Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

How much work did one have to put into something without any payoff before it became some twisted form of self-harm? When did admirable persistence give way to a stupid, doomed man’s sunk cost fallacy? Because at this point, he was beginning to wonder if that stupid, doomed man was him.

Admin 3 tossed his screwdriver to the table at his side, flexing his aching hand and wiping a hand across his face in exhaustion, freezing when he felt it leave a long, slimy trail of thermal paste across his forehead.

...Yeah, okay, he was definitely in the “self-harm” territory.

He grumbled out a string of curses as he leaned over his side table to grab at a rag, rubbing it aggressively across his face, then throwing it off to the side, much like the screwdriver.

Admin 3 was a smart man. Of course, he was a smart man; he’d have to be if he were to be entrusted to take even a single step into the halls of the Gridworld to clean the damn bathrooms, not to mention being given any sort of position of authority like he had been given. 

So how did nearly every step of this operation manage to find new ways to beat the confidence he ought to have right out of him?

The warm glow of the maintenance array’s backlight in front of him cast a halo around the silhouette of the deactivated AndreW model strapped to it like a pinned insect. The metal panels of its pseudo-skin were piled haphazardly on the floor around the base of the array, and in the low light the mess of blue and red wires that spilled down its front — paired with the massive fucking hole punched through its gut (though he couldn't take credit for that part) — made his “work” appear as something more akin to some brutal murder scene. And not even the impressive kind.

He understood the workings of the model so easily on paper. Still, the moment the thing was actually opened up in front of him, parts tangled up around each other rather than spread out in two dimensions and neatly labelled, he suddenly could not for the life of him recognize anything from the schematics he himself had helped draw up. His supposed brainchild felt much more like an alien at the moment.

The only consolation he had for himself at his sorry excuse for repair work was that this had always been Admin 4’s thing. Give him something genetically engineered like an A1 model and he wouldn't be even nearly this incompetent. If it weren’t for the stunt the 2002 models pulled, releasing a horde of backups upon the facility that resulted in their mass destruction, he wouldn't even need to be doing this right now. God.

The overhead lights in the room suddenly flicked on, blinding Admin 3 in a wash of LED light.

“Fuck, man. Turn that shit off,” He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as he felt the throb of the migraine taking hold in his temples return with a vengeance.

“Sorry, Dracula, my bad.” Came the voice of Admin 4 somewhere behind him.

He heard the click of the light switch again, then the steady sound of Admin 4’s shoes on the tile floors as he approached. When 3 opened his eyes again, 4 was leaning over the back of the second workshop swivel chair a few feet to his left, taking in the state of the butchered P1 model. From this angle, 3 could catch a glimpse of his eyes as they flicked up and down the thing’s frame behind his square mask. The man let out an amused snort.

“What, this one owe you money or something?”

3 groaned in defeat. “I’m trying to fix it. Not much success, as you can see. I really don't get how you enjoy this stuff.”

4 continued his silent visual inspection as 3 spoke.

“Natural talent, what can I say?” He teased, “What happened to it, anyway? I doubt even you’re a shit enough mechanic to shoot a hole like that through the thing in the name of repairs.”

“This is one of the older models, the 2002 we retrieved from world 26.”

4 suddenly did not look quite as amused, turning to him in confusion.

“The hell you need with it?”

Damn, he had not taken the time to find a way to present this idea to 4 with any level of eloquence yet.

3 took a deep breath and then gestured vaguely in front of him, “The lack of progress lately- I was thinking... It’s the models that escape in which we always see the most training progress, right?"

4 nodded along slowly, indicating 3 should continue.

“You and me both know we haven’t been able to recreate the success of those runs in any of the models we keep confined to the simulation area. I’m..."

The question was how to word it without sounding as desperate as he felt... Ah, fuck it.

“I’m so tired, man, our sector needs to show some sort of progress here to justify the resource requirements, which we are very close to exceeding our limit of after your robot killing spree back in—”

“Do not act as if that were my fault, 3.” 4 interjected coldly.

“You’re right, you’re right,” 3 quickly backpedalled, “I’m just saying. Thought I’d... kill two birds with one stone or something and experiment a bit with our most successful models.”

4 eyed him incredulously. Damn it, he’d really gotten the guy into a bad mood by mentioning their collective escape attempt fuck up. Not a good start.

“Experiment.” 4 repeated slowly.

3 couldn’t help the flicker of anger that sparked in his chest. 

“I was going to check in with you first! I just wanted to get him fixed up first so you wouldn’t start fuckin' looking at me like I’m wasting your damn time.” 3 gestured at 4’s current agitated demeanour.

4 breathed out a sigh and shook his head, tension easing from him a bit. He turned the chair towards 3 with one hand, then settled down into it.

“Alright, alright. I apologize,” he relented, “But seriously. Talk.”

“Okay, hear me out.” This was gonna go so, so bad. “What if we repaired the 2002 models and monitored their behaviour outside the simulation, in one of the—”

“You are insane.” 4 stated flatly.

Aaaaand back to square one.

“You want. To release the sentient recreation of a digital plague God. Out into the Grid.” He enunciated each word very slowly, like 3 was a fucking idiot.

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

God, 3 wanted to strangle him so badly.

“The hell would that even—”

3 suddenly surged up from his seat, looming defiantly over 4. “And I’m guessing you’re looking forward to going back to doing menial fucking field research under Admin 6 when we get booted from our positions after we present the board with absolutely no progress this quarter, when last quarter’s report included a containment breach and a pile of evicerated AI!” He retaliated, voice nearly bordering on a yell.

3 had already resigned himself to this ending in yet another shouting match at this point. One that he was not going to take lying down.

His certainty in this seemingly inevitable reality meant 3 was more than a little taken off guard when, instead, 4 slumped forward in his chair and let out a soul-crushingly pained groan like 3 had just punched him squarely in the gut using some form of verbal psychokinesis.

“Fuuuuck, you know I’d rather die, truly.” 4’s mask rode up over his face as he rubbed at his eyes like 3’s horrible prophecy needed to be physically dispelled from his mind. “I really hate it when you make a good point.” 4 punctuated his sentence by kicking 3 in the shin just hard enough to hurt, to which 3 promptly kicked him back.

“Thank you!” 3 threw his hands up in exasperation, letting himself fall back into his seat.

3 took the opportunity to launch into the rest of his explanation. "I'll install a backdoor on P1's psychonetwork so we can monitor the participants directly through P1's consciousness stream, regardless of location. Might be a little more claustrophobic than viewing through the simulation like normal, but beggars can't be choosers. We’d just have to drop them far enough away from the doors in one of the newer low-priority worlds, and then we’re all set.”

3 regarded 4 carefully as he spoke, trying to gauge the man’s reaction.

4 dropped his chin into his palm and leaned back in the chair, his legs kicking out in front of him as he sighed out a long contemplative "hmmmm."

The flair in which he did all of this would, in most any other case, mean 4 was gearing up to mock him — but the typical follow-up sarcastic remark never came.

He's actually taking this seriously.

“It works in theory, and it’d almost definitely speed up the training results if previous runs are anything to go by,” he said, then paused. “I’m guessing this wouldn’t be above board?”

3 cringed. “Ah... No. Definitely not.”

4 only sighed, stretching his arms out languidly above his head. “You know what... Fuck it. Rather risk a verbal beating from 1 than risk being stuck in sample collection hell for an eternity. Plus, if anything goes wrong, this was your idea, not mine.”

He swept around to face the maintenance array in one swift kick of his leg, picking up the screwdriver on the table that 3 had discarded earlier as he did so.

“I’ll finish this one up for you, ya lousy ass mechanic. Go get that A1 ready for transport,” He said, waving his hand behind him at 3 in a “shoo” motion.

The weight that 3 felt lift from his shoulders at the prospect of never working on that damn P1 model ever again made him want to thank whatever God was out there watching over him.

As 3 stood up to leave, 4 turned to him one more time.

“Hey. Be careful with A1, you hear me? Its AI’s been especially finicky since the last incident. Keep any sensory input to a minimum on the way out. I’ll beat your ass before Admin 0 even gets a chance if you fuck this up."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Don't you worry, Princess," 3 huffed sarcastically, waving him off as he stepped out of the room.

—

Admin 3 double checked the blackout blindfold pulled tight around A1's eye for what had to have been the fourth time since he'd brought the participants to the doors leading out into the navigation room — somewhere any AI, even more so an unpredictable one such as A1, was Absolutely Not Supposed To Be Under Any Circumstances.

Damn.

He’d put up a confident front into 4, lest he give the man any more reasons to insult him, but standing in front of the door now felt like he was finally hitting the true point of no return.

A1 was an unknowable, unpredictable variable in this experiment, and it set him on edge in a way words could hardly describe.

On a physical level, he knew A1 better than he knew himself. He could probably recite its chemical composition in his sleep at this point — could list off every line of code etched into its being. But the same confidence could not be expressed for his trust in A1’s obedience. 

Unlike P1, A1 had nearly hit the ceiling of its potential at an astounding rate. If one were to ignore the manufactured core of its consciousness, it was nearly identical to the entities from the World Cancer it was created to imitate. It was, by far, his and 4’s greatest accomplishment, and simultaneously the biggest pain in the ass.

They had essentially grown a God in their basement, and as A1 hurdled towards the peak of its emulated Godhood, it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain set parameters that remained effective against its ever-growing capacity to contain a will of its own.

It was ironic — so much struggle as a punishment for doing their job well.

He waved his hand in front of A1's face a few times, watching for any sort of reaction. A1 didn't even twitch; its mind asleep under a layer of mental dampening protocols.

...

Shockingly, he felt no more reassured than he did the first 3 times he checked.

Fuck when did he become such a pussy.

He turned to P1, who stared ahead blankly with empty blue eyes. A1 could stand to learn a thing or two from him.

"Just gotta get you two to the world doors." He muttered to himself, patting him half-heartedly on the shoulder before steeling himself and pushing through the door into the clinical white halls of the Daedalean Tunnels. The pair of AI followed him diligently a few feet behind, their steps in perfect sync.

Objectively, it wasn't anywhere near a long walk (in fact, it was only a little under 5 minutes if Admin 3 hadn't suddenly lost his affinity for numbers), and it was quite rare to accidentally run into another admin around the facility in the first place. Still, when Admin 3 rounded the corner to see that line of iron world doors, the relief he felt was truly palpable.

He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, speeding ahead to reach the end of the hall.

He counted up the numbers above the doors until they reached nearly triple digits. The worlds most recently added to the grid.

The world he had landed on was of very low priority according to its file, being connected to the grid more as a precaution than anything else. With the rest of the Admins’ current workload, it would take them weeks, if not months, to begin any extensive monitoring.

He hit the button by the door, watching it swing open with a -Click-

A comfortable amount of time to let the participants—

-Click-

It was only now that he realized he had not heard the footsteps of A1 and P1 behind him since he had entered the hallway.

3 whipped around in an instant, just in time to make out the bright blue of P1’s hair disappearing behind a door halfway down the hall, urged forward by his companion.

No. No. No no no.

Admin 3 spared barely a second to think before he was leaping forward down the hall, calculations nearly instantaneous in his mind.

Approximately 25 yards.

A1 stood alone at the door now, its partner already having disappeared into the teleporter. The wave of dread that swallowed Admin 3 felt more suffocating than his current sprint.

"SYSTEM RESET- FUCKING- POWER OFF, YOU..." he shouted desperately, practically begging any remnants of this hellspawn of an AI's defective set parameters to get the damn thing under control.

...14 yards…

He pointed a finger out in front of him, aiming at A1, trying to control the adrenaline-fueled shake of his hand as he geared up to shoot.

...10 yards...

A1’s eye curved upwards as if in silent mockery.

...7 yards.

3 fired.

Admin 3’s vision blinked a deep sickly blue, the force behind his shot losing its battle with air resistance, then fading completely somewhere in the empty space the AI had stood only a moment ago.

He skidded to a halt in front of the door, heaving. 

Through the bars of the door, he met the deep void of A1's stare for only a second more before it stepped backwards into the teleporter, empty air warping unnaturally as the world smoothed over the gap in its fabric.

3 slammed a fist against the surface of the door.

"SHIT!" 

He gritted his teeth, shoving the soul-crushing anxiety and self-loathing as far back into his mind as he could. Rage was something he could settle on for now.

This wasn't over, and unfortunately, some unlucky fuck would be getting their world torn apart pixel by pixel to find those damn-

He lifted his eyes to the sign above the door. 

26

"Motherfucker."

Chapter Text

He Andre deep into the forests of world 26, grip on the cold metal of his hand crushingly tight as they blinked in and out between the trees.

Assimilation had no plan of action, no idea where they were going, no idea if they were being followed... And worse still, with the heavy rain clouds above them blocking out the light of the moon, he was running nearly blind. The only way to ensure he did not mistakenly teleport either of them halfway through a tree was to settle for jumping only a few feet ahead at a time — a frustratingly inefficient and rather exhausting method.

They cut through the windblown trees with incredible speed, travelling dozens of blocks per second. 

Though Assimilation’s logical mind argued the Admin would not have followed after them, he could not verify this. The admins had always appeared to have a unique level of caution when it came to interacting with world 26; more so than any other world, it seemed. But he could not verify this. With the fog of the Gridworld still holding tight to his senses, he could not trust the lack of life he felt in the woods around them to be a true, accurate reflection of reality rather than simply a false negative.

The phantom sensation of pressurized air cutting through his flesh.

Falling in a heap to the mud below him.

He shivered violently, heart pumping faster between his ribs. He couldn’t afford to stop on the off chance he was wrong.

.

.

.

They must have travelled a few thousand blocks from the doors by the time the sun began to rise. 

The cold from the rain and exhaustion from extensive teleportation had long since sunk deep into Assimilation’s core, now. Not even the irrational animalistic screeching of his subconscious that urged him to run to the ends of the earth could compete with the reality of physical limitation.

He slowed to a walk.

Their distance from the doors paired with the silence of the forest put Assimilation at ease, and he relaxed his grip on Andre’s hand as his nerves subsided.

Though Andre made no move to pull away, Assimilation could now note the sporadic twitches Andre’s fingers made in his grasp. Glancing backwards, the entity studied him with a curious eye, taking in the man’s unbothered expression and ultimately concluding there was nothing of note.

we are likely far enough now andre

we must find shelter andre

Andre said nothing, though he kept pace, falling in step behind him. The steady thrum of rain on leaves and the splash of their steps on soaked grass were the only sounds as they trekked on.

.

.

.

It wasn’t long before the fog finally gave way in front of them, revealing the gaping maw of a cave.

Shelter.

He pulled Andre closer, teleporting them past the underbrush to stand a few feet in front of where soaked grass gave way to dry stone. 

Carved from the side of a steep mountain, the cave was perfectly level with the rest of the forest, and the inside was no different. It was quite spacious — the flat stone extending a few dozen blocks ahead before jutting out to create a shallow platform at knee height.

He released Andre and stepped away, finally dropping his hand.

we can rest here andre

Andre did not move — did not even react beyond keeping his eyes trained on Assimilation’s.

The entity had grown used to Andre’s typical lack of reaction to him, but his stillness now was worryingly uncharacteristic. During their previous escape from the Gridworld, even in moments when Andre was forced to wait (usually for Assimilation to bring him something), there was a certain level of energy about him; stance wide and bent at the knees as if ready to spring into action the second he could. There was none of that energy now.

His soaked hair was plastered to the titanium of his face, rainwater dripping from it in rivulets down his cheeks, past empty eyes. It almost reminded him of...

Grabbing desperately at the android’s shoulders.

Claws puncturing white fabric and digging into the metal of perfect, fake skin.

you bastard andre

Dread formed a pit in his stomach. 

Snatching back Andre’s hand once again, Assimilation led the man to the outcropping at the back of the cave with urgency, where Andre only continued to stand stock still. Rigid and hollow.

Weakly raising his head from where it was pressed against the wet grass.

All the warmth inside of him draining out into the dirt. Emptying him.

Vision fading in and out as he found the hazy blue glow of Andre’s eyes.

Blank.

Uncaring.

He wasn’t even looking at him

He roughly shoved Andre to sit as if he were a doll, and, offering up no resistance, the AI dropped to the stone harshly with a thud, body folding forward under the weight of Assimilation’s clawed hand pressing down harshly on his shoulder.

The sound made Assimilation wince as it echoed against the cave walls — the anger draining from him as quickly as it had initially appeared. He pulled his hand back remorsefully. He needed to fix Andre, not damage him further.

Andre sat back up, unfazed by the entity’s outburst. His head angled up to follow Assimilation's face as he grew closer, moving to stand between Andre’s legs. 

Visual tracking indicated Andre was still physically functional enough to react to stimuli, at least. A relief. Cognitive function, however...

¿andre?

... 

andre please talk to me

...No response.

Assimilation looked him up and down, then eyed the rainwater that soaked through Andre's clothes contemplatively. Water damage, perhaps? Unlikely, as Andre’s engineering was far too advanced not to include waterproofing.

Still, he reached out to hold Andre's chin with an index and thumb, letting his focus sharpen. The air crackled for a split second as each molecule in each droplet flickered out of existence.

Tilting Andre's head to the side, he squinted as he scanned for any external damage that could have disrupted his neural networks.

He found nothing but perfectly smooth titanium. Assimilation was at a loss.

 He met Andre’s unrelenting gaze, staring back with a matching intensity as he searched for any emotion, reaction, any sign of life.

...And to his dismay, he again found nothing.

andre...

He needed to consider this logically.

That Admin had been taking them to a world, correct? He and Andre would have required active cognitive functions to be of any use there, surely.

Absent-mindedly, he anxiously ran the pad of his thumb back and forth along the underside of Andre's jaw, pointed claw scratching lightly across the pseudo-skin of his neck.

Then a temporary partial shutdown, most likely to make transporting the two of them easier... if only he could figure out how to reverse such a command—

A quiet, breathy sound from Andre, and a warm exhale fanning across the back of his hand snapped Assimilation back to attention in an instant. He froze, blinking dumbly as he watched Andre's teal lashes flutter almost imperceptibly.

SIDIsquish: As ś̸͕ imm̵m̸͎͂ m̷̗̹̾

??????

Brain finally catching up, Assimilation ripped his hand away like it had been burned, taking an uneven step back. Almost immediately, Andre’s expression went blank once again.

A few seconds passed in silence.

sorry

Is what his mind finally spat out from the completely unintelligible scramble it had suddenly become.

Face hot with embarrassment at his odd, impulsive display of physical affection, the entity rushed to refocus himself. If Andre’s issue truly was not physical damage, but a coding limitation, then he would have to get much more creative in finding a solution.

And then, there was the matter of recovering his abilities.

.

.

.

Assimilation sat off to the side of the cave’s entrance, only a few feet from where the stone floor gave way to the lush grass of the forest. Closing its eye, it aimed its attention outwards.

The Gridworld had the unfortunate ability to suppress both its power and extended sensory awareness down to almost nothing, and even more unfortunately, after its first escape to Collin’s world with Andre, it had discovered that those effects persisted even in world 26.

The implementation of such limitations had always been... incredibly discomforting. Though his base 5 senses remained, the handicap left him feeling nearly blind. Vulnerable.

Like prey. 

Truly, he did not know how beings limited to human awareness like Andre or Collin managed.

So, it was an incredible relief to have noticed the gradual lifting of the suppression over the span of their traversal through the forest. With sufficient effort, he believed it would be possible to speed up the process.

Assimilation’s power pushed against the metal block as it focused, haze receding slightly before its concentration gave out from the strain. It let itself catch its breath for a second before trying again, the fog once more lifting ever so slightly before its focus slipped.

Rest

Wait

Again

Rest

Wait

And again and again and again.

.

.

.

As the sun dipped below the spruce trees, the first Minds Eye finally opened, breaking through the suppression in a burst of energy. Assimilation shivered violently as the surge passed through it.

The air crackled with energy as a few more blinked open... then dozens. A mass of eyes expanded outward in waves from where Assimilation remained seated on the floor of the cave, obscuring the cave walls completely. Each eye looked around wildly, wide as Assimilation scanned every detail of the environment, relishing the ability to finally see. 

The entity took in the surrounding area deeply, scanning the jagged outline of the cave and looming shadows of the trees that swayed in the wind outside, then reaching deeper into the forest beyond, drinking in every detail. 

As it rejoiced in overloading its senses after such an extended period of sensory deprivation, something gave it pause.

Tuning out the sounds of the rain, Assimilation listened.

Silence.

Straining once again, the reach of its senses was expanded to the limit. Still, it could not detect the beating heart of a single living creature. The forest was desolate. 

Unnaturally so.

Assimilation was almost worried that its ability to detect life had been permanently compromised in some way. Though it knew this could not be the case when it could still feel the life force of dozens of monsters somewhere in the caves below its feet, calling out to it, begging to be assimilated. And then, there was also the case of Andre, whose life force called out to it the strongest of all from his seat on the outcropping further down the cave.

No, the emptiness it felt in the forest was real.

Many of the eyes around Assimilation squinted in suspicion. The Admins’ files on world 26 had detailed the impressive number of entities located in this world.

Assimilation flexed its claws, digging them into the stone with murderous intent.

Andre drew the attention of Assimilation’s Mind’s Eyes like a magnet, calling on its urge to assimilate like nothing else it had ever encountered. He always had. Assimilation could only hope that this effect was due to something within its own programming rather than something inherent about Andre himself. Otherwise, whatever entity they had wandered into the hunting grounds of may come looking.

The entity opened its eye again, feeling the energy of the air return to normal as its Mind's Eyes assimilated back into it. He would need to take extra precautions.

For now, though. Sleep.

He glanced over to the other side of the cave, where his companion still sat. Well...There was at least one thing he could do for Andre’s well-being in the present moment.

Without hesitation, it reached a hand out into the open air, the space contorting around it before its claw abruptly connected with Andre’s chest, digging into the dark fabric of his sweater. Its thumb rested against the slight indentation that marked the location of a power button. 

Assimilation pressed it twice in quick succession.

The glow of Andre’s eyes dimmed as they slipped shut, and only a second later, he was slumping forward into Assimilation’s arms, limp. 

Assimilation gently lowered the two of them to the ground, where he sat against the cold stone of the wall; Andre’s back to Assimilation’s chest. He curled around Andre’s body protectively, ink black arms loosely encircling him. 

Resting his head against synthetic blue hair, Assimilation’s eye slipped shut.

Warm. Andre’s temperature regulation must be active.

It listened to the quiet whirring of his internal fans and the hum of electricity that powered his systems — quieter now that he had placed Andre sleep mode, but still audible to a creature like Assimilation. 

Tracing the web of electrical current through the AI's body, he idly mapped out the internal structure of him. Assimilation could imagine so easily what it would feel like to crush the delicate wiring hidden beneath his titanium plating with its teeth. To assimilate all of what made Andre Andre as part of it forever.

A low, purr-like rumble resonated in its chest as it drifted off to sleep.