.”

The words left a sting in the air that must’ve hurt far worse than antibacterial in an open wound. “Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“Just go. Please.”

He didn’t seem to have the heart to fight back.

"Okay."Mark was gone.

Jack was let in static silence. The plan had been that they’d stay up tonight. Get the new consoles sorted and probably play a few competitive rounds of whatever they decided on when the tech inevitably had to take its sweet time to get things pulled together. Maybe even watch a movie or two.

They weren’t even meant to be in his room. He had been talking with Mark about it for hours yesterday, planning this all out. They were supposed to get set up in one of their group hangout rooms. And now he was just left with unscripted hours to himself and the burning suspicions that had only been steadily fed over the course of the conversation.

To his right from the same short hall he had fetched the kit from, metal clicked against linoleum. A green, robotic eye crawled out from the shadows of the hallway on gyroscope-like wheels.

Sam.

They chittered sadly, lens flicking between Jack and the door.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he finally broke the silence with a laugh, fingers digging into his sides. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fuckin’ scared right now,” He knelt to pick up the little robot. Bowing his head, he hugged them tight and wobbled as he stood. “We still have the raid to get through…Well, there’s not much point in thinking about it now. What do you say we go to bed and try to get some rest?”

Sam chirped in what seemed to be agreement.

A soft impact from the darkened room ahead was proof enough that his cat had found its way to its reserved spot on the bed.

He set Sam down on their charging dock, running through his bedtime routine on painfully noticeable autopilot and changing into his go-to shirt for nights like these. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he fiddled with the fabric loops around his thumbs and stared up at the wall in the dark. He hadn’t bothered to turn on any of the lights. He navigated the space with learned expertise that seemed to have left him in a state of momentary lockdown within his own body.

It took a moment for him to come back to the here and now - a shift indicated by tired blinking and rubbing his eyes. He lifted the covers almost hesitantly and wrapped them around himself, sitting back against the pillows. The cat abandoned its spot and crawled over to his lap, stretching up to rest his head just beneath his owner’s ribs.

“Hey, BB. You doing alright?” Loud purring shuddered through his stomach in lieu of an answer.

Several minutes passed before he decided to actually try and rest for the night. Curling up on his side, one of his hands never left the marbled, brown fur.

In the darkness, a little yellow light blinked into existence off the side of Sam’s main lens.

It went unnoticed.

Jack was already asleep.

Chapter Text

May 11, 23:57:20

Mark's head thumped softly against the building behind him through his black hood. “You couldn’t have waited a few more days until we got this sorted, could you?”

“Did you say something?”

“Talking to myself. Nothing important,” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, silently cursing to himself.

It had been less than 72 hours since the deal got ambushed. Less than two entire days and Gary decided to just…move everything ahead of schedule. Sure, as far as he knew, they didn’t know exactly why he and Jack weren’t on the best terms right now, but it was obvious that they weren’t. Communication is key in worlds like this. Especially when you’re all about to go risking your lives for the sake of…

Something…bad?

Here they were in the earliest hours of dusk before the next primary shift of employees is supposedly due to arrive for work, and Gary still hasn’t said what it is they were actually trying to do here.

Grab whatever you think is useful. Save any important-looking documents.

“Like we’d actually have the time to sift through and find any of that,”

He crouched down and crawled forward as far as he could until he sat on the edge of the shadows. If he stuck out his arm in front of him, his fingers would be encased in the floodlight before it was fully extended.

The building that stood before him looked as though it was all that was left standing of an entire campus. It wasn’t small by any means - it could likely contain an entire high school and then some - but it looked…incomplete.

The seams of the walls were too abrupt. The first level or so seemed to be coherent enough - the not really underground entrance he was looking at now, a slight front patio covering at the front of the building, and a consistent not really white all the way around. From there up though, things got a bit patchy. Parts of the building were either left unpainted or just looked to be built of an entirely different material. Like it used to connect to something else and it’s been entirely closed off.

The ground floor was very clearly a maze of reception spaces and lobbies and offices that dealt with quick fixes, but aside from the occasional gaping hallway room on the other floors, there was no telling what exactly they were used for. Judging by how much this place looked like the chipped-away remnants of a hospital, none of them were exactly keen on finding out either.

From what Gary had pointed out in the blueprints, the first floor was essentially one big grid filled with various shapes and blocks of all different sizes. Ultimately, it was a loop; no matter how many items inside you went around, you could always walk forward and find yourself back where you started. Below that was the 'basement', but it was really just the garage entrance, as far as any of them could tell.

Both the second and the fourth were fairly straightforward with a stairwell at either end of a long, winding and occasionally branching hallway. The third floor, however, you had to know the layout by heart. It truly looked like something that was designed to trap and trick a panicking player in a horror game. Some of the hallways and crossed paths had a much more open space than others, and admittedly there were a lot of rather large rooms, but even still. If something happened to you on that floor, your best bet was to find a window and figure out where to go from there.

That was where Mark was supposed to go. And where Jack had insisted on going instead. His logic was that it was less time they would all spend waiting and travelling between the floors. Which, yes, he had a point, but Gary’s initial plan had taken into account the fact that Jack was very...not good at dealing with heights. Better than he used to be, sure, but if he thinks about it too much, he gets panicky just knowing that all of their rooms in the safe house are not on the ground. They had specifically been planning this around the courtesy of giving him the lowest floor to examine that they could and he just…flipped the script.

Nearly an hour before this, Mark pulled Gary aside and asked if they were sure this plan couldn’t wait. He didn’t want this to be any more of a risk than it already was, just because Jack was upset with him. They seemed deadset that it was happening now and absolutely refused to explain why.

Tim had been sweet enough to try and cheer him up as he was gearing up to go, running about humming, carrying a rubber duck with a pink moustache on it, but even the little robot knew the attempt was in vain.

Raids like these were risky and dangerous, and every time they all had to mentally, emotionally, and physically prepare themselves for the possibility of the worst coming to fruition.

And that was usually when they were teaming up with other Misfits. The biggest job they’ve done as just the three of them was preventing a bomb threat. Tracking down the people behind it and dealing with them all accordingly. It was a quiet job with a time crunch.

Small groups work for things like that.

Not for clearing out an entire building’s worth of important information while also running the timer to see how close you could come to ding dong ditching death itself.

Before him stood a security setup that was arguably easy for him to take down. Two T-5.12s were stationed outside the entrance, possibly two more inside as backup, and then there was the containment…thing he had managed to sneak a peek of a few days ago.

“I swear I’ve seen it somewhere before,” Mark muttered to himself, taking a moment to breathe and lean into the coolness that seemed to hover around the bushes like an aura.

Past where he was, aside from the ‘natural decor’ in a moat-like strip around what could be considered the parking lot, there really wasn’t anything to hide behind. Even then, while there were some smaller trees and dense, dappled shadows lining either side of the path up to the ‘basement’, he’d have to be completely exposed under the light to get to it.

Little by little, his shoulders had been creeping up. He took one more deep breath and dropped them.

“You two ready?”

“Door’s open,” Jack's voice buzzed through the intercom. “We’re waiting on you.”

“Geez, okay, okay. Just…let’s just get this over with,”

“We hear you loud in clear. Going dark in three…two…”

The radio cut completely. Faint blue light wove its way through the dark fibres of his glove.

The timer had started.

It was now or never.

He launched himself from where he sat just behind the curb. Legs pumping as fast as they could carry him, he couldn’t outrun the T-5s. He knew that. They are very nearly sentient, weapons-grade technology that is peppered way too densely around the city. They can withstand being on the frontlines of war. They don’t go down easily.

Except for when they do.

Dodging the fire from their energy cannons was a different matter altogether. While he couldn’t outrun those either, he could certainly avoid them well enough that he wouldn’t need to change his trajectory.

They fired. He sidestepped.

A footstool-sized rock was enough to act as a springboard. His full body weight behind the attack, he drove his heels straight through the bubbled helmet they all wore and absolutely crushed the head inside. He kicked away from the wall and winced at the impact when he landed.

The dirt was rockier than he had thought. The shallow blanket of grass made it look more forgiving than it was.

Sparking metal remnants were wrenched from the ground and held tight as a shield against the side of his body. Eyes squinted shut and chin to chest.

The other T-5 fired again, indifferent to the fact that it had just fired at and hit one of its own. Programmed to override any self- and team-preservation skills, if there were any to begin with.

It didn’t sit right with him. How they could just…do that. He couldn’t count how many times he had voiced his upset with that.

Marching feet echoed from the small underground. He hoisted the corpse up and flung it around the corner, praying it knocked down some of the bots easier than a bowling ball tipping over pins.

One of the bots from inside fired. The blast hit him square in the ribs and knocked him from his path. He curled on the ground, knees twitching to his chest and arms left half between bracing himself against the ground and bracing his head.

It was smarter to dismiss as much of the pain as possible when in a life-or-death scenario up against beings that weren’t considered to be alive, even by his standards, but that was easier said than done. A direct blow from one of those cannons was painful enough. Leaving yourself exposed or vulnerable while scrambling back to your feet was possibly one of the dumbest things you could do. At least this way, there would be something between the mouth of the gun and his head.

Most of the T-5.12s he had seen up until now had weapons for both of their arms. Incredibly unhelpful in nearly every situation, but these were considered to be the ‘ultra weaponized’ models.And if that was the case, then whose hand was wrapped around the back of his neck and lifting him into the air?

The cloak’s hood fell from his head as he struggled, the imminent threat of vulnerability far from forgotten. His eyes were wild, legs coiled, just waiting for any of the other bots to come within range.

Some of these ones did have hands. That was likely who was behind him.

Whatever model or entity was carrying him began to bring him inside. It wasn’t squeezing his neck. It wasn’t dragging him across the ground. It was carrying him inside to-

That.

He seemed confused at his own actions, full-on thrashing against the grasp now. He landed a kick against the core of one of the bots as his captor marched him past, hooking the helmet of two more and slamming them half together, half into the ground. The momentum from the kick pitched the grip enough that he slipped forward. Clawing at the ground, scrambled away and flipped onto his back. Eyes wide, chest heaving, he watched what had been standing behind him.

“What the fuck?!” Sheer terror stole the core of his voice. “Where the hell did you come from?!”

It wasn’t one of the T-5.12s.

It didn’t look like a Tmodel at all. It was taller. Leaner. Deep-set yellow eyes and a cobalt navy frame laced with translucent teal of models not released to the public. It looked both more human and more monstrous at the same time.

More importantly, it didn’t look to be something that was going to go down without one hell of a fight.

The way it moved was frighteningly inhuman. One arm lolling at its side, so loose it may as well have been beads on an elastic string, the other limply outstretched towards him. Limp except for its hand. It was rigid and hyperextended. Its fingers looked more like thick needles threaded through coils. Stumbling over its own feet, it was evidently further away than he had thought and ambling much, much faster than something that size should've been able to.

A terrifying realization to make as it’s rapidly escalating towards you.

Scuttling back, he flinched when he hit the wall. Even if he managed to get his bearings and find his feet, there was almost no chance he’d be able to get away from this thing. Getting inside he was sure was out of the question.

The power for the entire place droned and wavered, nearly plunging all the way down into darkness.

Mark sat, shaking terribly. He was curled into a ball, biceps on either side of his knees and hands ready to strike. If he pressed his feet against the ground any harder, they'd either slip from under him or he was going to crack the wall and his spine in one go.

If he was going down, he wasn’t going down without fighting for his life.

Eyelids flew shut before he had time to react. There was no way of telling whether or not this was something the new threat before him had caused.

He held his breath and waited for it to strike.

He waited.

And waited and waited for what very clearly felt like far longer than it actually was before he opened his eyes again.

The lights were still out, but it seemed to be limited to the garage. Ambient lighting from outside poured in enough that he could make out the scene. Every single robot in the ‘garage’ had been powered down. The blue-black monster before him stood like a ragdoll on a stick, the injured T-5.12s broken and dull on the ground, intact ones frozen but slumped over.

Now, he found his feet.

He very nearly faceplanted as he bolted for the door. Gripping the silver handle, he glanced back at the cybernetic mess. Ideally, he should be stomping them into pebbles -pieces so small and fragmented that absolutely everything would need to be replaced.

But he didn’t.

His gaze was fixated on the blue beast, head tilting to match the angle of the head. It looked sort of sad.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t made for that bubble containment thing that sat here with them all. Made from it, possibly, but not for it.

Shaky breaths rattled through his lungs and he squeezed the handle, resting his forehead against the chilled metal before throwing it open and ducking inside. The sooner he left this time-frozen landscape, the better.

A white-shelled security camera was mounted near the door connecting the space to the rest of the building. A little light in the upper right corner switched from yellow to blue.

Inside, he was immediately greeted by painful fluorescents. He threw a hand up to shield his eyes and turned his head to the ground. Gary had advised taking his cloak off now to avoid suspicion, given that it was black as opposed to Jack’s white one which could pass as excessive lab gear while turned inside out to hide the Cloak logo, but he pulled the hood back up. Further than usual so the shadows would fall well past his eyes.

“Now to find the stairs…” One of his hands trailed against the wall, the fabric of his gloves quietly rasping against the textured white. “Finally!” He checked his watch. “Shit, I thought I had more time left.”

Shedding his gloves as he moved, he took the stairs two at a time, only pausing to tuck his cloak into his backpack. He wouldn’t have time to fill it up anyways.

He stopped in front of the door leading out of the stairwell to the second floor and looked up the next flight.

“…should I…?” he quickly shook his head as if to free himself from the thought. “He’ll be fine. He said he wanted the third floor, he can handle the third floor.” He wrenched the heavy door open and stepped silently onto the speckled tile of the hallway. It inched shut behind him and he stared down his path.

He had already lost more time to this endeavour than he had intended.

There weren’t many people here, not nearly as many as he had heard or glimpsed on the floor below, but there were still too many. Not only that, but most of the rooms he could see had glass walls. Judging by all of the electrical equipment in sight, the safety gear hanging on the walls and tossed over chairs and desks, this was the floor where they designed and put together cybernetics.

Which meant he was a kid in a candy shop.

He flexed his hands a few times, taking increasingly less careful steps as he took it all in. He was here on a mission...but the whole setup read rather like a mother going to the store and needing to bring her kids with her for one specific thing. One of the two specific things have been accomplished - he took down the robots in the garage - and now the only thing left to do was find and pull the fire alarm whenever he was ready after the timer ran out in…

Five minutes now.

They hadn’t said anything about what he could take or do in the meantime.

“Can I help you?” He flinched and spun around.

One of the lab workers sat at their desk, speaking to him through the glass. Honey blond swept the sides of their head and puffed up on top. Circular glasses perched on their nose, framed in pale gold. The white lab coat draped over their shoulders was a size too big and the sleeves had been presumably cut and rolled to their biceps. It was likely more of a workplace guideline to wear them rather than a genuine safety measure.

They looked like they recognized him.

All his years doing this, he didn't need to think about trying to keep up a calm facade. “I was told to uh…” He looked back down the hall for any excuse he might be able to use. “I’m not entirely sure. I was told to run up here and grab some files for…uh…”

It was obvious they were trying to be subtle as they sent a text. “Program Fallen, right?” They set their phone down and pushed away from their desk, rolling over to the file cabinets. Their fingers dipped in the air as they ran over which drawer contained what. “We keep telling them that reviving this is a terrible idea, but the Corporation wants what it wants, I guess…“

He crept inside when their back was turned. Hands behind his back, he surveyed the room, leaning over the desk and peeking at what they had been working on. Scrap electronics had been wired and fused together in telltale absentmindedness. At the top of the open notebook were the words ‘Perfect Storm’. Most of the words had been scribbled rather crudely. The part of it that waslegible was a series of formulas and equations. Indentations from the back of the page jumbled the already sloppy symbols and numbers.

“Here we are,” They yanked one of the drawers towards the top left open and rifled through what was inside. “If you’re after Fallen, you’ll probably want to look into Synthesis too.” Producing a thick paper folder, they began to leaf through that as well, pulling out nearly a third of the documents. They held them out to him without looking, wiggling the folder back into its place in the drawer. “They had us burn most of the documents on Fallen, but apparently Synthesis was too valuable. It was just a prototype and most of the papers we had saved were trial and error. They seemed more interested in the incorrect answers than the ones that actually worked anyway, which…I do not get.” Turning around with a slight frown, their eyes flicked over him like a scan. “They’re perfectly safe to touch with your bare hands if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t have invisible gloves on or anything,”

All of his movementswere a little too janky to come across as calm. If they noticed, they didn’t comment on it. “No, I just…” he chuckled and took his gloves off, tapping the papers against his open palm. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be this easy. I thought I’d probably have to ask around for at least a few minutes before I found whoever had them, y’know? I mean, it’s not like it’s really public information or anything, and the organization here seems to be a bit...chaotic. Even I’ve never heard about those until today,”

They clicked their tongue, baring a strange sort of expression. Brows pulled together and lifted, half of their mouth in a smirk, and the tail of the corresponding eyebrow lifted as well. It could’ve been any number of things. He didn’t have the time to figure out what those things were.

“Yeah, I can’t say I’m surprised. Given what happened with the rebellion, I am far from surprised that they’d want to keep this on the down low.”

Someone drummed their nails on the glass behind him. His arms and neck twitched at the sound. “Hey…Synthesis, right?”

If she hadn’t been holding onto the doorframe when she leaned sideways, she would’ve fallen. The front edges of her near shoulder-length orange-red bob cut fell across her face, casting a haze over her grin. She paused there, half tipped over, and looked between them. The other lab worker shook their head and she shrugged, standing upright and handing over the very thin paper folder in her free hand.

“Sorry there’s not more. This is just the project overview. A couple of weeks ago, they demanded we compile everything onto a flash drive and hand it over. Couldn’t exactly say no, but, ah…” she twirled her hand, eyes wandering about the ceiling for a moment. “Let’s just say knowing our bosses, there were some things they didn’t need to know about this project.”

Mark frowned as he stared at the paper stack in his hand. He slipped his backpack off and tucked them inside. “Thanks, but why are you giving me these? I mean, if you didn’t want your bosses to know, then…”

“Because you’re a Misfit. Duh,” The redhead giggled and hopped over to the other lab worker’s chair, sitting down and spinning around. She laughed again when she turned all the way back around and saw his face. “What? Did you think we wouldn’t know?”

The lab worker who was here before, the one with glasses, adjusted their frames and smiled, leaning back against the filing cabinets. “Well, to be more precise, we were warned that this building the set for demolition sometime this week, but we didn’t know exactly when.”

“Oh, yeah, that would make it pretty obvious, wouldn’t it?” They studied him for a moment then exchanged a look. He dipped his head and slung the bag back over his shoulder. “Okay, uh…thank you, I-…Really. Thank you. I really appreciate the help, but I should probably go…I, uh…” he tapped his watch. “I’m kind of on a time limit, here, so…”

“Can I pull the fire alarm?” the redhead blurted out and the one with glasses laughed.

“We get to say good riddance to this whole program and OS once and for all.I say go for it.”

She turned back to him, eyes lit up like fireworks. “Can I??”

Nervous amusement tumbled from his mouth and he stepped to the side, gesturing to the door. “I don’t see why not. Doesn’t really matter who pulls it, so long as it gets pulled.”

“YES!!”

The one with glasses strolled over to him, watching her run off with a fond smile. “I think it’s safe to say you ran into the right people here.” They swept their notebook and fidget into a bag sitting on the floor under the desk and wrapped the straps around their hand. “Oh, one more thi-” They both flinched at the blaring screeches that clawed through the walls.

They quickly pulled him to the one corner of the room that was shrouded in concrete rather than glass, gripping his shirt and watching with a stone expression as nearly 20 people walked by. For a moment, their eyes flicked to where their hand rested on him. It was right over his heart.

Somewhere in the alarm written across his face, the gears were starting to turn.

Finally, they let go. They slung the bag across their body and gripped the strap. “The thing about Synthesis,” they had to almost yell over the alarm. “Is that no matter what, you cannot let anyone get their hands on that information, do you understand? I don’t care what you do with it, I don’t care if you don’t read it or you further the study yourself, but you absolutely cannot let Cloak get their hands on it. I don’t care what Mother says; you guard this with your life, Mark. Do you understand me?”

“Wh- Yeah, but-”

“Good.” One more smile - a sad one - pulled at their mouth. “I’m glad I got to see you.” They didn’t waste any time speeding out of the room.

He blinked, still frozen in place for a moment. “You're glad you- What the hell are you talking about? And- wait, how do know my name?”

They were gone.

They were gone, the floor was clear, and he didn’t have time to look around for anything. He was just told to not let Cloak get their hands on the information he was handed.

Cloak.

The company that all of the Misfits operated through and the one place that was a guaranteed safe haven for pretty much anyone trying to survive in this dystopia.

His hands shook with his pulse and he curled them into fists. He could try to piece this together later. Right now, the only thing he should be thinking about was how to get out of here without drawing attention.

A blood-chilling scream sent his eyes wide and sheer, blind horror bleeding from every tendon capable of expressing emotion.

He knew that scream.

Chapter Text

May 11, 23:59:38

As soon as the comms cut, Gary grabbed Jack by the wrist and pulled him through the door.

“We don’t have time for you to get freaked out,”

His gaze had wandered up the building while they were making sure they were all in position and the gravity of the situation was beginning to sink in.

Inside was something seemingly built of raw dread. The entire building looked more like some type of clinic - plain white walls, deep teal accents, and grey-speckled tiles. Disinfectant and inorganic burning were the only two distinct smells in the air. The lights seemed designed to burn your retinas before you saw anything you weren’t supposed to. The cameras were currently being looped if they had done things correctly. Dodging people and potential attention should be the most difficult part of this floor. According to Gary’s report, the floors they were going to should be mostly or entirely vacated at the moment for ‘various reasons’.

Going through the plan the first time, it seemed that each floor was reserved for an entirely different purpose. Initially, the plan was that they could mismatch this to everyone’s speciality to ensure they really made the most out of this trip, but that idea went out the window with Jack's request.

The floor they were on was more or less the lobby. It had a big front desk, a sort of waiting area just inside the door, and the rest of the floor extended to exam rooms, storage, and a network of hallways that wasn’t easy to get lost in, but the repetition of decoration was a bit disorienting.

For safety reasons, they had all done their best to memorize the third floor. It had a layout like if an office job nightmare had been designed by hospital construction workers. Or a horror game maze. Repetition was the keyword for this entire building, but especially for that floor.

Jack sucked in a quick, quiet breath, earning a suspicious glance from Gary. “Do you want to wait outside?”

“Would it kill you to not be so harsh?” He sighed and shook his head. “No. No, I’m fine. I just…” he let go of their hand and sped ahead of them, ducking around the corner. After a moment, Gary stepped into his sights again. He leaned back against the open door of the stairwell, his hands hooked in his pockets. “Let’s just get this over with?”

They raised their eyebrows, a small smile tugging at their mouth. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were making progress-.”

“And I’d say that I just want to get this over with.” A beat of silence passed. “Go!”

“Okay, okay! I’m going! Geez...”

They walked past him and sped up the stairs as fast as they could. Jack took one last look around before following. The door had been propped open when he got there. Closing it would likely only cause suspicion. If anyone even noticed at all.

Footsteps echoed far too loudly as they climbed. It would’ve been easy to simulate the sound of an entire army in here. Jack hugged the inner railing, eyes flicking from feet to wall to window to flight. He had to keep loosening his grip so his hand wouldn’t get caught on the metal and yank him back down. The first flight over, he took a deep breath and took a near-running approach to the rest. Stomping impacts roared against the blank, white walls and sent hums through the metal.

Gary had stopped at the platform connecting to the third floor, one foot on the second to last flight leading to their personal destination. They raised their eyebrows as Jack stumbled into view, stiffly walked over to the door, pulled it open, and rested against the doorframe for a moment. His foot propped it open, his head tilted back.

“…you good?”

“Yeah. Yeah, fine,” he waved his hand, shooing them up the next flight. “Go. The more time you spent interrogating me, the less time we have to do this.”

They gave him a curt nod and dashed up the last two flights, nearly tripping a couple of times before they stumbled out onto the final platform.Unlike the other floors, there weren’t any doors separating this part of the building from the stairwell. Dirty yellow walls stretched out and faded to warm sunset orange. Navy-grey carpet filled the ‘room’ immediately beyond the doorway, shifting to white-speckled tiles as it branched off down the wide hall. Support beams and pillars dotted the place rather like an airport terminal.

Everything about this floor felt abandoned. Something you would find in a zombie apocalypse movie. Synthetic plants dotted the space. There were some real ones, but you could only tell the difference because the real ones were so dead they looked like a terrible rendition. Like a single puff of air would reduce them to nothing but fine silt.

Rounding a few corners and following the vaguely arrow-shaped signs with embossed numbers, it wasn't long before they found themself at a network of offices. They produced their phone from a pocket hidden against their chest and checked a message they had gotten from Cloak. Underneath the address and all the overarching details was a note.

This is for your eyes only and is not to be passed on to your team.

Top floor, room D-129. You’ll know what you’re looking for when you see it. It’s sitting in plain sight. When you’re done, do try to make sure the building is clear. We can’t afford collateral casualties like last time.

Complete by May 20th at the latest.

“I’ll know it when I see it, huh?” They looked up at the room number in front of them and groaned. “Because if you had been any more vague, it’d be completely incomprehensible…Right. Let’s get this over with, then.” They pushed their shoulders back with a huff and nearly stormed off, only bothering to scan the wall-mounted numbers as they passed.

“126…127…128…129, 1- wait.” they had nearly sped past the room altogether. They backtracked and stared at the numbers like they were waiting for them to change. “No way this is it.”

The door, like many others they had passed, was left open but locked. They had caught glimpses as they walked but hadn't really taken the time to notice the state of things. If not for the state of the rest of the floor, they would've thought there had been a drill or something that made everyone leave. Each of the rooms had so much evidence of life that they themselves seemed to have a timer. How long they'd be empty before their occupants came back.

Emerald green walls complimented ashen charcoal carpet and the large, spruce desk planted in the centre of the room. It sat facing the wall bearing the door and was misaligned with the large windows both behind and in front of it. Papers and files littered the place, stacked up and strewn about on file cabinets, drawers, and shelves behind it. Two synthetic plants seemed to be the only decoration, one standing tall in one of the corners and one not much taller than a bonsai set rather carelessly atop a small stack of books.

"D for Deserted, it seems,"

They checked the digital timer on their wrist. There was no telling exactly how long they’d have to look around. The arrangement was that once he had taken at least five minutes to look around, he’d pull the fire alarm and that was everyone’s cue to drop everything and run.

With a sigh, they set their backpack down on the desk and unzipped it, reaching inside to re-sort the contents. Their fingers closed around cold metal and plastic.

Subtle distress washed over their face. “Of course they set me with the task of not dragging anyone else into this.”

A small remote with a clear flip cover over a single button rested in their palm, hooked to a keychain. Her fingers slowly closed around it and clenched into a fist, gaze flittering around the room, as restless as faer mind.

Taking a deep breath, they forced their shoulders down and shook their head. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this.” They grumbled and hooked the keychain on one of the zippers. “Would be great if they actually told me what it was. Guess I’ll just have to look until the alarm goes off,”

They started with the desk, pouring through the open drawers, not bothering with any they found to be locked. If it was important, it would be left open like the door, right?

They found nothing of significance.

Miscellaneous papers, some thumb drives - all unmarked, pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks, but nothing that stood out in the 'subtle' way the note had indicated. Most of the metal filing cabinets were locked.Some of them even taped shut for good measure. The files, folders, and loose-leaf papers resting in disarray were of no use either. Status reports, project reports, requests, drafts, personal letters, sketches, scrapped blueprints.

Nothing useful.

Some of the metal cabinets had gotten an extra rough shake to ensure they were well and truly immediately inaccessible, and they still turned up empty-handed.

“I’m wasting my time here,”

Paper sorted into piles, folders tidied up, plants and minimal decor relocated. They had given the place as much of a makeover as they could in the eight minutes they had spent looking around and nothing, absolutely nothing stuck out in the mess. The only thing that could possibly be of interest was a paperweight sitting on the corner of the desk closest to the door.

It wasn’t a very large paperweight either.Smaller than a baseball and in the shape of half a spheroid. A skull with an open mouth sat in the centre, a pair of sunflowers blooming from it. A ring of clovers sat around it in the grass that all seemed to be bowing to the bone crown. A neon blue butterfly sat on the top flower, leaning over the edge like it was trying to peer at what was below it. Entirely encased in clear resin, all of the colours were far too saturated for the aesthetic of this room.

For the aesthetic of the entire floor.

Almost a courtesy glance was cast at the small stack of folders it sat atop. They seemed to be program overviews of…something, but the top one had speckled black in too straight of a line for it to be dirt and too wide to be accidental scratches of pen or pencil. It was in the middle of the indent left by the paperweight.

They turned it over.

Written on the bottom in thick, black marker was a series of somewhat faded numbers.

25625.

Nothing around it seemed to indicate what it was for or if it paired with anything.

They set the resin art down and leafed through the beige-yellow folders, occasionally taking a courtesy glance inside.

“Tiger OS, Electrified, Nature, Necro…” they paused and looked back to the file labelled ‘Necro’. “Why does that sound familiar? …Probably a failed experiment they had to shut down.”

Sheer disbelief seized them when their eyes fell on the label of the next file. It was the only one that seemed to have multiple tabs sticking out of it.

“What the hell is this doing here?”

She muttered and picked it up with a bit too much force, nearly knocking some of the other papers off the desk.

“No, no, no this…this was supposed to be purged. This was purged. Why is there…”

Fallen, Nature, and Tactical were all there. Each only had barebones overviews of each of the programs, what was a success, what failed, and what the intentions behind each of the programs were.

A light blue Post-it was stuck to the top of the document for Synthesis.

Keep the Wonderl@nd cluster separated until further instructions are given. Wave 2 of Fallen was interrupted by Synthesis. The location of the prototype is still unknown. Upon repossession of the prototype, address the Wonderl@nd cluster on a case-by-case basis.

All information on the prototype is contained to VAULT. Information on the subject is not to be accessed until further notice.

Password 31320

“This has to be something, right?”

Gary tore the Post-it from the file, letting it fall forgotten back to the tabletop. They dove into the chair behind the desk and leaned back, surveying the two locked drawers. One stretched out across the width of the space carved out for legs and one was the lowest drawer on the left.

Momentary frustration lapped at their posture.

“Fuck, I’m going to have to lockpick this, aren’t I?”They paused and looked back to their backpack. “… Fuck! Alright. Here goes nothing, I guess.”

They fished around the smaller front pocket for Jack’s lockpick kit they had used to get in the side door.

“Thank god we didn’t end up trying to fool the security system and use the front door,” they muttered and hunched over, sifting through the tools. “Which ones did he say…?” They checked their watch again before attempting to unlock the under-desk drawer. “He’s sure taking his sweet time with this,”

Wiggling one of the tools around didn't seem to do anything but the drawer easily slid open when they went to remove it.

“You've got to be kidding me."

They snatched the black USB drive with a red trim from its place tucked beneath some crumpled papers and a small cardboard box of staples. A misaligned piece of masking tape had the world VAULT scrawled across it. They tucked it into their pocket alongside their phone and looked down at the other drawer.

“I…ooh, I probably don’t have time to sort that one out, do I? Dammit.” A small frown fell over their face. “I can’t be here to just pick up a thumb drive, can I? They said it would be in plain sight and I’d know it when I saw it. There's no way this is what I came for.”

Their gaze settled on the paperweight again.

“It can't be that fuckin’ obvious, can it?”

They took another sweep of the room and made a sort of strangled, tearful noise.

Paperweight it was.

“Again, boss, whoever the fuck you are. Would be fantastic if you were, I dunno, just a little bit more specific. It’s really not that fucking hard,” they stormed out of the office, turning to wander the halls while they waited. “Honestly, I can’t help but feel that it takes more effort to figure out how to make something vague and account for the fact that the person you’re talking to might not know what you’re talking about.”

When the fire alarm sounded, they jumped and spun around, knocking their shoulder into the corner of one of the doorframes with a yelp. They lifted their head to holler at the chirping alarm when realization dawned on them.

“Great, now I gotta try and find my way out of this symmetrical mess,”

They ended up taking the long way around, passing by a staircase at the other end of the building. While in planning they had mentioned that there was a possibility that one of the staircases might not lead to all of the floors, so to leave the same way you came in.

A raw, human scream rattled through the air.

Sound didn’t travel between floors easily.

Their breath hitched and paused. They checked their backpack to make sure the keychain and the button were still there.

They were.

“…Fuck it. I have time.”

Retracing back through the self-complicated maze, they nearly flew down the stairs. If the sound was that clear and hadn’t come up the stairwell, it had to have come from the floor below.

It had to have come from Jack’s floor.

They threw open the door and barely managed to dodge the person barrelling down the hall. One of the lab employees with brown-platinum hair brushed past them, nearly taking them both down. Whoever they were, they practically sprinted into the stairwell. It was a miracle that an appearance at that speed wasn’t immediately followed by a yelp and a sound of impact. The sound of T-5.12s firing broke through the screeching siren, their eyes widened in sheer panic.

“No, no, you idiot! What did you do?!”

Their rockets in these close quarters would pose a much bigger threat to both them and the building than the T-5.12s would, but they did have a prototype of a chemical gun they were in the process of testing. Their team wasn’t one for stealth missions and the collateral damage was typically contained to things that could be repaired by morning. They had been working on this for Jack since sound-based attacks weren’t the most ideal for close-quarters, but they hadn’t gotten it done in time and it hadn’t been properly tested.

If they were going to see how well it worked, there was no better time than field testing.

For as much of a maze as this floor was, it really didn’t take long for them to find where the group of bots were. Or to notice the swish of a white cloak around the corner at the opposite end of this stretch of hallway. There were scorch marks on the wall and one of the vending machines had been tipped over onto the arm of one of the bots. It couldn’t seem to get up. Its arm had to still be attached somehow.

“HEY!!”

Collectively, the bots turned to look at them. One of them raised one of its cannons, lights flickering on its programming. When the lights steadied, it lowered its weapon and they all turned back to where they were facing.

“Shit…why hasn’t he done anything to them yet? Close quarters or no, he should’ve…” they started to freeze up, the gears turning in their head as they weighed their options.

Almost hesitantly, they slipped one of the backpack straps off,grabbed the gun from the bottom of the bag and fired.

Headshot.

The bot immediately crumpled to the ground and two more turned to face them with weapons ready.

“THEY’RE MORE INTERESTED IN YOU THAN THEY ARE IN ME,” Gary projected their voice as loud as they could. “I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. JUST GO! RUN!”

They fired two more shots at ones that still had their back turns, listening as closely as they could for the pounding of human footsteps between the heavy metal marches and wailing screams of the electronics around them.

A wry smile twisted their lips, aiming the gun to fire directly down the cannon of one of the bots already charging them.

“I am so screwed if they find out about this,”

Chapter Text

Nearly the moment Gary was out of sight, dread completely washed over him. His body sunk a little against the wall and a distressed noise caught in his throat.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why did I say I wanted to do this?”

Head dropped to the side, he surveyed what he could from the doorway.

It looked like some sort of strange intersection between one of the many sitting areas in a hospital mixed with some sort of lobby in a nursing home. Grey cushions held together by white, curved metal sat against caramel oak and navy carpet. The walls were so pastel pink, most would likely think it was white, but there was the slightest drop of red mixed into the colour. This was particularly noticeable around the minimalist frames hanging on the wall. A single red tulip, small enough to look embroidered, surrounded by a thick white border and a thin black line.

There didn’t seem to be any central lighting in the room, but plenty of fluorescents streamed in from the hallway.

“Yep, this is a lab alright,”

He turned to let gravity take him past the doorframe, stumbling to get his legs under him before the floor tested the durability of his glasses.

“Got the shitty lights ‘nd everything,”

One of his hands trailed again the wall as he walked, the other tense at his side in attempt to stop the tremors. There weren’t any windows in the hallsbut fear still heavily laced every step.

After nearly five minutes of very aimless wandering, the countless walls and floating rooms opened up to a larger, more coherent space. Similar to the room by the stairwell, but now things were all tinted with blue instead. A desk built into the wall with teal plaster and a shiny, oak countertop sat immediately to his left, a few chairs organized nearby and a long-dead tv mounted on the far right wall. The halls began to curve here and more and more of the rooms were made with glass walls. Just before him, the floor branched into six different halls, divided by glass rooms and walls.

One of the glass rooms contained a lab employee.

The employee sat alone, perched on a stool and hunched over his work, one leg tucked tight into his chest and the other propped loosely against the stretcher. Headphones pinned fluffy, platinum blond hair from his face, knee and heel bouncing and weaving to the rhythm of whatever it was he was listening to.

Jack moved like the smallest change in position would clue the employee in on his exact location. He pulled his hood back, larynx unfurling with quiet whirs of the metal joints. It was a risky move, especially with so much glass in here, but should push come to shove, he wasn't going down easy.

He managed to make it all the way to the doorway of the glass-walled room unnoticed, braced for the possibility of combat or struggle the entire time. A loud bang sounded from the path he had taken from the stairs. He tensed and whirled around. If he was already out of time, then he’d need to leave immediately.

“O…kay, that was we-OHFUCK!”

He spun back around to face the lab employee who was now very twisted and half laying on the table. One of their hands held the earmuffs in place around his neck, the other bracing himself against the ledge so he wouldn’t fall off. The wheezing chuckle that fluttered from his lungs did nothing to hide his nerves.

“H-hey, I uh…I didn’t, uh…” His eyes darted around the room. Jack was standing at the only exit. “Are you part of security? I haven’t seen you around here before. Nice cloak too. I, uh…I didn’t know they let us wear those in here again. Fi…fire hazard and all that, um…” he took his headphones off and tapped his neck. He seemed to be stuck deciding between standing his ground and scrambling over the table to hide. “You mind putting that away? I know we’re supposed to leave all our stuff here, but I…I’m allowed to say goodbye, right? I mean, this is literal years of our lives we’re just throwing away. It would be cruel…to…to…uh…”

It took Jack a moment to catch up to the situation. “No, I don’t-I don’t work here. I’m just…visiting?”

“They don’t let visitors up here.”

He took extra time choosing his next words. If he played this right, he'd be getting an in here. And he'd be a fool not to take it.

“No, I mean like…I’m from another district. I’m just visiting this location for today.” The employee nodded slowly, relaxing a little. “I’m really not here because of you. I promise. I’m just here to fetch some…Well, let’s just say my boss likes to be incredibly vague.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling.They really like their secrets around here. Did they give you any indication at all or was it sort of just ‘go here and you’ll know what to do’?”

“Exactly that, actually. That I’ll know it when I see it and just to grab any parts of it I thought would be useful.” Jack leaned against the doorframe, putting his hands in his pockets. His larynx wasn't entirely at rest, but it was enough that the employee didn't seem to notice or mind. “You wouldn’t happen to have any idea what they might be talking about, would you?”

He studied him for a moment. The employee didn’t quite seem to believe Jack completely, but whatever was going on with the situation must’ve been enough to give him plausible deniability.

"I don’t, sorry. I haven’t been up here in a while. You’d be better off asking the people who are usually here. I think they’re on the floor below us? I’m not entirely sure. Everything’s been messed up since we’re all trying to prepare for the evacuation order. Nobody knows what day it’s happening and everyone seems to think that the building’s gettin’ wrecked so-”

“Wait, the building’s getting demolished?When? Why?”

He quickly held up his hands, leaning back against the table. “I dunno, man, that’s just what I heard! Besides. I’m pretty sure that even if it was, they’d probably leave it in the hands of the Misfits. Save them from having to plan for a construction crew and paid leave and whatnot.”

“The Misfits…?” Jack straightened up and slipped his hands into his pockets so he could clench them into fists. “Isn’t that the activist group?”

“I think so? I don’t know as much about it as I probably should,but like…I dunno. Looking at the scheduling of warnings and changes and updates and everything, it all seems too convenient. Especially since nobody can find the statement Cloak made to Variety a couple years back. Not that they want it public anyway, but it circulates every now and again. Friendly reminder not to get too comfortable here.”

“What statement? What are you talking about?”

“Seriously? You don’t know?” The employee looked like he was starting to get suspicious. “You know, for a newbie on the security team, you really don’t know much. Usually, they’re constantly asking questions- and I mean constantly.” He shook his head and grabbed what he had been working on, shoving it into his pocket. “Well, since it's all about to go down the drain and clearly whoever you shadowed dropped the ball, I don’t think it’ll hurt to show you what’s been dumped up here.” He sidestepped through the doorway, eyes glued to the floor.

A low whine amped up from down the hallway. Both of them jumped as the fire alarm cut through the air.

“Shit, well that’s the worst possible timing,”

“You don’t seem surprised. Is there a drill today?”

“Nah, but it’s the easiest way to get everyone to evacuate. Not sure why though. Last time it was used for…it's not important.”

Jack glanced around, reaching to touch the panels on his neck. The siren was making the sonic weapon whine with feedback. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

“Probably, but we can probably still take a quick look around. Head out a different way. It takes at least a solid ten, fifteen minutes to clear the building? Takes about two to get out in the rush from the top floor. We’ll be fine.” He turned and briskly started down one of the halls, arms tense at his sides. He didn’t look to see if Jack was following.

Wherever he was headed, odds are it would yield far better results than taking the opportunity to snoop around.

He jogged after the employee to catch up, surveying his surroundings as he went. Everything said seemed to check out. Many of the offices and rooms had boxes and projects and papers dumped on the floors, the desks, even entire file cabinets had been wheeled in and tipped over.

“They’re really planning a purge of it all-”

He nearly tripped over his own feet. The employee was just a few paces in front of him but he was screaming like his life depended on it. Fingers clawed at the tile in an attempt to get to his feet. The raw terror was more than enough to make the sound soar above the siren. The employee was just a few paces in front of him but rapidly scrambling to get away.

A blast hit the corner without warning.

Concrete flew everywhere and the paint scorched.

He grabbed the employee by the collar of his shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Go!” His larynx quickly unfurled, lights signalling a charge. “Get out of here!”

The poor kid looked paralyzed. “But what about-”

“JUST GO!”

It was Jack that the bots wanted and he knew it. Making himself more of a living target would give the employee a more than decent chance of getting out alive.

He didn’t waste another second.

Pulling up his hood again, he took a deep breath and ran for his life.

Towards the bots.

At least they had the sense to not fire at the rapidly-approaching target. Two of them opened their arms like they were going to try and catch him. He turned the corner before they had the chance to and took off sprinting.

“Of course! Of course, this just had to happen on this floor!”

Slow as the T-5.12s were, losing them wasn’t a possibility. There had been four he ran past. He ran past two more before finding himself in another sort of hospital waiting area. The stairs he had come up had to be nearby, but so were more bots. Their footsteps shook the floor.

The hallway continued directly in front of him, another to his right.Two vending machines were set up next to each other in one of them. As far as he could tell, that was the only one of the three halls he was sure he didn’t feel any dreaded mechanical footsteps coming from.

Sidestepping one of the machines, he hid behind them, heart in his mouth. He watched a pair of energy blasts from the T-5.12s fly past him and slam into the walls.

"Jesus they were right on my tail!"

His larynx was fully charged. If he was going to use it here, now was the time. He took a deep breath and stepped out to face the bots.

A searing hot blast tore through his hood.

He ducked behind the vending machines again and squeezed his eyes shut, wheezing curses and beating the metal with his palm.

If he stayed here, he was dead. If he stepped out, he was dead.

His hand bumped the gap between the vending machine and the wall.

Immediately, he spun around and pushed against the top of it with all his might. He made a break for the end of the hall the moment it passed its tipping point. Several more blasts screamed past him. He ducked behind the corner and crashed to the ground.

There was nothing he could do but shake and gasp for air.

Wide eyes stayed transfixed on the blurry wall.Half of his vision began to glitch and warp.The colours distorted and jumped about, changing to a sort of thermal input of the place.

Cool blues and purples contrasted whites and yellows that hovered in his vision like the display of a VR headset. Through the walls, something was outlined in magenta. It seemed completely torn apart from the chest down, but the head and choppy hair was unmistakably human. Or at least resembling one.

He nearly stepped on his cloak getting to his feet. Yellow-white arrows ran along the ground in an ever-moving chevron. Data processed on the side, finding windows, exits, and more importantly, other T-5.12s.

“THEY’RE MORE INTERESTED IN YOU THAN THEY ARE IN ME,” Gary’s voice was just barely distinguishable from the alarm. “I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. GET OUT OF HERE!”

Whether or not he had heard the bellowed message was unclear. He looked almost like he was in a trance. Arrows pulled him forward without question, crashing into walls a few times with unmanaged velocity. There were too many turns to keep track of. He could only pray this was leading him out.

And it did

In a way.

It led him to the thing outlined in magenta.His vision didn’t return to normal when he found it.

Whatever it was, it looked human. A lifeless head slumped forward, face completely obscured by lilac hair with the slightest dashes of pale sand at the roots. Its arms were missing and its ribs hung around cables and electronic innards. Connected at its shoulders, all of it stood suspended on these two plastic-looking things lined with lights and a few cable ports.

“Jack!”

His vision was back to normal and a very panicked-looking Mark was staring at him.

“What the hell happened? Are you okay?” He sucked a breath through his teeth. "Actually, don't answer that. Fuck, that’s been blown clean off.” He looked over his shoulder at where Jack had come from. “Uh, okay. I know telling me what the hell happened right now would be a really good idea, but just don't talk. Please. I don’t wanna risk you getting hurt worse. I don't know how much actually got damaged.”

He didn’t show any acknowledgement of what Mark was saying. His attention drifted back to the suspended thing, no longer outlined in magenta.

“You alright, man? What are you…oh.” You could hear the fury in his voice.

Mark was incredibly protective over his creations. He treated them like they were living things that came into existence of their own volition. Seeing any sort of mistreatment towards them or any like them made him livid beyond belief. There had been more than a few incidents in their time together as a team because of this.

He took a deep breath and put his hand as gently as he could on Jack’s shoulder. “Go. I’ll take care of this. I know you don’t exactly like the idea of saving yourself here, but you’re hurt, technically compromised, and frankly, you don’t know half the shit I know about this stuff.”

When Jack turned to face him, the look in his eyes was more than enough to communicate what he was thinking.

“I’m dead serious. Bad choice of words, but I am serious. Go. I’ll be fine. The more time we waste debating this, the less time we’re going to have to actually do this. Now are you going to haul your ass to the stairs and go outside or do I need to grab the drone I snatched from Gary and shove you out a window?”

Moving with a stutter-stop of hesitation, Jack quickly threw his arms around him in the tightest hug he could.

“Love you too, man, but you gotta go. Now.”

Jack broke away and sprinted down around the corner.The stairs nearby weren’t the ones he had come up, but they had to do. Worst case scenario, he’d end up needing to backtrack to a floor and bolt across it.

Mark turned back to the heartwrenchingly, mechanically grotesque scene before him. The sounds of gunfire and cannon blasts echoed down the hall and the fire alarm had been going on for what felt like ages.

He shed his cloak and backpack, approaching the rig to examine it.

It wasn’t connected to the wall and none of the cables or anything were plugged in. From what he could tell with the ports, he had all the stuff he needed back home. He could make whatever he didn’t have.

“Just don’t look at its face and you’ll be fine…”

He unhooked the protruding wiring from inside its ribcage and the suspensions from its shoulders. As careful as he was not to jostle it, the way it slumped against him caught him by surprise. Too many emotions were scrawled across his face. He’d have time to sort this out later.

Setting it on the cloak, he shaped the fabric into some sort of bag or sling to make it easier to carry. He grabbed the supports and shoved them into his bag. Thankfully, the heights were adjustable with the flip of a rubber-covered metal clamp.

The sling sat between him and the canvas of his backpack. He held the knot of the cloak’s fabric in a white-knuckle grip and gave the mouth of the maze one more glance.

All that was left was for him to get out of here.

Chapter Text

Had things gone according to plan, they all would've left with the crowd. All they needed to do was shed their cloaks and there would've been no way to tell them apart from the majority of people filing out of the building.

The broken larynx rig would've been the only indication that they were a part of something bigger.

Jack scrambled out the first door he could find. He didn't want to go, but Mark was right - he didn't have a choice. Going up against the bots without weapons was a death wish as it was but in such a confined space?

That was a death sentence.

Mark only stood a chance because his legs were completely synthetic. He could take the hits. He could handle the damage. Gary stuck to ranged attacks like a sniper whose weapon of choice was explosives.

While the larynx rig was technically directional, there's only so much sound can do.

Broken windows and cracked concrete outside didn’t run the same risk it did in the middle of a multi-story building.

Should he survive this when the others didn't, he should have enough evidence to shut things down once and for all just with what happened here.

And the statement to Variety...what had that been about? If it was pulled from the public, it was clearly something that either was damaging to Cloak's image or was something that kept getting dredged up from its past. Something that people had to have been using as a reason not to trust what the company was now. Either way, it's got to be something damning.

Something worth discovering.

He had bolted out of the building and away from the crowd completely on autopilot. He had just picked a direction and started running. It didn't matter who saw him - he just had to get away.

“Jack- JACK!” Someone grabbed his arm.

He squirmed to get away. The neck of the cloak dug into his throat as he tried to run. It was almost enough to send him headfirst to the ground. He lost his footing and fell to his knees instead, squirming under the fabric.

“Jack! Calm down, man, it’s me!”

A few blocks later and Gary would've been tracking him through a hopeless maze of crowds and alleyways. Jack knew better than to take a direct path home. Even if he wasn't processing any of what was happening, he knew that. His brain knew that. Even his body knew that. Being light on his feet was just a bonus in this situation.

Gary looked like they were trying to stare down the adrenaline in Jack's veins. They almost looked angry. "Where's Mark?" He shook his head. "Jack."

“I- I don’t know, I-he-”

They flinched at the sound of his scratched and warbling voice. “Fuck, what the hell happened to you?” Almost harshly, they grabbed his chin and turned his head back and to the side. They didn't seem to have any regard for the way he stiffened under their touch or the noise of discomfort lost in his throat. “‘s too dark down here. I think there’s a fire escape nearby. We should be able to get up there then take the skyline to the meeting point.” They let go and gave him a once-over. “You good to run?”

He gave them a pointed look and they gestured almost in exasperation for him to go.

They ran single-file when they could, walking close together when they had to cut through the pavements and streets. Jack's eyes skimmed the faces of buildings as they passed, trying hard to shut out the feeling of eyes burning into his back. The burnt fabric of his cloak was more than enough to put a target on them and his larynx would secure their place on a hit list. He was just wearing a plain brown shirt with sleeves barely reaching his elbows. The hood was the only real chance he had at hiding the rig.

"Here," Gary took his hand and steered him around the corner of a building, hugging its side.

They started up the ladder without looking back.

Jack's hands trembled as he climbed. He forced his attention to never stray from the next place he needed to put his hands. Just don't look down.

Don't look down.

He stumbled onto the pebble 'yard' and turned away from the sun. They didn't have any medical equipment on hand that would really help here, but the sooner they could assess the damage, the better.

"Sit."

A noise caught in his throat and his fist twitched when they felt Gary's touch.

"You're burnt." They spoke very matter-of-factly and chided their teammate. "One of your speakers has been blown clean off and everything else looks like it got torn from their joints by whatever the force was. The metal must’ve heated up enough to burn the skin around it.” They slung their bag off their shoulder and produced a multi-tool from the front pocket. “I can shut it down and stop the whining but I can’t close it without closing the broken one. Not until I’m able to take the whole thing apart.”

Jack huffed and took off his glasses, leaning back on one hand with his eyes closed. There wasn’t really anything he could do in this situation but wait.

It thankfully didn’t take too long. The machinery powered down and the lights died out - the high-pitched droning finally went quiet. A low groan of irritation rumbled in his chest and his ears slid back against his skull. It was never an intentional move.

“Tinnitus?”

He hummed in confirmation and hunched over. “How far’s the rendezvous from here anyway?” His voice wasn’t as torn as before but it still sounded hollow and wrong.

“Not too far, thankfully. It would take a bit longer but we could get down and walk-”

“Are you fucking kidding? Why didn’t you say that before?!”

“About here, actually. Roughly this intersection.”

"Roughly?"

"A specific address would've been difficult to work with, especially if we were running for our lives. Roughly here, on the rooftops, we'd be the only ones looking for each other, probably, so it'd work out just fine." They put their hands on their hips and looked over to the lab. “Where is Mark, anyway? I don't know what's going on with you two, but it’s really rare that you’d split up like this. I honestly half expected one of you to finish sweeping the floor early and go wait to make sure you got out together.”

Jack put his glasses back on and ran a hand over the side of his head.

“What?”

“He told me to run.”

Panic shot to hir voice. “He what? Why? Why wouldn’t he just grab you and drag you outside?”

“There was someone else there, alright? There was someone else there and the bots were closing in and-”

Gary pinched the bridge of their nose. “Oh, for- come on, Jack. You know it’s not our job to save people in these situations. I get you’re not too keen on being the one to pull the trigger in most situations, but when it comes down to it, you ca-”

“I didn’t mean like that. I meant I think they’re the one who got the bots to that floor in the first place. They were probably waiting at the other stairs or something.” A complete bald-faced lie, but it wasn't like they'd accept any other explanation.

They took a quiet breath. The lab was already billowing smoke from its top floors. “Hopefully nobody tries to play the hero and go back inside…”

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing.” They turned their face to the sky. “The city’s gonna wake up soon. It’d probably be better if we just had Mark meet us back home.”

“Seriously? We spent all that time trying to perfect the plan so we'd all make it out okay and you just want to throw it all away?”

“If we had followed the plan, we'd all have already met up and would be on our way home, and you wouldn't be injured to such a degree that being in plain sight makes it impossible for any of us to hide. It's not like we're exactly the stealthiest people to ever exist. We've gotten away with things for this long because we're able to blend in with the crowd." They sighed and shook their head. “Whatever, just…text him that we're gonna meet him at home. And if he wants to meet here instead, tell him I'll go meet him and that you're staying home 'cause you're hurt.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” He fished his phone out of his bag and typed a message. “There. Done. You happy? He's probably already there waiting for us anyway.” He stood and wiped his hands on his cloak, folding and draping it over his shoulders. “I’m going. I don’t want to stay up here any longer than I have to.”

“Lead the way, then.”

If Jack noticed how stiff and on edge Gary was as he walked back over to the fire escape and sped down it, he didn’t mention it. He kept his thumbs hooked into the straps of his backpack. He cast half of a courtesy glance over his shoulder when he heard them land on the ground, but other than that, he didn’t turn around.

Not until he heard it.

The sound was muffled and distant, but unmistakable.

“What?” They sounded almost annoyed.

“Didn’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like an explosion. You seriously don’t wanna check that out?” He studied them for a moment, growing visibly more frustrated with Gary's demeanour. “You were staring ominously off into the distance for like the entire time we were up there. You seriously don’t care? What if it’s the lab? How do we know someone isn’t after us?”

They shrugged, hands in their jacket pockets. “If someone’s after us, then they’re after us. It’s not exactly something we haven’t dealt with before. We handled ourselves then, we can handle ourselves now. And so what if it was the lab? We were done there anyways.The reason I kept looking ‘ominously off into the distance’ was because the building looked like it was on fire. One of the bots probably lit something by accident and set it off. That’s probably what the explosion was too. It’s not going to do any good to overthink it. We might end up sabotaging ourselves if we’re too careful.”

Jack took a slow, careful breath, fighting to keep his voice as steady as he could. It couldn't have been comfortable, just having the inside of your next exposed like that. “Right…so, we’re just…set to go home then?”

“Yep.”

He turned on his heels and started speed walking away, head down and eyes alert.

A silent breath of relief rushed from Gary’s mouth. They quietly sidestepped to a dumpster and lowered the remote between two of the bags so it wouldn't make a sound.

They hesitated to let go.

It was a rush to catch up again. Losing sight of his teammate now was a terrible idea. Finding him once like this in this city could be brushed off as dumb luck and knowing someone too well. Twice immediately in a row would just be suspicious.

Jack led them down a similar route to before, keeping mostly to the darker streets and back alleys to avoid too much attention. They ended up making a quick detour to the Cloak store on their side of town. Nobody asked what had happened to the damaged garment. They offered a temporary replacement but Jack declined, opting for a scarf instead. He could make do without a cloak for now.

They hopped on one of the trams at some point, sticking to a district known amongst the Misfit community to have special safety regulations up for them. This was where most of the safe houses were. Some sort of legal stuff they weren’t quite allowed to talk about or dig into, but for the most part, Corporation Corp. seemed to leave them alone.

By the time they got to their safe house, the sun was already a decent way in the sky. The air had not-so-gradually filled with the wildly domestic ambience of people filtering to work. Distant sirens were barely distinguishable from the chatter and footsteps.

“Finally! What took you so long?!”

Mark sat on a large step on the roof. His pants were rolled up past his knees and he wore a flattop baseball cap that was doing a terrible job of keeping the sun out of his eyes. He hadn't brought it with him to the raid.

The look Gary wore was nothing short of irritated shock. Her eyes burned with something unfamiliar and xyr jaw clenched so subtly it was nearly undetectable.

“See? Told you he’d be here,”

Jack waved and muttered just loud enough to be heard. He walked up to the door as Mark watched from his spot, mirroring the way their resident inventor glared up at him.

“You coming in or what?”

They walked stiffly inside and dropped their backpack on the table.

“You’re welcome,” Jack let the door shut behind them and started for the kitchen. “I’m gonna go see if Mark and I can’t get my rig sorted tonight. We can continue to not talk about this in the morning.”

Gary was already sprawled out on the couch, turning the TV on. “Night,” They didn’t bother to enunciate.

As soon as the footsteps stopped somewhere in the middle of the floor above, they dove for their backpack.

"Come on, I know you're in here somewhere."

Their fingers bumped against the smooth, arched surface of the paperweight. They brought it over to the door, examining it in the mid-morning sun. Here, the colours and layers shone in a way that couldn't quite be replicated with artificial light. But they weren't here to admire the handiwork of an unknown artist. They turned it over and picked at the flecks of marker that had been stamped around the numbers.

“What is it they want with you?”

Chapter Text

Tue, 12 May 2020, 9:00:18

Mark didn't move until Gary disappeared inside. He kept his arms crossed and his head down, only breaking the position when he pulled open the door on the roof to descend inside.

The fact that he got up onto the roof to watch for their arrival shortly before they got there was coincidental at best. He hadn’t been here for long. Long enough that he could get the…whatever the android-like thing was situated in his workshop, but not much longer than that. He hadn’t had the time to properly dress his own wounds yet. Not that there were any in need of dire attention.

Not like Jack’s.

That was the other thing he had stopped in his workshop for. He’d need to completely replace the sonic larynx. The three of them had been working on weapon upgrade designs for a while now, taking into consideration how they've changed over time and settled into habits both at home and out on the field.

An upgrade was long overdue anyways. Might as well do it all in one go.

For the most part, the pieces were done. The speakers were more shaped to be more dynamic and were set on different joints, meaning that both he and the speakers had much more freedom to move around, and the main mechanisms were much more sensitive so they could flutter open and shut without delay. They weren’t any less bulky as far as size went, but with how they curved, they’d hopefully be harder for enemies to hit and they wouldn't be as internally noticeable when hidden away. Something Jack had mentioned one night when he was so overstimulated, they had to take the entire weapon out just so he could have some peace for the evening.

He took the first two flights of stairs down fairly quickly, pausing at the top of the last flight; listening. Jack made his way to the stairs rather quickly. He jumped a little when he looked up and saw Mark waiting for him.

“C’mon.”

He met him halfway and took his hand, leading him back up to the floor. Mark’s grip tightened in reassurance as they walked. Not even a minute passed before they were safely in Mark’s workshop, the door shut and locked for peace of mind. The android bust from the lab sat in the corner, still swaddled in his cloak and now reconnected to the stands. Pillows had been added so it could rest 'comfortably' against a low table.

He followed Jack's gaze to the android. A gentle smile reached his eyes.

“I told you I’d take care of it,”

Jack relaxed a little and hopped up onto the padded chair bench. It looked rather like something from a dentist’s office mixed with an ironing board. Not the most comfortable to sit or lay on, but it was better than just laying on a table.

Mark let him pick some music to fill the silence as he gathered what he needed. He fished around in his drawer for a moment, picking up two white plastic bottles and looking between them. He unscrewed one of them and tipped a pair of tablets into his hand.

He handed them over with a bottle of water from his mini fridge. Jack just stared at them. "I don't think you want to be biting back the pain the whole time. You need rest and we need to fix this before you fall asleep. They're painkillers - ones you made, remember? The sooner we take them, the sooner we can get this over with and the sooner you can curl up with Sam and BB and forget about today. I know you don't want to, but I promise you, you'll feel better." Jack sighed and held out his hands for the water and pills. "Okay. I'm gonna go grab one of your pillows, you take those, and I'll be right back."

A decent amount of water was missing from the bottle sitting on the side table by the time Mark stepped back into the workshop. He handed the pillow and watched Jack hug it to his chest and slump over it. He had taken his glasses off and his phone was face down next to him.

He looked tired. The adrenaline must’ve burned through most of his battery if he was already this tired. He was usually next to restless the night after a mission.

Mark talked and dressed the burns as best he could while they waited for the medication to kick in.

The removal part of the process was easy. Unscrewing the joints and clearing any shreds of metal or debris that had landed themselves in the cavities. With the back and side panels removed, his neck just looked wrong. Metal and synthetic material lined the gaps, guarding anything that could spell his end if damaged. They had all joked at some point that they couldn’t tell if it was better or worse that they couldn’t see what lay inside.

It wasn’t entirely a joke.

He checked in frequently and they took a few breaks along the way. As much as Mark wanted to just power through this, fix his own legs, and sort through the papers, he wasn't the one with a burnt neck here. He wasn't the one on the verge of falling asleep.

Outside light poured in through the space beneath the door. He ended up having to work around the weight of Jack’s head supported by his hand or chest in one way or another. The upgrade looked a little small in the space compared to the old ones, but the power would make up for it.

Hopefully.

Some of the raw strength had to be sacrificed to ensure it was useful in more contained situations where collateral damage wasn’t something they could afford to risk.

It was strange to see the space left unoccupied with the new design.

“I know you’re tired, but just a few tests and then you can go to bed, okay? I want to make sure everything’s wired correctly before we wrap up here,” He nodded. “Can you open them up?” All three panels whirred open, speakers aimed vaguely at him. “Good. Now closed?” The joints moved smoothly, folding the wiring and mechanics over themselves to be tucked neatly away into the sides of his neck. “Can you open them one at a time or is that something we’re going to need to work on?”

Jack frowned. A bit of focus peeked through the haze as he stared at the floor. The panels shuddered quietly, sliding out a centimetre in quick succession then opened all the way.

“That’s okay. We can tackle it in the morning. I know it’s new so you don’t need to worry about getting used to it.”

Mark moved behind him, taking his hands and using them to gently close the panels. He guided his hands to the vertical seams just behind the v-shaped muscles in his neck.“There’s two switches here. It’ll only work when they’re already closed, but this’ll lock the panels in place so you don’t accidentally open them. If you end up falling asleep after they’ve been locked, they’ll unlock when you wake up. If they don't automatically unlock, you'll have to try doing it manually. Do you have any questions?”

Jack shook his head, letting his hands drop and leaning back.

Arms around his friend, Mark chuckled at the display. Sleepy Jack wasn’t exactly a commonality. Even when he had gone far longer without sleep than he should, the most they got was half-lidded glares and slurred sentences.

“Don’t wanna try talking just yet?” Again, he shook his head. “Okay, that’s perfectly okay. Got your phone and your glasses?” Jack picked them up and Mark helped him to his feet, walking him to the door. “Alright. Sleep well,”

He made a noise between a grunt and a hum in response, blindly stepping into the hall and shuffling over to his room.

The door quietly clicked shut and Mark was left standing in non-silence again. He looked over to the android and then to the papers on his desk. It was probably a good idea to at least pick one of them to look over before curiosity completely killed the possibility for sleep.

He turned the lights up and flicked open the files.

There was far more information on Synthesis than there was on Fallen, but he lacked the context to understand any of it.

Synthesis seemed to be documenting the process of making a single project from start to abrupt finish. He didn’t have enough time to read it in detail, but there was an obvious change in how things were recorded around the stage that the blueprints had been finished, it had been mostly assembled, and the ‘chemist team’ had yet to finish their assignment. Everything stopped dating back to about five years ago. No conclusion, no notes, nothing. It just stopped.

From a glance, Fallen seemed to just be a list of profiles. Numbers, Greek letters, unconscious headshots - like that wasn't creepy as hell. It looked like most of them were all marked as 'failed' too.

Unfit for operation.

Unfit for operation.

Liability - shut down immediately.

Unfit for operation.

Liability - dissect for project revision.

Liability - dissect for project revision. Investigate memory storage.

He picked up the file and walked over to the android, gently lifting its face to compare it to the headshot.

They looked like siblings at best, off-brand versions of each other at worst. The headshot featured someone with vascular rosacea, giving them almost doll-like rosy cheeks and honey-brown hair cut into a bob with a small black bow on the side. What looked like a sort of pink cape collar was at the bottom of the image, stitched with black ribbon.

Granted, the android didn't have any clothes, but it was really only the facial structure that looked even remotely similar. The skin was unnaturally pale with a warm undertone that made it look almost yellow in places. Its hair was lavender and looked to be some sort of grown-out shag pixie cut that faded to icy purple so pale it almost looked translucent. Its neck had a sort of marigold ring around it like some sort of scar but it was too high up to have been from a collar or something around its neck. Like it was marking out where its voice box was.

If they were one and the same, then this was someone who was just labelled Wave 1: Delta. Presumably meaning it was built from the Deltas. The file said it was 'paired' with β-216.

There was no information on β-216.

If he had to guess, it likely died in the Obliterator with the other bots a couple of years back when there was a massive System update and they switched to a new OS. They never did say what was wrong with Tiger, but the new one seemed much more...impersonal.

He yawned into the back of his hand.

Exhaustion was creeping up on him.

Setting the file down, he trudged over to the door connecting the workshop to his room, switching over the lights and weaving around the furniture to his bedroom. He peeled off his clothes, changed into a tank top and shorts, and fell face-down onto his bed in the dark. A broken-up groan of relief and pain creaked from his throat. He hadn't done repairs to his legs yet, but they weren't in need of immediate attention. It could wait.

All of them were well overdue for some rest, but sleep didn’t come easy.

He stared into the near-blackness drenching the headboard, the bunched-up pillow under his head puffing up into his vision. Not that he could see it anyway. Another yawn reached through him, stretching his ribs and lungs. His eyes kept drifting closed whenever he gave them the chance to, but no matter what angle he tried, sleep didn’t come. Turning the fan on didn’t make much of a difference. Over the covers, under the covers, pillows surrounding him, no pillows, one pillow, one pillow under his feet, he practically remade his bed several times over just to try and make it that much more comfortable.

No luck.

He fell onto his back and groaned, running his hands over his face. Staring at the red numbers on the clock next to his bed didn’t make sleep come any faster. It had been just over an hour since Jack went to bed. Just over an hour of feeling completely restless despite the exhaustion.

It felt like it had been so much longer.

Grumbling, he dragged himself back to his workshop and addressed his legs.

Scratches and dents, nothing that wasn't fixed just by replacing the panel. A jolt went through him as the new plate was accepted and connected to his nerves, and then the pain was gone.

He tried going back to bed.

He was still restless and it wasn't because of his legs, or the android, or the files.

One hand hovered over his chest, fingers cradled by the fabric of his shirt so it wouldn't fall to his lap as he sat up.

“Why do I have the feeling something’s seriously wrong?”

He dug his heels into the mattress, dragging himself to his feet again and grabbing one of his cardigans. He pulled the fabric tightly around himself and shuffled around to find his slippers. He only knocked into things four times and hissed when the daylight of the hallway hit his eyes.

“Shit, right, it’s day outside,” he sighed and leaned back against the wall, giving himself a moment to adjust. “Well, might as well find something to do if I can’t sleep…wait, where’s…?” A momentary frown crossed his face. His eyes darted around the floor. “Tim?” He called quietly down the hallway. “Where are you, buddy?”

Rushing footsteps answered his question. A rather shaken-up Jack threw open his door and tripped on the ledge of the carpet, stumbling a few steps before crashing to his knees with a wide-eyed stare and heaving chest.

“Jack?” Mark immediately rushed over and knelt down. “Jack, hey. Hey, what’s wrong? Did I mess up?” He reached for the panels.

Jack flinched violently at the touch.

He would’ve knocked his head against the wall had he been a few steps closer to it.

One of his arms hovered rigid between them.

Mark couldn’t hide the hurt if he wanted to.

"Okay." He did his best not to move too quickly, shifting to sit cross-legged a short distance back from where he had been.

His voice was painfully gentle.

“Okay. I’m not going to touch you, okay?” The only acknowledgement that Jack had even heard him was his arm lowering to his lap. “I won’t touch you unless you-”

Jack latched onto his waist and buried his face into the crook of Mark's neck.

He was shaking badly. His heart pounded against his ribs like it wanted to see just how fast his body would let it go.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Mark cautiously hugged him back. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His eyes jumped to the open door, scanning the shapes in the darkness. From where they sat, he couldn’t see further than about halfway down the makeshift kitchen he had set up. His bedroom was on the other side of the wall behind it. If there had been anyone in there with him, it would’ve been his cat or Sam. Neither of which would’ve prompted this severe of a reaction. Even if they suddenly found reason to hate him and went after him with full force, he wouldn’t be reacting like this.

They sat there for what felt like both too long and not long enough. They stayed until their backs hurt from the awkward position and Jack calmed down enough that he wasn't gasping to keep up with his heartbeat.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Mark kept his voice as low and level as he could, though it wavered at first. “And if you don’t want to go back to bed, that’s okay too. We can stay up if you want. I couldn’t get to sleep anyway."

He mumbled into Mark’s shirt, loosening his grip a little.“Can you stay with me? At least until I fall asleep?”

“Yeah, I think I can manage that.” He traced lazy patterns into the sides of Jack’s light grey t-shirt. Had anyone been looking, they could see the gears turning behind his eyes. “Was it a nightmare or is there something in there I owe a kick in the ass to?”

“N’thn in there,” Jack broke the hug and walked his hands back, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. “Bots are downstairs last I checked. BB’s in his spot behind the curtains,”

“Downstairs? What are they doing there?”

“Gary put ‘em in the library. Shut ‘em down so they wouldn’t just be sitting around waiting for us to come back from the lab,” he stood slowly, Mark putting his hands out and rising with him in case he toppled over.

“Is that so…”

Jack blinked and tilted his head. “Is…something wrong?”

“Hm?” he looked up. “No. No, nothing’s wrong. Just thinking is all. Must’ve misremembered something,” He offered his hand, waiting for Jack to take it before stepping inside.

They’ve spent enough time in each other’s rooms between hangouts, gaming, and sleepless nights where they were just up talking that they didn’t need the light on to navigate.

A soft glow from his desktop monitor illuminated his bedroom. His bed sat in the middle of the wall, directly opposite the doorway. Shelves and a bench to the right, his desk and an office chair to the left. The room itself was sort of shaped like an oblong hexagon. The ‘living room’ was decorated far more to his tastes, but even after all this time it almost felt like he was waiting to be evicted at a moment’s notice.

It seemed to be a pattern with the three of them. An unintentional one, granted, but one that was unmistakably there.

“Alright, come on,” Mark patted the bed and grabbed the office chair.

They’ve been in this position before. More times than any of them would be able to count. Sometimes it was the chair, sometimes a head would end up on a lap or a chest. Whatever made them feel the safest. They were family at this point. Any ounce of emotional safety they could get was an ounce they were going to take without question.

Jack climbed over the covers and buried himself beneath them. Mark sat in the chair, patiently waiting for the rustling and repositioning to stop. Jack slipped his hand out from under the duvet, eyes staring blankly at the monitor. It was a lit-up black, aquas and blues dancing across the screensaver. He still shook a little, but not like before. Mark took his hand in both of his.

“You know, you actually have to close your eyes to go to sleep,”

He obliged, but not without muttering something under his breath. He must’ve been more exhausted than he seemed. Almost too quickly, his hand went slack and the tremours subsided.

Mark didn't let go. “You didn’t just have a nightmare, did you?” The question was barely audible.

He stayed a little longer, watching like he could spot a night terror a mile away and his glare would be enough to scare it off. He waited until Jack moved his hand away before standing. With nights like these, it was a gamble as to whether or not having someone in the room when you woke up was a good idea or not.

There was no telling if Gary was awake yet, and as exhausted as he was, he likely wouldn't be able to rest until he got some answers.

Mark snuck back out to the hall and shut the door behind him.

A small, yellow light lit up at the edge of Jack's right eye socket.

By the time he got back to his bedroom and checked his phone for the time, he had received a message that shot cold warnings through his chest and throat. He couldn't see the full sentence, but what he could read of it was more than enough to put him on edge. Cautiously, he walked over to his closet and stuffed it under a small stack of folded sheets. He shed his cardigan and slippers and slunk almost robotically back to his bed.

Their enemy is bowed for now, but far from broken. The war against Corporation Corp. wasn’t going to be an easy one and it was almost guaranteed to go on for a long, long time. It would likely be ages before they made any significant progress against the entity.

At least hope came with the dawn.

Too bad it was the middle of the day.

Chapter Text

Wed, 13 May 2020 7:08:21

“Thought I might find you in here. You weren't at your usual spot in the kitchen or in the lounge, but there was a new mug in the sink. Figured you were up to something quiet.” Gary waltzed over to where Mark sat on his sectional, blueprints and formulas scattered on the extendable coffee table in front of him. “Working on anything interesting?”

He mixed the lab files with some loose-leaf papers and notebooks, gesturing to the disarray with a flick of his hand. “Just uh…just something I figured I’d try to put together,”

They picked up one of the blueprint sketches, thankfully seeming to completely gloss over the files. “These are…” They rushed into his workshop and nearly threw the door open. The lights slammed on.

Not much progress had been made. The android still sat connected to its stands atop the pillows, though now the stands were lowered so the cables were slack. Little lights pulsed through its skin every now and again, lighting up what stood as nerves and blood vessels.

There was unmistakable fear in her voice. “Mark, please tell me you didn’t take a robot from the lab,”

He took a deep inhale, leaning back on the couch and twisting around. “Okay, I know what you’re thinking, and I-”

“Are you insane?! They can trace that back to us! They can tap into our network, they-” hir hands raked through xyr hair. “You just gave them a back door into possibly one of the only things still safe from them. Please tell me you haven’t turned it on yet,”

“Hey, woah, hey, time out, time out.” He kept his voice low and steady, the same way he had done for Jack. “No need to panic just yet. As far as I can tell, it’s completely offline. I honestly don’t even know if it works anymore. I hooked it up to my laptop in a contained program and it seems like the cables are just…regulating the systems. There’s potential for function, but it’s missing so many parts that I don’t think it would be able to do much of anything if it could.” He picked up one of the papers and walked it over. “Found this sitting next to it.”

A lie.

“Looks like a final report on whatever it was supposed to be. I think it was being used for research or just spare parts. It was going to be thrown out anyway, so that means there shouldn’t be anything left for them to trace back to us. Trust me. Of all the things I could’ve grabbed from there, we’re as safe as we could be.” he leaned against the doorframe, doing his best to give a reassuring smile. Gary's back was turned, so who the smile was for was unclear.

Hir eyes flicked from the paper to the android and back. The one they had picked up was one of the two documents going into detail about the two Fallen filed for dissection. Of the two, this one had been the one kept after being decommissioned for its build, it seemed. It listed the different parts it was made from and how they worked, what to get rid of and what to keep for future projects. Next to completely useless information without the context of what the project was and what this specific model was used for. That seemed to be a running theme in all of the papers.

They took an uneasy breath and turned to Mark.

He looked tired.

His eyes didn’t seem all the way open and his expressions and body language didn’t carry the punctuation they usually did. They looked far more gentle. More subtle. A shadow of what they were when he was fully awake.

After spending so long together, it was like they could read each other’s minds at times. Just not all the time, unfortunately.

Mark gestured to the open laptop on his workshop desk. “You’re welcome to check the logs if you don’t believe me,”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, I just…” they sighed, setting the paper down on a countertop and walking over to the Fallen. “I don’t want everything we’ve done to come crashing down just because we got a little careless with our tech is all.”

“I get that, but hey. Worst case scenario, we run, right? We’ve done it before, we can do it again, and at least we know their tactics this time. I know you’re worried, but honestly? I think the stress is starting to get to you a bit. We just pulled off what’s probably the biggest mission of our entire careers. It'd be weirder if you weren't worried about things.” Mark spoke like he had completely mastered the art of keeping people calm, even in their most terrifying moments.

“And that's how you're managing to be Mr Suave so easily?" Gary knelt down in front of the creation, taking its chin in their hand to examine its face. "You’ve got all this information that we didn’t know about - that I definitely want to look over later - and you’re completely chill about this? I mean, look at this thing! This is completely unlike anything we’ve seen on the streets, nothing like the security bots or anything we’ve seen working in warehouses or…I just…if they’re capable of this degree of technology already, then who knows what could be coming next?” When stood and turned back to face him, they seemed surprised to be met with an expression of fascination rather than fear. “You can't seriously be happy about that.”

He huffed a laugh and rubbed his eyes. “I think I might just be too tired to be anything else. The gravity of all this hasn’t fully hit me yet. Couldn't really get any decent sleep so I figured I'd might as well find something productive to do.”

“Couldn’t wait until after you’ve done repairs, could you?”

“Repairs are already done.”

“Seriously?” Twice in less than a minute that Gary had been surprised by their teammate. Probably a new record.

“Yeah, seriously. We already had the upgrades built and ready to go, so I didn't need to spend any time with temporary stuff. Gonna run through some tests with him once we've both gotten some rest. Probably tomorrow would be good. And since I know you're so worried, my legs are fine. Very minor injuries. Took all of like five minutes to fix.”

They snorted, propping their hands on their hips. “Oh yeah? And would that be tomorrow tomorrow or when-you-wake-up tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow tomorrow. Okay, if I hear that word one more time, it's gonna lose all meaning. Just, please, say Thursday. I’m too tired for this,”

Gary laughed and made their way back to the door. “Sure, sure,” they nodded to the android. “Seriously though, why did you grab that? It’s not like we’ll be able to do anything with it,”

“I dunno. It's probably more useful to us than you think. Besides, I couldn’t just leave it there."Even when deprived of sleep, Mark couldn't help himself from getting riled up over the poor condition of discarded creations. "You see the condition it’s in? Who in their right mind would build something so…advanced, so…incredible, and then just leave it like this? They’ve practically been disembowelled and ripped apart! They clearly weren’t of any use to the company anymore, so what’s the harm in giving it new life?”

“You haven't even been activated it yet and you're already acting like it's alive.”

Mark shrugged. “You had the exact same reaction when I started using ‘they’ and ‘he’ for Tim, and look at where we are now. You talk to those robots more than you do to us sometimes. Besides, who knows? It knows something and we can get it to talk. Who knows what they’ve seen in their time? Especially on the odd chance that they hadn't been shut down while they were being torn apart.”

That was it.

He said the magic words.

Gary's eyes lit up in the way that even strangers could tell their mind was a whirlwind of ideas. They pointed at the android, the corners of their mouth pulling up just the slightest bit.“Get some sleep and get that thing done as soon as you can. You might have just given us the answer as to how we stop this thing once and for all.”

They darted into the hall without giving him a chance to respond. Nearly all of last night had been spent typing up a record of the events and trying to figure out what the paperweight could possibly be for.

Sitting on their office desk, poorly hidden under the edge of a piece of paper was the USB from the lab. They snatched it up and darted back up the stairs to the 'meeting room'. Whatever this was, it was better to go in with their most advanced tech for analysis the first time rather than needing to switch devices and platforms partway through.

The 'meeting room' was the only one on that floor that had floor-to-ceiling windows and the door removed from its hinges. Compared to the rest of the place, the decor matched more of what was downstairs - pale walls and linoleum tiles lined with teal and accented with chocolate spruce. It looked like it had been transplanted from another building.

Or from the lab.

A large, round, screen-surface table sat in the middle, with ports and outlets and things lining the inverted-slant sides. More chairs and stools than they needed were positioned around it, and most of the wall opposite the doorway was covered with monitors that had been put together to form a very large screen. Cables ran tucked together across the floor and on the left wall from the doorway sat all the extra computer power they could need.

Gary sat down facing the wall with the screens and plugged in the USB.

A large, translucent rectangle popped up in the air above the table, far larger than evidently necessary. The program - VAULT - had taken a moment to load, but automatically launched what had been saved on it—no passwords or hacking necessary.

It looked to be a sort of security footage layout. A type that you would find presented by hackers looking for ransom in fictional crime TV series. A panel of descriptive code filtered in to the right of the feed. The words ‘SYNTHESIS PROTOTYPE’ in bold white sat at the top and there was a large timer in the bottom left, From the setup, it had been counting down years.

The footage was too blurry and dark to discern much from it, but that wasn't what had captured her attention. They stared up at the title almost hopelessly. Ze recognized it.

Hir voice tumbled from their lips, wavering on the edge of fractured despair.“What the hell did they do to it?”

Chapter Text

Wed, 14 May 2020 16:20:18

Jack bounded down the hall, knocking twice against the open door out of courtesy. “Hey, Gary and I are gonna head out and grab my cloak from the shop. Need us to grab anything?” His eyes swept the empty room. “Mark?”

“In here,” Mark's voice trickled through the door to the workshop.

“Did you hear what I said- woah!! Dude!!”

Mark smiled and walked his rolling stool back a few paces so Jack could get a better look at his project. He had his hair up in a miniature ponytail, a headband keeping what wasn’t long enough to be tied back out of his face. He looked as pleased as he was tired. Something Jack immediately took note of. “Have you even been sleeping at all? I…jus’…how?!”

“Guess I got in the zone and lost track of time, I guess. Still have quite a long way to go, though,”

“Still! This is incredible!” Jack crouched in front of the android and traced the frame of its leg with his hand. “How the hell did you throw this all together? Did we even have the stuff for it?”

Mark stood and stretched. His back and shoulders cracked, prompting a small wince. “We had a decent amount of stuff saved up, but honestly a lot of that was in the room you found it in. I’m trying to keep things proportionate to what’s already there so I doubt it was all made specifically for whatever they used to be ‘cause I had to cut and modify a decent amount of it, but yeah, no, we’ve just…accumulated a lot of stuff over time. Besides, I’ve reconstructed my own legs how many times now?”

“Way more than is necessary,”

“Ouch,” he smiled and walked over to the wall desk, grabbing his water bottle. “Fair, but ouch. Point is, wasn’t too hard to figure out the rest of it. I think the hardest part is going to be figuring out the skin. I still have no idea how the nerves in mine work. They just kinda…do,”

Today marked day three after the lab raid. Mark had run Jack through some practice with the larynx after he woke up yesterday. He was still getting the hang of the upgrades, but at least he had the basics down.

Three days after the raid and the android already had a complete frame blocking out the rest of its body. All of the loose cables and wiring that hung from its innards and its shoulders were already bound to the framework and what stood for its bones. The mess of machinery that stood for its core was nowhere near functional, but at least nothing was left disconnected and bound together anymore.

“You’ve got that magic touch, I guess." Jack wandered over to the desk. "Any idea what we’re gonna call this one?”

Mark picked up his water bottle and unscrewed the top. “You’re the one who found them. Was there any name or anything along with it? I couldn’t find anything with it,”

Jack shrugged. “You’re the one building it. Makes sense for you to name it.”

The water bottle slowly came down to rest against the table again as he studied the broken-apart android.

Nothing in particular seemed to stand out as being a namesake just yet. Though, if anything was going to be its namesake, it would have to be something to do with its hair and the rings on its skin.

Mark nudged the stool back to where it was and grabbed his phone. "Nah, I wanted to wait and see if you knew anything first. I’ll figure it out at some point,”

“Cool, I’ll leave you to it.” Jack started for the door. “Oh, did you hear my question?”

“Yeah, I did. Uh…” he paused for a minute, musing over the topic. "Not that I can think of? I’ll text you if anything comes to mind though,”

"Okay. Don’t push yourself too hard and get hurt for no reason again,”

“Again?!” he pressed a hand to his chest in mock surprise. “When have I ever done something like that?”

Jack rolled his eyes and laughed. “Sure, man, whatever. I’ll see you later,”

"Be safe or I'll find you and kill you myself."

"I'd like to see you try. Bye,"

"Bye,"

Footsteps retreated down the hall and the room fell quiet again. Mark tugged the headband and tie from his hair, letting the fluffy mess fall across his eyes as they roamed around the room. His workshop was a mess, but there was little to no point in cleaning up right now. It would end up like this within an hour after sitting back down to work again. One of his hands hovered absentmindedly over his stomach, tracing back and forth over his lower ribs.

“Shower. I need a shower,”

He gathered a change of clothes and tucked his phone under his mattress. He still hadn't read the notification and he really didn't need to run the risk of 'anyone' snooping around and finding out about it.

A wave of cold air hit him as he stepped into the hallway. He took a moment to stand there and breathe, eyes closed and head tilted back. His lungs felt like his legs did when he finally got to stretch them after riding for hours on end on a cramped bus or tram.

Halfway down the stairs and moving in no particular hurry, he was met halfway by a rather frantically beeping box on a wheel.

A narrow-ish ramp had been added on the side of the stairs under the railing for the bots to move between floors on their own. The wheeled box had been painted to look like a wooden crate, retractable arms positioned on either side, the front panel half replaced with a screen displaying emoticon eyes against a black background.

“Tim!” He immediately stooped to pick up the robot, setting the clothes aside and hugging the bot to his chest. “There you are, buddy!! I was wondering where you got to,”

Tim returned the embrace as best he could, whirring and chittering happily for a moment before the urgent noises returned. It broke the hug and reached for the ground.

“What? You want down?”

As soon as their wheel made contact with the ramp, it darted down to the floor, stopping to look back like it wanted Mark to follow.

He gathered his clothes and his phone again. “You got something you want to show me?”

Its eyes bobbed down on the screen in place of a nod. Mark stepped onto the ground floor and they took off without warning down the hall.

“Tim, slow down! I can’t go that fast!”

It waited patiently outside the door to the library; the only room in the building that spanned two floors.

They called it a library, but it wasn’t much of one. There was more space than shelves, more dust than books. Anything they took an interest in reading that was somehow not digital was primarily contained to their individual rooms. By now, books could be considered scarce or collector’s items. Something that very few people cared for, and even fewer cared to use beyond aesthetic decor.

Meaning that the shelves here were set up to be more of a personal museum. Blueprints, records, magazines, things they’ve picked up along the way that aren’t quite practical or useful, all just to fill the space and document their time together. Just in case something useful would come of it someday. There were indents in the carpet where some of the shelves had been, though they were clearly long removed. Likely broken down and utilized for experiments, projects, or just used in therapeutic rage.

Tim knew exactly where he was going. He rolled past shelves and tables, moving much slower now so Mark wouldn't lose him.

Finally, they stopped.

Mark blinked, staring blankly at the door with his clothes still tucked under his arm. “That’s the storage room, buddy. There’s nothing interesting in there,”

Tim chirped. Their eyes flicked between its maker and the door a few times before they reached up and pointed.

“Tim, there’s nothing-”

“ChreeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE!!!” The little robot grabbed the handle and began to pull with all its might. Which was, admittedly, not nearly enough to make the door budge past the latch bolt, but it was adorable how its digital eyes 'scrunched' in effort.

“Okay, okay! I’ll open it, I'll open it. Back up a little." Mark jiggled the knob, testing to see if it was unlocked.

It was.

The door swung inwards and the pair made their way in.

Mark felt along the wall for the light switch.

“I really don’t know what you think…you’re going to find…in here…” He stood there in near shock. His eyes had taken a moment to focus on the papers and projects that littered the shelves. “This…No, this is the storage room, this is…” he backed up and checked the writing on the door's plaque again. “Yeah, this is the…this is the storage room. So then…”

This was the storage room. The storage room was where they agreed to keep their tools that couldn't fit in workshops. Where they kept spare consoles and electronics and scrapped projects they didn't quite want to throw out.

Whatever this room was, it had to have been mislabeled. It looked more like a visual depiction of the brain of an old cartographer after a long life of playing every role on their exploration team. Everything was cast in a shade of yellow, the wallpaper old and peeling. It smelled like aged parchment and dust and the air was dry enough to make the dead patches of skin on his hand crack with white. Constructs sat on shelves, spare parts, limbs, tools, all sorts of things, all dated with their own notebook per section.

Tim knew exactly what he was after as if they had been in here a million times. They climbed up onto one of the desks and cleared a small spot for traction's sake. They tugged open a nearby file cabinet drawer and began to rifle through its contents.

“These all got thrown out. They were supposed to be thrown out, I watched them go into the Obliterator myself, I personally threw them in there, I-…” Mark's hand trailed almost magnetically over the cluttered tabletop in the middle of the room. He looked down at one of Tim’s prototypes that had found its way here and swallowed thickly. “Tim, I don’t think we should be in here,”

A nervous, warning chime came from the door. Sam sat just outside the room, looking incredibly nervous, lens flicking back and forth from the doorway to the rest of the library.

Tim chattered for Mark less than a minute later and broke him from his trance. He didn't want to spend any longer than he had to in here. He used his clothes as a sort of makeshift pocket for the eye and the box, nearly jogging as quietly as he could out of the room, down the hall, and past the lounge. Running on the second floor was much more of a sound risk, but he could probably come up with some sort of excuse.

He nudged his dorm's door shut with his foot then pressed his back against it, taking gasping, silent breaths in the darkness to calm his heart. He stumbled to his bedroom and shut that door too.

Better safe than sorry.

He set the bots on his bed and turned on the lamp protruding from the wall.

Tim had a very thin stack of papers in their grasp.

“What’d you grab?” Mark took the pages and skimmed through them. “I don’t understand. What is this?”

Sam made another nervous sound and curled up with his lens to the door. Tim pointed to a short paragraph near the bottom of the page he was staring at.

He read it aloud. “Coagulates to a gel-solid substance with a mostly hydrophobic…Tim?” his mouth was dry. “This is a chemical formula for synthetic skin. Why do we have a formula for synthetic skin in our library?”

Chapter Text

Tue, 26 May 2020 15:22:14

Pairing CAM 19.1.13 ……………….…100%

Accessing visual feed……………..….100%

Wake-up initiated

Sunbeams fell across the grey-brown that made up BB's tail. He sat in a loaf atop the android that had been uncoupled from its stand and situated in Jack's bed. He stared at its still face with intense curiosity like he was waiting for it to wake up and pet him.

Its chest began to move.Slowly and subtly, up and down.

Small, start-stop movements rustled beneath the covers where its hands were and a slight indent rolled down beneath its eyelids

It was awake.

Purring filled the room as BB stretched forward. He stuck his head out and sniffed its face, retreating when it flinched at the sensation of whiskers on its cheek. It warily opened its eyes, immediately and nervously moving to sit up. About halfway upright, its attention snapped to the weight on its stomach. BB seemed to get the hint. It didn't start moving again until he stepped away and padded over to the end of the bed. He watched it sit up all the way and scan the room, trying to move subtly as possible to test the range of its joints. He seemed to be waiting for it to settle.

It didn't notice what its body was until it reached a hand out to BB.Curiosity that would've been morbid under its perceived circumstances consumed it. It couldn't help but look over the imperfection-littered clear - little clouds and streaks of faded peach and sand wove around the central framework like it had been frozen alive in the process of creation. A series of ashen plates sketched with pale marigold beige shielded the wiring and structural pieces from the 'skin' and the outside world beyond it.

At its shoulders and ribs, the transition from the undead orange of the skin it had to what had been added was such a clean line, it was almost jarring. Too clean of a boundary for what it was, but at least there weren't any cables and wires hanging loose anymore. Beneath the gel on its stomach was fibres stretched vertically. They seemed to hook to something inside its pelvis and disappeared behind its ribs. If it had a mirror or access to cameras, it would've been able to see its back where the fibres laced just right to expose parts of its spine in a pattern.

BB took the pause as an invitation to move in, pressing his head into its palm, purring loudly. He flinched when the android did. They stared at each other for a moment. It held its breath and glanced at its palm. A moment passed before it forced itself to reach out one more time, bracing itself for contact.

Purrs resumed and rattled up through its hands. He arched into its touch and strut into its lap. Shed drifted into the air and coated its hands as it pet him. It's eyes lit up like a child's.

FALLEN WONDERL@ND: RABBIT

Status: awake, responsive; nervous

Notifying: JACKSEPTICEYE

The purring seemed to help keep it calm. It was unclear if BB was aware of this fact or not. Regardless, it gave no objection when he clambered into its arms. It scanned the room one more time then removed the covers from its legs, one hand clutching the buzzing creature like its life depended on his contentedness.

Compared to its upper half, its legs looked rushed. Unfinished. The gel skin stopped at the hinges of its hips, leaving the plated framework of its thighs and shins exposed and a decent sized gap between where the skin should be and the actual joint itself. Ties held bits and pieces of it together. There were large holes in the shins where the frame hadn’t been filled in. Some of the fibres that stood for muscle matter were already installed, stretching over, under, and around the framework. It was enough to move and hopefully enough to walk, but it wasn’t near complete.

Not to mention its feet looked like the rubber caps of a limb prototype. The tendons connected rather loosely to it, again, just enough for it to be able to walk and move on its own, but far from suitable for long term.

The door in the other room rasped open. Panic seized the android and BB leapt from its arms, calling out loudly to whatever he was trotting towards. The android scrambled back on the bed, eyes wild and mouth agape for the sake of its coolant system.

There was desk to its left, a green ball with what looked like a lens sat next to a pair of desktop monitors and a keyboard. A window to its right that overlooked their front 'yard'; helpful for someone with a directional sound weapon, but there was no way those legs would survive a two story drop. There was no telling how stable the joints were.

“Hey,” Jack knocked gently on the wall, careful not to trip over the cat circling his ankles.

It flinched at the sound. Attention fell on him all too suddenly. It looked like it was about to cry. He softened his voice and set his phone down on one of the shelves.

“Hey, it’s okay." He pinned the short bundle of clothes he carried under his elbow and held up his hands. "I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. Sam said you were awake and I figured that you might want something to cover up with? You’re gonna need clothes when Mark’s done anyway, but we didn’t know when you’d be waking up or what state you were in. Guess I made the right call when I guessed you were far more on the sentient side.”

It hadn’t reacted to what he was saying at all and it looked absolutely petrified.

“Can you…hear me?”

No response.

He pointed at his head and nodded. “Can you do this if you hear me?”

Its head twitched up a little. The movement was slight and unsure, but it nodded back at him.

“Good, that’s good. Uhm...” He pointed at the desk Sam sat on. “I’m going to put these over here, okay? In case you want them. If you're already this scared, then you're probably not gonna have to take them off later. I don't need to know what you've been through to know that feeling like you can hide behind layers of fabric helps you feel safe sometimes.”

His back had been turned for less than a minute, taking the chance to check on Sam when a heavy impact sounded behind him. He whirled back around to find the android on the ground. “Are you alright? What happened?”

He had only taken a single step forward.

No sound came from it, but sound wasn't necessary. It buried its head against the mattress behind shaking arms and drew its knees to its chest.

“Oh,” devastation completely drenched his voice.

“Hey, no, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” He walked over to the foot of the bed and knelt on the floor. “I won’t hurt you. I swear I wouldn’t do that,” Its arms dropped just enough for it to keep a wary eye on him. He leaned forward with his palms to the ceiling. “Can I help you up?”

Ten agonizingly long minutes of continuous coaxing and periodic silence passed with no indication from the android of any trust in the man kneeling before it.

He was growing increasingly worried and wasn't able to hide it all too well.

Seventeen minutes passed.He took off his glasses and set them on the bed, pulling his sleeves over his hands and drying his eyes with the back of his wrists.His voice was a broken whisper.

“What happened to you?What did they do to you?”

Somewhere in the time they’d been sitting there, his coaxing had turned to pleading. Tears gathered as he explained he knew adjusting would take time, he knew that there was no evidence or reason to trust him, but to please, at least let him help it to its feet or back to bed so it’s not just sitting in a shaky heap on the ground. If nothing else, at least let it be comfortable in its terror. At least let it have something to hide in.

The questions seemed to be enough to rouse its confusion or at least its curiosity. It wasn't shaking anymore, but its movements were still rigid and unsure. It lowered its arms to its lap, warily eyeing the Misfit crying on the carpet. Faint light pulsed in veins down its limbs, weaving around the panels of the framework. It shifted onto its knees and walked its hands forward just a little bit.

It froze when he opened his eyes and put his glasses back on, retreating to where it sat. This time, it kept its hands down.

A breath of hope pushed its way into his chest to steady his heart. He held out his hand one more time. “One more time. Just one more try and if you really don’t want my help, I’ll go. I promise. I’m sorry for pushing you, I just…I…I wish I could take all your fear away. Whatever they did to you, whatever you’ve been through, cross my heart, you’ll never have to go through that again. I promise. I just want to help you.” The muttered reassurances seemed to be more for his own sake now.

Still, it worked.

The android leaned forward and put its hand is his. He couldn't stop the relieved gasp and the new wave of tears if he wanted to. His focus was on not immediately pulling it into a crushing hug and promising over and over that it was safe and nothing would ever happen again.

They took their time getting closer, inching forward on one of its hands and its knees until it was so close it could rest comfortably against his chest. He slid his palms along the underside of its forearms, cradling its elbows and letting it lean into him as much as it needed to.

It trembled in his grasp.

Jack took a deep breath and willed himself to calm. It needed him calm right now.

He shifted to get his feet under him, moving slowly so he wouldn't make it flinch.

"We're gonna try standing, okay?"

It still didn't respond, but it copied what he had just done. He took that as a cue to continue. They rose together, Jack watching its legs carefully with an iron grip on its arms. He knew Mark’s machinery. Even in the stripped-down state of its legs, it wouldn’t be this weak or unsteady. Whatever was going on, it had to be entirely psychological.

The android stumbled over its first step, letting go of his arms and latching onto his middlelike a lifeline. He might've moved a little too quickly and the creation might've flinched in his arms, but it didn't let go. It didn't try to get away from him.He held it as close as he could, one arm cradling its lower back, the other between its shoulder blades. His ear to its temple,tears of relief fell onto its neck and shoulder.

Sam crooned at the display.

“I’ve got you. It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe here. You’re safe.”

He ran his hands up and down its arms, squeezing its shoulders. Its grip tightened when he tried to step back. it went from cowering before him to scared to let go. He must've been the first shred of safety it's seen in ages.

If it had even known safety at all. Friendship was a very powerful truth to those who were lucky enough to experience it. Deceit seemed to run pre-programmed through the veins of every waking thing recently.

As much as he wanted to stay there and keep it safe, he couldn't stand forever. Mark and Gary would be back sooner or later. He took a deep breath to stabilise his voice and ran his palms over its upper arms again. “Let’s get you dressed, okay?”

It let him go and wrapped its arms around itself, letting him guide it to sit down on the bed. Sam reacted as Jack got near to grab the clothes, earning them a once-over from the android. A sort of placebo sedative took effect once the tshirt went on. Its eyelids drooped and it slouched a bit under the fabric. BB tried crawling into its lap again and Jack had to shoo him away so it could step into the shorts. He kept his arms out for it to lean against and so he wasn't too far away from its shoulders should it start to topple over. It did a few times, trying to fix things when the fabric snagged on a sharp corner or hook in the framework. All in all, it had clearly done this before.

They stayed standing for a bit longer, resuming the hug. This time it was broken by the android's sudden fascination with BB kneading biscuits into the duvet. Jack laughed and picked up his furbaby, showing it how to hold him.

He could stand there and watch their interaction forever, but they didn't have forever. He grabbed his phone and hovered at the mouth of the short hallway. “Since you’re up, it’d probably be a good idea to give you a tour of the place. Get you familiar with it in case you wake up in a different room and panic."

Tension gnawed at its shoulders again and it hid the bottom half of its face in BB's mane of fur.

"You can bring him with you if you want. I could be wrong but I think he likes the attention."

It smiled shyly, wiggling its fingers in a wave and lightly scratching the skin beneath the fur. Once again, the room filled with the sound of rumbling purrs. BB curled forward and rubbed his face against its cheek. It did the same.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” He sent a quick text to Mark and held out his hand for it to take. It carefully made its way over and slotted its fingers between his like an uncertain child. He gave it a reassuring squeeze and led it out to the 'front' door.

“Alrighty then. Let’s go for a walk.”

They started off slow, Jack pointing out the different rooms in the hall, throwing in tidbits of stories about the various decor items almost as proof that there was nothing really to fear about this place. He brought them over to the flight of stairs leading to the floor above, but he didn't want to risk going up stairs with the android in this state. Unless it found a way to communicate, he had no idea how far it was from another panic attack or episode or whatever that was.

BB’s purrs subsided as they walked, the android’s tension with it. His big peridot eyes jumped around in lazy curiosity, entirely content to be carried the whole way. Jacktook extra time to help the android down the stairs to the lounge and caught it when it stumbled back in alarm from BB wriggling out of its arms and leaping onto the couch.

Jack smiled and explained that he must associate people in the lounge with getting attention. Now that he thought about it, that was really the only reason they made their way to this area of the house. Movie nights were few and far between, but BB always got so much attention during them, he could get drunk off it.

They stayed in the same room as he showed it the kitchen, the spare room, the lounge, the stairways, nearly every room except for Gary’s office and the library, gesturing to them all and using his physical space to describe the layout.

His tour tapered off when he realized there wasn't any attention on him. The android had made itself comfy on the couch, massaging BB's fuzzy cheeks as he made biscuits on its chest. He had to resist the urge to pull out his phone and snap a picture. Better safe than sorry when it comes to trauma.

He opted for slowly walking over and leaning against the back of the couch with a gentle smile. "I think he likes you.”

They all jumped as Sam crawled out from his spot in Jack's hood and cheered as free-fall took them over for all of half a second.

Jack laughed. It wasn't long after a silence fell over them that only he seemed to read as uncomfortable.He was used to banter;commentary and some sort of communicative interaction to bounce off of. Not that silence wasn’t sometimes appreciated, but there was usually something else going on in the background to mask the buzzing silence. Rustling papers, a mug periodically thumping quietly against whatever surface it's left rings on, even the subtle sounds of breathing were sometimes enough but aside from his own body, there was nothing. The android's chest still moved if he looked closely enough, but any sound it made wasn't nearly enough.

He checked his phone too frequently to not come off as nervous. If it had noticed, it wasn't going to draw attention to it. By now it was staring blankly at the wall with its hands resting in BB's fur. Its sleeves had been pushed up a little and there was a low light pulsing through its skin again. Whatever Mark had done, it looked like it may as well have firefly glow for blood.

There was almost something bittersweet about seeing it like this. Its guard was down and it was easy for anyone to guess that maybe this was just an off day but at least now it had a chance to relax.

But Jack wasn't anyone.

He had seen what happened upstairs.

He had knelt there on the floor with his heart winding around his throat like a maypole and rain in his eyes as he waited for it to even fathom that he wasn't whoever it was scared of.

That he wasn't here to hurt it.

Nothing gave any indication as to what it was thinking about. Humans were easy to read, especially in this walk of life.Even the robots working with the public were easy to read once you took note of a few key details, but this one had nothing. No tells, no expression, not even so much as a nervous twitch. It was already doing immensely better than it had been, but he had taken BB in from the streets. From day one of earning that cat's trust, it was a process he'll never forget. He had even put a note by the door explaining what to do if any of them ever came across a creature as scared as BB had been.

Surprisingly enough, the android was acting close to the same. It still had a decent amount of maintenance to undergo until its first design was finished. Never mind any upgrades or repairs they’d end up making along the line. Sure, it was fine with him, BB, and wary of Sam, the four of them sitting in a quiet room with plenty of space, but it wouldn't be quiet or mostly vacant forever.

It wasn't much longer until jubilant chatter drifted in through the glass of the front door and windows. Jack carefully got the android's attention and half-whispered that he'd be right back. He quickly made his way over to the door and shoved it open to intercept the laugh-filled banter of the rest of his team.

Both of them were dressed up a bit more than usual, Mark in a jacket and military cap, Gary sporting an open Hawaiian button-down and a black tank top, accented with a twisted spike nose ring. It had become the norm when running errands; always dress a little cleaner than you think you’ll need to. It helped them to blend in with everyone else in possibly the most paradoxical way - Dress too dishevelled and it was clear you were someone who was likely trouble. Dress in a rush and you weren’t pledged to The System. Dress up just a blazer shy of business casual? That was the sweet spot. Everyone assumed you were trustworthy and stayed out of trouble.

Money was a very different question now than it had been a couple of decades ago, but between the high bartering tendencies of the Misfit community, Cloak distributing what finances it could to those that needed it, and various other schemes and methods they used to get by, the three of them had it better than a lot of folks did.

Especially the Misfits in hiding.

Though from the looks of the bags they were carrying, they might’ve just had their budget for the next several months cut in half.

Jack jogged to meet them. The further away they were from the door, the better. He didn't know what conversation they were about to have but it would probably be better if they had it away from the subject.

“Took you two long enough. Our new company is awful for conversation, but at least BB’s getting some attention,”

"Oh good, finally some help. We don't have to have our hands sliced in two anymore," Gary teased and set down the bags they were carrying. They hissed and flexed their palms.

Mark's face lit up. “Saturn’s awake?!”

“Yeah man, I sent you a text. You didn’t get it?”

“His phone died right before we met up.” Gary shook their head. "Swear to god, he’s gonna get us caught one of these days just because he forgot to charge the damn thing.”

Usually, one of them would've used that comment as a springboard for more banter. Mark didn't seem to have heard it or didn't seem to care. He was practically bouncing on his heels.

“It’s in the lounge?”

“Mhm,” Jack glanced over his shoulder. The space behind the front door was still vacant as far as he could tell. He still kept his voice low just in case. “But seriously, it might be better if I take the bags in and then you two come in one at a time. I don't know what it's been through, but it's been through hell. It was like trying to convince a stray dog you're trying to help it get out of barbed wire or something. They tried to run when I turned my back and just ended up tripping and collapsing on the ground in a terrified ball.”

“The frame wasn’t strong enough?”

He physically had to stop Mark from setting the bags down and rushing inside. “No, the frames are strong enough. We toured a decent amount of the building and it can walk just fine. It had to be a trauma response or something. Like a PTSD flashback, if that's even possible.” He took one of the bags from each of them, turning to Gary as he spoke. “Do you think you’d be able to get some information on them from the lab servers?”

“I might be able to but no promises. Corporation Corp. tends to purge their information fairly regularly. If it doesn’t work and there’s a successful version, there’s no point in them keeping detailed records on what failed.You got anything I can work with?”

“β-216,” Mark recited half on autopilot and let Jack set the pace for leading them inside. “The only thing I could find nearby in the building was something titled β-216 but it was all blacked out and ripped up.”

Gary nodded, picking their remaining bags up with a grunt. “The Beta series are in charge of managing The System. They program things, fix bugs, guard against glitches - they’re the magenta ones you’ll see doing repairs around town.”

Jack raised his voice a little to speak over his shoulder. “I thought those were the blue ones?”

“No, those are the Epsilon series. They work security, but only for Corporation Corp. If they get loaned out to any companies or businesses, it’s either because they’ve just become official partners, Corporation Corp.’s taking over, or they’ve fucked up and the bosses are keeping an extra eye on them. You never wanna get caught by one of those. Even I can’t hack them. It’s like they’re alive or something. The code’s absolutely ridiculous to try and fight and it works against you in real time. It’s way better than AI. You can beat a computer at chess because humans are unpredictable. Computers will always take the best course of action. Energy takes the path of least resistance and all that, but these are…they’re something else. They’re impressive, honestly.”

“And the yellow ones operating public transport and security and things are Deltas and the Gammas are the Phantoms - the Misfit hunters, we know.” Jack wrapped up the rest of the mini lecture. “You know, I’m still half convinced those were just a myth the company made up to scare us into pledging our allegiance,”

They shuddered like they could recall a personal encounter with the robotic beasts. “I can assure you, they’re very real. There aren’t many of them and I think they discontinued manufacturing after what happened when they switched to OS F-4377. I know they’re extreme in their methods, but that was overkill even for them.”

All three of them had stopped in front of the door to talk. Mark shifted one of the bags to his wrist and pulled it open.

Jack eyed Gary as they “What happened to going in one at a time so we won’t overwhelm Saturn?”

They gestured to the door. "Go on then,”

“What, so you're just going to creepily stand here until I give word that it’s okay for one of you to go in?” He leaned inside a little and tried unsuccessfully to peek around the corner. “We might as well just all go in together. Just…try not to be as chaotic as you usually are?”

“You’re telling us not to be chaotic?!” Mark huffed saturated disbelief. “You fucking hypocrite! We should be telling you-”

“Mark! Shush! I’m serious. If you saw what I did, you'd probably think that I wasn't taking this whole thing seriously. It was that bad; just trust me on this, okay? Frankly, I'm glad I was home when they woke up and not you. With how protective you get, you probably would've scared it shitless.”

He didn't need to explain that he hadn't intended the comment to be a jab at their engineer. Mark had made a lot of progress dealing with his anger, but protective rage was a whole different ballpark.

Mark nodded and stepped back to let Jack step in first. Both of them manually had to correct their steps so they wouldn't risk accidentally sneaking up on their new friend.

Carefully, they approached the lounge. Saturn’s wide, unblinking eyes stared attentively at the black TV on the wall, BB was gone and Sam’s chirps coming from somewhere else in the room.

Probably gone to find Tim.

Jack spoke softly, making sure it could see he stood between it and the others.

“Saturn,”

It jolted at the sound of its name and whirled to face him.

Gary paused to watch, still hunched over the bags.

Jack half turned so it could see around him. “This is Gary, and this is Mark.” He gestured to them each in turn. “Mark’s the one that built your body and is going to be finishing up your legs.”

Unsurprisingly, both of the cyber-nerds immediately started acting like restrained kids in a candy shop.

“Can I go up to it?”

“Hey, I was about to ask that!”

“Fuck off, it’s my creation. I should’ve been the first one to interact with it when it woke up but timing was bad and I wasn’t, so I get first dibs,”

Gary grumbled and rolled their eyes. “Fine, whatever. You’re overprotective as hell over your stuff anyways. You probably would’ve broken my fingers if I even dared to touch the mechanics without your permission, you mother hen.”

Mark flipped them off and started for the couch a bit too fast. Saturn flinched and he stopped in his tracks so suddenly he nearly fell over his own feet.

“Shit, you weren’t kidding…” He took off his hat and jacket. It was one of the things on the list - make yourself as non-threatening as possible.

“I told you, whatever they’ve been through really fucked them up.” The clothing change really didn’t seem to make any difference. “Try moving slow and talking to them. That’s what worked for me,”

Mark met its nervous gaze. He looked like he was trying to communicate telepathically with it. “No, actually…" He took careful steps over to the coffee table, breaking eye contact once so he wouldn't catch his shoe on the rug. He stuck out his hand and motioned him over. "Jack, could you come here, please? If they’re already warmed up to you, even just a little bit, there’s no point in starting from scratch here,”

“Good point,” he swiftly made his way back to his previous position behind the couch. A small smile tugged at his mouth when Saturn leaned back into the cushions and stretched up to get closer to him.

Gary watched the display with their hands on their hips. “Guess I’ll just put the stuff away by myself then.”

“Cool, thanks.” Mark still didn't look away. "You can leave mi-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." They grumbled, dutifully picking up two of the bags to walk to the kitchen.

Mark got a little closer to the couch, unknowingly keeping his hands just like Jack had before sitting down on the coffee table. It risked shooting Jack a pleading glance like it was gauging if it was safe to run.

He smiled and offered his hand for it to take. “It’s okay. I promised I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, didn’t I?”

It turned back to Mark as though the very action of looking at him was going to trigger some horrible thing to happen.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna hurt you. Swear to god, I’m all bark and no bite when it comes to this sort of thing. I only look as intimidating as I do so nobody tries to drag me into trouble.” He held out his hand with his palm up. Just like Jack had. “Can I touch you?”

It didn't look for reassurance this time. It picked up its trembling hand and lay it in his palm. His fingers curled loosely against its wrist to marvel the handiwork.

“Beautiful…I knew it would turn out good, but I didn’t know it would turn out like this. It’s like you got resin art for skin or something,” he looked up with a beaming smile. “What do you say we finish you up? Give you some proper legs to walk on rather than just some frames and loose wires? Promise, we’ll get you back up and running to full capacity in no time.”

Chapter Text

Saturn was understandably hesitant about the idea, but it did seem to like the idea of being somewhere less open. They helped it up the stairs to Mark's workshop, handling it with such care and patience that it was holding both their hands, swinging them to some invisible tune. It tensed when they stepped single file into the shop, taking in the tools, scrap, and equipment with the eyes of someone who has been in this position too many times.

What remained of the frame it had been hung on before sat in the corner, half taken apart.

Jack helped wiggle its hands free from tension and guided it to the cushioned table.

“Mark,”

“Hm?”

It looked like its trust in them was waning. Compared to before, this was much more of an extremely wary curiosity than the early stages of terror-induced flight, but they'd still have to calm it down quite a bit again before doing anything.

“I’m taking it apart to see what it’s made of. See if I can’t turn it into something useful, or at least get some information from it.” Mark was nearly magic when it came to sentient machines.

There wasn't a whole lo he needed, but some of the tools looked a little scary.

Especially the very large cable nearly the size of its wrist.

He carefully tried laying a hand on its shoulder to break its attention from whatever was going through its mind. It didn't flinch, so that was a start.

“Hey.” It turned to him with wide, almost tearful eyes. “You’re safe. I promise. You’re never gonna have to go back on that thing again, okay? It’s useless now. It’s just spare parts. Whatever happened to you, that’s gone. That’s gone forever, okay?”

It nodded and relaxed a little, hunching over with its arms folded over its middle.

“Come on,” he carded a hand through its hair, cradling the back of his head to guide it into laying down. “I’ve got you. After this, we never have to do anything like this ever again if you don’t want to. Okay? I just gotta finish your legs so you can run. Hell, you can sneak out of here, run away, and never look back if you want to, but I gotta finish these. You won’t feel a thing. I’m sure of it.”

And he was. He had a program he had cultivated with Gary to be able to do work on both Tim and Sam. There was no telling how or if the bots actually felt pain, but they reacted to things like they did. All the program did was silence alarms and warnings for however long it was streaming to its target.

They had both managed to overlook it in the panic somehow, but there was a port just below the dip in its collarbone. One of the first things he did was make a cable and find out what it was for.

Direct access to all of its core programming.

He explained everything he planned on doing and what the cable was for before even trying to reach under the shirt to plug it in. It shuddered when he did, but it didn't stop him.

The boys hung out a little while they waited for the program to launch, hands in Saturn's hair and on its chest just as a reassuring gesture - if something happened, they were right there. Everything was okay.

It wasn't long before the android drifted into stasis all on its own. Jack was the one who noticed, only because the hand it had reached up to hold his wrist fell limp. He nodded to get Mark's attention then they both went quiet. Human or not, PTSD was a hell of a thing to deal with and it doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves as not just a stress disorder but a sleep disorder as well. The nightmares were horrible enough, but the very idea of willingly putting yourself in a state of vulnerability was something your body understood even if you didn't.

And yet, here it was, peacefully asleep in their hands after less than a day of interacting with them. Either there was something here that they were missing or they were immensely lucky.

Or, they had just spent enough time around each other that they knew more than most exactly how to make someone feel safe.

Mark set to work uncoupling its legs, leaving Jack to slip quietly out of the room and stand in the empty hall wondering what to do next.

He wandered down the stairs and sighed when he found all but two of the bags still in a heap by the door, waiting to be unpacked. He could tell where they were going just from what was poking out the top, but it really would've been nice if Gary had bothered to help once there was no one in the room to hold them accountable. Dispersing the ones on the ground floor first, there were still two that needed to be lugged up the stairs so lug he did.

One of them was stuff for Mark's tinkering projects - new tools, supplies, scraps, tape, wires and bolts, but the other was just stuffed to the brim with interior design things. Nothing major like a bed set or a shelf or anything, but little decorations, a couple of books, lights, an hourglass that had been over-wrapped to ensure its protection.

They had gotten decorations for Saturn’s room.

Of course, it would’ve been a better idea to bring it to the store and let it pick out what it wanted, but for now the goal seemed to just be making one of their 'spare rooms' feel less like an abandoned hotel and more like something livable.

He left them both by Mark's bedroom door and sauntered down the stairs again with a sigh.

Now what?

He hopped over the back of the couch and bounced on his back, staring up at the ceiling, tracing the uneven surface with his eyes like he always did when he was deep in thought. Nearly an hour passed before he moved again, throat bobbing like it was tight when he tried to clear it. He pulled out his phone, scrolling through his apps for something to do to pass the time.

A new friend request notification popped up.

He denied it.

Several more minutes passed. He stared at the menu of his notes app. He hadn't been able to find much about the Variety statement. He hadn't been able to find anything about it, actually. Right now, it was the notes app equivalent of what looked to be the start of an evidence board. A few years back, five to be specific, Cloak had made an announcement going over how they'd be working with Misfits and the accommodations they'd be able to provide. Everything from housing and food to setting up teams for you and security camera-resistant clothing.

Jack had looked into that sort of thing immediately upon reading that for the first time and what Cloak had was nothing like what he found. Aside from it being the top search result. At the time, he had chalked it up to new advances in technology or something, like how some amusement parks have things painted specific colours that your brain is unlikely to notice, but now it was just suspicious.

Of course, there was always the possibility he was reading too much into that, but he had to start somewhere. An answer was an answer. How you got there didn't really matter anymore.

He tossed his phone onto the table with a sigh and sat up with a groan, rubbing his face. He hadn't seen BB since this morning. And now that he thought about it, Sam had vanished too. Both of them were on the couch with Saturn when Mark and Gary got home, but now...?

Traipsing around the floor, he checked all of BB's usual spots but to no avail.

“Beebs! Where are you, bud?”

No response came. None usually did, unless he was announcing his return home, but it was worth a try.

Jack started back up the stairs again, trailing his hand along the railing. The middle floor was just as eerily quiet as the floor below which meant the floor above would be too. Gaze drifted from hall to stairs and he threw a few jabs and a gut punch into the air. He could pass the time with some training, but it was rare for any of them to go up there alone. Besides, that was the third layer of flooring in this place and he was already dizzy from pouring over the building's layout in his mind. He took a deep breath and strolled down the hall. His eyes jumped around similar to how Saturn's had.

He passed by their ‘meeting room’ - or at least the room that had been labelled as such. It was the only room with glass panels for walls, a hologram projector, and a large table that was entirely touch-screen. Monitors made up a wall of fragmented screens opposite the door, and several tower PCs, digital storage, and even some sort of batteries Gary had built were all stacked and positioned on a table and in cubby holes on the left of the room.

It wasn’t a room they used very frequently, especially given the lack of prints on the table, but the spot where their resident inventor sat was particularly worn. Sticky notes were pasted to the sides of the table, the walls, and some of the amalgamated monitors for Gary to take a break, leave the room, don’t forget to stretch, when was the last time you drank or ate anything. Little reminders, all geared to them.

And Gary was in there now, leaning back in their seat and staring up at a screen projected an arm’s reach above them. He followed their gaze to the image.

It wasn’t the clearest, but it looked to be some sort of surveillance footage from a lab. A large timer was displayed at the bottom in yellow-orange. The footage was copied onto another screen next to it, code running in a vertical box that opened more and more small windows, accessing different angles, rooms, timestamps.

And a termination report.

He swallowed thickly, pouring over the images again and again as quickly as he could to try and make some sort of sense of them. From how still and calm Gary seemed to be, this wasn’t new information to them. Nor was it something they'd be taking a rest from anytime soon.

The lab looked different from the one they were just in, and whatever the people in the videos were working on had a white and dark grey frame. It wasn’t built the way the other robots were. Maybe it was one of the Phantoms, but it wouldn’t make sense for Gary to be scouring the footage in secret like this. Especially not after what they said about Corporation Corp.’s security system.

In the upper left-hand corner was the word ‘VAULT’ in white caps-lock, and a series of numbers next to it. He watched the code for a minute, creeping as close as he dared to the room. The word ‘synthesis’ kept popping up again and again.

Project Synthesis.

Everything was dated more than five years ago, meaning this was all from the old OS. The outdated OS and before Cloak's declaration. Everyone knew that the sudden change in company had to be a coverup of some sort, that was obvious enough, but any answers he found seemed to just be rumours and theories. Nothing he could seriously consider putting a pin in.

He crept away before he was noticed, halfheartedly scanning the rooms on the way back to the stairs for any sign of BB.

Still nothing.

He was halfway to their 'sensory game den' when his phone lit up in his pocket.

A message from the same person who had sent a friend request.

The account had been made minutes before the request was sent, and now there was a pending message. There was no context, no greeting message, nothing. Just coordinates and an address.

He frowned and muttered to himself. “Maybe they’ve got the wrong person?”

Another message.

I know this is abrupt and probably ringing a few of your alarm bells, but I promise, this is legit. You’ve got questions that need answering, right? About the lab? Meet me here. I can answer them all for you, but you have to promise not to bring any of your teammates with you. I don’t really have a time frame here, but I will say, the sooner the better. I don’t know how long I can afford to wait.

Hope to see you soon.

Jack stared at his phone in disbelief. He shook his head with a scoff and continued on his way, nudging open the door to the dimly lit room with notoriously comfortable blankets and cushions. He grabbed one of the weighted ones and dropped onto a beanbag off to the side, letting the air rush from his lungs.

Curiosity gnawed at his mind.

He sat up and opened the message, copying the address into a map.

From the satellite view, it was just an empty part of town. The building was suspiciously nondescript and the roads around it hadn’t been traversed in a long while. Any plant growth on the sides of the roads was dried up and dead, pale dirt caking the asphalt and concrete.

“Yeah. Like hell I’m going there. Especially not alone.”

Phone on the floor and hands behind his head, he let his mind wander and his eyes drift shut. He zoned out in semi-silence as the remaining daylight passed him by.

Chapter Text

Wed, 27 May 2020, 9:13:09

Mark had built, modified, tweaked, and done experiments with his own legs and prosthetic limbs in general that he practically knew how to make them from muscle memory. He could create an entire textbook guide with how much damage records and repair and creation documentation he had stashed in notebooks. The fact that Saturn already had the base frames done just made it that much easier to finish them up.

The synthetic skin had worked shockingly well. He nailed the formula ratios first try and it set like a dream. He still had no idea where the notes had come from or why it was in his handwriting, but that was a question for later. All he had left to do while Saturn was still out was to reattach the limbs and wait for it to wake up.

He had been working for hours and stepped out of his workshop to take a break and get some food.

“What are you doing?”

Leaving the android unattended was the only mistake he had made throughout the entire process.

Gary jumped at the sound of his voice. “Hey, you’re back! Nothing, I was just…um…I was-”

“You were just what? If I needed your help, then I would’ve asked for it.”

They snorted and turned around, putting a little too much effort into their doubtful expression. “Would you actually have, though?”

“Gary.”

“Okay, okay! If you must know-”

“They’re my build. Last I checked, I should know everything that goes on with my builds. I need to be able to able to fix them if something goes wrong and I need to know what was changed through tampering so I don't end up breaking it when I'm working on it.”

“I was just…” they growled softly and took a deep breath. “Oh, this is going to go nowhere. I was installing a communication software, alright?”

Mark's eyebrows shot up. “You were what?”

“I was installing a communications software! Clearly, whatever one it has isn’t working, so I made a program to record whatever thought equivalent robots have so we can just get information that way.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”He glanced at the topic of conversation, missing its legs and still unconscious on the table.

It looked tense.

There were only subtle cues to go off of, but its eyebrows were lower set than they had been before and its shoulders more squared. You learn to notice the smallest of things when you work with and depend on robotics and prosthetics every day of your life.

“What?”

“You didn’t think to tell me -the person who’s building their body and getting the programs up and running - that you were adding something? You didn’t think to check if it was even compatible?”

They scoffed and rolled their eyes. “Check if it was compatible. What do you take me for, a new-”

“Because from where I’m standing, it not only looks like the program is incompatible, it looks like you’re hurting them, it looks like you were trying to sneak behind my back because you knew I would say no, AND-” he got in close, clasping his hands behind his back as he leaned down. “- if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re forgetting that these creations of mine are alive. What Jack described and what I witnessed was some serious PTSD. And I think we all know you’re not the best when it comes to emotional stuff, or psychology.”

Attempting to hide it now was pointless. No matter how big a game they talked, ze could never really find it in hirself to stand their ground whenever Jack or Mark put their foot down over something.

She rolled vir shoulders back with a nervous chuckle, trying and failing to make faerself seem far more confident in this situation than he actually was. “Come on, man. Don’t you think it’s for the best? I mean this way-”

“I think it would be best if you leave my workshop until explicitly tell you otherwise, and you leave whatever damage you've done as is so I can see just how badly you've messed this up.”

Ve blinked like he had just spit in hir face. “Are you s-”

“Now, Gary. I don’t have all day to put this off. I have to attach the limbs before it wakes up,”

“B-”

He pointed to the door. “Out. Now.”

“Fine, fine, geez. Don’t get your panties in a wad,” She reached for the laptop. Mark grabbed their wrist. “Okay! I’m going! I’m going.” Fae held up xyr hands and sped out, grumbling to themself about how it was impossible to try and get him to cooperate on anything.

At least they shut the door behind them.

Mark sat down with enough force that the stool bobbed, eyes flicking back and forth as he scrolled through the countless lines of code.

“Oh, you fuckin’ moron, that’s the fucking wrong operating system.” he glanced over his shoulder. Saturn's head was tipped towards him, watching with pleading eyes. He brushed the hair out of its face and squeezed its shoulder. “Just hang on a little longer, okay? I'm almost done.” It curled up on its side, mindful of the cord still protruding from its chest and the cables lazily slinking from its hips and waist.“And...that’s done.” He spun around and began disconnecting the cables a little faster than he probably should have. He cradled its head again, brushing his thumb once over its cheek. “It’s gone now. You’re okay, I promise. Whatever you're feeling should stop soon,”

A shaky hand reached for the thick cable in its chest. Mark's fingers pressed into its palm and guided it back to its side. “Not that one." He whispered."That one needs to stay for now. It’s keeping some of your warning systems at bay until I get your legs connected. You're already in pain from whatever the fuck ze just tried to pull. We don't need you in more."

It peeked over his arm, staring almost tearfully down at its body. He had left its clothes on, but its shorts were rolled up and pinned in place, the wiring and sockets of its hips completely exposed.

“I'm not going to leave you like this, I promise. I would never.”

The moment he realized what it was trying to do, he helped it sit up. Its movements were lethargic and fumbling but it was unclear from what. If it was the program repressor doing too much, it was probably better safe than sorry. Neither of them needed Saturn panicking right now. It clung to his shirt like a child, forehead bowed to his chest and eyes squinted shut.

“I know, I know. I’m so sorry,” he sat down next to it, mindful of the exposed joints and wiring. “I didn’t know they were going to do that. He messes with my projects every now and again, but I had no idea that they’d try something like that. I’m gonna have to have a talk with hir later. We should probably get you finished up before she tries to sneak back in.”

A garbled sort of whimper sound came from his computer when he tried to pull away. He jumped at the noise, twisting around wide-eyed.

The program hadn’t been fully removed yet.

You could practically hear all the pieces of his heart hitting his ribs as it shattered. “Oh, buddy, it’s okay. I'm not going anywhere, okay? I'm just gonna move over here, grab your legs, put them back into place and then you never have to do anything like this ever again if you don't want to. I promise.”

It let him go, hands dropping to its lap. It didn't look any less worried.

Mark gave its arm a gentle squeeze and darted over to the legs.

“Yup. They’re definitely set now.”

Dragging his stool over to the side of the table Saturn sat on, he helped it move closer to the edge and set one of his knees on the black cushion top.

He flashed a smile as he started to reconnect the wires. “Don’t worry, this is the easy part. It’ll be done before you know it,”

It lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. Its jaw was clenched, but it seemed less tense than before and growing more relaxed by the second.

Gary's intrusive little program was gone before the joint of the first leg popped into place with a good amount of pressure, a soft click ensuring the safety lock was in place. Should anything try to rip it apart at the joints, they'd have an incredibly tough time.

Hands on either side of its knees, he leaned over it, intending to get its attention to take the hoodie off for easier access to the cable, but he found himself just...watching for a bit. Taking everything in. He had taken in enough details when Saturn was in stasis, but there was something about it when it was awake that landed it somewhere between uncanny valley and totally acceptable. It was very obviously a synthetic being, but for some reason, it was realistic enough, human enough that it didn't make him freak out.

Sure, the skin was a little discoloured on the chest and shoulders, but the neck and head were perfectly passable. If he hadn’t seen it in its disassembled state, if he hadn’t been the one to build it, if he saw it on the street dressed in any sort of public-decent clothing, he wouldn’t have given them a second thought. Maybe they were sick and had to have limbs removed. Maybe they were deformed at birth. Maybe they got into an accident. Maybe they just had a job that required more than the biological body could handle.

Even its hair could be easily passed off as modification. Hair dye has been a thing for at least as long as he'd been alive.

And he would know. There’s a near-concerning amount of digital records and paper trails of his digging around the market for personal enrichment.

He walked around to its head, brushing the hair out of its face and watching focus come back into its eyes as it stared up at him. Bright, canary yellow eyes that were so vibrant, they cast the smallest bit of light in complete darkness. There was nothing on the market that was anything like this. That looked anything like this - and there were a lot of things out there.

They were eyes that were wholly unnerving to look at. The colour was just wrong. If you made eye contact, the colour alone made it feel like your soul was being shredded by a whirlwind looking for your innermost secrets. The blank stare, the permeant, underlying expression of fear and sorrow, the fact that you could see the arc of its irises where it dived down into the pupil.

Prosthetic eyes were becoming significantly more common, just not yellow ones. Definitely not yellow ones that looked as though the designer hadn't even given a single thought to attempting to make them pass for organic, never mind human.

It was taking the concept of Blue Eyes Make You Look Like A Serial Killer to a whole other, uncanny level.

When it finally registered it was looking at someone, someone it could trust and someone who was currently touching them, it took a deep breath. Its body relaxed, eyes growing heavy. Its hand reached up to rest over his where he cradled its head, fingers curled gently around his wrist.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay,” They stayed like that for a few minutes. He nearly thought it had fallen back asleep when it tried to reach for the cable on its chest again. And again, he stopped it. “Do you want my help to sit up?” Saturn stuck its arms out. Mark chuckled. “Iwould rather you left that in for now. Everything should be hooked up properly, but just in case, I don’t want to have to go through and disconnect it all just to have to put it back in again. Saves us both time and stress,” He stepped back to where the stool was and carefully pulled it to sit upright. “Good. I'm gonna run you through a few mobility tests, and then if everything's good, we can try standing, okay? I know my machines, I know the legs work fine, but I don't want you feeling like you're marching to your doom or anything."

He took one of its hands for emotional support and walked it through step by step; wiggling its toe sector, rolling its ankles, knees and hips, circling the limbs as best it could and bending them to its chest.

“Arms up," Lifting its hoodie, he hooded the fabric behind its head. The cable stuck out at a decently sharp angle. He put his hand right by where it connected. It flinched a little, but that was the point. "I don’t know how jarring this going to be since you’re already awake and functional, but if you happen to shut down for a moment, I’d rather you fall onto the table or my shoulder than crumpling on the floor again.”

Its eyes wandered over his shoulder as he grabbed his laptop. He balanced it on his knee, checking the cable and program a few times before squeezing the latches and removing it. An audible hiss filled the air.

“Brace yourself. Lean on me if you need to.” The connector came free with ease and the cable dropped to the ground. Twin weights rested on his shoulders. He closed the laptop and set it down, bringing Saturn's head next to his. It was swaying a bit, eyes dull and unfocused. It leaned against him, chest moving in stop-start like it was trying to find the rhythm it was supposed to breathe at. “Breathe. It’s okay...take your time. We’re not in any rush. You're okay...you've got this.”

It closed its eyes and took a few more intentional, deep breaths, holding it at the top of every inhale and the bottom of every exhale. From the way the lights danced through its skin and behind its eyelids, it was calibrating something. The little port whirred closed and it tried to grab at the hoodie from the strange position. It got it after a moment, shuddering as static warmth hugged its middle again.

Mark took a step back, hands out for support. He hadn't been rushing it this entire time and he wasn't about to start now.

Not that he needed to. It shuffled off the table bit by bit and lowered its feet to the ground. It took a few stumbling steps forward and crashed into him, arms closing around each other like snap bracelets.

It held onto him for dear life and his chest welled with pride. He praised it over and over until he felt it smiling into his shoulder.

"I'm going to take a step back now, okay? I'm not going to let go, I'm just taking a step back."

Their arms slid against each other, Mark cradling the underside of its forearms with his hands bracing its elbows. The only weight in his hands was the weight of its limp arms. He broke into a grin and slowly let go, watching like an impossibly proud dad as it stood all on its own.

He took slow steps back, not making any movement to run.

"Saturn, come here."

It took confident, smooth steps forward, each of the pieces moving silently, just as they were supposed to. He pulled it into another hug, twisting and rocking it back and forth as he giggled.

"Yes! You got it! You got it!"

He felt it smile again and it mimicked the movement. It took a step back and bounced on its heels, looking him in the eyes with a smile that made him tear up. He hadn't seen what Jack had, but all he had seen so far was fear and numbness. He had heard it crying in pain.

Saturn's joy was a wonderful thing to witness.

“You remember the bags that Gary and I brought in earlier?" Its head tilted ever so slightly. It was absolutely adorable."One of ‘em’s got some clothes in it. We didn’t really have anything we thought would fit you well enough, so I wanted to grab some stuff while we were out. How about we get you properly dressed and then you can go show Jack?”

It bounced on its heels again and stuck out its hand like Jack had done before. Mark smiled and graciously took it. He led it out to and down the hall to the room that it would get to call its own. The decor was incredibly barebones, but that’s what most of the bags had been for. One of the stuffed, black canvas bags were positioned by a small couch angled against the corner furthest from the door. He hooked his hands through the straps of one of them and led the now-complete android through the door, behind the couch, and into its bedroom. It wasn’t the most convenient design, but given how jumpy it was, they nearly agreed that the sense of isolation might give some much-needed emotional safety.

The bed had already been made with dark blue and beige sheets and blankets, icy grey pillowcases at the top. Of course, the navy was already speckled with the smallest strands of grey-brown with a well-timed BB in a sploot on top.

It dove for the cat again, picking him up and placing him on his chest, fingers buried in his fur. Mark set the bag on a dresser next to a frameless full-length mirror against the left wall from the bed, sitting down next to it to watch. His cheeks would hurt in a little bit if he didn't stop smiling.

"You want to dig through the clothes?" He pulled the bag up onto the bed when it arched its head towards him.

Either it was just being silly or it was going to take after BB. Both possibilities would be absolutely hilarious.

I dumped everything out and sifted through the folded fabrics. Not too much time passed before it found something it liked; a scarlet hoodie spattered with pale red from a bleach tie-dye session with sleeves that hung just a little too long and black joggers with pink flowers and off-white skulls running behind white text down one of the legs.

"Go look in the mirror."

It bounded over and examined itself, twisting and spinning around with sparkling eyes. It turned back to Mark and grinned.

He nodded. "You're very welcome. You look wonderful."

Shoe shopping would have to be next on the list.

Chapter Text

Wed, 27 May 2020, 13:44:26

“Hey! There you are. I’ve been trying to reach you for a while now, but it only ever seems to work properly when the person on the receiving end of this is unconscious. That, or I have some of the worst timing in the world.”

Jack hadn’t moved from his spot on the beanbag. He had been hovering on and off on the edge of sleep all day, only getting up for medication or because his body was demanding something. He found himself near petrified as the voice spoke. It wasn't quite coming from inside his head, but it was too engulfing for it to be from an external source.

“Listen, I don't want to hurt you so I can't talk for very long, but I know the lab raid didn't go well. You found out about some stuff you 'weren't supposed to' and you got a special little souvenir that was supposed to be demolished with the building.”

He forced himself to work through the panic, wiggling joint by joint until standing up didn't feel so impossible anymore, making a scrambled dive for the door. The carpet-dressed tiles began to warp and blur with the walls, things rising in his peripherals. Sickeningly off-grey tile and walls trimmed with hospital teal-blue hung low in a haze around him. Something dripped past his eye and ran to his nose, curving around his nostril. He kept his lips pressed tightly together to stop it getting in. It didn't matter if it was real or not.

The voice sounded like it might've been using this whole thing as the setting for a villain monologue, or maybe a mentor one. “This runs so much deeper than you know. You're being given the chance of a lifetime here - I don't know of anyone who can do what you can who had a chance to actually practice it and learn to wield this in a safe environment.”

Fabric-covered wood crashed into his hip. He whined from the pain. From which pain though was unclear.

Without warning, his vision pitched to the side like a ship, cold blooming across his cheek and temple. Footsteps neared on his left and a shadow fell in front of his face. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t privy to the whole story.

Literally.

Only half of his vision was submerged in this illusion.

While the voice could be categorized as a hallucination, possibly the sudden chill on his face, the imagery certainly couldn’t. Hallucinations were an organic occurrence. If he was going to hallucinate, his synthetic eye should be the one thing that was spared from the experience. It wasn’t hooked up the same way as his organic eye.

He-

No…

No, I…I recognize these images.

He should not be able to see this.

No one should.

Where did you find this?

How are you doing this?

What have you done?

“You aren’t safe with your team, Jack. You can’t trust them. I don’t think I need to tell you of all people this. You already know, don't you? You've been laying the groundwork for a bit now, haven't you?”

Timid footsteps approached from somewhere behind him. They sounded less hollow than the ones in the fog clinic.

Closing his synthetic eye did nothing and his organic one was hopelessly unfocused. He looked as though his legs might give out from pain or fear, breaths coming in ragged, choked drumbeats.

“The domestic life was nice while it lasted, but that’s not what you signed up for. That’s not what any of you signed up for and you know it. Even before that last assignment, the ship was hitting the rocks. Don't you think you deserve to know what they're hiding from you? We live in an era where information is a greater threat than any sort of physical weapon could ever be. We’ve got a few things from our armoury that’ll be a huge help, but you have to trust me on this. I know that contradicts what I just said, but look - the coordinates I sent you, it’s one of the only places on the map that isn’t tracked by the million-and-one-eyed security system we’ve got here. It’s the only place that’s really safe.”

“I am safe. This house is safe. That’s why it’s called a Safe House.”

He stumbled like the ground was a trampoline wobbling under the weight of a school of children. By nothing short of a miracle, he made it to the medicine cabinet in the kitchen without so much as a scrape.

Another set of footsteps shook the floor and his brain in his skull. A groan caught his throat and he had to swallow it before The Voice heard. He had the sinking feeling someone was about to press him about what was going on. As if everything else about him wasn’t enough to immediately alert anyone who saw him that he was downright terrified.

“Jack?” Gary stood behind him, just outside the dark kitchen. “Is everything alright? You don’t look too good.”

“I’m okay,” The words tumbled and knotted together. Fingertips ghosted over the labels on the bottles and vials of their home pharmacy, pausing before the painkillers. “‘s jus’ a head’che,”

“A headache doesn’t make you act like this. And certainly doesn’t make a…whatever’s going on with Saturn run and come get someone it clearly doesn’t trust.” They sounded rather angry about that fact.

He ground his teeth, physically struggling to keep his voice some ounce of calm. “A migraine then, fuck if I know,”

They looked him up and down, completely unconvinced. “You don’t get-”

“Fuck, Gary, just…please, can I have two minutes without you interrogating me?!” He slammed his hands on the counter, accidentally bringing the plastic pill bottle down harder than intended. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped, I just…please, can I have some space right now? I’ll be fine. I’ll text if something’s wrong.”

“Do you need me t-”

“My phone’s in my pocket and I am perfectly capable of accessing that myself. Go.Please.”

"Your funeral."

They left far too easily.

Saturn hovered by the kitchen island, Tim at its heels. Both synthetic beings looked frantically concerned at Jack's condition. The only reason they hadn't run to get Mark was because he was asleep. He finally crashed a few hours ago and was catching up on some much-needed rest.

Tim chittered at Saturn and the two bolted out of the room.

Within the illusion, the figure spoke muted and distant words. His sight shifted without him moving, and far too smoothly at that. This had to be a camera he was looking through. It was now aimed directly up at the ceiling, lens struggling to find something to focus on amidst details and destruction.

Whatever the figure was saying, it sounded like a taunt. Gloating their victory maybe.

The voice hummed inside his ears again. “It’s unfair that they’re allowed to keep things from you, yet you’re at their beck and call.”

Something narrow hovered at the bottom of the image, held up at an angle that barely skimmed the edge of the illusion. The most likely case was it was some type of weapon.

He missed the light switch in his blind fumble back across the room, shoulder colliding with the wall. Choking back a cry of frustration and pain, he let his knees take him to the ground. Silent prayers hovered on his tongue, tears gathering in his eyes. Even the saline did nothing to chase the image away.

Whatever intensity he’s experiencing this at, it wasn’t as bad as the one who had to live it. I can promise you that much.

Trembling hands gripped onto his shoulders, arms crossed over his chest. He curled up as small as he could, breathing reduced to mere hiccups.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t stopped to think about what they’re doing here. You were raised free of The System because your parents broke free, but what about them? What did they have to do to make it out? What did they do that snapped them out of it? Just what have they done?”

He jumped hard when he felt a hand on his knee, diving into the arms they belonged to the very next moment.

A very sleepy Mark sat on the ground next to him, giving him the biggest hug he could manage. One of Jack's hands clamped over his mouth in an attempt to stay quiet.

“You need to wake up, do you understand me? You need to wake up and see just what it is you can do.”

The weapon in the illusion raised from its spot and passed over what would’ve been the middle of his vision had both eyes been affected. The person holding it came somewhat into view, but everything was too blurry and fluid to discern any details. They said something else, raising both hands to what looked to be a piece of rebar.

“We don’t have much time. Wake up. WAKE UP!!”

He didn't need to be able to see the rest of it to know the rebar had just skewered the throat of the poor thing living this.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ve got you, you’re safe,” Mark muttered lowly in his ear, grip tightening at the second violent flinch.

All at once the illusion was gone. No warping and distortion like how it came in, no pitching images, just...gone. Like it hadn’t even been there at all.

His hand fell from his mouth and he sobbed quietly into Mark's shoulder, staying mindful not to touch his neck. Saturn sat at their side, watching with uncertainty. It shuffled closer after a beat, gingerly wrapping its arms around them both, head resting against Jack’s, the side supported by Mark’s arm. The action took both the Misfits by surprise. Everyone paused to process the situation.

Jack was the first to respond, reaching one of his arms around the android.

It didn’t move away. If anything, it seemed to try to press itself closer.

A new wave of tears shattered in his eyes, cries far less jarring than they were before. A steady breath of relief unwound some of the tension in Mark’s back and shoulders as he let himself relax into the tangle of limbs, heads, and caring hearts.

Quite some time passed before the air stood still again. As distressing as the situation was, none of them seemed to want this moment to end.

Mark lifted one of his hands, running the backs of his fingers up and down over the back of Jack’s head. Saturn watched in curiosity. “Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” the smallest little shake 'no' was all he got as an answer. “That's okay. Can I ask one question?”

He nodded.

“Does this have anything to do with the nightmare you had?”

Jack pulled away from his friends just enough to bind his ribs in his arms and lay down again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,”

“Hey,” Gary crept back into the room, pausing when he noticed Saturn as a part of the hug. “I dimmed as much of the light as I could and I’ve got raspberry lemonade tea steeping right now. I didn’t know what else would help, but I figured that’d at least take some of the edge off. How is he?”

“He’s calmed down for now. Dunno what happened, but I think he’s okay.”Mark hummed and yawned into the back of his hand.

“That’s good. I’m glad he’s okay at least…” They carefully nudged Saturn with their foot, peering through the ill-lit darkness at the unexpressive side eye it gave them. “Thanks for getting me,” they whispered with a smile. “I really do appreciate it. I was gonna see if we couldn’t take you on a little tour of our regular spots in the city today, but I think it’s best if we save that for another time,”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Mark did his best to stretch in place, hunching his shoulders and arching his back. Arms overhead, the smallest of tremors shook through him, a low sigh of cut-off noises scraped through his throat. He resumed physical reassurance the moment he could. “What do you think? Some tea sound good right about now?”

Jack was acting rather like a child, but given what just happened, how else was he supposed to act? He nodded and scooted away a little bit, keeping his limbs close to his chest while he waited for a prompt to move.

Mark stood, Saturn rising with him. He offered his hands and pulled Jack to his feet, catching him as he staggered a bit.“You good to walk or do we need to take it slow?”

“I’m okay,” his voice was barely there. More of a word-shaped exhale than anything, but it was enough to get the point across. “Jus’ tired,”

“Yeah, I’d think so. What do you say we take a chill day and show Saturn how to play some games?” Jack nodded and Saturn looked immensely interested. “Yeah? Alright then, I’ll lead the way.”

The group split in two, Jack holding onto the back of one of Mark’s sleeves as they walked, leaving Gary and Saturn alone in the dark kitchen.

Gary turned the light on and walked back over to the medicine cabinet, putting the painkillers Jack had taken out back in its spot. She began to ramble.

“He doesn’t usually get migraines. He’s gotten them a few times, but they’ve never just been out of the blue like this. I really don’t know what brought this on, but if this is going to be a regular thing, then we’re going to have to restructure a lot of what we do here. We’re lucky that we don’t get a lot of assignments that require a lot of stealth or anything, but even so, we can’t risk this happening on the field.” Xe sighed and sat down at the table again, propping faer elbows up to easily cradle their brow. “I wish I could fix people the way I can fix electronics. Life would be so much easier…speaking of which, er-…no pun intended, any luck getting that voice box of yours to work?”

Saturn stared blankly at them. Unimpressed or disappointed, it was hard to tell. Likely both.

“Yes? No? Are you just being stubborn because you don’t like me for some reason? Did I say something to piss you off?”

Still nothing.

“Any sort of response would be helpful here, you know.”

It crossed its arms, shifting its feet to be in line with its shoulders.

“So I did do something?” Ze looked the android over, trying to find something, anything to go off of. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done but if you could please tell me, I’ll apologize and we can move on from it? Maybe?”

The familiar and subtle glow from its irises took this interaction from uncanny to plain unnerving. Its design already made it look like it was looking through you, clawing through your brain for whatever it was searching for, but this made it look like something you’d expect to start chasing you through a Halloween store.

“Come on, please. I need you to say something at least. You can’t stay silent forever, right? I’m assuming you’ve gotten a rundown on what it is we do here. If you know anything that can help, anything at all, then please, please tell us. Tell me. And if I have done something - and I’m assuming I have, I’m so, so sorry. Please, just…tell me what it is? I’ll make it right, whatever it is. I’ll fix it, I’ll apologize, I’ll-”

It spun on its heel and promptly walked out of the room.

“…I’ll get ignored, I guess.” They sighed and sunk in their seat until the back of the chair rested against the bump on the back of their skull.

They weren’t going to make any progress like this.

Judging from how their footsteps faded, the boys hadn’t gone upstairs. Arms clasped behind its back, Saturn nearly glided across the floor, scanning the rooms for any sign of them.

“Hey, I was just about to come get you.”

Mark stood leaned against the doorframe of a room tucked up against the opposite side of the stairs from the kitchen. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open all the way and it looked like he kept forgetting to keep his joints from folding on themselves. If not for the wall pressed against his back, he might’ve fallen over.

Amusement twitched on his face when he realized it was examining him. “I’m okay, I promise. Glad to know you still see me as someone safe enough to care about.”

He entered the room first, holding the door open until it was inside.\

The was relatively small compared to most of the rooms in the building. A deep, two-seat couch sat facing a large TV, gentle LEDs lined up behind the screen to project the dancing colours across the walls. A myriad of air-purifying plants hung from the ceilings and were positioned on shelves, chairs, and the cabinet the electronics were mounted on. They were all relatively small and there was a greater number of spider plants than anything else. A top sheet was draped across the ceiling, pinned up in a few places like a tent.

Comfy and cozy and sensory-friendly. The exact reason Jack had found his way here this morning. Now, he sat on the couch, a blanket draped over his shoulders. The pad of his thumb traced back and forth over the rim of the mug in his hands. Whatever was on the screen, he either wasn’t paying attention or couldn’t have the heart to care at the moment.

Mark wove around the room to a mound of spare pillows and blankets that had been fashioned into a sort of makeshift chair. Saturn followed him, fidgeting with its hands.

“Sorry,” Jack broke the stillness with nervous guilt. “I didn’t mean to make you worry,”

“I already told you, you’re fine. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Mark gestured for Saturn to sit on the couch before dropping onto the mound of plush with a groan. “A’ight, I’mma try and get a bit more sleep. Whatever you do, don’t break anything and wake me if something happens,”

“Will do,”

Chapter Text

Thu, 21 May 2020, 9:00:19 - Altercation recorded

Location: Library

Participants: ARCHIV1ST, Mother

Urgency: None

There really needs to be a seminar or something about being mindful of your surroundings when you talk about things people aren't supposed to know.

“You’re kidding!”

“No, ma'am. We weren’t able to establish a connection, but there's no doubt about it. It's him, and we were able to get a hold of his active profile. He’s currently unlisted but he’s working with a Misfit team. It’s a small group, just three of them, but they’re in the top 4% of teams currently under watch.”

“Ah! This is fantastic!! We haven't heard from him in years! He even led us to a pair of test subjects as a reward. How exciting! If we’re able to get him back, we’re good to proceed with Fallen.”

If I had any more of my organs than I did, my heart would've felt like it was squeezing against my throat. Instead, it felt like the cables and wires of my innards were tying themselves in knots. They could actually be, for all I know. I'm not sure which is a more unpleasant sensation.

Of course they wanted to bring back Fallen. It’s not like that went horribly wrong the first time. It's not like there's been five years of radio silence on this front for nothing.

“Uh…ma’am? Are you sure you don’t mean Synthesis?”

“Did it sound like I said Synthesis? No, that project was a failure. The tech was good enough but so many things went wrong with the programming and designs.”

Gee, I wonder why? It's almost like when you create something sentient, you need to treat it with care and respect if you want it to get along with you and work well with you. Almost like humans or something. Wild.

It’s almost like you took credit for something that wasn’t yours without taking into consideration that kicking certain people off the team would mean sacrificing and removing their skillset from the project. What a shocker.

“But I thought we-”

“We’re going to be pulling tech from Synthesis, Mally. Meaning we’re going to be taking what we learned and applying it to this. That's what we do around here. Why the concern? Don’t tell me you sent the wrong things to the Obliterator.”

“No-! No, ma’am! It’s just…well, from how you explained it before, it sounded like we were doing the exact opposite of Synthesis? I swear to you, everything sent to the Obliterator was confirmed for omission before it even left the room.”

“Fantastic! So, tell me. How soon can I speak with him? What do I need to do?”

“It doesn’t look like he’s active very much, but he does appear to have a ViewTube account.”

“Perfect!! Send me his profile ASAP. I can't believe it's been five years already...I wonder what he's been up to outside of assignments. And to think, all this time, he was right under our noses!”

I could feel my lips smiling in the most teeth-baring, nauseated way possible. At this proximity, there was no point in trying to be quiet - I let my voice carry out the room. “One of these days, your self-centred confidence is going to be your downfall.”

That hurt more than I expected it to and the sandpaper feeling was all too familiar. I’ve lost track of how many times they’ve ripped open my throat to give me a new voicebox. They’re always so surprised at how fast it deteriorates, and yet they never stop to think about what could be causing it.

Not like it mattered anyway.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think I could hear you. You’re standing so close to the doors and you’re not even trying to keep your voices down. Not that it would matter if you did. I can tell the differences in voices even when you whisper. I’ve heard the sound of nails in a cheese grater enough to know when you’re nearby.”

There was a hushed dismissal followed by angry, clicking footsteps.

Oh no. Mama's angry. Whatever will I do.

And here she is - horrible fashion sense and all. Honestly, she really needs to start understanding that your skin, hair, and eyes have colour too, and it’s in your best interest to pick clothes that don’t make you look like an over-saturated, deep-fried state liscence photo.

She stared straight ahead, eyes trying their hardest to bore a hole through my skull.

The grin I wore was more out of spite and resentment for this petty game than anything. I was too tired for it to be anything else. “Welcome to the library. Is there anything I can h-”

She scowled and pointed her finger at me like I had just slapped her nonexistent child that she totally cared about. “You’re an overgrown, over-glorified security system. It’s your job to watch things and listen to them. Not to chime in.”

“You left me with a mouth and tasked me with customer service.”

“I had you mounted to the wall like the trophy you are, Taurus. You’re in no position to talk back to me like this.” Mm, charming. And so maternal, wouldn't no agree?

I leaned forward as much as I could, eyes narrowed behind the patchy curtain of hair. “See, I'm going to have to disagree. I think, just maybe, I’m in exactly the position to talk back to you like this. I’m of too much importance to you. You wouldn’t dare to send me to the Obliterator, and we both know it. You haven't been able to facilitate the creation of anything even close to me, and the only other one you could've learned from and would've had more success with, you sent away for dissection.”

“You’re forgetting one.”

“He ran away from you.”

Even I can't remember off the top of my head how many times we've had this exact dispute. “He left because YOU BRAINWASHED HIM-”

“HE LEFT OF HIS OWN FREE WILL.”

We listened to the sound of our own bellows resonating through the walls.

If not for the fact that we have a reputation of never being able to get along and the fact that it was currently 11:42 at night (23:42 for any of you reading this that use a 24-hour clock), we likely would’ve gathered an audience.

I settled into what shred of a comfortable position I could. “You’re an even greater fool than I thought if you truly believe he’s going to be okay with even the thought of being on your leash again.”

A furious smile twisted her lips. She walked over to me and wrenched my face in her hand, glaring up at me.“Well, we’ll just have to see about that, now. Won’t we?”

I think the only thing that could make her expression more unnerving is if her eyes weren’t as dark brown as potting soil. There's something about a light colour between the pupil and the limbal ring that just put me on edge for some reason.

Her nails dug into my cheeks and her touch felt like spearmint oil under hot water - ice-cold chemical fire. Or maybe that was just because I hated her so much my skin reacted to her very presence.

Not an unlikely possibility.

If nothing else, I suppose I should be grateful that I don’t register pain anymore.

Chapter Text

Sat, 6 Jun 2020 09:00:11

As adamant as Jack was on not addressing the events from ten days prior, precautions were still being taken. He and Mark had spent the first few nights in the same room just in case, his larynx completely disengaged and his eye was manually shut down every night in hopes that it'd let him get some rest. He'd been quarantined to the house the one trip anyone had taken out of the building, meaning there was a lot more gaming than usual going on and he had taken the chance to get some research done, but all in all, the worst seemed to be behind him.

For now at least.

Saturn finally got to see the third floor when combat was brought into question - if it even knew how to fight and if it'd be of any use on the battlefield, but learning self-defence was a must. It was expected that it would need time before it was comfortable throwing a punch, but they couldn't have been more wrong. It didn't have the best form in the world, especially given that it was still in the process of learning to navigate this body, but it attacked with a force that could only be emotional.

It held a look and power they knew far too well.

The way it moved was much like a hungry beast that couldn't afford to lose - calculated and swift and well aware that it's not just the first strike that counts. It's the second, third, fourth, even the fifth. No energy or effort went to waste and panicked frenzy was nowhere to be seen.

This wasn't anger it was working through.

It was deep-seated rage.

A huge personality shift came to light the moment the session was over. Its neophobia was still very much present hi, but it was far more confident now. The fear seemed to manifest more as caution than horror.

Gary had said "If only it would talk, then it would be invaluable to our team" and promptly got a smack in the back of the head.

The request for combat reinforcements came from none other than Saturn itself, catching everyone off guard. It stayed fully awake and calm during the procedure, watching with intense curiosity. If not for the fact that the switch had flipped while everyone, BB included, had been watching it upstairs, there would be reason to suspect that this was someone or something else entirely. It was acting so different from before.

Or it was. Gary stopped by the workshop to ask if Mark wanted coffee and the escape-ready tension returned to its body.

The shift was noticed immediately and the inventor was ushered outside.

“What happened between you two?”

“You tell me! The only time I was alone with it was when that thing happened with Jack and it just ended up ignoring me and walking away, so there's no way I could've possibly done anything to make it upset.”

Mark's eyes widened and his shoulders dropped. "No, that wasn't the only time it was just the two of you."

It took longer than it should have for their penny to drop. “What are you...You don’t seriously think it still remembers that? It was in stasis! You put it in stasis!”

“Can you think of anything else it could possibly be?” Any rebuttal Gary had fell silent. There was no arguing over this. “Whoever built them clearly treated it terribly but made it advanced enough to at least experience something like emotions, even if it doesn’t know what emotions even are or how to process them. You saw how it tore at the punching bag. Hell, they nearly tore my shoulder clean off! You and I know damn well that when you're in situations you don't have an out in, sometimes the best thing to do is lean into what's supposed to be happening and brace yourself until it's over. How do we know it wasn’t awake when you tried putting that program in it? Or when we were talking about what to do with it? How the hell are we supposed to know that maybe, just maybe, they were actually asleep when you walked in there, but your just sheer carelessness is what woke them up?!”

Gary didn't respond.

Ze couldn't find it in themself to even look him in the eye right now. The moment fae did, they'd be face to face with one of the most soul-piercing glares fae had ever encountered.

Mark opened the door, practically shoving them inside with his eyes. Saturn had taken the chance to lay back on the table, its left arm over its eyes, the right one disconnected at the flesh seam and open on his workbench.

He walked over to the arm and closed it back up for reattachment. Gary cleared hir throat, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. Saturn sat up just enough to peek around its arm.

“Saturn...did-..." she put too much emphasis on the name. Start over. Try again. "Saturn, did you hear me talking to Mark about what to do with you when we brought you back from the lab?”

"Gary, no." He had to grip the edge of his workbench so he wouldn't punch something. "The program. Apologize for trying to force an incompatible program-"

"It wasn't incompatible though! I was careful, and after you fuckin banished me from what I was doing, I tested everything again and again. There was absolutely no reason that it would have-"

"OKAY, ENOUGH." A light pressure brushed across the room. All attention snapped to the doorway where Jack stood, larynx unfurled. "We have somewhere we need to be as soon as Mark's done with the upgrades. We don't have time to be standing around here arguing, because I know both of you. You're going to go at it until you pass out on your feet."

"But I-"

"Oh my god, Gary, shut up! You're the problem here! None of us like or want bullshit apologies so just go get dressed and fuckin' wait for us to be done."

They didn't even try to fight back. As frustrated as they were, they almost seemed grateful for the out.

At least they didn't have to apologize, or something like that. That's probably what they were thinking.

Mark worked the arm back into the shoulder socket, testing the passive range of mobility. "I’m sorry. If I had known, I would've been so much more mindful of what we were talking about." There was a visible change in the way he moved. His fingers were far gentler and shifting postures were more fluid. Like his soft smile was ringing out through every ounce of expression it could. “That does kind of explain why you became okay with being around me so quickly, but I'm still so sorry that happened. I can never see things the way they do. Robots, androids, almost anything that people make just because. You're all so complex and unique to me. You deserve a life that goes above and beyond whatever you were designed to do. You should be allowed to experience more than the reason your creator brought you to existence. I honestly don't think I'll ever have what it takes to crush the wonder of potential for the sake of what someone was made for."

It watched otherworldy sorrow build up beneath his skin. Wherever it was coming from, he didn't seem to be a conscious thing. Like it wasn't coming from him.

Another hour passed before the upgrades were fully installed and tested. Its arms and torso were reinforced kind of like the build of his legs, but its feet were something else entirely. The toe sector now comprised of three pieces, the middle of which could retract back into the foot to create a sort of two-pronged knife. Or a knuckle duster with two longish, metal points on its feet.

They would need to get tougher punching bags, but duct tape would work for right now. At least they could still use those ones for non-puncturing workouts.

It ventured back to its room as per Mark's instruction and picked an outfit for outside, shedding its baggy t-shirt and lounge shorts it had grown fond of for something more aesthetically fitting of the world outside - a black muscle with a green code-patterned alien head on the front, a light blue hoodie sewn into a jacket with grey hatch mark birds and circuitry on the back, greyscale, two-tone pants, and pink-soled shoes. It even had a thin, beaded braid extended with yarn over its right temple that Jack had helped with.

For something that wasn't supposed to be drawing attention for its off-the-market cybernetics, it was already practically an expert at hiding in plain sight. Whatever statement the outfit was supposed to be making, it was a complete distraction from the bits of synthetics that were in view. Even then, they were nothing that couldn't be excused as makeup or gloves to match the rest of the fit.

“Well, aren’t you just a couple of proud papas,”

Jack, Mark, and Saturn were all gathered by the front door by the time Gary made their way downstairs. Mark leaned on the wall next to the door on his phone, occasionally looking up and giving his opinion to Jack who was trying to figure out if sunglasses or colour-tinted lenses would do a better job at hiding Saturn's eyes without giving the reasoning away. Tim was tucked safely into a black and white crossbody bag that hung just above Saturn's hip, Sam's usual body vacated and static on the couch in favour of watching through Jack's eye.

Nobody's outfits matched. Mark had on a heather grey sleeveless hoodie and jeans, Gary in a grey cardigan over their royal purple strapless jumpsuit, and Jack in a wine-red t-shirt with mossy green cargo shorts, a braided cloth bracelet circling his left wrist with a saw wire inside. Just in case.

Gary smiled and pulled the cardigan sleeves over vir hands. Despite the interaction two hours ago, despite the week they've had and the stress and psychological torment that came with this walk of life, it was domestic moments like this that made it all worth it.

Mark burst out into laughter, half at the comment and half at Jack's off-guard reaction. He smiled at Saturn - who was now examining the world through “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Warmth and clear blue skies hit them all moments after the door swung open. It had been exceptionally warm these past couple of weeks. While Mark didn't want to tamper with any of what he hadn't built, he had worked with Saturn to run a maintenance check focused on its cooling system. They couldn't have it getting overwhelmed or going on the fritz out in public. All the Misfits were used to the temperature changes by now, Sam and Tim included, but there was no telling exactly how long [she] had been around. Never mind [they] it had been in this city or even outside before.

They took a route consisting of nearly unnecessary crosses and turns, intersecting their own path history at least once before heading over to the nearest tram station. It was excessive at times, sure, but nobody complained. It was better safe than sorry. They knew better than to go from one point directly to another.

Quickly, quietly, and hand in hand, they boarded one of the trams, walking single-file past the Delta at the station. It stopped and stared at Saturn as it passed, reaching out to take its wrist. Mark held his breath, forearms flexing as he clenched his hands, ready to fight. The Delta went completely before it could make contact. The verification screen showed something loading, followed quickly by a verification chime and popup.

The robot gave a curt nod and turned back to the next human in line.

Jack grabbed the pastel blue sleeve and yanked Saturn onto the tram and into his lap, wrapping his arms around its waist and burying his face into the back of its shoulder. His heart hammered into its spine and Mark reached down to hold its hand. His heart was racing too and his hand resonated with tremors before the vehicle took off. From the way Gary’s eyes were still glued to the station's Delta, ze was likely trying to quell faer adrenaline too.

No one dared to speak until they reached their stop.

Mark grabbed both Saturn and Gary’s wrists and power walked off the vehicle, Jack still holding tight to its sleeve and was tugged along by extension.

He didn’t stop until they were inside a massive, multi-story building with concrete walls, huge windows, and even bigger plants growing inside and out. There were so many lights and shops and people inside that Saturn nearly stopped in alarm if Mark hadn't been strong enough to drag it by force.

The group was steered over to a surprisingly unoccupied hallway next to a bread bun shop, stepping into the shadows. Mark and Jack pulled Saturn into a hug.

Any tighter and its head might've popped off.

Mark's heart rate was through the roof and his breathing was the unsteadiest of the three.

“I knew that was a risk, but Jesus fuck, that scared me,” He had to use so much force to get the words out that they were barely comprehensible.

Gary watched the people meandering the open floors. "Scared us all," she muttered. “Saturn, that robot back there is called a Delta. They’re a line of robots designed specifically for working with the public. The ones that operate public transport and any sort of job that requires identity verification, they’re damn near impossible to fool. Even I don’t know how they do it. If they catch even the slightest thing wrong, they’ll restrain you until either law enforcement shows up, a T-5.12 comes for you, or your verified legal guardians come and pick you up. They’re kind and gentle and easy to get along with but trust me. They’re built with enough connections that you never want to mess with them.”

A nervous huff sent a slight rattle through the panels on Jack's neck. He stepped back to give the android a bit of breathing room and ran a hand through his hair, the other planted on his hip. “You can say that again. I had a run-in with one when I was younger. I’m lucky it was just a misunderstanding and an appointment scheduled at the wrong time. I got out easy.” He stepped closer to the main floor and peeked around the corner. “Okay, I think we’re in the clear so we should probably get a move on. Anywhere in particular we're going or was the idea just to wander around and see what caught their eye?”

Mark’s grip tightened around Saturn the slightest bit. They looked up at him, throat pressed against his chest like an alerting dog. It was just subtle enough to go undetected. Adding to the fact the added pressure had come from his shoulders, not his forearms, the reaction was involuntary.

He had been on edge for today before any of them even set foot near the tram station.

“I…I'm actually supposed to meet someone. Here.”

Gary raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound too happy about that.”

“It's 'cause I’m not.”

Jack tilted his head. "What, you accidentally digitally cross paths with a backstabbing friend or something?"

"What- Jesus, no. No, I’m meeting a contact here." He shrugged and let go of Saturn, resting his chin on its head for one more moment of peace. "Supposedly they have some information that’ll help.”

Gary hummed and surveyed the patchy crowd more thoroughly. “Did they say what they wanted in exchange?”

He shook his head. “No. And I think that’s what worries me the most. Nothing’s ever free, not even information among allies. We can’t afford to do anything for free anymore. Hell, they wouldn’t even say what the information was about.”

“Then why did you agree to meet up with them? That sounds like a scam, man. Come on, you know better than that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” he furrowed his brow and stared blankly at the ground.

Gary and Jack exchanged a look.

“You just have a feeling?”

“Something like that,”

Jack nodded. “Okay. I trust you. Text us when you’re done and we’ll meet you back here.” Saturn stepped back, hands covered by its sleeves and arms folded in like a t-rex. He stretched his arm protectively across its shoulders and pulled it to his side. “And if you run into any trouble at all-”

“I’ll sound the alarm and run, I know…" Mark took a deep breath and looked around to find where he had to go. "Catch you later,”

“Good luck, man,”

He flashed a meek smile and merged into the trickling crowd. There weren’t many people to lose him in, but the environment itself was so cluttered that they soon lost sight of him. Or at least, the humans did. From the way Saturn’s eyes shifted around, it was clearly able to still track him with deadly precision.

Its eyes stilled and it took a step forward.

Jack’s hand pressed against its chest. “Let him go. He’ll be okay. He’s more than capable of looking after himself.” Tim chittered softly and reached out from the top flap of the bag to hold its wrist.

“Hey,” Gary peered around the corner, nodding to a toy store. “Why don’t we go get you a stuffed animal or something? Since you like cuddling with BB so much, maybe we could get you one to take with you when he can’t come along?”

Jack removed his arm from Saturn's shoulders and took its hand “Awh yeah, that's a great idea! What do you think?”

It extended its free hand to Gary.

They smiled. "I'll take that as a yes,"

One hand holding each human and Tim opting to grab onto the fabric of its jacket, Gary guided them towards the store.

Not two steps past the door, Saturn was straying forward and unrestrained in awe. Endeared laughter came from the side of the store that it paid no mind to. The registers were automated with Deltas, but there were still some human employees peppered about the place. They had to make a living somehow, and one of them seemed to have taken a liking to the grown, synthetic, starstruck child that had just found its haven.

It spotted one that it liked immediately - a grey cat plush the size of a small pillow with short, soft fur, light and dark stripes alike, a dark grey nose, and striking cerulean eyes - and gathered the toy in its arms to wander the aisles together. It reaching out to touch all the textures and material, cradling the toy’s head or chin every now and again before moving on

The darker stripe seemed to be made of fur imbued with purple and pink glitter. By some miracle, it didn’t spread the shiny material to everything it touched. Its legs were splayed out in a laying-down position and it was the perfect shape for cuddling.

Gary stayed by the door, absentmindedly looking over the shelves as Jack joined the toy hunt. They caught a couple of glimpses, Jack picking up various toys and making commentary or just goofing around with them to make Saturn smile and even laugh. No sound came from it, but its eyes shut and its shoulders moved like it was laughing. From the way Jack's face lit up, it had to be laughter. There was nothing else it could be.

"Your boyfriend is adorable," the human cashier leaned against the counter next to the Delta. Even the robot seemed entranced by Saturn's joy.

Gary twitched at the term and pulled a painfully fake smile. "Not my boyfriend, but thanks."

"Ah, sorry. My bad. I learned early on that usually when people come in and you assume they're friends, it's a like...70-30 chance that they're gonna get upset. Allos are weird, but I mean live your best life, I guess."

"Allos?"

"Yeah, allos. My partners and I are all on the ace and aro spectrum. Asexual and aromantic. Allosexual and alloromantic are terms just meaning people who experience sexual and romantic attraction." The cashier stood up as Saturn and Jack returned with the cat it had first picked up. Jack had a small armful a moment ago, but it seemed particularly partial to this one. “Did you find one you like?”

“I think so,” Jack nudged Saturn's arm, reaching for the cat. “You need to give the toy to the nice person so you can take it home, okay?”

Saturn held up the toy to chin-level and looked between it and the worker a few times before setting it down on the counter. It watched the transaction like something was going to come snatch it away the moment it let its guard down.

The cashier cut the tag off and handed it back. “There we are, all yours. Now nobody can take 'em from you.” Gary handed over cash to pay. The cashier’s eyes flicked up for a moment and examined the trio on the other side of the counter. Ze took the money, holding onto the change as it fished around behind the counter. “Hon, can I see your hands for a quick second?”

Back to pressing the toy to its chest as close as it could, it looked to Jack.

He shrugged, “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one they're talking to."

"Ah, ze, please.”

"I'm not the one ze's talking to."

Ze gave him a grateful smile and nodded, producing two nude beige pantyhose gloves. “It’s okay. I just have something I think might help is all. You’ve got some very pretty hands there, and I don’t think you want your day to be ruined by the wrong person taking notice.” Ze held the wrist open. Saturn tugged its sleeves up and slipped its hands in. “It’ll probably feel a little weird, but this will definitely help you to, uh…Hide in Plain Sight? No charge.” A realization of gratitude washed over Gary and she gave the cashier a silent thanks. It didn't fit perfectly, but considering that it was on the fly and was likely given to employees by corporate to hide tattoos or other cybernetics that may draw unwanted attention from customers, a win was a win.

“Alrighty, you're all set." Ze handed the change back to Gary. "You all have a wonderful day, now,”

“We will, thank you,”

“You too!”

They could’ve ended the trip there and been able to call it successful, but that wasn’t what they came for. Plus, they still had time to kill until Mark came back from whoever he was meeting up with.

Without rhyme or reason, they wandered around to whatever caught their collective eye. A couple of clothing stores, a furniture one, a jewellery place - Saturn didn’t seem to like that as much until it found out what piercings were and then it was a struggle to drag it away from the window. From what they could tell, it was pretty content with the small amount of things Mark and Gary had brought home, which was great, but the whole point of this trip was to let it explore. Let it find itself. Let it find the things that fit who it was and how it wanted to be seen rather than whatever was given to it.

Even if it had been wandering with extreme interest from store to store, the sharp turn it made still would've thrown them off. A store called 'Not Alice' that featured most apocalyptic, campfire, post-disaster remnants of clothing from some sort of place that had references and things you didn't quite understand had caught its eye. If they hadn't been looking directly at it when it set off, they likely would've lost the android altogether. Or rather, had Sam not taken notice and immediately alerted them both.

They had to weave through a stream of people to get to the shop - something that was a lot more difficult to do when you were laughing.

And they weren't the only ones. There were human employees here too, all of them thoroughly amused by the sudden presence of an ecstatic little thing decked out in full hyperpunk with a plush cat in its arms. One of them had their chin propped up in their hand, leaning on the counter.

Jack shook his head with a chuckle. “Well, the heart wants what it wants, I suppose.”

“If you two have other places you need to stop by, I think your kid’s gonna be here for a while,” Another employee stepped out from one of the aisles, bringing a box up to the counter to restock the items in the glass case. They looked to be twins with another employee who had paused their restock of moss green t-shirts to watch the experience. “We’ll take good care of them, don’t worry. We’ll make sure they stay put and they’re safe until you get back.”

Gary was quick to intercept. “Ah, thank you, but-”

The one at the shelves spoke up, fetching a short stack of shoeboxes from the counter the first employee was propped up against. “My brother’s got an eye for fellow Misfits like the world is in black and white and we’re neon post-its. If that’s what you’re worried about, I promise you. Your kid made a good choice with the store they dove into.”

Two Misfit-operated stores in one trip, both by complete accident.

Must be their lucky day.

Jack bit the inside of his lip. They did have a couple of places to stop by that they were hoping to hit while they happened to be here, but… “You sure? They’re mute, so it might be a little difficult to communicate with them,”

The one leaning against the counter waved their hand. “Ah, it’s fine. My niece goes nonverbal all the time. We got this covered. Go, get done whatever you need to get done.”

Saturn stopped what it was doing and darted back into view, bouncing on its heels with eyes so bright they may as well have been glowing again. Tim poked out from the bag and gave them a happy chitter and a thumbs up.

Gary rubbed the back of her head, expression something between a confused smile and disbelief. “Well, I guess that settles that.”

Jack took too sharp of a breath to come off as calm and turned to the employee at the counter. “Thank you so much. We shouldn’t be long, but-”

A fourth human emerged from the aisles, pulling vanilla blonde hair up into a messy bun. “Ah, take all the time you want. Worst case scenario, we stick ‘em in our break room and we play games until you come back. It’ll be fine, go, go!”

Uneasy as they were, this was the point of the trip. They wanted Saturn to break out of its shell a little, they just hadn't anticipated it would've gone like this. They left the few nested bags of things bought for Saturn with the one at the counter and set out across the mall.

Shopping without an easily distractable android in tow was definitely a lot faster, but they kept losing each other; being side-swept by a worried train of thought or stopping in front of something completely unnecessary and pondering aloud if Saturn would like it.

“Okay, spill.” Gary darted across the walkway to where Jack sat on a bench, back to the wall overseeing the floors below. “This isn’t panic, this isn’t stressing over your baby ‘droid, so…what?” They got on his level with a grunt, sitting cross-legged on the floor, offering one of the soft pretzels they had just bought from a stand. “What’s going on? You’ve been acting off since before the raid, so it’s definitely not because you're jealous of the attention Saturn's getting.” They tapered off when they noticed his vacant stare. He wasn’t even looking at them. “Okay, seriously? You’re not even gonna scold me for that?”

“I’m sorry, I’m just…“ Jack took it, absentmindedly picking at the salt crystals. “Watching everyone walk by.”

“Yeah? And?”

He shrugged, unfolding the napkin and set it down on top of one of the bags so it wouldn't get contaminated. “I dunno, I…” He looked up at a few more people strolling by. Aside from a few glances from some who were on collision course with them or their stuff, no one had taken notice of them.“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we were…Blue Collar?”

“What?”

“Y’know…if we…” he gestured vaguely at their environment then spun his index finger around his ear.

“Jesus, Jack, are you insane?” Gary hissed louder than they had meant to. “You can't seriously be thinking about undoing all of this and becoming one of those brain-dead zombies?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m just saying; they lead much more peaceful lives, you know?" He looked tired."They aren’t out there with their asses on the line every day just because they value their quality of life…or some bullshit like that,”

“Hey.” It was rare anyone got to see Gary’s gentle side, but ve could really be a mama bear when he wanted to be. “I know you’re tired, and I know this lifestyle isn’t for the faint of heart, but we’ve made it this far, haven’t we? That’s the beauty of fighting this fight. We aren’t fighting for ourselves. We’re fighting for our future.”

They both knew this wasn't actually Jack talking. It was the chatter in his mind fueled by his heart missing and desperately needing a glimpse of hope. “But how do we know we’re doing the right thing? How do we know that standing against them is actually going to do anything? How do we know that’ll be better than…whatever it is they’ve got planned?”

“Well, this is a much heavier topic than I was expecting to get into, but frankly, we don’t. We don’t know. We can’t know. There’s no way for us to.”

They hoisted themself to their feet and slung one of the bags over their shoulder. “But I can tell you for almost a fact that every single one of us is the way we are because we’ve collectively looked at what was going on and it didn’t sit right with a single one of us. We look at the world around us and we see value in the brevity of life. After all, if you do the same special thing every single day for the rest of time, it’s not really special anymore, is it? Besides. Since when has the right thing to do with the world been making sure it goes down before you do? They’re leading themselves into the fire and everyone blindly following along is just proof of how messed up this all is. If we can make any difference at all, of we can cast any shadow to shield our future from the heat of ...It's self-destruction, wouldn’t that be at least some sort of mercy?”

Jack sighed, rubbing his fingers. He seemed satiated with the answer. “…you’ve got a point there.”

“Good!” They picked up the other bag and handed it to him. “Come on. We’ve kept Saturn waiting long enough. Let’s go see if we’re gonna go into debt over whatever it’s picked out.”

Hand in hand, they sped through the crowd and back down the stairs, the smallest smirk on Gary’s face when they noticed Jack’s relief at standing on the ground floor again. They were making their way back to the shop when Jack spotted someone across the room and immediately broke away.

“Hey, there you are! I was just about to text you. Thought you ran off without me or something,” Mark waved from the hallway they had started at, a grunt of a laugh chasing the air out of him when Jack practically charged and tackled him in a hug. “Wh- geez, man, I saw you like two hours ago! You don’t haf’ta’ squeeze so tight!”

“I know,” He didn’t loosen his grip at all. If anything, he mustered the strength to hug just a little tighter. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Mark raised his eyebrow and locked eyes with Gary across the way.

They shook their head. They could talk about this later.

He looked around, concern etching over his face. “Where’s Saturn?”

“We’re about to go pick them up, actually,”

“You left them alone?!”

“No, no! It’s okay!” Jack took Mark's hand with a beaming smile. “We lucked out and made some friends. It saw a store they liked, immediately dove in, and the people working inside offered to look after them while we grabbed the rest of the stuff we came here for. Besides, Tim’s with ’em. If something went wrong, we’d know. Trust me, we’re not as reckless as we pretend to be, I swear.”

He took a breath, some of the panicky rage subsiding. “Okay, I trust you. Show me where.”

If he had taken off any faster, Jack would’ve pulled Mark’s shoulder from its socket. He slipped the bag onto his wrist and grabbed Gary’s hand as they neared, excitedly weaving back to the post-apocalyptic forest-remnants-boho-chic store they had left Saturn in.

“Well, well, well! It’s about time you got back!” The blonde from before sat on the glass counter, kicking their feet. “Your kid’s got great taste if you ask me. They picked out a couple outfits, layers and all.”

“They’re back!?” The voice of the employee that had been restocking earlier carried through the room.

“Yep!!”

“‘Kay! We’ll be out in a sec!”

An uneasy minute passed before Saturn emerged with two of the humans from before.

Blond-rooted lavender hair still a mess with the braid in front, canary lines formed a wide ring around the black shadow liner that curved up the sides of its eye sockets, a sort of pearl shimmer on the inner corners. A wide-necked dusty coffee brown t-shirt clung to its shoulders and cradled its middle, mostly hidden behind pale yellow overalls. Brown Doc Martins had pale purple-white charms clipped on the sides and heels, pale sand and purple running in a ring around the top of the rubber soles. The only thing that seemed out of place were the skin-tight black gloves that disappeared into the folds of the knitted cardigan and the little rose gold bunny charms hooked onto the long, thin braid hanging in front of its ear.

The chatter came all at once.

“Damn! You look cool!”

“Well, I’ll be,”

“They certainly cleaned you up nice, didn’t they?” Saturn’s eyes lit up and it bounded over to Mark, throwing its arms around him. He laughed. “Looks like I’m getting all the hugs today!”

"I know it's not the most ideal for public since...you know," One of the twins spoke up, gesturing to their torso. "Impeccably designed, don't wanna get you folks in trouble. But, they did pick out something that covers all that too, so you don't even need to worry about that. We made sure everything was taken care of."

The other one chimed in, carrying the bag that presumably carried the other outfit and the outfit Saturn had walked in with folded in their other hand. “They were such a good sport and even helped us restock and clean up a bit,”

Gary stepped forward before Jack could, wallet at the ready.

“Did they now?” Tim chittered from inside the shoulder bag propped up against the cashier and squirmed to get the flap open. They held up the cat with a smile and Saturn took it, stepping back and again hugging the toy to its chest. “Oh? Who’s this?”

“Got that from the first store we stopped by. They picked it out all by themself.”Jack beamed, reaching to lift the tinted glasses from its face. It looked so happy like this.

“All by yourself, huh? Can I see?” Saturn bounded on its heels and clicked its teeth together, holding the cat up to its engineer. Mark held up the toy and studied it for a moment before turning it around and tucking it under his chin. He wiggled its paws at the bubbly android. The cerulean eyes seemed to come alive. “I think he’s smiling. Don’t you?”

Chapter Text

Sun, 7 Jun 2020, 1:28:59

Toy cat in its arms, Saturn stood by the front door, watching the show of lights against the sky. For a city that never sleeps, the nights were shockingly peaceful.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” It twitched, grip tightening on the toy “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Gary hovered a few paces behind it, fidgeting with their hands.

They returned from their mall trip with a modest amount of sunlight left in the day. Rather excitedly, Saturn had spent the bulk of it decorating its rooms in a display that showed off the rest of what it had picked out. Hyperpunk and fairygrunge were two incredibly different aesthetics, but somehow, it made them both work.

Gary had retired to their office the moment they could, saying that there was something they wanted to work on before they forgot. They had been in there all evening. Mark and Jack had gone to bed hours ago, BB, Sam, and Tim all going with them. A few quiet comments were passed between Saturn’s ‘dads’ about Gary’s recent behaviour before they turned it, but it didn’t seem to be something of much concern.

“You uh, see anything out there you like? Most of the time, it’s insufferable living in this day and age, but every now and again, it’s nice. Usually stillness like this sets off alarm bells for me, but I get this doesn’t count for some reason. Maybe because it’s supposed to be quiet at night or something. I don’t really know…” She was even worse with a lack of verbal responses than Jack was. “You know, if you want to leave, no one’s going to stop you.”

That got its attention.

From its expression, it had either put its history with the inventor aside for the moment or it was finally meeting vir hope of moving past the past.

“I’m serious. I didn’t realize it until today, but this entire time, you’ve just been doing what you’re told, going wherever you’re taken. You’re allowed to have an opinion, you know. You’re allowed to leave. After seeing how you acted on the tram, I…I actually wouldn’t be surprised if that was your first outing ever. You seemed pretty clueless and overwhelmed. I don’t know much about what they did, but I guess it’s pretty safe to say your memories got all messed up somewhere in the process, didn’t they?”

He tapped faer teeth together and rubbed her palms.

Ze was still waiting for a verbal response.

“Look, I know you don’t really like me, and I’ve said some…not so nice things, but can I show you something? It’s not tech or anything violent, I promise. I just…well, if you like the view outside so much, the least I can do is show you one of the best spots to watch it from. Our roof is big enough and flat enough that it acts like another floor. And since we live in a part of the city that’s far more run down, well there’s not really anyone that’s gonna bother ya for hanging out in a vantage point. Plus, none of our neighbours are really the type to put anything up on their roofs that would block our view of the world. If there’s even anyone nearby. Most of the buildings are empty here. It’s nice to be so far from the city noise. I, uh…” he scratched the back of his neck. “I go up there sometimes when I need to clear my head. I know I shouldn’t, not alone, but I like it too much. Don’t tell Jack though. He might freak out and try giving me a curfew or something stupid like that.”

It turned back to stare out the glass, one of its hands slipping into the pocket of its overalls and balling into a fist. Its posture wasn’t as tense as it was a moment ago, but there was still something callous about its behaviour. Something that seemed to be reserved only for when it was alone with Gary.

Fae sounded like ve was starting to get desperate for its trust. “I’m not going to hurt you if that’s what you’re worried about. Or if you’re worried that I’m going to hand you off to someone, that’s not the case either. Honestly. I don’t even know if I know someone to pass you off to.” His attempt at a joke left a chuckle strangled in her throat. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry about what I said. Truly. I know I should apologize and say it was wrong of me to start that conversation around you, but, I mean, look at the world we live in. If we weren’t overly careful in our day-to-day lives, we’d probably be dead. That…came out wrong.” They shook eir head. “What I’m doing a shit job of trying to say is that I should’ve been more respectful towards you, and I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, you don’t have to talk - I mean, don’t get me wrong, I would appreciate it if you did, at least so we’d know if your silence is a choice because they’re wrong, it does matter - but you don’t have to.”

With Saturn facing away, all ey could see was its reflection. It wore the expression equivalent of trying to light a match while standing outside in a heavy, windy rainstorm.

It gave no response of any kind.

Gary left the silence as long as ve could stand before giving up with a sigh, muttering to perself about why she still even bothered to try.

Saturn snatched hir hand without warning and dragged xem over to the stairs. This was the closest thing to anger they’d ever seen it show, but it was still a response.

This was the most explicit confirmation it could give.

It wanted to see the roof.

Fae had to take a moment to process what happened before xe led it up the stairs, taking it a bit slow so they wouldn’t trip in the darkness. To the second floor, the liminal gym that was the third floor, and then up a much more narrow staircase with steps that got steeper the higher you went. It seemed to be the longest flight in the building too. The atmosphere itself had energy that could only be described as damp and looking back down provided a view that was much like something you’d expect to find in a horror game. Maybe an abandoned house or an asylum.

A tug on his arm prompted em to turn around. Saturn was staring back down the flight, the toy pinned under its arm, “Not much further. I know it seems like this sort of structure wouldn’t really work here, but it’ll make sense in a minute.”

It waited before they got to the heavy metal door at the top of the stairs before hurrying to catch up.

The door swung open to a dark, concrete platform with a white metal railing barricading the side and front. A few short steps next to a ramp led down onto the main stretch of the roof, a much lower area about the depth of a balcony around that, and stretching out as far as the eye could see was a star-speckled sky, brushed with wisps of clouds. Multicoloured neon glow stretched up into the darkness, creating upward streaks of light between the shadows and buildings.

Awe seemed to be its emotion of choice for these past 24 hours.

It dashed over to where the roof dropped down and looked out over the city.

It was glorious.

A world so reliant upon machinery, so hellbent on medicated insomnia so it can get the most out of its workers, so careless for its environment, and yet here it was. At both the end and the start of the day, it was nothing but mere existence cradled by earth; granted tired permission to exist here so the sky would have an audience to perform for. The layers of artistry would exist and create as it always did, but there was something unique about a chance occurrence being recorded in memory.

Something magical about the fact that it could never truly happen the same way twice.

A lullaby of life purred up the sides of close-planted buildings and washed over the city’s extremities. The nearly non-existent night breeze carried it just that bit further so it may reach the ears of those who might need it.

Slow and silent, it took a seat, letting its legs hang over the edge, enamoured by the euphoric near lack of life. Here it was, in unrestrained glory - no longer hidden on the other side of walls or only visible through panes of glass.

It was here.

And while this place was too big to reach out and touch as a whole, it made up for that by letting you walk through this diorama. It made up for its stillness by breathing life into your lungs and lighting fireworks in your eyes.

Gary sat down next to it, leaving a good distance between them. He fiddled with xyr hands, word caught in faer throat. “I’m…sorry. For what I said.” Ey hunched over, staring down at the balcony ledge running the length of the building’s front face. “I know I already apologized, but I didn’t apologize when I should’ve. When I was told to. I don’t know how much you heard me say directly, but I’m sure they’ve been…” Ve shook her head. “It’s not important. What is important, is that for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I should’ve said that, I shouldn’t have made that approach, and while having my reasons that make - to me - what I said okay, that doesn’t make it okay to them or to you. If you want to take this chance to run, I won’t stop you.”

It had noticeably relaxed sometime during their spiel. It leaned back on its hands and craned its head to the skies. Gentle bliss saturated every inch of its being, down to the subtle shifts of the folds in its clothes.

“You’re really okay with me being here… You’re not going to try and run?”

Saturn gave no indication of a response.

Eyes closed, it relished in the sounds; the latent cues of what was considered to be proof of life by technical standards:

The collective marches of the T-5.12s in too-perfect unison, distant conversations carried out too far away to be comprehensible. Muted construction sounded from somewhere south of them - to the right, something yelping and howling in the north. Metal banged as the trash got taken out in the back alley of someone closing a store for the night, quickly followed by unintelligible yelling. It sounded like a scolding demand, but at this distance, who could tell?

Nearer to them were far more organic sounds. Water rushed in the pipes, droplets falling somewhere nearby and splashing onto a little puddle atop something metal. The reverberation that danced in the sound was borderline musical.

Laughter cut through the cold air, clean and pure.

There was laughter down there somewhere. There was joy still in this world of war. Not a laugh of victory or a bitter trip into despair, but genuine, unprompted amusement that just couldn’t be contained.

Rushing footsteps and heavy pounding were far closer than it would have expected them to be, chased by heavy breath. The door was thrown open as quickly as it could be, a weight slamming into the thin metal railings behind them.

Gary twisted wildly at the sound.

“What the hell are you doing up here?!”

Jack.

His synthetic eye was lit up, matching the little light in the corner of the camera mounted next to the door.

Sam glared through its lens.

“Do you have any idea how badly you scared us?!”

Saturn arched its back, letting its head fall behind its shoulders. It looked a the scene upside down with a still bliss-washed face.

It smiled gently at him.

“We’re alright,” Gary offered shaky reassurance, getting up and brushing their hands together to rid them of dirt and dust. “It was staring out at the lights through the front door so I figured I’d give them a better view.” Xe glanced back at the android with a haunted smile. “When every day is war, peace always comes with the night. Even if the moon doesn’t shine when you rest.”

“Oh, sure, thank you Mx Philosopher for sharing an inspirational quote you read on your feed this morning. Because that makes EVERYTHING BETTER!”

“What the hell’s going on with you?” Gary tried to get closer. “I get that you haven’t exactly been in the best headspace recently, but that doesn’t give you the right to act like this! You never freak out when I come up here, so that means you’re upset over Saturn being up here, but guess what! It’s not your bot! It’s got a mind of its own and if today proved anything, it’s that. You don’t own them. You don’t get to control where they go!”

The only indication that Saturn was tuned in to the conversation was the fact that it now stood on the balcony platform, head level and cat resting on the concrete at its side.

Jack scoffed and growled. “Projecting much?” Vir mouth clicked shut. “Look, I’m not upset that you brought them up to the roof. I just freaked out because you didn’t bother to let anyone know. You always leave a note or a text or something when you come up here alone, but this time, you didn’t and you pulled a risky move by bringing Saturn up here!”

She was getting increasingly defensive. “So what, you’re just going to drag them back to the harbour? You’re just gonna keep them locked inside like you do Sam and Tim?”

He took personal offence to that. “I’m not going to make it do anything. Unlike you.”

“I didn’t make it do anything either! They’re the one that dragged me to the stairs when I offered! It could’ve left at any time, but it stayed up here because it wanted to.”

Saturn had enough. It popped back up onto the main part of the roof, grabbed the cat, and marched to the raised platform connected to the door. It grabbed the side of Jack’s shirt and turned him to the side, slamming into his chest with a hug.

It was pinning his arms down.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody moved.

Jack calmed after a moment, his head dropping onto its shoulder. “I’m sorry,” He muttered into its head and pulled his arms free to return the embrace. “‘s just that three stories is a long way to fall, and I know firsthand how easy it is for people to go missing. So when Sam woke me up because they saw you two up here, I…”

It squeezed tighter for a moment then let go, prying the door open.

“You two go,” Gary still sounded hurt. “I’m going to stay up here for a little bit longer,”

He took a deep breath and nodded, pushing sleep-knotted hair from his face. “Okay…text if you need anything.”

“I will,”

The hinges groaned under the strain of the door trying to stop itself from slamming shut. A shaky breath shuddered through the inventor as Gary looked up to the sky. Patchy clouds raced the horizon, dark and accusatory. The night still had a while to go before anyone here would see a glimpse of a sunrise.

Chapter Text

If not for the sheer awkwardness of finding something to say after what just happened on the roof, Jack likely would’ve been tying his tongue into lattice all the way back down the stairs. The pair walked in silence, Saturn leading the way. It hovered just barely in front of him - enough to make him trip if he took a big enough step forward. It kept glancing back at him, unclear if it was concern or just to make sure he was still there.

This seemed to be one of the quiet times where even just a single question, a single sound from it would make communication so much easier. Even if Gary was right and this was a programming and tech issue, it was something out of their ballpark. Mark could repair and revise Jack’s speakers all he wanted, though actual maintenance was rarely needed, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t have the materials, notes, or knowledge to actually build any other sort of audio device and Gary didn't dare touch anything with any sort of organic-based anatomy

Besides. Neither of them had been the one to build and install the rig in the first place.

If the lack of dialogue was a psychological matter like he and Mark heavily suspected, then rushing to force some sort of 'solution' would only make things worse. The only thing they could seem to agree on was that it wasn't an intellectual issue. It could understand what everyone was saying just fine, it just didn't use its own voice.

As much as everyone else on the team didn't like it, Gary did have a point. The sooner they got Saturn to talk, the sooner they could find out if it knew anything of use about the inner workings of Corporation Corp. Maybe there was a chance that it knew some of the company's plans. That alone would give the rebel group a huge leg up in this fight.

The sound of a yawn behind it made it stop on the bottom-most flight of stairs and look back. “I honestly don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to sleep for a while,” Jack rubbed his face, letting the weight of his head rest in his hands. “Do you wanna play some games to pass the time?”

It climbed back up the stairs and stared down the darkened hall.

“Saturn? Everything okay?” He tried to follow its gaze, scanning the floor. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, but he had walked through and seen this hall too many times to not notice the fuzzy blob sitting a few doors down. “The hell…?”

The blob meowed.

“BB? What are you doing out here?”

He meowed again and started to walk away.

Saturn started after the cat before he could.

BB walked a couple of paces down the hallway and made an abrupt turn into an open room. Jack didn’t need to be any closer to know which room the android had just been led into. He hurried after them as Saturn vanished into the doorway, his knee knocking into one of the plants along the way.

He stumbled into his own ‘dorm’, panic visibly rising in him. It must’ve seeped through the air because Saturn waited at the mouth of the short corridor for permission to enter, expression entirely neutral but its actions spoke for it.

It didn’t uproot itself from the spot until he was already several paces ahead, took a deep breath, and gave verbal consent for it to go inside.

BB sat on his bed, tail flicking slowly as he waited for them.

Jack stayed next to the doorframe, arms folded tightly over his chest with his fingers digging into his ribs. Saturn had been inside for less than a moment and even in the semi-dark lit only by the moon and city lights blocks away, it took immediate notice of the state of his desk.

When it had been in here before, the monitor was off and the surface, while not necessarily tidy, seemed to have had some method to its madness.

Now, papers and notes littered the surface. All decor, desk buddies, anything that wasn’t a writing utensil, paper, or part of the computer, had been swept to the side or placed on the ground in dishevelled heaps. The screens were on but all windows had been minimized or tucked behind a blank tab.

It ran its fingers over the information like it was magnetic.

Jack looked on the verge of an anxiety attack. BB jumped down from his post and stalked over, rubbing his face and side against his owner’s shins.

He took a breath and squeezed his arms, thumbs tracing back and forth over his sleeves. “When…I found you at the lab, something was going on with my eye. I don’t know what happened and it hasn’t happened the same way since, but it led me right to you. It was like video game highlighting just suddenly got applied to real life. Both Gary and Mark seemed to have come back with information that they wanted to keep quiet, and there was an employee I met during the raid. He thought I was part of the security team or something, so he ended up saying something that gave me a starting point, but I really didn't know what to do with it. Then I accidentally saw what Gary found at the lab and..." His grip on his arms tightened. "I know I shouldn't have done it, but Mark and I, we just...we don't keep secrets from each other. That's just not something we do, but now it's like our entire team can't go more than two sentences without fighting. I couldn't just ask him about it, obviously, so I...I waited until he left for the day and I dug around his workshop. I couldn’t find much, he probably already put most of it away or threw it out, but I found some papers about both Cloak and Corporation Corp. being involved with Program Fallen and Project Synthesis?

"I'm still not even sure what that means, and I've been trying to look into it without raising any red flags anywhere, but I’m not the tech guy here.” he laughed dryly and pressed fabric-covered hands to his eyes. “Fuck, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. You’re the only one I’ve told, and I mean it’s not like you can really do anything about it. Most of it’s just ideas and possibilities anyway. I honestly have no fucking idea what any of this is and I’m probably getting myself in way over my head.”

The clacking of keys and the creak of his chair followed the sound of his voice.

Jack frowned and carefully picked his way forward. “What are you doing?”

Once the desk was clear enough to properly use the computer, it grabbed a notepad and a pen, opening the minimized windows. It began to scroll through the information, opening new tabs, closing other ones, sifting through files. It started to download a program.

“Hey, no! Stop! What are you doing?! We’re not supposed to-”

He reacted a little too late.

Three things happened when the program launched.

1) The feed Gary had been watching pulled up full-screen on one of the monitors. Windows upon windows of information on Cloak's history opened on one of the other monitors, the third filling with the nonstop stream of code that had been displayed next to the feed, but this time, it made sense. They weren’t the same characters. It wasn’t code. It was information tracking the movement and status of something.

2) Sam, who was sitting on their charger, went on the fritz. His tail curled in on itself like a spasm, mechanisms flickering in resistance to something inside.

3) Jack’s eye plunged into another projection. He stumbled forward, hand cupped in a claw over his face. The images were awful, violent, and fast; faster than he could keep up with and there was screaming coming from the back of his head. Again and again, images of a distorted, almost greyscale graveyard kept trying to claw its way to the forefront. It was a jarring transition each time and it wasn't supposed to be there.

The images steadied to the eye of someone seemingly running for their life. They were sprinting down a horribly fluorescent hallway. An Epsilon paired with two T-5’s appeared at the end and cut off their escape. The bots looked to be outdated models, bearing hands more similar to guns than their current cannon setup.

If not for its expression, Saturn's lack of interference could've been taken as malice.

Jack blindly crumbled to his knees, struggling for air and curling into a ball.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t stop these things from playing in his head. He couldn’t stop them from overriding his vision and making it feel like reality itself was collapsing into every pore of his skin.

The floor couldn’t decide if it wanted to be carpet, wild grass, or a field of clovers littered with bones. Sunflower yellow seeped into the edges of his vision in both eyes. The voice was getting louder, but not any clearer. Whatever it wanted, it was desperate.

And so was he.

His hand clamped over his mouth before his jaw could twitch open to howl at the images. A pleading sob clawed at his throat and the voice became coherent.

“Did you find it? You’ve found it, haven’t you? What they were keeping from you. That was quick. I’m impressed, but we’re not out of the woods yet. You need to come find me. Go to those coordinates and I’ll answer any questions you have once-”

“YOU CAN’T LISTEN TO HIM. DON’T LISTEN. HE’S LYING TO YOU. I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE WANTS, BUT WHATEVER HIS MOTIVE IS FOR REACHING OUT, IT’S NOT TO HELP YOU.”

One of the T bots fired. The eye shut down at the moment of impact, taking the images with it. Saturn was kneeling next to him, he realized, chest curled over his shoulder and one hand in his hair. It was tracing the same lazy patterns Mark had down in the kitchen. He leaned into its body. It shifted to sit with its legs crossed at the ankles. The hand in his hair stopped periodically, the other tracing up to his neck. It was monitoring him.

When his eye came back online, it was slower to focus than usual. Saturn’s fingers rested on the edge of his eye socket, a gentle, electric pull buzzing in his skin. The patterns on his back resumed.

“Are you alright?”

He blinked, staring blankly at the wall under the desk.

“I’m so sorry about that. I wish this wasn’t happening again, but it is." A rather gentle, text-to-speech-sounding voice eased inside his head. "I have him shut out for now, but I can’t hold him forever. I need you to listen carefully, okay? You have to play along. You have to pretend you’re on his side. He doesn’t know what you're seeing and he doesn't even know that footage exists. It is imperative that you play along.

"I know it’s scary, but you're not alone in this. You don’t need to worry about Synthesis. You’ll find out about that later should you need to. Pretty much all of Fallen's records have been demolished, but there are still a few things you'll be able to find. Your friend has some of the physical copies. Those won’t do you any good with what you need them for. It isn’t much, but there are a few things that our little Rabbit was able to dig a hole too. Just be careful not to go too far and make sure to back out when the ground gets unsteady. Whatever you got, take it aND rU-”

The digital voice glitched out, leaving the hollow, frustrated calls of the human one. Saturn's grip tightened and it moved its hand back to his hair, out of his line of sight.

“…lo? Hel-looo?? Can you hear me? Nod if you can hear me,”

Jack nodded.

“Ah! Finally!! Look, I don't know what just happened, but it set off a HUGE red flag on my end. We had eyes on us before, but now they're watching. They won't do anything unless they think this is a threat, but it's better safe than sorry. The sooner we get this sorted, the better, but try and make your way over before the end of the year? I'm giving you an out here. I get that you're busy, but there's only so high the clock can count.”

The distant sounds of Sam’s rapid whirring slowed and stopped. Jack's heart steadied in his chest, the last of the nerves tearing from his lungs in a shuddered sigh. "Thank you,"

He returned its hug before trying to sit up, grabbing onto the ledge of the desk for support. He leaned against his arm, eyes unfocused in the dark, then pulled himself to his feet. Saturn rose with him just in case he stumbled.

It stayed at his side, waiting for any indication of his condition.

He needed space. He needed space and time to process what the hell had just happened, and it wasn't like he could just ask Saturn anyway. And that was only if he was able to get any of that sorted tonight. Terror tends to take a lot out of you.

“I know this is a really shitty time to bring this up, and I don’t want it to sound like I’m trying to kick you out, because that's not what I’m trying to do at all,” He sounded as stable as his legs. “But…if you would like to go outside, if you want to leave, you’re free to. None of us are stopping you. No one’s keeping you here. I don’t know how boring it is for you when we’re all asleep, but if you want to take the chance to go on little night adventures, you’re more than welcome to. I’m pretty sure I speak for all of us when I say that we’d rather one of us went with you just in case, but honestly if you’re going out at night, even alone, you’re about as safe as you’re gonna get."

Saturn abruptly threw its arms around him in a tight hug. Tired laughter carried on his voice. “Yeah? You like the sound of that? Just make sure you're not wearing anything that's gonna put you in danger, okay?” He scrunched up his face in a strange sort of smile. "That did not sound like how I meant it. I mean your cybernetics. You remember what the people at the mall said." He grabbed his phone from his pocket and pressed it into Saturn's hand. “It should unlock for you. If you need help, send a message to Mark or Sam and we’ll come find you, okay?”

The look of joy and excitement in its eyes rivalled the one it had at the mall.

“I know this is all new for you, and the world can be really scary, but we're here for you, okay? Whatever happened to you, we're not going to let that happen again. You deserve to see what's out there instead of being stuck inside. If you're going to go now though, you might want to get a move on before the sun comes up. I dunno how much longer until sunrise.”

It gave him one last squeeze and darted out of the room, light footsteps resonating through the floor to its room. He rested his hand on Sam for a moment, the android now peacefully in stasis. His smile faltered. He dragged himself over to his bed and let gravity take over, arms sliding under BB, his face into the fur.

He whispered into the darkness. “Just promise me you’ll be safe out there,”

Chapter Text

Sun, 7 Jun 2020, 8:56:26

If not for the fact that they were all used to waking up at the subtlest alarm for the sake of safety, Mark likely would’ve slept through the call.

He answered the phone with two rings to spare and whispered curses for not looking at the caller ID.

“Yeah?”

“Oh good! You’re awake! I wasn’t sure if you would be or not, but I was almost positive you were the type to want to get an early start to the day. Sorry about disturbing that, by the way.”

“Uh, yeah, sure, apology accepted.” He might as well get up now.“Can I ask why you’re calling this early though? I would’ve thought you’d want to talk at night. Y’know, when most everyone is tired or asleep?”

“And they aren’t now?”

“No, I mean…not important. Never mind. What’s going on?”

“What are you doing today?”

He switched on one of the lamps and stifled a yawn. “‘m not sure yet, why?”

“You have your end of the agreement to uphold.”

Phone between his ear and shoulder, he arched an eyebrow as he rifled through his clothes. “I didn’t agree to anything.”

“No, you haven’t. Not yet.”

This wasn't going to work. He put the phone on speaker and set it on his bed. “What do you mean ‘not yet’? What happened to the whole ‘I want this to be of your own free will’ thing?”

“I still…” the voice trailed off. “Why do you sound far away?”

“Because I had to put my phone down for a second,” he reached for his red flannel, pausing and opting for the heather grey and off-white one hung against the closet wall.

“You did what?!”

“I thought you said it was fine to talk in the morning. Remember? Everyone's tired and asleep. Besides, they either don’t care or respect me enough not to snoop and eavesdrop. We could be having this conversation in front of everyone in person and they would still mind their own business.” As soon as he opened the main door, Tim whizzed out of the room. He jumped out of the way with a huff. “Alright, see you later then, buddy?”

“Buddy?”

“I’m looking after my friend’s dog for a few days." He lied with practised ease."I just opened the door to let him out and he nearly knocked me over.”

“Ah. Well. Do you know how much longer he’s going to be with you?”

“No idea. Shouldn’t be much longer than a week, though.”

“Where’s your friend?”

“Didn't say.” He took a tired courtesy glance down the rest of the hall and up the stairs to the top floor before descending to the kitchen. “We’re kinda at the point where we can just drop things and pets off with each other without explanation or a date and we’re okay with it. Shouldn’t be much longer than a few more days though.”

“…We can postpone the arrangements if you’d like,”

He paused on the stairs, fingertips poised on the railing. “Why’s that?”

“If you’ve got your hands full, then it’s probably not a good idea to yank you out of that and into the deep end of something else. No matter how well you can swim.”

A genuine snort of a laugh tumbled from him as he went down the rest of the steps and strolled into the kitchen.He took a beeline to the cabinets above the sink and manoeuvred his knee up onto the counter, propping himself up to fish for something tucked away on top.

“That’s an oddly poetic thing to come from someone like you. I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

“I’m completely serious. If you’re busy, then you’re busy and there’s nothing we can really do about that.”

Papers in hand, he read over the titles and flicked through them. He put some of them back before climbing back down, grabbing his backpack off a hook on the wall, and sliding them inside. ”Who said I was busy?"

“We can't risk getting your wires crossed here. We’ll wait a few more days until your friend comes back for the dog, and then we’ll sort this out, okay? Let me know when you hear from them.”

He frowned, picking up an apple and a hand towel. He set them on the island counter next to his bag. “What, and that’s it? You’re just gonna leave it on that?”

“You can't afford to do this distracted. We're going to need all the attention you can spare. If we pull you away from the Misfits without any sort of excuse, they'll know something's wrong. And if you're dogsitting, then-"

“You do realize that I’m not the only one here, right? And you did hear the part about both of us - me and my friend - having habits of just dropping off the grid for days at a time. Who says they aren’t used to the times when both of us are gone?”

The line went quiet. He grabbed his ADHD meds and a cup of water.

“You’re getting awfully cocky there,”

“Yeah, well, I have something you want, and that’s clearly worth more than whatever you're planning on giving me.” More silence. He smiled, muting himself while he knocked back his dose. “I know damn well what I’m getting myself into here. I’m never going to be the putty in your hand you seem to think I am.”

“And that’s supposed to be, what? A warning?”

He sat down in the chair by his bag, cup on the counter, and towel draped over his hand before he picked up the apple. “A proposal. I lied before, I do have something planned today, but it’s a quick errand. Point is, my teammates know I'm going to be gone for a while today anyway. If we’re going to do this, we might as well get this over and done with now. I can practically feel my brain hurting from all the fine print I’m going to have to dig up in whatever contract you want me to sign.”

“I still don't see how this is a proposal.”

Mark studied the watercolours of yellow and red. Something dark settled in his eyes and voice. “I don’t know exactly what it is you want from me, but I don't need context to know it has something to do with your status. Trying to be all sneaky like with some sort of ace up your sleeve - you want to put a show of some sort and you want me to take it slow.”

The pause on the other end of the line was telling. “I both don’t know what you’re talking about and don’t follow.”

“We’ll meet up today and you can take me to the Studio. So long as we’re back by late afternoon, they won't bat an eye. From there, we can gradually make my absences longer and longer. They won’t question me if it's not out of the blue, so let's do it. Drag me into the deep end. Today. Right now. Do it. Draw up the contracts that we both know you already have. Show me to whoever it is you’re trying to impress and we'll go from there.”

“What’s in it for you? You just said that what I’m offering isn’t worth as much as I want. What is it you’re planning on getting out of this?”

"Does it matter? I know what I want and you'll find out when my payment is due.”

“Uh-huh. And what makes you think this is going to work?”

“Because you’re still on the phone with me.”

He smirked at the silence and took a bite. Checkmate.

A frustrated noise trickled through the phone. “Text me when you’re out of the house and we’ll sort out a place to pick you up.”

“Sounds great. I’ll see you there." He hung up and set it face-down on the counter.

Not two minutes later, Gary walked in with imprinted lines all over their face and smoky purple under their eyes. “Hey,”

“Hey. You sleep okay?” A penny drop flashed across his face and he got up to grab a pen and a thinning stack of Post-its. He had about a week before he ran out of meds, which meant Jack was probably running low on them too and would need to make more.

Gary walked over to the fridge with a groan, pulling out the gel-filled headband tucked behind some of the bottles and immediately putting it on with their head resting against the door.

“I’m…gonna take that as a no.”

“It’s not just me, right?" She almost sounded nervous."It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Cloak or any updates on the status of Misfits as a whole?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Things could just be quiet right now. That’s not such a bad thing, is it? It's not like the world revolves around us.”

“Quiet? In this city?” Fae scoffed and shook eir head. “Yeah, right. And I suppose pegasi are real and they have the body, head, and legs of pigs.”

Mark hummed, looking over the ceiling and rocking back in his chair. “It’s been, what. Two? Almost three weeks? That’s not that long,”

“That’s almost a month!”

“Months are just four weeks. They’re over before you know it and then people freak out because a month seems a lot longer than just four weeks. It's all a matter of perspective.” Juice trickled from his next bite, making him lean forward and press his towel-covered wrist to his chin.

Now Gary took notice of the situation. “I always have to drag you out of bed if we’re going anywhere this early.” Ze mused and closed the fridge door.

Mark paused for a moment, heart spiking in his chest. He wasn't expecting to play this game right now. “Yeah, I guess so. How the tables have turned,”

“You’re meeting someone, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” He can't give an answer if there's food in his mouth.

“For starters, you never wear a flannel unless you’re trying to calm your nerves. Second, you only wear your red flannel if it’s something you’re worried or stressed about and the white one if it’s something you need to feel like you’re the smartest villain in the world.”

He did his best not to choke on the apple. "What? What the hell do you mean, villain? Where are you getting this from anyway, it's bullshit!”

“You. You told me this a while ago. Which brings me to my third point,” they stepped forward and picked up the corner of the hand towel accusingly. “As neat as you try to present yourself, I think we both know that something like apple juice isn’t a major concern. I’ve seen you dry your mouth with the sleeve of a light-coloured shirt after drinking coffee and just got the stain out later.”

He set the apple and towel down, meeting their gaze to make a stand. “What, you trying to call me a slob or something?”

“I’m saying, Markiplier, that there’s one too many things out of the ordinary here for it to be a coincidence.”

“Oh yeah?” One arm slung over the back of the chair. “And what if you’re wrong? For all you know, I could’ve gotten up early to go get a surprise for you, and now, because of this, I might not. What makes you so sure of yourself?”

Xe leaned in to meet his glare and pointed at something on the counter with a knowing smile.

The backpack.

His expression wavered.

“Told you. One too many.” She walked over to the counter he had just been at and grabbed a large glass container of coffee beans from its lineup against the wall. “I’m not judging you, I'm just not used to seeing you on edge like this.”

He said nothing, staring numbly at the apple

“You know, no answer is an answer too. Remember? Information either way.”

“I know, I'm just thinking.”

“About?”

“Going to the Obliterator.”

“Again?” They sighed and put vir hand on their hip like a disappointed mother. “Mark, you know how dangerous it is to keep sneaking in there.”

He played with one of the zippers on his bag. “Yeah, but it's been foolproof at keeping them off their trail.”

“...I hate that you’re right- Ears,” They waited until the coffee grinder was done before resuming conversation. “That doesn't make it any less risky though.”

“I know, and that’s why I go alone. Smaller target, harder to track, fewer footprints,”

“Right.Because that’s supposed to make me feel better.” They walked back over to him and leaned against their elbows on the island.

The expression he wore was incredibly telling. He was tired, nervous, and overthinking as usual, but it’s all been cranked up to eleven. Gary didn’t need to know where he was going to know there was on the line here. If he didn't want to talk about it, he wasn't going to talk about it until he wanted to.

“Going out alone can be great and feels freeing, I know, believe me I do, but that doesn’t mean we aren't gonna worry about you. Besides, if you’re not here, Tim’s gonna bother the fuck out of me.” That made him laugh. “There you go, now you’re smiling,” They squeezed his shoulder and stepped away. “Let us know if you need anything, alright? You’ve got a team here for you. Don’t forget that.”

“I know. Thank you.” He stood up and slung the bag over his shoulder. “I promise to be back before nightfall. I left a note but tell Jack to text me if he needs me to pick up any chemist stuff. Running low on meds.”

“Will do.”

He walked out, the front door clicked shut and locked without another word.

Gary wasn’t left in the stillness for long, Jack soon trudging down the stairs with a frayed mess of a bedhead. Sam’s optic nerve tail had wound itself around BB’s middle so they could stay put on his back like a horse. Not a single one of them seemed anywhere near half awake. It made Gary remember their own exhaustion.

Spinning around the chair Mark forgot to push back in, Jack dropped into the seat, resting his head on his arms. “How long?”

“You’re like a cartoon character, you know that?" They huffed and turned back to the coffee maker."How deep of a sleep did you just wake up from? ‘Cause if I had to guess, I’d say the smell alone wrenched you out of the deepest sleep you’ve had in a long time.”

He lifted his head and glared. “How. Long?”

“Alright, alright. I haven’t even put the grounds in yet, geez. I swear, with as much of this stuff as you drink, it might qualify as an addiction.” They put the grounds in and set a mug on the metal plate.

“How is that any different from your energy drink habits? You’ll down like four of those in a night if it means getting your work done before the sun comes up. What the hell are you always working on, anyway? You haven’t been drawing up any new blueprints or anything recently-”

“That you know of,”

“-Paperwork for the Misfits, which is absolutely a ridiculous concept by the way, never takes that long-”

“That you know of.”

“-And you’re definitely not the type to be secretly drawing up a book or masterpiece or something.”

“That you know of.” BB jumped up onto the counter and immediately lay down. Sam unwound himself and rolled across the counter with a slurred beep. Gary laughed. “I didn’t know robots could sound tired,”

“Apparently they can,” He reached over and lightly scratched between two of the wheels on the eye. “Is Mark up yet?”

“You actually just missed him,”

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “He left?”

“Yep,”

“This early in the morning?”

They crossed their arms. “I mean, you’re not exactly up the earliest either. It’s almost 10.”

“Gary,”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what I told him.” They walked over to BB to scratch his cheeks. “He said he was heading to the Obliterator, but there's something else going on. He had his white flannel and he already had his bag ready to go by the time I got down here.”

Even if his eyes weren't cooperating, his brain was definitely awake now. He stifled a yawn, panels on his neck shuddering with the sudden rush of oxygen. “When was the last time that happened?”

“What, the flannel, bag, or ready to go this early?”

“I'unno, all of it?”

They smiled as BB started purring. “You’ve known him longer than I have. If you can’t remember, then neither can I.”

He hummed and put his head down again. Only his eyes and hair were visible over his forearm. He watched his pet and teammate with lethargic interest. “Do you think he’ll be okay?”

“It’s Mark. He’ll be fine.” They nodded to the medicine cabinet. “That does remind me though. He left a note for you. Time to be a chemist again.”

“Hm?” He twisted in his seat and stood with a grunt, tearing it from the top of the stack. “Almost out of meds, let me know if you have everything to make ‘em…Yeah, alright, I’ll go check in a bit.” He folded it and stuffed it in his back pocket where his phone usually was. “Did he say what time he’ll be back?”

“Just that he’d be back before sunset,”

“So we’ve got time to kill, then.”

“Yep.” They patted the counter, rolling over on their elbows to watch him make his drink. “You got any plans with Saturn?”

He shook his head and picked up the mug. “They went on a walk last night. They’re not back?”

“No, not that I know of.”

He reached for the pocket he had just put the note in and closed his eyes. “I gave them my phone," He recalled. "They’ll text if they need help.”

They completely lit up. "You spoke with it?! Like actually with it, not just at it?!”

Jack weaved his head back and forth. “Kinda yes, kinda no. They helped me with some computer stuff when BB accidentally stepped on my keyboard since they happened to be in the room, but I didn’t actually speak with them, no.”

The excitement died immediately. “So you have no idea if it’s able to communicate or not." They sighted."And you just…sent a very…very expensive, dangerous, risky, secretive-”

“Okay, okay! I get your point.” He lifted the mug to his lips and blew on it. “I’ll drink this and then I’ll go see if I can’t track them down.”

Almost on cue, the front door opened again. Saturn strolled in, a blissfully peaceful look on its face and what looked to be vintage headphones on its head. It waved at them as it skipped by the kitchen. Jack waved back with a smile, taking note of the brown overalls and greyish-blue striped long-sleeve shirt. At least it had been safe.

Gary’s eyebrows knit together as they processed what they just saw. They pointed in the general direction of the kitchen doorway. “We don’t own headphones like that.”

He blinked slowly, staring at them innocently over the rim of his mug. “I mean, I gave them my phone but I didn’t exactly tell them they couldn’t take my wallet.”

“Jack!”

Chapter Text

“I…I'm actually supposed to meet someone. Here.”

Gary raised an eyebrow. “You don’t sound to happy about that.”

“It's 'cause I’m not.”

Jack tilted his head. "What, you accidentally digitally cross paths with a backstabbing friend or something?"

"What- Jesus, no. No, I’m meeting a contact here." He shrugged and let go of Saturn, resting his chin on its head for one more moment of peace. "Supposedly they have some information that’ll help.”

Gary hummed and surveyed the patchy crowd more thoroughly. “Did they say what they wanted in exchange?”

He shook his head. “No. And I think that’s what worries me the most. Nothing’s ever free, not even information among allies. We can’t afford to do anything for free anymore. Hell, they wouldn’t even say what the information was about.”

“Then why did you agree to meet up with them? That sounds like a scam, man. Come on, you know better than that.”

“I know, I know, it’s just…” he furrowed his brow and stared blankly at the ground.

Gary and Jack exchanged a look.

“You just have a feeling?”

“Something like that,”

Jack nodded. “Okay. I trust you. Text us when you’re done and we’ll meet you back here.” Saturn stepped back, hands covered by its sleeves and arms folded in like a t-rex. He stretched his arm protectively across its shoulders and pulled it to his side. “And if you run into any trouble at all-”

“I’ll sound the alarm and run, I know…" Mark took a deep breath and looked around to find where he had to go. "Catch you later,”

“Good luck, man,”

He flashed a meek smile and merged into the trickling crowd. He circled around the floor until he was well out of sight and glanced back to the little hallway they had all paused in.

His team was gone.

Trying to not look like he was bolting for the doors was something easier said than done. Summer outside was showing no mercy despite the patchy cloud cover. He walked around the outer perimeter, acting like he was admiring the greenery and design of the place. Chalk murals and painted images dotted the concrete ground and wall. Sparse décor hung in the trees, lightsstrung through some of the branches.

He cut down another walkway, weaving his way to a parking lot and cursing quietly at the sheer number of cars there were.

“Not like this was difficult as it was or anything,” He grumbled and reached for his phone, shielding the screen from the sun with his hand and scrolling through messages for anything that could clue him into if he was even in the right place.

Strutting footsteps sounded behind him. He moved to the side so the person could pass by.

“Well, I’ll be. You haven’t changed a bit!”

He looked up from the device.

Despite the weather, she was dressed in a black, white, and green hoodie, paired with gold strap, heeled sandals and something that looked to be halfway between black leggings and dark grey dress pants. At least she had tried to match the nail polish on her toes to her green sleeves. Long, straight, reddish brown hair with a half-decent dye job fell thin across her shoulders and back, rectangle sunglasses perched atop her nose.

He tried to flash a friendly smile. “Sorry. Do I know you?”

“Do you know me?!” The woman laughed and put her hand to her chest. Phone and keys in hand, he got a glimpse of her keychain. The biggest item on there was a Cloak Studios ID card. It was too reflective to read what it said, but the Corporation Corp. logo was unmistakable. “Is that really the way you want to greet your Mother?”

Chapter Text

As promised, Mark had gotten home before twilight settled over the city, the requested ingredients tucked into his bag. They all settled in for a movie night in the main lounge. They all seemed to be in the headspace of needing to do something without any idea of what that something was, so movies seemed to be the best idea.

Gary had tried prompting Mark to talk about his day, especially since he was in a very unusual mood when he got back and immediately took an ice shower and changed into lounge shorts and his red flannel, but he didn’t want to talk.

By the time Jack descended the stairs, Mark was lying with his feet in Gary’s lap, Saturn on the floor in front of him with one of his hands buried in its hair. He sat up, letting Jack take the end spot. He had brought BB with them and for the next five hours, they all sat together in peace, giving intermittent commentary over the recorded events.

It wasn’t until Jack felt something wrap around his arm and a weight on his shoulder that he realised Mark had fallen asleep. He said nothing, freeing his arm so he could hook it protectively around Mark’s upper back. Saturn tilted its head back. It smiled.

They all fell asleep like that. BB had elected to stretch out behind Gary’s head, watching Tim and Sam converse quietly. Saturn hovered on the edge of stasis, lights pulsing slowly as it became more and more involved in its own thoughts.

When everyone else was out like a light, Tim rolled over to the android and brought it out of stasis. Sam had turned away. Tim lifted his top panel. They had taken Gary's paperweight. He held one of his noodle arms up to his screen, gesturing for it to be quiet before motioning for it to follow him.

Gary stirred at the sound of soft footsteps but evidently was too tired to notice a change in the number of entities in the room.

Sam managed to hop up onto the short cabinet displayed beneath the TV screen, taking on the responsibility of watching over the team for the rest of the night.

The next week and a half went by without a hitch, and little by little, the wedges driven between the team members were becoming insurmountable and impossible to ignore.

Jack was having progressively more projections and times when he’d wrench himself from sleep to find Sam glitching out and his head spinning. He was growing incredibly untrustworthy of anything he hadn’t done himself or watched being made, frequently dumping out his coffee or setting his food out for strays before re-making it in the dark hours of the morning.

Mark was beginning to spend more and more time ‘out’. He still refused to share where he was going or what he was doing, but every time he came back, he was completely exhausted and it would take at least a day for him to emotionally recover. He’d always return with an expression of someone doing something horrible for the ‘greater good’.

Saturn was getting progressively more daring with its ventures outside, which was great, except for the fact that this usually meant Gary was frequently stuck home 'alone', growing more and more worried about the extended silence from Cloak. It really wasn't all that different from the inventor's usual routine of disappearing into their office for the day, but they insisted that it mattered. They just wouldn't say why.

It wasn’t a secret that Gary wasn’t exactly Sam or Tim’s favourite person to hang out with, and even from day one BB would only interact with them if he had to or if his owner was in the room too. They had gotten scratched and hissed at the first time they tried to pick him up without Jack nearby.

Which was a huge warning sign that had gone over everyone’s head.

In the short time it took for July 6th to roll around, they were all acting far more like roommates than a team, never mind friends.

Still, of all the unusual happenings, Gary sleeping for most of the day was something the Misfits never thought they'd see without sedatives being involved.

“Top of the mornin’ to ya,” Jack raised his mug with a smirk. “Sleep well?”

Mark snorted. “Cutting it a bit close for it to be considered ‘morning’, don’t you think?” He gave Gary a once-over as they trudged into the kitchen, still dressed in their pyjamas. Pyjamas that neither of the boys had seen them wear except for one occasion when they had all been woken up in the dead of night on a false alarm.

“I’m fine, just…tired.”

They dragged their feet to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of some sort of sports drink mix. The pill concealed in their palm went unnoticed until they put it in their mouth.

Mark frowned, sitting forward in his chair. “You sure you’re okay?”

Jack set the mug down and folded his arms. “Last I checked, Mark and I are the ones who have prescriptions. Not you,”

“You say prescriptions like you don’t make them yourself.” Mark tapped the kitchen island’s counter and walked over to the medicine cabinet. “Speaking of, did you take yours yet?”

“Mhm,” he drained the rest of his drink and pushed the ceramic away, sinking down into his seat. “And hey, if I’m able to do something myself, I’m gonna. Look at the world we live in. I don’t know if I’d be scared or angry to find out what the hell Corporation Corp. has pharmacists puttin’ in our drugs. Especially over-the-counter shit.”

“Plus, most people don’t even need meds anymore. Between the grip The System has on everyone and the cybernetics, they’re wiping out everything.” Gary sat down in the chair next to him, thumbs running over the texture on the shaker bottle. “It’s almost…I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that it makes it so people can live significantly equal and better lives in a way, but how they’re doing it just feels so…”

“Wrong?”

“Immoral?”

“Inhumane.”

Uncomfortable stillness settled over the room. The boys watched Gary for a moment, taking note of the way they stared blankly at the counter. Jack looked over his shoulder, rocking his chair onto its back legs. Mark was staring down at the pill in his hand, gaze drifting to Jack before his head did.

After three years of working together and being in situations where you didn’t have time for your mind to catch up, they all knew each other incredibly well, but that didn't make them mind readers or telepaths by any means.

Gary’s brain fog seemed to be infecting them all, and for once, Jack didn’t seem to have any indication of taking responsibility to breach the quiet. He wasn't spaced out, but he did seem to be lost in thought. A little light blinked in the corner of his sclera.

“Have you made any progress yet? On Saturn, I mean.It seems to prefer your company over mine.”He hadn't even realized Gary was talking to him.

Mark turned back to the pill in his hand, closed his eyes, and clapped his palm to his face. He pressed the back of his hand to his lips in an attempt to mask the expression he made when the medication touched his tongue. “Sort of? I mean, I think this is about as interactive as it’s going to get at this point. All I can really say for sure is that we’re dealing with selective mutism and not a programming error. They're so advanced in literally every other aspect, you kind of have to admit that it's pretty unbelievable all this is happening just because someone forgot to flip the final switch or something. They’ve got a lot of PTSD symptoms as is, and I can’t shake the feeling that they're still not convinced we're safe to be around.” He stared down into his glass of water, grip tightening on the counter he leaned against. “I just…I don’t know.”

“But it hasn’t spoken yet?”

He sighed and forced his clenched jaw to open. “No, Gary, they haven’t spoken yet.”

“Geez, okay I get it. There’s no need to get snippy.” They leaned back in their chair, drumming their nails on the island counter a few times. “What if you cut open its neck?”

“What?!”

They held up their hands in defence. “I don’t mean like that! I just meant that you tend to work more with bio-cybernetics, so…what’s the harm in taking a peek inside? I mean it’s not like either of us have the tools to do it, never mind the skillset.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Do not drag me into this.”

“The harm is that I’m not a surgeon!”

“You built its body though,”

“Yeah! The metal parts!”

Gary leaned forward with a triumphant smile. “And you’ve done your own modifications,”

“Again. On the parts that are already synthetic.” He had to set the cup down before he lost control and it shattered in his hand. “Actual organic material isn’t my area of expertise, no matter what's underneath! And even then, how the hell am I supposed to know what I’m looking for, anyway? I didn’t make its head and chest, I don’t know what the inside looks like. I didn't study Cloak Android Anatomy 101.”

Nobody took notice of his slip-up. Or at least none of them reacted to it.

They picked up the shaker bottle and swirled the contents. “You didn’t think to check?”

“Why would I?! There was no point at the time!! I don’t know how they're even wired. I don’t want to have to go through the whole process of purging every single thing I’ve ever done just because its programming took note of who was disassembling it and immediately put me back on a Phantom watch list.”

Jack's eyes and smile widened in amused disbelief. “Since when were you on a Phantom watch list?”

“I didn’t tell you?”

“No! You didn’t! And I’m assuming this happened before we met, which means-” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “-you haven’t told them either.”

“I-…” He closed his eyes with a sigh and let his head drop back. “I was reckless, okay? It's what ended up leading me to the Misfits in the first place. I accidentally came across some T-5s in a heap and started picking them apart to try and figure out what the hell they were. Next thing I knew, everywhere went on lockdown because of an emergency Phantom task. I didn’t know what that was, but everyone else immediately ran and hid so I did too. Someone found me and pulled me into their safe house. I don’t know exactly how he did it, but he made a call and the lockdown was over five minutes later. He told me that it was a one-time favour and that whoever he just called mass-deleted all of my history, swapped my information in The System with someone who was already dead, and the search got called off on 'human error' or something like that.”

Jack's eyes glistened with a brewing comment. “…Are you saying you cancelled yourself before the government could?”

“I will seriously punch you in the face if you say that again. But yes.” Jack howled with laughter and Mark rolled his eyes, trying to continue the conversation with Gary. “Point is, you were right to be stressed out about Saturn being here. Had they been what you first thought they were and I did what you wanted me to, we would all be in serious danger. And now you want me to risk getting all of us a strike?”

They shrugged. “You didn’t think to bring that up before, so why would it matter now?”

“Because I wasn’t taking things apart before! I know how to build legs because I’ve worked on my own-”

Jack snorted. “You mean the moron-ification of your ankles?”

He shot him a glare. “Shut it. I know how to build legs, I learned how to build arms just in case and because it was a good thing to know anyway, and the body I pretty much figured it out on the fly. Just because I know basic anatomy, just because I can build prosthetics or repair them or dress injuries doesn’t mean I know how to surgically open a robot’s throat to check if its voice box is there or not.”

“Well, someone has to.” They spoke like it was an unavoidable piece of common knowledge.

Mark was getting increasingly agitated. “Why don’t you do it then? If you’re so insistent on it being done,” If he got any angrier, they might have to make some wall repairs as well as relationship repairs.

“Because I’m an inventor and Jack barely meets the qualification for a chemist.”

Jack's amusement hollowed but Mark stole his words before he could even get his mouth open.

“Don’t bring Jack into this."

“I work with weapons and he-”

Mark physically walked around to stand between them, nudging Jack's chair back a little bit. In any other context, that likely would’ve gotten him a kick in return. “This is between me and you. Jack’s not a part of this, so stop trying to drag him in the middle.”

“I’m just saying, out of everyone here-”

“Oh my god, Gary! The only reason everyone is going to get involved is if I open them up and trigger some sort of insurance program that may or may not be there!” The panels on Jack's neck reacted to Mark bringing his hand down on the counter. Jack picked up his mug and cradled it in his hands.

Gary was completely unfazed by the outburst. They must've thought they were making progress. “And we’ll continue not to know if it’s in there unless you get in there and see for yourself.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Forcing his jaw to open both so he could talk and so he wouldn't break his teeth was a challenge he was used to. “Fine. Let’s say, for hypothetic purposes, the security program isn't there and I cut it open to take a look in there. How am I supposed to know if anything's wrong or not?”

They raised an eyebrow and propped their head against their hand. “You’ve gone through professional anatomy textbooks just to make sure you wouldn’t accidentally do any damage to Jack while doing repairs, and you seriously don’t know what a voice box looks like?”

"Y-"He had to brace himself against the counter and take a moment to process what he just heard. “Please,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me you think a voice box is a literal box in your throat.”

Gary was unamused “Of course I don’t. How stupid do you think I am? I’m just saying that since clearly, whoever built it actually made an effort to make this android pass as human,it wouldn’t be out of the question that its internal anatomy would be similar to some extent. I mean, it breathes, doesn’t it?”

“It’s designed to mimic breathing, yes. It uses oxygen as a coolant and that was as close to that part of its body that I got.”

“Well if it doesn’t have lungs, then what the hell’s in its chest?”

Mark ran his hands over his face with a groan. “I already told you, I don’t know!”

“You built the rest of its body! It’s literally your job to know!”

“No! It’s not! None of this is my job! I put in the time and effort and energy into building it a body because I wanted to! I wanted to show it kindness, especially after the state it was in!.”

“Because it’s all about you, isn’t it?!” Jack curled in on himself a little as Gary stood to try and stare down the engineer. “Markiplier, the bioroboticist, the life-giver of tinker toys! You're not the only person on this team - this team - who has something to bring to the table, but right now, you’re the only one who can do anything about this! You said it yourself when we brought it back that if I let you keep it, if I let you fix it up, it would be able to give us information. That was a month ago!”

The distant, familiar sound of cannon fire sounded outside. Jack immediately looked to the doorway, leaning to the side in an attempt to catch a glimpse of whatever the sound came from.

“I said it might be able to! How the hell am I supposed to know what it’s seen?! For all I know, it wasn’t even active at the lab and I just happened to trigger something to wake it up when I took it off the frame! I didn’t even touch its programming to get the body working. I hooked it up, sure, but all I did was open the gates. Whatever happened, it woke up the synthetic parts all on its own.” He leaned in closer to them, practically snarling his words. “You’re supposed to be our friend. My friend. We’re supposed to be a team. Which means that you don’t get the final say here. Any one of us can do that paperwork. Any one of us can easily swap in, get the instructions and report back. The only reason you’re that person in our group is because you volunteered yourself.” He pushed back from the table and spread his arms. “You’re a brilliant inventor and genius hacker but that doesn’t mean you fucking know everything! That doesn’t mean you-” his heel clipped Jack’s chair. “Sorry. That doesn’t mean…” He glanced back to reposition himself so he wouldn’t accidentally slap Jack in the face.

Except Jack wasn’t there.

They both stared at the empty chair for longer than they should've. “Jack?”

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HERE AND NEVER COME BACK!!!”

A shared look was all it took to set aside their differences and bolt outside. Gary grabbed their rocket launcher and ammunition from its case in the lounge. They both nearly slipped on the loose rock and rubble, eyes wild as they surveyed the scene.

Ten T-5.12s, maybe more, lay in shattered heaps on the ground. Another group marched steadily forward down the road directly in front of them, cannons raised and targets registering.

Gary was faster.

They fired two rounds of rockets directly into the group. Between the blast radius, the smoke, and how quickly they’d be able to run inside and make the place look deserted, they had just bought them all some much-needed time.

“What happened? Are you okay? Why-” Mark froze when he realized what Jack was doing.

He had a vice grip on Saturn’s upper arm and was trying to figure out how to position it to carry it inside. It was injured and broken and by some miracle didn’t seem to have taken any lethal hits from the cannons.

But it was bleeding.

It was bleeding red blood that smelled awfully organic.

“…Jack?”

“I don’t know,” He was breathing fast and stumbled through his words. He finally opted for bridal style, tossing his head back to try and stop his glasses from falling. Mark adjusted the frames for him, pausing when he noticed the tears. “I just heard them firing and I went to see if it was something we needed to be worried about and I saw them running and then they got hit and they fell and-”

“Woah, woah, slow down. It’s okay. It’s okay,” Mark stepped forward and slotted his forearms next to Jack’s. “Here, let me take them, and take off their jacket. Wherever they got hit, it’ll be easier to tie it off without stuff in the way.”

They both moved carefully, unsure if they were shaking from fear, adrenaline, or concern. He carefully managed to tug the jacket off.

Saturn had been shot in the shoulder.

It had been shot in one of the few parts of its body that Mark didn’t make and it was bleeding red blood.

And it was definitely breathing.

Its chest was moving in ragged, frantic motions, the lights racing through its limbs screaming as brightly as they could. Mark could feel its breath on his jaw when he held it a little closer so Jack could tug the sleeves all the way off.

Despite the pounding of his own heart, he could feel Saturn’s racing against his skin.

Jack swallowed thickly, trying to rid the dry cotton feel from his mouth. “What are we gonna do now?”

He took a pause he couldn't really afford to take, looking over its face. “We’ll figure it out as we go along,”

Jack did his best to wrap the sleeve of the jacket tightly around the wound and shoved the rest between Mark’s hand and its back. He brushed its hair out of its face and combed his hands across its scalp, checking for head trauma. Thankfully, there was none of that.

Gary lowered the rocket launcher, watching solemnly as the android got carried inside. “Mark, do you think we-”

“Jack, make sure they stay down here.” Mark's anger had immediately returned with a tone as cold as dry ice.

Gary had the audacity to be surprised. “Are you fucking kidding me? Now of all times? It needs both of us if it wants to come back from this.”

He propped the door open with his heel. “You were right about one thing back there. You don’t have any medical knowledge. So what good are you going to be in this situation?”

“I didn’t say that, I-”

“Jack, knock them unconscious if you have to. Don’t let them leave the ground floor unless I tell you otherwise.”

“Come on, that’s not fair!”

Jack cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his pockets, letting the speakers on his neck retract. “I don’t think we really have time to be arguing right now?”

“Thank you,” Mark ducked inside, careful not to hit any part of Saturn against the doorframe.

He took the stairs nearly two at a time and power-walked to his workshop. It shifted in his arms a little like it was trying to hold on to him.

“I know buddy, I know. We’re gonna fix you up, okay?”

It balled up the fabric of his flannel and pressed its head to the side of his chest. It was shaking. His own eyes glossed over with saline. He forcefully blinked it away. He couldn’t afford to be tearing up right now.

He tried to set it down on the bench it had spent so much time on before but it didn’t want to let go.

Wrapping his arms around it, he gave it a moment to hug as tight as it wanted, keeping its head tucked beneath his chin so it couldn’t see the heartache written on his face.

He fought to keep his voice soft and steady.“I know you’re scared, but I can’t help you if you don’t let go, okay? I need to see what happened. I’ll try to be as quick as I can, and then we can hug all we want.”

It let go.

“Thank you,”

He carefully undid the sleeve of the jacket and then the camisole, slipping off the pants and shoes as well, leaving it in the Halloween-patterned boxers it had picked out. He sucked in a sharp breath as he surveyed the damage. He quietly scolded himself for not calling for Tim to help him. Doing this alone wouldn't give him the time to fire up the suppressant program.

One of its knees had been completely blown out of place and shattered, scuffs and the equivalent of deep bruising running along its shins and lower belly. He already knew its shoulder was in terrible shape, but there looked to be small puncture wounds in one of its arms that dragged along the outermost skin layers. Whatever it had run into, it hadn’t been able to remove all the way before it got wrenched aside. Though its head wasn’t bleeding, its browbone and cheekbone had been scuffed down to sand-white metal and there were small bits of rock and debris embedded in its cheek. There was likely some in its palms too.

Despite it all, when his eyes fell upon the seams of where the synthetic skin met what was already there, he was frozen in shock for a moment.

Where he had attached the rest of its body had left fine scars, just like the one on his chest. Its skin tone reached down quite a ways further and what was once a clean-cut divide now looked like thick, running ink.

Either the synthetic skin was having a reaction to colour match the rest, or it was being replaced by real flesh.

“What the hell is going on with you?” he shook himself from his trance and grabbed his med kit, moving up to its head.

The shoulder would need to be dressed first, no doubt.

Its dimmed yellow eyes followed him and as he got closer. He couldn’t help but notice the streaks of light brown around the pupil in this light. Miniscule details that made those frighteningly tired eyes all too human.

Scratch that.

After all he had seen, it was like its entire body was fighting to be human.

That made this situation so much worse.

Its ‘skin’ was scorched and blistered, but not nearly as bad of an injury as it should’ve been. The actual blood flow wasn't as fast or as bad as the red around it made it seem. It must’ve been an injury from earlier in its encounter.

He did his best to clean it up and see if there was anything that needed sewing, nearly choking on air when he got a proper look at it. He could see its muscle - organic muscle - weaving itself back together just fast enough that he could see the progress if he looked close enough.

If it was healing itself this fast, he might not even need to dress the wound at all. That didn't stop him from taking the same approach as he would a human injury - burns with ointment and lavender, gauze and tape around the whole thing. It was sure to bleed some more, but at least it didn’t pose as big of a threat as they all seemed to have initially thought.

He stood back up and found its attention again.

It looked so tired.

He met its hand halfway, using his other to brush some of the dirt and chipped rock from its face. “Get some rest,” He muttered. “You’ll feel better when you wake up. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Sunflower eyes closed with uncertainty. He glanced at his closed laptop on the desk like he was expecting another whimper to come through its speakers.

The sound of a frightened child in so much pain.

Something in there, in it, was dauntingly human.

And he had been given the unfortunate task of finding out exactly what it was.